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Italian Festival & Ritzy Strike – 2014

Italian Festival & Ritzy Strike: On Sunday 20th July 2014 I spent several hours at the Italian festival in Clerkenwell and photographed the procession around the local streets before rushing off to Brixton where striking cinema workers were holding a protest in front of the Ritzy cinema.

Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel – St Peter’s Church, Clerkenwell

I think I first photographed the procession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in 1992 – you can see pictures from then and the following year in one of my Flickr albums, Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

In 1883 when the event began it was the first Roman Catholic event on English streets for 349 years and required special permission from Queen Victoria, but since then – with a few interruptions for war etc – has taken place every year on the third Sunday in July.

Since then I’ve frequently gone back to the event and taken more photographs, though in more resent years it has become more of a social event for me, meeting up with photographer friends – including one with Italian heritage – and sharing plastic cups of cheap Italian wine.

As well as the procession I’ve always photographed the people at these events and Sunday 20th Jul 2014 was no exception. As well as watching the procession many from the Italian community come from across this country to meet with old friends at the event and enjoy the food, wine, music and dancing in the Sagra in Warner Street.

This year (2025) it is also on 20th July and if you are in London and reading this on the day I post it, if you can get to St Peter;s Church in Clerkenwell (a short walk from Farringdon Station) by 3.30pm you can see what is I think London’s largest annual and certainly most colourful Christian processions.

It is still in my diary, but probably I won’t make it this year, partly because of being tired from photographing another protest calling for an end to the genocide taking place yesterday. But also because last time I went the wine had gone up in price and down in quality. More seriously because I’ve photographed it so many times it is hard to find anything new and not just repeat myself.

The event in 2014 was, as I noted, the first I’ve attended when there were no white doves released. So, although the other pictures are all from 2014, here is one from the last time I went to the festival in 2019. Pigeons are unpredictable and often look rather strange in flight and I was pleased to get one frame with them all visible.

London, UK. 20th July 2019. Three white doves are released from a basket in the historic procession in London’s Clerkenwell from St Peter’s Italian Church.

I usually stayed for an hour or two photographing the people celebrating, but in 2014 I rushed off after the procession to photograph another event.

Much more on My London Diary Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Ritzy workers strike for Living Wage – Windrush Square, Brixton,

Despite some torrential rain “the Ritzy workers, some soaked to the skin, kept standing behind their long banner across the whole wide frontage of the cinema. Some had umbrellas, others did not, but it was the kind of rain that made umbrellas next to useless.”

*I sheltered under the tree and my umbrella but still got wet.*

For once I had my own umbrella up, holding it while taking pictures but still “enough came through to soak my clothes and my feet were squelching in my shoes.“

The Ritzy is the busiest and most successful art-house cinema in the the UK but was still paying its workers at only 82% of the London Living Wage – not enough to live on in London. Backed by their union, BECTU, they went on strike after negotiations with employers Cineworld failed. The workers say ‘Living Staff – Living Wage.

More at Ritzy workers strike for Living Wage.

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Workers, May Day March & Police Party 2006

Workers, May Day March & Police Party: May 1st is of course May Day, International Workers’ Day, and I will be at Clerkenwell for the annual May Day march in London, and perhaps some other events to celebrate the day. For Catholics it is also dedicated to Saint Joseph the Worker, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus and approopriately in 2006 my day started outside Westminster Cathedral with the launch of the London Citizens Workers’ Association. Here is what I posted back on May Day in 2006 – with the usual corrections and links to more pictures on My London Diary.

London Citizens Workers’ Association – Westminster Cathedral

May 1st saw the launch of the London Citizens Workers’ Association, a new organisation to support low-wage and migrant workers across London, backed by faith organisations, trade unions and social justice organisations. May 1 is the feast of St Joseph the Worker and the event began with a procession into the cathedral and a ‘Mass For Workers’, but I didn’t bother to get up in time for that.

