A Journey of Discovery

As a born and bred Londoner I am bound to say that my natal city is the greatest in the world. I fully realise how subjective this statement is, I doubt there is a person alive (or dead) who has managed to visit every city on the planet in order to make comparisons, and I am a particularly impoverished international traveller. However, I stand by what I say simply because London has everything I want and still has the power to surprise and excite me after half a century of living in the bosom of the Great Wen. I also feel as I grow older that the city feels more organic, and that I am part of it, whether this is the premature onset of senility or something more profound I do not know, but I love the idea that all that has passed here is just waiting to be resurrected by an inquisitive mind and that the knowledge to be gained will make me even more of a Londoner than I already am. This particular adventure started in the London section of Foyle's bookshop on the Charing Cross Road on a balmy August Saturday in 2010, I picked up a book call London Plaques by Derek Sumeray and John Sheppard and, as I leafed through the information packed pages it felt like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle was falling into place. I instantly purchased the book and repaired to the Angel public house on nearby St Giles High Street for a pint and a perusal. Like most Londoners I was aware of the blue plaques celebrating the lives and achievements of the capital's finest citizens, now I had in my hands a guide to all of these, and more; Plaques erected by organizations as diverse as the Dead Comics Society and the London Hellenic Society; and not only people, there are plaques commemorating places long gone, especially in the City of London, and these in particular have the power to bring the past alive; some1,800 plaques in total. I decided there and then that I would attempt to visit and photograph them all. My first two forays into the field were made using detailed itineraries compiled from the book planned to include all the plaques in any given area, but I found this approach strangely unrewarding so now I leave the book at home, using it only as a reference tool and just wander the streets photographing the plaques as I find them; using this method it will obviously take more time to visit all of the plaques on offer, but I am not in such a great hurry and, as the good doctor said: when a man is tired of London.......

Thursday, 9 December 2010

The CITY GATES

1 Aldersgate Street, EC1

89 Aldgate High Street, EC3

Roman House, Wood Street, EC2

Ludgate Hill, EC4

72 Moorgate, EC2

Newgate Street, EC1

Apart from an ill-fated brief sojourn in an attic in Archway during my dissolute youth I have always lived in east London a short bus ride away from the City of London. I've never really taken the place to heart, I remember reading itineries for City pub crawls in the London Drinker that always came with the caveat "wear a suit or you may not be served". The feeling of injustice this engendered in my youthful soul makes me smile now, but at the time it wasn't funny, good beer was available 15 minutes down the road but even if I had a suit I wouldn't wear it as a matter of principle, what a fool. These days the dress code has disappeared and you can even find the odd City boozer open at the weekend, which is good news because the City of London really is a quite remarkable place. If you can manage an early morning weekend visit, especially on a Sunday you would be forgiven for thinking that you had wandered onto the set of 28 Days Later, apart from the odd road sweeper or early-rising tourist you've got the place to yourself. There were seven major gates into the city dating back to Roman times, (quite why Bishopsgate doesn't merit a plaque is a matter for further investigation) and an eighth, on the south side of London Bridge was not included as it was outside the city walls.
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