LondonLife – Empty platform…
Transport
LondonLife – Buses on Piccadilly…
LondonLife – Commemorating the Windrush Generation…
The National Windrush Monument (right) was unveiled at Waterloo Station on Windrush Day (23rd June). The bronze sculpture – the work of US-based Jamaican artist Basil Watson – memorialises the British West Indian immigrants who came to the UK on board HMT Empire Windrush in 1948 and later ships and who subsequently became known as the Windrush generation. Funded by a £1 million government grant, it depicts a man, woman and child who, dressed in their “Sunday best”, are climbing a pile of suitcases which represent all the possessions they brought with them. The memorial, which is located inside the station through which thousands of the Windrush Generation passed on their way to their new lives in the UK, was unveiled by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Floella Benjamin, chair of the Windrush Commemoration Committee, reportedly said the monument will “act as a symbolic link to our past and a permanent reminder of our shared history and heritage for generations to come“. Meanwhile, a public bronze sculpture was unveiled outside Hackney Town Hall on the same day which also commemorates the Windrush generation. Warm Shores, the work of London artist Thomas J Price, depicts larger than life-sized a man and woman and was based on 3D scans of real-life residents.
LondonLife – Icons turn purple to celebrate Elizabeth Line opening…
Iconic London locations including Tower Bridge, The London Eye, and Marble Arch turned purple last night to mark the opening of the new Elizabeth Line today. Thousands of people are today expected to use the new Tube line which provides faster journeys between Paddington and Abbey Wood via 10 new stations using Class 345 trains that are more and than one-and-a-half times longer than a standard Tube train and able to carry 1,500 passengers. The line’s opening is the latest step in the £18.8 billion Crossrail project which is linking Reading, to the west of London, with Heathrow before travelling through central London to connect with Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, said it was an “historic day”. “This is a huge moment, not just for London but the entire country – particularly in this special Jubilee year…This brand new line is the most significant addition to our transport network in decades.” Last week, the Queen and Prince Edward attended Paddington Station to mark the completion of the new line.
10 (lesser known) statues of English monarchs in London…4. King Edward VII…
It’s a rather incongruous place for a king. Standing outside the entrance to Tooting Broadway Underground Station is a large-than-life statue of King Edward VII, who ruled from 1901-1910.
Erected in 1911 after the King’s death, the statue is the work of Louis Fritz Roselieb (later Roslyn) and was funded through a public subscription.
The statue depicts the King in royal regalia holding a sceptre in his right hand with his left hand resting on his sword hilt. The plinth features bronze reliefs on either side depicting representations of ‘peace’ and ‘charity’.
Given Tooting Broadway Underground Station didn’t open until 1926, the statue wasn’t initially located in relation to it.
In fact, it was originally located on a traffic island a short distance from its current siting but was moved after the area was remodelled in 1994.
It isn’t, of course the only statue of King Edward VII in London – the more well known one can be found in Waterloo Place. It was unveiled by his son, King George V, in 1921.
Famous Londoners – Hannah Dadds…
As the first female driver on London’s Tube, Hannah Dadds broke new ground for working women.
Born on 16th October, 1941, Dadds grew up in the Forest Gate area of Newham. She left school when just 15 and worked in various jobs – including as a shop assistant and at the Bryant and May match factory – before in 1969 joining the London Underground to work as a “railwoman” at the Upton Park Underground Station, earning just over £13 a week.
Dadds went on to become a ticket collector at Tower Hill station and in 1976 became a train guard.
Following the passing of the 1975 the Sex Discrimination Act which opened up new jobs to women, in October, 1978, Dadds completed a seven week training course and, amid considerable fanfare, became the first female train driver on the Tube, driving her first train out of the Acton Depot to Ealing Broadway.
Initially assigned to the District line, she would go on to also drive trains on the Bakerloo and Jubilee lines. Dadds was also sometimes was paired with her sister, Edna, who joined the Underground after her sister and worked as a guard (they became the first all-female crew on the Underground).
Dadds, who retired in 1993, subsequently split her time between London and Spain. She died in 2011.
A plaque commemorating Dadds’ pioneering efforts was unveiled at Upton Park station in May, 2019, with her family and friends in attendance.
London Explained – The DLR…
The DLR, or Docklands Light Rail, is a driverless train network connected to the Tube system.
The DLR, which is located at the eastern end of the city, connects to the Tube network at numerous stations including Bank, Tower Gateway and Canary Wharf. It reaches as far south as Lewisham, east to Beckton and Woolwich Arsenal and north to Stratford International.
