Category Archives: London Streets

Wardrobe Place And St. Andrews Hill

All to often, walking the City of London it is too easy to get depressed with how much character is being lost. At street level much recent development looks the same. Standard materials, bland architecture and design that could equally be at home in Shanghai, Dubai or New York.

Fortunately there are still many places that retain that sense of being part of London’s history and where character remains.

For this week’s post I want to explore one such area, Wardrobe Place and St. Andrews Hill, both can be found off Carter Lane, which runs parallel to Queen Victoria Street and Ludgate Hill / St. Paul’s Churchyard, to the south-east of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

This area is part of the St. Paul’s Cathedral Conservation Area, one of the City Conservation Areas where special planning controls are in force to manage development within the area. The document covering the St. Paul’s Conservation Area is an interesting read and can be downloaded here.

Unlike much of the City to the south, east and north of St. Paul’s Cathedral, this area did not suffer from the extensive fire damage caused by bombing during the last war, and has had limited major development in the decades since.

Walk down Carter Lane from St. Paul’s and on the left you will find the entrance to Wardrobe Place, an alley through the line of buildings along the street.

At the end of the alley, the view opens up to Wardrobe Place, enclosed by buildings on all four sides with the main entrance being the alley into Carter Lane.

From this perspective, the buildings on the left are relatively recent developments, it is the buildings on the right that are off interest as a surviving post Great Fire development.

Immediately to the right is No. 2 Wardrobe Place. This is a Grade II listed building from around 1680. The listing states that “the house retains its late-C17 domestic plan and stair, panelling and other original or early features. The two overmantel paintings have outstanding interest as early examples of a once-widespread artisan tradition, and are now of great rarity.”

The paintings refer to two original wall paintings that were discovered during building work in the 1970s.

The exterior of the building has later alterations with the stucco windows and the round-headed frame around the door from 1860, however the building is still essentially a London town house from the post fire redevelopment of London.

Next along are numbers 3 to 5 Wardrobe Place. These are from around 1715, three broadly similar, three bay town houses.

Look closer at these buildings and they retain features essential to living and working in London in the past.

On No. 4, inset just to the right of the front door is a foot scraper. A device essential to cleaning shoes prior to entering a building. London’s streets are today relatively immaculate compared to a time when filth was commonplace, thousands of horses worked across the City streets and efficient waste removal was limited.

Also on No. 4 are two bell pushes, either side of the front door. Not easy to see after many layers of black paint, but the one of the left is for the Office and the one on the right for the Housekeeper.

Wardrobe Place is so named as up until the Great Fire of 1666, it was the site of the King’s Wardrobe (the storage, administration and expenditure office for the King). The Wardrobe was moved here from the Tower in the 1360s into the mansion owned by Sir John Beauchampe. From Stow’s Survey of London:

“Then is the kings greate Wardrobe, Sir John Beauchampe, knight of the Garter, Constable of Dover, Warden of the Sinke Portes builded this house, was lodged there, deceased in the yeare 1359. His Executors sold the house to King Edware the third”.

The Wardrobe name does not give away the intrigue that must have taken place here, for according to Stow:

“The secret letters and writings touching the estate of the Realme, were wont to be enroled in the Kings Wardrobe, and not in the Chauncery, as appeareth by the records”.

Today, there is a plaque recording the earlier function of this area:

And on the later buildings at the far end are the remains of a sign recording the buildings previous use and occupier:

SNASHALL & SON

Printers. Stationers &

Account Book Manufacturers

Good to see that this sign has been preserved. There are too few of these remaining across the City. Signs which once must have been on almost every City building.

The view from the far end looking back up towards the Carter Lane entrance. The buildings on the right are part of a 1980s development which at least retained some of the architectural character of Wardrobe Place.

Now walk back into Carter Lane and a short distance further we come to St. Andrews Hill. This leads down to Queen Victoria Street, opposite where Puddle Dock was originally located and according to George Cunningham in his 1927 Survey of London, was originally called Puddledock Hill (although I have been unable to find any other reference that confirms this, however it could well have been an earlier or alternative name as the street leads up from both Puddle Dock and the church of St. Andrew’s by the Wardrobe.)

The street displays the characteristic downward slope towards the river.

And one of the many boundary markers that can still be found across the City:

Many of the buildings along St. Andrews Hill are 19th century in origin and a mix of style and function including offices, shop fronts and warehouses.

In front of the listed 36 St. Andrews Hill are two Post Office letter boxes, not now in use, but unusual, 100-year-old survivors.

The box on the left is Edward VII (1901 – 1910) and on the right is George V (1910 – 1936)

And just past the letter boxes is St. Andrews House with a strange first floor, corner bay window:

And just past St. Andrews House are alleys around the church of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe:

Also in St. Andrews Hill is the excellent Cockpit Pub:

A fascinating shape being on both St. Andrews Hill and Ireland Yard. The current building is mainly from 1842, however a pub is alleged to have been here from the 16th century and the name is a reference to cock-fighting and the associated gambling that once took place here.

Wardrobe Place and St. Andrews Hill, not significant historical locations, but thankfully places where it is still possible to get a glimpse of the development of City streets from after the Great Fire through to the 20th Century.

alondoninheritance.com

The Lost Warehouses of Pickle Herring Street

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Many of the photos I have used to illustrate how London has changed are of the more well known views of London, from the Stone Gallery of St. Paul’s Cathedral, from Greenwich, from Waterloo Bridge, the Royal Festival Hall etc. however sometimes to get a real understanding of how London has changed since the last war in terms of the streets, buildings, employment and people, you need only look in some of the more ordinary, mundane places.

I was unsure of where my father took the subject of this week’s post. There are two photos, taken from within the same tunnel, looking out to streets with closely packed warehouses on either side.

The warehouses with their trademark walkways over the streets were clearly along the Thames. The tunnel in which the photo was taken would be adjacent to one of the stations or bridges across the Thames.

I vaguely recognised the tunnel from many walks along the south bank of the river, and a morning exploring all the tunnels finally found the location, however the changes were such that I was still slightly unsure (I will explain how I confirmed the location later).

The first photo, and it is a Sunday, early in 1947 and a solitary man walks with his two dogs towards my father taking the photo from the middle of the tunnel.

Welcome to Pickle Herring Street, taken from the tunnel under the southern approach to Tower Bridge in 1947 and then in 2015:

These two photos really show how London has changed in the intervening 68 years.

In 1947, shipping was still coming this far up river to be loaded and unloaded at the warehouses that ran the length of the river. The warehouses on the right were facing onto the river, walkways over the street lead to further warehouses.

Pickle Herring Street in the 1947 photo is the street winding through the warehouses, it had been here for many years but has now disappeared along with all the warehouses lining this stretch of the Thames in the redevelopment of this area of the south bank for City Hall (the building that appears to lean backwards in the 2015 photo), the home of the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority, along with the public open space created up to Tower Bridge.

Instead of the solitary Londoner walking his dogs we now find the thousands of tourists who follow the walkway along the river and cross to and from the north bank and the Tower of London via Tower Bridge.

It took a while to take the 2015 photos, I was waiting until there were not too many people in the tunnel, such is the popularity of this area even on a chilly March morning. Not long after I took the photo, an ice cream van arrived and parked to the left of the tunnel entrance. I wonder what the man in the 1947 photo would have thought about how London would be changing over the coming decades.

The change was such that I was still slightly unsure that this is the correct location of the 1947 photo, so I checked the tiling on the roof of the tunnel. The following photos show that even across 68 years the same defects and damage to the tiling can be found.

In the following map from the 1940 edition of Bartholomew’s Reference Atlas of Greater London I have marked the location from where the photograph was taken with a red dot.

