The sagacious Mr Pussy

There is an exceptional hush upon the East End, with with the heat and the football conspiring to empty the streets of locals and tourists alike. The clouds hang heavy and the atmosphere is quiet, and my cat Mr Pussy divides his time between dozing on the bed and dozing under a bush. The pace of the city is stilled and Mr Pussy finds the climate conducive to resting.

Mr Pussy observes me with doleful eyes as I go about my daily tasks, too gracious to be overtly critical, yet he hopes that I might one day learn to appreciate the virtue of sitting peacefully for extended periods of time without other occupation, as he does. To this end, Mr Pussy waits patiently until a suitable opportunity when I am settled at my work before he approaches me. Arriving silently like a ghost, Mr Pussy reaches out a soft paw to stroke my forearm gently while I am writing, as a discreet gesture of companionship, drawing my attention without interrupting my activity.

Settling at my side and savouring the tranquillity of the hour, a purr of contentment emanates from him. And if my concentration should wander from my page, searching for a word or casting around to seek the direction of my thought, then I chance upon his hypnotic golden eyes, meeting my gaze with their fathomless depth and opalescent gleam. He has my attention. He has an infinite capacity for staring. He knows I am a novice and he is an expert at it. He knows I cannot resist succumbing to his superior mesmeric powers. He has me spellbound and I share his stillness. The house is empty and we are alone. We look at each other eye to eye, without blinking, to see who flinches first.

Almost imperceptibly, Mr Pussy begins to lower his lids and I do the same. I follow along, as his supplicant. Our eyelids move in sync and we are nodding off to sleep, it seems. I might enter the feline realm, if I did not open my lids again momentarily – only to discover that his eyes are open too. It is a moment of mutual recognition. Mr Pussy was testing the quality of my will, exploring my susceptibility to mental control. Mr Pussy observes me. Mr Pussy is implacable, yet he wants me to follow his example. Mr Pussy knows how to be. Mr Pussy keeps himself. Mr Pussy seeks to be calm. Mr Pussy is always present in the moment. Mr Pussy is sufficient.

Equally, Mr Pussy is curious of me and the intriguing nature of my existence that revolves around things other than eating and sleeping. I am the object of his scrutiny, Mr Pussy is studying me. Mr Pussy is an anthropologist, living among those who are subject of his fascination. Mr Pussy’s research methods are unconventional, he thinks he may gain knowledge by osmosis if he sleeps close to me or he may imbibe understanding by lapping up my bathwater.

Not always an entirely conscientious student, Mr Pussy likes to contemplate his findings at length. Mr Pussy likes to sleep on it, and he is a grand master in the art of  somnolence. Mr Pussy knows how to behave in these dog days.

CLICK HERE TO BUY A COPY OF THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY

“I was always disparaging of those who dote over their pets, as if this apparent sentimentality were an indicator of some character flaw. That changed when I bought a cat, just a couple of weeks after the death of my father. “

THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY is a literary hymn to the intimate relationship between humans and animals, filled with sentiment without becoming sentimental.

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Ron uses a power press to form trays

Contributing Photographer Rachel Ferriman and I ventured a rare trip south of the river recently to visit the wondrous Kaymet factory in Bermondsey where snazzy trays and trolleys are hand made in aluminium.

We were delighted to be shown round by proprietor Mark Brearley who, as co-author of Made In London, knows a thing or two about the challenges and importance of manufacturing in the capital. Proving that he puts his money where his mouth is, thirteen years ago Mark came along to buy a tray for his wife’s birthday, discovered that the business was going into liquidation and agreed to take it on, without hesitation.

I had no idea how an aluminium tray could be hand made until I came here. Yet the processes of forming, punching, polishing, graining, anodising and assembly require significant human skill and painstaking craft at every stage. As well as preventing oxidisation, anodising introduces colour, while graining imparts an organic texture and, finally, polishing delivers the shine.

There are two kinds of trays made here. Pressed trays formed out of a single sheet of aluminium possess an elegant simplicity, while assembled trays offer an infinite variety of colour, texture and pattern contained within neatly ridged metal edges and handles. What could be more civilised for breakfast in bed or lunch in the garden than a stylish tray from Kaymet? The discreet royal warrant tells you all you need to know.

When Rachel & I sat down with Mark after our factory tour, he beguiled us with his lyrical tale of the origin of London’s top trays.

