Islington

London Pub Signs – The Compton Arms…

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The Compton Arms. PICTURE: Google Maps

While there’s said to have been a pub on this site since the 16th century, The Compton Arms is most famous for its association with George Orwell, being one of three Canonbury pubs the writer is said to have patronised.

The Compton Arms sign.

In fact, Orwell was so enamoured of the pub that it’s said to be one of the places he had in mind when writing a famous 1946 essay, The Moon Under Water, in which he describes his perfect pub.

Orwell is memorialised in the pub’s coat-of-arms which features an image of a moon over water.

The coat-of-arms also features references to local sporting legend Denis Compton after whom it’s named. Pictured are cannons representing football club Arsenal and swords from the Middlesex County Cricket Club crest – both clubs for whom Compton played.

The last item on the coat-of-arms are juniper berries – apparently a reference to the US hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg’s song, Gin and Juice (juniper berries being a key ingredient of gin). Snoop Dogg’s life story was featured in the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton.

In 2019, the pub’s former publican, Malcolm Mant, released a book, 30 Years Behind Bars: My Life and Times Running the British Pub, which covered his time running pubs including the seven years he spent at The Compton Arms.

The pub at 4 Compton Avenue is a Free House. For more, see www.comptonarms.co.uk.

A Moment in London’s History – The first Anderson shelter is built…

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A small air raid shelter designed for people to erect on their properties in preparation for the expected bombing campaigns of World War II, the first of London’s ‘Anderson’ shelters were rolled out 80 years ago in a backyard garden of a house in Islington on 25th February, 1939.

The shelter’s name comes from Sir John Anderson, Lord Privy Seal and the man tasked with the job of overseeing air-raid preparations across the country. As part of that job, he commissioned engineers to come up with an easy-to-construct, affordable shelter that could be used by the population at large.

The resulting arched-roofed structures, designed to be flexible and absorb the impact when bombs hit, were made from six curved sheets of corrugated steel or iron and, at six feet tall, 6.5 feet long and 4.5 feet wide, could house a family of six. They were designed to be buried under four feet of earth in backyards and the roof covered with a minimum of 15 inches of soil.

The shelters were given out for free to lower income families but those with the means had to buy them for £7. Some chose to incorporate them into their gardens and grew vegetables and plants on top and some decorated them – there were even competitions held for the best looking.

By the time bombs started hitting London in the Blitz, more than 1.5 million of the shelters had been built (and a further 2.1 million were erected as the war raged).

It was expected that families would use them every night but the shelters were found to be cold and damp and often flooded which meant many people only used them when air raid sirens sounded (and some not even then – one 1940 survey apparently found only 27 per cent of Londoners used them).

After the war, most were scrapped for the metal but some of the Anderson shelters were repurposed as garden sheds. A small number of them survive across London.

PICTURE: An intact Anderson shelter sits amid devastation in Poplar caused after a land mine fell a few yards away in in 1941. The three people inside were not hurt. Via Imperial War Museum (© IWM (D 5949))

10 sites from Mary Shelley’s London…7. Charles and Mary Lamb’s house…

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Renowned sibling writers Charles and Mary Lamb lived in a property at 64 Duncan Terrace in Islington from 1823-27 and, their visitors there apparently included Mary Shelley.

Shelley had returned to London in 1823 after the death of her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley who had drowned along with two other men off the coast of Italy in July the previous year.

Back in London, Shelley lived in various properties as far afield as Kentish Town – many of which are no longer extant. But one home she was known to have visited after her return (which is still standing) was that of the Lambs.

Charles, part of the literary circle which included Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, described the property – Colebrook Cottage – as a “white house with six good rooms”. Now Grade II-listed, it dates from the 18th century.

The New River once ran close by  – so close, in fact, that one guest, believed to be the blind poet George Dyer, walked into the river after leaving the house and had to be rescued by Lamb. The river is now covered.

