In the Roof of St Paul’s Cathedral
On the right of this photograph, taken in the roof of St Paul’s Cathedral, is the concave wall of the outer dome and curving away to the left is the convex wall of the painted inner dome that sits inside it, just like an enormous boiled egg beneath a cosy. It is a strange configuration which means the lower dome does not have the bear the weight of the dome roof, and which creates extraordinary incidental spaces that never cease to fascinate me whenever I return to scale this majestic cathedral.
Once I am through the main door, passing all the visitors standing and gazing at the vaulted cathedral ceiling far overhead, I go straight to the entrance to the roof. This was where I came the very first time I was ever permitted to visit London on my own as a child, and I have returned consistently through all the intervening years without disappointment.
Leaving the nave and ascending the stairs, you enter a different St Paul’s – no longer the monumental space dedicated to public worship but a warren of staircases and narrow passages that enable people to run like rats within the walls and emerge again to peer down at their world askance. If you are lucky, your initial burst of enthusiasm will carry you clattering up the wide spiral stairs to the height of the nave roof. At the head of these, formal elegance ceases as you turn left into a crooked passage and right, up a steep, tapering staircase which is only as wide as your shoulders, and where you must lean forward when the ceiling lowers to child height, before – without warning and quite unexpectedly – you step out into the cavernous void of the Whispering Gallery.
This was where I was transfixed by vertigo on my first visit. Sitting perched upon the tenuous balcony that circumscribes the dome with my back to the wall, the emptiness was overwhelming and the expectation of imminent collapse tangible. To this day it remains the most intense spatial experience that I know. I see the space contained by the great dome overhead and the aisles stretching below in four directions and it sets my head reeling, and I cannot avoid envisaging the dome spinning out of kilter and collapsing in an apocalypse. I can feel the magnetism to leap into the nothingness as if it were a great pool. Even the paintings upon the dome fill me with dread that the figures will fall from their precarious height. And each time I come there I must sit, while whispers fly around me, and make peace with these feelings before I can leave.
Sobered by the initial climb and awed by the Whispering Gallery, visitors usually take a moment to relax and scrutinise the views from the Stone Gallery that runs around the base of the exterior dome. Here I sat with my father while he recovered himself, when he came to visit me once when I first moved to London. As we discussed the idle spectacle of the view, I became aware for the first time that he was failing and growing old, and was quietly ashamed of my thoughtlessness in bringing him, when I knew it would be a point of honour for him not to admit to any struggle.
From here you climb into the interior of the domed roof – laced with iron staircases, spiralling and twisting around the central brick cone, like a giant pie funnel, that supports the lantern at the very top. Every wall tilts or curves or arches in a different direction and there is no longer any sense of height, you could equally be underground. Let me confide, on this recent visit, to my surprise and for the first time, this was where I experienced disorientation. I found myself in a space without a horizontal floor and barely any vertical services, hundreds of feet in the air, sandwiched between the roof dome with the sky above and the interior dome beneath – promoting morbid thoughts of smashing through this inner dome to fall like one of the figures from the paintings on the other side of the wall.
Yet as before, none of these grim fantasies were realised and I came safely to the Golden Gallery at the very top of the cathedral, two hundred and eighty feet above the ground. There is a spyhole in the floor there – God’s eye view – that allowed me to look right down through both domes to the floor below where the crowds crept like ants. And then, with the great dome beneath me, I could gaze out upon the city from a point of security, and free of vertigo.
When I climbed back down to ground level, I looked up to the dome from underneath and saw the speck of light from the spyhole and knew that to whoever was gazing at that moment I was now one of the ants. In medieval cathedrals, the focus of the architecture was upon the altar but at St Paul’s it is directly under the dome, where anyone can stand and be at the centre of things. The scale and ingenuity of St Paul’s are both an awe-inducing human achievement and one that makes people feel small too – a suitable irony in a great cathedral designed by a man named after the smallest bird, Wren.
I shall continue to return and climb up to the dome as long as I am able, because my trips to the roof at St Paul’s offer contradictory experiences that unlock me from the day to day. It is a reliable adventure which always delights, surpassing my recollections and revealing new wonders, because the vast scale and intricate configuration of this astounding edifice defy the capacity of the human mind to hold it in memory.
