Christopher Wren – everystreetinlondon

Day 75 – King’s Road – Flood Street – Royal Hospital Chelsea

Continuing where we left off last time, today’s journey takes us west and south from Sloane Square into the area tucked in between the King’s Road and the Chelsea Embankment. A good proportion of this is taken up by the Royal Hospital Chelsea and its grounds, a visit to which concludes this outing. Before then we’ve got plenty else to cover including Chelsea Old Town Hall, Chelsea Physic Garden and a wealth of literary connections.

We start out from Sloane Square tube station again and head westward through the square and onto King’s Road. King’s Road derives its name from its function as a private road used by King Charles II to travel to Kew. It remained a private royal road until 1830. In the 1960’s it became synonymous with Mod culture and Swinging London and although its glory days are behind it now it remains one of the capital’s most fashionable shopping areas.

Immediately to the south is Duke of York Square, a retail quarter developed by Cadogan Estates after purchasing the site from the MOD in 1998. It includes one of the largest European stores of fashion retailer, Zara amongst its 33 outlets.

Beyond the square, the building known as the Duke of York’s Headquarters is now home to the Saatchi Gallery. The building was completed in 1801 to the designs of John Sanders, who also designed the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. It was originally called the Royal Military Asylum and was a school for the children of soldiers’ widows. In 1892 it was renamed the Duke of York’s Royal Military School. In 1909, the school moved to new premises in Dover, and the Asylum building was taken over by the Territorial Army and renamed the Duke of York’s Barracks. The Duke of York in question being Frederick, second son of George III, the so-called “Grand Old Duke of York” and Asylum used in its archaic sense of “sanctuary or refuge”. Saatchi moved his gallery here in 2008 having leased the building from Cadogan Estates. It’s probably the only major Art Gallery in London I’ve never visited, having no wish to patronise a vanity project of Charles Saatchi, a man who will have one or two things to answer for come judgement day. And as it’s currently between exhibitions I have an excuse for not rectifying the omission.

Having returned to King’s Road we take the next left, Cheltenham Terrace which runs down to Leonard’s Terrace and then head back up on Walpole Street. Next up on the south side is the grand and leafy Royal Avenue, an open-ended square with a clear view of Chelsea Hospital in the distance. No.29 was once home to the American theatre and film director Joseph Losey (1909 – 1984) who relocated to the UK in 1953 having been blacklisted by Hollywood. Unlike many of the victims of the McCarthyism, Losey had actually been a member of the American Communist Party. His number was up once RKO pictures, where he has under contract, was bought by Howard Hughes. Once in the UK, Losey worked on everything from crime features to melodrama to horror before achieving major critical and commercial success with a trio of films scripted by Harold Pinter, The Servant (1963), Accident (1967) and The Go-Between (1971). He died here in 1984, four weeks after completing his final film.

Back on St Leonard’s Terrace at no.18 is a Blue Plaque commemorating the first of the literary icons we’ll be encountering today, Abraham “Bram” Stoker (1847 – 1912). Stoker’s fame largely rests upon his authorship of the classic gothic horror tale Dracula which was published in 1897. I would imagine, like me, you’d be hard pushed to name any of his other novels. Born in Dublin, Stoker moved to London following his marriage in 1878 and for 27 years worked as business manager of the Lyceum Theatre which was in the charge of the most famous actor of the day, Henry Irving. The precise sources of inspiration for Dracula are still subject to debate but prior to writing the novel he had spent several years researching Eastern European folklore and mythology though he never actually visited that part of the world.

Returning to the King’s Road and continuing west we arrive at Wellington Square which despite an absence of plaques also has a number of literary ghosts. A. A. Milne, creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, lived there in the early 1900s as well as the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley in the 1920s. It is also considered to be the location Ian Fleming had in mind when he described his creation, James Bond, as living “in a ground floor flat in a square lined with plane trees in Chelsea off the King’s Road”.

Next southward turning is Smith Street with yet another figure honoured at no.50. P. L. Travers (1899-1996) lived here for seventeen years and the house inspired the depiction of the Banks’s family home in the Disney film of her most famous creation, Mary Poppins. Travers was born as Helen Lyndon Goff in Queensland, Australia. She took the stage name Pamela Travers when she started an acting career in her late teens. After a few years, she gave up acting for journalism and moved to England in 1924. Ten years later she wrote Mary Poppins, the first in a series of eight books featuring the eponymous “supernanny”; the last of which she wrote in 1988 at the age of 1989. Under financial duress, Travers eventually ceded to years of pressure and sold the film rights to Disney. She famously disapproved of the musical which was released in 1964, particularly the animated sequences. The relationship between Travers and Walt Disney was itself given a cinematic treatment in 2013’s Saving Mr Banks.

From Smith Street we cut along Smith Terrace to Radnor Walk and head back to King’s Road again. Just around the corner is the Chelsea Potter Pub which dates from 1842 and was reputedly a regular haunt of Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones in the late sixties. It has added resonance since the appointment of Graham Potter as manager of Chelsea F.C of course, and the beard gives the connection added flavour. Though by the time this is published…

Beyond the pub we turn left again down Shawfield Street then west along Redesdale Street emerging on Flood Street opposite the Hall of Remembrance which is attached to Christ Church (which we will come to in due course).

From here we head north back to the King’s Road for just about the final time today. I took the photo below left on account of the splendid tiling. Today this building houses an antique centre but back in the sixties it was home to the Top Gear fashion boutique.

On the other side of the northern end of Flood Street is the Chelsea Methodist Church, the only church with an entrance on King’s Road. The original 1903 building was badly damaged in a 1941 bombing raid; the present church formed part of a 1983 redevelopment and was opened by Cardinal Hume the following year.

Almost the last stop on King’s Road is Chelsea Old Town Hall which it was a real treat to visit. So many of these old municipal buildings are inaccessible to the public these days. Surprisingly, there seems to be a dearth of information about the buildings despite their Grade II listed status. The oldest part of the complex is the Vestry Hall to the rear which was designed by J.M Brydon in 1886. The north elevations that front onto King’s Road are part of the 1906-08 extension by Leonard Stokes constructed in a neo-classical style. The building ceased to be a seat of local government in 1965 when the boroughs of Chelsea and Kensington merged. The Brydon building houses the Kensington and Chelsea Register Office which has hosted the weddings of, amongst others, Marc Bolan and June Child (1970), Judy Garland and Mickey Deans (1969), Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate (1968) and James Joyce and Nora Barnacle (1933). One section of the Stokes building is taken up by Chelsea Library. Many of the other rooms are hired out for functions and events, including the splendid main hall with its original Victorian wall paintings depicting representations of Art, Science, History and Literature. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to discover who was responsible for creating these. Even if you don’t need to (and are qualified to do so) it’s also worth visiting the Gents’ toilet (see picture).

Just beyond the Town Hall is a building which dates back to 1722 and was originally the Six Bells pub (as evidenced by the eponymous sign that remains on the outside) which backed on to the bowling green of the local bowls club. Both pub and bowling green have now been consumed by the Ivy Chelsea restaurant which has gotten itself a little too excited about the upcoming Valentine’s Day.

We finally say goodbye (for now) to the King’s Road via Oakley Street then veer left down Margaretta Terrace to reach Phene Street which runs east into Oakley Gardens. At no.33 Oakley Gardens there’s another literary commemoration, somewhat more obscure this time. George Gissing (1857 – 1903) wrote 23 novels in all the most highly regarded of which are Demos, New Grub Street and The Odd Women. Gissing’s relationships with women don’t seem to bear much scrutiny. He parted from his first wife Nell on account of her chronic ill-health then, subsequent to her death in 1888, he married Edith who he also separated from, nine years later, blaming her uncontrolled violent rages. Five years further on, Edith was certified insane and confined to an asylum. Before then, Gissing had met Gabrielle Fleury, a Frenchwoman with whom he lived until his death. Gabrielle eventually outlived him by fifty years.

Exiting Oakley Gardens onto Chelsea Manor Street we return northward past the NHS Day Clinic in what was formerly the Violet Melchett Infant Welfare Centre named after Violet Mond, Baroness Melchett (1867 – 1945) and financed by her husband, politician and businessman, Sir Alfred Mond.

Further up the street we make a quick detour onto Chelsea Manor Gardens for a view of the facade of the Vestry Hall before turning back south.

Flood Walk takes us back to Flood Street and after dropping in on Alpha Place we head east on Redburn Street. Unfortunately there’s no time to take in a pub of the day today as there a fair number of fine looking hostelries in the area such as The Cooper’s Arms on the corner of Flood Street and Redburn Street.

Redburn Street leads into Tedworth Gardens and the adjacent Tedworth Square. Our next literary icon was a one-time resident at no.23 in the latter. Mark Twain (1835 – 1910) was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens described in his New York Times obituary as “the greatest humorist the United States has produced” and by William Faulkner as “the father of American literature”. Twain is best known, of course, for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) which he wrote at his family home in Hartford, Connecticut. The two years he spent in England came after the conclusion of a year long around-the-world lecture tour which he undertook in 1895 as a means to pay off creditors, having lost most of the money earned through his writing by unsuccessfully investing in new inventions and technology, particularly the Paige typesetting machine.

Next we make our way back west to the actual Christ Church following Ralston Street, Tite Street, Christchurch Street, Christchurch Terrace and Caversham Street. The church was consecrated in 1839 having been built to a design by Edward Blore (1789-1879). It was intended as a church for the many servants and tradesmen who worked in and for the grand houses of Belgravia and as such was designed to accommodate the maximum number of people at minimum cost. The construction cost was just over £4,000, paid for by the Hydman Trust, the Hydman family having originally made their money from sugar plantations in the West Indies. Philanthropy really does begin at home. In 1843, a new school was built on land donated by Lord Cadogan, directly opposite the church. The school still exists as a Church of England Primary School.

From the church we make a full circuit of St Loo Avenue, Cheyne Gardens, Cheyne Walk and the southernmost section of Flood Street. The literary connections continue unabated with a blue plaque commemoration the death of novelist George Eliot (1819 – 1880) at no.4 Cheyne Walk. George Eliot was the pen name employed by Mary Ann Evans, born the third child of a West Midlands’ mill owner and his wife. Of the seven novels she wrote, The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861) and Middlemarch (1871–72) are probably the most celebrated (or at least the most studied by English Lit. undergraduates). Following the success of her first complete novel, Adam Bede, public curiosity as to the author’s identity and the emergence of a pretender to the authorship, one Joseph Liggins, led Mary Ann to acknowledge that she stood behind the pseudonym George Eliot. She continue to publish her novels under the pen name nonetheless. From 1854 to 1878 Mary Ann lived with the philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes (1817–78). Although Mary considered that she and Lewes were effectively husband and wife, he was in fact already married to Agnes Jervis, although in an “open relationship”. In addition to the three children they had together, Agnes also had four children by Thornton Leigh Hunt, the first editor of the Daily Telegraph. It was her association with Lewes, in addition to her denial of the Christian faith, that led to her burial in Highgate Cemetery rather than Westminster Abbey.

English novelist George Eliot (1819 – 1880), pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, poses for a photograph.

No.72 Flood Street, The Rossetti Studios, is a Grade II listed building containing artist studios which was built in the Queen Anne Revival style in 1894 to a design of Edward Holland. The studios were named after pre-raphaelite artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti whose own studio was based nearby.

After returning to Christ Church we head down Christchurch Street to Royal Hospital Road for a visit to Chelsea Physic Garden. The garden occupies four acres beside the Thames and was established in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries as a base for conducting plant finding expeditions in surrounding areas and teaching their apprentices to identify plants, both those that might cure and those that might kill. The river access allowed plants arriving from around the world to be introduced to the British Isles via the Garden and its international reputation was quickly established through a global seed exchange scheme, known as Index Seminum, which it initiated in the 1700s and continues to this day. The Garden’s unique microclimate and location has facilitated the cultivation of plants not typically found outside in the UK. Early February is obviously not the best time to visit but there was still plenty of green stuff on show.

Beyond the garden we turn right onto Swan Walk which runs down to Chelsea Embankment. Round the corner at no.9 Chelsea Embankment is a rare non-literary related blue plaque. This one is for George Robinson, Marquess of Ripon (1827 – 1909), politician and Viceroy of India. Robinson was actually born at 10 Downing Street, the second son of F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich who was Prime Minister at the time (though his premiership only lasted 144 days; I studied that period of history at A level and have no recollection of his tenure. Still, compared with Liz Truss it’s quite a stellar effort). Robinson junior’s political career was an extensive one; he served as a member of every Liberal cabinet between 1861 and 1908. In between administrations he managed to fit in a four year stint as Viceroy of India (1880 -84) during which time he did at least attempt to get progressive legislation to improve the rights of native Indians passed.

Turning off the Embankment onto Tite Street we immediately double back along Dilke Street for a short glimpse of the ill-named Paradise Walk. My partner, artist Susan Eyre, featured this in an ongoing art project based around unlikely places which include Paradise in their name.

We return to Tite Street to take us back to Royal Hospital Road. The imposing red brick terrace on the west side of the street is home to three more blue plaques more or less adjacent to each other. At no. 38 we have Lord Hayden-Guest (1877 – 1960), author, journalist, Labour politician and physician; at no.34 Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) dramatist and celebrated wit; and at no.30 composer, Philip Arnold Heseltine a.k.a Peter Warlock (1894 – 1930). We’ve had an overload of blue plaques today so just a few words about each of these three. Haden-Guest was once described by Bertrand Russell as “a theosophist with a fiery temper and a considerable libido”. Oscar Wilde wrote both The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest while living at no.34 and it was from here he left to serve his jail term for ‘gross indecency’ in 1895. Peter Warlock died here from coal gas poisoning; the inquest returning an open verdict. Previous to this he had penned the following words as his own epitaph :

Here lies Warlock the composer
        Who lived next door to Munn the grocer.
    He died of drink and copulation,
        A sad discredit to the nation.

We cross over Royal Hospital Road and loop round the two sections of Ormonde Gate and we arrive at the West Road entrance to Royal Hospital Chelsea ready for our tour conducted by a Chelsea Pensioner. Guide, John, definitely looks the part with his grey whiskers and multi-bemedalled red tunic. He also knows his stuff as he regales us with facts and stories for at least half an hour longer than the scheduled 90 minutes. To deal with the history first: in 1681 Charles II issued a royal warrant for the building of the Hospital to provide for elderly and injured soldiers, Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to design and erect the building and Sir Stephen Fox was charged with securing the necessary funds. In 1692 work was finally completed and the first batch of Chelsea Pensioners, 476 in total, were in residence by March of that year. By the time of completion, Charles II had died (in 1685) and his successor James II had been deposed in “the glorious revolution” of 1688. This is why the Latin inscription on the exterior of the main building, composed by Wren himself, translates as ‘For the succour and relief of men broken by age and war, started by Charles II, extended by James II and completed by William and Mary, King and Queen 1692’.

Upgrades to the accommodation, the ‘berths’ – were enlarged in 1954-55 and again in 1991 to resize them from 6ft square to 9ft square, mean that the modern day capacity is only 300 pensioners. Due to an annual death rate of around 10% there are always slightly fewer than that; currently 278 of which 16 are women. To be eligible for admission as a Chelsea Pensioner you must be a former non-commissioned officer or soldier of the British Army who is over 66 years of age, “unencumbered by spouse” and “of good character”.

Since 1913 the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show has been held annually on the South Grounds, between Figure Court and the Chelsea Embankment.

West Road entrance
College Court
College Court
Figure Court
The Chapel
The Great Hall
Great Hall side panels commemorating historic engagements of the British Army
The Great Hall
Table on which Duke of Wellington’s coffin lay in state
Figure court
Gilded statue of Charles II by Grinling Gibbons

Tour over, we leave the RCH via Light Horse Court and the East Road entrance. Crossing Royal Hospital Road, we make a circuit of Franklin’s Row, Turks Row and Sloane Court West emerging back on Royal Hospital Road opposite the Margaret Thatcher Infirmary, a state of the art care home and hospice for Chelsea Pensioners, designed by Sir Quinlan Terry and opened in 2009.

From here it only remains to work our way back to Sloane Square tube station via Sloan Court East, Lower Sloane Street and Sloane Gardens.

Day 57 – Bankside – Southwark Bridge – Trinity Church Square

This is a bit of a meandering one, starting out on Bankside then crossing the river twice before heading down through Borough to Trinity Square and hallway back again. On the way we’ll cross paths with Shakespeare, Dickens, Alfred the Great and Catherine of Aragon.

