March on the City: On Friday 10 October 2008 several hundred anti-capitalist protesters, mainly students, took to the streets of the City of London to say “We Won’t Bail Out the Bankers’.
The financial crisis had started in 2007, but reached a climax with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15 2008 which precipitated an international banking crisis.
Wikipedia sets out the causes of the crisis in some detail, but essentially US banks had been allowed to make more risky loans by changes in US laws which loosened regulations and allowed banks to take part in high risk operations such as proprietary trading and investment banking.
In the US one result of this was the proliferation of mortgage loans to people on low incomes who could really not afford the repayments and eventually defaulted. The problems with ‘subprime mortgages‘ particularly given to many in minority communities in the USA came to a head as a boom in US house prices in the early 2000s was followed by a sharp drop in the value of properties which were the security for the loans.
As Wikipedia comments, “governments deployed massive bail-outs of financial institutions and other palliative monetary and fiscal policies to prevent a collapse of the global financial system.” This resulted in the widespread feeling that those who had created the crisis were being rewarded for their failures.
In the UK, the New Labour government under George Brown made a massive financial intervention, paying £137 billion to the banks in loans and new capital, some of which was later recouped, but leaving a cost of £33 billion. While some support was necessary to avoid a total breakdown of the financial system, many felt that the government should have taken a firmer line and that those responsible should have had to pay for their mistakes and not to seem to have kept their highly paid jobs.
Both Northern Rock – the first UK bank to fail in July 2007 and Bradford & Bingley were taken into public ownership, and RBS/Nat West into majority public ownership. But RBS still ended up costing us £35.5 billion – and the leading bankers still ended up getting huge salaries and big bonuses. The Royal Bank of Scotland seemed to be getting off scot free.
Part of the problems we still see in financial markets came from changes worldwide in the way that trading now takes place. In the UK Margaret Thatcher had brought in the ‘Big Bang’ which abolished traditional practices and introduced electronic trading, greatly increasing volatility.
On My London Diary I give a fairly full account of the actual protest which started at Bank where some protesters tried to storm into the Royal Exchange – long just a prestige shopping centre – and the Bank of England but were easily stopped by police.
There then followed a slow march around parts of the City, with police attempting to stop them at various points and the marchers pushing their way through police lines.
As my pictures show, there was some rather forceful policing at times and some of the press also suffered with the protesters. As I write, “I got a few bruises and my glasses were damaged when police rushed in as I was taking pictures in Lombard St.” But there was none of the confrontational use of trained riot squads that have led to extreme violence at some protests policed by the Met. Policing here was by the City of London Police – along with a guest appearance by one French cop.
Eventually there was a short rally with a few speeches on the corner of Bishopsgate and London Wall after which the demonstrators dispersed. Police seemed fairly relaxed at the end of the protest and I saw no arrests.
I don’t think the protest got much if any coverage in the mass media and most accounts I read on-line were confused, with many suggesting it went to the Stock Exchange. While that might have been a logical place to protest, the marchers actually went in the opposite direction.
Schools, Warner Estate, Baptists & Art Deco: My motivation for this return to Walthamstow was I think to photograph the building whose pictures end this post. On a previous visit I had – for the only time I can remember – lost a cassette of exposed film. I’d realised this later in the same morning and had gone back on my tracks to search for it to where I changed films, but without success. And there had been one building I had photographed that I was keen to have pictures of as Art Deco was one of my particular themes at the time, working for a never published book, London Moderne. But I’d decided to walk around some other areas again before going to take those pictures.
Markhouse Road Schools it tells us on the building were ‘REBUILT 1907’. Walthamstow was forced by the government Education ministry to set up a school board 1880, before which there were“5 Anglican schools, 5 run by Protestant nonconformists, and 3, including an orphanage and an industrial school, by Roman Catholics.” The school boards provided elementary education for 5-13 year olds. Mark House Road board school opened in 1891 with infants, boys and girls departments.
Unfortunately the schools burnt down a few days before Christmas in 1906 and were almost completely destroyed. Walthamstow Urban Distric Council who had been running elementary schools in the area since 1903 rebuilt them and they reopened in 1908.
The school became a secondary modern school in 1946 and closed in 1966, though the building remained in use for various educational purposes for some years until it was finally demolished a few years after I made this picture.
