Heather Stevens, Head Gardener
This is Heather Stevens, Head Gardener at the Geffrye Museum, seeking the green shade of the rose arbor in the magnificent garden she has created over the past fifteen years in partnership with Christine Lalumia, Deputy Directory of the Museum, telling the story of town gardens in London over four centuries through a series of outdoor rooms.
“I remember coming here as a schoolchild,” Heather confessed to me, “I am a Hackney girl.” Working originally as a florist, Heather was once responsible for all the pot plants at the Royal Festival Hall, and began gardening whilst working for the GLC parks department before joining the Geffrye Museum in 1996. At the job interview, Christine Lalumia led Heather out into the backyard of the museum, a semi-derelict, unloved space of random shrubs, tarmac and feral cats then. Standing in the same location today, Heather’s eyes shine with excitement when she recalls Christine saying to her, “Something I would like to do is create period gardens here…”
Fifteen years later, that dream has been realised and with such success that seems unimaginable that these gardens were not always here. “It was a big old job and I couldn’t have done it without Heather.” Christine admitted to me later,”We opened in 1999 and the wisteria is coming into its own now and this year the climbing hydrangea flowered for the first time. It’s not been instant, but it’s beginning to look as we hoped it would be.”
The herb garden – organised in sections by aromatic, culinary, medicinal and cosmetic usage, and salads – was where Heather and I began our conversation, by squeezing the leaves in our fingers to enjoy the scent of lemon verbena, a shared favourite. Nearby the traffic hurtled down the Kingsland Rd, but you would not know it, standing there among the hundreds of varieties of herbs flourishing between the tall brick walls that enclose the garden and trap the sunshine. From here a door leads to a brick path connecting five garden rooms, an ingenious arrangement taking visitors on a horticultural journey through time. Stepping through that door, we came first to the Elizabethan knot garden, accompanied by raised beds planted to illustrate the functional nature of gardens in the sixteenth century.
Then, simply by walking through a gap in the hedge we advanced into the eighteenth century. For the Georgians, gardens were appreciated as an extension of the house, a place of recreation where prized blooms were arranged with expanses of earth between them, or in pots – as in the splendid auricula theatre, used for the display of prime specimens of tulips, auriculas and then carnations through the Spring months.
Through another hedge and we found ourselves in the Victorian garden, where Heather was hard at work contriving a pyramid of pelargoniums as an epic central feature, typical of the ambition of the gardeners of this period who delighted in formal arrangements of bedding. And then, in the twentieth century “room,” I found myself strangely at home, recognising the plant combinations recommended by Gertrude Jekyll that I grew up with – irises and oriental poppies and blue geraniums and columbine and love-in-the-mist and lambs’ ears, to name just a few.
Heather and I sat on a bench, and she explained how the garden came into being. Once Christine did the historical research to discover what plants would be appropriate and how they should be combined, Heather was charged with tracking down specimens from nurseries, while an architect supervised the brick paths before Heather made sure the structural planting was in place for the opening in October 1999. “It was so nice to get the opportunity to work with so many varieties of plants – in the parks department, I never got the chance.” enthused Heather, gazing around in pleasure at the lush spectacle of this wonderful garden that is the result of so many years’ devoted work and will occupy her for years to come. “How it has changed and developed!” she said, as if seeing it anew.
This is a garden to visit and revisit over coming years as it settles down snugly in this unusual space bounded by the tall back wall of the old almshouses on one side and the new East London Line on the other. In an urban area once renowned for its gardens, it offers a beautifully tended enclave of green where you can enjoy the Spring bulbs and the Summer roses in a leafy refuge from the dusty streets.
Yet if you think this sounds a romantic existence – inhabiting Eden in the East End – remember Heather works outside all year round from seven thirty until four thirty. “We put on our waterproofs and we garden in the rain,” she says simply with characteristic resolve, “Each year, we’ve got to rake up all the leaves – that takes about three months – every single day.”
Doorway to the herb garden.
Looking from the herb garden towards the museum.
Looking through the series of outdoor rooms that tell the story of the London town garden.
In the last sixteenth/early seventeenth century garden.
The auricula theatre nestles against the tall back wall of the old almshouses.
In the Victorian garden.
Heather Stevens.
