Hot Cross Buns at St Bartholomew the Great
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 Good Friday this year 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 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 freezing temperature 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, and enjoying the first sunlight we had seen in a week.
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
You may also like to read about
Huguenot Portraits
As a prelude to the Huguenots of Spitalfields Festival which opens next week, Contributing Photographer Lucinda Douglas-Menzies (who is of Huguenot descent) accompanied me on a visit to the French Hospital in Rochester which has offered accommodation for Huguenots since 1718.
La Providence, Rochester
“An interesting community of Huguenot refugees had its centre in Spitalfields. Their forebears had come over from France in the years following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. They had become naturalized in England yet their descendants still formed a foreign community – a closed society with the intelligence that accompanies the easy use of two languages, along with the piety of a persecuted race and with the frugal wealth of Frenchmen who are, or have been, dependent upon their own exertions for a living.” – from ‘Time and Chance. The Story of Arthur Evans and his forebears’ by Joan Evans, Lucinda Douglas-Menzies’ great-great-aunt.
Jane Brown
“I am descended from Rev Francois Guillaume Durand who married Anne de Brueys de Fontcourverte. He was captured by soldiers and imprisoned in the castle in Sommieres with other pastors, but he managed to escape and lived in the woods where his parishioners brought him food and clothing. Eventually he left to Savoy and helped raise two Huguenot regiments to fight for William III, and he became the first pastor of the Walloon Church in Nijmegen – but his wife, Anne, was captured and put in a convent and died there, and his three children were seized by Jesuits and brought up as Roman Catholic. He made a bargain with God that if he got out of France alive, he’d devote his sons to the church and subsequently his grandson became a clergymen. Eventually, he came to England and was the first pastor at the Dutch Church in Norwich and then in Canterbury.
It was my grandmother, Helen Durand who was the Huguenot and I was brought up on it. I thought I had better put my name down for the French Hospital, so I sent an enquiry and got a reply back within half an hour saying we’ve got a flat for you. I was a Public Relations practitioner in race relations for a long time and I learnt that knowing your roots is quite important. My husband was from Jamaica and was very proud of his background. I teach journalism and publishing, and I edit the quarterly magazine ‘Rotary in London.'”
Jack Minett & Poppy
“I’m seventy-five, I haven’t got my teeth in and I’m not going to put them in because I am an old fellow. I’ve always known I was a Huguenot, but I didn’t know what it meant. My Huguenot ancestry was researched by my aunt – I believe there were two brothers who came over as refugees before all the chopping went on. One went to Gloucestershire and became a farmer, and the other was a doctor who set up a clinic in Camberwell.
My grandfather was a butcher in Forest Hill and I was born in Peckham. I’ve been very poorly and they sent me home to die – that was seventeen years ago when I came here to the Hospital with my wife Maureen, and I am still alive! I have two sons and a grandson, so the name continues. The founder of the Huguenot Society was a Minett and Charles Dickens has a Dr Manet in ‘Tale of Two Cities.’ And you’ve got to realise that Poppy, my little dog, is now a Huguenot too.”
Doreen Chaundy
“Chaundy is the family name and it goes back twelve generations to a small village called Chauny, north of Paris – a little before the Huguenots. They are recorded in the parish records of Ascott-under-Wychwood in 1548, but my branch ends with me because I have no children and my brother died in the war. He was shot down in the North Sea when he was nineteen. I have no relations. I am eighty-six years old and I have been here twenty-four years.
I was a secretary and I passed my insurance exams but I was a bit early – I realise I was forty years too soon when I see what girls are able to do now, in those days we were just secretaries. I was born in Glasgow but my father was a Londoner and, when I bought a house in Wembley in my early thirties, both my parents came to join me and they stayed for thirty years. Both of them lived into their nineties and my father lived to be ninety-eight. When I he died, I applied to come and live here. I have had two brain operations and survived them. I always say I am a refugee from the Glasgow rain.”
Jenny Turner
“My great-grandmother was Eleanor Grimmo of Spitalfields. Her great-grandfather was Peter Grimmo, a weaver, who in 1839 was living at 4 Fort St, Old Artillery Ground, Spitalfields. By January 1869, his son Peter was living at 10, Turville St, Church St (now Redchurch St), Shoreditch, when he married Mary Fulseer of Bethnal Green – and in July of that year, Mary gave birth to my great-grandmother Eleanor. She told me that her father Peter Grimmo was a seal fur dyer who invented the Silver Fox Fur. My grandmother spoke French and German and was an interpreter in the First World War. We weren’t a highly educated family, so we were amazed at this but her mother was also fluent in French and her grandparents were wholly French, so it all ties in.
