STREET FURNITURE
See
Also: THE CITY OF LONDON The Sentinel Dragons; COAL
Coal Holes; COAL Coal Tax Posts; NOT
CHOCOLATE; WATERGATES
Benches
The Camden Bench
The Camden Bench was commissioned by Camden
Council. Its design is supposed to
discourage 22 types of behaviour that are deemed to be anti-social. It is angular and made of concrete. The critic Frank Swain dubbed it 'the perfect
anti-object'.
The Victoria Embankment Benches
The adornments to the benches along the
Victoria Embankment. To the east, in the
City of London, they are pairs of camels and to the west, in the City of
Westminster, trios of sphinxes.
See Also: THE THAMES The Embankment
and Sir Joseph Bazalgette
Boot
Scrapers
After 1760 boot scrapers began to be placed
by doors. This was because streets were
being paved and gentry were walking rather than go everywhere by carriage or
sedan chair.
See Also: FOOTWEAR RELATED; STREET
FURNITURE Paving
Bus
Shelters
Adshel erects bus shelters for local
authorities in return for the right to display advertising on them. The company was set up in 1969 by the
billboard companies More O'Ferrall and London & Provincial.
See Also: BUSES Bus Stops, Bus
Shelters
Gates
See Also: DOWNING STREET The Downing
Street Gates
The Green Park Gates
The Green Park Gates (c.1735) were
made of wrought iron for what became the 1st Lord Heathfield's house
at Turnham Green.1 In 1837
they were re-erected a short distance away at Chiswick House, the Dukes of
Devonshire's Middlesex country house. In
1898 the gates were moved to stand in front of their graces London townhouse -
Devonshire House in Piccadilly. In 1921
they were re-re-erected where they now stand.
Looking southwards through the Gates it is
possible to view a vista at the far southern end of which is the Queen Victoria
Memorial (1911), which stands in front of Buckingham Palace.
Location: Opposite 92 Piccadilly, c.W1J
8HX (purple, orange)
See Also: THE ROYAL PARKS Green Park;
TOWNHOUSES, DISAPPEARED Beaufort House
1. Lord Heathfield was a senior Army officer who was very fond of
cats.
House
Numbers
As part of a campaign to encourage
householders to adopt house numbers, the 1st Duke of Wellington
(d.1852) agreed that Apsley House should be given the address of No. 1 London,
Hyde Park Corner. The thinking behind
this allocation seems to have been that the property was the first building to
the east of the Hyde Park Corner turnpike toll gate. (A sign to the left of the townhouse's main
door gives the building's address as being not No. 1 London but rather No. 149
Piccadilly.)
Location: Apsley House, 149
Piccadilly, W1J 7NT (red, brown)
See Also: CLUBLAND Brooks's; TOWNHOUSES
Apsley House
Lampposts
See Also: HORSES Rotten Row; LIGHTING
Street Lighting
Sewer Light
The methane in the sewer system used to
build up to such dangerously high levels that some tunnels became potentially
fatal for people to work in. Therefore,
it became a practice to lead off some of the gas. However, to have released large amounts of it
into central London would have been unacceptable. Therefore, the methane was fed upwards into
specially engineered lampposts. These
provided some streets with lighting 24 hours a day. The sewer street lights in central London
were installed by the Gas Light & Coke Company.
In Carting Street there is a Webb Patent
Sewer Gas Lamp. It is an Iron Lily that
was made in the 1880s. It has Grade II
heritage status.
Location: The Patent Sewer
Ventilating Lamp, Carting Lane, WC2R 0BN (brown, yellow)
See Also: GAS; LAVATORIES Convenience
Combustibility; LIGHTING Gas Lighting; SEWAGE
The
London Stone
It is possible that the London Stone was a
Roman mile stone. For centuries it stood
in the middle of Cannon Street. There is
also a tradition of legends and stories that are associated with the
object. The first literary reference to
it dates from the early 10thC.
In the 12thC it was a notable enough feature to be referred
to on maps. It became a place where
people would make formal declarations.
