I was a hospital in-patient recently and fortunately ended up at one of the best hospitals in the world, St Thomas’ in Lambeth (or ‘Tommy’s’ as us alumni call it) where the standard of care was outstanding. I’m pleased to say I’m fine now, thank you for asking.
One of the most extraordinary features of the place is the view from some of the wards. Here’s what I could see if I just stepped out of bed …
When I went back last week for a follow-up appointment I did a bit of exploration and was astonished and delighted at what I found.
I headed for the oldest part of the hospital and on my way, in the South Wing corridor, I came across these lovely tiles …
Created by the Royal Doulton Lambeth factory, they and others originally covered the walls of two of St Thomas’ childrens wards, Lilian and Seymour, which were opened in 1901 and 1903 respectively. Hygiene was a factor in the tiling decision but also, of course, the aim to give pleasure and amusement to the young patients. Here they are illustrated on two postcards …
In the Great Hall are commemorated important people who had a connection with the hospital …
She saw her 10 years as matron of St Thomas’s and superintendent of the Nightingale training school from 1955-65 as a time of great social change and was eager to relax the strict rules which she believed had governed nurses’ lives for too long. Encounters with Theodora Turner were seldom forgotten … Former students and nursing colleagues remember her sense of duty and discipline, her kindness and humour. The latter is, perhaps, most neatly encapsulated in her belief that her pet mynah bird, presented to her by sailors when working at Liverpool Royal Infirmary, was a foolproof burglar alarm because of its ability to mimic her laugh.
No prizes for guessing who this lady is …
Florence Nightingale greatly influenced the design of the new 1872 St Thomas’ Hospital with its innovative ‘pavilion style’ of seven large separate buildings connected by walkways. She recognized the importance of design for improving hygiene and health, and made careful calculations regarding dimensions and efficient use of space in hospitals. Nightingale proposed full-height windows at specified intervals in the wards, with the beds set between to encourage ventilation and allow air to circulate without creating drafts. She stipulated that clean and dirty areas should be separate so food and clean linen were stored at the ward entry with washing and sanitary facilities at the other end.
I saw this entrance and had to go and nose around …
Up the impressive staircase, which I presume dates from the 1870s …
A modern stained glass treat at the top …
I peeped into the dining room …
Above the staircase …
The Duke of Connaught (1850-1942) …
He was president from 1882 to 1932.
Back on the ground floor …
Truly Imperial (and maybe a bit imperious) …
Edward VI was the son of Henry VIII and his third queen, Jane Seymour. Born on 12 October 1537, he succeed his father at the age of nine in 1547 but never attained his majority, dying aged 15 in 1553. During the Reformation St Thomas’, as a religious foundation, was deprived of its revenues and estates and was closed in 1540. In 1551, Edward granted a charter for the hospital’s refounding which is why he’s commemorated here …
More beautiful stained glass on the way out …
I love the frog …
Outside the main entrance you’ll find this sculpture Cross the Divide by Rick Kirby (2000) …
There’s also this striking sculpture of Mary Seacole …
I thought you might like to know that plans are afoot to substantially redevelop Liverpool Street Station. You can read more about them here and here.
Liverpool Street is the UK’s third busiest station after Victoria and Waterloo. This will no doubt come as no surprise to those of you who battle your way through here every day in the rush hours. However, maybe I can persuade you to spend a little time exploring the station and its surroundings since it does have some really fascinating aspects to it.
Next to the station eastern entrance is a Wetherspoons in a building called Hamilton Hall. It is named after Lord Claud Hamilton, chairman of the Great Eastern Railway Company (1893–1923), and is the former ballroom of the old Great Eastern Hotel. Pop in for a drink and cast your eyes upwards …
The bar area.
Yes, the original ballroom decorations are still there, and you can get an even closer look if you go upstairs …
At least one source states that the design was copied directly from the Palais Soubise in Paris in 1901. Opulent is the word that springs to mind.
Named after the British Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, Liverpool Street was the Great Eastern Railway’s London Terminus with the first suburban trains departing in 1874.The Great Eastern, and its successor the London & North Eastern Railway, concentrated on developing and increasing its suburban steam services, a business model that continued until steam was withdrawn in the 1960s. Under its modernisation plan, British Railways electrified all suburban services running form Liverpool Street station, and all steam had been replaced by diesel locomotives by the end of 1962.
The days of steam.
Someone once described it as a ‘Dark Cathedral’.
A plan to demolish the station, and its neighbour Broad Street, was first put forward in 1975 but fierce opposition meant a compromise had to be reached. Eventually, only Broad Street was demolished (in 1986) and Liverpool Street developed more sympathetically.
Nicely preserved are traces of a time when astonishing care was taken with what people would see on starting and finishing their journey.
What about these lovely reliefs sculpted in brick against the back wall of the Great Eastern Hotel …
A steam train …
One of the Great Eastern Railway’s own ships …
And a fireman, or stoker …
The western entrance towers hold a clock and the old railway emblems …
Just outside the entrance is the Kindertransport commemorative statue …
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.
The station contains a number of other poignant memorials. The inscription above the largest one reads:
To the glory of God and in grateful memory of the Great Eastern Railway staff who in response to the call of their King and Country, sacrificed their lives during the Great War.
There are over 1,100 names.
There are two plaques below the main memorial …
Wilson was assassinated outside his house in Eaton Place at about 2:20 pm. Still in full uniform, he was shot six times, two bullets in the chest proving fatal. Some newspapers provided a reconstruction …
A French newspaper version showed him with sword drawn but actually he had no time to defend himself …
Sir Henry’s House today …
The two perpetrators, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan, shot two police officers and a chauffeur as they attempted to escape but were surrounded by a hostile crowd and arrested after a struggle …
Interestingly both were former British army officers and O’Sullivan had lost a leg at Ypres, his subsequent disability hindering their escape. After a trial lasting just three hours they were convicted of murder and hanged at Wandsworth gaol on 10 August that year – justice was certainly delivered swiftly in those days. No organisation claimed responsibility for Wilson’s murder. I try in this blog to be as accurate as possible with regard to history and there are numerous opinions as to the background to this event. If you are interested, the online information available is fascinating.
Nearby is this plaque …
The Master of the Great Eastern Railway ship SS Brussels, Fryatt was court martialled for attempting to ram an attacking German submarine and being a franc-tireur (a civilian engaged in hostile military action). Having been found guilty, he was executed almost immediately by firing squad, after a show trial lasting barely two hours, during which he was afforded no proper defence. As happened following the execution of Edith Cavell in 1915, the event caused international outrage, and led to Fryatt’s body being repatriated after the war and given a ceremonial funeral. If you have the chance, read about him online – the story is absolutely fascinating.
This memorial was unveiled in 1920 by the Lord Mayor …
I have been unable to find out anything about The London Society of East Anglians.
The station was built on the site of the old Bethlehem asylum for the mentally ill commonly known as Bedlam. So when trains are totally disrupted and people say ‘it’s Bedlam here’ – once upon a time it really was.
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From where I live I have a nice view of my local church, St Giles Without Cripplegate. This image gives a good impression of where this wonderful old church is located within the strikingly modern Barbican Estate …
I am always pleased to come across old images of the area, particularly those taken in the three decades after the Second World War. I am indebted to the author of the splendid London Inheritance blog for this view from 1947 showing the devastated landscape …
The building on the left is the Red Cross Street Fire Station.
Another image showing nearby destruction …
The following photo taken in the days following the raid on the 29th December 1940 shows the damage to the interior of the church …
Since the walls and tower survived a service was possible with the parishioners able to look straight up to the sky …
The inside of the church today. I was fortunate enough to visit when a lady (on the left in the picture) was practising beautifully on the organ …
Here’s an aerial view from the 1960s and the church now has a roof. The more modern looking building on the right is Roman House which has recently been converted into apartments …
In this 21st century aerial image you can just make out the church’s green roof …
Some monuments remain from the old pre-Blitz building.
There is this touching memorial to a favourite character of mine, Sir William Staines …
And here is the man himself …
Staines had extremely humble beginnings working as a bricklayer’s labourer, but eventually accumulated a large fortune which he generously used for philanthropic purposes. He seemed to recall his own earlier penury when he ensured that the houses he built for ‘aged and indigent’ folk would have ‘nothing to distinguish them from the other dwelling-houses … to denote the poverty of the inhabitant’.
British History Online records an encounter he had with the notorious John Wilkes who referred rather rudely to Staines’ original occupation …
The alderman was an illiterate man, and was a sort of butt amongst his brethren. At one of the Old Bailey dinners, after a sumptuous repast of turtle and venison, Sir William was eating a great quantity of butter with his cheese. “Why, brother,” said Wilkes, “you lay it on witha trowel!”
Incidentally, Wilkes is also commemorated in the the City in Fetter Lane where a striking statue of him honestly portrays his famous squint …
John Milton (1608-1674), the poet and republican, is perhaps the most famous former parishioner of St Giles and his statue stands by the south wall of the church …
It’s made of metal, which means it is one of the few memorials in the church that survived the bombing in the Second World War. It is the work of the sculptor Horace Montford (c1840-1919) and is based on a bust made in about 1654.
He used to be outside and was blasted off his plinth during the bombing …
There is also this commemorative plaque …
And a bust which clearly indicates his later-life blindness …
Milton was buried in the church next to his father, however he was not allowed to rest in peace.
‘A sacrilegious desecration of his remains, we regret to record, took place in 1790 … The disinterment had been agreed upon after a merry meeting at the house of Mr. Fountain, overseer, in Beech Lane, the night before, Mr. Cole, another overseer, and the journeyman of Mr. Ascough, the parish clerk, who was a coffin-maker, assisting’.
Having identified where they thought Milton’s grave was, they dug down almost six feet, found a coffin, and removed the lid. The report goes on …
‘Upon first view of the body, it appeared perfect, and completely enveloped in the shroud, which was of many folds, the ribs standing up regularly. When they disturbed the shroud the ribs fell. Mr. Fountain confessed that he pulled hard at the teeth, which resisted, until some one hit them a knock with a stone, when they easily came out. There were but five in the upper jaw, which were all perfectly sound and white, and all taken by Mr. Fountain. He gave one of them to Mr. Laming. Mr. Laming also took one from the lower jaw; and Mr. Taylor took two from it. Mr. Laming said that he had at one time a mind to bring away the whole under-jaw with the teeth in it; he had it in his hand, but tossed it back again’.
