The Treachery of Sir George Downing

7 Replies

Along with streets and places such as Piccadilly, Leicester Square, and Oxford Street, Downing Street is probably one of the more recognisable London street names, not just in the United Kingdom, but across the world, given the number of tourists who peer through the gates that separate Downing Street from Whitehall.

Number 10 Downing Street has been home to the Prime Minister (or more correctly the First Lord of the Treasury) since 1735, when the house was given to Sir Robert Walpole.

There have been many gaps in occupancy by Prime Minsters, however a central London house was considered a benefit of the role. It was only in the early 20th century that it became a full time residence of Prime Ministers.

Security has long been an issue. It was not so long ago that the public could walk down the street, with the street finally being closed to the public in 1982, and in response to ever growing threats, security measures such as physical defences and armed police have been added and enhanced.

So today, this is the best view of the street for tourists and members of the public who do not have official business in any of the buildings and institutions that line Downing Street:

The street has seen so many Prime Ministers, newly elected, arrive in an atmosphere of enthusiasm and expectation, only to leave having been rejected either by the electorate, or through the actions of their former colleagues.

For a rejected Prime Minister, perhaps the most difficult way to leave is when you have been rejected by former colleagues. Those who once supported and worked with you, and with whom you had a shared vision of the future.

Whilst this must be incredibility frustrating, it is not as bad as the treachery of the person who was once the land owner and who gave his name to the street, who through his treachery, condemned former colleagues to the worst death penalty that the State could impose, convicted of being a traitor and being hung, drawn and quartered.

For this, we have to go back to the Civil War, Commonwealth and Restoration of the 1640s, 1650s and early 1660s to explore the work of Sir George Downing:

The source of the above paining is from the Harvard Art Museum, and the image title is “Portrait of a Man, probably Sir George Downing (1624-1684)”. It is often difficult to be absolutely certain of those depicted in paintings of some age (see my recent post on the Gresham’s).

The record for the painting states that on the stretcher is written “Sir George Downing Bart./ born August 1623–Embassador [sic]/ to the States General 1659-Son of/ Emmanuel Downing & Lucy Winthrop/ 4th daughter of Adam Winthrop-/ The nephew of John Winthrop/ Governor of Massachusetts–His/ diplomatic services…[illegible]… are well known to history.”, which does add some confidence that this is Sir George Downing.

George Downing was born in Dublin around 1623 or 1624, His father was Emanual Downing, a Barrister and Puritan, and his mother was Lucy Winthrop, the sister of John Winthrope who was the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, an English settlement on the east coast of America which had been founded in 1628.

This family relationship with Massachusetts resulted in the family moving to the colony in 1638, where they settled in Salem.

Harvard College had been founded by the Massachusetts Bay Colony on the 18th of October 1636, and was the first college set-up in the American colonies.

The name Harvard comes from John Harvard who was an English Puritan minister and benefactor of the college, which included leaving his library of 400 books and half of his estate to the new college.

George Downing attended Harvard College, and was one of the first group of nine who graduated from the college in 1642.

After Harvard, Downing moved to the West Indies where he became a preacher, and in the early 1640s he returned to England, where he found the country in the middle of a Civil War, and he quickly aligned with the forces opposing King Charles I, joining the regiment of Colonel John Okey as a chaplain.

Downing was fully supportive of the actions of Cromwell and the New Model Army in the defeat of the Royalist cause, and he was recognised and promoted quickly to become Cromwell’s Scoutmaster General in Scotland, a role that was basically the head of a spying and intelligence operation, attempts to infiltrate Royalist plots and to turn Royalist supporters to the Republican cause.

During the years of the Commonwealth in the 1650’s, Downing’s skills became valuable in the diplomatic service, and he became the Commonwealth’s ambassador to the Netherlands, where he also developed a network of spies, and passed information on Royalist plots back to John Thurloe, who was Cromwell’s main spymaster.

The later part of the 1650s were a difficult time for the Commonwealth, the main issue being what would happen to the Commonwealth after the death of Oliver Cromwell. Who would succeed Cromwell, how would such a decision be made, could Cromwell take on the role of a monarch and make the head of the Commonwealth a hereditary title?

Downing supported and urged Cromwell to take on the role of a monarch along the lines of the old constitution that had existed before the execution of King Charles I.

To those holding senior positions in the army and the Commonwealth, it must have seemed that the Commonwealth was in a strong position, the country would remain a Republic. Monarchist plots and uprisings had been supressed, and the future King Charles II seemed to be in a weak position in exile on the Continent.

It was then surprising how quickly after Cromwell’s death, that the whole structure of the Commonwealth collapsed so rapidly, and King Charles II was restored as the monarch of the United Kingdom in 1661, just three years after the death of Oliver Cromwell.

George Downing had been watching how sentiments towards the monarchy were changing and started to plan how he would survive and prosper after the restoration.

This involved actions such as ingratiating himself within the court of the future Charles II, passing information on to the Royalists and claiming that he had been drawn in to the Republican cause rather than being an active initiator of the Civil War and the execution of King Charles I.

Whilst Downing had supported the trial and execution of the former king, he was not a judge or participant in the trial, and did not sign the execution warrant of the king:

Source: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Which is an important lesson if you are involved in any plotting or support of a controversial cause – never leave anything in writing.

Despite his involvement and support of the Republican cause, Downing’s efforts to show support for the monarchy were such that after the restoration of the monarchy, he was knighted, and continued in his role as the ambassador to the Netherlands, and it was in the following couple of years that he was to really show his ruthless streak and what he would do to further his own power, position and wealth.

Regicides

After the restoration, the monarchy turned their anger on those who had been involved in the trial of King Charles I, who had signed his execution warrant, or who had had a significant role in his execution.

Known as the Regicides, those who had been responsible in some way for the execution of the King were exempted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act of 1660, an act that gave a general pardon for all those who had committed a crime during the Civil War and the Commonwealth (other than crimes such as murder, unless covered by a licence from the king, witchcraft and piracy were also not covered by the general pardon).

A number of the Regicides had already died, including Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton. Others gave themselves up in the hope of a fair trial and avoidance of a traitors death, whilst others fled abroad in fear of their lives.

Three of those who fled, and who would meet their deaths through the actions of George Downing, were:

John Okey

Creative Commons Licence – after Unknown artist, published by John Thane line engraving, published 1794 NPG D27161© National Portrait Gallery, London

John Okey had been born in St. Giles, and like many others who were part of the Parliamentary / Republican / New Model Army forces opposing the king during the Civil war, Okey had enlisted in the army, rising through the ranks to become a major, then a colonel, of a regiment of dragoons (mounted infantry).

George Downing had joined Okey’s regiment as a chaplain, and was well known to Okey.

When Charles I was brought to trial, Okey was one of the 80 who were actively involved in the trial, and attended on most days, and the action that would infuriate the restored monarchy was that he was one of the 59 who had signed the warrant for the execution of the king.

Miles Corbet

Creative Commons Licence – after Unknown artist, published by William Richardson
line engraving, published 1810 NPG D30024© National Portrait Gallery, London

Miles Cobet was the MP for Yarmouth and also a Lawyer.

The print of Corbet shown above has the abbreviation Coll. in front of his last name. This may have been an honorary titles, as he did not serve during any military actions during the Civil War. He was though one of the founders of the Eastern Association, which was a military alliance formed to defend East Anglia on behalf of the Parliamentary forces, and he also served as an army commissioner in Ireland, responsible for overseeing the affairs of the army, and with allocation of land within Ireland to soldiers as reward for their service, and often in lieu of wages.

His role in the trial of Charles I was as part of the High Court of Justice, and as one of those who signed the execution warrant.

John Barkstead

Creative Commons Licence – after Unknown artist line engraving, published 1810 NPG D9319© National Portrait Gallery, London

John Barkstead was originally a goldsmith in the Strand, but who joined the Parliamentary forces, becoming a captain of a foot company in the regiment of Colonel Venn. He was Governor of Reading for a short time, commanded a regiment at the siege of Colchester, and was appointed as one of the judges at the trial of Charles I.

He also signed the Warrant for the Execution of Charles I.

He was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower of London, but used this position to further his own wealth by extorting money from prisoners and generally running a cruel regime.

He was rumoured to have hidden a large sum of money in the Tower of London, and in 1662, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary that he was busy in a discovery for Lord Sandwich and Sir H. Bennett of the cellars of the Tower for this hidden money.

By signing the warrant for the execution of the King, Okey, Corbet and Barkstead had also signed their own death warrants, as this would be their fate – a public traitors death in London.

Escape and Capture

In fear of their lives, with the restoration of the monarchy, Okey, Corbet and Barkstead fled to Europe, with Okey and Barkstead making their way to Hanau in Germany, where they were accepted by the town and given a level of protection. Corbet had made his way to the Netherlands where he was in hiding.

For Barkstead, Hanau seemed a natural, long term home, as the town was well known for the manufacture of jewellery, and Barkstead’s background as a goldsmith in the Strand would come in use.

As Hanau seemed to be a long term home for Okey and Barkstead, they wanted their wives to join them, and a plan was put together for them to meet their wives in the Netherlands, from where they would all travel back to Hanau.

They believed that they would be safe in the Netherlands and had assurances that Downing had not been given any instructions to hunt for them. The Netherlands was also known for tolerance and for putting commerce before any other concern.

They travelled to Delft, and met up with Corbet, who was keen to meet with some friends after his time in hiding.

Downing meanwhile had been putting together plans for how he would find and capture any regicides that were living or passing through the Netherlands. He was worried about the repercussions of capturing any regicides and transporting them back to London without the approval of the Dutch, and he had problems with getting an arrest warrant from the Dutch authorities.

After much persuasion, Downing received a blank arrest warrant, which he would be able to use against any of the regicides that he could discover in the Netherlands, and it would soon be put into use.

Through Downing’s network of spies, he discovered that Okey, Corbet and Barkstead were all in Delft, and just as they were about to split up, Downing and his men pounced on the house, and found the three sitting around a fire, smoking pipes. and they quickly rounded up the three regicides. They had their hands and feet manacled and were thrown in a damp prison cell, whilst Downing finalised their transport back to England.

Whilst they were in captivity, the three were visited by Dutch politicians who assured the three that they would be freed, however Downing used his skills to threaten and bully the Dutch on the possible consequences of such actions, and the Dutch conceded, and let Downing continue to hold the three and arrange their transport.

Another challenge was the Bailiff of Delft who was not cooperative and threatened to derail Downing’s plans. Downing’s response to this was another indication that he would do anything to have his way. He made inquiries about the bailiff and learnt that “he was one who would do nothing without money”, so Downing offered him a bribe – a reward if he would keep the prisoners safe until they were finally in Downing’s hands.

There were other problems. The magistrates of Amsterdam sent a message to the authorities in Delft that they should “let the Gates of the prison be opened and so let them escape “.

The bailiff warned Downing that the “common people might go about to force the prison and let them out”, and the authorities in Delft made efforts to provide counsel for the regicides.

Downing finally received an order from the Dutch authorities addressed to the bailiff in Delft to release the prisoners to Downing. The bailiff was concerned that there would be a rising “if there were but the least notice of an intention to carry them away”.

Downing had already arranged for an English frigate to be available, and with the aid of some sailors from the frigate, and a small boat, he:

“resolved in the dead of the night to get a boate into a litle channell which came neare behinde the prison, and at the very first dawning of the day without so much as giving any notice to the seamen I had pro
vided . . . forthwith to slip them downe the backstaires . . . and so accordingly we did, and there was not the least notice in the Towne thereof, and before 5 in the morning the boate was without the Porto of
Delft, where I delivered them to Mr. Armerer . . . giving him direction not to put them a shoare in any place, but to go the whole way by water to the Blackamore Frigat at Helverdsluice.”

The Frigate Blackamore carried the three prisoners back to England, where they were imprisoned in the Tower awaiting a trial, which was not really a trial as in the view of Parliament and the Monarchy, they had demonstrated their guilt by fleeing the country. The trial was a formality to confirm they had the right people.

Having been found guilty of treason, on the 19th of April 1662, the three men were transported from the Tower to Tyburn, each tied to a separate sledge as they were drawn through the crowds, with much mocking abuse from Royalists. Barkstead left the Tower first, a place where he had once been the Lieutenant, and raised his hat to his wife who was waving from a window.

On arriving at Tyburn, each man gave a speech to the crowd, and were then put on a cart under the gallows. When they were ready, the cart was pulled away, and they hung for 15 minutes, before being taken down, and were then drawn and quartered, all in front of a large crowd.

Barkstead’s head was placed on a spike overlooking the Tower of London, mocking his former role at the Tower.

Before his death, Okey had sent a message of obedience to the restored monarchy, and as a reward for this, his family were allowed to bury his mutilated body in a vault in Stepney, however a large crowd gathered around Newgate where his body was being held, and fearing that this was a show of support for a traitor, the King swiftly changed his mind, and Okey’s body was hastily buried in the grounds of the Tower of London.

After the Regicides

Downing appears to have shown very little if any remorse or regret for his actions in the capture and execution of his three former colleagues, especially Okey, in whose regiment Downing had once served during the Civil War.

He acquired large estates and properties across the country and in London. He was one of the four Tellers of the Receipts of the Exchequer. He inspired the Navigation Act: “the foundation of our mercantile marine, and consequently of our navy, and consequently of our colonies and spheres of influence. He was also the direct cause of the Appropriation Act, an Act indispensable in every session, for government at home and one which has been appointed by all our self-governing colonies,” and he was instrumental in persuading the Dutch to exchange New Amsterdam, their colony on Long Island, for the British colony of Surinam in South America. New Amsterdam was then renamed as New York.

George Downing owned land near Westminster, and when the leaseholder died in 1682, Downing developed a cul-de-sac of more than twenty plain, brick built, three storey terrace houses, and he petitioned Charles II for permission to name this new street Downing Street.

Royal approval was granted, but he did not live to see the completion of the street as he died in July 1684 when he was 60, two years prior to work was finished.

The general view of Sir George Downing was that whilst clever, quick to action, ambitious and a very hard worker, he was also self serving, would shift his allegiance depending on changes in political and royal power, and as demonstrated with Okey, Corbet and Barkstead, this would also include the betrayal of his former friends and colleagues.

After the restoration, there were many who recognised Downing’s true character. After the capture of the regicides, Samuel Pepys’s wrote in his diary:

“This morning we had news from Mr. Coventry, that Sir G. Downing (like a perfidious rogue, though the action is good and of service to the King, yet he cannot with any good conscience do it) hath taken Okey, Corbet, and Barkestead at Delfe, in Holland, and sent them home in the Blackmore.”

Downing – a name associated with self perseveration to the extent that former colleagues and the cause for which they all worked, were betrayed, and now recorded in the name of the street where the Prime Minister resides.

Sources: I have been reading a number of books about the Civil War recently which I will list in a future post. My main source for the actions of Downing in the Netherlands and the capture of Okey, Corbet and Barkstead is from “Sir George Downing and the Regicides by Ralph C. H. Catterall in The American Historical Review, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Jan., 1912), and published by the Oxford University Press“.

Resources – The World Turned Upside Down

As today’s post is the first of a new month, it is a post where I cover some of the resources available if you are interested in discovering more about the history of London.

As today’s post has been about the fate of three of the regicides involved with the trial and execution of King Charles I, and George Downing, who supported both the Parliamentary cause and then swiftly converted to support the monarchy, today’s resource is a brilliant website full of resources covering everything Civil War, and events in London played a very significant role, not just during the Civil War, but the lead up to, the causes of the war, the Commonwealth and Protectorate, the people, politics and religion, the restoration and later impact.

The website is The World Turned Upside Down:

The name of the website comes from the title of an English ballad published in the mid 1640s, when Parliament was implementing policies that tried to ban the more traditional celebrations of Christmas that the more Puritan and to an extent Baptist members of Parliament believed were associated with the Catholic religion, and that Christmas should be a more solemn event, without the drinking, feasting and joyous elements of the traditional Christmas:

Source: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The standout feature of the website are the podcasts. There are currently 112 on the site with more being gradually added (you can sign up for alerts). Each podcast explores a different aspect of the Civil War and is by an expert in the subject.

For each podcast there is also a transcript, glossary, timeline, maps and further reading.

The first four podcasts in the list are shown in the screenshot below:

There is so much in the news about the destructive elements of social media, AI and the Internet, but the World Turned Upside Down is one of those sites that restores your faith in what the Internet can deliver when a community of real experts put together such a resource – which is freely available.

Even if you have only a passing interest in the mid 17th century and the Civil War, the site and podcasts are well worth a visit, and again, the link to click for the site is: The World Turned Upside Down

A Microscopic Examination of the Water Supplied to the Inhabitants of London

7 Replies

The level of pollution in the River Thames has long been a problem, even in 2026, decades of under investment in sewage treatment has resulted in effluent being dumped in the river. Hopefully something the Tideway Tunnel will help resolve.

The state of the river in the 19th century was far worse than it is today. The rapid rise of London’s population and industry resulted in large quantities of effluent being dumped, untreated in the river.

Similar to the Tideway Tunnel, Joseph Bazalgette’s sewer system and pumping works of the 1860s and 1870s acted as an interceptor, catching sewage before it was dumped in the river, and routing it to new treatment works.

Before construction of this new system, the condition of the river was an open sewer, and what was worse, the river was used as a source of water by the water companies that supplied the city. Even the companies that relied on other sources were frequently drawing on heavily polluted water.

In April 1850, Arthur Hill Hassall published “A Microscopic Examination of the Water Supplied to the Inhabitants of London and the Suburban Districts”, where he reported on an investigation into the sources of water used by the London water companies, and examined the condition of their water supplies using a microscope to see what material the water contained.

Arthur Hill Hassell was the son of a Doctor and was born in Teddington in 1817. He was a student in Dublin and apprenticed to his uncle, Sir James Murray, a Dublin physician, and whilst in Dublin he published his first work “A Catalogue of Irish Zoophytes”, where he used a microscope to examine microscopic organisms, which at the time were believed to be somewhere between plants and animals.

After graduating, he returned to London and setup in general practice in Notting Hill, but he continued to be fascinated in what could be revealed by the microscope, and his next publications were “A History of British Freshwater Algae” (1845), and “The Microscopic Anatomy of the Human Body” (1849).

His 1850 publication would reveal the horrendous state of the water supplied to the residents of London.

In his description of the method used, he states that he collected a wine bottle full of water from the output of the different water companies, the river, and the sewer system, and examined samples of this water under a microscope.

