Tag Archives: Holborn

Churches at the City Boundaries – St Andrew, Holborn

This is the church of St. Andrew, Holborn, photographed in the low sun of a bright winter’s afternoon:

St Andrew Holborn

I will be exploring the church later in the post, but to start, let’s look at the location of St. Andrew, because I suspect the church is here due to its proximity to the River Fleet, and it is one of a number of London’s churches that are located at key boundaries, crossings and entry and exit points, of a much earlier City of London.

In the following photo, I am looking along Holborn Viaduct, towards the bridge over Farringdon Street, the old route of the River Fleet. Part of St. Andrew is on the right of the photo (the ornate tower is part of the City Temple Church, a much later Nonconformist church which is currently undergoing significant rebuilding works):

Holborn Viaduct

If we stand in what remains of the churchyard around St. Andrew, we can see that Holborn Viaduct is much higher than the churchyard, which marks the original surface level of the area. Today there are steps up from the churchyard to Holborn Viaduct:

St Andrew Holborn

And because of the height of Holborn Viaduct, a bridge is needed to take the street over Shoe Lane, which runs alongside the eastern boundary of the church, a view which again shows how surface levels have changed around the church:

St Andrew Holborn

A short walk east from the church, and we can look over the bridge down to Farringdon Street, a view which shows the height difference between the upper road, and the original route of the River Fleet (which would have been lower than the current road surface due to building over the original water course):

Holborn Viaduct

The bridge over Farringdon Street 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. One of the many 19th century “improvements” to the City, designed to address growing congestion along the streets, and to build a City that mirrored London’s global position.

Before the construction of the viaduct, there had been a hill which ran down from Holborn, down to the original route of the Fleet.

To get the level street surface of Holborn Viaduct, with sufficient clearance for the bridge over Farringdon Street, the level of the street needed to be raised, and is why the street is now higher than the churchyard around St. Andrew’s.

The church also lost part of the churchyard, as the new Holborn Viaduct was much wider than the street running down the hill, that it had replaced.

Whilst Holborn Viaduct now carries the street over a large road below, there has long been a bridge here, earlier versions of stone and wood, that carried the road from Holborn towards the City, and we can get an idea of how this looked in the following extract from William Morgan’s map of London from 1682:

St Andrew Holborn

I have underlined the location of St. Andrew’s with a red line, and you can see it had a large churchyard up to what was then called Holborn Hill, indicating that this was a hill from the higher ground of Holborn, down to the lower lying River Fleet.

The river can be seen to the right of the church, with Holborn Bridge spanning the river. In the late 17th century, the wide channel of the Fleet down to the Thames became a smaller river running north, although by this time, and with all the surrounding building, it was more an open sewer than a river.

We can get an idea of the gradient of Holborn Hill from the following two prints.

In the first, from the early 1800s, we can see the church and the surrounding churchyard, was originally higher than the street, and you can see the slope of the street outside the church as it heads down towards where the Fleet was once located:

Holborn Hill

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

In the second print (from 1831), we are looking across Holborn Bridge (which was roughly at the level of Farringdon Street today), up Holborn Hill, with the tower of St. Andrew on the left:

Holborn Hill

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

The above two prints show just how significant the impact of the 19th century Holborn Viaduct was on the area, and in the above print, we can imagine the River Fleet flowing in the foreground, marshy land on either side, then a hill rising up to the church – it would have been in a very prominent position.

St. Andrew occupies a place that has been the site of a religious building for very many centuries. The church we see today is just the latest version of the church.

The first written records of a church on the site date back to the year 959, when a charter of Westminster Abbey refers to an “old wooden church”’ on the hill above the River Fleet.

There was probably a church on the site for some years before the first written record, and we can imagine the scene with a small wooden church sitting on the high ground at the top of a hill from where the land runs steeply down to the River Fleet. A river that would have been wider prior to the buildings shown in the 1682 map, and with marshy banks.

So if you were heading towards the City, St. Andrew’s would have been just before the road descended down a hill to the Fleet, and if you were leaving the City, as you walked up the hill from the Fleet, you would come to St. Andrew’s.

Perhaps if you were entering or leaving the City, crossing the boundary of the Fleet, you would have wanted to pray, perhaps to ask for protection on the next stage of your journey.

Despite the amount of building across London over very many centuries, we can still see churches at what were major boundaries between the original City of London, and the rest of the city and the wider country. Churches are one of the few fixed points in the City’s landscape that have not moved for often over one thousand years.

We can use Morgan’s 1682 map for a quick tour of these boundaries. Just to the south of St. Andrew is another crossing over the River Fleet, where Fleet Street crossed the river up to Ludgate Hill, and just to the west of the Fleet, the same distance from the river as St. Andrew, we find what was St. Bridget, now St. Bride’s, which does have Roman and early mediaeval features in the Crypt, hinting at the age of the site :

St Brides

Headimg back north, and just to the west of the entrance to the City through Newgate, we find St. Sepulcher:

St Sepulcher

We then come to Aldersgate, and just outside the gate we find St. Botolphs (there are three St. Botolphs outside the gates of the City of London. The relevance of the dedication will become clear later in the post):

St Botolphs

Following the route of the wall, and next to Cripplegate, we find St. Giles:

St Giles

On the approach to Bishopsgate, we find St. Botolph, which claims to have been built on the site of an earlier Saxon church:

St Botolph

St. Botolph is the patron saint of travelers, so a church dedicated to the saint would often be found where there are boundaries, or city gates, and another church dedicated to St. Botolph can be found just outside Aldgate, so three with the same dedication, to be found by gates in the old City wall:

St Botolph

Churches located at major boundaries, crossings, entry and exit points can be found south of the river, and in the 1682 map, close to the southern end of London Bridge, we find two churches, St. Olave’s on the right, and St. Savior’s, now Southwark Cathedral on the left:

London Bridge

There is no church just outside the old Moorgate. I suspect that this may have been due to the marshy nature of the fields outside this gate in early centuries, a moor which gave its name to the area we know today, and which was only drained in the 16th century.

So a church close to a gate into the City of London, or where you would have had to have crossed either the Thames or the Fleet is a feature we can still see today, although the gates or crossing points they marked (with the exception of the Thames) are long gone.

Now let’s walk back to the church, and to get an idea what the hill was like up from the River Fleet in the 18th century, this report from the 11th of February, 1743 gives an indication:

“It is hoped proper Care will be immediately taken to destroy this Gang of Thieves; who to the Number of 20 and upwards assemble every Night, and plant themselves on each Side of the Way, from St. Andrew’s Church to Holborn Bridge, commit all kind of Villainies, and make that Passage the most dangerous of any in the Town”.

You probably would have wanted to nip into St. Andrew for a quick prayer before risking the “Gang of Thieves” waiting for you as you walked down Holborn Hill.

No such dangers today, and as we walk towards the entrance to the church, there are two figures on either side:

St Andrew Holborn

The figures are not in their original location, they came from St Andrew’s Parochial School for children of the poor dating from the 1720s. The school was based in a Chapel of Ease built in Hatton Garden in the 1670s. The building is still there today, and I will return to it in a future post.

The interior of the church has white upper walls with gold decoration, and wood paneling around the columns and side walls on the ground floor, which lead up to a gallery with tiered seating on either side:

St Andrew Holborn

The interior of the church looks very new, and was the result of a rebuild by the architects Seely and Paget between 1960 and 1961 to repair the very considerable wartime damage to the church.

The church featured in one of a series of postcards called London under Fire, showing damage to the city. In the postcard, the church can be seen on the left. the roof gone and the interior gutted. The side walls and tower surviving. The result of an incendiary bomb falling on the church:

St Andrew Holborn

The full series of London under Fire can be found in this post.

