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At Holy Trinity Church, Bow

March 1, 2024
by the gentle author

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Holy Trinity in Bow is one of those churches that I often passed by and wondered what it was like inside. The answer is that it is a wonder.

You step through the unadorned entrance to discover a much larger and longer church than the facade led you to expect. The narrow soaring columns and tall, subtly-tinted windows create a huge, breathtakingly light enclosed space that inspires awe. It stops you in your tracks. Then you open your mouth to express your wonder and encounter the unexpected acoustic which resonates like the echo chamber of an instrument at even the smallest sound.

Grade II listed, Holy Trinity was deconsecrated a generation ago and most of the interior stripped out then, which serves now to emphasise the extraordinary quality of this vast empty architectural space.

Built by architects Daniel &  James Austin in 1836-9, the church reflected the aspirations of the wealthy residents of Tredegar Sq and the newly-built surrounding streets. The surviving monuments attest to the most wealthy, those who made fortunes in the Navy or the Colonial Service and returned to the East End to enjoy the benefits. For those in the East India Company, it was a convenient location midway between the company headquarters in Leadenhall St and the East India Docks.

There is an unavoidable plangent and uneasy irony present in confronting these proud memorials in such an austere and ravaged shell, and you leave contemplating the troubling legacy of this history. Almost two centuries later, these are monuments to something other than what those who built them intended.

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James Scatcherd, East India Company, Carroll Hessey Scatcherd, 41st Bengal Native Infantry wounded at the Battle of Sobraon, George Ramsden Scatcherd, 24th Regiment of Native Infantry Bombay Army.

William Simons of East India House, Alfred P Simons, Captain Bengal Artillery died of wounds received during the Seige of Lucknow

Holy Trinity Church, Morgan St, Bow, E3 5AA

You can visit Holy Trinity this Saturday 2nd March, 11am-4pm for a vintage interiors show by So Last Century

Holy Trinity is run as the Heritage & Arts Centre, Bow. Click here to visit their website for more information about events

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At God’s Convenience

February 29, 2024
by the gentle author

“Slovenliness is no part of Religion. Cleanliness is indeed close to Godliness” – John Wesley, 1791

Oftentimes, walking between Spitalfields and Covent Garden, I pass through Bunhill Fields where – in passing – I can pay my respects to William Blake, Daniel Defoe and John Bunyan who are buried there, and sometimes I also stop off at John Wesley’s Chapel’s in the City Rd to pay a visit to the underground shrine of Thomas Crapper – the champion of the flushing toilet and inventor of the ballcock.

It seems wholly appropriate that here, at the mother church of the Methodist movement, is preserved one of London’s finest historic toilets, still in a perfect working order today. Although installed in 1899, over a century after John Wesley’s death, I like to think that if he returned today Wesley would be proud to see such immaculate facilities provided to worshippers at his chapel – thereby catering to their mortal as well as their spiritual needs. The irony is that even those, such as myself, who come here primarily to fulfil a physical function cannot fail to be touched by the stillness of this peaceful refuge from the clamour of the City Rd.

There is a sepulchral light that glimmers as you descend beneath the chapel to enter the gleaming sanctum where, on the right hand side of the aisle, eight cedar cubicles present themselves, facing eight urinals to the left, with eight marble washbasins behind a screen at the far end. A harmonious arrangement that reminds us of the Christian symbolism of the number eight as the number of redemption – represented by baptism – which is why baptismal fonts are octagonal. Appropriately, eight was also the number of humans rescued from the deluge upon Noah’s Ark.

Never have I seen a more beautifully kept toilet than this, every wooden surface has been waxed, the marble and mosaics shine, and each cubicle has a generous supply of rolls of soft white paper. It is both a flawless illustration of the rigours of the Methodist temperament and an image of what a toilet might be like in heaven. The devout atmosphere of George Dance’s chapel built for John Wesley in 1778, and improved in 1891 for the centenary of Wesley’s death – when the original pillars made of ships’ masts were replaced with marble from each country in the world where Methodists preached the gospel – pervades, encouraging solemn thoughts, even down here in the toilet. And the extravagant display of exotic marble, some of it bearing an uncanny resemblance to dog meat, complements the marble pillars in the chapel above.

Sitting in a cubicle, you may contemplate your mortality and, when the moment comes, a text on the ceramic pull invites you to “Pull & Let Go.” It is a parable in itself – you put your trust in the Lord and your sins are flushed away in a tumultuous rush of water that recalls Moses parting the Red Sea. Then you may wash your hands in the marble basin and ascend to the chapel to join the congregation of the worthy.

