Lost In Long Forgotten London
Jonathan Pryce will read my short story ‘On Christmas Day’ at the launch at Burley Fisher Books in Haggerston on Thursday 23rd November at 6:30pm.
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If you got lost in the six volumes of Walter Thornbury’s London Old & New you might never find your way out again. Published in the eighteen-seventies, they recall a London which had already vanished in atmospheric engravings that entice the viewer to visit the dirty, shabby, narrow labyrinthine streets leading to Thieving Lane, by way of Butcher’s Row and Bleeding Heart Yard.
Butcher’s Row, Fleet St, 1800
The Old Fish Shop by Temple Bar, 1846
Exeter Change Menagerie in the Strand, 1826
Hungerford Bridge with Hungerford Market, 1850
At the Panopticon in Leicester Sq, 1854
Holbein Gateway in Whitehall, 1739
Thieving Lane in Westminster, 1808
Old London Bridge, 1796
Black Bull Inn, Gray’s Inn Lane
Cold Harbour, Upper Thames St, City of London
Billingsgate, 1820
Bedford Head Tavern, Covent Garden
Coal Exchange, City of London, 1876
The Cock & Magpie, Drury Lane
Roman remains discovered at Bilingsgate
Hick’s Hall in Clerkenwell, 1730
Former church of St James Clerkenwell
Door of Newgate Prison
Fleet Market
Bleeding Heart Yard in Hatton Garden
Prince Henry’s House in the Barbican
Fortune Theatre, Whitecross St, 1811
Coldbath House in Clerkenwell, 1811
Milford Lane, off the Strand, 1820
St Martin’s-Le-Grand, 1760
Old Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam), Moorfields, in 1750
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
I do love these old engravings. Thank you GA for stimulating my vivid imagination to transport me back to the London of my great great grandparents. I can visualise the buildings and people, hear the sounds of horses hooves and shouts of those selling their wares, the smell of the stinking, overpopulated areas with limited sanitation.
I was rather tickled by Thieving Lane being situated in Westminster!
These are just wonderful
captivating views of London past, warts n’all..
Do you know when the Panoptikon was demolished? It looks marvellous!
I love the engraving of St Martin’s Le Grand, I worked there for a short time in the early 90s when the company I was with at Monument took over the old Post Office buildings as their offices.
Thieving Lane, what a great name, makes me wonder what went on there!
how interesting to see
its like a time machine taking back to reality
thanks for your works