William Blake – everystreetinlondon

Day 53 – Waterloo Station – Westminster Bridge – Queen’s Walk

Something of a milestone reached today as, for the first time, we’ve ventured south of the river. First time for this blog that is; Waterloo Station, where today’s journey starts, has been my point of entry to central London for the best part of three decades.

We begin our excursion by heading round the southern end of the station and beyond Lambeth North tube station before cutting down towards the river through Archbishop’s Park. Having circumnavigated St Thomas’ Hospital, partly by way of a stroll along the Albert Embankment, we loop back under the railway arches and then cross over Westminster Bridge. Turning east on the other side, Victoria Embankment takes us along the river to Hungerford Bridge where we cross back over and fight our way along Queen’s Walk through the tourist hordes and past the London Eye and County Hall. After that there’s a full circuit of Waterloo Station and we’re done.

I should also mention that this took place on the day of the England v Croatia semi-final so the (very hot) air was filled with expectation and trepidation – though not in the vicinity of those aforementioned hordes.

So we start off by exiting the station onto Waterloo Road and turning right, then at the crossroads by the Old Vic we turn right again and follow Baylis Road all the way down to Lambeth North tube. At the top of Kennington Road stands the Lincoln Tower, built in 1876 (the centenary of American independence) in the Gothic revival style as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln. The construction cost of the tower was partly met from funds raised in America by Christopher Newman Hall, the pastor of Surrey Chapel, an independent Methodist and Congregational church based on Blackfriars Road, which had acquired the site in the mid 19th century.

We continue south west on Kennington Road as far as Cosser Street which runs alongside the William Blake (public housing) Estate. At the end of Cosser Street we turn right on Hercules Road for just a few yards before continuing north, underneath the rail tracks, on Virgil Street. When Virgil Street ends at Carlisle Lane the entrance to Archbishop’s Park is immediately opposite. This was originally part of the grounds of nearby Lambeth Palace, the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but from 1869 onward was set aside as a play area for children and for ball games and in 1900 was turned into a public park. Ownership remains in the hands of the Church Commissioners. Nowadays the park is also home to Zip Now London (allegedly the world’s longest and fastest city centre zip wire). I would guess it doesn’t take much more than 30 seconds to cover the 225m distance which would make the cheapest ticket equivalent to about 67p per second (about 50% more than Ronaldo earns in the same time).

After a circuit of the park, not including a go on the zipline (it wasn’t yet open), we exit onto Lambeth Palace Road opposite the south side of St Thomas’ Hospital, more of which later.

We follow Lambeth Palace Road eastward as it converges towards parallel proximity with the river then drop onto the Albert Embankment and head down river towards Westminster Bridge. This is where you’ll get the best views of the Houses of Parliament (see previous post) and it’s also considerably less busy than, say, the South Bank if you’re after a riverside stroll. Albert Embankment was created by the engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette for the Metropolitan Board of Works between 1866 and 1869 and included land reclaimed from the river and various small timber and boat-building yards. It was intended to protect low-lying areas of Lambeth from flooding while also providing a new highway to bypass local congested streets. As with its counterpart, the Victoria Embankment, on the north side the street furniture of the Albert Embankment was the creation of George Vulliamy (1817 – 1886). But whereas the sturgeon (or dolphin) lamp posts are common to both sides, the 15 benches on the Albert side have a swan motif in their cast iron arms and panels rather than the sphinxes and camels of the more numerous resting spots on the Victoria side.

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The river-facing wing of St Thomas’ Hospital, dates back to 1871 when the hospital moved to this location from Southwark and is now Grade II listed. The hospital, in its original Southwark incarnation, is believed to have been founded towards the end of the 12th century, run by a mixed order of Augustine monks and nuns and dedicated to St Thomas à Becket. When the monastery was dissolved in 1539 during the Reformation the hospital closed but reopened 12 years later when it was rededicated to Thomas the Apostle. In the late 20th century the name was changed from St Thomas’s to St Thomas’ which was undoubtedly due to modern a predilection for simplification but has been justified on the basis that the hospital is associated with two separate men called Thomas. (Though, as the grammar police and I will tell you, this means it should be known as St Thomases’ Hospital).