After the mass was a ‘Living Wage rally’ outside the cathedral, with speakers including Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor (then leader of the Catholic Church in England & Wales), Sir Iqbal Sacranie (Secretary General, Muslim Council of Britain), and Jack Dromey (General Secretary of the TGWU) along with representatives of other unions and faiths, and of the new association.

The association aims to fight a campaign for a living wage for low paid workers as well as training them to organise and campaign and providing free advice on rights at work and legal support. Workers in low paid jobs often also lack decent working conditions and there was in 2006 little trade union representation*. It will also provide english classes.

Several large employers who have already taken steps to improve conditions were awarded ‘Living Wage Employers awards’ at the rally, but I didn’t wait around for this.
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[* Since 2006 we have seen the rise of several grass roots trade unions taking a strong stance for the rights of low paid workers, particularly migrant workers, including the United Voices of the World and the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain.]

London May Day March – Clerkenwell

Around half of London’s tube network seemed to be down for planned engineering works, and getting around was a bit like playing Mornington Crescent to some very special rules. But the Victoria Line and Thameslink got me to Farringdon well before the start of the annual May Day parade.

This seemed larger than in previous years, with a few more trade unions there, with particularly strong support from the RMT, but many others also took part, including my own – the NUJ (and there were many of us members covering the event as well.)

As usual, the most colourful aspect of the march was provided by the various Turkish communist parties, with strong youth wings. MKLP (and its KGO youth), the DHKC, the TIKB, the TKP/ML and probably more. There were some powerful reminders of the repression in Turkey in the portraits of some of those who have died in terrorist actions or death fasts.

Movements in a number of other countries were also represented, including Iraq, Iran Greece and Sri Lanka as well as the Kurds. Also taking part was the African Liberation Support Campaign Network.

Gate Gourmet strikers marching behind their banner chanted “Tony Woodley – out out!” denouncing the attempts of the TGWU to force them to sign the compromise agreement which waives their rights to further work or legal redress. Others demanded that Remploy factories be kept open. There were protests over the Dexion and Samuel Jones pension outrages, and other causes.

More or less bringing up the rear of the march were around 500-1000 in the Autonomous Bloc, an anti-capitalist grouping marching against ‘precarity’, the working environment of late capitalism.

Increasingly there is a polarisation of the employment market in our service-based economies, characterised at one end by poor conditions, lack of job security, temporary employment, use of migrant labour at one extreme, and at the other by increasing encroachment of work into the private lives of more highly paid employees, making them into company property in exchange for their security.

In contrast to the relatively low-profile police presence for the rest of the event, this bloc was flanked on both sides by a line of uniformed police. Many of the marchers in this section wore scarves covering the lower half of their faces, and some carried anarchist flags. Leading the block were a number of bicycles, and a pedal powered sound system.

The march continued on its way to Trafalgar Square, where people stood around mainly looking pretty bored. I didn’t catch much of the speeches but if what I heard was typical I could understand why.

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Autonomous Bloc in Trafalgar Square

When the Autonomous Bloc arrived at the square, the police barred their entry on the grounds of public order and seized the sound system. More than half those marching left at this point, with the police making little attempt to stop individuals who wandered into the square.

The rest of the bloc stayed on the road, with a few short speeches over a loud hailer, then moved up the side of the square towards the national gallery, where there was another short meeting. This was interrupted by the news that the police tactical support group was on its way, and they soon surrounded the relatively small group who had decided to stay.

I walked through the police line at this point, and they seemed to be making little attempt to stop anyone leaving, or at least didn’t detain them for more than a few minutes.

Pictures from the autonomous bloc on the main march here, but there are more pictures from Trafalgar Square here.

Space Hijackers Police Victory Party – Bank

While the marchers were walking to Trafalgar Square, I took what was left of the tube to Bank and the ‘Police Victory Party‘ organised on their behalf by the Space Hijackers.

There I watched Tony Blair and some rather more attractive than usual police (and with pink fluffy hand-cuffs) being watched by some other police. A couple of the latter walked away when asked if they would mind being photographed, but some others seemed to be rather amused by the proceedings.