So we begin where we left off last time, at Tate Modern, exiting from the Blavatnik Building onto Sumner Street. Then we cut down Canvey Street as far as Zoar Street turning east for a short while before nipping between the buildings up onto Southwark Street.

On Southwark Street we turn east and when we get to the next left, the by-now familiar Great Guildford Street head back towards the river. Crossing over Sumner Street we reach the western end of the long and winding Park Street. Before we get to Emmerson Street which return us to another section of Sumner Street there’s a nice new demolition site to stop and admire.

Sumner Street takes us up onto Southwark Bridge Road where we turn northward briefly before taking some steps which deposit us back on Park Street on the doorstep of the Rose Playhouse. The Rose became the fifth purpose-built theatre in London when it was created in 1587 pre-dating the Globe (of which more later) on Bankside by 14 years. It represented something of a cultural step-up for an area known for its brothels, gaming dens and bear-baiting pits. The Rose’s repertoire included Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Jew of Malta and Tamburlaine the Great, Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare’s Henry VI part I and Titus Andronicus. Its star faded fairly swiftly in the shadow of the success of the Globe however and by the very early years of the 17th century it had fallen out of use. Its archaeological remains were discovered in 1989 during excavations for the re-development of an office block. The Rose Theatre Trust was formed in response to fears that the new building proposed for the site would bring about the destruction of the remains. A campaign to ‘Save The Rose’ was launched with enthusiastic support from the public, scholars and actors, including the dying Lord Olivier who gave his last public speech in May 1989 on behalf of The Rose. The Trust managed to secure government funds to delay construction and to bring about a re-design of the proposed new building so that only a small amount of the fabric of The Rose was lost, and a permanent enclosure of this fragile site was created. If you want to check it out public viewings take place most Saturdays.

From Park Street we duck in and out of Rose Alley and Bear Gardens before New Globe Walk takes us up to Bankside and, naturally enough, the new Globe Theatre. The new incarnation of the Globe is located several hundred metres away from where the original was sited so we’ll deal with the latter in a while. The project to rebuild Shakespeare’s Globe was the brainchild of the American actor, director and producer Sam Wanamaker. Twenty one years after his first visit to London, in 1949, he founded what was to become the Shakespeare Globe Trust, dedicated to the reconstruction of the theatre and the creation of an education centre and permanent exhibition. After another 23 years spent tirelessly fundraising and planning the reconstruction with the Trust’s architect Theo Crosby, Sam Wanamaker died in 1993. He lived long enough to see the site secured and a few timber bays of the theatre in place. It was another three and a half years before the theatre was completed. Other than concessions to comply with modern day fire regulations such as additional exits, illuminated signage, fire retardant materials and some modern backstage machinery, the Globe is as accurate a reconstruction of the 1599 Globe as was possible with the available evidence.

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Sandwiched in between the Globe and Tate Modern is a row of 18th century houses the most striking of which is the three-storey cream coloured building bearing the name Cardinal’s Wharf. Its façade also bears a ceramic plaque engraved with the words Here lived Sir Christopher Wren during the building of St Paul’s Cathedral. Here also, in 1502, Catherine Infanta of Castile and Aragon, afterwards first queen of Henry VIII, took shelter on her first landing in London. Sadly, both of these claims were debunked in a 2006 book by writer and historian Gillian Tindall. Since the house was built in 1710, the year St Paul’s was completed, Wren couldn’t have lived here during its construction. He did however live in a house nearby so it’s probable the plaque was rescued from that property at the time of its demolition and cheekily redisplayed. As for Catherine of Aragon, that’s dismissed as pure fantasy. The adjacent redbrick house is known as the Provost’s Lodging, a name adopted when it was acquired by Southwark Cathedral from Bankside Power Station in 1957. In 2011, following the death of the then Dean of Southwark (the title of provost was done away with in 2000) the property was put on the market for £6m. Which is a lot of money to spend if you’re going to have tens of thousands of people traipsing past each day within spitting distance of your front door.

And so it’s time to head briefly back across the river and tick off a couple more bridges. First up, of course, is the ill-fated (in terms of its name) Millennium Bridge, built to link St Paul’s Cathedral with the new Tate Modern as part of the Millennium celebrations. Unfortunately, as I’m sure we all recall, when it opened in June 2000 it only stayed accessible for two days before being closed for two years to allow for modifications to rectify the swaying motion (or resonant structural response) that led to the nickname “Wobbly Bridge”. The design of the bridge, which was subject to a competition, was a collaboration between Arup Group, Foster and Partners and Sir Anthony Caro. Due to height restrictions, and to improve the view, the suspension design had the supporting cables below the deck level, giving a very shallow profile. The eight suspension cables are tensioned to pull with a force of 2,000 tons against the piers set into each bank—enough to support a working load of 5,000 people on the bridge at one time. Though not enough to save it from the Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

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Once across the bridge we turn east along the Thames Path though not for very long as you soon have to divert away from the river up Broken Wharf and along High Timber Street (calling in on the dead end Stew Lane if you wish) before rejoining via Queenhithe. Beside and below the street of the same name is the only surviving inlet along the City waterfront which was once a thriving Saxon and Medieval Dock. The harbour is reputed to have been established in AD 899 shortly after King Alfred the Great had turfed the Vikings out of London. Originally named ‘Ethelred’s Hythe’ it became known as ‘Queenhithe’ when Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I, was granted the dues from the dock in the early 12th century (a right inherited by successive English queens). In the 15th century the dock’s fortunes waned as larger vessels struggled to navigate past London Bridge and opted to unload further east at Billingsgate. The dock did however remain in service up to Victorian times and remnants of that period of usage are still visible at low tide.

From Queenhithe it’s just a hop and a skip to Southwark Bridge. Before we get up onto the bridge itself though we can pop through the northside underpass, known as Fruiterers’ Passage after the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers whose warehouses once stood nearby. The passage is tiled on both sides incorporating scanned historic images of the bridge and its immediate surroundings.

The bridge itself, something of a Cinderella as far as central London crossings of the Thames are concerned, dates from 1921 in its current form. The bridge was designed and engineered by Ernest George and Basil Mott respectively, the latter also partly responsible for the Mersey Tunnel. And there’s not really much else to say about it to be honest.

At the southern end of the bridge sits the current HQ of the Financial Times. I say current because at the time of writing the FT’s owners Nikkei (who acquired from Pearson in 2015) have just announced plans to sell the building ahead of a move back to the FT’s previous offices at Bracken House near St Paul’s in 2019. One Southwark Bridge has been the FT’s home since 1989.

We drop down from the bridge onto Bankside and head east as far as the Anchor pub. The pub started life as the ‘brewery tap room’ for the Anchor Brewery which was established in 1616 on land adjacent to the original Globe Theatre and by the early nineteenth century was the largest brewery in the world. After being destroyed in the Great Fire the pub was rebuilt in 1676 and largely reconstructed again in the 19th century. The brewery was taken on by the newly founded Barclay Perkins & Co. in 1781 and Barclays survived as an independent brand (including their famous Russian Imperial Stout) up until 1955 and a merger with Courage. Brewing continued on the site under Courage but last orders were called in the early 1970’s and the buildings were demolished in 1981.

Beyond the pub we turn away from the river up Bank End which soon forms a junction with two more parts of Park Street. We take the section heading back west which runs through where the Anchor Brewery stood (a plaque on the south side commemorates this) and arrive at the site of the original Globe Theatre just to the east of the Southwark Bridge Road flyover and less than a hundred metres from the Rose Theatre. The precise location of the Tudor Globe was only determined in 1989 when part of the foundations were discovered beneath the car park of Anchor Terrace a building of 1834 which originally housed senior employees of the brewery. As this is itself a listed building further excavations have not been possible. The Elizabethan Globe Theatre was built in 1599 on land leased by Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert along with Shakespeare and four other members of the Chamberlain’s Men company. It was partially constructed re-using timbers from “The Theatre” in Shoreditch; London’s first theatre which had been built in 1576 by the Burbage brothers’ father, James. As noted above, the theatre was enormously successful in its early years but in 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, wadding from a stage cannon ignited the thatched roof and the theatre burned to the ground. It was hastily rebuilt, with a tiled roof, and continued as a playhouse until 1642 when the Cromwell’s Puritan administration forced its closure. It was demolished to make way for tenements two years later.

Doubling back along Park Street we turn south next down Porter Street then work our way though Gatehouse Square, Perkins Square and Maiden Lane back to the final, most easterly stretch of Park Street. From here we link back to Southwark Street via Redcross Way where the façade of the old W.H. Willcox & Co. engineering company building still clings on. Lord knows where you have to go these days to get your crank-pin lubricators.

We turn west for a bit along Southwark Street then fork right down Thrale Street, named after Henry Thrale the eighteenth century politician who was a friend of Samuel Johnson and who inherited the Anchor Brewery from his father (it then being sold to Messrs Barclay and Perkins upon his death). His wife, Hester, bore him 12 children and outlived him by forty years. Hester Thrale was a formidable woman; in addition to her procreational achievements she was a noted diarist, author and patron of the arts. She also rescued her husband from probable bankruptcy by raising the money to clear his debts of £130,000 that resulted from a failed scheme to brew beer without malt or hops.

At the end of Thrale Street we turn left onto Southwark Bridge Road then right onto Southwark Street again. This takes us past the Menier Chocolate Factory building built by the French company, Chocolat Menier, in the 1870s. Menier eventually became part of the Rowntree Macintosh group which was in turn swallowed up by Nestle. Confectionery production had ceased here by the 1980s and the building was derelict until it was resurrected as an arts and theatre space in 2004. The Menier Chocolate Factory theatre has an impressive list of productions under its belt, including some particularly lauded musical revivals such as A Little Night Music and La Cage Aux Folles which both transferred to Broadway in 2010.

Beyond the Chocolate Factory we turn south down Omeara Street where we find the dramatically-named Roman Catholic Church of the Most Precious Blood. The Parish was founded in 1891 and the church was designed by Frederick Arthur Walters who was also the architect for Buckfast Abbey.

At the end of Omeara Street we cross over Union Street and continue south on Ayres Street. The street used to be known as White Cross Street but was renamed in 1936 by the then Labour-led LCC in honour of Alice Ayres, a nursemaid who attained a form of secular canonisation in the Victorian era after she died rescuing the three young children in her care (the daughters of her elder sister, Mary Ann) from a house fire. Such was the public interest in the story that Alice’s funeral was attended by 10,000 mourners and a memorial fund set up raised £100 for the erection of a granite obelisk monument above her grave in Isleworth cemetery.

On the corner of Ayres Street and Clennam Street stands the Lord Clyde pub, one of the all-too-few remaining classic style Trumans Beer alehouses. Named after Field Marshal Sir Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde, GCB, KSI, who commanded the Highland Brigade in the Crimean War and led the troops who quelled the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the pub has remained unchanged since it was built in 1913 and has been run by the same family, the Fitzpatricks, for over 60 years.

We turn left onto Marshalsea Road then almost immediately left down Quilp Street (the other section of which we visited last time). Off of Quilp Street is Dorrit Street which is basically a twenty-yard cul-de-sac and therefore crying out to be prefaced by the word Little; so one can only assume it was left off out of embarrassed deference towards Dickens’ titular heroine. Quilp Street disgorges into Redcross Way which we hop over into Disney Street then dog-leg round Disney Place back onto Marshalsea Road. Cross over into Sanctuary Street which we follow south as far as Lant Street where we turn left down onto Borough High Street. Continue south down to Trinity Street where we turn east past Trio Place then head south along Swan Street to Harper Road. Turning left onto Harper Road and then left again down Brockham Street brings us into Trinity Church Square, comprised of immaculately maintained Georgian terrace houses such as are the go-to residences for characters of any social station in London-set Hollywood films.

The eponymous church in the middle of the square was built in 1824 and designed by architect Francis Bedford. In 1968 it was declared redundant and in the 1970s was converted into an orchestral rehearsal studio for the London Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestras and named after the conductor, Sir Henry Wood. On the north side of the church there is a statue reputed to be of King Alfred the Great. It’s suggested that it could be one of eight medieval statues from the north end towers of Westminster Hall (c. late 14th century) or, alternatively, one of a pair representing Alfred and Edward, the Black Prince, made for the garden of Carlton House in the 18th century.

Having completed a circuit of the square we return up Brockham Street to Harper Road then take the next left into Dickens Square before cutting through Dickens Fields to Falmouth Road. We take Falmouth Road down to Great Dover Street (A2) and turn right briefly for a contractual look at Sturgeon Street before heading back west along Trinity Street. A diversion round Merrick Square gives us a chance to admire some more of those Georgian terraces.

On the corner with Globe Street the bloke in the picture below taps me for £2 (to buy food for the dog) after spotting my remembrance poppy by claiming to have spent 6 years in the RAF before being discharged with a fractured skull that still troubles him. He then went on to bemoan the fact that “everyone else round here is foreign and doesn’t speak English”. Unfortunately I’d already parted with the cash by then.

So we cut down Globe Street into Cole Street which runs down to Swan Street where we take a right back to Great Dover Street. From here we head down to the four-way junction by Borough Tube Station and take Borough High Street southward for about a hundred metres before turning left into Little Dorrit Court. A little bit more respectful to the fictional Amy and she has a playground named after her too.

Little Dorrit Court returns us to Redcross Way across the street from Redcross Garden which along with the six cottages which flank it in one side was created by the social reformer, Octavia Hill (who we covered in detail in the last post).

We follow Redcross Way back to the corner with Union Street and the last port of call for today which is the Crossbones Graveyard a disused post-medieval burial ground in which up to 15,000 people are believed to have been buried. Cross Bones is thought to have been established originally as an unconsecrated graveyard for prostitutes, or “single women”, who were known locally as “Winchester Geese” because they were licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work within the Liberty of the Clink which lay outside the legal scope of the City of London. It was closed in 1853. Today the iron gates surrounding the graveyard are festooned with ribbons, feathers, beads and other tokens commemorating the “Outcast Dead” buried here. In 2007, Transport for London, which now owns the site, gave playwright John Constable access inside the gates, where he and other volunteers have created a wild garden. An informal group known as the Friends of Cross Bones is working to ensure that a planned redevelopment of the site preserves the garden as a more permanent place of reflection and remembrance.

Day 50 – The Mall – Waterloo Place – St James’s Park

The weather has put paid to any excursion attempts for the last couple of weeks but normal service is belatedly resumed with a meandering route taking in the western end of the St James’s district between Piccadilly and Pall Mall, then moving east around the area between Pall Mall and The Mall and finishing off with a circuit of St James’s Park. On the way we pay a visit to Waterloo Place which has the largest outdoor collection of statues to dead national heroes to be found in the capital. So if you’re a fan of the odd bronze memorial or ten stay tuned. And if you’re not stay tuned anyway for some nice photos of the wildfowl in the park at the end.

Starting point for today is once again Green Park tube but this time we’re heading south along the eastern edge of the park down Queen’s Walk. First of many historical buildings of note on today’s journey is Spencer House, built between 1756-1766 for John, first Earl Spencer, an ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales. Designed by architect John Vardy it is proclaimed as London’s finest surviving eighteenth-century town house and was one of the very earliest examples of the ne-classical style. It’s open to the public but only on Sundays.

Occupying the corner position with the Mall, and largely obscured by trees, is Lancaster House. This was commissioned in 1825 by Frederick Hanover (a.k.a the Grand Old Duke of York), the favourite son of King George III – more of him later – so it was originally known as York House. Unfortunately for Freddie the paint was barely dry before he died. The house was acquired by the then Marquess of Stafford and renamed Stafford House. His family held on until 1913 when one Lord Leverhulme bought the lease for the nation and, perhaps, in a cheeky nod to the Wars of the Roses, changed the name again to Lancaster, after his home county. Today the building is run by The Foreign & Commonwealth Office and is regularly hired out as a film location for productions such as the King’s Speech and The Crown. Just ahead of Lancaster House is an alleyway by the name of Milkmaids Passage which is now closed off at both ends, presumably because there are no longer any milkmaids to pass through it.

My arrival on the Mall happens to coincide with end of Buckingham Palace’s Changing of the Guard routine so I am able to follow the St James’s Palace detachment of the Old Guard as they return to their quarters accompanied by the 1st Battalion Irish Guards Corps of Drums & Pipes. This isn’t exactly a long march, just first left off the Mall up Marlborough Road and then left again into Friary Court (at the eastern end of St James’s Palace) for a final presentation of arms and dismissal.