Once we reach Westminster Bridge and turn right onto Westminster Bridge Road we find ourselves at the main entrance to the modern building, the North Wing, which was completed in 1975. It met with widespread public disaffection at the time, particularly from MPs who felt it ruined their view from the Palace of Westminster. Between the walkway up to the entrance and the embankment a garden area has been created above the car park. At the entrance to this garden stands a memorial to Mary Seacole (1805 – 1881), the British-Jamaican businesswoman and nurse who travelled independently to the Crimea and set up the so-called “British Hotel” behind the battle lines in order to treat wounded servicemen. The statue was unveiled, not without controversy, in 2016. (Inside the hospital buildings is a museum dedicated to Florence Nightingale, that much better known Crimean War “angel of mercy”). Despite the question marks about the efficacy of Mary’s treatments and the claims of her being a medical pioneer she is undoubtedly someone who deserves to be celebrated for what she managed to achieve in the face of twin obstacles of race and gender. The centre of the garden features Naum Gabo’s fountain sculpture Revolving Torsion and just ahead of the main entrance is sculptor Rick Kirby’s work Crossing The Divide from the year 2000. That’s the same year that a statue of Edward VI, originally erected in 1739, was moved to its position directly outside the North Wing. It was Edward VI who granted the hospital a royal charter that facilitated its re-establishment post-Reformation.

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Following the perimeter of the hospital we return to Lambeth Palace Road and then take a left up Royal Street. This is dominated by the Canterbury House block of social housing flats, built c.1960, which is remarkable in that from the rear it looks like the epitome of a run-down sixties’ estate and yet the front could be mistaken for a 3-star hotel on the Costa Brava.

Next we weave in and out through the tunnels underneath the railtracks out of Waterloo courtesy of Upper Marsh, Carlisle Lane and Centaur Street before ending up back on Hercules Road.

William Blake (1757 – 1827) lived in a building on Hercules Road during the last decade of the 18th century, hence the nearby housing estate named after him and the series of mosaics in the railway tunnels inspired by him. On the way back towards Lambeth North Tube, Newham Terrace offers up one of those historic industrial signage remnants that I’m so fond of.

From the tube station we head back towards the river, starting on Westminster Bridge again and then looping round Addington Street and cutting through (the absurdly named) Forum Magnum Square onto Belvedere Street which runs along the back of the old County Hall.

The main central building of County Hall was built between 1911 and 1922 in an Edwardian Baroque style to the design of architect, Ralph Knott, as the new home of the London County Council (LCC). The LCC was created in 1889 as part of the previous year’s Local Government Act, becoming the first elected authority with responsibility for the whole of London. It’s predecessor, the Metropolitan Board of Works, had government appointed leaders and a more limited set of powers. The north and south blocks of County Hall were added between 1936 and 1939. In 1965 the LCC was superseded by the Greater London Council (GLC) on the back of the 1963 Local Government Act which saw the creation of 32 new boroughs comprising the new metropolis of Greater London, extending into areas such as Croydon and West Ham that were formerly part of Surrey and Essex respectively. It also signalled the effective demise of Middlesex as a separate administrative area. The GLC ran London for 21 years until in 1986, under the aegis of Ken Livingstone, its Labour controlled administration became in embroiled in a death-match with the Conservative government and Margaret Thatcher duly abolished it. Parts of County Hall still remain empty to this day but in now houses two hotels (at opposite ends of the spectrum), a Marriott and a Premier Inn and a number of Merlin Entertainments attractions, which we’ll deal with later.

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Next we finally cross over the river via the packed to the seams Westminster Bridge. At the north end of the bridge stands the statue to Queen Boudicca and her daughters created by Victorian sculptor, Thomas Thornycroft (1815 – 1885). The statue was commissioned in the 1850’s by Prince Albert and was originally intended to sit atop the central arch of the entrance to Hyde Park. Albert died in 1861 before it was completed and the project then ran into all-too familiar funding issues. Thornycroft managed to complete a full-size model of the work before his own death in 1885 but it wasn’t until 1902 that it was installed here by Westminster Pier thanks to the efforts of his son and the support of the LCC. Which makes it all the more shameful that it’s plinth is currently obscured by a stall hawking tourist tat.

