Every now and then I head a short distance out of the City and look in at my favourite store – Hoxton Street Monster Supplies (N1 6PJ). A location hiding a fascinating and important secret which will be revealed later …
You know you are just about to visit somewhere special before you even go through the door. What kind of a place has a dispenser outside offering you free poems?
And what kind of creatures need this guidance to remind them of social distancing?
No need to worry about going in – they have the appropriate licences …
Glancing through the window, some of the merchandise looks decidedly … er … odd …
On the packed shelves inside you will find lots of items that will give pleasure to yourself and any monsters you know (both little and grown up). There are, for example …
Even non-flying reptiles love Dragon Treats but caution is needed with the Guts and Garlic Chutney – as the label warns, it is definitely not suitable for vampires.
Originally made for Banshees, these Banshee Balls have brought soothing relief to humans too …
These days sensible monsters regularly sanitise …
Even if you didn’t enter the shop with a vague sense of unease, you can leave with one …
A notice at the counter gives a clue as to what this very special place is all about …
Behind a secret, cunningly camouflaged door, wonderful things happen (staff will grudgingly show you the door if you promise not to eat them when they emerge from behind the counter).
The shop supports the fantastic work undertaken by my favourite charity, The Ministry of Stories. Co-founded by author Nick Hornby in 2010, the charity’s mission is to develop self-respect and communication skills through innovative writing programmes and one-to-one mentoring. Its clients are children living in under-resourced communities and its work is conducted both in schools and at the dedicated writing centre behind the secret door in the shop.
Do read more on their fascinating website : https://ministryofstories.org/
I have seen some of the results of their work and it has been absolutely extraordinary. They are literally changing children’s lives for the better. If you like what you see maybe you will be kind enough to make a donation – all charities have been finding the last year difficult.
Or, visit the shop and stock up on unusual treats.
Opening times are:
Thursday 1pm-5pm
Friday 1pm-5pm
Saturday 11am-5pm
Closed Sun-Wed
The website will give you much more information : https://www.monstersupplies.org/pages/about-us
‘Hoxton Street Monster Supplies was recently voted ‘No. 1 Kids’ Shop in London’ by Time Out Magazine– which was weird, because we are self-evidently a shop for monsters’.
You’ll see some interesting sights as you walk up Hoxton Street from the junction with Old Street.
A short way along on the left, at the entrance to Hoxton Square, is this piece of street art …
A few yards away is another work by the same artist but I can’t quite make out the signature …
Chivalry is not dead.
Keep walking north and check out this beautiful little garden, created in memory of Khadija Saye who, along with her mother, Mary Mendy, was tragically killed in the Grenfell Tower fire …
I wonder how much longer these old business premises will remain untouched. The firm was run by the wonderfully named Lazarus Lambert until it closed in 2002. ‘JFB 1892’ is etched into the concrete brackets …
I like this retro local business sign. The store stocks ‘actually everything’ …
That’s all for now.
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Some weeks I can’t think of a unifying theme for the blog so I just allow myself to ramble on.
I don’t know about you, but when I walk past a skip I’m always tempted to have a look inside. I believe searching for retrievable items discarded in skips is called ‘skip diving’ (or in America ‘dumpster diving’) . I haven’t done any actual diving but I have come across some weird items.
How about this …
‘This lockdown has really played havoc with my hair!’.
For quite a few months now a succession of skips have been positioned outside the Barbican Theatre where they are obviously having a clear out of redundant stage props.
Last week there was another unfortunate skip candidate …
‘Hey, come back, don’t leave me here!’.
At first I thought this was an old-fashioned oven but it’s actually made of wood …
Scarily realistic missile. It was there at 9:30 in the morning but gone by 2:00 pm so somebody must have taken a fancy to it …
Yummy, Christmas turkey …
Furry fun – what colour fur would you like for your collar …
And what’s this ‘warning’ all about? Surely a ‘Digital Safe’ doesn’t have a key. It doesn’t seem to be a prop – it’s made of metal and is very heavy …
Whilst on the subject of skips, some of you may remember this weird scenario from last year …
How did three quad bikes end up in a City of London skip?
I loved this Easter bunny collection …
Lady duck frantically running away from two avid suitors …
This tailors in Well Court just off Bow Lane has in the window a full set of uniforms worn by Pikemen in the Lord Mayor’s parade …
There are also some pictures of them in action …
The Company of Pikemen and Musketeers is a ceremonial unit of the Honourable Artillery Company and you can read more about them here.
Also off Bow Lane in Groveland Court is the Williamson’s Tavern. The beautiful listed 18th century gates are said to have been completed to commemorate a visit by King William and Queen Mary. On top in a circle, is the dual cipher of the King and Queen which are fashioned, like the gates, out of curled wrought iron …
Some sources state that the gates were a gift from William and Mary after being entertained there by the Lord Mayor who lived in the building at the time. However, this us not mentioned in the Bow Lane Conservation Area document which I use as a trusted source.
Lots of padlocks for extra security …
The City Gardening team are always working hard to brighten the place up …
London Wall.Postman’s Park.Postman’s Park.
I think someone has nicked a few plants from this display, shame on them …
London Wall.
Some more Brick Lane artwork …
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In my blog a few weeks ago some of you will remember that I wrote about this pair of doors in Fournier Street …
Much street art is constantly being painted or pasted over. For example, this is what the doors looked like in April 2018 …
I was inspired to go in search of what else had been created nearby and these pictures are the result of my wanderings.
I’ll start in Princelet Street with a work by the famous street artist Stik …
Entitled A Couple Hold Hands in the Street, it shows a woman in a niqab holding hands with a second stick figure. It was painted in 2010 and you can read more about the artist in this fascinating article in Christie’s magazine.
Local people are also very fond of this Hanbury Street bird …
The work is by the Belgian street artist Roa. His intention had been to paint a heron but, after being asked if it was a crane by Bengali people – for whom the crane is a sacred bird – he morphed his bird into a crane to best complement its location on the wall of an Indian restaurant. Read more here about The Return of Roa by The Gentle Author.
To the left of the crane is a bearskin-hatted guardsman break dancing …
Here he is ‘right’ way up …
It’s by the Argentinian painter Martin Ron who is based in Buenos Aires.
There were bound to be a few political points being made …
This made me laugh – could it be Tintin and his dog Snowy doing some clandestine paint spraying? …
The ‘No place for hate’ rabbit pops up a lot …
Layers and layers of street artist paste-ups cover walls …
Picking out individual works is fun and quite absorbing …
I have been trying to identify all the artists but still have some research to do with regard to these distinctive portraits …
Brick Lane looks a bit sad at the moment with the restaurants either closed or open for take-away orders only but the art certainly brightens everything up and I shall be going back to watch it continually develop.
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It was a lovely sunny day last Saturday so I wandered along Whitecross Street to gaze at some of the wonderful art works. Many of these have been produced over the years at the famous Whitecross Street Party. Who wouldn’t smile at this splendid pair of potato heads …
A young girl holding a spirit animal over her head and shoulders by Goya Torres (based on her Children of the Sun series). Read more about this fascinating artist here …
Not sure what this represents but I still like it, dynamic and colourful …
Looking north up the street you get a good view on the right of a mural by Conor Harrington, an Irish artist living and working in London. Incidentally, the church in the background is St Luke Old Street and the unusual obelisk spire is by Nicholas Hawksmoor …
Here is Harrington’s work in more detail. It has weathered quite well considering it was created in 2012 …
This year’s party is scheduled for 10th and 11th July, mid-day to 6:00 pm. Read more on the official website.
The street boasts a number of blue plaques placed there by ‘English Hedonists’ and ‘Mad in England’ …
I have written about the Debtors Prison before but here it is again for those of you who missed it the first time around.
British History Online confirms the Nell Gwynne story mentioned on the plaque but I cannot find another source. It also tells us that …
A man may exist in the prison who has been accustomed to good living, though he cannot live well. All kinds of luxuries are prohibited, as are also spirituous drinks. Each man may have a pint of wine a day, but not more; and dice, cards, and all other instruments for gaming, are strictly vetoed.”
A pint of wine a day doesn’t sound too bad.
The prison was capable of holding up to 500 prisoners and Wyld’s map of London produced during the 1790s shows how extensive the premises were …
Prisoners would often take their families with them, which meant that entire communities sprang up inside the debtors’ jails, which were run as private enterprises. The community created its own economy, with jailers charging for room, food, drink and furniture, or selling concessions to others, and attorneys charging fees in fruitless efforts to get the debtors out. Prisoners’ families, including children, often had to find employment simply to cover the cost of the imprisonment. Here is a view of the inside of the Whitecross Street prison with people meeting and promenading quite normally …
‘Inside the Debtors’ Prison, Whitecross Street, London’ by an unknown artist : City of London Corporation, Guildhall Art Gallery.
