Category: Wartime Page 2 of 15

I saw a giant colourful penguin outside the Blackfriar pub last week and had a quick Google last Sunday when I went for a walk. Here’s the publicity blurb: This Christmas, the Fleet Street Quarter is transforming into a winter wonderland with a magical FREE penguin parade sculpture trail in support of WWF. From Thursday 14th November, families and visitors are invited to embark on a fabulous festive adventure to discover 12 adorable penguin sculptures throughout the Quarter. Each penguin, decked out in unique festive finery designed by talented artists, will be perched in iconic spots adding a splash of Antarctic charm to the City. And each one has a QR code with lots of fun penguin facts. There’s a helpful map here.

And here are the five that I found.

Buddy the Elf outside the Blackfriar pub …

It’s penguining to look a lot like Christmas in St Bride’s Passage …

John Wilkes is unimpressed by The Forest at Christmas on Fetter Lane …

But Dr Johnson’s cat Hodge is happy to share a space with Snowy in Gough Square …

Tiffany here can be found down a little alley off Carter Lane called New Bell Yard …

There were lots of families following the trail when I took these images.

The Steve McQueen film Blitz has just been released and you can see an interesting display of clothes from the film at the Barbican Centre …

If you want to understand and explore the true, full story of Londoners and the Blitz I strongly recommend Jerry White’s book The Battle of London 1939-45.

Whilst on the subject of the Blitz, I recently walked past The National Firefighters Memorial on Peter’s Hill opposite the Tower of London where I often pause. It’s interesting to note the special plaque commemorating the 23 women members of the Auxiliary Fire Service who gave their lives protecting London and its inhabitants during the bombing …

The lady on the left is an incident recorder and the one on the right a despatch rider.

On the wall of the Leonardo Royal Hotel that fronts Carter Lane is this rather unusual plaque …

The Bell was demolished at the end of the 19th century to make way for the Post Office Savings Bank building referenced in the plaque by the mention of the Postmaster General. The Post Office building itself was demolished in the 1990s to make way for the hotel but the original late 19th century door surround to the Post Office building has been retained in New Bell Yard (right beside Tiffany, see above) …

You can see the letter the plaque refers to here.

A statue commemorating the poet John Keats has appeared just south of the entrance to Moorgate Station. It was sculpted by Martin Jennings and depicts a larger than life-size copy of a life mask of Keats taken aged 21. Keats was the son of an ostler at a nearby inn called The Swan and Hoop …

The bronze is mounted on a plinth above a slate base inscribed with words from Keats’ Ode on Indolence.

Thought I’d grab an image of this classic view from Fleet Street whilst the sun was out. Looking from the left you see 22 Bishopsgate, the Cheesegrater, the spires of St Mary-le-Bow and St Martin Ludgate and the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral …

Christmas light installations are beginning to appear …

Framed by the medieval remains of St Elsyng Spital …

Interactive Trumpet Flowers at City Point …

Press the ‘buttons’ and the lights change colour as music plays …

Not surprisingly, children seem to love it!

City Point offices get in on the act …

Sadly, I couldn’t resist photographing my Yuzu Grand Macaron dessert at Côte Barbican …

An image from outside the City I’d like to share with you. This is on Finchley Road, about 10 minutes walk from the Underground station …

Definitely worth seeking out if you find yourself in that part of the world. I must have stared at it for a full 15 minutes. Read its story here in the excellent Londonist website.

A couple of super sunsets. I haven’t edited these images in any way so the colours are authentic …

And finally, the wonderful City gardeners are replanting the bed on Silk Street and I shall be tracking its progress over the coming months …

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

By The City Gent

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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Walking the City of London

Category: Wartime Page 2 of 15

‘Waddle into wonder’ with Penguins plus the Blitz and other observations from my recent walks.

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