Langham Place, London, N15. Photo © Roger Dean 2013

Scenery of London – G.E. Mitton, 1905:

The narrow attractive entries of Middle and Inner Temple invite an excursion, and the precincts within are well in keeping. Brick is the distinctive material of the Temple, and has been so from the first. It is said that the brick buildings of the Temple stopped the Fire, which had before reaching them grown lusty on a diet of wooden houses. Brick, toned by the smut and dust and age of generations, attains that indescribably russet hue of a gentle old age that is still hale; and this is seen to perfection in the Temple. The same colour may be seen in the dwelling of the canons of St. Paul’s in Amen Court, but here the hue is of one age and generation only, in the Temple there is every variety of brick, brick new and still unchastened, brick worn and wrinkled, brick richly glowing, brick brown with time, and all enhanced by being seen through trees or across wide spaces of smooth green.

Victoria Embankment, London, EC4. Photo © Roger Dean 2012

Although dragons have been a constituent part of the armorial bearings of the City of London for a very long time it may surprise you, as it did me, that the guarding of the entrances to the City by dragons is a much more recent tradition. The first dragon, (it is a dragon and not a griffin as is commonly thought), to stand guard was the one on top of the Temple Bar Memorial erected in 1880 outside the Royal Courts of Justice, where Strand meets Fleet Street. The next dragons placed on duty are the pair on Victoria Embankment, one of which can be seen in the photograph above. They were mounted on the plinths that already marked the boundary in 1963 although the dragons themselves predate  this (c. 1848) as they were formally mounted over the entrance of the majestic London Coal Exchange on Lower Thames Street in the City and were salvaged when it was demolished in 1962. The dragons proved very popular and it was decided to extend the idea to other entrances to the City using half size replicas of the pair that originally graced the Coal Exchange. R.D.

St Andrew Holborn, Holborn Viaduct, London, EC1. Photo © Roger Dean 2012

London by Day and Night – David W.Bartlett, 1852:

There is a building in Holborn Street, now occupied by a wholesale dealer in furniture, which once contained in a little garret-room the boy-poet, Chatterton. We visited it one day but discovered no traces of the garret-room. In answer to our inquiries, the proprietor informed us that Lord Bacon once had a suite of apartments in it – the name of Chatterton he seemed never to have heard before! It was there that Chatterton lived for a short time and perished. It was there that, after being deserted by friend after friend, and while on the point of starvation, with his own hands he ended his young life. He was dying by inches with hunger, while the conceited Walpole, who had turned him off to die with less compunction than a hunter would feel when shooting a deer, was luxuriously supplied with all that wealth could purchase; and so the young poet was buried among the paupers of Shoe Lane!

[The Resurrection Stone in the photograph above is on the exterior wall of St Andrew Holborn but it was originally over the entrance to the Shoe Lane burial ground and was moved to its present location after the burial ground was built over. R.D.]

St. Marylebone Parish Church Gardens, Marylebone High Street, London, W1. Photo © Roger Dean 2013

London Fogs – R. Russell, 1880:

The air of London is not only impure, but deprived of ozone, and on this account is not favourable to convalescents.

Minerva Street, London, E2. Photo © Roger Dean 2013

HAND-BOOK OF LONDON. Past and Present – Peter Cunningham, 1850:

Trades in London. The last population returns (1841) exhibit the following tradespeople, &c., residing in London :-

168,701 domestic servants.

29,780 dressmakers and milliners.

28,574 boot and shoemakers.

23,517 tailors and breechesmakers.

20,417 commercial clerks.

18,321 carpenters and joiners.

16,220 laundrykeepers, washers, and manglers.

13,103 private messengers and errand boys.

11,507 painters, plumbers, and glaziers.

9,110 bakers

7,973 cabinetmakers and upholsterers

[...]