Arthur Hill Hassall:

Licence: Public Domain Mark, Credit: Arthur Hill Hassall. Photograph. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection.

In 1850, there were a number of privately owned water companies that supplied different areas of London. These were, along with the main source of their water as listed in Hassall’s book:

  • New River Company (source – springs around Ware in Hertfordshire and the River Lea)
  • East London Company (source – the River Lea near Old Ford, Stratford, below Lea Bridge)
  • Hampstead Company (source – several large ponds near to Hampstead Heath)
  • Kent Company (source – the River Ravensbourne)
  • Lambeth Company (source – the River Thames at Lambeth)
  • Vauxhall Company (source – the River Thames at Vauxhall)
  • Southwark Company (source – the River Thames, also at Vauxhall)
  • Chelsea Company (source – the River Thames, near Battersea)
  • West Middlesex Company (source – the River Thames at Barnes)
  • Grand Junction Company (source – the River Thames at Brentford)

In his examination of the water under the microscope, he was looking for organic and inorganic matter, including specific organic material that he described as “complex in organisation, endowed with life, and in many cases possessed of active powers of locomotion”.

Using the scientific understanding and terminology of the time, he described this type of organic material as:

  • Infusoria – animal productions, and include a great variety of singularly organized atoms, most of which are invisible to the common eye
  • Entomostraca – constitute a well defined division of Crustacea, or the Crab tribe and are remarkable for having their bodies enclosed in shell-like cases
  • Conferveae – vegetable productions of very simple organisation, consisting of cells or utricles, placed end to end and joined together, forming, by their union, threads often of extreme fineness
  • Desmideae – also vegetable productions, exhibiting however, some affinities to animals, so that, for a long time, it was a matter of doubt and dispute to which of the kings of the organic world they really belonged.
  • Diatomaceae – unite in their organization the characters of both plants and animals, insomuch that it is still uncertain which they really are. They are readily distinguished from all other organisms by their colour, which is brown, and by the fact that they are furnished with skeletons of Silex, or flint; it is this which renders them so durable – indeed, almost indestructible.

These are rather dry descriptions of what could be found in samples of water, so in a perfect example of a picture is worth a thousand words, Hassall included colour illustrations of what he saw whilst looking through the microscope at the samples of water collected in a wine bottle from across London.

Firstly, the Thames at Brentford and at Hungerford (near where the railway bridge is located today between the South Bank and Charing Cross):

Comparing these two illustrations shows that whilst the Thames at Brentford was bad enough, in central London there was a dense collection of both organic and inorganic matter.

Hassell adds little notes to show how he collected the water, and for Hungerford he added that the water was collected “two hours after the steam-boats ceased to ply”. Presumably, then as now, powered boats on the river churn up the sediment and prevent it from settling, and Hassall wanted to collect his samples in as near a natural state as possible.

As well as the view through the microscope, he added that the water from Hungerford presented a dirty and opaque appearance, and also contained dead organic matter, very considerable, both animal and vegetable, ochreous substance; down of wheat.

Hassall was surprised by the amount of living matter that he found in the water at Brentford, and he conducted further tests along the river, and came to the conclusion that “these have brought to light the singular and important fact, that Thames water, from Brentford in one direction, to Woolwich in the opposite, warms with living productions”, and that they are met with the greatest abundance near to central London and in the neighbourhood of the bridges.

He also added the following description of what a walker alongside the Thames in the mid 19th century would see:

“In one spot he will notice the carcases of dead animals, rotting, festering, swarming with flies and maggots, and from which a pestilential odour proceeds, contaminating the air around; in another he will see a variety of refuse borne along by the lazy current of the stream – decaying vegetables, the leaves and stalks of cabbages, grass from a recently mown lawn, excrement; in another he will remark on the commotion of the water, occasioned by the bubbling up of some noxious gas; and still further on, he will perceive some sewer; discharging its corrupt and filthy contents into the bed of the river, and causing the water around to assume an inky blackness.

Should the tide be out, the observer should now abandon the towing path, take a boat, and row to some of the shallower parts of the stream, If here he plunges his hand into the water, he will bring up a dirty and slimy mass. Entire acres (I might say without exaggeration) of a substance similar to the above may frequently noticed on the recession of the tide.”

To show what was being put into the Thames, he included a picture and description of sewer water, which contained large amounts of both organic and inorganic matter, much dead and decomposing matter, a black carbonaceous matter on which the inky colour of many sewer waters depend, and large quantities of sulphated hydrogen.

All this was being pumped into the river, frequently not that far from where a water company was drawing water to supply the residents and industries of the city.

Drawings of the view through the microscope of sewer water, and the first of the water companies examined- the Grand Junction Company:

The Grand Junction Company took their water from the Thames at Brentford, at a place which Hassall described as being “within reach of the sewage of that large and dirty town”.

Next came the West Middlesex Company, which took water from the Thames at Barnes, along with a sample of Cistern water:

The lower image shows Cistern Water, and the text explains that this was water from a cistern supplied by the Hampstead Water Company.

Cisterns were tanks where water was temporarily stored as part of the overall distribution system, between the source / reservoir, and the end user.

Hassall found numerous problems with the quality of the water in cisterns across London, and he had the follow general comment about cistern water “It may be observed, in general. that these waters contain the same forms of organic life as those encountered in the waters of several companies, with this important difference, however, that their numbers, for equal quantities of fluid, are usually much greater in the former than in the later”.

He goes on to explain that the samples he took from cisterns contained much greater quantities of living organisms, than the source water, for example:

  • The Chelsea Company is remarkable for its bunches of Ova cases
  • That of the Lambeth Company for its immense numbers of Bursaria and Paramecia
  • That of the Vauxhall Company for its hirsute worms or Annelida

Hassall makes the observation that the amount of life found in cisterns was dependent on the time of year (more growth when the weather was mild or warm) and also on whether the cisterns were frequently cleaned.

The Chelsea Company, who took their water from the Thames, near Battersea, and the Southwark Company, who took their water from the Thames near Vauxhall:

The water of the Southwark Company was described as being in the “worst condition in which it is conceivable any water to be, as regards its animalcular contents, in a worse state even than Thames water itself, as taken from the bed of the river”. Quite some achievement for the Southwark company to have their water described as being worse than the river water.

In the mid 19th century, the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Companies had combined. Most of the water companies had moved their supply sources to beyond the expanding city of London, looking for sources which did not have the same level of contamination as the Thames, along with methods of purification such as increased use of, and more complex design, of filtration beds, however the Southwark and Vauxhall Company still had their works in Battersea, as shown in the following map from 1894 (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

The site of the Southwark & Vauxhall Water Works would later become the site of Battersea Power Station, and if you walk through the power station building today, you are walking over the space once occupied by the central reservoir.

The Lambeth and New River Company’s water:

The Lambeth Company’s water “is procured from the river at Lambeth, and not far from a large sewer”.

In looking at the samples of water Hassall concluded that “the water of the Companies on the Surrey side of London, viz. the Southwark, Vauxhall, and Lambeth, is by far the worst of all those who take their supply from the Thames. They are demonstrably contaminated with more or less of the organic and decomposing matters, animal and vegetable, derived from sewer-water”.

In the above drawings, the lower is from the New River Company, who took water from the springs around the Hertfordshire town of Ware, along with the River Lea in Hertfordshire. This water was transported along a man-made river to the reservoir of the New River Company in northern Clerkenwell, from where it was distributed to consumers across the city.

See this post on New River Head and London’s Water Industry.

Hassall described that in the New River Company’s water, “living animalcules were not very numerous, but that it contained great numbers of Diatomaceous”, and that it also held abundant filaments of Fungi, dead organic matter, and much earthy matter, so even using a source well away from the polluted city did not mean that you had a clean supply to distribute to your consumers.

The water of the Hampstead Water Company was described as being generally bright and clear, but did contain numbers of Entomostraca and Infusoria.

The East London Company took their water supplies from the River Lea, and it was described as being similar to the water of the New River Company.

The Kent Company took their water from the Ravensbourne, and this water contained numerous species of the organic life that Hassall listed, along with much dead organic matter, and for good measure, quantities of grit.

Arthur Hassall was rather innovative in his thinking about sources of pollution in the Thames. He did not just look at the sources within central London, but considered the Thames as an overall system, comprising the core river, along with all the tributaries and the towns along the river and tributaries, as the inhabitants of all these towns were also putting all their rubbish, industrial waste and sewage indirectly into the Thames, and all this would eventually find its way to where the central London water companies were extracting their water.

Hassall used the 1841 census to illustrate the problem, and in the following table, he had added up the population of the towns along the Thames and tributaries above the town of Henley (Hassall used the name Isis for the river for its length from source to where it joins the River Thame by the village of Dorchester in Oxfordshire):

The following table shows the population along the Thames from Henley to London, as well as the towns along the tributaries that join along this section of the Thames:

This gave a total population of 2,316,273 living within the system of the Thames and its tributaries up to and including the city of London, according to the 1841 census (although it was higher than this as Hassall admits that there were some small towns where he had not been able to find the population).

It was not just the population along the river, but also the rapid growth of industry in London, and major towns in the river and tributary area, also produced polluted water as an industrial by-product, and frequently dumped this into the river system.

The state of the river was such that there were many cartoons emphasising the appalling state of the river, and the impact that it had on the health of the city’s residents, such as the following from Punch magazine in 1858:

Source and attribution: Punch Magazine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In the book, Hassall included a section on Remedial Considerations, where he offered suggestions for improving the quality of water supplied to Londoners.

In doing so, he does not consider cleaning up the river, rather by seeking cleaner supplies of source water. His reasons for assuming the state of the river will not change are:

“It has been shown, and the fact is established by incontrovertible evidence, that all those companies who take their water from the Thames draw it from a polluted source, and, as long as this river is employed as the outlet of all the sewage of so vast a city as London, so long must its water used by so many of the metropolitan companies be bad at its sources, it can scarcely be otherwise than impure when delivered to the public.”

The challenge was in finding new, clean sources of water. Hassall looked at the River Wandle, which had a source in springs near Croydon, along with a large pond, however he finds that the refuse of a gas-works, a tan yard. a slaughter house and the sewage of the town is poured into the pond, and hence the Wandle.

Similar issues are found with all the small rivers around the wider area, people, industry, and even cross contamination between streams and canals.

In the mid-19th century, it seems almost every possible source of water in the counties around London was polluted to a greater or lesser degree.

Artesian Wells were a possibility, as these draw water from deep below ground, however Hassall considers the “operation of boring deep into the bowels of the earth” as expensive, uncertain and unnecessary, and that we should really be using the abundant supplies of water that nature provides on the surface of the earth.

Hassall recommended that open reservoirs be covered up, that cisterns should be cleaned regularly, and that water in cisterns should be refreshed, being stored in a cistern for no longer than 24 hours. At the time, many of these cisterns were made of lead, which was not recognised as a problem in the mid 19th century.

Filtration was identified as a major way of cleaning water between source and distribution, and Hassall conducted a series of experiments to determine the best method of filtration, using different types of charcoal, patent filters, loam, mild and strong clays, to see which individual or combination of materials would provide the cleanest water, and he identified a combination of charcoal, and clay mixed with sand as the best approach, and that three consecutive filtering operations should be carried out.

His summary recommendations are that a proper water supply to a populous city such as London, requires:

  • An unpolluted source
  • An unlimited supply
  • Perpetual renewal
  • Filtration
  • The abolition or modification of reservoirs and cisterns
  • Moderate cost

It would take many decades for the changes to be implemented that were needed to provide London with a clean supply of water. Investment, engineering, technical improvements, new sources, storage methods, distribution networks etc. were all needed, and today, on the whole, we have a very clean supply of water.

The Thames is today, cleaner than it was in the mid 19th century, but there is no way that I would want to drink water straight from the river, and I find it worrying when I see children playing on the foreshore, who, being children, will put their fingers in their mouth.

The Tideway Tunnel will prevent many of the overflows into the river from the wider London area, however as Hassall described back in 1850, it is the whole catchment area of the river and tributaries that need to be clean, as these contribute to the waters that flow through central London.

Perhaps we need another Arthur Hassall to graphically describe the contents of the water that flows through the city.

He seems to have been widely respected for his knowledge of water contamination. In July 1850, the same year as the publication of his book on the water companies of London, he was speaking at the Botanical Society of London “On the colouration of the water of the Serpentine”, where he described the cause of the vivid green colouration of the Serpentine that had taken place that year.

In the same year he also published a report on the “Adulteration of Coffee”, which apparently was a problem at the time, as he reported that roasted wheat, beans and potatoes had all been used.

As well as the pictures shown earlier in the post, Arthur Hassall’s writing was always very descriptive, and I will leave you with this graphic sentence from his summary, back in 1850:

“It is thus beyond dispute that, according to the present system of London water supply, a portion of the inhabitants of the metropolis are made to consume, in some form or other, a portion of their own excrement, and, moreover, to pay for the privilege.”

His & Hers Hairdressers, Middleton Road, Hackney

16 Replies

Following last week’s post on London Fields, for this week’s post I am again in search of another of my father’s 1980s photos, also in Hackney, but this one, judging by other photos on the same strip of negatives, seems to be from 1986.

This is His & Hers Hairdressers at the Kingsland Road end of Middleton Road:

The photo is typical of the many small businesses that occupied run down Victorian shops in the 1980s, and for a hairdressers of that decade, the shop has the obligatory display of hair style photos.

This is the same shop, forty years later in 2026:

With photos of hairdressers, you can normally tell the decade of when the photo was taken by the photos in the windows, and His & Hers had photos of 1980s big hair:

Small details in the photo, such as the person inside, probably wondering why my father is taking a photo:

On the wall to the left of the shop, something that was once a common sight:

And there are details in the 2026 photo, where an earlier shop sign has been exposed:

If you go back to the 1986 photo, there is wooden boarding across the location of the above sign, so I suspect this was covered up in 1986 and dates from an earlier business.

M. Matthews is the central name. There does appear to be a shadow name, but this also looks like M. Matthews, so perhaps an earlier version of the same name. To the right is the word Tobacco, and a bit hard to make out, but to the left the letters do seem to form Newsagent.

I cannot find a reference to an M. Matthews, but the ground floor of the building has always been a shop, and searching through Post Office directories, I found that in 1899 the shop was a Confectioner, run by Miss Elizabeth Winstone, and in 1910 it was still a confectioner, but now run by Mrs Matilda Watkins.

A jump from being a Confectioner, to a Newsagent and Tobacconist, but who also probably continued to sell confectionary does seem like a natural evolution of the shop.

I have no idea when the shop changed to a hairdressers, or when His & Hers closed. In the 1986, the ground floor occupied by the hairdresser does seem to have undergone some structural alteration, as above the windows and doors, there is the full width of the panel over the name sign, and this can also be seen in my 2026 photo, where the name sign extends over the windows and two doors.

The ornate carvings typical of the sign endings on Victorian shops can also be seen in the 1986 photo, although the one of the left had been removed by 2026.

This is probably the result of the building being converted from a shop occupying the full width of the ground floor, to a building where the first and second floors became separate residential accommodation, hence the door on the left, and the door to the shop being the one on the right.

Today, the old shop on the ground floor also appears to be residential.

The shop was built in the mid 19th century as the fields and nurseries of Hackney were covered in new homes.

In the following map, I have marked the location of the shop with the red arrow on the left. The darker road running vertically just to the left is Kingsland Road, and to the right of the map is the edge of London Fields. Middleton Road is the street with the Hairdressers, and which runs from Kingsland Road to London Fields.

Nearly all of the straight streets in the map are Victorian housing, serving the growing numbers of middle class workers of London with aspirational new homes.

The shop was part of a street design where small businesses were distributed across new residential developments, so that people who moved out to these new homes would have access to the necessities of life within local walking distance, and this included pubs.

On the corner of Middleton Road and Kingsland Road is the Fox – a rare example of a London pub that closed in around 2018, but has recently reopened (I believe with the upper floors converted to residential):

At the very top of the corner of the building is the date 1881, and this is from when the current building dates, although there has been a pub on the site for a number of centuries.

The earliest written refence I can find to the Fox is from 1809, when on the 21st of July, there was an advert in the Morning Advertiser for the auction of five, neat, brick built dwelling houses between Kingsland Green and Newington Green. Details about the properties to be auctioned could be had from Mr. Taylor at the Fox, Kingsland Road.

When the 1809 advert appeared, much of the area surrounding the Fox was still farm land and nurseries, but the pub was here because Kingsland Road was an important road to the north from the City and would have been busy, with many of those using the road in need of refreshment.

Search the Internet for stories about the Fox, and a story about the pub being used to stash part of a £6 Million Security Express robbery in 1983, by Clifford Saxe, one of the robbers and landlord of the Fox is one of the common stories from recent years.

I cannot find a firm reference from the time that it was the Fox, an account of the robbery from the Sunday Mirror on the 1st of July 1984 on wanted criminals who were living in Spain referenced that “It claimed Saxe, 57, formerly landlord of an east London pub was the brains of the gang”. Presumably that east London pub was the Fox, but again I cannot find a direct reference from the time.

In the following extract from Rocque’s 1746 map, I have marked the location of the Fox with a red arrow. The yellow dotted line shows the route of the future Middleton Road, running from Kingsland Road to the edge of London Fields, over what was nursery land, and by 1823 would be known as Grange’s Nursery:

The 1881 rebuild of the pub must have been to transform the premises that had once been surrounded by fields, to an establishment suitable for the large population who occupied the terrace streets by then covering the fields.

The population growth of Hackney mirrors this housing development. In 1801 the population was 12,730, and a century later in 1901, Hackney’s population had grown to 219,110, and this new population needed local shops, and the confectioners / newsagents and tobacconists / hairdresser shop was part of a terrace of shops at the end of Middleton Road, with the following photo being today’s view of this terrace:

In 1899, this terrace consisted of (number 11 in bold is the shop that is the subject of today’s post):

  • Number 1: John Biddle – Fishmonger
  • Number 3: Mrs Stark – Baby Linen
  • Number 5: John Edward Stark – Tobacconist
  • Number 7&9; Benjamin Wilkinson – Chemist
  • Number 11; Miss Elizabeth Winstone – Confectioner
  • Number 13: Robinson Locklison – Laundry

By 1910, the terrace consisted of:

  • Number 1: Walter Hart – Fried Fish Shop
  • Number 3: James Arthur Mullett – Grocer
  • Number 5: William Leigh – Hairdresser
  • Number 7&9: Benjamin Wilkinson – Chemist
  • Number 11: Mrs Matilda Watkins – Confectioner
  • Number 13: John Hart – Bootmaker

The above two lists shows that in the eleven years between the two, there was a high turnover in owners and types of shop. Number 1 had changed from a Fishmonger to a Fried Fish Shop, illustrating the rapid expansion of this type of take away food across London, from what is believed to be the first such shop in east London in 1860.

