I saw a giant colourful penguin outside the Blackfriar pub last week and had a quick Google last Sunday when I went for a walk. Here’s the publicity blurb: This Christmas, the Fleet Street Quarter is transforming into a winter wonderland with a magical FREE penguin parade sculpture trail in support of WWF. From Thursday 14th November, families and visitors are invited to embark on a fabulous festive adventure to discover 12 adorable penguin sculptures throughout the Quarter. Each penguin, decked out in unique festive finery designed by talented artists, will be perched in iconic spots adding a splash of Antarctic charm to the City. And each one has a QR code with lots of fun penguin facts. There’s a helpful map here.
But Dr Johnson’s cat Hodge is happy to share a space with Snowy in Gough Square …
Tiffany here can be found down a little alley off Carter Lane called New Bell Yard …
There were lots of families following the trail when I took these images.
The Steve McQueen film Blitz has just been released and you can see an interesting display of clothes from the film at the Barbican Centre …
If you want to understand and explore the true, fullstory of Londoners and the Blitz I strongly recommend Jerry White’s book The Battle of London 1939-45.
Whilst on the subject of the Blitz, I recently walked past The National Firefighters Memorial on Peter’s Hill opposite the Tower of London where I often pause. It’s interesting to note the special plaque commemorating the 23 women members of the Auxiliary Fire Service who gave their lives protecting London and its inhabitants during the bombing …
The lady on the left is an incident recorder and the one on the right a despatch rider.
On the wall of the Leonardo Royal Hotel that fronts Carter Lane is this rather unusual plaque …
The Bell was demolished at the end of the 19th century to make way for the Post Office Savings Bank building referenced in the plaque by the mention of the Postmaster General. The Post Office building itself was demolished in the 1990s to make way for the hotel but the original late 19th century door surround to the Post Office building has been retained in New Bell Yard (right beside Tiffany, see above) …
A statue commemorating the poet John Keats has appeared just south of the entrance to Moorgate Station. It was sculpted by Martin Jennings and depicts a larger than life-size copy of a life mask of Keats taken aged 21. Keats was the son of an ostler at a nearby inn called The Swan and Hoop …
The bronze is mounted on a plinth above a slate base inscribed with words from Keats’ Ode on Indolence.
Thought I’d grab an image of this classic view from Fleet Street whilst the sun was out. Looking from the left you see 22 Bishopsgate, the Cheesegrater, the spires of St Mary-le-Bow and St Martin Ludgate and the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral …
Christmas light installations are beginning to appear …
Press the ‘buttons’ and the lights change colour as music plays …
Not surprisingly, children seem to love it!
City Point offices get in on the act …
Sadly, I couldn’t resist photographing my Yuzu Grand Macaron dessert at Côte Barbican …
An image from outside the City I’d like to share with you. This is on Finchley Road, about 10 minutes walk from the Underground station …
Definitely worth seeking out if you find yourself in that part of the world. I must have stared at it for a full 15 minutes. Read its story here in the excellent Londonist website.
A couple of super sunsets. I haven’t edited these images in any way so the colours are authentic …
And finally, the wonderful City gardeners are replanting the bed on Silk Street and I shall be tracking its progress over the coming months …
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Last Saturday I visited what is, in my opinion, the most extraordinary pub in the City, the Blackfriar …
It’s a tall, narrow, wedge shaped treat of a building squeezed in between two roads and a railway bridge.
A jolly, corpulent friar embodies the name of the place …
He harks back to the Dominican monastery that once stood on the site before the Dissolution of the 16th century saw it sold off or leased to weathy merchants.
You get a sense of how extraordinary this pub is before you even enter. Here the cellarer carries wine along with the keys to his domain …
Inspecting the day’s catch whilst either side friars tuck in to pie and cheese…
More carvings to make you smile …
Intricate brass signage …
And all this before you even go in the door.
And when you do, what a sight awaits.
Friars going about their daily lives. Harvesting on Saturday afternoon …
Above the bar, a bronze bas-relief entitled Tomorrow will be Friday depicts them catching trout and eels …
Singing carols …
You can dine in the cosy Grotto which was excavated from the railway vault. There are various sayings and mottos to amuse and enlighten you. HASTE IS SLOW, FINERY IS FOOLERY …
And my two favourites, A GOOD THING IS SOON SNATCHED UP with a grinning friar pushing a pig in a wheelbarrow …
I also like DON’T ADVERTISE TELL A GOSSIP …
Note the two devils. There are four in each corner of the room amusing themselves with an entertaining pastime – these two are play-acting and painting.
Admire the mosaic ceiling and observe the friar on the left …
He’s stuffing his face with food thereby representing one of the seven deadly sins – gluttony …
Five more sins are represented but for some reason ‘lust’ has been omitted.
More monks work hard supporting lamp shades …
There’s a lovely stained glass window depicting a friar working at dawn in a sunlit garden. Many people comment on his pointy, Mr Spock-type ears …
You will find a very informative and interesting history of the pub and the craftsmen who helped create its unique environment here in the excellent Victorian Web blog. I also strongly recommend this article by Jane Peyton which points out other aspects of the decoration that I have not mentioned. Read more about the City monasteries and in particular the Blackfriars in my blog on the subject which you can find here.
I’ve eaten here in the Grotto many times over the years and the food (especially the fish and chips) has always been good. If you visit, raise a glass to Sir John Betjeman and others who campaigned to save this building from demolition in the 1960s. It is now Grade II* listed and so should be safe from future vandals.
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Regular readers will know that when I find it a bit difficult to source new stories about the City I head east and this is a report on one of my sorties.
I travelled on the Docklands Light Railway to Canning Town, making sure, of course, that I got a front seat so I could pretend to drive the train …
London City Island is described in its advertising as ‘a new Island neighbourhood on one of the best-connected sites in the capital. Bridging the business might of neighbouring Canary Wharf and the cultural energy of east London, London City Island is one of the most important waterside projects London has seen in recent years – an award-winning place that has received accolades from multiple prestigious awards bodies’. It was very pleasant to walk through.
The English National Ballet is here …
The sculpture is called After The Dance by Colin Spofforth (2023) …
I love a good ghost sign …
A strange fact associated with this place. In 1877 Togo Heihachiro, later a prominent Japanese Admiral, came for work experience with the Samuda Brothers after completing his training at the Naval Preparatory School in Portsmouth and the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. After returning to Japan, he led the Imperial Japanese Navy navy to victory in the Russo-Japanese War, establishing Japan as a Great Power. How ironic is that.
To say that Mr Mare of the above company had a colourful career would be an understatement. Once an MP, and apparently a millionaire, he was unseated for bribery in 1853 and declared bankrupt for the first of four times in 1855. He eventually died in Stepney in 1898 totally destitute. His story is told in fascinating detail in this Victorian Commons blog. Highly recommended.
I loved the texture and colours of this old brick wall nearby …
Some more artwork and sculpture along the way …
My final destination …
You know you are somewhere special when you see a London taxi with a tree growing out of its roof plonked on top of the local cafe …
The tree is an artificial sculptural construction made of metal. It was made by the artist Andrew Baldwin, who spent many years training as a master blacksmith and welder. I found images of the work before it was placed on the roof and of the lifting exercise itself …
The taxi/tree sculpture is a good example of Baldwin’s witty approach to artworks and there are some more of his unusual and original metal sculptures to be seen around the wharf …
The first Blackfriars Bridge was designed by Robert Mylne and openened in 1769. It was constructed from Portland Stone which, although attractive, was quickly weakened by damage from barges, ice and pollution …
Gradually its foundations started to become undermined and by the 1850s it was apparent that continual repair was not feasible and the bridge had to be replaced. The new bridge was designed by Joseph Cubitt (1811-1872) who also designed the adjacent railway bridge …
The foundation stone was laid by the Lord Mayor on 25 July 1865 – here’s an invitation to the event …
Under construction in 1868 …
Divers wearing what was then modern gear invented in the 1830s …
The formal opening by Queen Victoria in 1869 …
The bridge in 1896 with the station under development …
Image from (probably) 1914 …
Here are a few things to look out for as you cross the bridge today.
There are a series of columns rising out of the river …
These are the remains of the original railway bridge, which was removed in 1985 as it was deemed too weak for modern trains.
Note the pulpit-shaped tops of the bridge pillars. They reference the original monastery of the Black Friars or Dominican monks, evicted by Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. I have written about the Medieval monasteries in an earlier blog which you can find here …
On the south side is the beautifully painted coat of arms of the London Chatham & Dover Railway …
Note the white horse rampant, symbol of Kent, and the county motto ‘Invicta’ meaning ‘undefeated’ or ‘unconquered’.
And now some features not everyone notices. Peer over the parapet and on either side you will see some birds on the capitals of the bridge supports, meticulously carved in Portland stone by J.B.Philip.
The birds on the west side are fresh water birds and plants to be found on the upper reaches of the river …
And on the east side, sea birds and seaweeds to be found at the mouth of the Thames …
On the north side of the bridge is one of my favourite water fountains, recently liberated from behind hoardings and nicely restored …
The pretty lady represents ‘Temperance’ and she originally stood outside the Royal Exchange. You can see an image of her in that position here.
The fountain was inaugurated by Samuel Gurney, MP, the Chairman of the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountains Association, on 27 July 1861 and you can read more about him, and the Association, in my earlier blog Philanthropic Fountains.
In the middle of the road, Her Majesty gazes imperiously towards the City …
If you get the chance, pop in to the spanking new Blackfriars Station.
Nowadays, if you want to travel by rail to Continental Europe, you head for St Pancras International and Eurostar. Once upon a time though, your gateway to the Continent was Blackfriars Station.
The station was badly damaged during the Second World War but the wall displaying a selection of the locations you could catch a train to survived and you can see it today in the ticket hall. It was part of the original façade of the 1886 station (originally known as St Paul’s) and features the names of 54 destinations – each painstakingly carved into separate sandstone blocks …
The destinations are gilded in 24 carat gold leaf …
‘Where shallwe buy a ticket to today? Crystal Palace or Marseilles? Westgate-on-Sea or St Petersburg? Tough choices!’
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An important date for your diary! This Saturday, 5th October, at 11:30 a.m. I will be interviewed by Robert Elms on his BBC Radio London show. We’ll be chatting about my book Courage, Crime and Charity in the City of London and I hope you will be able to join us.
On a sunny day last week I took a walk towards Holborn and picked out a few buildings and memorials that I really liked.
First up is the Wax Chandlers Hall …
Wax Chandlers’ Hall is on Gresham Street on a site that the Company has owned since 1501. It has a long and fascinating history stretching all the way back to 1371 when they applied to the City’s governing body, the Mayor and Court of Aldermen, to have officials appointed from among their number (masters) to ‘overse all the defaults in theyre saide crafte’, and see that offenders were prosecuted. Their history is really well documented on their website.
Surely the bluest door in the City with the finest unicorns …
On the next corner is the building with the rogue apostrophe and the happy smiling sun…
Surely that should be St Martin’s House?
So many fine buildings date from the late 19th and very early 20th century …
The General Post Office in St. Martin’s Le Grand was the main post office for London between 1829 and 1910, the headquarters of the General Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and England’s first purpose-built post office …
Poor Henry Cecil Raikes, who laid this stone, died in August the following year aged only 52. Here he is in a Vanity Fair caricature when he was Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons …
Parallel is King Edward Street where the man himself laid this stone on 16th October 1905 …
The great British Empire is duly acknowledged along with the King’s connection to an earlier Edward and the foundation of Christ’s Hospital.
