As well as finding the locations of my father’s photos, it is fascinating to see how London has changed compared to any old photo, and the three volume set of Wonderful London from the 1920s is a fantastic source to compare how London has changed in the past 100 years, and the following photo of Strand Lane from the book took me to a very old place with a long story:
The text from Wonderful London with the above photo reads: “Strand Lane is thought to have once been the bed of a stream which ran down from Drury Lane to the Thames. A bridge called Strand Bridge crossed it, and the name was afterwards transferred to the landing stage at the bottom. The entrance to the Roman Bath is just to the right of the passage under the old watch house, and the property belongs to the parish of St. Mary’s. Just below the point where the camera stood for this photograph are some steps on the right leading up to Surrey Street”.
There is some truth and also a big error in the above 1920s text, which I will come to later in the post.
The same view today (although not exactly from the right place as there was a van and a car parked to the right and behind where I was standing):
The photographer for Wonderful London walked through the passage under the house, and took another photo looking down Strand Lane:
So I did the same:
The Wonderful London text for the second photo reads: “A low entry opposite the church of St. Mary-le-Strand leads to this quant passage. In former times Strand Lane led down to Strand Bridge, a landing place for boats much used by the inmates of Strand Inn, which lay just to the west of the lane. In ‘The Spectator’ it is recorded that Addison landed with a ten sail of apricot boats at Strand bridge for somebody’s stall in Covent Garden. There used to be some tenements in the Lane called Golden Buildings, but at present the backs of high houses on the east and a brick wall on the west are all that keep it as a lane.”
The description of the lane in the last sentence of the above 1920s text can equally apply to much of the lane today, but where is Strand Lane?
I have marked the location of Strand Lane within the red oval in the following map (© OpenStreetMap contributors):
The entrance to Strand Lane is from the south, along Temple Place. The Strand Campus of King’s College London occupies the large area of land to the west, and also the buildings along the eastern side of the lane, so today, Strand Lane seems to be fully within the campus of King’s College London.
Today, the lane comes to a dead end at the north. The Wonderful London description states that entry to the lane from the north was through a “low entry opposite the church of St. Mary-le-Strand leads to this quant passage“, however this has been closed off for the last fifty years due to the expansion of the college buildings.
Rocque’s map of 1746 shows that Strand Lane was to be found in the mid 18th century, and also shows how the lane ran directly to the Strand, just opposite the eastern end of St. Mary-le-Strand. Strand Lane can be seen running down from the Strand, in the centre of the following extract from Rocque’s map:
In the above map, you can see that Strand Lane runs down to a set of stairs into the river which went by the name of Strand Bridge.
In an 18th century reproduction of an earlier map, we can see Strand Lane, with the name of Strand Bridge Lane on the left edge of the map, when it was along the western border of the old Arundel House, one of the large houses and grounds that once lined the area between the Strand and the river:
Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
The above map shows 4 small boats at the end of Strand Bridge Lane, illustrating that this was a place where you could take a boat along the river for a fee.
The use of the word “Bridge”, either in the name of the lane, or for the landing place at the end of the lane can best be described by taking the following extract from “London Past and Present” by Henry B. Wheatley (1891) :
“Strand Lane, in the Strand, east of Somerset House, and opposite the east end of St. Mary’s Church, was originally the channel of the rivulet which crossed the great thoroughfare under Strand Bridge. It must be remembered that the Strand at this part has been raised fully 20 feet above the ancient level. The lane led to the landing place, at one time known as Strand Bridge; but this was destroyed in forming the Thames Embankment and the lane is no longer a thoroughfare.”
“London Past and Present” also includes a passage from the 1709 publication “History of the Quakers” to substantiate a claim that there were once 311 open channels of water crossing the roadway between Westminster Hall and the Royal Exchange:
“The 18th December 1656, J. Naylor suffered part; and after having stood full two hours with his head in the Pillory, was stripped and whipped at a cart’s tail, from Palace Yard to the Old Exchange, and received three hundred and ten stripes; and the executioner would have given him one more (as he confessed to the Sheriff), ‘there being three hundred and eleven kennels’, but his foot slipping, the stroke fell upon his own hand, which hurt him much.”
“Kennels” were streams of water that ran either along the middle or along the edges of a street. One place where Kennels can still be found is Wells in Somerset, where there are streams flowing in channels along the sides of the streets:
Whether there were 311 streams or channels of water leading down to the river, crossing the road between Westminster and the Royal Exchange in the heart of the City is impossible to confirm and it does seem like a very large number, however there must have been a significant amount of small streams, and Strand Lane appears to be the route of one of these old streams. A reminder of how much we have changed the land surface of the city over the centuries, with so many of the original natural features erased or buried.
The plan of Arundel House shows the street as Strand Bridge Street, and perhaps the stream of water also acted as the western border of the plot of land on which Arundel House was built.
