Every now and then I start noticing new shapes appearing around the City in addition to the fascinating Sculpture in the City project that I wrote about recently. Here’s my selection for this week. I’ll start with the largest and most colourful, Holly Hendry’s joyful work entitled Slackwater currently exhibited on the flat roof of Temple Underground Station. That’s what I like, sculpture that makes you smile …
The view from above gives a really interesting perspective (image by CoLab) …
Read all about it …
For over a month I watched the very careful erection of this extraordinary structure on Moorfields …
Commissioned in 2019 as part of The Crossrail Art Foundation’s public art programme for the Elizabeth line (with the support of Victoria Miro Gallery), Manifold (Major Third) 5:4is by British artist Conrad Shawcross RA. ‘It represents a chord falling into silence extrapolated from observations of a Victorian pendulum-driven drawing machine known as a harmonograph, which was instrumental in the birth of the science of synaesthesia. This sculpture is the physical incarnation of the mathematics within a chord’. So now you know.
A crazy oasis outside nearby City Point (EC2Y 9AW) …
Yummy colours …
And finally, have you ever noticed this chap? I often see him looking out of the window of the Chiropractic clinic. Like the Manifold sculpture he’s also on Moorfields, just off London Wall …
I presume he likes to watch the world going by when he’s not treating patients …
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In her right hand she holds a crayon ‘as drawing is the most essential principal in Design’. Her left hand holds a drawing board with paper pinned to it, which rests on her left thigh. Her left foot rests on an Ionic capital denoting architecture. Behind her to her left is part of a Corinthian column, on the top of which stands a bust of Pallas Athena, ‘as she was the patroness of both the useful and elegant arts’.
Behind the figure’s right foot, a small palette and brushes rest on the base …
Science is also by Farmer & Brindley. She is ‘of more masculine proportions than Fine Art, with a fine penetrating countenance’ …
Her tiara has a star at its centre and stars form the fringe of her robe. She holds in her hand the ‘Governors’ that were used to control steam engines. At her left side stands a tripod on which is placed a terrestrial globe encircled with the Electric Telegraph wire which is connected with a battery.
Around the top of the tripod are the signs of the zodiac ‘indicating Astronomy’ …
Beneath it lie compasses and a crumpled sheet of paper with geometrical drawings, one of them a demonstration of Pythagoras’s theorem (you also get a better view of the battery in this picture) …
She wears a crown of olives, ‘the emblem of peace’, and there is a decorative band of oak leaves on the fringe of her robe. ‘She turns to Providence with a thankful expression for a beautiful harvest’ and in her right hand she holds a sickle. Beside her left foot is a belt with a sheath, containing a whetstone.
Bursill also sculpted Commerce …
She is shown ‘advancing with right hand outstretched towards mankind in a sign of welcome, whilst in her left she proudly holds gold ingots and coin, the foundation of enterprise and Commerce in the civilized world’. At her feet to her right are two keys along with a parchment showing the City Arms representing ‘the Freedom of the City’ …
Farmer and Brindley are also responsible for the four winged lions …
I love these Atlantes holding up a balcony. They date from 2014 when the north east pavilion was rebuilt …
Here’s one in close up …
In 2013 the Viaduct was repainted and re-gilded with, at the request of the City Conservation Officer, ‘maximum bling’.
You get an idea of how well this was accomplished in this picture. It shows the re-gilded base of one of the lamps, a knight’s helmet and a City dragon …
There is a fascinating article about the work, particularly the gilding, here.
I hope you have enjoyed these two visits to the Viaduct. Again I have been plundering Dr Philip Ward-Jackson’s wonderful book Public Sculpture of the City of London for much of this blog’s detail.
Whenever I’m stuck for something to write about the Guildhall Gallery often comes to my rescue.
I visited the little Heritage Gallery on Monday and what I found was very interesting. Rather than rewrite all the information on the plaques I hope you won’t mind if I simply reproduce them below.
Look at these fine fellows …
The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Nicholas Lyons, and the Sheriffs, Alderman Alastair King and Andrew Marsden for the period 2022-2023.
The Mayoralty Charter …
In 1215 King John was faced with a major rebellion …
An etching of the Magna Carta seal which I found on the Internet …
Also on view is the Cartae Antiquae …
Dating from the 1400s, this beautifully illustrated book records charters and statutes covering laws enacted from the reign of Edward III (1327 onwards) to the accession of Henry VII in 1485. City officials used this book as an essential reference tool as they scrutinised statute and safeguarded the rights of the medieval City. There is a portrait of each king on the first page of the statutes for his reign; the page open shows the portrait of Richard III, one of the best known medieval monarchs.
In a nearby display case are prints of Coronations in the 19th century.
George IV on 19 July 1821 …
William IV on 8 September 1831 …
And finally Queen Victoria on 28 June 1838 …
As you leave the exhibition space and head for the exit, take a moment to inspect the David Wynne sculpture of Prince Charles as he then was …
He just doesn’t look happy, does he? Maybe he wasn’t too keen on the rather spiky modern version of a coronet that he is wearing here at his 1969 Investiture as Prince of Wales. It was designed by a committee chaired by his auntie Princess Margaret’s husband, Antony Armstrong-Jones (later Lord Snowdon). The globe and cross at the top was originally intended to be solid gold but the committee concluded that this would be far too heavy. The solution was to use a gold plated ping-pong ball – which is why I always smile at this portrayal of the Prince (and possibly why he doesn’t appear to have ever worn the item again).
In other news, the Barbican duckling population seems to have thrived this year. I haven’t seen the heron lately – could that be the reason?
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Last week I set off without any particular purpose, seeking shapes, patterns and views that might look interesting as images.
It’s often just as fascinating to keep looking down as well as up and here are some of the curiosities I came across in Spitalfields.
Some intricately designed coal hole covers that have survived road works and redevelopment …
The above is a typical Hayward Brothers plate. One of their greatest services to Victorian society was saving pedestrians from nasty and embarassing injuries or even death-by-coalhole. Falling down coalholes through an unfastened plate was a regular occurrence in those times and the Hayward Brothers ‘safety plate’ using a ‘twist and lock’ mechanism was supposed to cure the problem.
As well as the coal hole covers, the pavements of Spitalfields are also the home of a number of circular metal plates set into the pavement and known as roundels. They are the result of a commission by the 1995 Bethnal Green Challenge and are intended to be emblems reflecting the diverse culture and history of Spitalfields. They were designed by Keith Bowler and you can read more about them in two blogs, one by The Gentle Author and one by Katie Wignall. Here are images of the three I came across.
One of the prettiest is the one on Fournier Street, taken from floral fabric designs by Anna Maria Garthwaite (1688-1763), the textile designer whose official blue plaque is on 4 Princelet Street …
At the corner of Brushfield Street and Commercial street are some apples and pears. A nod to the original fruit and vegetable Spitalfields market with a flourish of cockney rhyming slang thrown in …
And finally this very cute one outside the local primary school on Brick Lane. A boy and girl in a book surrounded by pencils …
There were 25 originally but it’s believed there are only a dozen left.
I wandered around the Barbican looking for angles, shadows and reflections …
Here are some colours and shapes from ‘Them’s the breaks’by the RESOLVE Collective at The Curve Gallery …
I’d also like to include a few favourites from a previous blog where I experimented with black and white images.
Tower 42 …
Plus Leadenhall Market …
Here are some of the more unusual things I came across during my walk.
I have entered the Barbican Highwalk from the Barbican Station footbridge on dozens of occasions and never paid any attention to this doorway which is obviously no longer in use …
Last week I peered through the grubby glass and was astonished to see this lively jungle scene …
I’m trying to find out more about it.
In the Smithfield Rotunda Garden there is a reflection with a poetic message …
‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall … Litter left here reflects badly on us all’.