It’s commemorated again nearby with this sculpture, the ragamuffins on the right being carefully coaxed towards a better life …
To me they look like they are having a fine time just as they are, perhaps letting it all hang out at a concert …
On Newgate Street another building connected to the Post Office …
This imposing building is at 16/17 Old Bailey. The London Picture Archive tells us: The seven-storey building was designed for the Chatham and Dover Railway Company by Arthur Usher of Yetts, Sturdy and Usher of London in 1912. The building is in the Edwardian baroque style with elements of french architectural styles such as the mansard roof … …
Above the entrance is a broken pediment with statues either side depicting travel. The statue of the woman on the left holds a wheel depicting rail travel and the woman on the right leans on an anchor depicting sea travel. At the bottom of brackets on the two piers either side of the entrance are small carved lion heads …
Across the road, outside the church of St Sepulchre Newgate, is this modest little drinking fountain which has an intriguing history …
Look up towards the roof of the church and you’ll see a late 17th Century sundial …
The dial is on the parapet above south wall of the nave and is believed to date from 1681. It is made of stone painted blue and white with noon marked by an engraved ‘X’ and dots marking the half hours. It shows Winter time from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm in 15 minute marks. I thought it was curious that the 4:00 pm mark is represented as IIII rather than IV – I have no idea why
There is demolition going on in the approach to Holborn Viaduct and I couldn’t resist taking this image of what looks like a building that has been sliced away revealing the vestiges of decoration left on each floor …
I find it reminiscent of the ruined houses on bomb sites that used to be a common feature of London right up to the early 1970s.
Holborn Viaduct dragons and a knight in armour …
As Prince Albert doffs his hat towards the City of London, a terracotta masterpiece looms in the background …
Before walking towards it I made a quick detour to St Andrew Holborn to admire the Charity Boy and Girl …
Pausing at the junction with Grays Inn Road, and looking back east, you will see that you are at one of the entrances to the City guarded by a dragon …
In the background is the Royal Fusiliers War Memorial, a work by Albert Toft. Unveiled by the Lord Mayor in 1922, the inscriptions read …
To the glorious memory of the 22,000 Royal Fusiliers who fell in the Great War 1914-1919 (and added later) To the Royal Fusiliers who fell in the World war 1939-1945 and those fusiliers killed in subsequent campaigns.
Toft’s soldier stands confidently as he surveys the terrain, his foot resting on a rock, his rifle bayoneted, his left hand clenched in determination. At the boundary of the City, he looks defiantly towards Westminster. The general consensus on the internet is that the model for the sculpture was a Sergeant Cox, who served throughout the First World War.
Behind him is the magnificent, red terracotta, Gothic-style building by J.W. Waterhouse, which once housed the headquarters of the Prudential Insurance Company.
As is often the case, I am indebted to the London Inheritance blogger for some of the detail about this extraordinary building . The Prudential moved into their new office in 1879, which was quite an achievement given that the company had only been founded 31 years earlier in 1848. The building exudes Victorian commercial power and was a statement building for the company that was at the time the country’s largest insurance company …
The lower part of the building uses polished granite, with red brick and red terracotta across all upper floors. If you stare at the building long enough the use of polished granite gives the impression that there has been a large flood along Holborn, which has left a tide mark on the building after washing out the red colour from the lower floors.
In the centre of the façade is a tower, with a large arch leading through into inner courtyards around which are further wings of the building …
It incorporates a sculpture of Prudence carrying one of the attributes of this Virtue, a hand mirror …
When built, the Prudential building was very advanced for its time. There was hot and cold running water, electric lighting, and to speed the delivery of paperwork across the site, a pnematic tube system was installed, where documents were put into canisters, which were then blown through the tube system to their destination. Ladies were provided with their own restaurant and library, and had a separate entrance, and were also allowed to leave 15 minutes early to “avoid consorting with men”.
The building’s brickwork is very attractive …
In the courtyard you will see the work of a sculptor who has chosen to illustrate war in a very different fashion to Toft.
The memorial carries the names of the 786 Prudential employees who lost their lives in the First World War …
The sculptor was F.V. Blundstone and the work was inaugurated on 2 March 1922. All Prudential employees had been offered ‘the opportunity of taking a personal share in the tribute by subscribing to the cost of the memorial’ (suggested donations were between one and five shillings).
The main group represents a soldier sustained in his death agony by two angels. He is lying amidst war detritus with his right arm resting on the wheel of some wrecked artillery piece. His careworn face contrasts with that of the sombre, beautiful girls with their uplifted wings. I find it incredibly moving.
I have written about angels in the City before and they are usually asexual, but these are clearly female.
At the four corners of the pedestal stand four more female figures.
One holds a field gun and represents the army …
One holds a boat representing the navy …
At the back is a figure holding a shell representing National Service …
The fourth lady holds a bi-plane representing the air force …
There are also two memorial plaques to employes who died in the Second World War. The north panel lists names A-K, the second K-Z. Each is topped with a broken pediment set around a wreath, with a figure of St George on top …
All those lost lives from just one employer.
I shall probably continue my walk westwards next week.
Today I’m continuing the walk I started last week heading south along City Road.
Just before the Old Street roundabout you encounter two intriguing buildings. The first of these is The Alexandra Trust Dining Rooms …
In August 1898, newspapers reported a plan to provide cheap meals at cost price in a series of counter-service restaurants in the poorest parts of London. Sir Thomas Lipton, wealthy grocer and philanthropist, was prepared to spend £100,000 on building them; after the initial outlay the scheme aimed to be self-supporting. HRH the Princess of Wales – Princess Alexandra, wife of the future King Edward VII – lent her patronage. The scheme built on her Diamond Jubilee meal for the poor in 1897, for which the then Mr. Lipton had donated £25,000 of the required £30,000, and which succeeded in feeding 300,000 people. He was knighted at the start of 1898, made a Baron in 1902 and died in 1931 aged 83. A fine man with a fine moustache …
Called Empire House, the Old Street building opened on the 9th of March 1900. It had three floors of dining rooms each designed to hold 500 people – a number frequently exceeded in later years. The Morning Post reported that the basement included washing facilities for customers and an artesian well yielding 2,000 gallons of water an hour, and that 1,200 steak puddings can be cooked simultaneously. There were ‘electric automatic lifts’ to aid distribution of food to the dining floors, and a bakehouse with electric kneading. The Sketch described the establishment as a type of slap-bang – an archaic noun meaning a low eating house. Soup, steak pudding with two vegetables and a pastry costs 4½ᵈ.
The kitchen …
The men’s dining room …
The ladies’ dining room …
The Dining Rooms closed in 1951. You can read the full history of this fascinating enterprise here on the brilliant London Wanderer blog.
Further south is the stunning terracotta masterpiece that was once the Leysian Mission …
The crest above the main entrance bears the Latin words ‘In Fide Fiducia’ (In Faith, Trust), which is the motto of the Leys School in Cambridge. The object of the Mission organization was to promote the welfare of the poorer people in the UK …
At the dawn of the last century, like the Dining Rooms, the Leysian Mission was a welfare centre for the poor masses of the East End. As well as saving people’s souls, the Methodists who ran it believed in helping people in this life too. They thus offered health services, a ‘poor man’s lawyer’, entertainment in the form of film screenings and lantern shows, as well as hosting affiliated organisations such as the Athletic Society, the Brass Band, the Penny Bank, the Working Men’s Club and Moulton House Settlement for Young Men …
The Methodist meeting places ‘were all built to look as un-churchlike as possible in an attempt to woo the working classes away from the temptations of drink and music halls.’ The building’s Great Queen Victoria Hall, which seated nearly 2,000 people, boasted a magnificent organ as well as a stunning stained glass window.
Plans published in The Building News 1901 …
The combination of the Second World War, during which the building suffered extensive bombing damage, followed by the introduction of the welfare state and the changing social character of the area saw the Leysian Mission gradually lose its relevance as a welfare centre. In the 1980s it merged with the Wesleyan Church with the building sold, converted into residential flats and renamed Imperial Hall.
Plaques that were ‘fixed’ by VIPs when the building was completed in 1903 are still there …
I like the posh brass intercom system …
At the roundabout there’s another plaque, this time commemorating the City Road Turnpike …
Road pricing is not new! Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the capital operated an extensive system of toll gates, known as turnpikes, which were responsible for monitoring horse-drawn traffic and imposing substantial charges upon any traveller wishing to make use of the route ahead.
A ‘General Plan For Explaining The Different Trusts Of The Turnpike Gates In The Vicinity Of The Metropolis. Published By J. Cary, July 1st, 1790’ …
Just like today, certain lucky users were exempt from the charge – namely mail coaches, soldiers, funeral processions, parsons on parish business, prison carts and, of course, members of the royal family.
Vandals today damaging or destroying ULEZ cameras can feel something in common with these people – a ‘rowdy group of travellers causing trouble at a turnpike in 1825’ …
As you cross the road by the roundabout, look west along Old Street and you’ll see a magnificent old sign, a relic of the area’s industrial past. An extract from the blog of the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society reads as follows:
‘It is pleasing to discover that last year the sign, which is thought to date from early in the 20th century, was restored (though without the black paint Bob thought might originally have featured) and now looks very good. It was presumably erected by J Liversidge and Son, wheelwrights and later wagon and van builders, who occupied 196 Old Street for some decades. The firm first appears in the Old Kent Road in the 1880s; by the 1890s they had expanded into Hackney and then into Old Street. By 1921 they were back in the Old Kent Road alone, the development of motor vehicles presumably having removed much of their busines’ …
I like the hand pointing down to the site (it’s now a petrol station) …
It’s on the east wall of what was once St Luke’s School who presumably made an appropriate charge for allowing its installation …
I paused to admire Old Street Station’s green roof …
Just past the roundabout on the left there’s a building that’s a bit of a mystery. It’s almost opposite the entrance to the Bunhill Burial Ground and has been derelict for as long as I can remember (and that’s quite a while) …
Very strange. On the north wall is a plaque bearing the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, so maybe they own the building …
I thought it would be appropriate on this walk to acknowledge the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, and pop in for a brief visit to his chapel …
It’s well worth a diversion.
You can admire the stained glass of which there are many fine traditional examples …
Plus some striking, unusual contemporary works …
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 …
On 28 February 1975 at 8:46 am at Moorgate Station 43 people died and 74 were injured after a train failed to stop at the line’s southern terminus and crashed into its end wall. No fault was found with the train, and the inquiry by the Department of the Environment concluded that the accident was caused by the actions of Leslie Newson, the 56-year-old driver. A memorial tablet was placed in Finsbury Square …
Mr Newson is commemorated on the memorial along with the others who lost their lives. There has never been a satisfactory explanation for his behaviour, but suicide seemed unlikely. Newson was known by his colleagues as a careful and conscientious motorman (driver). On 28 February he carried a bottle of milk, sugar, his rule book, and a notebook in his work satchel; he also had £270 in his jacket to buy a second-hand car for his daughter after work. According to staff on duty his behaviour appeared normal. Before his shift began he had a cup of tea and shared his sugar with a colleague; he jokingly said to the colleague “Go easy on it, I shall want another cup when I come off duty”.
