At Spitalfields Oldest Family Business
Five years ago, I first wrote about Paul Gardner of Gardners Market Sundriesmen when he was being confronted with unrealistic rent increases which threatened to close his shop down, yet thanks to the widespread support shown by the community at that time Paul was able to face off the landlord’s agent. But now Paul Gardner’s rent is up for negotiation again and we all need to stand behind him, if we are not to lose Spitalfields oldest family business.
Paul Gardner, Paper Bag Baron of Spitalfields
I always delight to drop into the premises of my friend Paul Gardner – the paper bag seller of Gardners Market Sundriesman, 149 Commercial St – to observe the constant parade of long-standing customers who pass through, creating the life of this distinctive business. It was early one morning, when I called round at six-thirty – opening time – to enjoy a quiet chat before the rush, that Paul explained to me his great-grandfather James Gardner began trading here in this building as a Scalemaker when it was built in 1870 – which means Paul is a fourth generation Market Sundriesman and makes Gardners the longest established family business in Spitalfields.
Paul still has his great-grandfather’s accounts from the end of the nineteenth century, when as Scalemakers they serviced the scales for all the traders in the fruit and vegetable market on a regular basis. Turning the pages and scanning the lines of James’ fine copperplate handwriting your eye alights upon the names, Isaac, Isaiah and Ezekiel, indicative of the Jewish population that once defined the identity of Spitalfields. There is an ancient block of wood with three scoops carved out that are smoothed with wear, it has been in use since the days of Paul’s great-grandfather. Then his son Bertie (Paul’s grandfather) used it, then Bertie’s son Roy (Paul’s father) used it and Paul still keeps his cash in it today. As the twentieth century wore on, each of the successive Mr Gardners found that customers began to expect to buy their produce in a paper bag (a trend which is now reversed) and so the trade of dealing in bags supplanted the supply of scales entirely over four generations.
Turn your back on the traffic rattling down Commercial St and stand for a moment to contemplate the dignified Brunswick green frontage of Gardners Market Sundriesman. An old glass signs reads “Paper & Polythene Bag Merchant” and, sure enough, a variety of different coloured bags are festooned on strings like bunting, below them are some scales hinting at the origins of the business and then your attention is distracted by a mysterious wooden sieve, a memento of Paul’s grandfather. Enter the shop to be confronted by piles of bags of every variety in packets stacked up on either side and leaving barely any room to stand. Only two routes are possible, straight ahead leading into the dark recesses where the stacks grow taller and closer together in the gloom or turn right to the makeshift counter, improvised from an old counter-top supported upon yet more packets of bags. Beneath the fluorescent glow, the dust of ages is settling upon everything. You think you have entered a storeroom, but you are wrong because you neglected to notice Paul sitting at the counter in a cosy corner, partly concealed by a stack of bags. You turn to greet him and a vista appears with a colourful display of bags and tags and tapes and those old green-grocers’ signs that say “Today’s price 2/8” and “Morning Gathered” – which creates a pleasant backdrop to the figure of Paul Gardner as he stands to greet you with a genial “Hello!”
With his wavy grey locks, gentle face, sociable manner and innate decency, Paul could have stepped from another age and it is a joy to meet someone who has successfully resisted the relentless imperative to haste and efficiency at any cost, that tyrannises our age and threatens to enslave us all. When you enter the shop, you enter Paul’s world and you discover it is a better place than the one outside.
Paul was thirteen when his father Roy died unexpectedly in 1968, creating a brief inter-regnum when his mother took over for four years until he came of age. “I came here the first day after I left school at seventeen,” said Paul, “It was what I wanted to do. After the first year, my mother stopped coming, though my nan used to live above the shop then. I haven’t had a day off since 1972. I don’t make much money, I will never become a millionaire. To be honest, I try to sell things as cheap as I can while others try to sell them as expensive as they can. I do it because I have done it all my life. I do it because it is like a family heirloom.”
Paul Gardner’s customers are the stallholders and small businessmen and women of East London, many of whom have been coming for more than twenty years, especially loyal are the Ghanaian and Nigerian people who prefer to trade with a family business. Paul will sell small numbers of bags while other suppliers only deal in bulk, and he offers the same price per bag for ten as for a hundred. Even then, most of his customers expect to negotiate the price down, unable to resist their innate natures as traders. Paul explained to me that some have such small turnovers they can only afford to buy ten carrier bags at a time.
