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Fragments of Old St Paul’s stored in the triforium at New St Paul’s

Sir Christopher Wren’s success at St Paul’s Cathedral is to have envisaged architecture of such absolute assurance that it is impossible to imagine it could ever have been any different than it is today. Yet Wren was once surveyor of Old St Paul’s, confronted daily with a tottering gothic pile and carrying the onerous responsibility for this vast medieval shambles upon his shoulders, until the Great Fire took it away three hundred and fifty years ago.

The spire of Old St Paul’s collapsed in 1561 and, in Wren’s, time wooden scaffolding was necessary to hold up the poorly-built Cathedral. Parts of the cloister were carried off to build Somerset House and even a fancy new portico designed in the classical style by Inigo Jones failed to ameliorate the general picture of decay and dereliction.

When the Great Fire of London began in September 1666, the Stationers Company stored their books and paper in the crypt of the Cathedral for safe-keeping and residents piled their precious furniture in the churchyard – one of the few open spaces in the City –  so that it might be safe even if they lost their homes in the conflagration. These prudent measures only exacerbated the catastrophe when a spark set fire to the wooden roof of the Cathedral which collapsed into the crypt, sending a river of molten lead running down Ludgate Hill, igniting a violent inferno of paper that brought down the entire building and consumed all the furniture in the churchyard as well.

After the pyre of Old St Paul’s was at last extinguished in September, weeks after the Fire had been quenched elsewhere in the City, it became a popular pastime to scavenge through the ruins for souvenirs. You might assume nothing survived but, if you know where to look and what to look for, there are relics scattered throughout New St Paul’s.

Commemorating the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the destruction of Old St Paul’s, I thought I would make a photographic inventory of what is left. There are Roman tiles, an Anglo-Saxon hog’s back tomb, a Viking grave marker and multiple stone fragments of the Cathedral itself, catalogued in the nineteenth century – although I was most fascinated by seventeenth-century effigies that withstood the Fire.

Medieval monuments and statuary were destroyed in the Reformation, and Oliver Cromwell famously stabled his horses in the Cathedral at the time of the English Revolution, but there was a brief period when new monuments and figures were installed prior to the Great Fire of London and a handful of these remain today.

John Donne would have conjured an astute sonnet upon the metaphysical irony of his monument being the only one surviving intact. In his last days, he insisted upon modelling for his own effigy, wrapped in a shroud, and the resultant sculpture is distinguished by remarkably naturalistic drapery. Yet, in spite of this, I can only see it as an image of a flame in which the great poet glimmers eternally.

A small collection of seventeenth-century human effigies rest down in the crypt, burnt black by the Fire. Carved from pale marble or alabaster, they have been transfigured by the furnace-like temperature of the conflagration and emerged charcoal-black, glistening and broken, as if they had been excavated like coal – as if they were creatures of another time, as remote as prehistoric creatures. But, even as they were ravaged by apocalyptic lfire and damaged beyond recognition, some have retained fine detail of armour and clothing, and all have acquired presence. These compelling fragmentary forms are worthy of Henry Moore, charmed stones that manifest an eternal spirit forged in fire.

Unsurprisingly, Christopher Wren had little interest in the relics of Old St Paul’s because he was looking to the future. Wary of medieval foundations, he had his New St Paul’s re-aligned to avoid them. Yet, although Wren had most of the ancient stone broken up to use as infill for New St Paul’s, there are a couple of spots in the crypt where you can see fragments of detailed Romanesque carving sticking out from the wall, hidden in plain sight, to remind us that – even though Old St Paul’s has gone – it is still with us.

Roman tiles and Anglo-Saxon grave cover in the triforium

Hogback grave cover, dating from 1000-1050 AD, possibly from the grave of King Athelstan

Viking grave marker, dating from 1125-50AD, dug up in 1852 in the churchyard

Twelfth century Romanesque carving of foliage in the wall of the crypt

Twelfth century Romanesque carving of foliage in the wall of the crypt

Ledger stone of Brian Walton, Bishop of Chester, died 1661

Sir John & Eliza Wolley

Sir John Wolley, Latin Secretary to Elizabeth I, died 1596

Eliza Wolley, Lady of the Privy Chamber to Elizabeth I, died 1600

Sir Thomas Heneage Vice-Chamberlain to Elizabeth I, died 1594, & Anna Heneage, died 1592

