This poem tells the history of London in verse and pictures from Norman to Modern Times

Traces of the Past

As well as that White Tower on Tower Hill
The Normans built great churches,often round.
The King's old jester Rahere who lay ill,
Did vow to build a hospital and found
A great church too if God his life would spare.
And he recovered healthy, well and sound
Built St Bartholomew in answer to his prayer.
The fourteenth century saw great cloisters made,
The Charterhouse, The Abbey Cloisters too,
While Bishops built great palaces,( who paid?)
At Lambeth, Southwark-but the wind blows through
The fine rose window Winchester had done.
By now the Merchants organised each Guild,
The Guildhall for the Mayor was now begun.
And mighty merchant Crosby said he’d build
A hall, a mansion, there in Bishopsgate.

The Tudor’s wooden buildings don’t survive
Except for Staple Inn. But from this date,
The seventh Henry’s chapel’s still alive.

The seventeenth brought plague and then the fire
Which wiped away six centuries’ urban sprawl.
But from the ashes of the City’s pyre,
Came Wren’s cathedral, honouring St Paul.

The eighteenth century started with Queen Anne,
Town houses,newly laid out streets and squares.
She wanted fifty churches Anglican
For High-Church Tories praying Conformist prayers.
The elegance of Georgian white facades
Gave way to Gothic and Victorian taste.
Imperial trade meant docks and great shipyards
While speculating builders laid to waste
Wren Churches and old slums treated the same.
What change within the last one hundred years.
As upward building now becomes the game.
Canary Wharf and Centre Point , What sneers
Are faced by architects who build today.
"The past was better."
That’s what critics say.

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