I’m sixty-nine and I’m on my own these days. I was a primary school teacher for forty-two years and I retired four years ago. I’ve always known we had French relatives, but it has only been in the past ten years that my daughter has been researching the family ancestry and that’s how we found out about this place.”
Michael Oblein
“My ancestor Noe Oblein came to London in 1753. He was was weaver in Shoreditch and he married Marie Dupre at St Matthew’s Bethnal Green in 1774. My father did the family research and everyone called Oblein is a relative. There are about five hundred alive. We are in contact with others all over the world, in Australia and in Rochester in America – where they have reunions every year. My father went to one and I’d like to go.
I was firefighter in Deptford for thirteen years. We came here last August, it’s brilliant – they look after you so well. I was born in Deptford and lived in Plumstead and Chatham. We sold our house and we always said how nice it was here. I shall never forget how I felt when I first walked through the gates. On Friday and Saturday nights, it’s a riot out in the High St but it’s always peaceful in here.”
Christine Cordier
“It was my husband, Ray, that wanted to come here – he was the one with the Huguenot connection. I was a teacher and he was a dental hygienist, one of the first men to do that. We met in church and we were married in Gillingham United Reform Church in 1970.
I came here in 2007, we had planned to come here together. Five years earlier, we had moved to North Lincolnshire because we wanted to live in a small village and we had a lovely home. Then we decided it was time we put our names down here, but unfortunately he developed a brain tumour as we were in the process of moving and he died so I came here on my own. It can be lonely, but I spend a lot of time at Rochester Cathedral, working in the shop and the welcome desk, so I have got to know a lot of people that way.”
Nigel Marchment
“My Huguenot ancestor was Joseph Poitier who came from Lot to Bethnal Green in 1749, I think he was a carpenter. I’ve always known this since I was small because my father always said we were French, but he couldn’t remember how. So after I retired and I lost my wife, I decided to find out and I built up the family tree. Joseph’s son, George Poitier, was baptised in St Leonard’s, Shoreditch, in 1768.
During the war, when was five, I was evacuated to my grandparents in Eastbourne and the Huguenot Society paid for my education until I left school in Forest Gate at aged fifteen. I studied book-keeping and shorthand typing but never touched it from the day I left school. I started off as an office boy at Arnett & Co (cargo superintendents at Fenchurch St in the City) from 1949-50, then I became accounts clerk at Reliance Telephones in WC2 from 1950-56, I worked for the Cleveland Petroleum Co in Euston from 1956-58, then I was a despatch clerk at Silcock & Colling Ltd, Ford’s delivery agent in Dagenham from 1958-72 and finally I moved to Basildon where I worked for Standard telephone & cables from 1973-1977 and Morse Controls Ltd from 1977 -1997. I took early retirement to care for my wife until she passed away on April 3rd 2001 and then I had heart attack on the morning of April 4th. They said it was caused by stress. I came to live here in the French Hospital in August 2008.”
Ann Blyth
“The Huguenot was my grandfather, his name was Ravine. The family were based in Canterbury around the Via St Gregory. I’ve only traced them back as far as 1721 but when I pack up my job, I’m going to find out more. It wasn’t until my father died and my brother was chopping wood and breaking coal in Felstead in Essex and I was trying to bring my mother here, that I got to know the Steward. He said, ‘You’ve got to be a Huguenot,’ so I said, ‘We are!’
I was in my forties and she was in her seventies, and she moved in here in 1983 and she was here for fourteen and a half years. I came in August 2005. I teach T’ai Chi and I do a weekly session with ten regular students. One is ninety-seven and she can stand on one leg. I didn’t start until I was sixty and I’ve been doing it fourteen and a half years, and it’s made all the difference to my fitness and balance.”
Eileen Bell
“I’m ninety-one. I came here with my husband, Bill, thirty-three years ago because he wanted to get out of London. If he was here he could explain the Huguenot connection, but he died twelve years ago. I was born in Bermondsey and lived all my life in Bermondsey. I worked for twenty years for the gas board. I have one son and one grandson. I’ve never been back to Bermondsey.”
