Newsletter No 74 May 2012_20pp

NOTICE OF THE ANNUAL

GENERAL MEETING

The one hundred and twelfth Annual General

Meeting of the London Topographical Society

will be held on Wednesday, 11 July 2012, 6pm,

at St Botolph’s Church, Bishopsgate EC2M 3TL.

AGENDA

1 Minutes of the 111th Annual General

Meeting

2 Annual Report of the Council for 2011

3 Accounts for 2011

4 Hon. Editor’s report

5 Election of officers and members of Council

6 Proposals by members

7 Any other business

Items 1, 2 and 3 are printed in this Newsletter,

see p.2 and p.19.

The church, church hall and churchyard

gardens

(www.botolph.org.uk)

are

a

few

minutes’ walk from Liverpool Street Station, on

the west side of Bishopsgate. Buses 8, 11, 26,

35, 48, 78, 135, 388 run along Bishopsgate. Tea

is from about 5pm. Please collect your

publication from the church before the AGM

starts at 6pm. Tea will be served in the church

hall. Please enter through the south door on the

garden front. Members are entitled to bring one

guest.

St Botolph’s (1725-8 to designs by James

Gould) is in excellent condition following its

restoration after damage by an IRA bomb in

1993. The hall was originally the parish school

(1861), hence the charming Coade stone statues

of charity children. The Fanmakers’ Company

was based here for many years. Our speaker

after the AGM will be Susan Mayor, an expert

on fans and a former Director of Christie’s

South Kensington.

– Penelope Hunting

MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL

GENERAL MEETING 2011

The 111th Annual General Meeting of the London

Topographical Society was held at the Liberal

Jewish Synagogue, St John’s Wood Road, on

Wednesday, 6 July 2011. It was attended by about

250 members and guests. Rabbi Alexandra Wright

welcomed members to her synagogue and gave a

talk on its history and the meaning of Liberal

Judaism. Then Penelope Hunting, Chairman,

thanked the Rabbi and welcomed members.

1. MINUTES OF THE 110th ANNUAL GENERAL

MEETING. The minutes, circulated in the May

Newsletter, were approved and signed with the

following amendment: under ‘any other business’

the name Michael Crawford should read DAVID

Crawford.

The only matter arising was the website. Members

at the last AGM had expressed the wish that the

website be improved and this request was taken on

board by the new Hon. Secretary, Mireille Galinou.

The Secretary proceeded to give a short Powerpoint

presentation about the website which had been

redesigned by graphic designer Mick Keates and

was ready to go to webmaster Chris Haynes.

2. 110th ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COUNCIL

FOR 2010, circulated in the May Newsletter, was

approved and signed.

3. ACCOUNTS FOR 2010. Roger Cline, Hon.

Treasurer,

praised

the

work

of

the

auditor/examiner Hugh Cleaver and expressed his

gratitude to him. The 2010 figures are very much

the same as those for 2009. Following the

successful completion of the Crace Collection

cataloguing project at the British Museum, the

Treasurer mentioned the continuation of the

annual grant of £10,000 for one more year to the

Department of Prints and Drawings for the purpose

of expanding the catalogue of London material.

Newsletter

Number 74

May 2012

These grants show that the Society is able to make

a contribution to its field of expertise and the

Council is keen to continue along these lines. There

were no questions and the accounts were adopted.

4. THE HON. EDITOR’S REPORT.

Dr Ann

Saunders

prefaced

her

communication

by

explaining she had fallen down the stairs on 16

April, broken her wrist, suffered various bruises

and this had slowed her down considerably. ‘But

you lucky people,’ she went on, ‘this year again you

will receive two publications for the price of one.’

Michael Port’s Palace of Westminster publication is

a unique record which has been in the pipeline for

about 30 years from the time the plans were first

discovered in the old Public Record Office. On

technical grounds, the huge sheets could not be

reproduced using traditional means but this

became possible with the advent of digital

photography. The second publication, the letters of

Samuel Molyneux, is attractively illustrated with

almost 30 reproductions.

Ann Saunders explained that work had started on

next year’s publication: Peter Barber’s book,

London, a History in Maps.

5. ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF

COUNCIL. All officers and members of Council

were willing to stand again; the Secretary had

received no nominations from members. The

following

Council

members

were

reelected.

Chairman: Penelope Hunting; Treasurer: Roger

Cline; Editor: Ann Saunders; Newsletter Editor:

Bridget Cherry; Publications Secretary: Simon

Morris; Secretary: Mireille Galinou; Membership

Secretary: Patrick Frazer; Auditor: Hugh Cleaver.

All officers act in an honorary capacity.

Victor Belcher retired from the Council this year

and Penelope Hunting thanked him warmly for his

contribution. Council members for 2011-12 are:

Peter Barber; Ralph Hyde; Robin Michaelson;

Sheila O’Connell; Professor Michael Port; Peter

Ross; Denise Silvester-Carr; David Webb; Laurence

Worms; Rosemary Weinstein.

6. DISCUSSION. The Secretary had not received

any written proposals for discussion and there were

no proposals from the floor.

7. ANY OTHER BUSINESS. Dr Caroline Barron,

chair of the London Record Society, announced the

current sale of her Society’s stock of journals,

priced at £5 each.

Dr Hunting read out the reply from Buckingham

Palace to the Society’s congratulations to The Duke

of Edinburgh on the occasion of his 90th birthday

on 10 June.

The AGM closed with two talks given by the

authors of this year’s publications: M. H. Port and

Paul Holden. Professor Port, with the help of a

Powerpoint presentation, gave us a virtual tour of

Westminster Palace in 1834. Paul Holden relaxed

the atmosphere when he introduced Samuel

Molyneux as the man whose reputation will never

quite recover from authenticating the claim that

Mary Toft from Godalming gave birth to live

rabbits!

112th Annual Report of the

Council of the London

Topographical Society for 2011

Two annual publications were issued to

members at the annual general meeting: The

Palace of Westminster – Surveyed on the Eve of

the Conflagration, 1834

by M. H. Port

(Publication No. 171) and The London Letters of

Samuel

Molyneux,

1712-13,

with

an

Introduction and Commentary by Paul Holden,

edited by Ann Saunders (Publication No. 172).

The Society has continued to give out grants

to enable worthy London material to become

catalogued and benefit historians and London

academia at large. The British Museum Crace

Collection project has now been expanded and

has been followed by a grant to the British

Library – spread over three years – to catalogue

the London volumes of George III’s remarkable

topographical collection.

Concerns about the Society’s website were

raised at the 2010 AGM. This led to the

substantial task of a complete revamp of our

website. Mireille Galinou, the Hon. Secretary,

devoted much energy to co-ordinating this

project, updating information and pictures, and

restructuring in places – for instance the

adoption of a chronological approach for

publications. Michael Keates, an experienced

graphics designer, was appointed to re-package

the whole. His colleague, Chris Haynes, dealt

with all technical issues and is now the

Society’s webmaster. This new website went live

in November 2011.

The Society’s Annual General Meeting was

held on Wednesday 6 July 2011 at the Liberal

Jewish Synagogue in St John’s Wood Road. It

was introduced by a talk from Rabbi Alexandra

Wright on the history of the Synagogue and the

place of Liberal Judaism in this country. The

AGM was followed by three other talks – one

which introduced the new website to members,

by Mireille Galinou; the other talks were given

by Professor Michael Port and Paul Holden. A

full report on the meeting appears in this

Newsletter.

A total of 33 new members joined the Society

during 2011. At the end of the year there were

1137 paid-up members and five honorary

members.

As usual, Council meetings were held in

January, April and September to discuss the

Society’s publication programme, membership,

finances and general administration.

The Newsletter was published in May and

November. Articles included A Walk through St

John’s Wood by Mireille Galinou; Houses, Books

and the Hammersmith Riverside by John Cherry;

Life on the Fringe – The Fate of Stratford by

Charles O’Brien; The Museum of the Order of

page 2

St John, Clerkenwell by Bridget Cherry; London

Explorations – 1. Paddington to Primrose Hill by

Tony Aldous; St Paul’s Cathedral before Wren by

John Schofield; The religious foundations of

medieval

London:

recent

discoveries

and

reappraisals by Bridget Cherry; as well as

notices, news, notes and reviews.

Income from subscriptions and other sources

totalled £34,472 while expenses were £34,461.

Notes and News

Publications

The printers have promised that this year’s

publication, London, A History in Maps, by our

council member Peter Barber, will be ready for the

AGM. Members will remember that the British

Library was unable to produce a catalogue to

accompany the excellent exhibition which Peter

curated in 2007. But now thanks to the hard work

by both the author and our indefatigable editor Ann

Saunders the research carried out will be available

in a substantial volume; every item included in the

exhibition is illustrated.

Plans are also in hand for next year’s publication,

which will be a reproduction of William Morgan’s

1682 map of London, with an introduction by

Ralph Hyde, and an index by Robert Thompson.

Vacancy!

There is a vacancy for the post of Honorary

Secretary to the Society, following the resignation,

earlier this year, of Mireille Galinou, who did

sterling work on our new website but who now has

too many other commitments. This is a rewarding

job working with a convivial Council, a flourishing

Society and a loyal membership. It involves taking

the Minutes at Council meetings which are held

three times a year at 160 Aldersgate Street

(5.30pm). The Minutes then need to be typed up

and circulated with the Agenda for the next Council

meeting. The Secretary is also responsible for

providing the notice about the AGM and the Annual

Report for the May Newsletter

(generally the

information just needs updating year by year). In

the past the Secretary has also organised the AGM

and has made a significant contribution to the

running of our affairs but duties are negotiable. We

cannot run the Society without a Secretary and we

need some new blood! Please contact the

Chairman, Penelope Hunting, if you think you

could help.

