ALL I NEED IS MY PASSPORT

July 2024

I managed to squeeze in my sixth of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London before my departure.

Abney Park in the Borough of Hackney was laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney, Dr. Isaac Watts, and the neighboring Hartopp family.  The architect was John Hoskins.

The cemetery is named after Sir Thomas Abney, who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1700–1701. The manor of Stoke Newington belonged to him in the early 18th century, and his townhouse, Abney House, built in 1676, stood on the site of the present cemetery until its demolition in the 1830s.

In 1840, it became a non-denominational garden cemetery, a semi-public park arboretum, and an educational institute. A total of 196,843 burials had taken place there up to the year 2000.

Aesculus hippocastanum – or – Horse Chestnut

Abney Park was the first arboretum to be combined with a cemetery in Europe. Thanks to the founding horticulturist, George Loddiges, it contains 2,500 trees and shrubs arranged around the perimeter alphabetically,  from A for Acer (maple trees) to Z for Zanthoxylum (American toothache trees).

Created in the Victorian period, Abney Park’s entrance was designed by William Hosking in collaboration with Joseph Bonomi the Younger and George Collison II in the then increasingly popular Egyptian Revival style.

There are many famous people buried in Abney Park.  The most prominent being William and Catherine Booth, founders of The Salvation Army. They are buried next to their son Bramwell Booth and various Salvation Army commissioners, including Elijah Cadman, John Lawley, James Dowdle, William Ridsdel, Frederick Booth-Tucker, George Scott Railton, the Army’s first Commissioner, Theodore Kitching and T. Henry Howard, its Chief of Staff.

William and Catherine Booth

I walked over four miles inside the cemetery looking for Reverend James Mather (b. 1775), the first person to be laid to rest in Abney Park Cemetery. I was unsuccessful. Mather was a Congregationalist Minister and missionary in India. He was buried on April 26, 1877.

Someplace in there is Mather’s grave.

Commonwealth War Memorial

The War Memorial was built over the existing catacombs in 1923. There are 262 Commonwealth burials from the First World War (1914-1918) and a further 113 from the Second World War (1939-1945). The memorial was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.

Bostock Lion

Frank Bostock, known as ‘the animal king’, was a menagerist responsible for introducing many exotic animals to Victorian England.  The Bostock animal arena was a main attraction at Coney Island in the early 1900s. ‘Bostock’s Arena and Jungle’ is recorded as being held at Earls Court in 1908 and then visited principal cities in the UK over the following years. At the time of his death in 1912, Bostock had over a thousand animals in his various shows. He had circus shows and amusement parks in America, Australia, Europe, and South Africa. The floral tributes at his funeral took up five carriages.

Despite having his finger once bitten off by a monkey and suffering from both a lion and tiger mauling, Bostock died of the flu.

Dr Isaac Watts

Dr. Watts was a famous nonconformist English Christian minister and theologian. He is credited with writing some 750 psalms, which earned him the title “The Father of English Hymnody”. He died in 1748.

The memorial was designed by British sculptor Edward Hodges Baily, who also sculpted the statue of Lord Nelson atop Nelson’s Column.

Joanna Vassa

Joanna Vassa was the daughter of Britain’s first Black activist, Olaudah Equiano, alias Gustavus Vassa. Equiano was shipped to England as a slave, served in the navy, and obtained his freedom in 1766. He became a writer, Methodist, and anti-slavery campaigner. His autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life Of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, was published in 1789.

Vassa married Susannah Cullen of Soham, Cambridgeshire, and they had two daughters. This monument was discovered in bad condition in the early 1990s and restored in 2016 with funds from Abney Park Trust.

John Jay

I took this picture without even knowing who was buried here, as I found the memorial striking. John Jay built the William Hosking-designed Abney Park Chapel. During the 1850s, he also built the Victorian clock tower and the city clock of the Houses of Parliament. The rich baroque sarcophagus is rumored to have been sculpted by Jay himself.