Number 1 is still supplying food, as today it is the Tin Café.

The only business that is the same is the Chemist of Benjamin Wilkinson. At number 13 in 1910 was John Hart, a Bootmaker. In 1986 it was a shoe repair shop, just visible to the right of the photo at the start of the post, so in the same type of business.

Another view of the terrace, number 3 to 13:

Just visible to the right of the above photo, and in an earlier photo with a train, is a bridge, which adds an unusual feature to this end of Middleton Road.

Walking along Middleton Road, under the bridge and looking back, this is the view:

The bridge carries what is now the Windrush Line over Middleton Road, and the reason for the large dip in the road is because the railway is carried on a viaduct, which runs parallel to Kingsland Road, and needs to run as a level structure, so where the railway carried by the viaduct runs across a road, the runs needs to be lowered to pass under the viaduct.

This railway was built as part of the North London extension of the London and North Western Railway, and the following extract from Railway News on the 3rd of December 1864, when the viaduct was nearing completion, explains the benefits and route of this railway:

“The London and North Western reaches the City by means of the North London extension, but the undertaking may be considered as that of the North Western.

The City extension runs from Kingsland to Liverpool Street, Bishopsgate, and is now rapidly approaching completion. The advantages of this line are very considerable.

The station is within a short distance of the Royal Exchange, the Bank of England and many offices in which the chief monetary transactions of the City are conducted. Five or seven minutes walk will bring you to Threadneedle-street, Moorgate-street, or Gracechurch-street, and all the other busy thoroughfares, lanes and courts hard by – no small consideration to the thousands of railway travellers who come from the North daily within that important radius who are anxious to economise time.

Further, this line shortens the distance between all the stations on the North London line, from Camden to Kingsland and the City by no less than five miles. At present time the North London, on leaving Kingsland, goes by Hackney, Bow, and Stepney, describing nearly three-quarters of a circle before it reaches Fenchurch Street. This detour, with its super abundant traffic and crowded junctions, with therefore be avoided by all coming west of Kingsland to the City.

The extension is about 2.5 miles in length, and proceeds almost in a direct line from its junction with the North London proper to Bishopsgate, With the exception of a cutting near the starting point it passes all the way on a brick arch viaduct which has all but been finished. Running parallel with the Kingsland-road.”

The line would go on to terminate at Broad Street Station, next to Liverpool Street.

This railway helped with the construction of the houses across the fields of Hackney, as for workers to move to Hackney, they needed an easy form of transport to their place of work, and the new railway extension was ideal. For the residents of Middleton Road, Haggerston Station was a short walk south along Kingsland Road. The station opened on the 2nd of September 1867.

Bells Weekly Messenger on the 9th of September 1867 described the new station: “NEW STATION, NORTH LONDON RAILWAY – A large and commodious new station was opened on Monday on the North London Railway, in Lee-street, Kingsland Road. The new Haggerston Station commands the neighbourhood, and also the Downham-road and De Beauvoir Town, which places are situated too far from the Dalston Junction to profit by the latter.”

The line closed in 1986 (Haggerston Station had closed in 1940 due to a number of factors including wartime economy measures and bomb damage to the station).

The station and railway along the viaduct reopened in 2010 as part of London Overground, and in 2024 the railway was renamed as the Windrush Line.

So this small part of London had shops, a pub and a station connected to the City. The other important attribute of a Victorian city was a church, and In Middleton Road is the 1847 Middleton Road Congregational Church, now the Hackney Pentecostal Apostolic Church:

Middleton Road is mainly comprised of terrace houses, but there are some interesting exceptions, such as the building in the middle of the following photo:

Which has an entry to the rear of the building named Ropewalk Mews:

I cannot find the reason for this name, and why the building is very different to the terrace houses that occupy the street.

A ropewalk was / is a long length of land or covered space, where the individual strands of a rope could be laid out and then twisted to form a continuous length of rope.

London had plenty of ropewalks, but these were usually close to the Thames, as the main customer for the ropes produced would have been the thousands of ships that were once to be found on the river.

Rocque’s map of 1747 does not show a ropewalk, although the map does identify ropewalks in other parts of London. In 18th and early 19th century maps of the area, the land is shown as agricultural and a nursery, no mention of a ropewalk.

It may have been that there was a small ropewalk here to produce rope to be used in the bundling of produce from the nursery, but I cannot find any confirmation of this.

One of the architectural developments that was seen in Victorian houses of the mid 19th century was the bay window, which was a way of breaking up a terrace, and a change from the Georgian emphasis on an unbroken terrace of flat, uniform walls facing onto the street. We can see this development in the terrace houses of Middleton Street:

Another change was the semi-basement, where the ground floor is slightly raised, and reached from the streets by steps, allowing the upper part of the basement to just poke above ground level, with a space between basement window and the retaining wall to the street. This development allowed natural light into the basement, and again we can see this in the above terrace.

The 1881 census provides a view of the employment of those who moved into Middleton Road. There were a very wide range of jobs, including: Bank Clerks, Decorators, Commercial Travellers, Commercial Clerks, Boot Makers, Locksmiths, Plumbers, Stock Brokers Clerks, Stationers Assistant, Printers, Teachers, Newspaper Advertising Agents, Drapers, Draughtsmen, Watchmakers, etc. All the vast range of trades and employment types to be found in the rapidly expanding Victorian London of the late 19th century.

Where a job was listed such as a Bootmaker, these were frequently not an individual worker, rather an employer, for example at number 33 Middleton Road was George Clarke, a Bootmaker who was listed as employing 25 men and two boys.

Some of the residents had private means, for example at Oxford Cottage in Middleton Road was Fanny Smyth, listed as a widow, with her occupation as “income from interest of money”. What is fascinating about the 19th century census is how frequently people would marry later in life, and in Fanny Smyth’s household were three children, two daughters aged 31 and 21 and a son of 28, all listed as single.

Many of the houses in Middleton Road also had a Domestic Servant, again confirming that these new streets were occupied by the new middle class.

Whilst in 1881, the majority of people who lived in Middleton Road were listed a being born in Middlesex, (the historic county that from 1965 is now mainly part of Greater London), there were a very significant number of people from the rest of the country, and a small percentage from Ireland. Throughout much of the 19th century, London was expanding both in terms of employment and residents, by attracting people from the rest of the country.

More of the homes in Middleton Street in which the Bank Clerks, Decorators, Commercial Travellers etc. of 1881 would live:

Middleton Road is a perfect example of the mid 19th expansion of London, as the fields of Hackney were taken over by the houses of the growing middle class.

The shops and pub at the Kingsland Road end of the street are a perfect example of how local shops were planned as part of this expansion, and for decades served the needs of the local community.

One can imagine the early morning being busy with the working residents heading to the train station to travel into the City for their work, and in the evening, a busy pub, with the option of a stop off for fish and chips after the pub, then heading back to your terrace home in Middleton Road.

When writing these posts, I often have music on in the background, and for this post it was YouTube, as it has a random playlist based on what I have listened to before, and a track I have not heard for many years came up, the 1982 Lucifer’s Friend by the Rotherham / Sheffield band Vision.

The His & Hers Hairdressers was photographed in 1986, and the track by Vision is a perfect example of brilliant 1980s music, including the type of hair styles that you may have been able to get in His & Hers:

David Bowie Centre and V&A East Storehouse

Last week, we went to have a look at the small David Bowie exhibition, which forms part of the David Bowie archive held by the V&A. It is located at the new V&A East Storehouse at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park:

It is a small, but interesting exhibition of some of the costumes worn by Bowie, photos, song lyrics, ideas for films, plays etc.

The Bowie exhibition and archive is a small part of the Storehouse, which is home to a vast collection of items not on display in the main museums.

You are free to wander around the walkways on several levels between racks of items collected over very many years:

There were a number of London related items on display, for example a London County Council plaque recording that Emma Cons and Lilian Baylis lived here:

The plaque dates from 1952 and was installed on the house at 6 Morton Place, Stockwell. The house was demolished in 1971 and the plaque was saved with the intention that it would go on display in the V&A Covent Garden Theatre Museum. The Theatre Museum closed in 2007, and the plaque is now on display the V&A East Storehouse.

The V&A also has a number of items relating to Robin Hood Gardens, the social housing estate in Poplar, east London, including a section of the west block, to preserve the architectural vision.

One of the items on display is a collage from the Robin Hood Gardens Project:

And some of the fittings from Robin Hood Gardens:

The V&A East Storehouse is a fascinating way to display part of the collection that would not normally be on display in the V&A museums, and is well worth a visit.

The Flower Sellers and London Fields

9 Replies

The Flower Sellers is a statue (not sure if that is the correct word to describe this large artwork), in London Fields, Hackney. My father photographed the statue in 1989:

Last Wednesday, the first day without any rain, and with sun forecast, I went to find the Flower Sellers, and this is how they look today (unfortunately with a bright sun behind):

Most descriptions about the statue describe the installation as being in the 1980s, which I think I can narrow down to 1988.

The two figures are holding baskets possibly of flowers (which makes sense given the name of the work), but may also contain other produce. Around the base of the work, and in the surroundings of the Flower Sellers there are a number of sheep. I will come onto the reasons for these later in the post.

London Fields is a large area of open space in Hackney, just to the west of the Weaver line station, also called London Fields. I have circled London Fields in the following map (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

Surrounding the main statue, there are a number of stone seats, each with the top made up of colourful mosaics, depicting everyday items, such as scissors, threads of cotton, and bottles in the following example:

The name of the work is the Flower Sellers, and presumably it is flowers that are meant to be represented within the baskets held by the two people. I am not so sure. There are very few direct references to the baskets holding flowers, some references are to “different produce” sold in the nearby Broadway Market.

In 2018, after 30 years of being exposed to the elements, the work was in need of some repair, and the council commissioned local mosaic artist Tamara Froud from MosaicAllsorts to carry out the work. Today, the items in the baskets do look a bit like colourful flowers, but this could have been the result of the restoration emphasising the patterns and colours:

In my father’s 1989 photo, the items in the baskets were very plain and lacking any colour. The photo was only a year or less, after the work was installed, so perhaps the contents of the baskets were still to be finished.

The work does have a direct reference to a previous use of London Fields. The work consists of a number of seats in the immediate area of the central figures, and these follow the designs at the base of the figures, with colourful mosaic topped seating, and sheep:

These sheep, around the seating and at the base of the central work represent the time when London Fields were used as a stopping off place for animals being taken to the markets of London.

Rocque’s map of 1746 shows London Field as an area of open space (in the centre of the following map) to the west of Church Street (today Mare Street). Ribbon development along Mare Street of the village of Hackney, with the village surrounded by fields:

The following larger extract from Rocque’s map shows where London Fields is located (red circle) with respect to the main routes from the north of the city down to Smithfield Market. The yellow arrow points to the main route, now the A10, Kingsland Road, and the green arrows point to a detour from this road that passes through Hackney, where sheep could be rested at London Fields, before re-joining the main route to head to the market:

Volume 10 covering Hackney from “A History of the County of Middlesex”, describes London Fields being first record in 1540, with the singular use of the name, with Fields seeming to become more frequent in later centuries.

There are references to the area being worn bare by the grazing of sheep.

Other references to this activity were, and some still are, to be found surrounding London Fields. There was a Mutton Lane (look to the lower left of London Fields in the first extract from Rocque’s map above), and there was, and still is a Sheep Lane, as seen in the following map (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

There is also a Cat and Mutton pub at the London Fields end of Broadway Market, and crossing the Regent’s Canal is the Cat and Mutton Bridge.

As could probably be expected in an open area, with lots of travellers passing through, there was a significant amount of crime in and around London Fields.

The following is a small sample of newspaper reports mentioning London Fields from the decades in the mid 18th century around the time of Rocque’s map:

7th of October 1741: “On Thursday Night, between Seven and Eight o’clock, five Persons, singly, were robbed between the Goldsmiths Alms houses and London Field, going to Hackney, by three Footpads, who have for some time infested those Parts.”

30th of July 1730: “Monday afternoon the following acts were committed by a man with one arm, very genteelly dressed – with his sword he wounded two ladies in London Field, Hackney; and a short time afterwards, with the same weapon, he twice stabbed a gentleman upon Dalton Downs.”

17th of October 1750: “Yesterday as a Servant of a Mercer in Cheapside, who had been to deliver some Good’s at a Lady’s at Hackney, was returning home about Five o’clock in the Evening, he was stopt between London Field and the Road by a Man genteelly dressed in a light coloured Coat and black Waistcoat, who seized him by the Collar, and presenting a Pistol to him, threatened to blow his Brains out if he did not deliver his Money, which he did, to the Amount of Twenty Shillings and Three-pence, and the Fellow was going away; but on the Servant’s desiring him to return the Half-pence for a Pint of Beer, he gave him three Half pence, then took of his Hat and Wig and tripped up the man’s heels and pushed him into a Ditch, and then made off across the Field.”

4th of December 1753: “On Tuesday Night, between Seven and Eight o’clock, Mr, Cornelius Mussell was robbed in London Field, Hackney, of twenty five shillings, by five men armed with Pistols and Cutlasses; and last Night, two Gentlemen in a Coach coming to Town from Hackney, were robbed on Cambridge Heath supposed to be the same Gang.”

13th of November 1770: “Last Night an out door Clerk belonging to Mr. Pearson, Wine and Brandy Merchant, in Spitalfields, who had been at a Public House in Hackney, receiving cash to the amount of £30, was stopped by two Footpads in London Field, who robbed him of all the Money he had received.”

On the 25th of February 1773, Thomas Bond was convicted at the Old Bailey for robbing Thomas Sayville of his watch and money in London Field, Hackney – he was initially sentenced to death, but this was commuted to transportation.

The threat of a death sentence, or transportation seems to have been very little deterrent to these types of crimes given the very high number of robberies that were reported across London.

There were other strange events in London Fields, including:

31st July 1789: “Monday evening a battle was fought in London Fields, Hackney, between two butchers of Bishopsgate Street, which, according to the connoisseurs of the pugilistic art, was the choicest ever known. The combatants behaved with uncommon resolution during an hour and ten minutes, when it was ended by the least being carried off the field for dead. The bets ran 5 to 3 in favour of the loser – many knock-down blows were given and received on both sides, and on the close of the contest, neither was able to stand alone.”

Almost 80 years after Rocque’s map, in 1823, Hackney was still a village surrounded by fields, with London Field continuing to be an open area to the west, and still being used to graze sheep on their way to market:

In Rocque’s map of 1746, the land to the west of London Fields is shown with horizontal and vertical dashed lines, rather than the symbols used to indicate normal grass fields. In the above 1823 map, this area is now marked as Grange’s Nursery, a large area of space almost running up to Kingsland Road, with what must have been the owners, and or nursery buildings in the centre of the space.

Another comparison between the 1746 and 1823 maps shows that there had not be that much additional development around London Fields. Some additional building, but mainly along Mare Street.

This would all change in the following decades, with the period from 1840 being one of considerable change, with rows of Victorian housing, industrial buildings and streets being developed between Hackney and Kingsland Road, with London Fields surviving as an area of public open space.

There were many challenges by developers to London Fields, with small bits of the space being taken for housing, and there was also digging for gravel at places across the space.

A campaign by those concerned with preserving London Fields as a public open space helped to make the Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866 reach Parliament and become law, with London Fields becoming the responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works.

There were continuing issues with gravel digging and fences encroaching onto the space, but these were always challenged and fences torn down. When the London County Council came into being, London Fields was levelled and seeded with grass, paths were created, and Plane trees planted, with a bandstand being built in the centre of the fields.

Looking towards the south of London Fields from the Flower Sellers:

Looking north along London Fields:

In the above photo, the space looks very empty, however it was busy with people, just not on the grass, which was rather muddy after many days of rain.

The main footpath to the right had a continuous stream of walkers and runners, and to the north, the play areas were full of groups of small children in high-vis jackets being shepherded by nursery school teachers, although the play area to the south was empty:

The above photo shows some of the houses that lined the eastern, Hackney side of London Fields, the first side of the fields to be developed.

As with many open spaces in London, London Fields has seen a number of political meetings. One such was reported in the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette on the 15th of March 1886:

“MEETING OF SOCIALISTS ON LONDON FIELDS – On Saturday afternoon, a mass meeting of the employed and unemployed took place on London Fields, convened under the auspices of the Hackney and Shoreditch Branch of the Social Democratic Federation, to consider what was best to be done to alleviate the distress that now prevails to such a terrible extent in the district. A large crowd , numbering some two thousand persons, gathered round a cart in the centre of the fields, from which speeches were delivered.

A large body of police, some 300 on foot and 50 mounted, were on duty. The mounted men were placed at the entrance of the streets abutting the fields, and the other constables paraded the footpaths in pairs. Most of the shops in the immediate vicinity were closed.

The Chairman referred to the rapid growth of the Mansion House Fund since the Trafalgar Square riots as indicating the re-awakening of the well-to-do classes on the subject of the increasing amount of distress in the country, whereat he was interrupted by cries of ‘No charity’, and ‘We don’t want it’. It was not the relief funds that they wanted, but the right to live and to labour guaranteed by the State. If they had justice they would enjoy the wealth they created.”

Charles Booth’s poverty maps created towards the end of the 19th century, shows the contrasting levels of wealth and poverty around London Fields from the dark blues of “Very poor, casual. Chronic want”, up to the reds of “Middle Class, Well-to-do”, with this later grouping occupying the new terrace houses that had been built in the previous couple of decades:

On the north eastern edge of London Fields, there is a pub – the Pub on the Park:

The Pub on the Park is a survivor of the 19th century buildings surrounding the north east of the park.

On the night of the 21st of September, 1940, the area around London Fields suffered considerable bomb damage, resulting in the post-war demolition of the buildings around the pub, which was restored and survived.

The pub was originally called the Queen Eleanor and renamed to the Pub on the Park in 1992.

The pub seems to date from the mid 19th century development of the area, and the first references I can find to the Queen Eleanor date from the 1850s. There may have been a pub on the site prior to the current building, as a place where people travelling through the area, and grazing their sheep in the fields, would have also attracted businesses such as pubs, although I can find no evidence of the predecessor to the current building, although I suspect it was part of the mid 19th century development.

