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1. cat permalink

   September 3, 2015

   In ‘the man looks back’ photo there seems to be a woman in a shawl in the bottom right hand side of the picture?
   Wonderful buildings what a shame so few remain.
2. Godfrey permalink

   September 16, 2015

   Looks like there *is* a woman lurking, Cat! A ghost of Old London indeed.
   But having grown up in post-WW2 London and Essex, I must say that many of these picturesque old buildings were death-traps and uninhabitable; the replacements may not have the character, but they were and are healthier places to live.
3. Ron Tiner permalink

   December 2, 2017

   This area around the old Clare Market has always fascinated me. Way back in the late ’70s, when I was drawing comic strips for Hotspur Comic, I drew a story about “Spring-Heeled Jack – the leaping terror of foggy Victorian London”, and this area featured as the backdrop for some of the action. In 1900 the entire area was scheduled for demolition and redevelopment for the creation of Kingsway, and after these houses were knocked down, there was an enormous plague of homeless rats infesting the rubble – and attacking anyone who walked there after dark. I should like to send you a frame from the comic — and I have also found an aerial view showing this location half-demolished. Would you be interested to see it?
   It is not really right to say that the buildings that replaced these picturesque corners of old London are healthier places to live – the entire area was demolished and replaced with the great ugly monstrosities of the present-day Aldwych – where nobody lives. Typically for the LCC, there was no domestic building ever planned to provide housing for the thousands of inhabitants made homeless here.

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