The 24 mile-long network, which first opened on 31st August 1987 and has since been extended numerous times, has 45 stations. It also provides connections to the Emirates Air Line and London City Airport.
The DLR trains run from around 5.30am to around 12.30am from Monday to Saturday with Sunday services starting later and finishing earlier.
The fares are the same as the Tube and you can use Oyster cards.
In the 2019/2020, the line hosted more than 115 million passenger journeys.
For a route map, head to https://content.tfl.gov.uk/dlr-route-map.pdf
This Week in London – Spitfires at Duxford; The Jam in photos; and, Waterloo & City line reopens…
• The largest collection of Spitfires gathered under one roof can be seen at the Imperial War Museum Duxford’s AirSpace hall. Twelve of the iconic planes have been gathered at the airfield, often referred to as the “home of the Spitfire”. Spitfire: Evolution of an Icon, which is being accompanied by a programme of tours, talks, events and family activities, shows how the plane evolved throughout World War II in order to keep pace with German aircraft development. As well as the IWM’s iconic Mk Ia Spitfire, the display also features Mk V, Mk IX and Mk XIV models. The Spitfires be seen until 20th February. Admission charge applies. For more including details of events, head to www.iwm.org.uk/events/spitfire-evolution-of-an-icon.
• A new exhibition focused on photographs of iconic 70s and early 80s band The Jam opens at the City of London Corporation’s Barbican Music Library tomorrow. True is the Dream features the photography of Derek D’Souza who has captured the band and frontman Paul Weller, who went on to found The Style Council, on film over several decades. D’Souza’s work include a career-defining shoot of the band at Chiswick House. The display is free to see until 16th May. For more, see www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2022/event/true-is-the-dream.
• The Waterloo & City line has reopened following a brief closure over Christmas. The London Underground line, which connects Waterloo to Bank, was temporarily closed by Transport for London in late December following increasing COVID cases in the capital and the impact on staff absence. Meanwhile, the Bank branch of the Northern line (between Moorgate and Kennington) for 17 weeks from 15th January to allow for upgrade works.
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LondonLife – Signs of the Times (V)…
Spotted in Sloane Square Tube station. PICTURE: John Cameron/Unsplash
This Week in London – Well-being at Kew; Poussin wins credit for ‘The Triumph of Silenus’; and, Euston explored…
• Kew Gardens have unveiled a new programme of well-being events with the aim of encouraging people to enjoy the outdoors after the COVID-19 lockdown. The events, all of which will be COVID-19 safe and follow government guidelines, including everything from forest bathing sessions in the Arboretum inspired by the Japanese art of Shinrin-yokuto, a rare chance to cycle through the gardens on an evening bike ride, pilates in the Nash Conservatory and yoga sessions in the Temperate House. Check the Kew website for dates and times and admission charges.
• The creator of The Triumph of Silenus (c1637), which was one of the first paintings to enter the collection of The National Gallery when it did so in 1824, has been confirmed as 17th century French painter Nicolas Poussin. The painting had long been plagued by questions of authenticity but following recent conservation work and in-depth technical analysis, it has been confirmed as a work of Poussin. The confirmation means the gallery holds 14 works by Poussin, making it one of the world’s leading collections of paintings by him. Later this year, the picture will feature in a new exhibition, Poussin and the Dance.
• People will have the chance to see parts of Euston Station usually not accessible to the public on a new virtual tour announced by the London Transport Museum. The tour is part of the next season of ‘Hidden London’ virtual events with new dates also to be announced for tours of King William Street, Brompton Road, Holborn (Kingsway) and Aldwych. Meanwhile, the museum will recommence its ‘Secrets of Central London’ walking tour in the West End on 17th May. Charges apply. For more on the virtual tours and dates, head to www.ltmuseum.co.uk/hidden-london/virtual-tours.
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10 London hills – 3. Tower Hill…
The last of the three hills at least partly within the walls of the old City of London is Tower Hill, located at the City’s eastern end.
Famed as a site of public execution, Tower Hill – which rises to almost 14 metres above sea level – was traditionally where traitors who had been imprisoned in the nearby Tower of London met their final moments.
More than 120 people have been executed on the site, everyone from Sir Simon de Burley, tutor to King Richard II, in 1388, through to Thomas Cromwell in in 1540 and a soldier arrested during the Gordon Riots of 1780.
These days the gallows and scaffold – and the crowds which accompanied them – are long gone, marked by a stone set in the pavement at the western end of Trinity Square.
