The Bank Junction – The Historic Centre of London?

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There are a number of options for the centre of London, almost all dependent on how you define the centre of a city such as London. For today’s post, I am going to go for the Bank Junction as the historic centre of London – that point where several key roads meet in the City, in front of the Bank of England, Royal Exchange and Mansion House, which until recently, has been a place busy with traffic and people, as this image from the late 19th century illustrates, looking across from outside the Mansion House to the Royal Exchange, when it was described as “The open space bounded by the Exchange, the Bank, and the Mansion House is perhaps the busiest in all the City:

And it was much the same in the 1920s, although there are some subtle differences, including the war memorial that now stands in front of the Royal Exchange as the photo below was taken not that long after the First World War:

This is a very old part of the City, once at the heart of the Roman City, with very many Roman remains having been found deep below the current surface level.

The 16th century “Agas” map shows the key streets of Cornhill, what is now Threadneedle Street, and Poultry, and by the 1682 map of William Morgan, we can see the area around the Bank junction (which is slightly left of centre in the following extract), with the second iteration of the Royal Exchange (after the first was lost during the Great Fire of 1666), and where Poultry and Cornhill meet, we can see the Wool Church Market, at the site of the future Mansion House (see this post on St Mary Woolchurch, and the wool market):

By the time of Rocque’s 1746 map, we can see that the Wool Market has now been replaced by the Mansion House, and the first building of the Bank of England is shown in Threadneedle Street, simply labelled as “The Bank”:

By Horwood’s map of 1799, we can see how the rapid expansion of the Bank of England has taken up so much space between Threadneedle Street and Throgmorton Street:

In all the above maps, there are only four streets converging on the Bank junction – Cornhill, Lombard Street, Poultry and Threadneedle Street. The junction would get far more complex with the “improvements” to the City implemented by the Victorians during the 19th century, which would leave us with the junction we see today in the centre of the following map:

Where we can now see that Queen Victoria Street joins the junction via Poultry, King William Street has been built, with Lombard Street now joining the junction via this new street, and finally Princes Street, which was widened and straightened along the western side of the enlarged Bank of England.

And this was why the Bank junction was so busy. Cornhill to Poultry and Cheapside was for long a significant east – west route. The new Princes Street and King William Street added a north – south route to London Bridge, and Queen Victoria Street provided a direct route down to Blackfriars Bridge along with the Embankment route to Westminster.

To these through routes was added all the local traffic to the offices, shops and businesses across the City of London.

The geology of the area is one of the reasons why the City was established where it is. In the following extract from the brilliant topographic-map.com, the height of the land across the City is colour coded so that the blue / greens represent decreasing height and yellow to red indicates increasing height:

We can see the Bank junction just to the lower right of the centre of the map, and Cornhill is a hill that runs up to the highest land just to the right of Leadenhall Market.

The higher land around and to the right of the Bank junction is not as pronounced today as it was many centuries ago. Building and street levelling over the centuries has resulted in higher ground being much less pronounced, and originally, the land at and to the right of the Bank was one of the two main hills of the City, with the other being around St. Paul’s Cathedral, before the drop down to the Fleet River.

One of the City’s lost rivers, the River Walbrook once flowed slightly to the west of the Bank junction, cutting across where Queen Victoria Street, Poultry and Princes Street now run, at a much lower level to the current street surface.

Bank junction today, looking across to the Royal Exchange, with the Bank of England on the left:

There are two main differences between the view across the junction of today, and that of the recent past.

Firstly, and most obviously, are the tower blocks in the background. Secondly it is the lack of road traffic.

Over recent few years, the City of London Corporation have been restricting vehicle access across the City, and the impact of this can be plainly seen at the Bank. The part of Threadneedle Street to the left of the Royal Exchange has been pedestrianised, and the complex restrictions are summarised in the following extract from the City of London’s website:

I have mentioned this before, but whilst these restrictions have resulted in a much more pleasant place to walk, better air quality, and providing an environment where it is much easier to see the buildings surrounding the junction – it does leave this central part of the City lacking a sense or urgency and activity, of a vibrant and thriving place. It is probably though just the change from the City that I knew for many decades.

Apart from the new Victorian streets, the layout of the Bank junction has not changed that much, just the buildings that line the streets.

This was the view from outside Mansion House, looking across to the Royal Exchange in 1804, where the open space we see today in front of the Royal Exchange, was then occupied by Bank Buildings. The Bank of England is on the left and the tower of the version of the Royal Exchange rebuilt after the Great Fire is on the right:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

So there has been major rebuilding of the buildings that surround the junction, but the layout of the junction has remained much the same for centuries, with the addition of new streets in the 19th century.

The times when the actual junction has needed a rebuild is when the Bank underground station arrived, and when the junction, and the station below, was seriously damaged by a bomb on the night of the 11th January, 1941, when the bomb went through the road surface and exploded in the booking hall of the station, as illustrated in the following photo:

AIR RAID DAMAGE (HU 640) The Bank of England and Royal Exchange after the raid during the night of 11 January 1941. The bomb exploded in the booking-hall of the Bank Underground Station. The crater, 1,800 sq ft in area, was the largest in London. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205068679

Many of those in the station at the time where sheltering, and the bomb caused the death of 56 people, with many more being injured, and today there is a plaque in the station recording the event:

Time for a walk around, to look at the streets and the buildings that surround the junction, starting with the streets. In the following photo is the Royal Exchange, and Cornhill is the street leading of to the right of the photo:

Cornhill is an old street, and one of the principal streets of the City. The earliest written record of the street dates from around 1125 when it was recorded as Cornhilla.

The “hill” element of the name is due to the street running up the western slope of the hill that peaks north-east of Leadenhall Market and “Corn” comes from the association with a corn market that was “held here time out of mind”, as recorded by Stow.

In the following photo is Princes Street, running along the western edge of the Bank of England:

An earlier Princes Street can be seen in the 18th century maps shown earlier in the post, however the Princes Street we see today has been straightened with the loss of a northern section, by the 19th century extension of the Bank of England.

In the following photo, the red bus is in Poultry, which is the street leading west out of the junction:

Poultry is another old street, with first mentions being in the 12th and 13th centuries. The name comes from the markets that were held here where poulters sold their produce.

In the above photo, the River Walbrook once ran across the street, in front of the new building in the centre of the view, the Grade II* listed No 1 Poultry, designed by James Stirling in the 1980s, although the building was not completed until 1997.

The photo shows how much land levels have changed over the centuries, as today there is no sign of the small valley in which the Walbrook ran, which was well below the current level of the street surface, which can be seen by a visit to the Temple of Mithras, now on display at the London Mithraeum, built as part of the construction of Bloomberg’s new European headquarters, a short distance to the south.

A slightly different view, with Queen Victoria Street running to the left of the new building:

Queen Victoria Street was built to help with the growing levels of traffic in the City, and to provide a direct route from the Bank junction, down to Blackfriars Bridge, and the new Embankment.

Construction was recommended in 1861 and included in the Metropolitan Improvement Act of 1863. The new street opened in 1871.

The new street resulted in the loss of numerous courts and alleys, as well as streets of a larger extent, which were swept away for its formation. Amongst those which had occupied the site of the new street were Five Foot Lane, Dove Court, Old Fish Street Hill, Lambeth Hill (part), Bennet’s Hill (part), St Peter’s Hill (part), Earl Street, Bristol Street, White Bear Alley and White Horse Court.

To the left of the above photos is Mansion House:

A permanent building for the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London was one of the considerations for rebuilding the City after the Great Fire, however these plans were not realised until the 18th century.

The site of the old market was appropriate as it was located at a junction of important streets, which did not have any significant monuments.

The architect was George Dance the Elder, who at the time was the City of London’s Clerk of Works. and who took on the challenge of designing a building fit for the Lord Mayor of a growing City and which was able to accommodate both ceremonial functions as well as providing rooms for a private residence.

Work started in 1739, with completion in 1758, and the first Lord Mayor to take up residence was Sir Crispin Gascoigne.

The main reception room was (and still is) the Great Egyptian Hall. Not strictly speaking an Egyptian Hall, rather one based on an account by the Roman writer Vitruvius of what such a room may have looked like. The room today has a barrel roof which was the later work of George Dance the Younger in 1795. as the elder Dance had built a large upper storey, which must have looked out of place, and is shown in the following print of the Mansion House after completion:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

The large blocks on the roof were intended to give the impression of a complete upper floor as a backdrop to the Corinthian portico at the front of the building, but they look more of a distraction than an improvement.

There have been minor changes to the building since the end of the 18th century, but essentially, when viewed from the Bank junction, the building looks much the same today as it did when it was the first major City building at this important junction.

Moving around the junction, and this is the view looking down King William Street, built after approval was given in an 1829 Act of Parliament as part of improvements to the approach to London Bridge. The street was later widened between 1881 and 1884.

In the following photo, the church is St Mary Woolnoth, (see this post for the story of the Church with the Underground in the Crypt). King William Street is to the right of the church, with Lombard Street to the left. Before King William Street was built, Lombard Street ran up to the Bank junction. Lombard Street is an old City street, with a first mention back in 1319, and dependent on spelling, there may have been an earlier record of the street in 1108.

This is the view along Cornhill:

There is a statue in the middle of the road in the above photo, and it is rather appropriate given that much of the Bank junction sits on top of Bank underground station.

The statue is to the inventor of the Greathead tunnelling shield – James Henry Greathead:

Greathead was a South African, who came to London at the age of 15 and in 1864 he was apprenticed to the civil engineer Peter Barlow.

Five years later at the age of 24, in 1869, Greathead took on the construction of the Tower subway, the pedestrian tunnel under the river from outside the Tower of London.

Tunneling under the river was a challenge, given the soft, waterlogged nature of the ground, not that far below the bed of the Thames.

To address this challenge, Greathead devised what became known as the Greathead Shield, although it was based on a shield design originally used by Brunel, but with a number of improvements.

Greathead went on to work on other tunnelling projects, a number of which route through the Bank, including the City & South London line, which at the time terminated at King William Street (now part of the Northern Line), and the Waterloo and City Line, which now has its City termination at the Bank underground station.

The statue of Greathead is relatively recent, dating from 1994, when it was placed there for a specific reason. If you look below the statue of Greathead, at the area between the feet of the statue and the stone plinth, there is a grill that runs the full circumference of the statue, revealing its true purpose, as it is an air vent for the station beneath, and rather than just have a plain air vent, the statue of a person who was one of those responsible for the continuous improvement in tunnelling under London was a suitable addition to sit on top of Bank underground station.

We now come to the Royal Exchange:

The history of the Royal Exchange goes back to the City of London’s position as a major trading centre.

Long before the days of electronic communications, trading was a person to person business, with traders meeting and agreeing on prices, terms etc. All these embryonic activities led to institutions such as Lloyds of London, the London Stock Exchange, and all the other various exchanges for metals, coal etc.

In the 16th century, much trading was carried out on the street, or in the small houses and shops that lined streets such as Cornhill and Lombard Street, and there had been calls for a dedicated place where people could meet to trade, agree prices, and generally conduct business of all types.

Enter Sir Richard Gresham who became aware of the opening of a Bourse, or trading centre in Antwerp, one of the major trading centres of Europe. Gresham pushed for such a building to be constructed in the City of London, however despite the project receiving royal support, there was no suitable space available.

The proposal was taken up by his son, Sir Thomas Gresham, who also knew of the Antwerp Bourse, as he was based in the city for a number of years as a trader, working on behalf of the Crown, and trading on his own behalf.

Gresham put his own money into the project, along with significant funding generated through public subscriptions, which supported the purchase of a block of land in Cornhill Street, a short distance from what is now the Bank junction, and occupying the same site as the current Royal Exchange.

The building was opened by Queen Elizabeth I in January 1570, and it was the first, large, Renaissance style building in the City.

This first Royal Exchange was destroyed during the 1666 Great Fire, and was soon rebuilt following a design by Edward Jarman, but, as shown in the maps at the top of the post, it still faced onto Cornhill, and in the area in front of today’s Royal Exchange, there was a triangular cluster of buildings.

The following print shows the Royal Exchange as rebuilt following the Great Fire, with the main entrance facing onto Cornhill:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

The Royal Exchange consisted of a large central courtyard, surrounded by four wings which held offices for meetings, shops, cellars below for the storage of goods etc, as shown in the following print:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

This second iteration of the Royal Exchange lasted until 1838, when, as with the first, it was also burnt down, with the following print showing the still smouldering remains of the building:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

The Royal Exchange was soon rebuilt, following a competition to find a design. The competition was won by the architect William Tite, who seems to have also been one of the judges of the competition.

Tite’s design follows the layout of the original two Exchanges, with a central courtyard surrounded by four wings of offices and shops, however Tite’s design changed the main entrance from facing onto Cornhill, now to face onto the Bank junction.

The buildings that had once occupied the triangular space in front of the building were demolished, and it was opened up so that the full Corinthian portico of the new building faced directly onto the Bank junction, and seems almost to mirror the Mansion House across the junction.

The new Royal Exchange was opened in 1844 by Queen Victoria, with the following print showing the opening ceremony, and also how the new building had opened up the space around this important meeting place of City streets:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Within the pediment above the columns in the front of the building, there is a sculpture with the words “The Earth is the Lord’s, and the Fulness Thereof”, which was carved by Richard Westmacott the younger (his father of the same name was also a sculptor), and shows traders, historic, from across the world and from London. There are also small details such as a ships anchor to the left and pots to the right:

The Latin inscription, picked out in gold just below the pediment can be translated as “founded in the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth, and restored in the eighth of Queen Victoria”, to recall the founding of the first exchange, and the build of the third exchange to occupy the site.

There are numerous small details around the building, for example, the following has the date of the opening of the building as 1844 in Roman numerals:

And the cipher of Queen Victoria, the monarch who opened the latest version of the Royal Exchange:

It is interesting that the Royal Exchange is the only building that I am aware of in London where both the first version, and the latest, were both opened by Queens. Elizabeth I in 1570 and 274 years later, Victoria.

The steps in front of the Royal Exchange are also where the City of London proclaims a new monarch.

The current Royal Exchange has a glittering gold grasshopper from the arms of the Gresham family:

The Royal Exchange was not the only institution founded by Sir Thomas Gresham. His time travelling and working in Europe had also fostered an interest in learning, in trade, and in the benefits that the arts, technical and scientific achievements could bring to trade.

After his death, the executors of his Will founded Gresham College, to provide education across the arts and sciences, and which opened in 1597. A key aspect of the new college was that teaching was in English rather than Latin, which opened the college up to a much wider cohort of potential students.

The college originally operated from Sir Thomas Gresham’s old mansion in Bishopsgate, and then, rather appropriately for a period at the end of the 18th through the early 19th century, the college was based in the Royal Exchange.

A number of moves later, and today the college is based at Barnard’s Inn Hall, and offers a range of free lectures, both on site and online. There is a lecture on “Sir Thomas Gresham and the New Learning”, on the college’s website, along with many others, which can be found by clicking here.

There is also a whole series of lectures on London, which can be found by clicking here – perfect for winter evenings.

There are very many fascinating lectures and Gresham’s college continues to provide a wonderful resource for learning.

Thomas Gresham was perhaps the first person who truly understood international money markets and international trade. He served three monarchs, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth, helping to keep them financially solvent, and during Elizabeth’s reign, his methods and contacts helped to stabilise the national currency.

He apparently could be rather unscrupulous in his dealings, including with his own family, and despite using his own money for the Royal Exchange, and leaving money for Gresham College, he appears to not have been particularly charitable during his life.

His name can also be found in the City with the naming of Gresham Street.

Returning to the Royal Exchange, the use of a building as a place for general trading faded later in the 19th century as specialist trading exchanges were set up to provide a place where trades could be made, meetings held, and news received in a specific and related set of commodities or services.

In 1939, the building became the offices of the Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance Company, and in the late 1980s, the company made substantial changes to the interior of the building, which included replacing the original roof, and an additional upper floor.

In 2001, the building was again refurbished, and reopened as a centre for luxury shops, restaurants and bars, and the Royal Exchange retains this function today.

Entering the Royal Exchange from the open space in front of the Bank junction:

The courtyard interior and roof today:

Next to the Royal Exchange, across Threadneedle Street is the Bank of England:

The Bank of England occupies a significant area of land of some three and a half acres. It has reached this size through a series of rebuilds and extensions over the years since the founding of the institution in 1694 as the Government’s banker, and arrival in Threadneedle Street in 1734, into a Palladian building designed by George Sampson, as the first, purpose built building for the Bank of England.

You can see the first Bank building marked in Rocque’s map of 1746, so much smaller than the complex of today.

The Bank of England has a number of key functions:

  • As the Government’s banker, the Bank of England is the only institution authorised to issue bank notes
  • Although they have shrunk over the past few decades, the Bank of England is responsible for looking after the country’s gold reserves
  • And although the Bank of England is owned by the Government, since 1997 the Bank has been responsible for independently setting monetary policy, for example, by setting interest rates

Rapid expansion of the Bank of England commenced after 1788 when Sir John Soane was appointed as architect to the Bank of England, continuing work on consolidating and expanding the Bank of England and working on the large curtain wall that was finished after Soane stopped working for the Bank in 1833, and which completed the security of the Bank’s complex.

The Bank of England buildings that we see today are the result of a rebuilding programme carried out between 1923 and 1939 by the architect Sir Herbert Baker, and which resulted in the demolition of most of Sir John Soane’s work, and resulted in a rebuild described by Nikolaus Pevsner as “the greatest architectural crime, in the City of London of the twentieth century”.

The Bank of England, facing on to Threadneedle Street, as it was before the rebuild that started in 1923:

A photo showing the extent of the rebuilding between 1923 and 1939, from the 1920s books “Wonderful London” (as is the above photo):

The photo above shows just how the curtain wall surrounding the bank forms an almost castle like structure. Also in the foreground, there appears to be a deep excavation, presumably part of the extensive below ground areas of the Bank.

The castle like curtain wall was supplemented by a Brigade of Guards detachment, who had barracks at the Bank to provide over night security, continuing this service until 1973.

The Bank of England partly faces on to the open space in front of the Royal Exchange, and as mentioned earlier, this was covered in buildings up to the construction of the 1844 building we see today.

There are two large monuments in this open space. The first is a memorial to the “officers, non-commissioned officers and men of London who served King and Empire in the Great War 1914 – 1919”:

The memorial was erected after the First World War, and an additional inscription was added at the bottom of the memorial for the Second World War.

The memorial records the names of all the London Battalions that fought in the Great War, and it is a reminder of how battalions were formed from local areas and of people with specific interests, so you have the 11th Battalion Finsbury Rifles, the 17th Battalion Poplar & Stepney Rifles, the 28th Battalion Artists Rifles etc.:

The second monument is to the Duke of Wellington, which was unveiled on June the 18th, 1844:

The monument is here, in front of the Bank of England and Royal Exchange as a thank you from the City of London for the Duke’s help in getting the London Bridge Approaches Act of 1827 through Parliament. There is a full explanation on a plaque on the monument:

The Duke of Wellington also now sits on an air vent to the station below, as can be seen by the grill in the above photo.

