Secrets from the Dark Horizon: A Reader's Companion Guide (The Dark Horizon Trilogy Book 0)

by Duncan Simpson

  The main structure was initially constructed out of wood in AD 70. Following a substantial facelift in the early 2nd century, its seating capacity increased to around 6,000 people. It was used for animal fighting, public executions of criminals and gladiatorial combat. After the Romans left Britain in the 4th century, the arena was abandoned and the site lay derelict for hundreds of years.

  Secret Fact

  Next to the Guildhall is the church of St Lawrence Jewry. The original church was built in the 12th century and was destroyed by the Great Fire of London. It was rebuilt by Christopher Wren in 1687, but badly damaged again on 29 December 1940 during the Blitz. It was restored to its original Wren design by Cecil Brown in 1957.

  The name ‘Jewry’ is a reminder of the Jewish community that was centred nearby until their expulsion by Edward I in 1290. The church is dedicated to St Lawrence, a deacon of ancient Rome who was martyred in the 3rd century by being roasted alive over an open gridiron. According to tradition, after suffering excruciating pain on the fire he uttered, “I’m well done. Turn me over!” The weather vane on the church commemorates his martyrdom and is in the shape of a gridiron. St Lawrence is the patron saint of chefs and comedians!

  Location 16: Crossbones Graveyard

  Tie a ribbon for the Winchester Geese

  (First introduced in The Devil's Architect)

  Address: 18-22 Redcross Way, Camberwell, London, SE1 1HG

  Underground: Borough (Northern Line)

  Close to the popular tourist landmarks of the Shard, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and Southwark Cathedral lies a tiny piece of wasteland, tucked away at the junction of Redcross Way and Union Street. This piece of land now used as a storage yard hides a tragic secret. Under the tarmac lie the bodies of over 15,000 people.

  The site sits within a 70-acre area (now part of Southwark) that was known as the ‘Liberty of the Clink’. The Liberty was exempt from the jurisdiction of the Sheriff of London and was instead controlled by the Bishop of Winchester, who also usually held the office of the Chancellor or Treasurer to the King. Until the mid-17th century, the Winchester bishops represented a major centre of power in England. It is hard to believe today, but in 1161 the Bishop of Winchester was granted the authority to licence prostitutes and brothels in the area of Liberty south of the Thames.

  The prostitutes who worked there were known as ‘Winchester Geese’, just one of the many figures of speech for pliers of the trade, which also included ‘buttered buns’, ‘squirrels’, and ‘punchable nuns’. To catch venereal disease in or around this notorious London district was to be ‘bitten by the Winchester geese’. Tragically, these unfortunate women were refused burial in consecrated ground due to their sinful profession and were found land far away from the local parish church, which became known as Crossbones graveyard. The graveyard was also the final resting place to many of London’s paupers and outcasts. It was finally closed down in 1853 due to the large number of bodies being buried there.

  An archaeological investigation in the 1990s excavated 148 skeletons from the site. A forensic examination revealed that the owners of the bones had suffered from a gruesome collection of diseases before they had been buried, including chickenpox, tuberculosis, Paget’s disease, syphilis and vitamin D deficiency. Over ten percent of the skeletons belonged to babies not more than a year old.

  Secret Fact

  Today a memorial gate can be found at the site of the graveyard (opposite the Boot and Flogger pub), where people pay their respects to London’s outcast and forgotten dead. As a makeshift tribute, countless ribbons and trinkets have been tied to the gate, and a small memorial service is held there monthly.

  Location 17: The London Stone

  A mystery as old as London itself

  (First introduced in The Devil's Architect)

  Address: 111 Cannon Street, London, EC4N 5AR

  Underground: Cannon Street (Circle & District Lines)

  This unassuming block of Clipsham limestone can be viewed through an ugly iron grille incorporated into the front of a sportswear shop on Cannon Street. Known as the London Stone (or Brutus Stone), it measures only 53 cm wide, 43 cm high, and 30 cm front to back. But contrary to its small physical size and rather incongruous setting, it is an important relic of London's long history. According to a medieval saying, ‘So long as the stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish’.

  There is much speculation about the origin of this shapeless lump of rock, but most Londoners walk by totally unaware that they are just inches away from London's oldest talisman. For part of its long history, the stone was set in the wall of Wren’s St Swithin’s Church, which was located on the other side of the street. St Swithin’s was badly damaged during the Blitz of 1941, but miraculously the stone survived unscathed.

  No one knows for sure where it came from and how it became so important in the folklore of London, but it is likely that this mysterious lump of masonry has been in the city from at least 1198 and probably for significantly longer. The object that remains today is just a fragment of the original much larger stone, which stood taller than a man.

