Piccadilly Circus 

Once regarded as the hub of Empire, and still one the most famous streets in the world, the phrase “It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here!” has become a byword for the hustle and bustle of human traffic. With news this week of plans to build a mosque in the basement and ground floor of the iconic Trocadero building (interesting idea, siting a place of worship in an area historically given over to hedonistic pleasures!) - , I thought it was worth penning a few words about this important landmark….

Aerial view of Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly Circus lies at the intersection of Piccadilly, Regent St, Shaftesbury Avenue, Haymarket and Coventry Street. It was first formed in 1819 on construction of John Nash’s Regent Street (at this point it was known as Regent Circus South). It only began to be known as Piccadilly Circus in the mid-1880s when the north-east segment was demolished to form Shaftesbury Avenue, although by now the ‘circus’ had lost its circular form. The London Pavilion was built on this north-east corner. 

Piccadilly Circus in 1914

 The Trocadero complex on the corner of Shaftesbury   Avenue and Coventry Street (on the north-east side of the   Circus) opened in 1984 as an exhibition and   entertainment  space and, since 2020, a 700-room hotel  (the ‘Zedwell’). Formerly on this site stood a number of   historic buildings - the London Pavilion Theatre (a  former  popular music hall), the Royal Albion Theatre, the  Argyll Subscription Rooms (where wealthy men hired prostitutes) and the Trocadero Restaurant, originally built in 1896 for J. Lyons & Co. Although completely gutting the interior, the 1980s re-styling retained the grandeur of the Trocadero’s Baroque façade of 1885 which was seen for the first time in decades without the plethora of neon signs which had previously covered the building. 

Criterion Theatre

On the south side of the Circus lies the Criterion Building of 1873, comprising both a theatre and a

high-end restaurant. The restaurant proved very profitable within a short time, the East Room becoming popular with ladies coming to the West End to shop. It was also the setting for many afternoon tea meetings organised and held by the WSPU, the militant wing of the women’s suffrage movement. The Grade-II-listed Criterion Theatre is entirely underground (except for the box office) and in the early days fresh air had to be pumped in during performances to prevent the audience being asphyxiated by toxic fumes from the gas lights. 

Angel of Christian Charity (Eros)

Also on the south side of the Circus is the so-called Statue of Eros. The world’s first aluminium statue, it was unveiled in 1893 as a tribute to the philanthropic work of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. The figure represents the Angel of Christian Charity but is generally known as Eros – incorrectly, as it is actually Anteros, Eros’ lesser known brother, the god of selfless love and charity. At one time, the statue stood in the centre of a traffic circle, with cars and buses speeding around him, but it now has a new position on the south-western corner of the Circus, in front of sports’ store Lillywhites. 

Piccadilly Circus ticket-hall

Grade II-listed Piccadilly Circus underground station, which opened in 1906, sits directly under Piccadilly Circus itself and is one of the only stations on the network to exist entirely underground. When it was built in 1906, a surface level ticket office existed, but the station was then revamped in the 1920s to enable it to handle passenger numbers which had increased from 1.5 to 25 million per year. Charles Holden’s iconic circular booking hall mirrors the dimensions of the Circus above ground. Other distinctive Holden features include a stylish passageway surrounding the ticket hall clad in cream travertine marble. Decorative pillars and lights are roughly equally spaced around the oval passageway, their relatively narrow form ensuring maximum space is available for passengers walking through the ticket hall. 

1949, prior to redevelopment

But Piccadilly Circus is perhaps most famous for its illuminated (later digital) screens which have been in existence since 1908. These days they only cover the north-west corner. The first sign to be illuminated was a Perrier advertisement which used incandescent lightbulbs. Neon was first used for a Bovril sign in the 1940s. Coca Cola’s advertising (the current sign has 774,144 pixels!) has been displayed here continuously since 1954. The lights have only rarely been switched off: during the Blitz, for Churchill’s funeral and when Lady Diana Spencer died. 

