Monthly Archives: June 2025

London House, Parish Clerks and Glovers – City of London Plaques

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Thanks for all the comments following last week’s post. The website has now been stable for over a week and a half. I have not changed anything or upgraded as suggested by the hosting provider, so I still have no idea of the root cause, but I hope whatever caused the problem will not reoccur.

Back to normal service, with a tour of three City of London plaques, which each have their own unique story to tell of the history of the City, and how these locations have changed over the centuries.

London House – The House with Two Plaques

Walk down Aldersgate Street, and there is an apartment / office building on the western side of the street, which has two plaques, one on each side of the entrance:

The building is called London House, and the two identical plaques both record that this is the site of London House, destroyed by fire in 1766:

The plaques that line the City streets are important to record specific sites in London’s history, but I can imagine that they are frustrating to the casual observer as they offer no context or further information.

The name London House came from a building on the site being occupied by the Bishops of London, however there are conflicting stories as to why they were in Aldersgate Street.

The book “A Dictionary of London” by Henry Harben (1918) states that “so called as being, after the Restoration, for some time the residence of the Bishops of London, in place of their Palace in St. Paul’s Churchyard”.

In “Old and New London”, Walter Thornbury (1878), states that “It was also used as a state prison in the Commonwealth-times, and subsequently became the temporary abode of the Bishops of London, after the Great Fire had treated their mansion in St. Paul’s Churchyard in a Puritanical and remorseless way”.

In “A New History of London Including Westminster and Southwark” John Noorthouck (1773) the story of the house is that “it was purchased after the restoration for the city mansion of the Bishop of London: from that time it was known by the name of London-house”.

So that is two sources for post restoration and one for after the Great Fire, but given that the Restoration (1660 – Charles II becomes Monarch) and the Great Fire (1666) both occurred in the same decade, both interpretations are sort of right.

I cannot find any images of London House, but it does appear in William Morgan’s 1682 Survey of London, where in the following extract, it is on the left of Aldersgate Street, and appears to be of some size, including a central courtyard and surrounding land:

I did find a 1747 plan of the building. It needs to be turned 90 degrees to the left to correspond with the above map, but it does align well with Morgan’s map, and the key shows the different parts of the overall complex:

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 text to the right states that “Charles II gave it to the Bishops of London”, so I suspect this demonstrates that both the earlier reasons for the Bishops use of the house are correct. They needed a new home after their building in St. Paul’s Churchyard was destroyed during the Great Fire, and Charles II was on the throne after the Restoration of the Monarchy, and he gave the Bishops the house in Aldersgate Street.

I like the description for “G”, The Garden as there being a “lofty elm”. hard to imagine that in Aldersgate Street of today. At “L”, there was the Great Gate and Porch to Aldersgate Street, so I suspect that London House had a rather impressive façade to the street.

The text with the above plan also mentions the previous owner, that it was “formerly belonging to Lord Petre”, when it was called Petre House.

Lord Petre is an interesting character. William Petre, originally a lawyer from Devon, became an assistant to Thomas Cromwell during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. (the family name was originally Peter, but William changed the name to Petre as the French sounding name was more in character with society and the Royal Court at the time).

As part of the dissolution process, William Petre visited the manors held by the Barking Abbey, one of these was a manor at Ingatestone, a village in Essex.

After the lands of Barking Abbey were surrendered to the Crown in 1539, William Petre purchased the manor at Ingatestone for £849, 12 shillings, and he set about demolishing the original stewards house, and built himself a new manor house.

This process may have been how he came to own the building that would become London House, but I cannot find any proof of this – it may have simply been a purchase as he needed a base in London of sufficient prominence for a country lawyer, then working for Thomas Cromwell.

He must have been a shrewd operator in both society and in the Court as the Petre family were Catholic, and managed to survive with very little impact on their position and fortunes.

The manor house at Ingatestone – Ingatestone Hall – still survives to this day, and continues to be owned by the Petre family.

Ingatestone Hall is well worth a visit, and to emphasise the risk of being a practising Catholic in the 16th century, there are two priest holes, used to conceal Catholic priests, to be seen during a tour of the house.

Ingatestone Hall:

The plaque records that London House was destroyed by fire in 1766. I can find no specific reports of the fire, and suspect it was just one of the many fires that continued to plague London, even after the building regulations and construction changes that came into being as a result of the 1666 Great Fire.

It is good that the current building on the site retains the name London House, and I think it is the only place I have come across in the City of London where there are two identical plaques marking the same historic feature.

First Hall of the Parish Clerks’ Company

In the following photo, there is a plaque marking the site until the mid sixteenth century of the first hall of the Parish Clerks’ Company. Difficult to see, so I have marked the location with the red arrow:

The plaque is in Clerks Place, not really a street or alley, rather a walkway leading of from Bishopsgate under one of the many office blocks that line the street.