The property features an English Heritage Blue Plaque (although in this case, it’s actually brown), commemorating Lamb’s stay here.

PICTURE: Spudgun67 (licensed under CC BY 2.0).

 

10 sites from Mary Shelley’s London…5. The Temple of the Muses, Finsbury Square…

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The publishers of the first edition of Frankenstein – a company known as Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor and Jones – were based in Finsbury Square in Islington within a building known as The Temple of the Muses.

Designed as a ‘temple to reading’ (it is attributed by some to George Dance the Younger), the rather grand building in the south-east corner of the square was built by the aforementioned James Lackington in 1791 to sell books (his stocks grew to include tens of thousands of items), some of which the company would publish themselves.

The massive building was crowned a central dome topped with a flagpole (from which a flag fluttered when Lackington was in residence) under which was a circular counter around which it was apparently said a coach and horses could be driven see image).

The original Lackington had long since retired from the business when Mary Shelley came along. His relative George Lackingham then ran the business with many partners – Richard Hughes, Joseph Harding, William Mavor and a Jones. Known consequently as Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor and Jones, the company had apparently previously had a couple of different names including Lackington, Allen & Co.

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first offered as a three volume book – without Shelley’s name attached – to the public on New Year’s Day, 1818 (slightly behind schedule due to printing delays). Thanks to the initial print run being late and an advertising mix-up, it was subsequently republished on 11th March the same year (this is now considered by many the original publication date).

The Temple, meanwhile, survived until 1841 when it burned down. The business, now known as Harding and Lepard, then moved to Pall Mall East.

PICTURE: Interior view of the Temple of the Muses (engraving/etching by William Wallis, probably in Jones’ University edition of British Classic Authors, 1828/Via Wikipedia)

LondonLife – New River Wildlife…

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New-River

Taken along New River Walk which follows the course of the “New River” in Islington. The New River, completed in 1613, was a man-made canal which brought water from Hertfordshire to New River Head in Clerkenwell (it now takes water to reservoirs in Stoke Newington). PICTURE: David Adams.

Famous Londoners – Sir Hugh Myddelton…

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The Welsh-born “merchant adventurer” Sir Hugh Myddelton (also spelt Myddleton or Middleton) is best remembered in London for the construction of the New River, a water engineering project which still provides some of city’s water.

Sir-Hugh-MyddeltonBorn about 1560, the sixth son (and one of 16 children) of Richard Myddelton, governor of Denbigh Castle in Wales, Hugh Myddelton travelled to London to seek his fortune and there became apprenticed to a goldsmith before himself becoming a member of the Goldsmith’s Company in 1592 (he later became warden of the company).

Operating out of premises in Bassishaw (now Basinghall Street), he gained a reputation among the wealthy and nobility for his work and was appointed Royal Jeweller to King James I (he had apparently also supplied jewellery to Queen Elizabeth I).

Myddelton became a wealthy merchant and banker, and, in 1603, he also succeeded his father as MP for Denbigh Borough, a post he held repeatedly until 1628.

Sir Hugh became one of the driving forces behind the New River project which aimed to address the strain on London’s water sources by bringing clean water from the River Lea in Hertfordshire via a 39 mile-long canal to New River Head in London.

After an aborted earlier attempt to build a canal from Hertfordshire to London (which had run into financial difficulties), Sir Hugh was granted authority to carry out the works for the New River in 1609 and employed mathematicians like Edward Pond and Edward Wright to direct the course with the man behind the earlier attempt, Edmund Colthurst, overseeing the works.

By 1611 it became clear to Myddelton that he wouldn’t have the necessary funds to complete the works so he obtained the financial aid of the king (in return the king was to get half of all profits).

The project was eventually completed in 1613 and a ceremony was held at the New River Head in Islington where the canal then terminated (just south of where Sadler’s Wells Theatre now stands).