Nat West, Bank, 10, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-66
The rather fine entrance to the NatWest bank in St James St; the building on the north of the corner with Leucha Road, is still there, one of the two blocks built by the Warner Estate featured in the previous post on this walk, but the doorway, now for a food store, is sadly bereft of dragons and decoration.
Leucha Road, one many streets built as part of the Warner Estate in Walthamstow got its name from one of the family, Leucha Diana Maude who was the daughter of Clementina and Cornwallis Viscount Hawarden Earl de Montalt, a Conservative politician with an Irish peerage. Clementina was a noted amateur photographer and had ten children, eight of whom survived infancy, so there was no shortage of names for streets around here.
This was one of the earliest to be developed on the Warner Estate in 1895 and the buildings on it are two storey maisonettes, called “half houses” by the Warners.
Leucha Road was acquired by Waltham Forest Council in the late 1960’s and they repainted the doors which had been green like all other Warner properties in what the Conservation Area statement describes as “a pale and inappropriate “Council-house” blue“. The Warner Estate sold off 2400 of their properties to Circle 33 Housing Trust (now part of Circle Housing Group) in 2000 and of these 600 still had outside toilets.
Shops, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-52
Another picture of some of the Warner estate shops in the High Street with at the left a rather strange ‘streamline’ feature which I think must have belonged to a building to the left demolished in some road-widening scheme.
A curiously barn-like structure dated 1932, Walthamstow (Blackhorse Rd) Baptist Church. This building replaced a ‘tin tabernacle’ in which the congregation had been meeting since 1898. The church is still a “friendly multi-cultural church in Walthamstow.”
Not dated but also obviously from the 1930s was this building for Hammond & Champnesss Ltd on Blackhorse Lane.
Hammond & Champnesss Ltd was established as in 1905 by cousins Ernest Hammond and Harold Champness to make hydraulic water-powered lifts. They were joined by Ernest’s brother Leonard and for some time the company was Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd.
Hydraulic lifts are raised and lowered by a piston inside a long cylinder with fluid pumped in to move the piston which is connected either directly or by ropes and pulleys to the lift cabin. They can be used in buildings up to five of six stories high.
Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd went bust in 1932 and the company was taken over by E Pollard & Co. Ltd who renamed it to Hammond & Champnesss Ltd but kept it operating as a separate company. This was taken over by US company Dover Corporation in 1971 but they continued to make lift components in Walthamstow until that company was taken over by Thyssen in 1999.
The building became Kings Family Network. It was refurbished in 2014 and is now Creative Works Co-Working office space.
This wasn’t the end of my walk that day, but after taking three pictures of this building I made my way to Blackhorse Road station and took the train to Crouch Hill.
Bonuses are Back Pig Party: I’ve never understood why people who are already paid obscenely high salaries get awarded huge bonuses for the work of people lower down in the organisations they lead. Even less that they still get them when these organisations are obviously failing – as with the water companies. So it was a small piece of good news in February 2024 when the then government announced they would block further bonuses to the water company after they had received £26 million since 2019 despite sewage spills.
Of course many of us felt that they should have been made to repay those bonuses and that the companies that have racked up huge debts while paying out billions to shareholders should be taken into administration to be run to serve the public.
Back in 2008 it was the predatory activities of the banks that led to the financial crash, but in 2009, “Despite everything that has happened over the past year, bankers are still getting bonuses, often at quite obscene levels, far in excess of most people’s annual incomes.”
And on Friday 17th July 2009 ‘The Government of the Dead‘ came to the heart of the City of London to ‘celebrate’ that “City pigs are truly back with their snouts in the trough” with “a ‘Bonuses are Back Pig Party’, wearing pig masks and setting up a trough with ‘Pig Pounds’ mixed with pig swill and getting snouts down and bottoms up to wallow in it.“
The ‘Pig Pounds’ – were deliberately low-tech paper copies of fivers with a pig over the bottom half of the Queen and the pig swill was possibly the real thing but looked like some rather unpleasant and lumpy porridge with cornflakes mixed in.
Some of the protesters had come in fancy dress – city suits – with Chris Knight with his usual top hat and Camilla as Miss Piggy. Many put on latex pig masks and got their heads down in the trough in front of the Royal Exchange, scooping up the swill and the fivers.
More or less together they sang a number of cleverly reworded pig songs “including a number of hits by Miss Piggy, Pinky and Perky, The Simpsons and Piggy Pie“, as will as singing, dancing and miming along with some of the originals between sessions at the trough.
