Bob Mazzer At The Model Railway Show
Contributing Photographer Bob Mazzer, celebrated for his pictures taken on the Underground, recently spent the weekend at the London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace to create this photoessay for your delight
Photographs copyright © Bob Mazzer
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Bob Mazzer’s Street Photography
The Ceremony Of The Widow’s Sixpence
Free hot cross buns will be distributed at St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield tomorrow at 11:30am
Distribution of buns to widows in the churchyard of St Bartholomew the Great
St Bartholomew the Great is one of my favourite churches in the City, a rare survivor of the Great Fire, it boasts the best Norman interior in London. Composed of ancient rough-hewn stonework, riven with deep shadow where feint daylight barely illuminates the accumulated dust of ages, this is one of those rare atmospheric places where you can still get a sense of the medieval world glimmering. Founded by Rahere in 1123, the current structure is the last vestige of an Augustinian Priory upon the edge of Smithfield, where once martyrs were burnt at the stake as public entertainment and the notorious St Bartholomew Fair was celebrated each summer from 1133 until 1855.
In such a location, the Good Friday tradition of the distribution of charity in the churchyard to poor widows of the parish sits naturally. Once known as the ‘Widow’s Sixpence,’ this custom was institutionalised by Joshua Butterworth in 1887, who created a trust in his name with an investment of twenty-one pounds and ten shillings. The declaration of the trust states its purpose thus – “On Good Friday in each year to distribute in the churchyard of St. Bartholomew the Great the sum of 6d. to twenty-one poor widows, and to expend the remainder of such dividends in buns to be given to children attending such distribution, and he desired that the Charity intended to be thereby created should be called ‘the Butterworth Charity.'”
Those of use who gathered at St Bartholomew the Great on the Good Friday I visited were blessed with sunlight to ameliorate the chill as we shivered in the churchyard. Yet we could not resist a twinge of envy for the clerics in their heavy cassocks and warm velvet capes as they processed from the church in a formal column, with priests at the head attended by vergers bearing wicker baskets of freshly buttered Hot Cross Buns, and a full choir bringing up the rear.
In the nineteen twenties, the sum distributed to each recipient was increased to two shillings and sixpence, and later to four shillings. Resplendent in his scarlet robes, Rev Martin Dudley, Rector of St Bartholomew the Great climbed upon the table tomb at the centre of the churchyard traditionally used for that purpose and enacted the motions of this arcane ceremony – enquiring of the assembly if there were a poor widow of the parish in need of twenty shillings. To his surprise, a senior female raised her hand. “That’s never happened before!” he declared to the easy amusement of the crowd, “But then, it’s never been so cold at Easter before.” Having instructed the woman to consult with the churchwarden afterwards, he explained that it was usual to preach a sermon upon this hallowed occasion, before qualifying himself by revealing that it would be brief this year, owing to the adverse meteorological conditions. “God’s blessing upon the frosts and cold!” he announced with a grin, raising his hands into the sunlight, “That’s it.”
I detected a certain haste to get to the heart of the proceedings – the distribution of the Hot Cross Buns. Rev Dudley directed the vergers to start with the choir, who exercised admirable self-control in only taking one each. Then, as soon as the choir had been fed, the vergers set out around the boundaries of the yard where senior females with healthy appetites, induced by waiting in the cold, reached forward eagerly to take their allotted Hot Cross Buns in hand.
The tense anticipation induced by the chill gave way to good humour as everyone delighted in the strangeness of the ritual which rendered ordinary buns exotic. Reaching the end of the line at the furthest extent of the churchyard, the priests wasted no time in satisfying their own appetites and, for a few minutes, silence prevailed as the entire assembly munched their buns.
Then Rev Martin returned to his central position upon the table tomb. “And now, because there is no such thing as free buns,” he announced, “we’re going to sing a hymn.” Yet we were more than happy to oblige, standing replete with buns on Good Friday.