Creditors were able to imprison debtors without trial until they paid what they owed or died and in the 18th century debtors comprised over half the prison population. Prisoners were by no means all poor but often middle class people in small amounts of debt. One of the largest groups was made up of shopkeepers (about 20% of prisoners) though male and female prisoners came from across society with gentlemen, cheesemongers, lawyers, wigmakers and professors rubbing shoulders.
It’s over two years since I wrote about this second plaque so here it is again.
It tells us that there once lived here a lady called Priss Fotheringham who had been ranked ‘the second best whore in the City’. This description appeared in 1660 in a serial publication called TheWandring Whore by John Garfield, which described in some detail the antics of London’s prostitutes.
Described when young as a ‘cat-eyed gypsy, pleasing to the eye’, Priscilla Fotheringham (nee Carswell) was a colourful character very famous in her time. It is thought she was born in Scotland around 1615 and little is known of her early life. What we do know is that in 1652 she was sent to Newgate Gaol having been found in a house of ill-repute …
… sitting between two Dutchmen with her breasts naked to the waist and without stockings, drinking and singing in a very uncivil manner.
In 1658 she was still misbehaving and was bound over by a Middlesex Justice of the Peace for …
… being a notorious strumpet … that had undone several men by giving them the foul disease … and for keeping the husband of Susan Slaughter from her and for also threatening to stab said Susan Slaughter … and also for several notorious wickedness which is not fit to be named among the heathen.
She had married Edward Fotheringham, an odious character from a brothel-owning family, in 1656 and he set her up as a madam at the Jack-a-Newberry Tavern on the corner where her plaque now stands. As her looks faded with time she became more ‘creative’ in the way customers were entertained – you can read more detail in her Wikipedia entry. She made enough money to set up her own brothel and died (of syphilis) a wealthy woman around 1668.
The Whitecross Street area was at one time rather notorious, as this 17th century ballad records …
In Whitecross Street and Golden Lane Do strapping lasses dwell, And so there do in every street ‘Twixt that and Clerkenwell. At Cowcross and at Smithfield I have much pleasure found, Where wenches like to fairies Did often trace the ground.
Nowadays the big attraction is Waitrose.
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Since many of the places I visit in order to get inspiration for my blog are temporarily closed I was beginning to get rather worried. However, an idea came to me just sitting at my desk and looking around the room. Regular readers will know how fond I am of St Paul’s and a number of pictures of the Cathedral hang on the study wall, so I decided to write about those.
The largest by far is this one, a signed limited edition print entitled Pencil drawing of London and St Paul’s of the 18th Century by Roger Withington used on the reverse of the £50 note issued from 1981 …
I love the detail like the little figures manning the boats …
On the quayside barrels are being unloaded, wood is being stacked in the wood yard and in the foreground two ladies are being rowed to their destination. The lady in the boat on the left is wearing a pretty bonnet and the one in the boat on the right is holding an open parasol …
Here is how the drawing was used on the actual £50 note, with Sir Christopher Wren in the foreground …
This is a signed etching entitled A City Lane. St Paul’s by Leslie Moffat WardRESGA (1888-1978) …
The picture isn’t dated but is obviously pre-Second World War. There is a lady standing on the corner and her clothes suggest the early years of the 20th century …
I have been trying to identify where the artist was at the time and I am pretty sure he was looking north up Black Swan Court, perhaps positioned at its junction with Carter Lane. Here’s the location in the 1873 Ordnance Survey Map with my pencil indicating where I think the lady was standing …
By 1895 the northern entrance had been built over and access converted into a covered alley way. I think that’s the arch you can see behind and to the right of the lady.
Black Swan Court is still shown in the Survey’s 1914 edition (although too small to be named) …
It looks like the southern entrance has now also been converted into a covered alley which suggests that, if he was standing on Carter Lane, Ward was working there before 1914 (when he would have had his 26th birthday).
The area was very badly damaged in the Blitz and Black Swan Court disappeared for ever. The Black Swan Tavern (which was actually on Carter Lane) was also destroyed and you can see an image of it in ruins here in the London Picture Archive.
I really like this depiction of Ludgate Hill in 1928 (or thereabouts), especially the stout City policeman and the classic open-topped red omnibus …
I’m sure about the dating because of the label on the back, which made me feel a bit sad. I wonder what Lizzie, Pollie and nephew Will would think of the fact that their thoughtful present would end up in a Kent bric-a-brac shop almost 90 years later, which is where I bought it for £20 …
This picture is entitled Eng. by J. Storer from a drawing by H.S. Storer N. East View of St. Paul’s Cathedral …
The label on the back describes it as Date circa 1817 – copper engraving hand coloured in watercolours. It’s nice that there is a stagecoach in the picture since this was their golden age. For example, in 1750 it took around 2 days to travel from Cambridge to London but by 1820 the journey time had been slashed to under 7 hours. I also like the chap galloping off on his horse, obviously on urgent business.
And last, but by no means least, a painting by my friend Chris (on a Christmas card) …
Finally, a picture to cheer everyone up, the little daffodils are out …
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I started my walk in Lime Street and just by Lloyd’s is the impressive Asia House. It was built in 1912-13 and designed by George Val Myer when he was only 30. His best known work is the BBC’s Broadcasting House on Portland Place …
What makes it particularly interesting are the human figures. They were carved by John Broad of Doulton Ceramics and are entitled Japanese Man and Woman. He holds a model ship and a scroll …
She holds a fan and a paintbrush. Although she isn’t described anywhere as a Geisha I have just made that assumption because she looks so elegantly traditional and is obviously demonstrating artistic talents …
Beneath the pediment another lady sits enthroned, legs nonchalantly crossed, against a stylised sunburst motif …
Her headgear is very elaborate and she has dragons to her right and left.
The building was originally the premises of Mitsui & Co Ltd, a Tokyo firm described in the 1913 Post Office Directory as ‘steamship owners and general commission merchants, export and import’. The current tenant is the Scor Reinsurance Company.
The new skyscraper on Bishopsgate looms over the Victorian market …
During my walk I came across three examples of the current Sculpture in the City initiative.
Inside the market is The Source by Patrick Tuttofuoco which ‘depicts the artist’s hands as he mimes some words conveyed using a sign language’ …
Opposite Lloyd’s is a sign indicating that you have arrived in Arcadia (Utopia) rather than just the main entrance to the Willis Towers Watson building …
The artist, Leo Fitzmaurice, ‘has substituted the factual information, usually found on these signs, for something more poetic, allowing viewers to enjoy this material, along with the space around it in a new and more open-ended way’.
Nearby in Cullum Street (EC3M 7JJ) is Series Industrial Windows 1 by Marisa Ferreira …
The information notice tells us that ‘the artwork invokes Pierre Nora’s notion of ‘lieux de mémoire’ to reflect the urban landscape as fragment, memory and vision and to question how industrial ruins solicit affective, imaginative and sensual engagements with the past’.
Also in Cullum Street is the unusual Art Nouveau Bolton House. I haven’t been able to find out a lot more about it apart from the architect (A. Selby) and that it’s reportedly named after Prior Bolton who had close connections with St Bartholomew the Great (which I have written about here).
It’s blue and white faience with strong Moorish influences …
The building was completed in 1907, a few years before Art Nouveau went out of fashion.
In the market again, I always smile when I come across Old Tom’s Bar …
Old Tom was a gander from Ostend in Belgium who is said to have arrived in the Capital having followed a female member of his flock who took his fancy! Despite the swift dispatch of the other 34,000 members of his party, somehow Tom miraculously managed to survive the dinner table and became a regular fixture at the market and the surrounding inns, who kept scraps aside for him.
So beloved was Old Tom that he even made it into the Times Newspaper! Below is his obituary, published on 16 April 1835:
In memory of Old Tom the Gander. Obit 19th March, 1835, aetat, 37 years, 9 months, and 6 days.
‘This famous gander, while in stubble, Fed freely, without care or trouble: Grew fat with corn and sitting still, And scarce could cross the barn-door sill: And seldom waddled forth to cool His belly in the neighbouring pool. Transplanted to another scene, He stalk’d in state o’er Calais-green, With full five hundred geese behind, To his superior care consign’d, Whom readily he would engage To lead in march ten miles a-stage. Thus a decoy he lived and died, The chief of geese, the poulterer’s pride.’
Unfortunately, I can find no reliable contemporary picture of him. Despite claims to the contrary, he is not represented, along with a little boy, above the old Midland Bank Building on Poultry. The goose there was a suggestion by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens to commemorate its original market function.
