Category: Religion Page 1 of 21

Roman London edition (and a flock in the shop).

On 1st October 2026

In Animals, Architecture, Parks, Religion, Roman London, Special Exhibitions

As you travel down the escalator at the Walbrook entrance to Bank Underground Station you will encounter a rather remarkable sight …

The 24 illuminated panels on display are a tribute to the Roman life that once flourished in this location, most notably, the nearby Temple of Mithras. Discovered in 1954, the ancient temple has now been restored and returned to its original Roman location, of which more later.

The panels were created in 1960 by the celebrated glass artist, John Hutton (1906 – 1978). Born in New Zealand, Hutton moved to London as a young artist. He became renowned for his masterful work in etched and engraved glass. They were originally on display in an office block called Bucklersbury House and, when that building was scheduled for demolition, they were gifted to London Underground to be installed in the tube station entrance.

The first series depicts daily life in Roman London, with the original London Bridge visible in the background. Women cluster in groups – some holding baskets or amphorae, vessels used to carry oil or wine, while others tend their children. A merchant sells his wares on the steps leading down to the river, while men holding scrolls engage in conversation. A group of soldiers gathers in a small clutch, their swords and spears piled next to them, elsewhere other soldiers ride their horses across the bridge …

A second series of panels shows gods and goddesses from a variety of ancient traditions. This cluster shows three Roman deities, Venus, Bacchus and Minerva but also the Egyptian God Serapis wearing a modius (cylindrical headdress) …

There is also the main iconography from the cult of Mithras, The Tauroctony where Mithras slaughters the bull …

Various other Gods and Goddesses …

You can read more about the delicate removal and restoration of the panels here.

Next door to the station entrance is the London Mithraeum. This is a fantastic venue to visit and entrance is free with a time-booked ticket.

Here are images from my visit some years ago. Descending through time, seven metres or so, from modern London to the very last days of the Romans in Britain, about AD 410 …

The beautifully restored temple itself …

Well done Bloomberg!

Even if you are not planning to visit the temple, you can pop in to the ground floor reception area …

At the moment it is hosting a fascinating free exhibition entitled Folkmoot by Anne Ryan. You can read more about the artist and the work on display here.

Some images from the exhibition …

There is also a permanent, well organised display of Roman artefacts which can be explored using your own mobile device, a tablet that they provide, or just by reading the labels …

If you are fascinated (as I am) with all things Roman London related you could follow the London Wall Walk which is identified throughout the City by plaques like this …

They’re a bit low-tech and weatherbeaten now, but I think that gives them a particular charm. Also, I found this very useful guide to the plaques and the wall in the London on my Mind website. Recommended.

A few words about what we still tend to describe as the ‘Roman’ Wall.

Londinium was a settlement established around AD 43-50. It sat at a key crossing point over the River Thames which turned the city into a trading port, serving as a major commercial centre in Roman Britain until its abandonment during the 5th century. Sometime between 190 and 225, the Romans built the London Wall, a defensive ragstone wall around the landward side of the city. It was one of the largest construction projects carried out in Roman Britain, requiring somewhere in the region of 85,000 tons of Kentish ragstone to complete. A medieval city wall was built on top of the remains of the Roman wall so much of what we see today was constructed in the fifteenth century.

Here are some images I took recently.

For a good sense of the scale of the wall one of the best places to visit is Salters’ Hall Garden …

Impressive as it is, it is pretty much all medieval, although the red tiles were probably scavenged from the earlier Roman construction …

This illustration from the excellent Living London History blog gives a good idea as to how the wall ‘grew’ in medieval times …

You can see medieval stonework. This is the only surviving section with a brick parapet dating from 1477 …

It was added by King Edward IV to help protect the city during the Wars of the Roses.

I like nice, helpful signage …

You also get a good view from the St Alphage Highwalk …

If you head north, you get a glimpse of more remains …

You can view them more easily if you make your way to the friendly, beautifully restored church of St Giles Cripplegate. In the old churchyard you can look across the artificial lake to another section of wall …

Also visible are the remains of two bastions …

I could get close to the more complete one since I have a Barbican Residents’ key …

Fragments of Roman red tiles …

Heron and Roman wall combination …

I’ve seen the heron literally dozens of time but never seen him catch a fish. Although, I’m told, he is partial to the occasional duckling.

And whilst on the subject of birds, a flock of pigeons has arrived at the Barbican shop …

And now I have a companion of my very own …

I know his feet are a little strange, but we don’t talk about that.

In other news.

A palm tree silhouette in Regent’s Park …

Or maybe not …

It’s another surprise exhibit from Frieze 2026 …

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A Hawksmoor Church and a riverside walk.

By The City Gent

On 2nd July 2026

In Architecture, Memorials, Religion, Sculpture, Social History, Stained Glass, Wartime

A few weeks ago, a sunny day that wasn’t too hot tempted me to visit Greenwich, one of my favourite places.