The plaque mentions that a piece of granite from London Bridge was set into the pavement by the statue prior to the removal of the bridge to Arizona:

Each of the buildings and institutions covered in this post deserve a dedicated and much more comprehensive post, such is the history at this key City of London road junction. The other aspect that deserves a much fuller write up is the underground station that sits beneath the road junction.

Bank Station was one of very few London Underground Stations that had no above ground buildings, however Bank can no longer claim this distinctive feature following additional entrances to the station across an ever expanding area, including the entrance to Bank Underground Station that is now on Cannon Street.

But as you walk around the Bank junction, there are a number of access points, where stairs lead you down to the station below:

Whether or not you agree that the Bank junction is the historic centre of London, it is a place where major routes across and out of the city all join, and it is a place where three key and early City of London Institutions have and are based.

The Royal Exchange, although no longer supporting its original purpose, once represented the trading heart of the City, Mansion House continues to be the public face of the City’s independent governance, and the Bank of England represents the City’s role in the financial management of the country.

If you are interested in a bit of a deep dive into two of the places covered, I can recommend:

  • Till Time’s Last Sand – A History of the Bank of England, 1694 – 2013 by David Kynaston
  • Gresham’s Law: The Life and World of Queen Elizabeth I’s Banker by John Guy
  • Sir Thomas Gresham and Gresham College: Studies in the Intellectual History of London in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, edited by Francis Ames-Lewis

In addition to the Gresham lectures, you may also be interested in the following film that I found whilst researching today’s post at the Imperial War Museum collection.

Titled Britain at War, it is a film which unusually is mainly in colour, and has a lengthy section on London starting at 8 minutes, 30 seconds (it will probably not appear in the emailed versions of this post. Click here to go to the website where the film will appear in the post.)

alondoninheritance.com

Alderman Stairs – Artificial Intelligence, Historical Accuracy and Copyright

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For a change, rather than looking at the past, today’s post is rather topical, and looks at a subject that at first glance may seem irrelevant to the blog – Artificial Intelligence, or AI.

When I write a post for the blog, I try to apply a degree of intelligence. I use a wide range of sources – books (old and new), maps, national and local archives, old newspaper archives, libraries, academic resources, visits to the site that is the subject of a blog post, and hopefully, some knowledge of London built up over the years.

I aways try to find more than one reference to key information about a topic, and only use a limited number of reputable sources on the Internet, for example British History Online.

Fortunately, I make very few mistakes, and when I have, I am very grateful to readers who have pointed this out via a comment or email, so I can correct.

The numbers of visitors to the blog has grown considerably since I started in 2014. Most of these readers come via Google, but over the last few months, I have seen that the blog is being accessed by AI services such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

There is much noise about Artificial Intelligence. Depending on what you read, AI is either going to save the world, or take everyone’s jobs and destroy the world.

Most of the end user AI services such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Grok (X was Twitter) are conversational based systems using extremely large collections of data.

Conversational, in that they attempt to provide the user with the impression that they are talking to another human, and that you can have a conversation with them. The large collections of data that they use to build a response, are from anything they can search – websites, blogs, archives, photos, books etc.

As someone who has written getting on for 2.5 million words in the blog during the last eleven years, I wanted to know what impact AI would have on this form of writing? Was AI using information that I had created, how accurate AI could be, and whether AI could replace a blog as an information source, and if so, how accurate would be the response.

So I thought I would give it a try.

I used a few of the most high profile AI tools to ask a simple question about one of my favourite places.

Imagine you are walking from St. Katherine Docks to Wapping, and as you walk along St. Katherine’s Way, you find an intriguing set of river stairs – Alderman Stairs – and you want to know their history, so you ask a few AI tools “What is the history of Alderman Stairs”, (you can find my post on Alderman Stairs, here) and this is what I did, starting with:

ChatGPT

ChatGPT was one of the first readily available AI tools, with the first release in November 2022, and the tool is currently on the fourth version. Chat, the first part of the name should be self explanatory, GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, which basically means it captures information from the Internet in order to learn how to respond to a question.

You can try out ChatGPT by clicking here, where you are presented with a simple “What can I help with?”, to which I asked the following question:

ChatGPT provides the answer to your question in a response screen, but also allows you to copy the answer as text, so in theory, I could use the answer to write a blog post, so the following text is an exact copy of ChatGPT’s answer to the question “what is the history of Alderman Stairs?“:

“Alderman Stairs is a historic set of stairs located in the City of London, connecting Upper Thames Street to Puddle Dock and the River Thames. The stairs have a rich history, and their name, along with their structure, reflects the changing history of London.

Origins of the Name:

  • Alderman Stairs is named after an alderman, a senior elected official in the City of London. In this case, the name likely honors one of the city’s aldermen who played a significant role in its development or public works in the area.
  • The exact alderman behind the stairs’ naming is not fully documented, but it was common in the medieval period for prominent citizens to have public infrastructure named after them, especially in riverfront areas.

Development and Historical Use:

  • The stairs have long been part of London’s waterfront, providing access from the land to the river. They were essential for the transport of goods and passengers during the times when river trade was crucial to London’s economy.
  • The Thames served as a bustling trade route, and stairs like Alderman Stairs were crucial for loading and unloading cargo. Ships would dock at these stairs to transfer goods such as coal, timber, and other materials necessary for London’s growth.

The Changes Over Time:

  • Medieval and Early Modern Period: Alderman Stairs likely existed in some form by the late medieval period when river transport was key to London’s development. Stairs and wharves were often maintained by wealthy and influential individuals or companies.
  • Victorian Era: The industrialization of London in the 19th century, along with major changes in the River Thames, led to the construction of larger docks and piers. Over time, this reduced the prominence of stairs like Alderman Stairs for commercial activity.
  • 20th Century: By the 20th century, many stairs and docks along the Thames had fallen into disuse due to the decline of river trade and the increasing use of road transport. Alderman Stairs, like many others, would have lost much of its original commercial purpose.

Modern Day:

  • Today, Alderman Stairs is primarily of historical interest and is considered a heritage site, reflecting London’s long relationship with the River Thames. The stairs themselves are located near the London Bridge area, in a part of the city that has been significantly redeveloped.
  • Though the area has been extensively modernized, the stairs remain as a reminder of London’s medieval and early modern history. They have been restored to some degree and are occasionally used for public access to the river.

The history of Alderman Stairs highlights London’s transformation from a city dominated by river trade to one marked by modern infrastructure and development. Despite these changes, Alderman Stairs remains an interesting piece of London’s architectural and historical legacy.“

I was really stunned with the amount of issues within this response.

Firstly, it reads like the answer someone would give on a school or university exam paper, where not enough revision has been done, and you have skim read at the last moment, and attempt to put together a reasonable answer using high level and half remembered facts (or was that just me!).

Secondly, the first paragraph on the location “Alderman Stairs is a historic set of stairs located in the City of London, connecting Upper Thames Street to Puddle Dock and the River Thames.” Alderman Stairs are nowhere near the location provided by ChatGPT, although I was concerned I may have missed something when writing about Puddle Dock, so went back and checked lots of maps, books etc. The following is Rocque’s 1746 and shows the street Puddle Dock (red arrow), Puddle Dock (yellow arrow) and where Puddle Dock accesses the Thames (blue arrow) – I could not find any reference to an Alderman Stairs anywhere near Puddle Dock:

Thirdly, the section on the origin of the name Alderman Stairs includes the following “The exact alderman behind the stairs’ naming is not fully documented, but it was common in the medieval period for prominent citizens to have public infrastructure named after them, especially in riverfront areas.“

There are some clear candidates for the source of the name, dating not from the medieval period, but from the late 17th / early 18th centuries.

As ChatGPT is a conversational tool, it offers the option for a follow-up question, so I asked “are you sure this is correct?”:

ChatGPT is certainly polite, as it apologised for the confusion, and confirmed that I was right to question the answer it had previously given “as there seems to be some inaccuracies in the historical details”.

In ChatGPT’s revised answer, the location of the stairs has now moved, and they are now “specifically close to the Cannon Street railway bridge”. I checked Rocque’s 1746 map, when obviously Cannon Street railway bridge was not there, the bridge started across the river where Steel Yard Wharf is shown in the centre of the following map:

There were no Alderman Stairs in the vicinity, or in later maps, including mid 20th century OS maps.

The rest of the answer is just as high-level and vague as the first answer. So my next question was “is there an information source for alderman stairs?”:

At first, my ego was somewhat deflated as my blog page on the stairs was not referenced, but on second thoughts I was rather pleased not to be associated with the quality of the ChatGPT response.

Even the list of sources raises some serious questions.

There are two books listed by Stephen Inwood, who has written a number of excellent books about London. I have the History of London, but I cannot find any reference to Inwood having ever written a book called “A history of the City’s Roads and Their Names”.

Likewise, the book “Old London’s Rivers and River Stairs” by E.S. McLachlan sounds a fascinating book, but again I can find no reference to such a book or author. I looked for these books at Amazon, Abebooks, the British Library and London Library, as well as a general Google search, but no luck.

I would be interested to know if these two books actually exist as I would like to have a copy.

In the Online Sources section, the Londonist website is listed. I tried a search at Londonist and there were no references to Alderman Stairs.

One of the tools provided by ChatGPT is image creation, and if you use Social Media you will find it flooded with images created by this type of AI tool.

I could not resist seeing what ChatGPT thought Alderman Stairs looked like, so I asked it to “Create an image of alderman stairs”, and this was the response:

A remarkable interpretation. I cannot argue with the “historical charm and tranquil atmosphere” of the real Alderman Stairs, and this is what they really look like:

By now, I was thinking that I was being a fit unfair with ChatGPT. Alderman Stairs is a rather obscure topic, and it would be reasonable for the tool not to be aware of such a place, although if that was the case, why does it just say that it does not know, rather than cobbling together a false answer. Part of intelligence has to be admitting when you do not know, rather than pretending that you do.

To see if I was being unfair to ChatGPT, I put the same question to other AI tools, the next was:

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot has now got the correct location. It also provides a precis of the story of the stairs. The information is referenced, and at the end it provides the references, and links if the reader wants to know more.

The most used reference is to my blog, and a comparison of my blog post on the stairs with Copilot’s response shows where the information has come from, although it is a very high level summary.

I can see where this approach would be useful, as a quick way of finding information sources for a topic. Ask a question, and Copilot will provide a summary with a list of sources for follow-up.

I then put the same question to:

Google Gemini

The answer provided by Google Gemini is basically a summary of some of the key points from my blog post. At the end of each sentence, there is a button, and clicking provides the source of the information, as shown in the above example, and also in the example below:

Two points regarding Google Gemini’s response:

Firstly, the way these tools summarise gets rid of much of the context. In the above example there is a sentence on Irish immigrants seeking a new life in London.

In reality, these were very poor Irish people, probably close to starvation, and in the following screenshot from my blog post on Alderman Stairs, I have included the extract from the Illustrated London News which reported the landing at the stairs, and provides much more context:

My second concern is that when you click the dropdown box for the reference, Google Gemini states “Google Search found similar content, like this”. It is not “similar content” it is the original source information which Google has copied to use within its AI tool.

Getting rather depressed by now, I thought I would try one final AI tool. This tool is part of X (the old Twitter):

Grok

Again, some good information, but summarised and without the full context, for example, the Illustrated London News report I quoted in my blog post about the Irish Paupers is in the Grok response as “These stairs have been busy, with accounts mentioning up to 1200 people in one shipload, suggesting a high volume of traffic similar to that seen at Tower Bridge today” – and I have no idea why Tower Bridge is included as a comparison with Alderman Stairs.

Grok has a list of “Relevant Web Pages”:

Grok calls this listing “Relevant Web Pages”, where in reality, these are pages and websites where Grok has sourced the information to compile the response, including my blog.

This very quick look, using a single question, raises a number of questions:

Copyright

AI systems are trained on data which is electronically available and much is sourced by searching the Internet. AI tools then use the information found to build a response to a question and provide this as the AI’s answer to the question.

AI systems are therefore using the work of other people, authors, and organisations, and where the source is given, with Google it is quoted as “similar content”.

Microsoft Copilot was the best of those tested in providing links to the sources used to build a summary response.

At the moment, if you search for Alderman Stairs on search engines such as Google, you will get a link to my post. As AI tools improve, they will end up showing a comprehensive answer, thereby reducing the incentive for people to find the original or alternative sources, so AI tools will use data from other websites whilst at the same time reducing the visibility of the sites which provided the source information.

Currently, the UK Government are consulting “on proposals to give creative industries and AI developers clarity over copyright laws”.

The key points from this consultation are:

It will be interesting to see how this develops, however there is not a good track record in the protection of data on the Internet, particularly where the big tech companies are concerned.

Historical Accuracy

The use of these tools means that there is far more risk that information becomes distorted, provided out of context, or is just plain wrong.

It is also easy to see how the response from AI tools can be manipulated as they are basically building a response from the information they have found at other sources. If those sources are using false information, AI tools may probably just repeat this.

Much of the ChatGPT response was just so wrong, and users would have far more confidence in the output of these tools that when an AI tool does not have the information, it just answers with an “I do not know”.

I have a very amateur interest in London’s history, do this for my own interest, and fortunately others find my content interesting as well, however for anyone who writes professionally, depends on writing for their income, carries out academic research etc. I would be concerned about where this is going.

ChatGPT did however redeem itself with a final test. As I was finishing this post, I thought it would be interesting to see what ChatGPT knew of my blog, and this was the answer:

I really like ChatGPT’s summary, and it is a far better summary of my blog than I think I could write – so you can see where Artificial Intelligence can be useful, and I might use the above text as my new “About” page.

Artificial Intelligence is not going away, and if you would like to try out these AI tools:

Whatever the future of AI, I can promise you that all my blog posts will always be written by a human, using old books, maps, library and archive research, newspaper archives, photos and images, visits to site etc. and will come with the poor grammar, punctuation and occasional typos, that comes with keeping up the amateur production of a weekly post, and as ever, I really appreciate any corrections.

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William Adams – The Adventures of a Limehouse Apprentice

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My recent posts on the Royal Docks highlighted just how much traffic there once was on the River Thames and across the docks of London. The river has been a major route for the trade of goods for centuries.

As well as goods, many thousands of people also departed from, or arrived in London via the river, and it is interesting to think of where they went, what they did, did they return etc. when standing at one of the Thames Stairs, or looking out across a now quiet river, where the main traffic is now either the Thames Clipper passenger boats, or the ribs taking passengers on high speed trips along the river.

Limehouse is one of many places along the river and is there because of the river. Developing from around Limekiln Dock and along the edge of the river, Limehouse expanded inland rapidly during the 19th century, to provide space for industry and warehousing, and for housing for those who worked in these businesses and in the docks.

The following photo was taken by my father in August 1948, and shows the rear of the buildings along Narrow Street in Limehouse:

The photo illustrates that all these buildings were in some way connected to the river. There are barges on the foreshore and rough work sheds facing onto the river (each of the buildings in the photo has a story to tell, and I will return to this photo in a later post).

So whilst in 1948, Limehouse and the Thames were still intimately connected, I want to go back over 370 years to a boy who started as an apprentice in a Limehouse shipyard, and in the following years married locally, had children, before leaving Limehouse, his wife and children for the far side of the world, never to return.

William Adams was born in Gillingham, Kent in 1564. There is no record of the date of his birth, but that was the year he was baptised on the 20th of September so presumably he was born in the same year.

He spent the first 12 years of his life in Gillingham, and being next to the River Medway, Adams must have been very familiar with the shipping on the river, and the connection of the Medway with the River Thames.

Around the age of 12, William Adams was taken on as an apprentice by the ship builder Nicholas Diggins who had a yard in Limehouse.

I assume that during his time as an apprentice, which lasted for 12 years, he also lived in Limehouse, with perhaps occasional trips along the river to visit any family living in Gillingham.

Nicholas Diggins is recorded as being a ship builder, however as well as ship building, Adams, seems to have learnt the skills he would use in his future career, becoming proficient in sailing and navigation to a level that by the end of his apprenticeship in 1588 he was the Captain of the ship Richard Duffield which was acting as a supply ship to the main naval fleet fighting the Spanish Armada.

In 1589 Adams still seems to have had an attachment to Limehouse, as on the 20th of August 1589, he married Mary Hyn at the parish church of St. Dunstan’s Stepney. At this time, Limehouse was a small community strung out along the river without a local parish church, so came within the parish of St. Dunstan. The population of Limehouse would not justify a local church for over 100 years, when St. Anne’s Limehouse was built, and consecrated in 1730

Although Adams was now married, his wife Mary cannot have seen him much over the coming years. The majority of the ten years after his marriage was spent in the service of the Worshipful Company of Barbary Merchants – a short lived company, set up to trade with the north African coast.

North African trade was a dangerous occupation, as there were many pirates operating off the north African coast, and quarrels with traders could result in the taking of a crew into enslavement.

Adams did not seem to come to any harm, as by 1593 he was part of an unsuccessful Dutch expedition to find a route via the north of Russia to the spice islands of the East Indies.

William Adams work with the Dutch would lead to his voyage to Japan. In the late 16th century, the Dutch and English were on friendly terms. The Dutch had provided help with the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the English had supported the Dutch in their rebellion against Spanish rule of the Netherlands.

Adams would find that alliances between England and the Netherlands, and hostilities with Spain and Portugal would extend across to the far side of the world.

In 1598, William Adams left his wife, children, Limehouse and England for the last time as on the 24th of June he sailed from Texel in the Netherlands as part of a five ship Dutch fleet, consisting of the Geloof, the Blijde Boodschap, the Trouw, the Liefe and the Hoop.

William Adams was originally the pilot of the Hoop, however he was transferred to the Liefde, a decision which probably saved his life.

The journey from the Netherlands to Japan took two years and terrible hardship for the crew, with only one of the five ships making it to Japan, and of the 110 crew that left the Netherlands on the Liefde, only 24 survived the journey, and due to starvation, of these only 6 were able to stand and just about walk off the ship when it reached Japan. One of these six was William Adams.

The following map shows the approximate route taken by the Liefde from the Netherlands to Japan (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

Key events on the journey were as follows:

  1. Arrival at the Cape Verde islands
  2. Limted supplies taken on board at Cape Lopez
  3. Crews suffer from dysentery at Annabon
  4. Winter storms and attacks by “savages” as the ships pass through the Magellan Straits
  5. Ships attacked and many of the crew killed at Mocha
  6. Arrival in Hawaii. Eight of the crew jump ship by taking the ships pinnace, and fleeing to an island.
  7. Pass the Bonin Islands with only 24 of the crew of the Liefde left alive
  8. Arrival in Japan in the year 1600

According to William Adams account of the voyage, they encountered hostile peoples at almost all their stops, when they had an urgent need to trade, and to bring on board supplies of food and water.