It took all day to remove the injured, many of whom had to be cut free. After five more days and an operation involving 1,324 firefighters, 240 police officers, 80 ambulance workers, 16 doctors and numerous volunteers all of the bodies were recovered. The driver’s body was taken out on day four. His crushed cab, at the front of the train, normally 3-foot deep, had been reduced to 6 inches.
On the north side of the square is this building …
Formerly Triton Court, it’s now known as the Alphabeta Building. Many years ago I would sometimes travel by train into the now demolished Broad Street Station. As the train approached the terminus I could see from my carriage what looked like a little boy standing on a large ball at the very top of the building. It looked like he was waving at me!
Well, he’s still there …
Now, however, I know the statue standing on top of the globe is Mercury (Hermes) the messenger and God of profitable trade. It’s by James Alexander Stevenson and was completed in the early 1900s. Though it would be impossible to see from the ground it’s apparently – as with all Stevenson’s work – signed with ‘Myrander’ a combination of his wife’s name (Myra) and his middle name (Alexander). Sweet. The renovated building is quite stunning inside as you can see here.
And finally to Moorgate Station, where a relic of its past life can be seen if you glance from across the road to the east facing entrance …
It’s a version of the logo of the City and South London Railway (C&SLR) adapted to show the carriages passing through a tunnel under the Thames where little boats bob about in the water. And for extra authenticity, I think the train on the right is coming towards us and the one on the left moving away. I love it …
This was the first successful deep-level underground ‘tube’ railway in the world and the first major railway to use electric traction …
The original service was operated by trains composed of an engine and three carriages. Thirty-two passengers could be accommodated in each carriage, which had longitudinal bench seating and sliding doors at the ends, leading onto a platform for boarding and alighting. It was reasoned that there was nothing to look at in the tunnels, so the only windows were in a narrow band high up in the carriage sides. Gate-men rode on the carriage platforms to operate the lattice gates and announce the station names to the passengers. Because of their claustrophobic interiors, the carriages soon became known as padded cells …
The genius behind deep tunnel boring was James Henry Greathead, a South African engineer (note the hat) who invented what was to become known as the Greathead Shield. His statue, below, was placed on Cornhill because a new ventilation shaft was needed for Bank Underground Station and it was decided that he should be honoured on the plinth covering the shaft …
It was such a nice sky I took another image which also shows the C&SLR logo incorporated in the plinth …
You can read more about him and his tunnelling innovation in my blog City work and public sculpture. You can also read the full fascinating history of the City and South London Railway here.
… That’s the way the money goes, Pop! goes the weasel’.
After Googling this very old rhyme, I was bewildered by the number of interpretations of the term ‘Pop goes the weasel’! Anyway, here’s the one I like best:
‘In the mid-19th century, “pop” was a well-known slang term for pawning something—and City Road had a well-known pawn establishment in the 1850s. In this Cockney interpretation, “weasel” is Cockney rhyming slang for “weasel and stoat” meaning “coat”. Thus, to “pop the weasel” meant to pawn your coat’.
Presumably this was done to spend money on drink in The Eagle pub, and I shall be walking past The Eagle in this week’s blog as I walk down City Road.
My walk starts, however, at the corner of Golden Lane and Beech Street with the Banksy artwork that pays tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) whose UK retrospective opened at the Barbican Centre on 21 September 2017. The main work features a stencilled policeman and woman, recognisably Banksy, who appear to be conducting a stop and search on the artist …
On the other side of the street is a smaller piece, this time featuring a stencilled ferris wheel with people queuing to enter. The carriages have been replaced with stylised crowns, the symbol of Basquiat himself and now an iconic image in the street art and graffiti world …
Heading north I came across this rather nice Victorian double post box …
One of the slots would have been for ‘Meter Mail’ in which businesses once sent pre-printed, self-addressed envelopes or packages to customers with postage pre-paid in-house using a postage meter.
The company was a prolific manufacturer but after Handyside died in 1887 the firm gradually declined until it closed early in the twentieth century.
Here’s the man himself (National Galleries of Scotland) …
A few yards further is the famous Golden Lane Estate …
In the middle of the nineteenth century, over 130,000 people resided in the City of London but by 1952 that number had dropped to just 5,000. Business and commerce had become the main uses of land in the City. Residents who had lost their homes as a result of the 2nd World War bombings were re-housed in areas outside the centre. However, the City Corporation was concerned about the depopulation of the City and turned its attention to this when planning the rebuilding of the City in the post-war era.
The Corporation announced the competition to design an estate at Golden Lane on 12 July 1951 with the closing date for submissions on 31 January 1952. It was won by Geoffry Powell, a lecturer in architecture at the Kingston School of Art College, in 1952. He invited lecturer colleagues Christoph Bon and Joseph Chamberlin to join him in developing a detailed design for the Golden Lane Estate. You can read an interesting history of the estate and its design here.
The winning entry …
The Estate Map …
… with its wonderful the 3D representation …
I took these images on a sunny day last week …
In 1997 the whole estate was listed, including the landscaping and public areas at Grade II but Crescent House was separately listed Grade II* …
I glanced down Garrett Street where one can catch a glimpse of the old Whitbread stables …
Further along on the left is what I call the ‘skinny house’ …
The MailOnline published a rather breathless article about it a few years ago. You can read it here.
I crossed City Road and continued north on Central Street where this young man is commemorated by Islington Council (what a nice idea) …
Another First World War casualty …
PC Smith, 37 years old, was on duty nearby when the noise was heard of an approaching group of fourteen German bombers. One press report reads as follows …
In the case of PC Alfred Smith, a popular member of the Metropolitan Force, who leaves a widow and three children, the deceased was on point duty near a warehouse. When the bombs began to fall the girls from the warehouse ran down into the street. Smith got them back, and stood in the porch to prevent them returning. In doing his duty he thus sacrificed his own life.
Smith had no visible injuries but had been killed by the blast from the bombs dropped nearby. He was one of 162 people killed that day in one of the deadliest raids of the war.
His widow received automatically a police pension (£88 1s per annum, with an additional allowance of £6 12s per annum for her son) but also had her MP, Allen Baker, working on her behalf. He approached the directors of Debenhams (whose staff PC Smith had saved) and solicited from them a donation of £100 guineas (£105). A further fund, chaired by Baker, raised almost £472 and some of this was used to pay for the Watts Memorial tablet, below, which was officially unveiled in Postman’s Park on the second anniversary of Alfred’s death …
Next an Elizabethan postbox by the Carron Company of Stirlingshire …
Among other commissions, the company also produced the famous Giles Gilbert Scott telephone boxes. Despite diversifying into plastics and stainless steel, the company went into receivership in 1982.
‘The new energy centre uses state-of-the-art technology on the site of a disused Underground station that commuters have not seen for almost 100 years. The remains of the station, once known as City Road, have been transformed to house a huge underground fan which extracts warm air from the Northern line tunnels below. The warm air is used to heat water that is then pumped to buildings in the neighbourhood through a new 1.5km network of underground pipes’.
An old trough and water fountain …
Read all about the history of drinking water supplies to the London working population and their animals in my blog Philanthropic Fountains.
Turn right into City Road and you encounter these remarkably lifelike characters and their dog …
This light display gives a clue as to what’s coming up …
The famous Eagle pub as mentioned in the rhyme …
At the beginning of the 19th century, ophthalmology was an unknown science but that all changed in the early 1800s as many soldiers returned from the Napoleonic wars suffering with trachoma. The original 1804 Dispensary for Curing Diseases of the Eye and Ear opened in Charterhouse Square in West in 1805. It moved in 1822 to a purpose-built building in Lower Moorfields and was renamed the London Ophthalmic Infirmary. When Queen Victoria gave it a royal charted in 1837 it became the Royal London Opthalmic Hospital but everyon still called it Moorfields. It still resides on City Road but has been vastly expanded …
The green line helps the visually impaired find their way from Old Street Underground Station …
The Alchemist bar goes green …
As does the roof of Old Street Station …
I’ll probably continue my stroll down City Road and beyond next week.
The Sculpture in the City project is always worth a visit, which is what I did last week. I have also added some other pieces that caught my eye.
First up is this one entitled Temple by Richard Mackness. It’s on the corner of Bishopsgate and Wormwood Street, EC2M 3XD…
‘In this object, questions of belief and value weave with consumer culture and the human need to find meaning and to belong’. You can read a fuller description here.
This one has been around since last year but I’m including it again because I like its location. It’s called Muamba Grove, 0 Hue 1 and 2 by Vanessa da Silva and can be found at St Botolph-without- Bishopsgate Churchyard, EC2M 3TL …
‘The artist’s process offers an indication of the inseparable link between the body and the sculpture – the artist’s own body becomes entwined within the making of the forms. Da Silva’s use of colour and carefully considered scale contributes to the sense of dynamic and fluid movement’. You can read more here.
If you visit the churchyard look out for St. Botolph’s Hall, once used as an infants’ school, but now a multipurpose church hall available for hire. At its front entrance is a pair of Coade Stone figures of a schoolboy and girl in early nineteenth century costumes …
In the foreground is the large tomb of Sir William Rawlins, Sherriff of London in 1801 and a benefactor of the church …
This is Book of Boredom by Ida Ekblad. It’s at Undershaft, EC2N 4AJ (in front of Crosby Square) …
‘Conveying a rich sense of abundance and corporality, this painted bronze sculpture presents a vibrant composition filled with fragmented, angular patterns and shapes, merging elements of figuration and abstraction’. You can read more here.
This is Untitled by Arturo Herrara at the base of the Leadenhall Building EC3V 4AB …
‘Untitled reflects the dynamic movement of people using the space and the mechanic stairs. Both designs energise the area under the stairs with an all over composition that mimics the traffic and activity of this large urban space in the City’.
I caught my first glimpse of these creatures, called Secret Sentinels, as I turned from St Mary Axe into Bevis Marks (EC3A 8BE). They made me smile, which is a good start! …
‘Secret Sentinels is a family of sculptures made from found objects and materials and covered in glass tiles. The sculptures are inspired by how we balance privacy against convenience in relation to state and private surveillance. The protrusions from each piece gently reference the surrounding, ubiquitous cameras in the City security systems, doorbells, phones and computers’. You can read more here.
Here are the other things that caught my eye during my walk that are not part of the Sculpture in the City project.
Another work now on permanent display is outside Moorgate Station and was created by the British artist Conrad Shawcross RA. It’s called Manifold (Major Third) 5:4 and was installed late last year as the penultimate artwork for the Crossrail project. According to a sign close to the art, ‘this vast bronze sculpture is an expression of a chord falling into silence’ …
The open space at Citypoint is currently a temporary home to Squiggle …
Moving away from sculpture, I like the coloured glass deployed around 22 Bishopsgate …
Thomas Bayes (circa 1701-1761) has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons due to the sudden sinking of the yacht named after him and the tragic loss of seven lives. You can read the BBC news report here.
I thought you might be interested to know that Bayes is buried in a family grave in Bunhill Fields Burial Ground. It can be easily seen from the paths but the inscriptions are rather indistinct (despite restoration in 1969 funded by statisticians worldwide) …
In the vault are laid members of the Bayes, Cotton and West families.
