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Christchurch Rebuilt - more London walks

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Over the past few days we have been looking at a church that features on several of our London walks Christchurch Newgate Street, also known as Christchurch Greyfriars. Yesterday, we left it a smoke blackened ruin which had been destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Today, we look at how it was rebuilt by the great architect Sir Christopher Wren, a figure who looms large on many of our London walks.

As the rebuilding of London began in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London. Christ’s Hospital School was rebuilt, and Sir Christopher Wren commenced work on the rebuilding of Christchurch between 1667 and 1687.

The rebuilt church was the most expensive of all his London churches (many of which are featured on our Sir Christopher Wren London walk) and cost the, for those times, astronomical sum of  £11, 778 9 shillings and 6 pence. It was a very wide church with huge sloping galleries for the pupils from Christchurch to sit in during services. The galleries,  so it is said, were designed thus to enable the Master to keep an eye on his charges during the services.

The Tower itself was built in stages and wasn’t actually fully completed until 1704.

By the 1930’s the church was surrounded by buildings of the post office. Then, on the night of 29th December 1940, the church was again destroyed by the bombs of the Blitz. As it blazed two postmen from the nearby post office raced into the furnace and managed to rescue the intricately carved font cover, which had been the work of Sir Christopher Wren’s master wood carver Grinling Gibbons. This now resides inside the nearby city church of St Sepulchre’s, which we cover on our Historic City of London walks.

After the war the Corporation of London wished to widen the curve at the junction of Newgate Street and thus the eastern wall of the churches was pulled down it position marked by a series of large concrete blocks at the side of the road.

In 2005 Kate Renwick, an Irish-American lady, purchased the Tower and converted it into a magnificent 11 floor family home.

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City of London walks

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

Many of our London walks focus on the one square mile of the City of London.

Walks that take in this area include The Secret City London Walking Tour that snakes its way through the old lanes and alleyways at the heart of the City.

However, there is more to London than its history for the City of London is a thriving hub of commerce and as a world class City it encompasses some terrific, not so terrific and downright awful architecture.

Take the Barbican for example. There really is nothing quite like the Barbican development. in all British architecture. It brings together several of the favoured concepts of radical post-war planning: a traffic free housing precinct linked by elevated walkways towered over by multi-functional mega-structures. In short, it is the City of London’s futuristic district and several of our Walks will help you discover it.

A hundred years ago, however, this area was very, very different. It comprised an area of terraced housing mixed with some office buildings and a large number of clothing warehouses and factories. London Wall, the main road that connects Moorgate with Aldersgate Street, and which today is a major thoroughfare ended at Wood Street.

London walks through the Blitz.

All that was changed on the 29th September 1940 when the bombs of the blitz rained down and devastated this neighbourhood. This night of destruction was described in our earlier London walks blitz blog.

By the end of the Second World War the bombing had razed the area and left it as a wasteland through which, it is said, you could walk for over half a mile without seeing a single standing building.

In the years that immediately followed the War the Corporation of London began planning a new commercial development to replace what had been lost.

But concerns were expressed about the depopulation of the City of London and Duncan Sandys, the Government Minister for Housing and Local Government, proposed, rather of a commercial development, a genuine residential development that would incorporate schools, shops open spaces and amenities even if it meant “forgoing a more remunerative return on the land.”

The proposal was accepted and in 1959 the site was purchased by the Corporation of London and the London County Council.

Clearance of the site began in 1960 and the building work commenced in 1963 to the design of the architectural practice of Chamberlaine, Powell and Bon whose stated aim was, rather nicely, to create “a coherent residential precinct in which people can live both conveniently and with pleasure.”

Part of that pleasure that we encounter on our City of London walks was the creation of “pedways,” raised walkways such as the ones that run above London Wall. The idea here was to elevate people high above the noisy, traffic-clogged streets allowing them to make their way between locations in good, clean air.

But by the 1970’s, when much of the development was completed such Utopian dreams had been forgotten and Commercial development had begun to creep through the area.

We’ll return to the theme of the Barbican in a later City of London walks blog so be sure to return here on a regular basis.

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London walks that cover the Blitz.

Monday, August 10th, 2009

London walks are a great way to get the true measure of the damage inflicted on London by the Blitz.

In yesterday’s blog we told of how the first wave of bombers swooped onto the City and dropped bombs on Guy’s hospital, the city of London and other places covered on our walks.

