So Long, Terry Bloomfield
Terry Bloomfield, fishmonger & photographer, died on 28th December last year and I publish this gallery of pictures as a tribute to his unique talent. Terry was born in 1934 and grew up in Columbia Rd as the third generation of a family that worked at Billingsgate, where he ran his own shellfish business. Between 1982, when the market moved to the Isle of Dogs, and 2011, when Terry retired, he recorded the life of Billingsgate in thousands of black and white photographs.
Photographs copyright © Estate of Terry Bloomfield
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In Old Globetown
I took advantage of the rare hours of January sunlight yesterday to take a stroll over to Globetown. You walk east from Museum Gardens in Bethnal Green through Sugar Loaf Walk and immediately recognise you have entered a different neighbourhood, where an atmosphere of domestic quietude prevails in distinct contrast to the clamour you encountered at the junction of Bethnal Green Rd and Cambridge Heath Rd. Cats prowl the empty streets while the residents are either snug in their homes or enjoying a long afternoon in The Camel or The Florists’ Arms.
This former marshland bisected by Globe Lane – now Globe Rd – takes its name from a old tavern that once stood here. The area was built up in the early nineteenth century by exploitative developers, throwing up poor quality homes for weavers on low incomes. Before long, commentators were comparing the notorious Globetown slum with Saffron Hill and St Giles High St. Consequently, most of the good quality nineteenth century building that remains today was constructed as social housing to alleviate the legacy of this poor development.
In Globe Rd, the first structure that you come upon is the handsome red brick Merceron Houses constructed by East End Dwellings Company in 1901. It was built upon the garden of Joseph Merceron, the most reprehensible eighteenth century resident of Bethnal Green, whose notoriety had faded by the end of the nineteenth century. Across the road is a modest sequence of terraces of workers’ cottages in the Arts & Crafts style from 1906 and, directly to the south, towers the handsome Board School with Mendip House and Shepton House beyond. All these buildings were the work of East End Dwellings Company and together they form a sympathetic complex of streets on a human scale, with The Camel adorned with its attractive Art Nouveau tiles at the centre.
Walking south and turning east into the Roman Rd, I was dismayed to discover the beloved Victoria Fish Bar has closed forever. After a lifetime of service behind the fryer, the proprietors have finally retired. On Sunday, Globetown Market Sq was empty but on weekdays this is a popular destination with stalls of keenly-priced fresh produce and the East End’s best wet fish barrow run by Del Downey, third generation fishmonger in this location.
I walked north up Bonner St and turned west again at the former Bishop Bonner pub into Cyprus St, built in a distinctly aspiration style as ‘Wellington St’ in 1850, still remembered in the name of the former Duke of Wellington pub. This is an astonishing and handsome example of an unaltered mid-nineteenth century streetscape.
These distinguished nineteenth century survivals are surrounded by twentieth century housing of greater and lesser quality, evidencing the continuing struggle to overcome the grim legacy of exploitative development – both historical and recent – and give everyone in the East End a decent home.
The Camel on Sugar Loaf Walk dates from before 1861 when it was named as the Museum Beer Shop
Cottages built by East End Dwellings company in Globe Rd
In Gawber Rd
Board School of 1900 in Welwyn St
Open staircase at Mendip Dwellings built by East End Dwellings Company in 1900
The Florists’ Arms in Globe Rd dates from before 1871 and its name refers to the former local culture of competitive flower growing introduced by the Huguenots
The Victoria Fish Bar in Roman Rd has recently closed forever
The Bishop Bonner, Bonner St, dates from before 1863 and its name refers to Bishop Bonner whose palace formerly stood nearby on the site of the London Chest Hospital
In Cyprus St
Memorial to former residents of Cyprus St who died in war – Bethnal Green provided the highest number of volunteers of any London borough in the First World War
Drinking fountain in Museum Gardens
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A Few Doreen Fletcher Paintings
On the Sunday before the opening of Doreen Fletcher’s RETROSPECTIVE next week, I thought I you would show you a few of Doreen’s paintings accompanied by the stories in her own words.
All are welcome at the Private View of Doreen Fletcher’s RETROSPECTIVE at Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts, on Thursday 24th January from 6pm. The exhibition runs until 24th March.