Yet before you leave and enter Methodist paradise, a moment of silent remembrance for the genius of Thomas Crapper is appropriate. Contrary to schoolboy myth, he did not give his name to the colloquial term for bowel movements, which, as any etymologist will tell you, is at least of Anglo-Saxon origin. Should you lift the toilet seat, you will discover “The Venerable” is revealed upon the rim, as the particular model of the chinaware, and it is an epithet that we may also apply to Thomas Crapper. Although born to humble origins in 1836 as the son of a sailor, Crapper rose to greatness as the evangelist of the flushing toilet, earning the first royal warrant for sanitary-ware from Prince Edward in the eighteen eighties and creating a business empire that lasted until 1963.

Should your attention be entirely absorbed by this matchless parade of eight Crapper’s Valveless Waste Preventers, do not neglect to admire the sparkling procession of urinals opposite by George Jennings (1810-1882) – celebrated as the inventor of the public toilet. 827,280 visitors paid a penny for the novelty of using his Monkey Closets in the retiring rooms at the Great Exhibition of 1851, giving rise to the popular euphemism, “spend a penny,” still in use today in overly polite circles.

Once composure and physical comfort are restored, you may wish to visit the chapel to say a prayer of thanks or, as I like to do, visit John Wesley’s house seeking inspiration in the life of the great preacher. Wesley preached a doctrine of love to those who might not enter a church, and campaigned for prison reform and the abolition of slavery, giving more than forty thousand sermons in his lifetime, often several a day and many in the open air – travelling between them on horseback. In his modest house, where he once ate at the same table as his servants, you can see the tiny travelling lamp that he carried with him to avoid falling off his horse (as he did frequently), his nightcap, his shoes, his spectacles, his robe believed to have been made out of a pair of old curtains, the teapot that Josiah Wedgwood designed for him, and the exercising chair that replicated the motion of horse-riding, enabling Wesley to keep his thigh muscles taut when not on the road.

A visit to the memorial garden at the rear of the chapel to examine Wesley’s tomb will reveal that familiar term from the toilet bowl “The Venerable” graven in stone in 1791 to describe John Wesley himself, which prompts the question whether this was where Thomas Crapper got the idea for the name of his contraption, honouring John Wesley in sanitary-ware.

Let us thank the Lord if we are ever caught short on the City Rd because, due to the good works of the venerable Thomas Crapper and the venerable John Wesley, relief and consolation for both body and soul are readily to hand at God’s convenience.

Nineteenth century fixtures by Thomas Crapper, still in perfect working order.

“The Venerable”

Put your trust in the Lord.

Cubicles for private worship.

Stalls for individual prayer.

In memoriam, George Jennings, inventor of the public toilet.

Upon John Wesley’s Tomb.

John Wesley’s Chapel

John Wesley’s exercise chair to simulate the motion of horseriding,

John Wesley excused himself unexpectedly from the table …

New wallpaper in John Wesley’s parlour from an eighteenth century design at Kew Palace.

The view from John Wesley’s window across to Bunhill Fields where, when there were no leaves upon the trees, he could see the white tombstone marking his mother’s grave.

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The World Of The Saree Shops

February 28, 2024
by the gentle author

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JULIE BEGUM is giving an illustrated lecture outlining the long history of the presence of Bengali people on this side of London. IMAGES OF THE BENGALI EAST END is at 7pm on Tuesday 5th March at the Hanbury Hall as part of the Spitalfields series.

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Click here to book your ticket

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On days when it barely gets lighter than dusk and I walk around bent double in the driving rain, I find myself lifting my gaze occasionally in admiration at the illuminated windows of saree shops that cluster in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel. So, when Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie brought me these poignant images of saree shops glimmering with colour and light despite the pervasive gloom, I suggested we pay a few of these establishments a call and discover more of the world of the East End saree shops.

In Bethnal Green, at Zhara Fashion House we were greeted by three women, Majida, Shuheli and Afsana, who have just started in business one month ago, specialising in selling fabric lengths which permit their young customers to make sarees to their own patterns and thus avoid the ready made styles that fill the other shops. Their youthful optimism was in harsh contrast to Abdul Latif at Modhubon Ltd who had been trading for twenty-one years across the road in a shop stacked to the ceiling with sarees folded neatly on shelves. “I used to go to India once a year to buy stock, but not for the last three years,” he confessed with a frown, “I’ve had a very bad run.” Mr Latif’s customers are senior women who have been economising with their purchases, he revealed, and this week, far outside the summer wedding season, he was alone in his magnificently decorated shop like the host of a party to which nobody came.

