Writer & horticultural historian, Margaret Willes, introduces her lecture on the horticultural history of the East End which takes place in the Hanbury Hall on Tuesday 7th May at 7pm. CLICK HERE TO BOOK A TICKET Early twentieth century garden at the rear of WF Arber & C0 Ltd, Printing Works Today Spitalfields and Shoreditch are intensely urban areas but, four centuries ago, the scene was very different. Maps of this era show that behind the main roads flanked by houses and cottages, there were fields of cattle and, close by the city walls, laundrywomen laying out their washing to dry ..read more

In 1999, I bought this coin that I wear around my neck for £2.60 from a grave robber in the Spitalfields Market at the time of the excavation of the Roman cemetery. Somebody wore this coin in London all those centuries ago and although I will never know who they were, now I wear it for them around my neck, to give me a sense of perspective. Learn the full story on my tour this Saturday . The Bishopsgate Institute has a 1599 copy of John Stow‘s Survey Of London and it touches me to see the edition that John Stow himself produced, with its delicate type resembling gothic script, and I find it ..read more

Click here to book for this Saturday’s tour of Spitalfields . Aldgate Stefan Dickers, Archivist at Bishopsgate Institute, introduced me to these fine copper plate etchings by Ernest George (1839-1922). In the eighteen-eighties, George set out to immortalise those fragments of London which spoke of times gone by and Londoners long dead, recording buildings and views which have for the most part now disappeared. I realise that my affection for these images sets me in line with the generations of chroniclers who have made it their business to document the transience of the city, starting with J ..read more

Click here to book for next Saturday’s tour of Spitalfields . Champion Pie Man – W.Thompson, Pie Maker of fifty years, outside his shop in the alley behind Greenwich Church . Charles Spurgeon the Younger, son of the Evangelist Charles Haddon Spurgeon, took over the South St Baptist Chapel in Greenwich in the eighteen-eighties and commissioned an unknown photographer to make lantern slides of the street traders of Greenwich that he could use in his preaching. We shall never know exactly how Spurgeon showed these pictures, taken between 1884 and 1887, but – perhaps inadvertently – they be ..read more

Click here to book for next Saturday 27th April . It is my pleasure to publish these dignified and characterful portraits of Londoners, believed to be by photographer Donald McLeish (1879-1950), selected from the three volumes of Wonderful London edited by St John Adcock and produced by The Fleetway House in the nineteen-twenties. Telescope Man on Westminster Bridge Old woman who inhabited the alleys off Fleet St Breton Onion Seller Costermonger and child Cats’ Meat Man Knife Grinder Charwoman Islington Window Cleaner Flower Seller Concertina Player Hurdy-Gurdy Man Gramophone Man ..read more

Visit Postman’s Park with me on my next tour of the City of London this Sunday 21st April . Taking the opportunity afforded by the Spring sunshine yesterday, I enjoyed a stroll from Spitalfields through the City of London to visit Postman’s Park, a tiny enclave of green between St Bartholomew’s Hospital, the Barbican and St Paul’s Cathedral. Created in 1880 as a place of recreation for postmen, it is across the road from where the statue of Sir Rowland Hill, inventor of the postage stamp, stands outside the former sorting office. Of itself this is a quaint notion but it is not what attr ..read more

Click here to book for my next tour of the City of London this Sunday 21st April . On the right of this photograph, taken in the roof of St Paul’s Cathedral, is the concave wall of the outer dome and curving away to the left is the convex wall of the painted inner dome that sits inside it, just like an enormous boiled egg beneath a cosy. It is a strange configuration which means the lower dome does not have the bear the weight of the dome roof, and which creates extraordinary incidental spaces that never cease to fascinate me whenever I return to scale this majestic cathedral. Once I am thro ..read more

Click here to book for my next tour of the City of London this Sunday 21st April . Quang Chu of Chu’s Garage Chu’s Garage under the railway arches in London Fields has become a reliable institution among motorists in Hackney over the last thirty-five years for good service and honest dealing. Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie and I met the Chu family and were humbled to learn their astonishing tale. In the middle of the day at Chu’s Garage, work ceases and a ring is attached to a gas bottle for Jimmy Chu to cook a fresh lunch, which the family eat around the table in the cosy hut, comp ..read more

Click here to book for my next tour of the City of London on Sunday 21st April . Billingsgate Market (click on this plate or any of the others to enlarge and examine the details) In 1897, Charles Gosse, Archivist at the Bishopsgate Institute, was lucky enough to buy a handsome 1809 edition of Thomas Rowlandson & Augustus Pugin’s ‘Microcosm of London’ from Quaritch booksellers in Piccadilly with just one plate missing, yet it took him until 1939 to track down a replacement to fill the gap and complete his copy – and the single plate cost him more in 1939 than the entire three volumes in 1 ..read more

Click here to book for my next tour of the City of London on Sunday 21st April . St Clement’s, Eastcheap “Oranges and lemons,” say the bells of St. Clement’s. . . Site of St Martin Orgar, Martin Lane “You owe me five farthings,” say the bells of St. Martin’s. . . St Sepulchre-without-Newgate “When will you pay me?” say the bells of Old Bailey. . . St Leonard’s, Shoreditch “When I grow rich,” say the bells of Shoreditch. . . St Dunstan’s, Stepney “When will that be?” say the bells of Stepney. . . St Mary Le Bow, Cheapside “I do not know,” says the great bell of Bow. . . You may also like ..read more