On display in the Barbican Centre is this stunnng architectural model of the Estate …
The City is still full of new developments despite changes in working patterns and in many cases this means the demolition of existing buildings. A new view has now temporarily opened up looking south from the St Alphage Highwalk showing the north side of the Guildhall with the Shard in the distance …
Finally, I laughed out loud when I popped in to St Giles church and noticed two acknowledgements of the Coronation. Milton was surrounded by flags as he clutched a volume of his works …
But by far the most witty gesture was kitting out the famous parliamentarian and regicide Oliver Cromwell with a golden crown and a ‘Long Live King Charles’ postcard …
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From where I live I have a nice view of my local church, St Giles Without Cripplegate. This image gives a good impression of where this wonderful old church is located within the strikingly modern Barbican Estate …
I am always pleased to come across old images of the area, particularly those taken in the three decades after the Second World War. I am indebted to the author of the splendid London Inheritance blog for this view from 1947 showing the devastated landscape …
The building on the left is the Red Cross Street Fire Station.
Another image showing nearby destruction …
The following photo taken in the days following the raid on the 29th December 1940 shows the damage to the interior of the church …
Since the walls and tower survived a service was possible with the parishioners able to look straight up to the sky …
The inside of the church today. I was fortunate enough to visit when a lady (on the left in the picture) was practising beautifully on the organ …
Here’s an aerial view from the 1960s and the church now has a roof. The more modern looking building on the right is Roman House which has recently been converted into apartments …
In this 21st century aerial image you can just make out the church’s green roof …
Some monuments remain from the old pre-Blitz building.
There is this touching memorial to a favourite character of mine, Sir William Staines …
And here is the man himself …
Staines had extremely humble beginnings working as a bricklayer’s labourer, but eventually accumulated a large fortune which he generously used for philanthropic purposes. He seemed to recall his own earlier penury when he ensured that the houses he built for ‘aged and indigent’ folk would have ‘nothing to distinguish them from the other dwelling-houses … to denote the poverty of the inhabitant’.
British History Online records an encounter he had with the notorious John Wilkes who referred rather rudely to Staines’ original occupation …
The alderman was an illiterate man, and was a sort of butt amongst his brethren. At one of the Old Bailey dinners, after a sumptuous repast of turtle and venison, Sir William was eating a great quantity of butter with his cheese. “Why, brother,” said Wilkes, “you lay it on witha trowel!”
Incidentally, Wilkes is also commemorated in the the City in Fetter Lane where a striking statue of him honestly portrays his famous squint …
John Milton (1608-1674), the poet and republican, is perhaps the most famous former parishioner of St Giles and his statue stands by the south wall of the church …
It’s made of metal, which means it is one of the few memorials in the church that survived the bombing in the Second World War. It is the work of the sculptor Horace Montford (c1840-1919) and is based on a bust made in about 1654.
He used to be outside and was blasted off his plinth during the bombing …
There is also this commemorative plaque …
And a bust which clearly indicates his later-life blindness …
Milton was buried in the church next to his father, however he was not allowed to rest in peace.
‘A sacrilegious desecration of his remains, we regret to record, took place in 1790 … The disinterment had been agreed upon after a merry meeting at the house of Mr. Fountain, overseer, in Beech Lane, the night before, Mr. Cole, another overseer, and the journeyman of Mr. Ascough, the parish clerk, who was a coffin-maker, assisting’.
Having identified where they thought Milton’s grave was, they dug down almost six feet, found a coffin, and removed the lid. The report goes on …
‘Upon first view of the body, it appeared perfect, and completely enveloped in the shroud, which was of many folds, the ribs standing up regularly. When they disturbed the shroud the ribs fell. Mr. Fountain confessed that he pulled hard at the teeth, which resisted, until some one hit them a knock with a stone, when they easily came out. There were but five in the upper jaw, which were all perfectly sound and white, and all taken by Mr. Fountain. He gave one of them to Mr. Laming. Mr. Laming also took one from the lower jaw; and Mr. Taylor took two from it. Mr. Laming said that he had at one time a mind to bring away the whole under-jaw with the teeth in it; he had it in his hand, but tossed it back again’.
As if that wasn’t undignified enough,’Elizabeth Grant, the gravedigger … now took possession of the coffin; and, as its situation under the common councilmen’s pew would not admit of its being seen without the help of a candle, she kept a tinder-box in the excavation, and, when any persons came, struck a light, and conducted them under the pew; where, by reversing the part of the lid which had been cut, she exhibited the body, at first for sixpence and afterwards for threepence and twopence each person’.
The body was reburied but rumours spread that it wasn’t Milton in the coffin, but a woman. So Milton was dug up a second time and the surgeon in attendance examined the bones — what were left of them — and pronounced them to be masculine. Only then was Milton, at last, allowed to rest only to be permanently obliterated in the bombing.
Notwithstanding the generous memorials to the great and the good, I was captivated by this modest plaque on the south wall …
An attorney at law who obviously believed in brevity. No Latin exhortation of his virtues, no figures of a grieving widow and children, only the important facts and the bald, concluding statement ‘That is all’.
There is a lot more to see at St Giles such as modern stained glass …
And intriguing inscriptions, both inside …
And outside …
But for the moment ‘that is all!’
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Why is this splendid Art Deco building on Tooley Street called St Olaf House?
Why is it called St Olaf House? The answer is beautifully engraved on the wall …
The man himself …
The main entrance …
St Olaf House was built between 1928 and 1932 for the Hay’s Wharf Company and now houses the London Bridge Private Hospital’s consulting and administration rooms. You can read more about the building here.
Walking east you come acoss Hay’s Galleria …
In a fountain at the centre is a 60 ft moving bronze sculpture of a ship, called The Navigators, by sculptor David Kemp, unveiled in 1987 to commemorate the Galleria’s shipping heritage …
Further east on the south side of the road is The Shipwrights Arms, built in 1884 and now a Grade 2 listed building. I love the beautiful lady figurehead above the main door …
Back on the north side it’s easy to miss this commemorarive plaque …
It reads as follows : To the memory of James Braidwood, superintendent of the London Fire Brigade, who was killed near this spot in the execution of his duty at the great fire on 22nd June 1861. A just man and one that feared god, of good report among all the nation.
I shall be writing more about the heroic James Braidwood and the Great Tooley Street Fire next week.
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Visitors to the Tower looking down towards the river probably don’t give a second thought to this little strip of sand …
Here it is as seen from the cruise boat access bridge …
People had walked on the Thames foreshore for thousands of years but Tower Beach, as it was known, was created in 1934 by bringing 1,500 barge loads of sand to the site. When it was officially opened, King George V decreed that the beach was to be used by the children of London, and that they should be given ‘free access forever’.
Take a look at these wonderful images starting with the lovely girls from the famous Windmill Theatre …
East end lads having a great time …
Sadly it had to be closed in 1971 because of the danger of pollution to bathers.
You can see more if you click on this link to the article the images come from in the MailOnline.
This exciting sculpture, Girl With a Dolphin, was created in 1972 by David Wynne …
It looks even better when its water fountain is working.
I know not everyone likes The Shard but I appreciate the way it mirrors the sky, especially on a stormy day …
That’s the well-camouflaged HMS Belfast in the foreground.
St Katharine Docks opened on the 25th October 1828 and this painting shows the first ships entering during the opening ceremony …
The docks as they appeared in full operation …
These formidable lock gates are still in place and fully functioning …
St Katharine, a 4th century aristocrat, refused to marry the Emperor Maximilian and was punished by being tortured on a spiked wheel before being beheaded. Her usual symbols are a wheel and a book, and may also include the more general symbols of the virgin martyr, a crown and a sword. The saint on this plaque has two appropriate extra symbols: the water and the Tower …
You will see her portrayed throughout the area …
Posh flats and yachts …
You can glimpse The Gherkin and The Scalpel in the background …
Ivory House, designed by George Aitchison & Son in 1853, is the only original warehouse still standing in St Katharine Docks today. It gets its name because of the vast amount of ivory that passed through it. At its peak in the 1870s, nearly 200 tons of ivory was stored annually. Apart from the ivory, other luxury imports were stored such as perfume, shells, marble, carpets, spices and wine. The London docks were the world’s greatest concentration of portable wealth …
Note the thickness and height of the walls lining the street – serious security …
Across the river is Butlers Wharf, once used to store vast quantities of tea …
The sculptress Paula Haughney has a number of her works on display around the area which have as their theme the merchandise which used to be unloaded here. The stones used for these sculptures were part of the original dock. You’ll find a guide to where they are and their titles here …
The work has reminders of the dock’s past. The chains which support it are reminiscent of anchor chains. The ring of the sundial is a giant washer. The central gnomon is an enlarged nail.