Abney Park Memorial Chapel

Eric Walrond

African-American Eric Walrond was a Harlem Renaissance writer. Born in Guyana, he moved to New York in the 1920s. His work, including the classic Tropic Death, was influenced by his years growing up in the Caribbean and the legacy of the slave trade. In the 1930s, he moved to England and died in London in 1966. This monument was carved by a member of Abney Park’s stone carving group. Walrond is buried in an unmarked public grave somewhere behind the headstone.

James Braidwood

James Braidwood was a firefighter of Scottish descent. He founded the first fire service in Edinburgh and later became the first director of the London Fire Brigade. By 1830, Braidwood had established principles of firefighting that were published and are still in use today. He died in the Tooley Street fire of 1861 when a falling wall crushed him. The funeral procession was over one mile long, the hearse was tailed by 15 coaches, and representatives of all London Fire Brigades, the Rifle Brigade, and the police were present. This monument was rediscovered in 1981.

Margaret Graham

This memorial to Margaret Graham, who died in 1864 and was buried in a pauper’s grave, was put up after £5,000 was raised by organizations and members of the public.

Born Margaret Watson in Walcot, Bath, in 1804, she was married to chemist and aeronaut George Graham. She soon became a famous aeronaut in her own right. She built an impressive career as a professional pilot over more than three decades, from the late Georgian era to the mid-Victorian period. In 1826, Margaret Graham, then 22, became the first British woman to fly solo when she ascended in her balloon from Islington in north London. She was also an early and outspoken advocate of women’s right to fly on equal terms with men.

Reverend Henry Richard

Henry Richard was born in Tregaron, Wales, in 1812. He was known as ‘the Apostle of Peace’ because he advocated for peace and international arbitration. He was also respected for his non-conformist and anti-slavery work.

The only mausoleum permitted by the Abney Park Cemetery Company is Dr. Nathaniel Rogers, who died in 1884. He made donations to assist with the restoration of the Pulteney Monument at Westminster Abbey, stained glass windows at St Paul’s Cathedral, Abney Park Chapel, and the Union Chapel. Rogers designed the mausoleum for himself twenty years before his death.

Remembering those who died in the Blitz

The area of Hockney was badly bombed during the Second World War because it was close to important targets such as docks and the City of London. One of the worst blitz tragedies was on October 13, 1940. Over 100 residents of a block of flats were killed when their air raid shelter was hit. Many of those who died were of Jewish heritage and buried in a common grave. The civilian war memorial was built in 1948 to honor all citizens who died during the blitz.

There are no maps of the cemetery, and while some articles speak of path names, the paths are not marked, so it is very hard to find the graves of specific people.  There are many Victorian comedians, pantomime actors, and other performers buried here. None of which I found. These include Albert Chevalier (full incredible first name Albert Onésime Britannicus Gwathveoyd Louis Chevalier), songstress and male impersonator Nelly Power, and famous comedian and ‘Dame of Drury Lane’ panto star Herbert Campbell. George Leybourne, aka Champagne, is also buried here. His act was to extol the joys of high living, but he died penniless.

A warning to plant enthusiasts: it is not advisable to go mushrooming in Abney Park. Edible plants are likely to be infused with arsenic from the bodies embalmed in the Victorian era, and mushrooms are also likely to be full of lead because of the lead-lined coffins used by Victorians.

July 2024

Crossbones Cemetery

Wandering near the Tate Modern, I found this small graveyard that is only open three days a week for a few hours, and then, only if they can find volunteers.  I was lucky!

Depending on what/who you read, the stories vary, but the gist is that Cross Bones is a disused post-medieval burial ground on Redcross Way. Up to 15,000 people are believed to have been buried there. It was closed in 1853.

Cross Bones is thought to have been established originally as an unconsecrated graveyard for prostitutes, or “single women”, who were known locally as “Winchester Geese” because the Bishop of Winchester licensed them to work within the Liberty of the Clink. The area lay outside the jurisdiction of the City of London and, as a consequence, became known for its brothels and theatres, as well as bull and bear baiting, activities not permitted within the City itself. By 1769, it had become a pauper’s cemetery servicing St. Saviour’s parish.

