London Urban Legends (13 page)

Rather than a jobbing ceramicist for building exteriors, Neatby is often called an artist who is unable to express himself through his commissions, though another article suggests that
The Chase
was created so quickly for Harrods that he could not have consulted the client too closely. The devils on 54-55 Cornhill follow his trademark images that stop anyone looking at them in their tracks. They also resemble the grotesques he created for the exterior of another London building, the Fox & Anchor pub on Charterhouse. There are foxes on this stunning building, described to me by a Blue Badge guide as London’s only Art Nouveau pub, but they have demonic faces and huge yowling maws. They are more similar to the hyena-like creature on Cornhill than a fox.

If not revenge, then why are there three devils on 54-55 Cornhill? One could answer ‘why not’? Neatby was an eclectic and evocative artist who, like other designers, decided to put gargoyle-like creatures on one of the façades he was designing. This was his first large piece in London and it is possible that he would want to make a lasting impression. It is a credit to his talent that the impression he makes is still so shocking.

Demonic Cornhill

If that explanation does not suit some, then I can offer some speculation. Cornhill’s fame as the highest point in the City may have inspired Neatby, or the people who commissioned him, to represent the bible story of the Devil tempting Jesus by taking him up high and offering him the world. Perhaps the top demon on 54-55 Cornhill is the Devil waiting on the highest peak to tempt others.

Cornhill has its own demonic history too. There is a satanic legend attached to the previously mentioned St Michael’s Cornhill, retold in the
Reader’s Digest
book
Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain
, of a stormy night in the sixteenth century and a group of bell-ringers who were horrified by an ‘ugly shapen sight’ that floated through one window and over to another. The bell-ringers fainted and awoke to find claw marks in the stonework which became known as the Devil’s claw-marks. This devilish calling card was annihilated in the Great Fire of London, but it may be that Neatby was referring to this legend with his sculptors. There are also rumours that the self-styled devil worshipping decadents of the Hellfire Club met in the nearby George & Vulture eating house. This side of Cornhill has enough satanic geography for any myth-maker or rogue Blue Badge guide to weave a spooky story.

The problem in trying to prove that something did not happen is that evidence for a non-event is a tenuous and circumstantial thing to try and find. It’s like investigating a crime that may not have happened by looking for a gun that is not smoking. It is almost certainly true that the demons of Cornhill are a striking piece of decoration and nothing more; they were not put there as any sort of revenge. The nearest thing I have found to a non-smoking gun on this is an illustration of 54-55 Cornhill which appeared in 29 June 1894 issue of
The Architect
. It is an architect’s drawing of the building, giving it the name ‘Tudor Chambers’, published after its completion but not from life. The devils on the top and corner of the building are not the robust and grotesque creatures we have now, but winged, dragon-like beasts which are small and unimposing compared to Neatby’s devils. This would suggest that Runtz, the architect and so the person with the biggest axe to grind against St Peter’s Church, did not plan to have monsters gazing down on to the building. It was the talented ceramicist he employed for the façade that created the demons, for show rather than revenge.

Satirical Stone Faces

I have a friend who lives on Telegraph Hill, who is a keen local historian of south-east London. One night in the pub he told me that the stone faces carved over all the houses on the hill were representations of the German Royal Family. This did make some sense; the houses on the hill were almost all built between 1877 and 1899 when London had a large German community, many of whom were labourers. Perhaps when faced with hundreds of identical houses to erect, with space for an individual carving, a German stonemason or two couldn’t resist chiselling a caricature of the monarchs from home. My friend, known as Neil Transpontine after his blog, sipped his beer again and completed the tale: during the anti-German riots at the start of the First World War, many of these stone faces were defaced by the angry English mob. This is why some houses on Telegraph Hill are missing their royal heads.