Of course, the police (both lots) were taking lots of pictures of the events too, and I can imagine some of them causing amusement at section house parties.

There was a ‘pin the blame on the anarchist’ game, a pinata (ta for the mini Mars bar) and some dancing before I had to rush off to make the gig at Trafalgar Square. Where the politics were perhaps less serious.

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Class War Protest ‘Fascist Architect’ 2016

Class War Protest ‘Fascist Architect’: At lunchtime on Wednesday 30th November 2016 a small group of anarchists and communists protested outside Zaha Hadid Architects in Clerkenwell against their director Patrik Schumaker.

The protest came after Schumaker had given a lecture in Berlin on the London Housing Crisis in which he had apparently said “We must destroy affordable housing and remove the unproductive from the capital to make way for my people who generate value.”

A Class War poster for the event put this quotation above pictures of Schumacher and Nazi architect Albert Speer with the question “Who said this?”.

Other posters were headed with the slogan “ARBEIT MACH FREI” much used by the Nazi party and best known for its use above the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps and included pictures of the architect with minor variations on the quote.

Class war had also brought their banner with and image of US Anarchist Lucy Parsons (1853-1942) who voiced a rather different view on architecture, “We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live“. Ian Bone condemned Scuumaker’s suggestion that London should become a private enclave for the ultra-rich, with the rest of us forced out.

Other groups taking part in the protest included the Revolutionary Communist Group who labelled Schumaker as an enemy of the working class and called for social housing not social cleansing’ and two people from the London Anarchist Federation had come with their banner ‘Make London the Rebel City’.

There were a number of short speeches which among other things pointed out the “class-based absurdity of his neo-conservative proposals which would produce a London which was simply a playground for the ultra-wealthy, but would socially cleanse it of all the workers essential to its running.”

Schumaker’s Berlin lecture had been greeting with boos from the audience and had been widely disowned by architects and politicians including in an open letter from Zaha Hadid Architects.

Class War had also received a letter from one of the workers at Zaha Hadid Architects, where many are said to hate their boss. The letter suggested that Class War should protest outside his £2m home close to Highbury & Islington and gave the address, but they had decided instead to protest outside the practice.

They surrounded the entrance with “CRIME SCENE – DO NOT ENTER’ tape, and both Ian Bone and Lisa McKenzie tried to get an appointment to see Patrik Schumaker without success. According to his e-mails he was away in the Far East.

After an hour of peacefully making their point the protesters left, and I went with some of them to the nearby Betsey Trotwood before leaving for home.

More pictures on My London Diary at Class War protest ‘Fascist Architect’.

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Our Lady of Mount Carmel – 2009

Our Lady of Mount Carmel: I think it was in 1992 that I first photographed the Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel which has taken place at St Peter’s Italian Church in Clerkenwell since 1883. You can find around 50 of my photographs from that year in my Flickr album 1992 London Photos which you can access by clicking on this, the first picture in the set:

Float, Procession, In Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St Peter's, Italian Church, Clerkenwell Rd, Clerkenwell, Camden, Islington, 1992, 92-6y-62 — *1992*

I went back the following year, and I think the pictures from 1993 are generally better.

First Communicants, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Italian Festival, St Peters Church, Clerkenwell, Camden, 1993, — *1993*

And I’ve been there most years since when I’ve been in London at the right time in July, though I’m not sure if I will go this year, when The liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is celebrated on 16th July and the procession takes place on a Sunday close to that – the 2024 Procession is on the afternoon of Sunday 21st July.

It’s London’s most colourful Christian procession and the celebrations around it have an Italian liveliness – and most years I’ve gone together with a fellow photographer of Italian origin and we have enjoyed a few glasses of cheap Italian wine together. But we are getting older and the wine is getting more expensive…

And while its still a fine event to attend, in recent years it has perhaps lost a little, and like most events become a little more formalised and a little less spontaneous, harder to take the kind of informal images I like and which I hope reflect more the atmosphere of the event.