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En route along the Mall we pass in front of Clarence House which is now the official residence of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall (so near yet so far from Buckingham Palace). Like the next door Lancaster House this was built in 1825-27 only the architect this time was John Nash and the prospective resident was Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence, 3rd son of George III and later to be King William IV. Like its neighbour and St James’s Palace, Clarence House is covered by Section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) of 2005 which deals with Trespass on Protected Sites.

Lancaster House on the left Clarence House on the right

Opposite Friary Court on Marlborough Road, set into the garden wall of Marlborough House, is the Queen Alexandra Memorial, installed in 1932 in commemoration of the wife of King Edward VII. It was the last major work of Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854 – 1934), the man also responsible for the statue of Eros at Piccadilly Circus.

As Marlborough Road joins with Pall Mall we head left along Cleveland Row which runs parallel with the north side of another Royal residence, St James’s Palace. SJP was largely built between 1531 and 1536 in the reign of Henry VIII. Much of the original red-brick building still survives today, including the Chapel Royal, the gatehouse, some turrets and two surviving Tudor rooms in the State apartments. It was here in 1558 that Mary Tudor signed the treaty surrendering Calais to the French and Elizabeth I was resident during the threat posed by the Spanish Armada and set out from St James’s to address her troops assembled at Tilbury. The last monarch to use this as a residence was the aforementioned William IV (whose successor Queen Victoria was the first to take occupancy of Buckingham Palace as we learned previously).

Perhaps a little surprisingly, the building opposite, adjacent to Russell Court, is the Embassy of Sudan.

From Cleveland Row we turn north then east along Little St James’s Street bypassing Catherine Wheel Yard and the back of Dukes Hotel.

This takes us into St James’s Street, which like many of its neighbours as we reported last time out, is a bastion of niche, (let’s say) traditional emporia aimed at the refined gentleman (or possibly lady) about town. At no.3 is Berry Brothers & Rudd, Wine & Spirit Merchants and holders of two Royal Warrants courtesy of HM and Prince Charles. The shop was opened in 1698 by a lady known as the Widow Bourne, originally selling Coffee and exotic spices. During the 19th century, by which time the Berry family had taken over, the focus became more and more on wines and spirits eventually to the exclusion of all else though the “Sign of the Coffee Mill” remains outside to this day. While in exile in London during the 1830’s the future Napoleon III held secret meetings in no.3’s cellars and the Titanic sank in 1912 69 cases of the firm’s wines and spirits went with it.

Just past Pickering Place on the same side of the street is another holder of two Royal Warrants (Phil & Charles this time), John Lobb Ltd., bootmakers, described by Esquire magazine as “the most beautiful shop in the world”. Their premises at no.9 once housed the bachelor pad of Lord Byron. The original John Lobb started life as a Cornish farmboy but acquired shoemaking skills that eventually led to international recognition and Royal approval.

Further up still at no.19 is one of a number of cigar merchants on the street. James J Fox was formed in Dublin in 1881 and opened its first tobacco shop in London in 1947. In 1992 it acquired the business of Robert Lewis whose family concern had begun trading fine tobacco in St James’s Street in 1787.

At the top of St James’s Street we turn left on Piccadilly for just a block before heading south again down Arlington Street by the side of the Ritz Hotel. The Ritz opened in May 1906 having been conceived by the renowned hotelier Cesar Ritz whose aim was create the most luxurious hotel in England. After an indifferent start, the hotel eventually began to flourish thanks in good measure to the patronage of The Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) who was a loyal client of César Ritz and is reputed to have said; “Where Ritz goes, I go”. The Aga Khan and Paul Getty had suites at the hotel, and Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower and Charles de Gaulle met in the Marie Antoinette Suite to discuss operations during the Second World War. It was reputed that The Ritz was the first hotel to allow young unmarried women to visit unchaperoned. Since 1995 the hotel has been owned by the controversial Barclay Twins who from their fiefdom on the Channel Island of Sark also run the Telegraph newspapers and, unlike the EU nationals that their papers vilify, allegedly pay just about sod all in tax to the British exchequer.

Across the road at no.5 is the one-time home of Sir Robert Walpole (1676 – 1745) generally regarded as de facto the first Prime Minister of this country and also the longest serving incumbent of that position (20 years during the reigns of George I and George II). His youngest son, Horace Walpole (1717 – 1797) took over the lease on the house upon his death. By comparison with his father, Horace had a less than glittering parliamentarian career hence the plaque’s rather nebulous description of him as a connoisseur and man of letters.

From Arlington Street we return to St James’s Street via Benet Street then turn south down the west side of the former. At the end of Park Place sits the London clubhouse of the Royal Overseas League which refers to itself as a non-profit private members’ club dedicated to championing international friendship and understanding. Despite its Imperial inspirations when Sir Evelyn Wrench launched the Overseas Club, as it was initially called, in 1910 he drew up a ‘creed for membership’ which refreshingly for the time emphasised that the club was non-sectarian, non-party, open to women and non-jingoist. (The ROSL is the building in the background in the photograph below).

Next cul-de-sac down is Blue Ball Yard which leads to the rear of the Stafford Hotel another grand 5-star establishment which celebrated its centenary in 2012. During World War II, The Stafford London served as a club for American and Canadian officers stationed overseas who sought refuge in the Wine Cellars. This transatlantic connection is reflected in the institution that is the American Bar and the flying of the Stars and Stripes alongside the Union Jack over the front entrance. The Carriage House in Blue Ball Yard was originally built as stables and was converted into luxury accommodation in the 1990’s.

The front of the hotel is reached by swinging round St James’s Place which is the next turning off St James’s Street on the right. En route we pass three more plaques, two blue and one green. The former two are at no. 4 and no. 28 commemorating respectively, the house from which Frederic Chopin left to give his final public performance in 1848 and the residence of the statesman William Huskisson (1770 – 1830). Huskisson served during several parliamentary terms, including as Leader of the House of Commons and Secretary of State for War but, sadly for him, is best known for being the world’s first casualty of a train accident, having been run over and fatally wounded by Stephenson’s Rocket. The green plaque is at no.29 where Winston Churchill lived from 1880-1883.

We carry on down to the end of St James’s Street then retrace our steps down Marlborough Road to the Mall where we continue eastward past Marlborough House which is the headquarters of the Commonwealth of Nations and the seat of the Commonwealth Secretariat. The house was built in 1711 for Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough and a close friend of Queen Anne. It was yet another piece of work by Sir Christopher Wren, this time aided by his son. The Crown took it over for use as another Royal residence in 1817 and from 1853 to 1861 it housed the Royal College of Art, courtesy of Prince Albert’s patronage.

Beyond Marlborough House we ascend the steps by the memorials to Queen Elizabeth II and her father King George VI.

This takes us up to Carlton Gardens where we find the former home of Lord Horatio Kitchener (1850 – 1916). Kitchener is best known for winning the 1898 Battle of Omdurman which facilitated the reconquest of the Sudan after the ignominy of the siege of Khartoum and the annihilation of General Gordon’s forces in 1885. He also played a key role during the Boer Wars and was Secretary of State for War at the outset of WWI. He died in 1916 when HMS Hampshire, on which he was travelling to attend negotiations in Russia, struck a German mine.

No.4 Carlton Gardens was where General Charles de Gaulle (1890 – 1970) set up the headquarters of the Free French Forces in 1940. In a previous incarnation it was also another of the houses where Lord Palmerston lived. There’s a statue to De Gaulle on the other side of the street and given his staunch opposition to the UK joining the EU I couldn’t help but imagine I detected a bit of a smirk on those bronze lips.

Carlton Gardens meets Carlton House Terrace at the corner of Waterloo Gardens. The statue here is of George Nathaniel Curzon (1859 – 1925), Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905 and failed Prime Ministerial candidate in 1923 (he was passed over in favour of Stanley Baldwin). His three daughters by his first wife were prominent and controversial figures during the 20’s and 30’s as documented in the book The Viceroy’s Daughters which I can recommend.

The terraces of white stucco-faced houses that give Carlton House Terrace its name were built between 1827 and 1832 to designs by John Nash with input from other architects such as our old friend Decimus Burton. Current occupants of the terrace to the west of Waterloo Place include the Royal Academy of Engineering at no2. 3-4, the Turf Club at no.5 and the Royal Society at nos. 6-9 (this was once the German Embassy). The Royal Society is yet something else we have that man Christopher Wren at least partly to thank for. It was after a 1660 lecture given by Wren at Gresham College that a so-called ‘invisible college’ of natural philosophers and physicians first got together. Almost immediately this society received the approval of Charles II and his Royal Charter and by 1663 the name ‘The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge’ was established. To date there have been around 8,000 Fellows from Newton to Darwin to Einstein and beyond. Current Fellows include Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Richard Dawkins and Tim Berners-Lee. Up until this week that second list would have included the now sadly departed Stephen Hawking. If you get a chance to visit their Summer Exhibition which usually takes place at the start of July I can thoroughly recommend that as well. (The pictures of the interior below were taken during the 2106 exhibition).

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And so on to Waterloo Place, the southern end of which is dominated by the Duke of York column. As alluded to much earlier in this post, the column was erected as a memorial to the favourite son of King George III, Prince Frederick (the Grand Old Duke of York remember). The column is made from Aberdeenshire granite and was designed by Benjamin Dean Wyatt. It’s one centimetre shy of 42m in height and there is a spiral staircase of 168 steps inside that leads to a viewing platform that has been closed to the public for several decades. It would be something of an understatement to say that Frederick was a controversial figure – not many people have inspired a nursery rhyme commemorating their disastrous record on the battlefield. A womaniser and gambler, Frederick once drank and gambled his way through £40,000 in one year. He also found himself in serious trouble when one of his mistresses, Mary Clarke, admitted to having sold commissions to would-be army officers. Fortunately for him the House of Commons accepted his plea of ignorance and he was cleared of corruption charges.

As I already noted, Waterloo Place, is a must-see destination for anyone who’s a fan of statues and monuments but I suspect that’s a rather small subset of the population so, for the sake of the rest of you, I’m not going to linger over any of them. Starting on the west side for now and moving south to north we have Field Marshal Sir John Fox Burgoyne (1782-1781) followed by Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin (1786 – 1847) and then Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park (1892 – 1975). One from each of the armed services basically. And across the road in the middle of the place is the equestrian statue of Edward VII.

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Just north of Waterloo Gardens is the very grandiose-looking Athenaeum Club. It perhaps comes as no surprise that the architect of this extravagant piece of neo-classicism was once again the young Decimus Burton. Construction began in 1824, the year the Club was founded by John Wilson Croker as a meeting place for men who ‘enjoy the life if the mind’ (women were finally admitted in 2002). The frieze around the outside is a copy of the then recently rescued/stolen (depending on your point of view) Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon. It was executed by John Henning, a leading sculptor of the day, at a cost of over £2,000 which was about 5% of the entire budget for the building. Today the majority of the members of the Athenaeum are professionals concerned with science, engineering or medicine but the clergy, lawyers, writers and artists are also represented. A total of 52 past and present members have been the recipient of a Nobel Prize.

At the north end of Waterloo Place we turn east along Charles II Street and then north up St Alban’s Street which leads past Carlton Street into St James’s Market. The St James’s Market Pavilion is currently showcasing an audio/visual exhibit (narrated by Stephen Fry) which tells the story of The Handsome Butcher of St James’s Market, a ballad written around 1790.

Norris Street takes us into Haymarket where we drop south back to Charles II Street and then stroll through the Royal Opera Arcade to Pall Mall.

A westward turn then brings us back to Waterloo Place and those remaining statues and memorials. In the square to the north of Pall Mall we have the Guards Crimean War Memorial created by sculptor John Bell. Immediately in front of that on the left is Florence Nightingale (1820 -1910), nursing heroine of the Crimean War of course, and on the right a pensive-looking Sidney Herbert (1810 – 1961) who was her friend and confidant and Secretary of State for War during the Crimean conflict.

Crossing over Pall Mall we pass, on the corner, the home of those cheerleaders for free market capitalism, the Institute of Directors. The IOD was founded in 1903 and moved into the Grade I Listed, John Nash designed, 116 Pall Mall in 1978.

We now pass down the eastern side of Waterloo Place where the three honoured heroes of the nation are : Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868 – 1912) the ill-fated “Scott of the Antarctic” who reached the South Pole five weeks after the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen, got there first and, unlike Amundsen, failed to survive the return journey; Field Marshal Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde (1792 – 1863), who managed to make it unscathed through the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the two Opium Wars; and John Laird Mair Lawrence (1811 – 1879) who was Viceroy of India in the 1860’s.

Turning left after the last of these we enter the eastern section of Carlton House Terrace. Nos, 10-11 house the British Academy. Not to be confused with BAFTA this is the national academy for the humanities and social sciences – if you follow the link you can see which fields that encompasses but it definitely doesn’t include those upstarts Film and Television. No. 11 was also one of the many places where William Gladstone resided.

No.12 is The Institute of Contemporary Arts (better known as just the ICA) though the public entrance for exhibitions, cinema, bookshop etc. is on the Mall which also holds true for the Mall Galleries which occupies no.17 (and pretty much the opposite end of the artistic spectrum). Nos. 13-15 are owned by the Hinduja Brothers, Indian industrial magnates the eldest two of whom are reputed to be the wealthiest men in Britain, £16.2bn between them if you really want to know,

At the end of this stretch of Carlton House Terrace we descend the steps leading off to the south which take us down onto the Mall again. Turning right we pass the Graspan Royal Marines Memorial which commemorates the Royal Marines who died in the Boxer Rebellion and the Second Boer War.

Since I’d never been in the Mall Galleries before I thought I’d better take a look. As I already knew, this celebrates those artists whose practice focuses on traditional media and technical proficiency rather than innovation and conceptual ideas. Nothing wrong with that but it’s not really for me. One of the current exhibitions did however include a painting of the Woodentops so brownie points for that.

The ICA, on the other hand, I’ve visited countless times. You can always get a decent cocktail in the bar even if you don’t like the exhibition. On this occasion I popped in to buy a cinema ticket for the late afternoon screening of Ladybird – a bargain at £6. The ICA was founded in 1947 by Roland Penrose, Peter Watson, Herbert Read, Peter Gregory, Geoffrey Grigson and E. L. T. Mesens in 1947 who wanted to establish a space where artists, writers and scientists could debate ideas outside the traditional confines of the Royal Academy. It has occupied this site on the Mall, Nash House, since 1968. The ICA has always tried to push the envelope where artistic expression is concerned – in 1986 Helen Chadwick’s artwork, Carcass, consisting of a stinking pile of rotting vegetables, had to be removed after complaints from neighbours and a visit by health inspectors and in 1994 artist Rosa Sanchez installed a video camera in the men’s toilets to relay live images of urinating visitors.

And so finally we cross over the Mall into St James’s Park. This is the oldest of London’s Royal Parks and takes its name from a thirteenth century leper hospital which was the first human intervention into the space. In 1532 Henry VIII acquired the site as yet another deer park and it continued as a private royal playground until Charles II had it made over with lawns and tree lined avenues and opened it to the public. It was later redesigned again by John Nash with the canal being transformed into the lake we see today. In 1837 the ancestors ( I like to think) of the wildfowl that inhabit the lake were introduced by the Ornithological Society of London who also had a birdkeeper’s cottage built. I’ve got into a bit of the old twitching (or birding) of late so I was pleased to be able to identify most of the feathered residents.

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I realise that we’re already getting into War and Peace territory in terms of word count but we’ve just got a small section south of the park to tidy up then we’re done. Birdcage Walk (named after the Royal Menagerie & Aviary from the time of Charles I) runs from Buckingham Palace along the south side of the park. The Wellington Barracks front onto a good part of its length. The Barracks is home to the Foot Guards battalion which shares guard duty for Buckingham Palace with the regiment stationed at St James’s Palace.

