Soho Pubs – Part 1

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There are two areas of London that probably have the highest concentration of pubs in the whole city – the City of London and Soho.

Much of the wider London area once had a far higher number of pubs than now. You only have to look at old OS maps from the end of the 19th century to see just how many there were in, for example, east London, with some areas having a pub almost on every street corner.

Whilst many have closed, a high number have survived in the City of London due to the number of City workers and the type of business in the City being conducive to socialising and meeting in pubs. Whilst the traditional liquid lunch has mainly become a thing of the past, one only has to walk through the City on a summer’s afternoon to see plenty of busy pubs, with drinkers spilling out onto the pavement.

I went on a walk to find City of London pubs back in 2020, and the first of three posts on these establishments can be found here.

The other area of London with a high density of pubs is Soho.

As with the City of London, Soho has always been a distinctive area with historically many aspects of the place being conducive to pub culture. There continue to be a high number of pubs in Soho to this day. Generally always busy with locals, workers, visitors and tourists, and four years after searching for City pubs, I thought I would explore Soho pubs, and today is the first of three posts over the coming couple of months detailing the results.

Every Soho pub has a back story. Some extensive, some quite humble, but there is something to discover for each pub, the majority of which have been there, and often rebuilt, since the 18th century.

So today is the first post on Soho pubs, and I will start with a visit to:

The Devonshire – Denman Street

There are plenty of pubs closing and it is not often that a pub reopens, but that it what has happened with the Devonshire.

Originally the Devonshire Arms, the pub dates back to 1793, and for the following 219 years it was a typical Soho local pub.

The Devonshire Arms closed in 2012 and soon after became a Jamie’s Italian restaurant.

The building’s use as a restaurant ended a couple of years ago, and new owners completely refurbished the building to the standard of a traditional pub on the ground floor, and restaurant seating on the upper floors, and reopened as the Devonshire in 2023.

Judging by how many people are using the pub every time I have been in, or walked past, it appears to be very successful, and apparently has the reputation of selling the most pints of Guinness of any pub in London.

Looking back at the history of the pub, the only thing I could find were recurring stories of typical London low level crime, however there was one report, dating from the 18th of August, 1894 which highlighted some of the challenges of policing 19th century London:

“On Saturday evening a desperate affray took place outside the Devonshire Arms public-house, Denman-street. it appears that a constable was called to eject some men and women from the public-house named. When they got outside the mob made a rush at the policeman, who was thrown to the ground. He got up, however, and blew his whistle, and several other constables quickly arrived. A desperate fight then took place, in the course of which one of the policemen was stabbed in the back by one of the women with a large hair pin. Other constables then arrived, and after much trouble four men and two women were taken to Vine-street station. Several hundred people witnessed the conflict.”

Hopefully the Devonshire now has a more peaceful, and long future as a restored Soho pub.

The Queens Head – Denman Street

The Queens Head in Denman Street is a lovely traditional, independent London pub.

My use of the word traditional is for a pub which has a bar, typically all wood, with hand pumps. Shelves behind the bar full of bottles of spirits. A large bar area with a mix of seating and standing, with wooden seats and tables. The Queens Head is independent in that it is not tied to a specific brewery, and therefore able to sell a range of beers and spirits.

The Queens Head claims to date back to 1736. I cannot find any evidence that would either confirm or contradict the date.

There are plenty of newspaper references to the Queens Head, petty crime, the societies who used the pub as their meeting place etc. but my favourite was an article that shows that back in 1874 you could get a large fine or a prison sentence for lying on your CV.

John Holder,a 24 year old barman was taken to court accused of fraud. He had applied for a job as a barmen at the Nightingale Pub in St. John’s Wood.

He said to his prospective new employer that he had worked at the Queens Head in Denman Street but had left after a change of ownership, and that Mr. Cardwell, his previous employer at the Queens Head would give him a reference.

He gave an address for Mr. Cardwell, and his prospective employer went to the address to confirm his references, however his was told that no one knew Mr. Cardwell, and after talking to the Queens Head, it was confirmed that John Holder had not worked at the pub.

In mitigation, poor John Holder told the court that he had been out of work for some time, and could not get a job, and was very sorry for what he had done.

Despite this, he was convicted of fraud and he had to either pay the full penalty of £20 and 10 shillings of costs, or be imprisoned in the House of Correction for three months.

Given his lack of work, I suspect he ended up in the House of Correction for three months, a penalty which seems very harsh for someone who appears to have just been desperate to get a job.

The Crown – Brewer Street

The Crown in Brewer Street, at the corner with Lower James Street.

The Crown is one of the many Soho pubs that has some interesting decoration. Facing Brewer Street, the pub has two upper floors, with a row of four windows along each floor, however along the narrower side of the building, the second floor has a large semi-circle of decoration with the name of the Crown Tavern displayed.

There is some interesting history covering the location of the pub on a panel on the ground floor:

The panel states that the Crown sits on the site of one of the most well known concert halls of the 18th century, the Hickford Rooms.

I found an article about the Hickford Rooms in an issue of the Musical Times, titled “A Forgotten Concert Room”. The following is from the first paragraph of the article, and I will give you the date of the article after this extract:

“Modern London is becoming a new Americanised city, and all its old and peculiarly English characteristics are fast becoming improved out of existence. If anyone who left it during the sixties of the last century return to visit it today, he will imagine himself to be in some foreign town, and for the most part fail to recognise the London he knew so intimately of old.”

That was the opening to the article, published in the Musical Times on the 1st of September 1906, and illustrates what is a theme of the blog, that London has undergone almost continuous change for the entire period there has been people living in what we now call London.

The introduction also follows up on last week’s blog, that the 19th century was one of the periods when there was a high degree of change that set the city on course for the following century.

The article provides the following introduction to Hickford’s Room:

“The long-forgotten old concert-room in Brewer Street has fortunately escaped demolition, and it recalls a chapter of London’s musical history little noticed by the general reader. The building now forms part of the premises of the Club Francais, but for thirty-five years during the middle of the 18th century, it was a much frequented and fashionable resort, and was known by the name of Hickford’s Room.

John Hickford, the proprietor, began life as a dancing-master in the latter part of Queen Anne’s reign, and originally had a dancing school in James Street, Haymarket. There was at that time only one other room in the West-end large enough for concerts of any pretensions, and as that was sometimes difficult to secure, and its proprietor was not a particularly agreeable man, certain well-known artists began to make use of Mr. Hickford’s great dancing room wherein to give their concerts.”

The school mentioned above was in Haymarket, but became so successful that Hickford then moved to the site in Brewer Street, where it was assumed the new hall was designed specifically for Hickford.

The front door of the new hall opened into a square hall, which gave access to the concert room which was at the back of the building, and there was also a staircase which gave access to a small gallery.

The concert room was fifty feet long and thirty feet wide, and the ceiling was coved, and there were moldings, cornices and other decorations, that were in an “elegant style that the brothers Adam improved upon”.

The article mentions a large number of artists who performed at Hickford’s Room, and has the following to say about Mozart playing in Brewer Street:

“Two other shadows, brother and sister, play the harpsichord. The boy is eight years old, the girl thirteen, a demure, motherly child, her hair crowned by a mop-cap. The boy’s playing is phenomenal, and he bids fair to rival Mr. Handel in composition. But the scanty audience is not interested, it cares no longer for these two children who only a year ago were the spoiled darlings of the whole town. The little boy fulfilled in manhood the brilliant promise of his youth, and London should be proud that it still possesses a room once distinguished by the performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”

Hickford’s Hall soon faced competition from other halls in London, along with changing fashions as in the later part of the 18th century, interest changed from small musical recitals to orchestral performances, which Hickford’s Hall was not large enough to accommodate.

As well as music, the hall put on other events such as talks and lectures, including in 1761, Thomas Sheridan who gave a “Course of Lectures on Elocution”.

Over the following years, the hall went through a number of changes in owners and use, but survived until 1934 when it was demolished to make way for an annex of the Regent Palace Hotel.

If the hall lasted until 1934, it obviously raises the question of how can the pub be on the site.

As far as I can tell (given the time available for a weekly blog post), the house and main entrance to the hall was on the site of the Crown, and the hall was to the rear of the Crown.

The earliest reference to the crown that I can find are from the years around 1830, so I suspect the house and entrance to the hall were demolished and the Crown was built, with the hall surviving just behind the pub, until demolition in 1934.

Glasshouse Stores – Brewer Street

The Glasshouse Stores is another pub that claims to date back to the 1730s, however the rather unusual current name is not the original, as it had the more traditional pub name of the Coach and Horses.

The last time I can find the original name mentioned is in 1849, and by 1872 the name Glasshouse Stores was in use, as the pub was advertising for an active, single young man, to work as a Potman, and also to wait on the Billiard Room, to wash pewter and also the windows of the pub – so basically anything that was needed.

No idea why the pub changed its name, or the relevance of the new name, however it demonstrates that changing a pub name is not a recent phenomena.

The Sun and 13 Cantons – Great Pulteney Street

The Sun and 13 Cantons must have one of the most unusual pub names in London.

The pub’s website claims that the source of the name is from the Swiss watch-making community that lived and worked in Soho in the late 1800s.

The pub also claims that the name of the pub was originally just “The Sun”, and the 13 Cantons was added in 1882 when the pub reopened after a rebuild, however I am not so sure, and am confident that the pub had its full name of The Sun and 13 Cantons earlier in the 19th century. For example, the following is from the London Morning Advertiser on the 13th of May, 1823:

“Dr. Dell, of the Sun and 13 Cantons, Great Pultney-street, was fined fifteen shillings and costs for the like offence.”

The “like offence” was referring to another fine in the paper where a licensee of a different pub was fined for serving customers after twelve o’clock.

The Englishman (published in London) on the 3rd of June, 1832 had a report about a fire where a couple of people had died, and in the report was stated:

“The inquest was held at the Sun and 13 Cantons, Great Pulteney-street”

To add some mystery, in the London Morning Post on the 22nd of April, 1825, there was an advert for an auction, where Lot 2 was “The Sun and 13 Cantons, Liquor Shop and Public House, on the east side of Castle-street, Leicester Square, adjoining Cecil-court.”

So there are two newspaper reports, one from 1823 and the other form 1832 both referring to the Sun and 13 Cantons being in Great Pultney Street, as it still is today, on the corner with Beak Street, well before the 1882 mentioned on the pub’s website.

The 1825 report is strange as it refers to a pub with the same name, but being in a different, but nearby, location. It is an unusual name for there to be two pubs of the same name, although they were close, so probably had the same association with local Swiss watch makers.

An interesting pub, with a name that recalls some of the people and trades that have made Soho their home.

Old Coffee House – Beak Street

The Old Coffee House is a really good, family run pub, and is well worth a visit for a proper local pub.

The name is strange for a pub, but it does tell of the early history of the site.

The main entrance to the pub today is on Beak Street, and to find the original purpose of the site, we need to look at name changes. The first part of Beak Street was built in 1689 by Thomas Beak, and he gave his name to this first section of the street.

The section of the street where the Old Coffee House is located was developed in 1718, and went by the name of Silver Street. This name was dropped in 1883, when the whole of both Beak and Silver Streets became Beak Street.

A Coffee House was originally on the site of the current pub, and went by the name of the Silver Street Coffee House. I cannot find exactly when the establishment changed from being a coffee house to a pub, but it seems to have been around the 1870s / 1880s, and with a lovely bit of continuity, it kept the Coffee House name as part of the new pub name.

The Old Coffee House appears to have had a number of associations with the theatre, as in the 1920s it was the meeting place on a Sunday morning for members of the Electrical Trades Union Cinema & Theatrical Branch, and in 1948, the Sphere was reporting that the pub had “a very large audition room which has often been used for theatrical rehearsals”. The pub is larger than the pink painted section suggests, as the pub extends further along Marshall Street to the right.

A lovely, traditional Soho pub.

John Snow – Corner of Broadwick Street and Lexington Street

The John Snow pub stands on the corner of Broadwick Street (originally Broad Street) and Lexington Street (originally Cambridge Street). A number of streets in this area of Soho have changed their names since the mid 19th century.

The pub building dates from the 1870s, and was originally called the “Newcastle-upon-Tyne”, The name changed in 1955 to commemorate the centenary of the work in the area of John Snow.

Dr. John Snow, often called the founding father of Epidemiology was known for his work on the transmission of Cholera in London, and he would demonstrate conclusively how this killer of large numbers of Londoners was transmitted. Perhaps hs most well known work was on the location of the source of a Cholera outbreak in 1854 in Broad Street, Soho area.

It is a really fascinating story, and instead of including it in this post about Soho pubs, click here for a dedicated post I wrote a couple of years ago about John Snow and the Soho Cholera Outbreak of 1854.

Star and Garter – Poland Street

The Star and Garter in Poland Street is a lovely little pub squashed between two much later and larger buildings.

Researching the pub, it highlights how pubs once served an essential purpose as the meeting place of clubs and societies, and with the Star and Garter it seems to have been the regular meeting place of two groups who were looking to protect the interests of workers and to campaign for improved rights.

in 1834, the Star and Garter was the meeting place for a Society of Journeymen Tailors, and on joining the society, those working in the trade would “meet with constant employment, and the protection from malicious threats of those who are regardless of their own, or the wellbeing of others”.

In 1868 the Star and Garter was the meeting place of the “West End Cabinetmakers’ Branch of the Reform League”. The Reform League was founded in 1865, and campaigned for all adult males to have the vote.

These meetings also identify some of the trades that once occupied Soho, and as well as watchmakers (from the Sun and 13 Cantons), we also now have tailors and cabinet makers.

The meetings in the Star and Garter in 1868 tell of the long struggle for universal suffrage, the right for every adult in the country to have the vote.

In 1831, only 4,500 men in the whole of the country could vote in parliamentary elections. These 4,500 were generally landowners, and there was incredible inconsistencies across the country where the Borough of Dunwich in Suffolk (population 32, and one of the Rotten Boroughs) could elect two MPs, whilst the expanding industrial cities of Birmingham and Manchester did not have any MPs.

Parliament did, very grudgingly, expand the male vote, for example the Second Reform Act of 1867 expanded the vote to men who owned houses or lodgers who paid rent of £10 a year or more.

It would not be until the 1918 Representation of the People Act that the vote was extended to all men, and also gave the vote to women over the age of thirty who owned property, and all women would have to wait until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928, when any women over the age of 21 (the same as men) would get the vote.

When you sit in pubs such as the Star and Garter, having a pint on a summer afternoon, it is fascinating to think of the Londoners who met here to plan how they would be part of a wider campaign for the vote.

Blue Posts – Corner of Broadwick Street and Berwick Street

On the corner of Broadwick Street and Berwick Street is the Blue Posts pub. The current rather attractive building dates from a 1914 rebuild, however there had been a pub on the site since the original development of the area.