References: 

The London Encyclopedia ed. Ben Weinreb (2008) 

Website: https://londonist.com/2016/05/secrets-of-piccadilly-circus 

Website: https://alondoninheritance.com/under-london/hidden-london-piccadilly-circus/ 

Photo of Criterion Theatre: Ikos - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39467099

Huguenots in London

Ever wondered what Nigel Farage, Simon Le Bon, Eddie Izzard, Laurence Olivier and Daphne du Maurier all have in common? Answer: they are all of Huguenot descent. The arrival of these skilled French artisans in late 17^th century Britain was to have a substantial economic and cultural impact, particularly in London where the newcomers laid the foundations of the ‘rag trade’ that was to become so important for the capital’s prosperity.

Protestants had already suffered persecution in Catholic France for over a century before what limited privileges they had were finally removed by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a law which had been enacted to protect the rights of Protestants after the Massacre of St Bartholomew. Its removal led to terrible carnage, with Protestant houses and businesses destroyed and people threatened with violence if they refused to convert to Catholicism.

Huguenot immigrants arriving in Dover, 1685

Although emigration was effectively outlawed, about 200,000 Huguenots left France to settle in non-Catholic Europe - the Netherlands, Germany, especially Prussia, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and even as far as Russia where Huguenot craftsmen could find customers at the court of the Czars. The Dutch East India Company sent a few hundred to the Cape to develop the vineyards in southern Africa. About 50,000 came to England, perhaps about 10,000 moving on to Ireland.

Exit routes taken by fleeing Huguenots

Some 13,000 Huguenots came to London, most from the cities of Tours and Lyon. William III guaranteed the incomers’ rights of worship and issued a proclamation granting them: “all privileges and immunities for the liberty and free exercise of their trade and craft… to render their living here comfortable and easy to them”. This was very welcome as those who did leave their homeland were not allowed to bring any money or possessions with them. They called their flight Le Refuge and themselves réfugiés, hence a new word (refugee) was coined.

By 1700 there were around 25,000 French Huguenots in a London of over half a million people. The refugees settled in three principle areas – Spitalfields, Wandsworth and Soho. By 1711 probably two in five inhabitants of the parish of St Anne’s Soho were French, with dense clusters around Old Compton Street.

Silk merchant's shopfront in
Artillery Lane, 1756

The new arrivals  were mostly well-educated, middle-class artisans and journeymen silk weavers. These were the ones who settled in Spitalfields. Silk weaving was already going on in this area and was highly lucrative given that silk  was used for everything from clothes to headwear and domestic hangings. But the Huguenots’ particular skills with fine French silks transformed the industry. Some of the weavers amassed huge fortunes, hence the large houses you can still see today on Spital Square and in Fournier Street.

Weavers' houses in Fournier St

Weavers’ house are always easy to recognise as they have ‘long lights’, windows that maximised daylight in the upper storeys where the work was carried out.

But not all Huguenots were weavers. Some made a living from market gardening in Chelsea and Battersea, calico printing and felt hat-making in Wandsworth or clock and watchmaking, gun-making, silversmithing and cabinetmaking in Soho. There were also Huguenot glass-blowers, jewellers and locksmiths throughout the West End.

 Of all these occupations, silk-weaving was the most susceptible to frequent periods of interruption due to a lack of raw materials or changes in fashion, each downtime leaving workers in financial difficulties. The Huguenots chose not to be a burden on the poor law authorities, preferring to make their own arrangements for those of their number who were in need. La Maison de Charité de Spitalfields (or ‘La Soupe’) was founded in 1689-90 to serve meals for Huguenots around Spitalfields and Bethnal Green who could not provide for themselves.

 They also established many self-help Friendly Societies, often based on the regions of France the immigrants had originally hailed from. In 1718 came the Hospital for Poor French Protestants, known affectionately by inmates as La Providence, off Old Street. Initially it could manage 80 inmates but by 1760 extensions to the building allowed for up to 234 residents.

Hogarth's 'Noon', 1738

This willingness to be self-sufficient meant that the Huguenots were generally welcomed by the local population, especially given that the English also hated the Pope! Despite threatened riots against foreign weavers in the East End in 1675, 1681 and 1683, , there appears to have been little physical violence directed against the French refugees and they were generally respected and accepted. In his painting and subsequent print The Four Times of Day: Noon, created in 1738, William Hogarth contrasts the prosperous, smartly-dressed and sober Huguenot churchgoers – seen leaving the French Chapel in Bog Lane, Soho - with the more chaotic group of English outside the tavern on the opposite side of the street. 

