We have migrated! From now on you will find our new blogs (and copies of all the previous ones) over on lostcityoflondon.wordpress.com
This combines - in one place - aspects of our previous website and this blog. In its old incarnation, I had never been terribly happy with our website - the design looked pretty terrible, and it was all on one page, which didn't look terribly professional.
A considerable advantage of using the Wordpress format is that we now have menu tabs across the top for separate pages on our Schedule of Walks and on our Private Walks, as well as a Home page giving some general information about what we offer and who we are, another separate tab for the published book, a Gallery tab, and the Blog itself. There is also a nice big link to our facebook page on the side.
Still a work in progress, but I'm pleased so far.
The domain name www.lostcityoflondon.co.uk now points towards the same wordpress site. So that's much neater.
Saturday, 19 October 2013
Thursday, 17 October 2013
The “Lion Sermon” and the Church of St Katharine Cree
Today (Thursday October 17th 2013) I
attended the 371st annual “Lion Sermon” in the church of St
Katharine Cree on Leadenhall Street. It was by Shami Chakrabarti, the Director
of Liberty, and on the subject of, and I paraphrase, “Freedom, and what it means in the
metaphorical Lion’s Den of the modern world”.
Freedom, and the Human Rights of Dignity, Equality and
Fairness (“and the greatest of these is Equality”). Admirable sentiments, especially resonant in a
church that at the time of the Civil War in the 1640s stood for the supposed
“divine” rights of the king over those of the commoner.
The sermons
have been given in the church on the
nearest Thursday to 16th October every year since 1643, in
remembrance of the Merchant Adventurer (of the Levant Company) and later Lord
Mayor of London Sir John Gayer being spared by a lion in Syria on that day.
The church
itself was originally built in the grounds of Holy Trinity Priory sometime
before 1291 (being mentioned in the Taxatio
Ecclesiastica of Pope Nicholas IV), and possibly around 1280, and rebuilt
between 1500-4, in the Late Gothic
style, and again between 1628-31, this time in a style transitional between
Late Gothic and Neo-Classical. It was undamaged by the Great Fire of
1666, although later required to be restored in 1878-9, and again, after being damaged by
bombing in the Blitz of the Second World War, in 1956-62.
The interior contains some Late Gothic elements, such as the east
window, in the form of an elaborately stylised Katharine Wheel, and the
intricately ribbed ceiling; and some Neo-Classical ones, such as the Corinthian
columns in the nave. It also contains
monuments to Sir Nicholas Throkmorton (d. 1570) as well as to Sir
John
Gayer (d. 1649). The church was consecrated in 1631 by Archbishop Laud, who
went on to be executed in 1645 for his close association with the then-king, Charles
I, and for his persecution of Puritans. The Father Smith organ, once played by
Purcell and Handel, dates to 1686.
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
The Building of England
October 16th 2013
I’ve just got back from an
extraordinarily stimulating – and free - Gresham lecture at the Museum of
London. It was by the Gresham Professor
of the Built Environment - and Chief Executive of English Heritage - Simon Thurley,
and on the subject of “The Building of England” (which is also the subject of
his forthcoming book of the same name, due out next month).
Thurley argued, provocatively but
persuasively, that much of what has been written of the architecture of England
has focussed narrowly on details of
individual style, architects or buildings, and in so doing has lost sight of
the bigger picture, of the wider world, and of why rather than how people build.
In his holistic interpretation,
architectural innovation has always been associated with centres of financial wealth,
the geographic locations of which have tended to move over the course of
history as the nature of the economy has evolved from agricultural - pastoral, then arable –
to industrial (and ultimately technological or service-based).
Uniquely, London has always been
a centre of financial wealth and of architectural innovation. And not the least
so in the aftermath of the Great Fire of
1666, which provided planners with the
opportunity to create the world’s first stone-built, coal-burning, essentially modern
city.
Monday, 14 October 2013
Southwark Cathedral
14th October - On this day in 1539, the
Augustinian Priory of St Mary Overie was dissolved, the priory church then
becoming the parish church of St Saviour, and eventually Southwark Cathedral
(and the Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie).
Southwark Cathedral is visited on
our “Historic Southwark – Shakespeare’s London and more” walk.