Bobby Bloyce
“My Huguenot ancestor, Alexander Bearnville de Blois, came in 1685 and settled in Spitalfields. I found out when my great-aunt found pieces of parchment in the attic and that was our family tree. I was the ‘baby’ when I moved into the French Hospital fifteen years ago. My grandmother and my great uncle lived here in the Hospital, so I’ve been visiting since I was seventeen. I was born in Rochester and I have lived most of my life in Rochester, and my son lives here as well. I love being here, I’ve always wanted to live here – it’s like a village.”
Jon Corrigan, Master Steward
Huguenot garden at the French Hospital in Rochester.
Weathervane of Elijah fed by the ravens in the wilderness, emblematic of ‘La Providence’ – the name of the Hospital.
Photographs copyright © Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
You may also like to read about
Soerditch by Dant (Chapter Five)
Another instalment of SOERDITCH, Diary of a Neighbourhood, Adam Dant’s satire upon the ironies of life in the “New” East End – each cartoon a beautifully rendered view of the neighbourhood, captioned with a clueless thing overheard on the street.
“I’ve got a couple of quid on me, are we far enough East for that to stretch to a cup of tea each?”
“It’s from Murad … says he can’t come in to work … he’s got his hand stuck in a Pringles tube … ”
“Yeah, like a kind of street-art-converted-dustcart. You know, like the ones the roadsweepers use …. that’s my plan.”
“I’m tired all the time – it’s the seagulls, they come for the chicken boxes every morning as soon as the sun comes up.”
“You load your picture into the app and it shows you what you’ d look like if you had a beard.” … “Wow, cool!”
“Yes, ever so cosmopolitan it is round here! I met my first Uruguayan in the coffee shop this morning.”
“Abjol! Abjol! Where’s our guard cat?”
<< Estate Agnt sez S-Ditch 2 expnsv try Thamesmead xxx 🙂 >>
“OK, see you back in Chelsea, can I bring anything from E1? … bagels?”
“Do you take pictures of anything other than these scribbles?” … “Like what?”
“Yeah, Sarah’s found an OK warehouse space for the exhibition, it’s just that it’s the kinda-Stamford-Hill-end-of-Shoreditch.”
“Two of you? For fifty? What do you think I am f**king Tescos?”
Soerditch is the old name for Shoreditch, quoted by the historian John Stow in his Survey of London 1598, as “so called more than four hundred yeares.” It means sewer ditch, in reference to the spring beside Shoreditch Church, once the source of the lost River Walbrook which flowed from there towards the City of London.
Drawing from a pair of unlikely inspirations, namely Giles‘ cartoons for the Daily Express and Hiroshige‘s ‘One Hundred Famous Views of Edo,’ Adam Dant pulls off an astonishing sleight of hand – simultaneously portraying the urban landscape of Shoreditch with spare lines and flat tones that evoke the woodcuts of Hiroshige, while also satirising the manners and mores of the people through witty social observations in the manner of Giles.
The exhibition runs at Eleven Spitalfields Gallery until 26th April and all one hundred and twenty-five cartoons are published in an album with an introduction by Jarvis Cocker, produced in the style of Giles’ celebrated annuals and available to buy online from Spitalfields Life Shop.
Click here to buy your copy of SOERDITCH by DANT – Diary of a Neighbourhood (125 Views of Shoreditch) – while stocks last!
Cartoons copyright © Adam Dant
Adam Dant is represented by Hales Gallery
You may also like to see these earlier selection of cartoons by Dant
Soerditch by Dant (Chapter One)
Soerditch by Dant (Chapter Two)
So Long, Sweet & Spicy
As a tribute to Sweet & Spicy, which closed yesterday, I am republishing my feature celebrating a beloved Spitalfields institution on Brick Lane since 1969.
If you ever stood in Brick Lane, baffled by the array of curry houses and harangued by the touts, and wondered “Where do the locals eat?” then you could always seek out Sweet & Spicy down on the corner of Chicksand St. There proprietor Omar Butt worked conscientiously from eleven until eleven every day in this celebrated Spitalfields institution opened by his father Ikram Butt in 1969. Established originally as a cafe, Sweet & Spicy was only the third curry house to open on Brick Lane and, such was the popularity of its menu, it remained largely unchanged through all the years.