Myddelton, who continued to diversify in business and made considerable sums from his ownership of lead and silver mines in Wales as well as from a land reclamation project on the Isle of Wight, became the first governor of the New River Company when it was created by royal charter in 1619 and remained a key figure in it until his death. He was created a baronet in 1622.

Myddelton, who married twice, had 15 or more children to his second wife – only about half of whom survived him. He died on 7th December, 1631, and was buried in the now demolished St Matthew Friday Street where he had been a church warden (some of his children were buried there as well). One of his brothers, Sir Thomas Myddelton, was a Lord Mayor of London.

Among memorials to Sir Hugh in London is a statue of him on Islington Green which was unveiled in 1872 by William Gladstone, later PM. There is also a statue of him on the Royal Exchange (pictured) and a number of Islington streets have been named for him.

For more on London’s historic water sources, see London’s Lost Rivers: A Walker’s Guide.

Treasures of London – Daniel Defoe grave memorial, Bunhill Fields…

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Daniel-Defoe-memorial2
Located in Bunhill Fields Burial Ground in City Road, this memorial to Daniel Defoe, the author of numerous books including Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders as well as a journalist, pamphleteer and ‘provocateur’ or spy, wasn’t erected until 1870, almost 140 years after his death.

After he died in 1731 at the age of 70, Defoe was among the more than 120,000 people buried in Bunhill Fields, a Nonconformist cemetery which opened in 1665 and had closed by 1853. He was apparently buried under the name Dabow, thanks to a spelling mistake made by the gravedigger.

Daniel-Defoe-memorialWhen he died in relative obscurity (he was believed to have been hiding from his creditors at the time), his fame rose after his death – due in large part to the rising popularity of Robinson Crusoe, and by the mid-19th century, it was believed that the simple headstone over his grave didn’t do justice to him.

Hence an appeal was run by children’s magazine Christian World for a more suitable memorial for the writer – named as Daniel De-Foe on the memorial – and more than £150 was raised from 1,700 people, an amount which apparently exceeded expectations.

Sculptor Samuel Horner was subsequently commissioned to carve the memorial obelisk, which features projections at the base resembling a coffin lid, to the designs of CC Creeke of Bournemouth. It was unveiled on 16th September, 1870, in a ceremony attended by three of Defoe’s great grand-daughters.

There was apparently a newspaper story that the sculptor uncovered a coffin bearing Defoe’s name in preparing the site for the monument and had to get the aid of police to prevent watchers from making off with the bones from within.

The monument, which may not mark the exact location of Defoe’s grave site due to the movement of graves in the burial ground, is now Grade II*-listed (and the burial ground itself Grade I-listed). Others buried at Bunhill Fields include author John Bunyan, artist William Blake and Susanna Wesley, mother of John Wesley, founder of Methodism.

WHERE: Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, 38 City Road (nearest Tube station is Old Street); WHEN: 7.30am to 7pm or dusk; COST: Free; WEBSITE: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/city-gardens/visitor-information/Pages/Bunhill-Fields.aspx

This Week in London – Party time at Hampton Court; new rooms unveiled at Eltham; Richard III at the Science Museum, and Kew’s Easter egg hunt…

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Wishing all of our readers a very happy Easter! 

Hampton-Court

• It’s party time at Hampton Court Palace this weekend as the palace celebrates its 500th anniversary with festivities including a spectacular (and historic) light show. Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights the palace will be open for an evening of festivities including the chance to taste-test pork cooked in the Tudor kitchens, enjoy a drink at a pop-up bar in the Cartoon Gallery, listen to live performances of period music in the state apartments and watch a 25 minute sound and light show in the Privy Garden taking viewers on a journey through the palace’s much storied past culminating in a fireworks finale. The nights run from 6.30pm to 9.15pm. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/. PICTURE: HRP/Newsteam