On the right of the above photo is the side wall of the church of St. Ethelburga, a key marker to demonstrate how named places have shifted their location over the centuries, which I will come to after looking at the Parish Clerks’ Company:

The Parish Clerks’ Company are slightly different to the majority of the other Companies of the City of London, in that it is not associated with a trade, rather the Company is for parish clerks of the parishes and churches of the City of London, as well as a number of churches outside the original walls of the City, and from wider London.

The book “The Armorial Bearings of the Guilds of London” by John Bromley (1960) provides some background as to the age of the Company of Parish Clerks: “Unsupported tradition, based apparently upon a statement of John Stow, claims that the parish clerks of London were an incorporated body as early as 1233, but the first established charter to the Company is that of 22nd January 1441/2. Under this charter the chief parish clerks of the collegiate and parish churches of London, hitherto a brotherhood in honour of St. Nicholas, were formed into a perpetual corporation”.

As well as not representing a trade, there is another unique feature in the history of the Parish Clerks Company. During Henry VIII’s Reformation, the Parish Clerks Company were the only City of London Company that suffered the confiscation of all their property.

A new charter was granted to the “Master, Wardens and Brethren of the Parish Clerks of the City of London and liberties thereof” in 1611 / 1612, and their current charter dates from the 27th of February 1638.

In the years when the Company was first formed, the Middle Ages role of a parish clerk was as a clerk in minor orders who assisted the priest and helped with the preparation and running of church services and the choir.

After the Reformation, the Parish Clerk became more of a lay member role, and crucially it was the Parish Clerk who was responsible for recording the births and deaths of parishioners, including the cause of death, and this data was published as Bills of Mortality, which provides us with a detailed view of life and death in London (see my post here for a detailed review of Bills of mortality in early 18th century London, if you want to know about causes of death such as Planet Struck, or St. Anthony’s Fire).

The responsibility of Parish Clerks to record birth and death data for their parish seems to have run from the mid 16th century to the first decades of the 19th century, when a national system of registration was introduced in 1837.

The armorial bearings of the Company of Parish Clerks from the 1960 book by John Bromley:

The arms today are slightly different following a grant on the 16th October 1991, when “supporters” of angels standing on the top of ionic columns where added to both sides of the shield, and the helmet at the top of the shield has been changed to face directly out from the arms. All other features are the same..

The song book at the top of the arms is a “pricke songe book” meaning a piece of written vocal music, music which has been pricked, marked out or notated. No doubt a book that the parish clerk would have been responsible for.

The motto “Unitas societatis stabilitas” translates to ‘Unity is the support of Society’.

The plaque is to mark the site of the first hall of the Parish Clerks Company. The plaque records that it was the site of the hall until the mid sixteenth century, as this was when the hall was taken by the Crown during the Reformation.

The Company established a second hall at Brode Lane, however this was destroyed during the 1666 Great Fire. Their third hall was in Silver Street (just to the south of London Wall, near the old Museum of London site), but this third hall was destroyed by bombing during the night of the 29th / 30th of December 1940.

The Parish Clerks Company did not build a fourth hall, and today make use of space in other halls of City Livery companies, as and when needed.

The company is still active today, and membership “is limited to those who have been appointed by the parochial or guild church council and the incumbent to hold the office of parish clerk in certain ancient parishes in the City of London and its immediate suburbs”, so continuing a tradition lasting several hundreds of years.

What I am not sure about is whether the plaque is in the correct position, certainly Clerks Place is in the wrong position.

The following is an extract from the 1951 revision of the OS map:

(Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland)

The Church of St Ethelburga is at the end of the red arrow. This is the church on the right of the location of the plaque, the current position of the plaque is pointed out by the yellow arrow.

Clark’s Place can be seen just to the north (blue arrow), although to add some further mystery, the name is spelt Clark rather than Clerk. There is no Clerk’s Place next to St. Ethelburga, although there is a very small space next to the church.

The following is an extra from Rocque’s map of 1746, and again shows a Clarks Alley (yellow arrow), rather than Place, and no alley or place next to St Ethelburga (red arrow):

In “A Dictionary of London” by Henry Harben (1918), Clark’s Alley is listed, as is Clark’s Hall – “On the east side of Bishopsgate, ‘was a fayer entrie or Court to the common hall of the saide Parish Clarkes”. and Clarke’s Place is also listed as being “east out of Bishopsgate. First mention 1848 – 1851. Former names Clark’s Alley and Clark’s Court”.