Moving swiftly on we proceed eastward along the Victoria Embankment passing, firstly, the Battle of Britain Memorial unveiled in 2005 to coincide with the 65th anniversary and then the Royal Air Force Memorial of 1923 with its Golden Eagle sculpted by William Reid Dick. In the background beyond the memorial you can see the PS Tattershall Castle, a floating pub that served as a passenger ferry across the Humber Estuary from 1934 to 1973.

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We cross back over the river using the western element of the two new footbridges built alongside the Hungerford Railway Bridge in 2002. Officially these are called the Golden Jubilee Bridges in honour of QEII’s fiftieth anniversary on the throne but in reality everyone still refers to them, collectively, as the Hungerford Footbridge. Which is surprising in a way since the original Hungerford Footbridge (on the east side) was notorious for being both unsightly and dangerous and was the scene of horrific murder in 1999 (just a couple of years after the decision to knock down the bridge had already been taken). The railway bridge dates back to 1864 and was designed by Sir John Hawkshaw. It replaced a suspension footbridge of 1845 created by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (the original brick buttresses of which are still in use). The name derives from Hungerford Market, a produce market on the north bank which existed on the site of what is now Charing Cross Station from the late 17th century until, er, they knocked it down to build the station.

IMG_20180711_124013 — View west from Hungerford Bridge

On the other side of the bridge we descend the steps down to Queen’s Walk and head back west towards County Hall. En route we pass the site of the Underbelly Festival which runs throughout the summer months beside Jubilee Gardens featuring comedy, circus and cabaret performances in its Spiegeltent and providing al-fresco drinking and dining.

And so we reach the London Eye which is now apparently the most popular paid tourist attraction in the UK with 3.75 million visitors annually. Quite when it took over the top spot from Madame Tussauds I’m not sure but, ironically, the Tussauds Group were one of the original owners along with British Airways and Marks Barfield (the architects who created it) when it opened in 2000 as part of the Millennium celebrations. At the time it was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world at 135m though that record is now held by the High Roller in Las Vegas at 167.6m. It has also lost out on being the highest public viewing point in London since the Shard was built. It is now owned by Merlin Entertainments who took over Tussauds Group in 2007. BA ended its brand association in 2008 and Coca-Cola became sponsors from the start of 2015.

Merlin Entertainments run a number of other attractions that are based inside the County Hall building: The London Dungeon (relocated here from its original home near London Bridge); Shrek’s Adventure and Sea Life. On a more edifying note I’ll just make mention here of some of the sculptures that adorn the exterior of County Hall. (I should also belatedly namecheck the Ornamental Passions blog which has been an invaluable source of information on this topic). The sculptures on the Jubilee Gardens façade are the work of Alfred Hardiman and are intended to represent Open Spaces and Child Education. Those on the riverside façade are by Ernest Cole (1890 – 1979), who was only 24 when awarded the commission and whose work on the figures was interrupted by First World War in which he was co-opted into the Intelligence Corps. Cole was also responsible for the works on the Westminster Bridge Road side including World Beyond which shows the world resting on the shoulders of three grotesque representatives of the human race with two more contorted figures standing astride it. Not surprisingly, Cole’s work caused something of an uproar when it was unveiled and this led to him being replaced by Hardiman for the later commissions. At the outbreak of WWII, Cole and his wife, Laurie Manly, were briefly imprisoned on suspicion of being fascist sympathisers on account of their subscription to Il Popolo d’Italia the newspaper founded by Mussolini.

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I strongly suspect that Cole and Hardiman’s efforts go completely unnoticed by the crowds thronging round the London Eye and along the rest of Queen’s Walk. Having battled through them twice I make my escape, heading up the side of Jubilee Gardens and down Chicheley Street into York Road. Here I head back to the front entrance to Waterloo Station. The station first opened in 1848 so it’s celebrating its 170th anniversary this year. That original station was built by the London and South Western Railway but wasn’t intended to be a terminus, just a stopping point on the way to the City of London. That further extension never materialised however and by the turn of the 20th century the railway company had accepted the fact and recognized that Waterloo needed to be completely rebuilt to function as a proper terminus for the increasing volume of train traffic from the south west. The rebuilt station was formally opened on 21 March 1922 by Queen Mary. The main pedestrian entrance, the Victory Arch (known as Exit 5), was designed by James Robb Scott and is a memorial to company staff who were killed during WWI. It is flanked by two sculptures featuring Roman goddesses; “1914” with Bellona in armour with a sword and torch, and “1918” showing Pax, the goddess of Peace sitting on Earth. Waterloo is now the busiest railway station in the UK, the largest in terms of floor space and with the greatest number of platforms.