First on the list to visit was a Nicholas Hawksmoor masterpiece, the church of St Alfege …

Alfege, Archbishop of Canterbury, was taken hostage by Danish invaders who took him to Greenwich, hoping to raise a large ransom. St Alfege refused to be ransomed, as it would mean starvation for many of his people. As a result he was martyred in 1012 …

During a drunken Easter feast the frustrated Vikings pelted him with the leftover meat and bones of cattle and oxen. He was eventually put out of his misery with a fatal blow from an axe, hence the animal skull and the axe in the stained glass image.

This is the third building on the site and was designed by Hawksmoor in 1711. Unfortunately, on 19 March 1941, two incendiary devices hit the church causing huge damage and little of the original interior now remains. After the war the leading British architect, Albert Richardson, restored the church in a way which combines both traditional and modern approaches. The work was completed in 1953.

There is some beautiful stained glass.

The east window, above the altar, was installed in 1953. It shows the risen Christ and beneath, St Alfege and Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VII …

There is also a series of post-war stained glass windows by Francis Spear depicting famous historical figures associated with the church, including General Wolfe …

Wolfe died aged 32, leading his troops to victory at Quebec, a turning point in the struggle between Britain and France for control of Canada. Wolfe, who worshipped here, is buried in a family vault in the crypt.

Some more important people and events …

Finally, ‘the father of English church music’ …

From 1540 t0 1585, the church was lucky enough to have Thomas Tallis as church organist …

Engraving by Niccolò Haym after a portrait by Gerard van der Gucht.

Tallis is considered one of England’s greatest composers and parts of this old keyboard may date from his period with the church …

The Chandelier was installed in 1998 and has 58 electric candle lights …

The dove at the top symbolises the Holy Spirit …

Bell Ringing boast …

Some generous benefactors including, in 1577: ‘William Riplar, Fisherman gave his house called the Peter boat to the poor for ever‘ and in 1605, Joyce Whitehead gave 5 shillings to repair the church every year. All fascinating local tales of charity….

There are cherubs in the bottom corners of the benefactors’ board …

The ironwork in the galleries (and the altar rails) survived the bombing and are from the workshop of the French Huguenot Jean Tijou, who also produced work for St Paul’s Cathedral and Hampton Court …

You’ll find more cherubs outside …

Some extremely informative, and beautifully worded, memorials …

Major Dinwiddy was a very talented man …

Here he is as pictured in the Western Front Association Magazine along with a fascinating article about the rangefinder …

Conrad Dinwiddy was born in Greenwich in 1881, and was the son of London architect and surveyor, Thomas Dinwiddy who had an architectural practice based in Greenwich.

Like his father, Conrad was also a surveyor, and initially developed a rangefinder to make it easier for ground batteries to hit the Zeppelins that were attacking British cities. He joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916, where he was posted to the Western Front in charge of a six inch howitzer battery. He would continue inventing improvements to how guns were aimed, firing from barges, and the methods for transporting ammunition.

He was wounded by German battery fire on the 26th of September, 1917, and died the following day. He is buried in a military cemetery in Belgium. The memorial in St. Alfege has the wrong date, as he died a day earlier on the 27th of September. You can read more about him, the church, and Greenwich in general in the excellent London Inheritance blog.

The ‘South African War’ …

Despite the destruction meted out in 1941, it remains a lovely, atmospheric church (Photos by David Iliff 2015 – Creative Commons) …

There is, of course, another Hawksmoor masterpiece in the City of London, St Mary Woolnoth, which you can read about here.

Still in Greenwich, a few yards away and dated 1814 …

The inclusion of Education and Industry in its title reflects the standard early 19th-century curriculum for lower-class girls. Alongside reading, writing, and religious catechism, the students were taught practical industrial/domestic skills (such as needlework, spinning, and straw-plaiting) to prepare them for future employment as domestic servants or textile workers.

I headed for the river as the day got warmer and then encountered this monster …

You can just see the masts of the Cutty Sark in the distance on the right …

Two vessels, 150 years of history between them.

Looking towards the City …

The Scalpel, The Cheesegrater, 22 Bishopsgate and The Gherkin all lined up …

Looking towards Canary Wharf …

This extraordinary monument to Peter the Great (unveiled in 2001) is a short walk along the river path from the centre of Greenwich, overlooking Deptford Creek. According to the Russian/English dedication it is ‘a gift of the Russian people and commemorates the visit of Peter the Great to this country in search of knowledge and experience’. For a few months in 1698, as part of his ‘Grand Embassy’, Peter stayed in the area to study shipbuilding in the famous Deptford dockyards, which had been built in 1513 by Henry VIII. Visitors to the statue often remark on its odd setting, in a modern housing development, and on the smallness of Peter’s head …

A tall, rangy Peter holds a pipe and a telescope and looks out over the Thames, his expression unreadable. He is flanked by a dwarf (he brought one with him to England), a throne, and parapets featuring Russian and English inscriptions, cannon, sea-monster heads, a mysterious triangle filled with balls, and depictions of food and drink. The singular look is the work of two Russians, architect Viacheslav Bikhaev and sculptor Mihail Chemiakin. Some of the unusual style of the work can be put down to Chemiakin’s interests in the playful and the grotesque …

Greenwich never disappoints.