As I was writing the above, I was thinking that this is getting too detailed, but I hope it demonstrates the following:

  • with almost anything historical, it helps to be aware that anything, including plaques, street names that have a historical name etc., may not be in the right place
  • the spellings Clerk and Clark seem to have been used interchangeably for centuries (newspapers contain hundreds of reference to both a Parish Clark or Clerk over the last 300 years)
  • Clarks / Clerks Alley / Place was further north than the current route of the walkway named Clerks Place. I suspect this was to free up a large amount of space for the buildings that now occupy the original location, with the route being moved next to St. Ethelburga
  • the City of London plaque states “On this site”, implying that the Parish Clerks’ Company Hall was where the plaque is located, but if the hall was next to Clarks Alley, then it was further north. I wonder if this is the original plaque from before the new towers were built, and it was simply moved a bit further south, still to recall the hall, but now at the wrong place

A perfect example of the rabbit holes I find myself going down when researching posts.

The Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks are still going today, their website can be found here, where there is a really good list of parish churches in the City, as well as churches outside of the City where the parish clerk may still be admitted to the Company.

To demonstrate just how many churches there were in the City, the listing states that prior to the 1666 Great Fire, there were 97 parish churches within the walls of the City of London. A remarkable number for such a relatively small space. You must have been never more than a couple of minutes walk at most, from a City church.

Glovers Hall

On the Cromwell Highwalk, one of the elevated walkways within the Barbican estate, and next to Cromwell Tower there is a plaque:

Recording that near this site stood Glovers Hall, 17th to 19th century:

Ordinances to create the Glovers Company were agreed in 1349, so that the company could regulate the craft of glove making in London.

By 1489, the craft of glove making was in decline, so the company merged with another company with a declining trade – the Pursers, and in 1502, the combined Glovers and Pursers joined with the Leathersellers Company.

In 1639, the Glovers exited the combined company, and again became a separate company of Glovers.

The hall referred to on the plaque was purchased in the mid 17th century, and the plaque is in almost the right place as my best estimate is that the hall was slightly to the right, in front of the present day Cromwell Tower, and obviously at a lower level to the Cromwell Highwalk where the plaque is located today.

Rocque’s 1746 map of London shows the Glovers Hall (within the red oval), with Glovers Court just below:

Beech Lane just to the right is today Beech Street, and the alignment of the street has been straightened to get rid of the bend to the left shown in the map.

One of the activities of the Company in regulating the trade of Glovers included the prosecution of anyone carrying on the trade of Glover, who had not had the appropriate training or was not conforming to set standards. An example of where people were prosecuted included the following report in the Kentish Weekly Post on the 6th of December 1732:

“On Saturday was tried at Westminster, before the Lord Chief Justice Byre, a Cause depending between the Company of Glovers of London, Plaintiffs, and a Gloveseller in the Strand, Defendant, he being sued for carrying on the Trade of a Glover, not having served 7 Years thereto, and after a Trial of near 2 hours, the Jury, without going out, brought in a Verdict for the Plaintiffs, with Damages and Costs of Suit.”

The City companies were were very protective of their trade, and their members interests.

There are many reports of really strange sensitivities about certain elements of clothing, and between their manufacturers and City Companies. The following from 1739 is a typical example, and shows the strange things going on in London in previous centuries:

“Tyburn was hung with Women’s Thread and Cotton Gloves, to disgrace the wearing of them; the Stocking Weavers encroaching on the Glovers in this Branch of Trade has occasioned much Difference between them; The Glovers are willing to allow the Stocking Weavers the Legs as their property, but hope at the same time the Ladies will assist them with their Hands, by wearing Leather Gloves.”

Another example of the level of specialisation in manufacture, and how each group were fiercely protective of their trade.

Strangely, the arms of the Glovers do not include any gloves, but there are rams, along with the motto of the Glovers: “True hearts warm hands”:

The Glovers do not appear to have been a well funded company, and the 19th century reference in the plaque was when the Glovers sold their hall to raise funds.

An indication of the financial state of the company can be had from the following report on the company in 1834: “Formerly, when the Company used to have dinners, they had stewards, but since they have become too poor to afford entertainments, the stewards’ office was abolished. The members sometimes dine together, but very seldom, then the expense is usually made up by individual subscription, and sometimes the expense is defrayed out of a small general fund they have.”

Since the sale of their hall, the Glovers do not seem to have had their own hall, instead making use of the halls of other City Company’s, although there is a strange reference to the Glovers Hall in a 1953 report in the Bromley and West Kent Mercury when a casket made by a Mr. J.H. Easden of Chislehurst following a commission from the Glovers Company to hold a glove for presentation to the new queen, Elizabeth I, was “taken to the Glovers Hall in the City of London, so that members attending a social function could see it.”

I suspect this was probably an error and the Glovers were making use of another City hall.

