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East End Riverside

As you will have realised by now, I am a night bird. In the mornings, I stumble around in a bleary-eyed stupor of incomprehension and in the afternoons I wince at the sun. But as darkness falls my brain begins to focus and, by the time others are heading to their beds, then I am growing alert and settling down to write.

Once I used to go on night rambles – to the railway stations to watch them loading the mail, to the markets to gawp at the hullabaloo and to Fleet St to see the newspaper trucks rolling out with the early editions. These days, such nocturnal excursions are rare unless for the sake of writing a story, yet I still feel the magnetic pull of the dark city streets beckoning, and so it was with a deep pleasure of recognition that I first gazed upon this magnificent series of inky photogravures of “London Night” by Harold Burdekin from 1934 in the Bishopsgate Library.

For many years, it was a subject of wonder for me – as I lay awake in the small hours – to puzzle over the notion of whether the colours which the eye perceives in the night might be rendered in paint. This mystery was resolved when I saw Rembrandt’s “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” in the National Gallery of Ireland, perhaps finest nightscape in Western art.

Almost from the beginning of the medium, night became a subject for photography with John Adams Whipple taking a daguerrotype of the moon through a telescope in 1839, but it was not until the invention of the dry plate negative process in the eighteen eighties that night photography really became possible. Alfred Stieglitz was the first to attempt this in New York in the eighteen nineties, producing atmospheric nocturnal scenes of the city streets under snow.

In Europe, night photography as an idiom in its own right begins with George Brassaï who depicted the sleazy after-hours life of the Paris streets, publishing “Paris de Nuit” in 1932.  These pictures influenced British photographers Harold Burdekin and Bill Brandt, creating “London Night” in 1934 and “A Night in London” in 1938, respectively. Harold Burdekin’s work is almost unknown today, though his total eclipse by Bill Brandt may in part be explained by the fact that Burdekin was killed by a flying bomb in Reigate in 1944 and never survived to contribute to the post-war movement in photography.

More painterly and romantic than Brandt, Burdekin’s nightscapes propose an irresistibly soulful vision of the mythic city enfolded within an eternal indigo night. How I long to wander into the frame and lose myself in these ravishing blue nocturnes.

Black Raven Alley, Upper Thames St

Street Corner

Temple Gardens

London Docks

From Villiers St

General Post Office, King Edward St

Leicester Sq

Middle Temple Hall

Regent St

St Helen’s Place, Bishopsgate

George St, Strand

St Botolph’s and the City

St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Smithfield

Images courtesy © Bishopsgate Institute

You might like to read these other nocturnal stories

The Nights of Old London

On Christmas Night in the City

Night at the Brick Lane Beigel Bakery

Night at The Spitalfields Market, 1991

Night in the Bakery at St John

On the Rounds With The Spitalfields Milkman

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The nights are drawing in fast and I can feel the velvet darkness falling upon London. As dusk gathers in the ancient churches and the dusty old museums in the late afternoon, the distinction between past and present becomes almost permeable at this time of year. Then, once the daylight fades and the streetlights flicker into life, I feel the desire to go walking out into the dark in search of the nights of old London.

Examining hundreds of glass plates – many more than a century old – once used by the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society for magic lantern shows at the Bishopsgate Institute, I am in thrall to these images of night long ago in London. They set my imagination racing with nocturnal visions of the gloom and the glamour of our city in darkness, where mist hangs in the air eternally, casting an aura round each lamp, where the full moon is always breaking through the clouds and where the recent downpour glistens upon every pavement – where old London has become an apparition that coalesced out of the fog.

Somewhere out there, they are loading the mail onto trains, and the presses are rolling in Fleet St, and the lorries are setting out with the early editions, and the barrows are rolling into Spitalfields and Covent Garden, and the Billingsgate porters are running helter-skelter down St Mary at Hill with crates of fish on their heads, and the horns are blaring along the river as Tower Bridge opens in the moonlight to admit another cargo vessel into the crowded pool of London. Meanwhile, across the empty city, Londoners slumber and dream while footsteps of lonely policemen on the beat echo in the dark deserted streets.

Glass slides courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

Read my other nocturnal stories

Night at the Beigel Bakery

On Christmas Night in the City

On the Rounds With the Spitalfields Milkman

It was my great delight to come across this precious scrapbook of playbills from the Eagle Theatre & Pleasure Gardens in the City Rd at the Bishopsgate Institute.

