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The Tunnel Through Time: A New Route for an Old London Journey
Crossrail, the ‘Elizabeth’ line, is simply the latest way of traversing a very old east–west route through what was once countryside to the city and out again. Visiting Stepney, Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, Gillian Tindall traces the course of many of these historical journeys across time as well as space.
The Tunnel Through Time uncovers the lives of those who walked where many of our streets still run. These people spoke the names of ancient farms, manors and slums that now belong to our squares and tube stations. They endured the cycle of the seasons as we do; they ate, drank, worked and laughed in what are essentially the same spaces we occupy today. As Tindall expertly shows, destruction and renewal are a constant rhythm in London’s story.
The Tunnel Through Time uncovers the lives of those who walked where many of our streets still run. These people spoke the names of ancient farms, manors and slums that now belong to our squares and tube stations. They endured the cycle of the seasons as we do; they ate, drank, worked and laughed in what are essentially the same spaces we occupy today. As Tindall expertly shows, destruction and renewal are a constant rhythm in London’s story.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2016
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About the author
Gillian Tindall
56 books33 followersGillian Tindall began her career as a prize-winning novelist. She has continued to publish fiction but has also staked out an impressive territory in idiosyncratic non-fiction that is brilliantly evocative of place.
Her The Fields Beneath: The History of One London Village which first appeared thirty years ago, has rarely been out of print; nor has Celestine: Voices from a French Village, published in the mid 1990s and translated into several languages, for which she was decorated by the French government.
Well known for the quality of her writing and the meticulous nature of her research, Gillian is a master of miniaturist history. She lives with her husband in London.
Her The Fields Beneath: The History of One London Village which first appeared thirty years ago, has rarely been out of print; nor has Celestine: Voices from a French Village, published in the mid 1990s and translated into several languages, for which she was decorated by the French government.
Well known for the quality of her writing and the meticulous nature of her research, Gillian is a master of miniaturist history. She lives with her husband in London.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
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November 13, 2019Years ago, if walking north from Charing Cross I would generally go up St.Martin's Lane and then in to Monmouth Street, past the memorial from the Dutch Queen or maybe her government thanking Britain for the hospitality extended during the war, then on the right hand side of Monmouth street there was an undertakers, by convention undertakers don't display their coffins in the shop window, this one instead had a map of eighteenth century London in the window - a subtle Momento Mori bearing witness to various deceased fields and villages long since gobbled up by the greedy growing metropolis. Any how that undertaker's is gone now, replaced by a shop or probably a boutique selling expensive clothes, but the improbable Ships' chandler's is still there further up the road on the corner ideally situated if you happen to be wandering through central London in need of replacing the rigging on your boat. If those street names mean nothing to you then this book will very probably not interest you at all.
I picked up this book with the expectation that it would be a middle of the road, ok kind of book - so in Goodreads terms about 2.6 stars, and that is what it turned out to be. Hooray! Low expectations met!
The Crossrail project is the inspiration behind this book which rambles forwards and backwards from Tottenham Court Road to Farringdon, to Bishopsgate and Stepney. Tindall discusses the history and development of each of these parts of modern central London all of which in the near future will be the site of newly opened and functioning Crossrail/Elizabeth Line stations. This is a slightly curious project because the Crossrail project will run from Reading to Romford, so the book only focuses on the very central underground portion of the line, Paddington is hardly mentioned for the reason that apparently it hardly existed before the Great Western Terminus was built there. Tindall tells us that she will not write about Stepney because she could write a book about it by itself - but then she writes about it anyway. She draws heavily on the Elizabethan John Stow and other antiquarian writers to create pictures of London life as far back as the Middle ages - when Moorfields, for instance, was a marshy field rich with bird life, another nice point was that condemned persons being taken to Tyburn "going west", Tindall tells us, was a euphemism for death, would stop at the church of St.Giles where they had the right of receiving a bowl of ale This is all nice and mildly interesting. Though I was regularly puzzled when she referred to Centrepoint as a skyscraper - but perhaps the sky is unusually low there.