The graveyard was closed in 1853 because it was “completely overcharged with dead”, and further burials were deemed “inconsistent with a due regard for the public health and public decency”. The land was sold as a building site in 1883, prompting an objection from Lord Brabazon in November of that year in a letter to The Times, asking that it be saved from “such desecration”. The sale was declared null and void the following year under the Disused Burial Grounds Act 1884, and subsequent attempts to develop the site were opposed by local people, as was its brief use as a fairground. After removal of remains to the parish facilities in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, the site was built upon.

Over half of the burials in the cemetery are children. The trust was approached by parents who had lost children prenatally, asking whether an area could be set aside dedicated to children. The trust developed the area following the Japanese tradition of Mizuko kayo, as seen here.

Between 1991 and 1998, excavations were conducted on the land by the Museum of London Archaeology Service in connection with the construction of London Underground’s Jubilee line. Archaeologists found a highly overcrowded graveyard with bodies piled on top of one another. Tests showed those buried had suffered from smallpox, tuberculosis, Paget’s disease, osteoarthritis, and vitamin D deficiency. A dig in 1992 uncovered 148 graves, dating from 1800 to 1853. Over one-third of the bodies were perinatal (between 22 weeks gestation and seven days after birth), and a further 11 percent were under one year old. The adults were mostly women aged 36 and older.

Kensal Green

Kensal Green Cemetery opened in 1833 and was the first commercial cemetery in London. The increase in population and the inadequate space provided by existing cemeteries and churchyards set off a need for large cemeteries in London.

The Penny Magazine, August 1834

Campaigners for burial reform and public opinion considered the best solution would be “detached cemeteries for the metropolis”, and in 1832 Parliament passed a bill that incorporated the General Cemetery Company “for the Interment of the Dead.”

As I was arriving at Kensal Green, the hired Victorian hearse was ending its job.  The woman in the photo is the second-generation owner of this stunning team of horses and a stable of Victorian hearses to match.  The one shown above is a modern one with disc brakes, but they do have original older ones as well.

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Classic Victorian Tombs

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Sadly, much of the cemetery is in disrepair.

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Erich Fried (6 May 1921 – 22 November 1988) was an Austrian-born poet, writer, and translator. He translated works by different English writers from English into German, most notably works by William Shakespeare.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a British civil and mechanical engineer. He is considered “one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history,” “one of the 19th-century engineering giants,” and “one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, [who] changed the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions.” Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway (GWR), a series of steamships, including the first purpose-built transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels throughout the UK.

Charles Babbage was an English polymath, mathematician, philosopher, inventor, and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.

Alexis and Emma Soyer

Alexis and Emma Soyer were fascinating people. Escaping from France during the 1830 Revolution, Chef Alexis Soyer became the most celebrated cook in England. Emma achieved considerable popularity as a painter, chiefly of portraits.  Born in London in 1813, she was instructed in French, Italian, and music, becoming a talented pianist. She showed two paintings at the Paris Salon in 1842 but died the same year following complications suffered in a premature childbirth brought on by a thunderstorm. Distraught, Soyer erected a monument to her at Kensal Green cemetery.

During the Irish famine in April 1847, Soyer invented a soup kitchen and was asked by the Government to go to Ireland to implement his idea. His famine soup was served to thousands of people in Dublin for free, and while in Ireland, he wrote Soyer’s Charitable Cookery, giving the proceeds of the book to various charities. In June 1848, 140 of Emma’s works were exhibited on behalf of the Spitalfields soup kitchen.

During the Crimean War, Soyer was inspired by the reports of correspondent William Howard Russell in The Times about the malnutrition of troops to improve the feeding of the army, originally at his own expense. (Later, he was paid his expenses and wages equivalent to those of a Brigadier-General. ) After a six-week journey, he reached Crimea, where he was granted complete autonomy on the soldiers’ diet and, by the use of his invention, the portable Soyer stove, managed radically to improve the way that British soldiers were fed.

