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Please note that tickets are free on the door to all Taj Stores customers

The gentleman on the right is Abdul Khalique, standing with his shop assistant, in the early nineteen-fifties outside the very first Taj Stores in Hunton St (now Buxton St). Abdul Khalique’s brother Abdul Jabbar, the founder of the grocery store, commonly known then as ‘Jabber’s Shop’, was a seaman who came here from Bengal to Spitalfields in 1934 after leaving the navy. He worked in textile sweatshops for two years before opening his store, which he ran with his Irish wife Cathleen.

These sparse facts, which I learnt from Abdul Jabbar’s nephew Jamal – who never met his uncle – are all that is known of this brave man who travelled across the world and undertook the risky venture of starting a business in another continent, working so hard to build it up until his death in 1969. He would be amazed to visit the Taj Stores today and see how his modest enterprise has blossomed.

I enjoyed the privilege of a tour of the aisles in the company of Jamal (Abdul Quayum), who has been involved in the family business since he was seventeen years old, and now runs the store jointly with his elder brother Junel (Abdul Hai) and younger brother Joynal (Abdul Muhith).

It is a wonderful experience simply to explore here and savour the rich selection of produce on offer from all over the world in the Taj Stores. I love to study the beautifully organised displays of exotic fruit and vegetables, printed sacks of rice, tall stacks of brightly coloured cardboard packages, cans, bottles and jars – each with their distinctive fragrances. Then there is the cooking equipment, towers of plastic jugs and bowls, steel pots and pans, and scourers. There is a vast intricate diversity of attractive things collected here and it is a phenomenal feat of organisation that the brothers have pulled off, bringing this huge range of supplies together from the different corners of the globe.

Jamal explained to me how the business is run nowadays between the three brothers. Jamal does the hiring and the paperwork, while Joynal takes care of the day-to-day buying and selling, and Junel runs the catering supply and wholesale side of the business.’The beauty of it is, we have different responsibilities. We are a modern muslim family and we treat each other like friends,’ said Jamal proudly.

Their father Alhaj Abdul Khalique first came to the United Kingdom in 1952 as a student before becoming involved in running the business with his brother. In 1956, the grocery shop moved to larger premises at 109 Brick Lane and then when Abdul Jabbar died in 1969, Abdul Khalique ran it with his brother Abdul Rahman. The pair were photographed looking every bit the sharp business men they were, in a handsome studio portrait taken at that time.

As the Taj Stores prospered, they moved again in 1979 to 112 Brick Lane and an era ended in 1994 when Abdul Khalique died. Then the family business passed from the brothers who had emigrated to this country, into the stewardship of the current generation born in East London.

This year, Joynal, Junel & Jamal – the brothers  who run the shop today – moved the shop out of Brick Lane into their former warehouse premises at 26 Princelet Street. They explained to me that they now look back to their roots and, in the tradition of nineteenth century businessmen turned benefactors, they are funding a school and a mosque, building social housing, investing in irrigation and two cancer clinics back in Moulvibazar, Sylhet, Bangladesh – the home town where Abdul Jabbar set out from all those years ago when this story began.

Abdul Jabbar, the founder of Taj Stores

Abdul Khalique and his brother Abdul Rahman who ran the Taj Stores in the fifties

Taj Stores, 109 Brick Lane in 1977 (Photograph by Homer Sykes)

Taj Stores, 1980

Taj Stores, 109 Brick Lane (photograph by Phil Maxwell)

Taj Stores, 109 Brick Lane (photograph by Phil Maxwell)

Demolition of 109 Brick Lane, early eighties (photograph by Phil Maxwell)

Outside Taj Stores, 112 Brick Lane, c.1987 (photograph by Phil Maxwell)

Komor Uddin, Taj Stores, 7th December 1990 (photograph by Clive Murphy)

Joan Lauder the cat lady, buying cat food at Taj Stores, Brick Lane, 3rd August 1992 (photograph by Clive Murphy)

Taj Stores, 112 Brick Lane 2012 (photograph by Phil Maxwell)

Delivering cooking oil to Taj Stores, 112 Brick Lane 2002 (photograph by Phil Maxwell)

Taj Stores, 26 Princelet Street, E1 6RL

St. Martin, Ludgate with St. Paul’s Cathedral, c. 1900

At this time of year, when dusk gathers in the mid-afternoon, a certain fog drifts into my brain and the city itself grows mutable as the looming buildings outside my window merge into a dark labyrinth of shadows beyond. Yet this is as nothing compared with the smog of old London – in the days before anyone dreamed of the Ultra Low Emission Zone – when a million coal fires polluted the atmosphere with clouds of filthy black smoke carrying noxious fumes, infections and lung diseases. In old London, the city resounded with a symphony of fog horns on the river and thousands of people coughing in the street.