Get your souvenirs here …
As I left the area and walked towards Tower Hill Station I noticed this curious building …
The London Hydraulic Power Company was established in 1868 to install a hydraulic power network in London. This expanded to cover most of central London at its peak, before being replaced by electricity, with the final pump house closing in 1977. This is the entrance to the Tower Subway which was originally an old pedestrian tunnel the Company bought to carry power under the Thames …
Just before I reached the station I noticed the Armistice Day wreaths left at the Tower Hill memorial. It commemorates more than 36,000 Merchant sailors who have no grave but the sea …
This will now be the site of the new Chinese Embassy since its purchase in 2018. This has proved controversial and you can read more here and view plans here.
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A trip to the Guildhall art Gallery is always a treat and it is even more so now with its Inspired exhibition which runs until 23 December. It’s a new exhibition drawn from the Guildhall Art Gallery’s permanent collections that examines ways in which visual artists have taken inspiration from the literary arts – poetry, plays, novels, and also music.
Let’s start with this thoughtful, gentle man, sculpted by someone who knew him very well personally …
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’.
This is the actress Valerie Hobson at the height of her career in 1948…
She gave up acting shortly after marrying her second husband John Profumo, the government minister who later became the subject of a sensational (and epoch-changing) scandal in 1963.
This picture was originally entitled Young Airman …
It’s now believed to be a portrait of Roald Dahl in his RAF uniform.
His memoir This Small Cloud was published posthumously in 1987 and was a fascinating account of life as a working class gay man in the early 20th century.
This painting is entitled Keats Listening to the Nightingale on Hampstead Heath and represents the moment he was inspired to write his famous Odepublished in 1819 …
The little bird can be seen in the top left hand corner, silhouetted by the moon …
Here’s the dramatic moment in Macbeth when, at a banquet, he sees the ghost of the murdered Banquo. His wife, the principal figure in the painting, tries to take control by firmly grabbing his shoulder …
The guests stare at him in surprise …
Beautiful sculptures on display include Sir Henry Irving as Hamlet …
Geoffrey Chaucer …
Goethe’s female character Mignon …
and the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók …
Learn more about these works by watching this excellent 15 minute video tour by Katty Pearce, the exhibition curator, or even better visit yourself – you won’t be disappointed …
Curator’s tour : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOO8TKdqZLE
I visited the day after the Lord Mayor’s Show and his State Coach was on display at the Basinghall Street entrance to the Guildhall piazza …
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Sculpture in the City is back along with a fun new pop-up shop in Leadenhall Market. If you work nearby scroll down to the end of this blog for more details – you won’t be disappointed. Here’s a hint of what’s in store …
Let’s look at some sculpture first, and I shall include the explanatory plaques that accompany the works. This is just a selection – go to the website for full details.
I’ll start with the seriously weird at Aldgate Square EC3N 1AF …
Onward now to others starting with Summer Moon at Undershaft EC3A 8AH (Next to St Helen’s Church) …
I love the texture …
… and the location …
Sandwich at Undershaft, EC2N 4AJ (In front of Crosby Square) …
Rough Neck Business at 100 Bishopsgate EC2M 1GT …
Orphans at Cullum Street EC3M 7JJ …
Burial at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate Churchyard EC2M 3TL …
Cosmos at Undershaft EC3P 3DQ (Between Aviva and the Leadenhall Building) …
Untitled at 70 St Mary Axe EC3A 8BE …
Generations (Part2) at The Leadenhall Building EC3V 4AB …
Miss at the corner of Bishopsgate & Wormwood Street EC2M 3XD …
And finally The Granary at Cunard Place EC3A 5AR …
Now for something completely different and lighthearted.
The fantastic Monster Supplies Company has opened a pop-up store in Leadenhall Market only a few steps from the Lamb Tavern …
Train strike day – no problem! Just grab a very reasonably priced flying broomstick and soar above the traffic as you head home …
The store was packed with visitors when I called in yesterday …
With Halloween coming up, and Christmas not far behind, there are lots of wacky present opportunities …
Kids seemed to love items with rather disgusting or gruesome names …
These are difficult times so pop along to Leadenhall Market. I guarantee you will feel more cheerful after your visit and maybe come away with Hope and Laughter …
The shop is open Tuesday to Friday from 11:00am to 6:00pm. If you can’t visit in person for any reason you can buy online here.
All proceeds from sales go to support the wonderful Ministry of Stories charity, a creative writing and mentoring centre for young people in Hackney aged 8 to 18. You could also visit their store in Hoxton which I have written about before in my blog entitled, not surprisingly, A visit to the Monster Supplies Store.
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After my brief visit last week I said I’d write about Waterloo Station again.
In 1899 London & South Western Railway (as the London & Southampton had become) sought permission to completely rebuild and expand the existing station which dated from 1848.
The old station …
As the rebuild was drawing to a close, and as a memorial to their staff that died in the First World War, the LSWR commissioned the Victory Arch. It was designed by J R Scott, their chief architect, and this was his vision for it …
Made of Portland stone and bronze it depicts War and Peace, with Britannia holding the torch of liberty above. Leading from Station Approach onto the concourse, the Victory Arch forms the main entrance to Waterloo …
There are 585 names listed alphabetically on four large panels …
The most famous battle of the Napoleonic War, fought on 18th June 1815 after which the station is named, is commemorated on the upper level inside the station. The plaque was erected to acknowledge the battle’s 2ooth anniversary …
Pretty stained glass above what was once a station exit …
Early 20th century architecture meets 21st century retail …
More architectural detail. It would have been very high up and just below the roof in the original station …
Water damage …
Some previous destinations …
‘The Sunbathers’ …
‘Meet me under the clock’ …
I have gathered some images showing how the concourse has changed over the years.
A wonderful 1948 centenary poster incorporating a watercolour by Helen McKie. If you can, use magnification to admire the detail in the little figures …
An image from 1964 …
A painting by Terence Cuneo depicting the station in 1967 …
And specially for my Gooner subscribers (I know there are a few!) …
Supporters at Waterloo Station on their way to an F A Cup tie at against Portsmouth at Fratton Park, 13th February 1932. (Photo by S. R. Gaiger/Topical Press/Getty Images). Aren’t they dressed smartly – ties, suits and everyone has polished their shoes. The guy on the left looks particularly dapper.
Here are some images I took from outside the station.
Old signage across the road opposite the taxi queue …
I like the way it incorporates a picture of the famous clock …
Great ghost sign …
Wartime bomb damage …
Across the road …
071 ceased to be the London dialing code over 25 years ago.
Finally, I couldn’t resist including these pictures …
Abba at Waterloo in 1974, the year they won the Eurovision Song Contest with a song of the same name.
Listen to the song here on the official Abba website. You may like it even if you weren’t born in 1974!
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Whenever I am travelling anywhere by plane or train I am always ludicrously early and that was the case last week when I was catching a train at Waterloo. I therefore took the opportunity to look around and see if there was some material for the blog. There certainly was.
The station now hosts the National Windrush monument, designed by renowned Jamaican artist Basil Watson. It acknowledges and celebrates the Windrush generation’s outstanding contribution and has been created as a permanent place of reflection, to foster greater understanding of the generation’s talent, hard work and continuing contribution to British society.