As if that wasn’t undignified enough,’Elizabeth Grant, the gravedigger … now took possession of the coffin; and, as its situation under the common councilmen’s pew would not admit of its being seen without the help of a candle, she kept a tinder-box in the excavation, and, when any persons came, struck a light, and conducted them under the pew; where, by reversing the part of the lid which had been cut, she exhibited the body, at first for sixpence and afterwards for threepence and twopence each person’.
The body was reburied but rumours spread that it wasn’t Milton in the coffin, but a woman. So Milton was dug up a second time and the surgeon in attendance examined the bones — what were left of them — and pronounced them to be masculine. Only then was Milton, at last, allowed to rest only to be permanently obliterated in the bombing.
Notwithstanding the generous memorials to the great and the good, I was captivated by this modest plaque on the south wall …
An attorney at law who obviously believed in brevity. No Latin exhortation of his virtues, no figures of a grieving widow and children, only the important facts and the bald, concluding statement ‘That is all’.
There is a lot more to see at St Giles such as modern stained glass …
And intriguing inscriptions, both inside …
And outside …
But for the moment ‘that is all!’
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I’m having a few IT problems at the moment so I hope you won’t mind if this week I re-publish a previous blog. It’s about my visit to St Botolph’s and I referred to it in my 300th edition last week.
It starts with an image of this distinguished gentleman …
Robert Dow was a Master of the Merchant Taylors and during his life gave away a substantial sum to various charitable establishments. The value of his donations and those receiving the money are listed on his monument …
He lived to the great age of 90 and died in 1612. I love the expression that, when he eventually passed away, he was ‘full of days’. The skull his hands are resting on may be to remind us that we too are mortal, even as we relax and enjoy his company and read of his generosity.
Nearby is an eyecatching brown and cream alabaster monument. It commemorates Lord Darcy and Sir Nicholas Carew, both beheaded on Tower Hill for high treason against Henry VIII in 1537 and 1539 respectively …
The figure is a corpse resting on a bierwith the head thrown back dramatically.
The inscription reads …
Here lyeth Thomas Lord Darcy of the North, and some time of the Order of the Garter. Sir Nicholas Carew Knt. sometime of the Garter. Lady Elizabeth Carew, Daughter to Sir Francis Brian, Knt. And Sir Arthur Darcy Knt. younger Son to the abovenamed Lord Darcy. And Lady Mary his dear Wife, Daughter to Sir Nicholas Carew Knt. who had ten Sons and five Daughters. Here lye Charles, William and Philip, Mary and Ursula, Sons and Daughters to the said Sir Arthur, and Mary his Wife; whose Souls God take to his infinite Mercy. Amen.
More delights await you further inside the church.
This beautifully carved wooden panel depicts King David along with musical instruments …
It was created between 1713 and 1715 to grace the front of an organ gallery in the church of St Mary Matfelon, Whitechapel. When the church was destroyed by bombing on the 27th December 1940 the carving was saved and later restored …
In 1676 Thomas Whiting gifted the organ for the benefit of the ‘hole parrish’ …
The organ was originally built for his house, which must have been a substantial property to say the least.
There is a fine 18th century sword rest …
Sword rests (or stands) were originally installed in City churches to hold the Lord Mayor’s sword of state when he used to visit a different church every Sunday, a practice that ceased in 1888 as congregations fell and people moved to the suburbs.
There is a long eulogy to Benjamin Pratt inscribed on a hanging drape …
He affected to end his days in celibacy and departed this life on the 3rd day of May 1715 … he had just arriv’d at the prime of his age and was then taken from his labours to receive an exceeding great reward.
And now a memorial that positively demanded more research, an inventor who died ‘in want’ in 1831 and was finally commemorated by a Lord Mayor in 1903 …
The full story is fascinating and I can’t do it justice in this short blog. To read more go to the London Inheritance blog which you can find here.
A number of past Lord Mayors are commemorated in stained glass …
Now leave the church and walk around to the north side where a few gravestones have been placed against the wall.
This one contains an intriguing and poignant inscription to a son and his father …
It’s now much worn but, luckily for me, an audit of churchyard inscriptions was made in 1910 and this is what the tombstone tells us …
Sacred to the memory of
THOMAS EBRALL Citizen and Corn Merchant, shot by a Life Guardsman unknown, in the shop of Mr Goodeve, Fenchurch Street, 9 April, 1810 died 17th same month, in his 24th year.
THOMAS EBRALL, his father, died from his loss, 23 August, 1810, aged 48.
‘Died from his loss’, how sad. I have tried to find out more about the incident that resulted in young Mr Ebrall’s death but no luck so far.
The man who conducted the inscription audit at the turn of the last century was one Percy C. Rushen who noticed how they were slowly disappearing due to ‘atmospheric elements’ or ‘sacriligist’ vandalism. Here is a link to his book – my hero!
There is also an unusual water feature resembling a chest tomb …
Now cross the road to the Minories and look back …
The following drawing from 1740 by its builder, George Dance the Elder, shows the church looking exactly the same as it does today …
Incidentally, the church had a narrow escape during the Blitz when a bomb fell straight through the roof but failed to explode. The Blitz was an extraordinary period for the Rector of the day, who slept in the Crypt, surrounded by coffins, and climbed onto the roof during air raids to put out incendiary fires.
To start with I lingered among the street-food stalls that appear every weekday and seem to do a roaring trade now that City workers are back (even though many of them only come in Tuesdays to Thursdays).
My favourite stand …
Lots more to choose from …
Some are award winners!
Spring by Jimmy C – nice to see this mural without cars parked in front of it …
Miaow!
More street art …
One of my favourites ..
Made me smile …
The following words in italics come from the St Luke’s Conservation area document. The images are mine.
Central and pivotal to the conservation area St. Luke’s Church, dating from 1733, designed by John James and Nicholas Hawksmoor, is one of London’s most important churches.
The church is now refurbished as a rehearsal,concert and education centre for the London Symphony Orchestra. The unusual obelisk spire is a major local landmark, with important views downWhitecross Street.
Surrounding the church is the churchyard and burial ground, now a public open space, with fine plane trees, railings and tombs.
Fronting onto these spaces are several important groups of Georgian and Victorian buildings which are of architectural and historic interest and which contribute to the setting of the church.
There is a tomb in the churchyard which is often described as the family tomb of William Caslon (1692-1766) …
He was the first major letter founder in London and, nearly three centuries later, remains the pre-eminent letter founder this country has produced. Before Caslon, there was little letter founding in Britain and most type was imported – even Shakespeare’s First Folio was printed with French type. But Caslon’s achievement was to realise designs and produce type which have been widely used ever since. And it all happened here, around the eastern fringes of the City of London. The Caslon family tomb stood just yards from where William Caslon started his first letter foundry in Helmet Row in 1727.
‘T. B. Reed … wrote that the Caslon tomb was kept in repair by a bequest from Mary Hanbey, daughter of William Caslon I, who died in January 1797. In fact it is clear from her will that the present tomb, which she paid for, replaced the original monument of the Caslon family, and was dedicated to her husband Thomas Hanbey, who had been born in Sheffield and died in 1786. He was a Liveryman of the Ironmongers’ Company and Master of the Company in 1775 …’
In any event, hopefully the remains of the remarkable Mr Caslon are still there somewhere, so I shall keep my tribute to him in this blog.
The church spire was topped by an unusual weather vane depicting the head of a dragon with a fiery comet-like tail. Apparently this was misinterpreted locally as a louse, and by the mid-20th century had gained the church the nickname ‘lousy St Luke’s’ …
Parish Boundary bollard for ‘St Luke’s Middlesex’ …
Walking east along Old street, look up for the Salvation Army ghost sign …
‘Hostel for working men. Cheap beds and food’.
And finally, number 116, now appropriately renamed Stylus, used to be the Margolin Gramophone Company factory …
They manufactured the Dansette record player – a name very familiar to us baby-boomers …
I had a portable one just like this …
Cool!!!
In those days I could pop some of my vinyl collection into a handy little carrying case and take it when visiting friends. And, guess what, I still have it! …
And there are still records in it …
A small sample …It was my mum who liked The Bachelors, honest.
This was a very controversial 1965 hit around the world …
Listen to it and you will see why. It was the time of the Vietnam War and the year when Martin Luther King organised a march from Selma to Birmingham, Alabama, which began on 7 March 1965 with around 600 marchers taking part. When the marchers reached the outskirts of Selma they were attacked by state troopers and local police.
Last week I said I would write more about the man commemorated on this plaque and the terrible event that prompted his bravery …
Here’s the memorial in close up …
It records the death of James Braidwood, Superintendent of the London Fire Brigade and reads : To the memory of James Braidwood, superintendent of the London Fire Brigade, who was killed near this spot in the execution of his duty at the great fire on 22nd June 1861.
The inscription is inside a laurel wreath in front of a burning building. A hose snakes from the building over the top of the wreath and coils up at the bottom right while over at the left rests a fireman’s helmet. The imagery includes a fire engine wheel and an axe.
The words on the flat support read as follows : A just man and one that feared god, of good report among all the nation. Erected by the M. or Southwark Division of the Metropolitan Police. (Beneath the support) S. H. Gardiner, New Kent Road
The quote is from the Bible, Acts 10:22.
James Braidwood (1800–1861) …
If you had been in London on Saturday 22nd June 1861, you may well have been tempted to make your way, with thousands of other sightseers, to watch the Tooley Street Fire burn its way from Cotton’s Wharf, which was eventually destroyed, through to Hay’s and other wharfs and warehouses to Tooley Street shops.
Omnibuses were packed: ‘Men were struggling for places on them, offering three and four times the fare for standing room on the roofs, to cross London Bridge‘ and: ‘...every inch of room on London Bridge was crowded with thousands and thousands of excited faces’. Also reported: “Peripatetic vendors of ginger beer, fruit and other cheap refreshments abounded and were sold out half a dozen times over. Public houses, in defiance of Acts of Parliament kept open all night long, and did a roaring trade‘.
