After the Great Fire of London of 1666 St Margaret’s was rebuilt by Christopher Wren between 1683 and 1692. As some churches around St Margaret’s were demolished under the 1860 Union of Benefices Act, St Margaret’s benefited from acquiring some of the interior furnishings of these buildings. The church now houses an outstanding collection of seventeenth century fittings, many by the sculptor and wood carver Grinling Gibbons. It is one of the few Wren churches that sustained only minor damage during the Second World War.
In 1698–9 the top stage of the tower with large belfry openings and all of the spire were added and this work was probably designed by Robert Hooke. Hooke was Surveyor to the City of London and chief assistant to Christopher Wren, in which capacity he helped Wren rebuild London after the Great Fire.
The church and tower (EC2R 7HH).
The baptismal font, believed to be by Grinling Gibbons (1648–1721), came from St Olave, Old Jewry, after that church was partially demolished in 1887. The font is a carved bowl with cherub heads at each corner and the sides are decorated with Adam and Eve, the dove returning to the ark, the baptism of Jesus and the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch by Philip.
Of the subsequent additions to the church the most splendid is the choir screen, one of only two in a Wren church, erected originally in the Church of All Hallows the Great, Thames St. in 1683-84 …
The screen, along with the tester above the pulpit, was moved to St Margaret’s in 1894 when the Church of All Hallows the Great was demolished, to allow widening of Thames Street and building of the City of London Brewery on the site.
The tester above the pulpit.
The Stuart royal arms are part of the screen which was originally donated by the German merchant Theodore Jacobson in c.1685. The eagle is supposed to refer to Herr Jacobson’s nationality …
The lovely stained glass windows celebrate St Margaret’s links with a number of City Livery Companies and Institutions. The windows were donated by either the Livery Companies or their Masters.
The Worshipful Company of Glovers of London – True hearts and warm hands …
The Worshipful Company of Tin Plate Workers alias Wire Workers’ motto is Amore Sitis Uniti, Latin for Be United in Love (rather sweet!) …
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The phrase Recte Numerare means to reckon or number rightly in Latin …
The Worshipful Company of Tylers and Bricklayers : In God is all our trust,let us never be confounded. …
The Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers. The motto Sine Nobis Scientia Languet – Knowledge cannot flourish without us – reflects the fundamental role the craft has played in the achievement of science over the past centuries …
The Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers. The Company’s present Coat of Arms was granted in 1709 and incorporates the former arms of the Armourers granted in 1556 with a new coat for the Brasiers. The two mottos are Make All Sure for the Armourers, and We are one for the joint Company. ‘Put on the whole armour of God’ …
There’s much more to see at St Margaret’s so I shall return.
Incidentally, if you are passing near the Royal Exchange check out Paparazzi Dogs …
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Last Saturday I was once again drawn to the Seething Lane Garden. It was a sunny afternoon and I thought I’d revisit the wonderful carved paving stones that I have reported on before. The garden is much more open than it used to be …
These are the carvings I like best out of the 30 that are laid there..
A scene from a Punch & Judy show …
Trigger warning! They’ve dropped the baby …
A monkey sitting on a pile of books chewing a rolled up document …
A meticulous representation of a flea …
A plague doctor in 17th century PPE. He wouldn’t have known that the rat crouching cheekily at his feet was a carrier of the pestilence …
After his decapitation, the head of poor King Charles I is held up by the executioner …
A very happy lion …
A galleon under full sail …
All the carvings refer to incidents in the life of Samuel Pepys – some of which are recorded in his famous diary. In the examples above, he wrote of visiting a Punch & Judy show, of his pet monkey getting loose and misbehaving, his purchase of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (which contained the flea drawing) and his visit to the zoo to see an old lion called Crowly.
As a schoolboy he witnessed the execution of the King and in 1665 he stayed in London throughout the time of the plague (represented by the doctor). The galleon is the Royal Charles that brought Charles II back to England at the Restoration (and Pepys was on board). Trinitas refers to Trinity House where Pepys was a Master on two occasions.
He was in London during the Great Fire of 1666 and took a boat out on the River Thames to witness the destruction …
Note the piece of furniture floating past.
At the age of 25 he survived an operation to remove a bladder stone ‘the size of a tennis ball’ and this too is represented in the garden …
Pepys is commemorated with a splendid bust by Karin Jonzen (1914-1998), commissioned and erected by The Samuel Pepys Club in 1983 …
The plinth design was part of the recent project and 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 as well as see his bust …
Pepys 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. A copy of the portrait hangs in the Pepys Library …
The paving designs were created by a team of students and alumni of City & Guilds London Art School working under the direction of Alan Lamb of Swan Farm Studios Ltd. Here are some pictures of the sculptors at work.
Tom Ball working on the flea …
Mike Watson working on Pepys’s monogram …
And finally, Alan Lamb working on a theorbo lute, one of many instruments Pepys could play …
Do visit the garden if you have the chance. Another of its interesting features is that it is irrigated by rainwater harvested from the roof of the hotel next door!
I have written two blogs about Pepys in London and also two about this garden. You can find them here:
Last week I looked back at St Giles in the period immediately after the Second World war. Over the last few days I’ve been looking for much earlier images.
Here it is in 1739 in a picture from the British Museum archive described as: View of the church from the graveyard;one of the churches to escape the Great Fire. 1739. Etching and engraving …
Now forward to 1815 in a painting by George Shepherd …
And another entitled St.Giles Cripplegate, Fore Street engraved by J.Henshall after a picture Shepherd (published in London in the Nineteenth Century, 1831) …
The church now (on a wet and windy day!) …
The churchyard and its graves suffered terribly in the Blitz and the old grave stones have been incorporated into low level seating
Some inscriptions still just about legible. For example, the deaths in the Williams family, recorded over the years 1802 to 1840, give typical examples of the high incidence of child mortality …
Let’s go inside now and have a look around.
There are a number of modern stained glass windows. In the baptistery is the Cripplegate Window, which celebrates the centenary of the Cripplegate Foundation www.cripplegate.org which gives grants, advice and support to local organisations. The Foundation was formally established in 1891 but its origins lie in gifts made to St Giles’ for the poor and the needy dating back centuries. John Sworder made the first recorded gift in his will, dated 2 April 1500, and the head at the top of the window represents him, the first of the pious donors of the parish that we know by name …
On the north wall is a memorial window to Edward Alleyn, the parish’s generous benefactor. The design is the work of John Lawson of stained glass studio Goddard & Gibbs and depicts Alleyn in the centre, as well as the Fortune Theatre (which he founded), almshouses (which he built in the parish and which were destroyed in the Second World War), and St Luke’s Church, Old Street …
Monuments include one to John Speed. He was born at Farndon in Cheshire in 1552 and followed his father’s trade as a tailor until nearly fifty. He lived in London (probably in Moorfields) and his wife Susanna bore him twelve sons and six daughters! His passion in life, however, was not tailoring; from his early years he was a keen amateur historian and map maker, producing maps for the Queen and the Merchant Tailors Company, of which he was a Freeman. He joined the Society of Antiquaries and in 1597 his interests came to the attention of Sir Fulke Greville, who subsequently gave Speed an allowance for his research. As a reward for his earlier efforts, Queen Elizabeth granted him the use of a room in the Custom House …
Here’s his map of England (note the Irish Sea, the British Sea and the German Ocean!)…
The oldest monument is that of Thomas Busby. A 19th century guide to the church describes him and his memorial as follows …
… a rich cooper who died in 1575. His painted figure shows him in a black coat, his face full of benevolence, and his epitaph tells us that he gave the poor of Cripplegate every year four loads of the best charcoal and 40 dozen loaves.
Alas the Blitz ensured that only his bust with its benevolent face remains …
In the main body of the church, attached to a pillar on the right, is a sword rest, replacing one destroyed during the Second World War. Its function is to house the ceremonial swords carried on state occasions. This one contains the coats-of-arms of the five Aldermen of Cripplegate who became Lord Mayors of London, including Sir John Baddeley, Sir Peter Studd and Sir Allan Davis …
Nearby there is also a lovely 19th century brass lectern created in memory of Lancelot Andrewes …..
The East Window was designed by Gerald Smith of the Nicholson Studios, a London-based stained glass studio, which made the window in 1960. The firm’s output covered the years of restoration following both World Wars. The work follows the pattern of the medieval window, of which traces came to light as a result of war damage. The design incorporates many figures of historical significance to the church, as well as the instruments of the crucifixion at the top …
St Giles is there, of course. He is traditionally depicted with a hind and there are various stories as to why that should be so. According to a 10th-century biography, Giles was an Athenian from a wealthy family who gave away his inherited wealth, fled to France and made himself a hermitage in a forest near the mouth of the Rhone, where, we are told, he lived on herbs and the milk of a hind. This retreat was finally discovered by the hunters of the King of the Franks, who had pursued the hind to its place of refuge. An arrow shot at the deer wounded Giles instead, as he put out his hand to protect the deer and was himself speared by the arrow …
Part of the medieval church can be still be seen on the right of the window, where it has been deliberately exposed for visitors to see. Here is the sedilia, where the priests sat, and the piscine, used for washing communion vessels. The tiles in the arch here are of Roman origin …
The Roman tiles …
The west window was designed by the Faircraft Studios and installed in 1968. In the centre is the coat-of-arms of the City of London, which is flanked on its left by the coat-of-arms of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and on its right by that of the Bishop of London. In the lower frame, from left to right, are the coats-of-arms of Robert Glover, Somerset Herald of Arms in the reign of Henry VIII, who was buried in the church; of John Milton; of the Earls of Bridgewater; Oliver Cromwell, and Sir Martin Frobisher. There were ten Earls of Bridgewater and three Earls of Kent buried in the church …
Nearby is this plaque dedicated to a pair of twins ‘respected and beloved by all who knew them’ …
They were joint secretaries to the Cripplegate Savings Bank …
Established in 1819, it became the Cripplegate Bank Limited in 1879. Renamed again in 1900 as London, Commercial & Cripplegate Bank Ltd it was acquired by the Union Bank of London Limited later in the same year (and was eventually swallowed up by NatWest).