All of the colour pictures here are from Sunday 12th July 2009 which I think was for me a fairly typical year, with one exception. At the centre of the event for me photographically has been the release of doves, usually by three of the clergy. The doves fly unpredictably and extremely rapidly when released, and capturing them in flight is a challenge. In 2009 I got lucky.

Back in 2009 I was working with a Nikon D700 and made this picture with the focal length set to 24mm. That camera could take pictures at 5 frames per second, though I probably relied on pressing the button at the right time. Fortunately I’d decided to set a small aperture, f16, to try to keep clergy, background and doves in focus, although working at ISO400 this meant a slightly slow shutter speed, 1/250s.

Nikon’s autofocus kept up with the pigeon as it flew directly towards me, and its feathers and claws are the sharpest part of the image, with the background remaining only slightly out of focus thanks to the small aperture. The wingspan of a pigeon is around 30 inches and a little elementary maths tells me the bird must have been just over 2 feet from the camera. I certainly felt the breeze as it passed inches over my hair.

You can read more about the 2009 event, including the lively Italian festival – the Sagra – with various stalls food, drink, dancing and more in a street below the church, as well as the procession itself with its various floats and walking groups including the first communicants and others who carry the statues of saints on My London Diary.

The clergy join the procession in front of the last float, which carries the statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and a large crowd of parishioners follows after it as it goes around the local area before returning to the church.

Also on My London Diary are pictures from the processions in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003 as well as some later years. Our Lady of Mount Carmel 2009

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Our Lady of Mount Carmel

If you go to the web site of St. Peter’s Italian Church in Clerkenwell today you will find the programme for this year’s Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which has been taking place there since 1883. It will probably be taken down soon after the event, and at some time be replaced by the programme for next years event on Sunday 21st July 2024.

Theis year it takes place this afternoon, 16th July 2023, and the programme has some photographs from previous years, along with a map of the area showing the location of the church on Clerkenwell Road, roughly opposite Hatton Garden, the route of the march, this year going down Leather Lane and across Greville Street to Return up Hatton Garden, and the location of the Sagra in Warner Street. There is also a long list of the 38 groups in the order of the procession, the final one following Our Lady of Mount Carmel being the crowd of Parishioners.

Of course if you go there you will be able to pick up a printed copy. It’s best to arrive in plenty of time to enjoy an ice-cream, snack or plastic cup of wine or two at the Sagra before the procession begins at 3.30pm – and you can go back there again after the procession. It’s an event where everyone is welcome and there are no tickets or booking required.

The pavement on Clerkenwell Road gets very crowded so unless you are tall you will want to get there at least a few minutes before the start to find a good place to stand, though once the end of the procession has gone past you can walk to see it coming back to the church.

Many also go into the church well before the procession and even if you don’t wish to pray it is worth a visit. According to the web site it has been described as “one of the most beautiful churches in London“. When built in 1863 its “Irish architect John Miller Bryson worked from plans drawn by Francesco Gualandi of Bologna, modelled on the Basilica of San Crisogno in Rome.” And while it may not be entirely to my taste it is certainly remarkable.

As too is the procession, with its floats on lorries and walking groups in costumes related to the life of Jesus , the first communicants, and various groups and associations, some carrying the heavy statues from the church decorated for the occasion.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is one of the titles of the Virgin Mary, who was adopted as the patroness of the Carmelite Order which was begun by hermits on Mt Carmel in Palestine around the end of the 12th century. July 16 became the liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the procession takes place on the closest Sunday – and this year, as in 2017, it is on the actual saint’s day.

The pictures here are all from Sunday 16th July 2017 – and there are many more on My London Diary at Processione della Madonna del Carmine as well as more from other years.

You can also see the pictures I made the first year I went to the festival, in 1992, in an album on Flickr with 50 black and white and 19 colour pictures. In some ways I think this remains the best set of images I’ve made of the event over the years.