The lantern and decoration on the corner of the pub:

As with other Soho pubs, the Blue Posts was frequently used for auditioning those who wanted to get into the entertainment business, and a typical advert (this example from the Stage in 1925) reads:

“Wanted for Mrs Sydney T. Russelle’s Troupes, good all round Lady Dancers. immediate work for the Continent and England. Only first-class ladies need apply between 2 and 4 Thurs and Fridays at the Blue Posts, Berwick Street”

The Blue Posts also has a rather obscure claim to cinematic fame when a model of the pub was destroyed by a brontosaurus in the 1925 film Lost World. The following clip shows the pub just before the brontosaurus crashes in and demolishes the building:

Apparently the animators, who created a rather impressive animated film for the 1920s, drank in the pub they chose to destroy for the film.

There is a Westminster City Council green plaque on the Berwick Street side of the pub, recording that Jessie Matthews, “Musical Comedy Star of Stage and Screen” was born in Berwick Street in 1907. She was not born in the pub, rather in a flat above a butchers shop at 94 Berwick Street, which is almost half way along Berwick Street from the pub.

Perhaps the Council decided that the Blue Posts was a more permanent building, in a more visible location, to display the plaque then the place of her birth.

Duke of Wellington – Wardour Street

The website of the pub describes the pub as “Serving the LGBTQIA+ community for over 20 years, the Duke of Wellington takes pride in being your Soho local” and it is a very busy Soho pub.

It has long had a Wardour Street address, desite the long length of the building being on Winnett Street.

In 1966, the Tatler described the Duke of Wellington as “facing the stage door of the Queen’s Theatre. perhaps the most famous after-theatre pub in Soho. It has been the property of Christ College Hospital since 1723, and Mr. W. Evans has been the tenant since 1931. Old Tudor beams, stag heads and antique vaults. Home-made lunches are enjoyable and plenty of stimulating theatre chat could keep one going until closing time.”

Today, the pub is owned by the Stonegate Group (was known as the Stonegate Pub Company). I cannot find whether this is freehold or leased, but I suspect that Christ College Hospital have sold the site in the past few decades.

The Ship – Wardour Street

The Ship has a Wardour Street address, and is on the corner of Wardour Street and Flaxman Court.

Again, a lovely traditional pub, but a pub which had a more interesting name than just the Ship.

Dating from the late 18th century, and rebuilt in the late 19th century, the pub was originally called “The Ship in Distress”.

I cannot find any reference to the source of the name, whether it referred to a specific ship, or whether it was just an imagined name.

The last mention I can find of the name Ship in Distress is on the 9th of July, 1865, when in a list of license transfers in the Weekly Advertiser, the license for the Ship in Distress was reported as transferring from Charles Humby to Robert Henwood, although in 1859, the pub was referred to as the “New Ship” in a number of newspapers, for example with reports of the results of a Billiard competition between pubs.

The pub may have changed name at the same time as a rebuild, and the use of the old name with the license renewal six years after the name “New Ship” was in use, may just have been an error with records not catching up with name changes.

The name may have changed as the “Ship in Distress” is a rather depressing name, recording either a factual or fictional tragic event. New landlords / owners may have wanted to have a more positive name, and changed to the Ship, which was probably how the pub was called in day to day use.

In recent decades, the Ship was frequently used by many of the musicians who lived, performed, and had business in the area of Wardour Street. The Marquis Club was a short walk from the Ship, and there are various stories about Keith Moon of the Who being banned from the Ship, the Clash drinking in the pub, along with many other musicians.

The George – D’Arblay Street

The George is on the corner of D’Arblay Street and Wardour Street.

To help with dating the building, the year 1897 is displayed on the corner of the building, on the first floor, and on the second floor there is an image of presumably one of the King George’s that the pub is named after.

The Survey of London records that the George has been here since at least 1739, so at around the same time as the street was laid out in 1735. Based on this date, the George could be George II who became monarch in the year 1727.

The George was originally on Portland Street, the original name of the street that became D’Arblay Street in 1909 after Fanny Burney (the novelist, diarist and playwright, who lived from 1752 to 1840), and who lived in Soho, and married French émigré General Alexandre D’Arblay.

I find it strange that to name a street after a woman, you use the surname of her husband. I am always cautious with applying a 21st century view to earlier times, however a quick newspaper search, and the name Fanny Burney was used many, many more times both during and after her life, rather than Madame D’Arblay as she was also known, so rather than D’Arblay Street, perhaps the street should be called Burney Street.

The Hat Tavern – Great Chapel Street

I was in two minds whether to include this establishment, which has a full name of Mr Fogg’s Hat Tavern, and is on the corner of Great Chapel Street and Hollen Street. It is one of a number of taverns and gin establishments across London which go under the Mr. Fogg brand, named after Phileas J. Fogg, the lead character in Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days.

It is a pub on the ground floor, and a gin club in the basement.

The name Hat Tavern is taken from the building on the opposite side of Hollen Street, which still has the wording “Hat Factory Henry Heath Oxford Street”.

The Henry Heath Hat Factory occupied a large site between Hollen Street and Oxford Street, where hats were manufactured, and sold from the building that faced onto Oxford Street.

The company manufactured hats for a range for uses, from sporting (such as ventilated hunting caps for ladies and gentlemen) to formal (with silk hats).

In 1885, the company was advertising “The Exhibition of ‘RATIONAL DRESS’ – HENRY HEATH of 107, Oxford Street has a sensible improvement in the shape of a soft-banded hat. Everyone knows the painful sensation experienced from the pressure of the usual stiff felt or silk hat; this is quite obviated in the hat manufactured by HENRY HEATH”.

In 1922, Henry Heath celebrated their centenary, and in newspapers announced that their rebuilt showroom in Oxford Street was now open. The factory between Oxford and Hollen Streets employed 200 workers, and their hat making skills led to the following 1922 description of the business in the Pall Mall Gazette:

“Henry Heath has supplied the headgear of each succeeding monarch during the century that has elapsed between George IV and George V, as well as of all the notabilities of each reign. The Prince of Wales, just before his Indian tour, appointed Henry Heath his hatter by Royal Warrant. many foreign monarchs too, have been fitted by Henry Heath, and have appointed him Royal hatter; the King of Spain amongst them.

Such is the International reputation of ‘Ye Hatterie’ as the famous establishment in Oxford-street is known, that visitors from all parts of the globe come to this historic house to be fitted with their headgear while sojourning in London.”

The last mention of Henry Heath hats I could find was in Country Life in 1962 where one of their soft brown hats were been shown as part of an overall outfit. In the 1930s, 40s and 50s they seem to have either moved to, or opened a showroom in New Bond Street, and the number of adverts in the London press declined gradually.

Whether they were still an independent company in the 1960s, I cannot confirm, however it appears that the Henry Heath brand disappeared in the 1960s, most likely the victim of changing fashions and cheaper imports.

The building that once had Henry Heath’s showroom is still to be seen in Oxford Street, and it is an interesting building which I will save for a future post.

That was a bit of a diversion, but it explains why the Hat Tavern has the name.

Before the Hat Tavern opened, the building was the Star pub / coffee shop, before that the Bloemfontein, and originally the George, with the first reference I could find for the George being in the Morning Chronicle in 1817.

The Nellie Dean of Soho – Dean Street

The Nellie Dean of Soho occupies a listed building, and the Grade II listing details on the Historic England site states:

“Corner public house. Possibly earlier C18 fabric, refronted c.1800 with c.1900 pub front. Stock brick, slate roof, 3 storeys and dormered mansard. 4 windows wide with 3 window returns to Carlisle Street. c.1900 pilastered pub front to ground floor with angled entrance on corner. Upper floors have recessed sash windows, no glazing bars, under red brick gauged flat arches. Crowning stucco cornice with open cast iron balustrade in front of mansard. Formerly called the “Highlander”. A public house was on the site in 1748. Prominent corner with strong group value.”

The first reference I can find to the Highlander pub is from 1826 when the pub featured in a court report where the defendant was identified as living at the Highlander.

The name Nellie Dean comes from the sentimental song “(You’re My Heart’s Desire, I Love You) Nellie Dean” written by the American composer Henry W. Armstrong in 1905.

The song became the signature song of the music hall star Gertie Gitana, after her brother had heard the song whilst in America.

Gertie Gitana died in 1957, and the following is typical of newspaper reporting of her burial at Wigston Magna, Leicestershire:

“A cold wind blew through the scores of wreaths that had been hung over the railings at the edge of the grave as more than 200 people stood in silent tribute to the gay, sunbonnet girl of the old time music hall.

Gertie was more than just a variety artist. She expressed the spirit of her age and the careless rapture that went with it. Her songs were sad, but they were also gay.

Before Nellie Dean became a stock song for gentlemen songsters on a spree, she could, by swinging it, make it sound like the happiest ballad in the world.

To many she was Nellie Dean and many of the wreaths at her graveside were addressed in this way. Flowers arranged in notes of music came from her music hall friends. There were wreaths from the Variety Artists Federation, the Water Rats, Robb Wilton and entertainers from each corner of the British Isles.

All wished to say to Gertie Gitana – Thanks for the memory.”

Gertie Gitana singing Nellie Dean (if you cannot see the video, click here to go to the website):

And that is the origin of the Nellie Dean of Soho in Dean Street. I wonder if Nellie Dean is still a “stock song for gentlemen songsters on a spree” in the pubs of Soho.

I will continue my exploration of Soho pubs in a few weeks time.

alondoninheritance.com

Late Victorian London in Photos

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One ticket has just become free for my walk next Sunday, the 18th of August, exploring the Lost Landscape and Transformation of Puddle Dock and Thames Street, an area that could soon change dramatically. Click here for booking and details.

Four years ago, I published some photos from the book “The Queen’s London”. This was a book published in 1896 and described as “A pictorial and descriptive record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Great Metropolis in the Fifty-Ninth Year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria”.

The photos in the book show London as it was, near the end of both the 19th century and the Victorian period. A century and a reign of considerable change across the city.

New streets had been carved through areas of historic small streets, courts and alleys. Many of the city’s slum areas had been cleared and rebuilt, although there were many left, and the 19th century had not really done much for the average worker, with poor housing, low wages, and often unstable employment.

However, the 19th century also saw a rapidly growing middle class, who lived in the terrace houses that expanded rapidly in the suburbs.

In many ways, London is still a 19th century city. Although industry has almost disappeared from the city, but many of the innovations of the 19th century have continued to expand, and enable the growth of the city, for example the Underground (the first stretch of the Central Line between Shepherds Bush and Bank opened in 1900, and parts of what are now the Circle, District, Northern, Metropolitan, Waterloo & City, opened in the last few decades of the 19th century).

The railways were transporting passengers and commuters into the city, road traffic was growing rapidly. The docks were exporting and importing goods across the world and serving the industries expanding across the country.

Institutions and places such as the Natural History Museum, Albert Hall, University College London, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square were founded / built, along with the current Palace of Westminster. The Embankment and the first great sewer system was constructed.

The City of London was a global centre of finance and business, and to emphasize how the City had changed during the 19th century, the population of the City had declined as commerce and industrial took as much space as possible, and after the 1666 Great Fire, the Victorian period saw one of the largest periods of closures of City churches due to the dwindling population.

In the 124 years since, there have not been so many fundamental changes to the city. We have just expanded much of what was started by the Victorians (housing, transport networks etc.), and the landscape has changed from relatively low buildings (where St. Paul’s still stood high above the rest of the city’s buildings), to a city of towers, both office and residential.

The major changes have been the exodus of manufacturing industry and the closure of the docks, air travel resulting in London being one of the world’s main tourist destinations, a move to a service / cultural / knowledge based industries (although the roots of these were formed in the 19th century, and earlier), along with significant demographic change.

The dedication at the start of the book shows perhaps one of the most significant changes, when in the 1890s, London was the capital of an empire on which “the sun never sets”:

“To her most Excellent Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, etc. etc. This Pictorial representation of the Capital of Her Empire is by Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Permission., respectfully dedicated.”

The riches from the Empire, whether traded goods or finance, were one of the key drivers of the development of 19th century London, and it was the loss of the Empire, two World Wars, and significant social change, and change in the workplace, that contributed to the development of the London we see today, built on the foundations of the 19th century.

To see how the city has changed, the following photos are a sample from “The Queen’s London”, showing how a Londoner or visitor in the 1890s would see the city (the captions from the book are below each photo):

The Victoria Embankment, From Waterloo Bridge

“The Victoria Embankment, as viewed from Waterloo Bridge, quite surpasses anything that is seen beside the Seine or the Tiber. Its magnificent sweep from the Houses of Parliament to St. Paul’s is one of the finest sights in the whole of London, and cannot fail to impress every observer. Cityward the most noticeable building is Somerset House, with its fine façade of 780 feet, and beyond this lie the Offices of the London School Board, the Temple Library, Sion College Library, and the City of London School. The Embankment itself, the greatest achievement of the late Metropolitan Board of Works, cost nearly two millions, and its construction occupied six years – 1864 to 1870.”

The caption mentions the “late Metropolitan Board of Works”, which was founded in 1856, and then integrated into the London County Council in 1889, following a number of corruption scandals within the MBW, and the drive to deliver competent, London wide, governance, another late 19th century initiative.

St. Paul’s Cathedral

“This noble Cathedral is the third largest church in Christendom, being only surpassed by St. Peter’s in Rome and the cathedral in Milan. The old Cathedral was burnt in 1666, and the first stone of the one designed by Sir Christopher Wren was laid in 1675, divine service being celebrated twenty-two years later. the great architect is buried in the east end of the crypt. The building cost, according to Milman, £736,750, and not only was it virtually completed by one architect, and under one bishop, but the same master builder who laid the first stone also laid that crowning the cupola. The great dome is 112 feet in diameter, 27 feet less than that of St. Peter’s. the Cathedral is 500 feet in length, and the height to the top of the cross from the road is 370 feet.”

London was a low rise city at the end of the 19th century, and would stay that way for much of the 20th century, until buildings such as the Post Office Tower (1964), and the Nat West building (1980) were constructed. In the following decades there would be an explosion of tall towers across the city, both office and residential, however there are now protected views of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which were brought in after developments such as the Post Office Faraday Building (1933) in Queen Victoria Street were constructed, higher than other buildings between the Thames and Cathedral, and impacting the view of the cathedral.

The National Gallery, With St. Martin’s Church

“The National Gallery, concerning the merits or demerits of which such strong opinions are expressed by architectural critics, is Grecian in style and Wilkins was responsible for the design. This gallery was built in 1832-8 to receive the pictures of which the nucleus had been formed in 1824; after twenty two years, the structure was considerably enlarged, and the façade is now 460 feet in length. To the right, in our view, is the church of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, which boasts a Grecian portico of quite unusual beauty. It was built in 1721-6 by Gibbs, on the site of an earlier church; and in the old churchyard lies buried Nell Gwynne, under whose bequest the fine bells are rung every week.”