The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, a century ago
John Betjeman once lived in this house overlooking the churchyard.
The ceremony of the Widow’s Sixpence in the nineteen twenties.
“God’s blessing upon the frosts and cold!”
A crowd gathers for the ceremony a hundred years ago
Hungry widows line up for buns
The churchyard in the nineteenth century
Rev Martin Dudley BD MSc MTh PhD FSA FRHistS AKC is the 25th Rector since the Reformation
Testing the buns
The clerics ensure no buns go to waste
Hymns in the cold – “There is a green hill far away without a city wall…”
The Norman interior of St Bartholomew the Great at the beginning of the twentieth century
The Gatehouse prior to bombing in World War I and reconstruction
Archive images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Digging Up the Oldest Tree In The East End
On Friday, Tower Hamlets Council granted Crest Nicholson, the developers of the former London Chest Hospital, permission to dig up the oldest Mulberry in the East End, which is subject to a Tree Protection Order, and move it out of the way for their proposed development of the site, even though they do not yet have planning permission for construction.
Thanks to an invitation from one of the readers, I had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the oldest tree in the East End two years ago, a dignified tottering specimen known as the Bethnal Green Mulberry. It is more than four hundred years old and its leaves were intended to feed silkworms cultivated by weavers.
The Black Mulberry originally grew within the grounds of Bishop Bonner’s Palace that stood on this site and an inkwell in the museum of the Royal London Hospital, made in 1915 from a bough, has a brass plate engraved with the sardonic yarn that the Bishop sat beneath it to enjoy shelter in the cool of the evening while deciding which heretics to execute. Once upon a time, the Mulberry stood next to a chapel that was destroyed by a bomb in World War II, leaving the tree’s bark with charred scars to remind us of its history.
My visit was a poignant occasion since the Mulberry stands today in the grounds of the former London Chest Hospital which opened in 1855 and closed forever the week I visited, prior to being handed over by the National Health Service in advance of redevelopment. My only previous visit to the Hospital was as a patient struggling with pneumonia, when I was grateful to come here for treatment and feel reassured by its gracious architecture surrounded by trees. Of palatial design, the London Chest Hospital was a magnificent Victorian philanthropic institution where the successful campaign to rid the East End of tuberculosis in the last century was masterminded.
It was a sombre spectacle to see workmen carrying out desks and stripping the Hospital of its furniture, and when a security guard informed me that building had been sold for twenty-five million and would be demolished since “it’s not listed,” I was shocked at the potential loss of this beloved structure and the threat to the historic tree too.
Subsequently, the Chest Hospital has been listed by Historic England. Yet this appears not to be sufficient protection against proposed destructive alteration to the main building, as part of a gross over-development of luxury flats priced far beyond the pockets of local people. In their haste, without even having planning permission for this development, the developers intend to dig up the ancient Mulberry, even though it is subject to a Tree Preservation Order, and move it out of their way.
Gainly supported by struts that have become absorbed into the fibre of the tree over the years, it was heartening to see this ancient organism in spring, coming into leaf once more and renewing itself again after four centuries. The Bethnal Green Mulberry has seen palaces and hospitals come and go, but it continues to bear fruit every summer regardless.
The Mulberry narrowly escaped destruction in World War II and charring from the bomb is still visible
This pre-war fund-raising leaflet for the Chest Hospital shows the Mulberry tree standing next to the chapel which was destroyed by a bomb during World War II when the Mulberry itself just escaped destruction by a few feet
The London Chest Hospital opened in 1855 and closed in 2015
The proposed redevelopment
Click here to read about the Save The Chest Hospital campaign
You may like to read my other stories about Mulberry trees
The Oldest Mulberry in Britain
A Brief History of London Mulberries
A.S. Jasper, Author & Cabinet-Maker
Join me at the launch party for A.S. Jasper’s A Hoxton Childhood & The Years After on Tuesday 25th April 7pm at the Labour and Wait Workroom, 29-32 The Oval, Off Hackney Rd, Bethnal Green, E2 9DT. There will be live music, readings and refreshments. Tickets are £5, including £5 discount off the cover price. Click here to book
Together, A.S. Jasper’s A Hoxton Childhood & The Years After comprise an authentic testimony of the survival and eventual triumph of a protagonist who retains his sense of decency against all the odds. A Hoxton Childhood is a tender memoir of growing up in Hoxton before the First World War, while The Years After details the author’s struggles and successes in the Shoreditch cabinet-making trade.
