10 towers with a history in London – 6. Westminster Cathedral campanile…

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A well-known landmark in Westminster, the distinctive striped brick and stone campanile of Westminster Cathedral stands 284 feet or 64 metres high.

PICTURE: Catholic Church England and Wales © Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Building of a Roman Catholic cathedral in Westminster – what would be the largest in England and Wales – was the vision of Cardinal Herbert Vaughan. Construction started in 1895 and was complete eight years later. The campanile was the final part of the building’s structure to be completed.

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Conscious that the Gothic Westminster Abbey only a short distance away, architect John Francis Bentley instead designed the cathedral in a neo-Byzantine style and the plans originally included two campanili or bell towers which may have been influenced by those in Venice (it was Cardinal Vaughn who famously said one campanile would be enough for him resulting in just one being built).

The 30 foot square dome-topped tower, like the rest of the building, was constructed of stripes of red brick and Portland stone which reflected existing residential buildings nearby.

Formally known as St Edward’s Tower, it contains the 55cwt St Edward’s Bell (named after St Edward the Confessor) which was a gift of Gwendoline, the Duchess of Norfolk, in 1910. It was cast at the Whitechapel Foundry and bears the inscription, “While the sound of this bell travels through the clouds, may the bands of angels pray for those assembled in thy church. St Edward, pray for England.”

Carved stone eagles surround the apex of the tower – a reference to St John the Evangelist (apparently patron saint of the architect) and the cross on top of the cupola is said to contain a fragment of the True Cross discovered by the Empress Helena in 326 AD.

The campanile famously appears at the end of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 thriller, Foreign Correspondent, in a scene in which the bad guy is thrown from the top.

The campanile, which has a lift to the top, is open to the public. Viewing balconies on all four sides of the tower provide 360 degree views of the surrounding city including over the stunning domes of the cathedral itself.

WHERE: The Campanile, Westminster Cathedral (nearest Tube stations are Victoria and St James’s Park); WHEN: 11am to 3:30pm Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; COST; £6 adults; £12 families (two adults and up to four children); £3 concessions (aged 60+); WEBSITE: https://westminstercathedral.org.uk/tower-viewing-gallery-reopens/

LondonLife – Stickered boxes…

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PICTURE: Diego Marín/Unsplash

This Week in London – Open House Festival; Van Gogh at The National Gallery; and, the London Design Festival…

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• The doors of buildings right across London’s 33 boroughs open to the public this weekend for the annual Open House Festival. The festival, which runs from the 14th to 22nd September, features a range of building drop-ins and tours, talks, workshops and family-based activities. Among those on offer – a walking tour of “Lost Aldwych”, family organ building workshops at the Union Chapel, and ‘drop-ins’ at everywhere from the Berwick Street Market to Abney Park Cemetery, the English National Ballet and the former “horse hospital” in Russell Square. For more, see https://programme.openhouse.org.uk

Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers (1888) Oil on canvas, 92.1 × 73 cm © The National Gallery, London (NG3863)

• A major exhibition of the paintings of Vincent van Gogh opens at The National Gallery this Saturday. The gallery’s first ever exhibition of the artist’s work, Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers features more than 50 works and marks not only the 200th anniversary of the gallery but also the centenary of the gallery’s acquisition of Sunflowers (1888) and Van Gogh’s Chair (1888) in 1924. Other works on show include Starry Night (1888), The Poet (1888), The Lover (1888), A Wheatfield with Cypresses (1889) and Long Grass with Butterflies (1890). The display can be seen in Rooms 1 to 8 until 19th January. Admission charge applies. For more, see nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/ng200-programme.

• The London Design Festival, which features more than 300 events held over nine days, also kicks off this Saturday. There are 11 designated ‘Design Districts’ as part of this year’s festival, each of which reflects the local community and will host a range of events include exhibitions, installations, workshops and talks. Highlights include Turkish designer and artist Melek Zeynep Bulut’s installation Duo in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, a Bankside ‘ghost signs’ walk, a Fitzrovia ‘design trail’, an exhibition in which artists imagine the currency of the future, and Sir Antony Gormley’s three storey high installation, ROOM at The Beaumont Mayfair. The festival runs until 22nd September. For more head to https://londondesignfestival.com.

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10 towers with a history in London – 5. St Augustine’s Tower, Hackney…

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This tower – said to be the oldest building in Hackney – is all that remains of a 16th century church and, as a local symbol, appears on the London Borough of Hackney’s coat-of-arms.

