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Inheritance" rel="home">A London Inheritance</a></h1> <h2 class="site-description">A Private History of a Public City</h2> </hgroup> <nav id="site-navigation" class="main-navigation" role="navigation"> <button class="menu-toggle">Menu</button> <a class="assistive-text" href="#content" title="Skip to content">Skip to content</a> <div class="menu-menu-1-container"><ul id="menu-menu-1" class="nav-menu"><li id="menu-item-18829" class="menu-item menu-item-type-custom menu-item-object-custom current-menu-item current_page_item menu-item-home menu-item-18829"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/" aria-current="page">Home</a></li> <li id="menu-item-18830" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-18830"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-guided-walks/">A London Inheritance Guided Walks</a></li> <li id="menu-item-18831" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-18831"><a 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src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Header-1.jpg" class="header-image" width="945" height="234" alt="A London Inheritance" /></a> </header> <div id="main" class="wrapper"> <div id="primary" class="site-content"> <div id="content" role="main"> <article id="post-21704" class="post-21704 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-london-history category-the-thames tag-patrick-colquhoun tag-thames-river-police"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/patrick-colquhoun-and-the-thames-river-police/" rel="bookmark">Patrick Colquhoun and the Thames River Police</a> </h1> <div class="comments-link"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/patrick-colquhoun-and-the-thames-river-police/#comments">11 Replies</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p>In 1949, my father photographed the patrol boats of the Thames River Police, moored in the river next to the floating police station, which was located where the RNLI Lifeboat Station is today, next to Waterloo Bridge, which is the bridge seen in the background:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-1-scaled.jpg"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1635" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-1-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21705" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-1-300x192.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>The boats of the river police, or to give them the correct name of today’s force, the Marine Policing Unit, have changed somewhat in the intervening 76 years:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-2.jpg"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="680" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-2-1024x680.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21706" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-2-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-2-300x199.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-2-768x510.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-2-1536x1020.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-2-2048x1360.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-2-624x414.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>The founding of the Thames River Police as a professional force goes back to the year 1800. The rapidly growing trade based along the river, the storage of valuable goods in warehouses and boats on the river and the resultant dramatic increase in theft resulted in an urgent need for a force that could protect commercial property.</p> <p>Whilst a police force for the river had been formed in 1798, it lacked the supporting legislation, along with a more professional approach to policing, which the Port of London required.</p> <p>One man, Patrick Colquhoun was instrumental in demonstrating the remarkable volume of theft, the commercial impact that this had, both on owners and the loss of tax revenue, and putting forward an argument for legislation to support a professional river police, and in 1800, he published a major work of some 676 pages with the title of <em>“A Treatise on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames”</em>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-3-scaled.jpg"><img decoding="async" width="1621" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-3-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21707" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-3-scaled.jpg 1621w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-3-190x300.jpg 190w" sizes="(max-width: 1621px) 100vw, 1621px" /></a></figure> <p>It is a remarkable read, and before looking at the contents of the book, some back ground into the life of Patrick Colquhoun.</p> <p>He was born in March 1745 and died at his house, 21 James Street, Buckingham Gate, in April 1820. </p> <p>To try and find a detailed account of his life, I searched newspapers of the time to see if there was an obituary, however every paper published just a brief couple of lines, similar to the following from the New Times of London on the 3rd of May, 1820:</p> <p><em>“On the 25th, at his house, No. 21 James-street, Buckingham-gate, Patrick Colquhoun, Esq. LL.D. aged 76. Author of the Treatises of the Police of the Metropolis and the River Thames, and of the Wealth, Power and Resources of the British Empire.”</em></p> <p>I eventually found a very comprehensive story of his life in the Barbados Mercury and Bridgetown Gazette on the 26th of September, 1820:</p> <p><em>“We lately intimated the death of our Countryman Patrick Colquhoun, and we should not have again referred to this painful subject had we not felt that his was no ordinary merit, and that it was in some measure our duty to bestow upon his memory our tribute of respect for the patriotism of his public life.</em></p> <p><em>Mr Colquhoun was descended from an ancient family settled in Dumbartonshire for many centuries. A younger son, he proceeded to Virginia, and there, although in the wilds of America, having access to a valuable library, he, by his own industry, completed his education. Returning to Scotland, he established himself in Glasgow. For three successive years he was elected Lord Provost of that City.</em></p> <p><em>He regulated and improved the Forth and Clyde Navigation, so beneficial to the internal commerce of the Island.</em></p> <p><em>He removed to London, and was nominated a Police Magistrate, but his was not a disposition to confine itself to the routine of mere official studies; or, seeing evils and imperfections in a system, to object, find fault with them, and leave them as they were. He felt it his duty to suggest remedies, and, as far as the means were afforded him, practically to prove the utility of his suggestions; with this feeling, he published ‘The Police of the Metropolis’ and soon after his assistance was solicited by the Duke of Portland to systematise and superintend the marine police of the River Thames.</em></p> <p><em>Mr. Secretary Dundas estimated the increase to the Revenue from the system established at £30,000 annually on sugar alone, by the prevention of depredations on that article, and so expressed it in his speech on introducing the Thames Police Bill into the House.”</em></p> <p>Patrick Colquhoun in 1818:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-9.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="616" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-9-616x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21715" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-9-616x1024.jpg 616w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-9-181x300.jpg 181w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-9-768x1276.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-9-925x1536.jpg 925w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-9-1233x2048.jpg 1233w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-9-624x1037.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-9.jpg 1479w" sizes="(max-width: 616px) 100vw, 616px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>There is more to the obituary, which I will come onto later in the post, however the above couple of paragraphs bring us to Colquhoun’s book.</p> <p>He had already written about the Police of the Metropolis, and his next book, Police of the Thames, focuses on the problem of theft across the Port of London, policing of the river, quays and warehouses, and the Acts of Parliament, laws and penalties needed to address what was a significant and growing problem at the end of the 18th century.</p> <p>Patrick Colquhoun was into detail. The book is full of the history of the Port of London, how it had arrived as one of the major global trading centres by the end of the 18th century, how the port operated, trade through the port, those who work across the port etc. and Colquhoun used plenty of data and statistics to support his proposed approach.</p> <p>His book really provides a very in depth understanding of the Port of London at the end of the 18th century, and for today’s post, I will look at the first couple of chapters which provide some background to the operation of the port, and the different methods of theft of goods whilst in boats on the rivers, whilst being transferred, and when stored in warehouses.</p> <p>Indeed, at every part of the chain from when a ship arrived at the Port, to the time when goods where shipped to their final destination, there was a risk of theft.</p> <p>At the end of the 18th century, the City of London had already long been a trading port, for as well as being a major crossing between the north and south banks of the Thames, the city’s role as a trading port was key to London’s existence, importance and growth.</p> <p>It was not only English merchants though who were responsible foe trade. Some of the first records of trade through the city, show that in 1561, there were no Englishmen who had a sole occupation as an importer and exporter. The 327 people who were recorded as being merchants, consisted of:</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-4.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="517" height="207" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-4.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21709" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-4.jpg 517w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-4-300x120.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 517px) 100vw, 517px" /></a></figure></div> <p>In the 16th century, England was somewhat behind other European countries, such as the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal (for example, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/william-adams-the-adventures-of-a-limehouse-apprentice/">in my post a couple of weeks ago on William Adams,</a> when he arrived in Japan in 1600, the Portuguese and Spanish had already established trading links, and the Dutch were also trading in the region).</p> <p>Much of the early trading through the City was driven by trading companies, and merchant adventurers, who raised the funds needed to buy or build ships, raise crews and trade across the world, and the 16th century saw a growing number of these companies:</p> <ul> <li>Hamburg Company – one of the earliest. Granted a charter by Henry IV in 1406, and renewed through to 1661</li> <li>The Russia Company – Charter granted by Queen Mary in 1555</li> <li>The Eastland, or North-Sea Company – Charter granted by Elizabeth I in 1579</li> <li>The Turkey Company – Charter granted by Elizabeth I in 1581</li> <li>The East-India Company – Charter granted by Elizabeth I in 1599</li> <li>The American Company – Charter granted by Charles II in 1663</li> <li>The Hudsons-Bay Company – Charter granted by Charles II in 1681</li> </ul> <p>The impact on trade by companies such as the East-India and Hudson’s Bay can be seen in how trade through the Port of London was switching between Foreign and British owned ships. The following table shows the change between 1702 and 1751:</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-5.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="487" height="93" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-5.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21710" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-5.jpg 487w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-5-300x57.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 487px) 100vw, 487px" /></a></figure></div> <p>It was not just trade with foreign countries that was creating the rapid rise in the volume of trade through the Port of London, there was also a considerable amount of coastal trade, with ships trading between London and the various ports around the coast of the country.</p> <p>The following table is one of very many from the book and shows the type of detailed information on the Port of London used by Colquhoun. The table shows the Coasting Trade between the Port of London and the ports across England and Wales in 1796:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-6-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1755" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-6-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21712" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-6-scaled.jpg 1755w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-6-206x300.jpg 206w" sizes="(max-width: 1755px) 100vw, 1755px" /></a></figure> <p>The following table shows the increase in foreign trade throughout the 18th century, and the mix between British and Foreign ships. The table shows that foreign shipping expanded considerably during the later half of the century compared to the first half:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-7-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="686" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-7-1024x686.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21713" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-7-1024x686.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-7-300x201.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-7-768x514.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-7-1536x1028.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-7-2048x1371.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-7-624x418.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>All these ships transported a vast array of valuable goods, and the book includes a large, fold out table detailing <em>“Commerce and Shipping of the River Thames…..applicable to the year ending the 5th January 1798, with the true Valuation of the Merchandise Imported and Exported from and to Parts beyond Seas”</em>. It was difficult to photograph this table due to the delicacy of this 225 year old book, and really not wanting to damage my copy. The following is my best attempt, click on the image for an enlarged version:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-8-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="527" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-8-1024x527.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21714" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-8-1024x527.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-8-300x154.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Pollice-8-768x395.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>This was a colossal volume and variety of goods that at some point were on a ship in the Port of London, transferred between ship and quay, and stored in w warehouse.</p> <p>I used the <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bank of England inflation calculator </a>to see what the equivalent value would be today, and the £30,957,421 of Imports would today be worth £3,375,071,706, with the £29,640,568 of exports being worth £3,231,504,408.</p> <p>A number of caveats need to apply to these figures, for example the accuracy of inflation figures going back over 200 years, purchasing power, etc. but they do give an idea of value, and in today’s money, in 1798, £6,606,576,114 was being imported and exported through the Port of London</p> <p>All these figures on trade in the Port of London were included in Colquhoun’s book to indicate the scale of the problem, as this vast array of valuable goods offered a considerable opportunity for theft, both by “professional” thieves, as well as organised and petty pilfering from those who worked across the Port of London.</p> <p>Patrick Colquhoun believed that theft was endemic.</p> <p>He believed that theft became a significant problem after the start of the 18th century, and attributes this to a decree of religious and moral decay, described in the following paragraphs:</p> <p><em>“The progress of evil; propensities was slow, while a sense of Religion and Morality operated in a greater degree than at present; upon the minds of the lower orders of people. In the moral, as in the physical World. The change of habit is gradual, and often imperceptible. In contemplating the magnitude of the abuses which are to be developed in this Work, the mind is naturally led to an inquiry into the causes which have produced a system of matured delinquency; which is perhaps, unparalleled in the criminal history of any other country.</em></p> <p><em>It is not unlikely, that the disposition to pillage Commercial Property while afloat, derived its origins in no considerable degree, from the habit of Smuggling, which has prevailed ever since Revenues were collected.”</em></p> <p>Colquhoun treated the propensity for theft as a disease, which contaminated the minds of those working on the river. Those infected were seduced by motives of avarice, habits of pillage, and an impunity that came with the lack of appropriate laws, and the force to carry them out.</p> <p>In describing how the disease spread, he states that: <em>“New Converts to the System of Iniquity were rapidly made. The mass of Labourers on the River became gradually contaminated. A similar class upon the Quays, and in the Warehouses, caught the infection, and the evil expanded as Commerce increased.”</em></p> <p>Colquhoun’s book provides very many detailed descriptions of daily life in the Port of London, and of those involved in the very many types of illegal activity in the port. These descriptions help us to understand what it was like in the Port, and the dangers faced by those transporting goods. </p> <p>Colquhoun identified a number of <em>“species of Depredation”</em>, or <em>“Classes”</em> of those involved in theft across the Port of London, and I have summarised his descriptions of these as follows:</p> <ul> <li><strong>River Piracy</strong> – This was where organised gangs would attack a ship or lighter, and would take almost everything on board. Methods included cutting the anchor ropes or chains and letting the ship drift to a more suitable part of the river where it could be stripped, not just of cargo, but also of rigging, ropes, anchors, cables, anything that could be moved and had a value.</li> <li><strong>Night Plunderers</strong> – These were <em>“chiefly composed of gangs of the most dissolute Watermen, who prefer idleness to labour”</em>. Night plunders would look for, of be informed of, unattended lighters on the river, and would steal anything that was accessible and portable from the lighter. They would then take their plunder to a place agreed with a Receiver (another of the many criminal roles across the Port). Night plunders would often steal from the same place over a period of time, and Colquhoun gives an example of five boat loads of Hemp being stolen from a lighter over the course of a few weeks, and conveyed along the river, through London Bridge to Ranelaigh Creek where the stolen Hemp was sold.</li> <li><strong>Night Plunderers. denominated Light-Horsemen</strong> – Light-Horsemen were a type of Night Plunderer that focused on the West India Trade. Their pillage was <em>“generally extensive and valuable”</em>. They were organised, with Receivers on both sides of the river who were the chief leaders of individual gangs, The gangs of Light-Horsemen consisted of one or more Receivers, Coopers, Watermen and Lumpers, and they would board a boat fully prepared with Iron-crows, Adzes and the tools needed to open casks and shovels to take out Sugar. The Watermen procured as many boats as were needed, the Lumpers unstowed the casks in the hold and the Coopers took of the heads of the casks, and all hands assisted with filling bags and loading into their boats.</li> <li><strong>Heavy-Horsemen or Day Plunderer</strong> – These criminals would pilfer whatever they could from a ship or lighter, often while working on the transfer of cargo. They would often use an undergarment, called a <em>“Jemmy, with pockets before and behind; also with long narrow bags or pouches, which, when filled were lashed to their legs and thighs, and concealed under wide trousers”</em>. They would carry off vast amounts of Sugars, Coffee, Cocoa, Ginger, and Colquhoun quotes one instance where s single gang stole enough sugar, that, despite being sold for half of its actual value, made them £397.</li> <li><strong>Journeymen Coopers</strong> – These workers were employed to repair casks and packages, but in reality many used this work to thieve. For example, when leaving ships in the evening after a day of proper work, they would carry off Sugar, Coffee, and any other articles or goods that were easy to conceal and carry. </li> <li><strong>Watermen</strong> – For theft across the river, a boat would be needed, and unscrupulous Watermen would often provide the boats needed, and take those intent on stealing to their targets on the river. They would keep watch, and afterwards take the gangs and their stolen goods back to shore, and they would receive a payment for their services. Colquhoun provides an example of how a Waterman would work – <em>“A Ship-Master who had been a stranger in the river, finding himself beset by a gang of audacious Lumpers, who insisted on carrying away Plunder in spite of all his exertions to prevent it, while he was engaged on deck in searching these miscreants, a barrel of Sugar which stood in his Cabin was in the course of a few minutes, emptied and removed in bags through the cabin windows, under which a Waterman with his boat lay to receive it, and got clear off without discovery, to the surprise of the Captain when he returned to his cabin.”</em></li> <li><strong>Mud-Larks</strong> – Where a vessel close to shore was being looted, the Mud-Lark would prowl about in the mud, under the Bow and would receive bags from those on board the vessel, and would carry the bags to shore. Mud-Larks would also prowl around Dock-Gates on the pretext of looking for nails, where their principal object was to receive sheets of Copper and bags of Nails which were thrown to them by dock labourers.</li> <li><strong>Rat-Catchers</strong> – Ships would often be infested with rats, so a Rat-Catcher would provide a valuable service, however many rat-catchers used their work to steal from ships. Rat-Catchers would often work at night to set traps, and at the same time take some of the cargo. They would also revisit the ship whenever they wanted on the pretext of checking and resetting the traps, but again used these opportunities to steal. Rat-catchers were also known to transfer live rats between ships in order to get more business, and to use the opportunity to steal from other ships.</li> <li><strong>Game-Lightermen</strong> – This class of criminal consisted of Lightermen who would steal from the lighters on which they worked. Lighters were used to transfer cargo between ship and land, and between ships, so for a period of time the cargo carried was under the control of one or more Lightermen, who would use the opportunity to take a proportion of the cargo being transferred. Much of this stolen cargo was transferred to a small boat, or skiff, and Colquhoun provides an example of a seizure of a Skiff loaded with a bag of Coffee and 109lb of Sugar whilst in the act of being stolen from a Lighter.</li> <li><strong>Scuffle-Hunters</strong> – These are described by Colquhoun as <em>“literally the lowest class of the community, who are vulgarly denominated the Tag-Rag and Bobtail”</em>. Scuffle-Hunters would hang around the places where goods are being landed on the Quays, and offer assistance as a porter. They would wear long aprons, which allowed them to conceal any goods that they could take, whilst apparently helping the loading or unloading of a ship.</li> <li><strong>The Warehouses</strong> – Whilst Colquhourn does not list a specific name for those who stole from warehouses, he does include warehouses in the list as a place from where individuals or gangs would steal. This included those who specifically entered a warehouse at anytime, day or night, with the intention to steal, as well as those who worked in a warehouse and used the opportunity to pilfer goods.</li> </ul> <p>Based on the above descriptions, it seems amazing that any of the goods traded through the Port of London survived the process, and did not end up in the hands of a Receiver, however even if 5% of traded goods ended up as being stolen, this would still be a value of just over £3 Million in 1798 prices, being stolen every year.</p> <p>The descriptions help us to understand what life was like on the river, and along the Quays where goods were being loaded and unloaded. It was a place where ship and cargo owners must have been forever on their guard, where boats with a gang of men passing along the river would have been viewed with suspicion by those on ships, and where many of the shops of London sold stolen goods.</p> <p>As an example of how stolen goods were traded on, Colquhoun gives an example of Thames Street.</p> <p>Today Thames Street (now Upper and Lower Thames Street) is a much widened street with dual carriageways taking traffic between the eastern and western sides of the City. </p> <p>In the late 18th century, Thames Street ran along the back of the warehouses and quays that lined the river, and as with most of London at the time, there were many Pubs both along Thames Street and in the surrounding streets.</p> <p>It was in these Pubs that stolen goods were sold. Journeymen Coopers would take their Boards of Sugar, and small Grocers would purchase this sugar with fictious Bills of Parcels used to cover the transfer of stolen property from the Pubs to their shops and houses. </p> <p>Print from 1801, the year after Colquhoun’s book was published, showing the Thames, busy with shipping:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-10.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="692" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-10-1024x692.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21718" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-10-1024x692.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-10-300x203.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-10-768x519.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-10-1536x1038.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-10-2048x1384.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Thames-River-Police-10-624x422.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>There is too much in Colquhourn’s book to cover in a single post, so I will explore the Port of London and Policing the Port in more detail in the coming months, but for now I return to the obituary published a few months after his death, to provide a summary of his other achievements:</p> <ul> <li>He established a society at Lloyd’s, with some of the most respectable merchants, to assist the poor and the needy by the distribution of soup, potatoes, herrings etc.</li> <li>In 1806, he proposed the establishment of Savings Banks <em>“to lead the poor by gentle and practicable means into the way of bettering themselves”</em></li> <li>He was <em>“so highly esteemed in the dominions of His Majesty, as on the Continent of Europe, that the colonies of St. Vincent, Nevis, Dominica and the Virgin Islands, as also the Free Hanseatic Republics of Lubec, Bremen and Hamburg, nominated him their Representative and Consul General”</em></li> <li>As well as his two books on policing, he also published a book on the <em>“Power, Wealth, and Resources, of the British Empire”</em>, along with other publications on Criminal Justice, Political Economy, and on Commerce and Manufacture of Great Britain</li> <li>He was one of the first five who met and formed the Royal Institution (this was the meeting on the 7 March 1799 at the Soho Square house of Joseph Banks. I can not immediately find any confirmation of this)</li> <li>He was a Member of the Society for bettering the condition of the Poor</li> <li>The University of Glasgow conferred the distinction of Doctor of Law, and he was granted the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh</li> </ul> <p>The obituary ended with a summary that he had <em>“a mind fertile in conception, kind and benevolent in disposition, and bold and persevering in execution; ever ready to give his advice and assistance when his means enabled him to do so, and that his long and laborious life was honourable to himself and useful to his Country”</em>.</p> <p>There were some criticisms of his approach, that he was too much on the side of Commerce and Capitalism. His view on the poor also seems to have followed the 19th century view of the <em>“deserving poor”</em>, as Colquhoun in some of his publications appears to divide the poor into those who deserve help, and the criminal poor, who only deserve the full force of the law, and this can be seen earlier in the post with his use of <em>“species of Depredation”</em>, or <em>“Classes”</em>.</p> <p>His book on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames does provide us with a very comprehensive view of the Port of London, at the end of the 18th century, a time when the London Docks were about to enter a period of rapid expansion.</p> <p>I will explore this brief period of London’s history in more detail, using Colquhoun’s book in future posts.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/patrick-colquhoun-and-the-thames-river-police/" data-text="Patrick Colquhoun and the Thames River Police" >Tweet</a></li><li class="share-facebook"><div class="fb-share-button" data-href="https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/patrick-colquhoun-and-the-thames-river-police/" data-layout="button_count"></div></li><li><a href="#" class="sharing-anchor sd-button share-more"><span>More</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul><div class="sharing-hidden"><div class="inner" style="display: none;width:150px;"><ul style="background-image:none;"><li class="share-bluesky"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-bluesky-21704" class="share-bluesky sd-button" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/patrick-colquhoun-and-the-thames-river-police/?share=bluesky" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Bluesky" ><span>Bluesky</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div> </div> <footer class="entry-meta"> This entry was posted in <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-history/" rel="category tag">London History</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/the-thames/" rel="category tag">The Thames</a> and tagged <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/patrick-colquhoun/" rel="tag">Patrick Colquhoun</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/thames-river-police/" rel="tag">Thames River Police</a> on <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/patrick-colquhoun-and-the-thames-river-police/" title="7:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2025-02-16T07:30:00+00:00">February 16, 2025</time></a><span class="by-author"> by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by admin" rel="author">admin</a></span></span>. </footer> </article> <article id="post-21694" class="post-21694 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-london-history category-london-streets category-under-london tag-adelphi"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/lower-robert-street-jennys-hole-and-the-tragic-death-of-a-child/" rel="bookmark">Lower Robert Street, Jenny’s Hole and the Tragic Death of a Child.</a> </h1> <div class="comments-link"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/lower-robert-street-jennys-hole-and-the-tragic-death-of-a-child/#comments">16 Replies</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p>The area between the Strand and the Embankment is a fascinating place to explore. There are plenty of small streets and alleys, many running between the Strand and Embankment, others linking between many of these streets. Those that run down to the Embankment can be (for central London) relatively steep, with a number having steps up to the Strand – a reminder of how this area was once the steep bank between the foreshore of the Thames, and the high ground along which the Strand became part of a well travelled route linking the City of London and Westminster.</p> <p>The area was also once the home of the great London homes of the rich and titled, estates such as Arundel House, York House, Essex House and Northumberland House.</p> <p>As with most of London, continuous redevelopment has transformed the streets and buildings, perhaps the most significant being the construction of the Embankment and Embankment Gardens which now provide an expanse of flat land between what was the boundary between land and river, and the Thames of today.</p> <p>The descent from the Strand down to the river needed some creative construction techniques for many of the large estates and buildings, and one of these was the late 18th century Adelphi development by Robert Adam.</p> <p>Located where the 1930s Adelphi now stands, Roberts Adam’s original Adelphi was a development of streets and houses on a level platform to bring the estate up to, as close as possible, a level with the Strand.</p> <p>To level up the Adelphi development, it was built on a complex of arches that created an area below the houses that was intended to be rented out for storage, stabling, warehouses for the wharf between the Adelphi and the river, etc.</p> <p>There is almost nothing left of this dark and damp subterranean area following the development of the existing Adelphi building, however the following mid 19th century print by John Wykeham Archer gives an impression of what these vaults were like:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-20.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="654" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-20-1024x654.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21696" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-20-1024x654.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-20-300x192.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-20-768x491.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-20-1536x981.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-20-2048x1308.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-20-624x399.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>One place we can get feel for what it was like to walk down into the vaults under the Adelphi, is in the street York Buildings, where towards the upper part of the street, there is an entrance under a 20th century building, into Lower Robert Street:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-1-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-1-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21685" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-1-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>Much has been written about Lower Robert Street, about its eerie atmosphere, and the story that it apparently even has a ghost, but in today’s post I will be concentrating on the history and architecture of the place, what it was like when the Adelphi was built, and the difficulty of showing Lower Robert Street on a map, although there is also a very tragic story that could have been the source of the ghost story.