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Goldman Sachs and the medieval monks

February 14th, 2018

Vic Keegan

The Goldman Sachs building, Farringdon Street

GOLDMAN SACHS, the seriously rich US finance group, has just built a huge £1 bn office block on Farringdon Street just south of Holborn Viaduct. What the Goldmen and Goldwomen may not know is that this temple to Mammon has been constructed on almost exactly the same site where the mendicant Dominican monks – or Black Friars – built their first London monastery in 1224. They later (in 1278) moved down the road to a space within the City boundaries by today’s Blackfriars station.

It is tempting to contrast the opulent lifestyle of the Goldman Sachs toffs with the sombre routine of the Dominican monks begging in the streets – but wait. Life is not that simple.

Piers Plowman, the 14th century poet from Malvern, railed against the lifestyle of the Blackfriars monks accusing them of debauchery and luxurious living.

Here’s a sample:

“They live more in lechery and lying than pursuing any good life; instead, they lurk in their cells and win worldly wealth and waste it on sin, wickedness they would not practice if they knew their Creed or believed in Christ.”

Goldman Sachs for their part have not always lived the high life. They have also been mendicants on a scale the Blackfriars monks could only dream about.

In October 2008 during the sub-prime financial crisis amid fears that the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros could trigger a global collapse Goldman received a $10 billion boost (in preferred stock) from the US Treasury. In other words a mega bailout. Goodness knows what the monks of Blackfriars would have done with money like that.

Like the monastery, the Goldman Sachs building is bounded on the east by Shoe Lane, on the south by Stonecutter Street and on the east by Farringdon Street. The only difference is that the monastery actually extended further northwards beyond Plumtree Court to under what is now Holborn Viaduct.

Before Goldman Sachs came along the site in recent times housed a BT telephone exchange with a lovely ceramic mural outside (since removed to the Barbican). Before that it was a street market with a dodgy reputation for watercress. Life goes on.

The statue on the right is of Agriculture on Holborn Viaduct.

The church that marks the birth of augmented reality

November 18th, 2017

Vic Keegan

The world’s first panorama
LEICESTER SQUARE is not famed for its churches. An exception is Notre Dame de France. Built on the site of the London pad of the Earl of Leicester in the 1630s, it was later the location of the world’s first 360 degree Panorama, the immersive reality of its day. It is in Leicester Street, a lane linking the square with Chinatown. Inside there is a lovely triptych (see below) by the cultural polymath Jean Cocteau barely known to Londoners but more than worth the visit in its own right. It depicts the Annunciation, the Crucifixion and the Assumption in a hauntingly beautiful way. It is the only church that Cocteau was involved with apart from the chapel at Villefranche sur Mer near Nice.
This is a working church – which maintains Christian traditions by allowing rough sleepers to slumber on the pews during the day – but these are not the only reasons why it is worth a visit.
This is the site of the world’s first “panorama”. Indeed the word – from the Greek “pan” (all) and “horama” (view) – was coined especially for it.
Built here by Robert Barker in 1793, it was the first panorama in the world and Barker made a fortune out of charging punters three shillings a visit for a 360 degree immersive experience spanning 250 square metres, the augmented reality of its day. Barker employed cunning uses of perspective to enhance the experience which had to be viewed on the same level so straight lines did not become distorted when looking down. A domed skylight enhanced the experience.
One of his most successful panoramas was a view of London taken from the roof of the Albion Mill in Lambeth.
Visitors moved from one panorama to another up stairs and through a darkened passageway to enhance the experience. They could buy a series of six prints of each panorama as a souvenir – which must be one of the earliest examples of merchandising.
Barker’s invention spawned well over 100 imitations around the world. Every country wanted one.
During the 1860s the Panorama was converted into a church to serve Soho’s growing population of French Catholics. It was designed by a French architect within the circular shell of Barker’s panorama.

The Cocteau mural
The church was bombed during the Second World War and though extensively rebuilt the domed contours of the original building are still apparent. Doubtless there will one day be an app that you can point at the building to view it as it was – augmented reality’s tribute to itself.

The dome

Four new wineries for central London

October 9th, 2017

Vic Keegan

Sergio Verrillo (above), an American from Connecticut, prepares to taste the first draft of freshly barrelled Chardonnay from his new winery under a railway arch in Battersea. His Blackbook is the third winery to open in central London recently as the capital experiences a mini renaissance of one of the worlds oldest professions. A fourth one, Vagabond, is opening imminently opposite the west wall of Giles Gilbert Scott’s Battersea Power Station barely a mile as the crow flies from Blackbook.

