Newsletter No 75 November 2012_20pp

Notes and News

The 112th Annual General Meeting of the Society

was held on 11 July 2012 at St Botolph’s

Bishopsgate. This was a well attended event,

enlivened by a most interesting talk by Susan

Meyer on fans (including some topographical

examples), occasioned by the fact that the church

hall had been the home of the Fanmakers Company

for many years.

However the 2012 AGM was not one of our best,

in that the catering contractors let us down by

arriving

with

one

of

their

two

tea

urns

unserviceable and, after delays in getting all the

images for this year’s publication photographed at

the British Library, our new print organiser was

unable to get the books which had been printed in

China through the docks in time for delivery to the

AGM. Members however enjoyed what teas were

available, perused the bookstall and listened

through a lashed-up audio system to the Hon.

Editor’s tales of what they could look forward to

this year and in future years.

So against all expectation members had to go

home without the promised annual publication,

London, A History in Maps. This disappointment –

and the ensuing anxiety about colossal postage

costs – was mitigated by a splendid volunteer effort,

coordinated by our Treasurer Roger Cline, through

which a large proportion of the books were

delivered by hand very soon after the event. About

150 members collected their copies from the

Treasurer’s At Home three weeks later and several

others took weighty barrow loads for distribution in

their home areas; the Publication Secretary’s office

became a City distribution centre. Member Martin

Williams deserves special mention for collecting

and delivering around a hundred copies – he said it

was like being an early Father Christmas, being

welcomed by members as they took in their

goodies.

We are reverting to Graham Maney, our long-

standing print organiser, in 2013 and our new

Secretary will be able to keep a sharp eye on the

catering arrangements. If any 2012 member has

not received his or her London, A History in Maps

(at 6lbs in weight, it is difficult to overlook) let the

Treasurer know.

Members will surely feel that this wonderful

publication was worth waiting for. Our thanks

must go both to our editor, Ann Saunders, and to

Derek Brown and his team at Oblong, for a

beautiful book with colour illustrations reproduced

with exceptional subtlety and clarity, particularly

welcome for such subjects as the notoriously faint

Wijngaerde drawings of early Tudor London and

also to our council member Laurence Worms, who

contributed

the

biographical

notes

on

the

engravers. But above all we have to thank the

author, Peter Barber, who has turned the much-

admired exhibition which he curated in 2007 into a

lasting record, with a lucid text introducing an

amazing variety of illustrations – not only maps

which are works of art in their own right, but a

delectable collection of drawings, watercolours,

prints and panoramas –

demonstrating the

inexhaustible riches of the British Library

collections. As Ann writes in her editorial note, the

book is truly ‘a milestone in the representation of

London’s growth and development’. We were

delighted to see an excellent review in The Times

(20 September). How appropriate that Peter Barber,

head of the British Library Maps and Topographical

Views, and Council member of the LTS, was this

year awarded an OBE. We send him our warmest

congratulations.

The Society’s publication for 2013 will be an

edition of William Morgan’s 1682 map of the City

and Westminster. This fascinating map includes

much additional material, including views of

buildings and lists of donors, which will be given

appropriate attention in the introduction by Ralph

Hyde and index by Robert Thompson

In this age of cuts many organisations are

struggling to achieve their aims. Fortunately our

Society is in good health financially, with an

increasing membership now standing at 1150, and

we are in a position to offer some modest help to

others. This issue of the Newsletter includes

reports of two such cases, the cataloguing of the

Crace material in the British Library Maps

department, and the conservation of the Bowen

collection

of

photographs

in

the

London

Metropolitan Archives.

Newsletter

Number 75

November 2012

Christmas Presents solved

If you found the 2012 publication a delight,

perhaps your friends and relations might be

similarly delighted if they received a copy of

London, A History in Maps. As a special offer up to

10 December, for £30 the Society will send directly

to a UK address your present of this book with a

note that it comes from you. If you care to send the

Treasurer with your order a card to be enclosed he

will do his best to do so.

Our New Secretary

Good news about the Society’s administration.

Following the appeal for a Secretary we are pleased

to report the appointment of Mike Wicksteed, a long

standing member. Mike is a retired civil servant

with much experience in communications matters

in a number of government departments. He will

take on not only the usual secretarial duties but

also the development of the website.

“I’ve been a what you might call a ‘sleeping’

member of the LTS for nearly 18 years and

thoroughly enjoy receiving the Newsletter and the

annual publication. However, over all that time I

never attended AGMs nor contributed to the Society

in any way. I retired from the senior civil service last

year, so when I noticed that a volunteer was needed

to fill the Secretary’s post it struck me that I might

put my paw in the air to put something back to an

organisation which has given me so much pleasure

over the years.

I attended this year’s AGM and was informed by

Penny Hunting that the Council had selected me last

month. I very much look forward to helping out as

Hon. Sec. for the foreseeable future.”

– Mike Wicksteed

Your email addresses needed

Organising

the

Treasurer’s

At

Home

and

delivery/collection of the publication was made

much easier when your current email address was

known. However about one-third of the addresses

we had noted turned out to be out of date. Please

send to the Treasurer an email with LTS as the

subject heading, so that we can contact you by this

method in future. Rest assured we shall only use

the data to contact you on Society business.

Ups and Downs in London

Despite all the financial worries, this has been a

remarkable year for London; the Olympics and the

Queen’s Diamond Jubilee have inspired new

buildings and special events and there have been

many worthwhile efforts presenting different

aspects of London through exhibitions and books,

some of which we note in this newsletter. November

2012 also sees the publication of Woolwich, the

first volume to appear from the Survey of London’s

South London recent research programme (to be

reviewed in the May Newsletter). It will shortly be

joined by Battersea, which is in the press. The

Survey has now turned to the north and started

work on Marylebone. But it is sad to report that

further work is seriously threatened: the outlook

beyond 2014 looks grim, with the threat of a 50%

or more cut to the Survey’s activities. It would be

deplorable if this means an end to over a century’s

meticulous and illuminating research on London’s

history and development.

On the museum front, it is good news that the

William

Morris

Museum

at

Walthamstow,

scandalously shut down a few years ago, has now

been refurbished and reopened (though sadly

without its former curator). Less good – indeed

shocking – news is Barnet Council’s plan to sell off

the artefacts from the now closed Church Farm

Museum at Hendon, many of which were presented

by local residents. Meanwhile in Tower Hamlets the

London Metropolitan University has decided to

dispose of the Women’s Library. The important

collection is to go to the LSE, but the ingenious

building by Wright and Wright in Whitechapel,

specially built as recently as 2002, is unwanted.

The building in Old Castle Street is of interest also

because, appropriately, it incorporates the remnant

of a Washhouse opened 1851, a very early women’s

amenity in what was once one of the poorest areas

of London. Better news about another building in

this area: Wilton’s Music Hall, an amazing mid

nineteenth century survival near Wellclose Square,

for long in a parlous condition; sympathetic

conservation is now in progress.

Changing London

During the last quarter century, the City of London

has been creeping eastward, with buildings on a

scale which dwarfs the remaining domestic terraces

of eighteenth century Spitalfields. The City’s

involvement in the area is not new. Spitalfields

Market, founded by Charles II, rebuilt as a private

enterprise in the 1880s, was acquired by the

Corporation of London and expanded in 1926-9. Part

of this expansion consisted in the provision of an

Exchange for the fruit and wool markets, which was

built on the south side of Brushfield Street in 1929,

framing the view toward the towering baroque bulk of

Hawksmoor’s Christ Church on the other side of

Commercial Street. The architect, the City Surveyor

Sydney Perks, was sensitive to the context, his façade

is in traditional materials, a long brick and sash-

windowed frontage to Brushfield Street with a

page 2

Brushfield Street, the Fruit and Wool Exchange on the right.

dignified stone-faced central entrance to the spacious

auction and meeting rooms within. The building is a

reminder of the time when the City was concerned

with goods, not just services. But the market moved

away in 1986, and since then the future of its

building has aroused bitter controversy. The current

threat to the Exchange has roused widespread

protest (see further, Spitalfields Community Group

website). The plan by Bennetts Associates for the

developer Exemplar includes not only the Exchange

but the adjacent block to the south with White’s Row

multi-storey

car

park.

The

application

for

redeveloping this huge site solely for commercial use,

keeping only the façade to Brushfield Street,was

twice rejected by Tower Hamlets council. An

alternative proposal for mixed use of the site,

including some housing and retaining the Exchange,

was put forward by Johnstone Architecture, but in

October the developer’s proposals were allowed after

appeal to the Mayor of London. However the battle is

still live, and SAVE London’s Heritage is now pressing

for English Heritage to reconsider its decision not to

list the building.

Correction

The last issue of the Newsletter, under Changing

London, referred to the University of the Arts at

King’s Cross. We are grateful to Linda Mead for

pointing out that the University of the Arts is not a

new name for St Martin’s and Central School of Art.

The Granary building at King’s Cross is for Central

Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design (CSM),

which is a constituent college of the University of

the Arts. The latter also includes Camberwell

College of Arts, Chelsea College of Art and Design,

London College of Communication, London College

of Fashion, and Wimbledon College of Art, which

are all separate colleges on other sites.

Circumspice

Where is this building? Answer on p.11.

Exhibitions

Shakespeare Staging the World. The British

Museum. Until 25 November.

www.britishmuseum.org

This ingenious and rewarding exhibition, in the

ample space of the old Reading Room, links

Shakespeare with the world of his time – which

means, largely, the world of London, but not entirely,

for the buzz of the cosmopolitan capital is contrasted

with Shakespeare’s vision of the Forest of Arden,

based on the playwright’s upbringing in rural

Warwickshire. Maps, artworks and appropriate

treasures from the Museum appear in the context of

extracts from the plays spoken by eminent actors,

throwing light on Shakespeare’s approach to history,

to the classical world and to contemporary politics.

