Comments on: The Ghosts Of Old London https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/12/26/the-ghosts-of-old-london-i/ In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London Tue, 26 Dec 2023 18:16:57 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Bernie https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/12/26/the-ghosts-of-old-london-i/#comment-1534076 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 18:16:57 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=198541#comment-1534076 Does anyone know what provides the finish of many (most?) of the walls seen in these images.
It is some kind of render, perhaps cement, but quite probably not. If not cement, what is it likely to be?

]]> By: Neil Bartlett https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/12/26/the-ghosts-of-old-london-i/#comment-1534073 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 18:15:25 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=198541#comment-1534073 The photo of shops on Borough High Street includes a business called Chaplins. Surely they must have been related to Charlie who is thought to have been born in East Street Walworth, not too far away. My grandfather was at school with Charlie Chaplin.

]]> By: Cherub https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/12/26/the-ghosts-of-old-london-i/#comment-1534056 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 15:26:29 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=198541#comment-1534056 There is an air of creepiness to these photos, makes me think of A Ghost Story for Christmas on the BBC. The ones from my childhood in the early 70s still frighten me to this day and I am in my early 60s now.

]]> By: Lynne Perrella https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/12/26/the-ghosts-of-old-london-i/#comment-1534055 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 15:24:34 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=198541#comment-1534055 The little girl, standing tentatively at the balcony at the Oxford Arms? — Did you notice her? Her white pinafore drew my eye to her, and now I can’t stop speculating. I imagine her hand resting on the worn craggy railing, feeling the damp splintered surface — then pulling back, to keep herself tidy. She and her mother are going out to make calls, and she has to remain clean and pressed. The boys languishing in the passageway make little snorts, mischievous calls, and entreaties. Normally she would run down and join them — but not today. Her mother will call to her any minute.
No, I was wrong. I looked again, and now the neatly pressed pinafore looks like a stained apron. Her hair is uncombed. Her chin is lowered. Forgotten shrouds of laundry hang nearby. She looks down to the courtyard, noticing the tossed uneven stones, clods of earth, discarded papers, and open wicker baskets of rags. All familiar sights from her place on the balcony.

Thank you for the time travel, GA.

]]> By: park town https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/12/26/the-ghosts-of-old-london-i/#comment-1534024 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 11:17:06 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=198541#comment-1534024 I spy Light Reflectors in Friday Street,

]]> By: Su Mason https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/12/26/the-ghosts-of-old-london-i/#comment-1534021 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 10:54:16 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=198541#comment-1534021 Such interesting pictures. What is the history behind The Palace of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey?

]]> By: Christine Swan https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/12/26/the-ghosts-of-old-london-i/#comment-1534003 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 09:05:55 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=198541#comment-1534003 These are wonderful old photographs. I am fortunate to have electronic copies of some of my family who have gone before. The photos here are to capture the landscape, much as I do when I photograph London using my phone camera. The old photos that I have catalogued, make the people the subject and the setting inconsequential. My father talked me through the stories of every guest in a family wedding photo from about a hundred years ago, my maternal grandfather smiles proudly in his little cafe, the neatly organised bottles of Tizer on the shelf behind his head and freshly cooked sausage rolls, now well past their sell buy date, on the counter. They are such precious possessions to me.
It is wonderful that we have photographic evidence of Old London to help those if us with active imaginations to make those people the subject and build their stories. They certainly conjure a Dickensian scene where Scrooge may have taken his dinner or Bill Sykes skulked around accompanied by his dog. Magnificent! Thank you GA.

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