The tunnel is directly underneath the approach road to Tower Bridge and Pickle Herring Street is seen running to the left:

The following early 19th century map extract shows the area prior to the construction of Tower Bridge. There was also a Pickle Herring Stairs roughly where St. Olaves Wharf is shown in the 1940 map. Note also Horslydown Old Stairs. This is where Tower Bridge would be built later in the 19th century.

Despite having such an interesting name, I have not found that many references to Pickle Herring Street. The name must refer to the landing and storage of pickle herrings here at some point in the past.

Old and New London, published in 1878 describes the area:

“Indeed from Morgan’s Lane – a turning about the middle of Tooley Street, on the north side, to St. Saviour’s Dock, the whole line of street – called in one part Pickle Herring Street, and in another Shad Thames – exhibits an uninterrupted series of wharves, warehouses, mills and factories, on both sides of the narrow and crowded roadway. The buildings on the northern side are contiguous to the river, and in the gateways and openings in these we witness the busy scenes and the mazes of the shipping which pertain to such a spot. “

The buildings would be exactly the same in 1947.

Gustave Doré visited the area in 1872. The following is his illustration of Pickle Herring Street for the publication, “London – A Pilgrimage”:

Doré probably used some artistic license in this drawing, the buildings look rather too finely built for riverside warehouses, however it probably does give a good impression of the atmosphere in Pickle Herring Street at the time.

Return to the dot in the above map, turn to the right and you will be looking down Shad Thames. This was the scene in 1947 looking down to the next stretch of warehousing running the length of the river. This was Butlers Wharf.

In 2015 Shad Thames remains as does Butlers Wharf, although converted into luxury flats, restaurants and shops, again indicative of the changes across much of central London.

The excellent Britain from Above website has the following photo of the area, also take in 1947.

The warehouses on either side of the approach road to Tower Bridge can clearly be seen along with the cluster of shipping and barges up against the warehouses along Pickle Herring Street.

I stood for a while in the tunnel waiting to take the photos, in exactly the same place as my 18 year old father back in 1947, under the same tiled roof, but looking out on a very different world.

alondoninheritance.com

A Water Pump, Bedford Row And Tracing Harpur’s Bedford Charity Estate

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There are some locations in London that have changed remarkably little over the last seventy plus years. There are also locations where decisions made 500 years ago are still in evidence. Not the usual candidates such as the Tower of London or St. Paul’s but amongst the ordinary streets of London.

One of my father’s photo’s from 1947 was the water pump in Bedford Row.

From Chancery Lane underground station, walk along Holborn to the west until you come to Brownlow Street. Head up this street and at the end you will be in part of Bedford Row, facing the water pump shown in the following 1947 photo:

And in 2015 the scene is remarkably much the same. The pump has been painted, a sign with the street name has been put on the building behind and there are now bollards around the pump.

The buildings behind are almost unchanged, even the metal fencing along the building to the right is the same.

The pump is also a perfect example of not always believing what you see in London. Take a look at the bollards and they are marked St. Pancras Street Works Department, 1826, so it would be a reasonable assumption that they have been in place since 1826, however the 1947 photo clearly shows a much smaller surround to the base of the pump and no bollards.

I assume that with the size of cars and lorries that are now in use on London roads, it was decided prudent to enlarge the base and provide some protection to the pump using bollards from some other location in St. Pancras.

I always find it fascinating to look at the buildings around any location I am photographing. On the building just to the left of the pump is the remains of the original street signage for Bedford Row:

And just further along I found the following plaques:

Not so easy to read. The one on the left reads “Ms. Eliz Doughty 1824” and the one on the right “Bedford Charity Bounds 1824”

These are boundary markers and were essential to identify ownership of blocks of land prior to the availability of accurate street mapping. In the days before clearly defined ownership boundaries, when parcels of land were let and sublet, when it could be decades between the times when ownership of land needed to be checked and when owners could easily extend their boundaries in the hope of expanding their ownership before anyone realised, boundary markers played a key role in defining ownership.

Much of the land across London was originally held by the Crown or Church in large blocks, and over the centuries this has gradually been sold off to leave much smaller parcels of land, however some large estates still remain.

The Bedford Charity seemed an ideal candidate for some further research, to find the original boundaries of the estate, how the estate came into being, and if anything remained.

The origin of the Bedford Charity is a gift of land made by Sir William Harpur in 1566 to the corporation of Bedford.

Sir William Harpur was very much a self-made man of the times. The Harper family (the spelling of the name appears to have changed to Harpur around 1764) had lived in the area around Bedford for many years prior to the 16th century.

A school had been operating in Bedford since before 1166 and as with most schools of this period it was part of the church and Bedford school maintained this connection through to the dissolution during Henry VIII’s reign.

William Harpur attended the original Bedford School before leaving for London. His early days in London do not appear well documented, however from the book “The Harpur Trust” by Joyce Godber;

“It my be that he was apprenticed to a tailor, but there is no certainty about this; nor is there evidence of his connection with any other trade.”

The assumption of his original apprenticeship seems likely to be correct due to his later career, as William Harpur was admitted to the Merchant Taylors company in 1533.

Harpur’s progression through the Mechant Taylors resulted in him becoming Master in 1553, the same year he became an alderman for the ward of Bridge Without. When a vacancy appeared for an alderman within the much older and prestigious ward of Dowgate, Harpur was elected to this ward in 1556. He also served a year as treasurer of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and was a sheriff between 1556 and 1557.

His rise continued and in 1561 he reached the peak of his career becoming Lord Mayor of London.

Through his contacts, Harpur would have been very aware of the work of others within the City of London in support of schools throughout the country.

Whilst Harpur was Lord Mayor the Merchant Taylors school was founded by Richard Hilles, the master at the time and a contemporary of Harpur. He would have known of the founding of St. Paul’s school by Dean Colet in 1509 and the work being done by schools such as Winchester where the earliest printed school text books were compiled in 1559.

He had already been assisting the school in Bedford. Newnham Priory, originally attached to the school had been closed and the property confiscated. Again from “The Harpur Trust” by Joyce Godber;

“These were unsettled times in religious matters. In 1533 when he was approaching the age of 40, Harpur would have heard that, like monasteries elsewhere, Newnham Priory had been closed, the canons pensioned off, and the property confiscated. When he visited Bedford again he would find the priory site desolate, with much of the stone carried away and what was left was being converted to a house. At Bedford it would seem he found the school still existing, probably under an aged master, but it was clearly at risk, like similar schools elsewhere; for the building was up for sale with a number of other ex-monastic properties.

And now Harpur seems to have got in touch with John Williams, perhaps once his schoolfellow. Williams in 1545 obtained a large grant of former monastic property, and with it the school-house in School Lane.

In 1548 Edmund Green came from New College, Oxford to teach at Bedford. Probably Harpur arranged this and paid his stipend. But at this stage he did not commit himself further.”

Given his position in the City, he was probably a wealthy man.

Joyce Godber’s book also provides an insight into Harpur’s life as the Lord Mayor of London;

“On the 12th January, when Harpur and the alderman went to St. Paul’s and all the crafts in London in their livery, and then came into Cheapside a lord of misrule from Whitechapel with a great company”

and in September 1562 after an inspection of the conduit heads of London’s water supply:

“after dinner they hunted the fox, and there was a goodly cry for a mile, and after the hounds killed the fox at the end of St. Giles, and there was a great cry at the death, and so rode through London my Lord Mayor Harpur with all his company home to his place in Lombard Street.”

It would not be until 1564 that Harpur commenced the work that would provide a lasting endowment for Bedford.

On the 30th September 1564 for £180, 13 shillings he purchased 12 acres and 3 roods of meadow outside the City at Holborn, old monastic land that had formerly belonged to Charterhouse.

