Category Archives: London History

Nile Street Stairs, Woolwich

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The Port of London Authority book “Access to the River Thames – Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames” lists 240 of these places between Teddington and Southend, and as you may have noticed from a number of blog posts, I am trying to visit all of them.

The 240 ranges from a causeway at Two Tree Island, near Southend, the last of the sites listed, via multiple sites as the Thames winds through London, out to Teddington, the end of the tidal river.

Back in May, I featured Bell Watergate Stairs in Woolwich, and today I am returning to visit another set of stairs in Woolwich – Nile Street Stairs.

This is the entry point to Nile Street Stairs from the embankment walkway:

The location of the stairs down to the foreshore has changed slightly, as concrete stairs now run parallel to the river wall, down to where the causeway that led from the original stairs can be seen to the right:

Looking to the right, we can see the full length of the causeway that ran from the stairs, with the access jetty to the Woolwich Free Ferry visible at top right:

Nile Street Stairs and Causeway, with the Woolwich Free Ferry:

The causeway runs for some length across the foreshore, and provided a reasonably dry, mud free route between the base of the stairs and your boat which would have been alongside the causeway.

It is in a remarkably good condition. I do not know when it was last repaired, but it is a remarkable survivor given that the original pier to the Woolwich Free Ferry was built immediately to the right of the causeway. The pier and docking point for the ferry we see today is a mid 20th century change from its first location.

As with many other Thames stairs, they have been very many events related directly to the stairs, and a strange headline concerning the stairs in the Kentish Independent on the 3rd of May 1957 read – “The Affair Of The Wet Footprints”, and the article goes on to state “After police boats had been alerted to scour the Thames near the Woolwich Free Ferry on Friday night to look for a youth who was reported to have fallen feet first into the water, P.C. Booth found wet footprints leading from the ferry stairs. He followed them as far as the Odeon cinema where they petered out.

The pier master told police that he had seen an 18 year old youth in Edwardian clothes stagger down the Nile Street stairs alongside the ferry. He then hit the rails, straightened up and slipped feet first into the river.

Later another youth said he had seen a man come up the stairs soaked to the skin.”

A rather mysterious story, with the wet footprints and the youth in Edwardian clothes in 1957.

What is remarkable about Nile Street Stairs and the causeway leading across the foreshore is their survival, as it was here where the original access to the Woolwich Free Ferry was built.

The following photo shows the entry to the foot tunnel to the left, and the pier providing access to the ferry straight ahead.

The stairs and causeway were immediately to the left of the ferry pier:

We can see how close they were in the following extract from the 1897 edition of the OS map, where I have arrowed the causeway (Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland):

Which is much clearer in the following extract from the above map, where we can see Nile Street Stairs leading down, immediately to the left of the pier, and the causeway running out along the foreshore:

In the above map, the round entrance to the foot tunnel cannot be seen, as this had not yet been built. It was completed and opened in 1912, and in the following 1956 revision of the map, we can now see the round entry building to the foot tunnel, slightly inland from the pier and to the left of what was Nile Street, now named Ferry Approach, with the stairs and causeway still in place (Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland):

The Woolwich foot tunnel had been built after the opening of the Free Ferry as an alternative method of crossing the river, when the ferry was not operational due to weather conditions such as fog and ice, maintenance problems etc.

Both OS maps only use the name “causeway”, rather than give the name Nile Street Stairs. It is named on earlier maps, one of which I will show later in the post. I suspect that the construction and use of the pier for the ferry diminished the importance and use of the stairs and causeway, which may have contributed to the failure to provide a name in these maps.

The above map also shows some brilliant street planning, as you have both the ferry and foot tunnel entrances side by side, so if you were in a hurry to get to your job at the Royal Docks across the river, and when you arrived, the ferry was not working, you could just detour to the tunnel entrance, and walk under the river rather than sail across.

You can also see in the middle of Ferry Approach, a space with the word “Lavs” – some public toilets, also possibly essential in what must have been a place with a very high footfall, as thousands of workers once used either the ferry or tunnel to get to their place of work, either at Woolwich Arsenal, the Royal Docks, or the very many industrial premises that lined the river on northern and southern sides.

In the following photo from the current top of the stairs, I am looking back along what was Nile Street. The round brick access building to the Woolwich foot tunnel is to the right, and the Woolwich Waterside Leisure Centre is the building to the rear of, and surrounding the foot tunnel entrance. The Leisure Centre was also built over Nile Street:

The following photo was taken from the edge of the leisure centre, as far back as I could get, to try and recreate the old photo earlier in the post. I should have been much further back, but the leisure centre now sits above Nile Street:

The area around Nile Street, the old ferry pier, and north towards Woolwich High Street has been considered as the original nucleus of the town of Woolwich, and many of the old street names recall rural surroundings. Streets in the area had names such as Hog Lane, Dog Yard, Hare Street and Cock Yard, and Hog Lane was the original name of Nile Street, as we can see from Rocque’s 1746 map of London, where I have underlined the name in red, as it was also used to name the stairs:

Rocque’s map shows the origins of Woolwich as a number of streets and buildings clustered along the river, with a total of five stairs providing access to the river. Hog Lane was both the name of the stairs and the street running back from the stairs, both of which would later change to Nile Street.

To the right of Hog Lane stairs in the above map is Bell Water Gate, which I wrote about in this post.

I cannot find out when the name changed, but I did wonder, given the ship building, naval and military aspect of Woolwich, with the Royal Arsenal (part seen to the right of the above map by the name of “The Warren”, whether the name changed in the late 18th / early 19th century following the 1798 Battle of the Nile where a fleet led by Nelson defeated a French fleet at Aboukir Bay, at the mouth of the River Nile where it flows into the Mediterranean.

This theory falls apart though as Hog Lane still appears in use for much of the 19th century, so in 1861 there is a newspaper report of a drunken man being robbed in Hog Lane, after he had gone to Hog Lane Stairs to wait for a boat, fell asleep, and on waking found that he had been robbed of his hat, handkerchief, boots and money.

Also in 1861 there was a report of a woman’s suicide at Hog Lane Stairs. She was wandering the foreshore and was asked by two boatmen whether she wanted a boat, but replied that a boat was coming for her. After going up the stairs, and returning sometime later, they found the same woman face down in the river.

The use of Hog Lane seems to die out after the 1860s, and in 1882 there is a report of the theft of timber from a wharf . It had been stolen from the pond adjacent to the owners wharf, and was re-landed at Nile Street Stairs, where the timber was sold for chopping into fire wood.

In 1915, Police Constable Taylor received the Royal Humane Society’s certificate for rescuing a boy from drowning at Nile Street Stairs.

The above news reports show why I find Thames stairs so fascinating. It is not just their physical nature, it is the very many stories of London life that can be pinpointed to their specific location. Looking over the river wall at the causeway and thinking about the thousands of Londoners who have used the steps and causeway, their stories, mostly just using the stairs to travel across or along the river, but also what drove some of them to suicide, crime, and the heroism of a rescue of a child from the dangerous waters of the Thames.

I have a theory that the majority of Thames stairs had a pub alongside. This seems true for nearly all stairs in Wapping, Shadwell, Limehouse, Rotherhithe etc. but also seems to be true for Woolwich.

There was a pub called the Nile Tavern adjacent to the stairs. In 1848 this pub was to be Let or Sold, and the following details were in the Morning Advertiser on the 15th of June 1848:

“Woolwich, Kent – Most excellent FREE WATER-SIDE PUBLIC HOUSE and TAVERN – to be LET or SOLD, with immediate possession, the Nile Tavern, Hog-Lane, Woolwich, situated adjoining the stairs next the Royal Dockyard, close to the Steam-boat Piers, and directly opposite the Eastern Counties Railway. The house is at present doing upwards of 20 puncheons of porter per month, with spirits , &c. in proportion, but which may be considerably increased.”

In other adverts for the pub it is described as “river facing”, so must have been at the river end of Hog Lane / Nile Street and facing onto the river.

I wonder if the pub was named after the Battle of the Nile, and the street changed name to reflect the name of the pub.

The Eastern Counties Railway refers to the railway and station that had just arrived in North Woolwich, and the steam boat piers refer to piers for boats travelling along the river, as well as the ferry set up by the Eastern Counties Railway to transfer rail passengers between their station of the north bank, and Woolwich on the southern bank of the river.

And if you fancy trying to order a “puncheon of porter” for Christmas from your local off licence, a puncheon is a third of a tun, which was a large barrel that held 252 gallons of wine.

In another advert, the Nile Tavern was described as “fronting the Thames and conveniently arranged for doing an extensive Public house and Tavern Trade, which its situation is always sure to command, being the nearest house to the shipping lying off the Royal Dockyard, and the place for embarkation for all persons connected therewith, and others employed on the river, the waterside premises” – a description which perfectly summarises why there was nearly always a pub next to a set of Thames Stairs, when the river was the working heart of the city.

In the following photo from the Woolwich ferry, part of the causeway is just visible emerging from the receding tide. The stairs are now on the left, but originally followed the causeway back and up to the land. The Nile Tavern must have been to left or right of the stairs, and Nile Street / Hog lane headed back to the left of the round foot tunnel entrance, under what is now a sports centre, and up to Woolwich High Street:

Woolwich is protected from the river by high concrete walls, as is the opposite shore along North Woolwich. The above photo provides a view of these defences.

They are needed as Woolwich is downstream of the Thames Barrier, and is therefore not protected by the barrier. When the barrier is closed, the height of the water is a remarkable spectacle.

Whilst the Thames has for centuries been the source of London’s economic growth, prosperity, work, trade and travel, it has also been a source of danger to the low laying land along the sides of the river.

Nile Street and the Nile Tavern were mentioned in reports of a major storm during the first week of January 1887 when the “weather had been rough and stormy during the greater part of the week. Heavy rain had fallen every day and the temperature has continued unseasonably high”.

In Woolwich, several houses in Nile Street were flooded, as was the cellar of the Nile Tavern, and along the length of the Thames there was flooding from the lower portions of Chiswick and Hammersmith, where barriers were erected. Parts of Kew and Richmond were flooded, and in central London, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, Lambeth, Blackfriars, Deptford and Rotherhithe were all reported as suffering from flooding.

In Shadwell there was an “inundation”, and the “sailors and waterside characters turned out en masse, and beguiled the small hours of the night with songs in praise of the ocean and the river. The poorer of the people who worked in the docks were great sufferers of the inundation, which at one time threatened to wash away their wretched houses.”

In a similar way to the storm and floods of 1953, the 1877 storm also caused flooding along parts of the east coast, and in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire.

Nile Street / Hog Lane Stairs – that is another of the 240 river access points on the tidal Thames.

Each has been a part of the development of their local area, both on the river and on land. For many thousands of people over the centuries, they were an important place for so many reasons.

We have lost that connection with the river, but it would be good if the name of these stairs was on display, along with a brief bit of their long story and how important they once were to the people of Woolwich.

A Battersea Gasholder, Two Churches and Charles Booth’s Inquiry into Life and Labour in London

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I have just added three new walk dates, links for details and booking are here:

From the Strand to the Old Thames Shoreline: Transformation of a River Bank on Saturday 18th of October – Sold Out

The South Bank – Marsh, Industry, Culture and the Festival of Britain on Saturday 8th November – 1 ticket remaining

The Lost Streets of the Barbican on Sunday 9th of November – Sold Out

Possibly two more dates coming, but that will be it until late spring / early summer next year.

There are loads of small things across London that tell a larger story of the history of an area, a building, and of how the city continues to change.

For today’s post, I am going to visit three of these, that each show a different aspect of the city. History, change, and how sometimes one can find a survivor from a very different past.

At the end of the post, as it is the first Sunday of the month, I have another section on the resources available for discovering the history of London, and for this month I am looking at Charles Booth’s Inquiry into Life and Labour in London, but first a trip out to Battersea:

The Remains of a Battersea Gas Holder

I was in Battersea recently, and within all the recent new developments, there is a short length of ironwork, that looks as if it was once part of a gasholder:

This can be found where Palmer Road meets Prince of Wales Drive, a couple of minutes west of the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.

Although this area has been considerably redeveloped, with many new apartment blocks occupying the space between Prince of Wales Drive, and the railway lines that run either side, this area was once heavily industrialised and was home to a collection of gasholders that provided storage space for gas being piped to the surrounding population.

On the wall leading off to the right are a number of plaques and artwork, including the following:

The above plaque was once mounted up on the side of one of the gasholders and bears the name of Robert Morton, a gasholder engineer who was responsible for many of the gas holders that once occupied the space. The year 1882 is the year of the gasholder’s completion.

There are also a number of images where a photograph appears to have been etched onto a stone panel.

The photographs are by Ben Murphy who was commissioned by National Grid to photograph UK gasholders, including the demolition of Battersea’s gasholders:

The gasholder in the above image is the “blue” gasholder that was the stand out feature, alongside Battersea power station.

I believe it was the last gasholder to be constructed at Battersea, having been completed in 1932 and was a 295 foot high, water tight holder.

My father took the following photo of Battersea Power Station, with the holder to the rear in the early 1950s:

I took the following photo in 2015, not long before the gasholder was demolished:

One of Ben Murphy’s photos shows a similar image:

Another plaque from the old gasholders, the cross of St. George:

Another of Ben Murphy’s photos:

Another plaque from the gasholders with the cross of St. George, Robert Morton and the slightly earlier date than the previous plaque of 1876:

The gasholders were originally part of the London Gas Light Company, and the company built the holders starting in 1871 as an extension to their existing holders and gas production plant at Nine Elms.

They ended up as being part of National Grid’s gas distribution network by the time they were decommissioned and demolished.

In the following map extract from the 1894 revision of the OS map, the gas holders can be seen to the lower left of centre as a collection of circles amongst the railway lines. To the right side of the map, three circles and the works of the London Gas Light Company can be seen at Nine Elms. It was here that gas was made from coal, which had been brought along the Thames and unloaded at the Dolphin which can be seen on the foreshore of the river. In the centre are the reservoirs and filter beds of the Southwark & Vauxhall Water Works. It was on the site of the water works that Battersea Power Station would be built:

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

It was an area that had been supplying either water, gas or electricity to the area for many years.

The Britain from Above archive has the following 1934 photo showing the first half of the power station complete and operational, with the gas holders to lower left:

I cannot tell or find out which of the gasholders the iron structure is from. It is not in its original place, as the current location is too far south, and if a gasholder was on the site, it would have covered Prince of Wales Drive, which is in the same place today as it has always been.

Meanwhile, development of the land around Battersea Power Station continues. The following is the view along Electric Boulevard from Battersea Park Road. The space on the right behind the hoardings will not be empty for long:

National Grid commissioned the following video of the demolition of the gas holders:

There only appears to be a single gas holder in the video that matches the ironwork on display today.

Sad to see these remnants from an earlier industrial past demolished.

Church of Notre Dame de France

The Roman Catholic Church of Notre Dame de France is in Leicester Place, which leads north from the north eastern corner of Leicester Square.

I have long wanted to visit the church as the shape of the interior of the church follows the shape of a building that was on the site and which provided a panorama of views of places and events across the world, to entertain and educate the people of London.

The site started as the home of Leicester House, which had been demolished around 1792.

A large rotunda was built on the site between 1793 and 1794 and which opened as a panorama. This continued to be the building’s use, and by the middle of the 19th century, it was occupied by Burford’s Panorama, and the following from the Illustrated London News on the 7th of June, 1851 gives an idea of the panoramas available:

“BURFORD’S HOLY CITY of JERUSALEM and FALLS of NIAGARA – Now open at BURFORD’S PANORAMA ROYAL. Leicester Square. the above astounding and interesting views, admission 1s to both views, in order to meet the present unprecedented season. The views of the LAKES of KILLARNEY and of LUCERNE are also now open. Admission, 1s to each circle, or 2s 6d to the three circles. Schools half price. Open from 10 till dusk.”