‘Lets Twist Again’, once recorded by Pinky and Perky became “Come on let’s scam again Like we did last summer Come on let’s scam again Like we did last year Come on let’s scam again Scamming time is here.“
“Bonuses Are Back” Chris Knight and the others shouted at City workers on their way home, inviting them to “come and swill in the trough, all provided at the taxpayers expense thanks to Gordon Brown.“
Tourists were bemused, but some stopped to enjoy and photograph the scene, with a few putting on the latex pig masks on offer and joining in.
Even the City of London Police seemed amused rather than worried by the protest, standing back and watching – and without their intervention there was no threat to public order.
After around an hour and a half of watching and taking pictures I decided it was time to go home. I’d taken too many pictures and the fun was wearing off.
Of course the bankers – and other bosses – continued to do well, while the rest of us had to suffer fourteen years of Tory austerity with public services being starved of cash and the NHS, prisons and more deteriorating at pace.
The Labour Party deliberately threw away the chance of getting into government in 2017, when the party under Corbyn got many more votes than in 2024. Starmer didn’t win the election, it was lost by the Tories who were poleaxed by Reform and had become clearly unable to run their own party let alone the country. I have no confidence that our new Labour government will be more than a very slight improvement over their predecessors, though it would be good to be proved wrong.
Massive London Protest Over Gaza Genocide: Last Saturday I photographed the march in London when over 200,000 marched from Bank calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Among those on the march, Little Amal, a 12ft giant puppet of a Syrian child refugee stood out. As usual there was a strong Jewish representation both on the main march and on a separate feeder march for families and children I photographed as they set off from outside Kings College on Strand.
This was the seventh large protest in London and reflects the feelings of a large majority of the British public but unfortunately this and other huge protests around the world, including in the USA, seem unlikely to have any effect on our or the US governments polices. They will continue to give support to Israel while making weak statements about the need to reduce the killing which Israel will continue to ignore while denying the effects of its actions and blaming Hamas for the death and destruction they are causing.
The front of the march waiting to start.
The march took place on the 99th day of the Israeli attack on Gaza which has so far killed over 23,000 people, mainly civilians including more than 10,000 children, with many bodies still under the rubble. The bombing and shelling has made humanitarian aid and medical treatment impossible and widespread deaths from disease and starvation now seem inevitable.
Doctors Against Genocide.
Israeli forces have attacked hospitals, schools, refugee camps and have killed many doctors and arrested others. Only one hospital remains operating in the whole of Gaza and there are desperate shortages of medicines with many amputations having to be carried out without anaesthetics. Few of the 60,000 severely injured so far by the Israeli attacks have been able to get proper treatment.
A few of the Palestinian press who have been killed by Israel
Gaza’s journalists appear to have been especially targeted and more have now been killed by the IDF than journalists were killed in the whole six years of the Second World War.
A man holds a bloodstained bundle representing a dead child
As well as calling for a ceasefire, protesters also demand a just solution with freedom for Palestine, an end to the military occupation of the country and an end to Israeli apartheid.
‘Free Palestine Hands Off Yemen‘
Two events in the previous week added to the demands of protesters. Some had placards praising the Houthi forces in Yemen for their attacks on ships in the Red Sea and their were chants such as “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud, turn another ship around” following the US and UK air attacks. The Houthi are now in control of much of Yemen following the October 2022 ceasefire and peace talks led by the UN began it December 2023, but they continue to be referred to in UK media as rebels or terrorists.
Last week South Africa stated the case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide. It got rather less attention in the UK media than the response the following day by Israel, which appeared largely a continued recital of the widely condemned attacks of October 7th and the long-discredited assertion that their actions in Gaza are self-defence. Israel also denied having bombed any hospitals and claimed they were facilitating humanitarian aid, lying in the face of mountains of evidence the world has read.
A woman holds a placard ‘Well Done South Africa’.
Many on the protest praised South Africa for taking Israel to court. The moral case seems clearly proven, but I suspect the case may be lost on some legal technicality. ICJ verdicts are in any case not binding and I think the majority of the world has already reached their conclusion.
