Tigger was feeling a little unwell on Sunday (no, not you-know-what: the symptoms didn’t fit) and so we did not venture forth, not even for the coffee that we promised ourselves yesterday.

On Monday, Tigger was still feeling under the weather and so we stayed at home. In other circumstances, she would have gone to Sainsbury’s for the weekly shopping but instead we fired up the Chop Chop app and did the shopping by remote control (see A warm day and shopping online.)

Although the app carried a warning that the service was busy and delivery times might be longer, the goods arrived promptly. This time no items were missing. Quite an impressive service.

Today, I’m glad to say, Tigger was feeling much better and ready for a walk as usual. It had been raining and there was still moisture in the air. Cloud cover made for a dull scene. Suddenly, the clouds were whisked away and the sun shone down unimpeded. According to the forecast, the temperature should have been 21°C (70°F) but it felt much warmer than that.

Quite near us is a rather exclusive residential street called Claremont Place. Despite its proximity, we had never ventured within and today we decided to take a look. If you look at it on the map, you will see that the road performs a loop, with a single entry/exit.

New River Company ownership plaque

At the entrance, I photographed this plaque. It is somewhat worn but you can make out that it was affixed by the New River Company to indicate that beyond this point the land falls under its ownership. Who owns it now I do not know, unless it was inherited along with the rest of the land by Thames Water.

Claremont Square and its garden

The low-rise blocks of flats are arranged in a circle around a central garden. There are also gardens behind the flats. The whole estate looks clean and tidy and the central garden is well kept. This makes me suspect that these are privately owned properties, not Council run, but I am not absolutely certain of this.

Central garden
Photo by Tigger

This photo by Tigger shows the garden. In the middle stands a curious object that we think must have once held a sculpture or a sun dial or some other ornament that is now missing.

According to histories of the area, Claremont Place was first developed in the early 1800s and was much more extensive. I think that a large part of it was lost to the newly developed highway today known as Pentonville Road. The present buildings too, are obviously 20th-century and not 19th-century.

A candelabrum

Passing through Myddelton Square, I spied this curious object hanging down into a basement area. It is badly rusted but still bears some delicately wrought decorations. As far as I can see, this is not a light fitting adapted for electric bulbs but an actual candelabrum. The chain is too long for it to have hung in the rooms of these houses, so I wonder where it has come from and why it is languishing here. Silly of me perhaps but I feel rather sorry for it!

Mature ivy on a brick wall

As I have remarked before, you can pass the same way again and again and still find new things to attract your attention. We went through Myddelton Passage, where the police badge numbers are engraved in the ancient brick wall (see 1850 – a good year for PCs). One part of it is covered with ivy but I had taken no particular notice of it until today when Tigger pointed out how thick and robust the branches had become – as you can see by looking in the centre of the photo. The ivy has lived and thrived here for a very long time.

And for another curiosity, we saw that in spaces between the growths of ivy, the wall is marked with groups of white dots.

Groups of white dots

You gardeners and botanists probably know what these dots are but to us it was a new discovery: they appear where the ivy has previously anchored itself to the brickwork and in many cases, bits of old tendril were still adhering within the dots. Live and learn!

Making a loop, we made our way to Myddelton’s, arriving this time before they closed! Coffee in hand, we made speedily for home.

Anonymous, 9th century

Note
This anonymous poem, presumably by an Irish scholar monk, was discovered in the Monastery of St Paul in Carinthia, Southern Austria. It did not include a title but has become known by the name given to the cat in the poem, Pangur Ban (“White Pangur”). The neat comparison between the respective activities of the scholar and the mouse-hunting cat, and the evident sympathy felt by the scholar for his feline companion, have made the poem famous.

Ring Cat

This is Ring Cat. He looks after my rings when I am not wearing them. He lives on my desk beside my computer. That way, I always know where my rings are when they are not on my fingers.

I don’t know where Ring Cat came from. Perhaps we bought him and forgot we had done so or perhaps he arrived by some other unspecified means. Either way, he did arrive and proved to be very useful.

My rings are quite heavy, being of solid silver, and so Ring Cat has to wear one on his tail and one round his neck to balance him or he falls over, an indignity that no cat likes to suffer.

In “normal times” (remember those far off days?), I wore my rings when I went out and about and gave them to Ring Cat to look after when I returned home. When the pandemic arrived and we were urged to wash our hands regularly and thoroughly, especially when returning home from an outing, I decided to forgo the wearing of rings temporarily to avoid the dangers of viruses lurking on or under them. Consequently, Ring Cat has been in possession of them throughout the crisis. I’m sure he doesn’t mind.

I shall resume wearing my rings when I feel it is safe to do so. As yet, I do not have any idea when that will be. Nor does Ring Cat!

Marie de France (12th-13th cent.)

Note

Marie de France probably came originally from Île de France as she wrote in the dialect of that region though her writing also shows Anglo-Norman influence, perhaps because she spent some time in England and was known at the court of Henry II.

The warmer weather has returned and today was sunny with a temperature around 23°C (73°F). This tempted us to take another of our longer walks.

The Peasant

This is the first of our pubs, The Peasant in St John Street.