The Caprice of Mr Pussy
If I am looking more bleary-eyed than usual these days, it is not because I am sitting up any later writing my stories, but because Mr Pussy insists on waking me at dawn at this season of the year. The first yowl usually wakes me from my slumber in the glimmering of daylight, yet if I should try to deny it, descending quickly back to my former depths of sleep, a louder, more insistent cry tells me that he will not be ignored.
If I should persist in feigning sleep, he will extend his claw and reach up to the bedside bookshelf to hook the copy of King Lear by the spine and tug it off in one stroke to crash down onto the floor – employing a particular choice of title that I have yet to understand fully.
Then I open my eyes momentarily in weary exasperation to face his pitiful expression of need, quelling my anger. The question rises in my mind, did I put out any food for Mr Pussy last night? Now, in my half-awake moment of emotional vulnerability, the seed of doubt is sown and sympathy aroused for Mr Pussy, pleading for his rations whilst I indulge my luxuriant ease. But I am capable of indifference to his pain, rolling over in bed to seek another forty winks – even though experience has taught me that Mr Pussy will respond by running up the covers and leaping on my back with the agility of a mountain goat, so that he may repeat his yowl directly into my ear.
Thus I have learnt not to roll over, instead – without opening my eyes – I extend a crooked forefinger in an attempt to pacify Mr Pussy through petting, stroking him beneath his chin and on his brow – provoking a loud and emotional purring and snakelike twisting of the neck. Making a sound like his engine is revving, Mr Pussy bares his teeth and rubs them up against my finger several times in glee, which causes him ecstatic delight and coats my finger in saliva. He may repeat this action several times with an accumulating sense of excitement, glorying in the moment, knowing now that it is only a matter of time before I recognise that it is simpler to bow to his will than to resist.
Submitting to Mr Pussy’s inexorable persuasion, I stumble to the kitchen and commonly discover plenty of food in his dish – revealing that I have been played, his ruse was an exercise in pure manipulation, a power game. Too weary to recognise the humiliation I have suffered, I climb back into bed, put King Lear back on the shelf and resume my slumber.
When I wake hours later, Mr Pussy is stretched out on the quilt, oblivious to me rising. Yet if I should wake him, he stretches out in pleasure. Mr Pussy has every reason to feel secure, because each night he tests me and confirms his control. Mr Pussy can relax in the knowledge that he is training me to become obedient to his will, and in my weakness I comply. I let him get away with murder.
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At Arthur’s Cafe
This is Arthur Woodham of the celebrated “Arthur’s Cafe” – in the Kingsland Rd since 1935. At eighty-four years old, Arthur is still running around his magnificent shining cafe, taking orders and serving customers with sprightly efficiency. Possessing the grace, good manners and handsome features of a young Trevor Howard, he is a charismatic figure, venerated in Dalston and throughout the East End – so imagine my excitement to see Arthur waiting in the doorway of his cafe in anticipation of my arrival.
My heart skipped a beat and I ran across the road to shake his hand. Then, taking advantage of the lull between the late breakfast trade and the early lunch trade, we sat down at the window table to enjoy the sunlight, and I found myself close up to his neatly styled grey locks and immaculately shaven jowls, while Arthur fixed his liquid grey eyes upon mine and commenced his story.
“I was born in Bethnal Green, and in 1935 we moved over to the Kingsland Rd and opened the cafe. My father was Arthur too and his cafe used to be further down the road, opposite the Geffrye Museum. If you was trying to buy a cafe, you tried to buy one with accommodation above, so if things got quiet you could rent the space, but I’ve always lived up there all this time.
Once I left school at fourteen, I worked with him behind the counter and I helped out before that too. I was the eldest son and you had no choice – you had to go into it whether you liked it or not. In those days, my father used to make his own ice cream and sarsaparilla, and my grandmother helped out in the kitchen with the washing up. At first, when the war came, I didn’t want to go into the shop but I have no regrets. I was about fifteen when war broke out, and I worked in the cafe all through the war. They dropped a bomb on the shelter across the road at the Geffrye Museum and my father kept open all night to make everyone a cup of tea. I’ll always remember one man was very bad, he lost thirteen in his family.
When I was a boy, it was either coffee shops with wooden floors or cafes that were more like sandwich bars, but after the war cafes starting doing hot dinners, roast beef, steak pie, lamb chops. I run my cafe the old fashioned way, we don’t do frozen stuff, it’s all fresh. I get up around twelve thirty/one o’clock, but people won’t believe you if you tell them that. I cook my own ham and cut all my chips by hand. My grandson gets in at five fifteen and we open at seven, serving breakfast until eleven thirty. No toast after eleven thirty and no chips before twelve. At eleven thirty we clean up and put serviettes and glasses on the tables, and I go upstairs and put on a clean coat. We have a different class of people for lunch. This is a working class cafe, we serve plain English food, we don’t serve pasta like some do.We’ve got a good mixed clientele, a nice class of people, white people and black people.
