Charles Flower’s Old London Churches

St Helen, Bishopsgate by Charles Flower, c.1904

I came across the above picture of the church St Helen, Bishopsgate on an old postcard recently. It caught my eye because I pass through this scene almost every day and find it a rare haven of tranquillity amongst the bustle of the City traffic.

The picture forms part of a set of six postcards featuring Old London Churches, produced by the great postcard publishers Raphael Tuck & Co in 1904 and all painted by the same artist, Charles Flower. This was the golden age of the picture postcard and hundreds of thousands of Tuck’s cards were manufactured and sent every year.

Charles Flower in his early twenties

Charles Flower

Charles Edwin Flower (1871-1951) was one of Tuck’s most prolific artists and contributed around 300 paintings over a long career. He travelled widely, with the scenes he captured covering the USA, Canada, Germany and Argentina as well as the breadth of the UK. The ubiquity of Tuck’s postcards must have made Flower’s work some of the most recognised of the early 20th century. Despite this, we know relatively little of him beyond that, prior to working for Tuck, he was employed as an artist by the pioneering archaeologist Augustus Pitt Rivers to illustrate a catalogue of the vast number of finds from excavations on Pitt Rivers’ Wiltshire estate. I’ll say more about Flower in a future post.

Having tracked down all six postcards in the set, I was delighted to see that all six churches are still with us today. This is quite something, given that two (All Hallows-by-the-Tower and St Olave, Hart Street) were almost destroyed during the Blitz and a further two (St Helen’s and St Ethelburga, Bishopsgate) were blown up by IRA bombs in the early1990s. So I thought it would be good to recreate Charles Flower’s images as they appear today. All six views are plainly recognisable. The most noticeable change to the churches is the new and very different steeple added to All Hallows-by-the-Tower on its rebuilding after the second world war. Comparing old and new images also highlights the photo-bombing of these views by the City’s ever-growing plague of office towers.

St Helen, Bishopsgate as it is today

St Ethelburga, Bishopsgate by Charles Flower, c.1904

St Ethelburga, Bishopsgate as it is today.

All Hallows-by-the-Tower, by Charles Flower c.1904

All Hallows-by-the-Tower as it is today

St Olave, Hart Street by Charles Flower c.1904

St Olave, Hart Street as it is today

St Bartholomew-the-Great by Charles Flower c.1904

St Bartholomew-the-Great as it is today

St Magnus-the-Martyr by Charles Flower c.1904

St Magnus-the-Martyr as it is today

Further Reading

If you enjoyed this post, you might like these other pieces on the City of London’s churches:

Poppies and Pepys and Ghastly Grim

Fishwives and Firestarters: a Load of Old Billingsgate

Magnus, the Monument and Mice Eating Cheese

City of London Churches – Digital Sketches

Magnus, the Monument and Mice Eating Cheese

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This is the third in a series of posts I have called City of London Steeplechases, virtual guided walks of each of the City’s Wards, seeking out the sites of all the churches, past and present and many other points of interest along the way.

Previous Steeplechases have covered the Tower and Billingsgate Wards. Continuing westwards along the Thames, we now come to the Ward of Bridge and Bridge Without, comprising London Bridge and a narrow band around its northern approach, covering the area around The Monument and spreading north up Gracechurch Street as far as its junction with Lombard and Fenchurch Streets. 

Bridge Without what?

The ward’s name is confusing to say the least and takes some explaining. 

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Until 1550 Bridge Ward occupied broadly its current boundaries but in that year the new ward of Bridge Without (ie without, or outside, the City walls) was created to reflect the City’s jurisdiction over three manors in Southwark to the south of the bridge.  By 1899 the administrative government of the Southwark parts had become removed from the City of London’s responsibilities, but the City retained the right to appoint an Alderman. In 1978 the two wards were merged together and, at least officially, are still known as the Ward of Bridge and Bridge Without – despite the fact that the ‘real’ ward boundaries are all ‘Within’ the old City Wall and the ‘Bridge Without’ element is nominal only.

Walking Bridge Ward

Starting from London Bridge station, leave the station into Tooley Street and head onto the bridge, keeping to the right hand (eastward) side. Note the large dragon on its pedestal guarding the entrance to the City of London.

