Walking the City of London

Category: Memorials Page 2 of 34

A very important date – and some favourite buildings and memorials.

An important date for your diary! This Saturday, 5th October, at 11:30 a.m. I will be interviewed by Robert Elms on his BBC Radio London show. We’ll be chatting about my book Courage, Crime and Charity in the City of London and I hope you will be able to join us.

On a sunny day last week I took a walk towards Holborn and picked out a few buildings and memorials that I really liked.

First up is the Wax Chandlers Hall …

Wax Chandlers’ Hall is on Gresham Street on a site that the Company has owned since 1501. It has a long and fascinating history stretching all the way back to 1371 when they applied to the City’s governing body, the Mayor and Court of Aldermen, to have officials appointed from among their number (masters) to ‘overse all the defaults in theyre saide crafte’, and see that offenders were prosecuted. Their history is really well documented on their website.

Surely the bluest door in the City with the finest unicorns …

On the next corner is the building with the rogue apostrophe and the happy smiling sun…

Surely that should be St Martin’s House?

So many fine buildings date from the late 19th and very early 20th century …

The General Post Office in St. Martin’s Le Grand was the main post office for London between 1829 and 1910, the headquarters of the General Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and England’s first purpose-built post office …

Poor Henry Cecil Raikes, who laid this stone, died in August the following year aged only 52. Here he is in a Vanity Fair caricature when he was Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons …

Parallel is King Edward Street where the man himself laid this stone on 16th October 1905 …

The great British Empire is duly acknowledged along with the King’s connection to an earlier Edward and the foundation of Christ’s Hospital.

It’s commemorated again nearby with this sculpture, the ragamuffins on the right being carefully coaxed towards a better life …

To me they look like they are having a fine time just as they are, perhaps letting it all hang out at a concert …

Is it my imagination or does the kid on the left look like the late Anthony Armstrong Jones

On Newgate Street another building connected to the Post Office …

This imposing building is at 16/17 Old Bailey. The London Picture Archive tells us: The seven-storey building was designed for the Chatham and Dover Railway Company by Arthur Usher of Yetts, Sturdy and Usher of London in 1912. The building is in the Edwardian baroque style with elements of french architectural styles such as the mansard roof … …

Above the entrance is a broken pediment with statues either side depicting travel. The statue of the woman on the left holds a wheel depicting rail travel and the woman on the right leans on an anchor depicting sea travel. At the bottom of brackets on the two piers either side of the entrance are small carved lion heads …

Across the road, outside the church of St Sepulchre Newgate, is this modest little drinking fountain which has an intriguing history …

Read all about it in my blog Philanthropic Fountains.

Look up towards the roof of the church and you’ll see a late 17th Century sundial …

The dial is on the parapet above south wall of the nave and is believed to date from 1681. It is made of stone painted blue and white with noon marked by an engraved ‘X’ and dots marking the half hours. It shows Winter time from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm in 15 minute marks. I thought it was curious that the 4:00 pm mark is represented as IIII rather than IV – I have no idea why

There is demolition going on in the approach to Holborn Viaduct and I couldn’t resist taking this image of what looks like a building that has been sliced away revealing the vestiges of decoration left on each floor …

I find it reminiscent of the ruined houses on bomb sites that used to be a common feature of London right up to the early 1970s.

Holborn Viaduct dragons and a knight in armour …

As Prince Albert doffs his hat towards the City of London, a terracotta masterpiece looms in the background …

Before walking towards it I made a quick detour to St Andrew Holborn to admire the Charity Boy and Girl …

… and the extraordinary Resurrection Stone …

You can read more about it here in the excellent Flickering Lamps blog .

Pausing at the junction with Grays Inn Road, and looking back east, you will see that you are at one of the entrances to the City guarded by a dragon …

In the background is the Royal Fusiliers War Memorial, a work by Albert Toft. Unveiled by the Lord Mayor in 1922, the inscriptions read …

To the glorious memory of the 22,000 Royal Fusiliers who fell in the Great War 1914-1919 (and added later) To the Royal Fusiliers who fell in the World war 1939-1945 and those fusiliers killed in subsequent campaigns.

Toft’s soldier stands confidently as he surveys the terrain, his foot resting on a rock, his rifle bayoneted, his left hand clenched in determination. At the boundary of the City, he looks defiantly towards Westminster. The general consensus on the internet is that the model for the sculpture was a Sergeant Cox, who served throughout the First World War.

Behind him is the magnificent, red terracotta, Gothic-style building by J.W. Waterhouse, which once housed the headquarters of the Prudential Insurance Company.

As is often the case, I am indebted to the London Inheritance blogger for some of the detail about this extraordinary building . The Prudential moved into their new office in 1879, which was quite an achievement given that the company had only been founded 31 years earlier in 1848. The building exudes Victorian commercial power and was a statement building for the company that was at the time the country’s largest insurance company …

The lower part of the building uses polished granite, with red brick and red terracotta across all upper floors. If you stare at the building long enough the use of polished granite gives the impression that there has been a large flood along Holborn, which has left a tide mark on the building after washing out the red colour from the lower floors.