Today’s installment is truly gripping as we capture the excitement and fear that gripped the city residents and fire fighters as they battled to save London.

Over at Guildhall — the City Hall of the City of London — the firewatch commanded by Mr F A George was desperately trying to protect the early fifteenth century building, one of the few survivors of the Great Fire of 1666.

At 6.25pm Mr George ordered all sand buckets refilled and it was reported to him that all lBs had been extinguished. He could not know it, but this was only for the moment.

By now whole areas of Southwark, Islington and the City itself were in the grip of fires burning out of control.

At 6.30pm Aschenbrenner turned for home, sending a radio message to Sperrle: ‘Target bombed, fierce fires raging, more bombers approaching’.
At 6.20pm Major Shulz-Hein, commanding I Wing KG 51, was approaching London, leading the second squadron on this fire-raising night.

Shulz-Hein thought the whole raid was idiotic, conducted as it was in a blanket of low cloud. His semi-pubescent air-crews wanted to know how they were to find the target. Shulz-Hein didn’t know. Even more importantly, how were they to find their way back home? For this Shulz-Hein had an answer — hadn’t they heard of the compass and dead-reckoning?

Nevertheless, Major Shulz Hein was a worried man as he flew blind towards a target he thought he would never find.

Then, as he flew over Dorking, Shulz-Hein saw a ‘rose glow through the cloud’ — the fires of KG 100 marking the way to the City of London.

There was no perceptible pause in the bombing as far as people on the ground were concerned, but at 6.30pm Aschenbrenner left the scene of the crime and Major Shulz-Hein moved in. KG 51 managed a concentration of HE mixed with IBs on the Paternoster Row and Square area, immediately north of St Paul’s Cathedral.

Our London walks that cover this area really do help you to get the feel of what it was like as the buildings that surrounded St Paul’s erupted in flame.

On tomorrow’s blog we will focus on this area and tell of the events as the flames spread out of control.

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London In the Blitz - A Ciy Walk

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

One of the City of London walks that we offer takes participants through the areas that were devastated by the London Blitz.

Over the next ten days our London walks blog will concentrate on how London faced the prospect of being razed to the ground by the bombs of the Blitz. We start on Sunday 29th December 194.

Early on that Sunday morning, Hugo Sperrle (General Commanding Luftflotte III) received a call direct from Fiihrer HQ Berlin ordering him to organize a raid on the City of London that night.

Sperrle called a planning conference in his headquarters at the Hotel Luxembourg with General Kesselring (commanding Luftflotte II) attending.

The plan evolved was that some 300 bombers of both Luftflotten would attack with incendiary bombs and high explosives in a series of waves beginning at 6.05pm (British time) that night.

There would be two sorties per plane with the aircraft rearming, refuelling and returning to the attack.

The bomber squadrons involved would be led by KG 100 based at Vannes in Brittany. KG 100 was largely staffed by pre-war aircrews, infinitely more experienced than the crews of other squadrons, where the average age was nineteen.

The squadron commander was Hauptmann Friedrich Aschen¬brenner, who had led the raid against Coventry and also bombed Rotterdam and Warsaw. Aschenbrenner had earlier flown with the Condor Legion in Spain and may well have bombed Guernica too. KG 100 was equipped with twenty special Heinkel 111 H2s, fitted with the X apparatus, and of higher performance than the standard He 111.
KG 100 would strike first, lighting up the target through the clouds as a beacon to the later squadrons. It would be followed wave on wave by the other squadrons: KG 27 (2 wings of 40 planes), KG 54 (2 wings of 40 planes), KG 51 (1 wing of 20 planes), and LG 1 (Lehrgeschwader —Demonstration Bomb Group) with 3 wings totaling 60 planes.

These squadrons, based at stations in Brittany, Normandy, Orleans and Orly near Paris, would be backed by several squadrons from Luftflotte II based in the Lowlands, bringing the total strength to 300 bombers. An escort of 600-700 fighters would be provided.
The bombers would be armed with high explosive and/or incendiary bombs. Each Heinkel or Ju 88 with a bomb capacity of 4,400 Ibs, could carry 8 550Ib high explosive bombs (HEs) or 8 canisters of 36 incendiary bombs (lBs). The incendiary bomb canisters were known as ‘Molotov Bread¬baskets’ and would open at a pre-set altitude, showering the bombs over the target area.