Vagabond

Two others – London Cru in West Brompton and Renegade in Bethnal Green are in full swing.

They are all winemakers and they need grapes. All of them use at least some sourced from the UK – in Sergio’s case they all come from Essex – but none thus far from London which has two sizeable (though still small) sources of grapes. The more important is Forty Hall, a ten acre community vineyard in Enfield which was on a roll until two unexpected events happened this year – a late Spring frost and marauding parakeets – which have made a big dent in output though it won’t affect latest releases including a large batch of their 2015 London Sparkling available later this month.

The other source of London grapes, Chateau Tooting, has had a record year with enough fruit to make well over 1000 bottles. Chateau Tooting gathers grapes from gardens and allotments in London which were collected from a central point at the end of September and dispatched to a professional wine maker to produce a surprisingly good rosé.

Sergio Verrillo is in a different league. He expects to produce nearly 4,000 bottles this year with hopes to triple that next year en route to around the 40,000 bottles needed to be viable in the long term. Sergio, who has a background as a sommelier, trained at Britain’s wine college, Plumpton and has worked in vineyards From California to New Zealand to gain experience. He is clearly deadly serious about what he does and has active plans to plant his own vineyard probably in Kent to become the first vertically integrated outfit in London producing wine from his own grapes.

Originally, he had hoped to make sparkling wine as well but the lack of suitable fruit means he will just be producing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir this year.

At first he will be selling to the trade and to individual customers including his growing contacts on social media. He also has hopes to make the winery into a destination for tasting as Renegade has done. Inner city wineries are still a novelty but Sergio points out that there are well over 200 urban wineries in the world. No swinging city should be without one.

This article also appears on my UK wine blog

Victorkeegan.com

Walking the island of London

September 22nd, 2017

Vic Keegan

The towpath on the way to Brentford

At 11 am on August 1, 1820 something unusual happened when the Regent’s Canal was opened making it possible to travel by boat from Limehouse in the east to Brentford in the west. Suddenly London (well, north of the Thames) technically became an island surrounded by water.

It is not the first time this has happened. The centre of London was an island for hundreds of years when first a monastery, then an Abbey then a royal palace and then Parliament were all built on Thorney Island, the landmass formed by the convergence of the Tyburn river with the Thames at Westminster.

Sadly, the pristine path of the Tyburn has long since been lost. The river still rises in the hills of Hampstead but its waters soon become overwhelmed by less salubrious ourflows from Sir Joseph Bazelgette’s amazing sewer system. However, one section of it still meanders, albeit mixed with sewer water, under The Green Park and the Victoria Palace Theatre and under Vauxhall Bridge Road until it exits a few hundred yards east of Vauxhall Bridge. The other leg turns east around Buckingham Palace towards Thorney Island but is lost amid the sewage.

Thorney Island that was

You can’t amble around Thorney Island anymore but it is possible to walk the Regent’s canal along the towpath which I did recently, a long, tranquil meander along parts of London you would not normally encounter – through the bustling waterside cafés and pubs of Islington, Camden and Paddington to a prolonged country walk where the Regent’s Canal merges with the Grand Union and eventually joins the Brent which empties itself into the Thames at Brentford. For most of the journey it is difficult to believe you are still in one of the most populated places in Europe.

In earlier blogs I have pointed out that it is possible to walk from Trafalgar Square – the acknowledged centre of London – to Islington without actually crossing a road by walking by the Thames path to Limehouse and then using the towpath of the Regent’s canal to get to Islington. It is only because the tunnel which channels the Regent’s Canal under the centre of Islington has no towpath that it is not possible to walk further. Local residents objected to a towpath under the bridge claiming it would have provided an escape route for robbers. Had there been one under the tunnel it would have been possible to walk from Trafalgar Square to Brentford without crossing a road and, who knows, if one turns right at the junction of the Regent’s with the Grand Union maybe as far as Birmingham.

I know of no other capital city where it is possible to walk so far without crossing a road. Transport for London has a statutory duty to promote walking but you seldom if ever hear of plans to build walkways in central London as they have done in New York and Chicago. Maybe we should make a start by utilising the money saved from not building the Garden Bridge.