To see how the church and Burford’s panorama are linked, I recently had the opportunity to visit the church when it was open, and no service in progress.

This is the building and entrance to the church in Leicester Place:

The main entrance with a carving of Our Lady of Mercy by Professor Saupique of Paris:

On either side of the entrance, there are carved pillars. These show scenes in the life of the Virgin and are by pupils of Professor Saupique:

Professor Saupique was Georges Saupique, a French sculptor who was born in Paris on the on 17th of May 1889. The second pillar:

The front of the church facing onto Leicester Place dates from a 1955 rebuild of the church.

Through the entrance, and this is the foyer that leads to the interior of the church:

And through the doors in the above photo, we can see the circular layout of the interior of the church:

The interior is also a 1955 rebuild of the original church, but seems to follow the same circular plan as the first French church on the site, a building which made use of the building constructed as a panorama, and used by Burford’s panorama in the mid 19th century.

A cross section of the rotunda, with the internal panorama displays is shown in the following print (© 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 following link to Google maps shows an aerial view of the church, where the round body of the church can be seen, on the same footprint as the rotunda:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/leicester+square/@51.5114146,-0.1300492,49m/data=!3m1!1e3

The domed roof to the church:

On the 25th of March 1865, Father Charles Faure purchased the building that housed Burford’s Panorama. and the French architect, Louis Auguste Boileau transformed the building into a new church within an iron structure.

The new church opened in 1868 as Notre Dame de France, a French speaking church in London, to serve the large French population based in and around Soho,

The church suffered bomb damage in the Second World War, it had some temporary repairs, but was rebuilt between 1953 and 1955 to a design by Professor Hector Corfiato, a graduate of the École des Beaux Arts de Paris, and this is the church we see today.

A side view of the interior of the church:

There are a number of works of art within the church. Behind the altar is a large tapestry, designed by the Benedictine monk Dom Robert de Chaumac on the theme of Paradise on Earth:

The Lady Chapel is on the northern edge of the circular church. There are three murals in the Lady Chapel, on the rear wall and the two side walls. These show the Annunciation to the left, on the rear wall is the crucifixion, and to the right is the Assumption.

The murals date from 1959 and are by the French artist Jean Cocteau:

The church itself and the internal and external decoration are fascinating, and it is still a very active church for a French congregation.

What makes it unique though from a historical and architectural perspective, is that it follows the same footprint as a rotunda built at the end of the 18th century, which has resulted in the circular form of the main body of the church we see today.

All Hallows Staining and 50 Fenchurch

I have written before about the church of All Hallows Staining, based on the photo my father took of the church in 1948:

Only the tower remains, and the tower is currently part of the construction site on which 50 Fenchurch Street is being built.

All Hallows Staining was featured across online, printed and broadcast media last week, as the tower is now suspended in the sky, on stilts, as the ground beneath the church has been dug out as part of the large below ground open space which is part of the new building.

The BBC have a video of the tower on their website at the following link:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cr70e8ez0k8o

It is quite a remarkable site, so last week I visited the site to try and get a photo.

The construction site is large, and is surrounded with a large green painted hoarding which prevents any view of the site. There are a couple of gated entrances, but asking if I could get a photo met with the inevitable reply of not possible.

I did manage to get a couple of photos. The following is looking through the gap between a gate and the hoarding – the large hole in the ground continues under the church tower:

The second photo was taken through the main entrance. I asked if I could just walk over to the concrete edge to take a photo,. but no luck.

In both photos you cannot see below the church tower, which would be the key image of the tower suspended above a large hole in the ground.

The hoarding around the site obscures any view of the construction site. It is a real shame that construction companies hide their work as these are remarkable examples of construction and engineering.

Another site which will soon see a large tower rise over Fenchurch Street in the coming years.

Resources – Charles Booth’s Inquiry into Life and Labour in London 

There is often a tendency to look back at the past, and imagine it was a more socially better world, where front doors could be left unlocked, everyone knew their neighbours, there was less “red tape” governing business and trade, not so much violent crime etc, however even a brief reading of newspapers of the 19th century will show the casual attitude to accidental death, the level of crime, and how many in the city were reduced to a state of poverty and destitution, and being a child on the streets, particularly for a girl, could result in a short life of crime, poverty and worse.

The 19th century was a time when London expanded considerably, and became a major, if not the major, trading and industrial city in the world.

Whilst so much Victorian effort and entrepreneurship was applied to trade, industry and the business of making money, there were also many who wanted to understand and improve the life of the poor. Who wanted to understand the social conditions of the city, what could be done to help, what laws needed to be brought in or changed, how initiatives such as a state pension could help etc.

One of these was Charles Booth. Born in Liverpool in 1840, and a successful businessman, his name would forever be associated with the survey of London that he and his wife Mary Macaulay carried out from 1889, to the last volume being published in 1903 of the “Inquiry into Life and Labour in London”.

The inquiry focused on three broad themes – poverty, industry and religious influences, and the results of the survey were summarised with a series of colour coded maps, and the publication of the many notebooks that covered the information collected by those engaged in the inquiry.

I will not go into greater detail, as the purpose of this section is to point you to where there are resources to help with researching London, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (the LSE), have done a fantastic job by putting the maps and notebooks online, along with a background to the survey and a biography of Charles Booth.

The home page of the LSE’s website devoted to Charles Booth can be found here: https://booth.lse.ac.uk/

The following is a sample from one of the maps. The streets were colour coded, with darker colours indicating increasing rates of poverty and criminality and colours up through red to pink indicating increasing levels of prosperity:

As usual, the maps and notebooks need to be read with an awareness of the prejudices and opinions of the time, but having said that, they do provide a really good insight into Londoners lives at the end of the 19th century, an insight that was both broad and deep.

The notebooks are also all online, and record the investigators notes and findings. Many of these are hard to read, but they do provide a vivid picture of the city at the time.

The following is an example (I have provided a transcript below the image):

I cannot decode the name at the top, however they “Represents Biscuit Factory operatives in Bermondsey. Between two and three thousand persons – the majority being boys and girls – are employed in this industry in Bermondsey.

Wages range from 4 shillings to 12 shillings per week, boys; 14 shillings to 24 shillings, men and 3 shilling to 15 shillings per week, girls and women.

Only two of three hundred are in the ….. There is very little piece work except among the girls in the packing rooms.

There is no other renumeration beside wages, but in most cases there is a sick club, sometimes voluntary, sometimes compulsory.

A weeks notice is generally required on either side.

The ordinary hours are nine or ten per day, but it is very seldom that only normal hours are worked. Overtime is ……. are only too glad to work.”

The LSE have done a brilliant job at putting all of the resources online and making Booth’s survey, both the maps and notebooks are fully available – they provide a fascinating and informative insight into London at the end of the 19th century, and again the link is here: https://booth.lse.ac.uk/

London Maps in Books – 2

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If you are interested in one of my walks, the following two walks have a few space available. Click for details and booking:

From the Strand to the Old Thames Shoreline: Transformation of a River Bank on Saturday October 18th

From the Strand to the Old Thames Shoreline: Transformation of a River Bank on Sunday October 19th

As any regular reader will know, I find old books and maps about London fascinating, and when the two combine, it is the perfect way to understand some of London’s history.

This is my second post featuring maps from books about London (you can read the first here), and these maps cover a range of areas and themes.

Some of the maps in today’s post are 200 years old, and are printed on thin, folded paper, so the photos are not perfect as I did not want to stretch or flatten the paper.

Click on the image to see each map in more detail.

The first map is from:

Fleet Street in Seven Centuries

This book, by Walter George Bell was published in 1912. It is a detailed book of some 600 pages covering the history of Fleet Street, and includes a fold out map showing Fleet Street at the Reformation, 1538 – 40, and shows the property belonging to the religious houses and clergy and is based mainly upon the seizures of King Henry VIII at the suppression of the religious houses:

The map shows just how much property was owned by religious institutions. The small details within the map bring out features that require some follow-up, for example:

At number 9 there is a small property that is identified as “Priory of Ankerwyke”.

I assume it is the same place, but back in 2017 I wrote a blog post about the ruins of the Priory of Ankerwycke (a slight difference in spelling), along with an ancient yew tree.

Ankerwycke is on the banks of the Thames, to the south west of Heathrow Airport, and there is a really nice walk to the site from Wraysbury station (45 minutes from Waterloo station).

It was a Benedictine Priory, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. A small priory with only six or seven nuns and a Prioress at the start of the 16th Century with an annual income of £20. The Priory was founded at Ankerwycke around 1160 and closed during the dissolution in 1536. Today only a small part of the old Priory buildings survive:

Assuming that it is the same place, it demonstrates the importance of having a presence in London if even such a small Priory had a property on Fleet Street.

The map shows St. Bride’s Church, which we can still see today, and includes a location for the Bride Well in the churchyard.

Hanging Sword Alley is also shown, a name we can still find today, but with an altered orientation.

There are a number of pubs; including the Queen’s Head Tavern, the Bolt-in-Tun, The Boar’s Head the Cock and Key Tavern (next to Cock and Key Alley). Many of these seem to have an association with one of the religious institutions.

Four sets of stairs are also shown, and Temple Stairs is shown correctly as having a longer extension into the river. Temple Stairs had a small bridge like structure out from the foreshore (see towards the end of this post).

The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Islington

This book by John Nelson was publish in 1829, and inside the front cover is a very delicate map – A Survey of the Roads and Footpaths in the Parish of Islington. From a Plan in the Vestry Room, Drawn in the Year 1735:

There is not that much on the map, no network of streets, large blocks of land owned by religious institutions etc. but what the map does show is how London has changed in 300 years. From an area where tiny little hamlets could still be found among the fields, where the New River, in 1735 over a century old, wound through the landscape, and where the layout of the core of Islington around the Angel, is the same then, as it is today, as shown in the following extract:

There is the same triangular arrangement below Hedge Row towards the lower centre of the map, and area which today is Islington Green.

Upper Street has the same name today, also known as the A1, and for long a major road from London to the north, and Lower Street to the right is now Essex Street.

Many place names remain to this day, but have been transformed from small hamlets, for example Newington Green:

Newington Green is interesting, because we can still see some of the features of the streets today.

In the above extract, the houses of Newington Green are clustered around a central green. From the lower left of the green, a road runs south, but then curves around Virginia Houses.

If we look at the map day, there is still a central green, at the heart of Newington Green (upper centre of the map. Follow the road that runs from the lower left corner, and after it passes under the railway lines, it follows the same curve (allowing for some straightening over the centuries, as in the 1735 map, down to the junction with Balls Pond Road. so this curve of Newington Green Road is probably down to the boundaries of the Virginia Houses properties:

Other hamlets that have been transformed into landmark place names of today include Highbury:

There is a feature by the name of Jack Straws Castle to the left of Highbury. The book provides the following explanation for the name:

“The haughtiness and ambition of the knights Hospitallers, and the excessive riches that they accumulated, gave such offence to the community at this period, that in the insurrection under Wat Tyler, A.D. 1381, after totally consuming with fire their magnificent priory in St. John’s Street near Smithfield, causing it to burn by the space of seven days together, and not suffering any to quench it, a detachment of the mob proceeded with the same intention to the Prior’s country house at Highbury. Jack Straw, one of the leaders, appears to have headed the party engaged in tis affair, the number of which, as we are informed by Holinshead, was estimated at 20,000, who took it in hand to ruinate the house, from which circumstance, and having perhaps made the spot a temporary station for himself and his followers, the place was afterwards called Jack Straw’s Castle, by which name it continues to be known to the present day.”

In Rocque’s map of 1746, the tree lined route to Jack Straw’s Castle today is Highbury Grove and the name Highbury Barn is still used for the pub at what was once the core of Highbury, long before the name became associated with a football club that had moved from Woolwich Arsenal in 1913:

From the roads and footpaths of Islington, we head south to:

The History of the United Parishes of St. Giles in the Fields and St. George Bloomsbury

This book by Rowland Dobie and published in 1829 states that it combines “strictures on their parochial government, and a variety of information of local and general interest”, and it also includes a delicate, fold out map:

This book is interesting, not just for the historical content, but also it is a book with an agenda.

The preface to the book starts with the following paragraph:

“In the early part of 1828, an Association was formed in the United Parishes of St. Giles in the Fields and St. George Bloomsbury, for the laudable purpose of investigating and correcting the abuses which had too long prevailed under the government of a Select Vestry, possessing no claims to power but what was founded on assumption and usurpation.”

Local politics have long been a place of disagreement and controversy.

It seems that a Mr. Parton, the late clerk of the Vestry of the parishes had collected material for a historical account of the parishes, which was published in an imperfect states after his death.

Although he could not defend himself, the author of the book with the map, goes on to state that:

“Occupying a station both lucrative and influential, Mr. Parton too frequently forgot the impartial province of the historian in his zeal for advocating the cause of the assumed Vestry under whom he held his appointment.”

1829, the year of the book’s publication was also the year when the “pretended select Vestry” of St. Giles was overthrown in a Court, which Rowland Dobie, the author of the book, celebrated in his preface, as an act which would “establish the long-lost rights of the parishioners of St. Giles”.

Returning to the map, and we can see how the combined parishes had developed.

The area south of Great Russel Street was of older streets, whilst to the north there is the more formal development of the land owned by the Duke of Bedford, where we see with more widely spaced, straight streets.

If the map was completed shortly before the publication of the book in 1829, then the map shows the newly completed British Museum, following the demolition of Montague House which had been on the same site, and had been the first home of the British Museum from 1759.

Many of the sites within the map are numbered, and at number 21 (in the centre of the following extract) was the Workhouse, where the poor and needy of the parish would have ended up

The Workhouse shown in the map was the second to serve St. Giles. The first had been pulled down when Seven Dials had been redeveloped. The new Workhouse was build on land purchased for £2,252 10 shillings, and would support not just the Workhouse, but also a hospital and burial ground.

The expectation was that the Workhouse would expect “the poor to be relieved amounted to upwards of 840 persons, at an expense of above £4,000 a year”. A considerable sum, and the book uses extracts from Vestry minutes to highlight the problems of raising such an amount

On the western edge of the parish was Denmark Street which led to Crown Street (at the time of the book, Charing Cross Road had not yet been formed from a widened and lengthen street we see today):

Denmark Street would later become an important player in 20th century British popular music. The street just survives today, whilst the area to the north of Denmark Street has been significantly redeveloped, included the dazzling lights of the Outernet.

Marylebone and St. Pancras. Their History, Celebrities, Buildings and Institutions

Marylebone and St. Pancras by George Clinch was published in 1890, and includes the following map showing the plan of the Marylebone estate as it was when purchased by the Duke of Newcastle in 1708, with some of the planned new streets of the developed area shown overlaid on the fields of the original estate (the eventual redevelopment would be slightly different):

It is usually easy to see in London, whether streets were developed as part of an area development, or whether they were part of a centuries old street plan that had just followed original field or land boundaries, navigated obstacles, or followed the preferred routes for travellers.

In the above map, the new streets run straight across the fields, whilst Marylebone Lane follows a more natural route that aligns with the street’s long history.

Names such as the Clay Pitt provide an indication of what the fields were used for, with Dung Field being a rather descriptive name for the field’s use.

The actual development of the area is shown in the following map from the book, using Morden and Lea’s Plan of the City of London from 1732:

The map shows how these new estates were developed over once rural land. It must have been strange to see this new block of streets and large houses extending northwards whilst the surrounding land was still fields. An indication of what would happen to all the land in the map over the coming decades.

A Chronicle of Blemundsbury

A Chronicle of Blemundsey by Walter Blott F.R.Hist. S. published in 1892 has the sub title of “A record of St. Giles in the Felds and Bloomsbury, with original maps, drawings and deeds”, and it is packed with information across its 400 pages.

The name Blemundsbury in the title is the original name of Bloomsbury. Nearly every history of Bloomsbury gives the origin of the name as being from the Norman landowner William De Blemond. Blott’s book provides an alternative source as Blemond being corrupted from Bellemont, the name of the original Norman lord who owned the manor.

