Category Archives: London Parks and Gardens

Parliament Hill (or Traitors Hill) – August 1947

Parliament Hill is at the southern part of the high ground of Hampstead Heath. From the top of the hill there are wide ranging views across London, although these views are somewhat obscured by the trees that have grown on the slope leading down from the top of the hill to the fields below.

Parliament Hill has for long been a place to visit, to walk, to look at the view, to play games, and to enjoy the fresh air and open space, above the congested streets of the city.

In August 1947, my father took a number of photos whilst on Parliament Hill, looking at the view, and the surrounding landscape. The first shows an intense, youthful game of football:

I love the concentration and their focus on the ball, a leather ball rather than the lighter balls in use today:

As usual for many places in London, there are different names for the hill, and different origins for these names.

Two names have been associated with the hill, and there is some common root to these names. The name in use today is Parliament Hill, however for most of the 19th century, Traitors Hill seems to have been the most common.

Examples of where references are made to these two names, and their origins include:

From the Holloway Press on the 8th of August 1952: “Of the many explanations of how Parliament Hill got its name, the most popular is that the instigators of the Gunpowder Plot met here to see the effects of their mischief. Some still call the place ‘Traitors Hill’. Another much favoured story dates back to the Civil War when the Parliamentarians had a camp on the site. The Royalists naturally called this ‘Parliament’ Hill ‘Traitors Hill'”.

On the 15th of July, 1897, there was a report of a garden party given by Baroness Burdett-Coutts at her home in Highgate, and after the garden party “A great many of the guests strolled through the numerous walks towards Traitors; Hill, whence, perhaps, the finest panoramic view of London is to be obtained. The extent of the view seemed to impress the Colonial visitors. Traitors’ Hill is so called from the fact that Catesby and his fellow conspirators awaited there the result of Guy Fawkes villainous attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament”.

The hill seems to have been the destination for those holding parties in the surrounding houses, as another report from the Morning post on the 2nd of June 1834 explains that after a Fete held by the Duchess of St. Albans at her nearby villa “After the déjeuner there was a promenade to Traitors Hill, which is half a mile from the house, and through the most romantic labyrinth imaginable, whence there is a prospect of London and the counties of Essex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex.”

There are also claims that the Parliamentarians had cannon on the hill during the Civil War, and also used the high point as an observation post.

So whatever the true source of the name, it seems to date back to the 17th century, either from the 1605 Gunpower Plot or the English Civil War between 1642 and 1651.

Looking east towards Highgate:

The same view in September 2025:

In both photos (a bit hard to see in my father’s photo due to the resolution of the film) you can see the spire of St. Michael’s, Highgate, the church that stands higher than any other church in London.

A close-up of the church from Parliament Hill, and hidden in the trees just below, someone seems to have a strangely large satellite dish:

Looking to the south-east:

Looking over the city in August 1947, hardly a tall building in sight:

In the above photo, look between the trees and below the hill are open fields, Parliament Hill Fields. At the end of these fields are some low rise buildings. These are the Parliament Hill Fields Lido:

Parliament Hill Fields Lido was opened on 20 August 1938, and the following is a typical newspaper report on the opening of the Lido, part of a scheme by the London County Council for Lido’s across London:

“NEW £34,000 LIDO FOR LONDON – BATHING POOL TO HOLD 2000. With the opening of the new L.C.C. lido at Parliament Hill Fields on Saturday, another important link in the programme of providing London with a chain of modern swimming pools will be completed.

Since Mr George Lansbury, when first Commissioner of Works, gave London its first lido in Hyde Park in 1930, the popularity of these pools has increased enormously.

After Hyde Park came the first lido to be designated as such at Victoria Park built in 1934-35. Records show that in the height of the summer as many as 25,000 people bathe there on a Sunday morning.

The Parliament Hill Lido covers an area of approximately two and a half acres. It is 2ft 6inches deep at the shallow and 9ft 6 inches at the deep end, and holds 650,000 gallons of water, which will be completely filtered and purified every five hours. There are to be fixed and spring diving boards, foot and shower baths, and accommodation is planned for a maximum of 2024 bathers at any one time.

There are two terraces for spectators, and a café available for bathers and spectators alike. The lido had cost approximately £34,000.

The scheme originally approved by the L.C.C. also provided for lidos at Charlton Playing Fields at a cost of £25,000, Battersea Park, £40,000, Ladywell Recreation Ground, £27,000 and Clissold Park, £25,000.

The one at Charlton is nearing completion. The others will be undertaken by convenient stages with a view to the cost being distributed over a reasonable period.

Set among the trees, the lidos of London are vastly different from the cheerless, old-fashioned type of swimming bath. It would seem that they will ultimately render the old baths obsolete.

Including the two lidos already opened, the L.C.C. has eleven open-air swimming pools in London. These were patronised by over 1,000,000 swimmers in a year. Taking the lidos of Hyde Park and Victoria Park alone, the attendances in 1937 were: Children: 62,922, Adults: 175,379, Spectators: 93,731.”

The entrance to Parliament Hill Lido:

Returning to the top of the hill:

Parliament Hill and the fileds below, have long been a place to visit. The above photo shows a couple of children, and earlier photos in the post show people looking at the veiw, and more children playing football.

It was also a very popular place on public holidays, for example om the 11th of June 1892, the Hampstead and Highgate Express reported that: “PARLIAMENT HILL FIELDS – There were some thousands of holiday-makers in these picturesque fields on Whit-Monday. The International Band performed a selection of music in the afternoon, and in the evening Mr. Blake’s band similarly ministered to the enjoyment of the public. Cricket and lawn tennis were in full operation, and attracted large numbers of spectators.”

In 1947, the view from Parliament Hill was less obscured by trees than it is today, There were few stand out features as building height was much lower than it is today. The photos by my father were also made using the lower quality of film available post-war to the amateur photographer, and although taken using a Leica camera and Leica lens, enlarging the photos to look at distant features does not reveal much detail.

Comparing 1947 with today, shows just how the city has grown upwards:

The Parliament Hill viewing point today:

The view towards the towers of the City of London:

The Shard, with the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral to the lower left of the Shard:

The BT / Post Office Tower, and to the lower left of the tower is the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament. It must have been in this direction that the Gunpowder Plotters were looking, expecting to see an explosion – if the stories of one of the origins of the name Traitors Hill is true:

In the middle of the above photo, in the distant haze, is the radio and TV tower at Crystal Palace.

We can see why Parliament Hill is such a good place for a view by looking at a topographic map of the area.

In the following extract from the excellent topographic-map.com the high ground of Hampstead and Highgate is shown in reds and pinks, with the surrounding low ground in yellow and green.

I have marked the location of Parliament Hill with a red arrow, and as can be seen, it is on a small promontory, extending south from the higher ground of Hampstead Heath. To the right is the higher ground of Highgate, as illustrated by photos earlier in the post showing the spire of St. Michael’s, Highgate:

Parliament Hill as a viewing point and open space, has been photographed and painted for many years.

The following is dated 1841 and is by E.H. Dixon, and shows a “View of Highgate Church, from Parliament Hill in Hampstead Heath” (© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.)::

And a 1938 view by Joseph William Topham Vinall of “London, & Crystal Palace from Parliament Hill (before fire)” (© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.)::

Surrounding the viewing point:

Looking up at the viewing point on Parliament Hill in 1947:

The tress just below the viewing point at the top of Parliament Hill obscure the full view, and you need to move left and right to view different parts of the city below.

Fromn the viewining point, there is a path that leads through the trees and bushes to a lower point, which does though provide a full panorama of the view to the south.

Descending through the trees:

In the middle of the treeline, there is a dried up stream bed, and just to the side an area that is still damp and muddy – one of the many springs to be found in the area:

Once through the trees, the full panaorama opens up:

Click on the following panorama to enlarge:

As well as the view to the south, looking to the east we can see the Emirates Stadium:

Walking down the hill into Parliament Hill Fields, there is evidence of a long hot, dry summer:

At the base of the hill, as well as the Lido, there is an athletics track. The track itself has recently been refurbished, and I believe that that the original facility dates from 1938, and this is when there were newspaper reports of the “opening of the new L.C.C. track at Parliament Field”, and the brick build and design of the buildings facing onto the track are of a similar design and material to those of the Lido:

That Parliament Hill survives today as a public open space is down to a campaign in the 1880s.

In the later part of the 19th century, the hill was at risk of development. Houses had been springing up in the desirable areas around Hampstead, Highgate and Parliament Hill, and what the press called “The Battle of Parliament Hill” was a campaign to keep the hill free of housing, and retained as a public space.

This came about as a result of the Hampstead Heath Enlargement Act of 1886. The aims of the act was described in the Pall Mall Budget of the 20th October 1887:

“In the first place, the object sought for is the enlargement of Hampstead Heath, but is in reality the preservation of it. The actual proposal was the acquisition of the open space known as Parliament Hill, which, of, course, would, to that extent, be an enlargement of Hampstead Heath. But the point to be most insisted upon is that if Parliament Hill be not acquired Hampstead Heath would be spoiled. For one thing, half its beauty will be destroyed; but it is not the aesthetic consideration that we wish now to place in the forefront, although the destruction of all Coleridge saw ‘looking down from Hampstead Heath’ would of itself be no mean loss. More important, however, than a supply of food for the aesthetic sense, is a supply of fresh air for the lungs, and if Parliament Hill were once to be covered in bricks and mortar the health giving quality of Hampstead Heath would be destroyed.”

Parliament Hill was purchased for the public in 1887 for £300,000.

There is an ancient tumulus on the northern side of the hill, which has been excavated, but nothing was found within.

A child did find what was classed as treasure trove on the hill in 1892, reported from the time as “A small boy called Haynes has been the lucky finder of treasure, including coin and antique silver vessels, while playing with a toy spade in Parliament Hill fields. Valued at £2,000, the treasure trove has formally been taken over by the Crown and the lad’s compensation will be the bullion value of the articles only.”

Parliament Hill has also attracted myths and theories about the use of the place in antiquity. In the book Prehistoric London – It’s Mounds and Circle by E.O. Gordon (1932), Gordon claims the hill as an ancient meeting place and also places the hill at the northern corner of a triangular alignment of key London mounds:

With the view across London, and across to the hills in the south, Parliament Hill has long been a place where people would stand and look, a place to look across to the hills that surround London to the south, and it is a special place, although probably not in the way E.O. Gordon thought about the place.

Parliament Hill or Traitors Hill – both names have their origins in events in the 17th century, and in the late 19th century the Parliament Hill was saved from the bricks and mortar spreading across London, so we can continue to stand and gaze across the city to this day.

alondoninheritance.com

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

15 Replies

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

North Woolwich – A Station, Pier, Pleasure Gardens and Causeway

24 Replies

Towards the end of last year, I published a number of posts about the Royal Docks also crossing the river via the Woolwich Ferry and Foot Tunnel to North Woolwich.

This is a really interesting part of east London with plenty to discover (I hope to have the area as a new walk later this year), and there is one last part of North Woolwich that I want to cover, a short walk along the river, starting by the entrance to the Woolwich Ferry, marked by the “S” to the left of the following map, with the blue dashed line showing the route covered in today’s post (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

Starting by the approach to the ferry, if I look to the east, there is a walkway along the side of the river, with a pier running into the river at the end of the walkway:

The shed like building at the entrance to the pier (P in the above map):

A look inside confirms that the pier is derelict, although the metal framework to the pier looks substantial, the wooden flooring has decayed:

The pier is here because of the adjacent North Woolwich Station, which is just across the road from the pier.

When the station opened in 1847, there was nothing much on the north side of the river that needed a railway, but it was built to serve the town of Woolwich across the river, and the station did soon lead to developments on the north bank.

So that those living or working in Woolwich could reach the station, a ferry was needed, and two piers were built, one on the south and one on the north banks of the river. The pier on the southern side has long gone, but the north pier remains:

The shed at the end provided a rudimentary, covered waiting area and also included a small ticketing kiosk.

Initially two steam ferries of the Eastern Counties Railway, the “Kent” and the “Essex” crossed the river from this pier (when the service opened, North Woolwich was still part of the County of Kent, where it would remain for over another 100 years).

A third boat, the “Middlesex” arrived in 1879, followed by the “Woolwich” which replaced the original “Kent” and “Essex”.

Soon after the opening of the service, the South Eastern Railway had opened a rail service direct to Woolwich, and the Woolwich Free Ferry arrived in 1889.

Despite the challenges of the direct rail service to Woolwich and the Free Ferry, the ferry service operated by what was now the Great Eastern Railway, continued until 1908, when it was no longer financially viable, and closed.

The pier on the south of the river was soon demolished, however the pier at North Woolwich became a calling point for steam boats providing a service out to Southend and Margate.

The number of ferries using the pier tailed off significantly after the Second World War, and the last record I can find of the pier being used for ferry traffic was in August 1950, when children from the Hay Currie School in Poplar boarded a boat at the pier for a trip along the Thames.

Perhaps the strangest use for the pier was in April 1983 when a 112 pound bomb was dredged up from the Thames near Waterloo Bridge.

The bomb was defused at the scene, then taken by boat down to North Woolwich Pier, where it was transferred to a lorry, which took the bomb to Shoeburyness, where it was safely exploded.