For example, at point 4, the ships delayed passing through the Straits of Magellan in order to make repairs and fabricate a twenty-two ton Pinnace (a large rowing or sailing boat to travel between ships and between ships and shore). During this delay, the winds changed and the ships were stuck for months of “much snow and ice”, with crew dying of exposure, or being killed by those on land, when crew members went ashore to collect fire wood.

By the time the ships left South America, only the Liefde and the Hoop remained of the original five ships, and during the crossing of the Pacific they encountered a large storm, and on the following day, the 24th of February 1600, the Hoop had disappeared, never to be seen again.

Finally, in April 1600, the Liefde anchored off Kyushu, Japan, and was met by dozens of small boats coming out to meet them.

Japan on William Adams Arrival

When William Adams arrived in Japan, the country was in the midst of a Civil War, with different families and clans vying for power. There were two main rulers in Japan, the Mikado, or Emperor, which was mainly a ceremonial role, and the Shogun, who was responsible for the defence of Japan and for maintaining internal order.

Real power was with the Shogun, and when Adams arrived, the Tokugawa family had just won control of the role of Shogun, but even within the family there was conflict as to succession.

Hideyoshi Tokugawa was the most powerful of the family clan, but when he died in 1598, he had left a young son to take over the role of Shogun. Another family member, Ieyasu was determined to become Shogun, and after various court intrigues and battles, including one where armaments and cannon taken from Adams ship the Liefde were used, Ieyasu was recognised by the Emperor as the Shogun.

The following image shows Tokugawa Ieyasu and his eighteen celebrated retainers:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Also, at the time of Adams arrival, there were already two European powers active in Japan, Spain and Portugal, both countries trading with Japan, and Portuguese Jesuits and Spanish Franciscans seeking to establish the Roman Catholic church in the country and to convert Japanese citizens to Christianity.

Whilst both Jesuits and Franciscans had built churches, and managed to convert some Japanese, they were also viewed with suspicion, and had provided the Shogun with a false view of Europe, by claiming that Europe was united under the Roman Catholic faith.

Quarrels between the Jesuits and Franciscans deepened Japanese suspicion, and in 1597, nine missionaries and seventeen Japanese converts were crucified on the orders of the Shogun.

Japan was though, interested in expanding the country’s world view and importantly, trade, and in 1585, four Japanese ambassadors arrived in Milan, with their Jesuit teacher:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Knowledge of the English and Dutch was though very limited, and the arrival of the Englishman Adams and surviving Dutch crew members was therefore viewed with suspicion by the Japanese, and as being from, in the view of the Jesuits and Franciscans, heretical Protestant countries, were seen as a threat to the establishment of the Roman Catholic church in Japan, as well as the trading privileges granted to the Portuguese and Spanish.

When William Adams arrived in Japan, the Portuguese and Spanish were the main threat to his, and the Dutch crews survival.

William Adams in Japan

When the Liefde arrived in Japan, the crew were too weak to offer any resistance to the Japanese, and immediately after their arrival “many barks came aboard us. The people offered us no hurt, but stole all things they could steal”.

The local Lord made a house available for the crew, however six of the surviving crew died within days of their arrival.

News of the ship’s arrival was sent to the Shogun Ieyasu, and whilst the surviving crew waited for news, they were interrogated by the Portuguese and Spanish, who claimed they were pirates rather than merchants, and should be immediately executed.

Finally Adams received a summons to appear before Ieyasu, and just over a month after landing, Adams was taken to Osaka, and appeared before the Shogun.

Language was an immediate problem, and the only interpreter with both English and Japanese, was a Portuguese, who immediately raised suspicions with Adams that he was interpreting correctly.

Ieyasu was intently interested in Adams story, how he had arrived in Japan, about England and the Netherlands, relationship with Spain and Portugal, religion etc.

The following image shows William Adams before Ieyasu, showing him the route that the Liefde had taken to arrive in Japan on Adams world map that had survived the initial looting of the ship by being hidden in his cabin:

Source: Editor = Dalton, W. / (Dalton, William)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adams argued that their only intention was a desire for good relations with Kings and Potentates, and to be able to trade, as each country would have goods that would benefit the other, and as Adams meeting with Ieyasu was ending he asked for the same trading privileges as the Spanish and Portuguese.

To this request, no clear answer was made, however to Adams concern, he was taken to prison.

He was then again taken before Ieyasu and again returned to prison, with Adams fearing that during his time in prison, the Portuguese and Spanish were doing their best to persuade Ieyasu that the Englishman and Dutch crew be executed, or if not, that they were not granted any trading privileges.

Adams was eventually released, returned to the crew, and with the crew, the Liefde was moved to Edo (the original name of Tokyo). The ship still had plenty of weapons on boards, and Ieyasu was anxious that these did not fall into the hands of his enemies. After arrival the crew started to receive money from Ieyasu via a Japanese official to pay for their maintenance.

The delays whilst Adams was being interrogated caused the surviving crew to be concerned about their future, and eventually, all the crew decided to go their own way, and make what life they could in Japan, or to try and leave the country, and they continued to be granted a subsidence benefit from Ieyasu.

Adams though was treated differently by Ieyasu, who commanded Adams to built a ship, similar to the Liefde that had carried Adams on such a long and dangerous journey.

For this task, Adams was able to use the skills he had learnt in Limehouse, and, along with the carpenter of the Liefde, built a ship about half the size of the Liefde for Ieyasu, who was so pleased with the result, that he granted Adams easy access to his presence, and Adams started to provide Ieyasu with lessons in geometry and mathematics.

This concerned the Portuguese and Spanish, who now tried to bring Adams within their sphere of influence, and use his good relations with Ieyasu. This included trying to convert Adams to the Roman Catholic faith.

A Jesuit priest also offered to help Adams get approval from Ieyasu to leave Japan and return home. Adams had already tried to get approval to leave, which had been refused by Ieyasu, and Adams was not happy to use Jesuit influence.

Adams influence was however continuing to grow, and he was granted a large estate at Hemi, forty miles south of Edo, and resigned to the fact that he would probably not be allowed to leave Japan, he married a Japanese woman, and they had two children, Joseph and Susanna.

Adams was allowed to leave Japan for short periods, but only on business for Ieyasu, for example one journey was to the Philippines, where Ieyasu wanted Adams to convince the Spanish colonial authorities to trade directly with Japan.

Adams was not keen on helping the Spanish and Portuguese, and in the early years of the 17th century, Ieyasu invited the Dutch to trade with Japan. It took a few years after the initial invitation to be sent in 1595, when two Dutch trading ships arrived in Japan, Adams was on hand to offer his help in negotiating a trading agreement, and to establish a trading post in the town of Hirado.

Adams had a long relationship with the Dutch, all the way until his death. He helped the Dutch trade, acted as a translator, and helped with the establishment and running of their trading post, however he was also using the Dutch to send letters back home to England, to inform the authorities of his position, and also to his wife.

The Dutch though were frustrating these attempts at communications by reading, delaying or destroying many of his letters.

In 1611, the East India Company were planning for a fleet of ships to be sent to India, and that they should also have a secondary objective of continuing on to Japan, try to get trading privileges, and to open up a trading post in the country.

Adams became aware of this, and wrote to the company to say that on arrival, the East India Company ships should ask for Adams, and he would provide them with all the assistance needed to meet with Ieyasu, and to arrange trading privileges.

The East India Ship the Clove arrived in Hirado on the 11th of June, 1613, under the command of John Saris.

The first meetings between Saris and Adams did not seem to go that well, with Adams claiming that many of the goods that had been brought to Japan in the Clove were not of much value, or not really goods that the Japanese were interested in purchasing.

Saris was keen to have a meeting with Ieyasu, and finally a meeting was arranged which was attended by both Saris and Adams.

Saris had brought with him a letter from King James I, along with gifts for Ieyasu, and Saris requested that the English be granted trading privileges so they could trade freely, import and export goods with Japan, and that English ships could arrive and depart as part of the trading process. When the meeting had ended, Saris left, but Ieyasu requested that Adams stay behind as Ieyasu wanted to question him about the English King, and his greatness and powers.

There was no answer from Ieyasu at the meeting as to whether he would grant Saris any trading privileges, and Saris and Adams had to wait for around ten days before a letter arrived from Ieyasu granting English traders the right to enter and leave Japan, pay no tariffs, to own houses and buildings, to receive prompt payment, and for English laws to be applied in the event of a crime being committed.

The English then established a trading factory (they were called factory’s but in reality were warehouses rather than a building where anything was made).

The relationship between William Adams and John Saris was never that good. Saris was always suspicious whether Adams was really working to the benefit of the English trade in Japan, and as he was still helping the Dutch, whether he was more in their employ than the English.

Saris was about to leave Japan, but was concerned about maintaining Adams support in his absence. Saris started negotiating with Adams to convince him to become a full time employee of the East India Company.

The company had already helped Adams English wife, and had advanced her £20 which Adams acknowledged, but he did not want to be a full time employee, rather seeking a month by month employment, as was his way of working with other trading businesses in Japan.

Adams finally did accept an offer of £100 a year, with the East India Company continuing to pay his English wife £20.

John Saris returned to England, but rather than receiving a welcome, he was subject to an enquiry by the East India Company for trading on his own account. His cabin was also searched and he was found to have kept a lascivious painting of Venus in his cabin along with pornographic pictures and books. The scandal of what was found, along with his own trading resulted in Saris being dismissed from the company’s service.

Despite this he does not seem to have suffered. He married a grand-daughter of a Lord Mayor of London and retired to Fulham, where he lived in some comfort for 30 more years until his death.

Back in Japan, William Adams was as busy as ever. Working for the East India Company, as well as occasionally helping the Dutch, and carrying out requests from Ieyasu. This included a fair amount of travelling, including to the Philippines, China, and what is now Vietnam. Along with the East India Company, Adams also helped to set up trading houses across the country, so the company had greater access to the Japanese market than just via the single factory in Hirado.

Life though soon started to get difficult for Adams, the East India Company, and other countries trading in Japan.

In 1616 Tokugawa Ieyasu died. The following illustration shows Shogun Ieyasu as the founder, with fourteen of the following generations of Tokugawa shogun. As the founder of the dynasty, Ieyasu is shown in the centre:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Ieyasu was succeeded by Tokugawa Hidetada.

Hidetada was more cautious about the foreign trading companies, and soon issued a proclamation that no Japanese citizens could purchase goods from the foreign traders who had set up operations in Osaka, Kyoto and Sakai.

Cooks (the successor of Saris in running the English Factory in Japan) and Adams travelled to Edo to understand the situation, but on arrival, the ban was confirmed, however it was also confirmed that the East India Company could continue trading at the original factory in Hirado.

Another change following the death of Ieyasu, was that Adams did not have the same easy access to the court. When he petitioned Hidetada in the matter of a conflict at sea between the English and Dutch, where the Dutch had taken an English ship, Adams was left waiting for a month before he was given a decision. A month where he often had to wait at court all day, hoping for an answer.

The issue with the Dutch, also highlighted the increasing tensions and competition between the Dutch and the English merchants.

Adams was also continuing his journeys to other countries, trying to make trading agreements for the East India Company, and for trade with Japan.

William Adams died suddenly, on the 16th of May 1620 at Hirado, shortly after his return to Japan from a final voyage. He was aged 55, and had been in Japan for 20 years, and had last seen Limehouse and his English family around the year 1598.

In the years after his death, foreign trade with Japan rapidly declined. In 1623, the English Factory was closed, and the East India Company left Japan, to focus instead on India. The following year, the Spanish were ordered to leave Japan, and the Portuguese survived until 1639 when they were also ordered to leave.

The Dutch were permitted to maintain a very small trading post on an island in the harbour of Nagasaki.

In his will, Adams split his estate leaving half to his Japanese family, and half to his English family.

Today, there is a memorial to William Adams in Gillingham, and in Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture, the Anjin Festival is held every year in August. The festival is “the largest event in Ito City, celebrating the achievements of Miura Anjin, the diplomatic advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu”, Miura Anjin is the Japanese name taken by William Adams.

In 1927 a memorial to the Trading Factory at Hirado was unveiled by the British Ambassador, Sir John Toilley, and Capt. Cloudesley Robinson, the British Naval Attaché, who had both been conveyed from Nagasaki to Hirado on board a Japanese naval cruiser. The memorial has the names of those who were involved with the Factory, and includes the following quotation from a letter written by Capt. Richard Cooks, the factor to the headquarters of the East India Company in Hirado: “The 12th June (1613) we came to an anchor in the haven of Firando in Japan, where the Kinge of the place received us very kyndlie”.

William Adams story was used for the 1975 book “Shogun” by James Clavell, which was then the basis for the 1980 TV mini-series of the same name, staring Richard Chamberlain as John Blackthorne (the role of Blackthorne was based on Adams), and the name Blackthorne was also used for a recent 2024 US TV mini series.

The life of William Adams – quite a story for a Limehouse apprentice, but just one story of the many thousands who have sailed from London and headed out across the world via the River Thames.

The sources I have used for this post are as follows:

  • The Log-Book of William Adams, with the Journal of Edward Saris edited, with introduction and notes by C.J. Purnell – London, 1916
  • The First Englishman in Japan – The Story of William Adams by P.G. Rogers. The Harvill Press, 1956
  • Servant of the Shogun by Richard Tames. Paul Norbury Publications, 1981
  • Samurai William – The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan by Giles Milton. Hodder & Stoughton, 2002

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London Films – Capturing 100 Years of Change

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This time last year, in that strange period, between Christmas and New Year, I wrote a post about London – Captured in Music Videos, as they are fascinating, not just for the excellent music, but to see London in the background, in these videos from the last few decades.

For this year, I thought I would have a post about London films. Not films where London appears in the background, but films which are dedicated to telling a story about a particular aspect of the city.

They are fascinating to watch, not just to see how the city has changed physically, and how life in the city has also changed, but also to make us think.

The people we see in these films working or living in London could probably not have foreseen the dramatic changes that would transform their city, and likewise our experience of the city today is just a snapshot, and in years to come many aspects of the city will be radically different, and it will be someone else’s city, who will probably look back at film of London in the 2020’s with a mix of nostalgia and amusement.

So for the long, dark evenings, here is London from the past 100 years.

If the WordPress YouTube Block works there should be several videos embedded in this post. I am not sure if they will show in the emailed version of this post. If not, go to the home page by clicking here to view the post.

The London Nobody Knows

The film “The London Nobody Knows” is a fascinating glimpse of London at a time of great change. By the release of the film at the end of 1968, there had already been considerable reconstruction after the bombing of the 1940s, and gleaming glass and steel office blocks were springing up across the city.

There were though still a considerable number of bomb sites and damaged buildings, and the London Docks were still busy, although there were signs of the changes that would effect trade on the river and the docks in the future.

The film was written by the writer Brian Comport and the artist and author Geoffrey Fletcher, and the film takes its name from the book the London Nobody Knows by Geoffrey Fletcher. His books mixed Fletcher’s drawings of buildings, street infrastructure, people etc. across the city with descriptive text.

The film uses the actor James Mason as a focal point for the film, as he visits and talks about the changing face of London, armed with his flat cap and umbrella:

The London Nobody Knows is perhaps the classic London film.

Capital County

Capital County is a 1951 London County Council film and starts with some history of the development of London, then going on to show the very extensive range of services for which the LCC were responsible, and how these services touched much of the life of all Londoners. The film demonstrates this through Albert Brown, a typical Londoner:

Capital County shows that it is not just physical change that has transformed London over the last 70 plus years, but also the way London is administered and governed.

Bermondsey Wall

Bermondsey Wall is a 1932 film which has some wonderful views of the working river and backstreets of Bermondsey, and focuses on the work of the Time and Talents Association, who by the time of the film were based in Dockhead House, Abbey Street. Time and Talents was started in 1887 to help young girls use their “Time and Talents” in the service of others, to provide education, practical skills and also provide hostels for girls’ accommodation. The organisation has evolved into a community organisation which is still running today across Rotherhithe and Bermondsey.

The Proud City – A Plan for London

The Proud City is a film produced for the Ministry of Information, to explain the 1943 County of London Plan. The film includes the main authors of the plan, JH Forshaw (Architect to the London County Council) and Sir Patrick Abercrombie (Professor of town planning, University of London), who explain why a plan is needed, the thinking behind the plan, how it will transform London, and the resulting benefits for all those who live and work in the city, along with some wonderful film of the city.

The plan was wide ranging, and covered almost every aspect of life in London, and the plan identified many of the issues with the haphazard way in which London had developed over the centuries, resulting in poor housing, housing and industry together existing in a mixed street plan, traffic congestion, the way the old village London had merged into a far larger and more complex greater London.

We can see today how some of the ideas from the plan have been implemented. The plan makes a comparison between the north and south banks of the river in central London, with well designed offices, government buildings and a fine Embankment with trees and gardens on the north, whilst on the south bank there was a confusion of warehouses, slums and derelict streets, which had been made worse since the Blitz. The plan identified the south bank of the river as an ideal opportunity to develop a new river frontage, worthy of London.

The intention with bombed, industrialised areas such as Stepney, was to transform them into new “social units” or neighbourhoods, each with a population of between 6,000 and 10,000, and having a school, local shopping centre, medical facilities and with housing provided by a mix of terrace housing, each with a garden, and blocks of flats built within landscaped grounds.

Industry and commerce would be moved to the boundaries of neighbourhoods, rather than being mixed in with housing, and main roads would also be at the edge to avoid through traffic.

An early example of the concept that today seems to have attracted the name of the 15 minute city.

The film has some wonderful quotes, for example the following from Patrick Abercrombie:

“There must be change, always change, as one season, or one generation, follows another”.

This quote sums up London’s history. A city that has always changed, adapted and evolved, but the problem with change is that it raises questions about what we keep and what we get rid of to continue that change.

You can see these issues play out every day, with a few current examples being the M&S building in Oxford Street, proposed redevelopment of Liverpool Street Station, the new buildings on the site of the London Weekend Television building on the Southbank, and the potential demolition of Bastion House on London Wall, along with the adjacent, old Museum of London site (both by the architects Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, who also worked on the 1951 Festival of Britain and designed the magnificent Skylon).

The Port of London

A film by British Pathe and British Instructional Films Ltd and headlines as a Classroom film. The film shows the workings of the London Docks. It starts off slowly, whilst working through a map showing the location of all the docks from Tilbury to St. Katherine, and then shows the docks in operation:

British Instructional Films Ltd were primarily a documentary film maker, founded in 1919 by Harry Bruce Woolfe. The subject of these films ranged from the re-enactment of military engagements through to a long running Secrets of Nature series, which included painstaking studio and laboratory work, as well as filming out in the field.

A common thread running through the films produced by the company was patriotism and Empire.

The company suffered financially during the late 1920s and early 1930s and became part of the Pathe company, who continued to use the brand name of British Instructional Films for their educational films, as with the film Port of London.