Another indication of how there always appears to be different stories for history going back 1,000 years.

In Blott’s Chronicle of Blemundsey, he states that the original Manor of Blemundsey covered a far larger area than that of Bloomsbury today, covering an area from around Tottenham Court Road / Charing Cross Road in the west, to the River Fleet in the east, and he includes two maps to show a 12th century view.

This is Blemundsburys West:

Again, it is always difficult to know how accurate maps which claim to represent an area some hundreds of years earlier. really are. The book does reference a range of earlier maps, deeds, records etc. and many of the features shown in the maps can be found in other sources, so it is probably a reasonably good representation of the area in the 12th century.

There are a number of interesting features. In the above map, the road leading to the lower right corner, labelled Via de Aldwych is today Drury Lane. The street running to the right, labelled Watling Street is High Holborn.

In the middle is a large open space where a number of roads meet, and to the left, a built area, shown in more detail below:

In the middle left is number 3, which in the key is the Hospital for Lepers. The book states that the founding of the hospital was down to Queen Matilda (also known as Maud, the wife of Henry I), and that it dates from 1108 to 1117 (the later date is the most commonly quoted date, the earlier date is probably the founding of the hospital and the later is the consecration).

The hospital was taken by Henry VIII, and in 1542 the old chapel of the hospital became a parish church, and the latest rebuild of the parish church is today the church of St. Giles in the Fields. The later part of the name of the church describes the area around the church when it became the parish church as this was still an undeveloped part of London. The chapel is number 4 in the map.

In the open space at the road junction is a number of items of public punishment with number 7 identifying the Pillory, Stocks and Pound.

Number 8 is the Fountain and Cross. A cross was often a feature of key road junctions, and today a street name such as Redcross Street by the Barbican is a reminder of when these features were to be seen.

The book also includes a map of Blemundsbury East:

On the left of this map is Via de Aldewych (Drury Lane), to where is meets “the way to Westminster”, today Fleet Street and the Strand.

On the right is the River Fleet with the bridges between Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street on the lower part of the Fleet and the bridge leading to Holborn across the upper part.

In a previous post on Strand Lane, I quoted a reference from a 1709 publication that there were once 311 open channels of water crossing the route between Westminster Hall and the Royal Exchange, and the above map extract does confirm there were a number of channels (although 311 does seem rather high).

Along the top edge of the map there is a Blois Pond. The book gives the source of the name of the pond as “Alexander de Blois, Archdeacon of Salisbury and Chief Justice of England had just succeeded Bishop Bloet and taken his residence in Lincoln’s Inn, by the Old Temple. On the opposite side of the way was a pond which afterwards bore his name – Blois Pond”. This seems to date from the early 12th century.

A stream leads south from the pond, then seems to disappear after reaching Holborn.

Further south, along the edge of the Thames, as well as the Fleet, we can see three other channels that have an outlet into the river.

There are also a number of stairs along the edge of the river which again confirms the age of these structures.

The following extract shows the distinct round tower of the Temple Church within the New Temple:

To the lower right of the map is a feature named Montficquet’s Castle (or Montfitchett Castle in the key):

The location of this “castle” is really confusing. Nearly all references to this castle mainly refer to it being a Tower, and across the Fleet in the Ward of Castle Baynard. So to the east side of the Fleet, not the western side as shown in the map.

In a Dictionary of London, Henry Harben refers to Montficquet as follows: “Montfiquit (Tower of) – Near the Wall of London, next to Castle Baynard, in the Ward of Castle Baynard, afterwards included in the precinct of Blackfriars.

Earliest mention (12th century): Land in parish of St. Martin de Ludgate in the corner opposite the land of the Dean of St. Paul’s. Stow says the castle was built by the Baron of Mountfiquit, who came over with William the Conqueror, not far distant from Baynard’s Castle.”

The inclusion of Montficquet’s Castle to the west of the Fleet shows that you need to be really careful when using historical sources, including maps. This is key when maps created centuries after the landscape they are attempting to portray. They do in general present a good representation of the area, but individual features need to be checked and verified.

With this caution in mind, a folding map in a book is a wonderful addition, and helps to tell the story of a place and how significantly London has changed. From the fields, footpaths and hamlets that are now under the streets and buildings of Islington, the rapid expansion of Marylebone, to the detail within the streets, such as the St. Giles Workhouse, after development.

alondoninheritance.com

There is Something Missing on the Southbank and Resources

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I was going to continue my journey along the Limehouse Cut in today’s post. However, it is the first post of a new month, when I feature a Resources section in the post, looking at resources to help with researching and exploring London, so to keep the post to a reasonable size, I am starting with a different subject.

Also, the problems with the blog that I mentioned a few weeks ago have been reoccurring, with the site occasionally going off line, and also with very slow performance. I hope to be able to bring in some additional technical support to try and get this resolved this coming week, but if the blog and posts disappear for a while, it will be back.

Last weekend I was walking across the footbridge alongside Hungerford Bridge, looking over at the very familiar view towards Waterloo Bridge, the City and along the Southbank, when I noticed that there was something missing:

For those of a certain age, the following clip may offer a clue:

The missing feature is the white, square tower seen in the following photo, behind the right hand yellow crane, covered in scaffolding ready for demolition:

The tower was Kent House / the Southbank Television Centre / the London Studios, the original home of London Weekend Television, and in recent decades of ITV, with much of their national and local output coming from the studios that clustered around the base of the tower.

The building dates from a time when there were two independent TV stations covering London and the surrounding Home Counties. Thames Television broadcast from Monday to Friday, when on Friday evening Thames would handover to London Weekend Television who would broadcast until the following Monday morning.

London Weekend Television (LWT) took over the franchise for providing London’s weekend television service from ATV in 1968, with LWT’s first studios being at Wembley at facilities rented from Rediffusion.

LWT’s intention had been to have their own, purpose built, modern television studios along with space for offices so the company could be located in one place.

A site on the Southbank was available close to the National Theatre, and development of the new studios would continue the westward development of the south bank, and followed the 1944 Abercrombie plan for London which had proposed cultural, offices, residential and open space to replace the old industrial sprawl alongside the river.

The first transmission of TV programmes from the new studios was in 1972, with the site being fully complete two years later.

The tower block was mainly offices, although there was a studio higher up the tower for a number of years, when use was made of the view over London as a backdrop for programmes.

Surrounding the base of the tower were a number of studios used for the production of LWT and wider ITV national output as providing space which other broadcasters could use.

If you have watched almost any ITV live productions, game shows, dramas such as Upstairs, Downstairs, ITV’s World of Sport, BBC shows such as Have I Got News For You, QI, the Graham Norton Show, they were all filmed in the studios at the base of the tower on the Southbank.

The studios were also used by many other production companies and broadcasters.

The tower has been a feature of many of my photos, dating back to the late 1970s. This is a photo from 2017 when it was still occupied by ITV:

This photo from 2022 shows the tower standing in isolation on the Southbank (the Shard is hidden behind the tower):

As the local independent television regions went through a period of change and consolidation, LWT was taken over by Granada in 1994. Carlton Communications had previously won the franchise for the London weekday service from Thames Television, and by 2004 Granada and Carlton merged all their operations which included the many regional operators they had taken over such as LWT, to form ITV as a public limited company.

The studio complex also went through some changes from the South Bank Television Centre to The London Studios.

in 2018, ITV announced that the studios were to be closed allowing the buildings to be demolished to make way for new office and production facilities. ITV’s live broadcasts, mainly their daytime programmes would temporarily move to the old BBC Television Centre at White City as the BBC had moved out with the centre “donut” of offices being converted to apartments, and some of the studios remaining, and available for hire.

Later in the same year, it became clear that ITV would not be returning to any refurbished site, and they would use the studios at White City as a long term resource.

ITV had earlier purchased the freehold of the site from the properties division of the Coal Pension Fund, and I suspect they realised that the site was far more valuable if sold to developers, rather than the costs of refurbished studios and remaining on the South Bank.

The site was sold to Mitsubishi Estate, the Japanese property developer, and owner of a number of buildings across London.

The view as was of the tower and the studios from the Embankment walkway:

The view now that the tower and studios have been demolished:

My first photo of the LWT tower and studio complex was in 1980, from the old walkway that ran alongside Hungerford Bridge:

In the above photo, the tower is towards the back of the complex, with the lower studios surrounding the tower and facing on to the river.

The Embankment wall and walkway was being extended in front of both the LWT studios and the new IBM building which was under construction just to the right of the ITV studios.

A different angle to the above view, further along the walkway, with the studios as the white building, and to the right, the IBM building under construction, a building designed by Denys Lasdun, who had also designed the National Theatre, seen to the right of the photo:

The tower to the left of the above two photos is Kings Reach Tower, formerly the home of IPC Magazines / IPC Media, now extended upwards and known as the Southbank Tower and converted to residential.

There is a bit of a mystery in the above two photos which I will come to later in the post.

In 1980 I also took the following photo from the Shell Centre viewing gallery looking down on the LWT tower and studios:

As can be seen in the above photo, the tower is a distance back from the river, with low rise studios between the tower and river. The tower faces onto the street Upper Ground, and this was the view from the street of the base of the tower a couple of years ago, with the first scaffolding that would eventually cover the tower:

A look up at the tower from Upper Ground (personally, I think it was a really well designed and visually pleasing building):

Demolition and development of the site had been delayed due to a large number of objections. Michael Gove approved the proposals at the start of 2024, and the High Court upheld Gove’s decision in December 2024, and the owners of the site then moved quickly to award a £500 million contract to Multiplex to redevelop the site, with demolition of the tower and studios being the first stage.,

A walk along Upper Ground last weekend showed that demolition is now almost complete:

The south west corner of the complex was the only part remaining, and I suspect that by the time you read this, this remaining section will have gone.

In the following photo, the main entrance was underneath the “Thame” lettering. A couple of years ago this was the name Thames Television, as one of the last productions filmed in the building was a recreation of the infamous Bill Grundy interview with the Sex Pistols in December 1976, which had been filmed in a Thames Television studio next to Euston Tower. This was for the 2022 TV mini series on the band.

The remaining section looks almost like the ruins of a medieval castle. When I worked in the area in the late 1990s, it was common to see a queue of audience participants lining up along the base of the left of the building in the following photo, waiting to see what ever was being filmed that evening:

The new development will be very different, and will consist of a 25 storey office building, which will be connected to two further buildings of 14 and 6 storeys.

The space will provide offices and workspace, along with space “tailored to the needs of Lambeth’s emerging creative industries”. There will also be the obligatory open space, cafes, restaurants and a “cultural venue”.

See the page at the following link on the Matrix website (the company responsible for the development) to see an image of what the site will look like after completion, currently planned for 2029:

https://www.multiplex.global/uk/news/construction-starts-at-72-upper-ground-with-appointment-of-multiplex

The image on the above page shows probably the most attractive view of the development, rather than the view looking across the river to the site where the new towers will dominate the area.

The image at the above page does not show the restaurants currently located at Gabriel’s Wharf, so whether these are hidden below the edge of new development, or whether the land will be included in the new development, I do not know.

In many ways, the new development does continue the intentions of the 1944 Abercrombie plan regarding the use of the South Bank. The key issue is the sheer size of the development. If you look along the South Bank there is a reasonably consistent building height from County Hall down to the old IBM building, which has recently been refurbished, and is Grade II listed.

Kent Tower, the tower block of the LWT studios complex was the first tower along this sectionion of the South Bank, and as shown in my 1980s photo, it did stand out. It was though, set back from the river and did not dominate the IBM and National Theatre buildings.

I suspect that the new development will be very different, as will the view from the walkway alongside Hungerford Bridge in 2029.

A Southbank Mystery

I mentioned earlier in the post that there is a mystery in two of my 1980s photos.

Despite looking at these photos a number of times, there is a feature I had not noticed, and I cannot remember it from the time.

There is something on the foreshore at the end of the red arrow:

On a raised platform above the foreshore is a helicopter, the platform looks to be towards the end of Old Barge House Stairs:

I cannot remember ever seeing or hearing about a helicopter here. The location looks rather precarious, and the platform appears to be below the high tide level.

I did wonder if it was a model, but it looks very realistic in these grainy extracts from my film photos.

Whether it was a one off, temporary, or provided a service for some time, again I just do not know, but it is always interesting to discover stuff I did not know.

An even grainer view of the helicopter from a different angle:

The southern side of the river has frequently been used for helicopter services.

The London Heliport at Battersea has been providing a helicopter service since 1959, and in the early 1950s, after the closure of the Festival of Britain, where the Jubilee Gardens is located today was the site of a helicopter service linking central London with Heathrow Airport.

You could check for your flight opposite Waterloo Station, board your helicopter, and be speeding above the traffic to the airport.

I found the following Pathe news film about the helicopter service from the South Bank:

Resources – Britain from Above

Continuing my monthly look at the resources available to research and explore London’s history, and for this month I am looking at the Britain from Above website, which can be found here:

https://britainfromabove.org.uk

Many of the resources I am covering are easy ways to get diverted and spend a whole evening looking at what is on the site, and Britain from Above is another example. There are very many photos covering the early to mid 20th century, not just of London but of the whole country.

The homepage:

The first thing to do is register, which is free. By registering, you are able to go full screen and zoom in to images at much greater detail.

The easiest way to then get started is to enter the name of a location in the Image Ref or Keywords box on the menu bar, and then click search.

This will bring up all photos which fit the search criteria.

To demonstrate, I searched for the Limehouse Cut, the subject of last Sunday’s post, and of the many images available, the following is an example from 1951, which shows the Limehouse Cut, on the left side of the photo, and highlights that this was a very straight canal through former rural land which in the following years had been surrounded by industry and housing. Zooming in allows detail of the industry along the side of the Limehouse Cut to be seen:

Searching for Limehouse Cut also brings up any images with the word Limehouse, and in the same search is this 1928 image of Regent’s Canal Dock. In 1928, the Limehouse Cut still used the original route into the Thames, and by zooming into the photo, this can still be seen, just to the north of the Regent’s Canal Dock (with the later redevelopment of the area, the Limehouse Cut would be diverted into the Regent’s Canal Dock, now known as the Limehouse Basin / Marina):

When searching, there are frequently some unusual photographic finds. In the same Limehouse Cut search is the following image of the Graf Zeppelin in flight over Limehouse in 1931, photographed through the wings of the biplane used by the photographer. The Limehouse Cut can be seen below and to the left of the wing. This must have been a remarkable sight for anyone on the ground at the time:

The archive covers much of the country, for example the following image is of St Mary’s Cathedral, Lincoln in 1921:

Land changes over the decades can be seen. The following image is of the Lighthouse at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast in 1951. All those building along the edge have since been lost to coastal erosion.

A few years ago, the Happisburgh lighthouse and the nearby Church of St Mary the Virgin, both had open days, when you could climb to the top of bother the lighthouse and the church tower. The following photo from the church tower shows the impact of coastal erosion on this part of the Norfolk coastline:

The Britain from Above archive is a wonderful archive of photos showing London and the rest of the country as it was. The use of photography helps provide an understanding of how places have changed. Aerial photos transforms maps into houses, industry, streets, fields, churches and cathedrals, canals and rivers, the coast, and even lighthouses.

Britain from Above allows reuse of the images, such to very reasonable rules of non-commercial use, no sale, no sub-licensing or use for advertising, making sure the link to the original image is shown and not clipped out of the image, which is really useful for a personal blog such as alondoninheritance.

An image from the site helped with the correct location of one of my father’s photos when I got the original location wrong in a post. Luckily there are readers who know far more about London than I do and provided an indication of the correct location.

An image from Britain from Above helped to confirm. See the post here: https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/st-katharines-way-ship-fires-thames/

Britain from Above is a really wonderful resource.

