As Cambridge Geography hits a hundred, London Group steps out on the walk of the century
Geographers’ Shop
Phyllis Pearsall put geographers on the map with her easy to use way finder A – Z from the Geographers’ Map Co Ltd. Updated, they remain indispensable aids to navigating London and other cities. At the 100th anniversary of Geography at the University the Cambridge Society London Group stepped out just down the road from the site of the ‘A-Z Geographers Shop’. Their former premises at 44 Gray’s Inn Road featured uniquely on maps.
The walk took place on the 17th June, the feast day of a seventh century English patron of travellers – St Botolph and the route headed towards one of the City’s four parishes once dedicated to him. Botolphs, as with that in Trumpington Street Cambridge, can usually be found standing sentinel at principal city approaches.
Passing the statue of Prince Albert the Prince Consort at Holborn Circus the former Chancellor of the University offered a wave to the London Group from his horse.
Fen London
Scurrying down Ely Court a tiny alley the group passed the ‘Mitre’ public house and emerged in an ancient ‘Liberty’, once the preserve of the Bishop of Ely. Here the writ of the City or Middlesex held no sway. Modern guide books mischievously hint at alcohol licensing being the preserve Isle of Ely justices and residents entitled to vote in Cambridgeshire elections and not London. The modern day Cambridge pilgrims emerged to a place of calm sanctuary, complete with a Beadle and watch house.
Adjoining Hatton Garden the merits of the Bishop’s strawberries were extolled in Shakespeare’s Richard III and a modern Strawberry Fair still takes place. In 1416 the Bishop played host to King Sigismund, a future Holy Roman Emperor invited to help broker a post-Agincourt peace. His stay is referenced in Shakespeare’s Henry V. On taking leave of our ‘Liberty’ a flash mob of clergy scurried past our group, bound for St Etheldreda’s Roman Catholic Church.
Where the mighty Amazon meets the Fleet River
A Saxon property deed charts the wide military road beside the old post built church, it describes the route of today’s Holborn Viaduct past St Andrew’s Church. Appropriately enough for a walk there was a pause on Shoe Lane. It offered a view to Saffron Hill where Charles Dickens Oliver Twist places Fagin’s Den. A few steps further on the group swept past the offices of the mighty Amazon corporation to arrive at the shores of the buried Fleet River. Gazing down from the Farringdon Flyover there was once a market and in 1934, shortly after graduating, Alan Turing came and purchased a violin. He took lessons but alas he did not persevere, had he done so who knows what heights he might have reached?
London Fen
On World Wetlands Day in February 2013 the London Group had traced the Fleet during a day-long navigation from its source in Highgate. Here at its lower reaches it was once several hundred feet wide with its own islands and the area was known as ‘London Fen’. There was a distinctive culture framed around Liberties of the Fleet and Wardens of the Fleet. A large number of clergy found themselves in Fleet prisons and an eighteenth century Las Vegas offered popular, cut price, packaged, quickie ‘Fleet Weddings’. Traversing the Fleet presented centuries of difficulties, the wearisome crossings prompting names like ‘Heavy Hill’. Today a new dynamic is emerging with Crossrail and the proposed relocation of the Museum of London. The City’s new ‘Culture Mile’ initiative promotes music, museums and other cultural attractions.
Frankensteinia
Just over two centuries ago Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ was published. The walk stopped near where the author’s family home had been in Skinner Street. Public executions took place on the doorstep. There was a healthy (if that is the word) trade in bodies for dissection, orchestrated from the Fortune of War, a pub just round the corner. In 1812 Lord Byron had witnessed the public execution of John Bellingham, assassin of Cambridge-educated prime minister Spencer Perceval. Bellingham’s body was later anatomised. A first draft of ‘Frankenstein’ emerged around the 16thJune 1816 when the Shelley’s were with Byron on the shores of Lake Geneva .
Thirteenth century super-fast broadband
Giltspur Street offered glimpses of geo-politic on a world stage, a ceremonial and processional route with the glint of armour to and from Smoothfield horse markets, jousting and tournament. On 16th June 1260 a Templar messenger delivered a despatch from Acre to Henry III having covered the distance from the Eastern Mediterranean in just over 100 days.
Ludgate Circus – American Civil War Battlefield
Crossing Fleet Street and nearing journey’s end a war of words had played out in the 1860s between North and South in the American Civil War. Here at Ludgate Circus stood the offices of the pro-South ‘Index’. Almost next door was the Union supporting ‘The London American’. In Salisbury Square round the corner was the staunchly North-favouring ‘Morning Star’.
Blackfriars
The walk had been waved off by a former Chancellor of the University. A fitting finish was at the mouth of the Fleet and the statue of Queen Victoria. The walk route had traced the ceremonial procession of 6th November 1869 when the reclusive sovereign had given up her Saturday to open both the Holborn Viaduct and newly completed Blackfriars Bridge. This year is the 150th anniversary of the two monumental infrastructure achievements. Walkers repaired to the Viaduct Tavern for refreshments including a Tripos tipple to Geography’s 100th birthday. Blackfriars Station adjacent offered a convenient return to Cambridge for those who had journeyed down. Thanks go to Chair Richard Pearey, David Peace (former London Group Chair) and the London Committee for all the administrative support and back up, participants supporting the London Group and to Dr Anna Jenkin and Cambridge Geography Department.