Looking at these glass slides of a century ago, once used for magic lantern shows by the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society at the Bishopsgate Institute, the fogs and smogs of old London take on quite another meaning. They manifest the proverbial mythic “mists of time,” the miasma wherein is lost all of human history, save the sketchy outline that some idle writer or other jotted down. Just as gauzes at the pantomime conjure the romance of fairyland, the hazes in these pictures filter and soften the images as if they were faded memories, receding into the past.

The closer I examine these views, the more I wonder whether the fog is, in some cases, an apparition called forth by the photographic process itself – the result of a smeary lens or grime on the glass plate, or simply an accident of exposure. Even so, this photographic fogging is no less evocative of old London than the actual meteorological phenomenon. As long as there is atmosphere, the pictures are irresistibly atmospheric. And old London is a city eternally swathed in mist.

St Paul’s Cathedral from the north-west, c. 1920

Pump at Bedford Row, 1911

Cenotaph, 1919

Upper Thames view, c. 1920

Greenwich Hospital from the Park, c. 1920

City roadworks, 1910

Looking north across the City of London, c. 1920

Old General Post Office, c. 1910

View eastwards from St Paul’s, c. 1910

Hertford House, c. 1910

New River Head, c. 1910

The Running Footman public house, c. 1900

Unidentified building, c 1910

Church Row, Hampstead, c. 1910

Danish Ambassador’s residence, Wellclose Square, Wapping c. 1910

Church of All Hallows, London Wall, c. 1890

Drapers’ Almshouses, Bromley Street, c. 1910

Battersea Bridge, c. 1910

32 Smith Grove, Highgate, in the snow, 1906

Unknown public building, c. 1910

Training ship at Greenwich, c. 1910

Flooded moat at the Tower of London, c. 1910

The Woodman, 1900

Bangor St, North Kensington, c. 1910

Terrace of the Houses of Parliament, c.1910

Statue of Boudicca on Westminster Bridge, c. 1910

Glass slides courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

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‘Women at Work, East End Portraits 1992–2025 brings together the many working women I have encountered and photographed since coming to the East End of London.

My fascination with photography began whilst studying at Derby Art College in the late 1960s. It was a male-dominated course with only three of us young women, sharing a darkroom. For us, this was a time not only for exploring alternative ways of photography but also for seeking different approaches to telling our stories.

I came to London in the late 1970s, and I remember walking through the streets of the East End and finding myself beside the Thames at Wapping. I fell in love with the area and moved into a studio that was part of a working warehouse at New Crane Wharf. I lived and worked there for seven years alongside an eclectic group of around seventy artists and filmmakers until our eviction in 1985 to make way for the redevelopment of the Docklands.

Every Sunday, I wandered through the streets to take pictures in Brick Lane and I still feel the excitement of walking through the chaos, energy and humanity of the market, where people laid out their personal possessions on the pavements to sell and be recycled into a new life. It was a theatre of the streets. And I was captivated, not only by this community but also by the urban landscape it inhabited.

In 1992, I was commissioned by Hackney Museum to make portraits documenting the working lives of women in the borough. It was fascinating to search for a diverse range of occupations to photograph.

By this time, I had moved my studio to Shoreditch and I was shooting mainly with black and white film. I would process my film and print contact sheets in my darkroom before selecting the images, so captivating as they slowly emerged in the developer.

Alongside photographing the East End, I was also working for fringe theatre companies documenting rehearsals as well as capturing the action of performance. Photographing in the theatre informed the way I worked outside in the streets. Becoming embedded in and committing time to projects has always been important for me, allowing my relationships with people and places to grow. In the mid-1990s, I was drawn to exploring the night-time economy of Smithfield Market in the City of London. It was a dramatic, subterranean and mysterious world where glowing lights illuminated rows of hanging carcasses reminiscent of paintings by Rembrandt or Soutine. There was a camaraderie there between the traders who were mainly men and the few female cashiers. As dawn rose over the city, these night workers returned home to sleep and the daytime working world began.

In 2010, I became a contributing photographer to Spitalfields Life, which tells the stories of the people, the culture and the history of the East End. Sometimes we would visit a particular person and other times we would explore the streets, making surveys of launderettes, chicken shops, barbers and other vital parts of our community.

