Mind your bumaree!
Rather evil looking large and dark - bit like the spikes here!
An 'urban fragment' if you will - this being the rather spiky railing which runs along the walls of Barclays bank on the corner of Charterhouse and St John Streets, Smithfield. It's rather fearsomely substantial and does it's job of keeping n'err do wells off the building extremely well.
These days the main targets for the spikes are the outfall from the nearby 'Fabric' nightclub (who were still hanging around when I came into work this morning) - the original intention was probably to keep the hoi polloi market workers away from the genteel surroundings of the bank.
I'm not sure of the date of the building, but if it was built before the mid 19th century then the railings would have been more probably a deterrent for cattle since up until 1855 Smithfield was a livestock market. Interesting to note that when the livestock market moved to Copenhagen Fields in Islington, Smithfield stood empty until the construction of the current Central Market began in 1866.
As another aside the market workers used to be known as bumarees - they were self employed porters of meat and operated a monopoly across Smithfield. There are some great photos of them in Smiths of Smithfield and there was an excellent exhibition of A Lost London last year as reviewed on the excellent Londonist website.
Have a sit down - preferably not here - and read through the links and..
.. enjoy
Mind your bumaree!
Rather evil looking large and dark - bit like the spikes here!
An 'urban fragment' if you will - this being the rather spiky railing which runs along the walls of Barclays bank on the corner of Charterhouse and St John Streets, Smithfield. It's rather fearsomely substantial and does it's job of keeping n'err do wells off the building extremely well.
These days the main targets for the spikes are the outfall from the nearby 'Fabric' nightclub (who were still hanging around when I came into work this morning) - the original intention was probably to keep the hoi polloi market workers away from the genteel surroundings of the bank.
I'm not sure of the date of the building, but if it was built before the mid 19th century then the railings would have been more probably a deterrent for cattle since up until 1855 Smithfield was a livestock market. Interesting to note that when the livestock market moved to Copenhagen Fields in Islington, Smithfield stood empty until the construction of the current Central Market began in 1866.
As another aside the market workers used to be known as bumarees - they were self employed porters of meat and operated a monopoly across Smithfield. There are some great photos of them in Smiths of Smithfield and there was an excellent exhibition of A Lost London last year as reviewed on the excellent Londonist website.
Have a sit down - preferably not here - and read through the links and..
.. enjoy