JUST BELOW THE SURFACE

Clerkenwell get its name from a spring (one of many in the area on either side of what was the valley of the lost river Fleet). The spring formed a well which was regarded as sacred - or at least efficacious for good health.  It became the site of an annual pilgrimage of clerks from the old walled city of London who would perform mystery plays there.

Now it looks like a large quite nice loo.  I visited the other week - for old times sake. It is nice that it is still there - albeit in the corner of a very ordinary building

Here's a secret - if you ring Finsbury library, they have a key and will arrange access by appointment - you may even be met there by a very pleasant and learned historian.  

I believe the water retains some of its old, fabled properties but drinking it is not recommended for mortals.

A THAMES MENAGERIE

On returning from Los Angeles, I took a walk down the Thames - to re-aquaint myself as it were with home.  Passing the Houses of Parliament where there has recently been so much upheaval, and heading towards EC1, there is a strip of embankment once called Alsatia which I have been finding of interest of late.

This is because it is populated by a veritable bestiary of fabulous and strange creatures (and not just the politicians).  Here you can find camels, sphinxes, dragons, strange sea creatures, a golden phoenix, psychedelic elephants and of course their head zoo keeper - Father Thames.  

Oh, and politicians too.

HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE

Just south of Clerkenwell are two places with gruesome pasts.  Smithfields, still a meat market, was once the abattoir of London and also the site for the slaughter of various human animals - including William Wallace / Braveheart / Mel Gibson.  Further on, and now under the watchful eye of the central criminal court's Recording Angel, was another execution ground at the entrance of what was Newgate Prison.  


For hundreds of years Newgate would have made Abu Ghraib seem like Disneyland.  Tales of its horrors are legion.  In its day hangings were saved for public holidays and although intended by the city's fathers to be a warning to wrongdoers, in fact turned into something like the Notting Hill Carnival.  It is said that 200,000 citizens, half the city's population, turned out to see their hero Jack Shepherd finally get his comeuppance. (The bounty hunter who turned him never got chance to enjoy his reward, meeting his own end at the hands of Jack's many friends.)

The 'Drop' and the broken neck it caused was a later mercy granted to the condemned to finish them off quickly.  In those days, hanging was a slow and intentionally tortuous affair of slow suffocation.  Death could only be hastened by human intervention - by paid members of the crowd or by determined family and friends who would rush forward to pull on the hanged person's legs.

Dickens was one of those so appalled by such sights that he became instrumental in them being carried out in private behind the walls of the prison and eventually stopped altogether.  But not before they had cause to pass into the  phraseology and slang of the English language.  So, if you know any celebrities, you could remind them of the origins of their words, when they complain about 'hangers on'.. 

But be warned, they may think you are just 'pulling their leg'.