Category: Wartime Page 2 of 15

‘Up and down the City Road, in and out of the Eagle…

On 5th September 2024

In Architecture, Art, Sculpture, Social History, Wartime

… That’s the way the money goes, Pop! goes the weasel’.

After Googling this very old rhyme, I was bewildered by the number of interpretations of the term ‘Pop goes the weasel’! Anyway, here’s the one I like best:

‘In the mid-19th century, “pop” was a well-known slang term for pawning something—and City Road had a well-known pawn establishment in the 1850s. In this Cockney interpretation, “weasel” is Cockney rhyming slang for “weasel and stoat” meaning “coat”. Thus, to “pop the weasel” meant to pawn your coat’.

Presumably this was done to spend money on drink in The Eagle pub, and I shall be walking past The Eagle in this week’s blog as I walk down City Road.

My walk starts, however, at the corner of Golden Lane and Beech Street with the Banksy artwork that pays tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) whose UK retrospective opened at the Barbican Centre on 21 September 2017. The main work features a stencilled policeman and woman, recognisably Banksy, who appear to be conducting a stop and search on the artist …

On the other side of the street is a smaller piece, this time featuring a stencilled ferris wheel with people queuing to enter. The carriages have been replaced with stylised crowns, the symbol of Basquiat himself and now an iconic image in the street art and graffiti world …

Heading north I came across this rather nice Victorian double post box …

One of the slots would have been for ‘Meter Mail’ in which businesses once sent pre-printed, self-addressed envelopes or packages to customers with postage pre-paid in-house using a postage meter.

It was made by the founder Andrew Handyside (1805-1887) …

The company was a prolific manufacturer but after Handyside died in 1887 the firm gradually declined until it closed early in the twentieth century.

Here’s the man himself (National Galleries of Scotland) …

A few yards further is the famous Golden Lane Estate …

In the middle of the nineteenth century, over 130,000 people resided in the City of London but by 1952 that number had dropped to just 5,000. Business and commerce had become the main uses of land in the City. Residents who had lost their homes as a result of the 2nd World War bombings were re-housed in areas outside the centre. However, the City Corporation was concerned about the depopulation of the City and turned its attention to this when planning the rebuilding of the City in the post-war era.

The Corporation announced the competition to design an estate
at Golden Lane on 12 July 1951 with the closing date for submissions on 31 January 1952. It was won by Geoffry Powell, a lecturer in architecture at the Kingston School of Art College, in 1952. He invited lecturer colleagues Christoph Bon and Joseph Chamberlin to join him in developing a
detailed design for the Golden Lane Estate. You can read an interesting history of the estate and its design here.

The winning entry …

The Estate Map …

… with its wonderful the 3D representation …

I took these images on a sunny day last week …

In 1997 the whole estate was listed, including the landscaping and public areas at Grade II but Crescent House was separately listed Grade II* …

I glanced down Garrett Street where one can catch a glimpse of the old Whitbread stables …

You can read more about them here.

Further along on the left is what I call the ‘skinny house’ …

The MailOnline published a rather breathless article about it a few years ago. You can read it here.

I crossed City Road and continued north on Central Street where this young man is commemorated by Islington Council (what a nice idea) …

Another First World War casualty …

PC Smith, 37 years old, was on duty nearby when the noise was heard of an approaching group of fourteen German bombers. One press report reads as follows …

In the case of PC Alfred Smith, a popular member of the Metropolitan Force, who leaves a widow and three children, the deceased was on point duty near a warehouse. When the bombs began to fall the girls from the warehouse ran down into the street. Smith got them back, and stood in the porch to prevent them returning. In doing his duty he thus sacrificed his own life.

Smith had no visible injuries but had been killed by the blast from the bombs dropped nearby. He was one of 162 people killed that day in one of the deadliest raids of the war.

His widow received automatically a police pension (£88 1s per annum, with an additional allowance of £6 12s per annum for her son) but also had her MP, Allen Baker, working on her behalf. He approached the directors of Debenhams (whose staff PC Smith had saved) and solicited from them a donation of £100 guineas (£105). A further fund, chaired by Baker, raised almost £472 and some of this was used to pay for the Watts Memorial tablet, below, which was officially unveiled in Postman’s Park on the second anniversary of Alfred’s death …

Next an Elizabethan postbox by the Carron Company of Stirlingshire …

Among other commissions, the company also produced the famous Giles Gilbert Scott telephone boxes. Despite diversifying into plastics and stainless steel, the company went into receivership in 1982.