I didn’t get to the Fan Museum as planned …

… maybe next time.

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More Fitzrovia! Including a vampiric Council leader and a freed slave who became a best-selling author.

By The City Gent

On 21st May 2026

In Architecture, Art, Religion, Sculpture, Social History, Special Exhibitions

As promised last week, I’m going to write a little more about my journey ‘west’ to Fitzrovia.

Firstly, I’m grateful to the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association for the explanation on their website as to where the name Fitzrovia originated. Here is an extract: Biographer Paul Willetts describes the name Fitzrovia as a “retrospective label applied to a district of central London where, between roughly 1925 and 1950, the pubs, restaurants, cafés, and drinking clubs provided a fashionable rendezvous for a diverse range of writers with a taste for bohemian life. The label, which had passed into common usage by the early 1960s, acknowledged the one-time status of the Fitzroy Tavern, at 16 Charlotte Street, as the area’s pre-eminent venue. Together with Rathbone Place, Charlotte Street forms the crooked spine of Fitzrovia.” You can read more on their very informative and interesting website.

Where is Fitzrovia? A screenshot from the Association website …

I wrote about the beautiful Fitzrovia Chapel in last week’s blog and here are some more aspects of the area that I found interesting.

First up is the Fitzrovia Mural …

Here’s the key …

The area was often under threat of redevelopment, so the former leader of the Greater London Council, Horace Cutler, is depicted as a vampire. He was also famous at the time for his bow ties …

The mural started to deteriorate significantly over the years but has now been restored. You can read more about the work here.

The best view is from Whitfield Gardens …

I am indebted to the brilliant blog Ian Visits for the background to this area. There’s much more on his website.

Sitting to the north of the park is a church. The original Congregational Chapel opened in 1756 with a graveyard space to the south. Thanks to being a bit too popular, the original building was demolished and rebuilt in 1890. However, that chapel was destroyed on Palm Sunday 1945 by the last V-2 rocket to fall on London.The current chapel was built in 1957, and was taken over by the American International Church in 1972.

The original church’s graveyard had closed to burials in 1856. It was later bought by the London County Council in 1894, possibly in a deal aligned with the rebuilding of the chapel.

Although former graveyards that are turned into public parks are often lined with graves, the only noticeable one is the very easy to trip over grave for John and Mary Procter, and (in the top left of this picture) a stone plaque marking the decision of local cheese shop owners, Robert and Esther Procter to donate some land here for the public …

Nearby (but now long lost) was the grave of this man, Olaudah Equiano …

Born in about 1745, a free man in part of present day Nigeria, at the age of about eleven, Equiano was captured and enslaved. His ownership changed hands several times until one of his owners allowed him to buy his freedom in 1766. He subsequently travelled widely before settling in London where he became one of the leading lights of the campaign to end slavery …

Equiano was a shrewd businessman and his ‘Interesting Narrative’ was also a major success (it went through nine editions in his lifetime alone) and, when he died in 1797, he left a sum equivalent to about £80,000 at today’s prices to his surviving daughter (his will can be viewed at The National Archives in Kew).

You can read more here.

Just across the road is the magnificent frontage of Heal & Son …

I love the panels displaying the goods and services available …

You can read a fascinating history of the store here. For example, after John Heal the founder died in 1833 his widow renamed the business Fanny Heal & Son!

All Saints Margaret Street is the most well-known church in the area. It is built in the high-Victorian gothic style and is Grade I listed …

The 1841 specification for a ‘Model Church on a large and splendid scale’ specified that:

It must be in the Gothic style of the late 13th and early 14th centuries
It must be honestly built of solid materials
Its ornament should decorate its construction
Its artist should be ‘a single, pious and laborious artist alone, pondering deeply over his duty to do his best for the service of God’s Holy Religion

Above all the church must be built so that the ‘Rubricks and Canons of the Church of England may be consistently observed, and the Sacraments rubrically and decently administered’.

My images of this splendid building will give you an idea whether expectations were met.

You can read more about the church’s history and architecture here.

Closer to home, and just across the footbridge between the Barbican Highwalk and Moorfields, Post-it Man is back – and he doesn’t look very happy …

Finally, there are two things happening at the Barbican Centre at the moment that you may like to visit.

Origo at the Sculpture Court …

And In Other Worlds in The Curve …

I’ll probably write about both next week.

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