I like it, this is my life. You’ve got to like it to keep in it. I meet people. I speak to people. In the cafe, if you like it, you make a lot of friends. I’ve been serving people for over fifty years, people I grew up with. I opened up here when I was twenty-one in 1948, my father gave me a hand for a while and then he closed down the old cafe. I’ve been here ever since, four hundred and ninety-five Kingsland Rd. It’s been a cafe as long as I can remember and I’m eighty-five this year.It was me and my father and now it’s me and my grandson – since he was a boy, he’s worked for me – that’s three generations. I’ll go on as long as I can, I’m eighty-five on Christmas Day. The Pelliccis, they’re friends of mine – I’m the oldest cafe in the Kingsland Rd and they’re the oldest cafe in Bethnal Green.”
By now it was eleven thirty, no more toast would be served, and it became imperative that Arthur go upstairs at once to change his coat in the time-honoured fashion, whilst serviettes and glasses were swiftly laid upon the tables, as the tempo of the day’s proceedings went up a notch in anticipation of luncheon. Yet this flurry of activity allowed me the opportunity of a snatching a few words with Arthur’s grandson James, who in spite of his youthful demeanour revealed he had been there twenty years. “Since I was twelve, I worked here in my school holidays,” he confessed with a shy smile of pride,”And then my grandfather asked me to work with him, and I did.”
“My grandfather is an actor, and this is the stage where he performs best,” James continued, as if to introduce Arthur who appeared on cue from upstairs, now changed into an identical but perfectly clean white coat and seemingly revived with a new energy. “Do you think you will still be here at eighty-five?” I whispered to James across the table. “If I’ve got my grandfather’s energy, I’ll still be here!” he replied with an emotional smile as Arthur breezed past, making sure that everything was in order before assuming his heroic position at the head of the steel counter – as he has done each day since 1948 – tea towel over one shoulder, ready for whatever the lunch service would bring.
You can watch a film about Arthur here.
“I remember those custard tarts my dad was holding, they were threepence each” – Arthur at at twenty-one years old when he opened his own cafe in 1948 with the assistance of Arthur, his father. Inset shows, the third generation Arthur and his son James who works at Arthur’s Cafe today.
Arthur and his grandson James who has worked with him for the past twenty years.
Arthur arranges serviettes in readiness for the lunchtime rush.
James rustles up a mean sandwich.
“My grandfather is an actor and this is his stage where he performs best.”
Arthur’s wife Eileen lends a hand.
The lull between late breakfast and early lunch while Arthur goes upstairs to change into a fresh coat.
Arthur with his old friend Terry Dunfred.
Arthur Woodham
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Margaret Rope’s East End Saints
A familiar East End scene of 1933 – children playing cricket in the street and Nipper the dog joining in – yet it is transformed by the lyrical vision of the forgotten stained glass artist Margaret Rope, who created a whole sequence of these sublime works – now dispersed – depicting both saints of legend and residents of Haggerston with an equal religious intensity.
This panel is surmounted by a portrayal of St Leonard, the sixth century French saint, outside a recognisable St Leonard’s church, Shoreditch, with a red number six London bus going past. Margaret Rope’s extraordinary work mixes the temporal and the spiritual, rendering scenes from religious iconography as literal action and transforming everyday life into revelations – describing a universe that is simultaneously magical and human.
Between 1931 and 1947, the artist known simply to her family as ‘”Tor,” designed a series of eight windows depicting “East End Everyday Saints” for St Augustine’s church off the Hackney Rd, portraying miracles enacted within a recognisable East End environment. And for many years these charismatic visionary works were a popular attraction, until St Augustine’s was closed and Margaret Rope’s windows removed in the nineteen eighties, with two transferred across the road to St Saviour’s Priory in the Queensbridge Rd and the remaining six taken out of the East End to be installed in the crypt of St Mary Magdalene, Munster Sq. Intrigued by the attractive idea of Margaret Rope’s transcendent vision of the East End, I set out to find them for myself this week.