Freedom to worship was, of course, paramount and French Protestant churches soon sprang up everywhere. By 1700 there were around 24 Huguenot churches in London, with at least nine in or close to the Spitalfields area and fourteen in Soho. In 1711 the vestry of St Anne’s Soho reckoned that 40% of its population was French, such that in the mid-eighteenth century William Maitland could claim: "Many parts of this parish so greatly abound with French that it is an easy matter for a stranger to imagine himself in France".

L'Eglise Neuve, now Brick Lane Mosque

Three former Huguenot chapel buildings still survive in the Spitalfields area: L’Eglise de L’Artillerie, built in 1766 on the old artillery ground, later taken over by Ashkenazi Jews to become the Sandys Row synagogue; La Patente in Hanbury Street, built in 1719 and now the Hanbury Hall arts centre; and L’Eglise Neuve on the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane, dating from 1743, which became a Wesleyan chapel, then a synagogue in the late 19^th century and finally a mosque in the 1980s.

 

L'Eglise Protestante de Londres,
Soho Square

Today the Huguenot presence in Soho is represented by the Grade II-listed L’Église Protestante Française de Londres on Soho Square, the last remaining Huguenot church in London offering French-speaking services and cultural events. Though this building dates from 1893, the original French Protestant church can be traced back to the reign of Edward VI who authorised the founding of a Strangers’ Church for those of French and Walloon origin in 1550.

 Within a few decades of their arrival in this country, the Huguenots had fully integrated and lost many of their outward ethnic trappings. By the second half of the 18^th century, French was being used much less and large numbers chose to anglicize their names: Lenoir became Black, Blanc became White and Bonenfant became Goodchild, for example. But their influence is still very much evident in the history and architecture of significant areas of London and it is estimated that as many as two in every three English people has Huguenot blood in their veins.  Eh bien, dis donc!   

 

References:

London in the Eighteenth Century Jerry White

The East End Chronicles Ed Glinert

Website: https://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/history.html

 

 

 Plague in London

During the ravages of Covid, many of the world’s great cities suffered an existential crisis and experts were quick to proclaim the death of city living. Yet already in 2022 cities are back, no more so than London. West End footfall has already exceeded pre-Covid figures and theatres and restaurants are enjoying a resurgence in popularity. Estate agents report large numbers of people who fled London now wanting to return. A good time, I thought, to take a look at that other cataclysmic event which should have ‘done for’ London… but didn’t.

Bubonic plague was present in this country throughout the 14^th -17^th centuries with at least 12 serious outbreaks and many more minor ones between 1094 and 1665. The 14^th century brought a particularly virulent outbreak of the disease. Rumours emerged in 1346 of a disease that had broken out in Asia, killing thousands of people. They called it the ‘Great Pestilence’, we now call it the Black Death, a name originally coined due to the way in which corpses became badly discoloured after death. It finally reached London via the wool trade at the end of 1348. Over the next 18 months, it killed around half the population of England and an even higher percentage of Londoners – 30,000 lives. Graveyards filled up and two emergency cemeteries had to be opened. Unlike in later outbreaks, there was no mass flight from plague at this time as towns and cities outside London were equally affected.

Rattus rattus

 

There were six further outbreaks in the 14^th century and, though the population took 150 years to recover, by 1660 it stood at around half a million, mainly accounted for by an influx of migrants from poorer rural areas of the country. But then in the 17^th century London suffered its greatest onslaught from the plague. It killed over 30,000 Londoners in 1603 and 40,000 in 1625. But the worst (and last) outbreak happened in 1665 and killed over 80,000 citizens.

Distribution of plague cases

A disease of the black rat (Rattus rattus), the ‘Great Plague’, as it became known, was transmitted between rats by fleas and infected humans by means of flea bites, an open wound making contact with plague-infected material, or infected breath. It was not, as was thought at the time, attributable to noxious vapours, divine retribution or misalignment of the planets. The disease incubated for 2-6 days, then flu-like symptoms developed plus discomfort in the groin and under the arms. Then buboes appeared and a fever. Death followed in 2-3 days, later within just hours.