Please note that this walk, or
indeed any of our others, can be booked by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.co.uk) or phone
(020-8998-3051).
Sunday, 13 October 2013
The Knights Templar and Hospitaller
The Knights Templar came into being in around 1129 as an Order of “fighting monks” tasked principally with the protection of Christians on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and with participation in Crusades, and incidentally with infrastructure and finance. They soon became immensely wealthy and powerful, and at the same time the subject of much mistrust, on account of the secrecy surrounding their activity, making themselves many dangerous enemies as well as friends.
On 13th October 1307 – according to myth the original unlucky “Friday the Thirteenth”, the leaders of the Knights Templar were arrested on a variety of charges, at least some no doubt trumped up by debtors and other vested interests, under a warrant reading “God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the Kingdom” (“Dieu n'est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume"). They were later tortured into confessing to having “spat three times on the Cross” (" … craché trois fois sur la Croix … “), and done to death by being burned at the stake, and the entire Order was eventually disbanded, essentially to be superseded by that of the Knights Hospitaller.
Interestingly, there are two Knights Templar or Hospitaller sites still in existence in London.
One is Temple Church, in a precinct off Fleet Street. The church was originally built in around 1160-85, in an architectural style transitional between Norman (Romanesque) and Early English Gothic, and in 1220-40, in a style that is decidedly Gothic. It has been restored or rebuilt on a number of occasions subsequently, most recently by Carden & Godfrey between 1947-57, following bomb damage sustained during the Blitz of the Second World War. The round tower and nave are twelfth-century, and modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The famous Purbeck Marble effigies of Knights Templar in the interior are thirteenth-century.
The other is the Priory of St John, in a precinct in Clerkenwell. The Priory was originally built in around 1145, destroyed during the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, rebuilt by Prior John Redington immediately afterwards and restored by Prior Thomas Docwra in 1504, and dissolved in 1540. The former priory and later parish church, also with a circular tower and nave, was substantially destroyed during an air raid on the last night of the Blitz, 10th May, 1941, and subsequently rebuilt. Remarkably, the original crypt of 1145 still survives. A separate gate-house of 1504 also survives. The gate-house served between 1560-1608 - that is, immediately after the Dissolution - as the “Office of the Revels” (how wonderful!), where theatrical performances were licensed, and sets and costumed procured. It re-entered the possession of the by-then Order of (the Hospital of) St John in 1873, and now houses the Order’s museum.
Temple Church is visited on our “Historic Smithfield, Clerkenwell and Holborn – Fanfare and Plainsong”, “St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey – Priories, Palaces and Parliament” and “Tower to Temple – The Heart of the City” walks; St John’s on the “Historic Smithfield, Clerkenwell and Holborn – Fanfare and Plainsong” one.
Please note that these walks, or indeed any of our others, can be booked by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.co.uk) or phone (020-8998-3051).
On 13th October 1307 – according to myth the original unlucky “Friday the Thirteenth”, the leaders of the Knights Templar were arrested on a variety of charges, at least some no doubt trumped up by debtors and other vested interests, under a warrant reading “God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the Kingdom” (“Dieu n'est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume"). They were later tortured into confessing to having “spat three times on the Cross” (" … craché trois fois sur la Croix … “), and done to death by being burned at the stake, and the entire Order was eventually disbanded, essentially to be superseded by that of the Knights Hospitaller.
Interestingly, there are two Knights Templar or Hospitaller sites still in existence in London.
One is Temple Church, in a precinct off Fleet Street. The church was originally built in around 1160-85, in an architectural style transitional between Norman (Romanesque) and Early English Gothic, and in 1220-40, in a style that is decidedly Gothic. It has been restored or rebuilt on a number of occasions subsequently, most recently by Carden & Godfrey between 1947-57, following bomb damage sustained during the Blitz of the Second World War. The round tower and nave are twelfth-century, and modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The famous Purbeck Marble effigies of Knights Templar in the interior are thirteenth-century.
