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Hidden London: Memorial to John Heminge and Henry Condell by Charles John Allen in St Mary Aldermanbury Garden.
© 2019 Visiting London Guide.com – Photograph by Alan Kean
In the quiet garden of the remains of the former church of St. Mary Aldermanbury in the City of London is a bust of William Shakespeare as part of a memorial to his fellow actors Henry Condell and John Hemmings who were key figures in the printing of the playwright’s First Folio of works. Both actors are buried in the church.
© 2019 Visiting London Guide.com – Photograph by Alan Kean
The church of St. Mary Aldermanbury was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666 and then rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. Unfortunately it was gutted during the Blitz in 1940, leaving only the walls intact. Rather unusually, in 1966 the remains of the church were shipped to Fulton, Missouri, USA. The church now stands as a memorial to Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech made at Westminster College, Fulton, in 1946.
The site of the church and churchyard were acquired by the City of London in 1970 and laid out as a public garden.
© 2019 Visiting London Guide.com – Photograph by Alan Kean
Although the names of Henry Condell and John Heminge are now largely forgotten, they played a pivotal role in making sure that many of Shakespeare’s plays were not lost. John Heminge and Henry Condell were actors in the King’s Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. Both men had shares in the Globe theatre and were mentioned in Shakespeare’s will, with Richard Burbage, each being bequeathed 26 shillings and eightpence to buy mourning rings. There is evidence that Heminge was resposible for some of the financial deals of the King’s Men and served as trustee for Shakespeare when the latter purchased a house in Blackfriars in 1613.
Both men settled and raised families in the St Mary Aldermanbury parish and both men were buried in the parish church. Condell in 1627 and Heminges in 1630.
The memorial gives more information of their work on the folio.
© 2019 Visiting London Guide.com – Photograph by Alan Kean
Shakespeare
The First Folio
Mr William Shakespeare’s comedies, histories & tragedies, published according to the true originall copies, London 1623
We have but collected them and done an office to the dead . . . Without ambition either of selfe profit or fame, onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a friend & fellowe alive as was our Shakespeare.
John Heminge
Henry Condell
© 2019 Visiting London Guide.com – Photograph by Alan Kean
To the memory of John Heminge and Henry Condell, fellow actors and personal friends of Shakespeare. They lived many years in this parish and are buried here.
To their disinterested affection the world owes all that it calls Shakespeare. They alone collected his dramatic writings regardless of pecuniary loss and without the hope of any profit gave them to the world. They thus merited the gratitude of mankind.Given to the nation by Charles Clement Walker Esqr., Lilleshall Old Hall, Shropshire.
© 2019 Visiting London Guide.com – Photograph by Alan Kean
The fame of Shakespeare rests on his incomparable dramas,. There is no evidence that he ever intended to publish them and his premature death in 1616 made this the interest of no one else. Heminge and Condell had been co-partners with him in the Globe Theatre Southwark, and from the accumulated plays there of thirty five years with great labour selected them. No men then living were so competent having acted with him in them for many years and well knowing his manuscripts they were published in 1623 in folio thus giving away their private rights therein. What they did was priceless. For the whole of his manuscripts with almost all those of the dramas of the period have perished.
© 2019 Visiting London Guide.com – Photograph by Alan Kean
John Heminge lived in this parish upwards of forty two years and in which he was married. He had fourteen children, thirteen of whom were baptized, four buried, and one married here. He was buried here October 12 1630. His wife was also buried here.
Henry Condell lived in this parish upwards of thirty years. He had nine children, eight of whom were baptized here and six buried. He was buried here December 29 1627. His wife was also buried here.
“Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s thy God’s and truth’s”
Henry VIII Act 3 Scene 2.
The design of the monument and the inscriptions are by Mr Charles Clement Walker who also paid for the monument. Charles John Allen was the British sculptor who created the memorial which was unveiled in 1895.
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Exhibition Review : Fire! Fire! At the Museum of London – 23rd July 2016 to 17th April 2017
The Museum of London present a major exhibition entitled , Fire! Fire!, which opens 23rd July 2016. The exhibition marks the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London and explores London life on the eve of the fire, the dramatic events that took place as the blaze burned through a quarter of the city in 1666, and how London recovered from the devastation.