• A luxury wartime bunker, a map room dating from the 1930s and a walk-in wardrobe complete with vintage fashion are among five new rooms at Eltham Palace in south London which are opening to the public for the first time this Easter. The rooms also include a basement billiards room and adjoining bedrooms, one of which features one of the first showers ever installed in a residential house in the UK. They have been restored as part of English Heritage’s major £1.7 million makeover of the property – the childhood home of King Henry VIII which was converted into a stunning Art Deco gem in the 1930s. Visitors will be invited to join one of Stephen and Virginia Courtauld’s legendary cocktail party’s of the 1930s while children can take part in an interactive tour exploring the story of the animals that lived at the palace including Mah-Jongg, the Courtauld’s pet lemur (who had his own heated bedroom!). Admission charge applies. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/eltham. Meanwhile, anyone wishing to donate to support the renovation of the map-room can do so at www.english-heritage.org.uk/donate-eltham.

• A new exhibition showcasing the latest scientific displays concerning the life and death of King Richard III has opened at the Science Museum. King Richard III: Life, Death and DNA, which opened last Wednesday – the day before the king’s remains were reinterred at Leicester Cathedral, features an analysis of Richard III’s genome, a 3D printed skeleton (only one of three in existence) and a prototype coffin. It explores how CT scans were used to prove the king’s fatal injuries at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 were caused by a sword, dagger and halberd (a reproduction of the latter is on display). The exhibition will run until 25th June. Entry is free. For more, see www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/RichardIII.

Shaun-the-Sheep• Join Shaun the Sheep and friends for Kew Garden’s annual Easter Egg hunt this Sunday. The hunt will take place from 9.30am to noon (or when the eggs run out!) with participants needing to find three sheep and collect a token/chocolate dropping from each before finding the Easter bunny and claiming eggs supplied by Divine chocolate. Shaun, meanwhile, who hit the big screen for the first time this year, will be found in the Madcap Meadow until 12th April. Admission charge applies. For the full range of events taking place at the gardens this Easter season, check out www.kew.org. PICTURE: RBG Kew.

• London’s Boroughs are turning 50 and to celebrate London councils – working with the London Film Archive – have released a short film telling the story of the past half century. Follow this link to see it. Councils across the city, meanwhile, are holding events throughout the year to mark the occasion – check with your local council for details; some, like Barking and Dagenham, and Camden have dedicated pages.

• The first chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, Sir Mansfield Cumming, has been commemorated with an English Heritage blue plaque at his former home in Westminster. Known as ‘C’ thanks to his habit of initialling papers (a tradition which has been carried on by every chief since), Cumming was chief of the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau from 1909 until his death in 1923. Flats 53 and 54 at 2 Whitehall Court – now part of Grade II*-listed The Royal Horseguards Hotel – served as Cumming’s home and office at various times between 1911 and 1922. The plaque was unveiled by current Secret Intelligence Service chief, Alex Younger. Meanwhile, Amelia Edwards, pioneering Egyptologist, writer, and co-founder of the Egypt Exploration Fund, has also been honoured with a blue plaque on her former home in Islington. Edwards lived at 19, Wharton Street in Clerkenwell between 1831 and 1892. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

Send all items for inclusion to exploringlondon@gmail.com.

A Moment in London’s History – The first Crufts show…

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The annual Crufts dog show has been making headlines around the world recently (sadly not all for good reasons), so we thought it was a good chance to take a look back at where it all began.

While the event is this year being held in Birmingham, the first Cruft’s Show was actually held in London in the late 1800s.

Crufts-catalogueCharles Cruft – the show’s founder – had left college in 1876 and instead of joining the family’s jewellery business, had taken up employment in Holborn with James Spratt’s business selling ‘dog cakes’ (aka dog biscuits).

While he started off as an office boy, he was soon promoted to travelling salesman and he was soon travelling across Europe. So impressed were his customers that in 1878, just two years after leaving school, he was invited to organise the promotion of the canine section of the Paris Exhibition.