The three figures – a man, woman, and child – dressed in their ‘Sunday best’ are climbing a mountain of suitcases together, demonstrating the inseparable bond of the Windrush pioneers and their descendants, and the hopes and aspirations of their generation as they arrive to start new lives in the UK.
There’s much more to see at Waterloo and I shall return to it next week and write more about these images …
My Waterloo research has led me to write about a very different type of station that operated nearby. Passengers departing from here were destined for eternity rather than the seaside.
In the first half of the 19th century, London’s population shot up from around a million people in 1801 to close on two and a half million by 1851. Death was commonplace in the 19th century and eventually the City’s churchyards were literally full to bursting. Coffins were stacked one atop the other in 20-foot-deep shafts, the topmost mere inches from the surface. Putrefying bodies were frequently disturbed, dismembered or destroyed to make room for newcomers. Disinterred bones, dropped by neglectful gravediggers, lay scattered amidst the tombstones; smashed coffins were sold to the poor for firewood. Clergymen and sextons turned a blind eye to the worst practices because burial fees formed a large proportion of their income.
This is Bunhill Burial Ground around that time …
You can also get some idea of how packed cemeteries were if you look at some of the existing City churchyards and observe how much higher the graveyards are compared to street level. This, for example, is the graveyard of St Olave Hart street as seen from inside the church …
Between 1846 and 1849, a devastating cholera epidemic swept across London resulting in the deaths of almost 15,000 Londoners and it became apparent that something had to be done.
Legislation proved ineffective but private enterprise stepped in and a series of huge cemeteries, in which Londoners could be laid to rest in lush, green spacious landscapes, sprang up outside the metropolis. One such enterprise was the grandly titled ‘London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company’ (LNC), which was formed in July, 1852, with a mandate to develop the former Woking Common, at Brookwood, in Surrey, as one of the new cemeteries to serve London.
Carrying the deceased 23 miles by horse-drawn coach was obviously not practical and thus, in November, 1854, one of Britain’s most bizarre railway lines – the London Necropolis Railway – commenced operations, and daily trains were soon chuffing their way out of ‘Cemetery Station’ in Waterloo, ‘wending their way through the outskirts of London, and on through verdant woodlands and lush, green countryside outside the Metropolis, bound for the tranquil oasis of the new Valhalla in rural Surrey’.
From The Illustrated London News. Saturday, 11th November, 1854 Copyright, Mary Evans Picture Library
The Company obviously gave a lot of thought to its logo and motto. Here it is (the skull and crossbones isn’t exactly subtle, is it) …
The Latin translates as ‘Peace to the dead, health to the living’. Possibly a reference to the lack of security in the old existing graveyards and also their threat to health. Just inside the circle is the ouroboros, an ancient symbol of a snake or serpent eating its own tail, variously signifying infinity and the cycle of birth and death.
The history of the company is an absolutely fascinating story and if you want to know more just click on the link here to the excellent London Walking Tours blog.
A new building for the London terminus was completed on the 8th of February, 1902. Here are some contemporary images …
A class system operated. First and Second Class ‘passengers’, accompanied by mourners, were placed in the train first. Third class mourners were not allowed to witness their loved ones being loaded! …
The end of the line. A funeral train from Waterloo pulling into the north section station at the cemetery in the early 20th century …
On Friday, 11th April, 1941, the body of Chelsea Pensioner Edward Irish (1868 – 1941) left the London Necropolis Station en route for Brookwood. He was the station’s last customer.
Five days later, on the night of the 16th/17th of April, 1941, a German bombing raid on the area destroyed the company’s rolling stock, along with much of the building. The Southern Railway’s Divisional Engineer, having inspected the damage at 2pm, on April, 17th, 1941, reported starkly, ‘Necropolis and buildings demolished.’ Although the offices and the First Class entrance from Westminster Bridge Road had survived, the devastation effectively sounded the death knell for the Necropolis Railway, and, on the 11th of May 1941, the station was officially declared closed.
The First Class platform just after the bombing …
The site in 1950 …
By the time it was put out of business after 87 years the company had ferried over 200,000 bodies between Waterloo and Surrey.
The First Class entrance and the Company’s old offices on Westminster Bridge Road are still there today (SE1 7HR) …
Inside the entrance arch (I think those lamps may be part of the original building, they look suitably funereal) …
I caught this image as I walked home across Waterloo Bridge – the ever-changing City skyline …
Finally, by way of light relief, my favourite newspaper front page of the week – British journalism at its finest …
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To Pepys, music wasn’t just a pleasant pastime; it was also an art of great significance – something that could change lives and affect everyone who heard it. He was a keen amateur, playing various instruments and studying singing – he even designed a room in his home specially for music-making.
Here are some of the instruments that Pepys played – a fiddle, a flageolet and recorders …
And atheorbo lute …
Alan Lamb, who supervised the carvings, working on the lute. Read more about him and his team here …
Pepys attended St Paul’s School as a boy and the hind is from the school’s coat of arms …
Samuel had been a student at Magdalene College, Cambridge and bequeathed the College his vast library of over 3,000 tomes (including the six volumes of his diary). The library, which bears his name, is represented here (the Wyvern is the College crest) …
Pepys kept the diary from 1660 until 1669. The first page …
‘Blessed be God, at the end of last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold. I live in Axe Yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more family than us three. My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks, gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again.’
In 1655 when he was 22 he had married Elizabeth Michel shortly before her fifteenth birthday. Although he had many affairs (scrupulously recorded in his coded diary) he was left distraught by her death from typhoid fever at the age of 29 in November 1669. Her silhouette is in the garden paving …
Pepys was on the ship the Royal Charles that brought Charles II back to England at the Restoration and was also a Trinity House Master on two occasions. The carving shows the ship and a section of the Trinity House coat of arms …
The Diary – September 1660 : ‘I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before my lady having made us drink our morning draft there of several wines, but I drank nothing but some of her coffee, which was poorly made, with a little sugar in it’. Tea and coffee are represented in the garden by tea leaves and coffee beans …
Pepys’s home meant that his local Church (‘our own church’ as he described it) became St Olave Hart Street, which is still there for us to explore today. The church is represented by an angel from the vestry ceiling and skulls from the churchyard entrance …
In 1673 he was involved with the establishment of the Royal Mathematical School at Christ’s Hospital which was to train 40 boys annually in navigation for the benefit of the Royal Navy and the English Merchant Navy, The commemorative paver is entitled ‘The science and practice of navigation’ …
He wrote of a visit to Bartholomew Fair : ‘… but above all there was at last represented the sea, with Neptune, Venus mermaids and Ayrid on a dolphin’. You’ll find a mermaid in the garden …
If you wander around the garden here are the other carvings that you will encounter.
Samuel’s monogram …
A watermark from a letter to Pepys from King James II …
Pepys was President of the Royal Society when Sir Isaac Newton published Philosophiae Principea …
A map of Pepys’s London …
The Naval Office in Seething Lane where Pepys worked …
The Pepys coat of arms …
A teasel from the arms of the Clothiers Company where Pepys was once the Master …
Pepys’s profile …
Were he to arise from his resting place next to Elizabeth in St Olave’s what would he make of all this? I’m sure he would be delighted that his ‘own church’ was still there along with the lovely bust of Elizabeth he commissioned after her death. She still looks pretty and animated as if in conversation …
And surely he would be proud of his own bust in the garden, especially as it also commemorates Beauty Retire. Being a man of insatiable curiosity, he would no doubt want to know more about the mechanics of how the garden was irrigated using rainwater harvested from the roof of the hotel next door!
When he retired as secretary of the affairs of the Admiralty of England in 1689 ’not only had he doubled the navy’s fighting strength, but he had given it what it had never possessed before and what it never again lost—a great administrative tradition of order, discipline and service’. The orator of Oxford University declared ‘To your praises, the whole ocean bears witness; truly, sir, you have encompassed Britain with wooden walls.’ Samuel might be a little disappointed that, now in the 21st century, the mention of his name brings to many peoples’ mind only his famous diary.