The merchant city of Venice is explored as a parallel

to London; other themes which reverberate in the

plays include immigration, witchcraft, and the

exploration of the New World. Although Shakespeare

is often thought of as an Elizabethan, he lived to

1616, so here too is the Gunpowder Plot and James I

and VI’s innovative term of ‘Great’ Britain.

Topographers will enjoy London depicted in Hollar’s

Long View, excellently displayed, and the objects

found in the theatre excavations on Bankside which

include the pottery money boxes used to collect

theatregoers’ fees. Not to be missed, but if you can’t

get there, there is a catalogue by Jonathan Bate and

Dora Thornton (£40, paperback £25).

– Bridget Cherry

Eros to the Ritz 100 years of Street

Architecture. Royal Academy Architecture

Space, Burlington House, Piccadilly.

Until 27 January 2013.

On the facing walls of the Architecture Space (the

grand name given to the lobby next to the

Academy’s restaurant) are two long street elevations

of the north and south sides of Piccadilly, rather in

the style of Tallis’s London Street Views of 1838-40

(LTS publication 160). But the Piccadilly views are

nearly a century later. ‘A prospect of Piccadilly’

drawn by H. M. A. Armitage and Henry Durrell

under the direction of the London Society was part

of a scheme to give work to underemployed

architects. The drawings are presented here with a

commentary by Professor Alan Powers. His starting

points are the observations on Piccadilly made by

the architect and critic H. Goodhart-Rendel, in a

lecture of 1933. Powers adds his own comments

together with additional details about more recent

buildings. Goodhart-Rendel was particularly skilled

in discerning the subtler aspects of streetfront

design; a subject in which modern architects have

shown little interest, and Powers has a refreshingly

broad appreciation of the variety of styles that the

street has to offer. This is a chance to study a lost

art, and in the process you can learn much about

the history of Piccadilly and how it has changed

since the 1930s.

– Bridget Cherry

page 3

Workhouse, London Metropolitan Archives,

Northampton Street, N1. Until 10 January.

An exhibition drawing on archive material revealing

life in the workhouse after the Poor Law Act of

1834. Free. NB the LMA will be closed for

stocktaking from 1-19 November.

London Sublime. Guildhall Art Gallery.

Until 20 January. Paintings by John Bartlett of

contemporary London.

The Big 40, Orleans House Gallery, Riverside,

Twickenham. Until 25 November.

An intriguing exhibition is announced of works

selected by local people of all ages with some

connection to the gallery. The Big 40 celebrates its

40th anniversary, and commemorates 50 years

since the death of its founder Mrs Nellie Ionides.

The 40 examples from the celebrated Richmond

Borough Art Collection, some never exhibited

before, include landscapes and portraits, by both

locally known and nationally distinguished artists.

Tuesdays – Saturdays 1.00-4.30pm, Sundays 2.00-

4.30pm

www.richmond.gov.uk/arts

Free

admission.

Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men

Museum of London EC2. Until 14 April 2013.

A plaster cast of the flayed crucified corpse of the

criminal James Legg is one of 262 remains found in

a long forgotten graveyard in the grounds of the

Royal London Hospital six years ago. Legg, who was

executed in 1801, was removed from the gallows in

order to settle an artistic debate with regard to

crucifixion and to ascertain anatomical correctness.

It is one of the many burials dug up and analysed

by

experts

from

the

Museum

of

London

Archaeology (MOLA) and can be seen in this new

exhibition.

Corpses were supplied to pioneering surgeons,

and Londoners were fearful of the sinister

resurrection men stalking the city’s graveyards –

and the shameful fate that could await them in

death. The skeletons showed significant signs of

dissection. Bones were wired together to create

articulated skeletons for teaching. By practising on

dead bodies, the surgeons were better able to treat

their live patients before and after it was legal to do

so. The discovery offers fresh insight into dissection

at the time and into the murky trade of dead

bodies. It explores a dark and gory period of our

history and the legacy of medical ethics and

standards of practice today.

– Denise Silvester-Carr

Royal River

Royal River is the title both of the exhibition that

took place during the summer months at

Greenwich,

as

part

of

the

Royal

Jubilee

celebrations, and of the accompanying book (Royal

River, Power, Pageantry and the Thames, Guest

curator David Starkey, edited by Susan Doran with

Robert J. Blyth, Royal Museums Greenwich, 2012,

£25 ISBN 978 1 85759 700 4). The book has an

introduction by David Starkey, and essays by

specialists as well as catalogue entries of the items

displayed. These are all generously illustrated,

making it a good substitute for those who were

unable to reach the exhibition in the short period of

its existence.

The exhibition took place in the new extension of

the Maritime Museum, a discreet steel and glass

annexe at the SW corner of the older buildings. The

ground floor café looks out toward Greenwich Park,

the basement below provided a sequence of spaces

which worked well for an exhibition divided up into

different themes and illustrated with large

paintings as well as small and disparate objects.

Among the many impressive works of art

gathered together for the exhibition the great prize

was the vast Canaletto painting borrowed from the

Lobkowicz collection in Bohemia, which shows the

colourful Lord Mayor’s Day pageant with its array

of decorative barges among crowds of smaller craft,

all set against the backdrop of the City skyline. The

book generously gives it a foldout double spread so

that one can enjoy the details, and relate them to

the tantalisingly fragmentary surviving artefacts –

models of the barges, carved fragments, liveries and

badges. Lord Mayor’s Day was a spectacular

annual civic festival, but the eighteenth century

scene depicted by Canaletto had as its precedent

earlier royal displays, as is discussed in David

Starkey’s introduction. As the Thames linked the

riverside palaces, there were opportunities for royal

propagandist shows such as Anne Boleyn’s

Coronation

procession

from

Greenwich

to

W e s t m i n s t e r

and Catherine

of

Braganza’s

grand

‘Aqua

Triumphalis’

from Hampton

Court

to

W h i t e h a l l .

James II had a

C o r o n a t i o n

f i r e w o r k s

display which

was memorably

lavish (even if it

did not win him

long

term

popularity). The

impact of royal

personalities is

page 4

Part of the North side of Piccadilly, drawn in 1933. Copyright Royal Academy. See Page 3

Magdalena Pescko, who is cataloguing the British

Library’s Crace Collection, introduces us to its

fascinating variety.

The Crace Collection of London Maps and Plans

offers an unparalleled overview of history of London

cartography, and so the cataloguing project funded

by the London Topographical Society will be of

particular interest to researchers working in this

subject area. Nevertheless, until now the British

Library’s online catalogue contained a very few

references to this collection. The entire collection

was

purchased

by

the

British

Museum’s

Department of Prints and Drawings in 1880,

however in 1933 it was split into two sections.

Plans and maps were moved to the Map Library,

now part of the British Library, the rest of the

collection, London Views, remains at the British

Museum. In recent years the Collection of Views

has been catalogued to the British Museum’s

Online Database.1

The British Library’s Crace Collection of Maps

and Plans is exceptionally thorough. It comprises

some 1400 printed and manuscript maps produced

between ca. 1570 and 1860, arranged in nineteen

portfolios. Seven initial portfolios consist of general

maps of London, followed by plans of the City

wards and parishes in portfolio VIII. Portfolio IX

comprises eighteenth century plans of properties in

the City, mainly from the records of the Mercers

and Haberdasher Companies. Maps in portfolios X

to XVI cover London districts and are divided

according to the area represented. Portfolio XVII

contains plans for rebuilding the City after the

Great Fire, while portfolio XVIII consists of public

sewers and water courses. Finally, portfolio XIX

accommodates maps of the environs of London.

Crace collected some unique items, including

proofs before letters or manuscript plans. When he

was unable to acquire a particular map he had it

copied or traced. Thus he obtained a nineteenth

century copy of Charles Evans’ survey dated 29

March 1760 which shows the freehold belonging to

Sir Charles Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, the site

where Buckingham Palace now stands. He also

purchased and

included in his

collection

hand

drawn

Plan of Palace

Green and other

grounds, & the

westwards

of

K e n s i n g t o n

Palace by the

surveyor

and

page 5

The British Library’s

Crace Collection

Londoni Angliae Regni Metropolis delineatio accuratissima by

Joannes de Ram, first issued ca. 1690. This is 4th edition

published by Pieter van der Aa in 1729. Engraving. Shelfmark:

Maps Crace Port. 2.71

brought out by a notable assemblage of portraits

from different collections.

There were curiously few efforts to match these

ephemeral events with permanent riverside

buildings of comparable splendour. Simon Thurley

shows that by the later seventeenth century the

river had ceased to be a normal means of transport

between the palaces, although it was used for

public ceremonies; for these a river terrace was

constructed at Whitehall by James II. But even the

Queen’s palace at Somerset House lacked a grand

riverside entrance (although one was given to the

government offices that succeeded it in the later

eighteenth century). The exception was the river

frontage of Greenwich Hospital, expanded from the

incomplete Palace begun by Charles II. Queen

Mary,

founder

of

the

hospital,

specified

‘magnificence‘ as an essential quality, and John

Bold traces how later visitors, both native and

foreign, continued to be impressed by the great

baroque frontage. The association of the Thames

and Greenwich with the royal navy, epitomised by

the retired seamen at Greenwich Hospital, was

expressed eloquently by the funeral of Nelson in

1805, discussed in a special chapter by Timothy

Jenks. Nelson’s lying in state at Greenwich was

followed by ‘a great Aquatic bustle’ (in the words of

Charles Lamb); paintings and engravings convey

the dramatic impact of the solemn naval procession

up the Thames to Whitehall.

The new bridges attracted artists, although

early nineteenth century industry changed the

river for the worse. Brunel’s famous tunnel, built

with heroic effort from 1825 to 1843, was a

famous visitor attraction, and the exhibition

displayed an intriguing collection of the souvenirs

it inspired. Among the unsuccessful suggestions

for improvements in the 1820s it was fascinating

to see the optimistic panorama presented by

Frederick

Grove,

proposing

a

continuous

colonnaded

quay

from

Charing

Cross

to

Blackfriars. The river story tails away with

Bazalgette,

pumping

stations

and

the

Embankment;

royal

river

events

became

infrequent, the welcome to Princess Alexandra at

London Bridge in 1863 being an exception.