The City of London – Reel 1

Part one of a film from 1951 showing the City of London in operation – the Stock Exchange, Baltic Exchange, Lloyds of London etc.

The City of London – Reel 2

The second part of the film, which focuses on the ceremonial and crafts aspects of the City of London.

Both films show a very different City of London to the City of today, including a City where men are in all of the roles of any consequence in the City:

Barbican, 1969: The development of the Barbican Estate following World War II

This is a wonderful film in “Technicolour” that covers not just the development of the Barbican Estate, but includes many other aspects of London. The views of the estate being built, alongside views of what was there before help illustrate what a transformational housing project the Barbican was for the City of London:

The film includes a brilliant few minutes of people looking round one of the show flats which have been furnished in a very modern, late 1960s style, with emphasis on the kitchens, bathrooms, and how the flats have been designed to maximise views through the windows, sunlight, sound proofing etc.

The Living City

The film The Living City was made in 1970 for the City of London Corporation. The film starts with views of the fires started by incendiary bombing on the night of the 29th December 1940, and then goes on to tell of the reconstruction of the City, the institutions and businesses that make the City the main centre for global trade, finance and insurance, and how the City is being rebuilt, including some film of the Pedways:

It is interesting to compare the City of London in 1970 with the City of today. The film talks about Cheapside being the main shopping street of the City and a “seething confluence of seven major thoroughfares” between the Bank junction and St. Paul’s. The film shows the amount of traffic along streets such as Cheapside and across the Bank junction, and this is one of the things about the City that I struggle with today.

Despite the air being much cleaner and healthier, the City just seems to have lost a sense of human activity, of being an exceptionally busy, exciting place, and across the whole film we can see the sheer diversity of activities that went on within the City of London.

There is film of the markets at Billingsgate, Spitalfields and Smithfield, and somewhat ironically given the City of London Corporation’s plan to close the Smithfield meat market, the film talks about the “City’s determination to keep the wholesale markets”.

There have though been some positive changes in the 74 years since the film, the fur market in Beaver House of the Hudson Bay Company no longer operates, and ivory is not stored and traded in the Port of London Authority warehouse in Cutler Street.

The danger with changes such as the closure of Smithfield is that the City of London gradually looses all the things that have made the City such an important place for many hundreds of years, and the square mile looses its identity and ends up much like many other places in central London where expensive apartments, hotels and places to attract visitors and tourists become the primary drivers of redevelopment.

The Changing Face of London

The Changing Face of London from 1960 is also about change, starting with scenes of demolition and the ruined buildings across the city, then focussing on redevelopment and potential plans for the city.

The models shown for large site redevelopment and also for individual buildings are fascinating, but thankfully some of these schemes did not get built.

If you have been on my Barbican walk, at 17 minutes and 19 seconds into the film, there is a view of the new section of London Wall that had been opened in the previous year (1959), and to the left you can see the church of St. Alphage, which was later demolished to just the medieval remains we can see next to London Wall today, and to the left there is Roman House, the white office block that was the first post war building constructed in the area, and about the only one of the buildings in the scene that remains to this day.

The Pedway: Elevating London

The Pedway was one of the ideas coming from wartime plans for post-war redevelopment of the City of London, where pedestrians would be separated from road traffic on raised pedestrian ways, and the redevelopment of London Wall resulted in one of the areas where Pedways were extensively used across a wide area.

The concept was not only to separate pedestrians from traffic, but also to provide on the Pedway, the shops, pubs, restaurants and other services that would have normally be found at street level.

This 2013 documentary tells the story of the Pedway, along with the associated redevelopment of much of the City of London:

The original Pedways have all but disappeared in the development of the last few decades, however elevated walkways are still the main method of walking through the Barbican estate, and there has been a reconstruction of a Pedway (but without shops, pubs etc.) in the area to the north of London Wall, around the remains of St. Alphage.

This Is London – 1981

This film is more a tourist overview of London, but is interesting as it shows the city at the start of the 1980s, when London was still a very low rise city.

At 55 seconds into the film, there is a wonderful bit of film of a hovercraft on the Thames and passing under Tower Bridge:

Bob Hoskins: London is being “Sterilised by greed” 

This is another absolute classic, with the actor Bob Hoskins showing Barry Norman around parts of the south London riverside from Coin Street on the Southbank down to Shad Thames, and whilst some of the developments he talks about did not get carried out, many did, and his core argument is the same today as it was in 1982:

The future’s up for grabs – GLC Docklands

Where the Bob Hoskins film talks about the derelict buildings along the river, and the preference of developers for offices over houses, the following film explores the impact on those who lived around the large expanses of old docks that were “up for grabs”.

There are lots of interviews with those who live in the area. Young people who complain about the lack of facilities and how far they have to travel for school, older people who talk about what the docks were like when working, talk about some of the new developments and the physical separation of council and private housing etc.

Many of these issues are still just as relevant, and the area around the Royal Docks shown in parts of the film are still being developed today, and from my walks around the area, there still seems to be very few facilities for those living in the new apartment blocks.

River Cruise Down The Thames

This is a GLC film, aimed mainly at visitors to the City, but the film also highlights the benefits that the GLC has brought to the city (the film ends with the slogan “keep GLC working for London” as the film was made when the Conservative government was arguing for the abolition of the GLC).

The film runs from Hampton Court, Twickenham and Kew, down to Greenwich and the recently completed Thames Barrier:

Film 87 – How Docklands became Vietnam

The closure of the London docks offered producers of film and TV programmes so many opportunities with large areas of derelict land and buildings available.

Much of Bob Hoskin’s film The Long Good Friday was filmed in and around docklands, and this extract from Film 87 shows how Beckton Gas Works were transformed into Vietnam for Stanley Kubrick’s film Full Metal Jacket:

It is worth watching just for Barry Norman’s description of yuppies at the beginning of the film.

The following links are to films held by the British Film Institute. Unfortunately, unlike YouTube, the BFI does not appear to have a player that can be embedded in a WordPress site, so the links take you to the BFI website.

Barbican Regained

The film covers the area that would become the Barbican, but also takes a look at the rest of the City:

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-barbican-regained-1963-online

Many of the views of the area that would become the Barbican are in colour, and in one section of the film, when the camera is panning across the Barbican, at 10 minutes 52 seconds, there is a view that is almost identical to that taken by my father around 16 years earlier. See the post on the Cripplegate Institute and Jewin Crescent, and photo at this link to compare, and the comparison shows how little had changed during the whole of the 1950s.

A Day in London

This film from 1920 starts from Victoria Station and then travels across London, visiting the main landmarks that a visitor to the city would have been expected to visit:

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-a-day-in-london-1920-online

The majority of the landmarks are much the same today as they were in 1920. What has changed are the people, cars and buses, and the fact that in 1920 Downing Street was just a normal London street that happened to have the official home of the Prime Minister. A reminder that one of the many factors to have changed London over recent years has been terrorism with Downing Street now looking like a fortified street, London’s bridges having barriers between road and footpaths etc.

Barbican Phoenix

Barbican Phoenix is yet another film on the redevelopment of the area around London Wall and the Barbican:

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-barbican-phoenix-1961-online

What interests me about these films is that they include scenes that are very similar to the photos taken by my father, and at 1 minutes, 36 seconds into Barbican Phoenix there is a view of the Red Cross Street fire station and church of St. Giles Cripplegate that are also featured in my father’s photo in the post at this link.

A small selection of films that show how London has changed over the past 100 years, and how London has continued to evolve to meet challenges and opportunities.

One of many themes from these films is the sheer diversity of activities there were in London, and my concern is that in many ways it is becoming a less diverse city, and risks ending up as a tourist attraction rather than a living and working city.

I think sometimes we focus too much on the physical aspects of the city, preservation of buildings etc. Whilst it is important that we preserve key buildings and significant architecture, that we build more homes etc. my personal view is that the far more important question is what do we want the city to become – probably a question that is impossible to answer.

alondoninheritance.com

A Christmas Book – London after Dark by Fabian of the Yard

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London after Dark by Fabian of the Yard is not really a Christmas book. I have added the Christmas reference to the title of this Christmas Day post for a special reason.

My father had a large collection of books about London, and reading many of these at a young age was probably one of the factors that helped grow my interest in the city.

On the inside page, he frequently wrote the date of purchase, where purchased, and if a present, who gave it to him (often written by the person who gave it). A bit of a tradition that I have carried on to this day, as surprisingly, I am often given London books as Christmas presents.

London after Dark was a present to him, confirmed by the note and date on the front page of Christmas 1954 – Christmas 70 years ago today.

Fabian of the Yard was ex-Detective Superintendent Robert Fabian, whose first book, simply titled “Fabian of the Yard” had been a best seller and was described in newspaper reviews as “the best detective autobiography ever written”. This is the cover of London after Dark:

The author biography on the inside cover reads: “Fabian began as an ordinary constable walking the regulation 2.5 m.p.h. on the beat, and worked his way up through all the grades of the C.I.D.

Few men understand the workings of the criminal better than Bob Fabian; from his earliest days as a probationer detective in Soho he made a point of frequenting the cafes and dives to which hardened old lags tend to return, and from them he learned a strange kind of loyalty which on more than one occasion helped to solve a difficult case.

But the Underworld also knew that when Fabian was roused it faced an enemy whose pursuit would be relentless and whose brain could outwit the most cunning.”

The caption to the following photo reads “I spend much of my time wandering round odd spots in London”:

London after Dark covers the period when Fabian was head of the Vice Squad, and in the book he gives “vivid descriptions of dope, prostitution, blackmail, low night-clubs and all that goes with the murky side of London after Dark“, and that “he eschews sensationalism and deals with them as human problems for which it seems we are all responsible” – I did say it is not really a Christmas book.

“Night closes over London, and under the light of a lamp, two people meet”:

A selection of chapter headings helps provide an idea of the contents:

  • London’s Night Clubs
  • Dope – A Traffic in Damnation
  • Sex and Crime in London
  • The Street Girls of Soho
  • The Master Minds of Crime
  • The Men of Violence
  • London’s Cocktail Girls
  • West End Hotel Undesirables
  • The Blitz Site Murder
  • The Constable Who Noticed Something
  • The Killer Left a Thread

“Drama or romance?”:

The book is a fascinating, very descriptive read of crime in London during Fabian’s police career, up to his retirement in 1949.

There is an interesting chapter on the role of the pub in London night life, and the pubs of Soho (or the “square mile of vice” as Fabian describes the area), were places where anything could happen.

To try and maintain order within the pubs of Soho, Fabian included a list of “thou-shall-nots” as a guide for the Soho publican:

  • Allow betting in the pub. This is very strictly enforced and a publican can very soon lose his licence if he allows any laxity in this rule.
  • Allow billiards on Sunday. The reason for this is not obvious as it cannot be more wicked to play the game on Sunday than any other day of the week. It is probably a survival of a strict Sabbatarian approach to the Lord’s Day, and, like so many similar rules and regulations, awaits the hand of the reformer.
  • Allow the pub to be used as a brothel. This is the most important rule as there was a time within living memory when certain pubs were used for immoral purposes, and quite unfit places to take one’s female relations or friends.
  • Serve liquor to policemen while on duty. Hard luck on a thirsty policeman, maybe, but a very wise precaution.
  • Allow drunkenness, violent, quarrelsome or riotous conduct to take place on his premises. I am not going to pretend that there is no drunkenness in pubs today – there is – but compared with my young days, it is no longer a serious social problem. I well remember the average Saturday night on the beat when the paths were strewn with drunks of both sexes. Fights were a regular feature, and it was quite common to see two women surrounded by a crowd tearing at each other’s hair and screaming. Not a pretty sight, I can assure you.
  • Harbour thieves or reputed thieves, policemen on duty or prostitutes. A pub is a natural meeting-place, and a publican has to be especially careful to ensure that his premises are not used for criminal purposes or soliciting by males or females.

“Outside a London pub, ‘hot dogs’ find ready customers”:

“For those who prefer a restaurant, Soho provides for every taste”:

The book is very much of it’s time. The language used to describe sections of the community in Soho is not what we would use today, and the attitude to what were crimes at the time (such as homosexuality) is appalling.

The book describes a Soho (with some diversions to other parts of London as well as some serious crimes across the country) that was over 75 years ago and for the most part is unrecognisable today.

I am not in favour of cancelling books and authors from when attitudes were so very different. They are important in understanding how attitudes have evolved, how London was at various points in history, and how attitudes, places and communities continually change.

Too often we look back on a sanitised view of the past – a golden era when compared to the present time, and an understanding that the past was just a flawed as today is important.

Someone looking back on London in 75 years time will probably be just as critical.

“For some, life begins after dark”:

“A friendly chart with Roy Birchenough at his club”:

Roy Birchenough, on the left in the above photo, seems to have come to the notice of the police on a number of occasions. The following news’s report from the Sunday Express on the 31st of July, 1932 is a typical example:

“VORTEX STRUCK OFF. CLUB STARTED BY TRAGIC VISCOUNTESS. The Vortex Club, Denman Street, Piccadilly, which was started by Eleanor Viscountess Torrington a fortnight before she was found dead from gas poisoning last December, was struck off the register by Mr. Mead at Marlborough Street yesterday.

The new proprietor, Harry Shine was fined £130, and the secretary, Roy Birchenough was fined £120 for selling drinks without a licence during prohibited hours and on credit.

These disreputable clubs necessitate constables having to visit them and drink which is undesirable but necessary, declared Mr. Mead.”

The fine detailed above did not change Roy Birchenough’s approach to keeping a club, as he was fined a number of times during the 1930s, and in 1939, he received a “sentence of one month’s imprisonment was passed at Bow Street on Roy Birchenough, of Norfolk Place, London, W., for selling liquor at Chumleigh’s bottle party, Regent Street, London. He was fined £60 for keeping the premises for public dancing without a licence.”

“Piccadilly Circus, where the pulsing heat of London is most truly felt”:

The big problem for the Vice Squad in Soho in the 1930s and 1940s was drugs, and London’s black market drugs included heroin, cocaine, morphine, pethidine, with the main problem drugs being opium and marijuana, and during a five year period, prosecutions for marijuana increased by 2,100 per cent.

Charing Cross Road was a particular problem area, and it was where “young gangsters use it to get courage. Girls are betrayed by it. It is the easiest, newest weapon of the West End ponce”.

Fabian describes a raid at the Paramount Dance Hall in Tottenham Court Road, where eight men were arrested – one so drug crazed that he attacked the police.

The Paramount Dance Hall and the Club Eleven were both closed by the police. Another closure was the A to Z Dance Club in Gerard Street after a raid by twenty five police officers.

“The lights of Leicester Square act as a magnate to Londoners and visitors from overseas”;

A read of “London after Dark” by “Fabian of the Yard” provides a whole new perspective for when you walk the streets of Soho. A very different place today, but a place that is in danger of changing from the area described in the book to a very sanitised, corporate space that removes almost everything that has made Soho such a unique area of London.

And with that, can I wish you a very happy Christmas, however (or not) you are celebrating, and if you get any books as presents this Christmas, write the date inside, along with who gave it to you (or better still get the giver to write) – a simple message to the future.

alondoninheritance.com

York Buildings Stairs and the Watergate

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The following photo is from the 1890s book, “The Queen’s London”, and shows the Water Gate between Buckingham Street and the Embankment Gardens:

The caption underneath the photo reads: “In a corner of the public gardens on the Victoria Embankment, at the foot of Buckingham Street, is the ancient Water Gate to York House, a mansion begun by Inigo Jones for the first Duke of Buckingham. It is a beautiful monument of the famous architect’s skill, and can challenge comparison with similar work by any of the Italian masters. The old Water Gate is the earliest ornamental archway in London. It is interesting, moreover, as showing the former level of the Thames. This part of town was a very different place once, when the nobles fancied it for their mansions, or even prior to the making of the Embankment, when it was regularly lapped by the tide.”

The above description, written around 130 years ago applies equally today, and the Water Gate has been a regular feature in books that covered the key features of the city at the time of publication, and the Water Gate made another appearance in the 1920s volumes of “Wonderful London”:

Apart from the architecture, the really fascinating thing about the Water Gate is that it shows how much of the Thames was taken up by the construction of the Embankment, and with a walk up Buckingham Street, it demonstrates the topography of the area, and how we can still see the relatively steep descent from the Strand down to the foreshore of the river.

Rocque’s 1746 map shows the Water Gate and surrounding streets as they were in the middle of the 18th century. They are shown in the following extract, in the middle of the map, where the Water Gate is part of York Buildings Stairs:

The map shows that the Water Gate faced directly onto the Thames foreshore, and whilst the Water Gate was an unusual feature for Thames Stairs, York Buildings Stairs were just another of the Thames Stairs that lined the river, and looking along the river in 1746, we can see other stairs. Salisbury Stairs, Ivy Bridge, Black Lyon Stairs and Hungerford Stairs, all lost with the construction of the Embankment.

The Embankment was built between the mid 1860s and the early 1870s (there are various dates either side of these dates, dependent on exactly what start and completion meant), and around 15 years before the start of construction, John Wykeham Archer created the following water colour of the Water Gate:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

The Thames was much wider before the construction of the Embankment, and the foreshore would have been a much shallower slope down to the centre of the river.

The above image shows grass growing across part of the foreshore, and a sunken boat to the right.

The sunken boat must have been just one of thousands of old wooden boats that were abandoned on the river and gradually decayed, sank, and became part of the river’s story. This has been happening from at least the Roman period, and on the southern side of the river, a Roman boat was discovered when excavating the ground ready for the build of County Hall.

I wrote about the County Hall Roman boat in this post, and it again illustrates how much wider the river once was, on both northern and southern sides of the Thames.

Also in the above image, there is a brick wall along the back of the Water Gate. Whilst this may have been to keep back very high tides on the river, its primary purpose seems to have been to create a terrace along the side of the river, as the street was called Terrace Walk.

In the 1746 map, the stairs are called York Buildings Stairs, and this name tells of the building that the Water Gate was once part of, and that once occupied the streets behind the Water Gate in the 1746 map.

The building was York House, shown in the following print, with the Water Gate shown with steps down to the river:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

The building that would eventually become known as York House was built around 1237 for the Bishops of Norwich, and was then known as Norwich Place. This was the time when Bishops from around the country had a London town house as a London base, to be near the Royal Court, in which to entertain etc. (for another example, see my post on Winchester Palace).

The Bishops of Norwich maintained ownership of the house until Henry VIII gave the house to the Duke of Suffolk in 1536, granting the Bishop a smaller house in Cannon Row, Westminster.

Mary I then took the house and gave it to the Arch Bishop of York, and this is when the house took the name of York House. From then on, the house went through a series of owners who seem to have gained or lost possession of the house at the whim of Royal favour.

The Water Gate dates from George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham’s ownership of the house, when he carried out extensive repairs and had the Water Gate built in around 1626.