Following the resignation of Mireille Galinou, Dr

John Bowman has been coopted to the LTS

Council. John has a special interest in the history

of the City of London; among his many distinctions

he is Liveryman and Freeman, a City Guide and

Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Before his

retirement he was an academic librarian, and has

published extensively on the history of printing.

Support by the LTS for cataloguing work

Since 2009 the Society has been supporting the

cataloguing of the Crace Collection in the British

Museum to the tune of £10,000 per year and has

made a final payment this year so that the same

researcher can carry on with a supplementary task:

for further details see Anna Maude’s report on p.5.

In the next Newsletter there will be a report on

similar work being carried out by the British Library

on their part of the Crace Collection (many items of

which feature in this year’s publication), which we

also are funding. This will continue to 2014. A one-

off grant (in three figures, rather than five) has been

made to London Metropolitan Archives to pay an

assistant to re-format the Bowen Collection which

comprises photographs of London Scenes. The

project is to mount them on single sheets and place

them in sleeves, making it easier and less damaging

for researchers to handle. We hope to include more

information on this in a future Newsletter.

LAMAS Conference

The popular annual Local History Conference of the

London and Middlesex Archaeological Society will

take place on 17 November 2012 at the Museum

of London. The subject will be A Capital Way to

Go, with a series of talks on the remains, rituals,

ceremonies and memorials of the long departed

inhabitants of London and Middlesex. Speakers are

being invited to cover periods and themes through

the ages; from Roman cemeteries to Victorian

technology, from ritual and ceremonies of

Mediaeval London to the Victorian memorials of

Middlesex. Full details of the conference will be

published in LAMAS September Newsletter and will

also be available on the LAMAS website. The

Conference and the Local History Publications

Awards will be presented in the course of the day,

and there will also be displays and sales of

publications by many of the affiliated societies.

Circumspice

Where is this building? Answer on p.11.

page 3

Exhibitions

There is still time to see the excellent exhibition

Charles Dickens and the City at the Museum of

London, which continues to 10 June. Among the

exhibits is a copy of Stanford’s wonderfully detailed

map of London of 1862, which covers the Victorian

suburbs as well as central London. For a review of

the accompanying book see p.14.

Streets of Dickens: Holborn, Hampstead and

St Pancras is a free exhibition at Camden Local

Studies and Archives Centre, Holborn Library, 32-

38 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8PA. Open until

Friday 21 December. An interesting selection of

photographs and cuttings from Camden archives

demonstrates the close connections between

Dickens’s own life and this area of London, a

source of inspiration in many of his books.

Royal River, Power Pageantry and the Thames

at the National Maritime Museum Greenwich, 26

April to 9 September, guest-curated by David

Starkey, appropriately celebrates the seventy-fifth

anniversary of the museum (opened by King George

VI) in the year of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Among the 400 remarkable works brought together

for this exhibition is the painting by Canaletto from

the Lobkowicz collection, Czech Republic, showing

the Thames on Lord Mayor’s Day. Visitors to

London Bridge station can currently see a 30m-

long version of this richly detailed painting gracing

a temporary wall at the new station entrance.

Visitors to Greenwich will also be able to appreciate

the Cutty Sark, the famous sailing ship, which was

reopened in April, five years after a devastating fire

destroyed all three decks when conservation work

was in progress. Fortunately the chief historic

features had already been removed. The vessel,

formerly in a very fragile state is now securely

supported by a steel structure, raised up 11ft,

making it possible to admire the magnificent hull.

Mind the Map: Inspiring art, design and

cartography. London Transport Museum, Covent

Garden, 18 May – 28 October 2012. This major

exhibition draws on the Museum’s outstanding map

collection to explore how London’s public transport

maps have not only aided navigation but have

inspired art, design and cartography. The exhibition

will range from diagrammatic, decorative and digital

maps, to contemporary artworks and interactives,

including newly commissioned artists’ works. There

will be accompanying events and a book published

by Lund Humphries: London Underground Maps:

Inspiring Art, Design and Cartography.

Changing London

King’s Cross station and the railway lands

Plans to develop the railway lands north of King’s

Cross station were under discussion from 1987,

but took off only after 2000, with the decision to

create the St Pancras terminus for Eurostar and

improve the connections between the main line

stations. The new link to the two stations is now

complete, and there is public access to the first

stages of the transformation of the land to the

north.

The Western Concourse between St Pancras and

King’s Cross, opened in March, is an ingenious

curved structure by John McAslan & Partners. Its

roof with triangular network pattern somewhat

reminiscent of the British Museum’s Great Court

can be seen as an elegant twenty-first century

riposte to the virtuoso ironwork of the Victorian

stations. The building links the two stations

underground, and at pavement level provides an

approach to the awkward additional King’s Cross

platforms 9-11, later to be resited (as well as to the

mythical site of Harry Potter’s ‘Platform nine and

three quarters’).

From here a broad new route, ‘King’s Boulevard’,

curves northward beside the brick flank of the

Gymnasium, one of the few older buildings to

remain,

which

was

built

for

the

German

Gymnastics Society in 1864-5 and is now an

exhibition centre with models of the area. The

Boulevard is billed as a ‘shopping avenue’, but at

present, hoardings with a leafy theme hide the land

on either side, which is currently being cleared of

pollution from the former gasworks. Plans for the

area include commercial buildings, sports centre,

library and premises for Camden council. The

Boulevard crosses Goods Way, then rises gently

towards a bridge over the Regent’s Canal, which

provides a new approach to the extensive site of the

former King’s Cross Goods Yard. Overlooking the

canal the brick range of the Fish and Coal offices

are still derelict at time of writing, but the

monumental centrepiece, the six storey Granary

(1852 by Lewis Cubitt), has been converted for the

University of the Arts (the new name for St Martin’s

and Central School of Art). Plain glass windows

have replaced the former hoist openings, and in

place of the canal basin in front there is the vast

expanse of Granary Square. The paving is to be

enlivened by 1120 water jets (landscaping by

Townshend Landscape Architects). There is public

access to the ground floor of the Granary, which

houses a visitor centre and interactive model of the

site; passing through one arrives in a covered

atrium, a space rivalling the Tate Modern

(architects: Stanton Williams). From here a covered

mall provides access to teaching spaces and

studios. The rough brickwork of the rear of the

Granary, with its painted numbers still visible by

each entrance, contrasts strikingly with the sleek

glass and concrete of the new additions. There is

page 4

The deadline for contributions

to the next Newsletter is

16 October 2012.

Suggestions of books for review

should be sent to the Newsletter Editor;

contact details are on the back page.

more to come in this area, including four of the

famous gasholders which once dominated the

skyline immediately north of St Pancras station.

They are to be re-erected further north, three used

as a framework for housing and one for leisure

activities.

London Topography in the British

Museum Print Room

The cataloguing of the British Museum’s London

topographical

collections

is

now

nearing

completion, thanks in large part to the generous

funding and support of the London Topographical

Society. The department of Prints and Drawings is

lucky enough to have some outstanding examples

of London collections, namely the Crace, Crowle,

Marx, Heal, Burney and Potter collections, and this

material is now online. For those of you who have

not had a chance to view the collections online*,

the following is a brief overview of what you will

find.

The Crace Collection was the first to be

catalogued, and hopefully many readers will by

now be familiar with it. It is a remarkable example

of early nineteenth century collecting, and

contains some fascinating images of London,

focusing particularly on the streets and structure

of the city from the 1640s to 1859. It contains no

text, looking instead to the history of the imaging

of London, noting changes to the streets and

architecture at a time of dramatic expansion and

industrialisation.

The Crowle and Marx collections are, by contrast,

extra-illustrated editions of Thomas Pennant’s

‘Some Account of London’ (3rd ed. 1793). Both are

beautifully bound into numerous volumes, the

contents reflecting the taste of the collectors, as well

as the period of London history covered by

Pennant’s text. The Crowle Pennant was bequeathed

to the department in 1811 by John Charles Crowle;

the Marx Pennant came in 1948, bequeathed by

Hermann Marx. The 130 or so years between them

are significant, as while Crowle’s interests were

notably

antiquarian,

Marx’s

collecting

was

connoisseurial. Both contain exquisite images, but

the quality and interest of the Crowle Pennant mark

it as a truly exceptional example.

The so-called ‘Garrick topography’ is a single

album of views relating to the London theatrical

scene. They form part of a larger collection of

theatrical portraits put together by Charles Burney,

which will shortly appear online. Similarly,

Ambrose Heal’s collection is a supplement to a

much larger collection of trade cards, but also

portraits of local figures in the city. The portraits

and topography were catalogued together, and form

a diverting glimpse into life in London in the

nineteenth century.

The final collection to be catalogued is George

Potter’s collection of North London topography – a

veritable treasure trove of local history, anecdotes,

and obscure views. Anyone with a particular

interest in the northern spheres of the city will find

much to enjoy in the Potter collection. Since a

significant portion of this collection is text based, it

has been catalogued differently, with an overall

entry for each of the 29 albums, and individual

entries for selected images. The album and

individual entries are linked to ensure nothing is

overlooked. I expect the work to be completed in the

next few weeks, and hopefully it will encourage

many more people to explore the history of the city

through its images.