The opening sentence in the above description shows another constant in London’s history – that there will always be strongly differing opinions about the new buildings that line the city streets.

The Customs House

“Between London Bridge and the Tower, and having, separating it from the Thames, a broad quay that was for long almost the only riverside walk open to the public, is the Customs House. Five earlier buildings on the same site were destroyed by fire, and the present structure was erected in 1814-17, the fine façade being designed by Sir R. Smirke. Some 2,000 officials are employed at the Customs House, and in its famous Long Room alone – 190 feet by 60 feet – eighty clerks are habitually engaged. this is not surprising, for the trade of the Port of London is by far the greatest of any port in the world. the building, which is entered from Lower Thames Street, contains an interesting Smuggling Museum.”

The Customs House building is still there, although, the closure of the docks made the purpose of the building redundant. The caption makes an interesting point regarding access to the river, as it was “for long almost the only riverside walk in London, open to the public”, however although we now have long lengths of riverside walks, in many ways as the Thames is no longer really a working river, we have lost a much greater connection with the Thames.

The Natural History Museum, South Kensington

“A high place among the fine public buildings in South Kensington must be given to the Natural History Museum, which faces Cromwell Road. Mr. Waterhouse, R.A. was the architect, and the erection occupied the years 1873-80. The structure is Romanesque in style, and the terra-cotta façade is, with good reason, greatly admired. The Museum is 675 feet in length, and the towers which rise from the wings are 192 feet high. Hither were brought the Natural History collections of the British Museum in order to relieve in some measure the congested condition of the national institution in Bloomsbury. Considering the popularity of such collections, it is not surprising that the annual number of visitors to the Natural History Museum should be over 400,000.”

In the late 19th century, 400,000 visitors probably seemed like a very large number, however in the Natural History Museums latest annual review, they state that “In the year to April 2023, we welcomed 5,157,405 visitors”.

Much of this growth has been fuelled by the growth in tourism within London, but the figures highlight that with many aspects of London today, it is just a much busier / larger version of what was established in the 19th century.

The Royal Exchange

“Few edifices in London are more impressive that the Royal Exchange, with its stately Corinthian portico. it was built by Tite in 1842-4, on the site of Gresham’s Exchange. In the tympanum is a group representing the Sovereignty of Commerce, whilst below are inscribed the words ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof’. Business is transacted in the building of an afternoon, the attendance being greatest on Tuesdays and Fridays. On the left of the Royal Exchange is the Bank of England, at one end of Threadneedle Street. the equestrian statue in front represents Wellington and is an excellent specimen of Chantry’s work. The open space bounded by the Exchange, the Bank, and the Mansion House is perhaps the busiest in all the City.”

The congested junction in front of the Royal Exchange was long a problem with City traffic and is one of the reasons why Upper and Lower Thames Street and London Wall were widened as east – west routes to bypass the Bank junction (see last week’s post).

Today, the junction is very different, not only has horse drawn traffic long disappeared from the City streets, changes brought in by the City of London to reduce vehicular traffic in the City have made the junction much quieter.

The Strand, Looking West

“No better idea of the Strand can be obtained than from the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, whence this view was taken. On the left is the entrance to Somerset House, used as Government offices and erected by Sir William Chambers in 1776-80, in place of the old palace begun by the Protector Somerset. A little further west is Wellington Street, bisecting the Strand and affording access to Waterloo Bridge. At the far end of the houses is seen the Nelson monument in Trafalgar Square. The Strand is the southern main artery from the City to the West End, and is always crowded with traffic, especially when the theatres which abound in the neighbourhood are being emptied of their patrons. The thoroughfare, which is here shown at its broadest, owes its name to the fact that the Thames formerly flowed close beside it.”

Apart from Somerset House, nearly all he buildings in this view have been demolished, however the terrace immediately to the right of Somerset House can still be seen today, to give an impression of what the overall street would have once looked like.

The reference in the caption to the theatres of the West End is just as relevant today, as it was in the 1890s.

The Crystal Palace

“Built of the materials that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham cost no less than a million and a half sterling. It is composed entirely of glass and iron, and was designed by Sir James Paxton. The Palace from its lofty eminence is visible for miles in every direction. Its principal hall, or nave, is 1,608 feet long, while the central transept is 390 feet long by 120 feet broad and rises to a height of 175 feet. On either side of the Palace are the water towers, each 282 feet high, and these add greatly to the general effect, best appreciated from the delightful grounds, which cover some 200 acres. Our view shows the Upper Terrace, the Central Transept, and the northern Water Tower.”

Crystal Palace was destroyed by fire in November 1936, although the building has gone, the name remains.

The following photos are from the Britain from Above website, showing Crystal Palace before the fire (!928):

And after the fire (1936):

The Tower Bridge

“Further communication across the Thames at this point had been urgently needed for many years. The necessary act was passed in 1885, the foundation stone laid by the Prince of Wales on June 21, 1886, and the work completed at a cost of about a million sterling in 1894. the bridge, designed by Mr. Wolfe Barry, C.B. is of somewhat peculiar construction, the low level passage being on the ‘bascule’ principle: i.e. the centre span of 200 feet is divided into two, each half being pivoted and furnished with a counterpoise, and hauled upward and back against the towers when the waterway is opened, the bridge is shown thus opened in the view. A high-level footway is also carried across nearly at the top of the towers, access to this being afforded by lifts in the latter. The side spans are on the suspension principle.”

Tower Bridge was the last central London road bridge to be built, so by the end of the 19th century, London had the same number of road bridges as we do today. This also applies to the rail bridges. Some have though been rebuilt, and dates for the first and current road bridges are show below:

  • London Bridge – very early : 1973
  • Southwark Bridge – 1819 : 1921
  • Blackfriars Bridge – 1769 : 1869
  • Waterloo Bridge – 1817 : 1942
  • Westminster Bridge – 1750 : 1862

The only completely new river crossing we have built since the end of the 19th century is the Millennium Foot Bridge.

The Imperial Institute

“The Imperial Institute at South Kensington was built with the twofold object of celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee and cementing the British Empire. Her Majesty in person both laid the foundation stone of this splendid building in 1887, and declared it open in 1893. The architect, Mr. T.E. Colcutt, was inspired by Tennyson’s words ‘Raise a stately memorial, Make it really gorgeous, Some Imperial Institute, Rich in symbol, in ornament, Which may speak to the centuries’. In design the Institute is Renaissance, freely treated. the main entrance is particularly fine, and the interior is worthy the exterior. Altogether the buildings occupy two acres. Every Friday, the public is admitted free to the exhibitions, and the attractions of the Institute are enhanced by concerts, lectures etc.”

Despite Tennyson’s words and the ideals that the Imperial Institute aspired to, it was not a great success, and by 1899, the University of London had taken over half of the building for administrative offices.

Demolition started in 1957 and was completed by 1967. The site of the Imperial Institute is now occupied by Imperial College.

The tower that can be seen to the right of the above photo was saved from demolition, and after some substantial works to enable the tower to stand on its own, it now stands within the Imperial college campus, and can be seen close up by cutting through the campus along Imperial College Road.

Yeoman of the Guard

“In very welcome contrast to the sober story of the Tower of London is the bright red uniform of its wardens – the Yeoman of the Guard. These men are commonly called Beefeaters, a title as to the derivation of which etymologists differ. Some explain it as a corruption of ‘buffetiers’ or waiters at the royal buffet; others trace it back to the rations of beer formerly served out to men whilst on duty. Be this as it may, the Yeoman of the Guard are veterans who have all more or less distinguished themselves on the field of battle. On State occasions they sometimes constitute a picturesque guard of honour, and at the opening of each new Session of Parliament a body of them searches the cellars of the Houses of Parliament as a precaution against any ‘gunpowder treason and plot’.”

The Yeoman of the Guard are still very much a key part of the Tower of London. I suspect the beard size has decreased somewhat since the end of the 19th century. The major change to the Yeoman of the Guard was very recent, with Moira Cameron becoming the first female Yeoman in 2007.

Greenwich Hospital

“Greenwich Hospital occupies the site of the royal palace erected in the fifteenth century on the south bank of the Thames four miles from London bridge. To students of Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren, the Hospital is of great architectural interest. It consists of four quadrangles, and is best seen from the river, whence the less worthy portions are invisible. William and Mary deserve the credit of rebuilding the palace and of converting it into a refuge for decrepit and disabled seamen. In the present reign, however, in the year 1871, the pensioners made way under an Admiralty scheme for naval cadets, who are here educated. The Painted Hall, the Nelson relics, and the ship models, regularly draw to the Hospital troops of visitors.”

The Naval College for cadets closed in 1997. Part of the site is now occupied by the University of Greenwich, and it is often used as a film set.

The above view is much the same today, and it is worth walking under the Thames in the Greenwich foot tunnel to get to Island Gardens to see the late 19th century view, as it still appears today.

Holloway Gaol

“Her Majesty’s prison at Holloway is an imposing building, modern in date and castellated in design, with excellently arranged accommodation. It is the chief gaol for London and the county of Middlesex, and is constantly in evidence owing to the fact that prisoners awaiting trial are thither sent. Holloway Gaol also offers hospitality to debtors, to female convicted prisoners, and to a few special offenders, such as those who have committed contempt of court. Lieut-Colonel E.S. Milman combines in his person two offices, being Governor of both Holloway and Newgate prisons. Pentonville Prison is less than half a mile distant.”

Holloway Prison closed in 2016, and the prison is probably best known for being the place where the last women to be executed, Ruth Eillis, was hung in 1955.

Ludgate Circus

“One of the busiest spots in the City is Ludgate Circus, where meet Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, Farringdon Street and New Bridge Street. As may be seen from our view, the stately dome and towers of St. Paul’s Cathedral are conspicuous objects from the Circus, although the railway bridge and the slender steeple of St. Martin’s – one of Wren’s churches – obstruct the view. The name Ludgate is derived from an old gate – the sixth and principal gate of London – says Stow on his survey, which was taken in 1760. Antiquaries, however, differ as to whether the gate was built by a King Lud, who flourished B.C.66, or whether the word is merely a corruption of Floodgate or Fleetgate.”

Apart from the cathedral and church, the only building that remains from the 1890s view is the building on the left of the photo.

The railway bridge has gone, with the railway through Ludgate Hill being replaced by the Thameslink route, with the railway now running underground, and the new City Thameslink station on the right of Ludgate Hill, just the other side of where the bridge was in the photo.

Although the buildings have changed, the view up Ludgate Hill to the focal point of the cathedral is essentially the same.

London Bridge, Looking North-West

“The most noticeable thing about London Bridge is the enormous traffic over it – now however, appreciably relieved by the Tower Bridge a little further east. London Bridge is only 54 feet broad, so that it is not surprising that many projects for widening should have been discussed. The first bridge over the Thames at this point was built about A.D. 994; the first stone one was finished in 1208. Since then the bridge has often been the scene of fighting and tumult, as well as of state pageants. In Elizabeth’s reign it was restored, afterwards the horrid custom grew of exposing upon it the heads of traitors. The present bridge was commenced under Rennie in 1824 and cost £506,000.”

The bridge shown in the above view is not the London Bridge we see today. The latest incarnation of London bridge was constructed about 30 metres to the west of the previous bridge shown in the photo, and opened in 1973.

The bridge in the photo was taken apart and sold to the American entrepreneur Robert McCulloch, who had the bridge rebuilt at Lake Havasu City in Arizona, although by rebuilt, the stones from the earlier bridge were mainly used as facing stones on a steel reinforced concrete structure, required to give the bridge the strength needed to carry traffic.

The Charing Cross Hotel

“Charing Cross Hotel is situated at the South Eastern Railway Company’s western terminus, and lends a dignity to the line which the hideous bridge across the Thames does its best to destroy. Entrance to the station is obtained from the large yard, which generally presents a very busy scene, especially when the Continental mail is about to start. The hotel was built by Sir C. Barry, on the site of Hungerford Market. Charing Cross was once marked by a Gothic Monument, known as Eleanor’s Cross which Edward I erected to distinguish the spot where his dead wife’s body remained a while when being taken to Westminster Abbey. It was erected in 1291, but in 1647 was removed by order of Parliament. The present cross is the work of the late E.M. Barry.”

This view remains almost the same to this day. Charing Cross is one of the few stations that has retained the hotel building that stood between the station platforms and the street. This was a feature of many other stations, such as Cannon Street, which have lost their hotels during redevelopment.

The Charing Cross building continues to be a hotel and is now the Clermont Hotel.

What the caption to the photo does not really make clear is that the cross by E.M. Barry is not in the same position as the original Eleanor Cross – see this post, and the Hungerford Market which was on the site of the station has a really interesting history, which I discovered in this post.

Cleopatra’s Needle

“Conspicuously placed on the Victoria Embankment is the famous granite obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle. It was put up in Heliopolis by Pharaoh Thothmes II, about 1500 B.C,. and twenty-three years before the Christian era it was erected at Alexandria – Cleopatra’s city. For centuries, the obelisk lay neglected in the sand, but in 1819 it was presented to the British nation by Mohammed Ali as a memorial of Nelson and Abercromby. Dr. (afterwards Sir) Erasmus Wilson expended £10,000 upon its removal to this country in 1877. Owing to stormy weather the transport ship had to be abandoned in the bay of Biscay, but fortunately the monument was rescued, and in the following year it was placed in its present position near Waterloo Bridge. It is 68.5 feet high, and weighs 180 tons. The sphinxes are modern.”

A view that looks much the same today, with the same lamps on the Embankment wall, and trees between the pavement and the road. I doubt the trees are the same as those in place today, and there is now a cycle way between trees and road, and in the background it is the original Waterloo Bridge that can be seen.

Oxford Street, Looking East

“A very characteristic part of Oxford Street is depicted above. The large house of which the corner is seen on the left is Messrs. Marshall & Snelgrove’s and in all directions are shops dear to the hearts of town and country ladies. New Bond Street opens on the right, where the flag is waving; and the view extends beyond Oxford Circus. Oxford Street is, as everybody knows, one of the main arteries of the metropolis, through which the traffic flows from east to west, and from west to east, in an unceasing stream; and the broadness of the thoroughfare at this spot affords a pleasing contrast to the cramped and inconvenient proportions of the Strand and Fleet Street.”

I am not sure if the shops along Oxford Street are “dear to the hearts of town and country ladies” today, and the street has come in for considerable criticism over the previous few years, with a number of shops closing, and the take over of many shops by American Candy Stores. The future of the Marks & Spencer store in the street is uncertain as the company want to demolish and rebuild, whilst there are campaigns to save the building.

