Legal London's finery

London - the capital of Common Law, the law of England and Wales, the legal system underpinning the ones used many English-speaking countries around the world. London and law - one associates buildings such as the Old Bailey - the Central Criminal Court - and the Law Courts (officially the Royal Courts of Justice, below).

Despite the fact that the practice of law in London has an extremely long history, both the Old Bailey and the Law Courts are relatively new buildings. The neo-gothic Law Courts date back to 1880, and the Old Bailey is an Edwardian edifice, completed in 1902, the year after the death of Queen Victoria.

Neo-Gothic ages well. In my 1960s childhood, I could have imagined these buildings being around at the time of the Court of King Arthur, Merrie England and Henry VIII. Looking along The Strand, right at the edge of the City of London, the turrets and towers are entirely medieval in appearance. To the right (partially obscured by scaffolding) - Temple Bar, marking the entrance to the City.

Turn off the Strand, however, enter the Middle and Inner Temple - two of London's four Inns of Court (the other two being Lincoln's Inns and Gray's Inn). All barristers practising law in England and Wales must have their chambers (offices) in the one of these four Inns of Court.

Hang on a second - Inns of Court - karczmy sądu? Inn = karczma, zajazd, oberża, court = sąd, dwór, dziedziniec? Justice in medieval England was meted out in inns? Not quite. Henry III prohibited the practice of law within the boundaries of the City of London, and so the places where lawyers lived, studied and conducted their professions were located just to the west of the City's boundaries. From 1320 the Inner and Middle Temples (originally set up by the Knights Templar - Templariusze, taken from them by the crown and turn to use as a centre for legal activities), joined later by Lincoln's Inn (1427) and Gray's Inn (1569). This is where London's legal district was - and remains.

Below: looking down towards Middle Temple Gate. Beyond the gate, the Embankment and the Thames.

Below: chambers in the Inner Temple. Solicitors are to be found in every high street across the land, but barristers - only in the four Inns of Court, in a tiny area of London bordered by Theobalds Road to the north, Shoe Street to the east, Embankment to the south and Kingsway to the west. And clustered around them, the London offices of the biggest law firms.

Below: the Inner Temple has beautifully-kept gardens, walled off from the casual passer-by trying to take a short cut or the tourist throng. You need to know London well to know how to get in here! Across to the Thames to the right - One Blackfriars ('The Belly'). Weather - beautiful.

Left: some of the newer, Victorian, architecture of the Inner Temple. Traditionally, the Inner Temple was where lawyers resided, the Middle Temple was where they practised. Today, they are exclusively business premises, the chambers are no longer residential.

The Temple itself, built by the Knights Templar, seized by the Crown after their downfall, is at the heart of this complex. Well worth a visit.

Right: on to the Middle Temple, further west. A town within a town, a refuge from the bustling streets that surround it. But unlike Mayfair, there are lights on in the windows and plenty of signs of activity within. And here is a double pillar-box, once separating mail for London from that destined for the rest of the country; today 'stamped' and 'metered' mail are posted separately.

The Outer Temple? Was there one? It's shrouded in legend, you know. The Knights Templars... mysteries... historical controversies... Over this threshold one crosses into a covered passage that leads into the Middle Temple.

The Inner and Middle Temples are worth a visit. There's limited access, you need to have a local guide or do some research, but you can generally wander around without restriction during the working day.

This time last year:
Winter walk through the Las Kabacki

This time three years ago:

1967: The Year The World Started Turning To Colour

This time six years ago:
Rain on a freezing day (-7C)

This time seven years ago:
Jeziorki in the snow

This time nine years ago:
Winter's slight return

This time ten years ago:
Unacceptable

This time 11 years ago:
Pieniny in winter

This time 12 years ago:
Wetlands in a wet winter

A Change in the Weather

Whenever I'm thinking about the weather, I get drawn into thinking about the climate, and how its changing, whether the change will accelerate or slow down, whether our actions can hold back a process that threatens mankind.

"A terrible signal
Too weak to even recognize"
...
"A change in the weather"

[Talking Heads, The Overload, from the 1980 album, Remain in Light]

Freak weather events - even non-threatening ones - are happening more often. My last few posts were the result of a five-day-long spell of cloudless skies over London - spiritually uplifting, gorgeous days that boosted my well-being. Since then, unsettled weather has been punctuated by frequent cloudbursts of torrential rain. Below: caught by a downpour near St Paul's.

On Tuesday afternoon, sitting outside a pub in the City, rain fell so hard and so quickly, that water rushed down the steps into the basement, flooding the floor and short-circuiting the electrics. The beer pumps and cash tills didn't work so we had to go to another pub once the rains eased. Yesterday, returning from Pitshanger Lane with our fish-and-chip supper, I was caught in a similar deluge. Rain of such ferocity that I was soaked to the skin after a ten-minute-run home despite wearing a 'waterproof' jacket. The inside of my Samsonite rucksack became damp as were the fish and chips stored within.