– Anna Maude

The BM print chosen for this issue appropriately

shows a view of the first home of the British

Museum:

Sutton

Nicholls

(1680-1740

fl.),

Mountague House in Great Russell Street [the old

British Museum], 1728, etching and engraving,

from the series 'London Described', published by

John Bowles.

*To search the collection online, Google ‘British

Museum Collection database’. Typing in ‘Crace

Collection’ will bring up the whole Collection. You

can refine the search by date and subject matter. If

you have problems in accessing the site please let

the Newletter editor know.

page 5

The roof of the Western concourse

London Squares:

the ‘pride of London’s planning’1

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, historian and landscape

architect, explains why he is fascinated by this

characteristic feature of London.

Those familiar with London will know that the

garden square is among the more ubiquitous open

spaces of the metropolis. It is also a uniquely

English social organism and planning device that is

pre-eminent among our contributions to the

development of European urban form, as it

introduced the classical notion of rus in urbe – the

visual

encroachment

of

nature

and

rural

associations into the urban fabric – that continues

to shape our cities to this day.

Squares have been desiderata of urban improvers

since the early seventeenth century, have promoted

novelty of design, elegance, healthy living and

spaciousness in the urban plan, and, through a

combination of unique local circumstances –

including

land

ownership,

management

agreements, legislation and the English love of

nature – have come to represent what Elain

Harwood and Andrew Saint described in 1991 as

‘the special strain of civilisation which Britain has

bequeathed to the world’.2

Squares have been appreciated not merely as

open figures or garden oases in the dense city

fabric but as the purveyors of light and air, whose

evolution is closely tied to the provision of spacious

residential development and the improvement of

the city’s streets, and are widely regarded as

epitomising the beau ideal of an eminently refined,

comfortable and respectable form of metropolitan

domesticity. The square, moreover, has proved a

resilient

concept,

one

that

has

developed

incrementally, imperceptibly and occasionally

dramatically over the centuries. Thus, while

surrounding buildings have been refaced or

replaced, and while trees, shrubs, paths, lighting,

garden structures and railings have come and

gone, squares almost invariably have stubbornly

retained their spatial integrity.

Given the renown of the London square it is

remarkable this ‘curiosity’ of the English metropolis

has for so long attracted so little scholarly

attention: no one has provided a clear historical

overview or a coherent chronological survey of the

square from its origins to the present, nor

attempted to unravel the physical and social

implications of this London phenomenon.3 Where

there has been research, the emphasis has

invariably been on the creation of squares – and

particularly in the eighteenth and early nineteenth

centuries – or aspects of their gardens, their

inhabitants and surrounding buildings, and not on

their rich and largely uncharted physical and social

vicissitudes.

My own enthusiasm for squares is both academic

and practical. The former developed when I was a

PhD student in the late 1980s at the Department of

Geography at University College London. My

supervisor Hugh Prince encouraged me to consider

squares in the course of my research on

eighteenth-century London town gardens and town

gardening – so, too, did my external advisers Sir

John Summerson and Donald Olsen, both of whose

work, building on that of Steen Eiler Rasmussen,

laid the foundations for the scholarly study of the

subject.

My interest has to a large extent been piqued by a

longstanding fascination with the practice of

enclosure, as squares were historically enclosed by

lock and key not only with a view to their physical

improvement but also as an act of social control. I

am likewise intrigued by the social dynamics of

squares – not least because they provide tangible

evidence for singular and well-developed social

organisms. Squares take on a kind of life dynamic:

they are uniquely complex communities made up of

interdependent individuals and groups more or less

closely connected with one another, for whom

health

is

dependent

on

the

harmonious

interworking of the communities’ culture, politics

and economics. This social dynamic extends both

to the relationship among the inhabitants

themselves (how they see themselves), and to the

relationship between the inhabitants and the

outside world (how they are perceived by others).

No less interesting to me is the abiding allure of

squares: they continue to appeal to good old-

fashioned British social snobbery, as many of the

page 6

George Scharf, In Bloomsbury Square, June 1828, pencil, showing

a group of watercarts around the pump in the square.

© The Trustees of the British Museum.

T.H. Shepherd, Brompton Square, c.1850. Kensington and Chelsea

Local Studies Collection.

best are every bit as desirable as they were when

they were first colonised. Many squares, crescents

or polygons, regardless of their complexion, have

been consistently perceived as conferring material

and social advantages, and bestowing social rank,

dignity and precedence on their inhabitants, some

of whom had no other claim to public consideration

than that of living within their leafy purlieus. The

historic deployment and elaboration of squares

reflects the evolving social values of the aristocracy

and the social relationship in the context of the

city. Squares and their surrounding residential

districts were, in fact, among the first expressions

of the desire for class segregation, domestic

isolation and private open space – aspirations that

would later form the basis for suburban living both

in Britain and abroad. Squares were, moreover, a

‘major arena playing out the tension between

classes over access to open space and they

influenced the development of early public parks’.4

My practical interest in squares, on the other

hand, stems from my work as a London-based

landscape architect (and architect) with an interest

in a range of projects from small-scale garden

design to town planning, where one is engaged in

the pragmatic concerns of planning, economics,

maintenance

and

conservation

of

designed

landscapes. Squares are, therefore, to me very real,

lively social and physical entities: I know many at

first

hand,

and

have

moreover

consulted

professionally on the long-term management and

conservation of many others.

This dual perspective, as a historian and

practitioner, gives me an informed appreciation of

the practical, social, aesthetic and economic

workings

of

squares;

these

factors

have

furthermore informed the narrative of my book The

London Square: Gardens in the Midst of Town. The

book, which has had a very protracted gestation,

makes no claims to being a comprehensive survey

of the London square: the subject is too immense to

cover in a single volume, nor has it been my wish to

do so. I nevertheless explore many of the major

themes and issues that have had a bearing on the

make-up and development of the squares over the

past four centuries, ranging from the provision of

open space for children to play in, and the

relationship of the central space to the surrounding

architecture, to health issues, views and prospects,

the passing of model improvement acts, and the

negative effect of motorised traffic.

In my view, the square has not only an interesting

past, but has a promising future. If, however, it is

to remain the ‘pride of London’s planning’, we must

as Londoners cultivate a greater and more informed

understanding of its role in the development of the

metropolis. One might, for instance, assume that

the city’s historic squares have a reasonably rosy

future, and that it was ever thus. In fact, that

squares survive at all, and in great numbers, is

nothing short of extraordinary, as from the

nineteenth century they have been repeatedly

threatened with extinction from forces within and

without their own precincts. As conspicuous

bastions of social exclusivity, squares have been a

soft target for social reformers and politicians who

have condemned them as little more than leafy

resorts for the exercise of privileged children; they

have likewise been commonly perceived by the

outside world or aspirants for fashionable

distinction as impregnable patrician redoubts, or

gloomy, inhospitable, cheerless and pointless

enclosures, or simply ‘dreary in the extreme’. Some

of these things they may have been, and continue

to be, but they are also much more: they are green

lungs; they make a significant contribution to

sustaining biodiversity in the capital; they are also

arboreta, playgrounds, urban landmarks and even

eye-catchers. They are, furthermore, in many cases

still the centres of thriving residential communities,

quite a number of which (in Westminster, and

Kensington and Chelsea in particular) contribute

privately to their upkeep.

We should not only safeguard the future of our

historic squares, but also consider the potential

contribution of new and future squares. As my

book is published there are plans afoot to create a

number of new squares across London. The

architects who have planned them are confident

that they will succeed in creating the first ‘true’

page 7

The square-keeper at St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, c.1920.

Hammersmith and Fulham Archives and Local History Centre.

Berkeley Square looking north over the central garden, c.1927,

photograph. Country Life Picture Library.

traditional

London

squares

since

the

late

nineteenth century. Whether they accomplish this,

and what take on history these squares will have,

has yet to be seen. Nor, I am sure, will these essays

be the last. Squares will continue to be built anew

and reinvented. We must hope that those who are

in a position to create new squares will study to

understand the wealth of opportunities that offer

themselves through a careful analysis of the past,

and all it can teach us about architecture, space

and the environment at the service of communities.

– Todd Longstaffe-Gowan

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan’s The London Square:

Gardens in the Midst of Town will be published by

Yale University Press on 31 May 2012. 304 pp., 100

colour images + 160 black and white illustrations.

ISBN 978 0 30015 2012.

Notes

1. London Society, London Squares and How to Save

Them (s.l. [London]: London Society, n.d. [1927]), 7.

2. Elain Harwood and Andrew Saint, London (London:

HMSO, 1991), 95.

3. This is also true of Beresford Chancellor’s The History

of the Squares of London (London: Kegan Paul,

Trench, Trübner, 1907) – the first and only book to

deal in a comprehensive manner with the squares.

The narrative, very curiously, does not touch on

contemporary issues affecting the squares, including

their physical decline, the numerous and real threats to

their survival, and the concerted efforts that were

being made at the time to preserve them. Chancellor’s

book was, in fact, in some ways possibly downright

unhelpful in the attempt to save some squares that

were threatened with imminent obliteration. Only in

1918 did the author finally begin actively to campaign

for the preservation of squares. His outlook was,

however, by this time rather gloomy: he lamented that

they were now ‘a thing of the past’, that they were no

longer economically viable to create, and that the

‘existing squares were in many instances passing from

their original character’.

4. Henry W. Lawrence, ‘The Greening of the Squares of

London: Transformation of Urban Landscapes and

Ideals’, Annals of the Association of American

Geographers, 83, no.1 (1993), 90.