Soyer wrote A Culinary Campaign as a record of his activities in Crimea. The 1854 book A Shilling Cookery for the People was a recipe book for people who could not afford elaborate kitchen utensils or large amounts of exotic ingredients.

Soyer died on August 5th, 1858, and was buried beside his wife.

Scottish Botanist Archibald Menzies

A new grave for Scottish Botanist Archibald Menzies has been erected.  I found it sad his wife was an afterthought with the stone reading: Also his wife Janet Menzies  1770-1836

The stone at the foot reads:

Archibald Menzies, notable Scottish plant collector
Inscription on the headstone of 1842:

Many years a surgeon in the Royal Navy
In which Station he served in the fleet commanded by Admiral Rodney on the 12 April 1782

He afterwards twice circumnavigated the Globe,
First with Captain Colnett and again in the
voyage of discovery under the orders of
Captain Vancouver as the Naturalist of that expedition.

He added greatly to the knowledge then possessed
Of the natural productions, especially the plants,
Of the various countries visited.
After practicing his profession for many years
In London, he retired to Notting Hill where he died
On the 15th February 1842 aged 88 years

Sincerely respected and deeply regretted by his numerous friends.

In memory of JosephRichardson

formerly of Underskidday Keswick Cumberland

The inventor of

The instrument of Rock Bell and Steel Band

Died 8th April 1855, Aged 65

Samuel Richardson

Died 2nd March 1888, Aged 63

The Rock Bell and Steel Band are collectively known as the “Musical Stones of Skiddaw” and were originally known as the “Rock Harmonicon.”

Built by Joseph Richardson, it took thirteen years to construct between 1827 and 1840. When completed, it was described by a London newspaper as being “the largest and most complete set of musical stones that was perhaps ever collected in this or any other country”. It consisted of about 60 stones ranging in length from eight feet down to three feet and covered a range of at least five octaves.

The “Rock Harmonicon” was played by three players at once, the sons of the inventor. They would sit in front in the same way as at a piano, with one playing the bass notes, the middle one playing the tenor notes, and the third playing the treble notes.

Joseph Manton (April 1766 –  June 1835) was a British gunsmith. He innovated sport shooting, improved weapon quality, and paved the way for the modern artillery shell.

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July 2024

The Crossness Pumping Station is a former sewage pumping station designed by the Metropolitan Board of Works’ chief engineer, Sir Joseph Bazalgette, and architect Charles Henry Driver.

In the 19th century, London’s population numbered around 2 million. The city suffered fatal epidemics of cholera, and thousands died as the Victorians had no known cure.

It was widely believed breathing in ‘miasma’, foul contaminated air, caused disease and death. London-based physician Dr John Snow put forward the theory that the condition was water-borne, and you can read my post about that here.

In 1853-54 cholera claimed a further 10,738 victims. Then in the summer of 1858, temperatures averaged 95 degrees F. The stench from the Thames, the ‘Great Stink’, became overwhelming for those nearby, including Parliament, who finally stood up and took notice.

Enter Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineering mastermind and public health visionary behind the vast sewage system that Londoners still rely on today.  Prior to Bazalgette’s system, sewage was dumped straight into the Thames.  Bazalgette devised a system to take the sewage out of London and, well, simply deposit it further downriver where no one cared.

The Crossness Pumping Station, abandoned after 88 years of service, is now a museum divided into two parts.  It took forty years, but two of the magnificent Beam Engines have been restored. Two have been left in the state they were found when restoration began to give a wonderfully visual comparison.  The four are named “Victoria”, “Prince Consort”, “Albert Edward” and “Alexandra”.

A schematic of the Beam Engines as they are too large to take in as one

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The Octagon is the entry to the guts of the Crossness Pumping Station

The Octagon is made of Victorian cast iron and is imbued with the Metropolitan Board of Works MBW symbol and other meaningful ornamentation.

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The Column Capitals are made up of leaves and fruit of the fig tree and Senna Pods – both good cures for constipation.

To counter this, the panels between the columns are ornamented with 4-leaved Dogwood and the 5-leaved Bramble, both useful in combating diarrhea.