Beyond the Barracks we turn right into Queen Anne’s Gate. After an initial pedestrian-only section this splits three ways and we take the eastward option. No.26 was once home to the politician, lawyer and philosopher, Lord Richard Burdon Haldane (1856 – 1928) and no.20 is the house where Lord Palmerston was born in 1784. There are blue plaques at 14 and 16 as well but I won’t detain you with those since far more exciting is the fact that no.15 stood in as the home of Lord Brett Sinclair the character played by (the sadly missed) Roger Moore in The Persuaders (still the greatest theme tune in the history of television). No.15 also stands on one side of the statue of Queen Anne herself which has been in situ here since at least 1708. At the end of the street we double back and then head south down Carteret Street which takes us to the familiar territory of Tothill Street and Broadway which on a westerly trajectory link up with the north-south section of Queen Annes’s Gate. Returning to where we came from we make our final stop of the day outside no.40 which between 1814 and 1831 was the home of father and son philosophers James Mill (1773 – 1836) and (the more well known) John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873). The latter, in particular, had an enormous influence on the development of social and political theory in the 19th century. He was an advocate of Jeremy Bentham’s theory of utilitarianism, in crude terms, “the greatest good of the greatest number” and a strong defender of the principle of free speech. He was also the first Member of parliament to publicly call for Women’s Suffrage – an appropriate note to end on in this anniversary year.

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Day 49 – Piccadilly – St James’s Square – Pall Mall

First excursion of the year and not a long one but this small area between Piccadilly and Pall Mall (yellow to pink on the Monopoly board) is rich in historical and social significance. From Fortnum and Mason to the Royal Automobile Club, St James’s (where nearly 50% of the property is owned by the Crown Estate) still clings to an aura of privilege and old money. It also contains the former residences of two women who, in very different ways, have played an important role in shaping the evolution of this country – Ada Lovelace and Nancy Astor.

Starting point today is St James’s Church on Piccadilly. This was consecrated in 1684 having been built to the order of Henry Jermyn, Earl of St Albans to the serve the new residential development of St James’s Square. And wouldn’t you know it but the architect was the ubiquitous Christopher Wren accepting a rare gig outside of the City of London. The reredos and the marble font were created by master carver of the age, Grinling Gibbons (there’s a forename that’s ripe for revival surely). And that font was where William Blake was baptised in December 1757. St James’s is well known as a classical music venue and I was fortunate enough that my visit coincided with a lunchtime recital by the prizewinning Greek pianist, Konstantinos Destounis. The church is also very actively involved in highlighting social and political issues and is currently host to Suspended, an installation by artist Arabella Dorman which highlights the plight of refugees attempting to flee from persecution and famine to the safety of European shores.

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We exit the church onto Jermyn Street, turn left and then return to Piccadilly via Church Place. Heading east towards Piccadilly Circus we pass Waterstones flagship store which occupies the Grade I listed building that came into being in 1936 as Simpsons of Piccadilly, at the time the largest menswear store in Britain. The building was designed by the modernist architect, Joseph Pemberton (1889 – 1956) and much of the interior was the work of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895 – 1946), one of the most influential professors at the Bauhaus school of art in 1920’s Berlin.

A right turn down Eagle Place takes us back onto Jermyn Street where we continue east onto Regent Street St James’s (or Regent Street South if you’re pushed for time). The Lumiere London art festival had taken place the previous weekend and the area around Piccadilly had featured several of the installations, including this light projection onto the old Swan & Edgar building.

We drop down to the end of Regent Street St James’s where no. 1 with its ornate carved frontage, home of the Greek restaurant Estiatorio Milos, stands on the corner with Charles II Street.

Charles II Street runs west into St James’s Square. As already mentioned the square was laid out in the late 17th century by Henry Jermyn, the 1st Earl of St Albans one of the most influential courtiers of the Restoration period. The houses on the square quickly became some of the most desirable properties in London and by the 1720’s seven dukes and seven earls were among the residents. A century or so later the clubhouses arrived and the square lost a bit (but only a bit) of its cachet. Turning right to proceed anticlockwise around the square we pass the BP head office at no. 1, a turn of the 21st century building they acquired in 2001. The original house at no.3 next door was owned by at least three separate dukes at different times but was replaced in the 1930’s by this office block.

Then at no.4 we have an original Georgian House built 1726-28 by Edward Shepherd and the only one on the square to retain its garden and mews house at the rear. It is now the Naval and Military Club but was once one of the homes of Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor (1879 – 1964) the first woman to sit as an MP in the House of Commons. Nancy Witcher Langthorne Astor, to give her her full name, was an American citizen who moved to Britain at the age of 26 when she married, for the second time, to Waldorf Astor heir to the massive fortune of the Astor family with its origins in the 18th century US fur trade and New York real estate. Their primary home was the 375 acre Cliveden Estate in Buckinghamshire, a wedding gift from Waldorf’s father. Waldorf had enjoyed a promising political career prior to WW1 but when he succeeded his father’s peerage to become the 2nd Viscount Astor he was automatically shunted off to the House of Lords. This left the way open for Nancy to contest the vacant seat and she duly won the November 1919 by-election. She was in actual fact not the first woman to be elected to parliament, that milestone was achieved by Constance Markievicz in 1918 but as she was an Irish Republican she was barred from taking her seat. I think it’s fair to say that Lady Astor’s success is now viewed as purely a symbolic one. Her political accomplishments were largely negligible although she remained an MP until 1945. Her personal ideology was also pretty suspect in many ways – she had not been a strong advocate of women’s suffrage and held strong anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic views. However, while she and many of her circle were in favour of appeasement suggestions that the “Cliveden set” were pro-fascist appear to be exaggerated.

Across the road from no.4, just outside the gardens, is a memorial to WPC Yvonne Fletcher who on 17 April 1984, at the age of 25, was killed by a shot from the Libyan People’s Bureau (Embassy) which at the time occupied no.5. WPC Fletcher was on duty monitoring a demonstration against the Gaddafi regime, eleven of the participations in which were also wounded. Although diplomatic relations between the UK and Libya were severed no-one was ever brought to account for the murder. Two years later US fighter planes conducted bombing raids on Libya having taken off from UK air bases with the acquiescence of Margaret Thatcher.

We leave the square temporarily via Duke of York Street off to the right of which is the now (thanks to the eponymous book and TV series) infamous Apple Tree Yard. You’d be hard pushed to find anywhere quite so unappealing as a venue for a spot of alfresco hanky-panky but then that’s probably the point. Though I’m pretty certain the scenes in the TV series weren’t actually filmed here anyway. The yard’s other claim to fame is that it was home to the office where Sir Edwin Lutyens designed the enclave of New Delhi (within the metropolis of Delhi) to replace Calcutta as the seat of the British Colonial Government in 1912. This was marked in 2015 by the installation of a sculptural work in granite by the artist Stephen Cox.

Back on Duke of York Street it’s a short hop up to Jermyn Street again for a quick eastward foray to tick off Babmaes Street before retracing our steps to Ormond Yard which is opposite Apple Tree Yard and ends in a small passage that cuts through To Mason’s Yard. Bang in the middle of Mason’s Yard is the White Cube Gallery which was constructed here on the site of an old electricity subs-station (and is the first free-standing structure to be built in the historic St James’s area for more than 30 years). In its architectural style the White Cube aims for a spot of nominative determinism though White Orthotope would be nearer the mark (this is also true of its sister gallery, White Cube Bermondsey). It’s a good old space inside and usually showcasing something worth a visit. Current exhibition by Korean artist, Minjung Kim, which just opened today is a case in point.

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To the west Mason’s Yard leads out onto Duke Street St James’s where we head south as far as King Street which takes us east back to St James’s Square. This time we go clockwise round the square (if you see what I mean). First stop is no. 16 which was formerly the East India Club and displays a black plaque commemorating the official dispatch of the news of the victory at Waterloo carried by Major Henry Percy. After initial delivery to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for War at Grosvenor Square, Major Percy continued on to this address to lay two captured French Imperial Eagles before the Prince Regent who was attending a soirée here.

At no. 14 is the London Library the world’s largest independent library created at the instigation of Thomas Carlyle (who objected to some of the policies of the British Museum Library). It opened in 1841 and moved to St James’s Square four years later. Alfred Lord Tennyson served as President, from 1855 to 1892, as did T.S. Eliot who, on his appointment in 1952, declared “whatever social changes come about, the disappearance of the London Library would be a disaster to civilisation”. Today the library is home to over a million books covering more than 2,000 subjects and stored on 17 miles of shelves. Membership costs £525 a year.

Next door at no.13. is the only Embassy on the square – the High Commission of Cyprus.

Turning the corner onto the north side we reach, at no.12, the former residence of the other woman I mentioned in the preamble, Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace (1815 – 1852) better known, simply, as Ada Lovelace. Part of Ada’s fame rests upon the fact that she was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron – by his wife Annabella Milbanke, Lady Wentworth. But far more important than that is her contribution to the fields of mathematics and science. As a teenager, Ada’s mathematical prowess, led her to form what came to be a long working relationship and friendship with Charles Babbage (1791 – 1871) the man who first came up with the concept of the computer, or Analytical Engine as he called it. However it was Ada who recognized that such a machine could have potential applications beyond pure calculation and published the first program intended to be carried out by the “computing machine”. For this she is regarded by many as effectively the world’s first computer programmer. Her personal life though was not a happy one; her relationships with men were fraught and complicated and she took to gambling with disastrous results – losing more than £3,000 on the horses in her early thirties. And she was always haunted by her father who had to all intents and purposes abandoned her at birth. In any event she never saw him again during his eight remaining years of life. But when Ada died of uterine cancer at the age of 36, the same age Byron had been, she was buried, at her request, next to him at the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.

Two doors further along at no.10 is Chatham House aka the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the world-famous independent policy institute. In 1919 British and American delegates to the Paris Peace Conference, under the leadership of Lionel Curtis, conceived the idea of an Anglo-American Institute of foreign affairs to study international problems with a view to preventing future wars. In the event, the British went ahead on their own, founding the British Institute of International Affairs in July 1920. Chatham House is immortalised for originating the Chatham House Rule – When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. Or, more succinctly, “what’s said in the room stays in the room”. No.10 (appropriately enough) is also celebrated for being the home at various times of three separate British Prime Ministers – William Pitt the Elder (PM from 1766-68), Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby (PM for just 299 days in 1852 and 1 year and 243 days between 1866 and 1868) and William Ewart Gladstone (PM for most of the 2nd half of the 19th century).

See what I mean, just this one corner of the square has elicited the best part of 1,000 words. Anyway, once past no.10, we turn south through the middle of the gardens. In the centre is an equestrian statue of William III erected in 1808 and at the southern end is a small pavilion with a memorial to architect John Nash (we’ve met him more than once on previous journeys) who supervised the design and layout of the gardens.

Back on the east side of the square is no.31, Norfolk House, which was U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters during World War II, and where Operation Torch and Operation Overlord were planned.

We leave the square again briefly, exiting onto Pall Mall from the south-east corner. Across the road is the Royal Automobile Club, founded in 1897 by Frederick Richard Simms with the primary purpose of promoting the motor car and its place in society. The Royal part of the monicker was granted by King Edward VII in 1907 (Victoria would have had no truck with these new-fangled automobile things). Today it’s a glorified private members’ (including women) club with Edwardian Turkish baths that were renovated in 2003–4, an Italian marble swimming pool, squash courts (including a doubles court), a snooker room, three restaurants, two bars, and a fully equipped business centre. It is now completely divorced from the motoring services group, the RAC, which it once owned.

We head back into the square for a final time past another bastion of London clubland (of the cigars and brandy rather than ecstasy and glo-stick variety), the Army and Navy Club. This one has been around since 1837 and its first patron was the Duke of Wellington and the current one is the Queen – nuff said. The club is colloquially known as ‘the Rag’ – if you want to know why check out the link. I think I need to move swiftly on before I go all champagne socialist.

We leave the square for the final time back along King Street heading west. On the north side is the global HQ of fine art auctioneers, Christie’s, where they have been since 1823.

On the south side we pass Cleveland Place and Rose & Crown Yard before taking the next turning, Angel Court. The following picture is of the middle of those three and I took it and flipped it to b&w purely on account of the striking quality of the mannequin figure in the window.

On the corner of Angel Court and King Street, the Golden Lion pub occupies the site where the St James’s Theatre, which staged the first performances of Oscar Wilde’s two best known plays, once stood. Further down Angel Court is a set of, now rather forlorn looking, commemorative reliefs by E. Bainbridge Copnall. The reliefs were commissioned for the office block that replaced the theatre, which was demolished itself in 1986.

Back on Pall Mall we head east initially along the north side then double back west on the south side. Pall Mall was constructed in 1661 and takes it’s name from the game of pall-mall which was a bit similar to croquet and was introduced to England by James I. London’s first pall-mall court was built in St James’s Field where St James’s Square now stands. As we return along the south side we pass no.82 which is adorned with a blue plaque marking this as a former residence of the artist Thomas Gainsborough (1727 – 1788) and no.80 which has one noting that Nell Gwynne (1650 – 1687) once lived in a house on the site. And at no.71 is the Oxford and Cambridge Club where. I imagine, the real metropolitan elite meet and greet.

We switch back northwards up Crown Passage which, if you ignore the rubbish bags, has a charming touch of the olde-worlde about it…

…there’s even a Milliner’s for goodness’ sake (that’s someone who makes hats in case there happens to be anyone under the age of forty reading)

So now we’re back on King Street from where a quick right then left takes us into Bury Street. The area of St James’s is particularly known for its galleries. Not the sort I tend to frequent that show contemporary art (though as we’ve seen there are a couple of those) but the ones that specialise in just about every niche in the fine arts and antiques firmament – from old masters to maps to Japanese art and armour and weaponry as you can see below.

We turn east off Bury Street along Ryder Street back to Duke Street St James’s where we continue north and then turn the corner into Jermyn Street past the Cavendish Hotel. In its present form The Cavendish is a particularly unlovable example of 1960’s concrete pragmatism. Its predecessor was built in the early 1800’s, taking on the Cavendish name in 1836. In 1902 the Cavendish was bought by one Rosa Lewis (1867 -1952), who had worked her way up from kitchen maid (aged 12) to be head chef of the Duc d’orleans at Sandhurst. She was also engaged as a dinner-party cook by Lady Randolph Churchill, the Asquiths and many of the hostesses who entertained Edward VII. Rosa originally put her husband, the grandly named ex-butler Excelsior Tyrel Chiney Lewis, and his sister Laura in charge of the hotel. But within two years their spending and his drinking were out of control so Rosa divorced him and threw the pair of them out. Once she was in charge the hotel flourished and expanded. She was known for her generous spirit – allowing impoverished WW1 military officers to stay for free at the hotel for example – and Evelyn Waugh described her as warm hearted, comic and a totally original woman. She continued to dress in Edwardian style and enjoyed a grandiose and majestic decline from 1918 to 1952. Her life was the inspiration for the 1970’s TV series, “The Duchess of Duke Street” (with Gemma Jones in the title role) as is recognized by a Westminster Council commemorative plaque.

After a couple of blocks we make our way back to Piccadilly up Princes Arcade which continues the area’s general theme of old fashioned luxury. Opposite the entrance to the arcade at no.87 Jermyn Street is another of those old London County Council blue plaques marking this as the home of Sir Isaac Newton. Newton actually lived in the building that was knocked down in 1915 but the plaque had been installed seven years prior to that and so was taken down a re-fixed to the new building.

On reaching Piccadilly again we turn left to get to Hatchards the UK’s oldest bookshop. John Hatchard opened the store at 173 Piccadilly in 1797 and moved it to (what is now) 187 in 1801. The store has three Royal Warrants and is now owned by Waterstone’s.

Since that move in 1801, Hatchards has been neighbour to Fortnum & Mason which preceded it in opening on Piccadilly by nearly a hundred years. It was 1707, to be exact, when Hugh Mason and William Fortnum set up shop at no.181 and it all began with them selling off Queen Anne’s half-used candle wax. In 1738, by which time it was established as one of the most prominent grocery stores on the capital, Fortnum and Mason’s invented the Scotch Egg while brainstorming ideas for food that travellers could eat on the go. In 1851 Fortnum’s won first prize as importers of dried fruits and dessert goods at London’s Great Exhibition and in 1886 became the first grocer’s in Britain to stock Heinz baked beans. In 1911 they sent hampers to the suffragettes who had been imprisoned for breaking their windows and they provided the 1922 Everest expedition with, amongst other things, 60 tins of quail in foie gras and four dozen bottles of champagne (amazing that they didn’t reach the summit with that to fortify them). The famous clock on the storefront was installed in 1964 and its bells come from the same foundry that produced Big Ben. The only record that F&M have ever sold is Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas ?” These days Fortnum’s is more of a tourist destination than anything. There are no doubt still a few members of the landed gentry that pop up to town to stock up on comestibles and haberdashery but I didn’t see very many while doing the rounds. Since I mentioned it earlier I should also note that the selling of foie-gras was the subject of a PETA campaign in 2010 that was supported by a number of high-profile celebrities.