Unknown effigy

Unknown effigy

William Cokain, Mayor of London 1619, died 1626

William Cokain, Mayor of London 1619, died 1626

John Donne, Poet & Dean of St Paul’s (1572-1631), monument by Nicholas Stone

Caen & Reigate stones from Old St Paul’s (1180-1666 AD) excavated by Francis Penrose, Cathedral Surveyor in the nineteenth century

This lion is a fragment of Inigo Jones portal to St Paul’s which inspired Christopher Wren

Click to enlarge this comparative plan of 1872 which superimposes the outlines of Old and New St Paul’s (Reproduced courtesy of St Paul’s)

You may also like to read my other stories of St Paul’s Cathedral

Maurice Sills, Cathedral Treasure

The Broderers of St Paul’s

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In the churchyard of St Dunstan’s in the East, Idol Lane

If ever I should require a peaceful walk on a Sunday afternoon when the crowds are thronging in Brick Lane and Columbia Rd, then I simply wander over to the City of London where the streets are empty at weekends and the many secret green enclaves of the churches are likely to be at my sole disposal. For centuries the City was densely populated, yet the numberless dead in the ancient churchyards are almost the only residents these days.

Christopher Wren rebuilt most of the City churches after the Great Fire upon the irregularly shaped medieval churchyards and it proved the ideal challenge to develop his eloquent vocabulary of classical architecture. Remarkably, there are a couple of churches still standing which predate the Fire while a lot of Wren’s churches were destroyed in the Blitz, but for all those that are intact, there are many of which only the tower or an elegant ruin survives to grace the churchyard. And there are also yards where nothing remains of the church, save a few lone tombstones attesting to the centuries of human activity in that place. Many of these sites offer charismatic spaces for horticulture, rendered all the more appealing in contrast to the sterile architectural landscape of the modern City that surrounds them.

I often visit St Olave’s in Mincing Lane, a rare survivor of the Fire, and when you step down from the street, it as if you have entered a country church. Samuel Pepys lived across the road in Seething Lane and was a member of the congregation here, referring to it as “our own church.” He is buried in a vault beneath the communion table and there is a spectacular gate from 1658, topped off with skulls, which he walked through to enter the secluded yard. Charles Dickens also loved this place, describing it as “my best beloved churchyard”

“It is a small small churchyard, with a ferocious, strong, spiked iron gate, like a jail. This gate is ornamented with skulls and cross-bones, larger than the life, wrought in stone … the skulls grin aloft horribly, thrust through and through with iron spears. Hence, there is attraction of repulsion for me … and, having often contemplated it in the daylight and the dark, I once felt drawn towards it in a thunderstorm at midnight.” he wrote in “The Uncommercial Traveller.”

A particular favourite of mine is the churchyard of St Dunstan’s in the East in Idol Lane. The ruins of a Wren church have been overgrown with wisteria and creepers to create a garden of magnificent romance, where almost no-one goes. You can sit here within the nave surrounded by high walls on all sides, punctuated with soaring Gothic lancet windows hung with leafy vines which filter the sunlight in place of the stained glass that once was there.

Undertaking a circuit of the City, I always include the churchyard of St Mary Aldermanbury in Love Lane with its intricate knot garden and bust of William Shakespeare, commemorating John Hemminge and Henry Condell who published the First Folio and are buried there. The yard of the bombed Christchurch Greyfriars in Newgate St is another essential port of call for me, to admire the dense border planting that occupies the space where once the congregation sat within the shell of Wren’s finely proportioned architecture. In each case, the introduction of plants to fill the space and countermand the absence in the ruins of these former churches – where the parishioners have gone long ago – has created lush gardens of rich poetry.

There are so many churchyards in the City of London that there are always new discoveries to be made by the casual visitor, however many times you return. And anyone can enjoy the privilege of solitude in these special places, you only have to have the curiosity and desire to seek them out for yourself.

In the yard of St Michael, Cornhill.

In the yard of St Dunstan’s in the East, Idol Lane.

At St Dunstan’s in the East, leafy vines filter the sunlight in place of stained glass.

In the yard of St Olave’s, Mincing Lane.

This is the gate that Samuel Pepys walked through to enter St Olave’s and of which Charles Dickens wrote in The Uncommercial Traveller – “having often contemplated it in the daylight and the dark, I once felt drawn towards it in a thunderstorm at midnight.”

Dickens described this as ““my best beloved churchyard.”

In the yard of St Michael Paternoster Royal, College St.

In the yard of St Lawrence Jewry-next-Guildhall, Gresham St.