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan is giving a lecture on the

London Square at the Garden Museum, Lambeth

Palace Road SE1 7LB, on Wednesday 27 June,

6.30pm. Tickets £10 from the London Parks and

Gardens Trust. The Trust is the organisation

behind Open Garden Squares Weekend, now a

well established and most enjoyable opportunity to

visit squares and gardens, both public and private,

all over London. The dates this year are 9-10 June.

Details are on the website opensquares.org; tickets

are available from opensquares.eventbrite.co.uk

London Explorations –

2: Three Mills to Victoria Park

Tony Aldous’s second Exploration (for the first see

Newsletter 73, November 2011), appropriately in the

year of the Olympics, takes us to East London.

London’s East End has changed hugely in the last

two decades, but until recently perceptions of it by

other Londoners failed to keep up with those

changes. Development of an Olympic Park along a

stretch of the River Lea near Stratford has not only

transformed the area but also put a spotlight on

change and on the local built heritage. This

Exploration takes in Three Mills Island with its fine

set-piece of listed tide mills; part of the Bow Back

Rivers network of waterways; the Greenway – the

grassed-over

embankment

concealing

Joseph

Bazalgette’s Northern Outfall Sewer, with its view

over the Olympic Park; Fish Island; the Hertford

Union Canal; and Victoria Park, the East End’s

great ‘green lung’.

We start at Bromley by Bow underground

station (1) where, alongside the rush and roar of

the Blackwall Tunnel approach road, one is not

tempted to linger. Cross the road by the subway

and double back northwards along the far

pavement to a Tesco superstore. Right into Three

Mills Lane: the noise and squalor suddenly abate;

and there, over the bridge crossing the River Lea, is

a memorable piece of townscape: Three Mills (2).

In fact only two remain: on our left the 1776 Grade

I listed House Mill; to our right the picturesque

1817 Clock Mill, whose swirling roofs top what were

drying kilns. For 80 years from 1872 the mills were

Nicholson’s gin distillery. Now most of the complex

is home to Three Mills Studios, London’s largest

film and TV complex. The House Mill is in the care

of a preservation trust which has open days and

runs a café and information centre in the

adjacent Mill House.

page 8

Three Mills from the Bridge over the River Lea

Turn

left

past

the

adjacent Customs House

and look over the wall to

the mill pond which stores

the water that drives the

tide mill. Beyond is a good

new neighbour – timber-

clad flats, spoiled only by

their rather brutal concrete-

framed car park. Couldn’t it

be screened with creepers?

Ahead you already have

your first, distant glimpse of

the Olympic site: the red,

slightly drunken Meccano-

like structure which is

Anish Kapoor's Orbit – both

viewing

tower

and

landmark. But first turn

right

into

Three

Mills

Green (3) and look ahead to

see in the distance the

silhouette of the eclectically

exotic

Abbey

Mills

pumping station (4), built in 1865-68 by

Bazalgette and architect Charles Driver to raise

sewage in Bazalgette’s great sewer so that gravity

could carry it on towards Beckton; to its right, in

glistening aluminium, Thames Water’s modern

replacement (Allies & Morrison, 1997). Follow the

green’s right-hand boundary to view the new Three

Mills Lock (5) in Prescott Channel, built to open

up the Bow Back Rivers to barges carrying

materials in and out of the Olympic site. In digging

out the debris from the channel builders found

stones from the demolished Euston Arch. They are

now in safe keeping in Lincolnshire, available for

re-erection when the 1960s Euston station is

redeveloped.

Back across the green, noting ping-pong tables in

fair-face concrete, to reach Three Mills Wall River

(6) with its narrow boat moorings. Here also a

touching monument to four men who in 1901 lost

their lives to ‘foul gas’ in a well they were

inspecting. Then over the bridge which crosses the

end of Prescott Channel and follow the towpath to

reach the A118 (Stratford High Street). Cross by the

lights (or by a temporary Olympic bridge), then left

(westwards) along the far pavement and right into

Blaker Street (7). Here we begin to see the

complexity of the Bow Back Rivers network, with

Waterworks River running off right, City Mill River

ahead, and a further stretch of Bow Back Rivers

entering a lock to our left. We cross the road and

follow a towpath along this waterway’s south side

to reach Marshgate Lane. Straight ahead from

Marshgate Lane into Pudding Mill Lane (8), whose

DLR station rises on embankment to our left. This

will soon be demolished to make way for Crossrail

works, a replacement station rising close by.

The Olympic Park builders have threaded a

pedestrian/cycle route through their construction

works and up on to the Greenway where they

installed View Tube (9), to allow the public to look

at and learn about what is in front of them. A good

view with an orientation table to help explain

what’s what. Dominant are the main stadium (10)

by Populous and Buro Happold, and Zaha Hadid’s

page 9

Narrow boats at the new moorage on Three Mills Wall River

Sightseers now abound on the Greenway with its view over the

Olympic Park

Aquatics Centre (11), its shape temporarily

distorted by extra seating. The little café is good but

overstretched: one has the impression that Olympic

planners underestimated the number of walkers,

cyclists and other sightseers.

We

now

follow

the

Greenway

(12)

left

(westwards). This earth bund is, of course, more

than a convenient viewpoint. It covers a long

section of Bazalgette’s Northern Outfall Sewer

which took sewage out of the River Thames in

London – and the Great Stink away from the

Houses of Parliament. The two outfall sewers

north and south of the river were built so solidly

and to such generous standards that only now, in

the C21, is a new tunnel proposed to augment

them. A new landscaping scheme for the

embankment Greenway includes concrete markers

showing the sewer’s gentle gradient as heights

above sea level.

Just before the Greenway crosses the River Lea

(13), there is a connection, by steps and ramp, to

its towpath, but Olympic works have closed this

until at least June 2012. An imperfectly signed

diversion takes us further along the Greenway to

steps, doubling back on our right and descending

to Fish Island (14), with streets called Dace, Roach

and Bream. A recently designated conservation

area now protects its Victorian and Edwardian

industrial buildings; many of them converted into

studios by artists, including Bridget Riley. Dace

Road leads us back to the Lee Navigation at Old

Ford Lock (15). Here a choice of routes: either (A),

after crossing the lock, head north along the

towpath with the Olympic site on your right, to the

road bridge at White Post Lane; crossing this,

double back on a towpath which turns along the

Hertford Union Canal (16); or (B) cut back

through Fish Island (Dace Road, Bream Road,

Stour Road, Beachy Road, Roach Road) to a new

flats and workspaces and a new footbridge (17)

connecting to the Hertford Union towpath.

Things to note on route (A): the former

lockkeeper’s cottage (18), a ‘red brick’ building

whose red bricks were painted on by the producers

of Channel Four’s Big Breakfast TV programme;

and humps in the towpath with some vestiges of

rails on which cranes rolled forward to load and

unload barges. On route (B): a large new building

secured by the family firm of H. Forman & Son

(19), purveyors of smoked salmon to West End

restaurants, after a long compensation battle with

the Olympic authorities. It boasts restaurant and

art gallery and Foremans have plans to exploit its

view across the Lee Navigation to the Olympic site

where it was previously located. At the corner of

Beachy and Roach Roads, artists’ studios with café

looking out on the navigation.

Head west along the Hertford Union Canal,

otherwise called Duckett’s Cut after its promoter

Sir George Duckett. This short canal, with three

locks, was opened in 1830 to link the Lee

Navigation to the Regent’s Canal. It failed

commercially: barge owners preferred to take the

long route and avoid

canal dues. Passing its

first lock, we go under

two bridges, the second

of them carrying the

Blackwall

Tunnel

approach road; then,

with a second lock

visible under another

bridge, go up a ramp

and turn right into

Cadogan Terrace and

left via St Mark’s Gate

(20) into Victoria Park.

Laid out by James

Pennethorne

and

opened in 1845, this

‘green lung’ for East

Enders is, as a near neighbour of the Olympic Park,

benefiting

from

£10m

of

restoration

and

improvement. We turn right along the eastern edge

of the park with stately Cadogan Terrace on our

right. Near Cadogan Gate are two stone shelters

(21) from the old (pre-Rennie) London Bridge. Head

west across the park, with (at the time of writing)

much

refurbishment

in

progress,

including

Baroness Burdett-Coutts’s grandiose but inimitable

drinking fountain (22).

Our walk ends at the park’s Crown Gate (23)

where

two

places

of

refreshment

may

be

mentioned: The Crown pub (24), diagonally across

the roundabout, now run by Young’s Geronimo

Inns, offers good food, wines and real ales; or

across Grove Road in the park’s smaller eastern

section, the excellent lakeside café (25), with

enterprisingly wholesome food and (on fine days)

tables at the lake’s edge. If anyone doubted that the

East End had at last ‘come up’, the presence on its

chalkboard menu of ‘aioli’ should have set such

doubts at rest.

Buses from stops in Grove Road run south to

Mile End tube station and Canary Wharf, north

towards Highbury or Clapton.

– Tony Aldous

page 10

One of the two stone shelters

from the old London Bridge now

near Victoria Park’s Cadogan

Gate

Victoria Park café on a sunny day

Special offer from the London Society

London Topographical Record Vol. XXX included a

paper by Lucy Hewitt on The London Society’s

Development Plan for Greater London, published in

1918. The plan was on 16 OS sheets and had a

coloured key plan which appeared as Fig. 1 in the

paper. To celebrate its centenary this year the

London Society will republish this key plan, not

quite at full size but closer to the original than the

small scale reproduction in the Record. This will be

folded and included in a wallet with a reprint of Dr

Hewitt’s article and a reprint of Aston Webb’s notes

which accompanied the plan in 1918.

