For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Crosby Hall (12.07.13)

My son gave me for my birthday a book Panoramas of Lost London by Philip Davies an extra large format copy containing over 200 black and white photographs of London before redevelopment. It is heartbreaking to see how much of London remained untouched for centuries until the Victorians razed great swathes of the city in their quest for modernity.

Hitler tried to finish the job, but it was during the 1960s that we destroyed far more than aerial bombardment had done and finished off the job of removing all traces of the medieval city.

One surprising survivor remains unknown to thousands of motorists as they drive past it each day little realising its importance, the fascinating story of a building’s survival and the present owner’s obsession for all things Tudor.

Crosby Hall has been described by English Heritage as ‘London’s most important surviving secular domestic medieval building’.

Forget Russian oligarchs and over-paid footballers, the property on Cheyne Walk almost opposite Battersea Bridge is probably the largest house in private ownership in London, a house whose nucleus started in the City of London.

Built-in Bishopsgate between 1466 and 1475 for rich City merchant Sir John Crosby, it was later purchased by Sir Thomas More and now is located at the site of More’s Chelsea Garden.

King Richard III and Sir Walter Ralegh both used it as their temporary home and it later was the head office of The Honourable East India Company. But eventually, it was reduced to warehouses before being scheduled for demolition (and no doubt inclusion in my book) in 1908.

Realising its importance as the most precious medieval survivor in the Square Mile the entire building was moved brick by brick to Chelsea and after much soul searching into what should become of its use, it was leased to the British Federation of University Women who promptly built an Arts and Crafts residential block at right angles to the building’s Great Hall.

In 1988 the freehold was bought by Christopher Moran an enthusiastic – and rich – lover of all things Tudor who had already spent 20 years thinking about the Hall. Seven years were then consumed obtaining the relevant planning permissions and if you think your kitchen extension was a nightmare have a thought for Christopher Moran who has since 1995 employed up to 100 specialist builders with the help of dozens of Tudor scholars on his project creating an 85 room house, built exactly as Tudor craftsmen would have done over 500 years ago.

For the £50 million it is estimated to cost he gets a courtyard garden designed by the Marchioness of Salisbury based on her own garden at Hatfield House surrounding a Tudor fountain to the goddess Diana, which itself took more than three years to create. Facing the River are solid oak doors weighing 3 tonnes, The College of Arms has devised for him a coat of arms to surmount the doors. The lost art of double-struck pointing has been mastered in order to ensure that the new brickwork looks exactly as it would have done when Sir John Crosby moved in and a house – well fit for a king.

Simon Thurley, Director of English Heritage has written a more detailed account of Crosby Hall which originally was published in Country Life Magazine.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Mr. Ormes’s parrot (09.07.13)

This time of year many are nervously in the throes of examinations fever. It’s an annual ritual performed for generations. Today with nothing better I can think to write about I’ll return to being examined while studying ‘The Knowledge’.

Unlike tests set by examining boards it was a rather fluid system with each Carriage Officer putting their own – and unique – interpretation on how the process should be conducted. Until recently all appearances [exams] were held on a one-to-one oral confrontation with examiners putting their quirky slant on how the process should be conducted.

A favourite ploy to test the mettle of candidates was to adopt the old practice of good cop/bad cop – well they were ex-police. Mr. Lippitt would be civility itself “Is your father in the trade?”/”Have you come far?” before giving you some apparently easy questions. Mr Ormes, his nemesis, would say on a subsequent appearance that your previous answers, with the implication that the questions were easy, were not up to his high standard.

John Mason Head of Transport for London’s Taxi and Private Hire recalls that examiners would place the chair in the appearance room facing the wrong direction so that the candidate was facing the wall and not the examiner, and would give an automatic fail to the student who dared to turn the chair around. I once was reprimanded for moving the chair closer to his desk when finding it positioned in the opposite corner of the room.

At an appearance you are given places in London [points] that you have to identify their exact location, if you give the correct answer you are invited to describe, road by road, the shortest route to be taken from one to the other. Dean Warrington who runs the WizAnn Knowledge School remembers one examiner who decided the start and end points of his questions by throwing darts into a map. Should the student feel this was unfair he would offer to let them throw the darts instead.