You could come for lunch or dinner and you would always meet Omar Butt, tall with lively dark eyes and a stature that befits an ex-wrestler, yet modest and eager to greet customers. You chose your food at the counter, let Omar stack up your tray, then took your place in the cafeteria-style dining room at the back, lined with posters reflecting the Butt family’s involvement in wrestling over generations, and enjoyed your meal in peace and quiet.
Sweet & Spicy offered a simple menu of curry dishes complemented by two house specialities, both popular since 1969. Halva puri with chana (spicy chickpeas) which Omar described as the “Pakistani breakfast,” – traditionally the food of wrestlers who, he says, were characteristically “big rough men that ate halva all day.” Omar made the halva personally twice a week exactly as it is done in the halva shops of Pakistan where they also display the same wrestling posters that he had on his wall. And the warm halva made a very tasty counterpoint to the spicy chana – sweet and spicy, just as the name over the door promised. Most customers popped in as they passed along Brick Lane for the famous kebab roll – Omar’s other speciality – a shish kebab served in a deep-fried chapati with onions and chili sauce. “It has so many dimensions of flavour that people really like,” waxed Omar, his eyes gleaming with culinary pride.
There was an appealingly egalitarian quality to this restaurant where anyone could afford to eat, where Omar oversaw every aspect of the food with scrupulous care and where people of all the races that live in Spitalfields could meet in a relaxed environment, unified by their love of curry – honestly cooked, keenly priced and served without pretensions. Twice a day, Sweet & Spicy filled up with the lunch and dinner rush, but you could drop by late morning for a Pakistani breakfast, or visit in the afternoon, and you would discover Omar taking a well-deserved break to read his newspaper and eager to chat. With an understated authority, he presided over a unique community hub that had evolved naturally, offering a refuge of calm and civility amidst the clamour of Brick Lane.
“I used to come here at six years old. I guess I was be the youngest busboy on Brick Lane, serving and clearing tables for quite a few years. My family have always been involved in wrestling. My grandfather Allah Ditta, he was professional wrestler in Pakistan and my uncle, Aslam Butt, was National Champion. I have done international freestyle wrestling and I’ve tried very hard at an Indian style where you wrestle in a sand pit. I have travelled and wrestled in America, here and in Pakistan.
I studied business after I left school and then I came to work here full -time at twenty-four years old. I am a self-taught cook and I taught myself how to cook everything. Each morning I do a little cooking when I arrive and then I spend the rest of the day upstairs serving customers. It’s important to me, to attend to everything. For a restaurant to have long life-cycle, the owner has to be able to cook as well.
We open seven days a week and I am here seven days, from eleven in the morning until eleven at night. It’s been non-stop lately because of the economic situation. No-one likes a recession, but it shows you what you are capable of. Before, I didn’t know that I was able to work seventy hour weeks, but it is possible. I have a wife and two kids and I live on the Isle of Dogs but, because I have spent so much of my time on Brick Lane, it’s like I live here as well.
We were always a cafe, whereas the others became restaurants serving English customers but here it has always been a mixed clientele. People used to come for snacks after the visiting the Naz cinema next door and we served the machinists working in the clothing factories. We have a long loyal gallery of locals. It’s a cosmopolitan place. Today I had an Asian sea captain who first came forty years ago, Bengali businessmen, a table of Cubans, and some born and bred East Enders who have been coming all their lives. We run the business off our regular customers. I often get young men who say their father brought them here as a child. There’s something about this place, it’s a father and son place.”
One of Omar’s collection of wrestling posters. His uncle and grandfather were champions in Pakistan.
In the cool of the curry house in the afternoon.
Sweet & Spicy’s celebrated £2 kebab roll – the burrito of Brick Lane.
Halva with puri £1.45 – traditionally the food of wrestlers. Served hot with chana as ‘the Pakistani breakfast.’
Faraz
You may also like to read about
East End Cats
Last year, Spitalfields Life Contributing Photographer, Chris Kelly made a survey of the esteemed cats of Spitalfields, but now she has widened her horizons to include the entire East End. So today it is my delight to publish more of her portraits of famous cockney felines and their human slaves – from Bethnal Green, Whitechapel and Stepney.
The magnificent Gilbert is a legend in Columbia Rd – pictured here with proud owner Isabel Rios.