Instead there was royal travelling – George IV’s

visit to Scotland – and royal yachts, whose

furnishings made a somewhat anticlimactic end

to this splendid show. For a reminder of

continuing royal involvement one can turn back

to the foreword by the Queen, tellingly illustrated

by a photograph showing the eleven year old

Princess Elizabeth purposefully striding forward

among the royal party, on the occasion of the

opening of the Maritime Museum seventy-five

years ago.

– Bridget Cherry

architect Thomas Chawner, which shows the

proposed housing development in the former Kitchen

Gardens,

west

of

Kensington

Palace.

The

development now houses several major embassies.

A great number of manuscript plans in the

collection come from rent books belonging to the

Mercers’ Company. They often list tenants’ names,

lease agreement, dimensions of the property and

the use made of premises. Some of the plans also

report the proposed alterations to the buildings, i.e.

John Baker’s plan of the property in Queen Street,

Cheapside, let to Mr William Wallis with intended

building

works

marked

in

pencil.

Another

interesting example of Mercer’s Company records is

a plan of property on Cateaton Street which shows

a group of houses in Mumfords Court. ‘Mercers’ is

written as a title for the plan, which indicates the

document was produced for exclusive company

use. Interesting feature of this plan is the list of

lease details and measurements attached to it by

sealing wax. These unique records are not to be

found elsewhere and are of great importance for

researchers interested in social history and in the

practices and conventions used in urban surveys in

the second half of the eighteenth century.

Many maps published after 1750 were brought

up to date and reissued. Crace acquired the most

significant maps of the city and its suburbs and

their updated editions. Four different editions of

John Cary’s New and accurate plan of London and

Westminster, the borough of Southwark and parts

adjacent, first printed in 1787, can be found in the

collection, alongside with four issues of Thomas

Kitchin’s New and correct plan of the cities of

London, Westminster and borough of Southwark

from 1775, later published with Robert Sayer’s and

John Bennett’s imprint.

A catalogue of maps, plans and views of London,

Westminster and Southwark collected and arranged

by Frederick Crace edited by Frederick’s son John

Gregory, and published in 1878, is the only available

source on the collection. The descriptions are vague

and sometimes misleading. Plan of Cordwainer’s

Ward, 1768 is a good example of one of these brief

entries. This item has recently been recatalogued

with full title given: An exact and correct plan of

Cordwainers ward, taken by order of Sr Henry

Bankers Knt and Alderman. 1768. The names of

surveyor William Chamberlaine, and engraver James

Kirk, were identified and added, as well as the note

on the map’s content. In the process of re-cataloguing

new information was revealed, i.e. entry for no. 114,

portfolio IX lists three plans, where in fact there are

five documents – four plans (three manuscripts and

one engraved), as well as a print with details of

leasehold estates on Aldersgate Street, issued prior

the auction. These documents are now catalogued

separately, with image attached to each record.

page 6

Plan of the College of Physicians in Warwick Lane Pencil and

wash sketch signed H. Ansted. An engraved version was

published in Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London...,

1826. Shelfmark: Maps Crace Port. 8.81

Plan, elevations, and sections for rebuilding the Black Horse

Livery stables in Aldersgate Street signed J. Baker; from records

of the Mercers’ Company. Ink and wash on paper. Shelfmark:

Maps Crace Port. 9.114

A proof before letters (Avant les lettres) impression of Langley &

Belche’s new map of London first published in 1812. The map

features thirteen views of prominent London buildings along the

top and bottom of the plate with titles inserted in hand. Engraving.

Shelfmark: Maps Crace Port. 6.189

Some more discoveries have been made with

regard to the dating and establishment of creators’

names. This includes identification of hitherto

unrecorded editions of Thomas Jefferys’s A new

plan of the city and liberty of Westminster with the

new date 1765, but before the addition of the

address of Robert Sayer and Carington Bowles;

Benjamin Rees Davies’ London with the imprint of

George Cox; or A pocket map of London,

Westminster and Southwark by Samuel Lyne with

the date in the title altered to 1745. Also, a

manuscript Plan of the College of Physicians in

Warwick Lane, signed by H. Ansted, was linked

with its engraved version published in Illustrations

of the Public Buildings of London, 1826.

Maps and plans mentioned in this article are only

a sample of this vast source of information on

history of London topography. Some of the Crace

Collection maps have already been photographed

and georeferenced and are available on the British

Library’s Online Gallery. As a result of the project

the remaining 400 items will be digitised. In

addition, fully searchable, detailed catalogue

records with low resolution jpg attached and the

Online Gallery link embedded, are currently being

produced and soon will be available through the

online catalogue – Explore the British Library.

– Magdalena Pescko

All images copyright © The British Library Board.

Note

1 See Anna Maude, Cataloguing Crace London

Topographical Society Newsletter, November 2009, no.

69, pp. 4-7.

Recording London’s Sculpture

The first volume in the Public Monuments and

Sculpture Association’s recording project (NRP)

appeared in 1997. Since then there have been

fourteen volumes on different cities or regions series.

These scholarly catalogues aim to raise awareness

of the nation’s heritage of public sculpture, exploring

the planning, patronage and artistic intentions of

each work. Philip Ward-Jackson has so far

contributed two volumes: that on the City of London,

which came out in 2003, and this year, a first

volume on the non-architectural statuary of historic

Westminster. Here he provides some personal

thoughts on his involvement with the project.

The period of sculpture which chiefly interests me,

the nineteenth century, saw a massive escalation in

public statuary in London, as in other European

cities. So the PMSA’s National Recording Project

appealed from the start. However, had I been asked

to write on Westminster at the beginning I might

well have baulked at it. Parts of the field have been

very thoroughly covered in the Survey of London,

and since then, numerous scholarly monographs

on individual sculptors have provided more than

adequate accounts of major monuments in the

area. The bait which lured me in was the

commission to write the volume on the City, which

remained, comparatively, a terra incognita at that

time. Margaret Whinney, in her seminal Sculpture

in Britain 1530-1830, had been terribly dismissive

of the City’s sculpture, apart from the St Paul’s

monuments. Was it fair of her to have written off

Sir Robert Taylor’s Mansion House pediment as

‘tedious’ and ‘clumsy’? And of course, before

Benedict Read wrote his Victorian Sculpture, rare

were the unblinkered, like Tom Boase and John

Physick, who could disregard the taboo on

sculpture produced between 1830 and 1900.

Furthermore,

public

sculpture

has

been

notoriously sluggish in its acceptance of cutting

edge modernism, nowhere more so than in the City,

which means that a certain revisionist tolerance,

not necessarily the same thing as a conservative

aesthetic attitude, is required of its historians.

Doing this survey brought the pleasure of ranging

across history, from the ancient traditions of the

City, as vividly preserved in the writings of authors

like Stow and Evelyn, to events which may have

occurred within my lifetime, but of which at best,

before researching them, I had only the vaguest

memory. What a challenge to discover that nobody

in recent times had attempted to describe Cibber’s

reliefs on the Monument to the Great Fire, which

had been referred to in their day as ‘hieroglyphics’.

Because it is called in common parlance simply

‘The Monument’, this column had been adopted as

a fitting logo by the PMSA, and as such appears on

the covers of all the volumes in the series, but it fell

to me to attempt, for the first time since the early

eighteenth century, with the assistance of old

guidebooks and historic iconologists, to come up

page 7

A bird’s eye view of the Zoological Gardens, Regents Park

published in 1854 by H. G. Clarke. Lithograph. Shelfmark: Maps

Crace Port. 14.35

The deadline for contributions

to the next Newsletter is

16 April 2013.

Suggestions of books for review

should be sent to the Newsletter Editor;

contact details are on the back page.

with an interpretation of each of Cibber’s figures. In

the case of a more recent sculptural programme on

St Swithin’s House, now replaced by Foster &

Partners’ Walbrook House, the efficient reporting of

the post-war press provided me with a description

which I had lacked the foresight to elicit from the

sculptor, Siegfried Charoux, though I met him

frequently as a student, at the dinner table of my

architect uncle.

Westminster came next, and accepting the task

seemed like ‘biting the bullet’, a phrase made the

more appropriate in this case by the plethora of

military imagery on offer there. Much of this is

unquestionably of low aesthetic quality, and in its

quantity begins to look like a reproach by veterans’

organisations and their artistic collaborators to

your average sybaritic Londoner. However, even

here there turned out to be some rough diamonds.

I have to confess to having been rather shocked by

the size and bullishness, given that they were not

much above ground level, of Ivor Roberts-Jones’s

statues of Field Marshal Slim and Viscount

Alanbrooke, when they were first put up as

companions to Oscar Nemon’s Monty in front of the

Ministry of Defence in the early 1990s. As time has

gone by, and in contrast with what has followed, I

have begun to appreciate what great things these

are. Having said that I was daunted by the amount

of literature already existing on Westminster’s

statuary; Roberts-Jones’s contribution, because it

has received so little attention, is one example of

the sort of work which has justified me in taking on

the task. Between them, the Liddell Hart Centre for

Military Archives at King’s College and the Archive

of the Henry Moore Institute at Leeds provided the

material for reasonably well-informed entries on

both those statues. In addition, something I could

hardly have reckoned with on setting out, the

declassification of the Minutes of the Royal Fine Art

Commission at The National Archives produced

much fascinating material on the early history of

the National Police Memorial, in which Roberts-

Jones was also involved.

