Category: Gardens Page 8 of 15

A couple of great surprises – exploring alleys and courts.

By The City Gent

On 12th August 2021

In Architecture, Business signs, Gardens, Sculpture

Where do you think this pretty marble fountain is located?

And Italian piazza? A rather posh park? A country house garden?

A little boy holds a goose’s neck from whose mouth water would flow if the fountain was working …

The big surprise about its location is apparent when you gaze upwards …

*Looming over you is the 600ft Tower 42, previously the NatWest Tower*.

This is Adam’s Court and you gain entrance from either Old Broad Street or Threadneedle Street. This is the entrance from the former …

The elegant clock above the entrance is supported by two fishes. Unfortunately it’s not working and the glass has got rather grubby …

Shortly after entering you will see these attractive wrought iron gates bearing the initials NPBE and the date 1833. The initials refer to the National Provincial Bank of England which was founded in that year …

Further on is a totally unexpected green open space (alongside which is the little boy’s fountain) …

If you carry on and exit on to Threadneedle Street and look back you will see another set of ornate gates …

These are 19th-century, and were originally for the Oriental Bank. The grand building with the arch in the background was also part of the Bank, but the building was later taken over by the neighbouring National Provincial Bank, and their monogram added.

Look at the spandrels above the window … …

Two men are holding the reins of two camels.

Across the road from Adam’s Court on Old Broad Street is the enticing entrance to Austin Friars …

Before you cross the road, look right and admire the old City of London Police call box which has retained its flashing light indicating a caller was in need of help …

Walking through Austin Friars you pass a studious monk, writing in a book with his quill pen …

Eventually in front of you is the tucked away entrance to the atmospheric Austin Friars Passage, where I came across my next big surprise …

Almost at the end I encountered an extraordinary sight, a bulging, sagging wall that was clearly very old …

Up high is a parish marker for All Hallows-on-the-Wall, dating to 1853 …

But the wall looks even older and, sure enough, standing in the alcove that leads to the other side and looking up, I saw this …

Another parish marker dating from 1715 – from the since-demolished church of St Peter le Poer. What a miracle that this old wall (which is not listed) has survived for over 3oo years as new buildings have sprung up all around it.

Look up and you’ll see that one of those buildings has a particularly scary fire escape. I wouldn’t fancy running down that in a panic …

As you leave you can admire the charming ghost sign for Pater & Co …

The company was run by Arthur Long and Edgar John Blackburn Pater and traded from the 1860s to 1923 when Long retired and Pater continued on his own.

As is often the case I am indebted to the excellent Ian Visits blog for some of my background information. Here are links to Ian’s comments on Adam’s Court and Austin Friars Passage.

My earlier blogs on courtyards and alleys can be found here and here.

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Another visit to Southwark … ‘The outcast dead’.

By The City Gent

On 24th June 2021

In Architecture, Gardens, Memorials

After admiring the magnificent memorials in Southwark Cathedral, I wanted to visit the Cross Bones Graveyard Garden, which has a very different story to tell. It can be found at the junction of Redcross Way and Union Street (SE1 1SD) …

I also wanted to mark the connection between it and the remains of the Bishop of Winchester’s palace on Clink Street (SE1 9DN) …

A plaque outside the garden gives a very brief history …

I found it a very moving place, even though the garden was closed when I visited. I caught a glimpse of several little shrines through the memorial ribbons and other tributes attached to the fence …

Some excavation work by Museum of London archaeologists in the 1990s resulted in the removal of 148 skeletons, over 60% of whom were children under five years of age. Overall it’s estimated that as many as 15,000 souls were buried here until the cemetery was closed in 1853 being ‘completely overcharged with dead’ and ‘inconsistent with due regard for the public health and public decency’.

So what was the connection with the Bishop of Winchester?

As the plaque tells us, in the late medieval period, the local prostitutes were known as ‘Winchester Geese’. They were not licensed by the City of London or Surrey authorities, but by the Bishop of Winchester who owned the surrounding lands, hence their namesake. The earliest known reference to the Graveyard was by John Stow in his Survey of London in 1598 …

I have heard ancient men of good credit report, that these single women were forbidden the rights of the Church, so long as they continued that sinful life, and were excluded from Christian burial, if they were not reconciled before their death. And therefore there was a plot of ground, called the single woman’s churchyard, appointed for them, far from the parish church.

Stow comments that their churchyard was ‘far from the parish church’. That church, St Saviour’s, became Southwark Cathedral in 1905 and you can just see the top of its tower on the right in my first photo above. Far indeed.

You can read more about Cross Bones here.

I just had to visit nearby Ayres Street (SE1 1ES) …

It is named after a brave girl who is also commemorated in the Watts Memorial in Postman’s Park …

The picture above shows Alice Ayres as portrayed by the Illustrated London News in 1885 (Copyright the British Library Board). Her commemorative plaque reads as follows and was the first to be installed …

It was 25-year-old Alice’s brave act that prompted Watts to write to the Times newspaper and suggest the creation of a memorial

That would celebrate the sacrifices made by ‘likely to be forgotten heroes’ by collecting ‘…a complete record of the stories of heroism in every-day life’.

Alice threw down a mattress from a burning building and successfully used it to rescue three children …

From The Illustrated Police News 2nd May 1885 Copyright, The British Library Board.

Alice eventually jumped herself but received terrible injuries and died two days later. Incidentally, if her name rings a bell with you it could be because, in the 2004 film Closer, one of the characters, Jane Jones, sees Alice’s memorial and decides to adopt her name.