The inscription on the east side of the tomb (Wikimedia Commons)…
On the top of the tomb is inscribed: Rev. Thomas Bayes, Son of the said Joshua and Ann Bayes (59).
The west side, Miss Decima Cotton who died on 12 April 1795 …
Born in Hertfordshire, Bayes studied at Edinburgh University and began his preaching career in that city; he later assisted at his father’s meeting-house on Leather Lane in Holborn before being appointed Presbyterian minister to the Little Mount Sion meeting-house at Tunbridge Wells in 1731, which post he occupied until his retirement 20 years later. During his lifetime Bayes published nothing under his own name, although he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1742, perhaps on the basis of an influential defence of Newtonian mathematics published anonymously in 1734. His fame rests chiefly upon his mathematical ‘Essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances’, published posthumously in 1764; this adumbrates the highly influential ‘Bayesian’ approach to probability theory, as well as containing the famous ‘Bayes’ Theorem’, still widely used in statistics and information technology.
I was fascinated to find out that, armed with powerful computers to handle the data, American security experts use Bayesian inference to prioritise potential threats to the nation. You can read more here.
I found this image of the grave after restoration in 1969 …
I think it’s time to get the scrubbing brush out again!
On a more cheerful note, about 200 yards away is this building …
Concerned about Sir John Cass’s connection with the slave trade, the Business School that bore his name decided to rebrand themselves and, in an online poll, ‘Bayes Business School’ was the winning suggestion. I think it’s nice that his final resting place is so nearby!
When I go to buy the paper in the morning I often see the Bidfood truck delivering to Linklaters (lawyers seem to have great appetites). I like the pictures constructed out of food.
Here are my latest favourites …
Last year’s version …
I suppose I’m a bit sad recording these!
The weather was rather miserable in July but I think I captured some interesting sunsets.
Looking west towards St Giles church. Dating from 1682, the unusual profile of the tower would have been familiar to centuries of travellers approaching or leaving the City (obviously without the crane) …
Offices on London Wall look like they are aflame …
The view looking east …
Looking south with the moon behind the Shard …
Tower 52 gradually being surrounded by later developments …
Stormy sky with cranes. The tiny church steeple in the distance on the right is St Lawrence Jewry …
One more sunset pic …
Bees love the pollen from our purple Echinops …
This presents an opportunity for bee-related humour from the great Gary Larson …
Silk Street planting in June …
July …
August …
Wild crochet in North West London …
How wonderful it must have been to come back home to this house in Wetherby Gardens, South Kensington. On your way to the front door you would be walking past these extraordinary sculptures by the immensely distinguished Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm …
Where Barbican ducks do their shopping …
Proud mum …
Outside the Royal Exchange – I think he looks very authentic …
Lots of light and colour at the new Tottenham Court Road Station entrance …
The new London Bridge Station is a design masterpiece – and what a sweet idea to suggest people could arrange to meet at The Heart …
I think I prefer it to the controversial Meeting Place statue at St Pancras …
Interesting decor in the Sessions Arts Club restaurant …
A hotel I came across when visiting Chicago – surely the scariest fire exit steps in the world!
I thought I was familiar with the names of all the archiects associated with the City but somehow one of the most eminent seemed to have slipped my mind – although I must have read about him on numerous occasions. Some of his greatest works will be well known to all my readers – for example the original market buildings at Smithfield, Billingsgate and Leadenhall. His greatest surviving achievement however, in my view at least, is the structure that represents London itself to many people throughout the world – Tower Bridge.
Jones was a brilliant artist as can be seen from this pen-and-ink drawing by him from his 1884 design …
Some of the fascinating items on display in the exhibition.
This dramatic photograph captures the hive of activity during construction …
Centre stage are the high-level footway bridges slowly coming together while in the background you can see the South Abutment Tower under construction. Work on the bridge had started in 1886 and work was completed in 1894 (seven years after Horace’s death).
Hot tickets …
The ‘Ceremonial’ document outlining the programme. I was intrigued by the occupants of the carriages. What’s the difference between a ‘woman of the bedchamber’ and a ‘lady of the bedchamber’? And there are examples of chaps who are ‘in waiting’. Two equerries, a groom and a lord to be precise. No doubt a precise pecking order has been established over the centuries!
A napkin from the opening Celebration Dinner …
A great selection …
Instructions on how to operate the raising mechanism, an engineer with a super king size spanner, a workman doing masonry repairs, a police officer pulling a rope across the road to close it to traffic, the Tower Bridge tug and the Bridge Driver in the control cabin.
For the people of London during the First World War the bridge was more than a metaphorical symbol of resistance. Perched atop the upper walkway sat an anti-aircraft gun, its height and tactical position aligning it perfectly to defend against German raids. Its presence brought comfort to Londoners in the area and this poster captures the sentiment …
Each of the men listed in the centre of the poster were presented with a print as ‘grateful recognition of their services in protecting London against hostile aircraft during the Great War of 1914-1918’.
Whilst I was visiting I treated myself to this book. It’s a great read …
It explains in interesting detail why, despite a knighthood and elevation to the Presidency of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Horace never really received the full recognition he deserved and this remains the case today. For example, the Guildhall Gallery now owns the Ouless painting above but it is not on display. I’m pleased to say, however, that there is an excellent bust of Horace that you can go and see. It really gives a hint of the powerful presence and personality that clearly upset some of his contemporaries …
Unfortunately, I’m sad to say that it is tucked away at the back of the cloakroom! You’ll find it by turning right as you leave the special exhibition.
It’s on until 19 September and is located in the Heritage Gallery. During your visit you can enjoy watching films from the London Metropolitan Archive. This one is of the 1928 Lord Mayors Show …
You can also inspect a superb back-lit copy of the ‘Agas’ map of circa 1561 …
St Michael Cornhill impresses even before you go through the door.
Above the entrance is the warrior Archangel Michael ‘disputing with Satan’. It was carved by John Birnie Philip when the church was remodelled in 1858-1860. No question as to who is winning this battle …
To the right of the entrance is another sculpture of Michael brandishing a flaming sword. It is a bronze memorial to the 170 out of the 2,130 men of this parish who enrolled for military service in the First World War and died as a result …
The sculpture (by R R Goulden) was described in the Builder magazine as follows
St Michael with the flaming sword stands steadfast above the quarreling beasts which typify war, and are sliding slowly, but surely, from their previous paramount position. Life, in the shape of young children, rises with increasing confidence under the protection of the champion of right.
Walk down the narrow alley beside the church and you come to a lovely, quiet churchyard where you get a good view of the commanding tower …
Originally believed to be by Wren, it was rebuilt in the ‘Gothic’ style between 1718 and 1722 by his protégé Nicholas Hawksmoor.
The church, with the exception of the tower, was completely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. The church history notes state that it was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren between 1669 and 1672. The interior, with its majestic Tuscan columns, was beautified and repaired in 1701 and again in 1790 and then extensively ‘remodelled’ in the High Victorian manner by Sir George Gilbert Scott between 1857 and 1860 …
John Birnie Philip also carved the angels …
Pre-Victorian features that remain today include 17th century paintings of Moses and Aaron incorporated into the reredos …
The 1850s stained glass was made by the firm Clayton & Bell …
The box pews date from the Scott remodelling …
In 1716, the poet Thomas Gray, famous for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, was born in a milliner’s shop adjacent to St. Michael’s and was baptised in the church. Two hundred years later, Martin Neary, who became Master of the Music at Westminster Abbey, was baptised in the same font, which dates from 1672 …
Look to the left on entering and you’ll see the noteworthy Churchwarden’s pew …
It shows St Michael thrusting a lance into the mouth of a truly evil-looking devil. It’s a work by the eminent wood carver William Gibbs Rogers (1792-1875) …
The present organ began life in 1684 …
You can read more about its fascinating history here. I attended the recital last Monday. Absolutely wonderful. On Bank Holiday Monday (26 August) at 1:00 pm you can listen online as David Goode plays Holst’s The Planets. Join on Zoom from 12:45 pm ID 828 1357 0952 Passcode 827123.
Regular readers will know that I like a nice monument or memorial and this church has over 40 of them, many in clusters like these …
I’ve picked a few favourites.
The earliest is to John Vernon who died in 1615. It was erected by the Merchant Taylors Company after the Great Fire of 1666 to replace the ‘ruined’ original. He was a generous benefactor to the Company and its scholars. When he started to lose his sight he gifted his collection of paintings to the company so his fellows could better enjoy them as he could no longer see. Every year at Christmas boys from the Merchant Taylors’ School visit the church to sing at the special Vernon Carol Service …
He has a contemplative expression enhanced by the posing of his hands, one to his breast, the other resting on a skull, emblem of mortality and death. He wears a broad ruff and a fur lined cloak.
Next door, the Platt Family cherub endeavours to keep his feet warm …
The biggest monument in the Church is to Sir Edward Cowper who died in 1685. Bob Speel describes it as follows: ‘a grand mass of marble rising from the floor with fantastically twisted pillars and strikingly coloured marble. Perhaps by the sculptor Thomas Cartwright Senior, another of the sculptor-masons working on Wren’s City Churches’ …
In the same corner of the Church is the monument to Sir William Cowper, who died in 1664 and his wife Martha [Master] of East Langdon, and their fourth son, Spencer Cowper …
I admired the coats of arms at the end of the pews …
This one in particular intrigued me …
Whose arms are these? The mitre in the carving suggests a bishop but what are the birds all about, with their necks pierced by arrows? All is revealed in the Friends of City Churches Newsletter – highly recommended!
In addition to the war memorial outside there are several inside the church itself.
This one reads: In proud and grateful memory of the men of the County of London Electric Supply Company Limited and its associated companies who gave their lives for their country.
The Royal Fusiliers and local office workers …
The Stock Exchange Battalion …
And finally, an unusual item. This is a book prepared by the Association of British Civilian Internees, Far East Region, and placed here on 24th May 2009 …
St Michael’s church doesn’t seem to be open very often (despite what the website says). I got in because I wanted to attend the organ recital. According to their website, the wonderful Friends of City Churches are there on Tuesdays between 11:00 and 3:00.
On my way home this shop window display made me smile…
This week’s blog was prompted by a gift we received – a wonderfully crafted baby dragon from Little Dragon Designs . He’s very small, only just over three inches wide, but very meticulously detailed …
It reminded me that the City is full of dragons and that it has been a long time since I paid them a visit.
In 1963 the Government was redrawing local government boundaries and the City Corporation had to decide how its area of control should be identified. Rather than someting bland and commonplace (e.g. Welcome to the City – Please Drive Carefully) they looked for something a bit more dramatic.
Their final choice to use dragons was facilitated by the controversial decision to demolish the Coal Exchange in Lower Thames Street. The trade in coal in London was hugely important, not just because it fuelled the city, but thanks to taxes that were introduced after the Great Fire of London, it funded a lot of London building works. The Coal Exchange was built in 1847 to help manage the trade and, high above the main entrance, two plinths held two large cast-iron dragons. Here it is around 1900 …
When the Exchange was demolished, the City of London Streets Committee conceived the idea of preserving the dragons as boundary markers, and they were inaugurated in their new home on Victoria Embankment on 16 October 1963 where they remain to this day …
They were originally cast, by the London founder Dewer, in 1849, as can be seen on the back of the shield …
These original dragons are seven feet tall but half size replicas were created for deployment around 11 other entry points to the City.