These they would solemnise by striking the Stone with something that
they held in their hands.
In 1798 there was a proposal that the London
Stone should be removed because it was a hindrance to traffic. However, Thomas Maiden, a printer, led a
successful campaign for it to be retained in the vicinity. The Stone was then set into the wall of St
Swithin's Church.
In 1941 the church was damaged by an aerial
bomb. However, the Stone was relatively
undamaged.
Location: 111 Cannon Street, EC4N 5AR
(blue, brown)
See Also: CITY LIVERY COMPANIES The
Spectacle Makers Company; FOLK TRADITIONS Legends
Website: https://londonstone.org.uk
Manhole
Covers
To American eyes British manhole covers can
seem to lack pizazz.
The
Milestone Society
The Milestone Society was founded in
2000. The organisation endeavours to
help preserve milestones in situ.
Website: www.milestonesociety.co.uk
Parking
Meters
Foreign diplomats in the U.K. are exempt
from taxes but not tolls. This is why
some claim that they do not need to pay their parking fines.
Paving
Following the Great Fire of 1666 the City of
London started paving its streets and roads with stone.
The willingness to pay for paving streets
derived in part from a wish to trap in the soil what were believed to be miasma
gases that were held to cause disease.
See Also: BUILDING MATERIALS Stone;
THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON The Rebuilding of London; ROADS; STREET FURNITURE Boot
Scrapers
The Chewing Gum That Isn t
Lecanora muralis is a light
grey-coloured lichen that looks like chewing gum that has been discarded onto a
pavement and trodden on. At its edges it
is much more frayed than flattened gum is.
See Also: CONFECTIONERY Chewing Gum
Website: www.britishlichensociety.org.uk
(The British Lichen Society)
The Paviors' Company
In 1479 the City Corporation endorsed the
Paviors' Company's ordinances thereby bestowing upon the guild the right to
control road maintenance in the City of London.
In 1515 the Lord Mayor gave the Company the 56th place in the
livery companies order of precedence.
In 1672 the body wished that it should be granted a royal charter,
however, the City's Court of Aldermen vetoed the idea. During the 19thC there was a surge
in construction, the Company had little control over this. A royal charter was granted finally in 2004.
See Also: CITY LIVERY COMPANIES
Website: www.paviors.org.uk
Rubber
Horse carts had metal wheels. These made an immense amount of noise when
they ran over cobbles.
In 1930 Parliament discussed an experimental
rubber pavement that had been lain in the City four years earlier. Repeated repairs had had to be made. The scheme was not extended. After the Second World War there were far
fewer horse carts.
Location: New Bridge Street, EC4V 6AL
(purple, blue)
The Westminster Paving Commission
Outside of the City of London, paving used
to be the responsibility of individual householders. It was one that most people shirked.
The Westminster Paving Commissioners was
established by the Westminster Paving Act of 1762, which vested the body a
range of statutory powers. The first
streets that it paved were Parliament Street, Charing Cross, Pall Mall, and
Cockspur Street. Squared blocks of
Aberdeen granite were used. From this
start the process spread out across the neighbouring districts.
In 1771 an Act provided scope for some of
the Commission's powers to be transferred to the local vestries. The local authorities assumed these
slowly. In 1835 the body was formally
wound up.
Location: Cockspur Street, SW1Y 5BL
(orange, turquoise)
See Also: LIGHTING Gas Lighting; LOCAL
GOVERNMENT Vestries; THE ROYAL PARKS The Regent's Park, The Crown Estate Paving
Commission
Wooden Blocks
In the early 19thC the Admiralty
maintained a Fungus Pit at Woolwich to test wood preservatives
John Kyan (1774-1850) developed a wood
preservative that based upon bichloride of mercury. In 1828 an oak block that had been treated
with it was placed by the Admiralty in its Fungus Pit at Woolwich. Three years later it was retrieved and was
found to be sound. Cyanisation became a
term for preserving wood. However, it
corroded iron. The physician Sir William
Burnett (1779-1861) devised Burnett's Liquid, a zinc chloride wood preservative
that did not corrode iron. He patented
it in 1838.