The walkway along the river runs up to a raised platform next to the pier, and this is the opposite side of the shed at the land side end of the pier:

On the platform is this rather good information panel showing key places in North Woolwich, with a brief paragraph about their history:

The North Woolwich Pier was built to provide rail passengers with transport to and from Woolwich, and opposite the pier is the old station building:

As mentioned earlier, and in my posts about the Royal Docks, North Woolwich Station arrived before the construction of any of the Royal Docks. The line and original wooden station building opened in 1847 by Eastern Counties Railway, who in July 1847, “gave an excursion train on Monday last, from Ely to London, Woolwich, Greenwich and Gravesend, the company being taken by the new line to the North Woolwich Station, where steamers were in readiness to carry them whither their inclination led them. About 250 persons availed them of the trip. The train returned to Cambridge by 9 o’clock.”

I can imagine that if you lived in the Cambridgeshire city of Ely in 1847, London, as well as places such as Woolwich, Greenwich and Gravesend, along with all the river traffic and trade, would have been perhaps a once in a lifetime trip, certainly a trip to some of the rarely visited parts of a dynamic part of London (or Kent as it was then, however many newspaper reports referred to North Woolwich as being in Essex).

The station building that we see today was built in 1854, and by the end of the 19th century, we can see the station and rail tracks in the following extract from the OS map. (North Woolwich Pier is in the green circle, a hotel (see next in the post) is in the red oval, and causeway (see later in post) is in the blue oval. The station is to the left of the red oval) (Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

The following extract from the 1927 edition of the Railway Clearing House Official Railway Map of London and its Environs shows the railways around the full Royal Docks complex, with the North Woolwich branch heading down, between the Victoria and Albert Docks, to the station which terminated the branch:

And in the following enlargement, we can see the two, competing, ferries across the river, the Free Ferry and the London and North Eastern Ferry (the former Eastern Counties Railway):

The 1854 station building was taken out of use in 1979 during a period of major maintenance to the North Woolwich branch line, and a new station building was constructed to the south of the station, alongside what is now Pier Road:

Attribution: Alexandra Lanes, Copyrighted free use, via Wikimedia Commons

The old station remained empty until 1984 when it was opened as a railway museum by the Passmore Edwards Trust.

The North Woolwich branch line closed in December 2006, and the museum closed two years later.

I checked the Historic England map of listings, and the 1854 station building is Grade II listed.

The building is now occupied by the New Covenant Church.

Going back to the extract from the OS map. within the red oval is a building marked as a hotel. The hotel was the Royal Pavilion Hotel, and at the rear and to the north of the hotel were the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens – gardens that would lead to the Royal Victoria Gardens, the open space with trees shown to the right of the hotel.

The hotel and pleasure gardens were there because of North Woolwich Station (shown to the left of the red oval in the above map), and the pier.

When the line was completed, and the station opened in 1847, much of this part of North Woolwich was empty and undeveloped. The Royal Victoria Dock to the north would not open until 1855.

In the 19th century, as the railways expanded across the country, the opening of a new station was often associated with the opening of a hotel, and even in what must have been the empty and windswept shores of the Thames at North Woolwich, the Royal Pavilion was built facing the station, and adjacent to the pier.

Pleasure Gardens were often found across London by the river, and to attract customers, the hotel opened the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens, with an aim of attracting customers from Woolwich via the ferry, or from the rest of London via the railway.

An advert in the Kentish Independent on the 24th of July, 1852 reads:

Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens – North Woolwich – Admission Sixpence

THE ABOVE GARDENS will be opened to the Public THIS DAY (SATURDAY)

A talented Quadrille and Brass Band will be in attendance, Conductor, MR. GRATTAN COOKE. Refreshments, White Bait, Wines &c., of the best quality will be served in the gardens, and the Royal Pavilion Hotel.

Trains leave the East Counties Railway, Bishopsgate Station, calling at Mile End, Stratford Bridge, and Barking Road, at a Quarter before and a Quarter after the Hour (One o-Clock excepted) throughout the day.

Steam Packets leave Hungerford Bridge, and London Bridge and the intermediate Piers, every Twenty Minutes. The Eastern Counties Railway Company’s Steam Packets ply between the Pavilion Pier and the Town of Woolwich, constantly throughout the day.

In August, 1952, the Pleasure Gardens were advertising “SPLENDID ILLUMINATIONS, Fireworks by Cotton of Vauxhall”, with “Gala Nights, Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Fireworks at Half-past Ten.”

It must have seemed rather a strange place to have a Pleasure Gardens, however given the location next to the river, and the lack of development, I can imagine that this was a rather good place to spend a summer’s evening in the 1850s, however this isolation would not last long, as the Royal Victoria Dock opened in 1855, and around the same time, plots of land were being advertised for sale for building, and adverts of these mentioned the proximity to the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens.

The following 1956 revision of the OS map shows the hotel was then a Public House. The space is now occupied by a new block of flats. The map also shows how the tracks at North Woolwich station had expanded to the west of the station building, with space for goods traffic as well as holding trains (Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

Looking around the back of the station building, we can still see the cast iron supports for the canopy that was once at the rear of the station:

And a sign along the fence shows the use to which the area to the rear of the station was put in the recent past:

Leaving the old station and pier, I am continuing east along the river walkway, which runs along the southern edge of the Royal Victoria Gardens:

The Royal Victoria Gardens occupy much of the space of the old Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens.

The Pleasure Gardens continued in use until the late 1880s. They were very popular, and there are newspaper reports of the crowds that would head to the gardens in the summer, however by the end of the 1880s the pleasure gardens were in financial trouble, and the gardens were taken over by the London County Council, and renamed as the Royal Victoria Gardens.

The gardens suffered much bomb damage during the last war, resulting in the loss of many of the original features of the gardens, which included features such as an Italian garden, a maze, flower beds and a rifle range, however the gardens remain a really good area of green space, with the added benefit of being alongside the River Thames.

The walk along the river is part of the North Woolwich Trail organised by the “Ports of Call” initiative, with “Works of art at the Royal Docks”.

I was unaware of this, until I saw one of their plaques on the wall along the river, by the Royal Victoria Gardens. Click here for the Ports of Call website.

There is an interesting example of industrial machinery in the Royal Victoria Gardens:

This is a steam hammer, dating from 1888, and was from the blacksmith’s shop of R.H. Green and Silley Wier Ltd, at the Royal Albert Docks, on the site of what are today, the buildings of London City Airport. The steam hammer was installed in the gardens in 1994.

Looking back along the walkway between the Thames and the Royal Victoria Gardens, with the pier of the Woolwich Free Ferry in the distance:

Continuing along the walkway along the river, the gardens are replaced by blocks of flats, and I have come to the first of two small docks, where there is a sloping causeway into the river, which the walkway bends around:

This first one is not named. It is shown on the OS maps earlier in the post, so it was here in the late 19th century, when it was at the end of what is now Woolwich Manor Way. I also checked the Port of London Authority listing of all the “Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames”, and whilst it is clearly a well built and useable landing place, the PLA listing makes no reference to the dock.

Continuing along the river walkway:

And I come to the dock which is shown on the maps, and is in the PLA listing. This is Bargehouse Causeway:

In the PLA listing, it is called “Old Barge House Drawdock”, and the listing states that there were “Stone setts on wooden piles”. The OS maps do not name the causeway, but show that a causeway extended out from the dock, however if this still exists, it was not visible due to the state of the tide during my visit.

The word Drawdock refers to a place where a boat could be drawn out from the river.

The sign on the pole states that there is no mooring and the causeway is not in use for personal water craft. The location of the pole probably makes the causeway difficult to use as it is placed in the middle of the approach to the landing place.

Although it is just Bargehouse Causeway today, the use of the name Old Barge House Drawdock in the PLA listing provides a better indication of its age.

The causeway is the site of one of the first ferries between what is now North Woolwich, and the town of Woolwich, between what was Essex and Kent, and was first mentioned in 1308.

There are very few mentions of the ferry up until the end of the 18th century, and in the following decades the ferry at Old Barge House Drawdock seems to have been a very active place.

It was in use for foot passengers crossing the Thames, as well as farmers taking their produce to market, with a frequent route being Kent farmers taking cattle to market in Romford.

The name of the draw dock seems to have come from the home of one of the early operators of the ferry, who had dragged up an old barge from the river, and lived in the barge above the shoreline.

In the OS maps shown earlier in the post, you can see a building with the PH for Public House, and the pub was on the site of the old barge, and took the name of the Old Barge Inn.

During much of the 19th century, the ferry was very busy, and the Army also introduced their own ferry between Woolwich and Old Barge House Drawdock.

Such was the popularity of the crossing, one of the operators of the ferry embarked on the following works, reported in the Kentish Mercury on the 9th of May, 1840:

“WOOLWICH FERRY – Mr. Thomas Howe, proprietor of the Old Barge House, Woolwich Ferry, has nearly completed the embankment of the Thames, which he commenced during the latter end of last summer. The esplanade now formed is about one thousand feet in length, with a depth of one hundred and fifty, and is raised to the height of twenty feet above high-water mark.

The whole level has been laid down with grass turf, and surrounded by a neat railing, and when completed will form one of the most pleasing promenades on the banks of the Thames, commanding, as it does a perfect view of Woolwich, with its Dock-yard and Arsenal, together with Plumstead, Shooter’s Hill, and the delightful scenery of Kent.

Upwards of one thousand barge-loads of rubbish have been employed in forming this embankment. The traffic between the two counties has increased about one hundred per cent since the improvement on this ferry commenced. The thousands who pass the ‘Old Barge House’ will scarcely observe that this favourite spot in in the county of Kent, notwithstanding it is situated on the Essex shore.”

Strange to think whilst standing at the dock, that this was once described as one of the most pleasing promenades on the banks of the Thames, however it was rare for a large area of space, with good transport connections, and green space, to be found along the river. The Victoria Embankment had yet to be built, and much of the river, on both north and south banks was industrialised, so I can imagine that this place in North Woolwich was a very pleasant place to visit.

What killed off the ferry from the Old Barge House Drawdock, was the opening in 1889 of the Woolwich Free Ferry. A ferry where you had to pay to cross the river could not compete with a free ferry which was a very short distance away.

The view towards the east, along the Thames from the concrete ramp at Old Barge House Causeway:

Walking up from the Barge House Causeway / Drawdock, requires walking up a ramp, and then steps or a longer ramp to get down to Barge House Road, which leads up to Albert Road.

The road is obviously named after the pub (which stood to the left of the following photo), and the old drawdock, and the barge used at some point as a home by an operator of the ferry:

This was such an interesting, short walk.

Royal Victoria Gardens is a lovely open space along the river, which owes its existence to the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens and the associated hotel, once at the western end of the gardens, and the promenade built by the owner of the Barge House pub at the eastern end of the gardens.

These were both places that were built due to the availability of adjacent transport routes, and seem to have been places that attracted thousands of visitors to North Woolwich in the decades around the middle of the 19th century.

The need for the ramp and river walkway walls to built up, can be seen from the above photo, where the low lying area of North Woolwich is today still protected from high tides by large concrete walls and ramps.

It would be interesting to find out if any of the “one thousand barge-loads of rubbish” that were used to formed the embankment in 1840 is still there, as I suspect it would offer an interesting look into mid-19th century life.

I hope to be offering some walks around North Woolwich and the Royal Docks later in the year – if I can get organised in time, as this is a really interesting part of east London to explore.

alondoninheritance.com

Whittington’s Stone and Whittington Park

22 Replies

There is an area around Archway underground station where the name Whittington, and the symbol of a cat features prominently, and this area is the subject of today’s post, to track down the location of some 1980’s photos, the first of which is of the Whittington Stone and Cat:

The same view, forty years later:

The view is the same, although today the railings are painted black, but this change must have been made some years ago, as the red paint of the railings in my father’s photo is showing through.

The Whittington Stone is located a short distance north of Archway station on Highgate Hill, at the point where the street starts to run up to Highgate.

The monument is Grade II listed, and the Historic England listing provides some background as to the history of the stone:

“Memorial stone. Erected 1821, restored 1935, cat sculpture added 1964. Segmental-headed slab of Portland stone on a plinth, the inscription to the south-west side now almost completely eroded, that to the north-east detailing the career of the medieval merchant and City dignitary Sir Richard Whittington (c.1354–1423), including his three terms as Lord Mayor of London. Atop the slab is a sculpture of a cat by Jonathan Kenworthy, in polished black Kellymount limestone. Iron railings, oval in plan, with spearhead finials and overthrow, surround the stone. The memorial marks the legendary site where ‘Dick Whittington’ Sir Richard’s folkloric alter ego, returning home discouraged after a disastrous attempt to make his fortune in the City, heard the bells of St Mary le Bow ring out, ‘Turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London.”

The listing states that the memorial stone was erected in 1821, however it replaced an earlier stone, and I found a number of newspaper records of the existence of a stone from the 18th century, including the following from the 24th of October, 1761:

“Monday Night about nine o’Clock, two Highwaymen well mounted, stopt and robbed a Country Grazier going out of Town, just by the Whittington Stone, of 4s, and his Horse whip. And after wishing him a good Night, rode off towards London.”

A Country Grazier was another name for a farmer who kept and grazed sheep or cows, and the report is a reminder of how in the 18th century, this area was still very rural. Very few houses, and Highgate Hill surrounded by fields.

