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  Cripplegate Ward Club is a social organisation for those who take an active interest in understanding and appreciating the traditions, history and workings of the Ward and the City.  It provides an excellent way to meet and to socialise with a wide range of people connected to and involved in the City and is a great way into the Civic and social activities of the area providing the chance for those connected with the Ward, in whatever way, to meet each other and the Alderman and Common Councilmen that represent the Ward.  The Club also support appeals and charitable activities.

Cripplegate is among the busiest of the 20+ Ward Clubs in the City of London, with a varied programme of events throughout the year.  There are both daytime and evening activities ranging from informal visits and tours of general interest, to the most formal of Civic Lunches and City Banquets.  We visit some interesting places revealing facets of the City not normally seen and of course being a social club, these very often include luncheon or dinner somewhere nice too.  All great fun.  Membership of the Club offers an opportunity to discover and appreciate the traditions and fellowship of City Life.

If you live in the Cripplegate Ward district or have business here we invite you to Join our Club and activities - just click on the 'Join us' link to get the ball rolling.  There is no stipulation that members reside within the Ward (or even within London), only that they have a direct, or indirect interest in the Civic, Social or Business affairs of the City and of course guests of members are most welcome at all functions.

To find out more about joining, navigate to our membership page or click here


The Millennium Dome is so big that it can fit the Great Pyramids of Giza comfortably under the roof! The structure is 365m in diameter; and 52m high in the middle; with 12 supporting poles, symbolising days, weeks and months of the year.
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Number 10 Downing Street will open its gardens on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th June 2023 for the first time since 2019, joining over 100 unique places not normally open to the public.

As part of London Open Gardens, tickets will be issued through a public ballot system, with lucky visitors getting the chance to wander around the garden of the Prime Minister's official home.

link to more . . .
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The QE Tower

The 96-metre clock tower above the Houses of Parliament, which houses the Great Bell, known as Big Ben, has been mostly hidden from view since a £79.7m conservation projection began in 2017.

In December 2021, the clock face was revealed to show the work that has taken place, including the restoration of the original colour scheme.

While the name Big Ben nowadays refers to the entire clock tower, 'Big Ben' is actually the name of the largest bell inside the tower, used to chime the hours and has been keeping time in the UK capital since 1859.

See more at www.parliament.uk
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London in lock down . . . Pandemic 2020

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MAGNIFICENT MAPS OF LONDON

On at the London Metropolitan Archives, 40 Northampton Road, London EC1R 0HB.

This exhibition opened last October and has proved so popular it has been extended to March. It brings together a collection of maps of London from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. From the first surviving map of the City, Civitas Londinium,to the present - a Black History map of the underground with alternative names for the stations.

Civitas Londinium on display for the first time since extensive conservation treatmentshows the character of Tudor London. The detailed maps by Ogilby (seventeenth century), Rocque (eighteenth century) and Horwood (late eighteenth century) are reproduced as large wall maps. At one glance you will truly appreciate the huge size of London even in those days and the contrasts between different areas. Maps like these, when created, were often used as a form of high status interior decoration by those proud of their ever growing capital. Other maps chart the physical state of London after catastrophic events, for example, Leake’s survey of the City immediately after the Great Fire, engraved by Hollar and the LCC bomb damage map. Other maps reflect the concerns of their time, for example, land ownership, water conduits, living conditions, epidemics, employment, insurance, immigration patterns, all a valuable historical record of aspects of London life and death. On one wall there is Charles Booth’s late nineteenth century poverty map while on another there is the most comprehensive survey – the Atlas of London 1968. There are maps created for planning issues showing the distribution of immigrants from Ireland and the Commonwealth. Also the practical everyday maps to guide residents or tourists for example, a mid-nineteenth century maps by John Tallis illustrated by H Lacey. Maps of transport routes planned and existing. If you have not been, make haste.

