At Eastbury Manor
If you are seeking an afternoon’s excursion from the East End, you can do no better than visit Eastbury Manor in Barking, which is only half an hour on the District Line from Whitechapel yet transports you across four centuries to Elizabethan England.
Once Eastbury Manor stood in the centre of its own domain of rolling marshy farmland, extended as far as you can see from the top of its pair of octagonal turrets, but today it sits in the centre of a suburban estate built as Home for Heroes in the twenties in the pseudo-Elizabethan style, which casts a certain surreal atmosphere as you arrive. Yet by the time you have entered the gate and walked up the path lined with lavender to the entrance, the mellow brick facade of Eastbury Manor has cast its spell upon you.
Built in the fifteeen-sixties by Clement Sisley, Gentleman & Justice of the Peace, Eastbury Manor is among the earliest surviving Elizabethan houses, combining attractive domestic interior spaces with an exterior embellished by showy architectural elements in the renaissance manner. This curious contradiction of modest form and ambitious style speaks of Sisley’s eagerness to impress as a self-made property developer and landowner. He owned a house in the City of London and thus Eastbury grants us a vision of how those lost mansions that once lined Bishopsgate and Leadenhall St might have been.
Formerly part of the lands of Barking Abbey, after the Dissolution the property was sold to an absentee landlord before it was acquired by Clement Sisley in 1556. From apothecary bills, we know he fell ill and died in September 1578, bequeathing arms, weapons, armour and dags (guns) to his son Thomas ‘to him and his heirs forever at Eastbury’, in the hope that the manor might become a family home for generations to come.
Yet within only a few years Eastbury Manor was tenanted by John Moore, a Diplomat and Tax Collector, and his Spanish wife Maria Perez de Recalde. They were responsible for commissioning the lyrical and mysterious wall paintings, depicting an unknown European landscape rich in allegorical potential, glimpsed through a classical arcade of baroque barley-sugar-twist pillars.
Over two hundred years, the old house spiralled down through the ownership of a series of families with connection to the City of London until it became a farm, with animals housed in the fine Elizabethan chambers, and was threatened with demolition at the beginning of the last century.
Octavia Hill and C R Ashbee of the Survey of London, who had been responsible for saving Trinity Green Almshouses in Whitechapel, began a campaign to save Eastbury Manor by seeking guarantors to purchase the property from the owner. Once they had done so, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings arranged for the National Trust to accept ownership of the building in 1918. Thanks to the initiative of these enlightened individuals a century ago, we can enjoy Eastbury Manor today.
It is a sublime experience to escape the blinding sunlight of a summer’s afternoon and enter the cool air of the shadowy interior with its spiralling staircases and labyrinth of chambers. Ascend the turret to peer across Barking to the Thames, descend again enter the private enclosed yard at the rear, enfolded by tall ancient walls, and discover yourself in another world.
Eastbury Manor in 1796
Nonagenerian guide Dougie Muid welcomes visitors to Eastbury Manor – ‘Children often ask me if I have been here since the house was built’
Visit Eastbury Manor, Eastbury Square, Barking, Essex, IG11 9SN
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The Caprice Of Mr Pussy
With your help, I am compiling a collection of stories of my old cat THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY, A Memoir Of A Favourite Cat to be published by Spitalfields Life Books on 20th September. Below you can read an excerpt.
I am delighted by the generous response from you, the readers – both in preorders and offers of financial support – but I am still need a few more who are willing to invest £1000 in THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY before I can send it to the printers. In return, I will publish your name in the book and invite you to a celebratory dinner hosted by yours truly. If you would like to know more, please drop me an email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com
Alternatively, you can preorder a copy of THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY and you will receive a signed and inscribed copy in September when the book is published.
Click here to preorder your copy
If I am looking more bleary-eyed than usual these days, it is not because I am sitting up any later writing my stories, but because Mr Pussy insists on waking me at dawn at this season of the year. The first yowl usually wakes me from my slumber in the glimmering of daylight, yet if I should try to deny it, descending quickly back to my former depths of sleep, a louder, more insistent cry tells me that he will not be ignored.
If I should persist in feigning sleep, he will extend his claw and reach up to the bedside bookshelf to hook the copy of King Lear by the spine and tug it off in one stroke to crash down onto the floor – employing a particular choice of title that I have yet to understand fully.
