Mr Cranston's Waverley Temperance Hotels – a link between Edinburgh and London

I've just returned from a long weekend in Edinburgh. Lots of walking. Lots to see. And, of course, I took lots of photos. 

As I was walking back towards the Old Town along Spring Gardens last Friday I noticed a ghostsign on the side of a building overlooking the railway line, the largest visible words 'WAVERLEY HOTELS'. 

Although I'd spotted lots of old hand-painted signs across the city I'd decided to restrict myself to just looking at them. But this sign was so huge and inviting – I had to try and get closer!

This end wall sits a little over a metre from the viaduct that carries the tracks and with my back pressed against the railway wall I managed to take a couple of oblique upwards shots but my old phone isn't really the best device for taking pics like this. 

I have today tried find a better quality image, because surely someone must have got there first, but I can't find reference of it anywhere which is probably because trees obliterate the sign for most of the year.

I have therefore done my best to enhance and stretch one of my dodgy pics in order to read the content:

CRANSTON'S

WAVERLEY

Temperance

HOTELS

EDINBURGH

Princes Street

AND

Waterloo Place

GLASGOW

WAVERLEY

182(?) Sauchiehall Street

LONDON

WAVERLEY

37 Kings St, Cheapside

(CRA.... ALL.... NO... S)

(Bottom left)

FOR TEA

DINNER 2/-

ROOM 1/-

(Bottom right)

PRIVATE PARLOURS 3/-

SERVICE 1/-

STOCK ROOMS From 2/-

(and two more lines full length across the bottom edge that I can't decipher)

The London Waverley hotel at the corner of Cheapside is no longer there but it reminded me that I'd found this ad in a 1935 Ward Lock London guidebook for three Temperance hotels near the British Museum, one of which was called The Waverley. You'll can still find it today at 130-134 Southampton Row, near Russell Square, though no longer part of the temperance movement, ditto The Ivanhoe and The Kenilworth which sit opposite each other at the junction of Gt Russell St and Gower Street the former since rebranded The Bloomsbury Street Hotel.

But who was Mr Cranston? Well, it turns out we have another link between Edinburgh and London because Abney Park's website makes good mention of Robert Cranston within this entry for Elizabeth Elliott Scott who worked at one his hotels in Lawrence Lane, Cheapside – it includes a marvellous 151 advertisement for Cranston's hotels 

As for the Waverley Hotel in Edinburgh – on Monday, with time spare before my train back to London, I'd stood opposite the building and wondered whether I should go for a look inside to see if there was anything left of its Victorian interior. Having not started this research until today, I had not at that time made the connection to the Temperance movement and simply thought that t was named after Edinburgh's Waverley railway station. I instead sat on a bench in the sunshine and did a bit of people watching. Having googled the hotel's history, I can now see that I would have been disappointed –the hotel's fancy, albeit grubby, façade belies its interior which has been stripped of all historical decoration, making it almost indiscernible from many other hotels of this ilk.

Robert Cranston is buried in Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh.

Almost forgot – the sign is painted on the side of a Victorian social housing block at 10 Brand Place which retains its access from the street via an open staircase, very similar in design to the developments erected by Sidney Waterlow and his IIDC friends in London.  

Large lumps of York stone beneath The Duke of York Column

After gravelling around on Horseguards' parade a couple of week's ago, I made my way towards St James's via The Mall and the steps that lead up to The Duke of York column:

This distorted image is a screengrab from Google streetview

I was half way up the second flight when I realised that the surface beneath my feet was/is of the lovely York stone variety. I mused at the coincidence re the duke and the stone. 

I also noticed how jolly large some of the slabs are, something I have noticed in other places such as in Marylebone and Covent Garden.

Two of the slabs on the middle landing are definitely bigger than my double bed. My trusty measuring app tells me they are approx 3 metres x 2.4 metres, which is slightly larger than the ones in Central Avenue at Covent Garden piazza. 

The slab at the centre here also features a little square indentation which might be something to do with the installation process. Wiki's basic info about this landmark says that there's York stone to a depth of almost 3.5metres under the column itself. Wow. Grand indeed.

Broken glass and gas lamps on Horse Guards Road

I'm still writing about the zone between Horse Guards Parade*, St James's Park and The Mall, because there's so much to discover ins such a small space. Scroll down to see the previous posts. 

At the junction with The Mall there is a building known as the Admiralty Citadel. It's a bug lump covered in creeper.  At this time of year it's possible to see a panel affixed to its side telling us that it houses a dry riser inlet valve (amongst other things). 

