More Long Forgotten London
After my first excursion to explore the sights of long forgotten London in the volumes of Walter Thornbury’s London Old & New, I could not resist returning to this shadowy realm, conjured as if from a dream or nightmare. This was how Londoners of the late nineteenth century looked back upon the city that had gone within living memory, a London that was already vanishing into reminiscence and anecdote in their time – a lost city, only recalled today in dark and dingy engravings such as these.
Golden Buildings, off the Strand
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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I believe these engravings are more meaningful than any photograph could ever be. Very impressive!
Love & Peace
ACHIM
I love received all your daily posts this was particularly moving, for some reason these drawings sent tingles up my spine. Thank you.
Two queries
1: Where, actually, was “Jacob’s Island?
2: Is there a small typo on the one for Marylebone Gardens? The usual clue – ladies’ fashions – suggests it’s more like 1840-50 …
Love these especially the Tothill Street Westminster image. Thanks for posting these.
Brilliant, keep them coming
A fabulous record from before photography. Interesting to see a shop sign in French – ‘Aux mille couleurs’. It shows that fashionable London has always been cosmopolitan – so much so that my 4 x great-grandfather from Wakefield ran a hairdressing business in Piccadilly!
I wish the Whistling Oyster was still serving beer and victuals. Fings just ain’t wot they used to be.
No petrol fumes, just the pleasent smell of horses.
Gary
Much as I love seeing these lost views, I’d be a bit apprehensive of going inside some of the buildings shown – particularly the one in Butcher’s Row that’s propped up with beams on either side!
Also, @Greg Tingey, I’d agree with the date given in the post for the Marylebone Gardens image given the frock coats, tricorns, and wig styles of the men for whom I can make out such details. The women also appear to be wearing late-18th century styles; can’t quite make out if the woman in the lower left with her back to us is wearing a sack-back gown or not.
Wonderful – very atmospheric!
I wonder if anyone out there could post an old map showing the location of each of these scenes, please? It would be interesting to be able to lay such a map over a map of modern London, to show how changed London is – and, depressingly, how much has been lost…
Great pictures. Do you know when Ivy Bridge Lane was closed to the public?