On reaching the junction with City Road you’re faced with the extraordinary, innovative Bunhill 2 Energy Centre …

‘The new energy centre uses state-of-the-art technology on the site of a disused Underground station that commuters have not seen for almost 100 years. The remains of the station, once known as City Road, have been transformed to house a huge underground fan which extracts warm air from the Northern line tunnels below. The warm air is used to heat water that is then pumped to buildings in the neighbourhood through a new 1.5km network of underground pipes’.

An old trough and water fountain …

Read all about the history of drinking water supplies to the London working population and their animals in my blog Philanthropic Fountains.

Turn right into City Road and you encounter these remarkably lifelike characters and their dog …

This light display gives a clue as to what’s coming up …

The famous Eagle pub as mentioned in the rhyme …

At the beginning of the 19th century, ophthalmology was an unknown science but that all changed in the early 1800s as many soldiers returned from the Napoleonic wars suffering with trachoma. The original 1804 Dispensary for Curing Diseases of the Eye and Ear opened in Charterhouse Square in West in 1805. It moved in 1822 to a purpose-built building in Lower Moorfields and was renamed the London Ophthalmic Infirmary. When Queen Victoria gave it a royal charted in 1837 it became the Royal London Opthalmic Hospital but everyon still called it Moorfields. It still resides on City Road but has been vastly expanded …

The green line helps the visually impaired find their way from Old Street Underground Station …

The Alchemist bar goes green …

As does the roof of Old Street Station …

I’ll probably continue my stroll down City Road and beyond next week.

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The first man to swim the Channel and other treats in St Botolph without Aldersgate.

By The City Gent

On 25th July 2024

In Memorials, Religion, Stained Glass, Wartime

This lovely church has usually been closed when I have hoped to visit but last week I was lucky enough to drop in thanks to the Friends of City Churches being on duty.

The City once had four churches dedicated to St Botolph, each at one of the City gates, a reminder that St Botolph is traditionally the patron saint of travellers and wayfarers. Three of the churches survive and this is one of them. It is on Aldersgate and its old churchyard at the rear now houses the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice.

The church as seen from the Barbican Highwalk …

Although it suffered only minor damage in the Great Fire it was rebuilt in 1789-91 by Nathaniel Wright, surveyor to the City. The facade and Venetian window were added circa 1831 after the church had to be shortened for widening of the road. It contains numerous interesting memorials and lots of stained glass. For more about the former I highly recommend the brilliant Bob Speel website from which I will quote extensively in this blog!

Here are my favourites, memorials first.

The most notable is Lady Anne Packington’s Gothic altar tomb of 1563 …

In the recess are brasses of Dame Anne and her (deceased) husband Sir John Packington, and a shield of arms. They kneel facing slightly inwards towards each other, hands raised in prayer, each with their faldstool or prayer desk, with opened book. Sir John wears armour but is bareheaded, with wavy hair down to the shoulders, beard and whiskers; his helmet is placed in front of him. Dame Anne wears a long robe with wide collar, and behind her is a miniature replica, her daughter.

The first of my other favourites is this one of Elizabeth (Hewytt) Richardson who died in 1639 and was the wife of Thomas Richardson of Honningh, Norforlk, who erected the monument …

She had 10 children, seven sons and three daughters, and was ‘a fitt patterne for all women of honor, piete and religion’. Bob Speel comments that ‘the figure faces directly forward with a rather blank, rectangular face, surrounded by curled hair which would seem to be a wig. She wears a curious collar giving a triangular shape to her upper body’.

Mr Speel very much favours the second portrait bust in the church, that of Elizabeth Ashton who died in 1662. It was erected by a daughter, Elizabeth Beaumont …

Mr Speel waxes lyrical as follows: ‘Well, here is something clearly based on the odd Elizabeth Richardson monument noted above, but what a difference in quality. A naturalistic portrait sculpture of the deceased, again facing forward, with a slight smile, wavy rather than curly hair, a tight-fitting cap above, a similar broad collar to the earlier monument but here shaped to the shoulders, and with tassels at the front above the breast. Again a similar pose to the hands, upward turned in front of her; one plump hand supports the other, which holds a book. She has broad sleeves, gathered in at the wrist. Again, an oval niche, squared off surround, and this time a more appropriate top, being simply a swan necked pediment, with painted shield of arms within minor strapwork above.’