What I Am Reading – The Sun Rising by Anna Whitelock

The Sun Rising – James I and the Dawn of a Global Britain by Anna Whitelock was a speculative buy after seeing the book, which was published this year, on the shelfs of a bookshop.

The book focuses on the reign of James I, the first Stuart king after the Tudor dynasty came to an end with the death of Queen Elizabeth. A critical time in the country’s history as the Queen had not had any children.

What makes this book different is that it is not just an account of James I, but as the subtitle to the book highlights, it is about Great Britain starting to play catch up with other European powers such as the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, in establishing networks of world trade.

London does feature heavily in the book, not just with accounts of the processions through the City, but also as the place where many of the trading companies were established to further trade with the rest of the world.

The book does cover domestic events, such as the Gunpowder Plot, trying to unify England and Scotland, Protestant – Catholic conflict, and James’ attempts at trying to unify European Christian powers etc. but the clear emphasis is on Britain’s global trade.

There is the Virginia Company of London, trying to establish settlements in the US, the Plantation of Ulster, the Muscovy Company and the East India Company. Trade with the Shah or Persia, early trade with India.

William Adams from Gillingham, and apprenticed in Limehouse features as a key player in attempts to trade with Japan. See my post on Adams, here.

Pocahontas arrived in London from Virginia, and was taken seriously ill near Gravesend at the start of her return journey. She died in 1617 and was buried at Gravesend.

Although the British trading companies focus was trade, not taking land, we see the start of how this would develop with the first African slaves arriving in the Virginia Plantation in 1619 – the start of the triangular slave trade between Britain, Africa, the Caribbean and America.

We also see the failure in the management of the colony at Virginia by the Virginia Company of London leading the the take over of the land and colony by the Crown – again a sign of what would take place across the world in the coming centuries.

What I did not realise was just how far and how extensive, the network of trade was at the start of the 17th century. Attempts to trade in with Persia, India, the far East, to China, Japan and the Spice Islands.

Some of the horrors inflicted on indigenous populations in the name of trade are covered, including the Dutch massacre of thousands of Bandanese people (on one of the Banda Islands, now part of Indonesia and the source of large quantities of nutmeg, mace and cloves).

My fascination with Thames Stairs and the river includes the lives of people who have travelled out from the stairs and the river on journeys across the world, and this book is full of them – ambassadors, traders, explorers, and settlers – it is quite remarkable how extensive these journeys were in the early 1600s.

The book is a really good read, and helps to provide an understanding of how Britain’s early steps in global trade would develop over the following three hundred years, and many of the horrors that went with this expansion.

And at its root was money. King James I for the revenues that trade would bring to the Crown, and the London trading companies, for the profits of trade. It always comes down to money.

alondoninheritance.com

Two New Walks – The Strand, Thames Foreshore and Woolwich to the Royal Docks

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It has taken me some time, however I have finally organised some new walks. Two walks that are very different, but both exploring some fascinating London history, with the second walk exploring an area you may not have visited before, and includes a crossing of the Thames on the Woolwich free ferry.

Details for these two new walks are as follows, and all proceeds from my walks cover both the costs of the walk, and the costs of hosting the blog, so your support is much appreciated.

From the Strand to the Old Thames Shoreline – The Transformation of Grand Estates to the Alleys and Lanes of Today

The Strand forms part of an historic route between the City of London and Westminster, and ran along reasonably high, dry ground along the edge of the Thames. The land down from the Strand once formed the northern edge of the river, an edge which has been continuously pushed back, with the 1860s / early 1870s build of the Embankment separating the old shoreline from the river for good.

The area from the Strand to the old Thames Shoreline has been home to the palaces and grounds that belonged to the nobility of the country, one of which can be traced back to the 13th century, and is still marked today, with part of the original estate owned by the King.

There have been grand palaces and gardens, water gates and Thames stairs, slums, poverty, 18th century grand houses and the “Hospital of Henry late King of England of the Savoy”. The land down from the Strand has been threaded with streams, alleys, vaults and tunnels.

Lasting around two hours, this walk will start at Embankment underground station and end at Temple underground station, this walk will explore the area as it is today and find what remains of the long history of this unique place, as well as the people who lived, sheltered and worked here and made this long-lost foreshore to the Thames part of London’s long history.

The walk lasts about 2 hours and meets at Embankment underground station. Final meeting point details will be emailed in the week prior to the walk. Please get in contact if not received.

Click here for dates and booking.

In the Steps of a Woolwich Dock Worker – From the Woolwich Ferry to the Royal Docks

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

This was how the Kentish Independent on the 16th of October 1880 described the view from Woolwich following the start of the electrification of the Royal Docks.

It must have been a stunning sight, and the new docks, the largest in the world when completed, were a major source of employment for the inhabitants of Woolwich.

In this walk, we will follow a dockyard worker from Woolwich, cross the river by the Free Ferry, and then explore the history of the Royal Docks, starting with the King George V, then the Royal Albert, and finishing with the Royal Victoria.

Although the docks closed in 1981, we can still see the sheer scale of what was the largest dock complex in the world, by the size of the body of water where ships once arrived and departed, loaded and unloaded travelling across the world to and from London, carrying all manner of goods.

On this walk, we will explore the Free Ferry, the Thames foot tunnel, (a look at the entrances, rather than walk the tunnel – the lifts are usually out of order), the old North Woolwich Station and Pier, Pleasure Gardens, Royal Victoria Gardens, King George V Lock and Dock, the Dock pumping station that still keeps the docks full today, the Royal Albert Dock, London City Airport, some of the impressive buildings that survive from the Royal Docks working life, and how the docks have been, and continue to be redeveloped.

Click here for dates and booking.

Crossing the Thames on the Woolwich ferry, with the Thames Barrier and the Isle of Dogs in the background. The ferry dances around the second ferry as they both cross the river at the same time. The ferry forms part of the walk.

Please note the following about the Royal Docks walk:

  • I will send an email in the week before the walk with final meeting point details. If you do not receive, please get in contact.
  • The walk starts from in front of Woolwich Station on the Elizabeth Line
  • The walk crosses the river using the Woolwich Free Ferry
  • This walk is around 3 hours long and roughly 3 miles in distance
  • The walk finishes at the Royal Albert DLR Station
  • There are two optional extensions, firstly to look at the Queen Victoria Dock and then continuing to London City Airport where there is also a DLR station

If there is sufficient demand, I will be adding more dates, so please check Eventbrite if the current dates do not work for you.

I look forward to seeing you on a walk.

alondoninheritance.com

Tindals Burying Ground (Bunhill Fields)

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Tindals Burying Ground was the original name of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, which today can be found between City Road and Bunhill Row.

The following extract from Rocque’s 1746 map of London shows Tindals Burying Ground:

The original name of the burying ground follows the setting aside of an area of land as a cemetery during the plague year of 1665.

Despite the pressure on space to bury the many thousands of victims of the plague, for whatever reason, the cemetery was not used, and in 1666 a Mr. Tindal took on a lease of the land, enclosed it with a brick wall, and opened the space as a cemetery for the use of Dissenters.

A wider view of the 1746 map, with the burying ground circled:

Old Street is running left to right along the top of the map, Royal Row, now City Road, runs to the east of the burying ground and Brown Street runs to the west. The name Brown Street has now been replaced by the extension of Bunhill Row along the western edge of the burying ground.

The use of the name Tindals Burying Ground was not confined to Rocque’s map, but was also in common use across multiple newspaper reports covering events in and around the burying ground, for example, from the Stamford Mercury on the 11th of February, 1768:

“On Saturday night last about ten o’clock, Mr. Hewitt, Watchmaker, in Moorfields, was attacked near Tindal’s Burying ground, by three footpads, who knocked him down, then robbed him of £32 and a dial plate, and beat him so terribly that his life is despaired of.”

Tindal’s Burying Ground was originally described as a place where Dissenters could be buried, and other terms such as Nonconformists were used to describe those within the cemetery. It was also described as the “Campo Santo of Nonconformity” as well as the “cemetery of Puritan England”.

These terms all described someone who did not conform with the governance and teaching of the established church – the Church of England. The 1662 Act of Uniformity defined the way that prayers, teachings, rites and ceromonies should be performed within the Church of England, and the 1662 date of this act explains why there was a need for a noncoformist burial ground four years later in 1666.

I cannot find out whether Mr. Tindal was a nonconformist, but it would perhaps make sense if he was.

The dead who would not have been welcome in a normal Church of England burial ground were buried at Tindal’s, for example in the following account of the burial of an executed criminal in 1760:

“Wednesday Evening, between Five and Six, the Body of Robert Tilling, the Coachman, who was executed on Monday last, for robbing his Master, was conveyed in a Hearse, attended by one Mourning Coach, to Tindal’s Burying Ground in Bunhill Fields, and there interred. The Rev. Mr. Whitefield attended the Corpse, and made a long Oration upon the Occasion, amidst the greatest Concourse of People that ever assembled in that Place; it is thought more than 20,000. The Corpse had been previously exposed in Mr. Whitefield’s Tabernacle near the Burying Ground.”

Robert Tilling was a nonconformist. After being taken from Newgate, he was hung at Tyburn on the 28th of April, 1760, along with four others convicted of burglary. In the report of his execution, he “made a long Speech, or rather Sermon at the Gallows, in the Methodist style”.

The origin of the name Bunhill Fields is interesting, and probably somewhat obscure. Most references talk about the name coming from the earlier name of Bone Hill, and that the site was used for informal burials and also for the 1549 dumping of 1,000 cart loads of bones from the charnel house of St Paul’s Cathedral.

The story of the dumping of bones is that there were so many, and after the following accumulation of the City’s dirt on top of the bones, a significant mound developed, on which some windmills were constructed.

If you go back to the larger extract from Rocque’s 1746 map, and look to the right of the Artillery Ground there is a couple of streets with names of Windmill Hill and Windmill Hill Row, so there must be some truth in the existence of windmills.

As usual, there are several variations of the name as well as stories of the area. There are a number of references that use the name Bonhill. In 1887, members of the East London Antiquarian Society were given a tour of the burying ground, where they were told that “The name was perhaps derived from Bon-Hill, a great tumulus which at one time stood on the Fen outside the City and marked an ancient British burying place, hence the name Bon-hill or Bone-hill fields.”

The City of London Conservation Management Plan states that in 1000 AD there were the “First corpses interred at Bunhill in Saxon times”.

The author Daniel Defoe in his “Journal of the Plague Year” implies that there may have been plague burials in Bunhill Fields, however that does not seem to be the case, and he was probably referring to the purchase of the burying ground which was later taken over by Tindal.

Bunhill Fields occupied a far wider area than just the burying ground, and earlier maps do show some hills spread across the fields.

As usual, there are many variations of names and stories, and it is impossible to be 100% certain of the truth of many of these. The fields were outside the walls of the City, for centuries much of the area was marshland, hence the name Moor Fields.

The entrance to Bunhill Burying Ground from City Road:

Gravestone to William Blake and his wife Catherine:

William Blake had some very complex religious views, and views of the roles of good and evil, human nature, sexuality etc. which were very different to those held by the established Church, hence his burial at Bunhill Fields.

The gravestone states “Near bye lie the remains of”, as Blake’s grave was the subject of damage over the years, as well as bomb damage in Bunhill Fields during the last war, so the exact location of his grave was lost.

Nearby there is a memorial slab which was installed in 2018 by the Blake Society following work by Portuguese couple Carol and Luís Garrido, who claimed they had identified the location of his grave:

Monument to the author Daniel Defoe (which dates from 1870):

As recorded on the monument, Daniel Defoe was the author of Robinson Crusoe. The date of his birth, 1661, shows that he was very much too young to remember, let alone to write a first hand account of the plague in his Journal of the Plague Year, which in reality he used the accounts and experiences of others to write the journal.

There are a couple of graves at Bunhill Fields which seem to have been the focus of attention over many years. The first is from the 1920s series of books Wonderful London, where the grave of Dame Mary Page is shown:

The focus of interest is not the front of the monument, but the reverse, where it is stated that Mary Page “In 67 months she was tapd 66 times. Had taken away 240 gallons of water without ever repining her case or ever fearing the operation”.

The front of the grave states that she was the “Relict of Sir Gregory Page Bart. She departed this life March 4 1728 in the 56 year of her age”.

Dame Mary Page was the wife of Sir Gregory Page. He owned a brewery in Wapping and was a Whig politician. He was also involved with the East India Company, including a period when he was a director of the company and this was the source of much of his wealth. He died in 1720 and was buried in Greenwich.

I cannot find any record of Mary’s religion, and it is strange that she was not buried with her husband. To have been buried in Bunhill Fields, she probably held some form of nonconformist views.

The rear of the monument today:

Bunhill Fields as a site is Grade I listed , and many of the individual graves are also listed, including the following grave of Joseph Watts, which is Grade II listed as: ” It is a well-preserved early-C19 chest tomb with still-legible inscriptions and high-quality relief carving”:

The land originally within Tindal’s Burying Ground is believed to have been extended in 1700 and again in 1788, such was the need for a site for nonconformist burials.

Following Tindal’s original lease, it remained a privately owned and managed burying ground until 1778, when it was brought into public management by the City of London.

Along with many other church yards and burying grounds in the mid-19th century, Bunhill Fields was closed for burials in 1854.

The King and Du Pont family monument which is Grade II listed:

The listing states that “It is a prominent and striking monument in an austere Neoclassical style, its polygonal form – derived ultimately from the Hellenistic-era Tower of the Winds in Athens – reflecting the late-C18 fashion for ancient Greek motifs”.

The vault beneath the plinth on which the monument stands holds a number of members of the King and Du Pont families from the late 18th century.

There is an interesting contradiction in attitudes during the 18th century (and indeed in later centuries), between those who were viewed as religious and displaying a range of admired personality traits and those who cost the state money.

Two different examples, both from the same newspaper on the 13th of December, 1754:

“Thursday evening was interred in Bunhill Burying Ground, the body of Mrs. Hannah Peirce, relict of that excellent Divine, Mr. James Peirce of Exeter. The Sweetness of her Temper, the exemplariness of her Behaviour, in every Religion and Condition, breathed a Spirit of a Religion, which is cheerful, patient, meek, and benevolent: Her whole Life was delightfully instructive, and in her 79th Year, she expired with remarkable Calmness and Composure”.

Meanwhile, on the same page as the above, there was an account of another who had just died, but this was very different where the person who had died was summed up by the amount they had cost the inhabitants of the parish:

“On Tuesday died Diana Nicholas, one of the Poor belonging to St. Nicolas Acorns in Lombard Street. In the Year 1691 she was found an Infant in a Basket in that Parish and taken care of: When she grew up she proved an Idiot, and forty years ago was got with Child, and, being unable to make known by whom, brought a further Charge on the Parish: So that it appears by the Accounts she has cost the Inhabitants near £20 per annum for sixty three Years”.

Two very different views of two deaths, where one was described with a range of perfect attitudes and character traits, whilst the other was down to simply how much they had cost the parish over their life.

Another of the graves that seems to be regularly featured when looking at Bunhill Fields is that of John Bunyan:

John Bunyan’s monument from the 1890’s book “The Queen’s London”:

John Bunyan was born near Bedford, and served with the Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War. He originally followed the Church of England, attending services in his local parish church.

A chance meeting in Bedford resulted in Bunyan joining the Bedford Meeting, a nonconformist group.

Bunyan took his nonconformist views and preaching seriously, to the extent that he served many years in prison, And it was during one of his spells in prison that he wrote his best known work “A Pilgrims Progress”.

His writing became more widely known after his death, and in the 18th century there were multiple editions of A Pilgrims Progress published, including cheap editions, and editions published in regular instalments.

The book was described as an allegorical writing, describing the journey of Christian from his home, the City of Destruction, to the Celestial City, which has been described as either Heaven or the Holy Land. There were also references to the Celestial City being London, and Christian’s Journey being Bunyan’s journey from Bedford to London.