Eight years later in 1886, back in England, he took up the role of managing the Allied Terrier Club Show at the Royal Aquarium in Westminster.

The first show bearing the Crufts name – known then as ‘Cruft’s Great Dog Show’ – followed five years later in 1891 (although this was actually called Cruft’s Seventh Great Dog Show thanks to his involvement with the earlier shows).

Held at the Royal Agricultural Hall in Islington (now a Grade II-listed building) on 11th, 12th and 13th February, the show boasted 2,437 entries spanning 36 different dog breeds.

Among the entries in 1891 were six Pomeranians owned by Queen Victoria – one of them, Gena, placed equal first (apparently the judges didn’t want to mark down the monarch’s dogs!)

It’s not the only landmark Crufts event held in London. In 1948, with Charles Cruft having died 10 years earlier his widow Emma handed over control of the show to the Kennel Club. The first show under the club’s auspices was held at Olympia with 84 different breeds entered (there are now around 200 entered annually). In 1979 the show moved to Earl’s Court before eventually, in 1991, moving to Birmingham.

For more on Crufts, see www.crufts.org.uk

LondonLife – Isaac Newton comes to life…

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Isaac-Newton

Eduardo Paolozzi’s 1995 statue of Isaac Newton which stands on the British Library’s piazza in King’s Cross has been granted a ‘voice’ as part of a new project called Talking Statues. Visitors who swipe their smartphones on a nearby tag will receive a call from the famous scientist – voiced by Simon Beale Russell – as part of the initiative which is being spear-headed by Sing London. It is one of 35 different statues across London and Manchester which will be brought to life by a range of public identities. Among the other statues in London which have been brought to life are Samuel Johnson’s cat Hodge in Gough Square (voiced by Nicholas Parsons) and Dick Whittington’s Cat in Islington (Helen Lederer), John Wilkes in Fetter Lane (Jeremy Paxman), the Unknown Soldier at Paddington Station (Patrick Stewart) and Sherlock Holmes outside Baker Street Underground (Anthony Horowitz). The British Library and Sing London are also holding a competition to give William Shakespeare a voice by writing a monologue for the statue in the library’s entrance hall which will then be read by an as yet unannounced actor. Entries close 17th October. For more, visit www.talkingstatues.co.uk. 

PICTURE: British Library

Around London – Architects on show; Queen’s Orchard at Greenwich; first women dentist honoured; and Patrick Heron and TS Eliot at the NPG…

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• Regent Street is showcasing a number of architectural installations created by architects in an initiative being conducted in conjunction with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Now in its fourth year, the Regent Street Windows project can be seen free in store windows including those of Topshop, Espirit, Jack Spade, Ferrari Store and Moss Bros until 6th May. Participating architects include Carl Turner Architects, naganJohnson architects, Gensler, Mamou-Mani, and AY Architects. Free 45 minute to one hour walking tours of the completed installations will be conducted by RIBA representatives at lunch time today, midday on Sunday and at 5.30pm next Wednesday. Prior booking is essential – email antonia.faust@riba.org for details.

• The Queen’s Orchard has reopened in Greenwich Park having been restored with the addition of heritage fruit trees, new gates, pathways and ponds. The orchard dates back to the 17th century  – its name has been found on a records dating back to 1693 and now features on a new metal decorative gate which, as well as a well cover, was designed by local artist Heather Burrell along with local school students and the Friends of Greenwich Park. The heritage fruit trees, which have a provenance dating back to the 1500s, include apple, pear, cherry, plum, peach, apricot, nectarine, quince, and medlar trees. For more, see www.royalparks.org.uk.