The Glovers are one of the smaller City companies that has often struggled over the centuries to survive, both financially and with a purpose. The time when these Companies were responsible for the regulation of a trade within the City has long gone, but those that survive, including the Glovers, now mainly have a charitable function, and also try to support their trade in the form it takes today.

According to their website, the Glovers also maintain a comprehensive collection of gloves at the Fashion Museum, Bath, although a quick search on the museum’s website makes no mention of the collection.

Each plaque only gives a very brief glimpse of the considerable history behind each one. Although there is insufficient room on a plaque for much more detail, adding perhaps a QR code linked to a website, such as the Museum of London, with a listing of all the plaques and some of their stories, would enhance a walk along the City streets.

alondoninheritance.com

An Apology

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For the first time in just over 11 years, I have not been able to complete a post.

We were away for the whole of the last week, with very limited Internet access, and the week before I planned to complete two posts, the Essex Street Water Gate post which I did finish for last Sunday, and a second post for today, the 15th of June.

However, whilst trying to complete these posts, the website kept going down.

I managed to complete the Essex Street post, but also spent loads of time trying the find out why the website kept going down. Not for long periods, just over one hour was the maximum downtime, but there were many shorter periods of around 20 minutes – not helpful when you are trying to complete a post.

I spent lots of time in contact with the hosting provider. The first agent I was in contact with said the site was over using the available resources, and said this may be down to a number of out of date software components, or to a hacking attempt, and recommended that I upgrade some of the software and install some additional; security software, which I did.

The site kept on going down.

Back in contact with the hosting provider, and a different agent, who now said that the up to date software modules could be in conflict, or that the security software could be over using resources.

Running very short of time, I just about completed last Sunday’s post, unloaded anything that was not essential for the website – and we went away.

The website did continue to suffer some downtime, but not as much, and the last brief period of 6 minutes downtime was last Tuesday afternoon, and it has been up 100% of the time since then.

So, I have no idea what caused the problems.

The hosting provider has also recommended that I upgrade the site to their next service tier, which I am happy to do, but would prefer to know the root cause of the problems, to have confidence that an upgrade would be the fix.

I will see what happens this coming week, but hopefully normal service will be resumed next Sunday.

alondoninheritance.com

Essex Street Water Gate and Stairs

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I have written about the area between the Strand and the Embankment in a number of previous posts. It is a fascinating place of alleys, steep streets to the river, and a place where we can still find features that are reminders of long lost landscapes.

One such feature can be found at the southern end of Essex Street, where the street appears to come to an end, with a large gap in the building at the end of the street framing the view towards the Embankment:

The archway through the building at the end of Essex Street leads to a set of stairs down to what would have been the level of the Thames. The archway in the 1920s from the book Wonderful London:

I love the details in these photos. There appears to be a child at lower left of the arch, who looks like they are holding a small dog or cat.

At first glance, the arch and surrounding building looks the same as the photo from 100 years ago, however looking closer and there are differences. The brickwork in the semi-circular area below the two round windows and above the entrance appears far more recessed in the 1920s than it does today, and along the wall between first and second floors there appears to be a white decorative band protruding from the brickwork which is not there today, so I suspect there has been some rebuilding / restoration of the building and arch.

A look at the London County Council Bomb Damage Map shows that there has indeed been some considerable post-war rebuilding, as the building surrounding the arch at the end of Essex Street is coloured deep purple, indicating serious damage.

A look through the arch in 2025:

The following photo from the the book “The Romance of London” by Alan Ivimy (1940), where the scene is described as “Water Gate, at Essex Street, Strand. This opening at the bottom of the street, which gives a view of green trees, is the old Water Gate, built into the surrounding houses, of Essex House, and the only survival of that great mansion”:

Essex House was one of the large houses that once lined the Strand, each with gardens leading down to the banks of the Thames. These houses would typically have their own access to the river as the river was frequently the fastest and safest method of travelling through London.

The caption in Alan Ivimey’s book is rather ambiguous as it states that the opening is the old water gate. It does not specifically state that the surrounding structure is the original water gate.

The houses lining the Strand often did have a feature where their private access to the river was located, as the view of these from the river would have acted as a location marker as well as a symbol of status, where a large, decorated structure acting as their gate to the river would have impressed visitors and those travelling along the Thames.

Another example is the Water Gate to York House, which was the subject of this post.

The arch was described as a Water Gate in the many illustrations of the feature that have appeared over the last couple of hundred years, including this print from 1848, where the Water Gate is described as the “stately portal with large columns to either side”:

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

So is the arch a survivor from the time of Essex House? Any thoughts that this may be a historic survival are quickly dashed when looking through the Historic England listing.

The arch is Grade II listed, however the listing text states that it is a “Triumphal” gateway built in 1676 by Nicholas Barbon to terminate his Essex Street development, and to screen his development of a commercial wharf below. The listing also confirms that there was bomb damage, and the surrounding buildings date from 1953.