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Similar statues stand sentinel over most of the City’s entrance roads. As explained in an earlier post, the dragon has been an important symbol of the City for centuries and is a fundamental  component of the City’s heraldry: look closely at any modern City street sign or roadside bollard and you will see what I mean:

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Stop half way across London Bridge and admire the views of the City and downriver. It’s worth reflecting that there have been a succession of bridges here for almost 2,000 years dating back to Roman times. The current bridge is a relatively modern affair dating back only to 1967 when its predecessor, unable to stand the weight of traffic, was dismantled and shipped off to the USA where it was reassembled at Lake Havasu City in Arizona. That bridge, opened in 1831, had itself replaced the famous medieval London Bridge with its houses, shops and traitors’ heads upon spikes.

The medieval bridge stood some way downstream of its successors, and was aligned with the porch of St Magnus Martyr which bestrode the northern approach, as illustrated by the image below from around 1800 (note that the houses and other buildings on the bridge had been demolished around 1760). The map, from 1830, shows that the medieval and 19th century bridges briefly co-existed.

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As you reach the northern bank, look down again over the wall and notice how the riverside walkway juts out immediately downstream of the bridge. This area was on the upstream side of the medieval bridge and was the site of the famous water works by which the City’s drinking water was pumped up to the Standard at the top of Cornhill. Fans of Rob Lloyd’s Restoration London thriller The Bloodless Boy (my favourite London book of 2014, reviewed here) will recall this spot! 

 

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As the bridge meets the northern bank you will see some rather unpromisingly dank steps down to the riverside walkway. Descend these and head upstream under the bridge.

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As you re-emerge into daylight note the imposing Fishmongers’ Hall to your right, dating from 1835 and the 3rd hall on the site. As you pass the hall you will see a pair of Coade Stone statues of a fishmonger and fishwife.

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Continue along the riverside walkway until you reach Swan Lane. Turn right: this is the western boundary of Bridge Ward. Now lined with modern offices,  it is hard to imagine this lane dates back at least to the 12th century. Originally known as Ebbgate, it was renamed after the Old Swan Inn that stood here. Samuel Pepys described eating there in 1660 as ‘a poor house and ill-dressed, but very good fish and plenty’. The Old Swan was also the start point for Doggett’s Coat & Badge race. As you turn the corner look up high on your right for a small sign showing that the property belongs to the Fishmongers’ Company.

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Continue along Swan Lane and cross Upper Thames Street. Keep to the left of the large building site and pass up Arthur Street which curves up to the right and returns to the bridge approach. From this side of the bridge notice the bulk of Adelaide House across the road and scandalously blocking the view of Wren’s beautiful St Magnus, built to stand sentinel over the bridge’s northern approach.

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Now re-cross the busy junction to the eastern side of the bridge approach. Before the bridge was moved, this was part of Eastcheap, the east chepe or market so named to distinguish it from West Cheap (now Cheapside). As you turn right into Eastcheap look for the blue plaque marking the site of St Leonard’s Eastcheap, one of the many churches lost in the Great Fire and not rebuilt.

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Cross Eastcheap and head north up Gracechurch Street, looking out for the marks showing the boundary between the parish of St Leonard’s and that of St Benet Gracechurch. Gracechurch meant ‘Grass Church’ or ‘church near the herb market’ that was held on this street.

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A little further on, take a little detour down Talbot Court to the right where you will find The Ship Inn, an interesting old pub. Outside, across the passageway you will see further parish boundary marks, this time delineating St Benet’s from the parish of St Andrew Hubbard (see our Billingsgate post).

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Retrace your steps to Gracechurch Street and continue northwards. [by the way, if you want to see further parish boundaries there are two more sets, separating St Benet’s from All Hallows Lombard Street, one across the road on the corner of Lombard Court and a further set along the Court itself].

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A little further up Gracechurch Street, you will pass St Benet’s Place and then, just before you come to the Boots chemists on the corner of Fenchurch Street you should see another blue plaque, this time marking the site of St Benet  Gracechurch. St Benet’s stood on what is now the roadside junction before being demolished for road widening in 1867 (not 1876 as stated on the blue plaque!).

There have been three catastrophic periods in the history of City of London’s churches.  Everyone knows about the Great Fire and the Blitz, but few appreciate that between 1781 and 1939, 27 City churches, including 20 by Wren, were demolished mostly as part of a series of metropolitan improvements that would (hopefully) be unthinkable today. One of the greatest losses was St Benet’s, as is evident from the pictures below.
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As far as I can identify, the only tangible remnants of St Benet’s are its fine pulpit, which been renovated and installed at St Olave Hart Street (see image below), and its font which is at All Hallows’ Twickenham.