It is estimated some 30,000 spectators came from all over the city. By late evening the fire stretched from London Bridge to Custom House. Properties destroyed included offices, an American steamer, four sailing boats and many barges as ‘..burning oil and tallow poured in cascades from the wharfs and flowed out blazing on the river‘.
The following print from the time gives an impression of the scale and ferocity of the fire. The southern tip of London Bridge can just be seen on the right edge of the print …
The river is full of boats carrying spectators, and I suspect the watermen of the river found it very profitable to give people a close up view of the fire, although this could be dangerous. Look at the larger boat on the left edge of the print. A fire has started onboard and a figure is seen jumping into the river from the vessel.
The fire as viewed from Tooley Street …
There were a number of casualties during the fire. Five men who were in a boat collecting tallow floating on the river were either burnt to death or drowned when their boat caught fire. A number of men working in the area of the warehouses fell into the river and drowned. Those suffering burns were taken to St Thomas’s Hospital, which also included a man who had his neck broken when the chain from a fire boat was caught around his neck.
The memorial in Tooley Street records the name of the most high profile casualty – the Superintendent of the London Fire Brigade Mr James Braidwood. The jury at the inquest heard that he had been in among his fire fighters handing out brandy and encouragement when the wall fell on him, killing him instantly.
The following report details the circumstances of his death:
‘Mr Braidwood, who had visited the men several times, was engaged in giving them some refreshment, when, all of a sudden, a terrific explosion occurred. In an instant it was seen that the whole frontage of the second warehouse was coming down, falling outwards into the avenue. Mr Henderson, the foreman of the southern district of the brigade, who was standing within a few paces of Mr Braidwood, shouted for all to run. The men dropped their hose branches. Two, with Mr Henderson escaped by the front gateway, and the others ran in the opposite direction on to the wharf where they jumped into the river. Mr Braidwood made an effort to follow Mr Henderson, but was struck down by the upper part of the wall, and buried beneath some tons of brickwork. His death must have been instantaneous. Several of his men rushed to extricate him, hopeless as the task was, but another explosion happening, they were compelled to fly. The sad fate of their chief had a most depressing effect upon all, and, to add to their trouble, the conflagration now assumed a most awful ascendancy’.
His funeral procession …
James Braidwood was buried at Abney Park Cemetery on 29 June 1861.
He left a widow and six children. His wife had already suffered a similar bereavement as a son from a previous marriage had died fighting a fire in Blackfriars Road in 1855 and Braidwood was buried next to him. The funeral procession was almost a mile and a half in length and, as well as the London Fire Brigade, there were members of the City and Metropolitan Police forces, members of the remaining private fire-brigades, along with many prominent persons of mid Victorian London.
As a mark of respect, every church in the city rang its bells. The buttons and epaulets from his tunic were removed and were distributed to the firefighters of the The London Fire Engine Establishment.
Braidwood was a truly remarkable man whose thoughts about fire fighting and, most importantly, fire prevention were way ahead of his time. For example, fire spread quickly throughout the warehouses as the iron fire doors, which separated many of the storage rooms, had been left open. It is believed if they had been closed, as recommended by Braidwood, the fire may have burnt out, avoiding disaster.
I have found researching this episode in London’s history to be absolutely fascinating. If you find yourself in Tooley Street, glance up at the memorial to remember the Great Tooley Street Fire and the Superintendent of the London Fire Brigade, Mr James Braidwood.
Here are my sources – I hope you find browsing them interesting :
I wanted to do something special in view of the significance of tomorrow’s date so I will be writing about dramatic events that happened in or near the City during wartime. I also thought it would be appropriate to write again about some of the most moving of the memorials to be found around the City and suggest that this may be nice time to visit them since, for a few weeks now, wreaths, crosses and other tokens of remembrance will still be in place. Some of these stories and pictures have been posted before but I hope you don’t mind.
By coincidence, I have been reading historian Jerry White’s brilliant latest book The Battle of London 1939-45 and I reproduce below a short extract :
In the heavy seven-hour raid that started on Saturday 11 January 1941 and continued into Sunday … a High Explosive bomb burst through the roadway outside the Bank of England and exploded in the booking hall of Bank tube Station. The blast travelled through the top subways and escalators and swept shelterers and passengers off the platforms onto the path of trains pulling in. Fifty-two died … and the bomb left a deep crater blocking the seven-street interchange and three tube lines below …
The City’s highway engineers, supplemented by army sappers, set to work on Sunday morning. Miraculously, and I use that word rarely, the ‘largest crater in London’ was speedily freed from rubble and on 1 February a temporary iron and steel bridge began to inch out from Cornhill to Poultry. It was completed and opened by the Lord Mayor on Monday 3 February …
The station was in use again by 17 March and by May the bridge had been dismantled and the interchange traffic was flowing once more.
Looking north a few weeks ago …
If you look carefully you can still see evidence of the wartime bombing with blast wounds on the wall of the Bank of England on Princes Street …
At 11:30 in the morning on 8th March 1945 Smithfield Market was extremely busy, with long queues formed to buy from a consignment of rabbits that had just been delivered. Many in the queue were women and children. With an explosion that was heard all over London, a V2 rocket landed in a direct hit which also cast victims into railway tunnels beneath – 110 people died and many more were seriously injured …
In the Grand Avenue, Central Markets, Smithfield (EC1A 9PS) is this memorial …
The original commemoration of names (above the red granite plinth) is by G Hawkings & Son and was unveiled on 22 July 1921. 212 people are listed.
Between Fame and Victory holding laurel wreaths, the cartouche at the top reads …
1914-1918 Remember with thanksgiving the true and faithful men who in these years of war went forth from this place for God and the right. The names of those who returned not again are here inscribed to be honoured evermore.
The monument was refurbished in 2004/5 and unveiled on 15 June 2005 by the Princess Royal and Lord Mayor Savory. The red granite plinth had been added and refers to lives lost in ‘conflict since the Great War’. On it mention is made of the women and children although the V2 event is not specifically referred to.
‘Thou hast put all things under his feet, all Sheep and Oxen’.
At the base is the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Butchers who helped to fund the refurbishment, along with the Corporation of London and the Smithfield Market Tenants’ Association.
It’s sometimes forgotten that the civilian population of London was also bombed during the First World War. The market was hit in 1917 by bombs dropped from a Zeppelin – you can still see the shrapnel marks nearby on the walls of St Bartholomew’s Hospital …
Herbert Mason’s famous photograph, taken from the roof of the Daily Mail building, of St Paul’s triumphantly rising above the inferno of smoke and flames below, came to symbolise for Britain and the world an apparently indestructible London …
The Cathedral did not escape totally. It was hit by a bomb which detonated in the North Transept …
Troops start a clean-up nearby …
In the foreground of the Royal Exchange stands London Troops War Memorial …
On either side two soldiers stand at ease, one representing the Royal Fusiliers and the other the Royal Field Artillery …
At the bottom of the list of battalions, two in particular caught my eye, the Cyclists and the Artists Rifles …
I came across this 1912 recruitment poster at the Imperial War Museum. It is poignant to look at this picture with its pretty village setting and then think of the industrial age war and slaughter that was soon to follow …
It was therefore quite a coincidence that, on 9th November 2018, the then Prime Minister Theresa May laid a wreath at the grave of a cyclist …
John Parr was the first UK soldier to be killed in the First World War on 21 August 1914. He was 15 when he signed up in 1912 but claimed to be eighteen years and one month. His comrades nicknamed him ‘Ole Parr’, which suggests that everyone knew he was much younger than he claimed, especially since on joining he was only 5 foot 3 inches tall and weighed just 8.5 stone! This is his grave at St Symphorium Military Cemetery, Mons, Belgium …
Parr was a reconnaissance cyclist in the 4th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment and died on the outskirts of Mons, Belgium. Bicycles were commonly used in the War, not only for troop transport, but also for carrying dispatches. Field telephones were also limited by the need for cables, and ‘wireless’ communications were still unreliable. So cyclists – and runners, motorbike riders, pigeons and dogs – were frequently preferred by both the Allies and the German army. There is an interesting article on the subject by Carlton Reid in Forbes magazine
The story of the Artists’ Rifles is a fascinating one.
The regiment was formed in 1859 by art student Edward Starling. It was a volunteer regiment and formed out of the widespread fear of a French invasion. Many of those who joined were artists, actors, musicians and architects and its first headquarters was located at Burlington House. The First World War would see the regiment literally leading from the front as they become a training regiment for officers in this period. It is also for this reason that the Artists Rifles had one of the highest casualty rates of any regiment.
This painting, Over the Top by John Nash, depicts his regiment in action. On 30th December 1917, the 1st Artists Rifles counter-attacked at Welsh Ridge, south-west of Cambrai. Nash called the action ‘pure murder’ as most of the company were killed. A sergeant, he counted himself lucky to escape the carnage …
Copyright : Imperial War Museum.
During the Great War, 2,003 of the regiment’s men were killed and over 3,000 wounded. Members of the regiment would be awarded eight Victoria Crosses and over 850 other military awards including the Distinguished Service Order (awarded 52 times) and the Military Cross (awarded 822 times). They were also mentioned in dispatches 564 times.
Incidentally, in the very first episode of the fourth series of Blackadder he becomes an artist, believing that this is his chance to escape the trenches. However, it is revealed that the artist’s role is to undertake a highly dangerous job – to draw the enemy’s defences from No Man’s Land.
The last episode of the series is renowned for its moving climax and you can view it here : Good luck everyone.
I also recommend a visit to the Tower Hill Memorial which commemorates men and women of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who died in both World Wars and who have no known grave.
The First World War section commemorates almost 12,000 Mercantile Marine casualties and was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick. It was unveiled by Queen Mary on 12 December 1928 …
The Second World War extension, which commemorates almost 24,000 casualties, was designed by Sir Edward Maufe, with sculpture by Charles Wheeler. It was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on 5 November 1955.
In the background, Neptune (standing on the old Port of London Authority headquarters) points towards the sea …
Within the garden the walls are overlaid with bronze plaques on which the names of the men and their ships are inscribed in relief. At regular intervals, between the inscription panels, are allegorical figures representing the Seven Seas. Here is one of them, Neptune with his trident …
And another, a mermaid combing her hair …
Images from my visit last November …
A few years ago I noticed a small cross resting on one of the allegorical figures, just above the dolphin’s head …
Here it is in close up …
How wonderful. Arthur Myers remembered by a grandchild and two great, great grandchildren. His ship, the Empire Lakeland, was sunk by a U Boat on 11 March 1943.