Just across from the main entrance, on Mepham Street, is the Hole In The Wall Pub which I visited several times in the late seventies and early eighties. I still recall the horror of using the toilet facilities there so I was more than a little amused to see this recent addition to the local street furniture.

Mepham Street leads out onto Waterloo Road from where we circle past the station for a second time and on this occasion fork right up Spur Road onto Station Approach Road / Cab Road which the taxis use to add an extra few hundred metres to their journeys (just kidding guys). A left turn takes us down to Leake Street which is basically a foot tunnel under the railway. It’s home to The Vaults an immersive theatre and alternative arts venue that occupies a maze of previously disused arches underneath Waterloo Station. From late January to late March for the last few years the Vault Festival has been held here; and with over 350 shows across 16 venues it’s fast becoming a serious rival to the Edinburgh Fringe for showcasing new and experimental comedy and theatre.

The Leake Street tunnel is also an officially sanctioned open canvas for graffiti art. Not sure what the protocol is for how long each work is allowed to stay up before being over-sprayed but I suspect this one has already gone (unfortunately).

We retrace our steps up Leake Street and leave via an alternative exit onto Lower Marsh. This always used to be one of my favourite streets in London with a number of idiosyncratic shops selling vintage clothes, jazz books and records, pre-1970’s memorabilia and cut-price designer menswear. Latterly it’s sadly succumbed to the twin curses of redevelopment and rate hikes so almost all of those independent retailers have now gone (apart from the fetish gear suppliers). The shops have of course mostly been replaced by coffee-shops, a couple of which, to their credit, have a decent sense of style. Not quite a pub of the day but I’ll give a shout out to the Scooter Bar where I had a Mexican lager I’ve never heard of before and they let me bring in a take-out of Pad Thai Noodles from one of the several food stalls out on the street.

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Ok so we just finish things off with the streets running off Lower Marsh to the south namely Grindal Street, Frazier Street, Murphy Street, Joanna Street and Tanswell Street and then return to the station. For once my timing has clicked as the Band of The Royal Coldstream Guards are belting out a few popular tunes on the concourse and just as I decide to hang around for one more they launch into, what else but, Three Lions. Naturally this brings the house down though unfortunately there is no self-fulfilling prophecy here. Nonetheless these boys in red done good as did the ones over in Russia. Bring on Euro 2020 !

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 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 29 – Bunhill Fields – Whitecross Street – Barbican

This walk begins opposite where the last one finished, on the western side of City Road at Bunhill Fields, the last remaining historic burial ground in central London. It then winds its way westwards and southwards, taking in Whitecross Street market before ending up at the behemoth of modernist architecture that is the Barbican Centre and estate.

Bunhill Fields is the final resting place for an estimated 120,000 souls, a large proportion of them interred at the time of the great plague of 1665 when the area first came into use as a burial ground. As the ground was never consecrated by the Church of England it became a popular burial site for Nonconformists and Radicals among whose number were John Bunyan (1628 – 1688), the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress and a Baptist, Daniel Defoe (1660 -1731), writer of Gulliver’s Travels and Moll Flanders and a Presbyterian, and William Blake (1757 – 1827), poet, artist and religious iconoclast.

P1050760 — Memorials to Daniel Defoe and William Blake

The last burial here took place in 1854 and the site was configured into its current layout in the 1860’s with a public garden area created alongside a hundred years later. The burial ground now contains 2,333 monuments, mostly simple headstones (of which there are 1,920) arranged in a grid formation. Among the more extravagant memorials is that of Dame Mary Page, wife of Sir Gregory Page, first baronet, wealthy City merchant and East India Company director. As you can see below, the tomb is unusual in bearing an inscription setting out the graphic detail of the disease that brought about the lady’s demise – believed to be what is now known as Meigs’ Syndrome.

