On the Edge
Happy New Year to all our readers, from Terroir North and South!
Our Christmas blog (no. 97 on Christmas landscapes) gave thanks to our forebears for creating a mid-winter festival which broke the monotony of cold and darkness and created hope by welcoming the return of the sun. But why, for much of the world, does the first day of the New Year follow so closely on Christmas celebrations?
For the western world it seems that we can blame the pre-Christian Romans when they overhauled their ten month calendar to be more in tune with the 12 lunar cycles in the solar year. January and February were added and the former, of course, was named after Janus (right), the god of doorways and beginnings. It must have seemed apt, therefore, to move the start of their new calendar year from the vernal equinox in March, to the beginning of January, a portal which was under Janus’ bi-directional supervision.
Less than a thousand years later, the Romans converted to Christianity and December 25th became a significant religious festival. Some Christian countries reverted back to a March New Year, which seems eminently sensible, but many continued with the big winter combo.
As a child, Terroir remembers a clear separation between the excitement of Christmas and the start of the new year. This slack period was a time when fathers went back to work and mothers did their best to entertain offspring before school re-started in early January. Banished to bed long before midnight, the line between the years was something we crossed in our sleep. We went to bed in one year and woke up in another; that was about as exciting as it got. New Year’s Day in England and Wales wasn’t even promoted to bank holiday status until 1974. But today, many Brits consider Christmas-and-New-Year as one extended mid-winter break.
As we manoeuvred ourselves through that colourful, expensive, highly-decorated, time-consuming, alcohol-fuelled, exciting, exhausting and anticipatory period which is known as ‘the-run-up-to-Christmas’ (aka Advent), Terroir started thinking about the very different festival geography of New Year’s Eve. This has a much shorter lead time and is over in the pop of a prosecco bottle as we all cross the temporal line from one year to the next in a geographical sequence westwards from the Pacific Ocean.
Time takes us to the edge of one year and pushes us over to the edge of the next. But, while the seasons march on, the world is full of other lines, edges and boundaries.
Here are some of the edges we spotted over the last 12 months.
And, at the far edge between an extraordinary 2022, we wish you a happy, healthy, stimulating and fulfilling 2023.
The Pool of London
On crossing London Bridge, one of Terroir’s parents would always look east to see what shipping was in the ‘Pool’. The Pool of London was always a bit of a mystery to the offspring. It looked just like a normal stretch of tidal Thames to us. But for a woman who had commuted to work in the City of London before, during and after WWII, and who had watched the bustle and vibrancy of the Thames wharves and docks from the top of London buses, the Pool of London would always hold a special place in her Londoner’s heart.
More recently – much more recently - Terroir took a visit to the Tower of London to see how the Superbloom was coming on (image right). More of that in future blogs, but the walk along the north bank of the Pool, from the Tower of London to London Bridge was like stroll along a historical transect from the medieval to the modern.
The Pool of London played an integral part in the growth of the City of London and has a long history of commerce, crime and social issues. Wikipedia gives a good summary. Originally, the Pool of London was the name given to the stretch of the Thames along Billingsgate. This is the stretch you can see from London Bridge and where HMS Belfast is moored.
And this was where ‘all imported cargoes had to be delivered for inspection and assessment by Customs Officers, giving the area the Elizabethan name of "Legal Quays".’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_London and https://en.wikipedia.org)
London Bridge, itself, prevented shipping from going any further up river but, as both overseas and ‘coastal’ trade increased, the concept of the Pool spread downriver, eventually reaching the Rotherhithe/Limehouse area. By the end of the 18th Century, with the slave trade and Caribbean colonies in full swing, the Pool could no longer cope with the volume of trade and shipping, and the first, off-river dock was constructed specifically for the West Indian trade. Other off-river docks followed, of course. The whole maritime commercial area, including the Pool, remained viable right into the 1950s despite damage caused during the Blitz.
Terroir walked along the north bank of the Pool of London (now part of the modern Thames Path) from the south west corner of the Tower of London to London Bridge. The map extract, below, shows what it all looked like in 1873. The Great Ditch of the Tower of London is just visible on the right, London Bridge on the left.
All map extracts reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland' https://maps.nls.uk/index.html
Sugar Quay Wharf
Known as the Wool Quay in the 13th century, this wharf was the location of a building which was key to the Port of London: a custom house. In this case it was used to collect duties on exported wool. There were a number of iterations of this Custom House: a new building, overseen by the then Lord High Treasurer, William Paulet, was built around 1559, but was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.