It started in St Giles, a notorious slum. Other plague-ridden settlements included Holborn, Shoreditch, Finsbury, Whitechapel and Southwark – all squalid areas outside the City. It started slowly until June brought a heatwave and numbers infected rocketed.

 

The official response was slow to get going. The Lord Mayor ordered all lodgers and visitors to leave the City. All dogs and cats in the city were culled as they were thought to be spreaders. Even if only one person showed symptoms, the entire family were confined to the house for forty days. This inevitably meant that the disease spread to all members of that household. Watchmen kept guard outside. A red cross with the words ‘Lord Have Mercy On Us’ was daubed on the door. Other attempts to stop contagion include the construction of  ‘pest-houses’ in fields and open spaces e.g. at Finsbury.

Pest-house, Finsbury Fields

Some people, naturally, decided to flee. Many took to living on boats moored mid-river, but those with greater means left the city altogether. Their number included doctors, clergymen, lawyers… and the King and his entire court. The monarch returned in December of 1665 but Parliament only reconvened the following spring.

For those with nowhere to go, London was transformed into a place of ‘dismal solitude’. According to one eye witness: “every day looks with the face of the sabbath-day… shops shut, people rare, very few places to walk about insomuch that the grass begins to spring up in some places… no rattling coaches, no prancing horses, no calling customers, no offering wares, no London cries…”

Plague broadsheet by John Dunstall

Plague handbell

Despite the various measures that people took to prevent being infected - carrying branches  of rue and wormwood, sucking lozenges, drinking tinctures, wearing amulets and pomanders and smoking tobacco (children too!) to protect themselves from infection, the disease marched on. Such was its terrifying impact, Thomas Vincent wrote: “[death rode] triumphantly on his pale horse through our streets and breaks into every house almost where any inhabitants are to be found”.

The diarist Samuel Pepys, who stayed in London throughout the epidemic, wrote in early September: “I have stayed in the City till above 7,000 died in one week, and of them about 6,000 of the plague, and little noise heard day or night but the tolling of bells".

"Bring out your dead!"

Large communal graves lined with quicklime were dug outside the city as the churchyards were full up. There was a constant backlog of corpses waiting to be buried. Statistics on deaths are left to us in the form of what were known as Bills of Mortality, drawn up by clerks of city’s 130 parishes. These make grim reading, not just for the information on plague fatalities but as an insight into the myriad other dreadful illnesses – now eminently treatable – that people could lose their lives to.  

Bill of Mortality 1664

Bill of Mortality 1665

 

By late summer 1665, the epidemic had peaked, with 7,165 fatalities in the worst week. In total 68,000 deaths are attributed to the plague in the Bills, but modern historians think the number is probably nearer 80,000, i.e. one in six of London's population.

 

Yet despite the ravages of the plague, London continued  to thrive and the population just 30 years later had reached an incredible half a million. Despite the inevitable downsides of poverty, overcrowding and disease, London remained – and remains – a draw for people looking for opportunities of all kinds.

 

 

 

References:

The Times History of London ed. Hugh Clout

Article: Social Capital: Covid has changed London for the better Richard Florida (Spectator 2 April 2022)

The Book of London ed. Michael Leapman (1989)

London: The Illustrated History Cathy Ross & John Clark (2008)

London Through the Ages Harold Bagus (1982)

London: a Social History Roy Porter (1994)

 

 Eric Gill in London 

Meaning for a while to write about Eric Gill and his work in London, I was spurred on to finally get on and finish this post by reports in the press a few weeks ago of a protester taking an axe to ‘offending’ sculptures at the BBC headquarters in Marylebone. Gill the man’s reputation was actually shredded long before the current hoo-ha, but his work is always worth a closer look.

Eric Gill 1882-1940

Much has been written about Eric Gill’s deviant private life, his aberrant sexual behaviour (including incest with his own daughters and possibly the dog too), but there is no denying that he was a consummate letter-carver, draughtsman and decorative artist, and a key figure in the Arts & Crafts movement.   

Gill started out training as an architect, coming to London for that purpose in 1900, but was soon frustrated and so began evening classes in stonemasonry and later calligraphy, enrolling on a course at the Central School of Arts and Crafts run by Edward Johnston, creator of the London Underground typeface and later a strong influence on Gill.  During 1903, Gill gave up architecture completely to become a calligrapher, letter-cutter and monumental mason. WH Smith & Son employed him to paint the lettering on the fascias of several of their bookshops, including their Paris store.