As the listing records, the stone is the legendary site of where Dick Whittington heard the bells of St. Mary le Bow and decided to return to the City.

What ever the truth of the legend, the inclusion of a cat (which was only added to the stone in 1964) is more pantomime than history, and even in 1824 alternative sources for the cat were being quoted when talking about the stone, as in the following which is from the British Press newspaper on the 6th of September, 1824:

“Towards the bottom of Highgate Hill, on the south side of the road, stands an upright stone, inscribed ‘Whittington’s Stone’. This marks the situation of another stone, on which Richard Whittington is traditionally said to have sat, when, having run away from his master, he rested to ruminate on his hard fate, and was urged to return back by a peal from Bow bells, in the following:- ‘Turn again, Whittington, Thrice Lord Mayor of London’.

Certain it is, that Whittington served the office of Lord Mayor three times, viz, in the years 1398, 1406 and 1419. He also founded several public edifices and charitable institutions. Some idea of his wealth may be formed from the circumstance of his destroying bonds which he held of the King (Henry V) to the amount of £60,000, in a fire of cinnamon, cloves, and other spices, which he had made, at an entertainment given to the monarch at Guildhall.

A similar anecdote to that of the destruction of the bonds, is related of a merchant to whom Charles V of Spain was indebted in a much larger sum; but as Whittington lived long before that time, it is fair to suppose, that, if true at all, the story belongs to the London citizen.

The fable of the cat, by which Whittington is much better known than by his generosity to Hen. V., is however borrowed from the East. Sir William Gore Ouseley, in his travels, speaking of the origin of the name of an island in the Persian Gulf, relates, on the authority of a Persian manuscript, that in the tenth century, one Keis, the son of a poor widow of Siraf, embarked for India, with his sole property, a cat:- There he fortunately arrived, at a time when the Palace was infested by mice and rats, that they invaded the King’s food, and persons were employed to drive them from the royal banquet. Keis produced his cat, the noxious animals soon disappeared, and magnificent rewards were bestowed on the adventurer of Siraf, who returned to that city, and afterwards, with his mother and brothers, settled in the island, which, from him, has been denominated Keis, or, according to the Persians, Keish.”

Keis is the name of the son of the widow in the above story, and still today, Keis is the name of a small Iranian island off the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf, with much of the island being occupied by what is labelled on Google maps as an “International Airport”.

Whether there is any truth in the story of Keis and his cat, the article serves to illustrate how stories and legends develop and cross boundaries, and how it is almost impossible to be sure of almost any similar stories to Dick Whittington and his cat.

The Whittington Stone with Highgate Hill in the background:

The following map shows the area today, and the red circle marks the location of the Whittington Stone. The red rectangle marks the location of my next stop (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

But before leaving the stone, there are a number of prints from the 19th century which provide a rather romantic view of Whittington at the stone.

The following print from 1849 is of Whittington hearing the sound of Bow Bells whilst leaning against what was then described as a “milestone” (and in 1849 there is no cat):

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

A milestone would make more sense, as at the time, Highgate Hill was the main route from London to Highgate.

I also looked for views of Highgate Hill and found the following print, dating from 1745 and titled “A Prospect of Highgate from upper Holloway”. The road showing curving up to buildings in the distance is presumably Highgate Hill, and if you look carefully to the right of this road where it starts to curve to the right, there appears to be some form of stone monument:

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

The problems I have with this print is that Highgate Hill did not curve as shown in the print. The following extract from Rocque’s map of 1746, so the same time as the above print, shows the area between Upper Holloway and Highgate (top left). The location of Archway is circled, and the approximate location of where the stone is today is marked:

Another example of how difficult it is to be sure of stories, the appearance of places, and the history of artifacts such as Whittington’s stone.

Whittington’s name, and the symbol of a cat can be found in many places around Archway. Next to the stone is the Whittington Stone pub, a modern version of an earlier pub (I have not included the photo in the post as there were plenty of drinkers sitting outside), and further up Highgate Hill is the Whittington Hospital.

There was another Whittington related place I wanted to find, where my father had photographed some 1980s murals, but before I reached Whittington Park, I found the location of a 1980s photo that I was unsure I would ever find as there were no identifiable features:

Forty years later in 2024:

The shop is on Holloway Road, and is an interesting example of how some types of business occupy the same place for many decades.

Today, the shop is occupied by a hairdresser, as it was 40 years earlier, and judging by the appearance of the place in the 1980s photo, it had already been there for some years.

The persistence of this type of business can be seen in many places across London. Although the names have changed over the decades, they continue to be a hairdresser – a business that cannot be replaced by the Internet, or by changing retail fashions.

The long terrace of buildings on Holloway Road in which the hairdresser is located:

Looking south along Holloway Road, and there is a rather nice painted advertising sign on the side of a building:

A sign advertising “Brymay”, one of the brands of the match manufacturer Bryant & May:

I then reached the Holloway Road entrance to Whittington Park, and it was in this park, 40 years ago, that my father photographed three rather good murals:

The above mural features Dick Whittington sitting on a milestone, along with his cat, both looking back at the City of London (again the stone being a milestone makes sense).

The mural below appears to be a mix of various cartoon and film characters:

And the third mural again features a cat, with a capital W on his tea shirt for Whittington:

The cat shown above was the symbol of the Whittington Park Community Association in the 1970s and 1980s.

Do any of these murals remain?

Next to the entrance to the park there is a pub with a mural on the side:

Not one of those in my father’s photos, but a 2017 variation on the story of Dick Whittington and his cat:

The entrance to Whittington Park from Holloway Road:

To the right of the entrance is a large floral cat sculpture:

And inside the park is another cat. This time in mosaic form, on the ground alongside the main walkway:

I then came to the Whittington Park Early Years Hub, run by the Community Association as a play space for the under fives:

I walked around the building, but any trace of the 1980s murals has disappeared, although there are today painted flowers on some of the walls:

I could not find any other building in the park where the murals could have been located, and the blocks that make up the walls of the building seem to be identical to those in the 1980s photos, so I am sure this is the right place:

Whittington Park is a relatively recent open, green space. In the early 1950s, the site of the park was still a dense network of terrace houses, many of which had suffered some degree of bomb damage.

In the following extract from the 1951 OS map, I have marked today’s boundaries of Whittington Park in red, and the map shows the streets and buildings that were demolished to make way for the park (Map ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

It is interesting how much of the London we see today is down to wartime planning for how the future London should develop, and one of these plans was the 1943 County of London Plan by Forshaw and Abercrombie. Part of this plan included proposals to increase the amount of open space that would be available to Londoners of the future, and to address the problems with lack of such space in the way that London had developed from the 19th century onwards.

The North London Press on the 11th of April, 1958 records some of the initiatives in the area, and the small beginnings of Whittington Park:

“Under the County of London Plan, over 100 acres of new open space are to be provided within the borough. In February, 1954, the first part – about an acre – of Whittington Park was opened to the public; this will eventually be extended to form a fine new park of over 22 acres.”

The park would expand over the following decades from the one acre of 1954 to the ten acre site of today, short of the 22 acres expected in 1954;.

The names of the streets that were demolished to make way for Whittington Park all have interesting Civil War connections. There is:

Hampden Road – named after John Hampden who was a parliamentary leader in opposition to Charles I, and who fought on the Parliamentary side during the war, and died in a fight with Royalist troops at Chalgrove Field, near Thame;
Ireton Road – named after Henry Ireton who was a leading supporter of Cromwell, and a key figure in the New Model Army, and who went on to marry Cromwell’s daughter;
Rupert Road – although the above two roads were named after Parliamentary figures, Rupert Road was named after Prince Rupert, who became Commander in Chief of the Royalist land forces. After the restoration of Charles II, Prince Rupert again became a key supporter of the Crown and held high positions in the Royal Navy.

Hampden and Rupert Roads are their original names, however Ireton Road was not the original name for the street. It was originally called Cromwell Road, after Oliver Cromwell.

I suspect the name change was to avoid a conflict with another Cromwell Road, as in the early decades of the 20th century there were initiatives to reduce the number of streets with the same name.

In a walk around the park, I only found a single relic of the streets that were demolished to make way for Whittington Park, and it is a war memorial for those who lost their lives in the Great War and who lived in Cromwell Road.

Today, the monument is set into an earth embankment to the left of the entrance of the park:

I cannot find any firm references as to where the war memorial was originally located, but I suspect that it was on the wall of one of the terrace houses that originally lined the street, in a similar way to the existing memorial at Cyprus Street, Bethnal Green (see this post).

These war memorials for single streets really bring home what the impact of the Great War must have been for small communities and individual streets when you see the number of names of those who died in the war, from one single street.

We can get an idea of what the demolished streets may have looked like, by walking along Wedmore Gardens, which is the street bordering the north western edge of the park. The layout of the houses in the street look very similar to those of the demolished streets, and they are of the same age (the streets were built around the 1860s), so looking along Wedmore Gardens, we get an idea of what was once on Whittington Park:

As well as Wedmore Gardens, Wedmore was also the name of the wider estate of which the streets were part, as well as flats to the south eastern side of Whittington Park, which have since been demolished and replaced with new residential building.

Whether there is any truth in the story of Richard Whittington, or Dick Whittington in his pantomime image, returning to the City of London after hearing Bow Bells, he continues to leave an impression on Highgate Hill and the northern part of Holloway Road, 600 years after his death in 1423.

alondoninheritance.com

Bedford Square

20 Replies

I have just put a couple of my Limehouse and Wapping walks on Eventbrite for the month of June. Click here for details and booking.

Bedford Square, Bloomsbury must be one of the best preserved, late 18th century squares in London, and in this part of London there is plenty of competition.

Bedford Square is just north of New Oxford Street, and has the British Museum to the east, and Tottenham Court Road a short distance to the west. The following map shows the location of the square in red:

Bedford Square was planned and built between 1775 and 1780 as part of the development of the land owned by the Duke of Bedford (hence the name) within his Bloomsbury Estate.

This was a time when London was expanding northwards and the fields, streams, ponds and footpaths that comprised the Bloomsbury Estate would soon be part of the built city, however it would be a unique area due to the number of large squares which provided open, green space for the occupants of the new houses to enjoy.

The following extract shows the area as it was not long before the development of Bedford Square. This is from Rocque’s map of 1746 and I have marked the future location of Bedford Square with the red rectangle, and much of the approximately 112 acres of the Bloomsbury Estate then open space:

The yellow rectangle is around Montague House, the future site of the British Museum.

Plots of land around Bedford Square were leased by the architect Thomas Leverton and builders, Robert Crews and William Scott.

it is believed that Thomas Leverton was responsible for the overall plan of the buildings lining the four sides of the square, although there is no firm evidence to support this.

Thomas Leverton was the son of the builder Lancelot Leverton who was based in Woodford, Essex.

He seems to have designed a number of country houses, and where there is firm evidence of his connection with Bedford Square is with number 13 where he worked on the interior of the building and lived in the house from 1796 until his death in 1824.

Each of the sides of the square has the same basic design, which was intended to emulate the appearance of a large country house, with the central building decorated with stucco, along with pilasters and pediments.

The “wings” of this central house are the row of brick terrace houses on either side of the central house and that run to the corners of the square:

The above photo is of the northern side of the square and the photo below is of the eastern side. The overall design is the same however there are subtle differences, for example the central house on the north side has six bays, whilst that on the eastern side has five:

This seems to be down to the fact that the square is not really a square, rather a rectangle with the north and south sides being 520 feet long whilst the east and west are 320 feet.

To show how little Bedford Square has changed, the following print from 1851 is of the same view as the above photo:

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

The only things that have changed is the replacement of coach and horses by cars, wider paving and the amount of street furniture we see today.

The remarkable preservation of the houses in Bedford Square appears to be due to the way that the Bedford Estate has managed the square since its original construction.

Steen Eiler Rasmussen writing in “London: The Unique City” (1948 edition) gives a fascinating insight into how this worked.

The original land was leased as a number of lots where a house would be built, and for the first 99 year lease, the annual ground rent was £3 for each lot.

After 99 years, the Bedford Estate than became the owner of not only the ground, but also the house that had been built on the land, and it was then leased for an additional period for a new annual sum that reflected both the land and the house, so by the end of the 99 years of the first leasing period, houses were then leased at different values to reflect the type, design and condition of the house on the land.

After the first 99 years, as well as different financial values, the leases were also for different periods, between twenty and fifty years. This seems to have been based on the work that the new leaseholder was planning to put into the building, so a leaseholder making a considerable investment on repairs, rebuilding and improvements would have a longer lease period.

One of the benefits to the Bedford Estate of then having leases expire at different times was that it avoided the risk of the leases for all the houses surrounding the square being renewed, for example, during a period of financial depression and low demand, when lease values would have been reduced.

It also means that any plans for radical change across the square are difficult, as the leases all expire at different times, and so the leases that make up a large block of land would not all become available at the same time.

I have no idea whether the Bedford Estate still takes this approach, however it does help explain why the houses in Bedford Square have externally hardly changed since their original build.

Although the external appearance has hardly changed, the interior of the houses on Bedford Square may be very different, reflecting the changes that have taken place over the last few centuries. Different uses, different types of owner, all would have left their mark on the interior.