People hold up posters showing Nazi Germany and Palestine with a poster saying ‘Signs Like These Have Been Criinalised by the Met Police
There were apparently 1,700 police on duty for the protests and a handful of people were arrested for carrying placards or handing out leaflets which the police decided were possibly “showing support for a proscribed organisation which is an offence under the Terrorism Act.” The flyer, published by the Met, stated their “unconditional and wholehearted support and solidarity for the Palestinian struggle, which is once more breaking out into armed resistance” but made no explicit mention of Hamas. Other groups in the Palestinian struggle are not proscribed in the UK.
With so many taking part, the march ended with rallies in both of London’s major central squares, Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square, though I only got to the first of these. I was quite tired having walked from London Bridge station to Bank and then along with the march going back and forth taking pictures and decided to get a train from Charing Cross rather than go on to Parliament Square.
Goodbye & Good Riddance 2023 – October began as just another month, but the world changed with the Hamas attack across the Gaza border with Israel on October 7th. I missed the first emergency protests against the Israeli response but the rest of my year was dominated by protests against the killing of civilians and children in Gaza by Israeli forces.
‘Stop Starmer’ Meeting Warns Us All. Camden London, 7 Oct 2023. A day before the Labour conference people meet in Keir Starmer’s constituency to warn everyone how dangerous a Starmer-led government would be. Those present included many former Labour Party members who say he has no principles and list almost 30 pledges he has so far reneged on, including green jobs, NHS outsourcing, Lords reform, free school meals, workers rights, oil contracts, PR, childcare. Paula Peters of DPAC speaking. Peter MarshallCancel the Debt of the Global South. Bank, London, 12 Oct 2023. 65 bags for Climate Debt against 1 for debt repayments. While the World Bank/IMF meet in Marrakesh campaigners at the Bank of England from Debt for Climate, War on Want and others join in worldwide protests for the cancellation of debts of the Global South. They are owed Climate debt for damage caused by fossil fuels 65 times as much as their debt repayments. Peter MarshallBarclays Told Drop Polluter Drax. Canary Wharf, London. 19 Oct 2023. Axe Drax. XR and other campaigners at Barclays Canary Wharf HQ demand they end support for Drax, the world’s biggest burner of trees which now gets around £2m a day of UK climate subsidies intended for renewable energy for its highly polluting power station, and is seeking extra subsidies for an unproven and unworkable carbon capture climate scam. Drax burns wood pellets mainly made by clear felling mature trees in the USA. Peter MarshallStand with the Palestinian Resistance! Oxford St, London. 21 Oct 2023. Members of Fight Racism Fight Imperialism and the Revolutionary Communist Group support Palestinians resisting the Zionist state of Israel which for many years has oppressed Palestinians. They protested on Oxford Street outside British businesses, banks and institutions including Marks & Spencer which have long supported the Israeli apartheid state. Peter MarshallNational March for Palestine – Stop the War on Gaza. London. 21 Oct 2023. Well over 100,000 march calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence, for a lifting of Israel’s siege and for full humanitarian aid to be sent into Gaza immediately. They called for a just peace in the Middle East and freedom for Palestine. I was too tired after standing watching the march go past for around two and a half hours that I went home rather than photograph the rally. Peter MarshallUFFC Annual Rally & Procession 2023. London, 28th October 2023. The annual remembrance procession by the United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) marching from Trafalgar Square to Downing St for a rally with speakers from the families whose relatives were killed by police and in penal, mental health and immigration detention. They call for justice and proper investigations of the officers involved suspected of crimes. Peter MarshallNational March for Gaza – Ceasefire Now, London, UK. 28 Oct 2023. Many thousands march through London called for an immediate ceasefire as Israeli forces bombarded the country and cut off all communications. Thousands of children and other civilians including 110 medical staff have already been killed and supplies of water, food, medicines and fuel are running out with a with Israel denying access to all but a tiny trickle of humanitarian aid and ignoring the UN General Assembly vote. Peter MarshallMore Pictures – Gaza Ceasefire Now! London, UK. 28 Oct 2023. Peter MarshallGaza Ceasefire Now! Protest At Waterloo Station, London. 28 Oct 2023. Several hundred protesters sat down in Waterloo Station concourse in a protest calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as Israeli forces bombarded the country and cut off all communications. Thousands of children and other civilians including 110 medical staff have already been killed and supplies of water, food, medicines and fuel are running out with a with Israel denying access to all but a tiny trickle of humanitarian aid and ignoring the UN General Assembly vote. Peter Marshall
I returned to Bank and photographed some men working on the street there on the corner of Lombard St. I think they were working on one of the entrances to Bank Station but the boarding made it hard to see. They did have some very big buckets.