Looking through the arch, we can see the steps leading down to Milford Lane:

Through the arch and down the stairs, we can look back at the rear of the 1953 building, the stairs and the arch. The view shows how the height difference between the streets leading down from the Strand, and what was the foreshore of the Thames have been managed, where the ground floor from this angle is the basement from Essex Street:

Although the building was bombed in the 1940s, and rebuilt in the 1950s, this view still looked very similar to the 1920s:

So, although the arch has frequently been called the Essex Street, or Essex House Water Gate, it appears that the feature dates from Nicholas Barbon’s development of what had been the Essex House gardens, into Essex Street. It was bombed in the last war, restored and rebuilt, and the building surrounding the arch dates from the 1950s.

I mentioned at the start of the post how features such as the arch can act as reminders of a long lost landscape, and to see how this works, we need to follow a series of maps.

Starting with the area today, and I have marked the location of the arch / water gate with the red arrow in the map below (map © OpenStreetMap contributors):

In the above map, we can see Essex Street running slightly north west from the water gate (red arrow), up to the Strand. In the area between the arch / water gate, we can see part of the Victoria Embankment gardens to lower left, and on the right are Temple Gardens.

Going back to William Morgan’s 1682 map of London, and we can see the area soon after Nicholas Barbon’s development, with the red arrow marking the water gate:

There are 343 years between Morgan’s map, and the area today, and the street layout is almost identical, with Essex Street running to the north west, up to the Strand. The same two streets running east and west about two thirds up the street, and Milford Lane (blue arrow) running from the west to the south of the stairs in almost exactly the same alignment as today.

Morgan’s map shows a gap between the buildings at the end of Essex Street, where the arch is today. The map appears to show an open gap, with no arch, or floors above the arch. Whether this was an error in the map, whether the arch had not yet been built, or whether Barbon initially only put pillars on the building to the side of the gap as decoration, without an arch, would require much more research, but the key point is that the gap leading from Essex Street was there in 1682.

The 1682 map shows the stairs to the river, Essex Stairs (yellow arrow). These were not the stairs that lead down through the arch, but stairs at the end of what must have been a flat space between the water gate and the river, probably Barbon’s wharf development that the building and arch at the end of Essex Street was intended to screen.

To see how rapidly this area had changed, we can go back just five years from the above map, and the 1677 Ogilby and Morgan’s map of London.

In the extract below, we can see that Essex House, along with ornate gardens between the house and the Thames were still to be found. The red arrow marks the location of the water gate / arch we see today:

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.

Essex House can be seen close to the Strand, opposite the church of St. Clements.

Essex House was originally Exeter House as it was the London residence of the Bishop of Exeter who had been granted the site in the reign of Edward III.

The house and grounds were taken during the Reformation, after which it was purchased by Thomas Howard, the fourth Duke of Norfolk, who was arrested in the house and in 1572 he was beheaded for his part in the conspiracy of Mary Queen of Scots. The house was then owned by the Earl of Leicester, and became Leicester House. After his death, the property passed to his son-in-law, the Earl of Essex during the reign of Elizabeth I, and the house became Essex House.

Originally facing directly onto the Strand, by the time of the above map, we can see that houses and shops had been built between the house and the Strand, reflecting the slow decline in the importance of the large houses built along the Strand.

The house was pulled down around 1682, the same year as the map of William Morgan, however it is always difficult to be sure of exact publication dates, when the streets were surveyed for the map etc.

This may also answer why the gap of the water gate is shown without an arch as the William Morgan map may have used the plans for the area, rather than as finally built.

The 1677 map shows some interesting comparisons and features:

  • comparing the shoreline between the Thames and the land in the 1677 and 1682 maps, and after Bourbon’s development, an area of the foreshore appears to have been recovered – Barbon’s wharf development as mentioned in the Historic England listing
  • this would then put the current arch / water gate at the location of the original stairs at the end of the gardens, to the river
  • the slight north west angle of the gardens is roughly the same as the alignment of Essex Street today, so as we walk along Essex Street, we are walking along what must have been the central pathway through the gardens of Essex House
  • although not named in the map, Milford Lane is running to the east of Essex House, in the same alignment as the lane today (although in 1677 it did not have the bend round the base of the stairs. Milford Lane once formed the boundary between Essex House and Arundel House to the west

An extract from the 1677 map is shown below, covering the boundary with the Thames:

There are two boats moored at the end of the stairs down to the river at the end of the gardens of Essex House, where the water gate stairs are today.

There are two other sets of stairs shown on the map. On the left, there is a cluster of boats around Milford Stairs – named after the lane on the east of Essex House, and a lane we can still find today.

On the right there is a large cluster of boats around Temple Stairs.