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We exit the store (purchase-free) onto Duke Street and at the end of the block turn west for a final visit to Jermyn Street. Outside the Piccadilly Arcade is a statue to the Georgian “dandy” Beau Brummel (1778 – 1840). Poor old Beau’s not looking quite so dandy-ish at the moment having been boxed in by the workmen repairing the street.

Jermyn Street has historically been second only to Savile Row in term of catering to the sartorial needs of the discerning London gentleman-about-town but these days it seems to consist mainly of branches of T.M Lewin. So I was pleased to finally encounter one of the few remaining proper old-style independent outfitters on the corner with the top of Bury Street.

And that’s just about it. From Bury Street we turn right to make the western section of Ryder Street our last call of the day and I’ll leave you wondering, like me, what story lies behind this intriguing shot.

Day 45 – Bishopsgate – Leadenhall Market – Lime Street – Monument

Today’s journey’s a little bit different from the usual in that it coincided with the Sunday of this year’s Open House Weekend so I was afforded the possibility of seeing inside a few places en route that would normally be off limits. Case in point is the Drapers’ Hall which we encountered towards the end of Day 44 so we’re going to rewind a bit and kick off with that again this time. From there we’re going to head north up to London Wall then drop south on Bishopsgate to Leadenhall Market before wending our way east and south to finish up at the Monument.

As noted, today’s starting point is the Drapers’ Hall on Throgmorton Street. We already covered the history of the Drapers’ Company and the external architectural features last time out so I’m just going to let the images of the interior pretty much speak for themselves (aside from the commentary I’ve added to the individual slides that is). Suffice to say, I had expected something pretty grandiose as befitting third place on the Order of Precedence but I wasn’t prepared for something quite this opulent (and on such a scale).

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You will have noted that the Victorian artist, Herbert James Draper (1863 – 1920) had quite a prominent role in in the decoration of the Hall. Whether he got the commission on account of his name or because the guiding lights of the company appreciated his somewhat risqué interpretations of mythological and Shakespearean themes is not recorded (so far as I can tell). The thinking behind the tapestries and ceiling painting depicting scenes from the Legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece is rather easier to discern.

After leaving the hall we repeat the walk up Throgmorton Avenue to Austin Friars which leads east to the Dutch Church. Originally this was the site of a 13th century Augustinian priory (Austin Friars) before, in 1550, what is regarded as the oldest Dutch-language Protestant church in the world church was founded here. That first building survived right up until the Blitz destroyed it; the present church was built in the early 1950’s. Perkin Walbeck, the pretender to the English crown (he claimed to be the younger son of Edward IV, one of the Princes in the Tower murdered by Richard III), was buried in the original church following his execution by Henry VII. Today the church still acts as a focal point for the Dutch community in London.

Opposite the church is the Furniture Makers’ Hall – which is the one that I could claim entry to by virtue of ancestry. Typical ! If only my Grand-dads had been drapers instead of chairmakers.

Looping round the rest of Austin Friars we emerge onto Old Broad Street opposite the City of London Club, the oldest Gentlemen’s club in, well, the City of London. This was founded in 1832 by a group of prominent bankers, merchants and ship owners and held its first meetings at the George and Vulture pub (see last post). The original membership numbered 600 and included the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. If you should want to join then you need to make the acquaintance and get the support of at least six people who are already members (and ladies are equally welcome these days apparently).

As you can see, these days the City of London Club, sits in the shadow of Tower 42, which until 1990 and the construction of One Canada Square at Canary Wharf was the tallest building in the UK. Nowadays it’s only the third highest skyscraper in the City of London having been eclipsed in recent years by the Heron Tower (we’ll stick with that name thank you) and 122 Leadenhall Street (a.k.a “the Cheesegrater”). Tower 42, of course, started life as the NatWest Tower (seen from above the shape of the building echoes the NatWest logo). It was designed by Richard Seifert (1910 – 20011) and built by John Mowlem & Co between 1971 and 1980 at a cost of £72m. At 183m the tower dwarfed everything around it at the time of construction and was extremely controversial. It was built around a massive central concrete core from which the floors are cantilevered (anchored at just one end) making it exceptionally strong but reducing the amount of office space that could have been available with an alternative structure. On a note with contemporary resonance; at the time of design, fire sprinkler systems were not mandatory in the UK and so weren’t installed. It was this omission, coupled with a fire in the tower during a 1996 refurbishment, that prompted the GLC to amend its fire regulations and require sprinkler installations in all buildings. Today the building is multi-tenanted with a high-end restaurant on the 24th floor and a champagne and seafood bar on the 42nd.

Moving on we duck into Pinners Alley (by the side of Pinners Hall where I worked from 1996 to 2004) heading west briefly before turning north up Austin Friars Passage – which I always though should’ve been the name of a second division 1970’s pro-rock band.

At the other end is Great Winchester Street which is home to Deutsche Bank’s London HQ. Among the artworks in their lobby is one of Damien Hirst’s multi-coloured dot efforts (more of him later).

Turning left we end up back on London Wall which as we head east morphs into Wormwood Street. At the junction with Bishopsgate (a.k.a the A10) we switch southward and drop all the way down to Leadenhall Market. On the way we pass a NatWest building of a different vintage altogether; this one built in the 1860’s to a design of the architect John Gibson (1817 – 1892) when the bank was known as the National Provincial Bank of England.

At Leadenhall Market I was able to tag along with a tour that had just started (courtesy of Open House again). I wish I had made a note of the guide’s name so I could give a well deserved shout-out as she was excellent. Anyway, Leadenhall Market dates back to the 14th century and stands on a site that was once the heart of Roman London. As early as 1321 it was a meeting place of the Poulterers while the Cheesemongers (I think we must have missed them on our travels) sold their wares here from 1397. In 1411 the Corporation of London acquired the freehold of the site and it became an established market for fish, meat, poultry and corn. The present wrought iron and glass roofed structure was designed by City Architect, Horace Jones (1819 – 1887) and erected in 1881. The Market has been used as a location in a number of films, most notably Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone where it represented Diagon Alley and the Leaky Cauldron pub.

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We leave the market via Whittington Avenue and, turning right on Leadenhall Street, pass the Lloyds of London building (not to be confused with the Lloyds Register building which we encountered previously). This iconic, Richard Rogers designed edifice, caused even more of a stir when it was put up (between 1978 and 1986) than the NatWest Tower had. In spite of this, 25 years after its completion it became the youngest structure ever to be granted Grade-I listed status. Lloyds is a leading example of what has been dubbed Bowellism, the practice of putting service areas of a building on its exterior so as to maximise space in the interior (c.f. Paris’s Pompidou Centre). The building consists of three main towers and three service towers around a central, rectangular space. Its core is the large Underwriting Room on the ground floor, which houses the Lutine Bell within the Rostrum. (It wasn’t taking part in Open House this year but the queues are normally prohibitive anyway).

The Lloyd’s building is at no.1 Lime Street; opposite at no.52 construction is underway of yet another skyscraper, The Scalpel. This time that’s an official designation, the developers yielding to the “if you can’t beat ’em join ’em” maxim. This one will top out at 38 storeys and be the new European HQ for insurers W.R Berkley (no me neither).

Turn south down Lime Street and then return to the Market along Leadenhall Place. Take a left into Lime Street Passage and then traverse the Market a couple more times via Beehive Passage, Bull’s Head Passage and Ship Tavern Passage. This finds us back on Lime Street which we follow southward to Fenchurch Street. From here we go west back to Gracechurch Street then continue south before cutting round Talbot Court down onto Eastcheap. Turn east as far as Philpot Lane and use this to return northward, poking our noses into Brabant Court on the west side before arriving back on Fenchurch Street. This route takes us around no.20 Fenchurch Street, better known to you, me and everyone else as the “Walkie-Talkie” and the 2015 winner of Building Design Magazine’s Carbuncle Cup for the worst building in the UK. It is notorious of course because its concave shape makes it reflect sunlight into a concentrated beam that on reaching street level has been known to melt the bodywork of parked cars and facilitate the frying of eggs on the pavement. Those incidents took place in 2013, since when the glass exterior has been covered with a non-reflective film. In an interview with The Guardian the building’s architect, Rafael Vinoly, blamed the problem on global warming “When I first came to London years ago, it wasn’t like this … Now you have all these sunny days”. The ‘sky garden’ at the top of the building was claimed to be London’s highest public park, but since opening there have been debates about whether it can be described as a ‘park’, and whether it is truly ‘public’ given the access restrictions. On the day there was a queue of about eighty or so people waiting to be allowed up.

This time we strike eastward until we reach Cullum Street which curves back onto Lime Street. At the junction here that man Damien Hirst makes a second appearance in today’s post, lowering the tone of the neighbourhood with one of his giant anatomical models as part of Sculpture in the City.

This time we make an easterly retreat from Lime Street along Fenchurch Avenue and after a short distance cut back to Fenchurch Street via Fen Court. There is a small garden here in what was once the churchyard of St Gabriel Fenchurch, lost in the Great Fire. The sculpture “The Gilt of Cain” by Michael Vissochi was unveiled by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2008 and commemorates the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. It takes its name from a poem of Lemn Sissay which is inscribed on the sculpture and combines Old Testament text with the language of the Stock Exchange.

You’re probably wondering by now where all the churches had got to but don’t worry, there are one or two on the menu today – though fewer than you’ve had to put up with in the last few posts. First up is All Hallows Staining which we reach by taking Star Alley south from Fenchurch Street through to Mark Lane. Mind you, all that remains of this one is its tower which was built around 1320 AD. The rest was demolished c.1870 when All Hallows merged with nearby St Olave Hart Street (see Day 40). The latter was badly damaged in WW2 so a prefab church was erected next to the tower and named St Olave Mark Lane (as you see the sign in the photo confusingly still refers to St Olave). The tower is maintained by the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers, whose hall sits in nearby Mincing Lane.

Next we follow Mark Lane down to Great Tower Street which at its eastern extremity adjoins with Byward Street which as it heads west turns into Lower Thames Street. At the juncture here sits The Hung Drawn & Quartered pub which acts as a reminder of the public executions which once took place on nearby Tower Hill, including those of Thomases More and Cromwell.

We leave Lower Thames Street almost immediately and wend our way through Bakers Hall Court, Harp Lane and Cross Lane to St Dunstan’s Hill where lie the ruins of the church of St Dunstan in the East, now set within a public garden that was laid out in 1967. St Dunstan’s wasn’t completely destroyed in the Great Fire so it was patched up in the immediate aftermath and then a Wren-designed tower and steeple were added at the end of the 17th century. Apart from a couple of walls this tower was all that remained intact after the WW2 bombing and it was decided not to rebuild again. Personally I like it as it is now – as do the birds.

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Dropping back down onto Lower Thames Street it’s time for another Open House visit – to the Billingsgate Roman House and Baths (or rather the very partial remains thereof) located beneath a drab 1980’s office block. Discovered in 1848 during the construction of the Coal Exchange building (more of that in a while) these are the only remains of a Roman house accessible in London. It is believed that the house was originally built around the late 2nd century AD and the baths added in the following century. The latest theory is that at the time the baths were constructed the building had become a resting-place for travellers, essentially a Roman version of a hotel. I have to again commend the guides who were exceptionally informative and engaging. Visits to the site are restricted but you can book a tour through the Museum of London outside of Open House weekend.

Opposite here, straddling the area between Lower Thames Street and the river is another Open House destination, Custom House. An English Customs service on an ad hoc basis has existed since at least the middle of the 8th century and was formalised by King Edward I in 1275 as a means of beefing up the royal finances. The current Custom House is thought to be the fifth such to have been built on this site, chosen because beyond this point London Bridge has historically prevented ships from going further upriver. The present building was put up between 1813 and 1817 and initially designed by David Laing (1774 – 1856), Surveyor to the Customs. However within a few years of completion the ceiling of the Long Room had partially collapsed and the floor completely given way. The latter event occurred just a day after Sir Robert Smirke (1780 – 1867) had concluded an inspection of the premises and advised staff to evacuate. Smirke was then engaged to oversee the rebuilding and Laing’s career suffered the same fate as the floor. The Custom House now comprises a west wing built by Laing, a central block built by Smirke and an east wing dating from 1962-66. The southern façade, made of Portland stone, is much more aesthetically-pleasing than the northern face of yellow stock brick; this is because the building was designed to be seen from the river and impress shipfarers from overseas.

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The Great Long Room was an innovation of Christopher Wren (prolific doesn’t even begin to do the man justice) for his version of the Custom House, built in 1671. This was to be the public room where all import and export business was to be transacted. Because of this room, the public rooms in Custom Houses around the world have become known as ‘Long Rooms’ irrespective of their shape or size. The current Long Room is the work of the aforementioned Sir Robert Smirke, it is 190 feet long and 63 feet wide and has one of the largest unsupported wooden ceilings in Europe.

The Coal Exchange which I mentioned earlier was one of the glories of Victorian Architecture, built in 1847-49 to the designs of City architect, James Bunstone Bunning (1802 – 1863) and opened to great fanfare by Queen Vic herself. The interior was one of the earliest and most remarkable examples of cast-iron construction in the world, several years before the Crystal Palace. However that didn’t cut any ice with the town planners of the 1960’s who had little regard for Victorian extravagance. Despite the objections of the Victorian Society and Sir John Betjeman (naturally) the building was demolished in 1962 in preparation for a road-widening scheme that didn’t actually take place until the 1980s. Why do I mention this ? Because the alternative would have been to shave off that unlovely north face of the Custom House, an option which from a 21st century perspective appears immeasurably more appealing.

James Bunning was also responsible for the original Billingsgate Fish Market built just to west of the Custom House in 1850 but rendered obsolete by increased levels of trade within 25 years. Work on a new market building, designed by Horace Jones in the Italianate style, began in 1874 and was completed three years later. In 1982 the fish market was relocated to the Isle of Dogs and the building on Lower Thames Street was refurbished under the guidance of Richard Rogers (he gets about a bit as well). The Grade II listed building is now used as an events venue.

Time we got moving again I think. Head up Idol Lane which runs to the west of St Dunstan’s and turn right on Great Tower Street before proceeding north (with a manly stride) up Mincing Lane. Next move is west along Plantation Lane which leads into Rood Lane. Venture northward first before doubling back towards Eastcheap. On the corner here stands the Guild church of St Margaret Pattens (unlike Parish churches Guild churches hold regular weekday services rather than serving a Sunday congregation). The church’s exterior is notable for its 200-ft high spire, Wren’s third highest and the only one that he designed in a medieval style. The name of the church derives from pattens, wooden-soled overshoes which historically enabled Londoners to walk about the city without sinking too deep into the mud and effluent which covered the streets. The church still has an affiliation with the Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers.

Cross over Eastcheap and drop down St Mary at Hill back towards the river. At no.18 we find the Watermen’s Hall, home to the Company of Watermen and Lightermen (in a riverfaring context the Watermen were the equivalent of taxi-drivers and the Lightermen the truckers). The hall was built in 1780 by William Blackburn and is the only remaining Georgian hall in the City of London. The Watermen are not a Livery Company as such, hence no Worshipful before the name. This is because the Waterman are governed by statutes and Royal Charters that extend beyond the boundaries of the City of London. So unlike the Pattenmakers (no.70) they don’t appear in the Order of Precedence.

So we’re almost at our final stop and to get there we have to negotiate as follows: north up Lovat Lane, left turn into Botolph Alley, north up Botolph Lane, west along Eastcheap, south down Pudding Lane, left along St George’s Lane back to Botolph Lane, south this time and then west into Monument Street. Which, as you might have guessed, brings us to The Monument itself. As I’m sure you’re aware, this was erected in commemoration of the Great Fire of 1666 and the subsequent rebuilding of the City and was completed in 1677. The fire was alleged to have begun in a baker’s shop on Pudding Lane and the height of The Monument is equal to its distance from that starting point, 202 feet. The designers of the memorial were Sir Christopher Wren (goes without saying really) and his friend Dr Robert Hooke (1635 – 1703). They came up with the idea of a classic Doric column with 311 steps up to a viewing platform and a summit topped with a drum and copper urn from which flames emerge. A total of seven people died falling from the viewing gallery (six suicides and one who accidentally fell after leaning over the balcony to look at a live eagle kept in a cage) before it was enclosed in an iron cage in 1842. It costs £5 (cash only) if you want to ascend up to the platform.