The most important room in our history

August 15th, 2017

Vic Keegan

The Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, arguably, is the most important small building in the country. It is interesting enough in its own right before looking at what happened later. It was built by Henry 111 in the mid 1250s as place where the monks could meet every day to read a "chapter" from the rule of St Benedict before discussing what was to happen during the rest of the day. It was octagonal in shape replacing an earlier round chapter house constructed by Edward the Confessor in 1050 and has been described by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott as "a structure perfect in itself".
Its sublimity still shines through even though the wall paintings and floor tiles (dating back to the 1250s) have faded and the original stained glass windows were replaced as part of Victorian improvements. The door on the south side before you enter is the oldest in Britain dating back before 1066 to the time of the Confessor. The Chapter House was always part of the Abbey but located a short distance away. This has the advantage today that you can visit it via the cloisters without having to pay the £18+ entrance fee to the Abbey proper (entry via Dean's Yard).
The chapter house is a thing of beauty in itself but also the birthplace of two great British institutions. In the late 1370s Henry 111 summoned and nobles and gentry from the country to this room to discuss thorny questions such as the raising of taxes which until then had been the sole right of the King. They continued to meet there or in the monks's refectory as an embryonic House of Commons until 1547 when Edward V1 moved them across the road to St Stephen's Chapel. As Dean Stanley observed of the Chapter House "almost all the struggles for liberty against the Crown must have taken place within these walls".

When the Commons moved out the space vacated started to be filled with State records and documents. During the reign of James 1 papers relating to the King's Bench and the Common Pleas were stored there, a practice that carried on until the end of the 1850s. During this period they became a treasure trove of artefacts of English history including the Domesday Book. These documents formed the core of the Public Records Office until it morphed into the National Archives at Kew. It is really quite extraordinary that so small a room as the Chapter House has so much history crammed into it. And it is still there.

A real hidden gem – Henry V111’s wine cellar

July 11th, 2017

Vic Keegan

THE PHRASE “hidden gem” is the most overused way of describing curious places in London, not least by me. But in the case of the wine cellar constructed by Cardinal Wolsey – and later appropriated by Henry V111 when the Cardinal failed to get him a divorce from Catherine of Aragon – it is an understatement. It is hidden because it is concealed deep within the bowels of the huge Ministry of Defence building which straddles the east side of Whitehall needing special permission and tough security procedures to view. And it is a gem because, wow, it is the last remaining intact piece of Henry V111’s Palace of Westminster, which was once bigger – and certainly uglier – than Louis XIV’s Versailles. It was the palace of English monarchs for 200 years.
What struck me after negotiating a series of stairways was not just the unexpectedly large size of the cellar itself but the way it is presented. It is designed in museum style, with large reproductions of paintings and maps and numerous boards along the outside walls. This explains the historical background to it as you walk around the outside of a mausoleum-style structure (see, below) that has encased the cellar since it was moved sideways (10 feet to the west) in its entirety and lowered almost 19 feet during the reconstruction of the building in the 1940s. This was needed to prevent it protruding 30 feet into Horse Guards Avenue. It was an impressive bit of engineering for the time. It took 90 men eighteen months according to a parliamentary answer at the time (though the current brochure says it was completed within three months). It is a sad fact that the wine cellar was only saved because of a public outcry when the architect’s plans were revealed leading people to believe that it would be demolished.
Entering the wine cellar itself really is like falling into a time capsule. In the depths of a building where battles are planned and nuclear tactics discussed is one of the last remains of Tudor London just as it was almost 500 years ago bar a bit of restoration including replacement stones, a lick of white paint on the walls and some more recent wine barrels at each end to recreate part of the atmosphere of a bygone age. There is a stark beauty to the columns and the vaulted ceiling made of sculptured bricks which come together in “V” shapes.

Map showing proximity of the wine cellar to the Great Hall

There is bit of unfinished business. The wine cellar was very close to the Great Hall of Wolsey’s Palace where in later years some of Shakespeare’s plays were produced. I read somewhere that part of the wall of the hall can still be seen. Does anyone know?
There has been speculation about what sort of wines were stored here to slate the Cardinal’s thirst. England – and London – were not short of vineyards in those days but it is presumed that Tudor snobbery – oops, sorry, taste – would have ensured that most of the wines would have come from France including, possibly, from Champagne (which in those days was a still white wine). It is a sad fact that because of its location and the security involved it is unlikely ever to be opened to the public – unless of course, the Government sells the building off to a hotel group for re-development. On recent trends, I wouldn’t bet against that in the long term!
A memorable experience and I am most grateful to Cdr John Aitken for showing me around.