Before I go on to share more dragons with you the first thing I must be clear about is that the City symbol is a dragon and not a griffin (as is still mistakenly stated in many City guides).
The legendary griffin (or gryphon) is a creature with the body, tail and back legs of a lion; the head and wings of an eagle; and an eagle’s talons as its front feet. I have only been able to find one in the City and here it is at the entrance to Dunster Court in Mincing Lane …
He proudly supports the arms of the Clothworkers Company.
Dragons, on the other hand, have a barbed tail, tend to be scaly all over and breathe fire and smoke. Here is the City of London version on Tower Hill …
It is made of cast iron and painted in silver with details picked out in red. It supports a shield with the City emblem of the red cross of St George and the short sword of St Paul, the City’s patron saint.
Guarding the boundary between the City of London and Westminster, the Temple Bar Dragon is in a league of its own. It is taller, fiercer, very gothic and is black rather than silver. It would be quite at home in a Harry Potter story and is quite scary – maybe that’s why the Corporation Committee Chairman, having considered the Temple Bar version, chose the less flamboyant Coal Exchange dragons as boundary markers instead …
Another dragon at Temple Bar faces towards Westminster …
A Times writer commented that it ‘wears an aspect of defiance similar to that of the lion surmounting the mound on the field of Waterloo’.
Once you get your eye in, so to speak, you will find dragons everywhere.
This Smithfield Market beast looks like he is just about to swoop down – perhaps for a meaty lunch …
And these two work hard supporting the roof of Leadenhall Market …
One might pop up unexpectedly as you cross Holborn Viaduct …
You encounter this formidable pair as you leave Bank Underground Station …
More delicate versions adorn the lamps outside the Royal Exchange …
The City’s coat of arms atop the Guildhall …
And on the newer building nearby …
The City’s Latin motto : Lord guide us.
A more modern version (also at the Guildhall) …
You will find a fascinating article about the City coat of arms here.
If you are fascinated by dragons, or know someone who is, I highly recommend a visit to the Little Gragon Designs website. A vast selection of dragon-related gifts!
Apart from the special Sculpture in the City events, it has been a while since I have specifically sought out other examples of what’s around so last Saturday’s sunny weather proved an ideal opportunity.
I started at Paternoster Square where I had read that the conservation-led artists Gillie and Marc had a new exhibition. Here’s what I found.
Apparently Rabbitwoman and Dogman usually accompany their work and here they hold up an informative panel about the artists …
Other animals in the exhibition …
Rabbitwoman and Dogman are known to travel around the City on their scooter. Here they are picking up a coffee at Spitalfields Market …
Also in Paternoster Square is a 1975 bronze sculpture by Elisabeth Frink which I particularly like – a ‘naked’ shepherd with a crook in his left hand walks behind a small flock of five sheep …
Dame Elisabeth was, anecdotally, very fond of putting large testicles on her sculptures of both men and animals. In fact, her Catalogue Raisonné informs us that she ‘drew testicles on man and beast better than anyone’ and saw them with ‘a fresh, matter-of-fact delight’. It was reported in 1975, however, that the nude figure had been emasculated ‘to avoid any embarrassment in an ecclesiastical setting’. The sculpture is called, appropriately, Paternoster.
This is The Cordwainer. Here on Watling Street (EC4N 1SR) you are in the Ward of Cordwainer which in medieval times was the centre of shoe-making in the City of London. The finest leather from Cordoba in Spain was used which gave rise to the name of the craftsmen and the Ward. In the background is the wall of St Mary Aldermary church …
Sculpted by Alma Boyes (2002). You can visit her website here.
I love the detail in the work, the craftsman’s face and particularly the hands straining with effort. The statue’s shoes are very beautifully represented too – but then they would have to be.
Easy to miss but worth seeking out is The Building Worker, a bronze statue of a building worker in a pose based on Michelangelo’s David, but in working clothes and wearing a hard hat and carrying a spirit level. He is on Tower Hill EC3 just across the road from the station outside the Tower of London …
The sculptor was Alan Wilson (2006) and it commemorates the ‘thousands of workers who have lost their lives at work … (and) workers who are today building and rebuilding towns and cities across the United Kingdom.’ Wreaths are laid here each year on April 28, International Workers Memorial Day, and a two minute silence is observed at noon in memory of those who have suffered fatal injuries in accidents at work.
The Plumbers’ Hall was compulsorily purchased in 1863 to make way for the expansion of Cannon Street Railway station and this statue on the concourse is a reminder of that connection …
The Plumber’s Apprentice by Mark Jennings (2011).
The inscription reads ‘This statue was erected on the site of its last Livery Hall by The Worshipful Company of Plumbers to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the granting of its Charter by King James I in 1611 and to recognise the support given by the Company to the training of apprentices.’
Now a work that caused a mini-controversy – the Charity Drinking Fountain (also known as La Maternité) by Aimé-Jules Dalou (1877-9).
In his book Public Sculpture of the City of London, Philip Ward-Jackson describes the lady as follows:
Despite her casual garb she has a diadem or tiara on her head. With her left arm she enfolds a baby, who she is suckling, whilst with her right she draws to her knee a naked boy, who gazes up at her.
She can be found outside Royal Exchange Buildings, EC3V 3NL.
Nearby is a very relaxed George Peabody who I have written about in an earlier blog …
Ward-Jackson tells us that the suckling lady’s very authentic exposed breast produced at least one letter of protest to the editor of The Globe. The correspondent urged that ‘common decency’ should be observed and went on …
Do you not think, Sir, that Mr Peabody’s chair should be turned, at least until the delicate operation of ‘lacteal sustenation’ be concluded … or the young woman and youngsters provided with the requisite clothing.
If you visit the sculptures today you will, in fact, find that Mr Peabody no longer gazes at the lady who shocked the Globe corresponsent. Surely his letter wasn’t acted upon? I can find no evidence one way or another.
How about this slightly mysterious figure at 193 Fleet Street …
I always thought that it resembled a rather effeminate youth but it is in fact a woman disguised as a pageboy, her name, Kaled, appears just under her right foot.
It is by Giuseppe Grandi, and dates from 1872. The shop owner, George Attenborough, had a niche created specially for it over the front door. Kaled is the page of Count Lara in Bryon’s poetic story of a nobleman who returns to his ancestral lands to restore justice. He antagonises the neighbouring chieftains who attack and kill him. Kaled stays with his master and lover to the end, when it is revealed he is in fact a woman. She goes mad from grief and dies.
Something a little more conventional now, this 1881 statue of Sir Rowland Hill by Edward Onslow Ford, R. A. (1852-1901). It’s on King Edward Street …
It’s in front of the old General Post Office building. Read more about this fascinating man and his postal reforms here. For example, I didn’t realise that, before 1840, the British postal system was highly complex and very expensive. Letters were charged by distance and the number of sheets of paper they contained. Normally, the charge was paid by the recipient. As a result people often ‘cross-wrote’ their letters to save money. Imagine having to decpher this missive …
I had to include a few examples of Barbican sculpture.
On the Alban Gate highwalk you will encounter two naked writhing dancers. Quite often I have seen people pose for photographs whilst trying to mimic the figures’ movements – they have not found it easy …
The work, called Unity, is by the Croatian Sculptor Ivan Klapez. It was commissioned by the building developers MEPC in 1992 and marked a turning point is his career. I rather like them in silhouette …
If you visit the sculpture you will see that the male figure is … er … unquestionably male. Shortly after its installation the Daily Telegraph’s ‘City Diary’ recorded local speculation as to whether the penis of the male figure had been shortened ‘to spare the blushes of passing matrons’. The sculptor’s agent insisted that no such concessions had been made. I haven’t included an image of the organ concerned (coward!) so you’ll have to visit and make up your own mind.
The Gladiator, by Eli Ilan (1973) just before you reach the library …
Nice to see that he’s being looked after …
And finally, the magnificent Minotaur by Michael Ayrton. After an itinerant life, he now looks rather wonderful in his more recent location in St Alphage Gardens …
… with a slice of the Roman/Medieval city walls behind him to the left …
I know, it seems like I’m not wandering far from home lately, but the weather has been so miserable and I needed to get a few blogs ‘in the bank’ before going on holiday. Anyway, that’s my excuse for visiting again somewhere that I really like!
Here come a few of my favourites from the Gallery.
The child is the centre of attention in her red cape, with black trim, and soft furry muff, a bright splash of colour in the dim church, her short legs in their red stockings nicely supported, concentrating as hard and seriously as she can on the sermon. You can guess that it’s probably way over her head.
My Second Sermon …
After the success of My First Sermon Millais painted a companion piece the following year, showing the same little girl – his daughter Effie – in church after the novelty of going has worn off. In his speech at the next Royal Academy Banquet, the Archbishop of Canterbury claimed the picture was a warning against ‘the evil of lengthy sermons and drowsy discourses’. Millais (and his largely middle class audience) were well aware of the gap between ideals and reality, and this witty follow-up to First Sermon reveals a taste for amusing, affectionate imagery that was relatable to many Victorian parents.
There is so much symbolism and mystery about this picture that writing about it would take the enire blog. What is the relationship between the young woman and the austere puritan chap standing in the background? Maybe her brother, she’s not wearing a wedding ring, and surely wouldn’t be wandering the forest unchaperoned? He’s carrying a bible – is there any significance in the visible bookmark? The young cavalier doesn’t look in good shape, is he dying – maybe she’s helping him staunch a wound by his neck? And what’s the significance of the broken sword and the scattered playing cards? Or the butterfly resting on the sword blade? For various theories you can read more here and here.
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey c.1834 by Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) …
Poor Lady Jane, ‘the nine days queen’, fumbles for the block on which she will lose her head (having, incidentally, been tried for high treason at the Guildhall next door to the gallery). To the left are her despairing ladies-in-waiting, one slumped to the ground with Jane’s outer clothing gathered in her lap, the other facing the wall unable to watch. The painting has always been enormously popular ever since it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1834. The large original is owned by the National Gallery and this one is a reduced-scale study by the artist.
The Last Evening by James Tissot, (1836-1902), 1873, another painting with an ambiguous meaning …
One interpretation is that the scene shows the final moments of an on-board romance between a first class passenger and a crew member under the disapproving eyes of his captain and her father. More frequently suggested, however, is that the work depicts the night before a young man sets sail on a voyage leaving his sweetheart behind. She looks pretty bored to me! Read more here.
Next up is this picture entitled Garden of Eden by Hugh Goldwin Riviere (1860-1956). Painted in 1901, it depicts a young man and girl walking in a misty, wet park with a horse-drawn cab rank in the background. I like it because to me it’s another one of those pictures that immediately gets you making up a back story to the characters. Surely this is an assignation – a secret lovers meeting, he clasping her hand and she gazing lovingly into his face. Then it struck me: Garden of Eden! A place of dangerous temptation and banishment! …
Apparently some guides point out that this picture is actually about a mismatch between a wealthy woman who has fallen for a man much below her station: note his clumpy shoes, lack of gloves and his rolled up trouser bottoms. Also the way he’s carrying not one but two umbrellas, intertwined like the two lovers. There are tiny raindrops hanging from the black branches. Surely they represent tears to come? Or am I getting completely carried away? Another commentator has said that she is simply a smartly dressed maidservant on her day off, out walking with her beau.