We found that everyone’s life experience was distinct, always interesting, sometimes dramatic and sometimes joyous, whilst at other times it was the simplicity of an individual’s life that was inspiring. At the same time there were many housing campaigns, the threat of eviction is an all too familiar story in the East End, and photographs and stories became an important tool in raising awareness against injustice.

It has been both an honour and an adventure to meet and photograph women from across numerous communities, many of whom have found new ways of working within the structure of society, setting up businesses and organisations, individually and collectively. Some have created spaces for music, dance and the arts. Others have become political activists fighting for better conditions and equal rights. All are vital contributors to the East End cultural landscape. And it is the spirit of these women who have shared their lives with dignity, integrity and strength that have enriched and inspired me through all these years.

This book is a tribute to these women.’

SARAH AINSLIE

Sue Venning, Owner G Kelly Pie & Mash, Roman Rd, 2011

Sarah Ainslie will be giving an illustrated lecture, showing her pictures and telling the stories behind her WOMEN AT WORK project at this year’s Bloomsbury Jamboree on Saturday 14th November at the Art Workers’ Guild, 6 Queen Sq, London WC1N 3AT.

CLICK HERE TO BOOK FOR SARAH’S LECTURE

We invite you to join us at the book launch and exhibition opening for WOMEN AT WORK on Thursday 19th November 6:30-9pm at Four Corners Gallery, 121 Roman Road, London, E2 OQN.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE LAUNCH PARTY & EXHIBITION OPENING

I believe I was born with a medieval imagination. It is the only way I can explain the explicit gothic terrors of my childhood. Even lying in my cradle, I recall observing the monstrous face that emerged from the ceiling lampshade once the light was turned out. This all-seeing creature, peering at me from above, grew more pervasive as years passed, occupying the shadows at the edges of my vision and assuming more concrete manifestations. An unexpected sound in my dark room revealed its presence, causing me to lie still and hold my breath, as if through my petrified silence I could avert the attention of the devil leaning over my bedside.

When I first became aware of gargoyles carved upon churches and illustrated in manuscripts, I recognised these creatures from my own imagination and I made my own paintings of these scaled, clawed, horned, winged beasts, which were as familiar as animals in the natural world. I interpreted any indeterminate sound or movement from the dark as indicating their physical presence in my temporal existence. Consequently, darkness, shadow and gloom were an inescapable source of fear to me on account of the nameless threat they harboured, always lurking there just waiting to pounce. At this time of year, when the dusk glimmers earlier in the day, their power grew as if these creatures of the shades might overrun the earth.

Nothing could have persuaded me to walk into a dark house alone. One teenage summer, I looked after an old cottage while the residents were on their holiday and, returning after work at night, I had to walk a long road that led through a deep wood without street lighting. As I wheeled my bicycle up the steep hill among the trees in dread, it seemed to me they were alive with monsters and any movement of the branches confirmed their teeming presence.

Yet I discovered a love of ghost stories and collected anthologies of tales of the supernatural, which I accepted as real because they extended and explained the uncanny notions of my own imagination. In an attempt to normalise my fears, I made a study of mythical beasts and learnt to distinguish between a griffin and a wyvern. When I discovered the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch and Pieter Breughel, I grew fascinated and strangely reassured that they had seen the apocalyptic visions which haunted the recesses of my own mind.

I made the mistake of going to see Ridley Scott’s The Alien alone and experienced ninety minutes transfixed with terror, unable to move, because – unlike the characters in the drama – I was already familiar with this beast who had been pursuing me my whole life. In retrospect, I recognise the equivocal nature of this experience, because I also sought a screening of The Exorcist with similar results. Perhaps I sought consolation in having my worst fears realised, even if I regretted it too?

Once, walking through a side street at night, I peered into the window of an empty printshop and leapt six feet back when a dark figure rose up from among the machines to confront my face in the glass. My companions found this reaction to my own shadow highly amusing and it was a troubling reminder of the degree to which I was at the mercy of these irrational fears even as an adult.

I woke in the night sometimes, shaking with fear and convinced there were venomous snakes in the foot of my bed. The only solution was to unmake the bed and remake it again before I could climb back in. Imagine my surprise when I visited the aquarium in Berlin and decided to explore the upper floor where I was confronted with glass cases of live tropical snakes. Even as I sprinted away down the street, I felt the need to keep a distance from cars in case a serpent might be lurking underneath. This particular terror reached its nadir when I was walking in the Pyrenees, and stood to bathe beneath a waterfall and cool myself on a hot day. A green snake of several feet in length fell wriggling from above, hit me, bounced off into the pool and swam away, leaving me frozen in shock.

