Re-photo

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.