Category Archives: Peculiar Places

The London Library (Keep It Down There Mr Darwin)

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Need to write something? Want to get that drawing project you started months ago finished? Well, your house is beset with devilish traps to prevent you from doing so. Really. A kitchen full of tea to be made. An Xbox just feet away. A whole world of pointless tasks you can happily procrastinate over. And that’s before actually risking going anywhere near the internet. A total lack of will power prevails and before you know it you’re playing Portal in between another round of Earl Grey.

After piteously moaning about this utter lack of creative discipline a friend offered to loan me their library membership. Well, that’s very sweet. Okay. So slightly discouraged by thoughts of ‘Children’s Book Day’, clusters of cold dodging old folks, crazy people talking to the large print books and other previous library encounters I set off to Westminster. To The London Library.

I then find out why my slight reticence to venture here caused several smiles of amusement.

Set in a gorgeous Georgina town house The London Library turns out to be a fairytale establishment straight out of your favourite fantasy fiction. A deceptively narrow little door on St Jame’s Square leads into a labyrinthine warren of floors. Delightfully confusing. Books shelved up to the ceilings. Crackly old leather armchairs. Oil painting from centuries ago. There’s even a quirky Edwardian cataloguing system. Books filed by subject matter, so random finds of interesting reading matter abound. The place itself is initially so fascinating there’s no chance of getting any actual writing done. But a least I now have a better class of distraction.

This is a place where you imagined Arthur Conan Doyle wrote. Agatha Christie plotted fiendish crimes. Henry James thought about ghosts and governesses whilst Charles Darwin contemplated evolution. And turns out they did.

The London Library was founded in 1841 by Thomas Carlyle. His founding vision was for an institution which would allow subscribers to enjoy the riches of a national library in their own homes.

Carlyle was joined in his vision by eminent early supporters: The Earl of Clarendon, the enlightened early-Victorian politician, was the Library’s first president, Thackeray its first auditor; Gladstone and Sir Edward Bunbury were on the first committee and early members included Charles Dickens and George Eliot.

Over the past 170 years, The London Library’s collection has grown to more than one million volumes covering 2,000 subjects. It has enjoyed the patronage of many eminent writers, academics, politicians and readers throughout its history and has long played a central role in the intellectual life of the nation.

The London Library.

Sadly admission costs here but beg, borrow or steal membership if the opportunity ever arises. Or there’s a free tour on Monday evenings. Just a look round the building alone is worth your time before even getting started into the books shelves.

Oh, and if you’re feeling flush avid readers can adopt their favourite book to make sure it always gets looked after with the care and attention it deserves. Bless.

Eventually, despite a fascinating book find about hidden London tube stations and a guide to Victorian underwear, some writing did get underway. Hey, two thousand words without the aid of Jaffa Cakes. And convinced I may well be sitting in Charles Dickens old chair I didn’t immediately start shoe shopping online. I had a nasty feeling he might be watching.

Peculiar Places #2

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Step off Union Street and onto Redcross Way. You’re in a nondescript Southwark side street. Bisected by railway lines it borders an urban sprawl of undeveloped wasteland. Nothing remarkable here. Well, apart from a spontaneous shrine to the outcast dead of London.

Turns out the 14th century ‘respectable’ gentry of London had no liking for brothels cluttering up the place. Well, not anywhere they actually lived. Bear-baiting, whoring, theatres and all other manner of ‘ungodly’ activities were legally banned from their midst in the city. Obviously not wishing to dispense with these services entirely they simply needed to put them elsewhere. Handily, the Church had a convenient solution.

The Bishop of Winchester controlled land south of the River Thames – Southwark as we know it today – that fell outside the legal jurisdiction of the City of London. The church generously stepped in to licence all these apparently morally dubious activities on their own ground. See, Jesus cares. Known as the ‘Liberty of the Clink’ Southwark became a general den of iniquity. In deference to their licensee, prostitutes there became known as ‘Winchester Geese’.

Unfortunately though, London was also posed with another problem. The poor and unwashed had a tendency to die early. And in large numbers. Prostitutes were heading for an unconsecrated grave, paupers needed to be buried somewhere and so Cross Bones cemetery was born. Conveniently situated among the stews of Southwark it became the resting place for centuries of the unmourned dead. Without headstones, markers or in many cases even any record of their passing, the unwanted and disgraced were dumped in unmarked graves here until 1853.

Were they were forgotten about? Maybe, but not forever. The cemetery was unearthed again in the 1990’s when excavation work started on the London Underground’s new Silver Jubilee line. The dead were lost for a while but, apparently, were now not to be ignored.

A ritual drama plays out each year on All Hallows Eve at Cross Bones. Based on the ‘Southwark Mystery Plays’ of John Constable, the dead are now remembered with gifts and song. The iron bars of the cemetery gates have been repurposed into an ever-changing shrine. Awash with an esoteric mix of everything from Mardi Gras beads and Wiccan prayers to the smiling face of Buddha, the nondescript gates have become a visual trigger to at least ask, what happened in this place.

Rather touchingly a lot of people seemed to have asked. And a lot of people seem to wish those buried at Cross Bones to know they’re not forgotten. Take a look if you’re wandering by. It’s a curious manifestation of our need to care for the dead.

Loads more about doings at Cross Bones on the graveyards website.


Peculiar Places #1

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Tucked away under the platforms and tracks of Waterloo Station hides Leake Street. It’s 300 metres of ‘legal’ graffitti wall. Just head down York Road then wander off into the most promising looking place for you to get stabbed. You’re actually only likely to find some Nathan Barleys filming a crappy trainer ad, but it’s a curious pictorial zeitgeist of constantly-changing images and ideas. Meet the Fat Slags or take in a comment about Palestine.

Just depends what somebody’s decided to draw today.