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LondonLife – Docklands colour…

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The DLR moving past the ‘City Island’ residential development covering 12 acres in the Docklands. PICTURE: Sue Winston/Unsplash

This Week in London – Black On The Square; poetry celebrated at Westminster Abbey; and, Ellen Terry’s costumes at Smallhythe Place…

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• A celebration of Black communities and culture returns to Trafalgar Square this weekend. Taking place on Saturday, the Mayor of London’s Black On The Square festival features live music and dance as well as art, fashion, food from Ghana, Guyana, Jamaica, Mauritius and Nigeria, and a range of family-friendly activities. Multi award-winning actor and rapper Bashy is headlining with other acts including Cultur FM, Kofi Stone, Krar Collective, Shingai, Phoebs and Karen Nyame. The free festival runs from noon to 6pm. For more, see www.london.gov.uk/events/black-square-2024.

Westminster Abbey. PICTURE: Ian Branch/Unsplash

• Westminster Abbey, home of the famed Poet’s Corner, has unveiled a new season of events celebrating poets and poetry this autumn. Voice and Verse, which launches on 3rd October, features poetry readings, talks, tours, musical performances and workshops. Highlights include a lunchtime concert to be held in St Margaret’s Church with music inspired by the poetry of writers memorialised in Poet’s Corner, a talk on the lives and legacy of World War I poets and an eventing of poetry held in Poet’s Corner itself. For more information, including event dates and booking information, head to www.westminster-abbey.org/events/autumn-season.

• Further afield: Two of Victorian actor Ellen Terry’s costumes – worn while performing Lady Macbeth in an 1888 production of Macbeth at London’s Lyceum Theatre – have gone on display at her former home of Smallhythe Place in Kent. The costumes, designed by Alice Comyns Carr, include the iridescent green ‘Beetlewing dress’, decorated in over 1,000 beetle wings, and immortalised in a John Singer Sargent painting of Terry. There’s also a gown worn by Terry in the play’s banqueting scene in which Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo. Made of muslin and shot through with gold thread, it is on display for the first time after extensive conservation work to address the damage caused by its repeated use on stage and the alterations and repairs which have occurred since. The Dressing Lady Macbeth: An Exhibition can be seen until 3rd November. Admission fees apply. For more, see www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/kent/smallhythe-place.

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10 towers with a history in London – 4. Caledonian Park Clock Tower…

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Located in Islington, the Caledonian Park Clock Tower is a local landmark and among all that now remains of the 19th century Metropolitan Cattle Market.

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LondonLife – Colour palette, Shoreditch…

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PICTURE: Ambitious Studio* | Rick Barrett/Unsplash

What’s in a name?….Poland Street

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This Soho thoroughfare, which runs from Broadwick Street north to Oxford Street, isn’t directly named after Poland.

PICTURE: Courtesy of Google Maps

Instead its name comes from a tavern which once stood at the Oxford end of the street – the King of Poland, said to have been named in honour of King John III Sobieski who led a coalition of forces which defeated the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

Polish Protestants settled around the area in the 18th century, fleeing the Polish Counter-Reformation.

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Famous residents have included Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (number 15; it’s marked with an English Heritage Blue Plaque) and William Blake (number 28).

The pub, incidentally, is said to have changed its name a couple of times – most latterly to the Dickens Wine House – before it was destroyed by a bomb in 1940.

Another pub in the street – the Kings Arms – stands on the site of an earlier tavern where the “Ancient Order of Druids” was revived in 1781.

The Poland Street Garage, meanwhile, opened here in 1934 and is said to have been the first multi-storey car park in London.

This Week in London – Restored Roman kiln to be unveiled; and, design for new Memorial to Victims of Transatlantic Slavery revealed…

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• The most complete Roman pottery kiln found in Greater London is going on public display in Highgate Wood in what is the first public showing since its discovery in 1968. The kiln has been restored thanks to a £243,550 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant and will be unveiled at 11am on Sunday as part of the annual Highgate Wood Community Heritage Day. The day, which runs until 4pm, will see the firing of a replica kiln and there will also be guided walks, a children’s Roman-themed woodland adventure workshop, arts, crafts, and other activities. The kiln will be on show in the Information Hut. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/highgate-wood-community-heritage-day.

Concept image of Khaled Brooks’ ‘The Wake’. Courtesy of Mayor of London

• Khaleb Brooks’ sculpture The Wake has been selected as the new Memorial to Victims of Transatlantic Slavery to be located at West India Quay. The design, which features a seven metre tall cowrie shell in recognition of the shell’s role as symbol of slavery. A number of smaller shells will also be installed at other locations in London that have connections to the trade of enslaved people. Khaleb’s work was selected from a shortlist of six proposals by an artistic advisory panel of experts following a public consultation period. The memorial will be unveiled in 2026.

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LondonLife – Greenwich colonnade…

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PICTURE: Sue Winston/Unsplash

The Queen’s House Colonnade.