May Day in London 2013

For once this year May Day falls on a Bank Holiday – as it should every year, but in 1978 James Callaghan’s Labour government bottled it when establishing the Early May Bank Holiday. So it only falls on May 1st once every six or seven years – as it last did in 2017.

So in other years many of us have to work on May Day, although since I gave up regular full-time work as a teacher I’ve been able to attend the London May Day March every year except when prevented by illness or lockdown.

Most years here on >Re:PHOTO I’ve written something about the early origins of May Day and how in 1889 it was adopted as the date for International Workers’ Day by the Second International socialists and communists, and then adopted by anarchists, labour activists, and leftists in general around the world to commemorate the 1886 Chicago Haymarket affair and the struggle for an eight-hour working day.

London has a May Day Organising Committee which arranges the event, which is supported by “GLATUC, LESE, UNite London & Eastern Region, CWU London Region, PCS London & South East Region, ASLEF, RMT, MU London, BECTU, FBU London & Southern Regions, GMB London & Southern Regions, Unison Greater London Region, POA, NEU London, NPC, GLPA & other Pensioners bodies and organisations representing Turkish, Kurdish, Chilean, Colombian, Peruvian, Bolivian, Portuguese, West Indian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Cypriot, Tamil, Iraqi, Iranian, Irish and Nigerian migrant workers & communities plus many other trade unions & Community organisations.”

As the list shows, it has a very international nature – as too does London, and visually tends to be dominated by large and organised groups from some of London’s minority communities, particularly Turkish and Kurdish groups. But it’s an event supported by most of the left if a few anarchists sometimes come to the start at Clerkenwell Green to hand out leaflets but head for the pub as soon as the march itself starts.

Here are some pictures from ten years ago, Wednesday 1st May 2013. There are more on My London Diary, which also has some of the history of the event at London May Day March. I also posted a few pictures of the area to the north before the march as I arrived early, at Finsbury (though some are in Clerkenwell) as well as a piece about the TUC May Day Rally at the end of the march.

In Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

In Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel The annual procession from St Peter’s Italian Church in Clerkenwell first took place by special permission of Queen Victoria in 1883 and continues annually. On the third Sunday in July, this years was last Sunday, but in both 2019 and 2013 it was on Sunday 21st July. For this post I’ll use photographs from these two years though I’ve been on quite a few other occasions.

I can’t remember when I first got to know about the procession, one of London’s oldest and most colourful religious festivals, but I think it will have been in the early 1990s when I belonged to a group called London Documentary Photographers, organised by the senior curator of photography at the Museum of London, Mike Seaborne, and became friends with another photographer, Paul Baldesare, who as his name suggests, is of Italian extraction, his father coming to the country before Paul was born.

Since then its been a fairly regular entry in my diary, though I’ve been away from London some years, or had other pressing business. More recently it’s been more of a social occaision, where I’ve met Paul and other photographer friends with perhaps more interest in the Sagra in the street below the church, where Italian food and wine are sold, with wine often being brought in specially from small Italian family winemakers, mostly good and mainly cheap.

I didn’t go last Sunday, mainly because of the amber heat warning. There is little shade and taking pictures means much standing in direct sunlight, something dangerous for any length of time, particularly someone of my age and infirmities. Instead I stayed inside, drinking plenty of water and keeping as cool as possible.

It’s a great event, with lots of people, colourful statues being carried around the streets and a succession of floats and walking groups in costumes largely reflecting biblical scenes of the life of Jesus. There are I think two Jesus’s in the line-up, one with a communion cup leading the first communicants and another carrying a heavy wooden cross.

Photographically for me the climax comes with the release of a white dove or doves, though both the number of doves and how they are set free has differed over they years. But most years recently I think there have been three who have been held in the hands of clergy and supposedly released together. Except the clergy are not always well-synchronised and the doves too have minds of their own. Its hard to get a picture capturing all of them in a single shot.

