But it is not at all likely that any kind of real figure (whether called Fagin or Fagan) would have had a shop-sign in Field Lane announcing his thieves’ kitchen. The names of Fagan and Scrooge in Field Lane give the game away – they are obviously post-hoc – Oliver Twist was written forty years earlier, and the illustrators of the Old & New London were fully conversant with the novel, and with Fagin’s location in the book. Old & New London is a wonderful resource, there’s no doubt about it, but remember that it is late Victorian 1870s) and that not all the images in it are exactly documentary. With grateful thanks to LIbby Hall for her assistance with this feature
Room in Sir Paul Pindar’s House, Bishopsgate – demolished for the building of Liverpool St Station Last remnant of the the Fleet Prison demolished in 1846īack of the Red Lion seen from the Fleet DitchĮxotic pet shop on the Ratcliffe Highway with creatures imported through the London Docks Smithfield before the construction of the covered market In the Jerusalem Tavern above St John’s Gate, Clerkenwell Middlesex House of Detention, Clerkenwell Yard of the Bull & Mouth, Aldergsgate 1820Ĭlerkenwell in 1820 before the railway came through Old house in Leadenhall St with Synagogue entrance Garraway’s Coffee House – shortly before demolition after 216 years in business
The Four Swans Inn, Bishopsgate – shortly before demolition Strange stories of strange men grow like moss in every crevice of the bricks … Old London is passing away even as we dip our pen in the ink…” – Walter Thornbury … The houses of old London are encrusted as thick with anecdotes, legends and traditions as an old ship is with barnacles. “Writing the history of a vast city like London is like writing a history of the ocean – the area is so vast, its inhabitants are so multifarious, the treasures that lie in its depths so countless.
It is a London that was forgotten generations ago and these images are like memories conjuring from a dream, strange apparitions that can barely be squared with the reality of the current metropolis we inhabit today. Walter Thornbury’s ‘ Old & New London – how it was and how it is‘ of 1873 offers a glimpse into this shadowy realm with engravings of the city which lies almost beyond recognition. Yet beyond all this lies another London which is long forgotten, composed of buildings and streets destroyed before the era of photography. There is the London we know and the London we remember, and then there is the London that is lost to us but recalled by old photographs.
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