Then I open my eyes momentarily in weary exasperation to face his pitiful expression of need, quelling my anger. The question rises in my mind, did I put out any food for Mr Pussy last night? Now, in my half-awake moment of emotional vulnerability, the seed of doubt is sown and sympathy aroused for Mr Pussy, pleading for his rations whilst I indulge my luxuriant ease. But I am capable of indifference to his pain, rolling over in bed to seek another forty winks – even though experience has taught me that Mr Pussy will respond by running up the covers and leaping on my back with the agility of a mountain goat, so that he may repeat his yowl directly into my ear.
Thus I have learnt not to roll over, instead – without opening my eyes – I extend a crooked forefinger in an attempt to pacify Mr Pussy through petting, stroking him beneath his chin and on his brow – provoking a loud and emotional purring and snakelike twisting of the neck. Making a sound like his engine is revving, Mr Pussy bares his teeth and rubs them up against my finger several times in glee, which causes him ecstatic delight and coats my finger in saliva. He may repeat this action several times with an accumulating sense of excitement, glorying in the moment, knowing now that it is only a matter of time before I recognise that it is simpler to bow to his will than to resist.
Submitting to Mr Pussy’s inexorable persuasion, I stumble to the kitchen and commonly discover plenty of food in his dish – revealing that I have been played, his ruse was an exercise in pure manipulation, a power game. Too weary to recognise the humiliation I have suffered, I climb back into bed, put King Lear back on the shelf and resume my slumber.
When I wake hours later, Mr Pussy is stretched out on the quilt, oblivious to me rising. Yet if I should wake him, he stretches out in pleasure. Mr Pussy has every reason to feel secure, because each night he tests me and confirms his control. Mr Pussy can relax in the knowledge that he is training me to become obedient to his will, and in my weakness I comply. I let him get away with murder.
CLICK HERE TO PREORDER A COPY OF THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY
Anyone that has a cat will recognise the truth of this memoir of a favourite cat by The Gentle Author.
“I was always disparaging of those who dote over their pets, as if this apparent sentimentality were an indicator of some character flaw. That changed when I bought a cat, just a couple of weeks after the death of my father. “
THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY is a literary hymn to the intimate relationship between humans and animals, filled with sentiment without becoming sentimental.
George Parrin, Ice Cream Seller
Please keep your eyes open for my old friend George Parrin, the Ice Cream Seller, who is cycling around the East End now and, if you see George, stop him and buy one – and he will tell you his story.
‘I’ve been on a bike since I was two’
I first encountered Ice Cream Seller, George Parrin, coming through Whitechapel Market on his bicycle. Even before I met him, his cry of ‘Lovely ice cream, home made ice cream – stop me and buy one!’ announced his imminent arrival and then I saw his red and white umbrella bobbing through the crowd towards us. George told me that Whitechapel is the best place to sell ice cream in the East End and, observing the looks of delight spreading through the crowd, I witnessed the immediate evidence of this.
Such was the demand on that hot summer afternoon that George had to cycle off to get more supplies, so it was not possible for me to do an interview. Instead, we agreed to meet next day outside the Beigel Bakery on Brick Lane where trade was a little quieter. On arrival, George popped into the bakery and asked if they would like some ice cream and, once he had delivered a cup of vanilla ice, he emerged triumphant with a cup of tea and a salt beef beigel. ‘Fair exchange is no robbery!’ he declared with a hungry grin as he took a bite into his lunch.
“I first came down here with my dad when I was eight years old. He was a strongman and a fighter, known as ‘Kid Parry.’ Twice, he fought Bombardier Billy Wells, the man who struck the gong for Rank Films. Once he beat him and once he was beaten, but then he beat two others who beat Billy, so indirectly my father beat him.
In those days you needed to be an actor or entertainer if you were in the markets. My dad would tip a sack of sand in the floor and pour liquid carbolic soap all over it. Then he got a piece of rotten meat with flies all over it and dragged it through the sand. The flies would fly away and then he sold the sand by the bag as a fly repellent.
I was born in Hampstead, one of thirteen children. My mum worked all her life to keep us going. She was a market trader, selling all kinds of stuff, and she collected scrap metal, rags, woollens and women’s clothes in an old pram and sold it wholesale. My dad was to and fro with my mum, but he used to come and pick me up sometimes, and I worked with him. When I was nine, just before my dad died, we moved down to Queens Rd, Peckham.
I’ve been on a bike since I was two, and at three years old I had my own three-wheeler. I’ve always been on a bike. On my fifteenth birthday, I left school and started work. At first, I had a job for a couple of months delivering meat around Wandsworth by bicycle for Brushweilers the Butcher, but then I worked for Charles, Greengrocers of Belgravia delivering around Chelsea, and I delivered fruit and vegetables to the Beatles and Mick Jagger.