On my way to the Cheesegrater I spotted this reflection of the Gherkin in the glass walls of The Scalpel along with two of the crosses on St Andrew Undershaft’s pinnacles …
Outside the Cheesegrater, this Godlike figure entitled Navigation holds a passenger ship in his left hand and is flanked by a binnacle and a ship’s wheel. Originally owned by the P&O Banking Corporation, he once looked down from the facade of their building at the junction of Leadenhall Street and St Mary Axe. I smiled because he seems to be glancing rather suspiciously at the replica maypole that has been installed next to him …
It references the maypole that once stood nearby outside St Andrew Undershaft (so called because the maypole alongside it was taller than the church). The pole was set up opposite the church every year until Mayday 1517 when the tradition was suspended after the City apprentices (always a volatile bunch) rioted against foreigners. Public gatherings on Mayday were therefore to be discouraged and the pole was hung up nearby in the appropriately named Shaft Alley. In 1549 the vicar of St Catharine Cree denounced the maypole as a pagan symbol and got his listeners so agitated they pulled the pole from its moorings, cut it up and burned it.
Here is a picture of the church around 1910. You can see the Navigation statue on the building on the left …
The area has been brightened up recently with the ventilation exits covered in bold designs …
On a lighthearted note, I am collecting pictures of weird and creepy clothes models. There are these in Lime Street …
To add to these in Eastcheap …
And finally, an old Japanese proverb pasted on to the window of a temporarily closed restaurant …
I hope you have enjoyed today’s blog.
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Yes, I have again been taking advantage of the wonderful fact that the Museum of London has reopened and is free to enter with a timed ticket.
I was thrilled to see a new exhibit connected to my hero Samuel Pepys – naval administrator, Member of Parliament and, of course, famous diarist. The item is a silver dinner plate made in 1681/82 and engraved with his coat of arms. Scratched by knives and forks, it is one of only three that now survive of the full dinner service …
By the time he commissioned this he was already a wealthy man and took great pleasure in entertaining at home. I like this boast from his diary dated 8th April 1667 and his remark about Mrs Clarke made me laugh out loud …
We had with my wife and I twelve at table and very good and pleasant company, and a most neat and excellent, but dear dinner; but, Lord, to see with what envy they looked upon all my fine plate was pleasant, for I made the best show I could, to let them understand me and my condition, to take down the pride of Mrs Clarke, who thinks herself very great.
Being a man of intense curiosity, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, Pepys would almost certainly have heard of this discovery made during the rebuilding of St Martin’s Church on Ludgate Hill in 1669 …
It’s the third century tombstone of a Roman centurion wearing a tunic, a military belt and a long cloak draped over his left shoulder.
Amazingly, the inscription is still legible …
To the spirits of the departed and to Vivius Marcianus of the 2nd Legion Augusta, Januaria Martina his most devoted wife set up this memorial.
I think modern illustrations like this are mainly for the benefit of children, but I love them …
Incidentally, and still on a Roman theme, nearby is a fine mosaic floor dating from AD 300 and discovered in Bucklersbury in 1869 …
Pepys witnessed and wrote about the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the Museum has a rare depiction of the City before the fire. It dates from around 1630, three years before he was born …
Nearby is a dramatic oil painting of the conflagration at its height …
The view is taken from the west with the Cathedral, fiercely ablaze, dominating the scene. John Evelyn described what happened when the fire reached St Paul’s …
The stones of St Paul’s flew like grenades, the lead melting down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements of them glowing with fiery redness.
The cathedral was thought to be safe and the nearby printers and booksellers stored their entire stock in the crypt. Unfortunately the fire caught hold of wooden scaffolding put up for repairs and the cathedral and all its contents were consumed.
Since his home was at risk, Pepys hired a cart ‘to carry away all my money, and plate, and best things’ and buried his valuable Parmesan cheese in the garden.
Such was the intensity of the blaze that these two iron padlocks and key melted together in a lump. The owner of the premises, an 80-year-old watchmaker, chose to hide in his cellar rather than flee (presumably to protect his stock from looters). These items were found beside his body …
Referring to a giant who was supposed to have lived in the building, this figure, known as Gerald the Giant, stood in a niche on the front elevation of Gerard’s Hall in Basing Lane and dates from around 1670 …
I like his daintily decorated shoes …
There is also some lovely stained glass dating from 1660 – 1700 …
Dragging myself away from the 17th century, there were two paintings I really enjoyed studying. The first is entitled Eastward Ho! and was painted by Henry Nelson O’Neil in 1857. It became his most popular work …
Soldiers are shown boarding a ship at Gravesend, leaving to fight in the ‘Indian Mutiny’ – the first Indian war of independence. In a poignant scene they are saying farewell to their loved ones and it is a very emotionally charged picture. For the men we can only see in their faces optimism and patriotism whilst in the faces of the women we see fear and a sense of foreboding.
The Times newspaper commented …
Hope and aspiration are busy among these departing soldiers, and if mothers and wives, and sisters and sweethearts, go down the side sorrowing, it is a sorrow in which there is no despair, and no stain of sin and frailty…
A year later he painted Home Again …
The soldiers are seen coming down the gangway of their troop ship. The main character appears to be the bearded soldier in khaki uniform with his Kilmarnock ‘pork-pie’ cap under a white cotton Havelock, which was worn to afford the wearer’s neck protection from the blazing and merciless Indian sun.
When the paintings were exhibited together in London thousands of Victorians queued to see them.
The Times had this to say about Home Again …
The crowd round the picture delight to spell out the many stories it includes – its joyous reunitings, its agonies of bereavement; the latter kept judiciously down …
And, of course, I mustn’t forget the Aurock. Its colossal skull confronts you soon after you enter …
A beast that’s been extinct for nearly 400 years, this particular skull dates from the Neolithic period (4,000 -2,200 BC) and was discovered in Ilford, East London, where herds of this creature once roamed.
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In these difficult times, I’d like to share some miscellaneous things I have encountered recently that cheered me up.
I am going to start with the extraordinary, eccentric Stanley Green, ‘the protein man’, who regularly patrolled Oxford Street with his billboard. This may seem strange since he died in 1993, but I have chosen him as my first story because I came across his billboard last week at the Museum of London …
Copyright Andrew Lawson.
He began his mission in June 1968, initially in Harrow on Saturdays, becoming a full-time human billboard six months later on Oxford Street. He cycled there from Northolt with his board attached to his bicycle, a journey that could take up to two hours, until he was given a bus pass when he turned 65. From Monday to Saturday he walked up and down the street until 6:30 pm, reduced to four days a week from 1985. Saturday evenings were spent with the cinema crowds in Leicester Square. He would go to bed at 12:30am after saying a prayer. ‘Quite a good prayer, unselfish too’, he told the Sunday Times in 1985. ‘It is a sort of acknowledgment of God, just in case there happens to be one’. He was 78 when he died in December 1993 and, presumably because he distrusted ‘passion’, he never married.
The Museum’s decision to put his message on display introduces him to a new audience …
His self-published and printed booklet, Eight Passion Proteins, went through 84 editions and the Museum holds 36 of them. You can read more about him here and here.
You will no doubt be pleased to know that Royal Wedding teabags are still available in a Ludgate Hill tourist gift shop – hurry, hurry while stocks last …
Don’t they look lovely.
By way of contrast, I thought these models in a shop on Eastcheap were decidedly spooky …
Like creatures out of a Dr Who episode.
Covid humour at the pharmacy …
Covid humour at the wine bar …
Cocktail Bar humour …
A less complicated message …
Pretty camera camouflage on Holloway Road …
Street art meets spinal column in Hoxton …
Sadly over-optimistic signage …
Finally caught the reflection I wanted – street sculpture with red London bus and St Paul’s …
When construction workers use their imagination to brighten up the site – good for them …
What a positive message …
A great hero of mine and one of my favourite London statues – Sir John Betjeman at St Pancras International Station …
Many of Pimlico Plumbers’ vans have ‘witty’ number plates …
Even the scooters are wearing masks around here …
City pigeons simply don’t believe this statement …
We spent a really nice few days in Norfolk recently and here are some of the pictures I took.
Local delicacies – rabbit and pigs ears, giant trotters and chicken feet …
Sow and buffalo ears …
Houghton Hall has a stunning collection of work by Anish Kapoor. Some are in the grounds like this one, Sky Mirror …
Others are in the house …
Kings Lynn is a lovely, interesting town. I even caught a glimpse of Bad King John …
At the charming and incredibly interesting True’s Yard Fisherfolk Museum, a Victorian seafarer struggles to come to terms with the pandemic …
And the place has a Wimpy! I thought they had disappeared decades ago. I didn’t pop in for a ‘Bender’ though (fellow Baby Boomers will know what I am referring to) …
There is some beautiful architecture to enjoy as well …
Now that going abroad is problematic it’s great to be exploring England again.
And finally to the Sandringham Estate where we came across these poignant little headstones commemorating the last resting place of three of Her Majesty’s corgis. Heather’s inscription tells us she was the great granddaughter of Susan (on the far left) …
I’ll be back walking the City again next week but hope you enjoyed this little excursion.
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In these unusual times it is, I think, easy to get a bit fed up. So I thought I would share with you a few things that have brightened up my days recently.