The sign of the Pub on the Park:

From the photo of the pub, it is clear that it was once a corner pub, and a look at the other side of the pub shows that it was once joined to another house. This side is also now decorated:

The reason for the original name of the pub is clear in the following extract from the 1893 OS revision. The pub is circled and Eleanor Road runs upwards from the left of the pub (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

What is remarkable about the above map is that Eleanor Road, and the houses along the left hand side of Tower Street were not rebuilt after the war, and the area was taken into London Fields, grassed over, and is now part of that open space.

The pub is now isolated on the edge of the fields.

Follow Eleanor Road to the north and the road meets Richmond Road. The houses along the southern side of Richmond Road, at the northern end of the park, were also not rebuilt and London Fields now extends to border Richmond Road, with the exception of a small stretch of housing to right and left.

Tower Street in the above map is now Martello Street. It is always interesting to walk the side streets as there is frequently so much to see, for example just before where Martello Street dives under the railway viaduct:

At the north western corner of London Fields is the London Fields Lido:

The Lido was one of many opened across London during the 1920s and 1930s (see here for a bit about the Parliament Hill Lido), although all the news reports from the time refer to it as an open air swimming bath rather than a Lido.

The Lido was opened in 1932, and was advanced for its time, having an advanced filtration plant as well as a water aerator in the form of a fountain. As well as the pool, there was a sunbathing area, first aid room and a refreshment kiosk, and the Lido was designed and built by the London County Council.

The Lido closed for the war, opening in 1951, the same year as the Festival of Britain. I do not know if these events were connected, but the Festival did act as a catalyst for other post war improvements and renovations to public infrastructure and facilities.

The Lido remained open until 1988, after which there were proposals to demolish the Lido and return the area to grass within the overall London Fields grassland, as had happened with the post war demolition of the bomb damaged housing at Eleanor Street..

The London Fields User Group were concerned about the threats to the Lido, and the loss of such a facility, so a sub-committee was established to campaign for the reopening of the Lido.

The condition of the Lido deteriorated rapidly, with the Lido sub-committee arranging work to try and stop too much deterioration, whilst continuing to campaign for restoration and reopening.

Funding and designs were finally available in 2005 when work started, with the Lido reopening in October 2006 for a few months for testing. More work was needed over winter, and the Lido fully reopened for Easter 2007.

The Lido seemed busy on the day of my visit to London Fields, and, despite being a February day there were plenty of swimmers in the open air pool, although having the water at 24 degrees centigrade must help.

From sheep grazing to a Lido, London Fields has been a key part in the development of Hackney for centuries, and continues to be a valuable area of open space surrounded by dense streets of 19th century development, as London engulfed the small villages surrounding the city.

Watermen’s Rates, The Shock of America and a 19th Century Street View

17 Replies

Three different subjects in this week’s post, but they all have a common theme of time – change over time, how centuries old data can be interpreted in modern ways, and how the future always develops in a way we can never foresee, starting with:

The 1803 Table of Watermen’s Rates

In last week post on Pageant’s Stairs, one of the references I included to the stairs, was the Watermen’s rates for taking you from London Bridge to the stairs in 1803, according to the “Correct Table of the Fares of Watermen, which has recently been made out by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen”, as published in the Evening Mail on Monday the 16th of May, 1803..

The table included the rates for a long length of the Thames, from Windsor to Gravesend, and in my nerdy way of looking at stuff like this, I thought it would be interesting to interpret this data in a way we are familer with now, if we travel on London’s underground and rail network, where basic charging is by zone.

So taking the starting point of London Bridge, in the City of London, I mapped the rates in 1803 on to a map of the Thames, with each zone defining a specific Watermen’s price to row you from London Bridge.

If you walked down to the river in 1803 to take a Watermen’s boat to your destination, then, as with an Underground station today, we can imagine the following maps pinned to the wall of the alley leading down to the stairs, the first map starting with the zones from London Bridge out to Blackwall (the actual zone pricing is after the maps). All base maps are © OpenStreetMap contributors:

London Bridge is the bridge on the left edge of Zone 1, and this is the starting point for a journey east along the river, and as with Transport for London’s (TfL), charging today, the price increases as the length of journey increases.

There are some strange charges, for example the whole of the Isle of Dogs appears to be in a higher priced zone (6), whilst Deptford has it’s own little zone (5), which is a lower price to the Isle of Dogs.

Displaying data in this way does make some huge assumptions. For example, with the Isle of Dogs, the 1803 table does not specify where on the Isle of Dogs the priced journey would end, so as stated in the table it looks to cover a large distance of river, from Limehouse round to Blackwall.

In the next map, we continue along the river to Gravesend, which, as Zone 13 is the final easterly zone, and priced destination in the 1803 table:

There seems to be no standard length of journey, so as can be seen in the above map, the length along the river of zone 9 is much more than zones 11 or 12.

The pricing and sample locations within each zone is shown in the following table:

The best description of the difference between Oars and Sculler that I can find, is that with Oars, a rower is holding a single Oar in two hands, whilst with a Sculler, a rower is holding a pair of Oars in both hands.

I assume this explains the difference in pricing and why the price for a Sculler ends at the Isle of Dogs / Greenwich, as a boat could be rowed by a single person, using two oars, where with Oars, at least two people would be needed, each holding one oar on either side of the boat.

If this is wrong, comments are always appreciated.

The price for a Sculler ending at the Isle of Dogs / Greenwich is probably due to this being the physical limit that a single person could row along the river.

Regarding my earlier comment about the difference in length of the zones, the pricing table helps to explain this, with the jump in rates roughly rises in line with the distance travelled.

The above maps and table cover the east of the river. If you wanted to travel west, then there is a similar zone map hanging on the wall at London Bridge.

This is the first seven zones, from London Bridge up to Wandsworth:

Zone 6 covers the rate to Chelsea, and the following print from 1799 shows a party being rowed along Chelsea Reach. The boat is being rowed by Oars, as there are six rowers and three oars either side, so each rower is holding a single oar with both hands:

(© 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 above print shows several people being rowed by a team of six, and an obvious question is whether the rates apply to any number of passengers and number of rowers, and the answer is that there is an additional charge.

The 1803 Table of Watermen’s rates states that for the journey from London Bridge to Chelsea, for every additional passenger, there is an additional charge of 4d on top of the base rate, so in the above print there are ten passengers, plus two playing instruments who I assume also incur a charge as they are not Watermen.

The man at the back is wearing a Watermen’s badge on his arm, so presumably comes with the boat, so if the above boat had been rowed from London Bridge to Chelsea, the charge (see table after the next two maps) would have been 2s 6d base rate plus 12 times 4d (passengers plus musicians), so a total charge of 5 shillings and 10 pence.

Continuing along to Zone 18, Shepperton, Chertsey and Weybridge:

The final two zones, 19 and 20 run all the way to Windsor:

The table of rates travelling west from London Bridge:

The final five zones from Hampton Court / Town up to Datchet and Windsor:

The journey out to Windsor is considerable, and is way beyond the area of Port of London Authority’s responsibility, which ends at Teddington, the last westerly point on the tidal Thames.

Including Windsor in the Waterman’s rates must have meant there was demand for travel this far west, and is probably due to the times when the Monarch was based at Windsor Castle, so there would have been a need for travel from central London out to Windsor.

The price is also considerable for 1803 at 21 shillings, and on top of this there was a 3 shilling charge for additional passengers. Assuming the traveller from London to Windsor required a return trip, then the price would have been double, so not a journey that the average Londoner would have taken. Only one for the rich, and those on state business.

As well as listing charges for additional passengers, there were a number of other additional charges:

  • If the journey is not a direct journey between places on the river, for example, if the journey is taking or collecting passengers from a ship, which may include waiting at the ship whilst passengers and luggage transfer, then the Waterman has the option of charging either the standard distance rate, or a time rate of 6d for every half hour for oars, and 3d for scullers.
  • If the Waterman is detained at a stop by the passenger, for example having to wait at the destination stop whilst the passengers wait to disembark, wait to be met etc. then the Waterman can charge an additional 6d per half hour of waiting for oars and 3d for scullers.
  • A journey directly across the river is charged at the standard rate of 2d, or if more than one person, 1d per person
  • There were also standard rates between different stairs or landing places on the river, these were roughly the difference between the zones in which the different places were located. As an example, Wapping (Zone 3) to Greenwich (Zone 7), was 1 shilling 6 pence. The difference of the London Bridge standard rates of 2s 6d (to Greenwich) minus 1s (to Wapping, Zone 3).
  • No more than six persons are to be carried in a wherry (the standard Watermen’s boat), and up to Windsor and Greenwich, up to eight in a passage boat (which I believe is a larger boat than the basic wherry).

One surprising omission is any reference to the state of the tide, as for a rowed or sculled boat, it would have been considerably harder rowing against the tide than rowing with the ride. It may be that this is expected to average out over a series of journeys with half being against the tide and half with the tide.

It would also be interesting to add a time column to the listing of rates, as the journey to the furthest reaches to the east and the west must have been considerable. This was reflected in the rates for the watermen, however it must have taken many hours to reach the furthest places in the table, and time of the journey would have been variable, depending on tide, weather, other river traffic etc.

Despite what seems to be well regulated pricing, there were challenges for the passenger who used the river to travel through London.

The following print dated 1816 from the Miseries of London series shows a woman walking down the steps at Wapping Old Stairs, presumably wanting a boat to travel to her destination, and being “assailed by a group of watermen, holding out their hands and calling Oars, Sculls, Sculls, Oars, Oars”:

(© 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 Watermen are wearing their badge on their arms to signify that they are a Waterman, and the following is an example of such a badge:

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

Not adhering to the rates would often result in being brought to court, for example in 1847, waterman John Thomas Jones was in court on a charge of overcharging a passenger 12s 6d for a fare that should have been 4s 3d. The Waterman was fined 20s.

Watermen also were at a number of risks, as well as the daily danger of rowing along a congested river, they were also valued for their skills, and were prized as recruits for the Navy.

A report in the London Magazine in 1738 on the need to crew several new naval ships, states that a “press” took place on the river, with 2,370 men taken and enrolled in the Navy, the majority of them being Watermen.

The 19th century saw a gradual decline in the need for a Watermen to row passengers along the river.

The growth of steam ships on the river, the growth of the railways, underground, improved roads, bridges etc. all made it easier to travel without the need to be rowed.

Steam powered boats started ferrying passengers along the river, although initially this method of transport was not always safe and reliable. The following print from 1817 titled “Travelling by Steam” shows two Watermen watching a steam packet boat exploding and throwing the boat’s passengers across the river:

(© 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 newspapers listing of the Watermen’s Rates were always dense columns of text, and showing these visually on a map, in a similar way in which TfL display underground and rail fares helps with understanding part of the rich life of London’s river.

One big difference between 1803 Watermen charges and today’s TfL charging is that in 1803 there was no capping of the daily charge, so in 1803, you would have been charged for each journey you would have taken on the river.

The Sunbeam Weekly and the Pilgrim’s Pocket – Shock and Outrage at the Evolution of the United States of America

There is a wonderful statue at Cumberland Wharf in Rotherhithe, which is today a small area of open space alongside the river at the place indicated by the arrow in the following map:

Once a wharf between Rotherhithe Street and the Thames, servicing a large granary across the street via conveyors which ran across the street in the photo below, and which shows the area occupied by Cumberland Wharf:

If you look to the left of the space, there is a walkway with a statue at the end, which is alongside the river:

The statue consists of a taller figure – William Bradford, who was Governor of the New Plymouth colony in the United States for a number of periods between the years 1621 and 1657. The boy is in 1930s clothes, and represents a local boy reading a comic of the time:

The work by Peter McLean dates from 1991 and is titled “Sunshine Weekly and the Pilgrims Pocket”:

William Bradford was one the Pilgrims who left Rotherhithe on the Mayflower in 1620. The ship sailed from Rotherhithe from the area around Cumberland Wharf, although not their last port of call in England, as they stopped off at Plymouth before crossing the Atlantic on a two month journey.

Bradford is looking over the boy’s shoulder at his comic with, as described in the adjacent information board, “a look of shock and outrage” as he turns the pages of the comic:

The Sunbeam Weekly was a comic from the 1930s:

Why was the Pilgrim William Bradford, who had a long career as the Governor of the Plymouth Colony at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, looking at a 1930s comic with a look of shock and outrage?

The reason is that the pages of the comic are showing how the United States of America has evolved since the Pilgrims landed in 1620.

(Sorry, the photo is slightly out of focus. It was grey, overcast, raining, breezy and cold).

The pages of the comic show the Statue of Liberty, an aeroplane, cars, a train, skyscrapers, the Space Shuttle and King Kong:

William Bradford was a Puritan, the strand of English Protestantism that believed that the Reformation had not gone far enough in ridding the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices. Puritans, and the clash between reformers. separatists and the established church would play a major part in the English Civil War and the Protectorate which would take place during the 1640s and 1650s.

I am sure Bradford would be absolutely shocked how the United States has developed in the 400 years since he was part of Plymouth Colony. I am not sure about the outrage, as Puritans were against Roman Catholicism rather than what can loosely be described as technical progress, however they were strict religious adherents (which is where stories about Christmas festivities being banned during the Protectorate, although in reality the vast majority of the population continued to celebrate).

The pocket of William Bradford includes some key symbols.

A 1620 A to Z of the New World, a lobster claw and fish to show the seafood that was key to the Pilgrims survival in the early years of the colony, and a cross which is symbolic of the religion that the Pilgrims carried to the new colony. There is a small US badge at the base of the cross:

The artist’s tools are shown at the feet of the statue:

And along the edge of the base is the sculptors name and year the work was created:

I think this is a wonderful work of art.

I often wonder when looking at old photos, what the people in the photo would think about how the future has developed, as it is always in a different way to that expected at the time.

My father mainly photographed scenes rather than focusing on people, however whilst it is a gap of only 73 years, compared with the almost 400 years in the Rotherhithe statue, it would be interesting to see how those waiting for the 1953 Coronation procession in one of his photos, would look at the London of today:

If you walk the Thames path in Rotherhithe, or along Rotherhithe Street, stop at Cumberland Wharf to take a look at “Sunshine Weekly and the Pilgrims Pocket” and also consider that whatever we expect the future to be – it will almost certainly be very different.

And for the final look at a different aspect of time hopping, another of my first post of the month looks at the resources available if you are interested in discovering more about the history of London:

Resources – Tallis’s London Street Views

Today, if you want to look at a street and see the buildings and businesses along the street you can use Google Street View.

Imagine if it was possible to do this for the years long before photography and Google made this possible, well for the years between the late 1830s and early 1840s there is a Street View available, which whilst being drawn, and not as comprehensive as Google still provides the opportunity to take a virtual walk along a London street.

This is Tallis’s London Street Views.

(Before going further, the version of Tallis’s Street Views available on line is the 2002 reprint of a London Topographical Society (LTS) print of the street views. The copy was held by the University of Michigan and digitised by Google, and is made available online by the HathiTrust, a US organisation who describe themselves as:

“HathiTrust was founded in 2008 as a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries now preserving 19+ million digitized items in the HathiTrust Digital Library. We offer reading access to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. and international copyright law, text and data mining tools for the entire corpus, and other emerging services based on the combined collection.”

The HathiTrust have made the work available under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives.

It is difficult to know the true copyright status of documents such as this, when you have very large organisations such as Google digitising vast amounts of works and many, often US based organisations making these fully available online, a situation which I expect is going to get more problematic in years to come).

John Tallis was the publisher of the Street Views. He was based at 15 St. John’s Lane, near St. John’s Gate.

Tallis was a prolific publisher of prints covering people (real and fictional), actors, landscape scenes, buildings, places etc. As well as multiple prints of London, he published images of other places, for example the following print of Margate Pier and Harbour:

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

Initially, Street Views was published in parts before being published as a complete set.

The following, from the Gloucester Journal on the 21st of July 1838 is typical of advertising for the Street Views:

“TALLIS’S LONDON STREET VIEWS. For the sum of Three-half-pence, you can purchase a correct View, beautifully engraved on steel, and drawn by an artist of great talent, of upwards of One Hundred Houses, with a Street Directory, or a Key to the Name and Trade of every occupier to which is added a Map of the District, and an Historical account of such Streets, Courts, or public Buildings worth recording.”

The Street Views obviously does not cover all the streets of London, but does provide comprehensive coverage of the major thoroughfares of central London, along with many of the smaller streets, particularly in the City.

An example of the way that streets are illustrated is the following view of part of Hatton Garden:

As well as an illustration of the building, where a business occupies a building, the name and trade is also provided, so at number 109 Hatton Garden there is a Pianoforte Maker and Music Publisher who presumably goes by the name of Hart.

Next door at 108 there is Schonberg, Engraver and Printer, along with a Taylor and Draper in the same building, and at 106 there is Battistessa & Co, Looking Glass and Artificial Flower Maker.

What is fascinating is being able to find more about these business, and in the British Museum collection is a trade card for the above mentioned L. Schonberg of 108 Hatton Garden:

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

Tallis’s London Street View is a fascinating way of walking the streets of London in the late 1830s and early 1840s, and a reminder that John Tallis came up with this format of recording a city long before Google Street View.

The Tallis’s Street View can be found at the HathiTrust, by clicking here, where you can scroll through the pages or download a copy.

Google Street View is a brilliant equivalent resource of today. Imagine being interested in London’s history in a couple of centuries time, and being able to walk through a photographic view of the City’s streets, however continuing the theme of the future is always very different to that we expect, and that services such as Street View are digital, will they survive that length of time given the magnitude of change that can occur over such a period of time.

Pageant Stairs, Pageant’s Wharf, a Fire Station, Obelisk, and Bus Stop, Rotherhithe

9 Replies

I am in Rotherhithe this week, to visit another of the Thames Stairs that have lined the river for centuries, and to explore the history of the stair’s surroundings. This is Pageant or Pageant’s Stairs, back in January 2024, when the concrete floor at the top of the stairs, as well as the stairs leading down to the foreshore, were all covered in a layer of ice:

I have marked the location of the stairs with a red arrow in the following map, on the southern side of the river, opposite Limehouse  (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

Pageant Stairs are shown in the 1914 revision of the Ordnance Survey map, at the end of an alley that leads between a fire station (yellow oval), and a public house (red arrow) from Rotherhithe Street (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

I was pleased to find there was a public house at the entry to the alley, as this confirms my theory that almost every Thame’s stairs, east of the City, had an associated pub, most alongside the stairs, others directly opposite or adjacent. I will come onto the pub and the fire station later in the post.