This is the entrance to Strand Lane from Temple Place. the buildings of King’s College London line the two sides of the land, and there is an enclosed overhead walking route between the two sides:
Temple Place, and the Embankment which was behind me when I took the above photo, were built during the late 19th century, so originally, the Thames came up to the roadway in front of me, and this was where the stairs at the end of Strand Lane could be found.
I use old newspapers for research into the places I write about. You need to be careful about journalistic spin, and as ever, newspapers always focus on the bad aspects of life, however they do give a good impression of day to day life in a city such as London.
We also tend to romanticise the London of the past, however if you did not have money, London was often a dark and brutal place for the poor, and particularly for girls and women, and whilst researching Strand Lane, I came across one of the most appalling and sad stories that I have read. This was reported across several newspapers on the 16th of June, 1786:
“Saturday morning the body of a fine young woman was taken out of the Thames at the end of Strand Lane, where she had drowned herself the preceding night. She appeared to be about eighteen years of age, and was known to have been turned out of doors the day before, by one of those inhuman monsters, in the shape of women, who keep brothels in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane.
The poor young victim had been brought from her parents at the age of eleven years, by the mistress of the Bagnio, from which she was dismissed when her face grew common, and the charms of extreme youth and novelty were no longer a temptation to debauched constitutions, and debilitated age. Thus thrown upon the town, penniless, and heart-broken, she put an end to her existence. the body was taken to a house in Strand Lane.”
The article states “charms of extreme youth and novelty” when she should have been described as a child, and although from the article some of her history was known, the article does not even give her the dignity of a name.
One cannot begin to imagine how much she must have suffered by the time she ended her life at the end of Strand Lane, in the Thames at what is now Temple Place and the Embankment.
Looking up Strand Lane today, the white house from the Wonderful London photo towards the end of the lane, buildings of King’s College on either side, a mix of very different architecture, and overhead crossings:
View to the west of Strand Lane, with a large, brick building with what looks like an apse, the curved section at the end of the building, almost over hanging the lane:
There is an unusual feature on the very top of the building in the above photo, a dome to house an astronomical telescope:
I wonder how much of the night sky can be seen given the level of light pollution in central London?
Approaching the end of Strand Lane, the van, and a car behind it, was the reason that I could not get into the right position to take an identical photo to that in Wonderful London. Whilst I was there, the lane seemed to be used for deliveries to and from King’s College buildings:
To the right of the van in the above photo, you can see some white tiling on the wall. This is the entrance to Surrey Steps:
Surrey Steps connect Surrey Street with Strand Lane:
One of the buildings that runs between Surrey Street and Strand Lane forms an arch over Surrey Steps. The end is gated so there is no public access from Surrey Street through to Strand Lane:
Surrey Steps is shown, but not named, in Rocque’s 1746 map, and I have highlighted them within the orange oval in the following extract from the map (note that where the steps meet Strand Lane, there appears to be some shading which would be the steps leading down to the lane):
I have also highlighted another feature in the above map, one that cannot be found today having been built over by Kings College buildings. This was Naked Boy Court, and the court featured in the earliest newspaper reference I could find to Strand Lane, from the 9th of January, 1733:
“On Friday Night the House of Mrs. Smith, a noted Midwife in Naked-Boy-Court, near Strand-lane, was broke open and robbed of 19 Guineas, 24 Broad Pieces, and several suites of Wearing Apparel.”
There were a number of Naked Boy Courts and Alleys in 18th century London, and the name seems to have come from a sign of a “youthful Bacchus astride a barrel”.
Walking into Surrey Street and this is the opposite end of Surrey Steps and shows that they are closed and gated:
There is also a sign on the wall at top left stating: “The National Trust Roman Bath, Down Steps Turn Right”.
Not only are the directions impossible to follow, but if you did get through the gate and down the steps, you would not find a Roman Bath, but the remains of a cistern dating from 1612 and built to feed a fountain in the gardens of Somerset House.
Just to show that you cannot always believe what you read, even in old books that for the most part are authoritative and accurate, in the book “London Past and Present” which I have quoted earlier in the post, Henry B. Wheatley states that “on the east side of this lane is a genuine, ancient Roman bath which is well worth inspection”.
Wonderful London also mentioned the Roman bath in the description to the photo.
In researching my blog posts, I always try to use multiple sources, books, maps, academic journals etc. to ensure they are as accurate as possible.
The Roman Baths / 17th century cistern are inside the building shown in the following photo, within Strand Lane. They are owned by the National Trust, but to gain access you need to contact Westminster Council at least a week in advance.
At the northern end of Strand Lane, there is no further access. This is where the old lane turned to the left / west in the 1746 map, and the turn is still here, but abruptly ends at a metal gate and the King’s College buildings that were built over the rest of where Strand Lane ran up to the Strand:
The northern end of Strand Lane was blocked up in 1971, using an order under section 153 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1962 entitled ‘The Stopping up of Highways (City of Westminster), No. 3 Order 1971, authorising the stopping up of a length of Strand Lane.”
