The Map Of London Slang
Each Saturday, we shall be featuring one of Adam Dant’s MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND from the forthcoming book of his extraordinary cartography to be published by Spitalfields Life Books & Batsford on June 7th.
Please support this ambitious venture by pre-ordering a copy, which will be signed by Adam Dant with an individual drawing on the flyleaf and sent to you on publication. CLICK TO ORDER A SIGNED COPY OF MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND BY ADAM DANT
ARGOTOPOLIS, The map of London slang is a collaboration between Adam Dant & Jonathon Green, lexicographer of slang, organised around relevant locations in the capital. Click on Adam’s map to study it in detail and read Jonathon’s glossary to learn more about the language.
The Old Oak: rhyming slang, The Smoke, i.e. London
KEY TO THE SLANG WORDS & PHRASES IN ARGOTOPOLIS
compiled by Jonathon Green
Nappy Valley (David Cameron’s House, Notting Hill)
Misses: Missus or Mrs
Armful: an affectionate spousal embrace
Bit o’ Tripe: possibly rhyming slang but possibly a ref. to the human body as a ‘piece of meat’
Burick: Romani burk, a breast or Scottish bure, a loose woman
Doner: Italian dona, a woman
Poker-breaker: the domineering wife’s ‘breaking’ of her husband’s poker, i.e. penis
’Pon My Life: rhyming slang, a wife
Rib: woman as ‘Adam’s rib’
Ankle-biter: a child who has yet to walk
Bin-Lid: rhyming slang, a kid
Gawdelpus: a child, lit. God help us
Chip: a child, i.e. a chip off the old block
Yuppie Puppy: the progeny of the young and upwards mobile; also trustafarian
Lully: a child, from little or lullaby
Swag: a shop
Buttiken: a shop, from French boutique + ken, a house or place
Drum: a house or home, either he image of the hollow drum resembling a hollow house or room or the use of drum, the road, as a figurative ‘house’ for itinerants.
Plate o’ Meat: rhyming slang, the street
Bricks: the city streets, especially as seen from a prison cell.
Stones: the streets of London, the open air
Carsey: a brothel, pub or lavatory, from Italian casa, a house
Crib: a house, a pub, a shop, a brothel, a cheap theatre, a bed, a safe, a cell, the vagina; all from standard crib, a narrow room
Gaff: a fair, a cheap theatre, a dancehall, a brothel, a prison, a house, a bar, a casino, a hotel; from Romani gav, a (market) town
Clobber (Selfridges, Oxford St)
Piccadilly Fringe: a popular women’s hairstyle in which the hair is cut short into a fringe and curled over the forehead
Piccadilly Weepers: long side whiskers, worn without a beard
Dittos: a suit of clothes (jacket, waistcoat, trousers) all the same colour
Bobtail: a dandy, from the wide skirts of his jackets
Gorger: a dandy, perhaps from gorgeous
Spiff: a dandy, from spiff, echoic of a sharp sound and thus figuratively exciting, important, astonishing
All Nations: a multi-coloured or heavily patched coat; from ‘the flags of all nations’.
Immensikoff: a large overcoat; coined by the music-hall star Arthur Lloyd who called himself Immensikoff and appeared on stage in such a coat to sing, c.1868, his hit ‘The Shoreditch Toff’
Spittleonian, a yellow silk handkerchief, manufactured in Spitalfields
Arse-Rugs: trousers
Sin-Hiders: trousers; they disguise the male genitals
Moab: a turban-shaped hat, worn by women; a jocular reference to Psalm 60: ‘Moab is my washpot’
Billycock: a style of man’s hat; perhaps a variation on bully-cocked, i.e. ‘cocked after the fashion of the bullies’ or pimps
Golgotha: a hat; pun on Greek golgotha, the place of skulls
Headlight, a large and ostentatious tie pin, usually a diamond one
Hopper-dockers / hock-dockies: shoes
Piccolo & Flute: rhyming slang, a suit.
Rig-Out: a costume; from nautical imagery: one’s clothes are one’s ‘rigging’
Cover-Me-Queerly: ragged clothing
Gropus: a pocket; one must grope into its depths to find small items
Yiddish (Sigmund Freud’s House, West Hampstead)
Goy: a gentile
Dreck: dirt
Fress: to eat
Kishkes: the intestines, the guts
Nudnik: a fool
Shpilkes: anxiety, nerves
Schnorrer: a beggar
Mozzle: luck
Plotz: to to lose emotional control
Bubbe Mayse: an old wife’s tale
Bogtrotters – Country Folk (Caravan, Outlying Rural London)
Carrot Muncher: the peasant’s staple diet
Clouted Shoon: lit. ‘a shoe tipped with iron and secured with iron nails’
Dog Booby: dog = male + booby = fool
Lob: dialect lob, a country bumpkin. Note Yiddish lobbes, a rascal and Dutch lobbes, a clown
Muck Savage: the idea that peasants are ‘savages’ living in filth
Nose Picker: a derogatory stereotype
Queer Cuffin: lit. ‘an odd bloke’
Sod Buster: the peasant’s agricultural labouring
Squab: SE squab, a raw, inexperienced person, also a young, unfledged bird or animal
Whopstraw: from whop, to hit; the work of threshing corn
Techies (Old St Roundabout)
Crapplet: a badly written or wholly useless app.
