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“Bird’s-Eye View” Maps of Victorian London

Written on May 8, 2012 by Peter Berthoud in Books, Maps

In 1880 Herbert Fry published London a handbook for Victorian visitors. The popular book ran to many editions. A major factor for its success being the inclusion of twenty illustrations providing: “Bird’s-eye views of the principal streets.”

There are many excellent maps of Victorian London available in print and on-line but I haven’t seen these unusual and illuminating views published anywhere else and so wanted to share them here.

If you click on any image you can zoom in for much greater detail.

For example here is Buckingham Palace, a detail from Plate V.

Buckingham Palace, detail from Plate V

I didn’t want to risk damaging the original book whilst scanning it and my copy has a very tight binding. So, apologies for the slight shadows in the centre of each map. If anyone knows of better quality scans please do let me know.

From Charing Cross through Whitehall to Westminster

The Strand

Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill

Cannon Street

From Charing Cross, through Pall Mall to Pimlico

Regent Street

St James's Street and Old and New Bond Streets

Piccadilly

From Hyde Park Corner, through Knightsbridge to Kensington

Edgware Road

From Oxford Street, by Uxbridge Road to High Street Notting Hill

Oxford Street

Baker Street

Tottenham Court Road and Hampstead Road

New Oxford Street and Holborn

Euston Road and Marylebone Road

From The Poultry to Bishopsgate Street and to Whitechapel

The City Road

From London Bridge through the Borough to Newington Butts and Saint George's Fields

The Thames - A bird's-eye view from Herbert Fry's "London" (1891)

All these plates come from the 1891 edition of Fry’s London published by W.H. Allen, London.

I originally published them on my Facebook page but they can be enjoyed in far greater detail here.

(If you like this sort of thing, there are many unique albums of vintage London photos to be found on my Facebook page and you don’t need to sign-up in order to see them.)

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

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Fantastic New Sculpture at Economist Plaza

Written on May 4, 2012 by Peter Berthoud in Exhibitions, Sculpture

British sculptor Sean Henry has just installed three, larger than life figures to coincide with a new gallery show. The first, Seated Man, gazes mournfully out onto St James’s.

Seated Man – Sean Henry

Seated Man - Sean Henry

Then, striding purposefully across the plaza, is Walking Woman.

Walking Woman - Sean Henry

Finally, with her back to Bury Street, is Woman (Being Looked At).

Woman (Being Looked At) - Sean Henry

Economist Plaza, in St James’s has a constantly changing programme of free public art, exhibitions there change every 6 months. This new show by Sean Henry, is for me, one of their best in years. The artist has other, permanent works in London at Holland Park and in Paddington Basin but for me this new temporary exhibition showcases his talents better than anywhere else.

Each of the three figures, perfectly captures a different state of mind, a different type of movement. There is the immobile, desolate despair of Seated Man, a haunting character. The Walking Woman strides forth to tackle the next challenge with confidence and self-assurance, her movement is superb. Then there is Woman (Being Looked At); she is frozen in a moment of indecision ( she has apparently lost her keys) one leg is bent as if to suggest forward movement, but she remains very much rooted to the spot, vulnerable, unsure what to do next and painfully aware that she is now providing an unintended spectacle.

This is engaging, accessible, public art at its very best. It was difficult to get these shots yesterday, even in the rain, as there were so many other people trying to do the same thing. A small informal crowd of people were all surprised, delighted and enthused by what we had stumbled across, each of us wanted to capture an image.

Henry’s choice of materials, bronze, cor-ten steel and all-weather paint greatly enhance the accessibility of his work too. One can touch or even climb upon the works without doing them any damage at all. They are there to stimulate and to be enjoyed free of barriers, ropes, guards and all the trappings of a formal gallery space.

The show in Economist Plaza ties in with a solo exhibition of Henry’s new sculptures and drawings The Way It Is which opens at the Osborne Samuel Gallery in Bruton Street, Mayfair, London, W1 on May 9th and will run until June 9th.

The Figures in Economist Plaza will be in place until October 2012.

There are some more images of the works on my Flickr photostream, there are many more images of Sean Henry’s work on the artist’s website.

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

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There are no Cells at The Viaduct Tavern

Written on May 2, 2012 by Peter Berthoud in Curiosities, Photography

In countless books, guides, apps and websites dealing with “Secret”, “Hidden” and “Curious” London it is asserted with bland confidence that the cellars of the Viaduct Tavern contain cells from old Newgate Prison. This is nonsense but sometimes a picture can help to nail a lie better than dates.