The caption to the photo from the Queen’s London at the top of the post, attributes the repairs and the Water Gate to Inigo Jones, however there is doubt about this and the Historic England listing for the Water Gate (Grade I) states that it was “executed by Nicholas Stone but the design also attributed to Sir Balthazar Gerbier”, and that the alterations to York House carried out at the same time were also by Gerbier, rather than Jones.

The Water Gate and stairs down to the river would have provided a private landing place, enabling the occupants of York House to take a boat along the river, or to return home, without having to use the streets, or a public landing place. The Water Gate would also have stood out along the north bank of the river, and would have been a statement, and an impressive place for visitors to arrive.

York House was demolished in the 1670s, with only the Water Gate surviving. The land behind was developed by Nicholas Barbon into the network of streets we see today.

George Villiers, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham imposed a rather unusual condition on the redevelopment, in that the streets that were to be built spelled out his full title, so if we go back to Rocque’s 1746 map, we can see his full title, including the “of” with Of Alley. I have numbered the street in the order in which they appear in his full title:

Only part of the Duke’s title remains today. Duke Street is now John Adam Street, George Street is now York Buildings, and part of Of Alley has been lost under the development of the land between John Adam Street and the Strand with only half remaining now as York Place. All as shown in the following map (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

The Water Gate today:

The Water Gate lost its connection with the River Thames with the construction of the Embankment between the mid 1860s and the early 1870s. This created the roadway, the Victoria Embankment, walkway along the river, with large retaining walls along the river.

Between the Victoria Embankment and the Water Gate are Embankment Gardens, and part of the gardens and Victoria Embankment are built over what is now the Circle and District Line, along with the sewage system designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette, which was much needed to avoid sewage being discharged directly into the Thames.

The Water Gate is now a considerable distance from the river, and if the distance measure feature on Google maps is accurate, the Water Gate is now 129 metres from the river – a distance which shows the considerable size of the construction work that formed the gardens and Victoria Embankment.

After the construction of the Victoria Embankment, and the gardens, there was concern about the future of the Water Gate, which by the end of the 1870s was in a very poor state, and in urgent need of restoration.

There were also proposals that the Water Gate should also be moved to sit on the new Embankment wall, facing onto the river. Whilst this would have continued the gate’s original purpose, it would have been completely out of context, and there was no need for such a water gate onto the river as using a waterman to row you along the river was by the late 19th century a redundant mode of travel.

Building News of November 1879 covered the issues with, and proposals for the Water Gate:

“The Metropolitan Board of Works have at last turned their attention to the deplorable condition of York Stairs, or Buckingham Gate, as it is sometimes called, now half buried in the newly made slopes of the Embankment-gardens.

Designed to face with its best aspect the fashionable highway of the day – the river, the building became almost forgotten when that time passed away, until the Embankment again brought the public to its proper front. It is undoubtably a relic worth preserving on account of its artistic merits, independent of the historic interest attached to it.

We wait with interest to learn of the Metropolitan Board of Works with regard to its ‘restoration’. It is hoped that better judgement will be exercised by that practical body than has been in some similar instances.

There can be little question that to allow it to retain its original site must be the best plan. Under some circumstances it might be desirable that such a structure should follow the retreated river margin; but the lines of the modern Embankment, however beautiful in themselves, would be utterly discordant with the old-style water gate. And again, the river is no longer the highway from which the majority of people view our public buildings.

We are glad to see that something is to be done. As we pointed out in a former number, it is quite time the neglected ornament was reinstated to a position of the dignity it deserves.”

One of the proposals for the water gate, to reunite it with the river whilst maintain it in its original position, was to run a pipe from the river, under the Embankment, over the rail tracks of the new cut and cover railway, and to a large pond around the water gate.

This would bring river water to fill the pond, and the construction of the sewer under the new Embankment was expected to ensure that the river water would now be clean. This proposal did not get carried out.

Rather the water gate was restored, and the surroundings of the water gate landscaped, to bring it to a similar state that we see today. The work was carried out by the London County Council (who took over the responsibilities of the Metropolitan Board of Works), and completed in the early 1890s.

A look behind the water gate, and we can start to see the difference in land levels, with steps up to the southern end of Buckingham Street:

In the above photo the railings and steps are all Grade II listed, and are described as “Mid C.18. Cast iron and Portland stone”.

What was Terrace Walk in 1746 is now Watergate Walk, here looking to the west, and steps up to Villiers Street:

And to the east towards York Buildings:

The rear of the Water Gate:

The rear of the Water Gate in 1862, as painted by John Wykeham Archer in 1862, just before the construction of the Victoria Embankment and gardens:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Buckingham Street is one of those London streets where the majority of the buildings that line the street have listed status.

In the photo below, the end of terrace building is a 1679-80 town house, built as part of Barbon’s development of the area. It was somewhat rebuilt later in the 17th, and again in the 18th centuries:

A plaque on the building states that Samuel Pepys lived in a house on the site, which must have been the original Barbon development:

Next to the houses in the photo above, is the house shown in the photo below, Grade I listed, with the listing dating it as “c.1676-77 with early C.19 and later alterations”, and as being again part of Barbon’s development of the land formerly occupied by York House:

This house also has a plaque claiming Samuel Pepys as a resident, and it appears he lived in the house between 1679 and 1688, when he stayed with William Hewer and that the house was partly in use as the Admiralty Office:

Looking up the full length of Buckingham Street, we can see the way the land gradually rises in height, up to the rear of the building at the very far end, which has a frontage onto the Strand:

One of the very few buildings on Buckingham Street which is not listed, is this building on the south east corner of the street:

The building that was originally on the site was once the home of William Smith – the father of English Geology:

The rear of the water gate from the southern end of Buckingham Street, which again shows the height difference between the street and the gate:

Another house from Barbon’s development of the area. Grade II* listed as a terraced town house, and dating from between 1675 and 1676:

As we approach the northern end of Buckingham Street, where John Adam Street crosses, we can better see the height difference with the rear of the building at the far end, which has a frontage on the Strand. Steps run up from John Adam Street, and the remaining section of the now renamed Of Alley is at the top of the stairs:

One of the interesting aspects of walking the streets between the Strand and the Embankment is the wide variety of architectural styles we can find. The result of the redevelopment of small plots of land over the centuries.

On the corner of Buckingham Street and John Adams Street is the following Grade II listed corner house and office, built around 1860 by R. P. Pullan:

Walking back to the Embankment Gardens, and this is the view towards the west. The Water Gate can be seen lurking low down on the right:

The above view shows just how much the area in front of the Water Gate has changed.

For roughly the first 240 years of the water gate’s existence, it was looking out directly onto the River Thames, and was used as a placed where people could catch a boat to travel across or along the river.

For the last 155 years, the Water Gate has lost contact with the river, now 129 metres to the south, and it looks out across a very different view.

The York Buildings Stairs / Water Gate are also another example of how we have significantly reduced the width of the River Thames over the centuries, and how the river now runs in a channel, rather than a river with a gradually descending and wider foreshore.

For more on this area, you may also be interested in my post on the Embankment Gardens Art Exhibition and the Adelphi.

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The Eagle’s Nest and Monmouth

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Long term readers will be aware, that as well as taking photos of London, my father also took photos around the country in the late 1940s / early 1950s during National Service and then cycling with friends and staying in Youth Hostels.

For this week’s post I am visiting two of these locations, the wonderfully named Eagle’s Nest followed by the town of Monmouth.

I have been saving this post until the gloomy days of December, as we approach the shortest day of sunlight of the year, as a reminder of the weather and long days of summer.

The Eagle’s Nest

The following is the first of my father’s photos taken from the Eagle’s Nest, a view point looking over the lower Wye Valley with the River Wye in the foreground and the River Severn in the background:

I visited the Eagle’s Nest a few months ago, on a warm September day, and the following photo is looking at the same view as my father’s photo, 76 years later:

The location of the Eagle’s Nest is in south east Wales, very close to the border with England, so close that the border runs along the middle of the River Wye, so in the above photo, the fields in the centre left are in England, the wooded banks on the right are in Wales.

In the following map I have marked the location of the Eagle’s Nest with a red circle, and ringed the town of Monmouth, which I will come to later in the post, with the dark blue circle:

The River Severn is the large body of water from bottom centre up to top right. The Eagle’s Next overlooks the River Wye, which can just be seen in the above map, threading up from where it meets the Severn, just past Chepstow in the south of the map.

The following extract shows the Eagle’s Nest circled, with the loop of the River Wye:

The Eagle’s Nest is reached by one of two paths through the surrounding woodland. One is a steep ascent via 365 steps, the other is a more gentle route, and together they form a loop via a car park next to the road at the bottom of the wooded sides to the river.

The path up through the woods:

Which is well signposted:

The view is the result of the River Wye cutting through limestone over very many thousands of years, leaving limestone cliffs on either side with the river in a valley or gouge.

The Eagle’s Nest is the name given to the viewpoint which was built in 1828 as part of the walks around the Duke of Beaufort’s nearby Piercefield estate. The name is appropriate as it is easy to imagine eagles nesting in the limestone cliffs and flying out over the Wye, hunting for food. 

It was built on the Monmouthshire bank of the Wye, and at a height of 771 feet, it offers a wonderful view of the bend in the river, to the south and east, and across to the River Severn.

The Eagle’s Nest viewing point, built on the side of the cliff, with railings and a run of seats, as shown in the following photo:

The way a tree at the end of the row of seats has weaved its way around the wall gives some indication of the age of the view point:

This is the second of the two photos taken by my father in 1948, and is looking slightly to the left / east of the first photo, and shows the flat area of land circled by the River Wye. In the background is the River Severn, and to the upper left, the limestone cliffs of the gouge created by the river, can be seen:

The same view in 2024:

In the upper left of the above photo, the limestone cliffs that form the sides to the route of the River Wye can be seen. The following photo shows a closer view of these cliffs:

There seem to be a number of theories as to how the gouge through which the River Wye flows, was formed, but their common factor is the Wye gradually eroding through upper layers (possibily sedimentary layers that covered the area), then down through the limestone below.

It could also have been due to erosion by glacial melt water flowing along the route of the future River Wye.

Whatever the exact geological process that formed the area, it has left behind a very impressive landscape.

The River Severn flows in the background of the 1948 and 2024 photos, and there are a couple of key features today, which were not there in 1948.

At that time, a ferry provided a crossing of the River Severn, however with post-war rising traffic volumes, a ferry would not last for long as a feasible option.

The need for a bridge was being argued from the 1920s, and finally was justified and funded, with construction started in 1961, with the second Bridge opening in 1963.

From the Eagle’s Nest, we can see the original Severn Bridge in the distance:

The Severn Bridge was a considerable success, and traffic using the bridge increased rapidly in the decades after opening, so much so, that it was expected that the bridge would be running at full capacity by the mid 1990s.

The answer was a second bridge, and in 1992 construction started, with the bridge opening in 1996, and named the Prince of Wales Bridge with the Prince also performing the opening ceremony.

The Prince of Wales Bridge can be seen in the following photo:

Both bridges were originally toll bridges, however at the end of 2018, tolls for both bridges were removed, and they are now free to cross.

The Eagle’s Nest has been a viewing point for almost 200 years, and changes to the route of the Wye will take centuries as the river naturally changes over time.

I assume that the land in the middle as the river curves around the inside of the cliffs, is mainly soil / mud and possibly sediment deposited over the centuries as the river occasionally floods.

There is one feature in my father;s photos that I assumed would not have survived in the following 76 years. The following photo is an extract from the photo at the top of the post, and shows a small area of land that has fallen into, or been eroded by the river:

The feature is still there, in what appears to be exactly the same shape:

The level of the mud in 2024 seems higher than in 1948, so perhaps mud is gradually being deposited in the breach, and over the following decades it will disappear and the original line of the river bank restored.

The view from the Eagle’s Nest is stunning, even more so after a walk up through the woods where there is no indication of the view, until you get to a few stairs down through the trees to the viewing platform – it is well worth a visit.

After an uninterrupted 20 minutes looking over the River Wye, we then left for the next destination of:

Monmouth

Monmouth is a wonderful Welsh town, just a couple of miles inside the border and surrounded by a stunning landscape.

The book “Where Wye and Severn Flow” by W.J. Smart (1949) provides the following description of the town and the surrounding countryside:

“It is literally true that five minutes walk from the centre of this ancient town of Monmouth and you are in the corn fields. The same number of minutes will take you over the Wye Bridge to the foot of the Kymin – a wooded hill which rises to seven hundred feet above sea level – or over the Trothy Bridge where you may begin the thousand-feet ascent up the winding road to the Trellech Plateau. If you are here in the springtime, you will find the winding, woodland paths on the Buckholt, fifteen minutes walk from the town, lined with bluebells and foxgloves; in the summertime, you will find boating on the river from Wye Bridge to Symonds Yat; in the autumn you will see the hills on every side aflame with colour.

Monmouth is thus at the bottom of a basin with highlands rising all around it. It is surrounded by three rivers – the Wye, the Trothy and the Monnow. Its natural scenery is unspoilt and probably unchanged since the days when Caractacus repulsed the Romans on the Little Doward, or when William Fitz Osbern, the chief military advisor to William the Conqueror, stablished Monmouth Castle to keep back the Welsh.”

The walks may be slightly longer these days to get to the surrounding countryside as there has been some development since the above was written, however the description of Monmouth at the bottom of a basin, the three rivers and the surrounding countryside is still just as valid.

The major change is probably the dual carriageway of the A40 which today runs between the town and the River Wye.

My father was cycling through Monmouth in the year before the book with the above description was published, and he took a couple of photos of one of the unique structures in Monmouth, the medieval bridge and gate tower at the entrance to the town over the River Monnow:

The following photo if from a slightly different angle, and through the main arch of the gate tower we can see Monnow Street – the main street through the town:

The same view in 2024 – seventy six years later:

In 1948, the bridge was the main route to the south and west of Monmouth, so as shown in my father’s photos, the route through the bridge was open, and there was a sign on the right indicating a 9ft 6 inches headroom, the height at the top of the straight side walls, below the arch at the top of the route through the gate.

A new bridge opened in 2004, a short distance to the east, and from then onwards, the Monnow Bridge has been closed closed to traffic.

The bridge and gate tower are Grade I listed. The bridge is believed to have been built in 1272, to replace a wooden bridge from the 1170s.

The bridge and gate house are not exactly as they were first built. The gate tower was modified in both the 18th and 19th centuries, starting in 1705 when it was converted to a two storey home, with included the removal of a battlemented parapet.

Monmouth did originally have stone defensive walls surrounding the town. The gatehouse was not part of this walls, but provided a stand alone structure to defend against anyone trying to cross the bridge into the town, and also as a toll house, generating revenue from those crossing the River Monnow to the town.

The width of the bridge was originally limited to just the road surface that we see today, but was widened in the early 19th century, to the width we see today. The passageway on the north side of the bridge was cut through the gate tower in 1819, with the southern passageway added in 1845.

The following print shows the road and bridge before these changes, with the central arch being the only access through the gate tower:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

The gate tower has been used for a range of purposes over the centuries, a gaol, toll house, guard room and for a short time as a residence.

The gate tower was often used for defensive purposes as Monmouth occupies a key geographical location, on the Welsh / English borders, as well as at crossing points over the Rivers Wye and Monnow.

The town saw frequent skirmishes during the various campaigns between the Barons and King Edward II in the 14th century. The town changed hands a couple of times during the English Civil War, and the last time that the gate tower was occupied by troops ready for the defence of Monmouth was during the Chartist risings in 1839.

Side view of the bridge and gate tower with the River Monnow flowing underneath:

A blue plaque for the Monnow Bridge which confirms that it is the only surviving medieval bridge and gate tower in Britain:

Monnow Bridge was the only means of access from the roads to the south of Monmouth, into the town, and from the bridge Monnow Street, which is effectively the high street, leads up through the town:

Looking at the map of listed buildings on the Cadw website shows that the majority of the buildings along Monnow Street are listed.

In the above photo, the Robin Hood Inn is on the corner, and is Grade II* listed. It is believed to be 16th century is origin, with the main internal features being 17th century.

The upstairs rooms of the building were used as a meeting place for Catholics before the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 removed the majority of the restrictions on the Roman Catholic faith.

The building in the photo below is the distinctive Cornwall House, one of the few buildings in Monnow Street that is set back from the street. The house is a 1752 rebuild of a 17th century house on the site, which had earlier been an inn:

Monmouth is the type of town where shops such as White Stuff and Café Nero occupy Grade II listed, 18th century buildings. The plaque on the upper floor at the centre of the building has the initials THE and the date of 1724:

The Shire Hall:

Monmouth was the county town for Monmouthshire until boundary and county changes in 1974. The Shire Hall was important in Monmouth’s role as a county town, with the County Court occupying the building from 1821.

The original Shire Hall was built in 1724, but has been much remodelled to accommodate the various functions which have occupied the building.

On the front of the Shire Hall is a statue of Henry V, who was born in Monmouth, according to the statue in 1387, however a different date in 1386 is frequently given for the date of his birth in Monmouth Castle. The statue is part of the overall Grade I listing of the Shire Hall and was added in 1792, being the work of Charles Peart:

Directly in front of the Shire Hall is a Grade II* listed statue of Charles Rolls (part founder of Rolls-Royce) who, although born in London, had strong connections to Monmouth, as he was the son of Lord Llangattock of “The Hendre”, a large Victorian county house close to Monmouth.

The statue was unveiled in 1911 following Rolls death in a flying accident at Bournemouth in 1910. The statue has Rolls looking at a model of the bi-plane he was flying at the time of his death:

Henry V was born in Monmouth Castle, however today there is not that much left of the structure. The following photo is looking at what remains of the Great Tower of the castle:

On the approach to the castle is the Grade I listed Great Castle House:

The original house, dating from 1673 is at the centre. The side wings were added in 1863.

The house was built by the Duke of Beaufort , and has been used as a residence by the Beaufort’s, an Assize Court prior to the construction of the Shire Hall, and as a girls school.

In 1852 Great Castle House became the headquarters of the Monmouthshire Militia, and has continued in having a military role as the building is now home to the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers, and their Regimental Museum occupies the block to the left, which is why there is an assembly of military equipment in front of the building, with the cannon seen to the right being captured at Sevastopol in 1855.

At the top of Monnow Street, Church Street runs off to the side. A narrow pedestrian, shop lined street, which leads as the name suggests, to the church. Every single building in the street is listed:

Not what you would perhaps expect to see in such a street, but along the street we find the Savoy Theatre, described in the Grade II* listing as a “rare and little altered example of a small cinema (600 seats) from the inter-War period in Wales, and as part of the continuous run of historic buildings in Church Street”. The cinema occupies a 19th century rebuild of a house dating from around 1700:

A final look down along Monnow Street, with the wooded hills in the distance, across the bridge and the River Monnow:

The viewing point at the Eagle’s Nest and the town of Monmouth are both wonderful places to explore, and both look glorious on a summer’s day, the type of day which seems a long way off whilst I am writing this post during days of cold, grey December weather.