At the foot of the stair.
Graffiti at the entrance to the Stone Gallery.
On the Stone Gallery, at the base of the dome.
Iron staircases spiral in the hidden space between the inner and the outer domes of the cathedral.
Looking through from the top of the lantern down to the floor two hundred and seventy feet below.
Looking West from the Golden Gallery, down the Strand.
Looking East, Christ Church, Spitalfields can be seen top centre.
Looking from the floor to the dome and the lantern above.
The Widow’s Buns at Bow
Baked by Mr Bunn’s Bakery in Chadwell Heath
On Good Friday, what could be more appropriate to the equivocal nature of the day than an event which involves both celebration of Hot Cross Buns and the remembrance of the departed in a single custom – such is the ceremony of the Widow’s Buns at Bow.
A net of Hot Cross Buns hangs above the bar at The Widow’s Son in Bromley by Bow, and each year a sailor comes to add another bun to the collection. And this year I was there to witness it for myself, though – before you make any assumption based on your knowledge of my passion for buns – I must clarify that no Hot Cross Buns are eaten in the ceremony, they are purely for symbolic purposes. Left to dry out and gather dust and hang in the net for eternity, London’s oldest buns exist as metaphors to represent the passing years and talismans to bring good luck but, more than this, they tell a story.
The Widow’s Son was built in 1848 upon the former site of an old widow’s cottage, so the tale goes. When her only son left to be a sailor, she promised to bake him a Hot Cross Bun and keep it for his return. But although he drowned at sea, the widow refused to give up hope, preserving the bun upon his return and making a fresh one each year to add to the collection. This annual tradition has been continued in the pub as a remembrance of the widow and her son, and of the bond between all those on land and sea, with sailors of the Royal Navy coming to place the bun in the net every year.
Behind this custom lies the belief that Hot Cross Buns baked on Good Friday will never decay, reflected in the tradition of nailing a Hot Cross Bun to the wall so that the cross may bring good luck to the household – though what appeals to me about the story of the widow is the notion of baking as an act of faith, incarnating a mother’s hope that her son lives. I interpret the widow’s persistence in making the bun each year as a beautiful gesture, not of self-deception but of longing for wish-fulfilment, manifesting her love for her son. So I especially like the clever image upon the inn sign outside the Widow’s Son, illustrating an apocryphal scene in the story when the son returns from the sea many years later to discover a huge net of buns hanging behind the door, demonstrating that his mother always expected him back.
When I arrived at the Widow’s Son, I had the good fortune to meet Frederick Beckett who first came here for the ceremony in 1958 when his brother Alan placed the Hot Cross Bun in the net, and he had the treasured photo in his hand to show me. Frederick moved out from Bow to Dagenham fifteen years ago, but he still comes back each year to visit the Widow’s Son, one of many in this community and further afield who delight to converge here on Good Friday for old times’ sake. Already, there was a tangible sense of anticipation, with spirits uplifted by the sunshine and the flags hung outside, ready to celebrate St George next day.
The landlady proudly showed me the handsome fresh 2011 Hot Cross Bun, baked by Mr Bunn of Mr Bunn’s Bakery in Chadwell Heath who always makes the special bun each year -” fabulous buns!” declared Kathy, almost succumbing to a swoon, as he she held up her newest sweetest darling that would shortly join its fellows in the net over the bar. There were many more ancient buns, she explained, until a fire destroyed most of them fifteen years ago, and those burnt ones in the net today are merely those few which were salvaged by the firemen from the wreckage of the pub. Remarkably, having opened their hearts to the emotional poetry of Hot Cross Buns, at the Widow’s Son they even cherish those cinders which the rest of the world would consign to a bin.
The effect of the beer and the unseasonal warm temperatures upon a pub full of sailors and thirsty locals rapidly induced a pervasive atmosphere of collective euphoria, heightened by a soundtrack of pounding rock, and, in the thick of it, I was delighted to meet my old pal Lenny Hamilton, the jewel thief. “I’m not here for the buns, I’m here for the bums!” he confided to me with a sip of his Corvoisier and lemonade, making a lewd gesture and breaking in to a wide grin of salacious enjoyment as various Bow belles, in off-the-shoulder dresses, with flowing locks and wearing festive corsages, came over enthusiastically to shower this legendary rascal with kisses.