Three stairs in a short distance shows just how many stairs there once were between the land and the river. Many still survive, but stairs such as Milford, Essex and Temple have disappeared beneath the land reclamation for the Embankment.

Temple Stairs appear to have been of a rather ornate stone design. The following print shows the Great Frost of the winter of 1683 / 4:

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.

Temple Stairs are on the left edge of the print, and they appear to be a stone, bridge like structure, probably over the most muddy part of the foreshore, with a set of steps then leading down to the river, where a passenger would take a boat to be rowed across or along the river.

The print has a pencil note “Taken from the Temple Stairs”, but other British Museum notes to the print state that the print is from near the Temple Stairs.

The following photo was taken from the southern end of Milford Lane, where it joins Temple Place:

The above photo is looking across what was Nicholas Barbon’s wharf development, which the houses at the end of Essex Street were meant to screen, and before Barbon’s work, this would have been the Thames foreshore, with the stairs leading down from the gardens of Essex House to the river, where the gap of the water gate can be seen.

In the following photo, the entrance to Milford Lane is on the right, behind the red phone box. The building on the left is Two Temple Place:

Two Temple Place gives the impression of being of some considerable age, however it is built on what was the Thames foreshore, and dates from the early 1890s, when William Waldorf Astor commissioned the gothic revivalist architect  John Loughborough Pearson to create the building.

One of the stand out features is the gilded weather vane, made by J. Starkie Gardner, a representation of Christopher Columbus’ ship, the Santa Maria:

The water gate is today an interesting architectural feature at the end of Essex Street. Perhaps more importantly, it is reminder of a long lost landscape, which dates from Essex House and the gardens which led down to stairs to the Thames. After the demolition of Essex House, Essex Street was built on the same alignment as the gardens, and the stairs then led down to Barbon’s commercial wharf on what had been the Thames foreshore.

Today, the 19th century Embankment has further separated Essex Street and the stairs from the river, and Two Thames Place is a symbol of late 19th century building on the recently reclaimed land of the Embankment.

The stairs are also a reminder of a time when there were very many stairs along this part of the river, important places in the daily lives of many Londoners.

Very much, a lost landscape.

alondoninheritance.com

A Stoke Newington Church Street Ghost Sign

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I often get asked about resources to research and discover London’s history, so I plan to add a resources page to the blog / website, and to build up to that I am starting a monthly addition to a blog post covering one specific resource. This month it is the London Topographical Society, and is at the end of the post, but first, a visit to Stoke Newington Church Street, to find the site of a photo taken by my father, 40 years ago in 1985:

This is the building in 2025, with the same ghost sign on the front, along with a second on the side of the building, which seems to be advertising the Westminster Gazette and Criterion Matches, there may be something else there as well, but the signs shows how new advertisements resulted in the overpainting of earlier adverts:

The signage on the front of the building also shows evidence of earlier changes and additions, but looks much as it did 40 years ago:

The ladder at the ground floor shop was a nice bit of symmetry with the sign above, as it was being used by a sign writer to add the name of the business. Good that these are still done manually.

Walker Brothers (their name is top right on the front of the building) presumably had a shop in the building, selling and repairing fountain pens, including those made by Watermans (bottom right panel), who are still in business today.

Interesting that the word Fountain is abbreviated to Fount, presumably to get all the text on the sign at the right size to be seen.

There was very little to be found about the company, and they do not appear to have advertised, or been mentioned in the newspapers in the British Newspaper Archive.

The building is Grade II listed, and dates to early 18th century, indeed there are a number of listed buildings in Stoke Newington Church Street, which tells a story of the age of this street.

In the following map, Stoke Newington Church Street is the yellow road running left to right across the centre. Stoke Newington High Street, also known as the A10, is the road on the right running from bottom to top of the map. Abney Park Cemetery is the green space to the right, and Clissold Park is the green space to the left, so there is plenty of interest along this one street (map © OpenStreetMap contributors):

Much of this area is of 19th century and later development, so why is there an early 18th century house in Stoke Newington Church Street?

To answer that, we can look at Rocque’s 1746 map of London, and we can see the street running left to right across the centre, from what is now Stoke Newington High Street on the right, to Newington Common on the left, which is now part of Clissold Park. The small river running to the left, and around Newington Common was the New River, bringing water in from Hertfordshire to the New River Company reservoirs at north Clerkenwell:

The wavy line of another stream can be seen in the upper half of the map, crossing the road at Stamford Bridge (hence the name), and then flowing south, heading towards the River Lea.

This was the Hackney Brook, one of London’s many lost streams and rivers, and a stream that was covered up during the mid 19th century, effectively becoming part of the sewer network.

We can see that in 1746, there were houses lining the street, including the house with the Fountain Pen sign we see today, and these houses had gardens extending behind them, with the rest of the map being fields.