I am IN CONVERSATION WITH DOREEN FLETCHER on Wednesday 30th January 7pm at Nunnery Gallery, showing the paintings and telling the stories. Click here for tickets
Sheldon’s Dress Shop, Knutton, 1982
“It is my mother who is looking in the window of Sheldon’s hairdressers and dress shop. She went once a week to have her hair ‘set’. At that time, she was ten years younger than I am now but considered herself old at fifty-five and dressed accordingly. When I was a child, we used to take a walk each Sunday afternoon to places such as Knutton, a former mining village on the outskirts of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Even in such a small place, a shop like Sheldon’s could support its proprietors.”
Paddington Station at Night, 1992
“Between 1976 and 1983, when I moved to the East End, I lived in Paddington. Looking at this painting now, I am transported once more into that seventies world of tawdry glamour, medium priced hotels and run-down bedsits. The streets around the underground and mainline station all had a slightly seedy quality.”
Hairdresser, Ben Jonson Rd, 2001
“For my thirteenth birthday I was given a hair-do as a rite of passage. It was a horrifying experience and the chemical sprays that were applied to my hair resulted in a life-long aversion to the hairdresser. It was n0t just the discomfort, it was the atmosphere and ambience, and the ordeal of staring into a mirror for half an hour. This salon was part of a twenties parade of shops in Ben Jonson Rd that also contained the launderette I painted. It has been swept away.”
Ice Cream Van, Poplar, 1998
“One of the best remembered pleasures of my childhood was to hear the tinkling tune of the ice cream man that would have me running out into the street. My drawing of this parked van is waiting for the school exodus on the corner of Rhodeswell Rd and Dora St on the Lockesley Estate, Poplar.
Recently some friends visited with their five-year-old granddaughter and, at the sound of the jingle, her eyes lit up. I took her to buy an ice cream and watched with pleasure as she enjoyed the same focused delight in its consumption as I experienced decades before.”
Woodstock Terrace, Poplar, 2002
“When I was teaching at Tower Hamlets College in the nineties, I often used to walk to Chrisp St Market during my lunch break. I liked best taking the quiet road along Poplar High Street past St Matthias Church and down Woodstock Terrace. The most interesting building in the terrace was sandwiched between the end house and the betting shop on the corner of Poplar High St. It looked as if it might once have been a halt for travellers with horses, a staging post perhaps. In fact this building had been a stable and was now used as a haulage yard.
A little while after I completed my coloured pencil drawing, a ‘Dangerous Structure, Keep Off’ notice appeared. Then posters appeared heralding a campaign to save the ‘stables’ but in 2006 a demolition crew moved in and this characterful piece of Victorian architecture vanished into a pile of rubble.”
Roundabout, Turners Rd, Bow, 1990
“I started this drawing of Turners Rd as a record of the disappearance of the corner building in my painting ‘Turners Rd.’ We are looking at piecemeal demolition taking place in order to make way for the reconstruction of Turners Rd in its entirety during the nineties. Perhaps the elegant four storey houses to the rear of the drawing should have been renovated? Yet the intention was honourable – to build affordable housing for those unable to pay high private rents or get a mortgage, many of whom had large families.”
CLICK HERE TO ORDER A SIGNED COPY OF DOREEN FLETCHER’S BOOK FOR £20
Developments On The Horizon
Warehouses in Blossom St drawn by Lucinda Rogers
In the opening sequence of MARY POPPINS RETURNS, the cheery lamplighter cycles round old London at dusk lighting up the lamps, including Blossom St in Norton Folgate, Spitalfields – an atmospheric example of the capital’s surviving nineteenth century streetscape. Too bad that British Land are set on demolishing most of it this year and replacing it with a hideous corporate plaza, granted permission in 2015 by the former Mayor of London Boris Johnson who employed his autocratic power in overturning Tower Hamlets Council’s rejection of the scheme. Before long, the scene in MARY POPPINS RETURNS will exist as a poignant record and reminder of the loss of the medieval liberty of Norton Folgate.