Decidedly the happiest part of a historian’s work

on public monuments concerns things which no

longer excite the vulgar passions, though they may

have done so in their day – ‘emotion recollected in

tranquillity’ as Wordsworth would have it. Many

bad feelings were excited by one historic figure,

Carlo

Marochetti,

whose

work

has

always

preoccupied me, and whose sculptural role in

Westminster at one point seemed to be approaching

the hegemonic. He is still represented by several

significant monuments in the metropolis, despite

having his attempt at domination thwarted. To

most he will be remembered chiefly as the author of

the equestrian Richard Coeur de Lion outside the

Palace of Westminster. This had proved a popular

feature when erected in plaster outside the Crystal

Palace in 1851, but its suitability as a permanent

memorial to the Great Exhibition, urged by an

influential group of Marochetti’s friends and

supporters, was questioned in parliament. It was

erected on its present site in the nick of time in

1860, between the death of Charles Barry, who had

opposed it, and that of Prince Albert, who had

supported it. In my book, the battle royal played

out between this man, depicted in the art press as

an Italian interloper promoted by court favour,

misguided to the extent that artistically Marochetti

was more of a Frenchman, can only form a sort of

subtext. The encyclopaedic nature of the recording

endeavour will have been a corrective to any

monographic tendency with regard to what I have

to admit has become something of an obsession.

An example of the ill-feeling which monumental

matters in the present can engender was an event

which coincided practically with the publication of

my Westminster book. This was the sudden

appearance at a bleak intersection of walkways in

Green Park, close to the underground station, of a

fountain which I have always liked, and which, in

its previous location, deeper in the park, had made

it one of London’s better kept secrets. My immediate

response to this was that the fountain, sculpted in

1953/54 by the little known J. Estcourt Clack,

might profit from this exposure. With its small deco-

gothic gazebo, supporting a finial group of the

goddess Diana and her hound, the whole thing a

response to complaints about the insufficiency of

canine refreshment in the park, this might look less

unexpected in Vienna or even New York. Of course I

soon came to regret its removal from the sylvan

setting for which it had so clearly been designed. It

subsequently dawned on me that this was a

preliminary to the siting near Hyde Park Corner of

page 8

Richard I by Carlo Marochetti, Palace of Westminster, erected 1860

the Memorial to Bomber Command. This, or else the

presence on the fountain of a figure of the goddess

Diana on a walkway which had recently been

dedicated to the memory of the People’s Princess,

was deemed potentially confusing. My book’s

publication was long delayed, but not long enough

to force me to tangle with the ructions over the

Bomber Command Memorial, let alone to speculate

over the removal of this fountain. I wonder whether,

even in these days of freedom of information, it

would have been possible for one in my position to

ascertain just why that removal had occurred.

– Philip Ward-Jackson

The Conservation of the Bowen

Collection of Photographs

London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) Conservation

Studio Manager, Dr Caroline De Stefani, describes

the conservation of the Bowen Collection of

Photographs of Second World War bomb damage in

the City of London. The collection was in poor

condition and conservation treatment was required

to stabilise the condition of the photographs, and

bespoke packaging needed to improve storage and

handling.

LMA

is

grateful

to

the

London

Topographical Society which funded the treatment

and repackaging of this collection.

The collection consists of around 1300 photographs

of Second World War bomb damage in the City of

London originally stored in six albums (reference

SC/GL/BOW). This collection is important because

it not only shows bombed areas of the City, but

also details of the street (and river) scene during

working hours. There are also many images of the

interior and exterior of bomb damaged churches.

The period covered is roughly 1940 to 1953.

Assistant Librarian Jeremy Smith puts the

collection in context.

Context

Nothing is known of W. G. Bowen, but he may have

had some sort of official role during wartime as

otherwise he would have had difficulty roving

around so freely with a camera. (Cecil Beaton wrote

about the hostility that he received from passers-by

when they noticed his camera – suspecting spying

activities – and special permits were required.)

Also, in some of the pictures of bomb damage, the

dust has hardly settled suggesting that he had

some official function in entering the damage area.

The images divide about half and half between

photographs of bomb damage and photographs of

churches (though quite often the two themes

combine). Bowen seems to have at one point given

the project a name – ‘London Town: scenes and

places, and her churches’.

The streets that Bowen depicts are for the most

page 9

Diana Fountain, Green Park, by J.Estcourt Clack, 1953-4

Subscriptions for 2013: a reminder

from the Treasurer

A reminder that your subscription for 2013 is

due by 1 January. Members living in the UK who

pay by standing order need take no action, but

other UK members should send a cheque for £20

to the Treasurer – or those of you who prefer to

go online can pay through the website.

On the website, you start off as if you wish to

join and then there is a choice to indicate you are

an existing member; there is no need to fill in all

your details, just your name and postcode.

Members living abroad got a notice with their

publication that their subscription rate will be

£30 from 2013, to cover the increased cost of

sending subscription benefits by post. Again, a

cheque drawn on a British bank is acceptable,

but other cheques should be for the equivalent of

£42 to cover bank charges. – Roger Cline

part noticeably uncrowded and often deserted –

suggesting that he was possibly an early riser! The

City of London is his main interest and he rarely

photographs

elsewhere,

although

there

are

excursions out to Waltham Abbey on the

Hertfordshire/Essex borders and to Thames Ditton

in Surrey. These photographs are of immense value

as a comprehensive photographic journey through

bomb damaged London. Mostly we see tragically

scarred buildings and rubble and crumbling walls,

but there are some unexpected sights too: the

picture of the bomb site close to St Giles

Cripplegate Church being used as a vegetable plot –

with cabbages doing very well; and an artist at

work within the ruins of St Mary le Bow Church

with stool and small table, presumably painting the

picturesque view through ruined walls to St Paul’s

Cathedral beyond.

Conservation

All the photographs were shot in black and white,

but they were done using different photographic

processes, mainly gelatine developing-out papers.

They were glued on to a purple or grey thick paper

probably with animal glue. Around the pictures

handwritten notes were added regarding either the

location represented or technical details about the

setting of the camera used to shoot the photograph.

The inks used are different, mainly ballpoint pen.

The condition of the photographs is generally good,

but some of them show silver mirroring, a

degradation process typical of gelatine developing-

out papers. This deterioration is found especially in

the dark areas and along the edges. The thick

paper to which the photographs are attached is

slightly faded on the edges and worn out, but

overall it is in good condition. The pictures were

glued on both sides of the page and this has caused

surface abrasion where the photographs were

touching each other. Some of the photographs are

detached from the papers; six photographs are

missing. The original binding did not make

handling easy as the pages were kept together, and

attached to the cover, using two screws which

meant that the text block could not flex enough

when opened. In this state, the album could not be

used without the risk of damaging the collection

further.

Conservation treatment was required to stabilise

the condition of the photographs, and bespoke

packaging needed to improve storage and handling.

As conservation treatment it was decided to remove

the paper sheets with the photographs attached

from the binding and to put them into polyester

(melinex) sleeves. This decision was taken because

although the paper to which the photographs are

attached is not archival, it does not appear to

interfere with the condition of the photographs.

Moreover, the written notes on the pages are linked

to the photographs and choosing a different format

for the photographs would have meant disrupting

these links. Inserting the sheets in melinex pockets

also has two advantages: firstly, it avoids the

surfaces of the photographs rubbing against each

other; and secondly, it eases handling and therefore

page 10

reduces the risk of damage as the sleeve will be

handled rather than the photographs.

The loose photographs were reattached to the

paper with hinges made of Japanese paper and

wheat starch paste. This method was chosen in

order to reduce the amount of humidity given by

the paste on to the photograph. This is a very

important aspect to take into consideration.

Moisture could cause enormous damage to the

photographs for various reasons mainly potential

mould growth, planar distortions, deterioration of

the gelatine present on the surface, and tide lines.

All the individual pages inside their melinex sleeves

are now stored in five bespoke boxes. On each box

a plate has been attached to thank the London

Topographical Society for having sponsored this

conservation and preservation treatment.

– Caroline De Stefani

More old photographs

In the Newsletter 49 of November 1999, Patrick

Frazer

wrote

about

a

prospectus

of

the

Topographical Society of England and Wales of the

late 1830s.

Another group of like interest is the National

Photographic Record Association, founded by Sir

Benjamin Stone in 1897. The object of the

association

was

to

form

a

truly

national

photographic record of existing objects of interest,

life, customs, costumes, etc. The British Museum

agreed to accept such photographs for public

reference which the association hoped would be

found of great value to future historians. Members

of the Council included Philip Norman and H. B.

Wheatley who were prominent in the LTS at the

time.

A

brochure

inscribed

in

1904

contains

illustrations of some of the photographs of old and

historical buildings of London, the first being along

the road from me, Grove House, Tavistock Place,

the building where Francis Bailey, President of the

Royal Astronomical Society, made his name by

weighing the world. The house had been

demolished some time before the brochure was

printed and the site is now covered by the Mary

Ward Centre. Hampstead houses illustrated

include Priory Lodge, Frognal, Lord Erskine’s house

and George Romney’s house. Highgate has the Bull

Inn and Gilman’s house in the Grove; Cheyne Walk

Chelsea has No. 4 where George Eliot died, No. 16

where Rossetti lived and No. 119 where Turner

died. Reynolds’s house at 47 Leicester Square, a

staircase in Colherne Court and old houses in

Wych Street make up the dozen.

The inscription on the brochure is a presentation

from the association to none other than the London

Topographical Society who obviously did not have

as good an archivist as we have now because it

escaped and I acquired it at a recent Bookfair.

– Roger Cline

Circumspice (see p.2)

The chunk of Southwark between the riverside at

Tate Modern and Southwark Street has been

undergoing huge redevelopment, with multi-storey

office blocks, hotels and bars and restaurants

spilling out on to traffic-free public spaces. But

some things don’t change. One of them is Hopton’s

Almshouses, built in pursuance of the will of a

wealthy fishmonger Charles Hopton who died five

days after making it. He left a life interest to his

sister, but after her death his trustees could give

effect to his charitable intention and by 1749 the

28 two-storey almshouses were up and ready for

occupation, built on ‘the cheapest, best and most

convenient piece of ground that could be had for

the building’.