At 11 revolutions per minute, 6 tons of sewage per stroke per engine were pumped up into a 27-million-imperial-gallon reservoir, and released into the Thames during the ebbing tide

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*The steam required to power these engines was created by 12 Cornish boilers with single “straight-through” flues situated in the Boiler House to the south of the Engine House, which consumed 5,000 tons of Welsh coal annually.

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Over the years, the sewage dumping below London has been mitigated. In 1882, a Royal Commission recommended that the solid matter of sewage be separated and that only the liquid portion be allowed to flow into the river. In 1891, sedimentation tanks were added to the works, and the sludge was carried by boats and dumped further out into the estuary. Eventually, purification was added to the system, but removing the sewage of a town the size of London is still a challenge.

The  Thames Tideway Tunnel is being built to relieve the pressure on the old system. It will run under London utilizing gravity to transfer the waste eastwards for treatment. It is due for completion sometime in 2024.

July 2024

The Sambourne House

18 Stafford Terrace was the home of the Punch illustrator Edward Linley Sambourne (1844–1910) and his wife Marion.

The Sambourne House is one of many similar townhouses that line both sides of the street

The house is an excellent example of middle-class Aestheticism and a lot of eclecticism. Throughout are decorative Sunflower motifs in the stained glass windows, William Morris wallpapers, a collection of blue-and-white Chinese import porcelain, and a lot of other items that caught the eye of Sambourne.

A glimpse of the unique wall treatments

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Sambourne’s studio

Sambourne used a huge library of photographic images to give accuracy to his work.

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Sambourne was most famous for being a draughtsman for the satirical magazine Punch for more than forty years and rising to the position of “First Cartoonist” in his final decade. He was also a great-grandfather of Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, who was the husband of Princess Margaret.

The house is filled with his work, but most behind glass and very hard to photograph due to the lighting in the house.

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*Details of the above work framed in gold.

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The house is eclectic to say the least but Sambourne’s work is a delight to behold.

July 2024

Holland Park is an area of Kensington, surrounds its namesake park, Holland Park and colloquially referred to as ‘Millionaire’s Row’ as it is one of the most expensive areas of London.

Sir Walter Cope built Cope Castle, which was a Jacobean mansion hidden in the woods of Holland Park, around 1605-1608. Sir Walter Cope was Chancellor of the Exchequer During the reign of King Charles I. The building was designed by John Thorpe and the estate’s gardener was John Tradescant.

Remains of Cope Castle – now a youth hostel.

Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland

During the time of Lord Holland, Holland House became the political and social hub, drawing in some of the famous names of the time. Visitors to Holland House included such notables as Writer Charles Dickens, Prime Minister and politician Benjamin Disraeli, the poet Thomas Campbell, writer Walter Scott, poet Lord Byron, and historian & poet Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay.

The Dutch Garden of Holland Park

The park is vast, including the famous Kyoto Garden; sadly, we were just walking through the park.

Holland Park Circle

The Holland Park Circle was an informal group of 19th-century artists based in the Holland Park district.

Woodland House

Artist Luke Fildes commissioned Richard Norman Shaw to create Woodland House. Fildes is best known for his 1891 painting The Doctor, which depicts a Victorian doctor observing the critical stage of a child’s illness while the parents look on helplessly. It has been used to portray the values of the ideal physician and the inadequacies of the medical profession.

Tower House

The architect and designer William Burges built this late-Victorian townhouse in the Holland Park district as his home. Designed between 1875 and 1881 in the French Gothic Revival style, it was described by the architectural historian J. Mordaunt Crook as “the most complete example of a medieval secular interior produced by the Gothic Revival, and the last.”

8 Melbury Road

8 Melbury Road was built in the Queen Anne style by the architect Richard Norman Shaw for artist Marcus Clayton Stone. Marcus Stone was trained by his father, Frank Stone, and began to exhibit at the Royal Academy before he was eighteen. He found success in illustrating books by Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and other writers who were friends of his family.