Sometimes the doves shoot up almost vertically while at other times they speed past the cameras just over our heads. And although we think of white doves as being photogenic, at some points in their flight they look decidedly ugly and even maimed.

Back in the times of film when the cameras I used just took a single picture when you pressed the shutter release you seldom had more than one chance to capture them. Nowadays digital cameras all have modes to take multiple frames and this cuts much of the danger of missing the birds completely. It’s probably the only time in the year I have any use for the 8 frames a second my camera has on offer, though the first time I tried this the camera went into sulk mode and refused to take even a single shot and I had to grab my second camera.

But its also something I’ve now done many times and find it hard to approach in a new and fresh way. Some events evolve enough to make event fatigue not a problem but those that stay more or less the same can’t arouse the same level of interest. Perhaps I might have taken a break this year even if the weather had been less of a problem.

More pictures and details on My London Diary from 2013 and 2019 with a separate group of pictures from the 2019 Sagra.

Lucky 13 – 1986

I can’t quite work out why my album 1986 London Photographs spreads out its 1370 photographs over 14 pages, as there seem to be roughly 100 pictures on each of the pages I’ve bothered to count, but to my surprise Page 13 isn’t the last. But despite the superstitions about the number 13 it does appear to have a number of pictures I came across by luck as I walked around the streets, mainly in Islington and the City.

Barnsbury Terrace, Islington 86-10o-56_2400 — 6 and 7 Barnsbury Terrace

This pair of villas were built around 1840 are are locally listed. If you go there now you may find my picture surprising, as the pair are now more or less symmetrical, except for the additional second floor window above the recessed door of the right hand house. But it has gained the pilasters around the main windows on the ground and first floor and that on the second floor now has the three arches mirroring its neighbour.

I assumed when I took this picture that the rather stark appearance of the right hand house was probably due to a repair after bomb damage. There have been some rather more minor changes to the left hand house also.

Stone Frieze, Musgrove Watson, Battishill Street Gardens, Islington86-10p-33_2400 — Stone Frieze, Musgrove Watson, Battishill Street Gardens, Islington

I made several pictures of this remarkable stone frieze which was installed here in the new Battishill Street Gardens which were opened by Sir John Betjamin in 1975. The gardens were a pleasant quiet place to eat my sandwiches when I was photographing in the area.

The frieze had been made by Musgrove Watson (1804-1847), best known for his brass reliefs around the base of Nelson’s column for the Hall of Commerce in Threadneedle St set up in 1830 by biscuit-maker and amateur architect Edward Moxhay as a rival to other places acting as exchanges for commercial information and the display of samples including the Royal Exchange, of Lloyd’s, the Baltic, Garraway’s, the Jerusalem, and the North and South American Coffee-houses.

Never as successful as Moxhay and other investors had hoped, the Hall of Commerce was demolished in 1922, but the bas-relief frieze from its frontage was saved at UCL, and presented by Sir Albert Richardson to Islington Council for their new garden in 1974.

Fleet St, Ludgate Hill, St Paul's Cathedral, City 86-11e-54 — Fleet St, Ludgate Hill and St Paul’s Cathedral

It was only after the railway bridge across Ludgate Hill of the line leading north from Blackfriars was demolished that I realised that I had never set out to photograph what had been one of the archetypal London views of St Paul’s Cathedral.

The line between Ludgate Hill Station and Holborn Viaduct station which the bridge carried opened in 1866. Ludgate Hill station was closed in 1929 but only demolished around the time the line closed to rail traffic in 1969. The bridge remained in place until 1990 when a new line for Thameslink services was tunnelled underground below the old route.

I searched and found a few pictures, including this one, that showed the bridge from Fleet Street a short distance west of Ludgate Circus.