Oxford Street is a street that needs some considerable change if it is to regain its reputation as one of the premier shopping streets in the country.

Hammersmith Bridge, From The South Side

“At Hammersmith, the River Thames is spanned by a very graceful Suspension Bridge, which was opened in the summer of 1887 by the late Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence. This bridge serves the district between Putney and Kew, a distance of five and a half miles. The parish church which is, however, of no particular interest is shown in the picture presented above. perhaps the most striking feature of Hammersmith, which lies, of course, on the left bank of the river, is the Mall, where are situated houses dating from the reign of Queen Anne. At Hammersmith, too, are the headquarters of the various boating clubs. The bridge used to be crowded on the occasion of the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, but of late years, this practice has been forbidden by the authorities.”

The view of the bridge itself is much the same today as it was in the 1890s. Hammersmith Bridge was closed in 2020 due to micro-fractures, caused by corrosion, being found in the structure of the bridge.

It has since been reopened for pedestrians and cyclists (who need to dismount their bike to cross the bridge), and the task of trying to find a solution and repair the bridge is underway, although there is as yet no date when, or if, the bridge will ever fully reopen.

The main issue is financial, as the costs to repair such an old, Grade II* listed structure are considerable, and the previous Government told Hammersmith & Fulham Council that they would have to fund 33% of the estimated £250 million repair costs.

I suspect that the Victorians would have been stunned by the delays in repairing this bridge, however the approach taken in the 19th century would simply have been to demolish the existing bridge and build new. There was very little consideration of the historical or architectural significance of buildings and structures in the 19th century, and if they were in the way of what was assumed to be “progress”, they were simply demolished.

The West India Import Dock

“The West India Docks, a hundred and sixty four acres in extent, consist of two parallel docks running east and west from Limehouse to Blackwell. Over the chief, or western entrance are inscribed the words ‘The West India Import Dock, begun 12th July 1800; opened for business 1st September 1802’. The opening ceremony was performed by William Pitt, and this was the first wet dock built on the north side of the Thames. The Import Dock, the more northerly of the two has on the north side eleven huge warehouses, capable of accommodating nearly a hundred thousand tons of goods; here are stored sugar, coffee, flour, cocoa, spices etc. The other West India Dock is known as the Export Dock.”

A time travelling Victorian would be able to tecognise many of the photos from the 1890s included in the post above, however the West India Import Dock would be unrecognisable.

The dock is part of the overall Canary Wharf development, and whilst part of the dock remains, there is water for much of the original overall east – west length, the width has been reduced, considerable new office building on either side of the water, and the new Elizabeth Line Canary Wharf Station has been built along what was once the centre of the dock.

What the time traveler may recognise are the buildings of the Museum of London, Docklands at the north west corner of the old West India Import Dock. The museum is housed in one of the last remaining, Grade I listed warehouses which date from 1802.

The changes at the West India Import Dock represent not just the closure of the working dock, but the loss of a complete form of trade, with all the jobs and industries that were dependent on the ships that once sailed to and from the central London docks.

I find it fascinating to consider how a major city such as London changes over time, how there are periods in the life of a city which put into place the foundations of how the city will operate for the next one hundred years plus.

Much of what we see in London today, does have its roots in the 19th century, and we have just expanded what was started over one hundred years ago.

alondoninheritance.com

Greater London 1937 Highway Development Survey

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Two tickets have just become free for my walk on Sunday, the 18th of August, exploring the Lost Landscape and Transformation of Puddle Dock and Thames Street, an area that could soon change dramatically. Click here for booking and details.

The 1937 Highway Development Survey of Greater London (published in 1938), was an attempt to address the rising level of road traffic and congestion in the Greater London area. It was commissioned by the Minister of Transport and was the work of Sir Charles Bressey with Sir Edwin Lutyens acting as a consultant.

In the decades at the end of the 19th century, and the first few decades of the 20th century, traffic on London’s roads had been rising rapidly. This was the result of a number of factors, including:

  • Increasing trade, both within the City and with the rapid growth of trade through London’s docks, along with expansion of the docks
  • Growth in Greater London’s population from 7.5 million in 1906 to 9.5 million in 1935 (with one fifth of the population of Great Britain and one quarter of the working population)
  • New modes of transport (underground, railways) along with growth in buses and trams and trolley-buses, as well as growth in petrol based vehicles
  • The growth of the suburbs around London and increasing travel into the centre of the city, from home to work (central London’s population had been in a slow decline due to the growth in industry, but the population of the wider suburbs had been growing rapidly)

The number of motor vehicles in the country was also expanding rapidly, as shown by the following graphs from the report:

Based on a 1922 start point, the number of motor vehicles had grown by 185%, from 1 million, to over 2.5 million, whilst the population had only grown by around 5%, and the number of vehicles by mile of road had risen from 5 in 1922 to 15 by 1936.

The above graphs covered the whole of the country. The report also included lots of London specific data, including the following numbers in a table headed “Millions of Passenger Journeys”:

The majority of the report was the work of Sir Charles Bressey, who was a civil engineer and surveyor with a broad experience of the design of road systems. He was already a surveyor, working in his father’s practice in the City of London, and during the First World War, he put his experience to the construction of military roads in France whilst in the Royal Engineers.

Sir Charles Bressey:

Attribution and source: GPO Film Unit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sir Edwin Lutyens was known mainly as an architect, designing a wide range of public and office buildings, government offices, churches and private houses. he also designed a number of war memorials, including the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

Their report was published in 1938, and contains a comprehensive number of recommendations to address the expected continual rise in the growth of road usage through to the 1960s.

The report first identifies places which were “Centre of Congestion”, including:

  • Oxford Circus – This is the focal point of Oxford Street; at times throughout the day, and particularly at morning and afternoon peak hours, congestion here is excessive, and saturation point is reached.
  • Gardiner’s Corner, Aldgate – This is probably the key point to the east end. A large proportion of the traffic from the east and the eastern suburbs to the City and vice versa pass this point. It is adjacent to the Docks, to Spitalfields Market and to the manufacturing and trading districts of Stepney, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Shoreditch, etc. Five roads converge on the point and there is a substantial proportion of turning traffic from and to all the thoroughfares involved.
  • Hammersmith Broadway – A complex and badly arranged six way junction in which four of the converging roads are so close together that, without the most extensive alterations, adequate weaving space for roundabout work could not be obtained.

As part of the data collection process to help form the recommendations of the report, four routes across London were selected, and a 16 H.P, Austin Light-Six Touring Car drove along each of the routes every day (excluding Sundays), from 8 am to 7pm (1pm on Saturdays).

The car was “driven by a steady and competent chauffeur, who had no inducement to attempt to break records or to take risk”, and an observer was also in the car armed with a stop-watch and clip board to record times of sections along each of the routes.

Of all routes and sections along the routes, the slowest were:

  • between Ludgate Circus and Commercial Road on the west – east route where the average was only 5.85 miles per hour, while of the slowest journey, the pace dropped to 3.6 miles per hour, and;
  • between Euston Road and Trafalgar Square, via Tottenham Court Road, on the north-west – south east route. here the average pace was 7.7 miles per hour, while on the slowest journey, the figure dropped to 6.3 miles per hour.

Road improvements included the greater use of roundabouts which were seen as a way of improving traffic flow where several roads met at a junction. The first roundabout in the country was in Letchworth Garden City in 1907, but they would not really proliferate until the 1960s,

The report included several suggested designs for roundabouts, including the following two:

Slow roads were not the only problem identified in the report, there were many other factors identified, including one which showed the expected increase in air travel.

In the 1930s, there were a large number of airfields surrounding London, as the following table from the report identifies:

The number of airfields was expected to increase, with the following table identifying possible new locations:

The recommendations of the report covered new roads, city loops, motorways, street widening, changing the configuration of junctions, including the use of roundabouts, and a comprehensive list of schemes was included in the report:

and:

The recommended schemes include lots of proposals within London, such as the Piccadilly Improvement, Mayfair – Soho route etc. and the report is one of the first I have read which recognises that travel to and from London is dependent on the wider network across the country, so we have proposed schemes such as the Cambridge Road Northern Extension past Ware, Improvement of London to Ongar Road (A.113) and Extension to Norwich, and the London – Birmingham Route.

London to Birmingham would later become either the M40 or the combination of M1 and M6.

Another proposal in the list which would later become a new motorway is the Coulsdon – Crawley – Brighton route, which today is the M23 and A23.

The published report included a pocket at the back of the book in which there were a couple of very large maps.

The proposed new routes and changes were drawn on the maps, and I have reproduced these below.

It was difficult to photograph the maps due to their large size, and as they are almost 90 years old, I wanted to be very careful to avoid any tears or other damage, however I hope the following images provide a view of what was proposed back in 1937:

The above map shows the wider area surrounding London, and we are starting to get a map that is recognisable today, for example:

  • A new outer ring road for London, which for 1937 was a considerable way from the centre of the city. This outer ring road (with some changing of routing) is today the M25. Strange though that where the road crosses the Thames to the east, the north and southern routes do not meet at the location of what would become the Dartford Crossing.
  • The Motorway network spreading out from London. There are thick red lines running out from London across the wider country. These were the proposed major routes that would connect London with the rest of the country – an urgent need given the increasing number of motor vehicles of all types, both private and commercial.
  • The growth in the docks to the east of the city, with the thick red line to the right, leading north from the area around Tilbury, Corringham and Canvey Island.

The list of proposals shown on the map was included in the following key:

The following map shows the Great London proposals:

Along with the following key to the proposals:

Proposals included adding a second tunnel to the Blackwall Tunnel (which would not be completed until 1967), as well as the Rotherhithe Tunnel, which would not get its second tunnel, and would stay to this day as a tunnel with traffic running in both directions in a single bore.

The City Loop-Way was described in the report as follows:

“To relieve the almost intolerable pressure on the main routes which now traverse the heart of the City, converging upon the Mansion House and St. Paul’s Cathedral, the creation of the City Loop-Way is recommended, with a view to encouraging drivers to avoid the most congested central area.

The most important section of the Loop-Way would extend from Blackfriars to the Tower, thus forming a continuation of the Victoria Embankment eastwards to the Tower, thus forming a continuation of the Victoria Embankment Route, through a dingy part of the City, which stands urgently in need of renovation. From the Tower, the Loop-Way would follow approximately the general line – Crutched Friars – Duke Street – Camomile Street – London Wall to Wood Street; from here a new cut would be necessary to reach Aldersgate Street; Bartholomew Close is traversed and replanned, and a proper outlet formed into Farringdon Street, down which we turn to Blackfriars, thus completing the circuit.”

Whilst the Loop-Way did not get built, what is interesting about many of these proposals is how they, or variations of the proposals get included in future plans for London, so for example, parts of the Loop-Way can be seen in the 1944 City of London report covering Post-War Reconstruction of the City of London, where northern and southern routes around the City were proposed extending from Aldgate to Holborn via London Wall, and the Tower to Blackfriars along Lower and Upper Thames Street.

The following map from the 1944 report illustrates these routes as thick red lines to north and south:

Lower and Upper Thames Street did get considerably widened and now form a southern route to bypass the centre of the City of London, with the connection through to Blackfriars being completed in the late 1970s. All that got built of the northern route was the dual carriageway section along London Wall and part of Wormwood Street.

Some detail from the Greater London map shows some of the proposals. The following extract shows the area around the Victoria, Royal Albert and King George V Docks, and the Woolwich River Crossing:

These were the last docks to be built in the central London area, and their size enabled the largest of ships (at the time) to be accommodated in numbers, which resulted in a large amount of products and raw materials to be moved.

These docks were connected into the railway network, but their road connections were considered inadequate for the size of the docks. For example, the road between the Victoria and Royal Albert Docks was “the Connaught Road Swing Bridge which carries but one line of vehicles; its approaches are tortuous and interrupted by level crossings”.

To improve the roads to these docks, the North-South Lea Valley Road was proposed, although it was recognised that “considerable demolition would be required in West Ham and Leyton”.

The Woolwich ferry crossing was also a problem, and the report considered three options:

  • the construction of a high level bridge
  • the building of a barrage which might accommodate a road
  • the driving of a vehicular tunnel

The construction of a bridge in combination with a Thames barrage was the subject of a 1944 report which included the following illustration of what it could look like:

In the almost 90 years after the report was published, we still have the Woolwich Ferry.

One proposal that did get built, and in a far more comprehensive way than proposed in the 1937 plan, was the “Cromwell Road Extension to Great West Road” shown by the red lines in the following extract from the map:

This proposal would evolve into what is today the route from where Cromwell Road turns into West Cromwell Road (by the large Tesco at Warwick Road), and then runs along to the Hammersmith Flyover, down to the Hogarth Roundabout, then to the elevated section of the A4 through Brentford, then to the M4, which runs all the way to Pont Abraham in Carmarthenshire, south Wales.

Bressey wrote the conclusion to the report, as follows:

“The discussions that Sir Edwin Lutyens and I have had during the past three years with representatives of public bodies throughout Greater London have shown how widespread is the desire that the lines of new routes should be authoritatively laid down for rigorous observance as permanent governing features in the ceaseless development and transformation of the Metropolis, where, hitherto, so much uncertainty has prevailed as to the official status of various road schemes which are protected in one area and neglected in another.”

The 1937 report was published just before the start of the Second World War which put a hold on all such forms of development. Many of the proposals in the 1937 report were included in some form in the 1944 Reconstruction of the City of London report and the Greater London Plan by Abercrombie.

Post war lack of finance held up many projects, and it was not until the 1960s when some major projects were completed, such as the first Dartford Tunnel which opened in 1963.

Bressey and Lutyens could not have foreseen the closure of the London Docks and the impact that would have on transport requirements in that area of the City, where today, as well as roads, the Docklands Light Railway has been a considerable success in opening up the area.

As usual, in the context of a weekly bog post, I have only scratched the surface of the information contained within the report. The report contains lots of statistics and information on travel across London, and although getting on for 90 years old, many of the aspects of the report are just as relevant today.

Bressey’s comment in his conclusion about how his discussions had: “shown how widespread is the desire that the lines of new routes should be authoritatively laid down for rigorous observance as permanent governing features “, could I suspect. equally apply to today.

I suspect that there is still such a desire for “rigorous observance” today. As a country, we just do not seem very good at completing large scale infrastructure projects.

For example, the last government cancelled much of HS2 and there is still uncertainty on whether it will end at Old Oak Common or Euston, the current government has cancelled a range of infrastructure projects, including the Stonehenge Tunnel, and there is continuing uncertainty over whether Heathrow will ever get a third runway.