Christopher Wren designed the replacement, which was constructed in the early 1670s, but fire hit again in 1715, necessitating a fourth rebuild. This one managed to function, unsinged, until the early 19th century and then, yes, a fire started in the house keeper’s quarters where, apparently, both spirits and gunpowder were stored (really?) and Customs House No 4 exploded. And people criticise modern Health and Safety Regulations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Quay
By 1934, Wikipedia reports that the Batavia Line, which ran a steam ship passenger service between Rotterdam and London, was berthing its ships here. In 1970, Terry Farrell designed an office building for Tate and Lyle, but the final break from both shipping and sugar came with its conversion to a mixed use development in the 20 teens. Or maybe that statement isn’t quite true: the developer – CPC – was owned by the Candy Brothers.
Custom House
Custom House No 4 was doomed before it exploded. London’s maritime trade was booming and a larger Custom House was commissioned for the site adjacent to the one described above. Bear Quay, Crown Quay, Dice Quay and Horner's Quay were all subsumed by the new build, leaving a single Custom House Quay or Wharf.
Designed by architect David Laing, the new Custom House was completed in 1817. The building contained warehouses and offices, and the basement cellars (fireproofed) were used to store wine and spirits seized by the revenue men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custom_House,_City_of_London).
The Custom House curse had yet to be appeased, however, and the building partially collapsed in 1825, when the timber pilings under the building caved in. Wikipedia reports that the building contractors “had grossly underestimated the cost of the work and had started to cut corners. The foundations were totally inadequate” and “questions were asked in Parliament”. Familiar? After rebuilding, no further disasters seem to have occurred, until the east wing was destroyed in the Blitz. It was later rebuilt behind a re-created historic façade.
The former Quays have gone but the building remains. It is listed grade I. Plans to convert the building into a hotel were rejected in 2020 and the project went to appeal early this year.
Billingsgate Market
As a market, Billingsgate started out as a general wholesale supplier of corn, coal, iron, wine, salt, pottery, fish and miscellaneous goods, and it wasn’t until the 16th century that it became for specifically associated with fish (https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/supporting-businesses/business-support-and-advice/wholesale-markets/billingsgate-market/history-of-billingsgate-market)
And it wasn’t until 1850 that the first market building was erected, to replace an array of market stalls and sheds. It quickly proved to be inadequate – this was the 19th century, after all, an era of constant change and expansion – and a new market building was erected in 1875, designed by City Architect Horace Jones and built by John Mowlem and Co.
Just as Covent Garden’s real estate was released when the Fruit and Vegetable Market moved to more spacious and accessible premises in 1974, so the fish market was removed to Docklands (the Isle of Dogs) in 1982. The Pool of London building – listed grade II - remains beside its Grade 1 Custom House neighbour, and was refurbished for office use by architects Richard Rogers. It is now a hospitality and events venue.
Grant’s Quay Wharf
We’ve called this section of the water front Grant’s Quay Wharf simply because this name features on one of the City of London’s signs.
From studying the historic maps – there is an excellent sequence at https://theundergroundmap.globalguide.org/article.html?id=34336&zoom=16&annum=2022 – this area appears to have resisted major redevelopment until the first half of the 20th century. 19th century maps appear to show a succession of narrow, bonded warehouses. Their northern elevations abut Lower Thames Street and cover the site of St Botolph's, Billingsgate, a church destroyed in the Great Fire of London and never rebuilt. To the south, the warehouses are just a road’s width away from the riverside quays and wharves with which they were intimately linked. Names include Fresh Wharf, Cox’s Quay, Hammonds Quay, Botolph Wharf, Nicholson’s Steam Packet Wharf, and at the eastern end next to Billingsgate Market, an ominously named residential street called Dark House Lane, which links to Summer’s Quay stairs.
By 1950, much has changed but the area still appears to be a working wharf. Not so today. The area is now a rather uncoordinated and largely uninspring development, which does little to reflect the lives and times of its riverside forebears.
Church of St Magnus the Martyr and London Bridge
Walking the Thames Path to London Bridge, you would hardly know that the parish church of St Magnus the Martyr is still squeezed in between the Bridge and the west end of the developments described above. As with St Botolph’s, St Magnus’ church was also destroyed in the Great Fire but was rebuilt by Wren in the 1670s and 80s.
Glance north as you approach the bridge and you will see the church spire fighting for vertical supremacy with the Monument, lamp posts and modern buildings.
The end of our historic transect reminds us of the importance of stairs in Thames-side life: stairs to reach the Watermen who ferried passengers to and fro, and up and down the river. Stairs which enabled mudlarking at low tide. And now a modern flight to enable Londoners and visitors to reach the Thames Path, its cafes, its views and its historic treasures.
Modern access between London Bridge and the northern riverside had been problematic for many years, but an elegant solution, in the form of a cantilevered, stainless steel, spiral staircase (designed by Bere:architects) was opened in 2016 and has revolutionised the Thames Path in this area. An honourable addition to the more traditional Thames stairs.
