The River Thames in 11 colour paintings .... no 2 Old Battersea Bridge

Now I suppose we all have our favourite bridge over the Thames.

Nocturne in Black & Gold the Falling Rocket, 1872-75

Most tourists will go for Tower Bridge while many commuters will opt for London Bridge while for me it will always be the Hungerford Bridge just because it is the one I cross when I am on the train for Eltham.

Even now over 40 years after I left London I only ever feel I have really come home when the train pulls over the River into Waterloo Station, which I suppose just goes to prove that old corny comment that you “can take the boy out of South east London but you never take south east London our of the boy.”

Which I might add is pretty much uttered by everyone I know about where they come from.

That said I also have fond memories of the old London Bridge which I used a lot in the 1950s and 60s.

And that by degree brings me to another old bridge which is the subject of the painting.

It is the Old Battersea Bridge, opened in 1771 and demolished in 1885.  The full title of the painting is Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket and it was painted by Whistler between 1872-5 and led to a court case at which the judge according to one source asked Whister “Which part of the picture is the bridge?.”

It went long before I was born and if I am honest I don’t think I have ever been on its successor.

But no matter there are plenty still for me  to cross although this is the last bridge that I will feature from my new book..

It is not that I have tired of either the Thames or its bridges, but more I want to post the book on  to my friend Tricia.

The book is River Thames which came out sometime in the late 1930s.

There is no publication date, although inside there is a sentiment “to Edith with best wishes from Edna Christmas 1940” and one of the illustrations is dated 1934 so I think we almost have a date.

The book was sent to me by Kath who has also supplied me with many pictures of Eltham and who suggested that when I had finished with it I should send it back south to Tricia who is also a keen historian of Eltham’s past.

And that is what I intend to do.

Location; River Thames

Picture; Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket,  James McNeill Whistler   1872-75

The Pillar Box …… and the journey

I always like to get pictures from friends, and knowing our shared liking for those old red post boxes, Barbarella sent me this one.

Barbarella's post box, 2023

She said it was “near Blackfriars Station, where Calvi got killed in the 1980s”.

Calvi was Roberto Calvi who according to my Wikipedia "was an Italian banker, dubbed 'God's Banker' by the press because of his close association with the Holy See. 

He was a native of Milan and was chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in one of Italy's biggest political scandals.

Calvi's death in London in June 1982 is a source of enduring controversy and was ruled a murder after two coroners' inquests and an independent investigation”.

And if you want more just follow the link or look up other biographies because that is all I am going to write about him.

Instead it is the post box and its location which has drawn me in.

At a time when people are speculating on how soon it will be before the King’s name, face or initials appear in public here is one of the red boxes with the letters for Queen Victoria.

My posty friend David Harrop will I am sure offer up a heap of interesting information on the said box so I shall await his response.

On Tudor Street, 2023

In the meantime I went on a bit of a journey to find it. 

Barbarella had said near the railway station, and the giveaway was a  sign for a restaurant.  

It was only the two letters J. D., but a search of London restaurants turned up a J. D. at 24 Tudor Street E.C.4, and the rest as they was a simple trip to google maps and the location of Jones Dairy just yards from Queen Victoria’s pillar box.

It is open all day, from 6.30 till 4 pm, has some good reviews but bizarrely the link to its website takes you to Holland.

Tudor Street is one of those longish, narrow streets which runs from New Bridge Street to Temple Avenue and is just a few minutes’ walk from the River.  

Its origins are perhaps hinted at by the names of Whitefriars and Carmelite Streets, and it is easy to slip back and recreate what it might have been like in the past.

Today huge modern buildings rise from the street which are a mix of styles and periods.  

Directly opposite J.D’s and our pillar box stands a fort like structure with few windows at ground level.  It is big, impressive and stands on the site of the City of London Gas Works, which boasted 16 gasometers of varying sizes of which the largest stood on that big and impressive Tudor Street building.

Tudor Street and a Gas Works, 1872

It is unclear as yet what stood beside our pillar box in the 1870s but they look to be smaller properties, possibly residential while just a little to the west was a glass manufacturer, and beyond that the Temple.

By 1910 the short strip bounded by Whitefriars Street and Dorset Street consisted a publishers, a manufacturing stationers and a firm of analysts with the White Swan, a coffee shop, a doctor’s surgery along with a newsagents, dinning rooms and a tobacconists all of whom would no doubt have made use of our pillar box.

Location; Tudor Street, City of London

Pictures; our Victorian pillar box, 2023, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento and Tudor Street in 1872 from the OS map of London, 1872, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Roberto Calvi, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Calvi