At this moment, we face a slew of exploitative new developments that threaten East End heritage without delivering significant benefits to the people of East London, so I thought I should outline some to you in order that we may prepare ourselves for the fights which are in store.
In 2016, we started a campaign with the Victorian Society to save The Still & Star in Aldgate, the City of London’s last remaining slum pub, and were successful in winning Asset of Community Value status for it. This was the first time the Corporation had granted an ACV and, in spite of an appeal by the developers to have this removed, it was upheld by the City. Now the developers have submitted an application for demolition of the pub for the sake of their vast corporate office block and they intend to maintain the ACV by reconstructing The Still & Star nearby using a surreal, Alice-in-Wonderland-style assemblage of casts of the exterior of the old building in green concrete. Readers are encouraged to register objections at www.planning2.cityoflondon.gov.uk by entering the application reference 16/00406/FULMAJ
We have learnt that Raycliff, the developer who bought The Whitechapel Bell Foundry has just submitted a planning application to Tower Hamlets Council seeking permission for change of use from foundry to bell-themed boutique hotel. We support the UK Historic Building Preservation Trust (founded by HRH The Prince of Wales) and Factum Foundation’s joint scheme to reopen the foundry as a state of the art operation for bells and art casting – marrying old and new technology, and with a strong element of apprenticeships and training. It will take a few weeks for Raycliff’s application to be processed by the Council planning department and become public. Once this happens, we will advise readers of the most effective way to object.
Meanwhile, we plan to stage a legal challenge to the Council’s decision last September granting Crest Nicholson permission to dig up the four hundred year old Bethnal Green Mulberry tree in the grounds of the former London Chest Hospital. We believe that the Council’s interpretation of the planning guidelines revised last July to extend further protection to Veteran & Ancient Trees, which can only be sacrificed in ‘wholly exceptional circumstances’ is questionable. We also consider it to be a poor development with too little social housing that will do irreparable damage to the Victoria Park Conservation Area. Currently the application is with the Mayor of London’s office and only when the decision is ratified can it be challenged.
We will be sure to keep you posted of this and other developments on the horizon.
‘A kind of authenticity’ – facadism to come in Norton Folgate according to British Land. The developer’s image is tactfully cropped at the top to conceal the full height.
The Still & Star, 1951 (Courtesy Heritage Assets/The National Brewery Centre)
The office block that is proposed to replace The Still & Star
Norman Foster’s proposal for a tower at the corner of Commercial St & Whitechapel High St, facading the current building. Again, the developer’s image is tactfully cropped at the top to conceal the full height. Fortunately, Historic England have objected to this monster in a Conservation Area, so it is unlikely to go ahead.
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At Freed Of London Ltd, Ballet & Theatrical Shoe Makers
The shoes worn by the world’s leading ballerinas are made in Hackney by Freed of London the pre-eminent shoemaker to the theatrical profession, producing more than one hundred and fifty thousand pairs a year to supply companies scattered around the globe.
Founded in 1920 by Frederick Freed, a sample shoemaker, and his wife Dora, a milliner, in St Martin’s Lane in a shop where the company still trades today, Freed’s introduced the notion of fitting ballet shoes to individual dancers’ feet where once only standard sizes were available. This simple decision revolutionised the production of ballet shoes, brought international success to Freed and delivered their first celebrity endorsement, when Moira Shearer wore a pair manufactured by Freed in “The Red Shoes.”
As you catch sight of the nondescript frontage of Freed of London’s factory in Well St, going past on the bus, you might not think twice about what lies inside. Yet there is a certain point within the building where you turn a corner and confront a breathtaking vision of more pink satin shoes than you ever dreamed of, piled up in various stages of manufacture. In the shimmering blend of daylight filtering through the skylights and the glow of the fluorescent tubes, the lustrous satin glistens with a radiant life of its own as if you were gazing upon seashells lit by sunlight refracted through crystal Caribbean waters. Even before they reach the dancers, the magic of the shoemakers’ art has imbued these shoes with a certain living charge just waiting to be released.