Albert Stanley Jasper
“The initials stand for Albert Stanley, but he was always know as Stan, never Albert,” admitted Terry Jasper, speaking of his father when we met at F. Cooke’s Pie & Mash Shop in Hoxton Market. A.S. Jasper’s A Hoxton Childhood was immediately acclaimed as a classic in 1969 when The Observer described it as “Zola without the trimmings,” and now Spitalfields Life Books is publishing a handsome new definitive edition accompanied for the first time by the sequel, The Years After.
“In the late sixties, my mum and dad lived in a small ground floor flat. Looking out of the window onto the garden one morning, he saw a tramp laying on the grass who had been there all night. My dad took him out a sandwich and a cup of tea, and told him that he wouldn’t be able to stay there” Terry recalled, “I think most people in that situation would have just phoned the police and left it at that.” It is an anecdote that speaks eloquently of Stan Jasper’s compassionate nature, informing his writing and making him a kind father, revered by his son all these years later.
Yet it is in direct contrast to the brutal treatment that Stan received at the hands of his own alcoholic father William, causing the family to descend in a spiral of poverty as they moved from one rented home to another, while his mother Johanna struggled heroically against the odds to maintain domestic equilibrium for her children. “My grandmother, I only met her a couple of times, but once I was alone with her in the room and she said, ‘Your dad, he was my best boy, he took care of me.'” Terry remembered.
“There are a million things I’d like to have asked him when he was alive but I didn’t,” Terry confided to me, contemplating his treasured copy of his father’s book that sat on the table between us, “My dad died in 1970, he was sixty-five – It was just a year after publication but he saw it was a success.”
“When he was a teenager, he was a wood machinist and the sawdust got on on his lungs and he got very bad bronchitis. When I was eight years old, the doctor told him he must give up his job, otherwise the dust would kill him. My mum said to him that this was something he had to do and he just broke down. It was very strange feeling, because I didn’t think then that grown-ups cried.”
Stan started his own business manufacturing wooden cases for radios in the forties, employing more than seventy people at one point until it ran into difficulties during the credit squeeze of the fifties. Offered a lucrative buy-out, Stan turned it down out of a concern that his employees might lose their jobs but, shortly after, the business went into liquidation.”He should have thought of his family rather his workers,” commented Terry regretfully, “He lost his factory and his home and had to live in a council flat for the rest of his life.”
“My dad used to talk about his childhood quite a lot, he never forgot it – so my uncle Bob said, ‘Why don’t you write it all down?’ And he did, but he tried to get it published without success. Then a friend where I worked in the City Rd took it to someone he knew in publishing, and they really liked it and that’s how it got published. When the book came out in 1969, he wanted to go back to Hoxton to see what was still left, but his health wasn’t good enough.”
Terry ‘s memories of his father’s struggles are counterbalanced by warm recollections of family celebrations.”He always enjoyed throwing a party, especially if he was in the company of my mother’s family. It wasn’t easy obtaining beer and spirits during the warm but somehow he managed to find a supply. He was always generous where money was concerned, sometimes to a fault, and he had a nice voice and didn’t need much persuading to get up and sing a song or two.”
Stan Jasper only became an author in the final years of his life when he could no longer work, and the success of A Hoxton Childhood encouraged him to write The Years After, which was found among his papers after his death and is published now more than forty years later. The two works exist as companion pieces, tracing the dramatic journey of the author from the insecurity of his early years in Hoxton to the comfortable suburban existence he created for his family as an adult. The moral lessons he learnt in childhood became the guidelines by which he lived his life.