Part of the casing for the wine cellar

London is made of poems

July 4th, 2017

Vic Keegan

I have just published – OK self-published – my first book about London. All done in poems, over 80 of them.I was going to write about the process but @DaveHill kindly offered me a guest slot on his excellent London blog. You don’t say No to Dave!
Instead here are a few random samples to give an idea of what it is all about.
Poems are a hugely flexible medium in terms of shape, length and subject matter even though I seem to have become ensnared by rhyming couplets (blame primary school). I usually try to spend 10 minutes or so first thing in the morning waiting for the muse to move. I respond best to suggested subjects and deadlines. Any offers?

80 poems about the world’s most exciting city

Plaque on the wall

It’s not a column, nor statue, it’s true
It could be grey but it’s usually blue,
It’s just a plaque on an outside wall.
You could fix your own on a wall in the hall.
But sadly it won’t be the same you see,
For it needs the seal of the right committee
Which thinks you are someone above the norm,
Whose name on a plaque won’t generate scorn.
But there’s another reason you should dread
For to get a plaque you have to be dead.
So, until that happens go forth, walk tall
Rejoice that there’s no writing on the wall.

Necropolis Railway

The Necropolis Railway at Waterloo
Conveyed dead people no matter who
From a station in London’s centre, no joking
To a fresh built city for the dead in Woking
No probs as long as you paid for a pass
Which could be first, second, or even third class
As in life, so in death, you must know your place
As well as being in a state of grace.

The most famous customer so history tells
Was Communist founder Frederick Engels
Whose principles should have – oh let it pass
What does it matter if he travelled first class
You don’t want dead bodies to lose any face
When you’re gone, class distinction leaves no trace.

On arrival at Brookwood, there’s a religious test
One station for Protestants and a second for the rest
(Remember – even when you bury your dead,
There’s a risk that a religious virus could spread)
So, let’s give thanks to the railway of Necropolis
For helping God sort bodies before the Apocalypse.

I remember London

I was born in low rise London
Which has now all but gone
In those balmy days buildings knew their place
Before planning became an endless race
They were intended to be no more,
Than the height of the buildings right next door.
Centre Point produced the first pain
We never thought they’d do it again
Monstrously, it was built a la mode
Destroying the lines of Tottenham Court Road
Built to appease the emerging Gods fiscal
It became not a one-off but a starting pistol
For a race to the sky by developers all
Determined to profit from urban sprawl
Of all the buildings in London the most tall
For centuries was the Fishmongers Hall
Built close by London Bridge to the north
But look now at the concrete that has poured forth
Fishmongers’ Hall is now a mere mound
Dwarfed by giant new buildings all around
Have we nothing to show more fair to our Creator
Than a Gherkin, a Walkie Talkie and a Cheese Grater?

Etiquette on the Tube
A young woman stood up without a sound
In a crowded carriage on the Underground
I thought she was leaving at the next station
Till she looked at me puzzled for a short duration
Then smiled and pointed at her vacant seat
I knew I should have conceded defeat
She was rightly doing what she’d been told
Though she was telling me I was too old
To be left to stand on my own two feet
I should have said Yes and embraced defeat

But too quickly I thanked her and politely said No
Not thinking that this might be such a blow
She may never do such a good turn again
I tried to explain but it was all in vain
She had sunk back into her book
Not deigning to give me another look
Her mum had told her to help the elderly
But that training had failed for all to see
So an old man could keep his punctured pride
And try to keep standing for the rest of the ride.

To buy on Kindle at £3.99(download) or £5 (paperback)

New gardens for old – meet the new Garden Museum in Lambeth

May 29th, 2017

Vic Keegan

The new garden (above) and the old one (below)

The newly revamped Garden Museum, next door to Lambeth Palace, is a triumph of professionalism over history and intimacy. It used to be my favourite place for lunch in the whole of London. You could sit at tables in the garden with overhanging trees, the graves of the Tradescants and Captain Bligh on one side and a couple of banana trees and a rosemary tree on the other, the nearest place to Eden in the metropolis.

Now it has yielded to modernity but anyone who didn’t know what preceded it will doubtless be very impressed. Gone are the exotic trees and the café now occupies a sealed off area on the far side. But in their place is a finely conceived sculptural space which is likely to attract far more tourists. The inside of St Mary’s church, now given over to museum space, is for sure, a huge improvement on the impertinent wood structures which dominated the walls before the changes.