Yet just a couple of doors down, we discovered a brisk trade at Mahir where lots of saree bargains were to be had in the sale and the entire range of stock was accessible to the eager women browsing on rails. Sumsun Nahar Shirne, the briskly efficient under-manager, explained that this was one of seven branches scattered as far apart as Leeds and Luton, owned by her cousin Shurajul Islam Akbas. “Customers come from as far away as Germany, Italy, France, even America,” she bragged.

Similarly at Zari, next door, where Shofig Islam brought ten years of retail experience at Superdrug to the family business, there was no shortage of customers. Shofig had an impressive array of vibrantly coloured glittering sarees, yet he was eager to stress that he stocked a wide range of different garments to suit the tastes of younger women who like to mix western and eastern clothes in their every day wardrobes and only wear full sarees for special occasions. Alert to social trends, working closely with manufacturers in India to deliver the designs that women want and with his richly-coloured stock creating a dazzling display, Shofig admitted to me that he had been able to expand the business recently.

Taking the stroll down Vallance Rd, we set out to explore the saree shops shining in the shadows of the alleys leading off Whitechapel Rd and – among other delights – discovered the wonders of Zai, a compact traditional establishment where proprietor Helal Khan, who has been in business for ten years, welcomed us kindly. Mr Khan has a loyal trade of local women who frequent his discreet premises with its immaculately organised stock.

The dusk that had prevailed all day turned to darkness as the rain set in again and we just had time left to step into Cuckoo Fashions in Whitechapel Market, which we found remarkable for the selection of panels of richly patterned printed silks at just fifteen pounds each. It was tempting to carry some away but we were spoiled for choice, as we had been all day by the sensuous hues and tinsel on display at every shop we visited. In spite of social changes, we were reassured that the saree shops will be with us for the foreseeable future to bring glitz to our dowdy East End streets. So we set off into the murk with our spirits lifted by the exposure to so much glowing colour and vowed to come back another day.

Abdul Latif, Modhubon Ltd.

Shofig Islam at Zari.

Helal Khan at Zai in Whitechapel.

Fatima Chowdury, Jumara Noor Eli and Sumsun Nahar Shirna at Mahir in Bethnal Green.

Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie

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Whitechapel’s Theatrical Terrace Is Saved, Again

February 27, 2024
by the gentle author

3-13 Vallance Rd

 

 

Thanks to the objections from you – the readers of Spitalfields Life – Whitechapel’s Theatrical Terrace has been saved, again. Yesterday Transport for London withdrew their Planning Application for demolition in response to the chorus of disapproval we sparked, including letters from the Victorian Society, SAVE Britain’s Heritage and Historic England.

Ten years ago, it was an early success for the nascent East End Preservation Society when this old terrace in Whitechapel, comprising the last fragment of the nineteenth century Pavilion Theatre complex, was first saved from demolition.

Be assured, we will keep you informed of further developments with these buildings of acknowledged importance which sit within the Whitechapel Market Conservation Area.

Through all the changes in Whitechapel since World War II, this distinctive Victorian terrace has miraculously survived and the exoticism of its architecture with such a strange mixture of styles fascinates me – as it does many others for whom the terrace is also a landmark in this corner of the East End, where so few old buildings remain to tell the story of what once was here.

In fact, I realised these tatty shopfronts and ornate facades have always spoken to me, even before I discovered the nature of the story they were telling. The florid decoration was no whim upon the part of the architect but reflected their association and direct proximity to the adjoining Pavilion Theatre which opened here early in the nineteenth century, at first presenting nautical dramas to an audience from the docks and later becoming a Yiddish theatre to serve the Jewish population in Whitechapel.

Commanding the southern extremity of Vallance Rd, this terrace is almost the last fragment to remind us of the history of one of the East End’s most ancient thoroughfares, linking Bethnal Green and Whitechapel. Built in 1855, the vast and forbidding Whitechapel Union Workhouse once stood a few hundred yards north. In common with most of the nineteenth century buildings in this corner of what was known as Mile End New Town, it has long gone – swept away during the decades following the last war, leaving the streetscape fragmented today. Old Montague St, leading west to Commercial St and formerly the heart of the Jewish commerce in the East End, was entirely demolished.

Even Whitechapel Rd, which retains good sweeps of historic buildings, suffered major post-war casualties, including a fine eighteenth century terrace west of the London Hospital that was demolished in the seventies. Yet there was one building of great importance of which the loss went seemingly unnoticed -The Pavilion Theatre, a favourite resort for East Enders for nearly one hundred and fifty years before it was demolished in 1961.