What better place to start than with this magnificent bear taking a rest in City Point Square …
The Square is quite a cheerful place nowadays with lots of colourful seating and it’s quite buzzy weekday lunchtimes and evenings now that the Rack & Tenterpub is open again.
I call this picture ‘Sunflower Surprise’ …
Nature makes its presence felt against the Barbican concrete. That’s Shakespeare Tower in the background.
My favourite front door …
I suppose they got fed up with people saying they couldn’t find the bell!
I am very fond of Sir William Staines whose bust is on display in the church of St Giles Cripplegate, the Ward of which he represented as Alderman …
I smile when I see him because he looks like a man who enjoyed his food. Despite starting life as a bricklayer’s labourer, he amassed a vast fortune and, even though he remained illiterate, he was eventually elected Lord Mayor of London …
Beechey, William; Sir William Staines, Lord Mayor of London (1800); City of London Corporation.
He built nine houses for aged or infirm workmen and tradesmen who had fallen on hard times. No doubt remembering his own upbringing, he made sure that there was ‘nothing to distinguish them from the other dwelling-houses, and without ostentatious display of stone or other inscription to denote the poverty of the inhabitants’. That’s why I like him.
Fun street art always cheers me up. Here’s a rather grumpy elephant near Whitecross Street …
In the nearby company of a grumpy parrot …
A slightly disconcerting window display at the Jugged Hare Bar and Restaurant …
What I hadn’t properly appreciated before was the use Moore made of maquettes in order to help him visualise the finished work, which was often vast in scale. He also sometimes took photographs of these little masterpieces having placed them in an exterior setting in order to demonstrate to customers what a finished work would look like in the landscape.
There is a room full of them …
The gardens contain 21 sculptures by Moore and in several cases you can compare the original maquette …
… with the finished work …
It’s a bronze created between 1979 and 1981 entitled Two Piece Reclining Figure: Cut and to me looks like a a woman reaching back over her shoulders.
The gardens are a perfect setting for his work …
I like the faces in the less abstract pieces …
They can look quite sinister …
Goslar Warrior : Bronze : 1973-1974.
Another thing I didn’t know was that some of his designs had been woven into tapestries …
A great day – so nice to get away from the City and to loose oneself in the company of a genius like Moore.
And finally, a different kind of art …
In a music shop window, Jagger and Richards performing in Köln in 1976. Who would have guessed they would still be touring 44 years later?
They haven’t changed a bit!
If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …
Not all statues, pictures and memorials in the City are of the ‘great and the good’ – there are quite a few young people represented as well.
For a start, there are the charity school children who wore a striking uniform that confirmed their school’s charity status – hence the name Bluecoat Schools. Blue was chosen since it was once the cheapest dye available. The school buildings often displayed life-size representations of their pupils and these two can now be found outside the church of St Andrew Holborn (EC4A 3AF) …
They depict children attending St Andrew’s Parochial School, founded in 1696 and located in Hatton Garden since 1721. The statues once stood over the Cross Street entrance to the Hatton Street school but were moved here during the church’s restoration after WWII bombing damage.
Sir John Cass’s School at Aldgate also has its little boy and girl statues (C3A 5DE) …
This work outside Liverpool Street Station depicts children from the Kindertransport (EC2M 7PD). I think they are beautifully portrayed, appearing both curious and confident (and one piece of luggage is clearly a violin case) …
Photograph: Robin Coupland. Statue by Frank Meisler (2006).
In 1938 and 1939, nearly ten thousand unaccompanied Jewish children were transported to Britain to escape persecution in their hometowns in Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria. These children arrived at Liverpool Street station to be taken in by British families and foster homes. Often they were the only members of their families to survive the Holocaust.
On a modern building in Giltspur Street (EC1A 9DD) a naked boy stands looking upwards with his arms crossed. He is often referred to as The Golden Boy of Pye Corner and he probably started life as a shop sign …
Now he commemorates one of the places where the Great Fire of 1666 was finally halted, and the inscription beneath refers to the belief by some at the time that God was punishing the City for the sin of gluttony. This was also evidenced by the fact that the conflagration started in Pudding Lane!
Despite the reference to gluttony, the little boy is not enormously fat but ‘healthily rotund’, as children or putti tended to be sculpted at that time. Pye (or Pie) Corner, on the other hand, was noted for food shops, particularly at the time of Bartholomew Fair. This annual celebration was finally suppressed in 1855 for ‘encouraging debauchery and public disorder’ and becoming a ‘school of vice which … initiated … youth into the habits of villainy’. The fair had also become one of the year’s great opportunities for pickpockets as well as for prostitutes, who might be found in tents coyly labelled ‘soiled doves’ or in a nearby street appropriately named Cock Lane.
But I digress.
Just behind the Royal Exchange is a work that caused some controversy, the Charity Drinking Fountain (also known as La Maternité) by Aimé-Jules Dalou (1877-9). (EC3V 3NL).
In his book Public Sculpture of the City of London, Philip Ward-Jackson describes the lady as follows:
Despite her casual garb she has a diadem or tiara on her head. With her left arm she enfolds a baby, who she is suckling, whilst with her right she draws to her knee a naked boy, who gazes up at her.
Nearby is a very relaxed George Peabody who I have written about in an earlier blog …
Ward-Jackson tells us that the suckling lady’s very authentic exposed breast produced at least one letter of protest to the editor of The Globe. The correspondent urged that ‘common decency’ should be observed and went on …
Do you not think, Sir, that Mr Peabody’s chair should be turned, at least until the delicate operation of ‘lacteal sustenation’ be concluded … or the young woman and youngsters provided with the requisite clothing.
Living in the Appold Street entrance to Exchange Square are The Broad Family (EC2A 2BR) …
Look long enough and you will see mum, dad, a little girl with her ball and the family dog (well I did, anyway). It has just occurred to me that the dog resembles Dr Who’s companion K9.
The little girl’s shoes peep out tantalisingly …
These young folk striding out purposefully are part of the memorial to Christ’s Hospital School which was sited nearby before it relocated to Horsham in 1902 (EC1A 7BA). It shows the pupils developing from street urchins to smart, confident young adults …
I love the ragamuffins at the far end of the sculpture.They seem to be having enormous fun and sport the most extraordinary hairstyles …
As you approach the Bank junction from Cheapside look up and you will see two young boys at either end of the grand building that was once the City headquarters of Midland Bank (1935). The are both struggling with a rather angry looking Goose …
The sculptor was William Reid Dick.
Why a goose? A clue is the ancient name of the street and the goose was a suggestion by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens to commemorate its original market function. The building is now a private club and restaurant, called The Ned in Sir Edwin’s honour.
In the Guildhall Art Gallery there is a pretty little girl attending her first sermon …
‘My First Sermon’ by John Everett Millais
She obviously knows this is an important occasion in her life and sits with her back straight, eyes attentively focused looking ahead. She is the artist’s 5 year old daughter Effie. On seeing it the Archbishop of Canterbury commented …
… our spirits are touched by the playfulness, the innocence, the purity, and … the piety of childhood
In 1864 the artist produced a sequel entitled ‘My Second Sermon’ …
The Archbishop, Charles Longley, was obviously a rather good sport, and when he saw the later picture commented …
… by the eloquence of her silent slumber, (she has) given us a warning of the evil of lengthy sermons and drowsy discourses. Sorry indeed should I be to disturb that sweet and peaceful slumber, but I beg that when she does awake she may be informed who they are who have pointed the moral of her story, have drawn the true inference from the change that has passed over her since she has heard her “first sermon,” and have resolved to profit by the lecture she has thus delivered to them.
I was reminded of this wonderful drawing of a Victorian congregation who are finding the sermon rather heavy going …
In 1995 a skeleton was discovered when excavations were taking place before the construction of 30 St Mary Axe, now often referred to as the Gherkin. The remains were of a young girl aged between 13 and 17 years – her arms were crossed over her body and pottery close by indicated a burial date of between AD 350 and 400.
Having been removed to the Museum of London, she waited patiently until 2007 when the developers of the Gherkin proposed that she be reburied on the site. So, in April of that year, there was a service at St Botolph’s church in Aldgate followed by a procession through the streets before her body was respectfully interred near where it was found. The Lady Mayoress of the City of London was there to spread rose petals on the gravesite, marked with a marble slab decorated with a laurel wreath.
We don’t know her name, or whether she was an original Londoner, but she now rests again 1,600 years after her death in the place that she would have called Londinium.
And finally to one of my favourite places, the Watts Memorial in Postman’s Park (EC1A 7BT). I have written before about three of the brave youngsters commemorated there – Alice Ayres, John Clinton and Elizabeth Boxall.