In his endeavours, Paul supports and nurtures an enormous network of tiny businesses that are a key part of the economy of our city. Many have grown and come back with bigger and bigger orders, selling their products to supermarkets, while others simply sustain themselves, like the Nigerian woman who has a stall in Brixton market and has been coming regularly on the bus for twenty-three years to buy her paper bags here. “I try to do favours for people,” says Paul and, in spontaneous confirmation of this, a customer rings with the joyous news that they have finally scraped enough money together to pay their account for the last seven years. Sharing in the moment of triumph, Paul laughs down the phone, “What happened, did you win the lottery or something?”
Paul has the greatest respect for his customers and they hold him in affection too. In fact, Paul’s approach could serve as a model if we wish to move forward from the ugliness of the current business ethos. Paul only wants to make enough to live and builds mutually supportive relationships with his customers over the longterm based upon trust. His is a more equitable version of capitalism tempered by mutual respect, anchored in a belief in the essential goodness rather than the essential greediness of people. As a fourth generation trader, Paul has no business plan, he is guided by his beliefs about people and how he wants to live in the world. His integrity and self-respect are his most precious possessions.“I have never advertised,” says Paul, “All my customers come because they have been recommended by friends who are already my customers.”
However, after Gardners survived two World Wars and the closure of the market, there is now a new threat in the form of rent increases demanded by greedy agents on commission, who can easily exploit the situation when chain stores eager to have a presence in the neighbourhood can pay high rents which they do not need to match with turnover. “I earn two hundred and fifty pounds a week,” reveals Paul with frank humility, “If I earned five hundred pounds a week, I could give an extra two hundred and fifty towards the rent but at two hundred and fifty pounds a week, the cupboard is bare.”
Ruminating upon the problem,“They’ve dollied-up the place round here!” says Paul quietly, in an eloquently caustic verdict upon this current situation in which his venerable family business finds itself now, after a hundred and forty years, in a fashionable shopping district with a landlord seeking to maximize profits. Paul needs to renegotiate his lease in a way that does not leave him solely working to pay the rent and we must support Paul by sending more business his way, because Paul is a Spitalfields legend we cannot lose. But more important than the history itself, is the political philosophy that has evolved over four generations of experience. It is the sum of what has been learnt. In all his many transactions, Paul unselfconsciously espouses a practical step-by-step approach towards a more sustainable mode of society. Who would have expected that the oldest traders in Spitalfields might also turn out to be the model of an ethical business pointing the way to the future?
Paul’s grandfather Bertie Gardner, standing with Paul’s father Roy Gardner as child outside the shop around 1930
Roy Gardner, now a grown man, standing outside the shop after World War II, around 1947
Gardners Market Sundriesmen, 149, Commercial St, Spitalfields, E1
You may also like to read about
At Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
Joan Rose at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
James Brown at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
Vigil at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
Ubiquitous Unique
I could not decide whether to laugh or cry when I visited UBIQUITOUS UNIQUE organised by RECLAIM LONDON at the Red Gallery in Rivington St.
Displaying elevations of generic box-like new buildings planned for London – captioned with the hyperbolic texts used to promote these developments – the exhibition exposes the aesthetic bankruptcy of much contemporary architecture to startling effect.
Reclaim London asks ““What future are we constructing? It is not our future as a collective. No one has asked us. Other people are making these decisions.”
“The tower element of Plot 1 is intended to be ‘iconic’, and visible from a distance. It is designed to signal the regeneration of the market site.”
“The development will feature distinctive contemporary architecture. Rich in variety, it draws from the heritage of west London”
“A stunning tower adding to Central London’s dynamic skyline. The place from which to write your own life story…The apartments take their inspiration from the culture and landscape of Lexicon’s location. The result is an experience that breathes luxury, glamour and delight into every home.”
“A large-scale one-off regeneration project between Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove, an area famous for its eclectic style and diverse community. Recognised for its strong sustainability ethos and distinctive contemporary architecture, the development will comprise stylish apartments, town houses and mews houses.”
“The limited visibility of this tower, within a dense urban environment, will do little more than reinforce the internal coherence of the residential conservation areas to the east and north east. The proposed development will recede within long views, and sit comfortably within the more immediate townscape.” (Heritage Appraisal)
“We firmly believe that it is the right location for a landmark building.” (Press Statement)
“One of the very few places in London where you can live, work and play right by the river.”