The London Society can provide run-on copies for

LTS members. These can be ordered as flat copies

of the key plan alone (estimated cost £1.50) or as

the folded version with accompanying material

(estimated cost £5). The price does not include

distribution and while postage for the folded

version is likely to be cheap rolling and packing the

flat plan will be more costly. It should be possible

to arrange personal collection from the London

Society office at Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle

Wharf Road, London N1 7ED.

If you would like to obtain copies, please contact

the

London

Society,

preferably

by

e-mail:

info@londonsociety.org.uk

London Metropolitan Archives

LTS Members may not be aware that London

Metropolitan Archives has a quarterly newsletter,

published electronically. To sign up for the next

issue,

go

to

http://collhs.pmailuk.com/

bnmailweb/setup?oid=228&xyz=AdE0hlPE87D2PS

dVug and choose History. The recent issue includes

news of the acquisition of the archive of Clarnico

Limited,

confectioners,

a

rich

resource

documenting the activities of a past industry and

the working lives of people who once occupied the

Olympics site. Other articles cover the discovery of

a hitherto unknown autograph manuscript of

Edward Elgar hidden amongst a recent deposit of

archives from the Musicians’ Company, and the

20th anniversary of the Maxwell Scandal with

reflections by some of the key individuals involved

with obtaining compensation for the Maxwell

pensioners and details of relevant material in the

Pensions Archive collection (including the Maxwell

board game where the aim is to steal the pension

fund). And there’s much more – from the history of

the site of St Paul’s Cathedral to an examination of

what it was like to live in a nineteenth century

London lunatic asylum.

Sculpture in London: special offers for

LTS members

Liverpool University Press has recently published

two new volumes in the highly acclaimed Public

Sculpture of Britain Series – Public Sculpture of

Historic Westminster: Volume 1 by Philip Ward-

Jackson (January 2012, paperback £30.00,

hardback £70.00) and Public Sculpture of Outer

South and West London by Fran Lloyd, with Helen

Potkin and Davina Thackara (November 2011,

hardback £45.00). There will be more on these in

the next Newsletter.

The new volumes complement the previously

published Public Sculpture of South London by Terry

Cavanagh (2007, hardback, £65.00) and Public

Sculpture of the City of London by Philip Ward-

Jackson (2003, paperback £25, hardback £60).

Members of the London Topographical Society

can claim a special 30% discount on all of these

titles (£5 p&p per order will be charged), by

ordering directly and quoting ‘LTS member offer’.

Please order from Janet McDermott on 0151

7952149 or at janet.mcdermott@liverpool.ac.uk or

write to Janet McDermott, Liverpool University

Press, 4 Cambridge Street, Liverpool L69 7ZU.

The full hardback set of these four London

volumes can also be ordered by members for the

special price of £120 plus £5.00 p&p (regular price

£240).

Circumspice (see p.3)

This lacy cast-iron bridge, dating from the early

nineteenth century, crosses a canalised section of

the River Wandle at Morden Hall Park, a National

Trust property near the southern end of the

Northern Line. Morden Hall itself, seen in the

background, is currently empty, though happily the

lessee, Whitbread, continues to pay the Trust its

rent. The park, described as ‘a green oasis in

suburbia’, functions both as a popular, child-

friendly public park (there is a nice, low-tech

hands-on display explaining how and when

vegetables grow), and as a celebration of the

Wandle’s industrial heritage.

For just upstream of this bridge is the snuff mill,

established by tobacco merchant Gilliat Hatfeild

(1827-1906). It must have been profitable, for in

the 1870s he bought the estate including the Hall

from its longstanding owners the Garth family. His

son Gilliat Edward Hatfeild left it to the Trust in

1941, and the Trust has looked after it well. The

mill, which stopped making snuff in 1922, now

serves as a study centre; other nearby buildings

house a riverside café, a bookshop, a gift shop and

a garden centre. The stable yard, which was the

heart of the Hatfeild enterprise, has just been

restored and opened to the public.

It houses a second courtyard café, craft stalls and

an exhibition explaining the Trust’s green

credentials. These are impressive. Not only are the

restored stable buildings thermally very efficient

but the Trust is now constructing an Archimedes

screw which, functioning as a sort of fish-friendly

turbine, will generate all the electricity these

buildings require. The Wandle, which was once

lined with mills from Waddon to Wandsworth, is

once again a source of (very green) energy.

– Tony Aldous

page 11

Reviews

St Paul’s Cathedral before Wren by John

Schofield, published by English Heritage in

association with the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s,

2011 386pp hardback. ISBN 978 1 84802 0566.

£100.

London 1100-1600: the archaeology of a capital

city by John Schofield, Equinox, 2011, 324pp soft

covers, ISBN 978 1 90804 972 8. £21.25.

These two books present a vast amount of

archaeological material, mostly accumulated over

the last fifty years, and in the case of St Paul’s,

from the seventeenth century onwards. The book

on the Cathedral is essentially an archaeological

report along the lines of the recent MOLA volumes

(see the review below). Its size and scope (and

consequently price) are explained by the complexity

of the subject matter, demonstrated by fig. 1.5

where the plan of the present cathedral and its

immediate surroundings is spattered with no less

than 84 sites denoting older excavations, findspots

and historic features, as well as seven sites

examined

archaeologically

since

1969.

An

introduction and summary of excavations is

followed by four chapters on six archaeological

phases (Roman and Anglo Saxon, early and late

medieval, post-medieval and the Great Fire). An

eighth chapter has specialist reports. Conclusions

are backed up by a gazetteer of sites, 30 pages of

notes

and

bibliography.

This

may

sound

overwhelming; the book is not light reading, but the

numerous illustrations, including many details

from Hollar’s engravings, and the addition of short

essays by a range of contributors on special topics,

make this a rewarding book for browsing as well as

a valuable work of reference.

The character and exact site of the pre-Conquest

cathedral remain elusive, although four eleventh

century gravemarkers showing Scandinavian

influence may indicate an initiative to promote St

Paul’s as an important burial church. On the

Romanesque and Gothic phases of the Cathedral

seventeenth century graphic material is combined

with finds and site evidence: new plans present the

Romanesque cathedral with transepts enlarged

only after 1108. Recent finds of stone fragments

include twelfth century carved and painted pieces

of Caen stone; analysis reveals that Taynton

limestone and Reigate stone were also used in this

period. Later moulded fragments are assigned to

the great rose window of the east gable. A

convincing picture is built up of the highly

impressive medieval building which dominated the

City and rivalled Westminster Abbey. A feature of

the book is the inclusion of expert essays on art-

historical

themes,

for

example

by

Nicola

Coldstream on the innovative architecture of the

numerous medieval tombs known from drawings

and engravings, and by Nigel Llewellyn on the post

medieval tombs. There is much more to delve into,

from the evidence for the fourteenth century

chapter house and cloister and the layout of the

precinct, to the detail of Inigo Jones’s early

seventeenth century improvements.

John Schofield’s other book is more wide ranging.

Free from the restrictive format of an archaeological

report, he is able to select themes which interest

him, review the evidence, develop hypotheses and

suggest further research. This is archaeology in its

broadest sense, weighing material evidence against

what is known from documents. How and where

people lived, what they ate, their pastimes and

business, illness, death and burial all come under

his scrutiny, as does the character of buildings,

gardens, roadways and water supplies. Although

most of the subject matter concerns central

London, information and comment on what is now

Greater London and beyond is scattered through

the book, and there is a separate chapter on

London’s region and its relationship to the medieval

city. These references reveal that while urban areas

have been much dug over we know relatively little

about London’s medieval countryside. A broad

picture emerges: of monastic estates with great

barns, moated manor houses with parks, market

towns and villages; among these Kingston and

Ruislip are examples where research has been

especially illuminating. From the mid fifteenth

century increasing demand from the city for

building materials, foodstuffs and goods was

shaping the London hinterland, especially where

there were good transport links; there is scope here

for much further research.

Turning to the heart of London, the significant

role played by waterfront archaeology and

dendrochronology

becomes

apparent.

New

information has emerged about the early history of

Thorney island, wetlands where the Tyburn was

once tidal, and where the royal palace was built on

a platform with stone river wall. Evidence has been

found of royal building works, now vanished, such

as Edward III’s moated house at Rotherhithe, and

the second Bridewell Palace by the Fleet, built of

brick by Henry VIII in the 1520s. On a humbler

level, analysis of timbers from river revetments has

enlarged understanding of medieval carpentry

techniques, though whether London led or followed

the practices of the countryside remains an open

question. On house plans, Schofield revisits his

conclusions on the sixteenth century Surveys of

Thomas Treswell (LTS publication no. 135, 1987)

acknowledging that a typology of ground plans

alone has little meaning when one is dealing with

complex multiphase subdivisions and alterations

on several levels.

There are as many questions as answers here.

Schofield acknowledges that the lives of the poor

leave tantalisingly few traces, and many intriguing

puzzles remain (for example, in a study of seeds

found near Cheapside, do elder seeds represent

food, waste from tanning, or garden plants?). This

is a stimulating book, opening one’s eyes to many

page 12

facets of the past. It can be highly recommended to

anyone who wants to find out what archaeology

has to offer about London’s history, and where

future research might lead.