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Turn right into Fenchurch Street. Just before you pass the Paperchase shop, look down the gap between the buildings and you can just catch a glimpse of a giant sign for the Clothworkers’ livery company (you can get a much better view through the back window of Paperchase if it is open!). I have been unable to find more about why this sign is there so please comment if you know!

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Turn right again onto Philpott Lane passing to the right of 120 Fenchurch Street or the ‘Walkie-Talkie’. Take a brief detour into Brabant Court to see a fine early 18th century house.

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Just before you reach Eastcheap again look carefully up at the gothic-looking building on the corner on the left. Hopefully you will spot one of London’s smallest and most intriguing public sculptures: two mice eating a piece of cheese!

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The mice appear to date with the building from 1862, but seem to have attracted little notice until relatively recently. Now, however they are the subject of a probably apocryphal tale linking them to to the deaths of two workers on the construction either of the building itself or of the nearby Monument. Legend has it that one of the workers, perched high up the building, found his bread and cheese missing one day, blamed his co-worker and the ensuing fight saw them both tumble to their deaths. This was then commemorated by the tiny sculpture. I have been unable to find any reference to this story prior to 1977 and so am extremely dubious of its veracity!

Cross Eastcheap and head westwards again, passing Pudding Lane and turning left into Fish Street Hill. Pause to take in the view: in the 18th century this cobbled lane, past the Monument and down to St Magnus, led down to the medieval bridge and the river.

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The Monument to the Great Fire of London, as it is properly known, was built in 1671-1677 by Robert Hooke, under the supervision of Sir Christopher Wren. It is 62m tall, representing the distance from its base to the site in Pudding Lane of Thomas Farriner’s bakery where the fire began.

Before ascending the Monument it is worth a circuit around the outside. Note in particular the frieze on the west face by Caius Gabriel Cibber depicting the destruction of the City, with Charles II and his brother James II giving directions for its restoration; the Latin inscription on the north face with its addition (now excised) blaming ‘Popish frenzy’ for starting the Great Fire; the plaque set in the ground to the east to Robert Hooke, the Monument’s designer; also more dragons carved on the four upper corners of the pedestal.  Almost unnoticed at the north-west corner of the base is an old fire plug marking the parish of St Margaret New Fish Street – the church that formerly stood on the site of the Monument and which was the first to be destroyed in the Great Fire.

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Now ascend the Monument’s 311 steps. Take time to look up and down the spiral staircase as you ascend, and look out for the (surprisingly few!) old graffiti carved on the walls.

 

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When you reach the top and catch your breath, take time to admire the views. Look out for some of the City’s  finest churches: the spires of All Hallows Barking and St Dunstan-in-the-East, the tower of St Mary-at-Hill and the tower and dome of St Magnus Martyr (our next stop).

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Notice the fencing around the balcony, installed in the mid-19th century to prevent additions to the many suicides for which the Monument had become famous. For fans of Rob Lloyd’s Bloodless Boy this will again be a poignant spot!

Before descending, don’t forget to look up at the gorgeously worked golden ball of flame that tops the structure.

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Having returned to ground, continue down Fish Street Hill and cross Lower Thames Street (ideally via the elevated Pedway bridge – another fine viewpoint) and enter St Magnus Martyr via the courtyard by the west porch. 

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Before entering the church, look around the courtyard for: a blue plaque noting that this was the approach to Old London Bridge; a piece of wood from the old Roman wharf on the site; some stone remnants of the old bridge; a fine set of parish boundary marks; and above your head the enormous clock bearing the date 1709.

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The clock was donated in 1709 by the retiring Lord Mayor, Sir Charles Duncombe, banker, Alderman of Bridge Ward and reputedly the richest commoner in England. Legend has it that as a poor apprentice crossing London Bridge on his way to work, Duncombe never knew the time and was repeatedly thrashed for lateness: his gift was therefore to prevent future apprentices from suffering the same fate. By coincidence, Duncombe’s banking business was based at the sign of the Grasshopper in Lombard Street, about which I have previously written. 

Inside, the church is a beauty.