At the far end of the gallery, in a space specially designed for it, you will find at the action-packed painting by John Singleton Copley: Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar1782 …
The painting is best viewed from the balcony above
A Spanish attack on Gibraltar was foiled when the Spanish battering ships, also known as floating batteries, were attacked by the British using shot heated up to red hot temperatures (sailors nicknamed them ‘hot potatoes’). Fire spread among the Spanish vessels and, as the battle turned in Britain’s favour, an officer called Roger Curtis set out with gunboats on a brave rescue mission which saved almost 350 people.
Look at the painstaking detail in the faces of the officers and Governor General Augustus Eliot, who is portrayed riding to the edge of the battlements to direct the rescue …
The officers were dispersed after the Gibraltar action and poor Copley had to travel all over Europe to track them down and paint them – a task that took him seven years at considerable expense. He recouped some of his cash in 1791 by exhibiting the picture in a tent in Green Park and charging people a shilling to see it.
There are two paintings of a Lord Mayor’s show near the main gallery entrance. This is 12:18 and 10 seconds (2010) by Carl Laubin …
The other is another of my favourites, William Logsdail’s painting entitled The Ninth of November 1888 …
Also on show is a terrfific sculpture of this thoughtful, gentle man, created by someone who knew him very well personally, Ronald Moody (1900-1984) …
This is Terry-Thomas, a major star in the 1950s and 60s best known for playing disreputable members of the upper classes especially ‘cads’, ‘toffs’ and ‘bounders’ …
The last years of his life were tragic. Following his death, Lionel Jeffries called him ‘the last of the great gentlemen of the cinema’, while the director Michael Winner commented that ‘no matter what your position was in relation to his, as the star he was always terribly nice. He was the kindest man and he enjoyed life so much’.
And finally, don’t forget, one of Gallery’s most popular paintings is back on display. Described by the Pre-Raphaelite artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti as “my very best picture”, ‘La Ghirlandata’ was acquired by the City of London Corporation in 1927 for its permanent art collection and is displayed in the gallery’s main Victorian exhibition space …
The 1873 oil on canvas depicts ‘the garlanded woman’ playing an arpanetta and looking directly at the viewer. The artist’s muse for the central figure was the actor and model, Alexa Wilding, with two ‘angels’ in the top corners posed by William and Jane Morris’ youngest daughter, May Morris.
The modest entrance to this church is so deceptive …
Nothing prepares you, as you climb the 13 steps, for what you will shortly encounter when you enter …
The majestic space within…
The dome is Wren’s finest and based on his original design for St Paul’s …
Wren lived at number 15 Walbrook and took special care in rebuilding this, his parish church, between 1672 and 1679, after the previous 15th century church was destroyed in the Great Fire. By the 18th century, the building was world famous, the Italian sculptor/architect Antonio Canova declaring, ‘We have nothing to touch it in Rome.’ And the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner lists it as one of the ten most important buildings in all of England.
Before considering the church as it looks now, you might be interested in its layout before the box pews were removed in 1888. This image, held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and dated 1809, shows a service in progress with figures in the pews listening to a minister in a pulpit to the right of the altar …
In 1987 the church was rearranged around a central, circular, polished stone altar, made of travartine marble by the famed sculptor Henry Moore. Patrick Heron (1920-1999) was one of Britain’s foremost abstract painters and he designed the colourful kneelers …
The idea was that the community would gather around it and for its central position to represent how the Gospel was central to their lives.
It went against the Christian tradition of having the altar at the Eastern end of the church and so naturally there was huge opposition to idea from some. The case ended up being taken to the Ecclesiastical courts where it was found to be acceptable.
The pulpit and font cover are attributed to the carpenters Thomas Creecher and Stephen Colledge, and the carvers William Newman and Jonathan Maine …
Look back towards the entrance to the church to see the rather magnificent organ case above the door. This dates from 1765 …
I took a prowl around the monuments and was stopped in my tracks by this one to John Lilburne (d.1678), citizen and grocer, of the Lilburn family of Sunderland, and his wife Isabella. It’s the earliest monument in the Church …
I love the little standing figures of the couple, he with cloak and long flowing hair above a tunic, with big cuffs and slender shoes, she a slim figure with long, flaring skirt, puffed out bodice and drapes over and behind her head. A charming pose with her arms crossed in front of her.
But what really caught my eye was the memento mori, a sculpture of a woman dancing with Death, who is a skeleton wearing a long skirt …
Then there’s George Alfred Croly of the Bengal Light Infantry who fell ‘gloriously by a cannon shot’ in the ‘assault on the entrenched camp of the sikhs’ in 1845, aged only 23 …
Robert Marriott’s splendid memorial …
Robert Marriott was Rector from 1662 until he died in 1689 aged 81 years. His monument in Latin describes him as ‘Professor of theology and the watchful pastor of this Church. A man as a preacher so truly Divine that by his preaching he at once charmed and convinced his hearers. A man in whose character old time integrity was so tempered with a sweetness that he made simplicity loveable. A man of so spotless a life that his own example confirmed and recommended what his lips taught.’ Praise indeed.
A long, rather touching inscription for Sir Samuel Moyer …
Many memorials of the time provide an insight into the dreadful child mortality rates of earlier centuries, even for those who were affluent. The tablet states that Samuel Moyer was a Baronet. He must have had money as the tablet states the family spent the summer at their home at Pitsey Hall in Essex and the winters in the parish of St Stephen Walbrook.
A Baronet who could afford homes in Essex and London still suffered numerous child deaths. Of their eleven children, eight died in their minority, with only three daughters surviving to “lament with their sorrowful mother, the great loss of so indulgent a father”.
The bust of Percivall Gilbourne …
Described in the excellent Bob Speel website as follows: ‘A short Latin inscription on a panel with a colourful marble surround … We see a noble bewigged head of an ageing man, firm of countenance and strong of neck, but with something of a jowl, above shoulders and chest wearing a drape rather than contemporary clothing’.
I make no apology for writing again about this brave man ..
Nathaniel Hodges was a 36-year-old doctor practising in London when the terrible plague of 1665 reached the City. Its arrival prompted a flight from London and, Hodges recalled later, this included four-fifths of the College of Physicians. The City was awash, he said, with ‘Chymists’ and ‘Quacks’ dispensing, as he put it: ‘… medicines that were more fatal than the plague and added to the numbers of the dead.’
Dr Hodges decided to stay and minister to his patients and first thing every morning before breakfast he spent two or three hours with them. He wrote later …
Some (had) ulcers yet uncured and others … under the first symptoms of seizure all of which I endeavoured to dispatch with all possible care …
hardly any children escaped; and it was not uncommon to see an Inheritance pass successively to three or four Heirs in as many Days.
After hours of visiting victims where they lived he walked home and, after dinner, saw more patients until nine at night and sometimes later.
He survived the epidemic and wrote two learned works on the plague. The first, in 1666, he called An Account of the first Rise, Progress, Symptoms and Cure of the Plague being a Letter from Dr Hodges to a Person of Quality. The second was Loimologia, published six years later …
A later edition of Dr Hodges’ work, translated from the original Latin and published when the plague had broken out in France.
It seems particularly sad to report that his life ended in personal tragedy when, in his early fifties, his practice dwindled and fell away. Finally he was arrested as a debtor, committed to Ludgate Prison, and died there, a broken man, in 1688.
The Latin on his memorial translates as follows:
Learn to number thy days, for age advances with furtive step, the shadow never truly rests. Seeking mortals, born that they might succumb, the executioner comes from behind. While you breathe you are a victim of death; you know not the hour in which your fate will call you. While you look at monuments, time passes irrevocably. In this tomb is laid the physician Nathaniel Hodges in the hope of heaven; now a son of earth, who was once a son of Oxford. May you survive the plague by his writings. Born 13 September AD 1629 Died 10 June 1688.
There are two glass display cases in the church.
This model allows the overall design of the church to be appreciated, not easy when viewed from outside …
For example. this is the view from the south …
Inside in another glass case you’ll see this famous phone …
As you leave and walk down the steps, look to your left and you will see a modern mosaic of St Stephen …
I would like to finish with a quotation that I particularly like from the church’s own publication setting out its history.
Wren considered geometry to be the basis of the whole world and the manifestation of its Creator, while light not only made that geometry visible but also represented the gift of Reason, of which geometry was for him the highest expression. Like the solution to a mathematical problem, everything fits into place with apparent simplicity; yet this simplicity itself is mysterious and magical. Whether one experiences St. Stephen’s alone, in stillness and quiet, or in a full congregation resounding with music, the effect is always the same. Life outside is complicated and chaotic. To enter is not to escape into fantasy; rather is it to submit to the strongest positive assertion of the true order of the universe.
What better place and person to start with than the Tower of London and William I (a.k.a ‘The Conqueror’ and ‘The Bastard’).
As everyone knows, he invaded England and defeated King Harold at the battle of Hastings in 1066. His reign is primarily remembered for the compilation of the Domesday Book in 1086 and for the building of many castles.
The castle which later became known as the Tower of London was begun in 1066 and was originally a timber fortification enclosed by a palisade. In the next decade work began on the White Tower, the great stone keep that still dominates the castle today …
William was keen to keep the City of London placated and not to disrupt commerce. In order to do this, after his coronation but before he entered the City, he issued the William Charter.
Written on vellum (parchment) in Old English, it measures just six inches by one-and-a-half inches …
Translated into modern English, the Charter reads as follows:
‘William the king, friendly salutes William the bishop and Godfrey the portreeve and all the burgesses within London both French and English. And I declare that I grant you to be all law-worthy, as you were in the days of King Edward; And I grant that every child shall be his father’s heir, after his father’s days; And I will not suffer any person to do you wrong; God keep you.’
City of London historians point out that one of the citizens’ primary concerns, as expressed by the words – “And I grant that every child shall be his father’s heir, after his father’s days” – was to ensure that their property handed down to the son and heir, rather than attracting the interest of the Crown.
Here he is as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry …
There are two main accounts of his death in 1087. While some vaguely state that he became ill on the battlefield, collapsing through heat and the effort of fighting, William of Malmesbury added the gruesome detail that William’s belly protruded so much that he was mortally wounded when he was thrown onto the pommel of his saddle. Since the wooden pommels of medieval saddles were high and hard, and often reinforced with metal, William of Malmesbury’s suggestion is a plausible one. There’s a witty article about William’s demise here in the journal Historic UK.
William was followed as king by his third son, also called William but commonly called Rufus because of his ruddy complexion and red hair. The gossipy William of Malmsbury hinted that the King was homosexual since he surrounded himself with young men who ‘rival young women in delicacy’. Here he is as illustrated in the miniature from Historia Anglorum, c. 1253 …
Whilst hunting in the New Forest on 2 August 1100 he was accidentally killed by an arrow from one of his own men …
A relic of Rufus’s time is the crypt of St Mary-le-Bow which I wrote about a few weeks ago. I wonder if any of Rufus’s ‘delicate’ young men ever walked down these beautifully worn steps …
William II was followed on the throne by his youngest brother, Henry. He was crowned three days after his brother’s death (3rd August 1100) against the possibility that his eldest brother Robert might claim the English throne on his imminent return from the Crusade. His life was blighted in 1120 when the ‘White Ship’ bearing both his sons sank in the channel. This is a 13th century depiction of the tragic event …
Subsequently he made his barons swear to accept his daughter, Matilda, as his heir. Henry died on 2nd December 1135 from ‘a surfeit of lampreys’ – probably food poisoning.