– Bridget Cherry

The Development of Early Medieval and Later

Poultry and Cheapside: Excavations at 1 Poultry

and Vicinity, City of London by Mark Burch and

Phil Treveil with Derek Keene. MOLA Monograph

38, 2011. 365 pp plus CD-ROM. 265 black and

white and colour illustrations.

ISBN 978 1 90199 2953. Hardback. £35.

“Another damn’d thick, square book! Always,

scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr Gibbon?” It

becomes difficult to find appropriate expression of

one’s admiration for the ongoing series of

publications from MOLA (formerly Museum of

London Archaeology Service) and for the extent of

the research they embody. This ‘thick, square book’

is number 38 in the monograph series, one of four

volumes devoted to excavations on the site of ‘1

Poultry’ in 1994-96. (Monograph 39, on burials at

the church of St Benet Sherehog, appeared in

2008; Monograph 37, published early in 2012,

comprises two volumes on the Roman period.)

The main focus is the triangular site at the corner

of Poultry and Queen Victoria Street, once

occupied, we are reminded, by what was described

as ‘the finest group of high Victorian commercial

architecture in the City’, and now by a pink-and-

beige building designed by Sir James Stirling. In

their Introduction the authors summarise what

they politely call ‘The battle for planning permission

at 1 Poultry’. In the event, although the

requirements of PPG16 were not yet in force when

planning permission was granted, the developers

allowed and paid for full-scale excavation;

unusually, English Heritage funded post-excavation

research and publication.

But the opportunity has been taken in this

volume to review work on a number of smaller

adjacent sites, extending the study area westwards

to Queen Street and embracing a sizable area of the

central city landscape. The excavations themselves

revealed two medieval streets, Pancras Lane and

Bucklersbury; evidence for the development of the

main Cheapside and Poultry route; early buildings

of timber; late medieval buildings with stone

foundations – for many of which documentary

sources

provide

details

of

ownership

and

occupation; a pre-Great Fire church; parts of the

mansion known as Servat’s Tower; seventeenth and

eighteenth century brick-built cellars and cesspits;

and the Great Conduit.

The report integrates the archaeological and

documentary evidence not merely for the structural

and topographical development of this central area

but for its economic and social history. It is a

complex story, and it is advisable not to skip the

Introduction, which explains how the report is

organised.

Four

chapters

are

devoted

to

chronological narrative; two more are thematic, on

urban development and on the economy; one

focuses on the church of St Benet Sherehog; a

chapter of ‘Conclusions’ is followed by specialist

reports on the finds, with some comprehensive lists

relegated to a CD-ROM.

The core is the chronological narrative, in which

the archaeological evidence is detailed phase by

phase. The earliest evidence of post-Roman

occupation comprised scattered sunken-floored

buildings of the nineth and tenth centuries – one of

them built up against the still-standing stone wall

of a ruined Roman building. In the late tenth

century the ground level was raised by dumping,

particularly at the eastern end close to the

Walbrook stream. Bucklersbury developed as a new

road, and houses were erected along the Poultry

frontage. The small church of St Benet Sherehog,

named after an early owner or priest, one Alfwine

Scerehog, was built in the late eleventh century

between Bucklersbury and Pancras Lane, and

underwent repairs and rebuilding before its

destruction in the Great Fire of 1666.

Chapter 5 deals with the period from 1200

onwards, when documentary sources, handled here

brilliantly by Derek Keene, become increasingly

relevant. It is possible to relate structures found by

archaeology to documented properties and property

boundaries.

A

series

of

maps

shows

the

archaeological

evidence

plotted

against

the

boundaries of properties numbered according to

the system developed by Keene and others for the

Historical Gazetteer of Cheapside (1987). Happily,

the boundaries match! The chapter ends with the

massive changes brought about in the nineteenth

century, when Queen Victoria Street was driven

obliquely through the City to create the familiar

triangular site footprint, and with the twentieth

century building that now stands there.

The painstaking analysis of this data underlies

the thematic chapters, which also set the

development of the study area in a City-wide

context. Chapter 6 ‘Aspects of urban development’

begins with a section on ‘The evolution of the street

pattern’, for which the excavation provided valuable

insights. Only Bucklersbury follows for a short

distance, and perhaps coincidentally, the line of a

page 13

Excavation of the Great Conduit (photo Maggie Cox/MOLA)

Roman street; otherwise, the medieval street

pattern seems to have developed in the late Saxon

period. A section on ‘Water supply’ is inspired by

the rediscovery of the Great Conduit in a shaft dug

by BT under the south carriageway of Cheapside at

its junction with Poultry. ‘Land use, the subdivision

of property and the pattern of building’ reveals

large late Saxon properties being subdivided, and

later a pattern of large houses set back from the

streets with rows of narrow shops along the

frontages.

Chapter 7 ‘Economic activity: production and

consumption’

considers

for

example

the

archaeological

evidence

for

ironworking

–

illuminating the name ‘Ironmongers’ Row’ applied

to the shops in Poultry. Once again, documentary

sources

often

detail

the

occupations

of

householders and shopkeepers, and four maps

show the changing patterns from 1300 to 1666.

Among the finds there is a fine group of

seventeenth century glassware, which may relate to

the activities of the glass merchant John Greene,

who lived close by. Other specialist reports consider

the evidence for manufacturing – for example

antler-working. An unusual survival is an early

musical instrument made from a horn with three

finger holes – although if one is allowed the

reviewer’s privilege of drawing attention to a

misprint, it is surely a ‘precursor of the cornett’ not

the cornet.

As a publication this volume fully meets our

expectations of MOLA monographs – well edited,

beautifully illustrated, and fully indexed. It is a

major contribution to our understanding of the

development of medieval and modern London from

its origins among the ruins of the Roman city.

– John Clark

Panoramas of Lost London: Work, Wealth,

Poverty and Change 1870-1945 by Philip Davis,

Trans Atlantic Press for English Heritage, 2011.

ISBN 978 1 90716 722. £40.00.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. Yes, this

book does reproduce many of the photographs from

the same author’s best seller Lost London. But we

have gained so much from the enlargement of them

all that we can overlook the duplication. This is a

massive book, more dining table than coffee table,

and the details that this size of reproduction allows

are a revelation, not least of the superb quality of

Victorian and early twentieth century photography.

Once we get over the sad parade of loss brought

about by neglect, demolition, German bombing and

town planners, and start to look into the images of

streets, squares, back yards, alleyways and even

interiors, we quickly become obsessed with hunting

out the minute details of a lost way of life. Shop

signs and advertising, bill boards and posters

smother the streets; graffiti, usually in chalk, is

revealed; geraniums and other pot plants can be

seen on even the poorest of windowsills, and

everywhere, at every window, are lace curtains and

blinds, sometimes both. But perhaps the most

fascinating

part

of

what

is

essentially

topographical book are our ancestors who people

the streets, caught in their everyday lives, at their

jobs in their everyday clothes, staring back at us

from the pavements and the shops, and looking out

from high windows at the photographer down

below. Although there are many views of upper and

middle class streets and interiors to look at in this

volume, it is the poorer areas, the back alleys,

riverside houses, and cottage interiors that really

fascinate, chiefly because these have been

photographed much less often than those of the

posher parts of the City. It seems barely credible

that clapboard houses of the seventeenth century

survived in the centre of London until the 1960s

and yet the book reproduces examples from

Stepney, Rotherhithe and Smithfield. This is a book

to return to over and over again and it would be

interesting to compare these images with the same

streets to be found in the LTS’s earlier publication

Tallis’s London Street Views – another wonderful

publication, but one which depicts a somewhat

sanitised version of the City that is revealed in its

true state by the photographs to be found here.

– Peter Ross

Dickens’s Victorian London 1839-1901 by Alex

Werner and Tony Williams, Ebury Press for

Museum of London, 2011 ISBN 978 0 09194 3738.

£25.00.

Covering much the same ground as Philip Davis’s

Lost London books, Dickens’s Victorian London

suffers to a certain extent from the size of the

reproduced photographs, which are at times rather

small. But if we ignore this drawback, the volume is

a fascinating photographic tour of Dickens’s

London. As the authors mention in their

introduction, the ability to capture the realism of

the moment as in a photograph and bring to it the

quality of imagination in depiction was one of the

essential qualities of Dickens’s art. With this in

mind it is the less familiar images that fascinate in

this volume, including a series of photographs of

the health and safety nightmare that was the

building of the ‘cut and cover’ Metropolitan District

Railway in the 1860s. Here we see navvies

burrowing under terraced houses in South

Kensington and Bayswater, the buildings either

side barely propped up, and reproduced alongside

the image is Dickens’s vivid description of railway

building mania from Dombey and Son. To read the

Dickens’s text with the ‘realism of the moment’

photographs is the great strength of this book and

it might have been better if there had been rather

more examples of this. The photographs gathered

together here are drawn from the collections held at

the Museum of London and it is true that many do

not appear to have been reproduced before, but

there are also very many that we have seen often,

page 14

including the much reproduced images from John

Thomson’s Street Life in London of 1877. However,

the book also has a section of photographic

portraits including a series of stereoscopic

ambrotypes (positive images on glass) taken by

William Henry Stratton in around 1860. These

images of a typical middle class family, taken

informally by an amateur in the back yard of his

Kennington home, are a delight and a revelation –

indeed one could almost say that they alone are

worth the price of the book.

– Peter Ross

Beyond the Tower – A History of East London

by John Marriott, Yale UP 2011 hardback 384 pp

50 illustrations; ISBN 978 0 30014 880. £25.