The church we see today, and the walls and tower in the above photo are from Christopher Wren’s rebuild of the church between 1684 and 1690. The previous church escaped any damage from the Great Fire, however it was a 15th century rebuild of an earlier medieval church, and was in need of significant repair.

Looking up to one of the galleries that run either side of the church:

St Andrew Holborn

Today, St. Andrew is a non-parochial Guild Church, meaning that the church serves the local working population rather than any resident population, so you will not find a Sunday service held at the church.

The pulpit:

St Andrew Holborn

The interior of the church looking back towards the main entrance and the organ:

St Andrew Holborn

There are very few memorials in the church, perhaps because of the destruction of the interior during the last war. There are a few on the wall, on either side of the main entrance, including one that dates from 1722:

St Andrew Holborn

St. Andrew, Holborn does have a wide range of associations with people and events over the years.

In 1799, Marc Brunel, the father of Isambard Kingdom, was married in the church, and in 1817 Benjamin Disraeli, a future Prime Minister, was christened in the church at the age of 12.

Another story connects the church with the founding of the Royal Free Hospital. The story concerns a local surgeon, William Marsden, who found a young girl dying from exposure in the churchyard on a winter’s night in 1827.

Marsden tried to get the girl into a hospital, however none would accept her, and she went on to die. Hospitals at the time usually required a letter of recommendation from a subscriber to the hospital

Marsden was so appalled by the attitude of these hospitals, and the lack of any care for those who had no ability to pay, that he decided to open a new hospital for those who could not pay or provide a letter of recommendation..

Marsden had the support of the Cordwainers Company, and in April 1828 he opened the Royal Free Hospital in a small house in Greville Street, Hatton Garden (originally just the Free Hospital, with Royal added not long after through the patronage of the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria).

I could not find any reference from the time to the founding story of the discovery of the girl in the churchyard, however reports of annual general meetings of the hospital do confirm the aims of providing free care for those who could not afford to pay, and who could not get a letter of recommendation from a subscriber. For example, from the record of the 1837 anniversary dinner:

This institution has been established to afford immediate assistance to all applicants, but more particularly to meet the wants of the poor and diseased, whose wretched situation and circumstances render them, in most instances, unable to procure the recommendations required to obtain admission or assistance from the hospitals and dispensaries of the metropolis, and from which this institution differs in these important facts – that its doors are always open to the poor and afflicted, without any passport save their own infirmities.

No ticket or recommendation from a subscriber is necessary; poverty and disease are alone the wretched qualifications which entitle them to the benefit the charity is capable of affording.”

The Royal Free Hospital is now in Pond Street, Hampstead, and William Marsden would also found, in 1851, the Brompton Cancer Hospital, which would become the Royal Marsden Hospital.

St. Andrew’s has another connection with someone who would try and help the poor of the city.

Just inside the main entrance to the church is the tomb of Thomas Coram, the founder of the Foundling Hospital, which started out in a temporary building in Hatton Garden in 1741.

Foundlings were abandoned very young children, or the young children of single mothers or poor parents, who could not afford to bring up their child.

The Foundling Hospital deserves a full post, but in the entrance to St. Andrew’s, we can see Coram’s tomb. He was originally buried on the site of the original Foundling Hospital, but in 1955 his tomb was moved to St. Andrew’s when the hospital buildings in Berkhampsted (the location of the Foundling Hospital after moving from where Coram Fields is today) were demolished:

Thomas Coram

The font and pulpit from the Foundling Hospital chapel were also moved to St. Andrew’s.

Another survivor from another place at St. Andrew’s is a resurrection stone, showing Christ standing over the dead, as they rise from their coffins preparing for the final day of judgment:

St Andrew Holborn

The resurrection stone came from the entrance to a cemetery used by St. Andrew’s for burying the poor, located a short distance from the church with an entrance from Shoe Lane, ringed in the following extract from Morgan’s 1682 map:

St Andrew Holborn

Another survivor, very different, but no less interesting, is the war memorial from the stores of A.W. Gamage and Benetfink & Co:

Gamages

Not exactly what you would expect to find hidden in a City churchyard. Gamages was a large department store in Holborn and Benetfink were a Cheapside based ironmongers, taken over by A.W. Gamage in 1907.

Gamages closed in March 1972, and the war memorial was moved to St. Andrew’s churchyard.

I have no idea why it is in the churchyard rather than inside the church, however it is good that it remains in Holborn, and is the last trace of the Gamages company and department store to be found in Holborn.

As usual, a quick run through some fascinating history, and St. Andrew, Holborn is an interesting example of how churches were located at important boundary points, boundaries that are not (with the exception of the Thames) visible today.

We cannot get into the minds of mediaeval inhabitants of London, so it is difficult to fully understand the importance of a church at such a location, but given the number of churches through the City, it does show how important religion was, including at places where you were crossing a boundary, entering or leaving the City, crossing the Fleet or the Thames.

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Prudential Building and Furnival’s Inn

A quick advert – if you would like to explore Wapping or the Barbican, there are only a few places left on my upcoming walks:

All other walks have sold out.

Walk along Holborn and one of the most impressive buildings you will see is the old head office of Prudential Assurance:

Prudential building Holborn

The Prudential moved into their new office in 1879, which was quite an achievement given that the company had only been founded 31 years earlier in 1848.

The building exudes Victorian commercial power and was a statement building for the company that was at the time the country’s largest assurance company.

The lower part of the building uses polished granite, with red brick and red terracotta across all upper floors. If you stare at the building long enough the use of polished granite gives the impression that there has been a large flood along Holborn, which has left a tide mark on the building after washing out the red colour from the lower floors.

The building is Grade II* listed and was designed by Alfred Waterhouse with help from his son Paul. After Prudential initially moved into the building, constriction continued as could be expected on a building of this size which extends back from Holborn for some distance. The front range facing onto Holborn was completed between 1897 and 1901.

In the centre of the façade is a tower, with a large arch leading through into inner courtyards around which are further wings of the building:

Prudential building Holborn

Alfred Waterhouse was born in 1830 in Liverpool. His father was involved in the cotton trade, working as a cotton broker. The family had quite an influence on the future, with one of his brothers founding an accountancy firm that would eventually become PriceWaterhouse, and a second brother, Theodore, starting a legal company that became Field Fisher Waterhouse (the company has since dropped the Waterhouse name).

After attending a Quaker school in Tottenham, Alfred Waterhouse started work in Manchester where he worked on a number of private residences and public buildings, however he first major commission came when he won a competition for the Assize Courts in Manchester in 1858.

The Assize Courts were badly damaged by wartime bombing, and were condemned by the post-war decision not to rebuild. The Gothic style of Waterhouse’s work was not in fashion with architectural styles of the 1950s and 60s.

The following photo of the Manchester Assize Courts shows what an impressive building it was, and the similarities with the Prudential Building (Attribution: Old stereoscope card, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons):

Manchester assize courts

His other work in Manchester included Strangeways Prison (now just HM Prison Manchester), and Manchester Town Hall, which did survive wartime bombing of the city, and still looks glorious today. Again, the same Gothic style and parallels with the Prudential building can be seen:

Manchester town hall

Waterhouse moved his architectural practice from Manchester to London in 1865.

He lost out on a competition to design the Law Courts in the Strand, but did win the competition for the Natural History Museum in Kensington, which again follows a similar style to his previous works, although with the museum, at the centre of the wide façade is the main entrance, which has two smaller towers on either side of the central block.

The Natural History Museum also displays a move from Gothic to Romanesque as an architectural style.