Conservator brushing the Civitas Londinium map in preparation for the exhibition

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  Club News & Events  
 


AGM & ANNUAL CIVIC LUNCHEON
The Old Library, Guildhall

Thursday 16th March 2023


 
 


COLLOP MONDAY

Traditionally, animals were slaughtered before winter set in as fodder for them would be scarce and to provide meat for the forthcoming cold dark days especially Christmas.

Collop Monday was traditionally the day before Shrove Tuesday and would have been part of the Shrovetide celebrations during the days before Lent.

The collops of which it is named from refers to meat — traditionally cured meats such as bacon — and would be eaten to use up the very last of the cured meats before eating meats was allowed again after Easter with the arrival of spring lambs, calves and piglets. The fat from the bacon would be used on Shrove Tuesday to fry the pancakes which also used up flour left over from the autumn harvest.

Eating a bacon based meal the evening before Pancake Day could be one way of acknowledging this past tradition and perhaps good cause for a party.


 

NEW BOOK OFG INTEREST
Self-guided Tours

For those members who enjoy walking round the City of London a book Gilded City, Tour medieval and Renaissance London by Duncan A Smith was published last year. The cover displays a view most familiar to member of the Ward Club – Guildhall from Guildhall Yard. It is a basic introduction to some of London’s past largely focusing on principal surviving buildings from the Middle Ages to the sixteenth and seventeenth century with a time line, maps and illustrations of these buildings today. Each chapter ends with a themed walk. The one on ‘Finance and imperialism’ takes you past the Royal Exchange, the Bank of England and Change Alley while introducing you to Jewish bankers, Italian merchants, Sir Thomas Gresham and global trade to name a few subjects for your mind to travel over while your feet pass by.



SPENCER HOUSE AND GARDEN

Now into the autumn we are going indoors. This time round the very elegant eighteenth century Spencer House and as a bonus, the garden. Built for one of the late Princess of Wales's ancestors, the first Earl Spencer, the father of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire wife of the fifth Duke and mother of the sixth Duke. Recently portrayed by Keira Knightly on film. The first Earl Spencer was also the great grandson of John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough.

The house is refinement and elegance in one residence. Currently rented to the Rothschild family through their business interests, the 4 th Baron Rothschild has generously restored the original furniture and fittings which had been removed over its lifetime.All the principal rooms, some of which had been subdivided, were painstakingly restored and their missing original features, including the chimneypieces, doors, chair rails, skirting mouldings and architraves, were carefully copied from the originals which had been removed by the Spencer family to Althorp in 1942, at the height of the Blitz. Titled families often rented out houses they have either inherited or brought to them through marriage that they do not have the time or inclination to visit.

Those members who choose to attend this event will not be disappointed.


 

SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE

July sees the Cripplegate Ward Club treading the boards behind the scenery of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in Southwark. A realised dream of the actor Sam Wanamaker who was the driving force behind the reconstruction of the sixteenth century original. Although not quite on the exact spot of the original building we are indebted to Sam Wanamaker for his vision and for persuading Southwark Council to sell their noisome refuse depot to him to build this third version of the Theatre. The first having been burnt down and the second demolished,the site turned into tenement posh flats for Puritans.

Built in 1599in Southwark, a liberty outside the jurisdiction of the London’s civic authorities,The Globe was owned by actors in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men who were shareholders and is reputed to be the first theatre to be built and owned by its own theatre company.

The Lord Chamberlain's Men, was a company of London's most famous actor, Richard Burbage at The Theatre. Their repertoire included plays by Robert Greene and especially Christopher Marlow, who became the theatre's main playwright. Timber from The Theatre, which had been built and owned by Richard Burbage's father, James Burbage, in Shoreditch in 1576 was used. Burbage originally had a 21-year lease of the site in Shoreditch on which The Theatre was built. However, the landlord, Giles Allen, refused to renew the lease and claimed that the building situated on it had become his with the expiry of the lease. On 28 December 1598, while Allen was celebrating Christmas at his country home, carpenter Peter Street, supported by the players and their friends, dismantled The Theatre beam by beam and transported it to Street's waterfront warehouse near Bridewell. With the onset of more favourable weather in the following spring, the material was ferried over the Thames and used in the construction of The Globe.