As you leave you can say ‘goodbye’ to St Giles. He’s just above the north door, hind at his side. You can also see the scorch marks from the incendiary bombs dropped during the Blitz when even the stone caught fire …
He is depicted with a crutch, as it is thought he was lame …
I am indebted to the really helpful History section of the St Giles website for much of the blog. I strongly recommend you visit it, if only to watch the fascinating YouTube film of the City ruins in 1956.
If you walk around to the south side of the church you will see this odd commemorative stone …
What was the mistake that had to be erased? Maybe it originally referred to the ‘west’ or ‘east’ front when it should correctly have referred to ‘the front’!
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I thought it would be interesting to revisit the Sculpture in the City project again having written about it a few weeks ago. There are also some sculptures that I have come across over the years that are not quite what they seem so I have included them as well.
First up from the project is Rough Neck Business by Mike Ballard …
100 Bishopsgate, EC2M 1GT.
The work is made up of hoardings sourced from several sites across London which have seen great changes over recent years and have been surrounded by hoardings for quite some time. Ballard is interested in taking this material, that normally represents a threshold of ownership and protection of property, and transforming it from sheet form into a 3d structure of its own, to be admired for its un-painterly qualities and the ‘witness marks’ of the time it stood on the street.
This is Murmurs of the Deep by Laura Arminda Kingsley …
Installed on the escalators of theLeadenhall Building, EC3V 4AB.
The notes tell us that ‘here she creates a pictorial world in which our communion with the cosmos and nature is unmediated by cultural valuations or static ideas of identity. To accomplish this, Kingsley looks at the world through the lens of deep time, giving equal importance to; the microscopic and the macroscopic; folklore and science; and the archaic and the new, to offer the viewer a non-hierarchical perspective in which to reconsider their place in the world’.
Tatiana Wolska creates her sculptures using recycled plastic bottles. By cutting, perforating and thermo-welding them, she achieves sprawling, modular biomorphic forms …
‘Untitled’ : Leadenhall Market, EC3V 1LT.
‘By being light-weight these arresting forms can be placed within the environment in ways defying the laws of gravity. They can evoke floating islands of plastic waste or hold a strong poetic charge, appearing to be mysteriously suspended from the buildings or trees as if infecting the environment.’
The RedHead Sunset Stack captures a bit of the awe that seeing a beautiful sunset inspires in Almuth Tebbenhoff – reduced to the form of a large toy-tower …
Mitre Square, EC3A 5DH
‘At the centre the artist put a ragged and unstable human experience in pink and orange which is sandwiched between the steady blue earth and the red sun cubes. The earth and sun may be the only constants we have and even here we are at the mercy of incomprehensible forces.’
This work is my favourite and I make no excuses for showing it again …
The nearby notes tell us that the sculptor Jun T. Lai ‘created Bloom Paradiseto symbolize hope and love. The artist’s intention was to bring greater positivity into the pandemic stricken world and release healing energy. The bright and colorful flowers call to an imaginative world, leading the visitor into a fantasy wonderland. Through this work, the artist hopes to bring positive energy and joy, a gift of life, to everyone’.
I think she has succeeded brilliantly. What a lovely vision to encounter as you leave Fenchurch Street Station on your way to work.
By way of further light relief, there are benches around the city with ‘memorial’ plaques devised by Oliver Bragg. This one made me laugh …
‘This project focuses on the everyman, the natural environment and memories to place and memory itself. A series of engraved brass bench plaques have been installed to existing benches around the City of London. The plaques have been created to mimic the plaques that often adorn benches to memorialise or pay homage to a specific person. These, however, are fabricated: in loving memory of a ‘made up’ person or place or abstract idea’.
I thought that, since we are on the subject of public sculpture, I’d take this opportunity to share with you a few examples of works that perform another function apart from the purely aesthetic.
This is Angel’s Wings on Paternoster Square by Thomas Heatherwick. The sculpture is actually a ventilator for an underground electrical substation …
The makers of the vents, the Heatherwick Studio, say that ‘the aesthetic design is derived from experiments with folded paper, scaled up to 11m in height; the vents retain the proportions of the A4-size paper used in these experiments. The Vents are fabricated from 63 identical, 8mm thick, stainless steel isosceles triangles welded together and finished by glass bead blasting’.
Paternoster Square also hosts this elegant column that has a striking resemblance to The Monument commemorating the Great Fire …
In fact it is based on Inigo Jones’ corinthian columns for St Paul’s West Portico, destroyed in favour of Wren’s design we see today. Look closely and you’ll spot grates under the base, a ventilation system for the car park underneath your feet.
The flaming urn at the top refers not only the 1666 fire but also the Blitz that destroyed most of the surrounding area …
I took this picture to illustrate its position relative to St Paul’s, although the weather was not ideal for photography …
And finally, another ventilation shaft. James Henry Greathead was a South African engineer (note the hat) who invented what was to become known as the Greathead Shield. He came to be here on Cornhill because a new shaft was needed for Bank Underground Station and it was decided that he should be honoured on the plinth covering it …
Designed by James Butler (1994) – Cornhill EC3V 3NR.
The Shield enabled the London Underground to be constructed at greater depths through the London clay. The miners doing the tunneling, using pneumatic spades and hand shovels, would create a cavity in the earth where the Shield would be inserted to hold back the walls whilst the miners installed cast-iron segments to create a ring. The process would be repeated until a tunnel had formed in the shape of a ‘tube’, which is where we get the nickname for the network today. A plaque on the side of the plinth shows the men at work …
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Sculpture in the City is an annual sculpture exhibition that uses the City as a rotating gallery space. This is its 10th edition and will be in place until spring 2022.
I’m going to start with my absolute favourite …
The nearby notes tell us that the sculptor Jun T. Lai ‘created Bloom Paradiseto symbolize hope and love. The artist’s intention was to bring greater positivity into the pandemic stricken world and release healing energy. The bright and colorful flowers call to an imaginative world, leading the visitor into a fantasy wonderland. Through this work, the artist hopes to bring positive energy and joy, a gift of life, to everyone’.
I think she has succeeded brilliantly. What a lovely vision to encounter as you leave Fenchurch Street Station on your way to work.
When I first caught a glimpse of this clock on the Corner of Bishopsgate and Wormwood Street (EC2M 3XD) I was rather puzzled …
Now I know that Silent Agitator by Ruth Ewan is a large clock based upon a detail of an illustration produced by Ralph Chaplin in 1917 for the Industrial Workers of the World union (the IWW). Chaplin’s illustration, bearing the inscription ‘What time is it? Time to organize!’, was reproduced on millions of gummed stickers, known as ‘silent agitators’, that were distributed by union members in workplaces and public spaces across the US. The clock hands bear workers’ clogs or, in French, sabots from which the word sabotage is derived (sabotage was originally used in English to specifically mean disruption instigated by workers).
The descriptive notes state: ‘There is much symbolism in this number, for example it is considered a number of ‘being’, the number that connects mind-body-spirit with the physical world of structure and organisation’. Likewise, the use of lights is a commonality throughout his practice, in the form of candles, reflective neons and fluorescent lights. Handforth cites the way that the landscapes of artificial light that many of us live in, “means that night just becomes a different kind of day”.
Nearby at Undershaft, EC3P 3DQ (Between Aviva and the Leadenhall Building) is Cosmosby Eva Rothschild …
The work is composed of three 3.5 metre-high slatted structures which lean into and support each other, painted black on the exterior and sprayed in a coloured gradient within. An imposing physical structure, the work encourages both a physical and aesthetic response. Says Rothschild: “The external piece is quite forbidding. Its black shiny surface is like a set of disruptive gates.”
In Beehive Passage, Leadenhall Market (EC3V 1LT) is Symbols by Guillaume Vandame …
‘This is a sculptural installation consisting of 30 unique flags from the LGBTQ+ community. Spanning the original Pride Flag designed by Gilbert Baker in San Francisco in 1978 to its newest iteration by Daniel Quasar in 2018, the flags represent the diversity of gender, sexuality, and desire. The flags are standardised and ordinary, each five feet by three feet, and hang equidistant to represent the equal value and potential each community group has in the world today’.
And finally, Orphans, by Bram Ellens, a rather poignant work situated on Cullum Street (EC3M 7JJ) …
In Orphans, we see how the artist collected old paintings from deceased people to give them a new life …
Through undertakers and thrift stores, he managed to lay his hands on paintings that had become ‘orphaned’ after their owner died and the art was discarded by their heirs.
All of these paintings that ended up in damp storage basements longing for a new owner, contained both the energy of the original artist as well as the attachment of the deceased owner.
The above are only six of the sixteen works you can discover around the City. More details are available here.
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Where do you think this pretty marble fountain is located?
And Italian piazza? A rather posh park? A country house garden?
A little boy holds a goose’s neck from whose mouth water would flow if the fountain was working …
The big surprise about its location is apparent when you gaze upwards …
Looming over you is the 600ft Tower 42, previously the NatWest Tower.
This is Adam’s Court and you gain entrance from either Old Broad Street or Threadneedle Street. This is the entrance from the former …
The elegant clock above the entrance is supported by two fishes. Unfortunately it’s not working and the glass has got rather grubby …
Shortly after entering you will see these attractive wrought iron gates bearing the initials NPBE and the date 1833. The initials refer to the National Provincial Bank of England which was founded in that year …
Further on is a totally unexpected green open space (alongside which is the little boy’s fountain) …
If you carry on and exit on to Threadneedle Street and look back you will see another set of ornate gates …
These are 19th-century, and were originally for the Oriental Bank. The grand building with the arch in the background was also part of the Bank, but the building was later taken over by the neighbouring National Provincial Bank, and their monogram added.