I stood beside Lenny as three o’ clock approached, enjoying the high-spirited gathering as the sailors came together in front of the bar. The landlord handed over the Hot Cross Bun to widespread applause and the sailors lifted up their smallest recruit. Then, with a mighty cheer from the crowd and multiple camera flashes, the recruit placed the bun in the net. Once this heroic task was accomplished, and the landlady had removed the tinfoil covers from the dishes of food laid out upon the billiard table, all the elements were in place for a knees-up to last the rest of the day. As they like to say in Bromley by Bow, it was “Another year, another Good Friday, another bun.”
Peter Gracey, Nick Edelshain and Roddy Urquhart raise a pint to the Widow’s Buns.
Tony Scott and Debbie Willis of HMS President with Frederick Beckett holding the photograph of his brother placing the bun in the net in 1958.
Alan Beckett places the bun on Good Friday, 4th April 1958.
3 pm, Good Friday, 22nd April 2011.
The Widow’s Son is the local for my pal Lenny Hamilton, the jewel thief.
A Widow’s Son of Bromley by Bow
by Harold Adshead
A widow had an only son, The sea was his concern, His parting wish an Easter Bun Be kept for his return. But when it came to Eastertide No sailor came her way To claim the bun she set aside Against the happy day. They say the ship was lost at sea, The son came home no more But still with humble piety The widow kept her store. So year by year a humble bun Was charm against despair, A loving task that once began Became her livelong care. The Widow’s Son is now an inn That stands upon the site And signifies its origin Each year by Easter rite The buns hang up for all to see, A blackened mass above, A truly strange epitome Of patient mother love.
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The Curious Cabinets of EC1 & SE1
Rumours reached me of the curious cabinets that have appeared in the streets, so I set out to search one sunny afternoon to see how many I could find. Even before my investigation, I was aware of the painted cabinets in the fringes of my vision and, as more impinged upon my consciousness, I realised that something was going on – in fact, the telephone company has granted artists a certain period of creative licence to decorate exchange junction boxes, before grey uniformity is restored later. These colourful designs are insects of a single season, bringing some agreeable surprises to familiar streets and so I was eager to celebrate the transient urban poetry of these curious cabinets while it lasts.
Whitecross St is the focus for a set of cabinets in EC1, with many in the streets leading off from the market, that catch your eye as you weave your way through the stalls. You will find images of the children in the school, and in the playground, and of a market stall, and of the YMCA, and of the weathervane upon St Luke’s Church and of the bicycles that stream endlessly down Old St. Recreating these local sights with such care and affection draws together the disparate elements that collectively define the character of this appealing locality bounded by the Barbican to the South and Old St to the North. All of these paintings are at a child’s eye level and as brightly coloured as toys, and I suspect they have become landmarks for school children, humanising the busy streets through the introduction of a playful imaginative element.
Street Art takes flight when it plays upon the drama of its location, enlivening the environment by its presence, and there is an innate surrealism to these cabinets that appear to have been removed from a house and dumped outside – defining the term “street furniture.” Yet many of the artists have chosen to look at them as architecture in miniature – a quality emphasised by their shallow pitched roofs – painting them as dolls’ house versions of buildings in the vicinity. And there is a desperate comedy in the tiny YMCA, painted upon two cabinets, that I found in a dull little street just round the corner from the real thing, while the blue house with the grotesque face on Whitecross St itself proposes a dreamlike fairytale fantasy. But it is the spirited painting of a terrace of derelict shops in the market, painted onto a cabinet at the South end of the street that spoke to me most eloquently, emphasising the isolation of these old buildings, built to a human scale, that were once the standard in the neighbourhood, now overshadowed by the Barbican towers looming overhead.
Down in the Borough High St, Southwark, I found a different school of cabinet painting at work, producing more highly wrought creations than North of the river, in which the drama of the location has been exploited to powerful effect. The vista of Little Dorrit park painted onto a cabinet beneath the real thing pulls off a neat trick out of Magritte’s repertoire, but the masterpiece is the one with the paintings of St George the Martyr Church located outside the church. There is a painting of the church, by day and by night, on either side of this cabinet across the road from its subject, and looking from one to the other is a strange experience – you compare your vision of the real thing and the squint perspective of the painted representation, while switching your perception in scale between the church towering over you and the painting you look down upon. And you walk away with an image of the church in your mind that is multi-dimensional.
