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21Mar/15

The Great Fire

London Stories, , , , , ,

I’m sure you know more about the Great Fire of London in 1666 than I do. It’s as much folk lore as it is fact, so I thought I’d have a look at the fire from street level.

This fellow (below) the Golden Boy of Pye Corner, is a quirky sign of how the fire was viewed in its day. Because the fire started in Pudding Lane, and ended at Pye Corner, some blamed it on gluttony and the fire was therefore seen as a message from God himself that Londoners should mend their ways and not be so greedy. This chubby little statue in Giltspur St, leading to Smithfield Garden, is a reminder of that message.

King Charles II himself is credited with rallying the population and organising the defence of London against the flames; because he was one of the few men in London with enough influence to affect a result, and he was the one who acted.

The Golden Boy of Pyes Corner

The Golden Boy of Pyes Corner

It is possible that the fire more or less killed off the Plague. Probably this was caused by the flames destroying the infrastructure that the fleas which spread the Plague lived in – straw, debris, rats and the food the rats lived on.

This picture is in St Brides Fleet St. It clearly shows how St Pauls dominated London in the early 17th Century. St Pauls was completely destroyed as the lead from its roof ran molten in the streets. You can also see the distinctive spire of St Mary le Bow as it was before the fire.

Drawing of London found in St Bride’s, Fleet St

Drawing of London found in St Bride’s, Fleet St

The Samuel Pepys Exhibition building, below, in Fleet St, opposite Chancery Lane, marks the westernmost extent of the fire. Everything to the left was destroyed; this lovely building remains. They say no-one was killed, because the flames moved quite slowly, but it’s likely that peasants, serfs and villeins didn’t count. If you stand in the middle of the road in front of this building (not for long!) you can see St Pauls on Ludgate Hill to the east. It’s not very far from there to here, so you can see that 17th Century London was not a very big place, but you can also see from the cramped buildings, tiny lanes and narrow footpaths that it was a very compact city, dominated by foot traffic. Immediately after the fire, thatched houses were prohibited. The Globe Theatre in Bankside, built in the 1990s, was the first new thatched building in London since 1666.

Samuel Pepys Exhibition building, Fleet St

Samuel Pepys Exhibition building, Fleet St

21Mar/15

The Norwegians

London Stories, , , , , ,

The Norwegians arrived in Britain some time after the Saxons (who were invading as the Romans left) but they had a roughly similar language, which was probably the same Germanic language in the distant past. Along with the Danes and the Swedes, they were together called the Vikings and they arrived in England in large numbers after 800AD, setting up almost their own country, called the Danelaw, which was dismantled by William the Conqueror after his invasion of 1066. Viking history and its deep and lasting influence in England is worthy of study; the Danelaw, for instance was all that area east of Watling Street (the A5) from north of London, so Yorkshire, Lancashire, the Lake District and Lincolnshire, as well as Scotland, owe much of their local accent and dialect to the Vikings, while father, blackmail, egg, knife, crooked, window and ill, are some of the words we still use from the Old Norse. Look up your Oxford English Dictionary for more.

In Holborn you can easily walk to see evidence of the Vikings because if you cross London Bridge, descend Nancy’s Steps and then go to your left under the bridge, you will see St Olaf’s House and a sign on the ground for St Olaf’s churchyard. In an unsuccessful attempt to capture London, King Olaf invaded from the Thames and pulled down London Bridge in 1009. This is believed to be the inspiration for the children’s rhyme “London Bridge is falling down.” Mind you, it was a wooden bridge so it was subject to fire and flood anyway and had been rebuilt several times before.

Which brings us rather circuitously to the picture of the Christmas tree below. Every 7 Dec, a representative of the Norwegian government (last year it was the Crown Princess of Norway) turns on the lights for the Norwegian Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square. The tree is presented to the Mayor of Westminster in a ceremony beginning at 1745hr.

Photo Jern Tomter

Photo Jern Tomter

Last year was the 60th time this ceremony had been performed.

When the Germans invaded Norway during WW2, King Haakon VII escaped to Britain and set up a government in exile. This tree is presented each year in thanks for the assistance Britain gave to that government, and to the people of Norway. The tree itself is always a Norwegian spruce from near Oslo and is usually about 60ft tall and 60years old. It is felled in a ceremony attended by the Mayor of Westminster in Oslo during November and brought to London by ship free of charge. It is lowered into a hole 4ft deep, secured with a dozen wooden wedges and lit with only white lights, for snow.  Members of the choir from nearby St Martin-in-the-fields will sing carols around the tree every night until Christmas, and there will be a collection for selected charities as well. Those of us who went in the coach to the Accenture Christmas function last year will remember driving past the tree as it stood, scattered with its little white lights, in Trafalgar Square.

If you go to St Mary le Bow you will see there a bronze relief of St George slaying the dragon, which was a gift to the church in memory of the stirring sound of the Bow Bells, giving hope to many parts of the world, as they were played for each broadcast of the BBC World Service. Interestingly for an impartial news service, included in the broadcasts were coded messages to the Norwegian resistance.