Hotter oceans mean more energy stored in the waters, greater evaporation of water vapour stored in clouds, heavier rainfalls. It's just that simple.

Not usual September weather for London - certainly not weather like I remember from my childhood or my youth.

Climate change is happening. It's my duty here to nudge my readers - drive less, fly less, source locally, turn down the thermostat, buy less - think about what you're doing through the prism of the earth's ecosystem.

I am all in favour of Greta Thunberg and the whole movement to take urgent action to halt climate change. I do, however, worry about the extreme end of this movement which talks of 'climate reparations' and 'climate justice' - the latter slogan a throwback to the 'class justice' of the Russian Revolution. Getting it right is all down to us - seven billion people making more educated decisions - and to our governments, which can take more decisive action at the macro level.

In a dystopian future, I can see an autarkic England in a civil war between 'green Brexiteers' and 'brown Brexiteers' - the former seizing the chance to impose a ruthless environmental agenda on a sealed-off island economy, the latter denying any climate change and wanting the right to hang on to their increasingly elderly foreign-made SUVs and to continue driving them wherever they want, however they want.

"Excuse me Sir, we're from the Department for Exiting the EU. I see you have an Audi Q8 parked on the drive outside your mansion. This is in direct contravention of Article 22 of the Foreign-Made Vehicle (Climate Protection) Act of 2029. Your car will be taken to a scrapyard for recycling, you are under arrest and will held in custody until your trial - the maximum punishment should you be found guilty will be five years in prison and a £5 million fine."

This time last year:
Zamek Topacz classic car museum

This time four years ago:
Curry comes to Jeziorki
[didn't stay long - but then not a good one]

This time five years ago:
Why we should all try to use less gas

This time six years ago:
Polish supermarket chain advertises on London buses

This time 11 years ago:
Well-shot pheasants

The City in its Morning Glory

Climatically, the tables are turned - London's getting better weather this week than Warsaw (22C in London, 9C in Warsaw). Glorious autumn sunshine, low, strong rays lighting the way to work.

I'm wandering around Clerkenwell, down towards Holborn and back to Farringdon, retracing my old route from the Underground station to the journalism department at The City University (as it was styled back in 1980).  For a year as I did my postgraduate studies, I'd pass through here each weekday from Paddington station. But wait! Not once in my daily commutes did I notice that Farringdon station was originally named Farringdon and High Holborn (below)!

Left: looking down White Horse Alley from Peter's Lane, strong sun from the east augmented by sunlight reflected from the Save The Children building (out of shot to the right).

Clerkenwell has changed much since I studied around here; it was a run-down, slightly seedy part of London in the early 1980s. The last bowler hats had all but disappeared by then; today Clerkenwell is trendy and Millennial-friendly, a good place to work.

Right: each successive train unloads hundreds of commuters who spill out onto the streets radiating from Farringdon station, office-bound, skinny latte and hummus and wheatgerm sandwiches in hand. Rapid reinvention of properties, new shops and cafes replacing those that struggled to maintain footfall, ensures the dynamism of street-level London. Time passes quicker than in the suburbs.

Left: a relic of the 1960s - the ghost shop sign of E. Higgs Air Agency Ltd, which according to Companies House was established in 1965 and was wound up on 1 January 1989.

Thirty years out of business but the sign's still there, surely the only shop sign showing a Vickers VC10 in existence.

Below: I find it hard to resist strolling around Smithfields Market. This is new to me - the Port of London Authority cold storage, to the north of the market buildings.

Next door to the PLA's cold stores, the Central Cold Storage (below).

Below: Smithfield Market's Meat Inspectors' Office, 79-83 Charterhouse Street, the frieze carries the crest and motto of the City of London corporation - Domine, dirige nos - 'Lord, lead us', flanked by fattened livestock being led to their slaughter.

Left: Snow Hill police station, manned by the City of London Police (as opposed to the Metropolitan Police). Built in 1926, the Grade II listed building is a mixture of moderne and Arts & Crafts; very unusual. It was built on the site of the Saracen's Head Hotel, a famous coaching inn.

It's name lingers on; below - this is Saracen's Head Buildings, Cock Lane, E.C. 1, former London offices of John J. Royle of Manchester, a teapot manufacturer.



The weather is set fair for another four glorious days of cloudless early-autumn skies - I must make the most of such moments!

This time eight years ago:
Waiting for autumn

This time nine years ago:
Made in England to last

This time ten years ago:
How the S2/S79 looked back then...

This time 12 years ago:
Endless summer, Park Łazienkowski

Spitalfields and Smithfields - more from the City

Friday in the City and the chance to explore; I am often visiting the City on business and rather than head back to Ealing from the nearest Tube station, I meander westwards on foot, each time choosing a new route. There is so much to see, so much to discover, and such a rich history that is visually and intellectually rewarding.