Pageant Stairs are listed in the Port of London Authority list of Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames, where they are described as “Concrete steps then wood steps, concrete apron”, and the listing states that they were in use as a landing place in 1708 (although the list does not identify the source of the 1708 reference, which is a standard date throughout the list for all stairs).

The earliest written reference I can find to the stairs is from the Oracle and Daily Advertiser on the 23rd of September, 1802, where business premises at or adjacent to the stairs are for sale and listed in the following advert:

“EXTENSIVE PREMISES, NEARLY OPPOSITE THE WEST-INDIA DOCKS, ROTHERHITHE, By Mr. SMITH.

At Garraway’s, tomorrow at twelve o-clock, in one Lot. THE CAPITAL and DESIRABLE LEASEHOLD PREMISES, conveniently situate for stores, in front of the Thames, at Pageant’s Stairs, Rotherhithe, late in the occupation of Messrs. Giorgi and Co. Chemists and Refiners; comprising a substantial dwelling house, garden, and small paddock, wharf and extensive warehouses for trade and merchandise; coach-house and stabling for three horses, well planned laboratory, drug, camphor and saltpetre-room; also a large warehouse, adjoining, in front of the Thames.”

So at the very start of the 19th century, the area around Pageant’s Stairs was already industrialised, with one of the many companies working in the chemicals industry that occupied the banks of the river, east of the City.

The 1802 advert mentions that the extensive premises included a substantial dwelling house, garden and small paddock. This is indicative of the semi-rural and small scale nature of the businesses along this stretch of the river as they developed during the late 18th century. Throughout the 19th century, the scale of industrial development would increase considerably.

A year later, Pageant’s Stairs are mentioned in the Evening Mail on the 18th of May, 1803 where the stairs are included in a listing of “Table of the New Rates of the Fares of Watermen”, with a rate “from Iron Gate to Duke-Shore stairs or Pageants, Oars 1s, Sculler 6d”.

Iron Gate Stairs were where Tower Bridge is today, and the stairs were rebuilt under the bridge (see this post). Duke Shore Stairs were on the northern side of the river, almost directly opposite Pageant Stairs.

Pageant’s Stairs were also frequently mentioned when recording events on the river, such as an 1870 report on the discovery of a body in the river by four young men who were rowing a boat. The location was given as being near Pagent’s Stairs, Rotherhithe.

In this article, the name was spelt Pagent, rather than Pageant, and this different spelling also seems to have been in use, but not as much as the far more frequent Pageant, sometimes with an ‘s.

The current build of the stairs, is, I assume, from the late 1980s / early 1990s redevelopment of the area when the residential buildings that now line this stretch of the river were built.

The approach to Pageant Stairs is up a series of steps, which form part of the river wall, and give an indication of the potential for high tides along this stretch of the river:

Alongside the stairs, we can see how they have been built within a walled surround, a way of continuing the river wall around the stairs:

It is not clear where the name Pageant originates. There was a wharf to the side of the stairs called Pageant’s Wharf, so the name may have come from the wharf, or the wharf took the name of the stairs.

The earliest written references I can find to the wharf date to around the same few years as the first written references to the stairs. This first reference to the wharf comes from the Morning Chronicle on the 17th of December 1804, and includes a possible alternative name of George’s Wharf:

“Twenty New Gun Carriages and Beds, nearly completed, to carry 18-pounders, Stock of Wrought Iron, Oak ad Elm Timber, Fire Wood, &c. Pageant’s Wharf, Rotherhithe. By Mr. Hindle, on the premises known by Pagent’s or George’s Wharf near the Board of Ordnance, Rotherhithe, tomorrow at 11.”

The stairs, wharf and name are almost certainly older than the above newspaper references, and it is probable that there was a wharf here in the late 1600s.

Rocque’s map from 1746 shows some short lines indicating stairs, leading down onto the foreshore, along with the name, The Pageants (in the centre of the following extract):

It is interesting that in the above map, to the east of the Pageants, we can see a plot of land almost as described in the 1802 advert, where there are buildings and open space that almost exactly correspond to the description as “comprising a substantial dwelling house, garden, and small paddock, wharf and extensive warehouses for trade and merchandise; coach-house and stabling for three horses, well planned laboratory, drug, camphor and saltpetre-room; also a large warehouse, adjoining, in front of the Thames“.

The plural – the Pageants – in Rocque’s map is the same form as used in the 1803 table of Watermen’s rates so it is probable that this was the version of the name used during the 18th and into the early 19th century.

Whether the name refers to a person, perhaps the owner of the wharf or land at some point, it is impossible to say, but it must have been in use for at least 300 years.

I also found one reference where the name used was Little Pageant’s Wharf.

The main industry along this stretch of the river was ship building, and a wider view of the Rocque map shows that in 1746, the area between what is now Rotherhithe Street (then Lavender Street) was full of shipwrights and timber yards, whilst inland of Rotherhithe / Lavender Street, it was all agricultural. It was proximity to the river which drove the early development of Rotherhithe:

There is a brilliant little booklet by Stuart Rankin published in 1996 as the Rotherhithe Local History Paper No. 1 which has a single comment about the Pageants, that they were at one time occupied by the business of Punnett & Sindrey, who were ship breakers.

In the early 20th century, the site was occupied by a firm of timber merchants, however the site would soon been transformed, as detailed in the following extract from the Southwark and Bermondsey Recorder on the 2nd of April 1926:

“BERMONDSEY BOROUGH COUNCIL – NEW DUST DESTRUCTOR TO BE PROVIDED IN BERMONDSEY AT A COST OF £19,327.

In the connection with the decision of the Bermondsey Borough Council to purchase Pageant’s Wharf, Rotherhithe Street, for the purpose of erecting a dust destructor, a specially convened meeting of the Council was held at the Town Hall on Monday evening.

The meeting was called as a matter of urgency in order to expedite the work, and it was decided that, subject to the submission of the necessary estimate by the Finance Committee, the tender of Meldrum’s Ltd of Timperley, near Manchester, should be accepted for the construction of the top-feed destructor, furnaces, boilers etc. in accordance with their specification, as modified by the amended drawings as approved by the Borough Surveyor, at a sum of £11,241, and that the tender of the Building Works Manager be accepted for the erection at Pageants Wharf of a steel framed, brick filled building and a brick chimney shaft, 120 feet high, at a sum of £8,086.”

The dust destructor, or incinerator, was needed as a result of the significant growth in Bermondsey’s population, and the waste they created.

It was opened in January 1927, and was capable of handling 100 tons of household waste a day.

Waste was collected from vehicles at the entrance and carried by an overhead railway, to where the waste was dropped into steel-lined hoppers, it was then delivered to three top-feed furnaces. Steam was generated in boilers from the heat generated by burning the waste, and the steam was used to generate a “steam blast”, which created a draught through the furnaces to get the fire to the high temperatures need to burn the waste.

The dust destructor was a major construction, and included concrete piles, 28feet in length, driven down into the hard ballast below the river bed. Fascinating to think that these piles are probably still there, beneath the river bed.

In the following 1939 image from the Britain from Above archive, I have marked the location of the chimney of the dust destructor. The image also shows how the agricultural land in Rocque’s map had been transformed into a large dock complex:

The dust destructor was to the east of Pageant Stairs , and occupied the space in the following 2024 photo:

In the above photo, there is a stone obelisk, and as far as I can tell, it serves absolutely no purpose, apart from decorative.

I have read stories about an alignment with Canary Wharf, and that the obelisk is on an alignment through the centre of the original development and the One Canada Square office tower.

I tried this on a map, and the obelisk is indeed on a perfect alignment (obelisk at the left hand end of the blue line, which then passes through the centre of Westferry Circus, then between North and South Colonnade, and passing through the centre of One Canada Square, which I have circled in blue) (© OpenStreetMap contributors:

This is almost getting into Ley Lines, or something from the excellent Rivers of London series of books, but I extended the line to the west, and it passes very close to the Bank Junction, and touches the northern edge of St. Paul’s Cathedral – two historic parts of the City of London.

No idea why the colonnade was built on an alignment with Canary Wharf, or whether it was intentional. Both developments were under the overall control of the London Docklands Development Corporation, so perhaps it was their idea to add some integration between the north and south of the river.

The view during my recent January 2026 visit, to take a look at Horn Stairs which are a short distance away:

The walkway in the above photo runs between Pageant Stairs and Horn Stairs. This was the view looking back from close to Horn Stairs. Note the name of the walk on the right given as Pageant Crescent (a bit hard to see in the gloom of a January day). Good that the name of the stairs and the wharf is still recorded here (although there is no name at the actual stairs):

During my visit in January 2024, the sky was clear, bright sunshine and very cold, with ice on the steps of Pageant Stairs. In January 2026, it was very wet, but above freezing, although a strong breeze along the river made it feel cold.

The weather has always had an impact on life on the Thames. We are familiar with the stories of ice fairs on the Thames in central London, but the river also froze, with ice and snow accumulating along many parts of the river.

In searching for stories about Pageant Stairs, I found a reference in the Morning Herald on the 20th of January 1838, which reported that “The state of the river is getting worse, and yesterday there was a continued freezing of the waters, in fact the accumulation of ice on the banks and in the stream itself, might be seen to hourly increase”.

The report went on to talk about the problems a ship’s captain had reaching his boat from Globe Stairs in Rotherhithe, due to the amount of snow and “enormous icebergs” on the river. He had to be rescued by a Thames police waterman, who cleared the snow overlaying the ice on the river and laid planks, so the captain could reach his ship.

Pageant Stairs was mentioned in the article as being the only place on the river, from Pageant’s Stairs, Rotherhithe, to Limehouse Hole on the opposite shore, which was pretty clear.

Looking down the stairs in January 2026, with only a small part of the foreshore visible:

The newspaper report about ice and snow on the river mentioned Limehouse Hole, and Pageant’s Stairs are directly opposite Limehouse, with the following photo looking across the houses in the far bank which face onto Narrow Street in Limehouse. Limehouse Hole is continuing round to the right:

The view was far better during my 2024 visit (the Grapes pub is roughly in the centre):

The following photo is of the view looking from Pageant Stairs down to Rotherhithe Street. The Public House marked by the PH in the Ordinance Survey map shown earlier in the post was at the end of the walkway, on the left and facing onto the walkway and Rotherhithe Street:

The pub was the Queen’s Head, one of two pubs with the same name in Rotherhithe, the other being in Paradise Street.

The Queen’s Head closed in 1928, shortly after the dust destructor, or incinerator was completed. This dirty, noisy industrial plant would have been to the rear and side of the pub, which was left in a small south-west corner of the plot of land with the rest being occupied by the dust destructor.

Not the best place to run a business such as a pub, although the river stairs were still in use.

Finding the Queen’s Head continues to confirm my theory that to the east of London, whether north or south of the river, there seems to have been a pub next to almost all the Thames stairs.

The Queen’s Head seems to have been a typical London pub, with all the appearances in local newspapers that you would expect, for example, from the Southwark and Bermondsey Recorder on the 22nd of October 1926: “DRINKS DURING PROOHIBITED HOURS. At Tower Bridge Court, before Mr. Pope, Alexander Glencross, licensee of the Queen’s Head, 243 Rotherhithe Street, was summoned for selling by his agent, Emily Newman, intoxicating liquors during prohibited hours to Jas. Quillan and Abraham Hill”.

Inquests were held in the pub, which also provide a view of the dangers of being on the river, and the complacent way in which deaths on the river seem to have been treated,. On the 18th of July 1835 “An inquest was held on Monday night at the Queen’s Head, Rotherhithe, on the body of Edward Evan Jones, aged 27, who was drowned on Friday evening by the boat which he was in being run down by a steamer. Mr. Cumberland, warehouseman of Cheapside, who was in the boat with the deceased and three others stated that as they were coming up the river they saw the Red Rover steamer about 60 yards behind them; the people on board called to them to get out of the way; they endeavoured to do so, but the off-set of the tide forced them into the middle of the stream. The Red Rover continued her course, and her bow struck the boat nearly midship, and sunk her. Witness was thrown out of the boat, and seeing the paddle-wheel coming against him, he dived under it and escaped injury. He believed that the collision might have been avoided had not the steamer been going so fast, although the off-set of the tide appeared to be the cause of the accident. The Jury returned a verdict of Accidental Death.”

On the 23rd of July 1898, William Cummings of Francis Street, Canning Town and Hugh Lane of Alphic Street Canning Tower were in court charged with stealing from the Queen’s Head a bottle of gin, a bottle of brandy, a box of cigars, quantity of cigarettes, gold brooch, silver scarfpin. money and other articles to the value of £3.

All normal for a pub by a set of Thames Stairs.

Pageant Stairs are unusual in that there is a bus stop with almost their correct name.

On Rotherhithe Street, just opposite the walkway up to the stairs is a bus stop that goes by the name of Pageant Steps:

Although in reality, I suspect the bus stop is named after the stone steps that are part of the early 1990s residential development around Pageant Stairs and Wharf. These new stone steps lead up from Rotherhithe Street between the flats, up to the obelisk.

A real shame, as whilst Pageant is in use to name this part of the walkway along the river, the stairs from street to walkway, and the obelisk seems to be called Pageant’s Obelisk, there is no plaque at the stairs naming them. Changing the Steps to Stairs for the bus stop name would also be a fitting reminder of a place where people once took a boat to travel, and now take a bus (although the use of either Steps and Stairs seems to have been relatively common) .

Whilst the majority of buildings and landscape around Pageant’s Stairs are the result of late 1980s / early 1990s development, there is a significant building that remains from the time before the dust destructor, and is there because of Rotherhithe’s industrial past.

This is the Pageant’s Wharf Fire Station, which can still be seen to the left of the walkway leading up to the stairs, still with the large distinctive doors leading to the space where fire appliances would be stored:

There is a plaque on the wall of the fire station, which for some reason is on the first floor, just visible in the above photo between the second and third windows on the right.

The height of the plaque and size of the lettering makes the plaque rather difficult to read, but a close up view shows that the building was restored by Barratt (the developers of the new residential buildings around Pageant’s Wharf), in memory of the crews who served at the fire station. The building, also now residential, was opened on the 25th of November, 1993:

The plaque refers to the station as “The Old Fire Station Rotherhithe”, which is a shame, as all the reports I have read about the station, from the time when it was in operation, call it either Pageant’s Wharf Fire Station, or the fire station at Pageant’s Wharf.

The foundation stone for the fire station was laid in March 1903, and news report stated that the new fire station was the result of the lack of fire stations in this part of Rotherhithe, and a recent large fire in the docks which expedited the funding and construction of the new station.

It opened in October 1903, and reports of the opening again mentioned the docks, “and the large numbers of wharves, where valuable property is frequently stored in large quantities and necessitating such protection”.

The fire station was equipped with a steam fire engine, owing to the fact that the water supply in the neighbourhood was poor. This was down to the area being mainly docks and industrial and “the amount of water required for domestic purposes is small, and consequently the pipe laid down Rotherhithe Street is of small diameter”.

The staff of the station consisted of an officer, six firemen and one coachman.

The coachman was part of the staff as fire appliances were still drawn by horses, and the fire station also had a two stall stable along with a fodder store. The first and second floors of the building consisted of living rooms for some of the staff (the earlier report when the foundation stone was laid also stated that the Coachman had married quarters at the fire station – presumably because the horses needed someone on site for their care at all times of the day).

An incident in the run up to the opening ceremony illustrates one of the problems of travelling in Rotherhithe.

Captain Hamilton, Chief of the Fire Brigade, with Mr Gamble, his second officer, along with a number of representatives and officials of the London County Council were travelling in carriages to the opening, but were delayed when they reached the Surrey Dock Bridge, as this had opened to allow a dredger to pass through.

This highlighted why a fire station was needed in the area around Pageant’s Wharf, as there were a number of lifting and swing bridges across Rotherhithe that could turn parts of the area into an island when they were lifted, thereby causing a delay to a fire engine trying to reach a fire.

I have marked the location of the lifting and swing bridges in the following map (in red) and the Pageant’s Wharf fire station (in black) in the following map (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“:

A report by Captain Hamilton, chief of the London Fire Brigade on fires in London during the year 1905, implies that the Pageant’s Wharf fire station was not that busy:

“The principal cause of fires where lives were lost was ‘children playing with fire’. Other causes are smouldering matches and other lights which are thrown down by people leaving buildings. Carelessly fitted electric circuits, temporary and inefficient fitting to gas cooking stoves and gas rings for heating glue etc. are grave sources of danger, as are also swinging gas brackets, particularly in warehouses and stables.

The busiest force station as regards calls in 1905 was the Euston Station, being turned out no fewer than 323 times. The smallest number of calls, viz. nine, was received at Sydenham, the same number being also received at Pageant’s Wharf, Rotherhithe.”

The report also stated that in 1905, across London, there had been 3,511 fires reported to the London fire brigade, and that 100 people had lost their lives in fires.

Despite the low number of calls, the station was doing important work, as in 1911 Pageant’s Wharf fire station won the Wells Cup, which was awarded to the London Fire Brigade Station which performs the “smartest job of the year”, won for the prompt way in which the station dealt with a fire which broke out in a big granary in their local district.

Another example of their work was in 1931 when firemen from the station rescued a thirteen year old boy who fell into the river and was at risk of being carried away by the tide. Firemen from Pageant’s Wharf got out on the river in a skiff and recovered the boy, who was taken to hospital.

The number of call outs at Pageant’s Wharf fire station seems to have continued to be relatively small compared to other stations across London, and there were occasional attempts to close the station, but these were successfully resisted.

The fire station was busy during the Second World War as the docks around Rotherhithe took heavy damage during bombing raids, but after the war there was a gradual reduction in call outs as both industry and the docks declined.

Closure of the Pageant’s Wharf fire station came at the end of the 1960s, although there were still attempts to keep the station open, with the swing bridges still given as a key justification, as in the following from the London Evening News on the 12th of September 1967:

“DOCKS BID TO SAVE FIRE STATION – Trade unionists in dockland are calling on the aid of their MP, Mr. Bob Melish, in a fight against a GLC plan to close a fire station in Rotherhithe. They are also writing to Home Secretary Mr. Roy Jenkins asking him to halt the closure when the council submits it for his approval. The GLC say the area can be adequately covered by existing stations and the one at Pageant’s Wharf is unnecessary.

