“The House they left Behind”, 27 Ropemakers Fields, London E14 8BX, sketched in Sketchbook 14 28th Jan 2024 at 2pm (Image copyright JaneSketching.com)
The London Inheritance article shows a 1986 photo taken by the author’s father. Painted on the side of the building was the sign:
THE HOUSE THEY LEFT BEHIND BUILT 1857 RESTORED 1985
The sign has now been painted over. The wall, which is on the left of my drawing, is now completely white. But the name lives on and appears on current maps. Here is a map showing where the house is.
The building is now residential, but was previously a pub. It was “left behind” by the bombs dropped on London by the Luftwaffe in the 1939-45 conflict. The website “Layers of London” provides maps of bomb damage in London. Here is the area.
Map showing bomb damage. Classified from Total Destruction (Black), through Seriously Damaged (Dark Red) to Clearance Areas (Green). credit: https://www.layersoflondon.org/map/overlays/bomb-damage-1945 Map provided by London Metropolitan Archives. Geo-referenced with the support of the National Library of Scotland
The map is based on 1:2500 Ordnance Survey sheets originally published in 1916. The bomb damage was recorded on these maps by hand soon after it happened. The circle represents where a V2 rocket landed. The red area shows buildings that were classified as “seriously damaged – doubtful if repairable”. As you see, the pub, labelled “P.H.”and outlined in red, is shown as undamaged.
I found more information on Bomb Damage Maps from a National Geographic article on a book about the maps. This article also provides a detailed key to the colours on the map. The book is “The London County Council Bomb Damage Maps” by Laurence Ward.
“A diary entry included in the book, from architect Andrew Butler on April 20, 1941, gives an idea of what the work was like:
For the block I have started on—eight floors high with two flats on each floor—has had its whole face ripped off … I found it possible to stand on part of the roof. So, clutching a broken chimney, I surveyed the damage there. My notebook became very messy. What with the dust and soot, wet filth and the perspiration of fluster on my hands, it was difficult to read what I wrote. The notes served their purpose however when, after drying the book, I had to transcribe them into a report.”
Here is my work in progress on the sketch. Thank you to the author of “A London Inheritance” for providing the stimulus for this expedition. Thank you also to the friends and family of local resident David Newell-Smith, on whose memorial bench I completed the sketch. His dates are given as 1937-2017. He would have been a boy when the bombs were falling.
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Here is the Market Café, sketched from the “Cat and Mutton Bridge” on 19th January 2024.
Market Café, 2 Broadway Market, London E8. Sketched 19th January 2024, 15:30, in Sketchbook 14.
As you see, this building is the former pub, the “Sir Walter Scott”. A pub was on this site in 1836. The wording on the building says “rebuilt 1909”. It closed as a pub in 1999 according to “pubhistory.com”. The Market Café now operates from the ground floor.
The website of Broadway Market gives a history of this area. In the early 19th century, the canal was the major means of freight transport, until the coming of the railways in the 1840s.
In 1812 “The Regent Canal Act” was passed and the Regent’s Canal constructed. This final link was direct into the River Thames at Limehouse, completing the passageway of heavy freight to Birmingham Manchester and the entire industrial North. (It should be noted that this was at the time of horse-drawn stage coaches and ox-laden wagons).
The new Regents Canal became a central pivot for industry and supplies. Timber warehouses grew, Gas light and Coke companies were established and this once rural backwater had become a major hub of enterprise.
This “once rural backwater” evidently needed a pub. Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish historian, novelist, poet, and playwright. He died in 1832, which must have been around the time this pub was named and the area was growing in population and importance.
The National Library of Scotland provides a wonderful side-by-side map, so you can see how the area looked previously, alongside a modern map. Click the image below to go to their marvellous site. You can shift the images around and expand them: both maps change at once. It’s fascinating.
I had a look at an 1870 OS map. The Public House “P.H.” existed here in 1870. The road currently called Broadway Market was called “Pritchards Road” then. You can see the rows of terraced houses along the canal, gone now, and the “Coal Wharf” and “Wood Wharf” which used to be on the south side of the canal.
