London: a brief history

Alan Powers

University of Greenwich

5 October 2004

Roman London

• Roman wall built c.200 AD. The names of the gates still exist as street names.

Roman cities were all laid out to the same basic plan

It was a map of the four parts of the heavens, at the intersection of the paths of the sun and the

stars. They called this the ‘umbelicus’ or navel of the city. An offering to the gods of the underworld was placed here in a ‘mundus’, a double chamber

below ground.

• A section of the London wall at Tower Hill.

• The lower courses are Roman.

• The wall was built into later houses rather than demolished.

• A reconstruction of London in 1400, with St Paul’s Cathedral, London Bridge and the Tower of London

Power relations in mediaeval London

London was still mostly contained within the Roman walls, although

these were not very strong for defence. The King used London

merchants as a source of money, and his Tower prevented rebellion.

The Court was based at Westminster

• The Tudor palace at Greenwich, a favourite residence of King Henry VIII (1491-1547), close to the shipbuilding yards of Deptford and Woolwich

The 1500s

Historical events: England’s break with the Church in Rome causes

international conflicts. Monasteries in London dissolved.

Printing increases the circulation of knowledge.

Growth of public performances

• Moorfields and Bishopsgate, map of c.1559

The beginning of suburbs

London began to grow outside the walls, where there was more space

and freedom from regulation.

Royal edicts tried to stop this growth, but it was ultimately impossible.

Moorfields was used for drying cloth and for recreation.

• London in 1560

• W. Hollar’s view of London, 1647, showing Globe Theatre

• Water supply in 1613.

The New River Head in Clerkenwell, south of Sadlers Wells Theatre.

• Water supply in 1613.

The New River Head in Clerkenwell, south of Sadlers Wells Theatre.

The New River

The New River was one of the first major public works projects for

London, privately financed although given royal support by James I. Water

comes 36 miles by gravity from Hertfordshire. It is still one of the sources of water supply in London.

• St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, designed by Inigo Jones, 1631, as the centre piece of the ‘piazza’, called ‘The Handsomest Barn in Europe’

• The Covent Garden Piazza, engraved by W. Hollar, 1640

The importance of Covent Garden

Covent Garden showed a new attitude to development

1.An aristocratic landlord took a planning initiative and a commercial risk

2. There was a coherent design, with unified fronts, linking individual properties together

3. New public space was created.

4. The London square was born.

• London fortified by Parliament, 1642-3

• Sir Christopher Wren’s plan for rebuilding London after the Great Fire, 1666

Planning London after the fire

Wren’s plan shows the influence of mathematics and theatrical scenery combined.

The radial streets were based on ideas first used in Rome in the 1560s.

It is a city of sightlines and efficient circulation.

John Evelyn and Robert Hooke, both friends of Wren, proposed simpler grid plans.

In the hurry to rebuild, the old streets and property divisions were largely retained.

• A coffee house in London in the 1680s - the beginning of the modern office?

The importance of coffee‘Coffee that makes the politician wise

And see through all things with his half-closed eyes’ Alexander Pope

It has been claimed that without coffee, it would not have been possible to have a scientific

revolution or a modern commercial economy, because coffee makes people think in a rational

rather than emotional way.

Can food and drink really affect the course of society?

• Soho Square, first built 1677-91, all the houses replaced 100 years later. Shown here in the 1820s

Food supply in London

Before canned food (c.1900) and refrigeration (which for most people meant before 1950), much

of London’s economy was concerned with food supply. Animals were brought to London for

slaughter close to the markets.

Fruit and vegetables were grown around London and brought in by cart or boat.

Cows were kept in London to provide milk.

• ‘Beer Street’ by William Hogarth, 1751

• Physical contact is part of the good society.

• William Hogarth ‘Gin Lane’, 1751. Lack of contact creates disorder in social space?

‘Beer Street’ and ‘Gin Lane’

The artist William Hogarth was appalled at the misery caused by

lethal cheap gin. Partly as a result of his print, it was brought under

control.

• The Bedford Estate in Bloomsbury. Projection of future streets, 1795

• Aristocratic houses give way to streets and squares for professionals.

• Extending ‘polite’ London: plan for the Bedford Estate, 1800

• Note the alignment changes in the street grids owing to old roads and different property boundaries.

• Drury Lane Theatre, from Ackermann’s Microcosm of London, 1808-10. Mass entertainment and spectacle in Regency London.

• St Luke’s Hospital, from Ackermann’s Microcosm of London, 1808-10

• Regent Street, designed by John Nash, 1822

John Nash’s Regent Street, stretching from St James’s Park to Regent’s Park.

‘The March of Intellect’ cartoon of 1827

• Gas light in the streets, c.1822

• Euston Station, opened 1837, the first London mainline station.

• Building the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition, 1851

• Urban poverty, from The Builder, 1854

• Railways in outer London opened between 1852 and 1875

• Developers’ houses for the middle classes: the Eton College Estate, Chalk Farm

• ‘Bye-law’ houses, built after 1870. Close rows, back yards, no trees.

• First underground journey on the Metropolitan Line, 1862

• ‘Regeneration in 1900: the Old Nichol becomes the Boundary Street Estate, LCC Architects

• Shiplake House, Boundary Street Estate, 1895

London Electric Railways map, 1906

• Suburban semi-detached housing grows - Hendon and the Great North Road in 1939

• Bomb damage around St Paul’s Cathedral

• The growth of built-up London, seen as a reason to halt expansion, reduce population in the centre, and move population into new towns further away from London, such as Harlow, Stevenage and Crawley.

• Traffic segregation. Illustration from The County of London Plan, Penguin Books 1945

• Before and after zoning: County of London Plan 1945

• West Hill, Wandsworth. Council housing. Safe, respectable, boring?

Trellick Tower, 1967

• Heroic landmark or urban hell?

• Architect Ernö Goldfinger

• Now a listed building and a fashionable address

• 1972: Can Britain’s capital survive the onslaught of the developers?

• ‘Warning of 1666’: cartoon from How Should we rebuild London?, after the Second World War

The Official End of Zoning, 1999‘The concept of zoning is increasingly

losing its meaning.With the barriers between home, work, and leisure

continuing to break down, the future emphasis of development plans should be on promoting flexible designations which enable mixing of uses and the ability to

change the mix over time’

Towards an Urban Renaissance, 1999

Some questions

• What are the forces that shape cities? Geography and commerce? (material causes)

• Ideas about right living and right behaviour? (Ancient Roman, Christian, Socialist, Ecological)

• Professional expertise? (planners, architects)

• The people who live there? (struggle for a better life, political action)

• How can London become a sustainable city?