On 2 April 1982, Argentine forces landed in and captured the Falklands Islands. A task force was dispatched in order to retake the territory and this was accomplished when the occupying forces surrendered on 14 June that year. Nine members of the Merchant Navy and eight members of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary were killed in the conflict and their names are recorded here beneath those of their ships …
There is a Korean War Memorial outside St Sepulchre-without-Newgate Church (EC1A 9DQ) …
The Southwark Cathedral World War I bronze remembrance plaque is beautiful …
Another suggestion for a visit is the National Submarine War Memorial on Victoria Embankment (EC4Y 0HJ). Although able to hide when submerged, once struck the vessels were often unable to rise to the surface and became effectively underwater coffins. In the First World War fifty four boats were lost and with them the lives of 138 officers and 1,225 men. At the inauguration in 1922 Rear Admiral Sinclair, the Chief of the Submarine Service, reminded those present that, during the Great War …
The number of those killed in the Submarine Service was greater in proportion to its size than any other branch of His Majesty’s fighting forces … one third of the total personnel.
In November 1959 new panels commemorating Second World war losses were unveiled by Rear Admiral B W Taylor.
Wright and Moore, writing for the 20th Century Architecture website, describe the memorial as a complex mixture of narrative and symbolism …
Sculptor: F B Hitch Architect: A H R Tenison Founder: E J Parlanti
The central figures recreate the scene set inside the submarine exaggerating it into a small, claustrophobic tunnel. The crew use charts and follow dials, the captain is braced at the centre with the periscope behind his head. Around the vessel a shallow relief depicts an array of sea creatures or mermen appearing to trap and haul the submarine in fishing nets, reminding us that the submarines were as much prey to the tempestuous elements as they were to the enemy.
On both corners are allegorical figures. Next to the list of vessels lost between 1914 and 1918, Truth holds up her mirror. Just further to the left in the picture are two of the 40 bronze wreath hooks in the form of anchors …
On the right, next to the vessels lost in the Second World War, Justice wears a blindfold and as usual holds a sword and scales …
Here is an image from last year’s service …
This is the Memorial at the entrance to the church of St Bartholomew the Great …
Much of the late 19th and early 20th century church restoration work was carried out by Sir Aston Webb (1849-1930) and he also designed the memorial. It includes the name of his son Philip, who was killed in action on 25th September 1916 …
And now to Holborn and this 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. Walk through the entrance arch to the courtyard and you will see the work of a sculptor who has chosen to illustrate war in a very different fashion. The memorial carries the names of the 786 Prudential employees who lost their lives …
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 …
The work is tucked away in the building’s courtyard, Waterhouse Square (EC1N 2SW), and I am sure that most of the thousands of people who walk along Holborn every day have no idea it is there.
St Peter’s Hill runs north alongside the College and at the top you will find the Firefighters Memorial. On its octagonal bronze base are the names of the 997 men and women of the fire service who lost their lives during the conflict. The sculpture features two firemen ‘working a branch’, with their legs spread to take the strain of the hose …
A sub-officer directs others to assist. There are clues to the identity of this figure scattered among the debris at the figures’ feet: the letters CTD for C.T. Demarne. At the unveiling, his colleagues from the fire service claimed that there was no need for such clues. One who was interviewed by the Telegraph stated: ‘You can tell it’s Cyril by the way he’s standing…he always waved his arms about like that when he was ordering us about’.
Officer Demarne in full flow.
By 1943 over 70,00 women had enrolled in the National Fire Service in the United Kingdom. This memorial commemorates those who lost their lives in the London bombings …
The lady on the left is an incident recorder and the one on the right a despatch rider.
Some images from various archives …
Holborn 25 October 1940 …
Ludgate Hill …
King William Street …
Queen Victoria Street …
December 1940 – Cripplegate with the shell of St Giles church in the background …
Inside the church …
St Giles today …
It’s ironic, isn’t it, that some remains of the old Roman and Medieval City walls seen here in the foreground were only completely revealed as a result of the bombing …
Tower 52’s poppy …
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After my brief visit last week I said I’d write about Waterloo Station again.
In 1899 London & South Western Railway (as the London & Southampton had become) sought permission to completely rebuild and expand the existing station which dated from 1848.
The old station …
As the rebuild was drawing to a close, and as a memorial to their staff that died in the First World War, the LSWR commissioned the Victory Arch. It was designed by J R Scott, their chief architect, and this was his vision for it …
Made of Portland stone and bronze it depicts War and Peace, with Britannia holding the torch of liberty above. Leading from Station Approach onto the concourse, the Victory Arch forms the main entrance to Waterloo …
There are 585 names listed alphabetically on four large panels …
The most famous battle of the Napoleonic War, fought on 18th June 1815 after which the station is named, is commemorated on the upper level inside the station. The plaque was erected to acknowledge the battle’s 2ooth anniversary …
Pretty stained glass above what was once a station exit …
Early 20th century architecture meets 21st century retail …
More architectural detail. It would have been very high up and just below the roof in the original station …
Water damage …
Some previous destinations …
‘The Sunbathers’ …
‘Meet me under the clock’ …
I have gathered some images showing how the concourse has changed over the years.
A wonderful 1948 centenary poster incorporating a watercolour by Helen McKie. If you can, use magnification to admire the detail in the little figures …
An image from 1964 …
A painting by Terence Cuneo depicting the station in 1967 …
And specially for my Gooner subscribers (I know there are a few!) …
Supporters at Waterloo Station on their way to an F A Cup tie at against Portsmouth at Fratton Park, 13th February 1932. (Photo by S. R. Gaiger/Topical Press/Getty Images). Aren’t they dressed smartly – ties, suits and everyone has polished their shoes. The guy on the left looks particularly dapper.
Here are some images I took from outside the station.
Old signage across the road opposite the taxi queue …
I like the way it incorporates a picture of the famous clock …
Great ghost sign …
Wartime bomb damage …
Across the road …
071 ceased to be the London dialing code over 25 years ago.
Finally, I couldn’t resist including these pictures …
Abba at Waterloo in 1974, the year they won the Eurovision Song Contest with a song of the same name.
Listen to the song here on the official Abba website. You may like it even if you weren’t born in 1974!
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Whenever I am travelling anywhere by plane or train I am always ludicrously early and that was the case last week when I was catching a train at Waterloo. I therefore took the opportunity to look around and see if there was some material for the blog. There certainly was.
The station now hosts the National Windrush monument, designed by renowned Jamaican artist Basil Watson. It acknowledges and celebrates the Windrush generation’s outstanding contribution and has been created as a permanent place of reflection, to foster greater understanding of the generation’s talent, hard work and continuing contribution to British society.
The three figures – a man, woman, and child – dressed in their ‘Sunday best’ are climbing a mountain of suitcases together, demonstrating the inseparable bond of the Windrush pioneers and their descendants, and the hopes and aspirations of their generation as they arrive to start new lives in the UK.
There’s much more to see at Waterloo and I shall return to it next week and write more about these images …
My Waterloo research has led me to write about a very different type of station that operated nearby. Passengers departing from here were destined for eternity rather than the seaside.
In the first half of the 19th century, London’s population shot up from around a million people in 1801 to close on two and a half million by 1851. Death was commonplace in the 19th century and eventually the City’s churchyards were literally full to bursting. Coffins were stacked one atop the other in 20-foot-deep shafts, the topmost mere inches from the surface. Putrefying bodies were frequently disturbed, dismembered or destroyed to make room for newcomers. Disinterred bones, dropped by neglectful gravediggers, lay scattered amidst the tombstones; smashed coffins were sold to the poor for firewood. Clergymen and sextons turned a blind eye to the worst practices because burial fees formed a large proportion of their income.
This is Bunhill Burial Ground around that time …
You can also get some idea of how packed cemeteries were if you look at some of the existing City churchyards and observe how much higher the graveyards are compared to street level. This, for example, is the graveyard of St Olave Hart street as seen from inside the church …
Between 1846 and 1849, a devastating cholera epidemic swept across London resulting in the deaths of almost 15,000 Londoners and it became apparent that something had to be done.
Legislation proved ineffective but private enterprise stepped in and a series of huge cemeteries, in which Londoners could be laid to rest in lush, green spacious landscapes, sprang up outside the metropolis. One such enterprise was the grandly titled ‘London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company’ (LNC), which was formed in July, 1852, with a mandate to develop the former Woking Common, at Brookwood, in Surrey, as one of the new cemeteries to serve London.
Carrying the deceased 23 miles by horse-drawn coach was obviously not practical and thus, in November, 1854, one of Britain’s most bizarre railway lines – the London Necropolis Railway – commenced operations, and daily trains were soon chuffing their way out of ‘Cemetery Station’ in Waterloo, ‘wending their way through the outskirts of London, and on through verdant woodlands and lush, green countryside outside the Metropolis, bound for the tranquil oasis of the new Valhalla in rural Surrey’.
From The Illustrated London News. Saturday, 11th November, 1854 Copyright, Mary Evans Picture Library
The Company obviously gave a lot of thought to its logo and motto. Here it is (the skull and crossbones isn’t exactly subtle, is it) …
The Latin translates as ‘Peace to the dead, health to the living’. Possibly a reference to the lack of security in the old existing graveyards and also their threat to health. Just inside the circle is the ouroboros, an ancient symbol of a snake or serpent eating its own tail, variously signifying infinity and the cycle of birth and death.
The history of the company is an absolutely fascinating story and if you want to know more just click on the link here to the excellent London Walking Tours blog.
A new building for the London terminus was completed on the 8th of February, 1902. Here are some contemporary images …
A class system operated. First and Second Class ‘passengers’, accompanied by mourners, were placed in the train first. Third class mourners were not allowed to witness their loved ones being loaded! …
The end of the line. A funeral train from Waterloo pulling into the north section station at the cemetery in the early 20th century …
On Friday, 11th April, 1941, the body of Chelsea Pensioner Edward Irish (1868 – 1941) left the London Necropolis Station en route for Brookwood. He was the station’s last customer.
