AN ELIZABETHAN PROGRESS RPS London Project Team
AN ELIZABETHAN PROGRESS RPS London Project Team Edited by Brian Steptoe
First 40 pages of 120 from book for viewing on issuu.com © All content subject to copyright For details and to order this book see www.rps.org/shop/publications (after launch date of 18 November 2017)
front cover: Artwork by Daniel Buren and escalator reflections, photo by Val Straw rear cover: Map showing Elizabeth Line tunnels, courtesy of Crossrail Ltd
Fragmented memories. Casting back to my earliest memories, I see a London Underground carriage with yellowed mesh anti-shatter protection over its windows. I am travelling across central London during World War Two, about eight years old and on a school party trip to see a performance of The Insect Play, probably with references to sex suitably censored for juvenile ears, although I would not be aware of that. Underground stations used as overnight air raid shelters during the war were not always safe from attack and those taking shelter were killed or injured in several separate bomb incidents. In 1940, London Transport began building eight new tunnels at deeper levels to act as more secure public shelters, but the long term plan was to use them as the basis for new express Tube lines. This express Tube idea was never implemented, but it was not a new idea. Around 1906 there had been proposals for a Deep Level District Line, an express route from Earl’s Court to Mansion House which, apart from a single platform at South Kensington, was also dropped and never built. The Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel under any river, opened in 1843. Connecting Wapping to Rotherhithe, construction was made possible by the invention of a tunnelling shield by the tunnel’s engineers Sir Marc and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who led the tunnel construction. This shield system was later improved by James Henry Greathead and used for the London Underground deep line tunnels. Work on Marc Brunel’s Thames Tunnel began with the digging of vertical shafts at either end. The Rotherhithe end shaft is now part of the Brunel Museum. With the base blocked off and walls still showing blackening by smoke from steam trains, the shaft has excellent acoustics and Shakespeare’s plays have been performed here. This tunnel now forms part of the London Overground East London line and the entrance stairs to platforms at Wapping are in Brunel’s Wapping end shaft.
Plaque commemorating Brunel’s Thames Tunnel at Wapping Overground station entrance
Wall plaque on Wapping station platform showing the shaft and tunnel digging. Brunel’s tunnel shield is shown on the right
Thames Tunnel shaft walls and floor at the Brunel Museum, Rotherhithe. Trains run at a level below the floor here
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Forward a few years to 1947 I am about to travel by steam train from Brunel’s Paddington Station on ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’ to Pembrokeshire. Leaving the station I pass close to Southam Street, known later for the location of Roger Mayne’s photography of the 1950s. Mayne also photographed boys trainspotting at Paddington, crowding to platform edges to read their numbers, long before the days of yellow lines. A memory fragment on my journey would be carriages filling with pungent smoke in the Severn tunnel, much as must have been the case with the world’s first Metropolitan Line from Paddington to Farringdon Street, which opened in 1863, with wooden carriages and steam locomotives. Moving on into the 1950s, my underground journey travels are to Leicester Square station followed by a walk through Covent Garden flower market. Now a student, no early hour walking here, missing the bustle of cigarette smoking porters with boxes of flowers carried on heads from 5am onwards. An alternative route would be via Holborn and the Piccadilly Line train shuttling to and from Aldwych. Aldwych Station opened to the public in 1907, but never reached its planned potential and eventually closed in 1994. The station provided shelter to Londoners during the Blitz and has starred in many films, including Superman IV, The Krays, Atonement, Mr Selfridge, Sherlock and SSGB. Looking down the Thames from near Aldwych, I see Bankside Power Station, with smoking stack, many years later transformed into Tate Modern. National Art museums in the UK were late to recognise the role of photography. How We Are, Photographing Britain, curated by Val Williams and Susan Bright was exhibited at Tate Britain in 2007, Simon Baker was appointed Tate’s Senior Curator of Photography and International Art in 2009 and in October 2017 Kate Bush took up the position of Adjunct Curator of Photography. A particular memory for me was the William Klein and Daido Moriyama exhibition and in recent years the Offprint photobook festivals held in the Turbine Hall.
Entrance to the Thames Tunnel at Wapping Overground station
Bankside Power Station in early 1950s, Temple District/ Circle station in foreground
William Klein photography at Klein and Moriyama exhibition, Tate Modern, October 2012 - January 2013
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Royal Oak to Farringdon: Crossrail’s first pair of tunnelling machines, Phyllis and Ada Limmo to Farringdon: Crossrail’s second pair of tunnel boring machines, Elizabeth and Victoria Pudding Mill Lane to Stepney Green & Limmo to Victoria Dock Portal: Tunnel boring machines Jessica and Ellie Plumstead to North Woolwich Portal: Tunnel boring machines Sophia and Mary
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In the millennia that followed the Tower (of Babel), a tunnel was built. It ran between East and West. Where darkness once fell, there is now light.
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Paddington 9
Paddington 10
Soho
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Marble Arch 14
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near Bond Street 16
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Oxford Street
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Carnaby Street 21
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Tottenham Court Road
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North Kensington 25
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Rotherhithe 28
Tottenham Court Road
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Ride London Day 30
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Hatton Garden 34
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Smithfield market 36
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Farringdon Station
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An Elizabethan Progress is a team photographic project inspired by Crossrail, based on tracing the route of the tunnelled sections of London’s new Elizabeth Line being delivered by Crossrail, but principally on the surface. The aim has been to photograph places and happenings and in particular, to include a number of images which have links to the actual Elizabeth Line in the tunnels below.
Project team participants: Philip Brown, Michael Colman, Hilary Everett, Mo Greig, Lorraine Grey, Anila Hussain, John Kelly, Greg Lambert, Susi Luard, Deepika Mistry, Wendy Nowak, Norman Smith, Val Straw, Anne Roache, Romney Tansley and Michael Turner. Brian Steptoe has established a largely self-taught expertese in the world of the photobook over the last twenty years. He was lead organiser of the Royal Photographic Society’s International Photobook Exhibition, held in 2016. He is a collector of photobooks. Brian has a Fellowship distinction from the RPS and holds the Society’s Fenton Medal.