Hatton Place, Saffron Hill, Clerkenwell, Camden 86-11g-32 — Hatton Place, Saffron Hill, Clerkenwell, Camden

Sir Christopher Hatton was Lord Chancellor of England for Elizabeth I and his London Home was in this areagiving his name to Hatton Garden. Hatton Place is at the side of the Hat & Tun, which probably got its name from a ‘rebus’ for Sir Christopher, and Hatton Place was formerly Hat in Tun (or Hat and Tun) Yard. Back in 1871 it was described as one of the foulest smelling streets in London – and there was plenty of competition. The pub was renamed as Deux Beers Cafe Bar in 2000, but has since reverted to its former name.

I can find no explanation for the elephant head at No 13, which I presume was in some way related to the business then occupying these premises. The ground floor is now a jewellry shop and workshop but the floors above have been converted into flats and there is now a large window in place of the elephant.

Mural, Farringdon Lane, Clerkenwell, Camden 86-11g-54 — Mural, Farringdon Lane, Clerkenwell, Camden

Farringdon Lane used to be called Ray Street, and the bridge over the railway here from where I took this picture is still called Ray St Bridge. There is now no trace of the mural on the wall. I think it depicted scenes from the history and industry of the area, including the Clerk’s Well and printing. I tried several times to photograph it in colour but somehow never managed to get the colours right, and prefer this black and white version.

Holborn Viaduct, City 86-11i-11 — Holborn Viaduct, looking down Farringdon St

Another photograph of the decorative statuary on Holborn Viaduct, looking down Farringdon St and the Fleet valley towards the River Thames.

Page 13, 1986 London Photographs.

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.

London 1986 – Page 11

Temple Bar, Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, Fleet St, City, Westminster 86-9h-34_2400 — Temple Bar, Strand

Page 11 of my album London 1986 has some of my favourite black and white pictures I took that year, at least in London, and is centred around the City of London, with pictures from its northen extremities in Moorgate, Smithfield and the Barbican and close to the City in the surrounding London Boroughs, particularly Islington, where my walks took me around Farringdon, Clerkenwell, Old St and Finsbury.

Atlas Paper Works, Newington Causeway, Newington, Southwark 86-9q-31_2400 — Atlas Paper Works, Newington Causeway, Newington, Southwark

I drifted into Camden around Kings Cross, Lambeth close to Waterloo, Southwark at Newington and The Borough, Covent Garden, Temple and Strand in Westminster and Whitechapel and Aldgate in Tower Hamlets.

Wig & Pen Dining Club, Strand, Westminster 86-9h-35_2400 — Wig & Pen Club, Strand, Westminster

Those who have been following the colour work I’ve posted in the series of slices through London will recognise a number of the places in these pictures, particularly in the album TQ31- London Cross-section which I’ve written about recently. One of them is the Wigt & Pen club on the Strand, still very much in business back in 1986, but which closed in 2003.

Lloyd's Diary, Amwell St, Kings Cross, Islington 86-9o-55_2400 — Lloyd’s Diary, Amwell St, Kings Cross, Islington

Occasionally the black and white and colour versions show a similar viewpoint, but usually in black and white I was more concerned with documenting a building or place as a part of the city while the colour work was often more concerned with detail and particularly colour. The black and white is generally more of a document, more objective and the colour more personal, more of a response to the subject.

Frazier St, Lower Marsh, Waterloo, Lambeth 86-9r-11_2400 — LowerMarsh, Waterloo, Lambeth

The routes that I researched and plotted were determined by my desire to try to document the whole of London, and to photograph its significant and typical buildings, streets, squares etc. I think it was largely for practical reasons that I did this in black and white, partly because of cost, but more that black and white was able to handle a much higher dynamic range than colour film.

King James St, The Borough, Southwark 86-10a-21_2400 — King James St, The Borough, Southwark

But black and white back then was still the primary medium of photography, both in camera and in publication and exhibition. I’d worked for over 15 years primarily as a black and white photographer and almost all of my published work had been in black and white. Looking at the pictures now it is usually the black and white that still interests me most. Things have very much changed, particularly with the move to digital. I only work in colour and can’t ever see myself going back to black and white. And I seldom see black and white by other photographers – particularly not by younger photographers who have never really served their time with black and white – without thinking it would have been better in colour.