But it is hard for anyone who knew it before to condone the destruction of what was a magical garden in the middle of London. Not something you would have expected an organisation dedicated to the history of gardens to have done. As Patrick Hutber once said, progress brings deterioration.

Forget craft beer – meet London’s new wineries

April 5th, 2017

Vic Keegan

Warwick Smith (left) and winemaker, Josh in their Bethnal Green winery

IF YOU care to walk along a down-at-heel alleyway cluttered with second hand furniture barely 30 seconds from Bethnal Green Tube station in East London you will stumble across a spanking new space under a Network Rail arch. Welcome, Renegade London Wine, the latest in what is beginning to look like a mini boom of wine makers in London. Forget craft beer, artisan wine is the new red. London Cru started it in 2013 in a winery close to West Brompton underground station and is still going strong. Now three others are joining the fray. Vagabond Wines which serves wine by the glass (with a choice of 140 varieties in its newly opened Victoria branch) will soon launch a new winery in the Nine Elms complex by Battersea Power Station complete with visitor centre. Meanwhile Sergio Verrillo, an American from Connecticut is opening yet another one in the Queenstown, Battersea area later this year in time for the harvest. All of them will be processing at least some UK wines.
Making wine in capital cities where rents are often sky high is not quite so barmy as it sounds. There are reckoned to be over 300 urban wineries around the world including successful ones in New York with sampling and eating facilities attached.
Warwick Smith, who runs Renegade with the winemaker, Josh Hammond is hoping to attract cult customers if all goes well by offering wine by the glass and possibly snacks in the winery itself as well as seeking online sales and getting into restaurants. An ex City asset manager he gave me a sample of several of this year’s newly labelled wines yesterday including Bacchus (fast becoming the flagship English still wine) Sauvignon Blanc from France and Pinot Noir from Italy. I was impressed. They have made 7,500 bottles this year from English grapes from Suffolk and Herefordshire plus fruit from France and Italy. Bizarrely – like London Cru – they are not allowed to call their Chardonnay “Chardonnay” even though it is from a well respected Italian vineyard because of arcane EU rules about certification. They know they will have to sell a lot more that 7,500 to turn a profit but they seem very focussed to do that. They are also believed to be making a batch of sparkling wine from English grapes but they are a bit coy on the subject. As I was leaving Josh showed me a few Chardonnay cuttings which he is about to plant in a wooden container to catch the afternoon sun outside. Maybe one day they will make a little wine from their own grapes. You can follow them on (hash)renegadelondonwine or instagram.

Gavin Monery, winemaker at London Cru

London Cru, which pioneered the idea of an urban vineyard in London in 2013, produced an impressive 24,000 bottles of English and Continental wines last year of which about 60 per cent goes to the trade (mainly restaurants) and the rest directly to consumers especially at tasting events in the winery. It has built up a good reputation for quality and counts French sommeliers amongst its customers. Winemaker Gavin Monery reckons that London could support lots more urban wineries – probably with a restaurant or café attached as Vagabond is doing at Nine Elms – but he admits high rents are a problem. Both London Cru and Renegade admit they will have to sell a lot more to achieve long term viability. Gavin says the “magic number” is 50,000.
These are the first commercial wineries in London for a very long time though exactly how long is hard to nail down. The antiquarian Thomas Pennant (1726 to 1798) observed that “The genial banks of the Thames opposite to our capital (ie in Lambeth) yield almost every species of white wine; and by a wondrous magic, Messrs. Beaufoy here pour forth the materials for the rich Frontiniac, destined to the more elegant tables, the Madeira, the Caleavella, and the Lisbon, into every part of the kingdom. . . . The foreign wines are most admirably mimicked.” It was reported that five sixths of the white wines consumed in the capital were the produce of home wine presses.
If Renegade does produce a sparkling wine then it will open a fascinating discussion about which sparkling wine is more truly “London” – that of Forty Hall (grapes grown within the London postal area but processed in Sussex) or that of Renegade (grown in the country but processed in London). Let the debate roll on.
(This blog is replicated on my English and Welsh wine blog victorkeegan.com)

How Sir Robert Cecil’s mansion became the world’s biggest hotel and then Shell Mex House

February 12th, 2017

Vic Keegan

Hotel Cecil from the Embankment, now Shell Mex House

If you walk along the Strand today in the direction of Waterloo Bridge you will probably pass by number 80 (photo below) without even noticing it. It is actually the entrance to what used to be called Shell Mex House formerly the HQ of Shell Mex and BP which is more recognisable from the Embankment end because of its Art Deco clockface, the biggest in London.