Angry Garden Salad: a poorly designed website GUI
Seagull Manager: (s)he flies in, craps all everything, then leaves
P.O.T.A.T.O.: “People Over Thirty Acting Twenty One’
Rasterbator: a designer who is obsessed with Photoshop
Salmon Day: a wasted day’s work: one has spent the entire day ‘swimming upstream’
Wall Humper: a person who, rather the removing the card from their pocket, raises their hip in an effort to swipe it against a reader
Open Your Kimono: to reveal one’s business plans
Grok: to understand fully, from Robert Heinlein’s scifi novel Stranger in a Strange Land
Ohnosecond: the fraction of time it takes to realize one has committed a major error
Chips and Salsa: chips refers to computer hardware, salsa to software
The Fancy – Boxing (York Hall, Bethnal Green)
Brother of the bunch of fives: a prize-fighter
Broughtonian : a prize-fighter; from Jack Broughton, inventor of the first prototype boxing glove, writer of ‘Broughton’s Rules’ (which lasted 1743–1838) and champion of England 1730–5
Bruiser: a prize-fighter
Whister-clister / Whister-poop: a blow to the ear
Clicker: a knock-out blow
Knight of the mawley: a prize-fighter, from mawley, a hand or fist
Fibbing-cull: a prize-fighter, from fib, to punch
Buckhorse: a blow to the ear
Jobber: a blow to the head
Smeller: the nose or a blow that hits it
Winker: a blow to the winkers, i.e. eyes
Slasher: a prize-fighter
Milling-kiddy: a prize-fighter, from mill, to fight
Breadbasketer or belly-go-firster : a blow to the stomach
Claret jug/ Claret cask / Claret-spout: the nose
Quackery (University College Hospital, Euston Square)
Nimgimmer: a surgeon or physician, esp. a specialist in venereal diseases
Knight of the Pisspot: a doctor, from the analysis of urine for medical purposes
Pintlesmith: a surgeon, lit. a ‘penis worker’
Crocus Pitcher: an itinerant quack doctor; also crocus (metallorum), a pun on croak, to die and crocus metallorum, oxysulphide of antimony
Twat Scourer: lit. the ‘cleaner of the vagina’
Flesh Tailor: a surgeon
Dr Drawfart: an itinerant quack doctor
Clyster Pipe: a doctor; lit. ‘a pipe used to administer clysters, or enemas’
Jollop, medicine, from jalap, a purgative drug obtained from the tuberous roots of Exogonium (Ipomoea) purga
Bone juggler: a surgeon
Argy-Bargy – Political Dissent (Marx Memorial Library, Clerkenwell)
Boodler: a corrupt politician, from boodle, bribes
Mud-pusher: a member of parliament, i.e. an M.P.
Quockerwodger: a politician who works for a patron rather than his/her constituents; lit. ‘a wooden puppet which can be made to ‘dance’ by pulling its strings
Lefty: a left-winger
Red: a radical; specifically a Bolshevik, a Communist; synonymous with communism since its birth in 1848
Rad / Raddie: a radical
Threepenny Masher: a young man who poses as a gentleman but lacks the savoir-faire, not to mention the funds.
Jack-Gentleman: a man of low birth or manners who has pretensions to be a gentleman, thus an insolent fellow, an upstart.
Macer: a swindler, from a possible link to mason, one who acquires goods fraudulently by giving a bill that they do not intend to honour
Swell Mobsman: a leading pickpocket, often undistinguishable from the smartly dressed people he robs
Nobs & Gentry (The Guildhall, City of London)
Gentry-cove: an aristocrat or gentleman
Swell cove: an aristocrat or gentleman
Snot: a gentleman, who is seen as snotty or arrogant
Tercel-gentle: a well-off knight or any rich gentleman, lit. a male falcon
Skyfarmer: a criminal beggar who tours the country posing as a gentleman farmer fallen on hard times, backed by suitably impressive, if counterfeit, papers
Queer Duke: an impoverished gentleman
Jagger: a (country) gentleman, from German Jäger, a sportsman
Rye mort / Rye mush: a gentleman or gentlewoman, from Romani rei a gentleman + mort, a woman or mush, a man
Nob / Nib: probably from nobility or nobleman
Hipsters (Tea Building, Shoreditch)
Amazeballs: wonderful
Bro Hug: a manly hug between two men who are friends
Cray: amazing, remarkable, lit. crazy
Humblebrag: self-deprecation actually used for self-aggrandizement
Throw shade: to talk negatively about a third party
Peeps: people
Rando: a random person or thing
That Wins the Internet: a general exclamation of satisfaction
Grill: the face
Rack: the female breasts
Americana (US Embassy, Grosvenor Sq)
Ham Shank: rhyming slang, a Yank or American
Man up: behave in a manly or macho manner
Grow a Pair: the pair are testicles, again one is encouraged towards a macho posture
Fanny Pack: a small satchel tied around one’s waist; from fanny, the buttocks
Heads-up: a warning, a briefing
Do the Math: work it out
Touch Base: to speak to
Septic: rhyming slang, a Septic Tank, a Yank or American
Can I Get…: rather than UK could I have
I’m Good: things are satisfactory, synonymous with UK response to ‘how are you’ of ‘very well thank you’
Park Life (Peter Pan Statue, Kensington Gardens)
Bumblebee: rhyming slang, a tree
Dr Green: the grass
Sleep with Mrs Green: to sleep in the open air
Ruffmans: a wood
Robin Hoods: rhyming slang, the woods
April Showers: rhyming slang, flowers
Eiffel Towers: rhyming slang, flowers
Skylark: rhyming slang, a park
Joan of Ark: rhyming slang, a park
Crackmans: a hedge
Lad: a fox
Charlie: a fox, pun on the politician Charles James Fox (1749–1806)
Bufe / Buffer: a dog, either echoic of a bark or from Welsh bwch, a buck, a male animal
Carpet-herb: grass