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Although a Church of England church, St Magnus’ is Anglo-Catholic in its ministry and there is a distinctly Catholic feel to it. T S Eliot referred to St Magnus’ in The Wasteland

Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 

The pleasant whining of a mandoline

And a clatter and a chatter from within

Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold

Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. 

The origins of its dedication are disputed. Officially it is dedicated to St Magnus-the-Martyr, Earl of Orkney (d. 1126) although there is some evidence that the dedication predates  this Magnus and may therefore refer to a Bishop of Cesarea of that name, martyred in 258 AD.

As you wander round inside, it is clear that the Viking version is preferred: 

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Among many other interesting exhibits, look out especially for the fine sword rest dated 1708. This was the year of Sir Charles Duncombe’s mayoralty, and given that it bears the arms of the Goldsmiths Company I assume it was created for, or donated by, him. 
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For a London historian, the star attraction at St Magnus-the-Martyr is the astonishing scale model of Old London Bridge as it was c.1400, built in 1987 by David Aggett. Every aspect of life on the bridge is captured, including around 900 figures as shown in the pictures below. Look out especially for the one figure not in medieval garb: a 20th century policeman in uniform intended to represent David Aggett (a former police officer) himself!

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Upon leaving the church turn right on Lower Thames Street and immediately turn right behind the church towards the river. Behind the church look across the river and imagine the old bridge that began just here. On it, in front of you, on the left side of the bridge towards its centre, stood the last of Bridge Ward’s five churches: the chapel of St Thomas-the-Apostle. St Thomas’s is captured twice in St Magnus’s: once in a stained glass window and again in Mr Aggett’s model.

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As you return to the south bank, leave the bridge down the steps to the left under the archway of Number 1 London Bridge. Walk along the riverside walkway to the rear of the former London Bridge Hospital where you will find a plaque on the river wall commemorating the old bridge. Now walk through the hotel courtyard and return to London Bridge station via Tooley Street.

 

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I hope you have enjoyed this post. Please take the time to add any comments, and look out for the next City of London Steeplechase! 

Practical stuff: 

Transport: the walk is designed to start and end at London Bridge station

Opening times: the walk takes in the Monument and the interior of the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr. Check the links for opening times. 

Footwear: the Monument’s spiral staircase has 311 well worn stone steps. Shoes with a good grip are recommended. 

 




Five Cockney Poets

(clockwise from top left): Milton, Pope, Hood, Keats, Gray

Was it something in the water? Wandering around the City of London’s Square Mile I have been surprised to learn that five of England’s greatest poets were born here, within a few hundred yards of each other, in a concentration of poetic genius I would hazard is not surpassed anywhere else in the world.

The lives of the five: John Milton, Alexander Pope, Thomas Gray, John Keats and Thomas Hood, occupied a key period of about 250 years of London’s history from 1600 to 1850. Their poetic styles were very different, and none of them, except perhaps Hood, is remembered particularly as a London writer, but I thought it would be interesting to find out what they had to say about their home city. 

John Milton 

John Milton (source: Wikipedia)

In 1608, John Milton was born an unquestioned Cockney, in Bread Street just three houses south of Cheapside and the bells of St Mary-le-Bow. 

  

 He lived there for three decades and, with a few brief exceptions, spent nearly all of his life in or very near London.  His fame in his own lifetime was such that he became a tourist magnet: 

Foreigners came much to see him, and much admired him, and offer’d to him great perfermets to come over to them; and the only inducement of severall foreingers that came over into England, was chiefly to see Oliver Protector, and Mr. John Milton; and would see the hous and chamber wher he was borne. 


Because Milton’s popular reputation is so heavily geared to Paradise Lost and other biblical poems he is not usually thought of as a London writer. But it is possible to find references here and there. In an early letter to a friend, Milton extols the beauty of London women:  

Surrender, you maidens of Greece and of Troy and of Rome…The first prize goes to the British girls. Be content, foreign woman, to take second place! And you, London, a city built by Trojan settlers, a city whose towery head can be seen for miles, you are more than fortunate for you enclose within your walls whatever beauty is to be found in all this pendant world. 

…and, later in the same work:

Sometimes the city promenades provided me with entertainment, sometimes the countryside near the outlying houses. A crowd of girls, with faces just like goddesses, go to and fro along the walks, resplendently beautiful… Heedless, I let my eyes meet theirs: I was unable to keep my eyes in check. Then, by chance, I caught sight of one girl who was far more beautiful than all the rest: that radiance was the beginning of my downfall.  