Broadway Market is now a street of modern coffee shops and small enterprises, with a street market of stalls down the middle. The jeweller William Cheshire has a workshop at the south end of the street. Climpson Coffee are further up. There are bakers, grocers, greengrocers and an opticians. At the North end, Broadway Market gives onto London Fields, a lovely park, with a lido.
It’s a great area to explore.
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Rheidol Rooms is a café in Islington, just North of the Regent’s Canal. I sketched it on a bright cold day.
Rheidol Rooms, 16 Rheidol Terrace, London N1 sketched 3pm 10 January 2024 in Sketchbook 14
The tree cast its image onto the café. The twigs is the shadow were so sharply defined that it was hard to distinguish the shadow from the tree.
Despite that bright blue sky, the temperature was 2 degrees C and there was a wind. I froze, and walked across to the café. Sadly, it was closed, but it looked like a really good café and I will go back. I finished the drawing at my desk.
The colours in the picture are:
Mars Yellow
Ultramarine Blue
Burnt Umber
Serpentine Genuine (green, for the window frames)
The grey and black is made from a mix of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber
The café is at the junction of St Peter’s Street and Rheidol Terrace. It is in a 19th century row of terraced houses. “British History Online” indicates that this terrace was constructed in 1848-52.
Sketch map location of the Rheidol RoomsMap (c) OpenStreetMap contributors
Reference: British History Online: the history of this area is here: A P Baggs, Diane K Bolton and Patricia E C Croot, ‘Islington: Growth, South-east Islington’, in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8, Islington and Stoke Newington Parishes, ed. T F T Baker and C R Elrington (London, 1985), pp. 20-24. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp20-24 [accessed 11 January 2024].
“….the block bounded by St. Peter’s Street, Rheidol Terrace, and Cruden Street as far as the backs of houses in Queen’s Head Lane, with provision for 14 semi-detached and 74 terraced houses, was taken by James and Thomas Ward and built up by James Ward and sublessees. Leases for nos. 7-21 St. Peter’s Street, pairs of stuccoed villas originally called Angell Terrace after the Clothworkers’ surveyor, Samuel Angell, who probably laid out the estate, were granted in 1848 and for the rest of the block from 1848 to 1852.”
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An old brick building stands amongst the new-build. The paint on its window frames is flaking, and its brickwork is dark from the smoke of a previous age, yet it retains its dignity: a grandmother of a building.
15 Lamb’s Passage, London EC1, sketched 5th January 2024 in Sketchbook 14, 4pm, 6 degrees C
This is the former St Joseph’s School, built in 1901, which ceased operation as a school in 1977. On its roof you can see the wire netting which once must have surrounded a playground or netball court.
St Joseph’s Church is in the basement, accessed by the porch you can just see to the right of my drawing behind the furthest lamppost.
The area in front of the building is a quiet garden, in memory of Basil Hume, an English Catholic bishop. Sometimes the gate is open and you can go in. It has been arranged so that, even in this tiny space, it is possible to walk some kind of small pilgrimage, along a path, across a ditch, past a tree, and so round a corner to rest in the shaded hut. On the way you encounter a splendid birch tree with white bark, which I have seen grow from a sapling.
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD
This quiet garden is dedicated to the memory of BASIL HUME monk and shepherd 1923-1999
Number 15 Lamb’s Buildings hosts several organisations now. The City Photographic Society uses the Church Hall in this building. It is also the registered office of the Catholic Herald. I have often heard music as I pass by, so it might also be used as a rehearsal space. There is ballroom dancing on Mondays. The smaller building to the south, on the left of my drawing, hosts a pregnancy advice centre. So this is a set of buildings is in use, actively serving the community despite the flaking paint.
I made this drawing quickly as the light faded on a cold and windy evening. After the pen, I retreated back to my desk to apply the colour.
This church stands on Fleet Street, near the Royal Courts of Justice. It is set a little back from the road, so I had not really noticed it. But it is remarkable in many ways.
St Dunstan-in-the-West, 186a Fleet Street, sketched 31 Dec 2023, in Sketchbook 14
For one thing, the architect has used every possible ornate contrivance. It was impossible for this urban sketcher to do justice to the extraordinary details. The crocheted spires! The castellations! The geometry! The lacy top! The stonework above the door!