At sixteen years old, I started selling hot chestnuts outside Earls Court with Tony Calefano, known as ‘Tony Chestnuts.’ I lived in Wandsworth then, so I used to cycle over the river each day. I worked for him for four years and then I made my own chestnut can. In the summer, Tony used to sell ice cream and he was the one that got me into it.
I do enjoy it but it’s hard work. A ten litre tub of ice cream weighs 40lbs and I might carry eight tubs in hot weather plus the weight of the freezer and two batteries. I had thirteen ice cream barrows up the West End but it got so difficult with the police. They were having a purge, so they upset all my barrows and spoilt the ice cream. After that, Margaret Thatcher changed the law and street traders are now the responsibility of the council. The police here in Brick Lane are as sweet as a nut to me.
I bought a pair of crocodiles in the Club Row animal market once. They’re docile as long as you keep them in the water but when they’re out of it they feel vulnerable and they’re dangerous. I can’t remember what I did with mine when they got large. I sell watches sometimes. If anybody wants a watch, I can go and get it for them. In winter, I make jewellery with shells from the beach in Spain, matching earrings with ‘Hello’ and ‘Hola’ carved into them. I’m thinking of opening a pie and mash shop in Spain.
I am happy to give out ice creams to people who haven’t got any money and I only charge pensioners a pound. Whitechapel is best for me. I find the Asian people are very generous when it comes to spending money on their children, so I make a good living off them. They love me and I love them.”
Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien
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Matyas Selmeczi, Silhouette Artist
Adam Dant’s West End Launch
Join me tonight from six tonight for the West End launch party celebrating publication of Adam Dant’s MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND at The Map House in Knightsbridge and next Thursday 5th July for the East End launch at The Townhouse in Spitalfields.
29th JUNE – 14th JULY: Exhibition of Maps of London at THE MAP HOUSE, 54 Beauchamp Place, SW3. Opening sponsored by Hendrick’s Gin on Thursday 28th June 6 – 8:30pm
5th – 22nd JULY: Exhibition of Maps of the East End at THE TOWN HOUSE, 5 Fournier St, E1. Opening Thursday 5th July 6 – 8.30pm
Click here to order a signed copy
This is Adam Dant standing in Boundary Passage, just off Shoreditch High St, with his hands placed protectively upon two Napoleonic cannons from the Battle of Trafalgar which are set into the pavement here to serve as bollards. Adam explained to me that each one has a cannon ball welded into the top and these trophies became the model when more bollards were required. Replicas were cast in different sizes and proportions, and today they are to be seen everywhere in London, yet among all the hundreds that line our city streets, these two are special because they are the real thing, though I wonder if anyone who walks through Boundary Passage today is aware that these are spoils of war.
For over a quarter of a century Adam has been living and working nearby in Club Row, specialising in the arcane and amazing, producing all kinds of ephemera, drawings and prints that exist somewhere between satires and celebrations. His subject is the diverse absurdity of culture and history. It is not Nonsense exactly, but Adam delights in serious craziness that pokes fun at our contemporary media by proposing charismatically strange alternative perspectives. He came here to this corner of Shoreditch in 1991, wishing to be within proximity of printers, not just for practicalities’ sake but because he has great affection for the culture of small-time old-school printers, as he recalled fondly,“There were a lot in Redchurch St then, I used to get plates made at ‘Holywells’, they used to make bromides too. ‘Foremost Grinding’ next door used to sharpen the blades for guillotines and there was the ‘Old Nichol Press’ where I could typesetting done.”
Visiting Adam in his beautiful studio on two floors of a tiny old workshop in Club Row, I walked straight in off the street, passing through a battered cane blind, to discover a scruffy yet cosy little room with a fireplace at one end and a drawing board that filled the entire wall at the other. All conveniently illuminated by the morning sun through the wall of translucent glass that comprised the street frontage. In one corner was a narrow desk, beneath a steep staircase, and at the centre of the room, floored with boards at eccentric angles, sat a small couch with a low table piled with history and art books. As I sat down, I cast my eyes up at the appealingly garish painting on the ceiling, rendered to look like wallpaper that looked like nineteenth century plasterwork.