Whether you view these projects as good or bad, uncertainty, change or cancellation just costs and wastes yet more money.

I am sure you will be able to write the same thing in another 90 years time, but it would be really interesting to know what transport infrastructure would have been built across London by 2114.

Will HS2 terminate at Euston, will Crossrail 2 have been built, will there be a new Thames Barrier, and will the Bakerloo Line finally have new trains? Unfortunately, I will probably never know.

alondoninheritance.com

St. Olave’s, Hart Street

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St. Olave, on the corner of Hart Street and Seething Lane is a wonderful City church. One of the few medieval churches that survived the Great Fire of 1666, it was badly bombed in the last war with only the tower and walls surviving. Wonderfully restored in the 1950s, the church is well worth a visit.

The following print from 1736 shows the same view as in the above photo, and a visitor from 1736 would immediately recognise the church, although the surrounding buildings are now very different:

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

There are minor changes, for example the crenellations along the top of the church walls have been lost, as has the porch over the door to the church on Hart Street. This door provides one of two main entrances today:

The above print from 1736 provides the following information about the church:

“This Church was dedicated to St. Olave, King of Norway, professing ye Christian Religion. he endeavoured to win his Subjects over thereto, but they took up Arms, and with ye Assistance of Canute King of England and Denmark overcame and murdered him A.D. 1028. he was deemed a Martyr, and is commemorated July ye 28th. the first Account we have of this Church is that William de Samford was Rector in 1319. It was repaired by ye Parish in 1633 with cost of £437. the Patronage of ye Rectory was formerly in the Family of Nevil, then in that of Cely (who were considerable Benefactors to ye Fabrick) and afterward in that of ye Lord Windsor, it is now in ye Gift of 5 gentlemen of ye Parish as Trustees by Appointment of Sir Andrew Richards who was Sheriff in 1651 and died in 1672. It was formerly called St. Olave neat ye Tower of London, but now St. Olave Hart Street from its situation n ye South side of Hart street at ye North West corner of Seething Lane near Crutched Fryers in Tower Ward within ye City of London.”

There are some very different interpretations of the story of Olave. he seems to have been baptised in the year 1010, in the Norman city of Rouen. He then helped the Anglo-Saxon King Æthelred II (also known as Æthelred the Unready) to regain his throne after the death of Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard.

Sweyn’s son was King Cnut, who took the thrones of England and Denmark in 1016, and would take the throne of Norway from Olave in 1028.

Olave was killed at the Battle of Stiklestad, when he was trying to retake his Norwegian throne.

He was declared a saint in 1031 by the English Bishop Grimketel who was working as a missionary in Norway at the time of Olave’s death.

Nidaros Cathedral, a wonderful Gothic cathedral, in Trondheim, Norway, which claims to be the world’s most northern mediaeval cathedral, is built over the site of Olave’s tomb.

St. Olave’s feast day is now the 29th of July, rather than the 28th as detailed in the text with the 1736 print, and if you work in the Faroe Islands, it is a public holiday.

View of the church from Seething Lane:

And the view of the church from Seething Lane today is much the same as it was in 1810:

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

The gate from Seething Lane to what remains of the churchyard dates from 1658 and has three skulls in the centre and a skull on either side for decoration:

The gateway is Grade II* listed, and Historic England dates the wall and railing to perhaps the 18th century and the iron gates to the early 19th century.

Once through the gates, there is a small churchyard, steps down to the entrance to the church, and on the right an interesting post. Not sure what this could have been, possibly a parish boundary marker:

The Navy Office was once located close to the church, and on the wall to the right of the entrance is a plaque which records the following:

“Entrance to the South Gallery and the Navy Office Pew often mentioned in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. Tablet erected 1891.”

The entrance to the South Gallery of the church was discovered in 1883. The church had been granted a sum of £1,200 by the Charity Commissioners to undertake repairs to the fabric of the church.

A cement like material had been used to cover the walls, and on removing the cement, the old entrance was discovered, and was believed to have been where a wooden gallery extended to the Navy Office allowing Pepys to reach the Navy Office pew in the church from the Navy Office, without getting wet.

Inside the church, looking up to the altar:

The same view in the late 19th century:

Although the church had been very badly damaged during the war, and the wooden roof and wooden interior fittings had burnt, it still has the feel of an old church – which indeed it is.

On Wednesday and Thursday lunchtimes, well attended musical recitals take place in the church, but on the Friday afternoon of my visit, the church was very quiet, and for 20 minutes I had the church to myself.

Noise from the outside hardly penetrates the thick walls of these early City churches, and the sound of the camera shutter seemed excessively loud in this quiet space.

The southern gallery to the right of the altar:

The northern gallery to the left of the altar:

Looking back to the western end of the church:

St. Olave has four sword stands, two came from Allhallows Staining, and two have always belonged to St. Olave:

The book “The Annals of St. Olave Hart Street and Allhallows Staining” by the Rev Alfred Povah (1894) has the following to say about the sword stands:

“These picturesque pieces of church furniture – we have no evidence of such earlier than Queen Elizabeth’s reign – are often admired by visitors who have, perhaps, no precise notion of the purpose which they served. It was, till very recently, the custom for the Lord Mayor, accompanied by the Sheriffs to attend divine service at a City church on Sunday morning, and by their presence and their retinue, a larger congregation was drawn to the support of various charities.

On these occasions the Lord Mayor was escorted by the Bearer of the Mace and the Bearer of the State Sword, and our forefathers often did honour to a parishioner elected to be Lord Mayor, by causing a sword stand, sword rest, or ‘branch’ sometimes called a ‘Trophy of Arms’ to be placed upon his pew.”

Memorial to Samuel Pepys:

Samuel Pepys regularly attended services at St. Olave and when Elizabeth his wife died, she was buried in the church on the 13th of November, 1669. Her monument is high on the wall to the left of the altar.

When Samuel Pepys died on the 26th of May, 1703, he was also buried in the church. The entry in the church register reads “1703, June 4. Samuel Pepys buried in a vault by ye communion table”.

The memorial to Pepys would not be erected for well over one hundred years, and came about due to the actions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, as the book, the Annals of St. Olave records:

“As far back as the year 1864, on the occasion of a visit by the Members of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society. I proposed that a Memorial of Samuel Pepys should be placed in the Church of St. Olave, Hart Street, and promises of support were received from the Clothworkers’ Company, the Trinity House, Magdalene College Cambridge, and others.

It was not, however, till the Members of the Middlesex Archaeological Society paid a second visit to the Church in 1882, that the want of such a memorial was again publicly noticed. Mr. Henry B. Wheatley, who read a paper on that occasion, conferred with Mr. (now Sir) Owen Roberts, the Clerk to the Clothworkers’ Company and myself. At a meeting held July 5th, 1882, a committee, mainly representative of the great institutions with which Pepys had been connected, was appointed.”

Despite offers from a number of architects and sculptors, work on the design of the memorial was left to a Mr. (later Sir) Arthur Blomfield, and his design was met with approval by the committee.

An appeal for subscriptions to fund the memorial was met with a “liberal response”, and when complete, a service to unveil the memorial was arranged for Tuesday the 18th of March, 1884 at three p.m..

It was intended that the memorial was unveiled by the Earl Northbrook, First Lord of the Admiralty, given Pepys association with the Admiralty, however on the day, Northbrook could not attend, and it was instead unveiled by J. Russell Lowell, the United States Minister.

It was noted at the service that for the past 180 years, questions from visitors as to the location of the Pepys Memorial could only be meet with the reply that his only visible reference in the church was the entry about his burial in the church register, but now there was a stone monument placed on the wall, and in a fitting location as it was near the door where Pepys had entered from the Navy Office.

Whilst Pepys is probably the most famous of those with a memorial in the church, there are many other historic and fascinating memorials, including one which tells of the horrendous death rate for children in earlier centuries:

The memorial is to Reverend John Letts, who was rector of the parish for nearly twenty years. He died at the age of 57 on the 24th of March, 1857, and the memorial was erected by:

“His sorrowing Widow to the Memory of Her beloved Husband and of their children, Charlotte, Amy, Sarianne, Viola and Egerton who preceded their Father to the Grave”.

Five children who had died before their father. The monument does not record how many children John Letts and his unnamed wife had in total. There was at least one more as the monument records that Letts had died when on a visit to his Son at Staunton Harold, Leicestershire.

Life for the young was very precarious, even within a family who, with a father who was the Reverend of a City church, must have been reasonably well to do.

St. Olave’s association with Trinity House can be seen with a model of a lightship in the church. This is the lightship that was based in the North Sea at Smiths Knoll, an area a few miles off Great Yarmouth in Norfolk:

Stone tablet inlaid with brass – a memorial to John Orgone and his wife Ellyne:

There is no record of the death of John, but in the church registers there is an entry for Ellyn dated the 7th of June, 1580, which reads: “Ellin the wife of M’ John Organ aged 54 years of a swelling in the head”.

The two scrolls above the figures read: “Learne to dye” and “ys ye waye to life”. Between them is the representation of a wool sack, with a trademark and the initials IO (a merchants mark).

A fascinating record of a 16th century London merchant.

The next momument tells a story of how monuments were lost, and occasionally recovered, following wartime damage to the church.

This is the memorial to the physician Peter Turner who died on the 17th of May, 1614:

As mentioned earlier in the post, the church was badly damaged during the last war. Fire had gutted the interior, destroying the wood roof, pews etc. but leaving the stone walls, the tower and many of the monuments within.

There was a large amount of looting of bombed sites during the war. My father recorded furniture being stolen from one of the flats in his estate which had been damaged by an incendiary bomb.

Peter Turner’s monument was presumably stolen, as it went missing from the church.

It reappeared at an art auction in April 2010, and returned to its original position within the church the following year, almost 70 years after going missing.

There is much though that was lost from the overall monument as can be seen from the photo, with the original stone around the bust still missing, as is the stone below the bust and the plaque with the inscription, which are all new.

One that has remained in the church is this impressive memorial to Sir James Deane, who died on the 16th of May, 1608:

His entry in the church register states: “1608, June the 2. S’ James Deane Knight deceased on the 16th of Maie at his howse in hackneye being brought to London, was on the 2 of June following buried in the chancell.”

There is a related register entry which reads: “1600-1, March 16. A Cresom woman child of S’ James Deane’s”.

Cresom or “chrisomes” was an archaic term for death in infants. Chrisomes was used to describe the death of an infant under one month of age. The term came from the name of a white linen cloth that was used to cover a baby’s head when baptised, and was also used as a shroud for a dead baby.

If you look at the photo of the monument above, there is a central panel with a man and woman facing each other and praying. In the centre, below them, there are two babies, with the lower with its head resting on a skull, to symbolise death:

Another reminder of the terribly high child death rate, and how those who could afford a monument wanted to record their children, including those who died as babies, as being part of their family. My post on Bills of Mortality – Death in early 18th Century London, goes into some depth on the causes of death, and just how relatively few children reached adulthood.

Dame Anne, the wife of Sir John Radclif, Knight, who died on the 10th of December, 1585, and well over 400 years later, continues to kneel in perpetual prayer:

As does Andrew Bayninge, who died on the 21st of December 1610, aged 67:

Next is the statue of, and memorial to Sir Andrew Riccard, who died in 1672:

Sir Andrew Riccard was a leading member of two of the trading companies that contributed so much to the financial and trading success of the City of London in the 17th and 18th centuries; the East India Company and the Turkey Company.

The text below his statue reads:

“Sacred be the Statue here raised by Gratitude & Respect to eternize the Memory of Sir ANDREW RICCARD Kn’t. A Citizen &. opulent- Merchant of London Whose active Piety, inflexible Integrity & extensive Abilities alike distinguished and exalted Him in the Opinion of the Wise and Good. Adverse to his Wish, He was frequently chosen Chairman of the Honorable East India Company, and filled with equal Credit, for eighteen successive Years, the same eminent Station in the Turkey Company. Among many Instances of his Love to GOD and liberal Spirit towards Man one as it demands peculiar Praise deserves to be distinctly recorded. He nobly left the PERPETUAL ADVOWSON of this Parish, in Trust of five of its senior Inhabitants. He died the 6th of Sep’ In the Year of our LORD 1672 of his Age 68.”

I suspect that it was not too much “adverse to his wish” that he was frequently chosen as chairman, as these would have been prestige roles in the City and would have made him a wealthy man, as perhaps the scale of his monument suggests.

Another statue records one of the international inhabitants of London. This is Peter Cappone, originally from Florence, and who died in the City of London in1582:

The entry in the register records that he died of the plaque on the 27th of October, 1582, one of the many years during the 16th century when the plaque was a cause of death in London. Not on the scale of the outbreak in 1665, but a continuous risk among the many risks to health for Londoners over the centuries.

St. Olave is a wonderful City church. Restored following wartime bombing to a standard where it still provides a sense of the church when some of those commemorated around the walls once knew St. Olave, Hart Street.

alondoninheritance.com

Whittington’s Stone and Whittington Park

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

The same view, forty years later:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Whittington Stone with Highgate Hill in the background:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forty years later in 2024:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do any of these murals remain?

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

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

The entrance to Whittington Park from Holloway Road:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Standard, Cornhill

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A few week’s ago, my post was about London Maps, and I included one of the strip maps by John Ogilby, who had the impressive title of His Majesties Cosmographer.

John Ogilby was a fascinating character. Born in 1600 in Scotland, he had many professions including a dancer, teacher, translator, publisher and map maker.

With William Morgan, John Ogilby created a very detailed map of London which was published 10 years after the Great Fire of London in 1666 (although it was probably surveyed before the fire). You can find the map on the Layers of London website, here.

Ogilby is probably best known for his atlas of all the major routes in the country, which he published in 1675 under the name of Britannia.

Routes were shown in a strip map format, where several strips were used to follow a route from source to destination. Along the route, towns and villages were listed, as were geographic features, roads leading off the main route, with their destinations listed, landmarks along the route, distances etc.

The map featured in the previous post was from London to Portsmouth, a route which started at the Standard in Cornhill.

The Standard in Cornhill was the starting point for many of the maps with routes that commenced in London, and after writing the previous post, I wanted to discover a bit more about the Standard, but before I head to Cornhill, here is another of Ogilby’s routes. This one a bit longer than the previous map to Portsmouth.

Each of the routes had a header on each page, with the first map having the title of the overall route, total distances, major towns and cities along the route, with individual distances between them.