Somewhere all these fears dissolved. I do not know where or when exactly. I no longer read ghost stories or watch horror films and equally I do not seek out dark places or reptile houses. None of these things have purchase upon my psyche or even hold any interest anymore. Those scaly beasts have retreated from the world. For me, the shadows are not inhabited by the spectral and the unfathomable darkness is empty.

Bereavement entered my life and it dispelled these fears which haunted me for so long. My mother and father who used to turn out the light and leave me to sleep in my childhood room at the mercy of medieval phantasms are gone, and I have to live in the knowledge that they can no longer protect me. Once I witnessed the moment of death with my own eyes, it held no mystery for me. The demons became redundant and fled. Now they have lost their power over me, I miss them – or rather, perhaps, I miss the person I used to be – yet I am happy to live a life without supernatural agency.

Fourteenth century carvings from St Katherine’s Chapel, Limehouse

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I am proud to publish these excerpts from THE SILVER LOCKET by a graduate of my writing course. The author says ‘A lifetime of reading and book collecting leads me to share stories of literary life: books old and new which inspire and comfort me and the people I meet.’

Follow THE SILVER LOCKET

I am taking bookings for the next writing course, HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ on February 6th & 7th. Come to Spitalfields and spend a winter weekend in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Fournier St, enjoy delicious lunches and eat cakes baked to historic recipes, and learn how to write your own blog.

Click here for details

If you are graduate of my course and you would like me to feature your blog, please drop me a line.

Illustrator Joan Beales holds a very special place in my heart. Her first picture book Pip and the Six Cooks, published in 1964, was one of my very first books, which I read over and over again.

Turning the pages, all my childhood delight comes rushing back – the generous size, the exquisite line drawings, the vibrant colours which evoke the sunny atmosphere of the mediterranean, the joy to be had in all the characters depicted in the book’s endpapers, including the head chef with his wind-up gramophone, Poppoff who was born in a circus, and not forgetting the terrible kitchen cats. I think it is my desert island book because it would bring me comfort and joy, and I would never tire of looking at all the details.

When I had a lot of time on my hands during the pandemic, I did some research into Joan Beales’ life and work. Keen to find out more about her I contacted Professor Martin Salisbury, founder of the MA in children’s book illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. I knew he was an admirer of Joan Beales’ work and he told me:

‘Joan Beales is something of a mystery. Her charming poster designs and illustrations for children’s books are greatly admired by practitioners and students alike for their inventive graphic fusion of flat shape, pattern and line drawing.‘

Despite all my enquiries I have discovered very little. I believe she was born in 1926, lived in Manchester and studied at the Royal College of Art just after the War. She was a graphic artist and illustrator, designing posters for London Transport and the Science Museum between 1954 and 1956. Two other books besides Pip stand out for her illustrations: The Seasons by Derek Jervis, published in 1962, and Travel by Land which she wrote and illustrated, published in 1966.

Although she went on to illustrate many early readers in the seventies including Leila Berg’s Nippers, it is her early work which enchants me. In the London Transport Museum online archive online, I found a letter from Joan Beales in which she mentions a mural she was working on for a London hotel. Further investigation reveals that she designed a mural for the Tavistock Hotel in 1957.

Imagine my surprise when, on posting my piece, I was contacted by Lynda Saul who wrote:

‘We bought some panels from an auction a few years ago and all we knew were that they came from a hotel….and I think they could be the ones Joan mentions in her letter! We have looked at her style and think they could be by her! Would love to try and work out which hotel it was! They’re huge!’

More recently I received this from Doug Wilmott-Swanney

‘I was a close friend of Joan Beales and I love she is getting the recognition she deserves. I may be the only person alive that knew her and her family.’

I am now fully embarked on detective work to try to piece some of this jigsaw together. Lynda has kindly given me permission to post her snapshots of the murals, which she subsequently sold, being too big to display. She told me:

‘They caught our eye as we love mid-century illustration and just had to have them! We didn’t at the time know who they were by, but they encapsulated the style we love perfectly (and we love a mystery!). Plus we had moved from London to Brighton (although since left!) and we liked that one depicted the same journey.‘

Maybe, just maybe, whoever bought Joan’s murals from a dealer in Brighton might read this and get in touch? It would be such a joy to know they are loved and even pay them a visit maybe. What a dream that would be!