Actually it is not what it seems. It is not the entrance to Shell but the shell of a former building, the Hotel Cecil, in it’s day the biggest hotel in the world. If you enter into the courtyard and turn around it is obvious that what you are looking at is the rump of the former hotel now used as offices.

Through the entrance is a substantial portion of the old hotel

The Cecil Hotel needs a book to do it justice.If you walk through the entrance you will see a substantial portion of the Strand Facade of the former hotel.
It was built by a Victorian fraudster and Liberal MP Jabez Balfour using funds from his Liberator Building Society, the biggest in the country before it crashed in 1892, depriving thousands of small investors of their savings. Balfour absconded to Argentina where he lived for a few years before being captured but the hotel was rescued by the liquidator after a new company was formed to complete it.
It was big. The main dining room could serve 600 customers, the second one 350 and the third 200. It was a hugely popular place for dancing and eating during the roaring 20s particularly with American visitors.

Sir Robert Cecil’s mansion

It was called Hotel Cecil to preserve a link with the almost equally large building, Salisbury House, which was built on the same spot by Sir Robert Cecil Secretary to State to Elizabeth 1 and James 1. It was one of the chain of grand palaces that occupied the whole of the space between the Strand and the Thames as immortalised by the drawings of Wenceslaus Hollar the Czech engraver. It is not to be confused with another Cecil House built on the opposite side of the Strand by Sir Robert’s dad Lord Burghley which was constructed on the site of today’s Strand Palace Hotel.
The fact that these three buildings were all built on the same site on the Embankment reflects the Capital’s unending re-invention of itself. There is an enbedded link between the existing building and the hotel but it is an open question how much of the stone and bricks of Salisbury House are still extant in the walls or foundations if surrounding buildings. It is one of the features of London – helping to explain why street levels are much higher than they were in Roman times – that building materials are conveyed into London and mainly stay there.

Shell Mex House from the river on the same spot as the Hotel Cecil and Robert Cecil’s house (Photo D Jones)

This is where Spitalfields buried its dead

December 12th, 2016

Vic Keegan

charnelsmall
THE HISTORIC Charnel House in Spitalfields has been much written about by enthusiasts but rarely seen – even by people who live and work in the area. I gave up asking people where it was yesterday and, rather ironically, had to rely on SatNav to find the only medieval remains in Spitalfields, indeed in the whole of Tower Hamlets.
The reason passers-by – including yours truly in times past – miss it is that has been beautifully and cunningly preserved. There is a glass floor at street level which you wouldn’t notice unless you knew you could observe the remains underneath. To see properly you must go down stone steps and peer through glass at the bulk of the remains including a recent dark sculpture to add an extra touch of the macabre. It is a bit like looking into a medieval aquarium.
The Charnel House was at the perimeter of the very large ancient Priory of St Mary Spital (short for hospital) where they kept the bones – mainly heads and legs – of the deceased so prayers could be said for the repose of their souls. It dates from the early 1300s though the hospital – which derives from the word “hospitality” – was founded in 1197 on the site of what is believed to be a much earlier Roman cemetery.
At a time when the people of Spitalfields are resolutely fighting for the preservation of their more recent heritage the Charnel House stands as a fine reminder of how it is possible to preserve the past within the present. It is to be found under the Norman Foster building at 1, Bishops Square.
For a more detailed review with lots of pictures see the Gentle Author at http://tinyurl.com/gsx3bol