Until 1839 granite blocs were used. They created a lot of noise and wore away the
metal of wheel rims.
After 1839 cyanised wood was used for paving
wood. Started in the Old Bailey. The Improved Wood Pavement Company was the
dominant business by the 1880s. The 02
site was where millions of wood blocks were made.
Wood was less wearing on the horses than
asphalt.
After the Second World War, the wooden
blocks were taken up.
See Also: BUILDING MATERIALS Timber
Pillar
Boxes
Anthony Trollope was sent to the Channel
Islands to inspect their postal services.
He concluded that they could be improved if receptacles for letters were
placed on side-street of St Helier, Jersey.
The first pillar boxes were installed on the island in 1852. In 1855 London's first ones were put in
place. The original post-boxes were
black and gold.
In the U.K. there are only seven Edward VIII
boxes. One is sited at Hermitage Road,
Beulah.
Post boxes are and made of cast iron and are
painted red. They carry the initials of
whichever monarch is reigning at the time of their erection.
Sir Ron Dearing
Sir Ron Dearing was an able, self-effacing
person who had a successful career as a Whitehall mandarin. During the early and mid-1980s he served as
the chairman of the Post Office. It is
reputed that, during the years that he led the Office, he used to keep a tin of
red paint in the boot of his car.
Whenever he saw a pillar box that had been defaced he would stop his
vehicle and repair the damage to his charge.
See Also: CHRISTMAS Christmas Cards,
Robins; CIVIL SERVANTS Mandarins, Sir Ron Dearing
Hexagonal Posting Boxes
The Penfold letterbox is hexagonal. It was designed by J.W. Penfold and started
to be installed in 1865. Fourteen years
later the design was dropped in favour of the cylindrical design. Letter boxes only started to be painted red
in 1874
A number of hexagonal Victorian pillar boxes
survive in West London.
Location: 276-280 Kensington High
Street, W8 6ND (purple, orange)
(In
front of) 32 St Leonard's Terrace, SW3 4QH (red, turquoise)
Pillories
Being placed in the pillory could be fatal
for people who were profoundly unpopular with the public. In 1731 Mother Needham, a brothelkeeper, was
stoned while secured in a pillory close to Park Place. She died three days later. She had been due to have a second spell in
the stocks.
The use of pillories was abolished by
legislation in 1837.
Location: Park Place, SW1A 1LP (red,
yellow)
See Also: PLACES OF EXECUTION; PRISONS,
DISAPPEARED
The
Policeman's Hook
A hook was placed on 4 Great Newport Street
during the 1930s. This was so that
policeman who were directing traffic could have somewhere to hang their capes.
Location: 4 Great Newport Street,
WC2H 7JB (red, blue)
See Also: TRAFFIC CONTROL
The
Porters' Bar
The porters' rest (1861), opposite No. 127
Piccadilly, on the southern side of the road, was constructed to enable foot
porters to have an opportunity to relieve the strain of the weight of the
burdens that they were carrying. The
loads could be rested upon the board that topped the structure.
It was erected at the suggestion of Robert
Slaney (1792-1862), who was an M.P. for Shrewsbury. He was a Liberal who was interested in the
poor and the growing towns and cities.
The Vestry of St George Hanover Square put it up in 1861.
Location: Piccadilly, W1J 7PX. The bar. (orange, yellow)
Postal
Districts
N.E. was ascribed to Hackney. In 1867 Hackney lost its N.E. designation,
which was assigned to Newcastle. It
survives on some road signs.
Railings
In 1941 most of London's squares were
stripped of their railings in order to provide metal for the war effort. However, this seems to have been done
principally in order to try to boost people's morale. They had too high a carbon content to be of
use. It is reputed that vast piles of
railings were left to rust. Sixty years
later many of them had not been replaced.
There is a story that when it was
appreciated that the railings were not useful for anything they were dumped in
the Thames. The site it meant to be
marked out by buoys. It is supposed to
be next to an arms dump.