Old playbills have a charisma all their own, combining bravura typography with hyperbolic promises designed to send your imagination racing. Once you start envisaging the reality of these extraordinary shows you are spellbound.

Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

Starting in 2013, Spitalfields Life Books published 15 books over 6 years until the pandemic shut us down. Now we are ready to begin again and we are inspired by a string of new titles that we have ready to publish. We are crowdfunding to raise enough to cover the production of our next 3 books, then income from sales of these will permit us to continue and publish more.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR CROWDFUND PAGE AND CONTRIBUTE

After the popular success of the first season, I have curated another series of eight monthly talks at the Hanbury Hall on subjects of local interest in collaboration with the Spitalfields Society. I am giving an illustrated lecture on the subject of East End Vernacular painting to start the season. The talks take place on the first Tuesday of each month at 7pm, commencing in October and running through the winter to deliver us to next spring.

Tickets are £10 and you can book through the links below. All talks will be accompanied by a bar which opens at 6:30pm and we look forward to welcoming you to this popular social event in Spitalfields. The Hanbury Hall was built as a Huguenot chapel in 1740 as ‘La Patente’ and has recently been renovated.

Click here to book for 3rd October: The Gentle Author on East End Vernacular

The Gentle Author presents a magnificent selection of pictures, revealing the evolution of painting in the East End and tracing the changing character of the streets through the twentieth century.

Christ Church Spitalfields by Anthony Eyton, 1980

Brushfield St, Spitalfields, 1951-60 (Courtesy of Museum of London)

Click here to book for 7th November, Griff Rhys Jones on Save Liverpool Street Station

Griff Rhys Jones discusses the campaign to prevent the destruction of Liverpool Street Station and Historian Robert Thorne outlines the history of the majestic station.

Proposed redevelopment of Liverpool St Station

Click here to book for 5th December: Raymond Francis on Morris Goldstein, The Lost Whitechapel Boy

Raymond Francis shows previously unseen paintings by his father Morris Goldstein, exploring his neglected position among his more celebrated peers in the ‘Whitechapel Boys’ group of painters.

Self portrait by Morris Goldstein

Click here to book for 9th January: Stefan Dickers on The Treasures of the Bishopsgate Institute

Archivist Stefan Dickers gives an illustrated lecture showing rare photographs and artefacts from the rich and diverse collections of the Bishopsgate Institute in Spitalfields.

The Bishopsgate Institute (Courtesy of RIBA)

Click here to book for 6th February: An Audience with Dame Siân Phillips

Former Spitalfields resident and superlative actor Dame Siân Phillips reminisces about her astonishing career in conversation with Basil Comely.

Portrait of Sian Phillips by Lucinda Douglas Menzies

Click here to book for 5th March: Julie Begum on The Bengali East End

Julie Begum of the Swadhinata Trust explores her own East End roots and outlines the long history of the presence of Bengali people on this side of London.

Portrait of Julie Begum by Sarah Ainslie

Click here to book for 2nd April: Geoff Quilley on The East India Company

Geoff Quilley describes the dark and violent history of the East India Company, the world’s first corporation and the driving force in British colonialism.

Shah ‘Alam conveying the grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive, August 1765, by Benjamin West

Click here to book for 7th May: Margaret Willes on The Horticultural History of the East End

Writer & Horticultural Historian Margaret Willes describes the garden of London that once existed here before the East End as we know it today was built in the nineteenth century.

Portrait of Margaret Willes by Sarah Ainslie

The graphics are based on the plaque of delft tiles tiles by Paul Bommer on the exterior of the Hanbury Hall commissioned by the Huguenots of Spitalfields in 2015.

Click here to book for my tour through September and October

Click here to discover more about this autumn’s blog course

I offer this choice selection of the language of drinking lest it may be of use to any of my readers who might be planning to take a draught over the weekend.

Life in the East – At the Half Moon Tap, 1830

Barrel – A cask built to hold thirty-six gallons.

Beer – There is no bad beer but some is better than others.

Binder – The last drink, which it seldom proves to be. Also used to describe the person who orders it.

Boiling Copper – Vessel in which wort is boiled with hops.

Boniface – Traditional name for an innkeeper, as used by George Farquhar in ‘The Beaux’ Stratagem.’

