Wednesday Window - Blue in the Face

WTF Monday - The Adventures of Thomas Kinkade in the Seventeenth Century

Meanwhile, back in the 1680s, tacky kitsch crap collecting was all the rage.

Skymall, eat your heart out.

The only difference is that this stuff is actually collectible, as opposed to "collectible". It's probably worth a fortune and its survival is also a sure fire indicator that this person does not live with a cat.

Upstairs Downstairs in The East End - 1680-1760: Episode Four

Having started our Upstairs Downstairs tour in the attic we finally find ourselves in the basement where Mrs. Bridges awaits us. The tea is brewing, there's cold game pie on the table and griddle cakes ready by the fire.

The kitchen is the beating heart of the house. From here the more presentable maid or manservant carries food and drink up two floors to the breakfast room and dining room.

Once the family upstairs has finished their meal the dirty crockery and cutlery will be brought back down here where the scullery maid waits by the stone sink to wash up (and snaffle any left-overs), admire the pictures on the Delft tiles in front of her and dream of a better life.

The clean crocks are then strictly arranged by Mrs. Bridges on her dresser, this example of which is actually part of the central wall of the building, dividing front from back.

This beautiful dresser is in the basement of the museum in Dennis Severs' House, home of the Spitalfields Trust and was where Dennis and his "man" cooked and ate right through until his tragically young death from AIDS at Christmas 1999.

The servants eat gathered around the kitchen table, home of the precious sugar mound and Mrs. Bridges' accounts ledger, scrupulously kept.

Above the table hangs a whale-oil lamp using spermaceti oil, which burns without the smoke of a candle lamp.

Prior to the petroleum boom of the early twentieth-century, the hunt for spermaceti oil (a wax taken from the heads of sperm whales) and whale blubber oil (rendered from the blubber of right whales [so named because they were the "right" whales to hunt, being friendly and non-aggressive] and just about any other species they could catch) saw vast fleets of whalers setting forth from Nantucket. Ahab ahoy! Take the oil and leave the meat to rot …

This is the reason we have so few whales left; not Inuit, Norwegians and Japanese people eating them (or indeed the Brits during post-war rationing when it was the only meat available until the Americans sold us Spam and Argentinian corned beef).

The household "help" - from Mrs. Bridges, keeper of the keys down to the scullery maid at the bottom of the heap - socialise here in the kitchen in any spare moment they can. Store and pantry doors hidden in the wall panelling lead to other basement rooms including the coal cellar and sleeping quarters for any not fortunate enough to get an attic room.

The least glamorous job in the household is that of scullery-maid. The rear basement behind the kitchen houses the scullery.

Here the poor girl cleans and prepares the vegetables to be used in the kitchen, does the laundry and any other jobs nobody else wants, hides from the unwanted attention of the older males upstairs and probably sits in that chair and weeps a lot.

This then was life in a Huguenot silk merchant's house. Not long afterwards the British Government removed their trade protection and ruined the silk-weavers, the area was bought up by private landlords and swiftly became slum housing.

By Dickens' time these houses were in a terrible state of disrepair with two or three destitute families crammed into every room. Most were lost in the Blitz to Nazi bombs and a lot of what was left was knocked down and redeveloped in the planning nightmare that was the 1960s.

The Spitalfields Trust (then the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust) was formed in 1977 to sally forth and battle the encroaching behemoth of London's City Financial District. With the Tories in government they fight a hopeless rearguard action so please visit it while it still remains and bring the Mighty Tourist Dollar in support.

Upstairs Downstairs in The East End - 1680-1760: Episode Three

Perhaps I shouldn't have called this little series 'Upstairs Downstairs' as it's more a case of 'Front Stairs Back Stairs'.

You've seen the state of the servants' quarters in the back attic …

Now pull on your clothes, make yourself presentable and tip-toe quiet as a mouse down the back stairs with me as we get the day ready for the silk merchant's family.

One of the first jobs will be to wake up the fires we banked only a few short hours before, and not just in the main rooms … most importantly the master likes his morning poo to be made more pleasant by the warmth from this cute little fireplace with its lovely Delft tiles.

The chamberpot from under his commode will be emptied into the pit in the rear yard later, awaiting pick-up by the honey cart tonight. Downstairs, Mrs. Bridges has the scullery maid boiling water fit to burst as breakfast is prepared.

Dust the steps and polish the handrail and balusters on the main stair. You'll be seeing more of this one on Sunday Stair posts.