I felt I met a kindred spirit when I first met Adam Dant because for five years he published a daily newspaper under a pseudonym, “Donald Parsnips’ Daily Journal” in an edition of a hundred copies that he distributed free each day.“I was making lots of pamphlets and maps and handbills at the time, I think I was impressed by the history of the City of London, especially the birth of the press and the unfettered pamphleteering tradition. I got up at six each day and used the available time before I left for work to write it, so if I got up late it looked a bit scrappy. I printed them at Frank’s photocopy shop in the Bethnal Green Rd and I’d hand them out as I walked between here and Agnews in Bond St, where I worked at the time. This was before all the free newspapers. It was the strategy of the fine artist, confounding people with preposterousness.”
Later this year, Adam Dant will be leaving his old studio in Club Row, prior to demolition and redevelopment, but I am proud that we have been able to collect the astonishing canon of maps that he drew throughout this time into book, which is launched tonight.
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 cartographer extraordinaire 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 English 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
The Cabbies Shelters Of Old London
Created between 1875 and 1914, sixty of these structures were built by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund established by the Earl of Shaftesbury to enable cabbies to get a meal without leaving their cabs unattended and were no larger than a horse and cart so they might stand upon the public highway.
Today, only thirteen remain but all are grade II listed and, on my pilgrimage around London in the sunshine, I found them welcoming homely refuges where a cup of tea can be had for just 50p.
Thurloe Place, SW7
Embankment Place, Wc2
Wellington Place, NW8
Chelsea Embankment, SW3
Grosvenor Gardens, SW1
St Georges Sq, SW1
Kensington Park Rd, W11
Temple Place, WC2
Warwick Ave, W9
Russell Sq, WC1
Kensington Rd, W8
Pont St, SW1
Hanover Sq, W1
The shelter attendant at Wellington Place has special spoon-bending powers
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Sarah Chapman, Matchgirl Strike Leader
Samantha Johnson sent me this proud account of her great-grandmother Sarah Chapman who was one of the Matchgirl Strike Leaders. Samantha is organising a hundred-and-thirtieth anniversary walk on July 6th, retracing the steps of the Matchgirls from Mile End to the Strand where they visited Annie Besant, which readers are invited to join. Click here for more information
Sarah Chapman (1862 – 1945)
My great-grandmother was born on 31st October in 1862 to Samuel Chapman and Sarah Ann Mackenzie. At the time of her birth, her father was employed as a Brewer’s Servant and was also known to have worked in the docks. The fifth of seven children, Sarah’s early years were spent at number 26 Alfred Terrace in Mile End but, by the time she was nine, the family had moved to 2 Swan Court (now the back of the American Snooker Hall on Mile End Rd), where they stayed for the next seventeen years. For a working class family at this time to stay in one place for such a long time was uncommon. Other evidence of the stability of the Chapman family is that Sarah and her siblings were educated, as they were listed as Scholars in the census and could all read and write.
At the age of nineteen, Sarah was working alongside her mother and her older sister, Mary, as a Matchmaking Machinist, and by 1888 she was an established member of the workforce at the Bryant & May factory in Bow. At the time of the Strike, Sarah is listed as working in the patent area of the business, as a Booker, and was on relatively good wages, which perhaps placed her in a position of esteem among other workers. She was certainly paid more than most and this may have been because of her position as a Booker, or perhaps because she just managed to avoid the liberal fines which were meted out by the employers.
There was a high degree of unrest in the factory due to the low wages, long hours, appalling working conditions and the unfair fines system, which caused the women at the factory to grow increasingly frustrated. External influences, particularly the Fabian Society, also provided an impetus for the Strike. Ultimately, 1400 girls and women marched out of the factory, en masse, on that fateful day of 5th July 1888. The next day some 200 girls marched from Mile End down to Bouverie St in the Strand to see Annie Besant, one of the Fabians and a campaigner for women’s rights. A deputation of three (my great-grandmother Sarah Chapman, Mrs Mary Cummings and Mrs Naulls) went into her office to ask for her support. Although Annie was not an advocate of strike action, she did agree to help them organise a Strike Committee.
“We’d ‘ave come out before only we wasn’t agreed”
“You stood up for us and we wasn’t going back on you”
The first meeting of the striking Matchgirls was held on Mile End Waste on 8th July and both the Pall Mall Gazette and The Star provided positive publicity. This was followed by meetings with Members of Parliament at the House of Commons. The Strike Committee was formed and the following Matchgirls were named as members: Mrs Naulls, Mrs Mary Cummings, Sarah Chapman, Alice Francis, Kate Slater, Mary Driscoll, Jane Wakeling and Eliza Martin.