The New Royal Pavilion Theatre opened in 1827 at the corner of Whitechapel Rd and Baker’s Row (now Vallance Rd) with a production of The Genii of the Thames, initiating its famous nautical-themed productions, pitched at the the maritime community. In 1856, the theatre burnt down and its replacement opened in 1858, boasting a capacity of three-thousand-seven-hundred, which was a thousand more than Covent Garden and included the largest pit in London theatre, where two thousand people could be comfortably accommodated.

‘The Great National Theatre of the Metropolis’ – as it was announced – boasted a wide repertoire including Shakespeare, opera (it became the East London Opera House in 1860) and, of course, pantomime. It gained a reputation for the unpretentious nature of its patrons, with one critic remarking “there is a no foolish pride amongst Pavilion audiences, or, as far as we could see, any of those stupid social distinctions which divide the sympathies of other auditoriums.”

In 1874, the Pavilion was reconstructed to the designs of Jethro T. Robinson, a notable theatre architect who designed two other East End theatres. both of which are now lost – the Grecian Theatre in Shoreditch and the Albion in Poplar, that was oriental in style. It was this rebuilding of the Pavilion which included the construction of a new terrace on Baker’s Row with interwoven Moorish arches evoking the Alhambra. The theatrical design of these buildings, with decorated parapets, panels and window surrounds, and the integration of side entrances to the theatre suggest the authorship or influence of J. T. Robinson himself.

In its later years, the Pavilion became one of the leading theatres in London, offering Yiddish drama, but as tastes changed and the Jewish people began to leave, the audience declined until it closed for good in 1934. In ‘East End Entertainment’ (1954) A. E. Wilson recalls a final visit to the old theatre before it closed.

“Once during the Yiddish period I visited the theatre. What I saw was all shabbiness, gloom and decay. The half-empty theatre was cold and dreary. The gold had faded and the velvet had moulted. Dust and grime were everywhere. And behind the scenes it was desolation indeed. The dirty stage seemed as vast as the desert and as lonely. I realised that there was no future for the Pavilion, that nothing could restore its fortunes, that its day was over.”

The decline of the Pavilion had been slow and painful. After the theatre closed in the thirties, it was simply left to decay after plans to transform it into a ‘super cinema’ failed to materialise. Bomb damage in the war and a fire meant that when a team from the London County Council’s Historic Buildings Division went to record the building in 1961, they found only a shell of monumental grandeur. After the theatre was finally demolished in 1961, the northern end of the terrace was also demolished leaving just number 13 (the former Weavers Arms Pub) and the battered row that has survived to this day.

In the spirit of high theatrical farce, the Council’s consultant wrote of these buildings in Vallance Rd in the 2013 Heritage Report, accompanying the former application for demolition, that  ‘… [they] do not contribute to the character or appearance of the Conservation Area,’ directly contradicting the Council’s earlier Conservation Area Appraisal of the area in 2009 which outlined the following priority for action – “Encourage sympathetic redevelopment of gap sites west of Vallance Rd and secure restoration of 3-11 Vallance Rd.”

In 2014, a new proposal was rendered by local conservation practice Jonathan Freegard Architects, commissioned by the Spitalfields Trust,  which retains the terrace as part of a mixed-use scheme delivering housing, retail and office space. This remains the best option for these buildings.

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5 & 7 Vallance Rd, showing decorative window surrounds and parapet (Alex Pink)

9 & 11 Vallance Rd. With its decorative central panel, number 9 leads through to a courtyard where the theatre’s carpentry workshop once stood (Alex Pink)

3 Vallance Rd with original shopfront (Alex Pink)

Looking north over Vallance Rd (left) and Hemming St (right), 1957 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Whitechapel Union Workhouse in Vallance Rd, at junction with Fulbourne St, 1913 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Whitechapel Union Workhouse, Vallance Rd 1913 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Corner of Vallance Rd and Hereford St, 1965 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Bricklayers Arms, Vallance Rd and Sale St, 1938 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Old Montague St and Black Lion Yard, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Old Montague St and Kings Arms Court, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Old Montague St looking east with Pauline House under construction, 1962 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

The first Royal Pavilion Theatre in Whitechapel, 1856  (East London Theatre Archive)

Playbill 1867, nautical drama was a speciality at the Pavilion  (East London Theatre Archive)

Playbill 1854 (East London Theatre Archive)

Playbill 1835 – note reference to gallery entrance in Baker’s Row (Vallance Rd)  (East London Theatre Archive)

Playbill 1856 (East London Theatre Archive)

Playbill 1833 (East London Theatre Archive)

Playbill 1851 (East London Theatre Archive)

The Great National Theatre of the Metropolis’ – the rebuilt Pavilion, 1858

Plan of the Pavilion in eighteen-seventies showing how the houses in Baker’s Row (Vallance Rd) are integrated into the theatre