There are also subtle different to the external façade of the houses, for example, this end of terrace house has a metal veranda structure above the balcony that runs the full width of the house:

From the street, these houses look relatively narrow, however clever design results in a sizeable interior.

The following plan from the book London: The Unique City shows the layout of a typical house in Bedford Square:

Despite the narrow front facing onto the square, each house does extend a fair way back, with both the basement and the ground floors extending some distance, and storage areas which would have held consumables such as coal, extending underneath the pavement from the basement.

On the north east corner of Bedford Square, the house in the photo below has street signs indicating that it is at the corner of Gower Street and Montague Place:

However below the signs for these two streets are these much older signs indicating a Bedford Square address:

Much of the decoration around the doors of the houses is of Coade Stone, which was made in the factory owned by Eleanor Coade on the south bank of the river, just to the west of the Royal Festival Hall, and in the following photo Coade stone alternates with brick around the main entrances to the house:

As could probably be expected for a location such as Bedford Square, there are a large number of blue plaques on the houses. On the house in the above photo is an English Heritage plaque to Sir Harry Ricardo:

As stated on the plaque, Sir Harry Ricardo was a Mechanical Engineer, and much of his work was centred around the development of the internal combustion engine for both vehicles and aircraft, and his work contributed to the outcome of the First World War as he developed the engines that were used by the tanks on the battlefield.

And if you fill up a car with petrol, and check the octane rating of the petrol, that is also down to Sir Harry Ricardo as his work on the chemical composition of fuels resulted in the octane classification system

The company he founded is still going strong, and is still named Ricardo, and is based at Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex.

The large central houses on the north and south sides of the square have six window bays, and two large entrances:

Whilst those in the centre of the other two sides, have five window bays, and a single entrance from the street:

To the right of the entrance to the building in the above photo, a London County Coucil blue plaque record that Lord Eldon (1751 – 1838), Lord Chancellor, lived in the house.

He does not appear to have been very popular in the role of Lord Chancellor as the following is typical of the obituaries that were published after his death;

“For five-and-twenty years Lord Eldon held possession of the woolsack. Here was a position and a power of doing good in the hands of any man honestly disposed towards his country. For a quarter of a century he had absolute authority over the very stronghold of legal corruption – over the crying grievance of the nation – over the engine which broke the happiness, destroyed the fortunes, and wore away even the lives, of no small portion of his fellow men.

What did Lord Eldon do? Did he make one effort to palliate the evil? Did he, in a single instance, exert his power to rescue its victims? Did he, by one gesture, encourage those who were labouring day and night to work out the reformation he could at once have accomplished?

No. Lord Eldon was their bitterest, their most determined foe. He exerted his mighty power, in his court, in the cabinet, and in the closet, to stifle all enquiry, to destroy all opposition, to render hopeless every effort for amendment. He threw his protection over every harpy which fattened upon the corruption of his court, and verily they flourished.”

He also does not appear to have been that popular with his daughter, as she eloped with G S Repton, who was the son of Humphry Repton, the designer of the gardens in nearby Bloomsbury and Russell Squares.

View along the western side of Bedford Square:

The above photo shows that there are subtle differences to the apparent identical design of the houses in the terrace. Look at the decoration around the entrances, and the central two have solid white stone decoration, whilst the outer two have a mix of white Coade stone and the same brick as the rest of the house.

The central gardens are private, and are for the residents of the square.

As well as the majority of the surrounding houses being listed, these gardens are also Grade II* listed.

They have not changed that much since originally being set out. The shrubbery around the perimeter of the gardens appear to be a long standing feature. In the 19th century, paths across the grass were removed.

There was limited damage to the square during the last war, with a single house in the southern side of the square damaged, along with the houses in the south east corner.

The shrubbery limits the views across the gardens, but glimpses are available as shown in the following photo:

Another Bedford Square blue plaque on the house in the photo below:

This plaque is a perfect example of the range and diversity of people who have passed through London over the centuries.

The plaque records that Ram Mohun Roy, Indian reformer and Scholar lived in the house.

Ram Mohun Roy was born in Radhanagar, Bengal, India, in 1772. Although a Hindu, Roy studied all the religions he could find in India. He wrote and campaigned against religious superstition, and the caste system.

He was the founder of two of India’s earliest newspapers, but after the British imposed censorship of the Calcutta press in the 1820s, he started to campaign for freedom of speech, and became more involved in social reform.

He had come into contact with the East India Company, working as a translator as well as an assistant to East India Company staff.

in 1830, Roy came to England. An ex-emperor of Delhi had made Roy his ambassador so that he could plead the emperor’s cause with the authorities of the East India Company.

He was well received in London society (no doubt a Bedford Square address helped), and addressed the Unitarians (a dissenting Christian approach, where members follow their own beliefs rather than the doctrine of the Church of England). The Unitarians are still based in Essex Street off the Strand, where their first meeting was held in 1774, so it was probably here that Roy made his address.

He did not return to India, but died in Bristol during a visit at the invitation of Unitarian friends, and is now buried at Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol.

On an adjacent house is a green plaque:

Recording that the Bedford College for Women, the University of London was founded in the house in 1849 by Elizabeth Jesser Reid.

There is a connection between Ram Mohun Roy and Elizabeth Jesser Reid, as she was the daughter of a wealthy Unitarian ironmonger and was born in 1789. She married Dr. John Reid, a nonconformist, and in 1849 she founded the Ladies College or College for Women, using her Unitarian and Bloomsbury connections to gather support, and to get teaching staff and professors to teach at the college.

The College was the first higher education establishment for women in the country.

It would stay in Bedford Square to 1874, when the lease came up for renewal. The Bedford Estate did not want to renew the lease with the college, so the college moved to larger premises near Baker Street.

Yet another blue plaque:

This one to an architect, William Butterfield.

Born in London in 1814, Butterfield trained as an architect and established his own architectural practice in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, before moving to the Adelphi.

He was involved with the study of Gothic Architecture, and the Victorian revival of religious architecture. This resulted in a considerable amount of work on churches and their associated building both in London and across the country.

William Butterfield died in his house in Bedford Square on the 23rd of February, 1900.

That is just a sample of the plaques to be found in Bedford Square.

Today, Bedford Square is home to a number of cultural institutions, including Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Yale University Press, and the New College for Humanities.

Bedford Square is one of those rare places in London, where, if you took away all the cars, a resident from the late 18th century, just after the square was completed, could return today and externally, the square would be perfectly recognisable.

It is also interesting to consider that whilst there is so much change across London, and there have been multiple different buildings on sites across much of London, when we stand in Bedford Square, we are looking at the only houses that have been built here, since the land was fields.

It is a lovely example of architecture and street planning.

alondoninheritance.com

Tavistock Square

21 Replies

I have a new walk available – The Lost Landscape and Transformation of Puddle Dock and Thames Street – For details and booking, click here.

Tavistock Square is one of the many open spaces in Bloomsbury, built during the development of land owned by the Dukes of Bedford as London expanded north from the mid 18th to the early 19th centuries.

I have marked Tavistock Square with a red rectangle in the following map:

The name comes from the Duke of Bedford’s second title, the Marquis of Tavistock, a title created in 1694, and named after the grant of land belonging to Tavistock Abbey to the family.

As can be seen from the above map, Tavistock Square is one of a number of open spaces in a built up area. The Euston Road is just to the north, and the A4200 runs along the eastern side of the square, a busy road that carries traffic between the Euston Road and Holborn.

Euston Station is a short walk to the north.

Standing in places such as Tavistock Square today it is hard to imagine that a couple of centuries ago (a relatively short period in the history of London), all this was fields and pasture on the northern boundary of the built city.

An area crossed by tracks and walkways across the fields, streams and ponds.

Rocque’s 1746 map of London shows the northern limits of the city. Queen Square had recently been built, along with Bedford House, and Montague House is located where the British Museum can be found today. I have marked the location of Tavistock Square with the red rectangle:

Russell Square would be built just north of where Bedford House is shown (Russell is the family name of the Dukes of Bedford / Marquis of Tavistock), and the family were major landowners across this part of London.

The Duke of Bedford and his landholdings featured in a map created in 1909 by William Bellinger Northrop and titled “Landlordism Causes Unemployment”.

Map from Cornell University – PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography and reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) Unported License

The aim of Northrop’s map was to show how “Landlordism” was strangling London, with large areas of the city being owned by the rich and powerful. Northrop claimed that the Duke of Bedford owned 250 acres, and that this estate produced an annual rent of £2,250,000.

Northrop claimed that Landlordism:

Paralyses the building trade;
It Pauperises the Peasantry;
12 Landlords “own” (?) London, taking £20,000,000;
500 Peers “own” (?) and entire one-third of England;
4,000 Landlords “own” (?) and entire half of England:
the Land Octopus Sucks the Lifeblood of the People.

In many ways, this has not changed that much across the country, although in many instances the landed aristocracy has been replaced with very wealthy individuals, foreign investment, often state owned companies, and private development companies.

Tavistock Square was laid out in the late 18th century, and a terrace of houses along the eastern side of the square had been completed in 1803. These are believed to have been built by James Burton, a prolific London builder, and perhaps one of the most important since Nicholas Barbon.

The houses built by Burton in Tavistock Square had an unusual feature, where the staircase was configured to rise towards the front door, so when you went upstairs, you were walking towards the front of the house, with a landing at the front of the house, and the main rooms towards the rear, looking on small gardens at the rear of the houses, rather than the square.

These houses were demolished in 1938.

The following photo was taken from the southern part of the central gardens, looking north:

On the south west corner of the central gardens, we find Virginia Woolf:

Virginia Woolf, the writer, lived in Tavistock Square between 1924 and 1939, in a house along the southern side of the square, which was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War, indeed there was a considerable amount of bomb damage around Bloomsbury, which explains why many of these squares, and some of the surrounding streets, have lost their original terraces of houses, and why you often find a post-war building in the middle of an early 19th century terrace.

In the south east corner of the gardens, is a memorial to Louisa Brandreth Aldrich-Blake (1865 to 1925):

Louisa Aldrich-Blake was a pioneering surgeon, from a time when it was difficult for women to have such roles in the medical profession. She was Dean of the London School of Medicine between 1914 and 1925, a Consulting Surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital between 1919 and 1925, and a Surgeon to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital between 1895 and 1925.

The memorial dates from 1926, and the base, seating and plinth were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, with the bust of Louisa Aldrich-Blake being by the sculptor A. G. Walker.

The monuments to two pioneering women sets the tone for the rest of the gardens, as they contain different memorials to the normal London square, and there is not an aristocrat in sight.

Walking along the central path in the gardens, to the north, and there is a Maple Tree which was planted in 1986 by the League of Jewish Women:

In the centre of the square is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, the lawyer and campaigner for India’s freedom from British rule:

The memorial looks recent, but dates from 1968, and was unveiled by Prime Minister Harold Wilson in May of that year. It is Grade II listed, with a base of Portland Stone, with the bronze figure of Ghandi by the sculptor Fredda Brilliant.

The relevance of Tavistock Square to Gandhi is that he attended University College London in Bloomsbury where he studied English literature, and also learning law at the Inner Temple.

Ghandhi’s approach to non-violent protest is reflected in many of the memorials in Tavistock Square, such as the International Year of Peace shown above, and also with another tree, the Friendship Tree planted in 1997 by the High Commissioner for India:

And another tree was planted in 1967 in memory of the victims of the atomic bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima in Japan:

At the northern end of the gardens is a large stone memorial which dates from 1994 and is to Conscientious Objectors, “To all those who have established and are maintaining the right to refuse to kill“:

The Tavistock Hotel is a large, red brick building, that occupies the whole southern part of the square:

The space occupied by the hotel was originally a run of terrace houses. but these were badly damaged during the war. The remains of these buildings were demolished, and the Tavistock Hotel was built in 1951, and became the first hotel built in London after the war.

One of the houses that once occupied the site, was the one where Virginia Woolf and her husband lived whilst in Tavistock Square, and to the side of the entrance to the hotel there is a plaque recording her residence on the site:

All sides of Tavistock Square suffered bomb damage, with the southern, eastern and northern sides being completely rebuilt.

The western side of the street suffered bomb damage at the ends of the long terrace, leaving the majority of the terrace undamaged:

This lovely stretch of terrace houses was completed in 1824, and were built by Thomas Cubitt. Although Burton’s terrace on the eastern side of the square were demolished long ago, they were described as being inferior to Cubitt’s terrace, and the terrace is well built, with a pleasing symmetry along the length of the terrace, which is in an Italianate style, with Ionic columns in rows of four, running the height of the terrace from above the ground floor to the balustrade and roof line.

A number of the houses in the terrace are Grade II listed.

Although the terrace looks as if it is comprised of individual terrace houses, the terrace is owned by the University of London and University College of London, and the interiors have been modified and combined to accommodate this new use.

Along the terrace, at number 33, is a plaque between the two ground floor windows:

The plaque records that Ali Mohammed Abbas lived in a flat in the house between 1945 and 1979.

Abbas arrived in London from India in 1945 to study law and became a Barrister. Following the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan on the 14th of August 1947, Abbas used his flat as an unofficial Pakistan Embassy until the new country set up a full embassy in London.

After Pakistan became an independent country, Abbas remained in London and continued work as a barrister. He also helped set up twenty eight schools all over the country to help Pakistanis who had arrived in the country, speak, read and write in English.