In front of that there is a smaller building also covered in creeper looking like the big building had a baby, or a poo. Next to that, there's a tall skinny glass sculpture. This is the National Police Memorial. The water feature at the base has been removed (as per many other memorials near here) and the lights no longer illuminate it, but I actually now prefer it for its simplicity and the way that daylight seeps through and enhances its damaged and repaired corner sections, where different coloured glass has been inserted, resembling jewel-like slivers.

Nearby, within the pavement, I noticed a circular utility plate, approximately the same size as a coal hole cover plate, but bearing a design I have never seen anywhere else – three concentric rings of Jazz Age era letters that look like E D repeated.

A few metres along the path I found anther one, and then another and another, some of them almost obliterated by the road surface. I wondered what they were used for as they certainly weren't for the delivery of coal. 

I crossed over to the park side of the road and found another one very close to one of the huge gas lamps.

And then it hit me – Aha! yes! These plates must be access for either the gas feed or the electricity for the timers that power these impressive lanterns along Horse Guards Road which were installed during the rein of George V** 

The letterform on these plates is very Art Deco, a chunkier version of the 'Broadway' typeface, but what is the relevance of ED? Who was Ed?! It's more likely to signify something like Energy Department.

 

A GRV cipher on one of the lamp posts.

Any further info, please leave a comment or contact me via email: jane@janeslondon.com

*In an earlier post I wrote this as one word, horseguards, and queried whether this should have a possessive. Having just checked the a few maps, I only now discover that it's Horse Guards; two words with no indication of possession. No guards for a horse to wear. Nor does the horse do the guarding. Well, not alone, he has a guard on his back, the guard being a man, a soldier.  I'll stop now as I am confusing myself! 

**These lamps feature on my London by Gaslight guided tours which I will continue to offer into the late spring, starting at 8pm or later – let me know if you are interested.

Railings made from wartime stretchers – spot one and you'll start seeing them everywhere!

In my last post, looking at remnants of woodblocks, I mentioned that I'd been walking through the residential streets in Bermondsey, between Long lane and Tabard Street, here. I'd returned to this zone on a Friday because I'd actually intended to have a look around the much-diminished Bermondsey Antique Market and, being as I was in the vicinity, I thought I'd revisit some repurposed WW2 metal stretchers I'd often noticed on a corner along Long Lane. 

There are similar examples of stretchers as railings across London (see the list at the bottom) and whenever these have been pointed out to me, they have often been described as oddities. I was sure I'd seen more than just a handful of these things in Bermondsey so, after a conversation with a Vauxhall-based friend who had doubted me, I headed back to take a few snaps as evidence. 

I approached via Hankey Street and found some stretchers there lining both sides of the meandering street:

Hmm, I'd never walked down this road before and thought that these stretchers didn't look like the ones I spotted before; I was sure the buildings behind them had been the red brick late-1930's London County Council variety and that the stretchers had faced Long Lane, so I continued down to Manciple Street, turned left and left again into Staple Street and found it was also lined with stretchers, many with privet hedges growing through them.

When I again joined Long Lane I found the stretch of stretchers that I was looking for, adjacent to the post box including one that's been in a war of a different kind:

Interesting that these metal mesh fences were added after the war. I'm assuming they replace broken or trampled fencing. 

I headed eastwards along London Lane and, deciding that this needed a proper investigation and the market could wait for another week or two, I turned right into the state via Weston Street and found myself in 'Stretcher Central' because the things are almost everywhere casting interesting shadows on the pavement, their layers of peeling paint showing they were previously painted a bright shade of green:

The bended bars and black mesh continues around and past the LCC's 1930's buildings at the southern end of Mancipal Street and into Pardoner Street and Law Street. 

I followed the stretchers along Law Street passing an old pub that is now Leo's Den Nursery but still sports an old pub sign of a sheep hanging above the door – how amusing if the pub used to be called The Slaughtered Lamb (poor little lambs!) – then all the way down to Tabard Street and left around Pilgrim House into Potier Street. 

Phew! I decided that was enough and managed to get to the antiques market just as the stallholders were packing up. 

This Bermondsey estate and its 'sister' the Rockingham Estate just to the south, surely must contain the greatest concentration of these things. 

Hackney and Lambeth can also boast quite a few, the latter having a Facebook page on the subject. More information about Lambeth's housing estates can be found on Municipal Dream's excellent Substack page. 

I am pretty sure I have spotted stretcher fences in Camden, but I cannot now recall where I saw them, and there surely must be some stretchers surrounding similar estates in Tower Hamlets...?