If you need help finding the various carvings here’s a useful little map …
Do visit the garden if you get the chance. It’s also an opportunity to visit the beautiful St Olave’s Hart Street, Sam’s ‘own church’, which is located nearby. I’ve written about it before and you can find my blogs here and here.
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I have written about the garden in Seething lane before since it contains carvings that commemorate the life of the great diarist and naval innovator. However, I thought it might be useful to combine all my previous efforts in two blogs and this is the first so that if you visit the garden (and I strongly recommend you do) you will have easy access to all the information.
An existing bust of Pepys has been given a new plinth and one’s eyes are drawn to the sculpture as you walk along Seething Lane …
The new plinth incorporates musical notes …
The music carved on it is the tune of Beauty Retire, a song that Pepys wrote. So if you read music you can hear Pepys’s creation as well as see his bust. He was evidently extremely proud of Beauty Retire for he holds a copy of the song in his most famous portrait by John Hayls, now in the National Portrait Gallery …
Pepys had been plagued by recurring stones since childhood and, at the age of 25, decided to tackle it once and for all and opt for surgery. He consulted a surgeon, Thomas Hollier, who worked for St Thomas’ Hospital and was one of the leading lithotomists (stone removers) of the time. The procedure was very risky, gruesome and, since anaesthetics were unknown in those days, excruciatingly painful. But Pepys survived and had the stone, ‘the size of a tennis ball’, mounted and kept it on his desk as a paperweight. It may even have been buried with him. One of the garden carvings shows a stone held in a pair of forceps.
Every year, on the anniversary of his surgery, Pepys held what he called his ‘Stone Feast’ to celebrate his continued good health and there is a carving in the garden of a table laden with food and drink …
Pepys stayed in London during the terrible time of the plague which he first wrote about on 30th April 1665 mentioning ‘great fears of the sickness’. Despite this, he bravely wrote on 25 August to Sir William Coventry ‘You, Sir, took your turn at the sword; I must not therefore grudge to take mine at the pestilence’.
As plague moved from parish to parish he described the changing face of London-life – ‘nobody but poor wretches in the streets’, ‘no boats upon the River’, ‘fires burning in the street’ to cleanse the air and ‘little noise heard day or night but tolling of bells’ that accompanied the burial of plague victims. He also writes in his diary about the desensitisation of people, including himself, to the corpses of plague fatalities, ‘I am come almost to think nothing of it.’
The pestilence is represented by a plague doctor carrying a winged hourglass and fully dressed in 17th century protective clothing. No one at the time realised that the plague could be spread by fleas carried on rats. One of the species sits cheekily at the doctor’s feet …
There is also a flea based on a drawing from Robert Hooke’s Micrographia. While visiting his bookseller on a frosty day in early January 1665 Pepys noticed a copy of the book ‘which‘, Pepys recorded in his diary, ‘is so pretty that I presently bespoke it’ …
The illustration in the book …
The Great Fire of London began on 2 September 1666 and lasted just under five days. This is a contemporary view from the west held in the Museum of London collection …
One-third of London was destroyed and about 100,000 people were made homeless. He wrote in his diary ‘I (went) down to the water-side, and there got a boat … through (the) bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods: poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys till … some of them burned their wings and fell down.’
A boat in the foreground with the City ablaze in the distance while a piece of furniture floats nearby …
His house was in the path of the fire and on September 3rd his diary tells us that he borrowed a cart ‘to carry away all my money, and plate, and best things‘. The following day he personally carried more items to be taken away on a Thames barge, and later that evening with Sir William Pen, ‘I did dig another [hole], and put our wine in it; and I my Parmazan cheese, as well as my wine and some other things’ …
There’s a carving of a monkey who is sitting on some books and appears to have taken a bite out of a rolled up document. This refers to an entry in Pepys’s diary for Friday 18th January 1661 : ‘I took horse and guide for London; and through some rain, and a great wind in my face, I got to London at eleven o’clock. At home found all well, but the monkey loose, which did anger me, and so I did strike her till she was almost dead’. I’m not sure whether it was his pet or his wife’s, but it certainly paid a heavy price for its misbehaviour.
On 11th January 1660 he visited the Tower of London menagerie and ‘went in to see Crowly, who was now grown a very great lion and very tame’. Crowley also has a carving in the garden …
In 1679 tragedy struck when Pepys was arrested, dismissed from service and sent to the Tower of London on charges of ‘Piracy, Popery and Treachery’. The first two were outlandish and easily disproved but much more damaging and dangerous was the rumour that he had sold state secrets to the French (a crime which carried the terrifying penalty of being hanged, drawn and quartered). Using his own resources and considerable network, he tracked down the story to a lying scoundrel called John Scott. Pepys was subsequently freed and this frightening episode in his life is recorded in the garden by a carving of him incarcerated in the Tower …
He was to return to office in 1686 with the full support of the new king, James II, and set up a special ‘Navy Commission’ to clear the navy’s accounts and restore the force to its 1679 levels. This was completed six months ahead of schedule and was probably his last, and arguably greatest, achievement.
Back in 1649 Pepys had skipped school and witnessed the execution of King Charles the First outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. There is a carving of the poor King’s head being held aloft by his executioner …
On 9th May 1662 he wrote : ‘Thence to see an Italian puppet play that is within the rayles there, which is very pretty, the best that ever I saw, and great resort of gallants. So to the Temple and by water home’. The ‘puppet play’ was probably Punch and Judy (trigger alert, they have dropped the baby!) …
Part 2 dealing with the remainder of the carvings will follow next week.
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Usually I shoot images in colour but sometimes wonder whether black and white would be more effective.
This week I have been experimenting and here are the results starting with some people commemorated at St Giles-without-Cripplegate.
John Milton (1608-1674) the poet and republican is perhaps the most famous former church parishioner and his statue stands by the south wall of the church. It is made of metal, which means it is one of the few memorials in the church that survived the bombing in the Second World War. It’s the work of the sculptor Horace Montford (c1840-1919) and is based on a bust made in about 1654 …
There is also a bust under the organ gallery by the sculptor George Frampton which clearly indicates Milton’s later life blindness …
Oliver Cromwell, the military and political leader, who was Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1653 to 1658, was married in St Giles in 1620, aged 21. His wife, Elizabeth Bouchier, was the daughter of a Cripplegate leather merchant, and the couple had nine children. The St Giles bust follows his ‘warts and all’ instruction …
Here he is again (looking fierce) at the Guildhall Art Gallery …
He died in 1658 and his death mask is on display in the Museum of London …
After the Restoration, Charles II had Cromwell’s body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey on 30 January 1661, This was the the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles’ father and Cromwell’s remains were subjected to a posthumous execution at Tyburn. After the body had been hanged in chains it was thrown into a pit with the head set on a spike outside Parliament.
Controversially, a statue was subsequently erected to him outside Parliament in 1899 …
I’m quite fond of this chap …
I smile when I see him because he looks like a man who enjoyed his food. Despite starting life as a bricklayer’s labourer, he amassed a vast fortune and, even though he remained virtually illiterate, he was eventually elected Lord Mayor of London. Here is his 1800 portrait by William Beechey …
He built nine houses for aged or infirm workmen and tradesmen who had fallen on hard times. No doubt remembering his own upbringing, he made sure that there was ‘nothing to distinguish them from the other dwelling-houses, and without ostentatious display of stone or other inscription to denote the poverty of the inhabitants’. That’s why I like him.
Highgate Cemetery is the last resting place of many famous and infamous individuals and Bruce Reynolds is one of them …
Bruce Richard Reynolds (1931 – 2013) was an English criminal who masterminded the 1963 Great Train Robbery. At the time it was Britain’s largest robbery, netting £2,631,684, equivalent to £58 million today. Reynolds spent five years on the run before being sentenced to 25 years in 1969. You can read his obituary here.