The geometry is interesting because the tower starts as a squarish-type shape at ground level, and then higher up there is an arrangement of planes which slice off the corners, turning it into an octagon at the top. At the higher part of the tower, the stonework is open so the sky is visible between the fine arches and spires.
Then there are the clocks. There are two clocks on the tower, both showing the correct time. And there is another clock, also showing the correct time, suspended on a substantial wooden bracket below a little covered stage. Inside the stage are two muscular wooden figures, and two bells. The figures strike the bells every quarter hour. The little stage is described as an “aedicule” in Pevsner, who tells me that the clock was made in 1671.
The clock and the small covered stage (aedicule”), with wooded figures.
At ground level there is a rather austere monument: the bust of a man, on a plain triangular plinth, labelled simply “Northcliffe MDCCCLXV MCMXXII”. And behind that, above a door, a dusty statue, evidently very old, of Queen Elizabeth the First.
Northcliffe memorial. (Lord Northcliffe 1865-1922)Elizabeth statue (Queen Elizabeth I 1533-1603)
To the left of the church door there is a font set in to the fence. Round the edge, barely legible, it says “The gift of Sir James Duke Bart MP Ald of this ward”.
Next to the church, on its left, is a beautiful building, which is mysteriously empty and boarded up. This is 187 Fleet Street. It also has a clock, but this one did not show the correct time.
Another mystery: St Dunstan-in-the-West burial ground is some distance away to the north, on Breams Buildings, see map above.
St Dunstan-in-the-West Burial Ground, entrance on Breams BuildingsSt Dunstan-in-the-West Burial Ground
“IanVisits” has an article on the Burial Ground published in 2020. When he visited it was clearly in a better condition than it is now. On my visit, December 2023, the burial ground was litter-strewn and neglected, overshadowed by a building site to the East, and defiled by plastic advertising hoardings flapping on its north fence.
The current St Dunstan-in-the-West church was constructed in 1830-1832 to the designs of John Shaw senior, and completed by his son, also John Shaw. This building replaced a much older one. The church website says:
“It is not known exactly when the original church was built, but it was between 988 and 1070 AD. It is not impossible that St Dunstan himself, or priests who knew him well, decreed that a church was needed here.”
It is an active Anglican church, open during the week, with services on Sundays, according to the notice on the door. The building also hosts the Romanian Orthodox Church.
Northcliffe, it turns out, was quite a character. He was a press baron, founder of the Daily Mail, and promoter of popular journalism. He launched the Daily Mail in 1876. At a time when newspapers were mostly intended to be serious reading, Northcliffe realised the potential of offering “entertainment” and “diversion”:
Hamilton Fyfe, a trusted contributor [to the Daily Mail], recalled that ‘the Chief’ wanted the Daily Mail to ‘touch life at every point … He saw that very few people wanted politics, while a very large number wanted to be entertained, diverted, relieved a little while from the pressure or tedium of their everyday affairs.’
Northcliffe gradually built up his empire, acquiring the The Times and other newspapers. By 1914 he controlled 40% of the morning newspaper circulation, 45% of the evening and 15% of the Sunday circulation in Britain (Wikipedia). A fascinating article by Jessica Kelly of Cardiff University says that, due to Northcliffe’s influence, “politicians of the age sought his approval and support during this most uncertain and unpredictable of times”. Northcliffe publications advocated war against Germany. Once war was declared, they were a “solidifier of British public opinion behind a total war”. The author of this article makes a striking comparison between Rupert Murdoch today, and Northcliffe in the Edwardian era.
Lutyens designed the obelisk for the Northcliffe Memorial in St Dunstan-in-the-West, and the bust is by Kathleen Scott. (Pevsner)
I sketched the church standing on the other side of Fleet Street, near the office of C Hoare and Co, bankers. The church was closed when I visited, but I shall certainly go back and have a look inside during its opening hours.
References
“The Buildings of England, London 1: The City of London, by Simon Bradley and Nikolaus Pevsner (1999 edition)” page 214
Thank you for reading my posts and looking at my pictures. I appreciate your encouragement and comments.
Here is my New Year Card for 2024.
New Year 2024: “Ascent” woodcut and collage – 5″ x 7″
I intended the image to be one of hope: of collaboration and of working together towards a higher goal.