The union men are worried that the area – a virtual island linked to the rest of Bermondsey by a swing bridge – could become cut off in an emergency. ‘If fire engines could not get to a blaze or flood quickly there could be serious damage or loss of life’, said a Bermondsey Trades Council spokesman. The unionists want the Home Secretary to order test runs of fire engines from neighbouring stations in peak traffic.”

No idea if the test runs were carried but, but Pageant’s Wharf fire station closed at the end of the 1960s, and the building is now residential, but thanks to the retention of the large doors on the ground floor clearly was once was a fire station.

It always amazes me how much there is to find in one small part of London, and the location of some Thames stairs always adds an additional layer of history.

The name Pageant remains in use, now covering the walkway along the river, the concrete steps from Rotherhithe Street to walkway as part of the recent redevelopment and a bus stop as well as the stairs, and the obelisk that has a strange alignment with Canary Wharf.

It is a quiet residential area, so different from the centuries of ship building, ship breaking, timber trading, an active fire station, and a place where the area’s household waste was incinerated.

New Smithfield and Billingsgate Markets, Horn Stairs and a Confusion of Greshams

15 Replies

One of the challenges with the blog is that there are many updates I would like to add to previous posts. If I update the original post, then the update will be part of a post that could be from several years ago, so not very visible, therefore for this week’s post, I thought I would cover three very different updates to past posts.

The last two are based on feedback from readers, which is always greatly appreciated. The first is following a recent decision by the City of London Corporation, regarding:

The future of Smithfield and Billingsgate Markets

The City of London Corporation has been looking at relocating the Smithfield and Billingsgate markets for some years.

Smithfield Market is set to become a new cultural and commercial centre, with the new Museum of London already under construction in the old General and Poultry market buildings.

Billingsgate Market moved out of Billingsgate in 1982, when the fish and seafood market moved to a new location by the North Dock, between the northern edge of the Isle of Dogs, and the A1261 Aspen Way.

Originally, the City of London Corporation were planning to relocate both markets to Dagenham Dock, a location that was not popular with the market traders, and in November 2024, the City of London Corporation abandoned this move, and appeared to take an approach where traders would be helped to move to other locations, without having a single location available.

At the start of December 2025, the City of London Corporation announced a new policy, that the two markets would be consolidated and moved to a new location at Albert Island at the eastern end of the Royal Docks.

In the following map, the green arrow on the left shows the location of Smithfield market, the centre yellow arrow shows where Billingsgate Market is located today, and the red arrow on the right shows the future consolidated location of both markets, between the eastern end of the Royal Docks and the River Thames (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

In the following map, I have put a red line around Albert Island, the land which is planned to be used for the new markets (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

The land is currently derelict, with the majority of the buildings that once occupied the site having already been demolished.

At northern and southern ends, the land is bounded by two of the old locked entrances between the Royal Docks (a small part of which can be seen to the left), and the River Thames, on the right.

On the left centre of the map is the eastern end of the runway of London City Airport.

The following image is taken from the book that was issued to commemorate the opening of the King George V Dock in 1921. This new dock had not yet been officially opened by the King, so could only use his name once he had declared the dock open, which is why it is labelled as the New Dock in the image.

I have outlined in red the area of Albert Island as it was, following completion of the King George V Dock, the final dock of the three “Royals”:

As the plot of land is bounded on all sides by water, and the Royal Albert Dock is to the west, the plot of land goes by the name of Albert Island.

This location for the consolidated markets is a rather inspired choice.

It is a challenging location. Being at the end of the runway for London City Airport means that you could not build residential buildings. Even if these were built, they would have to be low rise, and would have the sound of planes either landing or taking off a short distance overhead.

The location is well connected from a transport perspective. In the above map, there is a road crossing towards the left of the plot. Follow this road north, and it connects to the A13, and south to the Woolwich Ferry, and further west to the new Silvertown tunnel.

The land has been derelict for some years, whilst the land around the rest of the Royal Docks has been gradually redeveloped.

Relocating the market here, will also bring a different activity to this part of east London, and will break up the rows of residential towers which have and continue to be built here, particularly along the land to the south, between the Royal Docks and the Thames.

I explored the area back in 2024 in a number of posts on the Royal Docks and surrounding areas. If you have been on my walk “In the Steps of a Woolwich Docker – From the Woolwich Ferry to the Royals”, you will also recognise Albert Island.

Firstly, this is why the site would not be suitable for residential. This photo was taken from the road that runs over Albert Island and shows that the land is at the eastern end of the London City Airport runway:

Starting from the north, this is a walk along the road over Albert Island showing how the area looks today. In the following photo, the end of residential development to the north can be seen, as well as the old locked entrances between the dock and the river. The start of Albert Island is the undeveloped land to the right of the residential:

The original eastern entrances between the Thames and the Royal Albert Dock:

Heading south and this is the central part of Albert Island. The majority of buildings associated with the docks were demolished some years ago, leaving the outline of walls, paths, streets and the concrete floors of long lost warehouses and industrial buildings:

There are still a few old streets that thread across the site, generally bounded by large growths of vegetation:

The main entrance from the road that crosses the site to Albert Island:

At the southern end of Albert Island is the locked entrance between the Thames and the King George V dock. This photo is looking at the northern side of the lock channel, which will become part of the new market site:

Also back in 2024, I had a walk around Albert Island. This is one of the old streets that thread the site, along with the one remaining warehouse building on the left:

Some of the few roads across the site were fenced off:

The only route across the island back in 2024 was a footpath that ran alongside the Thames, at the eastern edge of Albert Island. This is the footpath heading towards the Thames:

At the corner:

In the following photo, on the left is the Thames, on the right is Albert Island. It was a hot day when I went for this walk, and my main memory of this stretch is the hundreds of butterflies that were in the bushes on the right. As you walked along the footpath, they would rise out of the bushes, before settling back after I had passed – it was a rather magical place, also with the Thames on the left:

At the end of the footpath, steps up to a short path that went up to the locked entrance to the King George V dock:

Crossing the lock, and looking back towards the King George V dock. This channel marks the southern boundary of Albert Island, and the new market area which will be on the right:

The above photos were taken back in 2024, last year, 2025, I went on another walk through the area whilst I was planning my Woolwich to Royal Docks walk. I had intended to walk through Albert Island, however this proved impossible, as the crossing over the locked entrance between the Thames and King George V dock was then closed, and there was no clear route through.

I did try some options, but every route ended in fencing, or some other obstruction.

In the following photo, I had just walked along the footpath shown to the left of the photo, and optimistically found this sign for a footpath:

I followed this apparent footpath, and it ended in a waterlogged channel with no way through:

The relocation of the two markets is subject to the passing of a Parliamentary Bill to allow the old markets to be closed at their current sites, along with planning permission from Newham Borough Council for the Albert Island site, and I suspect neither of these will be a problem.

The 3rd of December press release stated that the markets “will continue at Smithfield and Billingsgate until at least 2028”, and I suspect that clearing the current site, any remedial work that needs to be done on what was an industrial location, followed by the new build, will take more than a couple of years, so the “at least 2028” suggests the possible timescale.

When the two markets have moved to Albert Island, they will be called “New Billingsgate and New Smithfield”, although for Billingsgate this is the second move after the original 1982 move from the original Billingsgate in the City.

Regarding the existing market locations, an updated press release on the 2nd of January 2026 states that “at Smithfield, the Grade II* listed buildings will become an exciting international cultural and commercial destination to complement the London Museum, which is moving next door”, and that “Plans for Billingsgate will deliver up to 4,000 much-needed homes in an inner-London Borough, alongside a new bridge across Aspen Way to help address the social, economic and environmental disparities between Poplar and Canary Wharf.”

It is a shame that Smithfield is moving from its City location as it was the last City market in its original location, and ends an activity that has taken place in the City for hundreds of years.

Having said that, the new location is good. It makes use of an otherwise difficult to use plot of land, it brings diversity of function and employment to the area around the Royal Docks, and in many ways it continues the tradition of the Royal Docks, as a place where products were stored, traded and moved on to their eventual location.

Albert Island has a website, which does not yet mention the move of the Smithfield and Billingsgate markets, and still covers the original proposals for a commercial shipyard, marina, university hub, and with easy public access to the Thames river path. Hopefully some of these will be part of the overall development. Bringing a shipyard back to the docks would be good, and access to the Thames river path would be essential. The Albert Island website can be found here.

The City of London Corporation announcement on the move of the markets to Albert Island is here.

If you would like more photos of the area, and the construction and opening of the King George V Dock, my post “King George V Dock – The Last of the Royals” covering this can be found here.

It will be an interesting development to follow.

Horn Stairs

Horn Stairs are one of my favourite Thames stairs, as they lead down to a lovely part of the Thames foreshore. At low tide, a wide expanse of gently slopping foreshore, with superb view across to Limehouse and the northern part of the Isle of Dogs.

My last visit to Horn Stairs was in mid January 2024, and almost two years later, I walked to the stairs again following an update on the state of the stairs sent in by a reader.

The reader commented that the stairs had been closed as they had lost a couple of their top steps, had come away from the wall, and moved back and forth significantly with the tide.

They were in a poor condition when I visited two years ago, with rotting wooden steps, and their fixing to the wall not looking very robust, so I am surprised they have lasted for almost another two years.

When I went in January 2024, it was a bright, sunny day. My return visit in January 2026 was wet, overcast and raining.

On arriving at Horn Stairs, there was a footpath closed sign, and temporary fencing at the top of the access steps, which looked like it had been moved, or blown aside:

Very temporary fencing off of the stairs:

I walked through a gap and looked at the stairs and the remains of the causeway leading across the foreshore:

It was clear to see that the top steps are missing, the top section of steps do not look in great condition, and the fixings at the side have come away:

This was the stairs back in 2024, looking very dodgy, but not fenced off and it was possible to walk down:

Horn Stairs, and the area of foreshore to which they lead, has a fascinating history, which I explored in the post “Horn Stairs, Cuckold’s Point and Horn Fair”.

Some photos from my previous visit, when the weather was much better than January 2026. Firstly looking along the causeway across the foreshore:

At the end of the causeway is a navigation marker, shown on the PLA chart for this section of the river, with a wonderful view across to the towers that occupy the Isle of Dogs:

Looking back along the causeway, showing that during a low tide, there is a large expanse of dry foreshore:

Wooden stairs do not last as long as concrete or stone stairs, and there are a number of examples along the river where wooden stairs have not been replaced after they gradually fell apart (see this post on King Henry’s Stairs for an example). I am also not sure why some are concrete / stone whilst other are of wood. Whether the frequency of use, their importance or location along the river deemed some to be of a more permanent structure, or whether it just came to costs at the time.

I have emailed both the Port of London Authority and Southwark Council to see if there is any information on who would be responsible, are there any plans to replace the stairs etc.

It would be a great shame if the stairs at Horn Stairs were not replaced.

Sir John or Sir Thomas Gresham – The Trouble with Identifications

A couple of week’s ago, I wrote a post about the Greshams of Norfolk and London.

The post told the story of Sir John Gresham, the founder of a school in the town of Holt in Norfolk, a member of the Mercer’s Company and a Lord Mayor of the City of London, along with his nephew Sir Thomas Gresham who was also a Mercer and through his Will, in 1597, Gresham College was established, to be run and administered by the City of London Corporation and the Mercer’s Company.

I included images of both Sir John and Sir Thomas Gresham in the post.

One reader commented “A very interesting post. The picture of ‘Sir John Gresham’ and the engraving of ‘Sir Thomas Gresham’ are identical: the engraving is laterally reversed because of the engraving technique, but otherwise the images are the same, even down to the number of done-up buttons and the hand holding the gloves. It’s the same man! Either the attribution of the painting is wrong or that of the engraving – probably the latter, I think.”

So I went back to the images and yes, they do look as if they are of the same person.

This is the image of Sir John Gresham:

I found the above image on Wikimedia, with the description “Portrait of Sir John Gresham (1495–1556)”.

As a general rule, I never take anything on Wikipedia / Wikimedia (or the Internet in general) as absolute fact, without finding supporting evidence, and in the search for evidence to support the Wikimedia description, I found the same image in the National Trust Collections website, where it is attributed as “Portrait of a Man, possibly Sir John Gresham the elder” I also found the same image at the Alamy website, (a stock image service company, where images are made available for a price, for use in other forms of media) where the image is described as “Sir John Gresham (1495 – 1556) English merchant, courtier and financier”.

So the image I found on Wikimedia was also described by the National Trust and Alamy as Sir John Gresham (in fairness to the National Trust they also included “possibly”), so I was happy to use the image from Wikimedia.

The following image of his nephew, Sir Thomas Gresham, is from the British Museum collection, and was an engraving by John Boydell of Cheapside, London and published on the 1st of May, 1779, and is described as being taken from “In the Common Parlour at Houghton”, which is presumably Houghton Hall in Norfolk, a county where the Gresham’s had property, hence the link with the town of Holt in my post:

To provide a good comparison between the two images, I converted the image of Sir John Gresham to black and white, and reversed the image (the reader commented that the image could have been originally reversed due to the engraving technique, therefore reversing again would get the image back to the original).

Now putting the two images side by side, we get the following (Thomas Gresham on the left and John Gresham on the right):

They look almost identical, down to the creases on the clothing, the number of buttons, the pose, the clothes, etc.

There are minor differences, however I suspect that these are down to the engraving (on the left) being made from the portrait (on the right).

I assume the process to create prints such as these, which were in wide circulation in London in the 18th century, was that an artist would visit Houghton Hall and make a copy of the original painting. As this was a copy, there would be minor differences to the original painting.

This copy was then used to create the engraving which John Boydell then published from his premises in Cheapside.

So is the image of Sir John or Sir Thomas Gresham?

I suspect it is of Sir Thomas Gresham, as the following image is from the National Portrait Gallery collection, and has the following reference: “Sir Thomas Gresham by Unknown Netherlandish artist
oil on panel, circa 1565″:

Attribution: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported. Source National Portrait Gallery, London

Although the clothes are very different, the likeness, facial expression, the beard all look very similar to the painting and print.

This would mean that the National Trust is incorrect to state that their painting is Sir John Gresham, although again, they do state “possibly”.

To add a bit more confusion, in the print of Sir Thomas Gresham from the British Museum, the “size of the picture” is stated as 2ft, 1inch by 2ft 9 3/4 inches. whilst the National Trust give the dimensions of the painting of Sir John Gresham as 36 x 26 in, and that the painting is located at Dunham Massey in Cheshire.

So the painting is larger than that given in the print, and today is in a different location.

This confusion of Gresham’s shows just how hard it is to be certain of the facts when identifying anything painted, engraved or printed from some centuries ago. If I had the time, I would want to track down more original artwork of both the Greshams and see if this could come to a consensus of appearance of these two, whose contributions to the City of London can still be seen today.

I always try and make sure that the images used, and the detail in my posts is as accurate as possible. I use visits to the sites I am writing about, books and maps (of an age as close to the time I am writing about the better), newspapers from the period, and where I use the Internet, it is from reputable sources such as the British Museum Collection, and anything else is cross checked with other sources.

As the Gresham images show, it is hard enough to be sure of the facts of what we see, whether an image is of who we are told it is, but AI, which always seems to be in the news these days, is going to make this much, much worse.

I will never use any AI generated content in my posts, whether text or image, and to demonstrate why, I asked ChatGPT to generate an image of Sir Thomas Gresham, and this was the result (ChatGPT made the decision to produce a portrait “in velvet” for some reason):

The above image shows the dangers of where we are heading with AI image creation. Without any context, this could easily be taken as a painting of Sir Thomas Gresham. It took less than a minute to create, and is why we are moving into a dangerous period where we have no idea whether what we see or read is real or not.

And for all the comments that my posts receive, two of which were used for today’s post, thank you. I learn much, and they add considerably extra context and information to the post, which is what it should be, rather than machine generated content.

Cumberland Terrace in 1948 and a Snowy Day in 2026

22 Replies

In 1948, my father took a couple of photos of repair work underway to the rather impressive Cumberland Terrace to the east of Regent’s Park:

Bomb damage seems to have been rather superficial to the terrace, with the main damage being to the rear of the buildings, and I suspect that the scaffolding was there due to urgently needed repair and refurbishment work, as the buildings had deteriorated significantly during the first decades of the 20th century, which was not helped by lack of maintenance during the war.

The central building in the terrace has a large sculptural pediment, which can be seen above the scaffolding in the above photo.

Walking past the central building, and the northern section of the terrace (which mirrors the southern section), can be seen, where three large blocks with Ionic columns, project towards the street:

Cumberland Terrace is the most impressive of the terraces and large houses along the eastern edge of Regent’s Park.

Regent’s Park was originally part of a Royal hunting ground created by Henry VIII, when he took the land formerly known as Marylebone Park, which was part of the large mix of common and forest land to the north and west of London.

During the Civil War in the mid 17th century, much of the land was sold off to tenant farmers, and by the end of the 18th century, the growth of London was such, that as with much of west and north London, the land which is today now occupied by Regent’s Park was becoming a valuable area for building.

Luckily, the Prince Regent (the future King George IV) was looking for a site to build a summer palace, along with extensive gardens, and to provide space for this, much of the old tenant farming land was partitioned off to become Regent’s Park.

The Prince Regent commissioned the architect John Nash to design the new park, the summer palace and the surroundings of the park.

Nash was one of the major architects of the late 18th / early 19th century. Born in Lambeth, and probably the son of engineer and millwright William Nash, his first experience within the architectural profession was with Sir Robert Taylor where he became an assistant draughtsman.

By 1777, he was an architect and speculative builder in London, but was better at architecture than finance as he soon went bankrupt.

He then joined another partnership in Wales working on small projects, and by 1796, he had returned to London, where he formed a partnership with the landscape gardener Humphrey Repton (who was responsible for the original design of Russell Square).

The partnership with Repton had been dissolved by 1802, and by this time, Nash was considered a fashionable architect, and was responsible for a large number of projects across the country.

His involvement with the planning of Regent’s Park came about because of his appointment in 1806 as architect to the Department of Woods and Forests, the department responsible for the development of the land that was to become Regent’s Park, which had recently reverted to Crown ownership.

The plan for the Regent’s Park was that it would be a landscaped open space with the Prince Regent’s summer palace, a small number of private villas and surrounded by handsome terraces.

This approach would mean that Regent’s Park was not just a new park, but was also a new fashionable residential area for London.