Old Iron and Brass: rhyming slang, the grass
Penny-a-Pound rhyming slang, the ground
Gambling (Crockfords Casino, Mayfair)
Blackleg: his black boots
Buttoner: that member of a gang who entices suckers to play in a crooked game; he buttonholes the victim
Topper-toodle: a gullible fool, esp. as prey to crooked gamblers
Thimble-Rigger: operator of a cheating game of ‘find-the-lady’ or the ‘three-card-trick’
Spieler: a casino, from Yiddish spiel, to play
Rump and a Dozen: the 18th century wager of a whole rumpsteak and a dozen bottles of claret
Punting-shop: a casino, from punt, to wager
Levanter: one who defaults on his debts, he lit. runs away to the Levant, i.e. the Middle East
Hazard-drum: a casino, from the game of hazard, a precursor of craps, and drum, a house
Grumble and Mutter: rhyming slang, a flutter
Whores (Soho Sq)
(All but one terms are simple synonyms for ‘ladies of the night’)
Frisker: from frisk, to have sexual intercourse
Cockatrice: in myth, a hybrid monster with head, wings and feet of a cock, terminating in a serpent with a barbed tail – such a monster can kill with a single glance
Ramp: from rampant, spirited
Trot: from trot, a hag, an old woman; she also ‘trots’ down the street
Trull: from German Trulle, a prostitute
Tib: supposedly a typical name for a working-class woman
Bluegown: prostitutes confined in a house of correction once wore a blue dress as their uniform
Circus Cowboy: a rent boy, who frequented the Piccadilly Circus ‘meat rack’
Covent Garden Nun: the popularity of Covent Garden as a centre of whoring
Quean: a specific use of a general term for a woman
Market Dame: the popularity of Covent Garden as a centre of whoring
Kate / Kittie: a generic use of the proper name
Miss Town: her role as a quintessentially urban figure
Town Miss: her role as a quintessentially urban figure
Miss o’ the Town: her role as a quintessentially urban figure
Old Jack Lang – Rhyming Slang (St Mary Le Bow, Cheapside, City of London)
Brixton Riot: a diet
Emma Freuds: haemorrhoids
Iron Hoof: a homosexual, i.e. a poof
Newington Butts: the stomach or guts
Queen Mum: the buttocks, i.e. the bum
Tony Blair: hair, a chair or a nightmare
Petticoat Lane: a pain
Charing Cross: a horse
Westminster Abbey: a cabbie
Alf Garnett: the hair, i.e. the barnet (fair)
Lucre ( The Bank of England, City of London)
Draft on the Pump at Aldgate: a fake bank-note or fraudulent bill; the Aldgate pump offered no financial security for a draft, i.e. a written order for the payment of money
Coriander (seed): a figurative use of seeds as form of growth and as such necessary for life; money has the same importance
Wedge: originally a wedge of silver
Readies: i.e. ready money
Scrilla: possible from a scroll, on which accounts were once kept
Sponds: fom Greek spondlikos, i.e. spondulics
Mazuma: from Yiddish, ultimately Hebrew mazuma, prepared, ready
Gelt: from Yiddish and German, gold
Dosh: from doss, to sleep or a bed; thus originally the money required to pay for one’s accommodation
Bread: the ‘staff of life’, as is money
Rookeries – New Office Blocks (1 Old St Mary’s Axe, City of London)
Can of Ham: 60-70 St Mary’s Axe
Armadillo: City Hall
Walkie-Talkie: 20 Fenchurch St
Cheesegrater: Leadenhall Building
Pringle: the Olympic Cycle Track
Helter-Skelter: the Pinnacle Tower
The Prawn: Willis Building
Stealth Bomber: 1 New Change
Gherkin / Wally: 30 St Mary Axe
Shard: 32 London Bridge Street
Toffs (Buckingham Palace)
NQOCD: Not Quite Our Class, Darling
NSIT: Not Safe in Taxis
PLU: People Like Us
MTF: Must Touch Flesh
SOHF: Sense of Humour Failure
Yonks: a long time
Jew canoe: a large car, often a Jaguar
Killing: uproariously amusing
Gucky: the fashion label Gucci
Cockers-p: a cocktail party
Chateaued: drunk, not necessarily on claret
Wrinklies: old people
Stiffie: an invitation
Brill: brilliant
Nosh (Covent Garden Market)
Ozzimangerum, soup made from a leg of beef; from ox + French manger, to eat
Princess Di: rhyming slang, a pie
Fourpenny Cannon: a steak and kidney pie; the cost plus its supposed resemblance to a cannonball
Bags of Mystery: sausages, the specific meat ingredient is not specified by the seller
Alderman in Chains: a roast turkey garlanded in sausages
Banger: a sausage, which may explode in the pan
Sharp’s Alley Bloodworms: beef sausages or black puddings, from Sharp’s Alley, an abattoir near the Smithfield meat market in London]
Darby Kelly: rhyming slang, the belly
Chamber of Horrors: sausages
Zeps in a Cloud: sausage and mash
Sanguinary James / Bloody Jemmy / One-eyed Joint: an uncooked sheep’s head
Poodle: a sausage, a pun on hot dog
Irish Apricots: potatoes, the stereotyped link of the Irish and the potato
Violets: spring onions or sage and onion stuffing
Horn Root: celery, it is supposedly aphrodisiac
Welsh Turkey: a leek, the stereotyped link of the Welsh and leeks
Rose: an orange, possibly the fruit also has a pleasant smell
Whitechapel: rhyming slang, an apple
Teddy Bear: rhyming slang, a pear
Snob’s duck, a baked sheep’s head (which is far cheaper than a real duck)
Thames Butter: completely rancid butter, the ‘South London Press …published a paragraph to the effect that a Frenchman was making butter out of Thames mud at Battersea. In truth this chemist was extracting yellow grease from Thames mud-worms’
The Uproar (Covent Garden Opera House)
Synagogue: a shed – its use is not specified – standing at that time in the northeast corner of Covent Garden, London.