The Pavilion as a Yiddish theatre in the thirties

Pavilion Theatre facade on Whitechapel Rd, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Auditorium of Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Pit and stage at Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Fly tower of Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Back wall of the Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

17-29 Vallance Rd, showing the large scene doors entrance and gallery entrance beyond, all integrated into the terrace, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

Sketch of the elevation of the Oriental Theatre, Poplar High St, by Jethro T. Robinson, 1873 – note usage of the arch-within-an-arch motif as seen in the Vallance Rd terrace

 

First sketch by Tim Whittaker of the Spitalfields Trust, proposing courtyard housing behind the terrace which reflects the local vernacular of Whitechapel

Proposal by  Jonathan Freegard Architects for restoration of the terrace with a new yard at rear

South-westerly view of  proposal by Jonathan Freegard Architects

Rear view of proposal by Jonathan Freegard Architects

Recent  photographs of Vallance Rd Terrace © Alex Pink.

Dog Days At Club Row

February 26, 2024
by the gentle author

“… furry faces peering incongruously from the jackets of hawkers.”

In 1953, Ronald Searle came here with his wife, Kaye Webb, to report upon the animal market in Club Row for their book, “Looking at London and People Worth Meeting.” A. R. J. Cruickshank wrote in the introduction, ”This book rediscovers for us some of the odd places and odd faces of London that most of us have forgotten, if we ever knew them. The warm-hearted humanity of Kaye Webb’s writing and the tender sympathy of Searle’s drawings are beautifully matched.”

Curious, considering our national reputation, that of all the street markets in London only one should sell dogs. This can be found any Sunday morning by taking a bus to Shoreditch High St and following your ears. a cacophony of whimpers, yaps, yelps and just plain barking will guide you to the spot where Bethnal Green Rd branches off to Sclater St.

There you may find them – the unclaimed pets of a hundred homes : new-born litters of puppies tumbling over each other in children’s cots ( the most popular form of window display) : “mixed bags” of less lively youngsters huddling docilely together in laundry baskets; lively-looking sheepdogs, greyhounds and bulldogs straining at the ends of leashes and furry little faces peering incongruously from the jackets of hawkers, who often look as if they’d be happier in the boxing ring.

The sales technique of their owners is almost as varied as the ware and almost always accompanied by much affectionate handling of the dogs. “It’s good for business and sometimes they mean it,” we were told by an impartial vendor of bird-seed who has been on the same pitch for twenty years. “Hi, mate, buy a dog to keep you warm!” said the man with the Chows to a pair of shivering Lascar seamen. “E’s worth double, lady, but I want ‘im to ‘ave a good ‘ome” or “Here’s a good dog, born between the sheets, got his pedigree in my pocket!” “Who’d care for a German sausage? – stretch him to make up the rations”, the salesman with the dachshund said, demonstrating too painfully for amusement.

R.S.P.C.A. interference is needed less often now. The days are gone when sores were covered with boot polish; when doubtful dogs were dyed with permanganate of potash; when, as tradition has it, you could enter the market at one end leading a dog, lose it half way, and buy it back at the other end. In fact the regular dog hawkers were never the ones to deal in stolen pets. “Stands to reason, this is the first place they’d come, and besides, look at the number of coppers there are about anyway.” But it is still possible to buy pedigree forms “at a shop down the road”, “just a matter of thinking up some good names and being able to write”.

The regular merchants, whose most frequent customers are the pet shops, are mostly old-timers ( some who have been coming for forty years and from as far away as Southend) and since a new law was passed insisting that all animal sellers should have licences, the ‘casuals’ are forbidden. But on the occasion of our visit the law had not yet been made and we passed quite a number of them. Most attractive was a red-cheeked lad with a spaniel puppy – “I call him Gyp; we’ve got his mother, but there’s no room for another, so my uncle said to come here.” Every  time he was asked: “How much do you want, son?” he stumbled over his answer and hugged the dog closer. And when the would-be buyer moved on, his eyes sparkled with relief.

That day the dog section of Club Row was not very busy; it was too cold. But the rest of the market waxed as usual. Unlike its near neighbour, Petticoat Lane, Club Row Market has a strong local flavour. The outsiders who make the long journey to its “specialised streets” are mostly purposeful men looking for that mysterious commodity known as Spare Parts.

In Club Row itself are to be found bicycles, tyres, an occasional motor bike or a superannuated taxi. The police are frequently seen about here looking for “unofficial goods”. Chance St sells furniture and “junk”, Sclater St is a nest of singing birds, rabbits, white mice, guinea pigs and their proper nourishment. In the Street of Wirelesses the air is heavy with crooning, and Cheshire St is clamorous with “Dutch auctions”, or demonstrating remarkable inventions like the World’s Smallest Darning Loom (“Stop your missus hating you … now you can say ‘you might darn this potato, dear, while I have shave’ … and she’ll do it before you’ve wiped the soap off!”).