Recently there has been yet more work to improve access to Bank Station, with a new entrance opening a couple of days ago on Cannon St. Bank is a very busy station during the weekday rush hours, even with more people now working at least some days from home. But on Saturdays and Sundays the City is still something of a ghost town, though rather more tourists can now be seen wandering around, lost souls searching in vain for an open pub or restaurant.
Cherubs, King William St, Bank, City, 89-3d-35
At the start of King William Street and I think part of the magnificent St Mary Woolnuth I photographed this doorway with three cherubs which was later used on a book cover, but somehow I had lost the digital image of that. Having spent around half an hour searching for it on my computer and various hard drives I decided it would have been faster simply to produce it again from the negative. I think I may have also havephotographed it on a previous occasion. The doorway was rather dim and this image isn’t quite as sharp as I would like.
Lombard St, City, 89-3d-36
While I had the negatives out of the file, I digitised this one as well. Again it’s a view which I had previously photographed, possibly on several occasions, with the splendid cat and fiddle sign which is still there, though the TSB’s castle has gone. I don’t mourn the loss of the depressing distant block, though rather wish its replacement had been better.
Leadenhall Market, City, 1989 89-3e-61
I walked along Lombard Street and up Gracechruch St and then turned into Leadenhall St and then into Whittington Avenue where I photographed the entrance to Leadenhall Market, a nice piece of Victorian exuberance, though of course finance by our crimes of Empire.
I’d photographed the quite a lot before, often in colour, put I think this was the first time I’d photographed this entrance. I walked through to Cullum Street taking a few more pictures of buildings in the area including some more of the Lloyds Building but little really new for me, and none I selected to put on-line.
Fen Court, City, 1989 89-3e-41
From Fenchurch Avenue I turne into Fen Court, where as usual I was fascinated by the trees wiggling in front of the austere offices of the Pan Atlantic Insurance Company and others. I’d taken two frames without any people when a man walked across carrying some hefty paperwork and I made this third exposure as he moved into the space between the two brick and stone beds.
This garden is the site of St Gabriel Fenchurch, burnt down in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was re-landscaped in 2008, with the addition of the sculpture ‘The Gilt of Cain’ by Michael Visocchi which commemorates the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
I was on my way towards the markets just to the east of the City, where the next installment of this walk will continue.
Movement Against Xenophobia – Old Palace Yard, Westminster. Tue 22 Oct 2013
Lee Jasper speaks
The Movement Against Xenophobia (MAX) was a new campaign aimed at countering the vicious anti-immigrant discourse of mainstream politics in the UK. The rally outside parliament was in protest against the Immigration Bill 2013 which was debated later in the day.
Speakers attacked the Bill, which removed the great majority of the grounds on which foreign nationals can lodge appeals against deportation, puts a requirement on banks and landlords to check immigration status of those setting up accounts or becoming tenants, increases the fines for employers who hire anyone without the right to work here, and includes new powers to check driving licence applicants are in the country legally. The bill also imposes a levy on temporary migrants to allow them access to free NHS care.
They also opposed the existing draconian restrictions on bringing spouses to this country that are splitting many families, with a minimum income level required that half the population cannot meet, causing real hardship and heartache for many.
Governments have competed with oppositions over the years to convince the right wing press that their party has a tougher line against immigrants, with the racist vans and e-mails sent by the then Home Secretary Theresa May being an clear example of how low our politicians will sink.
Jeremy Corbyn, MP
Report after report has shown that migrants make a substantial positive contribution to the economy, enrich Britain’s culture and improve the standard of its public services. MAX demanded that politicians and the media end the use of language that incites racism and xenophobia and for the political parties to reject the ‘numbers game’ politics of immigration and replace it with a fair system built on human rights and the needs of the UK.
MAX was a coalition of existing groups who have come together to challenge anti-immigrant discourse, such as the continual use of the term ‘illegal immigrant’. As they point out, no one is illegal, and these are more correctly people who do not have the legal right to live here – they are undocumented migrants. MAX and its supporters want to live in a civilised society where people, irrespective of background, are valued and treated with respect.
In London’s Chinatown, virtually all restaurants and shops closed for two hours for a rally and march against frequent raids being carried out there by the UK Borders Agency who have entered premises and interrogated people inside demanding to see evidence that they have permission to live in the UK.
