London: The Biography

It is possible, too, that an unpleasant or unhappy atmosphere may persist like some noisome scent in the air. It has been noted of certain streets such as Chick Lane, Field Lane or Black Boy Alley, all in the vicinity of the present Farringdon Road, that “a curious fact about these places is that their bad character began so early and persisted so long.” Of Coventry Street, off Piccadilly, it was stated in 1846 that “there is a considerable number of gaming houses in the neighbourhood at the present time, so that the bad character of the place is at least two centuries old, or ever since it was built upon.” The act of building may itself determine the character of an area for ever, in other words; it is as if the stones themselves carried the burden of their own destiny. So we may see the passage of time through stone, but that vision of unbroken continuity is essential to the vision of London itself. This is not the eternity vouchsafed to the mystic, who ascends from the body to glimpse the soul of things, but one immured in sand and stone so that the actual texture or process of life is afforded a kind of grace. The continuity of London is the continuity of life itself.

East and South

An etching of Billingsgate by James McNeill Whistler, executed in 1859; it shows something of the animation of the docksides, with many boats engaged in trade upon the ever commercial Thames.

CHAPTER 71. The Stinking Pile

It has often been suggested that the East End is a creation of the nineteenth century; certainly the phrase itself was not invented until the 1880s. But in fact the East has always existed as a separate and distinct entity. The area of Tower Hamlets, Limehouse and Bow rests upon a separate strip of gravel, one of the Flood Plain gravels which were created at the time of the last glacial eruption some 15,000 years ago. Whether this longevity has played any part in creating the unique atmosphere of the East End is open to question, perhaps, but the symbolic importance of east versus west must not be ignored in any analysis of what became known in the late nineteenth century as “the abyss.” The Roman burials of Londinium, some of them within the very area now known as the East End, were so conducted that the heads of those interred were inclined towards the west; the same practice can be found in early Christian burial rituals, again in the territory of London, which suggests some profound affinity. It seems also to have been an instinctive one, part of a territorial spirit that emerges in the earliest recorded periods of London’s history. Archaeological evidence suggests, for example, that the invading Saxons of the fifth and sixth centuries settled to the west of the River Walbrook while the defeated and demoralised Romano-British natives dwelled upon the east bank. This pattern of habitation has been consistent and profound.

There is one interesting and significant feature of the eastern area which suggests a living tradition stretching back beyond the time of the Romans. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there was found evidence of a great “wall” running along the eastern portion of the Thames, down the river bank and along the Essex shores, to protect the land from the depredations of the tidal river; it was constituted of timber banks and earthworks. At the end of the wall in Essex, close to the area now known as Bradwell Waterside-which may plausibly be translated, even after two thousand years of transition, as Broad Wall-were discovered the earthworks of a Roman fortress as well as the ruins of a later chapel, St. Peter-on-the-Wall, which had become a barn. Other local antiquarians have also found small churches or chapels placed beside what might be called this great eastern wall. It is quite forgotten, save by a few local historians, but by keeping at bay the water, and by helping to drain the marshland of the eastern areas, it created the East End or London’s dark side. Every city must have one.