</p> <p>When we walk into Lower Robert Street via the entrance shown in the above photo, we are walking under a 20th century building, and when the Adelphi was built, this was through an open gap at the end of a terrace of houses.</p> <p>After passing under the later building, we get to the original, late 18th century stretch of the street, where it passes under the rear of one of the terrace buildings that line Robert Street above:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-2-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1700" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-2-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21686" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-2-scaled.jpg 1700w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-2-199x300.jpg 199w" sizes="(max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px" /></a></figure> <p>In the above photo, you can see the cheap approach to building this side of the buildings. The rear of the terrace was not meant to be on public display. It was not facing onto a street, and if you had business in the house (apart from those who were servants or workers), you would access the house from the front, on Robert Street.</p> <p>The photo below shows the terrace of houses in Robert Street that the tunnel passes under, and shows the fine front of these buildings, Good brick work and decoration, compare with the cheap finish of the rear of the buildings:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-16.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="680" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-16-1024x680.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21691" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-16-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-16-300x199.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-16-768x510.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-16-624x414.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-16.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Horwood’s 1799 map of London shows the area soon after the completion of the Adelphi.</p> <p>In the following extract, the Adelphi is the rectangular block of terrace houses between Royal Adelphi Terrace and John Street (now John Adam Street), and to the left of the Adelphi, we can see Robert Street, and continuing to the left is George Street (now York Buildings):</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-18-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="604" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-18-1024x604.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21693" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-18-1024x604.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-18-300x177.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-18-768x453.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-18-1536x906.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-18-2048x1208.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-18-624x368.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>In the above extract, the arrow points to the entrance in George Street / York Buildings to what is now Lower Robert Street, and as can be seen, this was an open entrance at the northern end of a terrace of houses, and that led into what appears to be a narrow, open space between the buildings in George Street and Robert Street – probably for service access to the buildings – a space that is open at its southern end.</p> <p>Although not marked on the map, I assume that the length of tunnel underneath the house on Robert Street was there at the time, as the house is of the time of the Adelphi, and it would not have made much sense to build the tunnel at a later date.</p> <p>I have marked the route of the tunnel and current route down to the south of the Adelphi with the red line in the above map.</p> <p>This routing shows the source of the name as Lower Robert Street as part of the route runs below Robert Street.</p> <p>A possible error in a map leads to an intriguing possibility.</p> <p>I use OpenStreetMap as a source of maps for the blog, as they can be reproduced on non-commercial sites, and when checking OpenStreetMap for the area around the Adelphi, I found that it shows the route of Lower Robert Street mirroring the open space in the 1799 Horwood map, all the way down to the gap between rows of buildings at the southern end.</p> <p>This can be seen in the following extract, and I have added the route of what is assumed to be Lower Robert Street today, and is shown in red (<a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright">© OpenStreetMap contributors)</a>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-19-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="615" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-19-1024x615.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21695" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-19-1024x615.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-19-300x180.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-19-768x461.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-19-1536x923.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-19-2048x1230.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-19-624x375.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>There was once very limited access between the two rows of buildings along the line of what is shown as Lower Robert Street in the above map, however it was not a street as implied by the map, and today is closed off at both ends.</p> <p>If we follow the old part of the tunnel under the buildings on Robert Street, we can see the bright lights of the loading bay for the Adelphi at the end:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-4-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-4-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21688" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-4-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-4-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>I assume that instead of the loading bay, the tunnel of Lower Robert Street provided access to the vaults underneath the Adelphi, and the view would have been of a series of arches, vaults and dark space running off into the distance.</p> <p>We can get an impression of the area around Little Robert Street by looking at mentions in old newspapers, and the following dates from 1774, listing the prizes of the lottery held to raise finance for the construction of the Adelphi, where winners received houses or vaults:</p> <p><em>A double vault for coach-house and stable with hay loft and servants rooms, over, on the north side of the Mews Street, situate between Lower Adam Street, and Lower Robert Street, being the first west from Lower Adam Street, which is let on and in occupation by Mr William Adam, Mr Capel, and Mess. Hodgson & Co. tenants at will at £34, 13s per annum</em>.</p> <p><em>A vault on the north side of Lower John Street westward of the vault facing Lower Robert Street. Ground rent 7s 6d per annum.</em></p> <p>Note that as well as Lower Robert Street, the list mentions Lower Adam Street and Lower John Street, so there must have been a network of subterranean streets, with names mirroring the streets above.</p> <p>We can get an idea of the size of the vaults and the uses to which they were put, from the following advert of leaseholds for sale in the Morning Herald on the 22nd of March, 1819:</p> <p><em>“Numerous spacious Warehouses and Vaults, seven coach houses, stables for 50 horses, and other extensive and improvable premises, situate in Robert-street, Lower Adam-street, Lower Robert-street, Mews-street, Durham Street and under the Arcade, all in the Adelphi”</em></p> <p>The rent obtainable from the above premises, which were already let, amounted to £448 8s per annum.</p> <p>There is not much further mention of Lower Robert Street, or the vaults under the Adelphi. The build of the Embankment would later cut off the Adelphi from the Thames, so there was no opportunity to use the space for storing goods transported by river, and when there was an attempt to sell the vaults, warehouses, and houses around and under the Adelphi, they would not sell, perhaps indicative of the condition of the estate, certainly of the vaults below.</p> <p>The record of the auction, from the London Daily Chronicle on the 22nd of June, 1927, includes Lower Robert Street within Lot 1, which compriosed:</p> <p><em>“The freehold island block, Adelphi Terrace, including Nos. 1 to 10, John Street, 5 and 6 Robert Street, 19 Adam Street, the Adelphi foreground, with the lofty vaults and arches, embracing buildings in Adelphi Arches, Adelphi Cottages, Lower Robert Street, Lower Adam Street, part of Durham Hill, and ‘Jenny’s Hole’, together with soil of the subterranean private roads”</em></p> <p>The contents of Lot 1 include some interesti8ng references. Firstly the <em>“subterranean private roads”</em> confirms that there was a network of streets below the Adelphi, which must have provided access to the vaults and warehouses below ground.</p> <p>Secondly the reference to <em>“Jenny’s Hole”</em>.</p> <p>There are a number of references to <em>“Jenny’s Hole”</em> the first is from Thackers Overland News on the 25th of March 1858, where:</p> <p><em>“The notorious Adelphi arches will, it is expected, shortly cease to afford shelter to the helpless outcasts of London. They are in gradual process of letting. The most fearful den among them, one upon which had been bestowed the title of ‘Jenny’s Hole’ was taken a short time since by a publican for a wine-cellar”</em></p> <p>The above article hints at the state of the area underneath the Adelphi, and the following report from Lloyds Weekly Newspaper on the 19th of September, 1852, paints an even darker picture, both of the area below the Adelphi, and of the tragic conditions that children could get into in 19th century London. It is a long and harrowing read:</p> <p><em>“YOUTHFUL PROSTITUION AND DEATH – On Friday, Mr Langham, the deputy coroner for Westminster, held a lengthy inquiry at the St. Martin’s Workhouse, touching the death of Mary Ann Palmer, aged fifteen years, which occurred on Tuesday last at the workhouse, having been brought there by the police, who found here on the previous Sunday in a frightful state of disease and destitution, under the dark arches of the Adelphi in the Strand.</em></p> <p><em>The case was one of these harrowing details exhibiting the horrible extent of juvenile prostitution in the metropolis, the bare recital of which appals the mind.</em></p> <p><em>Sarah Cunningham, a girl only eighteen years of age, but whose appearance indicated the rapid course to an early grave, said that she had been fatherless and motherless since she was nine years old, having from that period got her livelihood on the streets, with the exception of about three months when she had a place shortly after her parents’ death (the jury shuddered as they looked upon the girl). </em></p> <p><em>She formed an acquaintance with the deceased about eighteen months ago, since which time they had been companions up to her death.</em></p> <p><em>The deceased and witness used to frequent an unoccupied stable, under the dark arches of the Adelphi, and a place also known as Jenny’s Hole down there from about half-past eight in the morning until nine at night, as they were too dirty and ragged to walk the streets, and they used to be visited by the young men working about the place, as also those passing to and fro by the halfpenny steamboats.</em></p> <p><em>The police used to visit the place frequently, both day and night, but they were eluded, as the various girls went and hid, or left the place by another opening, returning again as soon as the constables had gone by. </em></p> <p><em>The deceased was following her late course of life when the witness first met her, which was one evening at the Victoria theatre. The young men at the stables used to give them something to eat, and help to screen them from the police. They got no other money, but what they obtained under the arches in the way stated.</em></p> <p><em>Deceased was very bad and had been in hospital twice. Witness had heard her say that she had a good home to go to – In answer to the coroner, witness stated that she would be glad to do anything that would take her off the streets.</em></p> <p><em>Policeman Joseph Kelly, 137 F, said he found the deceased in ‘Jenny’s Hole’ on Sunday week last. She was lying down in a very bad state, being exceedingly filthy and loathsome in the extreme, labouring under a complication of diseases, and being covered in sores and vermin. Everything that could be done was done for her at the workhouse, but she died about four o’clock on Tuesday morning, the immediate cause being dropsy.</em></p> <p><em>The father of the deceased said that she had been enticed from home nearly two years ago. He had spared no money on her education, and the last time he saw her alive was in November, when he had her home from the hospital and cleansed, but she soon went away again. She was his only child.</em></p> <p><em>A verdict of ‘Natural Death’ was taken, and the coroner and jury sent the girl Cunningham to St. Mary’s workhouse, Lambeth, that being her father’s parish, and if she was not taken in, Mr. Testall, the master of St. Martin’s would receive her until her proper settlement was ascertained.”</em></p> <p>A dreadful story, and one that tells much about being poor and at risk in London in the mid 19th century. The comment about whether the workhouse in Lambeth would accept Sarah Cunningham, was probably down to the common problem of lack of money, and a parish workhouse not wanting to take people from outside the parish, or seek more funds from those in the parish.</p> <p>In many of the stories and accounts of Lower Robert Street on the Internet, there are references to Poor Jenny being a prostitute murdered by a client, and it is her screams that still haunt Lower Robert Street, and presumably where the name Jenny’s Hole came from.</p> <p><a href="https://www.paranormaldatabase.com/london/lonpages/londdata.php?pageNum_paradata=29" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The list of hauntings in London at this link</a>, claims that Jenny was a prostitute murdered in 1875, and presumably is the source of the name Jenny’s Hole, however as can be seen in the above articles from 1852 and 1858, Jenny’s Hole was in use almost 25 years before the supposed murdered prostitute of the same name.</p> <p>I cannot find the source of the name <em>“Jenny’s Hole”</em>, however I do find the tales of the haunting of Lower Robert Street a rather glib dismissal of the appalling and tragic conditions that young girls such as Mary Ann Palmer and Sarah Cunningham could find themselves in. and the way they were treated and abused.</p> <p>At the bottom of the old tunnel of Lower Robert Street, looking back up in the direction of the entrance at York Buildings:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-3-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-3-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21687" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-3-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>In the above photo, the Adelphi loading bay was behind me, and when I turned to the left, I could now look along the route of what may have been Lower Robert Street, and which is now part of the underground car park of the redeveloped Adelphi:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-5-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-5-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21689" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-5-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-5-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>Which then leads to the exit onto Savoy Place – the street that runs between the Adelphi and Embankment Gardens. The exit / entrance can be seen to the left of the following photo:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-6-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1675" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-6-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21690" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-6-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-6-300x196.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>In the following print of the original Adam’s development of the Adelphi, the entrance can be seen to the far left of the run of arches that faced from the vaults onto the foreshore of the Thames:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-17.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="623" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-17-1024x623.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21692" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-17-1024x623.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-17-300x183.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-17-768x468.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-17-624x380.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Lower-Robert-Street-17.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>I am still unsure of the full route of Lower Robert Street. There is only a very small part of the original structure remaining, where it passes under the terrace house on Robert Street.</p> <p>Did it then turn right and head to the river side of the Adelphi? Was it an actual street, or more probably just an access route from the street to the west of the Adelphi that ran alongside the western edge of the vaults under the Adelphi to exist to the south.</p> <p>The fact that there was also a Lower Adam Street (mirroring Adam Street on the east of the Adelphi) and Lower John Street (mirroring John Street to the north of the Adelphi, implies that there were three subterranean streets running along each of the western, northern and eastern sides of the vaults, with the southern side looking straight through the arches on to the Thames foreshore.</p> <p>Whatever the source of the name Jenny’s Hole (it probably refers to a previous occupant of this small place, possibly an alcove within the vaults), it was where fifteen year old <em>Mary Ann Palmer</em> was found, and soon after died, and her death tells an important story of the tragic circumstances that children could find themselves in, in 19th century London.</p> <p>And the small stretch of Lower Robert Street is the only surviving part of the subterranean environment beneath the Adelphi that she would recognise today.</p> <p><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-buildings/embankment-gardens-art-exhibition-adelphi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">You may also be interested in my post on the Embankment Gardens Art Exhibition and the Adelphi, which goes into more detail about the Adelphi.</a></p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/lower-robert-street-jennys-hole-and-the-tragic-death-of-a-child/" data-text="Lower Robert Street, Jenny's Hole and the Tragic 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href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-history/" rel="category tag">London History</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-streets/" rel="category tag">London Streets</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/under-london/" rel="category tag">Under London</a> and tagged <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/adelphi/" rel="tag">Adelphi</a> on <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/lower-robert-street-jennys-hole-and-the-tragic-death-of-a-child/" title="7:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2025-02-09T07:30:00+00:00">February 9, 2025</time></a><span class="by-author"> by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by admin" rel="author">admin</a></span></span>. </footer> </article> <article id="post-21677" class="post-21677 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-london-infrastructure category-london-parks-and-gardens category-the-thames tag-north-woolwich"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/north-woolwich-a-station-pier-pleasure-gardens-and-causeway/" rel="bookmark">North Woolwich – A Station, Pier, Pleasure Gardens and Causeway</a> </h1> <div class="comments-link"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/north-woolwich-a-station-pier-pleasure-gardens-and-causeway/#comments">21 Replies</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Towards the end of last year, I published a number of posts about the Royal Docks also crossing the river via the Woolwich Ferry and Foot Tunnel to North Woolwich.</p> <p>This is a really interesting part of east London with plenty to discover (I hope to have the area as a new walk later this year), and there is one last part of North Woolwich that I want to cover, a short walk along the river, starting by the entrance to the Woolwich Ferry, marked by the “S” to the left of the following map, with the blue dashed line showing the route covered in today’s post (<a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright">© OpenStreetMap contributors)</a>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-20-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="531" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-20-1024x531.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21674" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-20-1024x531.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-20-300x156.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-20-768x398.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-20-1536x796.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-20-2048x1062.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-20-624x324.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Starting by the approach to the ferry, if I look to the east, there is a walkway along the side of the river, with a pier running into the river at the end of the walkway:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-7-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-7-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21661" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-7-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-7-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>The shed like building at the entrance to the pier (P in the above map):</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-8-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-8-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21662" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-8-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-8-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>A look inside confirms that the pier is derelict, although the metal framework to the pier looks substantial, the wooden flooring has decayed:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-9-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-9-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21663" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-9-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-9-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>The pier is here because of the adjacent North Woolwich Station, which is just across the road from the pier.</p> <p>When the station opened in 1847, there was nothing much on the north side of the river that needed a railway, but it was built to serve the town of Woolwich across the river, and the station did soon lead to developments on the north bank.</p> <p>So that those living or working in Woolwich could reach the station, a ferry was needed, and two piers were built, one on the south and one on the north banks of the river. The pier on the southern side has long gone, but the north pier remains:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-5-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-5-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21659" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-5-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-5-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>The shed at the end provided a rudimentary, covered waiting area and also included a small ticketing kiosk. </p> <p>Initially two steam ferries of the Eastern Counties Railway, the “Kent” and the “Essex” crossed the river from this pier (when the service opened, North Woolwich was still part of the County of Kent, where it would remain for over another 100 years).</p> <p>A third boat, the “Middlesex” arrived in 1879, followed by the “Woolwich” which replaced the original “Kent” and “Essex”.</p> <p>Soon after the opening of the service, the South Eastern Railway had opened a rail service direct to Woolwich, and the Woolwich Free Ferry arrived in 1889.</p> <p>Despite the challenges of the direct rail service to Woolwich and the Free Ferry, the ferry service operated by what was now the Great Eastern Railway, continued until 1908, when it was no longer financially viable, and closed.</p> <p>The pier on the south of the river was soon demolished, however the pier at North Woolwich became a calling point for steam boats providing a service out to Southend and Margate.</p> <p>The number of ferries using the pier tailed off significantly after the Second World War, and the last record I can find of the pier being used for ferry traffic was in August 1950, when children from the Hay Currie School in Poplar boarded a boat at the pier for a trip along the Thames.</p> <p>Perhaps the strangest use for the pier was in April 1983 when a 112 pound bomb was dredged up from the Thames near Waterloo Bridge. </p> <p>The bomb was defused at the scene, then taken by boat down to North Woolwich Pier, where it was transferred to a lorry, which took the bomb to Shoeburyness, where it was safely exploded.</p> <p>The walkway along the river runs up to a raised platform next to the pier, and this is the opposite side of the shed at the land side end of the pier:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-6-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-6-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21660" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-6-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-6-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>On the platform is this rather good information panel showing key places in North Woolwich, with a brief paragraph about their history:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-4-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-4-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21658" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-4-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-4-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>The North Woolwich Pier was built to provide rail passengers with transport to and from Woolwich, and opposite the pier is the old station building:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-3-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-3-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21657" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-3-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>As mentioned earlier, and in my posts about the Royal Docks, North Woolwich Station arrived before the construction of any of the Royal Docks. The line and original wooden station building opened in 1847 by Eastern Counties Railway, who in July 1847, <em>“gave an excursion train on Monday last, from Ely to London, Woolwich, Greenwich and Gravesend, the company being taken by the new line to the North Woolwich Station, where steamers were in readiness to carry them whither their inclination led them. About 250 persons availed them of the trip. The train returned to Cambridge by 9 o’clock.”</em></p> <p>I can imagine that if you lived in the Cambridgeshire city of Ely in 1847, London, as well as places such as Woolwich, Greenwich and Gravesend, along with all the river traffic and trade, would have been perhaps a once in a lifetime trip, certainly a trip to some of the rarely visited parts of a dynamic part of London (or Kent as it was then, however many newspaper reports referred to North Woolwich as being in Essex).</p> <p>The station building that we see today was built in 1854, and by the end of the 19th century, we can see the station and rail tracks in the following extract from the OS map. (North Woolwich Pier is in the green circle, a hotel (see next in the post) is in the red oval, and causeway (see later in post) is in the blue oval. The station is to the left of the red oval) (Map <a href="https://maps.nls.uk/index.html">‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland</a>“):</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-21-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="526" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-21-1024x526.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21675" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-21-1024x526.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-21-300x154.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-21-768x395.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-21-1536x789.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-21-2048x1053.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-21-624x321.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>The following extract from the 1927 edition of the Railway Clearing House Official Railway Map of London and its Environs shows the railways around the full Royal Docks complex, with the North Woolwich branch heading down, between the Victoria and Albert Docks, to the station which terminated the branch:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Royal-Victoria-Dock-22.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Royal-Victoria-Dock-22.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-20992"/></a></figure> <p>And in the following enlargement, we can see the two, competing, ferries across the river, the Free Ferry and the London and North Eastern Ferry (the former Eastern Counties Railway):</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-23.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="724" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-23-1024x724.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21678" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-23-1024x724.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-23-300x212.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-23-768x543.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-23-1536x1086.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-23-2048x1448.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-23-624x441.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>The 1854 station building was taken out of use in 1979 during a period of major maintenance to the North Woolwich branch line, and a new station building was constructed to the south of the station, alongside what is now Pier Road:</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-24.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="597" height="396" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-24.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21679" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-24.jpg 597w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-24-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 597px) 100vw, 597px" /></a></figure></div> <p>Attribution: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:North_Woolwich_station_-_Silverlink.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alexandra Lanes, Copyrighted free use, via Wikimedia Commons</a></p> <p>The old station remained empty until 1984 when it was opened as a railway museum by the Passmore Edwards Trust.</p> <p>The North Woolwich branch line closed in December 2006, and the museum closed two years later.</p> <p>I checked the Historic England map of listings, and the 1854 station building is Grade II listed.</p> <p>The building is now occupied by the New Covenant Church.</p> <p>Going back to the extract from the OS map. within the red oval is a building marked as a hotel. The hotel was the Royal Pavilion Hotel, and at the rear and to the north of the hotel were the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens – gardens that would lead to the Royal Victoria Gardens, the open space with trees shown to the right of the hotel.</p> <p>The hotel and pleasure gardens were there because of North Woolwich Station (shown to the left of the red oval in the above map), and the pier.</p> <p>When the line was completed, and the station opened in 1847, much of this part of North Woolwich was empty and undeveloped. The Royal Victoria Dock to the north would not open until 1855.</p> <p>In the 19th century, as the railways expanded across the country, the opening of a new station was often associated with the opening of a hotel, and even in what must have been the empty and windswept shores of the Thames at North Woolwich, the Royal Pavilion was built facing the station, and adjacent to the pier.</p> <p>Pleasure Gardens were often found across London by the river, and to attract customers, the hotel opened the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens, with an aim of attracting customers from Woolwich via the ferry, or from the rest of London via the railway.</p> <p>An advert in the Kentish Independent on the 24th of July, 1852 reads:</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens – North Woolwich – Admission Sixpence</em></p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><em>THE ABOVE GARDENS will be opened to the Public THIS DAY (SATURDAY)</em></p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><em>A talented Quadrille and Brass Band will be in attendance, Conductor, MR. GRATTAN COOKE. Refreshments, White Bait, Wines &c., of the best quality will be served in the gardens, and the Royal Pavilion Hotel.</em></p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Trains leave the East Counties Railway, Bishopsgate Station, calling at Mile End, Stratford Bridge, and Barking Road, at a Quarter before and a Quarter after the Hour (One o-Clock excepted) throughout the day.</em></p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Steam Packets leave Hungerford Bridge, and London Bridge and the intermediate Piers, every Twenty Minutes. The Eastern Counties Railway Company’s Steam Packets ply between the Pavilion Pier and the Town of Woolwich, constantly throughout the day.</em></p> <p>In August, 1952, the Pleasure Gardens were advertising <em>“SPLENDID ILLUMINATIONS, Fireworks by Cotton of Vauxhall”</em>, with “<em>Gala Nights, Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Fireworks at Half-past Ten.”</em></p> <p>It must have seemed rather a strange place to have a Pleasure Gardens, however given the location next to the river, and the lack of development, I can imagine that this was a rather good place to spend a summer’s evening in the 1850s, however this isolation would not last long, as the Royal Victoria Dock opened in 1855, and around the same time, plots of land were being advertised for sale for building, and adverts of these mentioned the proximity to the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens.</p> <p>The following 1956 revision of the OS map shows the hotel was then a Public House. The space is now occupied by a new block of flats. The map also shows how the tracks at North Woolwich station had expanded to the west of the station building, with space for goods traffic as well as holding trains (Map <a href="https://maps.nls.uk/index.html">‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland</a>“):</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-22-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="534" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-22-1024x534.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21676" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-22-1024x534.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-22-300x157.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-22-768x401.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-22-1536x801.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-22-2048x1068.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-22-624x326.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Looking around the back of the station building, we can still see the cast iron supports for the canopy that was once at the rear of the station:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-2-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-2-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21656" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-2-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-2-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>And a sign along the fence shows the use to which the area to the rear of the station was put in the recent past:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-1-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-1-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21655" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-1-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>Leaving the old station and pier, I am continuing east along the river walkway, which runs along the southern edge of the Royal Victoria Gardens:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-10-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-10-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21664" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-10-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-10-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>The Royal Victoria Gardens occupy much of the space of the old Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens.</p> <p>The Pleasure Gardens continued in use until the late 1880s. They were very popular, and there are newspaper reports of the crowds that would head to the gardens in the summer, however by the end of the 1880s the pleasure gardens were in financial trouble, and the gardens were taken over by the London County Council, and renamed as the Royal Victoria Gardens.</p> <p>The gardens suffered much bomb damage during the last war, resulting in the loss of many of the original features of the gardens, which included features such as an Italian garden, a maze, flower beds and a rifle range, however the gardens remain a really good area of green space, with the added benefit of being alongside the River Thames.</p> <p>The walk along the river is part of the North Woolwich Trail organised by the <em>“Ports of Call”</em> initiative, with <em>“Works of art at the Royal Docks”</em>.</p> <p>I was unaware of this, until I saw one of their plaques on the wall along the river, by the Royal Victoria Gardens. <a href="https://portsofcall.org.uk/index.html">Click here for the Ports of Call website</a>.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-11-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1660" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-11-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21665" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-11-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-11-300x194.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>There is an interesting example of industrial machinery in the Royal Victoria Gardens:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-12-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-12-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21666" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-12-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-12-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>This is a steam hammer, dating from 1888, and was from the blacksmith’s shop of R.H. Green and Silley Wier Ltd, at the Royal Albert Docks, on the site of what are today, the buildings of London City Airport. The steam hammer was installed in the gardens in 1994.</p> <p>Looking back along the walkway between the Thames and the Royal Victoria Gardens, with the pier of the Woolwich Free Ferry in the distance:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-13-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-13-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21667" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-13-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-13-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>Continuing along the walkway along the river, the gardens are replaced by blocks of flats, and I have come to the first of two small docks, where there is a sloping causeway into the river, which the walkway bends around:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-14-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-14-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21668" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-14-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-14-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>This first one is not named. It is shown on the OS maps earlier in the post, so it was here in the late 19th century, when it was at the end of what is now Woolwich Manor Way. I also checked the Port of London Authority listing of all the “<em>Steps, Stairs and Landing Places on the Tidal Thames”</em>, and whilst it is clearly a well built and useable landing place, the PLA listing makes no reference to the dock.</p> <p>Continuing along the river walkway:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-15-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-15-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21669" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-15-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-15-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>And I come to the dock which is shown on the maps, and is in the PLA listing. This is Bargehouse Causeway:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-16.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-16.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21670"/></a></figure> <p>In the PLA listing, it is called “<em>Old Barge House Drawdock”</em>, and the listing states that there were <em>“Stone setts on wooden piles”</em>. The OS maps do not name the causeway, but show that a causeway extended out from the dock, however if this still exists, it was not visible due to the state of the tide during my visit.</p> <p>The word Drawdock refers to a place where a boat could be drawn out from the river.</p> <p>The sign on the pole states that there is no mooring and the causeway is not in use for personal water craft. The location of the pole probably makes the causeway difficult to use as it is placed in the middle of the approach to the landing place.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-17-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1669" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-17-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21671" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-17-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-17-300x196.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>Although it is just Bargehouse Causeway today, the use of the name Old Barge House Drawdock in the PLA listing provides a better indication of its age.</p> <p>The causeway is the site of one of the first ferries between what is now North Woolwich, and the town of Woolwich, between what was Essex and Kent, and was first mentioned in 1308.</p> <p>There are very few mentions of the ferry up until the end of the 18th century, and in the following decades the ferry at Old Barge House Drawdock seems to have been a very active place. </p> <p>It was in use for foot passengers crossing the Thames, as well as farmers taking their produce to market, with a frequent route being Kent farmers taking cattle to market in Romford.</p> <p>The name of the draw dock seems to have come from the home of one of the early operators of the ferry, who had dragged up an old barge from the river, and lived in the barge above the shoreline.</p> <p>In the OS maps shown earlier in the post, you can see a building with the PH for Public House, and the pub was on the site of the old barge, and took the name of the Old Barge Inn.</p> <p>During much of the 19th century, the ferry was very busy, and the Army also introduced their own ferry between Woolwich and Old Barge House Drawdock. </p> <p>Such was the popularity of the crossing, one of the operators of the ferry embarked on the following works, reported in the Kentish Mercury on the 9th of May, 1840:</p> <p><em>“WOOLWICH FERRY – Mr. Thomas Howe, proprietor of the Old Barge House, Woolwich Ferry, has nearly completed the embankment of the Thames, which he commenced during the latter end of last summer. The esplanade now formed is about one thousand feet in length, with a depth of one hundred and fifty, and is raised to the height of twenty feet above high-water mark. </em></p> <p><em>The whole level has been laid down with grass turf, and surrounded by a neat railing, and when completed will form one of the most pleasing promenades on the banks of the Thames, commanding, as it does a perfect view of Woolwich, with its Dock-yard and Arsenal, together with Plumstead, Shooter’s Hill, and the delightful scenery of Kent. </em></p> <p><em>Upwards of one thousand barge-loads of rubbish have been employed in forming this embankment. The traffic between the two counties has increased about one hundred per cent since the improvement on this ferry commenced. The thousands who pass the ‘Old Barge House’ will scarcely observe that this favourite spot in in the county of Kent, notwithstanding it is situated on the Essex shore.”</em></p> <p>Strange to think whilst standing at the dock, that this was once described as one of the most pleasing promenades on the banks of the Thames, however it was rare for a large area of space, with good transport connections, and green space, to be found along the river. The Victoria Embankment had yet to be built, and much of the river, on both north and south banks was industrialised, so I can imagine that this place in North Woolwich was a very pleasant place to visit.</p> <p>What killed off the ferry from the Old Barge House Drawdock, was the opening in 1889 of the Woolwich Free Ferry. A ferry where you had to pay to cross the river could not compete with a free ferry which was a very short distance away.</p> <p>The view towards the east, along the Thames from the concrete ramp at Old Barge House Causeway:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-18-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-18-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21672" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-18-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-18-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>Walking up from the Barge House Causeway / Drawdock, requires walking up a ramp, and then steps or a longer ramp to get down to Barge House Road, which leads up to Albert Road.</p> <p>The road is obviously named after the pub (which stood to the left of the following photo), and the old drawdock, and the barge used at some point as a home by an operator of the ferry:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-19-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-19-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21673" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-19-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/North-Woolwich-19-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>This was such an interesting, short walk.</p> <p>Royal Victoria Gardens is a lovely open space along the river, which owes its existence to the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens and the associated hotel, once at the western end of the gardens, and the promenade built by the owner of the Barge House pub at the eastern end of the gardens.</p> <p>These were both places that were built due to the availability of adjacent transport routes, and seem to have been places that attracted thousands of visitors to North Woolwich in the decades around the middle of the 19th century.</p> <p>The need for the ramp and river walkway walls to built up, can be seen from the above photo, where the low lying area of North Woolwich is today still protected from high tides by large concrete walls and ramps.</p> <p>It would be interesting to find out if any of the “<em>one thousand barge-loads of rubbish</em>” that were used to formed the embankment in 1840 is still there, as I suspect it would offer an interesting look into mid-19th century life.</p> <p>I hope to be offering some walks around North Woolwich and the Royal Docks later in the year – if I can get organised in time, as this is a really interesting part of east London to explore.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/the-thames/north-woolwich-a-station-pier-pleasure-gardens-and-causeway/" data-text="North Woolwich - 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In the over 200 years of the pub’s existence, it seems to have swapped the Moor Street and Romilly Street names, as the location of the pub, with today Moor Street being the address.</p> <p>The pub seems to date from the late 18th century, when it was originally called the George, or the George and Thirteen Cantons, however I suspect the current building dates from the late 19th century and is of very similar architectural style to the Cambridge which I will look at next.</p> <p>I cannot find any firm reference to this name, apart from it being used in a for sale advert in 1892 when it was listed as a <em>“freehold property known as the George and Thirteen Cantons”</em>.</p> <p>The pub had a very similar, unusual name to another Soho pub, the Sun and 13 Cantons in Great Pulteney Street, and I assume the source of the name is the same for both, and from the Swiss watch-making community that lived and worked in Soho in the late 1800s.</p> <p>By 1935, the pubs was known by two names, still the George and Thirteen Cantons, but also now the Scots Hoose. </p> <p>I found this in newspaper reports on the 28th of September, 1935, where details of the will of a former licensee where given, as:</p> <p><em>“John Ingram Moar, of ‘The Scots Hoose’, Cambridge Circus, London, licensee of ‘The George and 13 Cantos’, better known as ‘The Scots Hoose’ in Soho, who had been a licensee in the West End of London for over 50 years. Net personality £29,566; gross, £30,314.”</em></p> <p>The George and 13 Cantons name seems have disappeared by the 1950s and 1960s, where the only reference to the pub is as <em>“The Scots Hoose”</em>, and a 1966 review in the Tatler provides an glimpse of the pub:</p> <p><em>“The Scots Hoose, Romilly Street. Not surprisingly, the landlord, ‘Jock’ Ansell, is a Scot. He is a retired musician and has worked with such stars as Jack Hylton and Bruce Forsyth. His pub was once the haunt of the Crazy Gang. Nowadays he prides himself on the finest selection of whiskies in Soho. You can buy a nip of Glen Grant (100 degrees of proof malt whisky) for 3s 6d. Gold painted thistles decorate the walls, but otherwise the atmosphere is disappointingly English, with a recurring chant of ‘arf a bitter, guv'”</em></p> <p>The description of the pub as “<em>disappointingly English</em>” does not do justice to the Scots Hoose of the 1960s, as it was a popular and well know music venue, as we find in the Stage from the 31st of August, 1967:</p> <p><em>“In another popular North of the Thames pub, the Railway Tavern of Tottenham, the Kevin Lindsay Organ Trio has taken up residence, and in the West End’s only music-hall pub, the Scots Hoose, Cambridge Circus, Doreen Ansell has captured Wakefield born pianist Barry Booth, former MD for Roy Orbison, to provide the backing for popular residents Tommy Osborne and Roy Tierney.”</em></p> <p>I do not think the description of the pub as a <em>“music-hall pub” </em>is that accurate, rather it was a pub which hosted live music, not traditional music hall acts, and in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Scots Hoose was one of the London pubs where many of the rising acts of the British Folk revival could be regularly found.</p> <p>A regular was Bert Jansch, a Scottish Folk musician who had moved down to London, as well as Folk performers such as Ralph McTell, Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny. </p> <p>One of Sandy Denny’s early home recordings was a song called Soho, a lyrical description of mid-1960s Soho, with the first few lyrics:</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Come walk the streets of crime<br>And colour bright the corners<br>Of love with the earth</em></p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><em>See the dazzling nightlife grow<br>Beyond the dawn and burning<br>In the heart of Soho</em></p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><em>Hear the market cries<br>And see their wares displayed<br>Through the window of your soul</em></p> <p>From Sandy’s performance of the song on Youtube:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oqVMIJYQw9U?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>The pub had changed name to <em>“The Spice of Life”</em> by the early 1980s, and as well as music, the pub seems to have been hosting plays, as there are adverts for these, with, for example, the following from <em>“The Stage and Television Today”</em> in March 1983:</p> <p><em>“A COUPLA WHITE CHICKS SITTING AROUND TALKING, BY John Ford Noonan. Spice of Life, Cambridge Circus WC2 to March 26. Cast includes, Monica Buferd, Lynn Webster, Director Siobhan Nicholas”</em></p> <p>Today, the Spice of Life is still an active music venue, with a regular Jazz Club, Blues, Soul and occasionally other types of acts such as Comedy performances.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Cambridge – Charing Cross Road</h2> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-26-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1700" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-26-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21641" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-26-scaled.jpg 1700w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-26-199x300.jpg 199w" sizes="(max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px" /></a></figure> <p>The Cambridge is on the other side of Moor Street to the Spice of Life, but where the Spice of Life is slightly set back from Cambridge Circus, the Cambridge faces directly onto Cambridge Circus, and the pub has a Charing Cross Road address.</p> <p>The building dates from 1887, and seems to have been part of the construction of Charing Cross Road, which also included the build of Cambridge Circus, although the pub was built on the site of a previous pub which went by the name of the King’s Arms.</p> <p>Cambridge Circus is named after the Duke of Cambridge who officially opened Charing Cross Road on Saturday 26th February 1887, and the pub seems to have followed the same naming route, following the change from the King’s Arms.</p> <p>Whilst the Cambridge has the usual news reports about the type of low level incidents and events, typical of Soho, in August 1991, the pub was part of the latest campaign of bombings by the IRA. The following is a typical news report from the time:</p> <p><em>“A pub landlord said today he was shocked to learn he may have been the victim of an IRA firebomb attack. ‘The Cambridge’, in the heart of London’s West End, was badly damaged in the attack eight days ago.</em></p> <p><em>But police have only just disclosed that the fire was likely to have been the work of the IRA.</em></p> <p><em>Landlord John Pucci (50) said, ‘Police Officers came here and told me they thought the IRA was involved. It was a bit of a shock to say the least.</em></p> <p><em>I don’t know why they picked on this pub. It’s not an Irish pub, or a police pub and we don’t hold meetings of any kind. It’s very much passing trade, tourists and people going shopping. I imagine the idea was purely to disrupt the West End.</em></p> <p><em>Mr. Pucci, who has run ‘The Cambridge’ on the corner of Cambridge Circus in Charing Cross Road for five years said he was woken by the fire alarm at 7:15 am. When he opened the door between his flat and the top bar he was met by sheets of flame. </em></p> <p><em>He said his wife Nina, his 20 year old son Julian and assistant manager Andrew Prime got out through the second-floor window only by climbing down a fire brigade ladder. Another five minutes and we would have been goners, he said.</em></p> <p><em>The blaze completely gutted the top bar – the fire was so intense a television 25 feet from where the device was stuffed behind a seat, exploded.</em></p> <p><em>Surveying the damage estimated at £200,000, Mr. Pucci said, ‘If it had gone off in the evening there would have been a few people roasted’. Remains of the device, about the size of a cassette tape, were found to be similar to incendiary bombs abandoned at Preston railway station in April.</em></p> <p><em>Detectives believe the same kind of device triggered fires in several shops in the centre of Manchester.”</em></p> <p>The bomb at the Cambridge was not the only time that Charing Cross Road was targeted during the IRA’s 1991 bombing campaign as later that year, in September, a similar incendiary bomb, but this time unexploded, was found in the Bargain Books of Oxford bookshop.</p> <p>Thankfully, not all events in Soho’s pubs have been so potentially devastating.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Coach and Horses – Old Compton Street</h2> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-27-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1658" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-27-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21643" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-27-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-27-300x194.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>The Coach and Horses on the corner of Old Compton Street and Charing Cross Road is interesting as it did was not originally built as a pub, but, as described in the details of the Grade II listing, is a <em>“Rare survival of early house representing the earliest phase of Soho’s development”</em>, and that it dates from the <em>“Late C17/early C18 with later alterations”</em>, so as the listing states, it really is a rare survivor from the first stages of Soho’s development.</p> <p>I cannot find exactly when the building changed from being a residential house to a pub. The pub’s website states that it dates back to 1731. The first written reference I can find to the pub is rather confusing. It dates from the 3rd of December, 1814, where in the Durham County Advertiser, there is an advert. At the top a drawing of a stage coach with horses on the road, below which is written:</p> <p><em>“The old established and original CITY OF DURHAM HOUSE, COACH AND HORSES, LITTLE COMPTON STREET, SOHO, LONDON. William Hopper (Late of the City of Durham) returns his most grateful thanks for the favours he has been honoured with since his Uncle’s death , and begs to informs his friends, countrymen and the public in general that very comfortable accommodation is afforded for their comfort. Wines and spirits of the best quality. Good beds are provided for his friends. Exclusive of the London papers. he takes in those of York, Durham, Newcastle and Dumfries.”</em></p> <p>I am really not sure what this advert means. Is <em>“City of Durham House”</em> a sort of additional trading name for the Coach & Horses, which may have been the point where a coach service to the north east operated from (although I can find no other evidence of this, but it would explain the name of the pub), and which provided accommodation for those arriving from, or departing to the north east?</p> <p>I have no idea, just one of those little historical mysteries. Note though that in the advert the pub was in Little Compton Street, which was the original name for the street prior to the construction of Charing Cross Road and the rename to Old Compton Street.</p> <p>Although the pub still retains its original name, it has had a couple of name changes, first to Molly Moggs, in 1996, when it was one of Soho’s gay pubs, then in 2017 it changed to the Compton Cross, and following the purchase of the pub by Shephard Neame in 2019, along with a major restoration, the name returned to the original Coach and Horses.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Pillars of Hercules – Greek Street</h2> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-29-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1700" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-29-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21645" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-29-scaled.jpg 1700w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-29-199x300.jpg 199w" sizes="(max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px" /></a></figure> <p>I have included the Pillars of Hercules in Greek Street, although despite the pub sign hanging from the front of the building, the traditional Pillars of Hercules closed in 2018.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="856" height="1000" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21646" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-2.jpg 856w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-2-257x300.jpg 257w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-2-768x897.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-2-624x729.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 856px) 100vw, 856px" /></a></figure> <p>The name comes from the promontories on either side of the straights of Gibraltar, and which form the entrance to the Mediterranean. The name is of some antiquity and was used by Pliny the Elder in the first century AD, and is almost certainly much older.</p> <p>The pub sign shows Hercules with his back to one pillar, and his hands on the front of a second pillar. The relevance of the entry to the Mediterranean is that it would have once been the limit of the known world, and was the furthest point to which Hercules ventured, or that Hercules is holding back, or narrowing the entrance, or the pillars are holding up the sky – there are a number of interpretations.</p> <p>There has been a pub on the site since 1733, although I cannot find confirmation that the name has remained the same since that date, although it has been in use for a long time.</p> <p>The pub closed in 2018 and reopened as Bar Hercules, and is now a Cocktail bar within the Simmonds chain.</p> <p>The present building is relatively recent, having been built around 1910, and when open, the pub had a lovely sign running above the pub and over the passage which is the entrance to Manette Street, as shown in this photo from 2008:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillars_of_Hercules_-_Soho_-_W1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="768" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillars_of_Hercules_-_Soho_-_W1-768x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21647" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillars_of_Hercules_-_Soho_-_W1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillars_of_Hercules_-_Soho_-_W1-225x300.jpg 225w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillars_of_Hercules_-_Soho_-_W1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillars_of_Hercules_-_Soho_-_W1-624x832.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillars_of_Hercules_-_Soho_-_W1.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></a></figure> <p><em>Attribution: Ewan Munro from London, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0 <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons</em></p> <p>Today, the front of the old pub looks very sad following the lost of the pub name:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-1-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="637" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-1-1024x637.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21648" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-1-1024x637.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-1-300x187.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-1-768x478.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-1-1536x956.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-1-2048x1275.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pillar-of-Hercules-1-624x388.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>I do not know why the original pub closed, from memory, it always seemed to be busy, and on summer evenings, the pavement outside would be crowded with drinkers.</p> <p>A sad loss.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Green Man – Berwick Street</h2> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-30-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1690" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-30-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21649" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-30-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Soho-Pubs-30-300x198.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>As can be seen in the above photo, the Green Man occupies two buildings. They both have individual Grade II listings, and the Green Man did not always occupy both buildings.</p> <p>The building on the right is the original Green Man, with the listing stating that it is a Public House, early 19th century.</p> <p>For the building on the left, the listing states <em>“Former terrace house. Front of same build as early C19 adjoining No. 57 but probably refronting of earlier C18 fabric.”</em> so it was originally a house, and seems to have an older internal fabric than the original Green Man building.</p> <p>The listing for the pub states early 19th century, and the first record of the pub that I can find is from 1822, when, in a court case a prisoner was being tried for a number of offences, including stealing <em>“a new pair of linen sheets”</em> from the Green Man after he had stayed in one of the pub’s rooms.</p> <p>The Green Man was one of the pubs in London that held <em>“Repeal Meetings”</em>. These were meeting organised by the Repeal Association which was an Irish movement founded by Daniel O;Connell in 1830 to campaign for the repeal of the 1800 Acts of Union between Great Britain and Ireland.</p> <p>Other London pubs holding repeal meetings during the same week (15th January 1842) included the Union Arms on Holborn Hill and Buckley’s Rooms in Old Boswell Court.</p> <p>The campaign seems to have been for an independent Ireland, but still within the British Empire – <em>“the same right of legislative independence as England, always subject to the constitutional supremacy of the British Crown”</em> as described in one of the speeches during the Repeal meeting in the Green Man.</p> <p>Many London pubs were places where campaigns such as the Repeal Association would meet, and they would also be the meeting places of various clubs and associations, and one club meeting in the Green Man was, perhaps rather unusual for central Soho, as the Green Man was the meeting place in the 1870s for the United Marlborough Brothers – one of the very many London Angling Clubs that met in lots of pubs across the wider city.</p> <p>I cannot find when the Green Man took over the house next door to become the double fronted pub we see today, however it is a wonderful survivor and as far as I can trace, the Green Man has been the continuous name of the pub since the pub was opened over 200 years ago.</p> <p>A few more of the many pubs that can still be found across the streets of Soho.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/londonpubs/soho-pubs-part-3/" data-text="Soho Pubs - Part 3" >Tweet</a></li><li class="share-facebook"><div class="fb-share-button" data-href="https://alondoninheritance.com/londonpubs/soho-pubs-part-3/" data-layout="button_count"></div></li><li><a href="#" class="sharing-anchor sd-button share-more"><span>More</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul><div class="sharing-hidden"><div class="inner" style="display: none;width:150px;"><ul style="background-image:none;"><li class="share-bluesky"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-bluesky-21639" class="share-bluesky sd-button" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/londonpubs/soho-pubs-part-3/?share=bluesky" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Bluesky" ><span>Bluesky</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div> </div> <footer class="entry-meta"> This entry was posted in <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/londonpubs/" rel="category tag">London Pubs</a> and tagged <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/london-pubs/" rel="tag">London Pubs</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/soho-pubs/" rel="tag">Soho Pubs</a> on <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/londonpubs/soho-pubs-part-3/" title="7:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2025-01-26T07:30:00+00:00">January 26, 2025</time></a><span class="by-author"> by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by admin" rel="author">admin</a></span></span>. </footer> </article> <article id="post-21577" class="post-21577 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-london-buildings category-london-history category-london-monuments category-london-streets tag-bank-of-england tag-mansion-house tag-royal-exchange"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/the-bank-junction-the-historic-centre-of-london/" rel="bookmark">The Bank Junction – The Historic Centre of London?</a> </h1> <div class="comments-link"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/the-bank-junction-the-historic-centre-of-london/#comments">17 Replies</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p>There are a number of options for the centre of London, almost all dependent on how you define the centre of a city such as London. For today’s post, I am going to go for the Bank Junction as the historic centre of London – that point where several key roads meet in the City, in front of the Bank of England, Royal Exchange and Mansion House, which until recently, has been a place busy with traffic and people, as this image from the late 19th century illustrates, looking across from outside the Mansion House to the Royal Exchange, when it was described as “<em>The open space bounded by the Exchange, the Bank, and the Mansion House is perhaps the busiest in all the City</em>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-25-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1877" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-25-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21604" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-25-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-25-300x220.