The Bug Woman & A London Inheritance
With another of my Spitalfields Blog Courses coming up on May 14th & 15th, it is my pleasure to present recent work by two of my unashamedly favourite alumni – The Bug Woman and A London Inheritance. Click here for more information about the Course
A LONDON INHERITANCE, A Private History of a Public City
My father took this photo of a milestone in Highgate in 1948. It is just south of the Flask along Highgate West Hill. The milestone is still there as you can see in my photo of the milestone today. Nothing special you might think. But compare the mileage, five in 1948 and four today – and the destination is a location that does not now exist in London, Saint Giles Pound.
So where and what was Saint Giles Pound? Saint Giles refers to the parish of St Giles in the Fields, just a short distance from the junction of Tottenham Court Rd, Oxford St and Charing Cross Rd. In “The History of the United Parishes of St Giles in the Fields” by Rowland Dobie, published in 1829, I found this reference to the Pound –
“‘The Pound’ probably existed from a very early period, as a necessary appendage to the parish while a village and abounding in pasture lands, though it is unnoticed in the books of the parish, till Lord Southampton’s grant of the ground on which it stood for the almshouses, where it is described as occupying a space of thirty feet, which was to be the dimensions of the new Pound, therein directed to be removed to the end of Tottenham Court Rd. The exact site of the Pound was the broad space where St. Giles High Street, Tottenham Court Rd, and Oxford St meet, where it stood within memory. Noticed for the profligacy of its inhabitants, the vicinity of this spot became proverbial: witness the couplet of an old song.
‘At Newgate steps Jack Chance was found,
And bred up near St Giles Pound’”
The milestone marks one of the old routes used to bring animals through Highgate and down into London. I wondered if the alteration of the distance upon the stone was made by a resident of Highgate who was frustrated with the error. But is four miles correct? Although I have walked the route, I have not measured it, but Google maps confirms the distance as being exactly four miles.
It would be interesting to know if the error originated when the milestone was originally installed or whether the figures have been recut and the error crept in then? They do look very sharp in the 1948 photo, with little deterioration to the edges of the lettering.
John Rocque’s Map of London 1746 was published nineteen years before the Pound was removed. In the bottom right, at the junction of Tottenham Court Rd, Oxford St and St Giles’ High St, there is a rectangular feature – could this be Saint Giles Pound?
It is strange to think that – at this busy junction where the new Crossrail station is being built – once stood Saint Giles Pound, holding animals brought down from the north.
The milestone at Highgate West Hill
BUG WOMAN, ADVENTURES IN LONDON, Because a Community is More Than Just People
JAM SANDWICHES IN THE CEMETERY
Dear Readers, when I was in St Pancras & Islington Cemetery last week, I noticed a fox resting on a mossy mound in the late winter sunshine. The foxes here are truly wild creatures, apt to melt away into the undergrowth as soon as they see a human, so I was surprised to see this one in daylight.
I am always delighted by the appearance of a fox, whether trotting up the street after opening the food-waste bins or here in the cemetery. But it was not until I got home and looked closely at my photographs that I realised that this particular fox has a problem.
A quick glance at the fox’s rear end showed that he has a horrible case of sarcoptic mange. This is not unusual in town foxes and some veterinarians believe that it may be so prevalent because of the stress and poor nutrition to which urban animals are prone. Left untreated, it is likely to get worse.
Sarcoptic mange (also known as scabies) is caused by a mite which burrows into the skin, causing hair-loss and irritation. The biting and scratching at the affected area may give rise to skin infection and encourages the mites to spread, which can ultimately be fatal. Foxes no longer eat or drink, and tear themselves apart, in trying to deal with the intense itching. This is an infernal parasite yet one which is all too common.
If this was a fox that visited my garden, I might see if it could be trapped and treated with the pharmaceuticals that are normally used – Stronghold to kill the mites and a wide-spectrum antibiotic to sort out the infection. But no-one can set a trap on public land, where anything from the wrong fox to a cat to someone’s dog could be caught. Nor could I leave drugs around for the fox to find as they can be poisonous.