To them I will now add this young man …
While their mum was out running an errand Henry’s two-year-old sister Jessie, intrigued by the glow of a paraffin lamp, managed to clamber up a chair and reach out for it. Tragically, she overturned it and was enveloped in flaming paraffin. Henry rushed to help her, but in tearing off her clothes set fire to himself and both children received severe burns. Jessie survived but Henry died on 5th January – the coroner at his inquest commented ‘it is a sad case, the little fellow was quite a hero’.
That’s all for this week – I hope you enjoyed it even though I have written about some of these subjects before.
It’s not much fun at the moment is it with a virus to worry about. So I thought I would pop in some light-hearted pictures this week and maybe cheer you up a bit.
First up, a brilliant busker collects donations using up-to-date technology …
Listen to him and his ‘backing singers’ by Googling ‘Bohemian Rhapsody Steve Aruni on YouTube’. I promise you will enjoy it.
A farmer chases his pigs across the front of The George pub with the Royal Courts of Justice reflected in the window …
Nearby a monk pours some ale into a jug. I think that’s his faithful dog next to him – I sincerely hope it’s not a rat …
Bidfood vans! I regularly see them delivering around the City and love the edible landscapes portrayed on the sides.
An orange sunrise between the cheese tower blocks …
A tranquil lake with bread hills and cauliflower clouds …
I know it’s not a Banksy, but this little flower cheered me up …
Colourful street art on Rivington Street …
Healthy eating options on Fleet Street …
‘Let’s ADORE and ENDURE each other’ on Great Eastern Street …
Postman, biplane and pigeon mural next to the Postal Museum …
Yes, the pretty guardian angels are still there on their swings opposite St Paul’s Underground Station …
I smiled at this at first …
…and then thought: ‘Hey, writing on seats isn’t good for them either!’
And finally, one of my favourite sculptures, Leaping Hare on Crescent Bell by the late Barry Flanagan on Broadgate Circle …
On Sunday 30th September 1888 at about 1.45 in the morning Police Constable 881 Edward Watkins turned into Mitre Square, a regular part of his beat.
In the southernmost corner, clearly picked out by the bullseye lantern on Watkins’s belt, lay the terribly mutilated body of a woman. Watkins ran across to Kearley and Tongue’s warehouse, knowing that the watchman there, George James Morris, was a retired police officer. Watkins found the door to the warehouse ajar, pushed it open, and found Morris sweeping the steps that led down toward the door.
‘For God’s sake, mate, come to my assistance,’ cried Watkins.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Morris, to which Watkins replied, ‘There’s another woman cut to pieces.’
The woman was Catherine Eddowes* and she was destined to be named as the fourth victim of the Whitechapel Murderer, more commonly known as Jack the Ripper.
Around this time Charles Goad was compiling maps for use by the fire insurance companies and this is one of his earliest prepared just 20 months before the murder. The red spot indicates where the body was found …
The murder scene …
The Square today – I think I am standing approximately where she was was discovered …
The fact that ‘Jack’s’ identity has never been agreed upon has led to the practice commonly called Ripperology in which the crimes and possible perpetrators are endlessly debated and discussed. Needless to say there are numerous sources online but I found this one to be one of the most interesting including as it does a poignant list of poor Catherine’s possessions. You can find an account of her funeral here. (By the way, you can see an authentic police bullseye lantern in the City of London Police Museum and a picture in my blog The City’s Little Museums).
In the centre of my photograph of the Square today is an example of the Sculpture in the City initiative …
This is Climb by Juliana Cerqueira Leite. In this fascinating YouTube clip she explains how it was created.
As you stand in Mitre Square you can often hear children playing. They are pupils at Sir John Cass’s Foundation Primary School …
Note the red goose quill.
Sir John Cass was born in the City of London in 1661 and during his lifetime served as Alderman, Sheriff and the City’s MP.
In 1710 he set up a school for 50 boys and 40 girls and rented buildings in the churchyard of St Botolph Without Aldgate. Cass intended to leave the vast majority of his property to the independent school but, when he died in 1718, had only initialled two of the eight pages of his will. The incomplete will was contested, but was finally upheld by the Court of Chancery thirty years after his death. The school, which by this time had been forced to close, was re-opened, and the foundation established.
There is an old legend that he had a haemorrhage of the lungs which stained the quill pen with which he was initialising his will, and it is for this reason that the pupils of the school still wear red goose quills when they attend St Botolph’s Church on the anniversary of their Founder’s birth each year.
Two statues of children in blue coats stand over the previous girls’ and boys’ entrances …
The school was rebuilt in 1909 and I think these statues are reproductions. I don’t know if the originals still exist.
Blue was the distinctive colour for paupers, charity schools and almsmen, (hence Bluecoat Boys and Girls) and Cass’s School would have been called a Bluecoat School. By extension it typified the dress of tradesmen so that ‘To put on a blue apron’ meant to take up a trade. Incidentally, the great diarist Samuel Pepys, recording a trade riot in London in 1664, tells us that ‘At first, the butchers knocked down all the weavers that had green or blue aprons.’ Those were the days.
Here’s a bust of Sir John as displayed in the nearby church of St Botolph Without Aldgate, which I shall write about in a later blog …
Someone had tucked a two pence coin into his flowing locks but I didn’t like to remove it in case it was part of some arcane tradition!
On the school gates I noticed this very appropriate instruction …
I took this picture of St Botolph’s whilst standing behind another Sculpture in the City exhibit by Jyll Bradley …
Made from coloured sheets of edge-lit Plexiglas turned on their side and leant against a south-facing wall, Dutch / Light (for Agneta Block) creates an open-glasshouse pavilion that is activated by the sun. The work references the so-called ‘Dutch Light’ a horticultural revolution that hit British shores over three centuries ago as Dutch growers pioneered early glasshouse technology.
There is lots more to see around Aldgate and St Botolph’s so I shall return next week.
*None of the research I have done suggests that Catherine was a prostitute and this is confirmed in a new book, The Five, by Hallie Rubenhold, which you can read more about here.
There seems to be no end to the wonderful paintings to be found at the Guildhall Art Gallery. This one is a representation of a famous Greek myth – the murder by Clytemnestra of her husband Agamemnon. Here she stands, wild-eyed in the Mediterranean sunlight, outside the room where she has committed the deed. In the background behind her we can just make out the outline of a dimly lit body …
‘Clytemnestra’ by John Collier (1882)
Agamemnon had commanded the Greek forces which besieged Troy during the Trojan Wars. Before setting sail for home, he sacrificed their youngest daughter Iphigenia to ensure a favourable wind for his fleet. To make matters worse, he returned with his lover, the prophetess Cassandra, the captured daughter of King Priam of Troy. Enraged and grieving, Clytemnestra and her son murdered them both in revenge
Collier was famous for his close attention to detail. There is light etching on the axe blade and the blood drips and runs authentically. All the little roundels we can see in the picture are different …
One has to say, however, that the more you study the figure the more it looks like a man. There is a pure physical dominance – and look at the muscular arms and large hands gripping the axe handle and holding back the curtain …
Collier brings extraordinary attention to detail in her blood-spattered garments.
It is now thought that Collier took his inspiration from an 1880 performance of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon at Balliol College, Oxford in which Clytemnestra was played by a male student, one Frank Benison.
On a much lighter note, here is a pretty little girl attending her first sermon …
‘My First Sermon’ by John Everett Millais
She obviously knows this is an important occasion in her life and sits with her back straight, eyes attentively focused looking ahead. She is the artist’s 5 year old daughter Effie. On seeing it the Archbishop of Canterbury commented …
… our spirits are touched by the playfulness, the innocence, the purity, and … the piety of childhood
In 1864 the artist produced a sequel entitled ‘My Second Sermon’ …
The Archbishop, Charles Longley, was obviously a rather good sport, and when he saw the later picture commented …
… by the eloquence of her silent slumber, (she has) given us a warning of the evil of lengthy sermons and drowsy discourses. Sorry indeed should I be to disturb that sweet and peaceful slumber, but I beg that when she does awake she may be informed who they are who have pointed the moral of her story, have drawn the true inference from the change that has passed over her since she has heard her “first sermon,” and have resolved to profit by the lecture she has thus delivered to them.
I was reminded of this wonderful drawing of a Victorian congregation who are finding the sermon rather heavy going …
At the far end of the gallery, in a space specially designed for it, you look down on the action-packed painting by John Singleton Copley: ‘Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar 1782’ …
A Spanish attack on Gibraltar was foiled when the Spanish battering ships, also known as floating batteries, were attacked by the British using shot heated up to red hot temperatures (with wry humour, sailors nicknamed them ‘hot potatoes’). I have written about this picture in more detail in an earlier blog which you can find here.
However, there was a detail I missed and really should have pointed out. Fire spread among the Spanish vessels and, as the battle turned in Britain’s favour, an officer called Roger Curtis set out with gunboats on a brave rescue mission which saved almost 350 people. Here is the gallant officer and his men carrying out the rescue, tucked away at the bottom left of the picture. The British flag billows symbolically behind them …
Undoubtedly a very chivalrous act.