Page 11 of my album London 1986.

City to Finsbury

Blades, Hairdresser, New Bridge St, Blackfriars 1992 TQ3181-065

I found this head in a barber’s window on New Bridge St fascinating if rather revolting and made several pictures of it and a similar head in another of the shop’s windows. At £11.95 for Mens Shampoo Cut and Finish back then (£25 at today’s prices) this was an establishment catering for the relatively wealthy, though women may think it still a bargain compared with what they pay. The company which had a number of shops is still in business but not at this address.

The Queen's Head, Ludgate Broadway, 1992 TQ3181-070

Curiously this little area of central London remained largely as it had been left after the war when I photographed here in 1992. The Queen’s Head was left alone after bombing in 1940 destroyed its neighbours, the Blue Last pub, the Ventura Restaurant and a stamp dealer in Ludgate Broadway. Fifty two years later their empty spaces only in use for car parks. Although I’ve labelled it on the enprint as Ludgate Broadway, a sign on the boarding around the bomb site reads Blackfriars Lane, but the view continues down f Ludgate Broadway to Pilgrim St. The size of the tree in the bomb site gives some indication of how long this site has been empty, though I think the ground level was some way down on the other side of the fence. The red building in Pilgrim St is still there, the 1891 City Bank with a frontage on Ludgate Hill, and had recently been restored at the time of the picture. A year later Ludgate Court on its west side was renamed Pageantmaster Court. The ugly block to the left of the City Bank has since been replaced by an even uglier one, but both this and the Old Bailey are no longer visible from where I was standing after the bomb site was redeveloped, I think around 2000.

B W Bellgrove, Meat, Eagle Court, Farringdon, 1986 TQ3181-010

Apart from the colour which seemed appropriate for the trade, I was certainly attracted by the painted brickwork around the door and the signs, both for ‘B. W. Bellgrove (Meat) Limited – Wholesale. Retail & Catering Butcher’ which seemed unusually explicit, and also for the street name, Eagle Court, which made the location clear. Eagle Court is a short distance to the north of Smithfield Market, and runs between Britton St and St John’s Lane.

Wells House, Spa Green Estate, Rosebery Ave, Finsbury, 1992 TQ3182-017

Designed by Berthold Lubetkin in 1938, the foundation stone was laid in 1946 and the scheme completed in 1949, the Spa Green Estate between Rosebery Avenue and St John St in Clerkenwell is perhaps the most complete realisation of the modernist approach to social housing and a power expression of the new welfare state. It’s special status, confirmed by Grade II* listing in 1998 has enabled the estate, which had begun to deteriorate as government policies turned against council housing and made it difficult for local authorities to properly maintain it, has enable the TMO now responsible to carry out internal refurbishments to modern standards (and in many ways the original was well ahead of its times) and to restore the exterior to reflect Lubetkin’s original vision.

Wigton House, Agdon St, Finsbury, 1992 TQ3182-019

Wigton House on Agdon St in Finsbury. The street used to be called Wood’s Close, but at the start of the 20th century was renamed Northampton St, and then in 1939 the Marquess of Northampton (whose Compton family were the local landowners) was asked to suggest a new name for it and suggested Agdon St after property his family owned in Warwickshire. Back in the middle of the eighteenth century people apparently used to gather here to travel with an armed escort into London because of the danger of being robbed.

This was the rear entrance to Wigton House, whose frontage was on St John St. It was built by John Laing & Son Ltd in 1936-8 as a speculative development and named after Wigton in Cumbria, the area where the company came from. The building was converted into flats shortly after I took this picture in 1992 and renamed Paramount House. The frontage on St John St was altered but this side remains clearly identifiable.

The album TQ31 London Cross-section contains many more pictures from the City and Finsbury as well as areas both to the south and north, all made in the 1km wide strip with Grid reference beginning TQ31, all made between 1986 and 1992.