Pradoxically, these cabinets draw attention to themselves in order to reflect attention onto the surrounding cityscape, functioning as catalysts which inspire us to look afresh at what we already know. Wittily contrived and lovingly painted by many different artists, this is the magic of the curious cabinets of EC1 & SE1.
In the Cellar of the Bishopsgate Institute
This is Stefan Dickers, the inspirational archivist at the Bishopsgate Institute who possesses such a charismatic sense of levity that he could join the “Carry On” team in any of their capers and be entirely at home. Although he is an authoritative scholar, Stefan recognises that to be serious, you do not have to be grave, and through his indefatigable nature belies the myth that librarians do not possess a sense of humour. Naturally magnanimous, he actively encourages people to come and consult the rich collection that he tends at the Bishopsgate, and it is always an adventure whenever I pay him a call – because I never know what new treasure he will produce for me to publish for your delight, here in the pages of Spitalfields Life.
So what is Stefan doing sitting in the cellar of the Bishopsgate Institute? Is this where the staff go for a quiet smoke? Or a peaceful nap in the afternoon? Or is he, in the manner of that other famous librarian, Jorge Luis Borges, pondering thoughts of transient mortality engendered by his life among the dusty tomes?
In fact, Stefan comes here to contemplate the ancient floor which once belonged to the stable that stood upon this ground long before the Bishopsgate was built in 1895. “Now I have thirty oyster shells on my desk and I live in constant fear of horse urine!” he admitted with self-satirising irony, referring to the outcome of the recent renovations that have revealed the bizarre legacy of the oyster shop and livery stables which previously occupied this site. “I say ‘shop,'” he told me, “because you can only have that many oyster shells in a shop.” rolling his eyes in illustration of the endless quantities of shells brought upstairs by the builders who discovered them down below. A common find in London, where oysters were once plentiful and the cheapest of foods.
But more pertinent to Stefan is the question of the horse urine because, as he explained to me in disappointment, “If a horse urinates onto the floor you will have to take all the soil out because otherwise you will never get rid of the damp.” This room with the stable floor was to have been the strongroom for his prized treasures, but since the porous surface renders this usage impossible and the historic floor cannot be removed, the floor itself must be the sole the treasure in the cellar – a modest relic of Bishopsgate’s past identity, as the point of departure and arrival for Ermine St, the main road North out of London, lined with coaching inns and stables, until Liverpool St Station was built and the railway took over.
The Bishopsgate Institute was created in 1891 through the enlightened foresight of Reverend William Rogers, a priest with secular tendencies, who diverted the vast funds piled up by St Botolphe’s church over centuries to pay for new schools for the poor, public toilets, baths, wash houses, drinking fountains, soup kitchens and even a hospital. From the start, access for all was the founding principle for the cultural institute, with a free lending and reference library, and a large hall where concerts and lectures on subjects of popular appeal were given. And thanks to the prudent radicalism of Rogers, the Bishopsgate remains autonomous today, independent of government or local authority funding, and free to pursue the same agenda of noble egalitarianism.
With a characteristic lightness of touch and the generosity of a favourite uncle, Stefan gave me a few pictures to show you that illustrate the nature of these early lectures at the Bishopsgate Institute. I like to think that if Stefan Dickers, the archivist with a sense of humour, were to meet the ghost of Rev William Rogers, the priest with secular tendencies, standing upon the old cellar floor, he might discover they had a lot in common.
The site of the Bishopsgate Institute in 1838 from Tallis’ London Street View – the nineteenth century forerunner of Google Street View. The entrance to the stable is central, with the oyster shop to the left.
The Bishopsgate Institute in 1895, the year it opened. Note James Ince & Sons, umbrella makers next door – operating today from Vyner St.
The Bishopsgate Institute today.
Rear view of the former oyster bar and livery stables that previously occupied the site. In the photo at the top of the story, Stefan Dickers is sitting upon the brick floor of one of these stables, in the cellar of the Bishopsgate Institute.