The house in Tavistock Square was his home until his death in 1979.

At the north western corner of the square is another red brick / Portland stone building – Tavistock Court:

Tavistock Court is an apartment block, built between 1934 and 1935. It did suffer some light damage during the war, but this was repaired, and the building today looks impressive in the sun, hopefully as the original architect intended.

Next to Tavistock Court, along the north side of Tavistock Square is Woburn House:

This a post war building, due to bomb damage to the building originally on the site.

The building is owned by Universities UK, the organisation that represents 140 member universities across the UK, and is another example of the concentration of educational establishments across this part of Bloomsbury.

There are two plaques on the corner of the building which can just be seen in the above photo. The one on the left is to Otto Schiff, who was the founder and director of the Jewish Refugees Committee, which was based in a pre-war building on the site:

Otto Schiff and the Jewish Refugees Committee were responsible for persuading the Government to allow Jewish refugees to enter the country, and that they would be funded by Jewish organizations, charities and individuals. The committee also helped with the travel arrangements of transporting refugees from Germany to the UK, and their housing and general support after they had arrived.

The plaque illustrates the dreadful impact on the Jewish population of Europe before and during the second World War, and the second plaque on the corner of the building illustrates another way the war impacted London:

There was a significant amount of bomb damage around Bloomsbury. Whether this was trying to target the railway stations along the Euston Road, or just the indiscriminate bombing of London, I do not know, but the plaque does provide a reminder of those in the fire service across the City.

The Auxiliary Fire Service was formed in January 1938 to provide a large uplift in the number of fire fighters to assist the full time fire service. Those who staffed the Auxiliary Fire Service were usually those who were too young or too old for service in the armed forces,

Although being an auxiliary force, they faced the same dangers as the main force, and Stanley and Harry were two of the 327 fire fighters who lost their lives across London during the war.

Standing next to Woburn House, and looking at the north east corner of Tavistock Square, we can see the northern part of the buildings of the British Medical Association:

The rest of the BMA building is shown in the following photo taken from the gardens at the centre of Tavistock Square:

BMA House is an impressive building, and the organisation have occupied the building since 1923 when they purchased the lease. The BMA had originally been based in the Strand.

BMA House was originally designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens for a very different organisation, the Theosophical Society, as the future site for their offices and temple. Construction started in 1913, however the First World War intervened and the parts of the building that had been completed were taken over by the Army Pay Office.

When the war ended, the Theosophical Society appears to have run out of funds to complete construction, and the site was taken over by the BMA. The Theosophical Society are still based in London, but at much smaller premises at 50 Gloucester Place.

Sir Edwin Lutyens was reemployed to complete parts of the building and the interior, and to finish the overall site, Cyril Wontner Smith completed the central entrance from Tavistock Square between 1928 and 1929, and Douglas Wood worked on extensions to the overall building between 1938 and 1960.

The building is Grade II listed.

There is another plaque on the BMA building, recording that Charles Dickens lived in a house near the site of the plaque between 1851 and 1860, his last London home before moving to Gads Hill in Kent.:

So there is much to discover in Tavistock Square, where just over 220 years ago there were just fields.

alondoninheritance.com

Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the Rye House Plot

18 Replies

The first of my walks “The South Bank – Marsh, Industry, Culture and the Festival of Britain” for 2023 is now available. Details and booking on this link.

Turn south from Holborn, or east from Kingsway, away from these busy streets, and through some side streets you will find Lincoln’s Inn Fields:

Lincoln’s Inn Fields is a wonderful open space, and was looking good during my visit on a sunny spring day. Immediately to the west of Lincoln’s Inn, after which the space takes its name, it has been an open space for a considerable time.

View looking to the east with the buildings of Lincoln’s Inn on the eastern border:

In the 1561 Agas map of London, the area now occupied by Lincoln’s Inn Fields was still open space. Although it is very difficult to be precise about the location on the Agas map, due to the accuracy of the map, perspective and scale, it is possible to roughly locate the position by comparing with other streets, which I have marked in the following extract with the yellow oval showing the very rough location of what would become Lincoln’s Inn Fields:

The map shows footpaths across the fields, limited building to the north along Holborn, and the building and gardens that then lined the length of the Strand.

The fields were named Cup Field and Purse Field and at the time of the Agas map, they were pasture lands owned by the Crown.

Lincoln’s Inn were concerned about the growth of the city around their buildings and objected to any building on the two fields. In the 1630s, the fields were sold to William Newton of Bedfordshire. He managed to reach an agreement to start the building of houses with Lincoln’s Inn and also secured a royal licence to develop the land.

These agreements included leaving the area that is now Lincoln’s Inn Fields as an open space, to the west of Lincoln’s Inn, and by 1660, Lincoln’s Inn Fields was in existence as an open space, and was surrounded by buildings on three sides:

The map shows that on the north and south sides of the Fields, the streets had not been fully completed with housing lining just part of the boundary.

The map also shows that in 1660 there was an area of open space at the south east corner called Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

The west side of the space had started to be developed in 1638, and development of the north and south sides started in 1657 when Sir William Cowper, James Cowper and Robert Henley purchased Cup Field. This was just three years before the date of the above map, which explains the partial development of the north and south sides of the fields.

The new owners also had the open space leveled, grassed over, trees planted, and gravel walks laid out. Again, the outline of these can be seen in the 1660 map, and the design was apparently the work of Inigo Jones.

Although the intention must have been to create a pleasant open space for the owners of the new houses along the edge of the fields, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Lincoln’s Inn Fields did suffer from crime and much anti-social behaviour.

For example, from the Kentish Weekly Post on the 23rd of February 1732: “At night, one Mr. Henshaw, of Gray’s Inn, returning home over Lincoln’s Inn Fields, was attacked by two Street Robbers, who took from him 3 Guineas and a Half, 4 Shillings in Silver, and a Gold Headed Cane; a Light appearing at a Distance, they made off and he had the Fortune to save his Gold Watch.”

The comment about the light appearing at a distance shows just how dark places such as Lincoln’s Inn Fields must have been, without the level of street and general lighting we have now. There would have been no lights across the field, and any lights from the surrounding houses would have been very dim.

Whilst these crimes must have had a terrible impact on the victim, the sentences on those who carried out the crime were often very severe, as indicated by this report from 1733: “George Richardson, John Smithson and Laurence Grace, who were executed at Tyburn on Saturday last, for robbing a Gentleman in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, of his Hat, Wig, and Half a Guineas.”

The same newspaper report also stated that in the same sessions at the Old Bailey which had condemned the three from Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Francis Corcher received the death sentence for robbing an Agate Snuff-Box set in Gold, and of a separate robbery of a Gold Watch and 5 shillings in Hyde Park.

The fields were known as “the head-quarters of beggars by day and of robbers at night”, and there were “idle gangs of vagrants” who went by the names of the “Mumpers and Rufflers”.

A number of those convicted of theft were executed in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in the 17th century.

To try and address the level of crime in the fields, in 1734 the residents applied to Parliament for an Act which would allow them to raise a rate on the residents surrounding the fields, and this would be used to enclose the square, provide keys for the residents only, pay for watchman and a “scavenger” who would ensure the fields and surrounding streets were kept clean.

The railings were put up around the square in 1735.

By 1755, development of the north and south sides had been completed, joining the houses along the west of the fields. To the east of the fields, the land was part of Lincoln’s Inn, and the “Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields” shown in the 1660 map had been built over, as shown in the following parish map:

Today, the streets surrounding the central space also go by the name of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, however back in 1766 they had individual names: Newmans Row, The Arch Row, Portugal Row and Lincoln’s Inn Wall.

Newmans Row remains as a short street from the north east corner of the fields up to the alley that leads to High Holborn.

Lincoln’s Inn Wall describes the wall to the east of the street, separating off Lincoln’s Inn.

The Arch Row and Portugal Row also have interesting stories to tell about their naming, but I will leave these to a future post, as I run out of time within the constraints of a weekly post.

The following map shows the area today, with Holborn to the north, Kingsway to the west and Lincoln’s Inn to the east (Map © OpenStreetMap contributors):

Walking from the south, into Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and there is a shelter in the centre of the space:

In the middle of the shelter, there is a plaque on the floor, recording that “Near this spot was beheaded William Lord Russell a lover of Constitutional Liberty 21 July AD 1683”:

Surprising that such an execution took place in Lincoln’s Inn fields, however I have read that in central London, you are never further than around 500 yards from a place of execution. It would be interesting to test this out.

Who was William Lord Russell and why was he executed?

He was born on the 29th of September 1639 as the second son of Sir William Russell, the 5th Earl of Bedford.

He became an MP after standing for the family borough of Tavistock at the general election of 1660. His Parliamentary records state that he was a rather inactive member, only being a member of two committees, one looking at the drainage of the fens, and the other looking at turning the Covent Garden precinct into a parish. He would have had an interest in Covent Garden as his father owned much of the land.

Although he was member for Tavistock, apparently he never visited the town.

William Lord Russell was a Whig – a political party / faction that opposed the principle of absolute monarchy and of Catholic emancipation. Whigs were supporters of the primacy of Parliament.

His work in Parliament did increase, with more activity within various committees and debates, and he also became the member for both Bedfordshire and Hampshire. Even with the election standards of the time, it was rare for a member of Parliament to represent two counties, and he eventually settled for just Bedfordshire.

William Lord Russell (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

It was his views on Catholicism and the Crown that would lead to his death sentence.

Charles II was on the throne, however on his death it was expected that James, the second surviving son of Charles I would become King.

James was a Catholic, and a grouping within the Whigs were strongly opposed that a Catholic could become King, and that as James had a son, it would be the start of a Catholic line of monarchs.

This opposition by the Whigs led to the Rye House plot, which was a plot to murder Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York when they returned from Newmarket to London in March 1683.

The name of the plot comes from the building in which some of the plotters met, and where the King was expected to pass at the time of the attempted assassination. Rye House was near Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire. Following the assassination, an uprising in London was planned.

There was very flimsy evidence as to the seriousness of the plot, who was involved, and whether it would have succeeded. Apparently Charles II returned to London earlier than planned which was the story put about to explain the failure of the plot.

Despite limited evidence and whether or not the plotters would have gone through with their plans, Charles II wanted everyone involved with the plot aggressively caught, tried and punished. This seems to have been due to Charles II determination to destroy Whig opposition in revenge following Whig efforts to exclude his brother James from the line of succession.

William Lord Russell was one of those caught up in the conspiracy. He was put on trial, where he would admit only that he had not given information about one of the conspirators, rather than having been an active participant in the plot.

The following print shows the trial of William Lord Russell. He is standing at the witness stand on the right. His wife is at the small table in front of him, taking notes and looking up at her husband (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

Despite his protestations of limited involvement in the plot, and that it does not seemed to have been a well planned activity, he was sentenced to death.

Print from 1796 showing William Lord Russell’s last interview with his family (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

A number of pamphlets were published at the time, about the Rye House Plot, and the fate of the alleged conspirators. One of these graphically shows some of their fates (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

The images at the top show the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who was known to be one of the leading conspirators against a Catholic succession if Charles II died, and the spiritual leader of the Rye House plot. When the king had been ill, Shaftesbury had already convened a number of people sympathetic to the cause to discuss what should be done when the King died, and that an uprising should take place to enable Parliament to make the decision on the succession.

Shaftesbury’s attitudes to Charles II and his brother James led to him fleeing the country to the Netherlands at the end of 1682, however the journey had an impact on his health and he died in Amsterdam on the 21st of January 1683.

At lower left is Arthur, Earl of Essex who committed suicide in the Tower of London by cutting his throat. The two figures are saying that he murdered himself of horrid guilt.

The next panel to the right is showing Thomas Walcott and John Rousee being executed at Tyburn (I cannot tie down the second name to one of those executed at Tyburn). They were sentenced to be hung drawn and quartered, and the lower drawing showing “the heart of a traitor”.

To the right is a drawing showing a mouse and a frog arguing whilst a kite descends on both. The text reads:

“The Frog and Mouse at variance which shall be king. The Kite destroyed both. The Morall. So Factious Men Conspiring do Contend. But Hasten their own Ruin in the End.”

Then there is a drawing of William Lord Russell’s execution at Lincolns Inn Fields, and finally at lower right “September, 9th next to be observed as a day of Thanksgiving throughout all England.”

The drawings show only a small proportion of those executed, imprisoned or exiled in what was a very revengeful approach to sentencing. It took two strokes of the executioners axe to kill William Lord Russell, however perhaps one of the worse examples is that of Elizabeth Gaunt.

Elizabeth and William Gaunt were London Whigs and were active in the dissenting politics of the time. In 1683 she was living in Old Gravel Lane, Wapping.

James Burton was alleged to have been present when the Rye House plot was being discussed. As a result, Burton had been outlawed, and Elizabeth helped him escape to the Netherlands, by providing him with money and a boat from Wapping to Gravesend, from where to took a boat to Amsterdam. You can imagine him sneaking down one of the Thames Stairs in Wapping, late at night, to make his escape.

Burton later returned to the country as part of the Monmouth rebellion. He was captured whilst again trying to escape to the Netherlands, and to avoid a death sentence, he gave evidence that Elizabeth Gaunt had helped him escape following the earlier plot.