Together, A.S. Jasper’s A Hoxton Childhood & The Years After comprise an authentic testimony of the survival and eventual triumph of a protagonist who retains his sense of decency against all the odds. “He said he would always settle for the way life turned out,” Terry concluded fondly.
Click here to pre-order a copy for £20
Stan (on the right) with his brother Fred
Stan and his wife Lydia
Terry as a boy
Terry with his dad Stan
Stan and his sister Flo
Stan Jasper
Terry with his mum and dad at Christmas
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Stan Jasper with his dog Nipper
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A Hoxton Childhood & The Years After
James Boswell, Artist & Illustrator
The Gentle Author is delighted to collaborate with Labour and Wait to present a SPITALFIELDS LIFE BOOKSHOP for ten days at the WORKROOM, 29-32 The Oval, Off Hackney Rd, Bethnal Green, E2 9DT, in the shadow of the magnificent gasometers. This will be a rare chance to take a look at all Spitalfields Life Books titles in one place and have a peek behind the scenes at Labour and Wait too.
(Wednesday 26th April – Saturday, May 6th, 11am-6pm. Closed Sunday 30th April)
The Facading Of The White Hart
Over the past year, a carbuncle has appeared on top of the ancient White Hart in Bishopsgate. It is the creation of Amsprop, a company belonging to entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar, who began his career nearby in Petticoat Lane and for whom this will serve as his monument in the East End.
The White Hart (1246-2015)
Charles Goss, one of the first archivists at the Bishopsgate Institute, was in thrall to the romance of old Bishopsgate and in 1930 he wrote a lyrical history of The White Hart, which he believed to be its most ancient tavern – originating as early as 1246. “Its history as an inn can be of little less antiquity than that of the Tabard, the lodging house of the feast-loving Chaucer and the Canterbury pilgrims, or the Boar’s Head in Eastcheap, the rendezvous of Prince Henry and his lewd companions.” – Charles Goss
In Goss’ time, Bishopsgate still contained medieval shambles that were spared by the Fire of London and he recalled the era before the coming of the railway, when the street was lined with old coaching inns, serving as points of departure and arrival for travellers to and from the metropolis. “During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, The White Hart tavern was at the height of its prosperity.” he wrote fondly, “It was a general meeting place of literary men of the neighbourhood and the rendezvous of politicians and traders, and even noblemen visited it.”
The White Hart’s history is interwoven with the founding of the Hospital of St Mary Bethlehem in 1246 by Simon Fitz Mary, whose house once stood upon the site of the tavern. He endowed his land in Bishopsgate, extending beneath the current Liverpool St Station, to the monastery and Goss believed the Brothers stayed in Fitz Mary’s mansion once they first arrived from Palestine, until the hospital was constructed in 1257 with the gatehouse situated where Liverpool St meets Bishopsgate today. This dwelling may have subsequently became a boarding house for pilgrims outside the City gate and when the first licences to sell sweet wines were issued to three taverns in Bishopsgate in August 1365, this is likely to have been the origin of the White Hart’s status as a tavern.
Yet, ten years later in 1375, Edward III took possession of the monastery as an ‘alien priory’ and turned it over to become a hospital for the insane. The gateway was replaced in the reign of Richard II and the date ‘1480’ that adorned the front of the inn until the nineteenth century suggests it was rebuilt with a galleried yard at the same time and renamed The White Hart, acquiring Richard’s badge as its own symbol. The galleried yard offered the opportunity for theatrical performances, while increased traffic in Bishopsgate and the reputation of Shoreditch as a place of entertainments drew the audience.