The design of the new building was considered such a success by Prudential that they commissioned Alfred Waterhouse and his son Paul to design a further 21 office buildings for the company in cities across the country. Some of these, such as in Southampton, can still be seen.

Waterhouse died in 1905, just a few years after Queen Victoria, and his Gothic designs with large buildings often including central towers have come to be symbolic of a style of Victorian architecture, that ended at the very start of the 20th century.

The Prudential adopted the figure of Prudence in 1848 as the symbol for the company. Prudence was said to have the qualities of memory, intelligence and foresight, enabling a prudent act to consider the past, present and future.

The figure of Prudence can be seen in a niche above the main entrance into the building and was the work of the sculptor Frederick William Pomeroy:

Prudential building Holborn

The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association was founded in 1848 in Hatton Garden, and their target market was the sale of life assurance and the provision of loans to the emerging Victorian middle and industrious classes.

The company advertised the sale of shares in January 1849 to raise capital, and their advert gives an idea of the financial products that were starting to become widely available in the middle of the 19th century:

“The following important new features and advantages in Life Assurance, now introduced by this Association, are earnestly impressed on the attention of the public, particularly of the industrial classes, viz :-

  1. To enable members subscribing for £20 shares, payable by small monthly or quarterly instalments, to securely invest their savings and participate in the whole amount of profits, or in the case of death their representatives to receive the amount of each share in cash.
  2. To enable Members to purchase real or other property, by advances from the Association on such property.
  3. To grant members loans on real or other security.
  4. To create by periodical subscriptions an Accumulating Fund, the profits arising from which to be from time to time divided amongst its members.
  5. To afford an opportunity to a borrower of securing his surety from future payments in case of his (the borrower’s) death.
  6. Life Assurance in a reduced scale for the whole life or term of years, on lives, joint lives, or on survivorship.

The comment “payable by small monthly or quarterly instalments” is reminder of the method used by the company to collect payments, with the “Man from the Pru” becoming the term for an insurance salesman who calls door to door to collect regular payment for Prudential’s products.

The Man from the Pru was also the title of a 1990 film which was based on the true story of a Prudential employee who was convicted of the murder of his wife.

He was found guilty and sentenced to death, however employees of the Prudential raised several hundred pounds and the case went to appeal and he was found not guilty, mainly due to very flimsy evidence being presented.

Immediatly after being acqutted, he continued his employment with the Prudential.

The “Man from the Pru” operated across the country, and was supported by company offices in multiple towns and cities.

There is a frieze along the façade of the Prudential building, which includes coats of arms of many of the places where the company had an office:

Prudential building Holborn

I have been able to identify a few of these arms. In the above photo, the arms of Belfast is at the left, then could be Norwich, although the castle should be above the lion, on the right is Bristol.

In the photo below, Leeds is second from left, then Coventry:

Prudential building Holborn

Look up when walking in through the main entrance, and admire the incredible brickwork:

Prudential building Holborn

When built, the Prudential building was very advanced for its time. There was hot and cold running water, electric lighting, and to speed the delivery of paperwork across the site, a pnematic tube system was installed, where documents were put into canisters, which were then blown through the tube system to their destination.

Ladies were provided with their own restaurant and library, and had a separate entrance, and were also allowed to leave 15 minutes early to “avoid consorting with men”.

The façade onto Holborn is just part of the Prudential complex as it extends some considerable way back from the street. The size of the building was not just because of the number of workers, but was also to enable storage of the sheer volume of paperwork resulting from insuring almost one third of the UK population at the peek of the Prudential’s size.

Walking through the main entrance and there is a small open space, where we can see a connecting bridge between wings of the complex, with ornate windows above a large arch:

Prudential building Holborn

There is a plaque on the wall, recording that Charles Dickens lived here. He lived here between 1833 and 1836 when the site was occupied by Furnival’s Inn, more of which later in the post:

Prudential building Holborn

More stunning brickwork in the arch over the entrance to the courtyard at the back of the complex:

Prudential building Holborn

The overall Prudential site was expanded and remodeled during the years of their occupation.

Being an information intensive business, their building needed to adjust to changing technology, and methods of recording and storing data.

In the 1930s the interior of the original blocks were rebuilt with large open plan floors in the art deco style in order to accommodate punch card machinery.

There was another major refurbishment in the 1980s which completed by 1993, but by then the Prudential’s days in their Holborn office complex were numbered. Departments had been moving out of central London for a number of years, for example their Industrial Branch administration had moved to Reading in 1965.

In 1999, the Prudential’s Group Head Office relocated to Laurence Pountney Hill.

Since 2019, the Prudential has been focused on Asia and the Far East. The UK businesses were transferred to M&G which today is a completely separate company to the Prudential, although Prudential still retain a head office in London and are quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

The following photo shows the rear courtyard of the complex, now named Waterhouse Square after the original architect of the buildings. The dome in the centre provides natural light to the space below:

Prudential building Holborn

But what was on the site before the Prudential building? To discover that, we need to look at the Corporation of London blue plaque to the right of the main entrance from Holborn:

Furnival's Inn

The plaque records that the Prudential building is on the site of Furnival’s Inn, which was demolished in 1897 to make way for the Prudential building.

The name comes from William de Furnival who, around the year 1388, leased part of his lands in Holborn to the Clerks of Chancery, who prepared writs for the King’s Court, assisted by apprentices who received the first stages of their legal training at the Inn.

By the 15th century, the Inns of Chancery had become a type of preparatory school for students, and by 1422, Furnival’s Inn was attached to Lincoln’s Inn, who later in 1548 took on a long term lease.

Furnival’s Inn was described as the equivalent of Eton with Lincoln’s Inn being King’s College at Cambridge. At the end of each year, Lincoln’s Inn would receive students from Furnival’s who had received their training, and reached the standard required to move up, and receive the next stage of their training, along with the greater freedoms that an Inn of Court could offer.

The scale of Funival’s Inn can be seen in the following extract from William Morgan’s 1682 map of London, where the inn can be seen in the centre of the map:

Furnival's Inn

Furnival’s Inn occupied much of the space currently occupied by the old Prudential buiding. The map also includes some of the many legal institutions based in this part of Holborn. Part of Grays Inn can be seen to the left, and below and to the left of Furnival’s Inn is another Inn of Chancery, Staple Inn.

To the right of the map is Ely House which I wrote about in a post a couple of weeks ago.

As with the Prudential building, Furnival’s Inn had a very impressive front onto Holborn. This is from the early 19th century (the following prints are © The Trustees of the British Museum):

Furnival's Inn

This drawing from around 1720 shows the scale of Furnival’s Inn:

Furnival's Inn

As with the Prudential building, Furnival’s Inn had a central entrance from Holborn. Once through this entrance, there is an inner courtyard surrounded by buildings, and behind this courtyard is a garden, again surrounded by buildings.

The following print is from 1804 and shows part of the inner court:

Furnival's Inn

By the 17th century, the Inns of Chancery had begun to turn into societies for the legal profession, and Furnival’s Inn became residential, offices and dining clubs.

Their use as places of training and education for students before they transferred to the Inns of Court had been reducing over time and by the 19th century, Furnival’s Inn had ceased to exist for its original purpose, with only what were classed as “6 ancients and 16 juniors”.

It was dissolved in 1817, and when Lincoln’s Inn did not renew their lease a year later, some of the buildings were sold off and demolished, with apartments and a hotel occupying part of the site.

Parts of the old Furnival’s buildings were still used by those in the legal profession, and there were a number of adverts and articles in the press from solicitors based in the buildings, for example in 1880 a solicitor J.C. Asprey who had an address of 6 Furnival’s Inn was advertising for any claimants to the estate of a deceased resident of Hackney.