This image dates from 1897 and shows the last incarnation of Newgate Prison on the same site, facing the newly built Viaduct Tavern.

Newgate Prison and The Viaduct Tavern 1897

Newgate Prison wasn’t completely demolished until 1902. The Viaduct Tavern was built in 1869. So there is an obvious discrepancy in dates, but that aside, would it really have been conceivable that prison authorities would have wanted some of their cells to be included within the cellars of a brand new pub as it was being built?

The image below dates from around 1927. The view is much the same today. Newgate has now been replaced by “The Old Bailey”. The Viaduct looks on.

Old Bailey and The Viaduct Tavern

So the dates don’t add up and the proposal is ludicrous but that doesn’t stop those that peddle regurgitated “hidden gems” of London. Even supposedly authoritative books glibly trot out the same old tosh. This is the entry from the latest edition of The London Encyclopedia.

Viaduct Tavern - From The London Encyclopedia

In the London Encyclopedia entry for Newgate Prison they even use precisely the same illustration that I did to show the Viaduct Tavern and Newgate were both standing at the same time, page 585 for those of you who wish to check.

And here is a typical entry from one of the plethora of “hidden gems” type books. This is from Secret London – An Unusual Guide.

Newgate Cells from Secret London

These beer and coal cellars are interpreted in much the same way elsewhere. Sometimes, as here, in the most embellished and fanciful accounts, the coal holes are referred to as feeding tubes for prisoners.

This is not a “feeding tube” but a coal plate mounted above a coal cellar, just like hundreds of thousands still to be found throughout London.

Coal plate outside the Viaduct Tavern immediately above one of the "cells"

Here is an image of an actual cell in Newgate, it dates from 1897, about when the pub was celebrating its first birthday. Tellingly, it completely lacks racks for beer barrels, such as those to be found in the Viaduct.

A Newgate Cell 1897

This image is also from 1897 and shows how the cells were arranged, above ground.

Inside Newgate Prison 1897

Even the pub’s own website (via Fullers) doesn’t make the claim that the cellars were once cells in Newgate, preferring a more cautious assertion that they were part of “the Giltspur Comptor, a debtors’ jail affiliated to Newgate Prison”.

Fullers Website

Well it would be nice to think so but the The Museum of London Archaeology Service disagree. The pub wasn’t on the site of the Compter and the Compter’s foundations have long gone in any case.

This is from the 1998 MOLAS report of fieldwork surveys on the site (carried out during the construction of the New Merrill Lynch Regional Headquarters, which occupied the site of Giltspur Street Compter) : King Edward Buildings, former Royal Mail Sorting Office, Giltspur & Newgate Street, EC1, the key paragraph is this one:

In early 1787 the majority of the site was cleared of buildings and later that year the construction of the Giltspur Street Compter prison begun (see London Archaeologist 1993, vol. 7, 115-121), and it was ready for occupation by 1791. The overall layout of the brick-built prison buildings can be established from surviving draft plans. Excavations to date have revealed some unrecorded design features including one stairwell and number of brick-built culverts. Excavation of the foundations of several blocks have revealed that they were interlaced with pine planks and beams, which are being studied as part of an English Heritage funded project on imported softwoods. The prison was in closed in 1853 and demolished in 1854, this work entailed the extensive robbing out of the below ground foundations.

So there we have it. Will this little blog post help to stem the flow of nonsense? Probably not, but at least I have got this particular gripe off my chest.

If you are in the mood for more London “facts” that aren’t actually true why not have a look at this excellent feature from Londonist from a few months back?

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

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New Rolling Fool in Soho

Written on April 30, 2012 by Peter Berthoud in Sculpture, Street Art

A new Rolling Fool has appeared in Broadwick Street, Soho.

A New Rolling Fool

The distinctive jester character is one of a series by street artist Dr Cream. The artist himself alerted me to this new work via a comment on a previous blog post of mine.

There are many plastic sculptures in the series, in different colours, sizes and positions. One has recently been nicked from Manette Street but another can still be found in St Anne’s Court.

I always include one or two Rolling Fools in my regular tours of The Seven Noses of Soho. Many thanks to the artist for enabling me to add his latest work to future tours. You can book tickets for my next tour of the Seven Noses of Soho via Eventbrite:

Dr Cream has also recently uploaded a new animated film (56 seconds) depicting his creation curling himself into his snail shell at various London locations.

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

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