Late in 1909 Gill decided to become a sculptor. He collaborated often with Jacob Epstein, generally acknowledged now to be much the more skilled at this art. Early in 1910 the pair discussed with other artists, including Augustus John and Ambrose McEvoy, the formation of a quasi-religious brotherhood uniting artists, craft workers and priests.

By 1912, Gill's main source of income was tombstone inscriptions. He had also carved a number of Madonna figures and was widely, wrongly, assumed to be a Catholic artist. As such he was invited to an exhibition in Brussels of Catholic art and, on route, stayed for some days at the Benedictine monastery near Leuven. Gill's experiences at Leuven, seeing the monks at prayer and hearing plainsong for the first time convinced him to become a Roman Catholic and he and his wife were received into the Catholic Church. (He had married Ethel Hester Moore in 1904 and they would eventually have three daughters - Elizabeth, Petra, and Joanna - and foster a son, Gordian).

By the 1930s, Eric Gill was much lauded and the RSA made him a Royal Designer for Industry, the highest accolade for British designers - still awarded annually today. He went on to become a founder member of the RSA's Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry when it was established in 1938. In April 1937, Gill was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Academy.

Station 9 Westminster Cathedral

Gill sealed his reputation early with marblework and bas-reliefs in Westminster Cathedral depicting the 14 Stations of the Cross. Gill was just thirty-two when in April 1914 he produced his design (now in the British Museum) for the Stations. This design was approved the following month. The fourteen panels, each 5ft 8in square, were to be carved in low relief in Hopton Wood limestone for the very low price of £765. At this time Gill was almost unknown as a sculptor and extremely anxious to get such an important commission - hence the price. Once commissioned he set to work at once, producing the Tenth Station (Christ is stripped of his garments), for which he used himself as a model, and the Second (Christ receives the Cross) by November 1914. Then followed the Thirteenth (Christ is taken down from the Cross) and the First (Christ is condemned to death) by June 1915, the panels being carved in the studio with the final touches being added by Gill in the cathedral.

By June 1915 the first four Stations were on view and almost immediately provoked widespread comment, described on the one hand as 'grotesque and undevotional', ‘hideous, primitive and pagan’. On the other hand they were seen as 'dignified in conception, superb in outline and restrained in feeling' and as showing 'admirable breadth and simplicity of design'.

 

Moorfields Hospital entrance

Other famous Gill creations across London include this small sculpture which stands over the entrance to the 1933 extension to the famous Moorfields Eye Hospital in Finsbury. It represents the story of the blind man Bartimaeus, who was begging by the side of the road from Jericho as Jesus passed by. In the sculpture, Jesus stands over Bartimaeus with his fingers touching his eyes. In the Gospel story, he asks "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?", to which the blind man said "Domine, ut videam (Lord, that I might receive my sight)."

 

 

Another of my favourite Gill works (from 1937) is the set of seven bas-reliefs decorating the Portland stone facade of the People’s Palace in Mile End (now the Great Hall of Queen Mary University of London). Two are above the doorways, each showing a languid figure representing Recreation, and five others representing Drama, Music, Fellowship, Dance and Sport.

 

People's Palace, Mile End

But probably the best-known Gill sculptures are those found at these last two sites. 

55 Broadway

 55 Broadway, St James’s  is the historic headquarters of London   Underground, built between 1927 and 1929 by Charles Holden and   encompassing St. James’s Park station. The building features a   series of facade sculptures by leading artists of the day. Gill   contributed three of the eight reliefs on the theme of winds.

The North Wind

 

  

And so to the subject of recent controversy, Gill’s very prominent sculptures on BBC Broadcasting House in

55 Broadway

Marylebone. The central work over the building’s front entrance portrays a 10ft tall, long-bearded Prospero, standing atop a globe and in the process of sending the spirit Ariel out into the world (hence the link with broadcasting). Ariel’s nudity immediately provoked comment and the local MP, who lived opposite, found the sculpture “objectionable to public morals and decency”. In response, Lord Reith is said to have ordered Gill to ‘amend’ his work, especially the penis.