Look at the spandrels above the window … …
Two men are holding the reins of two camels.
Across the road from Adam’s Court on Old Broad Street is the enticing entrance to Austin Friars …
Before you cross the road, look right and admire the old City of London Police call box which has retained its flashing light indicating a caller was in need of help …
Walking through Austin Friars you pass a studious monk, writing in a book with his quill pen …
Eventually in front of you is the tucked away entrance to the atmospheric Austin Friars Passage, where I came across my next big surprise …
Almost at the end I encountered an extraordinary sight, a bulging, sagging wall that was clearly very old …
But the wall looks even older and, sure enough, standing in the alcove that leads to the other side and looking up, I saw this …
Another parish marker dating from 1715 – from the since-demolished church of St Peter le Poer. What a miracle that this old wall (which is not listed) has survived for over 3oo years as new buildings have sprung up all around it.
Look up and you’ll see that one of those buildings has a particularly scary fire escape. I wouldn’t fancy running down that in a panic …
As you leave you can admire the charming ghost sign for Pater & Co …
The company was run by Arthur Long and Edgar John Blackburn Pater and traded from the 1860s to 1923 when Long retired and Pater continued on his own.
As is often the case I am indebted to the excellent Ian Visits blog for some of my background information. Here are links to Ian’s comments on Adam’s Court and Austin Friars Passage.
My earlier blogs on courtyards and alleys can be found here and here.
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Every now and then I have to travel to King’s Cross St Pancras and when I do I occasionally like to make my way up to the Upper Level (where Eurostar terminates). From there I admire the stunning architecture and one of my favourite statues, a bronze by Martin Jennings of the poet John Betjeman, the man who did most to save the station from demolition …
It depicts him walking into the new station for the first time carrying a bag of books. He is looking up at the great arc of the train shed – which he always did because it took his breath away. He is leaning back and holding onto his trilby hat, his coat tails billowing out behind him, as if caught by the wind from a passing train. He’s clad in suit and mackintosh with the work seeking to capture his ‘shabby appearance with scruffy collar undone and one shoelace knotted string’.
The central text in the Cumbrian slate around where he stands is an extract from his poem Cornish Cliffs …
And in the shadowless unclouded glare, Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where, A misty sealine meets the wash of air. / John Betjeman, 1906 – 1984, poet, who saved this glorious station.
Surrounding the statue and base is a series of satellite discs of various sizes set into the floor and hand-inscribed by Jennings with quotations from Betjeman’s poetry …
The inscriptions on the discs are carved without the addition of poem titles. Jennings says: ‘I wanted texts that have a particular meaning but also point to something bigger, so some hint at the joy of trains and travel and stations and architecture, some the seascapes at the other ends of the lines, and one or two of the feelings of yearning associated with stations and life.’
Apart from the magnificent shed roof there are other installations to enjoy and you catch a glimpse of them in this picture …
Suspended from above is a revolving display of contemporary art. Currently it’s a hot pink neon sculpture by Tracy Emin, the largest she has ever created …
She made this sweet comment …
I cannot think of anything more romantic than being met by someone I love at a train station and as they put their arms around me, I hear them say ‘I want my time with you‘.
The clock is newer than it looks …
It is, in fact, a very painstaking reproduction of the original which was accidentally dropped and smashed into thousands of pieces in 1978, reportedly on its way to an American buyer who had paid £250,000 for it. The US gentleman didn’t want a very expensive jigsaw puzzle but the pieces were rescued by Roland Hoggard, a train driver who was shortly due to retire. He paid £25 for them and then spent much of his retirement restoring it so that his labour of love could be proudly displayed on the side of his barn …
It was far too fragile to be moved but Roland (now well into his nineties) very kindly gave access to the people creating the reproduction in order that it could be accurate in every way. It’s a great story and you can read it in more detail here.
It can’t be all that often when a fellow sculptor describes a contemporary’s work as ‘crap’ but that’s what Antony Gormley said about the statue called The Meeting Place …
The sculptor,Paul Day, said that his chosen approach ‘was an embracing couple under a clock at a railway station; something that can be universally recognised as a symbol of travel is the couple being reunited. The clock becomes a moon at night. There is a sense of reunification. That had the romantic element’. Installed in 2007 you can’t miss it – it’s nine metres (30 feet) high and definitely inspires a love/hate reaction among passers by. The figures, incidentally, are modelled on Day himself and his wife.
Like it or loathe it, however, the work also incorporates something I think is wonderful – the frieze beneath the characters’ feet. It extends all the way around the base of the statue, each panel seamlessly merging with the next. Each illustration (showing scenes from the railway’s past and present) is deserving of several minutes attention. Here is a selection …
Wounded men returning from the front contrast with soldiers being waved off enthusiastically.Blinded by gas.A homeless bag lady with her faithful companion.Strap-hanging joys of the rush hour – a chance to do a bit of reading.‘Lovely to see you again, darling! Just gotta check my messages!’Repair works following the 7 July 2005 London bombings.Deep in thought.
The original design featured – among other disturbing things – a train driven by the Grim Reaper (referencing suicides) and a couple indulging in a Matt Hancock-type snog. Obviously these were withdrawn on grounds of taste. You can read the MailOnline’s over-excited reaction here.
Finally, as you walk around the Upper Level, you can often hear a piano being played with varying degrees of competence. There are two pianos at ground level that you can practise on, one of them having been donated by Elton John …
I am always surprised when I come across something that I should have researched years ago but somehow missed and this is the case with the Moorgate lighthouse. Here it is, isn’t it wonderful ..
I love the little windows, the steps leading up from what looks like a choppy sea and the fully rigged ships in the background. And, even more extraordinary, the covering for the beacon at the top of the tower is actually made of real glass (and one source states that when first constructed the light flashed intermittently, just like a real warning to shipping).
42 Moorgate, where the lighthouse lives, is now the home of Habib Bank (EC2R 6EL) …
Originally, however, it was designed in 1910 by the famous architects Aston Webb & Son to house the headquarters of the Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation, the lighthouse and other decorations re-emphasising the ‘Ocean’ brand name. Neptune, the God of the sea, stares down at the City traffic (glancing slightly to his left for some reason – possibly searching for the real ocean)…
The arcade facade behind the building on Moorgate Place is by W H Atkin-Berry. More ships under sail …
A ship’s prow cutting through the waves …
3 Moorgate Place.
And another two Neptunes …
This is a nice image by Katie of Look up London showing the sea God crowned with flowers and, above his head, sea horses charging away from the cartouche containing an O and A, presumably for Ocean Accident …
Looking up higher still you can see even more ships’ prows …
Ocean Accident was taken over by Commercial Union in 1910 and is now a footnote in the commercial history of Aviva …
At the other end of Moorgate Place is the stunning Institute of Chartered Accountants building, described by Pevsner as ’eminently original and delightfully picturesque’ …
Look at those imposing bronze doors …
I think the serpent signifies wisdom.
And surely this must be the poshest letter box in the City …
The frieze is magnificent and was intended as a grand symbolic depiction of all the areas of human activity which have benefited from the services of accountants. Groups of figures represent the arts, science, crafts, education, commerce, manufactures, agriculture, mining, railways, shipping and India and the Colonies. I have chosen ones with female figures and the first is entitled ‘Crafts’ …
The shield in the tree is inscribed Laborare est Orare – to work is to pray. To the left, two women represent ‘workers in metal’, the one on the left is holding a sword. On the other side of the panel are ‘Pottery’, a woman with a two-handled vase, and ‘Textiles’, a woman with a weaving frame.
Next is ‘Education’ …
The group on the left represents ‘Early Training’. A mother leads her son, who is carrying a cricket bat, towards a schoolmaster wearing a gown and carrying a textbook. On the other side is a student ‘in collegiate dress’ and holding a book, and a ‘College Don’ wearing a mortar-board and gown.
Onward to ‘Manufactures’ …
Behind the allegorical lady, and just about visible, are beehives ‘betokening industry’. The two women on the left represent ‘Fabrics’ – one holds a bolt of cloth and the other a shuttle and a spool of yarn. The two men on the right represent ‘Hardware goods’. The smith has his shirt open and stands next to an anvil. The other is ‘a Sheffield Knife Grinder’ feeling a chisel blade.
And now ‘Agriculture’ …
On the left are two men – a sower and a mower. On the other side are two girls – one reaping and the other carrying a basket of fruit.
I have written before about the Lady Justice sculpture. She looks like she has stepped out of her niche in order to upstage the accountants number-crunching away behind her …
If you return to Moorgate and look across the road you will find her again in the company of Prudence, Truth and Thrift at number 13-15 …
Here’s a link if you would like to know more about the two Lady Justices along with other representations of her in the City: Lady Justice.
I paused outside the impressive building that used to be called Electra House – you can read more about it here …
Looking across the road, number 87 is a rather elegant listed building squeezed between The Globe pub and the Crossrail development …
It’s an early 19th century red brick terraced house with sash windows. The ground floor shop was added in the late 20th century.
Finally, I’ve always been intrigued by this carving near the entrance to Moorgate Station and presume it was part of the old station which was seriously damaged in the War. It seems to show a bridge over water with little boats sailing underneath it and below them tunnels containing underground trains …
My theory is that it represents the Tube train tunnel under the Thames at Wapping. Here’s an image from 1958 …
Photo credit – London Transport Museum.