A rather distinguished looking man gazes towards a painting of the Grand Opening of Tower Bridge on 30 June 1894 …
He is the architect, Horace Jones, who designed the bridge but sadly died in 1887 before it was completed.
The painting is by William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931), the most distinguished marine artist of his day …
My eye was immediately drawn to the lady in the light blue dress and the man who looks like her companion sitting on his collapsible chair …
They were obviously important enough to bag a riverside view along with other folk who seem to have packed a wine-accompanied picnic. I know she’s looking through binoculars but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that she was taking a picture with her smartphone.
There are more treasures on display this week including Horace Jones’s original plans (but they don’t photograph very well through glass) …
I really can’t resist views of London that incorporate the river …
The Thames by Moonlight with Southwark Bridge by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)
Today Leeds born Grimshaw is considered one of the greatest painters of the Victorian era, as well as one of the best and most accomplished nightscape, and townscape, artists of all time.
And finally, I paid a quick visit to the Roman Amphitheatre in the basement and took this picture of what is believed to be the opening used to allow wild animals to enter the arena. We can see two slots into which a gate may have been raised and lowered …
If you haven’t done so yet I highly recommend the free guided tours that take place on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays – you can find out more here on their website.
I have visited Broadgate and its sculptures in an earlier blog and I went back again last weekend to photograph some more.
First up is Rush Hour, a patinated bronze by George Segal (1982) situated in the Broadgate Circle (EC2M 2QS) …
We’ve all been there, haven’t we, heads down, not exactly rushing to get to the office. Or maybe just starting the long slog home on a rainy day (knowing there are train cancellations on our line).
Segal was renowned for casting his figures directly from life – usually friends and family – using plaster bandages to create human scale moulds from which his bronze sculptures could be cast. As a result, all the figures have their eyes closed …
This is Cascade in Exchange Square (EC2A 2EH). It was created by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (whose Chicago office designed much of Broadgate) and Stephen Cox RA (1991) …
‘Energising and restorative, this water cascade creates a natural oasis within Exchange Square. Calmed within the basin, the water develops circles of stillness around the enduring Indian granite stones, placed at measured intervals as if to signify the passage of time. The perfect place to pause and reflect on the day’s events’. Or maybe a place to chill out after a really horrific commute.
On Finsbury Avenue (EC2M 2PA) you will find Bellerophon Taming Pegasus by Jacques Lipchitz (1966) …
A half-size cast of Lipchitz’s final sculpture (which resides in Columbia University, New York), this is a representation of the epic moment in which Greek hero Bellerophon tames the winged horse Pegasus. This tangle seems to balance rather precariously on its pedestal with hooves, wings and tail radiating in all directions. For Lipchitz, this work demonstrated the ultimate dominance of man over nature, stating ‘You observe nature, make conclusions, and from these you make rules’.
On Broadgate Plaza (EC2M 3AB), Ganapathi and Devi (1988) is another work by Stephen Cox. Apart-yet-together, Ganapathi and Devi alludes to sculptural torsos and ancient themes; Devi refers to the female Hindu goddess, while Ganapathi is the Tamil name for Ganesha, the popular elephant god. Fusing power and sensuality, the stones combine historical and contempoary references, from the quarry to the executed forms …
The stone was sourced from the quarries of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu, India …
Peering through the entrance to 155 Bishopsgate I spotted this spectacular piece of art (EC2M 3YD) …
It’s The Mechanics Institute II (1991) by William Tillyer. The notes say: ‘A carefully balanced composition of architecture, cloud, sky and foliage, Tillyer represents the notion of man’s presence via geometric patterns while the contrasting colours suggest the force of natural elements (flashes of warm sun, rushes of air currents, dappled blue light and gentle sea tides)’. The foyer is marketed to movie makers looking for locations as ‘a New York style atrium space’ and it certainly looks the part.
I wandered away from Broadgate, a hundred yards or so north up Bishopsgate, and came across Principal Place (EC2A 2BA) along with this interesting work entitled In Anticipation by James Burke (2018). Do have a look at the website.
Meanwhile, back in Broadgate, Venus still gazes skywards …
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For the first anniversary I included things that I had come across that had made me smile and I want to do that again this week. I want as well, however, to include a few items that I thought were interesting but didn’t fit under any broad heading.
One of the great pleasures of doing research is the occasional joy of serendipity. I recently discovered that encouraging people to cycle to work is nothing new and magazines were being published almost 40 years ago which included maps to help cyclists navigate.
I came across this persuasive cover of On your bike! magazine from 1982 …
And now something a bit more surreal, a piece of art that was on display at the Guildhall art Gallery until a few weeks ago …
Marcello Pecchioli’s eye-catching stained glass Alien Priest was part of the Gallery’s ‘Visionary Artists’ exhibition. I like the flying saucers in the background.
Next up is this picture in the Gallery entitled Garden of Eden by Hugh Goldwin Riviere (1860-1956). Painted in 1901, it depicts a young man and girl walking in a misty, wet park with a horse-drawn cab rank in the background.
I like it because to me it’s one of those pictures that immediately gets you making up a back story to the characters. Surely this is an assignation – a secret lovers meeting, he clasping her hand and she gazing lovingly into his face. Then it struck me: Garden of Eden! A place of dangerous temptation and banishment!
Apparently guides point out that this picture is actually about a mismatch between a wealthy woman who has fallen for a man much below her station: note his clumpy shoes, lack of gloves and his rolled up trouser bottoms. Also the way he’s carrying not one but two umbrellas, intertwined like the two lovers. There are tiny raindrops hanging from the black branches. Surely they represent tears to come? Or am I getting completely carried away? Another commentator has said that she is simply a smartly dressed maidservant on her day off, out walking with her beau.
In Cullum Street I was stopped in my tracks by this stunning sculpture by Sarah Lucas entitled Perceval …
Part of the ‘Sculpture in the City’ initiative – EC3M 7JJ
It’s a large-scale replica of a traditional china ornament of the kind that took pride of place on many British mantelpieces forty years ago. Perceval was a knight of the Round Table and apparently there is fertility symbolism in the giant concrete marrows on the cart. You can read more about this work here.
Also for us to admire as part of the Sculpture in the City project is this example entitled Crocodylius Philodendrus by Nancy Rubins at 1 Undershaft (EC3A 6HX). I love it because it’s completely bonkers …
See how many animals you can spot
I keep meaning to spend some time in the Blackfriar pub on Queen Victoria Street recording the brilliant brasses there (EC4V 4EG) but I still haven’t got around to it. So in the meantime, here is the advice on one of them …
‘Don‘t advertise – tell a gossip‘
Don’t forget to look down when crossing the Millennium (‘Wobbly’) Bridge and see if you can spot some of the witty work by the artist Ben Wilson. He has painstakingly painted literally dozens of pieces of discarded chewing gum …
There is a Banksy rat painting in Chiswell Street that has been altered by another artist. Banksy’s piece originally depicted a stencilled ghetto rat holding a placard which read ‘London doesn’t work’ …
Photograph taken by ‘Noodlefish’ 26 August 2006
However, Robbo, Banksy’s rival graffiti artist, reworked the placard by adding his name in red letters. Robbo was known for leaving his mark on many Banksy pieces but I read in the interesting Londonist blog that Robbo died in 2014, bringing the rivalry to an end.
I haven’t been able to find out more about the strange ‘Life is beautiful’ figure next to it.
It is hard to imagine now but many of London’s roads were once paved with wood. However a map of London by Bartholomew’s in 1928 shows clearly the expansive reach of the wooden block road paving method. In the map excerpt below, the yellow roads are all paved with wooden blocks …
Many were destroyed in wartime bombing and many also dug up by local residents for burning as heating. Since they were impregnated with tar they burnt furiously and, of course, made a major contribution to London’s filthy air.
For some people this was an entrepreneurial opportunity. This is Alan Sugar being interviewed for the Daily Express in 2010 about when he noticed old blocks being uncovered when roads were being resurfaced …
The workers showed me the blocks, which were impregnated with tar, and they chucked a couple onto the fire – they burned like a rocket. Bingo! It occurred to me that these discarded wooden blocks could be made into fire-lighting sticks. I could cut them up into bundles of sticks and flog them.
And you can still see a section of wooden road today at the junction of Chequer Street and Bunhill Row EC1 …
Looking over the wall on the Embankment one day I noticed these lions heads with mooring rings …
They were sculpted by Timothy Butler for Bazalgette’s great sewage works in 1868-70 and it is said that, if the lions drink, London will flood.
And to end with, two more items with watery themes that make me smile.
Firstly, a famous satire on the quality of the Metropolitan water supply in 1828. An elderly lady displays her horror and shock on looking at a speck of Thames water through a microscope …
Copyright: British museum
It’s by the artist and caricaturist William Heath (1795-1840) and is entitled Monster Soup commonly called Thames Water being a correct representation of that precious stuff doled out to us! You can read more about the efforts made to get fresh water to Londoners in my blog Philanthropic Fountains.