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>And it was much the same in the 1920s, although there are some subtle differences, including the war memorial that now stands in front of the Royal Exchange as the photo below was taken not that long after the First World War:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-32-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1755" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-32-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21611" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-32-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-32-300x206.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>This is a very old part of the City, once at the heart of the Roman City, with very many Roman remains having been found deep below the current surface level.</p> <p>The 16th century <em>“Agas”</em> map shows the key streets of Cornhill, what is now Threadneedle Street, and Poultry, and by the 1682 map of William Morgan, we can see the area around the Bank junction (which is slightly left of centre in the following extract), with the second iteration of the Royal Exchange (after the first was lost during the Great Fire of 1666), and where Poultry and Cornhill meet, we can see the Wool Church Market, at the site of the future Mansion House (<a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/an-accountant-hall-church-and-shakespeare-city-of-london-blue-plaques/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">see this post on St Mary Woolchurch, and the wool market</a>):</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-29-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="733" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-29-1024x733.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21608" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-29-1024x733.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-29-300x215.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-29-768x550.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-29-1536x1100.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-29-2048x1467.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-29-624x447.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>By the time of Rocque’s 1746 map, we can see that the Wool Market has now been replaced by the Mansion House, and the first building of the Bank of England is shown in Threadneedle Street, simply labelled as <em>“The Bank”</em>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-28-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="623" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-28-1024x623.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21607" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-28-1024x623.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-28-300x182.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-28-768x467.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-28-1536x934.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-28-2048x1245.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-28-624x379.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>By Horwood’s map of 1799, we can see how the rapid expansion of the Bank of England has taken up so much space between Threadneedle Street and Throgmorton Street:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-40-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1920" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-40-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21621" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-40-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-40-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>In all the above maps, there are only four streets converging on the Bank junction – Cornhill, Lombard Street, Poultry and Threadneedle Street. The junction would get far more complex with the “improvements” to the City implemented by the Victorians during the 19th century, which would leave us with the junction we see today in the centre of the following map:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-41.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="651" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-41-1024x651.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21622" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-41-1024x651.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-41-300x191.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-41-768x488.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-41-1536x976.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-41-2048x1301.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-41-624x396.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Where we can now see that Queen Victoria Street joins the junction via Poultry, King William Street has been built, with Lombard Street now joining the junction via this new street, and finally Princes Street, which was widened and straightened along the western side of the enlarged Bank of England.</p> <p>And this was why the Bank junction was so busy. Cornhill to Poultry and Cheapside was for long a significant east – west route. The new Princes Street and King William Street added a north – south route to London Bridge, and Queen Victoria Street provided a direct route down to Blackfriars Bridge along with the Embankment route to Westminster.</p> <p>To these through routes was added all the local traffic to the offices, shops and businesses across the City of London.</p> <p>The geology of the area is one of the reasons why the City was established where it is. In the following extract from the brilliant <a href="https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/">topographic-map.com</a>, the height of the land across the City is colour coded so that the blue / greens represent decreasing height and yellow to red indicates increasing height:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-27.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="617" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-27-1024x617.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21606" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-27-1024x617.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-27-300x181.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-27-768x463.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-27-624x376.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-27.jpg 1251w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>We can see the Bank junction just to the lower right of the centre of the map, and Cornhill is a hill that runs up to the highest land just to the right of Leadenhall Market.</p> <p>The higher land around and to the right of the Bank junction is not as pronounced today as it was many centuries ago. Building and street levelling over the centuries has resulted in higher ground being much less pronounced, and originally, the land at and to the right of the Bank was one of the two main hills of the City, with the other being around St. Paul’s Cathedral, before the drop down to the Fleet River.</p> <p>One of the City’s lost rivers, the River Walbrook once flowed slightly to the west of the Bank junction, cutting across where Queen Victoria Street, Poultry and Princes Street now run, at a much lower level to the current street surface.</p> <p>Bank junction today, looking across to the Royal Exchange, with the Bank of England on the left:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-1.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21580"/></a></figure> <p>There are two main differences between the view across the junction of today, and that of the recent past.</p> <p>Firstly, and most obviously, are the tower blocks in the background. Secondly it is the lack of road traffic.</p> <p>Over recent few years, the City of London Corporation have been restricting vehicle access across the City, and the impact of this can be plainly seen at the Bank. The part of Threadneedle Street to the left of the Royal Exchange has been pedestrianised, and the complex restrictions are summarised in the<a href="https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/streets/all-change-at-bank-project" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> following extract from the City of London’s website</a>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-42.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="886" height="997" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-42.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21624" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-42.jpg 886w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-42-267x300.jpg 267w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-42-768x864.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-42-624x702.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 886px) 100vw, 886px" /></a></figure> <p>I have mentioned this before, but whilst these restrictions have resulted in a much more pleasant place to walk, better air quality, and providing an environment where it is much easier to see the buildings surrounding the junction – it does leave this central part of the City lacking a sense or urgency and activity, of a vibrant and thriving place. It is probably though just the change from the City that I knew for many decades.</p> <p>Apart from the new Victorian streets, the layout of the Bank junction has not changed that much, just the buildings that line the streets. </p> <p>This was the view from outside Mansion House, looking across to the Royal Exchange in 1804, where the open space we see today in front of the Royal Exchange, was then occupied by Bank Buildings. The Bank of England is on the left and the tower of the version of the Royal Exchange rebuilt after the Great Fire is on the right:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-38.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-38-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21618" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-38-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-38-300x225.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-38-768x576.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-38-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-38-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-38-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>So there has been major rebuilding of the buildings that surround the junction, but the layout of the junction has remained much the same for centuries, with the addition of new streets in the 19th century.</p> <p>The times when the actual junction has needed a rebuild is when the Bank underground station arrived, and when the junction, and the station below, was seriously damaged by a bomb on the night of the 11th January, 1941, when the bomb went through the road surface and exploded in the booking hall of the station, as illustrated in the following photo:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-26.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="800" height="604" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-26.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21605" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-26.jpg 800w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-26-300x227.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-26-768x580.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-26-624x471.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">AIR RAID DAMAGE (HU 640) The Bank of England and Royal Exchange after the raid during the night of 11 January 1941. The bomb exploded in the booking-hall of the Bank Underground Station. The crater, 1,800 sq ft in area, was the largest in London. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205068679</figcaption></figure> <p>Many of those in the station at the time where sheltering, and the bomb caused the death of 56 people, with many more being injured, and today there is a plaque in the station recording the event:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-43-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2065" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-43-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21625" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-43-scaled.jpg 2065w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-43-242x300.jpg 242w" sizes="(max-width: 2065px) 100vw, 2065px" /></a></figure> <p>Time for a walk around, to look at the streets and the buildings that surround the junction, starting with the streets. In the following photo is the Royal Exchange, and Cornhill is the street leading of to the right of the photo:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-2.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21581"/></a></figure> <p>Cornhill is an old street, and one of the principal streets of the City. The earliest written record of the street dates from around 1125 when it was recorded as Cornhilla.</p> <p>The “hill” element of the name is due to the street running up the western slope of the hill that peaks north-east of Leadenhall Market and “Corn” comes from the association with a corn market that was <em>“held here time out of mind”</em>, as recorded by Stow.</p> <p>In the following photo is Princes Street, running along the western edge of the Bank of England:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-4.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-4.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21583"/></a></figure> <p>An earlier Princes Street can be seen in the 18th century maps shown earlier in the post, however the Princes Street we see today has been straightened with the loss of a northern section, by the 19th century extension of the Bank of England.</p> <p>In the following photo, the red bus is in Poultry, which is the street leading west out of the junction:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-5.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-5.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21584"/></a></figure> <p>Poultry is another old street, with first mentions being in the 12th and 13th centuries. The name comes from the markets that were held here where poulters sold their produce.</p> <p>In the above photo, the River Walbrook once ran across the street, in front of the new building in the centre of the view, the Grade II* listed No 1 Poultry, designed by James Stirling in the 1980s, although the building was not completed until 1997.</p> <p>The photo shows how much land levels have changed over the centuries, as today there is no sign of the small valley in which the Walbrook ran, which was well below the current level of the street surface, which can be seen by a <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/the-temple-of-mithras-and-vine-street-roman-wall/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit to the Temple of Mithras, now on display at the London Mithraeum</a>, built as part of the construction of Bloomberg’s new European headquarters, a short distance to the south.</p> <p>A slightly different view, with Queen Victoria Street running to the left of the new building:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-24.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-24.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21603"/></a></figure> <p>Queen Victoria Street was built to help with the growing levels of traffic in the City, and to provide a direct route from the Bank junction, down to Blackfriars Bridge, and the new Embankment.</p> <p>Construction was recommended in 1861 and included in the Metropolitan Improvement Act of 1863. The new street opened in 1871.</p> <p>The new street resulted in the loss of numerous courts and alleys, as well as streets of a larger extent, which were swept away for its formation. Amongst those which had occupied the site of the new street were Five Foot Lane, Dove Court, Old Fish Street Hill, Lambeth Hill (part), Bennet’s Hill (part), St Peter’s Hill (part), Earl Street, Bristol Street, White Bear Alley and White Horse Court.</p> <p>To the left of the above photos is Mansion House:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-22.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-22.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21601"/></a></figure> <p>A permanent building for the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London was one of the considerations for rebuilding the City after the Great Fire, however these plans were not realised until the 18th century.</p> <p>The site of the old market was appropriate as it was located at a junction of important streets, which did not have any significant monuments.</p> <p>The architect was George Dance the Elder, who at the time was the City of London’s Clerk of Works. and who took on the challenge of designing a building fit for the Lord Mayor of a growing City and which was able to accommodate both ceremonial functions as well as providing rooms for a private residence.</p> <p>Work started in 1739, with completion in 1758, and the first Lord Mayor to take up residence was Sir Crispin Gascoigne. </p> <p>The main reception room was (and still is) the Great Egyptian Hall. Not strictly speaking an Egyptian Hall, rather one based on an account by the Roman writer Vitruvius of what such a room may have looked like. The room today has a barrel roof which was the later work of George Dance the Younger in 1795. as the elder Dance had built a large upper storey, which must have looked out of place, and is shown in the following print of the Mansion House after completion:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-39.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="769" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-39-1024x769.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21619" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-39-1024x769.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-39-300x225.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-39-768x577.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-39-1536x1153.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-39-624x468.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-39.jpg 1817w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>The large blocks on the roof were intended to give the impression of a complete upper floor as a backdrop to the Corinthian portico at the front of the building, but they look more of a distraction than an improvement.</p> <p>There have been minor changes to the building since the end of the 18th century, but essentially, when viewed from the Bank junction, the building looks much the same today as it did when it was the first major City building at this important junction.</p> <p>Moving around the junction, and this is the view looking down King William Street, built after approval was given in an 1829 Act of Parliament as part of improvements to the approach to London Bridge. The street was later widened between 1881 and 1884.</p> <p>In the following photo, the church is St Mary Woolnoth, (<a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-churches/st-mary-woolnoth-church-underground-crypt/">see this post for the story of the Church with the Underground in the Crypt</a>). King William Street is to the right of the church, with Lombard Street to the left. Before King William Street was built, Lombard Street ran up to the Bank junction. Lombard Street is an old City street, with a first mention back in 1319, and dependent on spelling, there may have been an earlier record of the street in 1108.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-6.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-6.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21585"/></a></figure> <p>This is the view along Cornhill:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-7.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-7.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21586"/></a></figure> <p>There is a statue in the middle of the road in the above photo, and it is rather appropriate given that much of the Bank junction sits on top of Bank underground station.</p> <p>The statue is to the inventor of the Greathead tunnelling shield – James Henry Greathead:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-10.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-10.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21589"/></a></figure> <p>Greathead was a South African, who came to London at the age of 15 and in 1864 he was apprenticed to the civil engineer Peter Barlow.</p> <p>Five years later at the age of 24, in 1869, Greathead took on the construction of the Tower subway, the pedestrian tunnel under the river from outside the Tower of London.</p> <p>Tunneling under the river was a challenge, given the soft, waterlogged nature of the ground, not that far below the bed of the Thames. </p> <p>To address this challenge, Greathead devised what became known as the Greathead Shield, although it was based on a shield design originally used by Brunel, but with a number of improvements.</p> <p>Greathead went on to work on other tunnelling projects, a number of which route through the Bank, including the City & South London line, which at the time terminated at King William Street (now part of the Northern Line), and the Waterloo and City Line, which now has its City termination at the Bank underground station.</p> <p>The statue of Greathead is relatively recent, dating from 1994, when it was placed there for a specific reason. If you look below the statue of Greathead, at the area between the feet of the statue and the stone plinth, there is a grill that runs the full circumference of the statue, revealing its true purpose, as it is an air vent for the station beneath, and rather than just have a plain air vent, the statue of a person who was one of those responsible for the continuous improvement in tunnelling under London was a suitable addition to sit on top of Bank underground station.</p> <p>We now come to the Royal Exchange:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-8.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-8.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21587"/></a></figure> <p>The history of the Royal Exchange goes back to the City of London’s position as a major trading centre. </p> <p>Long before the days of electronic communications, trading was a person to person business, with traders meeting and agreeing on prices, terms etc. All these embryonic activities led to institutions such as Lloyds of London, the London Stock Exchange, and all the other various exchanges for metals, coal etc.</p> <p>In the 16th century, much trading was carried out on the street, or in the small houses and shops that lined streets such as Cornhill and Lombard Street, and there had been calls for a dedicated place where people could meet to trade, agree prices, and generally conduct business of all types.</p> <p>Enter Sir Richard Gresham who became aware of the opening of a Bourse, or trading centre in Antwerp, one of the major trading centres of Europe. Gresham pushed for such a building to be constructed in the City of London, however despite the project receiving royal support, there was no suitable space available.</p> <p>The proposal was taken up by his son, Sir Thomas Gresham, who also knew of the Antwerp Bourse, as he was based in the city for a number of years as a trader, working on behalf of the Crown, and trading on his own behalf.</p> <p>Gresham put his own money into the project, along with significant funding generated through public subscriptions, which supported the purchase of a block of land in Cornhill Street, a short distance from what is now the Bank junction, and occupying the same site as the current Royal Exchange.</p> <p>The building was opened by Queen Elizabeth I in January 1570, and it was the first, large, Renaissance style building in the City.</p> <p>This first Royal Exchange was destroyed during the 1666 Great Fire, and was soon rebuilt following a design by Edward Jarman, but, as shown in the maps at the top of the post, it still faced onto Cornhill, and in the area in front of today’s Royal Exchange, there was a triangular cluster of buildings.</p> <p>The following print shows the Royal Exchange as rebuilt following the Great Fire, with the main entrance facing onto Cornhill:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-35.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="726" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-35-1024x726.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21615" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-35-1024x726.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-35-300x213.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-35-768x545.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-35-1536x1089.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-35-2048x1452.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-35-624x443.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>The Royal Exchange consisted of a large central courtyard, surrounded by four wings which held offices for meetings, shops, cellars below for the storage of goods etc, as shown in the following print:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-44.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="773" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-44-1024x773.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21629" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-44-1024x773.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-44-300x226.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-44-768x580.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-44-1536x1160.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-44-2048x1546.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-44-624x471.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>This second iteration of the Royal Exchange lasted until 1838, when, as with the first, it was also burnt down, with the following print showing the still smouldering remains of the building:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-37.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="761" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-37-1024x761.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21617" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-37-1024x761.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-37-300x223.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-37-768x570.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-37-1536x1141.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-37-2048x1521.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-37-624x464.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>The Royal Exchange was soon rebuilt, following a competition to find a design. The competition was won by the architect William Tite, who seems to have also been one of the judges of the competition.</p> <p>Tite’s design follows the layout of the original two Exchanges, with a central courtyard surrounded by four wings of offices and shops, however Tite’s design changed the main entrance from facing onto Cornhill, now to face onto the Bank junction.</p> <p>The buildings that had once occupied the triangular space in front of the building were demolished, and it was opened up so that the full Corinthian portico of the new building faced directly onto the Bank junction, and seems almost to mirror the Mansion House across the junction.</p> <p>The new Royal Exchange was opened in 1844 by Queen Victoria, with the following print showing the opening ceremony, and also how the new building had opened up the space around this important meeting place of City streets:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-45.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="892" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-45-1024x892.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21630" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-45-1024x892.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-45-300x261.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-45-768x669.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-45-1536x1338.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-45-2048x1783.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-45-624x543.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>Within the pediment above the columns in the front of the building, there is a sculpture with the words <em>“The Earth is the Lord’s, and the Fulness Thereof”</em>, which was carved by Richard Westmacott the younger (his father of the same name was also a sculptor), and shows traders, historic, from across the world and from London. There are also small details such as a ships anchor to the left and pots to the right:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-9.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-9.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21588"/></a></figure> <p>The Latin inscription, picked out in gold just below the pediment can be translated as <em>“founded in the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth, and restored in the eighth of Queen Victoria”</em>, to recall the founding of the first exchange, and the build of the third exchange to occupy the site.</p> <p>There are numerous small details around the building, for example, the following has the date of the opening of the building as 1844 in Roman numerals:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-11.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-11.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21590"/></a></figure> <p>And the cipher of Queen Victoria, the monarch who opened the latest version of the Royal Exchange:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-12.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-12.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21591"/></a></figure> <p>It is interesting that the Royal Exchange is the only building that I am aware of in London where both the first version, and the latest, were both opened by Queens. Elizabeth I in 1570 and 274 years later, Victoria.</p> <p>The steps in front of the Royal Exchange are also where the City of London proclaims a new monarch.</p> <p>The current Royal Exchange has a glittering gold grasshopper from the arms of the Gresham family:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-15-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1920" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-15-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21594" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-15-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-15-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></a></figure> <p>The Royal Exchange was not the only institution founded by Sir Thomas Gresham. His time travelling and working in Europe had also fostered an interest in learning, in trade, and in the benefits that the arts, technical and scientific achievements could bring to trade.</p> <p>After his death, the executors of his Will founded Gresham College, to provide education across the arts and sciences, and which opened in 1597. A key aspect of the new college was that teaching was in English rather than Latin, which opened the college up to a much wider cohort of potential students.</p> <p>The college originally operated from Sir Thomas Gresham’s old mansion in Bishopsgate, and then, rather appropriately for a period at the end of the 18th through the early 19th century, the college was based in the Royal Exchange.</p> <p>A number of moves later, and today the college is based at Barnard’s Inn Hall, and offers a range of free lectures, both on site and online. There is a lecture on <a href="https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/sir-thomas-gresham-and-new-learning" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“Sir Thomas Gresham and the New Learning”, on the college’s website, along with many others, which can be found by clicking here</a>.</p> <p><a href="https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/browse-all?type=567" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">There is also a whole series of lectures on London, which can be found by clicking here</a> – perfect for winter evenings.</p> <p>There are very many fascinating lectures and Gresham’s college continues to provide a wonderful resource for learning.</p> <p>Thomas Gresham was perhaps the first person who truly understood international money markets and international trade. He served three monarchs, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth, helping to keep them financially solvent, and during Elizabeth’s reign, his methods and contacts helped to stabilise the national currency.</p> <p>He apparently could be rather unscrupulous in his dealings, including with his own family, and despite using his own money for the Royal Exchange, and leaving money for Gresham College, he appears to not have been particularly charitable during his life.</p> <p>His name can also be found in the City with the naming of Gresham Street.</p> <p>Returning to the Royal Exchange, the use of a building as a place for general trading faded later in the 19th century as specialist trading exchanges were set up to provide a place where trades could be made, meetings held, and news received in a specific and related set of commodities or services.</p> <p>In 1939, the building became the offices of the Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance Company, and in the late 1980s, the company made substantial changes to the interior of the building, which included replacing the original roof, and an additional upper floor.</p> <p>In 2001, the building was again refurbished, and reopened as a centre for luxury shops, restaurants and bars, and the Royal Exchange retains this function today.</p> <p>Entering the Royal Exchange from the open space in front of the Bank junction:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-19.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-19.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21598"/></a></figure> <p>The courtyard interior and roof today:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-20-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1920" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-20-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21599" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-20-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-20-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></a></figure> <p>Next to the Royal Exchange, across Threadneedle Street is the Bank of England:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-13.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-13.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21592"/></a></figure> <p>The Bank of England occupies a significant area of land of some three and a half acres. It has reached this size through a series of rebuilds and extensions over the years since the founding of the institution in 1694 as the Government’s banker, and arrival in Threadneedle Street in 1734, into a Palladian building designed by George Sampson, as the first, purpose built building for the Bank of England.