And there they still are in Hopton Street, a

peaceful enclave of (now twenty) sheltered homes

set round a garden whose trees and shrubs partly

screen and soften the soaring steel and glass of a

giant new neighbour to the east. But that peace

was shattered in 2010 when Anchor, England’s

largest housing charity, decided it couldn’t do with

anything as fiddly as almshouses and proposed to

transfer Hopton’s to an Ealing and Brentford

housing charity.

The residents were not having it. “We want to be

managed by our local housing trust, Southwark-

based United St Saviour’s,” they said. Grey power

got cracking. They lobbied Southwark council,

persuaded their MP Simon Hughes to raise the

matter in parliament, got an amendment put down

in the Lords requiring meaningful consultation on

such transfers, and attended housing conferences

to lobby the great and good in the housing world –

including Anchor’s board members. “They ran an

absolutely brilliant campaign,” says Jim Wintour,

clerk to St Saviour’s. Anchor backed down; his

charity took over in December 2011.

Since then it has also introduced another

important change. Charles Hopton’s will restricted

places at his almshouses to men (originally

‘decayed’ Southwark folk) and their wives. Other

women, no matter how decayed or deserving, were

excluded. “We thought that was a bit old-fashioned

and possibly illegal,” says Wintour. He was careful

to do what Anchor seems not to have done –

formally consult the residents. Seventeen voted in

favour, only one against.

– Tony Aldous

page 11

Reviews

The Day Parliament Burned Down

by Caroline Shenton. Oxford University Press,

2012. 333 pages, 35 B & W illustrations, 4 maps.

ISBN 978 0 19964 670 8. £18.99.

Following hard on the heels of our 2011

reproduction of Chawner’s and Rhodes’ 1834

survey of the Palace of Westminster comes most

appropriately Dr Shenton’s book on the great fire

that destroyed the two Houses of Parliament on 16

October 1834, and thereby resulted in a notably

conspicuous change not only to the topography of

London but also to the imagery of the capital.

Shenton has drawn freely on the Parliamentary

Archives (where she is Clerk of the Records) in

combination with the extensive newspaper reports

of the day and contemporary letters and memoirs

to provide a racy and detailed account of the day’s

dire developments. The fire was caused by the

burning of tally sticks in the furnaces of the House

of Lords. Author of the National Archives’ Note on

the Exchequer of Receipt, Shenton is well equipped

to give an authoritative brief history of the antique

mode of accounting by means of notches in wooden

sticks that continued to be cut until 1826. She

further reports on the character and defects of the

stoves used to burn the obsolete tallies, showing

that it was the copper-lined flues that were the

immediate source of the devastation.

Employing a novelistic technique, Shelton

maintains the tension of the story, particularly in

its earlier stages, by interweaving accounts of

contemporary life in Westminster (not wholly

salubrious), parliamentary excitements such as

Queen Caroline’s divorce proceedings and the Great

Reform Bills of 1831-2, and the state of fire-fighting

provision in London, with the events of 16 October.

As the fire takes grip we are plunged into the

immediacy of first-hand accounts. The slow start of

the fire in an obscure part of the palace aroused

minimal concern amongst those involved until a

‘gigantic volume of flame’ erupted from the House

of Lords buildings opposite Henry VII’s Chapel,

burning ‘with a fury almost unparalleled’. By the

time that fire-fighting resources, such as were

available, could be assembled, the fire had gained

an uncontrollable hold on the Lords. Vast crowds

gathered, and had to be kept back by Peel’s new

Metropolitan Police and brigades of Guards;

ministers arrived and some helped officials to

attempt to rescue the invaluable Exchequer and

Parliamentary records, many of which were flung

from windows on to the water-drenched ground. As

the fire spread eastwards, towards the river, it

consumed the House of Commons and the

Commons’ library, recently built by John Soane,

along with most of the records of Commons’

proceedings. The wind blew away from Soane’s new

Lords’ buildings (and here may I defend myself

from the description of his characteristically Soanic

Lords’ Library as ‘Gothic’, wrongly ascribed to my

account in History of the King’s Works, VI), where

dedicated officials achieved a more orderly removal

of priceless documents, so that those splendid

buildings largely survived until Barry demolished

them in the 1840s and ‘50s.

Finally brought under control by more efficient

fire-fighting techniques, the arrival of more

powerful

machines

(including

river-craft),

destruction of internal walling to create a fire

barrier, and a change in the wind, the fire left the

twelfth-century House of Lords and the adjacent

Painted Chamber (see the Chawner & Rhodes

survey) gutted, but capable of repair to serve as

temporary Houses of Commons and Lords

respectively. The walls of the largely fourteenth-

century St Stephen’s Chapel, the Commons’

Chamber (the Plantagenets’ response to St Louis’

Ste Chapelle in Paris) however were found unstable

and had to be demolished.

The fire of 16 October 1834 was the greatest

conflagration London saw between the Great Fire of

1666 and the Blitz. Shelton has produced a

compelling account of this important event in the

re-shaping of London’s topography. But sadly her

publishers have not made best use of the

opportunity provided by the author’s having the

splendid Parliamentary Art Collection at hand: the

illustrations (for a Fire!), at best no larger than

10x8.5cm, are entirely in black and white.

– M. H. Port

St Paul’s Cathedral, 1400 years at the heart of

London by Ann Saunders, 144 pp,

116 illustrations, Scala publishers.

ISBN 978 1 85759 802 5

Yet another book on St Paul’s? The Cathedral has

been extensively covered by recent scholarship. A

page 12

sumptuously produced collection of essays on its

history, architecture, and its social and religious

significance, edited by Keene, Burns and Saint, was

published by Yale in 2004 to coincide with the

Cathedral’s 1400’s anniversary; John Schofield’s

account of the Cathedral before Wren, detailing the

archaeological evidence, came out last year. But the

special position of St Paul’s explains why the

Cathedral has attracted so much attention. Its

study is rewarding both because of its long history

within the City, as emphasised in the subtitle of

Ann Saunders’s book, and because of its unique

interest as the only purpose-built Baroque

Cathedral in Britain, a supreme and ingenious

creation of Sir Christopher Wren which provided

London with a worthy new landmark after the

Great Fire. And in addition, less celebrated and well

known, there are the furnishings and monuments

which gradually came to fill the building in

subsequent centuries as St Paul’s came to be

regarded not just as the cathedral of London but as

a place of national memorial.

To do all this justice in a relatively small space

requires both a skilful narrative text and good

illustrations, and these are both provided most

successfully in this beautifully produced picture

book. The first chapter deals with the pre-Wren

period, the next ones with Wren and the dramatic

story of the controversial planning and building of

the new cathedral. It is a delight to see Wren’s

drawings of the various phases of the design well

reproduced and at a decent size, and there is some

fascinating human detail about his assistants and

craftsmen, matched by illustrations of their work.

But for this reviewer the photographs that steal the

thunder, the bulk of them by Angelo Hornak, are

those of the great monuments to national heroes

which began to appear from the end of the

eighteenth century. The subjects range from John

Howard and Samuel Johnson to the admirals and

generals of the Napoleonic wars, depicted with

realistic drama and pathos at their moment of

death. They powerfully demonstrate the often

unappreciated skill of the British sculptors of this

period, among them Westmacott, Banks, and the

younger Bacon. There are other surprises as well,

such as J. M. W. Turner with ‘alert face and

purposeful hand’ by the Irish sculptor Patrick

McDowell – a late example of the classical romantic

spirit. It would have been instructive to have

supplied dates for these works.

A striking change in the nineteeth century, very

apparent from the photos, was the introduction of

bronze as a medium for sepulchral monuments,

which could lead to lengthy delays, as is described

in the notorious case of the monument to

Wellington which took fifty-six years to complete.

Still more drawn out was the discussion over how

to decorate the interior which Wren had left

unpainted. Today, the nave remains plain, while

Thornhill’s restrained grisaille panels and trompe

l’oeuil coffering in the dome contrast with the

mosaics of the chancel vaults added by Richmond

at the end of the nineteenth century. The

staggeringly rich detail of these is reproduced in

glowing colour. The text is judiciously balanced in

its appreciation. The nineteenth century produces

many minor stories to enjoy: C. R. Cockerell, the

surveyor, trying vainly to heat the building with a

movable wagon of hot coals, or the more successful

efforts of Miss Maria Hackett, champion of

neglected choirboys (who ended up with their own

choir school in Carter Lane). As an up to date finale

there is a picture of the Queen at the Diamond

Jubilee service, quite an impressive feat of speedy

publishing. The book is most enjoyable to browse

in, the illustrations are stunning and there is much

information that one cannot find easily elsewhere.

There is a brief bibliography and index, but for the

inquisitive it is just slightly frustrating that there

are no footnotes.

– Bridget Cherry

Pepys’s London by Stephen Porter.

Amberley, 2011. 256pp, ISBN 10 1 84868 869 5

£20; Paperback 10 1 44560 980 0, £10.99

This thoroughly readable book relates the

happenings and background of everyday life in

Samuel Pepys’s London. Pepys’s life spanned

seventy years, 1633 to 1703, thus covering one of

the most interesting periods in the development, or

rather redevelopment, of London after the Great

Fire in 1666. He commenced his diary in 1660, the

year of the Restoration of the Monarchy after the

eleven year Commonwealth period, and the

following decade witnessed not only the Great

(bubonic rat) Plague of 1665, but also the Great

Fire in 1666, and hence the redevelopment of

London, and the ascendancy of Christopher Wren,

and their impact on London over the centuries to

the present day.