Newington Church Street is therefore a street with some history, an interesting walk, with a number of other ghost signs, but in this post I want to look at some of the buildings, and what could be classed as modern day ghost signs.

I am starting on the corner of Stoke Newington High Street and Stoke Newington Church Street, where we find the Three Crowns:

The pub’s website claims that a pub has been here since the 1600s, with an original name of Cock and Harp, changed to the Three Crowns to represent England, Scotland and Ireland for James 1.

How far back in the 1600s is unclear, however there was a building on the site in Rocque’s 1746 map, and it would be the logical location for a pub, on the junction with a major road leading out of London, and the only significant set of buildings between Hoxton to the south and Tottenham to the north.

Surprisingly, the pub, and its rather decorative Saloon Lounge are not listed:

Another ghost sign:

This sign is not old, rather it is part of the Stoke Newington Heritage Mural project, and the poem that makes up the words across the wall is by children of the William Pattern Primary School.

I mentioned that there were what might be classed as modern ghost signs along the street. The first of these is above the middle (light blue) shop in the following photo:

A clock, presumably paid for, supplied by BASF when Church Street Electronics (television and audio) occupied the shop. BASF still exist as a chemicals company, and back in the 1970s / 80s made and sold cassette tapes. I remember them as being one of the more expensive, but better quality cassette tapes, and which did not jam in my Sharp cassette player in the car:

A short distance along is Stoke Newington Fire Station, and on the lower right of the building is a sign:

Proudly proclaiming that this is the G.L.C. London Fire Brigade:

The G.L.C. or Greater London Council was dissolved in 1986, so this sign is at least 39 years old, and interesting to see its survival on an official and still working building. I wonder if the phone to the left still works? In the days before the mobile phone, if you saw a fire, you could run to your nearest fire station, and use the phone on the wall outside to contact the fire brigade.

I do not know whether it is correct to call the clock and the GLC sign, ghost signs, but there are interesting reminders of the continuous change across London’s streets. I hope they both survive for many years to come. There are many similar examples to find across the streets of London.

Another traditional painted ghost sign, above a Gail’s bakery – a shop that is often used as an indicator of gentrification:

One of the entrances to Abney Park Cemetery is on Stoke Newington Church Street – a cemetery that deserves at least a couple of posts to do it justice:

The Clarence on the corner of Stoke Newington Church Street and Bouverie Road:

Not as old as the Three Crowns, the pub has the date 1860 on the side, and the date would seem right as I cannot find any earlier records of the pub, and it was probably built as the streets north of Stoke Newington Church Street were being developed, providing an increasing population and customers for the pub.

One of the newspaper reports mentioning the Clarence in the years after it opened, dates from the 26th of August, 1876. It reports that Charles Howard, a teetotal Police Detective, amused himself for a few nights by watching the pub, and seeing four Police Constable drinking outside of the pub, one of them from a pewter pot.

Howard took out summonses against them for drinking an intoxicating drink whilst on duty, however the case was thrown out by the magistrate as it was impossible to prove whether the Constables were drinking alcohol, or water or ginger beer.

Charles Howard had to pay a guinea costs, and I bet he was not popular with his work colleagues.

Further along is this lovely red brick pub – the Red Lion:

There appears to have been a pub on the site since the end of the 17th century, however the pub we see today dates from the 1920, when Lordship Road alongside was widened.

I generally do not trust AI, but results can be interesting to follow up. When I Googled the Red Lion, Google’s AI summary included the following: “some accounts suggest its original name was “The Greene Dragon”.

I always try to get references from the time, or from books and journals rather than Google, but I searched the British Newspaper Archive for the Greene Dragon, and found the following from the 22nd of October, 1773:

On Wednesday Night as Mr. Smith, a Barbados Merchant in Winchester Street, was going in his chariot to his house in Tottenham, he was stopped by a single Highwayman, who demanded his Money, putting a pistol into the Carriage and threatening to shoot him on not complying with his demand. Mr. Smith, not delivering the Cash immediately, the Fellow snapped his Pistol, which missed fired; the Gentleman’s Footman then prepared to fire at the Highwayman, which the later perceiving, discharged another Pistol at him, but missed; the Servant then discharged a Blunderbuss, when one of the Balls went through the Highwayman’s Arm, and entered his Heart, upon which he dropped from his Horse, and expired immediately. Mr. Smith called at the Green Dragon, Newington, and desired that the Body might be fetched thither, till the Coroner can sit upon it.

Yesterday Afternoon the Coroner’s Inquest sat on the Body of the Highwayman who was shot, at the Green Dragon at Stoke Newington, and brought in their Verdict, killed by Mr. Smith’s Servant in defending himself.