</p> <p>You can see the first Bank building marked in Rocque’s map of 1746, so much smaller than the complex of today.</p> <p>The Bank of England has a number of key functions:</p> <ul> <li>As the Government’s banker, the Bank of England is the only institution authorised to issue bank notes</li> <li>Although they have shrunk over the past few decades, the Bank of England is responsible for looking after the country’s gold reserves</li> <li>And although the Bank of England is owned by the Government, since 1997 the Bank has been responsible for independently setting monetary policy, for example, by setting interest rates</li> </ul> <p>Rapid expansion of the Bank of England commenced after 1788 when Sir John Soane was appointed as architect to the Bank of England, continuing work on consolidating and expanding the Bank of England and working on the large curtain wall that was finished after Soane stopped working for the Bank in 1833, and which completed the security of the Bank’s complex.</p> <p>The Bank of England buildings that we see today are the result of a rebuilding programme carried out between 1923 and 1939 by the architect Sir Herbert Baker, and which resulted in the demolition of most of Sir John Soane’s work, and resulted in a rebuild described by Nikolaus Pevsner as <em>“the greatest architectural crime, in the City of London of the twentieth century”</em>.</p> <p>The Bank of England, facing on to Threadneedle Street, as it was before the rebuild that started in 1923:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-31-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1741" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-31-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21610" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-31-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-31-300x204.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>A photo showing the extent of the rebuilding between 1923 and 1939, from the 1920s books “Wonderful London” (as is the above photo):</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-30-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1499" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-30-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21609" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-30-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-30-300x176.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>The photo above shows just how the curtain wall surrounding the bank forms an almost castle like structure. Also in the foreground, there appears to be a deep excavation, presumably part of the extensive below ground areas of the Bank.</p> <p>The castle like curtain wall was supplemented by a Brigade of Guards detachment, who had barracks at the Bank to provide over night security, continuing this service until 1973.</p> <p>The Bank of England partly faces on to the open space in front of the Royal Exchange, and as mentioned earlier, this was covered in buildings up to the construction of the 1844 building we see today. </p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-18-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1920" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-18-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21597" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-18-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-18-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>There are two large monuments in this open space. The first is a memorial to the <em>“officers, non-commissioned officers and men of London who served King and Empire in the Great War 1914 – 1919”</em>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-16.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-16.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21595"/></a></figure> <p>The memorial was erected after the First World War, and an additional inscription was added at the bottom of the memorial for the Second World War.</p> <p>The memorial records the names of all the London Battalions that fought in the Great War, and it is a reminder of how battalions were formed from local areas and of people with specific interests, so you have the 11th Battalion Finsbury Rifles, the 17th Battalion Poplar & Stepney Rifles, the 28th Battalion Artists Rifles etc.:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-17.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-17.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21596"/></a></figure> <p>The second monument is to the Duke of Wellington, which was unveiled on June the 18th, 1844:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-23.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-23.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21602"/></a></figure> <p>The monument is here, in front of the Bank of England and Royal Exchange as a thank you from the City of London for the Duke’s help in getting the London Bridge Approaches Act of 1827 through Parliament. There is a full explanation on a plaque on the monument:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-34.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-34.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21612"/></a></figure> <p>The Duke of Wellington also now sits on an air vent to the station below, as can be seen by the grill in the above photo.</p> <p>The plaque mentions that a piece of granite from London Bridge was set into the pavement by the statue prior to the removal of the bridge to Arizona:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-33-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1606" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-33-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21613" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-33-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-33-300x188.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>Each of the buildings and institutions covered in this post deserve a dedicated and much more comprehensive post, such is the history at this key City of London road junction. The other aspect that deserves a much fuller write up is the underground station that sits beneath the road junction.</p> <p>Bank Station was one of very few London Underground Stations that had no above ground buildings, however Bank can no longer claim this distinctive feature following additional entrances to the station across an ever expanding area, including the entrance to Bank Underground Station that is now on Cannon Street.</p> <p>But as you walk around the Bank junction, there are a number of access points, where stairs lead you down to the station below:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-21.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Bank-Junction-21.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21600"/></a></figure> <p>Whether or not you agree that the Bank junction is the historic centre of London, it is a place where major routes across and out of the city all join, and it is a place where three key and early City of London Institutions have and are based. </p> <p>The Royal Exchange, although no longer supporting its original purpose, once represented the trading heart of the City, Mansion House continues to be the public face of the City’s independent governance, and the Bank of England represents the City’s role in the financial management of the country.</p> <p>If you are interested in a bit of a deep dive into two of the places covered, I can recommend:</p> <ul> <li>Till Time’s Last Sand – A History of the Bank of England, 1694 – 2013 by David Kynaston</li> <li>Gresham’s Law: The Life and World of Queen Elizabeth I’s Banker by John Guy</li> <li>Sir Thomas Gresham and Gresham College: Studies in the Intellectual History of London in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, edited by Francis Ames-Lewis</li> </ul> <p>In addition to the Gresham lectures, you may also be interested in the following film that I found whilst researching today’s post at the Imperial War Museum collection.</p> <p>Titled Britain at War, it is a film which unusually is mainly in colour, and has a lengthy section on London starting at 8 minutes, 30 seconds (it will probably not appear in the emailed versions of this post. <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Click here to go to the website where the film will appear in the post</a>.)</p> <iframe loading="lazy" src="https://www.iwm.org.uk/embed/?id=1060038940&media_id=513541" height="430" width="480" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"></iframe> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/the-bank-junction-the-historic-centre-of-london/" data-text="The Bank Junction - The Historic Centre of London?" >Tweet</a></li><li class="share-facebook"><div class="fb-share-button" data-href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/the-bank-junction-the-historic-centre-of-london/" data-layout="button_count"></div></li><li><a href="#" class="sharing-anchor sd-button share-more"><span>More</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul><div class="sharing-hidden"><div class="inner" style="display: none;width:150px;"><ul style="background-image:none;"><li class="share-bluesky"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-bluesky-21577" class="share-bluesky sd-button" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/the-bank-junction-the-historic-centre-of-london/?share=bluesky" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Bluesky" ><span>Bluesky</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div> </div> <footer class="entry-meta"> This entry was posted in <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-buildings/" rel="category tag">London Buildings</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-history/" rel="category tag">London History</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-monuments/" rel="category tag">London Monuments</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-streets/" rel="category tag">London Streets</a> and tagged <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/bank-of-england/" rel="tag">Bank of England</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/mansion-house/" rel="tag">Mansion House</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/royal-exchange/" rel="tag">Royal Exchange</a> on <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/the-bank-junction-the-historic-centre-of-london/" title="7:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2025-01-19T07:30:00+00:00">January 19, 2025</time></a><span class="by-author"> by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by admin" rel="author">admin</a></span></span>. </footer> </article> <article id="post-21544" class="post-21544 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-london-history tag-ai tag-alderman-stairs tag-artificial-intelligence"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/alderman-stairs-artificial-intelligence-historical-accuracy-and-copyright/" rel="bookmark">Alderman Stairs – Artificial Intelligence, Historical Accuracy and Copyright</a> </h1> <div class="comments-link"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/alderman-stairs-artificial-intelligence-historical-accuracy-and-copyright/#comments">42 Replies</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p>For a change, rather than looking at the past, today’s post is rather topical, and looks at a subject that at first glance may seem irrelevant to the blog – Artificial Intelligence, or AI.</p> <p>When I write a post for the blog, I try to apply a degree of intelligence. I use a wide range of sources – books (old and new), maps, national and local archives, old newspaper archives, libraries, academic resources, visits to the site that is the subject of a blog post, and hopefully, some knowledge of London built up over the years.</p> <p>I aways try to find more than one reference to key information about a topic, and only use a limited number of reputable sources on the Internet, for example <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/">British History Online</a>. </p> <p>Fortunately, I make very few mistakes, and when I have, I am very grateful to readers who have pointed this out via a comment or email, so I can correct.</p> <p>The numbers of visitors to the blog has grown considerably since I started in 2014. Most of these readers come via Google, but over the last few months, I have seen that the blog is being accessed by AI services such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini. </p> <p>There is much noise about Artificial Intelligence. Depending on what you read, AI is either going to save the world, or take everyone’s jobs and destroy the world.</p> <p>Most of the end user AI services such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Grok (X was Twitter) are conversational based systems using extremely large collections of data.</p> <p>Conversational, in that they attempt to provide the user with the impression that they are talking to another human, and that you can have a conversation with them. The large collections of data that they use to build a response, are from anything they can search – websites, blogs, archives, photos, books etc.</p> <p>As someone who has written getting on for 2.5 million words in the blog during the last eleven years, I wanted to know what impact AI would have on this form of writing? Was AI using information that I had created, how accurate AI could be, and whether AI could replace a blog as an information source, and if so, how accurate would be the response.</p> <p>So I thought I would give it a try.</p> <p>I used a few of the most high profile AI tools to ask a simple question about one of my favourite places.</p> <p>Imagine you are walking from St. Katherine Docks to Wapping, and as you walk along St. Katherine’s Way, you find an intriguing set of river stairs – Alderman Stairs – and you want to know their history, so you ask a few AI tools <em>“What is the history of Alderman Stairs”</em>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/life-death-alderman-stairs/">(you can find my post on Alderman Stairs, here)</a> and this is what I did, starting with:</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">ChatGPT</h2> <p>ChatGPT was one of the first readily available AI tools, with the first release in November 2022, and the tool is currently on the fourth version. Chat, the first part of the name should be self explanatory, GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, which basically means it captures information from the Internet in order to learn how to respond to a question.</p> <p>You can try out <a href="https://chatgpt.com/">ChatGPT by clicking here</a>, where you are presented with a simple <em>“What can I help with?”</em>, to which I asked the following question:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-16.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="339" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-16-1024x339.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21561" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-16-1024x339.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-16-300x99.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-16-768x254.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-16-624x206.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-16.jpg 1243w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>ChatGPT provides the answer to your question in a response screen, but also allows you to copy the answer as text, so in theory, I could use the answer to write a blog post, so the following text is an exact copy of ChatGPT’s answer to the question <em>“what is the history of Alderman Stairs?</em>“:</p> <p>“<em>Alderman Stairs is a historic set of stairs located in the City of London, connecting <strong>Upper Thames Street</strong> to <strong>Puddle Dock</strong> and the <strong>River Thames</strong>. The stairs have a rich history, and their name, along with their structure, reflects the changing history of London.</em></p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><em>Origins of the Name:</em></h3> <ul> <li><em><strong>Alderman Stairs</strong> is named after an alderman, a senior elected official in the City of London. In this case, the name likely honors one of the city’s aldermen who played a significant role in its development or public works in the area.</em></li> <li><em>The exact alderman behind the stairs’ naming is not fully documented, but it was common in the medieval period for prominent citizens to have public infrastructure named after them, especially in riverfront areas.</em></li> </ul> <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><em>Development and Historical Use:</em></h3> <ul> <li><em>The stairs have long been part of London’s waterfront, providing access from the land to the river. They were essential for the transport of goods and passengers during the times when river trade was crucial to London’s economy.</em></li> <li><em>The Thames served as a bustling trade route, and stairs like Alderman Stairs were crucial for loading and unloading cargo. Ships would dock at these stairs to transfer goods such as coal, timber, and other materials necessary for London’s growth.</em></li> </ul> <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><em>The Changes Over Time:</em></h3> <ul> <li><em><strong>Medieval and Early Modern Period</strong>: Alderman Stairs likely existed in some form by the late medieval period when river transport was key to London’s development. Stairs and wharves were often maintained by wealthy and influential individuals or companies.</em></li> <li><em><strong>Victorian Era</strong>: The industrialization of London in the 19th century, along with major changes in the River Thames, led to the construction of larger docks and piers. Over time, this reduced the prominence of stairs like Alderman Stairs for commercial activity.</em></li> <li><em><strong>20th Century</strong>: By the 20th century, many stairs and docks along the Thames had fallen into disuse due to the decline of river trade and the increasing use of road transport. Alderman Stairs, like many others, would have lost much of its original commercial purpose.</em></li> </ul> <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><em>Modern Day:</em></h3> <ul> <li><em>Today, Alderman Stairs is primarily of historical interest and is considered a heritage site, reflecting London’s long relationship with the River Thames. The stairs themselves are located near the London Bridge area, in a part of the city that has been significantly redeveloped.</em></li> <li><em>Though the area has been extensively modernized, the stairs remain as a reminder of London’s medieval and early modern history. They have been restored to some degree and are occasionally used for public access to the river.</em></li> </ul> <p><em>The history of Alderman Stairs highlights London’s transformation from a city dominated by river trade to one marked by modern infrastructure and development. Despite these changes, Alderman Stairs remains an interesting piece of London’s architectural and historical legacy.</em>“</p> <p>I was really stunned with the amount of issues within this response.</p> <p>Firstly, it reads like the answer someone would give on a school or university exam paper, where not enough revision has been done, and you have skim read at the last moment, and attempt to put together a reasonable answer using high level and half remembered facts (or was that just me!).</p> <p>Secondly, the first paragraph on the location “<em>Alderman Stairs is a historic set of stairs located in the City of London, connecting <strong>Upper Thames Street</strong> to <strong>Puddle Dock</strong> and the <strong>River Thames</strong>.</em>” Alderman Stairs are nowhere near the location provided by ChatGPT, although I was concerned I may have missed something when writing about Puddle Dock, so went back and checked lots of maps, books etc. The following is Rocque’s 1746 and shows the street Puddle Dock (red arrow), Puddle Dock (yellow arrow) and where Puddle Dock accesses the Thames (blue arrow) – I could not find any reference to an Alderman Stairs anywhere near Puddle Dock:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-15.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="765" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-15-1024x765.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21559" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-15-1024x765.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-15-300x224.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-15-768x574.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-15-1536x1147.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-15-2048x1530.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-15-624x466.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Thirdly, the section on the origin of the name Alderman Stairs includes the following “<em>The exact alderman behind the stairs’ naming is not fully documented, but it was common in the medieval period for prominent citizens to have public infrastructure named after them, especially in riverfront areas.</em>“</p> <p>There are some clear candidates for the source of the name, dating not from the medieval period, but from the late 17th / early 18th centuries. </p> <p>As ChatGPT is a conversational tool, it offers the option for a follow-up question, so I asked <em>“are you sure this is correct?”</em>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-3.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="661" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-3-661x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21548" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-3-661x1024.jpg 661w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-3-194x300.jpg 194w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-3-768x1189.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-3-992x1536.jpg 992w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-3-624x966.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-3.jpg 1173w" sizes="(max-width: 661px) 100vw, 661px" /></a></figure> <p>ChatGPT is certainly polite, as it apologised for the confusion, and confirmed that I was right to question the answer it had previously given <em>“as there seems to be some inaccuracies in the historical details”</em>.</p> <p>In ChatGPT’s revised answer, the location of the stairs has now moved, and they are now <em>“specifically close to the Cannon Street railway bridge”</em>. I checked Rocque’s 1746 map, when obviously Cannon Street railway bridge was not there, the bridge started across the river where Steel Yard Wharf is shown in the centre of the following map:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-13.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="762" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-13-1024x762.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21557" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-13-1024x762.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-13-300x223.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-13-768x571.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-13-1536x1143.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-13-2048x1524.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-13-624x464.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>There were no Alderman Stairs in the vicinity, or in later maps, including mid 20th century OS maps.</p> <p>The rest of the answer is just as high-level and vague as the first answer. So my next question was <em>“is there an information source for alderman stairs?”</em>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-4.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="701" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-4-701x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21549" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-4-701x1024.jpg 701w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-4-205x300.jpg 205w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-4-768x1123.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-4-1051x1536.jpg 1051w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-4-624x912.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-4.jpg 1111w" sizes="(max-width: 701px) 100vw, 701px" /></a></figure> <p>At first, my ego was somewhat deflated as my blog page on the stairs was not referenced, but on second thoughts I was rather pleased not to be associated with the quality of the ChatGPT response.</p> <p>Even the list of sources raises some serious questions.</p> <p>There are two books listed by Stephen Inwood, who has written a number of excellent books about London. I have the History of London, but I cannot find any reference to Inwood having ever written a book called <em>“A history of the City’s Roads and Their Names”</em>.</p> <p>Likewise, the book <em>“Old London’s Rivers and River Stairs”</em> by E.S. McLachlan sounds a fascinating book, but again I can find no reference to such a book or author. I looked for these books at Amazon, Abebooks, the British Library and London Library, as well as a general Google search, but no luck.</p> <p>I would be interested to know if these two books actually exist as I would like to have a copy.</p> <p>In the Online Sources section, the Londonist website is listed. I tried a search at Londonist and there were no references to Alderman Stairs.</p> <p>One of the tools provided by ChatGPT is image creation, and if you use Social Media you will find it flooded with images created by this type of AI tool.</p> <p>I could not resist seeing what ChatGPT thought Alderman Stairs looked like, so I asked it to <em>“Create an image of alderman stairs”</em>, and this was the response:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-17.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="700" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-17-1024x700.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21563" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-17-1024x700.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-17-300x205.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-17-768x525.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-17-624x427.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-17.jpg 1206w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>A remarkable interpretation. I cannot argue with the <em>“historical charm and tranquil atmosphere”</em> of the real Alderman Stairs, and this is what they really look like:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-19.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="678" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-19-1024x678.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21566" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-19-1024x678.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-19-300x199.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-19-768x508.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-19-1536x1017.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-19-2048x1356.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-19-624x413.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>By now, I was thinking that I was being a fit unfair with ChatGPT. Alderman Stairs is a rather obscure topic, and it would be reasonable for the tool not to be aware of such a place, although if that was the case, why does it just say that it does not know, rather than cobbling together a false answer. Part of intelligence has to be admitting when you do not know, rather than pretending that you do.</p> <p>To see if I was being unfair to ChatGPT, I put the same question to other AI tools, the next was:</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Microsoft Copilot</h2> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-5.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="827" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-5-1024x827.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21550" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-5-1024x827.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-5-300x242.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-5-768x620.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-5-624x504.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-5.jpg 1275w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Microsoft Copilot has now got the correct location. It also provides a precis of the story of the stairs. The information is referenced, and at the end it provides the references, and links if the reader wants to know more.</p> <p>The most used reference is to my blog, and a comparison of my blog post on the stairs with Copilot’s response shows where the information has come from, although it is a very high level summary.</p> <p>I can see where this approach would be useful, as a quick way of finding information sources for a topic. Ask a question, and Copilot will provide a summary with a list of sources for follow-up.</p> <p>I then put the same question to:</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Google Gemini</h2> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-7.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="863" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-7-863x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21552" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-7-863x1024.jpg 863w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-7-253x300.jpg 253w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-7-768x911.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-7-624x740.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-7.jpg 1291w" sizes="(max-width: 863px) 100vw, 863px" /></a></figure> <p>The answer provided by Google Gemini is basically a summary of some of the key points from my blog post. At the end of each sentence, there is a button, and clicking provides the source of the information, as shown in the above example, and also in the example below:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-8.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="831" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-8-831x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21553" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-8-831x1024.jpg 831w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-8-243x300.jpg 243w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-8-768x947.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-8-1246x1536.jpg 1246w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-8-624x769.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-8.jpg 1275w" sizes="(max-width: 831px) 100vw, 831px" /></a></figure> <p>Two points regarding Google Gemini’s response:</p> <p>Firstly, the way these tools summarise gets rid of much of the context. In the above example there is a sentence on Irish immigrants seeking a new life in London.</p> <p>In reality, these were very poor Irish people, probably close to starvation, and in the following screenshot from my blog post on Alderman Stairs, I have included the extract from the Illustrated London News which reported the landing at the stairs, and provides much more context:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-20.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="366" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-20-1024x366.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21567" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-20-1024x366.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-20-300x107.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-20-768x274.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-20-624x223.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-20.jpg 1234w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>My second concern is that when you click the dropdown box for the reference, Google Gemini states <em>“Google Search found similar content, like this”</em>. It is not <em>“similar content”</em> it is the original source information which Google has copied to use within its AI tool.</p> <p>Getting rather depressed by now, I thought I would try one final AI tool. This tool is part of X (the old Twitter):</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Grok</h2> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-9.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="621" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-9-621x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21560" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-9-621x1024.jpg 621w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-9-182x300.jpg 182w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-9-768x1267.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-9-931x1536.jpg 931w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-9-624x1030.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-9.jpg 1155w" sizes="(max-width: 621px) 100vw, 621px" /></a></figure> <p>Again, some good information, but summarised and without the full context, for example, the Illustrated London News report I quoted in my blog post about the Irish Paupers is in the Grok response as <em>“These stairs have been busy, with accounts mentioning up to 1200 people in one shipload, suggesting a high volume of traffic similar to that seen at Tower Bridge today”</em> – and I have no idea why Tower Bridge is included as a comparison with Alderman Stairs.</p> <p>Grok has a list of <em>“Relevant Web Pages”</em>:</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-10.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="386" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-10-386x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21554" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-10-386x1024.jpg 386w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-10-113x300.jpg 113w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-10-579x1536.jpg 579w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-10-624x1656.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-10.jpg 724w" sizes="(max-width: 386px) 100vw, 386px" /></a></figure></div> <p>Grok calls this listing <em>“Relevant Web Pages”</em>, where in reality, these are pages and websites where Grok has sourced the information to compile the response, including my blog.</p> <p>This very quick look, using a single question, raises a number of questions:</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Copyright</h2> <p>AI systems are trained on data which is electronically available and much is sourced by searching the Internet. AI tools then use the information found to build a response to a question and provide this as the AI’s answer to the question.</p> <p>AI systems are therefore using the work of other people, authors, and organisations, and where the source is given, with Google it is quoted as <em>“similar content”</em>.</p> <p>Microsoft Copilot was the best of those tested in providing links to the sources used to build a summary response.</p> <p>At the moment, if you search for Alderman Stairs on search engines such as Google, you will get a link to my post. As AI tools improve, they will end up showing a comprehensive answer, thereby reducing the incentive for people to find the original or alternative sources, so AI tools will use data from other websites whilst at the same time reducing the visibility of the sites which provided the source information.