‘It all goes back to the nineteenth century, to the Schreiber family, who were immigrants of German origin with a history of metalwork and retail, and they were connected with another family, the Kahns. In fact, Sydney Schreiber who started Kaymet changed his surname to Kahn. By the early twentieth century, they had a few shops near the Elephant & Castle, one of which was a toy shop that carried on until the seventies. They had a radio shop when radios first became popular, also in Elephant & Castle, making the cases from sheet metal in the basement of the shop. And that’s the origin of what became the sheet metal and engineering business which moved to Kennington Lane and did very well during the Second World War making radio casings in aluminium. After the war, they had to decide what to do next, so in 1947 they decided to produce homewares in anodised aluminium. And that’s when Kaymet was founded – the ‘K’ of Kahn and ‘met’ from metal – making trays and trolleys.

No-one knows where the designs come from, they have emerged from production with no named designer. We just have a few old drawings and books with dimensions and instructions, and we know of some interventions by industrial designers. It was a process of huge inventiveness because they rapidly came up with a big product range. Somebody invented all those products and worked them out. 

They’re very practical objects. If you take the ribbed tray – as we call it – with the ribbed pattern on the extruded handles and edges, that ribbed-ness makes it look very fifties and it just so happens that design originates from then. Yet the story behind it is a practical one. The trays we were making before that were expensive because they were edged with a flat strip of aluminium which required a lot of polishing to remove imperfections. But once we made them ribbed they needed less polishing and less volume of aluminium so they were lighter. It wasn’t primarily a stylistic choice although maybe they were influenced by the moment they were in.

Who came up the idea of making trolleys that, instead of having legs to support the tiers and a separate handle, had a frame which combined the legs and the handle? It appeared in the late fifties or early sixties across lots of manufacturers and it’s drastically better. It looks better, it’s sturdier and it’s easier to make.

After 1947, Kaymet expanded dramatically with up to 200 employees. They took on a lot of contract work, casting handles and anodising for other companies, which magnified the scale of the company. They built an impressive factory for themselves off the Old Kent Rd. But then fashions changed, with competitors making pressed plastic trays and manufacturing them cheaply in other parts of the world.

The aspirational trend for drinks trolleys fell away and the business shrunk and shrunk and shrunk, losing their factory in the nineties and ending up in a series of smaller and smaller premises. I took it on in 2013 when it went into liquidation and agreed to give it a go in collaboration with the proprietor, taking on the staff of four, re-renting the building and rescuing what we could of the tools, reinvesting and pushing sales with a new business strategy.

I had no idea. I was in the right place at the right time because I had been researching manufacturing in London. I simply went along to the factory one day to buy a tray for my wife for her birthday but unfortunately they were liquidating the company and asked if I had any ideas, which turned into ‘Let’s do it together!’ I had to decide over the weekend and I knew everyone is enthusiastic about provenance, where things are made. And it’s a design classic, they are brilliant designs. ‘Surely I can make it work?’ I thought. My business strategy is if we don’t sell more trays, we’re dead, it will eat all my money, so I’d better sell more.

We focussed on refreshing the presentation and getting a decent website. We started doing trade shows. We re-approached old customers and we rebuilt the sales by giving it more energy. We have regrown it again and moved to significantly bigger premises to flourish.’

Ron places a blank into the press to make a tray

Ron takes the tray from the press

Ron examines the tray

Matt punches the holes in the trays

Matt uses the punch to make the holes

Matt examines a finished tray

James polishes tray edges

Junior trims the edge strips to size

Junior using the chop saw to cut the edges to size

Ken supervises orders on the factory floor

The factory

Mark Brearley

Photographs copyright © Rachel Ferriman

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I cannot imagine a more relaxing way to enjoy a sunny English summer afternoon than a walk through a field of lavender. Observe the subtle tones of blue, extending like a mist to the horizon and rippling like the surface of the sea as the wind passes over. Inhale the pungent fragrance carried on the breeze. Delight in the orange butterflies dancing over the plants. Spot the pheasants scuttling away and – if you are as lucky as I was – encounter a red fox stalking the game birds through the forest of lavender. What an astonishing colour contrast his glossy russet pelt made as he disappeared into the haze of blue and green plants.

Lavender has been grown on the Surrey Downs for centuries and sold in summer upon the streets of the capital by itinerant traders. The aromatic properties and medicinal applications of lavender have always been appreciated, with each year’s new crop signalling the arrival of summer in London.

