Every month CabbieBlog hopes to show you a little gem of a building which you might have passed without noticing, and this at the side of the main road one took quite a time to find.

[T]he building this month is passed unnoticed by thousands every day standing as it does incongruously next to a drive-in McDonald’s close to the Bow flyover, so anonymous are its outward features they belie the building’s importance.

The origin of Bow

There is a story that the name Bow was derived from the shape of the arch of the 12th-century bridge which spanned the river Lea where Bow flyover now stands. This bridge is thought to have been the first stone-arched Bridge in Britain and this was 60 years before the first such bridge was built across the Thames in London.

There is a story that this bridge was commissioned to be built by Queen Matilda after she ‘had been well washed in the waters’ when trying to cross by the ford when on her way to Barking. During the 14th century, there was a chapel on the bridge dedicated to St Katherine and in this, there lived a hermit. Chaucer referred to Bow in his Canterbury Tales which takes the name back at least to the 14th century.

9-day Morris dance

No. 223 Bow Road seems to sit rather shyly near to the brash new MacDonald’s nearby. The building dates back to the 17th century and so it is possible that Will Kempe, a leading Shakespearean actor, who crossed the river Lea at Bow in 1600 on his 9-day Morris Dance from Stepney to Norwich, might have known this little house with its two quaint bay windows on the first floor.

Its rounded bays on the ground floor were added later in the early 19th century to make a shop front in the rural village of Bow. The oldest photograph of this building is of M. Howes was an old established corn and flour dealer selling animal feed, horse mixture, straw, and hay from this double-bay 17th-century house. Grade II listed it is one of the oldest properties in East London.
A version of this post was published by CabbieBlog on 3rd September 2013

Every month CabbieBlog hopes to show you a little gem of a building that you might have passed without noticing, in the past, they have ranged from a modernist car park; a penguin pool; to a Hanoverian gatehouse.

If ever a building proclaimed its original function, this is it. Standing in Bishopsgate Churchyard is this Ottoman Hamam in the heart of the City dedicated to Mammon.

[T]HE FASHION FOR TURKISH BATHS was petering out a decade after this little curiosity was constructed in 1895for the king of Turkish baths James Forder Nevill who owned nine Turkish baths in London.

Built on a site so constricted that its entry is via a small kiosk, it was said to be modelled by the architect Harold Elphick on the 19th-century shrine at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. This Moorish gem of blue faience, brick, and terracotta, surmounted by an onion dome (to house the water tanks), continued the Alhambra theme inside with three hot rooms, shampooing room, shower bath and plunge bath, all with mosaic floors, tiled walls, marble seats and stained glass windows.

Against all the odds, it survived Hitler’s valiant attempt to destroy it and every other redevelopment scheme, continuing as a Turkish bath until the 1950s. Fighting a lone battle against the pressures of surrounding developers and encircling demolition work a Turkish gentleman; Mr Mourat saved the building and converted it into the Gallipoli Turkish restaurant.

It is now an Italian restaurant and bar, and at last years’ Open House had Londoners queuing to view this rare surviving Moorish temple in the heart of The City.

Featured image: Bishopsgate Churchyard, London, EC2 by DavidHallam-Jones (CC BY-SA 2.0). With St Botolph’s-without-Bishopsgate churchyard behind them pedestrians walking towards New Broad Street find themselves facing the entrance to this former underground Turkish Bath establishment. Apparently there had been baths of one kind or another on this site since 1817. These “new” (replacement) baths were opened as “The New Broad Street Turkish Baths” on 5 February 1895. They were situated partly underneath the original New Broad Street House (since demolished) and partly beneath Alderman’s Walk (now called Bishopsgate Churchyard). Potential bathers entered the kiosk that is topped by an onion shaped cupola and decorated with a star and crescent and went down a faïence-lined (earthenware tiled) winding staircase to a vestibule where s/he bought a ticket. Although Grade II-listed, it seems that it has been adapted into a restaurant.

A version of this post was published by CabbieBlog on 19th February 2010

Known colloquially and ‘Angel’, in the 1960s it could have easily gained the nomenclature of Toucan Turnpike.

Utilising at bomb site on its south-western corner (now a Jamies Italian) a huge hoarding proclaimed the proud boast that ‘Guinness was good for you’. The area now takes its name from the original Angel coaching inn dating back to 1639.

[T]HE EXISTING BUILDING in pale terracotta stone with a corner cupola replaced the earlier building in 1899. It was a pub until 1921, then until 1959, the building was used as a Lyons Corner House. Today it is a branch of the Co-operative Bank.

The original Angel stood near a toll gate on the Great North Road (now the corner of Islington High Street and Pentonville Road), at the bottom of Islington High Street.

Its religious name suggests even earlier origins, possibly as a hostel for pilgrims.

Travellers would rest here overnight rather than risk the open land between Islington and the City, which was infested by highwaymen and other thieves. There were also large fields for farmers to rest their animals before the journey to Smithfield meat market. For those travelling north the Angel was a coaching inn, the first northward staging post outside the City of London.

(Map of Angel crossroads, the black square indicates total destruction)

It became a local landmark and was mentioned in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, in connection with Oliver’s first meeting with the Artful Dodger: ‘it was nearly eleven o’clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. They, crossed from The Angel into St John’s Road’.

The area in which it was situated used to be called Merry Islington because from time immemorial it had been a great entertainment centre for Londoners. The Collins Music Hall, the Grand Theatre, and the Philharmonic Hall were all situated here. Today, because of its numerous restaurants, Upper Street is known as Supper Street.

In 1935 Victor Watson and his secretary Marjorie Phillips had been on a flying visit around the capital in a taxi, finding names for a board game that Watson had bought from Parker Bros., in Atlantic City. They had chosen many but still needed a name for one last square to go on their Monopoly board.

At a loss, they stopped for afternoon tea at the Lyons Angel Corner House Tea Rooms. Rather than looking further, Watson chose ‘The Angel’ as the last name, making it the only site on the board named after a building.

A plaque describing this event was unveiled by Victor Watson’s grandson, also named Victor.

Featured image: The Angel, Islington, opened in 1903 as the Angel Hotel, this landmark building was chosen in 1935 as one of the sites for the British version of the Monopoly board game. It is now home to a branch of the Co-op Bank by Des Blenkinsopp (CC BY-SA 2.0)