</p> <p>Currently, the UK Government are consulting <em>“on proposals to give creative industries and AI developers clarity over copyright laws”</em>.</p> <p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-consults-on-proposals-to-give-creative-industries-and-ai-developers-clarity-over-copyright-laws">The key points from this consultation are:</a></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-21.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="985" height="546" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-21.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21570" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-21.jpg 985w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-21-300x166.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-21-768x426.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-21-624x346.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 985px) 100vw, 985px" /></a></figure> <p>It will be interesting to see how this develops, however there is not a good track record in the protection of data on the Internet, particularly where the big tech companies are concerned.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Historical Accuracy</h2> <p>The use of these tools means that there is far more risk that information becomes distorted, provided out of context, or is just plain wrong.</p> <p>It is also easy to see how the response from AI tools can be manipulated as they are basically building a response from the information they have found at other sources. If those sources are using false information, AI tools may probably just repeat this.</p> <p>Much of the ChatGPT response was just so wrong, and users would have far more confidence in the output of these tools that when an AI tool does not have the information, it just answers with an <em>“I do not know”</em>.</p> <p>I have a very amateur interest in London’s history, do this for my own interest, and fortunately others find my content interesting as well, however for anyone who writes professionally, depends on writing for their income, carries out academic research etc. I would be concerned about where this is going.</p> <p>ChatGPT did however redeem itself with a final test. As I was finishing this post, I thought it would be interesting to see what ChatGPT knew of my blog, and this was the answer:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-22.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="831" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-22-1024x831.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21571" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-22-1024x831.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-22-300x244.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-22-768x623.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-22-624x506.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AI-22.jpg 1062w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>I really like ChatGPT’s summary, and it is a far better summary of my blog than I think I could write – so you can see where Artificial Intelligence can be useful, and I might use the above text as my new <em>“About”</em> page.</p> <p>Artificial Intelligence is not going away, and if you would like to try out these AI tools:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://chatgpt.com/">Click here for ChatGPT</a></li> <li><a href="https://copilot.microsoft.com/">Click here for Microsoft Copilot (scroll down to the bottom of the Ads)</a></li> <li><a href="https://gemini.google.com/?hl=en-GB">Click here for Google Gemini</a></li> <li>Grok can be found if you have an X account</li> </ul> <p>Whatever the future of AI, I can promise you that all my blog posts will always be written by a human, using old books, maps, library and archive research, newspaper archives, photos and images, visits to site etc. and will come with the poor grammar, punctuation and occasional typos, that comes with keeping up the amateur production of a weekly post, and as ever, I really appreciate any corrections.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/alderman-stairs-artificial-intelligence-historical-accuracy-and-copyright/" data-text="Alderman Stairs - Artificial Intelligence, Historical Accuracy and Copyright" >Tweet</a></li><li class="share-facebook"><div class="fb-share-button" data-href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/alderman-stairs-artificial-intelligence-historical-accuracy-and-copyright/" data-layout="button_count"></div></li><li><a href="#" class="sharing-anchor sd-button share-more"><span>More</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul><div class="sharing-hidden"><div class="inner" style="display: none;width:150px;"><ul style="background-image:none;"><li class="share-bluesky"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-bluesky-21544" class="share-bluesky sd-button" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/alderman-stairs-artificial-intelligence-historical-accuracy-and-copyright/?share=bluesky" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Bluesky" ><span>Bluesky</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div> </div> <footer class="entry-meta"> This entry was posted in <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-history/" rel="category tag">London History</a> and tagged <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/ai/" rel="tag">AI</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/alderman-stairs/" rel="tag">Alderman Stairs</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/artificial-intelligence/" rel="tag">Artificial Intelligence</a> on <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/alderman-stairs-artificial-intelligence-historical-accuracy-and-copyright/" title="7:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2025-01-12T07:30:00+00:00">January 12, 2025</time></a><span class="by-author"> by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by admin" rel="author">admin</a></span></span>. </footer> </article> <article id="post-21526" class="post-21526 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-london-history tag-east-india-company tag-japan tag-limehouse tag-william-adams"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/william-adams-the-adventures-of-a-limehouse-apprentice/" rel="bookmark">William Adams – The Adventures of a Limehouse Apprentice</a> </h1> <div class="comments-link"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/william-adams-the-adventures-of-a-limehouse-apprentice/#comments">26 Replies</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p>My recent posts on the Royal Docks highlighted just how much traffic there once was on the River Thames and across the docks of London. The river has been a major route for the trade of goods for centuries.</p> <p>As well as goods, many thousands of people also departed from, or arrived in London via the river, and it is interesting to think of where they went, what they did, did they return etc. when standing at one of the Thames Stairs, or looking out across a now quiet river, where the main traffic is now either the Thames Clipper passenger boats, or the ribs taking passengers on high speed trips along the river.</p> <p>Limehouse is one of many places along the river and is there because of the river. Developing from around Limekiln Dock and along the edge of the river, Limehouse expanded inland rapidly during the 19th century, to provide space for industry and warehousing, and for housing for those who worked in these businesses and in the docks.</p> <p>The following photo was taken by my father in August 1948, and shows the rear of the buildings along Narrow Street in Limehouse:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Narrow-Street-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="660" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Narrow-Street-1024x660.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21531" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Narrow-Street-1024x660.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Narrow-Street-300x193.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Narrow-Street-768x495.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>The photo illustrates that all these buildings were in some way connected to the river. There are barges on the foreshore and rough work sheds facing onto the river (each of the buildings in the photo has a story to tell, and I will return to this photo in a later post).</p> <p>So whilst in 1948, Limehouse and the Thames were still intimately connected, I want to go back over 370 years to a boy who started as an apprentice in a Limehouse shipyard, and in the following years married locally, had children, before leaving Limehouse, his wife and children for the far side of the world, never to return.</p> <p>William Adams was born in Gillingham, Kent in 1564. There is no record of the date of his birth, but that was the year he was baptised on the 20th of September so presumably he was born in the same year.</p> <p>He spent the first 12 years of his life in Gillingham, and being next to the River Medway, Adams must have been very familiar with the shipping on the river, and the connection of the Medway with the River Thames.</p> <p>Around the age of 12, William Adams was taken on as an apprentice by the ship builder Nicholas Diggins who had a yard in Limehouse.</p> <p>I assume that during his time as an apprentice, which lasted for 12 years, he also lived in Limehouse, with perhaps occasional trips along the river to visit any family living in Gillingham.</p> <p>Nicholas Diggins is recorded as being a ship builder, however as well as ship building, Adams, seems to have learnt the skills he would use in his future career, becoming proficient in sailing and navigation to a level that by the end of his apprenticeship in 1588 he was the Captain of the ship Richard Duffield which was acting as a supply ship to the main naval fleet fighting the Spanish Armada.</p> <p>In 1589 Adams still seems to have had an attachment to Limehouse, as on the 20th of August 1589, he married Mary Hyn at the parish church of St. Dunstan’s Stepney. At this time, Limehouse was a small community strung out along the river without a local parish church, so came within the parish of St. Dunstan. The population of Limehouse would not justify a local church for over 100 years, when St. Anne’s Limehouse was built, and consecrated in 1730</p> <p>Although Adams was now married, his wife Mary cannot have seen him much over the coming years. The majority of the ten years after his marriage was spent in the service of the Worshipful Company of Barbary Merchants – a short lived company, set up to trade with the north African coast.</p> <p>North African trade was a dangerous occupation, as there were many pirates operating off the north African coast, and quarrels with traders could result in the taking of a crew into enslavement.</p> <p>Adams did not seem to come to any harm, as by 1593 he was part of an unsuccessful Dutch expedition to find a route via the north of Russia to the spice islands of the East Indies.</p> <p>William Adams work with the Dutch would lead to his voyage to Japan. In the late 16th century, the Dutch and English were on friendly terms. The Dutch had provided help with the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the English had supported the Dutch in their rebellion against Spanish rule of the Netherlands.</p> <p>Adams would find that alliances between England and the Netherlands, and hostilities with Spain and Portugal would extend across to the far side of the world.</p> <p>In 1598, William Adams left his wife, children, Limehouse and England for the last time as on the 24th of June he sailed from Texel in the Netherlands as part of a five ship Dutch fleet, consisting of the Geloof, the Blijde Boodschap, the Trouw, the Liefe and the Hoop.</p> <p>William Adams was originally the pilot of the Hoop, however he was transferred to the Liefde, a decision which probably saved his life.</p> <p>The journey from the Netherlands to Japan took two years and terrible hardship for the crew, with only one of the five ships making it to Japan, and of the 110 crew that left the Netherlands on the Liefde, only 24 survived the journey, and due to starvation, of these only 6 were able to stand and just about walk off the ship when it reached Japan. One of these six was William Adams.</p> <p>The following map shows the approximate route taken by the Liefde from the Netherlands to Japan (<a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright">© OpenStreetMap contributors)</a>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="651" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-1024x651.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21529" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-1024x651.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-300x191.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-768x488.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-1536x977.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-2048x1302.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-624x397.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Key events on the journey were as follows:</p> <ol> <li>Arrival at the Cape Verde islands</li> <li>Limted supplies taken on board at Cape Lopez</li> <li>Crews suffer from dysentery at Annabon</li> <li>Winter storms and attacks by “savages” as the ships pass through the Magellan Straits</li> <li>Ships attacked and many of the crew killed at Mocha</li> <li>Arrival in Hawaii. Eight of the crew jump ship by taking the ships pinnace, and fleeing to an island.</li> <li>Pass the Bonin Islands with only 24 of the crew of the Liefde left alive</li> <li>Arrival in Japan in the year 1600</li> </ol> <p>According to William Adams account of the voyage, they encountered hostile peoples at almost all their stops, when they had an urgent need to trade, and to bring on board supplies of food and water.</p> <p>For example, at point 4, the ships delayed passing through the Straits of Magellan in order to make repairs and fabricate a twenty-two ton Pinnace (a large rowing or sailing boat to travel between ships and between ships and shore). During this delay, the winds changed and the ships were stuck for months of <em>“much snow and ice”</em>, with crew dying of exposure, or being killed by those on land, when crew members went ashore to collect fire wood.</p> <p>By the time the ships left South America, only the Liefde and the Hoop remained of the original five ships, and during the crossing of the Pacific they encountered a large storm, and on the following day, the 24th of February 1600, the Hoop had disappeared, never to be seen again.</p> <p>Finally, in April 1600, the Liefde anchored off Kyushu, Japan, and was met by dozens of small boats coming out to meet them.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Japan on William Adams Arrival</h2> <p>When William Adams arrived in Japan, the country was in the midst of a Civil War, with different families and clans vying for power. There were two main rulers in Japan, the Mikado, or Emperor, which was mainly a ceremonial role, and the Shogun, who was responsible for the defence of Japan and for maintaining internal order.</p> <p>Real power was with the Shogun, and when Adams arrived, the Tokugawa family had just won control of the role of Shogun, but even within the family there was conflict as to succession.</p> <p>Hideyoshi Tokugawa was the most powerful of the family clan, but when he died in 1598, he had left a young son to take over the role of Shogun. Another family member, Ieyasu was determined to become Shogun, and after various court intrigues and battles, including one where armaments and cannon taken from Adams ship the Liefde were used, Ieyasu was recognised by the Emperor as the Shogun.</p> <p>The following image shows Tokugawa Ieyasu and his eighteen celebrated retainers:</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-3.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="583" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-3-583x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21534" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-3-583x1024.jpg 583w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-3-171x300.jpg 171w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-3-768x1349.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-3-874x1536.jpg 874w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-3-1166x2048.jpg 1166w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-3-624x1096.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-3.jpg 1423w" sizes="(max-width: 583px) 100vw, 583px" /></a></figure></div> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>Also, at the time of Adams arrival, there were already two European powers active in Japan, Spain and Portugal, both countries trading with Japan, and Portuguese Jesuits and Spanish Franciscans seeking to establish the Roman Catholic church in the country and to convert Japanese citizens to Christianity.</p> <p>Whilst both Jesuits and Franciscans had built churches, and managed to convert some Japanese, they were also viewed with suspicion, and had provided the Shogun with a false view of Europe, by claiming that Europe was united under the Roman Catholic faith.</p> <p>Quarrels between the Jesuits and Franciscans deepened Japanese suspicion, and in 1597, nine missionaries and seventeen Japanese converts were crucified on the orders of the Shogun.</p> <p>Japan was though, interested in expanding the country’s world view and importantly, trade, and in 1585, four Japanese ambassadors arrived in Milan, with their Jesuit teacher:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-4.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="818" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-4-1024x818.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21535" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-4-1024x818.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-4-300x240.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-4-768x614.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-4-1536x1228.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-4-2048x1637.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-4-624x499.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>Knowledge of the English and Dutch was though very limited, and the arrival of the Englishman Adams and surviving Dutch crew members was therefore viewed with suspicion by the Japanese, and as being from, in the view of the Jesuits and Franciscans, heretical Protestant countries, were seen as a threat to the establishment of the Roman Catholic church in Japan, as well as the trading privileges granted to the Portuguese and Spanish.</p> <p>When William Adams arrived in Japan, the Portuguese and Spanish were the main threat to his, and the Dutch crews survival.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">William Adams in Japan</h2> <p>When the Liefde arrived in Japan, the crew were too weak to offer any resistance to the Japanese, and immediately after their arrival <em>“many barks came aboard us. The people offered us no hurt, but stole all things they could steal”</em>.</p> <p>The local Lord made a house available for the crew, however six of the surviving crew died within days of their arrival.</p> <p>News of the ship’s arrival was sent to the Shogun Ieyasu, and whilst the surviving crew waited for news, they were interrogated by the Portuguese and Spanish, who claimed they were pirates rather than merchants, and should be immediately executed.</p> <p>Finally Adams received a summons to appear before Ieyasu, and just over a month after landing, Adams was taken to Osaka, and appeared before the Shogun.</p> <p>Language was an immediate problem, and the only interpreter with both English and Japanese, was a Portuguese, who immediately raised suspicions with Adams that he was interpreting correctly.</p> <p>Ieyasu was intently interested in Adams story, how he had arrived in Japan, about England and the Netherlands, relationship with Spain and Portugal, religion etc.</p> <p>The following image shows William Adams before Ieyasu, showing him the route that the Liefde had taken to arrive in Japan on Adams world map that had survived the initial looting of the ship by being hidden in his cabin:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="656" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-656x1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-21536" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-656x1024.png 656w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-192x300.png 192w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-768x1199.png 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1-624x974.png 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-1.png 936w" sizes="(max-width: 656px) 100vw, 656px" /></a></figure> <p><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William-Adams-before-Shogun-Tokugawa-Ieyasu.png" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Source: Editor = Dalton, W. / (Dalton, William)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></p> <p>Adams argued that their only intention was a desire for good relations with Kings and Potentates, and to be able to trade, as each country would have goods that would benefit the other, and as Adams meeting with Ieyasu was ending he asked for the same trading privileges as the Spanish and Portuguese.</p> <p>To this request, no clear answer was made, however to Adams concern, he was taken to prison.</p> <p>He was then again taken before Ieyasu and again returned to prison, with Adams fearing that during his time in prison, the Portuguese and Spanish were doing their best to persuade Ieyasu that the Englishman and Dutch crew be executed, or if not, that they were not granted any trading privileges.</p> <p>Adams was eventually released, returned to the crew, and with the crew, the Liefde was moved to Edo (the original name of Tokyo). The ship still had plenty of weapons on boards, and Ieyasu was anxious that these did not fall into the hands of his enemies. After arrival the crew started to receive money from Ieyasu via a Japanese official to pay for their maintenance.</p> <p>The delays whilst Adams was being interrogated caused the surviving crew to be concerned about their future, and eventually, all the crew decided to go their own way, and make what life they could in Japan, or to try and leave the country, and they continued to be granted a subsidence benefit from Ieyasu.</p> <p>Adams though was treated differently by Ieyasu, who commanded Adams to built a ship, similar to the Liefde that had carried Adams on such a long and dangerous journey. </p> <p>For this task, Adams was able to use the skills he had learnt in Limehouse, and, along with the carpenter of the Liefde, built a ship about half the size of the Liefde for Ieyasu, who was so pleased with the result, that he granted Adams easy access to his presence, and Adams started to provide Ieyasu with lessons in geometry and mathematics.</p> <p>This concerned the Portuguese and Spanish, who now tried to bring Adams within their sphere of influence, and use his good relations with Ieyasu. This included trying to convert Adams to the Roman Catholic faith.</p> <p>A Jesuit priest also offered to help Adams get approval from Ieyasu to leave Japan and return home. Adams had already tried to get approval to leave, which had been refused by Ieyasu, and Adams was not happy to use Jesuit influence.</p> <p>Adams influence was however continuing to grow, and he was granted a large estate at Hemi, forty miles south of Edo, and resigned to the fact that he would probably not be allowed to leave Japan, he married a Japanese woman, and they had two children, Joseph and Susanna.</p> <p>Adams was allowed to leave Japan for short periods, but only on business for Ieyasu, for example one journey was to the Philippines, where Ieyasu wanted Adams to convince the Spanish colonial authorities to trade directly with Japan.</p> <p>Adams was not keen on helping the Spanish and Portuguese, and in the early years of the 17th century, Ieyasu invited the Dutch to trade with Japan. It took a few years after the initial invitation to be sent in 1595, when two Dutch trading ships arrived in Japan, Adams was on hand to offer his help in negotiating a trading agreement, and to establish a trading post in the town of Hirado.</p> <p>Adams had a long relationship with the Dutch, all the way until his death. He helped the Dutch trade, acted as a translator, and helped with the establishment and running of their trading post, however he was also using the Dutch to send letters back home to England, to inform the authorities of his position, and also to his wife.</p> <p>The Dutch though were frustrating these attempts at communications by reading, delaying or destroying many of his letters.</p> <p>In 1611, the East India Company were planning for a fleet of ships to be sent to India, and that they should also have a secondary objective of continuing on to Japan, try to get trading privileges, and to open up a trading post in the country.</p> <p>Adams became aware of this, and wrote to the company to say that on arrival, the East India Company ships should ask for Adams, and he would provide them with all the assistance needed to meet with Ieyasu, and to arrange trading privileges. </p> <p>The East India Ship the Clove arrived in Hirado on the 11th of June, 1613, under the command of John Saris.</p> <p>The first meetings between Saris and Adams did not seem to go that well, with Adams claiming that many of the goods that had been brought to Japan in the Clove were not of much value, or not really goods that the Japanese were interested in purchasing. </p> <p>Saris was keen to have a meeting with Ieyasu, and finally a meeting was arranged which was attended by both Saris and Adams. </p> <p>Saris had brought with him a letter from King James I, along with gifts for Ieyasu, and Saris requested that the English be granted trading privileges so they could trade freely, import and export goods with Japan, and that English ships could arrive and depart as part of the trading process. When the meeting had ended, Saris left, but Ieyasu requested that Adams stay behind as Ieyasu wanted to question him about the English King, and his greatness and powers.</p> <p>There was no answer from Ieyasu at the meeting as to whether he would grant Saris any trading privileges, and Saris and Adams had to wait for around ten days before a letter arrived from Ieyasu granting English traders the right to enter and leave Japan, pay no tariffs, to own houses and buildings, to receive prompt payment, and for English laws to be applied in the event of a crime being committed.</p> <p>The English then established a trading factory (they were called factory’s but in reality were warehouses rather than a building where anything was made).</p> <p>The relationship between William Adams and John Saris was never that good. Saris was always suspicious whether Adams was really working to the benefit of the English trade in Japan, and as he was still helping the Dutch, whether he was more in their employ than the English. </p> <p>Saris was about to leave Japan, but was concerned about maintaining Adams support in his absence. Saris started negotiating with Adams to convince him to become a full time employee of the East India Company.</p> <p>The company had already helped Adams English wife, and had advanced her £20 which Adams acknowledged, but he did not want to be a full time employee, rather seeking a month by month employment, as was his way of working with other trading businesses in Japan.</p> <p>Adams finally did accept an offer of £100 a year, with the East India Company continuing to pay his English wife £20.</p> <p>John Saris returned to England, but rather than receiving a welcome, he was subject to an enquiry by the East India Company for trading on his own account. His cabin was also searched and he was found to have kept a lascivious painting of Venus in his cabin along with pornographic pictures and books. The scandal of what was found, along with his own trading resulted in Saris being dismissed from the company’s service.</p> <p>Despite this he does not seem to have suffered. He married a grand-daughter of a Lord Mayor of London and retired to Fulham, where he lived in some comfort for 30 more years until his death.</p> <p>Back in Japan, William Adams was as busy as ever. Working for the East India Company, as well as occasionally helping the Dutch, and carrying out requests from Ieyasu. This included a fair amount of travelling, including to the Philippines, China, and what is now Vietnam. Along with the East India Company, Adams also helped to set up trading houses across the country, so the company had greater access to the Japanese market than just via the single factory in Hirado.</p> <p>Life though soon started to get difficult for Adams, the East India Company, and other countries trading in Japan. </p> <p>In 1616 Tokugawa Ieyasu died. The following illustration shows Shogun Ieyasu as the founder, with fourteen of the following generations of Tokugawa shogun. As the founder of the dynasty, Ieyasu is shown in the centre:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-5.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="519" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-5-1024x519.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21539" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-5-1024x519.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-5-300x152.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-5-768x389.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-5-1536x778.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-5-2048x1037.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/William-Adams-5-624x316.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>Ieyasu was succeeded by Tokugawa Hidetada.</p> <p>Hidetada was more cautious about the foreign trading companies, and soon issued a proclamation that no Japanese citizens could purchase goods from the foreign traders who had set up operations in Osaka, Kyoto and Sakai.</p> <p>Cooks (the successor of Saris in running the English Factory in Japan) and Adams travelled to Edo to understand the situation, but on arrival, the ban was confirmed, however it was also confirmed that the East India Company could continue trading at the original factory in Hirado.</p> <p>Another change following the death of Ieyasu, was that Adams did not have the same easy access to the court. When he petitioned Hidetada in the matter of a conflict at sea between the English and Dutch, where the Dutch had taken an English ship, Adams was left waiting for a month before he was given a decision. A month where he often had to wait at court all day, hoping for an answer.</p> <p>The issue with the Dutch, also highlighted the increasing tensions and competition between the Dutch and the English merchants. </p> <p>Adams was also continuing his journeys to other countries, trying to make trading agreements for the East India Company, and for trade with Japan.</p> <p>William Adams died suddenly, on the 16th of May 1620 at Hirado, shortly after his return to Japan from a final voyage. He was aged 55, and had been in Japan for 20 years, and had last seen Limehouse and his English family around the year 1598.</p> <p>In the years after his death, foreign trade with Japan rapidly declined. In 1623, the English Factory was closed, and the East India Company left Japan, to focus instead on India. The following year, the Spanish were ordered to leave Japan, and the Portuguese survived until 1639 when they were also ordered to leave.</p> <p>The Dutch were permitted to maintain a very small trading post on an island in the harbour of Nagasaki.</p> <p>In his will, Adams split his estate leaving half to his Japanese family, and half to his English family.</p> <p>Today, there is a memorial to William Adams in Gillingham, and in Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture, the Anjin Festival is held every year in August. The festival is <em><a href="https://itospa.com/event/detail_10020.html">“the largest event in Ito City, celebrating the achievements of Miura Anjin, the diplomatic advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu”</a></em>, Miura Anjin is the Japanese name taken by William Adams.</p> <p>In 1927 a memorial to the Trading Factory at Hirado was unveiled by the British Ambassador, Sir John Toilley, and Capt. Cloudesley Robinson, the British Naval Attaché, who had both been conveyed from Nagasaki to Hirado on board a Japanese naval cruiser. The memorial has the names of those who were involved with the Factory, and includes the following quotation from a letter written by Capt. Richard Cooks, the factor to the headquarters of the East India Company in Hirado: <em>“The 12th June (1613) we came to an anchor in the haven of Firando in Japan, where the Kinge of the place received us very kyndlie”</em>.</p> <p>William Adams story was used for the 1975 book <em>“Shogun”</em> by James Clavell, which was then the basis for the 1980 TV mini-series of the same name, staring Richard Chamberlain as John Blackthorne (the role of Blackthorne was based on Adams), and the name Blackthorne was also used for a recent 2024 US TV mini series.</p> <p>The life of William Adams – quite a story for a Limehouse apprentice, but just one story of the many thousands who have sailed from London and headed out across the world via the River Thames.</p> <p>The sources I have used for this post are as follows:</p> <ul> <li>The Log-Book of William Adams, with the Journal of Edward Saris edited, with introduction and notes by C.J. Purnell – London, 1916</li> <li>The First Englishman in Japan – The Story of William Adams by P.G. Rogers. The Harvill Press, 1956</li> <li>Servant of the Shogun by Richard Tames. Paul Norbury Publications, 1981</li> <li>Samurai William – The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan by Giles Milton. Hodder & Stoughton, 2002</li> </ul> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/william-adams-the-adventures-of-a-limehouse-apprentice/" data-text="William Adams - The Adventures of a Limehouse Apprentice" >Tweet</a></li><li class="share-facebook"><div class="fb-share-button" data-href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/william-adams-the-adventures-of-a-limehouse-apprentice/" data-layout="button_count"></div></li><li><a href="#" class="sharing-anchor sd-button share-more"><span>More</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul><div class="sharing-hidden"><div class="inner" style="display: none;width:150px;"><ul style="background-image:none;"><li class="share-bluesky"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-bluesky-21526" class="share-bluesky sd-button" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/william-adams-the-adventures-of-a-limehouse-apprentice/?share=bluesky" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Bluesky" ><span>Bluesky</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div> </div> <footer class="entry-meta"> This entry was posted in <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-history/" rel="category tag">London History</a> and tagged <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/east-india-company/" rel="tag">East India Company</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/japan/" rel="tag">Japan</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/limehouse/" rel="tag">Limehouse</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/william-adams/" rel="tag">William Adams</a> on <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/william-adams-the-adventures-of-a-limehouse-apprentice/" title="7:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2025-01-05T07:30:00+00:00">January 5, 2025</time></a><span class="by-author"> by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by admin" rel="author">admin</a></span></span>. </footer> </article> <article id="post-21500" class="post-21500 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-london-history category-london-photography tag-london-films"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-photography/london-films-capturing-100-years-of-change/" rel="bookmark">London Films – Capturing 100 Years of Change</a> </h1> <div class="comments-link"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-photography/london-films-capturing-100-years-of-change/#comments">16 Replies</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p>This time last year, in that strange period, between Christmas and New Year, I wrote a post about <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/londonvistas/london-captured-in-music-videos/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">London – Captured in Music Videos</a>, as they are fascinating, not just for the excellent music, but to see London in the background, in these videos from the last few decades.