The hill, which is just to the north of the Tower of London and takes its name from it, was historically part of the tower liberties – meaning authorities could ensure nothing was developed on it which would affect the defences of the fortress.
It is the site of one of the remaining sections of the Roman and medieval wall which once surrounded the City of London (the hill is located on both sides of the wall).
A Tube station, Tower Hill, which opened in 1884 (it was originally named Mark Lane and the name changed to Tower Hill in 1946; it relocated to the current site in 1967).
The hill is also home to the Tower Hill Memorial – a pair of memorials dedicated to the mercantile marines who died in World War I and World War II – set inside the public park known as Trinity Square Gardens.
LondonLife – Blossom, Camden Road
PICTURE: Samuel Regan-Asante/Unsplash
London Explained – The Tube…
Commonly used as a nickname to describe the London Underground, the “Tube” is an obvious reference to shape of the tunnels themselves.
The word is believed to have been first popularised around 1890. Underground lines had previously been constructed using the ‘cut and cover’ method – that is, digging out the trench for the Underground line, lining the tunnel with iron and them covering it.
Thanks to its depth (due to the fact it had to pass under the Thames), City and South London Railway’s line from King William Street (a now disused station) to Stockwell was the first to be created by boring a tunnel through the earth and then lining it to create a tube. The line, a forerunner of what is now the Northern Line, opened in December, 1890. It was the first true ‘tube’ of the Underground system.
The construction of the line was followed in 1900 by the opening of the Central London Railway’s line from Shepherd’s Bush to Bank (now part of the Central Line) which was given the nickname the “Twopenny Tube”.
The name stayed and was soon applied to the entire network of Underground lines (and interestingly, it wasn’t until 1908 that the word “Underground” first appeared in stations).
LondonLife – Women’s history inspires comedians for International Women’s Day…
The world observed International Women’s Day on Monday and to mark the occasion, the Museum of London has launched an original video series featuring five female comedians performing short original pieces inspired by objects in the museum’s women’s history archives. The first of the videos features comedian Thanyia Moore responding to a Henry Grant photograph of a female bus conductor from the mid-1970s when London Underground first officially employed women as bus drivers (pictured right). Further videos – which will be rolled out over Women’s History Month – feature comedians Samantha Baines, Jenny Bede, Jen Ives and Leila Navabi responding to objects ranging from a commemorative toilet roll created by First 100 Years to mark a century since the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act made it illegal to ban people from jobs based on their sex in 1919 (pictured below) to a recruitment letter from Sainsbury’s seeking female staff to work in their shops during World War I. To watch the first of the series head here.
What’s in a name?…Bakerloo…
A Tube line which these days runs 14 miles from Harrow & Wealdstone station in the north to Elephant & Castle in the south, the Bakerloo line first opened in 1906 and initially ran just from Baker Street to Kennington.
Not only the first Tube for CT Yerkes’ scheme of electric railways for London, it was also the first line to run across London from north to south (legend says it was built because of complaints from businessmen that they couldn’t get to Lord’s cricket ground fast enough though we’re somewhat sceptical of this claim).
Bakerloo was a nickname, a contraction of the line’s official name – the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway. It was apparently first coined by the Evening Standard. Not everyone was impressed, however – the Railway Magazine described it as a “gutter title” and said it was beneath the dignity of the railway company to accept it.
Despite a rather slow uptake – which initially resulted in trains with as few as two cars being used in off-peak periods, what’s now a brown-coloured coded Underground line did become a success and over the ensuing years expanded (and contracted) before reaching its current length with 25 stations (the busiest apparently being Oxford Circus).
LondonLife – Signs of the times (IV)…
Taken at Bank Underground station. PICTURE: Étienne Godiard/Unsplash
This Week in London – Female pirates at Wapping; historic Zoom backgrounds; and, new virtual tours of London’s hidden Underground…
• As controversy continues to swirl around the statue dedicated to Mary Wollstonecraft in Newington Green, another statue was unveiled in London this week – this time depicting two women pirates which some accounts say were lovers. The statue of Mary Read and Anne Bonny was unveiled at Execution Dock on the north bank of the Thames at Wapping – a site where pirates and smugglers were put to death for more than 400 years. Commissioned by audiobook company Audible to mark the release of a podcast, Hell Cats, a dramatic interpretation of the two women’s lives, the statue of Read and Bonny is the work of artist Amanda Cotton. Early next year it will be relocated to Burgh Island off the south Devon coast.