  One popular hypothesis is that the London Stone may have a Roman history. This proposition was supported by the 1962 discovery of a significant Roman structure under the foundations of Cannon Street railway station that was supposedly the remains of the Governor’s Palace. It is known that large stones were erected in prominent Roman cities to mark the point from which distances from the city were measured. Constantine installed a similar stone in Byzantium, and it seems plausible that he could have done the same in Britannia.

  However, the earliest documented evidence for its existence comes from a reference in a book from the Saxon King Athelstan, which describes the collection of rents from places ‘near unto London stone’. Interestingly the City’s first mayor was named Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonstone.

  Originally standing free in the centre of Cannon Street, the stone was an important landmark and meeting place. It played an important symbolic role during Jack Cade’s rebellion of 1450 against the King’s taxes. After marching from Kent, Cade (under the alias of John Mortimer) struck the stone with his sword and declared himself ‘Lord of this City’. This moment was dramatised by Shakespeare in Henry VI Part II (1591).

  Its antiquity, however, could not save it from the relentless expansion of the city, and in 1742 the London Stone fell victim to a road-widening scheme (which also saw the demolition of London’s historic gates). The stone was cut up and a top section moved to nearby St Swithin’s church.

  Secret Fact

  Those seeking esoteric knowledge have always been drawn to the London Stone and its mystical aura. Dr John Dee, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occult philosopher, and adviser to Elizabeth I, was beguiled by the object. According to legend, Dee hacked off a piece of the stone for his own personal experimentation. In his poem ‘To the Jews’, William Blake postulated that it was a sacrificial stone for Druidic worship.

  Location 18: St Mary Woolnoth

  The pagan, barbaric church

  (First introduced in The Devil's Architect)

  Address: King William Street, London, EC3V 9AN

  Underground: Bank (Central Line)

  Website: www.stml.org.uk

  Wedged into a triangle formed by the junction of Lombard Street and King William Street stands the remarkable church of St Mary Woolnoth. The site has been a place of worship for over two thousand years, and the present church stands on the site of a Roman Temple dedicated to the Roman goddess Concordia. The present Christian church is at least the third to have been built on the site. A church dating back to 1445 was badly damaged during the Great Fire of London of 1666 and was completely rebuilt by Nicholas Hawksmoor between 1719 and 1727.

  Famed for its fortress-like double-towered façade and spatial ambiguities, it has a strange, almost threatening, appearance. The church’s external dimensions emphasise the downward pressure of gravity, as opposed to architecture t
hat reaches up to the celestial skies. Christian iconography is noticeably absent on the exterior of the building.

  The interior of Hawksmoor’s St Mary Woolnoth is based on the motif of a perfect cube, a very unusual design device for a Christian church. Several commentators have connected the form of the church with that of the cubic stone or ‘perfect ashlar’, a central symbol in speculative Freemasonry.

  St Mary Woolnoth is also unique because it has an underground station below it. The construction of Bank station between 1897 and 1900 required the clearing of the church’s subterranean vaults and the transfer of its interred dead bodies to a cemetery in Ilford.

  Secret Fact

  It is said that St Mary Woolnoth is located 2,000 cubits from Christchurch Spitalfields, another of Hawksmoor’s strange and unique city churches. The Old Testament Book of Numbers includes the measure of 2,000 cubits in its rules for city planning.

  Location 19: Circus Space

  Powerful acrobatics

  (First introduced in The History of Things to Come)

  Address: Coronet Street, London, N1 6HD

  Underground: Old Street (Northern Line)

  Website: www.nationalcircus.org.uk

  Housed in a vast converted power station on Hoxton Square is the National Centre for Circus Arts (formerly Circus Space). Aspiring circus performers from all over Europe come here to hone their performance skills. This unique school offers the UK’s only university degree programme in circus arts. It also plays an important role in supporting the development of professional circus performers within established circus companies. A visit to this wonderfully restored building will find students taking classes in tight-wire walking, trampoline, stilt-walking and clowning. Two vast rooms have been created out of the former power station (the original building had been derelict since 1950). Known as the ‘Generating Chamber’ and the ‘Combustion Chamber’, these vast pillarless spaces provide ideal training environments for disciplines such as the trapeze.

  Secret Fact

  Hoxton forms the western part of the ancient parish of Shoreditch, which derives its name from the old English for ‘sewer ditch’. This area has had a long association with power generation. The Shoreditch Electric Light Station, which today houses the circus school, was built in 1876 and proudly displays the Latin moto e pulvere lux et vis above its door, meaning ‘Out of the dust, light and power’. The station was designed to burn local rubbish (in the ‘Combustion Chamber’) to provide steam to drive a massive electricity generator (located in the ‘Generator Chamber’). The power station also heated the public baths next door, which have since been demolished. High up on the façade of Shoreditch Town Hall, a figure holding a torch and an axe with the inscription ‘More Light, More Power’ further underlines the area’s association with power generation.