Standing admiring the homes of Fildes and Burgess, I spotted this long frontage, perfectly designed as a gnome village.  I wondered how the feuding Robbie Williams ( Fildes Home) and Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page (Woodland Tower) felt about it.

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December 2022

I am an avowed taphophile, so visiting cemeteries is part of my travels wherever I go.  I made an intentional trip to Highgate, tour and all, but the others were pleasant happenstances.

Highgate

An act of Parliament created The London Cemetery Company in 1836. Stephen Geary, an architect, and the company’s founder appointed James Bunstone Bunning as the surveyor and David Ramsey, a renowned garden designer, as the landscape architect.

Over the next 20 years, Highgate became one of London’s most fashionable cemeteries. In 1854 the London Cemetery Company expanded by a further twenty acres. This new ground, now known as the East Cemetery, was opened in 1856.

This 37-acre cemetery is best known for the grave of Karl Marx.

In 1884, on the first anniversary of Marx’s death, around 6,000 people marched from Tottenham Court Road to the grave only to be turned away by police who, afraid of riots, had closed the cemetery. Marx was initially buried a few yards to the north, but in 1956 his grave was moved to its present location, and this giant memorial, funded by the British Communist Party, was erected.  You can see the original gravestone incorporated into the plinth. A ceremony is held here every year on the anniversary of his death, to the minute, at 2.30 pm.

The grave site of one of my favorite authors – Douglas Adams – author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

People leave pens at the base of Adams’s grave; I, for one, would have left a towel.  But there is a connection to the pens:

“Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the color blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to ballpoint life forms. And it was to this planet that unattended ballpoints would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely ballpointoid lifestyle, responding to highly ballpoint-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the ballpoint equivalent of the good life.”

Sculptor Anna Justine Mahler (Gucki) (1904-1988). Daughter of Gustav Mahler.

Gravesite of famous bare-knuckled fighter Thomas Sayers with his dog named Lion.

The lion Nero on the tomb of John Wombwell

George Wombwell (December 1777 – November 1850) was a famous menagerie exhibitor in Regency and early Victorian Britain. He founded Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie.  It is said that Nero was so docile children could ride on his back.

A person with some whimsey

Someone with a good sense of humor.

St. Olaves

We had walked into St. Olaves in pursuit of Pepys.  A group of musicians had just finished their practice and were thrilled to talk about the church.

Samuel Pepys (1633 – 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade.

Pepys recorded his daily life for almost ten years. This record of Pepys’s life is more than a million words long and is often regarded as Britain’s most celebrated diary; it has been a primary source for scholars regarding the English Restoration Period.

The entry to the churchyard of St. Olaves

Charles Dickens called St Olaves: My best-beloved churchyard.  The churchyard of St. Ghastly Grim.

In the crypt of St. Olaves

St. Pancras

I have already written about this small unique cemetery in Camden, but I wanted to make sure it got in the cemetery section as well, so here are a few from St. Pancras.

The Hardy Tree –

After photographing this and writing about it, the tree fell in a rainstorm.  It became infected with parasites in 2014, which is why there is a fence around it, and it finally succumbed to its illness on December 28th of this year. The Camden Council said that it is looking at ways to celebrate the fallen ash, including harvesting the wood of the Hardy Tree to make a commemorative object or planting a new tree in its place.

Burdett Coutts Monument

Burdett-Coutts monument is a memorial fountain and sundial of 1877.  Made of Portland stone, marble, granite, and red Mansfield stone, it was designed by G Highton of Brixton and manufactured by H Daniel & Co, cemetery masons of Highgate.

John Soane Monument

Saint Bartholomew The Great

These graves sit atop a plaque pit in the yard of Saint Bartholomew The Great Church.  The church and plaque pit has a fascinating history that I have written about before.

Westminster Abbey

While one doesn’t think of Westminster Abbey as a graveyard, there are over 3000 people buried in it.  There are also hundreds of honorary plaques to notable people throughout history.  I am only going to include two pieces I found that caught my eye.