Which brings me to homeopathy. I will admit to being a homeopathy sceptic. I find it difficult to believe that a solution so dilute that the active ingredient may be only a few molecules can be helpful. But I know that, with foxes, a homeopathic remedy (Arsenicum album and sulphur 30c) has proved to be efficacious in treating mange. It is completely harmless to other animals and can be used without concern even amongst pregnant or lactating animals.
So, for the past few days, I have been trudging down to the cemetery and depositing a jam sandwich – cut into fifteen tiny pieces and containing exactly four drops of the homeopathic remedy – on the mossy knoll where I last saw the fox. Some days, it has been a bit of a wild and windy walk, with a huge hail storm on Wednesday and relentless drizzle on Thursday.
Faced by all the human and animal tragedy in the world, I feel overwhelmed. I have no idea where to start. There is misery at home and abroad, and everything cries out for help. In the midst of all this, I feel helpless, useless. But this is one tiny thing that I can do. Will it work? Who can say? I know that every last scrap of the sandwich is eaten, yet whether by ‘my’ fox or some other creature I do not know.
I believe there is something worthwhile in the act of witnessing, of noticing that a fellow creature is suffering and trying to help. Compassion is a muscle that has to be exercised and I know how easy it is for it to atrophy. I often feel so loaded down with my own worries that I am reluctant to take on even the smallest of someone else’s troubles.
And yet, when I have finished writing this piece, I will put on my trainers and stride out through the mud in Coldfall Wood and onwards – a jam sandwich in my pocket – knowing full well that I am probably on a fool’s errand, but heading off just the same. This fox has crept in under my defences and looks at me with his amber eyes, challenging me not to look away.
Read the further adventures of the Bug Woman and the Fox in the Cemetery
Distressing News From The Cemetery
HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ – 14th & 15th MAY
Spend a weekend in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Spitalfields and learn how to write a blog with The Gentle Author.
This course will examine the essential questions which need to be addressed if you wish to write a blog that people will want to read.
“Like those writers in fourteenth century Florence who discovered the sonnet but did not quite know what to do with it, we are presented with the new literary medium of the blog – which has quickly become omnipresent, with many millions writing online. For my own part, I respect this nascent literary form by seeking to explore its own unique qualities and potential.” – The Gentle Author
COURSE STRUCTURE
1. How to find a voice – When you write, who are you writing to and what is your relationship with the reader?
2. How to find a subject – Why is it necessary to write and what do you have to tell?
3. How to find the form – What is the ideal manifestation of your material and how can a good structure give you momentum?
4. The relationship of pictures and words – Which comes first, the pictures or the words? Creating a dynamic relationship between your text and images.
5. How to write a pen portrait – Drawing on The Gentle Author’s experience, different strategies in transforming a conversation into an effective written evocation of a personality.
6. What a blog can do – A consideration of how telling stories on the internet can affect the temporal world.
SALIENT DETAILS
The course will be held at 5 Fournier St, Spitalfields on 14th & 15th May from 10am -5pm on Saturday and 11am-5pm on Sunday. Lunch will be catered by Leila’s Cafe of Arnold Circus and tea, coffee & cakes by the Townhouse are included within the course fee of £300.
Accomodation at 5 Fournier St is available upon enquiry to Fiona Atkins fiona@townhousewindow.com
Email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com to book a place on the course.
Relics Of Old St Paul’s At New St Paul’s
Fragments of Old St Paul’s stored in the triforium at New St Paul’s
Sir Christopher Wren’s success at St Paul’s Cathedral is to have envisaged architecture of such absolute assurance that it is impossible to imagine it could ever have been any different than it is today. Yet Wren was once surveyor of Old St Paul’s, confronted daily with a tottering gothic pile and carrying the onerous responsibility for this vast medieval shambles upon his shoulders, until the Great Fire took it away three hundred and fifty years ago.
The spire of Old St Paul’s collapsed in 1561 and, in Wren’s, time wooden scaffolding was necessary to hold up the poorly-built Cathedral. Parts of the cloister were carried off to build Somerset House and even a fancy new portico designed in the classical style by Inigo Jones failed to ameliorate the general picture of decay and dereliction.