  Location 20: The Monument to the Great Fire of London

  The stone telescope

  (First introduced in The History of Things to Come)

  Address: Fish Street Hill, London, EC3R 8AH

  Underground: Monument (District & Circle Lines)

  Website: www.themonument.info

  The Great Fire of London of 1666 raged for five days and destroyed four-fifths of the city (and a further 63 acres beyond the walls), including the great St Paul’s Cathedral and 87 churches. The Monument was built to celebrate the rebuilding of the city and is the tallest isolated stone column in the world at a height of 202 feet (62 metres). The column also stands a distance of 202 feet from the site where the Great Fire reputedly began, in the baker’s shop of Thomas Farynor in Pudding Lane.

  The brainchild of the architectural and scientific geniuses Sir Christopher Wren and Dr Robert Hooke, construction of the column started in 1671 and was completed in 1677. The monument is topped by a flaming copper urn that symbolises the Great Fire and contains an internal staircase of 311 steps leading to a viewing balcony. The summit used to be a favourite place for suicides until the viewing platform was fenced in with a steel cage in 1842.

  Few visitors realise that Hooke and Wrens’ original vision for the Monument was more than just architectural. Both keen astronomers, the pair had hoped to mount a giant zenith telescope inside the edifice. Unfortunately the telescope proved too unstable due to the transmitted vibrations of city traffic, and their astronomic experimentation was abandoned. However, this was not the only science performed within the interior of the Doric column. Each of the 311 steps is exactly 6 inches high and was designed to allow for the consistent measurement of atmospheric pressure at different heights.

  Secret Fact

  Facing in the four cardinal directions around the base of the Monument are four large panels. An extraordinary relief sculpture by Caius Gabriel Cibber occupies the west panel. This coded plaque depicts the rebuilding of London with King Charles II and King James II (then Duke of York) accompanied by a strange collection of symbolic figures. Cibber was known as a prominent Freemason, and hidden elements in his composition evoke esoteric themes. The compass, the setsquare and the beehive (a symbol of a secret brotherhood or an esoteric school) are all present. An enigmatic female figure stands at the centre of the composition. In her hand is a staff which she raises to the sky, invoking the blessings of heaven from above. The staff terminates in a hand with an eye at the centre of its palm, indicating its divine nature.

  Name of Location 21: St Helen's Bishopsgate

  Shakespeare’s church

  (First introduced in The Infinite Fire)

  Address: Great St Helen's, London, EC3A 6AT

  Underground: Bank (Central, Northern, Waterloo & City Lines)

  Website: www.st-helens.org.uk

  Bishopsgate follows a major Roman road built to connect the Roman Forum and the Basilica of the old city to the road northwards to Lincoln and York. Previous archaeological excavations have uncovered evidence of decorated Roman pavements and luxurious private residences along the axis of this important road through London.

  Whilst the official record dates a church standing on this site since the 12th century, its dedication to St Helen could point to a much older heritage. The first church may have been initially erected by the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine in honour of his mother, Helena. The Roman road heading north passed through the city wall via a fortified gate. This later became known as Bishopsgate after Bishop Erkenwald, who repaired it sometime in the 7th century.

  In 1210, permission was granted to establish a nunnery in the grounds of the Priory Church of St Helen of the Benedictine Order. The nunnery was built to the north of the existing church, and a new church was constructed immediately alongside the older church for the nuns to use. The new church was wider and longer than the parish church, so the parish church was lengthened to match. On the dissolution of the Priory in 1538, the central wall dividing the buildings was removed, and a much larger (120-foot-long by 50-foot-wide) space with a double nave was created.

  Today, St Helen’s Bishopsgate still has the appearance of two conjoined churches and contains more monuments than any other church in Greater London, with the exception of Westminster Abbey. It is often referred to as the ‘Westminster Abbey of the City’ and includes the altar tomb of Sir Thomas Gresham. Following his death in 1703, English polymath Robert Hooke was buried here. One of the nation’s greatest experimental scientists, and now described as ‘England’s Leonardo’, Hooke designed, amongst other things, the Monument to the Great Fire of London that stands on Fish Street Hill.

  St Helen’s Bishopsgate survived the Great Fire and the bombs of the Blitz but was badly damaged in 1992 by two IRA bombs detonated close by outside the Baltic Exchange and by a second attack in 1993. All of St Helen's glass windows were blown in and the roof was lifted in the first attack, while the damage was further compounded by the second.

  Secret Fact

  According to local tradition, St Helen’s was the parish church of William Shakespeare when he first came to London. His name is recorded in the civic tax rolls o
f 1597, which implies that he would have attended church here. The church would have been conveniently situated to the theatres in Shoreditch.

  Location 22: The Masonic Temple at the Andaz Hotel

  The walls that kept a secret

  (First introduced in The Infinite Fire)

  Address: 40 Liverpool Street, London, EC2M 7QN

  Transport: Liverpool Street (Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Lines).