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After a circuit of Bunhill Fields we head north up City Road a short distance before turning left into Featherstone Street and proceeding west to Bunhill Row with a brief deviation into Mallow Street. Cross over into Banner Street just off the south side of which sits the Bunhill Fields Quaker Friends House, originally the caretaker’s house of a set of Quaker mission buildings, the rest of which were destroyed in WWII. The surrounding gardens and playground occupy the site of the old ‘Quaker Burying Ground’ where the movement’s founder, George Fox, is buried along with many thousand early adherents.

At the next intersection with we turn north for the first of several visits to Whitecross Street. This has been home to an eponymous market since the 17th century though by the late 19th century the area had become a by-word for poverty and alcohol, known colloquially as Squalors’ Market. When I used to visit it occasionally ten years or more ago it was very much in the “pile it cheap and high” tradition of street markets with just the odd food stall among the DVDs, kitchen implements and cut-price clothing. Nowadays the “street food” has effectively taken over completely and the market is more-or-less just a lunchtime affair. Naturally (in keeping with established tradition) I got here just as all the stalls were packing up.

We hit Old Street just opposite St Luke’s and resume west as far as Golden Lane where we turn south then east along Garrett Street back to Whitecross Street. The restaurants that line the street have gone pretty upmarket and edged out most of the old-school retailers. The second-hand record store run by a couple of aging Teddy Boys is long gone but one or two of the old guard cling on as you can see.

Whitecross Street and its offshoots have also succumbed to the encroachment of “street art” (spreading west from its Shoreditch heartland). Topically and appositely, the latest manifestation is an image of someone very cross and very white.

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Next up it’s the western stretch of Banner Street which returns us to Golden Lane where we look in on Nags Head Court before turning back east along Roscoe Street. Loop round Baird Street then continue east along Chequer Street (through another Peabody Trust estate). On the return to Bunhill Row we dip south briefly then make a right into Dufferin Street and complete a circuit of Dufferin Avenue and Cahill Street before crossing Whitecross again, this time into Fortune Street. Where this meets Golden Lane once more we encounter what can only be a sign of things to come.

Turning south we arrive at no.1 Golden Lane which is now offices of UBS Bank but started life in 1896 as the home of the Cripplegate Institute; a charitable foundation set up by the City of London Parish of the same name. The building, designed by architect Sidney Smith, who was also responsible for what is now known as Tate Britain, incorporated a reference library, news and magazine rooms and classrooms for teaching such subjects as photography, dressmaking and first aid. In 1898 a theatre, staging mainly amateur productions, was opened in the building. The institute left the premises in 1987 and relocated to Chiswick, having sold the building for £4.5m.

At its southern end Golden Lane emerges into Beech Street, a lengthy stretch of which forms the Barbican Tunnel. Heading east again we pass the Barbican Cinema which is now housed in a separate building from the rest of the arts complex.

Passing this we turn back into Whitecross Street where the last vestiges of the old 3-for-a-fiver style street market are huddled in a concrete forecourt to a Waitrose supermarket. I once bought a checkered trilby hat here for £6 and still get occasional use out of it when the sun deigns to make a proper effort.

Next right is Errol Street which forks right again into Lambs Buildings where you can find the home of the Royal Statistical Society in a converted Victorian Sunday School building. In 1833 the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) created a statistical section following a presentation by the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet to its fellows. This proved so popular that, a year later, a Statistical Society was founded by Charles Babbage, Thomas Malthus and Richard Jones with the Marquis of Lansdowne as President. Florence Nightingale became the first female member in 1858. I failed miserably to come up with any interesting actual statistics about the RSS but a mildly interesting fact is that Harold Wilson was its President in 1972-73 whilst leader of the opposition to Ted Heath.

Just around the corner is St Joseph’s Catholic Church featuring the memorial Cardinal Hume Quiet Garden.

Turning left we’re back on Bunhill Row which was originally called Artillery Walk (as it runs along the western side of the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company – as featured in the last post). John Milton lived here for a time, during which he completed Paradise Regained.

We go south from here onto Chiswell Street and then complete a circuit of Lamb’s Passage, Sutton’s Way and Whitecross Street (for one final time) before crossing into Silk Street and entering the Barbican Centre just as the rain starts to fall.