Bronze relief of St George slaying the dragon

Bronze relief of St George slaying the dragon

21Mar/15

The Blitz

London Stories, , , , , , , , , , ,

On 7 Sept 1940, the Germans started a policy of strategic bombing of non-military targets – first used by the Germans on a small though devastating scale in the Spanish Civil War – and London was the centre of that attack. The campaign lasted 57 consecutive days – all the way until 10 May 1941. We have already seen that this was the night when St Mary le Bow was destroyed by all the nearby burning buildings, but the Holborn area was heavily affected and well into the 1980s there were bomb sites around us. Strategic bombing caused the loss of 40,000 civilian lives in England, of whom 23,000 lived in London.

I put the photo of Christ Church Greyfriars at the head of the page because I have family who were christened and married there, and it is such a sad and poignant reminder of what London lost in those terrible days

Christ Church Greyfriars

Christ Church Greyfriars

The Wren tower has been restored, but the walls on this side of the building were demolished for a road widening scheme. The Pineapple Project hopes to restore the missing walls, but there are no plans to replace the building.

On 7 May 1941, the church of St Andrew Holborn, pictured left and sited on Holborn Circus, was completely gutted by bombing and eventually it was decided to restore the building “brick for brick and stone for stone” to the original Wren design for the largest parish church he built. During its restoration, the old crypt was discovered and hinted at religious observance on this site since the Romans arrived, 2000 years ago.

If you look at the new building going up opposite, called 40 Holborn Viaduct, it was the subject of a very famous Blitz photo; a fire engine is parked next to Prince Albert’s  statue and its crew is fighting the blaze.

St Andrews, Holborn

St Andrews, Holborn

There is much to be known about the effect of the Blitz on Holborn, for which there is plenty of room below, and I’ll continue this story later. In the meantime, look for St Albans Church near the red-brick Prudential building and St Ethelreda’s in Ely Place. St Albans was substantially destroyed and rebuilt and St Ethelreda’s lost its nave. The spirit of London is such that these fine buildings are standing proud again today, in continuous use.

In the end the tactic of strategic bombing was counter-productive. The bombs did not destroy English morale; they may have strengthened it. The time and effort that should have been spent destroying the RAF was dissipated into a huge cushion that could absorb as much military ordinance as the enemy could discharge. The German distraction from the war effort to the bombing of London (and other cities) allowed the British to perfect their radar, re-build their air bases and their air force, and probably prevented the planned invasion of England. Military strategists might like to take note.

St Albans Holborn interior

St Albans Holborn interior

 

21Mar/15

St Giles In-the-fields

London Stories, , , , , , , , ,

St Giles is called In-the-fields because, like St Martins-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Square, it was outside the City walls. It must have been a borough in its own right, rather than just a parish, because the street it stands on is called St Giles High Street. One thing I do know; in the 18th and 19th centuries it was the centre of one of the worst slums of London – in a city of slums. The landlords of buildings were allowed to let their rooms by the square foot and by the hour, so they could have a whole collection of people renting space during the daytime and another lot sleeping on those same square feet at night.

If you look up High Holborn, you can see Centrepoint which sits on New Oxford Street, while High Holborn actually swings off to the left. All of that redevelopment was intended to break up the St Giles slum, which was still a festering sore in the early 20th Century.

St Giles-in-the-fields with Centrepoint beyond.

St Giles-in-the-fields with Centrepoint beyond.

John Coleridge Patteson went to New Zealand from here as the first Bishop of Melanesia in the 1860s. He was killed in the Solomon Islands after 10 years in the position and his blood-stained flax blanket hangs in the cathedral in Honiara.

Patteson Memorial

Patteson Memorial

A Tearle family lived in New Compton St in the late 19th Century so you can tell they were very poor; one of them was a taylor’s porter, which I think means he pushed clothes racks around. Nowadays there are few signs of the slum buildings, but the Victorian café, below, on the corner of New Compton Street, gives you a bit of the flavour of the area.

Corner of New Compton St.

Corner of New Compton St.

The drunks, the junkies and the homeless who wander the streets and sleep in the churchyard are the direct descendants of those it has always cared for; the poor and the vulnerable.

The vulnerable, St-Giles-in-the-fields.

The vulnerable, St-Giles-in-the-fields.

Behind the church is a beautiful little garden, called the Phoenix garden, which is loved and cared for entirely by volunteers, like the Copperfield Garden near Union St, where the locals sit and sun themselves in a surprisingly quiet spot and where each plant, bush and tree is chosen from a catalogue of native-only species.

Lunchtime, the Phoenix Garden

Lunchtime, the Phoenix Garden

When you look closely at the blocks of the church, you can see the Victorian grime and soot clinging to the surface, not yet washed away, and still a couple of millimetres thick.

Victorian grime

Victorian grime

This plaque below records a donation by Sir William Cony, who in 1672 gave £50 and asked for the interest from it to be paid “forever” to the poor of the parish, in the form of bread every Sunday, plus eight holy days.

