Streets of London

Thursday, 11 May 2017

And such happens in Soho

This afternoon we saw another musical: An American in Paris, which was all song, dance and interwoven love story with an amazing amount of ballet. We were surprised by the ballet, but it was all quite delightful in a very Gershwin manner. Though some songs were so old that I didn't recognise them. The highlight for me was the stage craft. The settings were rarely still, so cleverly crafted, complex, and quite beautiful, and I would have enjoyed a tour just to see how they all are operated: some pushed, some pulled, some lowered, some raised, some unfurled. Miss Bec sobbed all through the second half. Aloud. Great hiccuping sobs. By the time the curtain went down I had a bulging handful of soggy wet tissues to find a home for. That tells us she really enjoyed it.

As the musical was in Soho we took a few hours to wander the area in detail. We often walk through bits of it. It reminds us of the West End at home, with its character and rumpled air. Recently, too, we have learned that an entire branch of Pete's family came from here so we like to think that explains why we are so drawn to it. We found the church in which some of them, Ann Jessup and her siblings, were all baptised in the early 1800's: St Anne's, Soho. It was once a small but lovely community church, with a village feel to it, set in a green space with room to breathe and bury the dead as this old borrowed image from a sketch shows. But the building was almost obliterated by the bombs of the blitz. Only the tower survived. The church land was sold off to build social housing in its green space. Funds from this sale covered the construction of a small memorial chapel and meeting room where the old church once stood, all of which is now crammed into a small opening in Dean Street that you would miss if you were not actively pursuing it.

But, a family find, nonetheless. Which gave us a very real sense of the place of this family. The amazing thing is that the parish records, from centuries back, have survived. So we can find the exact date of each baptism for each of Ann's siblings: some scrawled and blobbed with ink drops, others in copperplate perfection, depending on the skill and the mood of the vicar in the early 1800s. Brilliant records.

The area around St Anne's became home to many political refugees over the centuries: the early birds were Greek, then came French Huguenots escaping religious persecution at home, bringing with them their skills in silverwork, clock-making and silk weaving. So great were their numbers they filled half the parish of St Anne's by 1711, when there were some 3,500 French-speaking folk in just this neighbourhood alone. Italians, German workers and Russian Jews soon followed, as did many Chinese; though many of the Europeans returned home as the war broke out. Soho still has a bustling Chinatown in one section, but all the refugees have given Soho so much local colour and so much variation in cuisine that eating out is a real adventure here.

We ate lunch in a nook, called Koshari Street: a simple bowl of Koshari, an Egyptian national dish, that we can probably thank early camel traders for. We hunted this street food down after first trying it a couple months ago at a stall in the Borough Market. Koshari is a bowl with rice, macaroni and lentils at its base, heaped with chickpeas, doused in a spiced lime dressing poured from an exotic urn, sprinkled with a doqqa of spices, and, finally, finished off with a liberal handful of fine candied onions. Quite sensational. People queue down the street to eat this bowl of food, which is so simple to prepare, so healthy, but oh so delicious.

Our dessert, further on into Soho, was a little bit Italian, a little bit French, made by a tiny Chinese girl, who added a deft touch of English mint for flavour. Eclectic. Slices of sweet toasted panetonne were placed in a tower layered with cream, tiny marshmallows and nuts, with lashings of dripping chocolate to serve, and decorated with whole mint leaves. The combination created something that was a little bit weird, but a whole lot interesting: much like Soho, itself.

Some of the pubs have been around for ages, though not many date back as early as St Anne's parish records. The Salisbury was once an old Gin Palace: it still has its ornate etched glass windows and hand-carved wooden trim. These drinking haunts multiplied in this part of London as folk gradually found they had more money in their pockets as time went on. They hunted down interesting things to spend it on. Beer, typically, was drunk by men in dark tight spaces with snugs and cellars and heavy beamed ceilings that hung low to the head and sometimes connected. Gin became a little different. For a time it was the flavour of the moment: easily distilled and fun to try with different tastes, lemon and mint, for starters. Gin Palaces became rendezvous hangouts. It was a time of gas lighting so these were light airy venues, different from pubs; and windows were often built large, letting in the light. They were happy establishments where folk met to have a good time. Women, albeit those a little risqué, a little racy, with a touch of wild to their reputation, might be seen frequenting gin palaces. The Crown and Two Chairmen is another old place, reminiscent of a time when the well-heeled, or those with a crown to spare, could use a sedan chair to be carried home from a gin palace if that was their want. Or need.

Sebastian Horsley would likely have loved to travel by sedan chair. He lived in this house in Soho much like an eighteenth century dandy in the twenty-first century. The Beau Brummell of his time. Top hats, wild parties, loose men and looser women. Drugs and derring-do.

He once travelled to the Phillipines to be hung as Christ on a crucifix in an enactment of Christ's Passion. He passed out and had to be taken down from the cross. He once admitted publicly that he had slept with over a thousand people, and at one stage even turned his home into a brothel. So well known did it become that, later, when he decided to close it and have some peace, he had to put a sign on the door alerting callers that it was a brothel no longer. The sign is still there: just off Dean street, not far from St Anne's chapel.