With the coming Olympics all eyes will be on East

London, and for this great terra incognita we need a

guide. East London, at least to us whose main

point of reference is London City Airport, has a

coherence missing elsewhere – can you imagine a

history of West London? This coherence is borne of

image and ignorance – a land stretching from

Whitechapel to East Ham made up of the East End,

the docks and the ‘London over the water’ suburbs,

shaped by poverty and the blitz and peopled by a

pageant of Huguenot weavers, Jewish tailors,

swaggering Blackshirts and Cockney cabbies. There

is, as so often, an element of truth in all of these

superficialities but we need someone to chart us

through this muddle of half-remembered facts that

really belongs in 1066 and all That. John Marriott,

Professor at the University of East London, is just

that guide; he has written an engaging, fluent and

convincing account explaining the how’s and why’s

of East London.

For this reviewer the most interesting section is

the opening (and topographically focused) chapters

which suggest why East London is so different. The

Elizabethan ban on constructing new buildings

outside the City combined with the custom of the

Manor of Stepney to grant building leases limited to

31 years to ensure that houses were not built to

last. The growth of London attracted manufacturing

that found a ready site in East London, away from

the jurisdiction of the City and safely distant from

the burgeoning Court suburb of the West, while the

expansion of the docks to the south brought

together manufacturing and processing industries

together with the labourers who crowded into the

shoddy housing.

Having established the ‘ground rules’ for East

London, the chapter on industrialisation is followed

by ones that address its consequences – ‘The

Culture and Politics of Dissent’ and ‘Modernisation

and its Discontents’. The author handles these

themes well, conveying a clear picture of the

changing patterns of work in the East End and the

radicalisation of the workforce and its leaders. We

then change gear and examine another aspect, a

somewhat surprising one. Was there not an

antithesis to the omnipresent degradation, pollution

and cholera? East London became more respectable,

perhaps even prosperous (albeit in pockets) between

1820 and 1914, and what most outraged the

inhabitants was the notion that they lived in a dark

city of the dreadful night. The tales of Jack the

Ripper may have titillated the West End but they

appalled the East End, creating a false image that

the industrious poor were merely idle and degraded.

The remaining chapters take us to the present

day and gallop through a century of social history,

a whirlwind tour of Mosley and marches, sweaters

and strikers, Dorniers and demolitions. A little too

quickly, perhaps, and fairly familiar stuff. One

further observation is that this is really A Tale of

Two Boroughs where Tower Hamlets gets the lion’s

share and poor old Newham (East and West Ham

after the 1965 shotgun wedding) relatively little.

Perhaps this is only to be expected as the historic

East End is the heart of the area, but a bit more on

the Hams would have been interesting.

But these are minor points, and Professor

Marriott’s great achievement lies in writing a true

history

of

East

London,

enriching

our

understanding of an entire quartier and helping us

appreciate the influences that have shaped it. Next

time I will stop my cab coming back from the

Airport and have a look around.

– Simon Morris

Whitechapel 1600-1800; A Social History of an

Early Modern London Inner Suburb by Derek

Morris. East London History Society, 2011.

ISBN 978 0 95647 7910. £12.60.

This is the third in a series of impressively detailed,

indeed forensically examined, social histories of the

parishes of East London which commenced with

Mile End Old Town (2007) and Wapping (2009). The

focus on Whitechapel is to be welcomed for,

paradoxically, it is one of the best known East End

parishes by name and reputation but, as this

volume

shows,

seriously

under-examined.

Nineteenth and twentieth century traditional

histories of London have rendered it a byword for

criminality,

slum

conditions

and

general

ghoulishness yet for the period covered by this

study, Whitechapel was a thriving suburb in a

fruitful relationship with the City and at the centre

of a global network of trades.

What distinguishes this volume, and those which

precede it, is the wide-ranging nature of the

research into documents, from land tax records

and rate books to insurance records, wills,

newspapers and probate inventories among others.

In adopting this approach the author has not only

the pleasure of systematically demolishing some

long-cherished myths about the area but offers up

many remarkable small details (such as the menu

for the workhouse in 1795) and adds figures to the

landscape. It should be noted that Whitechapel in

1750 was as large in population as the developing

industrial cities of England and Scotland.

The chapters are arranged in a sensible order,

page 15

beginning

with

parish

governance

and

administration, followed by life in Whitechapel with

a focus on classes of housing and their contents.

This throws light on one of the most remarkable

discoveries: that the denizens of the streets close to

the city boundary included several millionaires (in

today’s terms), and their houses, many of them

erected by the Leman and Hawkins families in

streets which still bear their name south of the

High Street, were accordingly furnished with

paintings, tapestries and quantities of silver. The

dissection of the area’s industries (service,

manufacturing and textile) is also of considerable

interest and resurrects the impressive scale of

many of the manufactories, such as the German-

owned and German-run sugar refineries, or the

hundreds of gunmakers’ premises close to the

Tower. For each business there is now only the

Lutheran Chapel in Alie Street and the Gunmakers

Company’s Proof House as evidence of their former

ubiquity. It is interesting to note how often

entrepreneurial merchants associated with these

trades and industries made their fortune in

Whitechapel and then acquired estates in the rural

areas east of the metropolis, such as Jesse Russell,

a soap manufacturer, with a fine house at

Walthamstow, or Sir James Creed, owner of the

White Lead Works, who kept property also at

Greenwich, Sussex and Hampshire.

But there is much more than just this, with

examination of every aspect of Whitechapel’s

institutions,

including

numerous

theatres,

reminding us that eighteenth century Whitechapel

was a most important centre for dramatics,

schools, churches, crime and justice, the local

militia and medicine. Accompanying these are

several unfamiliar views of Whitechapel and its

buildings, many culled from the Guildhall’s

collection, and numerous useful appendices.

Further volumes in this series are planned for

Shadwell and Ratcliff. They are keenly awaited.

– Charles O’Brien

Bankside: London’s Original District of Sin

by David Brandon and Alan Brooke. Published by

Amberley Publishing, Stroud GL5 4EP. 288 pages,

79 black and white and colour illustrations.

ISBN 978 1 84868 336 5. £20.

Bankside has a long history filled with tales of dark

deeds and notorious people who lived south of the

river between the present-day Blackfriars Bridge

and London Bridge. The brothels, bear-baiting pits,

inns and taverns, markets, frost fairs and prisons

are just some of places that the authors have

included in this readable account of the area. There

are many saucy tales and many bawdy ones, but

some of the more respectable ones, like Sir Thomas

Guy who founded Guy’s Hospital, get scant

attention. The bishops of Winchester had their

palace here and controlled the area in which the

‘Winchester Geese’ (prostitutes) operated. And ‘Bess’

Holland successfully withstood a siege when her

‘girls’ enticed the soldiers who had arrived to close

her down and later emptied their chamber pots over

them! The fame of Rose and the Globe theatres is

documented with William Shakespeare and the

Burbage brothers putting on plays in the latter,

until a cannon went off during a performance of

Henry the Eighth and sent the whole place on fire in

1613. Infuriately the index is very selective and

while the buildings are given there is nothing to tell

us where to find the Burbages or Sir Thomas Guy.

– Denise Silvester-Carr

The Coloured Mass, Art and Artists in the

Twickenham Area from Tudor Times to the 21st

century by David G.C. Allan, Borough of

Twickenham Local History Society, 2011,

ISBN 978 0 90334 1844. £11.99.

The banks of the Thames in the Twickenham area

have from the sixteenth century onwards been a

favourite place for country houses, and thus for the

employment of artists and architects. Verrio’s great

staircase paintings at Hampton Court, Adam’s

interiors at Syon House are well known. But it was

not only royalty and the nobility who enjoyed these

rural retreats, artists also settled here, and their

lives and works are the subject of this engaging

book. In the eighteenth century the lustre of the

owners was enhanced by the views which showed

their houses. The artist Sir Godfrey Kneller’s

ambitious mansion at Whitton is set in a formal

baroque park, while the neat villa of the poet and

pioneer landscape gardener Alexander Pope is

shown in its picturesque riverside setting. The

book’s title indeed comes from Pope: ‘Blend in

Beautious Tints the Coloured Mass’, from his

‘Epistle to Mr Jervas’, the portrait painter for whom

Pope laid out a garden at nearby Hampton.

Disappointingly, no illustration is shown of this,

and there is a mention but no picture of the

’Gothic’ house near Pope’s villa built by Thomas

Hudson, another portrait painter. But there is a

delightful riverside view of Twickenham (a pity that

the houses shown are not identified) by Samuel

Scott, one of several by this artist, who was also a

local resident for a time. With the growth of the

romantic movement, landscape painting grew in

esteem, and the river alone became a subject for

artists; even Sir Joshua Reynolds produced a rare

landscape, an atmospheric view of the Thames

from Richmond where Sir William Chambers had

built the artist a country villa.

The eighteenth century artists alone would

provide enough material for a book, but the scope

of The Coloured Mass is much broader, tracing

landscape and topographical painting from Turner

onwards through the nineteenth century, when the

development of Twickenham from village to small

town was recorded in watercolours, engravings and

early photography by both professionals and

amateurs. A further theme is the exploration of

page 16

patronage: from the eighteenth century the Royal

Society of Arts and the Royal Academy were

important in fostering artistic effort, but in addition

there were the local circles around Horace Walpole

at Strawberry Hill, and in the nineteenth century

around the Duke of Orleans at Orleans House.

