The London Daily Newsletter Monday 12 June

Aldgate Pump
Aldgate Pump is a historic water pump, located at the junction where Aldgate meets Fenchurch Street and Leadenhall Street.

The pump marks the start of the A11 road towards Norwich and distances to locations in Middlesex, Essex and beyond were measured from here. This contributed to the pump’s status as the symbolic start of the East End of London. The metal wolf head on the pump’s spout is supposed to signify the last wolf shot in the City of London. Aldgate Pump is a Grade II listed structure. As a well, it was mentioned during the reign of King John. As the City of London developed, it is thought to have been taken down and re-erected at its current location in 1876, as a drinking fountain, as streets were widened. Served by one of London’s many underground streams, the water was praised for being “bright, sparkling, and cool, and of an agreeable taste”. These qualities were later found to be derived from decaying organic matter from adjoining graveyards, and the leaching of calcium from the bones of the dead in many new cemeteries in north London through which the stream ran from Hampstead. Several hundred people died during what became known as the Aldgate Pump Epidemic, and on its relocation in 1876, the New River Company changed the supplies to mains water. Fenchurch Street railway station was built in 1841 upon the site of Aldgate Pump Court.

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.

The Limehouse Barge-Builders (Narrow Street from the river). This painting can be seen in the South Shields Museum and Art Gallery.

Charles Napier Hemy (1841-1917)

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