Each IB was one foot long and about three inches in diameter at the base, which tapered conically to a point. Each contained one kilo of magnesium that would generate a heat of 4,000°F in one minute and burn for ten. lBs were easily extinguished if caught early on by shovelling sand on them or smothering them with a fire blanket.

The most dangerous (in fact almost suicidal) thing to do was to douse them with water. Many IBs would fall harmlessly to burn spectacularly in the street, but others would punch their way through rooftops to become lodged in the rafters and so ignite the building; the soft lead roofs of the City’s Wren churches were particularly vulnerable to these devices.

Once HEs had blown gaping holes in buildings they would be open to the showers of IBs falling into them. Later in the Blitz, tackling IBs was made more dangerous by the inclusion of an explosive charge.

Our London walks through the Blitz blog will continue tomorrow as we tell the story of how the City faced up to the terror that was about to fall from above.

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Pepys London - The Great Fire Walks

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

London has seen more than its fair share of destruction. The Blitz of World War Two razed vast areas of the city and some were never rebuilt. As we make away around the historic City on all our London walks that cover the one square mile we encounter blue plaques that remember long ago buildings that were destroyed in 1666 by the Great Fire of London.

We can stand on a spot and try and recreate the terror and dismay that swept through London as the fire raged through its narrow streets of mid-17th Century London.

Walks are a great way to follow the fires trail of destruction as they provide a way to really get into, so to speak, the flames. But you can’t beat eye witness accounts for bringing home the immediacy of how the people of London tried desperately to halt the fire.

Fortunately for us, Samuel Pepys, the great 17th century diarist, lived close to where the fire began and our Pepys’s London walk takes you through the streets that he knew.

But the most moving part of the walk is when Pepys describes actually witnessing the fire and, since we could never hope to better his “lived through” it account he is going to be our guest blogger today and is going to transport you make to the early hours of a September morning in 1666 when a dull glow on the London skyline gave Londoners the first glimpse of one of London’s greatest catastrophes. Over to you Samuel:

From the diary of Samuel Pepys as recited on our Great Fire of London walk.

Lords day. Some of our maids sitting up late last night to get things ready against our feast today, Jane called us up, about 3 in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in the City.

So I rose, and slipped on my nightgown and went to her window, and thought it to be on the back side of Markelane at the furthest; but being unused to such fires as (allowed, I thought it far enough of and so went to bed again and to sleep.

About 7 rose again to dress myself, and there looked out at the window and saw the fire not so much as it was, and further off. So to my closet to set things to rights after yesterday’s cleaning. By and by. Jane comes and tells me that she hears that above 300 houses have been burned down tonight by the fire we saw, and that it was now burning down all Fishstreet by London Bridge. So I made myself ready presently, and walked to the Tower and there got up upon one of the high places, Sir J. Robinsons little son going up with me; and there I did see the houses at that end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side the end of the bridge — which, among other people, did trouble me for poor little Michell and our Sarah on the Bridge. So down, with my heart full of trouble, to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who tells me that it begun this morning in the King’s bakers house in Pudding lane, and that it hath burned down St. Magna Church and most part of Fishstreete already.

So I down to the waterside and there got a boat and through the bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Poor Michelle house, as far as the Old Swan, little time it got as far as the Stillyard while I was there. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the River or bringing them into lighters that lay off Poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats or clambering from one pair of stair by the waterside to another.

And among other things, the poor pigeons I perceive were loath to leave their houses, but hovered about it the windows and balconies  ’till they were some of them burned, their wings, and fell down.

Having stayed, and in an hour’s time seen the fire rage every way, and nobody to my sight endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods and leave all to the fire; and having seen it get as far as the Steeleyard, and the wind mighty high and driving it into the city, and everything, after so long a drougth, proving combustible, even the very stones of churches, and among other things, the poor steeple by which pretty Mrs. [Horsley] lives, and whereof my old schoolfellow Elborough is parson, taken fire in the very top and there burned till it fall down.

I to Whitehall with a gentleman with me who desired to go off from the Tower to see the fire in my boat— to Whitehall, and there up to the King’s closet in the chapel, where people came about me and I did give them an account dismayed them all and word was carried in to the King, so I was called for and did tell the King and-Duke of York what I saw, and that unless his Majesty did command houses to be pulled down, nothing could stop the fire.

They seemed much troubled, and the King com¬manded me to go to my Lord Mayor from him and command him to spare no houses but to pull down before the fire every way. The Duke of York bid me tell him that if he would have any more soldiers, he shall; and so did my Lord Arlington afterward, as a great secret. Here meeting with Capt. Cocke, I in his coach, which he lent me, and Creed with me, to Pauls; and there walked along Wading street as well as I could, every creature coming away loaden with- goods to save — and here and there sick people carried away in beds.

Extraordinary good goods carried in carts and on backs. At last met my Lord Mayor in Canning Streete, hie a man spent, with a handkercher about his neck. To the King’s message, he cried like a fainting woman, “Lord, what can I do? I am spend People will not obey me. I have been punting] down houses. But the fire overtakes us faster then we can do it.” That he needed no more soldiers; and that for himself, he must go and refresh himself, having been up all night. So he left me, and I him, and walked home.

How’s that for first hand reporting? This account from a man who was there. A man who saw and spoke with the major players in the drama. But its the little personal observations that really move people when we recite excerpts from the diary on our London walks. That quote “the poor pigeons I perceive were loath to leave their houses, but hovered about it the windows and balconies ’till they were some of them burned, their wings, and fell down” is one such observation that can only have come from someone who was there.

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City Walks - London In The Blitz

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

London is a survivor. It has been destroyed by fire, decimated by plaque, and, as we discuss on our London walks that follow the trail of devastation that rained down on the capital during the Second World war, razed by bombing. Yet each time the city rises, phoenix like from its ashes, to stand proudly again upon the ruins of bygone ages.

One of the most enduring and emotionally striking images of London over the centuries is the photograph of St Paul’s Cathedral taken on 29 December 1940. On our London walks that cover you get to see this photograph.

It shows the building surrounded by smoke made red and orange by fire. More than any other this picture conveys to those of us not there at the time the essence of the Blitz: heroic London, the city that would not die, Britain standing alone, ‘Britain can take it’.

Children born in London after World War Two experienced the aftermath of the Blitz: the extensive bomb sites, the devastated areas were their playgrounds. They reveled in the open spaces of the City of London.

Walks around the great wasteland of rubble and free standing walls that stretched north and west of the Tower were their entertainment. This area is where a vast mass of concrete now stands.

That wasteland was created on one night — 29 December 1940: the night of what became known as the Second Great Fire of London. This is the story of how those open spaces came into being, and of the great attack on London —the Blitz (so called due to an incorrect understanding of the German term ‘Blitzkrieg’, meaning ‘lightning warfare’).

For Britain the Second World War began with the declaration of war on Germany on 3 September 1939. Air raid sirens moaned out over London within minutes of the Prime Minister’s radio broadcast to the nation.

It was a false alarm. There were to be nine months before the bombs began to fall on England, the period known as ‘the Phoney war’.

In May 1940 German troops swept through the Lowlands and into France, which fell within three weeks. The British Expeditionary Force in France retreated to Dunkirk, abandoning most of its heavy equipment, and was evacuated across the Channel. Britain now stood alone against German occupied Europe.

It was Germany’s intention to take Britain out of the war in order to concentrate on attacking the Soviet Union (planned for the following summer). Preferably, political means would be used to achieve this but, if these failed, force would be applied. The German strategy was outlined on 30 June 1940 (three weeks after Dunkirk) by General Jodl, Chief of German Armed Forces Command Staff, in a memorandum entitled ‘The Continuation of the War Against England’.

This document was produced at Jodl’s trial at Nuremberg as Document 1776 PS, and reads as follows:

If political methods should fail to achieve their objective, England’s will to resist must be broken by force.

a. By attacks on the English homeland.
b. By an extension of the war peripherally.
So far as (a) is concerned there are three possibilities:
1) Siege. This includes attack by land/sea against all incoming and outgoing traffic.
Attack on the English Air-Arm and on the country’s war economy as a whole.

2) Terror attacks against English centres of population.

3) Invasion with the purpose of occupying England. The final victory of Germany over England is now only a question of time. Offensive enemy operations on a large scale are no longer a possibility.

Jodl’s strategy was carried into action with the exception of point 3 — the invasion of England (codenamed ‘Operation Sealion’), and it was the Battle of Britain that caused the failure of this scheme.

We will continue our story of London in the Blitz in tomorrow’s blog. Meanwhile why not have a look at the various and varied London walks that we offer.

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