Keeping my five pounds in my pocket I walk on by and finish today’s epic with a stroll up and down Fish Street Hill.

And that’s us finally just about done with the City of London. Next time we’ll be heading back west over to Hyde Park for a complete change of scene.

Day 44 – Bank – Threadneedle Street – Cornhill – Lombard Street

So we’re back after a bit of an extended summer break and we’re still in the City of London. Today’s expedition is all about the streets that radiate eastward from the Bank tube station junction, Threadneedle Street, Cornhill, Lombard Street and King William Street but also extends north up to Moorgate and London Wall. Might not look like a very wide area on paper but on pavement, once you’ve added in all the courts and alleyways, there’s a fair bit of shoe leather laid to rest. Highlights en route today include the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange along with the inevitable Wren churches and a couple more of those Livery Companies.

I’ve referenced it fleetingly in previous posts but for this outing I’m going to delve into this a bit more extensively as a source for the commentary (I don’t know the exact year of publication but it was some time in the 1930’s). Direct extracts will appear in italics.

We begin today from Bank underground station from where exit 1 leads us up to Princes Street heading northward. Set back from the west side of Princes Street is Grocers’ Hall, home to The Grocers’ Company, another of the original Twelve Great Livery Companies and proudly ensconced at no.2 in the Order of Precedence (appropriately in a “Nation of Shopkeepers”). This mob started out as the Ancient Guild of Pepperers as far back as 1100 then in the 14th century founded a new fraternity of spice traders in the City of London which came to be known as the Company of Grossers. It took them three years before they realised that this might cause a few sniggers come the 21st century and changed it to Grocers in 1376. They received their Royal Charter from Henry VI in 1428. The current hall, the fifth, was built in 1970, its predecessor having survived WW2 only to be burnt down in 1965 reportedly due to a poorly situated lightbulb being left on in a cupboard.

At the top of Princes Street we turn right into Lothbury and proceed along the back of the Bank of England where there is a statue of Sir John Soane (whose wonderful museum we visited on a previous excursion), architect and surveyor to the Bank from 1788 to 1833 during which time it doubled in size to 3.5 acres. It first moved to this site between Threadneedle Street and Lothbury in 1734, having previously leased the Grocers’ Hall (see above) from 1695, the year following its foundation. When the Bank was rebuilt between 1925 and 1939 by Sir Herbert Baker, the outer walls erected by Soane in 1828 were retained while all the interior buildings were demolished. Regarding these walls it will be observed that, for the purposes of security, they are completely windowless, all the rooms being lighted from interior courts; but even a Raffles who succeeded in passing this barrier would be baffled at the extraordinary series of defences surrounding the vaults, which include concentric walls of steel and concrete between which armed guards patrol day and night.

On the other side of Lothbury stands St Margaret’s Church, the first of a number of post-Great Fire Christopher Wren rebuilding jobs we’ll encounter today.

Right next door to the church is 7 Lothbury, built in 1868 and designed in a Venetian Gothic style by architect George Somers Clarke (1825 – 1882) as a head office for the General Credit and Discount Company. In the 1960’s it was taken over by the Overseas Bankers’ Club but despite a Grade II listing had fallen into disrepair by the early 21st century. It has now been converted for residential use.

Turn left next up Tokenhouse Yard then left again along King’s Arms Yard to Moorgate. Across the street is another Grade II listed building, Basildon House, which dates from the late 1800s and is in a Baroque style with Grecian details.

Head north a short way then look in on Great Bell Alley on the westside before crossing back over and proceeding east down Telegraph Street. Loop round Whalebone Court and Copthall Court into Copthall Avenue and after a few paces north turn west again along Great Swan Alley. This is the site of the headquarters of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, though technically the address is no.1 Moorgate Place which is about half way along the street. Chartered Accountants’ Hall was built between 1890 and 1893 and is another Victorian neo-Baroque job courtesy of architect John Belcher. The façade on Great Swan Alley is part of an extension to the original building completed in 1930-31. In 1964-70 a much more extensive redevelopment was undertaken which included the creation of a Great Hall with five stories of office space above it. The ICAEW was granted a royal charter in 1880 and today has over 147,000 members. Presumably that’s one of them in the photo below (no not the guy the yellow jacket – he looks more like a Certified Accountant).

After this it’s back to Moorgate and a continuation northward up to London Wall where we turn east and then head south once more all the way down Copthall Avenue. Swing round to the east and head up and back down the top section of Throgmorton Avenue with just a cursory glance at the Carpenters’ Hall – royal charter granted in 1477 and no.26 in order of precedence. Return along Copthall Avenue and then stroll down Angel Court to Throgmorton Street. Turn right a short distance to arrive at Bartholomew Lane which skirts the east flank of the Bank of England and houses the entrance to the museum. The Bank of England museum has two main things going for it; one it’s free and two it’s not that big. This does mean it can get quite crowded but it’s worth putting up with that.

The Bank was the brainchild of Scottish entrepreneur William Paterson (1658 – 1719). The aim was to provide a secure and continuous loan to the nation (at a healthy profit of course). Public subscriptions raised £1.2 million in a few weeks, which formed the initial capital stock of the Bank of England and was lent to Government in return for a Royal Charter. The Royal Charter was sealed on 27 July 1694, and the Bank started its role as the Government’s banker and debt manager. I’m not going to write at length about the history of the Bank but it does make for interesting reading so it’s worth clicking on the link.

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Just a bit about the gold held by the Bank to finish off with – as I know that’s what you’re really interested in. The Bank itself only owns two of the gold bars in its vaults (one of which is actually on display in the museum). The rest are stored on behalf of HM Treasury, other central banks and some commercial firms. As of April 2017 the vaults held a total of 164.7 million Fine Troy Ounces of gold (about 5.1m kg or c.400,000 gold bars). Gold is currently trading at around £1,000 an ounce so I guess you can just about do the math as they say.

After leaving the museum we return to Bank station along Threadneedle Street. The Bank has of course long been known colloquially as “the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street”.

Across the street from the Bank, in the angle of Threadneedle Street and Cornhill, is the Royal Exchange, founded by Sir Thomas Gresham (1519 – 1579) in 1566 as London’s first purpose built centre for trading stocks and commodities. The first exchange, opened by Queen Elizabeth I in 1871, came to grief in the Great Fire and its successor also burnt down in 1838. The present building, designed by Sir William Tite and inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, was opened by Queen Victoria in 1844. After WW2, during which the building was damaged, the traders moved out and the building fell into disuse until the 1980s’ when it was repaired and taken over by LIFFE (the London International Financial Futures Exchange). By the turn of the millennium LIFFE had also moved on and the building was extensively remodelled to transform it into a luxury shopping and dining destination. In front of the building stands a memorial, designed by Sir Aston Webb, to London troops who fell in the Great War. Close by is an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington (riding without stirrups) by Chantrey cast from bronze from captured enemy cannons in 1844 . Historically the steps of the Royal Exchange have been one of the places from which the accession of a new monarch is proclaimed. It remains to be seen if this tradition is maintained.

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Walk through the Royal Exchange, without pausing to sample the fine dining though I did have a look in the Paul Smith sample store. Outside the eastern entrance on Royal Exchange Buildings are statues to George Peabody, founder of the Peabody Trust (several of whose housing estates we have encountered on previous journeys – and which look more and more like exemplary models of social housing with the passage of time) and Paul Julius Reuter, founder of the eponymous News Agency which had its first home nearby.

East of the Peabody statue, at the entrance to Royal Exchange Avenue, is a former drinking fountain dating to 1878 adorned by a sculpture entitled La Maternité by Jules Dalou (this was originally in marble but that weathered badly and so was replaced by a bronze copy in 1897). This was partly paid for by the Merchant Taylors’ Company, whose hall is just round the corner but falls into one of today’s blind spots. So the Livery Company which is either 6th or 7th on the OOP (they alternate each year with the Skinners) miss out on their write up.

Walk down Royal Exchange Avenue into Finch Lane, turn south down to Cornhill and then head back towards Bank. In the middle of Cornhill is a statue of James Henry Greathead (1844 – 1896), a Civil Engineer who was instrumental in the creation of the London Underground and patented a number of inventions that facilitated the tunnelling operations. The statue was erected in 1994 and is positioned on a plinth which hides a ventilation shaft for the Underground.

Just a little way further back no. 24 Cornhill (now a cocktail bar and restaurant) has a Grade II listed façade designed by that man Sir Aston Webb (1849 – 1930) again. Webb’s most famous works are the façade of Buckingham Palace and the main V&A building.

As we approach Bank station once more the Mansion House hoves into view. We pretty much circumvented this last time out so for the sake of completeness here are a few 80 year-old snippets about this official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London. It was built between 1739 and 1753, mainly, it is said from fines levied on stalwart Nonconformists. It has a fine Corinthian portico from the platform of which official announcements are often made. The chief room is the Egyptian Hall where the somewhat lavish hospitality expected from London’s chief citizen is exercised. The Lord Mayor receives a salary of £10,000 a year, but if rumour speaks correctly he is generally out of pocket at the end of his year of office.

Just before we reach the Bank intersection we cut down Pope’s Head Alley to Lombard Street then turn right to where this apexes with King William Street. Here stands the church of St Mary Woolnoth, which surprise. surprise is not part of the Christopher Wren portfolio but one of the Queen Anne churches designed by that other great ecclesiastical architect, Nicholas Hawksmoor. Today the church is used by London’s German-speaking Swiss community and doubles up as the official London church of the government of British Columbia (why that is even a thing heaven knows).

Next up we switch between Lombard Street and King William Street for a while courtesy of Post Office Court, Abchurch Lane, Nicholas Passage and Nicholas Lane before we find ourselves heading south down Clement’s Lane at the bottom of which is the decidedly underwhelming St Clement’s Church (of “Oranges and Lemons” say fame). Clement was a disciple of Saint Peter and was ordained as Bishop of Rome in AD 93. Legend has it that his was martyred by being tied to an anchor and thrown into the Black Sea, hence his status as patron saint of sailors. The church is currently home to the administrative offices of the human rights’ charity the Amos Trust. So in lieu of shots of the interior here’s a reflection of the day.

Back on King William Street we turn east and swing round past House of Fraser into Gracechurch Street. Continue north before turning west down Lombard Court and then cutting up Plough Court to return to Lombard Street. To the left here is the Church of St Edmund King & Martyr, reconstructed to a design of Wren incorporating a tower ornamented at the angles by flaming urns in allusion to the Great Fire that destroyed the medieval church.

Across the street the entrance to the Royal Insurance Building is guarded by this bronze sculpture of three “allegorical” female figures – the lady on the left holds an anchor to represent the power of the sea, the one on the right a flaming torch to represent, well, fire and the sphinx in the centre (according to some sources) signifies the uncertainty of the future. The work is by Francis William Doyle Jones (1873 – 1938) and is entitled, with commendable literalness, Chimera with Personifications of Fire and the Sea.

We double back a short distance and then proceed north into George Yard as far as the George & Vulture pub. This self-proclaimed Old Pickwickian Hostelrie dates from 1748 and is reputed to have been one of the meeting places of the notorious Hell-Fire Club. Dickens was a regular punter and the inn is mentioned at least 20 times in The Pickwick Papers.

Just before the pub we turn left down Bengal Court then cross Birchin Lane and follow Cowpers Court back to Cornhill. Turn eastward here as far as Ball Court on the south side which doglegs round to St Michael’s Alley where, opposite the George & Vulture is another legendary City drinking-hall, The Jamaica Wine House. Known locally as “the Jampot” this was originally the first coffee house in London, opening in 1652 and counting Samuel Pepys amongst its clientele.

Taking St Michael’s Alley back to Cornhill we reach St Michael’s Church rebuilt by Wren after the Fire and restored by Sir G.G. Scott. It has a fine Gothic tower, modelled on Magdalen Tower, Oxford and a pulpit carved by Grinling Gibbons. The organ of St Peter’s Church, almost next door, was played several times by Mendelssohn and in the vestry his autograph is treasured. The church was founded, according to an ancient tablet in the vestry, by “Lucius, the first Christian king of this land called Britaine”. Many remains of Roman London have been discovered hereabouts and many authorities place here the site of the Roman forum.

St Peter’s

St Michael’s

Beginning with St Peter’s Alley we trace a double loop southward additionally involving Corbet Court, St Michael’s Alley again (this is at least three alleys for the price of one) and Bell Inn Yard. That brings us back to Gracechurch Street where we drop further south to Lombard Street and then proceed west to Birchin Lane which takes us north again. After a quick detour exploring the labyrinth that is Change Alley we resume northward, crossing over Cornhill into Finch Lane then over Threadneedle Street into Old Broad Street. Almost immediately veer left down Threadneedle Walk to return to Throgmorton Street generally crowded by bare-headed individuals of varying degrees of frivolity, whose presence betrays the whereabouts of that important institution, the Stock Exchange in Capel Court. The Stock Exchange referred to is the one that was created in 1801 as the first purpose-built and regulated “Subscription Room” for brokers to ply their trade. Prior to that they had gravitated away from the Royal Exchange to conduct their business in the coffee-houses of Change Alley and beyond. Capel Court no longer exists as such; in 1972 a new Stock Exchange Tower was opened on Old Broad Street and the original site redeveloped. However, come the ‘Big Bang’ and the introduction of electronic trading in 1986, the Tower became something of a white elephant and when an IRA bomb blew a whole in the 26-storey building four years later the writing was firmly on the wall. It closed permanently in 1992 and it was another 20 years before this unloved totem of the “Brutalist” era was stripped back to its core and redeveloped as a 21st century glass-clad monolith. In 2004 the London Stock Exchange eventually found a new home in Paternoster Square. Coincidentally the company I worked for made the same journey from Old Broad Street the same year.

Bit of a digression there but back to Throgmorton Street and the Drapers’ Hall. The first hall here was bought from King Henry VIII in 1543 for the sum of 1,800 marks (c.£1,200) and had previously been the home of Thomas Cromwell (up until his execution in 1840). The hall was rebuilt after the Great Fire and again in 1772 after another fire. In the 1860’s the frontage and the interior were redesigned by Herbert Williams. Further changes at the end of the 19th century included the creation of the two Atlantes (male equivalents of Caryatids); turbaned and muscular Djinns that guard either side of the entrance. These are believed to be the work of sculptor H.A Pegram (1862 – 1937).

The full title of the Drapers’ Company is “The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of Drapers of the City of London”. The word Mystery comes from the Latin “misterium” meaning professional skill. You wouldn’t get away with that if you were much lower than no.3 on the Order of Precedence. We follow Drapers’ Hall and its gardens all the way up Throgmorton Avenue to where it joins Copthall Avenue.

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There is a bit more to come but since we’ve just about breached the 3,000 word barrier we’ll continue from this juncture next time.

Day 43 – Queen Victoria Street – Cannon Street – Cheapside

So what have we got for you today ? Well, we’re still in the City of London but no major landmarks this time so it’s half a dozen more of those Wren churches, a couple more Livery Halls and a lot of building sites. Fear not though, we’ll try and get through this a bit more briskly than of late and see if we can’t extract some reasonable entertainment value out of it.

We begin at Bank tube station and making our way down the west side of Mansion House arrive at the first of those Wren churches, St Stephen Walbrook. This is considered to be among the very finest of Wren’s work, particularly admired by the great Italian sculptor-architect, Canova. The geometry of the church is perfectly rectangular, unusually for Wren, but it’s the interior that really impresses. In 1953 the rector at the time, Dr Chad Varah (1912 – 2007), founded the Samaritans charity in the church vestry.

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(Of course the exterior would look a little bit more impressive without another one of those bloody white vans parked in front of it). Head back up to Queen Victoria Street along Bucklersbury and then turn west. To the south, between here and Cannon Street, the massive Bloomberg Place development has been taking shape since 2014 under the combined force of architects, Foster & Partners and constructors, McAlpine. As the name suggests this is intended as Bloomberg’s new European HQ (though I imagine in 2014 they didn’t have much inkling that the UK would be in the process of divorcing itself from Europe come 2017).