At St Saviour’s Priory, Sister Elizabeth was eager to show me their cherished windows of St Paul and St Margaret, both glowing with luminous rich colour and crammed with intricate detail. St Paul, the patron saint of London, is depicted at the moment of his transformative vision, beneath St Paul’s Cathedral – as if it were happening not on the road to Damascus but on Ludgate Circus. The other window, portraying St Margaret, has particular meaning for the sisters at St Saviours, because they are members of the Society of St Margaret, whose predecessors first came from Sussex to Spitalfields in 1866 to tend to the victims of cholera. In Margaret Rope’s window, St Margaret resolutely faces out a dragon while Christ hands a tiny version of the red brick priory to John Mason Neale, the priest who founded the order. Both windows are satisfyingly engaging exercises in magical thinking and the warmth of the colour, especially the turquoise greens and soft pinks, delights the eye with its glimmering life.
I found the other six windows in the crypt of St Mary Magdalene near Regents Park, used as a day centre for seniors, where they are illuminated from the reverse by fluorescent tubes. The first window you see as you walk in the door is St Anne, which contains an intimate scene of a mother and her two children, complete with a teddy bear lying on the floor and a tortoiseshell cat sleeping by the range. Next comes St George, who looks like a young athlete straight out of the Repton Boxing Club, followed by St Leonard, St Michael, then St Augustine and St Joseph. All share the same affectionate quality in their observation of human detail, rendered with a confidence that sets them above mere decorative windows. These are poems in stained glass that manifest the resilient spirit of the East End which endured World War II. Another window by Margaret Rope in St Peters in the London Docks, completed in 1940, showed people celebrating Midnight Mass at Christmas in a bomb shelter.
Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope was born in 1891 into a farming family on the Suffolk coast at Leiston. Her uncle George was a Royal Academician, and she was able to study at Chelsea College of Art and Central School of Arts & Crafts, where she specialised in stained glass. Unmarried, she pursued a long and prolific working life, creating over one hundred windows in her fifty year career, taking time out to join the Women’s Land Army in World War I and to care for evacuees at a hospital in North Wales during World War II, before returning to her native Suffolk at the age of eighty-seven in 1978.
Her nickname “Tor” was short for tortoise and she signed all her works with a tortoise discreetly concealed in the design – and upon close examination, every window reveals hidden texts inscribed into the richly coloured shadows. So much thought and imagination is evident in these modest works in the magical realist style – which transcend their period as neglected yet enduring masterpieces in the underrated art of stained glass – that I recommend you make your acquaintance with the stylish work of Margaret Rope, which celebrates the miraculous quality of the everyday.
St Leonard is portrayed in a moment of revelation outside St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch, with Arnold Circus in the background and a London bus passing in the foreground.
The lower panel of the St George window.
A domestic East End scene from the lower panel of the St Anne’s window.
This tortoise-shell cat is a detail from the panel above.
The lower panel from the St Michael window.
Mother Kate, Prioress of St Saviour’s and Father Burrows with his dog, Nipper, standing outside St Augustine’s in York St, now Yorkton St. In the right hand corner you can see the tortoise motif that Margaret Rope used to sign all her works.
Sisters of St Saviour’s Priory, portrayed in the lower panel of the St Margaret window, 1932.
Margaret Rope’s St Paul and St Margaret, now in the entrance of Saviour’s Priory, Queensbridge Rd.
Stained glass artist, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope known as “Tor” (1891-1988)
Walter Breindel, Sewing Machine Repairs & Rentals
Walter Breindel knows everything there is to be known about sewing machine repairs & rentals – more than anyone else alive, probably. So how long has he been in the business? “Take fifteen – the age I started – from seventy-six – the age I am now,” proposed Walter, “that leaves fifty-one.”
And then a voice from the other side of the mass of sewing machines that filled the room – like a flotilla of yachts crowding a harbour – yelled, “Sixty-one, Walter!” correcting him. This was the voice of Alan Stroud, a sewing machine mechanic who has been around Walter, working on a self-employed basis for twenty-six years. “I’m sixty-six, I’ve been doing it over fifty years,” volunteered Alan cheerily, chipping in. Completing the trio at Cruisevale Industrial Sewing Machine Rental in Hessel St, Stepney, was Al Jaw, driver and electrician, who has been part of the company for thirty-six years. He sat with Alan, tinkering with a sewing machine silently, not wishing to get drawn into this one.