In the yard of St Mary Aldermanbury, Love Lane, this bust of William Shakespeare commemorates John Hemminge and Henry Condell who published the First Folio and are buried here.

In the yard of London City Presbyterian Church, Aldersgate St.

In the yard of Christchurch Greyfriars, Newgate St, the dense border planting occupies the space where once the congregation sat within the shell of Wren’s finely proportioned architecture.

In the yard of the Guildhall Church of St Benet, White Lion Hill.

In St Paul’s Churchyard.

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The Secret Gardens of Spitalfields

At Bow Cemetery

At St Mary’s Secret Garden

Click here to book for my next Whitechapel Tour on Sunday 23rd August. Tour includes tea and apple strudel at the Whitechapel Gallery.

One of my favourite places in the East End is Bow Church, so it was a delight to visit and meet Stained Glass Conservator, Tom Vowden, while he was working on the east window. It made me feel less guilty about my own windows which get cleaned no more than once a year, when he told me that the east window is being cleaned for the first time since it was installed more than sixty years ago.

Designed by H Lewis Curtis, this window dates from the early fifties, replacing one that was blown out when a bomb hit the church during the war. The window poses something of a mystery, since it has no religious iconography and is filled with a classical architectural structure within which images of small animals are discreetly placed.

Yet, in the lower part of the window, the blue coffered roof matches the Tudor ceiling in the chancel and, in the upper part of the window, the cupola reflects the design on the tower which was added when it was rebuilt at the same time the window was installed. H Lewis Curtis was the professional partner of architect Harry Goodhart Rendell who repaired Bow Church after the war.

A compelling suggestion to explain the presence of the animals in the window is that they honour Arthur Broome, former Rector of Bow and one of the founder members of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals that later became the RSPCA. At a meeting in June 1824, he was one of twenty-two people who gathered – possibly at Bow Church – to found a society that would protect animals from harm. It is even said that the debts incurred by the organisation in the early years meant that Broome himself was imprisoned.

Today the window forms a popular and intriguing puzzle for visitors who are invited to spot the owl, the butterfly, the pigeon, the cat, the mice and other creatures concealed in the design. And now that Tom has cleaned painstakingly the glass, this innocent pastime is even more attractive.

It was my privilege, as Tom’s guest, to climb up and take a much closer look at the window from the inside and the outside. So I took this opportunity to ask him about the profession of Stained Glass Conservator.

“I work on all kinds of glass from the medieval period until the modern day. Originally I studied archaeology and through that I got interested in historic crafts and the way things have been made throughout history. So I tried a few different things, I tried blacksmithing, glassblowing and marquetry before settling on stained glass. I found an apprenticeship at York Minster.

In my apprenticeship at the Minster, I worked on medieval glass but then I was at the Palace of Westminster for a couple of years working on nineteenth century glass. I replaced some of the glass on the face of Big Ben and we had to wait until the clock hands went past in order to fit the new pieces.

Making stained glass is a craft skill, but it is also artistic and you are playing with light. I am starting to design my own stained glass alongside my conservation work. Nowadays there’s less commissions for churches but more for front doors. Lead in stained glass has a lifespan of around a hundred years, and many houses in London are around that age, and it needs replacing.

The work I am doing at Bow Church is cleaning the surface of the glass and doing a couple of in situ repairs – there is a crack through one of the panes that needs resin bonding to weatherproof it. Mostly I am cleaning off the residue of pollution and sometimes there is a waxed layer in the interior where candles have been used. Pollution and pigeon droppings corrode the surface of glass over time and form a layer that allows condensation to settle which can cause any paint on the surface of the glass to deteriorate and be lost.

The east window that I am working on is not particularly old but it has an extreme amount of pollution for its age because of the location of this church with busy roads on either side. I find this window quite unusual because I cannot find a maker’s mark. It is one of the most interesting windows I have worked on. The design is unusual and it makes use of flashed glass, where glass is manufactured in two layers and the coloured layer is acid-etched through to the clear glass. Because it was manufactured in the fifties, this window is structurally sound but often with older windows are bowing which causes breaks.

Cleaning needs to be done fairly regularly to maintain the preserve the glass as well as possible. This is the first time this window has been cleaned since it was installed in the fifties. There’s not a huge amount of damage at this stage but if it was left for another hundred years or so it could get quite bad. Even something as simple as giving it a clean can really bring a window back to life. You see the texture in the glass that wouldn’t otherwise see.