The Grade II listed Barbican is Europe’s largest multi-arts and conference venue and one of London’s best examples of Brutalist architecture. It was developed from designs by architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon as part of a utopian vision to transform an area of London left devastated by bombing during the Second World War. Although the first proposals were submitted in 1955 it wasn’t until 1971 that construction started and 1982 when the Queen formally opened the building. For a whistle-stop history of the Barbican site from medieval times to the present day I would recommend this animated video inspired by an essay from the pen of Peter Ackroyd. The image below shows how things looked in 1955, with only the church of St Giles Cripplegate having miraculously survived the carnage wrought by the German air raids.

The following selection of images feature :

a spatial installation in the foyer (until 10/09/2016), exploring the theme of collision, in which two revolving arms narrowly evade each other in a mobile of light and sound in constant motion.
the Barbican Muse – a sculpture, created by artist Matthew Spender, of a woman holding the separate masks of tragedy and comedy.
the Guildhall School of Music and Drama – founded in 1880 and taking up residence in the Barbican complex in 1977.
the “lakeside” terrace (thronged on this day with graduating students from King’s College)
the residential tower blocks (now some of last remaining from their era)

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Nip in to see the latest exhibition in the art gallery which is a retrospective of work by the Icelandic performance artist, Ragnar Kjartansson which you can catch until the first week of September 2016. Centrepiece of the exhibition is a work entitled Take Me Here by the Dishwasher: Memorial for a Marriage (2011) a live performance featuring ten guitar-strumming troubadours singing for up to eight hours a day against a backdrop of a clip from an Icelandic softcore film of the Seventies starring the artist’s parents.

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Leave the Barbican by the Silk Street entrance again, head east and loop round Milton Street and Moor Lane. This area is home to several of the monolithic glass skyscrapers that have come to dominate the City and these days there are as many residential as there are office blocks and I find myself asking if there isn’t perhaps a finite pool of people who can stump up £3.75m plus for an apartment, however stunning the view.

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Moor Lane backs onto another massive instalment of the Crossrail redevelopment.

Fore Street takes us round to the southern side of the Barbican complex where we find the aforementioned St Giles Cripplegate church. It is believed that there has been a church on this site since Saxon times though it was during the Middle Ages that it was dedicated to St Giles. The name “Cripplegate” refers to one of the gates through the old City wall, which had its origins in Roman times as a fortification to protect the Roman city from attackers. There is no definitive explanation of the origin of the word ‘Cripplegate’ but it is thought unlikely that it relates to cripples despite the fact that St Giles is their patron saint (along with beggars and blacksmiths). It is more likely that the word comes from the Anglo-Saxon “cruplegate” which means a covered way or tunnel, which would have run from the town gate of Cripplegate to the original Barbican, a fortified watchtower on the City wall. Sections of the old wall can still be seen near the church.

The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950 and it was extensively restored in 1966. Against the northern flank of the church is one of 14 artworks located around central London which were organised during Lent 2016 into a trail telling the story of the Passion of Christ under the umbrella title Stations of the Cross. Some of these (like the Jean Cocteau mural reported on a couple of posts back) are longstanding features of the city but the one you can see below, station no.9 by G.Roland Biermann, is one of four freshly commissioned pieces in 2016.

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As you see, after an absence of several weeks, some more of my pigeon friends have managed to inveigle themselves into this final collection of images.

Leaving the many fascinations of the Barbican behind we finish for today by walking down Wood Street to London Wall (which we will return to on other occasion).

Day 20 – Soho – Golden Square – Soho Square

Back for another trip round Soho this time. Something of a meandering route; largely dictated by my desire to avoid the records shops as this month’s vinyl budget has already been exhausted.

The name Soho is believed to derive from the cry “So-ho” which was heard around these parts back in the 17th century when it was a popular destination for the fox and hare hunting set. (A century earlier Henry VIII had turned the area into one of his royal parks). Its reputation as a slough of moral lassitude dates from the mid-19th century when it became a magnet for prostitution and purveyors of cheap entertainment. In the early part of the last century large numbers of new immigrants set up in business here and it evolved into a byword for a Bohemian mind-set as the exotic and the louche fused together.