Speel identified two two must-see monuments. First, a tall, grey panel to Elizabeth Smith who died in 1750. It contains a poem, beginning ‘Not far remote lies a lamented Fair, // Whom Heav’n had fashion’d with peculiar Care’, and ending sombrely ‘Learn from this Marble, what thou valu’st most, // And sett’st thy Heart upon, may soon be lost.’ It includes a portrait carved in high relief, notable for being a work of the eminent sculptor Louis-Francois Roubiliac …

The second is the largest wall monument, tall enough that a cut-out had to be left in the gallery above. It is to Zachariah Foxall who died in 1758. ‘His portrait can be seen at the top of the monument, a drape held above it by a cherub, with a second cherub seated on the other side, on top of a great boxy casket protruding from the wall. A good example of the more grand, extravagant style of many monuments of around this period, by a sculptor called James Annis, who had his mason’s yard close by in Aldersgate Street itself’ …

Two fine Victorian gentlemen with fine Victorian beards ..

One of three incredible cartouches …

Do try and find a time to visit this church and maybe use Bob Speel’s excellent website to guide you around the numerous monuments of which these are just a small selection.

When it comes to the glass, of particular merit is an impressive window at the east end of the church – not stained glass but a ‘transparency’ (a painting on glass). It is the only one of its kind in the city, painted by James Pearson in 1788. It depicts ‘The Agony in the Garden’ …

By contrast, the stained glass windows are all Victorian or later.

When I saw this one ‘In memory of Matthew Webb’ I thought ‘That name rings a bell …’

Captain Webb was the first man to successfully swim the English Channel. His first attempt was on 12 August 1875 but poor weather and sea conditions forced him to abandon his attempt. Twelve days later, he set off again and, despite several jellyfish stings and strong currents, he completed the swim, which was calculated at 40 miles, in 21 hours and 40 minutes …

One form of celebrity endorsement at the time was to lend your name to a manufacturer of matches …

Tragically, he drowned in 1883 while attempting to cross the Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara Falls. A memorial in his home town of Daley, Shropshire, reads: “Nothing great is easy.”

Some examples of the other windows …

Finally – Lest we forget.

At the east end of the church is a memorial book …

It records the names of nearly 1800 members of the Post Office Rifles who died in action during the Great War, evidence of St Botolph’s connections with the London General Post Office that was once situated nearby.

Some images I have found online (copyrights The Postal Museum) …

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From Taxi Man to the Camel Corps via the ‘most erotic statue in London’- a stroll along the Victoria Embankment.

By The City Gent

On 25th April 2024

In Gardens, Memorials, Wartime

The idea of an embankment along the Thames was first suggested by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of 1666 and work eventually began in 1861 under the control of Sir Joseph Bazalgette the Metropolitan Board of Works’ Chief Engineer. Its purpose was not only to ease congestion but also to house the main sewer and it was opened on 13 July 1870 by the Prince of Wales. The total area of land reclaimed was over 37 acres and about 20 acres of this were laid out as gardens and these were the objective of my walk last week.

The gardens shortly after opening …

Walking west from Blackfriars I encountered one of my favourite pieces of street sculpture …

He’s had a tough day at the office and now just wants to get home but, sadly, he’s been trying to grab that cab since 2014. Sculpted by J. Seward Johnson Jr. in 1983, it originally stood on Park Avenue and 47th Street in New York. It’s called, not surprisingly, Taxi!

A little further west are the gates to the Temple private gardens – haunt of the legal profession.

The flying horse Pegasus is the emblem of Middle Temple …

The badge of the Middle Temple consists of the Lamb of God with a flag bearing the Saint George’s Cross …

I walked past the two formidable dragons symbolising the entrance to the City of London …

Seven feet high, they were once mounted above the entrance to the Coal Exchange which was demolished between 1962 and 1963.

They were cast by London founder, Dewer, in 1849 as can be seen on the back of the shield …

Alongside the dragon on the north side of the road is a tablet commemoration Queen Victoria’s last visit to the City in March 1900 …

Time now to enter the first of the gardens and to admire the memorials erected to the great, the good and the brave.