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Everyone knows the story of Dick Whittington and his cat. Poor young Dick has given up on his hopes of making a fortune in London and is heading back home. As he climbs Highgate Hill, faithful cat at his side, he hears the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Cheapside ring out the words ‘Turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London!’. There are several representations of Whittington and his companion in the City.
The first is a stunning window by the artist and glass maker John David Hayward in St Michael Paternoster Royal on College Hill (EC4R 2RL) where Dick Whittington was buried in 1423. It depicts him on Highgate Hill …
He’s just heard the church bells and glances back …
It has been commented that he rather resembles a flat-capped Hoxton Hipster – maybe there is an iPad in that bag.
I love the expression on the cat’s face. Perhaps he has seen a mouse.
I only recently discovered this sculpture in the ambulatory to The Guildhall Art Gallery (EC2V 5AE). He looks very thoughtful, doesn’t he. Times have been hard (note his torn leggings) and a rather unpleasant creature is peeping out from his pile of clothes – ‘Shall I return to the City and try my luck one more time?’ The milestone indicates it’s three miles away …
The sculptor Lawrence Tindall has written : ‘My figure, in Portland stone, is carved in a style illustrative of children’s literature. It shows Dick and his cat at the point of turning again on hearing Bow Bells and — look behind him: there is a rat! My idea with this and the other figures was to lighten the atmosphere at the entrance of this impressive building and provide something for visiting children’.
The cat …
And a rat! …
Although the story is a total myth, it burned itself into folklore so deeply that the point on Highgate Hill where he supposedly heard the bells is also commemorated (and I knew exactly where it was). Take the Underground train to Archway, walk up Highgate Hill, and a hundred yards or so further on, you will encounter this charming little memorial …
Carved on the side of the stone facing the road are the dates of Whittington’s Mayoralties, the three Kings he served under and the year he was Sheriff …
It also records that the stone was restored by W Hillier in 1935.
You can read a comprehensive history of the stone and the cat here on the London Remembers website. I recall the cat (made from Irish limestone) being added in 1964 since I walked up the hill almost every day on my way to school. The cat also lives on in the signage of the nearby Whittington Hospital …
And the pub opposite the stone …
Knowing that I was going to be visiting Highgate I couldn’t resist the temptation to book a self-guided tour of the famous Cemetery.
To get there I walked further up the hill and turned left into Waterlow Park. I paused briefly to pay my respects to the wonderful philanthropist Henry Waterlow in the park that he donated to people who were ‘gardenless’ …
He’s prepared for inclement weather with hat, overcoat and neatly-furled umbrella.
The entrance to the Cemetery is opposite the west entrance to Waterlow Park and is in two sections separated by a road. Paid entry to the West part gets you free entry to the East and includes an excellent printed guide – what a fascinating experience it was. Regular readers will know that I am intrigued by the way animals are represented in sculptures and memorials and here are three from my visit.
Firstly a very loyal doggie, a huge black mastiff called ‘Lion’ …
Thomas ‘Tom’ Sayers (1826-65) was an English bare-knuckle prize fighter. There were no formal weight divisions at the time, and although Sayers was only five feet eight inches tall and never weighed much more than 150 pounds, he frequently fought much bigger men. In a career which lasted from 1849 until 1860, he lost only one of sixteen bouts. He was recognized as heavyweight champion of England in 1857, when he defeated William Perry (the ‘Tipton Slasher’).
‘Tom and his battles’, from The Police Gazette …
On 17th April 1860 there took place what was claimed to be the first ‘international’ title fight. At 6ft 2in and 195lb John Carmel Heenan, the American contender, towered above Sayers’s 5ft 8in and 149lb as the first round started at 7.29 am. Each severely battered and bloodied, yet unbowed, they would finish, level pegging, tit for tat, their business unsettled as a draw and with all bets off, fully two hours 27 mins and 42 rounds later. The bout was halted when the Aldershot police, brandishing magistrates’ warrants, stormed the ring. This picture of the encounter was painted by a retired boxer called Jem Ward …
Tom in his prime circa 1860 …
Seriously ill from consumption (tuberculosis) aggravated by diabetes he died aged only 39 at No. 257 Camden High Street on 8 November 1865 in the presence of his father and two children. His funeral a week later attracted some 100,000 people. According to the Spectator magazine, the crowd that accompanied the coffin stretched for more than two miles in length and the bier was drawn by four sable-plumed horses. Lion, the mourner in chief, sat alone in a pony cart …
Tom’s Highgate Cemetery tomb.
A real lion called Nero rests, sleeping, on top of the tomb of George Wombwell (1777-1850) …
George became a household name as owner of three large travelling animal shows. His menagerie included an elephant, giraffes, a gorilla, a hyena, a kangaroo, leopards, six lions, llamas, monkeys, ocelots, ostriches, panthers, a rhino (billed as ‘the real unicorn of scripture’), three tigers, wildcats and zebras …
Sadly, because many of the animals were from hotter climes, lots of them died in the British climate. Sometimes Wombwell could profitably sell the body to a taxidermist or a medical school; other times he chose to exhibit the dead animal as a curiosity.
This poor horse on a pedestal looks old, tired and worn out …
Once upon a time this was taken to be the tomb of John ‘Jack’ Atcheler who claimed to be ‘Horse Slaughterer to Queen Victoria’, and is described as such in the guide. More research has revealed, however, that he is buried elsewhere although there is a John Atcheler beneath the monument. He is the famous man’s son, who died in 1853 aged twenty-two. The grave also holds Jack’s second wife, Sarah, and his son-in-law. The now faded inscription may contain a clue as to why there is a horse on the monument: ‘She’s gone; whose nerve could rein the swiftest steed’. Jack almost certainly paid for the grave and monument and no doubt intended that he would be buried there as well. You can read about Jack in this fascinating article from the Highgate Cemetery Newsletter.
If you visit the East Cemetery other famous people resting there include …
Malcolm McLaren – Better a spectacular failure than a benign success …
The ‘Great Train Robber’ Bruce Reynolds. The inscription reads ‘C’est la vie’, the words that Reynolds uttered when he was finally arrested in 1968 in Torquay by Tommy Butler, the dogged detective who pursued him to the end …
A very moving sculpture marking the tomb of Philip Gould, one of the architects and strategists of New Labour …
There is also some humour – the book spine reads The final chapter …
The painter and print-maker Patrick Caulfield (1936-2005) was a contemporary of David Hockney. Regarded as part of the Pop Art movement, and a Turner Prize nominee in 1987, Caulfield designed the memorial which now sits on his grave. Brutally frank! …
And finally, of course …
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One hundred and eleven years ago, in 1910, a wonderful chap called Percy C. Rushen published this meticulously researched piece of work …
He was extremely angry, stating in the Introduction to his work that the disappearance of external memorials …
Unfortunately, the ‘sordid tampering’ and action by ‘sacriligists’ that Percy detested was insignificant compared to the destruction meted out to the City’s churches and churchyards during the Second World War. I thought it would be interesting to take his painstaking list of memorials and see how many have survived to this day.
I started at the church of St Anne and St Agnes on Gresham Street (EC2V 7BX). In 1910 Rushen recorded eleven headstones and the first one I came across was this one …
It’s the one in the book with an inscription as follows: ‘Family Grave of EDWARD HENRY and MARY SANDERSON of the Bull and Mouth. Their children: EDWARD died 30 June 1835 aged 10 weeks, SAMUEL EMERY died 18 April 1846 aged 3 years, ANNE HUNT died – November 1851 aged 11’. This started me off on a quest to find out more about the Bull and Mouth where Edward and Mary had lived. An extraordinary relic of the inn survives to this day, which I will share with you later in this blog.
The excellent Know your Londonsuggests that the original name was ‘Boulogne Mouth’, a reference to the mouth or entrance to the famous harbour at Boulogne, on the north coast of France. The name was a tribute to Henry VIII who captured the harbour in 1544*. The name ‘Boulogne Mouth’ was gradually corrupted to ‘Bull and Mouth’. The last inn by this name stood in St Martins le Grand, although there was once a Bull and Mouth Street as can be seen on Ogilby & Morgan’s 1676 map …
The coaching inn was a vital part of Europe’s inland transport infrastructure until the development of the railways, providing a resting point or ‘layover’ for people and horses. The inn served the needs of travellers, for food, drink, and rest. The attached stables, staffed by hostlers, cared for the horses, including changing a tired team for a fresh one. Coaching inns were used by private travellers in their coaches, the public riding stagecoaches between one town and another, and (in England at least) the mail coach. The Bull and Mouth had stabling for 700, yes 700, horses, most of it underground, and the yard could accommodate 30 coaches.
I have found a few pictures of the Bull & Mouth. This is one of the yard, probably painted around 1820 by H. Shepherd (1793-1864) …
And this is the frontage as painted by John Maggs (1819-1896) …
As you can see, the inn had a huge sign illustrating its name and, astonishingly, this was preserved after the building’s destruction and can now be found in the rotunda garden outside the Museum of London EC2Y 5HN) …
At the top is a bust of Edward VI and below that the arms of Christ’s Hospital which owned the land on which the inn stood.
Literally a bull and a mouth …
The inscription beneath reads: ‘Milo the Cretonian an ox slew with his fist and ate it up at one meal. Ye gods what a glorious twist’. It’s probably in reference to Milo of Croton, an ancient Greek wrestler and strongman sometimes depicted as carrying a bull on his shoulders.
The inn was extensively remodelled and rebuilt in 1830 and became the Queen’s Hotel, the old sign being reattached to the new building. The hotel itself was demolished in 1888 to make way for the new General Post Office which now displays this plaque …
One of my favourite blogs is Look up London by Katie Wignall. She writes ‘there’s a curious painted ghost sign under Smithfield’s rotunda car park (EC1A 9DY) …’
Katie goes on to say : ‘As tempting as it would be to imagine this was somehow part of the inn’s underground stables, sadly, I think that’s a bit far-fetched. It’s about half a mile from where the inn used to stand and (though it is covered) the paintwork looks pretty new to have been there since the 19th century.