Many of those questioned are British citizens or have leave to stay, while others are here visiting relatives on valid tourist visas. A small number have been found to be without proper documentation but the raids appear to be carried out in a random fashion on the off-chance that there might be so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ working in the premises – ‘fishing raids’.
These raids had no proper legal status in the UK as we are not required to carry ID and can simply refuse to answer questions and walk away. There was no requirement to give our name or address as a flier that was being handed out advised.
As the start of the two hour protest approached, more and more shops and restaurants turned customers away and put up signs in windows and doorways stating ”No Entry to UKBA fishing raids’ and there was much furious blowing of whistles. A small group protested noisily for a few minutes outside the only business still open on Gerrard Street, but soon moved away to the rally by the Two Lions statue.
Leading members of London’s Chinese community spoke at the rally against the UKBA raids. Some also made clear that there need to be easier ways to bring workers skilled in Chinese cooking to this country if they were to maintain their traditional practices which are vital to keep Chinatown truly Chinese.
After a number of speeches there was then a march around Chinatown before returning to continue the rally, though some workers were leaving to prepare for the reopening of businesses at the end of the two hour closure.
Fossil-Free London Lobby Tour – Bank & Stock Exchange, Tue 22 Oct 2013
Climate campaigners from People & Planet and 350.org toured some City sites which lock us into a fossil fuel dependent economy, stopping to make brief speeches and perform poems and songs. They carried balloons to represent carbon dioxide, which had all been intended to be black, but they couldn’t find enough black balloons so had to use some purple ones as well.
Police talked to them at the start of tour, and seemed happy with the tour, though they continued to follow them on the tour, which began in front of the Bank of England (and the Royal Exchange, now just expensive shops.)
From there they walked to the Stock Exchange, stopping first at the entrance on Newgate Street for a short rally before walking around to the main entrance in Paternoster Square.
Here there were more speeches and another song – ‘Buddy Can You Spare a Dime’ – and the balloons were popped as a small group of police and a security officer from the Stock Exchange looked on from a few yards away.
The tour then moved off to visit other ‘carbon criminals’ in the City, but I left them on the corner of Gresham St to go home.
Bank, Victoria Park, Fish Island, Hackney Wick: In 1988 I was still teaching a full timetable at the sixth-form and community college where I worked, but because I took an evening class on Tuesdays I was able to finish the week’s teaching at noon on Friday. As a union rep I had persuaded my members against national union advice to some deviations from the national conditions that suited the peculiar circumstances of the college and made such arrangements possible.
Most of the pictures I made back in 1988 were either taken during the college holidays – we kept more or less normal school terms – or at weekends, but at noon on some Fridays I would rush down to the caretakers stores where I kept my bike, pedal home furiously, dump the bike, pick up my camera bag and rush to the station for a train to London. Until the clocks went back at the end of October there was then time for a few hours walking and taking pictures – in late October sunset is around 5.45pm. I think the pictures in this post were probably taken on the last occasion that year that my journey was worthwhile.
Doorway, Bank Station, Bank, City, 1988 88-10d-25
I didn’t make many pictures on this Friday afternoon – around 16 black and white frames and perhaps two or three in colour, perhaps partly because I broke my journey to make this picture. Rather than taking the train from Richmond to Homerton or Hackney Wick, I went up to Waterloo and took the Waterloo & City line to Bank. I’d some time earlier photographed this doorway at Bank station and had for reasons now unknown to me decided I needed another and different image. Possibly I’d been reminded of it when the earlier picture, a closeup of the three heads, was used on a bookjacket.
It perhaps took me a few minutes at Bank to find the doorway still there on King William Street on the side of the splendid Hawksmoor church of St Mary Woolnuth. Having make the single exposure shown here, I made my way to a bus stop for a No 8 bus to Bethnal Green and then walked up Grove Road to Victoria Park.
Old London Bridge, stone alcove, Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10d-26
I’d realised when I got home from my previous walk that I had not photographed the shelters which were stone alcoves from the Old London Bridge. That bridge, built in 1176-1209 had until 1760 been cluttered with houses and shops, leaving only a narrow path across the river. These were cleared in 1760-63, more than doubling the width of the bridge, and seven stone alcoves were installed along each side.
