The Alleys Of Old London
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I set out in the footsteps of Alan Stapleton seeking London’s Alleys, Byways & Courts that he drew and published in a book in 1923, which I first encountered in the archive at Bishopsgate Institute.
It is a title that is an invitation to one as susceptible as myself to meander through the capital’s forgotten thoroughfares and my surprising discovery was how many of these have survived in recognisable form today.
Clearly a kindred spirit, Stapleton prefaces his work with the following quote from Dr Johnson (who lived in a square at the end of an alley) – ‘If you wish to have a notion of the magnitude of this great city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but survey its innumerable little lanes and courts.’
Jerusalem Passage, Clerkenwell
Jerusalem Passage, Clerkenwell
St John’s Passage, Clerkenwell
St John’s Passage, Clerkenwell
Passing Alley, Clerkenwell
Passing Alley, Clerkenwell
In Pear Tree Court, Clerkenwell
In Pear Tree Court, Clerkenwell
Faulkner’s Alley, Clerkenwell
Faulkner’s Alley, Clerkenwell
Red Lion Passage, Holborn
Red Lion Passage is now Lamb’s Conduit Passage, Holborn
Devereux Court, Strand
Devereux Court, Strand
Corner of Kingly St & Foubert’s Place, Soho
Corner of Kingly St & Foubert’s Place, Soho
Market St, Mayfair
Market St is now Shepherd Market, Mayfair
Crown Court, St James
Crown Court is now Crown Place, St James
Rupert Court, Soho
Rupert Court, Soho
Meard St, Soho
Meard St, Soho
Alan Stapleton’s images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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A distant ancestor was born in Pear Tree Court in 1839; lovely to know it still exists and to see the drawing from 1923.
What truly wonderful drawings showing such talent, and wonderful too that your B&W photos show these places to be still in existence!
It was really heart warming to see how unchanged some pockets of London still are after all the relentless images of ‘modernisation’ we are subject to. Cheered me right up this miserable sunday.
Incredible! What a grand idea! It’s great to see the then and the now. Thank you and have a good day.
Red Lion Passage: Now that takes me back to 1950 and my Inter BSc year at Birkbeck College, still in its old, bomb-damaged Breams Buildings premises. I was employed as a laboratory technician in Biochemistry at University College and, four nights a week, I walked (at my highest speed) from Torrington Place to Birkbeck, cutting through back streets to Red Lion Square and passing the Conway Hall. Good exercise with a briefcase full of books and good education too, because it turned me into a regular audience-member of the Conway’s Sunday evening chamber-music recitals. Happy Days! And concordant with my fondest hope and wildest imaginings, preparation for a successful career that I can now look back on from retirement.
Fascinating and comforting in equal measure, though I wish the modern wrought iron was more like the old.
Thank you Gentle Author, such beautiful illustrations from 1923, the year my mother was born.
Lovely ,brings back memories of Sundays spent wandering around the backways of London ,with my Dad ,in the 1950s.
Lamb’s Conduit Passage runs off the north east corner of Red Lion Square. Red Lion Passage was the corresponding alley off the south east corner, so similar, but not the same. You can see from the pictures that Red Lion Passage was quite a bit longer. Both of them are/were remnants of the criss-cross paths across Red Lion Fields, the rather larger open space the centre of which became Red Lion Square in the 18th century.
Most of the buildings in Red Lion Passage were obliterated by WW2 bombing, It was all cleared in the early 1950s and a council housing estate built in its place, and at the far end an office building, 20 Red Lion Street. About half its length still exists, but only as unnamed footpath through the council estate. One of the blocks on the estate, Brampton House, now occupies that corner of the square, and there is access through it to the still existing section, though no longer along the original line. At the far end, beyond the office building, there is also a ghost of old Red Lion Passage where the Old Nick pub stands back and at an odd angle from Sandland Street.
See here for more detail, including maps showing both the Passages: https://www.redlionsquare.uk/1860-1960/