Elizabeth Gaunt was tried, and sentenced to death by being burned at the stake at Tyburn. She was burnt to death on the 23rd of October 1685. Such was the vindictiveness against anyone involved, however remotely, in the plot, she was not strangled before being burnt, as was the usual custom.

James Burton was from then on known as someone who would incriminate anyone, even those who helped him, in an attempt to save his own life.

The sentences passed seem to have been to act as a deterrence to would be conspirators, and also to anyone who may help a conspirator.

Elizabeth Gaunt was the last woman to be executed for a political offence (© The Trustees of the British Museum).

Although the Rye House plot failed, the ultimate aim of the conspirators did succeed.

James did become King James II on the death of his brother, Charles II.

James II and his wife, Mary of Modena had a son, confirming fears that the country would have a Catholic line of kings. A group of Protestant Earls, Viscounts and a Bishop invited William of Orange to the country to take the crown. William was married to Mary, the daughter of James II.

This resulted in the Glorious Revolution, where William of Orange and Mary jointly reigned, James II fled to France, the threat of a Catholic succession was removed and England had a Protestant monarch – all the aims of the Rye House conspirators.

And today there is a reminder of the plot with a simple plaque on the floor of the shelter at Lincolns Inn Fields.

Looking along the northern side of the fields – hard to believe that this was the site of a number of executions:

The public were not allowed in the fields after the railings were put up in 1735, however by the middle of the 19th century there was public campaigning to open up the field – this being such a large area of green, open space in a very built-up part of the city.

The London County Council purchased the field in 1894 from the Trust that had been maintaining the fields, and they were opened up to the public. The railings were removed in 1941 due to the need for iron for wartime weapons manufacturing. A real shame as these were over 200 years old.

New railings were installed in the 1990s, and the fields also had a tennis and netball courts and putting green built in the south-western corner. The central shelter was also built, which at times has been used as a bandstand.

A neat row of bins line the path to the shelter:

As befits such a place, there are a couple of 19th century monuments around Lincoln’s Inn Fields, including this drinking fountain, with the following religious message around the upper part of the fountain “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life”:

Along the north of Lincoln’s Inn Fields is the house and now museum of Sir John Soane:

Sir John Soane, who was the architect of the Bank of England, moved into Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1794, having rebuilt the house which he had purchased a couple of years earlier.

He eventually acquired numbers 12 to 14, the three houses in the above photo with the same darker grey brick and architectural style, although Soane added the façade to number 13, the central house which he completed, along with a rebuild in 1813.

Sir John Soane’s house at it appeared in 1836 (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

Soane was a collector, and during his life he amassed a very large collection of sculpture, furniture, antiquities and paintings.

He died in 1837, and following an Act of Parliament he had obtained in 1833, the house and his collection was held in a trust, and opened to the public as a museum, which continues to this day, with many of the exhibits being as organised by Sir John Soane.

Along the western side is Lincoln’s Inn:

With the gateway into this side of Lincoln’s Inn. Both the above and below buildings are not that old, but I will save these for a future post on Lincoln’s Inn.

Another 19th century drinking fountain at the opposite corner of the fields to the first. This one is in memory of Philip Twells, who was a Barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, as well as being the MP for the City of London.

On the south eastern corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields is this fine building. Once the home of the Land Registry, it is now part of the London School of Economics:

Also along the south side of the fields is the building of the Royal College of Surgeons:

The Royal College of Surgeons received their new Royal Charter in 1800, and built their new home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The building was bombed during the last war and was rebuilt, so is not fully an original.

The following print, dated 1813, shows the view along the southern side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields and shows how the post war rebuild of the Royal College of Surgeons building included additional floors at the top of the building (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

The same view today, where the horse and carriage has been replaced by cars, vans and bikes:

Almost all the buildings of Lincoln’s Inn Fields have been rebuilt since the original construction around the fields. There is one building that dates from the very first period of building, and this is Lindsey House, which was built between 1640 and 1641 (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

Lindsey House looks very much the same today:

Lindsey House has been attributed to Inigo Jones, however there is no firm evidence from the time to confirm this, but the style is typical of Jones’ work.

Whilst the exterior has changed little since construction in the mid 17th century, the interior is very different as in 1752 the house was divided in to two, and this work incolved the loss of much of the interior.

I had planned to cover more about the buildings that line Lincoln’s Inn Fields, however, as usual, I ran out of time. It is a lovely place to be on a sunny spring or summer day, and there is much to discover, including the simple plaque on the floor of the shelter, a plaque which hints at the politics and religious conflicts of the 17th century, and how vindictive the state could be to those who it considered a threat.

alondoninheritance.com

The Changing Face of Leicester Square

26 Replies

Leicester Square, along with Piccadilly Circus, are probably the best known locations in London’s west end. A hub of entertainment, hotels and the shops of global brands. Both major destinations for tourists, they are busy places during the day, and late into the night, however Leicester Square started off as a very different place. Part of London’s westward expansion, large houses, terrace houses and ornamental squares.

In the 16th century, this part of west London was all fields. Development of the square, and the source of its name, would come between 1632 and 1636 with the construction of Leicester House, on the northern side of where the square is located today, but at the time the house was built, it was surrounded by fields.

The house was built by Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, so as with so many parts of London’s expansion over the last centuries, the square has taken its name from the original aristocratic owner of part of the land, and initial developer.

Formation of the square, and building of houses along the sides of the square came in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and by 1755 the square was developed as shown in the following map, where the square was then known as Leicester Fields, a name from when Leicester House was the only building in the area.

In the above map, Leicester House can be seen on the northern side of the square, with a large courtyard to the front of the house, and gardens to the rear. The fields surrounding Leicester House have been buried under the building of the early 18th century.

Leicester House can be seen set back from the street on the northern side of the square, and the sides of the square have been developed with the standard terrace housing of early 18th century London.

The central square has been laid out with formal gardens of grass and trees, with paths, and a tree in the centre of the square. This would be replaced with a statue of George I in 1747.

A close-up look at Leicester House shows a horse and coach at the front of the house, along with small groups of people who appear to be holding poles of some type, or perhaps rifles. Large gates protect the house from the street, and there are gardens, stables and outbuildings to the rear:

Leicester House went through a number of different residents, and perhaps the most important was the Prince of Wales who would later become George ll. He had been thrown out of the royal apartments at St. James’s Palace following an argument with his father, King George I, and moved in at the end of 1717.

George I died on the 11th of June, 1727. The Prince of Wales was away from London, but returned quickly to his home at Leicester House, and he was proclaimed King at the gates to his house – the only time that a new King or Queen has been proclaimed in what is now Leicester Square.

The King stayed in Leicester House until the end of 1727, whilst St. James Palace was being prepared for him.

Leicester Square’s first experience as a place of exhibitions and entertainment seems to have been in 1774, when the naturalist Ashton Lever took over Leicester House and turned it into a museum, to house and display his large collection of natural history objects.

The collection remained at Leicester House until Lever’s death in 1788, when it was then moved to the Rotunda in Blackfriars Road.

Thomas Waring, who had worked for Ashton Lever remained at the house until 1791, and it is Waring that offers a clue as to what the people were doing in the early print of the house, where there are people holding what appear to be poles in the courtyard.

Waring was a founder member of the Toxophilite (Archery) Society, and meetings were held at Leicester House, so perhaps those standing in the courtyard were archers with their bows.

Leicester House was demolished around 1791 and 1792.

Following the demolition of Leicester House, the square would rapidly become a destination for entertainments. One major building specifically for this purpose was Wyld’s Great Globe, open between 1851 and 1862.

Constructed in the square by the mapmaker and former Member of Parliament. James Wyld, the purpose of the Great Globe was to show visitors the wonders that could be found across the world, with models, maps and lectures.

A view of the Great Globe, before galleries were constructed at ground level, linking the main entrances, is shown in the following print (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

Wyld’s Great Globe was very popular and had very many paying customers. An impression of the educational approach of the Great Globe can be had from the following article in the London Sun on the 6th of June, 1854:

“WYLD’S GREAT GLOBE – Throughout the whole of yesterday, Mr. Wyld’s intelligent lecturer was unceasingly engaged in enlightening such of the public as sought here rather instruction than amusement, upon geographical features of the ‘Great Globe’, devoting, of course, as everybody now does, his chief attention to those parts which are rendered peculiarly interesting by the war with Russia. A brief summary of the Ottoman empire was very appropriately introduced, and served to place in a very clear light the momentous question which is now at issue,

The late discoveries in the Artic Regions likewise came in for a good share of notice; and the dry study of the globe itself, and of the various maps on the subject, was relieved by an inspection of a small, but valuable, collection of dresses, boats, and implements of war, of inhabitants of those unhospitable climes, and of birds and beasts which are found there. These articles are contained in a small anteroom which by clever illusion, is made to resemble a tent with the faint light which is only seen at the North Pole. The juvenile part of the visitors seemed to take an especial delight in examining the different objects in this little chamber.”

Although initially very successful, Wyld’s Great Globe suffered from local competition, and had to look at other forms of entertainment, and started to put on variety shows alongside the educational exhibitions and lectures.

One of the local competitors of Wyld’s was Burford’s Panorama which was located just north of the square, between Leicester Square and Lisle Street.

An idea of the panoramas available can be had from the following advert in the Illustrated London News on the 7th of June, 1851:

“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.”

The following section view shows the interior of Burford’s Panorama, with the views being exhibited on the walls of the circular building (© The Trustees of the British Museum).

Remarkably, the outline of Burford’s Panorama can still be seen today. On the 25th of March 1865, Father Charles Faure puchased 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. The church has an entrance on Leicester Place, but it is only from above that we can see the circular form of the church, on the site of Burford’s Panorama.

Click this link to go to an aerial Google view where the outline of the Panorama can clearly be seen.

Another competitor to the Wylde’s Great Globe and Burford’s Panorama was the Royal Panopticon of Science and Art, also built in Leicester Square (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

The Royal Panopticon of Science and Art opened on the 17th of March 1854, and held scientific and artistic displays and lectures. The Royal Panopticon was popular, often attracting up to 1,000 vistors a day, but did have problems from the day of opening. In their report after the opening, the owners wrote that:

“Since the opening of the institution, everything that had taken place out of doors militated against its success. First of all there was the war; next, the attractive novelty of Crystal Palace, and finally the cholera – all tending to keep the public from visiting the Panopticon, which, under all such disadvantages had nevertheless been successful to a degree greater than could have been anticipated by the council.”

I suspect the owners were being a bit optimistic in their report, as the Royal Panopticon only lasted two years, closing in 1856, when the building became the Alhambra Theatre of Variety, which can be seen in the following photo from 1896 as the large building with domes on the roof. This version of the Alhambra was of a slightly more simple design, having been a rebuild of the original building which was destroyed by fire in 1882.The brick building to the right is Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School, highlighting the different types of institution that have made Leicester Square their home.

The Alhambra Theatre of Variety seems to have offered a wide variety of entertainments. The following rather cryptic advert from the Westminster Gazette provides details of what was on offer during the evening of the 3rd of October, 1893:

“Alhambra Theatre of Varieties – Open 7:30 – At 8:40 the Grand Ballet, FIDELIA. And at 10.30 CHICAGO, Grais’s Marvelous Baboon and Donkey (first appearance in England), Thora, the Poluskis, R.H. Douglas, The Three Castles, the Agoust Family, and the TILLEY SISTERS &c.”

The Poluskis were the Poluski Brothers, Will and Sam who were born in Limehouse and Shadwell. There is a recording of their act in 1911 online here.

The Agoust family were a family of jugglers and there is a video of their act here.

The type of variety acts that the Alhambra specialised in started to decline in popularity after the First World War. During the 1920s, the cinema began to capture the imagination of those looking for a night out in London, and in 1936 the Alhambra was demolished, to be replaced with the Odeon Cinema, which can still be found on Leicester Square.

Another current cinema which followed a similar path is the Empire Cinema on the northern side of Leicester Square. Originally built as a variety theatre in 1884, the theatre started showing film in 1896, and over the following years started to offer a mix of live performance along with short films.

As with the Alhambra, variety theatre dropped in popularity during the 1920s, and in 1927 the majority of the Empire Theatre was demolished, and rebuilt as the Empire Cinema. The cinema has had a number of major upgrades over the years and it is still open as a cinema today.

The following photo from the 1920s shows the Empire on the left, on a damp night in Leicester Square.

A view across the central square to the northern side of Leicester Square in the early years of the 20th century:

That was a very quick run through of the history of Leicester Square. From the site of an aristicratic house surrounded by fields, to a typical London 18th century square surrounded by fine houses, which then became the site of 19th century entertainments, which have continued into the 20th and 21st centuries, with only really technology changes that have resulted in film replacing panoramas and variety theatre as the popular source of entertainment.

Time for a walk around the square. The view from the north-east corner:

On the north-east corner of Leicester Square is Burger King, housed in a rather impressive building.

The building was originally the Samuel Whitbread pub, opened in December 1958, and was Whitbread’s attempt at reviving London’s post war pub trade. Designed by architects TP Bennett & Son, with four distinct interior spaces by designers Richard Lonsdale-Hands Associates.

The pub was very much a 1950s design, and during the 1960s it started to seem dated, and did not have the benefit of being a traditional London pub to help.

Whitbread sold it to Forte in 1970, who renamed it as the Inncenta, however by the late 1970s, the pub, along with much of Leicester Square was becoming rather squalid, and suffered from lack of investment.

The building may change again, as the owners, Soho Estates are looking to redevelop the building to make it more of a “destination” site in Leicester Square.

View of the north-east corner of Leicester Square:

The Empire Cinema on the north side of the square, showing how buildings on the square have continued to adapt, as the site now has an IMAX cinema as well as a casino.

The above photo was taken within the central square, and the following photo is looking towards the central statue.

The gardens of Leicester Square are today rather basic. Surrounding trees with grass on the outer sides of the square. The square has been used for a number of commercial activities that take over the square. for example, in pre-Covid days, there was a Christmas Market across the square in the weeks before Christmas.

The square though does have a secret, as below the square is a key part of the West Ends electricity distribution infrastructure.

Below the square is a large, multiple level, electricity substation. The substation basically takes high voltage feeds from the main distribution network, and “transforms” this high voltage down to the 240 volts that ends up in the sockets of local homes, businesses and shops.

Large devices called transformers perform this function, and earlier this year the third of three new transformers arrived at Leicester Square as part of an upgrade of the substation in order to support the increasing demand for electricity in the West End. The southern part of the square is still fenced off as part of this upgrade.

In the centre of square today, is a statue of William Shakespeare, with below an inscription that records that the square was purchased, laid out and decorated as a garden by Albert Grant, and conveyed by him to the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1874:

The Graphic on the 4th of July 1874 provides some more details on how and why this happened, after the demolition of Wyld’s Great Globe:

“Bit by bit the rusty iron railings were filched away, while the statue of King George II on horseback became a butt of practical jokers. On one occasion (and at considerable expense) some systematic wags bedaubed it with whitewash, and finally the horse and rider parted company, the latter lying prone in the mud. The old proverb that when matters come to their worst they must perforce mend. Leicester Square had attained its nadir when Sir George Jessel decreed that the freeholders were bound to restore the Square to its original state of respectability.

The freeholders were preparing to appeal this decision, the Board of Works were about to apply to Parliament for powers to purchase the site, when Mr. Albert Grant, MP for Kidderminster, appeared on the scene, and has since acquired the freeholder property. Mr. Grant resolved to make a most generous and patriotic use of his purchase, by laying out this hitherto desolate area as an open ornamental place, provided with walks, lawns and parterres of flowers. The whole of the works have been designed and completed under the superintendence of Mr. Knowles, the well-known architect; and on Thursday last Mr. Grant handed over this munificent present to the Metropolitan Board of Works, as trustees for the people of London.”

The statue of William Shakespeare dates from the 1874 restoration of the square by Albert Grant. It was sculpted in marble by Giovanni Fontana, and is modeled on Peter Scheemaker’s monument in Poets Corner at Westminster Abbey.

Shakespeare is pointing to the phrase, “there is no darkness but ignorance” which comes from the play “Twelfth Night”

View from the square towards the Odeon Cinema:

Leicester Square today is a major tourist destination, and therefore attracts major international brands. One such being Lego, who have a queuing system outside their store. This helps manage the numbers inside, but also enhances the image if you can show large queues wanting to get inside your store.

The view towards Piccadilly, with the Swiss glockenspiel, which was originally on the Swiss Centre, which was demolished in 2008. I have some photos of that which I still need to find and scan.

A hotel, and large store for M&Ms was built on the site of the Swiss Centre:

A recent addition to Leicester Square is a Greggs. Not a global brand, and I do find the thought of a Greggs in Leicester Square, alongside the flagship stores of Lego and M&Ms, rather amusing.

Around the square are various works of art that represent characters from films, including Gene Kelly in a scene from Singing in the Rain:

The west side of the square with an All-Bar-One and a McDonalds. Just visible is a plaque between the two buildings.

Which records that the portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds lived and died in a house on the site, as well as where numerous members of the aristocracy and society sat for Reynolds to have their portrait painted.

Reynolds was not the only artist who lived in Leicester Square. William Hogarth had his main home in the south-eastern corner of the square. This was his central London base, and his house in Chiswick was his country retreat.

The southern side of Leicester Square:

For many years there has been a theatre ticket centre on the southern side of the square, selling tickets for shows that evening, or the coming days.

The hoardings on the right in the above photo are screening off the work site where upgrades are being made to the electricity substation below the square.

The eastern side of the square:

The building on the right is the offices of Global Radio, the company that owns radio stations such as Capital Radio and LBC – the two original London commercial stations that have since morphed into national brands.

The TGI Fridays on the ground floor was once the Capital Radio Cafe, which, and speaking from experience, was a perfect venue for early teenage children’s birthday parties.

Between TGI Fridays and the Odeon cinema, is Leicester Square’s only pub, Wetherspoons The Moon Under Water:

The pub dates from around 1992. Number 28 was one of the original Leicester Square houses that was demolished towards the end of the 19th century, and, following the mid 19th century approach to have exhibitions for entertainment, housed the Museum National of Mechanical Arts.

In the 1930s, number 28 was the site of the “400 Club” which was known as the club for the upper classes and aristocracy, with Princess Margaret becoming a regular client of the club in the 1950s. The Tatler would often have reports of who was to be seen at the 400 Club, and would include photos of men in Dinner Jackets and women in expensive jewelry.

That was a very quick tour of the history of Leicester Square. A square that started off as one of London’s typical residential squares, with fine houses and a central square, although with the unusual feature of Leicester House to the north.

A square that has quickly evolved into one of London’s centres of entertainment, starting with panoramas and scientific displays and lectures, which then became a home for variety theatre and then London’s hub for cinema, and which is where the majority of major films have their UK premier.

In the coming week, The Last Heist premiers at the Vue cinema in Leicester Square on Wednesday the 2nd of November, followed by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever at Cineworld on Thursday the 3rd.

However popular entertainment evolves in the future, I am sure that Leicester Square will play some part in being London’s West End hub.

alondoninheritance.com

Fred Cleary and the Flowering City

16 Replies

The City of London has always been a busy and congested place. For centuries, gardens and green space were only to be found around the halls of the Livery Companies and the gardens of some of the larger houses owned by rich City merchants and well connected residents.

As trade, manufacturing and finance expanded within the City during the 19th century, open space was not treated with the some level of priority as buildings that served the commercial purposes of the City.

Significant destruction of buildings and damage to large areas of land during the war resulted in new thinking as to how reconstruction should take place. I have written about a couple of plans for the City such as the 1944 report on Post War Reconstruction of the City, and the 1951 publication, The City of London – A Record Of Destruction And Survival.

More green space, places for people to sit, and the planting of flowers was one of the initiatives pushed forward by Fred Cleary, and in 1969 he published a book about the new gardens in the City titled “The Flowering City”:

Fred Cleary was a Chartered Surveyor who worked for a City mortgage and investment company. He was also a longtime member of the City’s Court of Common Council, and according to the author information in the book was Chairman of the Trees, Gardens, and City Open Space Committee, and the Chairman of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association.

The aim of the book was to “record something of the considerable efforts made by the City Corporation who, supported by many business interests and voluntary bodies, have endeavoured to make the City of London one of the most colourful and attractive business centres in the world.”

Through his interests and his membership of a number of key City committees, Fred Cleary had a leading role in the post war development of many of the gardens across the City, and the book includes a map of some of these gardens, many of which feature in the book:

The book is full of photos of the first gardens to be created as the City reconstructed after the war. Many of these gardens still remain, although they have changed significantly over the years.

Originally, they had a rather formal layout with basic planting. Today, many City gardens are far more natural with lots of planting and almost a wild feel to some of the best.

What I think is the very latest City garden almost looks straight from the Chelsea flower show and has an incredible central water feature. I will come to this garden later in the post, but the first garden on a brief walk to some of the City gardens, was the one named after Fred Cleary.

Looking south, across Queen Victoria Street, and we can see the start of Cleary Gardens:

One of the entrances to Cleary Gardens from Queen Victoria Street:

A long brick pergola facing onto Queen Victoria Street with seating between each of the brick columns:

Many of the new post-war gardens were built on bomb sites, and Cleary Gardens occupies such a site. The land drops away to the south of Queen Victoria Street towards the Thames, so the gardens are tiered. Walk down to the middle tier and there is a small enclosed space:

At the end of the above space, there is a blue City plaque on the wall, commemorating Fred Cleary who was “Tireless in his wish to increase open space in the City”.

The remaining walls from the buildings that once occupied the site have been included in the structure and tiers of the gardens:

Cleary Garden was initially planted by a City worker in the 1940s and on the evening of the 26th July 1949, the garden was visited by the Queen (mother of the current Queen) who was on a tour of City and East London gardens.

The gardens were significantly remodeled in the 1980s and it was following this work that they were named after Fred Cleary who had died in 1984.

The lower tier of the gardens:

Huggin Hill forms the eastern border of the gardens. Excavations at the gardens, under Huggin Hill and under the building on the left have found the remains of a Roman bathhouse.

Fred Cleary argued not just for open gardens and green space, but also for more planting of flowers across the City, and an example of what he would have appreciated can also be found in Queen Victoria Street, outside Senator House, where the office block is set back from the street, and raised beds full of flowers have been built between building and street:

Almost all of the City gardens featured in Cleary’s book have been remodeled several times since their original construction, and those in the book look very different to the gardens we see today.

Hard to keep track with change in the City, but I think the very latest example of how gardens change are the recently reopened gardens on the corner of Cannon Street and New Change.

There have been gardens on the corner of these two City streets for many years. The gardens were last redesigned in 2000 based on a design by Elizabeth Banks Associates, however they recently reopened following another major redesign.

These gardens are in front of 25 Cannon Street, and Pembroke, the developers of the building included a transformation of the gardens by the landscape and garden design practice of Tom Stuart-Smith.

I must admit to being rather cynical of many new developments which are aligned to an office project. Too often they are a low cost bolt on, designed to make the planning process easier, however these new gardens are really rather good.

The key new feature at the centre of the gardens is a large reflection pool:

The pool was the work of water feature specialist Andrew Ewing. The water in this pool is very still (although it does appear to be flowing over the internal edge), and is positioned to provide some brilliant reflections of St Paul’s Cathedral:

The outer wall of the pool provides seating, and the surrounding gardens are planted to such an extent that the traffic on the surrounding streets is effectively hidden.

Although good for taking photos, I was surprised that on a warm and sunny June day, very few people walked through the garden or used the seating. Not easy to see the central pool from outside the garden, but it is very much worth a visit.

View across the central pool to the buildings of One New Change – the mature trees from the previous development have been retained, and the central layout and smaller planting is new:

Possibly one of the reasons why the above gardens were so quiet is the large amount of open space and gardens across the road around the south side of St Paul’s Cathedral.

These gardens were all part of the late 1940s / early 1950s development of new green / garden space, but have become more planted since.

The garden’s in the 1960s were rather basic green space, as shown in the following photo from The Flowering City:

The office blocks in the above photo have long been replaced, and the only recognisable feature in the photo is the church of St Nicholas Cole Abbey in the background.

The garden consisted of mainly grass with some planting in the centre and around the edge.

Today. the gardens are very different with plenty of planting and some works of art:

Plants, hedges and walkways:

Looking towards the City of London Information Centre:

City gardens tend to be very well maintained and the gardens to the south of St Paul’s were being worked on during my visit:

Across the road from the above photos to the immediate south east of St Paul’s Cathedral, there is another large area of green space:

These gardens have changed the area considerably, and have been through a series of post war development.

The following photo is one of my father’s photos from the Stone Gallery of the cathedral. The church in the photo (minus the spire), is the same church as seen in the above photo.

The space occupied by the gardens to the south east of the cathedral were once a dense network of streets and buildings as can be seen by their remains in the above photo.

My comparison photo to my father’s is shown below – a very different view:

The gardens in the above photo were the first to be constructed in 1951 to tie in with the Festival of Britain, and go by the name of Festival Gardens. The book Flowering City shows the gardens as they were originally built:

The gardens seen in the above photo remain, however the gardens have been extended all the way back to cover the road and circular feature at the top of the photo and the road to the right.

These original gardens and the three fountains are very much the same today, as can be seen in the following photo:

View back from the top of walkway behind the fountains:

This original part of the gardens were timed to open for the Festival of Britain (hence their name), and were decorated with flags during the festival as shown by my father’s photo below:

Plaque on the wall commemorates the year of opening:

And another plaque on the wall behind the fountains records one of the ancient streets that were lost during the construction of the gardens:

As well as large, formal gardens, Fred Cleary was keen to encourage the use of flowers in as many settings as possible, and devoted four pages to photos of City buildings with window boxes.

I found a number of these adding colour to City streets:

Many of the window boxes across the City in the 1960s were the result of a campaign, as described in the book:

“In 1963 the Worshipful Company of Gardeners in conjunction with the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association and supported financially by the City Corporation launched a ‘Flowers in the City’ campaign under the patronage of the Rt. Hon. The Lord Mayor and in recent years there has been considerable response from the business houses and firms by providing more and more flowers giving a very colourful effect to many parts of the City.”

As well as windows boxes, the book encourages the planting of flowers across the streets and includes a section titled “Pavement Treatment” which shows how plants can be distributed across the streets in pots, wooden boxes and within raised concrete walled beds. The aim was to add flowers and colour to as many points across the City as possible.