St Peter’s Hill runs north alongside the College and at the top you will find the Firefighters Memorial. On its octagonal bronze base are the names of the 997 men and women of the fire service who lost their lives during the conflict. The sculpture features two firemen ‘working a branch’, with their legs spread to take the strain of the hose …
I love my City Animals collection and I have gathered so many images now I can start to put them into little categories and that’s what I’ve done today.
For example, in the ‘faithful friends’ category would be the following.
Dr Johnson’s cat Hodge …
Here in Gough Square he sits proudly on top of his master’s famous dictionary having just enjoyed a tasty oyster snack. Johnson was immensely fond of him (‘A very fine cat indeed!’) and personally bought oysters for him rather than ask the servants to. He was (probably justifiably) concerned that the staff would resent this and take their annoyance out on poor Hodge.
He looks towards the house where they both lived at the time and where the dictionary was written …
Philip Thomas Byard Clayton (1885-1972), popularly known as ‘Tubby’ Clayton, served as a priest during the First World War, and opened and maintained a place of rest near Ypres, an Everyman’s Club, much frequented by officers and men alike. This became the TocH movement which continues to this day but has, sadly, struggled in recent years.
Tubby became Vicar of All Hallows by the Tower in 1922 and remained there for forty years, until his retirement in 1962. His effigy in the church is one of the last works by Cecil Thomas, the ‘soldier sculptor’, and Tubby’s dog Chippy sits on a tasselled cushion at his feet …
Clayton owned a succession of Scottish Terriers, one of them a gift from the Queen Mother. All of them were called Chippy.
King Charles II was very fond of his spaniels. Here one runs alongside his horse as they parade down Cheapside …
The terracotta frieze was saved from a Victorian building that previously occupied the site. It’s now displayed on the north side of 1 Poultry.
Whilst on Poultry look up and you’ll see a reference to the old poultry market that once stood here, a boy struggling to hold a goose …
The goose was a suggestion by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. The building is now a private club and restaurant, called The Ned in Sir Edwin’s honour.
My collection contains many water creatures.
At the incredibly moving memorial to the men of the Merchant Navy lost at sea during the two World Wars a boy rides a dolphin surrounded by fishes and sea horses …
These two dolphins on The Ship pub in Hart street look rather miserable despite being Grade II listed like the building itself …
Mr Grumpy …
There are some nicely carved fishes in Cheapside, part of a Zodiac motif …
Not surprisingly, there are lots of fishy folk along the Thames Walk, both on and near what was once Billingsgate Market …
I’m told that could be a Herring Sky in the background – very appropriate …
This one looks like he’s poking his tongue out at us …
Isn’t it nice when the sun is out! I decided it was time for another wander around the City and from the Barbican Highwalk I spotted an old friend who it seems has at last found a permanent resting place …
The Minotaur was made by Michael Ayrton. The creature in the sculpture has been described as ‘looking powerful and muscular. It stands hunched over when on his plinth, but he looks ready to take off running at any moment. It has the body of a man, with heavy muscles in his legs and chest, and two cloven feet. It has the head of a bull with two pointed horns and large, hunched shoulders. Its body is hairy, and its hair moves even though it is made of metal’ …
The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur is one of the most tragic and fascinating myths of the Greek Mythology and you can read more about it here.
Onward to Lombard Street.
I took a walk down the shadowy and rather mysterious Change Alley and came across a building that once housed the Scottish Widows insurance company along with its magnificent crest. At the centre is the mythical winged horse, Pegasus, symbol of immortality and mastery of time. A naked figure, the Greek hero Bellerophon, is shown grasping its mane. In mythology, Bellerophon captured Pegasus and rode him into battle. This explains the motto ‘Take time by the forelock’, or ‘seize the opportunity’. Presumably time could be tamed by taking out a Scottish Widows policy to make provision against the uncertainties of the future …
I next headed down King William Street.
Rising from the flames and just about to take off over the City is the legendary Phoenix bird and from 1915 until 1983 this was the headquarters of the Phoenix Assurance Company (EC4N 7DA). One can see why the Phoenix legend of rebirth and restoration appealed as the name for an insurance company …
Incidentally, have you ever paused to admire the Duke of Wellington statue at Bank junction? And do you think, like I once did, that it was there to celebrate his prowess as a military commander? Well, actually, it’s to commemorate the fact that he helped to get a road built!
It was erected to show the City’s gratitude for Wellington’s help in assisting the passage of the London Bridge Approaches Act 1827 which led to the creation of King William Street. The government donated the metal, which is bronze from captured enemy cannon melted down after the Battle of Waterloo.
A gardener labours diligently at the rear of Brewers’ Hall (EC2V 7HR) …
Philip Ward-Jackson, in his book Public Sculpture of the City of London, tells us of the Trees, Gardens and Open Spaces Committee of the Corporation which was chaired by Frederick Cleary. In his autobiography Cleary recorded that Jonzen’s figure below was intended as a tribute to the efforts of his committee but Ward-Jackson feels that ‘it might have been better described as a symbol of the ‘greening’ of the City in the post-war period’. Most appropriately, Mr Cleary has a garden named after him, and you can read about it in my earlier blog about City gardens generally.
Apparently Jonzen, on being given the subject by the Corporation …
… decided on a kneeling figure of a young man, who, having planted a bulb, was gently stroking over the earth.
There are several other works by Jonzen in the City.
This one, Beyond Tomorrow (1972), is in Basinghall Street, behind the Guildhall …
Sited opposite is this pretty glass fountain by Allen David …
It was commissioned by Mrs Gilbert Edgar, wife of Gilbert H. Edgar CBE, who was a City of London Sheriff between 1963-4. It was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of London on 10th December 1969.
Another work by Jonzen, in the Seething Lane Gardens, is of one of my favourite Londoners, Samuel Pepys. It was commissioned and erected by The Samuel Pepys Club in 1983 …
It contains musical notes, so of you can read music you can not only see Sam but also ‘hear’ his voice …
I thought the Guildhall looked nice against the blue sky …
A remarkably wart-free Oliver Cromwell looks fearsome outside the Guildhall Art Gallery with Samuel Pepys and Dick Whittington in the background (EC2V 5AE) …
Dick is on Highgate Hill and has just heard the bells of St Mary-le-Bow ring out ‘Turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London’. He’s giving it some serious thought as his cat curls around his legs (note the tear in his leggings indicating that he has experienced hard times) …
Look closely at the elegant limestone facade of the building and you will see a great collection of bivalves – oyster shells from the Jurassic period when dinosaurs really did walk the earth …
Read more about more of the fossils on view in the City in my blog Jurassic City.
George Peabody was an American financier and philanthropist and is widely regarded as the father of modern philanthropy. Here he sits, looking pretty relaxed, at the northern end of the Royal Exchange Buildings …
Born in Baltimore he became extremely wealthy importing British dried goods and, after visiting frequently, became a permanent London resident in 1838. In retirement he devoted himself to charitable causes setting up a trust, the Peabody Donation Fund, to assist ‘the honest and industrious poor of London’. The Peabody Trustees would use the fund to provide ‘cheap, clean, well-drained and healthful dwellings for the poor’ with the first donation being made in 1862.
Peabody buildings are easily recognised by their attractive honey-coloured brickwork. This block is in Errol Street, Islington …
Immensely respected in later life, he was offered a baronetcy by Queen Victoria but declined it. After his death in 1869 his body rested for a month in Westminster Abbey after which, on the Queen’s orders, his body was returned to America for burial on the British battleship HMS Monarch.
Close to Peabody is a statue to another remarkable man – Paul Julius Reuter. The rough-cut granite sculpture by the Oxford-based sculptor Michael Black commemorates the 19th-century pioneer of communications and news delivery. It is a fitting place for the statue because the stone head faces the Royal Exchange which was the reason why Reuter set up his business in the City. He established his offices in 1851 to the east of the Royal Exchange building. The stone monument was erected by Reuters to mark the 125th anniversary of the Reuters Foundation. It was unveiled by Edmund L de Rothschild on 18 October 1976 …
The life of Reuter was most interesting. Having started his career as a humble clerk in a bank, he went on to ‘see the future’ of transmitting the news – regardless of whether it was financial or world news. If the ‘modern’ technology of telegraphy – also known then as Telegrams – was not in place, Reuter used carrier pigeons and even canisters floating in the sea to convey news as fast as possible. Such was his ambition to be the first with the news.