Elizabeth Russell

Elizabeth Russel was baptized in the Abbey. Elizabeth I and the Countess of Sussex were her godmothers, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, her godfather. She was a maid of honor to the queen and died of consumption in 1601. The skull is a symbol of mortality.

Lady Elizabeth Nightingale

Lady Elizabeth Nightingale died in childbirth in 1731. The sculpture was done in 1761 by French stonemason LF Roubiliac. It depicts a very skeletal Grim Reaper emerging from what looks like a fireplace to spear the dying woman. Elizabeth’s husband, Joseph, fights in vain to save his wife from death.

December 2022

Taxis

With the advent of Uber and Lyft filling the world with cheap rides from underpaid drivers, the London Cabbie is still a wonder and should be used as often as possible while in London.

One of the reasons is Knowledge. The Knowledge was introduced as a requirement for taxi drivers in 1865. There are thousands of streets and landmarks within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross. Anyone who wants to drive a London cab must memorize them all: the Knowledge of London.

This is actually rather important as the amount of construction that is occurring in London means someone with The Knowledge can get you to your destination on time and without getting lost, as happened to me the only time I agreed to take an Uber.

There is a push in London to switch to electric taxis. They have a little bit different shape and cost £55,599.  I spoke with an older cab driver that didn’t mind the price but said there simply aren’t enough charging stations to make the system work. However, I have a feeling; despite pushback, the electric London cab is the future, as it was, for a short time, in the past.

London’s first horseless cabs were powered by electricity and were called Berseys, after their designer Walter C. Bersey. Twenty-five of them were introduced in August 1897. However, they proved costly and unreliable, and after one fatality, they were off the streets of London by 1900.

At Christmas, I stayed at a hotel off of Russell Square and spotted this lovely little shed. It is one of 13 cabmen’s shelters that still exist, out of an original 60, and only licensed drivers who have passed The Knowledge test are allowed inside.

Getting around London is fun, no matter the system, especially if you keep your eye out for the unusual.

December 2022

A trip from downtown London to Greenwich is about one hour.  As the sun was shining and the temperatures have risen to the low 50s, a boat down the Thames seemed the most delightful way to get to Greenwich today.

Original Columns of the Blackfriars Railway Bridge

Of course, there are bridges across the Thames; in fact, there are more than 200 bridges along the river, varying from small wooden crossings on the Upper Thames to large structures like Tower Bridge. But these red columns caught my eye. The red pillars are the remains of the Old Blackfriars Railway Bridge, which was built in 1864 by engineer Joseph Cubitt (1811-1872) for the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway (LC&DR).

From the river, you will see the classic London hot spots such as St Paul’s Cathedral.

St Pauls from the river

You will espy the freshly unwrapped Big Ben with the Parliament Building. The bells of the Elizabeth Tower have been silent for five years; they were brought back on Remembrance Day, November 13th of this year.

Big Ben and Parliament

And, of course, the London Eye.

Once past Canary Wharf, the boat picks up considerable speed and gets you to Greenwich in no time.

This city once relied completely on the River Thames for transportation, and the history of the Waterman is long and storied and worth the time to read about.  I found this boat of particular interest to the story.  The Thames Sailing Barge.

Thames Sailing Barge

A Thames sailing barge, once common on the River Thames, is a type of commercial sailing boat.  It is a flat-bottomed barge with a shallow draught with leeboards, perfectly adapted to the Thames Estuary. The larger barges were seaworthy vessels, and the largest vessels maneuverable by just two men.

There is just one issue with these historic boats. Their masts are really rather tall. Thus getting under the Tower Bridge presented challenges.

Tower Bridge is a bascule bridge. ‘Bascule’ is a French word, which can be translated as a seesaw, and describes how the two sides of the road of Tower Bridge open.

Today there isn’t that much large traffic plying the Thames, and by the late 1960s, Tower Bridge only opened a few hundred times a year.  It is now fully automated and powered hydroelectrically.

Greenwich

I was here to visit the Royal Observatory, known for so many things, but mainly the home of what we now consider Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian.