Circumnavigate the development via the top section of Queen Street and east on Cannon Street before heading back to the church up Walbrook Street. After a quick peek at Bond Court on the south side of the church we turn eastward in between the north side and the back of Mansion House down St Stephens Row. This leads into Mansion House Place which in turn emerges on St Swithin’s Lane. At the bottom of this we continue east on Cannon Street before switching northward again up Abchurch Lane. Here we find the second of today’s Wren reconstructions, St Mary Abchurch. The most striking feature of the church is the painted domed ceiling (though there is no exterior dome) believed to be the work of local artist, William Snow, who was paid £170 for his efforts according to the church accounts of the time – 1708. Painted in oils directly on the plaster, the decorations are divided in two horizontally by a painted Trompe-l’œil cornice. Above this a choir of angels and cherubs in adoration surrounds a golden glow, in the centre of which it the name of God in Hebrew characters.

Skirt left round the church via Abchurch Yard and follow Sherborne Lane up to King William Street. Turn right for a short distance then go all the way back down Abchurch Lane to Cannon Street again. Keep going east as far as the junction by Monument station where we turn south briefly (still on King William Street) before veering west down an alley that runs into Arthur Street. Next up is Martin Lane which is home to The Olde Wine Shades, one of London’s oldest pubs. Built just three years before the Great Fire as a Merchants house it managed to survive the conflagration and was later, reportedly, used by smugglers who exploited a tunnel running from the cellars to the river. It’s now part of the El Vino chain and currently under refurbishment.

Back up to Cannon Street and then down the next turn on the left which is Laurence Pountney Lane. The name is a relic of St Laurence Pountney church which was one that wasn’t rebuilt after its destruction by the Great Fire. Pountney is a corruption of Pultneye, as in Sir John de Pultneye, one time Lord Mayor.

With their street cobbles and heritage brickwork Laurence Pountney Lane and the adjoining Laurence Pountney Hill are a brief but welcome antidote to the frenzy and modern bluster of Cannon Street and its construction sites.

We’re back on Cannon Street soon enough though having completed a circuit of Laurence Pountney Hill, Suffolk Lane, Gophir Lane and Bush Lane. Cross the road for a quick excursion into Oxford Court where we catch sight of what has to be the most reductive attempt to retain a historic façade yet encountered.

Back on the other side we continue west passing the eponymous Cannon Street Station. The original incarnation of this terminus, now serving south east London and Kent, dates back to 1866. That Victorian station was fronted by a five storey hotel in the Italianate style which was converted into offices in the 1930’s. Prior to that though, in 1920, it had hosted the first meetings of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The station was pretty much wiped out during the Second World War and after a 1960’s redevelopment overseen by the infamous John Poulson (1930 – 1993) all that remained of the original station were its 120ft twin red brick towers (Grade II listed in 1972). In the 1980’s office blocks were constructed above the platforms and Poulson’s main station building was replaced as part of a major regeneration programme by Network Rail starting in 2007.

On the other side of the station we head south once more down Dowgate Hill and on the right here we have three Livery Company halls all in a row. First up is the Tallow Chandlers Company, granted its charter by King Edward IV in 1462. The trade in tallow (rendered animal fats) candles had pretty much run its course by the 17th century as tallow was superseded by new materials such as spermaceti (a waxy substance found in the head cavities of the sperm whale) and paraffin wax. This decline was partly offset by the use of tallow in the manufacture of soap in the 19th century (in 1853 Lord Palmerston, seeking to encourage public cleanliness, removed all duty on tallow). Today like most of the Livery Companies, as we know, the Tallow Chandlers are a purely charitable institution. They do nonetheless sit at a fairly lofty no.21 in the Order of Precedence.

Right next door is the Skinners’ Hall, the Grade I listed home of the Skinners’ Company (re)-built in 1670. The Skinners (developed out of the medieval guild of fur traders) are one of the so-called Great Twelve Livery Companies, incorporated by Royal Charter in 1327 and standing firm right up there at no. 6 in the OoP (you have probably twigged by now how much I enjoy a good chart). For a ten year period at the turn of the 18th century the hall was rented by the East India company who, upon departure, left as a gift a mahogany East India table which is still in use today.

Final member of this triumvirate is the Worshipful Company of Dyers with their, frankly, quite disturbing coat of arms. The Dyers received their first charter from Henry VI in 1471 and they occupy the 13th position on the OoP. That might have had something to do with the fact that having been rebuilt after the Great Fire the Dyers Hall burned down again just 14 years later.

And just round the corner in College Street we have a fourth, the Worshipful Company of Innholders, number 32 on the OoP and receiving its first charter from Henry VIII in 1514. In a familiar story, the hall was rebuilt after the Great Fire and completed in 1670.

Back then, in the 17th century, there was often a shortage of small denomination coins of the realm and tradesmen found it impossible to give change for small items – in the case of innkeepers for a drink of ale or a bale of hay. They therefore solved their problem by issuing their own tokens which could only be redeemed where they had been issued.

The Innholders’ motto, Hinc Spes Affulget, is Latin for Hence Hope Shines Forth.

Further along College Street we arrive at the Church of Saint Michael Paternoster Royal which is strongly associated with our old mate Richard Whittington, four times Mayor of London. In 1409 good old Dick paid for the rebuilding and extension of the church and in 1422 he was buried here, though the actual tomb has not survived. The three stained glass windows you can see below where designed by John Hayward in 1968. The main window depicts St Michael trampling a red-winged Satan and the windows on either side show, respectively, the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus and Adam and Eve with St Gabriel and the serpent. There is a separate window depicting Dick Whittington with his cat.

Whittington also founded an almshouse and chantry college adjacent to the church on College Hill which lasted there until the early 1800s when they moved to Highgate. The façades of both institutions from the late 17th century can still be seen on the east side as you go up the hill (one of them with a distinctly Pirates of the Caribbean feel).

Halfway up College Hill we turn right into Cloak Lane then follow a loop of Dowgate Hill, Cannon Street and College Hill again to return to the western section of Cloak Lane and then head south down Queen Street. At the bottom we turn right again into Skinners Lane which leads down to the Church of St James Garlickhythe. Unfortunately (or not depending on your perspective) this one wasn’t open for visits today. The name of the church is derived from the Saxon word ‘hythe’ meaning a landing place. So this spot, formerly on the river, was where garlic (a vital medicine and preservative in the Middle Ages) was unloaded and probably traded on Garlick Hill at the foot of which the church stands. The forty foot ceiling in the church is the highest in the City apart from St Pauls. In the landscaped area to the west of the church stands a bronze statue of ‘The Barge Master and Swan Marker of the Vintners Company’.

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We ascend the aforementioned Garlick Hill and two thirds of the way up turn east again along Great St Thomas Apostle (just that, no Street no Lane). At the end we do another loop back round Queen Street, Cannon Street and the top bit of Garlick Hill and this time go west on Great Trinity Lane which is much smaller than Little Trinity Lane which occupies us next. Backtrack up to Queen Victoria Street take a few steps to the west and then head south again down Huggin Hill (which is only an alleyway) to Upper Thames Street. Continue west alongside the Castle Baynard section of the east -west cycle superhighway before returning to Queen Victoria Street via Lambeth Hill. Turning east then north up Friday Street and Bread Street we reach the One New Change shopping mall. This was created only a few years ago, not without controversy given its proximity to St Pauls. I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for the exterior if not for the range of stores contained within. In my judgement it also hasn’t exactly achieved the desired level of footfall since it opened.

On the edge of the small garden to the south of the mall is a memorial to Admiral Arthur Philip (1738 – 1814) the first Governor of New South Wales and the man who founded the British penal colony that eventually formed the basis of the city of Sydney. His early years were spent in a tenanted family home near Cheapside.

And Cheapside is where we head next, cutting through the shopping complex to make this latest visit. Proceeding east we arrive at the church of St Mary-le-Bow, famous of course for its bells which, according to tradition, you have to be born within earshot of to be considered a true Cockney. The bells also feature prominently in the story of how that man Dick Whittington (yes him again) came to be Lord Mayor. Hearing the sound of them supposedly persuaded him to return to London (with his cat) when he was on his way to leaving the capital. As he was reported to have heard the bells in Highgate this would incidentally imply quite a large catchment area for your native Cockneys. During WWII the church was hit by a bomb which brought the bells crashing to the ground. New bells were cast in 1956 and ringing only resumed in 1961. Since the early 1940s, a recording of the Bow Bells made in 1926 has been used by the BBC World Service as an interval signal for its English-language broadcasts.

In Bow courtyard stands a statue of Captain John Smith (1580 – 1631) the soldier and explorer, best known these days (thanks to the Disney film) for the story of his capture by the Powhatan Native American tribe and his release courtesy of the chief’s daughter Pocahontas who, according to Smith, threw herself across his body: “at the minute of my execution, she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestown”.

Cut through the courtyard and into Bow Lane then turn south down to Watling Street which we complete a quick up and down of before resuming on Bow Lane and taking in our final church of the day, St Mary Aldermary. According to the eminent architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner, this is one of the two most important 17th century Gothic churches in England. It was one of the very few churches rebuilt by Wren to employ the Gothic style.

After that it just remains to complete the return to Bank station via a circuit of Queen Street, Pancras Lane and Sise Lane. Thank you and goodnight.

Day 42 – Old Bailey – St Paul’s Cathedral – Queen Victoria Street

As you can see, we’ve got a couple of big beasts to tackle on today’s expedition; the Central Criminal Court (commonly known as the Old Bailey) and Christopher Wren’s crowning glory and tourist beehive. In between and after these diversions we’re wandering the streets that fill the space bounded by Newgate Street to the north and (just about) the River Thames to the south.

An unusually early start today as I’d booked myself on something called the Old Bailey Insight tour meeting at the Viaduct Tavern, opposite the courts on Newgate Street, at 9.15. The Viaduct Tavern is another of the Gin Palaces that sprang up in Victorian times and dates back to 1869, when Newgate Prison was still standing. It is claimed, though not fully substantiated, that the cellar of the pub contains five cells that are all that remain of Newgate after its demolition in 1902. An alternative explanation posits that these were actually once part of Giltspur Compter, a debtors’ prison that occupied this site between 1791 and 1853. Either way they may make you more appreciative of your next stopover at a Travelodge.

The tour costs £10 and for this you get twenty minutes of facts and anecdotes (mostly about executions) from the guide plus a look at the disputed “cells” in the basement and instructions on how to get into the public galleries at the Old Bailey with a printed list of the day’s trials. Not exactly bargain of the month even with coffee and croissants thrown in. Among the more interesting snippets of information were the facts that trials at the Old Bailey cost an average of around £150 a minute to run and that there is still a shard of glass embedded in one of the internal walls as a memento of the IRA car bomb of 1973 that shattered all the windows.

The Old Bailey gets its vernacular name from the street on which it stands, Old Bailey, itself named after the fortified City Wall also known as “bailey”. The court has been around since 1673 when it was sited next to Newgate Prison and has been rebuilt several times. The current building, designed in the neo-Baroque style, by E.W. Mountford, was opened in 1907. The 67 foot high dome is topped with the 12 foot tall gold leaf statue of Lady of Justice”, sword in one hand, scales of justice in the other. However, she is not, as is conventional with such figures, blindfolded. Over the main entrance to the building figures were placed representing fortitude, the recording angel, and truth, along with the carved inscription, “defend the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer”. A new extension was added in 1972 (just in time to have all its windows blown out).

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Strangely enough, the only other time I’ve been to sit in on a trial at the Old Bailey was in 1973 during a school trip up from High Wycombe when I was 14 (the youngest age at which you’re allowed in nowadays). So that must have been just a few months after the IRA bombing yet I don’t have any recollection of particularly stringent security at the time. Now you can only get in if you practically strip down to your underwear. Mobile phones are a definite no-no so that had to be left at the pub. As it transpired I was the only spectator in the gallery for the trial I picked out, a terrorist charge. After about 45 minutes discussing whether or not it’s possible to recover deleted text messages from an I-phone they took a break and I took the opportunity to leave.

Begin by heading west along Holborn Viaduct to the bridge which gives that street its name. This was built between 1863 and 1869, spanning the River Fleet valley, at a cost of £2m. In fact it was the most ambitious and costly road improvement project in London during the 19th century, masterminded by engineer William Haywood. There are four so-called step-buildings at the corners of the viaduct which house steps down to Farringdon Street below. The figures on the front of the step-buildings are representations of important Londoners, including Sir William Walworth, the Lord Mayor of London best known for having dispatched Wat Tyler to end the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (see Day 39).

At the ends of the viaduct there are four winged lions, each with its left paw resting on a small globe. These were created by Farmer & Brindley, as were the two female statues on the north side, representing Science and Fine Arts. The figures on the south side, representing Commerce and Agriculture, are by Henry Bursill. The distinctive rich red cast-iron work of the arches and railings presages the ornate qualities of the Art Nouveau movement still decades away.

Agriculture “Figure”

We descend the steps down to the east side of Farringdon Street and then proceed south towards Ludgate Circus, ducking in and out of Newcastle Court, Bear Alley and Old Fleet Lane en route. Just before the Circus we turn left down Old Seacoal Lane which leads into Limeburner Lane. Keep left here and then circle round Fleet Place, Fleet Passage and Bishop’s Court to return to Old Bailey. Next we drop all the way back down Limeburner Lane to Ludgate Hill. A short way up the hill going east is the church of St Martin’s-within-Ludgate, another one which has followed the Medieval foundation, Great Fire destruction, Christopher Wren rebuilding trajectory. Opposite the church was the site of the Ludgate, the westernmost gate of London Wall which, like all the others, was demolished in 1760.

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Turning back up Old Bailey for the final time we then nip through Warwick Passage (where the entrance to the public galleries for the majority of the 18 courts can be found) to Warwick Lane.

Turning the corner we find the first of three more Livery Company Halls to be encountered on today’s route. This one belongs to the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, craftsmen originally involved in the production of knives, swords and other implements with a cutting edge. Over the course of time the trade evolved away from instruments of war towards more domestic wares such as razors and scissors. The Cutlers received their first Royal Charter from Henry V in 1416 and they sit at no.18 in the Order of Precedence. The current hall dates from 1888 and the terracotta frieze on the outside wall, depicting cutlers working at their craft, is by the Sheffield sculptor Benjamin Cresswick (1853 – 1946).

Turning south we pass Amen Court which was once home to the scribes and minor canons of St Paul’s cathedral, but is more famous now for a reputation as one of the most haunted parts of the Square Mile. A large wall on the site is one of the only remnants of Newgate prison and behind that wall is the narrow passage known as Deadman’s Walk, along which condemned prisoners were taken to their executions.

A few steps further on and as Warwick Lane mysteriously transforms into Ave Maria Lane we reach Amen Corner. Sadly this was not the inspiration for the naming of the popular 1960’s beat combo.

On the other side of the Sassoon hair salon we enter Stationers’ Court which is where we find the second Livery Company Hall, that of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers whose current 900 members work in the paper, print, publishing, packaging, office products and newspaper industries. At the outset of the 15th century London’s formerly itinerant manuscript writers and illustrators decided to set up stalls or ‘stations’ around St Paul’s Cathedral and because of this they were given the nickname ‘Stationers’ which in turn became the name for the guild they established in 1403. The hall itself was completed in 1673 and it’s one of the few Livery Halls rebuilt just after the Great Fire that have survived into the present. Both the hall and its accompanying garden do a roaring trade in corporate and private entertaining. Only number 47 in the OOP however.

Come back out onto Ludgate Hill and turn east, proceeding past the north side of St Paul’s along Paternoster Row. In times past, on the feastday of Corpus Christi, monks would say prayers in a procession round the Cathedral. They would set off from Paternoster Row chanting the Lord’s Prayer (Pater noster… being the opening line in Latin) and they would reach the final ‘amen’ as they turned the corner in Ave Maria Lane; hence Amen Corner. Immediately opposite the north flank of the cathedral is the Grade II listed Chapter House which was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren and his son in 1715.

At the end of Paternoster Row we circle up past St Paul’s tube station and then duck in and out of Panyer Alley, Queen’s Head Passage and Rose Street to arrive in Paternoster Square, where I spent the last 12 years of my working life. This area was more or less completely obliterated during the Blitz and the initial reconstruction undertaken in the 1960’s was widely regarded as disastrous; a “monstrous carbuncle” sited embarrassingly close to one of the capital’s primary tourist attractions. A new redevelopment plan was finally agreed in 1996 and work completed 7 years later. While not to everyone’s taste, the architecture is at least more sympathetic to its historical context (and Prince Charles was happy with it). The main monument on the square is the 75ft tall Paternoster Square Column ( less prosaically also known as the Flaming Orb monument), a Corinthian column of Portland stone topped by a gold-leaf covered flaming copper urn illuminated by fibre-optic lighting at night. The square’s most famous resident is the London Stock Exchange though to some it is better known for the Paternoster Chop House, the restaurant used by Channel 4 as the meeting place in its First Dates programme.