Spring in Bethnal Green and while Alice is lunching at Laxeiro, Monkey the ginger cat from next door, tries his luck. “You have two cats in this picture,” Alice told me, “My name is Alice Gatto.”
Monkey, the ginger tom from Columbia Rd.
Gilbert at Laxeiro with Leo who has worked there many years.
Gilbert & Isabel Rios – Restaurateur at Laxeiro on Columbia Rd
“Weʼve had Gilbert about five years. He belonged to our neighbours but would always come mooching along the street to see us – he likes the company. Then we looked after him once when his people went on holiday and he didnʼt want to go back home. They even tried to keep him in, but he was scratching at the door all day. So we shared him for a while but he just wanted to be here. Eventually, they moved to Scotland and asked us if weʼd like to keep him.
Gilbert is deaf and heʼs wary of dogs, which is why one of his favourite places to sit is on the roofs of cars. He loves people though and some of our customers come just to see Gilbert – heʼs quite a tourist attraction. We know someone who lives in Canada and comes to visit her son here. Iʼm told the first thing she says when she gets off the plane is “Howʼs Gilbert?”
There was a film crew here during the election and all the cameras were on Gilbert sitting on the car. Heʼs become so famous that he has his own facebook page – Gilbert Laxeiro.”
Molly has been at The Blind Beggar in Whitechapel longer that landlord David Dobson
Molly was seventeen years old on 21st December 2012.
Molly & David Dobson – Landlord of The Blind Beggar in Whitechapel
“Iʼve never been a cat lover but you could say Iʼm learning to love them. The cats came with the pub – when I took over they were on the inventory under pest control. There were two – Molly & Pip, brother & sister. There used to be a big rat problem but itʼs becoming cleaner now.
A few years ago, when I was living here on my own, the alarm went off during the night and I was scared. I grabbed Pip – he was a big cat – and went down to the cellar with him under my arm. There was a pile of newspapers in the corner and a huge rat leapt out. So I squealed and dropped Pip who shot back upstairs.
They were both good mousers when they were younger. Sadly, Pip died before Christmas and Molly missed him for a few days, she would look round the places where he used to sit. She was seventeen years old on 21st December, and now her favourite place is in front of the fire and she doesnʼt do much mousing. In summer, she goes in the garden and watches the fish in the pond.
They were both popular with customers, although people have tried to steal them once or twice, but never got further than the door. It was as though there was a force-field – the cats would go crazy when they reached the door. Itʼs a mad thing to steal a cat but sometimes I find when people are drunk they think theyʼre invisible!”
One of Spider’s kittens went to Amy Winehouse who christened it ‘Bleeder.’
Professor dislikes film crews.
Spider likes culture and attention from film crews.
Spider & Professor & Pauline Forster – Publican at The George in Commercial Rd
“I used to have three canaries here. I love to see birds flying around and when they sang I remembered the dawn chorus in the countryside where I was brought up. They used to sit on my hand and on my shoulders. But we have film crews in here for location work and they would open the windows, so one by one we lost the birds. The last to go was Muffin.
Then, because Iʼd been leaving seed around for the birds, the mice moved in. They were getting far too familiar, running across the beams over my bed at night – which meant I had to find a cat to kill the mice. Fortunately, a friendʼs cat in Cable St had just had kittens so we got one of those. Tiddle was a sweet looking cat, but one day he disappeared – we put up reward signs everywhere but we think someone took him.
Next we had Luna, a big cat found scavenging in Sidney St when one of the children took her in. She was a really scary cat, she looked totally mad – thatʼs why I called her ‘Luna.’ She had kittens and we kept one, thatʼs Spider. When Spider had kittens, we kept one of those and thatʼs Professor. One of Professorʼs siblings went to Amy Winehouse. She called it ‘Bleeder’ and I think she gave it to her niece.
Professor (with the white beard) is quite nervous now. I think one of the film crews must have upset him because he always disappears when thereʼs filming these days. By contrast, Spider likes lots of attention from the film crews. Sheʼs solid and greedy, and she wonʼt stop eating until all her foodʼs gone. Both cats go into the bar in summer when the doorʼs open.”
Photographs copyright © Chris Kelly
Chris Kelly’s THE NECESSARY CAT – A PHOTOGRAPHER’S MEMOIR is available from many independent bookshops including Brick Lane Books, Broadway Books & Newham Bookshop.