See Also: MOVIES Dr Roget's Deception
Pineapples
Some of the railings in front of pre-20thC
houses are topped by what look pine cones.
They are meant to be leafless pineapples.
See Also: FRUIT Pineapples
Signs
In a society with high rates of illiteracy,
and in which glass, was very expensive, signs enabled businesses to make their
trade known to passing members of the public.
Pub signs, barbers red and white poles, and the three golden orbs of
pawnbrokers are the only ones that are still widely recognised in Britain. In 1762 a sign fell and killed four
passers-by. Subsequently, an Act of
Parliament banned signs being hung over public thoroughfares in the City and
Westminster.
The frying pan was a sign for ironmongers.
Location: Artillery Passage, E1 7LJ. (The passage is adorned with placard signs.)
(blue, brown)
See Also: GROOMING Barbers; PUBS
Chinatown
In Chinatown the colour red is very
evident. This is because people of
Chinese culture traditionally associate it with good fortune and prosperity.
Location: Gerrard Street, W1D 5PR
(blue, yellow)
Lombard Street
Extending out over the pavements from both
sides of Lombard Street are a series of street signs: a grasshopper; an anchor;
a cat and fiddle (or cello, depending in the size of the cat); a castle front;
and a man with a large wig and a crown.
These were hung in celebration of King Edward VII's 1902 coronation.
Location: Lombard Street, EC4N 7BJ
(blue, pink)
The Martin's Cat
The Black Cat was the sign of Martins
Bank. The company was acquired by
Barclays in 1969.
Location: 72 Kensington High Street,
W8 4PE (purple, orange)
Pawnbrokers
For many years pawnbroking was a secondary
trade that was carried out by individuals who had another principal trade. In 1751 publicans were banned from taking
pledges.
The original sign of pawnbrokers was the Three
Bowls. Variants of it were Three
Blue Bowls and the Three Blue Balls.
The first known instance of Three Golden Balls dates from
1731. However, after 1760 it developed
considerable popularity.
Location: Fetter Lane, EC4A 1BX. In the 16thC the street was
renowned for its pawnbrokers. (orange, yellow)
Street
Signs
See Also: LONDON Street Names and
Place Names
Chinatown
Chinatown's signs contain Chinese
characters. Quite why there should be a
character for 'Macclesfield,' as in 'Macclesfield Street', may well be a
mystery.
Location: Gerrard Street, W1D 5PR
(blue, yellow)
Macclesfield Street, W1D 6AX (blue, red)
See Also: CHINESE FOOD; SOHO Peoples
& Cultures
Typefaces
In 1967 Sir Misha Black changed the typeface
that Westminster used for its street signs.
He adopted Univers, which had been designed the Swiss typographer
Adreian Frutiger (1928-2015). The latter
had appreciated that the letters in serif typefaces were hard to read at a
distance.
Other typefaces that Frutiger's designed
included: Avenir, Frutiger, and Méridien.
Whitehall's End
On the western side of Whitehall, to the
south of Downing Street, there is a street sign name that reads 'Whitehall SW1'
on one half and 'Parliament Street SW1' on the other.
Parliament Square seems to have a particular
effect on streets that run into it - they suddenly assume new identities -
Birdcage Walk assumes the nom de route Great George Street, while
Whitehall metamorphoses into being Parliament Street, and Victoria Street
changes into Broad Sanctuary.
The cause of such name changes usually lies
in the different sections of street lying on different properties. Prior to the burning down of Whitehall Palace
in 1698, 'Whitehall' and 'Parliament Street' were separated from one another by
Whitehall Palace's Holbein Gate (c.1532-1759).1
Location: Parliament Street, SW1A 2NS
(purple, red)
Whitehall, SW1A 2NP (purple, red)
See Also: DEVELOPMENTS Queen Anne s
Gate; PALACES DISAPPEARED & FORMER Whitehall Palace; WALLS & GATEWAYS
The Holbein Gate
1.