“Vast numbers of stage coaches, wagons, chaises and carriages passed through Bishopsgate St at this time,” wrote Goss excitedly, “Travellers and carriers arriving near the City after the gates had been closed or those who for other reasons desired to remain outside the City wall until the morning, would naturally put up at one of the galleried inns, or taverns near the City gate and The White Hart was esteemed to be one of the most important taverns at that time. Here they would find small private rooms, where the visitors not only took their meals but transacted all manner of business and, if the food dispensed was good enough, the wine strong, the feather beds deep and heavily curtained, the bedrooms were certainly cold and draughty, for the doors opened onto unprotected galleries – but apparently they were comfortable enough for travellers in former days.”
The occasion of Charles Goss’ history of The White Hart was the centenary of its rebuilding upon its original foundations in 1829, yet although the medieval structure above ground was replaced, Goss was keen to emphasise that, “When the tavern was taken down it was found to be built upon cellars constructed in earlier centuries. Those were not destroyed, but were again used in the construction of the present house.” This rebuilding coincided with Bedlam Gate being removed and the road widened and renamed Liverpool St, after the Hospital of St Mary Bethlehem had transferred to Lambeth in 1815. At this time, the date ‘1246 ‘- referring to the founding of the monastery – was placed upon the pediment on The White Hart where it may be seen to this day.
“This tavern which claims to be endowed with the oldest licence in London, is still popular, for its various compartments appear always to be well patronised during the legal hours they are open for refreshment and there can be none of London’s present-day inns which can trace its history as far back as The White Hart, Bishopsgate,” concluded Goss in satisfaction in 1930.
In 2011, permission was granted by the City of London to demolish all but the facade of The White Hart and in 2015 the pub shut for the last time to permit the construction of a nine storey cylindrical office block of questionable design, developed by Sir Alan Sugar’s company Amsprop. Thus passes The White Hart after more than seven centuries in Bishopsgate, and I am glad Charles Goss is not here to see it.
The White Hart by John Thomas Smith c. 1800
The White Hart from a drawing by George Shepherd, 1810
White Hart Court, where the coaches once drove through to the galleried yard of the White Hart
Design by Inigo Jones for buildings constructed in White Hart Court in 1610
Seventeenth century tavern token, “At The White Hart”
Reverse of the Tavern Token ” At Bedlam Gate 1637″
The White Hart as it appeared in 1787
The White Hart, prior to the rebuilding of 1829
“When the tavern was taken down it was found to be built upon cellars constructed in earlier centuries. Those were not destroyed, but were again used in the construction of the present house.” Charles Goss describing the rebuilding of 1829. These ancient vaults were destroyed in the current redevelopment.
The White Hart in 2015
The White Hart in 2017
Seen from the churchyard of St Botolph’s Bishopsgate by James Gold, 1728
Seen from the south west
Seen from Liverpool St
The meeting of the old and new in Liverpool St
The development seen from Houndsditch
Archive images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Palm Sunday In Stepney
Last year on Palm Sunday, the late Colin O’Brien & I visited St Dunstan’s to witness the procession
Every Easter, George & Dunstan, donkeys at Stepney City Farm enjoy an outing when they join the Parishioners of St Dunstan’s for the annual procession around the vicinity on Palm Sunday – and, last year, Photographer Colin O’Brien & I joined the enthusiastic throng on a cold and grey spring morning.
Walking down from Whitechapel, Colin & I followed Stepney Way, which was once a path across the fields used by worshippers when St Dunstan’s was the parish church for the whole of Tower Hamlets. St Dunstan founded it in 952 and it stands today as earliest surviving building after the Tower on this side of London.
At the old stone church, we discovered the wardens were eager to show us their ancient silver, a mace and a staff, with images of St Dunstan, the Tower and a Galleon referring to the days when this was the parish of seafarers. Once, all those who were born or died at sea were entered here in the parish register.
Curate Chris Morgan led off across the churchyard along the fine avenue of plane trees, swinging incense and followed by church wardens, sidesmen, George & Dunstan the donkeys, members of the parish and a solo trumpeter, with the Rector Trevor Critchlow bringing up the rear.