Sir John Soane stands on Lothbury wearing a full-length cloak and holding a bundle of drawings and a set square. The niche is decorated with the neo-Grecian motifs associated with his style. Sir John’s day job was as architect and surveyor to the Bank of England, and he held the position for 45 years. When he resigned in 1833, most of the Bank’s three-acre footprint had been remodelled in some way, and a number of spectacular set-piece facades inserted…
In the wake of the Great War, Britain’s national debt grew to such an extent that Soane’s bank was too small for the business to be transacted; unfortunately, this renovation was done by the architect Herbert Baker in a way that virtually erased Soane’s work.
Many are still angry at the destruction. Here is what the blogger at Ornamental Passions has to say:
‘The irony of placing a tribute to the architect actually on the sad ruins of his masterpiece was not lost on critics, especially as it is so close to Soane’s much loved Tivoli Corner which Baker had promised to preserve but actually totally rebuilt. He is lucky to have his back turned to an act of vandalism more brutal than anything the Luftwaffe achieved. Indeed, nothing illustrates the Nazi’s abysmal cultural values than that fact that the Bank was untouched in the blitz’. Wow!
Carrying her sword and scales, Lady Justice stands above the Ukrainian flag at the Institute of Chartered Accountants …
Around the corner, the building boasts the poshest letter box in the City …
Speak to any one of the wonderful team of City gardeners and they will tell you that one of the greatest threats to their work are smokers discarding cigarette butts in flower beds. Nicotine is poisonous to plants and is a component of many weed killers.
So the City is fighting back using humour …
The final paragraph on the accompanying sign made me laugh out loud …
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Walking down Ludgate Hill the other day I grabbed this quick picture of St Bride’s because there were also some nice fluffy clouds in the frame …
It occurred to me then that the church, with its famous ‘wedding cake’ steeple, had been extremely fortunate not to be now obscured by the extensive post-war development that took place in the City as it very gradually recovered from the War. Someone working in the City at the turn of the 20th century would have recognised both the church and the building in front of it.
This sent me in search of some other images. Here’s the view from a bit further up Ludgate Hill …
Here is a view from the hill in the 1940s from a postcard series called LondonUnder Fire …
I decided to visit St Bride’s again taking this picture as I approached the entrance door …
The church is surrounded by buildings so this print from 1753 is interesting since one can get a sense of its full scale as seen from the outside and its position relative to St Paul’s Cathedral …
I crossed St Bride’s Avenue, a narrow passageway that runs between the church and the buildings on the southern side of Fleet Street …
This is the view from the east end. The Old bell Tavern dates from the 1670s …
The church was gutted in the Blitz but was very sympathetically restored and reopened in 1957. Here are the ruins shortly after the bombing …
The interior we see today is loyal to Wren’s core design. Everything, however, including floor, all wooden structures, roof etc. is from the 1950s and later refurbishments …
Looking west, St Bride is commemorated in the statue on the left …
She was born in AD 453, a contemporary of St Patrick. The church’s association with St Bride (St Brigid of Kildare) may date back to the sixth century and is the only church on the east side of England to bear this dedication. She died on 1st February AD 525, and was buried with the remains of Ireland’s two other patron saints, Patrick and Columba. Her saint’s day continues to be celebrated on this date. You can read more about her and the church’s history here.
The royal arms weigh two tons and are carved from a block of Beer stone …
The eagle lectern was, according to tradition, rescued from the medieval church during the Great Fire of London in 1666 …
There are two ‘charity scholars’ tucked away in a corner . They originally stood outside St Bride’s Charity School in Bride’s Lane. …
Just above their heads is a small bust carved by Clare Waterhouse, replacing an earlier marble carving by Marjorie Meggit …
It represents Virginia Dare, the first recorded European child to be born in North America. Her parents had been married here before sailing to Roanoke in 1587 but what became of Virginia and the other colonists remains a mystery.
St Bride’s has a long association with the print trade and journalism, dating back to around 1500 when the printing press of Wynkyn de Worde was established near the church. This association grew with the rise of Fleet Street as a centre of journalism and the newspaper industry. There are a number of memorials to journalists killed, imprisoned or just missing in conflicts around the world and I have written more extensively about these in last week’s blog.
I headed downstairs to the fascinating museum in the crypt …
As I descended I remembered that the crowded burial chambers below the church were rediscovered by preparatory excavations in 1953. The crypts were found to contain the remains of 227 individually identified people interred since the 17th century, as well as an estimated 7000 human remains in the more communal charnel house, where bones removed from the cemetery during the Middle Ages (in order to make room for new burials) were arranged according to type (skulls with skulls, femurs with femurs, etc.) and laid out in a checkerboard pattern to an as-yet unknown depth …
There are guided tours to see the charnel house but I’ve decided to pass on that for the time being.
And so to the museum.
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 watchtowers 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.
One answer was a coffin that would be extremely difficult to open and such an invention was patented by one Edward Bridgman of Goswell Road in 1818. It was made of iron with spring clips on the lid and the coffin on display fulfils the patent …
A contemporary advertisement – secure coffins were not cheap …
As a nearby information panel points out, 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.
A collection of grave markers …
Early walls and foundations …
I think some of the explanatory panels are little works of art in their own right …
Terrifying times …
An amusing anecdote …
There are some interesting inscriptions at the east end of the church. 1702 was when the steeple was being completed …
Presumably these people are interred in the vaults below …
I hope you enjoyed today’s effort. I am indebted to the London Inheritance blog for some of the illustrations.
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I love visiting St Olave Hart Street. It’s tiny and wonderfully atmospheric, being one of the few surviving Medieval buildings in London. It was badly damaged during the War but many of its treasures had been removed to safety and others have been beautifully restored.
I first visited with my camera some years ago when I was writing about Samuel Pepys and I was immediately captivated by this sculpture of his wife Elizabeth. She died of typhoid fever at the age of 29 and, despite his dalliances with other women, Pepys was devastated by her death at such a young age. He commissioned this bust in white marble from the sculptor John Bushnell …
She is shown with her gaze directed towards the location of the Navy Office Pew where her husband would have sat, her mouth open as if in conversation.
His pew was in the gallery he had had built on the south wall of the church with an added outside stairway from the Royal Navy Offices so that he could go to church without getting soaked by the rain. The gallery is now gone but a memorial to Pepys marks the location of the stairway’s door …
Pepys never married again and arranged to be buried in St Olave’s next to Christine. Now they face one another across the aisle for eternity.
Although small, the church is packed with other items of interest and I shall write about a few of them this week.
Sir James Deane has an impressive tripartite monument showing him and his three wives kneeling in prayer …
Two of the women carry skulls indicating that they died before their time. Three of his children died in infancy and their swaddled bodies are included in the monument with their little heads resting on skulls, again indicating mortality (images copyright Carole Tyrrell) …
Deane was knighted on 8 July 1604 and was a very wealthy man. He made his fortune as a merchant adventurer to India, China and the Spice Islands and was very generous to the poor in every parish in which he lived or owned property. He also built almshouses in Basingstoke that survive to this day …
There is a picturesque monument to two brothers, Andrew and Paul Bayning. They are shown in the red robes of Aldermen and were both closely involved with the Levant Company …
There are memorials with touching inscriptions. ‘Her noble soul and lovely body joined, were once the wonder and the joy of mankind’ …
Sir William Ogborne was ‘A most tender husband, loving parent and a sincere and kind friend’ …
In his will he left all his property (which included several houses) to his wife, Lady Joyce, along with his ‘coach, his chariot horses, plate, hay and corn’.