Bragget – A fancy drink made of fermented honey and ale.

Brewer – The artist who by his choice of barley and other ingredients, and by his sensitive control of the brewing process, produces beer the way you like it.

Butt – A cask built to hold one hundred and eight gallons.

Buttered Beer – A popular sixteenth century drink of spiced and sugared strong beer supplemented with the yolk of an egg and some butter.

Cardinal – A nineteenth century form of mulled ale.

Casual – An occasional visitor to the pub.

Cheese – A heavy wooden ball used in the game of skittles.

Chitting – The appearance of the first shoots while the barley is growing during the first stage of the malting process.

Coaching Glass – An eighteenth century drinking vessel with no feet that was brought out to coach travellers and consumed at one draught.

Collar – The frothing head on a glass of beer between the top of the beer and the rim of the glass.

Crinze – An earthenware drinking vessel, a cross between a tankard and a small bowl.

Crawler – One who visits all the pubs in one district, drinking a glass of beer in each.

Dipstick – An instrument used to measure the quantity of wort prior to fermentation.

Dive – A downstairs bar.

Dog’s Nose – Beer laced with gin.

Down The Hatch – A toast, usually for the first drink.

Finings – A preparation of isinglass which is added to the beer in the cask to clarify it.

Firkin – A cask built to hold nine gallons.

Flip – Beer and spirit mixed, sweetened and heated with a hot iron.

Fob – The word used in a brewery to describe beer froth.

Goods – The name used by the brewer to describe the crushed malted grains in the mash tuns.

Grist – Malt grains that have been cleaned and cracked in the brewery mill machines.

Gyle – A quantity of beer brewed at one time – one particular brewing.

Heel Tap – Term for beer left at the bottom of the glass.

Hogshead – A cask built to hold fifty-four gallons.

Hoop – A device displayed outside taverns in the middle ages to indicate that beer was sold. Later, it became the practice to display certain objects within the hoop in order to differentiate one tavern from another. eg The Hoop & Grapes

Kilderkin – Cask holding eighteen gallons.

Lambswool– A hot drink of spiced ale with roasted apples beaten up in it.

Liquor – The term used in the brewing industry for water.

Local – The pub round the corner.

Long Pull – Giving the customer more than they ordered, the opposite of a short pull.

Lounge – The best-appointed and most expensive bar of the public house.

Mash – The mixture of crushed malted grains and hot liquor which is run through the masher into the mash tun and from which is extracted liquid malt or wort.

Merry-Goe-Down – Old term describing good ale.

Metheglin – A spiced form of mead.

Mether Cup – A wooden drinking cup used by the Saxons, probably for Metherglin.

Mud-In-Your-Eye, Here’s – Traditional toast, with a meaning more pleasant than it sounds.

Nappy – Term describing good ale, foaming and strong.

Noggin – Small wooden mug, a quarter pint measure.

Noondrink – Ale consumed at noon when trade was slacker. Also, High Noon, drunk at three o’clock when street trading was finished.

One For The Road – Last drink before leaving the pub.

Pig’s Ear – Rhyming slang for beer.

Pocket – A large sack made to contain one and a half hundredweight of hops.

Porter – Popular in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries among London market porters, equivalent to a mixture of ale, beer and twopenny.

Public Bar – Where everything is cheapest and decoration and equipment is smiplest.

Puncheon – Cask built to hold seventy-two gallons.

Quaff – To drink in large draughts.

Regular – One of the mainstays of the public house.

Round – An order of drinks for more than one person.

Saloon Bar – Enjoying better amenities than a Public Bar and therefore more expensive to the customer.

Shandy – A drink of beer mixed with ginger beer, or sometimes beer and lemonade.

Short – A gin or whisky, usually taken before a meal.

Small Beer – A beer of lesser gravity, hence a trifling matter.

Smeller – A man employed in the brewery to examine casks after they have been washed and prior to their being filled with beer.

Snifter – Colloquial term for a drink.

Snug or Snuggery – Semi-private apartment in the pub, by custom reserved for use of the regulars.

Sparge – To spray hot liquor onto the grist in the mash tuns.

Spell, To Take A – To go round to the local for a beer, coined by Mr Peggotty in David Copperfield.

Stingo – A strong ale, similar to Barley Wine, popular during the winter months and usually sold in a bottle.

