This cell is on display at the Museum of London and is from the Wellclose Square Prison, also known as the Neptune Street Prison. It was primarily used as a debtors prison and this cell dates to around 1750, once located under the Cock and Neptune public house. Wellclose Square still exists, a short walk from the Tower of London, with the prison being used until the late eighteenth century.
And some of the graffiti etched into the walls of the cell.
This might not look the most exciting of exhibits at the Museum of London, but there’s a lot of heritage in it. It’s a combined lump of smashed glass and window lead from Merton Priory, which would have been caused during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It’s not known how old the glass and lead is, but it’s probably from the mid to late fifteenth century.
Normally, this would have been carried away by those demolishing the building, but somehow it was overlooked and it was only discovered during excavations of the site between 1986 and 1990. It was quite a fall for the wealthy priory, which in 1437 had held a ceremony in honour of King Henry VI. The site is now a Sainsbury’s supermarket, which isn’t ideal (other than for shoppers) although the foundations of the chapter house remain. Not much else is left, materials were mostly taken to Nonsuch Palace, which in turn was demolished in 1682 to pay off gambling debts. But, at least some of the lead has survived, perhaps not in such a glamorous format as its design intended, but still here as a reminder that the priory once existed.
This sign, now in the Museum of London, dates back to 1929 when it would have been a little exotic in its styling (there would have been light bulbs behind it to provide sufficient illumination), designed to appeal to American tourists to the hotel. I like that museums keep quirky things like this, it reminds me of the Neon Museum in Las Vegas (I accept they have more than one sign though).
The name of the bar at the Savoy, the American Bar, was also evidence of who it was trying to target, namely those wealthy American visitors to London. The bar, which was most decadent, was one of the first in the city to produce a cocktail menu and this was seen as most sophisticated. The museum notes that the grill restaurant would have served “terrapin, clams and oysters imported directly from the US”. I’m not sure about the terrapin….
There have been numerous Newgate prisons over the years, but the medieval one was destroyed during the Great Fire of London in 1666. The new one was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and opened in 1672, but work started in 1770 on a more modern building. No doubt much to the annoyance of the authorities, the new prison that hadn’t yet quite opened was destroyed during the Gordon Riots of 1780 (the worst rioting in the city centre of London that has ever been seen).
So, they started again, with the new prison buildings being completed in 1782. This door, dating from that time, is on display at the Museum of London and it’s fair to say that its wooden and iron construction makes it look well-built and secure. The prison itself survived until 1902 and it was pulled down in 1904, with the Old Bailey building constructed on the site.
The Museum of London has placed some of its large collection of pilgrimage badges on display, part of what was meant to be an exhibition marking 850 years since the death of Thomas Becket. I like pilgrimage badges, they were produced in vast quantities and modern examples still exist for those who walk routes such as the Camino de Santiago (many other routes also exist, although that’s the one I did and so that’s the one that’s getting mentioned here).
This badge is made from pewter and dates to the end of the fourteenth century, marking when Thomas Becket returned from exile in 1170. He was murdered in Canterbury just a few weeks later by knights who misunderstood what King Henry II wanted. There are numerous figures on the badge, there’s Becket himself, along with a knight, a clerk, a companion of Becket and sailors.
Pilgrimage badges aren’t rare, but they all hold the same historic value that it was likely a treasured possession of someone who had gone on a pilgrimage, often a dangerous journey, and it would have been of great symbolism to them.
This is another marvellous exhibit in the Museum of London, a plaque dating to 1681 which was placed outside the site where the Great Fire of London started on Pudding Lane. The museum notes that the plaque had to be removed in the early eighteenth century, as traffic jams were caused by people stopping to read it.
The plaque reads:
“Here by ye permission of heaven, hell broke loose upon this Protestant City from the malicious hearts of barbarous Papists, by ye hand of their agent Hubert, who confessed, and on ye ruins of this place declared the fact, for which he was hanged vizt. that here began that dreadful fire, which is described and perpetuated on and by the neighbouring pillar.”
This attempt to blame the Catholics, as someone always has to be blamed for disasters, was also replicated on the Monument which still stands today by the underground station of the same name. The text on the main monument was though scratched out in the early nineteenth century. Hubert refers to Robert Hubert who confessed to the fire, but no-one really believed him during the criminal trial. However, it suited the authorities to find him guilty and he was hanged at Tyburn on 27 October 1666.
The actual state of the plaque is a little more complex than the signage at the museum suggests, as the plaque was taken down on the orders of King James II, not unsurprising as he was a Catholic monarch (the last one in this country). King William III ordered it back up again, before its removal for the traffic reason mentioned by the museum, probably in around 1750 to 1755.
After the plaque was taken down for the final time, it was placed in the cellars of the building of 23 Pudding Lane, where it remained until the authorities demolished it to build Monument Street. It is remarkable that this has survived, but it’s a reminder of the days when people made false statements about those with other beliefs in a bid to create disharmony and hate. Perhaps those days haven’t quite yet gone away. Anyway, it’s rather lovely that no-one ever destroyed it and that it is today in the Museum of London.
Unfortunately, the lighting in this part of the Museum of London wasn’t very good when I took the photo, but this is still one of my favourite exhibits. It’s a tavern sign for the Three Kings pub and it dates to 1667, the period when the city was rebuilding following the devastating Great Fire of London. A rule at the time meant that the sign had to be placed flat on the external part of the building, signs weren’t allowed to stick out.
The sign is made from limestone and it was found in Bucklesbury, an area of London which is long gone, although it’s somewhere around where Bank underground station is today.
A line drawing of the sign from the late nineteenth century. I liked this because the labourers rebuilding London would have seen this sign when they went into the tavern for their one or eight pints, a rather lovely little piece of history. As for the pub, not much seems to exist in the records, it may have been somewhere that was only trading for a few years. But, thanks to this sign, its memory lives on.
It’s about eight years since I last visited the Museum of London, and it might be the final time as they’ll be on the move to a new site in Smithfields in a couple of years. The design of the whole Barbican area isn’t great, it puts road users first and it’s meant that the museum is only accessible by pedestrian bridges. It’s not ideal.
The stairs to get to the museum are gloomy, although they’ve done what they can to brighten them up a bit.
My ticket was for 10:00, which was when the museum opened, and a small queue had formed. There was the choice to visit an exhibition on some rock band, which I ignored, instead wanting just to see the permanent collection. The museum was sufficiently quiet to allow for social distancing, although the queues were much longer when I left the building. This is also the first museum I’ve been to which scans visitors on the way out, which makes sense so that they know how many people are still in the building.
The museum was sufficiently interesting, although the lighting in some places is quite poor. There are also some huge chunks of the city’s history missed out and although it’s inevitably impossible to show everything, there’s not much about industry or ethnography. Hopefully, the larger amount of space at the new museum will perhaps give them chance to tell these stories as well.
There are numerous interactive elements that visitors are usually welcome to touch or engage with, although they’ve had to put plexiglass over all of those. There was though no shortage of hand sanitiser around the museum and sufficient staff to monitor visitors without getting in the way.
Anyway, some photos below of the interior of the museum, more posts about some individual exhibits I liked will follow. At some point…..
I’m slowly working my way around the Brewdogs of the world, only nearly all of them to go (but I’ actively working on this)…. This one is in Covent Garden, named after the Seven Dials road junction.
This Brewdog feels more pub-like than some of their other outlets, not least because it was a pub when they purchased it, the Marquis Of Granby and before that the Ape & Bird.
The downstairs bar, which wasn’t in use, which has a step near to the base of the stairs down to it just to add some excitement to the proceedings. I managed to trip on it, but I put that down to me being an idiot, before noting four other reviews by others saying they’ve tripped. Someone will likely take action against Brewdog at some point about that step, but that’s a matter for them…… The ground floor was busier, indeed pretty full, although the first floor wasn’t in use either.
The beer list and although the Big Joe by Overtone sounded exciting it came in at £6.50 for just a third of a pint, so I was more moderate and opted for Brewdog’s own Pineapple Coconut Crumb that I haven’t had before. I wish more pubs offered a beer list like this, or perhaps had a stab at just managing not to stock every bland IPA they can possibly find on their beer list. Looking at Greene King pubs here…. And Marstons….
And here it is, a rather glorious beer with a welcome surfeit of pineapple and a taste of coconut to go along with it. A very summery drink, smooth and at the appropriate temperature (that was there for Nathan who noticed I keep using that phrase….).
And the Cluck Norris burger, a chicken burger in buttermilk with avocado at the base and cajun mayo at the top. I do like avocado (I accept it’s a junk food compared to my usual diet of heavily processed, but yet glorious, chicken bakes from Greggs) and there was a generous portion of it and it added a lot to the whole burger, both in taste and texture. The chicken burger, and I’m not sure what part of the bird they’re using here, had a bit of a crunch to the outside and had the sufficient flavours that I was hoping for. The fries were moreish, fluffy on the interior and firm on the exterior, all served as a perfectly sufficient portion. Usually, this would be £14, but the Government’s eat out to help out reduced the price to £7, which is much more reasonable.
The service was beautifully polite as ever, although it wasn’t the smoothest. I struggled to get a fork and my tap water never arrived at all, although I remembered I had my own water bottle in my bag. I decided to use my water bottle to advertise the LDWA to anyone who happened to be walking past the table, not that anyone bloody noticed. Anyway, I digress.
I dread to think how much rent Brewdog must be paying for these premises, but the reviews of the bar are high and hopefully they’re getting it all back comfortably. The range of beers here was quite frabjous, to quote Lewis Carroll, so I’m prepared to forgive the lack of fork as otherwise the customer service was spot-on and the drinks range was better than any Fullers pub than I’ve ever been in…..
This is 36 Tavistock Place in London and what might look like any other town-house, but it has a special little claim to fame. It’s where Lenin stayed in May 1908 on one of his visits to the city, conveniently located near to the British Museum’s Reading Room which he frequently visited during his stay. Under 10 years later he was the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Russian SFSR, with the Tsars deposed.
The plaque was put up by the Marchmont Association in November 2012 and they reported that not everyone was happy as they got a complaint from a local resident saying:
“Appalling! He was responsible for a movement that caused far more deaths than Hitler, from which the Russians are only just recovering. I intend to email the Chair dissociating myself from the Marchmont Association.”