“The primary objectives were to develop a design which responds to and embraces its location – both in its immediate local setting and in its larger context, that has an appropriate sense of scale both at street level and in the areas where it can be viewed at a distance.”
“The building design has been refined to have a more sympathetic relationship between both The Old Post Office and The Telephone Exchange…A regular pattern of windows provides a calmness and order to the façade with lightweight upper storey punctuating the skyline.”
“Key Objectives: To create a landmark building emphasizing the gateway to and identity of the village and the wider area, with a distinctive architectural identity.”
“A game-changing breed of building designed by Terry Farrell & Partners. Think drop-dead gorgeous architectural details. Interiors designed for the design conscious. Communal space created to bring people together.”
“Fourteen storey landmark development for Alperton”
“Contributes to the enhancement or creation of local distinctiveness.” (Heritage Appraisal)
“As part of the redevelopment, land will be gifted to Lambeth Council to create a new primary school.”
“A rare place in London where people can live in and around outstanding modern architecture.”
“The proposals seek to respect the form, scale and grain of the surrounding townscape, and will make a positive contribution to the character of the area.” (Planning Statement)
Andrew Scott’s East End, Then & Now
Yesterday, under a suitably occluded sky, I set out to visit Andrew Scott’s East End that he photographed in the early seventies and these pictures show the same locations as I found them now
Brushfield St, seventies
Brushfield St, today
Brushfield St, seventies
Brushfield St, today
Bethnal Green Rd, seventies
Bethnal Green Rd, today
Sclater St, seventies
Sclater St, today
Goulston St, seventies
Goulston St, today
Aldgate, seventies
Aldgate, today
Whitechapel High St, seventies
Whitechapel High St, today
Whitechapel Rd, seventies
Whitechapel Rd, today
The George, Commercial Rd, seventies
The George, Commercial Rd, today
Commercial Rd, seventies
Commercial Rd, today
Bromley St, Stepney, seventies
Bromley St, Stepney, today
Photographs copyright © Andrew Scott
You may also like to read about
Andrew Scott’s East End Photography
More Ancient Mulberry Trees
In Preachers’ Court
The tree at the back of this magnificent array of foliage is one of the pair of ancient black Mulberries that sit on either side of the lawn at Charterhouse. Yet even before I reached this spectacular destination, I had photographed a distinguished specimen growing by the wall in a shady corner of Bunhill Fields.
I set out from Spitalfields heading west this week for an afternoon’s walk to add more ancient Mulberries to my collection that began in April when I photographed the oldest Mulberry in the East End in the grounds of the former London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green, has included a trip to Syon to pay homage to the oldest Mulberry in Britain as well as a foray across the river to record the venerable specimens in South London.
Hilary Haydon, one of the brothers, greeted me at the gatehouse at three o’clock and led me through to Preachers’ Court where two huge Mulberries flourish enshrined among the luxuriant and imaginative planting that is characteristic of the gardens at Charterhouse, which are looking their very best this week.
Sensibly, Hilary settled down with a book on a bench in the sun and left me to dance around the trees with my camera to discover the best angles and catch the ideal light as the June clouds scudded overhead. The surrounding buildings of Preachers’ Court date from 1531 and there is no reason to suggest the gnarled Mulberries, twisted over with age and propped up by supports, may not be of similar age.
Hilary & I shook hands at the gatehouse upon my departure, where a couple of Mulberries grow inside the wall and reach up over the boundary, only to have their limbs lopped off like Smithfield martyrs. From there, I walked down through the meat market and across Hatton Garden towards Fleet St and Middle Temple where a couple of Mulberries face each other at skewed angles across the pond in the shade of Fountain Court.
Then I strolled off to search further, now that my instinct for seeking Mulberries is attuned, and – sure enough – I discovered another tree growing in the private garden of King’s Bench Walk, where I peered through the elegant railings to capture an image of this alluring specimen supported by iron poles and sequestered beyond reach.
Old Mulberry in Bunhill Fields Cemetery
Mulberry at Charterhouse
Trunk of the oldest Mulberry at Charterhouse
Another Mulberry at Charterhouse
Mulberries growing over the wall at Charterhouse
Pair of Mulberries in Fountain Court, Middle Temple
Mulberry with Middle Temple Hall in the background
Secret Mulberry in the private garden at King’s Bench Walk
You might like to read more about
The Oldest Tree in the East End
The Huguenots Of Soho
The two major destination for Huguenots in London were Spitalfields and Soho. As part of the current Huguenot Summer festival, Paul Baker took me on a walk around Soho and beyond to show me some of the significant sites that tell the story of the Huguenot presence. You can join Paul on a tour to learn more this Saturday 13th June from 11am until 1pm, meeting at Eleanor Cross outside Charing Cross Station. Walks also take place on 4th & 25th July – booking details are at the end of this feature.
