Back in July 2007, the author Will Self appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme grumbling about what he termed the “cardboard” writing of J.K.Rowling and how adults shouldn’t read it.
As a result I was bizarrely motivated to write a parody of Rowling in the style of Self (notorious for his pleonastic writing style), and then record it in my own imitation of his drawl. I sent it in to the show. (Ironically I actually prefer his writing to hers, but there we are.)
In December 2020, I started documenting my walks with photographs themed around scenes of paths of many kinds receding into the distance ahead of me. I pursued this every day for 100 days or so, and it was a helpful, mindful practice during Covid lockdown restrictions, although I continued it on and off thereafter until February 2023. Here’s the complete set archived from original posts tagged #thewayahead at Twitter/X (which I have now left). (See also #fingerpostfriday.)
8 Dec 20
#thewayahead
9 Dec 20
#thewayahead
10 Dec 20
#thewayahead (under scrutiny)
11 Dec 20
#thewayahead
12 Dec 20
#thewayahead
13 Dec 20
#thewayahead
15 Dec 20
#thewayahead
16 Dec 20
#thewayahead
17 Dec 20
#thewayahead #hookland
18 Dec 20
#thewayahead
19 Dec 20
#thewayahead
20 Dec 20
#thewayahead
21 Dec 20
#thewayahead
22 Dec 20
#thewayahead
23 Dec 20
#thewayahead
24 Dec 20
#thewayahead
25 Dec 20
#thewayahead In our family we call this the Britain tree from its vague Albion form. Sadly Kent snapped off a few months ago in a storm. Prescient? But if you look closely you can see #Hookland. Merry Yule, all.
26 Dec 20
#thewayahead
27 Dec 20
#thewayahead
28 Dec 20
#thewayahead #winterbourne (Confession: I abandoned this way ahead and walked two extra miles to avoid it…)
29 Dec 20
#thewayahead
30 Dec 20
#thewayahead Today’s choice was between arty shots of icy puddles, or this, which has mysteriously sprouted in the last few days. Obvious winner.
31 Dec 20
#thewayahead It’s said the poet Thomas Bridewell loped through these woods to #Hookland in a fugue state. His journal entries are fragmentary, elusive, but I can see which way he went.
1 Jan 21
#thewayahead An old soldier, standing steadfast while humans come and go down the ages.
2 Jan 21
#thewayahead
3 Jan 21
#thewayahead
4 Jan 21
#thewayahead
5 Jan 21
#thewayahead
6 Jan 21
#thewayahead
7 Jan 21
#thewayahead
8 Jan 21
#thewayahead
9 Jan 21
#thewayahead
10 Jan 21
A lost sole on #thewayahead
11 Jan 21
#thewayahead
12 Jan 21
Keeping watch over #thewayahead
13 Jan 21
#thewayahead
14 Jan 21
#thewayahead
15 Jan 21
#thewayahead
16 Jan 21
#thewayahead
17 Jan 21
#thewayahead
18 Jan 21
#thewayahead
19 Jan 21
#thewayahead
20 Jan 21
#thewayahead
21 Jan 21
#thewayahead
22 Jan 21
#thewayahead
23 Jan 21
#thewayahead
24 Jan 21
#thewayahead
24 Jan 21
@SlowWaysUK @nsummers1234 Oxfordshire Cotswolds (see #thewayahead)
25 Jan 21
#thewayahead #snowways
27 Jan 21
“In my laudanum-tinctured fever it seemed as if the very trees reached out to grasp me.” – Thomas Bridewell, Journal #thewayahead #hookland
28 Jan 21
#thewayahead
30 Jan 21
#thewayahead
31 Jan 21
#thewayahead
1 Feb 21
#thewayahead
2 Feb 21
#thewayahead – snowdrops for #Candlemas and #Imbolc
3 Feb 21
#thewayahead
4 Feb 21
#thewayahead
5 Feb 21
Well quite. #thewayahead
6 Feb 21
Lost and bewildered at the Round Castle earthwork, Thomas Bridewell wrote in his journal of the moss men, but this has always been attributed to his condition. #thewayahead @HooklandGuide
6 Feb 21
Some of us bite. #thewayahead
7 Feb 21
#thewayahead
8 Feb 21
#thewayahead
9 Feb 21
#thewayahead
10 Feb 21
#thewayahead
11 Feb 21
#thewayahead
12 Feb 21
#thewayahead
13 Feb 21
#thewayahead Icy path snaking forth, as though we’re in the wake of Andy Goldsworthy.
14 Feb 21
#thewayahead – oh, and #thewayback and #thewayover, etc
15 Feb 21
#thewayahead
16 Feb 21
#thewayahead (a Covid ‘priority postbox’ serving four rural houses and which is too small for the test boxes anyway!)
17 Feb 21
Signs of hope on #thewayahead
18 Feb 21
#thewayahead
19 Feb 21
#thewayahead
20 Feb 21
#thewayahead Last of the hipsters?
21 Feb 21
#thewayahead #theneighahead
22 Feb 21
#thewayahead #cryptozoology
23 Feb 21
#thewayahead
24 Feb 21
#thewayahead
25 Feb 21
#thewayahead
26 Feb 21
#thewayahead
27 Feb 21
#thewayahead 6-mile maiden voyage for new boots. Happy face.
28 Feb 21
#thewayahead
1 Mar 21
#thewayahead
2 Mar 21
#thewayahead
3 Mar 21
#thewayahead
4 Mar 21
#thewayahead
5 Mar 21
#thewayahead
6 Mar 21
#thewayahead
7 Mar 21
#thewayahead Squint and you could be on Easter Island…
8 Mar 21
#thewayahead
9 Mar 21
#thewayahead
10 Mar 21
So today is my 100th #thewayahead picture in a row (and the first time I’ve cheated by not using a picture taken on the same day). I’m going to stop this now, and just post more interesting shots occasionally. 1/3
13 Mar 21
#thewayahead … but which one?
18 Mar 21
#thewayahead
25 Mar 21
After 10 years here there’s only one footpath within 3 miles that I’ve never been on (largely because it involves a busy B road at one end). Achievement unlocked. #thewayahead
28 Mar 21
#thewayahead
6 Apr 21
#thewayahead
11 Apr 21
#thewayahead
12 Apr 21
#thewayahead on 12th April?!
15 Apr 21
“An ancient, hungry king beneath the tump, his maw enarboured” – Thomas Bridewell, ‘Anthropophage’, 1874. #FolkloreThursday #thewayahead #hookland
16 Apr 21
#thewayahead
23 Apr 21
#thewayahead – today marks my 400th consecutive daily walk (min. 3 miles, max. 25 miles, ave. 5.8 miles)
27 Apr 21
Somebody may be hopping on #thewayahead
30 Apr 21
Now *this* is someone who knows about #thewayahead – Why I’m running 5,000 miles around the coast of Britain solo theguardian.com/travel/2021/ap…
2 May 21
#thewayahead
15 May 21
#thewayahead
25 May 21
#thewayahead
29 Jun 21
We’re hitting Peak Green on #thewayahead
13 Jul 21
#thewayahead #slowways
24 Jul 21
#thewayahead
1 Aug 21
I was walking regularly anyway but lockdowns etc focused me on consistency. Today is Day 500. (Rule is bare minimum of 3 miles but average is about 5.5.) Now what? #thewayahead
2 Aug 21
#thewayahead
9 Aug 21
#thewayahead
13 Aug 21
#thewayahead
13 Aug 21
This amazing place is one of the two quarries in Wales where the bluestones of #Stonehenge came from. #thewayahead
19 Aug 21
#thewayahead
20 Aug 21
#thewayahead
31 Aug 21
#thewayahead #thewaybehind
11 Sep 21
#thewayahead
15 Nov 21
#thewayahead
16 Nov 21
#thewayahead ?
20 Nov 21
#thewayahead
21 Nov 21
Might not be on #thewayahead much longer – both kids have Covid…
26 Nov 21
#thewayahead Have just walked a mile up and down this corridor (self-isolating), accompanied by @jonronson’s excellent Things Fell Apart
2 Dec 21
Out of isolation, battered but active, and back on #thewayahead
18 Jan 22
#thewayahead
28 Jan 22
One of today’s signs on #thewayahead – one for @nickhayesillus1 and @guyshrubsole – whatever a ‘sunbath’ is.
22 Feb 22
Glad my old friend is still here on #thewayahead
29 Mar 22
Moss on #thewayahead
2 Apr 22
Ah, the colours of spring on #thewayahead
3 Apr 22
The what?! #thewayahead
10 Apr 22
#thewayahead
11 Apr 22
#thewayahead
13 Apr 22
Bathtime on #thewayahead
14 Apr 22
Giving #thewayahead some welly.
15 Apr 22
Early Netflix? #thewayahead
19 Apr 22
Gulp. #thewayahead
6 May 22
Folk horror on #thewayahead? Or perhaps a slip into #hookland.
27 May 22
Choices for #fingerpostfriday @FingerpostFri on #thewayahead
30 May 22
#thewayahead
7 Jun 22
Bee. Cranesbill. #thewayahead
7 Jun 22
Papaverousness on #thewayahead
13 Jun 22
Oh yes. #thewayahead
5 Jul 22
Small skipper and scabious on #thewayahead
10 Aug 22
Glowing tunnel on #thewayahead
10 Aug 22
Night walk, railway, harvest moon. #thewayahead
12 Aug 22
Choices on #thewayahead for #FingerpostFriday
26 Aug 22
Enough ways for you on #thewayahead? #fingerpostfriday
29 Aug 22
#thewayahead
30 Aug 22
Gulp. #thewayahead
2 Sep 22
I’m not sure this is strictly canonical for #fingerpostfriday but it unambiguously shows #thewayahead…
I’ve stopped using Twitter/X now (as of September 2023) in favour of writing here instead. But one of the things I enjoyed most at the site was the gentle world of #fingerpostfriday run by Hayley Howard. Here is an archive of my contributions to the trend, between May 2022 and August 2023, which also serves as a reminder, to me at least, of some of my many walks in that period and the joys of the British landscape.
6 May 22
One from a couple of weeks ago for #fingerpostfriday
6 May 22
OK, permit me a repost now that I know about @FingerpostFri #fingerpostfriday – but this time without the feeble Netflix gag.
20 May 22
1. So my new thing here is the #10tweetadventure – exploring corners of history or landscape, but told in no more than 10 tweets. Today, for @FingerpostFri #FingerpostFriday, let’s start with the source of the River Thames. Except… it isn’t.
27 May 22
Choices for #fingerpostfriday @FingerpostFri on #thewayahead
17 Jun 22
Something from this week for #fingerpostfriday
5 Aug 22
And speaking of #FingerpostFriday …
12 Aug 22
Choices on #thewayahead for #FingerpostFriday
26 Aug 22
Enough ways for you on #thewayahead? #fingerpostfriday
2 Sep 22
I’m not sure this is strictly canonical for #fingerpostfriday but it unambiguously shows #thewayahead…
2 Sep 22
Here’s a more canonical #fingerpostfriday entry from this week’s walking.
9 Sep 22
Take your pick for #fingerpostfriday
16 Sep 22
Something for #fingerpostfriday – and my latest newsletter is about the place where you can find them… gethistories.com/p/most-secret-…
23 Sep 22
For #fingerpostfriday, this is always a welcome sight on a walk I do most weeks.
7 Oct 22
Happy #fingerpostfriday 🥾 #thewayahead
28 Oct 22
Another week, another county, another walk, another #fingerpostfriday
25 Nov 22
Back with an old friend for #fingerpostfriday
9 Dec 22
Is it too late for #fingerpostfriday?
16 Dec 22
Wait, what? A round trip for #fingerpostfriday @FingerpostFri
30 Dec 22
A bit wadey this #FingerpostFriday
6 Jan 23
Land vs water. #fingerpostfriday
20 Jan 23
Twas a crisp morning walk for #fingerpostfriday today.
27 Jan 23
Happy birthday to @FingerpostFri #fingerpostfriday
10 Feb 23
RT @richardf: So, for #FingerpostFriday, here’s (I think) Britain’s first European walking route sign. Installed yesterday in Charlbury. Tu…
24 Feb 23
Something for everyone on #fingerpostfriday
10 Mar 23
Am I allowed the oldest kind of waymarker for #fingerpostfriday?
24 Mar 23
Decisions, decisions for #fingerpostfriday
28 Apr 23
It’s #fingerpostfriday – you can go that way, or that way. Or somewhere else.
This little photo story was originally published as a Twitter thread in June 2023.
So in 1697, Celia Fiennes arrived solo in York on horseback as part of her unique tour of England. I followed in her footsteps around York Minster today. Join us! Words by Celia, pictures by me. #yorkminster #10tweetadventure
“The Minster is very large and fine of stone, carv’d all the outside 3 high towers above the Leads”
“I was in one of them, the highest, and it was 262 steps and those very steep steps” [the Minster says 275 and I made it 281!]
“On the Leads of the tower shews a vast prospect of the Country at least 30 mile round, you see all over the town that looks as a building too much cluster’d together, the Streets being so narrow, some were pretty long.”
“In the Minster there is the greatest curiosity for Windows I ever saw they are so large and so lofty, those in the Quire at the end and on each side that is 3 storeys high and painted very curious, with History of the Bible”
“There is a large hunter’s Horn tipped with silver and garnish’d over and engrav’d finely, all double gilt” [a copy shown – ironically the original is on holiday in Oxford where I came from today]
“The Chapter house is very finely carv’d and fine painting on the windows all round, it’s all arched Stone and supported by its own work having no pillars to rest on”
(Another walk originally published as a Twitter thread.)
Amazingly it’s over a year since my last #10tweetadventure celebrating #pancrasday. So what better than tracking down another saint, this time more intimately associated with London. On St Dunstan’s Day, 19 May, I give you… #dunstanday
1 Dunstan (c.909-988) was a proper English (Saxon) saint. He was born in Baltonsborough, Somerset, near Glastonbury where he became abbot. He was later bishop of Worcester, then of London, and Archbishop of Canterbury (serving 7 kings!). Here’s his alleged selfie. #dunstanday
2 It’s thanks to Dunstan we have lucky horseshoes (the story goes he nailed one to the Devil’s hoof, as well as tricking Old Nick in other ways – see picture). A craftsman and scholar himself, he’s the patron of metalworkers, jewellers and locksmiths. #dunstanday
3 We start in Stepney at St Dunstan & All Saints (Church of the High Seas) rebuilt by Dunstan himself (who may have lived nearby), and again in the 15th & 19th C. A Saxon rood cross survives. 17th C herbalist & hermit Roger Crab is buried here (see below). #dunstanday
4 This is all that remains of Whitechapel Bell Foundry (which provided bells at St D’s in Stepney). A sad end for a business that started in the 16th century (but @savetheWbf offers hope). St D allegedly cast bells himself and became the patron of bellringers. #dunstanday
5 The City: all that remains of St Dunstan-in-the-East is this haunting garden. It dates from c.1000, expanded 1391 and patched up in the 1660s after the Great Fire, with a new Wren spire. It was rebuilt again in the 1810s before the 1941 Blitz finally did for it. #dunstanday
6 A detour to Guildhall Art Gallery (@GuildhallArt) & its treasures, including a Roman amphitheatre only found in 1988. (Alas we were unable to look inside the Great Hall, where the figures of Gog & Magog can be found – but we’ll meet them again later anyway…) #dunstanday
7 Westward, to our 3rd church… St Dunstan-in-the-West. It dates from Norman times, rebuilt in the 1830s. Bible translator William Tyndale preached here and poet John Donne was rector. Walton’s Compleat Angler was published here. Predatory Pepys plagued maids here. #dunstanday
8 St D-in-the-W ‘s treasures include this 1586 statue of Elizabeth I moved from the lost Ludgate; a crumbling statue of King Lud himself, with his two sons; up in the tower, the bells are struck hourly by these figures of giants Gog and Magog (or Gogmagog & Corineus) #dunstanday
9 Oddly all 3 churches had 17th C wood carvings by Grinling Gibbons; only one survives – the communion rail here. (Apologies to St Dunstan’s in Cranford Park (too far!) – where Tony Hancock’s ashes lie – & l all the many St Dunstan churches across southern England.) #dunstanday
10 If you’ve enjoyed #dunstanday, see #Pancras day, #10tweetadventure and #londonfogg, or subscribe to my history newsletter (@gethistories, link in bio). The latest edition tells the story of Roger Crab!
Follow-up, 20/6/23
Some offcuts/extras from yesterday’s #dunstanday walk 1/3. Memorial in Stepney; history of Stepney Green; The Good Samaritan pub; Royal London Hospital’s crumbling former outpatients building.
#dunstanday offcuts 2/3. A Cornhill alley; an historic well; the philanderer Pepys; Queen Vic’s diamond jubilee.
And #dunstanday offcuts 3/3. Postman’s Park; the garden at Wren’s Christ Church Greyfriars; Confucius at Clifford’s Inn (in fact the old churchyard of St Dunstans-in-the-West where publishers sold books 👋@joe_saunders1); and The Old Bank of England pub.
In a supplement to the latest @countrywalking magazine supported by @komoot, I spotted this note on the origins of kissing gates, which made me sceptical (I’d always thought the ‘kiss’ was from the swinging gate touching its frame). This sent me down the footpath of research…🧵
The OED defines a kissing gate as ‘a small gate swinging in a U- or V-shaped enclosure, so as to allow only one person to pass at a time’, with its earliest citation from 1875. But Google Books quickly reveals many earlier instances…
The earliest of these I can find is from Francis Lloyd’s 1844 novel (published anonymously) called Hampton Court, or The Prophecy Fulfilled, referring to ‘the swing bars of Petersham meadow kissing gate’. (This is Turner’s painting of this area from Richmond Hill.)
Here’s Charles Mackay, author of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and a prolific Victorian songwriter, with a poem published in 1859 ‘founded on an old custom’, bringing us back to smooching:
Three years later Mackay also wrote a novel, The Gouty Philosopher, locating a ‘kissing gate’ in a churchyard. But then The Churchman’s Shilling Magazine has a reference in 1867 to a kissing gate on a coastal footpath, no church in sight.
The very earliest reference I can find anywhere to a ‘kisting gate’ is from Pamela Haines’ 1981 novel The Kissing Gate, which seems to allow for *all* of our definitions.
And in fact the original Notes & Queries argued about it back in 1904! The Internet Archive has multiple Victorian/early 20th C books about rural dialect, and ‘kissing gate’ typically features in those from southern England (similar are cuckoo gate, clap gate and lappin gate)
A ‘kist’ is normally a stone coffin, so not something you’d be lugging around much, and my feeling is that the Scottish/northern English use of ‘kist’ has somehow got muddled with the lych-gate, where a coffin would be sheltered until a funeral.
Is there a north-south divide between ‘kisting’ and ‘kissing’ for the etymology of this term? We definitely need more evidence, and the former doesn’t seem to have any pre-20th C evidence at all! (Pic by my friend Jody, https://www.instagram.com/jodyoreillyprints/)
If you know of earlier sources for these terms, let me know! And in the meantime, if you enjoy historical rabbit holes, please subscribe to my weekly newsletter, via @gethistories or https://www.gethistories.com
UPDATE! @bnarchive provides this snippet from a report of the Suffolk assizes in the 4th April 1820 edition of the London Star, certainly suggesting the term was in common use then. Definitely not in a churchyard!
(This was a walk originally published as a #10tweetadventure on Twitter.)
It’s time for a quick write-up of yesterday’s walk: a new #10tweetadventure. This one isn’t probing any particular mystery in depth, but I can at least offer you a wild boy, a wild man and several green men. So no need for a stony expression. 1/10
We begin in Northchurch, in a corner of Hertfordshire poking towards Buckinghamshire – and here is the simple grave of an 18th century phenomenon: Peter the Wild Boy. He was found living feral in the woods near Hamelin by George I out on a hunting holiday. 2/10
Peter was brought back to live among the king’s courtiers. Here he is – clutching some acorns in a painting by William Kent on the staircase of Kensington Palace, and shown in later life: he lived until his 70s, albeit without learning to speak more than a few words. 3/10
Our walk took us to the Ridgeway – and here’s a little chunk of the mysterious Grim’s Ditch, an earthwork that may be a boundary, or not, dating to the Iron Age, or not – perhaps related, or not, to the bits of Grim’s Ditch near where I live in Oxfordshire. 4/10
At the far end of the Ridgeway – here, also the ancient Icknield Way – is Ivinghoe Beacon, an Iron Age hillfort (and a film location for 4 Harry Potters and The Rise of Skywalker, The Avengers (Steed not Marvel) & more). 5/10
A steep chalky plunge into the vale leads to the village of Ivinghoe. History has also spelt it Evinghehou, Iuingeho, Hythingho, Yvyngho… and Walter Scott called it Ivanhoe, extrapolating a short old rhyme into a 180,000 word novel. 6/10
Ivinghoe’s church has a fantastic collection of green men and other odd Tudor-era figures, including a mermaid (which I forgot to photograph) and some bat-like angels (which I didn’t). 7/10
Over the fields and past Pitstone Mill – this is the ‘earliest dated’ windmill in Britain, from 1627 but quite possibly older. The National Trust gent there invited us to enter and “touch something 1000 years old”. I said I could always shake his hand instead. Oops. 8/10
And Pitstone’s church, now redundant, has what’s claimed to be another green man, in a 15th century piscina (ecclesiastical washbasin). But the best thing of all on the walk has to be… 9/10
This incredible wild man or wodewose, holding his ragged staff, in Aldbury church. Cheeky Sir Robert Whittingham (c.1429-71) is resting his plates on this amazing figure, which brings us back in a way to the wild boy we started with. 10/10
(PS Oops, I forgot the Whipsnade White Lion! England’s largest chalk figure, no less, made in 1933 – to scare away planes from scaring the zoo animals – and restored in 2018. 11/10)
(An archived thread from Twitter, investigating the source of the River Thames.)
1. A #10tweetadventure – exploring corners of history or landscape, but told in no more than 10 tweets. Today, let’s start with the source of the River Thames. Except… it isn’t.
2. For one thing, the site in Trewsbury Meadow has totally dried up – fair enough, it was always seasonal. But half a mile downstream is Lyd Well, in the area marked on old maps as Thames Head. But alas this was bone dry today too.
3. The fons et origo, as it were, of historical accounts that this Thames Head is the source go back to John Leland in 1542: “Isis riseth at three myles from Cirencestre, not far from a village cawlled Kemble, within half a mile of the Fosseway, wher the very head of Isis is”.
4. But hang on: in 1598 John Stow wrote “this famous streame hath her head… about a mile from Tetbury, neare unto the Fosse, (an highway so called of old)”. But Thames Head is 6 miles from Tetbury, even as the crow flies. I’ve found a nearer candidate, only 2 miles from Tetbury!
5. This is near the ultimate source of the Swill Brook (also dry alas). Its very brief Wikipedia page quips about it being bigger than the Thames where they meet. Er, hang on! Bigger? Also pictured here are where they meet, the weedy Thames thereafter and the lily-padded Swill.
6. But as well as bigger, it’s longer! From Lechlade to Thames Head is 33.7km (I’ve measured it using specialist OS data). From Lechlade to the Swill’s source is… 39.5km! So apologies to Old Father Thames in Ashton Keynes here, but you’re in the wrong place, mate. But wait…
7. There’s even a further possibility mentioned in @PaulWhitewick‘s excellent recent thread and video about some of this, referring to a leak from the Thames and Severn Canal, further up than Thames Head.
8. As Paul mentions, it’s an open secret that the *real* source is Seven Springs, known as the mouth of the tributary River Churn. Here it is, bubbling happily, a whopping 52.7km from Lechlade & making the Thames waters longer than the Severn. But… there’s a further source yet!
9. A bit W of there is this pond at Ullenwood’s college & a nearby stream – bubbling happily, a whole 54.8km from Lechlade, and feeding into the ‘Churn’. Thames Head is so utterly geographically – and even historically – wrong! Ah well: it won the gong, so the ‘source’ it is.
10. Even the source of the tributary Coln is 49.km from Lechlade. Thames Head isn’t even technically in the top 10 distance-wise! This map (OS Open Rivers data) shows A: Thames Head B: Swill Brook C: River Coln D: Churn (Seven Springs) E: Churn (Ullenwood). Bye!
Today I’m embarking on another London walking expedition… Join me on a 6-mile walk as I listen to the echoes of a Saxon-era cult, and learn about some literary legends, lost spas… and a walrus. I give you: #pancrasday
Today, 12 May, is the feast of Saint Pancras, a little-known saint whose name is writ large in London, and commemorated in various UK churches. He was a 3rd century Turkish-born Roman who converted to Christianity & was beheaded c.304AD, perhaps by emperor Diocletian. #pancrasday
Pancras/Pancratius (whose name means holder-of-everything) was venerated by the 5th century (he’s patron of children). Allegedly his head remains to this day in Rome’s basilica of San Pancrazio. But how come he’s all over (mostly southern) Britain? #pancrasday
The answer lies with St Augustine, the chap who came to Canterbury in 597AD & brought relics of Pancras with him (history does not record which bits) & the associated cult. Augustine’s 1st church in Canterbury (see pic of surviving ruins) was dedicated to Pancras #pancrasday
Plus a story tells that the monastery in Rome where Augustine had been prior was built on land once owned by Pancras’s family. Bede wrote of the relics in Northumbria c.60 years after Augustine came – Pancras became important here. Join me at 11am! #pancrasday
My London #pancrasday route begins of course at St Pancras station – more on that shortly. Along the W side lies Midland Road, built with the station, to the east of Somers Town. The railway development caused this to become a slum. (Map via http://theundergroundmap.com) #pancrasday
The district of St Pancras began as a parish but eventually encompassed dozens of parishes as the population rocketed in the 19th century (now in Camden borough). Swift’s Tale of a Tub is set in Pankridge, a version of the name Pancredge used since the 17th C. #pancrasday
Midland Road passes Brill Place, named for ‘The Brill’, earthworks which in 1750 William Stukeley fancifully imagined was where Caesar had held camp. But there were civil war defences here at Brill Farm in 1642 – and in fact a Roman road passes across here too. #pancrasday
Just W of here was a 15-sided building called The Polygon (demolished 1890), where writer William Godwin and feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft lived – she died in 1797 giving birth to their daughter: later Mary Shelley. Dickens lived here when he was a teenager. #pancrasday
Here’s hope. #pancrasday
Here’s amazing St Pancras Old Church, packed with history I can only touch on. Some have claimed it as England’s oldest but evidence lacks – that gong goes to St Martin, Canterbury, but St Paul’s in London is 7th C. & St Peter-upon-Cornhill could be even older. #pancrasday
St Pancras is at least Norman, and there could be a Saxon origin even. Documents date from the 11th C. and there’s an ancient altar stone (prob. Norman) found during a Victorian rebuild (1848) – plus some Roman tiles. 50 of Cromwell’s men lodged here and made a mess. #pancrasday
But even by 1593, antiquarian John Norden would write “Pancras Church standeth all alone, as utterly forsaken, old and weather-beaten”. He warned of thieves and said “Walk not there too late”. The church stood beside the now buried River Fleet (pic is from 1815). #pancrasday
The graveyard has many more stories. Shelley canoodled with Mary here. Dickens fictionalised the bodysnatching. Moody poet Chatterton fell into a fresh grave and killed himself 3 days later. 100,000+ burials were made, including refugees from the French Revolution. #pancrasday
In 1803, an extra graveyard for St Giles-in-the-Fields was added: inmates include John Soane, whose tomb inspired the K2 phone box; Byron’s physician J.W. Polidori, author of ‘The Vampyre’, was another, plus Bach’s youngest son, & transgender spy the Chevalier d’Eon. #pancrasday
In the 1860s, the Catholic side and much of the St Giles bit was affected by work on the new Midland Railway: many graves had to be moved (an overflow cemetery had already opened up in Finchley in 1854). Contemporaries said it was being “desecrated”. #pancrasday
One workman was trainee architect Thomas Hardy, the novelist. One coffin he found contained 2 skulls. His wife wrote “by the light of flare-lamps, the exhumation went on continuously of the coffins that had been uncovered”. Here’s the Hardy Tree named after him. #pancrasday
Now forgotten is Pancras Wells, an 18th C. spa (pictured 1730) just S of the church, and the Adam & Eve tea garden nearby, still a tavern in Victorian times. The wells were “surprisingly successful in curing the most obstinate cases of scurvy, king’s evil, leprosy” #pancrasday
Frustratingly there are builders all over the gardens today so I can’t poke around on the side where Pancras Wells was! #pancrasday [update: see below]
Just N of the church is St Pancras Hospital – previously the 1809 workhouse, later expanded. One inmate was Robert Blincoe, possible inspiration for Oliver Twist. Sign up at https://www.gethistories.com to read my article about him published tomorrow! #pancrasday
Just N of the hospital is Granary Street, named after a huge 19th C. storehouse for 100,000 barrels of beer from Bass in Burton-on-Trent, later used for storing grain. The 1816 Regent’s Canal runs nearby. #pancrasday
And into Camley Street, home to a wetland nature reserve near the floodplain once called Pancras Wash and on the site of old coal yards. It opened in 1985 and was revamped only last year. #pancrasday
The old gasometers in this area were built in the 1850s. They feature in the 1955 Ealing comedy The Ladykillers. I remember taking rubbish arty pictures of them in the 1990s, before they were decommissioned in 2000; some were rebuilt in 2013 in Gasholder Park. #pancrasday
OK, this is why I’m really here… #pancrasday
Here’s hope again, and on the Pancras children theme. #pancrasday
St Pancras station opened in 1868 and the Midland Grand Hotel in 1873. The station site was once Agar Town, a slum named after Councillor William Agar, a Yorkshireman (d.1838) who had a grand villa, Elm Lodge, here. The music hall star Dan Leno was born in the area. #pancrasday
For the next sections of this walk, I’ll be following the route of the River Fleet, which curved past here. Many have written or filmed about it (eg @fugueur) so I’ll only, er, dip in. King’s Cross was once Battle Bridge, allegedly where Boudicca tackled the Romans. #pancrasday
Just off Gray’s Inn Road was once the site of St Chad’s Well, where in 1772 more than 1000 people drank the waters in a week – subscriptions were £1/year. It gradually declined, and the pump room was demolished in 1860 to make way for the Metropolitan Railway. #pancrasday
Another spa site was Bagnigge Wells near King’s Cross Road, then called Black Mary’s Hole. It was favoured by Charles II’s mistress, actress Nell Gwynne. It had a grotto plus bowling green & skittle alley, & 3 bridges over the Fleet. By 1842 it was “almost a ruin”. #pancrasday
As I was passing anyway, of course I stopped at the Postal Museum (@thepostalmuseum http://postalmuseum.org) for a quick trip on the Mail Rail built underground in 1927 for the Mount Pleasant sorting office. Very near the Fleet! #pancrasday
I can also confirm the rumour you can hear the waters of the Fleet through a grating outside The Coach! 👂#pancrasday
A quick lunch stop at Little Britain feels appropriate, before I’m back directly on the heels of the saint who prompted this. #pancrasday
We still have two more London churches named after St Pancras to investigate. Pancras Lane off Queen Street in the City gives a clue to the first. Sadly St Pancras Soper Lane (& its marvellously named neighbour St Benet Sherehog) was destroyed by the 1666 Great Fire. #pancrasday
This St Pancras is mentioned in 13th C. documents and was owned by Canterbury Cathedral; it may have been older still. Some remains are buried beneath 70-80 Cheapside – and this little yard marks part of the burial ground (used until 1853) to this day. #pancrasday
In 1374 the archbishop of Canterbury supported the funding of a bell here confusingly called ‘Le Clok’. In the 17th C. a memorial to Eliz. I and repairs were funded by a Thomas Chapman, who I assume is no relation. In 1598 John Stow called it a “proper small church” #pancrasday
Just E of St Paul’s stands the remains of St Augustine Watling Street, tying together the Roman road and the man who brought Pancras to Britain. This Norman church too was lost to the Great Fire, but rebuilt by Christopher Wren. Most of it was lost again in WW2. #pancrasday
Now I’m heading west along Fleet Street again (see #londonfogg). Here’s Crane Court, where Isaac Newton moved the Royal Society in 1710, and a plaque to Britain’s first newspaper, the Daily Courant. Read my article about that here: https://www.gethistories.com/p/the-first-daily-paper-1702 #pancrasday
At Lincoln’s Inn Fields is the amazing Sir John Soane’s Museum (http://www.soane.org@SoaneMuseum) – as we met him in death at St Pancras, here’s where he dwelt in life. This is the model he made of the same tomb which he kept by his dining table as a memento mori! #pancrasday
Oops – the 6-mile #pancrasday walk has been 9 miles so far…
And finally to St Pancras New Church, built 1819-22 as the main place of worship for the old parish – although it is nearer to Euston. It was inspired by a temple and a tower in Athens. It cost £77,000 to build – the most expensive church since St Paul’s was rebuilt. #pancrasday
The church is known for its terracotta caryatids – female figures serving as architectural props – although they were too big when first installed and to be, er, pruned. Meanwhile the congregation of the old church protested at this one being built. #pancrasday
(A volatile vestry meeting in Southampton Tea Gardens “was very tumultuous” and a punch was thrown – and at the 1819 stone-laying ceremony “a numerous gang of pickpockets rushed in”. All good fun. #pancrasday)
And on that nefarious note, my #pancrasday walk comes to an end. Thanks for following! (I have plans afoot for historical walks outside London, if you like this sort of thing, and do sign up to my weekly newsletter, https://www.gethistories.com)
Follow-ups
My article on ‘the real Oliver Twist‘ (a memoir of an inmate at St Pancras workhouse).
3/6/22: On my #pancrasday day adventure a few weeks ago I couldn’t see all of Old St Pancras churchyard due to work going on. I’ve snuck back to visit the corner near where the Pancras Wells resort was, thanks to a sexton letting me through the barriers. Anyone for dominos?
Below is the full thread of my mini-adventure on 29 April 2022, an analogue for Phileas Fogg’s famed voyage, but contained within central London. I’m truly grateful for the enthusiasm people showed for it!
It’s 150 years this year since Jules Verne published Around the World in Eighty Days. Today I shall embark on my own voyage of homage, on foot, visiting places related in some way to every country Phileas Fogg went to. But the twist is it’s all in central London. #londonfogg 🧵
With London being such a cosmopolitan city, on this tiring trek by foot I hope to show you some interesting corners of history, literature and geography. Google says my route will be at least 21.6 miles and take 7 hours and 27 mins (with no stops). The game’s afoot… #londonfogg
The adventure begins at the Reform Club, where Phileas Fogg fictionally agreed to wager that he could circumnavigate the world – in the age of rail and steamers – within 80 days. (Trollope’s similarly named 1867 novel Phineas Finn also features the club. Phishy?) #londonfogg
The Reform Club (Verne: “a huge building in Pall Mall”) was founded by political progressives in 1836, supporters of the Reform Act 1832, which improved access to the vote (unless you were female or poor…). The premises still here was modelled on a palace in Rome. #londonfogg
After Phileas made his £20,000 wager, he had to pack – well, his servant Passepartout did. “We’ll have no trunks; only a carpet-bag, with two shirts and three pairs of stockings for me, and the same for you…” – so first he went home to 7 Savile Row. #londonfogg
Verne wrongly said 7 Savile Row had been playwright Sheridan’s address (that was No. 14, later home to fashion designer Hardy Amies) but he was right that these 1730s houses formed “a fashionable address”. In Fogg’s era the Royal Geographical Society was at No. 1. #londonfogg
This is my #londonfogg version of Passepartout, by the way: a document wallet with some spare socks! 🧦
Fogg and Passepartout only had 10 minutes to pack, before dashing (by cab) to nearby Charing Cross station. (Google says it will have taken me 29 minutes to get here from the Reform Club via Savile Row – I’ve done it in 26) #londonfogg
Distances from London are measured from the site of Charing Cross (see #bus24!), originally the last of the Eleanor crosses built by the mourning Edward I in 1294 and destroyed by Cromwell. The nearby cross here now is a Victorian fiction, like Phileas Fogg himself. #londonfogg
Fogg dashed to Dover (London has a Dover Street with many cultural links, with past lodgers including Anne Lister of Gentleman Jack fame and Chopin, plus the world’s first telephone call was made at Brown’s Hotel) but let’s head for France. #londonfogg
Oops: I’ve already dropped my scribbled itinerary somewhere! Let’s hope I can rely on the Baedeker of my mind. #londonfogg
How to represent France in London? South Kensington is something of a French quarter now. There were the Huguenots of Spitalfields. Or there’s Paris Garden near Blackfriars (but south of the river so not allowed). But instead I have opted for a 0.9 mile dash to… #londonfogg
Petty France (from ‘Petit’). This was another Huguenot settlement, of wool merchants. It later became York Street after one of the less controversial Dukes of York but it reverted to the original in 1925. It was the first London street to be paved for walkers like me. #londonfogg
John Milton, Jeremy Bentham and William Hazlitt all lived in this house (not at once 🙂). The passport (Passepartout?) office was in Petty France 1952-2002. The brutalist Ministry of Justice is here today. #londonfogg
London offers a bottomless well of international stories – here’s one found in passing in St James’s Square en route to my second French area… #londonfogg
But we can see a bit more of France and a first taste of Italy, both in Soho, where French and Italian communities have had long links (and long drinks). French Huguenots settled here in the late 17th C. and the 1893 French church is still in Soho Square. #londonfogg
The French House in Dean Street has only had its name since 1984 but as the York Minster it was still known as the French pub for decades. After France fell to the Nazis in WW2, Charles de Gaulle hung out here (as many boozy London writers and artists did later). #londonfogg
Oh and let’s not forget Maison Bertaux in Greek Street, whose founder fled Paris in 1871, just a year before Phileas Fogg travelled through the city by train. #londonfogg
London still has an Italian quarter and that’s where I’m off to next – but on the way here’s a sign of another of London’s Italian communities, still in Soho, where political refugees began to gather in the 1860s. (Gloucester Road has an Italian bookshop, BTW.) #londonfogg
Five miles walked so far, slightly ahead of (lost) schedule, fuelled by a delicious pain au choc from Bertaux. #londonfogg
St Peter’s Italian Church, opened 1863, is a focal point for London’s Little Italy, around Clerkenwell Road and Saffron Hill, and is modelled on a basilica in Rome. This area even had a local Godfather, Charles Sabini, 1888-1950 (he popped up in Peaky Blinders). #londonfogg
(Side note: apparently saffron was originally grown in Saffron Hill in the 14th century to disguise the taste of the rancid meat eaten by Londoners! It was later where Dickens set Fagin’s den. #londonfogg)
Phileas Fogg hurtled through Turin and down to Brindisi for the steamer to Suez. London has a Turin Street in Bethnal Green and a Turin Road in Edmonton – too far for me today – but not even a building that I can find named after Brindisi. Prove me wrong! #londonfogg
On the theme of London streets, London has adjacent ones named after Fogg’s next two destinations: Suez Road & Aden Road, in distant Enfield (plus Suez Avenue, Brentford & Aden Grove, Stoke Newington). But my Egypt – 1.7 miles from St Peter’s – takes me south-west… #londonfogg
Thanks to British obsession with Egypt since the late 18th century, London has many connections with or nods to (or looted artefacts from) Egypt. I could hotfoot to Cleopatra’s Needle, Richmond Avenue in Islington or Highgate Cemetery, say, but instead I’ve come to… #londonfogg
The rather modest entrance of 170-3 Piccadilly, called Egyptian House. Today it is aptly home to the Egyptian State Tourist Office – but this 1906 building stands on the site of a London phenomenon: the Egyptian Hall, built here a century beforehand. #londonfogg
Egyptian Hall – London’s 1st ‘Egyptian’ building – was created by collector William Bullock (whose Liverpool Museum had been nearby), and packed with art and relics. In Fogg’s era it hosted the celebrated magicians and debunkers of spiritualism Maskelyne & Cooke. #londonfogg
(Apparently the two statues in the previous picture still exist, guarding the private goods lift of the Museum of London! #londonfogg)
Phileas Fogg steamed through the Suez Canal, which had only opened 3 years before his fictional visit, and down the Red Sea to Aden, which was then an outpost of British India. Today it’s the capital of Yemen. London has a Yemeni Community Association in Kingston. #londonfogg
But my canal will have to be the 1801 Paddington Basin, and my Yemen is represented nearby – London’s only Yemeni restaurant, the Queen of Sheba in Bouverie Place. (‘Monsieur Bouverie, c’est moi?’) The legendary biblical queen is claimed by both Ethiopia and Yemen. #londonfogg
Fogg got his visa stamped in Aden & promptly returned to playing whist. But his servant took more interest: “Passepartout… sauntered about among the mixed population of Somalis, Banyans, Parsees, Jews, Arabs and Europeans who comprise the 25,000 inhabitants of Aden” #londonfogg
11 miles walked so far – feet hurt! But am only 1 minute behind schedule 🥾#londonfogg
After Aden, Fogg continued his voyage by sea to Bombay (Mumbai) and then by train (& elephant) to Allahabad and Calcutta (Kolkata). London has a Bombay Street in Bermondsey and Calcutta Road in Tilbury, but my longest stretch of the day (2.8 miles) takes me to… #londonfogg
India House at Aldwych is home to the High Commission of India, in geographical terms incongruously next to Australia House. India House opened in 1930 and is adorned with emblems for the 12 provinces of the British Raj era. #londonfogg
Getting the train to Southall would perhaps be more Indian, more fun and more tasty. Another time! Though thank you @huel for inventing a meal I can have on the hoof. #londonfogg
Fogg left India by steamer, down through another vital shipping channel, the Strait of Malacca, to Singapore. London’s Singapore spots are the High Commission in Wilton Crescent & the nondescript Tourism Board in Regent Street, which I’m taking as the easy option. #londonfogg
Verne noted: “The island of Singapore is not imposing in aspect, for there are no mountains; yet its appearance is not without attractions… the town… is a vast collection of heavy-looking, irregular houses, surrounded by charming gardens rich in tropical fruits…” #londonfogg
And thence to Hong Kong – a British colony from 1842 to 1997 – and Shanghai. The obvious – and nearby! – place for me to go is London’s Chinatown, centred on Gerrard Street (a street with connections to John Dryden, Dr Johnson and Joshua Reynolds). #londonfogg
Verne: “Docks, hospitals, wharves, a Gothic cathedral, a government house, macadamised streets, give to Hong Kong the appearance of a town in Kent or Surrey transferred by some strange magic to the antipodes.” Chinatown maybe offers the same magic t’other way around. #londonfogg
London’s real Chinese history was focused in Limehouse in the East End, home to many Chinese sailors (and the Victorian fascination with opium dens) until bombing in the Blitz. Modern Chinatown only dates from the 1950s. Its 2016 gate is in the Qing dynasty style. #londonfogg
Another short hop brings me to the Japan Centre in Panton Street, a food hall and retail centre which has been here since 1976. (Crouch Hill has a Japan Crescent; the Japan House cultural and design centre is in Kensington; Holland Park has the Kyoto Zen garden.) #londonfogg
(Some Japanese London trivia for you: in 1921 Crown Prince Hirohito sat for a portrait at Augustus John’s house in Chelsea. And the Albert Hall hosted the first ever sumo wrestling tournament outside Japan, in 1991. #londonfogg)
Verne describes Yokohama as “where all the mail-steamers, and those carrying travellers… put in” and Passepartout enjoys its “sacred gates of a singular architecture, bridges half hid in the midst of bamboos and reeds, temples shaded by immense cedar-trees…” #londonfogg
From Yokohama, Fogg took a 20-day crossing to San Francisco, and thence across the USA to New York by rail. I fancy a drink at the American Bar in the Savoy – but it’s shut. (Luckily I checked before committing my feet.) #londonfogg
Other slices of America in London include Benjamin Franklin’s house on Craven Street; various properties in Grosvenor Square have US links (including the former embassy, now in Nine Elms); and Joe Allen’s restaurant founded in 1977. But I’m off to the City… #londonfogg
My feet asked me to take this pic. 18 miles so far. Still on target though. #londonfogg
Seething Lane. Crutched Friars. My feet really are making a point now. #londonfogg
America Square is now dominated by modern buildings but it was originally built 1768-1774 by George Dance the Younger, it seems to celebrate Britain’s colonies in America and house some of their merchants and sea captains. Banker Nathan Mayer Rothschild lived here. #londonfogg
A stone obelisk stood in its centre, at least until the 1950s. The square survived the Blitz, but a 1944 V-1 strike caused major damage and no original buildings survive. Roman walls were rediscovered during construction of 1990 office complex One America Square. #londonfogg
Sadly I couldn’t access the chunk in the basement but the office manager has kindly just taken me round the corner to this. #londonfogg
(Verne: On arriving in San Francisco “Passepartout observed with much curiosity the wide streets, the low, evenly ranged houses, the Anglo-Saxon Gothic churches, the great docks, the palatial wooden and brick warehouses, the numerous conveyances… #londonfogg)
From America, Fogg went by steamer to Ireland, then took the train from Queenstown to Dublin. The City of London has Ireland Yard, where Shakespeare bought a house in 1613, and 9 years earlier some of the Gunpowder Plot plotters had plotted. But I’m not going there… #londonfogg
Here’s the London Stone, psychically propping up the metropolis, in a happier location now than last time I saw it years ago. #londonfogg
London has Queenstown Road and Dublin Avenue. Nope, not there either. The north London Irish community of Kilburn is too far, as is the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith. Instead, my feet take me to… #londonfogg
What *claims* to be the first ever Irish pub outside Ireland. A sign used to say it was founded c.1700 by Mooney & Son at the Boar’s Head, 66 Fleet Street – and the first to serve Guinness. But the plaque outside was riddled with fictions… #londonfogg
Now it seems the sign has gone and – I wasn’t expecting this – the pub is no more. A dusty Mooney carving marks the doorstep. So it goes. #londonfogg
The site was also associated with the Bolt-in-Tun inn next door, and only became Mooney’s Irish House in 1895 & The Tipperary c.1968 (not after WW1 as claimed). An excellent article by @zythophiliac(zythophile.co.uk/2018/09/27/the…) provides the facts behind the… blarney. #londonfogg
Back to Britain. Fogg landed in Liverpool (London’s Liverpool Street & Road were actually named after early 19th C. prime minister Lord Liverpool, who had chuff all to do with the place). His train would have taken him to Euston, but the book doesn’t mention it. #londonfogg
Euston Station first opened in 1837 and was expanded in 1849. By Fogg’s time the London & North Western Railway connected Liverpool and London directly. Verne says the journey took 6 hours but Fogg ordered a special train, taking 5 and a half. Today it’s half that. #londonfogg
The final push, past a suitably Foggish hat shop. #londonfogg
Back in London, Fogg believed he was 5 minutes late for the deadline – “having steadily traversed that long journey, overcome a hundred obstacles, braved many dangers… to fail near the goal” – so he just went home to Savile Row. #londonfogg
Having miscalculated the date, Fogg won his wager after all and hotfooted it back to the Reform Club… #londonfogg
So here I am again, after 23.3 miles of walking and 7 hours and 19minutes. So I made it! Now to Mr Fogg’s Society of Exploration (@MrFoggsGB) to celebrate! Pip pip. #londonfogg
PS. If you’d like to read about one of the real-life adventurers who inspired Julles Verne, my weekly history-themed newsletter is about exactly that and goes out this evening. gethistories.com@gethistories). Thanks for following! #londonfogg
“The Minster is very large and fine of stone, carv’d all the outside 3 high towers above the Leads”
“I was in one of them, the highest, and it was 262 steps and those very steep steps” [the Minster says 275 and I made it 281!]
“On the Leads of the tower shews a vast prospect of the Country at least 30 mile round, you see all over the town that looks as a building too much cluster’d together, the Streets being so narrow, some were pretty long.”
“In the Minster there is the greatest curiosity for Windows I ever saw they are so large and so lofty, those in the Quire at the end and on each side that is 3 storeys high and painted very curious, with History of the Bible”
“There is a large hunter’s Horn tipped with silver and garnish’d over and engrav’d finely, all double gilt” [a copy shown – ironically the original is on holiday in Oxford where I came from today]
(The Horn of Ulf is currently part of this exhibition: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/gifts-and-books @bodleianlibs)
“The Chapter house is very finely carv’d and fine painting on the windows all round, it’s all arched Stone and supported by its own work having no pillars to rest on”
For the full story, read my Histories newsletter 😁 https://www.gethistories.com/p/the-mean-streets-of-york-1697