The bridge was demolished in 1831, but these alcoves were sold and two found there way to Victoria Park when it was opened in 1845. Another is in a courtyard at Guy’s Hospital and two ended up on an estate in East Sheen along with some of the balustrade, though only one now remains in the grounds of some 1930s flats at Courtlands, close to the 1st Richmond Scouts HQ.
From Victoria Park I walked across the footbridge over the East Cross Route to Hackney Wick, then turning south and making my way down Wansbeck Road to the Northern Outfall Sewer on Wick Lane. Steps there took me down to Dace Road and along to Old Ford Locks. Unfortunately although I took a few picture on the walk, none are among those I’ve digitised. So here’s one I took in 1990 on Dace Road of Percy Dalton’s peanut factory.
Loading Bay, Lock, Old Ford, Lea navigation, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10e-61
I walked across the gates at Old Ford Lock and took a few pictures there, including this one of the loading bay at Swan Wharf.
Bridge, White Post Lane, Lea Navigation, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10e-62
The I walked north on the towpath. Now there are two new bridges on this stretch, from Stour Road and Monier Road, but in 1988 the next crossing was at White Post Lane.
Bridge, White Post Lane, Lea Navigation, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-10e-65
At left is the splendid 1913-14 Queen’s Yard works, part of the Clarke, Nickolls & Coombs Ltd “Clarnico” sweet and chocolate factory, formerly the largest employer in the area. Much of their five works were damaged or destroyed by wartime bombing and this building needed some restoration. The company was bought by Trebor in 1969 and the works closed. The white building fronting the canal beyond the bridge was the cocoa bean roasting factory built around 1900.
I walked over the bridge and along to Hackney Wick station for a train to Richmond on my way home.
I can’t now remember why I went to Bank and the heart of the City of London – the world’s greatest money laundering operation. But I do remember thinking how appropriate it was to make this picture of the Bank of England reflected and framed by the Bank of Kuwait. I’ve never found the Bank of England, secretive behind its tall wall, easy to photograph.
I’ve always found this section of wall on Cooper’s Row one of the more interesting of the 21 sites on the Museum of London’s Roman Wall Walk set up in 1984. You can see one of their orientation boards in the picture, though I think ten of the others have been swallowed up in the rebuilding of parts of London or by vandalism.
Sceptre Court on Tower Hill lies just outside the city, and was clearly under construction when I took this picture. The 90,000 sq ft building is rather less interesting now and is currently completely occupied by The London School of Business and Finance. The building was recently sold to “a Middle Eastern investor” and is among many London buildings – including many government offices – owned by overseas investors often in offshore tax havens. Sceptre Court is one of the teaching sites of Arden University, a private, for-profit teaching university with head offices in Coventry.
Aldgate Pump is the symbolic starting point of London’s East End. A well on this site was first recorded around 1200. The Grade II listing of this structure describes it as “Apparently C18, altered.” The spout is a wolf’s head, and legend states that the last wolf in the City was shot near here, probably in around 1500. The wolf is one of the later additions, probably from around 1900. Until 1876 the water came from a local underground stream and was then the source of a major cholera outbreak.
Although earlier the water had been praised for being “bright, sparkling, and cool, and of an agreeable taste”, people began to complain of a foul tast and several hundred died. The stream was found to be running through several underground cemeteries including some of the plague pits. The pump was then moved a short distance to its current position to allow widening and connected to a healthier water supply from the New River Company. The pump is being restored and a replica lantern being made to replace that lost around 115 years ago.
Devotees of Cockney rhyming slang allege that getting an ‘Aldgate’, short for Aldgate Pump is used to mean ‘hump’ or upset and annoyed. ‘A draft on Aldgate Pump’ has also been used a punning reference for a worthless or fraudulent financial transaction.
Tower Gateway DLR station opened in 1987 as the western terminus of the Docklands Light Railway. Although derided by many as a ‘Toytown railway’ it has proved itself a useful addition to transport in east London, serving some parts which were previously very poorly provided.
Crescent was a Georgian development close to the Tower of London, part of a plan by architect George Dance the Younger (1741-1825) which also included America Square to the north and a smaller ‘Circus’ of houses to the south linked by Vine St. It ran in a line parallel to Minories a short distance the west. One of the first planned residential developments in London it was completed in 1767-74. The developer was Sir George Hammet and the short street connecting Crescent to Minories is Hammet St.
