The Loneliness Of Old London
Lost in Old London – Rose Alley, Southwark, c. 1910
When I first came to live in London, I had few friends, no job and little money, but I somehow managed to rent a basement room in Portobello. For a year, I wandered the city on foot, exploring London without any bus fare. I think I never felt so alone as when I drifted aimlessly in the freezing fog in Hyde Park in 1983.
As I walked, I used to puzzle how I could ever find my life in London. Then I went back and sat in my tiny room for countless hours and struggled to write, without success.
Today, I am sometimes haunted by the spectre of my pitiful former self as I travel around London and, when examining the thousands of glass slides created by the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society for educational lectures at the Bishopsgate Institute a century ago, I am struck by the lone figures isolated in the cityscape.
The photographers may have included these solitary people to give a sense of human scale – but my response to these pictures is emotional, I cannot resist seeing them as a catalogue of the loneliness of old London.
Alone outside Shepherd’s Bush Empire, c. 1920
Alone at the Chelsea Hospital, c. 1910
Alone at the Natural History Museum, c. 1890
Alone at the Tower of London, c. 1910
Alone at Leg of Mutton Pond, Hampstead, c. 1910
Alone in the Great Hall at Chelsea Hospital, c. 1920
Alone outside St Lawrence Jewry, 1908
Alone in Bunhill Fields, c. 1910
Alone in Hyde Park, c. 1910
Alone at the Guildhall, c. 1910
Alone at Brooke House, Hackney, 1920
Alone on Hampstead Heath, c. 1910
Alone in Thames St, 1920
Alone at the Orangery, Kensington Palace, c. 1910
Alone in the Deans Yard at Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Alone at Hampton Court, c. 1910
Alone at the Houses of Parliament with the statue of Richard I, c. 1910
Alone in the tiltyard at Eltham Palace, c. 1910
Alone in Cloth Fair, c. 1910
Alone at Marble Arch, c. 19o0
Alone at Southwark Cathedral, c. 1910
Alone outside Carpenters’ Hall, c. 1920
Alone outside Jackson Provisions’ shop, Clothfair, c. 1910
Alone outside Blewcoat School, Caxton St, c. 1910
Alone on the Victoria Embankment, c. 1910
Alone outside All Saints Chelsea, c. 1910
Alone at the Albert Hall, c. 1910
Glass slides courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
Take a look at
The Lantern Slides of Old London
The High Days & Holidays of Old London
The Fogs & Smogs of Old London
The Forgotten Corners of Old London
The Statues & Effigies of Old London
Meandering Along The River Lea
Taking advantage of yesterday’s spring sunshine to escape the city and seek some fresh air, I wandered along the river bank from Bow as far as Tottenham Hale
At Cody Dock
Sir Corbet Woodall, Gas Engineer and Governor of the Gas Light and Coke Company, with two of his historic gasometers at Bow
At Bow Lock
Looking towards the tidal mill at Three Mills Island
At Three Mills Island
Who can identify this water fowl?
Old Ford Lock
Beneath the Eastway
Sculling on the Hackney Cut
At Lea Bridge
Barge cat
The Anchor & Hope
Looking towards Clapton
The Lea Rowing Club
At Tottenham Lock
Two Thames Barges at Tottenham Hale
Coal & diesel delivery barge
At Stonebridge Lock
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James Leman’s Album Of Silk Designs
The oldest surviving set of silk designs in the world, James Leman’s album contains ninety ravishingly beautiful patterns created in Steward St, Spitalfields between 1705 and 1710 when he was a young man. It was my delight to visit the Victoria & Albert Museum and study the pages of this unique artefact, which is the subject of an interdisciplinary research project under the auspices of the V&A Research Institute, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Leman Album offers a rare glimpse into an affluent and fashionable sphere of eighteenth century high society, as well as demonstrated the astonishing skill of the journeyman weavers in East London three hundred years ago.
James Leman (pronounced ‘lemon’ like Leman St in Aldgate) was born in London around 1688 as the second generation of a Huguenot family and apprenticed at fourteen to his father, Peter, a silk weaver. His earliest designs in the album, executed at eighteen years old, are signed ‘made by me, James Leman, for my father.’ In those days, when silk merchants customarily commissioned journeyman weavers, James was unusual in that he was both a maker and designer. In later life, he became celebrated for his bravura talent, rising to second in command of the Weavers’ Company in the City of London. A portrait of the seventeen-twenties in the V&A collection, which is believed to be of James Leman, displays a handsome man of assurance and bearing, arrayed in restrained yet sophisticated garments of subtly-toned chocolate brown silk and brocade.