Later in his career, in Areopagitica, Milton presents London, which then had the most active publishing industry in the world, as the city of ideas: 

Behold now this vast City; a City of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompast and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in defense of beleaguer’d Truth, then there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and idea’s, wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. 

Alexander Pope 

Alexander Pope (source: Wikipedia)

14 years after Milton’s death, in 1688 Alexander Pope was born in a house in Plough Court, off Lombard Street.

  

 

Pope’s birthplace in Plough Court


 

Pope was less polite about London’s women than Milton had been: 

A Farewell to London in the year 1715
 

DEAR, damn’d, distracting town, farewell!

Thy fools no more I’ll tease:  

This year in peace, ye Critics, dwell, 

Ye Harlots, sleep at ease! 

Thomas Gray

 

Thomas Gray (source : Wikipedia)

 

In 1716, when Pope had recently completed The Rape of the Lock, Thomas Gray was born, just yards away from Pope’s birthplace in a house on Cornhill. 

  

Gray, who settled as an academic in Cambridge after leaving Eton, wrote little about London. But his works, published in 1807, connect him closely with the next poet on my list. Gray’s publisher was the firm of Vernor, Hood & Sharpe of 31, Poultry whose managing partner, Thomas Hood, was the father of the poet, born there in 1799. 

1807 edition of Gray’s works, published by Hood’s father

 

  

Thomas Hood 

Thomas Hood (source: Wikipedia)

 Thomas Hood was a prolific London writer, whose works touch on many subjects topical to Londoners of his day. He wrote of bodysnatchers, the ‘resurrection men’ who would disinter corpses to sell to trainee surgeons:

Don’t go to weep upon my grave 

And think that there I be. 

They haven’t left an atom there 

Of my anatomie. 

Hood also wrote famously of London’s dismal Autumn weather:

No sun – no moon! 

No morn – no noon – 

No dawn – no dusk – no proper time of day. 

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, 

No comfortable feel in any member – 

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, 

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds  

November! 

He wrote of working Londoners’ poverty in the slums: 

With fingers weary and worn, 

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread– 

Stitch! stitch! stitch! 

In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch 

She sang the “Song of the Shirt.”

“Work! work! work!

While the cock is crowing aloof!

And work—work—work,

Till the stars shine through the roof!

It’s Oh! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk,

Where woman has never a soul to save,

If this is Christian work!”

Finally, Hood’s Sonnet to Vauxhall is a lovely comedy upon the impact of a Victorian fireworks display:

The cold transparent ham is on my fork – 
 

It hardly rains – and hark the bell! – ding-dingle –  

Away! Three thousand feet at gravel work, 

Mocking a Vauxhall shower! – Married and Single 

Crush – rush; – Soak’d Silks with wet white Satin mingle. 

Hengler! Madame! round whom all bright sparks lurk 

Calls audibly on Mr. and Mrs. Pringle 

To study the Sublime, &c.- (vide Burke)

All Noses are upturn’d!  Whish-ish! On high 

The rocket rushes – trails – just steals in sight 

Then droops and melts in bubbles of blue light 

And Darkness reigns – Then balls flare up and die 

Wheels whiz – smack crackers – serpents twist – and then 

Back to the cold transparent ham again!

 

John Keats  

John Keats (source: Wikipedia)

 

  

By coincidence John Keats, born in Moorgate in 1795, also wrote a Sonnet about Vauxhall but encountered fireworks of an altogether more sensual kind: 

Sonnet. To A Lady Seen For A Few Moments At Vauxhall 

Time’s sea hath been five years at its slow ebb, 

Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand, 

Since I was tangled in thy beauty’s web, 

And snared by the ungloving of thine hand. 

And yet I never look on midnight sky, 

But I behold thine eyes’ well memory’d light; 

I cannot look upon the rose’s dye, 

But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight. 

I cannot look on any budding flower, 

But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips 

And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour 

Its sweets in the wrong sense: — Thou dost eclipse 

Every delight with sweet remembering,

And grief unto my darling joys dost bring.
 

Of course, there are a great many poets who have written about London, but I haven’t been able to find any others who were definitively born in the City of London itself. If you know of any, or of other unusual concentrations of poetic birthplaces, please do let me know!