This imposing building at 47 Union Street dating from 1907 was once known as the ‘Ragged School’, a charity set up to help disadvantaged children (SE1 1SG) …

According to the London Remembers blog, ‘the Work Girls Protection Society was founded in 1875 and began with premises in New Kent Road. It was renamed the St Mary’s Girls’ Club. In 1899 the Club lost the New Kent Road site so they acquired a lease at 85 Union Street, a former tin plate works. They then raised funds, bought the site to the left of the Mission site, and constructed a building there. In 1930 the Girl’s Club merged with the Acland Club to form the co-ed St Mary’s and Acland Club’ …

I couldn’t find out any more about this club and have no idea why the bottom part of the poster has been concealed.

I headed for Southwark Street and wandered east to Borough High Street, adding this ghost sign to my collection along the way …

This building, John Harvard House, caught my eye since its narrowness seems to reflect medieval building plot dimensions …

John Harvard was born in Southwark in 1607 and was baptized in St Saviour’s Church, the present Southwark Cathedral. His mother, Katherine, owned the Queen’s Head Inn, which stood on this site, and left it to John when she died in 1636. In the spring of the following year John and his wife made the voyage to Massachusetts and arrived at Charlestown. John died there of tuberculosis in 1638 and bequeathed to the recently established local college half his fortune and the whole of his library of about 400 books. In 1639 it was renamed Harvard College, first calling itself a university in 1780. John Harvard is commemorated in Southwark today by a library in Borough High Street and by a chapel in the cathedral.

I always enjoy exploring alleys and I investigated two that run off the High Street.

In Chapel Court I came across this building …

The building itself didn’t look all that old but some of the timbers used in its construction did …

One source states that they came from a very old building that was demolished in Essex and were then utilised here in the 1980s.

And finally, Mermaid Court has a fine collection of old bollards …

I really enjoyed my trips south of the River – might even go back again one day!

Incidentally, by way of local news, Mrs Duck was showing off her little family last week. Ahhhh!

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Heroes, Hops and Housing. A short wander around Southwark.

By The City Gent

On 10th June 2021

In Architecture, Commerce, Gardens, Memorials, Philanthropy, Sculpture

For an expression of grim determination, it would be hard to beat the look on this man’s face …

This is the St Saviour’s War Memorial on Borough High Street, in the former parish of Southwark St Saviour (SE1 1NL). St Saviour’s Church became Southwark Cathedral in 1905 …

An infantryman in battledress advances resolutely through thick mud. He carries a rifle with bayonet attached slung over his shoulder …

Beneath his feet is a Portland Stone pedestal depicting St George doing battle with a dragon.

On the opposite side there is a carving of a mourning woman. Her child is reaching out to a dove …

On the pedestal’s long sides are bronze reliefs.

One with biplanes, to the west …

… and another with battleships, to the east.

The memorial’s sculptor was Philip Lindsey Clark (1889-1977). Having joined up with the Artists’ Rifles in 1914, he had distinguished himself in the First World War having been awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for ‘ … conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in command of the left flank of the Company of the Battalion’. Despite being severely wounded, he had fought on until relieved two days later. In 1926 he created the Bakers of Widegate Street, details of which can be found in my blog On the Tiles again.

The story of the Artists’ Rifles is a fascinating one, it came as a surprise to me that they had one of the highest casualty rates of the First World War. Click here to read a short History of the Regiment (and watch the last scene from Blackadder – ‘Good luck everyone‘).

Walking along Southwark Street, I came across this magnificent, gently curving building called The Hop Exchange (SE1 1TY) …

This area in Southwark was where the hops from the southern counties, and especially from Kent, were brought to after the autumn picking. After picking, the hops were dried in the oast houses and then packed into large compressed sacks of 6 by 2 feet, called ‘pockets’. These pockets were then transported to Southwark, first by horse and cart, but later by train …

The Hop Exchange was built in 1867 …

You can see the hop pickers at work in the carving contained in the pediment …

Up to the 1960s, many of the poorer London families went to the hop gardens each September for a working-holiday. Not just for the fresh air, but to supplement their all too meagre income …

At 67 Borough High Street you can find the former offices of the hop merchants, or factors as they were usually called, W.H. and H. Le May (SE1 1NF). It is a Grade II listed building with a spectacular frieze on the front depicting hop gatherers and proudly displaying the firm’s name. One may easily assume that the building is constructed of red sandstone, but according to the description on the British Listed Buildings site, it is ‘just’ coloured stucco …

A rather romanticized view of picking …

I am indebted to the London Details blog for much of my research. You can read two of the posts here and here.

These flats, Cromwell Buildings in Redcross Street (SE1 9HR), were constructed in 1864 by Sir Sydney Waterlow, founder of the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, and were modelled after a pair of houses designed by the Prince Regent for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Waterlow set the company up in 1863 with capital of £50,000 and by 1900 it was said to be housing some 30,000 London people …

If you ever find yourself in Highgate, do visit the beautiful Waterlow Park (N6 5HD). It covers 26 acres and was given to the public by Sir Sydney as ‘a garden for the gardenless’ in 1889. Seek out this statue of the great man – it’s the only statue I have ever come across of a man carrying an umbrella. In his left hand you will see he is handing over the key to the garden gates …

The Friends of Waterlow Park have produced this useful map. If you have time, I strongly recommend a visit to the nearby Highgate Cemetery …

Back in Southwark, if you’re feeling thirsty and a bit peckish treat yourself with a visit to the George Inn, the only surviving galleried coaching inn in London (SE1 1NH) …

When I popped in to take a photo this made me smile …

I’ll visit Southwark again when I also go back to the Cathedral.

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