The Straights: a network of alleyways and small courts in an area bounded by St Martin’s Lane, Half Moon Street and Chandos Street, the haunt of pimps, thugs and similar unsavoury characters.
Short’s Gardens: a state of temporary penury; a pun on the street Short’s Gardens in Covent Garden and short, impoverished
Mutton Walk: the saloon at the Drury Lane Theatre, Covent Garden; thus any street where one finds prostitutes, especially the junction of Coventry Street and Windmill Street in the West End.
The Finish / Carpenter’s Coffee Shop: Carpenter’s late-night coffee shop, sited in Covent Garden opposite Russell Street and ostensibly catering to the market porters, which closed only when the last customer had gone home into the dawn
Go Shop: the Queen’s Head tavern, Duke’s Court, Bow Street, London WC2.
The Lane: Petticoat Lane, Middlesex Street in the east End; Drury Lane, Covent Garden, in the West End
Break One’s Shins Against Covent Garden Rails: to catch venereal disease
Russian Coffee House: the Brown Bear public house in Bow Street, Covent Garden, a popular haunt for both thieves and thief-takers.
Tekram: backslang for Covent Garden market
Hoorays (Chelsea Town Hall)
Maybs: maybe
Blates: blatantly
Defo: definitely
Dorbs / Adorbs: adorable
Totes: totally
Soz: sorry
Probs: probably
Presh: precious
Obvs: obviously
OMG!: Oh my God!
Slicksters (Houses of Parliament, Westminster)
Craftsby: a cheat, a swindler
Swindling gloak: a swindler; gloak is synonymous with bloke, a fellow
Dunlop tyre: rhyming slang, a liar
Holy friar: rhyming slang, a liar
Cony-catcher: a confidence trickster, from cony, a rabbit, i.e. a sucker
Queer plunger: a confidence trickster who plunges into water and is saved from ‘drowning’; conveniently pre-assembled ‘rescuers’ then claim money for saving the person
Tweedler: a small-time confidence trickster; a stolen vehicle that is passed off a legitimate
Nuxyelper: a confidence trickster who fakes a fit in order to gain money from bystanders; from nux vomica, the fruit from which strychnine is produced, and which would induce vomiting
Jack-in-the-box: a street pedlar who specialises on con tricks
Shearer: a confidence trickster, who ‘shears’ the gullible ‘lamb’
The Law (Royal Courts of Justice, Fleet St)
China Street Pig: a Bow Street Runner
Thieves’ Kitchen: the Law Courts in the Strand
Theatre: a police, later magistrate’s court
Tenterden Park: the King’s Bench prison for debtors
Gentleman of the Three In(n)s : one who is in debt, in gaol and in danger (of being hanged)
Fortune-teller / Conjuror: a judge, he ‘tells one’s future’
Ambidexter: a lawyer, he holds out both hands for bribes
Honest lawyer: a public house sign showing a headless man dressed in lawyer’s robes, the implication being that his honesty is only possible since, headless, he is bereft of the chance to speak.
God Box (St Paul’s Cathedral)
(All terms mean a clergyman, with an over-riding image of thumping the bible or pulpit)
Amen-Bawler
Bead Counter: the rosary beads
Smell-Smock: the clergyman’s alleged womanising
Mumble-Matin[s]
Black cattle: clergymen as a group
Soul Doctor / Soul Driver
Hum-Box Patterer: the hum-box is a pulpit
Cackletub: the tub is a pulpit
Good Book Thumper
Autem Cove / Pattering Cove: from autem, probably an altar, pattering, sermonising
Fur-men (Mansion House, City of London)
Bus-Bellied Ben: an alderman who ‘eats enough for ten’
City Bulldog: a constable
Lord Mayor: a large crowbar
Farmer: an alderman, from farm, to lease or let the proceeds or profits of customs, taxes etc. for a fixed payment
Alderman Lushington: a drunkard
Alderman’s Pace: a steady, careful pace, as befits an official with a fine sense of his own importance
Alderman Double Slang’d: a roast turkey garlanded with sausages
Recorder’s Nose: the rump of a chicken, duck, goose or other poultry.
City Wire: a fashionable woman; her use of wire to create elaborate hairstyles
Cit: a citizen, especially a merchant of the City of London
Brassic – Poverty (former Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East)
Pov / Povvo: an impoverished person.
Stig: a tramp or someone who resembles a tramp
Ding: a beggar, a tramp
Downrighter: a beggar, a tramp
Cursetor: a tramp or an impoverished lawyer
Fleabag: one who smells, usually a vagrant
Crank Cuffin: a tramp who poses as a sufferer from a sympathy-inducing illness
Abrahamer: a tramp, usually sporting picturesque rags to attract alms
Smelly Welly: a juvenile pejorative for a poor person who is seen as a tramp
Dosser: a tramp, a vagrant, a homeless person., from doss, to sleep (rough)
Cold Meat – Execution (Tower of London, Tower Hill)
Do the Newgate Frisk: from Newgate, outside public hangings took place from 1783-18688
Paddington Spectacles: the sack which is placed over the prisoner’s head prior to the hanging
Jig upon Nothing: the ‘dancing’ of the dying person’s feet as they choke to death
Climb the Leafless Tree: one of the many equations of the gallows with a ‘tree’
Have a Wry Mouth and Pissen Britches: a dry mouth and involuntary urination accompany one’s being hanged
City Stage: on which the guilty person ‘performs’
City Scales: the guilty man or woman is weighed off, i.e. sentenced and executed
Dance at Beilby’s Ball Where the Sheriff Pays the Fiddlers: the identity of Mr Beilby is unknown but a number of suggestions exist. [1] Beilby was a well-known sheriff; [2] Beilby is a mispronunciation of Old Bailey, the court in which so many villains were sentenced to death. [3] Beilby refers to the bilbo, a long iron bar, furnished with sliding shackles to confine the ankles of prisoners and a lock by which to fix one end of the bar to the floor or ground. Bilbo comes from the Spanish town of Bilbao, where these fetters were invented
Swing on Tyburn Tree: the Tyburn gallows at the west end of what would become Oxford Street, used for executions 1388–1783
Do the Paddington Frisk: Paddington was synonymous with Tyburn, original site of the main London gallows.