You may also like to see
The Cats of Spitalfields (Part One)
The Cats of Spitalfields (Part Two)
Blackie, the Last Spitalfields Market Cat
and read about
More Of Samuel Pepys’ Cries Of London
It was a startling delight when I discovered that Samuel Pepys shared my own interest in the Cries of London and made a collection of these prints which still exist in his library, preserved at Cambridge. These three thousand volumes in total, which Pepys had bound and catalogued according to his own system, can be seen as both an extension of and a complement to his personal writings – gathering together significant texts and images just as his diary recorded every detail of the life he knew.
The oldest set of Cries in Pepys’ collection – which I published here a month ago – dated from the sixteenth century and was a hundred years old when he acquired it, whereas those published today are believed to date from around 1640. Pepys described them as “A later Sett, in Wood – with the Words also then in use.”
Did Pepys look at these prints from his grandparents’ generation with nostalgia, imagining the hawkers that once populated the streets of the city before he was born, and wondering at how the world had changed? Spanning over a century and three different cities, Pepys’ collection of ephemeral prints are the only visual record of the street life of these places at these times to have survived.
By comparison with Pepys’ earliest sixteenth century set of crude woodcuts, these figures from 1640 possess a more complex humanity – though close examination reveals that the same models recur, posing in a variety of guises as different street vendors. Yet, in spite of this sense of enacted tableaux, there exists a convincing presence of personalities here, enough to permit me to imagine the street life of mid-seventeenth London, thanks to Samuel Pepys – my most esteemed predecessor in collecting the Cries of London.
Samuel Pepys’ book plate
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
You may also like to take a look at the sixteenth century Cries of London from Samuel Pepys’ collection
and these other sets down through the ages
Geoffrey Fletcher’s Pavement Pounders
William Craig Marshall’s Itinerant Traders
H.W.Petherick’s London Characters
John Thomson’s Street Life in London
Aunt Busy Bee’s New London Cries
Marcellus Laroon’s Cries of London
More John Player’s Cries of London
William Nicholson’s London Types
Francis Wheatley’s Cries of London
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana of 1817
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana II
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana III
Thomas Rowlandson’s Lower Orders
Tony Bock’s Farewell To The East End
Belhaven St – before & during demolition
Photographer Tony Bock left the East End in 1978, and this is the East End he left behind – witnessed in these haunting pictures published for the first time today.
After dropping out of photography school in Toronto, Tony came to the East End and worked as a staff photographer for the East London Advertiser between 1973 and 1978. He encountered a world in upheaval and only just managed to photograph Belhaven St, Mile End – where his mother’s family had once lived – before it was demolished.
Born in Paddington but brought up in Canada, Tony’s quest to explore his East End roots found expression in these soulful streetscapes, largely unpopulated save for sparse, fleeting figures, a boy with a gun, and the photographer’s own shadow. “Much of the East End seemed to be clad in corrugated tin, often covering buildings that had once shown the enthusiasm and optimism of architects and artisan builders.” Tony confided, “The very fabric of the community was disregarded with little consideration of its true value.”
Yet there is a subtle poetry in each of Tony’s pictures that never fails to acknowledge the human presence, even in seemingly abandoned places. They are the poignant memories that he carried away with him when he left after his brief years in the East End, returning to make his life in Canada.
“The buildings were reflections of the communities they housed, where the domestic scale of architecture made the streets feel like home.” Tony concluded, “Those I photographed on Stepney Green exhibit a wonderfully diverse collection of styles, the simple humane beauty of an unplanned group of buildings.”
In old Bethnal Green Fire Station
Shopfront
In Barking
Shopfront
Backyard
Backyard
Children with a gun, Pearl St, Wapping
Tin wall, Hackney
Tin wall, Wapping
Tin wall, Agatha St – with photographer’s shadow
Demolition of Tilbury & Southend Warehouse, Aldgate
Demolition 0f Tobacco Dock with tower of St George-in-the-East
In Hoxton St
Shopfront
In Bethnal Green
In Plaistow
Norah St, Bethnal Green
Stanley Terrace, Stratford
In Hackney Wick
On Stepney Green
Photographs copyright © Tony Bock
You may like to see these other photographs by Tony Bock