Given how popular Smithfield is as a film location, it seems more likely that it’s simply a leftover film set that’s remained behind to puzzle us curious Londoners’.
Incidentally, there was another Bull and Mouth Inn on Aldersgate Street which also had a wonderful sign. Here it is …
Picture credit : Bishopsgate Institute.For more old street signs see this edition of Spitalfields Life.
I hope you enjoyed this tale of London’s past. I shall be tracking down more of Mr Rushen’s memorials in future weeks and hope to find some more fascinating stories.
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* I have to point out that not all commentators agree with the ‘Boulogne Mouth’ story, arguing that there were numerous strange combinations of words for inns (for example the Cat and Fiddle on Lombard Street). And some theories have been repeatedly shown to be untrue (for example claims that Elephant & Castle was a corruption of the Infanta de Castilla). It has been argued that the name of our inn really refers to the aforementioned wrestler ‘Milo the Croatian’ reputedly eating an entire ox at one meal after he slew it ‘with his fist’. But why name a number of English inns after a Croatian? I have no idea!
Sometimes, when the weather is nice, I find it great fun to just wander about taking whatever images I fancy, hoping they will eventually build into some kind of coherent whole. For a while now, sunshine has drawn me into looking at subjects in a slightly more abstract way rather than trying to make them tell a story, and this blog is the result.
I am really, really proud of this image. It’s the reflection on the bonnet and windscreen of a car parked in Wood Street. I love the way the nearby building seems to stretch away into infinity …
The Gherkin and part of the tower of St Andrew Undershaft are reflected in the Scalpel skyscraper (EC3M 7BS) …
The poor Gherkin is gradually vanishing behind its more intrusive neighbours …
But it’s still great to visit the restaurant on the roof and just look up …
A mirror sculpture across the road from St Paul’s Cathedral – I waited specially for the red bus …
Stephen Osborne was laid to rest here almost 320 years ago and since then the sunlight has been reflecting off his gravestone in the south aisle of Southwark Cathedral (SE1 9DA). Hundreds of years of footfall have worn down the elaborate family coat of arms but the quality of the stone and the carving mean we still know today the name of the person it commemorates …
Early morning colours, reflections and shadows …
A fiery, dramatic sunset reflection …
These walls alongside London Wall are from the chapel of St Mary Elsing. It was part of a hospital and priory which had been founded by Sir William Elsing early in the 14th century. I can just imagine a hunched medieval monk or nun emerging from the shadows …
If they could look up they’d get a bit of a shock. I like the way the modern building is framed by a six hundred-year-old arch …
Nearby are the lovely red bricks and diamond patterns of the medieval wall, built on top of the original Roman fortification (EC2Y 5DE) …
Now for some more colour.
A lucky shot – red crane and rainbow (a double rainbow, actually, if you look carefully) …
Modern architects seem to be using colour more adventurously …
Offices in Old Bailey –EC4M 7NBView looking up from Sun Street (EC2A). The Georgian terrace house in the foreground and its neighbours are being converted into a hotel.
I like 88 Wood Street, but it’s a bit hemmed in by other buildings (EC2V 7QF) …
This optician on London Wall likes rather wacky window displays (EC2Y 5JA) …
Lady in red on Whitecross Street (EC1Y 8JA). She’s walking past the colourful exterior of the Prior Weston Primary School campus …
Now some very old colours. Crafts people restoring Holborn Viaduct recently discovered layers revealing 150 years of repainting …
Time for some shapes and shadows.
No one does symmetry quite like Mother Nature …
A concrete buttress in a car park resembles the prow of a ship as the sun shines through the grating above …
Practicality combined with aesthetic beauty …
At the corner of Clerkenwell Road and St John Street is the building which once housed the Criterion Hotel (EC1V 4JS). Look up and you will see this lovely, painstakingly created Victorian brick decoration. I don’t know what the frogs represent, or maybe they are toads …
For an expression of grim determination, it would be hard to beat the look on this man’s face …
This is the St Saviour’s War Memorial on Borough High Street, in the former parish of Southwark St Saviour (SE1 1NL). St Saviour’s Church became Southwark Cathedral in 1905 …
An infantryman in battledress advances resolutely through thick mud. He carries a rifle with bayonet attached slung over his shoulder …
Beneath his feet is a Portland Stone pedestal depicting St George doing battle with a dragon.
On the opposite side there is a carving of a mourning woman. Her child is reaching out to a dove …
On the pedestal’s long sides are bronze reliefs.
One with biplanes, to the west …
… and another with battleships, to the east.
The memorial’s sculptor was Philip Lindsey Clark (1889-1977). Having joined up with the Artists’ Rifles in 1914, he had distinguished himself in the First World War having been awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for ‘ … conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in command of the left flank of the Company of the Battalion’. Despite being severely wounded, he had fought on until relieved two days later. In 1926 he created the Bakers of Widegate Street, details of which can be found in my blog On the Tiles again.
The story of the Artists’ Rifles is a fascinating one, it came as a surprise to me that they had one of the highest casualty rates of the First World War. Click here to read a short History of the Regiment (and watch the last scene from Blackadder – ‘Good luck everyone‘).
Walking along Southwark Street, I came across this magnificent, gently curving building called The Hop Exchange (SE1 1TY) …
This area in Southwark was where the hops from the southern counties, and especially from Kent, were brought to after the autumn picking. After picking, the hops were dried in the oast houses and then packed into large compressed sacks of 6 by 2 feet, called ‘pockets’. These pockets were then transported to Southwark, first by horse and cart, but later by train …
The Hop Exchange was built in 1867 …
You can see the hop pickers at work in the carving contained in the pediment …
Up to the 1960s, many of the poorer London families went to the hop gardens each September for a working-holiday. Not just for the fresh air, but to supplement their all too meagre income …
At 67 Borough High Street you can find the former offices of the hop merchants, or factors as they were usually called, W.H. and H. Le May (SE1 1NF). It is a Grade II listed building with a spectacular frieze on the front depicting hop gatherers and proudly displaying the firm’s name. One may easily assume that the building is constructed of red sandstone, but according to the description on the British Listed Buildings site, it is ‘just’ coloured stucco …
A rather romanticized view of picking …
I am indebted to the London Details blog for much of my research. You can read two of the posts here and here.
These flats, Cromwell Buildings in Redcross Street (SE1 9HR), were constructed in 1864 by Sir Sydney Waterlow, founder of the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, and were modelled after a pair of houses designed by the Prince Regent for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Waterlow set the company up in 1863 with capital of £50,000 and by 1900 it was said to be housing some 30,000 London people …
If you ever find yourself in Highgate, do visit the beautiful Waterlow Park (N6 5HD). It covers 26 acres and was given to the public by Sir Sydney as ‘a garden for the gardenless’ in 1889. Seek out this statue of the great man – it’s the only statue I have ever come across of a man carrying an umbrella. In his left hand you will see he is handing over the key to the garden gates …
Back in Southwark, if you’re feeling thirsty and a bit peckish treat yourself with a visit to the George Inn, the only surviving galleried coaching inn in London (SE1 1NH) …
When I popped in to take a photo this made me smile …
I’ll visit Southwark again when I also go back to the Cathedral.
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I couldn’t resist going back to visit the fascinating carvings in the Seething Lane Garden that I wrote about last week. They all relate to the life of Samuel Pepys and have revealed a few things that I did not know.
I was puzzled by this carving of a monkey who is sitting on some books and appears to have taken a bite out of a rolled up document …
Then I found the following 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.
He also got upset with his wife’s pet dog. On 16th February 1660 he wrote …
So to bed, where my wife and I had some high words upon my telling her that I would fling the dog which her brother gave her out at the window if he pissed in the house any more.
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’. And here he is …
Amazingly, Pepys once owned a pet lion himself.
As the Navy’s principal administrator he wielded considerable influence and was frequently sent gifts in order to curry favour. Kate Loveman, in her book Samuel Pepys and His Books: Reading, Newsgathering, and Sociability, 1660-1703 writes : ‘In Algiers the consul Samuel Martin found providing suitable presents taxing … He sent Pepys naval intelligence and (in despair) …
A Tame Lion, which is the only rarity that offers from this place …
Pepys kept the creature in his home at Derby House and sent the following gracious message to Martin, assuring him that the animal was …
… as tame as you sent him and as good company.
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 but was left homeless, jobless and in a perilous situation financially. In her book Samuel Pepys, The Unequalled Self, Claire Tomalin made the poignant observation that whilst in the Tower ‘he could console himself only with the sound of the familiar bells of All Hallows and St Olave’s’.
Here is the carving of Pepys in the Tower …
You can read the full story of his first imprisonment in The Plot against Pepys by Ben and James Long.
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. Here is the poor King’s head being held aloft by his executioner …
The death warrant of King Charles I, 29 January 1649 (detail). Parliamentary Archives. HL/PO/JO/10/1/297A.
Eleven years later, on 13th October 1660, he witnessed the execution of Major-General Thomas Harrison, one of the regicide signatories to the warrant. The punishment was hanging drawing and quartering. Pepys’s droll diary entry made me smile …
I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.
Pepys loved theatrical performances and represented in the garden is an early version of Punch and Judy …
On 9th May 1662 he wrote …
Thence with Mr Salisbury, who I met there, into Covent Garden to an alehouse, to see a picture that hangs there, which is offered for 20s., and I offered fourteen – but it is worth much more money – but did not buy it, I having no mind to break my oath. 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 …
On 4th September 1663 he visited the notorious Bartholomew Fair in Smithfield and toured the attractions with his wife. He wrote, ‘above all there was at last represented the sea, with Neptune, Venus, mermaids, and Ayrid on a dolphin‘. The mermaid is also here in the park …
The first page of the diary in the shorthand code he had devised for it …
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.