Terms for Places listed on the Tree Trunk
Alsatia: the 16th century ‘liberty’ south of Fleet Street, a law-free zone wherein crowded every fugitive villain
Black Mary’s Hole: a 17th century gay cruising ground in Clerkenwell, EC1
Cheape: Cheapside
Dilly: Piccadilly
Elephant; Elephant and Castle
Fleet: the river Fleet or Fleet Street
Garden: Covent Garden and its Market
Holy Land: the criminal rookery (i.e. slum) of St Giles (now the site of Centre Point)
In and Out; the Army & Navy Club, Piccadilly (from its doorposts which were thus painted)
Junction: Clapham Junction
Kangaroo Valley: Earl’s Court, once home of ex-patriate Australians
Lane: Petticoat Lane, focus of the Jewish East End
Mohocks: a gang of dissolute upper-class thugs, flourishing c. 1750
Newgate: London’s main prison, now the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey
Old Nask: Bridewell prison, Tothill Fields
Paddy’s Goose; a notoriously violent sailor’s pub on the Ratcliffe Highway
Queer Street: a figurative term for poverty
Recent Incision: the New Cut, Waterloo
Spittal: Spitalfields
Tyburn: London’s original execution ground, now Marble Arch
Up-West: the West End
Ville: Pentonville Prison, north London
Wanno: Wandsworth Prison, south London
X: Charing Cross
Yard: the police headquarters of Scotland Yard
Zoo: The Zoological Gardens, now London Zoo
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
Sarah Ainslie’s Hatton Garden Portraits
In recent weeks, I have enjoyed the privilege of accompanying Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie into high security workshops to meet some of the most skilled craftsmen and women working in the creation of precious jewellery in Hatton Garden and Clerkenwell. These portraits were commissioned by The Goldsmith’s Centre for the exhibition Hidden Treasures which runs until 2nd May.
Russell Lownsbough, Designer, Wax-Carver & Goldsmith
Russell Lownsbough
Dave Merry, Hallmarking Expert at the Assay Office, Goldsmiths Hall – “I am responsible for training and apprenticeships at the Assay Office but I am also a maker and a sampler. We employ twenty-two people and test six thousand articles every day. An exciting part of my job is going out on raids with the police to shops where they are selling counterfeit jewellery.”
Dave Merry – “The phrase ‘up to scratch’ derives from the ancient practice of testing precious metals by rubbing them against a touchstone and applying aqua regia – known as ‘the acid test.’ I have had this stone for forty-seven years, since I was given it when I first walked in the door.”
John Taylor, Gemstone Cutter
John Taylor
Pete Rome, Gemstone Cutter
Pete Rome
Steve Goldsmith, Polisher
Steve Goldsmith
Niall Paisley, Diamond Setter – “I’ve been in the trade twenty-seven years, I started at sixteen. You learn a lot by heating stones, the hardness of the stones and the stress they will endure – diamonds can take any level of abuse whereas emeralds are brittle.”
Niall Paisley
Jennifer Bloy, Designer of Jewellery, Silverware & Objet d’Art – “I wanted to be a smith but they wouldn’t let me because I am a woman, so I started making reproductions – but then there was a job going as a designer in Hatton Garden and I got it. Because I worked as a maker, I know how things are made, so I can design for making.”
Jennifer Bloy – “I bought this stone, I love stones and I love colour.”
Ingo Henn, Master Goldsmith, Henn of London – “My great grandfather started in 1900, he was a stone cutter. He came from a family of fifteen and at twelve years old he was sent to be trained. When I was seventeen, I started as an apprentice in the family company but I have been designing since I was sixteen and I have been in London twenty-two years now. Any gemstone is valuable but it is not just down to its monetary value. The key is never to overpower a stone if the setting is too big or the design is too busy.”
Wayne Parrott, Master Engraver – “In 1908, the security engravers at the Bank of England earned more than the governors. I began at thirteen years old, attending evening classes at Sir John Cass College and I was taught by George Friend. Later, I returned to the Cass as a teacher and lectured for over forty years. We are all artists in what we do and I have produced countless designs.”
Wayne Parrott – “I specialise in designing seals.”
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
HIDDEN TREASURES, an exhibition of work by the Fellows of the Institute of Professional Goldsmiths runs until 3rd May at The Goldsmith’s Centre, 42 Britton St, Clerkenwell, EC1M 5AD
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Bluebells At Bow Cemetery
With a few bluebells in flower in my garden in Spitalfields, I was inspired make a visit to Bow Cemetery and view the display of bluebells sprouting under the tall forest canopy that has grown over the graves of the numberless East Enders buried there. In each season of the the year, this hallowed ground offers an arcadian refuge from the city streets and my spirits always lift as I pass between the ancient brick walls that enclose it, setting out to lose myself among the winding paths, lined by tombstones and overarched with trees.
Equivocal weather rendered the timing of my trip as a gamble, and I was at the mercy of chance whether I should get there and back in sunshine. Yet I tried to hedge my bets by setting out after a shower and walking quickly down the Whitechapel Rd beneath a blue sky of small fast-moving clouds – though, even as I reached Mile End, a dark thunderhead came eastwards from the City casting gloom upon the land. It was too late to retrace my steps and instead I unfurled my umbrella in the cemetery as the first raindrops fell, taking shelter under a horse chestnut, newly in leaf, as the shower became a downpour.