Fred Enock, expert in insect intelligence.
Cillford Collinson in the South Seas.
Escott North in the Golden West.
Photographs © copyright Bishopsgate Institute
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A Renovation at Trinity Green
A pair of quaint narrow terraces face each other across a green off the Mile End Rd in Whitechapel. Although they are lined up neatly like ships’ cabins, only the model boats upon the street frontage remain as evidence that these were built for as almshouses for mariners. But, if you step closer and crane your neck, a stone plaque high on the wall proclaims their noble origin thus, “THIS ALMES HOUSE wherein twenty-eight decay’d Masters & Commanders of Ships, or ye Widows of such are maintain’d, was built by ye CORP. of TRINITY HOUSE, ano 1695. The Ground was given by Capt. HENY MUDD of Rattcliff an Elder Brother, whose Widow did alfo Contribute.”
Even today, a certain atmosphere of repose hangs upon this small enclave, protected from the pandemonium of East London traffic by trees and delicate emerald green railings – now a preserve of cats and flowerpots and twisted old trees and lawns strewn with dandelions and daisies – where it is easy to imagine those “twenty-eight decay’d Masters & Commanders” who once sat around here competing to outdo each other with oft-repeated tales of high adventures upon the seven seas.
The architect was Sir William Ogbourne, and his design was ship-shape in its elegant organisation, fourteen dwellings on either side, each one with three rooms stacked up on top of the other, all arranged around a chapel at the centre to provide spiritual navigation. It was a rigorous structure enlivened by lyrical flourishes, elaborately carved corbels above each door, model boats and stone balls topping off the edifice, and luxuriant stone crests adorning the brick work.
In the nineteenth century, a tall mast stood at the centre of the green to complete the whole endeavour as an approximation of a ship upon dry land – complementing the concave walls at the front in place of a hull and the raised chapel in the aft where the poop deck would be. Just a mile from the docks, it was the perfect spot for Masters & Commanders to enjoy their decay, and it might have sailed on majestically, if it had not been sunk by the bombing in 1943, that destroyed the chapel and the rear eight cottages. Taken over by the LCC, Trinity Green experienced benign neglect in recent years and is now a mixture of private and public dwellings where everyone gets along peaceably, unified in their appreciation of this favoured spot.
Ten years ago, Dutch designer Eelke Jan Bles installed a floor at 5 Trinity Green and fell in love with it. He said to the owners, “If ever you want to sell, I will buy it.” and that is exactly what happened last year. Appreciating that centuries of alteration had taken the interior a long way from its original design, Eelke hired architect Chris Dyson to restore its dignity, and Chris was able to apply his experience working on old houses in Spitalfields to reconfigure the spaces, reinstate the lost panelling and create a sympathetic dwelling with modern amenities.
The ground floor room is a perfect square, a geometric elegance that may be the result of an original plan designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and when you ascend the steps from the green and walk in the door you find yourself in an amply proportioned room which catches the morning sunlight to great advantage. It is peaceful and resonant and, with an outlook only onto the wide lawn, you could easily forget you were in London. Undoubtedly, this is the room where anyone who lived here would delight to spend their time, retreating to the snug bedroom and bathroom below at night.
Throughout the cottage, each detail has been considered to create an accommodation where every area is used to maximum efficiency, just like on a ship. And there is an admirable restraint to Chris’ interventions which respect the quality of the building, allowing it to be used to its best advantage, while permitting the spaces to speak for themselves. The success of his work is to have created a sense of unity of design between the outside and the inside of the building.
Chris and Eelke developed a passion for Trinity Green in the course of their collaboration and research, and they were eager to take me on a tour. With delight at the ghostly enigma, Eelke pointed out how the numbering ends at twelve on the far left cottage and picks up at twenty on the top right, leaving a gap of eight for those vanished dwellings bombed in 1943. While Chris drew my attention to the delicate rope design upon the iron hand rail of the chapel steps, a residual nautical detail hinting at the lost naval statuary and long-gone paraphernalia from the time of those “twenty-eight decay’d Masters & Commanders.” And the result of this commitment is that 5 Trinity Green, uniquely, has both its panelling and its character back, and my good fortune in seeing this granted me a vision of how the whole place used to be.