Anyone still nursing a hangover from Saturday night might have been astounded to be awoken by the sound of a heavenly host, and parted the curtains to discover this rag tag parade. Yet it was a serious commemoration of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem in which the streets of Stepney became transformed into the Via Sacra for a morning.
They marched through the empty terraced streets, past the large development site, turned left at the curry restaurant, passing the pizza takeaway and the beauty parlour, before turning left again at the youth centre to re-enter the churchyard. Then there was just time to pet the donkeys before they filed into the church to warm up again and begin Sunday morning prayers. And this was how Easter began in Stepney.
St Dunstan with his metalworkers’ tongs on top of the seventeenth century mace
A galleon upon an eighteenth century staff is a reminder St Dunstan’s was the parish of seafarers
Tower of London upon the reverse of the staff
Sidesmens’ batons from the era of George IV
Julian Cass, Sidesman
Jenny Ellwood, Sidesperson, and Sarah Smith, Parish Clerk
Trevor Critchlow, Rector of St Dunstan’s
Curate Chris Morgan leads the procession
Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien
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Royal Jubilee Bells At Garlickhythe
In the fourth of my series of the stories of Whitechapel Bells, I visit the Royal Jubilee Bells
If you should pass by St James Garlickhythe on a Thursday evening when the bellringers are practising between six-thirty and eight, you can be assured of hearing the Royal Jubilee bells echoing and resounding through the surrounding streets. As I arrived to join the ringers last week, the last steep-angled shafts of sunlight entered Sir Christopher Wren’s church, picking out ancient monuments from the gloom and highlighting the quaint lion and unicorn figures in their dying rays.
Ascending a narrow spiral staircase within the wall of the tower, I arrived in the tiny ringers’ chamber, whitewashed and carpeted in plum. Here the ringers stood in a ritualistic circle under the tutelage of Dickon Love, who is the Magus of bell ringing in the City of London and author of the authoritative Love’s Guide to Church Bells.
A certain shared understanding characterises these gatherings, as ringers share a common quality of implacable concentration while engaged in their task. They are concentrating on maintaining the physical task of rhythmic pulling and catching, yet remaining alert to the actions of their fellows too. Observing this activity, watching the ropes bobbing and listening to the bells overheard proved a mesmeric experience.
For me, there is magic in the sound of bells. It is music in which – to my inexperienced ear – its several instruments seem to merge and divide, even as you are aware of their sound coruscating in the air around you.
During practice, I climbed up to the floor above the bells – attired with ear protectors – to observe them in action through a metal grille. Peering from a darkened room at the brightly-lit spectacle of the vast gilt beasts wagging their long red tongues did not disappoint. At first, I was alarmed that the ancient wooden floor shifted with their vibrations, almost as if I were on a boat. Placing a hand upon the rough stonework wall confirmed that it too was moving. Yet I was assured this movement confirmed my safety – since the sheer weight of the tower ensured its stability, while the tensile quality of its timber floors and flexibility of its stone walls held together by lime mortar prevented it cracking.
After practice, Dickon took me into the belfry to admire the eight Royal Jubilee bells cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry at close quarters. They were first played from a barge that led the Water Pageant upon the River Thames on 2nd June 2012 before they were installed in St James Garlickhythe later that summer. As the one who conceived and oversaw the commissioning and realisation of this grand conception, Dickon is justly proud of his achievement which is recorded by the text ‘Dickon Love put us here’ upon the F Double Sharp bell. Upon our descent from the tower, Dickon revealed he was celebrating his birthday next day but also – and perhaps more importantly – he commenced his ringing career on the eve of his thirteenth birthday, making him thirty-four years a bellringer that night.
I said my farewells to the thirsty ringers at the top of Garlick Hill as they made haste to The Watling for refreshment and celebration, while I turned my own steps across the City towards Spitalfields.
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Filmed by Christopher Stocks
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