London’s Top 5 medieval buildings

November 17th, 2016

Vic Keegan

whitetower1240 ethelreda1
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OLDNESS is not what it seems. I have walked passed Westminster Abbey for decades thinking it was a bastion of medieval solidity. Not so. At least, not on the outside. Hardly any of the edifice is that old, apart from occasional bits of old stone visible near the foundations. The rest has been replaced over the centuries. The same is true of Southwark Cathedral – formerly St Mary Overie – which existed in some form or other long before old London Bridge – the one with houses on top – was built. Only the very eastern end survives in its medieval form. Likewise with Grays Inn, where Shakespeare’s troupe once performed and which occupies almost exactly the same site as Lord Grey de Wilton’s original “inn”. Nothing from its medieval hey days remains apart from a font embedded in the wall, some stained glass and recycled bricks.
westminsterhall1
So, where is medieval London? In the course of researching an iPhone app on medieval London – to join those on the right of this screen – I have been trying to sort the true medieval from the reconstructed. If I had to name a Top Five then first would be the White Tower of the Tower of London, a globally recognised icon that is much as it was – bar a few window changes by Christopher Wren – when William the Conqueror had it built in the late 11th century. Close on its heels must be Westminster Hall, built by the Conqueror’s son William Rufus with its amazing hammer beam roof – still claimed to be the biggest in the world – installed by Richard ll. When some of the beams had to be replaced a century ago the wood was taken from trees which were already growing 600 years ago in the same woodland as the original oaks. Only in England . . .
The third may be a surprise. St Ethelreda’s is the former chapel of the Bishop of Ely’s London palace in Holborn which for most of recent history has been a legal part of Cambridge, not London. It is difficult to see as you enter the approach road – though not as difficult as the Mitre inn built by Bishop Goodrich in 1546 to feed his workers. This is concealed down a nearby alleyway,which separates the church from Mammon’s Hatton Garden, the centre of the diamond industry. St Ethelreda’s is one of the very few structures in London surviving from the reign of Edward l (1274 – 1307). Nearly all of the walls and the crypt beneath where (see photo above) you can still see the original beams on the ceiling are very old. The church, almost miraculously, has survived two world wars, the Reformation and the Great Fire of London which changed direction at the last moment. Inside there is a holy calm yards from the bustling city of London. Truly a gem.
For the other two of the top five, you can take your pick. I would choose the Middle Temple Hall where Shakespeare’s players premiered Twelfth Night on February 2, 1602 before Queen Elizabeth l which still has its original walls as does much of the even more historic Temple Church nearby. But Clerkenwell has a claim also with the beautifully preserved – though heavily reconstructed – Charterhouse while the area south of Westminster Abbey has the small but wonderfully preserved Jewel Tower dating back to 1365 and, over the river, the 14th century entrance to Lambeth Palace. Any other candidates? Please email me victor.keegan@gmail.com

Lambeth – seedbed of circuses and music halls

September 21st, 2016

Vic Keegan

IF You stand at the junction of Royal Street and Upper Marsh in a forgotten backwater of Lambeth (see map below) you will be looking at the seedbed of two revolutions in entertainment, though there is nothing to show for it. Not even a single plaque. A few hundred yards to your left, roughly on the site of today’s Florence Nightingale Museum, stoood Astley’s the world’s first modern circus (photo below). The pioneering dimensions of its ring are still in use today. On your right a hundred yards away stood the Canterbury Music Hall. It was Britain’s – and maybe the world’s – first big music hall which spawned hundreds of imitators and to which can be traced the rise of today’s stand-up comics. The only reminder of it is the name of the apartment block which has taken its place, Canterbury House.

In 1849 Charles Morton opened the Canterbury Hall in an area full of gin palaces, ragged children and inebriated men. It started off in the back room of a pub. It was replaced by a larger grandiose music hall in 1856 able to take 1,500 people (and eventually double that). The 1856 theatre was built around the walls of the older version which was then demolished, reportedly, in a single weekend. Among the performers were Charlie Chaplain’s father, and numerous others including at one stage Chaplain himself. Blondin did his famous tight-rope act there. By this time it had a large entrance in Westminster Bridge Road. It also exhibited paintings and was dubbed “The Royal Academy Over the Water”. The building lasted until 1942 when it was bombed beyond restoration and demolished in 1955.

Near neighbours – Astley and Canterbury

Circuses in some form had existed for many centuries, the word itself is of Greek origin, and exhibitions of strange animals were held in ancient Egypt. But Astley’s, was the world’s first modern circus with what is now a standard circle for the ring and was born here on January 9, 1768 when Philip Astley (1742 to 1814) pioneered it as a modern arena surrounded by tiers of seats to watch trick horse riding and other acrobatic exercises, with tumblers. tight-rope walkers and clowns added later.

Astley reckoned that a diameter of 42 feet for the circus ring was needed so horses could move comfortably. Astley’s success soon spawned imitators. A rival, Charles Hughes, who had once worked with him, set up a Royal Circus a short distance from Astley’s ‘ Amphitheatre of Equestrian Arts’ in Lambeth. Hughes, who was the first to use the word “circus” in this context, took his troupe to entertain Catherine the Great in 1790 and is credited with planting the idea of circuses in Russia. Meanwhile John Rickets, another pupil of Astley, went to America and established a circus in Philadelphia. Later on, the US showman Barnum may have become more successful than Astley but there is no doubt who was the true architect of circuses. He established wooden ampitheatres around Britain and 18 in other European cities. He opened his first Paris circus in 1782 and is buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Though Astley’s circus has long since disappeared he lives on in literature having been mentioned by Jane Austen, James Joyce, Charles Dickens and Tracy Chevalier.