Prospero and Ariel

The Sower

Inside the BBC building at the main reception there is a further Gill work: The Sower, a man broadcasting seed. The statue, made of English marble (Hopton Wood Stone) stands more than 2.6 metres tall and occupies a niche by the doors leading to the artists' lobby and studios.

 

 

In addition to his sculptural work, Eric Gill was also a consummate typographer.  One of his first independent lettering projects was creating an alphabet for WH Smith’s sign painters. In 1927-30 he was commissioned by the typographer Morison to design the Gill Sans typeface. In 1925, he designed the Perpetua , with the uppercase based upon monumental Roman inscriptions, and in 1930-31 he created Joanna which he used to hand-set his classic book ‘An Essay on Typography’.

 

Now one of the most widely used British typefaces, Gill Sans was used in the classic design system of Penguin Books and by the London and North Eastern Railway and later British Railways, with many additional styles created by Monotype both during and after Gill's lifetime. In the 1990s, the BBC adopted Gill Sans for its wordmark and many of its on-screen television graphics.

References:

The London Encyclopedia Ben Weinreb et al. (2008)

Hidden Treasures of London Michael McNay (2015)

Website: https://www.westminstercathedral.org.uk/tour_stations.php

Website: https://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/broadway-house/

 

 

 

 St Bartholomew the Great

Visited briefly a few years back I decided to call in to St Bartholomew’s again while on a recent walk around Smithfield. I remember it then as a dark, rather forbidding place but this time, there for a lunchtime concert, my eyes had time to adjust and I was able to appreciate the magnificent structure and decorative features of this amazingly atmospheric and very historic place of worship.

The Grade I-listed Church of St Bartholomew the Great close to Smithfield market has been around for nearly 900 years. Built in Romanesque style it is London’s oldest parish church, built when William the Conqueror’s son was King of England.

Entrance to St Bart's-the-Great

Tomb of Rahere

The founder, Rahere, had been a jester at the court of Henry I before becoming a monk. While on a pilgrimage in Rome he fell seriously ill and had a vision of St Bartholomew telling him to build a church, a priory and a hospital back in London. 

In 1122, Henry I granted a charter giving permission to build on “Smooth Field”, then an area used for a cattle market, jousting and public executions, and the priory and hospital were completed in 1123. Rahere’s tomb from 1405 is in a gothic style which contrasts with the Romanesque main body of the church.

The medieval priory was run by Augustinian “black” canons (so-called because of their black robes) and their income came from altar offerings and tolls from the famous Bartholomew Fair. The Hospital of St Bartholomew, founded at the same time as the church,  cared for the sick but also for orphans, the poor and the homeless.

The Reformation brought the surrender of the priory to King Henry VIII in 1539. The west front, the chapels on the north side of the quire and the entire north transept were torn down and the Lady Chapel sold off for commercial or residential use. (Interestingly, during the 18^th century, these included a printer’s workshop and it was here that Benjamin Franklin was employed as an apprentice in 1725 while living in nearby Little Britain). The nave was also demolished and the space that it had occupied was filled in to create a burial ground. Without a nave, the heart of St Bartholomew’s today is the Quire – the choir of the original monastery where the canons would gather every day to sing the offices and celebrate Mass. It is worth noting that the church’s interior today is much darker than it would have been in medieval times since the rebuilding of the truncated end of the building removed the big windows that had provided light.

Dilapidated church in 1822

 

Unfortunately, the church underwent considerable decay in subsequent centuries until this decline was reversed under the architect Sir Aston Webb from 1884 to 1921, his work including rebuilding the north and south transepts, adding a west porch and reinstating the Lady Chapel.

Prior Bolton's oriel window

The interior of the church today has many interesting features. The internal oriel window overlooking the quire dates from 1515 and is the last surviving part of the lodgings built by the penultimate Prior, William Bolton. The lodgings were built adjacent to the south wall of the church taking over a portion of the south triforium. The window allowed him and is household to watch services below from the comfort of his home. At the bottom of the window is a ‘rebus’ showing a crossbow bolt going through a barrel (or ‘tun’), a visible pun on the name Bolton.