Five days later, on the night of the 16th/17th of April, 1941, a German bombing raid on the area destroyed the company’s rolling stock, along with much of the building. The Southern Railway’s Divisional Engineer, having inspected the damage at 2pm, on April, 17th, 1941, reported starkly, ‘Necropolis and buildings demolished.’ Although the offices and the First Class entrance from Westminster Bridge Road had survived, the devastation effectively sounded the death knell for the Necropolis Railway, and, on the 11th of May 1941, the station was officially declared closed.
The First Class platform just after the bombing …
The site in 1950 …
By the time it was put out of business after 87 years the company had ferried over 200,000 bodies between Waterloo and Surrey.
The First Class entrance and the Company’s old offices on Westminster Bridge Road are still there today (SE1 7HR) …
Inside the entrance arch (I think those lamps may be part of the original building, they look suitably funereal) …
I caught this image as I walked home across Waterloo Bridge – the ever-changing City skyline …
Finally, by way of light relief, my favourite newspaper front page of the week – British journalism at its finest …
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I felt it was time for another wander around Smithfield.
The Founders Company is one of the 110 Livery Companies based in the City and was established in 1375. In its earliest form the Company was made up of craftspeople who specialised in brass and ‘latten’ (an alloy of copper and zinc resembling brass), including making ‘candlesticks, buckles, straps and other such like articles’. Membership is now much extended and even includes estate agents and wine merchants as well as bell founders. The Company motto is God, the only Founder...
Their hall is located in Cloth Fair with an entrance in Bartholomew Passage …
The planters outside are dated 1767 and contain what looks like a parish boundary mark. If they really are that old they are in remarkably good condition …
The coat of arms – a ewer or laver-pot and a pair of taper-candlesticks …
Just up the road in Cloth Street is the Farmers Hall which they share with the Fletchers (who made arrows). I do like the Farmers’ coat of arms and motto …
Agriculture can be said to be England’s oldest and most important industry, with the growth of the City dependent on the supply of food to support its growing population for centuries. Whilst evidence suggests some livery companies were active as early as 1155, it is thought farmers were not represented until much later (1946), since they operated outside the square mile, unlike the related trades of Bakers, Butchers, Poulters, Woolmen and Fruiterers.
There is another relatively new company in Bartholomew Close, only granted Livery status in 1992 …
This is its coat of arms which you can read more about here …
The motto, CITO, means swiftly suggesting the way in which technology speeds the capture, storage and retrieval of knowledge.
A hanging sign on Aldersgate directs you to Ironmongers’ Hall …
The Ironmongers’ received a grant of arms in 1455, describing them as the ‘Honourable Crafte and Fellasship of Fraunchised Men of Iromongers’, and a charter of incorporation from Edward IV in 1463.
Two salamanders form the crest of the Company’s arms; medieval salamanders reputedly being able to survive fire …
Two saints flank the entrance door …
Elegius crafted many gold and silver pieces before taking holy orders in 633. He was made bishop of Noyon and died on 1 December 659. Because of his master craftsmanship and unfailing honesty, he became the patron saint of goldsmiths, blacksmiths and metalworkers.
Opposite him is St Lawrence …
He holds the griddle on which he was roasted to death in 345 AD. Reportedly he joked at one point ‘Look, wretch, you have me well done on one side, turn me over and eat!‘. Quite appropriately, he was adopted as the patron saint of comedians.
A martyr to many was the Scottish hero and patriot Sir William Wallace who was hanged, drawn and quartered in Smithfield in 1315…
His memorial nearby often shows evidence that he is still remembered and revered to this day …
This slate triptych, also in West Smithfield, was unveiled by Ken Loach in July 2015 and commemorates the Great Rising of 1381 (more commonly known as the Peasants’ Revolt) …
The Revolt was led by Wat Tyler and on June 15th 1381 he had the opportunity to speak directly to the 14-year-old king, Richard II. Accompanying the King was the Lord Mayor of London William Walworth and, for reasons that are not entirely clear, Walworth ran Tyler through with his sword. Badly wounded, Tyler was carried into nearby St Bartholomew’s Hospital but, rather unsportingly, Walworth had him dragged out and decapitated. Poll Tax protesters were dealt with very ruthlessly in those days!
Of the 288 people estimated to have been burnt for heresy during the five year reign of Mary Tudor, forty eight were killed in Smithfield. ‘Bloody Mary’ was the daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon and the burnings were part of her campaign to reverse the English Reformation.
The ‘Marian Martyrs’ are commemorated with this plaque erected by the Protestant Alliance in 1870 …
The gilding is a little faded in this picture. It reads …
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. The noble army of martyrs praise Thee! Within a few feet of this spot,
John Rogers,
John Bradford,
John Philpot,
and other servants of God, suffered death by fire for the faith of Christ, in the years 1555, 1556, 1557
One terrible occasion was on 16 July 1546 when Anne Askew was burnt at the stake along with John Lascelles (a lawyer and Gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber), John Hadlam (a tailor from Essex) and John Hemsley (a former Franciscan friar). A great stage was built at Smithfield for the convenience of Chancellor Wriothesley, other members of the Privy Council and City dignitaries, to watch the burning in comfort …
The execution of Anne Askew and her companions – 1563 woodcut from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
Anne herself, having been illegally broken on the rack, was unable to stand, and was chained to the stake in a sitting position. You can read more about this fascinating, brave lady here.
Every burning was different; if the fire ‘caught’, it could be over relatively quickly, but on damp days, or when the wind persisted in blowing the flames away from the body, it could take up to an hour for the condemned person to die, an hour of excruciating agony.
The area is now being transformed by new residential developments along with the conversion of many old commercial premises into apartments.
I’m fascinated by some of the old buildings’ textures and features and will write more about this in future weeks …
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To Pepys, music wasn’t just a pleasant pastime; it was also an art of great significance – something that could change lives and affect everyone who heard it. He was a keen amateur, playing various instruments and studying singing – he even designed a room in his home specially for music-making.
Here are some of the instruments that Pepys played – a fiddle, a flageolet and recorders …
And atheorbo lute …
Alan Lamb, who supervised the carvings, working on the lute. Read more about him and his team here …
Pepys attended St Paul’s School as a boy and the hind is from the school’s coat of arms …
Samuel had been a student at Magdalene College, Cambridge and bequeathed the College his vast library of over 3,000 tomes (including the six volumes of his diary). The library, which bears his name, is represented here (the Wyvern is the College crest) …
Pepys kept the diary from 1660 until 1669. The first page …
‘Blessed be God, at the end of last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold. I live in Axe Yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more family than us three. My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks, gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again.’
In 1655 when he was 22 he had married Elizabeth Michel shortly before her fifteenth birthday. Although he had many affairs (scrupulously recorded in his coded diary) he was left distraught by her death from typhoid fever at the age of 29 in November 1669. Her silhouette is in the garden paving …
Pepys was on the ship the Royal Charles that brought Charles II back to England at the Restoration and was also a Trinity House Master on two occasions. The carving shows the ship and a section of the Trinity House coat of arms …
The Diary – September 1660 : ‘I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before my lady having made us drink our morning draft there of several wines, but I drank nothing but some of her coffee, which was poorly made, with a little sugar in it’. Tea and coffee are represented in the garden by tea leaves and coffee beans …
Pepys’s home meant that his local Church (‘our own church’ as he described it) became St Olave Hart Street, which is still there for us to explore today. The church is represented by an angel from the vestry ceiling and skulls from the churchyard entrance …
In 1673 he was involved with the establishment of the Royal Mathematical School at Christ’s Hospital which was to train 40 boys annually in navigation for the benefit of the Royal Navy and the English Merchant Navy, The commemorative paver is entitled ‘The science and practice of navigation’ …
He wrote of a visit to Bartholomew Fair : ‘… but above all there was at last represented the sea, with Neptune, Venus mermaids and Ayrid on a dolphin’. You’ll find a mermaid in the garden …
If you wander around the garden here are the other carvings that you will encounter.
Samuel’s monogram …
A watermark from a letter to Pepys from King James II …
Pepys was President of the Royal Society when Sir Isaac Newton published Philosophiae Principea …
A map of Pepys’s London …
The Naval Office in Seething Lane where Pepys worked …
The Pepys coat of arms …
A teasel from the arms of the Clothiers Company where Pepys was once the Master …
Pepys’s profile …
Were he to arise from his resting place next to Elizabeth in St Olave’s what would he make of all this? I’m sure he would be delighted that his ‘own church’ was still there along with the lovely bust of Elizabeth he commissioned after her death. She still looks pretty and animated as if in conversation …
And surely he would be proud of his own bust in the garden, especially as it also commemorates Beauty Retire. Being a man of insatiable curiosity, he would no doubt want to know more about the mechanics of how the garden was irrigated using rainwater harvested from the roof of the hotel next door!
When he retired as secretary of the affairs of the Admiralty of England in 1689 ’not only had he doubled the navy’s fighting strength, but he had given it what it had never possessed before and what it never again lost—a great administrative tradition of order, discipline and service’. The orator of Oxford University declared ‘To your praises, the whole ocean bears witness; truly, sir, you have encompassed Britain with wooden walls.’ Samuel might be a little disappointed that, now in the 21st century, the mention of his name brings to many peoples’ mind only his famous diary.
If you need help finding the various carvings here’s a useful little map …
Do visit the garden if you get the chance. It’s also an opportunity to visit the beautiful St Olave’s Hart Street, Sam’s ‘own church’, which is located nearby. I’ve written about it before and you can find my blogs here and here.
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I have written about the garden in Seething lane before since it contains carvings that commemorate the life of the great diarist and naval innovator. However, I thought it might be useful to combine all my previous efforts in two blogs and this is the first so that if you visit the garden (and I strongly recommend you do) you will have easy access to all the information.
An existing bust of Pepys has been given a new plinth and one’s eyes are drawn to the sculpture as you walk along Seething Lane …
The new plinth incorporates musical notes …
The music carved on it is the tune of Beauty Retire, a song that Pepys wrote. So if you read music you can hear Pepys’s creation as well as see his bust. He was evidently extremely proud of Beauty Retire for he holds a copy of the song in his most famous portrait by John Hayls, now in the National Portrait Gallery …
Pepys had been plagued by recurring stones since childhood and, at the age of 25, decided to tackle it once and for all and opt for surgery. He consulted a surgeon, Thomas Hollier, who worked for St Thomas’ Hospital and was one of the leading lithotomists (stone removers) of the time. The procedure was very risky, gruesome and, since anaesthetics were unknown in those days, excruciatingly painful. But Pepys survived and had the stone, ‘the size of a tennis ball’, mounted and kept it on his desk as a paperweight. It may even have been buried with him. One of the garden carvings shows a stone held in a pair of forceps.