Until the eighties, Hackney was the centre of shoe manufacture in London with Cordwainers’ College training students in the necessary skills to work in the local factories. But the college and almost all the factories have gone, except Freed. Yet the most talented veterans gravitated to Freed and when Contributing Photographer Patricia Niven & I visited them, we encountered a proud workforce who are collectively responsible for the phenomenal success of Freed as the world’s leading maker of ballet and theatrical shoes.
We started in the Theatrical Department where shoes for musical theatre are made, overseen by Supervisor Ozel Ahmed who has worked here twenty years. At one end, designer and pattern cutter Jimmy Fenn worked in his cabin designing, next to the clickers who cut out the leather – and beyond them were a handful of people sitting at machines, sewing the pieces together with meticulous attention to detail. Ozel explained they only made five to seven hundred pairs of shoes a week in her department, as opposed to the three to four thousand which would get manufactured by the same number of people producing shoes for the fashion market. And then she took one of those shiny, strappy, diamanted confections that are barely-there, for which she is responsible, and bent it in half to show how soft and flexible it was. The shoe was a discreet masterpiece of elegant structure and subtly judged tension, strongly manufactured to suit the needs of a dancer performing nightly in musical theatre. “There is no single West End show without a pair of our shoes,” Ozel assured me confidently.
Next door in the Lasting Room where the different elements were assembled to complete the shoe, large machines dominated yet there were also plenty of people in evidence with pots and brushes, applying glue strategically. “Everyone in this room, you’re talking a minimum of thirty years’ experience,” revealed Ronny Taylor, the Lasting Room Foreman. Gazing around this room, there was a startling contrast between the battered industrial equipment and the perfectly glossy delicate little shoes, and I was fascinated by the long line of distinctive skills each applied to different aspects of the construction of them.
In the Ballet Department where pointe shoes were made, a different atmosphere reigned. There was no machinery at all and we had gone back more than hundred years to the working practices of the lone artisan using just three tools to make ballet shoes. I discovered the pointe shoe makers are a class apart within the factory – they work at separate personal benches, their employment is piecework and they are their own men, identified by the symbols they impress upon the shoes they make – such as Crown or Wine Glass or Fish. “There’s no wood in the block of a pointe shoe,” explained the shoe maker known as Crown, “just paper, card, hessian and flour and water paste.”
Every ballerina chooses a maker who makes her shoes according to her personal specifications and then will wear no other. I learnt of cases where ballerinas had refused to go on stage if a pair of shoes by their maker was not available. “They order thirty pairs at a time and a lot will only use them once, so they will be destroyed after a single performance,” admitted Crown who has been making pointe shoes for twenty-four years, whose daily output is forty-one pairs and whose clients include some of the most famous ballerinas alive. “It’s not how fast you go,” he told me, speaking of his productivity, “You must learn how to make the shoes and build up your rhythm before you can pick up the speed, because you’ve got to keep the quality of the shoes consistent.”
The nature of the specialised production process at Freed of London means that the contribution of every member of the team is crucial to the success of the company. It is a rare place where skills and old trades are prized, and wedded happily to the glamour of show business, ensuring that the artistry of the shoemakers of Hackney earns applause on stages throughout the world.
The theatrical shoe department at Freed.
Sanjay Sanjawah, panel trimmer
Ken Manu, heel moulder
Ozel Ahmed, supervisor in the theatrical shoes department – “Most of us have been here a long time. I work here because I love making shoes, it’s not about the money – it’s about the love of the trade.”
Shoe lasts numbered with sizes.
Jerry Kelly, Production Director
“one of those shiny, strappy, diamanted confections that are barely-there”
Worral Thomas, Hand Laster
Charlie Johnson, Side Laster
Four thousand pounds of pressure is exerted to join the sole to the shoe.
Ali Aksar, Sole Presser Operator
Jimmy Fenn, Designer & Pattern Cutter with some recent designs – “I’ve been in the trade thirty-five years. My job is fantastic because you never know what you are going to come in to in the morning. You can never get bored because you can always design a shoe. And when you spot them on television it’s really exciting.”
Once a week, flour and water is mixed to make the paste used to create the blocks for pointe shoes. A little insecticide is included in the blend to prevent weevils eating the shoes.
Satin and calico blanks at the start of the manufacturing process.
Ballet shoes are manufactured inside-out and then turned upon completion.