Today’s starting point is Piccadilly Tube Station exiting on the north side of Regent Street. From here we head along the partly-pedestrianized Glasshouse Street before taking a left into Air Street. Emerge onto Regent Street again with a view across to the colonnaded arch that looms over the continuation of Air Street; an arch which took centre stage during the recent Lumiere London festival.

Turning right up Regent Street we pass the Café Royal. This was established in 1865 by émigré French Wine Merchant, Daniel Nicholas Thévenon (who later anglicised his name to plain Daniel Nichols). At one time it was claimed to have the greatest wine cellar in the world and swiftly became a favoured haunt of London’s fashionable set. The rich and famous, royals and commoners, continued to flock here well into the latter part of the 20th century, Burton and Taylor, Princess Diana and Muhammad Ali among them. In 1973 David Bowie famously retired his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust with a star studded party here, dubbed ‘The Last Supper’. Unlike some of the other places to be name-checked later I have never been inside.

One final building on Regent Street to highlight is Westmoreland House on the west side dating from 1925. The statue in the bottom half of the picture of a girl, seated cross-legged, and holding a spinneret and threads is The Spinner, by the sculptor William Reid Dick and was commissioned by the Scottish clothing company of R. W. Forsyth.

Turn back onto Glasshouse Street then head north up Warwick Street. Here we find the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory (two for the price of one). The original chapel on this site belonged first to the Portuguese Embassy and then the Bavarian Embassy before being destroyed in the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780. The current building was opened ten years later.

At the end of Warwick Street we turn right briefly on to Beak Street and then right again down Upper John Street which feeds into Golden Square. The square was created at the end of the seventeenth century and, as alluded to earlier, was in its early years the address of a number of foreign embassies. There seems to be some debate as to whether the statue (no not that one) depicts George II or Charles II. It is attributed to Flemish sculptor John Van Nost who was around at the same time as George II but nobody seemed much inclined to commemorate that particular monarch (this would be one of only two statues of him in London) whereas Charlie the Second is represented all over the place.

These days Golden Square is known for being a bit of a media hub – Sony Pictures and Clear Channel both have offices here as do M & C Saatchi and the owners of Absolute Radio.

We exit the square via Lower John Street turn left onto Brewer Street and then right down Sherwood Street.

Before we end up back at Piccadilly Circus we veer left down Denman Street which ends at the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Great Windmill Street. The latter is of course renowned as the home of the Windmill Theatre. This opened as a small playhouse in 1931 but its notoriety was formed upon the introduction of the continuously running Revudeville shows a year later. The USP of these performances was of course the nude tableaux featuring the Windmill Girls who because of licensing restrictions had to remain absolutely still for the entire time they were on stage. The merest twitch could have resulted in the theatre being shut down. Famously, shows continued right throughout WWII inspiring the strapline “We Never Closed” which was inevitably satirised as “We Never Clothed”. All this was the brainchild of the owner, Laura Henderson, and was celebrated in the 2005 Stephen Frears’ film Mrs Henderson Presents which has now been turned into a West End Musical. That isn’t of course playing at the Windmill Theatre itself which was reincarnated in the Seventies as the Paul Raymond Revue Bar and is now the Windmill International Table Dancing Club. (Just to be clear – this isn’t one of the places I’ve been to that I referred to earlier.)

Always amuses me that these establishments call themselves Gentlemen’s Clubs. Gawping at young ladies in the altogether isn’t the most obvious of gentlemanly pursuits. But we digress.

Somewhat incongruously there is a primary school at no.23. This dates back to the 1870’s and was originally associated with St Peter’s Church which was demolished in the 1950’s. The façade of the school building still features a bust of the 14th Earl of Derby who was a generous benefactor of the church.

After stopping off at Ham Yard and Smithy’s Court we’re back on Brewer Street and a left then sharp right up Lower James Street brings us back to the eastern side of Golden Square. This leads inevitably into Upper James Street which ends at Beak Street opposite no.41 which was once the residence of the venetian painter Canaletto (1696 – 1768) whose work was featured way back in the Day 3 post. A few doors further along is the Old Coffee House pub, somewhere I did frequent back in the eighties so pleased to see it still there (ironically one of the few places that hasn’t been turned into an actual coffee house yet).

