Hello!

We haven’t post for a while that’s because we haven’t had any walks since June due to busy work schedule. As holiday approaches, we may finally find time and hope to resume our Wednesday Walking Club next week. 

At the meantime, I encourage you to follow Random Typography, a new blog about random typography found in various cities by our designer Elsie.

03. Then & Now I: Crutched Friars, Savage Gardens, Shad Thames

Date: Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Posted by: EL
Curator: MS
Attendees: MS, CE & EL
All photos by EL of WednesdayWalkingClub ©2011

MS has brought in this amazing book called “Lost London 1870 - 1945” by Philip Davies, it featured photos of pre-WWII of London. We had an idea of visiting the sites where the original photo was taken and examining what has changed since and what has remained.

Book jacket of “Lost London 1870-1945” by Philip Davies.
Note: All “THEN” images in this post were extracted from this book.

03.1 Crutched Friars

We started off this week’s walk from our street on Crutched Friars heading towards Mark Lane, under the train arch, to our left is Mint Hotel. 

THEN:Crutched Friars, 20 June 1912
View looking west to Hart Street and Mark Lane from beneath the arch to Fenchurch Street railway station with railway offices to the right.

THIS IS NOW:Crutched Friars, o4 May 2011.

THEN & NOW: A digital composition by EL.
As you can see, main buildings on the left remains the same. Most buildings on the left have been overtaken by Mint Hotel.

DECODED: Here is the comparison 1912 vs 2011

We continued on our journey to the other end of the street and looking back at the Fenchurch St Station’s arch. On my right now is St. Oalve’s.

THEN: Crutched Friars, 20 June 1912
View along Crutched Friars from New London Street looking east towards the end of Fenchurch Street station. To the right is the side of St Olave’s, Hart Street, the model for “St Ghastly, Grim” in Dickens’ The Uncommercial Traveller with Seething Lane beyond. On the pavement is a cast-iron firm alarm pillar, once a common item of street furniture, now entirely vanished.

THIS IS NOW:Crutched Friars, o4 May 2011

DECODED: Here is the comparison 1912 vs 2011

Next up, we went down Seething Lane and weaved around Pepys Street and arrived at Trinity House on Savage Gardens. North-east of Trinity Square.

03.2 Savage Gardens

THEN: Savage Gardens, Tower, 20 June 1913
View looking north from Trinity Square with the side of Trinity House to the right.

THIS IS NOW: Savage Gardens, o4 May 2011

Despite the building on the left looks “old”, clearly it was built after the “THEN” photo was taken in 1913. The lovely Georgian houses at the end of the street is now the stylish Mint Hotel. The building next to Trinity House seems like the original structure was kept but since have been worked on quite a bit.

DECODED: Here is the comparison 1913 vs 2011

We weaved through the busy Trinity Square, Tower Hill Station and around north side of Tower of London, onto Tower Bridge. We then made a left and headed to Bulter’s Wharf for our last site – Shad Thames.

03.03 Shad Thames

THEN: Shad Thames, c 1910
Much of the river was lined by vertiginous warehouses creating dark canyons separated by slit-like alleys leading to ancient stairs, jetties and wharves. At Shad Thames a myriad of iron bridges spanned the street to allow goods to be moved across the walkways to warehouses inland.

THIS IS NOW: Shad Thames, o4 May 2011

I didn’t create a decoded nor a composition. I believe original image from the book was taken at least from the first or 2nd floor, I will never get the image stack up. Once use as transporting goods to the other building, now these lovely bridges are balconies for some lucky posh residence who live in this Wharf.

Here is our route this week:

View 03. Then & Now I: Crutched Friars, Savage Garden, Shad Thames in a larger map

What do you think of this post? Is a city suppose to move forward with modern architecture or try to preserve the original historical buildings?

02. Secret Garden Picnic I (Revealed!)

Date: Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Curator & Posted by: EL
Attendees: JL, NP & friend
All photos by EL of WednesdayWalkingClub ©2011

It was unfortunate due to last minute deadlines (including myself), lots of people couldn’t make it and we had to make this into a quickie lunch. I kept the secret location pretty well under the lid, here it is, the mystery is revealed at last!

St. Dunstan in-the-East is truly one of the my favourite hidden London places. This medieval church is well tugged away in the midst of the Square Mile. It was destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666 and was rebuilt in 1817 by Sir Christopher Wren but was again destroyed during the blitz WWII in 1941. Since then, the city has made no plans to rebuild the church again but in 1971 was turned into a stunning urban garden.

Looks like an ordinary old church from the outside, enchanted garden inside!

North entrance into the courtyard.

Open courtyard, City dwellers taking a break from their abacuses. Apparently it’s very quiet here on weekends. This would be a perfect place to spend a Sunday morning reading a book or paper.

Glimpse of remaining architectural details.

This garden has won many awards.

Collaborating with award winning urban art project – The Insect Hotel (2010)

There are plenty of benches in this garden. I love the patterns of the stone-paved and wood patterned ground.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this post! If you ever near Tower of London/Monument, do drop by this enchanted garden. There’s also a St. Dunstan in-the-West near Cannon St. Both churches are now overlooked by the nearby All Hallows by the Tower Church. The remaining tower of the church is also running a homoeopathic clinic (Wren Clinic).

View 02. Secret Garden Picnic I in a larger map

Have you been to St. Dunstan in-the-East? Have you any favourite hidden London places? How did you find them?

This Week 27 Apr: Secret Garden Picnic

It’s been so hectic in the office for the past couple weeks, we had to cancel two of our walks. With MS on holiday this week, we still want to carry on our club. However, this will be a short walk to a secret garden location to have a picnic lunch. Bring your lunch (we can also stop by Prêt/Eat on the way), sunscreen and your sunglasses (finger cross for pleasant weather to continue through this week) and join us this week.

Date: Wednesday 27 April 2011
Time: Aim 13:00 but probably around 13:15
Meeting Point: Outside of 6 Crutched Friars EC3N
Curator: EL

Hint: Give me some credit, it’s not Trinity Square Gardens! :P

Club Cancelled This Week: 13 April 2011

Apologies, due to back-to-back deadlines this week, this week’s Walking Club has been cancelled. We shall resume next week, will post more information on here.

At the meantime, should you have any spare elf helpers or fairy dust, may we borrow some for the time being please?

01. Historic Tower Hill

Date: Thursday, 07 April 2011
Curator: MS
Attendee: CE, EL, JP, CS
All photos by WednesdayWalkingClub ©2011

With London blasting at 23ºc, we are very pleased to launch our lunchtime Wednesday Walking Club today. Our first walk started off at Crutched Friars and continue along Cooper’s Row.

Grange City Hotel
8-14 Cooper’s Row, City of London EC3N 2BQ

Our first stop. Secret London: the courtyard of this hotel still erects part of the original Roman fragments of the London Wall.

… errrhm.. it is now also a modern pigeon home…

We continued southbound on Cooper’s Row to Trinity Square Gardens.

Trinity Square Gardens (Scaffold on Tower Hill)

This garden hold some great views and history of Britain –- not only it’s a lovely park packed with City workers sunbathing in suits, it also stood memorials to the Merchant Seamen who died in both world wars and to those executed on the former Tower Hill scaffold. The Gardens were created by special Act of Parliament in 1797 and restored in 2003.

The last person executed on this site was Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, in 1747.

As we exited Trinity Square Gardens, we headed east on Upper Thames Street and tucked ourselves into the Underpass Subway to the other side of the road.

Secret London: rumoured that behind these doors inside this subway, it will led to a secret entrance for the Royal Family to access the London Underground. It is believed this used to be tube station called Mark Lane opened in 1884, it was renamed Tower Hill in 1946 and then replaced by the current station in 1967 when this site proved impossible to expand to cope with a growing number of users.

Tower of London

We weaved through the tourists of Tower of London and we turned right to continue along the Thames. We stopped in front of Traitor’s Gate and paused on the ever-growing Shard (get your mind outta the gutter!) across the river.

Did you know? The White Tower was built in 1078 by William the Conqueror.

Tower Bridge

Believe it or not, the bridge was finished “in the books” in 1894 but work was still carried out years later!

We carried on east, passed the aesthetically unpleasant The Tower Guoman Hotel (it’s so ugly!!) onto St. Katherine Lock/Docks.

St. Katherine Docks

St. Katherine Docks was opened on 25 October 1828. It was named after a hospital St. Katherine’s of The Tower built in the 12th Century. Although this dock was well used but was commercially unsuccessful due to its incapability to accommodate larger ships. This was at one point to be an Underground station between Fenchurch St and Wapping but Jubilee line was decided to go south instead. 

The Dickens Inn

The Dickens Inn is a restyled and reconstructed wooden warehouse building thought to have housed tea or to have been owned by a local brewery and is believed to be built some time in the 1700s. The Inn was opened by Cedric Charles Dickens in 1976, great grandson of the infamous British writer Charles Dickens. We were going to go in for a pizza, but it was too nice outside to be indoors.

We decided to go to Waitrose at Thomas More Square to pick up sandwiches and have a picnic. On route we passed this little mew where one side was historic cottages and the other side was urban homes.

After Waitrose, we returned to St Katherine Docks and found a little place to have our picnic in the sun. On our return route, we wrapped around the other side of Tower of London and through Tower Hill station and back to Cooper’s Row and revert to our starting point Crutched Friars.

For our route today, please see below:

View 01. Historic Tower Hill in a larger map

Lots of sun and lots of history, what a lovely day to discover our city! Must remember the sunscreen next week!!

Many thanks to MS for curating this walk.