The Nights Of Old London
The nights are drawing in fast and I can feel the velvet darkness falling upon London. As dusk gathers in the ancient churches and the dusty old museums in the late afternoon, the distinction between past and present becomes almost permeable at this time of year. Then, once the daylight fades and the streetlights flicker into life, I feel the desire to go walking out into the dark in search of the nights of old London.
Examining hundreds of glass plates – many more than a century old – once used by the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society for magic lantern shows at the Bishopsgate Institute, I am in thrall to these images of night long ago in London. They set my imagination racing with nocturnal visions of the gloom and the glamour of our city in darkness, where mist hangs in the air eternally, casting an aura round each lamp, where the full moon is always breaking through the clouds and where the recent downpour glistens upon every pavement – where old London has become an apparition that coalesced out of the fog.
Somewhere out there, they are loading the mail onto trains, and the presses are rolling in Fleet St, and the lorries are setting out with the early editions, and the barrows are rolling into Spitalfields and Covent Garden, and the Billingsgate porters are running helter-skelter down St Mary at Hill with crates of fish on their heads, and the horns are blaring along the river as Tower Bridge opens in the moonlight to admit another cargo vessel into the crowded pool of London. Meanwhile, across the empty city, Londoners slumber and dream while footsteps of lonely policemen on the beat echo in the dark deserted streets.
Glass slides courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
Read my other nocturnal stories
Beautiful images, so evocative of times past. I love the last paragraph talking about all those people working the night shifts.
My imagination did a somersault, and I pictured one of the blue-toned photos as a backdrop
for a Pollock-like paper theater. Not a gay colorful theater, but a somber and sober structure –
fashioned in scuffed shades of grey and black. Sort of, Poe-like. The players are cut-paper
versions of men and their pushcarts and wagons. Trudging, barking, toiling. All frozen in place, against the icy backdrop. How to create a luminous moon? (I’ll have to give that more thought.) Little accessories (always the extra-effort fun of making a paper theater) would be images of crates, willow baskets and hampers, barrels and casks. Convincing crumpled bits of miniature newspaper skitter about the stage — oh, and I have some vintage mica snow for a final frigid touch. Brrrrrrrrrrr.
Thank you, GA. Bundle up, everyone.
Beautiful buildings. There’s something so evocative about black and white images too, being able to see every detail without the distraction of colour.
“…horns are blaring along the river as Tower Bridge opens in the moonlight to admit an”…other cargo vessel into the crowded pool of London.” I wonder if there is a way-back-when elusive black ‘n white photograph of Tower Bridge opening in the moonlight?
Absolutely stunning snaps. Thank you very much.