Next up, still continuing north, is Marshall Street which once boasted William Blake as a resident. No doubt he’d be delighted with what they’ve done to the place.

Loop round Newburgh Street and Foubert’s Place where the shops are certainly more interesting than anything found on Carnaby Street which is literally yards away.

Back on Marshall Street is the Marshall Street Leisure Centre which opened in 2010 following a 13 year (?) refurbishment of the Grade II listed building which was the site of the Westminster Public Baths from 1850 to 1997. Back in 1850 the charges were 6d for a first class warm bath, 2d for a second class warm bath and half these prices for a cold bath. I’ll you to speculate as to the difference between a first and second class bath.

Turning eastward on Broadwick Street we pass the John Snow pub named after the eponymous “father of epidemiology” (1813 – 58) whose findings in relation to the source of Soho cholera outbreak of 1854 saved the lives of countless Londoners in the second half of the 19th century. (Whether he was also the inspiration for the Game of Thrones character of the same name or that was either the Channel 4 newsreader or the former England and Sussex fast bowler we may never know).

Head north again up Poland Street then duck in and out of Oxford Street via Berwick Street, Noel Street, Wardour Street, Hollen Street and Upper Chapel Street. Then back south down Dean Street, skirting more Crossrail disruption, as far as the Pizza Express Jazz Club (visited once).

Here we turn down Carlisle Street to reach Soho Square. This dates back to 1681 when it was originally known as Kings Square on account of the statue of Charles II (what did I say earlier). In 1875 the statue was removed during alterations by T. Blackwell, of Crosse and Blackwell fame who gave it for safekeeping to his friend, artist , Frederick Goodall. Goodall’s estate was subsequently purchase by the dramatist W.S Gilbert and it was in accordance with the will of Lady Gilbert that the statue was restored to Soho Square in 1938. The miniature Tudor-style house that sits in the centre of the Square was erected in 1925 as it was necessary to have a doorway above ground leading down to an electricity sub-station constructed under the gardens. It is now used as a gardener’s hut.

In the north-western corner of the square stands the French Protestant Church of London. The church as institution was founded by charter of King Edward VI in 1550 but this building dates from the 1890’s. The yellow piece of paper pinned to the sign in the picture below reads “Adam and Eve – the first people not to read the Apple terms and conditions”. (Bit of ecclesiastical humour for you there).

A bit further round is a blue plaque commemorating the Jamaican-born nurse Mary Seacole (1805 -81) renowned for her work during the Crimean War.

On the eastern side of the square is the Roman Catholic St Patrick’s Church. St Patrick’s was built on the site of Carlisle House, a mansion bought by Casanova’s mistress Teresa Cornelys, who went bankrupt running a music hall and allegedly a brothel there. The present Italianate building dates, like its Protestant counterpart across the square, from the 1890’s. A £3.5m restoration project was completed in 2011.

On the Greek Street corner of the square is the House of St Barnabas, a charity founded in 1846 to aid the homeless and destitute. This Grade II listed building and chapel served as a hostel for the homeless into the 21st century but is now a private members’ club whose profits continue to serve the original charitable aims (have also been here once).

These coloured pigeons are the remains of a 2015 installation by artist Patrick Murphy.

Like Golden Square, Soho Square has been a magnet for media companies. The British Board of Film Classification has offices here and the UK head office of Twentieth Century Fox occupies the south-western corner. Incidentally there is a separate Twenty First Century Fox corporation which was spun out of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in 2013. The website is http://www.21cf.com as the seemingly apocryphal story about http://www.21stcenturyfox.com being acquired by some clever dick in the 1990s who has refused to sell (or Murdoch has refused to pay out) appears to be true. Try it and see

Leave the square finally via Batemans Buildings then back up Greek Street before heading beneath the Pillars of Hercules pub into Manette Street which is named after one of the characters in A Tale of Two Cities.

On the right just beyond the archway is Goldbeaters House, presumably named after a trade carried on in these parts and on the left is Orange Yard, home to the spit and sawdust music venue, The Borderline. (And yes you’ve guessed it – I’ve been here just the once as well).

And that concludes today’s instalment.

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