The grave apparently belonged to one John Strudwick , in whose house in Snow Hill, Bunyan had died in 1688:

The gravestone of Thomas Rosewell. The gravestone is listed, not because of the gravestone (which I think is a later addition or replacement, rather as to who it commemorates, as the listing states *It commemorates a prominent late-C17 Dissenting minister, remembered for his infamous treason trial in 1684*:

The story of Thomas Roswell is one of religious persecution. He was born in Bath and arrived in London in 1645 where he trained as a silk weaver.

London in the middle of the 17th century must have been a hotbed of religious and political divide and conspiracy. Not just with the Civil War, but with the established Church, Catholicism and the many nonconformist groups.

Soon after his arrival in London, Roswell came into contact with the Presbyterians, which led him to train as a nonconformist minister. He became a private tutor and also served as a rector in parishes in Somerset and Wiltshire.

The years following the restoration of the Monarchy and Charles II were a time of persecution of nonconformists, and Roswell was forced out from his parishes in 1662, even though he was a firm Royalist.

Persecution continued and in 1684 he was put on trial for high treason, accused of speaking seditious sentiments during a sermon.

The judge at his trial was Lord Chief Justice, George Jeffreys, also known as the Hanging Judge due to the high number of defendants who were found guilty, resulting in Jeffreys passing the death sentence.

Roswell was also found guilty, and sentenced to death, however there was a significant public outcry and early the following year he received a Royal Pardon.

A look across Bunhill Fields:

An Act of Parliamnet obtained by the City of London in 1867 preserved Bunhill Fields as an open space, and in 1869, the grounds were open to the public.

The burying grounds were not spared during the Second World War, and they suffered serious bomb damage, and post war there has been a continual series of restorations of both the grounds and the gravestones and memorials, enabling the listed memorials to be removed from the heritage at risk register.

Bunhill Fields was also the location for an anti-aircraft gun which probably did not help with maintaining the condition of the site.

The walls and railings surrounding Bunhill Burying Grounds are Grade II listed and date from multiple periods from the late 18th century through to the late 19th century, along with later repairs and renovations.

Apart from a few monuments and graves, the majority are within an area surrounded by railings. It is possible to gain access to graves within this area by asking an attendant.

I have only touched on a very, very small number of the graves at Bunhill.

According to City of London records, there are 2,300 memorials within the burying grounds, and there are believed to be around 123,000 burials.

Each tells the story of those involved in nonconformist and dissenting religious traditions, and many, including that of Thomas Roswell show the risks that having a different belief to the established Church could entail.

And the burying ground now commonly known as Bunhill Fields, almost certainly owes its existence to Mr. Tindal who took a lease on the land in 1665 / 1666, enclosed the ground and opened the burying ground.

alondoninheritance.com

Sloane Square, the Bloody Bridge and King’s Private Road

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Two tickets have just become available for my walk on Sunday the 17th of August: Wapping – A Seething Mass of Misery. For details and tickets click here.

Sloane Square is a relatively recent development in London’s long history, but the square is typical of how London’s squares have developed, from fields and tracks, to being enclosed and lined with terrace houses and small shops, then large buildings with hotels, restaurants and department stores.

The following photo of Sloane Square is from the book, the “Queen’s London”, which shows London at the end of the 19th century, and the photo is of the square in the 1890s:

Slightly over 40 years later, the first part of the new Peter Jones department store was built, so within 40 years, architectural styles in Sloane Square changed from the above late Victorian photo to the 1930s building that we see on the western side of the square today:

Peter Jones was the son of a Welsh hat maker. He moved to London in 1867, and unlike many of his fellow countrymen who were involved in the dairy trade, Peter Jones opened a shop in 1871 in Chelsea, having gained retail experience in the first four years of his time in the city.

His first shop was in Draycott Avenue, but within a few years he had moved to King’s Road, where the street meets the western side of Sloane Square, and after buying up more property to form a large plot, his expanded red-brick department store was a major, successful retail enterprise serving the prosperous area around Sloane Square.

When the store was run by Peter Jones, it was very successful, however after his death in 1905, another successful retailer, John Lewis, was determined to buy the store to help with his London expansion, resulting in his purchase of the store, along with the adjacent buildings owned by Peter Jones, in December 1905.

I believe that the early decades of John Lewis ownership was the only time that the company owned a London pub. This was the Star and Garter, on the corner of King’s Road and Sloane Square, and whilst in the early years the Peter Jones store was making a loss, the pub was making a considerable profit.

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

In the above OS map from the late 1890s, I have outlined the Star and Garter in a red oval. The Peter Jones store is the large block to the left of the pub.

Today, the Peter Jones store occupies the entire block, with the new building covering much of the space with the exception of an area from the north west corner, and along part of the northern side of the block.

The following photo shows the Peter Jones store curving from Sloane Square and down along King’s Road. The Star and Garter was where the curved corner of the building is today:

The building today is Grade II* listed. It was designed by William Crabtree, To maximise the amount of glass along the façade of the buildings, the external wall is not load bearing, and can therefore be of glass, with an almost continuous run of glass along the ground floor to maximise display space.

It must have been an impressive building when it first opened, so very different to the majority of architecture in the surrounding area in the 1930s.

As the name implies, there is a central square within Sloane Square:

Sloane Square is named after Sir Hans Sloane, land owner and Lord of the Manor of Chelsea.

The square was laid out in 1771 when the fields of what had been a very rural area, were enclosed, and building started soon after, with houses built around the square under the direction of architect and builder, Henry Holland.

During the later part of the 19th century, and early 20th century, the original houses around the square were gradually demolished and consolidated into larger plots of land, with the large buildings we see today built along the four side of the square.

Typical of these changes was the construction of what is now the Sloane Square Hotel, with the red brick building being built in two phases between 1895 and 1898:

Part of the title to this week’s post is the “Bloody Bridge”, and this name tells some of the story of the area before Sloane Square was developed.

The following photo shows the north east corner of Sloane Square:

At this corner, Sloane Square leads off in to Cliveden Place, and a short way along, on the right is the following name plaque:

The plaque is on the wall behind the man with the white shirt, just above the bonnet of the white car in the following photo:

Blandel Bridge House is named after a bridge over the lost River Westbourne, a bridge that was once more commonly called the Bloody Bridge.

We can see the location and name in a couple of old maps, for example in Rocque’s 1746 map, showing the area before Sloane Square:

I have circled the name and location of the Bloody Bridge, and we can see the River Westbourne running through fields, then crossing under the bridge, before heading south.

The future location of Sloane Square is just to the left of the bridge.

Also, look at the length of the road that runs over the Bloody Bridge. It is called “The King’s Private Road”. Today, to the left it is King’s Road (which retains the original name, but drops the “private”), and to the right it is Cliveden Place and Eaton Gate / Square, although this part of the road has been much straightened out as the area was developed.

The road was named the King’s Private Road as it was, a private road for the King. This had been a footpath across the fields until King Charles II transformed the footpath into a road suitable for carriages, to form part of a route between Westminster and Hampton Court.

In 1731, copper tokens or tickets were issued to those who were allowed the privilege of travelling along the King’s Private Road. These tokens had “The King’s Private Road” on one side, and on the other an image of the Crown, along with the letters G.R. as at that time, George II was on the throne.

It would continue to be a private road all the way to 1830, when it was opened up as a general road, with no tokens or permissions being required.

The Bloody Bridge was still marked on maps in the early 19th century, as this extract from Smiths New Plan of London, published in 1816 shows:

In the above 1816 map, we can see that the Westbourne is on the edge of new development which is centred around Sloane Square.

How did it get the name Bloody Bridge? The official name seems to have been Blandel Bridge, as the name plaque in the previous photo still records today. The name Bloody Bridge seems to have a been a popular renaming of the bridge given the amount of murders and robberies that took place in the area. The name seems to have been first used in the mid 16th century, at the time of Elizabeth I, however with such a local name, and the distance of time, it is impossible to be sure when the name was first used.

Despite being the King’s private road, serious crime at the Bloody Bridge continued into the 18th century, with a couple of examples, first from 1748, when “four gentlemen coming from Chelsea, the King’s Road, in a coach were attacked near the Bloody Bridge by two highwaymen. They all getting out of their coach and drawing their swords, the highwaymen made off without their booty.”

And from 1753, when on the 17th of September, “Mr. Crouch, cook to the Earl of Harrington, who was attacked about nine o’clock at night by two villains, and, on making resistance, fired two pistols at him; and though he wounded one of them, yet having overpowered him, they took his watch and money, and then stabbed him with a knife, and beat him with their pistols till he was dead”.

The road must have been so dangerous, that in 1715, the local inhabitants petitioned the Government to organise patrols along the road from Chelsea to St. James’s.

Many 19th century reports, state that the Bloody Bridge name was because of the crime in the area, and that it was also a corruption of the name Blandel Bridge, so if that is correct, and Bloody Bridge was first used in the mid 16th century, Blandel Bridge was a name that must have already been in use, and therefore an older name for the bridge.

It is good that that the name of the bridge survives as the name of the building, near the site of the bridge, and the River Westbourne, which is now carried in the sewers beneath the streets, although it does sort of make an appearance, as the sewer which the Westbourne became, is today carried across the platforms of Sloane Square station:

Prior to the development of the area, the fields were once markets gardens, sheep and cattle grazing etc. and it seems that those who worked these fields and gardens were given access to the King’s Private Road, however in the time of George I (1714 to 1727), the overly zealous King’s Surveyor attempted to restrict local workers access to the road. With the support of Sir Hans Sloane, who pointed out to the Treasury that farmers and gardeners of the area had since “time out of mind” been the owners and occupiers of the land bordering the King’s private way and had been accustomed to use it for “egress and regress” to their lands, carrying their ploughs along it and conveying their crops to market.

The king relented, and allowed locals to have access, and it seems that around this time the old wooden bridge over the Westbourne was replaced with a stone bridge, but as shown in the above maps, the Bloody Bridge name continued to be in use.

Sloane Square station, through which the Westbourne runs todays, was built by the Metropolitan District Railway Company, and opened in 1868.

In the following image from Britain from Above, we can see the curved roof over the station platforms running down from the centre of image, above which we can see Sloane Square:

The image is dated 1928, so the original buildings that occupy the site of the 1930s Peter Jones building can be seen at the top of the square.,

From the station, head a little to the right along the lower edge of Sloane Square to the corner where a street runs to the right, and the old Bloody Bridge was located just off Sloane Square along this street.

Returning to Sloane Square, and in the central square is the Grade II listed Venus Fountain dating from 1953, and by Gilbert Ledward R.A.

The base of the fountain has a relief depicting Charles II and Nell Gwynn seated by the Thames. The relief shows Charles II picking fruit from a tree, while his mistress Nell Gwynn fans herself. The relief also includes Cupid who is ready with two arrows, and there are swans along the Thames.

Gilbert Ledward’s view apparently was that it was rather appropriate to show the king and his mistress at a place where they must have travelled along several times, along his private road.

The central square also includes a Grade II listed war memorial, unveiled on the 24th of October, 1920:

The Historic England record for the war memorial states that the architect is unknown, and newspaper reports of the unveiling also do not mention the name of the architect, however they do state that it was London’s first war cross, and was swiftly followed by one in Hackney. The early 1920s were a time when hundreds of war memorials were being unveiled across London and the rest of the country.

There are a number of plaques set among the paving slabs around the war memorial, including a plaque to Captain Julian Gribble who was awarded a Victoria Cross. His plaque is part of the “London VC Pavement Project”, a 2013 initiative by the Government to honour VC recipients:

Captain Julian Gribble was leading D Company of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, when in March 1918 he was ordered to hold the crest of Harmies Ridge until further orders, while troops on either side withdrew.

His Company was soon surrounded, but they continued fighting and he was “last seen emptying his revolver into enemy troops at a range of only 10 to 12 feet.”

D Company’s stand allowed the troops on either side to withdraw, and Captain Gribble did survive this last battle. He was badly concussed by a wound to the head, and was taken to a German hospital for prisoners of war at Hameln. He was soon though removed to a prisoner of war camp at Carlsruhe, where conditions were not good.

He learned that he had received the VC in July 1918. His health though deteriorated, and he was suffering from double pneumonia. Before he could be repatriated after the end of the war, he died on the 25th of November, 1918, just hours before the camp was evacuated, at the age of 21

He was buried on a hilltop at Mayence Cemetery.

It is good to put a face to the names of those recorded on war memorials, and this is Captain Julian Gribble (source, IWM Collection, Image: IWM (HU 115450)

The Imperial War Museum Collection also includes a couple of photos of Sloane Square.

The first shows temporary buildings set up for the YMCA in the central square during the First World War (source, IWM Collection, Image: IWM (Q 28737):

For some strange reason, I do love shops with awnings over the pavement.

The second shows Flying Officer Harold Lackland Bevan buying flowers for his bride to be from a flower seller in Sloane Square in March 1943 (source, IWM Collection Image: IWM (D 12864):

Looking back from the war memorial to the west of the square, with Peter Jones in the distance:

There are two more listed buildings around Sloane Square. The first is the Grade II Royal Court:

The Royal Court theatre owes its existence to a small theatre in nearby Lower George Street. The current building on the eastern side of Sloane Square was opened on the 24th of September, 1888 as the New Court Theatre, and was designed by Walter Emden and Bertie Crewe.

The Royal Court was the first theatre in London to stage a suffragette themed production, when in April 1907 “A play has been successfully produced at the Court Theatre, Sloane Square, in which a suffragette heroine and 50 suffragettes as supernumeraries demonstrated with the enthusiastic support of the audience”.

The theatre closed in 1932, and the building served as a cinema between 1935 and 1940, and then suffered some bomb damage.

The interior of the theatre was reconstructed after the war and the theatre reopened in 1952.

Strangely, the history of theatre on the theatre’s web site starts in May 1956, when John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger” opened at the theatre. The only mention of anything prior to 1956 appears to be the state of the drains in the early 1900s, and the creaking of the seats in 1906. 

The interior of the theatre has been refurbished and upgraded a number of times, but the façade facing onto Sloane Square looks much as it did when the original theatre opened in 1888.

In the above photo, the entrance to Sloane Square station is on the ground floor of the new block immediately to the right of the theatre. The original station building having been demolished many years ago. Had it survived, it may well have also been listed.

The other listed structure is not a building, but a “Pair of K6 Telephone Kiosks outside the Royal Court Theatre“:

The telephone kiosks are Grade II listed, with the listing stating that they are “Telephone kiosks. Type K6. Designed 1935 by Giles Gilbert Scott. Made by various contractors. Cast iron. Square kiosk with domed roof. Unperforated crowns to top panels and margin glazing to windows and door.”

There are no payphones in either of the kiosks, and the sign on the door states that “This kiosk is protected for future generations”, along with a web link to where you can adopt a kiosk, and from there, there is another link to where you can purchase a K6 telephone kiosk for a starting price of £3,200 plus VAT and delivery.

It is interesting that both the telephone kiosks and the Royal Court Theatre are equally Grade II listed.

View looking across to the central square from the south west corner of Sloane Square:

Sloane Square has given the term “Sloane Ranger” to the English language, a term that describes an upper middle class, or upper class person, usually young and financially well off, and who have a similar approach to fashion and life.

Prior to the marriage of Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew, there were many newspapers descriptions of the bride as follows:

“Miss Sarah Ferguson comes from that well-heeled, rather old fashioned slice of young society known as Sloane Rangers.

Sloane girls’ hallmarks are pearls, Liberty frocks, sensible shoes and cashmere sweaters, their spiritual home the Sloane Square area of London. They speak in cut-glass accents and signify agreement by a drawn out ‘Okay, yah’.

Sloane Rangers may work in the City, but their roots are in the huntin’ and shootin’ countryside where they attend hunt balls and show jumping trials. On such occasions they brush with royalty.

Lady Diana Spencer was the definitive Sloane.”

According to the Sunday Express on the 7th of March 1993, Sloane Rangers were in shock over rumours of the closure of Peter Jones, their mecca on a Saturday morning for a wax jacket and pearls.