Final clearance of the site ready for the Prudential removed the last of the Furnival buildings and name from the site, however the Prudential building retained a similar layout with a large façade along Holborn, with inner courtyards surrounded by buildings.

Whilst the architecture and brickwork of the Prudential building is impressive, the drawings of the interior of Furnival’s Inn show a place which had evolved over time, with buildings that were probably put up at different times and for different purposes, which must have been an interesting place to explore.

The following print is dated 1820, just after the Inn had ceased to function as an inn of Chancery. On the range of buildings to the left, an open arch can be seen which leads through to Holborn, and at the far end on the right is a building which looks as if it could have been a central hall, with a large bay window looking out onto the courtyard.

Furnival's Inn

After the Prudential left the building, work was done to extend at the rear and refresh / build new, along part of the western side of the building. The streets, part of which are pedestrianised, surrounding three sides of the complex are called Waterhouse Square.

The building is now used by multiple companies as office space, but I understand is still owned by the Prudential.

Fascinating to think that, whilst the buildings have changed across the centuries, this part of Holborn has been occupied by the buildings of only two institutions across almost 700 years – Furnival’s Inn and the Prudential.

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Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the Rye House Plot

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

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

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

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

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The railings were put up around the square in 1735.

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

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

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

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

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

William Lord Russell Rye House plot

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

Who was William Lord Russell and why was he executed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

William Lord Russell Rye House Plot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

William Lord Russell Rye House Plot

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

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

William Lord Russell Rye House Plot

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

Rye House Plot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elizabeth Gaunt

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

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

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

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

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

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

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

Along the western side is Lincoln’s Inn:

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

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

Royal College of Surgeons

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

Lincoln's Inn Fields

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

Lindsey House

Lindsey House looks very much the same today:

Lindsey House

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

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

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

alondoninheritance.com

Ely Place and St. Etheldreda​

Walter Thornbury’s opening description of Ely Place in Old and New London is a perfect summary: “A little north of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, and running parallel to Hatton Garden, stand two rows of houses known as Ely Place. To the public it is one of those unsatisfactory streets which lead nowhere; to the inhabitants it is quiet and pleasant; to the student of Old London it is possessed of all the charms which can be given by five centuries of change and the long residence of the great and noble.”

From St. Andrew’s church, cross the approach to Holborn Viaduct, then across Charterhouse Street, we can see the entrance to Ely Place:

Ely Place

Thornbury’s description hints at the long and complex history of the street and surroundings, and the gatehouse at the entrance to Ely Place confirms that this is not a normal London street.

Much of the street remains lined with houses from the 1770s development of Ely Place, although many have been modified and restored, and there was considerable bomb damage to the area during the last war, however the view still demonstrates what a fine late 18th century London terrace would have looked like:

Ely Place

Along the western side of Ely Place is a curious indentation in the terrace, and here we can see the church of St. Etheldreda, with to the right Audrey House, which according to the Camden Council “Area Appraisal and Management Strategy” is 19th century. I assume late 19th century (Audrey was another version of the name of Etheldreda):

Ely Place

View looking south. The terrace house immediately to the left of the church has a strange ground floor, which I will discover soon:

Ely Place

As Thornbury hinted, Ely Place has a very long history.

In the 13th century, the land appears to have been in the possession of John de Kirkeby, Bishop of Ely, as on his death in 1290, he left the land and nine cottages to his successor Bishops of Ely.

It was normal in the medieval period for important figures in the church to maintain a residence in London. This was so they had somewhere to stay when visiting the city, where they could entertain, and to ensure that although they might be representing places far across the country, they could still have a presence close to the centre of royal and political power.

The Bishops of Ely originally had a house in the City of London, however there seems to have been a falling out with Hugh Bigod who was the Justiciary of England in the mid 13th century, and who tried to deny them access to their property in the Temple. It may have been this event which either gave John de Kirkeby the idea, or he was persuaded, to leave the land following his death to the Bishops.

The Bishops won a legal case to continue use of their City house, but following the bequest of such a large area of land, in the still semi-rural area to the west of the City, it must have seemed a good idea to build a new London home for the Bishops of Ely.

The Bishops than started the development of the land, into a property suitable for use as their London home. A chapel to St. Etheldreda was probably one of the first buildings on the site, along with the bishop’s house. William de Luda, the bishop that followed John de Kirkby purchased some additional land and houses and left these to the Bishops of Ely on his death.

The house and grounds were continuously added to, and developed during the 14th century, and we can get an idea of the size of the place from the so called Agas map from around 1561:

Ely Place

I have marked the streets that formed the boundaries to the Bishop’s land, Holborn to the south (you can see the name Ely Place and St. Andrew’s church just to the right of where I have marked Holborn).

Saffron Hill is to the east, then just a lane winding along the top of the bank down to the River Fleet. Hatton Wall formed the boundary to the north and Leather Lane (identified using its earlier name of Lither Lane) to the west. To confirm locations, I have also marked Fetter Lane in yellow to the south of Holborn.

The house and chapel were in the southern part of the estate, with gardens and extensive grounds up to Hatton Wall.

The quality of the fruit from the gardens must have been well known as Shakespeare has Richard III saying to John Morton, the Bishop of Ely:

“When I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there
I do beseech you send for some of them.”

Ely House also appears in Richard II, where the dying John of Gaunt includes the following well known lines:

“This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself,
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,”

John of Gaunt did stay in Ely House from 1381 until his death in 1399. His London residence at Savoy Palace had been destroyed during the Peasants Revolt. John of Gaunt was one of those that the leaders of the revolt demanded to be handed over for execution.

Other visitors to Ely House included Henry VII who attended a banquet in 1495 and Henry VIII with Catherine of Aragon, who both attended the final day of a five day “entertainment” in November 1531. A prodigious amount of food was recorded as being consumed during the five days.

The extract from the Agas map shown above dates from around 1561, and the grounds of Ely House would soon start to be developed.

Queen Elizabeth I required that the Bishop of Ely lease part of the grounds to her Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton in 1576.

Hatton started the developed of the land, which included construction of a new house for him in the gardens. The lease would stay in the Hatton family until 1772 when the last Lord Hatton died. It then reverted to the Crown.

In the years of Hatton ownership, Ely House had a varied history. During the Civil War the house was used as a prison for captured Royalists, as well as a hospital for injured soldiers. The Bishops of Ely returned in 1660 to part of the property, but by then much had been developed and was held by the Hatton family.

We can get an idea of the development of the area in the years before the death of the last Lord Hatton from the following extract from a map of St. Andrew’s parish, dated 1755:

Ely Place

We can see a considerably reduced Ely Garden just to the north of Holborn Hill, with Ely House marked, and the chapel just below the word House.

Hatton Street (now Hatton Garden) had been built, and housing and streets had been constructed up towards Hatton Wall at the north, to Leather Lane in the west and Saffron Hill to the east. The banks of the fleet had also been built on by 1755, and the words “The Town Ditch” rather than River Fleet give some idea of the state of the old river by the middle of the 18th century.

The Bishops of Ely finally left the property in 1772, when they were given Ely House in Dover Street. This probably worked well as the above map extract shows, the area was heavily developed, and the house and grounds were in a state of disrepair.

The following print issued in 1810, but probably drawn in the second half of the 1700s is recorded as showing Ely House in London  (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

Ely Place

The view of the house in the above print does not look too much like the house shown in the parish map extract, however the following print dated 1772 from Grose’s Antiquities of England and Wales provides a better view as this shows the chapel on the right and house in the background, in the correct orientation as shown in the parish map  (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

Ely Place

The parish map implies that there is an open space between the house and chapel, however in the above two prints, the two buildings appear to be connected.