London Explained – The M25…

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The M25 is an 117 mile-long orbital roadway which encircles most of the Greater London area.

Part of the M25 seen from a plane looking north as it took off from Heathrow. PICTURE: RFBailey (licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Originally mostly built as a dual three lane motorway, widening has since taken place in more than half of it – to as much as six lanes in parts.

The idea was first proposed in the early 20th century and then re-mooted several times in subsequent decades before construction began in 1973.

The final section of the M23 was opened by then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1986 (it was Europe’s longest ring road when it opened and has since been bypassed by the Berliner Ring).

The M25, which has 31 junctions, is these days one of the busiest motorways in Europe. It connects to 10 other motorways.

Connect Plus – a joint venture between Balfour Beatty, Atkins and Egis – works on behalf of National Highways to manage and operate the M25 network. 

This Week in London – ‘Lucky Jim’ reunited with historic plane; Banksy work related to Guildhall Yard; and, a new Kew audio tour…

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• ‘Lucky Jim’, a toy cat mascot belong to Jim Alcock – pilot of the first trans-Atlantic flight, has been reunited with the Vickers Vimy biplane aircraft that made the flight for the first time since 1919. The cat accompanied the famous aviator and his navigator Arthur Whitten Brown on their historic 17 hour, 1,880 mile journey. Following preservation efforts is now displayed alongside the aircraft in the Flight gallery at the Science Museum in South Kensington. Lucky Jim was previously displayed at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester until 2019. A cartoon version of the cat is also the star of a new family trail around the gallery. For more, see https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/flight.

The Palm House at Kew Gardens. PICTURE: Annie Spratt/Unsplash

• Explore the plants of Kew Gardens’ historic Palm House with a new audio tour. Created by Kew’s Community Horticulture Programme in collaboration with outreach participants, Pollinators of the Palm House puts a spotlight on some of the remarkable stories and pollination tricks of incredible plants inside the 175-year-old structure. These include the giant cycad (Encephalartos altensteinii) – officially the oldest pot plant in the world, and the traveller’s palm (Ravenala madagascariensis), which is pollinated by lemurs in the wild on Madagascar. For more, see www.kew.org.

• An artwork by Banksy has been relocated to Guildhall Yard for its protection. The work, which depicts swimming piranhas, appeared on a sentry box near Ludgate Hill earlier this month. A City of London Corporation spokesperson saying a permanent home would be found “in due course”.

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10 towers with a history in London – 3. Victoria Tower…

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Located at the south-western end of the Houses of Parliament, the rather grand Victoria Tower was built as part of Sir Charles Barry’s 19th century redevelopment of the site in the Gothic Perpendicular style.

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LondonLife – Cathedral crossing…

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Looking up in Westminster Cathedral. PICTURE: Matthias Götzke/Unsplash

Where’s London’s oldest (surviving)…pie and mash shop?

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London’s oldest surviving pie and mash shop is generally said to be the establishment of M Manze near Tower Bridge.

PICTURE: Simon (licensed under CC BY 2.0)

The shop was opened in 1902 by Michele Manze, who was born in Ravello, southern Italy, and has been serving their pies and mash with green liquor (a parsley sauce) and eels ever since.

Manze had arrived in London with his family when just three-years-old and settling in Bermondsey, south of the Thames, has started what was originally an ice supply business which soon started selling ice-cream. But Michele branched out into the pie and mash business.

The first shop under his name was at 87 Tower Bridge Road. It was established by Robert Cooke (of a famed family of pie and mash purveyors) in 1891 and Manze took over soon after his marriage to Cooke’s widowed daughter, Ada Poole.

Manze opened a second in Southwark Park Road in 1908. Three further shops followed – two in Poplar which were destroyed in World War II – one at Peckham High Street in 1927.

Several of his brothers including Luigi, meanwhile, opened their own pie and mash shops and so it’s said there were 14 pie, mash and eel shops bearing the Manze name by 1930.

That number has since been whittled down for various reasons and there are today there are three M Manze pie and mash shops – the Tower Bridge Road and Peckham establishments and a third which was opened in Sutton in 1998.

The Tower Bridge Road shop was damaged during World War II when the front of it was blown out.

Famous clientele have apparently included Roy Orbison, Rio Ferdinand and David Beckham and it even appeared in a music video of Elton John’s.

For more, see https://www.manze.co.uk

LondonLife – Chelsea bridge…

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PICTURE: Dorin Seremet/Unsplash

The Albert Bridge in Chelsea which dates from 1873 with subsequent modifications made in the 1880s.

London pub signs – The Dean Swift…

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The Dean Swift. PICTURE: Google Maps

This pub in Bermondsey – just to the east of the southern end of the Tower of London – is named for the famous satirist and clergyman, Jonathan Swift (who was also appointed Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin in 1713).