Temple Church |
Temple Church |
Temple Church effigy |
The other is the Priory of St John, in a precinct in Clerkenwell. The Priory was originally built in around 1145, destroyed during the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, rebuilt by Prior John Redington immediately afterwards and restored by Prior Thomas Docwra in 1504, and dissolved in 1540. The former priory and later parish church, also with a circular tower and nave, was substantially destroyed during an air raid on the last night of the Blitz, 10th May, 1941, and subsequently rebuilt. Remarkably, the original crypt of 1145 still survives. A separate gate-house of 1504 also survives. The gate-house served between 1560-1608 - that is, immediately after the Dissolution - as the “Office of the Revels” (how wonderful!), where theatrical performances were licensed, and sets and costumed procured. It re-entered the possession of the by-then Order of (the Hospital of) St John in 1873, and now houses the Order’s museum.
Modern St John's church with circular outline of Medieval nave in front |
St John's Gate-House |
Temple Church is visited on our “Historic Smithfield, Clerkenwell and Holborn – Fanfare and Plainsong”, “St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey – Priories, Palaces and Parliament” and “Tower to Temple – The Heart of the City” walks; St John’s on the “Historic Smithfield, Clerkenwell and Holborn – Fanfare and Plainsong” one.
Please note that these walks, or indeed any of our others, can be booked by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.co.uk) or phone (020-8998-3051).
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Far-Flung Lost London I – Walthamstow
Long ago, outside a chip shop in
Walthamstow (sorry, I couldn’t stop myself), stood the “Ancient House”, dating
to the fifteenth century. Miraculously,
it stands there still, in the secluded
enclave of Walthamstow Village, alongside the church of St Mary,
originally built in the twelfth century (although much modified subsequently),
and the Monoux alms-houses, originally built in the sixteenth.
From there it’s a very
varied and interesting three-hour walk
to the City, by way of Walthamstow and Hackney Marshes, the Lea River, Hackney
Wick, Victoria Park, Bethnal Green and Shoreditch (using the Shard for
orientation).
Sunday, 6 October 2013
To Live and Die in Charterhouse
October 6th – Today is the anniversary of the
death in 1101 of St Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian Order (of
hermit-monks).
The Carthusian
monastery, or “Chartrouse” in Charterhouse Square was built in 1371 by Sir Walter (de) Manny, “a stranger
born, lord of the town of Manny, in the diocese of Cambray, beyond the
seas, who for service done to Edward III was made Knight of the Garter”
(Stow). In fact, the site was first
consecrated as a burial ground for victims of the “Black Death” in 1348-9 (again
as Stow put it, “A great pestilence ... overspread all England, so wasting the
people that scarce the tenth person of all sorts was left alive, and
churchyards were not sufficient to receive the dead, but men were forced to
choose out certain fields for burial”).
During the Reformation, in 1535, the Prior, John Houghton and six monks
were executed at Tyburn, and a further nine monks died in prison (Houghton was
later made a saint). After the
associated Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1537-8, the site became a private
residence, originally owned by Sir Edward North, the Chancellor of the Court of
Augmentations, from 1545; and then a charitable alms-house and school founded by a
bequest by Thomas Sutton, the one-time
Master of the Ordnance in the Northern Parts and the richest man in England,
from 1611 (the school relocated to
Godalming in Surrey in 1872).
Remarkably,
much still survives here from the Medieval to post-Medieval, Tudor to Stuart
period, either in it’s original state, or restored thereto by Seely and Paget
following damage sustained during an incendiary bombing raid in 1941. Perhaps the most notable buildings, fragments
of buildings or fitments are Sutton’s memorial in what is now the Chapel, but
was once the Chapter House, dating to 1614;
Sutton memorial (1614) |
Faith, Hope and Charity (1625) |
North’s Great Hall, dating at least
in part to the 1540s; his Great Chamber, also dating at least in part to the
1540s, and one of the finest in all England, where Queen Elizabeth I more than
once held court, at great cost to her host;
Great Hall (1540s) |
Great Chamber (1540s) |
Wash-House Court, dating back to
the early 1530s, in the case of the brick buildings, and to an even earlier part of monastic period, in the case
of the stone ones;
Wash-House Court (monastic period, to 1530s) |
and the doorway to “Cell B”, in the Norfolk Cloister, complete
with it’s guichet or serving hatch, dating all the way back to the time of
the original foundation of the monastery in 1371.