Stephen Porter weaves into his writing references

to the founding of Lloyd’s, the Bank of England,

and the Royal Society. He also recounts stories

about the pleasures and entertainments of London,

and the literary and scientific work being

undertaken. One aspect of London’s history which

does not generally receive much attention, but

which is well related in the book, is the fact that it

is estimated that 20% of London’s population

(which has been estimated as between 400,000 and

500,000) died in the Great Plague, yet perhaps only

twenty died in the Great Fire. One of the prominent

citizens of London, John Graunt, analysed the

parish registers in the City churches of recorded

deaths in the mid-seventeenth century, together

with the cause of death. The statistics extracted

were known as ‘Bills of Mortality’, and formed the

mathematical basis for the actuarial profession.

Subsequently, Graunt published the first tables

showing rates of mortality. Apart from the time of

the Great Plague, the biggest single killer of adults

was ‘consumption and cough’ (20%), followed by

‘strokes’ and ‘sudden death’ (10% each), and

surprisingly ‘old age’ – over age 56 at death! – (just

page 13

7%). However, out of 100 babies born, only 64

reached the age of 6 years, and 40 reached the age

of 16. These figures give an indication of how

difficult family life must have been, something not

always appreciated when one thinks of the

continuity of London life through the generations.

Stephen Porter indeed treats his chapter on

‘Population and Plague’ as a benchmark for

underwriting

the

basis

of

London’s

future

development. It is a wry comment to note that the

heat of the Great Fire did kill the rats in the sewers,

and that there has been no subsequent great

plague. Expectation of life started to increase fairly

rapidly, and indeed is still continuing to do so.

Any reader will find in the text of this well written

and well illustrated book some worthwhile facts to

grasp, and anecdotes to absorb, in the observations

and depiction of life in London during Pepys’s

lifetime.

– Robin Michaelson

The Paragon and South Row, Blackheath:

A triumph in late 18th century unintentional

town planning by Neil Rhind (the Bookshop on the

Heath for the Blackheath Society, 2012), 263pp, 76

plates with c.413 images and c.32 further illus.,

£35, ISBN: 978 0 95653 272 5.

Neil Rhind is Mr Blackheath. Born there, he has

thrown himself at the district’s local history with

indefatigable relish since 1969. This substantial

book is a ‘companion volume’ to his two-part

magnum opus, Blackheath Village & Environs, a

third part of which is in the works. The Paragon

and South Row have been singled out for this

treatment because of wider than local import. The

Paragon faces Blackheath from the south as a

crescent of seven pairs of large houses linked by

single-storey colonnades. It began as an ambitious

speculation, designed and undertaken by Michael

Searles, and built from c.1793 to c.1804 on land

that was part of the Wricklemarsh estate that John

Cator, a timber merchant, had acquired in 1783.

Grand villas were already a feature of the margins

of Blackheath, but nothing as planned or coherent

as this had come before. Searles, an architect who

had emerged from a family background in the

building trade and developed a smaller Paragon

crescent on the New Kent Road in 1789–90,

inevitably found himself overstretched in the

difficult inflationary war years after 1793. Looming

bankruptcy in 1796 forced him to spread

responsibility for the development, but the

carcasses were up and the crescent was eventually

completed as a regular unity with an elegance and

long-range scenographic impact that fully justifies

its name. It is in any case of considerable historical

interest as an early step towards the seriation of

pairs of suburban houses – that is, what was to

become the ‘semi’.

This book, long in preparation, is a hefty and

unstintingly thorough history. The illustrations,

around 450, are mostly towards the back, numerous

small images grouped together as plates in an old-

fashioned but comprehensive layout. Rhind’s

building

biography

continues

beyond

first

construction to cover residents and a wrenching

saga of war damage and post-war reconstruction.

South Row, to the west of the Paragon, is something

of an extra, with less exhaustive accounts of seven

further large houses on the Cator Estate of more or

less contemporary date (begun 1790), in the building

of which Searles was more or less involved, and most

now gone. There are also three appendices, one of

which is a retelling of the colourful story of the

Blackheath Swindlers, first published by Bill

Bonwitt. Eliza Robertson and Charlotte Sharpe were

young women who in 1795 gained possession of the

as yet incomplete No. 3 Paragon for a school and

managed to confidence-trick their way to about

£20,000 worth of credit, on which they defaulted.

This episode, in fact, has generated the best first-

hand documentation of the early Paragon.

The author is a great exponent of the nominal

sublime, keen to relate all that he knows. There is

fact-thick documentation of occupancy, which

passed from wealthy City and West India merchants

and shipbuilders or owners, to professionals and

schools, with many episodes of middle-class

climbing and falling, on to decline into hotels and

boarding houses. This rich detail reflects exploitation

of digital research tools such as the Times Digital

Archive that were not available when the project

started. Rhind has also had privileged access to

private archives, from diaries to photographs.

As early as 1919 Stanley C. Ramsey and J. D. M.

Harvey’s Small Georgian Houses and their Details

1750–1820 published details from the Paragon, and

in 1938 the newly founded Blackheath Society

enlisted John Betjeman to speak up about the

crescent’s exceptional quality. But war was blind to

that. Rhind’s microcosmic approach is especially

strong in his account of wartime, which transcribes

diary entries that speak movingly of much more

than a particular place. Charles Bernard Brown, a

local self-trained architect, undertook a heroic

repair programme, gradually seen through from

1946 to 1958. This was notable and instructive as

an early private conservation initiative, unusually

attentive to detail. But the houses were now only

viable if divided up as flats. Victorian additions were

swept away, and few original internal features

survive. On South Row, replica replacement was

abandoned in favour of Eric Lyons, whose Span

development of the early 1960s, another triumph, is

now listed in its own right. Blackheath is fortunate

to have all these buildings, and Neil Rhind.

– Peter Guillery, Survey of London

Wimbledon’s Belvedere Estate by Elspeth Veale.

Wimbledon Society Museum Press, 2012. 158pp,

illustrated, card covers. ISBN 978 1 90433 299 2.

£8.99.

Wimbledon has lost most of its major houses. Only

the seventeenth century Eagle House, and that of

page 14

relatively modest size, survives in a village that had

once also seen the manor house of the Cecils and

important eighteenth century houses designed by

Colen Campbell, the Earl of Pembroke and Roger

Morris, and Henry Holland. This book looks at two

properties which had been brought together as part

of the estate of Sir Theodore Janssen, merchant,

then separated, and then re-united by the Rush

family. Janssen, one of the South Sea Bubble

directors whose property was sequestrated (but

which he managed to re-acquire), owned property in

Wimbledon from at least 1716 when his house was

said to be ‘the next best house in this parish’. He

subsequently bought the manor of Wimbledon (and

the best house, which he demolished) and had a

new even more up-to-date house built by Colen

Campbell between 1717 and 1720. With a prospect

to the south-east (as opposed to the old manor

house which faced north) this house was later

named Belvedere but was itself demolished in 1901.

The book is a compilation of new and old work,

some published elsewhere, now brought together

into a more convenient compass. Elspeth Veale’s

essay on the life of Sir Theodore Janssen is

reproduced from the Proceedings of the Huguenot

Society

and her essay on the Marquess of

Rockingham’s house from the Georgian Group

Journal. To these is added a new essay, ‘Chasing

Francis Gosfright: An Historian’s Journey’ which

inquires into the early history of ‘the next best

house’ which Janssen acquired, but did not build.

Richard Milward’s essay on Wimbledon in the

ninteenth century serves as an introduction and

there are shorter essays on the development of the

Belvedere Estate in the years up to 1914 and on

Wimbledon’s eighteenth century housing problems.

This fascinating collection does not make an

entirely coherent whole but it has much to offer.

Firstly, of great importance to Wimbledon, is the

pioneer work into the earlier history of the site at

the corner of High Street and Church Road,

opposite the Dog and Fox. This was Janssen’s ‘next

best house’ and where he passed his later years at

Wimbledon. There, in the 1760s, Robert Adam and

Capability Brown carried out works to house and

grounds for Sir Ellis Cunliffe. After Cunliffe’s death

the property was acquired by Samuel Rush, already

at Belvedere, and let to the Marquess of

Rockingham whose family papers give a detailed

account of daily life. The house was eventually

demolished in 1796 and the grounds added to

Belvedere which the architect John Johnson had

probably improved for Sir William Beaumaris Rush

in the 1780s. As a result of Dr Veale’s detective

work we know that this ‘next best house’ had its

origins in the 1690s, following a purchase by

Francis Gosfright, a London merchant with wide-

ranging trading interests who went bankrupt in

1700. The history of the house is now much clearer

but it is a great pity that Dr Veale’s investigations

have brought relatively little more to light about its

architecture. Secondly, this book is a lesson in the

extent to which local topography demands research

in more than local sources, often widely scattered,

and the unravelling of often complex legal

transactions. And thirdly it offers the prospect for

yet more investigation of Wimbledon’s buildings.

One area which has recently been explored, but too

late to be taken account of in this book, is the

Edwardian development of the Belvedere Estate,

with its high quality, often architect-designed

suburban houses1.

Wimbledon has been unfortunate in losing its

major houses but it has been fortunate at least in

finding historians capable of telling their stories.

– Frank Kelsall

1 See Geraldine Plowden and Nick Bridges, North

Wimbledon, in the SAVE report, Rediscovered Utopias,

saving London’s Suburbs, 2010.

Transforming King’s Cross. Various Authors,

Merrell 2012, 160 pages, £40.

ISBN 978 1 85894 587 3

Change at King’s Cross, published in 1990, took

stock of what had happened to the array of historic

railway buildings that covered the enormous site

straddling the Regent’s Canal and running nearly a

mile north from Pentonville Road. Twenty years

later much of the change has happened; the line to

Paris has arrived, St Pancras is renewed and the

railway lands are being transformed, a vast

building site for houses, offices and hotels. King’s

Cross, together with St Pancras and Euston

stations, is the nearest London ever came to a

continental Hauptbahnhof. Of this great Victorian

triumvirate, Euston fell to the Macmillan winds of

change while St Pancras and King’s Cross survive,

rejuvenated and resplendent.