In the centre of the façade is a tower, with a large arch leading through into inner courtyards around which are further wings of the building …

It incorporates a sculpture of Prudence carrying one of the attributes of this Virtue, a hand mirror …

When built, the Prudential building was very advanced for its time. There was hot and cold running water, electric lighting, and to speed the delivery of paperwork across the site, a pnematic tube system was installed, where documents were put into canisters, which were then blown through the tube system to their destination. Ladies were provided with their own restaurant and library, and had a separate entrance, and were also allowed to leave 15 minutes early to “avoid consorting with men”.

The building’s brickwork is very attractive …

In the courtyard you will see the work of a sculptor who has chosen to illustrate war in a very different fashion to Toft.

The memorial carries the names of the 786 Prudential employees who lost their lives in the First World War …

The sculptor was F.V. Blundstone and the work was inaugurated on 2 March 1922. All Prudential employees had been offered ‘the opportunity of taking a personal share in the tribute by subscribing to the cost of the memorial’ (suggested donations were between one and five shillings).

The main group represents a soldier sustained in his death agony by two angels. He is lying amidst war detritus with his right arm resting on the wheel of some wrecked artillery piece. His careworn face contrasts with that of the sombre, beautiful girls with their uplifted wings. I find it incredibly moving.

I have written about angels in the City before and they are usually asexual, but these are clearly female.

At the four corners of the pedestal stand four more female figures.

One holds a field gun and represents the army …

One holds a boat representing the navy …

At the back is a figure holding a shell representing National Service …

The fourth lady holds a bi-plane representing the air force …

There are also two memorial plaques to employes who died in the Second World War. The north panel lists names A-K, the second K-Z. Each is topped with a broken pediment set around a wreath, with a figure of St George on top …

All those lost lives from just one employer.

I shall probably continue my walk westwards next week.

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Bunhill Burial Ground.

I love visiting Bunhill. It has an atmosphere like nowhere else I visit in London with the possible exception of Highgate Cemetery.

The east entrance …

Around 123,000 people are interred here, among them the poet and mystic William Blake. Everyone is familiar with the great anthem Jerusalem but I also love his poem Auguries of Innocence:

To see the world in a grain of sand/And heaven in a wild flower/Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour/A Robin Red breast in a Cage/Puts all Heaven in a Rage/A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons/Shudders Hell thr’ all its regions

He died in poverty and obscurity and it took 14 years of research in order to identify the exact spot where he was buried. The grave is now marked with a splendid stone funded by the Blake Society

There are other famous folk commemorated here.

John Bunyan’s tomb of 1689 is not quite what it seems since the effigy of the great man and the bas-reliefs (inspired by Pilgrim’s Progress) were only added in 1862 when the tomb was restored …

A preacher who spent over a decade in jail for his beliefs, he holds the bible in his left hand. He started the Christian allegory Pilgrim’s Progress whilst imprisoned and it became one of the most published works in the English language.

Bunhill is a nice place for a quiet spot of lunch …

Turn your back on Bunyan’s tomb and you will be facing the obelisk erected in 1870 to commemorate the 1731 burial of Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe. The monument was funded by an appeal to boys and girls by the weekly newspaper Christian World who were invited to give ‘not less than sixpence’ …

My favourite tombstone …

Somehow it has fared remarkably well against the elements, pigeons and city pollution.

Many have not …

But some inscriptions survive. I was very taken with this marker for the grave of Reverend Joseph Cartwright who died on 5th November 1800 at the age of 72 …

It seems to me that he composed the poem engraved on the stone himself (sadly the last few lines are obliterated). Here it is …

What if death may sleep provide/Should I be of death afraid/What if beams of opening day/Shine around my breathless clay/Tender friends a while may mourn/Me from their embraces torn/Dearer better friends I have/In the realm beneath the grave.

Many memorials bear witnes to the high degree of infant mortality …

The tomb of Reverend Theophilus Lindsey

Interred with him and his wife is a lady who can’t resist referring to her connection to the ‘Illustrious House of Percy’ …

Popular styles include pyramids …

… ancient Egypt …

… and obelisks, of which this is a particularly fine example …

The inscription is in Welsh and marks the tomb of the Calvinistic Methodist minister, poet and Bible commentator James Hughes. Also inscribed is his Bardic name Iago Trichrug.

Some atmospheric images …

No visit would be complete without saying ‘hello’ to Dame Mary Page and recognising and admiring her fortitude, which she insisted on being recorded in stone on her memorial …

You’ll find more about Dame Mary and other fascinating people in my book Courage, Crime and Charity in the City of London. Only £10! Just click on the link or pop in to the Daunt bookshop in Cheapside or Marylebone High Street.

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Sculpture in the City (and a few words about Thomas Bayes).