Using multimedia digital displays and rare objects from the Museum of London collections, Fire! Fire! is one of the Museum of London’s most immersive and interactive exhibitions to date, with recreations of Pudding Lane and a huge moving panorama of London in flames.
The exhibition begins in Pudding Lane and looks at how the fire started and spread over the next few days. A variety of objects from the fire are shown including a ceramic roof tile that was blackened, melted and bent in half indicating the great heat created from the inferno. Also shown are Burnt padlocks and keys made from iron, found at Monument House excavations on Botolph Lane, near Pudding Lane.
For a visual record of how the fire spread across the city, a large digital map shows the day by day progress.
One of the more unusual exhibits is a restored 17th century fire engine, originally built in London in the late 1670s by John Keeling, the only surviving part when the museum acquired the fire engine in 1928 was the central barrel and pump. The restoration was modelled on a 19th-century photograph of the engine which showed it still intact with its undercarriage, wheels, tow bar and pumping arms.
Although the loss of human life was small, the effects of the fire were catastrophic for many of the 100,000 who were displaced from their homes. Letters, books and paintings give voice to some of the great loss and sufferings experienced by the population.
Rebuilding the damaged part of the City of London became a priority and plans from Sir Christopher Wren are shown to illustrate the mammoth task.
A plaque from the wall of a house in Pudding Lane provides evidence of people using the fire to further their own agendas , plaques and pamphlets suggested that the fire was started deliberately by Catholics to enable foreign powers to take over the city. Although there was no evidence that the fire was anything but an accident, some people looked for scapegoats to blame.
This intriguing and entertaining exhibition explores one of London’s most famous historical disasters from a number of ways. The attractive visual displays illustrate the way the events of September 1666 unfolded and how Londoners responded to the disaster and gradually rebuilt the city.
The exhibition is particularly attractive for families and children with plenty of interactive elements and a wide programme of fire themed walks and tours, lectures, workshops, family activities, children’s sleepovers and festival days.
Fire! Fire! runs from 23 July 2016 – 17 April 2017, tickets priced from £8 for adults and £5 for children online, family tickets are available
Visiting London Guide Rating – Highly Recommended
If you would like further information or book tickets, visit the Museum of London website here
London Visitors is the official blog for the Visiting London Guide .com website. The website was developed to bring practical advice and latest up to date news and reviews of events in London.
Since our launch in 2014, we have attracted thousands of readers each month, the site is constantly updated.
We have sections on Museums and Art Galleries, Transport, Food and Drink, Places to Stay, Security, Music, Sport, Books and many more.
There are also hundreds of links to interesting articles on our blog.
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The Remarkable Story of the Temple Bar
Standing near to St Paul’s Cathedral, mostly ignored by visitors is an arch that has a remarkable history. The arch is known as the Temple Bar and was commissioned by King Charles II, and designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Constructed from Portland Stone between 1669 and 1672 it occupied one of the most important locations in London, separating the City of London and the City of Westminster.
This location was the point where Fleet Street becomes the Strand, a site now near the Royal Courts of Justice, it was at this spot that a Temple Bar stood from the 13th century. Originally just a wooden structure with a chain, it possessed considerable symbolic importance. Temple Bar was the scene of a large number of historical pageants celebrating coronations and paying homage to dead Kings and Queens, through the Temple Bar passed Henry V, Anne Boleyn, Edward VI and Mary Tudor. Before Queen Elizabeth the first’s coronation, Gogmagog the Albion, and Corineus the Briton, the two Guildhall giants, stood next to the Bar.
In the late Middle Ages a wooden archway stood on the spot and although it escaped damage in the Great Fire of London , it was decided by the City to rebuild the structure.
The Wren designed Temple Bar is constructed in two stories with one wide central arch for the road traffic, flanked on both sides by narrower arches for pedestrians.
During the 18th century, the heads of traitors were mounted on pikes and exhibited on the roof and upper story room was leased to the neighbouring banking-house of Child and Co for records storage.
Temple Bar, London, 1878 by A & J Bool
In 1878 the City of London Corporation decided that the arch was becoming a bottleneck for traffic and decided to dismantle the structure. It dismantled it piece-by-piece over an 11-day period and the Corporation stored the 2,700 stones. In 1880, at the instigation of his wife, Valerie Meux, the brewer Henry Meux bought the stones and re-erected the arch as a gateway at his house, Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire. Lady Meux used it to entertain friends but after she died, it became derelict and abandoned until 2003.
