Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Museum of London

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (Newgate Prison Door)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (Newgate Prison Door)

    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.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (Pilgrimage Badge – Becket in 1170)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (Pilgrimage Badge – Becket in 1170)

    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.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (1681 Pudding Lane Bakery Site Plaque)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (1681 Pudding Lane Bakery Site Plaque)

    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.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (1667 Tavern Sign)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (1667 Tavern Sign)

    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.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London

    London – City of London – Museum of London

    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…..