And finally I always say hello to this miserable dolphin on The Ship pub in Hart Street (EC3R 7NB). I also tell him to cheer up – the pub is a listed building and therefore so is he …
In some respects, parts of the City of today look remarkably like they did decades ago whilst others are changed almost beyond recognition.
I shall start with the entrance to the Guildhall as painted in 1905 and attributed to William Luker Junior (1867-1947). I like the intimate family group with the little girl glancing back at the authentic flapping pigeons …
I felt I just had to write a few words about the painter.
The son of a famous artist who fell on hard times, young William (‘Willie’ to his doting mother) caused consternation when, in 1888 at the age of 21, he made a family servant pregnant. He did the honourable thing and married her, albeit secretly, which caused even more anguish to his poor mum. Records of the period show his new wife to be Margaret Stadowicka, a Polish immigrant eight years his senior. The greater responsibility seems to have prompted him to mature quickly as an artist and he became a very successful painter of animals.
This is the Guildhall entrance today …
The view from Fleet Street to St Paul’s Cathedral was slightly improved by the removal in 1990 of the London Chatham & Dover Railway bridge that used to span Ludgate Hill. Here is the view at the turn of the last century …
This view (from Gillian Tindall’s book A Tunnel Through Time) shows the railway bridge in more detail …
And here is a more recent image. The bridge may have gone but modern buildings do intrude …
This is a photograph of the Wren church of St Alban Wood Street circa 1875 …
Picture taken for the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society and now held at the Bishopsgate Institute.
And here is the view today. Only the church tower remains as the area was devastated by Second World War bombing …
The name Cheapside comes from the old English term for a market (ceapan – ‘to buy’) and the a street with this name was here long before the Great Fire of 1666. Here is a picture taken around 1890 looking east when there were about 11,000 hansom cabs and 500 horse-drawn buses in London. By 1910 they had all virtually disappeared to be replaced by taxis and motor buses …
Picture taken for the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society and now held at the Bishopsgate Institute.
And here is a view from about the same point taken in May 2019 …
Apart from the tower of St Mary-le-Bow, the south side of Cheapside has changed dramatically with the construction of the office and retail space One New Change. On the north side at the junction with Wood Street, however, stands a little treasure …
The shop on the corner in an anonymous drawing from the 1860s
The rebuilding of the City after the Great Fire took over forty years, but the little shop on Cheapside, along with its three neighbours to the west, were some of the earliest new structures to be built as the City recovered. The site is small and each of the shops in the row consists of a single storey above and a box front below.
The plaque in the churchyard attached to the Cheapside shop’s northern wall confirms the age of the building …
This is how the corner looks today …
Copyright Katie at ‘Look up London’
You can read lots more about the little shop and its fascinating immediate surroundings in my earlier blog: A Shop, a Tree and a Poem. And even more here: Hidden Gems.
Some of Fleet Street has hardly changed at all. Here is a view of St Dunstan-in -the-West around 1910 …
Picture taken for the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society and held at the Bishopsgate Institute
And here is a picture taken in May this year. Some of the Journals changed their names – the Dundee Advertiser becoming the Dundee Courier and the Sunday Hours becoming the Sunday Post. The Post has now become famous as the last newspaper to leave Fleet Street. They turned off the lights for the final time on 5th August 2016.
I came across this fascinating picture whilst doing my research. It was published in 1975 in the book The City at War by Ian Grant and Nicholas Maddren. Looking west along Fleet Street towards the Strand, it was taken in 1944 and shows the smoke arising in the distance from a recent hit by a V2 rocket …
The caption in the book reads: ‘Passengers getting off the bus hardly break their stride’.
And finally, I am publishing again this painting by Harold Workman now on display at the Guildhall Art Gallery and entitled Chaos on London Bridge. It was probably painted some time in the 1930s or 1940s …
And here is a picture I found of London Bridge circa 1870 …
Taken from a stereocard in the B E C Howarth-Loomes Collection [Ref BB83/05717B]
I think London Bridge and its history might be worth a blog on its own and I shall explore this idea.
You can find more great ‘Then and Now’ pictures (including some of the above) here on the Spitalfields Life blog.
The Guildhall Art Gallery in Guildhall Yard (EC2V 5AE) is one of my favourite places in the City. The reason for this is that the Gallery’s collection of London paintings opens a window onto unusual, memorable and colourful scenes from the City’s history. Dating from the 17th century onwards, they provide a vivid record of civic events along with street, market and crowd scenes which capture the look and feel of city life. What adds to the enjoyment of a visit is the remains of the Roman Amphitheatre which were discovered during redevelopment in 1987 and are now incorporated into the lower levels of the building.
Here is a selection from the pictures I like best.
And we think congestion is bad now …
‘Chaos on London Bridge’ by Harold Workman (1897-1975)
It has, apparently, not been possible to date this picture. The buses look a bit like the once very familiar ‘RT’ that was introduced to London in 1939/40. Here is a picture of one (note the white roof) …
I can’t really be certain though. If you want to research more about London’s buses this is a great website to start with.
London had become the most important City in the world when Niels Moeller Lund (1863-1916) painted this view from the roof of the Royal Exchange in 1904 …
Entitled The Heart of the Empire, the artist looks down on Bank junction which seethes with the commercial life of a City that felt very secure at the Empire’s focal point. With the Mansion House on the left, the sunlit Victorian buildings draw our eye towards St Paul’s Cathedral and the Empire beyond. I like the flock of pigeons rising in the foreground.
This painting, showing an event on 9th November 1789, captures the pageantry of the City at the time and also the way St Paul’s dominated the skyline …
‘Lord Mayor’s procession by water to Westminster 9 November 1789 ‘ by Richard Paton (1717-1791) and Francis Wheatley (1747-1801)
Paton’s story is interesting since he was brought up in poverty. According to one account, while Paton was begging on Tower Hill, he attracted the attention of Admiral Sir Charles Knowles (died 1777), who happened to be passing that way, and who, taking a fancy to the boy, offered to take him to sea. He was assistant to the ship’s painter on Knowles’ ship, gaining knowledge in both painting and seamanship. The second artist, Francis Wheatley, led an ‘irregular and dissipated’ early life and ended up fleeing to Ireland to escape his creditors. He eventually regained respectability and ended his life a Royal Academician.
Here is a more intimate picture of City pageantry and its participants (with some splendid beards on display) …
‘A civic procession descending Ludgate Hill, London 1879 ‘ by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902)
Born in France, Tissot was originally called Jean-Jacques, but he took the name James as an expression of his Anglophilia. Following his alleged involvement in the turbulent events of the Paris Commune (1871) he moved to London, where he lived from 1871 to 1882. He was just as successful there as he had been in Paris and lived in some style in fashionable St John’s Wood: in 1874 Edmond de Goncourt wrote sarcastically that he had ‘a studio with a waiting room where, at all times, there is iced champagne at the disposal of visitors, and around the studio, a garden where, all day long, one can see a footman in silk stockings brushing and shining the shrubbery leaves’.
And finally, from pomp and pageantry to everyday hard work in the markets …
Billingsgate Market in 1962 by Ken Howard (born 1932)
Billingsgate Market relocated to Docklands in 1982.
There has been a livestock market at Smithfield for over 800 years …
Smithfield Market in 1968 by Jacqueline Stanley (born 1928)
The London Evening Standard has just reported that Smithfield meat market could now be leaving London. A former oil refinery site in Thurrock, Essex, is on a shortlist of four locations for a vast, new mega-market which could also house Billingsgate fish market and New Spitalfields fruit and vegetable market. The other three potential sites are at Barking power station in Dagenham, Silvertown near City airport in Docklands, and Fairlop in Redbridge. The City of London Corporation wants to amalgamate the three historic markets in a purpose-built facility to free up land for housing.
If you visit the Gallery don’t forget to go downstairs to see the remains of the Roman Amphitheatre …
You can get a sense of the scale of the building even before you enter the Gallery. An 80 metre wide curve of dark stone in Guildhall Yard marks out the area it covered …
In the Gallery there is also an artist’s impression of what the amphitheatre may have looked like …
Next time you are walking across the Millennium Bridge (aka the Wobbly Bridge) slow your pace and look down whilst trying to avoid being trampled by the crowds. You will soon be rewarded by seeing some tiny pictures …
There are literally hundreds of them, painted on discarded chewing gum by the artist Ben Wilson …
‘When a person throws chewing gum, it’s a thoughtless action. I’m turning that around. People think they don’t have an effect. But all the people that chew gum and throw it on the street, they created that. Once painted, it suddenly takes on new meaning and has been given the kind of worth that would otherwise be unthinkable’
Ben Wilson talking to Human Nature magazine
You can read the interview here and see many more pictures here. He’s never been arrested because he’s painting chewing gum not the Bridge. Smart!