Cell B, with guichet, Norfolk Cloister (1371) |
A “Museum of London Archaeology Service” monograph describes in detail
the findings of recent archaeological excavations at the Charterhouse
site. Excavations at the associated “Crossrail” development
site are still ongoing. To date, they have unearthed a number of
skeletons, believed to be from the Black Death burial ground.
Charterhouse is visited, although not entered, on our “Historic
Smithfield, Clerkenwell and Holborn – Fanfare and Plainsong” walk.
Please note that this or indeed any
of our other walks can be booked by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.co.uk) or phone
(020-8998-3051).
Thursday, 3 October 2013
The Mother of Parliaments
The Ship of State |
Forever teatime |
The Old
Palace was purportedly originally built for Cnut in around 1016, and
subsequently rebuilt by Edward, “the Confessor” in 1042-65, and extended by
succeeding kings, with Westminster Hall eventually becoming the seat of
Parliament, to
be succeeded, in 1548, by the then-secularised Royal Chapel of St. Stephen.
Westminster Hall exterior |
Westminster Hall interior |
Some
of the palace complex was destroyed in a fire in 1512; and most of what
remained, in another, in 1834, with essentially only Westminster Hall and the Jewel
Tower surviving to this day, together with parts of the Royal Chapel of St. Stephen,
including the St Mary Undercroft (see Caroline Shenton’s book, “The Day Parliament Burned Down”,
published by Oxford University Press in 2012).
Jewel Tower exterior |
Jewel Tower interior |
Westminster Hall was originally built as a royal residence cum banqueting house by William II,
Rufus, in 1097-9; and rebuilt, with a
spectacular hammerbeam roof, by Henry Yevele, for Richard II, in
1394-1401. The Jewel Tower was
originally built by Henry Yevele, for Edward III, in 1365-6.
The New
Palace was built by Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Pugin, in the Victorian
Gothic style, in 1837-58.
Victoran Gothic extravagance |
Victorian Gothic aspiration |
The Palace of
Westminster is visited, although not entered, on our “St Paul’s to Westminster
Abbey – Priories, Palaces and Parliament” walk.
Please note that this or indeed
any of our other walks can be booked by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.co.uk) or phone
(020-8998-3051).
*For those wanting to see inside the Palace of Westminster - here is a link to the official website with details of how to book
http://www.parliament.uk/visiting/visiting-and-tours/
Sunday, 29 September 2013
London’s water supply and the “New River”
September 29th
– Today marks the 400th anniversary of the opening of the
“New River”.
London’s water supply
In the late
twelfth century (the time of the chronicler FitzStephen), water drawn from the
City’s rivers, or from springs or wells, was pure and clean and sweet and
wholesome. Later, though, “the tide from the sea prevailed to such a
degree that the water of the Thames was salt; so much so that many folks
complained of the ale tasting like salt” (and
obviously they couldn’t have that).
And, by the beginning of the thirteenth century, the supply had become
so contaminated by waste as to be not only unpalatable but unsafe to drink, for
fear of contracting a potentially lethal water-borne disease such as
typhus. So, a supply had to be brought
in from outside. A so-called Great
Conduit was built, by public subscription, in 1236, to bring water from a
spring at Tyburn, roughly opposite where Bond Street tube station now
stands, to Cheapside, about three miles
away, by way of a system of lead (!) pipes. Sections
have recently been discovered 2m
below Medieval street level in Paternoster Row and in Poultry.
The Great Conduit was extended
at either end in the fifteenth century so as to run from Oxlese, near where
Paddington station now stands, to
Cheapside and Cornhill, about six miles away (water was then either piped
directly from the conduit to homes and businesses that could afford the expense
of the installation of “quills”, or collected from stand-pipes, and carried
there by property owners, or, in buckets suspended from shoulder-yokes, by
“cobs”, of whom there were 4000 by 1600).
The so-called Devil’s Conduit
under Queen’s Square probably dated to around the same time, a photograph taken
in 1910, shortly before its demolition in 1911-13, showing it to contain graffiti from 1411.