We found one street devoted to firearms, chiefly historic, and another where secretive, urgent men offered us “a good watch or knife”, implying that it was “hot” and therefore going cheap. But we had learned that this was “duffing” and the watch was most probably exactly the same as those sold on the licenced stalls just up the street.

At ten to one the market reaches a crescendo. One o’clock is closing time and many of the stallholders won’t be back until next Sunday. This is the time when the regulars know where to find bargains, but it needs strong elbows. Our way out, along Wheler St, under the railway bridge and past the faded notice which says ‘Behold the Lamb of God Cometh”, brought us back to the dog market. It was surprisingly quiet. On the other side of the road we spotted a small figure hurrying off with the spaniel puppy. It looked as if Gyp was safe for another week anyway.

I hope you will not consider it vain if I reveal that Kaye Webb gave me this book and inscribed it under the title with my name and the text ” – also a person worth meeting!” It was my good fortune that Kaye, the legendary editor of Picture Post, Lilliput and Puffin Books, was the first person to recognise my work and encourage me in my writing. When I used to stay with her in her flat overlooking the canal in Little Venice, I remember she had some of Ronald Searle’s work framed on the wall in the spare room, and I spent many hours admiring both his Japanese prison camp drawings and his portraits of the bargees from the Paddington basin.

Kaye’s marriage to Ronald Searle ended in 1967 and she died in 1995. Today, I keep my copy of “Looking at London and People Worth Meeting” on the shelf as an inspiration to me now I write pen portraits myself, and I sometimes think of Kaye here in these streets over half a century ago and imagine Ronnie – as she referred to him – bringing out his sketchbook in Sclater St.

“…the rest of the market waxed as usual” – a bookseller in action on Brick Lane

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Alan Shipp, Hyacinth Grower

February 25, 2024
by the gentle author

‘I could not imagine what my life would have been like without hyacinths’

One blustery day, I took the train up to Waterbeach outside Cambridge to visit Alan Shipp, Hyacinth Grower who cultivates two hundred and forty-three different varieties of this favourite flower, which are coming into bloom now. I stood in the rain, inhaling the fragrance of the gentle breeze wafting over Alan’s field of hyacinths, flourishing in the rich soil of the silted water-meadows of the River Cam.

Alan Shipp is Britain’s only Hyacinth Grower and is also the Custodian of the National Collection of Hyacinths. He has the world’s largest collection of varieties and knows more about this intriguing plant than anyone else alive. In other years, Alan has opened his hyacinth nursery to the public at peak flowering time, drawing international press attention to the tiny village of Waterbeach for this celebrated event in the horticultural calendar, which can attract over a thousand enthusiasts – travelling from far and wide to gawp at this incomparable hyacinth spectacle.

The lines of multicoloured hyacinths stretch to horizon. They seem to sing against the black soil. The rain makes them shine and then the sun makes them glow, luminous with light beneath a dark East Anglian sky. Alan Shipp & I stood alone together in the field contemplating the hyacinths in silent pleasure – until the storm broke, when we took shelter in Alan’s greenhouse where he told me the astonishing story of his life in hyacinths, as the rain hammered on the glass and the wind rattled the panes around us.

“In the eighteen-eighties my grandfather, Thomas Shipp, won a pony and whip in a raffle. To put it to some use, he managed to borrow a harness and cart, and went round door to door selling vegetables. Then he bought a piece of ground and started growing his own, and that is this piece of ground. That was how it all started, growing fruit and vegetables.

Eventually when my father, Kenneth Shipp, got involved, he started wholesaling the produce we grew ourselves. In the fifties, we started selling imported fruit too which we used to bring up from Spitalfields Market on Monday and Wednesday each week.

At the entrance to the Floral Market on Lamb St in Spitalfields was the Floral Cafe and I can still remember the bacon sarnies. It was a whole slice of fried gammon between two pieces of bread. We used to try and get there at four-thirty or five – it was a wonderful atmosphere. The owner was a chap called Leonard Swindley. I said to him once, ‘I’ve seen the porters just walk behind the counter, make themselves a jug of tea and disappear. You can’t carry on like that, you’re being robbed!’ He replied, ‘Can you think of a happier way of losing money?’ I left the argument defeated.