Following further intervention by Toynbee Hall and the London Trades Council, the Strike Committee was given the chance to make their case. They met with the Bryant & May Directors and by 17th July, their demands were met and terms agreed in principle. It was agreed that:
- All fines should be abolished.
- All deductions for paint, brushes, stamps, etc., should be put an end to.
- The 3d. should be restored to the packers.
- The “pennies” should be restored or an equivalent advantage given in the system of payment of the boys who do the racking.
- All grievances should be laid directly before the firm, before any hostile action was taken.
- All the girls to be taken back.
It was also agreed that a union be formed, that Bryant & May provide a room for meals away from where the work was done and that barrows be provided to transport boxes, replacing the practice of young girls having to carry them on their heads. The Strike Committee put the proposals to the rest of the workforce and they enthusiastically approved. Thus the inaugural meeting of the new Union of Women Match Makers took place at Stepney Meeting Hall on 27th July and twelve women were elected, including Sarah Chapman.
An indicator of the belief her fellow workers put in Sarah’s ability, was her election as the first TUC representative of the Match Makers’ Union. Sarah was one of seventy-seven delegates to attend the 1888 International Trades Union Congress in London and at the 1890 TUC she is recorded as having seconded a motion.
On the night of the 1891 census, Sarah was still a Booker at the match factory and living with her mother in Blackthorn St, Bromley by Bow, but in December of that same year, she married Charles Henry Dearman, a Cabinet Maker. By this time she had ceased working at Bryant & May.
Sarah and Charles had their first child, Sarah Elsie in 1892. They had five more children, one was my grandfather, William Frederick, born in 1898 when they had moved to Bethnal Green. Sarah’s two youngest sons, William and Frederick lived with her, on and off, into the thirties and she lived out her years there, dying in Bethnal Green hospital on 27th November 1945 aged eighty-three. She was survived by three of her six children, Sarah, William and Fred.
Sarah was buried alongside five other elderly people in a pauper’s plot at Manor Park Cemetery. It was a sad end to a brave life filled with challenges, not least a leading role in a Strike that was the vanguard of the New Labour Movement and helped establish Trade Unionism in this country.
It is thanks to Anna Robinson, Poet & Lecturer at the University of East London, who chose Sarah Chapman as the topic of her MA thesis, Neither Hidden Nor Condescended To: Overlooking Sarah Chapman, that I discovered the story of my great-grandmother. I contacted Anna in 2016 after I discovered her post on a family history forum appealing for information. Until then, I had no idea about Sarah’s story. Anna also discovered Sarah’s grave in Manor Park Cemetery and I was able to visit it in 2017. Regrettably, there are plans to mound over her grave.
Please sign the petition to preserve the memory of this courageous woman
Sarah as a member of the Matchgirls Union Committee
Sarah with her husband Charles Henry Dearman
Sarah with her grandson, Frederick William
Sarah in later years
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The Map Of Rotherhithe
You are invited to join me at the launch parties celebrating publication of Adam Dant’s MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND, in the West End at The Map House in Knightsbrige this Thursday 28th June and in the East End at The Townhouse in Spitalfields next Thursday 5th July. Meanwhile you can catch Adam at Stanfords in Covent Garden tomorrow giving an illustrated lecture about his maps.
TUESDAY 26th JUNE 6:30pm: Lecture at STANFORDS, 12-14 Long Acre, WC2. Click here to book
29th JUNE – 14th JULY: Exhibition of Maps of London at THE MAP HOUSE, 54 Beauchamp Place, SW3. Opening sponsored by Hendrick’s Gin on Thursday 28th June 6 – 8:30pm
5th – 22nd JULY: Exhibition of Maps of the East End at THE TOWN HOUSE, 5 Fournier St, E1. Opening Thursday 5th July 6 – 8.30pm
Click here to order a signed copy
Undertaking a rare trip south of the river, Adam Dant presents these maps of that fabled ‘terra incognita’ once known as Redriff.
1. (Twelfth century) The name of the village of Rotherhithe or “Rederheia” is thought to mean “cattle-landing place.”
2. (1016) King Cnut begins digging a trench from Rotherhithe to Vauxhall to lay seige to London, according to myth.
3. (c.1370) During the reign of Edward III a fleet is fitted out at Rotherhithe by order of the Black Prince and John of Gaunt.
4. (c.1400) Henry IV lives in an old stone house in Rotherhithe while suffering from leprosy.