The old chapel on the grounds of Ely House is the only structure remaining from the time when the Bishops of Ely owned the site. Today, recessed slightly from the street, the chapel is now the church of St. Etheldreda.

It is shown in this 1815 print, with the two late 18th century terraces on either side  (© The Trustees of the British Museum):

St. Etheldreda

The lower part of the church appears to have changed since the time of the above print. The original entrance looks to have been up some steps from the street and there seems to be two doors through into the church.

Today, if I have understood the layout of the church correctly, the altar would be behind these doors, so the church now has a different entrance, shown in the photo below:

St. Etheldreda

Today, the entrance to St. Etheldreda is through a door into the ground floor of the terrace house on the left of the church. From here, the door leads through to a corridor that runs along part of the south wall of the church:

St. Etheldreda

The church is dedicated to St. Etheldreda, and this dedication can be traced back to the Ely heritage of the church.

An 1825 newspaper description of Etheldreda provides some background:

“This day, October 19th, is the anniversary of St. Etheldreda; she was a Princess of distinguished piety, and daughter of Aunas, King of the East Angles, and Heriswitha, his Queen, and was born in the year 630, at Ixning, a small village in Suffolk; at an early age she made a vow of perpetual chastity, which is recorded she never broke, though she was twice married, first to Thombert, an English Lord, and afterwards to Egfrith, king of Northumberland, in 671. Having lived twelve years with this King, she retired from the world, and devoted herself to God and religious contemplation, erecting an Abbey at Ely, of which she became superior, and where she spent the remainder of her days.”

There appears to have been a bit more to her “retiring from the world”. She had married Egfrith when he was aged 15, but by age 27 he wanted a more normal marital relationship. Egfrith tried to bribe Etheldreda, but she was standing firm and left him, becoming a nun at Coldingham, before going on to found an abbey at Ely.

Ely Cathedral was dedicated to Saints Peter, Etheldreda and Mary in 1109, and the Bishops of Ely carried the dedication to Etheldreda to their chapel in London.

Along the corridor is the entrance to the crypt:

St. Etheldreda

But before looking at the crypt, there is an interesting feature just to the right of the door:

St. Etheldreda

There was an article in a 1926 edition of the Illustrated London News, which discussed the Roman City. The article states that “Equally curious is the fact that digging has revealed only the slightest signs of Christian worship in Roman London, although it is known that there was a Christian community in Londinium, and that it was ruled by a Bishop as early as the third century. The chief ‘clue’ is at St. Etheldreda’s Church, Ely Place. It is a curiously archaic bowl shaped font of limestone of similar form to the two which are preserved at Brecon Cathedral. it was found buried in the undercroft.

Of the St. Etheldreda’s font, Sir Gilbert Scott said ‘You may call the bowl British or Roman, for it is older than the Saxon period’; and some support to this statement is provided by the fact that Roman bricks have been found on the site.”

A quick Google for the Brecon fonts shows these to be Norman, not early Christian, and the main font in the church does look like the Brecon font, so I have no idea whether this feature on the wall is the one referred to in the article, whether the article is right, and whether St. Etheldreda had, or has an early Christian font.

A walk down into the crypt reveals a dimly lit space, presumably with seating laid out for a function such as a marriage:

St. Etheldreda

Niches in the walls with religious symbolism:

St. Etheldreda

The crypt is very different to how it was many years ago. In May 1880, members of the St. Paul’s Ecclesiological Society visited St. Etheldreda’s and their description of the church includes some history on the crypt:

“The members of the St. Paul’s Ecclesiological Society held their second afternoon gathering for the present summer on Saturday, and inspected the chapel of St. Etheldreda, in Ely-place, Holborn. At the construction of the chapel, which was formerly the private chapel of the Palace of the Bishops of Ely, was fully explained by Mr. John Young (the architect under whom the fabric has recently been renovated throughout), who discoursed on its early history and on the salient points of its chief architectural features, its loft oak roof, its magnificent eastern and western windows, full of geometrical tracery, its lofty side lights, its ancient sculptures, and lastly its undercroft or crypt, which till very lately was filled up with earth and barrels of ale and porter from Messrs. Reid’s brewery close by.

Removing the earth from the crypt, it may be remembered, there were discovered the skeletons of several persons who had been killed 200 years ago by the fall of a chapel in Blackfriars, and were here interred.

The ‘conservative’ restoration of the fabric – in the general plan of the late Sir George Gilbert Scott, had been frequently consulted – was much admired by the ecclesiologists.”

The fall of a chapel in Blackfriars occurred on the afternoon of Sunday 26th of October 1623, when around 300 people had assembled to hear a Catholic sermon by the Jesuit preacher, Robert Drury, at the French ambassador’s residence.

As it was a Catholic sermon, the congregation of people was considered illegal.

The roof of the hall in which the sermon was underway collapsed and around 100 people were killed. Rather than any sympathy, anti-Catholic feeling at the time unleashed a religious riot at the site of the tragedy.

I understand that the skeletons of those who died at Blackfriars, and were buried and subsequently discovered in St. Etheldreda’s were reburied, and still rest in the church.

View from the rear of the crypt:

St. Etheldreda

One of the niches that line the crypt walls:

St. Etheldreda

The church above is a lovely space. I do not know if this is the normal form of lighting, but it added to the impression of the age and history of the church. Very different to the typical brightly lit London church:

St. Etheldreda

St Etheldreda was caught up in the religious changes brought about by Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries.

The mass which had been celebrated by the Bishops of Ely in the Church of St Etheldreda since it was first built in the 13th century, was abolished, and the Book of Common Prayer became the standard for religious services.

Apart from a short period of five years when the Catholic Queen Mary was on the throne, the Catholic service was banned, and anyone participating in, or preaching a Catholic service would be treated as a criminal, with a death sentence often the result.

A special allowance was made in 1620 when the Spanish Ambassador, the Count of Gondomar, moved into Ely Place. Due to his position as Ambassador, and the custom that the ambassadors residence and grounds are considered part of the country they represent, which in the case of Spain was a Catholic country, Catholic services were allowed to be held in St. Etheldreda’s. 

When Gondomar was recalled to Spain, his replacement was not allowed to take up residence at Ely Place, and permission for Catholic services was removed.

Detail of the stained glass above the altar:

St. Etheldreda

The church was included in the use of Ely house and grounds as a hospital and prison during the Civil War.

Anti-Catholic feeling can be seen in the treatment of the uncle of Sit Christopher Wren. Matthew Wren was Bishop of Ely and tried to restore the grounds of Ely Place from the Hatton family, however he was reported for his “Popish ways” and imprisoned in the Tower of London. When he was finally released, the land which he had tried to restore had been built over and was very much as shown in the earlier parish map extract.

The change to the way that the State viewed the Catholic faith started in 1829 when the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed. This Act allowed Catholics to have their own churches, and for the Catholic mass.

In 1843, St. Etheldreda’s church opened as a Welsh language church, however the church reverted to the Catholic faith in 1873 when the church was purchased by the Rosminians – a Catholic congregation also called the Institute of Charity.

The church has featured in commemorations of Catholics who had been executed in earlier centuries. In 1912, it was reported that “Several hundreds of ‘the faithful’ marched in procession on Sunday afternoon from Newgate to Tyburn, along the route followed by the Catholic martyrs in a less tolerant age. The pilgrimage is the third of its kind, having been inaugurated three years ago.

Following the Crucifix, which was held aloft by Father Fletcher, came 150 men who marched in front of 190 women, most of whom recited prayers along the route.

