Blog about the British Library's exhibition 'Points of View: Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs', and about its photographic collections. Written by Colin Wight and Rob Ainsley from the British Library web team
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Another nice feature in the Guardian on Saturday, this time by Rosemary Hill. She takes our exhibition as the starting point for an essay about Victorian responses to the new medium.
She writes: 'It was not long before the supposed objectivity of the camera came into question. As a sceptical Mark Twain pointed out: "You can't depend on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus."'
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I've been stung into action by a comment suggesting that we build a Google map, so that you can easily find the buildings featured in the 'London 1870s and now' posts (appearing each Tuesday).
So now there is one. Here it is. We'll update it once a week, so as to retain the tingle of suspense. These map pins indicate the three posts we've put up so far. Where to next?
I was going to do it anyway, honest.
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A great blog posting by Claire Doble of visitlondon.com about last Friday's 'Late' event entitled 'Victorian Values'.
She writes: 'My favourite of the evening [was] Red Sarah as a Victorian strongman, complete with stripy suit and barbell. Another huge crowd-pleaser was Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer, who does a medley of modern songs – from Beastie Boys to The Prodigy – in a thoroughly amusing, old-fashioned style that he calls “Chap-Hop”, while accompanying himself on the banjolele.'
Always nice when someone 'confesses' that they've never been here before. It proves that guilt is still part and parcel of the British character.
Lots of pictures of the same event, thanks to Brianmicky.
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This is the third in a series of posts comparing photos of London taken by Henry Dixon in the 1870s and 80s with the same view today.
Temple Bar was a gateway to the City of London, marking its western edge on Fleet St. Wren's construction was taken down in 1878, shortly after the top photograph was taken. A zoomable version of the image is on our Online Gallery.
Writing in 1880, Alfred Marks commented: "The photograph shows the west side of Temple Bar... shored up with timber to counteract the effects of the excavations for the New Law Courts...The Bar as we saw it till it was replaced by the 'Memorial' and its famous 'Griffin,' was built from Wren's designs in 1670...The statues on the west side, shown in our photograph, were of Charles I and Charles II in Roman habits."
The photograph beneath shows same view as it appeared in August 2009, with the griffin - the symbol of the City, which also appears at other boundary points round London - in silhouette. The northern (left) side of Fleet St was radically changed after the removal of the Bar, with the building of the new Law Courts.
Temple Bar was not destroyed, and in fact survives today intact. After its 1878 dismantling, it was bought by brewing magnate Sir Henry Meux and reconstructed in his Theobalds Park home in Hertfordshire. In 2003 it was moved piece by piece to Paternoster Square (below), next to St Paul's Cathedral, where it was restored and re-reconstructed. It opened in 2004.
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This is the second in a series of posts comparing photos of London taken by Henry Dixon in the 1870s and 80s with the same view today.
Staple Inn was originally attached to Gray's Inn, one of the four Inns of Court. The original building dates from 1585, but after heavy damage from a German bomb in 1944, it was extensively restored - making it a far more splendid front today than that seen by the 19th-century shoppers of Holborn.
The top picture is Dixon's. A zoomable version of this image is on our Online Gallery. Writing about the building in 1880, Alfred Marks commented: "This is in truth one of the most picturesque groups of Old London houses. They are also among the oldest, dating apparently from the time of James I., or perhaps somewhat earlier... The obelisk, topped by a lamp, marks the City boundary. Just here, opposite to Gray's Inn Lane, stood, till a few years back, Middle Row, narrowing the thoroughfare and blocking the traffic."
Below it is the same view as it appeared in August 2009.
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This is the first in a series of posts comparing photos of London in the 1870s and 80s with the same view today.
The pictures taken by Henry Dixon were to document parts of London already considered old. Some were about to be demolished, such as the row of decrepit houses in Wych St (now Aldwych); others were destined to be preserved, such as the gatehouse of Lincoln's Inn.
The feted south-bank pub above, the George, is the only surviving example of a pre-1880s London galleried coaching inn. Dixon and others photographed many such inns (such as the White Hart Inn, mentioned in Shakespeare's Henry VI; and the Oxford Arms) just before they were demolished in the pub boom of the 1880s and 1890s. Heavy commercial investment saw every likely pub in London undergo major refurbishment in the ornate, high-Victorian style of the period (of which the best surviving example today is the Princess Louise on High Holborn).
The George, perhaps because of its marginal position on the unfashionable south bank, survived the redevelopment frenzy. It is now a tourist attraction in its own right.
The top picture is Dixon's. A zoomable version of this image is on our Online Gallery. Writing about the George in 1880, Alfred Marks lamented that it had been "a good deal modernised since its re-building after the fire of 1676. Its large courtyard is now used as a railway goods office. The east and north galleries have been so boarded up as to lose all their old character."
Below it is the same view as it appeared during a 'thorough research trip' in August 2009.
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