So if you were planning to journey from the City of London, to Lands End in Cornwall, this was Ogilby’s route, which started with the summary header of the route of 303 miles and 3 furlongs, and started at the Standard in Cornhill:

John Ogilby

The first page of the journey to Cornwall, runs from London to just before Winchester, and just after leaving what was then the limits of London, we cross Knightsbridge, when it was still a bridge:

John Ogilby

We then cross Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire and Somersetshire. In the 17th century, counties still had “shire” at the end of the names such as Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, which would later be shortened, but as with current names such as Wilshire, the “shire” recalls the old origins of these counties and county boundaries:

John Ogilby

We then continue travelling through Devonshire, passing through Exeter:

John Ogilby

Then head into Cornwall, before finally reaching Lands End, which faces onto “The Western Sea”:

John Ogilby

So where was The Standard, the start of the Lands End route, and of many other maps, and what was it? Helpfully there is a City of London plaque to mark the site:

Standard Cornhill

The Standard sounds as if it should have been the name of one of the many large coaching inns across London, and which would make sense as a place where journeys across the country commenced, however it was an ancient well / water pump / conduit, and it was located at a key crossroads in the City of London, where Cornhill, Leadenhall Street, Bishopsgate and Gracechurch Street all meet.

The following photo shows the junction of these four roads:

Standard Cornhill

You can just see the blue plaque, on the first floor of the corner of the white building across the junction. To the right of the white building is Cornhill and to the left is Gracechurch Street. The white building also shows how every bit of available land has been built on in the City, as the building is right up against the church of St. Peter, Cornhill, which has an entrance on Cornhill, and the rear of the church can be seen on Gracechurch Street to the left of the white building.

If we look at the four roads leading from this junction, we can see why this was an important location for travelling out of the City.

Gracechurch Street heads south down to London Bridge, which for centuries was the only bridge across the Thames, and therefore the main route to the south.

Leadenhall Street headed to the east, Bishopsgate headed to the north and Cornhill headed to the west, so from this junction, one could travel to the major routes that ran across the country, and was why maps such as Obilby’s used the Standard as their City of London starting point.

London Past and Present (Henry Wheatley, 1891) provides some background detail about the Standard:

“A water-standard with four spouts made (1582) by Peter Morris, a German, and supplied with water conveyed from the Thames by pipes of lead. it stood at the east end of Cornhill, at its junction with Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate Street and Leadenhall Street, and with the waste water from its four spouts cleansed the channels of the four streets.

The water ceased to run between 1598 and 1603; but the Standard itself remained for a long time after. It was long in use as a point of measurement for distances from the City, and several of our suburban milestones were, but a very few years ago, and some perhaps are still, inscribed with so many miles ‘from the Standard in Cornhill’. There was a Standard in Cornhill as early as Henry V.”

A print, dated 1814 of the “Antient North East View of Cornhill” shows the pump at the crossroads. The print is dated over 100 years after the pump was removed, so whether it was an interpretation of what it may have looked like, or whether it was based on an earlier print is impossible to know:

Standard Cornhill

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

London Past and Present, and many other sources date the Standard to around 1582, however the site seems to have been used as a source of water for many centuries before.

In 1921, as new pipes to carry telephone cables were being laid across the junction, a well which was believed to have been below the Standard was discovered.

Four feet below the 1921 road surface an arched brick top to a brick well of 45 inches in diameter was found. Below this, at 18 feet below street level, a much older well was found, of 30 inches in diameter.

It was believed that this much older well had been filled in, along with part of the upper well, when the water pipes of Morris were installed through an opening in the side of the well.

Excavating the well below the old location of the Standard in 1921.

Standard Cornhill

It was believed at the time that the lower parts of the well dated from early Medieval times, or possibly earlier, but as far I can find, no direct dating evidence was found.

I also cannot find any evidence that the brick and stone structure of the well was removed, so presumably the lower parts of this ancient well are still there, far below the road surface of the junction today.

The plaque mentions that the Standard was removed around 1674, and London Past and Present states that it remained long after water ceased to flow in 1603, and from most of the references I have found, it seems to be that the Standard had become an obstruction at a major road junction. It had long ceased to have any functional purpose and so was simply demolished.

Despite the loss of the Standard at some point in the later part of the 17th century, it continued to be used as a point for measuring distances to and from for many years to come. Not just formal measurements in maps, but also for almost any purpose that required a City of London reference point that would be widely known.

For example, I found the following advert in the Morning Herald on the 4th of January 1838:

“WANTED, a detached FAMILY RESIDENCE, within six miles of the Standard, Cornhill; consisting of drawing and dining rooms, three or four best bedrooms, servants’ rooms, and convenient domestic offices; double detached coach house and stabling lawn, pleasure and kitchen gardens; and if a few acres of meadow land it would be preferred – Apply by letter (post paid) to A.H., 9 Coleman-street, City”

The Standard, Cornhill was often mentioned on milestones when giving a distance to London. There was an 18th century example in Purley for many years. I am not sure if it has survived.

A 1921 article in the Sussex Express mentions the preservation of a milestone in Lewis:

“The milestone let in the upper front of 144/5 High Street, which the Council are to preserve when the building is demobilised, bears the interesting inscription, which probably many Lewes residents have not read; ‘Fifty miles from the Standard in Cornhill, 49 miles to Westminster Bridge, 8 miles to Brightelmstone.”

I have not heard of a building being “demobilised”. I assume it meant being demolished, and the Council did indeed preserve the milestone as it can still be seen in Lewes today, and fortunately I found a photo of the milestone on the brilliant Geograph website:

Standard Cornhill

Credit: Old Milestone by the A277, High Street, Lewes cc-by-sa/2.0 – © A Rosevear – geograph.org.uk/p/6038102

The Standard, Cornhill is just one of a number of locations that have been used as a point from where distances to and from London have been measured.

The most common location seems to be the statue of Charles I to the south of Trafalgar Square, where the Eleanor Cross once stood, so possibly the location of the final cross as part of a 13th century journey to London, still marks where distances are measured to and from:

Standard Cornhill

Plaque by the statue recording that the site of the cross was / is from where distances are measured:

Standard Cornhill

It is fascinating to stand at the eastern end of Cornhill, look across the road junction, and imagine the Standard water pump / conduit that once stood there, and that an ancient well probably still exists deep below the surface.

What I also find fascinating are the stories told by books, not just from their intended contents.

I have a copy of a 1939 facsimile of Ogilby’s Britannia, published by the Duckhams Oil Company on the 7th of December 1939, the 40th anniversary of the company’s founding.

Duckhams had a sales office at Duckhams House, 16 Cannon Street in the City, and the books of the facsimile of Britannia were in the office when war broke out. The company thought that the celebration of their 40th anniversary was a little out of place as war had just been declared.

The books appear to have been stored in Cannon Street for a period, with “two narrow escapes from bombing”, they were then distributed, with a little note in the inside cover:

Duckhams Oil

The PTO reveals a postscript appealing for funds for the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund.

Alexander Duckham, who founded the company, and also signed the note in the book lived for some years at Vanbrugh Castle near Greenwich Park. He must have been a long standing supporter of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund as in 1920, just a year after the fund had been established, he donated Vanbrugh Castle to the fund, to be used as a school for children of members of the RAF who had been killed in service.

Just some of the obscure connections you can make across London.

From an ancient well and water conduit at an important cross roads in the City, to a map maker who used the water conduit as the starting point for his routes out of London, and to an early 20th century industrialist who loved Ogilby’s maps and published a facsimile from their office in Cannon Street during the last war.

Copies of the facsimile of Ogilby’s Britannia can be found on the Abebooks website, and if you are interested in John Ogilby, the Nine Lives of John Ogilby by Alan Ereira is a really good account, and can be found here.

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Centuries of Change in Farringdon Street

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Today’s post was not on my list of posts to write. Last Sunday, I was in the City to explore a site for a future post. It was a grey, overcast morning, and at one point there was a fine, wind driven drizzle, so I decided to head back home (I should have stayed for the afternoon as the sun came out).

Walking towards the Holborn Viaduct Bridge over Farringdon Street, I noticed another new building site where the previous building had been demolished and construction of the concrete core of the future development was underway.

I walked down from Holborn Viaduct, down to Farringdon Street as I wanted to see if a bit of Victorian construction was visible.

The following photo is from Farringdon Street. Part of the bridge over Farringdon Street is on the left, then there is one of the four pavilions, one on each corner of the bridge, then an open space with the new concrete core of the new building on the right edge of the photo:

Farringdon Street is the route of the lost River Fleet, and the bridge carries the road over what was the river, hence the low level of Farringdown Street, and the slope of the streets on either side.

Walking along the road to cross the bridge, it is not really obvious that the bridge is not the only part of the overall construction of the road, as you are walking along a manmade viaduct of some length.

Holborn Bridge is part of Holborn Viaduct, the 427m long viaduct designed to provide a bridge over the valley of the Fleet River and a level road between Holborn Circus and Newgate Street.

The construction contract for Holborn Viaduct was awarded on the 7th May 1866 and on the 6th November 1869 it was opened by Queen Victoria.

The construction of this 427m viaduct is not that visible, unless buildings along the viaduct are demolished, and it was this that I wanted to see.

Looking across the cleared construction site, and the side of the viaduct was clearly visible:

This is a view of what remains of the 1860s construction of Holborn Viaduct, and how the long approach to the bridge was built up in height.

At the top, there is a distnct layer which makes up the made ground under the street.

We then come to the core of the viaduct, with the edge of brick walls, which presumably run the width of the viaduct across the street, and in the lower half of the viaduct there are clearly defined brick arches.

Much of the side of the viaduct appears to have been skimmed and filled with concrete. I assume the whole of the viaduct has been filled, but it would be interesting to know whether there is any open space within the arches of the viaduct.

I also assume that the concrete skim and possible fill is of later date, and the brick columns and arches are from the 1860s build of Holborn Viaduct.

It is not often that you can see the hidden details of Victorian design and construction techniques, and the outline of the brick arches that support Holborn Viaduct will probably be soon covered again by the new building that will be built on the site, but they show the considerable construction work either side of the bridge, and which you are walking over as you walk along Holborn Viaduct, towards the bridge over Farringdon Street.

There has been a considerable amount of construction in Farringdon Street in the small section between Holborn Viaduct and Ludgate Circus in the last few years, the above example being just the latest, and I wanted to see what was happening at another, where the Hoop & Grapes pub was located:

The Hoop & Grapes has been closed for the last couple of years, when the buildings on either side of the pub were demolished.

The new building on the right of the pub is making good progress, and there will soon be more construction on the left, and until this is complete the left hand wall of the pub is shored up.

The building is Grade II listed and is of some age. According to the listing details, the building was part of a terrace, with the house being built around 1720 for a vintner, and converted to a public house in 1832.

The listing also states that the “Basement has brick vaults thought to be part of 17th century warehousing vaults built in connection with the formation of the Fleet Canal. Built on part of the site of St. Bride’s Burial Ground.”

Rocque’s 1746 map still shows St. Bride’s burial ground (ringed in map extract below), although there is a space between the burial ground and Fleet Market, so the terrace which included the building that would become the Hoop & Grapes could have been within this small space, or perhaps to one side:

The Fleet Canal reference in the Historic England listing refers to when this stretch of the River Fleet was constrained within a channel, along which, and partly over, the Fleet Market developed.

Another view looking at the new developments and the old Hoop & Grapes pub, which has seen the area change beyond all recognition since the house was built:

I really struggle with some of these redevelopments.

London has always changed. Some of the terrace houses that survived to the 20th century along with the Hoop & Grapes were damaged during the war, and then demolished.

New officces were built surrounding the pub in the 1950s. These were in turn demolished in the 1990s, and it is these buildings which are being demolished for the new development.

Each iteration of development seems to get larger and more overpowering for buildings that survive, and based on the lifespan of the post-war developments on the site, the building currently being built, will be demolished in turn, in the 2060s / 2070s.

Again, it is good that buildings such as the pub survive, but they almost become a museum exhibit, stuck in a streetscape that they have no relationship with, and totally out of context.

I photographed the Hoop & Grapes in 2020, when I had a walk around all the City of London pubs:

I do not know whether the pub will reopen when redevelopment of the surrounding buildings has been completed.

The City of London Corporation seems to be making some efforts to retain City pubs, and they have announced that the Still and Star, Aldgate, St Brides Tavern, Blackfriars, the White Swan, Fetter Lane and the King’s Arms at 55 Old Broad Street / London Wall, will all be reopening in the coming years, however this often refers to the name being retained and the pub being relocated to a new structure within a new development.

There is no mention of the Hoop & Grapes.

A very short distance south along Farringdon Street, on the opposite side of the road is 5 Fleet Place, the cream coloured building that was completed in 2007:

In the above photo, you can just see a road sign with a white arrow on a blue background on the street at the corner of the building. Look through the square arch of the building to the left of the arrow sign, and there are three plaques. which tell of religious and political history:

Staring from the bottom is a stone that was laid on the 10th of May, 1872 at the new Congregational Memorial Hall and Library:

The stone states that the Memorial Hall was erected to commemorate “The Fidelity of Conscience shown by the Ejected Ministers of 1662”.

To understand what was being commemorated, we need to go back to the mid-16th century and the Act of Uniformity of 1558. This was passed in 1559 and established that the church should be unified around Anglicanism and worship should be according to the Book of Common Prayer.

This act was an attempt to address the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism that had been simmering since the break from the Church of Rome by Henry VIII.

The act lasted until 1650 when it was repealed by the Rump Parliament established during the first year of the new Commonwealth of England, set up immediately after the English Civil War.

It was repealed to provide greater religious freedom for Puritans and non-conformists.

There was a strong religious independent and Puritan element to Parliamentary forces in the Civil War, and is why many churches had their decoration and statues damaged and destroyed by Parliamentary soldiers as these were seen as being a residual influence of the Church of Rome.

When Charles II was returned to the throne, there was pressure from the Church of England to unify the church around Anglican principles and the Book of Common Prayer.

The Act was brought back into law, and Ministers were forced to swear an oath that they would give “unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed” in the Book of Common Prayer.

Many Puritan, Presbyterian and Independent ministers could not swear such an oath, and around 2,000 were forced out by the “Great Ejection” from the Church of England on St. Bartholomew’s Day, the 24th of August, 1662 – the event recorded by the stone.

Title page from the pamphlet “‘The Farewell Sermons of the Late London Ministers'” showing 12 of the ejected ministers:

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

Newspaper reports of the ceremony to lay the foundation stone included the following which gives some background as to how the memorial hall was funded and the facilities within the building:

“The Act of Uniformity passed in the year 1662, had the effect of ejecting from their charges more that two thousand ministers who could not conscientiously subscribe to it. At a meeting of the Congregational Union, held at Birmingham in 1861, it was resolved to commemorate the event.

A conference was convened and held, at which it was decided that a bicentenary memorial fund should be raised, among the objects specified being the erection of new chapels, the extinction of chapel debts, and especially the erection of a Congregational Memorial Hall. A committee was appointed to carry the scheme into full effect, and at the next annual meeting it was reported that the total amount paid and promised in connection with this commemoration was nearly £250,000.