The following map shows Regent’s Park as it is today. The arrow points to Cumberland Terrace:

The Regent’s Canal runs along the northern boundary of the park (Nash also had some involvement with the canal). London Zoo is at the north of the park. Terraces and large houses occupy much of the eastern boundary of the park, there are a number of villas to the north, and more terraces and houses along the western boundary.

The Prince Regent’s planned summer palace did not get built, he appears to have lost interest, and there were not as many of the large, individual villas as originally planned, however as designed by Nash, the park and the surrounding buildings are an impressive example of Regency architecture from the start of the early 19th century.

It is some time since I last walked through the terraces that line the eastern boundary of Regent’s Park, so last week I planned a visit. The weather on Monday was clear and bright, but I was not free for a day of walking. Tuesday though looked good, the forecast showing a mix of light cloud and sunny intervals, but such is the nature of weather forecasts that when I reached the Outer Circle (the road that forms the boundary to the central park), it had started snowing:

The walk up from Euston Road to find Cumberland Terrace, along the eastern boundary took me through and past a number of very impressive houses and terraces.

The first is the Grade I listed Chester Terrace, where the entrance to the road that runs in front of the terrace has a triumphal arch proclaiming the name of the terrace:

Chester Terrace, designed by Nash and built by James Burton is around 280 metres in length and is the longest unbroken façade in the Regent’s Park development.

The terrace consists of 37 houses and 5 semi-detached houses, and is at a raised level to the Outer Circle, and is separated from this street by private gardens. Chester Terrace dates from around 1825:

Given that the terraces to the east of Regent’s Park are around two hundred years old, and provided what must have been highly desirable homes in an equally desirable part of London, there are very few blue plaques across the terraces.

Chester Terrace has two, the first to the architect Charles Robert Cockerell, who was responsible for a large number of works across the country, and in London he worked on the Sun Fire Office in Threadneedle Street, the London and Westminster Bank in Lothbury, the Westminster Insurance Company’s offices in the Strand, the Hanover Chapel in Regent Street, the 1821 new ball and cross on St. Paul’s Cathedral, and many more:

Looking back to the southern arch to Chester Terrace, Cockerell’s blue plaque can just be seen on the left:

Looking along Chester Terrace, building works were taking place on the road and boundary wall to the gardens on the left:

In the above photo, there is a building with 8 free-standing, fluted Corinthian columns, then a building undergoing work and covered in scaffolding.

(A comment on Ionic and Corinthian Columns as I use both terms in this post. With my limited architectural understanding, the easiest way of confirming the type of column is that Corinthian have decorated work at the top of the column, while Ionic have a more simple finish, often looking rather like a scroll at the top of the column. As always, more informed feedback than I can provide is appreciated in the comments to the post).

Walk past the building with scaffolding, and there is another building with Corinthian columns, although with 6 rather than 8, and not projecting as far from the façade of the building. The pattern of columns alternates along the terrace, starting with from the south, 8, then 6 then 8, then 6, then finally 8 at the northern end of the terrace:

In the above photo there is another blue plaque, to Sir John Maitland Salmond, Marshal of the Royal Air Force. Salmond was one of the early pilots of the Royal Flying Corp, and in the Register on the 14th of March 1914, it was reported that: “For a flight 13,140 feet high in a B.E. (government built) biplane, Captain J.M. Salmond of the Royal Flying Corp has been granted by the Royal Aero Club the British altitude record”:

The thought of flying at over 13,000 feet in a government built biplane is a rather scary one.

At the end of Chester Terrace is another triumphal arch, and through this we can see one of the large houses that are also part of the development along the eastern boundary of Regent’s Park:

Walking to the end of Chester Terrace, and looking to the right, there is another arch that leads away from the Nash developments down towards Albany Street:

My father would have known this area well, as he lived a very short distance away. Not in one of the Nash buildings, but in what is still a Peabody estate, Bagshot House in the Cumberland Market estate – see this post.

Cumberland Place, which leads round to Cumberland Terrace:

The full length of Cumberland Terrace from the southern end:

Cumberland Terrace was the work of John Nash and James Thomson. It is difficult to know who was exactly responsible for what, and how much of the design was down to Nash or Thomson, however the overall design was certainly down to Nash, as the terrace was part of his vision for grand terraces along the boundary of Regent’s Park.

The terrace consist of 59 houses and was completed in around 1827. If differs from Chester Terrace in that it is not a continuous row of houses and there are two triumphal arches which lead into courtyards, not over the entrance road, but within the terrace, as shown in the following photo:

Cumberland Terrace was intended to be the most impressive of all the terraces, and at the centre is the building that was planned to give the impression of being a palace, looking out from its elevated position, over Regent’s Park. Only just visible in the following photo, at the top of the central building, above the Ionic columns is a Tympanum full of sculpture. A tympanum is the triangular space within a pediment that is frequently decorated, as in Cumberland Terrace:

This central building was the one covered in scaffolding in my father’s photos, another of which is shown below:

There had been some limited bomb damage to Cumberland Terrace, mainly to the rear rather than the front of the buildings. The main reason for repair work was the poor condition of the buildings after a long period of relatively limited maintenance, and years of wartime deterioration.

There was a risk that the buildings were going to be demolished, however they found another immediate post-war use, as reported in the Daily London News in April 1946:

“The Nash Houses To Be Spared – Terraces of houses designed by John Nash in Regent’s Park, which it was feared might be demolished, are to become an annexe of Whitehall.

The News Chronicle recently reported a protest by three writers, Elizabeth Bowen, Cyril Connolly and H.G. Wells, who all live in the Nash terraces in the Park, against the possible demolition of these fine specimens of Georgian building.

Last year a committee under Lord Gorell was appointed by the Prime Minister to report on the future of these buildings. Now the Government has already decided to take over 200 houses in Sussex Place, Cornwall Terrace, York Terrace, Chester Terrace and Cumberland Terrace.

Various Ministries will move departments there, freeing their present premises for use as offices and flats.”

What the above article did not report, was that Lord Gorell’s committee had stated that the terraces were an important part of the Nation’s architectural and artistic heritage, that they should be preserved as far as was possible, and that they should be residential and not offices, and the Government occupation should cease at the earliest possible time.

This was reported in the Illustrated London News on the 24th of May 1947, which included concerns about the physical state of the terraces. They had been built at a time when “the contemporary quality of building was at a very low ebb from a structural point of view. The quality of the maintenance of the houses has varied greatly, but dry-rot is very extensive and some of the serious outbreaks were prior to 1939”,

A further article in April 1950 in the Illustrated London News confirmed that repairs to the terrace had been underway, and the scaffolding which my father photographed must have been part of this work.

Some of the photos in the Illustrated London News show much of the internal woodwork being exposed and removed due to dry-rot.

The northern part of Cumberland Terrace:

In the above photo, the gardens that separate Cumberland Terrace from the Outer Circle can be seen, as well as the drop in height from the terrace down to the gardens, the Outer Circle and the rest of the park, which gave the terrace an elevated view over the park, and also made the terrace look more impressive from the park.

The above view includes the area covered by another of my father’s photos:

At the end of the terrace, the road leads down to the Outer Circle, with another example of the houses that make up the estate as well as the terraces, at the far end of the road:

Although there are modern street names signs, the terraces and their surrounding streets are mainly a place of black painted name signs:

The names of all the terraces and other significant buildings around the park, as part of Nash’s development, all come from the Royal Family, so Cumberland Terrace is named after Ernest Augustus, the King of Hanover and Duke of Cumberland. He was the fifth son of George III.

Chester Terrace comes from George IV, as the Earl of Chester was one of his titles before he became king.

As far as I can tell, the majority of the Nash terraces and houses are still owned by the Crown Estate.

Following a quick search, I could not find any detailed listing of the properties owned by the Crown Estate, however they do state on their website that Regent’s Park is one of the areas where they hold a residential portfolio of properties.

In the following photo, I am looking along the Outer Circle, the road that forms the boundary to Regent’s Park. The gardens to the left provide privacy to the terrace, and Cumberland Terrace can be seen behind the gardens:

Cumberland Terrace is all Grade I listed, and the Historic England listing record describes the terrace as “Monumental palace-style terrace”, and from the Outer Circle we can see how the terrace, especially the central part of the terrace, was meant to be seen – an impressive, ornamental palace, overlooking the Prince Regent’s new park, and part of a fashionable new housing estate for London:

The following print dates from 1829, only a couple of years after completion of the terrace, and shows the central part of the terrace looking much the same as it does today:

(© 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 decoration within the pediment is hard to see when walking along Cumberland Terrace, and it is only from the Outer Circle and the park that this impressive work can be seen fully:

The Public Ledger on the 29th of September 1827 included the following description of the terrace and pediment soon after completion:

“Among the very numerous embellishments to our Metropolis which have so closely succeeded each other since the commencement of the Regency, and which will, when the whole in present progress, and these to which these must inevitably give rise, shall be completed, render it still more the wonder of foreigners, we view with peculiar pleasure the improvements in the Regent’s Park.

In that delightful spot, the Cumberland Terrace must ever be an object of admiration. The pediment to that long length of handsome dwellings is nearly finished, and we expect will be viewed with much admiration.

The subject is boldly conceived, and the work is, we think, well executed. Britannia appears crowned by Fame. She is seated on her throne, supported by the emblems of Valour and of Wisdom. On one side, Literature, Genius, Manufacture, Agriculture and Prudence. On the other Navy surmounted by Victory, and attended by Navigation, Commerce and Freedom, extends blessings to the world; and the interesting group is surrounded by the symbols of Plenty.

Not only will the pediment be attractive, but over the 32 columns there are to be as many statues with a quantum sufficit of sphynxes, vases and other decorations.”

And the many statues listed in the article, as well as the sphynxes and vases are still to be seen:

And here:

Cumberland Terrace is a very impressive example of Nash’s work around Regent’s Park, and Cumberland Terrace was often used as an example of quality design.

In the second half of the 1940s, the luxury car brand Lagonda was advertising that “Cumberland Terrace, Regent’s Park, by John Nash characterises a flourishing period of design. As with this noble early 19th century building, so with the new 2 litre Lagonda designed by W.O. Bentley. Lasting merit has been achieved through time and genius expended on conception and construction”.

Large house facing onto the Outer Circle:

The above photo shows that it was not just the terraces that had features such as Corinthian or Ionic columns and pediments. Other buildings facing towards Regent’s Park had many of the same features, to give the impression of the park being surrounded by large and small palaces or stately homes.

London has always had a housing shortage, and there was an interesting proposal for Cumberland Terrace in 1959 (from the Holloway Press):

“Tory Cllr, says FLATS NOT SUITABLE – Cumberland Terrace. Although Cllr, Miss I.C. Mansel maintained that flats in Cumberland Terrace would be unsuitable for council tenants, St. Pancras Borough Council agreed on Wednesday to a housing management committee recommendation that the Crown Estate Commissioners be asked to receive a council deputation to discuss the future of the flats.

Previously the council had asked the Lord Privy Seal to place the flats at the disposal of the council for housing families on the waiting list. The council were then told that it was proposed to let the flats at the best rates obtainable.

Cllr. Miss Mansel said the Conservative group were against the recommendation. ‘I feel these flats would be quite unsuitable for council tenants’.

The committee chairman, Cllr. Mrs Peggy Duff said there was a desperate shortage of housing accommodation and she had no doubt people would be glad to have one of these flats.”

The principle of the “best rates obtainable” still stands, as for example, there is a three bedroom, leasehold apartment in Cumberland Terrace currently on sale for £7,500,000. You can see the listing on Rightmove by clicking here.

View south along the Outer Circle, with another large house with Corinthian columns – a standard feature throughout the estate:

The road in the above photo is again the Outer Circle, the road that circles the boundary of Regent’s Park.

The Outer Circle, or Outer Drive as it was also known, was laid out as defined in Nash’s plans, between 1811 and 1812.

The two mile long road was described as a “fine broad gravel road”, and was one of the first features of the park, forming the boundary between the open parkland, and the land that would be developed into the terraces and houses covered in this post.

The following map shows Regent’s Park in around 1815, before the terraces and houses were built. The Outer Circle is in place, however it is named in sections, with some of the names that the future terraces would take, so for example, the section of Outer Ring in front of the future Chester and Cumberland Terraces is called Chester Street.

The land just outside the Outer Ring is labelled as “Building Ground”, and this would go on to be developed in the 1820s as shown by the photos in the post.

(© 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 Outer Circle was open to the public until ten in the evening, when it was closed to the public, but continued to provide access for residents. The road was designed so as you passed along the road on your horse, in your carriage, or on foot, you passed a changing series of views, of both the open parkland on one side, and the large houses and terraces on the other side, which must have seemed extraordinary and magnificent to the average Londoner.

In 1831, the artist Richard Morris created a panorama of the view around the Outer Circle.

The Yale Centre for British Art have the full panorama available on line (click here), and fortunately it has a Creative Commons Public Domain classification, so as an example of the panorama, below is the section showing Cumberland Terrace, with people enjoying the ride and walk around the Outer Circle:

An interesting part of the overall development is much further south, along Park Square East, which connects Marylebone Road to the Outer Circle, where we find this terrace:

The following print from 1829 shows the above terrace. Park Square is to the right, and the mounted soldiers are travelling along the southern section of the Outer Circle:

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

In the centre of the terrace shown in the above print and photo is a slightly larger building, with a sign along the roof line. This was the Regent’s Park Diorama, and the building survives to this day:

Again, Grade I listed, and by John Nash, the central Diorama was one of a number operating in London in the early 19th century.

A Diorama consists of a painting, drawings or models which are so arranged and lit, that they give the viewer the impression that they are looking at the real life scene.

Flemings Weekly Express on the 2nd of November 1823 had a description of the Regent’s Park Diorama, as follows:

“On entering the place of exhibition, you find yourself in a small circular theatre, fitted up with balconies, seats and a kind of parterre in the centre; and hung round with rich draperies; and overhead is a transparent ceiling superbly painted in arabesque, which lets in a ‘dim, religious light’.

The theatre or apartment in which you stand, is enclosed on all sides, with the exception of what seems to be about one-fourth of the circle; and this space, from the ceiling to nearly the floor, is entirely open, as if into the air. it is through this opening that you see, at what appears to be a considerable distance, the scenes which are the objects of exhibition.

One of them consists of a lovely valley in Switzerland; and it really is no exaggeration to say, that, seen from the open window of an apartment in its immediate neighbourhood, the scene itself could not produce a more enchanting effect. It is true, the feeling of being able to leave the room, and walk into it is wanting; but perhaps this is nearly compensated for by the indistinct pleasure arising from the sentiment alluded to, that what you behold is a pure creation of human art and ingenuity.”

To keep customers returning, the Diorama would provide a continually changing programme of views, with natural landscapes from Britain and the wider world, city scenes, battles, historical events etc.

By 1852, the Diorama had closed. The contents of the building were sold off the following year, and in May 1855, the building opened as a Baptist Chapel, with the first “solemn services” held to convert the space into a chapel.

The façade of the building hides the structure of the Diorama which was behind, and remarkably this structure still exists today.

The following link is to Google Maps, where the structure of the Diorama is still clearly visible behind the terrace:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/jkeNxsd76SeBaEJk8

The Nash terraces are one of the things that make walking around London so fascinating – the considerable diversity of architectural style and landscape planning. It is important to consider the terraces and large houses as part of the overall design of Regent’s Park, and with Cumberland Terrace, it is clear that the terrace was designed to provide the impression of a palace overlooking the park.

London’s changeable weather also makes walking interesting, and whilst these terraces look magnificent in the sun of a summer’s day, they look just as good in the light of a dull January day, with a dusting of snow across the streets and pavement.

The Future Of London’s Past

15 Replies

Beneath the streets and buildings of the City of London there are centuries of history, stretching back to the early Roman period, and frequently to be found several metres below the current ground level.

Finding, excavating and reporting on what is found beneath the surface is how we can understand the development of the City of London. The buildings and streets, defensive structures, the Thames shoreline, the people who once called the City home, how they lived, what they used, the trade of the City and the goods shipped in and out, the street patterns, bridges over the river etc.

I photographed a few of these excavations in the City in the early 1980s, including the work around St. Benet’s and the site of Baynard’s Castle, south of Queen Victoria Street in the early 1980s:

As well as excavations at Billingsgate Market:

Archaeology in London has a long history, starting with amateur antiquaries, with an interest in the random finds resulting from everyday activity in the City, through to the professional work of today.

The post war period was one of major change in both the City of London, and the way in which the history of the City was explored and recorded.

The challenges resulting from the bombing of much of the City, the lack of resources to explore the land revealed by bombing and demolition, little serious interest from the authorities and institutions who could support archaeological investigation across the City, and lack of resources and the pressure to rebuild were major concerns to those with an interest in what could be found beneath the bombed areas of the City of London.

The result of these concerns about the state of archaeology in the City of London, and the potential for a significant loss of discoveries of London’s history with the expected level of rebuilding during the 1970s and 1980s resulted in Martin Biddle, Daphne Hudson, along with Carolyn Heighway publishing in 1973 “The Future Of London’s Past. A survey of the archaeological implications of planning and development in the nation’s capital”:

I have a copy of this survey, which consists of a large folder containing two booklets along with some large maps, which I come onto later in the post.

The above photo is of the cover of the folder, which shows a map of the major known elements up to the 30th September 1972 of Roman London.

The detail in the survey is contained within the two booklets. The first is a comprehensive 83 page investigation into the development of archaeology in London, the problems encountered whilst the City was undergoing considerable and ongoing development, and recommendations for how this should be addressed to avoid the loss of much of what still remained below the City’s streets, buildings, cellars, river bank etc.

The booklet starts with an overview of the growth of archaeological research in the City,

From the end of the 16th century to the early years of the 19th century, this was mainly of the amateur antiquarian approach, with the 19th century starting to see a more focused, professional approach, but this was still very limited, and based on a few small groups. This approach would last until the 1920s.

The 19th century was a period of significant Victorian redevelopment across the City, with major projects such as the construction of Queen Victoria Street, large warehouses and office buildings, infrastructure such as the cut and cover underground railways, new sewer systems, pipes and cables for gas and electricity etc.

Whilst the City of London was transformed, so much of the City’s past must have been lost.