Looking back down Strand Lane with the brick building and apse on the right:
The building on the right appears from a plan of the college to be the King’s Building, and this link appears to have a photo of a large ornate room at the header of the page, which includes an apse at the far end, so perhaps this is the interior of the building with the apse almost hanging over Strand Lane.
Another view of the building:
Looking up at how the apse is supported:
Another delivery van enters Strand Lane:
Walking up to the Strand, and there is no sign of where Strand Lane once entered the Strand. From aligning maps, it seems to have been in the section of the building between the first and second pillars from the right, in the bay to the left of the “Welcome to King’s” sign:
At the far end of the King’s College building is the old Strand / Aldwych Underground Station, and on the side is green plaque:
Telling that William Lilly, Master Astrologer lived in a house on the site:
William Lilly was born in the county of Leicester, and the Leicester Chronicle on the 25th of October 1930 provides a summary of his life under the perfect local paper headline of “Diseworth Man’s Lucky Prophecies”:
“Leicestershire has given birth to some famous men. One of these, undoubtedly, is William Lilly, who was the first man in England to produce a prophetic almanac. He was born in Diseworth in 1602 and went to Ashby Grammar School. At the age of eighteen he journeyed to London and entered ‘service’.
He was fortunate to find in the City, a prosperous Leicestershire man who wanted a servant. Lilly was engaged to do odd jobs, but as his master was illiterate, and found the Diseworth youth was good at figures he employed him to keep his accounts.
It seems to have been the policy of William Lilly, all his life, to look specially after William Lilly. He so wormed his way into his master’s favour that he was awarded a legacy of £20 a year when the old man died in 1627. That was not enough for him, so he wooed the young widow and persuaded her to marry him. Six years later she died, leaving him property worth £1,000.
That gave him a start. he was now a man of leisure, and devoted a good deal of time to the study of astrology – then a very popular science (!), for most people believed in the influence of the stars on public and private lives. At the age of 42 he brought out his almanac, signing himself Meilinus Anglicus, junr.”
William Lilly:
Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
The article continues:
“His almanac succeeded so well, and served him as so good an advertisement, that he set up a sort of astrologer’s business, being prepared to read the future for all who were willing to pay him. It seems extraordinary to us of the twentieth century that the most distinguished people of Lilly’s time used to patronise him, anxious to hear what the stars had to say about coming events.
Cromwell himself is said to have consulted the Diseworth astrologer. In 1648, when the Roundheads were besieging Colchester, and were not getting on very well, Lilly was sent for. He prophesied an early surrender, and the parliamentary troops were so encouraged that they forced the city to fulfil the prophecy.
But while Lilly was taking money from the Parliamentarians he was also feathering his nest from Royalist sources. He was consulted as to how King Charles might escape from his captors, and actually prepared a scheme for enabling the unfortunate monarch to get free. It failed because Charles had not the courage to carry it through to the end.
When the Stuarts were restored, Lilly’s fame began to decline, but he had several strokes of luck in his almanac. One of the prophecies, for instance, was taken to have been a clear indication that he knew the Great Fire of London was to happen; another helped him to acquire the favour of the king of Sweden, who sent him a gold chain worth £50.
In his old age Lilly found it wise to retire and keep out of the public eye. He lived to pass his eightieth birthday. He was a shrewd old man, if often unscrupulous and once his shrewdness saved him. He had prophesized in his almanac for 1653 that the Parliament would not last long, and that the Commonwealth would soon come to an end. He was summonsed to appear before a Governmental committee to account for his publication, but, before he attended, he got his printers to let him have some copies from which the objectionable prophecies were omitted. He presented them and protested that the other copies were spurious, issued by his enemies – and thus saved his skin.”
William Lilly and one of his annual almanacs:
Image: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
William Lilly, an example of one of the problems of walking around London, there is always so much to find in any small area, as Lilly lived just to the north east of Strand Lane.
Strand Lane is a strange place. There are gates up against the wall at the entrance from Temple Place. I cannot remember if I have ever seen them closed. It is also not clear whether Strand Lane is really public space, or it is part of the King’s College campus, as buildings of the college line both sides of the lane.
The entry into Surrey Steps from Surrey Street is closed and locked, implying that this entrance to the lane is not public space.
In all the time I was looking around, and photographing the lane, there was no challenge, however the only other people in the lane were clearly those who had business with King’s College, and it is a dead end, so there is no destination to be reached by walking along the lane.
It is though, a fascinating place. Possibly the route of a very old “kennel” or stream that ran from north of the Strand, under Strand Bridge, down to the river. It was cut off from the Thames in the late 19th century when the Embankment was built, but for long was a landing place, a boundary between the river and land, and was once also the western boundary to Arundel House.
It was also the site of the tragic suicide of an eighteen year old girl, who must have suffered much in her short life in eighteenth century London.