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We leave via the southern entrance to the square beneath the Temple Bar. This was returned to the capital and erected here in 2004 having languished for 125 years in a clearing on the Hertfordshire estate of the brewer Henry Meux. As we learnt a few posts ago, it originally stood where Fleet Street meets the Strand, near to the Temple Church. That was in the 14th to 16th centuries. It was then rebuilt after the Great Fire under commission from King Charles II. The work is attributed to that man Sir Christopher Wren again (how did he ever find the time to sleep). The statues of Anne of Denmark, James l, Charles I, and Charles II, in niches in the upper floor were carved by John Bushnell. However, by the late 19th century it had become a serious impediment to the flow of horse and cart traffic in the city and the City of London Corporation had it dismantled (whereafter it was bought by the aforementioned Henry Meux).

And so, after much preamble, to St Paul’s Cathedral itself. I could write about Wren’s masterpiece almost ad infinitum of course but I’ll keep it fairly brief and just encourage you to visit yourself, especially if you never have. Clutching my £16 online ticket, I join the line of tourists outside the west entrance. (If you do gift aid this ticket actually allows you to visit as many times as you want over the next 12 months). According to my 1930’s guidebook back then it cost 6d (2.5p) for admission that took you as far as the Stone Gallery and then 1s (5p) to get to the Golden Gallery. In those days you could also go right up to the Golden Ball on top of the dome for a further shilling. Today’s entry price includes all areas that are open and an audio-guide.

The present cathedral is at least the third to occupy this site and is actually somewhat smaller than its immediate predecessor which was burnt down in the Great Fire. Two years after the fire Christopher Wren was commissioned to design the replacement but it wasn’t until 1697 that the first service was held in the new cathedral. Incidentally, you’re not supposed to take photographs inside St Paul’s but it took me a while to cotton on to that.

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Once you’ve explored the Nave, looked up into the Dome and watched the Bill Viola video installations at the end of the two Quire Aisles it’s 257 steps up to the Whispering Gallery where you can hear a myriad of foreign tongues echoing round the perimeter. Another 119 steps will take you up to the Stone Gallery (at the base of the Dome). Unfortunately, you can’t do a full circuit here at the moment because of renovation work but you do still have good views to west and the south and the east. Because I’m rubbish with heights and pretty knackered already I wimp out of climbing the additional 152 steps to the Golden Gallery (which runs round the top of the dome).

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Once you’ve made your way back down the exit is via the Crypt which contains the tombs of Christopher Wren (naturally), Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington as well as memorials to William Blake and Florence Nightingale amongst others.

Once outside again, we swing east through the churchyard past the column mounted with a gilded statue of St Paul which commemorates the public preaching of the Christian gospel in this location.

Then we move round to the gardens on the south side of the cathedral, a popular spot for wedding photographs and, appropriately, home to George Ehrlich’s sculpture The Young Lovers.

Next we turn south away from St Paul’s heading towards the Millennium Bridge down Sermon Lane/Peter’s Hill, looking back for one final shot of the cathedral.

Turn toward the east along Distaff Lane then loop round into Queen Victoria Street and back to Peter’s Hill. Continue south skirting the ramp up to the bridge and at the river’s edge turn left along Paul’s Walk. Very quickly head away from the Thames via Trig Lane, Broken Wharf and High Timber Street, with nods to Gardeners Lane and Stew Lane (both dead ends with no access to the river). Then we have to cross the two-lane high way that is Upper Thames Street, effected via Fyefoot Lane, a name wasted on what is essentially just a footbridge. From the other side we cut through to Queen Victoria Street turn westward and then roll back down Lambeth Hill at the bottom of which sits Saint Mary Somerset Tower. This is another one of the 51 churches rebuilt by you-know-who but the tower is all that remains now, the body of the church having been demolished in 1871. Before the Second World War the tower was used as a women’s rest room. Today there is talk of it being refurbished and extended to create a private residence but I saw little evidence of this.

Turn west next into Castle Baynard Street which these days is basically a cycle route that runs parallel with Upper Thames Street. Baynard’s Castle was originally a Norman fortification sited near the river here and then in the 15th century reconstructed on adjacent land. According to Shakespeare’s Richard III the infamous usurper assumed the title of King at Castle Baynard.

At the end of the underpass turn north up Bennet’s Hill past the City of London School and St Benets Metropolitan Welsh Church onto Queen Victoria Street again. On the north side of the street is the College of Arms, the official heraldic authority for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and much of the Commonwealth founded in 1484. So this is the place you need to apply to if you’re looking to create your own coat-of-arms; unless you’re in Scotland, which has a separate heraldic executive, where you’d need to approach someone called the Lord Lyon King of Arms. The Officers of Arms who make up the College of Arms are all classified as Heralds in Ordinary but are titled as either Kings of Arms, Heralds or Pursuivants. All Heralds in Ordinary are members of the Royal Household and appointed either directly by the Sovereign or on the recommendation of the Duke of Norfolk. They receive yearly salaries from the Crown – Garter King of Arms £49.07, the two provincial Kings of Arms £20.25, the six heralds £17.80, and the four pursuivants £13.95. At the present time the posts of Rouge Dragon Pursuivant and Bluemantle Pursuivant are both vacant. If her majesty is reading this I’d be happy enough to be either of those for nowt.

The college building dates from the 1670s.

Proceed northwards next up Godliman Street then cut a right into Knightrider Street, nothing to do with the cult 1980’s TV show though, anecdotally, David Hasselhoff has claimed that the Centre Page pub here is his favourite hostelry. Circle round Sermon Lane, Carter Lane back into the top part of Godliman Street then a bit more of St Paul’s Churchyard before dropping down Dean’s Court to the main stretch of Carter Lane. On the corner here is what must be the most heavily over-subscribed Youth Hostel in the UK. The building was formerly the St Paul’s Choir School, built in 1875 to a design of F.C Penrose. The YHA took it over in the early seventies and have retained most of the original features including the Latin wall paintings on the exterior and original choirboy graffiti in a wood-panelled classroom.

Do another loop starting east on Carter Lane and back via Godliman Street, Knightrider Street and New Bell Yard then turn south down Addle Hill before slipping westward through Wardrobe Terrace to the Church of St Andrew by the Wardrobe, Wren’s final city church. The name derives from the time when King Edward III moved his royal robes and other effects to a large building nearby that became known as the Great Wardrobe. The church has a connection with Shakespeare in that the playwright worked for 15 years with the local Blackfriars Theatre and also bought a house in the parish.

Emerge out on Queen Victoria Street on the other side of the church then head back up St Andrew’s Hill. Take a quick look at Wardobe Place which commemorates the aforementioned Great Wardobe before crossing between Carter Lane and the Ireland Yard (where Shakespeare bought that house) via Burgon Street, Friar Street and Church Entry respectively. Across Carter Lane from the latter is Cobb’s Court which doglegs onto Ludgate Broadway from where we return to Ludgate Hill via Pilgrim Street. Turn west here then back south down Pageantmaster Court, Ludgate Broadway again and then Blackfriars Lane. A short way down here on the left is the last of today’s three Livery Halls, belonging to the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.

The word ‘apothecary’ is derived from apotheca, meaning a place where wine, spices and herbs were stored. During the thirteenth century it came into use in this country to describe a person who kept a stock of these commodities, which he sold from his shop or street stall. The Apothecaries were granted their royal charter by King James I in 1617 and they occupy 58th position in the Order of Precedence. The hall has been around since 1672 when it was rebuilt here after the Great Fire. The year following the Society founded the Chelsea Physic Garden which it had under management until 1899.

After a brief diversion into Playhouse Yard (that Shakespeare connection again) we continue down to the bottom of Blackfriars Lane and turn right to where the Blackfriar pub sits on the junction of Queen Victoria Street and New Bridge Street. This historic Art Nouveau Grade II masterpiece of a pub was built in 1875 on the site of a Dominican friary, designed by architect H. Fuller-Clark and artist Henry Poole, both committed to the free-thinking of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Jolly friars appear everywhere in the pub in sculptures, mosaics and reliefs. That the pub survived the quite horrendous post-war redevelopment of the immediate area is down to a campaign against demolition led by Sir John Betjeman.

And that you will be relieved to know is finally it for this time. If you made it this far then please feel free to claim a pint off me if and when we ever run into each other.

Day 41 – London Wall – Cheapside – Guildhall

Today’s journey starts with a visit to the Museum of London and then weaves it way between London Wall and Cheapside before finishing (more or less) at the City of London Guildhall. It’s an area full of historical resonance (to which the scurrying office workers are blithely indifferent) despite almost wholesale reconstruction after WWII. It also has the highest concentration of Livery Company Halls in the City though they maintain a discreetly low profile .

Although today’s walk properly begins at the Museum of London I take time out beforehand to revive the tradition of the pub of the day. In this case that involves a visit to the Hand and Shears on Middle Street which is pretty much where we closed proceedings two posts ago. This is a proper unreconstructed old boys’ boozer and none the worse for it; though it does mean it’s not exactly heaving for a Friday lunchtime.

Anyway back to the Museum which sits in the south-western corner of the Barbican complex. There are vague plans afoot to turn this site into a new concert hall and relocate the museum elsewhere locally but in the current climate I won’t be holding my breath for that. I won’t dwell too much on the collections in the museum; if you haven’t been I can recommend it – and it’s still free entry as we speak. Here are some of my personal highlights though.

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The sandwich board in the final slide was worn by one Stanley Owen Green (1915 – 1993) who strolled up and down Oxford Street wearing it for 25 years from 1968 until his death. I remember him well from my younger days though I was never really sure how less sitting was supposed to dampen the libido.

On leaving the museum we head east along what remains of the Bastion Highwalk, taking its name from the 21 bastions built along wall by the Emperor Hadrian in AD 122. In short order descend the steps onto London Wall and then veer off-road to check out the remnants of the wall in this the north-west corner, the Aldersgate section, diametrically opposite the bit we looked at in the previous post (by Tower Hill for those with short memory). These remains include St Giles Cripplegate Tower which was one of the towers added when the wall was comprehensively rebuilt in the early 13th century. What’s left standing today represents about 2/3 of the original height. The Roman fort at Cripplegate was a bit further east as we shall shortly see.

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In the final slide (again) you can see the Barber’s Physic Garden which is on the site of the 13th of Hadrian’s bastions and showcases a selection of plants which have been used in medical and surgical practice throughout the ages. Barber-Surgeons Hall, the HQ of The Worshipful Company of Barbers, 17th out of 110 in order of precedence and 700 years old in 2008, is round the corner in Monkwell Square. The Company first included surgeons amongst its number in 1312. Barbers and surgeons had overlapped in their duties for many years, largely because in the 13th century Pope Honorarius III had prohibited all persons in holy orders from practising medicine. Barbers in the monasteries therefore began to add minor surgical skills to their repertoire, which in due course were passed on to barbers elsewhere.

Across Wood Street from Monkwell Square is the former site of Cripplegate that I referred to above. This entrance to fortified London was rebuilt at least twice after its original construction in c. AD 120 and was finally demolished in 1760.

To the east of here is St Alphage Gardens which, hemmed in by the massive ongoing redevelopment of this area, currently leads to nowhere. This former churchyard derives its name from St Alfege, the 29th Archbishop of Canterbury, who was killed by the Vikings in 1012. The garden is bordered by another chunk of the Roman city wall.

There are more wall remains back on the south side of London Wall at the top of Noble Street. It was actually the destruction of this area by the German bombing raids in WW2 which allowed the remains of the old City Wall to see the light of day again.

At the junction of Noble Street and Gresham Street sits St Anne & St Agnes Church which typically can trace its history back to Norman times. It was rebuilt to a design of Christopher Wren’s in 1680 then largely destroyed in the Blitz. Its restoration was largely paid for by the worldwide Lutheran church in order for it to be used by the exiled Estonian and Latvian communities. When that congregation moved on in 2013 the building became the secular Gresham Centre and home to the music-based charity, VCM.

Heading a little way back up Noble Street we turn eastward next, down Oat Lane. On the corner with Staining Lane we find the hall of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers. These guys were granted their charter by Edward IV in 1473 and they sit at number 16 in the Livery Company charts. The use of pewter as an everyday production material had effectively died out by the end of the 17th century but the trade survives as a decorative art.

Back on Gresham Street, opposite the bottom end of Staining Lane, is Wax Chandlers Hall, the sixth incarnation of the home of that particular Livery Company. Wax Chandlers were in the business of making products out of beeswax; before the Reformation acts of devotion to speed souls through Purgatory required vast quantities of beeswax for candles, tapers and images. These days I think its safe to assume that Wax Chandlers are even thinner on the ground than Pewterers, though there is apparently a European Wax Federation based in Brussels. Uniquely, their charter was granted by Richard III (I guess he wasn’t around long enough to do any more). In the Order of Precedence they rank a few places lower than the Pewterers at no.20.

From here we turn north again up Wood Street. On an island in the middle of the street sits the 92ft tower which is all that remained of the Church of St Alban after WWII bombs destroyed the rest of Christopher Wren’s post-Great Fire handiwork. These days the tower is used as a private residence.

Adjacent to the tower is Wood Street police station which was built in the mid-1960’s to the neoclassical design of architect Donald McMorran and has been Grade II listed since 1998.

Just north of the Police Station we cut through between the buildings to get to Aldermanbury Square. This is the location of Brewers’ Hall, home of the Brewers’ Company, which as you might have worked out has a somewhat more extensive membership than its fellow Livery Companies we have encountered thus far. This lot got their charter from Henry VI (who completes the triumvirate of monarchs associated with the Wars of the Roses) in 1438. The current hall is the third on the site and was constructed in 1960 (I’m sure by now I don’t need to explain what happened to the previous two). Apparently there was something of a feud between the Brewers and Mayor Dick Whittington which blew up because the Brewers had fat swans at their feast on the morrow of St Martin and the Mayor didn’t. Whittington’s revenge was to make the Brewers sell their ale at 1d per gallon all the following day. The Brewers are at position 14 in the O.O.P. (between the Dyers and the Leathersellers).

Nipping up Brewers’ Hall Gardens we emerge back on London Wall and then sortie eastward towards Moorgate. Although it’s not strictly on today’s route I just wanted to mention Electra House which stands at no.84 Moorgate, as it’s kind of fallen in between the cracks. This was completed in 1903 and was the headquarters of the Eastern telegraph and Allied Companies. The rather resplendent bronze sculpture atop the dome was created by F.W Pomeroy (1856 – 1924) and depicts a group of four cherubs holding aloft a globe within a wire structure showing the signs of the zodiac (why is anyone’s guess).

Anyway, back on track we head south on Coleman Street before turning west along Basinghall Avenue which brings us to the home of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers (girdle makers). Unsurprisingly, this is one of the smaller Livery Companies with only around 80 active members and is no longer allied with an extant trade. Girdles, as in a kind of belt used to fasten a cassock rather than the elasticated figure-enhancing garment produced by Playtex in the 20th century, began to go out of fashion in the 16th century. Even in its heyday, the Company overlapped with other crafts concerned with metal or leather and was at various times associated with the Pinners, the Cordwainers and the Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers. Today the Girdlers’ Company no longer practises its craft, with the single proud exception that it has the privilege of presenting the sword belt for the Sword of State and stole for each Sovereign’s coronation. Oh, no.23 since you ask.

At the end of Basinghall Avenue we turn south into Aldermanbury Street where we find the Institute of Chartered Insurers which incorporates the Worshipful Company of Insurers (but I reckon we’re Livery Company’ed out for the moment and we know what these guys do and besides they’re only placed at a lowly no.92).

In St Mary Aldermanbury Garden at the corner with Love Lane is a memorial to John Heminge and Henry Condell, members of the King’s Men actors’ company, who in 1623 published the “First Folio”of Shakespeare’s collected plays.

I took this photo of One Love Lane because I was going to make a weak joke about this having nothing to do with Bob Marley, but I don’t think I’ll bother.

So Love Lane takes us back to the St Alban Tower on Wood Street from where we go south back to Gresham Street then turn left for a short way before continuing south on Gutter Lane. From her we

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