</p> <p>For this year, I thought I would have a post about London films. Not films where London appears in the background, but films which are dedicated to telling a story about a particular aspect of the city.</p> <p>They are fascinating to watch, not just to see how the city has changed physically, and how life in the city has also changed, but also to make us think.</p> <p>The people we see in these films working or living in London could probably not have foreseen the dramatic changes that would transform <strong>their</strong> city, and likewise our experience of the city today is just a snapshot, and in years to come many aspects of the city will be radically different, and it will be someone else’s city, who will probably look back at film of London in the 2020’s with a mix of nostalgia and amusement.</p> <p>So for the long, dark evenings, here is London from the past 100 years.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">If the WordPress YouTube Block works there should be several videos embedded in this post. I am not sure if they will show in the emailed version of this post. If not, go to the home page by clicking here to view the post.</a></strong></p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The London Nobody Knows</h2> <p>The film “The London Nobody Knows” is a fascinating glimpse of London at a time of great change. By the release of the film at the end of 1968, there had already been considerable reconstruction after the bombing of the 1940s, and gleaming glass and steel office blocks were springing up across the city.</p> <p>There were though still a considerable number of bomb sites and damaged buildings, and the London Docks were still busy, although there were signs of the changes that would effect trade on the river and the docks in the future.</p> <p>The film was written by the writer Brian Comport and the artist and author Geoffrey Fletcher, and the film takes its name from the book the London Nobody Knows by Geoffrey Fletcher. His books mixed Fletcher’s drawings of buildings, street infrastructure, people etc. across the city with descriptive text.</p> <p>The film uses the actor James Mason as a focal point for the film, as he visits and talks about the changing face of London, armed with his flat cap and umbrella:</p> <div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; overflow: hidden; border: none;" title="Dailymotion Video Player" src="https://geo.dailymotion.com/player.html?video=x5h8w0m" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"><br /> </iframe></div> <p>The London Nobody Knows is perhaps the classic London film.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Capital County</h2> <p>Capital County is a 1951 London County Council film and starts with some history of the development of London, then going on to show the very extensive range of services for which the LCC were responsible, and how these services touched much of the life of all Londoners. The film demonstrates this through Albert Brown, a typical Londoner:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GfhTaqOeMrw?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>Capital County shows that it is not just physical change that has transformed London over the last 70 plus years, but also the way London is administered and governed. </p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bermondsey Wall</h2> <p>Bermondsey Wall is a 1932 film which has some wonderful views of the working river and backstreets of Bermondsey, and focuses on the work of the Time and Talents Association, who by the time of the film were based in Dockhead House, Abbey Street. Time and Talents was started in 1887 to help young girls use their “Time and Talents” in the service of others, to provide education, practical skills and also provide hostels for girls’ accommodation. The organisation has evolved into a community organisation which is still running today across Rotherhithe and Bermondsey.</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nX2k3tIZjFE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Proud City – A Plan for London</h2> <p>The Proud City is a film produced for the Ministry of Information, to explain the 1943 County of London Plan. The film includes the main authors of the plan, JH Forshaw (Architect to the London County Council) and Sir Patrick Abercrombie (Professor of town planning, University of London), who explain why a plan is needed, the thinking behind the plan, how it will transform London, and the resulting benefits for all those who live and work in the city, along with some wonderful film of the city.</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P8X5bEFvFJQ?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>The plan was wide ranging, and covered almost every aspect of life in London, and the plan identified many of the issues with the haphazard way in which London had developed over the centuries, resulting in poor housing, housing and industry together existing in a mixed street plan, traffic congestion, the way the old village London had merged into a far larger and more complex greater London.</p> <p>We can see today how some of the ideas from the plan have been implemented. The plan makes a comparison between the north and south banks of the river in central London, with well designed offices, government buildings and a fine Embankment with trees and gardens on the north, whilst on the south bank there was a confusion of warehouses, slums and derelict streets, which had been made worse since the Blitz. The plan identified the south bank of the river as an ideal opportunity to develop a new river frontage, worthy of London.</p> <p>The intention with bombed, industrialised areas such as Stepney, was to transform them into new <em>“social units”</em> or neighbourhoods, each with a population of between 6,000 and 10,000, and having a school, local shopping centre, medical facilities and with housing provided by a mix of terrace housing, each with a garden, and blocks of flats built within landscaped grounds.</p> <p>Industry and commerce would be moved to the boundaries of neighbourhoods, rather than being mixed in with housing, and main roads would also be at the edge to avoid through traffic.</p> <p>An early example of the concept that today seems to have attracted the name of the 15 minute city.</p> <p>The film has some wonderful quotes, for example the following from Patrick Abercrombie:</p> <p><em>“There must be change, always change, as one season, or one generation, follows another”.</em></p> <p>This quote sums up London’s history. A city that has always changed, adapted and evolved, but the problem with change is that it raises questions about what we keep and what we get rid of to continue that change.</p> <p>You can see these issues play out every day, with a few current examples being the M&S building in Oxford Street, proposed redevelopment of Liverpool Street Station, the new buildings on the site of the London Weekend Television building on the Southbank, and the potential demolition of Bastion House on London Wall, along with the adjacent, old Museum of London site (both by the architects Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, who also worked on the 1951 Festival of Britain and designed the magnificent Skylon).</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Port of London</h2> <p>A film by British Pathe and British Instructional Films Ltd and headlines as a Classroom film. The film shows the workings of the London Docks. It starts off slowly, whilst working through a map showing the location of all the docks from Tilbury to St. Katherine, and then shows the docks in operation:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FNfqz0Y3q2w?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&start=29&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>British Instructional Films Ltd were primarily a documentary film maker, founded in 1919 by Harry Bruce Woolfe. The subject of these films ranged from the re-enactment of military engagements through to a long running Secrets of Nature series, which included painstaking studio and laboratory work, as well as filming out in the field.</p> <p>A common thread running through the films produced by the company was patriotism and Empire.</p> <p>The company suffered financially during the late 1920s and early 1930s and became part of the Pathe company, who continued to use the brand name of British Instructional Films for their educational films, as with the film Port of London.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The City of London – Reel 1</h2> <p>Part one of a film from 1951 showing the City of London in operation – the Stock Exchange, Baltic Exchange, Lloyds of London etc.</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4b_yzUF0PSg?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The City of London – Reel 2</h2> <p>The second part of the film, which focuses on the ceremonial and crafts aspects of the City of London.</p> <p>Both films show a very different City of London to the City of today, including a City where men are in all of the roles of any consequence in the City:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/028j7JJh5yY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Barbican, 1969: The development of the Barbican Estate following World War II</h2> <p>This is a wonderful film in “Technicolour” that covers not just the development of the Barbican Estate, but includes many other aspects of London. The views of the estate being built, alongside views of what was there before help illustrate what a transformational housing project the Barbican was for the City of London:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vLPlJsoVq8k?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>The film includes a brilliant few minutes of people looking round one of the show flats which have been furnished in a very modern, late 1960s style, with emphasis on the kitchens, bathrooms, and how the flats have been designed to maximise views through the windows, sunlight, sound proofing etc.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Living City</h2> <p>The film The Living City was made in 1970 for the City of London Corporation. The film starts with views of the fires started by incendiary bombing on the night of the 29th December 1940, and then goes on to tell of the reconstruction of the City, the institutions and businesses that make the City the main centre for global trade, finance and insurance, and how the City is being rebuilt, including some film of the Pedways:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tdpuc_UDE30?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>It is interesting to compare the City of London in 1970 with the City of today. The film talks about Cheapside being the main shopping street of the City and a <em>“seething confluence of seven major thoroughfares”</em> between the Bank junction and St. Paul’s. The film shows the amount of traffic along streets such as Cheapside and across the Bank junction, and this is one of the things about the City that I struggle with today.</p> <p>Despite the air being much cleaner and healthier, the City just seems to have lost a sense of human activity, of being an exceptionally busy, exciting place, and across the whole film we can see the sheer diversity of activities that went on within the City of London.</p> <p>There is film of the markets at Billingsgate, Spitalfields and Smithfield, and somewhat ironically given the City of London Corporation’s plan to close the Smithfield meat market, the film talks about the <em>“City’s determination to keep the wholesale markets”</em>.</p> <p>There have though been some positive changes in the 74 years since the film, the fur market in Beaver House of the Hudson Bay Company no longer operates, and ivory is not stored and traded in the Port of London Authority warehouse in Cutler Street.</p> <p>The danger with changes such as the closure of Smithfield is that the City of London gradually looses all the things that have made the City such an important place for many hundreds of years, and the square mile looses its identity and ends up much like many other places in central London where expensive apartments, hotels and places to attract visitors and tourists become the primary drivers of redevelopment.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Changing Face of London</h2> <p>The Changing Face of London from 1960 is also about change, starting with scenes of demolition and the ruined buildings across the city, then focussing on redevelopment and potential plans for the city.</p> <p>The models shown for large site redevelopment and also for individual buildings are fascinating, but thankfully some of these schemes did not get built.</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d0y6UOWcvrU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>If you have been on my <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/a-london-inheritance-walks-33326287375" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Barbican walk</a>, at 17 minutes and 19 seconds into the film, there is a view of the new section of London Wall that had been opened in the previous year (1959), and to the left you can see the church of St. Alphage, which was later demolished to just the medieval remains we can see next to London Wall today, and to the left there is Roman House, the white office block that was the first post war building constructed in the area, and about the only one of the buildings in the scene that remains to this day.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Pedway: Elevating London</h2> <p>The Pedway was one of the ideas coming from wartime plans for post-war redevelopment of the City of London, where pedestrians would be separated from road traffic on raised pedestrian ways, and the redevelopment of London Wall resulted in one of the areas where Pedways were extensively used across a wide area.</p> <p>The concept was not only to separate pedestrians from traffic, but also to provide on the Pedway, the shops, pubs, restaurants and other services that would have normally be found at street level.</p> <p>This 2013 documentary tells the story of the Pedway, along with the associated redevelopment of much of the City of London:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H2ChHNLs7xA?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>The original Pedways have all but disappeared in the development of the last few decades, however elevated walkways are still the main method of walking through the Barbican estate, and there has been a reconstruction of a Pedway (but without shops, pubs etc.) in the area to the north of London Wall, around the remains of St. Alphage.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">This Is London – 1981</h2> <p>This film is more a tourist overview of London, but is interesting as it shows the city at the start of the 1980s, when London was still a very low rise city.</p> <p>At 55 seconds into the film, there is a wonderful bit of film of a hovercraft on the Thames and passing under Tower Bridge:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KOTvyndTJ-Y?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bob Hoskins: London is being “Sterilised by greed” </h2> <p>This is another absolute classic, with the actor Bob Hoskins showing Barry Norman around parts of the south London riverside from Coin Street on the Southbank down to Shad Thames, and whilst some of the developments he talks about did not get carried out, many did, and his core argument is the same today as it was in 1982:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oTgqHsJ4410?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">The future’s up for grabs – GLC Docklands</h2> <p>Where the Bob Hoskins film talks about the derelict buildings along the river, and the preference of developers for offices over houses, the following film explores the impact on those who lived around the large expanses of old docks that were “up for grabs”.</p> <p>There are lots of interviews with those who live in the area. Young people who complain about the lack of facilities and how far they have to travel for school, older people who talk about what the docks were like when working, talk about some of the new developments and the physical separation of council and private housing etc.</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yV8GRdWgntU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>Many of these issues are still just as relevant, and the area around the Royal Docks shown in parts of the film are still being developed today, and from my walks around the area, there still seems to be very few facilities for those living in the new apartment blocks.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">River Cruise Down The Thames</h2> <p>This is a GLC film, aimed mainly at visitors to the City, but the film also highlights the benefits that the GLC has brought to the city (the film ends with the slogan “keep GLC working for London” as the film was made when the Conservative government was arguing for the abolition of the GLC).</p> <p>The film runs from Hampton Court, Twickenham and Kew, down to Greenwich and the recently completed Thames Barrier:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zJL9sOpPUE0?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Film 87 – How Docklands became Vietnam</h2> <p>The closure of the London docks offered producers of film and TV programmes so many opportunities with large areas of derelict land and buildings available.</p> <p>Much of Bob Hoskin’s film The Long Good Friday was filmed in and around docklands, and this extract from Film 87 shows how Beckton Gas Works were transformed into Vietnam for Stanley Kubrick’s film Full Metal Jacket:</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="625" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SKzcFPWuaQ0?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span> </div></figure> <p>It is worth watching just for Barry Norman’s description of yuppies at the beginning of the film.</p> <p>The following links are to films held by the British Film Institute. Unfortunately, unlike YouTube, the BFI does not appear to have a player that can be embedded in a WordPress site, so the links take you to the BFI website.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Barbican Regained</h2> <p>The film covers the area that would become the Barbican, but also takes a look at the rest of the City:</p> <p><a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-barbican-regained-1963-online" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-barbican-regained-1963-online</a></p> <p>Many of the views of the area that would become the Barbican are in colour, and in one section of the film, when the camera is panning across the Barbican, at 10 minutes 52 seconds, there is a view that is almost identical to that taken by my father around 16 years earlier. <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/thebombedcity/cripplegate-institute-jewin-crescent/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">See the post on the Cripplegate Institute and Jewin Crescent, and photo at this link to compare</a>, and the comparison shows how little had changed during the whole of the 1950s.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">A Day in London</h2> <p>This film from 1920 starts from Victoria Station and then travels across London, visiting the main landmarks that a visitor to the city would have been expected to visit:</p> <p><a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-a-day-in-london-1920-online">https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-a-day-in-london-1920-online</a></p> <p>The majority of the landmarks are much the same today as they were in 1920. What has changed are the people, cars and buses, and the fact that in 1920 Downing Street was just a normal London street that happened to have the official home of the Prime Minister. A reminder that one of the many factors to have changed London over recent years has been terrorism with Downing Street now looking like a fortified street, London’s bridges having barriers between road and footpaths etc. </p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading">Barbican Phoenix</h2> <p>Barbican Phoenix is yet another film on the redevelopment of the area around London Wall and the Barbican:</p> <p><a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-barbican-phoenix-1961-online">https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-barbican-phoenix-1961-online</a></p> <p>What interests me about these films is that they include scenes that are very similar to the photos taken by my father, and at 1 minutes, 36 seconds into Barbican Phoenix there is a <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/thebombedcity/st-giles-cripplegate-red-cross-street-fire-station/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">view of the Red Cross Street fire station and church of St. Giles Cripplegate that are also featured in my father’s photo in the post at this link</a>.</p> <p> A small selection of films that show how London has changed over the past 100 years, and how London has continued to evolve to meet challenges and opportunities. </p> <p>One of many themes from these films is the sheer diversity of activities there were in London, and my concern is that in many ways it is becoming a less diverse city, and risks ending up as a tourist attraction rather than a living and working city.</p> <p>I think sometimes we focus too much on the physical aspects of the city, preservation of buildings etc. Whilst it is important that we preserve key buildings and significant architecture, that we build more homes etc. my personal view is that the far more important question is what do we want the city to become – probably a question that is impossible to answer.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-photography/london-films-capturing-100-years-of-change/" data-text="London Films - Capturing 100 Years of Change" >Tweet</a></li><li class="share-facebook"><div class="fb-share-button" data-href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-photography/london-films-capturing-100-years-of-change/" data-layout="button_count"></div></li><li><a href="#" class="sharing-anchor sd-button share-more"><span>More</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul><div class="sharing-hidden"><div class="inner" style="display: none;width:150px;"><ul style="background-image:none;"><li class="share-bluesky"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-bluesky-21500" class="share-bluesky sd-button" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-photography/london-films-capturing-100-years-of-change/?share=bluesky" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Bluesky" ><span>Bluesky</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div> </div> <footer class="entry-meta"> This entry was posted in <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-history/" rel="category tag">London History</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-photography/" rel="category tag">London Photography</a> and tagged <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/london-films/" rel="tag">London Films</a> on <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-photography/london-films-capturing-100-years-of-change/" title="7:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2024-12-29T07:30:00+00:00">December 29, 2024</time></a><span class="by-author"> by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by admin" rel="author">admin</a></span></span>. </footer> </article> <article id="post-21514" class="post-21514 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-london-books tag-fabian-of-the-yard tag-soho tag-soho-pubs"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-books/a-christmas-book-london-after-dark-by-fabian-of-the-yard/" rel="bookmark">A Christmas Book – London after Dark by Fabian of the Yard</a> </h1> <div class="comments-link"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-books/a-christmas-book-london-after-dark-by-fabian-of-the-yard/#comments">20 Replies</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p>London after Dark by Fabian of the Yard is not really a Christmas book. I have added the Christmas reference to the title of this Christmas Day post for a special reason.</p> <p>My father had a large collection of books about London, and reading many of these at a young age was probably one of the factors that helped grow my interest in the city.</p> <p>On the inside page, he frequently wrote the date of purchase, where purchased, and if a present, who gave it to him (often written by the person who gave it). A bit of a tradition that I have carried on to this day, as surprisingly, I am often given London books as Christmas presents.</p> <p>London after Dark was a present to him, confirmed by the note and date on the front page of Christmas 1954 – Christmas 70 years ago today.</p> <p>Fabian of the Yard was ex-Detective Superintendent Robert Fabian, whose first book, simply titled <em>“Fabian of the Yard”</em> had been a best seller and was described in newspaper reviews as <em>“the best detective autobiography ever written”</em>. This is the cover of London after Dark:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-1-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="669" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-1-669x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21504" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-1-669x1024.jpg 669w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-1-196x300.jpg 196w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-1-768x1176.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-1-1004x1536.jpg 1004w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-1-1338x2048.jpg 1338w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-1-624x955.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-1-scaled.jpg 1673w" sizes="(max-width: 669px) 100vw, 669px" /></a></figure> <p>The author biography on the inside cover reads: <em>“Fabian began as an ordinary constable walking the regulation 2.5 m.p.h. on the beat, and worked his way up through all the grades of the C.I.D. </em></p> <p><em>Few men understand the workings of the criminal better than Bob Fabian; from his earliest days as a probationer detective in Soho he made a point of frequenting the cafes and dives to which hardened old lags tend to return, and from them he learned a strange kind of loyalty which on more than one occasion helped to solve a difficult case.</em></p> <p><em>But the Underworld also knew that when Fabian was roused it faced an enemy whose pursuit would be relentless and whose brain could outwit the most cunning.”</em></p> <p>The caption to the following photo reads <em>“I spend much of my time wandering round odd spots in London”</em>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-4-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1709" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-4-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21507" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-4-scaled.jpg 1709w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-4-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 1709px) 100vw, 1709px" /></a></figure> <p>London after Dark covers the period when Fabian was head of the Vice Squad, and in the book he gives <em>“vivid descriptions of dope, prostitution, blackmail, low night-clubs and all that goes with the murky side of London after Dark</em>“, and that <em>“he eschews sensationalism and deals with them as human problems for which it seems we are all responsible”</em> – I did say it is not really a Christmas book.</p> <p><em>“Night closes over London, and under the light of a lamp, two people meet”:</em></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-2-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="667" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-2-667x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21505" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-2-667x1024.jpg 667w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-2-195x300.jpg 195w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-2-768x1180.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-2-1000x1536.jpg 1000w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-2-1333x2048.jpg 1333w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-2-scaled.jpg 1667w" sizes="(max-width: 667px) 100vw, 667px" /></a></figure> <p>A selection of chapter headings helps provide an idea of the contents:</p> <ul> <li>London’s Night Clubs</li> <li>Dope – A Traffic in Damnation</li> <li>Sex and Crime in London</li> <li>The Street Girls of Soho</li> <li>The Master Minds of Crime</li> <li>The Men of Violence</li> <li>London’s Cocktail Girls</li> <li>West End Hotel Undesirables</li> <li>The Blitz Site Murder</li> <li>The Constable Who Noticed Something</li> <li>The Killer Left a Thread</li> </ul> <p><em>“Drama or romance?”:</em></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-3-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2326" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-3-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21506" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-3-scaled.jpg 2326w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-3-273x300.jpg 273w" sizes="(max-width: 2326px) 100vw, 2326px" /></a></figure> <p>The book is a fascinating, very descriptive read of crime in London during Fabian’s police career, up to his retirement in 1949.</p> <p>There is an interesting chapter on the role of the pub in London night life, and the pubs of Soho (or the <em>“square mile of vice”</em> as Fabian describes the area), were places where anything could happen.</p> <p>To try and maintain order within the pubs of Soho, Fabian included a list of <em>“thou-shall-nots”</em> as a guide for the Soho publican:</p> <ul> <li><em><strong>Allow betting in the pub.</strong> This is very strictly enforced and a publican can very soon lose his licence if he allows any laxity in this rule.</em></li> <li><em><strong>Allow billiards on Sunday.</strong> The reason for this is not obvious as it cannot be more wicked to play the game on Sunday than any other day of the week. It is probably a survival of a strict Sabbatarian approach to the Lord’s Day, and, like so many similar rules and regulations, awaits the hand of the reformer.</em></li> <li><em><strong>Allow the pub to be used as a brothel.</strong> This is the most important rule as there was a time within living memory when certain pubs were used for immoral purposes, and quite unfit places to take one’s female relations or friends.</em></li> <li><em><strong>Serve liquor to policemen while on duty.</strong> Hard luck on a thirsty policeman, maybe, but a very wise precaution.</em></li> <li><em><strong>Allow drunkenness, violent, quarrelsome or riotous conduct to take place on his premises.</strong> I am not going to pretend that there is no drunkenness in pubs today – there is – but compared with my young days, it is no longer a serious social problem. I well remember the average Saturday night on the beat when the paths were strewn with drunks of both sexes. Fights were a regular feature, and it was quite common to see two women surrounded by a crowd tearing at each other’s hair and screaming. Not a pretty sight, I can assure you.</em></li> <li><em><strong>Harbour thieves or reputed thieves, policemen on duty or prostitutes.</strong> A pub is a natural meeting-place, and a publican has to be especially careful to ensure that his premises are not used for criminal purposes or soliciting by males or females.</em></li> </ul> <p><em>“Outside a London pub, ‘hot dogs’ find ready customers”:</em></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-5-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="692" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-5-1024x692.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21508" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-5-1024x692.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-5-300x203.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-5-768x519.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-5-1536x1038.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-5-2048x1385.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-5-624x422.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p><em>“For those who prefer a restaurant, Soho provides for every taste”:</em></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-6-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="656" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-6-1024x656.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21509" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-6-1024x656.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-6-300x192.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-6-768x492.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-6-1536x984.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-6-2048x1312.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-6-624x400.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>The book is very much of it’s time. The language used to describe sections of the community in Soho is not what we would use today, and the attitude to what were crimes at the time (such as homosexuality) is appalling.</p> <p>The book describes a Soho (with some diversions to other parts of London as well as some serious crimes across the country) that was over 75 years ago and for the most part is unrecognisable today.</p> <p>I am not in favour of cancelling books and authors from when attitudes were so very different. They are important in understanding how attitudes have evolved, how London was at various points in history, and how attitudes, places and communities continually change. </p> <p>Too often we look back on a sanitised view of the past – a golden era when compared to the present time, and an understanding that the past was just a flawed as today is important.