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Located at 10 Gainsford Street (on the corner with Lafone Street), the pub originally dates from the 1850s and was formerly known as The Bricklayer’s Arms.

While Swift spent much of his life in Ireland, he visited London on numerous occasions, particularly between 1701 and 1714, and was widely recognised in the city for his writings and wit.

Swift’s most famous work – Gulliver’s Travels – was published in 1726.

For more, see https://www.thedeanswift.com.

This Week in London – Photographers honoured with Blue Plaques; David Hockney meets Piero dell Francesca; and ‘Taylor on Strings’ at Wembley Park…

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• Two pioneering photographers are being commemorated with English Heritage Blue Plaques today. Christina Broom (1862-1939) is believed to have been Britain’s first female press photographer while John Thomson (1837-1921) was a ground-breaking photo-journalist working at the advent of the medium. Broom’s plaque – the first to be located in Fulham – is being placed on 92 Munster Road, a terraced house of 1896, where she lived and worked for 26 years. Thomson’s plaque, meanwhile, will be located at what is now 15 Effra Road in Brixton where he and his family were living when one of his best-known and influential works, Street Life in London (1877-8), was published. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

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‘My Parents’ (1977), David Hockney/© David Hockney. Photo: Tate, London

• Two of David Hockney’s key works – My Parents (1977) and Looking at Pictures on a Screen (1977) – which feature reproductions of 15th-century Italian painter Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (probably about 1437–45) have gone on display alongside the Renaissance work at The National Gallery. Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look explores Hockney’s “lifelong association” with the National Gallery and its collections, particularly in the works of Piero della Francesca (1415/20–1492). Hockney once confessed that he would love to have The Baptism of Christ so he could look at it for an hour each day. My Parents features a reproduction of Piero’s work shown reflected in a mirror on a trolley behind the sitters while Looking at Pictures on a Screen depicts Hockney’s friend Henry Geldzahler, the Belgian-born American curator of 20th-century art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, peering at a folding screen in the artist’s studio on which are stuck four posters of National Gallery pictures including The Baptism of Christ. The display in Room 46 is free. Runs until 27th October. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

The City String Ensemble. PICTURE: Catherine Frawley

• Experience a prelude of Taylor Swift at Wembley Park with with City String Ensemble playing more than a dozen interpretations of Taylor Swift songs. The free open air concert comes ahead of Swift’s return to Wembley Stadium later this month. ‘Taylor on Strings’ will be held at the Sound Shell from 6:30pm on 13th August. Tickets are free but must be booked with 30 released at 10am each day in the lead-up to the concert. For more, head to wembleypark.com/taylor-on-strings.

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10 towers with a history in London – 2. The tower of St Olave, Old Jewry…

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This tower is a survivor and was originally part of the rebuilt Church of St Olave, Old Jewry.

The medieval church, which was apparently built on the site of an earlier Saxon church, originally dated from 12th century. Its name referred to both the saint to whom it was dedicated – the patron saint of Norway, St Olaf (Olave) – and its location in the precinct of the City that was largely occupied by Jews (up until the infamous expulsion of 1290).

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The former tower of St Olave, Old Jewry. PICTURE: Mark C Grant (public domain).

The church, which is also referred to as Upwell Old Jewry (this may have related to a well in the churchyard), was the burial place of two former Lord Mayors – mercer Robert Large (William Caxton was his apprentice) and publisher John Boydell (who apparently washed his face under the church pump each morning). Boydell’s monument was later transferred to St Margaret Lothbury.

The church was sadly destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 but it was among those rebuilt under the eye of Sir Christopher Wren in the 1670s. It’s from this rebuilding that the current tower dates.

At this time, the parish was united with that of St Martin Pomeroy (which had already shared its churchyard and which was also destroyed in the Great Fire).

Wren’s church was eventually demolished in 1887 as moves took place to consolidate church parishes under the Union of Benefices Act – the parish was united with that of St Margaret Lothbury and proceeds from the sale were used to fund the building of St Olave, Monor House. It’s worth noting that a Roman pavement was found on the site after the church demolition.

The tower (and the west wall), meanwhile, survived. The tower was subsequently turned into a rectory for St Margaret Lothbury and later into offices.

Interestingly, the Grade I-listed, Portland stone tower is said to be the only one built by Wren’s office which is battered – that is, wider at the bottom than the top. It’s topped by some obelisk-shaped pinnacles and a weather vane in the shape of a sailing ship which was taken from St Mildred, Poultry (was demolished in 1872).

The tower’s former clock was built by Moore & Son of Clerkenwell. It was removed at the time of the church demolition was installed in the tower of St Olave’s Hart Street. The current clock was installed in 1972.