His designs are annotated with the date and technical details of each pattern, while many of their colours are coded to indicate the use of metallic cloth and different types of weave. Yet beyond these aspects, it is the aesthetic brilliance of the designs which is most striking, mixing floral and architectural forms with breathtaking flair in a way that appears startling modern. The Essex Pink and Rosa Mundi are recognisable alongside whimsical architectural forms which playfully combine classical and oriental motifs within a single design. The breadth of James Leman’s knowledge of botany and architecture as revealed by his designs reflects a wide cultural interest that, in turn, reflected flatteringly upon the tastes of his wealthy customers.
Until recently, the only securely identified woven example of a James Leman pattern was a small piece of silk in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Miraculously, just as the V&A’s research project on the Leman Album was launched, a length of eighteenth-century silk woven to one of his designs was offered to the museum by a dealer in historical textiles, who recognised it from her knowledge of the album. The Museum purchased the silk and is now investigating the questions that arise now design and textile may be placed side by side for the first time. With colours as vibrant as the day they were woven three hundred years ago, the sensuous allure of this glorious piece of deep pink silk adorned with elements of lustrous green, blue, red and gold shimmers across the expanse of time and is irresistibly attractive to the eye. Such was the extravagant genius of James Leman, Silk Designer.
On the left is James Leman’s design and on the right is a piece of silk woven from it, revealing that colours of the design are not always indicative of the woven textile
The reverse of each design gives the date and details of the fabric and weave
Portrait of a Master Silk Weaver by Michael Dahl, 1720-5 – believed to be James Leman
All images copyright © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Click here to read about recent research into James Leman’s Album
With grateful thanks to: Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner, Senior Curator of Designs – Dr Victoria Button, Senior Paper Conservator – Clare Browne, Senior Curator of Textiles – Dr Lucia Burgio, Senior Scientist and Eileen Budd, V&A Research Institute Project Manager
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The Principal Operations of Weaving
At Anna Maria Garthwaite’s House
Anna Maria Garthwaite, Silk Designer
David Truzzi-Franconi’s East End
Photographer David Truzzi-Franconi sent me these pictures that he took in the seventies, published for the first time today.
“While I was working in the City of London as an heraldic artist & calligrapher, I discovered on my lunchtime walks that a few paces from the bustle of Bishopsgate led me to another world. I combine a love of the drawing and writing of Geoffrey Fletcher with the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Eventually I bought a Rolleiflex camera and spent my days off exploring the East End with a few rolls of film in my pocket. ” – David Truzzi-Franconi
Derelict House in Bethnal Green
Gunthorpe St, Whitechapel
Shop, E1
Chicksand St, E1
Derelict House, Spitalfields
Knife Grinder, Wilkes St, E1
Street performers at Tower Hill
Three legged dog
Meths drinkers on a bomb site near Brick Lane
Meths Drinkers at the Peabody Buildings
Blending ‘Red Biddy’ – wine and methylated spirits
Blacksmith’s Arms, Isle of Dogs
Thames Foreshore at Low Tide
Three Mills Island, Bow
St Paul’s, Covent Garden
Photographs copyright © David Truzzi-Franconi
Cat Women
This fine collection of portraits of females and their felines was assembled by Alice Maddicott author of CAT WOMEN : An Exploration of Feline Friendships and Lingering Superstitions.
“I became a cat woman the moment I was hit with a thud of love that I’d never realised a creature could produce,” Alice admitted to me. “I never thought I’d become a cat lady but, as I think of it now, the strangest thing is that it is something you can become.”
“It is easy to miss the second cat, he disappears into the white of her floral dress, next to the tabby stripes of his friend.”
“Girl and cat are all the life of this photograph – her happiness so bright.”
“A mother sits, her daughter stands, made one by the curve of her arms. The cat has been grabbed to make a triptych – their little family – a tumble of curves.”
“Look at me and Mary, he says, we are one and you can never tear us apart.”
“Rosalind lifts Marmalade out of the pram – her precious patient.”
“There are some pains only cats can make better.”
“The invisible ribbons that bind her and Sadie are stronger than any threat. She will not leave her.”
“He’s wrapped in arms, she frames him, a tender representation of perfect teenage dreaminess, when the world was vast and full and for the taking.”
“The kitten she holds is Gretel, her brother Hansel is elsewhere, a black blur battling the wire fence.”
“This is not their first Christmas together and each year they pose together by the sparkling tree.”
“On her dress near her shoulder, that could be a tear from naughty claws and teeth.”
“She is smiling but it is the love for her cat that stands out. She cuddles him properly.”
“He’s going doolally, blissed out as she holds him so protectively.”
“Cradling the loose end of a washing line, she rests. A well-earned sit on the steps and a bowl of food for the cat.”
“Her neatly parted hair, clips in place, hides her true wildness, how much she and Moppet share and the joy of freedom waiting for them.”
