A Walk In Walter Thornbury’s London
Golden Buildings off the Strand
There is the London we know and the London we remember, and then there is the London that is lost to us but recalled by old photographs. Yet beyond all this lies another London which is long forgotten, composed of buildings and streets destroyed before the era of photography. Walter Thornbury’s ‘Old & New London – how it was and how it is‘ of 1873 offers a glimpse into this shadowy realm with engravings of the city which lies almost beyond recognition. It is a London that was forgotten generations ago and these images are like memories conjuring from a dream, strange apparitions that can barely be squared with the reality of the current metropolis we inhabit today.
“Writing the history of a vast city like London is like writing a history of the ocean – the area is so vast, its inhabitants are so multifarious, the treasures that lie in its depths so countless. … The houses of old London are encrusted as thick with anecdotes, legends and traditions as an old ship is with barnacles. Strange stories of strange men grow like moss in every crevice of the bricks … Old London is passing away even as we dip our pen in the ink…” – Walter Thornbury
The Four Swans Inn, Bishopsgate – shortly before demolition
Garraway’s Coffee House – shortly before demolition after 216 years in business
Roman wall at Tower Hill
Dyer’s Hall, College St, rebuilt 1857
Old house in Leadenhall St with Synagogue entrance
Yard of the Bull & Mouth, Aldergsgate 1820
The Old Fountain, Minories
Demolition of King’s Cross in 1845
Clerkenwell in 1820 before the railway came through
Middlesex House of Detention, Clerkenwell
In the Jerusalem Tavern above St John’s Gate, Clerkenwell
Cock Lane, Smithfield
Hand & Shears, Clothfair
Smithfield before the construction of the covered market
Last remnant of the the Fleet Prison demolished in 1846
The Fleet Ditch seen from the Red Lion
Back of the Red Lion seen from the Fleet Ditch
Field Lane 1840
Leather Lane
Exotic pet shop on the Ratcliffe Highway with creatures imported through the London Docks
Sir Paul Pindar’s Lodge, Spitalfields
Room in Sir Paul Pindar’s House, Bishopsgate – demolished for the building of Liverpool St Station
Kirkby Castle, Bethnal Green
Tudor gatehouse in Stepney
Boar’s Head Yard, Borough High St
Jacob’s Island, Southwark
Floating Dock, Deptford
Painted Hall, Greenwich
Waterloo Bridge Rd
Balloon Ascent at Vauxhall Gardens, 1840
House in Westminster, believed to have been inhabited by Oliver Cromwell
Old shops in Holborn
Mammalia at the British Museum
Rookery, St Giles 1850
Manor House of Toten Hall, Tottenham Court Rd 1813
Marylebone Gardens, 1780
Turkish Baths, Jermyn St
Old house in Wych St
Butcher’s Row, Strand 1810
The Fox Under The Hill, Strand
Ivy Bridge Lane, Strand
Turner’s House, Maiden Lane
Covent Garden
Whistling Oyster, Covent Garden
Tothill St, Westminster
Old house on Tothill St
The Manor House at Dalston
Old Rectory, Stoke Newington 1856
Sights of Stoke Newington – 1. Rogers House 1877 2. Fleetwood House, 1750 3. St Mary’s Rectory 4. St Mary’s New Church 5, New River at Stoke Newington 6. Queen Elizabeth’s Walk, 1800 7. Old gateway
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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