St Charles Hospital
The St Marylebone workhouse infirmary was opened in 1881 on Rackham Street, North Kensington and received a congratulatory letter from Florence Nightingale.

In 1876 potential sites for an infirmary for the sick poor of the parish of St Marylebone were being considered in the West End, Hampstead and Ladbroke Grove in North Kensington. The last site was finally chosen – a 3.5 acre site in Rackham Street costing almost £8100 – and the foundation stone was laid in 1879. In 1881 the St Marylebone Union Infirmary was officially opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The building was three storeys high, with a central block and four pavilions. It had accommodation for 744 patients (372 males in the two pavilions to the west of the central block and 372 females to the east) and 86 resident staff (the Infirmary also had 82 non-resident staff). The staff included a resident Medical Officer, whose annual salary should have been £500, but the Guardians managed to beat this down to £450, an Assistant Medical Officer, who earned £150 a year, a dispenser (£120 a year) and a Matron, who earned between £100-150. The Assistant Matron received £50-70 a year, while a pavilion nurse earned £28-32. A day or night nurse received £20-25 a year, while the Head Night Nurse received £32-38. Accommodation, rations, uniforms and laundry were included. In 1884 more land was bought and a Nurses’ Home built, which was opened by Princess Christian, daughter of Queen Victoria. Florence Nightingale established a Training School for Nurses at the Infirmary, one of the first in a poor law establishment. In 1902 an X-ray apparatus was installed and an operating theatre opened. In 1923 the Infirmary was renamed the St Marylebone Hospital. By this time it had 732 beds; the patients were mainly chronically infirm adults and children. The following year an extension adjacent to the west end of the original Nurses’ Home was opened by the then Minister of Health, Neville Chamberlain (the extension became known as the Chamberlain Home). In 1926 some wards had bedside wireless sets installed. In 1928 an internal phone system was installed. In 1930 the LCC took over administrative charge and renamed it St Charles Hospital. New buldings were erected in the open spaces between the pavilions during the 1930s and, in 1936, another new Nurses’ Home opened. In 1937 new accommodation was built for the night nurses at the northwest corner of the site, which had previously been occupied by the doctors’ garden (the Chamberlain Home had proved to be inadequate and noisy). In 1938 an epidemic of infective enteritis in babies caused several to be admitted. Some died and this affected the reputation of the Hospital for a while. In 1939 the Hospital became a District General Hospital, but facilities were inadequate and few operations were performed. For the duration of WW2 all the top floor wards were closed. A bomb demolished the southern boundary wall and several windows were blown out. A few incendiary bombs fell in the open spaces, but the Hospital survived relatively unscathed. In 1948 St Charles Hospital joined the NHS under the control of the Paddington Group Hospital Management Committee. The number of beds decreased as wards were taken over for other uses. By 1949 there were 400 beds, 260 of which were medical, including 60 for TB patients, 12 for venereal disease and 45 for children. During the 1950s the Hospital acquired several Portakabins and an Out-Patients Department opened. In 1952 an 8-bedded plastic surgery unit was opened by Sir Harold Gillies (1882-1960). In 1960 a bleeper system was installed for the medical staff. New pathology laboratories opened in 1964 and, in 1966, the wards were modernized. The Peter Pan Ward, with 36 beds, was opened as a facility for mothers to stay with their children. In 1967 a modern, fully air-conditioned twin operating theatre with anaesthetic and recovery rooms was built. The following year a new plastic surgery ward was opened by Lady Gillies. The Out-Patients Department was extended in 1972 and, in 1973, a Paediatric Department was opened by Sir Keith Joseph (1918-1994), Secretary of State for Health and Social Services. By 1981 the Hospital had 350 beds with 600 staff (one-third of which were resident), reversing the earlier situation when there had been more beds than staff. 104 beds were for general medical cases, 81 surgical, 36 orthopaedic, 36 paediatric and 63 for the elderly. The wards were upgraded and the following year plans were made for a new psychiatric and psychogeriatric unit to be established between the main Hospital and St Marks Road, giving an extra 116 beds and 120 places in a Day Hospital. In-patient services gradually reduced though and, by 1998, the Hospital had 120 beds. The site became underused and its future uncertain. In 2007 NHS Direct closed its call centre based at the Hospital. The Hospital is currently managed by Kensington and Chelsea Primary Case Trust (PCT), although historically most in-patients had been from Westminster. The PCT runs a Minor Injuries Unit, a palliative care centre and a pharmacy; there are 61 beds for patients requiring rehabilitation. About one-third of the site is occupied by a Mental Health Centre operated by the Central and North West London Mental Health Trust (CNWL).