On the 22nd April 1566 he and his wife, Dame Alice, conveyed the land to Bedford Corporation.

The following map (kindly provided by the Harpur Trust) shows the approximate boundaries of the original deed of gift by Sir William Harpur in 1566:

Whilst this map shows the majority of the original estate, it was not until 1654 when it took this final shape. There were some small blocks of land in Harpur’s deed separate from the main block and in a Chancery decree of the 16th February 1654 an exchange of smaller, detached parcels of land took place leaving the estate in its final form.

The following map from the Joyce Godber’s Harpur Trust book shows the original blocks of land identified by the red crosses to the left of the main block of land, which were part of the exchange to consolidate the estate into a single block.

Just prior to the transfer of the land to Bedford Corporation, in 1565 the land was let on a 40 year lease to Richard Bacon. On transfer, this brought in a sum of £12 per annum.

Having found the first boundary markers for the Bedford Charity, I wondered if any further remained and if it was possible to trace the outlines of a 1566 transfer of land, on the streets of 2015 London.

I started at the Holborn end of Bedford Row, with the water pump to my right. Bedford Row is a superb wide street of broadly similar architectural styles (despite the rather aggressively pollarded trees). Bomb damage during the war has been repaired rather than rebuilt.

From this point of view, the boundary runs down the centre of the street and the original Harpur land is to the left.

I made two visits to the area, one on a cloudy, wet day, the other with clear blue sky and a February sun which really highlighted the brickwork:

Due to the proximity of Grays Inn, many of the buildings now house activities associated with the legal profession.

Although some buildings retain reminders of earlier occupation:

So how many indications of the original Harpur land could I find? I have annotated the Harpur Trust map with the locations of the boundary markers that I was able to find.

Marker 1 is the first, at the end of Bedford Row, adjacent to the water pump shown in the earlier photo:

At the end of Bedford Row, at marker 2 in the map where I found the following from 1803 to show where the boundary came from the centre of the street onto the edge of the building.

This one is dated 1803. The different dates are down to the building work that was being carried out on the land, and when the commissioners of the charity would periodically come down from Bedford and “perambulate” the boundaries of the land.

Now cross over Theobalds Road and walk down Emerald Street. At the very end at marker 3 in the map is this boundary marker.

Now head down the small alley from Emerald Street, leading up to Lamb’s Conduit Street and half way along on the right are two of the Bedford boundary markers, one from 1776 and the other from 1838. These are shown in marker 4 in the map.

From Lamb’s Conduit Street we can look back down the alley (part of Emerald Street). Boundary marker 3 can be seen half way up the wall of the building at the far end of the alley. Marker 4 is half way along on the left.

Lamb’s Conduit Street derives its name from William Lamb who erected a water conduit n the site in 1577 by restoring an earlier dam in one of the tributaries of the River Fleet.

The next set of boundary markers are on a building in Lamb’s Conduit Street, directly across from the alley. These were from 1803 and 1838. Marker 5 on the map.

It is here that there is a marked boundary with another estate. Just below the Bedford markers on the building on the right is a boundary marker for the Rugby Estate, dated 1824. The Rugby estate was an 8 acre parcel of land that was part of a bequest to Rugby School in 1567. As with the Harpur estate, the Rugby estate was mainly meadow / pastureland at the time of the bequest, however rapid development over the coming years would add considerably to the estates income.

Photo taken from the end of the alley looking towards the building with the Bedford boundary markers and the Rugby marker on the building on the right. Not easily seen, but are just behind the tree branches.

The next pair of markers are strange. I cannot explain their location. Following the map, to get from Lamb’s Conduit Street to Orde Hall Street where I expected the next set of markers to be found, I found the pair shown in the following photo at marker 6 in the map. This area should be clearly within the Bedford / Harpur estate, however the marker on the right is Bedford 1883 and on the left is Rugby 1884. I can only assume that this was a later sale of land between the two estates in the later part of the 19th century, although strangely the Harpur map shows these buildings as being still owned by the Harpur Trust in 1985 and 2013.

Despite walking the rest of the route of the boundary I was not able to find any more boundary markers, although there are still a number of reminders of the Harpur legacy.

A small alley off Dombey Street leads to Harpur Mews:

And this is Harpur Street:

The far house is original and the house nearest the camera is a post war development.

An example of how boundaries between estates were often challenged can again be found in the book “The Harpur Trust” by Joyce Godber;

“There were soon to be more complications over the London lease. The Great Fire of 1666 set in motion a tide of building in London. One of the most active developers was Nicholas Bourbon, who had qualified as a physician, but who had speculative interests which included setting up in 1681 an office for fire insurance. A contemporary says that the trade of medicine failing, he fell into that of building, and the fire of London gave him means of doing and knowing much of that kind….All his aim was profit. By 1683 he had contributed to the development in the Strand, Soho and elsewhere. Another contemporary notes in his diary in 1684 on 11 June “Dr. Barebone, the great builder, having some time since bought the Red Lyon fields nears Gray’s Inn to build on….the gentlemen of Gray’s Inn, thinking it an injury to them, went with a considerable body of 100 persons, upon which the workmen assaulted the gentlemen and flung bricks at them. Red Lyon Field, now Red Lyon Square, adjoined the revised Harpur land on the southwest; between it and Gray’s Inn were trees and open space, now Bedford Row. the case came before the Privy Council, where it was said that Barbon marched about the fields at the head of his workmen, shouting and halloing.”

William Harpur died on the 27th February 1574 at the age of 77. He was buried in St. Paul’s church, Bedford.

The Bedford Charity is still going, renamed the Harpur Trust, and still using income from the properties owned within the original Harpur estate to support education in the town of Bedford.

Remarkable that 450 years later, Harpur’s original bequest continues to benefit education and can still be traced on the streets of London, and that going in search of a water pump can lead you off in a totally different direction of London’s history.

The sources I used to research this post are:

The Harpur Trust 1552 – 1973 by Joyce Godber published in 1973
My thanks to the Surveyor of the Harpur Trust for the provision of the map

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Distaff Lane – How London Streets Have Changed Over The Centuries

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Distaff Lane is to be found on the western edge of the City. Just south of St. Paul’s Cathedral and running down from Cannon Street, past the church of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey to Queen Victoria Street.

It sounds like an old street name, which indeed it is, however Distaff Lane is a perfect example of how the City streets have changed over the centuries and what may appear today to be original City streets and lanes are a creation of the last 60 years.

I came upon Distaff Lane when I was looking for the location of one of the photos that my father took in the City just after the war.

The following photo shows the shell of a church in an area which has suffered considerable bombing damage. I was able to identify this as St. Nicolas Cole Abbey by the shape and features of the church, along with the position of Cannon Street Station, the original roof of which can be seen on the right of the photo in the distance.

I could not get to the precise location of where my father took this photo due to subtle changes in street layout. The nearest I was able to get to show the same scene today is shown in the photo below:

The church was fully restored after the war, including the replacement of the spire. The features on the church tower, along with the window to the right of the base of the tower identify this as the same church as the original photo.

Note how the orientation of the street has changed slightly and also the width. In the post war photo the kerb of the street can be seen by the plant growth along the edge. The original street was quite narrow compared to the current street.

The following Google Map shows the location of the church (the church is marked on the map as The Wren, this is the café in the church):

Distaff Lane can be seen curving up from Queen Victoria Street, running past the church then up to the cross roads with Cannon Street, New Change and St. Paul’s Churchyard. The name Distaff Lane is also given to the small pedestrian walkway segment that runs on to join Peter’s Hill and Sermon Lane, and it was from this location just along the pedestrian walkway, looking down Distaff Lane to the church that I took the modern day photo.

Distaff Lane is a perfect example of how London’s streets have changed over time. Not just appearance, but also location and name.