Transforming King’s Cross is a handsome study of

just one part of this massive work in the heart of

London: the restoration of Lewis Cubitt’s King’s

Cross station. There is a little history, well penned

by Peter Hall, but the weight of the work is in the

building process, with the focus on the design and

construction of the magnificent new Western

Concourse along with the restoration of the train

shed and the flanking Eastern and Western

Ranges. Anyone who has ever made their way to

the Edinburgh train will recall the disagreeable

experience of elbowing through the cramped and

crowded Sixties excrescence that fronted the

station. This is now to be swept away and King’s

Cross has acquired a magnificent new entrance in

the form of the wonderfully airy Western

Concourse,

whose

massive

curved

canopy

combines the height and light of New York’s Grand

Central station with the sinuous structural lines of

the new terminals at Madrid’s Barajas airport.

Principally a photographic record, this book

shows how adequate funding can achieve the all-

but-impossible – a fine restoration of a Victorian

building and the addition of startling yet functional

modern architecture. King’s Cross is, as the

page 15

authors assert, now ‘unmasked’ with later and

unsympathetic additions stripped away and the

true character of the building revealed and, indeed,

enhanced.

– Simon Morris

Euston Station through time

by John Christopher, ISBN 978 1 44560 529 6.

Acton through time, by David and Amanda

Knights, ISBN 978 1 44560 867 9

Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia through time

by Brian Girling, ISBN 978 1 44560 744 3.

All from Amberley Publishing, 96pp, £14.99 each.

These three books are in standard Amberley

format, of two pictures to a page with a caption

between, the top picture being historic and the

lower one from the same viewpoint today. They

assume a fair knowledge of local geography and so

their market is among local people.

Of the three books under review, Euston Station is

the least successful, having by-passed any

noticeable editing process. An aerial view of the

station looking south is said to be looking north,

reference is made to a picture on another page

which is incorrectly numbered, down trains are

said to come to London from Birmingham (well,

they come down the map, don’t they?). The author

acknowledges that the complete rebuilding of the

station fifty years ago makes the usual format of

now and then views pointless, so a more historical

approach is used. The section on that rebuilding

proved the most interesting to me. The pictures of

the station are padded out with pictures of LMS

locomotives and rolling stock, not necessarily at

Euston, together with pictures of stations along the

Northern Line and of neighbouring St Pancras and

King’s Cross.

Acton I have travelled through at regular intervals

all my life and the relatively small amount of

complete redevelopment makes the comparison of

views more interesting. No background of the

authors is given, but a David Knight (an

Underground employee) has written other local

history books on Acton. This one acknowledges the

local history work of our late member Tom Harper

Smith and his wife. The authors avoid stating the

obvious in the captions, providing what seems to be

a good review of the suburb, with plenty of dates

and building architects, mentioning the influence of

the Goldsmiths’ Company and the Rothschilds as

local land owners. Recommended.

Bloomsbury is my home territory. Although I am

disappointed to find no comparative views of my

own street, one cannot expect complete coverage in

96 pages. Redevelopment has been greater in this

inner city area, so some pages show the reader

what has been lost (or gained, according to one’s

point of view), whereas others come as a surprise

that so little has changed in a hundred years. The

street scenes in Charlotte Street illustrate the

proliferation of German-owned shops a century

ago; a Belgian horse flesh shop in St Giles High

Street has given way to Centre Point. Some of the

residential terraces which in the older pictures were

being used by hotels and colleges have been

replaced by purpose-built structures. Although the

other books by this author in my library are of

Harrow and Westminster, his captions show a good

understanding of the local history (he acknowledges

the value of Camden History Society booklets); it

was particularly interesting to see activities in the

area north of the British Museum cleared for the

University development which was radically

changed before building and also to see the

construction of Woburn Court bachelor flats in

1937 which dwarfed the adjacent Morton Hotel,

that hotel having itself previously dwarfed the

residential terraces on the Woburn Court site.

– Roger Cline

Featherbedds and Flock Bedds – the early

history of the Worshipful Company of Upholders

by J. F. Houston, Three Tents Press 2006, 200pp,

£25.00.

The book is attractively produced, easy on the eye

and with a few illustrations of treasures, medals

portraits and trade scenes, but your reviewer found

it unsatisfying. However the preface from the

Principal of an Oxford College describes it as a

brilliant tapestry which contributes to our

understanding of English social history.

It is as the sub-title says an early history, so that

the book does not take us beyond 1918 except for

modern grants of arms and a list of masters.

Liverymen who served as Aldermen are listed from

Beaven’s 1913 work on Aldermen, but no attempt

has been made to bring the list up to date, even to

1918. The preface refers to the 2006 edition which

makes one wonder whether it is essentially a re-

issue of a 1918 history, but Heather Creaton’s

London Bibliography lists the only history of the

company as a 1973 article in Furniture History

Journal; the present book quotes extensively from a

financial history of the company published in 1934

– indeed most of the later history in the book is

concerned with income and investments.

The distribution of trades between the City

Companies has never been clear cut. Upholstery as

we know it was only one of these trades – the

Upholders also dealt in bed accessories including

curtains as well as second-hand clothes, house

clearances and furniture (Chippendale was an

upholder). By the eighteenth century company

members were active in undertaking funerals but

the Company could not obtain a charter to give

them a monopoly of the trade – the College of Arms

performed high class funerals and a rival (non-

livery) Company of Undertakers existed. However

the company is special in maintaining an

independent existence, avoiding the divisions and

amalgamations which are common in other

company histories.

page 16

This book is welcomed as filling a gap among

company histories on library shelves, but the full

history covering the last century remains to be

published.

– Roger Cline

The Battle of the Styles. Society, Culture and

the Design of a new Foreign Office, 1855-61

by Bernard Porter. Continuum International

Publishing Group, 2011. 234 pp, 34 b&w.

illustrations. ISBN HB: 978 1 44116 739 2. £35.

The Victorian battle about the style to be employed

in building the Foreign Office in Whitehall was,

Professor Bernard Porter suggests, the most public

and spectacular of three great national building

controversies of the nineteenth century, the other

two being the Houses of Parliament (1835-6) and

the new Law Courts (1866-8). It is an entertaining

story, and although oft-told, bears Porter’s re-

telling (though perhaps that in History Today might

have been spared us), with a salting of new

quotations. Porter’s is the most thorough and

exhaustive scanning of the published sources to

date, but has little for the student of London’s

topography. However, Porter has little interest in

George Gilbert Scott’s actual New Government

Offices, which he dismisses as ‘mediocre’, ‘dull …

no central feature: no clearly marked entrance …

only a single, stubby tower’; he seizes on

Summerson’s view that the building ‘is not one that

counts for much in the history of English

architecture’; one from which, Porter thinks, Scott’s

reputation never recovered.

It is true that in the 1960s, in the white heat of

the technological revolution, the government

contemplated a general rebuilding of Whitehall, a

concept that provoked so much criticism that it

was abandoned. Part of that criticism arose from

growing appreciation of Scott’s work, incomplete as

it is – a cheese-paring Works Minister, Acton

Ayrton, forbidding in 1872 the erection of the

central entrance and the corner towers that Scott

earnestly campaigned for. Informed opinion today

may be summed up in the words of the revised

‘Pevsner’ (Simon Bradley and N. Pevsner, London 6:

Westminster, 2003), ‘Scott’s building certainly is a

most competent piece of High Victorian design.’ But

then Porter appears not really interested in

architecture, and architectural historians he

regards

as

narrow

specialists

needing

his

assistance in suitably contextualising their studies.

For it is the reflection in the ‘Battle’ of important

developments in the British economy and class-

riven society of the 1850s and ’60s that interests

him as a historian of British imperialism, and it is

those he here explores, ‘to show how the Battle of

the Styles related to its

broader historical

environment’, though such small numbers were

engaged in the Battle that the reflection is but

partial. Porter himself sums up the book as ‘a piece

of self indulgence’.

– M. H. Port

Editor’s Miscellany

There has recently been a burst of publications on

Victorian architects, both London and provincial.

Episodes in the Gothic Revival, six church architects,

ed. Christopher Webster, Spire Books, 2011,

includes an essay on R. C. Carpenter by John

Ellliott, subtitled ‘the Anglicans’ Pugin’. Carpenter

is indeed best known for his churches, among them

St Mary Magdalene Munster Square, but was also

involved, with his father, in secular building in

Islington, inter alia the Tudor style Lonsdale Square

and the Italianate Percy Circus. Neil Jackson’s

essay in the same volume demonstrates how

foreign travel influenced the work of G. E. Street, as

displayed

for

example

in

the

strikingly

polychromatic

St

James

the

Less

Pimlico

Westminster (shown on the jacket of the book). It

was not always London which led the way, as is

shown by the essay on the pioneer Gothic revivalist

Thomas Rickman, by our council member Professor

Michael Port. Indeed, Spire Books’ second volume

on this theme, The Practice of Architecture, eight

architects 1830-1930, also edited by Christopher

Webster,

2012,

includes

several

provincial

architects, but also two essays by James Stevens

Curl featuring London buildings designed by Henry

Roberts and Bassett Keeling.