The first stop was at the church of St. Etheldreda, the ancient church of the Bishops of Ely at Holborn. Thence the procession, the numbers of which increased with every mile covered, visited in turn the Catholic Church in Kingsway and St. Peter’s, Soho, and finished up at the Convent, near Tyburn.”

A sign today outside the church states that it was returned to the Old Faith in 1874 and that it continues in the care of the Rosiminian Fathers.

View towards the rear of the church:

St. Etheldreda

Side windows of stained glass:

St. Etheldreda

St. Etheldreda’s was badly bombed during the last war. There was significant damage to the roof and all the original stained glass was lost. When one bomb fell, there were people sheltering in the crypt, luckily there were no casualties.

The church was restored over the following years, and officially reopened on the 2nd of July, 1952 as commemorated by a plaque embedded in the wall under the Royal coat of arms:

St. Etheldreda

Walking back outside, and along the corridor there must have once been a café on the other side of this door, with an old Luncheon Vouchers sticker on the door:

St. Etheldreda

Back in Ely Place, and it is officially a dead end, although there is a doorway through to Bleeding Heart Yard, which the general walker is encouraged not to use:

Ely Place

There is some rather wonderful tiling on the blank arches at the end of the street which presumably also records the date when this wall was built:

Ely Place

On the western side of Ely Place is an entrance to Ely Court:

Ely Court

Along the alley is the pub Ye Old Mitre:

Ye Old Mitre

The Mitre (a bishops hat) is believed to have been founded in 1546 for the servants at the Bishop of Ely’s house, although the present buildings are later. The Grade II listing of the building states that it is “Circa 1773 with early C20 internal remodelling and late C20 extension at rear”, and that “near entrance glazed in to reveal trunk of what is believed to be a cherry tree, marking the boundary of the properties held by the Bishop of Ely and Sir Christopher Hatton”. There are also stories that Sir Christopher Hatton and Queen Elizabeth I danced around the tree, however I always find such stories somewhat doubtful.

The Mitre seen from further along the alley shows the late 18th century origins in the architectural style of the building:

Ye Old Mitre

On the front of the building is a mitre, and I have read some sources that state that this is from the original Ely House, however I can find no early source for this, and it is not stated in the Historic England listing details so I am dubious that it is from the original house:

Ye Old Mitre

Again, only a very brief description of a place with so much history, and a church that tells much about the state and country’s attitudes to the Catholic faith over the last five hundred years.

Ely Place was once a part of the church of Ely in London. Many of the rights associated with such a status have been removed over the last couple of hundred years, however it is still a very distinctive place, and the street and St. Etheldreda are well worth a visit.

You may also be interested in my post Ely Cathedral and Oliver Cromwell, when I visited Ely to find the location of some of my father’s photos from 1952.

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Atlantic House, Holborn Viaduct

In the late 1940s and early 1950s reconstruction started on many of the sites that had been destroyed by wartime bombing. One of the buildings completed in 1951 was Atlantic House, Holborn Viaduct.

This was an easy location to find, but in discovering more about the building I found how in London some things remain the same, and how some buildings are not what they seem.

My father took the following photo of Atlantic House in 1951 shortly after completion of the building. The photo was taken on Holborn Viaduct looking towards Holborn Bridge over Farringdon Street.

The photo below is an enlargement of part of the above photo and shows the bridge over Farringdon Street to the right of the lamp post with the remains of a building just behind the bridge with the outline of stairs on the adjoining wall. I will come on to the relevance of this building later.

This area of London suffered badly during the war as can be seen from the Aerofilms photo below taken in 1951. The photo also demonstrates how random was the impact of bombing with some blocks of buildings completely destroyed whilst others remain untouched.

In the photo Atlantic House was still under construction. The building is in the lower left corner. The length along Holborn Viaduct appears complete whilst that along Farringdon Street is still just the steel framework.

Atlantic House was design by T.P. Bennett & Son, an architectural practice that is still in existence today.

Atlantic House was built under the government’s “lessor scheme”. This was a scheme to try and get post war building underway as there was a considerable shortage of office space across the city.

Under the “lessor scheme” office buildings would be leased back to the government for a fixed rate of interest. This provided a cost effective way for the government to get office space built whilst providing a modest return for the construction company.

The aim of the “lessor scheme” was to develop office space quickly and cost effectively so there was little incentive for good architecture.

Atlantic House was built of steel frame (as seen in the Aerofilms photo) with the frame being clad in brick. The building had symmetrical frontages on both Holborn Viaduct and Farringdon Street with a curved corner facing onto the bridge over Farringdon Street.

The architecture was very much of a 1930s style with long lines of windows along the otherwise plain long facades. It was criticised for its architectural blandness when completed, although I rather like the curved corner of the building.

The photo below is from the LMA Collage collection and shows the two long facades and the curved corner facing the bridge.

(Photo used with permission from London Metropolitan Archives, City of London. Catalogue reference SC/PHL/01/013/57/3007)

Atlantic House lasted almost 50 years and was demolished in 2000 and 2001, to be replaced by:

Another Atlantic House, but of a very different architectural style and built of very different materials.

Whilst Atlantic House is very different the building on the corner is also new as it does not appear in the photos of the post war Atlantic House. Originally, Holborn Bridge had four pavilions, one on each corner of the bridge. During the war, the two northern pavilions were destroyed by bombing, only the two southern pavilions remained.

Go back to the enlargement of my father’s photo and the remains of the north eastern pavilion is the structure seen at the end of the bridge.

When the 1951 Atlantic House was built, the remains of the original pavilion were demolished and a concrete stairway built at bridge level to provide access to Farringdon Street below. The original pavilion was not rebuilt.

The pavilion that we see on the north west corner today was built after Atlantic House was demolished in 2001. Built to replicate the original, it looks old but is relatively recent.

Given that the name Atlantic House is on the building that now occupies the site of the post war Atlantic House, I checked whether there was a pre-war Atlantic House on the same site, and sure enough there was, and I was able to find records of the building dating back to 1901, so there have been three different incarnations of Atlantic House going back for at least 116 years.

The current Atlantic House is occupied by a legal services company. The post war version was the home of Her Majesty’s Stationary Office and the pre- war building appears to have been home to a number of companies including Armour & Co. Ltd, famed for their tinned meats including Armour’s Corned Beef, Armour’s Boned Chicken and Armour’s Ox Tonque which could all be purchased from Harrod’s as well as stores across the country.

Another occupant of the pre-war Atlantic House was the Berthon Boat Company, a manufacturer of collapsible boats.

Percy K. Langdale, the secretary of the Berthon Boat Company wrote to the Pall Mall Gazette on the 25th April 1912, one of a number of letters concerning the sinking of the Titanic.

The Berthon Boat Company manufactured collapsible boats which were used as back up to wooden life boats. Langdale wrote that:

“Unfortunately, in shipping disasters, collapsible boats, being supplementary or auxiliary, are only resorted to after every wooden boat has been launched, and when the vessel is generally going down, so are seldom brought into use. In the case of the Titanic disaster, however, two and a half hours elapsed from the time of collision to the sinking, so there was ample time to have got out sufficient collapsible craft for all on board of the vessel had she been equipped with a sufficient number of them.”

I have no idea how good the Berthon collapsible boats were, but it does make you wonder how many lifes would have been saved if their boats had been on board the Titanic.

On the north east corner of Holborn Bridge, Bath House was built on the site in the 1970s and in 2014, following demolition of Bath House and as part of the redevlopment which included a new Bath House, the final missing pavilion building was constructed. Whilst in the style of the original pavilions, the clean stonework gives away that this is a building only three years of age.

The round plaque on the lower left of the pavilion is a City Heritage Award from 2014. The reconstructed pavilions on the north side of Holborn Bridge are rather good replicas of the originals. The photo below shows one of the original pavilions, still standing on the south east corner of Holborn Bridge.