It is one of the attractions of London that it has so much history underground often ignored. Nevertheless, at a time when Britain’s entertainment industry is doing so well it is sad that that some of the key institutions that started it all are not better remembered.

The City office block with a Roman bath house of its own

July 25th, 2016

Vic Keegan

How underfloor heating worked

UNTIL A FEW months ago it was only possible to visit the very ordinary office block at 101 Lower Thames Street in the City on special occasions such as London’s Open Days. Now it is open at weekends with time-slots throughout the day. Not a lot of people know this yet. When I visited it yesterday I had two excellent guides all to myself. After an introductory talk they took me down a breeze-blocked stairway into what looked at first sight like a B & Q warehouse awaiting completion.

Except that this structure was actually completed around 43 AD, shortly after Boudica’s ravaging of the City. It is the spectacular site of a Roman villa complete with the remains of underfloor heating and a bath house, preserved for centuries under four metres of earth. Water on an extremely hot floor created steam fired from a wood burning stove for the equivalent of a Turkish bath. The wearing of sandals was de rigueur unless you wanted to burn your feet. Among numerous other things, I was impressed with the way a piece of modern technology – a laser light pointer – can be used to explain the contours of ancient walls highlighting details that would otherwise have been missed.

The main section of the remains was discovered by the Victorians in the 1840s when they were building the Coal Exchange, a handsome neo-classical building – and a cathartic contrast to the coal mines from which the black gold was extracted – which was demolished in 1962 despite the fierce opposition of John Betjeman and his conservationist colleagues.

Wood burning stove with shelf for wood on the right

It is not the only, or even the biggest, Roman bath in London but is, for now, the most accessible. A much bigger one is on the site of the wonderful Clearly Gardens in Queen Victoria Street, near St Paul’s Cathedral. This is an idyllic hidden garden, complete with its own vineyard. The main remains of the Roman bath now lie preserved but hidden and unaccessible under a nearby office block. But if you wander around the layers of the garden you can see memories of former times hidden among the bushes.

Other public baths have been found in Cheapside and other possible sites include Lime Street and the area around Cannon Street. It is a sobering thought that the remains of an entire city many metres beneath the ground are gradually being uneathed in London, one of the most layered cities in the world.

Tickets (£8 or £6 for concessions) can be booked via the website of the Museum of London
Follow me on @vickeegan

Graffiti Grove – drown your Brexit blues

June 30th, 2016

Vic Keegan

From the York Road end near Waterloo Station it looks like the tradesman’s entrance to Hades. Those of a nervous disposition, or suffering from Brexitphobia, may be better off using the other end of Leake Street in Lower Marsh where an embryonic urban garden presents a more gentrified vista. Either way don’t miss Graffiti Grove – or the Graffiti Tunnel as it is more prosaically known – whose regularly changing urban art ranges from the salacious to mind bending blizzards of colour that would enrich the new Tate Modern.
The amazing thing is that it is still there at all as a semi-official gallery, owned by Network Rail, where anyone with a spray can is able to dare to overpaint an existing work by someone else. It hasn’t returned to the dizzy heights of 2008 when it was Banksyfied by an exhibitiion of the Bristol artist’s stencilled works but it still breathes a fly-by-night creativity under railway tracks herding unknowing commuters to their artless office desks.
Legal graffiti still sounds a bit oxymoronic but it works well here and the tunnel has lost little of its freshness over the years and is still surprisingly little known. Sometimes when I amble through there are more artists than visitors. For what it’s worth it is rated the 256th most popular destination in London with 82 out if the 90 reviews rating it Excellent or Very Good.

Goldman Sachs and the medieval monks

The church that marks the birth of augmented reality

Four new wineries for central London

Walking the island of London

The most important room in our history

A real hidden gem – Henry V111’s wine cellar

London is made of poems

New gardens for old – meet the new Garden Museum in Lambeth

Forget craft beer – meet London’s new wineries

How Sir Robert Cecil’s mansion became the world’s biggest hotel and then Shell Mex House

This is where Spitalfields buried its dead

London’s Top 5 medieval buildings

Lambeth – seedbed of circuses and music halls

The City office block with a Roman bath house of its own

Graffiti Grove – drown your Brexit blues

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