Every year, on the anniversary of his surgery, Pepys held what he called his ‘Stone Feast’ to celebrate his continued good health and there is a carving in the garden of a table laden with food and drink …
Pepys stayed in London during the terrible time of the plague which he first wrote about on 30th April 1665 mentioning ‘great fears of the sickness’. Despite this, he bravely wrote on 25 August to Sir William Coventry ‘You, Sir, took your turn at the sword; I must not therefore grudge to take mine at the pestilence’.
As plague moved from parish to parish he described the changing face of London-life – ‘nobody but poor wretches in the streets’, ‘no boats upon the River’, ‘fires burning in the street’ to cleanse the air and ‘little noise heard day or night but tolling of bells’ that accompanied the burial of plague victims. He also writes in his diary about the desensitisation of people, including himself, to the corpses of plague fatalities, ‘I am come almost to think nothing of it.’
The pestilence is represented by a plague doctor carrying a winged hourglass and fully dressed in 17th century protective clothing. No one at the time realised that the plague could be spread by fleas carried on rats. One of the species sits cheekily at the doctor’s feet …
There is also a flea based on a drawing from Robert Hooke’s Micrographia. While visiting his bookseller on a frosty day in early January 1665 Pepys noticed a copy of the book ‘which‘, Pepys recorded in his diary, ‘is so pretty that I presently bespoke it’ …
The illustration in the book …
The Great Fire of London began on 2 September 1666 and lasted just under five days. This is a contemporary view from the west held in the Museum of London collection …
One-third of London was destroyed and about 100,000 people were made homeless. He wrote in his diary ‘I (went) down to the water-side, and there got a boat … through (the) bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods: poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys till … some of them burned their wings and fell down.’
A boat in the foreground with the City ablaze in the distance while a piece of furniture floats nearby …
His house was in the path of the fire and on September 3rd his diary tells us that he borrowed a cart ‘to carry away all my money, and plate, and best things‘. The following day he personally carried more items to be taken away on a Thames barge, and later that evening with Sir William Pen, ‘I did dig another [hole], and put our wine in it; and I my Parmazan cheese, as well as my wine and some other things’ …
There’s a carving of a monkey who is sitting on some books and appears to have taken a bite out of a rolled up document. This refers to an entry in Pepys’s diary for Friday 18th January 1661 : ‘I took horse and guide for London; and through some rain, and a great wind in my face, I got to London at eleven o’clock. At home found all well, but the monkey loose, which did anger me, and so I did strike her till she was almost dead’. I’m not sure whether it was his pet or his wife’s, but it certainly paid a heavy price for its misbehaviour.
On 11th January 1660 he visited the Tower of London menagerie and ‘went in to see Crowly, who was now grown a very great lion and very tame’. Crowley also has a carving in the garden …
In 1679 tragedy struck when Pepys was arrested, dismissed from service and sent to the Tower of London on charges of ‘Piracy, Popery and Treachery’. The first two were outlandish and easily disproved but much more damaging and dangerous was the rumour that he had sold state secrets to the French (a crime which carried the terrifying penalty of being hanged, drawn and quartered). Using his own resources and considerable network, he tracked down the story to a lying scoundrel called John Scott. Pepys was subsequently freed and this frightening episode in his life is recorded in the garden by a carving of him incarcerated in the Tower …
He was to return to office in 1686 with the full support of the new king, James II, and set up a special ‘Navy Commission’ to clear the navy’s accounts and restore the force to its 1679 levels. This was completed six months ahead of schedule and was probably his last, and arguably greatest, achievement.
Back in 1649 Pepys had skipped school and witnessed the execution of King Charles the First outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. There is a carving of the poor King’s head being held aloft by his executioner …
On 9th May 1662 he wrote : ‘Thence to see an Italian puppet play that is within the rayles there, which is very pretty, the best that ever I saw, and great resort of gallants. So to the Temple and by water home’. The ‘puppet play’ was probably Punch and Judy (trigger alert, they have dropped the baby!) …
Part 2 dealing with the remainder of the carvings will follow next week.
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Usually I shoot images in colour but sometimes wonder whether black and white would be more effective.
This week I have been experimenting and here are the results starting with some people commemorated at St Giles-without-Cripplegate.
John Milton (1608-1674) the poet and republican is perhaps the most famous former church parishioner and his statue stands by the south wall of the church. It is made of metal, which means it is one of the few memorials in the church that survived the bombing in the Second World War. It’s the work of the sculptor Horace Montford (c1840-1919) and is based on a bust made in about 1654 …
There is also a bust under the organ gallery by the sculptor George Frampton which clearly indicates Milton’s later life blindness …
Oliver Cromwell, the military and political leader, who was Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1653 to 1658, was married in St Giles in 1620, aged 21. His wife, Elizabeth Bouchier, was the daughter of a Cripplegate leather merchant, and the couple had nine children. The St Giles bust follows his ‘warts and all’ instruction …
Here he is again (looking fierce) at the Guildhall Art Gallery …
He died in 1658 and his death mask is on display in the Museum of London …
After the Restoration, Charles II had Cromwell’s body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey on 30 January 1661, This was the the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles’ father and Cromwell’s remains were subjected to a posthumous execution at Tyburn. After the body had been hanged in chains it was thrown into a pit with the head set on a spike outside Parliament.
Controversially, a statue was subsequently erected to him outside Parliament in 1899 …
I’m quite fond of this chap …
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 virtually illiterate, he was eventually elected Lord Mayor of London. Here is his 1800 portrait by William Beechey …
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.
Highgate Cemetery is the last resting place of many famous and infamous individuals and Bruce Reynolds is one of them …
Bruce Richard Reynolds (1931 – 2013) was an English criminal who masterminded the 1963 Great Train Robbery. At the time it was Britain’s largest robbery, netting £2,631,684, equivalent to £58 million today. Reynolds spent five years on the run before being sentenced to 25 years in 1969. You can read his obituary here.
St Peter’s Hill runs north alongside the College and at the top you will find the Firefighters Memorial. On its octagonal bronze base are the names of the 997 men and women of the fire service who lost their lives during the conflict. The sculpture features two firemen ‘working a branch’, with their legs spread to take the strain of the hose …
St Margaret’s church (EC3M 1HS) was originally built in the twelfth century, subsequently rebuilt in the sixteenth, and repaired in the early seventeenth. Here it is in the modified version of the Agas Map of 1633 …
By the time of the Great Fire of London in 1666, there were over a hundred parish churches and other places of Christian worship within and immediately without the walls of the City, despite a number having been closed down during the Reformation. To be precise, according to Parish Clerks’ records, there were 97 churches within the walls of the City, and 16 without, making a total of 113.
When the church was rebuilt in the 16th century a cross, or ‘rood’, was put outside – those who prayed to it (and contributed to the cost of rebuilding) received a pardon from the Pope for their sins. During the reformation such practices were frowned upon and the antiquarian John Stow writes ‘about the 23rd of May, in the morning … it was found to have been in the night preceding, by people unknown, broken all to pieces, together with the tabernacle wherein it had been placed’. The street on which the church stood, however, had already become known as Rood Lane …
The spire is very imposing. Completed in 1702 to a height of 199 feet, it is the third highest of the City churches and is the only remaining example of Wren’s lead-covered timber spires….
During my visit, I was very fortunate to meet Chris Moore. Chris is not only the Church Administrator but also holds the office of Beadle of the Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers. There could have been no one better qualified to show me around and point out items of interest that I might otherwise have missed.
The church has long had an association with the Pattenmakers Guild and there is an interesting exhibition for visitors to inspect which includes a history of the craft …
Pattens were under-shoes slipped on to protect the wearer’s shoes or clothing – not least from the filth on the streets in the Middle Ages!
If you could afford footwear like this you certainly wouldn’t want it contaminated with street debris …
Incidentally, the next time you see this famous portrait check out the pattens in the foreground …
And supporting ladies?
The Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers was awarded its Royal Charter in 1670, but the Company is first recorded as a trade association for the makers of pattens in 1379 and the trade itself dates from the 12th century or earlier. Its motto, Recipiunt fœminæ sustentacula nobis, means Women receive support from us …
Not only that, Saint Margaret of Antioch, after whom the church is named, was the patron of childbirth and pregnant women.
Just inside the entrance are two canopied pews which are unique in the City …
These were for the churchwardens and the initials on either side reflect the name not only of this church (St MP) …
but also St Gabriel Fenchurch (St GF) …
St Gabriel’s was not rebuilt after the Great Fire and was instead amalgamated with St Margaret’s. The Agas map shows the churches’ locations relative to one another …
Stephen Millar has observed that, given the strong rivalry between parishes at this time, it is likely that the division between churchwardens was more than simply physical after 1666. Here’s a peep inside the St Margaret pew …
The church is shared with The Worshipful Company of Basketmakers …
The Stuart royal arms above the door are a particularly exquisite example …
The 19th century reredos in the north-aisle chapel incorporates a beautiful Della Robbia style tondo commemorating former rector Thomas Wagstaffe …
High up on the south wall is a copper cross weighing 3/4 cwt – a copy of the cross on St Paul’s Cathedral – which used to surmount the spire. Below the crossis a memorial to King Charles I, with the words ‘Touch not mine anointed’. A tradition of the Church is the commemoration of the death of King Charles at a special service which is held annually on the Thursday closest to 30th January …
Both the lectern (with the unusual feature of an eagle grasping a viper) and the pulpit are examples of the very fine wood carving and wood panelling with which the church is blessed …
The pulpit incorporates a holder for the hourglass once used to time the sermons …
The reredos above the altar contain a painting by the Italian painter Carlo Maratta (1625-1713) depicting Christ with the ministering angels in Gethsemane …
Before I left Chris made sure I visited the very impressive marker for the last resting place of James Donalson …
Donalson, who died in 1685, was the City Garbler who was entrusted with checking the quality of spices sold in the Square Mile. This was an incredibly important and prestigious appointment since nutmeg, for example, was at one time literally worth more than its weight in gold …
As a guild church, St Margaret Pattens has a regular weekday, rather than Sunday congregation, drawn mostly from people who work in offices nearby. As it’s not a parish church, it relies for funds on the generosity of the congregation, local business people, the supporting livery companies and visitors. Making a donation couldn’t be easier since, in the aisle next to the covered pews, you’ll find a facility to simply tap in your contribution using your credit or debit card. There’s also a box for more traditional cash donations.