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) …
Photo credit : Spitalfields Life.
The Gentle Author, who publishes Spitalfields Life, has written an eloquent description of his visit to the library which you can read here.
I mentioned in my blog last week that I’d been visiting the garden dedicated to a famous Londoner and it was a real thrill to discover some garden pavers with fascinating carvings (EC3N 4AT). The famous Londoner was, of course, Samuel Pepys and I haves since discovered a lot more about the carvings.
But first of all, some examples. The first one I noticed made me smile.
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 …
You can read more about the procedure Pepys underwent here.
Pepys survived the Great Plague of 1665 even though he remained in London most of the time. The pestilence is referenced 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 a flea in the garden but it has nothing to do with the plague …
While visiting his bookseller on a frosty day in early January 1665 Pepys noticed a copy of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, ‘which‘, Pepys recorded in his diary, ‘is so pretty that I presently bespoke it‘ …
Like many other readers after him, Pepys was immediately drawn in by the beautiful engravings printed in what was the world’s first fully-illustrated book of microscopy. When he picked up his own copy later in the month Pepys was even more pleased with the book, calling it ‘a most excellent piece . . . of which I am very proud‘. The following night he sat up until two o’clock in the morning reading it, and voted it ‘the most ingenious book that ever I read in my life‘. Here is the engraving Hooke made of a flea …
It’s on a huge fold-out page 43 by 33 centimetres.
You can explore the wonders of Micrographia yourself by clicking on this link to the British Library website.
In the garden Pepys is commemorated with a splendid bust by Karin Jonzen (1914-1998), commissioned and erected by The Samuel Pepys Club in 1983 …
The plinth design was part of the recent project and 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 as well as see his bust …
Pepys 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. A copy of the portrait hangs in the Pepys Library …
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 …
The Great Fire of London began on 2 September 1666 and lasted just under five days. 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.’ And here is his cheese and wine …
Why did he bury cheese? Read more about the value of Parmesan (then and now) here.
Then there are these musical instruments, all of which Pepys could play …
From the Pepys Club website: ‘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. He attended the services at the Chapel Royal; he collected a vast library of scores, frequented the theatre and concerts and even commented with affection on the ringing of the church bells that filled the air in London’s bustling streets where he lived and worked’.
The Navy Office where he worked, eventually rising to become Chief Secretary to the Admiralty …
There are thirty pavers in all and I shall return to them in a later blog. In the meantime, great credit is due to the folk who worked on this incredibly interesting project.
The designs were created by a team of students and alumni of City & Guilds London Art School working under the direction of Alan Lamb of Swan Farm Studios Ltd. Further contributions to the design were made by Sam Flintham, Jackie Blackman, Clem Nuthall, Tom Ball, Sae Na Ku, Sophie Woodhouse and Alan Lamb himself. Here are some pictures of the sculptors at work.
Tom Ball working on the flea …
Mike Watson working on Pepys’s monogram …
And finally, Alan Lamb working on a theorbo lute, another instrument Pepys could play …
Do visit the garden if you have the chance. Another of its interesting features is that it is irrigated by rainwater harvested from the roof of the hotel next door!
It’s now just over four years since I started writing these blogs and I would like to thank all of you for subscribing and making my efforts seem worthwhile. I thought I’d celebrate my anniversary and Easter itself by publishing some jolly images that have cheered me up in these sometimes sad days of lockdown.
What could be nicer than the little daffodils that emerged a few weeks ago …
This slightly bonkers window display on Ludgate Hill made me laugh. I thought these little creatures looked like they were doing a dance but that’s probably a symptom of lockdown madness …
‘Who’s going to buy us with no tourists coming?’ …
I came across this eye-catching pair of doors in Fournier Street above which is a very old sign indicating the name of the business owner …
I resolved to do a bit more research and in doing so actually discovered what Mr Simon Schwartz looked like! What a distinguished looking gentleman he was …
To find out more about him, his business and the background to this picture go to the excellent Andrew Whitehead blog where the story is charmingly revealed.
No Lord Mayor’s Show last year but I spotted a Pikeman’s uniform in a tailor’s shop just off Carter Lane …
The magnificent I Goat outside Spitalfields Market …
Read about it here along with the background to the lovely elephants …
… and these crazy characters, Dogman and Rabbitgirl …
You can also read about this more sombre work …
Potato heads in Whitecross Street …
Costumes from a production of Grease at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in Milton Court …
A happy Clerkenwell couple sitting in their garden …
Along with some friends …
One of my favourites from last year – a pigeon dozes whilst drying his feathers and warming his bottom on a spotlight …
Ducks frequently pose for me on the Barbican Podium …
This is the time of year to celebrate the beautiful magnolia trees on the terrace at St Giles church …
Nearby is St Alphage Garden which boasts another stunning magnolia (EC2Y 5EL) …
A nice spot for lunch …
And now time for my Hotel Chocolat Easter treat …
Have a great Easter!
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Women feature on many City sculptures (often in an allegorical role) and I have been on another sculpture safari to see how many I can identify. I have written about female sculptures twice before and you can find links here and here.
In quite a few cases they are located high up on buildings and so are easily missed.
A good example is this pediment group on what once was the Cripplegate Institute building on Golden Lane (EC1Y 0RR) …
Education is seated in the centre, whilst Art and Science recline at either side. Although the building opened in 1896 the pediment was only added in 1910-11 when the upper stories were modified to provide, among other facilities, a rifle range.
You can read much more about the Institute in the excellent London Inheritance blog which also contains this 1947 photograph highlighting the vast extent of the wartime bomb damage. The Institute building is circled in red …
If you stand outside the Royal Exchange you will be rewarded with two more female figures along with the mysterious Magic Square, but again you have to look up.
The first lady is sited in a pediment above the Bank of England and is known as The Lady of the Bank …
Sculptor Charles Wheeler 1929-1930.
She is seated on a globe and her right hand holds a cloak which billows out to her left. Her left hand holds a temple-like building which contains a miniature relief of the Lady herself and beside her right leg is a cascade of coins. She is a replacement for the original ‘Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’, which resembled Britannia, since it was considered stylistically incompatible with the new building. She is intended to represent ‘the stability and security of the Bank of England’. Inside the wreath on the right is the date of construction in Roman numerals, MCMXXX.
On the corner across Bank junction is the impressive NatWest building and if you look up you will see this (rather grubby) allegorical group …
Sculptor Ernest Gillick – 1931-2.
Britannia rises on a winged seat, flanked by Mercury (representing Commerce) and Truth with his torch. At Britannia’s knees are crouching nude females representing Higher and Lower Mathematics. Higher Mathematics, on the left, holds a carved version of Dürer’s Magic Square, a numerical acrostic whose numbers add up to 34 when added horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Lower mathematics holds a pen and a book whilst beside her two owls sit on piles of books.
The square is not very clear now due to the dirt on the carving so here are the numbers it contains …
Dürer included it in an engraving entitled Melancholia I …
It can be seen in the top right hand corner and you can read more about it here and here.
Nearby in Prince’s Street, on the same building, you can view this elegant lady at street level …
Sculptor Charles Doman – 1931.
Representing Prosperity, she holds a basket with a rich assortment of fruit and corn.
You have to stretch your neck if you want to examine this relief sculpture at 7 Lothbury (EC2R 7HH) …
Sculptor James Redfern – 1866.
It is rather unusual and is intended as a pastiche of a late medieval Venetian palace. A crowned female figure at the centre sits on a padlocked strong-box and writes in a ledger held up for her by a standing woman with a bunch of large keys suspended from her girdle. Other figures include a woman holding a model steam engine and another figure holding a model boat.
It’s a fascinating building and you can read more about it here.
The frieze on the Institute of Chartered Accountants is magnificent and was intended as a grand symbolic depiction of all the areas of human activity which have benefited from the services of accountants (EC2R 7EF). Groups of figures represent the arts, science, crafts, education, commerce, manufactures, agriculture, mining, railways, shipping and India and the Colonies. I have chosen a few with female figures and the first is entitled ‘Crafts’ …
The shield in the tree is inscribed Laborare est Orare – to work is to pray. To the left, two women represent ‘workers in metal’, the one on the left is holding a sword. On the other side of the panel are ‘Pottery’, a woman with a two-handled vase, and ‘Textiles’, a woman with a weaving frame.
Next is ‘Education’ …
The group on the left represents ‘Early Training’. A mother leads her son, who is carrying a cricket bat, towards a schoolmaster wearing a gown and carrying a textbook. On the other side is a student ‘in collegiate dress’ and holding a book, and a ‘College Don’ wearing a mortar-board and gown.
Onward to ‘Manufactures’ …
Behind the allegorical lady, and just about visible, are beehives ‘betokening industry’. The two women on the left represent ‘Fabrics’ – one holds a bolt of cloth and the other a shuttle and a spool of yarn. The two men on the right represent ‘Hardware goods’. The smith has his shirt open and stands next to an anvil. The other is ‘a Sheffield Knife Grinder’ feeling a chisel blade.
Another example is ‘Agriculture’ …
On the left are two men – a sower and a mower. On the other side are two girls – one reaping and the other carrying a basket of fruit.
In my favourite sculpture from the building Lady Justice looks like she has stepped out of her niche in order to upstage the accountants number-crunching away behind her …
She appears frequently in allegorical representations around the City and I have written about them before. If you are interested you can find my blog here.
