Telegraph Place and Tokenhouse Yard

Hearing Telegram Sam by Marc Bolan on the radio yesterday, it reminded that I'd taken a series of photos in and around Telegraph Place almost a year ago whilst wandering in the City of London.

These narrow little streets are accessed via Moorgate as in the pics above, or via Throgmorton Street, and they are full of architectural delights:

A hydraulic power access point outside The Telegraph public house – this might have been for the beer pumps. Further along a teeny tiny access point for the sewers. I've not seen one of these anywhere else so I am keen to know the purpose of it. Perhaps it was manually released for temporary ventilation..?

The street is so named because this is where London's first telegraph office was sited on 1845when it was originally called Founders Court (hmm ponder ponder, suggest the land is owned by the Founders Livery Co). More telegraph and telegram references here. 

The barbershop at the looks good but, until a few years ago there was a marvellous multi-layered hand-painted sign on the mirror within its Whalebone Court entrance. It's such a shame that they saw fit to scrape off all those layers of history. As you can from my 2013 photo, the letterform was a delight. It advertised a few earlier companies here including a manicule pointing down to the chiropodist below. The blue script possibly says 'hairdressers' but might have been 'shirtdressers' where you could get your collars and cuffs replaced.

Near the barbershop, two groups of stepped windows above allow light onto a stairwell, and below them an alley beneath that building leads into Tokenhouse Yard:

There are a couple of elaborate doorways in this enclosed and evocative space and both are entrances to the old GII* listed 1872 bank building – some impressive lions flank the entrance to No.12 and a similar doorway at No.11 sports a couple of fearsome fellas. I've found some pics of the interior.

Tokenhouse Yard was where the exchanging of [small value] tokens took place. Read more about the history of this thoroughfare c/o IanVisits here – I love it when someone else has done all the homework!

College Street and Little Green Street, NW5

Tucked away parallel to Highgate Road, between Kentish Town and Highgate, behind The Vine public house, is a lovely little footpath called College Lane.
Starting at College Yard it runs northwards past pretty little workers' cottages where it's hard to believe that a bus route is a stone's throw away.

Walking northwards from Somerset Road (top left)

The path then continues through a foot tunnel under the railway line and eventually becomes Grove End and then Grove Terrace.

Before the tunnel is the junction of Little Green Street:

With just eight houses on one side and two on the other, all of which were built in 1780 and are Grade II listed, it harks back to a bygone age of carts and flat caps. The street was the inspiration, and featured briefly in the video, for The Kinks' Dead End Street*. More recently the road was threatened with demolition in order to create a gated driveway for 30 new properties being built at the rear. Read more about that evil plan here. And here for a 2012 update.

* which surely inspired this great video by Oasis

One Eyed Grey – a Penny Dreadful

Time for an embarrassing confession.

I've known Chris for a few years now. I have been on a couple of his walking tours. The man is a wonderfully engaging story teller and a mine of intriguingly bizarre London facts. So how come I have only just got hold of a copy of the superb One Eyed Grey?

OEG is billed as "a penny dreadful for the 21st century" and contains macabre and scary London-based stories penned by a collective of writers. Order your copy here.

The red headings on some pages of the website are pretty scary too!

Top row: Battersea, Great Eastern Street, Grays In Road, Vauxhall Street

Middle row: St John Street, Blackfriars pub, Skinner Street, Millwall Docks

Bottom row: Mount Pleasant, Eastcheap, Harlseden, Seymour Place