“I worked for the company in Osborn St, Whitechapel, for thirty-nine years until they went broke and I bought it from the liquidators.” continued Walter unruffled by Alan’s interjection, maintaining his composed expression with arms crossed, perched upon a precarious tall stool at the counter, and speaking with perfect diction and well-articulated consonants, “I live in Hendon, I press the knob on the car and it automatically gets me to the East End. I would have given it up, but my wife died six years ago and it gives me something to do.”
Then Alan delivered me a swift cup of tea with a pleasant smile. “I got a job when I was fifteen, because there was clothing factory in my back garden, and I was the tea boy. Now I’m making tea at sixty-six – I’ve gone full circle!” he quipped, “I went to a funeral the other day and this guy said, “Look, there’s ‘the boy’!'” Walter nodded in sober agreement, “They’re all dead now.”
“We’re the only two alive, and Geoffrey,” Alan qualified. And then they commenced a litany between the two of them -“Pinky’s gone” – “Alfred’s gone” – “Charlie’s gone” – “Monty’s gone” -“Lou’s dead” – “Rhoda’s dead” – “Most of them who worked for the old company are dead.”
Yet in the workshop there were sewing machines of sixty and eighty years old, still in working order, sturdy and shining, and ready to go.”That one is good for another hundred years,” declared Walter with a flourish to a Reece Keyhole Buttonhole machine. “Yes, but the mechanic won’t be!” protested Alan, prompting Walter to shake his head, accepting there are some things beyond human control. “Sewing machines have two faults,” he confessed to me, “They were made too well, so people don’t need to change them. And the costs for fixing them have always been set too low, half the price of car repairs. We’ve not followed the American way, buy it, throw it away and buy another. We’re not like that, we are used to cleaning up rusty old machines and putting them back together.” And he appeared almost apologetic of a business policy that would strike many as enlightened.
“I joined the company in 1950, they were established in 1896 and were the largest sewing machine rental in the country at one time – now I have one employee.” Walter continued, with a deferential nod to Al, before turning elegiac,“The Jewish Board of Guardians in Middlesex St got me the job, I started on a Wednesday and they paid me six pounds a week. And because I was unable to work Saturdays on religious grounds, they made me come in on Sundays and clean cars. We called the governor ‘Uncle,’ and the first thing he asked me was, ‘Would you pick up a penny?’ I said, ‘On these wages, I would pick up a ha’penny.’ So he said, ‘Pick up that screw.'”
Not to be outdone, Alan revealed that although he also started work at fifteen, and although it was ten years later than Walter in 1965, he was only paid three pounds a week with ten shillings a week taken off for tax. A comment which occasioned considerable controversy between the pair, although I could not ascertain which way the rivalry went between the higher and lower wage. “With me it was the girls,” Alan enthused, revealing a youthful spirit, and shifting the terms of comparison as he outlined the origin of his passion for the sewing machine rental business, “There were so many women! As a mechanic, you were always out on the road – the independence you had was unbelievable – and you had a new car every three years.” he admitted. And he gave me a sly grin, that left me to draw my own synonym for his euphemistic use of “independence.”
“I never had a day off in thirty-nine years,” Walter announced in a dry dignified tone, “But I had my lunch paid every day, a new car every two years and all the Jewish holidays off with pay.” And then he led me into the office where he brought out cherished back copies of Sewing Machine Times for which he was once advertising manager. There were yellowed copies going back before his time to the nineteen twenties when sewing machine companies also sold mangles and prams. Then suddenly his eye fixed upon a button hole machine illustrated in one of these pre-war publications, “Look!” he cried spontaneously in wonder, “Alan come here!” And Alan rushed in, and together they delighted over the illustration of an early model that they still had in service, exchanging mutual smiles of excitement, unified by their lifelong passion for sewing machines.
“I was in sales, I once walked from here to Stratford and went into every building down Commercial Rd – there and back – and it was a clothing factory.” recalled Walter, growing enraptured, “There wasn’t a home that didn’t have a factory in it, you could walk from one building to another. They used to say you could walk down the Kingsland Rd and earn a day’s wages, going in and out of the factories, working as you went. But the clothing industry has gone, there were sixty to seventy machine rental companies and now there are just three. We are the only one left in the East End.”