And now here comes the master out of his bedroom, expecting his breakfast to be on the table by the time he and the family convene in the breakfast room.

Yes, I know the Bridget Riley on the wall is not contemporary with the Huguenots but this is someone's house, not a museum.

The family rooms are somewhat better appointed than the servants' quarters. That's because servants are there to serve! To skivvy and sweat and slave and stay out of sight and mind … unless of course it's the mind of the master of the house dwelling on the body of the new maid.

The family spends most of their time in quietly elegant and understated rooms on the first and second floors (that's second and third to the Colonials) while their weavers' looms clack overhead.

There is a small and somewhat pious library for the childrens' tutors and a harpsichord for the more frivolous evenings, though never on a Sunday.

The ground floor is grandest of all and is reserved for the silk merchant and his customers. The servants must wear livery when in attendance.

As with the windows on Gilbert and George's house, buildings continually evolve with changing fashions. A glance up at the arch cut into the cornice tells us that the original Huguenot front door was full height and arched, opening into the specially cut recess.

Later Georgian residents inserted a glazed fanlight and a shorter, square-headed door. MUCH later, the current incumbent was gifted some numerals one Christmas and - so as not to damage the Georgian glass - held them in place with Blu-Tack, of which I approve.

Customers would be welcomed into this small but exquisitely proportioned front room on the ground floor, containing a table laden with bolts of the most fabulous silks, also visible from the street to entice any potential buyers who would cruise Spitalfields browsing for silks through the merchants' front windows.

Should the customer be a regular or look promising, the rear wall of the little front room would be opened up (this is the other side of it; note the hinges) to reveal the full stock of silks in a much larger stock room beyond.

Silk weaving - as with Worsted making in Norfolk - was highly skilled and protected from foreign competition. We've already dealt with the Calico Riots earlier.

Eventually, however, the East India Company went too far and after the Indian Mutiny the British Government took over the China and India trade. The vast profits were now coming into their own coffers so the trade tariffs were removed and the Spitalfields silk trade ruined along with Norfolk Worsteds.

It'll be a while before that disaster, however, so we'll just pop downstairs to share a cup of tea with Mrs. Bridges in the final post.

Upstairs Downstairs in The East End - 1680-1760: Episode Two

We shall begin our Upstairs Downstairs tour as far upstairs as it is possible to get, with the attic workshops of the silk weavers.

The front attics of the Huguenot silk merchants' houses contained the looms of the skilled weavers. These craftspeople needed as much light as possible and so the windows covered most of the width of the house.

Let us gaze across the street to our fellow Huguenots' houses and wave at the weavers toiling away at their looms to produce beautiful silks for the rich folk.

All along the street echoes the same clack of the looms and the yelps and profanities of those getting their fingers trapped.

To the right you can just make out the large skylight in the roof of le Neuve Eglise, our splendid new Huguenot church. This will eventually become the Brick Lane Synagogue and later still the Brick Lane Mosque as populations shift around London.

As you can see from the gable wall of All Saints' Vicarage on the right, the houses were double depth, with the front attic roofs containing the looms for the skilled silk weavers and the rear attic rooms acting as servants' quarters. Try to ignore the fashion shoot … this is London after all.

Here's where the children of the poor might be lucky enough to end up, in "service". This is quite roomy and well appointed (just wait until you see the scullery maid's room in an upcoming post) and likely to have housed the Mrs. Bridges of the household, ruling the under-servants with a steely glance, iron discipline and a well-starched pinny.

This is in part of a museum run by the Spitalfields Trust. They once had an American student live in the room for a season to immerse himself in "The Georgian Experience". I like the lovely little songbird cage in the window. Very Miss Flite from Bleak House.

In rain-soaked, smog-choked, soot-blackened, shit-rivered London it was probably best to dry your laundry at the top of the servants' stairs.

Next time, we'll leave the attic, tip-toe down the back stairs and venture a peek into the world of the wealthy silk merchant. A teensy bit different from the servants' quarters.

Upstairs Downstairs in The East End - 1680-1760: Episode One

"Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London …"

Yes, you're entitled to slap me hard for that earworm.

We'll start off in Whitechapel. It's the morning after our Jack the Ripper Tour and we're slightly fuzzy-headed from one too many pints of London Pride.

Old Dive is going to walk us all clear-headed. We are threading our merry way north to Spitalfields to see what life was like, both upstairs and downstairs, for the Huguenot silk-weavers and merchants in their heyday between the Restoration and the Georges.

We shall pass the historic Whitechapel Church Bell Foundry (where both Big Ben and the Liberty Bell were cast), soon to be demolished to make way for a hideous, glass and steel 108 bedroom "boutique" hotel with swimming pool. If you know anyone who works for US developer Raycliff, please go and kick them for me. Hard and repeatedly.

We shall turn left off Brick Lane into Fournier Street, at the junction of which stands the Brick Lane Mosque, which in the late nineteenth century was the Brick Lane Synagogue and before that, le Neuve Eglise, the Huguenot church constructed in 1743 to reflect the growing wealth of the silk merchants; a lovely building whose changing forms of worship echo the centuries of ever-evolving social upheaval in the East End.

Here the houses become larger and more elegant as we move into the silk merchants' quarter. Note the two doors on the front of the middle house above; the grand door for customers and social visitors, the humble "tradesman's entrance" for deliveries, servants and the hoi polloi. Know your place!

We shall pass (on our way to Folgate Street via Hawksmoor's glorious All Saints' Church and the joyful bustle of Spitalfields' Market) the house (left) and studio (right) of everyone's favourite living works of art and National Treasures Gilbert and George and shall pause for a moment to discuss changing fashions.

Most windows on Fournier street are like those on the right, with the sash box and frame fully visible on the front face of the brickwork (see also the photos above) and were usually painted a dark colour, though current fashion is for off-white.

After several fires, the style of window changed by legislation in the early 1700s, moving the sash box and frame back behind the front skin of brickwork and tucking them out of sight, like those on G&G's house on the left. This gave a larger glazed area for the same opening and reduced the risk of fire spreading up the building via burning sash boxes. The reveals were usually painted white to bring more light into the rooms.

So, shall we vault this perfectly positioned bollard, venture inside our time machine and plunge down the rabbit hole to the Huguenot heyday? Mrs. Bridges awaits …

Wednesday Window

 

Thought I'd spare you the cobwebs this week and move from old barns to Elder Street in Spitalfields.

Remember the simple stone stair from last weekend?

Well this is upstairs in the same house, gazing through the admittedly grubby glass at more deliciously unspoiled and expertly restored houses under the guardianship of the Spitalfields Trust.

This tiny area of just a few streets, surrounded and overshadowed by monstrous, bullying glass behemoth office blocks is a haven of peace and sanity. Tim and his valiant handful have spent decades fighting off the massed lawyers of international corporations desperate to tear these buildings down and replace them with execrable shrines to crapitalist greed.

 

This is the kind of shit I'm talking about and it makes my blood boil.

The gas lamp marks the doorway of Denis Severs' House on Folgate Street in Spitalfields, from the back room of which the Spitalfields Trust fight their long rearguard battle against the likes of Broadgate Tower (the monstrous carbuncle towering over the street).

The corporate developers have recently won the battle to destroy the historic railway arches outside Liverpool Street Station, evicting the communities that live and work there. If you look right from where I took this photo you can still see the sky … Not for much longer.

Spitalfields, together with Brick Lane to the east and Whitechapel to the south-east fight on, though it looks like an American company wants to demolish the historic Whitechapel Bell Foundry (where Big Ben and the Liberty Bell were cast) and replace it with a monstrous glass turd of hotel and offices.

Leave our history alone, you worthless shit-stains.

Saturday / Sunday Stair

I'd intended to restart the old Saturday Statuary and Stained Glass Sunday photo-posts but couldn't really be arsed to venture out into the Choking Death Plague Lands with a camera, preferring instead to settle my fat arse into my gaming chair and play Fallout 4. That way, when I die I get to start again, unlike the post-apocalyptic world outside my front door.

Anyhoo, I had a rummage in my hard drive and discovered I've taken a ridiculous number of pictures of old staircases. What's more, stairs starts with an 'S' so I'm going to do a weekend stair photo-post instead. Saturday or Sunday; take your pick; I'm happy either way.

There are some very grand staircases to come but I shall start gently with a personal favourite, possibly the simplest attempt at a stair I have come across.

The enigmatic inscription incised into the stone reads "N D / 4 2 / 1829" which is odd because the house it sits in was built in the 1680s.

This stair lives in the basement of a Huguenot silk-weaver's house on Elder Street in Spitalfields, within shouting distance of the Jack the Ripper tours our Colonial friends enjoy so much. Don't step out of this door after dark or you may find yourself in Victorian London being offered laudanum-soused grapes by a dark, cloaked figure …