Distaff Lane is in Bread Street Ward, so a good place to start understanding how the area has changed over the centuries is the Bread Street Ward map from 1766, as shown below:

I have extracted the area of interest from the ward map to show the detail below:

The church at top left is St Augustine Watling Street. This church is adjacent to St. Paul’s Cathedral which is to the top left of the map extract. The block of land below Watling Street which includes Cordwainers Hall is now within the pedestrian area around St. Paul’s. The last Cordwainers Hall on the site was destroyed in the 2nd World War.

Below this is the original location of Distaff Lane, running to the right into Baising Lane. This is now Cannon Street. Cannon Street originally ran the length of Baising Lane and was extended across Distaff Lane in 1853-4 when Cannon Street was widened and extended up to St. Paul’s Church Yard. You will see opposite Cordwainers’ Hall another street call Little Distaff Lane. When the original Distaff Lane was replaced by Cannon Street, the “Little” was lost and this street then became Distaff Lane. This was the position up to the point where redevelopment started after the war.

Cordwainers’ Hall also gives us the origin of the name Distaff Lane. From Old and New London:

“Cordwainers’ Hall, No 7 Cannon Street, is the third of the same Company’s halls on this site, and was built in 1788 by Sylvanus Hall. The stone front, by Adam, has a sculptured medallion of a country girl spinning with a distaff, emblematic of the name of the lane, and of the thread used by cordwainers and shoemakers.”

A distaff is a stick or spindle used in spinning onto which wool or flax is wound. Some sources also state that this activity was carried out in the lane, which may well be true.

Harold Clunn in The Face of London provides us with a view of what the area in front of Cordwainers Hall was like:

“A widening of the roadway between this building and St. Paul’s Churchyard would afford a great relief to the very tiresome congestion of traffic caused by slow-moving vehicles, and that greatest of all abominations, the draught-horse, which seems to monopolize the vicinity of St. Paul’s Churchyard.”

The same book also provides a view of the type of trade that was carried out here;

“One of these great blocks situated between the Old Change and Distaff Lane was originally occupied by the large German firm of Berens, Bloomberg and Company, dealers in fancy foreign goods of all kinds who came to England shortly after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars”.

The following extract from the 1940 Bartholomew’s Reference Atlas of Great London shows the area as it was just before the destruction of the last war:

Here we can clearly see Cannon Street running adjacent to Cordwainers Hall over what was the original Distaff Lane.

The original Little Distaff Lane is now Distaff Lane and runs from Cannon Street to the junction with Knightrider Street adjacent to St. Nicholas Cole Abbey.

Knightrider Street runs over the route of the original Old Fish Street in the Bread Street ward map.

Distaff Lane was also probably called Mayden Lane at one point as Stow records in 1603:

“And on the south side from the Red Lion Gate to the old Exchange, and downe the same Exchange on the East side, by the west end of Mayden Lane, or Distar Lane to Knightriders Streete, or as they call that part thereof, Old Fishstreet”

Now returning to the same area today:

We can summarise the changes to the single street which currently bears the name Distaff Lane.

Distaff Lane is the short pedestrian stretch and then the whole of the road that routes past St. Nicholas Cole Abbey up to Cannon Street and also the short stretch that routes down to Queen Victoria Street (the street name may not be shown, Google map inserts do not always show the street names along their full length).

The short stretch down to Queen Victoria Street (which can be seen on the post war photo and the modern-day photo as a road turning off on the right side) was probably the original Old Change Hill.

This length of Knightrider Street (which was Old Fish Street in the original 1766 ward map) is now the enlarged Distaff Lane, which has also included Old Change Hill.

And finally the stretch from the church up to Cannon Street was originally Little Distaff Lane.

Distaff Lane is a perfect example of how London has evolved over time. Streets with names that have been in use for many centuries may not always be in their original location, and streets have often changed their names several times.

To finish, a quick walk along Distaff Lane.

This photo is looking down what was Old Change Hill. Now just a short length of road which stops before it can enter Queen Victoria Street.

Walk past this turn off and look left and this is the scene now. This was once the Old Change. It went up from here, crossed Cannon Street and Watling Street. It is now Old Change Court.

Walk up to the church of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey and we can look back down Distaff Lane (or what was Knightrider Street).

From the same position, turn round and look up Distaff Lane towards Cannon Street. Although very uninspiring, this is the only part of the street that can justify the use of the name Distaff. This is the original Little Distaff Lane.

At the top of Distaff Lane, turn right and walk a short distance, then look back to St. Paul’s. This stretch of road is the original Distaff Lane as shown in the Bread Street Ward map (although considerably widened). The original name was lost when Cannon Street was extended to St. Paul’s Churchyard.

Walking up to St. Paul’s Churchyard we can see the sign recording the location of the Cordwainers’ Hall as shown in both the original Ward map and the 1940 map.

And finally, this is the location of the Cordwainers’ Hall now. A whole block of buildings were destroyed in the last war and post war redevelopment changed this to a pedestrian / garden area, and opened up the view to St. Paul’s.

You may also be interested in my post on the church of St. Nicholas, Cole Abbey which can be found here

The sources I used to research this post are:

The Face of London by Harold Clunn published 1932
London by George H. Cunningham published 1927
Old & New London by Edward Walford published 1878
Bartholomew’s Reference Atlas of Great London published 1940
A Survey of London by John Stow, 1603. Oxford 1908 edition
London Lanes by Alan Stapleton published 1930
Bread Street Ward Map by Thomas Bowen 1766

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St Mary At Hill And Lovat Lane

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My posts of last weekend covered some of the extensive damage suffered by the City of London during the war. Fortunately there were areas that escaped with only light, cosmetic damage and have also survived the considerable development in the intervening 70 years. Places remain where it is still possible to get an impression of what London was like as a city of narrow lanes.

The church of St Mary At Hill is best approached not by the road of the same name, but turn off the busy East Cheap / Great Tower Street and head down Lovat Lane. This is the scene which meets you.

Lovat Lane is a narrow lane that heads down to Lower Thames Street and retains the width of many of the city lanes prior to the war. Buildings face directly onto the lane and we can see the tower of St Mary at Hill which, unusually for a City church, still appears to be higher than the immediate surroundings.

The name Lovat Lane is recent. The lane was originally called Love Lane and was changed around 1939 to avoid confusion with the Love Lane further north off Wood Street. This change also appears to have justified the lane being included on maps. In the Bartholomew’s London Atlas for 1913, Love Lane is included in the index and referenced to the correct grid square in the map, however it is not shown. In the 1940 Bartholomew’s Atlas, the name has now been changed to Lovat Lane and is shown on the map. Various early references attribute the original name as being due to the frequenting of the lane by prostitutes, however this may be wrongly using the same source for the other Love Lane which Stow refers to as being “so-called of wantons”. The new name Lovat was chosen due to the quantity of salmon being delivered to Billingsgate Market from the fisheries of Lord Lovat.

As with many other City churches, a church has been recorded as being on the site since before the 12th century. The church was severely damaged in the 1666 Great Fire and then came under the rebuilding programme of City churches managed by Wren, however it was probably Wren’s assistant Robert Hooke who was responsible for much of the design and reconstruction of the church. The “At-Hill” part of the name is due to the church being located up the hill from Billingsgate and the downwards slope of Lovat Lane is one of the locations where the original topography of the City can still be seen with the streets sloping down from the higher ground down to the river.

Despite the central location of St. Mary, the church survived the blitz, although a fire in 1988 severely damaged the Victorian woodwork, the organ and the ceiling, however the interior has been superbly restored.

Before entering the church, walk past the church and look back up Lovat Lane, again we get a really good impression of what the narrow city lanes would have looked like. Remove the modern-day signage and add some dirt to the road surface and soot stain to the brick walls and we could have travelled back in time.