A site was found in Farringdon-street, which had formed part of the old Fleet Prison, and the ground was purchased at a cost of £23,000. The architect’s designs comprise a hall to hold from 1,200 to 1,500 people, a library, a board-room, and other offices. The whole is erected at a cost of not less than £30,000.”

The Congregational Hall and Library as it appeared in the 1920s (the building with the large tower):

The library was a considerable resource of over 8,000 volumes and manuscripts covering dissenting religious history.

The library was moved to Manchester during the war, for safety, and also because the Government requisitioned the building between 1940 and 1950 for war purposes.

The library returned in 1957, however ten years later, the collection had to be moved out again as the site was being redeveloped, which brings us to the second plaque:

Around 100 years after completion, maintenance of a large Victorian building was difficult and expensive, so the Congregational Memorial Hall Trust decided to have the site redeveloped with a new office block on site, along with space for the library and for meetings.

The above foundation stone is from this new building – Caroone House.

The library though did not return to the new building. It had been moved to 14 Gordon Square in advance of the redevelopment, and was housed with and administered by Dr. Williams’s Library, another library of religious dissenting books and manuscripts.

The library had to move out of Gordon Square a couple of years ago due to the potential costs of the redevelopment of the site, and the library is now housed at Westminster College, Cambridge, a theological collection that brings together Congregational and Presbyterian college traditions.

And now for the third plaque. It is not often that one of my posts has a very topical subject, but for this week’s post, in 1900, the Congregational Memorial Hall was the site of the founding of the Labour Party:

Rather than a northern industrial town, the meeting that resulted in the founding of the Labour Party was held in the Congregational Memorial Hall, in Farringdon Street on the 27th of February, 1900.

The meeting was the inaugural meeting of the Labour Representation Committee and the purpose of the meeting, which had been arranged by the Trades Union Congress, was to agree on how the various strands of the Labour movement could be brought together into a single party.

Up until the 1900 meeting, the interests of labour had been represented by the Trades Union Congress, the Independent Labour Party and the Social Democratic Federation, who all attended the meeting in Farringdon Street.

The Cooperative Movement had been invited but did not attend as their aim was to maintain a politically neutral approach.

130 delegates met in the library of the Congregational Hall, and the following paragraph from the end of a report on the meeting in the London Daily News gives an indication of the approach of the new unified Labour Party:

“The speeches for the most part were couched in a spirit of broad toleration. Mr. Burns and Mr. Harnes, and Mr. Steadman and Mr. Tillett, all protested against the spirit of narrow sectarianism which has prevailed so largely hitherto.

And Mr. Hardie and Mr. Burgess, from the Independent Labour Party also took the same line, and strongly condemned a proposal that a Labour Party should be organised upon the basis of ‘recognising the existence of a class war’, which got defeated by the adoption of an amending resolution.”

Caroone House was demolished in 2004, so that the office block we see today could be built, and which was completed in 2007. The two foundation stones and the plaque recording the founding of Labour were reinstalled.

A very short walk along part of Farringdon Street, where we can see part of the viaduct constructed by the Victorians to create a wider and higher bridge over what was the route of the River Fleet, a 300 year old house that once looked onto the river and that once housed a pub, and hopefully will do so in the future, as it is surrounded by much larger steel and glass office blocks, and the site of a hall, built to commemorate a religious schism in the 17th century, and the founding of the Labour Party at the very start of the 20th century.

Another example of just how much diverse history can be found during a short walk along a City street.

The next time I write about Farringdon Street, I hope that the Hoop & Grapes will be open again as a traditional London pub, rather than what seems to happen to so many pubs where development takes place – a reimagined pub.

Despite the appearance of Farringdon Street today, it is a very historic street, and the Fleet Prison which was on the site of the Congregational Memorial Hall will be the subject of a future post.

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King’s Cross and the Lighthouse

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There are just three tickets left for my Southbank walk in July. The Barbican walk has now sold out. Click on the link for details and booking:

The following photo is of a rather strange feature on the top of a building looking towards King’s Cross Station. The photo is one of my father’s from 40 years ago in 1984:

I was in the King’s Cross area last week, it was a sunny day, and the sun was in the right position, so I took the following photo showing the same feature as it appears today, along with a view of the building below:

The shape of the building is down to the convergence of the roads on either side, with Pentonville Road on the left and Gray’s Inn Road on the right.

The building is now called the Lighthouse Building, after one of the possible uses of the structure on the roof. The building is Grade II listed, and the Historic England listing includes the following description:

“Above the 3rd floor windows a further cornice and blocking course, surmounted at the apex by a tall lead-sheathed tower, sometimes said to have been for spotting fires, with a cast-iron balcony at half-height, oculus and cornice capped by a small ribbed dome with weathervane finial.”

The listing suggests that the tower was used as a lookout for spotting fires.

Another frequently reported use for the tower was as a lighthouse, and was down to an oyster bar which occupied part of the ground floor of the building. This was “Netten’s Oyster Bar”, and the story goes that when fresh oysters were available in the shop, the light would go on in the “lighthouse”.

I have no idea whether this story is true, or whether the use of the tower for spotting fires is true, of whether it had a different purpose, or was just an ornamental folly.

I found plenty of adverts for Netten’s oyster bar, and the lighthouse was not mentioned in any of these. Netten’s would advertise in the local newspapers of towns where their local station provided a route into King’s Cross or St. Pancras Stations. For example, the following appeared in the Luton Reporter:

“Luton Travelers To London, Should Dine, Lunch, or take Supper at J. Netten’s Fish Restaurant & Oyster Bar, 297, Pentonville Road – King’s Cross.

Boiled or Fried Fish of all kinds in season, fresh cooked for each customer.

Native Oysters 1/- 1/6 & 2/- per dos. Tripe and Onions and Stewed Eels Always Ready”

Rather than native oysters, boiled or fried fish, the traveler arriving in London from Luton today, would find a Five Guys, burger and fries restaurant in the place of Netten’s Fish Restaurant & oyster Bar, so whilst the foods on offer have changed, the need for travelers to buy some food during their journey has not.

The building was completely refurbished in a project that completed around 2013, and this work included the tower on the roof. In previous years the interior had been derelict for some considerable time, and the tower had been a magnet for graffiti. It had been on Historic England’s Buildings at Risk Register, so the refurbishment possibly saved the building. It had been at risk from demolition in previous years from plans to extend the eastern entrances to King’s Cross underground station.

If you go back to my father’s 1980’s photo, you can see that some of the railings around the tower were missing.

In 2016, I was in the clock tower at St. Pancras Station and took the following photo of the area in front of King’s Cross Station (on the left) and the refurbished Lighthouse Building can be seen looking across to the station:

And this is the view from ground level today. A very busy place with plenty of travelers heading to and from the stations of King’s Cross and St. Pancras:

The metal tower, or lighthouse is not the first landmark structure that has been where Pentonville Road and Gray’s Inn Road meet. Before King’s Cross Station was built, there was a structure that would go on to give both the station, and the local area, the name King’s Cross:

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

On the 26th of June, 1830, King George IV died, and in the year before his death, a monument had been proposed, design and construction had started, to commemorate the reign of the king.

The site chosen was at the junction of what is now Gray’s inn Road, Euston Road, and Pentonville Road as from the late 18th century into the 19th century, this area was developing rapidly (even before the arrival of the railways), and the New Road (which would become Euston and Pentonville Roads) had been built as perhaps the first North Circular Road around London to divert traffic away from the centre, to provide a new east – west route, and to take traffic to and from the expanding docks to the east of London.

The print above shows an “Elevation of Kings Cross” as it was intended to appear when completed.

As recorded on the above print, money for the design and build of the monument was being sourced from public subscriptions, however even with building underway, there were not enough funds being received, as recorded in the following article from the London Star on the 2nd of July 1830:

“Whatever may tend towards the recollection of the revered departed monarch will doubtless be received with that degree of loyal feeling which is so characteristic of the true Englishmen.

The splendid National Monument of the King’s Cross (commenced in February last by a few loyal though humble individuals) to commemorate the reign of George the Fourth, approaches now rapidly to completion, and will be finished according to the design of Mr. Stephen Geary, architect. We hesitate not to say it will form one of the most splendid and ornamental objects that adorn the environs of the metropolis, combining not only simplicity of design, but chastity of Grecian architecture.

The Colossal Statue of his late Majesty, surrounded with the emblematical representatives of the Empire, vis. – St. George, St. Andrew, St. Patrick and St. David, will form additions to the various productions of that eminent artist and sculptor, R.W. Seivler, Esq. who is now busily employed upon them.

Although credibly informed, we can scarcely believe the amount of subscriptions received to this public monument are very far from meeting the amount already expended.

Surely a public appeal need only be made, and we doubt whether there is an Englishman, Irishman, Scotchman, or Welshman, who possesses a spark of British loyalty in his breast, who will not subscribe his mite towards handing down to posterity a public token of attachment towards the departed and beloved Monarch, George the Fourth.”

Financial troubles continued, and in 1832 the Kings Cross monument was put up for auction, with the outcome of the auction reported as follows:

“Thursday afternoon, at the Mart, was sold the ornamental, stone-built erection at the junction of the Pentonville, New, Gray’s Inn-lane and Hampstead Roads, partly built by subscription, and intended to receive on its summit an equestrian statue of George the Fourth.

The auction caused a numerous assemblage, and gave rise to much discussion, and it was objected that there was no title, and that the subscribers had a claim upon it, as well as the assignees of the party who had completed it and under whose direction it was being sold. It was further said it might be removed, being built in contravention of the local Paving Act.

The auctioneer admitted that the only title was the written consent of the Commissioners of Roads, and the approval of the Paris Vestry; but it was not liable to any objection as to the local Act, nor was it likely to be pulled down, as it was of great benefit to the public, protecting passengers in the day and serving as a beacon at night.

It was also a great ornament to the district, and had cost nearly £1,000. It was at present let to the Commissioners of Police at £25 a year. the biddings then commenced, and the King’s Cross was knocked down, and bona fide sold for 164 guineas only.”

The only value in the monument seems to have been the small building that formed the base which, as the above article records, was let to the Police, and was generating an income. in the following years it would also become a shop, and finally a pub / bar.

In the years after construction, there also seems to have been a campaign to downgrade the public perception of the quality of the monument, and the statue of King George IV. Newspaper reports tell of cabmen, watermen, and the general public complaining about the statue, and as traffic on the New Road (Euston and Pentonville Roads) increased, the monument was also becoming an obstruction.

In 1841 there was a letter to the editor of the Globe complaining of the dangers of the monument, and that it did not have any surrounding posts or rails to protect pedestrians, and was also unlit at night.

The days of the monument were numbered and in 1842 the statue of the King was removed, and soon after, the whole monument was demolished. Not exactly “handing down to posterity a public token of attachment towards the departed and beloved Monarch, George the Fourth” as suggested in the appeal for public funds a few years earlier.

The following print shows the demolition of the monument:

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

Above the entrance to the room at the base of the monument can be seen the words: “Richard Wirner Licensed To Sell Beer” – the monuments final use.

The text below states that “the dome-topped house in the distance will serve to identify the spot with our own times”, however this building would also soon be disappearing as the area would be part of the construction site for a major transport project. Not King’s Cross or St. Pancras Stations, but the Metropolitan Railway.

The following print shows the cut and cover construction of the Metropolitan Railway, which ran through the site of the George IV monument, and the building that was on the site of the Lighthouse building:

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

The building with the tower / lighthouse on the top was then built on the site in around 1875.

I cannot find a confirmed date for the tower / lighthouse, whether it was part of the original 1875 building, or whether it was added later.

A rather strange story, that a monument that could not raise enough public funds to complete the build, does not appear to have been appreciated by the public, and only lasted for just over 10 years before demolition, gave its name to the area, and to one of London’s major railway stations.

An almost throw away comment in the Lincolnshire Chronicle on the 14th of November, 1845, in an article where the paper reported on the introduction to Parliament of the London and York Railway Bill hints at what would become a nationally recognisable name: “And the said Bill proposes to enact, That the said Railway shall commence in the Parish of St. Pancras in the County of Middlesex at or near a certain place called King’s Cross”.

The tower / lighthouse that overlooks the site of the monument to George IV has lasted much longer, and after restoration, should be there for many more years to come.

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Two Tree Island – The Last Landing Place on the Thames

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There are a couple of tickets left for two new walk dates. Click on the links for details and booking:

Over the last couple of years, I have been writing about a number of the Thames stairs in central London, however for today’s post in my weird obsession with these places on the river, I am visiting Two Tree Island in Essex, to find the last landing place on the Thames.

I need to clarify the definition of last landing place. I am using the list of steps, stairs and landing places on the tidal Thames, as listed in the book on access to the river published by the Port of London Authority:

The book lists all the landing places, steps and stairs on the tidal river, which is the area of the PLA’s responsibility, so from Teddington in the west, to near Southend in the east.

The definition of the last landing place could be at either extreme of the tidal river, depending on which way along the river you were heading, however for the last landing place, I am using the location on the last page in the book, and furthest east on the maps within the book.

And using that definition, the last landing place on the River Thames is a causeway on Two Tree Island in Essex, the location of which is being pointed to by the arrow in the following map (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

A couple of weeks ago, we were going to a concert in Southend, so it was the perfect opportunity for a diversion to find Two Tree Island, and the causeway.

Two Tree Island is, as the name suggests, an island, and is located between Southend and Leigh-on-Sea, and Canvey Island.

The island nature of the place can be seen on the one road to the island, with the need to cross a bridge which takes you over the channel which runs to the north of Two Tree Island:

Looking west as you cross the bridge, and the nature of area becomes clear, low-lying, channels of water, and subject to the changing of the tide:

Looking over the eastern side of the bridge, there is a small marina on the left. This often dries out when the tide is low, but during my visit, the tide was coming in and the width of the channel was widening:

Having crossed the bridge, and we can look back and see the edge of one of the housing estates that surround Leigh-on-Sea, on the high land that centuries ago was the natural barrier to the Thames:

Two Tree Island has not always been land. It was reclaimed from the river in the 18th century and used as farmland. In 1910, a sewage works was built on the north east edge of the island, and for parts of the 20th century, it was also used for landfill.

Two Tree Island was flooded during the major flooding of the east coast and Thames estuary during 1953.

Once over the bridge, there is a sign welcoming you to Two Tree Island, and the sign indicates the current use of the land as it is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust:

I can find no confirmed source for the name of the island. There are may trees on the island today, perhaps when the land was first reclaimed, when it was farmland, there may have been two distinctive trees. The first written reference to the name I can find is from 1967, when the site was included in a list of reserves set-up by the Essex Naturalists’ Trust.