</p> <p>Someone looking back on London in 75 years time will probably be just as critical. </p> <p><em>“For some, life begins after dark”:</em></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-7-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1677" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-7-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21510" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-7-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-7-300x196.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p><em>“A friendly chart with Roy Birchenough at his club”:</em></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-8.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-8.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21511"/></a></figure> <p><em>Roy Birchenough, </em>on the left in the above photo, seems to have come to the notice of the police on a number of occasions. The following news’s report from the Sunday Express on the 31st of July, 1932 is a typical example:</p> <p><em>“VORTEX STRUCK OFF. CLUB STARTED BY TRAGIC VISCOUNTESS. The Vortex Club, Denman Street, Piccadilly, which was started by Eleanor Viscountess Torrington a fortnight before she was found dead from gas poisoning last December, was struck off the register by Mr. Mead at Marlborough Street yesterday.</em></p> <p><em>The new proprietor, Harry Shine was fined £130, and the secretary, <strong>Roy Birchenough</strong> was fined £120 for selling drinks without a licence during prohibited hours and on credit.</em></p> <p><em>These disreputable clubs necessitate constables having to visit them and drink which is undesirable but necessary, declared Mr. Mead.”</em></p> <p>The fine detailed above did not change Roy Birchenough’s approach to keeping a club, as he was fined a number of times during the 1930s, and in 1939, he received a <em>“sentence of one month’s imprisonment was passed at Bow Street on <strong>Roy Birchenough</strong>, of Norfolk Place, London, W., for selling liquor at Chumleigh’s bottle party, Regent Street, London. He was fined £60 for keeping the premises for public dancing without a licence.”</em></p> <p><em>“Piccadilly Circus, where the pulsing heat of London is most truly felt”:</em></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-9-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1683" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-9-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21512" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-9-scaled.jpg 1683w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-9-197x300.jpg 197w" sizes="(max-width: 1683px) 100vw, 1683px" /></a></figure> <p>The big problem for the Vice Squad in Soho in the 1930s and 1940s was drugs, and London’s black market drugs included heroin, cocaine, morphine, pethidine, with the main problem drugs being opium and marijuana, and during a five year period, prosecutions for marijuana increased by 2,100 per cent.</p> <p>Charing Cross Road was a particular problem area, and it was where <em>“young gangsters use it to get courage. Girls are betrayed by it. It is the easiest, newest weapon of the West End ponce”</em>.</p> <p>Fabian describes a raid at the Paramount Dance Hall in Tottenham Court Road, where eight men were arrested – one so drug crazed that he attacked the police.</p> <p>The Paramount Dance Hall and the Club Eleven were both closed by the police. Another closure was the A to Z Dance Club in Gerard Street after a raid by twenty five police officers.</p> <p><em>“The lights of Leicester Square act as a magnate to Londoners and visitors from overseas”;</em></p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-10-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="934" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-10-934x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21513" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-10-934x1024.jpg 934w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-10-274x300.jpg 274w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-10-768x842.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-10-1402x1536.jpg 1402w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-10-1869x2048.jpg 1869w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/London-after-Deak-10-624x684.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 934px) 100vw, 934px" /></a></figure> <p>A read of <em>“London after Dark”</em> by <em>“Fabian of the Yard”</em> provides a whole new perspective for when you walk the streets of Soho. A very different place today, but a place that is in danger of changing from the area described in the book to a very sanitised, corporate space that removes almost everything that has made Soho such a unique area of London.</p> <p>And with that, can I wish you a very happy Christmas, however (or not) you are celebrating, and if you get any books as presents this Christmas, write the date inside, along with who gave it to you (or better still get the giver to write) – a simple message to the future.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-books/a-christmas-book-london-after-dark-by-fabian-of-the-yard/" data-text="A Christmas Book - London after Dark by Fabian of the Yard" >Tweet</a></li><li class="share-facebook"><div class="fb-share-button" data-href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-books/a-christmas-book-london-after-dark-by-fabian-of-the-yard/" data-layout="button_count"></div></li><li><a href="#" class="sharing-anchor sd-button share-more"><span>More</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul><div class="sharing-hidden"><div class="inner" style="display: none;width:150px;"><ul style="background-image:none;"><li class="share-bluesky"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-bluesky-21514" class="share-bluesky sd-button" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-books/a-christmas-book-london-after-dark-by-fabian-of-the-yard/?share=bluesky" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Bluesky" ><span>Bluesky</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div> </div> <footer class="entry-meta"> This entry was posted in <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-books/" rel="category tag">London Books</a> and tagged <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/fabian-of-the-yard/" rel="tag">Fabian of the Yard</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/soho/" rel="tag">Soho</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/soho-pubs/" rel="tag">Soho Pubs</a> on <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-books/a-christmas-book-london-after-dark-by-fabian-of-the-yard/" title="7:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2024-12-25T07:30:00+00:00">December 25, 2024</time></a><span class="by-author"> by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by admin" rel="author">admin</a></span></span>. </footer> </article> <article id="post-21491" class="post-21491 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-london-monuments category-london-streets category-the-thames tag-river-thames tag-thames-stairs"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-monuments/york-buildings-stairs-and-the-watergate/" rel="bookmark">York Buildings Stairs and the Watergate</a> </h1> <div class="comments-link"> <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-monuments/york-buildings-stairs-and-the-watergate/#comments">8 Replies</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <p>The following photo is from the 1890s book, <em>“The Queen’s London”</em>, and shows the Water Gate between Buckingham Street and the Embankment Gardens:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-1-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1835" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-1-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21467" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-1-300x215.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>The caption underneath the photo reads: <em>“In a corner of the public gardens on the Victoria Embankment, at the foot of Buckingham Street, is the ancient Water Gate to York House, a mansion begun by Inigo Jones for the first Duke of Buckingham. It is a beautiful monument of the famous architect’s skill, and can challenge comparison with similar work by any of the Italian masters. The old Water Gate is the earliest ornamental archway in London. It is interesting, moreover, as showing the former level of the Thames. This part of town was a very different place once, when the nobles fancied it for their mansions, or even prior to the making of the Embankment, when it was regularly lapped by the tide.”</em></p> <p>The above description, written around 130 years ago applies equally today, and the Water Gate has been a regular feature in books that covered the key features of the city at the time of publication, and the Water Gate made another appearance in the 1920s volumes of <em>“Wonderful London”</em>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-2-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1941" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-2-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21468" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-2-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-2-300x227.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>Apart from the architecture, the really fascinating thing about the Water Gate is that it shows how much of the Thames was taken up by the construction of the Embankment, and with a walk up Buckingham Street, it demonstrates the topography of the area, and how we can still see the relatively steep descent from the Strand down to the foreshore of the river.</p> <p>Rocque’s 1746 map shows the Water Gate and surrounding streets as they were in the middle of the 18th century. They are shown in the following extract, in the middle of the map, where the Water Gate is part of York Buildings Stairs:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-24.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-24.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21490"/></a></figure> <p>The map shows that the Water Gate faced directly onto the Thames foreshore, and whilst the Water Gate was an unusual feature for Thames Stairs, York Buildings Stairs were just another of the Thames Stairs that lined the river, and looking along the river in 1746, we can see other stairs. Salisbury Stairs, Ivy Bridge, Black Lyon Stairs and Hungerford Stairs, all lost with the construction of the Embankment.</p> <p>The Embankment was built between the mid 1860s and the early 1870s (there are various dates either side of these dates, dependent on exactly what start and completion meant), and around 15 years before the start of construction, John Wykeham Archer created the following water colour of the Water Gate:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-23.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="691" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-23-1024x691.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21489" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-23-1024x691.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-23-300x202.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-23-768x518.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-23-1536x1036.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-23-2048x1382.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-23-624x421.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>The Thames was much wider before the construction of the Embankment, and the foreshore would have been a much shallower slope down to the centre of the river.</p> <p>The above image shows grass growing across part of the foreshore, and a sunken boat to the right. </p> <p>The sunken boat must have been just one of thousands of old wooden boats that were abandoned on the river and gradually decayed, sank, and became part of the river’s story. This has been happening from at least the Roman period, and on the southern side of the river, a Roman boat was discovered when excavating the ground ready for the build of County Hall.</p> <p><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-buildings/county-hall-and-a-roman-boat/">I wrote about the County Hall Roman boat in this post</a>, and it again illustrates how much wider the river once was, on both northern and southern sides of the Thames.</p> <p>Also in the above image, there is a brick wall along the back of the Water Gate. Whilst this may have been to keep back very high tides on the river, its primary purpose seems to have been to create a terrace along the side of the river, as the street was called Terrace Walk.</p> <p>In the 1746 map, the stairs are called York Buildings Stairs, and this name tells of the building that the Water Gate was once part of, and that once occupied the streets behind the Water Gate in the 1746 map.</p> <p>The building was York House, shown in the following print, with the Water Gate shown with steps down to the river:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-21.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="685" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-21-1024x685.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21487" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-21-1024x685.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-21-300x201.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-21-768x514.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-21-1536x1028.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-21-2048x1371.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-21-624x418.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>The building that would eventually become known as York House was built around 1237 for the Bishops of Norwich, and was then known as Norwich Place. This was the time when Bishops from around the country had a London town house as a London base, to be near the Royal Court, in which to entertain etc. (<a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-buildings/winchester-palace-great-hall-clink-street/">for another example, see my post on Winchester Palace</a>).</p> <p>The Bishops of Norwich maintained ownership of the house until Henry VIII gave the house to the Duke of Suffolk in 1536, granting the Bishop a smaller house in Cannon Row, Westminster.</p> <p>Mary I then took the house and gave it to the Arch Bishop of York, and this is when the house took the name of York House. From then on, the house went through a series of owners who seem to have gained or lost possession of the house at the whim of Royal favour.</p> <p>The Water Gate dates from George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham’s ownership of the house, when he carried out extensive repairs and had the Water Gate built in around 1626.</p> <p>The caption to the photo from the Queen’s London at the top of the post, attributes the repairs and the Water Gate to Inigo Jones, however there is doubt about this and the Historic England listing for the Water Gate (Grade I) states that it was <em>“executed by Nicholas Stone but the design also attributed to Sir Balthazar Gerbier”</em>, and that the alterations to York House carried out at the same time were also by Gerbier, rather than Jones.</p> <p>The Water Gate and stairs down to the river would have provided a private landing place, enabling the occupants of York House to take a boat along the river, or to return home, without having to use the streets, or a public landing place. The Water Gate would also have stood out along the north bank of the river, and would have been a statement, and an impressive place for visitors to arrive.</p> <p>York House was demolished in the 1670s, with only the Water Gate surviving. The land behind was developed by Nicholas Barbon into the network of streets we see today.</p> <p>George Villiers, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham imposed a rather unusual condition on the redevelopment, in that the streets that were to be built spelled out his full title, so if we go back to Rocque’s 1746 map, we can see his full title, including the “of” with Of Alley. I have numbered the street in the order in which they appear in his full title:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-25.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="795" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-25-1024x795.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21492" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-25-1024x795.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-25-300x233.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-25-768x597.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-25-1536x1193.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-25-2048x1591.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-25-624x485.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Only part of the Duke’s title remains today. Duke Street is now John Adam Street, George Street is now York Buildings, and part of Of Alley has been lost under the development of the land between John Adam Street and the Strand with only half remaining now as York Place. All as shown in the following map (<a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright">© OpenStreetMap contributors)</a>:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-26.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="964" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-26-1024x964.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21493" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-26-1024x964.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-26-300x282.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-26-768x723.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-26-1536x1446.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-26-624x587.jpg 624w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-26.jpg 1585w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>The Water Gate today:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-3.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-3.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21469"/></a></figure> <p>The Water Gate lost its connection with the River Thames with the construction of the Embankment between the mid 1860s and the early 1870s. This created the roadway, the Victoria Embankment, walkway along the river, with large retaining walls along the river. </p> <p>Between the Victoria Embankment and the Water Gate are Embankment Gardens, and part of the gardens and Victoria Embankment are built over what is now the Circle and District Line, along with the sewage system designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette, which was much needed to avoid sewage being discharged directly into the Thames.</p> <p>The Water Gate is now a considerable distance from the river, and if the distance measure feature on Google maps is accurate, the Water Gate is now 129 metres from the river – a distance which shows the considerable size of the construction work that formed the gardens and Victoria Embankment.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-4.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-4.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21470"/></a></figure> <p>After the construction of the Victoria Embankment, and the gardens, there was concern about the future of the Water Gate, which by the end of the 1870s was in a very poor state, and in urgent need of restoration.</p> <p>There were also proposals that the Water Gate should also be moved to sit on the new Embankment wall, facing onto the river. Whilst this would have continued the gate’s original purpose, it would have been completely out of context, and there was no need for such a water gate onto the river as using a waterman to row you along the river was by the late 19th century a redundant mode of travel.</p> <p>Building News of November 1879 covered the issues with, and proposals for the Water Gate:</p> <p><em>“The Metropolitan Board of Works have at last turned their attention to the deplorable condition of York Stairs, or Buckingham Gate, as it is sometimes called, now half buried in the newly made slopes of the Embankment-gardens. </em></p> <p><em>Designed to face with its best aspect the fashionable highway of the day – the river, the building became almost forgotten when that time passed away, until the Embankment again brought the public to its proper front. It is undoubtably a relic worth preserving on account of its artistic merits, independent of the historic interest attached to it. </em></p> <p><em>We wait with interest to learn of the Metropolitan Board of Works with regard to its ‘restoration’. It is hoped that better judgement will be exercised by that practical body than has been in some similar instances. </em></p> <p><em>There can be little question that to allow it to retain its original site must be the best plan. Under some circumstances it might be desirable that such a structure should follow the retreated river margin; but the lines of the modern Embankment, however beautiful in themselves, would be utterly discordant with the old-style water gate. And again, the river is no longer the highway from which the majority of people view our public buildings.</em></p> <p><em>We are glad to see that something is to be done. As we pointed out in a former number, it is quite time the neglected ornament was reinstated to a position of the dignity it deserves.”</em></p> <p>One of the proposals for the water gate, to reunite it with the river whilst maintain it in its original position, was to run a pipe from the river, under the Embankment, over the rail tracks of the new cut and cover railway, and to a large pond around the water gate. </p> <p>This would bring river water to fill the pond, and the construction of the sewer under the new Embankment was expected to ensure that the river water would now be clean. This proposal did not get carried out.</p> <p>Rather the water gate was restored, and the surroundings of the water gate landscaped, to bring it to a similar state that we see today. The work was carried out by the London County Council (who took over the responsibilities of the Metropolitan Board of Works), and completed in the early 1890s.</p> <p>A look behind the water gate, and we can start to see the difference in land levels, with steps up to the southern end of Buckingham Street:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-5-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1920" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-5-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21471" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-5-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-5-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></a></figure> <p>In the above photo the railings and steps are all Grade II listed, and are described as <em>“Mid C.18. Cast iron and Portland stone”</em>.</p> <p>What was Terrace Walk in 1746 is now Watergate Walk, here looking to the west, and steps up to Villiers Street:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-19.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-19.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21485"/></a></figure> <p>And to the east towards York Buildings:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-20.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-20.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21486"/></a></figure> <p>The rear of the Water Gate:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-6.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-6.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21472"/></a></figure> <p>The rear of the Water Gate in 1862, as painted by John Wykeham Archer in 1862, just before the construction of the Victoria Embankment and gardens:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-22.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="710" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-22-1024x710.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21488" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-22-1024x710.jpg 1024w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-22-300x208.jpg 300w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-22-768x532.jpg 768w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-22-1536x1065.jpg 1536w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-22-2048x1420.jpg 2048w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-22-624x433.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p>Image: <strong>© The Trustees of the British Museum</strong>. Shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence</a>.</p> <p>Buckingham Street is one of those London streets where the majority of the buildings that line the street have listed status.</p> <p>In the photo below, the end of terrace building is a 1679-80 town house, built as part of Barbon’s development of the area. It was somewhat rebuilt later in the 17th, and again in the 18th centuries:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-8-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1962" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-8-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21474" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-8-scaled.jpg 1962w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-8-230x300.jpg 230w" sizes="(max-width: 1962px) 100vw, 1962px" /></a></figure> <p>A plaque on the building states that Samuel Pepys lived in a house on the site, which must have been the original Barbon development:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-7-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1968" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-7-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21473" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-7-scaled.jpg 1968w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-7-231x300.jpg 231w" sizes="(max-width: 1968px) 100vw, 1968px" /></a></figure> <p>Next to the houses in the photo above, is the house shown in the photo below, Grade I listed, with the listing dating it as <em>“c.1676-77 with early C.19 and later alterations”</em>, and as being again part of Barbon’s development of the land formerly occupied by York House:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-9.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-9.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21475"/></a></figure> <p>This house also has a plaque claiming Samuel Pepys as a resident, and it appears he lived in the house between 1679 and 1688, when he stayed with William Hewer and that the house was partly in use as the Admiralty Office:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-10-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="946" height="1024" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-10-946x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21476" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-10-946x1024.jpg 946w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-10-277x300.jpg 277w" sizes="(max-width: 946px) 100vw, 946px" /></a></figure> <p>Looking up the full length of Buckingham Street, we can see the way the land gradually rises in height, up to the rear of the building at the very far end, which has a frontage onto the Strand:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-15-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1920" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-15-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21481" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-15-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-15-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>One of the very few buildings on Buckingham Street which is not listed, is this building on the south east corner of the street:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-16-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1926" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-16-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21482" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-16-scaled.jpg 1926w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-16-226x300.jpg 226w" sizes="(max-width: 1926px) 100vw, 1926px" /></a></figure> <p>The building that was originally on the site was once the home of William Smith – the father of English Geology:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-17-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2205" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-17-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21483" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-17-scaled.jpg 2205w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-17-258x300.jpg 258w" sizes="(max-width: 2205px) 100vw, 2205px" /></a></figure> <p>The rear of the water gate from the southern end of Buckingham Street, which again shows the height difference between the street and the gate:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-14.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-14.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21480"/></a></figure> <p>Another house from Barbon’s development of the area. Grade II* listed as a terraced town house, and dating from between 1675 and 1676:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-11-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1925" height="2560" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-11-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21477" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-11-scaled.jpg 1925w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-11-226x300.jpg 226w" sizes="(max-width: 1925px) 100vw, 1925px" /></a></figure> <p>As we approach the northern end of Buckingham Street, where John Adam Street crosses, we can better see the height difference with the rear of the building at the far end, which has a frontage on the Strand. Steps run up from John Adam Street, and the remaining section of the now renamed Of Alley is at the top of the stairs:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-13-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1910" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-13-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21479" srcset="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-13-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-13-300x224.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure> <p>One of the interesting aspects of walking the streets between the Strand and the Embankment is the wide variety of architectural styles we can find. The result of the redevelopment of small plots of land over the centuries.</p> <p>On the corner of Buckingham Street and John Adams Street is the following Grade II listed corner house and office, built around 1860 by R. P. Pullan:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-12.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-12.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21478"/></a></figure> <p>Walking back to the Embankment Gardens, and this is the view towards the west. The Water Gate can be seen lurking low down on the right:</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-18.jpg"><img decoding="async" src="https://alondoninheritance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/York-Stairs-18.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-21484"/></a></figure> <p>The above view shows just how much the area in front of the Water Gate has changed. </p> <p>For roughly the first 240 years of the water gate’s existence, it was looking out directly onto the River Thames, and was used as a placed where people could catch a boat to travel across or along the river.</p> <p>For the last 155 years, the Water Gate has lost contact with the river, now 129 metres to the south, and it looks out across a very different view. </p> <p>The York Buildings Stairs / Water Gate are also another example of how we have significantly reduced the width of the River Thames over the centuries, and how the river now runs in a channel, rather than a river with a gradually descending and wider foreshore.</p> <p><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-buildings/embankment-gardens-art-exhibition-adelphi/">For more on this area, you may also be interested in my post on the Embankment Gardens Art Exhibition and the Adelphi.</a></p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/">alondoninheritance.com</a></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-twitter"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-monuments/york-buildings-stairs-and-the-watergate/" data-text="York Buildings Stairs and the Watergate" >Tweet</a></li><li class="share-facebook"><div class="fb-share-button" data-href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-monuments/york-buildings-stairs-and-the-watergate/" data-layout="button_count"></div></li><li><a href="#" class="sharing-anchor sd-button share-more"><span>More</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul><div class="sharing-hidden"><div class="inner" style="display: none;width:150px;"><ul style="background-image:none;"><li class="share-bluesky"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-bluesky-21491" class="share-bluesky sd-button" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-monuments/york-buildings-stairs-and-the-watergate/?share=bluesky" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Bluesky" ><span>Bluesky</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div> </div> <footer class="entry-meta"> This entry was posted in <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-monuments/" rel="category tag">London Monuments</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/london-streets/" rel="category tag">London Streets</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/category/the-thames/" rel="category tag">The Thames</a> and tagged <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/river-thames/" rel="tag">River Thames</a>, <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/thames-stairs/" rel="tag">Thames Stairs</a> on <a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/london-monuments/york-buildings-stairs-and-the-watergate/" title="7:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2024-12-22T07:30:00+00:00">December 22, 2024</time></a><span class="by-author"> by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://alondoninheritance.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by admin" rel="author">admin</a></span></span>. </footer> </article> <nav id="nav-below" class="navigation" role="navigation"> <h3 class="assistive-text">Post navigation</h3> <div class="nav-previous"><a href="https://alondoninheritance.com/page/2/" ><span class="meta-nav">←</span> Older posts</a></div> <div class="nav-next"></div> </nav> </div> </div> <div id="secondary" class="widget-area" role="complementary"> <aside id="blog_subscription-2" class="widget widget_blog_subscription jetpack_subscription_widget"><h3 class="widget-title">Subscribe to Blog via Email</h3> <div class="wp-block-jetpack-subscriptions__container"> <form action="#" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8" id="subscribe-blog-blog_subscription-2" data-blog="64512453" data-post_access_level="everybody" > <div id="subscribe-text"><p>Join me as I explore London past and present over the coming months. 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