Both local organisations and individuals played a

significant role in the twentieth century. The

Thames Valley Arts Club founded by Lucy Millet in

1906 still continues, and today’s Orleans House

gallery, now managed by the Borough of Richmond,

was made possible through the gift of the Ionides

family of the Orleans House site, together with their

fine collection of paintings.

The book illustrates several striking, informal

landscapes by notable twentieth century artists

such as Duncan Grant, Adrian Bury and Osmund

Caine, the latter showing the influence of Stanley

Spencer. Caine was head of graphic design at the

Twickenham College of Technology, and so is a link

to the last section devoted to art education and to

an

epilogue

of

varied

twenty-first

century

interpretations of the riverside by students from

Twickenham’s successor, Richmond-upon-Thames

College. They demonstrate how the Thames

remains a continuing source of inspiration.

– Bridget Cherry

A Vision of Middlesex by Janet Owen and John

Hinshelwood, Hornsey Historical Society 2011.

ISBN 978 0 90579 4426, £15 plus £2 p&p.

There is a whole not-so-small publishing genre of

books of old photographs of various places. All are

interesting though many are ill-reproduced or over-

designed, but A Vision of Middlesex stands out as

exceptional – it lets the photographs speak for

themselves. It gives them space, reproducing them

at full-plate size. All are taken from glass plate

negatives which needed long exposure thereby

revealing amazing detail and giving almost a three-

dimensional quality.

The preface by Ken Gay and the introduction by

John Hinshelwood tell how the various collections

came together; the book is published in memory of

a remarkable woman, Joan Schwitzer. All the

places represented – Hampstead, Highgate,

Muswell Hill, Crouch End, Hornsey, Tottenham and

Edmonton – have now been munched up into North

London. 121 plates, selected by Janet Owen, give

dignity and reality to the 1880s -1900s – the polish

on a Hampstead tabletop puts me to shame, and

the photograph on the back cover of two little girls,

hats firmly on their heads, standing in an open

field in Harringay, through which a railway runs

ominously, is well worth the modest price of the

whole book.

– Ann Saunders

Port of London through time by Geoff Lunn;

Welsh Harp Reservoir through time by Geoffrey

Hewlett, both Amberley Publishing, 2011, £14.99

each, 96pp paperback, illustrated. ISBN 978 1

44560 254 7 and 978 1 44560 640 8.

These additions to the ‘Through Time’ series follow

the same format of images, many in colour usually

two per page, with a short caption, so they are

essentially picture books rather than serious

studies of their areas. The series title is justified by

many of the picture pairs being ‘then and now’

views from the same viewpoint.

The Port of London volume, by Geoff Lunn who

used to write in the PoL in-house magazine,

includes many more pictures of the ships rather

than of the surrounding topography. Some of the

modern

colour

pictures

have

an

artificial

appearance,

possibly

due

to

electronic

enhancement of digital images. There is a good

variety of craft illustrated, from tugs and lighters,

through the ferries and warships to modern cruise

ships and container vessels. Tilbury and the Pool of

London are well covered, but interesting riverside

spots, such as the delightful Barrier Park just

north of the Barrier, are included.

Geoffrey Hewlett is an established local historian

and his captions are much more substantial. Many

of the historic pictures come from his own collection.

The reservoir was called the Welsh Harp after the

hostelry of that name on the Edgware Road, now

swept away by the slip roads of the modern flyovers

for that road and the North Circular. When the

canals were built, a feeder ran from the natural River

Brent in this area, but to maintain a flow to the

canals in times of drought the reservoir was built in

the Brent Valley some fifteen years later. The

pictures illustrate the construction and enlargement

of the reservoir and the disaster of its partial collapse

page 17

in 1841; they also deal with the consequential uses

of

the

reservoir

area

for

recreation

and

entertainment. In spite of the secondary nature of

the captions, one ends up with a satisfying account

of the area; I recommend it to you.

– Roger Cline

Montague House and the Pagoda: The story of a

Greenwich house and its summer pavilion

by Neil Rhind and Philip Cooper. Published by the

Bookshop on the Heath, Blackheath, London SE3

0BW. 68 pages, 120 colour and black and white

illustrations. ISBN 978 9 56532 718. £9.60.

This is a small book, both in size and content. It

briefly tells of the people who lived in Montague

House for 115 years, mainly various members of

the family of the dukes of Montague. At some early

stage the building appears to have been two

separate houses, but it became a Crown lease when

Princess Caroline, the estranged wife of the future

George IV, occupied it in 1799. She was its most

famous resident and her capricious behaviour

attracted a certain amount of attention. After 13

years she left for Italy and the house was

vindictively demolished by her husband. However,

the Pagoda, a chinoiserie-style pavilion, said to

have been designed by Sir William Chambers

c.1762, a short distance away, remained. The

Princess had used it as a nursery and vegetable

garden and afterwards a long succession of local

businessmen lived here. London County Council

ran a school in it and it was eventually bought in

1991 by the present owner, Philip Cooper, an

architect. He has restored it and now plans to move

to a modern house in the grounds. Many

thumbnail pictures of residents of Montague

House, mainly relatives of the dukes, have been

included and a list of former owners is given.

– Denise Silvester-Carr

London Pride. The 10,000 Lions of London

by Valerie Colin-Russ (Frances Lincoln, 2012) ISBN

978 0 71123 2792, card covers, £9.99.

This is a truly pocket-size book, 178 pages in

landscape postcard size, full of lions in London. The

author provides a gazetteer to locate her bag of

lions by borough and street (but not house

number). There is an introduction to the book and

to each of the eleven chapters explaining the

different forms, symbolism, types of buildings and

places where the lions may be seen. The various

forms, statues, reliefs and lion head building

decorations, are discussed and illustrated in

profusion with captions to give the location.

As our heraldic-buff members will know lions

may be rampant, sejant (sitting) or midway between

the two, or couchant. Our materials people tell us

you can make a fairly hardy lion out of materials

from stone to wood and even fibreglass. The

historians recount how Richard I became known as

‘Lionheart’ and the lion has been a royal symbol

ever since. Imperial London is full of them.

This book should provide you with enjoyable times,

searching out the various types of lion in every

borough, and while doing so you may find parts of

London hitherto unexplored. Lions are not just in

Regent Street and the Palace of Westminster, they

adorn all types of homes in the suburbs, adorning

gate pillars and roof-lines – and they are definitely a

cut above garden gnomes.

– Roger Cline

l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l

Editor’s Envoi

Here is a perfect present for anyone who loves

London: An Alphabet of London by Christopher

Brown, Merrell, 2012, 96pp ISBN 978 1 85894 5736,

£12.95. Christopher Brown is an illustrator and

print maker who was encouraged by his tutor,

Edward Bawden, to take up linocutting. His

Alphabet is prefaced by a charming memoir of his

Putney childhood in the 1950s, when there were

steam trains and fog, greengrocers who delivered,

front doors in dark colours and lace curtains to the

windows. As a child he explored London with his

father and grandfather, both London cabbies. The

epilogue ‘Working in London’ describes his travels

making sketches and hunting for ideas for this book.

The double spread given to each letter of the

alphabet is beautifully composed with four or five

strong black and white images and a larger scene

with touches of colour. The delightfully quirky choice

of subject keeps one guessing, mixing the familiar

with the unexpected: Dr Johnson eating jellied eels:

the Shard rising behind Southwark Cathedral, the

wit of Oscar Wilde, the Oxus treasure at the British

Museum (for X). Should you give up, the answers are

provided at the end.

– Bridget Cherry

page 18

page 19

Assets

2011

2010

£

£

Money in Bank & National Savings

186,194

187,052

Advance payments

702

160

Value of Society’s stock of publications

Stock at end of previous year

17,750

22,665

Additions to stock

2,660

1,830

Less Value of publications sold

6,751

6,744

Value of stock at year end

13,659

17,750

Total assets

200,555

204,962

Liabilities

2011

2010

£

£

Overseas members’ postage

120

140

Subscriptions paid in advance

4,768

3,166

Provision for future publication

14,000

20,000

Total Liabilities

18,888

23,306

Net Worth of the Society

181,667

181,656

Change in net worth

Previous year’s net worth

181,656

181,216

Surplus for the year

11

440

End of year net worth

181,667

181,656

Income

2011

2010

£

£

Subscriptions paid by members

20,648

20,953

Subscriptions from earlier years

58

58

Income Tax from Covenants/Gift Aid

4,395

4,604

Total subscription income

25,101

25,615

Profit from sales of Publications

6,751

6,744

Interest received

407

407

Grant: Scouloudi Foundation

1,250

1,250

Sundry donations

962

203

Total Income for the year

34,472

34,219

Surplus for the year

11

440

Expenditure

2011

2010

£

£

Members’ subscription publications

Cost of Printing

-3,418

-7,382

Cost of Distribution

3,520

3,142

Provision for next year’s publication

14,000

20,000

Total cost of members’ publications

14,102

15,760

Newsletter

4,270

4,044

Website, re-done in 2011

1,161

120

AGM

2,007

1,364

Administration

311

174

Publications Storage and Service

2,610

2,437

Total Administration Costs

10,359

8,019

Annual Grant to British Museum

10,000

10,000

Total expenditure for the year

34,461

33,779

LONDON TOPOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY

INCOME & EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT 2011

BALANCE SHEET 31 December 2011

The negative printing cost figures occur due to over-provision in the previous year.

The accounts are with our examiner and, assuming they are approved, they will be presented at the AGM.

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

Vacant

Patrick Frazer

7 Linden Avenue, Dorchester

Dorset DT1 1EJ

Tel. 01305 261 548

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.