The origin of the term Sloane Ranger seems to be in the mid 1970s, and appears to have been used first in print in an article in Harpers & Queen in October 1975 by Peter York.

However there are other candidates for the origin of the phrase including Martina Margetts, a Harpers sub-editor, or it could be Fiona Macpherson, also a Harpers editor. There is also a claim that journalist Julian Kilgour used the term Sloane Ranger to describe his wife, in November 1974.

Whatever the source of the term, it does describe a certain social set, once based around Sloane Square. I am not sure what Sir Hans Sloane would have thought of his surname being put to such use.

The southern side of Sloane Square:

The northern side of Sloane Square:

Sloane Square again shows how much history you can find in a small part of London.

And if you walk along the King’s Road of today, it is so named just because Charles II, and the kings that followed until the 19th century, wanted their own private route from St. James’s Palace and Westminster to Hampton Court, and the Bloody Bridge shows how dangerous and violent parts of London once were.

alondoninheritance.com

Hicks’s Hall – The Original Middlesex Sessions House

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Two tickets remaining for my walk “The South Bank – Marsh, Industry, Culture and the Festival of Britain” on Sunday the 31st August. Click here for details and booking.

Charterhouse Street runs along the northern edge of Smithfield Market. St. John Street is one of the streets that turns off north from Charterhouse Street, and from the junction, we can look up St. John Street, to the point where the street widens out, and there is a tree in the centre:

We can see the way St. John Street widens out for a short distance in the following map extract  (map © OpenStreetMap contributors):

The following photo shows this relatively large area of open space, with the widened street passing either side of a central tree and bike racks:

I mentioned in the post on Blackfriars a couple of weeks ago how streets often retain the outline of what was there many years ago, and so it is with this space in St. John Street:

As it was in this space that Hicks’s Hall was built, and in Rocque’s 1746 map of London, we can see the building in the middle of the space, opposite Peter’s Lane and St. John’s Lane, showing that Hicks’s Hall was where the tree and bike rack are located today:

Hicks’s Hall was the first, dedicated Middlesex Sessions House. A place where a court sat, and criminal trials took place.

Hicks’s Hall was built in 1612 by Sir Baptist Hicks, a rich silk merchant, who lived in Soper Lane in the City, as well as having a house in Kensington.

There was a need for a dedicated Sessions House, as prior to the construction of Hicks’s Hall, Middlesex magistrates had used a number of local Inns, places which were not ideal to carry out a trial and to dispense justice.

An account of the opening of Hicks’s Hall reads: “Sir Baptist Hicks, Knight, one of the justices of the county builded a very stately Session House of brick and stone, with all offices thereunto belonging, at his own proper charge, and upon Wednesday, the 13th of January, this year, 1612, by which time this house was fully furnished, there assembled twenty-six justices of the county, being the first day of their meeting in that place, where they were all feasted by Sir Baptist Hicks, and then they all with one consent, gave it a proper name, and called it Hicks’s Hall, after the name of the founder, who then freely gave the house to them and their successors for ever. until this time, the Justices of Middlesex held their usual meeting in a common inn, called the Castle (Smithfield Bars).”

Numerous trials of many different types of criminal cases were held at Hicks’s Hall, and just a brief search of newspaper records reveals hundreds of reports. The following are a small example as crimes also illustrate life in the city. They are all from the 50 years from 1700 to 1750:

  • 24th January, 1723 – This Day, Mr. Ogden was tried at Hicks’s Hall for Cursing the King, which was plainly proved, but some of the evidence disposed that he was very much in Drink, and that he was esteemed a person very much effected to His Majesty, and often drank his Health. The Jury, after a short stay, brought him in Guilty
  • 21st October, 1727 – Two Men who had been convicted at Hicks’s Hall of a Misdemeanour in assaulting the Countess of Winchester in her Coach at Chelsea, with intent to Rob, and were sentenced to be whipt from Westminster Hall Gate to the end of Cabbage Lane in Petty France for the same (the sentence was not carried out as there appears to be a problem with the way the trial was carried out).
  • 15th April, 1730 – On Thursday at the Sessions at Hicks’s Hall, a Soldier having made Oath directly contrary to what he had sworn before, was taken into custody, and a Bill of Indictment for Perjury ordered to be brought against him
  • 24th May, 1733 – On Thursday at Hicks’s Hall, one Dwyer an Irishmen, and a Serjeant in the French Army, was convicted on several Indictments, for seducing Men to list themselves in the Service of the King of France; the Fact was proved very plain upon him, and the Court upon an Indictment sentenced him to pay a Fine of 1s and to suffer one year’s Imprisonment, and upon further Indictment a Fine of £50 and to find Sureties for his good behaviour for five years
  • 21st December, 1734 – Yesterday eight Butchers, who exposed to Sale on the Lord’s Day quantities of Beef and Mutton in a Place called Cow-Cross, near Smithfield, were by the Court of Justices at Hicks’s Hall fined 13s, 4d each, and some of them for a second offence, £1, 6s, 8d and were severely reprimanded by the Justices for such vile practices, and acquainted, that if they ever did so again, the Punishment would be more severe
  • 13th July, 1745 – Last Tuesday three Master Barbers were committed to Clerkenwell Bridewell by the Justices at Hicks’s Hall, for exercising their trades on the Lord’s Day and refusing to pay the fine

Hicks’s Hall from Old and New London. The print is recorded as being of the hall in 1750:

Thousands of cases were tried at Hicks’s Hall, and these were mainly of local crimes, however Hicks’s Hall was also used for trials of national importance and notoriety, for example when Hicks’s Hall played a prominent part in the actions of King Charles II against those who were responsible for the death of his father, King Charles I.

The trial of twenty nine of these Regicides (the Commissioners who had signed the warrant for the King’s execution, or who had a major part in his trial or execution) commenced at Hicks’s Hall on Tuesday the 9th of October 1669, and ended at the Old Bailey on Friday the 19th of October 1660.

Just ten days, including a weekend, which was not long for the trial of 29 people who were charged with crimes that carried some of the most extreme punishments, however I suspect there was little doubt as to the outcome.

The full account of the trial was published in a book which recorded the details of the trial, exchanges between prosecution and those charged, words of the Judge, background to the trial, a brief biography of those charged etc.

The long Preface to the books make an interesting read. It provides a whole range of justifications as to why the crimes committed by the Regicides were against the unity of the country, Christian religious principles, and the preface also tries to explain how those accused could have found themselves in such a position.

The following couple of paragraphs from the Preface are perhaps just as relevant today, as it was then:

“But let us examine a little into this Mystery of Enthusiasm and see by what means People arrive to this high Degree of Infatuation, and what are the several Steps which they take towards it.

The main Foundation of it is, no doubt, a large Stock of Pride, and a singular Fondness, which Men are apt to have for their own Sentiments and Opinions. Nothing is more common than for Men of this Spirit to run into Parties and Factions, and struggle hard for Superiority.”

To set the scene, the book also has a “Summary of the Dark Proceedings of the CABAL at Westminster, preparatory to the Murder of His Late Sacred Majesty, taken out of their own Journal-Book”.

The trial commenced at Hicks’s Hall on Tuesday the 9th of October 1660. The Court was directed by a large number of the great and the good, those who supported the restored Monarchy, including the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the Lord Chancellor of England, the Lord Treasurer of England, Dukes, Earls, Knights, Baronets and Justices.

A jury of 21 was sworn in consisting of Baronets, Knights, Esquires and Gentlemen.

To open the trail at Hicks’s Hall, the Lord Chief Baron, the head of His Majesty’s High Court of Exchequer spoke to the Jury.

Much of his speech was about the position of the King. That the Law Books describe the King as “the Lieutenant of God”, that the “King is immediate from God and hath no superior”, and that “If the King is immediate under God, he derives his authority from no body else; if the King has an Imperial Power, if the King ne Head of the Commonwealth, Head of the Body Politick, of the Body Politick owes him Obedience, truly I think it is an undenied consequence he must needs be Superior over them”.

Basically, although this was a trial, there could only be one outcome, and that those involved in the execution of King Charles I were automatically guilty, as only God was superior to the King.

The book also includes a brief biography of all those on trial. These are fascinating as they show the contempt in which the regicides were held. Below is a sample from the biographies from four of those on trial:

  • Colonel Thomas Harrison was the Son of a Butcher or Grasier at Newcastle-under-line in Staffordshire. After he had been educated in some Grammar Learning, he was placed with a Hulk, or Hulker, an Attorney in Clifford’s Inn, and when out of his Time became a kind of Petty-fogger. But finding little Profit arise from that, he took Arms for Parliament at the Breaking-out of Rebellious War, and by his Enthusiastical Preaching, and great Pretence to Piety, he so far recommended himself to the deluded Army, that he was advanced from one Post to another till he became a Major. He was Cromwell’s great Friend and Confident in all his Designs
  • Col. Adrian Scroop was descended of a Good family in Buckinghamshire. He was a great Puritan, and Stickler against Episcopacy, which made him take Arms against the King. Though he was no Parliament Man, yet he was drawn in, as he pretended by Oliver Cromwell, to be One in the Black List for Trying the King.
  • Mr. John Carew was born in Cornwell, of a very ancient family there, but had the Misfortune to be educated in Factious Principles, and was, like Harrison, a Fifth Monarchy Man, as appears in his trial. This made him an utter Enemy, not only to the King, but to all Government as a single Person, so that Oliver’s Usurpation was as hateful to him as the Royal Sovereignty, which he had destroyed
  • Gregory Clement is hardly worth mentioning. He was at first a Merchant, but failing in that, he sought to thrive by a New Trade in Bishops Lands, wherein he got a considerable Estate. He was turned out of the Rump-Parliament for lying with his Maid at Greenwich, but was taken in again when they were restored after Oliver’s Interruption. His guilty Conscience, and his Ignorance, would not suffer him to make any Plea at the Bar, or any Speech or Prayer at the Gallows

Poor old Gregory Clement seems to have been singled out for special contempt.

John Carew was considered especially dangerous as he was described as a Fifth Monarchy Man. Fifth Monarchists were a non-conformist religious sect that believed the killing of King Charles I marked the end of the fourth monarchy (the rule by kings), and would herald in the fifth monarchy when rule would be by Saints and by those “saved”, and would lead to the Second Coming.

The above four examples of those on trial were all found guilty and were all executed along with other Regicides during three very bloody days at Charing Cross::

  • Colonel Thomas Harrison was hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on the 13th of October, 1660
  • Col. Adrian Scroop was hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on the 17th of October, 1660
  • Mr. John Carew was hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on the 15th of October, 1660
  • Gregory Clement was hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on the 17th of October, 1660

Others on trial at Hicks’s Hall and then at the old Bailey had a mix of sentences ranging from execution, life imprisonment down to a limited term of imprisonment.

Hicks’s Hall is also shown in William Morgan’s 1682 Map of London:

But why was there an open space in St. John Street allowing Hicks’s Hall to be built in 1612?

I suspect to answer that question, we need to go much further back in history, to the founding of the Priory of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in 1144 when 10 acres of land was granted to Jordan de Bricet in Clerkenwell. The following map from my post on the Priory and St. John’s Gate shows the boundary of the Priory.

The green oval is around the location of the space where Hicks’s Hall was built, and the blue rectangle is where a southern gatehouse was believed to have been built at the main entrance to the overall Priory complex. Research and excavations by the Museum of London Archaeology Service found mentions of tenements and possible evidence of a timber gatehouse at the site  (map © OpenStreetMap contributors):

So if there was a gatehouse here, there would probably have been some degree of open space in front of the gatehouse, and this would have been where Hicks’s Hall was built centuries later, and is still a wider open space in the street today, with a tree in the centre.

Looking back at the location of Hicks’s Hall, and the possible location of a Gatehouse to the Priory of the Order of St John of Jerusalem is to the right of the tree:

Hicks’s Hall was used as a Session House until the late 1789s. By which time it was in a very poor state, was a bit on the small side for the work being conducted in the building, and the location of the building in the middle of St. John Street was not ideal, given the increase in traffic along the street since the building had originally been constructed.

Hicks’s Hall had been an important building in London, for as well as being a place where criminal cases were tried, it was also one of the places in the city from where distances were measured, and Hicks’s Hall was the measuring point for many places to the north of the city.

There is an interesting story from 1773 which shows how Hicks’s Hall was an important landmark, and also a staggering example of endurance and long distance travel.

On Monday the 29th of November 1773, Mr Foster Powell set off from Hicks’s Hall to deliver a letter to a Mr. Clarke, a watchmaker in York. Rather than travel on a horse, Foster Powell walked the entire route, including the return.

Staring at Hicks’s Hall, on the first day he covered the 88 miles to Stamford, on the second the 72 miles to Doncaster. On day three, Wednesday he set off from Doncaster and arrived in York in the afternoon where he delivered the letter. He then went to the Golden Anchor for some refreshment and an hour and a half of sleep, then later the same afternoon he set off for the return journey.

He reached Hicks’s Hall on the Saturday at four in the morning, having covered 394 miles in slightly over 5 days.

Foster Powell was known for his long distance walks, and it was reported that on many of these, locals would try and keep up with him on the route, but no one could for anything more than a couple of minutes. Off his other walks, one was a bet that he could not walk from London to Canterbury and back within 24 hours. He manged the return journey in 23 hours, 53 minutes, winning a bet of 100 Guineas.

At some point in the 1780s, Hicks’s Hall was demolished. It was because of the state of repair, size and location, and also because a new Middlesex Sessions House had recently been completed, and to find this building we need to take St. John’s Lane, the street opposite the location of Hicks’s Hall.

Walk down this street, and through St. John’s Gate:

Turn left on reaching Clerkenwell Road, and a short distance along, the following building can be seen on the northern side of the street:

The building is the Grade II* listed Old Sessions House, and a walk up from Clerkenwell Road to Clerkenwell Green provides a view of the front of the building. A far more impressive and substantial building than its predecessor, Hicks’s Hall, appears to have been:

Following my post on Archway last week, where the Arms of the old county of Middlesex can still be seen on the bridge, the Arms can also be seen on the pediment above the columns at the front of the Middlesex Sessions House:

Although the Sessions House at Clerkenwell Green was a completely new building, for some years after the transfer to the new building, it was also known as Hicks’s Hall, as this image from 1805 shows by the title of the print:

Credit: London Museum. Used under Creative Commons Licence CC BY-NC 4.0

The use of the name Hicks’s Hall for the new Middlesex Sessions House seems to have been common until the late 1840s, with the last newspaper report I could find of a trial using the name Hicks’s Hall being in 1848.

Many reports from the time recorded that the new building included a “fine Jacobean chimney piece” from the old Hicks’s Hall. The following inscription was apparently on the chimney piece: “Sir Baptist Hicks of Kensington in the county of Middlesex, knight, one of the justices of the peace of this county of Middlesex of his worthy disposition and at his own proper charge built this session house in the year of our Lord 1612 and gave it to the justices of the peace of this county and their successors for the sessions house for ever, 1618”.

The new building is Grade II* listed, and I can find no reference to the chimney piece in the listing.

I find it strange that, although the space occupied by the original Hicks’s Hall remains, I could not find any plaque recording that the building once stood in St. John Street.

Given that it was the first dedicated Sessions House for the County of Middlesex, that it was a place where lots of trials took place, and where many of those involved in the execution of King Charles I started the trials that would lead to executions and life imprisonment for many, the site of Hicks’s Hall must deserve some form of site record.

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In Search of Blackfriars and Resources, Part 2

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At the end of today’s post, there is another of my monthly features on research resources, as well as a London book, but before that, a search for the location of a lost London priory.

If you hear the word Blackfriars, you probably think of either the station, the bridge, or perhaps of the pub at the southern end of Queen Victoria Street:

You may also think of the religious institution after which the station, bridge and pub are named, a house of Dominican Friars, who became known as Black Friars after the black cape they would wrap around their body, an image which the figure on the pub seeks to illustrate.