If you stand with one foot on one side and the other on the left of the Prime Meridian, you are perfectly in the middle of the east and west.

The museums of the area are interesting, and watching the Greenwich Time Ball drop at 1:00 is fun, but there are other interesting things in the neighborhood that are a little different and what I would prefer to write about.

There are several public transit options in the attempt to return to Camden, but taking the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) was the most sensible for our return.  But an added adventure is to walk under the Thames and catch the DLR on the opposite side of the river.

The Entrance to the Greenwich Tunnel

The Greenwich tunnel links Cutty Sark to Island Gardens on the Isle of Dogs. Opened in 1902, the tunnel was built to replace a hugely unreliable ferry service that brought those who lived south of the river to work in the docks and shipyards.

The tunnel is 1,217 feet long and approximately 50 feet deep. Designed by Sir Alexander Binnie, it was opened in August 1902 at the cost of £127,000. The tunnel is lined with 200,000 glazed white tiles.

The use of a tunneling shield did the digging. However, the excavation was done entirely by hand. The tunnelers worked 24 hours in eight-hour shifts, managing to dig about 10 feet every 24 hours. The Greenwich Foot Tunnel was initially only accessible via a winding staircase, but lifts were added in 1904.

The elevators of the tunnel are octagonal and once had an attendant.  Why they are octagonal, I have not been able to determine.

A short length of the tunnel was damaged on the first night of the Blitz, September 7 and 8, 1940. Fortunately, the damage was repaired quickly, and the use of the tunnel could continue. The repairs included these exposed metal ring segments.

Standing on the Isle of Dogs and looking back at Greenwich.

I am not the only one to have admired this view.  Canaletto painted this view in 1750.

Canaletto arrived in England in 1746 and stayed for nearly a decade. This painting shows the riverfront at Greenwich with the Royal Naval Hospital and the Queen’s House. The hospital building was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, who was also responsible for the Royal Observatory.

Looking up at Christopher Wren’s Royal Observatory from the bottom of the hill

One needs at least one full day to enjoy all Greenwich offers, but the trip is well worth it.

December 2022

This is just one small section of the books from King George III’s library.  The display dominates the British Library and is just one of many reasons to visit the library.  They have rotating exhibitions and a permanent area filled with treasures from the British Library, ranging from the Magna Carta to handwritten lyrics by the Beatles, all worth the time and effort to view.

George III reigned from 1760 to 1820. He was king at the time of the American Revolution. His library contains books printed mainly in Britain, Europe, and North America from the mid-15th to the early 19th centuries. It consists of 65,000 volumes of printed books and 19,000 pamphlets (as well as manuscripts and bound volumes of maps and topographical views).

The King’s Library has had various homes during its existence. Its penultimate move was in 1828 when it was moved to the King’s Library Gallery in the British Museum, where it remained for 170 years.  During WWII, on September 23, 1940, a bomb destroyed over 400 volumes.   In 1998 the collection was transferred to the British Library.

Words on the Water

This fabulous bookstore on an old Dutch barge can be found on Regent’s Canal near Granary Square.  Open for at least ten years; it is the brainchild of Paddy Screech, Jonathan Privett, and Stephane Chaudat.  Apparently, due to barge rules, it once had to be on the move constantly, but now it is permanently moored in a great location.

Words on the Water are just below a project I had come to see. Gas tanks, or gas holders, as they call them in England, harken back to the Victorian times, when every town had one for storing gas that was made from coal. After the 1960s, they were used for natural gas.

I first read about the potential to repurpose these tanks in an architectural magazine years ago. These two are part of Gasholder Park, designed by Bell Phillips Architects.

These particular holders were built in the 1850s as part of Pancras Gasworks. The gasholders remained in use until the late 20th Century and were finally decommissioned in 2000.

The victorian elements can still be seen.

They were dismantled and shipped piece by piece to Shepley Engineers in Yorkshire for the project. It took two years to restore, and when finished, they were rebuilt on the banks of the canal.

I love finding buildings I have studied from afar, especially when they are near bookstores.