Sebastian Horsley was conspicuous for being capricious. So much so that someone wrote a play about him and put it on in a theatre nearby. After the party, after a successful opening night, Sebastian went home, took an overdose of drugs, and died. Playing with fire ofttimes burns. And such happens in Soho.

Early stage set for 'An American in Paris'

St Anne's, Soho, once stood here

A small memorial chapel is all that remains

Many nationalities lived here

Refugees added local colour

Early traders with their picturesque produce

Delicious bowl of Kosher

Followed by our panettone dessert

The Salisbury was once an old Gin Palace

The Crown and the Chairmen for those with a crown to spare

Hire of a sedan chair was possible to return home

Sebastian Horley, a reckless modern day dandy, lived here

Sebastian died here after opening night of a play about him

Tuesday, 9 May 2017

Tale of two markets

We took a few days out to do some genealogy and give ourselves a break from walking and blogging but planned to get back to it today until we then made a rapid-fire decision about which transport to take where, and ended up on a bus that drove by a market. So tempted, we promptly jumped off and went wandering instead: without any plan at all, as is our way.

It was an old-fashioned street market that seems to line up regularly on wobbly stalls beneath the railway pillars at Shepherd's Bush, not far from our place. We often see it from the train on the way home. It has a distinct Middle Eastern flavour about it. The shoppers and the merchants are mainly mature, Middle Eastern or Indian folk. The products are comfortable, old-fashioned, cheap.

After a lunch of smokey chargrilled meats, grilled haloumi and salad with puffed hot bread we wandered the streets and found another indoor market. This was an indoor shopping centre. Like many shopping centres on the planet, no doubt, but it must recently have been given an injection of millions of dollars for a facelift as it is quite gob-smacking: all bling, glittering glass, dripping chandeliers and wild colours. Its clientele are mainly young folk. The products are edgy, of the moment and expensive.

These seemed like two different parts of the planet, yet they were just around the corner from each other: the contrast a wee bit disconcerting. We have no notion of how they even co-exist. The client groups can't possibly overlap, we believe.

This, then, is a photo log of our day: an unusual experience for us as we rarely spend time in shops, when travelling or at home.

Shepherd's Bush Market

Long aisles of products

Plastic fruit, vegetables and flowers

Stunning coloured fish: red grouper, maybe

Shoppers and traders

Colourful characters

Piles of red chillies

Fabric of choice

Our lunch - fresh bread being made

Entrance to the shopping centre

So large there is even a wee car to drive tired folk around

Coffee please, surrounded by blinding pink

Real flowers

Displays of handbags, backlit

Typical shoppers

Colourful window displays

This cuboid touch screen store info is
like a sculpture

Corridors of glass and bling

Jamie's ice and sherbet van in front of one of his Italian eateries

Lip land

Current fashion with the male pants 3/4 length

Red models and expensive wall murals

Heels as long as her legs

Boxes on boxes on boxes

Staircase and deck, sculptured

A model at the top of striped wooden stairs

Prevailing pink

Saturday, 6 May 2017

Through the ages

London is so vast now that it is difficult to imagine how it might have been, long ago. Before the Romans sought to increase their power and control trade in this part of the world there were only sporadic small groups of dwellers, Celts, dotted throughout the island, some 3 or 4 million of them, mainly involved in agriculture and self sufficiency, essentially living in smoke-blackened, thatched-covered village forts, led by their local chieftain. Cattle and sheep gave them milk, cheese, leather, wool and meat. Life was good. There was no London as such and squabbles were infrequent spats with neighbours about where one's sheep should roam, or who owned which horse.

Then came the Romans. Looking for tin, mainly.Though they hungered for all the metals on this island they called Britannia: the land of tin. Julius Caesar softened up the inhabitants with his well trained troops on a couple of occasions, but Claudius dealt the heavy blows, so after 43 AD the island came to be in the hands of the Romans, the prevailing power at the time. Claudius even named his son Britannicus, so sweet was the victory. They built roads and bridges and criss-crossed the land with mines and settlements and protected army bases from which they went about their daily business.

The Thames river settlement soon became one of the busiest spots in the country, with loaded ships entering and leaving. Its reputation as a trading port grew. Others around the ridges become covetous, and started taking pot shots at the Romans, irritating them: Angles and Saxons included. So, the Romans decided to build a wall around their southern trading port. This happened around 200 AD. It was over 6 metres high, quite Trumpian. Protecting what they needed for their troops and trade. It had many gates built as entrances and exits, along with towers and crenelated battlements as spy eyries and shooting galleries, strengthening their fort. Parts of the Roman wall that have not been completely robbed for recycled material can still be found today, looking much as they ever did. Surrounding just a few hundred acres.

The land, protected on three sides by the wall with the Thames on the fourth side, became known as Londinium. This, today, is the financial heart of London: 'the City' that, again, we are walking. The Romans dug in and made themselves completely at home here, building as they did in Italy, even finishing their homes with their beautifully laid tessellated floor tiles. Many of which are still being discovered today. This remnant of what once was a Roman home was found in situ, in what is now the crypt of All Hallows by the Tower, a wonderful church by the river, which has much to tell about London's growing pains.