Temple bar at Theobolds Park (Photo M Newnham 1968)
In 1984, it was purchased by the Temple Bar Trust from the Meux Trust for £1. It was carefully dismantled and returned on 500 pallets to the City of London, where it was painstakingly re-erected as an entrance to the Paternoster Square redevelopment just north of St Paul’s Cathedral. It opened to the public on the 10 November 2004.
London Visitors is the official blog for the Visiting London Guide .com website. The website was developed to bring practical advice and latest up to date news and reviews of events in London.
Since our launch , we have attracted thousands of readers each month, the site is constantly updated.
We have sections on Museums and Art Galleries, Transport, Food and Drink, Places to Stay, Security, Music, Sport, Books and many more.
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The Story of the Monument in the City of London
Location : Fish Street Hill, London EC3R 8AH
Although dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the City of London, The Monument to the Great Fire of London was one of its wonders of its day. The Monument stands at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill in the City of London, it is 202 ft (62 m) tall and 202 ft (62 m) from the spot in Pudding Lane where the Great Fire of London started on 2 September 1666. It was built between 1671 and 1677 as a permanent memorial of the Great Fire of London and to celebrate the rebuilding of the City.
Thomas Bowles 1755
Sir Christopher Wren, Surveyor General to King Charles II and the architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and his friend and colleague, Dr Robert Hooke, provided the design for a colossal Doric column. Inside the column contains a stone staircase of 311 steps leading to a viewing platform. This is surmounted by a drum and a copper urn from which flames emerged, symbolizing the Great Fire.
As well as enabling visitors to the column to have a unique view of the City of London, Wren built a shaft to enable the Royal Society to conduct experiments into gravity and pendulum movement. The instruments in the shaft connected to an underground laboratory but ultimately the heavy traffic on Fish Hill rendered the experimental data unusable.
The viewing platform at the top was originally open, however a mesh cage was added in the mid-19th century to prevent people jumping off, after six people had committed suicide from the structure between 1788 and 1842. There was also an occasional accident, in 1750 William Green, whilst reaching over the railing of the balcony to look at a live eagle kept there in a cage, accidentally lost his balance and fell over to his death.
The Monument was not without its controversy when inscriptions added on the east side seemed to blame Roman Catholics for the fire, these offensive words were finally chiselled out in 1830.
In many respects, the Monument was the Shard of its day and was visited by thousands of people every year. Built from Portland Stone it managed to survive the bombing of the Second World War with minor damage.
There may be taller structures in London but the Monument is one of the oldest and most interesting historically. It is also one of the cheapest with tickets only £4 for adults and £2 for children.
Visitor Information
Open Daily:
Summer Opening Hours: April – September 9:30am-6pm daily (last admission 5:30pm)
Winter Opening Hours: October – March 9:30am-5.30pm daily (last admission 5pm)
Admission: Adults £4; concs £2.70; children (under 16s) £2. Joint tickets with Tower Bridge cost £10.50 (adult); £7.20 concs; £4.70 children (under 16s)
NOTE: Children of 13 years or younger must be accompanied by an Adult in order to climb the Monument.
For more details , visit the Monument website here
London Visitors is the official blog for the Visiting London Guide .com website. The website was developed to bring practical advice and latest up to date news and reviews of events in London.
Since our launch , we have attracted thousands of readers each month, the site is constantly updated.
We have sections on Museums and Art Galleries, Transport, Food and Drink, Places to Stay, Security, Music, Sport, Books and many more.
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A Short Guide to St Paul’s Cathedral
St Paul’s Cathedral occupies a special place in the English identity especially in the Second World War when it managed to survive the Blitz and became a symbol of resistance.
There has been a Cathedral on this site since AD 604, The present Cathedral built in a English baroque style by famous architect Sir Christopher Wren is at least the fourth to have stood on the site. It was built between 1675 and 1710, after its predecessor was destroyed in the Great Fire of London.
St Paul’s Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London. The cathedral has been at the centre of many famous events including the funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher; Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria; peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars; and the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer.