After my visit to the cottage, I loitered on the chapel steps to savour the peace and quiet further, enjoy the sunshine, and commune with the old ginger tom who – judging by the multiple notches in his ears – is the undoubted decay’d Master & Commander at Trinity Green nowadays.
5 Trinity Green is to let, if you like to rent it contact Eelke Jan Bles eelke@solidfloor.co.uk
View of Trinity Almshouses, Mile End Rd, 1695.
A hundred years ago there was a ship’s mast on the green with flags run up for special occasions.
The lamp post with a rope stem from the previous photograph now stands beside the chapel.
World War II bombs gutted the chapel and destroyed the rear eight cottages.
The ground floor of Chris Dyson’s renovation.
The ground floor in its previous incarnation.
The entrance today.
The entrance as it was before.
The panelling was restored by Matt Whittle.
The view from the lower room with coalhole to the right.
The lower room in 1957.
The lower room today.
The old ginger tom who is the current Master & Commander of Trinity Green.
The Oldest Ceremony in the World
Each night a lone figure in a long red coat walks down Water Lane, the narrow cobbled street enclosed between the mighty inner and outer walls of the Tower of London. Sometimes only his lamp can be seen through the thick river mist that engulfs him when it rises up from the Thames and pours over the wall to fill Water Lane, but he is indifferent to meteorological conditions because he is resolute in his grave task.
He is the Gentleman Porter and it is his responsibility to lock up the Tower, a duty fulfilled every single night since 1280, when the Byward Tower that houses the guardroom was built. And over seven centuries of repetition without remiss – day after day, down through the ages, through the Plague, the Fire and the Blitz – this time-hallowed ritual has acquired its own cherished protocol and tradition, becoming known as ‘The Ceremony of the Keys.” It is the oldest, longest running ceremony in the world, and it continues today and it will continue when we are gone.
John Keohane, the current Gentleman Porter ( a role also known since 1485 as the Yeoman Porter, and since 1914 by the title of Chief Yeoman Warder) invited me over to the Tower to watch the ceremony, and Spitalfields Life contributing photographer Martin Usborne was granted the rare privilege of taking pictures of a run-through for an event that at the request of the Sovereign has never been photographed.
“Welcome to my little house by the river,” declared John cheerily in greeting, “That’s what the Tower is, it’s my home.” There was a sharp breeze down by the Thames that night, and we were grateful to be led by John into the cosy octagonal vaulted guardroom in the Byward Tower which has been manned night and day since 1280 and has the ancient graffiti (Roger Tireel 1622, among others), the microwave and the video collection to prove it.
Here, John’s old friend Idwall Bellis, a genial Welshman, was preparing to spend a long night on duty. “People try to break in to the Tower of London all the time,” he confided with an absurd smile, explaining, “They climb into the moat and we contact the police to take them away. Occasionally, the Bloody Tower alarm goes off and no-one knows why, and sometimes foxes set off alarms too.” Like John, Idwall joined the Yeoman Warders in 1991 after a long army career and in the last twenty years he has seen it all, except one thing. “My predecessor Cedric Ramshall was here one night and the room filled with frost, he saw two men in doublets with long clay pipes standing at the fireplace and they pointed at him.” he revealed, gesturing to the spot in question, “He never spent another night in here again.”
At 9:53pm, it was time for John to light the huge old brass lantern, take up his bunch of keys and venture out into the glimmering dusk, mindful of the precise timing of the seven minute ceremony that must finish on the exact stroke of ten. The only time this did not happen, he informed me, was 29th December 1940 when a bomb fell within fifty feet and blew the warders off their feet. They picked themselves up, completed the ceremony and wrote a letter of apology to the King for being three minutes late – and he graciously replied to say he fully understood because of the enemy action taking place overhead.
Leaving the guardhouse, John walked alone with his lantern down Water St to the entrance to the Bloody Tower where he picked up an escort of Tower of London Guards uniformed in red with bearskins on their heads, who returned down Water Lane with him to the gates. “At the Middle Tower, I meet Mr Bellis and together we lock, close and secure the gates, while the soldiers offer us protection,” he explained to me with uncomplicated purpose. This prudent addition to the ritual was made in 1381 when an elderly Gentleman Porter was beaten up and left for dead by protesters against Richard II’s poll tax.