When the Great Fire of London began in the summer of 1666, the Stationers Company stored their books and paper in the crypt of the Cathedral for safe-keeping and residents piled their precious furniture in the churchyard – one of the few open spaces in the City – so that it might be safe even if they lost their homes in the conflagration. These prudent measures only exacerbated the catastrophe when a spark set fire to the wooden roof of the Cathedral which collapsed into the crypt, sending a river of molten lead running down Ludgate Hill, igniting a violent inferno of paper that brought down the entire building and consumed all the furniture in the churchyard as well.
After the pyre of Old St Paul’s was at last extinguished in September, weeks after the Fire had been quenched elsewhere in the City, it became a popular pastime to scavenge through the ruins for souvenirs. You might assume nothing survived but, if you know where to look and what to look for, there are relics scattered throughout New St Paul’s.
As we approach the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the destruction of Old St Paul’s, I thought I would make a photographic inventory of what is left. There are Roman tiles, an Anglo-Saxon hog’s back tomb, a Viking grave marker and multiple stone fragments of the Cathedral itself, catalogued in the nineteenth century – although I was most fascinated by seventeenth-century effigies that withstood the Fire.
Medieval monuments and statuary were destroyed in the Reformation, and Oliver Cromwell famously stabled his horses in the Cathedral at the time of the English Revolution, but there was a brief period when new monuments and figures were installed prior to the Great Fire of London and a handful of these remain today.
John Donne would have conjured an astute sonnet upon the metaphysical irony of his monument being the only one surviving intact. In his last days, he insisted upon modelling for his own effigy, wrapped in a shroud, and the resultant sculpture is distinguished by remarkably naturalistic drapery. Yet, in spite of this, I can only see it as an image of a flame in which the great poet glimmers eternally.
A small collection of seventeenth-century human effigies rest down in the crypt, burnt black by the Fire. Carved from pale marble or alabaster, they have been transfigured by the furnace-like temperature of the conflagration and emerged charcoal-black, glistening and broken, as if they had been excavated like coal – as if they were creatures of another time, as remote as prehistoric creatures. But, even as they were ravaged by apocalyptic lfire and damaged beyond recognition, some have retained fine detail of armour and clothing, and all have acquired presence. These compelling fragmentary forms are worthy of Henry Moore, charmed stones that manifest an eternal spirit forged in fire.
Unsurprisingly, Christopher Wren had little interest in the relics of Old St Paul’s because he was looking to the future. Wary of medieval foundations, he had his New St Paul’s re-aligned to avoid them. Yet, although Wren had most of the ancient stone broken up to use as infill for New St Paul’s, there are a couple of spots in the crypt where you can see fragments of detailed Romanesque carving sticking out from the wall, hidden in plain sight, to remind us that – even though Old St Paul’s has gone – it is still with us.
Roman tiles and Anglo-Saxon grave cover in the triforium
Hogback grave cover, dating from 1000-1050 AD, possibly from the grave of King Athelstan
Viking grave marker, dating from 1125-50AD, dug up in 1852 in the churchyard
Twelfth century Romanesque carving of foliage in the wall of the crypt
Twelfth century Romanesque carving of foliage in the wall of the crypt
Ledger stone of Brian Walton, Bishop of Chester, died 1661
Sir John & Eliza Wolley
Sir John Wolley, Latin Secretary to Elizabeth I, died 1596
Eliza Wolley, Lady of the Privy Chamber to Elizabeth I, died 1600
Sir Thomas Heneage Vice-Chamberlain to Elizabeth I, died 1594, & Anna Heneage, died 1592
Unknown effigy
Unknown effigy
William Cokain, Mayor of London 1619, died 1626
William Cokain, Mayor of London 1619, died 1626
John Donne, Poet & Dean of St Paul’s (1572-1631), monument by Nicholas Stone
Caen & Reigate stones from Old St Paul’s (1180-1666 AD) excavated by Francis Penrose, Cathedral Surveyor in the nineteenth century
This lion is a fragment of Inigo Jones portal to St Paul’s which inspired Christopher Wren
Click to enlarge this comparative plan of 1872 which superimposes the outlines of Old and New St Paul’s (Reproduced courtesy of St Paul’s)
A programme of walks, talks and tours, special sermons & debates to mark the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London is taking place at St Paul’s between May 2016 and April 2017. Click here to learn more about the Fire at St Paul’s
You may also like to read my other stories of St Paul’s Cathedral
Tonight At Shoreditch Church
We gather at 7:30pm for a lively concert and party to celebrate the Spitalfields Trust’s SAVE NORTON FOLGATE campaign. The past twelve months have seen many joyous cultural events, including lectures on Christopher Marlowe and Charles Dickens, a reading of Marlowe’s Edward II, the exhibition of the history of Norton Folgate at Dennis Severs House and – of course – five hundred people joining hands around Norton Folgate last summer.