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

“An Autumn Lane” (1886)

John Atkinson Grimshaw

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St Charles Square after bombing (1950)
A corner of St Charles Square looking north, just after the Second World War

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

“Zoot Suits, London” (1948) Edward John Burra was an English painter, draughtsman, and printmaker, best known for his depictions of postwar black culture in London.

Edward Burra (1905-1976)

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St Charles Square ready for redevelopment (1951)
Photographed in 1951, the corner of St Charles Square and Ladbroke Grove looking northwest just after the Second World War.

The view is of allotments and prefabs taking the place of the houses and shops which stood here before the war. The following year, a new development would again completely alter the scene.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

Camberwell Flats by Night (1983) David Hepher (b.1935) is best known for his paintings of buildings, mainly tower blocks, which he refers to as “urban landscapes”. ‘Camberwell Flats’ is part of a series of paintings, two of which can be found at the Museum of London and another at the Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art. They reflect Hepher’s sustained focus on residential architecture, and details of ordinary, everyday life, sometimes pushing it to the brink of abstraction.

David Hepher

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Exmoor Street (1950)
Photographed just after the Second World War, looking north along Exmoor Street.

A bomb had demolished many of the houses of St Charles Square, in the right foreground. The western end of Rackham Street can be seen behind on the right. The gasometer which dominated the area, survived the war, finally demolished in the 1980s. With all the bomb damage meaning unhabitable housing, the streets are largely empty of people.

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

Dewhurst Road, Hammersmith Artist: Adam Raven (1952–2006)

Hammersmith Library

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Rackham Street, western end (1950)
A bombed-out Rackham Street, looking down from the junction with Exmoor Street.

The huge bomb crater which actually had its epicentre on the north side of St Charles Square, one block south, can be seen. This one bomb fell in September 1940 and caused so much destruction that it was decided, after the war finished, to redevelop the whole area. Most of the street plan was changed utterly.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

“Suburbia” (1929) This painting/sketch was based upon Girton Road and Tannsfeld Road, Sydenham, SE26

Stanley Roy Badmin

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A simulated flight into LCY courtesy of Google Earth Studio.

St Martins Mission
Saint Martin’s Mission was originally known as Rackham Hall as it was situated on Rackham Street.

It was built by Mr Allen, a local builder. It was the Mission Church of Saint Michael and All Angels, Ladbroke Grove. After 1916 it become a parish stretching from Ladbroke Grove to St Quintin’s Park. The area was bombed during the Second World War, and the whole of Rackham Street disappeared in the early 1950s. A theory discussed about the photo is that it may show the last days of Rackham Street as people were packing to move out.

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

Mansion House Engraving by J Woods based on a work by Hablot Browne and R Garland.

J Woods

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ABPC Elstree Studios
British National Pictures Ltd purchased 50 acres of land on the south side of Shenley Road and began construction of two large film stages in 1925. The first film produced there was Madame Pompadour in 1927.

