For a few months I’d been tantalised by an old image of Muswell Hill’s lost holy well – the Moss Well, or Mossy Well, Mouse Well that gave its name to the area. A chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Muswell became a resort of pilgrims after a King of the Scots had been divinely directed there and was miraculously healed by the waters of the well. It is recorded as early as 1112. As I prepared for my quest to find this lost sacred spot, I made hand-written notes in the pub – a fact that ended up playing a bigger role than it should have been when I made a significant error typing them up.
Our walk starts on Crouch Hill, goes down Crouch End Broadway, Park Road, Muswell Hill, Muswell Hill Broadway, Colney Hatch Lane looking for the first Wetherspoons pub, then Muswell Hill Road via Highgate Woods.
Introducing a new YouTube channel I launched on Tuesday. John’s Studio Notebook will explore ideas around my writing and creative practices. Whatever passes through my head in my studio. Once the channel grows a little I’d like to introduce author interviews and perhaps even a podcast. Let me know what you’d like to see on this brand-new channel.
Today is the 10th anniversary of posting the first video in my YouTube walking vlog series. I recorded this video while taking a stroll through Clerkenwell up to the Angel – which felt, coincidently, like the perfect place to mark the occasion. It was while living at the Angel that I started this blog, back in 2004, and in many ways the Walking Vlogs are the continuation of this project. I love the fact that multiple people I’ve met refer to the videos as ‘the lost byway videos’. Watch the video above to hear me talk about the origins of the series, how it relates to my writing and this blog. Thank you so much for your support on this fantastic journey.
City churches walking tour: St. Giles Cripplegate to St. Mary Somerset
This final episode in the City of London churches walking series starts in the heart of the Barbican at the medieval St. Giles Cripplegate. This church was originally constructed in 1394 reconstructing a Norman church built in 1090. Interestingly, there was a Saxon on the same site that the Norman church had replaced. Given that it’s built right next to the Roman wall and one of its bastions, it’s positively modern in comparison, the present church’s construction being closer in time to 2025 than it was to the building of the Roman wall. The tower was added in 1682. The interior was gutted during the Blitz but still boasts a number of busts of significant historical figures associated with the church. There are three statues of John Milton buried here in 1674, one of Cromwell who was married in the church and Daniel Defoe who was born in the Parish. From St. Giles our walk heads down Wood Street (past the tower of St Alban featured in a previous episode) and into Gresham Street where we are greeted by the newly restored gleaming exterior of St Lawrence Jewry. Originally built in 1136 on the site of ancient synagogue (be great to learn more about this), the church perished in the Great Fire of 1666 but thankfully was one of the 51 churches that Christopher Wren was commissioned to rebuild. The rich carvings and plaster work of the interior were destroyed by bombing during the Second World War, however this revealed a mosaic of the Ascension over the altar which had been hidden by a picture. William Kent noted in his book, The Lost Treasures of London, “The vestry of St. Lawrence Jewry, more beautiful than that of any City church” was also destroyed in WW2.
St Giles CripplegateSt Lawrence Jewry
This City churches walking tour then heads down Ironmonger Lane and along Cheapside to St. Paul’s Churchyard where we find echoes of two lost churches. St. Faith’s church was subsumed by the eastward expansion of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1256. The parishioners were given a space in the Crypt of St. Paul’s to continue their worship. After the Great Fire destroyed the cathedral in 1666, St Faith’s was merged with St. Augustine’s Watling Street and that remained the case until St. Augustine’s was bombed during the Second World War with only its fine Wren tower surviving which was restored in the 1950s. Stood in the shadow of St Paul’s it’s very easy to miss St. Augustine’s (and the memory of a section of Watling Street erased from the map) and the wonderful story of Faith the Cat which you can hear in the video.
St Mary Somerset
The final location in our walk, and indeed in the City of London Churches series, was found at the end of Lambeth Hill a short distance from St. Paul’s. The surviving tower is another legacy of Wren’s post-Great Fire rebuilding, the original church dating back to the 12th Century, but ultimately the rest of St. Mary Somerset didn’t fall to fire or bombs but to an administrative decision. The 1860 Union of Benefices Act resulted in the demolition of 26 City of London churches with the aim of using the proceeds of the sale of the land and materials to fund the building of churches in the newly expanding London suburbs. The sale of St. Mary paid for the construction of St. Mary Hoxton. The tower and its small landscaped garden remain as a fitting tribute.
Here’s the video of the talk I did with the brilliant Travis Elborough at Bookseller Crow on the Hill bookshop in Crystal Palace about my book, Welcome to New London, all the way back on 28th March 2024.
This is becoming an annual tradition. Well it’s the second year I’ve gone for a vinyl inspired Record Store Day wander starting at the brilliant Dreamhouse Records on Francis Road, Leyton. The final live act had just finished when I arrived at shortly after 3pm and pints of local beers were being swilled and clearly had been for a few hours.
I then followed my trail of last year, along Vicarage Road, across Lea Bridge Road, Markhouse Road to Vinyl Vanguard at Crate St James Street, Walthamstow. This place is such a treasure trove that it’s impossible to leave empty handed and after contemplating spending £78 on the Cornelius Cardew Memorial Concert record, I decided on this beguiling John Cage, Luciano Berio, Ilhan Mimaroglu album of electronic music made for magnetic tape for a more pocket-friendly £12.
Record purchase complete, I took St James Path through the towers of New Walthamstow, up the high street as the market traders packed away and climbed the hill to Walthamstow Village. I’d been carrying a pang for a pint of local craft beer since the start of the walk at Dreamhouse Records, so turned into the Ravenswood Industrial Estate with its plethora of brewery tap rooms.
Pillars Brewery Malt Haus was rammed, and likewise the other spin offs and gin houses elsewhere around the estate. It was like a festival. The noise, the crowds, the smell of beer and burnt meat. It was intoxicating. But a bit much for the vibe of my stroll. I’d decided at this point to head for the Hitchcock Hotel on Whipps Cross Road with a table looking out across Leyton Flats wondering if that’s actually the source of the Leytonstone branch of the Philley Brook. And a great choice it was.
On 29th March I had the great pleasure of joining Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair on stage at the brilliant Wanstead Tap to discuss Andrew’s contribution to the London Adventures series published by Three Imposters – The Dead Wait.
“In the sixth contribution to the London Adventures series, writer and filmmaker Andrew Kötting revisits a tragic episode from his family’s past as he follows his great-grandfather on a trail across London from Lewisham to Henson. Iain Sinclair and photographer Anonymous Bosch keep him company.”
An audio recording of the event is available on my Patreon page for members.