I left the story there, until a few years later I found a similar story in Peter Jackson’s
London is Stranger than Fiction
. The entry for 22 February described the southern turret of St Giles’ Church in Camberwell. St Giles’ is the parish church of Camberwell and the architect of the building was Gilbert Scott. The turret bore gargoyles that were said to represent the political figures Lord Randolph Churchill, Gladstone, Lord Salisbury and Lord John Russell, as well as the politician and abolitionist William Wilberforce. I used to live opposite St Giles’ but never noticed these carvings, so I went back to take a look. They may well have been public figures, but now time and rainfall have worn them, and their legend, away. I asked the vicar of St Giles’, the Revd Nick George, about them but he knew nothing of the carvings or their history. He did enjoy the interesting story though.

Another stone grotesque with a story to tell is the ‘hideous head of an old woman’ on the right-hand side of the second window of the western outer wall of Mitcham parish church. The story, collected in James Clark’s
Strange Mitcham
, tells of how the mason carving the corbels to support the church’s windows had to do so with constant criticism from an old local woman. Eventually, the old woman found herself immortalised in stone by the mason.

Author William Kent’s description of the urban myth origin of the Cornhill Devils is the second earliest after Peter Jackson’s. Kent wrote at least a dozen books on London and in
The Lost Treasures of London
, a 1947 walk through the post-Blitz streets, he recounts a similar story to the Cornhill Devils that is linked to St Luke’s Church on Old Street: ‘It has sometimes been known locally as “lousy St Luke’s” from a tradition regarding the weather vane. The story goes that the builder, peeved by “parsimonious treatment”, placed a representation of a louse on the top of the tower.’

Kent went with a pair of field glasses and was ‘inclined to accept the story’. This does not make the whole story true, however. Returning after the war to the bomb-damaged church, he noted that the louse was now gone, and presumed it had been taken during the war for its metal. The website for the London Symphony Orchestra, who now use the renovated St Luke’s as a venue, has a contradictory quote about the weather vane from local resident John Mason: ‘On top of the church there’s a brass vane, and people in the area thought it was a louse, that’s why they call it Lousy St Luke’s … When they took it down I had a look at it; it had a beautiful red eye. After all these years the truth has come out – it’s a dragon.’

The story of the revenge of the architect, stonemason or builder who hides an insult in the building he is designing or constructing has travelled across central and south London. It can be used to explain something strange or striking about buildings such as an extra-ugly stone carving, gargoyles with familiar faces or a weather vane that looks like an insect. That the story is best known around the Cornhill Devils is a testament to their visual power and their overbearing presence in such a bustling location.

I suspect there are further legends of this kind.

Jan Harold Brunvand,
Curses! Broiled Again!

Q
UEEN ANNE (1665–1714),
who reigned from 1702 to 1714, is best known for being the last Stuart monarch; the first monarch who had to deal with a two-party parliament system; being monarch during the Act of Union; lending her name to a style of table; and her romantic friendship with Sarah Jennings. In her own time she was known for a different perceived vice: she was known to love a drink and stories were spread of her hiding brandy in a teapot to disguise the amount she drank. She even gained the nickname ‘Brandy Nan’ for her love of the spirit. In 1712 a statue was erected of her, standing in front of the main entrance to St Paul’s Cathedral to commemorate its completion in the ninth year of her reign and, presumably, greet arrivals to St Paul’s. Grand intentions are often muddied by the irreverent and, according to the tale, the drink-loving queen’s statue was gazing across the road at a pub. A rhyme was composed and scrawled on the statue which went:

Brandy Nan, Brandy Nan, they left you in the lurch,

With your face to the gin shop, your back to the church.

Meanwhile, in Salt Lake City, a bronze statue was erected to Mormon pioneer Brigham Young, standing with his back to the Mormon temple and his hand stretched out toward a bank. In an essay on Mormon humour it is suggested this mistake, if it was a mistake and not another sly designer’s comment, provokes a sort of self-deprecating humour amongst Mormons who are required to tithe one tenth of their income to the Church. And that perhaps Young and other elders were more interested in the money of the Church of Latter-day Saints, and that LDS actually stands for ‘lay down your silver’. There is even a rhyme that goes with the statue: