Category Archives: London Streets

The Footman and Red Lion – A Tale of Two Charles Street Pubs

Charles Street is a typical Mayfair street. A varied range of architecture, a hotel, private houses, investment and wealth management companies, corporate offices, embassies, and much more hidden behind the facades of tall buildings that line the street.

I recently went for a walk along the street to find two pubs, the Footman and the Red Lion.

A photo of the Footman appeared in the 1920s three volume set of Wonderful London, when it was known as the Running Footman:

Running Footman pub

The following text is the commentary to the above photo in Wonderful London:

“THE RUNNING FOOTMAN, A PICTURE OF THE OLD MAYFAIR – Charles Street, off Berkeley Square, retains a pub named after that special kind of servant whose duty it was to run before the crawling family coach, help it out of ruts, warn toll-keepers, and clear the way generally. He wore a livery and usually carried a cane. The last person to employ a Running Footman is said to have been ‘Old Q.’ the Duke of Queensbery who died in 1810. The faded sign is fixed to the bay in the side street and appears here, over the taxi. The tavern is a bit of London from the days of ‘the Quality’, whose servants it served.”

Wonderful London has a rather rose tinted view of the role of a running footman. I suspect in reality it was really difficult and exhausting to keep ahead of a coach, and carry out any other manual activities such as lifting the coach out of outs.

I found an alternative description of the role of a running footman, which is probably more realistic:

“The Running Footman – men have adopted various inhuman methods to increase their self-importance at different epochs, but few more inhuman than that of the running footman, of whom Mr. John Owen writes in his new novel, published today under the title of ‘The Running Footman’.

This 18th century barbarism, whereby a man was forced to run 30 yards in front of his master’s coach for incredible distances, naturally resulted in the runners death from heart disease or consumption.”

The following print from 1741 is a satirical interpretation of the opposition methods in the parliamentary motion to remove Robert Walpole from office, and shows a Running Footman at the left of the print, running in front of a team of horses and the coach.

As described in Wonderful London, he is carrying a cane © The Trustees of the British Museum):

Running Footman pub

There was an interesting story of a Running Footman in the newspapers on the 5th of October, 1728, which hints at how fast they could run:

“A Foot Race of two Miles being Advertised to be Run last Thursday on the Marshes near Hackney River by young Women for a Holland Shift, as three were dressing in order to start, one of them was discovered to be a Running Footman to a Person of Quality, who seeing he was betrayed found means to re-mount the Horse he rode on with a Side-Saddle. The Mob understanding the matter pursued him in order to duck him in the River, but to make more speed, he dismounted, rid himself of his Petticoats, took to his Heels and got clear of them, after much more Diversion than the Race, which was afterwards run by the other two.”

The pub that is shown in the Wonderful London photo would only last for around another 10 years, as in the 1930s, the Running Footman would be rebuilt in the red brick style of pubs of the time, and it is this version of the pub that we find in Charles Street today, with the name truncated to just The Footman:

Running Footman pub

The shorter name is relatively recent as the pub also had the names “The Only Running Footman” and “I am the Only Running Footman”.

The original pub dates from the mid-18th century, and there are online references to the pub originally being called the Running Horse, although I cannot find any references from the late 18th century of a pub in Charles Street with this name.

The first newspaper references to the Running Footman date from the first decades of the 19th century, for example in May 1821 there were stables for sale in Charles Street, and the Running Footman was given as one of the places were details of the sale could be found.

The 1930s rebuild features an interesting extension to the roof, and the building is now taller than the rest of the terrace of which it was part:

Running Footman pub

The above photo shows the eastern end of Charles Street, with the southern end of Berkeley Square to the right.

Charles Street seems to have been laid out during the later part of the 17th century. Rocque’s map of 1746 shows the surrounding built area, the upper eastern part of Charles Street has been built, and a blank space with street outlines covering the area west and north of Charles Street. The yellow circle marks the location of the Running Footman:

Running Footman pub

Although the map shows street outlines, the layout today is slightly different, and Charles Street extends to the corner of the space occupied by the large house at left, where it turns north. It was here I was heading next to find another pub, and to look at the mix of architecture along the street.

The original build of Charles Street was mid to late 18th century / early 19th century, brick terrace houses, and over the following decades many of these would be combined and rebuilt to leave the mix of architectural styles and periods that we see today:

Charles Street

At the junction with Queen Street, there is an open space with a tree in the centre, with the street turning slightly to the north. This point was the original end of Charles Street as shown in Rocque’s 1746 map, so the street may have originally terminated here, before being extended on as development of the area completed.

Charles Street

And as we walk along Charles Street, we continue to see the mix of architecture, including where original terrace houses have been combined and a new stone façade has been built over the original brick:

Charles Street

On the house shown above, there is a London County Council plaque stating that Archibald Philip Primrose, the 5th Earl of Rosebery was born in the house in 1847:

Rosebery

He was Prime Minister in the years 1894 and 1895, and he was also Chairman of the London County Council in 1889 and 1890, then again in 1892, and Rosebery Avenue in Clerkenwell is named after him. Rosebery Avenue was one of the late 19th century major roads built across London to ease the growing congestion of the time, and that swept away many old street, courts and alleys.

Towards the western end of Charles Street, the street suddenly narrows as it turns to run along the northern edge of large, terrace houses. This change in the street marks the point where the original gardens of Chesterfield House (see the extract from Rocque’s map earlier in the post) extended, with the street turning along the north east corner of the old gardens:

Red Lion Pub Charles Street

At the end of the narrow section of Charles Street, where there is a sharp bend up towards Waverton Street we can see what remains of the Red Lion, the second pub I was looking for in Charles Street (the scaffolding is on the building opposite, not on the old pub):

Red Lion Pub Charles Street

The Red Lion is now a residential property, having closed as a pub in 2009.

The building still retains some of the features of a London pub on the facade facing the street, however the rest of the building is very different.

After closing as a pub, it underwent a very significant rebuild, both above and below ground to create a very different space behind the façade.

I would not normally put a link to the Mail Online in the blog, however this is where I found an article on the conversion of the building from pub to residential, which includes a number of photos of the interior of the building, which are hard to reconcile with the view when you stand outside, and shows what can be done if you have £25 million to spare (in 2009).

The article is here.

A look down Red Lion Yard at the side of the old pub shows the way that the building has been extended above ground, in addition to the two levels below ground which doubled the overall space:

Red Lion Yard

The article described the pub as a “dingy drinking establishment“. It did seem to have been left to run down over the last few years of being a pub, but in the few times I went in, it always seemed to be reasonably busy.

Unlike the Running Footman, the Red Lion was in a rather hidden part of the local streets, and it was a “local” pub so perhaps trade was not enough to keep the pub viable.

I suspect that when the company that owned the pub was offered a good sum of money, it was worth selling for development rather than retaining as a pub.

At the end of the alley leading into Red Lion Yard is this square of buildings, which again shows a level of redevelopment:

Red Lion Yard

Entrance to Red Lion Yard alongside the old Red Lion:

Red Lion pub Charles Street

Although the Red Lion is at the end of Charles Street, it is also in the southern edge of Waverton Street, with a short section leading up to Hill Street before continuing northwards. A short distance from the Red Lion in Waverton Street, significant development continues:

Charles Street

Looking back from in front of the Red Lion, along Charles Street. Again this narrow section of the street once had the gardens of Chesterfield House on the right:

Charles Street

Walking back along Charles Street, and this is Dartmouth House:

Dartmouth House Charles Street

Dartmouth House is another building which started off as part of a brick terrace of houses, but after combining individual houses, extending the resulting building and constructing a new stone façade, we get the building we see today.

the first recorded resident was the Dowager Duchess of Chandos in 1757, and for the following centuries the house has been occupied mainly by a succession of Dukes, Earls, a Dowager and a Marquis – or “The Quality” as Wonderful London and other early references to the role of a Running Footman would have referred to them.

Since 1926, Dartmouth House has been the headquarters of the English Speaking Union (ESU).

The ESU have published a brief history of the house, and within this they reference the River Tyburn and that the brook runs under Dartmouth House and caused serious damage to papers stored in the basement in the 1990s.

According to “The Lost Rivers of London” by Nicholas Barton and Stephen Myers the Tyburn runs slightly to the east and south. Under the south eastern corner of Berkeley Square towards Curzon Street, rather than running under Dartmouth House, however the basement of Dartmouth House is within what would have been the marshy area surrounding the Tyburn and any remaining springs, a high water table after heavy rains etc. could still result in basement flooding.

Just one of the ways in which the pre-built environment, when the area was all fields streams and ponds, occasionally still bursts through to the 21st century.

A house with a green City of Westminster plaque on the ground floor:

Charles Street

The plaque states that Lady Dorothy Nevill lived in the house from 1873 to 1913:

Charles Street

Born in 1826, she was the daughter of Horace Walpole and Mary Fawkener.

When she died in 1913, obituaries stated that she was one of the more important links between the Victorian and present eras, and that she had lived through the reigns of George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edward VII and George V.

Her obituaries stated that she was “profoundly conscious of the fact that she was connected in blood with many of the leading families in England; but unlike most British aristocrats (remarks the Times), though a keen Conservative in politics, fully alive to the changes that time had brought upon English Society.”

Her support of Conservative politics was such that she “was one of the two or three ladies responsible for the founding of the Primrose League; indeed it is said to have been first suggested at her luncheon table; and every year on April 19 her windows and balconies were covered with primroses”.

The Primrose League (named after the favourite flower of Benjamin Disraeli) was founded in 1883 and was a Conservative supporting, mass membership organisation, formed to promote the aims of the Conservative party across the country, and support the election of Conservative candidates.

The success of the league was such that in ten years, membership had reached over one million, and there were members across the country, including the industrial towns of the north.

There were however, many sceptical of the organisation, and the Edinburgh Evening News on the 2nd of February 1884 was reporting that:

“That latest of Conservative follies, the Primrose League, is pushing its way. A considerable number of people have joined it, and its organisors assert that it will in the course of time become a powerful element of Tory reaction. It has been decided to start a branch of the League at Birmingham, with a view of assisting the candidature of Lord Randolph Churchill.

A correspondent suggests however, that an institution like the Primrose League is more suited for the atmousphere of Belgravia than Birmingham.

It was established by some rather weak-minded Conservatives in the West End of London, and it is not likely that it will be largely supported by the artisans of Birmingham. The League intends to hold a great demonstration on April 19th, the anniversary of Lord Beaconsfield’s death. There is some talk of its members walking through the metropolis in a monster procession.”

Surprisingly, the Primrose League lasted until 2004, when it was disbanded.

Her obituary also remarked that “The Sunday luncheon parties at her little house in Charles Street were the meeting place of people of all kinds of opinion, drawn from many walks of life, though she herself was fond of saying that her society was exclusive, dull people being never admitted”.

I like the description of her house in Charles Street being described as “her little house”, but I suppose that all things are relative for “The Quality”.

Whilst many of the buildings along Charles Street have changed significantly since the street was first developed, there are some original houses, and some of these have had some rather strange additions, such as this terrace house with a stone bay window that looks as if it has been randomly stuck on the building:

Running Footman pub

At the Berkeley Square end of the street there is, what the Historic England listing describes as “Two full height canted bays of 3 sashes each per floor and a 2 storey 2 window extension to left hand”. This is the rear of the Grade II listed 52 and 52A Berkeley Square, which date back to around 1750 and form part of the first development along Charles Street:

Charles Street

Charles Street is an interesting little street. Many of the buildings have an aristocratic heritage, as does the origins of the name of the Footman pub.

It is brilliant that the Footman survives, and the loss of the Red Lion is a shame. I do not know the reasons for the pub’s closure, but I often wonder in the planning decisions for pub conversions, just how much consideration is given to the change in use, and the loss of a community asset.

These converted properties often become trophy assets that add very little to the area.

Theoretically, it should now be much harder to get planning permission for the conversion of a pub.

The London Plan, published by the Mayor of London, includes “Policy HC7
Protecting public houses”
which does appear to provide a strong framework for resisting the conversion of a pub to alternative uses, however I suspect there are always ways and means to get around such constraints.

On a positive note for the area, Charles Street is in the City of Westminster, which in the 2017 London Pubs Annual Data Note (part of the Greater London Authorities Cultural Infrastructure Report), and Westminster had the highest number of pubs of any borough in London with 430,

In second place was Camden with 230 and in third place was Islington with 215. Barking and Dagenham had the fewest number of pubs, with just 20.

I did not take any photos of the Red Lion when it was open, which I regret. You do not appreciate places until they are gone, and this is now one of the reasons why I probably take too many photos of even the most mundane street scene, as you know for sure, that within London – at some point it will have changed.

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Jays for Jeans, Surrey Quays, Rotherhithe

Jays Stores was a store in Lower Road, Rotherhithe, that had a large sign advertising Jays for Jeans at the top of the building, above an illustration of a man presumably dressed in clothes available from the store.

My father photographed Jays Stores and the Jays for Jeans sign in 1986:

Jays for Jeans

I could not get exactly the same view as in 1986 due to road works occupying the space directly opposite, however an almost the same view of Jays for Jeans, 38 years later in January 2024:

Jays for Jeans

I am not sure exactly when Jays Stores opened, but the store closed in 2016. I suspect that the location of the store opposite the shops of the Surrey Quays shopping centre, Internet shopping, and the loss of local industry, with the resulting loss of trade for industrial wear, donkey jackets etc. (as advertised in the 1986 window) resulted in the store being economically unviable.

The store did make it onto the Internet though, as the surviving sign on the top of the building in 2024 shows that Jays for Jeans had a.co.uk address for the store, a different sign to the one in 1986.

The central panel has either completely faded, or perhaps been over painted.

To the right of the store, in the 1986 photo, can be seen part of one of the estate agents set-up to market the new properties being built as part of the redevelopment of the docklands.

Jays for Jeans is one of those local landmarks that defines an area for a specific period of time.

I walked down to the location of Jays for Jeans from Canada Water station, having arrived on the Jubilee Line.

It was a short walk, by the most direct route (that avoided the Surrey Quays shopping centre), but a route that confirmed that you can find things of interest in almost any London street, and is one of the joys of walking.

The following map shows my route from Canada Water station (within the red circle) down to the site of Jays for Jeans, next to the Surrey Quays station which is over ground only (dark blue circle). the dark blue dotted line shows the short route  (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

Jays for Jeans

Staring with the wonderful drum structure over Canada Water station, a design which allows a large amount of natural light to get into the station below. The drum is above the escalators which run between the ticket hall and the platforms below:

Canada Water Station

From Canada Water Station, I headed down Surrey Quays Road, a street which was one of the main entrances into the Surrey Commercial Docks which once occupied the majority of this part of Rotherhithe.

Along this street is one of the very few remaining buildings from the docks – the Dock Manager’s Offices:

Dock Manager's Offices

This glorious buildings is Grade II listed, and dates from 1892 when it was built by the Surrey Commercial Dock Company.

The building is very well preserved, and when in use as the dock offices, it consisted of three main parts: the Superintendent’s Office with clock tower, a Janitor’s House, which is the smaller block closest to the camera with the Dock Offices signage, and a large open plan General Office, which can be seen in the above photo receding to the right.

Dock Manager's Offices

The building is now owned by British Land, and I believe part of the interior has been designed to showcase the flats that are being built as part of the significant redevelopment going on around the Surrey Quays area.

There is a plaque on the side of the Dock Manager’s Office which records a major event during the last war:

Dock Manager's Offices

I am going to save the story of the docks here in Rotherhithe for some later posts as there is so much to tell about this part of London, and for now, I will continue on to Jays for Jeans.

At the end of Surrey Quays Road, the street meets Lower Road, and on the western side of Lower Road is the Seven Islands Leisure Centre:

 Seven Islands Leisure Centre

Opened as the Rotherhithe Bath and Assembly Hall on the 27th of November, 1965, the building included a swimming pool, assembly hall with stage and dressing rooms, crèche and play area for children and a place for sunbathing.

The name comes from what were believed to have been seven islands in-between the streams that drained Rotherhithe and Bermondsey into the Thames.

The building retains a wonderful example of the coat of arms of the old Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey:

Bermondsey Coat of Arms

Bermondsey, as a Metropolitan Borough existed from 1900 (when it brought together the old parishes of Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and St. Olave), until 1965 when it was replaced by the London Borough of Southwark.

Within the coat of arms, the lion and the two letter B’s on either side, are from the Bermondsey Vestry and have their origins in Bermondsey Abbey.

The crown and the axe are from St. Olave, and come from the Royal Arms of Norway (see this post for more details on the origins of St. Olave and the connection with Norway).

Rotherhithe and the docks are represented by the ship at bottom right.

The Latin motto at the bottom of the arms, “prosunt gentibus artes” means “Arts profit the people”

On the opposite side of Lower Road is a brick built block of apartments, with a blue plaque between the first and second floors, above the central arch:

King Edward Frederick Mutessa

The blue plaque is to King Edward Frederick Muteesa II, the first President of Uganda:

King Edward Frederick Muteesa

Muteesa was the Kabaka (king or ruler) of Buganda, one of the individual kingdoms that make up the country of Uganda.

When Uganda became independent from Britain in 1962, Milton Obote became the Federal Prime Minister, and Obote negotiated an agreement with Muteesa that he would become President of Uganda, an agreement which was implemented by secret vote in Parliament on the 4th of October, 1963.

In the following years, there was infighting between the coalition that made up Parliament and between Obote and Muteesa, and it finally got to the point where in February 1966, Obote suspended the Federal Constitution and declared himself President, thereby deposing Muteesa.

Muteesa fled into exile and arrived in London, penniless, and without any support from the Government of Uganda.

During his earlier years he had been educated at Cambridge, where he also joined the university’s officer training corps, which led to a commission as a Captain in the Grenadier Guards.

It was this military connection that was to help with accommodation in London, and an old military contact provided him with the apartment in Orchard House, Lower Road.

He was not there for too long as on the 21st of November, 1969, he was found dead in the apartment, apparently of alcohol poisoning. A few hours before his death he had been interviewed by the BBC correspondent John Simpson, who found him sober, and there have been theories that he was murdered.

He was temporarily buried in England until the political situation changed in Uganda when Idi Amin overthrew Milton Obote and Muteesa’s body was returned to Uganda and given a state funeral and burial.

As with so much of London, there are a number of closed pubs in Lower Road, places that recall the working class history of the area.

The first of these is the Prince of Orange:

Prince of Orange

The pub seems to have opened around the late 1830s / 1840s as it is during these years that I find the first mentions of what appears to be the Prince of Orange pub.

In the following decades there are all the usual mentions of events that you would expect to find in a London pub in the docks, with crime, fights, jobs available etc.

in the pubs last few decades, it seems to have been a venue for jazz, as in newspapers there are plenty of adverts, such as for Pete Boulter’s Blues Jam session (1995), and Mr. B Plays Basie (1983). In the Stage and Television Today in October 1982, it was reported that “on the pub front, let us applaud the Prince of Wales, Buckhurst Hill and the Prince of Orange, Rotherhithe, both presenting jazz practically every night of the week”.

At times, the pub was on BBC Radio 2, for example the listings for the 25th of January, 1988, included “Jazz Score, where Benny Green is in the chair at the Prince of Orange, Rotherhithe, and on the panel are Acker Bilk, Peter Clayton, Alan Elsdon and Ronnie Scott”.

The Prince of Orange is now apartments.

A short distance further along Lower Road is another closed pub, the China Hall:

The China Hall

There has been a pub on the site for a number of centuries and in 1719 a pub on the site was apparently called the “Cock and Pye Ale House.” 

The earliest written reference I can find to the name China Hall is in the Oracle and Daily Advertiser, on the 27th of February, 1802, when “A few afternoons since, about half past four o’clock,, as Mr. Witts of the Europa Inn, Rotherhithe, was travelling near China Hall, in the lower Deptford Road, he was stopped by a single foot-pad, who robbed him of a £2 note and his cash”.

The road was originally called Lower Deptford Road, but has since dropped Deptford and is now simply Lower Road.

The site of the pub has a long history. In 1776 the pub appears to have been leased to a trader in tea and china called Jonathan Oldfield, and who built a theatre next to the pub, called the China Hall. The name may have come from his trade in china, and the name appears to have transferred from the theatre to the pub.

Edward Walford, writing in Old and New London (1878), has the following to say about the China Hall: “In former times a narrow pathway, called the ‘Halfpenny Hatch’ extended through the meadows and market-gardens from Blue Anchor Road to the Deptford Lower Road, where it emerged close by an old and much-frequented public-house called the ‘China Hall’. The ancient tavern, which was a picturesque building partly surrounded by an external gallery, was pulled down within the last few years, and in its place has been erected a more modern-looking tavern, bearing the same sign.

Our old friend Pepys mentions going to China Hall, but gives us no further particulars. It is not unlikely, says Mr. Larwood in his History of Signboards, that this was the same place which, in the summer of 1777, was opened as a theatre. Whatever its use in former times, it was at that time a warehouse of a paper manufacturer.

In those days the West End often visited the entertainments of the East, and the new theatre was sufficiently patronised to enable the proprietors to venture upon some embellishments. The prices were – boxes 3s; pit 2s, gallery 1s; and the time of commencement varied from half-past six to seven o’clock, according to the season. The Wonder, Love in a Village, the Comical Courtship and the Lying Valet were among the plays performed. The famous Cooke was one of the actors in the season of 1778. In that same year the building suffered the usual fate of theaters, and was utterly destroyed by fire”.

The China Hall pub closed at the end of 2018, after a local campaign failed to save it, although it appears to have been a going concern, was wanted by the local community and had publicans who wanted to continue.

The ownership of the pub has been very controversial, and since closure the upper floors have been converted to residential, with extra space from the addition of a mansard roof.

The ground floor did appear to be undergoing conversion however council planners issued a warning notice to stop. A planning application was made for conversion of the ground floor, this was turned down, and the council issued an enforcement notice requiring removal of residential partitions and fixtures.

The owner has since appealed against the planning refusal – I do not know the status of this appeal.

The China Hall illustrates the sad fate of many London pubs, that even when they are still viable businesses, and wanted by the local community, they are all too easily sold to a developer who can find more profit in the conversion of the property to residential.

Continuing down Lower Road, and on the eastern side of the street is a row of late 19th century, terrace houses. The second house on the left has a plaque to Ada Salter, just above the ground floor bay window, directly above where green bins can be seen:

Ada Salter

Ada Brown was born in 1866, a child within a Wesleyan Methodist family in Raunds, Northamptonshire. She moved to London in 1896, where she joined the West London Mission of the Wesleyan Sisters of the People, before moving to their Bermondsey Settlement in 1897.

Alfred Salter was a student at Guy’s Hospital when he met Ada at the Bermondsey Settlement. They married in 1900 and lived in Bermondsey. Both Ada and Alfred worked tirelessly to improve conditions in Bermondsey and Rotherhithe.

The house with the plaque is at 149 Lower Road, and was the Women’s House of the Bermondsey Settlement. Ada lived in the house for two periods in 1897 and 1898.

The plaque is very recent as it was installed on the house in 2023:

Ada Salter

Ada became a Labour councilor, the first woman councilor in Bermondsey in 1909 and set about recruiting women workers to trade unions to organise against the terrible working conditions in the area’s factories.

Alfred was elected MP for Bermondsey in 1909, the same year as Ada was elected Mayor.

A view of Ada’s campaigning approach to improving the living conditions of Londoner’s, can be seen in the following first two sections from an article she wrote in the Daily Herald on the 28th of February, 1934, titled: “Don’t forget the HIDDEN LONDON”:

“London is the most wonderful and romantic city in the world. London leads. What London thinks to-day Great Britain will do to-morrow.

Underlying its romance, its magnificence, its power, its wealth and its resources, is a vast morass of sorrow and misery, of poverty and struggle, of unrequited toil and unmerited suffering.

Watch some hundreds of thousands of citizens pouring each evening out of their office and work places in the centre of London and follow them to their homes. You will have glimpses of drab, featureless streets, rows of Early Victorian terrace houses, huge blocks of tenement dwellings. In these industrial dormitories the workers are not housed, but warehoused. Observe the daily fight for tram or bus and all the discomfort that it involves. Note the imperfect education given to children, too large classes, insufficiency of secondary schools, inadequacy of playing space in all working-class quarters.

Compare the dullness and ugliness of grace and colour which constitute the environment of the poor with the stateliness and magnificence of the West End and the pleasing amenities of the middle-class suburb.

Contrast the narrow, shut-in back yards with the spacious gardens surrounding the houses of the well-to-do. Remember the acres and acres of playing fields attached to all the public schools of England where the sons of the rich are educated, and then turn to the cramped, asphalted play grounds of the elementary schools in Bermondsey, Southwark, Bethnal Green, Stepney and Poplar.

It is this London of the mean streets to which our thoughts should turn at a London County Council Election rather than the ‘show’ London which visitors from the country and abroad come to see.”

Ada Salter in the early 1920s:

Ada Salter

Ada was also featured in “The VOTE -THE ORGAN OF THE WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE” on the 1st of December 1922, when she was the fifth in a series of features on women mayors. In the article, she wrote:

“As the first woman in London to be offered the position of Mayor, I am proud that I live and work in a borough, the elected representatives of which are prepared to choose an individual who belongs to what is sometimes described as the weaker sex. As a woman, I am naturally eager that the woman’s share in responsibility of government should be a direct one. There is still a tremendous leeway to be made up in all departments of life that affect women, but the failure to catch the vision of a free humanity, where men and women can act together, and not in antagonism, is not confirmed to one sex.

By common consent, the Bermondsey Borough Council has for some years dispensed with the wearing of the Mayoral and Aldermanic robes, but I also do not intend to wear the chain of office. This, of course, is a purely personal matter. For brilliant colouring, and for the brightness of gold, I have the greatest admiration, but I desire them not as symbols of place and power. The ideal for which we must strive is to secure respect for the authority and decisions of the Chair, rather by personality and character, than by decorations of office.”

I suspect we need more Ada’s in politics today.

Ada Salter died on the 4th of December, 1942. One of the newspaper reports of her death started with “The death of Mrs. Ada Salter, who was London’s first woman Mayor, is a reminder of the many hitherto exclusively masculine fields in which women have now staked out a claim”.

Continuing down to the site of Jays for Jeans, and the third pub in this short walk. This is still open as a bar and restaurant but with a new name of the Yellow House:

Jolly Caulkers

The was the Caulkers, originally the Jolly Caulkers, and in a couple of references, the Merry Caulkers.

A Caulker was the person who had the job to fill in any gaps in a ship, to make it watertight. Filling the gaps between originally wooden planks and later the metal sheets that would make up the hull of a ship.

A profession that would have been found across the docks of Rotherhithe.

The earliest reference I can find to the pub is in the 1840s, however the design of the pub does not look 19th century, and I suspect it may have been rebuilt in the 1910s, as in the South London Gazette in 1919 there are references to the New Jolly Caulkers, and which therefore may be a reference to the pub we see today.

And a very short distance on from the Yellow House / Caulkers, was Jays for Jeans.

A short walk, which has revealed one of the few remaining buildings from the time when Rotherhithe was covered in docks, the coat of arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey, the first President of Uganda, Ada Salter, a campaigner for the living conditions of London’s working class and London’s first woman mayor, and three historic pubs.

There is so much more to write about this area, and the large dock complex that once occupied much of this part of Rotherhithe, and I hope to return in future posts.

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The Vulgar Tongue and Provincial Words

An extra post this weekend, following up on the post a couple of weeks ago on Captain Francis Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue which was first published in 1785; a fascinating little book that really bring to life the language that would have been heard on the streets of London in the 18th century.

This week I am covering words starting with the letters N to Z, and as with the first post covering A to M, there is the same focus on crime and punishment, and the challenges of everyday life.

There are words and phrases that are still in use today, many others have been redundant for a very long time.

There are also early examples of how we communicate today, with “gentlemen’s visiting cards” showing an early use of the type of text abbreviation used today with text and Whatsapp messaging (see P.P.C and D.I.O).

It was not just the vulgar tongue of London that Grose collected, he also published “A Glossary of Provincial and Local Words used in England” – a collection of words used across the country and show a very different focus than the vulgar tongue with an emphasis on agriculture, the weather and rural life, my favourite being AQUABOB which I will be using should we get any really cold weather this winter.

So, starting with the letter N from Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, we find some people that you would not want to meet on the streets of London:

NATTY LADS – Young thieves or pickpockets.

NAVY OFFICE – The Fleet prison. Commander of the Fleet; the warden of the Fleet prison.

Confined in the Fleet Prison, from “A Rake’s Progress” by Hogarth © The Trustees of the British Museum):

NECK STAMPER – The boy who collects the pots belonging to an alehouse, sent out with beer to private houses.

NEW DROP – The scaffold used at Newgate for hanging criminals; which dropping down, leaves them suspended. By this improvement, the use of that vulgar vehicle, a cart, is entirely left off.

NICKNACKS – Toys, baubles or curiosities.

NIGHTMAN – One whose business is to empty the necessary houses in London, which is always done in the night.

NYP SHOP – The Peacock in Gray’s Inn Lane, where Burton ale is sold in nyps.

NIPPER – A cut-purse; so called by one Wotton who in the year 1585 kept an academy for the education and perfection of pickpockets and cut-purses; his second school was near Billingsgate, London. As in the dress of ancient times many people wore their purses at their girdles, cutting them was a branch of the light fingered art, which is now lost, though the name remains.

OAR – To put in one’s oar; to intermeddle, or give an opinion unasked; as, to be sure, you must put in your oar.

OLD HAND – Knowing or expert in any business.

OLD HARRY – A composition used by the vintners to adulterate their wines, also the nick name for the devil.

OLD NICK – The Devil.

ORGAN – A pipe. Will you cock your organ? will you smoke your pipe?

OTTOMISED – To be ottomised; to be dissected. You’ll be scragged, ottomised, and grin in a glass case; you’ll be hanged, anatomised, and your skeleton kept in a glass case at Surgeons Hall.

OVERSEER – A man standing in the pillory, is, from his elevated situation, said to be made an overseer.

OWL – To catch the; a trick practiced upon ignorant country boobies, who are decoyed into a barn under pretence of catching an owl, where, after divers preliminaries, the joke ends in their having a pail of water poured upon their heads.

OWL IN AN IVY BUSH – He looks like an owl in an ivy bush; frequently said of a person with a large frizzled wig, or a woman whose hair is dressed a-la-blowse.

OWLERS – Those who smuggle wool over to France.

P.P.C. – An inscription on the visiting cards of our modern fine gentleman, signifying that they have called pour prendre conge, i.e. ‘to take leave’. This has of late been ridiculed by cards inscribed D.I.O. i.e.’ Damme, I’m off’.

PADDINGTON FAIR DAY – An execution day, Tyburn being in the parish of Paddington. To dance the Paddington frisk; to be hanged.

PALL – A companion. One who generally accompanies another, or who commit robberies together.

PANNIER MAN – A servant belonging to the Temple and Gray’s Inn, whose office is to announce dinner. This in the Temple is done by blowing a horn, and in Gray’s Inn proclaiming the word Manger, Manger, Manger, in each of the three courts.

PARSON – A guide post, hand or finger post by the road for directing travelers: compared to a parson, because like him, it sets people in the right way.

I discovered the Guide Post shown in the photo below, which dates from 1686 and includes a pointing hand at Wroxton, from my post On The Road To Stratford-Upon-Avon

PECKISH – Hungry

PETER GUNNERE – will kill all the birds that died last summer. A piece of wit commonly thrown out at a person walking through a street or village near London, with a gun in his hand.

PETTICOAT HOLD – One who has an estate during his wife’s life, called the apron-string hold.

PETTICOAT PENSIONER – One kept by a woman for secret services.

PIGEONS – Sharpers, who, during the drawing of the lottery, wait ready mounted near Guildhall, and, as soon as the first two or three numbers are drawn, which they receive from a confederate on a card, ride with them full speed to some distant insurance office, where there is another of the gang, commonly a decent looking woman, who takes care to be at the office before the hour of drawing; to her he secretly gives the numbers, which she insures for a considerable sum.

PIMP – A male procurer, or cock bawd; also a small fagot used about London for lighting fires, named from introducing the fire to the coals.

The following print from 1771 is a satire on gullible youths and dishonest prostitutes. The women on the left is picking the man’s pockets, and behind the curtain is the pimp. To emphasize the story being told, the picture on the wall behind the three at the table is of a sheep being fleeced © The Trustees of the British Museum).

PISS POT HALL – near Hackney, built by a potter chiefly out of the profits of chamber pots.

PISS-PROUD – Having a false erection. That old fellow thought he had an erection, but his _______ was only piss-proud; said of any old fellow who marries a young wife.

PITT’S PICTURE – A window stopt up on the inside, to save the tax imposed in that gentleman’s administration.

PURL – Ale in which wormwood has been infused, or ale and bitters drunk warm.

QUEEN STREET – A man governed by his wife, is said to live in Queen Street, or at the sign of the Queen’s Head.

QUEER BIRDS – Rogues relieved from prison, and returned to their old trade.

QUEER PLUNGERS – Cheats who throw themselves into the water, in order that they may be taken up by their accomplices, who carry them to one of the houses appointed by the Humane Society for the recovery of drowned persons; and the supposed drowned persons, pretending he was driven to that great extremity by great necessity, is also frequently sent away with a contribution in his pocket.

QUICK AND NIMBLE – More like a bear than a squirrel. Jeeringly said to any one moving sluggishly on a business errand that requires dispatch.

RABBIT CATCHER – A midwife.

RAINY DAY – To lay up something for a rainy day; to provide against a time of necessity of distress.

RANTALLION – One whose scrotum is so relaxed as to be longer than his penis, i.e. whose shot pouch is longer than the barrel of his piece.

RAREE SHEW MEN – Poor Savoyards, who subsist by showing the magic lantern and marmots about London.

RIDING ST. GEORGE – The woman uppermost in the amorous congress, that is, the dragon upon St. George. This is said the way to get a bishop.

RIGMAROLE – Roundabout, nonsensical. He told a long rigmarole story.

RING – Money procured by begging; beggars so called it from its ringing when thrown to them. Also a circle formed for boxers, wrestlers, and cudgel-players, by a man styled Vinegar; who, with his hat before his eyes, goes round the circle, striking at random with his whip to prevent the populace from crowding in.

ROMEVILLE – London

ROUGH – To lie rough; to lie all night in one’s clothes; called also roughing it. Likewise to sleep on the bare deck of a ship, when the person is commonly advised to choose the softest plank.

ROUND ABOUT – An instrument used in house-breaking. This instrument has not been long in use. It will cut a round piece about five inches in diameter out of a shutter or door.

RUFFLERS – The first rank of criminals; also notorious rogues pretending to be maimed soldiers or sailors.

RUNNING STATIONERS – Hawker of newspapers, trials and dying speeches.

RUSSIAN COFFEE HOUSE – The Brown Bear in Bow-street, Covent Garden, a house of call for thief-takers and runners of the Bow street justices.

SANDWICH – Ham, dried tongue, or some other salted meat cut thin and put between two slices of bread and butter; said to be a favourite morsel with the Earl of Sandwich.

SCAMP – A highwayman. Royal Scamp; a highwayman who robs civilly. Royal foot scamp; a footpad who behaves in like manner.

A Scamp in action © The Trustees of the British Museum):

1894 06 11 79 Maclain the Highwayman robbing Lord Eglington Anon P&D

SCOURERS – Riotous bucks, who amuse themselves with breaking windows, beating the watch, and assaulting every person they meet; called scouring the streets.

SHARK – A sharper; perhaps from his preying upon anyone he can lay hold of. Also a custom-house officer, or tide-waiter. Sharks; the first order of pickpockets. Bow-street term, 1785.

SHOOT THE CAT – To vomit from excess of liquor; called also catting.

SHOPLIFTER – One that steals whilst pretending to purchase goods in a shop.

SHY COCK – One who keeps within doors for fear of bailiffs.

SILVER LACED – Replete with lice. The cove’s kickseys are silver laced; the fellow’s breeches are covered with lice.

SIMPLES – Physical herbs; also follies. He must go to Battersea, to be cut for the simples – Battersea is a place famous for its garden grounds

SNAP DRAGON – A Christmas gambol; raisins and almonds being put into a bowl of brandy, and the candles extinguished, the spirit is set on fire, and the company scrambles for the raisins.

STARVE’EM, ROB’EM AND CHEAT’EM – Stroud, Rochester and Chatham; so called by sailors, and not without good reason.

SUGAR SOPS – Toasted bread, soaked in ale, sweetened with sugar, and grated nutmeg; it is eaten with cheese.

SUNNY BANK – A good fire in winter.

SURVEYOR OF THE HIGHWAYS – One reeling drunk

THIEF TAKER – Fellows who associate with all kinds of villains, in order to betray them, when they have committed any of those crimes which entitle the persons taking them to a handsome reward, called blood money. It is the business of these thief takers to furnish subjects for a handsome execution, at the end of every sessions.

The thief-taker Stephen Macdaniel, 1756 © The Trustees of the British Museum):

THIMBLE – A watch. the swell flashes a rum thimble; the gentleman sports a fine watch.

THREE-PENNY UPRIGHT – A retailer of love, who, for the sum mentioned, dispenses her favours standing against a wall.

THREE THREADS – Half common ale, mixed with stale and double beer.

TILBURY – Sixpence; so called from its formerly being the fare for crossing from Gravesend to Tilbury fort.

TWITTER – All in a twitter; in a fright. Twittering is also the note of some small birds such as the robin &c.

TWO TO ONE SHOP – A pawnbroker’s; alluding to the three blue balls, the sign of that trade; or perhaps to its being two to one that the goods pledged are never redeemed.

The three balls of a pawnbroker’s can be seen in this Hogarth print “Beer Street” from 1751. The drawing shows the collapsing house of “N Pinch Pawn Broker”, and looking at the people shown in the view, one can imagine how the phrases listed in Captain Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue were part of normal street language.

UPPING BLOCK – Steps for mounting a horse. he sits like a toad on a jossing block; said of one who sits ungracefully on horseback

UPSTARTS – Persons lately raised to honours and riches from mean stations.

VAULTING SCHOOL – A bawdy-house; also an academy where vaulting and other manly exercises are taught.

WAITS – Musicians of the lower order, who in most towns play under the windows of the chief inhabitants at midnight, a short time before Christmas, for which they collect a Christmas-box from house to house. They are said to derive their name of waits from being always in waiting to celebrate weddings and other joyous events happening in the district.

WATER SNEAKSMAN – A man who steals from ships or craft on the river.

WATERPAD – One that robs ships on the River Thames

WESTMINSTER WEDDING – A match between a whore and a rogue.

WHETSTONE PARK – A lane between Holborn and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, formerly famed for being the resort of women of the town.

WIBLING’S WITCH – The four of clubs: from one James Wibling, who in the reign of King James I, grew rich by private gaming and was commonly observed to have that card, and never to lose a game but when he had it not.

WINDOW PEEPER – A collector of the window tax.

XANTIPPE – The name of Socrates’s wife; now used to signify a shrew or scolding wife.

YARMOUTH PYE – A pye made of herrings highly spiced, which the city of Norwich is by charter bound to present annually to the King.

ZNEES – Frost or Frozen, Zueesy weather; frosty weather.

A Glossary of Provincial and Local Words used in England

Francis Grose also published “A Glossary of Provincial and Local Words used in England”, and the words and phrases in this publication are very different to those in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

Whilst those in the Vulgar Tongue have a number of common themes such as crime and punishment, prostitution, sexual relations, and general street life, those in Provincial and Local Words have mainly agricultural and rural meanings.

It is though impossible to know whether there was any bias in Grose’s collection of words and phrases. Was he looking for words that confirmed the worst of city life for his dictionary of the vulgar tongue, whilst looking for words that confirmed the rural nature of the countryside?

The two books do show the split between City and Country life which was still very marked in the 18th century, and would change significantly during the 19th century with the rapid expansion of industry and migration to the city by very large numbers of those who had lived in the countryside.

Examples from “A Glossary of Provincial and Local Words used in England”, include:

AQUABOB – An icicle

BARSON – A horse’s collar

BERRY – to berry, to thresh out corn

CANDLING – a supper given in some parts by landlords of ale houses to their customers on the Eve of Candlemas-day; part of it is a pie, thence called a CANDLING-PIE

CUSHETS – Wild pigeons

DALLOP – A patch of ground among corn that has escaped the plough; also tufts of corn where dung-heaps have long laid

ERRISH – A stubble field

FEATHERING – Binding a hedge

FLIGGURS – Young birds, just fledged.

GIBBET – A great cudgel, such as are thrown at trees, to beat down fruit.

HOPPER-CAKE – a seed cake with plums in it, with which the farmers treat their servants when seed-time is finished.

IMP – to rob, or disposes a person.

JACK – half a pint.

KING HARRY – A goldfinch

LEASTY WEATHER – dull, wet, dirty.

MAWKIN – a bunch of rags used for cleansing the oven.

NEB or NIB – the nose, also the beak of a bird.

NOON-SCAPE – the time when labourers rest after dinner.

OLD LAND – ground that had laid long untilled, and just ploughed up.

PINGSWILL – a boil

QUAKLED – almost choked, or suffocated.

RANDLE BAWK – an iron gibbet in a chimney, to hang the pot-hooks on.

SEEING-GLASS – a mirror, or looking glass.

TWITTER – to tremble. This is a word of general use. My heart twitters; I am all of a twitter. To TWITTER thread or yarn, is to spin it uneven; generally used also in this sense.

URCHIN – a hedgehog

VELLING – ploughing up the turf, or upper surface of the ground, to lay in heaps to burn.

WARPING – turning a river on land to obtain the mud for manure when it recedes.

YEAVELING – evening.

ZINNILA – a son-in-law

Francis Grose left a wonderful collection of words and phrases in use in the city and country during the late 18th century. The importance of these words is that they provide an insight into life at the time,

I did wonder how many of these terms were invented by those providing them to Grose, however I have found very many of them in newspapers from the 18th and 19th centuries, confirming their use in the way described by Grose.

For example, the first reference I could find of the term SNAP DRAGON dated from 1738, and in the Bristol Mercury dated the 30th of December 1889, there is a feature on Christmas customs, and the following is included:

“SNAP DRAGON – With regards to Christmas fare, snap dragon is a very ancient favourite, although I think it is dying out. A number of raisins are deposited in a shallow disk or bowl, and brandy is poured over them and ignited. The fun is to snatch a raisin through the flames. To this there is such a song as:

Here he comes with flaming bowl, Don’t he mean to take his toll; Snip snap dragon,

Take care you don’t take too much, Be not greedy in your clutch, Snip snap dragon.

Although Grose collected all these words and phrases in the second part of the 18th century, many of them must have had some considerable age, particularly those of the Provincial and Local words as I suspect words in use in the city changed more frequently than those in the countryside..

Both of Grose’s publications help to bring to life the everyday experience of the late 18th century, and provide a very valuable record.

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Euston Station and HS2 – A 2023 Update

In 2017, I photographed the area to the west of Euston Station, with a focus on  St. James’s Gardens, as this area was about to become the construction site for the expanded Euston Station, for the London terminus of HS2, a high speed railway that would run to Birmingham with branches to Manchester and the east Midlands.

Each year since 2017, I have made a return visit to the area around Euston Station, intending to photograph what was there before demolition, then the construction phase and finally the new Euston Station.

In recent years, the future of HS2 has been in doubt, and a couple of months ago, the Government announced that the northern sections would be dropped and that the London section between Old Oak Common and Euston Station would be paused.

In the latest HS2 6-monthly report to Parliament – November 2023, it was stated that delivery remains on track for “Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham Curzon Street by 2029 to 2033”. There was no date given for completion of the section from Old Oak Common to Euston.

There is a list of all my previous HS2 posts at the end of this post, and after anticipating seeing a new station as the final post in this series, I now wonder whether I will ever get to see a new HS2 station at a redeveloped Euston.

The following map from the Media section of the HS2 website shows the route as it was still planned in 2022:

HS2
HS2_print_Infrastructure map_post IRP_220607_jpg

As well as pausing construction of the section from Old Oak Common to Euston, the November report to Parliament stats that “we will not proceed with Phase 2a, 2b or HS2 East”.

Much of the construction area is hidden behind panels, many of which have artwork and advertising that tells the story of what HS2 will bring to Euston, and the wider benefits of the project. Much of this now looks rather hollow and out of date, and includes the new Euston Station:

HS2

And as well as “building you a better Euston”, the following poster still states that HS2 will be “Connecting eight out of ten of Britain’s largest cities”, and will “More than double the number of train seats out of Euston in peak hours”:

HS2

And that improvements to the existing station will provide a “Bigger, better concourse, 100s of new seats, wider platform ramps”.

Extension of HS2 from Old Oak Common to Euston has been “paused”, and the November report to Parliament states that:

“We are going to scale back the project at Euston and adopt a new development led approach to the Euston Quarter which will deliver a station that works, is affordable and can be open and running trains as soon as possible. We will not provide design features we do not need and will instead deliver a 6-platform station which can accommodate the trains we will run to Birmingham and onwards and which best supports regeneration of the local area. In this way we will attract private funding and unlock the wider land development opportunities the new station offers, while radically reducing its costs to the taxpayer.”

But the most scary part of the new plans for Euston is this sentence in the November report:

“At Euston, we will appoint a development company, separate from HS2 Ltd, to manage the delivery of this project. We will also take on the lessons of success stories such as Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms, which secured £9 billion of private sector investment and thousands of homes.”

Whilst economically, Nine Elms has been considered a success in bringing in considerable (mainly overseas) investment to develop the area, the Nine Elms development seems to have resulted in the random placement of individually designed tower blocks, without any apparent cohesive design for the area. The towers look as if they have been randomly dropped from the sky, with a height and density to maximise profit rather than to add character and improve a key part of London.

Is this the future for Euston? A station hiding underneath another vision of Nine Elms, delivering enough cash from developers to complete the section from Old Oak Common to Euston along with the new station, but with a focus on the needs of developers, rather than a new the design and build of a new station that could have served as the London terminus of a growing railway to the north of the country.

In the following map, I have added a red line to show the area which had been cleared for the new station, and the tracks leaving the station to head to Old Oak Common (Map © OpenStreetMap contributors):

HS2

HS2 have a couple of photos in the Media section of their website which shows the scale of the site. The following is looking at the site from the north:

HS2
An aerial still of the HS2 Euston Station site, August 2022

And the following view is looking north, with Euston Station to the right:

HS2
An aerial still of the HS2 Euston Station site, August 2022

Both of the above photos are available to download from the Construction section of the HS2 media Gallery at this link.

I suspect that the main problem that HS2 has had is the name – High Speed 2.

The slightly shorter journey time from London cannot really justify the expense of the project, and the additional speed will only really benefit journeys much further north than Birmingham.

The main benefit that HS2 provides is extra capacity on existing rail lines, such as the West Coast Main Line (WCML).

Transferring high speed trains from the existing WCML onto HS2 would have released a significant amount of extra capacity which could have been used for freight, additional passenger train services between many of the places on the WCML route, as well as increasing the number of high speed trains.

However, calling the project Extra Capacity 1, or EC1 does not sound as exciting as HS2, although it would have been a better description of the real benefits.

I started my 2023 walk on a weekday, when hopefully it would be clear how much work was still underway. My route started in Clarkson Row, just to the west of Mornington Crescent, as here you can just about see over the wall, across the existing tracks, to where new tracks will be run as the railway heads from Euston to Old Oak Common:

HS2

Heading along Hampstead Road, and this is the view along the street, back towards Mornington Crescent. The main entrance to the site to the west of Hampstead Road is here:

HS2

There was still work underway, however according to HS2 press releases, what is happening now around Euston is “enabling work” rather than construction works, and there were utility works on the street, so I assume this means minor, low cost works which may make the project easier to get underway if and when it restarts.

One of the entrances to the main Euston site:

HS2

Look back along the Hampstead Road:

HS2

This is the main entrance from Hampstead Road to the main site around Euston Station:

HS2

There appeared to be very little happening, and the only vehicle that was running through the site was a road sweeper.

There is no sign of any elements of a new station, and the appearance of the site was much the same as last year. Parts of the site which were open last year have now been fenced off, so the site appears more enclosed than a year ago, but again, not much happening within the site.

There are three places where there is a change to last year, the first is the National Temperance Garden, described as “a temporary green space for all to enjoy”. It has been built on the site of the old National Temperance Hospital, and this is the view of the garden from Hampstead Road:

National Temperance Garden

The large structure behind the gardens are offices and have been there for the last few years. The fencing between the gardens and Hampstead Road are standard HS2 Euston green security fencing and surround places on the site where there are no large panels.

Inside the gardens, which apparently has been “specially designed to be moved and re-used in the local area when the site closes”:

National Temperance Garden

These buildings were home to the Maria Fidelis School:

HS2

To free up the school site, HS2 have built a new school between Drummond Crescent and Phoenix Road, and the site in Starcross Street is now closed.

The school and a large new building behind the school are a new “Euston Skills Centre”, set-up to provide training to local people and thereby providing the number of trained workers that such a large project requires.

The Euston Skills Centre was handed over to Camden Council on the 20th of November, however given that work within Camden has now been paused it will be interesting to see what Camden Council does with the facility. Hopefully there are still plenty of training opportunities for Camden locals to work on the project from Old Oak Common northwards.

Between the skills centre and Starcross Street is the second of the places where there has been a tangible change, compared to last year.

This is another temporary open space, in the form of Starcross Yard:

Starcross Yard

The theme for Starcross Yard is “echoes of place”, and within the space there are physical reminders of places from a surprisingly wide area, not just the HS2 construction site, or Euston.

To highlight these, there are information panels along the railings which tell of the “uncommon histories of people and space”.

The first is the Temperance Hospital, which was demolished as part of the clearance of the HS2 construction site:

Starcross Yard

The second covers the St. James’s Burial Ground, which again was cleared as part of HS2 site clearances. The panel highlights the boxer Bill Richmond who was buried at St. James’s Burial Ground, and a number of others buried are also named, as well as many from the workhouse:

Starcross Yard

Railings from the old burial ground now form part of Starcross Yard.

The above two panels refer to places that have become part of the HS2 construction site. The rest of the panels cover people and places that are further away, and not part of HS2.

The first of these is the German Gymnasium which today can be found by the southern entrance to Pancras Square, between St. Pancras and King’s Cross Stations:

Starcross Yard

Poles from the German Gymnasium can now be found at Starcross Yard.

Next up is Cumberland Market:

Starcross Yard

Cumberland Market was a short distance to the west of Euston Station, at the southern end of the Regents Park Basin, a small dock area off the Regents Canal.

My father grew up next to the Regents Park Basin, and I wrote about the area in this post. Starcross Yard has cobbles from Cumberland Market.

Next is St. Aloysius, a Somers Town Catholic Church:

Starcross Yard

The church is still functioning, although a mid 1960s rebuild, rather than the buildings shown on the panel. The church can be found to the east of Euston station, in Eversholt Street.

And the final panel covers the local schools, including the Maria Fidelis school, which is the large brick building beside Starcross Yard:

Starcross Yard

I rather like what they have done with Starcross Yard. Too often when large areas of London are redeveloped, there is nothing left to indicate anything about the people and places that once had a connection to the place.

Starcross Yard is temporary, and I hope whatever comes next retains this approach to the areas history.

Meanwhile, at the end of Starcross Street, the Exmouth Arms are still open:

Exmouth Arms Starcross Street

Next to the Exmouth Arms is another of the site entrances, guarded by a rather bored security person:

Starcross Street

At the end of Starcross Street is Cobourg Street, although the road element of the street is now boarded off, with only the footpath remaining.

Cobourg Street crosses Drummond Street, and last year you could walk along this far stretch of Cobourg Street, but during my 2023 visit, the footpath was being fenced off:

Drummond Street

It seems to be a result of the “pause” in work of HS2 into Euston, that the whole site seems to be getting more enclosed and secure. I assume if you have a large area of open land sitting idle, you do not want the risk of anyone getting in.

This is the view back along Cobourg Street from Drummond Street towards the Exmouth Arms:

Cobourg Street

Where Drummond Street once ran all the way to the edge of Euston Station, it now stops at the junction with Cobourg Street, and continues on as a walkway, with the HS2 construction site on either side.

This is the view along the walkway, looking up towards Drummond Street:

HS2

And from the same location, looking towards Euston Station:

HS2

And back towards Drummond Street:

HS2

At the corner of where Drummond Street once met Melton Street is the original Euston station of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (I wrote about a visit to the station and tunnels in this post):

Euston underground station

To the left of the underground station is another large area of cleared space, this was the area once bounded by Melton Street, Drummond Street, Euston Street and Cobourg Street, and was where the Bree Louise pub was to be found:

HS2

The following view is from the same position as the above photo, and is looking along where Melton Street ran into Cardington Street. It was a short distance along Cardington Street that St. James’s Gardens could be found. The tree is the only reminder of the trees that once lined part of the street and across the gardens.

HS2

The view along what was Melton Street, with a walkway into Euston Station up the ramp to the left:

HS2

The walkway along what was Melton Street:

Melton Street

There is a small stub of Melton Street left, where it meets Euston Road, and again has a very quiet entrance to the HS2 construction site:

Melton Street

I then walked along Euston Road to find the third place where there is any tangible sign of a change. At the eastern side of the station is Eversholt Street, and in front of the station, and the bus stops, between Eversholt Street and Euston Road, one of the open spaces alongside Euston Road has been redeveloped:

Eversholt Street

The area is still secured by standard HS2 Euston green mesh fencing, but through it there appears to be a new taxi drop of point. It all looks finished, but no indication of when it will be opening:

Eversholt Street

Then a walk to the open space in front of the station:

Euston station concourse

With a view in the opposite direction showing the office blocks between Euston Station and Euston Road:

Euston station

Returning to Melton Street, where there is a ramp leading to a walkway into Euston Station, this is the view, with a large open construction site behind the panels on the right:

Euston Station

If you walk into Euston Station, up to the first floor area where there is a pub and food outlets, at the western end of this space there are stairs back down to ground level, and from here there is a view over the construction space in front of the station, with Melton Street to the right, and taxi ranks alongside Euston Road:

View from Euston station

Not much happening in this large area:

View from Euston station

The station concourse:

Euston station concourse

That was the HS2 Euston construction site in 2023. Very little change compared to a year ago, with only two small gardens and a taxi drop off point the only external signs of change.

There were not that many construction workers around, and the perimeter of the site seems to be getting more secure, as if it is closing up for a long period.

HS2 seems to be a love / hate project, and whatever your individual views on the project, it does not give a good impression of the country when we seem unable to build major infrastructure projects such as HS2.

There is an interesting article on the London reconnections website, comparing the costs of infrastructure projects in the UK and other, comparable countries, and it is remarkable just how much extra, projects in this country are to build compared to others.

There are many complex reasons for this. Planning processes, funding complexity, objections to projects, long decision making, changes to decisions etc. all add to cost.

Although the Old Oak Common to Euston section has been paused, there will still be cost, at the very minimum the construction sites will need security, and I suspect it will take very many years before sufficient private finance is found to complete the project.

London Mayors and Government Ministers of all parties seem to like the phrase that “London is open for business”, a phrase which I find rather meaningless, but seems to translate as the city is open for anyone to purchase London’s assets, and this will probably be the way for Euston with offshore investment building up a new Nine Elms above a very slimmed down station.

Apart from the Silvertown Tunnel, HS2 is the only other major public transport infrastructure project in London.

Crossrail 2 has been “paused” since October 2020, and I doubt there will be anything for some decades to come.

Sorry to be so depressing on your Sunday morning.

I stayed taking a few more photos as it got dark, and as I left the station, the new information board in the outside concourse mirrored my thoughts at the time about the future of Euston’s development, with almost every train being delayed:

Euston departure board

My visits to the Euston HS2 construction site for the past six years are covered in the following posts:

My first post was back in 2017 and covered St James Gardens, just before they were closed for excavation.

My second post in 2018 walked around the streets to the west of the station, as buildings began to close, and the extent of the works could be seen.

I then went back in 2019 as demolition started.

In 2020, demolition was well underway and St James Gardens had disappeared, and the associated archaeological excavation had finished

And in June 2021 I went back for another walk around the edge of the construction site.

Last year’s 2022 walk around the site is here.

I suspect the site will be much the same when I visit again later in 2024.

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Commercial Road Café

If you would like to come on one of my walks, a couple of places have just become free on two of my final walks until late next spring. Details and links are:

2 places available on the walk Bankside to Pickle Herring Street – History between the Bridges on Sunday the 5th of November

1 place available on the walk Limehouse – A Sink of Iniquity and Degradation on Sunday the 12th of November

For this week’s post, I am in Whitechapel, on the Commercial Road, a short distance east from Aldgate East Underground Station, where, in 1952, my father took the following photo:

Commercial Road Café

The view is looking east along Commercial Road. My father was standing in a cleared bomb site, looking across to where a café was parked. The café looks as if it was once a tram or coach, however after a quick bit of Googling, I could not find anything similar, so any information would be appreciated.

Roughly the same view today (although the street in the foreground is not the same in both photos, I had to stand slightly to the east to avoid trees, parked lorries and other obstructions on the pavement that obscured the view):

Commercial Road Café

I have marked the location and direction of view by the red circle and arrow in the following extract from the 1948 revision of the OS map, with the blue line showing the location of the café (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

Commercial Road Café

The map shows the amount of bomb damage in this part of Whitechapel with plenty of blank space where bomb damaged buildings had been cleared.

The map also shows the name of the narrow lane in the foreground of my father’s photo. This was Plumbers Row, a lane that went much further north from Commercial Road up to the junction of Fieldgate Street and Whitechapel Road, however today, the southern section has been built over, covering much of the area along Commercial Road with a large new building over the bombsite where my father was standing, where the café was located, and up to Greenfield Road.

Although nothing remains of the view to the left of Commercial Road in my father’s photo, much of the right hand side of the road is still recognisable. In the following extract from the 1952 photo, there is a row of terrace houses of difference sizes:

Commercial Road Café

In the above photo, from the centre to the right, there is a row of terrace houses of the same height. These still remain today, although they have all had an additional floor added at roof level as shown in the same view, seventy one years later in 2023:

Commercial Road Café

The building to the right of the terrace is still the same, as are the taller terrace buildings to the left.

The reason my father took this particular photo must have been the rather unusual café on the bomb site. On the front there are adverts for a number of soft drinks:

Pepsi Cola

On the left is an advert for Fling with their slogan that it “Freshens and Fortifies”. It was sold in a bottle that was very similar to that used by Coke, and from what I have read it seems to have been a cheaper version of the American drink.

In the middle is an advert for Solo, an orange drink, highlighted by the illustration of a cut orange in the advert.

One the right is an advert for Pepsi Cola, which ten years later would rebrand as just Pepsi. There was also a large advert for Pepsi Cola on the left of the café, which seems to have had a small kitchen area at the rear:

Pepsi Cola

There are also a couple of milk churns, one of which is in a box which appears to be mounted at the front of a bike. No idea whether this was to bring milk to the café, or whether milk was distributed to local residents from the café.

The building behind the café had a large advert for Liquid Sunshine Rum – Pure Jamaica:

Charles Kinloch

This was a brand of Charles Kinloch who were wine and spirits merchants, who seem to date from the early 1860s.

They were an independent company until 1957, five years after the above photo, when they were taken over by the brewer Courage.

I cannot find out for how long Liquid Sunshine Rum was sold, however their rum trade seems to have taken a back seat during the 1960s as wine started to become a popular alcoholic drink.

Charles Kinloch had plenty of adverts in the press and on TV targeting the low cost wine market, and they seem to have focused on lower cost Spanish wines, rather than more expensive French. Their marketing was on the pleasure of drinking their wines, rather than “putting by or putting one over the next door neighbour”.

In 1966 they advertised that “My Spanish wines are for drinkers, not collectors, says Charles Kinloch, They’re Good and Cheap”. Cheap was 9 shillings, 3 pence a bottle. In 1966 they also had an advertising slot on ITV titled “The Great Charles Kinloch Wine Robbery”, and in newspapers had full page adverts providing helpful lists of which of their wines to use for different types of food, and courses during a dinner.

At the time, their head office was in Kinloch House, Cumberland Avenue, London NW10. As Courage was taken over several times during the following decades, the Kinloch brand gradually disappeared.

And this is where research gets really frustrating as I found a Charles Kinloch building close to the site of the 1952 photo, the subject of this post.

Almost on the opposite side of the road, from the 1952 and my 2023 photo is Back Church Lane that runs from Commercial Road to Cable Street.

Along Back Church Lane was a large Charles Kinloch warehouse, and the building remains, along with the name Charles Kinloch in large letters along the top of the building.

It is frustrating as I found this during final research for the post on the Saturday prior to publication, so did not have time to go and take a photo, so to make up for the lack of a photo, you can see the building at this link to Google StreetView.

A relatively short post this week, but I am pleased to have found and photographed another of the locations of my father’s early photos.

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Watney Market and Watney Street, Shadwell.

All my walks have sold out, however I have had a request to run the “South Bank – Marsh, Industry, Culture and the Festival of Britain” walk on a weekday, so have added a walk on Thursday, the 9th of November, which can be booked here.

For this week’s post, I am in Watney Market and Watney Street in Shadwell. A street that runs between Cable Street and Commercial Road.

It is a rather long post, however the post does what I really love about writing the blog. It takes one of my father’s photos and with some digging discovers so much about life in the area of a single street.

East London poverty, the relationship with the River Thames, a market that has traded for many years, a lost pub, Blackshirts, post-war Germany and post-war redevelopment which erased a long familiar street.

This is the photo, taken by my father in 1952:

Watney Market

As c;lose as I could get to the same view today:

Watney Street

My father’s photo was taken from the bombed space once occupied by a church, and it was looking southwest towards a pub, the Masons Arms, which faced onto Watney Street and Watney Market.

The following extract from the 1952 photo shows on the left, the large sign or perhaps a lantern on the front of the pub and two of the remaining shops which seem to have part survived the bombing which destroyed the area around them.

I have marked the spot with the red circle in the following map of the area today ( © OpenStreetMap contributors):

Watney Market

Commercial Road is the road running left to right at the top of the map. The train tracks at the bottom of the map is the Docklands Light Railway. Watney Street is running from the junction with Commercial Road at the top centre of the map, down to the DLR where it heads under the railway, down to Cable Street which is just below the bottom of the map

The following map is from the 1948 revision of the OS map, and shows the area much as it was when my father took the photo, from the location of the red dot (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“).:

Map of Watney Street

I have mapped some of the key features in the photo onto the map below.

  • The red line and arrow points from the Masons Arms pub in the photo to the pub in the map
  • The blue line and arrow points from the two remaining shops in this section of Watney Street to their location on the map
  • The yellow oval is around one of the pillars that originally stood either side of the main entrance into the open space in front of the church
Mason's Arms Watney Street

In the above maps, you will see that my father was standing in front of the outline of Christ Church.

These were the ruins of a church that had been very badly damaged by bombing in 1941, and had then been demolished. It was not rebuilt, and the land was integrated into the post war redevelopment.

The church was not that old. The foundation stone was laid on the 11th of March, 1840, with the land being the site of three former houses on land owned by the Mercers Company, who conveyed the land to the church.

The site of the church, and the surrounding housing, before wartime bombing and post war redevelopment obliterated the area is shown in the following extract from the 1914 revision of the OS map (again the red circle indicates where my father was standing to take the photo) (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“).:

Map of Watney Street

In my father’s photo, the slogan “No arms for Nazis” is painted on the wall running alongside the pub. This slogan represented a concern about the level of Nazi sympathies still remaining in Germany, rearming Germany, and the need to integrate Germany into the wider European community.

In 1953, British security services had made several arrests, and the US had undertaken a survey which revealed that the undercurrents of Nazi-ism in Germany should be taken seriously. It was claimed that the growth of “nationalistic discontent among young men is ominous”.

There was unemployment in Germany and economic grievances were being intensified by the numbers of refuges from the Eastern Zone.

At the time, Germany was not considered an equal partner with other countries in western Europe, and, to quote papers of the time “And the vagueness of British policy, the passive attitude of the Tories towards European co-operation – which they encouraged with words when not in power – has done nothing to speed things up”.

This had already been going on for some years, and when the German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer was in London in December 1951, he was met by a demonstration when he arrived in Downing Street for a lunch with Churchill.

He was met with cries of “Adenauer go home”, “Sieg heil” and “Heil Hitler”.

Adenaur had been an opponent of the Nazis and had only just survived the war as he had lost all his property, money and position in the 1930s.

He was strongly anti-communist, wanted cooperation within Europe and the US, wanted to start the rearming of Germany, and he had earlier ended the de-Nazification process.

He was part of the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Paris in 1951, which established the European Coal and Steel Community (the predecessor of the European Union), not a popular move in Germany as it was seen to give France too much influence over German industry.

Adenaur also ensured that West Germany joined NATO in May 1955, and secured agreement for Germany to rearm (although agreeing that Germany would not have nuclear weapons).

When Adenaur visited Downing Street in 1951, leaflets were handed out to the crowd with the words “No arms for Nazis”. These leaflets, and the slogan were part of a campaign by the London Peace Council, based at New Compton Street, W.C.2.

The slogan appeared at many sites across London, and also across the country, for example an article in the East Kent Times reported that in Ramsgate “Motorists and residents were startled to see on the parapet of the viaduct, high above the main Margate Road, the words ‘No arms for Nazis’ painted in large white capitals.”

The use of white paint and capital letters seems to have been standard for where the slogan was found.

The slogan was on the wall that ran alongside the Masons Arms pub. The pub seems to date from the mid 19th century and features in numerous newspaper reports. All the usual issues of crime, drunkenness, change in licensee, meetings etc.

There were a couple of reports which gave an insight into life in 19th century London and the River Thames.

From the Kentish Gazette on the 17th of May, 1859:

“ENROLMENT OF NAVAL WOLUNTEERS – The recruiting officers of the Royal Navy had quite a field-day on the river of Tuesday. A steam boat, profusely decorated with union jacks, ensigns and other national colours, and manned by a dashing crew of blue jackets, with a powerful band on board, left the London-bridge-wharf shortly after eleven o’clock for a cruise down the river. The steamer on her paddle-box bore the words ‘Queen’s bounty’ and on her sides fore and aft, ‘£10 able seamen, £5 ordinary seamen’.

On leaving the band struck up ‘Hearts of Oak’. The sailors gave a most deafening cheer, which was taken up by the vast multitude which lined London-bridge and crowded the water side. The trip was continued to Gravesend, where the blue jackets landed and paraded through the principle thoroughfares, and the proclamation being frequently read. A vast crowd followed the recruiting party, and during their stay the town was kept in a most lively state of excitement. many volunteers were received and numbers promised to present themselves at the rendezvous on Tower-hill. Owing, however to the long prevalence of easterly winds there were not so many first class seamen in port, a large fleet of homeward-bounders being detained in the Channel.

As far as it has gone, however this new popular mode of beating up naval recruits has answered admirably; and the Masons Arms, Watney Street, Commercial Road (situated in a locality crowded with sailors), has been opened as a rendezvous. A change in wind must bring in large numbers of first-class men, who will doubtless avail themselves of the £10 bounty.”

There is so much in the above article. It tells us that in the mid 19th century:

  • Large numbers of sailors lived around Watney Street
  • Ships still being mainly powered by the wind could be stuck in the channel with an easterly wind as they could not round the eastern edge of Kent to access the Thames Estuary
  • That the Thames and the London Docks were a very important part in the life of London

As with most other East London pubs, inquests into unexpected and accidental deaths would be held in the Masons Arms. A newspaper report from October 1841 tells the story of 34 year old James Holland who worked as a coal-whipper (a coal-whipper brought up the coal from below decks using baskets attached to a pulley system).

He was working on the “Three Sons”, a collier from Sunderland which was moored in the river off Rotherhithe and whilst filling a basket with coal, he collapsed with blood pouring from his mouth and nose, and died almost immediately.

At the inquest in the Masons Arms, the verdict was “Died by a visitation of God”. No reference to his working conditions, long exposure to coal dust etc.

Time to have a look at Watney Street. The street has almost completely been rebuilt, with only a couple of pre-war buildings remaining at the very southern part of the street.

The alignment of the northern half of the street changed, and it has been rebuilt with new tiered housing on either side of a central raised section where the market is now located.

Walking along Commercial Road, this is the first view of Watney Street and Market:

Clock Tower

To the east of the entrance to the market is a clock tower:

Clock tower

Which has a plaque mounted on the side:

Plaque to industrial accident

The plaque recalls a dreadful tragedy when three workers died on the 22nd of September, 1990. At the time, they were investigating a blockage in a drain. There were four workers involved. One of them had descended into the drain which was at the bottom of a 9ft shaft. He was overcome by fumes, and in an attempt to rescue him, two other descended the shaft, but were in turn overcome by fumes.

The Fire Brigade was called, and firemen wearing breathing apparatus descended the shaft and pulled the three men out. The man who remained at the top of the shaft was also affected by fumes from the sewer.

It turned out they they have been overcome by hydrogen sulphide gas, and the three who descended all died.

They were not provided with any safety equipment, gas monitoring or breathing equipment, ropes and harnesses etc. and had received no training to undertake such work. It was the type of accident that would have happened in 1890 rather than 1990.

The three who died were trainee electrician Paul Richardson (aged 17), his brother trainee plumber David Richardson (aged 19) and electrician Steven Hammond (aged 32).

Their employer was fined £50,000 which even at the time seemed a ridiculously low amount for the loss of three lives in such avoidable circumstances.

A dreadfully sad loss of life which so easily could have been prevented if they had been provided with the correct equipment and training.

This is the view looking down into Watney Market from Commercial Road:

Watney Market

The London Overground between Shadwell and Whitechapel runs beneath Watney Market. If you go back to the 1952 OS map of the area, to the upper left of the original routing of Watney Street, just below Commercial Road, there is a circle with the words “Air Shaft”.

This was a ventilation shaft for the railway which runs just below the surface. In the rebuilt market, the above ground infrastructure of the airshaft can be seen, which is also used to advertise Watney Market:

Air vent to London overground below the street

View looking through the market back up to Commercial Road:

Watney Market

There was an article in the East London Advertiser on Saturday the 21st of August, 1886 about Watney Market. It was a rather long article, however it does provide a really good view of the market, those who shopped there, and the conditions of many of those who lived in the area. The core of the article follows:

“WATNEY STREET MARKET – How, when, or by whom this market was commenced no one seems to know. It has no charter, nor any legal status but that of usage, and like Topsy, it seems to have ‘growed’. Nevertheless it has become an important market, and to the poor inhabitants of St. George’s and Shadwell it is a most useful institution.

At first the market seems to have been confined mostly to the Cable-street end of Watney-street, the busiest being in the neighbourhood of the railway arch; but now, on some days, and particularly on Saturdays, it extends the whole length of the curved street, from Cable-street to Commercial-road and in it can be purchased almost everything needed in a household, from a pennyworth of pins to a suite of furniture, with bedding, bolsters, curtain lace, baby-linen, suits of clothing. washing machines, pianos and perambulators; whilst in the edible department it is always well stocked.

There is fish in every variety, from the lordly salmon down to a fresh herring, whilst the butchers cater for all classes, and in a manner suitable to the means of their numerous customers. Thus, on a Saturday, from morning till late at night, and particularly in the latter portion of the day, this market is crowded. in addition to the shops on both sides of the street, which are numerous, stalls are erected on and outside the footpath, leaving only a sufficient space for a limited amount of vehicular traffic.

A very large proportion of the purchasers in this market are women, and these mostly of the very poorest class, whose families live from hand to mouth. They can afford little at once, but they want that little every day when they can find the money to buy it; and hence the individual amounts spent at any one time are small, whilst their aggregate for a year must represent a very large sum. here the ‘ladies’ saunter about the market in dozens, in the most careless of deshabille, with hair unkempt, faces unwashed, and a general appearance of not having been dressed or undressed for a very considerable period. Each of them is accompanied by two, three or four children, equally elegantly attired. Whilst the mothers are looking out the cheapest bargains, these youngsters dive in, under and around the stalls, picking up rotten fruit, and anything else from the stalls on which the vendor does not keep a sharp eye.

And yet, notwithstanding all this squalor in dress and cleanliness, there is a general air of cheerfulness, frequently arising to hilarity, amongst the habitués of the market, and the general tone is one of careless happiness, especially when the weather is fine, when the women seem in no hurry about their business, but enjoy a thorough good gossip in the market place. Very few bags or baskets are brought by the buyers, they are not needed. A pound of bits of meat for about four pence, a couple of pounds of potatoes for two pence, and a cabbage for a penny, with perhaps a pennyworth of onions, and there is a dinner which has frequently to be eked out, with the aid of bread, for a family of six. An apron or the skirt of a dress will hold much more than this, and so the ladies who attend here will not encumber themselves with a basket, even if they have one, which in most cases is doubtful.

The women who purchase on Saturdays, are for the most part, wives of working men who are paid their wages on Friday; but there is a large class of men who are not paid until Saturday, and sometimes late even on that day. The bulk of these do not go straight home when they have received their wages, but remain about in public houses, where they are joined by their wives in very many instances, until it is too late, or they are too much overcome, to go shopping. What becomes of the children in the interval nobody knows and nobody seems to care. They play out on the street until they are all thoroughly tired out, and then made their way supperless and unwashed to such beds as they have, whilst their parents, with drunken recklessness, are wasting the food supplies on that which makes them utterly oblivious of the morrow and its responsibilities.”

The London Poverty Maps created by Charles Booth date from around the same time as the above report. Watney Street is in the centre of the following extract, and the streets around the street appear to have almost every category from Middle Class, Well-to-do (along Commercial Road), down to Lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal (area in black).

Charles Booth poverty map

There has been a constant battle regarding space in Watney Market which has been going on for over 100 years, both in the original market, and the post-war rebuild.

The market stalls operate in the central space, with shops in the ground floors of the buildings on either side. These shop owners have long complained about the market stalls hiding their shops. They have complained about the size of the market stalls, the volume of product on display, how close the stalls are to their shops, the amount of traders products also displayed on the floor, and all the problems which the shop owners believe prevent shoppers from seeing, and getting to their shops.

This has been a recurring issue in newspaper reports back to the mid 19th century, and the market today remains a busy place, with market traders using as much space as is possible for the stalls, and to display their goods.

There is only a narrow walkway through the centre of the market, and the shops that line the ground floors of the buildings on either side are quite hard to see:

Watney Market

The southern end of Watney Street is at Cable Street, a street that is well known as the scene of the “Battle of Cable Street”, when on the 4th of October 1936, there were clashes between the Police, ant-fascist demonstrators, and the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, who were attempting to march through the area.

Whilst Cable Street is remembered as the scene of the attempted march, and anti-march demonstrators, in the 1930s, this area of east London was the scene pf regular provocation of the mainly Jewish community who lived in the area, by members of fascist organistions.

Watney Street and Watney Market frequently appeared in newspaper reports of these events. For example, on the 30th of May 1936, the City and East London Observer carried a report titled “Fascists in Watney Street”:

“There was great excitement among the many shoppers and stallholders in Watney Street on Sunday morning when about a dozen Blackshirts paraded up and down the market selling Fascist newspapers amid cries of ‘More Stalls for Englishmen’, ‘Foreigners Last and Nowhere’, while from another section of the crowd there were cries of ‘Blackshirt Thugs’, ‘Rats’, etc.

A great crowd gathered, and a Jewish girl, going up to one of the Blackshirts, bought a paper, tore it to pieces and stamped on the fragments. After this the police took a hand but they found it very difficult to keep the crowd on the move owing to the barrows in the market. Somebody picked up a cucumber from one of the stalls, but was prevented from throwing it at a Blackshirt.

A surprising number of the people present appeared to be in sympathy with the Blackshirts. The Blackshirts are, it is believed, about to open a branch in Stepney.”

A few months later in July 1936 is was reported that the market place in Watney Street “seems to be the chief hunting ground for Blackshirts selling their propaganda, who, according to reports, do their best to encourage hatred of the Jewish community.”

Many of the traders in the market were concerned about the lack of action from the authorities, and “rightly or wrongly, are of the opinion that the police are pro-Fascist”.

The traders were concerned that the Blackshirts were having a negative impact on their trade. Their actions and language put off many of the customers of the market, and when they arrived many of the traders packed up and left.

This all came to a head with the Battle of Cable Street, which greatly diminished the impact of the Blackshirts in Watney Street.

Another air vent, half way along the market. Possibly another air vent to the railway below:

Air shaft and air vent

Post war redevelopment of Watney Street and surroundings took some time. It was being planned in the 1950s, however nothing happened on the ground until the 1960s when the market was relocated in 1965, the surviving buildings demolished and the area flattened.

Tiered sets of new flats were built on either side of the new routing of Watney Street and a raised area along the new alignment was created for the market.

This took a long time to complete, with work not being substantially finished until 1977.

The flats were not popular with the original inhabitants of the street. Flats had been planned in the last days of the war, and in 1944 there were protests against the plan for flats, with residents of the Watney Street area telling the Borough Council that “Working people with families must have decent houses in which they can rear them properly”.

The wholesale demolition of many streets of terrace housing across east London, and the construction of flats is one of the themes of post war redevelopment of the area.

Whilst the demolished houses were in very poor condition, often badly maintained by uninterested landlords, lacking basic facilities, and suffering from general war damage and lack of attention, very many could have been refurbished, and would have provided housing, at street level, suitable for a wide range of occupants.

The following photo is looking through the market showing the tiered flats on either side:

Watney Market

The whole scheme, including the tiered flats was designed by the Architect’s Department of the Greater London Council.

The redevelopment work took over ten years, and in 1977 graffiti was appearing in the area complaining that the market has been murdered.

Redevelopment and relocation resulted in a reduction of trade for those running stalls, and the number of market stalls was gradually declining so by the end of the 1970s there were only about 19 market stalls remaining.

It would take the 1980s and most of the 1990s for the market to recover, and to make use of the full space provided by the redevelopment work.

As well as the central market stalls, a large number and range of shops have occupied the buildings along the side. The supermarket Sainsbury’s was a long time resident of Watney Street, opening their first store in the street in 1881, expanding into a second building 13 years later.

Sainsbury’s were in Watney Street for over 100 years, finally moving to Whitechapel in 1994. Iceland then took over the store and are still in Watney Street, at the north-eastern corner, just behind the clock tower.

A couple of the shops are unoccupied, and the space directly in front is quickly occupied by the Watney Market traders:

Watney Market

As can be seen in the 1949 OS map earlier in the post, Watney Street had a rather strange routing. A short distance north along the street, it angled to the east before resuming a northerly route up to Commercial Road.

The point where this swerve to the east happened was at the junction with Tarling Street.

In the photo below, Watney Street is to the right, and where the road does a sharp turn to the right, that is Tarling Street. At this point, Watney Street angled to the right, under where the flats have been built, and continued north, under the flats.

Watney Street

It would seem that when the area was first developed in the early decades of the 19th century, Tarling Street ran left to right across the above photo, and the southern section of what is now Watney Street between Cable Street and Tarling Street was originally Charles Street.

After the junction with Tarling Street, Charles Street changed to Watney Street and was reached through a narrow street or alley, around a larger building to the main section of Watney Street.

This larger building was demolished at some point, replaced by terrace houses, which were also later demolished, and the angle to the right then went through where these buildings was located.

I suspect the name Watney Street displaced Charles Street as the market grew in size and popularity.

I cannot find a firm source for the origin of the name. The general consensus seems to be it comes from the Watney Brewery in Whitechapel, although this was a little distance to the north west so there is no obvious connection.

Watney Market and Watney Street. A working market for well over 150 years. A place once occupied by those working on the river and by the poor of east London, a large Jewish community, and an area targeted by the Blackshirts of the 1930s. Badly bombed during the 1940s then with a lengthy redevelopment that would not see the market busy again until the 1990s.

A fascinating place of east London history.

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Myths and Legends of the London Stone

Before taking a look at the long history of the London Stone, a quick advert as I have arranged some dates for my very last tours of the year, and the last ones until probably May of next year. I have included all my different tours, and it would be great to show you many of the stories and photos from the blog over the last nine years, at the actual sites.

Dates and links for booking as follows:

It would be wonderful to see you on a walk – now to the London Stone.

In its ability to attract myths and legends, the London Stone is far more powerful than its physical size suggests. A long time resident of the area around what is now Cannon Street Station, but with the distance of time, it is impossible to know the truth about the block of stone, which can now be found in a new housing with a glass front:

London Stone

The new housing for the London Stone was completed in 2018, along with the building of which the stone is part of the ground floor frontage onto Cannon Street:

London Stone

The plaque to the left records some of the key stories about the London Stone:

  • It may be Roman and related to Roman buildings to the south
  • It was already known as the London Stone by the 12th century
  • Jack Cade, the leader of a rebellion against the government of Henry VI in 1450 struck the stone with his sword and claimed to be Lord of London

The plaque on the right tells the story in braille which is rather good.

The previous building on the site was an early 1960s office building, which was demolished 2016, when the London Stone was moved to the Museum of London where is was put on temporary display, before being moved to its new home.

A view of the London Stone through the window at the front of the housing:

London Stone

The site was originally occupied by St. Swithin’s Church, however the church was destroyed by bombing in 1940. The stone walls of the church, with the London Stone, survived, and continued to stand on the site until being demolished for the 1960s office building.

Wonderful London has a photo of the London Stone in its housing on the front of St. Swithin’s Church, I doubt that the stone usually had a police guard:

London Stone

The Wonderful London description below the above photo reads: “Set in a stone casing in the wall of St. Swithin’s, Cannon Street, is this block of oolite, guarded by a grille. It was placed there in 1798, having been transferred from the other side of the road. Camden, the historian, 1551 – 1623, held that it was the milliarium, or milestone, from which distances were calculated on the main roads in days when London was Londinium Augusta. There was a similar stone in the Forum at Rome. If Camden is right, Roman lictors may have stood, like this policeman, in front of the stone 1,600 years ago”.

The text mentions that the stone is a block of oolite, which is a form of limestone, and was used in Roman London for building and sculpture, but may also have arrived in the City in the Saxon and early medieval period.

There was a large Roman building where Cannon Street Station now stands, so it may have formed some part of this building, or some of the decorative sculpture or statues that would have been part of the building.

There is no way to be sure.

The Roman milliarium or milestone story is repeated in multiple accounts of the stone. Sir Walter Besant in his 1910 book on the City of London includes the milestone story, but goes further by saying that some have supposed the stone to be the remains of a British druidical circle or religious monument. He quotes Strype as saying that Owen of Shrewsbury gave rise to the assertion that “the Druids had pillars of stone in veneration, which custom they borrowed from the Greeks”.

Besant also records that “Sir Christopher Wren was of opinion that ‘by reason of its large foundation, it was rather some more considerable monument in the Forum; for, in the adjoining ground to the south, upon digging for cellars after the Great Fire, were discovered some tessellated pavements, and other extensive, and other remains of Roman workmanship and buildings.”

The problem with all these stories about the original Roman use of the London Stone is that there is no firm evidence that it was a milliarium or milestone, when it arrived in the City, whether it was Roman, or the original use of the stone.

What seems to be certain is that the stone has long been in this part of Cannon Street. It was originally on the south side of the street and was also in the street, where it was an obstruction to the traffic flowing along the street.

The Wonderful London quote references that the stone was moved to St. Swithin’s Church, and guarded by a grill in 1798. This was urgently needed to protect the stone, as it appears to have been frequently under attack by those who used the street, as this report from several papers on the 2nd of July 1741 records:

“Thursday a Carman and a Drayman contending for the Way in Cannon-street, made a shift between them to throw down the little Building that covers London Stone (as ’tis call’d) and then pull the said Stone out of the Earth. this being presently known, great Numbers of People flocked to see it, and many curious Observations, Conjectures, and Prognosticks were believed by the Wiseacres present, on so extraordinary an Accident.”

The 16th century historian John Snow, who first published his Survey of London in 1598 included the following reference to the London Stone which explains how it was fixed in position, and why it was a significant obstruction for those who used Cannon Street:

“On the south side of this high street, near unto the channel is pitched upright a great stone called London stone, fixed in the ground very deep, fastened with bars of iron, and otherwise so strongly set, that if Carts do run against it through negligence, the wheels be broken, and the stone it self unshaken.”

The London Stone seems to have been a well known feature of Cannon Street, as it was often used as part of an address, such as in the following from an advert in the Kentish Gazette on Friday, November the 6th, 1795, where a contact was given as “Mr. Sergeant, Number 86, London Stone, Cannon Street”.

And on the 26th of February 1788 there was an announcement in the Kentish Gazette of the marriage at “St. Swithin’s, London Stone, of W.T. Reynolds’s Esq. of Great St. Helen’s to Miss Sands of St. Dunstan’s Hill”

The following print from 1791 shows the London Stone in a casing up against St. Swithin’s church, as although Wonderful London mentioned 1798 for the positioning of the stone against the church, it had been moved to this safe location some years earlier, and in 1798 the church went through a major set of repairs, which included proposals for the stone to be removed as a nuisance, however there were many objections and the stone was kept up against the front of the church © The Trustees of the British Museum):

London Stone

The above print repeats the milliarium story and provides sources from a number of historians, who, to an extent are repeating the same story, but not providing any firm evidence.

The print also includes a reference to Shakespeare’s Henry Vi, Act 4, Scene 6, and it is from this scene that Shakespeare amplified the story of Jack Cade’s association with the London Stone.

Jack Cade led a rebellion in 1450, from the south east of the country against the corruption, poor administration and the abuse of power by the King’s local representatives.

He led a large group of men from the south-east who headed into London in an attempt to raise their grievances, remove from power those they held responsible for corruption and abuse of power, and to reform governance.

Once within the City, the rebellion turned into looting, and the residents of the City turned on the rebels

The rebels were offered a pardon to return home peaceably. Cade as the leader was captured in a fight and died of his injuries as he was being returned to London for trial.

The connection between Jack Cade and the London Stone comes from the rebellion’s entry into the City of London. Cade pretended to use the name of Mortimer, (the family name of ancestors of one of Henry VI’s main rivals), and on reaching the London Stone, he struck his sword on the stone and according to Holinshed (a 16th century English chronicler), he exclaimed “Now is Mortimer Lord of this City”.

Describing the London Stone in Old and New London, Walter Thornbury embellished the story of Jack Cade by adding that “Jack Cade struck with his bloody sword when he had stormed London Bridge”.

This drawing from the late 18th century shows Cade in the act of striking the stone © The Trustees of the British Museum):

Jack Cade

There is no reason why Cade would have used the London Stone in such a way. It was not a tradition for Kings or Lord Mayors of the City to strike the stone for any form of recognition.

Accounts imply that Cade did do this, but it was Shakespeare who really amplified and spread the story, including Cade using the stone as a sort of throne from where he issued proclamations and judgments. All part of the myths surrounding the London Stone.

The above print of Cade does show the stone in the street, not against the church, which appears to have been its location until the 18th century.

The following early 19th century print shows St. Swithin’s Church with the London Stone in the centre of the church, at ground level, facing onto Cannon Street © The Trustees of the British Museum):

London Stone

Another view from the early 19th century which appears to show the housing of the London Stone in a rather poor state © The Trustees of the British Museum):

London Stone

The Illustrated London News on the 13th of March 1937, reported that the London Stone was to be moved to a worthier setting, that it would be moved into an arched recess higher up the church, and flood lit at night.

Unfortunently, these plans were not carried out due to the start of war in 1939.

The Illustrated London News did repeat one of the apparent myths concerning the London Stone, that it “is believed to have originally been a tall prehistoric menhir, and later a Roman milliarium or milestone”, so not just tracing the stone back to Roman origins, but attributing a very much earlier origin as a prehistoric standing stone.

As well as prehistoric origins of the London Stone, there are also a number of myths about spiritual associations with the stone, the position of the stone at a centre of the City, and that if anything ever happens to the London Stone, the City will fall.

The following saying which is alleged to date from the medieval period has been repeated in a number of books about London:

So long as the Stone of Brutus is safe

So long will London flourish

John Clark in Folklore, Vol. 121, No. 1 found that this saying only existed from 1862.

A Brutus Stone seems to have been found in a number of places, for example in the Dartmouth and South Hams Chronicle on the 4th of March 1898: “Mr. Page rather made fun of the Brutus Stone set in the pavement of the High-street in Totnes, and of the claim that it was the stone on which Brutus of Troy landed when he came to Britain.”

Kipling used the name London Stone for a poem published in the Times on the 10th of November 1923. The poem was an elegy on grieving for the dead, however the poem referred to the Cenotaph, rather than the stone in Cannon Street (although the name of the poem was changed in different publications, as explored by the Kipling Society).

Many of the stories associated with the stone are just that, myths and stories, and there is very little to confirm the history of the stone prior to the medieval period.

Wherever stones are found, from the complexity of Stonehenge to a single prehistoric standing stone in a field, they always attract myths and legends.

I used a reference from Sir Walter Besant’s 1910 book on the City of London earlier in the post, and opposite the page on the London Stone was this view looking west along Cannon Street towards St. Paul’s. Part of St. Swithin’s church is on the right, with the London Stone just out of shot:

Cannon Street

One hundred and thirteen years later the street is just as busy. Apart from St. Paul’s there is only one building that is in both views. In the photo below, on the immediate right is a building with distinctive arches over the windows. In the above photo, you can see the same building on the right, a little further down the street.

Cannon Street

The first written reference to the London Stone appears to be from the late 11th century, so the stone is old, but as to its origins and purpose, we can only make educated guesses, and whilst it has moved slightly around its current location in Cannon Street over the centuries, it has looked out on an ever changing street scene.

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Redchurch Street and the Dolphin Pub

If you would like to come on my Limehouse walk, I have just had a couple of tickets come available. Two tickets on Saturday 19th of August, and one ticket on Sunday 20th of August. All other walks are fully booked.

I was unsure about using this 1980s photo as the subject of a blog post, as there did not seem anything of specific interest in the view. The photo was taken at the junction of Bethnal Green Road (not visible, but to the left) and Redchurch Street, the street on the right:

Redchurch Street

I assume the two old columns were the reason my father took the photos. Rather than lighting columns, I believe these are ventilation columns for the toilets below ground:

Redchurch Street

The following photo is looking over to the location of the toilets, some forty years later in 2023. The toilets have gone, one of the columns remains, and a rather strange building now stands over the site of the toilets.

Redchurch Street

The column appears to be the one that was at the rear of the original photos, and has been relocated to the corner of the junction.

Bethnal Green Road is to the left and Redchurch Street is to the right.

Taking a look inside the building over the site of the toilets, and if you look at the far end to the right, it is hard to see, but there is a descent down to below ground level, a handrail on the left and a sloping ceiling. This was presumably the stairs down to the toilet area below.

Redchurch Street

And to the side of the building are the glass tiles which cover much of the area in the 1980s photos, and originally provided light to the space below, which I assume they still do.

Redchurch Street

The toilets in the 1980s photo were typical of the underground toilets found at many locations across London. They were built around the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries and were part of the late Victorian drive to improve the city.

They have now nearly all closed. The demands on local authority budgets have meant that facilities such as these, which are not part of their legal responsibilities to provide, were among the first to go.

The one exception is the City of London, and although they have closed their old toilets, they have at least installed new facilities, or included them as a requirement of planning permission for new developments.

Many of these you have to pay to use, however the City does have a number of free to use toilets tucked away in places such as their car parks under London Wall, or at the Minories.

I have been photographing the above ground remnants of these rather enlightened improvements to the City, so perhaps a subject for a future post.

And that was as far as I thought I could go with the two 1980s photos, but as usual with any London scene, there is always something else to discover and learn, and so it is with these photos.

If you look along the street on the right in the first photo at the top of the post, there is a pub sign, with the ground floor of the pub just visible. This was the Dolphin pub, and I have enlarged the section showing the pub sign below:

Dolphin Pub

The Dolphin closed in 2002, and the ground floor is now occupied by a Labour And Wait store, with the floors above presumably being used as residential.

The old pub as it appears in 2023:

Dolphin Pub

There is not that much to discover about the Dolphin. It did not feature in many news reports, or place any adverts as to the excellence of their beers which was typical practice for most London pubs.

The one newsworthy event seems to have been a robbery in 1929, when a Henry Bently, 39, of Scalater Street in Bethnal Green, leant over the bar to take four £1 notes from the till. He was pursued by the landlord, he escaped, but later came forward as he appears to have been a regular at the pub, and therefore well known.

The interesting thing about the 1929 article was that the address was given as Church Street, rather than Redchurch Street as the street is now know, so I started to look at some maps.

Firstly, the map of the area today, and in the following extract, the dark blue circle is around the space where the toilets were located, and you can see the main road of Bethnal Green Road heading south west, at this junction, with Redchurch Street turning off from Bethnal Green Road. The old Dolphin pub is marked by the red circle ( © OpenStreetMap contributors).

Redchurch Street

Looking at some older maps, starting with Smith’s New Plan of London from 1816, and I have again marked the location of the toilets with a blue circle, and Redchurch Street, then called Church Street is surrounded by the red oval:

Church Street

Look to the north of Church Street and you will see a dense area of streets and buildings, which looks different to the streets in the wider area.

Some of the street names should provide a clue as to the name and reputation of the area as this was the Old Nichol, a notorious area of densely populated streets and courts which was inhabited by some of the poorest people in east london.

The streets and buildings of the old Nichol were demolished in the 1890s and the Boundary Estate, which was built on the site, was opened in 1900. Newspaper reports of the opening described the old and new estates as follows:

“One most interesting feature of the Boundary Street Estate is that it has been built on the site of one of the most notorious slum districts in London. This was known as the ‘Old Nichol’, and is described minutely under the title of ‘The Jago’ by Mr. Arthur Morrison’s story ‘A Child of the Jago’.

A population of 6,004 persons were displaced under the Council’s scheme, and the slum clearance revealed a pitiful state of things. In two common lodging houses, 163 people were found to be living. 2,118 people were living in 752 single rooms, and 2,265 in 506 two-roomed tenements. The inhabitants consisted of the poorest classes of unskilled labourers, and in addition to large numbers of button makers, box-makers, charwomen, worker-women and so-called ‘dealers’, included some of the vilest characters in London.

In one small street alone there lived no fewer than twenty ticket-of-leave men. (see below for explanation) These people were transferred to other districts. Of the inhabitants of the ‘Old Nichol’, those who are new tenants on the Boundary Street Estate can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. The present occupants of the dwellings are mainly of the better classes, policemen, postmen, commissionaires, together with a few clergymen, schoolmasters, and Church workers”.

A ticket-of-leave man was a person who had been released from prison on parole, and the ticket-of-leave was the document handed to the person, documenting their status on parole.

The Boundary Estate was opened by the Prince of Wales in March 1900, and we can jump forward to the 1948 revision of the OS map to see the new estate, with the central circular feature of Arnold Circus, with new streets radiating out from the circus (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“).

Boundary Estate

In the above map, I have again marked the location of the toilets by the blue circle, and the Dolphin pub by the red circle.

So far, so good, I then went to the 1898 revision of the OS map, which resulted in a bit of a mystery (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“).

Old Nichol

In the above map, I have marked the location of the toilets with the blue circle, however to the left, the entire area north of Redchurch Street is shown as blank space, presumably the area demolished ready for the construction of the Boundary Estate.

The strange thing is that the Boundary Estate does not reach all the way down to Redchurch Street, and the Dolphin on the north side of the street had been built a few decades before the above map, and was still in use during the 1890s.

I checked the 1895 edition of the Post Office Directory, and it lists the Dolphin at number 85, along with a full range of businesses along the northern side of the street, including James Julier Fried Fish Shop at number 19, William Padley’s Dining Rooms at number 29, Nathan Bloom, Cabinet Maker at number 53 and Joseph Barker, Undertaker at number 71.

So the northern side of Church Street in 1895 had a full range of businesses, however in the OS map of three years later, the northern side of the street has disappeared, and is the lower boundary of the Old Nichol, that was in the process of being rebuilt as the Boundary Estate.

There were three years between the Post Office Directory and the OS map, and the streets on the northern side could have been demolished in those three years, however the Dolphin demonstrates this probably did not happen, and looking at the 1948 revision of the map shown above, the northern side of Church Street has the same layout of buildings as could be expected from the 1895 directory. It is very clearly not part of the Boundary Estate.

There is another PH for public house on the 1898 map on the north side of Church Street. This was the Black Dog pub, which although long closed, the original building can still be seen.

Whether the OS map shows a more extended area originally planned for rebuild, which was reduced during the development stage, or whether it was simply an error of mapping, it is unusual to find such a significant error in OS maps.

Redchurch Street / Church Street is a very old street. It is the core of the Redchurch Street Conservation Area as defined by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Their conservation area document also helps confirm that the northern side of the street was not demolished as part of the Boundary Street Estate.

To illustrate the age of the street, the following is an extract from Rocque’s 1746 map of London:

Bethnal Green Road

The future Bethnal Green Road is to the right. Church Street is within the red oval, however this part of the street is now part of Bethnal Green Road, which today turns a little south, below New Cock Lane and Cock Lane (within the yellow oval), which today is Redchurch Street.

When the extension to Bethnal Green was built, New Cock Lane seems to have changed name to Church Street, and the junction in the 1980s photo is where Bethnal Green Road and the old New Cock Lane diverged.

The change of name from Church Street to Redchurch Street took place at some point in the first half of the 20th century.

It was still Church Street in 1911, where in the census, James Cooper is listed as the Licensed Victuallier of the Dolphin pub, along with his wife Mary, and his sister-in-law Emma Bass who was listed as a General Help.

In the 1921 census, the street is still Church Street, and Cornelia John Alfred was the landlord, living in the Dolphin with his wife Leah.

So the name change seems to have taken place between 1921 and the 1948 OS map.

According to the Tower Hamlets Conservation Statement, the name Redchurch Street comes from the church of St. James the Great which is strange as the church is a reasonable distance east along Bethnal Green Road. The church was the first red brick church in the area when built around 1840, and seems to have given the description of the church to the name of the street. the church closed in the 1980s and is now housing.

The story of the Old Nichol and the Boundary Estate to the north of Redchurch Street is fascinating, and has been on my very long list of subjects for a blog post, however if you would like to read more about the Old Nichol, I can thoroughly recommend “The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum” by Sarah Wise.

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The Cyprus Street, Bethnal Green, War Memorial

One of my father’s 1980s photos was of the war memorial in Cyprus Street, Bethnal Green:

Cyprus Street War Memorial

Forty years later, I went back to take a 2023 photograph:

Cyprus Street War Memorial

There are a couple of interesting changes to the overall memorial. The small memorial below the main First World War memorial is for the Second World War, presumably also for those from the street who died during that war. In my 2023 photo, this plaque has had a name added since the 1980s.

Below that there is a new plaque which has been added:

Kohima memorial

And below the above plaque is one of the ceramic poppies from the 2014 display in the moat of the Tower of London to commemorate the start of the First World War.

The memorial in Cyprus Street:

Cyprus Street war memorial

The memorial is not in its original location. I have read a number of slightly different stories online about the fate of the original memorial, and move to the current location. I will use the following quote from the publication “Not forgotten, A review of London’s War Memorials”, published by the Planning and Housing Committee of the London Assembly in 2009:

“The memorial was originally on the wall between numbers 45 and 47
but in the 1960s, when one end of the street was redeveloped for a
new housing estate, the main memorial was broken while it was being
removed. The community rescued the plaques and for a while the
fragments lay around the local pub, the Duke of Wellington. After a
number of years the community took the opportunity to use the
refurbishment of their street to make a collection to pay for a replica
of the original memorial to be made at a local stonemasons and got
permission from the housing association to relocate it to where it now
stands.”

The London Assembly document states that the current memorial is a replica of the original. I have read other accounts that state it was repaired, however if that is true, then it must have been a very good repair.

The problem with determining which sources are correct is difficult as even in the London Assembly document there is an error. It states that “The original Cyprus Street memorial was erected at the end of 1918 to commemorate the residents of the street who died in the First World War”, however I have found a number of reports from newspapers of the time which state that the memorial was unveiled in 1920, perhaps there was a two year delay between erecting the memorial and unveiling, however I doubt it.

It is always difficult to be 100% confident in many statements that are recorded as facts.

What ever the truth of the memorial, nothing can detract from what it represents – the impact of war on one small London street.

The plaque was unveiled on Saturday the 5th of June, 1920, and the East London Observer had a report of the unveiling in the following Saturday’s issue:

“A BETHNAL GREEN WAR MEMORIAL – In Memory of Cyprus Street Men. A touching ceremony took place last Saturday afternoon at Cyprus Street, Bethnal Green, where there was unveiled and dedicated a War Memorial Tablet to the men of the street, which is in the parish of St. James-the-Less, Bethnal Green, who had fallen in the Great War. The memorial was raised by the members of the Duke of Wellington’s Discharged and Demobilised Solders’ Benefits Club, of which Mr. Keymer is the Chairman.

The St. James Brass Band opened the service and after hymns, prayers and lessons, the Rev. J.P.R. Rees-Jones, Vicar of the parish, unveiled and dedicated the memorial tablet.

The tablet is of white marble with imperishable lead lettering, with a beautiful scroll, the work being executed by Messrs. B. Levy and Sons, ltd. monumental masons, Brady Street, Whitechapel, a firm which has gained much notoriety by virtue of the excellence of workmanship and design, and the tablet was greatly admired by all who attended the interesting ceremony.

The Vicar gave a short but inspiring address, and after an anthem, “What are these arrayed in white robes”, given by the St. James’s choir, and the hymn “Lead Kindly Light”, the blessing was pronounced, followed by the “Last Post”, the “Dead March” and “Reveille”. There was a large assembly, and for once in a way Bethnal Greeners stopped to think of something else than their every day cares.”

The names on the memorial joined the names on thousands of other war memorial that were erected after the First World War, and the problem with war memorial is that the sheer number of names hides that fact that these were all individuals, and I have tried to find out about some of those listed.

In the 1911 census (the nearest I can get to the First World War for a full list of those living in Cyprus Street), there were 827 people recorded as living in the street.

Given that 26 people are listed as having died during the First World War, assuming roughly the same number of people were living in the street as in 1911, then 3% of the street’s residents would die in the war.

Whilst this may initially seem a relatively low number, many families at the time would have large numbers of children, so as a percentage of adults in the street, it was much higher than 3%.

When comparing the names on the memorial, I was surprised that a relatively high number were not listed in the 1911 census, implying that they were not then living in the street, I did wonder if those commemorated were from surrounding streets, however the memorial clearly states that they are the men of Cyprus Street.

I did find a number listed in 1911, and the census records provide a more rounded view of the names on the monument, for example:

  • A. Gadd – The Gadd family lived at number 51 Cyprus Street. There were two Alfred Gadd’s in the family. The father who was 45 in 1911 and the eldest son who was 18. The father was a Cabinet Maker, and the son was Linen Collar Sorter. I suspect that it was the son who died in the war, as the father would have been approaching 50 by 1914. As well as the father and oldest son, there was the wife Elizabeth (44), daughters Rosalie (20, a Brush Hair Sorter) and Elizabeth (16, a Dressmaker)
  • J. Goodwin – The Goodwin family lived at number 91 Cyprus Street. There were two John Goodwin’s in the family, however the eldest son John was only 6 in 1911, so it is the father, who was aged 27 and listed as a Butcher who died in the war. As well as the father and oldest son, there was the wife Elisa (26) and children Robert (5), Charles (4), daughter Grace (2) and youngest son Sidney (0, born in 1911)
  • T. Hamblin – The Hamblin family lived at number 59 Cyprus Street. T. Hamblin refers to Thomas Hamblin who was 32 in 1911 and listed as a Dock Labourer. He lived in the house with his wife Elizabeth (30 and a Tailoress). No children are recorded.
  • W. J. Gardner – There was no W. J. listed in the 1911 census, but there was a William Gardner at number 64, so I assume he may have left his middle name out of the census. William Gardner was 27 and a Builders Labourer. He lived in number 64 with his wife Florence (25 and a Skirt Machinist) and daughter Florence who was 4.

Just four out of the twenty-six who are listed on the memorial, but it reminds us that these were individuals with jobs and families, who would have impacted by their loss for very many years to come. The youngest child, Sydney Goodwin would hardly have known his father and Sydney could have lived to the end of the twentieth century.

It is also interesting to compare the number of names on the memorials for the First and the Second World Wars, with far less from the street who died in the Second World War.

This comparison shows the absolutely appalling death rates from the trench warfare of the First World War.

The reference on the memorial to the Duke of Wellington’s Discharged And Demobilised Soldiers And Sailors Benevolent Club refers to the Duke of Wellington pub in Cyprus Street. The pub was built around 1850 as part of the development of Cyprus Street and surrounding streets. The pub closed in 2005, but today still very clearly retains the features of a pub, including a pub sign:

Duke of Wellington pub

The Duke of Wellington, like many other pubs in the working class areas of London, had a tradition of hosting benefit and loan societies.

In 1911 there was a large advert for the Duke of Wellington in the Eastern Argus and Borough of Hackney Times headed “Important Notice”. It was one of the very many adverts that publicans would place in the local newspapers when they took over a pub. The advert would tell potential customers that all classes would receive a warm welcome, that only the very best beers and spirits would be served, and the advert of the Duke of Wellington also included that:

“The United Brothers Benefit Society meets here every alternate Tuesday evening and the Duke of Wellington Loan and Investment Society (which has been established for over 20 years) every Saturday evening. New members to both societies respectfully invited and heartily welcomed.”

It was hosting societies such as these, as well as the very many clubs and societies involved with sports and games that put these 19th century pubs at the heart of the communities that developed around them.

The pub, as well as much of the original Cyprus Street terrace houses are Grade II listed.

A chunk of the western part of Cyprus Street was badly damaged during the Second World War and the Cyprus Street Estate was built across the area that was damaged. This has effectively separated two parts of the original street.

In the following map, the red oval shows where Cyprus Street has been separated by the new estate, with a short stub of the street to the left, and the main section of the street to the right ( © OpenStreetMap contributors ):

Bethnal Green map

The new estate can be seen just to the west of the old pub:

Cyprus Street

Cyprus Street is fascinating, not just for the war memorial, and architecture of the terraces, but also the way they are decorated, with many of the houses having a brightly painted front door and window shutters:

Cyprus Street

View along the main surviving section of the street:

Cyprus Street

Cyprus Street is identical to many other mid 19th century streets that appeared as Bethnal Green was developed, what has made it special is the war memorial and the retention of the majority of the original terrace houses.

As indicated by the Duke of Wellington’s Benevolent Club that erected the memorial, the pub must have played an important part in the community that lived along the street.

There were so many pubs in Bethnal Green (as there was across much of London), and in Bethnal Green the majority have closed, with many being demolished or converted into flats.

As I was walking to Cyprus Street, along Bonner Street, I saw another old pub just after the junction with Cyprus Street.

This is the Bishop Bonner, on the corner of Bonner Street and Royston Street:

Bishop Bonner, Bonner Street

Another 19th century pub, which finally closed in 1997. The first floor appears to be flats, however the ground floor looks rather derelict. It would be interesting to look in and see if any of the remaining bar furniture survives.

Name sign on the corner of the pub:

Bishop Bonner, Bonner Street

Always interesting to think of the thousands who have walked through these doors, when the pub was the hub of the local community for well over 100 years:

Bishop Bonner, Bonner Street

Whilst so many of London’s pubs disappear or are converted, the memorial in Cyprus Street remembers not just the residents of the street who died in the First and Second World Wars, but also remembers the community that was in the street at the time, that enabled the memorial to be created and maintained during the following decades.

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Two Pubs and the Jesus Hospital Estate

Following last week’s post, I am staying in Bethnal Green, and after finding Ron’s Gents Hairdressers, I walked to find the location of the Queen Victoria pub and the Jesus Hospital Estate. The decorative features at the top of the Queen Victoria was the subject of one of my father’s 1980s photos:

Queen Victoria, Jesus Hospital Estate

When I found the pub, it was covered in scaffolding, and whilst the royal coat of arms at the top of the pub are still there, they had been painted white:

Queen Victoria, Jesus Hospital Estate

Unfortunately, my father did not take a photo of the whole pub building. I suspect due to the limited number of photos available when using a film camera. The pub today:

Queen Victoria pub, Barnet Grove

The Queen Victoria is on the corner of Barnet Grove and Wellington Row, a short walk north from Bethnal Green Road towards Columbia Road.

The pub has suffered the fate of so many pubs across London in that it has been converted to residential. The Queen Victoria closed as a pub in 1993.

I have mentioned a number of times in my posts about just how many pubs there were in London prior to the closures that started slowly after the 1940s, and accelerated quickly from the late 1980s onwards, and the location of the Queen Victoria is a prime example, as directly opposite, there was another pub:

Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria pubs, Barnet Grove

In the above photo, the Queen Victoria is on the right and the Prince of Wales is on the left, with Barnet Grove passing between them.

The Prince of Wales closed in 1995, and as with the Queen Victoria, it was converted to residential. Whilst the Prince of Wales has the pub’s name at the top of the corner of the building, there are no coat of arms:

Prince of Wales, Jesus Hospital Estate

The pub did once have the impressive arms of the Prince of Wales, as can be seen in the photo at this link from the alamy stock image site.

The building today is a shadow of its former self. I suspect the arms at the top of the pub were missing in the 1980s as I am sure my father would have taken a photo of them, as well as the Queen Victoria.

Both pubs seem to have opened in the late 1860s, and in the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette on the 28th of May, 1870, the new owner of the Prince of Wales was advertising:

“THE NEW Wine and Spirit Establishment, Conducted by the old caterer for public favour, C.H. Davies, of the ‘Prince of Wales, Barnet-Grove’, who begs to call attention of his friends and the public to his new premises replete with every comfort for the gentleman and mechanic, also to families who can be supplied with every article of the finest description including MALT LIQUOR, from the eminent Brewers of the day; SPIRITS (both foreign and British) of the highest strength and excellence, and WINES of the rarest vintage. Special arrangements have been entered into with the celebrated firm of Messrs. REID & Co. for a constant supply of their Splendid STOUT and PORTER.

Extensive and Commodious Rooms for large or small parties.

An Harmonic Meeting every Tuesday Evening at eight o’clock for gentlemen. An early visit is respectfully solicited.”

By 1907 a W. Tozer was the owner of the Prince of Wales, as in the Eastern Argus and Hackney Times he was thanking “the residents of the district and the public generally for the patronage they have accorded him since he took the proprietorship off this well known and old-established tavern 3 years ago.”

In the same article, it was mentioned that “The United Order of Druids, Baroness Burdett-Coutts Lodge (No. 948) meets at the house on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday in the month.”

The United Order of Druids was more of a fraternal and benefit society, and was open to all classes. I doubt there was much wandering around the streets of Bethnal Green in white gowns.

The branch that met in the Prince of Wales was the Burdett-Coutts Lodge. The lodge was named after Angela Burdett-Coutts, a remarkable women who was known as the wealthiest woman in the country after she inherited a fortune from her maternal grandfather Thomas Coutts, of Coutts Bank.

Angela Burdett-Coutts was a philanthropist who supported a diverse range of projects and causes. The link between the lodge that met in the Prince of Wales and Burdett-Coutts may have come from her charitable activities in the area with social housing and her founding of Columbia Market in 1869.

There are very few newspaper references to the Queen Victoria. Mostly licence changes, and in one report about an “Exciting Quoits Match”, the pub is named as the Queen Victoria Hotel, when a Mr Sayer, who appears to have been their champion Quoits player, was being challenged by Copeman and Wilstead, for £5.

The challenge was to take place on neutral territory at the May Pole in Chigwell. (Quoits is the game where a ring of iron or rope is thrown in an attempt to land it around a peg).

That there were two pubs directly opposite each other (as well as other pubs in the local area), shows the population density in this part of Bethnal Green. One of the reports mentioning the Prince of Wales covered above, may hint at the diverse range of people who lived here where the pub was advertised as having “every comfort for the gentleman and mechanic“.

In the following map, I have marked the locations of the Queen Victoria (red circle) and Prince of Wales (blue circle), and the surrounding streets show a dense network of terrace houses  ( © OpenStreetMap contributors:

Jesus Hospital Estate

Walking north along Barnet Grove, and continuing after the Prince of Wales pub is a short terrace which still retains the shop fronts, when as well as local pubs, this street also had local shops to serve those who lived in the surrounding streets:

Jesus Hospital Estate

The title of this post is “Two Pubs and the Jesus Hospital Estate”, and I have covered the two pubs, but what about the Jesus Hospital Estate?

As a starter, the two pubs are on the southern edge of the “Jesus Hospital Conservation Area”, and I have marked the approximate boundary of the conservation area in the following map  ( © OpenStreetMap contributors:

Jesus Hospital Estate

The area covered by the current conservation area has changed slightly over the years, however it started as an estate in the 17th century when the land was owned by James Ravenscroft in 1670. At that time, this was, as much of Bethnal Green still was, fields and farm land.

In 1679, James Ravenscroft founded the Jesus Hospital Charity in Barnet, Hertfordshire, and he bestowed the land in Bethnal Green to the charity.

The aims of the Jesus Hospital Charity were to provide for the support and maintenance of lady residents living in Ravenscroft Cottages in Wood Street, Barnet.

The charity is still in operation and has expanded the number of properties it owns in Barnet, and now “provides 63 unfurnished dwellings for ladies aged 50 plus, who reside alone and are fit and able to care for themselves”.

James Ravencroft’s son, George, made his name in the manufacture of lead crystal glass. He was primarily a merchant and came into contact with the glass trade after living for a couple of years in Venice.

On his return to London, he set up a glass works in the area of the Savoy, however he left the glass business in 1679, the same year as his father set-up the Jesus Hospital Charity. His father died the following year in 1680 and George died in 1683.

They were both Roman Catholics which, in the final decades of the 17th century, may not have made the family very popular.

In the early 19th century, the land was still being leased from the charity by farmers, and there had been very little change for the past 150 years, however limited building work did commence in the 1820s and 1830s.

One of the problems with the land in Bethnal Green was that it was some distance (given travel options at the time), from the trustees of the charity in Barnett. The trustees rarely visited. I assume they were happy as long as the money from leasing the land continued to flow to fund the charity’s responsibilities.

During a visit, the trustees found that the land had been developed with very poorly constructed, single storey houses, and that many were in a very dilapated condition. The streets in the area were also in a poor state, as were the sewers.

In 1862, a London surveyor based in Bishopsgate, by the name of George Clarkson was appointed to manage the redevelopment of the charity’s land.

The whole area of the Jesus Hospital Estate was cleared of the original buildings, new sewers were built along with new streets, and a total of 372 houses were built, as well as a number of pubs, including the Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales.

It is these houses that we see when we walk the streets today.

Another old corner shop on the corner of Barnet Grove and Elwin Street:

Barnet Grove

View along Elwin Street, showing a continuous line of almost identical terrace houses:

Elwin Street

With an almost mirror image along Quilter Street, although along this street there is a slight descent in the height of the land, which is accommodated for along the terrace by a step change in height as the terrace progresses, which can be best seen by the white bar that runs along the terrace just below the first floor windows:

Quilter Street

Along the street there are a couple of houses which have pipes set into the wall, with LCC which I assume is for London County Council:

LCC

An example of which rises several feet above street level to a vent:

LCC

The London County Council never owned the houses along the street, but they would have taken responsibility for the sewers, so I wonder if they were installed as part of upgrades to the sewage system, or the Jesus Hospital Charity paid the LCC for drainage work to the houses.

In 1970, the Greater London Council served a compulsory purchase order on the land owned by the Jesus Hospital Charity. The GLC intended to demolish the estate, and there were plans to construct a large road through the area to link Victoria Park with the City.

There were ten years of legal negotiations between the GLC and the charity, and the estate was finally sold to the GLC in 1980 for a sum of £1.2 million.

Proposals for demolition were abandoned as there were many objections, including from the Jesus Hospital Estate Residents Associations which was formed in 1979 to fight against the GLC’s plans.

The Jesus Hospital Estate is today described by Estate Agents as a highly desirable place to live, and to show the incredible rise in house prices in this part of east London, in 1980 the charity sold the whole estate to the GLC for £1.2 million. Today, there is a single terrace house in Barnet Grove for sale, also for £1.2 million, so the sum you could have purchased the whole estate for in 1980 now buys you a single terrace house.

One of the reasons for the Estate Agents description of the area is that there is a large triangular green almost at the centre of the estate:

Jesus Green

This is Jesus Green, but it was not part of the original 1860s development, when the 19th century approach was to pack as many terrace houses into the area as possible.

In the 1949 revision of the OS map, the area covered by Jesus Green today, is shown as a dense area of terrace houses, with an archway under one the houses in Barnet Grove leading into a central courtyard which housed a number of workshops (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

Jesus Hospital Estate

I cannot find an exact date, or reason for the demolition, however I believe the houses in this central triangle, outlined in red in the above map, were demolished in the 1970s. The LCC Bomb Damage maps show that this central area was almost untouched, so whether demolition was part of the GLC’s rebuilding plans, or for some other reason, I do not know.

I assume that after plans for demolition, road building and redevelopment were abandoned, the central area was turned into the green space it is today.

We can get an idea of what the streets surrounding the central gardens looked like before the houses in the centre were demolished.

The photo below is the view looking east along Quilter Street from Barnet Grove. There are terrace houses along both sides of the street. Quilter Street continued behind where I was standing to take the photo, but today, the central gardens are on one side and terrace houses on the other.

Quilter Street

The name of the open space, Jesus Gardens is a reminder of the charity that owned the land for around 300 years. There are also a number of other reminders in the street names, for example;

Barnet Grove is obviously a reference to Barnet in Hertfordshire, where the charity was based, and where money generated by leasing the land in Bethnal Green was used to fund the homes for women. Barnet Grove predates the 1860s redevelopment so is one of the oldest streets, and street names in the estate.

Quilter Street is named after James Quilter, a solicitor, who was one of the charity trustees, during the 1860s redevelopment of the estate.

Elwin Street was named after the Reverend T.H Elwin, who was the Chairman of the charity at the time of the redevelopment.

The earlier pub advert referred to “the gentleman and mechanic”, so I had a look in the 1921 census to see who was living in Quilter Street, one of the streets of the Jesus Hospital Estate. A very brief sample:

  • At number 34 was Philip Samuel Hurman, aged 45 and listed as a French Polisher for Bradstad Brothers Pianoforte Manufacturer, along with his wife Esther (45), his son Philip Samuel (21) a Carman for Saunders & Nephew Provision Merchants, a daughter Jane (19) who was a Trousers Machinist for Lockwood & Bradley Wholesale Tailors, and a daughter Ivy Lilian (15) who was a Card Board Box Maker for Wright Brothers, Box Manufacturers
  • At number 47 was Frederick Tayor, aged 66, a retired Brewers Cellarman, along with his three daughters, Emily (34), Ellen (32) and Amy (28) who were all Tie Makers, working for J. Paterson.
  • At number 64 was Charles Moore, aged 40, an out of work cabinet maker. He was living in the house with his wife Emily (45), daughters Emily (20) and Rhoda (15) who were both listed as a Tailoress for Rego Clothing Company, and his son James (18) who was a Labourer for a Mr. Loveday, Glass Silverer
  • At number 90 was Wallace Henry Norris (32) who was a Carman for J.E. Read, Carman & Contractor, along with his wife Elizabeth (28) listed as having Home Duties, and their one year old daughter Ada May. There were also three sons aged 14 and below. the 14 year old son was listed as just having left school.

A very small sample of the thousands who lived in the streets of the estate, but they are typical of all I looked at. Manual workers, employed from a young age and the majority working in one of the very many manufacturing industries that were to be found around Bethnal Green in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Jesus Hospital Estate is a fascinating area, away from the bustle of Bethnal Green Road and Columbia Road, an estate which owes its existence to a charity in Barnet, Hertfordshire, and an estate that narrowly avoided full demolition by the GLC in the 1970s.

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