Comments on: The Fogs & Smogs Of Old London

By: HoosierSands

HoosierSands — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 19:54:30 +0000

That picture of the moat at the Tower cannot be from 1910. It is most likely from the great flood of 1928 when the moat was said to have flooded for “the first time in 80 years”. (The Duke of Wellington had it drained in 1845 due to the threat of disease)

I enjoy walking about in fog nowadays. Thirty years ago it made me ill, possibly due to the leaded petrol cars were still using.

By: John

John — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 20:36:23 +0000

There is a certain mystery and romance about night time in a city. The twilight time when darkness is falling and lights start to appear. Nothing to do with fog in my experience but the reflection of neon on a wet city street with traffic splashing by is especially atmospheric. Think of Picadilly circus around 1965…I now live in the deep country where darkness is absolute but having lived in several cities I do believe that a night time city with it’s mixture of bright lihlghts and dark corners brings much more possibity to the night.

By: Chris Webb

Chris Webb — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 14:31:52 +0000

I had no idea the Tower moat had water in it so recently, I thought it had been dry for many centuries. About 20 years ago there was a plan to re-flood it but the idea seems to have been dropped.
I think most of these photographs show genuine fog but one or two appear to have faded due to inadequate fixing due to exhausted fixer or not being left in the fixer long enough.

By: Mary

Mary — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 18:34:34 +0000

Wonderful atmospheric images.
I think it may be possible to identify the “unknown public building c 1910”.
It has the name written in brickwork in relief above the main entrance. I have tried to read it with the aid of a magnifying glass but the resolution is not good enough, but it may be possible to photograph the original glass slide with a high resolution digital camera and then by processing in Photoshop or Lightroom it should be possible to read. It is now possible to digitally “remove” fog.
I note that a street name is on the side of the building, but again not clear enough to read.
Is there a competent local photographer out there?

By: Karin

Karin — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 18:34:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Author

Thank you once more for another wonderfully told and illustrated story!

Please let me recommend a fascinating book, London Fog. A Biography, by Christine L. Corton. I bought and read it a couple of years ago, at the occasion of a great exhibition at the Tate Britain on Impressionism. Many works with this most atmospheric subject have been produced a hundred years ago by famous French artists like Claude Monet. He made several trips to London, took rooms at the Savoy Hotel just for the purpose of painting Palace of Westminster on foggy days, in many different versions.

And one small detail: the picture of Church Row, Hampstead, has been printed mirror-invertedly. The facades of the buildings there haven’t changed over the decades. So go and check for yourselves!

With kind regards from Berlin
Karin

By: Sonia Murray

Sonia Murray — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 17:10:37 +0000

Thanks G.A.! Your picture of Battersea Bridge evoked a memory. My mother said that when she was a child – this must have been about 1912 – Gran took her up to London in the winter, on the train. They left Victoria and turned a corner, only to be confronted with a roiling wall of thick black smog ahead and rushing toward them, a wall too dense to see through. Gran snatched her up and fled back to the station, where they took the next train home. Gran had reason to fear smog; her mother had died of bronchitis in Islington in 1899.

By: Lizebeth

Lizebeth — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 16:19:00 +0000

I certainly wouldn’t want to live in the London of those pre-WWI days — but oh, how I would love to go back for a week and walk through as much of it as I could…

By: Barbara Rose

Barbara Rose — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 15:59:29 +0000

I belive that the pub, I Am The Only Running Footman, (now called The Running Footman) is in Charles Street, just off Berkeley Square, which I have visited several dozen times!

Every morning I look forward to receiving your blogs GA, thank you for writing and sending them.

By: Helen Breen

Helen Breen — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 13:04:07 +0000

Greetings from Boston,

GA, I really enjoyed those London images cloaked in “fog and smog” on bygone days. Beautifully described too – “Just as gauzes at the pantomime conjure the romance of fairyland, the hazes in these pictures filter and soften the images as if they were faded memories, receding into the past.”

By: David Antscherl

David Antscherl — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 12:48:28 +0000

Just looking at some of those images brings back childhood memories of ‘pea soupers’. I can almost smell the acrid, distinctive odour of those dense blankets of pollution. At the end of the day there was always a grey-black edge on my white shirt collar. I shall not speak about the state of my handkerchief!

Thanks again, G.A., for these wonderful daily essays and images.