The medieval font

The octagonal font dates from 1405 and is believed to be one of only two pre-Reformation fonts in London (the other being St Dunstan’s in Stepney). The satirist and painter William Hogarth was born in Bartholomew Close and baptised in the font in November 1697.

 

The church’s tower dates from 1628 and stands 75 feet high. It has a set of 5 pre-Reformation bells from the former priory, believed to have been cast as early as 1510, and these are still in use today.

The gateway arch was the original southern entrance to the nave of the church. The gatehouse itself dates from 1595, its Tudor timbers only revealed following damage caused by a Zeppelin bomb in 1916. It was fully restored in 1932.

 

The Golden Boy at Pye Corner

St Bartholomew's the Great has survived much over the centuries: the ravages of the Reformation period, the Great Fire of London (which stopped at nearby Giltspur Street, a fact commemorated by the Golden Boy statue), WW1 Zeppelin raids and the bombing of WWII. It is one of very few remaining Norman churches in London and is closely linked to 8 livery companies of the city, several with roots in the Middle Ages (the Butchers' Company, Founders' Company, Fletchers' Company, and the Haberdashers' Company) and some more modern ones: the Information Technologists Company, the Tax Advisors' Company, the Guild of Public Relations Practitioners, and the Hackney Carriage Drivers' Company!

Four Weddings...

St Bartholomew’s is known to many outside London as the backdrop to a number of films, including Four Weddings and A Funeral, Shakespeare in Love and The Other Boleyn Girl.

 

For a short tour see Joolz Guides’ excellent video entitled ‘London’s Most Splendid Churches’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCoV0E969_4&ab_channel=JoolzGuides-LondonHistoryWalks-TravelFilms

 

 

Working Men’s College

A place I’ve walked/driven past a few times over the years, the imposing red-brick Edwardian building in Crowndale Road, close to Mornington Crescent, is the Working Mens’ College -  the oldest surviving adult education institute in Europe.

Founded in 1854, the College was associated with the Cooperative Movement and the Christian

WMC, Crowndale Rd, Camden

Socialists. Its purpose: to provide a liberal education for Victorian skilled artisans. Early supporters of both this and the Working Women’s College, (founded in 1864 and merged with WMC in 1967) included John Stuart Mill, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, Ford Maddox Brown, Walter de la Mare and Octavia Hill. 

Great Ormond St premises

Original entrance

The College’s original premises was in Red Lion Square, later moving to Great Ormond Street. The current building, designed by WD Caroe in a mix of Classic and Arts & Crafts styles, opened in 1905 and was the first purpose-built premises for the study of non-vocational subjects. The original main entrance is a splendid Wren-style stone portal, but today access is through a new main entrance created in 2012.

The physical structure of the new building was designed to reflect that found within university colleges, with large common spaces, a library, Common Room, Hall, and Museum. There was no separate staff room. There were originally two Common Rooms – the current one features plaster ceiling mouldings and Georgian fireplaces brought from the Great Ormond St building. Specialist rooms such as science labs, art and craft studios, lecture theatre and a gymnasium were added in the 1930s, reflecting a desire to provide a broader educational experience.

WMC library

 The Library, with its attractive barrel-vaulted             ceiling, is modelled on Wren’s library at Trinity   College, Cambridge, where Caroe was an   undergraduate. 

Ruskin Art Room

The Ruskin Art Room, a sizeable light-flooded space with a high curved ceiling and huge semi-circular east window, is named after the writer and art critic John Ruskin who taught at the college.

Grade II-listed since the 1960s, today’s WMC is a flourishing centre of educational and leisure classes for men and women. Both this building and another WMC centre in nearby Kentish Town serve the needs of adults needing to achieve formal qualifications to find work, those who wish to learn for personal enjoyment and wellbeing, and those who have retired from full-time work but who wish to remain active and involved in the local community. It provides daytime, evening, weekend, short and year-long courses in art, applied arts, humanities, languages, computing and basic education.

In its 2013 Ofsted inspection, WMC was rated as "outstanding”, the first College in London to be rated so highly. 

References:

WMC website: https://www.wmcollege.ac.uk/                                                                                                                          Photo of Great Ormond St premises courtesy of the author - Davies, J. Llewelyn (1904) The Working Men’s College 1854-1904 Macmillan and co. P. 280, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15283720