This is the Lady Henry Somerset Children’s Fountain. She was elected president of the British Women’s Temperance Association in 1890 and during her time with them its political and social influence grew. She promoted many endeavours, including the use of birth control, as she argued that sin begins with an unwelcome child …

The formidable Lady Somerset …

What I also discovered in my research was that she outed Lord Henry as a homosexual (a crime during the 1800s), which resulted in their separation and her gaining custody over their son. As a result of publicising his sexual orientation, she was ostracised from society since in those days women were expected to turn a blind eye to every kind of their husband’s infidelity. His lordship decamped to Italy.

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900) was a composer and most famous for his collaborations with the librettist Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911). Their collaboration resulted in fourteen Comic Operas a number of which are still frequently performed today by both amateur and professional companies to the delight of people around the world …

His memorial features a bust atop of a pedestal together with a weeping Muse of Music. The plinth also carries lines from Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1888 opera The Yeomen of the Guard: “Is life a boon? / If so, it must befall / That Death, whene’er he call, / Must call too soon”.

The lines are repeated in the bronze sculpture at the base, which depicts an open book of music, one of the masks of Comedy and Tragedy and a mandolin …

Apparently the statue has been described as ‘the most erotic in London’.

Robert Raikes, pioneer of Sunday Schools …

Although Sunday schools were not original to Robert Raikes – they were in existence many years before he started his first in 1780 – it was he who put them on the map and whose efforts gave huge momentum to the movement in Britain. Hence, when in 1880 this memorial was erected to celebrate the centenary of the Sunday school movement, the statue featured Robert Raikes. Read more about this fascinating man here.

The flower beds are wonderful …

The Henry Fawcett memorial ‘erected by his grateful countrywomen’ …

Henry Fawcett was an economist and politician who was held in high regard by the public. He was born in 1833 and educated at the University of Cambridge. At the age of 25 he was involved in a shooting accident that left him blind. However, he refused to let his affliction dampen his life and ambitions. He rose to become a Professor in Economics at Cambridge University and was elected Member of Parliament for Brighton in 1865 to 1874, and subsequently for Hackney in 1874 to 1884. In 1880 he was also appointed the position of Her Majesty’s Postmaster-General. He introduced improvements in the Post Office such as the parcel post, postal orders and sixpenny telegrams. He was also an avid supporter of women’s rights and encouraged the Post Office to employ women. He married the renowned suffragist, Millicent Fawcett, in 1867.

More lovely flowers with the memorial to Lord Cheylesmore in the background …

This statue is in tribute to Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the 2nd Baronet probably best known as a temperance campaigner and radical, anti-imperialist wing of the Liberal Party. The statue depicts Lawson, standing as if about to speak while a member of parliament …

He was an extraordinary character and you can read more about him here.

I have always been fascinated by this memorial to the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade …

Do take a few minutes to read this article about them from the 20th Century Society Journal:

The Imperial Camel Corps were formed to patrol the western desert in the First World War and fought major campaigns in Egypt, Sinai and Palestine. Their job was to protect Allied troops (evacuated after the failure at Gallipoli) from risings by the Ottomans and Senussi confederation of tribes. The Senussi were eventually forced into submission late in 1916 by starvation, and by being denied the use of wells by camel corps units and light car patrols. The Camel Corps’ most famous moment was assisting Lawrence of Arabia to capture Jerusalem in the rebellion of 1916-18, although the damper weather meant many animals became victims of sarcoptic mange. The majority of the Infantry were Australian, some of whom were already experienced camel jockeys. The corps were so successful that they were expanded from four to eighteen companies. Six companies were formed from British Cavalry, two from New Zealand Cavalry. The corps were reorganised into four large battalions to fight the Turks, assisted by an artillery unit from Hong Kong and Singapore.

Always look after your camel …

A World War One Anzac Australian Camel Corps soldier giving his camel a drink of water from a chattu vase, 1916. You can find more images here and here.

By the end of the war 346 of their formation had died in action. The reality of the ultimate sacrifice, the names behind the numbers …

The nearby York Watergate is almost 400 years old. It was built in 1626 in the grounds of York House as a mooring point for the Duke of Buckingham’s boat or the boats of guests. As a result of the building of the Embankment, the river is now over 150 yards away …