My heart leapt in my chest when, as the black doors closed upon the modern City with a thunderous bang, centuries ebbed away and I found myself suddenly isolated in the medieval world, in the sole company of soldiers in scarlet uniforms in a pool of lamplight in the ancient gatehouse – just as I might have done any time in the past seven hundred years. Once the huge doors were shut and barred, while a pair of guards stood on either side and a shorter one held up the lamp as John turned the key in the lock with a satisfying clunk, then the escort reformed and marched swiftly together back down Water Lane into the gathering darkness, with John Keohane at the head, leaving Idwall Bellis to return to his cosy guard room.
Keeping discreetly to the shadows, I followed down Water Lane, creeping along beneath the vast stone walls towering over me. It was at this moment that a sentry stepped from the shadows – in the dramatic coup of the evening – challenging those approaching out of the dusk, crying, “Halt! Who comes there?” With barely concealed affront, John halted his escort, announcing, “The keys!” And in a bizarre moment, centuries of repetition was rendered into the present tense, happening for the first time – as those involved embraced the irresistible drama of the instant and the loaded gun pointed at them.
“Who’s keys?” persisted the sentry – turning either dimwitted or subordinate. “Queen Elizabeth’s keys,” announced John, citing the Sovereign who is his direct employer. “Pass Queen Elizabeth’s keys, for all is well!” responded the sentry, a stooge stepping back into the shadow.
And then John, accompanied by his escort, marched triumphantly up into the precinct of the Tower where he met a contingent of guardsmen, waiting sentinel at the head of the stone steps. They presented arms and the clock started to chime, permitting eleven seconds before the stroke of ten. In a moment of brief exultation, spontaneous even after twenty years, John took two paces forward, raising his Tudor bonnet, and declaiming, “God Preserve Queen Elizabeth!” Finally, a bugler played the last post and the clock struck ten as he made his way up the steps to report to the Constable that the Tower was locked for the night.
The guard marched away to their barracks and I stood alone beneath the vast white tower, luminous with floodlight, and I cast my eyes around Tower Green that was my sole preserve in that moment. Then John returned, descending the staircase, and we walked down to the Bloody Tower where the young princes were murdered by their uncle Richard III and where Walter Raleigh was imprisoned for thirteen years. And before John Keohane and I shook hands and said our “Good Nights,” we lingered there for a moment in silent awe at the horror and the beauty of the place.
Idwall Bellis sits all night in the guard house waiting for people to break into the Tower of London.
The keys to the Tower of London and the lantern.
“Halt, who comes there?”
“The Keys!”
“God preserve Queen Elizabeth!”
Photographs copyright © Martin Usborne
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John Keohane, Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
The Ceremony of the Lilies & Roses at the Tower of London
Constables Dues at the Tower of London
The Bloody Romance of the Tower
You can apply to attend the Ceremony of the Keys through Historic Royal Palaces. A limited number of guests are permitted each night and it is free. Please apply at least six weeks in advance and be sure to include several alternative dates in your application which must be accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope.
Residents of Spitalfields and any of the Tower Hamlets may gain admission to the Tower for one pound upon production of an Idea Store card.
At James Hoyle & Son, Iron Founderers
Brian Barrett, the foreman at James Hoyle & Son invited me to return to the foundry last week to watch the iron casting. The men were in from six and one set of casts had already been poured when I arrived, as they were hastily preparing for the next session. Through the haze, I could see the moulds laid out upon the black sandy floor within the cavernous gloom of foundry building, waiting as the iron cooled within, until they were ready to be broken open and their progeny revealed.
At the far end, illuminated by a fiery glow, Brian was stoking up the furnace again with pig iron, while on the other side, mould makers Raymond Bates and Bill Wakeman were busy pumping sand mixed with quick-setting resin into wooden pattern boxes to make the fresh moulds for the next round of casts. And working alongside Raymond and Bill was twenty-one year Benjamin Hoyle, fourth generation iron founderer and great-grandson of James Hoyle who established the Bee Hive Foundry in 1880 – currently training under Brian Barrett’s instruction to learn all the workings of the foundry that he will take over one day. “I’ve been coming along since I was fourteen,” Benjamin revealed, as he continued work, absorbed in making a mould for a set of railing heads,“but when I was eighteen I told my dad this is what I wanted to do and I’ve been full-time since then.”