As can be seen in the photos above, on each of the pavilions there is a niche containing a statue of a London Mayor. The four mayors are shown below and are:

South east pavilion – Sir Thomas Gresham

North easrt pavilion – Sir Hugh Myddelton

North west pavilion – Sir William Walworth

South west pavilion – Henry Fitz Eylwin (the first Lord Mayor of London)

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.

Whilst Holborn Bridge is the most obvious part of the Viaduct, there are other places where it can be seen, including the height of the viaduct above the land where it once sloped down, either side of the Fleet River.

One such place is the smaller bridge over Shoe Lane.

The small bridge over Shoe Lane can also be seen in my father’s photo below, taken from a slightly different angle than the first photo and showing the Shoe Lane Bridge at the lower edge of Atlantic House.

The height of the viaduct can also be seen looking out from Holborn Bridge, south along Farringdon Street down towards the River Thames.

As well as the four statues of London Mayors on the pavilion buildings, the bridge also has four statues to Agriculture, Commerce, Fine Art and Science.

Each of the pavilions provides a means of getting between Holborn Viaduct and Farringdon Street with a staircase in each pavilion. This was probably their original design purpose, providing access between the two levels via an ornate set of symmetrical buildings at each corner of the bridge.

Although the post war Atlantic House did not include rebuilding the pavilion, it did provide a staircase between Holborn Viaduct and Farringdon Street as well as the three windows which look out from the first floor, however it is a very utilitarian concrete structure.

(Photo used with permission from London Metropolitan Archives, City of London. Catalogue reference SC/PHL/01/010/75/360)

In the photo above, the ground floor was occupied by W.B. Poultry & Meats Ltd, one of the many businesses in this area connected with Smithfield Market.

Atlantic House and Holborn Viaduct and Bridge show that despite frequent rebuilding there is some continuity in the names of buildings with Atlantic House being the name for the building on the north west corner of the bridge for over 116 years.

They also demonstrate that some things are not quite what they seem with the pavilions on the north side of Holborn Bridge missing for several decades and now being replicas of the originals.

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London Postcards

Back in August, I published a number of London Postcards showing the city during the first decades of the 20th Century. For this week’s post I have another series of postcards from the same time period.

I find these fascinating as they show many different aspects of London and provide a tangible link with those who lived in, or were visiting London.

The first postcard is of a very wintry Royal Observatory at Greenwich. Taken at a time when this was still a working observatory. Very rare to see such snowfall in London today.

The postcard was posted at a very different time of year to the pictured scene, on the 31st August 1905. With a Greenwich postmark, posted to a child in Lowestoft with a birthday wish from his aunt and uncle.

Postcards from London 2 7

As well as scenic views, early postcards are also populated by Londoners. This postcard shows Covent Garden with some fantastic detail of a very busy street scene. This was at a time when wearing a hat was almost mandatory, with the type of hat indicating your position in the social structure of the day. The scene is also piled high with baskets ready to transport goods to and from the market.

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The following postcard shows Regent Street at a time when almost all shops had awnings or shop blinds. The shop on the right is the London Stereoscopic Company. Formed during the 1850s, the company started selling stereoscopic photos and viewers and then went into the general photographic business selling cameras, photographic paper and other photography supplies. The company lasted until 1922.

The bus in the foreground is the number 13 covering Finchley Road, Baker Street, Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus, Charing Cross and Fleet Street. The number 13 bus route today covers many of the same locations.

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Another street scene, this time Holborn (posted on the 18th September 1913).

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All these photos show the main street lamps on islands in the centre of the road. When electric lighting was introduced to the streets of London, the centre of the road was found to be the best location to spread light across both sides of the road. These lighting islands also had other benefits. A report presented to the Vestry of St. Pancras in 1891 covering the use of public lighting by electricity claimed that one advantage of central street lighting in busy thoroughfares is that they regulate the traffic. The report stated:

“Your committee are informed that the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police has suggested that there ought to be a rest at that point to prevent the numerous stoppages and accidents that occur there. The Police seem to be strongly of the opinion that the fixing of rests assists very materially in the regulation of the traffic, and your Committee feel therefore that although at first sight many people may think the lighting from the centre of the road would tend to obstruction, it really assists in facilitating the traffic and preventing obstruction in crowded thorough-fares.”

“Rests” refers to the islands built in the centre of the road where a street lamp could be installed and protected from traffic. They also provided a safe stopping point, or rest, for pedestrians trying to cross the road. The report was written as part of the planning for the installation of electric arc lamps in Tottenham Court Road. The following postcard shows Tottenham Court Road taken looking north from the junction with Charing Cross Road. The buildings on the left, along with the pub are still there.

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The above postcard was sent by a visitor to London from North Wales who “has been seeing the sights and are now going to the zoo.”

Perhaps one of those sights was Leicester Square, much quieter than it is today, possibly a weekend in winter when sitting in, or running through the square was the ideal way to pass the afternoon. The building in the background with the large flag is the original Empire Theatre. Opened in 1884 and demolished in 1927.

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It was not just central London locations that were popular subjects for postcards. The following card, postmarked 1912, shows Clapham Junction. Although the type of traffic has changed, the scene looks remarkably similar today, although the Arding and Hobbs department store on the corner is now a Debenhams.

The sender of the card wrote “On back is the new Arding & Hobbs. Old building burnt down a few years ago.” The new building shown in the postcard was completed in 1910.

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At first glance, the following photo looks to be of Charing Cross Station, although, as the name across the building confirms, it is the original Cannon Street Hotel, forming the entrance to Cannon Street Station.

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To show how similar they are, the following shows Charing Cross Station. This is no coincidence as they were both designed by Edward Middleton Barry who also designed the replica Queen Eleanor Cross which stands in the forecourt of the station. The hotel at Cannon Street has long gone, and the station entrance now looks very different. Charing Cross provides a physical reminder of what once stood in Cannon Street.

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The next postcard is of the Monument, however what I find more interesting about the scene are the people, and also the large amount of advertising on the building to the left. The postcard was posted at the station at Walton on Thames by someone who had just moved into a new house in Weybridge. Perhaps a City worker who had bought the postcard in London.

Postcards from London 2 6The posters include adverts for, Nestles Swiss Milk, Bass beer, the Royal Military Tournament, Regie Cigarettes, Allsopp’s Lager and Triscuit, which if it is the same thing is a cracker produced in America and is still in production today. The building on the corner on the right is the Monument Tavern.

London’s bridges have always been popular subjects for postcards, and the following view is of London Bridge. The bridge shown is that designed by John Rennie and opened in 1831. It was sold in 1968 to make way for the current London Bridge and rebuilt in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Both the buildings on either side of the end of the bridge are still there, Adelaide House on the right and Fishmongers Hall on the left.

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And the following postcard shows Blackfriars Bridge. The large curved building at the left of the bridge is De Keyser’s Royal Hotel which was opened on the 5th September 1874 by Sir Polydore de Keyser who came to London as a waiter from Belgium and eventually became Lord Mayor of London. The Uniliver building is now on this site.

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The following postcard is titled “The Hanging Gardens of London, Selfridges Water Gardens Looking West”. The roof of the Oxford Street department store, Selfridges, had gardens and cafes during the 1920s and 30s and were a popular location after shopping. The roof gardens were damaged during the last war and never reopened.

Postcards from London 2 13

The following postcard shows the London County Council Millbank Estate, and judging by the condition of the streets, this must be soon after construction of the estate finished in 1902. The building halfway down the road on the left is a school. The estate and the school are still in existence and the buildings today look much the same although there is now parking lining most of these streets. The Milbank Estate is Grade II listed. The people in the photo are probably some of the first occupants of the estate.