Although just as we walk back up to enter the church, the modern-day City intrudes:

The church prior to the Great Fire, in common with many other City churches of the time had a spire. These were made of wood and covered in lead. In 1479 the church of St. Mary at Hill paid “Christopher the Carpenter” 20 shillings to take down the spire and 53 shillings to rebuild using 800 boards, two loads of lead, nails and ironwork costing 14s 7d.

On entering the church we can see the following carved Resurrection Panel.

From the information sheet;

“The Last Judgement relief is a very unusual example of late 17th century English religious carving, and most likely dates from the 1670s. Its carver is unknown, but we do know that the prominent City mason Joshua Marshall was responsible for the rebuilding of the church in 1670-74: his workshop may have produced the relief. Exactly where the relief was originally positioned is uncertain; most likely it stood over the entrance to the parish burial ground and was brought inside in more recent times.

St. Mary-at-Hill’s relief is one of a small number of Last Judgement scenes carved in later 17th century London.”

We can now enter the main body of the church and a wide space opens up before us, surprising considering the external appearance from Lovat Lane:

The restoration following the 1988 fire created a very simple interior. The original box pews were lost and not replaced leaving a large open space from where we can look up and admire the interior of the roof, restored following the fire of 1988:

Again a surprise given the external appearance of the church from Lovat lane.

Within the church before the Great Fire was a large Rood, a cross or crucifix set above the entry to the chancel. In 1426 a new Rood was installed at St. Mary at Hill and cost £36, a very considerable sum at the time. A great stone arch was built to support the Rood, however in 1496 the arch required underpinning to support the weight and to achieve this the church procured three stays and a “forthright dog of iron” weighing 50 pounds.

At the same time the Rood was renovated and we can get an idea of what this must have looked like by the items that were included in the renovation:

– to the carver for making of three diadems, and of one of the Evangelists and for mending the Rood, the Cross, the Mary and John, the crown of thorns and all other faults

– paid to Underwood for painting and gilding of the Rood, the Cross, Mary and John, the four Evangelists and three diadems

It must have been a very impressive sight. The work was funded through a subscription being raised across the parish. Parishioners contributed a considerable sum towards the upkeep and decoration of their church. In 1487 a parishioner, Mistress Agnes Breten paid £27 to have a tabernacle of Our Lady painted and gilded. In 1519 a parishioner provided a large carved tablet to hang over the high altar at a cost of £20. Thirty years later at the time of the reformation the tablet had to be sold and only raised 4s 8d, a time that marked the end of the type of church decoration that had persisted from the medieval period.

Back towards the entrance is the magnificent organ, built by the London organ manufacturer William Hill in 1848. It is the largest surviving example of his early work and reputed to be one of the ten most important organs in the history of British organ building. William Hill worked for the organ builder Thomas Elliot from 1825 until Elliot’s death in 1832. He had married Elliot’s daughter so on his death he inherited the company. The Hill’s workshop was London-based in St. Pancras and was known for building organ’s of the highest quality, providing organs for many important locations including Birmingham Town Hall and York Minster. The business continued until 1916 when Hill and Son as the company was known amalgamated with another organ builder Norman and Beard of Norwich. The combined company of Hill, Norman & Beard diversified into cinema organs in addition to church organs, however the limited market for these specialist products resulted in the company closing in the 1970s.

The organ was restored following the fire of 1988 and rededicated in 2002.

The church has one more secret to reveal. Step through the side door and we are out into what remains of the churchyard. Totally enclosed on all sides and only accessible either through the church or through the small alley at the far end of the churchyard which leads through to the street of St. Mary-at-Hill.

A plaque on the wall informs us that “the burial ground of the parish church of St. Mary-at-Hill has been closed by order of the respective vestries of the united parishes of St. Mary-at-Hill and Saint Andrew Hubbard with the consent of the rector and that no further interments are allowed therein – Dated this 21st day of June 1846.” Following closure, all human remains from the churchyard, vaults and crypts were removed and reburied in West Norwood cemetery.

The reference to St Andrew Hubbard is an example of the consolidation of parishes after the 1666 Great Fire, The church of St Andrew Hubbard was not rebuilt and the parish integrated with that of St. Mary at Hill.

Looking back towards the doorway we can see, above the round window some of the original fabric exposed .

And at the end of the churchyard, one final look back before entering the short alley that takes us into the street of St. Mary at Hill.

With not too much imagination, Lovat Lane and St. Mary at Hill provide a glimpse of what the City of London was like when many of the City streets were lanes and churches stood tall above their surroundings. Highly recommended for a visit.

St. Mary at Hill is regularly opened by the Friends of City Churches

The sources I used to research this post are:

The Old Churches Of London by Gerald Cobb published 1942
Old Parish Life In London by Charles Pendrill published 1937
Historic Streets of London by Lilian & Ashmore Russan published 1923
London by George H. Cunningham published 1927
Old & New London by Edward Walford published 1878
Bartholomew’s London Atlas, 1913 and 1940 editions

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The Lost Wharfs of Upper Thames Street and St. Benet’s Welsh Church

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This week’s post is about one small area of London which has changed considerably since the 1940s. The following map is taken from Bartholomew’s Reference Atlas of Great London published in 1940.

Between Upper Thames Street and the River Thames was a network of streets and wharfs leading down to the river. Small inlets such as Puddle Dock, Wheatsheaf Wharf and Castle Baynard Wharf were part of the central London network of docks where goods were unloaded to the warehouses that stood along this stretch of the river.

The following photo is one my father took in 1948 and is one that I was having trouble trying to locate despite the very obvious landmark of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The streets are sloping down from St. Paul’s, a clear sign that this photo was taken from the southern side of St. Paul’s, where the land slopes down towards the river. Apart from the cathedral, the only other building with any distinguishing features is the building further up the road with the white brickwork down the corner of the building.

On the building on the left is a small crane located towards the top of the building. A further demonstration of activity in these narrow streets. I imagine that goods being taken to or removed from the warehouse by road would be loaded onto lorries in this side street using the crane to lower from the warehouse. Typical activity that could be found in all the streets and wharfs leading down to the Thames.

Following a walk around Upper Thames Street and Queen Victoria Street, I finally found the location of this photo, however the surrounding area has changed so significantly and the street my father took the photo in does not now exist.

The building with the white brickwork on the corner is the church of St. Benet and the road in which the photo was taken and is running up to the church is Pauls Pier Wharf. I have repeated the map below and circled the area. The church is in the centre of the circle and Pauls Pier Wharf can be seen running down to the river.

So what is there today? The church remains, but everything else has been lost. When this whole area was redeveloped, Upper Thames Street was widened and rerouted slightly to the south. I could not get to the position where my father took the 1948 photo, however to give some idea of the area now, the following photo is from the elevated Queen Victoria Street. If you go back to the original photo, this is roughly from the same position as from the first floor window of the building at the very top of the street, looking past the church and straight down Pauls Pier Wharf (which is now covered by the building behind the church).

The cobbled road is the remains of Bennets Hill and where it turns right, behind the church, that is the original position of Upper Thames Street. The whole area south of the church, where once Pauls Pier Wharf, Pauls Wharf and East Pauls Wharf used to be is now the 1980’s City of London School which occupies the entire site.

As part of the development of the entire area, Upper Thames Street was moved slightly south and along this stretch it is enclosed within a concrete tunnel with the school being built across the tunnel and down to the frontage on the Thames. The nearest I was able to get to recreate my father’s original photo was up against the wall of the school looking back up Bennet’s Hill. This shows how much of the original street has been lost. To take this photo I was standing roughly where the person crossing the road in the original photo is standing.