Here follows a list of others I have either seen or been told about. However, some of these might have since been removed and replaced as per the ones in Pytchley Rd, off Dog Kennel Hill in East Dulwich as shown here in 2014 which I am hoping have been repurposed somehow. Please let me know about any of the others on the list so that I can add streetview links to those that don't have them:

• Amhurst Road, Hackney
• Atkins Road, Wandsworth
• Downs Estate (around Blackdown Hse), Hackney 
• Glebe Estate, Camberwell Road
• Kennings Way and White Hart St, Kennington
• Mereton Mansions, Brookmill Road, Deptford
• Shrewbury House, Kennington Oval
• Springfield Estate, Union Grove, Lambeth
• Watergate Street/Trevithick St, Deptford
• ... any more?

More bits of woodblock paving – Bermondsey and Chalk Farm

Walking northward through Camden recently, as I passed the the station and crossed Inverness Street I stopped occasionally to check that these manhole covers in Chalk Farm Road are still filled with wood blocks – yep. Good. 

I went for a wander, musing that the markets here aren't markets any more, just Bansky and Winehouse opportunities surrounding some food outlets. I continued up the street then just after The Roundhouse, I found another wood-filled manhole cover within the large triangle of pavement at the corner of Regent's Park Road:

Only two segments retain wood, but that's enough for me!

A few days later I was ambling through the residential streets between Long Lane and Tabard Street in Bermondsey, SE1, and I found another man hole cover in Hankey Place, the wood almost hidden by the greenery growing within it. How lovely!

This broken line design is new to me – the lines are usually solid as per the one at Chalk Farm, above. We can assume that this was a specific feature of covers made by this particular maker, who is shown around the rim of the cover plate as: Frederick Bird & Co., engineers, ironfounders, West Drayton near London. This is a company I have seen adorning many coal hole cover plates including those made by Bartle & Co of Notting Hill Gate who implemented Bird's patented self-fastening locking system, as shown here. 

Lots more lumps of London wood blocks here.

The Eyes of March

Yes, you read that title correctly – this is about Horseguards' Parade (where they march) and some intriguing markers I have espied during this month of March.
This first appeared on my Substack feed.

Walking across Horseguards’ Parade (possession or not? I say yes) with Chris, a lady who had attended the walk I had just led around St James’s Park* and, as I glanced down at the ground around my feet, I noticed the hint of a number 2 carved into a stone. Ooh. I cleared away the thin layer of chippings with my shoe and, as we discussed what this might signify, we spotted another marker to the left with a number 3 on it. 

How many times have I walked across here and not seen these before?!I say ‘walked’ but in truth I like marching across like a faux soldier, making that marvellous noise on the gravel. Schlerlump di dum, schlerlump di dum. 

Chris had been telling me that she’s a big fan of pomp and ceremony and often visits for changing of the guard and anything happening on or around the parade ground. She was as intrigued by the markers as I was. We decided they must be for the huge events here and surely there must be more of these markers, and so we scoured the ground to the left and right and forwards and backwards. I’d found a sleuthing partner! Aha! 

We found similarly-spaced markers bearing the numbers 3 and 4: 

This view is across the parade ground looking back to markers 2 and 3, Whitehall to the left, park to the right. 

The two pairs of numbers seem to be equidistant of the central line where we found larger grey stones with carved ruts in them that we summised might be used to park gun carriages, but I forgot to take photos of those. Convinced there surely must be pairs of markers bearing the numbers 1/2 at the southern side and 4/5 on the northern side, we hunted further but found nothing. We asked inside the museum. The staff at the counter also suggested that they were probably parade markers. 

I took Chris into the archway that leads to Whitehall and showed her the scratched graffiti that I wrote about here. We said our goodbyes and I returned to the parade ground to again search for more markers. 

 

A shadow selfie. Looks like I’m a bag lady on a beach. 

After five mins of gravelling I found a lonely 6 near the northern edge where the figure is oriented north to south: 

Despite some meticulous foot sweeping action to the 3&4 and back again, a number 5 was nowhere to be found. It must be there. It must be! 

I have an idea is that these mark the corners of the grandstands rather than stop/start points for the troops. I did spot some other intriguing (metal) things in this vicinity, but that can wait for another day. See you soon. 

 

*tours in The Royal Parks - have I not mentioned this? The St James’s Park tour includes pelican feeding and access to Duck Island, and there’s another walk I lead for them in Ken Gdns that concludes with access to the Albert Memorial. Find them here.