British International Pictures Ltd (BIP) took over the studios in 1927 and the second stage was ready for production in 1928. In 1929 Blackmail, the first British talkie to go on release, was produced at the studios. With the death of silent films came the construction of 6 new sound stages on the site and three of these were sold on to the British and Dominions Film Corporation with BIP retaining the remaining stages. BIP were absorbed into the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) in the early 1930s. In 1946 Warner Brothers acquired a substantial interest in ABPC, appointed a new board and decided to rebuild the stages. The rebuild was completed in 1948 and work began on Man On The Run followed by The Hasty Heart starring Richard Todd and Ronald Reagan. In 1968 Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI) bought control of ABPC and the studios were renamed EMI Studios, later Thorn-EMI Studios. In 1985 they were put up for sale. Under Herron-Cannon Group ownership, the studios were used for some very well-known films including the first three Star Wars films, and the Indiana Jones trilogy. At one time during the 1980s, six of the top ten box office hits of all time had been produced at the studios. In 1988, Cannon sold the studios to the leisure and property company Brent Walker plc and much of the backlot was sold off and a Tesco superstore was built. Hertsmere Borough Council stepped in and bought the remaining studio in February 1996. The studios were most commonly known for being the home of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and the location of the Big Brother UK house.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

Little Venice (1952) This is one of a large series of London views that Stephen Bone executed from the 1930s to the 1950s. Bone liked to paint water and its reflections, and often combined this with compositions showing people going about their daily business, a combination which is the subject of this picture. A barge, hung with its owner’s washing, travels along the canal. Two children play along the banks, and a man sits on the railings overhead, enjoying the view.

Stephen Bone

Video: Co-ordinate near to Gardner Close, Wanstead
Jago Hazzard went to the far reaches of the Central Line

Shepherd Market
Shepherd Market was described by Arthur Bingham Walkley in 1925 as one of the oddest incongruities in London.

It is a small square in the Mayfair area of central London, developed in 1735-46 by Edward Shepherd from an open area called Brook Field, through which flowed the Tyburn and used for the annual May fair from which Mayfair gets its name. The fifteen-day fair took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today and was established by King James II in the 1680s, mainly for the purpose of cattle trading. Over the years the fair grew in popularity and size, attracting both rich and poor. Whilst Queen Anne tried to put an end to the fair, her successor George I was more approving. The gentrification of the area in the eighteenth century killed the festival off, with the building of many grand houses. A local architect and developer (Edward Shepherd), was commissioned to develop the site. It was completed in the mid 18th century, with paved alleys, a duck pond, and a two-storey market, topped with a theatre. Shepherd Market was associated with prostitutes in the eighteenth century onwards and by the 1920s it was also a popular residential area for writers and artists, such as Anthony Powell, Michael Arlen and Sophie Fedorovitch with a village-like atmosphere. At 9 Curzon Place that Cass Elliot (Mama Cass) of The Mamas and Papas died in July 1974, and, four years later, Keith Moon, drummer with The Who, died of an overdose in the same house. Next to Shepherd Market is Half Moon Street, where the fictional Wooster of P.G. Wodehouse’s novels lived, and where in 1763 the James Boswell took lodgings and wrote his diary.

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

The Strand frontage of Northumberland House (1752) The Percy Lion is atop the central façade and the statue of Charles I at right survives to this day The pedestrianised area in the foreground became the site of Trafalgar Square – back then it was the Royal Mews

Giovanni Canaletto

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Lowder Street (1918)
Lowder Street in Wapping at the end of the First World War.

Lowder Street, as imaged from Raymond Street.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

View of the junction of Howard Street and Norfolk Street (1880)

John Crowther

Video: Flying into LCY
A simulated flight into LCY courtesy of Google Earth Studio.

Plaistow Road (1901)
Looking south towards Plaistow station, railway works on the right.

The road on the left is Grafton Road North which has now disappeared. Tram tracks were laid down in 1903.

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

Wyldes Farm is a Grade II* listed former farmhouse in North End, Hampstead. The Wyldes estate, and the farmhouse, were purchased by Dame Henrietta Barnett and others, with part of the estate becoming an extension to Hampstead Heath with the further area being developed as Hampstead Garden Suburb. The designer of the garden suburb was the architect and town planner Raymond Unwin, who lived in Wyldes until his death in 1940, using the barn as his office. During his time he welcomed to Wyldes many distinguished guests including Edwin Lutyens, Jan Smuts and Paul Robeson.

Helen Allingham

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