Hawksmoor

The great Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661-1736) helped shape the London townscape in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Employed by Wren at the age of 18 he worked on St Pauls and Chelsea Hospital before creating six London churches as part of the New Churches in London & Westminster Act of 1711. St Alphege Greenwich, St George Bloomsbury, Christ Church Spitalfields, St Mary Woolnoth, St George-in-the-East and St Anne Limehouse.

Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor portrays his churches as mysterious and full of the occult. Morbid, pagan symbols and Masonic links all feature in the book as do ancient lay lines and murders. None of this is true (I hope) but walking around the grounds of a Hawksmoor church you can see where Ackroyd got his inspiration. This is especially true at St Anne’s in Newell Street in the East End.

This grade A listed building was built in 1730 and has a distinctive pyramid in the graveyard. Originally planned to be atop of the tower it now stands mysteriously in the graveyard.

Gutted by fire on Good Friday 1850 St Anne's was restored in 1851 and again in 1983. The church has a maritime link. A weight is dropped at the top of the tower when a signal is received from Greenwich to indicate the time to sea captains on the Thames. It also has permission to fly the White Ensign, which is normally reserved exclusively for the Royal Navy.

Walk west down Cable Street until you arrive at another Hawksmoor, St Georges-in-the-East. This church was built between 1714 and 1729 costing £18,557.3s.3d. It was also badly damaged by fire when hit by an incendiary bomb during the Blitz in 1941. The outer walls, tower and “pepper pot” turrets survived and now encase a modern church within its walls. It also contains four flats built under each corner tower.

 

St Mary’s Woolnoth is a small, Grade 1 listed church, squeezed within the confines of the maze of small lanes and alleys of 18th century London that are now Lombard Street and King William Street. It is the only church Hawksmoor built in the City of London. The site has been used for worship for at least 2,000 years and is thought to get its name from a 12th century benefactor Wulnoth de Walebrok. The original church was damaged in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and patched up by Wren. The structure proved unsafe and was demolished in 1711. The current church was completed by Hawksmoor in 1716 with the limited interior space containing twelve Corinthian columns, grouped three to each corner.

Several attempts have been made to destroy St Mary’s (an occupational hazard with Hawksmoor church’s be it the Luftwaffe or London Transport) but the public have always saved it. London Underground tried its best with the Bank Station staircase shaft being built directly under the church. Bones had to be removed from the crypt and reburied. The church is now home to the German speaking Swiss community in London.

London skyline

Ever wondered what the London skyline would look like if it included the Eiffel Tower? Click here to find out

Ghostsign # 2

Saw this ghostsign in Lewisham. “Jays” £40 worth of furniture for just 4’ (shillings). I didn’t realise that there was any interest in this type of thing until I was contacted by Sam Roberts. The excellent Ghostsigns site www.ghostsigns.co.uk/ is looking for more examples. Get involved.

Dirty Water

Watching Jay-Z and Alicia Keys perform the great ‘Empire State of Mind’ at the Brits made me wonder why there are no good, modern songs about London. Ok, "London’s Calling" by the Clash but the fact that London is drowning and Joe Strummer lives by the river is hardly inspirational.

Ian Dury got close as did Dr Feelgood but they are more Essex than London (Billericay & Canvey Island). My own favourite is Dirty Water by The Inmates, which is a cover of the Standells song about Boston so doesn’t really qualify

I'm gonna tell you a story
I'm gonna tell you about my town
I'm gonna tell you a story
And, it's all about my town

Yeah, down by the river
Down by the banks of the river Thames
That's where you'll find me
Along with lovers, fuggers, and thieves
Well I love that dirty water

Oh, London, you're my home
Because I love that dirty water
Oh, oh, London, you're my home
Well, I love that dirty water,
etc,
etc



Did you know...............It takes 61 seconds to open Tower Bridge, which opens approximatly 1,000 times a year

Louise Bourgeois

Maman by Louis Bourgeois.

Perambulate

perambulate \puh-RAM-byuh-layt\, intransitive verb:

1. To walk about; to roam; to stroll; as, "he perambulated in the park."

transitive verb:

1. To walk through or over.
2. To travel over for the purpose of surveying or inspecting.

At Syon, we perambulate a succession of rooms of the greatest magnificence, beginning with the entrance hall, with an apse of columns -- characteristic of Adam, all dazzling whiteness.
-- A. L. Rowse, "At Home with History in London", New York Times, January 19, 1986

Perambulate comes from Latin per-, "through" + ambulare, "to walk." The noun form is perambulation.

A fore ye go

One of the aims of this blog is to record parts of London before they disappear. Not just the great and the good but the odd and unusual. The stuff that seems to appear overnight and is then gone within a few weeks never to return. A good example is the cardboard tube installation that suddenly materialized at the back of the Festival Hall.

Not fish nor fowl, not for shelter or warmth. This 22 metre, short-lived structure was created by Japanese architect and designer Shigeru Ban. Made from cardboard tubes and called the Paper Tower it stood proudly on the South Bank but vanished just as Londoners were getting used to it.

The flip side to this is that a real gem has been discovered in Oxford Street due to the demolition of several buildings that included the much loved Astoria. While Transport for London try to make everyone’s life as miserable as possible during the construction of the Crosslink Station, at the junction with Tottenham Court Road, a fantastic old sign has come into view.

Like a ghost from the past the sign "Veglio & Co Cafe, Established in 1854" has suddenly appeared.

Another 'Ghost Sign' can be found in Rathone Street (or should that be Upper Rathbone Place?). It looks as though the man charged with displaying the new sign could not bring himself to cover the old one.