“Somebody walked in that door yesterday who hadn’t been in for twenty years, and I could remember what machines they had in their factory, but I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, isn’t that strange? ” he said, turning contemplative and casting his eyes over the ranks of sewing machines, as if they were witnesses to his life in the business. “There was a togetherness – even if on the financial side we were always fighting.” he mused, thinking back over the years with pleasure, “I used to enjoy it. It was a trade at one time.”
Walter shows off his machine for sewing tarpaulins.
Charlie Sparks used to say, “With sewing machines, you’re never going to be rich but you’re never going to be poor.”
“Everyone I know is dead”
Al Jaw, Alan “the boy” Stroud & Walter Breindel of Cruisevale Industrial Sewing Machines.
The Bloody Romance of the Tower
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey at Tower Green
“It has been for years, the cherished wish of the writer of these pages to make the Tower of London the groundwork of a Romance,” wrote Henry Ainsworth in 1840, introducing his novel, ” The Tower of London” – and it is an impulse that I recognise, because I know of no other place in London where the lingering sense of myth and the echoing drama of the past is more tangible that at the Tower.
It is my recurring pleasure to visit John Keohane, the Chief Yeoman Warder, attending the age-old ceremonies that he officiates throughout his final year at the Tower, and each time I am struck by the mystery of the place. Each time, I have to stop and reconcile my knowledge of history with the place where it happened, and each time I become more spellbound by the actuality of the place, which in spite of Victorian rebuilding still retains its integrity as an ancient fortress. I make a point to pause and read the age-old graffiti, to stop in each doorway and take in the prospect at this most dramatic of monuments.
When I discovered “The Tower of London” by Henry Ainsworth in the Bishopsgate Institute I was captivated by George Cruikshank’s illustrations, realising that not only had this favourite of mine amongst nineteenth century illustrators once stood in exactly the same places I had stood, but he had the genius to draw the images inspired by these charged locations.“Desirous of exhibiting the Tower in its triple light of a palace, a prison and a fortress, the author has shaped his story with reference to that end, and he has also endeavoured to combine such a series of incidents as should naturally introduce every relic of the old pile, its towers, halls, chambers, gateways and drawbridges – so that no part of it should remain uninvolved.” explained Ainsworth in his introduction to his sensationalist fictionalised account of the violent end of the short reign of Lady Jane Grey. Yet it is George Cruikshank’s engravings that bring the work alive, providing not just a tour of the architectural environment but also of the dramatic imaginative world that it contains – and done so vividly that when I go back this weekend for the ceremony of the Lilies & the Roses, I know already I shall be looking out for his characters in my mind’s eye while I am there.
There is a grim humour and surreal poetry that draw me to these pictures which, to my eyes, presage the work of Edward Gorey, who like George Cruikshank also created a sinister diaphanous world out of dense hatching. Maurice Sendak is another master of the lyricism that can be evoked by intricate webs of woven lines in which, as in these Tower of London engravings, three dimensional space dissolves into magical possibility. But to me the prime achievement of these pictures is that George Cruikshank has given concrete life to the Tower’s past, creating figures that convincingly take command of the stage offered by its charged spaces and, like the acting of Henry Irving, appear as if momentarily illuminated by flashes of lightning. Cruikshank’s pictures stand alone, like glimpses of a strange dream, drawing the viewer into a compelling emotional universe with its own logic, peopled with its own inhabitants and where it is too readily apparent what is going on.
The popularity of Henry Ainsworth’s novel was responsible for creating the bloodthirsty reputation of the Tower of London which still endures today – even though for centuries the Tower was used as a domestic royal residence and administrative centre, headquarters of the royal ordinances, records office, mint, observatory, and a menagerie amongst other diverse functions throughout its thousand year history. Yet although it may be just one of the infinite range of tales to be told about the Tower of London, Henry Ainsworth’s Romance does witness historical truth. There is a neglected plaque in the corner of Trinity Green just outside Tower Hill tube station which bears witness to those executed there through the centuries – as testament to the reality of the violence enacted upon those with the misfortune to find themselves on the wrong side of authority in past days.
Jane Grey’s first night in the Tower – “Prompted by an undefinable feeling of curiosity, she hastened towards it and, holding forward the light, a shudder went through her frame, as she perceived at her feet – an axe!”
Cuthbert Cholmondeley surprised by a mysterious figure in the dungeon adjoining the Devilin Tower.
Jane Grey interposing between the Duke of Northumberland and Simon Renard.
