The Last Days Of Smithfield Market
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As London’s oldest market prepares to move out of the City, Photographer Orlando Gili has been down at Smithfield, documenting the last generation of butchers to work at this ancient site
Greg Lawrence Junior and Greg Lawrence Junior Junior, Owners of G Lawrence Wholesale Meat
‘I arrived at Smithfield in the dead of night to photograph London’s renowned meat market which is set for permanent closure. The last pubs had long closed and it was a few hours before tube station shutters were wrenched open.
Walking towards the market, you are met by a wave of sound, beeps and wheels dragged over tarmac, bearing the weighty chunks of meat wrapped in plastic. Emitting at a different frequency is the grumble from a line of white lorries and vans, punctuated by shouts and low pitched chatter. Smithfield is very much alive and in full operational mode at this time. Within minutes of arriving, I am dressed in white overalls and deep inside the bowels of the market, photographing blood splattered butchers, and dodging lines of dead animals hanging from hooks.
Experiencing Smithfield at night is to uncover a secret parallel world that operates in the shadows while the rest of London sleeps. There is a sense of frenetic energy and unpredictability. Forklifts whizz past men in long jackets hunched over neatly stacked boxes, punching numbers into calculators and fielding phone calls. Inside the tall Victorian halls, behind large glass windows, carcasses are hacked into pieces at literally breakneck speed. It is a physical analogue space with a masculine atmosphere. There is a strong sense of camaraderie and familial spirit, many of the businesses are family run.
I returned on early mornings in winter to develop a portrait series that celebrates the people behind the market. Night workers provide an under-appreciated role in modern cities. They risk significant damage to their health to meet the demands of the 24/7 city. According to a long-term US study of nurses, night shift workers are up to 11% more likely to die early compared to those who work day shifts.
The historic market will soon relocate to a £1 billion high-tech behemoth in Dagenham. The closure of Smithfield ends over 800 years of trading meat in Central London as part of a wider trend to sanitise inner cities with less palatable aspects of urban life kept out of sight.’
Orlando Gili
Mark, Chicken Salesman
Horatio, Driver
Moro, Butcher
Harry, Shopman
Simon, Salesman
Ian, Chicken Salesman
Greg, Beef Salesman and Sean, Cashier
Jonny, Butcher
Elijah, Salesman
Tony, Retired Boxer, Trader and Restaurant Distributor
Roger, Fork Lift Operator
Dave, Salesman
‘Pig Ear Tony’, Pig Meat Salesman
Charlie, Salesman
Aaron, Butcher, Marcus, Salesman and Mark, Shopman
Luca, Production
Adam, Butcher
Kye, Unloader
Pav, Butcher
Russel, Butcher
James, Sales Manager
Grant, Butcher
Photographs copyright © Orlando Gili
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Joan Brown, The First Woman at Smithfield Market
Learn How To Write A Blog This November
HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ: 25th-26th November 2023
Spend a weekend in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Spitalfields and learn how to write a blog with The Gentle Author.
This course is suitable for writers of all levels of experience – from complete beginners to those who already have a blog and want to advance.
We will examine the essential questions which need to be addressed if you wish to write a blog that people will want to read.
“Like those writers in fourteenth century Florence who discovered the sonnet but did not quite know what to do with it, we are presented with the new literary medium of the blog – which has quickly become omnipresent, with many millions writing online. For my own part, I respect this nascent literary form by seeking to explore its own unique qualities and potential.” – The Gentle Author
COURSE STRUCTURE
1. How to find a voice – When you write, who are you writing to and what is your relationship with the reader?
2. How to find a subject – Why is it necessary to write and what do you have to tell?
3. How to find the form – What is the ideal manifestation of your material and how can a good structure give you momentum?
4. The relationship of pictures and words – Which comes first, the pictures or the words? Creating a dynamic relationship between your text and images.
5. How to write a pen portrait – Drawing on The Gentle Author’s experience, different strategies in transforming a conversation into an effective written evocation of a personality.
6. What a blog can do – A consideration of how telling stories on the internet can affect the temporal world.
SALIENT DETAILS
Courses will be held at 5 Fournier St, Spitalfields on 25th-26th November, running from 10am-5pm on Saturday and 11am-5pm on Sunday.
Lunch, tea, coffee & cakes catered by the Townhouse included within the course fee of £350.
Email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com to book a place on a course.
Please note we do not give refunds if you are unable to attend or if the course is postponed for reasons beyond our control.