Standing beneath the dripping tree in the half-light of the storm, I took a survey of the wildflowers around me, primroses spangling the green, the white star-like stitchwort adorning graves, a scattering of palest pink ladies smock highlighting the ground cover, yellow celandines sharp and bright against the dark green leaves, violets and wild strawberries nestling close to the earth and may blossom and cherry blossom up above – and, of course, the bluebells’ hazy azure mist shimmering between the lines of stones tilting at irregular angles. Alone beneath the umbrella under the tree in the heart of the vast graveyard, I waited. It was the place of death, but all around me there was new growth.
Once the rain relented sufficiently for me to leave my shelter, I turned towards the entrance in acceptance that my visit was curtailed. The pungent aroma of wild garlic filled the damp air. But then – demonstrating the quick-changing weather that is characteristic of April – the clouds were gone and dazzling sunshine descended in shafts through the forest canopy turning the wet leaves into a million tiny mirrors, reflecting light in a vision of phantasmagoric luminosity. Each fresh leaf and petal and branch glowed with intense colour after the rain. I stood still and cast my eyes around to absorb every detail in this sacred place. It was a moment of recognition that has recurred throughout my life, the awe-inspiring rush of growth of plant life in England in spring.
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Find out more at Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park
Mychael Barratt’s Whitechapel Mural
Every time I walk down Mile End Rd, my attention always wanders to Mychael Barratt‘s mural high on the wall beyond Trinity Green Almshouses, conjuring the presiding spirits of this corner of Whitechapel.
“No artist can refuse a mural,” Mychael admitted to me with a grin and a shrug, introducing the unlikely story of the origin of his vast painting, executed over six weeks in the summer of 2011. When lawyers, TV Edwards, who have been established in the East End in the vicinity of the docks since 1929, were refused permission for a large advert on the side of their building, senior partner Anthony Edwards, saw the possibility for a creative solution to the bare wall in Mile End Rd. So, after noticing Mychael Barrett’s work on a hoarding while going over Blackfriars Bridge in a taxi, he gave the artist a call.
Mychael came to London from Canada in the eighties. “I was travelling around Europe and I was only supposed to stay in London for a week, but I never left,” he confessed to me. Yet Mychael’s Huguenot ancestors first came here three hundred years ago as refugees and the history of the capital has proved an enduring source of inspiration for his work.
Mychael at work on the mural in the summer of 2011
The mural was painted by Mychael Barratt, James Glover & Nicholas Middleton
| 1 | George Bernard Shaw was an early member of the Fabian Society who regularly met on the Whitechapel Rd |
| 2 | William Booth started The Christian Mission and The Salvation Army on the Mile End Rd |
| 3 | Captain James Cook lived at 88 Mile End Rd when not at sea |
| 4 | Prince Monolulu was a gambling tipster who frequented Petticoat Lane and Mile End Market with his famous call “I gotta horse!” |
| 5 | Frederick Charrington turned his back on his family’s brewery to start a temperance mission. He is here depicted taking a dray horse out of service |
| 6 | Dockers – This is loosely based on the statue of dockers at Victoria Dock |
| 7 | Vladimir Lenin planned the Russian Revolution in Whitechapel |
| 8 | Joseph Merrick also known as The Elephant Man was first publicly exhibited in London in a shop on the Whitechapel Rd across the street from the London Hospital |
| 9 | T V Edwards started the law firm T V Edwards in 1929 |
| 10 | Anthony Edwards is the senior partner of T V Edwards. As a young boy he would accompany his uncle on his rounds, carrying his briefcase |
| 11 | Bushra Nasir studied at Queen Mary University and became the first Muslim headteacher of a state school |
| 12 | Mahatma Gandhi stayed at Kingsley Hall in 1931 when he came to London to discuss Indian independence |
| 13 | Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II visited the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 2009 |
| 14 | Samuel Pepys frequented the Mile End Rd, as his diary attests and his mother was the daughter of a Whitechapel butcher |
| 15 | Isaac Rosenberg was a First World War poet and a painter who was one of a group of artists known as The Whitechapel Boys |
| 16 | Mark Gertler was another of The Whitechapel Boys |
| 17 | Edith Cavell trained as a nurse at London Hospital before working in German-occupied Belgium during World War I |
| 18 | Reggie & Ronnie Kray frequented The Blind Beggar. |
| 19 | David Hockney had his first exhibition at The Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1970 |
| 20 | Scout This is my dog |
| 21 | Eric Gill’s sculptures grace the New People’s Palace on the Mile End Rd |
| 22 | Gilbert & George live nearby in Spitalfields |
| 23 | Market stalls that line the Mile End Rd |
| 24 | A reference to London’s docks |
| 25 | 30 St Mary Axe also known as the Gherkin |
| 26 | Christ Church, Spitalfields, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor |
| 27 | House by Rachel Whiteread was a cast of the inside of a house on Grove Rd |
| 28 | The East London Mosque |
| 29 | Clock tower from in front of The People’s Palace |
| 30 | The Royal London Hospital |
| 31 | Guernica by Pablo Picasso was displayed at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1939 |
| 32 | The Whitechapel Art Gallery |
| 33 | Blooms, famous kosher restaurant on Whitechapel Rd |
| 34 | The Whitechapel Church Bell Foundry |
| 35 | Trinity Almshouses, Mile End Rd |
| 36 | The first V1 flying bomb or Doodlebug fell in Whitechapel in 1944 |
Mychael Barratt at his studio in Bermondsey
Arnold Circus and the Breathless Brass Band, oil painting
Images copyright © Mychael Barratt
Pensioners United
Contributing Photographer Phil Maxwell has always shown an empathy with seniors, as demonstrated by these magnificent pictures of old ladies in Whitechapel. Now he has made a film on this subject PENSIONERS UNITED produced in collaboration with Hazuan Hashim, which has its premiere at the East End Film Festival this Friday 27th April. Centenarians Max Levitas and Beattie Orwell, and nonagenarian Sophie Spielman who have been interviewed in these pages are to be seen in this feature-length documentary celebrating the contribution of seniors to society. Click here to book.