More than seven hundred letters of objection were written before Tower Hamlets Council unanimously rejected British Land’s plan to obliterate Norton Folgate under a hideous corporate plaza. Then the Mayor of London overturned this decision in a move recently described as ‘bypassing democracy to keep developers happy.’
Next week on 26th April, for the only time his eight year tenure, Boris Johnson will be called to the High Court for a Judicial Review of his mishandling of this application which could see his decision overturned. The Spitalfields Trust is determined to pursue this through the courts to save an historic corner of Spitalfields from destruction and tonight’s concert is a benefit for their Fighting Fund.
Compered by Griff Rhys Jones, performers include Tom Carradine, Jonathan Pryce, Katherine Rhodes, Stick In The Wheel, Suggs McPherson & Drew Wortley, accompanied with passages from John Betjeman read by Stephen Fewell, Charles Dickens read by Debbie Chazen, Christopher Marlowe read by Nick Malinowski & William Shakespeare read by Sean McCann.
CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR TICKETS FOR TONIGHT. Those who are unable to attend can click here to donate directly.
Norton Folgate is an historic neighbourhood that has evolved into a complex web of streets, alleyways, courtyards and warehouses which tell the story of our capital. Developers British Land, backed by the City of London, want to destroy Norton Folgate with wholesale demolition, constructing tall office blocks up to 14 stories with large floor plates – all within a designated Conservation Area. Founded in 1977 to fight the destruction of Spitalfields, the Spitalfields Trust has taken on both British Land and the City of London to stop this wanton destruction, and is offering instead to repair the old buildings in a Conservation-led Scheme. Taking on the big boys with bottomless pockets has cost a small building preservation charity hard, but we need to raise £30,000 to pursue this fight to its successful conclusion through the courts. If we do not succeed, a terrible precedent is set for the future protection of all Conservation Areas throughout the country.
Christopher Marlowe lived in Norton Folgate
Norton Folgate as it is today
What British Land want to do to Norton Folgate
Massing of the proposed British Land development of corporate blocks
The Spitalfields Trust scheme by John Burrell of Burrell Foley Fisher which sets out to repair the historic fabric and let buildings to small businesses
Spitalfields Trust scheme looking from Norton Folgate – drawn by Lucinda Rogers
Spitalfields Trust Scheme, looking along Fleur de Lis St – drawn by Lucinda Rogers
Catering at the concert by Leila’s Shop Photograph by Patricia Niven
Our concert is produced by Frances Mayhew who saved Wilton’s Music Hall and made it the success it is today Photograph by Sarah Ainslie
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Follow the Campaign at facebook/savenortonfolgate
Follow Spitalfields Trust on twitter @SpitalfieldsT
Please use hashtag #savenortonfolgate
You may also like to take a look at
An Offer to Buy Norton Folgate
Standing up to the Mayor of London
An New Scheme For Norton Folgate
Joining Hands to Save Norton Folgate
Dan Cruickshank in Norton Folgate
Taking Liberties in Norton Folgate
From Ken Sequin’s Badge Collection
From hundreds of badges in his magnificent collection, Ken Sequin kindly selected those for me with a local connection – and they comprise an unexpected history of the East End.
Button badges were invented in 1896, when Benjamin Whitehead of Whitehead & Hoag in New York filed a patent for a celluloid-covered metal badge, swiftly opening offices in London, Toronto & Sydney as the craze went global.