Investment came from some members of the company. William Shakespeare who began as an actor in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later known as the King’s Men) became a 12.5% shareholder in the Globe Theatre, paying £10 for his share.

Later a new company of actors, the Lord Admiral's Men, split off from the Lord Chamberlain's Men. The leading actor in this new company was Edward Alleyn but that is another story.

Following the controversy over the misuse of opioids, the educational and rehearsal studio complex, situated just around the corner from the main site and which is included in the tour may be known by another name by the time the Cripplegate Ward Club arrives there.

The tour is estimated to take upwards of one hour, after which participants will have a short stroll to the Boot and Flogger, where a private room has been set aside for a three-course lunch. The Boot and Flogger, 10-20 Redcross Way, Southwark, SE1 1TA. Do not be alarmed kind friends, a boot is a leather tankard or bottle and a flogger is a device for hammering a cork into a bottle. The Redcross possibly refers to St George.



THE ROYAL MEWS


This month the Master is taking us to the Royal Mews situated on Buckingham Palace Road behind Buckingham Palace. Those of you who watched the Platinum Jubilee celebrations will remember the magnificent horses which drew the carriages carrying members of the Royal family before and after Trooping the Colour. Also on display will be the iconic 260-year-old Gold State Coach, which featured spectacularly at Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee pageant the next day.

The Royal Mews is where by custom, a coach leaves from to collect new Ambassadors to the Court of St James from their Embassy and bring them to Buckingham Palace to present their credentials to the Queen or her representative.

The mews is a working and living space. Horses, carriages and many of the fleet of royal cars are here. Horses, grooms and chauffeursalso live here.

The tour will introduce the fascinating history of the Royal Mews and provides an insight into how the Mews operates today. Staff who live and work onsite will talk about the roles they play in the day-to-day activities of the Royal Household. You can also watch behind-the-scenes films about training the horses, caring for the royal cars and carriages and preparing for a State Occasion, as well as learn more about the history of the Mews and its residents.

This event begins at 11:30 am followed by lunch at the Stoke House Restaurant, just under 5 minutes away by foot.


 

CITY NEWS:

The Court of Aldermen decided at their meeting on 30 March 2022 that Alderman would now retire at 75 years of age, in keeping with the retirement age for the Judiciary with whom the Aldermanic retirement age has always been aligned. As a result, there will be seven Aldermanic elections in 2022 in the wards of: Aldersgate; Bishopsgate; Bridge Within and Without; Cordwainer; Cornhill; Cripplegate and Walbrook. The first three elections will all take place on 26 May in the wards of Aldersgate, Cordwainer and Cornhill.

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Earlier News

March 2022

New Master for 2022-2023

John Sleeman BSc FCA ACIB is now Master for 2022-2023

Newsletter 23 December 2022

Newsletter 20 January 2022

Newsletter 16 November 2021

Newsletter 26 August 2021

Newsletter 25 May 2021

Newsletter 26 April 2021

 

Latest .gov.uk Lockdown Crisis


The Ward Club is proposing to circulate a newsletter in the near future.  Keep an eye on our website as we will post it here also.


Coronavirus: how to stay safe and help prevent the spread

It is still possible to catch and spread COVID-19, even if you are fully vaccinated.

To help control the virus, you should limit your interactions with those you don't live with.

If you go out, stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people & wear your mask. 

Wash your hands as soon as you get home.

Remember. You can spread the virus even if you don’t have symptoms.


What are the lockdown rules in the UK?
[pdf download
] - March 2020
Latest UK Gov 'can & can't dos' www.gov.uk


 
 

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