You may also be interested in the following posts covering the area around the Wye Valley and Chepstow:

Chepstow And The River Wye

Tintern Abbey – Summer 1947 and 2019

National Service, Chepstow, 1947

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Thomas Linacre, Faraday, Gregory de Rokesley, Thanet House and John Wesley

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After a long series of posts exploring the Royal Docks and the area around north Woolwich, I am now back in the City of London, continuing my series of posts on the plaques that can be found across the city streets, and some of the history that they tell, starting with:

Thomas Linacre – Physician

The plaque for Thomas Linacre is in Knightrider Street, a section of which runs along the back of the Faraday Building in Queen Victoria Street. It is a strange street, as although there are no barriers, and it appears to be an ordinary public street, it is a private road, and there are orange signs on the walls at the entries to the street that advise it is a private road, and that unauthorised parking will be clamped.

I assume it is a private road due to the Faraday Building, and that there were once Post Office buildings on both sides of the street.

In the following photo, the Faraday Building is on the left, and you can see the plaque just by the start of the ramp up to one of the entrances to the building:

The plaque tells that the Physician, Thomas Linacre lived in a house of the site:

The years on the plaque cover the period from his birth until his death rather than the time he lived at the house on this site. I cannot find any firm reference to when he did live in Knightrider Street, and it is one of the interesting things about plaques in general. The plaque does not tell us how important the site was to Linacre. A short visit or a long life in Knightrider Street.

Linacre is believed to have been born in Canterbury in 1460 (as usual, there is a very small amount of doubt due to the distance of time, and the availability of written records from the time), but he did go to Christchurch, Canterbury, and followed this with university at Oxford, where in 1484 he was elected a fellow of All Souls’ college.

He travelled widely in Italy, Rome, Florence and Padua, where he obtained his Doctor of Medicine, which was confirmed when he returned to England, where he continued his stay in Oxford.

In 1501 he was appointed to the office of preceptor and physician to Prince Arthur, the eldest son of King Henry VII, and the next in line to the throne.

In 1501, at the age of 15, Prince Arthur married Catherine of Aragon, and soon after their marriage, the couple moved to Ludlow Castle. Not long after their arrival they both became ill with the “sweating sickness”. Catherine recovered, but Arthur died on the 2nd of April, 1502.

Henry VII’s second son, also a Henry, would then become next in line for the throne, and he would marry his elder brother’s widow. In 1509, Arthur’s younger brother would become Henry VIII – how history would have change if a 15 year old boy had not become ill and died.

How much responsibility Thomas Linacre had for the health of Prince Arthur is not clear, however his death does not seem to have done any damage to Linacre’s career, although after the death, Linacre does seem to have devoted his time to study and furthering his skills within his profession as a physician – perhaps he was keeping a low profile.

As well as medicine, Linacre also started on a course of study in theology, and was ordained as a priest, collecting a number of parishes across the country, far too widely distributed that he was able to serve as a local priest, and this was probably either for an income, or for a pension as he often resigned from the parish a short time after taking on the role.

In the early 16th century, the role of a physician and the practice of medicine was incredibly basic by today’s standards. During his time in Italy, Linacre had seen a more structed environment for the distribution of knowledge, and this led him to the founding of the Royal College of Physicians of London.

He had received royal approval for the new college through the granting of letters patent, however there was no money associated with royal support, and the costs of the college had to be covered by Linacre, and other associated with the college.

One way in which Linacre supported the new college was through the use of his home in Knightrider Street, where meetings of the college were held. Linacre gave his home to the college before his death, and the house was used as the meeting place for the Royal College of Surgeons all the way to 1860, when the site was taken over to become Her Majesty’s Court of Probate.

Again, it is strange what is not mentioned on these plaques, and for Thomas Linacre, there is no mention of his role in the founding of the Royal College of Physicians, or that the College held meetings at the house on the site for many years.

Thomas Linacre died in 1524, and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Thomas Linacre “from a very curious old drawing”:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Her Majesty’s Court of Probate was a short term replacement for Thomas Linacre’s old house, and the meeting place of the Royal College of Physicians, as this area was soon to be taken over by the new London Telephone Service, then the Post Office and now British Telecom.

Knightrider Street is an interesting street that has changed over the centuries. Taking over other streets, lengthening, then being chopped and shortened. I wrote a post a few years ago which included some of the history of Knightrider Street, which can be found here.

At the western end of Knightrider Street, Addle Hill runs north, and along this we find:

Faraday Building North – The home of multiple London telephone exchanges

The building on the right of the above photo is relatively new, however look along the ground floor of the building, and half way along, there is a strange architectural addition, the surround to an entrance to an earlier building on the site:

The VR in the rectangular panel above the entrance shows that this is a survivor from the reign of Queen Victoria, and the plaque to the left explains the origins of the feature:

That this was the former site of the north block of Faraday Building.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the rapid expansion of telephone services across London. These started out as a local service, then expanded national, and finally during the 20th century, international services.

Telephone services became an essential business tool for the financial, insurance and trading businesses that occupied the City.

Early technology for telephone services, which continued through most of the 20th century, required lots of space. All the cables that ran across the City to individual telephones needed to be terminated, the equipment that connected telephone to telephone needed space, which grew rapidly with the introduction of mechanical automated telephone switching equipment. Space was needed for the teams of operators who manually connected calls.

We can follow the expansion of the site through a couple of OS maps, and in the first from the 1890s, I have marked the buildings that at the time were labelled as the Controller’s Offices for London Telephone Services of the General Post Office. The site surrounded by the red lines is that of the building in Addle Street. In yellow is the building that was in the site of the current Faraday Building (Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

By the 1950s, the current Faraday Building along Victoria Street had been built, and the building on Addle Street had extended east, occupying the site of all the small buildings to the right of the red lined building in the above map, and had now become Faraday Building North, and confirmed by the blue plaque. and as shown in the following map:

As indicated by the plaque, the building was home to multiple different exchange systems supporting local traffic all the way to international traffic, as the Faraday Buildings were the hub of international cables, and the operator services that went with them.

Key telephone circuits were also routed via Faraday, including the hotline between Washington and Moscow. Space requirements continued to increase and more modern buildings were required to house new technology and during the early 1980s, Baynard House was built to the south of Queen Victoria Street.

As the technology serving telephone services continued to evolve, automated switching become standard, removing the need for space for operators. Electromechanical switching was replaced by computer controlled switching, again removing the need for large amounts of space.

These changes meant that space requirements for telephone services reduced considerably, and telephone services consolidated to the main Faraday Building and Baynard House on Queen Victoria Street, and in 1982, the old building on Addle Hill was vacated, however the surrounds to the entrance to the building were retained, and now add some interest to the building on the site today, that, along with the plaque, inform that this area was once a central hub of telephone services that connected the City of London to the country, and the rest of the world.

A few years ago, I wrote a post on the Faraday Building in Queen Victoria Street, and the comments to the post are brilliant, as there are many from those who worked across the Faraday Building complex. The post can be found here.

Gregory de Rokesley – Eight Times Mayor of London

The next plaque can be found in Lombard Street, towards the junction with King William Street. In the following photo, there are three people to the right of the grey van. look between the front two, and a blue plaque can just be seen:

The plaque informs that Gregory de Rokesley, who was eight times Mayor of London lived in a house on the site:

Gregory de Rokesley, or Gregory of Ruxley, took his name from Ruxley in north Kent; to the south east, and now almost a suburb of Sidcup.

As with so many others who were part of the governance of the City of London, Rokesley was a highly successful merchant, trading in a wide variety of goods, including wine, corn and wool. He also supplied the Royal Court with goods, and to indicate the wealth that he had accumulated, in 1290 he lent the King a sum of £1,000. A huge sum in the 13th century.

His first steps into the management of the City were as a sheriff between 1263 and 1264. This was followed by becoming an Alderman of Dowgate ward, and then between 1274 and 1281, he held the position of Mayor of London.

During his first period as Mayor, he did undertake actions to improve the governance of the city, improve the hygiene of the city by employing what were described as a corps of scavengers to remove waste from the city streets, however his efforts in maintaining law and order in the city were not that effective, with rising crime rates, and he consequently lost the position of Mayor in 1281.

His successor, Henry le Waleys, proved equally unpopular, and in 1284 Rokesley was again elected as Mayor, although this time he only last until the following year.

His downfall again was law and order, and in 1285, King Edward I set up a commission to examine lawlessness across the city.

Edward I also allowed the Canons of St. Paul’s Cathedral to enclose the site of the old folkmoot, just to the north east of the cathedral due to the trouble caused by those who used the site (the Folkmoot was one of the Anglo Saxon methods of governance and was a meeting place of the free population of London in order to make decisions on important issues of the time. It was held three times a year at Midsummer, Michaelmas and Christmas.

By the end of the 13th century, the Folkmoot as a method of governance was becoming redundant, and the space appears to have been used by those described as “evil-doers”, hence the justification for the closure, however enclosure of the space, as well as setting up a commission to look at lawlessness in the city was seen by the inhabitants as an attack on the city’s special liberties, and Rokesley was blamed for not defending these liberties from the King’s attentions, so, for the second and final time, he lost the position of Mayor.

Rokesley was a bit of a contradiction, because as well as being a successful City trader, having many roles in the governance of the City, including Mayor, he was also a Royalist and was given many important roles by the King, which also probably contributed to his wealth.

He died in 1291, and his will included a considerable amount of property scattered across and around London, as well as his large mansion house in Lombard Street – the site referred to by the plaque.

Thanet House – Aldersgate Street

Close to where Aldersgate Street meets the roundabout circling the old Museum of London site, there is a bus stop, with a plaque on the adjacent wall which tells anyone waiting for a bus that here was the site of Thanet House:

Which could have been found here between 1644 and 1882:

Hard to believe if you walk along Aldersgate Street today, that in the book Londinopolis (1657), the author James Howell describes Aldersgate Street as having “spacious and uniform buildings which made Aldersgate Street resemble a street in an Italian town”.

One of those buildings was Thanet House, built by Inigo Jones in 1644, which is shown in the following print, published around 40 years after the house was completed:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Thanet House was the building’s original name, and it would later be called Shaftesbury House. Old and New London has the following to say about the building:

“Shaftesbury or Thanet House, one of Inigo Jones fine old mansions, formerly the London residence of the Tuftons, Earls of Thanet. From them it passed into the family of the clever and dangerous political intriguer, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury”.

Thanet House is shown in William Morgan’s 1682 map of London (the centre of the following extract), where the house also has gardens stretching back towards the location of the wall around London:

Thanet House, or Shaftesbury House came back into the ownership of the Thanet family in the early 18th century, however rather than being a London residence for the family, it was used as an Inn, a Lying-in-Hospital, shops, and, as the following 1851 print shows by the sign above the central door, there was also warehouse space to rent:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

By the middle of the 19th century, Aldersgate Street was a busy commercial street, with the Post Office buildings at the southern end of the street adding to the importance of the area.

The end of Thanet House came in 1882 when it was demolished, and by the 1890s editions of the Ordinance Survey map, the site was being shown as having been subdivided into a number of smaller buildings facing onto Aldersgate Street.

A photograph of the building in 1879, a couple of years before demolition, can be found on the Royal Academy of Arts website, at this link.

A short distance along from the plaque to Thanet House, there is another plaque to be found:

John Wesley – The Probable Site

Which can be seen on the wall to the left:

The plaque on the wall:

John Wesley was the key founder of the religious movement known as Methodism.

He was born in 1703 into a religious family, and religious learning was a key part of his early education, which continued at Charterhouse School in London, and then at Christ Church, Oxford.

The event in Wesley’s life that happened at Aldersgate Street was after his return from a couple of years in Savannah, Georgia, in the US, where he had been invited to act as the local minister attending to both the spiritual needs of the colonists as well as trying to convert the indigenous American population.

He was largely unsuccessful with attempts at conversion, and sailed back to England both disillusioned and depressed by his experience, and doubting his inner spiritual strength.

On the 24th of May, 1738 Wesley attended a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street (the Moravians were one of the oldest Protestant streams of Christianity, dating back to the 15th century), and it was at this meeting that, as described on the plaque, he “Felt his heart strangely warmed”, as he described in his diary entry for the day:

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s ‘Preface to the Epistle to the Romans’.  About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

His later diary entries do though throw some doubt on how influential the meeting in Aldersgate Street was to his restoration of faith and spiritual strength, however he started to preach widely across the country, and his lasting legacy was to be the Methodist Church after his death in 1791.

“The Beauties of Methodism. Selected from the works of the Reverend John Wesley”:

Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

There is though some doubt as to exactly where in Aldersgate Street the Moravian meeting that Wesley attended was being held. The plaque does state that it is at the “Probable Site”.

The plaque is also now part of the history of the area, as it was placed on an earlier building in Aldersgate Street in August 1926:

So the plaque itself has survived the destruction of much of the area during the last war, and the demolition of buildings across the area ready for the build of the Barbican estate, and is therefore one of the very few survivors from before the last 70 years of Aldersgate Street reconstruction.

Five more of the plaques that tell the long and diverse history of the City of London.

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Crossing the Thames at Woolwich

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Woolwich has the distinction of having two unique ways of the crossing the River Thames. There is one of two, dedicated foot tunnels under the river (the other is at Greenwich), and it is the only place on the river where there is a combined vehicle and foot passenger ferry across the river, which has the added bonus of being free.

I have not used either of these crossings for around 20 years, so when I was walking around the Royal Docks for my previous posts, it seemed the idea opportunity to use the tunnel and ferry again, and I could also use London’s latest bit of transport infrastructure, the Elizabeth Line which runs to Woolwich, to get there.

The river is a short walk from the Elizabeth Line station, and a short distance away, there is a sign offering the two choices to cross the river:

The location of the entrance to the foot tunnel is not immediately clear. There is a small street (Glass Yard) heading off Woolwich High Street, where the above sign is located, you need to walk to the end of this street, turn right, and the tunnel entrance is hidden behind the Waterfront Leisure Centre:

The entrance on the north bank of the river is far more obvious as it stands alone, as can be seen in the following photo from across the river:

Although the entrance to the foot tunnel is hidden behind the leisure centre, it is the crossing point of a number of walking and cycling routes as illustrated by the rather comprehensive sign outside the entrance:

The Thames Path – where to the east it is 8.75 miles to Crayford Ness. The Capital Ring, where it is 35 miles to Richmond Bridge, The Thames Cycle Path with Greenwich to the west (6 miles) and Erith to the east (6.5 miles),

The bottom left sign informs that North Woolwich Station is a quarter of a mile away via the foot tunnel, which is rather out of date as North Woolwich Station closed in 2006.

The brick entrances to the Woolwich foot tunnel are Grade 2 listed, and the Historic England listing describes these structures in a far better way than I can:

“II Rotunda. 1910-12, by Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice. Red brick with blue brick plinth; roof mostly of lead. One storey. Canopied entrance with decorative bargeboards and foliate capitals to cast-iron columns. Segmental arches over paired fifteen-pane sash windows with wrought-iron grilles set in square recessed panels; stone cornice beneath panelled stone-coped parapet. Conical roof with circular lantern.”

Despite the fact of the Grade II listing, the unique status as being one of only two foot tunnels under the Thames in London, and that the tunnel is still in use, the Leisure Centre has been built up against the structure, as closely as it possibly could be, as illustrated by the following photo:

The Woolwich Foot Tunnel opened in 1912, when Woolwich already had a free ferry across the river, so you may well ask, if there was a ferry, why go to all the expense of building a tunnel under the river?

The local newspapers covered the opening of the tunnel, and the first paragraph in their accounts provides the justification for the tunnel:

“In spite of the County Council’s efforts to provide a frequent and regular service between North and South Woolwich, two causes have mitigated against the continuous working of the ferry – fog, and, in exceptionally severe winters, ice. The stoppages, especially those from fog, usually occurred during the early morning when workpeople had to cross the river to their labours, and serious hardship was thus inflicted on a large number of people. With these facts before it, the County Council recognised that the service would have to be supplemented, and in November 1908, they submitted to Parliament a scheme for the construction of a tunnel for foot passengers between the north and south districts.

It was pointed out that if such a tunnel were constructed it would no longer be necessary to provide a continuous service of ferry boats. The necessary sanction having been obtained tenders were invited and that of Messrs. Walter Scott and Middleton Ltd., amounting to £78,860 was accepted.”

My last few posts on the Royal Docks has hopefully highlighted the size of these docks, and therefore the amount of people needed to work across them. Add to that, the industry that occupied the land between the docks and the river, all contributed to a significant demand for workers, many of whom would have lived on the south of the river in Woolwich, and for whom, the ferry would have been essential to their employment on the north of the river.

The following postcard was issued to mark the opening of the tunnel on the 26th of October, 1912 by Lord Cheylesmore, who was Chairman of the London County Council:

The photo for postcard was by a Woolwich photographer, although I cannot be sure whether the photo is off the Woolwich or the North Woolwich tunnel entrance. The opening ceremony was held at the southern entrance, however I cannot place the features seen around the entrance in maps of the area around the time of the tunnel opening.

When the tunnel was opened, the entrance was in Nile Street, a short, wide street that led to the South Pontoon, from where the Woolwich Ferry could also be taken, so unlike today, the foot tunnel entrance was collocated with the ferry approach, so if the ferry was not running, the passengers could simply divert down the tunnel.

Today, the tunnel entrance is separate to the tunnel approach.

Early photos and postcards often had crowds looking at the photographer, possibly the novelty of seeing a photographer. In the above photo there is a baby or young child in white, in the centre of the crowd. It would be fascinating to know the stories of these young Woolwich residents:

Walking into the entrance to the tunnel, and there is a large No Cycling sign above a spiral stairway that leads down to the tunnel:

The view along the tunnel from the base of the southern entrance:

Lift at the base of the southern entrance:

The newspaper article covering the opening of the tunnel provides some background to its design and construction:

“The new tunnel, which was begun in May, 1910, was designed by, and carried out under the supervision of the Chief Engineer of the London County Council, Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice. It closely resembles the Greenwich Tunnel, which was opened in 1902. It consists of a cast iron tube, of 12ft. 6in. outside diameter, connecting two vertical shafts of 25ft. inside diameter, and about 60 ft. deep.

The length between the shafts is 1,635 ft., or nearly one third of a mile. The thickness of the river bed between the top of the tunnel and the river is about 10 ft. at the deepest place. Electric lifts have been provided to accommodate forty passengers each. A fair day’s progress in tunnelling was 8ft. 6in. The ground passed through was almost entirely chalk, with numerous fissures, which were in free communication with the river. The cost has been about £85,000.”

The Greenwich foot tunnel referred to above was opened in 1902, and both tunnels used a very similar construction technique. I wrote a detailed post about the construction of the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, here.

Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice, who designed and supervised the construction of the Woolwich foot tunnel was also responsible for the Rotherhithe tunnel, where construction started in 1904 and the tunnel opened in 1908.

As you walk through the tunnel, it is good to know that there is 10 feet between the top of the tunnel and the bed of the River Thames:

There are plenty of very obvious signs that state there is to be no cycling through the tunnel. During my walk through there were two cyclists. One was wearing a high-vis jacket, obviously going either to or from work, and was cycling very slowly – which was fine given how empty the tunnel was of walkers (only me and one other), however half way along I heard a whooshing sound behind me, and one cyclist, on a racing bike, wearing a helmet, sped past, looking like he was doing a time trial through the tunnel. In the time between passing me, and me lifting my camera, he was the distance from me as shown in the following photo:

The problem of cycling through the tunnel has been around since the tunnel opened. In June 1913 the Woolwich Gazette and Plumstead News reported the following:

“FOOT TUNNEL CYCLING – Hebert F. Clarke of 1. Chertsey Road, Leytonstone was summoned for riding a bicycle through Woolwich Foot Tunnel. George Hunter of 28 The Parade, Grove Green Road, Leytonstone, was also summoned. Each fined 2s.”

It is remarkable how many tunnels under the Thames opened in a very short period of time, and much was made of the cost of the Woolwich tunnel compared with the others:

  • 1897 – The Blackwall Tunnel. Cost £1,300,000
  • 1902 – Greenwich Foot Tunnel. Cost £180,000
  • 1908 – The Rotherhithe Tunnel. Cost £1,000,000
  • 1912 – The Woolwich Foot Tunnel. Cost £87,000

Infrastructure getting cheaper is something we can only dream of today.

Approaching the southern end of the tunnel:

The decision to build a foot tunnel at Woolwich, highlights the challenges of planning for the future.

At the opening ceremony, it was stated that the need for a subway had been emphaised by recent fogs, which had interfered with the working of the ferry.

Lord Cheylesmore stated during his speech at the opening ceremony that (referencing the decision to open the ferry. twenty-one years earlier) “If future requirements had then been realised it was possible that a vehicular tunnel would have been constructed in the first place.”

It is always a problem when constructing any large transport / infrastructure project, to know whether an alternative design would better serve future requirements. The problem is that waiting for those future requirements to become clear, results in nothing being built. Building now risks it being outdated in the future.

The opening ceremony was held in Nile Street, the access road to the ferry, with the tunnel entrance alongside. Nile Street is now under the Waterfront Leisure Centre, and the ferry pier has moved slightly to the west.

At the southern end of the tunnel, the lift was not working, so it was up the stairs for the 60 ft. of the access shaft:

Back up to the surface on the north of the river, and here the access building is identical to that on the south of the river, although here it is in open space, with no surrounding buildings:

Outside there are direction signs for the Capital Ring and on a separate post, direction signs for local buses and a DLR station. Fortunately no sign for North Woolwich Station on this side of the river:

One of the new Superloop branded buses stops outside the tunnel entrance:

New building close to the entrance to the tunnel which is alongside the approach road to the Woolwich Ferry:

The new tunnel had an impact on one of the oldest professions on the river. In the year after the tunnel was opened, the London County Council paid out £15 to each of the sixteen remaining Woolwich ferrymen, who once rowed people across the river.

One of the ferrymen was a 60 years old who had been on the river “since he was six weeks old”, and knew “every mudbank and creek from Kingston to Dover and Yarmouth”, and as well as a ferryman had worked on lighters, as well as being a sailor.

He complained that “I’ve worked hard and straight, I’ve helped the police and I’ve helped my passengers. I have saved lives and property. I have been proud to be a freeman of the river, and now, when I am old, they go and dig a hole below it and rob me of my trade. It isn’t fair.”

Following the opening of the tunnel, there were ongoing challenges with the costs of running and maintaining both the ferry and the tunnel, with some attempts to reduce the hours that the lifts down to the tunnel operated (which were soon restored), and the number of ferry crossings, which were reduced slightly, however the ever increasing volumes of motor traffic meant that any reduction in ferry crossings was short lived.

The northern tunnel entrance:

From close to the tunnel entrance, we can see the current terminal of the Woolwich Free Ferry:

The northern tunnel access which is in a very different environment from the hidden and enclosed location of the southern. Hopefully with all the new building planned for this part of North Woolwich, it will stay in the open:

The opening ceremony for the tunnel was held in Woolwich on the southern side of the river. After the speeches and formal parts of the ceremony, Lord Cheylesmore along with the other dignitaries who had attended the ceremony descended down to the tunnel and walked to North Woolwich.

After emerging from the tunnel entrance shown in the above photo, they took the Woolwich Free Ferry back to Woolwich, and that it what I will now do.

Walking to the pier that leads to the ferry – the access road bends to the left at the end of the end of the orange cones:

As you walk onto the road leading up to where the ferry boards, we can see the old walkway that was to the immediate west of the approach to the ferry. In the following photo, there is a large anchor in the gap between the bushes:

Looking along the approach to where the ferry boards:

As you walk up to the ferry, there are some brilliant views along the river. In the following photo, the Thames Barrier stretches across the river, and on the right is where the ships carrying sugar cane dock for unloading into the Tate & Lyle factory:

Where vehicles and foot passengers board the ferry:

The Woolwich Ferry is currently a two ferry service, with a departure every 15 minutes from five in the morning until nine in the evening. Whilst waiting for the ferry to arrive, you can watch the two ferries perform their synchronised crossing of the Thames:

Facilities are basic, but then with a 15 minute service there is no need for anything more sophisticated. The footpath on the western side of the approach road takes you up to the boarding point, where a bus shelter provides some limited protection from the elements:

The earliest references to a ferry at Woolwich date back to 1308, when it was included in the sale of a house by a waterman named William de Wicton.

The ferry in the 14th century, and the following centuries would have been similar to services provided by watermen along the length of the Thames, where for a fee they would row you across the river.

These services were generally provided from a defined point, usually a set of Thames Stairs or a named place where a street reached the river. This was the case for the ferry at Woolwich, where it ran from Warren Lane at Woolwich (circled red in following 1746 map extract):

To and from the end of the lane in the following map. This point was covered by two separate pages in my copy of Rocque’s map so I have had to show two different map extracts. Where the tip of the red arrow is located was where the lane met the Thames:

The ferry service run by a waterman must have been a very ad-hoc serviuce and he probably spent more of his time rowing people up and down the river. During the 18th century there was very little where North Woolwich is now located. It was all fields, marsh and streams as the above extract demonstrates.

The early years of the 19th century saw the start of more formal ferry services, with the military setting up a ferry for their own use, from Woolwich Arsenal in 1810, and in 1811 a ferry was established by an Act of Parliament, and was run by a company that was called “The Woolwich Ferry Company”, however this service only lasted until 1844.

The demand for a regular, high volume service would come with the development of the area to the north of the river with the Royal Docks and associated industry in the 19th century.

On the 16th of October, 1880, the Kentish Independent reported that “A meeting is advertised for Monday next at the Town Hall to consider the proposed establishment of better communications between South and North Woolwich, embraced in the scheme of the Thames Screw Ferry Company. From the company’s prospectus we learn that they contemplate building two large twin screw boats, with turn-tables on deck and other conveniences for transporting horses and vehicles, together with a saloon for passengers, and that they propose to have landing stages at various positions below London Bridge. As we are chiefly interested in the Woolwich section of the river, where facilities of communication are perhaps more needed than anywhere else, we hope that the promoters will give us their earliest attention. At a moderate calculation it is computed that some 200 carriages will cross the river daily, and with a charge of 6d to 2s according to the number of horses, it is estimated that the speculation will be a profitable one.”

On the same page as the above report, there was a fascinating article on the impact of the electric lights at the Royal Albert Dock, which had only just opened, and was the first London dock to be lit by electric lighting.

Consider that the following was written when London must have been very dark at night, very limited electric lighting, some gas lighting, and not much else after dark:

“THE ALBERT DOCKS – The appearance of the electric lights at the new docks, seen from any eminence where a full view of the whole sweep can be obtained, is on a clear night very striking and beautiful, especially if a position is chosen from which any of the brilliant sparks are seen reflected in the river. In another sense beyond pleasure to the eye, they are beacons of satisfaction to the people of Woolwich, for they typify better days in store, increase in trade, and reduction of local burdens.”

It must have been quite something to stand in Woolwich and look across the river to see the light from the new electric lights along the new dock, and the article also highlights the positive impact that the docks were hoped to have on Woolwich – and for which a ferry was really important, so the residents of Woolwich could benefit from the opportunities opening up on the north of the river.

One of the two Woolwich ferries arriving at the northern pier:

The two new ferries entered service in early 2019, after being delivered from where they were built in Poland.

The ferry in the above photo is named the Ben Wollacott, after the 19 year old deck hand who died in the river in 2011, after being pulled from the ferry while mooring ropes were being untied.

Serco, the company then in charge, was found guilty of failing to ensure the health and safety of its crew, and fined, with costs, a sum of £220,000.

The second of the two new ferries was named the Dame Vera Lynn.

The above photo shows a packed ferry, with a mix of lorries, vans and cars making the free crossing across the river.

And whilst I was waiting for the ferry to arrive, there was a queue of vehicles building to cross from north to south:

There is no ceremony for foot passengers boarding the ferry, the barrier across the walkway lifts and you walk onboard, whilst vehicles are still leaving the ferry:

Which provides a perfect opportunity to see the deck of the ferry before any vehicles have boarded:

The ferries before the current pair had a passenger area below the vehicle deck. With the two new ferries, there is a passenger area at deck level, on one side of the ship, where a corridor is lined with blue plastic seating:

The meeting in Woolwich Town Hall in October 1880 was strongly in support of a new ferry, with the “rapid growth of townships on the north of the river” being a key driver of the need for Woolwich residents to be able to cross the river via regular and reliable services.

In the October 1880 meeting, we also see the demands that the ferry should be free. Many of the bridges over the Thames in west London had recently had the fee dropped for a crossing, so west London bridges were now free to cross, and the Woolwich argument was that the three million people east of London Bridge were paying their rates, which went towards the Metropolitan Board of Works ability to drop the charges for west London bridges, east Londoners should have the same facilities.

Plans then moved quickly, and in 1884, the Metropolitan Board of Works agreed to deliver a free ferry across the river, and in 1887, the construction company Mowlem (who were also responsible for much construction work across the whole of the London docks right up to their closure), was awarded a contract to build the approach to the ferry, pontoons and boarding infrastructure.

The Woolwich Free Ferry opened on the 23rd of March, 1889, and such was the importance of the event that reports of the opening also mentioned that it was made “the occasion of a public holiday in the neighbourhood of Woolwich”.

The service was opened by Lord Rosebery, the chairman of the London County Council, who had just taken over the responsibilities of the Metropolitan Board of Works (and after whom Rosebery Avenue was named).

Two steam ferries had been built for the opening of the service, the Gordon and the Duncan, and they were reported as being “capable of carrying a thousand people and at least a dozen vehicles upon the upper deck”.

The ability to take a thousand people and only twelve vehicles highlights the original need for the ferries, being able to transport large numbers of residents from Woolwich and surrounding areas, to the new employment opportunities that were opening up across the Royal Docks, and the industry along the river.

Local business soon took advantage of the new free ferry in their advertising, with, for example T. Gordon, a maker of hand-sewn boots in 9 Hare Street, Woolwich, heading his adverts with the opening of the Woolwich Free Ferry, and that residents of South and North Woolwich, Silvertown, Canning Town, Plumstead, Charlton and the Surrounding Vicinity could all now “Come and judge for yourselves”, the quality of his boots.

The new service was not without its problems. The ferries were built of pitch-pine “a wood chosen for its self preservative qualities, but unfortunately very inflammable”, and there were occasional fires on the ferry as a result.

There was also a case where the steering on a ferry jammed mid river, with the Captain stopping power so it would not ram the jetty, however the ferry then started drifting in a busy river. On checking the steering gear it was found that a bolt had dropped and jammed the gear, and on removal, the ability to steer was restored.

The bolt was found to be unlike any used in the ferry, so it was assumed to be sabotage.

The ferry crossing in the 1970s:

The following photo shows two of the three ferries built in 1963, and which were replaced by the ferries that we see on the river today. The photo dates from the 1980s, as behind the ferry, on the left edge of the photo, some of the dishes of the BT Docklands Satellite Ground Station, can be seen:

I took the following photo on a Sunday in 2015, I know it was a Sunday as two of the three ferries are moored in the river just to the right of the pier on the left, where there is a single ferry docks:

The following photo shows the Duncan – one of the first boats built for the opening of the ferry service:

The deck is crowded with passengers with what appears to be a mix, including children along with men in military uniforms. The upper deck is crowded with vehicles.

The following photo shows the Gordon, the second of the three ships built for the opening of the ferry. It was named after General Gordon of Khartoum:

Although it does not look that much different from the above ferry, the photo below is of the Will Crooks, built in 1930 as one of the replacements for the original fleet of ferries:

The following photo from the 1920s books “Wonderful London” shows the ferry crossing the river, with a man at one of the Thames stairs in the foreground. There is a rowing boat tied up, so perhaps he is one of the old waterman still hopeful of some business:

The text with the above photo claims that the ferry “conveys about half a million vehicles a year free of charge”, and that the cost to run the ferry was about £25,000 a year.

My view from the ferry of the landing place on the north of the river, from where the ferry had just departed. The round brick building of the tunnel entrance can be seen to the right:

The Tate & Lyle factory:

As I arrive at the southern pier, the Dame Vera Lynn is arriving at the north:

The crossing between Woolwich and north Woolwich is brief, however it does provide the opportunity for some wonderful views across the river. Another view of the Thames Barrier, with the towers of the Isle of Dogs in the background:

Arriving at Woolwich:

The ramp descending:

As with boarding the ferry, when leaving, the barrier lifts and you walk off. A quick look back at the ferry:

The Woolwich ferry approach road:

As I was leaving, a queue was building up ready for the following ferry, and at Woolwich, there is a separate queuing area where vehicles queue before be let on to the approach to the ferry.

The route from south to north seemed much busier than that from north to south. That may just be a time of day thing. I tried to find any detailed statistics of ferry usage on the Greater London Authority and the Transport for London websites, but after a quick search, nothing seemed to be available.

The headline statistics seems to be that the Woolwich ferry carries around two million passengers a year. The vast majority of these will be the occupants of vehicles rather than foot passengers.

The following photo shows the entrance to the ferry at Woolwich:

I did not notice one on the north of the river, but at Woolwich on the south, the ferry has a “River” TfL roundel:

The combination of the two methods of crossing the river at Woolwich are unique. Whilst there is another foot tunnel at Greenwich, there is no other large passenger / vehicle ferry.

The fact that the Woolwich ferry continues to be free is remarkable in today’s financial environment, where so much starts to be attracting a price.

When the new Silvertown tunnel opens, there will be a fee for using the tunnel, and to stop people continuing to use the currently free Blackwall tunnel, a new fee will be introduced for using this old tunnel, the first time in 130 years.

It will be interesting to see if the Silvertown tunnel has an impact on traffic levels on the Woolwich ferry. Theoretically not, as the Silvertown Tunnel follows a similar route to that of the Blackwall tunnel. It could be that traffic on the Woolwich ferry increases to avoid the fees at the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels, such are the unintended consequences of change.

To introduce a fee for the Woolwich ferry would require an Act of Parliament to amend the act originally brought forward by the Metropolitan Board of Works to introduce the ferry, which specified that the ferry should be free to use.

Today, foot passengers wanting to travel between the north and south sides of the river at Woolwich also have the choice of the DLR which runs from Woolwich Arsenal to the north, as well as the Elizabeth Line which runs from Abbey Wood, to Woolwich, before heading north of the river.

The loss of the docks in the 1980s significantly reduced the number of jobs for residents of the south to commute to on the north. The DLR and Elizabeth Lines have added alternative options, however for a quick, free crossing of the river, the Woolwich Ferry is a wonderful way of seeing the river and getting between north and south Woolwich, and the foot tunnel provides an historic alternative using one of only two surviving foot tunnels under the Thames.

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King George V Dock – The Last of the Royals

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In my final post exploring the Royal Docks, I am looking at the King George V Dock, the last of the three docks that make up the Royals, and was opened in 1921.

I have a copy of the book that was issued to commemorate the opening of the King George V Dock, and at the back of the book are some fold out paper maps, one with a view of all the docks from St. Katherine out to Tilbury, and the following is an extract from the map showing the Royal Docks as they were following completion of the new, third dock (the map is a bit creased. It is 100 years old and of very thin paper so I did not want to put too much pressure on the folds):

The King George V Dock is the dock on the right, below the Royal Albert, and in the map it is marked Royal Albert Dock Extension (South). The book and map were issued in advance of the formal opening by King George V, so I assume it was the wrong thing to do with royal protocol to give the new dock’s name before the King had officially opened and named the dock.

Another point with the map, is that the Port of London Authority were considering a fourth dock for the Royals complex. The red lettering above the Royal Albert Dock is marked as a “Site for dock”. This additional dock was never built, and future expansion by the Port of London Authority would be focused on Tilbury.

It is not possible to walk alongside the majority of the King George V dock. London City Airport occupies the northern side of the dock, whilst other parts of the airport (car parks, offices etc.) occupy much of the southern side, and the one road that ran alongside the dock is fenced off.

So to look at the dock, I am taking a walk along Woolwich Manor Way and the Sir Steve Redgrave Bridge, which provide a good view along the length of the King George V Dock, as well as the lock entrances and the Royal Albert Dock.

The route I am taking is shown by the red dashed line in the following map, starting from the bottom of the line, looking to the west, then returning on the other side of the bridge, looking at the view to the east (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

Detail from the map at the top of the post shows the Royal Albert Dock Extension, or the King George V Dock as it would be officially known following the opening ceremony:

The road I am following in today’s post is shown in the above map, running over the lower of the three locks to the right, before bending to avoid the Basin, although today the road is straight and a bridge runs over the Basin.

There is no access to the south of the King George V Dock, the road that runs along the south side is fenced off from the east. The blue sign is offering a welcome to London City Airport, although there is no public access from this direction:

A look through the gates, and the road disappears off to where the car parks for the airport are located, with access being from the terminal building at the far west of the dock:

So I am continuing along the Woolwich Manor Way, up to the bridge that runs over the lock between the dock and the river:

Looking along the lifting bridge over the lock:

And from the middle of the bridge, we can look to the west, along the full length of the King George V Dock:

The new dock was needed because the size of ships continued to grow, and there were now ships that were larger than could be accommodated by the Royal Victoria or Royal Albert Docks.

The book published for the opening of the dock provides some insight:

“The largest work yet undertaken by the Port Authority has been the construction of the great dock which his Majesty King George V, has graciously consented to open, and which, in point of importance, is surpassed by no other undertaking of a similar nature carried out during recent years. The improvement in Port facilities by its completion may be illustrated by the fact that, whereas the largest vessel which hitherto could be accommodated in the docks was limited to about 19,000 gross register tons and that only at Tilbury, a distance of 26 miles below London bridge, the new dock will permit of vessels up to 30,000 tons being berthed within six and a half miles of the heart of the City.”