Plaque recording donation by Sir William Cony

Plaque recording donation by Sir William Cony

The rather extravagant memorial to Andrew Marvel, poet and writer. He was good, and I did enjoy his work. You can see here the extent of local affection for him.

Memorial to Andrew Marvel

Memorial to Andrew Marvel

There is also a memorial to John and Charles Wesley, who are remembered as having preached in this church, and used this pulpit below to do so. John Wesley has a statue in the grounds of St Pauls Cathedral and another memorial outside Postmans Park in St Martins le Grand, off Newgate St.

Memorial to John and Charles Wesley

Memorial to John and Charles Wesley

19Mar/15

The Scottish Prince

Bedfordshire, UK, , , , ,

There is a sad post-script to the story of The Scottish Prince.  This was the ship that little Aubrey Bruce Cooper Cecil was born on, 10 Sept 1878

The SCOTTISH PRINCE, launched in Aberdeen in 1878, was a 64 metre steel masted iron barque of 950 tons. She came to grief early on the morning of the 3rd Feb 1887 with a cargo of iron, beer, whiskey and other goods whilst bound for Brisbane. She now lies in 10 meters of water almost 2 kilometres south of the Gold Coast Seaway, and approximately 800 metres from the beach. Today it serves as a popular dive site.

Photo of Scottish Prince from Picture Queensland


Photo of Scottish Prince from Picture Queensland

11Mar/15

Amsterdam in Summer

Europe, , , , , , ,
Amsterdam in summer is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Dappled sunlight caresses the ground under canal-side poplar trees and the life of the city is played out al fresco. This is quite a small city – much less than 1m population – and flat enough to encourage cyclists, who roam the streets and footpaths completely unchallenged.
This is how laid back the locals get. Lunch in the dinghy, nice glass of wine, next to your houseboat, gently rocking on the canal in central Amsterdam. Now that’s what I call style…
Enjoying a wine

Enjoying a wine

Its narrow cobbled alleys and council bye-laws also discourage cars, so you can walk the streets quite safely, endangered only by the “Bing!” of approaching cyclists. This converted bike, of which there are many, is an example of the white-van-man on three wheels.
Cycle barrow

Cycle barrow

What would Amsterdam be without its flowers! This beautiful massed display, was at the bloemen markt.
Bloemenmarkt

Bloemenmarkt

We have a boring old number on our house, and perhaps you have a nameplate announcing “Rose Cottage.” In Amsterdam they make gable stones. Some of them, as you can see here, are quite ornate, and considering they are kiln-fired ceramic, they would have cost a bit, too. Some of the city’s gable stones were made as early as as the low 1600s. They illustrate the occupation of the owner, in this case a miller.

Miller’s home

Canal boat people like to be green. This owner is growing grass and small bushes on a trellis he has suspended over the side of his boat. It’s to let the birds nest.
House boat

House boat

This is not a roaring, bustling city; its streets are surprisingly quiet and are genuinely safe. Here, a little cherub greets the morning sun halfway between the kitchen behind her and the footpath in front.
Little girl in her door

Little girl in her door

If you like a shopping experience, rather than just going and buying something, then when in Amsterdam, go the the Magna Plaza. It’s quite magnificent; the coffee is yummy and the marbled rooms and columns give a sense of grandeur you don’t get at your neighbourhood supermarket.
Magna Plaza

Magna Plaza

Here, cafe life is at its very best. Warm sun in the late afternoon, no work today because it’s the weekend, so we’ll meet our neighbours and our friends at the cafe on the canal. We’ll sit in the soft shade, a glass of excellent white wine in our hand and we’ll dip bread crusts into oil and balsamic vinegar. The canal gives the diners depth of view; and the houses crowding over them, as they have for 400 years, give them a sense of permanence and belonging in their own land. Nice place, Amsterdam.

Jordaan Cafe

I had just left Dam Square when I passed this cafe with with a stone-still girl outside it cut in half by bright sunshine on one side and deep shadow on the other. The sign in the cafe window says “Sorry we are OPEN.” I can believe that.
Sorry we are OPEN.

Sorry we are OPEN.

Below is an example of just how much the Amsterdammers love their canals. In the foreground is a small runabout taking friends and family for a little tour around the waterways on a lovely sunny day. On the other side of the canal was a diving competition of some sort – in spite of the cold water.
Boats in the canals

Boats in the canals

The view along Prinsengracht towards Westerkerk is one of the most beautiful views in a city of striking vistas. The canal water is being constantly moved from the sea on one side of the city, through the complex canal network and back out to sea again. The water is cold, but not particularly clear because the passage of the water is quite slow.
Prinsengracht

Prinsengracht

At night, you can hear the tunes of the bells of Westerkerk, and remark on the clarity and depth of tone of its big bell. It is evocative of Amsterdam’s long history and reminds you that this was once a powerful and wealthy city-state with an empire of its own.