Double page spread from Pip and the Six Cooks, 1964

Double page spread from Pip and the Six Cooks, 1964

Double page spread from Pip and the Six Cooks, 1964

Double page spread from Pip and the Six Cooks, 1964

Double page spread from Pip and the Six Cooks, 1964

Endpapers from Pip and the Six Cooks, 1964

Letter from Joan Beales in which she mentions her murals for the Tavistock Hotel. (Courtesy of London Transport Museum)

One of the panels designed by Joan Beales for the Tavistock Hotel in 1957 which is now believed to be in Brighton

Detail from one of the panels depicting the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run

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Favourite illustrator Alice Pattullo has just completed two projects on the subjects of fire and ice in the history of the City of London. One is a series of coloured drawings for an exhibition of the history of fire insurance after the Great Fire of 1666 and the other is an advent calendar illustrating the Frost Fayre that took place on the frozen Thames centuries ago.

AFTER THE FIRE is a free exhibition that runs until 27th November at the Bank of England Museum. This major new exhibition from the Insurance Museum looks at the year 1702, when early fire insurance companies were booming and Edward Lloyd’s Coffee House was packed full of insurers, brokers and investors.

Lloyd’s Coffee House

Edward & Elizabeth Lloyd

At Lloyd’s Coffee House

Firemarks

Queen Anne

These three panels show the rebuilding of London after the fire, thanks to insurance

Orlando skating on the Thames

Alice Pattullo’s Frost Fayre advent calendar

Click here to buy a Frost Fayre advent calendar from Tinsmiths

Click to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours

I decided to take advantage of the October sunshine by enjoying an excursion to Chiswick House. I have to confess that it is thirty years since I visited, in the footsteps of the writer Denton Welch who came here in the thirties with a picnic including a hardboiled egg and a piece of fruitcake. It was a great consolation to encounter these gardens again, like a old friend that has not been changed by the years.

William Kent’s garden was inspired by the paintings of Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin, and seeing it illuminated by the perfectly crystalline autumn sunlight this week, I could not resist the feeling I was exploring an eternal landscape that was outside time. I half expected to turn a corner of a box hedge and discover Denton with his blanket spread out upon the grass, waiting for me with a picnic for two of hardboiled eggs and fruitcake.

I can think of no better place to lose an afternoon in London than these gardens, why did I take thirty years to go back?

The Doric Column with Venus on the top at the centre of the Rosary

Sculpture of a lioness by Pieter Scheemakers, 1733

The Ionic Temple and Obelisk, 1722

In the Excedra

Herm in the Excedra

A Sphinx beneath the Lebanon Cedar

Classical villa designed by Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington

Designed by Inigo Jones for Beaufort House in Chelsea in 1621, this gateway was acquired by Lord Burlington in 1738 from his friend Hans Sloan

Bust of Caesar Augustus

The Corinthian capitals on the portico were carved by John Boson

Andreas Palladio by by John Michael Rysbrack

Inigo Jones by John Michael Rysbrack

In the Italian Garden

The Conservatory was designed by Samuel Ware and completed in 1813

Geraniums overwintering

The Classic Bridge, attributed to James Wyatt, was built for the 5th Duke of Devonshire in 1774

The Ionic Temple

Bust of Napoleon in the Rustic House designed by Lord Burlington about 1719

The Eye Catcher installed in 1970

The Cascade by William Kent

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Readers may recall that I visited Brunswick House in Vauxhall to interview Adrian Amos, the founder of London Architectural Salvage & Supply Company (LASSCO), earlier this year. It was my pleasure to return later in the summer to write a feature about his secret garret in this astonishing eighteenth-century Palladian mansion, marooned today amidst a forest of towers, for The World of Interiors with photographs by Rachel Ferriman.

Click here to read my feature about Brunswick House in The World of Interiors

Adrian Amos

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With more than seventy of her portraits in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, we are proud to count Lucinda as a Spitalfields Life Contributing Photographer.