The lavender growing tradition in Surrey is kept alive by Mayfield Lavender in Banstead where visitors may stroll through fields of different varieties and then enjoy lavender ice cream or a cream tea with a lavender scone afterwards, before returning home laden with lavender pillows, soap, honey and oil.

Let me confess, I had given up on lavender – it had become the smell most redolent of sanitary cleaning products. But now I have learnt to distinguish between the different varieties and found a preference for a delicately-fragranced English lavender by the name of Folgate, I have rediscovered it again. My entire house is scented with it and the soporific qualities are evident. At the end of that sunny afternoon, when I returned from my excursion to the lavender fields of Surrey, I sat down in my armchair and did not awake again until supper time.

‘Six bunches a penny, sweet lavender!’ is the cry that invites in the street the purchasers of this cheap and pleasant perfume. A considerable quantity of the shrub is sold to the middling-classes of the inhabitants, who are fond of placing lavender among their linen  – the scent of which conquers that of the soap used in washing. – William Craig Marshall’s Itinerant Traders, 1804

‘Delight in the orange butterflies dancing over the plants…’

Thomas Rowlandson’s  Characteristic Series of the Lower Orders, 1820

‘Six Bunches a-Penny, Sweet Lavender – Six Bunches a-Penny, Sweet Blooming Lavender’ from Luke Clennell’s London Melodies, 1812

‘Spot the pheasants scuttling away…’

From Aunt Busy Bee’s New London Cries

Card issued with Grenadier Cigarettes in 1902

WWI veteran selling lavender bags by Julius Mendes Price, 1919

Yardley issued Old English Lavender talcum powder tins from 1913 incorporating Francis Wheatley’s flower seller of 1792

Archive images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

Mayfield Lavender Farm, 1 Carshalton Rd, Banstead SM7 3JA

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Richard Ardagh, author of Type Archived, A visual journey through typographic history introduces the typefounders of East London

The Caslon tomb at St Luke’s, Old St

Typography can be thought of as the vehicle of words, giving them both form and voice. It is easy to take for granted how quickly we can compose and spread words today when, for centuries, type was manufactured as countless millions of individual physical components, a prerequisite for making the printed word possible.

East London played a huge part in the development of the typefounding industry, acting as a crucible (to use a relevant term) from which came many firsts: styles such as Sans-serif, Slab-serif (or Antique) and Clarendon were all the innovations of London typefounders. Even the screen typeface that you are reading (Georgia by Matthew Carter, 1993) was heavily inspired by the work of punchcutter Richard Austin, born in Finsbury, 1756.

England’s earliest typographer was Wynkyn de Worde, a German immigrant, who came to London around 1480 at the request of William Caxton to help improve his venture running the country’s first printing press. De Worde subsequently established his own press at Fleet St, which has forever after been synonymous with the print trade, and was buried there at St Bride’s Church. (The neighbouring St Bride Foundation is the custodian of much of the area’s rich printing heritage to this day.) But it was another 240 years before the skills necessary to produce original type designs were seen in London.

To create a new fount (font) required several significant stages: A punchcutter would painstakingly engrave master letters in steel, a craft demanding both an outstanding level of skill and artistic scrutiny. Every letter, numeral and symbol had to be cut individually, and replicated again for each size of type produced. Punches were used to strike a block of copper or brass, forming a matrix from which type could be cast. The matrix was fitted to a mould which was adjusted to match the width of the character. Casting could then begin by pouring molten typemetal (an alloy of lead, tin and antimony) into the cavity, which solidified on contact, then breaking the mould apart to release the sort (a single piece of type). In this way, repeated many times over, slowly an endless supply of type could be amassed.

Early English printers had relied on type imported from the Low Countries until, in 1722, an enterprising engraver transitioned into typefounding. A blue plaque at 22-23 Chiswell St marks the site of William Caslon’s pioneering foundry, run from this address for nearly 200 years. Caslon’s masterfully cut Roman and italic types established a uniquely English style for the first time and remain highly regarded – hence the adage, ‘when in doubt, use Caslon’. In the decade prior to Chiswell St, Caslon’s premises were at Ironmonger Row (now Helmet Row) opposite St Luke’s Church, where the family tomb can be seen, its raised stone chest clearly visible from Old St.