“Crown” has ballerinas who have been his exclusive customers for twenty-four years.
The maker’s mark of “Crown” upon the sole of one of his pointe-shoes.
Pointe shoes are baked overnight in the oven to dry out the flour glue.
Tony Collins, Machine operator has been with Freed for forty years. “The best thing about working here is that the people who are here stay here. We’ve got new ones but old lads too.”
Luthu Miah, Supervisor of the Binding Room.
Varsha Bahen, Finisher
Rashimi Patel, Pairing
Sheila (Pointe Shoe Finisher) & Philip Goodman (Chargehand) met on their first day work at Freed, forty years ago, and have been together ever since.
Frederick Freed and his wife Dora who founded Freed in 1920.
Dora in the factory in the seventies.
Frederick & Dora Freed outside their shop in St Martin’s Lane.
After the workers have left and the lights are switched out, the shoes lie waiting ….
Photographs copyright © Patricia Niven
Freed of London Ltd, 94 St Martins Lane, London, WC2N 4AT
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Allen & Hanburys’ Surgical Appliances
If any readers are feeling under the weather and in need of a tonic in these grim January days, look no further than Allen & Hanburys’ 1938 catalogue of Surgical Instruments & Appliances (courtesy of Rupert Blanchard of Styling & Salvage). Founded in 1715 in Plough Court, Lombard St by Silvanus Bevan, Allen & Hanburys moved to Bethnal Green in 1874 where they built a factory to manufacture surgical appliances and operating tables – producing an unparalleled array of medical equipment, until they were bought by Glaxo in 1958 and closed in the nineteen sixties. Today the factory still stands, incorporated into a new housing development.
Instrument Fitting
Machine Shop & Operation Table Erection
Tinsmiths’ Shop
Sheet Metal & Furniture Shops
Machine Shop
Location of Allen & Hanburys factory in Bethnal Green
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Adam Dant’s Map Of Jewish Spitalfields
Everyone who remembers Jewish Spitalfields remembers it differently and – following our appeal in these pages – Adam Dant has collated readers’ suggestions to produce his MAP OF JEWISH SPITALFIELDS which you see below. The map was inspired by a mythical novelty placemat from Bloom’s Restaurant in Whitechapel.
Adam’s print is being displayed for the first time at the London Art Fair in Islington which opens today and runs until Sunday 20th January. Spitalfields Life readers may obtain free tickets for this event by entering the code 19TAGFINEARTS at London Art Fair.
Click on the map to enlarge and explore Jewish Spitalfields
Adam Dant’s MAP OF JEWISH SPITALFIELDS was the last map completed before he was forced out of his studio in Club Row this week. Adam worked there since 1991, when he moved to Redchurch St to be close to the printing trades based nearby.
Not so long ago, Rachel Whiteread and Tim Noble & Sue Webster also had studios on the street, but Adam was the last artist to leave prior to the redevelopment of the building. Knowing this move was imminent encouraged me to publish MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND last year, collecting for posterity the body of work he achieved in this era.
So I hope Adam takes consolation that his MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND has been shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Photography & Illustrated Travel Book of the Year 2019 to be announced on February 28th. Fingers crossed!
The last artist leaves Redchurch St – Adam Dant vacates his studio where he has drawn maps since 1991 Photograph © Sarah Ainslie
CLICK TO ORDER A SIGNED COPY OF MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND BY ADAM DANT
Adam Dant’s MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND is a mighty monograph collecting together all your favourite works by Spitalfields Life‘s Contributing Cartographer in a beautiful big hardback book.
Including a map of London riots, the locations of early coffee houses and a colourful depiction of slang through the centuries, Adam Dant’s vision of city life and our prevailing obsessions with money, power and the pursuit of pleasure may genuinely be described as ‘Hogarthian.’
Unparalleled in his draughtsmanship and inventiveness, Adam Dant explores the byways of London’s cultural history in his ingenious drawings, annotated with erudite commentary and offering hours of fascination for the curious.
The book includes an extensive interview with Adam Dant by The Gentle Author.
Adam Dant’s limited edition prints are available to purchase through TAG Fine Arts