For a sense of Henry’s time, make a visit to the church of St Bartholomew the Great.
St Bartholomew’s was established by Rahere, a courtier and favourite of the king. It is thought that it was the death of the Henry’s wife, Matilda, followed two years later by the White Ship drownings, that prompted Rahere to renounce his profession for a more worthy life and make his pilgrimage to Rome.
In Rome, like many pilgrims, he fell ill. As he lay delirious he prayed for his life vowing that, if he survived, he would set up a hospital for the poor in London. His prayers were answered and he recovered. As he turned for home the vision of Saint Bartholomew appeared to him and said “I am Bartholomew who have come to help thee in thy straights. I have chosen a spot in a suburb of London at Smoothfield where, in my name, thou shalt found a church.”
True to his word Rahere set up both a church, a priory of Augustinian canons, and the hospital. He lived to see their completion – indeed he served as both prior of the priory and master of the hospital – and it is possible that he was nursed at Barts before his death in 1145. His tomb lies in the church.
He wears the habit of an Augustinian canon and the angel carries a shield with the arms of the priory.
You get a nice view of the flint and Portland Stone western facade of the church from the raised churchyard. An old barrel tomb rests in the foreground …
Bear in mind that the original church was vast and also covered the area now occupied by the graveyard and the path. This used to be the nave, as illustrated in this plan on display in the church …
Stepping into the church seems to transport you to another time and place …
The patchworked exterior gives no hint of the stunning Romanesque interior, with its characteristic round arches and sturdy pillars. It’s a rare sight in London; indeed, this is reckoned to be the best preserved and finest Romanesque church interior in the City. I visited it back in 2020 and you can read the blog here.
Nearby is this impressive statue of Henry VIII over the main entrance to St Bartholomew’s hospital, the only outdoor statue of the king in London. If you have seen and admired the famous Holbein portrait, the king’s pose here is very familiar. He stands firmly and sternly with his legs apart, one hand on his dagger, the other holding a sceptre. He also sports an impressive codpiece …
Bart’s, as it became known affectionately, was put seriously at risk in 1534, when Henry VIII commenced the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The nearby priory of St Bartholomew was suppressed in 1539 and the hospital would have followed had not the City fathers petitioned the king and asked for it to be granted back to the City. Their motives were not entirely altruistic. The hospital, they said, was needed to help:
the myserable people lyeing in the streete, offendyng every clene person passyng by the way with theyre fylthye and nastye savors.
Henry finally agreed in December 1546 on condition that the refounded hospital was renamed ‘House of the poore on West Smithfield in the suburbs of the City of London, of King Henry’s foundation’. I suspect people still tended to call it Bart’s.
You can see the agreement document, along with Henry’s signature, in the hospital museum …
It also bears Henry’s seal, the king charging into battle on horseback accompanied by a dog …
The King finally got full public recognition when the gatehouse was rebuilt in 1702 and his statue was placed where we still see it today. The work was undertaken and overseen by the mason John Strong, who was at the same time working for Sir Christopher Wren on St Paul’s Cathedral. Such were the masons’ talents, no architectural plans were needed to complete the work.
And finally, poor Queen Anne, whose statue stands outside St Paul’s Cathedral.
Wearing a golden crown, she has the Order of St George around her neck, a sceptre in her right hand and the orb in her left.
She was close to the architect, the brilliant Christopher Wren, who wrote to her to ask her to help when his salary was being witheld and his work obstructed …
The letter is held in the National Archives SP34/29 f 133.
It’s difficult not to feel sorry for Anne. Her personal life was marked by the tragedy of losing 18 children (including twins) through miscarriage, stillbirth and early death. Two of her daughters, Mary and Anne Sophia, died within days of each other, both aged under two years, of smallpox in 1687.
Anne was 37 years old when she became queen in 1702. At her coronation she was suffering from a bad attack of gout and had to be carried to the ceremony in an open sedan chair with a low back so that her six-yard train could pass to her ladies walking behind. Her medical conditions made her life very sedentary and she gradually put on a lot of weight. She died after suffering a stroke on Sunday 1st August 1714 at the age of 49. You can read much more about her in my blog Queen Anne – tales of tragedy, love and vandalism.
For a glimpse of the architecture of her time there are no finer City examples than 1 and 2 Laurence Pountney Hill …
They were built in 1703 as a pair of red brick, four-storey houses, on the site of a single post-fire house. They are considered to be finest surviving houses of this period in the City with elaborately carved foliage friezes around the doors and cornice above and ornate shell-hoods over the doorways. The virtuosity of the woodwork is explained by the fact that the houses were built by a master carpenter, Thomas Denning. He had worked on Wren’s church of St Michael Paternoster Royal nearby and would later contribute to Hawksmoor’s St Mary Woolnoth. Like other ambitious craftsmen, Denning branched out into the cut throat world of speculative building. At Laurence Pountney Hill he appealed to the market by ingeniously contriving two basements beneath the houses. This created an abundance of storage space that would be attractive to the London merchants, whose houses doubled as business premises. Denning’s speculation paid off; on 15 July 1704 he sold both houses to Mr John Harris for £3,190, a tidy sum.
The delightful doorway hoods. Look closely – the cherubs on the right are playing bowls!
Here is a close-up (you may have to concentrate – they are not always obvious) …
The date is still visible despite years of over-painting …
The buildings in 1905 with the door to number 1 open revealing the lovely original curved staircase …
There are other fine architectural examples of the period in the very appropriately named Queen Anne’s Gate in Westminster …
The lady herself has a statue there …
When I worked nearby I was told that, at midnight on her birthday, she would step off her plinth and promenade along the street inspecting the houses. The statue has an interesting history which you can read about here.
There is also a fascinating description of the street’s cannopies and carvings in the excellent London Inheritance blog.
In 1500 there were 15 churches in the City of London dedicated to a St Mary. It was by far the most popular dedication with the next most popular being All Hallows (8 churches) and St Michael (7 churches). This, of course, was helped by the fact that there are two St Marys – Mary the Virgin, the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene one of Jesus’s followers who was present at the crucifixion. But even if we count only the churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it is still the most popular dedication with a total of 13.
I’ve already written in some detail about the six Marys still in existence but for some reason I rather neglected paying serious attention to St Mary Aldermary – an omission I intend to put right in this week’s blog. Incidentally, the name ‘Aldermary’ possibly derives from ‘Older Mary’ meaning the oldest church in the City dedicated to her.
As every guide to the church will tell you – when you enter just look up!
The nave …
The south side aisle …
The north side aisle …
The fabulous plaster fan-vaulted ceiling is more reminiscent of a cathedral and St Mary’s is the only parish church in England known to have one.
It is unclear why Wren chose to rebuild the church (1679-82) in an uncharacteristically Gothic style. Funding came from a personal estate, so it may have been the desire of the executors, or possibly the will of parishoners. Whatever the cause, the fortunate result is arguably the most important late 17th century Gothic church in England.
A quirky feature of the church is the angle of the east wall which followed the line of a pre-1678 passage …
One of the the east windows by Lawrence Lee (1955) is ‘a fusion of sacred and secular with St Thomas, St John the Baptist and Madonna and Child above and panels depicting important episodes from the dramatic history of the church below. The gothic church tower powerfully depicted appears engulfed in the flames of the Great Fire of London of 1666’ …
In close up, Sir Christopher Wren kneels to present his plans for the new church …
The west window by John Crawford commemorates the defence of London against air attack in the 1939-45 War. It depicts the Risen Christ in Glory with the Hand of God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove. Above are the Instruments of the Passion, while below are the emblems of the four Evangelists. The lower lights show St Michael overcoming the Dragon, representing the force of good vanquishing evil, with St Peter (left) and St Paul (right). At the base is a panorama of London and at the top the arms of the various Services involved …
A blocked off window above the north door, dating from 1876, depicts the Transfiguration …
The pulpit is thought to have been carved in 1682 by Grinling Gibbons …
The organ was built by George England in 1791 …
This beautiful, rare wooden sword rest dates from 1682 …
You can read more about the fascinating history of sword rests here.
The font was a gift from a wealthy parishoner called Dutton Seaman in 1627. One commentator describes it as having been ‘designed with jacobean gusto’ …
There is a plaque to James Braidwood, who was married in the church in 1838. He was the first Superintendent of the London Fire Engine Establishment and formed the world’s first municipal fire brigade in Edinburgh. He died tragically whilst fighting the terrible Tooley Street Fire of 1861. You can read all about him and the fire in which he perished in my Tooley Street Fire blog …
René Baudouin was a Huguenot refugee from Tours in France. He established himself in Lombard Street, London, with a silk merchant Etienne Seignoret. The pair were successful but they were fined for continuing to trade with France during the Anglo-French war (1689-1697) …
There is also a memorial to the brilliant surgeon Percivall Pott who I wrote about in last week’s blog.
St Mary is the regimental church of the Royal Tank Regiment – ‘Once a Tankie always a Tankie’ …
The nearby old City church of St Antholin was demolished in 1875 and the parish merged with St Mary’s. A plaque on the wall outside memorialises this union …
If you entered St Mary’s from the west, the door casing you walked through came from St Antholin …
The best view of the church is from the south side of Queen Victoria Street …
The golden finials at the top of the tower are now, I’m told, made of fibreglass!
Having got myself a new iPhone I thought I would give it a trial run in Eastcheap where there is some unusual architecture to explore.
This is what you see as you approach from the west …
And if you view from the east …
I thought it would be interesting to include these images to illustrate just how the Fenchurch Building a.k.a. the Walkie Talkie dominates the skyline here. It was amusing that, when the building was finished, it was discovered that the glass concentrated and reflected the sun’s rays in such a way that it was scorching cars parked in the street below. The structure was given a new nickname – the Walkie Scorchie.
The stars of the show at street level are definitely numbers 33-35. Designed by R L Roumieu and built 1868, today the facade is grade II* listed. The ‘masterpiece’ (as described by Architectural Historian; Pevsner) was made for Hill & Evans, vinegar-makers from Worcester …
Pevsner goes on to describe it as ‘one of the maddest displays in London of gabled Gothic’ and he quotes from Ian Nairn – architectural critic – who calls it ‘the scream that you wake on at the end of a nightmare’.
I love it!
Look at the wonderfully detailed brickwork …
There’s a medieval head wearing a coronet …
… and a boar crashing through the undergrowth. What’s that all about? …
The animal is a reference to The Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap where Shakespeare set the meetings of Sir John Falstaff and Prince Hal in his Henry IV plays and the medieval head represents the Prince.
No. 25, by Bird & Walters (1892-93), was a former pub. The narrow and plainer building on the right was built in 1860 …
Another 1860 building is the eye-catching one on the corner. It was once the offices and warehouses for Messers Hunt & Crombie, spice merchants …
Just below the roof is a fabulous combo of dogs’ and boars’ heads along with lovely brickwork …
Walk around the corner to see London’s tiniest public sculpture. Thousands of people walk past it every day and have, I’m sure, no idea it is there.
Can you spot it …
It’s two mice eating a piece of cheese …
There are a number of theories as to its origin but nobody knows for sure.