The main image is a woodcut on plywood. Here is work in progress:
The woodcut image is inspired by a sculpture on the wall of a building in Hoxton. The building is called “Development House” 56-64 Leonard Street. I can’t find any attribution for the sculpture and would be interested to know who the artist is, if anyone can tell me.
Technical information: The woodcut is on plywood, bought from “Great Art”on the Kingsland Road, not far from this sculpture. The ink is Schminke relief ink, applied with a roller. I printed the image by hand at my desk, using a roller and pressing the paper down with the convex side of a spoon. The paper is lightweight Thai Mulberry (45gsm) in various shades: sea grey, peppermint and natural, bought online from the “Perfect Paper Company”. The round “planets” are offcuts of marbled paper from the Wyvern Press. I cut the stars out of old sparkly wrapping paper, using a star cutter. The “Happy New Year” text is cut from a pencil eraser. Other text is from an old-fashioned printing outfit.
Here is The Canal Building, at the north end of Shepherdess Walk, sketched yesterday from the junction with Eagle Wharf Road.
Canal Building, Shepherdess Walk, London N1, sketched 29 December 2023 in Sketchbook 14
The building overhanging, in the top right of the drawing is part of Angel Wharf, 164 Shepherdess Walk. Shepherdess Walk leads over the Regents Canal, the bridge is just behind the cars in the picture. The buildings you see above the cars are on the other sidee of the canal. On the left is the “Wenlock Brewery”.
There is a tiny object on the roof of the Canal Building, next to the flagpole. It was hard to see what it was, but it looked like a wooden owl.
The Canal Building is a former 1930s Art Deco warehouse. In 2000, it was converted into apartments and commercial space to the design of the architects Child Graddon Lewis. This building gained the architects a place amongst the finalists for the 2023 Architecture Today Awards, in the category “Mixed Use and Retail”. There are 35 new apartments, 45 live/work units and 1100 sq metres of commercial space. Here are photos of the building from the canal side.
I did the pen on location and added the colour at my desk later. It was cold outside and I was sitting on a damp stone wall. Many people were out and about in the area, and two of them stopped to say hello and look at the drawing.
Pen doneDamp mossy wall…my sketchbook…coffee
There are just three main colours in the sketch: Buff Titanium, Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue.
Buff Titanium for the Canal Building
All greys and blacks are Ultramarine Blue plus Burnt Umber
Ultramarine Blue for the blue car, the blue notice, and in the sky
The trees are Burnt Umber
And that’s it! There is a bit of Mars Yellow for the car number plate.
All colours are Daniel Smith except the blue, which is Schminke Horadam.
This is my first sketch in a new sketchbook!
Sketchbook 14
Here are some other sketches I’ve done in Shepherdess Walk:
Here is The Eagle. This is a very old pub, located at a significant junction on City Road. In the picture above, the alley on the right of the pub is called “Shepherdess Place”. It leads to a police car park, and several…
Here is Plumage House, 106 Shepherdess Walk, London N1. This was a feather factory. According to Spitalfields Life this operated until 1994. The building is now rather shabby, though in a dignified way. I wonder what will happen to it? In the drawing,…
Here is St Leonard Shoreditch, which stands at the intersection of Shoreditch High St and the Hackney Road, postcode E1 6JN.
St Leonard’s, Shoreditch Church sketched 23 November 2023, 12″ x 9″ [sold]
There has been a Christian church here since medieval times. The present building dates from 1741 and was designed by George Dance the Elder (1695-1768). George Dance the Elder was the City of London surveyor at the time, and designed, amongst other buildings, Mansion House at Bank Junction.
The current church is active in the community. On the day I was sketching, a Thursday, they were offering meals to local people. This is the Lighthouse Project, “providing practical help, food parcels and hot meals to local people in need” according to their website. You can see several guests in the picture.
When the church was recently rebuilt at the turn of the millenium, a large amount of money was spent on its community needs and no funds were left to buy paint. Hence it still looks a bit bohemian. We think it’s quite endearing and shows people where our priorities are – with the community rather than how we look.
The current community is highly diverse. The wealth of the City meets the deprivation of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Our neighbours in Arnold Circus and St Hilda’s Community Centre are highly galvanised community groups acting for societal change.