Comments by students from courses tutored by The Gentle Author
“I highly recommend this creative, challenging and most inspiring course. The Gentle Author gave me the confidence to find my voice and just go for it!”
“Do join The Gentle Author on this Blogging Course in Spitalfields. It’s as much about learning/ appreciating Storytelling as Blogging. About developing how to write or talk to your readers in your own unique way. It’s also an opportunity to “test” your ideas in an encouraging and inspirational environment. Go and enjoy – I’d happily do it all again!”
“The Gentle Author’s writing course strikes the right balance between addressing the creative act of blogging and the practical tips needed to turn a concept into reality. During the course the participants are encouraged to share and develop their ideas in a safe yet stimulating environment. A great course for those who need that final (gentle) push!”
“I haven’t enjoyed a weekend so much for a long time. The disparate participants with different experiences and aspirations rapidly became a coherent group under The Gentle Author’s direction in a gorgeous house in Spitalfields. There was lots of encouragement, constructive criticism, laughter and very good lunches. With not a computer in sight, I found it really enjoyable to draft pieces of written work using pen and paper.Having gone with a very vague idea about what I might do I came away with a clear plan which I think will be achievable and worthwhile.”
“The Gentle Author is a master blogger and, happily for us, prepared to pass on skills. This “How to write a blog” course goes well beyond offering information about how to start blogging – it helps you to see the world in a different light, and inspires you to blog about it. You won’t find a better way to spend your time or money if you’re considering starting a blog.”
“I gladly traveled from the States to Spitalfields for the How to Write a Blog Course. The unique setting and quality of the Gentle Author’s own writing persuaded me and I was not disappointed. The weekend provided ample inspiration, like-minded fellowship, and practical steps to immediately launch a blog that one could be proud of. I’m so thankful to have attended.”
“I took part in The Gentle Author’s blogging course for a variety of reasons: I’ve followed Spitalfields Life for a long time now, and find it one of the most engaging blogs that I know; I also wanted to develop my own personal blog in a way that people will actually read, and that genuinely represents my own voice. The course was wonderful. Challenging, certainly, but I came away with new confidence that I can write in an engaging way, and to a self-imposed schedule. The setting in Fournier St was both lovely and sympathetic to the purpose of the course. A further unexpected pleasure was the variety of other bloggers who attended: each one had a very personal take on where they wanted their blogs to go, and brought with them an amazing range and depth of personal experience. “
“I found this bloggers course was a true revelation as it helped me find my own voice and gave me the courage to express my thoughts without restriction. As a result I launched my professional blog and improved my photography blog. I would highly recommend it.”
“An excellent and enjoyable weekend: informative, encouraging and challenging. The Gentle Author was generous throughout in sharing knowledge, ideas and experience and sensitively ensured we each felt equipped to start out. Thanks again for the weekend. I keep quoting you to myself.”
“My immediate impression was that I wasn’t going to feel intimidated – always a good sign on these occasions. The Gentle Author worked hard to help us to find our true voice, and the contributions from other students were useful too. Importantly, it didn’t feel like a ‘workshop’ and I left looking forward to writing my blog.”
“The Spitafields writing course was a wonderful experience all round. A truly creative teacher as informed and interesting as the blogs would suggest. An added bonus was the eclectic mix of eager students from all walks of life willing to share their passion and life stories. Bloomin’ marvellous grub too boot.”
“An entertaining and creative approach that reduces fears and expands thought”
“The weekend I spent taking your course in Spitalfields was a springboard one for me. I had identified writing a blog as something I could probably do – but actually doing it was something different! Your teaching methods were fascinating, and I learnt a lot about myself as well as gaining very constructive advice on how to write a blog. I lucked into a group of extremely interesting people in our workshop, and to be cocooned in the beautiful old Spitalfields house for a whole weekend, and plied with delicious food at lunchtime made for a weekend as enjoyable as it was satisfying. Your course made the difference between thinking about writing a blog, and actually writing it.”
“After blogging for three years, I attended The Gentle Author’s Blogging Course. What changed was my focus on specific topics, more pictures, more frequency, more fun. In the summer I wrote more than forty blogs, almost daily from my Tuscan villa on village life and I had brilliant feedback from my readers. And it was a fantastic weekend with a bunch of great people and yummy food.”
“An inspirational weekend, digging deep with lots of laughter and emotion, alongside practical insights and learning from across the group – and of course overall a delightfully gentle weekend.”
“The course was great fun and very informative, digging into the nuts and bolts of writing a blog. There was an encouraging and nurturing atmosphere that made me think that I too could learn to write a blog that people might want to read. – There’s a blurb, but of course what I really want to say is that my blog changed my life, without sounding like an idiot. The people that I met in the course were all interesting people, including yourself. So thanks for everything.”
“This is a very person-centred course. By the end of the weekend, everyone had developed their own ideas through a mix of exercises, conversation and one-to-one feedback. The beautiful Hugenot house and high-calibre food contributed to what was an inspiring and memorable weekend.”
“It was very intimate writing course that was based on the skills of writing. The Gentle Author was a superb teacher.”
“It was a surprising course that challenged and provoked the group in a beautiful supportive intimate way and I am so thankful for coming on it.”
“I did not enrol on the course because I had a blog in mind, but because I had bought TGA’s book, “Spitalfields Life”, very much admired the writing style and wanted to find out more and improve my own writing style. By the end of the course, I had a blog in mind, which was an unexpected bonus.”
“This course was what inspired me to dare to blog. Two years on, and blogging has changed the way I look at London.”
John Leighton’s Cries Of London
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John Leighton’s ‘London Cries & Public Edifices’ were published in 1851 under his pseudonym of ‘Luke Limner.’ Today Leighton is remembered primarily for his designs for book bindings but his ingenious Cries of London evoke the long-lost street life of the capital with sympathy and sly humour.
This Turkish rhubarb seller in Leadenhall St fascinates me, especially as fresh rhubarb is sold by the Costard-Monger in another plate, yet since Leighton refers to rhubarb here as a drug and it is being sold in dried form, I conclude that this gentleman is selling rhubarb as a laxative. I leave you to imagine what cry might be appropriate, although I understand the phrase “Fine Turkey Rhubarb!” was sufficient to get the message across. In fact, John Leighton himself was not averse to a little hawking and if you study the hoardings closely, you will see they advertise his other self-published works.
The Cherry Seller, The Milk Maid and The Bay Seller are elegant young women presenting themselves with poise to catch the attention of the viewer, but in engraving of The Match Seller a different sensibility is at work. The nature of the viewer is specified through the shadow of the lady and gentleman approaching the Bank of England – and the anxious expression upon the seller’s face underlines the irony of the lowliest vendor standing in front of the symbol of the greatest wealth.
Each of Leighton’s characters have vivid life, as if they are paying rapt attention – like the Cats’ & Dogs’ Meat Seller in Smithfield, surrounded by dogs and cats, and just waiting for an animal lover to come along with cash to feed the hungry. Some of these engravings appear to be portraits, because who would invent the one-legged Chair Mender or the flamboyant Costard Monger or the crone Watercress Seller who appears to have walked out a fairy tale? The hunched posture of the Umbrella Mender tells you everything about his profession, while the Hot Potato Seller jumping to keep warm in the snow suggests direct observation from life.
It is remarkable how many of the landmarks of 1851 stand unchanged – in the City of London, where John Soane’s Bank of England, the Mansion House and the Royal Exchange face each other today just as they did then, and further west, Charing Cross Station and Trafalgar Square are as we know them. At first, I thought the sellers and the buildings looked as if they were from separate drawings that had been pasted together, until I realised that this disparity is the point – the edifices of wealth and the occupations of the poor.
The Tinker is swinging his fire-pot to make it burn, having placed his soldering iron in it, and is proceeding to some corner to repair the saucepan he carries.
Of all the poor itinerants of London, the Matchsellers are the poorest and subsist as much as on donations as by the sale of their wares
Here is a poor Irish boy endeavouring to dispose of his oranges to some passengers outside an omnibus
These little prisons are principally manufactured by foreigners who have them of all sizes to suit the nature and habits of little captive melodists
This artificer does not necessarily pay much rent for workshops, as he commences operations with his canes or rushes up the nearest court or gateway
As the vendor approaches, the cats and dogs bound out at the well-known cry
The costume of the Dustman bears a string resemblance to that of the Coalheaver, probably through their being connected with the same material, the one before it is burnt, the one after
The blind must gain a livelihood as well as those who are blest with sight. He sells cabbage nets, kettle-holders, and laces, doubtless the work of his own hands in the evenings
During the day, the Umbrella-mender goes his rounds, calling “Umbrellas to mend! Sixpence a piece for your broken umbrellas!” and then he returns home to patch and mend them, after which he hawks them for sale. Here he appears in his glory under the auspices of St Swithin.
Of cherries, there are a great variety and most come from the county of Kent
The Costard Monger is an itinerant vendor of garden produce, in the background is a seller of hearthstones in conversation with a Punch & Judy man
The dealers in these items are mostly Italians, our vendor has some high class items, the Farnese Hercules, Cupid & Psyche, and Chantrey’s bust of Sir Walter Scott.
“How very cold it is!” The Potato-merchant jumps about to warm his feet
Bow Pots! (or Bay Pots!) two a penny!
Wild ducks from the fens of Lincolnshire, Rabbits from Hampshire and Poultry from Norfolk
There is a law that permits of Mackerel being sold on Sundays, and here comes the beadle to warn off the Fish-woman
The old clothesman and bonnet-box seller go their rounds
Of dealers in milk there are two classes – the one keeping cows, and the other purchasing it from dairymen in the outskirts and selling it on their own account
At half past eight, the step is mopped and Betty runs to get the penny for the poor old dame
Knife Grinder at the entrance to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with a seller of rush, rope and wool mats
This is the evening cry in Winter
John Leighton and his Cries of London
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Ted Vanner, Model Steamboat Pioneer
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Ted with SS Star
This is the earliest photograph of Ted Vanner, taken when when he was twenty-six years old in 1909, cradling one of his cherished creations with barely-concealed pride. Born in 1883 in Deptford as the second of seven children, Ted began his working life as a blacksmith and apparently gained no formal training as an engineer yet became a legendary innovator in model boat design. An early member of Victoria Model Steamboat Club, founded in 1904, Ted remained prominent in the club for more than sixty years until his death in 1955 when his wife Daisy continued to race his boats in her nineties until her death in 1973.
In later life, Ted Vanner recalled that he, along with other Victoria Model Steamboat Club members, took part in the first ever Model Engineer Regatta at Wembley in 1908. They all met at the Club Boat House in Victoria Park at 5:30am where Mr Blaney was busy cooking eggs and bacon over an oil stove for breakfast, and set out for Wembley in a horsedrawn van carrying boats and owners, ‘stopping at a few hurdles on the way.’
Working with the most rudimentary tools, it was his skill working with sheet metal and tinplate that set Ted Vanner apart from other competitors. According to Boat Club President Norman Phelps, Ted started with a ‘buck’ made from orange boxes and plasterer’s laths, which he would ‘plate’ with sections of cocoa tins. In order to create a joint that could be soldered, each plate overlapped the previous one, starting from the stern and working forward. This was Ted’s method to create elegantly stream-lined hulls that enabled him to produce model boats which were faster than his rivals. The refined shapes were achieved by ‘stroking’ the tin over a flat iron before the plates were soldered together with a large iron, heated either in the living room fire or on a gas ring.
In spite of these primitive construction techniques, Ted became an ambitious innovator. The early boats he built were steam driven tugs, such as he would have seen in the London Docks, but he quickly graduated to speed boats with sophisticated multi-cylinder engines. Ted acquired a reputation, competing at regattas all around the country, carrying his boats on the train and representing Victoria Model Steamboat Club in Paris in 1927, winning first prize with Bon-Ami, second prize with Leda III and third prize with Ledaette.
Today, Victoria Model Steamboat Club is one of only a small handful of surviving model boat clubs but you may still see their vessels on the Victoria Park Boating Lake each Sunday in Summer. Many of the boats in the collection are now over a century old and, if you are lucky, you may even get to see one of Ted Vanner’s creations in action. Seven of his elegant craft remain in working order, carrying his reputation into the future. An inspirational creator, making so much out of so little with such astonishing ingenuity, Ted Vanner is an unsung hero and legend in the civilised world of model boat clubs.
Victoria Model Steamboat Club, 1909
Outside the Club House in Victoria Park
Boats inside the Club House
Ted releases Danube III
Ted is second from left
Ted releases Leda III
Ted stands on the right in this photo in Paris in 1927
Ted is fourth from the right in this line up at St Albans
On the Round Pond Kensington, 1954
Ted wins a trophy for Victoria Park Steamboat Club at Forest Gate Regatta, May 10th 1954
Presenting the prizes at the Victoria Park Model Steamboat Regatta, 1955
At this Model Boat club dinner, Ted & Daisy Vanner sit in the middle of the back row
Daisy Vanner in the fifties
Daisy and Ted on the left
In her nineties, Daisy Vanner continued to compete in regattas with Ted’s boats after his death
Leda III and All Alone, two of seven of Ted’s boats still in working order today
With thanks to Tim Westcott for supplying the photographs accompanying this feature
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Norman Phelps, Boat Club President
Lucinda Douglas Menzies at Victoria Park Steam Model Boat Club
Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Churches
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St George’s, Bloomsbury 1716 – 1731
In 1711 Nicholas Hawksmoor was fifty years old yet, although he had already worked with Christopher Wren on St Paul’s Cathedral and for John Vanbrugh on Castle Howard, the buildings that were to make his name were still to come. In that year, an Act of Parliament created the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches to serve the growing population on the fringes of the expanding city. Only twelve of these churches were ever built, but Nicholas Hawksmoor designed six of them and – miraculously – they have all survived, displaying his unique architectural talent to subsequent generations and permitting his reputation to rise as time has passed.
Living in the parish of Christ Church and within easy reach of the other five Hawksmoor churches, I realised that sooner or later I should make a pilgrimage to visit them all. And so, taking advantage of some fleeting spells of sunlight and clear skies in recent days, I set out to the west, the south and to the east from Spitalfields to photograph these curious edifices.
In 1710, the roof of the ancient church of St Alfege in Greenwich collapsed and the parishioners petitioned the Commission to rebuild it and Hawksmoor took this on as the first of his London churches. Exceeding any repair, he remodelled the building entirely, although his design was “improved” and the pilasters added to the exterior by fellow architect Thomas Archer, compromising the clean geometric lines that characterise Hawksmoor’s other churches. His vision was further undermined when the Commission refused to fund replacing the medieval tower with an octagonal lantern as he wished, so he retained the motif, employing it at St George-in-the-East a few years later. Latterly, the tower of St Alfege was refaced and reworked by Hawksmoor’s collaborator John James in 1730. Yet in spite of the different hands at work, the structure presents a satisfyingly harmonious continuity of design today, even if the signature of Hawksmoor is less visible than in his other churches.
Before Hawksmoor’s involvement with St Alfege was complete in 1716, he had already begun designs for St George-in-the-East, St Anne’s Limehouse and Christ Church Spitalfields. In each case, he was constructing new churches without any limitation of pre-existing structures or the meddling hands of other architects. These three churches share many characteristics, of arched doorways counterpointed by arched and circular windows, and towers that ascend telescopically, in graduated steps, resolving into a spire at Christ Church, a lantern at St George-in-the-East and a square tower at St Anne’s. This is an energetic forceful mode of architecture, expressed in bold geometric shapes that could easily become overbearing if the different elements of the design were not balanced within the structure, but the success of these churches is that they are always proportionate to themselves. While the outcome of Hawksmoor’s architecture is that they are awe-inspiring buildings to approach, cutting anyone down to size, conversely they grant an increased sense of power to those stepping from the door. These are churches designed to make you feel small when you go in and big when you come out.
In 1716, Hawksmoor began work on what were to be the last two of his solo designs for churches, St Mary Woolnoth and St George’s, Bloomsbury. Moving beyond the vocabulary of his three East End churches, he took both of these designs in equally ambitious but entirely different and original directions. St Mary Woolnoth in the City of London was constructed upon a restricted site and is the smallest of Hawksmoor’s churches, yet the limitation of space resulted in an intense sombre design, as if the energy of his larger buildings were compressed and it is a dynamic structure held in tense equilibrium, like a coiled spring or a bellows camera held shut.
St George’s Bloomsbury was the last of Hawksmoor’s churches and his most eccentric, completed in 1731 when he was seventy as the culmination of twenty extraordinarily creative years. Working again upon a constricted site, he contrived a building with a portico based upon the Temple of Bacchus in Baalbek and a stepped tower based upon the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus which he adorned with a statue of George I upon the top, flanked by the lion and unicorn to celebrate the recent defeat of the Jacobites. Undertaken with such confidence and panache, Hawksmoor’s design is almost convincing and the enclosed location spares exposure, permitting the viewer to see only ever a portion of the building from any of the available angles.
The brooding presence of Hawksmoor’s churches has inspired all manner of mythologies woven around the man and his edifices. Yet the true paradox of Hawksmoor’s work stems from the fact that while he worked in the Classical style, he could never afford the opportunity to undertake the Grand Tour and see the works of the Renaissance masters and ruins of antiquity for himself. Thus, he fashioned his own English interpretation which was an expression of a Gothic imagination working in the language of Classical architecture. It is this curious disconnection that makes his architecture so fascinating and gives it such power. Nicholas Hawksmoor was incapable of the cool emotional restraint implicit in Classicism, he imbued it with a ferocity that was the quintessence of English Baroque.
St Alfege, Greenwich 1712-16
St Mary Woolnoth, Bank 1716-24
St George-in-the-East, Wapping 1714-1729
St Anne’s, Limehouse 1714-1730
Christ Church, Spitalfields 1714-1729
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John Dempsey’s Portraits
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Fifty Years Porter, Charing Cross, 1824
It is my delight to present John Dempsey’s street portraits from the eighteen-twenties held in the collection of the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery. Originally attributed to George Scharf, they were identified as the work of John Dempsey (1802-74) by curator David Hansen who discovered a folio of fifty-one portraits in 1996 in a drawer labelled ‘U’ for unknown.
Dempsey was an itinerant jobbing artist without any formal training who created ‘Likenesses of Public Characters’ in London and the provincial cities of England, as he travelled around in search of commissions for portrait miniatures and silhouettes. No record exists of any exhibitions and in 1845, he was declared bankrupt. Yet his achievement is unique and enduring.
In spite of Dempsey’s unconventional perspective and disproportionate figures, he created portraits full of humanity that evoke the presence of street people and the outcast poor with compassion and vitality. These are portraits of individuals and they are full of life. As an itinerant artist in an age that did not distinguish between street traders and beggars, he dignified his fellow travellers through his portraits. He understood their lives because he shared their precarious existence.
When I first saw these pictures, I was startled by how familiar they appeared to me and I assumed this was because I have spent so much time looking at prints of The Cries of London. But then I realised that I recognised the demeanour and expression of John Dempsey’s portraits because I see them, their crew and their kin, every day as I walk around the streets of London two centuries later.
Sharp, Orange Man, Colchester, 1823
Watercress, Salisbury
Black Charley, Bootmaker, Norwich, 1823
Muffin Man
Mary Croker, Mat Woman, Colchester, 1823
Sam’l Hevens, Old Jew, 1824
Charles M’Gee, Crossing Sweeper, London, c 1824
Old Bishop, Pieman, Harwich
Woolwich, 1824
Match Woman, Woolwich, 1824
Mark Custings (commonly called Blind Peter) and his boy, Norwich, 1823
Copeman, Gardener, Yarmouth
A Bill Poster, 1825
The Doorkeeper, Royal Managerie, Exeter ‘Change, (London) 1824
Images reproduced courtesy of Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery
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Alan Stapleton’s Alleys, Byways & Courts
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In the archive at the Bishopsgate Institute, I had the good fortune to come across a copy of Alan Stapleton’s London’s Alleys, Byways & Courts, 1923. A title guaranteed to send anyone as susceptible as myself meandering through the capital’s forgotten thoroughfares, yet the great discovery is how many of these have survived in recognisable form today. Clearly a kindred spirit, Stapleton prefaces his work with the following quote from Dr Johnson (who lived in a square at the end of an alley) – ‘If you wish to have a notion of the magnitude of this great city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but survey its innumerable little lanes and courts.’
St John’s Passage, EC1
Passing Alley, EC1
St John’s Gate from Jerusalem Passage, EC1
Stewart’s Place, Clerkenwell Green, EC1
Clerkenwell Close, EC1
Savoy Steps, Strand, WC2
Red Lion Passage, Red Lion Sq, WC1
Corner of Kingley St & Foubert’s Place, W1
Market St, Shepherd Market, W1
Crown Court, Pall Mall, SW1
Rupert Court, W1
Meard’s St, W1
Conduit Court, Long Acre, WC2
Devereaux Court, Strand, WC2
Greystoke Place, Chancery Lane, EC4
Huggin Lane, Cannon St, EC4
Mitre Court, EC1
Faulkner’s Alley, Cow Cross St, EC1
Last of Snatcher’s Island, Drury Lane, WC2
Brick Lane looking north
Brick Lane looking south
‘Hatton in 1708 called Brick Lane the longest lane in London, being nearly three quarters of a mile long. But Park Lane by Hyde Park was then six furlongs thirteen poles in length, so it had the advantage of Brick Lane, the length of which was five furlongs four poles. Today, Brick Lane by taking in its length its old continuations, Tyssen St and Turk’s St now beats it by thirteen poles. Tyssen St measuring one furlong fourteen poles and Turk’s St eight poles, thus bringing the length of the current Brick Lane to six furlongs twenty-six poles. Yet White HorseLane was undoubtedly the longest in London when it existed’ – Alan Stapelton 1923
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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