If you walk round to the other side of the church, it is possible to see the original route of White Lion Wharf. Again, this street has been lost and we are looking down into the concrete tunnel that carries Upper Thames Street (the first road in the tunnel is Castle Baynard Street and on the other side of the concrete wall is Upper Thames Street, also in the tunnel). Castle Baynard Street did not exist and is a creation of the redevelopment. It has continued the use of the Castle Baynard name as Castle Baynard Wharf, which was slightly to the west has also been lost. The eastern extremity of Castle Baynard was on this location. More on this in a future post.

On the right is the elevated White Lion Hill which leads from Queen Victoria Street down to the Blackfriars Underpass. Interesting that the White Lion part of the original street name has been retained but is now a Hill rather than a Wharf.

If you walk along the Thames Path a short distance in the direction of Blackfriars Station, and look to your right the road coming down from Queen Victoria Street is what was Puddle Dock as shown in the 1940 map. The road still retains the Puddle Dock name. This is what the old dock looks like now:

A further example of the re-use of the names of the streets and wharfs along this short stretch of the Thames, the Thames path in this section is named Pauls Walk. There were three wharfs with the name Paul; Pauls Pier Wharf, Pauls Wharf and East Pauls Wharf.

Returning to the church of St. Benet’s, this is an interesting church and well worth a visit. As with many City churches, first records of the church are from the 12th Century. The original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London and the current church is one of Wren’s rebuilds of the City churches (although probably the design of the church was by Wren’s assistance Robert Hooke). Unlike many of the City churches, it was not damaged in the 2nd World War, indeed unlike so much of Queen Victoria Street and the docks onto the Thames, the small area between St. Benet’s and the river did not receive any significant damage. The church is one of the very few in the City that has not changed that much since construction after the Great Fire.

There was a time though when St. Benet’s was almost lost. In the later half of the 19th century there was a wave of church demolition of those that were perceived to be redundant and St. Benet’s was one of the churches scheduled for demolition, however Welsh Anglicans petitioned Queen Victoria for permission to use the church for services in Welsh. This right was granted and since then services have been conducted in the Welsh language. The Welsh connection is a very strong part of the identity of the church.

An old street sign, now stored inside the church:

The Welsh Dragon as a candle holder:

The interior of the church is bright, but with plenty of wood panelling and a large carved, but simple reredos behind the altar.

The 17th century altar / communion table with winged angels supporting a rich cornice and under the table is a figure of Charity with her children:

The view from the gallery:

Back outside the church, and standing on Queen Victoria Street we can look down on the church and Bennet’s Hill. The area north of the church was the original churchyard, however this was lost in the original 19th century widening of Queen Victoria Street.

There is some confusion as to the spelling of Benet in the name of Bennet’s Hill. The church has a single “n” in the name as does the hill in the 1940 street map, however as can be seen below, the modern day street name has “nn”. I have been unable to find whether this spelling change was for a reason or an accident with the new street signs.

Good to see that the original stone carvings above the windows still survive.

Names though do change over the centuries. Stow in 1603 stated that the church was called St. Benet Hude (or hithe) and was up against Powles Wharffe (presumably the same as Pauls Wharf in the 1940 map). Whilst the names change slightly in their spelling it does demonstrate that they have been in existence for many hundreds of years, and for the wharfs and streets they lasted down to the reconstruction of the area in the decades after the war.

Old ghost sign on the side of the church:

Which seems to read:

CAUTION

Whoever commits NUISANCE against …. church … otherwise injures the WALL will be PROSECUTED ….

One wonders whether the church’s current position, squashed between Queen Victoria Street, the Upper Thames Street tunnels and the elevated White Lion Hill would be considered as committing a nuisance against the church?

The sources I used to research this post are:

Bartholomew’s Reference Atlas of Greater London published 1940
The Old Churches Of London by Gerald Cobb published 1942
London by George H. Cunningham published 1927
Old & New London by Edward Walford published 1878
Stow’s Survey of London. Oxford 1908 reprint

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Tower Hill And The Growth In London Tourism

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Much of what I have written so far has been about the physical change across London. How the buildings and streets have changed so considerably over the last 70 years, however there are many other ways in which London has changed and for this week’s post I want to use a series of photos to show that whilst a specific area has not changed that much physically, it is now playing a very significant role in London’s position as one of the major world tourism destinations.

Tower Hill is the area to the north-west and western side of the Tower of London. Tower Hill, in the words of Stow was:

“sometime a large plot of ground, now greatly straitened by encroachments (unlawfully made and suffered) for gardens and houses. Upon the hill is always readily prepared, at the charges of the City, a large scaffold and gallows of timber, for the execution of such traitors or transgressors as are delivered out of the Tower or otherwise, to the Sheriffs of London by writ, there to be executed.”

There is a long list of those executed on Tower Hill, with the last being the execution of Lord Lovat on April 9th 1747. At this execution, a scaffolding built to support those wishing to view the execution collapsed with nearly 1,000 people of which 12 were killed. Apparently, Lovat “in spite of his awful situation, seemed to enjoy the downfall of so many Whigs”.

The following shows the Tower of London from a survey in 1597 showing the moat and the area to the north-west and west that formed Tower Hill.

The western end of Tower Hill. as can seen in the above picture, has long been the main land based gateway to the Tower of London, countless numbers of people must have walked down Tower Hill on their way to the Tower of London, for many, not in the best of circumstances.

The moat was drained in 1843 having long been described as an “offensive and useless nuisance”. After being drained workmen found several stone shot which were identified at the time as being missiles directed at the Tower during a siege in 1460 when Lord Scales held the Tower for Henry VI and the Yorkists cannonaded the fortress from a battery in Southwark.

The following postcard is from the first decade of the twentieth century. I suspect it was taken from the top of the tower of All Hallows by the Tower looking over the Tower of London with part of Tower Hill in the foreground with the approach running down towards the main entrance on the right. Transport is lined up along the approach, taking visitors to and from the Tower.

My father took the following photo looking up Tower Hill from a position to the extreme right of the above photo in 1948 (all of the following three photos from 1948, 1977 and 2014 were taken in the summer at roughly the same time, early afternoon as can be seen by the direction of the shadows).

The moat is just over the railings to the right. The large building behind the trees is the Port of London Authority headquarters. From the Face of London by Harold Clunn:

“Many courts and alleys were swept away between 1910 and 1912 to make room for the new headquarters of the Port of London Authority. This magnificent building, designed by Sir Edwin Cooper, stands on an island site enclosed by Trinity Square, Seething Lane and the two newly constructed thoroughfares called Pepys Street and Muscovey Street. Constructed between 1912 and 1922, it has a massive tower rising above a portico of Corinthian columns overlooking Trinity Square, and the offices are grouped around a lofty central apartment which has a domed roof of 110 feet in diameter”.

The “massive tower” is a very striking local landmark both from the surrounding streets and from the Thames.

The colonnaded building which can partly be seen at the top right of Tower Hill is the memorial to the men of the Merchant Navy and the fishing fleets who died in the two world wars. Some 36,000 names are listed of men who “have no grave but the sea”.

I find the detail of these photos fascinating, from left to right below. An Ice Cream seller in a white coat with his ice cream cart, one of which was bought for the boy in the middle photo and on the right behind the phone box is a Police Box, probably better known these days as a Tardis. Note also how common military uniforms were on the streets of London, even three years after the war had ended.

Now fast forward 29 years and I took the following photo in 1977 when I first stated taking photos of London with a Russian Zenit camera (all that pocket-money could stretch to at the time). The camera had a tendency for the shutter to stick and unlike digital cameras, you did not know this until after the film had been developed. This is one of the photos where it actually worked.

The scene is very similar. the coaches show the start of mass tourism to London and there are additional telephone boxes including one for Intercontinental Calls (this was still at a time when intercontinental calls were the exception and expensive to make).