Another ploy was to be seemingly engrossed in some urgent paperwork leaving the hapless student waiting sweating wondering when (and what) the first question would be. As an alternative to that Robert Lordon recalls at View from the Mirror being asked a question in the corridor before even entering his office and on another occasion the examiner – Mr Ormes – walking so slow that he walked into his back and having to apologise for treading on his heels. The opposite would be the order of the day for Mr Price who one student recalls as putting his feet on the desk and proceeding to read a copy of The Sun.

A BBC Modern Times documentary focused on the climate of fear created by the examiners. And the most feared of all examiners was the aforementioned Mr Ormes who had a life size toy parrot sitting on its perch in his office. It was the stuff of legend that if the parrot was facing you Mr Ormes was in a bad mood. He was a lugubrious character with a bone-dry delivery, and in the documentary was seen asking one nervous candidate with a criminal record how to get to the Penal Reform Society.

He looked and sounded like a copper who had seen it all and didn’t believe your story. He once asked me The Adelphi Building to The Royal Society of Arts. When I queried that they were opposite each other on John Adam Street he replied: “It’s raining, I’m pregnant and I’ve got a wooden leg”.

When a Knowledge boy left his office he wouldn’t even remember his own name – a truly terrifying experience. “You can smell if people have what is needed”, Mr Ormes would say.

When I left that day I couldn’t recall which way the parrot was facing either. The parrot now resides at another cabbie seat of learning the Knowledge Point School.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Are you being served? (11.06.13)

The Centre for Retail Research has recently forecast 62,000 shops will close in the next 5 years. The independent analysis group estimate that one-fifth of all retail outlets will cease trading by 2018.

Peter Watts writes on his Great Wen site of the demise of Tobacco Dock. Designed by Terry Farrell and opening in 1989 the dock conversion featured two arcades of shops on two floors inside a skilfully modernised structure that retained its Victorian industrial integrity. It now lies there completely empty.

Once London had a number of prestigious stores many were owned by a partnership of two men. Unlike the generically named Next or Top Shop, their premises reflected the owners’ personal taste and retain acumen.

As our shopping habits change the great days of the department store are probably over. There are some survivors left in London, but many of the great privately owned retail partnerships have gone.

Old-fashioned concepts like knowledgeable staff, politeness and service are now less important in a digital retail age.

Arding & Hobbs is one of the few stores Sarf of the River. This department store was once situated at Clapham Junction and very often spoken of as “Arding ‘n’obbs”. It opened in 1885 and at that time was the largest store south of the River. Destroyed by fire in 1909 it was rebuilt in Edwardian baroque style the original signage remains in place above the main entrance. Now Debenhams.

Bourne & Hollingsworth Mr Bourne and Mr Hollingsworth set up a fancy drapers’ shop in 1894 in Westbourne Grove. In 1902 they moved to Oxford Street slowly acquiring the rest of the block including a brothel, a ‘next of Polish tailors’ and Savory’s cigarette factory. Closed in 1983.

Derry & Toms A little shop run by Joseph Toms described as a ‘toy and fancy repository’ joined with Charles Derry acquiring seven shops one of which was described as a ‘mourning department’. The firm prided itself on being the main supplier to the upper classes of South Kensington and had over 200 employees living in. Closed in 1973 and taken over by Biba.

Dickens & Jones Dickens originally opened a shop in Oxford Street in 1790 moving to Regent Street in 1835. By 1900 the staff totalled 200, most of them lived in nearby Argyll Street. In the 1890s John Pritchard Jones became a partner and the store changed its name. In 1901 the store was all prepared for a while sale when Queen Victoria died. Most of the stock was dyed black to meet the urgent demand for mourning wear. It is now owned by House of Fraser.

Marshall & Snelgrove opened in Vere Street in 1837 their nearby rival was William Debenham. By 1871 James Marshall the son of the founder had introduced a large mail-order business. Alas, the rivalry is over Marshall & Snelgrove is now part of the vast Debenhams empire.

Swan & Edgar William Edgar had a haberdashery stall in St. James’s Market and used to sleep under it at night. Meeting Mr. Swan together they ran a shop in the Ludgate area. In 1812 they moved to Piccadilly Circus and then Regent Street premises which had been the Western Mail coach offices and also the Bull and Mouth public house. They retained the inn licence until the late 1970s. Its vast store was closed in 1982.