An enjoyable theme running through the book is how the Dukes of Bedford and Grosvenor who owned much of central London in the nineteenth century prevented the railway companies from building their Termini on their lands and so left a line of stations north of the Euston Road and others out to the east. west and south. Planners since then have tried, she says to link those stations and that Crossrail is the latest iteration of such dreams .
The second half of the last chapter of the book was the most interesting part to my mind, this dealt with the actual construction of Crossrail and the establishment and maintenance of the literary image of London as a particularly foggy, dirty, loud, and seedy city, good marketing I think, you need to have a brand and tourism numbers suggest that the prospect of Dickensian poverty as expanded upon by George Orwell, Graham Greene, J.B. Priestley, Patrick Hamilton, George Gissing and so on (pp261-3) is extremely attractive.
This is a book ideally for the few millions who live or have lived or you often have been in and around St.Giles, Farringdon, or Stepney and the areas inbetween , people with an obsessive or professional interest in Dickensian London may also find bits of this book of interest.
I picked up this book with the expectation that it would be a middle of the road, ok kind of book - so in Goodreads terms about 2.6 stars, and that is what it turned out to be. Hooray! Low expectations met!
The Crossrail project is the inspiration behind this book which rambles forwards and backwards from Tottenham Court Road to Farringdon, to Bishopsgate and Stepney. Tindall discusses the history and development of each of these parts of modern central London all of which in the near future will be the site of newly opened and functioning Crossrail/Elizabeth Line stations. This is a slightly curious project because the Crossrail project will run from Reading to Romford, so the book only focuses on the very central underground portion of the line, Paddington is hardly mentioned for the reason that apparently it hardly existed before the Great Western Terminus was built there. Tindall tells us that she will not write about Stepney because she could write a book about it by itself - but then she writes about it anyway. She draws heavily on the Elizabethan John Stow and other antiquarian writers to create pictures of London life as far back as the Middle ages - when Moorfields, for instance, was a marshy field rich with bird life, another nice point was that condemned persons being taken to Tyburn "going west", Tindall tells us, was a euphemism for death, would stop at the church of St.Giles where they had the right of receiving a bowl of ale This is all nice and mildly interesting. Though I was regularly puzzled when she referred to Centrepoint as a skyscraper - but perhaps the sky is unusually low there.
An enjoyable theme running through the book is how the Dukes of Bedford and Grosvenor who owned much of central London in the nineteenth century prevented the railway companies from building their Termini on their lands and so left a line of stations north of the Euston Road and others out to the east. west and south. Planners since then have tried, she says to link those stations and that Crossrail is the latest iteration of such dreams .
The second half of the last chapter of the book was the most interesting part to my mind, this dealt with the actual construction of Crossrail and the establishment and maintenance of the literary image of London as a particularly foggy, dirty, loud, and seedy city, good marketing I think, you need to have a brand and tourism numbers suggest that the prospect of Dickensian poverty as expanded upon by George Orwell, Graham Greene, J.B. Priestley, Patrick Hamilton, George Gissing and so on (pp261-3) is extremely attractive.
This is a book ideally for the few millions who live or have lived or you often have been in and around St.Giles, Farringdon, or Stepney and the areas inbetween , people with an obsessive or professional interest in Dickensian London may also find bits of this book of interest.
October 28, 2017
Perfectly enjoyable, but intensely forgettable (in similar fashion to the one about the house by the Thames - my only memory of which now is that a film actor lived there in the thirties).
The Crossrail dimension is a little bit of an excuse, but it's a nice way of hanging together more detail from a section of the city. I can listen to Gillian Tindall for hours, but I'm discovering that with 'microhistory', unless we're talking about a street or a building that's more or less in a place that's recognisably still there, along a street pattern that's more or less still there (and that I know very well), it can become all a bit of a yawn.
I know the St Giles area well, so that works. The downturn in the fortunes of Stepney is pretty interesting - onetime Hampstead turned clear-it-away slum. The timeless sensationalisation of plague pits and East End bad 'uns is still with us. My favourite section was actually where Tindall was talking about her own entry into that world - discovering the Sephardi cemetery as a child.