There are drinks and snacks for sale in the courtyard on Eastcheap during weekdays.
If you want to contact the church for any reason the phone number is 020 7623 6630 and the email address [email protected]
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I love my City Animals collection and I have gathered so many images now I can start to put them into little categories and that’s what I’ve done today.
For example, in the ‘faithful friends’ category would be the following.
Dr Johnson’s cat Hodge …
Here in Gough Square he sits proudly on top of his master’s famous dictionary having just enjoyed a tasty oyster snack. Johnson was immensely fond of him (‘A very fine cat indeed!’) and personally bought oysters for him rather than ask the servants to. He was (probably justifiably) concerned that the staff would resent this and take their annoyance out on poor Hodge.
He looks towards the house where they both lived at the time and where the dictionary was written …
Philip Thomas Byard Clayton (1885-1972), popularly known as ‘Tubby’ Clayton, served as a priest during the First World War, and opened and maintained a place of rest near Ypres, an Everyman’s Club, much frequented by officers and men alike. This became the TocH movement which continues to this day but has, sadly, struggled in recent years.
Tubby became Vicar of All Hallows by the Tower in 1922 and remained there for forty years, until his retirement in 1962. His effigy in the church is one of the last works by Cecil Thomas, the ‘soldier sculptor’, and Tubby’s dog Chippy sits on a tasselled cushion at his feet …
Clayton owned a succession of Scottish Terriers, one of them a gift from the Queen Mother. All of them were called Chippy.
King Charles II was very fond of his spaniels. Here one runs alongside his horse as they parade down Cheapside …
The terracotta frieze was saved from a Victorian building that previously occupied the site. It’s now displayed on the north side of 1 Poultry.
Whilst on Poultry look up and you’ll see a reference to the old poultry market that once stood here, a boy struggling to hold a goose …
The goose was a suggestion by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. The building is now a private club and restaurant, called The Ned in Sir Edwin’s honour.
My collection contains many water creatures.
At the incredibly moving memorial to the men of the Merchant Navy lost at sea during the two World Wars a boy rides a dolphin surrounded by fishes and sea horses …
These two dolphins on The Ship pub in Hart street look rather miserable despite being Grade II listed like the building itself …
Mr Grumpy …
There are some nicely carved fishes in Cheapside, part of a Zodiac motif …
Not surprisingly, there are lots of fishy folk along the Thames Walk, both on and near what was once Billingsgate Market …
I’m told that could be a Herring Sky in the background – very appropriate …
This one looks like he’s poking his tongue out at us …
Wesley’s Chapel on City Road was first opened in 1778 by John Wesley (1703-1791) as a home base for his fast growing network of churches and societies which eventually became the Methodist Church (EC1Y 1AU).
The house where he lived during his later years is next door. Here’s the view of the house from Bunhill Burial Ground where Wesley’s mother is buried. He could see her grave from his bedroom window on the second floor …
Here he is depicted visiting the grave in 1779 …
The original marker has now been replaced by one with a much shorter inscription …
This part of Bunhill is not open to the public.
There are dozens of memorials within the Chapel, along with 18 magnificent stained glass windows depicting Biblical scenes. Although it’s an active house of worship, it is open to the public during the week and many visitors come to see the place where Wesley preached and lived and last week I became one of them.
This window shows Sir Galahad overcoming the seven deadly sins and, through his victory, building the City of God. Sir Galahad is the patron saint of the Wesley Guild, which, when founded, was seen as a modern youth movement …
Here is a small selection of other glass you can admire …
This window gives thanks for the fact that the chapel escaped damage during the Second World War …
At either end of the vestibule there are two windows by Mark Cazalet. One shows God as fire …
And the other God as water …
The view from the balcony …
Margaret Thatcher (then Margaret Roberts) married Denis Thatcher here on 13 December 1951 and both their children were christened here. She donated the communion rail in 1993 …
The War memorial …
Old Boys’ Brigade flag …
The Brigade is still going strong and now welcomes girls as members. Have a look at their very lively website here.
A seat in the Foundery Chapel. ‘Primitive’ meant ‘simple’ or ‘relating to an original stage’; the Primitive Methodists saw themselves as practising a purer form of Christianity, closer to the earliest Methodists …
I strongly recommend a visit to the museum …
And the shop, where you can pick up a tasteful memento of your visit …
Wesley’s tomb is behind the Chapel …
In the basement of the Chapel there is a beautifully preserved Victorian lavatory dating from 1899. It’s a shrine to Thomas Crapper – the champion of the flushing toilet and inventor of the ballcock …
Unfortunately it was closed when I visited but you can, however, read about it and see more images in the Gentle Author’s blog At God’s Convenience.
The Chapel and the Museum are wonderful places to visit and this blog really doesn’t do them justice so do call in if you get the chance.
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In this week’s blog I have just put together some of the random pictures I have been taking over the last few weeks that will hopefully create a cheerful mood.
Who wouldn’t smile on seeing this Baker Street doggie …
This time of year is, for me, a great opportunity to grab images from nature.
A corporate window box in Wood Street …
On the Barbican Estate …
An afternoon nap …
In Fortune Street Park …
A pretty piece of art …With a sad back story …
Blossom time at Aldgate …
Opposite St Paul’s Underground Station …
The Festival Gardens at St Paul’s Cathedral …
On London Wall …
Visitors to the office whilst I was writing my blog. Mrs Duck …
And her handsome partner …
‘Goodbye – I have better things to do than pose for you!’
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I love visiting St Olave Hart Street. It’s tiny and wonderfully atmospheric, being one of the few surviving Medieval buildings in London. It was badly damaged during the War but many of its treasures had been removed to safety and others have been beautifully restored.
I first visited with my camera some years ago when I was writing about Samuel Pepys and I was immediately captivated by this sculpture of his wife Elizabeth. She died of typhoid fever at the age of 29 and, despite his dalliances with other women, Pepys was devastated by her death at such a young age. He commissioned this bust in white marble from the sculptor John Bushnell …
She is shown with her gaze directed towards the location of the Navy Office Pew where her husband would have sat, her mouth open as if in conversation.
His pew was in the gallery he had had built on the south wall of the church with an added outside stairway from the Royal Navy Offices so that he could go to church without getting soaked by the rain. The gallery is now gone but a memorial to Pepys marks the location of the stairway’s door …
Pepys never married again and arranged to be buried in St Olave’s next to Christine. Now they face one another across the aisle for eternity.
Although small, the church is packed with other items of interest and I shall write about a few of them this week.
Sir James Deane has an impressive tripartite monument showing him and his three wives kneeling in prayer …
Two of the women carry skulls indicating that they died before their time. Three of his children died in infancy and their swaddled bodies are included in the monument with their little heads resting on skulls, again indicating mortality (images copyright Carole Tyrrell) …
Deane was knighted on 8 July 1604 and was a very wealthy man. He made his fortune as a merchant adventurer to India, China and the Spice Islands and was very generous to the poor in every parish in which he lived or owned property. He also built almshouses in Basingstoke that survive to this day …
There is a picturesque monument to two brothers, Andrew and Paul Bayning. They are shown in the red robes of Aldermen and were both closely involved with the Levant Company …
There are memorials with touching inscriptions. ‘Her noble soul and lovely body joined, were once the wonder and the joy of mankind’ …
Sir William Ogborne was ‘A most tender husband, loving parent and a sincere and kind friend’ …
In his will he left all his property (which included several houses) to his wife, Lady Joyce, along with his ‘coach, his chariot horses, plate, hay and corn’.
The pulpit came to St Olave’s from St Benet Gracechurch when it was demolished in 1868 …
Once thought to be the work of Grinling Gibbons, it is certainly a fine example of 17th century wood carving …
The monument of Dr Peter Turner. It was looted from the bombed out church in 1941 but was finally returned in 2011 having spent some time in the Netherlands! A curator at the Museum of London found out about an upcoming auction listing the statue in 2010, the Art Loss Register investigated, and the bust was removed from the sale …
He was an eminent physician and botanist.
All prewar windows were lost in the bombing and the new windows which replaced them were specially designed to take into account the tall buildings that were springing up in the rebuilding of the City.
Two other churches have parishes which have been joined with that of St Olave to form a united benefice and the Lady Chapel Window on the north side of the church has three lights representing them.
St Olave’s is in the centre and depicts the Virgin and Child. On the left, All Hallows Staining is represented by Queen Elizabeth I with the bells of the church at her feet …
Painstaking work was needed in order to create the gradient of colour from left to right across her dress.
On the right St Katharine of Alexandria represents the former parish of St Catherine Coleman …
As I left by the north door this memorial reminded me of the tremendous sacrifices made during both World Wars by the employees of Wm Cory & Son …
At the outbreak of WW1 in 1914, Cory had a large workforce, many of them skilled as engineers, mechanics, bargees and physically fit labourers. Before conscription was introduced, Cory encouraged its workers to enlist in Kitchener’s Army – an all-volunteer force of the British Army – and guaranteed to keep their jobs open for them. The company also undertook to look after the family of anyone who joined up, setting aside a sum of £25,000 (equivalent to £3 million today) to care for the men and their dependents.
Within a few days of the appeal there were enough men to form the entire D Company of the 6th Battalion of the Buffs – also known as Cory’s Unit. Most of these men came from places like Greenwich, Erith and Plumstead.
There is a photograph of Cory’s Unit which was taken at Aldershot shortly before their departure for France on the 1st of June 1915. Within six months, so many of these young men would be a name on a memorial or buried in a battlefield grave in Belgium or France …
Cory also mobilised its boats in support of the war effort in both World Wars, losing 17 boats in WWI and 13 in WWII (usually due to German mines, submarine attacks or aerial bombardment).