As the print trade flourished in the courts and alleys around Fleet St and spread beyond, typefounders situated their businesses nearby. The ward of Cripplegate had been home to early foundries such as Grover and Mitchell before Caslon. Later, the Bristol firm of Edmund Fry relocated there, giving the name Type St to an undeveloped lane, proudly listed on the title page of their specimen books (the street now forms part of Moor Lane).

A short walk away, the Fann St Foundry, established by Robert Thorne and later passing to William Thoroughgood and Robert Besley, occupied the premises at numbers 2, 4 and 6. This street name prevails and the site is now occupied by the Blake Tower. A plaque above the shopfronts opposite, where Aldersgate becomes Goswell Rd, records a now-absent drinking fountain erected in Besley’s memory but has no mention of the foundry.

As typefounding firms grew into more substantial enterprises their proprietors began to hold prominent positions within the City of London. Besley was an Alderman and went on to serve as Lord Mayor (1869-70). Typefounder Vincent Figgins, ‘an amiable and worthy character, and generally respected’, was a Common Councilman for the ward of Farringdon Without and his son James became an Alderman and MP. The ‘VJF’ monogram of their foundry is still visible on the iron railings in front of the Grade II listed building at Ray St in Clerkenwell.

Talbot Baines Reed, known as a writer of school stories for boys, is a figure that looms large in the world of typefounding. Reed inherited the Fann St Foundry in 1881 and went on to write a monumental account of the trade’s history. Whether or not he acquired the practical skills of casting type himself, we can certainly be grateful for his work cataloguing the foundry’s materials and identifying items of special historical interest in his ‘cabinet of curios’. Reed’s premature death at the age of forty-one is commemorated on the family tomb with a large Celtic cross close to the Church St entrance to Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington.

The completion of Regent’s Canal in 1820 meant an easily accessible supply of heavy materials and lumber. Furniture-makers and wood trades flourished in Hoxton, including ‘printer’s joiners’ such as Gould & Reeves. The firm operated from Wenlock St where, as well as producing large wooden type for posters, they made the cabinets to house it and other furniture required by printing offices. And by 1900, as light industry spread further eastwards, the heirs of the Caslon foundry would open a factory at Rothbury Rd in Hackney Wick that employed over a hundred workers.

By the turn of the twentieth century, typesetting was undergoing a revolution. Automated solutions were introduced that enabled printers to break their reliance on a huge workforce of compositors (who set the type cast by traditional foundries by hand) and replace them with new typecasting machinery.

The Monotype Corporation, pioneers of this technology, still chose to locate their headquarters in the time-honoured district (Monotype’s building was at 43 Fetter Lane, just off Fleet St, until it was destroyed by a bomb in 1941 during the Blitz). But the coming of this new way of servicing the print industry brought dramatic changes and rendered the practices of the traditional foundries archaic,  even though a small number continued trading for a few more decades. London’s last active typefoundry was Stevens, Shanks & Sons Ltd at 89 Southwark St, who were still casting type into the seventies.

Thankfully, unlike in many other countries, the materials of Britain’s preeminent typefounding industry were not lost forever when later technologies began to take hold. Having eventually all been absorbed by Stephenson Blake & Co of Sheffield, the artefacts of the traditional foundries mentioned here, along with the working hot-metal plant of the Monotype Corporation and Robert DeLittle’s York wood letter factory, were rescued in the nineties and held at the Type Archive in Stockwell. Unfortunately, although a hub of activity for over thirty years, it closed in 2023, following the death of its driving force, Sue Shaw (1932-2020).

The majority of the National Typefounding Collection is now in the care of the Science Museum. But before materials were removed from the Type Archive, where I was a volunteer, I managed to document some highlights which are presented in my book Type Archived.

M sort (piece of type) cast from a hand-mould

Stages of typefounding: punch, matrix

Stages of typefounding: mould, type

Caslon’s brass patterns for casting large type from sand, c.1770 (photograph copyright Andra Nelki)

Helmet Row, off Old St, where William Caslon established his first type foundry in 1727

Title page of Edmund Fry’s 1816 type specimen book showing the firm’s Type St address

Thorowgood’s Four-line Pica Ornamented matrices, 1821

Figgins’ Five Lines Pica, German Text, from the foundry’s 1815 type specimen

Figgins’ Letter Foundry in Ray St, Clerkenwell

Vincent Figgins’ initials are still to be seen upon the iron work on the front of the letter foundry

Monotype Gill Sans matrices (photograph copyright Andra Nelki)

Click here to buy a copy of Type Archived by Richard Ardagh

The definitive account of the legendary Type Archive provides a stunning visual tour of traditional typefounding, tracing the origins of typography and the printed word.

Founded in London in 1992, the Type Archive brought together some eight million artefacts that tell the story of typography and printing. Now, for the first time, a new book by long-serving Type Archive volunteer Richard Ardagh sheds light on the organisation’s extraordinary materials, celebrating their significance and importance to both the history of art and engineering.

Type Archived presents the typographic treasures that made this possible, from the engraved punches (master letters) and matrices (dies for casting), to the letterpress type and printing presses that put ink to paper. Inside the book, these items have been arranged into chapters by material: iron, steel, copper, brass, bronze, lead, wood, and paper.

Alongside specially commissioned photography, the book features a detailed summary of the trials and achievements of the Archive, an essay on the techniques of typefounding, a glossary of terms and detailed image captions describing the objects, their designers and uses.

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William Caslon, Letter Founder

At the Caslon Letter Foundry

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Garden scene with photographer’s cloth backdrop c.1900

These beautiful photographs are all that exist to speak of the life of Charles Jones. Very little is known of the events and tenor of his existence, and even the survival of these pictures was left to chance, but now they ensure him posthumous status as one of the great plant photographers. When he died in Lincolnshire in 1959, aged 92, without claiming his pension for many years and in a house without running water or electricity, almost no-one was aware that he was a photographer. And he would be completely forgotten now, if not for the fortuitous discovery made twenty-two years later at Bermondsey Market, of a box of hundreds of his golden-toned gelatin silver prints made from glass plate negatives.

Born in 1866 in Wolverhampton, Jones was an exceptionally gifted professional gardener who worked upon several private estates, most notably Ote Hall near Burgess Hill in Sussex, where his talent received the attention of The Gardener’s Chronicle of 20th September 1905.

“The present gardener, Charles Jones, has had a large share in the modelling of the gardens as they now appear, for on all sides can be seen evidence of his work in the making of flowerbeds and borders and in the planting of fruit trees. Mr Jones is quite an enthusiastic fruit grower and his delight in his well-trained trees was readily apparent…. The lack of extensive glasshouses is no deterrent to Mr Jones in producing supplies of choice fruit and flowers… By the help of wind screens, he has converted warm nooks into suitable places for the growing of tender subjects and with the aid of a few unheated frames produces a goodly supply. Thus is the resourcefulness of the ingenious gardener who has not an unlimited supply of the best appurtenances seen.”

The mystery is how Jones produced such a huge body of photography and developed his distinctive aesthetic in complete isolation. The quality of the prints and notation suggests that he regarded himself as a serious photographer although there is no evidence that he ever published or exhibited his work. A sole advert in Popular Gardening exists offering to photograph people’s gardens for half a crown, suggesting wider ambitions, yet whether anyone took him up on the offer we do not know. Jones’ grandchildren recall that, in old age, he used his own glass plates as cloches to protect his seedlings against frost – which may explain why no negatives have survived.

There is a spare quality and an uncluttered aesthetic in Jones’ images that permits them to appear contemporary a hundred years after they were taken, while the intense focus upon the minutiae of these specimens reveals both Jones’ close knowledge of his own produce and his pride as a gardener in recording his creations. Charles Jones’ sensibility, delighting in the bounty of nature and the beauty of plant forms, and fascinated with variance in growth, is one that any gardener or cook will appreciate.

Swede Green Top

Bean Runner

Stokesia Cyanea

Turnip Green Globe

Bean Longpod

Potato Midlothian Early

Pea Rival

Onion Brown Globe

Cucumber Ridge

Mangold Yellow Globe

Bean (Dwarf) Ne Plus Ultra

Mangold Red Tankard

Seedpods on the head of a Standard Rose

Ornamental Gourd

Bean Runner

Apple Gateshead Codlin

Captain Hayward

Larry’s Perfection

Pear Beurré Diel

Melon Sutton’s Superlative

Mangold Green Top

Charles Harry Jones (1866-1959) c. 1904

The Plant Kingdoms of Charles Jones by Sean Sexton & Robert Flynn Johnson is published by Thames & Hudson

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Next tickets available 18th July for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields

A beano from Stepney in the twenties (courtesy Irene Sheath)

We have reached that time of year when a certain clamminess prevails in the city and East Enders turn restless, yearning for a trip to the sea or at the very least an excursion to glimpse some green fields. In the last century, pubs, workplaces and clubs organised annual summer beanos, which gave everyone the opportunity to pile into a coach and enjoy a day out, usually with liberal opportunity for refreshment and sing-songs on the way home.

Ladies’ beano from The Globe in Hartley St, Bethnal Green, in the fifties. Chris Dixon, who submitted the picture, recognises his grandmother, Flo Beazley, furthest left in the front row beside her next door neighbour Flo Wheeler, who had a fruit and vegetable stall on Green St. (courtesy Chris Dixon)

Another beano from the fifties – eighth from the left is Jim Tyrrell (1908-1991) who worked at Stepney Power Station in Limehouse and drank at the Rainbow on the Highway in Ratcliff.

Mid-twentieth century beano from the archive of Britton’s Coaches in Cable St. (courtesy Martin Harris)

Beano from the Rhodeswell Stores, Rhodeswell Rd, Limehouse in the mid-twenties.

Taken on the way to Southend, this is a ladies’ beano from The Beehive in the Roman Rd during the fifties or sixties in a coach from Empress Coaches. The only men in the photo are the driver and the accordionist. Joan Lord (née Collins) who submitted the photo is the daughter of the publicans of The Beehive. (Courtesy Joan Lord)

Terrie Conway Driver, who submitted this picture of a beano from The Duke of Gloucester, Seabright St, Bethnal Green, points out that her grandfather is seventh from the left in the back row.  (Courtesy Terrie Conway Driver)

Taken on the way to Southend, this is a men’s beano from The Beehive in the Roman Rd in the fifties or sixties in a coach from Empress Coaches. (Courtesy Joan Lord)

Beano in the twenties from the Victory Public House in Ben Jonson Rd, on the corner with Carr St.  Note the charabanc – the name derives from the French char à bancs (“carriage with wooden benches”) and they were originally horse-drawn.

A crowd gathers before a beano from The Queens’ Head in Chicksand St in the early fifties. John Charlton who submitted the photograph pointed out his grandfather George standing in the flat cap holding a bottle of beer on the right with John’s father Bill on the left of him, while John stands directly in front of the man in the straw hat. (Courtesy John Charlton)

Beano for Stepney Borough Council workers in the mid-twentieth century. (Courtesy Susan Armstrong)

Martin Harris, who submitted this picture, indicated that the driver, standing second from the left, is Teddy Britton, his second cousin. (Courtesy Martin Harris)

In the Panama hat is Ted Marks who owned the fish place at the side of the Martin Frobisher School, and is seen here taking his staff out on their annual beano.

George, the father of Colin Watson who submitted this photo, is among those who went on this beano from the Taylor Walker brewery in Limehouse. (Courtesy Colin Watson)

Pub beano setting out for Margate or Southend. (Courtesy John McCarthy)

Men’s beano from c. 1960 (courtesy Cathy Cocline)

Late sixties or early seventies ladies’ beano organised by the Locksley Estate Tenants Association in Limehouse, leaving from outside The Prince Alfred in Locksley St.

The father of John McCarthy, who submitted this photo, is on the far right squatting down with a beer in his hand, in this beano photo taken in the early sixties, which may be from his local, The Shakespeare in Bethnal Green Rd. Equally, it could be a works’ outing, as he was a dustman working for Bethnal Green Council. Typically, the men are wearing button holes and an accordionist accompanies them. Accordionists earned a fortune every summer weekend, playing at beanos. (courtesy John McCarthy)

John Sheehan, who submitted this picture, remembers it was taken on a beano to Clacton in the sixties. From left to right, you can seee John Driscoll who lived in Grosvenor Buildings, Dan Daley of Constant House, outsider Johnny Gamm from Hackney, alongside his cousin, John Sheehan from Constant House and Bill Britton from Holmsdale House. (Courtesy John Sheehan)

Images courtesy Tower Hamlets Community Homes

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Next tickets available 18th July for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields

Ron McCormick photographed Whitechapel & Spitalfields in the early seventies and these pictures were exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1973. 

Hessel St

Royal Oak, Whitechapel Rd

Old Montague St

Blooms, Whitechapel High St

Old Montague St

Old Montague St

Princelet St

Black Lion Yard

Fournier St

Brick Lane

Club Row

Brick Lane

Settle St, Whitechapel

Great Eastern Buildings, Quaker St

Woodseer St

Great Eastern Buildings, Quaker St

Sandys Row

Brick Lane Market

Christ Church School

Settle St, Whitechapel

Photographs copyright © Ron McCormick

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In the grove of sacred hawthorn

One Midsummer, Photographer Colin O’Brien & I joined the celebrants of the Loose Association of Druids on Primrose Hill for the solstice festival hosted by Jay the Tailor, Druid of Wormwood Scrubs. As the most prominent geological feature in the Lower Thames Valley, it seems likely that this elevated site has been a location for rituals since before history began.

Yet this particular event owes its origin to Edward Williams, a monumental mason and poet better known by his bardic name Iolo Morganwg, who founded the Gorsedd community of Welsh bards here on Primrose Hill in June 1792. He claimed he was reviving an ancient rite, citing John Tollund who in 1716 summoned the surviving druids by trumpet to come together and form a Universal Bond.

Consequently, the Druids began their observance by gathering to honour their predecessor at Morganwg’s memorial plaque on the viewing platform at the top of the hill, where they corralled bewildered tourists and passing dog walkers into a circle to recite his Gorsedd prayer in an English translation. From here, the Druids processed to the deep shade of the nearby sacred grove of hawthorn where biscuits and soft drinks were laid upon a tablecloth with a bunch of wild flowers and some curious wooden utensils.

Following at Jay the Tailor’s shoulder as we strode across the long grass, I could not resist asking about the origin of his staff of hawthorn intertwined with ivy. “It was before I became a Druid, when I was losing my Christian faith,” he confessed to me, “I was attending a County Fair and a stick maker who had Second Sight offered to make it for me for fifteen pounds.” Before I could ask more, we arrived in the grove and it was time to get the ritual organised. Everyone was as polite and good humoured as at a Sunday school picnic.

A photocopied order of service was distributed, we formed a circle, and it was necessary to select a Modron to stand in the west, a Mabon to stand in the north, a Thurifer to stand in the east and a Celebrant to stand in the South. Once we all had practised chanting our Greek vowels while processing clockwise, Jay the Tailor rapped his staff firmly on the ground and we were off. A narrow wooden branch – known as the knife that cannot cut – was passed around and we each introduced ourselves.

In spite of the apparent exoticism of the event and the groups of passersby stopping in their tracks to gaze in disbelief, there was a certain innocent familiarity about the proceedings – which celebrated nature, the changing season and the spirit of the place. In the era of the French and the American Revolutions, Iolo Morganwr declared Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association. Notions that retain strong resonance to this day.

Once the ritual wound up, we had exchanged kisses of peace Druid-style and everyone ate a biscuit with a gulp of apple juice, I was able to ask Jay the Tailor more questions.“I lost my Christian faith because I studied Theology and I found it difficult to believe Jesus was anything other than a human being, even though I do feel he was a very important guide and I had a personal experience of Jesus when I met Him on the steps of Oxford Town Hall,” he admitted, leaving me searching for a response.

“When I was fourteen, I went up Cader Idris at Midsummer and spent all night and the next day there, and the next night I had a vision of Our Lady of Mists & Sheep,” he continued helpfully,“but that just added to my confusion.” I nodded sagely in response.“I came to Druids through geometry, through studying the heavens and recognising there is an order of things,” he explained to me, “mainly because I am a tailor and a pattern cutter, so I understand sacred geometry.” By now, the other Druids were packing up, disposing of the litter from the picnic in the park bins and heading eagerly towards the pub.

I have such a fond memory of that afternoon Colin O’Brien and I enjoyed among the druids on Primrose Hill.

“Do not tell the priest of our plight for he would call it a sin, but we have been out in the woods all night, a-conjuring the Summer in!” – Rudyard Kipling

Sun worshippers on Primrose Hill

Memorial to Iolo Morganwg who initiated the ritual on Primrose Hill in 1792

Peter Barker, Thurifer – “I felt I was a pagan for many years. I always liked gods and goddesses, and the annual festivals are part of my life and you meet a lot of good people.”

Maureen – “I’m a Druid, a member of O.B.O.D. (the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids), and I’ve done all three grades”

Sarah Louise Smith – “I’m training to be a druid with O.B.O.D. at present”

Simeon Posner, Astrologer – “It helps my soul to mature, seeing the life cycle and participating in it”

John Leopold – “I have pagan inclinations”

Jay the Tailor, Druid of Wormwood Scrubs

Iolo Morgamwg (Edward Williams) Poet & Monumental Mason, 1747-1826

Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien

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At The Pagan Parade

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I wonder if those who work in the corporate financial industries in Bishop’s Sq today ever cast their eyes down to the cavernous medieval Charnel House of c. 1320 beneath their feet, once used to store the dis-articulated bones of many thousands of those who died here of the Great Famine in the thirteenth century.

Inspector of Ancient Monuments, Jane Siddell, believes starving people flooded into London from Essex seeking food after successive crop failures and reached the Priory of St Mary Spital where they died of hunger and were buried here. It was a dark vision of apocalyptic proportions on such a bright day, yet I held it in in mind yesterday as we descended beneath the contemporary building to the stone chapel below.

At first, you notice the knapped flints set into the wall as a decorative device, like those at Southwark Cathedral and St Bartholomew the Great. London does not have its own stone and Jane pointed out the different varieties within the masonry and their origins, indicating that this building was a sophisticated and expensive piece of construction subsidised by wealthy benefactors. A line of small windows admitted light and air to the Charnel House below, and low walls that contain them survive which would once have extended up to the full height of the chapel.

When you stand down in the cool of the Charnel House, several metres below modern ground level, and survey the neatly-faced stone walls and the finely-carved buttresses, it is not difficult to complete the vault over your head and imagine the chapel above. Behind you are the footings of the steps that led down and there is an immediate sense of familiarity conveyed by the human proportion and architectural detailing, as if you had just descended the staircase into it.

This entire space would once have been packed with bones, in particular skulls and leg bones – which we recognise in the symbol of the skull & crossbones – the essential parts to be preserved so that the dead might be able to walk and talk when they were resurrected on Judgement Day. Yet they were rudely expelled and disposed of piecemeal at the Reformation when the Priory of St Mary Spital was dissolved in 1540.

Brick work and the remains of a beaten earth floor indicate that the Charnel House may have become a storeroom and basement kitchen for a dwelling above in the sixteenth century. Later, it was filled with rubble from the Fire of London and levelled-off as houses were built across Spitalfields in the eighteenth century. Thus the Charnel House lay forgotten and undisturbed as a rare survival of fourteenth century architecture, until 1999 when it was unexpectedly discovered by the builders constructing the current office block. Yet it might have been lost then if the developers had not – showing unexpected grace – reconfigured their building in order to let it stand.

Around the site lie stray pieces of masonry individually marked by the masons – essential if they were to receive the correct payment from their labours. Thus our oldest building bears witness to the human paradox of economic reality, which has always co-existed uneasily with a belief in the spiritual world, since it was a yearning for redemption in the afterlife that inspired the benefactors who paid for this chapel in Spitalfields more than seven centuries ago

The exterior walls are decorated with knapped flints, faced in Kentish Ragstone upon a base of Caen Stone with use of green Reigate Stone for corner stones

Window bricked up in the sixteenth century

Inside the Charnel House once packed with bones

Twelfth century denticulated Romanesque buttress brought from an earlier building and installed in the Charnel House c.1320 – traces of red and black paint were discovered upon this.

Fine facing stonework within the Charnel House

Fourteenth century masons’ marks

The Charnel House is to be seen in the foreground of this illustration from the fifteen-fifties

The Charnel House during excavations

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In a Well in Spitalfields

A Dead Man in Clerkenwell

In the Crypt of Christ Church, Spitalfields

In the Crypt of St Leonards, Shoreditch

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It is my delight to publish these old Whitechapel letterheads and receipts from Philip Mernick‘s astonishing ephemera collection. Many are remarkable for the beauty of their typographic design as well as revealing the wide range of industry and commerce. 

Speigelhalters were in Whitechapel from 1928 until 1988

Gardiner’s Corner was a familiar landmark in East End for generations

This was the family business of the artist Nathaniel Kornbluth

All letterheads and receipts courtesy of Philip Mernick

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Old East End Letterheads & Receipts

The Trade Cards of Old London