We stopped selling produce after one of our salesmen left and set up on his own in opposition. We had been growing acres and acres ourselves but the method of vegetable production changed out of all recognition. We would have a little plot of a couple of hundred square metres of leeks that we would plant by hand but today, two miles away, there is a field of one hundred and forty-five acres of leeks. To get a reasonable living, we needed a larger farm but I know of no land that has come up for rent in Waterbeach in the last thirty years.

So in 1985, I decided I could best increase the output per acre by becoming a hyacinth grower. It was just sheer chance. There was a clearance sale at a bulb nursery at the the other side of Cambridge, including hyacinth bulbs. So I bought one hundred, twenty each of five different varieties, and planted them because I had always been a very keen gardener. After the leaves died down, I dug them up and moved them elsewhere but there was one that I missed. It had rolled under a shrub. When I found it next summer, it had put its roots down but the rest of the bulb had been eaten away where it was exposed and, upon this surface, small bulbs had formed. The slugs had actually illustrated for me the method of propagating hyacinths.

I thought, ‘I wouldn’t mind doing this,’ so I got a planting stock from Taylors Bulbs of Holbeach. Their general manager gave me advice, he said, ‘Alan, don’t grow many varieties.’ I didn’t really heed his advice because I now have two hundred and forty-three. And that’s how I got started!

I discovered there was a National Collection of Hyacinths at Barnard Castle and I got in touch to say that, as I was the only hyacinth grower in the country, I was willing to propagate for them free of charge. They brought me two bulbs each of fifty varieties that I propagated and which became the nucleus of my collection. I seemed to come up against a wall, regarding getting more varieties, after one hundred and eight varieties. Then I got a letter from a lady in Lithuania who had a collection of hyacinths that she had assembled from all over the former Soviet Union – things I’ve never heard of, things that we thought were extinct! She’d got the names but knew nothing but about them so I sent her my research and we exchanged bulbs.

I thought I had missed double-flowered yellow hyacinths by one hundred years but lo-and-behold she had got two – one with a name and one unidentified. The one with the name was in catalogues from 1897 and the other I grew as ‘unidentified double-yellow hyacinth.’ Then in 2013, by sheer chance, a friend of mine came across an illustration of it by Mary Delany in the British Library. That was the world’s first double-yellow hyacinth, introduced in 1770! When it was introduced, it was £800 a bulb yet Mary Delany had painted it, so I wondered how she got access. But it was reported she had contact with Court and it was George III’s bulb that she illustrated at the time he was at Kew Palace in Kew Gardens. So that was a breakthrough.

I am on the Royal Horticultural Society’s Bulb Committee. It was the ‘Daffodil & Tulip Committee’ but, in 2012, the remit embraced all bulbs and we had an intake of other specialists. One of them was Alan Street from Avon Bulbs who regularly wins a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. ‘Alan,’ he said, ‘I’ve got an unusual hyacinth, it’s red and white. I can tell you’ve heard of it by the look on your face.’ It was Gloria Mundi.

Hyacinth Mania was a hundred years after Tulip Mania. It was started by the Scottish Horticulturalist Peter Voorhelm who found a white double hyacinth with a rosy coloured centre in 1708. Previously, all double hyacinths had been discarded as inferior because they are deformed by extra petals in the middle, but he so liked this one that he propagated it and called it Konig Van Groot-Brettanje in honour of William of Orange – and that started Hyacinth Mania for white doubles with coloured centres.

Gloria Mundi was a lost variety of white double with a coloured centre in the catalogues in 1767. Alan Street had a friend in Switzerland called Ingrid Dingwell and Ingrid had a gardening friend who was a lorry driver called Theo, who took a load of humanitarian aid to Romania during the Ceaucescu era to remote village with a population of three hundred and seventy-odd souls. Theo’s friend fell in love with a local girl and married her, and Theo was given hospitality by the bride’s father at the wedding. To show his gratitude, Theo gave the bride’s father a pocket watch and the old man asked Theo to help himself to any plant growing in the garden, including bulbs of a hyacinth called Gloria Mundi. Theo gave them to Ingrid who sent them to Alan Street who grew them for fifteen years, oblivious of what he had. The year after I identified them, Alan took a pot to the RHS and they were given an award, two hundred and fifty years after the variety had been lost.

I cannot say that what I do is much of a business, it is more a hobby that gives a little bit of income and the selling of the bulbs has financed the conservation scheme. Without my work, the National Collection of Hyacinths would have just disappeared. I have saved well over a hundred varieties of hyacinths from extinction. At eighty-one years old, the next problem I have is who is going to carry it on after me? I am looking for someone.

I love hyacinths. There is their fragrance, there is their beauty. There is no other flower that can give you this range of colours at the end of March. If someone gave me a paint chart, I could match every colour on it with hyacinths. I would have a job to get black but I could get pretty close to it.