Jane Grey and Lord Gilbert Dudley brought back to the Tower through Traitors’ Gate – “Never had Jane experienced such a feeling of horror as now assailed her – and if she had crossed the fabled Styx, she could not have greater dread. Her blood seemed congealed within her veins as she gazed around. The light of the torches fell upon the black arches – upon the slimy walls and upon the yet blacker tide.”
Jane imprisoned in the Brick Tower – “Alone! The thought struck her to the heart. She was now captured. She heard the doors of the prison bolted – she examined its stone walls, partly concealed by tapestry – she glance at its barred windows, and she gave up hope.”
Simon Renard and Winwinkle, the warder, on the roof of the White Tower – “There you behold the Tower of London,” said Winwinkle, pointing downwards. “And there I read the history of England,” replied Renard. “If it is written in these towers, it is a dark and bloody history, ” replied the warder.
Mauger sharpening his axe – ” A savage-looking individual seated on a bench at a grinding stone, he had an axe blade which he had just been sharpening, and he was trying its edge with his thumb. His fierce blood-shot eyes, recessed far beneath his bent and bushy brows were fixed upon the weapon.”
Execution of the Duke of Northumberland upon Tower Hill – “As soon as the Duke had disposed himself upon the block, the axe flashed like a gleam of lightning in the sunshine – descended – and the head was severed from the trunk. Mauger held it aloft, almost before the eyes were closed, crying out to the the assemblage in a loud voice, “Behold the head of a traitor!”
Cuthbert Cholmondeley discovering the body of Alexia in the Devilin Tower – “Pushing aside the door with his blade, he beheld a spectacle that filled him with horror. At one side of the cell upon a stone seat, rested the dead body of a woman, reduced almost to a skeleton. On the wall, close to where she lay, and evidently carved by her own hand, the name ALEXIA.”
Queen Mary surprises Courtenay and Princess Elizabeth
Lawrence Nightgall dragging Cicely down the secret stairs in the Salt Tower
Courtenay’s escape from the Tower
The burning of Edward Underhill at Tower Green – “As the flames rose, the sharpness of the torment overcame him. He lost control of himself, and his eyes started from their sockets – his contorted features and his writhing frame proclaimed the extremity of his agony. It was a horrible sight, and a shudder burst forth from the assemblage.”
The Death Warrant – “Mary tried to ascertain the cause of the animal’s disquietude as its barking changed to a dismal howl. Not without misgiving, she glanced towards the window and there between the bars she beheld a hideous black mask, through the holes of which glared a pair of flashing eyes.”
Elizabeth confronts Sir Thomas Wyatt in the torture chamber – “‘Sir Thomas Wyatt,’ Elizabeth declared in a loud and authoritative tone, and stepping towards him, ‘If you would not render your name forever infamous, you must declare my innocence!'”
The Fall of Nightgall – “Nightgall struggled desperately against the horrible fate that waited him, clutching convulsively against the wall. But it was unavailing. He uttered a fearful cry, and tried to grab at the roughened surface. From a height of nearly ninety feet, he fell with a terrific smash upon the pavement of the court below.”
The Night before the Execution – “In spite of himself, the executioner could not repress a feeling of dread and the contrary urge, which represented his curiousity. He pointed towards the church porch, from which a figure, robed in white, but insubstantial as the mist, suddenly appeared. It glided noiselessly along and without turning its face to the beholders.”
Jane Grey meeting the body of her husband at the scaffold – “She knew it was the body of her husband, and unprepared for so terrible an encounter, uttered a cry of horror.”
Plaque at Trinity Green on Tower Hill
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John Keohane, Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
At the Dolls’ House Festival
Gary Masters of Masters Miniatures
I made a rare visit to Kensington at the weekend to visit the popular annual Dolls’ House Festival, now in its twenty-fifth year and drawing larger crowds than ever before. Yet although it was my love of tiny things which drew me, I soon realised that I was a mere naive enthusiast once I encountered the giants of the miniature world, who welcomed me kindly with indulgent largesse.
The first lesson I learnt was that it is not appropriate to speak of “Dolls’ Houses” because this might imply a childish pursuit, when I was in the adult world of miniaturists. And I had only to look around to confirm the self-evident truth of this – because there were no children amongst the excited crowds filling Kensington Town Hall that day. In fact, strictly speaking there were not any Dolls’ Houses at the Doll’s House Festival, because those I did see were described by their makers as “miniature architecture.” Yet even this term might be stretching it a little to describe model-making supremo Robert Dawson’s ten foot high replica of the Vatican, perfect in every detail.