The future of London’s Victorian churches is

another matter. The survival of many of these

buildings, which often contribute so significantly to

the character of their suburban surroundings, used

to be considered a lost cause. No longer, as one

page 17

learns from London’s churches are fighting back; at

risk, rescued, reused, a SAVE Britain’s Heritage

report published in 2011. This traces the changing

attitude to the conservation of church buildings

since SAVE’s gloomy 1985 report,

London’s

churches are falling down. There are still plenty of

problem buildings in the ‘at risk’ category, and the

difficulties of financing longterm upkeep remain, as

is discussed in the introduction. However, there is

also evidence of a more constructive approach,

involving timely repair helped by grants, sensitive

adaptation or imaginative new use. Examples in the

gazetteer include St Alban’s Teddington, a church

begun in the 1880s, so colossal that it was never

finished, but now a successful Arts Centre, and

Union Chapel Islington, whose the great centrally

planned building hosts ambitious concerts. St

Stephen’s

Rosslyn

Hill,

Hampstead,

the

masterpiece of S. S. Teulon, which was made

redundant in 1977 was eventually rescued and

conserved by a Trust after standing derelict for

twenty years while battle raged about possible

alternative uses. It now houses a school in the

basement. More radical changes include the

conversion of the unroofed and abandoned

eighteenth century St Luke Old Street to a concert

hall. But these are the success stories, and while

threats of outright demolition have receded, there

are a crowd of other churches where there is still a

desperate need for funds for major repairs or

inspiration for alternative uses, from St Laurence

Brentford, a partly medieval building which,

shockingly, has been closed and unused since

1961, to the diminutive ‘tin tabernacle’ in

Shrubland Road Hackney which was advertised for

sale in 2011.

Now for the twentieth Century. Lambeth

Architecture 1914-39 by Edmund Bird and Fiona

Price, an enterprising publication by Lambeth

Council, is a welcome addition to books covering

the understudied architecture of the interwar

period.

This

well-illustrated

paperback

demonstrates the fascinating variety of public,

domestic and commercial buildings of those years

to be found in the south London borough, from

Brixton market buildings and Brockwell Park Lido,

to the Fire Station headquarters on the Albert

Embankment. It is not only the architectural

quality that is memorable; the selection teaches

one much about Lambeth’s social history. The

prosperous department stores and elegant mansion

flats reflect solid middle class values, while

carefully designed utility, leisure and educational

buildings and an impressive quantity of new social

housing demonstrate the concern to improve the

quality of life for all.

On the postwar period, Chamberlin, Powell & Bon,

The Barbican and Beyond, by Elain Harwood, RIBA

Publishing, 2011,will intrigue those who enjoyed

the author’s talk on the Barbican at the LTS’s AGM

in 2009. The book tells the story of the creation of

this unique area of London and discusses the

architects’ other work. This include the progressive

housing built by the City of London twenty years

earlier at Golden Lane, just to the north, and some

other bold and original contributions to post-war

London: Bousfield School in Kensington and

housing at Vanbrugh Park, Greenwich. The book is

an excellent contribution to the series on modern

architects published by the RIBA together with

English Heritage and the Twentieth Century

Society.

As an aid to appreciating recent architectural

developments in their historical context a thoughtful

and interesting contribution is London High, a guide

to London skyscrapers, past, present and future, by

Herbert Wright, Frances Lincoln, £30; this was

published in 2006, but was in time to feature many

of the major developments in the City which thanks

to the economic climate, are only now taking shape.

A general historical background is followed by

detailed discussion of individual sites from the late

nineteenth century onwards, ending with the Shard,

a reminder that this behemoth was planned nine

years ago and has taken six years to build.

Studying buildings is one way of appreciating

London’s diverse history, another is investigating

their inhabitants. Several recent publications have

explored the subject of immigrant communities. A

Better Life, by Olive Besagni (Camden History Society

2011, £7.50) is a collection of nearly 40 oral histories

of Italian families who settled in Clerkenwell from the

early nineteenth century onwards. Olive Besagni,

granddaughter of ‘Maestro Ferrari’, headmaster of

the Italian school, has recorded the life of this

community with great skill and sympathy. Already

by 1840 there were some 2000 Italians in what

became known as ‘Little Italy’. This poor area on the

page 18

fringe of Clerkenwell was partly rebuilt when it was

cut through by the later nineteenth century

thoroughfares of Rosebery Avenue, Farringdon Road

and Clerkenwell Road, but in between there

remained a mass of small streets where the new

immigrants established their family cafes and shops;

they survived until most were swept away in the

slum clearances of the 1930s and post-war years.

The individual stories provide fascinating glimpses of

the daily life and work of families from the

impoverished rural areas of Italy, determinedly

struggling to make a living in London through a

great variety of occupations. Family links were all

important. The focus of the community was St

Peter’s Italian Church, built in 1862, modelled on a

Roman basilica, which is still a landmark in the

area. Among the photos reproduced, several

illustrate the elaborate annual procession of Our

Lady of Mount Carmel, celebrated with a day of

feasting, when a statue was borne through the

streets on a flower-covered platform, followed by

bevvies of girls in white dresses.

A curious colony, Leicester Square and the Swiss,

by Peter Barber, 2011, an elegantly produced slim

book of 95pp, published for the Swiss Embassy,

explores the less well-known history of the Swiss in

London. This is not as coherent a story as that of

the Italians, and the topographical background is

also less precise, extending over most of the west

end. Although there was a recognisable Swiss

community in Soho by the nineteenth century,

Leicester Square itself became significant only in

the 1960s with the building of the Swiss centre to

promote Swiss products and tourism. However

Peter

Barber

has

gathered

together

some

unexpected and intriguing stories. They start in the

eighteenth century when the multi-lingual skills of

the Swiss made them sought after as government

advisers and tutors to royalty. London was an

attractive

destination

especially

for

Swiss

Huguenots, among them was the engineer Charles

Labelye, the designer of Westminster Bridge. The

author’s cartographic interests are evident in his

exploration of the Swiss element in the circle of mid

eighteenth

century

artists,

engravers

and

mapmakers, which included the great John

Rocque, another Huguenot, who had many Swiss

contacts, also the Swiss artists Angelica Kauffman

and Henry Fuseli. He also examines the reciprocal

interest in Switzerland and Alpine scenery which

had developed among the English by the early

nineteenth century, which led to the foundation of

the Alpine Club in 1857. In the nineteenth century

it was the Italian Swiss who were prominent in

London, especially in the catering trade, the most

famous being Carlo Gatti and his brothers whose

ventures included restaurants, ice importing and

the Adelphi theatre. The prize story of the twentieth

century is how Switzerland was promoted through

the famous April Fool hoax of 1957, when Richard

Dimbleby described on television the harvesting of

the ‘spaghetti crop’ in the Ticino.

Immigration in the twentieth century is touched

on in John Hinshelwood’s Stroud Green, a history

and Five walks, 2011, 96pp, Hornsey Historical

Society, £7.50, which covers the area of Haringey

and Islington just to the north of Finsbury Park

station. New Beacon Books (established in 1966 by

John La Rose, Britain’s first black publisher)

opened a bookshop in Stroud Green Road in 1973,

which became a focus for the local West Indian

community. During the 1970s black supplementary

schools and parents’ groups followed, both in

Stroud Green and elsewhere in Haringey, in an

effort to combat local prejudice about West Indian

capabilities. All this, and the subsequent gradual

gentrification of much of the area, comes at the end

of a long story of development. Hinshelwood’s

thorough research shows that contrary to popular

assumption, Stroud Green had a recognisable

identity with a scatter of houses well before the

growth of the Victorian suburb which survives

today. John Hinshelwood has tackled the history of

other parts of Haringey with similar dedication: The

Campsbourne Estate, a History of its Development

and Redevelopment, Hornsey Historical Society

2011, 24pp £3.50, is a walk exploring a small area

in the centre of the old village of Hornsey, where

Campsbourne House was replaced first by housing

in the 1860s, and then by some thoughtfully

planned council housing after World War II. How

Harringay Happened, 2011 for the Harringay

Festival,

47pp.,

traces

the

later

Victorian

development of the open land in the centre of the

borough, where the dense ‘Harringay ladder’ of

streets fills the area between the Kings Cross

railway line, and Green Lanes, an ancient route

transformed into a long shopping parade.

page 19

The officers of the

London Topographical Society

Chairman

Mrs Penelope Hunting PhD FSA

40 Smith Street, London SW3 4EP

Tel: 020 7352 8057

Hon. Treasurer

Publications Secretary

Roger Cline MA LLB FSA

Simon Morris MA PhD

Flat 13, 13 Tavistock Place

7 Barnsbury Terrace

London WC1H 9SH

London N1 1JH

Tel. 020 7388 9889

E-mail:

E-mail: roger.cline13@gmail.com

santiagodecompostela@btinternet.com

Hon. Editor

Newsletter Editor

Mrs Ann Saunders MBE PhD FSA

Bridget Cherry OBE FSA

3 Meadway Gate

Bitterley House

London NW11 7LA

Bitterley

Tel. 020 8455 2171

Nr Ludlow, Shropshire SY8 3HJ

Tel. 01584 890 905

E-mail:

bridgetcherry58@yahoo.co.uk

Hon. Secretary

Membership Secretary

Mike Wicksteed

Patrick Frazer

32 Harvest Lane, Thames Ditton

7 Linden Avenue, Dorchester

Surrey KT7 0NG

Dorset DT1 1EJ

Tel. 020 8339 0488

Tel. 01305 261 548

E-mail: mike.wicksteed@btinternet.com

E-mail: patfrazer@yahoo.co.uk

Council members: Peter Barber; John Bowman; Ralph Hyde; Robin Michaelson;

Sheila O’Connell; Professor Michael Port; Peter Ross; Denise Silvester-Carr;

David Webb; Laurence Worms; Rosemary Weinstein.

New membership enquiries should be addressed to Patrick Frazer.

Correspondence about existing membership including renewal payments, requests for

standing orders and gift-aid forms and the non-receipt of publications

also any change of address, should be addressed to the Hon. Treasurer, Roger Cline.

The Honorary Editor, Ann Saunders, deals with proposals for new publications.

Registered charity no. 271590

The Society’s web site address is: www.topsoc.org

ISSN 1369-7986

The Newsletter is published by the London Topographical Society and issued

by the Newsletter Editor: Bridget Cherry, Bitterley House, Bitterley, near Ludlow,

Shropshire SY8 3HJ.

Produced and printed by The Ludo Press Ltd, London SW17 0BA.

Tel. 020 8879 1881. Fax 020 8946 2939.