• The first woman to qualify as a dentist in Britain has been honoured by English Heritage with a blue plaque at her former home in Islington. Lilian Lindsay (1871-1960) lived at the house at 3 Hungerford Road, Lower Holloway, from 1872 until 1892 when she decided to become a dentist. Refused entry to the National Dental Hospital in London, she trained at the Edinburgh Dental Hospital and School (where she also met her husband Robert) before setting up a practice in Upper Holloway. Following her marriage, Lindsay relocated to Edinburgh where she and her husband ran a dental practice, only returning to London after their retirement in the 1920s. Both were actively involved in the British Dental Association. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk.

• A 13-year-old photographer, Gideon Knight, is holding his first exhibition, ‘Wild About Photography’, at The Temple, Wanstead Park in Epping Forest. Self-taught, Knight has drawn on his passion for bird-watching in capturing a series of images of birds and other wildlife in a range of natural environments – from the forests of Essex to the countryside of southern Ireland. The exhibition is free. Open on weekends and bank holidays until the end of June, between noon and 5pm. You can follow Gideon at  http://earlywormbirder.blogspot.co.uk.

• On Now: Patrick Heron: Studies for a Portrait of TS Eliot. On display for the first time at the National Portrait Gallery, the 10 paintings and drawings were completed in preparation for a 1949 modernist painting of the poet. They include two oil studies which have never before been seen in public. Heron secured permission to paint Eliot in January 1947 with the first sitting held two months later. Runs until 22nd September. For more, see www.npg.org.uk.

10 Historic London Markets – 2. Smithfield Market…

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Now the largest wholesale meat market in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe, the connections between the site of Smithfield Market, officially known as the London Central Markets, and livestock go back to at least 800 years.

Since the 12th century animals were routinely traded here thanks to the site’s position on what was then the northern edge of the city. Smithfield was also known for being an area for jousting and tournaments and was the location of the (in)famous St Barthlomew Fair (this closed in 1855) as well as an execution ground – among those executed here were Wat Tyler, leader of the Peasant’s Revolt, and ‘Braveheart’, Sir William Wallace (1305).

Skip ahead several hundred years and, by the the mid-1800s, traffic congestion led to the livestock trade being relocated to a new site north of Islington. Plans were soon launched to locate a cut meat market on the Smithfield site.

Following the passing of an Act of Parliament, work on the new market began in 1866 with Sir Horace Jones (he of Tower Bridge fame), the City Architect, overseeing the design. Constructed of ornamental cast iron, stone, Welsh slate and glass, the initial market buildings were completed in 1868 with the result being two vast buildings, separated by a grand central avenue, but linked under a single roof. The new market was opened amid much pomp by the Lord Mayor of London on 24th November, 1868.

Four further buildings were soon added – only one, the Poultry Market, which opened in 1875, is still in use – and in the 1870s the market began to see the arrival of frozen meat imported from as far afield as Australia and South America.

Closed briefly during World War II – when the site was used for storage and an army butcher’s school – it reopened afterwards. The main poultry building was destroyed in a fire in 1958 and a replacement featuring a domed roof – the largest clear spanning dome roof in Europe at the time – was completed by 1963.

More recently, the market underwent a major upgrade in the 1990s. Queen Elizabeth II opened the refurbished East Market Building in June, 1997.

WHERE: London Central Markets, Charterhouse Street and West Smithfield (nearest Tube Stations are Barbican, St Paul’s and Moorgate); WHEN: From 3am Monday to Friday (visitors are told to arrive by 7am to see the market in full swing) (There are walking tours available – see www.cityoflondontouristguides.com for details); COST: Free entry; WEBSITE: www.smithfieldmarket.com.

PICTURE: Rossella De Berti/www.istockphoto.com

LondonLife – A squirrel plays among the tombstones of Bunhill Fields

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A squirrel spotted playing among the tombstones of Bunhill Fields Cemetery in the Borough of Islington. The Dissenters’ graveyard – burial place of the likes of writers John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe, artist and poet William Blake and Susanna Wesley, mother of Methodist founders John and Charles Wesley – was recently given a Grade I listing on the national Register of Parks and Gardens. For more information on the cemetery, see our previous post here.