By the sixteenth century, the system had become inadequate to meet the demands of the rising population
(it had also become subject to much abuse and over-use by individuals and by
commercial and industrial concerns). A
short-term solution to this problem was
provided by the construction by the
Dutchman Pieter Maritz in 1580 of a – rather rickety – apparatus under one of
the arches of London Bridge that allowed
water to be pumped from the Thames into
the heart of the City, or, in the case of the original demonstration to City officials,
over the spire of the church of St Magnus the Martyr! The apparatus was destroyed in the Great Fire
of 1666, but thereafter replaced by Maritz’s grandson, and continued in use, after a fashion, until the
early nineteenth century.
The “New River”
A longer-term
solution was provided by the construction by the Welshman and wealthy merchant,
goldsmith, banker and Member of Parliament Sir Hugh Myddelton in 1609-13 of
a 10’ wide and 4’ deep canal, or “New
River”, all the way from springs at Amwell and Chadwell in Hertfordshire into the
City, an incredible 37 miles away, which is still in use to this day (parts of
it can be seen along the “New River” walk in Islington, for example in
Canonbury Grove). Myddelton had to
overcome any number of technological
obstacles, and much land-owner and political opposition, to see this
major civil engineering project through to completion, doing so with a mixture of drive and determination,
the financial support of 29 investors or “adventurers”, and the tacit backing
of the king. His financial backers had
to wait some time until they profited
from the enterprise (actually, until 1633, although by 1695 the New River
Company ranked behind only the East India Company and Bank of England in terms
of its capital value). The public health benefits of Myddelton’s project were
immediate, though, and
immeasurable, and indeed it has been
described as “An immortal work – since men cannot more nearly imitate the Deity
than in bestowing health”.
Myddelton statue, Holborn Viaduct |
Myddelton statue, Islington |
Section of New River, Canonbury |
White Conduit |
Notes.
Myddelton died in 1631, and was buried in the church of St Matthew Friday Street, where he had served
as a warden. Concerted attempts to locate his coffin and monument
following the church’s demolition in 1886 were unfortunately ultimately unsuccessful.
Remarkably,
some of the fittings from the New River Company’s offices, including Grinling
Gibbons’s “oak room”, still survive, in the
London Metropolitan Water Board building in Islington.
Thursday, 26 September 2013
Blitz Requiem
26th September 2013 - I’ve just got back from the
premiere of David Goode’s Blitz Requiem, performed by the Bach Choir and the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra under David Hill, in St Paul’s (it’s interior lit by a thousand
candles).
A moving evocation of those
darkest of days, when the building itself was a beacon of hope.
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
Coffee, tea of insurance?
September 25th – On this day in 1660, Samuel Pepys
“did send for a cup of tee, a China drink, of which I had never drunk before”.
Coffee- and tea- houses began to
spring up all over fashionable London after the introduction to England of the
said mild stimulants in the mid seventeenth century. They became places where respectable
gentlemen, who wouldn’t be seen dead in ale-houses, congregated and transacted
business. One eventually evolved into an
entirely separate enterprise – Lloyd’s.
Garraway's |
On a related note, the site of
the first coffee house in London is visited on our Thursday morning walk “Aldgate, Bishopsgate and beyond –
Priories and Playhouses”.
Please note that any of our walks
can also be booked at any other time, subject to prior agreement (e-mail lostcityoflondon@sky.co.uk or phone
020-8998-3051).
Sunday, 22 September 2013
Open House II ...and a nod to Kilburn's finest
Open House II … and a nod to Kilburn’s finest
Today (22nd September) I went to the Apothecaries’
Hall, St Bartholomew’s Hospital Great Hall (and Hogarth Staircase) and Middle
Temple Hall.
I especially enjoyed Middle
Temple Hall, which was completely wonderful in almost every way. It was, though, way too crowded for comfort –
it felt as if everyone in London who wasn’t egging Wiggo on in the Tour of
Britain was there!
I have posted a small selection
of my photographs below (and separately on my Facebook page, in an album entitled “Open House II”).
Hogarth's staircase, St Barts |
The Apothecaries' Hall |
List of Benefactors, St Bartholomew's Hospital Great Hall |
Middle Temple |
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