Adopted first as a means of advertising by tobacco companies, button badges were quickly exploited for political, religious and fund-raising purposes by all kinds of clubs and organisations.
Kingsland Rd Costermongers Association manufactured by E. Simons, late nineteenth century – one of the rarest badges, possibly a unique survivor
Souvenir of Dirty Dick’s in Bishopsgate, twenties or thirties
St John at Hackney Parochial School founded in 1275 is one of the oldest in the country, early twentieth century
Woolwich Arsenal Football Club, 1907
Hackney Band Club, hat badge c1873, one of the most radical Working Men’s Clubs
Boer War, 1900 – one of the very earliest button badges in this country
Reverse of previous badge, note local manufacturer
Royal Eye Hospital, Moorfields – early twentieth century
Lea Bridge Speedway Supporters’ Club – 1928-32
Dartford Pageant, 1932
Possibly the Regal Edmonton, 1934
Bethnal Green Men’s Institute, Gymnastics, Turin St, early twentieth century
Temperance and Salvation Army buttons, early twentieth century
Dockers Trade Union Badge, established 1889
A cache of badges found in an allotment shed in Walthamstow
World War II propaganda badges
Salvage. Dulwich Council
St George’s Sunday School, Weslyan Mission House, in the eighteen-nineties it took over Wilton’s Music Hall
Reverse of previous badge
WWII National Air Raid Precautions Animals Committee, dog’s identity badge
World War II badges for fundraising clubs to build airplanes
WWII Fundraising club to buy a destroyer
First Labour Mayor of Poplar, Will Crooks was elected MP for Woolwich in 1902
Reverse of buttons above
Dulwich & District Defence League, a Home Front battalion established in 1915
The Mildmay Hospital in Shoreditch was named after Francis Bingham Mildmay in 1890
Early twentieth century silver badge rewarding service in hospital ‘meals on wheels’ service
Barnado’s Young Helpers’ Badge with a portrait of the founder, early twentieth century
Tilbury Seamen’s Hospital, ‘For services rendered’ – possibly thirties
John Groom’s Crippleage & Flower Girls Mission, fund-raising rosettes, c 1900
Photographs copyright © Ken Sequin
You might also like to take a look at
John Gillman’s Bus Ticket Collection
Viscountess Boudica’s Domestic Appliances
Libby Hall’s Dog Photography Collection
Clive Murphy’s Matchbox Label Collection
Drew Worthley’s Ode To Stepney
Stepney-born singer and songwriter Drew Worthley was inspired by the Spitalfields Life feature The Lost Squares of Stepney to write this elegiac Ode to Stepney which he will be performing as part of the Spitalfields Trust’s benefit concert to SAVE NORTON FOLGATE, at Shoreditch Church next Monday 18th April at 7:30pm. The concert will be compered by Griff Rhys Jones with performers including Suggs and Stick in the Wheel. Click here for tickets
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Heads, Bodies & Legs By Alice Pattullo
Alice Pattullo is launching her new book Heads, Bodies & Legs at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, Spitalfields, tomorrow Saturday 16th April and readers are welcome to drop by between 2pm and 4:30pm. Alice’s book published by Design For Today contains flaps that permit the reader multiple permutations illustrating the myriad possibilities of life. On Saturday afternoon, guests young and old will be invited to decorate gingerbread men in their own designs.
You may also like to read about
Pierce Egan’s ‘Life In London’
This frontispiece was intended to illustrate the varieties of ‘Life in London,’ from the king on his throne at the top of the column to the lowest members of society at the base. At the centre are the protagonists of the tale, Tom, Jerry & Logic, three men about town. Authored by Pierce Egan, their adventures proved best sellers in serial form and were collected into a book in 1820, remaining in print for the rest of the century, spawning no less than five stage versions, and delineating a social landscape that was to prove the territory for both the fictions of Charles Dickens and the commentaries of Henry Mayhew.
Accounts of the urban poor and of life in the East of London are scarce before the nineteenth century, and what makes “Life in London” unique is that it portrays and contrasts the society of the rich and the poor in the metropolis at this time. And, although fictional in form, there is enough detail throughout to encourage the belief that this is an authentic social picture.