Postcards from London 2 4

Although the Tower of London is the subject of the following postcard, I find the background of more interest as it shows London when the height of buildings was relatively low compared to the City we see today. This postcard has a 1931 postmark and was sent to Belgium by a visitor to London.

Postcards from London 2 16

The following photo taken from Bankside shows the north bank of the river with the original wharfs.

Paul’s Wharf in the centre with St. Paul’s Pier in front, the London & Lisbon Cork Wood Company (the smaller building towards the right with the white upper part), and Trig Wharf to the right. The Millennium Bridge now crosses the river here, roughly at the site of the London & Lisbon Cork Wood Company.  The Bankside location has always provided a superb view across the river and has a fascinating history which I wrote about here, mainly involving the transport of coal and other goods on the river hence the lighters on the river in the foreground.

Postcards from London 2 1

In the days before the personal ownership of portable cameras, postcards were about the only means of sending a message showing where the author lived or was visiting and as such they provide a fascinating insight into early 20th century London.

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Mystery Locations

Firstly, a really big thank you to everyone who identified the majority of the sites in this post. The feedback as comments or on Twitter has been fantastic. I have updated the post with details of the location. These are in italics to separate out from my original post. You will see I made one big mistake by assuming a location was in London!

The main theme of my blog is to track down the locations of photos taken by my father across London in the late 1940s and early 1950s, photograph the scenes as they are now, and in the process learn more of London’s history. The majority I have been able to identify and I still have to visit the location as it is today for a large number, however there are also many mystery locations that I have not been able to identify.

Although living in Camden, he took photos across London cycling through the city with his camera.

Many of the photos are easy to identify, my father either wrote the location on the back of a printed copy, the scene is recognisable, or there is a street name, pub name etc. within the photo.

Some I have been able to find through accident. I carry the photos on an iPad whilst walking London and occasionally I have recognised a street scene and am able to check with the copy on the iPad.

However there are a number I cannot place and for this week’s article I am publishing some of these in the hope that a reader may be able to help identify the location or event.

So, to start, the following photo just has “a temporary café on a bomb site” written on the back but unfortunately no further details. I am not exactly sure what the vehicle used to be. It looks to have been something that would have run on rails, but appears to have normal tyres. I like the three wheeler bike with the milk churn, either used for collection or perhaps a delivery service.

Unknown Locations 9

The above photo is the corner of Greenfield Road and Commercial Road, E1. Whilst the view in the immediate foreground is now completely different, the buildings along Commercial Road on the right are much the same.

I suspect the following photo was taken in East London, possibly around the Docks judging by other photos on the same strip of negatives. It appears to have been taken from underneath a railway arch. There is a pub on the right, but the grain of the film does not allow the name to be read when zooming in.

Probably all these buildings were demolished over the last 60 years with only the railway arch remaining.

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The above view just does not exist anymore. The whole street has disappeared and has now been replaced by a rather desolate view of buildings surrounded by high security fencing. This is Hardinge Street, E1, looking north from under the railway arches.

This photo also appears to have been taken around the Docks and I am sure I recognise the bridge from walking round the area but cannot place the location. Again there is a pub in the distance but the grain of the film does not allow the name to be read.

Unknown Locations 7

The above photo I should of known. I knew I had seen the bridge but could not place the location. The pub at the end is the Prospect of Whitby and the photo is looking along Glamis Road. The bridge is over part of the Shadwell Basin. The pub and bridge are still there but the surrounding area has changed considerably. 

And again somewhere around the Docks. Given how straight the channel is I suspect it may be the Limehouse Cut, but from limited walking in the area I have not been able to place the photo. I need to walk the area again, however I suspect the buildings have also long gone.

Unknown Locations 6

And now for my big mistake. After the war, as well as photographing London, my father took lots of photos around the UK and Holland during cycling trips and National Service. The above photo was on the end of a strip of negatives with photos of East London so I wrongly assumed this was the same area, however it was taken in Chester. Must have been the last photo on the roll of film. See this link, there is a photo towards the end of the page showing almost the same view.

Now three photos of an event I cannot place. Judging from other photos on the same strip of negatives this was either 1949 or 1950. The girl in the background looking at the photographer would probably now be in her early 70s.

The following three photos could be the Pioneer Run from London to Brighton for pre 1915 motorcycles. the event had a Westminster start but the buildings could be around County Hall on the south of the river.

Unknown Locations 4

It seems to have been the start of some form of motorbike race. I thought the building in the background could have been the Ministry of Defence building on the Embankment, but on checking the style of the windows, it would appear not.

Unknown Locations 3

Same event, but a different building in the background.

Unknown Locations 5

This photo appears to show the aftermath of a fire, but I have no idea where. Hoses are still scattered across the street and there appears to be much destruction beyond the wall.

What I like about this photo is the group of boys by the wall in the centre of the photo, also one having climbed to the top of the wall. This fits in with the stories my father told me about being a boy in London during the war and the freedom to explore bomb sites, collect shrapnel, remains of incendiary bombs etc. There were no real restrictions on where you could go and London was an open book to explore.

The following two photos could be around the Caledonian Market estate in Islington, with the building in the background being one of the pubs on the corner of the market.

Unknown Locations 2

The scene through the gate of what must have been a really bad fire. Note the man on the right, standing on the roof of his outbuildings surveying the scene.

Unknown Locations 17

This photo probably has a cleared bomb site on the left. I wish I could read what was on the signs around the site. It is photos like this that bring home what a grey and desolate place many areas of London must have seemed just after the war. Reconstruction had not started, reminders of wartime damage were still very much in evidence and day to day life was still tough.

Unknown Locations 16

Some limited reconstruction had started and this photo shows the framework of a new building, almost certainly on a bomb site which extends into the foreground of the photo. It would be fascinating to know if this building is still there. From other photos on the same strip of negatives I suspect it may be in Holborn.

The following photo was taken looking across towards Harpur Street. The construction work is for new flats which are still there. It is not possible to reproduce the view due to new building, however the following Google Street View shows the flats today and the original buildings along Harpur Street to the right.

Unknown Locations 1

Back to another event I cannot place. It must be in one of London’s parks but I cannot identify either the location or the event.

The following photos could be of the Van Horse Parade or the Cart Horse Parade, held in Battersea Park on Easter Monday. The parades merged into the London Harness Horse Parade and although still held on Easter Monday’s, the parade has now moved to Ardingly, West Sussex.

Unknown Locations 15

It seemed to be an event with all forms of horse drawn vehicles from the simple…..

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….to the more comfortable, but I have no idea of the location or event.

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Many photos show streets and alleys which have probably long since been demolished, despite that with some modernisation of facilities they could still be perfectly good homes. I always try to avoid romanticising the past, living conditions and life in general for so many Londoners was very tough but this style of street and home looks far better than many that have been built since.

Unknown Locations 11

An empty building, probably through bomb damage, awaiting demolition. The far right of the building with the Union Jack still looks occupied. There were so many buildings like this across London in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Awaiting their fate, but some inhabitants still clinging on.

Unknown Locations 12

And finally an unknown street scene. Other photos on the same strip of negatives were taken in Campden Hill Road, Kensington, however I have been unable to locate this street.

Unknown Locations 10

The above photo is Tryon Street, off the Kings Road in Chelsea. Still very much the same.

When starting out on this project, I had the probably very unrealistic target to locate all the photos and visit and photograph the current location, learn about the area and understand what aspect of the scene interested my father to photograph these locations.

Although I am making reasonably good progress, any help with the photos shown above would be very gratefully received.

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