In fifty years, I would be happy to come back and clean it again.”

Tom Vowden

Tom is cleaning the east window

Tudor roof in the chancel

Spot the owl

Spot the squirrel

Tom at work cleaning the exterior of the glass

The exterior of the east window

The tower

The rear churchyard

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At Bow Church

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Simon Carter, Keeper of Collections at St Paul’s

In a hidden chamber within the roof of St Paul’s sits Christopher Wren’s 1:25 model of the cathedral, looking for all the world like the largest jelly mould you ever saw. When Charles II examined it in the Chapter House of old St Paul’s, he was so captivated by Wren’s imagination as manifest in this visionary prototype that he awarded him the job of constructing the new cathedral.

More than three hundred years later, Wren’s model still works its magic upon the spectator, as I discovered last week when I was granted the rare privilege of climbing inside to glimpse the view that held the King spellbound. While there is an austere splendour to the exterior of the model, I discovered the interior contains a heart-stopping visual device which was surely the coup that persuaded Charles II of Wren’s genius.

Yet when I entered the chamber in the triforium at St Paul’s to view the vast wooden model, I had no idea of the surprise that awaited me inside. Almost all the paint has gone from the exterior now, giving the dark wooden model the look of an absurdly-outsized piece of furniture but, originally, it was stone-coloured with a grey roof to represent the lead.

At once, you are aware of significant differences between this prototype and the cathedral that Wren built. To put it bluntly, the model looks like a dog’s dinner of pieces of Roman architecture, with a vast portico stuck on the front of the dome of St Peter’s in the manner of those neo-Georgian porches on Barratt Houses. Imagine a fervent hobbyist chopping up models of relics of classical antiquity and rearranging them, and this is the result. It is unlikely that this design would even have stood up if it had been built, so fanciful is the conception. Yet the long process of designing a viable structure, once he had been given instruction by Charles II, permitted Wren to reconcile all the architectural elements into the satisfying whole that we know today.

I had been tempted to visit the cathedral by an invitation to go inside the model but – studying it – I could not imagine how that could be possible. I could not see a way in. ‘Perhaps one end has hinges and Charles II crawled in on his hands and knees like a child entering a Wendy House?,‘ I was thinking, when Simon Carter, Keeper of Collections opened a door in the plinth and disappeared inside, gesturing me to follow. In blind faith, I dipped my head and walked inside.

When I stood up, I was beneath the dome with the floor of the cathedral at my chest height. There was just room for two people to stand together and I imagined the unexpected moment of intimacy between the Monarch and his architect, yet I believe Wren was quietly confident because he had a trick up his sleeve. From the inside, the drama of the architecture is palpable, with intersecting spaces leading off in different directions, and – as your eyes accustom to the gloom – you grow aware of the myriad refractions of light within this intricately-imagined interior.

Just as Wren directed Charles II, Simon Carter told me to walk to the far end of the model and sit on the bench placed there to bring my eye level down to the point of view of someone entering through the great west door. Then Simon left me there inside, just as I believe Wren left Charles II within the model, to appreciate the full effect.

I have no doubt the King was thrilled by this immersive experience, which quickly takes on a convincing reality of its own once you are alone. Charles II discovered himself confronted by a glorious vision of the future in which he was responsible for the first and greatest classically-designed church in this country, with the largest dome ever built. Such is the nature of the consciousness-filling reverie induced by sitting inside the model that the outside world recedes entirely.

How astonishing, once you have accustomed to the scale of the model, when a giant face appears filling the east window. I could not resist a gasp of wonder when I saw it and neither – I suggest – could Charles II when Christopher Wren’s smiling face appeared, grinning at him from the opposite end of the nave, apparently enlarged to twenty-five times its human scale.

In these unforgettable circumstances, the King could not avoid the realisation that Wren was a colossus among architects and – unquestionably – the man for the job of building the new St Paul’s Cathedral. The model had worked its spell.

Behold, the largest jelly mould in the world!

The belfry that was never built

The single portico that was replaced by a two storey version

Just a few fragments of paintwork remain upon the exterior

Original paintwork can be seen inside the model

Charles II’s point of view from inside the model

‘How astonishing, once you have accustomed to the scale of the model, when a giant face appears filling the east window.’