Like Alice stepping through the looking glass, I simply had no idea what I was getting into – I had no idea of the scope and ambition and scale of the world of miniaturists, and let me confess to you, it is quite wondrous. As well those who make miniature furniture – of many historical periods and modern styles – there are people who specialise in miniature food, plants & flowers, trees, fruit & vegetables, bread, biscuits & cakes, groceries, glasses, crockery, ceramics, kitchenware, tapestry, baskets, books, lamps & lighting, bathroom fixtures, prams, tapestry, bronze sculpture, silverware, ironwork, thatch, locks & latches, oil paintings, baths & bathroom fittings, pets, fireplaces & architectural mouldings, wallpapers & fabrics, chimneypots, bird baths, and teddy bears & toys & dolls. Although I must qualify that last item by adding that as well as dolls for your dolls house, dolls are also available for your dolls, just for the sake of completeness.
There were so many little things of such breathtaking detail to draw my eye that I barely knew where to look when I first entered the huge hall, filled with stalls manned by the miniaturists who had come out from their sheds and attics, climbed into cars and planes – some travelling from as far as Australia – to converge upon Kensington for the festival. A tiny bunch of radishes, a Staffordshire figure of Dick Turpin, an electric two-bar fire, a Dundee cake, a pot of lilies of the valley, a three legged stool and a tin of Brasso, these were some of the small wonders that spoke to me personally. And on each occasion, I would lift my gaze from the object of my fascination to meet that of the maker, who was observing my pleasure with proprietorial satisfaction. Invariably, they wore spectacles, a badge of the trade that relies upon close inspection of tiny things and equally, they shared the hunch that I adopted while I was there, arching my spine and craning forward to better focus upon the beloved miniatures.
“My favourite is the working miniature bacon slicer!” admitted Karen Griffiths, of Stokesay Ware based in Stoke Newington who has been making miniature bone china dinner services and earning a living out of it since 1981. Karen trained as a ceramicist at the Royal College of Art and created some miniatures to earn a little money after college, then never looked back. It was a similar story with many of the miniaturists I spoke with, trained craftsmen and women who have discovered both a facility for working on a tiny scale and a demand for what they produce. “I used to restore antique furniture and then somebody suggested I do this,” explained Brian Underhay, gesturing cavalierly to the magnificent array of tiny tables, chairs, cabinets and chest of drawers laid out as examples of his handiwork.“We did Thomas Hardy’s cottage and Beatrix Potter’s farmhouse for a museum in Tokyo,” Graham Wood informed me with relish. He has a degree in Industrial Engineering and lives in the New Forest where he runs “The Little Homes of England,” making miniature cottages for which his wife Anne-Marie crafts realistic thatched roofs from the same bristles that are used for brushes.
They were just three examples among hundreds who have won an independent existence, devoting themselves to lives of painstaking labour, often living in remote corners of the country and making a steady and reliable income through internet sales and international Dolls’ House fairs, of which Kensington is pre-eminent in Europe. This weekend, fans travelled from across the country and serious collectors from around the world to pay homage to these top miniaturists, who, in spite of their natures – preferring retiring to work in the garden shed to stepping out into the spotlight – were uplifted by the delight that their handiwork drew from the crowds. Even modest individuals need to be appreciated. And there is an irresistible poetry to this highly skilled work, in which so many talents come together for the sake of the strange yet compulsive joy of small things.
Hilary & Martin Pearce of Willow Models have made miniatures together for nineteen years.
Cakes by Tiny Ter Miniatures of Barcelona.
Sue Cook began when she made a dolls’ house for her son thirty years ago.
Graham Wood of “The Little Homes of England” with his miniature outside toilet.
French gilt furniture by John & Sue Hodgson.
Brian Underhay, with his miniatures made of wood salvaged from old furniture.
Vegetables by Mouse House Miniatures.
Neil Carter who casts miniature sculptures in bronze, with his wife and daughter.
Maria Fowler of the Little Dolls’ House Company, Toronto, with a selection of miniature chandeliers.
Georgina Steeds of The Miniature Garden Centre – “I had a miniature florist’s shop and I couldn’t get any plants for it so I made my own and it grew from there…”
Penny Thomson who specialises in characterful figures, with a Nightwatchman made in paper maché.
William ( £139) and Kate (£135 ) by Georgina Ritson Dolls