They are so fascinating. They are all evolved from just the one wild species growing from eight hundred to a thousand metres in the hills at the border of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. It is believed that the Romans may have brought them to Europe because there is a sub-species which grows on the Mediterranean coast of France. How did hyacinths get from the Levant to there, unless they were taken as bulbs by the Romans and gone feral?

The first recorded introduction of hyacinths to Europe was by the Flemish Botanist Carolus Clusius who was appointed Prefect of the imperial gardens in Vienna in 1573 by Ferdinand II. Ferdinand’s ambassador to Turkey was Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq and he brought back tulips, crocuses, cyclamen and hyacinths to the palace gardens – all the bulbs from the Levant. Unfortunately, Ferdinand died that year but Clusius got a job at the botanic garden in Leyden and took the bulbs with him. That was the start of the Dutch bulb industry.

Clusius may have introduced hyacinths to Britain when he visited in 1590 and John Gerard records growing them in his garden in London in 1597. Hyacinths would undoubtably have been included among the ‘florists’ flowers,’ along with tulips, carnations, auriculas and roses, grown competitively in the East End during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the Victorian era, florists’ competitions were rampant up and down the country, and hyacinths always featured.

Hyacinths have formed my life. They have got me onto the RHS Bulb Committee, brought me lots of friends and won me worldwide recognition – probably got me into the Rotary Club too. To be honest, I could not imagine what my life would have been like without hyacinths. How did I ever live without them?”

Alan Shipp, National Hyacinth Collection, Waterbeach, Cambridge, CB25 9NB.

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In A Dinghy With John Claridge

February 24, 2024
by the gentle author

Ship maintenance, 1964

Take a trip down the Thames at a relaxed pace with Photographer John Claridge, in his tiny inflatable dinghy with outboard motor attached. The journey begins in 1961 when the London Docks were still working and ends in the nineteen eighties once they were closed for ever. This set of photographs are some of the views to be seen on that voyage.

Setting out at dawn, John’s photographic adventures led him through smog and smoke, through early morning mist, through winter fog and haze upon the river, all filtering and refracting the light to create infinite luminous effects upon the water. In the previous century, Joseph Mallord William Turner and James McNeill Whistler had attempted to evoke the distinctive quality of Thames light upon canvas, but in the mid-twentieth century it was John Claridge, kid photographer from Plaistow, who came drifting out of the London fog, alone in his dinghy with camera and long lens in hand to capture his visions of the river on film.

Look, there is a man scraping an entire boat by hand, balanced precariously over the water. Listen, there is the sound of the gulls echoing in the lonely dock. “It smells like it should,” said John, contemplating these pictures and reliving his escapades on the Thames, half a century later, “it has the atmosphere and feeling of what it was like.”

“You still had industry which created a lot of pollution, even after the Clean Air Act,” he recalled, “People still put their washing out and the dirt was hanging in the air. My mum used to say, ‘Bloody soot on my clean clothes again!'” But in a location characterised by industry, John was fascinated by the calm and quiet of the Thames. “I was in the drink, right in the middle of the river,” John remembered fondly, speaking of his trips in the dinghy, “it was somewhere you’d like to be.” John climbed onto bridges and into cranes to photograph the dock lands from every angle, and he did it all with an insider’s eye.

Generations of men in John’s family were dock workers or sailors, so John’s journey down the Thames in his dinghy became a voyage into a world of collective memory, where big ships always waited inviting him to depart for distant shores. Yet John’s little dinghy became his personal lifeboat, sailing on beyond Tower Bridge where in 1964, at nineteen years old, he opened his first photographic studio near St Paul’s Cathedral. John found a way to fulfil his wanderlust through a professional career that included photographic assignments in every corner of the globe, but these early pictures exist as a record of his maiden voyage on the Thames.

Across the River, 1965

Gulls, 1961

Quiet Evening, 1963

Smog, 1964

At Berth, 1962 – “It wills you to get on board and go somewhere.”

Three Cranes, 1968

Skyline, 1966 – “I climbed up into a crane and there was a ghostly noise that came out of it, from the pigeons roosting there.”

Steps, 1967

Crane & Chimney Stack, 1962

 

Spars, 1964

Barges, 1969

After the Rain, 1961

 

Capstan, 1968

From the Bridge, 1962

Across the River, 1965

Wapping Shoreline, 1961 – “I got terribly muddy, covered in it, sinking into it, and it smelled bad.”

 

Thames Barrier, 1982

At Daybreak, 1982

Warehouses, 1972

Photographs copyright © John Claridge

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