This church houses the “bells of Shoreditch” from the children’s song “Oranges and Lemons”. If you go inside the church you can see a bell, which is resting on a wooden pallet on the right hand side of the nave.
when I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch.
Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement’s. (St Clement Danes) You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin’s. (St Martin in the Fields) When will you pay me? Say the bells at Old Bailey. (St Sepulchre-without-Newgate) When I grow rich, Say the bells at Shoreditch. (St Leonard Shoreditch) When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney.(St Dunstan’s Stepney) I do not know, Says the great bell at Bow. (St Mary Le Bow) Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
The Society of Cumbernauld Youths in 1784 rang a complete peal of 12000 changes of Treble Bob Royal, taking nine hours and and five minutes, according to a placard in the church porch.
The bells are still rung.
This picture was a commission. My client was keen to have this upward view showing the front of the church. I did some practice sketches to understand the tricky upward perspective.
Thank you to my client for suggesting I draw this inspiring church, and for their permission to publish the photos of the drawing online.
Practise drawing in sketchbookpencil sketchExploring the perspectivenearly finishedPractise drawing in sketchbook 13
Here is a map showing the location:
There is a current exhibition in the Guildhall London:
“Treasures of Gold and Silver Wire” curated by Dr. Karen Watts, Emeritus at the Royal Armouries. It celebrates the 400 anniversary of the Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers.
St Leonard Shoreditch is the spire to the left of the wordsThe Silver Jubilee Cope on display in the Guildhall 16th December 2023
Having myself had a go at depicting those arches and columns on the spire, I am full of admiration for the embroiderers who managed to create an accurate image in wire thread. Hugely accomplished! The exhibition is on until 31st December 2023- well worth seeing.
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Having sketched the Stoke Newington New Church, I was keen also to sketch the Old Church, which is just the other side of the road. This church is Elizabethan, constructed in 1562, on a very ancient site. It is in active use, and shares a vicar with the New Church across the way.
Old Church of St Mary, Stoke Newington, London N10 sketched 1 December 2023 in Sketchbook 13
The churchyard is overgrown and atmospheric, it was wonderful to stand there on this cold clear day.
The building is Grade II* listed. The listing is here and the At Risk listing is here. It is listed because of much of the building from 1563 has survived, and because very few churches were built in this period. Also, the listing comments on its “group value”, because it stands next to the New Church. “The two make a memorable contrast and are a striking visual representation of the demographic changes from the C16 to the C19 in this area.” says the listing. The Old Church is small and domestic in scale, the New Church is magnificently huge.
Some history is given on the placard by the entrance.
ST. MARY’S OLD CHURCH, STOKE NEWINGTON The Manor of Stoke Newington is recorded in the Domesday Book (1086) to be the property of the Canons of St.Pauls Cathedral in whose possession it still remains. It is reputed to have been the Gift of King Athelstan about the year 940. It is probable therefore that a Church has occupied this site since Anglo-Saxon times. The South Aisle was built in 1563 by William Patten Lord of the Manor In.1829 Sir Charles Barry enlarged the Church. Severe bomb damage was sustained in 1940 and the Church was restored to its present state in 1953.
The future? This building is on the Historic England Heritage at Risk register, at risk level A, the highest, because there is “immediate risk of further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric; no solution agreed”
I sketched the church quickly as it was 2 degrees C outdoors. Then I caught the number 73 bus back down the hill to central London. Here is work in progress on the sketch.
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Here is the magnificent Trellick Tower in West London.
Trellick Tower from the Golbourne Road, London W10. Sketched 28 November 2023 in Sketchbook 13
This tower is 271 flats, 31 stories, completed in 1972 to the design of Ernő Goldfinger (note 1). It is in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, near the Grand Union Canal and the A40 trunk road out of London. It is Grade II* listed (note 2)
After sketching, I was really cold. I found warmth and excellent food in the Sicilian Café “Panella” shown on the map above, recommended!
Panella – Golborne RoadSketching locationA bright and cold daythe base of the Trellick TowerSketchbook spread: Trellick Tower
I have previously sketched the Balfron Tower in East London, also designed by Ernő Goldfinger.