The Circus was almost completely destroyed in the ‘Second Great Fire of London’ caused by German fire-bombs on 29-30th December 1940 when around 100,000 incendiary bombs caused incredible damage. Only one house was left standing of the ten built in a tight circle. In poor condition, this was evntually demolished in 1975 for a road widening scheme. The granite roadway of the circus is still present as part of a small public garden at the edge of the road.
Parts of America Square to the north were lost when the railway into Fenchurch St station was built in 1841, and the rest devastated by wartime bombing. Crescent fared just a little better, with the Metropolitan railway requiring demolition of five of the 11 houses, and bombing destroing another four, leaving only two of the originals standing. In the early 1980s a painstaking reconstruction to the original plans added four replicas to them. Only the left-most part of my picture is one of the originals, the rest are the replicas. There have been some small changes since I took my picture. You can read more about the area on the Commuter Consultant’s admirable Lost London blog from which much of the above information comes.
Photographs from my 1987 London Photos album. Clicking on any of the above pictures will take you directly to the album where a larger view is available.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
Some more pictures from my Flickr album made from en-prints of pictures taken in 1986-92 in the 1km wide strip of London in defined by the National G id reference TQ32, TQ32 London Cross-section.
IBM, Basinghall St, City, 1986
Standing on Basinghall St and looking into the doorway to the large office tower housing IBM I was intrigued by a neon display., which seemed to be rather similar to a scaffolding tower on the opposite side of the street, visible in the reflection. You can see part of me taking the picture at its centre, my shoulder, arm and camera bag, leg and top of my shoe visible.
I was puzzled slightly at first as I appeared to be carrying my bag to the right of me, something I’ve never done since back in the mid 1970s, after I suffered badly with back pain. Although the specialist I saw never really managed to find a reason or cure, we did eventually discover that I could avoid the crippling pain by carrying my bag on the left shoulder rather than my right. But of course this is a reflection, so what appears to be right is actually left.
Brittanic Tower, Moor Lane, City
Britannic House, Moor Lane (now 1 Ropemaker St), City was built as a prestige City HQ for British Petroleum (later BP) in 1967. The name Britannic House had been used for its nearby HQ in Finsbury Circus, designed for the company by the UK’s leading architect Lutyens when it was still the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. That rather lower but much more impressive building from 1921-5 required special permission from the LCC because of its height of at 38 metres and also presented building problems because it was partly above the underground Moorgate station.
The name Britannic House passed back to the Lutyens building when BP returned to it in 1991, and the Moor Lane building, a 35 storey 122m tall slab, was renamed Britannic Tower. When built it was the first City building taller than St Paul’s Cathedral, which was 111m (365 ft.)
Brittanic Tower was refurbished in 2000 with a fancy top adding another 5 metres and renamed Citypoint and is now the tenth tallest building in the City according to Wikipedia and the 54th tallest in Greater London. I think this particularly pointless piece of decorative sculpture at its base was lost in the refurbishment.
Carters, Umbrella Repairs, Royal Exchange, City, 1986
The case is still there outside 30 Threadneedle St on the north side of the Royal Exchange but is now empty and the shop is no longer Carters, but Pretty Ballerinas, a “fun and fashionable outlet store” offering a “wide range of colourful ballet flat shoes” as well as other styles, all with commendably low heels if rather high prices.
The rolled umbrella was once a part of the uniform of the City gent, but there are rather few of them around now. And umbrellas have become cheap and disposable, probably impossible to repair.
Simpsons, Ball Court, City, 1992
Simpsons is still there in Ball Court, one of a maze of alleys south of Cornhill, and still offering – at least after the current closure “traditional food served in ample portions with the 250 year old custom of set Daily Specials“. Although not cheap, it isn’t an expensive place by London standards. I’ve never eaten there but perhaps I might treat myself one day if I go to London again.
Bank of England, Bank, City, 1987
The London Troops War Memorial and beyond it, the Bank of England, which Google tells me is temporarily closed, and is certainly no longer a safe place to put your gold if you are a left wing South American country. Over the past years I’ve photographed several protests calling on the bank to let Venezuela have it gold kept here, which the Bank is refusing to release due to US sanctions.
Venezuela’s central bank, controlled by President Nicolas Maduro, is currently seeking an order in the English High Court to force the Bank of England to hand over the over $1 billion of Venezuelan gold reserve in its vaults which the country need to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