“She doesn’t look mean, more frustrated and worn out, the feeling any parent of toddlers would understand.”
“This cat is somewhat grander and gazes more at ease than her owner, who is strangely still, arms obscured, buckled feet neatly turned out.”
“Her garden is beautiful and full of sun. Her cat is white and all candyfloss despite the strange grip she has on her.”
“She could have forgotten the strength of the bond she had with her cat then suddenly be flooded with the memory, months or years later.
Photographs and text copyright © Alice Maddicott
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Old Letterheads & Receipts From Whitechapel
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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A Fireplace In Fournier St
After yesterday’s fireplace in Folgate St, here is a fireplace in Fournier St
The scourging
There is a fine house in Fournier St with an old fireplace lined with manganese Delft tiles of an attractive mulberry hue illustrating lurid Biblical scenes. Installed when the house was built in the seventeen fifties by Peter Lekeux – a wealthy silk weaver who supervised two hundred and fifty looms and commissioned designs from Anna Maria Garthwaite – these lively tiles have survived through the centuries to educate, delight and inspire the residents of Spitalfields.
Tiles were prized for their value and their decorative qualities, and in this instance as devotional illustrations too. Yet although Peter Lekeux was a protestant of Huguenot descent, a certain emotionalism is present in these fascinating tiles, venturing into regions of surrealism in the violent imaginative excess of their pictorial imagery. The scourging of Jesus, Judith with the decapitated head of Holofernes, the Devil appearing with cloven feet and bovine features, and Jonah vomited forth by the whale are just four examples of the strangeness of the imaginative universe that is incarnated in this fireplace. Arranged in apparent random order, the tiles divide between scenes from the life of Jesus and Old Testament saints, many set in a recognisable Northern European landscape and commonly populated by people in contemporary dress.
It is possible that the tiles may date from the seventeenth century and originate from continental Europe. Their manufacture developed in Delft when, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Chinese ceramics were imported from Portuguese ships captured by the Dutch, and because these were in demand local potters tried to copy them, starting a new industry in its own right. The earthenware tiles were covered with a tin glaze to create a white ground upon which the design was pricked out from a stencil, and then the artist simply had to join up the dots, producing the images quickly and to a relatively standard design.
“I’m not sure what this is supposed to illustrate!” exclaimed Sister Elizabeth at St Saviour’s Priory, colouring slightly when I showed her the tile of the topless woman dragging a bemused man towards a bed, “Maybe the woman taken in adultery?” Yet she was able to identify all the other stories for me, graciously assenting to my request when I called round to the priory seeking interpretation of the scenes in my photographs – after I had spent a morning in Fournier St crouching in the soot with my camera.
Upon closer examination, several hands are at work in these tiles – with the artist who drew Jesus confronting the Devil in the wilderness and Jonah thrown up by the whale, setting the dominant tone. This individual’s work is distinguished by the particular rubbery lips and fat round noses that recall the features of the Simpsons drawn by Matt Groenig, while the half-human figures are reminiscent of Brueghel’s drawings illustrating the nightmare world of apocalypse. More economic of line is the artist who drew Jesus clearing out the temple and Pilate washing his hands – these drawings have a spontaneous cartoon-like energy, although unfortunately he manages to make Jesus resemble an old lady with her hair in a bun.
There is an ambivalence which makes these tiles compelling. You wonder if they served as devout remembrances of the suffering of biblical figures, or whether a voyeuristic entertainment and perverse pleasure was derived from such bizarre illustrations. Or whether perhaps there are ambiguous shades of feeling in the human psyche that combine elements of each? A certain crossover between physical pain and spiritual ecstasy is a commonplace of religious art. It depends how you like your religion, and in these tiles it is magical and grotesque – yet here and now.
My head spins, imagining the phantasmagoria engendered in viewers’ imaginations over the centuries, as their eyes fell upon these startling scenes in the glimmering half-light, before dozing off beside this fireplace in a weary intoxicated haze, in the quiet first floor room at the back of the old house in Fournier St.
In the wilderness, the Devil challenges Jesus to turn stones into bread.
Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.
St Jerome with the lion in the wilderness.
Jesus drives the traders from the temple.
Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well.
Sampson and Delilah, cutting Sampson’s hair
Noah’s flood.
The woman who touched Jesus’ robes secretly and was instantly cured of her haemorrhage.
Judith with the head of Holofernes
Pilate washes his hands after Jesus is bound and led away.
Jesus and the fishermen
Jonah sits under the broom tree outside Nineveh.
The soldiers bring purple robes to Jesus to rebuke him when he claims to be an emperor.
Jonah is cast up by the whale upon the shore of Nineveh.
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