Whilst on the subject of quirky bridge features, have a look at this picture I took as I walked across Tower Bridge last weekend …
Is that a lamp post without a lamp? Here’s a view from the other side …
It’s a cast iron chimney that used to be connected to a coal fire in the Royal Fusiliers room under the Bridge, helping them to keep warm whilst on guard duty.
The room has now been enveloped by a restaurant, appropriately named The Sergeant’s Mess …
Now to one of my favourite churches, St Magnus-the-Martyr on Lower Thames Street (EC3R 6DN).
It’s believed that the Roman’s first built a crossing over the Thames around here in AD 50. Eventually there were wharves nearby and the churchyard holds a piece of one …
This is not, however, the best feature of the yard.
Take a look at this picture of the ‘old’ Medieval London Bridge where St Magnus can be seen in the top left hand corner …
A plaque as you enter from the street explains why this area is so unique …
For a treat go inside the church where there is a model of the Bridge on display …
It’s enhanced by dozens of little figures going about their business as well as what looks like a visit by the King on horseback …
From 1763 until the old bridge was demolished in 1831, this archway was the main pedestrian entrance onto the bridge. As I walk through it I can’t help thinking about the thousands and thousands who preceded me. Were they heading into the City to make their fortune perhaps? Or maybe leaving in bitter disappointment …
As a further surprise, some of the stones from the old Medieval bridge’s northernmost arch remain in the courtyard …
And finally, here are a few things to look out for as you cross Blackfriars Bridge.
There are these columns rising out of the river …
In 1862-64 a bridge was built to accommodate four trains at one time. John Wolfe-Barry and H M Brunel built a second bridge to increase the number of trains coming into St Paul’s. The columns are the remains of the original bridge, which was removed in 1985 as it was deemed too weak for modern trains.
Note the pulpit-shaped tops of the bridge pillars. They reference the original monastery of the Black Friars or Dominican monks, evicted by Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. I have written about the Medieval monasteries in an earlier blog which you can find here.
On the south side is the beautifully painted coat of arms of the London Chatham & Dover Railway …
Note the white horse rampant, symbol of Kent, and the county motto ‘Invicta’ meaning ‘undefeated’ or ‘unconquered’.
And now some features not everyone notices. Peer over the parapet and on either side you will see some birds on the capitals of the bridge supports, meticulously carved in Portland stone by J.B.Philip.
The birds on the west side are fresh water birds and plants to be found on the upper reaches of the river …
And on the east side, sea birds and seaweeds to be found at the mouth of the Thames …
On the north side of the bridge you will see one of my favourite water fountains, recently liberated from behind hoardings and nicely restored …
The pretty lady represents ‘Temperance’ and she originally stood outside the Royal Exchange.
The fountain was inaugurated by Samuel Gurney, MP, the Chairman of the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountains Association, on 27 July 1861 and you can read more about him, and the Association, in my earlier blog Philanthropic Fountains.
At the north end of Whitecross on the corner with Old Street a plaque on a wall tells us that there once lived here a lady called Priss Fotheringham who had been ranked ‘the second best whore in the City’. This description appeared in 1660 in a serial publication called TheWandring Whore by John Garfield, which described in some detail the antics of London’s prostitutes.
The tongue in cheek plaque is by ‘English Hedonists’ and was ‘Mad in England’
Described when young as a ‘cat-eyed gypsy, pleasing to the eye’, Priscilla Fotheringham (nee Carswell) was a colourful character very famous in her time. It is thought she was born in Scotland around 1615 and little is known of her early life. What we do know is that in 1652 she was sent to Newgate Gaol having been found in a house of ill-repute …
… sitting between two Dutchmen with her breasts naked to the waist and without stockings, drinking and singing in a very uncivil manner.
In 1658 she was still misbehaving and was bound over by a Middlesex Justice of the Peace for …
… being a notorious strumpet … that had undone several men by giving them the foul disease … and for keeping the husband of Susan Slaughter from her and for also threatening to stab said Susan Slaughter … and also for several notorious wickedness which is not fit to be named among the heathen.
She had married Edward Fotheringham, an odious character from a brothel-owning family, in 1656, and he set her up as a madam at the Jack-a-Newberry Tavern on the corner where her plaque now stands. As her looks faded with time she became more ‘creative’ in the way customers were entertained – you can read more detail in her Wikipedia entry. She made enough money to set up her own brothel and died (of syphilis) a wealthy woman around 1668.
I have found a great 17th century ballad about the area and placed it at the end of the blog.
Whilst walking up from Beech Street to visit Priss’s little plaque I was struck by the extraordinary variety and quality of the street art, much of it a legacy of Whitecross Street parties.
The one that always catches my eye is this mural by Conor Harrington, an Irish artist living and working in London …
It was created in 2012
Beneath it and to the left is one of my favourites, the cherubs assembling a bazooka …
Stencil work by DS Art
Paul Don Smith is a prolific artist and I have come across a lot of his work around Brick Lane. Here are two of his Whitecross Street offerings …
You can also catch a glimpse of his work here, the lady on the side of the street furniture on the left …
I think the figure on the door with the party hat is a homage to Jean-Michel Basquiat
And I always smile when I see the installation by the Italian artists Urban Solid below the window of the Curious Duke Gallery …
And what about this rather rude representation of someone taking a selfie …
Referring back to Priss and the days when much of this part of London was a centre of prostitution, I would like to end with this from the Roxburghe Ballad collection …
In Whitecross Street and Golden Lane Do strapping lasses dwell, And so there do in every street ‘Twixt that and Clerkenwell. At Cowcross and at Smithfield I have much pleasure found, Where wenches like to fairies Did often trace the ground.
If you haven’t yet visited the Guildhall Art Gallery I do strongly recommend it (EC2V 5AE). Established in 1886 it contains works dating from 1670 to the present. A visitor described it as ‘free and fabulous’ and I wholeheartedly agree.
Here is one of my favourite pictures, William Logsdail’s painting entitled The Ninth of November 1888 …
It is, of course, the Lord Mayor’s procession, but in this picture he is nowhere to be seen and the artist has concentrated on the liveried beadles (who he actually painted in his studio)…
… and the people in the crowd …
There is a minstrel in blackface with his banjo and, although I have studied this picture dozens of times, I have only just noticed the little boy next to him nicking an orange from the old lady’s basket. On the right of the picture the man in the brown hat, next to the soldier with the very pale face, is Logsdail’s friend the painter Sir James Whitehead. It’s a sobering thought that, not far away in the East End that afternoon, police were discovering the body of Mary Kelly, believed to be the last of Jack the Ripper’s victims.
Up the stairs at the far end of the gallery, in a space specially designed for it, you look down on the action-packed painting by John Singleton Copley: Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar1782 …
A Spanish attack on Gibraltar was foiled when the Spanish battering ships, also known as floating batteries, were attacked by the British using shot heated up to red hot temperatures (sailors nicknamed them ‘hot potatoes’). Fire spread among the Spanish vessels and, as the battle turned in Britain’s favour, an officer called Roger Curtis set out with gunboats on a brave rescue mission which saved almost 350 people.
Look at the painstaking detail in the faces of the officers and Governor General Augustus Eliot, who is portrayed riding to the edge of the battlements to direct the rescue …
The officers were dispersed after the Gibraltar action and poor Copley had to travel all over Europe to track them down and paint them – a task that took him seven years at considerable expense. He recouped some of his cash in 1791 by exhibiting the picture in a tent in Green Park and charging people a shilling to see it (about £10 in today’s value).
Here is a facsimile of an admission ticket …
And now some more contemporary pieces of art.
In the entrance hall to the London Mithraeum at 12 Walbrook (EC4N 8AA) your eyes are drawn immediately to this stunning tapestry by Isabel Nolan: Another View from Nowhen …
You can just pop in to look at the tapestry but I hope you will also book a time slot to go downstairs and visit the beautifully restored and exhibited Temple of Mithras. You can read all about it and see some pictures in my blog The Romans in London: Mithras, Walbrook and the Games.
In September 2017 Banksy paid a clandestine visit to the City to coincide with a retrospective of the work of American graffiti artist-turned-painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. The first work, a Ferris wheel with people queuing for tickets, is captioned as follows on Banksy’s website:
Major new Basquiat opens at the Barbican – a place that is normally very keen to clean any graffiti from its walls …
The three-pointed crown is a symbol often used in the artist’s own work.
The painting on the other side of the road references a Basquiat picture showing a New Yorker being searched by the police …
Steps have been taken to protect both paintings and you can see them at the junction of Beech Street and Golden Lane (EC1Y 0QT).
And finally, I often smile as I walk along Whitecross Street and see this jolly illustration of the street’s shops portrayed on street furniture …
… along with this cheerful picture inviting you to nip around the corner and dine at the lovely, friendly Baracca Restaurant, highly recommended …
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