5. (1485) The Lovell family, owners of the Manor at Rotherhithe distinguish themselves during the Wars of the Roses. Francis Lovell is made Lord Chamberlain – “The cat, the rat and Lovell the dog rule all England under a hog.”
6. (1587) The Queen grants Thomas Brickett “Le Gone Powder Mill Pond,” formerly possession of Bermondsey Abbey and source of Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder.
7. (1605) Shipwrights of England are incorporated under Royal Charter, so that ships “will not be made slenderlie and deceitfullie.”
8. (1620) The Mayflower is brought to Rotherhithe by its master Christopher Jones.
9. (1635) Reclaimed land and “inclosed” wharfs are claimed by poor tenants over preference to kings, lords and rich men.
10. (1684) Christopher Monck, Duke of Albemarle receives a grant for Saturday goods and merchandise market, and for a ferry at Rotherhithe.
11. (1699) John Evelyn records in his diary, “a dreadful fire destroying three hundred houses and divers ships.”
12. ( 1699) 18th October, revellers en route to the The Charlton Horn Fair disembark at Cuckold’s Point, marked by a tall pole topped by a pair of horns.
13. (1770) The St Helena Tea Gardens open in Deptford where evening music and dancing is supported by the lower classes and shipyard workers’ families.
14. (1725) The South Sea Company take the lease of the The Howland Great Wet Dock and plan unsuccessfully to revive fishing in Greenland. The dock is renamed Greenland Dock.
15. (1725) One thousand tons of “unfragrant” whale blubber are boiled and processed annually at Greenland Dock.
16. (1726) Lemuel Gulliver, Jonathan Swift’s sailor protagonist in “Gulliver’s Travels” is born at Redriff.
17. (1792) Eleven shipyards are recorded in the parish of Rotherhithe.
18. (1680) Charles II makes a “frolicksome excursion” to Rotherhithe.
19. (1777) The China Hall, previously “The Cock & Pye,” opens as a theatre with plays “The Wonder,” “Love in a Village,” “The Comical Courtship” and “The Lying Valet,” before burning down in 1778.
20. (1725) A nurseryman named Warner cultivates cuttings of Burgundy vines in the vicinity of Rotherhithe. He is – in time – rewarded with one hundred gallons of wine annually.
21. (1792) Forty acres of the parish are occupied by market gardeners famous for their produce, four hundred and seventy acres by pasture.
22. (1802) Work begins on Ralph Dodd’s ship canal, “The Grand Surrey Canal.”
23. (1809) The decline in the whaling trade and the increase in timber importing accounts for Greenland Dock being named “Baltic Dock,” later enlarged and reopened as “The Commercial Dock.”
24. (1825-42) The Thames Tunnel is bored by Sir Marc Brunel.
25. (1832) Raw materials such as hemp, iron, tar and corn from many Baltic countries, as well as timber, arrive at Surrey & Commercial Docks.
26.(1869) Rotherhithe Underground Station is opened to Wapping.
27. (1869) Dockers strike in Surrey Dicks for “the Dockers’ Tanner” a rate of sixpence an hour. The strike drew public attention to issues of poverty in Victorian London.
28. (1830) Ship breaking begins to take over from ship building in Rotherhithe with many ships built to fight in the Napoleonic Wars meeting their end.
29. (1850) Charles Lungley builds The Dane at Greenland Dock North Shipyard chartered by the French Government as transport during the Crimean War.
30. (1909) Surey Docks is taken over and reinvigorated by the newly formed Port of London Authority.
31. (1926) Only seven people arrive for work out of two thousand on the first day of the General Strike.
32. (1940) September 7th, Surrey Docks are set on fire in the first raid of the Blitz.
33. (1940) King Haakon VII, with the Norwegian government in exile and Norwegian resistance during World War II, came to worship at St Olav’s.
34.( 1940s) Dock workers play “The down the slot game” in social clubs such as “The Gordon Club.”
35. (1900-1950) Cunard white star liners trade from Greenland Dock to Canada and North America.
36. (1960) Princess Margaret meets her future husband, photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, in Rotherhithe.
37. (1970) Surrey Docks close.
38. (19810 Michael Heseltine, Secretary of State, forms “The Docklands Development Corporation” to redevelop the area of the former docks. It causes controversy, accused of favouring luxury developments over affordable housing.
39. (2000) Mudlarking on the foreshore yields clay pipes, oyster shells and the occasional Saxon or Roman coin.
40.( 2011) The new “super library” opens in Canada Water.
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 cartographer extraordinaire 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 English 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