• The National Trust has released a series of six free downloadable backdrops – featuring some of the star interiors from its properties – for use in virtual meetings. The backdrops on offer include Vita Sackville-West’s writing room in the tower at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, Agatha Christie’s library at Greenway, and the ‘Office of the Caretaker of the Electric Light’ at Cragside (pictured above). Different backgrounds will come online in coming weeks. Head to www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/virtual-backgrounds-for-zoom.
• The London Transport Museum has unveiled three new virtual tours taking in the Holborn (Kingsway) area, Brompton Road station and King William Street station. The tours, part of the museum’s Hidden London programme, provide access to areas not usually open to the public as well as to historic archival material and footage from the museum’s collection and are led by expert guides on Zoom. Admission charges apply. For more, including dates, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk/hidden-london/virtual-tours.
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10 London buildings that were relocated…7. St Luke’s, Euston Road…
St Luke’s briefly stood on Euston Road before, thanks to the growing demands of the railways, it was demolished and subsequently rebuilt, brick-by-brick in Wanstead.
Designed by John Johnson (one of the architects of St Paul’s Church, Camden Square), this church was erected on the corner of Euston and Midland Roads between 1856 and 1861. It replaced a temporary iron church which had been erected on the site in the early 1850s.
But the construction in the mid-1860s of St Pancras railway station by the Midland Railway – and the compulsory acquisition of the land – meant the church had to be removed.
While the congregation, compensated with some £12,500 by the railway company, relocated to Kentish Town, the church building itself was sold to another congregation for £500.
Demolished, it was subsequently transported to Wanstead where it was it was rebuilt in 1866-67, with some alterations by Johnson who oversaw the process.
Now the Wanstead United Reformed Church (it changed denominations), it was designated a Grade II-listed building in 2009, partly due to it being one of few examples of a church which has been moved and substantially reconstructed to its original form by the original architect.
10 London buildings that were relocated…5. The Wellington Clock Tower…
Now situated on the seafront of the town of Swanage in Dorset, the Wellington Clock Tower was originally located at the southern end of London Bridge.
The tower was erected in 1854 as a memorial to the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, who had died two years earlier.
Tower depicted in the London Illustrated
News in June, 1854
Its construction was funded through public subscription and contributions of railway companies with the support of the Commissioners for Lighting the West Division of Southwark. It was designed in the Perpendicular Gothic style by Arthur Ashpitel and, after the foundation stone was laid on 17th June, 1854, took six months to build.
The three level structure, which was topped with a tall spire, housed a clock with four faces. The clock was made by Bennett of Blackheath for the 1851 Great Exhibition but the constant rumbling of the carts passing its new location apparently meant the mechanism never kept good time.
There was also small telegraph office in the ground floor room of the tower. A statue of Wellington was intended to be placed within the open top level but funds apparently ran out before it could be commissioned and it never appeared (Wellington’s declining popularity at the time may have also been a factor).
The location of this rather splendid structure meant, however, that it was soon overshadowed by construction of nearby raised railway lines. When the Metropolitan Police condemned the tower as an obstruction to traffic, it was the final straw and having spent little more than a decade in position, the decision was made to demolish the tower.
It was taken down in 1867 but rather than simply being scrapped, Swanage-based contractor George Burt had the building shipped in pieces – they apparently served as ballast during the journey – to his hometown in Dorset where he presented it as a gift to fellow contractor Thomas Docwra. Docwra had the tower reconstructed in a seafront location on the grounds of his property, The Grove, at Peveril Point.
The rebuilt tower lacked the original clock – its faces were replaced with round windows – and in 1904 the spire was also removed and replaced with a small cupola (there’s been various reasons suggested for this, including that the spire was damaged in a storm or because it was felt to be sacrilegious by the religious family which then owned the property).
The tower, which was granted a Grade II heritage listing in 1952, can still be seen on the Swanage waterfront today.
LondonLife – ‘The Sunbathers’ returns to Waterloo Station after almost 70 years…
A sculpture created for the 1951 Festival of Britain has returned to Waterloo Station where it was first displayed almost 70 years ago. The work of Hungarian-born artist Peter Laszlo Peri, The Sunbathers features two figures – made from ‘Pericrete’, a special kind of concrete created by the artist as a cheaper alternative to casting in bronze – and was mounted on the wall close to the station’s entrance. It was presumed lost until it was rediscovered in 2016 at the Clarendon Hotel in Blackheath and, following restoration, was put on show in 2017 in the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. Now, thanks to the efforts of Historic England and Network Rail, the sculptures have returned to the station, close to its original site, and will stay there for five years. PICTURES: Courtesy of Network Rail
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