Stool – A useful piece of furniture for a customer who wants to stay at the bar, but is anxious to sit down.

Swig – To take a draught of beer, generally a large one.

Thirst – Suffering enjoyed by beer drinkers.

Tipple – To drink slowly and repeatedly.

Trouncer – The drayman’s mate who pushed and manhandled the wagon over potholes.

Tumbler – A flat bottomed drinking glass, derived from  the Saxon vessel that could not stand upright and must be emptied in one draught.

Tun – Vessel in the brewery where the fermenting takes place.

Twopenny – A pale, small beer introduced to London from the country in the eighteenth century at fourpence a quart.

Wallop – Mild ale.

Wassail – Hot ale flavoured with sugar, nutmeg and roasted apples.

What’s Yours? – An invitation which sums up the companionable atmosphere of a public house.

Wort – The solution of mash extract in water, derived from the grist in the mash tuns.

Image from Tom & Jerry’s Life in London courtesy  Bishopsgate Institute

Next ticket availability Saturday 2nd September

We join Constable Lew Tassell on a night patrol in the City of London on Tuesday December 12th 1972

Police Constable Lew Tassell of the City of London Police

“One week in December 1972, I was on night duty. Normally, I would be on beat patrol from Bishopsgate Police Station between 11pm-7am. But that week I was on the utility van which operated between 10pm-6am, so there would be cover during the changeover times for the three City of London Police divisions – Bishopsgate, Wood St and Snow Hill. One constable from each division would be on the van with a sergeant and a driver from the garage.

That night, I was dropped off on the Embankment during a break to allow me to take some photographs and I walked back to Wood St Police Station to rejoin the van crew. You can follow the route in my photographs.

The City of London at night was a peaceful place to walk, apart from the parts that operated twenty-four hours a day – the newspaper printshops in Fleet Street, Smithfield Meat Market, Billingsgate Fish Market and Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market.

Micks Cafe in Fleet St never had an apostrophe on the sign or acute accent on the ‘e.’ It was a cramped greasy spoon that opened twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. During the night and early morning it served print-workers, drunks returning from the West End and the occasional vagrant.

Generally, we police did not use it. We might have been unwelcome because we would have stood out like a sore thumb. But I did observation in there in plain clothes sometimes. Micks Cafe was a place where virtually anything could be sourced, especially at night when nowhere else was open.”

Middle Temple Lane

Pump Court, Temple

King’s Bench Walk, Temple

Bouverie St, News of the World and The Sun

Fleet St looking East towards Ludgate Circus

Ludgate Hill looking towards Fleet St under Blackfriars Railway Bridge, demolished in 1990

Old Bailey from Newgate St looking south

Looking north from Newgate St along Giltspur St, St Bartholomew’s Hospital

Newgate St looking towards junction of Cheapside and New Change – buildings now demolished

Cheapside looking east from the corner of Wood St towards St Mary Le Bow and the Bank

HMS Chrysanthemum, Embankment

Constable Lew Tassell, 1972

Photographs copyright © Lew Tassell

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On Top Of Britannic House With Lew Tassell

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These are the dead cats that once hung behind the counter of the celebrated “Dustbin Bar” at Dirty Dick’s Old Port Wine & Spirit House in Bishopsgate. It is a location that holds a special place in my affections as the first pub I ever went into in London, one day after work at the Bishopsgate Institute.

Although this was longer ago than I care to admit and regrettably the cats in this picture had already gone by then, yet I still recall the sense of expectation, entering the narrow frontage and walking back, and back, and back through the warren of rooms with sawdust on the floor – descending ever deeper into the bowels of the city, it seemed. And I can only imagine how this strange drama might have been enhanced by the presence of umpteen dead cats suspended from the ceiling.

This was how it was described in 1866 – “A small public house or rather a tap of a wholesale wine and spirit business…a warehouse or barn without floorboards – a low ceiling, with cobweb festoons dangling from the black rafters – a pewter bar battered and dirty, floating with beer – numberless gas pipes tied anyhow along the struts and posts to conduct the spirits from the barrels to the taps – sample phials and labelled bottles of wine and spirits on shelves – everything covered with virgin dust and cobwebs.”

Yet all was not as it might seem, because the presence of these curious artefacts was not due to unselfconscious eccentricity, it was an early and highly successful example of what we should call a “theme pub.” Established in 1745 as The Old Jerusalem, the drinking house took the name of Dirty Dick’s in 1814 and adopted his story along with it. The original of Dirty Dick was Nathaniel Bentley, a successful merchant with a hardware shop and warehouse in Leadenhall St in the mid-eighteenth century. After his bride-to-be died on their wedding day – so the legend goes – he never cleaned up again, never washed or changed his clothes. “It’s of no use, if I wash my hands today, they will be dirty again tomorrow,” he declared. Bentley died in 1809, and the Bishopsgate Distillers appropriated this story of the notorious dirty hardware merchant, adorning their bar with dead cats and cobwebs to perpetuate the legend.

Charles Dickens knew Dirty Dick’s and was fascinated with this myth of one who sealed up the door on the wedding breakfast and left the cake and table decorations to acquire dust eternally. In a letter to the printer of his weekly publication “Household Words” dated 30th December 1852, he wrote “Don’t leave out the Dirty Old Man, he is capital.” And it has been suggested that Nathaniel Bentley was the inspiration for the character of Miss Havisham in “Great Expectations.”

Dirty Dick’s was rebuilt in the eighteen seventies, though the cellars are of an earlier date, and now the bizarre artefacts are banished to a glass case, yet it is still worth a visit. Explore the wonky half-timbered spaces and seek out the secluded panelled rooms at the rear, where you can enjoy a quiet drink away from the commotion of Bishopsgate to contemplate the ancient coaching inns that once lined this street, long before the age of the train and the motor car.

Nathaniel Richard Bentley – the origin of the myth of Dirty Dick.

Dirty Dick by William Allingham

A Lay of Leadenhall

In a dirty old house lived a Dirty Old Man.
Soap, towels or brushes were not in his plan;
For forty long years as the neighbours declared,
His house never once had been cleaned or repaired.

‘Twas a scandal and a shame to the business-like street,
One terrible blot in a ledger so neat;
The old shop with its glasses,black bottles and vats,
And the rest of the mansion a run for the rats.

Outside, the old plaster, all splatter and stain,
Looked spotty in sunshine, and streaky in rain;
The window-sills sprouted with mildewy grass,
And the panes being broken, were known to be glass.

On a rickety signboard no learning could spell,
The merchant who sold, or the goods he’d to sell;
But for house and for man, a new title took growth,
Like a fungus the dirt gave a name to them both.

Within these there were carpets and cushions of dust,
The wood was half rot, and the metal half rust;
Old curtains—half cobwebs—hung grimly aloof;
‘Twas a spiders’ elysium from cellar to roof.

There, king of the spiders, the Dirty Old man,
Lives busy, and dirty, as ever he can;
With dirt on his fingers and dirt on his face,
The dirty old man thinks the dirt no disgrace.

From his wig to his shoes, from his coat to his shirt,
His clothes are a proverb—a marvel of dirt;
The dirt is prevading, unfading, exceeding,
Yet the Dirty Old Man has learning and breeding.

Fine folks from their carriages, noble and fair,
Have entered his shop, less to buy than to stare,
And afterwards said, though the dirt was so frightful,
The Dirty Man’s manners were truly delightful.

But they pried not upstairs thro’ the dirt and the gloom,
Nor peeped at the door of the wonderful room
That gossips made much of in accents subdued,
But whose inside no one might brag to have viewed.

That room, forty years since, folks settled and decked it,
The luncheon’s prepared, and the guests are expected,
The handsome young host he is gallant and gay,
For his love and her friends are expected today.

With solid and dainty the table is dressed—
The wine beams its brightest—flowers bloom their best;
Yet the host will not smile, and no guest will appear,
For his sweetheart is dead, as he shortly shall hear.

Full forty years since turned the key in that door,
‘Tis a room deaf and dumb ’mid the city’s uproar;
The guests for whose joyance that table was spread,
May now enter as ghosts, for they’re everyone dead.

Though a chink in the shutter dim lights come and go,
The seats are in order, the dishes a row;
But the luncheon was wealth to the rat and the mouse,
Whose descendants have long left the dirty old house.

Cup and platter are masked in thick layers of dust,
The flowers fallen to powder, the wine swath’d in crust,
A nosegay was laid before one special chair,
And the faded blue ribbon that bound it is there.

The old man has played out his part in the scene
Wherever he now is let’s hope he’s more clean;
Yet give we a thought, free of scoffing or ban,
To that Dirty Old House and that Dirty Old Man.

(First published by Charles Dickens in Household Words, 1853)

Nathaniel Bentley, Eccentric Character & Hardwareman of Leadenhall St – the well-known Dirty Dick

Archive pictures courtesy of Bishopsgate Institute

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Click here to book for my tours through July, August and September

As London’s oldest market prepares to move out of the City, Photographer Orlando Gili has been down at Smithfield, documenting the last generation of butchers to work at this ancient site

Greg Lawrence Junior and Greg Lawrence Junior Junior, Owners of G Lawrence Wholesale Meat

‘I arrived at Smithfield in the dead of night to photograph London’s renowned meat market which is set for permanent closure. The last pubs had long closed and it was a few hours before tube station shutters were wrenched open.

Walking towards the market, you are met by a wave of sound, beeps and wheels dragged over tarmac, bearing the weighty chunks of meat wrapped in plastic. Emitting at a different frequency is the grumble from a line of white lorries and vans, punctuated by shouts and low pitched chatter. Smithfield is very much alive and in full operational mode at this time. Within minutes of arriving, I am dressed in white overalls and deep inside the bowels of the market, photographing blood splattered butchers, and dodging lines of dead animals hanging from hooks.

Experiencing Smithfield at night is to uncover a secret parallel world that operates in the shadows while the rest of London sleeps. There is a sense of frenetic energy and unpredictability. Forklifts whizz past men in long jackets hunched over neatly stacked boxes, punching numbers into calculators and fielding phone calls. Inside the tall Victorian halls, behind large glass windows, carcasses are hacked into pieces at literally breakneck speed. It is a physical analogue space with a masculine atmosphere. There is a strong sense of camaraderie and familial spirit, many of the businesses are family run.

I returned on early mornings in winter to develop a portrait series that celebrates the people behind the market. Night workers provide an under-appreciated role in modern cities. They risk significant damage to their health to meet the demands of the 24/7 city. According to a long-term US study of nurses, night shift workers are up to 11% more likely to die early compared to those who work day shifts.

The historic market will soon relocate to a £1 billion high-tech behemoth in Dagenham. The closure of Smithfield ends over 800 years of trading meat in Central London as part of a wider trend to sanitise inner cities with less palatable aspects of urban life kept out of sight.’

Orlando Gili

Mark, Chicken Salesman

Horatio, Driver

Moro, Butcher

Harry, Shopman

Simon, Salesman

Ian, Chicken Salesman

Greg, Beef Salesman and Sean, Cashier

Jonny, Butcher

Elijah, Salesman

Tony, Retired Boxer, Trader and Restaurant Distributor

Roger, Fork Lift Operator

Dave, Salesman

‘Pig Ear Tony’, Pig Meat Salesman

Charlie, Salesman

Aaron, Butcher, Marcus, Salesman and Mark, Shopman

Luca, Production

Adam, Butcher

Kye, Unloader

Pav, Butcher

Russel, Butcher

James, Sales Manager

Grant, Butcher

Photographs copyright © Orlando Gili

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THE DRINK, E14 1964

Photographer John Claridge claims he is not a drinker, but I was not entirely convinced once I saw this magnificent set of beer-soaked pictures that he lined up on the bar, exploring aspects of the culture of drinking and pubs in the East End. “I used to go along with my mum and dad, and sit outside with a cream soda and an arrowroot biscuit,” John assured me, recalling his first childhood trips to the pub,“…but they might let you have a drop of brown ale.”

Within living memory, the East End was filled with breweries and there were pubs on almost every corner. These beloved palaces of intoxication were vibrant centres for community life, tiled on the outside and panelled on the inside, and offering plentiful opportunities for refreshment and socialising. Consequently, the brewing industry thrived here for centuries, inspiring extremes of joy and grief among its customers. While Thomas Buxton of Truman, Hanbury & Buxton in Spitalfields used the proceeds of brewing to become a prime mover in the abolition of slavery, conversely William Booth was motivated by the evils of alcohol to form the Salvation Army in Whitechapel to further the cause of temperance.

“When I was fifteen, we’d go around the back and the largest one in the group would go up to the bar and get the beers,” John remembered fondly, “We used to go out every weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We’d all have our suits on and go down to the Puddings or the Beggars, the Deuragon, the Punchbowl, the Aberdeen, the Iron Bridge Tavern or the Bridge House.” Looking at these pictures makes me wish I had been there too.

Yet the culture of drinking thrives in the East End today, with hordes of young people coming every weekend from far and wide to pack the bars of Brick Lane and Shoreditch, in one non-stop extended party that lasts from Friday evening until Sunday night, and stretches from the former Truman Brewery up as far as Dalston.

Thanks to John’s sobriety, we can enjoy a photographic pub crawl through the alcoholic haze of the East End in the last century – when the entertainment was homegrown, the customers were local, smoking and dogs were permitted, and all ages mixed together for a night out. Cheers, everybody!

A SMOKE, E1 1982. – “There was a relaxed atmosphere where you could walk in and talk to anybody.”

THE CONVERSATION, E1 1982. – “Who is he speaking to?”

DARTBOARD, E17 1982. -“I used to be a darts player, just average not particularly good.”

SINGING,  E1 1962. -“She’d just come out of the pub…”

THE MEETING, E14, 1982. -“You don’t know what’s going on. There’s a big flash car parked there. Are they doing a piece of business?”

SLEEP, E1 1976. – “They used to club together and get a bottle of VP wine from the off-licence, and mix it with methylated spirits.”

BEERS, E1 1964. – “This is Dickensian. You wonder who’s going to step from that door. Is it the beginning of a story?”

ROUND THE BACK, E3 1963.

DOG, E1 1963. -“Just sitting there while his master went to get another pint of beer.”

EX-ALCHOHOLIC, E1 1982. – “He lived in Booth House and seemed very content that he had pulled himself out of it.”

LIVE MUSIC, E16 1982. -“It was a cold winter’s day and raining, but I had to get this picture. Live music and dancing in a vast expanse of nothing?”

THE BEEHIVE, E14 1964. – “She never stopped giggling and laughing.”

THE SMILE, E2 1962. -“He said, ‘Would you like me to smile?’ He was probably not long for this world, but he was very happy.”

IN THE BAR, E14  1964. -“I’d just got engaged to my first wife and she was one of my ex-mother-in-law’s friends. Full of life!”

THROUGH THE GLASS, E1 1982. -“I think the guy was standing at the cigarette machine.”

THE CALL, E16 1982. -“Terry Lawless’ boxing gym was above this pub. It looks as if everything is collapsing and cracking, and the shadows look like blood pouring from above.”

WHITE SWAN, E14 1982

LIGHT ALE, 1976 -“Four cans of light ale and he was completely out of it.”

CLOSED DOWN, Brick Lane 1982.

Photographs copyright © John Claridge

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Along the Thames with John Claridge

At the Salvation Army with John Claridge

Click here to book for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF THE CITY OF LONDON on Easter Monday

Hoop & Grapes, Aldgate (Dentures Repaired)

One day Jeffrey Johnson walked into the Bishopsgate Institute, deposited a stack of his splendid photographs with Archivist Stefan Dickers and left without another word. We can only conclude that these fond pictures from the seventies and eighties record the enigmatic Jeffrey’s favourite pubs. Some are familiar, but for the locations of the others  – some of which are long gone – I call upon the superior experience of my readers.

Sir Walter Scott, Broadway Market

Knave of Clubs, Bethnal Green Rd

Dericote St, Broadway Market

Crown & Woolpack, St John St, Clerkenwell

Horn Tavern, Knightrider St, City of London (now known as The Centrepage)

Unknown pub

The Queen’s Head, City of London

The Queen’s Head, City of London

Unknown pub

Unknown pub

Old Bell Tavern, St Pancras

Magpie & Stump, Old Bailey

The Mackworth Arms, Commercial Rd

Green Man

Green Man

Marquis of Anglesey, Ashmill St

The Crooked Billet

The Bull’s Head (Landlords fight to save City pub)

The White Horse

The Olde Wine Shades, City of London

The Crispin, Finsbury Avenue

The Blue Posts, West India Dock Rd, Limehouse (Plasterer’s Required – Call at Back Door)

The Ticket Porter, Arthur St, City of London

Weavers Arms

Photographs copyright © Jeffrey Johnson

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