Self portrait by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies, 1987

Stephen Calloway, Art Historian 1989

Dame Wendy Hiller, Actor 1988

Edward Greenfield, Music Critic 2004

Emma Witter, Artist 2025

Delwar Hussein, Anthropologist 2013

Sandra Esqulant, Landlady of The Golden Heart 2000

Des De Silva, Joiner 2021

Howard Morgan, Artist 1987

Eileen Agar, Painter & Photographer 1987

Sir Ben Okri, Novelist, & Sir Derek Walcott, Poet 2004

Dame Sian Phillips, Actor 2013

Sir Solly Zuckerman, Scientist 1990

Imtiaz Dharker, Poet 2015

Jack ‘Kid’ Berg, Boxer 1988

Marianna Kennedy, Artist 2011

Sir Isaiah Berlin, Philosopher 1988

Photographs copyright © Lucinda Douglas-Menzies

Click here to order a copy of PORTRAITS

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours

The Drawing Room

As long ago as 1180, the Drapers in the City of London formed a Guild to protect their interests as small traders and help members who fell into distress. The full title of the company was, “The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of  the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of the Drapers of the City of London.” More than eight hundred years later, it still exists to administer charitable trusts, inheriting headquarters that have been rebuilt over the centuries upon the site of Thomas Cromwell’s house – taken by Henry VIII after Cromwell’s execution at the Tower in 1540 and sold to the Drapers in 1543.

For years, I walked down Throgmorton Avenue and peered through the railings at the Mulberry trees growing there with out knowing that this tiny enclave of greenery in the heart of the city was the last remnant of Thomas Cromwell’s garden. Consequently, I was fascinated to visit the Drapers’ Hall and explore the chambers of the ancient livery company arranged around a hidden courtyard, following the ground plan of the great medieval hall that once stood upon this site. Until then, I had no idea that these palatial spaces existed, sequestered from the idle passerby.

Cromwell’s mansion was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666, then rebuilt to designs by Edward Jarman in the sixteen seventies and later remodelled in each of the subsequent centuries to arrive at the rambling construction I encountered, which delivers some breathtaking architectural contrasts as you walk from one space to another. Offices occupy the ground floor that give no hint of the grandeur above, unless you step into the courtyard and raise your eyes to peer through the tall windows upon the first storey where the gleam of vast chandeliers reveals lofty painted ceilings. Standing there in the stone yard surrounded by an arcade embellished with heads of the prophets, you might be in Venice or Rome.

A magnificent eighteen nineties staircase by Thomas Graham Jackson, lavishly encrusted with alabaster and red emperor and green chipolina marble, and light by a five thousand piece chandelier, offers a suitable introduction to the wonders at the top, where the grand Dining Room awaits on your left and the even grander Drawing Room on your right. Overlooking the garden, the Dining Room is one of the oldest chambers at the Drapers’ Hall, dating from the seventeenth century yet heavily embellished with coats of arms in the mid-nineteenth century to create a shining firmament overhead, glistening in diffuse chandelier light.

Crossing the landing, you enter the Court Room where Nelson and Wellington face each other from full-length portraits at either end. Lit by tall windows overlooking the courtyard, even the grandeur of this space gives no indication of the vast Livery Hall beyond. In the sepulchral gloom, larger than life-size portraits of British monarchs line up around the walls of this cathedral-like space, where no sound of the city penetrates and the depth of silence hums in your ears. Incredibly, the embellishment in this ornate room was simplified in the eighteen nineties because the original decoration was so elaborate that it prevented the entry of light.

A narrow corridor leading from the hall and overlooking the courtyard holds the company’s succession of charters including Edward III’s Patent of 1364 followed by those granted by James I, Elizabeth I and our own Elizabeth II. Facing the Livery Hall across the courtyard is the Drawing Room, a chamber worthy of any of the royal palaces of Europe. Created by architect Herbert Williams and interior designer John G. Crace, it remains as they left it in 1868, – an exquisitely modulated symphony of gilt panelling and mirrors, glowing golden in the cool northern light.

Over-awed by the majesty of the building and distracted by the collection of old paintings worthy of any museum, I rubbed my bleary eyes when I found myself back in the dusty streets around Liverpool St Station in the grey dusk of the late afternoon, and it caused me to question whether my visit to the Drapers’ Hall had, in fact, been an apparition conjured by a daydream.

Bearded Persians by Henry Pegram flank the Throgmorton St entrance.

Staircase designed by Thomas Graham Jackson in the eighteen nineties.

A five thousand piece chandelier lights the staircase.

Jason and the Golden Fleece, portrayed upon the celiing of the Court Dining Room

Looking from the Drawing Room through to the Dining Room.

The Drawing Room by architect Herbert Williams and interior designer John G. Crace, 1868.

The Drawing Room c. 1920

The Shepherd Boy by Thorwaldsen, 1893.

The Livery Hall, c. 1920

The Livery Hall

The Livery Hall c.1920

The Livery Hall

The Livery Hall, c. 1890

This dial in the Livery Hall indicates the wind direction.

The Courtyard c. 1920

The last remnant of Thomas Cromwell’s garden.

The Garden, c. 1920

Glass slides courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

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