Commemorated in Soho Sq, Charles II granted sanctuary to the Huguenots in 1681
Berwick St once had two Huguenot chapels, L’Église de la Pattente, 1689 and L’Élise du Quarré, 1694
At the corner of Greek St & Old Compton St from 1694 – 1770 was once the workshop of Paul Crespin, Silversmith, and Nicholas Sprimant, Silversmith, had his workshop in Old Compton St from 1716 – 1771
Samuel Romilly (1758-1818) was the son of a Frith St jeweller who became the Solicitor General, notable as an anti-slavery campaigner and for abolishing hanging, drawing and quartering, and his nephew Peter Mark Roget, the Physician, wrote the famous Thesaurus
In West St, this chapel was originally built as La Pyramid de la Tremblade in 1770, but in 1742 it became a Methodist Chapel when Samuel Wesley took over
Appointed Silversmith & Goldsmith to George III in 1716, Paul de Lamerie (1688- 1751) had his workshop at 40 Gerrard St and his trade card was designed by William Hogarth
The Huguenot L’Église de Leicester Fields was built in 1693 in Orange St
A Huguenot chapel of ease was built here in Spring Gardens in 1685 but burnt down in 1726 along with the gunpowder depot next door
This Statue of Charles I at the top of Whitehall was created by French sculptor Hubert Le Suer in 1633
In 1662, Charles II granted a patent for Huguenot Chapel in Savoy Hill provided they used the Book of Common Prayer in French
London’s first Huguenot chapel was on the site of Somerset House between 1653 and 1660
Click here to book for Paul Baker’s Huguenot Soho walk on Saturday 13th June at 11am
Click here to book for Paul Baker’s Huguenot Soho walk on Saturday 4th July at 11am
Click here to book for Paul Baker’s Huguenot Soho walk on Saturday 25th July at 11am
Launch Of Colin O’Brien’s London Life
As you can see from this photo taken a few weeks ago at the printers, Colin O’Brien is very proud of his new book LONDON LIFE which is being published thanks to the generous investment of the readers of Spitalfields Life.
We invite you to celebrate with us at the launch at The Society Club, Ingestre Place, Soho, W1 from 6pm next Thursday 18th June and preview the LONDON LIFE photography exhibition which runs until 1st August.
We will be serving complimentary Truman’s Beer, giving away posters of Colin’s famous Clerkenwell Car Crash photograph and each copy of LONDON LIFE bought at the exhibition comes with a complimentary copy of Colin’s first book, TRAVELLERS’ CHILDREN IN LONDON FIELDS.
On Tuesday 23rd June at 7pm, Colin will giving an illustrated lecture at Waterstones Piccadilly, showing the photographs and telling stories of LONDON LIFE. Email piccadilly@waterstones.com to book your free ticket for this.
CLICK HERE TO BUY A COPY OF LONDON LIFE DIRECT FROM SPITALFIELDS LIFE
All the drama of life in the capital from 1948 until today is here in LONDON LIFE!
We are giving away free Colin O’Brien Clerkenwell Car Crash posters to all at the launch
You may also like to read about
Colin O’Brien, Photographer of London Life
Argotopolis, The Map Of London Slang
It is my great pleasure to unveil this bravura collaboration between Adam Dant, Cartographer Extraordinaire & Jonathon Green, Lexicographer of Slang – ARGOTOPOLIS is a map of London slang organised around relevant locations in the capital. Click on Adam’s map to study it in detail and read Jonathon’s glossary below to learn more about the language. A limited edition of 50 hand-tinted prints is available from TAG Fine Arts.
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
Map copyright © Adam Dant
Text copyright © Jonathon Green
You may also like to take a look at
Jonathon Green’s Smithfield Slang
Adam Dant’s Map Of The Coffee Houses
The Meeting of the New & Old East End in Redchurch St
Map of the History of Shoreditch
Map of Shoreditch in the Year 3000
Map of Shoreditch as the Globe
Map of the History of Clerkenwell
Map of the Journey to the Heart of the East End
Map of the History of Rotherhithe