At 365 feet (111 m) high, it was the tallest building in London for many centuries and its dome is among the highest in the world.
St Paul’s has a large number of memorials and artworks including William Holman Hunt’s copy of his painting The Light of the World, in the north choir aisle is a sculpture of the Madonna and Child by Henry Moore, carved in 1943. The largest monument in the cathedral is the memorial to the Duke of Wellington. The tomb of Horatio, Lord Nelson is located in the crypt, next to that of Wellington. At the eastern end of the crypt is the Chapel of the Order of the British Empire, instigated in 1917, and designed by Lord Mottistone.There are many other memorials commemorating the British military, including several lists of servicemen who died in action, the most recent being the Gulf War.
Also remembered are Florence Nightingale, J. M. W. Turner, Hubert Parry, Samuel Johnson, Lawrence of Arabia and Sir Alexander Fleming as well as clergy and residents of the local parish. There are lists of the Bishops and cathedral Deans for the last thousand years. One of the most remarkable sculptures is that of the Dean and poet, John Donne.
St Paul’s Cathedral is a busy church with three or four services every day, including Matins, Eucharist and Evening Prayer or Evensong. In addition, the Cathedral has many special services associated with the City of London, its corporation, guilds and institutions. The cathedral, as the largest church in London, also has a role in many state functions such as the service celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The cathedral is generally open daily to tourists, and has a regular program of organ recitals and other performances.
The price of admission includes entry to the Cathedral floor, crypt and the three galleries in the dome. Admission also includes multimedia guides and guided tours (for individuals and family visitors, subject to guide availability on the day).
Sightseeing opening hours – Monday to Saturday
8.30am Doors open for sightseeing
9.30am Galleries open to visitors
4pm Last tickets
4.15pm Last entry to galleries
4.30pm Doors close for sightseeing
Most visitors spend in the region of 1.5 – 2 hours inside St Paul’s.
On Sunday the Cathedral is open for worship only.
Filming and photography is not allowed inside the Cathedral, but is permitted on the external galleries, without tripods, on a non-commercial basis.
Special services or events may occasionally close all, or part, of the Cathedral.
For more information or book tickets, visit the St Paul’s Cathedral website here
London Visitors is the official blog for the Visiting London Guide .com website. The website was developed to bring practical advice and latest up to date news and reviews of events in London.
Since our launch in January, we attract thousands of readers each month, the site is constantly updated.
We have sections on Museums and Art Galleries, Transport, Food and Drink, Places to Stay, Security, Music, Sport, Books and many more.
There are also hundreds of links to interesting articles on our blog.
To find out more visit the website here
Odyssey Exhibition at St Edmund in the City – June 27 to July 18 2014
The St Edmund the King church in Lombard Street in the City of London has had more than its fair share of misfortune. The first church on the site was founded in 900 and was destroyed by the Great Fire of London . Rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren between 1670 and 1679, the church was damaged in both the First and the Second World War. An interesting relic kept at the church is some shrapnel from the bomb which scored a direct hit through the roof in the First World War.
Although the “Banker’s Church” as it is known is fascinating in its own right, between June 27th and July 18th it is the location of an intriguing small exhibition called Odyssey which brings together a collection of artworks which meditate on questions of life and death.
At first sight this may seem a strange location for an art exhibition but the various artworks actually look at home in this environment and are generally enhanced by the light shining through the stain glass windows.
Undoubtedly the star of the show is Damien Hirst’s Saint Bartholomew Exquisite Pain , a large Bronze which is an unusual piece for one of the best known artists of modern art.
Standing near the doors is Cathy Lewis’s model of Orlando , its classical pose is subverted by the quiff and the Y front underpants.
The trail of white porcelain spheres that dominate the aisle is After the Dream by Koji Shiraya.
The trail leads to a table of mixed media and plaster called Secret Society : A Last Supper by Kathy Dalwood.
There are number of other works to discover and a lovely small garden out of the back of the church to enjoy.
If you are in the City of London or due to visit in the next few days, it is well worth a small detour to visit the exhibition and the church.
For more information about the exhibition visit the Bo Lee Gallery website here , and if you would like to find out more about the Church visit the St Edmund Website here
London Visitors 