An example of the type of planting featured in the section on “Pavement Treatment”, can be seen today at the junction of Cheapside and New Change:

At the start of the book, it mentions that originally gardens in the City were mainly part of Livery Company sites, or surrounding some of the more expensive houses in the City.

There are still a number of gardens on land owned by Livery Companies. One of these is at the junction of Copthall Avenue and Throgmorton Avenue and is on land owned by the Drapers Company who have their hall in Throgmorton Avenue.

The gates to the garden are locked, however peering through the gates delivers this colourful view:

The book also shows just how much areas of the City have changed. In the following photo, the wall to the left is the medieval wall that sits on top of the original Roman wall, just to the north of London Wall, close to the Barbican development:

When the area around the wall went through its first post-war phase of development, it was surrounded by new office blocks and the high level pedestrian ways that followed the wartime proposals for City redevelopment which included below ground car parking, wide streets for car, and raised walkways to move pedestrians away from traffic.

The photo below shows the wall surrounded by the first phase of post-war development. Note the shops and pedestrian ways to the right.

What looks like the original route of London Wall is in the lower right corner of the photo. This is now a walkway with the route for traffic moved slightly south as the dual carriageway routing of London Wall.

A small section of gardens is between the wall and street.

The medieval wall is the only feature that remains today from the above photo.

The area today is landscaped with gardens where the steps and building in the background of the above photo were located, and the medieval walls of St Mary Elsing have been fully exposed:

The City of London has benefited considerably from the work of Fred Cleary, and the book shows just how much was achieved to green the City during immediate post-war redevelopment, and the very many photos in the book shows how much the City has changed since it was published.

Fred Cleary was awarded an MBE in 1951 and a CBE in 1979 for his environmental and philanthropic work. He was also active in building conservation.

The Cleary Foundation was a charity established in his name, and today continues to provide grants to fund projects in the areas of Education, the Arts, Conservation, and the Natural Environment.

The majority of the gardens in The Flowering City remain, and many have developed from a formal simplistic style, to more heavily planted, and attempt to isolate the garden experience from the surrounding streets.

Fred Cleary dedicated the book “To all who live and work in the City of London”, and there can be no doubt that the gardens across the City enhance the experience of living and working in this historic place.

alondoninheritance.com

Bagnigge Wells, House and Gardens

16 Replies

Although today there is very little of it to see, water has shaped much of London. The alignment of streets, property boundaries, rise and fall of the land have all been shaped by water. Whilst these are all subtle indicators of the historic presence of water there are still a number of more visible signs that hint at an areas history, and one of these is on a building on the western side of King’s Cross Road.

The sign reads “This is Bagnigge House Neare the Pinder A Wakefeilde 1680”.

The Pinder of Wakefield was a pub that dated back to the early 16th century in Gray’s Inn Road. A pub with the same name was on the same site until 1986, when the building was purchased by the “The Grand Order of Water Rats” charity, renamed the Water Rats, and is now a performance venue.

Bagnigge House and the Wells that were found in the gardens of the house are the subject of today’s post.

The house in King’s Cross Road with the Bagnigge House sign:

The location of the Bagnigge House stone, along King’s Cross Road is shown by the red circle in the following map (Map © OpenStreetMap contributors):

The red rectangle highlights the area covered in the post.

If you look to the left side of the red box, you will see Cubitt Street, a street which unlike the rest of the streets in the area, does not follow a straight line and is curved around an area of land between Cubitt Street and King’s Cross Road.

To the left of Cubitt Street, the map shows the light blue line of the old River Fleet. I have double checked with my go to reference for London’s old rivers; “The Lost Rivers of London” by Nicholas Barton and Stephen Myers, and the routing of the Fleet shown in the above map is roughly right.

Before the streets and buildings of London had extended this far north, this was an area of fields and agriculture. The River Fleet ran through the fields, the area was low lying and rather wet, especially after heavy rains when the Fleet would have flooded.

Rocque’s map of 1746 provides a view of the area in the middle of the 18th century. Fields cover the majority of the area, but in the upper centre of the map there are buildings and formal gardens bounded by the River Fleet and a street named Black Mary’s Hole.

The street to the left labelled “Road to Hampstead and Highgate” is today, Grays Inn Road.

Black Mary’s Hole is now King’s Cross Road. There are various interpretations of the name, but the majority of sources refer to a black woman called Mary, who sold water in the vicinity from a well or fountain.

As well as the Fleet, the Rocque map extract also shows the irregular shape of a number of ponds, confirming that this was an area where there was plenty of water.

By 1816, streets and buildings had started to reach the area, and the following extract from the 1816 edition of Smith’s New Plan of London shows the area between the Fleet and King’s Cross Road (in the centre of the map) now labelled Bagnigge Wells.

To the right of the map is New River Head and on the edge of the map, Sadler’s Wells, further illustrating how water has shaped the area.

Turning off King’s Cross Road into the side streets, and we can get a view of the drop in height down to King’s Cross Road and the rise in height on the opposite side. An indication of the river valley of the Fleet.

The following view is looking down Great Percy Street from Percy Circus, with the rise of Acton Street across the junction. The River Fleet would have run from right to left along the lowest part of the view.

The area of land shown in the Roque map between the Fleet and Black Mary’s Hole appears to have been enclosed at some point in the second half of the 17th century. The land was to the east of a field called Action Field that occupied the area west to what is now Gray’s Inn Road. The name of the field is preserved in the present day Acton Street.

When a Thomas Hughes purchased the land in 1757, he had the waters from a well that was already in use, tested by a Doctor John Bevis, who reported that the water from the well had chalybeate properties (in the context of water, the name chalybeate means that the water contains iron, see also my post on the Chalybeate Well in Hampstead).

To capitalise on these findings, Thomas Hughes opened the gardens and the well to the public in 1759. This was the period when there were many pleasure gardens opening up around the City. Outside the jurisdiction of the City of London, in places such as along the south bank of the Thames, in Islington, and in Bagnigge Wells.

They provided a pleasant place to visit, away from the smoke, dirt and noise of the City. St. Chad’s Well was another well a short distance away from Bagnigge Wells that had gardens and a pump house where customers could drink the water. I have written about St. Chad’s Well here.

The gardens around the well were attractively laid out, entertainment, food and drink was also provided to customers, both to attract customers to the gardens as well as for profit.

Bagnigge Wells seems to have been a success as some of the land on the opposite side of the River Fleet was purchased to expand the gardens.

A print from 1843 appears to show the stone that is now in King’s Cross Road above the garden entrance (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

The inscription on the stone in my photo at the top of the post has the date 1680. In the print above it could be 1689, so either an error, or a later updating of the inscription over the years has changed the original date on the stone.

The date does pre-date the time when the gardens and well were part of the pleasure gardens so the house referred to must have been one of the earliest houses on the land.

Although the caption to the following print does state “The Original Garden Entrance To Bagnigge Wells, Established in 1680”, the gardens and wells were not a public gardens at that time (© The Trustees of the British Museum).

Presumably, the view is looking north with the garden entrance on the left and Bagnigge House behind the trees on the right.

The river running along the middle of the print must therefore be the River Fleet, which looks rather serene and calm, however it was not always so, and heavy rains around the source of the river in Hampstead could quickly result in the river flooding as the following article from the Derby Mercury on the 9th September 1768 reports:

“And about One o’clock yesterday morning the water came down in such torrents from Hampstead that the road and flat fields about Bagnigge Wells were overflown; the water rose eight feet perpendicular above the usual height of the drain, and was nearly four feet above the foot bridge at that house; the Pleasure-garden, cellars, and Out-houses belonging thereto were overflown, and several of the Pales broke down by the Violence of the stream. Great damage was done to Mr Harrison’s Tile-kiln near the said Wells, where three young men were sleeping in an Out house and were surprised by the Flood, and two of them drowned. The house of Dr. Sharpe, near Bagnigge Wells, was four feet deep in water, and a man and woman behind the House narrowly escaped being drowned.”

The article mentions Mr. Harrison’s Tile-kiln and if you refer back to the extract from Smith’s New Plan of London, you can see the tile-kilns just to the north east of Bagnigge Wells.

The rain was probably caused by the brief, very heavy showers we have also seen in London recently which cause a flash flood. Today, this volume of water falling in north London would now be carried by the same sewer in which the old River Fleet in now buried.

The following print is from 1777, eleven years after the floods in the above article and shows the buildings at Bagnigge Wells, with the entrance to the gardens on the left (© The Trustees of the British Museum).

Today, roughly where the River Fleet once ran, is Cubitt Street (originally Arthur Street). This is the street that curves slightly to the west of King’s Cross Road and is where the River Fleet formed the original western boundary to Bagnigge Wells as shown in Rocque’s map of 1746,

The view south along Cubitt Street:

And the view north along Cubitt Street:

In the above view, the River Fleet would have run roughly along the line of the street. Bagngge Wells was originally to the right, and following the commercial success of the gardens, expanded to include the left of the photo, with wooden bridges providing access between the two sections of the gardens.

Seats were arranged along the River Fleet for those who wanted to smoke or drink ale or cider. Tea, cake and hot buttered rolls were served, and concerts were held in the main room of the house. A small temple shaped building was created to house the wells from which water was taken and sold.

London’s pleasure gardens and their visitors were often the subject of satirical prints. The following print from 1781 shows “Mr. Deputy Dumpling and Family enjoying a Summer Afternoon” at the entrance to the gardens at Bagnigge Wells (© The Trustees of the British Museum).

18th century pleasure gardens were intended to be peaceful places in London’s countryside, away from the noise and dirt of the City. Where people could spend an afternoon or evening, being entertained, or just drinking and eating and seeing and being seen by others at the gardens, however they were not always places of peace.

in May, 1784, Bagnigge Wells was the scene of some violence between two opposing political groupings, as documented in the following newspaper report:

“Yesterday evening the gardens at Bagnigge Wells exhibited a strange scene of riot and confusion. How the affair began is not easy to be determined, but, at the same moment, several hundreds of Stentorian lungs vociferated the cry of ‘Hood and Wray’ and these were answered by the exclamation of ‘Fox for ever’. Intoxicated with liquor and politics those who were for Hood and Wray boxed with the friends of the Coalition and Fox, and many on both sides were knocked down with the canes and sticks of their adversaries. So sudden a disarrangement of the tea-table apparatus was perhaps never before seen and innumerable fragments of china shone on every walk, and served to give issues to the inflamed blood of the fallen and sprawling heroes. Those peace officers were sent for, the tumult was not appeased for near two hours and a half. Three men, who had been active in fomenting the disturbance, were taken into custody and were soon rescued”.

The same newspaper also reported on a “violent fracas” between the same two opposing groups in the Piazzas, Covent Garden.

Wray was Sir Cecil Wray who was a member of Parliament but was highly critical of proposals to raise taxes by a “receipts tax” which he claimed would fall “on the middling ranks of people and very partially and unequally laid”. Wray preferred a land tax, which in his view had always been too low in the country, but was opposed by the land owning classes (some things do not change).

He also presented a petition that had been drawn up by the Quakers calling for the abolition of slavery, which he called “an infamous traffic that disgraced humanity”.

The MP Charles James Fox put forward the East India bill which proposed nationalising the troubled East India Company, and Wray was strongly opposed to such an action.

At the general election Wray and Lord Hood stood against Fox with Wray standing as an Administrative candidate in Fox’s Westminster constituency. It was a violent election period as indicated by the trouble at Bagnigge Wells, however Fox won and Wray then appears to have abandoned any plans to try and get back into Parliament. He was described as being “one of the most upright, one of the most virtuous, one of the most honourable and independent men” in Parliament.

Up until the end of the 18th century, Bagnigge Wells continued to be a fashionable place to visit, however its days were numbered as the buildings and streets of London started to surround the gardens.

Less desirable and the “lower class of tradesmen” were now to be found in the gardens, and there was petty crime and prostitution, as illustrated by the following print from 1799 titled “The Road To Ruin”, where a young man, possibly an apprentice, in poor fitting clothes, stands between two prostitutes who appear to be berating him (© The Trustees of the British Museum).

In 1813, the manager of the gardens went bankrupt, they reopened somewhat reduced the following year and attempts to rejuvenate the place by building a concert hall in 1831 led to nothing as the customers of the concert hall were described as being of the “disreputable sorts”. The concert hall closed in 1841 and what was left of Bagnigge Wells was built on.

With the River Fleet now buried in a sewer, there are today no signs above the surface of the waters that once made this area an attractive place to visit, away from the noise and dirt of central London.

I have photographed the plaque before, however there was a bus stop directly in front which made the plaque rather difficult to photograph. The following photo is from about 18 months ago and shows the bus stop in its original position.

If you refer back to the second photo from the top of this post you can see that the bus stop has now been moved to the right. No idea why this has been done, but it does make the plaque easier to see, which is to the good, as it is the only reminder of Bagnigge House, the Well and Gardens now to be found in the area.

alondoninheritance.com

A London Inheritance

A Private History of a Public City

Category Archives: London Parks and Gardens

Parliament Hill (or Traitors Hill) – August 1947

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

North Woolwich – A Station, Pier, Pleasure Gardens and Causeway

Whittington’s Stone and Whittington Park

Bedford Square

Tavistock Square

Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the Rye House Plot

The Changing Face of Leicester Square

Fred Cleary and the Flowering City

Bagnigge Wells, House and Gardens

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: