Letters From The SPAB Archive
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These are letters I found in the archive at the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in Spital Sq, confirming that my own modest involvement in campaigning has many noble precedents – as over the last one hundred and forty years, many writers and artists have sought to use their influence in a similar vein. Click on any of the images below to enlarge and read the text.
William Morris wrote to the Reverend H. West of the church at North Fordingham to express the Society’s disapproval about proposed building works and the letter encapsulates the founding principles of the SPAB in Morris’s own hand. They strongly objected to the Victorian passion for ‘restoring’ medieval buildings to an imagined state of antiquity. Believing this work to be pastiche and worse, Morris understood that it injured historic fabric as the guilty parties stripped and destroyed to achieve their own, largely inaccurate vision of what the building should have looked like. The word ‘restore’ is particularly significant as it implies putting back things that weren’t necessarily there in the first place. ‘Repair’ is still the Society’s operative word.
Reports of destructive activities came to the Society from many famous correspondents – here George Gilbert Scott ( Architect of St Pancras Station) writes of damage to the church at Mells in Somerset.
Edward Burne Jones write to Thackeray Turner (one of the earliest SPAB Secretaries) regarding problems at Worcester Cathedral on February 9th, 1897
William Holman Hunt wrote with great passion to Morris about his concerns over proposed ‘extensive repairs’ to the Great Mosque in Jerusalem. He writes with dismay that the gates have been painted “a vivid pea green that would disgrace a Whitechapel Shop front.”
Thanks to the concern of Charles Robert Ashbee, designer & founder of the School of Handicraft in Bow, the magnificent seventeenth century Trinity Almshouses still stand in Whitechapel today..
Octavia Hill, social reformer and one of the founders of the National Trust, wrote this grief struck letter about proposed alterations to the West Front of Peterborough Cathedral.
In his professional guise as an architectural surveyor, Thomas Hardy was a committed SPAB caseworker protecting churches in the West Country. In these hastily scribbled cards he writes in anguish over Puddletown Church which featured in Tess of the D’Urbevilles.
George Bernard Shaw wrote to the Society on 15th July 1929, enquiring over the wisdom of restoration at the church in Ayot St Lawrence.
John Betjeman wrote to ask for SPAB’s advice on the Unitarian Chapel, Newbury, which was built in 1697. Three months previously, it was sold to the YWCA who were raising funds to ‘repair’ it.
As a SPAB council member, John Betjeman wrote this comic note signed pseudonymously – indicative of the humour that prevailed.
Letters courtesy of Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings
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Sandle Brothers, Manufacturing Stationers
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Today there is not even one stationer left but, not so long ago, there were a multitude of long-established manufacturing stationers in and around the City of London. Sandle Brothers opened in one small shop in Paternoster Row on November 1st 1893, yet soon expanded and began acquiring other companies (including Dobbs, Kidd & Co, founded in 1793) until they filled the entire street with their premises – and become heroic stationers, presiding over long-lost temples of envelopes, pens and notepads, recorded in this brochure from the Bishopsgate Institute.
The Envelope Factory
Stationery Department – Couriers’ Counter
A Corner of the Notepad & Writing Pad Showroom
Gallery for Pens in the Stationers’ Sundries Department
Account Books etc in the Stationers’ Sundries Department
Japanese Department
Picture Postcard & Fancy Jewellery Department
One of the Packing Departments
Leather & Fancy Goods Department
Books & Games Department
Christmas Card, Birthday Card & Calendar Department
A Corner of the Export Department
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Swan Upping Season
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Since before records began, Swan Upping has taken place on the River Thames in the third week of July – chosen as the ideal moment to make a census of the swans, while the cob (as the male swan is known) is moulting and flightless, and before the cygnets of Spring take flight at the end of Summer. This ancient custom stems from a world when the ownership and husbandry of swans was a matter of consequence, and they were prized as roasting birds for special occasions.
Rights to the swans were granted as privileges by the sovereign and the annual Swan Upping was the opportunity to mark the bills of cygnets with a pattern of lines that indicated their provenance. It is a rare practice from medieval times that has survived into the modern era and I have always been keen to see it for myself – as a vision of an earlier world when the inter-relationship of man and beast was central to society and the handling of our fellow creatures was a important skill.
So it was my good fortune to join the Swan Uppers of the Worshipful Company of Vintners’ for a day on the river from Cookham to Marlow, just one leg of their seventy-nine mile course from Sunbury to Abingdon over five days. The Vintners Company were granted their charter in 1363 and a document of 1509 records the payment of four shillings to James the under-swanherd “for upping the Master’s swans” at the time of the “great frost” – which means the Vintners have been Swan Upping for at least five hundred years.
Swan Upping would have once been a familiar sight in London itself, but the embankment of the Thames makes it an unsympathetic place for breeding swans these days and so the Swan Uppers have moved upriver. Apart from the Crown, today only the Dyers’ and Vintners’ Companies retain the ownership of swans on the Thames and each year they both send a team of Swan Uppers to join Her Majesty’s Swan Keeper for a week in pursuit of their quarry.
It was a heart-stopping moment when I saw the Swan Uppers for the first time, coming round the bend in the river, pulling swiftly upon their oars and with coloured flags flying, as their wooden skiffs slid across the surface of the water toward me. Attended by a flotilla of vessels and with a great backdrop of willow framing the dark water surrounding them, it was as if they had materialized from a dream. Yet as soon as I shook hands with the Swan Uppers at The Ferry in Cookham, I discovered they were men of this world, hardy, practical and experienced on the water. All but one made their living by working on the Thames as captains of pleasure boats and barges – and the one exception was a trader at the Billingsgate Fish Market.
There were seven in each of the teams, consisting of six rowers spread over two boats, and a Swan Marker. Some had begun on the water at seven or eight years old as coxswain, most had distinguished careers as competitive rowers as high as Olympic level, and all had won their Doggett’s coat and badge, earning the right to call themselves Watermen. But I would call them Rivermen, and they were the first of this proud breed that I had met, with weathered skin and eager brightly-coloured eyes, men who had spent their lives on the Thames and were experts in the culture and the nature of the river.
They were a tight knit crew – almost a family – with two pairs of brothers and a pair of cousins among them, but they welcomed me to their lunch table where, in between hungry mouthfuls, Bobby Prentice, the foreman of the uppers, told me tales of his attempts to row the Atlantic Ocean, which succeeded on the third try. “I felt I had to go back and do it,” he confessed to me, shaking his head in determination, “But, the third time, I couldn’t even tell my wife until I was on my way.” Bobby’s brother Paul told me he was apprenticed to his father, as a lighterman on the Thames at fifteen, and Roger Spencer revealed that after a night’s trading at Billingsgate, there was nothing he liked so much as to snatch an hour’s rowing on the river before going home for an hour’s nap. After such admissions, I realised that rowing up the river to count swans was a modest recreation for these noble gentlemen.
There is a certain strategy that is adopted when swans with cygnets are spotted by the uppers. The pattern of the “swan voyage” is well established, of rowing until the cry of “Aaall up!” is given by the first to spot a family of swans, instructing the crews to lift their oars and halt the boats. They move in to surround the swans and then, with expert swiftness, the birds are caught and their feet are tethered. Where once the bills were marked, now the cygnets are ringed. Then they are weighed and their health is checked, and any that need treatment are removed to a swan sanctuary. Today, the purpose of the operation is conservation, to ensure well being of the birds and keep close eye upon their numbers – which have been increasing on the Thames since the lead fishing weights that were lethal to swans were banned, rising from just seven pairs between London and Henley in 1985 to twenty-eight pairs upon this stretch today.
Swan Upping is a popular spectator sport as, all along the route, local people turn out to line the banks. In these river communities of the upper Thames, it has been witnessed for generations, marking the climax of Summer when children are allowed out of school in their last week before the holidays to watch the annual ritual.
Travelling up river from Cookham, between banks heavy with deep green foliage and fields of tall golden corn, it was a sublime way to pass a Summer’s afternoon. Yet before long, we passed through the lock to arrive in Marlow where the Mayor welcomed us by distributing tickets that we could redeem for pints of beer at the Two Brewers. It was timely gesture because – as you can imagine – after a day’s rowing up the Thames, the Swan Uppers had a mighty thirst.
Martin Spencer, Swan Marker
Foreman of the Uppers, Bobby Prentice
The Swan Uppers of the Worshipful Company of Vintners, 2011
The Swan Uppers of 1900
The Swan Uppers of the nineteen twenties.
In the nineteen thirties.
The Swan Uppers of the nineteen forties.
In the nineteen fifties.
Archive photographs copyright © Vintners’ Company
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Charles Skilton’s London Life
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Now that the summer visitors are here and thronging in the capital’s streets and transport systems, I thought I would send you this fine set of postcards published by Charles Skilton, including my special favourites the escapologist and the pavement artist.
Looking at these monochrome images of the threadbare postwar years, you might easily imagine the photographs were earlier – but Margaret Rutherford in ‘Ring Round the Moon’ at The Globe in Shaftesbury Ave in number nine dates them to 1950. Celebrated in his day as publisher of the Billy Bunter stories, Charles Skilton won posthumous notoriety for his underground pornographic publishing empire, Luxor Press.
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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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