Just one example of what was found during construction comes from the St. James’s Gazette on the 12th of April 1884:

“DISCOVERY OF ROMAN REMAINS IN THE CITY – During the week an interesting discovery of Roman remains has been made by the excavators engaged on the District Railway works, which pass under the site of the church of St. John the Baptist upon Walbrook, which was destroyed during the Great Fire of London. About twenty feet below the surface a piece of pavement about 5ft by 3ft 6in., and 10in thick formed of Roman tiles on edge, was with great difficulty, on account of its weight, taken up, and after some time, enclosed in a timber case and removed to the lower hall of the Cannon-street Hotel, where it is awaiting removal to some place belonging to Sir Edward Watkin, Bart., M.P.

It doubtless was part of the floor of a Roman villa, situated on the east bank of the watercourse known as the Walbrook, and in line with another which stood where the Safe Company’s premises now are, and from whence the magnificent specimen of mosaic work in the Guildhall Museum is now to be seen, and where this one ought also to be. What invests this circumstance with additional antiquarian interest is that two successive churches, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, have entombed these relics since Norman and perhaps Saxon times.”

After a brief search, I cannot find out what happened to the pavement found in 1884, or what Sir Edward Watkin may have done with it – I will try an email to the Museum of London.

Another curious example of 19th century finds, this time from Academy on the 27th of May, 1882:

“DISCOVERY OF ROMAN REMAINS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY – When the grave for the late G.E. Street R.A, was being dug the interesting discovery that a Roman villa had once stood on the site of the nave of Westminster Abbey church. Some ten or twelve feet below the present pavement fragmentary remains of a hypocaust were found, and some of the large square brick which had formed the pilae, or short pillars supporting the hollow floor, were apparently in situ. Fragments were also discovered of the broad flange tiles which rested on the pilae, and carried cement and mosaic, which formed the upper layers of the floor.”

I had a quick look through the book “Westminster Abbey: A Church in History” (edited by David Cannadine), and I cannot find any reference to anything Roman on the site of Westminster Abbey, although the focus of the book is mainly on the history of the church. Perhaps a question for the abbey.

What the above two examples demonstrate is that much of London’s archaeology was found during construction works of some sort, and that in earlier years, a find would not have been followed up with any structured excavation or research work, or looking at the overall context of the find, and what else was there.

In the 1920s, the first professional observers started to record archaeological evidence revealed during building construction, however this would be at the whim of a developer, and consisted mainly of observation rather than excavation.

This observation was very limited, primarily because of the resources available. The Guildhall Museum was one of the few institutions that had an interest in the past of the City of London, and the museum’s curator (then called the Museum Clerk) would be called on to investigate building sites, and in the early 1920s, Frank Lambert fulfilled this role, however when he left the museum in 1924, there continued to be only a single person available for this work, and Lambert’s replacement, Quintin Waddington took on an ever growing range of responsibilities.

In 1926, Mortimer Wheeler was appointed as Keeper of the London Museum.

Wheeler started to introduce some of the more modern methods of archaeological research, including the cataloguing and publication of reports and inventories

Bombing of the City during the 2nd World War devastated the life of the City, but also created an opportunity to look at what was hidden below the surface of a large part of the City, as around one third of the ancient walled City of London had been destroyed.

In response to the urgent need to explore what lay beneath so much of the City, before redevelopment took place, a series of events took place which would ultimately lead to the discovery of many survivals of Roman and Mediaeval London.

This started in May 1944 when the Council for British Archaeology asked the Society of Antiquaries to take some action regarding exploring the City.

A Committee was set up to seek support and funding. The Corporation of London allowed their Librarian to be on the Committee and the main support for the proposed work was from the Ministry of Works.

The archaeologist W.F. Grimes was appointed the Supervisor of Excavations, and in the spring of 1946, a trial excavation was underway.

The original name of the Committee was the Roman London Excavation Committee, however the focus on only the Roman period was very restrictive for a place such as the City of London, where the ground below the surface has layers from the Victorian period down to Roman, so the committee was renamed the Roman and Mediaeval Excavation Committee to broaden the time span that would be the focus of excavations.

The work of the committee, supervised by Grimes continued until 1962, and a wide range of discoveries were made, including excavating and dating the bastions around the current Barbican, through to the Temple of Mithras (now on display at the approximate site of its discovery, at the London Mithraeum).

W.F. Grimes published the results of the excavations in his 1968 book “The Excavation of Roman and Mediaeval London”:

The book is a fascinating summary of the work carried out between 1946 and 1962, and demonstrated the considerable amount of remains from London’s past to be found beneath the bombed buildings, cellars and streets. As well as detailed descriptions, there are many photos of both the excavations and the finds from the period.

What is also interesting is the financial challenges of maintaining such an excavation programme for well over a decade.

At the back of the book there is a list of subscribers who helped with funding the work. The list starts with the subscribers who contributed the most, with the Ministry of Works by far the largest contributor. Strangely, the Corporation of London’s contribution was relatively modest:

The final pages of the subscribers list are individuals who donated £1, as can be seen from the lower right of the following list, which continued for another two pages:

The total between 1946 and 1962 was £43,499, which averaged about £2,700 per year to fund the work – a tiny amount compared to what was needed, and meant that until around 1953, Grimes was the only working member.

It perhaps reflects the then prevailing attitude of City institutions such as the Corporation, the Livery Companies and major City businesses, in that they donated such small sums to the one off opportunity to discover what lay beneath such a wide area of the City.

After the Roman and Mediaeval Excavation Committee under W.F. Grimes completed their work in 1962, responsibility for the historical remains beneath the streets continued with the Guildhall Museum, although on a very limited scale. The museum employed a single excavation assistant who had to deal with the considerable ongoing development across the City.

By the mid 1960s, development was starting to change from post war reconstruction, to the demolition and site rebuilds of buildings that had not been destroyed during the war. This continued to provide opportunities to discover what lay beneath.

In 1964 a Roman bath house in Huggin Hill was discovered and the site was excavated by a team which consisted of a large number of volunteers, and in October 1964 this group had formed into the City of London Excavation Group, who worked under the Guildhall Museum’s excavation assistant Peter Marsden.

Despite the 1960s being a time of volunteers and ad-hoc reactive work as the City continued an ever increasing pace of redevelopment, there was progress, including the publication of the ongoing discovery of historic London, with, for example, the books on Roman London by Ralph Merrifield (which continue to be available second hand online), and with the start of the London Archaeologist journal, which I featured in an earlier post.

The early 1970s saw further progress with budgets for work being increased by both the Corporation of the City of London and the new Department of the Environment.

The maps within the “The Future of London’s Past” aim to show the current state of knowledge in 1973, and a fold out map within the booklet provides an overview of the development of London from early Roman to late Mediaeval, but with the caveat that some of the sketches are hypothetical, the positions of London Bridge represent only one of several possible options etc.

(Click on any of the images in the post to enlarge):

The Future of London’s Past provides a thorough report into the development of archaeology across the City of London, and what was understood of the City’s past in the early 1970s, however the main reason for the publication was the urgent need to get a more structured approach into how excavations, reports, working with developers etc. was carried out, along with the important issue of how such work could be financed.

The publication makes a number of recommendations to ensure that the level of archaeological research to meet the continuing redevelopment of the City in the 1970s and 1980s could be delivered.

These recommendations centred around a City of London Archaeological Unit which would have the primary task of the observation of building sites, conducting excavations and reporting on their work.

This organisation would be properly funded, supporting the number of staff and equipment needed to monitor and excavate as the City redeveloped.

The figures seem really small by today’s standards, and in 1973 were expected to be an expenditure of £185,000 a year, with an expected cost of £2 million over ten years.

The proposed City of London Archaeological Unit was recommended to be either a division of the Museum of London, or an independent organisation with charitable status.

Simple and obvious recommendations from those best placed to know what was needed.

The timing of the Future of London’s Past was critical, given the limited resources then available to meet the level of change across the City, and the challenges of working with those carrying out these developments, a point summarised in the last paragraph of the recommendations:

“There is very little time left: If the unit is to be successful it will need to work with development and business interests in the City in an atmosphere of goodwill, mutual confidence and mutual comprehension”

The fold old page from the Future of London’s Past is supplemented with eight large maps which illustrate the early 1970s understanding of the City at a number of key periods.

Map 1 is a base map of City streets and key features:

The following seven maps are transparent overlays. (These are over 50 years old and rather fragile so difficult to flatten out for photos, but hopefully they give a good indication of what was known across the City in 1973. Click on any map to enlarge).

The first overlay is Map 2 – “Roman London c. A.D. 43 to c 450 showing the major known elements in relation to the extent and character of archaeological observations on the 30th September 1972”:

Map 3 is an overlay of “Anglo-Saxon London c. 450 – 1066”, again showing what was known on the 30th of September 1972:

Map 4 is an overlay of “Medieval London 1066 – 1500”:

Map 5 is an overlay of Modern London, showing the depth of basements based on a survey up to 1970. Basements were important as they showed the degree of disturbance to what could have remained below ground level:

Map 6 shows the depth of archaeological deposits, including the depth below former basements. The map shows just how deep some deposits are across the City, and that it was still worth excavating below basements:

Map 7 shows the age of buildings, listed buildings, public and private open spaces:

Given the context of “The Future of London’s Past”, Map 8 is perhaps the most important, as it shows the “extent of future destruction”, with areas to be developed in the near future, permission outstanding, and areas where development or new roads are likely in the next five years, along with a view of buildings constructed before 1910 and those between 1910 and 1943. Note the large area along the Thames. Excavation along the edge of the Thames would lead to considerable finds of the Roman and Medieval river embankments and buildings.

Soon after publication of The Future of London’s Past, the Department of Urban Archaeology was formed to cover the City of London. This organisation was a department of the Museum of London, and a second department, the Department of Greater London Archaeology was formed ten years later in 1983 to perform a similar role across Greater London.

Both of these departments were merged to form the Museum of London Archaeology Service in 1991, and in 2011 MOLA as it had by then been abbreviated to, was separated out from the Museum as an independent charitable company.

MOLA now operates nationally with a team of over 400 archaeological professionals, according to their website – a considerable change since the early days of excavations across the City in the 1940s and 1950s.

MOLA are still very much involved with London archaeology, and probably their most recent major find was a Roman mausoleum and the largest Roman mosaic found in the last 50 years at a construction site in Southwark.

As well as a dedicated organisation, suitably staffed and equipped, one of the other issues covered in the survey was that of the relationship with site owners and developers.

The last thing that a site owner and developer wanted was for a significant set of archaeological remains to be found on their land, delaying redevelopment, increasing costs, and potentially changing the plans of what could be built.

The discovery of the Temple of Mithras was an example of the impact this could have, as the discovery caused a delay to the site rebuild.

This needed addressing in law, and in 1990, Planning Policy Guidance Note 16 (PPG16) confirmed archaeology as a factor in determining planning applications, and the principle that funding for archaeological investigation on a site should be provided by the developers.

This guidance has since been updated and in the last couple of decades, the 2012 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was introduced, and English Heritage has since developed the National Heritage Protection Plan.

So archaeology appears to be in much better shape today than in 1973 when The Future of London’s Past was published.

The survey provides far more detail than I can cover in a single post. The challenges of archaeology in the City of London, key finds across the City, proposals and recommendations for how the continuous and ever increasing redevelopment of the City goes ahead whilst putting in place the organisation and processes to discover what can be found beneath each site.

The survey also provides a snapshot of knowledge at the start of 1973, as illustrated by the maps and written sections of the report.

Thankfully, those archaeologists who worked on the survey, as well as the excavations across the City in the post war period, put in place the framework, ideas, proposals and discoveries that would ensure that exploration of the long history of the City of London and what can be found below the surface, ended the 20th century, and continues into the 21st century, in a much better place.

I am sure there is still much more to be found beneath the streets of London.

From Thamesmead to Covent Garden – London in Film

15 Replies

London has been filmed and photographed for as long as these technologies have existed, and today. social media is awash with images and videos, which are often only a few minutes long, such is the direction of the modern attention span.

Move away from social media, and the Internet is an enormous archive of old London films, many produced by local authorities such as the GLC or Corporation of the City of London, also television companies, media agencies, and amateurs.

These films provide a form of time travel, where we can revisit earlier decades, learn more about London, how the city has developed, and see just how much the city has changed, physically, socially, the way the city is governed, transport etc.

Two years ago, in the Christmas / New Year period, I wrote a post about 1980s music videos shot in London (which you can see here), and last year I looked at a number of London films, films that were produced as publicity for developments, for educational purposes, to document aspects of London Life, etc.

There are so many of these that look at different aspects of London’s life and development that for today’s post, I have another selection.

So, if there is nothing on TV to watch, in that strange period between Christmas and New Year, here is another sample of the many films produced about London, starting with:

Thamesmead, 1970

Thamesmead, 1970 is a film by the Greater London Council on the reasons for, the design and development of Thamesmead, and new community for the growing population of Greater London between the Boroughs of Greenwich and Bexley.

The film starts with some wonderful colour views of the River Thames, as the film travels from Westminster down to the site of Thamesmead.

The film is a wonderful insight into 1960’s GLC planning for housing, communities, transport etc.

Living at Thamesmead, 1974

Living at Thamesmead is another Greater London Council film from 1974, using both fictional and real families, to take a look at what it was like to live in Thamesmead. A rather idyllic view of the new development in light of the troubles that would later plaque the area due to poor transport links, lack of amenities, crime, poverty and design issues.

Thamesmead probably highlights the problems that can arise from a well intentioned approach to the provision of housing, without a design that takes in every aspect of what a community needs, the money to implement and build, provision of employment as well as housing, long term management etc.

Thamesmead is a study in the challenges of a new town, compared to very long standing communities, which develop and adapt, are well connected and have a mix of council, community and privately provided amenities.

The Woolwich Free Ferry

This is a wonderful 7 minutes of colour film showing the Woolwich Free Ferry as it was in 1961:

(My Woolwich and Royal Docks walk includes a trip across the river on the Woolwich Ferry. More dates when the weather improves later in the spring. Follow here on Eventbrite for dates).

London 1942

London 1942 is from the British Film Institute collection, and shows London in the middle of the last war. The film was probably meant to portray a very positive view of the city in the middle of war, and may well have been for American audiences as well as British:

At 2 minutes, 56 seconds, there is a view from St. Paul’s Cathedral of the temporary water tanks at what is now Paternoster Square. Just after the war, my father took photos of the view from the Stone Gallery of St. Paul’s Cathedral (see this post) and the outlines of these water tanks could still be seen:

Covent Garden Market in 1960

Covent Garden Market is a 1960 film in the Rank Organisation’s series Look at Life that shows the market in operation, in colour. The film highlights that planners have been wanting to move the market for years, and also looks at other markets such as Billingsgate and that there are plans to demolish the Victorian Coal Exchange for a much wider road (which would become the southern ring road, now Lower Thames Street).

At 5 minutes, 31 seconds there is a view of the street outside Billingsgate with the Coal Exchange, and “lovers of Victorian architecture oppose the idea” of demolition.

I included one of my father’s photos showing Lower Thames Street and the Coal Exchange in one of my first posts back in 2014 (the building on the left with the colonnades):

Covent Garden Closes

The Covent Garden market did eventually close, and this film looks at the closure and the new Nine Elms site:

The Weekend Millionaires – An Oral History of the Thames

These days, it is hard to appreciate just how much the River Thames played in the life of Londoners, and how central the river was to employment, trade, the communities that developed alongside the river, and how London as a city has developed.

The Weekend Millionaires is a fascinating oral history that tells the story of the working river, from those who lived and worked by and on the river. Again, a film that shows just how much the city has changed.

Banging Out – Fleet Street Remembered

Banging Out – Fleet Street Remembered, is another oral history looking at another aspect of working London which has completely disappeared, the newspaper and print industry which once occupied much of Fleet Street and the surrounding area:

1964 WOOLWICH – The significance, history, character, decline, markets, ferry, theatres, landmarks

Woolwich is an area that is currently undergoing significant change, with the area alongside the river, north of Beresford Street and Plumstead Road, developing in a very different way to the south of the streets.

This film looks at Woolwich in the early 1960s, people, streets, buildings, the Royal Arsenal, challenges of housing, the military etc.


WW1 1918 Royal Arsenal Woolwich Workers Part 1 and 2

Another look at Woolwich, from 1918, at a time when the Royal Arsenal was in full production for the armaments that were needed for the First World War:

BBC How They Dug the Victoria Line

Large infrastructure projects, such as Crossrail / the Elizabeth Line are still documented with programmes on national TV, however today, these films tend to be constructed around “will they get it finished in time” or “something has happened to impact a critical timescale”. Showing a major bit of construction work taking place in a short time has always been good TV, however in the past it seems to have been more documenting the project rather than creating tension.

The title of “How They Dug the Victoria Line” is self explanatory, and covers the construction of this new underground route, with all the technical challenges and construction methods that went with the project:

The Port of London (1921)

The Port of London is a 1921 Port of London Authority film, again with a self explanatory title, and again shows how central the River Thames was in the life of the city.

Today. the Thames is very quiet, and is mainly a scenic backdrop for those who live along the river, walk the sides of the river, or across the bridges. For centuries, the river was the heart of London:

London’s Lost Transport

London’s Lost Transport is a collection of archive images and films showing the various methods of transport in use across London between the years 1905 and 1962:

Sunshine in Soho (1956)

Sunshine in Soho is a very brief film from 1956 showing a selective few parts of Soho:

The Changing Face of Camberwell (1963)

Whilst the City of London and the River Thames feature widely in many archive films, there are plenty of films showing other parts of London, one of which is the 1963 film the Changing Face of Camberwell, which shows how Camberwell was being redeveloped to create far better living conditions for residents.

It is interesting to compare the positive expectations when these developments were planned, with the challenges which many areas of redeveloped London would later experience.

Waters of Time – A Port of London Authority Film produced for the 1951 Festival of Britain

There were many films produced by national and local authorities, institutions and companies , to tie in with the 1951 Festival of Britain.

One of these films was a lengthy (one hour fifty minute) film by the Port of London Authority titled the Waters of Time.

The film is a comprehensive exploration of the history and the working operations of what was the worlds largest port. The film again shows how in a relatively short period of time, the river has gone from being central to life in London to a feature which today has little consequence in the life of the majority of Londoners.

These films show just how dramatic the change has been over the last several decades, and it is always interesting to speculate what London will look like in decades to come, as any point in time is just a snapshot of continuous change.

If you would like some more views of London:

And that is my last post for 2025, can I wish you a happy New Year, and for another view of how London has changed, you may be interested in my post on when we celebrated New Years Eve in Trafalgar Square in 1981 – a more chaotic celebration than the managed, ticketed event of today.