The site was also called Leigh Marsh, and there are older references to this name, for example in 1836, when the the owner of the land had died, and their executor was selling the farm and farm land that the deceased had owned, which included: “Also 179 acres, 1 rood, 36 perches of valuable marshland, situate in the parishes of Leigh and Hadleigh, called Leigh Marsh, with a dwelling house and out-buildings, which is let until Lady-day next, £120 per annum.”

The land was valuable as it was good grazing land, and the mud flats and sea bed of the estuary off Two Tree Island was also used as shell fish beds, so the whole area was a valuable, agricultural site.

There has always been the threat of development in places along the river. In 1973, Maplin Airport, further east, off Foulness Island, was being considered as a new London Airport, and Southend Council put forward Two Tree Island, and the surrounding marshes, as a new nature reserve to compensate for the loss of land at Foulness and in the Thames Estuary.

The previous year, 1971, a “massive yacht marina” was proposed for Two Tree Island, however this was thrown out by Southend Council.

The majority of the island is now nature reserve, with plenty of tracks to walk, there is a small air strip for a model aircraft club, and a slowly decaying Pill Box as a reminder of the threat of invasion along the estuary in the last war.

The remains of the old sewage works are now providing a haven for birds, including nesting Egrets.

I have now reached the southern side of the island to find the causeway, where there is a Port of London information sign:

With the map showing the area in detail, and a helpful “You Are Here”:

And it is here that I find the causeway, the last landing place on the River Thames, within the area of responsibility of the Port of London Authority:

Not that impressive, compared to many of the stairs in central London, however this is a simple, functional place which is still in use. A concrete strip running out into the water from which boats can be launched and recovered.

The land in the distance in the above photo is Canvey Island, and as we look around, we can see other infrastructure that is only there because of the River Thames.

Looking to the east, directly over Canvey Island, are the container cranes of the London Gateway, the latest port on the river, having opened in 2013, and offering a deep water channel, and mooring along side, for the very large container ships that use the river today:

And looking to the south, the storage tanks for liquefied natural gas (LNG) are on the Isle of Grain on the southern side of the Thames. LNG is brought by ship from across the world to be stored in these tanks before being distributed to homes and industry across the country, or via undersea pipe to Europe:

The Thames Estuary has been the entry point for goods and commodities for centuries, and today this includes gas to power the country, and container ships full of all manner of products.

Looking east, and in the distance, we can see the City of Southend-on-Sea:

A look back along the causeway:

Although the causeway is a firm stretch of concrete, it is always good to remember just how far and how quickly the tide comes in along the Thames, and the tide was rising and washing over the causeway:

And within a few minutes, water was covering half of the causeway:

So that was the last place of access to the River Thames, according to the Port of London Authority listing – just a few hundred more to go along the river.

I have written a number of posts about this area of the river. You may be interested in:

As a postscript to the post, all my posts on Thames stairs have attempted to show how important the River Thames has been in the history and development of London, and how the river was once such a key part of the life of the so many Londoners.

We have tended to loose that connection with the river. The Thames is the reason why London is located where it is, and also why London has developed as much as it has.

There is not that much traffic on the river in central London, however towards the estuary, the docks at Tilbury and London Gateway are still busy.

The river is much cleaner than it was when industry lined the river and so much of London’s rubbish entered the river.

Although today, the river is a good way to travel on Thames Clippers, views along the river are good, and the river adds value to the properties built along side, it is also a river that is viewed as a potential risk from rising sea levels and flooding, it is used as a dumping ground for sewage from sewer overflows, and we have built into the river so it is channeled for much of its route through the city.

Whilst writing today’s post, I had BBC Radio 4 on for a change, and by chance there was a fascinating programme on the rights of natural features such as rivers, and how a number of rivers have been give the legal rights of personhood, which basically states that rivers have certain rights, such as the right to flow, the right not to be polluted etc.

It is a fascinating concept with a number of rivers in places such as New Zealand, India and Mexico having already been granted similar rights to that of a person.

In the UK, there is currently an initiative to develop a Rights of River motion for the River Ouse in Sussex.

It is a fascinating concept, and interesting to consider how this could apply to the River Thames, and how the river could be considered as an end to end entity, with rights, from source to estuary.

Some background on the River Ouse initiative can be found here

And the BBC programme Rivers and the Rights of Nature is here

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London Maps in Books

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I have two new walk dates available. Click on the links for details and booking:

If you have been reading the blog for a while, you will know that I am fascinated by London maps, and make use of a number of maps in many of my posts.

They can help us understand the development of London in many different ways. They are a snapshot of the city at the time they were made, showing the limits of development at a specific time. They record change, and they show features of the city, man-made and natural, that have long since disappeared under the built city we see today.

They can show different interpretations of the city, they can show how people at the time the map was made interpreted the city, what was important to them.

There are some brilliant online mapping sites, such as the National Library of Scotland and Layers of London, however nothing beats the feel of a paper map in your hands.

Many of these maps can be found in books. Large, fold out maps, or even better, a pocket at the end of the book stuffed with a number of maps. You do not find this with the majority of books published today, probably down to cost, however it was once a more common feature, and for today’s post, I have a small sample.

At the start of the 20th century, Sir Walter Besant published a series of books on the history of London, and a number of these included maps.

(You should be able to click on the maps to open a larger image)

In “London In The Time Of The Tudors” (1904) there is:

A Reproduction of the Map by Ralph Agas, Circa 1560

Although the map is known as the Agas map, it appears to be an incorrect attribution. Ralph Agas was a surveyor who lived between 1540 and 1621, however there is no firm evidence that he was the creator of the map, and the coat of arms at the top left of the map is not from the Tudor period, but is the Stuart coat of arms, and the version of the map that survives is believed to date from around 1633.

At the time the map was made, the population of the city was around 350,000, and was still mainly contained within the old City walls, although there were small areas of building outside the walls, for example the route from the City to Westminster can be seen with buildings either side of what is now Fleet Street and the Strand, and the Eleanor Cross can be seen at Charing Cross.

The following extract shows the City of London:

In the following extract, the River Fleet can be seen from the point where it enters the Thames, then heading north where the two crossing points at what is now Ludgate Circus and Holborn Viaduct can be seen, before the river starts wandering to the north:

In the next book in Besant’s series, “London In The Time Of The Stuarts”, we then have:

A Large And Accurate Map Of The City Of London (John Ogilby, 1670s)

John Ogilby was a printer and publisher, translator, Master of the Revels in Ireland, he had served in the Army, and in the period after the Great Fire of London, he created a detailed and carefully surveyed map of the City of London.

There are some significant changes to the City we see today, however there is much that is basically the same (although the buildings will be very different).

In the following extract, the Wool Church Market is where Mansion House is today, and to the right is Cornhill, with the Royal Exchange and the churches of St. Michael Cornhill and St. Peter Cornhill, and there are the same alleys between Cornhill and Lombard Street that we can walk today, although between 19th and 20th century buildings, rather than those Ogilby would have known:

The map still shows the River Fleet in the 1670s, as a channel running up from the Thames, with what looks to be walkways along both sides of the river, between the Thames and Holborn:

After publishing his map of the City of London, Ogilby published perhaps his best known work, “Britannia”, which was a map of the routes between the principal towns and cities of the country.

For Britannia, Ogilby used the innovative method of a strip map, where the route was shown running along a series of strips, with the main geographic features, towns and villages, houses, side roads etc. that could be found along the route.

The following map is the strip map for the route from the Standard in Cornhill (a water pump at the eastern end of Cornhill, and one of the places in London used as the base for measuring distances) to Portsmouth in Hampshire:

In the text in the box at the top, the distance is given as 73 miles and 2 furlongs, and John Ogilby is given the rather grand title of His Majesties Cosmographer, a title given to Ogilby by King Charles II.

We then come to the book “London in the Eighteenth Century”, and:

London in 1741-5 by John Rocque

Rocque’s map is one of the maps I use regularly in blog posts, as it provides a comprehensive view of the city, including the wider, as yet undeveloped part of the city.

The River Fleet can still be seen, but it is now starting to be built over, and where the Fleet runs into the Thames is now Blackfriars Bridge:

Looking to the west of Rocque’s map, and we can see Chelsea Water Works (roughly where Victoria Station, and the tracks leading out of the station are today). About 70 years after Rocque’s map, Chelsea Water Works would be closed and the space backfilled with the soil excavated for the new St. Katherine Docks.

We now come to “London in the Nineteenth Century”, and the city is expanding rapidly. The time when the city was enclosed within the old city wall as shown in the Agas map is long gone. This is:

Cruchley’s New Plan of London improved to 1835

London has expanded rapidly, however there were still fields to the east and west, land that would be built on during the rest of the 19th century and early 20th century.

Part of the city’s expansion has been to the east, as trade carried along the river has grown considerably, and the original wharves and docks in the heart of the City were no longer capable of supporting the volume of goods and the size of ships.

If we look to the Isle of Dogs, we can see the West India Docks which were built in the early 19th century, and below these docks, we can see the outline for some proposed new docks, each capable of supporting 200 ships:

One of the early roads that ran through the Isle of Dogs to the ferry at the southern tip can be seen running across the outline of the new docks.

The docks would not be built as shown in Cruchley’s map, the new docks would be the southern dock below the West India, and the Millwall Dock.

Another book with an impressive fold out map is Henry Chamberlain’s:

A New and Complete History and Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, the Borough of Southwark, and Parts Adjacent

The book dates from 1770, and has a large fold out map of the city in that year:

Again, there are plenty of little details which show the city at the time, and if we look at the top of the map, there is New River Head and Sadlers Wells:

New River Head was the large pond built at the end of the man-made New River that brought water in from springs around Ware in Hertfordshire, ready for onward distribution across London.

Sadlers Wells was named after a well and the first owner of the site and the entertainment venure he developed.

At the time, the land between Sadlers Wells and the city, was still open land, as the map shows, and was a risky place for those returning from a night at Sadlers Wells to their city homes, with many reports of theft across what would have been dark fields.

If we look at the area of Lambeth covered by the map, we can see at the time there were no other bridges between Blackfriars and Westminster Bridges, and we can see one of the pleasure gardens south of the river, Cuper Gardens, which is where the approach to Waterloo Bridge and the large roundabout at the end of the approach road are located today.

Narrow Wall can be seen on the map, one of the early attempts to stop the river from encroaching on the land and reclaiming Lambeth Marsh. Narrow Wall is today Belverdere Road and Upper Ground.

The next book is “A Dictionary of London” by Henry Harben (1918). This book has a pocket at the end, in which there are a selection of maps. The first being:

A Map of the Cities of London & Westminster and the Borough of Southwark together with the suburbs, 1708

Some of the maps in Harben’s book are based on several different maps to provide coverage and detail not seen within one individual map. The above map is based on “Hatton’s New View 1708, but it incorporates material supplied in Philip Lea’s map of 1673, John Ogilby’s of 1677 and Morden & Lea’s map of 1682. Further details come from Richard Blome’s ward maps published in Stryp’s edition of Stowe, 1720”.

The benefit of this composite approach is the level of detail in one map, and in the following extract we can see the stairs and houses along the river between the mouth of the Fleet and the horse ferry in Westminster:

Interesting that in St. James’s Park there is a feature labelled “Decoy”. This may have been a pond where ducks, or other waterfowl would be lured into and trapped. The benefit of such a place was that if they were to be served as meat for food, then not having been shot, they would not contain lead shot.

The next map in Harben’s book is the product of three maps, and is titled:

A Map of London about 1660. The Ground Plan is based on Hutton 1708. The details from Faithorne and Newcourt Circa 1658

Again, there are many small details. Wapping is mainly built along the river and along the Ratcliffe Highway, and the area of Rotherhithe is using the old name of Redriff.

There is one, small detail I really like. Take a look at Limehouse to the east, and next to the small indentation from the river (Limekiln Dock, see this post), there is a drawing of a lime kiln:

The lime kiln is shown in the correct location for the first lime kiln in the area, and is the structure that would give Limehouse its name. The accuracy of the image extends to the smoke issuing from the top of the kiln, from the burning of chalk brought up from Kent.

We then come to:

Map of London shows its size at the end of the 16th century. The ground plan is for convenience based on the plan in Hatton’s New View 1708. The main details are from Norden 1593 & Speed 1610

In this series of maps from Harben’s book, we have been going back in time, and this map shows the city at the end of the 16th century, overlaid on a plan of 1708.

It shows a much smaller city, and there are details which show just how undeveloped parts of London were at the time.

The area south of the river, where much of Lambeth is located today, is labelled Lambeth Marsh, and has the symbols for a marsh along with some lines of trees.

The area between Narrow Wall and the Thames are areas of agriculture, with inlets leading from the river up to Narrow Wall. This area between Narrow Wall and the river was used for agricultural purposes, such as growing reeds.

Some of the maps in Harben’s book show how you can add additional detail to a map, and these are the pre-Internet versions of the Layers of London site, for example:

Plan of London in the 16th, 17th & 18th Centuries Superimposed on the Present Ordnance Survey Plan

The above map is the Eastern Sheet and the map below is the Western Sheet:

A small detail from the map shows the outline of the pre-Great Fire St. Paul’s Cathedral overlaid on the outline of Wren’s cathedral which we see today, showing a slight change in orientation and size:

Another of Harben’s maps where has overlaid data on a street plan is a:

Plan of London showing the Levels of the Natural ground below the present Surface, the Line of the Roman Wall of the City, and the Sites of Discoveries of Roman remains etc.

Walking the city streets today, it is hard to appreciate just how much land levels have changed over the last couple of thousand years.

Centuries of dumping of building rubble, accumulations of rubbish, waste and soils, demolition rubble from events such as the Great Fire, leveling of the city, for example, the land running down to the Thames (when Queen Victoria Street was built, parts were raised to level out the street), covering of rivers such as the Fleet and the Walbrook etc. have all contributed to raising the ground level of the city.

The lowest levels where evidence of human occupation of the city are those from the Roman period, and in the map, Harden has located where remains have been found, and the level below the current surface, for example, as shown in this extract showing the area around Cripplegate and London Wall:

One of the best places where this raising of surface levels can be seen is the part of the Roman Wall shown in the above map, which is preserved in the underground car park below London Wall. Whilst there are many runs of the wall above ground in the area, these are all medieval, we have to look below the surface to get down to the Roman Wall, as can be seen in this post where I photographed the wall in the car park.

A small sample of some of the old maps of London that show how the city has developed over the centuries, and finding an old book with a large folding map, or even better, a pocket at the end of the book stuffed with maps is always a bonus.

Some of the other maps I have looked at in the blog are Reynolds’s Splendid New Map Of London , the 1944 report on the Reconstruction of the City of London, and the 1943 London County Council Plan for the redevelopment of London.

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