East End Photographs and Drawings

[Fisherman]

How´s THAT for atmosphere?

Thanks, Caz!

All the best,

Fisherman

[caz]

You are very welcome, Fisherman.

Apologies to everyone else for taking the thread down a personal memory lane there!

Here I am, back in the right territory, outside the amazing Wilton's Music Hall on Saturday afternoon. Hubby and I were there for the final performance of Wink The Other Eye and met up with Coral (Kelly) and Neil. The whole experience was magical and if the show had gone on for another week I'd have booked it again on the spot. I highly recommend a visit.





Love,

Caz
X

[anna]

Hi Caz,

You are lucky going there!

What was it like inside?Bet there was a great Victorian atmosphere.

I was really worried for it's future at one time.Thank goodness it still stands.

ANNA.

[anna]

P.S...I just loved those two pictures you posted.

The second one looks like it's the backdrop for a scene from "Oliver"!!!

You can post as many of those as you like,as far as I'm concerned.

They're just brilliant.....Wish London looked like that now.

[The_Martian2]

A short silent film of people in Petticoat Lane 1926. And some other stuff..

http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/3456

[Sam Flynn]

What was [Wilton's Music Hall] like inside?

It's a bit crumbly and precarious in some parts, but - as Russ Abbott once sang - what an atmosphere! I saw Matthew Kelly (deliciously OTT) as Salieri there a little while back, and the surroundings certainly added to what was happening on stage. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Amadeus is almost by definition melodramatic, and set in the early decades of the 19th Century, not all that long before Wilton's was built.

[John Bennett]

Hello!

After 3 days of computer hell (I made a foolish e-mail decision and my machine ended up with more viruses than a plague pit) I found this little gem.

The (Old) Two Brewers, Brick Lane, 1985 (in colour!) familiar to many of us now as that ghastly coffee@bricklane...

[coral]

Just to back up Caz.

The evening at Wilton's was truely memorable.

The whole evening of songs and monologues gave the history of Wilton's.

Caz & I couldn't stop laughing.

Although when it came to the end, the lights went out, the cast left the stage & we were asked to keep singing 'Daisy, Daisy' in the dark, it brought a tear to my eye - that was the end of music hall. It shouldn't have been.

If the event is ever reprised I recommend everyone to go.

Coral

[caz]

Hi Anna,

What Sam and Coral said - about Wilton's, with knobs on.

The building would undoubtedly give the health and safety lot nightmares - I was a bit worried when one of the players struck a match on stage, for instance. But it would be an absolute tragedy if it had to be restored an inch beyond what it would have been like back in the day.

I imagine the theatre itself is rather bleak, cold and ghostly when it sleeps. But the place truly comes alive when it has an audience and a handful of players to warm it up and show us what it's really made of. It retains bags of charm, despite the fact that it must be a faded and shabby (genteel) shadow of its former ornate and colourful self.

The poor old thing needs a lot of tender loving care, but it deserves to be well looked after considering all the memories locked into its walls.

We were extremely fortunate on Saturday night. I booked our tickets online where we were encouraged to come in costume. So I brought a few accessories with me and popped them on before the show. There were tables at the front of the stalls, all with reserved notices. We soon learned that they were reserved for those of us who had dressed up, and the four of us were promptly shown to our own tables, glasses charged with a very respectable Merlot.

Hi Coral,

Strangely enough, when we got home we found the ticket belonging to Laurie, the eccentric old boy in the Beefeater hat who sat next to us and fancied all the actresses. Hubby must have been given it by mistake by the lady who checked our tickets. It had his name and address on it so I'm returning it to him in case he wanted to keep it as a souvenir. He was so thoroughly taken with the whole thing that he had come up from Portsmouth twice to see the show. My dad would have adored it too. I can remember him now, singing to me as a child: "With a ladder and some glasses you could see to Hackney Marshes if it weren't for the houses in between".

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Anna,

Ok so it's not the East End, but just for you, another one from great granddad and his brother:



Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And one more for luck:



Combe & Co's Brewery (not sure of the location)

Love,

Caz
X

[John Bennett]

Caz,

I just looked this one up. Combe and Co was situated in Castle Street, Long Acre (near Covent Garden), although I don't think the street exists anymore.

They are the same Combe that became part of Watney Combe Reid,I think.

JB

[caz]

Cheers John! Loved the pic of the Old Two Brewers by the way.

Love,

Caz
X

[Celesta]

Paddy - I have a copy of this shot in the book A COCKNEY CAMERA (1975) but your copy is so much sharper.

Celesta - I go to York on holiday once or twice a year and have done for over a decade now. I've got masses of postcards of The Shambles. Are you coming to Knoxville? I could bring some with me. Or I could just post you some. It is as wonderful as it looks and is full of very quaint old shops, even housing a shrine to the Catholic martyr Margaret Clitheroe although it's now known that her house was on the other side of the street and a few doors away!

PHILIP

Philip, that is so nice of you to offer to do this. I'll PM you.

Best,

Cel

[Celesta]

My kudos too to Martian2. Glad you liked the pics, folks -- Paddy

A carbon print of Old Houses in Aldgate. In the 1870s and 80s, Henry Dixon was commissioned by the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London to record historic buildings threatened with demolition. These old houses in Aldgate – known as the ‘Shambles’ – were demolished in 1880 to make way for the Metropolitan Railway’s extension from Aldgate to Tower Hill. The photograph was first published in 1883.
[ATTACH]2956[/ATTACH]

Hi Paddy,

So even in those days, they were concerned about what was being lost. Thanks goodness, they recorded these old buildings. I've seen this particular photo on website of Victorian photos. Thanks for posting a copy here.