“I plan to do it until I feel happy enough that my children are ready to take my place.” he added in passing, almost to himself. It was an extraordinary declaration of commitment, spoken with conviction yet in the midst of work, and Benjamin was ceaselessly engaged with multiple tasks the whole time I was there – wheeling huge barrows of pig iron in and out, as well as energetically breaking open and clearing the sand moulds to release the newly cast pieces of iron. “If Brian is busy, I tend to the furnace, loading the pig iron as well as making the sand moulds – and, as I am the youngest, I do most of the lifting,” Benjamin told me plainly, eager to embrace his responsibility.
“This is very old England, eighteen eighties,” he qualified with a smirk, casting his eyes around this venerable foundry that is a charismatic survivor of the Industrial Revolution, “I wouldn’t have liked to work here when they had to bring in the pig iron by horse and cart,”
“I value it because its my heritage but also because it is interesting.” he confirmed for me as he leant over the completed sand mould in deep concentration, using compressed air to clean off any residue. “We’ve had page three models in here ordering railings,” he bragged, suddenly changing energy and rolling his eyes in excitement, “and we cast some iron balconies for Jennifer Saunders, a fireplace for Elton John, garden furniture for the Queen and we made the railing heads at ten Downing St.”
Then, “I say I am an iron founderer, and people are impressed when I tell them what I do,” he confided shyly, with a bemused grin, “but mostly they haven’t a clue what it is, they think I am a blacksmith.”
The iron was ready to be poured and all the fresh moulds were laid out with lines of weights upon each one to hold them secure. The founderers put on their protective goggles and Brian instructed me to avert my eyes, avoiding the brief magnesium flare when the iron first runs into the crucible.
Then, in a moment of blinding light as the liquid metal was poured, billowing smoke filled the entire space, blocking out the daylight that became supplanted at once by the volcanic glow of molten iron. Brian tilted the motorised furnace to permit the iron to flow into the crucible, before Benjamin and Bill, the moulder, lifted the vessel together. Holding either end of yoke and keeping their glowing load balanced level, equidistant between them, they took slow deliberate paces, like ghosts in the fog, walking over to the moulds and tilting the crucible, while Brian directed the flow of the iron. Returning to the furnace to replenish twice, each of the moulds was filled and this stage of the task was complete, leaving everyone standing together in the miasma momentarily, sharing a point of arrival at the completion of their task, before dispersing in relief to brew tea and open windows onto the canal where trains rattled past on the other side, down towards Liverpool St.
I joined Raymond and Bill, the moulders, for a quiet cup of tea in a grimy peaceful corner where every surface was caked in foundry dust, as they devoured their sandwiches in paper packets from home. Earlier Bill had given me a handful of the sand mixed with resin and told me to squeeze it in my fist. When I opened my fingers minutes later, the sand had recorded an impression of my hand with all the lines and veins visible, as a vivid illustration of the subtlety of the moulding process. Everyone else had gone and we sat to enjoy the silence of the foundry while the dust settled, but the moment was fleeting as all the others quickly returned.
They began breaking open the moulds to reveal the finely detailed pieces of new ironwork, balustrades and finials in nineteenth century designs that are the history, the speciality and the lifeblood of James Hoyle & Son – giving the family a thriving business serving the restoration trade, which has enabled them to continue when all of the East End’s other small foundries have gone.
Twenty-one year old Benjamin Hoyle, fourth generation iron founderer, currently training under foreman Brian Barrett at the foundry established by his great-grandfather James Hoyle in 1880.
On the right are a set of patterns for railing heads and on the left is one half of the completed mould.
Raymond Bates and Bill Wakeman, mould makers.
Brian Barrett, foundry foreman, stokes the furnace.
A magnesium flare flickers at the moment the molten iron is poured into the crucible.
Brian, Bill and Benjamin pour the molten iron into the moulds.
You may like to read about Brian Barrett, Foundry Foreman.