Photographing daily on the streets of Spitalfields and Whitechapel for the last thirty years, Phil Maxwell has taken hundreds of pictures of old ladies – of which I publish a small selection of favourites here today. Some of these photos of old ladies were taken over twenty years ago and a couple were taken this spring, revealing both the continuity of their presence and the extraordinary tenacity for life demonstrated by these proud specimens of the female sex in the East End. Endlessly these old ladies trudge the streets with trolleys and bags, going about their business in all weathers, demonstrating an indomitable spirit as the world changes around them, and becoming beloved sentinels of the territory.
“As a street photographer, you cannot help but take photos of these ladies.” Phil admitted, speaking with heartfelt tenderness for his subjects, “In a strange kind of way, they embody the spirit of the street because they’ve been treading the same paths for decades and seen all the changes. They have an integrity that a youth or a skateboarder can’t have, which comes from their wealth of experience and, living longer than men, they become the guardians of the life of the street.”
“Some are so old that you have an immediate respect for them. These are women who have worked very hard all their lives and you can see it etched on their faces, but what some would dismiss as the marks of old age I would describe as the beauty of old age. The more lines they have, the more beautiful they are to me. You can just see that so many stories and secrets are contained by those well-worn features.”
“I remember my darkroom days with great affection, because there was nothing like the face of an old lady emerging from the negative in the darkroom developer – it was as if they were talking to me as their faces began to appear. There is a magnificence to them.”
Photographs copyright © Phil Maxwell
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Vaisakhi At Gurdwara Dasmesh Darbar
Making roti for the festival of Vaisakhi
Photographer Andrew Baker has been documenting the life of the Gurdwara Dasmesh Darbar, Sikh Temple in Manor Park, for several years and I was delighted to accompany him recently to witness the annual ritual of Vaisakhi – a celebration of new year and harvest festival which centres around a flag pole being taken down, washed in milk and then re-erected with a new silk wrapping for another year.
This ritual of renewal commemorates the events of 14th April 1699, after Guru Gobind Singh’s father had been beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam. When the guru asked which of his followers would sacrifice their head as a proof of loyalty – five volunteers stepped forward into his tent one by one, and each time he emerged with blood on his sword. Yet on the fifth time, he emerged accompanied by the five volunteers all unharmed and they became known as the Panj Pyare (the five beloved ones). This was an initiation ritual establishing the Order of Khalsa, created by the guru to champion religious freedom and fight oppression of all kinds.
Meanwhile, more than three hundred years later in East London, I was astonished by the open-hearted generosity of the welcome I received – as a complete outsider to Sikhism – from both male and female members of the congregation when I visited their temple. Upon arrival, I stepped into the kitchen where group of brightly dressed women were singing as they cooked huge pots of fresh green spinach and yellow chickpeas for the forthcoming Vaisakhi feast. Removing my shoes, washing my hands and wrapping my head in a coloured cloth, I entered the temple and sat in a quiet corner while worshippers lined up to present their offerings during an extended reading from the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book, by a distinguished gentleman in a long beard who could orate – seemingly – for hours without pausing for breath.
Yet I noticed that the congregation were beginning to drift discreetly towards the exit, so I followed them outside to observe the activity. On my way, I put my head around the kitchen door again where the women were still singing but now working in a production line to produce enough roti to feed the hundreds that had assembled.
An excited crowd had gathered in the street, adorned in garments of blue, orange, yellow and pink that are beloved of the Sikhs. The sense of anticipation grew tangible as five bearded men dressed in orange tunics with white scarves and blue turbans, bearing steel sabres, processed out from the temple to stand barefoot in line upon five squares of carpet that had thoughtfully been placed upon the asphalt for them. These were the Panj Pyare.
A group of women were chanting to a rhythm enhanced by an array of percussive instruments but all eyes were upon the flagpole with its steel finial in the shape of double-edged sword glinting in the sun. Two men on a ladder were dislodging the pole from the clamps that supported it and – with a cheer from the crowd – it hinged down to reach the forest of arms extended to support it as it reached horizontal.
Once the ribbons that secured it were untied by members of the crowd, the yellow silk pole cover was pulled off, just like an extremely long sock. Then others with steel bowls of thick milk, almost like thin yoghurt, stepped forward so that everyone could dip their hands in it and apply the milk to the flag pole.
On either side, people leaned forward eagerly to smear milk all over the pole with their fingers while standing back to prevent milk dripping onto their shoes. Then the pole was dried conscientiously with towels before the new silk cover was tied lovingly in place with ribbons. Once this was accomplished, the crowd was suffused with delight at their collective achievement to see the flagpole ascending to its vertical position again.
The five beloved ones led the way back into the temple with their sabres gleaming in the sunlight and everyone followed in hungry expectation of the feast that was to come. In this particular corner of East London, Vaisakhi had been observed for another year and spring was in the air.
Taking down the flag pole
Baking roti for the Vaisakhi feast
Inside the temple
Reading from the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book
The Panj Pyare (five beloved ones)
The flag pole comes down
Removing the silk wrapper
Washing the flagpole in milk
Wrapping the flagpole in a new silk cover
Photographs copyright © Andrew Baker
A Walk Along The Black Path
Sculpture of porters resting at London Fields
Taking to heart the observation by the celebrated poet & resident of Aldgate, Geoffrey Chaucer, that April is the time to go on pilgrimages, I set out last week for day’s walk in the sunshine along the ancient Black Path from Walthamstow to Shoreditch. The route of this primeval footpath is still clearly visible upon the map of the East End today, as if someone had taken a crayon and scrawled a curved diagonal line across the grid of the modern street plan. There is no formal map of the Black Path yet any keen walker with a sense of direction may follow it as I did.