The above text shows that in the early 1920s, the proximity of the docks to the heart of the City of London was still an important factor. There were still many warehouses and trading establishments in the City which received and traded goods coming into the docks.

The text also illustrates why, despite the opening of the new dock, their long term demise could have been foreseen. The story of all the London docks is one of expansion and movement east along the Thames. This was to move to locations where there was sufficient space for very large docks, and where the River Thames was deep enough for large ships to sail.

Ship sizes would continue to grow, and the eventual lack of available space, and the limited depth of the river, would seal the fate of the docks from the Royals, west towards central London. A fate that was confirmed with the arrival of containerisation.

The book published for the opening of the dock starts with a wonderful artwork showing the ship carrying the King, entering the King George V dock, under the lifting bridge, with probably PLA staff and other dignitaries standing on the side of the lock:

The coat of arms are those of the Port of London Authority, with individual components from the arms on the flag. The motto of the PLA “May the Port of the Empire Flourish” is below the arms.

Again, as mentioned earlier, the book does not mention the name King George V Dock. The new dock on the title page is simply the “Southern Extension of the Royal Victoria and Albert System”.

The King George V Dock was of a considerable size. Last week’s post on the locks connecting the Royal Docks to Gallions Reach described the entrance lock, and the following is again taken from the same book, and describes the scale of the dock, as well as the infrastructure that enabled flexible loading and unloading between ship and multiple land-side methods for storage or onward transport:

“The wet dock has a water area of 64 acres and a depth of 38 feet, and is surrounded by quay walls of an aggregate length of approximately 10,000 feet, providing fourteen berths for steamers of the largest size. The length of the dock is 4,578 feet and the width varies from 710 feet at the eastern end to 500 feet at the western end.

A swing bridge, weighing about 1,800 tons, carries the dock road and the rail traffic across the passage which communicates with the Royal Albert Dock.

On the north side of the dock, three double storey sheds, each about 1,100 feet long, are being erected with a width on the ground floor of 110 feet. Reinforced concrete has been adopted for the framework and floors of the sheds, with brick panels, and the roofs have been constructed on the ‘North Light’ principle with steel trusses. Two lines of railway are laid along the quay, 50 feet wide, and a loading platform and three lines of railway have been provided at the rear of the sheds.

Twenty-four 3-ton electric level-huffing cranes constitute the cargo handling appliances on the North Quay itself, but each shed is further equipped with eight 1-ton electric underhung revolving jib cranes travelling transversely through the shed, which are capable of dealing with goods from the quayside or from the railway trucks or carts on the land side and depositing them on any portion of the upper floor or through hatchways on to the lower floor. The quay cranes are capable of lifting three tons at a radius of 60 feet, or a slightly reduced load at a maximum radius of 65 feet.”

The book for the opening of the King George V Dock included some wonderful paintings showing the appearance of the dock after completion, and in operation:

The painting shows the lock to the Thames at lower right, and the passage to the Royal Albert Dock at upper right, with the swing bridge for road and rail traffic. Also shown is the lifting bridge over the end of the entrance lock, where it meets the dock – the point where I was standing to take the photo of the whole of the dock earlier in the post.

The painting also shows the sheds and cranes lining both side of the dock, as described in the book, which also includes an aerial photo of the Royal Docks, with the King George V Dock labelled as “The New Dock” on the left (the photo shows the new dock as being far wider than the Royal Victoria or Albert docks)

Another painting from the book shows the dock as it would be when full of ships up against the quays, along with barges being pulled by tugs:

And another painting showing some detail of the southern quayside, with the Thames in the background:

in the above painting we can see how the south side of the dock differed from the north. Along the northern side of the dock, ships moored directly alongside the quay, however on the southern side:

“Here are seven reinforced concrete jetties, each 520 feet long and 22 feet wide, have been constructed at a distance of 32 feet from the face of the wall, the only shore connection being by means of a timber footbridge.

Ships will berth on the outside of the jetties, and the electric cranes, six to each jetty, will discharge goods direct from the ship’s side either on to the quay for delivery to carts or railway trucks, or for sorting and temporary storage in the sheds behind, or direct into barges lying in the space reserved for them between the jetties and the wall. this arrangement has been specially designed to facilitate the discharge of the large proportion of goods arriving for delivery direct into barges.”

Again, flexibility was key, and as well as the ability to take much larger ships, the king George V Dock also offered multiple methods of transferring cargo.

Photo of the sheds along the north the of the dock, before the cranes were installed:

When we look at the dock today, we see a large expanse of water, with just a few feet of concrete above the water along the quayside. What we cannot see is the significant amount of construction below the ground / water level, and the book to mark the opening of the dock includes some illustrations where we can see the depth and width of the concrete quayside, and the depth of piling needed to support the warehouses:

The drawing also shows how flat bottomed ships of the day were, which enabled the ship to carry large amounts of cargo. I mentioned this in the previous post where the lock into the Royal Victoria Dock was originally a slight V shape, which matched the shape of the hulls of Victorian shipping, but had to be flattened to accommodate ships in later decades.

The following photo shows the north quay in use, with a floating crane moored alongside a ship to assist with unloading into barges:

View along the south side of the dock, showing the cranes installed on their jetties:

And this is the drawing showing the construction of the southern side of the dock, with the crane on a jetty and space for barges between the quayside and the jetty. Unlike the northern side of the dock, the southern side had a sloping base from the jetty up to the dock, as there was no intention for ships to be moored directly alongside the quay.

Detail of the southern side of the dock in use can be seen in the following photo:

Even with a photo of the King George V Dock without water, it is still hard to appreciate the full scale of the dock. The following photo shows the dock, which appears to be fully excavated. The view is from the east, looking west, and the southern edge of the dock is on the left, where we can see the wooden construction of the jetties which have yet to have their cranes installed:

Work on the dock started in August 1912, however work came to a standstill during much of the First World War due to shortages of men and material. Work recommenced in the Autumn of 1918.

The following describes how the docks were equipped and the enormous volumes of materials that were involved:

“The general equipment of the dock includes floating cranes, tugs, locomotives, rolling stock, electric trucks, conveyors, piling machines, and other labour-aiding appliances of the most modern type for the efficient and rapid handling of cargo.

Altogether about 5,000,000 cubic yards of material have been excavated for the works, of which 2,000,000 cubic yards have been deposited at sea. The whole of the ballast required, over 500,000 cubic yards, was obtained from the excavations on the site and use in admixture with about 100,000 tons of Portland Cement for the concrete.”

One of the more unusual features of the King George V Dock was that it had a dry dock at the western end of the dock.

A dry dock is a dock where a ship can be floated into the dock. Gates are then closed across the access to the dry dock and the water is pumped out. The hull of the ship is then in the dry, and maintenance or repairs can then be performed on the hull.

The following photo shows the dry dock just before the opening of the King George V Dock:

The location of the dock is within the red oval in the following extract from an early 1950s edition of the OS map. Whilst the docks are not named, the King George V is the lower dock with the Royal Albert above (Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

From the bridge, we can look across to the passage between the King George V and Royal Albert Docks. There was originally a swing bridge over this passage which carried a road and rail tracks:

Although today we cannot find any cargo vessels in the King George V Dock, there is an old light vessel. This is Light Vessel 93:

The following history of the light vessel is from the vessel’s entry in the register of National Historic Ships UK, and the entry and source of the following text can be found by clicking on the text:

“LIGHT VESSEL 93 was ordered by Trinity House in 1938 and was built by Philip & Son of Dartmouth. She is a vessel of riveted steel construction. She first served on the Galloper Station and then on mine watching duties on the Thames between 1947 and 1953. After further service on the East Goodwin and Galloper Stations she had renovations carried out by Swan Hunter in 1980 and Holman & Sons of Penzance in 1996.

After conversion to solar power in 1998 she had further service at Inner Dowsing Station, Sunk Station and Foxtrot 3 before being sold into private ownership in 2004. She is used as a photographic studio, events and exhibition space.” 

The light vessel was moored in the Royal Victoria Dock, close to the mill buildings, but was moved earlier this year in preparation for the foot bridge that is planned to be built across the Royal Victoria Dock, as part of the redevelopment of the land around the Millennium Mill.

When London City Airport was built, it was over the land between the King George V and Royal Albert Docks, with part of the airport, and a later extension of the aircraft stand area, and equipment and vehicle holding area. The extensions over the dock were built on piles, and the following photo is looking across to the airport, with the runway on the right, and we can just see part of the piles between the surface area of the airport and the water of the dock:

The bridge carrying the Woolwich Manor Way over the entrance lock is still a lifting bridge, although the current bridge is not the original. Standing in the middle of the bridge we can see where the two sides of the bridge meet, with the water of the lock visible below:

The presence of London City Airport can be felt when walking around the Royal Docks, and parts of North Woolwich and Silvertown. The bridge is also at the end of the runway, and adjacent to the approach lights, and we can look straight down to the runway and the planes taking off:

Or landing:

The above photo shows just how much this whole area has changed. Part of the dock water can be seen on the right of the photo and the grey blocks of the Millennium Mills are in the centre. These are from the time when the Royal Docks were the largest of London’s docks, with enormous volumes of cargo passing through.

In the foreground we see a plane coming into land at London City Airport – in some ways continuing the use of the area for transporting things internationally. Whilst the docks served passengers and cargo via ships, the airport now moves passengers via planes.

In the background are the towers around Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs, built on another London dock complex. On the left is the O2 / Millennium Dome, built on what was a highly industrial area of the Greenwich Peninsula.

Continuing along the bridge, and we pass over the Royal Albert Dock. the passage between the King George V and Royal Albert can be seen on the left:

At the end of the bridge, we arrive at the road network north of the docks, along with the DLR. Just below the road direction sign is a reminder of when the Excel Exhibition Centre was a Nightingale Hospital:

This section of the bridge is named “The Steve Redgrave Bridge” (possibly because of the Royal Docks rowing centre nearby):

I am now walking back along the eastern side of the bridge, the side that faces towards the Thames, and therefore the locks from the Royal Docks to the river, and here we get another view of the impounding station that pumps water from the river into the docks to maintain water levels. From this perspective we can also see the new development at this end of the Royal Albert, surrounding the impounding station:

We then come to the first of the locks from the docks to the river. This is the lock from last week’s post where the width of the lock has been considerably reduced so a much smaller (and cheaper) set of lock gates could be installed. just how much the width of the lock has been reduced can be seen when looking through the lock:

And then the second lock. This is the one that has mainly been filled in, with only a small part remaining at the dock, and into the river:

And we then come to the derelict area between the Royal Albert Basin and the lock into the King George V dock:

View over this area:

In the following photo is where Gallions Road joins Woolwich Manor Way. Gallions Road is the road where I found the other end closed in last week’s post, requiring an alternative route along the bush and butterfly alley that ran next to the Thames, which was in fact, a far better route:

There is a blue sign just visible to the left of the above photo. The sign is for Gallions Point Marina which was once reached down this closed road.

Gallions Point Marina was in the Basin between the eastern end of the Royal Albert Dock and the lock into the Thames.

In my walk around the Royal Docks I could find no evidence of a marina, and the space once occupied by Gallions Point Marina is empty. Strangely, their website is still online.

The marina was a casualty of plans to redevelop Albert Island, the derelict area between the locks for the Royal Albert and King George V.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) had been trying to take possession of the land used by the marina, and despite attempts of mediation between the company and the GLA, there was no agreement.

The GLA then took legal action and evicted the staff of the Marina on the 9th of October 2018, and took possession of the land.

In 2017, the GLA had selected London and Regional Properties  as the developers of the site, and in 2021 outline planning approval was granted for the redevelopment scheme, which does include a boat yard, storage buildings and warehouse, and according to the original requirements of the GLA, facilities for repair and maintenance work on ships that use the Thames.

The development has a website which can be found by clicking here, and the home page includes an image of some impressive ship repair facilities.

If the area is developed as the GLA originally intended, it will be a suitable development for the site, maintaining the relationship with the river and shipping that has been the whole history of the Royal Docks.

The rather good alley along the Thames with the hundreds of butterflies will be lost though, but there is planned to be public access – hopefully still along the river and across the locks, and hopefully the redevelopment will include many references to the heritage of the site.

Continuing along Woolwich Manor Way, and I have now reached the point where the bridge crosses the lock into the King George V dock, this is the lifting bridge shown earlier in the post, and I can look along the lock out to the Thames:

The area to the right of the lock in the above photo has already been redeveloped. Albert Island is the area to the left, and in this website (click here), there is an image of the proposed new development, showing buildings up to the lock.

As mentioned earlier in the post, when you look at the docks, it is hard to appreciate their size. Water up to a few feet below the sides of the dock does not give an appreciation of the depth, however the following photo is of the lock into the King George V dock under construction, the same lock as shown in my photo above, and illustrates the size, and the complexity of the lock’s build:

The bridge I was standing on to take a photo of the lock is the latest version of the bridge carrying Woolwich Manor Way across the lock, and dates from 1990.

The original version of the bridge, completed at the same time as the King George V dock is shown in the following photo, looking from the lock into the dock:

I have repeated below the painting from the front of the book issued to commemorate the opening of the King George V Dock, as the painting is of the same view as in the above photo:

The dock was opened on the 8th of July, 1921 by King George V, who, during the ceremony to open the dock said that “I have much pleasure in acceding to your request that the dock shall be known as the King George V Dock.” I assume that this is why all documentation and references to the dock prior to the opening used terms such as “new dock”, of as the “Southern Extension of the Royal Victoria & Albert Dock”, as in the front page shown above.

It was probably not royal protocol to assume the name before the King had publically granted his approval.

The opening ceremony started with a “river pageant”, with the King boarding a boat at Westminster Pier and changing to a larger boat after passing under London Bridge. There was a Royal salute fired by the gun battery at the Tower of London, shipping, warehouses, wharves and buildings along the river displayed flags and bunting, and the sides of the river were lined with people cheering as the King and Queen passed.

After two hours, they reached the entrance to the King George V Dock, and entered the lock, with children singing “patriotic airs” along the lock edge, which was also lined by seamen from H.M.S. Pembroke and boys from the Royal Hospital School at Greenwich, as well as a number of naval ships.

The King’s ship (the Rover) entered the dock through the lock, and moored alongside a transit shed at the north side of the dock, where there was a large assembly of Government and Port of London Authority officials, as well as members of the Royal Household, Ambassadors, Royal Watermen, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of Southwark and Barking.

In reply to an address by the chairman of the Port of London Authority, the King’s speech at the quayside included references to the history of the London docks:

“Your address reminds us of the great antiquity of London as a port. Even in the far-off days of the Romans it was frequented by foreign merchants and trading ships, and the history of its development into the largest port in the world must appeal to every sailor and every merchant who has any feeling for the romance of his calling. The port in which Chaucer worked as a Custom House official, in which Drake, the founder of our sea power, entertained his Sovereign on board the Golden Hind is deeply interwoven with the fabric of English history. From those times onward the traffic and discoveries of our ancestors have brought an increasing commerce to the shores of the Thames until it is not to much to say that here the highways of the oceans meet.

You have referred to the natural advantages of the Thames estuary and to the enterprise of the trading community as the two great factors in the advancement of the Port of London. For many centuries seamen and merchants were content to rely on the first of these, but during the last hundred years improvements in ship building and the growth of the trade of London have rendered it necessary in an increasing degree to call in commercial effort and engineering skill to supplement natural advantages.”

The King continued in the same vein and also remarking on the increasing size of ships that the new dock would be able to support, and finally the King declared the new dock open as the King George V Dock, and unlike the two hour pageant down the river, the royal party took cars back from the docks to Buckingham Palace.

The north side of the dock, and from the images of the redevelopment of Albert Island, the PLA building on the side of the dock will disappear:

The lock, as well as the dock, is used as a temporary holding place for the equipment that performs much of the infrastructure work along the river, and this leads to some very strange vessels to be seen – I have no idea what the following vessel does:

The south side of the lock into the King George V dock:

A final look as I continue south along Woolwich Manor Way. In years to come, this view will be very different:

And the above view concludes my exploration of the Royal Docks, an absolutely fascinating area that demonstrates the sheer size and ambition of the London Docks, the civil engineering, the enormous volumes of trade that passed through these docks, and the passengers who departed and arrived on ships from across the world – a history that I hope will be told in future development.

As mentioned earlier in the post, the need for the King George V Dock to support ever increasing ship size should have hinted at the future closure of the London dock system, when there was not enough land for docks, and the Thames was not deep enough to bring any larger ships up to the Royals. Dredging the Thames to provide a channel was already an ongoing problem.

The docks at Tilbury continue in operation, and the really large container ships do still use the Thames, arriving at the London Gateway port, just to the west of Canvey Island. The London Gateway continues to expand, and a couple of days ago, the shipping company Maersk announced that in 2025 it is moving from the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk, to the London Gateway in the Thames.

I have not really covered the working history of the docks – something hopefully for a future post, There are a couple of places in Silvertown I still need to cover, probably the subject for an extra post, but for now, that is the Royal Docks – well worth a visit and long walk.

I have used many excellent books, LDDC publications, newspapers etc. to research the Royal Docks. The following are a sample of some of the books, which are often available online:

  • Dockland – An illustrated historical survey of life and work in east London, published by the North East London Polytechnic (1986)
  • A London Docklands Guide by Tony Phillips (1986)
  • History of the Port of London by Sir Joseph Broodbank, Chairman of the Dock & Warehouse Committee of the PLA (1921)
  • London Docklands. Past, present and future by Professor S.K. Al Naib (1994)
  • Liquid History by Arthur Bryant (1960)
  • The Port of London Yesterday and Today by D.J. Owen, General Manager of the Port of London Authority (1927)
  • The Said Noble River by Alan Bell (1937)
  • London Docks 1800 – 1980. A civil engineering history by Ivan S. Greeves (1980)
  • Discover London Docklands. An A to Z Illustrated Guide by Professor S.K. Al Naib (1992)
  • The Port of London – A brief survey of its History with outline of its present facilities and Trade. Published by the Port of London Authority (1931)

The Royal Docks are a fascinating area to walk (if there is interest, I may do a walk around the Royals next year), but until the weather improves, and if you read this on the day of publication, as Storm Bert sweeps the country, you may be interested in the following films on life on the river and the Royal Docks.

The first, from the British Film Institute does not feature the Royal Docks, but it is from the 1930s and shows much of the working river in colour:

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-colour-on-the-thames-1935-online

There were once tours via boat into the Royal Docks, and the following colour film from 1966 shows a cruise along the river, before entering the Royal Docks, at the King George V lock, the bridge carrying Woolwich Manor Way opening, and then a tour through the Royal Docks:

A British Pathe film showing the working docks:

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