Now fast forward again another 36 years and I took the following photo in early August 2014. Fortunately I now have a much better camera and I thought converting to Black and White would allow a better comparison with the previous photos.

When I took this, planting of the poppies for the “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red” installation had only just begun and it had not generated the level of visitors seen in October and the start of November. This was a typical summer’s day on Tower Hill.

This photo also has cranes in the background which now appears to be mandatory for any photo within the City.

The Tower of London is now one of the major tourist attractions in London as can be seen on almost any day in Tower Hill. New ticket offices, food outlets and visitor displays have been built down the left hand side, the telephone boxes have disappeared and the ice cream seller with his ice cream cart from 1948 would be hard pressed to manage the industrial scale of ice cream vending now seen on Tower Hill on a summer’s day.

Visitor numbers to London have risen dramatically over the last few decades. In the last ten years they have risen from 11.696 million in 2003 to 16.784 million in 2013 and the first half of this year’s numbers show a 7% increase over the first half of last year.

Of these visitors in 2013, 2.894 million visited the Tower of London in 2013. I doubt that these numbers could have been imagined on that summer’s day in 1948.

Tourism is one of the many factors that are changing the face of London, and with numbers continuing to increase this influence will continue.

I recommend a visit to Tower Hill late on a cold winter’s evening, when it is possible to look over the moat, across to the Tower without the noise and hustle of the crowds and with a little imagination, see the Tower as it has been for centuries as a functioning garrison, fortress and prison. There is also an opportunity to briefly experience the Tower at night. The Ceremony of the Keys takes place every night with admittance starting at 9:30 pm. Whilst with modern-day security systems this ceremony is now probably more ceremonial than functional it does provide a glimpse of the Tower at night and of a ceremony which has been in existence for at least 700 years. Again, a cold winter’s evening is the best time to experience this event. Tickets are free from Historic Royal Palaces and can be found here.

You may also be interested in my post on the Tower Hill Escapologist which can be found here

The sources I used to research this post are:

London by George H. Cunningham published 1927
Old & New London by Edward Walford published 1878
The Face of London by Harold Clunn published 1932
The London Tourism numbers are from the Greater London Authority Data Store which can be found here
Figures for visitors to the Tower of London are from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions and can be found here (which also has a fascinating list of visitor numbers to the majority of UK attractions)

alondoninheritance.com

The Faraday Building of Queen Victoria Street

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One of the things that makes walking the streets of London so enjoyable is a discovery that not only informs about a building or location, but also tells a whole new story about a period in time and what was changing and important in the life of Londoners at that time.

Walk down Queen Victoria Street towards Blackfriars. After passing the church of St. Benet, Paul’s Wharf on your left you will walk past what, at first glance, appears to be a very bland and utilitarian building.

This is the Faraday Building, named after Michael Faraday, an English scientist who experimented with electromagnetism, demonstrated how rotating a coil in a magnetic field could generate electricity and developed the “laws which governs the evolution of electricity by magneto-electric induction”.

The General Post Office (GPO) opened the first London telephone exchange on this site in 1902 with the existing building being completed and officially opened in 1933 to accommodate the very significant growth in telephone services across London. It was designed by A.R. Myers, an architect of the Office of Works who was responsible for the design of a considerable number of Telephone Exchange buildings and Post Offices across the country.

Following completion, the height of the building was very controversial as it blocked the view of St. Paul’s Cathedral from the river. It led to the planning regulations and by-laws that protected sight-lines to the cathedral and restricted the height of buildings. To this day along Queen Victoria Street, the Faraday Building is still the tallest between cathedral and river, as can be clearly seen in the following photo where the Faraday Building is on the right, well above the surrounding buildings.

The Faraday Building was the main telephone exchange for London and also the hub for international circuits with the majority of international calls being routed via the manual switchboards in the building.

Look just above the line of the second set of windows and in the position associated with a key stone, there are a series of carvings, one above each window, that tell the story of what was state of the art telecommunications at the time the building was constructed.

Walking down towards Blackfriars, the first carving is the Telephone.

This type of telephone at the time, was cutting edge technology. It utilised a dial that sent pulses to the telephone exchange when the dial was released from the chosen number position, to tell equipment at the exchange what number was being dialled. Prior to the use of a dial, all calls were put through manually, requiring an initial conversation with an operator which would then start a series of manual patching to put you through to your destination. A technique that worked when few people had telephones, but a model that could not cope with the growth of telephones as the 20th Century progressed.

The next carving shows a series of coded pulses crossing a disk, possibly a representation of the world.

Coded pulses were the means by which information was transmitted about the call to be made. When a dial was turned on a telephone, the release of the dial would cause it to return to its original position and as it returned it would open and close an electrical contact thereby sending pulses to the telephone exchange.

I have seen a number of interpretations for the next carving, but to me these are very clearly the cables that carry telephone signals. There is an outer loop of cable and within the centre, the ends of the cables which have their protective sheath cut back leaving the individual conductors within exposed.

Cables were the key part of the telephone system that carried the pulses and speech from telephones, to the exchanges and then across to their destination, whether in the same street or across the world. (I can see the architects were trying to tell a story in stone of the technology of how a telephone call was made)

The next carving shows a Horse Shoe Magnet. Magnetism was key to the telephone system from the very beginning through to the late 1990s when telephone exchanges driven by magnetic devices were replaced by computer based systems.

Michael Faraday’s work with electricity and electromagnetic induction was critical in the understanding of electricity and magnetism, their relationship and laid the foundations for their future practical application. This work was crucial to enable the technology that would go on to provide the telephone systems that spanned the world to be developed and these carvings clearly seem to be celebrating this fact, and the position of the Faraday Building as a hub in this global network.

One of Faraday’s experiments involved rotating a coil of wire between the poles of a horseshoe magnet which resulted in the generation of a continuous electric current in the wires of the coil. This was the first electrical generator and the fundamentals are the same in the generators of modern-day power stations.

We then come to a carving for King George V, the monarch at the time of the construction and opening of the Faraday Building.

Moving on we come to the carving of an electromagnetic relay which to me is one of the most unique relatively modern-day carvings you will find across London. It is of a core bit of technology, hidden away in the depths of a telephone exchange, but without which automatic telephone exchanges would not have functioned. This type of relay was cutting edge at the time the building was planned, equivalent to the technology that connects the Internet today and switches information from your computer or smart phone through to web-based services across the world.

As an apprentice in the late 1970s with Post Office Telephones (as it was prior to changing to British Telecom and being privatised) I have spent many hours cleaning and adjusting these relays to keep them working and driving the equipment that switched telephone calls. The following photo shows a typical item of equipment from a telephone exchange in the late 1970s full of the relays found carved on the Faraday Building. This is looking end on, as if we were looking at the carving in from the right.

Large telephone exchanges such as that within the Faraday Building would have had many thousands of these relays.

I find these carvings fascinating. They show a pride and celebration in the technology of the time and the function of the building. The majority of buildings constructed during the last few decades, apart from transient corporate logos, tend to have no indication of their function or purpose.

One final set of details can be found just above the main entrances to the building. Just above the door, between the words Faraday and Building is the caduceus (staff with wings above two coiled snakes) of Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, and just above the window there is a carving of Mercury.

Technology has moved on considerably since the Faraday Building and these carvings were completed and I doubt the architect and builders of the time could have dreamt of the Smart Phone and Internet.