The pulpit came to St Olave’s from St Benet Gracechurch when it was demolished in 1868 …
Once thought to be the work of Grinling Gibbons, it is certainly a fine example of 17th century wood carving …
The monument of Dr Peter Turner. It was looted from the bombed out church in 1941 but was finally returned in 2011 having spent some time in the Netherlands! A curator at the Museum of London found out about an upcoming auction listing the statue in 2010, the Art Loss Register investigated, and the bust was removed from the sale …
He was an eminent physician and botanist.
All prewar windows were lost in the bombing and the new windows which replaced them were specially designed to take into account the tall buildings that were springing up in the rebuilding of the City.
Two other churches have parishes which have been joined with that of St Olave to form a united benefice and the Lady Chapel Window on the north side of the church has three lights representing them.
St Olave’s is in the centre and depicts the Virgin and Child. On the left, All Hallows Staining is represented by Queen Elizabeth I with the bells of the church at her feet …
Painstaking work was needed in order to create the gradient of colour from left to right across her dress.
On the right St Katharine of Alexandria represents the former parish of St Catherine Coleman …
As I left by the north door this memorial reminded me of the tremendous sacrifices made during both World Wars by the employees of Wm Cory & Son …
At the outbreak of WW1 in 1914, Cory had a large workforce, many of them skilled as engineers, mechanics, bargees and physically fit labourers. Before conscription was introduced, Cory encouraged its workers to enlist in Kitchener’s Army – an all-volunteer force of the British Army – and guaranteed to keep their jobs open for them. The company also undertook to look after the family of anyone who joined up, setting aside a sum of £25,000 (equivalent to £3 million today) to care for the men and their dependents.
Within a few days of the appeal there were enough men to form the entire D Company of the 6th Battalion of the Buffs – also known as Cory’s Unit. Most of these men came from places like Greenwich, Erith and Plumstead.
There is a photograph of Cory’s Unit which was taken at Aldershot shortly before their departure for France on the 1st of June 1915. Within six months, so many of these young men would be a name on a memorial or buried in a battlefield grave in Belgium or France …
Cory also mobilised its boats in support of the war effort in both World Wars, losing 17 boats in WWI and 13 in WWII (usually due to German mines, submarine attacks or aerial bombardment).
There is a plaque on the Tower Hill Maritime Memorial relating to one of the boats lost in WW1 – the Sir Francis …
She was torpedoed 4 miles off Ravenscar, North Yorkshire, on a ballast run to the Tyne to pick up coal on 7 June 1917. You may be interested in the diversity of nationalities among the crew :
Wanless, A, master, whose place of birth, residence, and family is not recorded;
de Boer, J, seaman, born in Holland;
Jonsson, John, born in Iceland, resident in South Shields and married to an Englishwoman;
Kato, T, fireman, born in Japan;
Nishioka, B, fireman, also born in Japan;
Poulouch, N, fireman, born in Greece;
Sharp, Joseph, steward, of South Shields;
Talbot, Alfred, engineer’s steward, of Penarth;
Tippett, Albert, engineer, a Yorkshireman resident in Tyneside;
van der Pluym, Johannes Cornelis, seaman, a resident of Amsterdam.
A further 12 crew members survived.
Not all their names appear on the St Olave Memorial, presumably because not all of them were directly employed by the company.
You can read more about the Cory company’s involvement on both World Wars here and here. There is a great blog dealing with colliers and multi-national crews here – it’s also the source of my information about the crew of the Sir Francis.
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A lovely Sunny day last Saturday tempted me out for a walk.
The national Submarine Memorial Memorial on Victoria Embankment (EC4Y 0HJ) is, I think, one of London’s most moving.
Although able to hide when submerged, once struck the vessels were often unable to rise to the surface and became effectively underwater coffins. In the First World War fifty four boats were lost and with them the lives of 138 officers and 1,225 men. At the inauguration in 1922 Rear Admiral Sinclair, the Chief of the Submarine Service, reminded those present that, during the Great War …
The number of those killed in the Submarine Service was greater in proportion to its size than any other branch of His Majesty’s fighting forces … one third of the total personnel.
In November 1959 new panels commemorating Second World war losses were unveiled by Rear Admiral B W Taylor.
Wright and Moore, writing for the 20th Century Architecture website, describe the memorial as a complex mixture of narrative and symbolism …
Sculptor: F B Hitch Architect: A H R Tenison Founder: E J Parlanti
The central figures recreate the scene set inside the submarine exaggerating it into a small, claustrophobic tunnel. The crew use charts and follow dials, the captain is braced at the centre with the periscope behind his head. Around the vessel a shallow relief depicts an array of sea creatures or mermen appearing to trap and haul the submarine in fishing nets, reminding us that the submarines were as much prey to the tempestuous elements as they were to the enemy.
On both corners are allegorical figures. Next to the list of vessels lost between 1914 and 1918, Truth holds up her mirror. Just further to the left in the picture are two of the 40 bronze wreath hooks in the form of anchors …
On the right, next to the vessels lost in the Second World War, Justice wears a blindfold and as usual holds a sword and scales …
On a more lighthearted vein, walk east from the Memorial on the north side of the road and you’ll find this chap frantically trying to hail a taxi …
Taxi! by the American Sculptor J Seward Johnson is cast bronze and is now interestingly weathered. If you think the baggy trousers, moustache and side parting are erring on the retro, that’s because this particular office worker was transferred from New York in 2014. It was sculpted in 1983 and originally stood on Park Avenue and 47th Street.
I love this pair of ‘dolphin’ lamps (although they are actually sturgeon) ..
Neptune also makes an appearance …
Further east you can wave to the pretty mermaid who embellishes the Art Deco style Unilever Building …
Further along the lamps repay detailed study …
Across the road, a jolly friar looks down from the Blackfriar pub …
Carry on along Queen Victoria Street and admire the imposing College of Arms building …
… and its ornate gate …
St Peter’s Hill runs north alongside the College and at the top you will find the Firefighters Memorial. On its octagonal bronze base are the names of the 997 men and women of the fire service who lost their lives during the conflict. The sculpture features two firemen ‘working a branch’, with their legs spread to take the strain of the hose …
A sub-officer directs others to assist. There are clues to the identity of this figure scattered among the debris at the figures’ feet: the letters CTD for C.T. Demarne. At the unveiling, his colleagues from the fire service claimed that there was no need for such clues. One who was interviewed by the Telegraph stated: ‘You can tell it’s Cyril by the way he’s standing…he always waved his arms about like that when he was ordering us about’.
Officer Demarne in full flow.
By 1943 over 70,00 women had enrolled in the National Fire Service in the United Kingdom. This memorial commemorates those who lost their lives in the London bombings …
The lady on the left is an incident recorder and the one on the right a despatch rider.
Across the road, just south of the Cathedral, is this rather handsome bearded gentleman …
John Donne 1572-1631 by Nigel Boonham (2012).
In 1617, two years after his ordination, Donne’s wife died at age 33 after giving birth to a stillborn child, their twelfth. Grief-stricken at having lost his emotional anchor, Donne vowed never to marry again, even though he was left with the task of raising his ten surviving children in modest financial circumstances. His bereavement turned him fully to his vocation as an Anglican divine and, on November 22, 1621, Donne was installed as Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The power and eloquence of his sermons soon secured for him a reputation as the foremost preacher in the England of his day, and he became a favourite of both Kings James I and Charles I.
His bust points almost due west but shows him turning to the east towards his birthplace on Bread Street. The directions of the compass were important to Donne in his metaphysical work: east is the Rising Sun, the Holy Land and Christ, while west is the place of decline and death. Underneath the bust are inscribed words from his poem Good Friday – Riding Westward :
Hence is’t that I am carried towards the west, This day when my soul’s form bends to the east
The most familiar quotation from Donne comes from his Meditation XVII – Devotions upon Emergent Occasions published in 1624:
‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main … and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’
Incidentally, if you walk around the east side of the Cathedral you will see scars from the Second World War bombing which illustrate just how close the building came to destruction …
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