You may like to read my other stories of St Paul’s

Maurice Sills, Cathedral Treasure

The Broderers of St Paul’s

Relics of Old St Paul’s in New St Paul’s

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours

Viscountess Boudicca

Ten years ago today, on August 3rd 2016, Viscountess Boudicca was decanted from her council flat in Bethnal Green to Uttoxeter. Last week, she paid a rare visit to London, her first in seven years, en route to visit her mother in Braintree. We met at the Bishopsgate Institute and it provided the opportunity for Viscountess to give me an account of her Uttoxeter years. Regrettably, she has encountered a similar level of grief there on account of her difference – harassment from neighbours exacerbated by lack of sympathy or any support from the authorities –  just as in Bethnal Green. Yet throughout it all she retains an heroic level of moral courage and resilience, thanks in no small part to her colourful private life involving Guy Fawkes, Henry VIII and Erik Hosebonde.

“The trouble with Uttoxeter is that I gave notice to quit a month after I arrived, September 2016, and the woman from the council said, ‘I knew that we made a terrible mistake. We had another of ‘your kind’ and we had problems with them.’ So I said, ‘Why the hell did you force me up here?’ but then she said, ‘Tower Hamlets won’t reverse the decision.’

The problem was that all my neighbours, they came round about seven o’clock one night with a petition. They said, ‘We want you to go.’ The reason that they gave was that ‘You’re a raving pouf! We don’t like your type. You’ve come into our town and taken our place’. They were bigoted country bumpkins. So I said, ‘You can send me back to London if you’ll pay for it. I’m not going to be intimidated by you.’ Then I got all the hate notes and, if I go into a shop, they make sure I am the last to be served.

One bloke who lived opposite didn’t have any money, he was waiting for Universal Credit. He said, ‘I’m starving, my friends won’t help me.’ I said, ‘I thought you country people stick together.’ But they said, ‘Why should we help him?’ So I thought, goodness, everything about this place gets on my wick.

I cooked him dinner for a month until one day as he arrived, when they was all outside, I asked him, ‘How’s it going?’ and he said, ‘Mind your own business, you pouf or I’ll kill you.’ Then they all laughed, they thought it was highly funny. So I said, ‘I didn’t see you lot helping him.’ This is how it’s been going on. It has never been a home and it never can be because of what they do.

But I have my ghosts who come and see me. As you know, when we went to the Tower of London in 2016, I met Guy Fawkes and he said, ‘I’ve missed you, where have you been?’ Previously in the January of  2014, I had visited Hampton Court. I felt I needed to go there because Henry VIII’s face appeared to me in the bathroom mirror. He normally appears as a skeleton with a hood wrapped round him but I saw him in the flesh. After that he visited regularly and made me sign paperwork to confirm that our vows had been renewed.

Henry is the kind of person who will do something and think later, it’s hit first and regret it after, but we get on extremely well. He has his moods and starts like everyone else, and when the neighbours are playing up he has made himself known. When I had my Tarot cards read, I discovered that I was Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour. I gave birth to Edward VI but our happiness was short-lived because I died sixteen days afterwards. He thinks of me now like an old pair of slippers, comfortable.

Two days after I arrived in Uttoxeter, he appeared. Guy Fawkes was the resident ghost and he was already there, but Henry decided he would come too. The problem was that including my three husbands, Henry, Guy and Erik (My first husband), I have eight in total. At first, they hated the sight of each other but I spend time with them all and when I die they will come with me. It’s like I am a passport to another world. Henry is stuck between the two worlds at the moment because the women whose heads he chopped off put a curse on him.

In the year 873, I married Erik Hosebonde in a pagan wedding in February. I grew up with him in Sweden. After we married, we used to come to England on raids to Norfolk. We did reconnaissance in 874. The longship would drop us off and we would spend a week surveying the area and making sure there were no rocks along the coastline. They would come at night to raid the Anglo-Saxon stronghold, looting and burning so the souls of those they killed would not return. My first life ended on the 6th May 878.

Since I left London, I have learnt to mistrust people because of their behaviour but, because I have my ghosts, I feel that I am on the outside of life and occasionally I have these out of the body experiences. I lie on the floor and I see my body drift away and it usually goes off to Hampton Court with Henry. The neighbours in Uttoxeter are either throwing stones or telling me to go and die. There’s so much hatred towards me. If it wasn’t for the ghosts I would have ended it. They give me strength. Henry, Guy and Erik are all hot-headed, and they’ll say, ‘Stick two fingers up to them.’

I have had so many horrendous times but I treat people as I would like to be treated because I believe that if I treat people fairly, and not prejudge them, then they might do the same to me.”