The Sculpture in the City project is always worth a visit, which is what I did last week. I have also added some other pieces that caught my eye.

First up is this one entitled Temple by Richard Mackness. It’s on the corner of Bishopsgate and Wormwood Street, EC2M 3XD…

‘In this object, questions of belief and value weave with consumer culture and the human need to find meaning and to belong’. You can read a fuller description here.

This one has been around since last year but I’m including it again because I like its location. It’s called Muamba Grove, 0 Hue 1 and 2 by Vanessa da Silva and can be found at St Botolph-without- Bishopsgate Churchyard, EC2M 3TL …

‘The artist’s process offers an indication of the inseparable link between the body and the sculpture – the artist’s own body becomes entwined within the making of the forms. Da Silva’s use of colour and carefully considered scale contributes to the sense of dynamic and fluid movement’. You can read more here.

If you visit the churchyard look out for St. Botolph’s Hall, once used as an infants’ school, but now a multipurpose church hall available for hire. At its front entrance is a pair of Coade Stone figures of a schoolboy and girl in early nineteenth century costumes …

In the foreground is the large tomb of Sir William Rawlins, Sherriff of London in 1801 and a benefactor of the church …

This is Book of Boredom by Ida Ekblad. It’s at Undershaft, EC2N 4AJ (in front of Crosby Square) …

‘Conveying a rich sense of abundance and corporality, this painted bronze sculpture presents a vibrant composition filled with fragmented, angular patterns and shapes, merging elements of figuration and abstraction’. You can read more here.

This is Untitled by Arturo Herrara at the base of the Leadenhall Building EC3V 4AB …

Untitled reflects the dynamic movement of people using the space and the mechanic stairs. Both designs energise the area under the stairs with an all over composition that mimics the traffic and activity of this large urban space in the City’.

I caught my first glimpse of these creatures, called Secret Sentinels, as I turned from St Mary Axe into Bevis Marks (EC3A 8BE). They made me smile, which is a good start! …

They were created by Clare Burnett

Secret Sentinels is a family of sculptures made from found objects and materials and covered in glass tiles. The sculptures are inspired by how we balance privacy against convenience in relation to state and private surveillance. The protrusions from each piece gently reference the surrounding, ubiquitous cameras in the City security systems, doorbells, phones and computers’. You can read more here.

Here are the other things that caught my eye during my walk that are not part of the Sculpture in the City project.

Infinite Accumulation by Yayoi Kusama is an extraordinary sculpture on the pavement outside the Liverpool Street Elizabeth Line station entrance …

Another work now on permanent display is outside Moorgate Station and was created by the British artist Conrad Shawcross RA. It’s called Manifold (Major Third) 5:4 and was installed late last year as the penultimate artwork for the Crossrail project. According to a sign close to the art, ‘this vast bronze sculpture is an expression of a chord falling into silence’ …

You can read more here.

The open space at Citypoint is currently a temporary home to Squiggle

Moving away from sculpture, I like the coloured glass deployed around 22 Bishopsgate …

Thomas Bayes (circa 1701-1761) has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons due to the sudden sinking of the yacht named after him and the tragic loss of seven lives. You can read the BBC news report here.

I thought you might be interested to know that Bayes is buried in a family grave in Bunhill Fields Burial Ground. It can be easily seen from the paths but the inscriptions are rather indistinct (despite restoration in 1969 funded by statisticians worldwide) …

In the vault are laid members of the Bayes, Cotton and West families.

The inscription on the east side of the tomb (Wikimedia Commons)…

On the top of the tomb is inscribed: Rev. Thomas Bayes, Son of the said Joshua and Ann Bayes (59).

The west side, Miss Decima Cotton who died on 12 April 1795 …

Born in Hertfordshire, Bayes studied at Edinburgh University and began his preaching career in that city; he later assisted at his father’s meeting-house on Leather Lane in Holborn before being appointed Presbyterian minister to the Little Mount Sion meeting-house at Tunbridge Wells in 1731, which post he occupied until his retirement 20 years later. During his lifetime Bayes published nothing under his own name, although he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1742, perhaps on the basis of an influential defence of Newtonian mathematics published anonymously in 1734. His fame rests chiefly upon his mathematical ‘Essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances’, published posthumously in 1764; this adumbrates the highly influential ‘Bayesian’ approach to probability theory, as well as containing the famous ‘Bayes’ Theorem’, still widely used in statistics and information technology.

I was fascinated to find out that, armed with powerful computers to handle the data, American security experts use Bayesian inference to prioritise potential threats to the nation. You can read more here.

I found this image of the grave after restoration in 1969 …

I think it’s time to get the scrubbing brush out again!

On a more cheerful note, about 200 yards away is this building …

Concerned about Sir John Cass’s connection with the slave trade, the Business School that bore his name decided to rebrand themselves and, in an online poll, ‘Bayes Business School’ was the winning suggestion. I think it’s nice that his final resting place is so nearby!

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