King Street used to be parallel to Parliament Street to its west.
Telephone
Boxes
The K1 was introduced after First World
War. It was concrete. It, the K2, K3, and K4 had a Soanian dome
supposedly based on Sir John Soane's tomb.
The General Post Office (the G.P.O.) held a
competition for the design of a telephone kiosk. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott won it with his Kiosk
No. 2 design (K2). He used the shape of
the ceiling of the dining room of the Sir John Soane Museum as the basis for
the external shape of the roof of his telephone box. The architect wished that the kiosk should be
silver-coloured. The Post Office
determined that it should be red. His
design went into production in 1927.
Eight years later he produced a simplified version of it, the K6, which
became ubiquitous.
In 2007 there were about 14,000 K6s left.1
Location: Burlington House, 50
Piccadilly, W1J 0BD. The kiosks in the
entrance to Burlington House are Scott's original wooden models. (orange,
brown)
Bow Street, WC2E 7AW. A cluster of telephone boxes that survives
for reasons of tourism rather than telephony. (purple, turquoise)
St Pancras Church Graveyard, Pancras, NW1
1UL. Soane's grave is topped by the
shape. (purple, pink)
See Also: MUSEUMS The Sir John Soane
Museum
Website: https://avoncroft.org.uk/avoncrofts-work/special-collections1
1. The National Telephone Kiosk Collection is at The Avoncroft
Museum of Buildings, Bromsgrove, Hereford & Worcester. (Available for weddings - https://avoncroft.org.uk/hospitality/weddings-at-avoncroft)
The K8
The K7 was designed by Neville Conder
(1922-2003), an architect. However, it
proved to be unable to withstand British weather conditions. Therefore, it was scrapped.
In 1965 the General Post Office invited
three architects to submit proposals for the K8 telephone kiosk. The following year Tony Benn the
Postmaster-General selected Bruce Martin's (1917-2015) design.
Martin had studied at the Architectural
Association. Prior to the Second World
War, he had visited Sweden on a travelling scholarship. There, he had been particularly impressed by
Erik Gunnar Apslund's Modernist Göteborg Town Hall Extension (1937). During the war he had worked for Short
Brothers in Rochester. He considered
whether the precision manufacturing processes that he witnessed could be
transferred to the construction industry.
Following the conflict's end, he had worked for Hertfordshire County
Council's Architecture Department. He
had designed school buildings. This had
led him to become interested in modular construction. The resulting structures were admired
technically but tended not to be liked by the people who worked in them. His engagement in the field prompted him to
take a job with the British Standards Institution in 1953. In the 1960s he had returned to being a
practising architect and had taught part-time at the Cambridge School of
Architecture.
Martin's interest in modular design informed
the K8. It was made from 183 just
components. Previously, 450 had been
used. It could be assembled on-site,
whereas its predecessors had been produced in factories. He envisaged used aluminium and
fibreglass. The Post Office was
concerned about rigidity. Therefore,
cast iron was used although the door continued to be made from aluminium so
that it could be opened with ease. The
door's hinges could be placed on either of the doorframe's two vertices. This meant that access to a given kiosk could
be tailored to its immediate circumstances.
The colour was tweaked from Post Office Red to Poppy Red.
11,000 K8s were manufactured during the late
1960s and the 1970s. In 1984 BT started
decommissioning many of its kiosks.
There was a public outcry when the public appreciated what was
happening. As a result, 3000 telephone
boxes were listed. However, the rule
that meant that nothing that was less than 30 years could be protected meant
that none of them were K8s.
In 2007 it was claimed that less than a
dozen K8s were still in use. The
Twentieth Century Society responded to this report by launching a campaign that
sought to list them. English Heritage
granted Grade II status to ten of the kiosks.
Heddon Street
A telephone box in Heddon Street was used in
the cover photograph of David Bowie's The Rise and Fall Ziggy Stardust and
The Spiders From Mars (1972) album.
Location: Heddon Street, W1B 4BE
(purple, yellow)
David Backhouse 2024