Trouble set in back home, though, and the Romans needed all their men and their horses and equipment to fight back barbarians trying to attack their homeland. The power vacuum left created room for the Angles and Saxons from southern Denmark and northern Germany to move in and inhabit the space, just like powerful chess pieces. They, too, have left their mark on London. Here is an elegant Saxon tomb decoration, a wheel head cross, dated about 900 AD, only discovered while rebuilding parts of All Hallows by the Tower after the blitz damage of the war.

They even recycled Roman tiles in order to build this lovely Saxon arch that also survives in that space. But, protecting their pilferings long term became impossible. The Normans had Britain in their sights and in 1066 made good on their many threats and finally invaded, taking over the land quite forcefully. William the Conqueror built towering castles on vast strong holdings and granted great tracts of land to his most noble and powerful supporters, starting a whole new complicated web of political interconnectedness and allegiance building that has defined politics and posturing ever since. There was a new ruling elite throughout the land. And London had a brand new Tower, signposting ownership: the Normans were here. And they intended to stay.

Folk from other places still came during the following decades and centuries, using diplomatic means and their powerful allegiances. A group of monks from Italy presented papers from the Pope, asking if they might settle in London. They were well received and built an abbey near Tower Hill around 1244. The Crutched Friars they were called, as they carried a crook topped with a crucifix, a crux, a cross. They left their name on the city.

As did the Jews, in Jewry street, after William the Conqueror invited them in. He needed to borrow money at low interest rates, as the taxes he was collecting were not covering his expenses, and it was a time when Christian churches forbade lending money for interest, which stymied financial movement somewhat. The Jews were not so constrained. They could and would deal. In exchange, William offered them freedom of movement throughout the land, and for a time that worked. But, the world always turns, and those Jewish gains were eventually obliterated by Edward 1, responding to pressure from locals who mistrusted Jews, so there followed a long spell of pogroms and massacres until the ghettos of London were emptied, their inhabitants expelled. Only the name of a street, and a remnant synagogue survives from these times, albeit one with an astonishing record for holding 300 years of continuous service.

The vacuum left by the Jewish merchants was filled by money men who came from Lombardy. Many, who started out merely as merchants with big basements able to be used for safe storage for which space they charged a fee, came to be the leading figures in Lombard street, the main banking street of London city. They negotiated money deals on tables, or banco, as these are called in Italian.

Money business was initially all done at the Exchange. But the talk about it was done by men in the coffee shops where the ship's captains gathered, the ship owners, and many other lesser merchants with an eye on a prize.

One of the coffee shop owners was Edward Lloyd. He built himself a shop not far from the Royal Exchange, close to merchant sellers. He looked, he listened, he learned, while serving coffee, tea and fruit drinks. He thought to publish a regular newsletter on the movement of ships and their products, keeping tabs on different ports all around the trading world by networking with other correspondents. His trade increased. He began holding candle auctions selling the cargo of incoming ships out of his coffee shop. The winner, the last bidder as the candle guttered, might take home 'a parcel of Turkish coffee' or 'a hogshead of the finest French wine'. And so began Lloyd's. Its quarters today just steps from where Edward had his coffee shop. One only of the many monoliths of a world banking and insurance empire that had become concentrated in this contained area, once called Londinium.

Trade signs were hung to identify their addresses. Today, these are golden. One, the Golden Grasshopper, is the symbol of the Gresham family of Norfolk, whose son, Thomas, built the first Royal Exchange. It is not the symbol of a flighty son who could not decide or alight on what he wanted to do with his life. Though that was true for a time. Rather, legend has it that Thomas' ancestor, Roger, was abandoned as an infant in Norfolk fens, and only the constant chirrup of a grasshopper led him to be found, so the grasshopper very likely came to be seen as a symbol of luck, hope and success.

But just as it was all getting off the ground the Great Fire ripped through so much of it and left char and rubble, burning over 13,000 homes to the ground leaving 70,000 Londoners homeless. It raged for days. Many folk, though, had some warning. Samuel Pepys, for one, who worked in the Naval Office near the Thames and lived just a block away in Seething Lane, had enough time to have all his worldly goods loaded on to a wheel barrow and rolled to safety. His more important treasures, his parmesan and his wine, he buried in a deep pit and covered for protection. He then climbed the tall spire of All Hallows by the Tower and watched the fire burn, then wrote about it in his diary for history buffs to read.

Wells were never more important. Well water protected a good section of this part of the city, though later proved too contaminated for drinking so the wells were covered and the taps detached from the water source. Underground brooks and streams, too, played a part. In the city, under this home, runs an underground stream that can be accessed, still, via steps in the cellar. This is the city home, the Mansion House, of the Lord Mayor of London during his term of office. He is the administrative and ceremonial leader of the City of London. As opposed to the Mayor of London who administers all of London, apart from this section of old London. Two separate entities. Even the Queen has to be invited into this part of the city.

It has survived through the ages and grown bigger and stronger as time goes on. With Brexit now on the horizon it would be so interesting to return to this golden square mile in about a decade or so to see what changes that vote has wrought. One thing certain, though: change is the only real constant here.