The above Highwayman was lately Coachman to Heaton Wilkes, Esq; had a Letter of Recommendation to that Gentleman, and Advertisement for a Service, and but Sixpence in his Pockets.”

The attempted robbery must have taken place on Stoke Newington High Street as Mr. Smith was going in his “chariot” to his house in Tottenham.

If the Green Dragon was the original name for the Red Lion, then it is interesting to wonder why the body was not taken to the Three Crowns rather than the pub that was a distance along Stoke Newington Church Street.

I have no firm evidence that the Red Lion was the Green Dragon (one of the problems of the time available for a weekly post), but it is an interesting story of life in the area in the 18th century, and the story of a rather inept Highwayman.

One of the pleasures of walking London’s streets is finding unique shops such as Bridgewood & Neitzert, Violin Dealers, Makers & Repairers:

These two houses are interesting for a number of reasons:

They are set back from the street, there are no shops projecting from the ground floor towards the pavement, and there is a plaque about an earlier building on the site:

They are Grade II listed, and according to the listing information, were built in 1717 (so were on Rocque’s 1746 map earlier in the post – they must have looked out on a very different view of Stoke Newington when built), and if you look at the photo of the two houses, the listing states that they were each served by a “ two-storey wing housing coach house, kitchens and servants’ quarters”. These two kitchens and servants wings are the two storey buildings on each side of the main house, now with shops on the ground floor running up to the pavement.

These two houses did have shops on the ground floor, part of 19th century additions to houses that lined the busy street, and these two shops were removed in 1993, revealing the houses we see today, and as they would have been (along with many others on the street), when first built.

The story of these houses is one of the transformation of London’s streets as the city expanded. When they were built, Stoke Newington Church Street was a single street, houses along the street, with gardens to the rear, then fields.

As the area was built up during the 19th century, these once grand country houses changed to houses of multiple occupancy, and had shops built in the space between the ground floor and the street. This has always been a busy street, so the added footfall of having a shop in a rapidly expanding part of London, made the benefit of building a shop considerable.

Many of these shops survive across London, and indeed are interesting 19th century survivors, but it is good to see these two houses, with their shops removed to see what the street would have looked like for much of the 18th and early 19th century.

The two storey house next to the two large houses, again Grade II listed and 18th century, but with the addition of a 19th century shop:

John’s Garden Centre closed in 2017, and the site has remained empty since. If you look at the first floor, the windows have metal shutters, and there is a heavy metal support for the upper floor wall, so it looks as if there are some structural problems, which probably explains why it has been empty for so long.

Hopefully its listing should help ensure the building is preserved, although sometimes listed building are left to decay until the point of no, financially viable, repair.

Another closed store is the Haikksun Chinese Resturant:

You would not realise to look at the building today, but it is Grade II listed, along with the building on the left and the terrace to the right.

The building is mid 18th century, and again the ground floor shop was added in the 19th century. At least the old house looks in better condition to that behind John’s Garden Centre.

We then come to Stoke Newington Town Hall & Assembly Hall:

There is far more to be written about the evolution of the street, residents, Abney Park Cemetery, Hackney Brook and the surrounding area, but now I want to introduce a new feature to the blog, a first Sunday of the month feature on resources.

As I mentioned at the start of the post, I frequently get asked for recommendations to research many different aspects of London’s history, so this feature will cover societies, websites, books, mapping etc. etc. and I will eventually bring them together in a single Resources page.

For the first of this series, can I introduce you to the London Topographical Society:

Resources: The London Topographical Society

I will point out that for anything I feature, there is no commercial aspect or benefit for me. It is my choice of what is featured, and I get no benefit of any kind (this is important to me so readers know that whatever I feature and write about is my choice, and there is no external influence or financial benefit for anything across the blog). The only commercial element are my walks, and the money from these is used to fund the costs of the blog.

I have been a member of the London Topographical Society for several years, and they are a wonderful source of publications and information regarding the history and development of London.

Their 1900 prospectus included the following statement:

And that is what they basically still do today. There is an annual society publication for members – an incredibly well researched and comprehensive hardback book on an aspect of London’s history, as well as two newsletters a year, and this is why I am somewhat biased in featuring the society first, as I have just started writing for them, and I have an article in the May newsletter (again, no commercial benefit for me in any form):

The London Topographical Society have a comprehensive set of publications available to purchase (members get a 25% discount), as well as information on their website to help with researching London’s history.

The annual subscription is currently £20 a year, and I have no idea how they publish an annual book of such a depth of research and quality of publication, free to members, at this subscription level.

If you are interested in London’s history, joining the London Topographical Society is probably one of the best £20 you can spend.

Their website with details of the society and how to join is here:

https://londontopsoc.org/

The next resources addition to a post will be in the first post in July.

alondoniniheritance.com