You can see her again on the Old Bailey behind my final sculpture, the Peace drinking fountain in the Smithfield Rotunda Garden (EC1A 9DY). She is depicted with her right hand raised in a gesture of blessing while her left holds an olive branch …
Sculptors John Birnie Philip and Farmer & Brindley – 1871-3.
The structure was erected by the Corporation’s Market Improvement Committee in 1873 a few years after the armistice between France and Prussia was signed in 1871. The 11m-high fountain originally comprised a huge stone canopy in an eclectic style with four corner figures of Temperance, Hope, Faith and Charity but the structure fell into disrepair and was taken down. The illustration below appeared in The Builder magazine in 1871 …
I thought I’d add some light relief in these difficult times.
Happy Clerkenwell gnomes …
Santa’s elves, with appropriate face coverings, seconded for Covid prevention duty …
An optician on London Wall goes for the ‘minimalist’ window display approach …
And finally, more spooky clothes models to add to the collection …
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I think this picture tells a story. The Gresham grasshopper on the roof of the Royal Exchange is dwarfed by the new monster office block on Bishopsgate and, to a lesser extent, the Cheesegrater. Will these buildings now ever be full?
Outside the Exchange is this handsome chap, sitting without saddle or stirrups, on his fine steed …
Erected in 1844, it is, of course, the Duke of Wellington but the statue was not created to celebrate just his military achievements. On 19th July 1838 the Court of Common Council of the City of London agreed to a contribution of £500 towards its cost in appreciation of his efforts in assisting the passage of the London Bridge Approaches Act 1827. This Act 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 …
Not everyone approved. A writer to The Times declared …
…did his Grace ride at Waterloo without a saddle, without boots, without a hat and carrying his own despatches? … Is the charger supposed to be neighing to a blast of trumpets, or whinnying to the mare in the Mansion House?
Nearby is the war memorial to the London Troops …
Standing on either side of the plinth are two soldiers of the London regiments, one middle-aged the other more youthful. It was unveiled on 12 November 1920 …
A leader in The Times was entitled ‘Our London Soldiers’ and extolled the bravery of the men who came …
… from counting-house and shop, from the far-reaching suburbs and the thronged centres … it will serve as a stimulus to the sense of unity and to the sense of duty now growing in our vast and diverse population.
At the bottom of the list of battalions, one in particular caught my eye, the Cyclists …
When visiting the Imperial War Museum I came across a postcard of this splendid recruitment poster from 1912. It is poignant to look at this picture with its pretty village setting and then think of the industrial age war of slaughter, mud and filth, that was soon to follow …
Often described as ‘standing at the back’ of the Royal Exchange, is a statue to a 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 on the opposite side of the walkway to the Royal Exchange – in other words, they were to the east of the Royal Exchange. 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.
Just across the road is another bearded gentleman, studiously studying some plans. James Henry Greathead was a South African engineer (note the hat) who invented what was to become known as the Greathead Shield. He came to be here 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 …
The Shield enabled the London Underground to be constructed at greater depths through the London clay. The miners doing the tunneling, using pneumatic spades and hand shovels, would create a cavity in the earth where the Shield would be inserted to hold back the walls whilst the miners installed cast-iron segments to create a ring. The process would be repeated until a tunnel had formed in the shape of a ‘tube’, which is where we get the nickname for the network today. A plaque on the side of the plinth shows the men at work …
What about this fine fellow dominating the small courtyard outside St Mary-le-Bow (sporting another great beard) …
This is Captain John Smith. A colonial adventurer, Smith was a Citizen and Cordwainer, and set sail from Blackwall to found the colony of Virginia in 1606. Following a period as the prisoner of the native Americans he became head of the settler’s colony before returning to London in 1609-10. He later claimed that during his captivity his life had been saved by ‘Princess’ Pocahontas who pleaded with her father, the paramount Chief, that he be spared execution. Doubt has been cast on this story but early histories did establish that Pocahontas befriended Smith and the Jamestown colony. She often went to the settlement and played games with the boys there. When the colonists were starving, ‘every once in four or five days, Pocahontas with her attendants brought him [Smith] so much provision that saved many of their lives that else for all this had starved with hunger’.
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother unveiled the statue on 31st October 1960 and you can watch a Pathe News film of the event here.
Incidentally, Pocahontas went on to marry an Englishman, John Rolfe, visited London, and became quite a celebrity. Sadly she died on the return journey from causes unknown and was buried in St George’s Church Gravesend. Her grave has since been lost.
This is a 1616 portrait engraving of her by Simon de Passe. What a super hat …
She was also commemorated on a 1907 postage stamp, the first native American to be honoured in this way …
Now another adventurous gentleman.
A memorial to Admiral Phillip was originally erected at St Mildred’s Church Bread Street. Although the church was destroyed by enemy action in 1941 the bronze bust was salvaged from its ruins. This modern copy can now be found on the south side of the New Change shopping centre, the original is in St Mary-le-Bow church …
The plaque makes interesting reading …
And now a woman and a man dressed somewhat… er … unconventionally.
Let’s start with this extraordinary statue at 193 Fleet Street now, sadly, rather weathered …
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. (Spoiler alert) She goes mad from grief and dies.
There seems to be no end to the wonderful paintings to be found at the Guildhall Art Gallery. This one is a representation of a famous Greek myth – the murder by Clytemnestra of her husband Agamemnon. Here she stands, wild-eyed in the Mediterranean sunlight, outside the room where she has committed the deed. In the background behind her we can just make out the outline of a dimly lit body …
‘Clytemnestra’ by John Collier (1882)
Agamemnon had commanded the Greek forces which besieged Troy during the Trojan Wars. Before setting sail for home, he sacrificed their youngest daughter Iphigenia to ensure a favourable wind for his fleet. To make matters worse, he returned with his lover, the prophetess Cassandra, the captured daughter of King Priam of Troy. Enraged and grieving, Clytemnestra and her son murdered them both in revenge
Collier was famous for his close attention to detail. There is light etching on the axe blade and the blood drips and runs authentically. All the little roundels we can see in the picture are different …
One has to say, however, that the more you study the figure the more it looks like a man. There is a pure physical dominance – and look at the muscular arms and large hands gripping the axe handle and holding back the curtain …
Collier brings extraordinary attention to detail in her blood-spattered garments.
It is now thought that Collier took his inspiration from an 1880 performance of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon at Balliol College, Oxford in which Clytemnestra was played by a male student, one Frank Benison.
Also in the gallery is this David Wynne sculpture of Prince Charles …
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).
Just by way of further light relief I have found another spooky clothes model to add to my collection (see last week’s blog) …
And these ‘eyebrows’ in the Cheapside Sunken Garden made me laugh. Part of the London Festival of Architecture, they entitled Look Up and are by Oli Colman …
Finally, I loved this joyful Hermes shop window at the Royal Exchange …
As is often the case I am grateful to Philip Ward-Jackson for much of the detail about the sculptures. I highly recommend his book Public Sculpture of the City of London, still available at Waterstones.
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I started my walk in Lime Street and just by Lloyd’s is the impressive Asia House. It was built in 1912-13 and designed by George Val Myer when he was only 30. His best known work is the BBC’s Broadcasting House on Portland Place …
What makes it particularly interesting are the human figures. They were carved by John Broad of Doulton Ceramics and are entitled Japanese Man and Woman. He holds a model ship and a scroll …
She holds a fan and a paintbrush. Although she isn’t described anywhere as a Geisha I have just made that assumption because she looks so elegantly traditional and is obviously demonstrating artistic talents …
Beneath the pediment another lady sits enthroned, legs nonchalantly crossed, against a stylised sunburst motif …
Her headgear is very elaborate and she has dragons to her right and left.
The building was originally the premises of Mitsui & Co Ltd, a Tokyo firm described in the 1913 Post Office Directory as ‘steamship owners and general commission merchants, export and import’. The current tenant is the Scor Reinsurance Company.
The new skyscraper on Bishopsgate looms over the Victorian market …
During my walk I came across three examples of the current Sculpture in the City initiative.
Inside the market is The Source by Patrick Tuttofuoco which ‘depicts the artist’s hands as he mimes some words conveyed using a sign language’ …
Opposite Lloyd’s is a sign indicating that you have arrived in Arcadia (Utopia) rather than just the main entrance to the Willis Towers Watson building …
The artist, Leo Fitzmaurice, ‘has substituted the factual information, usually found on these signs, for something more poetic, allowing viewers to enjoy this material, along with the space around it in a new and more open-ended way’.
Nearby in Cullum Street (EC3M 7JJ) is Series Industrial Windows 1 by Marisa Ferreira …
The information notice tells us that ‘the artwork invokes Pierre Nora’s notion of ‘lieux de mémoire’ to reflect the urban landscape as fragment, memory and vision and to question how industrial ruins solicit affective, imaginative and sensual engagements with the past’.
Also in Cullum Street is the unusual Art Nouveau Bolton House. I haven’t been able to find out a lot more about it apart from the architect (A. Selby) and that it’s reportedly named after Prior Bolton who had close connections with St Bartholomew the Great (which I have written about here).
It’s blue and white faience with strong Moorish influences …
The building was completed in 1907, a few years before Art Nouveau went out of fashion.
In the market again, I always smile when I come across Old Tom’s Bar …
Old Tom was a gander from Ostend in Belgium who is said to have arrived in the Capital having followed a female member of his flock who took his fancy! Despite the swift dispatch of the other 34,000 members of his party, somehow Tom miraculously managed to survive the dinner table and became a regular fixture at the market and the surrounding inns, who kept scraps aside for him.
So beloved was Old Tom that he even made it into the Times Newspaper! Below is his obituary, published on 16 April 1835:
In memory of Old Tom the Gander. Obit 19th March, 1835, aetat, 37 years, 9 months, and 6 days.