Where I struggle is with the domestic detail. Lady Eustace Frott lived here; the minutes of the parish recording that the gate of the church needed repairing; they repaired it, but then it was knocked down. They built another. Or another denomination did. Then there was a spital. Blake mentioned it (or maybe he meant that other spital). Then there wasn't a spital. Then the Earl de Bovril - onetime favourite of Elizabeth - was given it, then gave it to the second cousin of Thomas Cromwell. Then they cut his head off. Then they cut the head of the man who cut his head off. The head then showed up in Plymouth, attached to a prosperous vintner who then drowned in Calcutta. In his honour they built a gateway with a statue on it. Someone cut the head off that too. Then the post war council turned it into a park. It gets a bit exhausting. Like poring over an Ordnance Survey map - you lose yourself in it.
Enjoyable, but tiring. Like London, see.
The Crossrail dimension is a little bit of an excuse, but it's a nice way of hanging together more detail from a section of the city. I can listen to Gillian Tindall for hours, but I'm discovering that with 'microhistory', unless we're talking about a street or a building that's more or less in a place that's recognisably still there, along a street pattern that's more or less still there (and that I know very well), it can become all a bit of a yawn.
I know the St Giles area well, so that works. The downturn in the fortunes of Stepney is pretty interesting - onetime Hampstead turned clear-it-away slum. The timeless sensationalisation of plague pits and East End bad 'uns is still with us. My favourite section was actually where Tindall was talking about her own entry into that world - discovering the Sephardi cemetery as a child.
Where I struggle is with the domestic detail. Lady Eustace Frott lived here; the minutes of the parish recording that the gate of the church needed repairing; they repaired it, but then it was knocked down. They built another. Or another denomination did. Then there was a spital. Blake mentioned it (or maybe he meant that other spital). Then there wasn't a spital. Then the Earl de Bovril - onetime favourite of Elizabeth - was given it, then gave it to the second cousin of Thomas Cromwell. Then they cut his head off. Then they cut the head of the man who cut his head off. The head then showed up in Plymouth, attached to a prosperous vintner who then drowned in Calcutta. In his honour they built a gateway with a statue on it. Someone cut the head off that too. Then the post war council turned it into a park. It gets a bit exhausting. Like poring over an Ordnance Survey map - you lose yourself in it.
Enjoyable, but tiring. Like London, see.
November 19, 2016
Generally a good read with some interesting and enjoyable vignettes of London history. Rather a lot about the village of St Giles and sundry graveyards, while there is not enough flesh on the bones of other parts. It feels to me like a slightly lumpy mixture of archaeology, architecture and social history.
January 10, 2017
I hoped for more details of what had actually been excavated. However it was quite interesting to read about life in London in previous times although there was such a lot about certain areas like St. Giles which felt rather like TMI.
October 23, 2017
Scrapped three stars as some of the stuff was interesting. However jumped around too much so I seldom felt like I knew where or when was being discussed.
July 13, 2021
7/10 an interesting read with many of the streets mentioned being very familiar to me on my trots around London.
May 7, 2018
Interesting rather than gripping book which uses Crossrail to talk about little pockets of the city, specifically St Giles and Stepney. For anyone with even a passing interest in London history.
May 12, 2019
Enjoyed this book albeit it jumped around a bit from area to area
July 9, 2023
This was an interesting, and fun look at London through the centuries - through the lens of the (then) in-building Elizabeth Line. I wish there was an interactive map on-line that went along with this book, that helped orient the reader to the geographic places and eras which overlap so elegantly throughout the course of the book. If I knew anything about kml files and computers...maybe I'd do it myself. Either way, this is enjoyable and worth the read!
April 26, 2022
Fascinating look at the history of London
to-buy
August 30, 2016Economist review
January 4, 2017
It was a nice read about the history of some of the places the crossrail is going through. Some of the place described where places i am not familiar with a were of lesser interest to me.
January 18, 2017
Very interesting - a book to dip into.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews