In search of St Pancras: a London walk

(An archive of a live Twitter thread from 2022.)

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

St Pancras has long been a lodestone for psychogeographers. If you prefer an alternative take on the Hardy Tree, read this haunting tale by @portalsoflondon: https://portalsoflondon.com/2017/01/20/the-hell-tree-of-st-pancras/#pancrasday

When new work was undertaken for the Eurostar terminal in 2013, a coffin was found containing the bones of eight people… and a walrus! https://www.itv.com/news/london/story/2013-07-23/mystery-of-st-pancras-walrus/ #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. Read my article about him here. #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 (very) where Boudica 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

The Fleet also passed the notorious bear garden at Hockley-in-the-Hole, where Ray Street is today. Read my article about it here: https://www.gethistories.com/p/georgian-fight-club-1710 #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 allegedly had 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?

03/06/2022, 11:53:36

Posted on 12/05/202218/05/2025 by Andrew Chapman

Around the World in Eight Hours

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! 🧦

Kazakhstan already! Oops, wrong story. #londonfogg

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

Where gaslighters congregate? #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

The Tardis ain’t what it used to be. #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

More slices of London history. #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

And in a nearby building, 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

Signs of old Fleet Street types. #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

Posted on 03/05/202218/09/2023 by Andrew Chapman

The fellow that goes alone

Kenneth Grahame is famous of course for writing The Wind in the Willows and a few other children’s books. But here is an essay about walking alone that he wrote for the St Edward’s School Chronicle in 1913.¹ Since then, this has only ever been published in Peter Green’s 1959 biography of Grahame, and a few extracts briefly went viral when Maria Popova quoted them on her Brainpickings blog. I have tracked down the full text and am pleased to offer it here for the first time online, with a few of my annotations:

The fellow that goes alone

Those who have browsed among the pages of Caxton’s Golden Legend—a story-book of much fascination—may remember how it is told, in a passage concerning the boyhood of a certain English saint—Edmund, Archbishop and Confessor—that on a day when the boy was by himself in a meadow, “sodeynlye there apperyd tofore hym a fayr chylde in whyte clothynge which sayd, ‘Hayle, felawe that goest alone!’”

Local considerations themselves should make us cherish the memory of this Edmund with a certain tenderness; for he was born at the pleasant town of Abingdon, that sits among its lush water-meadows and almost catches the chimes down the stream from the not so distant Oxford towers; and he ‘went to Oxenforde to scole,’ as of course a good saint should; and many a time he must have ridden out over Grandpont and along the old raised ‘Cawsy’²—still there, under the road—to visit his home and his good mother, who was thought worthy to have inscribed on her tomb that she was the ‘flower of widows.’ Also he ‘dwellyd long after at Oxenforde’ and ‘Teddy,’ the last of the old Halls, is said to perpetuate his name.³ But specially we should envy him his white vision in the meadow; for which he should be regarded as the patron saint of all those who of set purpose, choose to walk alone, who know the special grace attaching to it, and ever feel that somewhere just ahead, round the next bend perhaps, the White Child may be waiting for them.

For Nature’s particular gift to the walker, through the semi-mechanical act of walking—a gift no other form of exercise seems to transmit in the same high degree—is to set the mind jogging, to make it garrulous, exalted, a little mad maybe—certainly creative and super-sensitive, until at last it really seems to be outside of you and as it were talking to you, while you are talking back to it. Then everything gradually seems to join in, sun and the wind, the white road and the dusty hedges, the spirit of the season, whichever that may be, the friendly old Earth that is pushing forth life of every sort under your very feet or spellbound in deathlike winter trance, till you walk in the midst of a blessed company, immersed in a dream-talk far transcending any possible human conversation. Time enough, later, for that—across the dinner table, in smoking-room armchairs; here and now, the mind has shaken off its harness, is snorting and kicking up heels like a colt in a meadow. Not a fiftieth part of all your happy imaginings will you ever, later, recapture, note down, reduce to dull inadequate words; but meantime the mind has stretched itself and had its holiday. But this emancipation is only attained in solitude, the solitude which the unseen companions demand before they will come out and talk to you; for, be he who he may, if there is another fellow present, your mind has to trot between shafts.

A certain amount of ‘shafts,’ indeed, is helpful, as setting the mind more free; and so the high road, while it should always give way to the field path when choice offers, still has this particular virtue, that it takes charge of you—your body, that is to say. Its hedges hold you in friendly steering-reins, its milestones and fingerposts are always on hand, with information succinct and free from frills; and it always gets somewhere, sooner or later. So you are nursed along your way, and the mind may soar in cloudland and never need to be pulled earthwards by any string. But this is as much company as you ought to require, the comradeship of the road you walk on, the road which will look after you and attend to such facts as must not be overlooked. Of course the best sort of walk is the one on which it doesn’t matter twopence whether you get anywhere at all at any time or not; and the second best is the one on which the hard facts of routes, times, or trains, give you nothing to worry about. And this is perhaps the only excuse for the presence of that much-deprecated Other Fellow—that you can put all that sort of thing on to him. For the world is fortunately well furnished with fellows who really like looking up Bradshaw, and paying bills, and taking charge generally; and it is wise to keep some such a man within easy hail. But spiritually he will be of little use, even if he were the angel that walked with Tobias.⁴

Much converse will he have, too, with shy bird and furtive little beast, the fellow that walks alone. I seem to have noticed a different expression in the eye of bird or animal at one’s solitary approach, from the way it looks at you when there are two or three of you about. In the first case it seems to say wistfully, ‘This may be a pal!’ In the second, ‘This is certainly a conspiracy!’ and acts accordingly. As for adventures, if they are the game you hunt, everyone’s experience will remind him that the best adventures of his life were pursued and achieved, or came suddenly to him unsought, when he was alone. For company too often means compromise, discretion, the choice of the sweetly reasonable. It is difficult to be mad in company; yet but a touch of lunacy in action will open magic doors to rare and unforgettable experiences.

But all these are only the by-products, the casual gains, of walking alone. The high converse, the high adventures, will be in the country of the mind.

– KENNETH GRAHAME

(If you like the hidden corners of history, please consider signing up to my free weekly newsletter, Histories.)

July 1913, No. 321, Vol. XII – Grahame attended the school from 1868 to 1875. ↩
A medieval – and possibly Anglo-Saxon in origin – stone causeway, part of which, as Grahame suggests, does indeed remain underneath the modern Abingdon Road – some modern excavations have revealed part of it. ↩
This is an allusion to the tradition that the Oxford college St Edmund Hall was developed from a hall where Edmund himself had taught. Edmund of Abingdon (c.1174–1240) was known for his travels around England, and was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1233. ↩
See the Book of Tobit, 5.16. ↩

Posted on 16/12/202018/09/2023 by Andrew Chapman

In search of Colin’s Barn (aka The Hobbit House)

Some blundering around on the internet recently led me to read about an extraordinary place known as Colin’s Barn, or The Hobbit House (not to be confused with a self-consciously titled eco-home of the latter name built in Wales). I had to find it, so a small but intrepid band of us sallied forth to track it down. Briefly, it was built between 1989 and 1999 by a stained glass artist called Colin Stokes, on land he owned near his house in Chedglow, Wiltshire. He built it for his sheep. Apparently the council were not best pleased that neither Stokes nor his flock had been through the due planning process, and the stress of the bureaucracy may have contributed to him moving to Scotland. The ‘barn’ remains quietly dilapidating in a field.

There’s plenty more at Derelict Places but with care to keep its location secret. I’m not going to blab either, but suffice it to say (a) that it’s on private land, so tread warily and respectfully (b) despite what commenters at that site and others say, it can be found on Google maps, rather easily if you use your brain and (c) all of the stuff on these forums about rottweilers and security heavies appears to be twaddle. Or perhaps they are otherwise occupied on sunny afternoons. My only hint is to follow the horses and not the cars. (More photos at Flickr.)

Anyway, it’s a beautiful and amazing thing – and maybe the world is a better place for things like this being left dotted around in quiet corners.

Posted on 03/10/201118/09/2023 by Andrew Chapman 2

In the Glymelight

Commuting has given me time to read James Attlee’s Isolarion: A Different Oxford Journey. I can’t praise this book highly enough – it’s a psychogeographical meander down Cowley Road, in much the same vein as Iain Sinclair’s explorations in London Orbital and Edge of the Orison, though undertaken in a different way. Attlee adopts the same elegiac tone as the crushing monotony of theme park Britain tries to bulldoze anywhere with real character and vibrancy. He lacks Sinclair’s poetic (or obscurantist) touch, but it’s a very enjoyable read. Attlee approaches his various excursions and incursions along Cowley Road in the spirit of a pilgrimage, and his text is informed and inspired by interesting background reading from, among others, Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. The history of the car plants, refugees, the Bartlemas leper hospital, drunks in the graveyard, the famous porn shop, takeaways and council meetings – it’s all in here.

I don’t miss living in London, but sometimes I miss London walks, and exploring its palimpsest of history. This is the first time a book about Oxford has given me the same thrill, and I know there’s much more to explore. It’s interesting that he avoids the sometimes stagnant and certainly overexplored history of central Oxford, and heads eastward. If you’re not sympathetic to this sort of project, Attlee could perhaps come across as a smug art-world type at times, but that would be unjust. This is a fantastic and inspiring book.

On Easter Monday, we set out on a pilgrimage on our own, taking the bus out to Chipping Norton to walk the route of the river Glyme as closely as possible from there down to where it joins the Evenlode at Woodstock. It makes for an idyllic walk – though around 14/15 miles, mind. The Glyme begins as a gentle stream alongside the mediaeval Saltway (got this one in your salt facts, ?) and meanders through some truly peaceful and surprisingly hidden countryside, despite the A44 not being far away. The Saltway, lost mediaeval villages, mills and waterfalls and absurdly pretty hamlets all feature along its course. In its middle life, the Glyme gets pretentions – as well as being dammed into a small lake at Old Chalford, it then runs through no less than three grand estates – Kiddington, Glympton and Blenheim (where, as at Kiddington, it forms an ornamental lake). At Radfordbridge, we passed the beautiful spot where my Mini got stranded the other week, and met some puppies. We were too footsore to see it through Blenheim to Bladon, where it joins the Evenlode, but we did follow it pretty closely all along. Spring is making me joyously happy. (Anyone wanting to see pictures and the route can download a 290K PDF here.)

Posted on 13/04/200718/09/2023 by Andrew Chapman

Kidlington Orbital

On Sunday Brighty and I did half of the ‘Kidlington Circular Walk’ – a badly signed, mixed bag of a walk that even Iain Sinclair might baulk at. Lowpoints include negotiating the A34 and associated tributaries, but of course there was much to celebrate, too – most particularly the slightly spooky but impressive Elizabethan/Jacobean pile that is Water Eaton Manor. My subsequent researches reveal that from the late 1920s it was owned by Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders, director of LSE for two decades and a noted eugenicist. His son Nicholas (born at the manor) clearly rebelled however. He died in 1998, having been a pioneer of the wholefood movement (he founded Neal’s Yard). Some gems from his obit in the Independent:

– “He constructed a flat in Edith Grove, west London, so that ducks in the pond outside could swim under a plate-glass window and into his living room”
– “he slept in a papier-mache ‘cave'”
– “The flat became a centre for hippies and anyone with new alternative ideas. These he began to record and the first edition of Altemative London was brought out in 1970… Further editions followed until a friend meditating in front of a candle inadvertently burnt the flat down.”
– at Neal’s Yard “he designed an imaginative rooftop garden and a flat where he slept in a suspended egg and arranged a padded ledge for guests”
– “Nicholas Saunders spent the last years of his life investigating the drug culture and particularly Ecstasy”
(You don’t say?)

Not sure who owns the manor now, but Nicholas’ son Kristoffer runs a nightclub in Denmark. Sir Alex would roll in his Aryan grave.

Posted on 28/11/200618/09/2023 by Andrew Chapman

Walking the River Effra

A guided route, based on a walk in 2002, following the route of London’s lost River Effra.

This is an attempt to follow the route of the Effa river as close as possible – the river itself was once comparable to the Fleet north of the Thames, although sources differ over the upper part of its course, and it seems to have had various branches in the Norwood area. One thing that walking the route does, however, is let the folds of the landscape speak for themselves: the best source is the river itself.

The Effra was already being used as a sewer by the 17th century, although the upper reaches were still clear in the second half of the 19th. Even today, a stretch is perhaps visible – as the following walk reveals.

The walk begins at one of the likely sources of the river: somewhere in Upper Norwood Recreation Ground. This was acquired by Croydon Council in 1890 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for about £6,500; two new roads, Eversley and Chevening, were constructed. The site offered a view of the Crystal Palace towers and included one of the head waters of the Effra, running north-west.

Walk along Chevening Road westward to Hermitage Road. According to legend Queen Elizabeth I came up the river in her barge to where Hermitage Road now stands – though it is extremely unlikely that the river was actually broad enough here, so near to the source.

The area north of Hermitage Road is known as Norwood New Town – apparently a bridge made of four planks used to run across the Effra stream somewhere here. Walk up Hermitage Road and on the left past Ryefield Road is a small cul-de-sac: walk down here and at the end is a drain in the road with water rushing loudly underneath. Could this be the lost call of the Effra?

The river ran through the grounds of what is now the Virgo Fidelis convent school – not open to the public, of course. But the river makes itself known just the other side. Walk up Hermitage Road and turn left: the dip of the river valley is very distinctive where Elder Road meets Central Hill. The brick wall of the convent was swept away on 17 July 1890 when the river and West Norwood flooded – damage is still visible in the convent wall.

Heading north up Elder Road, on the south side of the old relieving office (on the left hand side of the road) a stone tablet indicates the level that the flood reached in 1890.

On the right is Norwood Park: once upon a time there were thatched cottages here, whose inhabitants had to cross the stream by little wooden bridges to get to the road. There used to be iron gratings in the fields where small boys would drop paper boats. At the end of Windsor Grove, there used to be two large ponds known as ‘The Reservoir’. Meanwhile, to the west, in the 20th century the bed of a tributary could still be seen at the back of the tennis courts at the bottom of Cheviot Road, which is likely to have belonged to a tributary of the main river.

Walking further up Elder Road into Norwood High Street, East Place, on the right just before the railway line, is another flood site: on 14 June 1914 the former river overflowed from the brick sewer imprisoning it and the ground floors of many West Norwood houses flooded – it is even claimed that some people’s Sunday joints were washed out of their ovens. Animals were also trapped in the floods in East Place in the 1920s.

The river bends right here and heads through West Norwood Cemetery somewhere. In 1935 the sewer was enlarged to help avoid the repeated floodings, and deep shafts were sunk in Norwood High Street, Chestnut Road and Rosendale Road. Again the landscape in this area suggests at least a rough course for the river.

From Norwood the river is generally agreed to have followed Croxted Road up to Brockwell Park: turn right into Robson Road past the cemetery, up Rosendale Road, into Carson Road on the right and then across to Croxted Road to get a rough idea of where the river ran. Evidence from flooding cellars suggests that the course of the river may actually have been west of Rosendale Road rather than Croxted Road.

Before heading north, though, a detour: cross Croxted Road at the crossroads going past West Dulwich station, and turn north up Gallery Road. On the left is Belair Park, which contains an ornamental pond which some say is part of the Effra visible still. Some say it was a tributary of the main river. There was also a millpond in this area. A cast-iron chimney opposite Dulwich Picture Gallery is believed to vent the tributary here.

Here you can either retrace your steps to Croxted Road – if you believe Belair’s pond to be a tributary – or continue north and cut back across to Herne Hill via Burbage Road, named after Shakespeare’s actor contemporary. Another actor, Edward Alleyn, founded nearby Dulwich College.

Another tributary is said to supply Dulwich Park Lake, flowing down from the woods of Sydenham Hill, alongside Cox’s Walk and under Dulwich Common. A local resident reports that in wet weather this rises above the drains and flows along the road around Dulwich Park by Frank Dixon Way.

The 19th century painter and critic John Ruskin, who grew up in Herne Hill, said that his first sketch showing any artistic merit was at the foot of Herne Hill, showing a bridge over the Effra.

Again the precise channel of the river is under dispute, or at least there may have been tributaries meeting here, coming from Knights Hill in the south and along Half Moon Lane to the east, marking the edge of Joseph Bazalgette’s sewer network in south London. As with Belair, there is an ornamental pond (late Victorian) in Brockwell Park said to connect to the Effra, perhaps as yet another tributary. A woman at 32 Tulse Hill in 1891 described a stream that had flowed across the end of her garden, and said that the banks could still be seen in Leander Road.

Opinions and tributaries rejoin to the north of Brockwell Park: the name of Effra Parade gives a helpful clue – though for the walk it is probably more helpful to take the next road on the right, Barnwell Road, then head northward again up Rattray Road. At the top, turn left and join Effra Road going up into central Brixton – though an unexplained rise along the west side of Dulwich Road suggests that perhaps one ought rather to follow this and Brixton Water Lane, thence all the way up Effra Road.

Along Brixton Road, the course of the Effra is more certain, and wider. Its average size was said to have been 12 feet wide and 6 feet deep. Bridges gave access to the houses on Brixton Road, with the river flowing on the east side. A bomb fell at the corner of Angell Road and Brixton Road during the Blitz, uncovering the Effra sewer. It’s hard to imagine now, but a 1784 painting shows St Martin’s Farm with the river passing by – the site is where Loughborough Road now branches off. As well as Queen Elizabeth, Canute is said to have sailed up the river as far as Brixton – and King James I gave permission for the river to be opened up for navigation in this area.

At the top of Brixton Road, turn left and head across to the Oval, following its left-hand side. This is Kennington, once an area of marshland. Brixton Road originally crossed the river at Hazard’s Bridge, marked on a plan of Vauxhall manor from 1636. The Effra divided the manors of Kennington and Vauxhall.

This area was built over between 1837 and 1857. St Marks’s Kennington paid ¬£322 towards the costs. The raised banks of Oval cricket ground were built with earth excavated during the enclosing of the Effra, which nevertheless showed itself again and was apparently responsible for ‘a small inundation’ at the Oval in the 1950s. South London Waterworks (founded 1805) used water from Vauxhall Creek, the name of the river (or a tributary) along this stretch, though it soon accumulated rubbish; the Oval gasholder is on the site of one of the reservoirs.

Heading west, the river is believed to have had two entries into the Thames (shown on a 1795 map): one just south of Vauxhall Bridge, the other nearer to Nine Elms Lane. In 1340 the Abbot of Westminster had to repair Cox’s Bridge (Cokesbrugge) over the Effra near present day Vauxhall Cross (Kennington Lane/Wandsworth Road/South Lambeth Road). There was another bridge over the creek on Clapham Road (Merton Bridge – the responsibility of Merton Abbey). In 1504 another Abbot of Westminster paid rent for a wharf at Cox’s Bridge – in the 17th century maintenance of the bridge caused a dispute. The lower river was a sewer by the 17th century, labelled as such on the 1636 plan.

The Fort at Vauxhall erected to defend London during the Civil War was alongside the Effra – as shown in a drawing (though this is perhaps a forgery of the mid-19th century). A gardener ‘recently deceased’ in 1895 recalled the Effra at Lawn Lane ‘wide and deep enough to bear large barges’.

Lawn Lane is still there: follow the back streets south-west of the Oval, across to Parry Street, and brave the traffic across to Vauxhall Cross. Peer into the Thames here – and you can see a sewer outflow which may be the last remains of the Effra’s mouth.

Further reading

Barton, Nicholas – The Lost Rivers of London (1962,1992)
Coulter, John – Norwood Past (1996)
Foord, Alfred Stanley – Springs, Streams and Spas of London (1910)
Trench, Richard & Hillman, Ellis – London under London (1984,1993)
Wilson, J B – The Story of Norwood (1973,1990)

Posted on 27/12/200213/09/2024 by Andrew Chapman 1

Exploring the Falcon Brook

This is an attempt to rediscover the route of one of south London’s lost rivers, the Falcon Brook, based on a walk undertaken in 2002.

A direct walk along the Falcon Brook’s course is a little difficult all in one go, as south of Balham it consists of two main branches.

One of these has its sources on Tooting Graveney common, probably one on each of the east and west sides. A tributary coming in from the east soon afterwards, with its own source somewhere near Conifer Gardens on Streatham High Road, was known as the Woodbourne. Another name, given to this branch or perhaps another, was Streatbourne, which is said to have been used in Roman times. More recently, the Woodbourne, as with other ‘lost’ rivers, has shown its presence: in 1967 a local newspaper carried a story with the headline ‘Sunken streams delay Tesco’s’.

To follow the route from Streatham Hill station, head south a little and turn west into Woodbourne Avenue, naturally. Cross Tooting Bec Common past the Lido and follow the stream north westward along the line of Doctor Johnson Avenue. In the 19th century these were the grounds of Bedford Hill House. William Cubitt, Lord Mayor of London in 1861, landscaped them around the brook, creating an ornamental lake. The name of Hillbury Road here allides to the artificial moumd he created.

Left into Elmbourne Road and then right takes you to ‘Streathbourne Road’ heading just north of Tooting Bec station, which seems to follow the route of this lower branch. In 1865 the Metropolitan Board of Works approved spending Â¬Â£30,000 to cover over and redirect the brook here. From the shallow stream valley this area was known as the ‘holloways’. A farm here alongside the brook was owned by Sir Peter Daniel, a Sheriff of the City of London in 1683 and MP for Southwark in 1685. Clay was dug along the banks in that period for making bricks and tiles, and gravel pits were dug here. Balham High Road here, incidentally, follows the Roman Road Stane Street from Chichester.

To continue along this southern course, the stream follows Rowfant Road, but is now crossed by the railway, so it is easier to walk up Balham High Road and turn into Chestnut Grove, and thence across to Ravenslea Road. Turn right up Mayford Road, then right into Birchlands Avenue and meet the other course just south of Nightingale Road.

The other main branch also begins just east of the main Streatham Road, but slightly further north, where it is Streatham Hill. Walking north from Streatham Hill station, the stream’s source is somewhere near Downton Avenue on the east side. Head west on Telford Avenue – in 1986 a brick conduit could still be seen alongside Telford Park Lawn Tennis Club. The area flooded in 1914.

The stream then runs along the top of Tooting Bec Common. Three large elm trees used to marke the course here alongside Emmanuel Road. At Cavendish Road, the brook heads north, with two very short tributaries joining from the south and south east in the common. Cavendish Road was once called Dragmire Lane.

This eastern branch was once known as the Hydeburn and there is a reference to it as early as 693AD. Balham House once stood near here on Balham High Road, built in 1787 and rebuilt in 1880 before being demolished to become the Duchess Theatre in 1898. The stream was covered as a sewer in 1866. It is believed that the waters can be heard near where Weir Road meets Cavendish Road.

Turn left off Cavendish Road into Dinsmore Road (though a Hazelbourne Road slightly further north may be telling), and walk alomg Oldridge Road and Calbourne Road to connect up with the other route. Thomas Cromwell owned the land in this area until his execution in 1540, when Henry VIII took it over. After two years the king sold it to a local carpenter.

From the meeting point of the branches, turn north off Nightingale Road into Rusham Road and Montholme Roads, then follow Northcote Road and all the way to Battersea Rise – this is the stream’s route. At Battersea Rise there used to be three ponds – not to mention the lavender fields remembered by Lavender Hill (continue up St John’s Road) – they were still there in the 1830s.

Here is the first reference on this route to the Falcon’s name: the Falcon Inn, on Falcon Road just next to Clapham Junction station. The inn was mentioned as the Faulkeon in 1765, when Sir Oliver St John settled here. His family crest has a falcon rising, suggesting how the brook got its name. The 1871 Ordnance Survey map shows a horse trough outside the inn. In the early 17th century, this area was still largely wooded.

Continue up Falcon Roadn as far as the bend where Ingrave Street comes off to the west. Battersea was once an island of sorts. It has been suggested that the Falcon divided here – the eastward branch supposedly ran through Falcon Park, then alongside what is now the main railway line to Victoria, connecting with the Nine Elms Ditch and entering the Thames just beyond Battersea Power Station.

Meanwhile, the surer course westward ran along Ingrave Street, through York Gardens and across York Road. There were mills here on the lower stretches, and York Bridge is marked on 19th century maps. A pumping station here handles storm water. This branch was also known as the York Ditch or York Sewer. Turn up Cotton Row to the Thames and there is the faintest suggestion of a former creek here, which is perhaps the mouth of the lost Falcon Brook.

Further reading

Barton, Nicholas – The Lost Rivers of London (1962,1992)
Foord, Alfred Stanley – Springs, Streams and Spas of London (1910)
Trench, Richard & Hillman, Ellis – London under London (1984,1993)

Further sources consulted at Wandsworth Local History Service, Battersea Library. With thanks to Henry Braun.

Posted on 27/12/200213/09/2024 by Andrew Chapman

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Category: walking

In search of St Pancras: a London walk

Follow-ups

Around the World in Eight Hours

The fellow that goes alone

The fellow that goes alone

In search of Colin’s Barn (aka The Hobbit House)

In the Glymelight

Kidlington Orbital

Walking the River Effra

Exploring the Falcon Brook