Further east, on the opposite side of the road, are more Eastcheap animals, including the remains of a dead one.
Constructed between 1883 and 1885, the building at number 20 was once the headquarters of Peek Brothers & Co, dealers in tea, coffee and spices, whose trademark showed three camels bearing different shaped loads being led by a Bedouin Arab …
The firm was particularly well known for its ‘Camel’ brand of tea. When Sir Henry Peek (son of one of the original founders) commissioned this building he wanted the panel over the entrance to replicate the trademark, right down to the dried bones of the dead camel lying in the sand in the foreground.
The Peek Brothers letter heading/trademark – Copyright – British Overprint Society – Mark Matlach
He clearly wanted his prestigious building to be enhanced by a suitably eminent sculptor – preferably one with knowledge of camel anatomy.
The sculptor he picked, William Theed, was indeed an extraordinary choice for such a mundane task. Theed was a great favourite of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and his work can be seen on the Albert Memorial where he sculpted the group Africa the central figure being, of course, a camel …
The Queen also liked and trusted him so much that she asked him to take her beloved Albert’s death mask when the Prince died tragically young in 1861.
Peeks carried on trading under various names until the 1970s. Another branch of the family ensures that the name lives on by way of the biscuit makers Peek Freans …
As is often the case, I am indebted to Katie Wignall, the Look up London blogger and Blue Badge Guide, for much of the background information on the architecture in today’s blog.
It just remains for me to wish you all a very happy and safe New Year and thank you very much for subscribing.
If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …
I know Halloween ended a few days ago but it did inspire me to look again at spooky aspects of the City and produce a special edition. I was also enthused by a quite extraordinary house I encountered in a trip to Hampstead which had totally embraced the Halloween spirit. Here’s a sample …
More later.
What better place to start in the City than Samuel Pepys’s ‘own church’, St Olave Hart Street.
It has a really gruesome but stunning churchyard entrance incorporating impaled skulls and crossed bones dated 11th April 1658. The Latin inscription, roughly translated, reads ‘Christ is life, death is my reward‘ and the central skull wears a victory wreath.
Charles Dickens called it ‘St Ghastly Grim’.
It’s even more disturbing becuse the banked-up surface of the churchyard is a reminder that it is still bloated with the bodies of plague victims, and gardeners still turn up bone fragments. Three hundred and sixty five were buried there including Mary Ramsay, who was widely blamed for bringing the disease to London. We know the number because their names were marked with a ‘p’ in the parish register.
Note how much higher the graveyard is than the floor at the church door.
The crypt of the ‘Journalists’ Church’, St Brides in Fleet Street, is home to a fascinating museum containing an extraordinary coffin …
Until well into the 18th century the only source of corpses for medical research was the public hangman and supply was never enough to satisfy demand. As a result, a market arose to satisfy the needs of medical students and doctors and this was filled by the activities of the so-called ‘resurrection men’ or ‘body snatchers’. Some churches built watchhouses for guards to protect the churchyard, but these were by no means always effective – earning between £8 and £14 a body, the snatchers had plenty of cash available for bribery purposes. A tempting advertisement …
The idea was not popular with the clergy and in 1820 the churchwardens at St Andrew’s Holborn refused churchyard burial to an iron coffin. The body was taken out and buried, which led to a law suit. The judgment was that such coffins could not be refused but, since they took so much longer than wooden ones to disintegrate, much higher fees could be charged. This no doubt contributed to the relatively short time iron coffining was used.
St Brides also contains a charnel house, only opened by special arrangement. As you walk around the crypt, bear in mind that there are quite a few old Londoners resting nearby …
The primary customers for fresh corpses were the trainee surgeons at St Bartholomew’s Hospital so it’s no surprise that the nearby church of St Sepulchre had its own watchhouse. Sadly this was destroyed in the Blitz but there is a charming replica that you can see today …
Just around the corner is the entrance to the church so do call in if you can and visit a grim reminder of the days of the notorious Newgate Gaol and public executions.
Carts carrying the condemned on their way to Tyburn would pause briefly at the church where prisoners would be presented with a nosegay. However, they would already have had an encounter with someone from the church the night before. In 1605, a wealthy merchant called Robert Dow made a bequest of £50 for a bellman from the church to stand outside the cells of the condemned at midnight, ring the bell, and chant as follows:
All you that in the condemned hole do lie, Prepare you, for tomorrow you shall die; Watch all and pray, the hour is drawing near, That you before the Almighty must appear; Examine well yourselves, in time repent, That you may not to eternal flames be sent: And when St. Sepulchre’s bell tomorrow tolls, The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
And you can still see the bell today, displayed in a glass case in the church …
About five minutes’ walk away is the beautiful church of St Bartholomew the Great inside which is what I think is one of the most disturbing sculptures in the City …
Entitled Exquisite Pain, as well as his skin St Bartholomew also holds a scalpel in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. The second surprise, to me anyway, was that this work was by Damien Hirst, the modern artist known particularly for his spot paintings and the shark swimming in formaldehyde. St Bartholomew is the patron saint of Doctors and Surgeons and Hirst has said that this 2006 work ‘acts as a reminder that the strict demarcation between art, religion and science is a relatively recent development and that depictions of Saint Bartholomew were often used by medics to aid in anatomy studies’. He went on to say that the scissors were inspired by Tim Burton’s film ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990) to imply that ‘his exposure and pain is seemingly self- inflicted. It’s kind of beautiful yet tragic’. The work is on long-term loan from the artist …
There’s nothing like a nice relic – even if it’s not on open display.
This is St Ethelreda’s Roman Catholic church in Ely Place (a road strange in its own right since it is privately managed by its own body of commissioners and beadles) …
The building is one of only two surviving in London from the reign of Edward I and dates from between 1250 and 1290. It is dedicated to Aethelthryth or Etheldreda, the Anglo-Saxon saint who founded the monastery at Ely in 673. According to the story, sixteen years after she died of the plague her body was exhumed in 695 and was found to be pure and uncorrupted with even her clothes having miraculous properties. Although her body has been lost it is said that her uncorrupted hand still rests in a casket in this church.
Unfortunately, this reliquary is kept beside the high altar and I couldn’t gain access so we must make do with an online image …
Nevertheless, it wasn’t a wasted visit. The church is a fascinating place as can be seen from some of the images I did take …
So I shall be back.
And finally, the Hampstead house on Flask Walk that truly embraced the spirit of Halloween.
Disabling the burglar alarm …
Hilarious!
The gang’s all here …
Welcome!
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Although I love my City expeditions, every now and again it’s nice to explore further afield and, for some reason, with me this usually means heading east. On this occasion I took the DLR to Limehouse and walked south.
On the way I passed Limehouse Basin, a navigable link between the Thames and two of London’s canals. First dug in 1820 as the eastern terminus of the new Regent’s Canal, it was gradually enlarged in the Victorian era and incorporated a lock big enough to admit 2,000 ton ships. The basin in 1827 …
Here coal was unloaded from ships to barges and until 1853 it was done entirely by human muscle power. Working in total silence, a nine-man gang was expected to unload 49 tons of a coal a day but, according to Henry Mayhew, they often achieved double that amount. During each period each rope man climbed a total distance of nearly 1 1⁄2 vertical miles — and sometimes more. This system was known as ‘whipping’ …
Congestion in the 1820s …
Congestion in the 2020s …
Instead of slaving shifting coal, people here are more likely to be slaving at nearby Canary Wharf.
Nice to see a bit of greenery …
Some horticultural humour …
Onward to Narrow Street, so known because once upon a time it was … er … very narrow.
Time to stop for a bit of refreshment …
The pub is partly owned by Sir Ian McKellen and has a really atmospheric ‘old boozer’ interior …
The terrace outside overlooks the Thames and from it you can see this mysterious life-sized figure …
It’s a sculpture by Anthony Gormley and is one of a series entitled Another Time. The artist describes the series as follows: Another Time asks where the human being sits within the scheme of things. Each work is necessarily isolated, and is an attempt to bear witness to what it is like to be alive and alone in space and time.
The seagulls have shown it little respect but he can be thankful that this one, perched just across the road, isn’t capable of flying …
You can see The Grapes in the background …
The sculpture was commissioned by the London Docklands Development Corporation in 1994 and stands in Ropemaker Fields, the park taking its name from the fact that rope was once manufactured in this district. The work by the artist Jane Ackroyd is mixed media in that the bronze figure of the gull is actually standing on a coil of rope.
The man from further east along the river …
Images from Dunbar Wharf …
The poor Gherkin can now only be clearly seen from the east …
Dunbar Wharf was named after the Dunbar family who had a very successful business at Limekiln Dock. The family wealth was initially from a Limehouse brewery established by Duncan Dunbar. It was his son, also called Duncan, who used the money he inherited from his father to build the shipping business that was based at Dunbar Wharf. The company’s ships carried passengers and goods across the world as well as convicts to Australia. The wharf, probably in the 1950s, showing lighters with cargo moored alongside …
Limekiln Dock …
This dock is a very old feature in the area. In the following Rocque map extract from 1746, the dock is to the right …
Rocque shows that on the southern side of the dock entrance was Lime Kiln Yard. This was the location of the lime kilns that as well as giving their name to the dock, were also the origin of the name Limehouse.
And finally, at the South Eastern tip of Millwall, near Canary Wharf, lie the remains of a great ship’s launch ramp …
SS Great Eastern was an iron sail-powered, paddle wheel and screw-propelled steamship designed by Iaambard Kingdom Brunel and built by John Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall Iron Works on the Thames. She was the largest ship ever built at the time and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers from England to Australia without refuelling.
Her launch was planned for 3 November 1857 but ship’s massive size posed major logistical issues and, according to one source, the ship’s 19,000 tons made it the single heaviest object ever moved by humans! Since no dock was big enough, Brunel’s solution was to launch the ship sideways using cables and chains. Nothing had been attempted on this scale before, but Brunel was confident that his calculations were correct to allow the launch to go ahead.
This is the famous photograph by Robert Howlett of Brunel in front of the ship’s launching chains …
The ship under construction …
Because Brunel knew the launch would be fraught with difficulty he was keen to keep the whole thing low-key, however the ship company sold thousands of tickets for the launch and every available vantage point was taken on land as well as on the river.
The launch, however, failed, and the ship was stranded on its launch rails – in addition, two men were killed and several others injured, leading some to declare Great Eastern an unlucky ship. Over the next few days various investigations were carried out to determine why the ship did not move, and in the end it was decided that the steam winches were simply not up to the job of pulling the vessel into the Thames. In fact, it took another three attempts and three months to finally get the ship into the water on 31 January the following year.
Throughout the construction of the ship, Brunel kept letter-books, six large volumes into which every piece of correspondence sent or received regarding the Great Eastern was copied. These volumes are an amazing resource, effectively detailing the entire progress of the project and illuminating many of Brunel’s thought processes and his relationships with colleagues and suppliers. See this link to the University of Bristol Library.
Tragically, Brunel suffered a stroke just before Great Eastern‘s maiden voyage in 1859, in which she was damaged by an explosion. He died 10 days later, aged 53, leaving an extraordinary pioneering legacy behind him.
The ship berthed in New York in 1860 …
Read all about this great ship and its rather sad end here.
Beached, prior to being broken up …
Once again I am extremely grateful to the London Inheritance blogger for much of the historical information contained in this week’s blog.
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