Within the area known as Blackfriars, and at the end of Carter Lane, where the street meets Ludgate Broadway and Black Friars Lane, there is a plaque on the wall, seen to the right of the red truck in the following photo:

The plaque records that it is the site of the Priory of the Blackfriars, founded 1278:

However, the Priory was a large complex, so how does this plaque relate to the Priory, and what area did it cover in the streets between Carter Lane and Queen Victoria Street? That is the purpose of today’s post, but first a bit of background to the Black Friars.

The Dominican Order was founded by Saint Dominic, who was a Castilian Priest by the name of Dominic de Guzmán, in the early 13th century.

The order was founded to build a community of priests who would go out into the world to preach, and the Dominican’s are also known as the Order of Preachers. The early 13th century was a time when there were challenges to the established church across Europe, with the Albigensian heresy of the Cathars in the Languedoc area of southern France and a growing scepticism of the compatibility of faith and reason.

The Dominican approach to combating these challenges was to go out and preach, and to bring a learned, intellectual and rigorous approach to both theology and preaching.

The new order quickly expanded across Europe, and arrived in London in 1221, with Gilbert de Fresnay being the first friar.

Gilbert de Fresnay was charged with finding a site in London to establish their second English Priory (the first had already be established in Oxford). He had the support of Hubert de Burgh, the Earl of Kent, who purchased a plot of land in Holborn, on the western banks of the River Fleet, and by the Fleet Bridge (today the area of land between the church of St. Andrew and Shoe Lane, down to Farringdon Street).

Hubert de Burgh gave this land to the Dominican’s for their new Priory.

Although it was outside of the City walls, it was an important location as it was adjacent to the street that led from the west, over the Fleet, and into the City of London, and as I mentioned in this post on Churches at City Boundaries, it was a good place to cater to the spiritual needs of those travelling to and from the City, and to seek donations for the Order.

The Holborn Priory would serve the Dominican’s for around 50 years, but by the 1270s, the order wanted to move into the City of London and had been gradually acquiring land in the area we today call Blackfriars.

The area they were targeting for their new Priory was mainly comprised of several large properties, so they did not have the challenge of trying to buy up a dense area of streets and housing. The land to the south west of the City had large buildings such as Baynard’s Castle and Mountfitchet’s Tower.

The main problem was that the old City wall crossed through the area that the Dominican’s were after, and in a remarkable decision which involved the Mayor of London, the King and representatives from the Dominicans, agreement was reached on demolishing 225 yards of the existing City wall, and rebuilding it to the western boundary of the new priory, along the eastern bank of the River Fleet.

Construction of the new priory got underway, the friars moved from Holborn into the City, however it would be some decades into the early 14th century before their Priory was complete (and like all such buildings, it would be under almost continuous modification).

The Dominican priory would continue to be based in this area of the southwestern City until the middle 16th century, when the buildings and lands was surrendered to Henry VIII during the Dissolution, and in 1549 / 50 the priory site was sold to Thomas Cawardine.

The friars in their black capes over their white robes must have been a common sight in the area, and almost 500 years after the friary was closed, the area still goes by the name of Blackfriars.

So where exactly was the Priory, and how much land did it cover?

A Dictionary of London (Harben, 1918), included a map of the Priory, overlaid on the early 20th century street plan. There are some small differences between this plan and some modern interpretations, based on 20th century archaeology, and I will point these out, however the Priory evolved over the almost 300 years that it occupied the site, so the purpose of many of the buildings would have changed, but the layout and key buildings in a Priory would have stayed the same, just improved and repaired over the years that the site was in use:

The blue plaque marking the site of the Priory of the Blackfriars, shown earlier in the post, is at the north western edge of the priory buildings. If you find Carter Lane along the top of the plan, with the Lady Chapel, where Carter Lane meets Water Lane (the street that today is Black Friars Lane), the plaque is on what would have been the northern wall of the Lady Chapel, above the L of Lady.

I am starting a walk around the site of the Priory at the southern end of Black Friars Lane, where it meets Queen Victoria Street. In the above plan, this is the space to lower left which leads up to what was Water Lane.

On the left of the following photo would have been gardens, workshops and a smithy, leading down to the relocated City wall and the River Fleet. On the right would have been the Kitchen Yard and the Parliament Hall or Chamber:

Note that in the early 20th century street plan shown in red in the above plan, Printing House Square is shown to the right, and behind the Parliament Hall.

The buildings around Printing House Square were where the offices and printing machinery of the Times newspaper were based after John Walter brought the King’s Printing House in Blackfriars in 1784.

Further up, we reach the junction with Playhouse Yard. Black Friars Lane continues up to Carter Lane. The buildings on the left appear rather strange as their depth has been reduced to provide space for the railway, which now allows the Thameslink trains to run into Blackfriars Station, the tracks are behind the wall on the left:

In the above photo, the turning on the right is into Play House Yard. The name comes from the Blackfriars Theatre that was on part of the site between 1596 and 1655. The theatre seems to have been mainly used during the winter months. The Globe and Rose theatres on the low lying south bank of the river would often be surrounded by muddy water following heavy rains and when the Thames breached the limited river bank defences then in place, so Blackfriars, on a rising slope above the Thames was a good alternative.

This is the view looking into Play House Yard, and here we are coming from the Kitchen Yard, crossing the Kitchen, and part of the Refectory (or Frater as shown in the above plan), with the southern part of the main cloister in the distance:

Offices are in the building on the left, and just a bit further to the left, behind the offices is Apothecaries’ Hall.

The Apothecaries’ moved into the old Guest House of the Priory, which became their Hall in 1632. The building was lost during the Great Fire of 1666, and the Apothecaries’ rebuilt their hall on the same site in 1670, with some rebuilding in 1786, from when the brick parts of the overall complex, facing the street in the above and below photos date from.

The Hall is Grade I listed, and according to the listing the Hall includes “slight medieval remains of Blackfriars’ Priory”. The Apothecaries’ Hall from Black Friars Lane:

The Porter’s Lodge of the Priory was located where the Apothecaries’ Hall meets Black Friars Lane, and from here a gallery provided a walking route down to the new location of the City Wall alongside the Fleet, where there was a small crossing over the Fleet.

In Play House Yard, looking back towards the entrance from Black Friars Lane, and the buildings around the Apothecaries’ Hall are directly in front. This is where the Guest Hall and Guest House were located. To the right was the southern side of the main Cloister:

To the right of the above photo is an alley by the name of Church Entry and which leads up to Carter Lane. It is here that we find the core of the Priory. In the following photo looking north along Church Entry, the eastern side of the main Cloister would have been on the left. To the right was a School House, then a Chapter House, and further along the alley, just past where the white wall juts in from the left, would have been the magnificent tower of the Priory’s church:

To the left of Church Entry was the Nave and the Choir was to the right, with the tower between. The name Church Entry for the alley is down to the alley being the entry point into the church, running north-south underneath the tower.

Along Church Entry is the entrance to a raised garden:

This open space was once part of the Preaching Nave of the Priory Church. After the Nave was demolished, the space was used as a churchyard for the parish of St. Ann, Blackfriars. Closed for burials in 1849, it is now a garden maintained by the City.

In the years when the Priory was in use, the Nave would have extended to the left of the following photo, and through the buildings that now occupy the space on the left. This would have been one of the most important parts of the Priory. In the plan of the Priory, it is labelled as the Preaching Nave, as this is where the friars would have fulfilled one of the Order’s main roles of preaching.

One of the major events early in the life of the Priory was the Priory’s role in the funeral of Eleanor of Castile. After the funeral of Eleanor at Westminster Abbey, there was one last act for her husband Edward I to attend to, and that was the burial of Eleanor’s heart at the Dominican Priory at Blackfriars on Tuesday the 19th of December, 1290.

The priory at Blackfriars was well known to Edward and Eleanor as the heart of their son Alfonso who had died in 1284 at the age of 10 had already been buried at Blackfriars, so Eleanor probably had been planning for her heart to be buried with that of her son. (for more on Eleanor of Castile, see my series of posts on the line of Eleanor Crosses and the journey from the place of her death, back to London, starting in this post),

It was also Edward I who had specified that the redirected City wall, along the River Fleet was to be built at the expense of the City. A decision which must have pleased the Friars.

There are very few records of life within the priory, and most recorded events come from the time of Henry VIII. In 1522, the visiting Emperor Charles V was put up by Henry VIII at the priory, and Henry VIII had a covered gallery constructed from the western edge of the priory across from the Porter’s Lodge down to Bridewell Bridge, which crossed the Fleet and gave access to Henry’s new palace at Bridewell, enabling Charles V to reach the palace from his lodging in the priory without getting wet if it rained.

The Gallery can just be seen on the left edge of the plan of the priory earlier in the post.

During Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Catherine was put on trial before the papal legate at the priory.

Where Church Entry meets Carter Lane:

Walking back to Play House Yard, I then turned east into Ireland Yard, as here we can see a small bit of stone wall that was possibly part of the medieval Priory.

Ireland Yard takes its name from the Ireland family. Early in the 17th century a William Ireland owned property here, and for some reason, the family gave their name to the street, which runs between Play House Yard and St. Andrew’s Hill.

A short distance along Ireland Yard, on the northern side are these brick walls with a gate and steps leading up to a raised open space:

Walk up the steps, look to the right and you will see the remains of a wall:

This fragment of a rubble wall is Grade II listed, and in the listing record it is stated that it is “Probably part of former Dominican Convent (Blackfriars)”.

The use of “probably” illustrates the problem of being really sure when describing the origins of small bits of a structure. If it is from the Priory, then it would possibly have formed the southern wall of the Provincial’s Hall.

The Provincial’s Hall had an upper floor so a strong wall would have been needed. The plan of the Priory states that over the hall was a Dorter (the sleeping area for the friars).

The open space at the top of the steps, looking back towards Ireland Yard is shown in the following photo. The Provincial’s Hall with the friars sleeping quarters ran across the southern part of this space, by the steps. To the right was the Chapter House, and it seems that the parish church of St. Ann may have used the Chapter House, with the churchyard occupying part of this space, as well as the space in Church Entry where the Nave of the Priory Church was located:

Continuing along Ireland Yard, and the next street running up to Carter Lane is Friar Street:

Friar Street marks the easterly limit of the buildings that made up the Priory. The Priory estate continued to the east with the Prior’s Garden which ran all the way to what is now St. Andrew’s Hill.

In the above photo, the eastern end of the Choir was to the left of the far end of the street, and where Friar Street meets Ireland Yard was the eastern end of the Provincial’s Hall. The Prior’s Gardens were to the right of the above photo.

Continuing along Ireland Yard, and we come to St. Andrew’s Hill, a street that runs up from Queen Victoria Street to Carter Lane.

St. Andrew’s Hill was originally Puddle Dock Hill as the street ran down to Puddle Dock on the Thames, which was used by the Friars as their access to the river.

St. Andrew’s Hill / Puddle Dock Hill formed the eastern boundary of the Friary, and it was at the junction with Ireland Yard that the east gatehouse was located.

On the left of the entrance to Ireland Yard is the Cockpit pub. The current pub building is mainly from 1842, however a pub is alleged to have been here from the 16th century and the name is a reference to cock-fighting and the associated gambling that once took place here. It would have been a logical place for a pub, right next to the gatehouse to the old Friary estate.

There is a reference to the gatehouse on the plaque on the building to the right in the above photo. The plaque records that William Shakespeare purchased lodgings in the Blackfriars Gatehouse on the 19th of March, 1613:

Walking up to Carter Lane, and looking west from the north east corner of the Friary estate:

It is interesting how street patterns retain a memory from what was there in previous centuries.

In the above photo, the boundary wall of the Priory estate cut across the wider part of the road, then turned a short distance up the road to the right, before heading north west, where it met the City wall at the point where it had been redirected to the west to free up space for the Friary.

So in the above photo, where Carter Lane narrows is the point where the street ran within the Priory, with Priory buildings to the left, and the principal graveyard of the Priory to the right. The narrowing of Carter Lane my reflect that the narrow part ran within the Priory grounds..

At the western end of Carter Lane, I meet the junction with Ludgate Broadway and Black Friars Lane, and the following photo is looking back along Carter Lane. The impressive nave of the church was on the right, the principal graveyard was on the left. Behind me, gardens ran down to the rerouted City wall which then ran along the banks of the River Fleet, now New Bridge Street:

Whilst a single part of what may have been a rubble stone wall of the Priory remains above ground, there are still arcaeological remains below ground, however the majority of the Priory remains have been lost.

During the mid-19th century, John Wykeham Archer recorded a number of the surviving parts of the Priory in a series of prints. The following print dates from 1853 and shows the remains of a wall and base of a pillar underneath the Times printing office (all the following three prints are: © 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 following from 1855 shows the remains of an arch:

And the following print, also from 1855, shows the base of a tower. In the print above and that below, there are men looking as if they are breaking up the structure and carrying stones away in baskets. This must have been the fate of much of the old Priory with the stone being reused in other construction projects:

In a few decades time, it will be 500 years since the Dominican Order surrendered their Priory to Henry VIII, the site sold off and the area began the transformation to the place we see today.

The Priory occupied a large area, it required a significant rerouting of the City wall, and appears to have been an impressive place, with the central nave, choir and tower dominating the Priory.

It lasted for just under 300 years, but the name that came from the sight of the Friars in their black capes still resonates through the area today.

Resources – Mapping at the National Library of Scotland

And now for the second of my monthly additions to a post detailing some of the resources I use for research, and for this month there is a website that can easily lead to an evening of distraction as you explore the street layout of places from over 100 years ago.

The National Library of Scotland has an extensive range of maps which have been digitised and aligned with maps of today. These maps cover not only London, but much of the country, so for example, if you want to see the countryside and villages lost under Harlow new town, as they were at the end of the 19th century, or how much Lincoln has expanded from a country town to the city it is today, it is all there.

The website is at: https://maps.nls.uk/ where you will find the following page:

Click on Geo-referenced maps in the top row of options, and you will be taken to a map with an Ordnance Survey map overlaying a modern map.

From here you can zoom in and out and move the map with a mouse, and at bottom left there is a “Change transparency of overlay” slider where you can reveal the modern base map to help with locating a place before going back to the older map.

Above the slider, you can select a map. The OS Six Inch 1888-1915 is a good place to start, but clicking the down arrow to the right of the select a map box will bring up a list of other available maps. There are plenty to explore.

From the main page shown above you can also view a “Side by side viewer” which places an old and a modern map next to each other, and zooming in and out, or moving one of the maps synchronises with the other map.

There is much to explore at the site, and it is worthwhile spending some time exploring all the different features and options to get to know how the site work, or just zoom in on your current street or home town to see what was there at the end of the 19th century.

The National Library of Scotland have done a remarkable job with putting these maps on line, aligning with maps of today, and making the site so easy to use – a wonderful resource, not just for London, but the whole country.

What I Am Reading – Maritime Metropolis by Sarah Palmer

I also thought I would include in these resources additions to posts, a monthly book, and for this month it is a book that I have just purchased and am currently reading, Maritime Metropolis London and its Port, 1780-1914 by Sarah Palmer:

I have been hesitating to buy this book for some time as the published price of the book is £90, but finally purchased a copy as the subject to so close to my interest in the relationship between London and river and docks that made up the Port.

It is published by Cambridge University Press so could come under the category of an academic title, hence the price.

Many histories of London look at either the city or the port, almost in isolation, however the approach taken by Sarah Palmer in Maritime Metropolis is that the history of both are intertwined. London is a Port City and almost every aspect of the city’s development has been influenced by the port, and the port was able to develop because of London.

This is a view that I have long taken, and today, with the loss of the docks, London has in many ways lost its connection with the river, and the route to the world that the river provided.