Waring & Gillow The business was established by Robert Gillow in Lancaster about 1731 and by 1765 leased some land in Oxford Street that was to become the Selfridge’s site. S. J. Waring had a cabinet-making enterprise in Liverpool and in 1895 had a retail outlet in Oxford Street. The companies merged and made furniture for Boodle’s, the Garrick and Reform Clubs. However, the business of the firm began to decline and the Lancaster workshops closed in 1962 and the company merged with Maples.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

It’s a small world (07.06.13)

My mother once told me that while on a holiday in Switzerland having walked for 20 minutes from a nearby town and ascended the funicular to take her up to view the Reichenbach Falls without encountering hardly a soul there standing alone on the viewing platform was one of her work colleagues.

A similar, if less than dramatic incident, occurred to me on Saturday. Taking a welcome break from driving a cab around London we went to Hatfield House. This superb Jacobean property is easily accessible from London having a main line railway station outside its front door.

The BBC are running a Tudor season and Hatfield House is one of the finest architectural examples from that time, and as one might expect visitor number could rise, coupled with a recently open children’s zoo and sculpture park.

Situated not far from where I grew up it’s a place we return to time and again, but this time we were there to see their garden show and look around at their beautiful gardens and sculpture trail.

One of the first exhibitors we encountered was Fiona Rule, an author I’ve featured in my Radio Taxi blog whom I’ve only corresponded with by email, having first listened to her being interviewed on the Robert Elms show on BBC’s Radio London.

A London historian promoting her books, hardly the sort of enterprise you would have thought would be featured at a gardening show. Even though Hatfield House is one of the finest Tudor houses in England it seemed to me a little incongruous until Fiona told me of her other venture.

As well as looking into one’s family tree those lucky enough to live in a house with some character now often want to know their home’s history and this is where House Histories comes in.

Your House History is reproduced in either a small book or a coffee table format and additional copies can also be printed. Each averages around 70 pages with numerous illustrations. Taking a few weeks to complete research is available for properties in any London or Hertfordshire postcode.

I doubt if the 7th Marquess and Marchioness of Salisbury whose family have lived at Hatfield for 400 years will feel the need to commission a history of his house.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

The Spirit of London (06.06.13)

One of the projects that I have been most proud of is my contribution to The Spirit of London, a magnificent coffee-table book, produced by Anthony Osmond-Evans to celebrate the London Olympics and HM Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. The book which was presented to Her Majesty was also given to all athletes competing in the London 2012 Olympics. The paints with a broad brush the changing seasons, personalities and cultures, which make up the colourful mosaic that is London today. In addition to my contribution the Mayor of London Boris Johnson and the Lord Mayor both wrote forewords for the book.

A Cabbie’s London Spirit by David Styles

Any artist or photographer will tell you that professionally they observe the world around them in ways that others take for granted, and it’s this same attention to detail that’s needed when one undertakes The Knowledge, the qualification required to become a London cabbie; every street, club, bar, church, hotel and even blue plaques must be committed to memory.

In pursuit of all these facets of London the student discovers that there is more to London than is apparent at first sight. Just like a photographer they stop looking at the features of London in isolation and try to put them into some context of London’s history and its people.

The Knowledge was introduced in 1851 after complaints that cabbies didn’t know where they were going by visitors to the Great Exhibition in pursuit of obtaining the Knowledge a student discovers that some streets in the City; Milk Street, Poultry, Goldsmith Street are named after the goods once sold there, or Old Jewry was an area where Jewish money lenders lived before being expelled by King Edward I.

On the Knowledge when given London Stone to locate in Cannon Street a little research suggests that London’s prosperity was thought to depend on London Stone’s safekeeping and that the Romans could have used the limestone block as the point to measure all distances from Londinium.

While London Bridge enabled London’s cab trade in the 16th century to challenge the watermen’s monopoly to go south of the river ferrying wealthy City merchants to Southwark so they could enjoy the delights of the gaming houses and stews (brothels) on Bankside in an area owned by the Bishops of Winchester and known as the Liberty of the Clink – unregulated by the city authorities.

The latest place for Knowledge students to find – The Shard – London’s newest building nearing completion at London Bridge Quarter is the European Union’s tallest building and students will be expected to know its formal name – London Bridge Tower – and the entrance to the 5-star Shangri-La Hotel within its walls.

London’s longevity as the world’s premier city is the result of generations of resourceful, hard-working individuals coming together to improve their lives and in so doing adding another strata of history, business and culture in this incredible city for future Knowledge students to go out and find.

The words of Samuel Johnson should be the mantra for any prospective Knowledge student:
“Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts . . . that the wonderful immensity of London consists.”