Viscountess Boudicca with Henry VIII and Edward VI at Hampton Court

Viscountess Boudicca and Henry VIII at the supermarket

Henry VIII and Viscountess Boudicca at the television studio recording Henry’s Christmas message

Erik Hosebonde and Viscountess Boudicca in the ninth century

Erik Hosebonde and Viscountess Boudicca arrive by longship in Norfolk by night with Erik’s twin brother in the background

Follow Viscountess Boudicca on Instagram @fawkesboudicca

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Tutivillus the demon eavesdropping upon two women

I spent a morning on my knees in St Katharine’s Chapel in Limehouse, photographing these rare survivors of fourteenth century sculpture, believed to have been created around 1360 for the medieval St Katharine’s Chapel next to the Tower of London, which was displaced and then demolished for the building of the docks in 1825.

These marvellous carvings evoke a different world and another sensibility, combining the sacred and profane in grotesque and fantastical images that speak across time as emotive and intimate expressions of the human imagination. I am particularly fascinated by the sense of mutability between the human and animal kingdom in these sculptures, manifesting a vision of a mythic universe of infinite strange possibility which was once familiar to our forebears.

Intriguingly, these misericords appear to have been created by the same makers who carved those at Lincoln and Chester cathedrals, and a friary in Coventry.

After a sojourn of over a hundred years in Regent’s Park, the Royal Foundation of St Katharine, originally founded by Queen Matilda in 1147, moved back to the East End to Limehouse in 1948 where it flourishes today, offering an enclave of peace and reflection, sequestered from the traffic roaring along the Highway on one side and Commercial Rd on the other.

Centaur with club and shield

Tutivillus holds the parchment on the Day of Judgement

Owl

Bust of a bearded man in a striped cap with a cape and trailing drapery

Winged beast with a long tail and human head

Dragon

Edward III

Queen Philippa

Bishop’s head

Green man

Bearded man wearing a cap

A former Master of St Katharine’s was Chancellor of the Exchequer

Angel playing the bagpipes

Pelican in her piety with three chicks, supported by a pair of swans

Lion leaping upon the amphisbaena, supported by reptilian monsters

Coiled serpentine monster

Woman riding a beast with a man’s head

Elephant and castle surmounted by a crowned head

Beast with a hooded human head

Miser

Choir stalls with misericords

St Katharine’s Chapel was built in 1951 on the site of St James, Ratcliffe, destroyed in the blitz

Late fifteenth or early sixteen century carving of angel musicians playing a psaltery, a harp and tabor

The Royal Foundation of St Katharine, 2 Butcher Row, Limehouse, E14 8DS

With thanks to the Master of the Royal Foundation of St Katharine for permission to photograph the misericords

If you are interested to visit St Katharine’s Chapel please write to info@rfsk.org.uk

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St Augustine’s Tower

I wonder how many people even notice this old tower, secreted behind the betting office in the centre of Hackney? Without  a second glance, it might easily get dismissed as a left-over from a Victorian church that got demolished. Yet few realise St Augustine’s Tower has been here longer than anything else, since 1292 to be precise.

“It is an uncompromising medieval building, the only one we have in Hackney,” Laurie Elks, the custodian of the tower, admitted to me as we ascended its one hundred and thirty-five steps, “and, above all, it is a physical experience.” Climbing the narrowing staircase between rough stone walls, we reached the top of the tower and scattered the indignant crows who, after more than seven centuries, understandably consider it their right to perch uninterrupted upon the weather vane. They have seen all the changes from their vantage point, how the drover’s road became a red route, how London advanced and swallowed up the village as the railway steamed through.

Yet inside the tower, change has been less dramatic and Laurie is proud of the lovingly-preserved cobwebs that festoon the nooks and crevices of his cherished pile, offering a haven for shadows and dust, and garnished with some impressive ancient graffiti. The skulls and hourglasses graven upon stone panels beside the entrance set the tone for this curious melancholic relic, sequestered among old trees just turning colour now as autumn crocuses sprout among the graves. You enter through a makeshift wooden screen, cobbled together at the end of the eighteenth century out of bits and pieces of seventeenth century timber. On the right stands an outsize table tomb with magnificent lettering incised into dark granite recording the death of Capt Robert Deane, on the fourth day of February 1699, and his daughters Mary & Katherine and his son Robert, who all went before him.

“There was no-one to wind the clock,” revealed Laurie with a plaintive grimace, as we stood on the second floor confronting the rare late-sixteenth-century timepiece that was once the only measure of time in Hackney, “so I persuaded my sixteen-year-old daughter, Sam, that she would like to do it and she did – until she grew unreliable – when I realised that I had wanted to wind the clock myself all along. I would come at two in the morning every Saturday and go to the all-night Tesco and buy a can of beans or something. Then I would let myself in and, sometimes, I didn’t put on the light because I know the building so well – and that was when I fell in love with it.” Reluctantly, Laurie has relinquished his nocturnal visits since auto-winding was introduced to preserve the clock’s historic mechanism.

It was the Knights Templar who gave the tower its name when they owned land here, until the order was suppressed in 1308 and their estates passed to the Knights of St John in Clerkenwell who renamed the church that was attached to the tower as St John-at-Hackney. Later, Christopher Urstwick, a confidant of Henry VII before he became king, retired to Hackney as rector of the church and used his wealth to rebuild it. Yet, to the right of the entrance to the tower, rough early medieval stonework is still visible beneath the evenly-laid layers of sixteenth century Kentish ragstone – bounty of the courtier’s wealth – that surmount it.

When the village of Hackney became subsumed into the metropolis, with rows of new houses thrown up by speculators, a new church was built down the road in 1797, but it was done on the cheap and the tower was not strong enough to carry the weight of the bells. Meanwhile, the demolition contractor employed to take down the old church was defeated by the sturdy old tower and it was retained to hold the bells until enough money was raised to strengthen the new one. Years later, once this had been effected, the fashion for Neo-Classical had been supplanted by Gothic and it suited the taste of the day to preserve the old tower as an appealing landmark to remind everyone of centuries gone by.

Thus, no-one can say they live in Hackney until they have made the pilgrimage to St Augustine’s Tower – where Laurie is waiting to greet you – and climbed the narrow stairs to the roof, because this is the epicentre and the receptacle of time, the still place in the midst of the mayhem at the top of Mare St.

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Laurie Elks, Custodian of the Tower

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Who can resist the lure of the forest in summer? Since Epping Forest is a mere cycle ride from Spitalfields, each year I visit to seek refuge among the leafy shades. And, in the depths of the forest, I come upon these makeshift tree huts which fascinate me with the variety and ingenuity of their design.

Who can be responsible? Is it children making dens or land artists exploring sculptural notions? Clearly never weatherproof, they are not human habitations. I wondered if the sprites and hobgoblins had been at work constructing arbors for the spirits of the forest. But then I remembered I had seen something similar once before, Eeyore’s hut at the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood.

Some are elaborate constructions that are worthy of architecture and others merely collections of twigs which tease the eye, questioning whether they are random or deliberate. They conjure an air of ritualistic mystery and, the more I encountered, the more intrigued I became. So much effort and skill expended suggest deliberate purpose or intent, yet they remain an enigma.

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At least once each Summer, I direct my steps eastwards from Spitalfields along the Mile End Rd towards Bow Cemetery, one of the “Magnificent Seven” created by act of Parliament in 1832 as the growing population of London overcrowded the small parish churchyards. Extending to twenty-seven acres and planned on an industrial scale, “The City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery” as it was formally called, opened in 1841 and within the first half century alone around a quarter of a million were buried here.

Although it is the tombstones and monuments that present a striking display today, most of the occupants of this cemetery were residents of the East End whose families could not afford a funeral or a plot. They were buried in mass public graves containing as many as forty bodies of random souls interred together for eternity. By the end of the nineteenth century the site was already overgrown, though burials continued until it was closed in 1966.

Where death once held dominion, nature has reclaimed the territory and a magnificent broadleaf forest has grown, bringing luxuriant growth that is alive with wildlife. Now the tombstones and monuments stand among leaf mould in deep woods, garlanded with ivy and surrounded by wildflowers. Tombstones and undergrowth make one of the most lyrical contrasts I can think of – there is a beautiful aesthetic manifest in the grim austerity of the stones ameliorated by vigorous plant life. But more than this, to see the symbols of death physically overwhelmed by extravagant new growth touches the human spirit. It is both humbling and uplifting at the same time. It is the triumph of life. Nature has returned and brought more than sixteen species of butterflies with her.

This is the emotive spectacle that leads me here, turning right at Mile End tube station and hurrying down Southern Grove, increasing my pace with rising expectation, until I walk through the cemetery gates and I am transported into the green world that awaits. At once, I turn right into Sanctuary Wood, stepping off the track to walk into a tall stand of ivy-clad sycamores, upon a carpet of leaves that is shaded by the forest canopy more than twenty metres overhead and illuminated by narrow shafts of sunlight descending. It is sublime. Come here to see the bluebells in Spring or the foxgloves in Summer. Come at any time of the year to find yourself in another landscape. Just like the forest in Richard Jefferies’ novel “After London,” the trees have regrown to remind us what this land was once like, long ago before our predecessors ever came here.

Over time, the tombstones have weathered and worn, and some have turned green, entirely harmonious with their overgrown environment, as if they sprouted and grew like toadstools. The natural stillness of the forest possesses greater resonance between cemetery walls and the deep green shadows of the woodland seem deeper too. There was almost no-one alive to be seen on the morning of my visit, apart from two police officers on horseback passing through, keeping the peace that is as deep as the grave.

Just as time mediates grief and grants us perspective, nature also encompasses the dead, enfolding them all, as it has done here in a green forest. These are the people who made East London, who laid the roads, built the houses and created the foundations of the city we inhabit. The countless thousands who were here before us, walking the streets we know, attending the same schools, even living in some of the same houses we live in today. The majority of those people are here now in Bow Cemetery. As you walk around, names catch your eye, Cornelius aged just two years, or Eliza or Louise or Emma, or Caleb who enjoyed a happy life, all over a hundred years ago. None ever dreamed a forest would grow over their head, where people would come to walk one day to discover their stones in a woodland glade. It is a vision of paradise above, fulfilled within the confines of the cemetery itself.

As I made my progress through the forest of tombstones, I heard a mysterious noise, a click-clack echoing through the trees. Then I came upon a clearing at the very heart of the cemetery and discovered the origin of the sound. It was a solitary juggler practicing his art among the graves, in a patch of sunlight. There is no purpose to juggling than that of delight, the attunement of human reflexes to create a joyful effect. It was a startling image to discover, and seeing it here in the deep woods – where so many fellow Londoners are buried – made my heart leap. Outside on the streets, a million people were going about their business while in the vast wooded cemetery there was just me, the numberless dead and the juggler.

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I cycled along the River Lea to Waltham Abbey. On my approach, even from the riverbank, I could see the majestic tower rising over the water meadows as the Abbey has done for the past thousand years, commanding the landscape and undiminished in visual authority.

Once you see it, you realise you are following in the footsteps of the innumerable credulous pilgrims who came here in hope of miraculous cures from the holy cross, which had reputedly relieved Harold Godwinson of a paralysis as a child before he became King Harold.

To the south of the Abbey church lies the market square, bordered with appealingly squint timber frame buildings punctuated by handsome eighteenth and nineteenth additions. Despite the proximity of the capital, the place still carries the air of an English market town.

Yet the great wonder is the Abbey itself, founded in the seventh century, built up by King Harold and destroyed by Henry VIII. Despite the ravages of time, the grandeur and scale of the Abbey is still evident in the precincts which have become a public park. Although the church that impresses today is less than half the size of what it was, it is enough to fire your imagination. An imposing stone gateway greets the visitor to the park where long, battered walls outline the former extent of the buildings. A tantalising fragment of twelfth century vaulting, which formerly served as the entrance to the cloisters, encourages the leap to conjure the cloisters themselves where now is merely an empty lawn. A walled garden filled with lavender and climbing roses draws you closest to the spirit of the place.

The outline of the former Abbey church is marked upon the grass and at the eastern end lies a surprise. A plain stone engraved with the words ‘Harold King of England Obit 1066,’ indicating this is where legend has it that he was laid to rest after the Battle of Hastings. I realised that maybe the remains of the man in the tapestry, killed by the arrow in the eye, lay beneath my feet. Coming upon his stone unexpectedly halted me in my tracks.

This was one of those startling moments when there is a possibility of history being real, something tangible, causing me to reflect upon the Norman Conquest. A thousand years ago, their power found its expression in the vast complex of buildings here, which were destroyed five hundred years ago as the expression of another power.

We too live in a time of dramatic transition. The equivocal consolation of the historical perspective is that it reminds us that empires rise and fall, but life goes on.

Effigy of King Harold

Harold cradles Waltham Abbey in his arm

The Lady Chapel

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The Welsh Harp

These vaults are all that is left of the twelfth century cloisters

Here lies Harold, the last Anglo Saxon King of England

Waltham Abbey

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