It is also why London has in some ways lost its identity. It is no longer a port city, it is no longer home to the largest dock complex in the world, and the enormous volumes of trade that once passed through the city. Indeed up until the later part of the 20th century, ships taking goods to and from London has been a key part of the city’s function, and in the lives of the city’s residents, for almost its entire history.

If you want to understand the deep connection between London and its Port, then Maritime Metropolis is a comprehensive and very readable account.

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Narrow Street – The Story of a Riverside Community

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Back in January I published the following photo, taken by my father in August 1948, which shows the rear of the buildings along Narrow Street in Limehouse. It was in a post about William Adams – The Adventures of a Limehouse Apprentice, and was used to illustrate how so much of Limehouse had a working relationship with the Thames, and I wrote that I would return to the photo to tell the story of some of the buildings.

The photo shows the rear of the buildings along Narrow Street. There are barges and lighters on the foreshore, and the majority of the buildings have structures on, or alongside the foreshore, showing that each building had some form of relationship with the river.

It is a place where for many of the occupants of the buildings, the river was either a place of work, or their onshore work was dependent on the river, the trade that the river brought to London and the wealth created by the river (although for the majority of the residents of Limehouse, very little of that wealth trickled down to them).

The same terrace of houses along Narrow Street today (my photo is looking straight at the terrace from the opposite embankment, where my father’s photo shows the terrace from an angle, and lower down as he was on a ship on the river):

The following extract from father’s photo shows the buildings to the left of the photo. I will be going into some detail as to the occupants of the buildings later in the post, but compare the following photo with the one above, as it shows the change that has happened across the Thames, from a working river, where many of the buildings along the river’s edge were involved in someway with the river, an industrial scene, barges and lighters on the foreshore, where the photo of the terrace today shows a clean foreshore, with the houses looking out on to a quiet river, mainly populated with Thames Clipper passenger boats, Ribs taking people on high speed trips along the river, containers of London’s rubbish being taken further down the Thames for incineration, and the occasional cruise ship heading for a berth along side HMS Belfast:

The following 19th century print shows the same terrace of houses. The tower of St. Anne’s Limehouse is in the background to the above print and the 1948 photo:

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.

Buildings have occupied the river’s edge in Limehouse for centuries, with Narrow Street providing a road alongside the inland façade of these buildings.

In the following extract from Rocque’s 1746 map, I have marked the terrace in my father’s photo with a yellow line. The red arrow is pointing to Duke Shore, which I will come back to later in the post:

The following extract is from “A New and Correct Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster”, published by Haines and Son in 1796, and again I have marked the terrace in the 1948 photo with a yellow line:

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

This map shows the clustering of building in Limehouse in the 18th century, with much of the area to the north and east still rural, with fields and marsh. The feature marked as Lea River in the above map is the Limehouse Cut, that had recently been completed from the River Lea to the Thames, west of the Isle of Dogs, thereby allowing boats on the River Lea heading towards the City to take a short cut, rather than having to travel around the bulge of the Isle of Dogs.

The maps above show the area alongside Narrow Street has been occupied since the mid 18th century, however it has been occupied for very much longer as my post on William Adam’s demonstrated, when Adam’s became an apprentice to a boat builder in Limehouse in the 1570s.

The transformation of the area as we see it today, is therefore a very short period in Narrow Street’s long history as for centuries it was intimately connected with industry and trade on the river.

I can only illustrate a very small part of this long history in a single blog post, so I will start with a look at the terrace of buildings in the left side of the 1948 photo, explore who lived in the houses, the businesses that operated alongside the Thames, and compare with the area today, starting with the following then and now comparison, with the coloured arrows referencing the same places in both photos and also used as references in the rest of the post:

Working from left to right, the red arrow points to a gap, with a house on the site today. I will return to this location later in the post.

The yellow arrow points to the Grapes pub, a pub that claims to have stood on the site for nearly 500 years, and I have no reason to doubt that age, as what is now Narrow Street has been a street alongside the river for centuries, and whilst in land was still rural, light industries such as boat building occupied the river front.

There are many newspaper references to the pub, starting in the 1800s, when it was written about as “Mrs. Horsley’s Bunch of Grapes”. For example, in an 1805 advert Mrs. Horseley was advertising for staff for the pub, and in the same year, an auction in the pub of “free hold houses” in Limehouse was being advertised.

The 1911 census records that in the Grapes lived William George Higgins, aged 32 and listed as the Licensed Victualler. He lived in the pub with his wide Charlotte aged 35, and 7 children ranging in age from 5 months to 14.

Charlotte had been married before as one of the 7 children was listed as a stepson to William Higgins. He was also the oldest, at 14. Charlotte was recorded as “helping in the business”. She had had 8 children, one of which had died, with 7 surviving.

The members of the Higgins family had not moved far, as they were all listed as having been born in either Mile End, Stepney or Poplar.

The following photo shows the Grapes from Narrow Street, and it was typical of the times that such a narrow house would be home to a business as well as nine people – two adults and seven children:

Numbering of houses in Narrow Street seems to have stayed the same since the 1911 census, and the following extract from Open Street Map shows the stretch of buildings. The Grapes is shown towards the left, this is number 76. Not all the houses had a return in the 1911 census, but we can trace many of the occupants of the houses from the census (map © OpenStreetMap contributors):

At number 82 Narrow Street was William Ritchie aged 66 with his wife Mary 64. He was listed as a store keeper. They were recorded as having 7 children, all surviving but none living at home. Also living in the house was their nephew David aged 30 who was a general labourer.

At 84 Narrow Street was Charles Brammall, a 55 year old Lighterman who lived in the house with his wife Elizabeth aged 56, daughter Jessie aged 24 and son Sydney aged 14.

As an indication of the birth rate and the frequently high death rate for young children, Elizabeth had had a total of 9 children, 4 had died and 5 were still living. Jessie was recorded as “Help at Home”, whilst Sydney was still at school, although at 14 this would not be for much longer.

In my father’s 1948 photo, the rear of number 84 Narrow Street is the house in the following extract from the photo with the word “ETHEREDGE”. In 1948, the building was also occupied by Charles and Arthur Etheredge who were tug owners:

The Etheredge firm had operated from Narrow Street since the 1890s, so I suspect the residents in the 1911 census were either employees of the company, or were living in rented out upper floors.

Etheredge advertised their services as follows: “Vessels Towed to any part of the CHANNEL. Ships transported from Docks to Dry Docks”. As well as offices in the building at Narrow Street, they were also at the London Shipping Exchange, and if you wanted to send them a telegram to get a tug boat for your ship, they had the Telegram address of “TUGBOAT LONDON”.

At 86 Narrow Street was John Barnett aged 77, recorded as being a General Dealer with his 45 year old wife Caroline (quite an age gap) and 3 daughters aged 10, 8 and 6.

At 88 Narrow Street was George Costino aged 60, a Lighterman, and his 60 year old wife Clara. They were the only people in the house, and under children, it was recorded as “none”.

There is no number 90 in the census returns. This is probably down to it being part of the W.N. Sparks business. I will come to this business shortly, but for now, the following is a brief description of number 90 from 1955: “No. 90 is indisputably the oldest. I doubt it was once the home and workshop of an Elizabethan mast and spar maker, as local gossip claims, but one of the firm’s employees did in fact find a spade guinea and a doubloon there”.

Whilst the majority of Narrow Street residents seem to have been born in east London, some had moved to Limehouse, often from a considerable distance.

At number 92 was Robert Gilmore, age 26, who was listed as being single and having a job as a house painter. He was living in the house with Sydney Gilmore, his 2 year old son. Also in the house was Mary Stephenson, a 37 year old House Keeper.

Robert and Sydney had come from Scotland, with Sydney being born in Aberdeen. Robert was listed as being single rather than a widower, so it is interesting to speculate why he had moved from Aberdeen to Limehouse with his very young son.

The housekeeper Mary, had also moved some distance, coming from Cumberland.

Number 92 was also home to Caroline Thorn, 68 and a widow. She lived in the house with her son William, 31 and a General Labourer in the shipping trade, daughters Rosetta (25) a Dining Rooms Waitress and Amy (23) a Restaurant Cook.

All three children were single, and it is interesting when reading census date from over one hundred years ago, that many children were still single and listed as living at home, well into their late 20s and early 30s. Often this seems to be written about as a more recent trend, however it could have been something seen more in major industrial cities in the past.

Number 94 is the building highlighted by the orange arrow in the above then and now photo combination. The following is an enlargement from the original photo, and shows number 94. There are a large number of barges on the foreshore between the building and river, and we can see the name W.N. SPAR, with the rest of the name obscured by the mast and sale:

This was the barge building business of W.N. Sparks, and in 1911, the census records that the building was the home of Reuben James Sparks (30), a Barge Builder and Surveyor, his wife Georgina Sparks (35), daughter Ruby aged 6 and son William, who was 3 months old.

Reuben Sparks had taken over the business from his father, William Nathanial Sparks (hence W.N. Sparks on the building in 1948) who was born in 1848, and in the 1891 census, he was listed as being a Marine Surveyor and was also living at 94 Narrow Street, with his wife Sarah and their 8 children, ranging in age from Mary (19) recorded as being an Organist, down to Lily aged 3. Sarah’s sister Elizabeth was also recorded as living in number 94. She was aged 22 and a machinist, so there were 11 people living in the building, as well as the barge building business..

Reuben was their fifth child, but took over the business as he was the oldest son, the older three children were all daughters.

By the time of the 1911 census, William Nathaniel Sparks had moved from Limehouse to Ilford, where he was living at 38 Mansfield Road. The house is still there, and although now the exterior has been rendered and the house appears to be of multiple occupancy, it was a substantial brick house of the late 19th / early 20 century, so William’s barge building business in Limehouse had obviously been profitable.

In 1911, William was 64, but was still recorded as being a Marine Surveyor Barge Business, but I suspect by then he was mainly retired, leaving the barge business to his son Reuben.

William still had three of his children at home, who were all single. Grace (34), a professional vocalist, Edith (29), Ernest (27), a clerk, and Lily (24) also a professional vocalist.

In the house was also Ann, a servant and Elizabeth, a nurse, so one of the Sparks family probably needed extra medical care.

William and Reuben Sparks were just one in a line of barge building at the same site in Narrow Street.

The following print from 1876 shows the view along the same terrace of buildings as in my father’s photo, and on the right of the print is number 94, and rather than the name W.N. Sparks, the sign reads “Surridge and Hartnoll Barge Builders”:

The only reference I can find to Surridge and Hartnoll is their inclusion in a list or partnerships dissolved in May 1879, when they were listed as being barge builders, shipwrights, mast and sail makers. The record also detailed that as well as 94 Narrow Street, they also operated at Fisher’s Wharf in Millwall.

Number 94 had some history. In an article in the Sphere on the 23rd of April, 1955 about Limehouse, there is the following about the building: “Local gossip maintains that the bricked in ovens on the ground floor are relics of a sugar bakery which formerly occupied the premises. But there is circumstantial evidence that the famous blue and white Limehouse chinaware began to appear in the middle of the eighteenth century. Like the other premises of Messrs. Sparks, this house is full of noble old beams and is a maze of rooms, stairways and trapdoors. Contrasting with the now abandoned kiln where the timbers for wooden barges were once steamed into shape are modern welding plant and electric machinery.”

The front of number 94, facing onto Narrow Street. As with the majority of this terrace of buildings, number 94 is Grade II listed:

It seems a long way back in the post, but if you go to the then and now photo. the green arrow is pointing to an area of open space on the foreshore known as Duke Shore.

This was long an open space, and is shown in Rocque’s 1746 map as an open space as it still is today, although there are two modern, narrow houses that block off Duke Shore from Narrow Street, and the adjacent stairs between street and foreshore have also been blocked off.

Also returning to the 1948 photo, and to the left of the Grapes was an open space. Unlike Duke Shore, this was normally a built space, and in the following photo, the building in the centre with the bay upper floor is the building that stood in the space:

The Grapes can be seen just to the right with the brewery name Taylor Walker & Co on the sign at the top or th3 pub.

The building shown in the above photo was once the Harbour Masters office, but in the 1911 census, it was occupied by James Smith aged 59 who was listed as an Inspector. He lived here with his wife Annie Caroline aged 37, and 9 children including what must have been children from his first marriage as ages ranged from 0 to 24. The eldest two sons were a Mechanical Engineer and a Lighterman. Also living in the house was Katheryn Helvin aged 16 from Poplar and listed as a General Domestic Servant.

The following photo is the right side of the 1948 photo, and continues to show the industrial theme of the buildings along the foreshore, however what I want to focus on with this extract is the chimney and two large buildings in the background:

The building on the right should give a clue as to their function, as we can see the words Taylor Walker. This was the Barley Mow Brewery of Taylor, Walker & Co,

Brewing started on the site in 1730 with the firm of Hare & Salmon. Edward Taylor became one of the partners in the brewing company in 1796 and John Taylor joined in 1816, and the firm eventually became known as Taylor, Walker & Co.

The Barley Mow Brewery buildings that we can just see in my father’s 1948 photo were from the 1889 rebuild and expansion of the brewery.

Ind Coope purchased the brewery in 1959, and with the consolidation and closure of many London breweries, brewing ceased at the Barley Mow in 1960.

After demolition of the brewery, the Barley Mow housing estate was built on the site. A couple of the tower blocks of the housing estate can be seen in my comparison photo earlier in the post.

One of the tower blocks of the estate suffered a strange fate, as when the Limehouse Link Tunnel was built through the area, the tower nearest the construction site was demolished as there was concern that vibration from construction and ground movement would damage the tower.

The article I quoted earlier from the Sphere on the 23rd of April, 1955 was focused on the change then taking place in Limehouse with a focus on Narrow Street, what was being lost, and what may come. The last few paragraphs from the article are below, the text includes a phrase which I suspect, always has, and always will apply to London “the illusion of permanency“:

“Possibly the most disturbing feature of the post-war world is the speed of change. Traditional methods, standards, customs and scenes are swiftly dissolving; and notwithstanding the advantages of streamlined substitutes, those of us who have known the illusion of permanency cannot help feeling that our world has suddenly become unstable.

Nowhere is this feature of to-day more in evidence than along the commercial Thames-side, where long stretches of the tideway banks, in many cases unchanged for a century or more, have been almost completely transformed within the short space of the post-war period. And now the rambling Limehouse waterfront of Messrs. W.N. Sparks and Sons, barge builders and repairers, almost the last of the river scene as Dickens knew it, is for sale.

If you do not know the Limehouse riverside, you are to imagine a line of tall, venerable buildings of varying age, their lower walls washed twice daily by the tides. The centre piece is a dark and cavernous barge-repair loft, usually lit for passing watermen by a dramatic spray of blue welding sparks. The frontages abut on Narrow Street between the Bunch of Grapes and Duke Shore Wharf – a street famous in our island history, for it re-echoes the steps of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, William Burrough, Phineas Pett, Duncan Dunbar, Captain Cook and Jerome K. Jerome.”

In 1955, there was still an expectation that the area around Limehouse, as well as much of the river all the way to the City, would continue to be a place of physical trade and industry in the coming decades. I doubt they could have imagined just how much of this would be lost over the coming 30 years. The articles final paragraph:

“It is too much to expect that this rambling old water-front will be left intact; the modern tideway cannot afford to permit the picturesque to stand in the way of progress. But whatever streamlined industry supplants the old barge establishment, whatever new trade it attracts to the Port of London, some of us think the Thames will be poorer.”

There is obviously much more to be written about Narrow Street (for example see this post about Daniel Farson, a one time resident of one of the houses in the Narrow Street terrace), however the constraints of a weekly post limit what can be explored.

Tower Hamlets council had a plan to demolish parts of the terrace in the early 1970s to replace with a green space along the river. Fortunately this did not take place. The Grapes pub was saved by new leaseholders which included Evgeny Lebedev, and Sir Ian McKellen. The terrace is listed, which should help preserve this historic and fascinating range of buildings, that for so long was part of the working river.

However, as the 1955 article stated, there is always the “illusion of permanency”.

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