Tracing a trajectory running northeast and southwest between Shoreditch Church and the crossing of the River Lea at Clapton, the Black Path links with Old St in one direction and extends beyond Walthamstow in the other. Sometimes called the Porter’s Way, this was the route cattle were driven to Smithfield and the path used by smallholders taking produce to Spitalfields Market. Sometimes also called the Templars’ Way, it links the thirteenth century St Augustine’s Tower on land once owned by Knights Templar in Hackney with the Priory of St John in Clerkenwell where they had their headquarters. No-one knows how old the Black Path is or why it has this name, but it once traversed open country before the roads existed. These days the path is black because it has a covering of asphalt.
On the warmest day of spring I took the train from Liverpool St Station up to Walthamstow to commence my walk, seeking respite in the sunshine after the harsh winter that outstayed its allotted season. In observance of custom, I commenced my pilgrimage at an inn, setting out from The Bell and following the winding road through Walthamstow to the market. A tavern by this name has stood at Bell Corner for centuries and the street that leads southwest from it, once known as Green Leaf Lane, reveals its ancient origin in its curves that trace the contours of the land.
Struggling to resist the delights of pie & mash and magnificent 99p shops, I felt like Bunyan’s pilgrim avoiding the temptations of Vanity Fair as I wandered through Walthamstow Market which extends for a mile down the High St to St James, gradually sloping away down towards the marshes. Here I turned left onto St James St itself before following Station Rd and then weaving southwest through late nineteenth century terraces, sprawling over the incline, to emerge at the level of the Walthamstow Marshes.
Then I walked along Markhouse Avenue which leads into Argall Industrial Estate, traversed by a narrow footpath enclosed with high steel fences on each side. Here you may find Allied Bakeries, Bates Laundry and evangelical churches including Deliverance Outreach Mission, Praise Harvest Community Church, Celestial Church of Christ, Mountain of Fire & Miracle Ministries and Christ United Ministries, revealing that religion may be counted as an industry in this location.
Crossing an old railway bridge and a broad tributary of the River Lea brought me onto the Leyton Marshes where I was surrounded by leaves unfurling, buds popping and blossom exploding – natural wonders that characterise the rush of spring at this sublime moment of the year. Horses graze on the marshes and the dense blackthorn hedge which lines the footpath provided a sufficiently bucolic background to evoke a sense that I was walking an ancient footpath through a rural landscape. Yet already the municipal parks department were out, unable to resist taking advantage of the sunlight to give the verges a fierce trim with their mechanical mower even before the the plants have properly sprouted.
It was a surprise to find myself amidst the busy traffic again as I crossed the Lea Bridge and found myself back in the East End, of which the River Lea is its eastern boundary. The position of this crossing – once a ford, then a ferry and finally a bridge – defines the route of the Black Path, tracing a line due southwest from here.
I followed the diagonal path bisecting the well-kept lawn of Millfields and walked up Powerscroft Rd to arrive in the heart of Hackney at St Augustine’s Tower, built in 1292 and a major landmark upon my route. Yet I did not want to absorb the chaos of this crossroads where so many routes meet at the top of Mare St, instead I walked quickly past the Town Hall and picked up the quiet footpath next to the museum known as Hackney Grove. This byway has always fascinated me, leading under the railway line to emerge onto London Fields.
The drovers once could graze their cattle, sheep and geese overnight on this common land before setting off at dawn for Smithfield Market, a practice recalled today in the names of Sheep Lane and the Cat & Mutton pub. The curve of Broadway Market leading through Goldsmith’s Row down to Columbia Rd reveals its origin as a cattle track. From the west end of Columbia Rd, it was a short walk along Virginia Rd on the northern side of the Boundary Estate to arrive at my destination, Shoreditch Church.
If I chose to follow ancient pathways further, I could have walked west along Old St towards Bath, north up the Kingsland Rd to York, east along the Roman Rd towards Colchester or south down Bishopsgate to the City of London. But flushed and footweary after my six mile hike in the heat of the sun, I was grateful to return home to Spitalfields and put my feet up in the shade of the house. For millennia, when it was the sole route, countless numbers travelled along the old Black Path from Walthamstow to Shoreditch, but last week there was just me on my solitary pilgrimage.
At Bell Corner, Walthamstow
‘Fellowship is Life’
Two quinces for £1.50 in Walthamstow Market
Walthamstow Market is a mile long
‘struggling to resist the delights of pie & mash’
At St James St
Station Rd
‘leaves unfurling, buds popping and blossom exploding which characterise the rush of spring’
Enclosed path through Argall Industrial Estate skirting Allied Bakeries
Argall Avenue
‘These days the path is black because it has a covering of asphalt’
Railway bridge leading to the Leyton marshes
A tributary of the River Lea
Horses graze on the Leyton marshes
“dense blackthorn which line the footpath provided a sufficiently bucolic background to evoke a sense that I was walking an ancient footpath”
‘the municipal parks department were out, unable to resist taking advantage of the sunlight to give the verges a fierce trim with their mechanical mower even before the the plants have properly sprouted’
The River Lea is the eastern boundary of the East End
Across Millfields Park towards Powerscroft Rd
Thirteenth century St Augustine’s Tower in Hackney
Worn steps in Hackney Grove
In London Fields
At Cat & Mutton Bridge, Broadway Market
Columbia Rd
St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch
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