Below: peak Spitalfields, hipster capital of London, where old brick has been put to new use. A once run-down area within walking distance of the skyscrapers of the City's financial heart has become a Most sought-after location.

Right: here we are, right at the edge. In the background and to the right, the steel and glass of a modern financial hub; the NatWest and RBS buildings on Bishopsgate. In front of them and to the left, the early Victorian brick and cobbles of Spital Yard. The 'Spital' comes from St Mary's Hospital, founded in 1197.

The district was associated with weaving, cloth-making and garment manufacture with successive waves of immigrants since the 17th century - Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis - establishing themselves and their businesses around here.

The gatehouse to St Bartholomew-the-Great church. There are two parishes side by side; St Bartholomew-the-Great and St Bartholomew-the-Less, formerly the parish church of Bartholomew's Hospital, ('Barts'), the teaching hospital, founded by the Augustinian Friars in 1123. The entire complex stands between Smithfield Market to the north, the Old Bailey (Central Criminal Court) to the south-west and the Bank of England to the south-east.

London's rich mediaeval history was mostly destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 but St Barts survived.

Right: the word 'bedlam' comes from the corruption of the word Bethlehem, which by 1460 had become Europe's first psychiatric hospital. This plaque is to be found by the Liverpool Street entrance to Liverpool Street station.

The words 'hospital', 'hostel' and 'hotel' derive their etymology from the same route (the dropped 's' replaced by the circumflex over the 'o' as in the French spelling of hôtel. Originally, "hostels of God," early mediaeval hospitals provided hospitality to guests - pilgrims - and patients alike. Only after the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in the late 1530s did the roles of hospital and pilgrim's rest begin to diverge.

Left: the entrance to the Museum of the Order of St John - the Knights Hospitaller, located in Clerkenwell in the old priory gatehouse, built in 1504. The museum tells the story of how the monastic order was founded in the 11th century during the First Crusade in Jerusalem to look after Christian pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land - and how it subsequently turned into what is now St John Ambulance Brigade. The brigade's logo - the Maltese Cross - seen on the pavement - shows the continuity of the organisation spanning almost one millennium.

Left: Lowndes House, No.1 City Road. Built in 1929 in an imperial style that would already have appeared dated at that time when modernism was the rage, this was the London headquarters of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Singer's UK manufacturing facility was in Glasgow. Compared to other Singer buildings - such as the one in St Petersburg - quite modest. Singer was one of the first American multinational corporations, with a global reach well before WW1. Today, the Grade II listed building serves as a Travelodge hotel.


Below: O joy! I walked the length of Spitalfields' Elder Street, expecting that a good street landscape would be spoilt by modern cars. But no! A Bentley S1, built between 1955 and '59. And how perfectly placed, at the end of the street...

...standing next to a Morris Minor Series II convertible (1952-56)! A marvellous sight! Both displaying the patina of decades of driving.

Below: onwards from Spitalfields to Smithfields - and another classic, somewhat younger (late 1970s, so only 40 years old) MG MGB Roadster passes the meat market.

Left: at Smithfields, to find the house in which lived Sir John Betjeman. It's here - at 43 Cloth Fair, the entrance being on Cloth Court. This was his London home from 1954 to 1972, with an interlude (1958-59) living at Rotherhithe while the flat was being refurbished following a fire. A fine location from which to explore the City, Those 18 years saw many historic buildings making way for steel-and-glass offices.

Right: blue plaque over the door to Sir John Betjeman's flat. His youthful explorations of the City of London were described in Chapter VI, his autobiographical poem, Summoned by Bells; he would visit the City's churches on Sundays, drawn towards the more obscure ones.

Below: Christ Church, Spitalfields, a Hawksmoor design. It was one of a spate of churches erected as a result of the work of the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches. Not 50 but 12 arose in and around London in the first half of the 18th century; this one in particular to minister to Huguenots who had fled France to England to avoid religious persecution at home. To the left of frame in this photo, Spitalfields Market. Street food and street fashions.

By the 19th century, the mission of Christ Church had changed with the coming of a new influx of immigrants - Jewish refugees from the Russian Pale of Settlement. The London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews was active in this parish, as can be seen in many of the plaques inside the vestibule, commemorating Jews who had converted and those who ministered to them (below).

Left: another literary 'JB' - John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress. Here is his grave, at the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground. As with the works of John Betjeman, I was introduced to Pilgrim's Progress at school. All I can remember of Bunyan's book are the words 'Slough of Despond'. Also buried here are Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, and William Blake.


16,000 paces walked today - a good result.

This time two years ago:
That tune going round your head now...

This time three years ago:
The eyes... the eyes... 

This time four years ago:
New old terminal open at Okęcie airport

This time six years ago:
Arrogance vs. humility 

This time seven years ago:
Warsaw looking good ahead of the football-fan influx

This time ten years ago:
Heron over Jeziorki

This time 12 years ago:
Present rising, future loading