I hope these carvings remain for many decades to come to show future generations the pride that they had in the service that the Faraday Building would provide to London.

alondoninheritance.com

The Canopies and Carving of Queen Anne’s Gate

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In tracking down the locations where my father’s photos were taken, there are three distinct categories of photo:

Those with a very recognisable scene
Some have a street name or some other indicator of the location in the photo
Many have no clue within the photo as to where it was taken

Today’s photo falls into the last category. It is one I have looked at many times, mainly fearing that like many London streets from the 18th Century, this one had been lost forever, however whilst tracking down Cockpit Steps for last week’s post I turned a corner and suddenly found myself looking at a street scene where the buildings had hardly changed in 60 years. I had come out of St. Jame’s Park Underground Station, walked up the first leg of Queen Anne’s Gate, turned to the right to head down to Cockpit Steps and found myself facing the same street scene that looked like this over 60 years ago:

My 2014 photo from the location:

There have been some minor changes to the buildings, however apart from the ever-present impact of the car, the scene is basically the same.

Queen Anne’s Gate is a fascinating road. It was originally a street and a square. The section nearest the camera was Queen Square and the part furthest from the camera was Park Street. They were separated by a wall until 1873 when the two areas were combined into Queen Anne’s Gate. The building of the wall has many echoes with traffic concerns of today. Queen Square was constructed first, then when Park Street was constructed, residents of Queen Square were so concerned that the road would be used as a cut through for carriages to avoid the traffic of King Street, the Sanctuary and Tothill Street that a subscription was collected for the building of the wall to avoid the residents having the peace of their square disturbed.

The wall was just over halfway down the street and although the wall is long gone, the statue of Queen Anne still stands at this point:

The street name sign still retains faded versions of the different street names. Note also the plaque underneath the street name sign. There is a another of these on the junction with Carteret Street:

This is the symbol for Christ’s Hospital and is used to show that these buildings were owned by Christ’s Hospital. I believe that Christ’s Hospital owned these buildings until as recently as the mid 1990’s. Queen Square was originally the freehold estate of Sir Theodore Janssen, one of the directors of the South Sea Company in 1720, and when the South Sea crash came Queen Square was seized and sold to help pay of the debts of the institution.

The buildings in what was Queen Square (the part of Queen Anne’s Gate covered by my old and new photos) were completed around 1704 in the reign of Queen Anne (1702 to 1714), a monarch that does not get much visibility these days, however she was on the throne at a crucial time in the history of the United Kingdom when the Acts of Union came into force on the 1st of May 1707 which united Scotland and England into the single Kingdom of Great Britain.

Anne was therefore the first Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.

Intriguing to think that these buildings were completed before the act of union and dependent on the outcome of the Scottish vote in September may see a very changed situation.

Queen Anne’s Gate has a large number of Blue Plaques. The following plaque is for Sir Edward Grey in what was the Park Street end of the road. Sir Edward Grey was the Foreign Secretary at the time of the outbreak of the First World War.

Other Blue Plaques along the street:

The architecture of the buildings in the original Queen Square part of Queen Anne’s Gate is superb, and the main doors to the majority of buildings have very elaborate decorated wooden canopies, the following being a typical example:

Also along the buildings are elaborate stone carvings of which the following two are examples:

This type of decorative stone carving and the carved wooden canopies were soon to be replaced by the Georgian style of architecture which was neater (less intricate carving) and more magnificent stone work. One of the key drivers behind this change was the considerable number of books published by craftsmen for craftsmen from about 1715, which led to the gradual standardisation of ornamentation. Architectural pattern-books resulted in much standard Georgian architecture across London. These Queen Anne’s Gate buildings were very much the end of an era.

The following map is a repeat of last week’s map showing the location of Cockpit Steps. Queen Ann’s Gate can be seen just to the left of the location of Cockpit Steps. The map also shows how the first part of Queen Anne’s gate is a cut through from St. James Park Underground Station through to Birdcage Walk.

As it was in 1940 it continues to be now, and whilst I was stood on the corner waiting to take a photo down what was Queen Square, there was an almost constant stream of people walking from the station area to Birdcage Walk with hardly a glance at the magnificent buildings that are over 300 years old.

The following is a sample of the doors and carved canopies along Queen Anne’s Gate:

I am really pleased to have found the location of this photo. Not just for finding the location, but also that these buildings have survived the developments of the last 60 years.

If you arrive at St. James Park underground station, do not cut straight through to Birdcage Walk, take a detour down Queen Anne’s Gate and admire these superb buildings.

The sources I used to research this post are:

Georgian London by John Summerson published 1945
London: The Art of Georgian Building by Dan Cruikshank and Peter Wyld published 1975
The Face of London by Harold P. Clunn published 1951
London by George H. Cunningham published 1927
Old & New London by Edward Walford published 1878
Bartholomew’s Reference Atlas of Greater London published 1940

alondoninheritance.com

Cockpit Steps – A Hidden Alley Leading To Birdcage Walk

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Unlike my posts of the previous two weeks, the location of this week’s post was very easy to find and also unlike the previous posts the location has hardly changed and I was able to work out the exact position to take 2014 photos some 65 years after my father took the originals.

The following photo from about 1950 was taken halfway down Cockpit Steps, looking up towards the corner of Dartmouth Street and Old Queen Street. The steps link this corner with Birdcage Walk, alongside St. James Park.

The following is my 2014 photo taken from the same location:

The scene is very similar. The lamp-post is still the same and although there is still a post box in the same position, it is a later model.

Walk down the steps, and there is nothing to suggest any history to the location, however the name is a clear indication of what was here a couple of centuries ago as this was the location of one of the three main cock-pits in London (the others were in Whitehall and Drury Lane) where the sport of cock-fighting was held. Whilst to us this is a barbaric sport, for centuries it was very popular and had royal patronage.

The location of the steps is shown in the following map from Bartholomew’s Reference Atlas of Greater London, where they are shown as a continuation of Dartmouth Street, however they do have their own unique identity.

The cock-pit was finally taken down in 1816.

The cock-pit was a typical London scene for Hogarth and the following is Hogarth’s view of the cock-pit at the end of Cockpit Steps:

It is easy to imagine the intrigue, secret meetings and arguments that would have taken place in such a place. It was here that Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford was stabbed, though not fatally, with a penknife by a French noble refugee, the Marquis de Guiscard who was brought before him and the rest of the Cabinet Council by the Queen’s Messenger, charged with treacherous correspondence with the rival court at St. Germain, whilst drawing a pension from the English Court.

My father’s original photo of the entrance to Cockpit Steps also shows that very little has changed.

And my 2014 photo from the same position:

Whilst walking down the steps, I noticed some very worn graffiti carved into the brickwork. Probably wishful thinking but is this one from 1907?

The lower entrance to Cockpit Steps is from Birdcage Walk and is the location of the original cock-pit. Even on a busy Saturday morning the steps were very quiet. Lots of tourists and walkers passing along Birdcage Walk between Buckingham Palace and Westminster but hardly a glance at this hidden location.

The entrance from Birdcage Walk:

Looking down Old Queen Street with the entrance to Cockpit Steps in the bottom left:

The sources I used to research this post are:

The Streets of London by Gertrude Burford Rawlings
Old & New London by Edward Walford published 1878
Bartholomew’s Reference Atlas of Greater London published 1940

alondoninheritance.com

A London Inheritance

A Private History of a Public City

Category Archives: London Streets

Wardrobe Place And St. Andrews Hill

The Lost Warehouses of Pickle Herring Street

A Water Pump, Bedford Row And Tracing Harpur’s Bedford Charity Estate

Distaff Lane – How London Streets Have Changed Over The Centuries

St Mary At Hill And Lovat Lane

The Lost Wharfs of Upper Thames Street and St. Benet’s Welsh Church

Tower Hill And The Growth In London Tourism

The Faraday Building of Queen Victoria Street

The Canopies and Carving of Queen Anne’s Gate

Cockpit Steps – A Hidden Alley Leading To Birdcage Walk

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