‘This famous gander, while in stubble, Fed freely, without care or trouble: Grew fat with corn and sitting still, And scarce could cross the barn-door sill: And seldom waddled forth to cool His belly in the neighbouring pool. Transplanted to another scene, He stalk’d in state o’er Calais-green, With full five hundred geese behind, To his superior care consign’d, Whom readily he would engage To lead in march ten miles a-stage. Thus a decoy he lived and died, The chief of geese, the poulterer’s pride.’
Unfortunately, I can find no reliable contemporary picture of him. Despite claims to the contrary, he is not represented, along with a little boy, above the old Midland Bank Building on Poultry. The goose there was a suggestion by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens to commemorate its original market function.
On my way to the Cheesegrater I spotted this reflection of the Gherkin in the glass walls of The Scalpel along with two of the crosses on St Andrew Undershaft’s pinnacles …
Outside the Cheesegrater, this Godlike figure entitled Navigation holds a passenger ship in his left hand and is flanked by a binnacle and a ship’s wheel. Originally owned by the P&O Banking Corporation, he once looked down from the facade of their building at the junction of Leadenhall Street and St Mary Axe. I smiled because he seems to be glancing rather suspiciously at the replica maypole that has been installed next to him …
It references the maypole that once stood nearby outside St Andrew Undershaft (so called because the maypole alongside it was taller than the church). The pole was set up opposite the church every year until Mayday 1517 when the tradition was suspended after the City apprentices (always a volatile bunch) rioted against foreigners. Public gatherings on Mayday were therefore to be discouraged and the pole was hung up nearby in the appropriately named Shaft Alley. In 1549 the vicar of St Catharine Cree denounced the maypole as a pagan symbol and got his listeners so agitated they pulled the pole from its moorings, cut it up and burned it.
Here is a picture of the church around 1910. You can see the Navigation statue on the building on the left …
The area has been brightened up recently with the ventilation exits covered in bold designs …
On a lighthearted note, I am collecting pictures of weird and creepy clothes models. There are these in Lime Street …
To add to these in Eastcheap …
And finally, an old Japanese proverb pasted on to the window of a temporarily closed restaurant …
I hope you have enjoyed today’s blog.
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Queen Victoria Street was created in 1871 as an extension to the then new Victoria Embankment and led directly to the Mansion House. The new street was incredibly expensive to build since, obviously, the properties standing in its path had to be purchased before demolition. The cost, over £2,000,000, equates to more than two billion pounds in equivalent value today.
On this extract from the 1847 Reynolds’s Splendid New Map of London a red line has been drawn to show how Queen Victoria Street sliced its way across the City …
This picture gives an idea of the extent of the demolition …
I wanted to try to stand as closely as possible where this picture was taken and, pausing in the street, I looked up and this is what I saw (EC4V 4BQ) …
I climbed some steps and in a grim courtyard outside the gruesome Baynard House is a quite extraordinary sculpture, The Seven Ages of Man by Richard Kindersley (1980) …
At first the infant – mewing and puking in the nurse’s arms …then the whining schoolboy creeping like a snail unwillingly to school … then the lover … then a soldier full of strange oaths …
… and then the justice full of wise saws … then the sixth age …the big manly voice turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound … then second childishness and mere oblivion, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
(Jacques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It Act II Scene vii)
Here is the view from the terrace taken from approximately the same spot as the demolition picture above …
This image and several of the illustrations in today’s blog have been taken from the excellent blog A London Inheritancewhich I wholeheartedly recommend.
By the way, the terrace leads to Blackfriars Station and it’s worth popping in to see this example of the station’s past importance.
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 letters are gilded in 24 carat gold leaf …
Where shall we buy a ticket to today? Crystal Palace or Marseilles? Westgate-on-Sea or St Petersburg? Tough choices!
Moving westward on the north side of Queen Victoria Street you will find the College of Arms (EC4V 4BT). Founded in 1484, this is where you go to get your family coat of arms designed and granted. As well as this function, the College maintains registers of arms, pedigrees, genealogies, Royal Licences, changes of name, and flags. The officers who run the College have some splendid titles such as Clarenceaux King of Arms, Rouge Dragon Persuivant and various Heralds and Heralds Extraordinary.
The original street plan included the complete demolition of their building but the Heralds objected strongly. As a result Queen Victoria Street merely sliced off the south east and south west wings, requiring remodelling of the two stumps. You can see how the colour of the new brickwork differs from the original in this picture …
This print from 1768 shows the building before the 1871 alterations …
Also on the north side is the 1933 Faraday Building, once one of the major hubs for international and national telephone circuits and operator services (EC4V 4BT) …
Look just above the line of the second set of windows and, in the position associated with a key stone, there are a series of carvings, one above each window, that tell the story of what was state of the art telecommunications at the time the building was constructed.
A bang up to date telephone …
Cables that carried the telephone signal …
An electromagnetic relay …
A Horse Shoe Magnet …
The imposing entrance doors are sadly defaced with signage …
There are two nice places to sit down and rest.
The first I would recommend is the Cleary Garden (EC4V 2AR) …
It is named after Fred Cleary who, during the 1970s, was instrumental in encouraging the planting of trees and the creation of new gardens throughout the square mile. During the blitz, the house which once stood here was destroyed exposing the cellars. A shoemaker called Joe Brandis decided that he would create a garden from the rubble, collecting mud from the river banks and transporting soil from his own garden in Walthamstow to the site. His success was such that on 29th July 1949 Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother visited his handiwork.
My second recommendation, if you seek some refreshment in extraordinary surroundings, is the Black Friar pub (EC4V 4EG) …
The interior is so amazing that I am going to write about it in more detail in a later blog dedicated to pubs. In the meantime, here are a few pictures to give you some idea of what to expect …
You can watch an interesting video about the pub and its history here.
And finally, it’s cute pigeon time. I saw this one dozing off whilst using a spotlight to dry his feathers and warm his bottom. He’s also managing to do this whilst balanced on one leg …
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You approach the church via the Tudor Gatehouse. It dates from 1595 and was fortuitously revealed when a bomb dropped by a Zeppelin in 1915 tore off later accretions as these ‘before’ and ‘after’ images illustrate …
Much of the late 19th and early 20th century church restoration work was carried out by Sir Aston Webb (1849-1930). His son, Philip, was killed in action on 25th September 1916 and his name appears on the memorial to the right of the entrance …
There is a plaque just behind the gate commemorating Sir Aston Webb’s work. It includes his coat of arms (which incorporates a spider, a playful reference to his name) …
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.
Just to shock you back into the present, the south transept contains this sculpture …
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 …
Just behind Hirst’s work is a rare pre-Reformation font (1404) in which William Hogarth was baptised on 28 November 1697 …
I paused at the monument to Edward Cooke who died in 1652 and read the curious rhyme inscribed on it …
Vnsluce yor briny floods, what can yee keepe
Yor eyes from teares, & see the marble weepe
Burst out for shame: or if yee find noe vent
For teares, yet stay, and see the stones relent.
It was known as the ‘weeping statue’ because the moisture in the atmosphere used to be soaked up by the soft marble and miraculously released again as ‘tears’ from time to time. Alas, the Victorians installed a radiator under the monument which put a stop to the moisture releasing properties of the stone and, sadly, it wept no more.
This is the spectacular tomb of Sir Walter and Lady Mary Mildmay. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Queen Elizabeth I and the founder of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His wife was the sister of the Queen’s ‘spymaster’, Sir Francis Walsingham. Sir Walter died in 1589 and Mary in 1576 …
It’s thought that the tomb does not contain religious figures or Christian symbols because Sir Walter had strong Puritan leanings.
This is the monument to James Rivers who died of the plague in 1641 …
The inscription refers to a disease as malignant as the time referring, no doubt, to the English Civil War. Rivers was a prominent Puritan MP and took his seat in Parliament in 1640.
In a number of places around the church you will find these beautiful sculptures in glass by Sophie Arkette …
They are entitled Colloquy and are etched with literary or poetical text. These are illuminated and distorted by the effects of light (from either candles within the work or from around the building) and water (included within parts of the work).
Under the oriel window there is a nice example of a rebus, in this case a representation of a person’s name using a picture. Here Prior Bolton’s name is neatly implied by a crossbow bolt piercing a tun (a type of cask). Bolton was Prior of St Bartholomew the Great between 1505 and 1532 and carried out repair and construction work across the church …
There is also a version in 16th century stained glass at the eastern end of the church …
I was intrigued by this tombstone in the north transept …
To be buried inside the church indicated that he was a wealthy man and this was no doubt because, in the 18th century, wigs of all varieties were tremendously fashionable. Good hair was seen as a sign of health, youth and beauty and merchants like Mr Thornell often travelled the country looking for supplies (even buying it off the head of those needy enough to sell it).
As I walked down the transept I glanced to my left and glimpsed this reclining figure …
It is of course, the tomb of Prior Rahere, the founder of the Priory and hospital …
He wears the habit of an Augustinian canon and the angel carries a shield with the arms of the priory.
Rahere was a courtier and favourite at the court of Henry I who reigned from 1100 to 1135. After falling dangerously ill whilst on pilgrimage to Rome, Rahere had a vision of St Bartholomew, who told him to found a hospital. He duly got better, and when he returned to London he founded a hospital and an Augustinian priory in 1123 (dedicating them to St Bartholomew to give thanks for his recovery). He was the institution’s first prior and remained in this role until his death in 1144 (the tomb is later and dates from 1405). You can still see some of the original paintwork …
Incidentally, I came across this great 1915 picture of how the tomb was protected during wartime bombing …
There is much more to see in this beautiful place and so I strongly recommend a visit. Entrance is free but the church has been hit hard by the pandemic so, if you can afford it, do make a donation to help support it. Opening times are on the website which you can access here.
If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …
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