The characters of Tom, Jerry & Logic were loosely based upon the brothers who collaborated upon the illustrations, Isaac Richard & George Cruickshank, and the writer Pierce Egan, all relishing this opportunity to dramatise their own escapades for popular effect. Isaac Richard & George’s father had enjoyed a successful career as a political cartoonist in the seventeen-nineties and it was his sons’ work upon “Life in London” that brought the family name back into prominence in the nineteenth century, leading to George Cruikshank’s long term collaboration with Charles Dickens.
Jerry Hawthorn comes up from the country to enjoy a career of pleasure and fashion with Corinthian Tom, yet as well as savouring the conventional masquerades, exhibitions and society events, they visit boxing matches, cockpits, prisons and bars where the poor entertain themselves, with the intention to “see a ‘bit of life.” It is when they grow weary of fashionable society, that the idea arises to see a “bit of Life” at the East End of the Town.” And at “All Max,” an East End boozer, they discover a diverse crowd, or as Egan describes it, “every cove that put in an appearance was quite welcome, colour or country considered no obstacle… The group was motley indeed – Lascars, blacks, jack-tars, coal-heavers, dustmen, women of colour, old and young, and a sprinkling of the remnants of once fine girls, and all jigging together.” In the Cruikshanks’ picture, Logic has Black Sall on one knee and Flashy Nance upon the other while Jerry pours gin into the fiddler and Tom carouses with Mrs Mace, the hostess, all revealing an unexpectedly casual multiracial society in which those of different social classes can apparently mix with ease.
Situated somewhere between the romps of Fielding, Smollet and Sterne and prefiguring Dickens’ catalogue of comic grotesques in “Pickwick Papers,” the humour of “Life in London,” spoke vividly to its time, yet appears merely curious two centuries later. By the end of the nineteenth century, the comedy had gone out of date, as Thackeray admitted even as he confessed a lingering affection for the work. “As to the literary contents of the book, they have passed clean away…” he wrote, reserving his enthusiasm for the illustrations by the Cruikshank brothers – which you see below – declaring,“But the pictures! Oh! The pictures are noble still!”
Lowest life in London – Tom, Jerry & Logic amongst the unsophisticated sons & daughters of nature in the East.
The Royal Exchange – Tom pointing out to Jerry a few of the primest features of life in London.
A Whistling Shop – Tom & Jerry visiting Logic “on board the fleet.”
Tom, Jerry & Logic “tasting” wine in the wood at the London Dock.
White Horse Cellar, Picadilly – Tom & Logic bidding Jerry “Good bye.”
Jerry “beat to a standstill” Dr Please’ems’ prescription.
Tom & Jerry “masquerading it” among the cadgers in the back slums.
“A shilling well laid out” – Tom & Jerry at the exhibition of pictures at the Royal Academy.
Tom, Jerry & Logic backing Tommy, the ‘sweep at the Royal Cockpit.
Tom, Jerry & Logic in characters at the Grand Carnival.
Symptoms of the finish of “some sorts of life” – Tom, Jerry & Logic in the Press Yard at Newgate.
Life in London – Peep ‘o day boys, a street row. the author losing his “reader.” Tom & Jerry showing fight and Logic floored.
The “ne plus ultra” of Life in London – Kate, Sue, Tom, Jerry & Logic viewing the throne room at Carlton Palace.
Tom & Jerry catching Kate & Sue on the sly, having their fortunes told.
Jerry’s admiration of Tom in an “assault” with Mr O’Shannessy at the rooms in St James’ St.
Tom introducing Jerry & Logic to the champion of England.
The art of self-defence – Tom & Jerry receiving instruction from Mr Jackson.
Tom & Jerry larking at a masquerade supper at the Opera House.
Tom & Jerry in trouble after a spree.
Jerry in training for a “swell.”
Tom & Jerry taking blue ruin after the spell is broke up.
Images courtesy © Bishopsgate Insitute
You may like to look at these other sets of pictures by George Cruikshank
Jack Sheppard, Thief, Highwayman & Escapologist