This pub apparently takes is name from the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 but it has only been known by this name since 2001. Originally, it was called the George & Dragon, a fact that you could have guessed from looking at the roundels in the pediments as these show an image of George lancing the poor old Dragon. A pub has existed here from at least 1788 but I imagine that the present building is younger than that, probably Victorian.

Finsbury Bank for Savings

We entered Sekforde Street which is a fairly minor road, and one where you would not expect to find a bank, especially one of this size. Nonetheless, it does have a bank or, rather, had a bank, as it closed long ago. Its upper inscription declares it to be the Finsbury Bank for Savings. The lower inscription tells us that the firm was instituted in 1818 but that the building was erected in 1840. As a further oddity, the building is also known as “18 and a Half Sekforde Street”. Why this is so, I do not know, unless it is because its position follows number 18 and numbers 19 and 20 had already been assigned to other buildings. The onetime bank is now Grade II listed.

For more intriguing details of the bank, see this post on Caroline’s Miscellany.

The name of the street, Sekforde, may strike you as odd as it did me. It is named after Thomas Sekforde, who was one of the Masters of the Court of Requests and
Surveyor of the Court of Wards and Liveries of Queen Elizabeth I. For more about this worthy gentleman, see Wikipedia’s Thomas Sekford.

The Sekforde

Another denizon of this street is our second pub, called The Sekforde. It was originally known as the Sekforde Arms but acquired the shorter name in 2017 after being closed for two years. Sekforde Street was built in 1835-40 and records of the pub’s existence begin from 1839.

St James Clerkenwell

We entered the gounds of the Church of St James Clerkenwell and as it was such a pleasant afternoon, we sat for a while on a bench. What must once have been the churchyard has been turned into a park and there were plenty of people sitting, strolling and even some doing gymnastic exercises. This is a view of the rear of the church.

The district in which the church lies is called Clerkenwell after the well that supplied water to the two monastic establishments. It still exists and can be seen though it is now inside a building. The site of the church was once occupied by the 12th-century convent of St Mary. It became one of the richest religious houses in the land but was closed in 1539 by Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. The church survived and became the local parish church under a new name, that of St James. The current building, replacing that of 1625, was buit in 1792. The steeple was erected in 1849 and the whole building was restored in 1882.

Colourful doorway

We passed along the side of the church where we discovered this unusually colourful doorway. I do not know the significance of the number 66 or of the decoration in general, but it no doubt stands for something.

Church and steeple
Photo by Tigger

I tried to photograph the front of the church but the street is quite narrorw, preventing me from distancing myself enough to include the whole in the frame. Tigger took this panorama of the church. By its nature a panorama introduces some distortion but it at least gives a general impression of the church.

We continued on down into Clerkenwell Green. The name may once has been appropriate, when this was a village, but it has long since been built up. The name endures but no trace of the village green remains.

The Crown Tavern

Here we found today’s third pub, the Crown Tavern. This was established in 1799, presumably when this row of buildings was erected, and rebuilt in its present form in 1815.

We continued on into Britton Street, which has several points of interest, including our fourth and final pub.

The Jerusalem Tavern

It stands at number 55 in that street and looks more ancient than it is. It proudly bears the name of the Jerusalem Tavern. According to Historic England’s Grade II listing, the terrace of houses including the shop front dates from about 1825. I think it was in the mid 1990s that the lease of the shop passed to St Peter’s Brewery when it became a pub under its present name.

That name, I might add, is not unique in the area. Much of the land around here was originally owned by the Knights of St John, also known as the Knights Hospitaller, an order that was first created and had its headquarters in the Kingdom of Jeruslalem, which had been established by the crusades. Hence the use of the Jeruslem name.

Gatehouse, Priory of St John

We now made our way to the heart of St John territory, the old Priory and Hospital of St John itself. Your first sight on arriving is of the gatehouse or grand entrance. Attached to it are priory buildings and a short distance away is the chapel. Both properties are now a museum owned and run by the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, the modern incarnation of the Knights Hospitallers. The history of the order is too long to retell here, but you will find it set out on the history page of the museum’s website.

A plaque inside the gate tells us that the first gate was built in about 1148 but was burnt down by Wat Tyler in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. It was restored following thus incident and rebuilt in 1504 by Prior Thomas Docwra. Following confiscation by Henry VIII in 1559, the property had many owners and served many purposes before being restored to the ownership of the Order in1873.

Window

We spent a while admiring and photographing the building and its details, such as this handsome window and the door shown below.

Door

Feeling a little tired (we still haven’t recovered from the sloth induced by lockdown), we made for home. We passed once more through the grounds of St James Clerkenwell and again rested on a bench.

Concrete bench

We ignored the blandishments of this – rather uncomfortable-looking – concrete bench, and sat on one of the wooden ones.

Having recovered sufficiently, we continued homewards. If you have been following our lockdown rituals, you will expect me to say that we called in at Myddelton’s for our usual coffees. On any other day of the week you would have been right but today is Saturday and we had forgotten that over the weekend, Myddelton’s closes at 3 pm. So, no coffee today 😦

Never mind: that will make tomorrow’s all the more enjoyable!