There is a plaque on the Tower Hill Maritime Memorial relating to one of the boats lost in WW1 – the Sir Francis …
She was torpedoed 4 miles off Ravenscar, North Yorkshire, on a ballast run to the Tyne to pick up coal on 7 June 1917. You may be interested in the diversity of nationalities among the crew :
Wanless, A, master, whose place of birth, residence, and family is not recorded;
de Boer, J, seaman, born in Holland;
Jonsson, John, born in Iceland, resident in South Shields and married to an Englishwoman;
Kato, T, fireman, born in Japan;
Nishioka, B, fireman, also born in Japan;
Poulouch, N, fireman, born in Greece;
Sharp, Joseph, steward, of South Shields;
Talbot, Alfred, engineer’s steward, of Penarth;
Tippett, Albert, engineer, a Yorkshireman resident in Tyneside;
van der Pluym, Johannes Cornelis, seaman, a resident of Amsterdam.
A further 12 crew members survived.
Not all their names appear on the St Olave Memorial, presumably because not all of them were directly employed by the company.
You can read more about the Cory company’s involvement on both World Wars here and here. There is a great blog dealing with colliers and multi-national crews here – it’s also the source of my information about the crew of the Sir Francis.
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A lovely Sunny day last Saturday tempted me out for a walk.
The national Submarine Memorial Memorial on Victoria Embankment (EC4Y 0HJ) is, I think, one of London’s most moving.
Although able to hide when submerged, once struck the vessels were often unable to rise to the surface and became effectively underwater coffins. In the First World War fifty four boats were lost and with them the lives of 138 officers and 1,225 men. At the inauguration in 1922 Rear Admiral Sinclair, the Chief of the Submarine Service, reminded those present that, during the Great War …
The number of those killed in the Submarine Service was greater in proportion to its size than any other branch of His Majesty’s fighting forces … one third of the total personnel.
In November 1959 new panels commemorating Second World war losses were unveiled by Rear Admiral B W Taylor.
Wright and Moore, writing for the 20th Century Architecture website, describe the memorial as a complex mixture of narrative and symbolism …
Sculptor: F B Hitch Architect: A H R Tenison Founder: E J Parlanti
The central figures recreate the scene set inside the submarine exaggerating it into a small, claustrophobic tunnel. The crew use charts and follow dials, the captain is braced at the centre with the periscope behind his head. Around the vessel a shallow relief depicts an array of sea creatures or mermen appearing to trap and haul the submarine in fishing nets, reminding us that the submarines were as much prey to the tempestuous elements as they were to the enemy.
On both corners are allegorical figures. Next to the list of vessels lost between 1914 and 1918, Truth holds up her mirror. Just further to the left in the picture are two of the 40 bronze wreath hooks in the form of anchors …
On the right, next to the vessels lost in the Second World War, Justice wears a blindfold and as usual holds a sword and scales …
On a more lighthearted vein, walk east from the Memorial on the north side of the road and you’ll find this chap frantically trying to hail a taxi …
Taxi! by the American Sculptor J Seward Johnson is cast bronze and is now interestingly weathered. If you think the baggy trousers, moustache and side parting are erring on the retro, that’s because this particular office worker was transferred from New York in 2014. It was sculpted in 1983 and originally stood on Park Avenue and 47th Street.
I love this pair of ‘dolphin’ lamps (although they are actually sturgeon) ..
Neptune also makes an appearance …
Further east you can wave to the pretty mermaid who embellishes the Art Deco style Unilever Building …
Further along the lamps repay detailed study …
Across the road, a jolly friar looks down from the Blackfriar pub …
Carry on along Queen Victoria Street and admire the imposing College of Arms building …
… and its ornate gate …
St Peter’s Hill runs north alongside the College and at the top you will find the Firefighters Memorial. On its octagonal bronze base are the names of the 997 men and women of the fire service who lost their lives during the conflict. The sculpture features two firemen ‘working a branch’, with their legs spread to take the strain of the hose …
A sub-officer directs others to assist. There are clues to the identity of this figure scattered among the debris at the figures’ feet: the letters CTD for C.T. Demarne. At the unveiling, his colleagues from the fire service claimed that there was no need for such clues. One who was interviewed by the Telegraph stated: ‘You can tell it’s Cyril by the way he’s standing…he always waved his arms about like that when he was ordering us about’.
Officer Demarne in full flow.
By 1943 over 70,00 women had enrolled in the National Fire Service in the United Kingdom. This memorial commemorates those who lost their lives in the London bombings …
The lady on the left is an incident recorder and the one on the right a despatch rider.
Across the road, just south of the Cathedral, is this rather handsome bearded gentleman …
John Donne 1572-1631 by Nigel Boonham (2012).
In 1617, two years after his ordination, Donne’s wife died at age 33 after giving birth to a stillborn child, their twelfth. Grief-stricken at having lost his emotional anchor, Donne vowed never to marry again, even though he was left with the task of raising his ten surviving children in modest financial circumstances. His bereavement turned him fully to his vocation as an Anglican divine and, on November 22, 1621, Donne was installed as Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The power and eloquence of his sermons soon secured for him a reputation as the foremost preacher in the England of his day, and he became a favourite of both Kings James I and Charles I.
His bust points almost due west but shows him turning to the east towards his birthplace on Bread Street. The directions of the compass were important to Donne in his metaphysical work: east is the Rising Sun, the Holy Land and Christ, while west is the place of decline and death. Underneath the bust are inscribed words from his poem Good Friday – Riding Westward :
Hence is’t that I am carried towards the west, This day when my soul’s form bends to the east
The most familiar quotation from Donne comes from his Meditation XVII – Devotions upon Emergent Occasions published in 1624:
‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main … and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’
Incidentally, if you walk around the east side of the Cathedral you will see scars from the Second World War bombing which illustrate just how close the building came to destruction …
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Back in August last year I spoke of a mystery connected to these two gravestones in the old parish churchyard of St Ann Blackfriars in Church Entry (EC4V 5HB) …
My ‘go to’ source of information when it comes to grave markers is the estimable Percy C. Rushen who published this guide in 1910 when he noticed that memorials were disappearing at a worrying rate due to pollution and redevelopment …
So when I came across the last two stones in this graveyard with difficult to read inscriptions I did what I normally do which is to consult Percy’s book in order to see what the full dedication was.
There was, however, a snag. Neither headstone is recorded in Percy’s list for St Ann Blackfriars. Let’s look at them one by one. This is the stone for Thomas Wright …
Fortunately, the book lists people in alphabetical order and, although there isn’t a Wright recorded at St Ann’s, there is one recorded at St Peter, Paul’s Wharf. It’s definitely the same one and reads as follows :
THOMAS WRIGHT, died 29 May 1845, father of the late Mrs Mary Ann Burnet.
The inscription of another stone recorded in the same churchyard reads …
CAROLINE, wife of JAMES BURNET , died 26 July 1830, aged 36.
MARY ANN, his second wife, died 12 April1840, aged 36.
JAMES BURNET, above, died … 1842, aged …3
St Peter, Paul’s Wharf, was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and not rebuilt but obviously its churchyard was still there in 1910. And it was still there in the 1950s as this map shows. I have indicated it in the bottom right hand corner with the other pencil showing the location of Church Entry and St Ann’s burial ground …
This is the present day site of Thomas Wright’s original burial place, now Peter’s Hill and the approach to the Millennium Bridge …
The stone must have been moved some time in the mid-20th century, but the question is, was Thomas moved as well? Have his bones finally come to rest in Church Entry? I have been unable to find out.
This is the headstone alongside Thomas’s …
It reads as follows …
In Memory of MARY ROBERTS wife of David Roberts who died the 14th February 1787 aged 34 years. Also two of their children who died in their infancy … the aforesaid DAVID ROBERTS who died the 25th May 1802, aged 52 years.
The mystery surrounding this stone was that, although there are quite a few people called Roberts recorded in Percy’s memorial list, none of them are called Mary or David. So, assuming, the book is complete (and Percy was obviously very fastidious) I wondered where this marker came from.
As a result of the blog, I was contacted by Leah Earl who had been researching old parish records. She discovered that the burials of David and Mary Roberts are recorded in the burial registers for St Peter, Paul’s Wharf, so the grave marker ought to have been there when Percy was transcribing. Since Percy was so careful I can only imagine that he missed this stone either because it had fallen on its face or it had been hidden behind some stones that had been stacked up.
Here are the two pages from the records.
David Roberts is fourth from the bottom on this page …
In this page you can see the tragic year of 1787 unfolding …
The record states that Mary, David’s wife, was buried on the 18th February and her newborn son, John, ten days later. Another child, Sophia, is buried three months after her mother on 30th May. These must be the two children of theirs who ‘died in infancy’. You’ll see that Mary’s age is given as 34 on the gravestone but 35 in the written record.
There is also a record of an Ann Roberts who died aged four on 22nd November 1787 but presumably she is not the child of David and Mary since she’s not mentioned on the marker.
About one in three children born in 1800 did not make it to their fifth birthday and maternal deaths at birth have been estimated at about five per thousand (although that is probably on the low side). Just by way of comparison, in 2016 to 2018, among the 2.2 million women who gave birth in the UK, 547 died during or up to a year after pregnancy from causes associated with their pregnancy. The 1800 equivalent rate would have meant 11,000 deaths.
If you are interested to know more about maternal mortality, its history and causes, you’ll find this incredibly informative article in The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Most disturbing is how doctors who discovered the underlying cause of many deaths were disbelieved and vilified by the medical profession as a whole, thus allowing unnecessarily high mortality to continue for decades.
Now, on a more cheerful note, here are a few things that made me smile recently.
As I descended the stairs to Mansion House Station from Bow Lane I came across this little oasis of calm tucked away in a corner …
I have no idea what this is all about but it really cheered me up – so nice that it hasn’t been vandalised.
A couple of cars caught my eye …
Lord knows what this was doing parked outside the Linklaters law firm. Maybe the partners were going to a wedding.
And surely this car belongs to an old – school yuppie …
I wouldn’t argue with the sentiment above this door …
And finally, the City is being populated with some cheery new benches. These are in Aldermanbury …
Incidentally, the tree in the background is Cercis siliquastrum. It is also known as the ‘Judas tree’. This comes from the legend that Judas Iscariot, full of shame after his betrayal of Jesus, hanged himself from one of its branches.
If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …
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