Relics of Old London: Photography and The Spirit of The City

A look at London’s lost architecture is made possible with the Royal Academy’s display of 120 archive photographs dating date back to 1875 when photography was still a relatively new discipline.

The exhibition: Relics of old London: Photography and The Spirit of The City brings together a collection of photographs of vulnerable buildings in London which were under threat from demolition in the 1870s and 1880s.

The imminent destruction of the humble Oxford Arms inn near St Paul’s Cathedral triggered a group of friends to form ‘The Society for Photographing Relics’ in 1875 to preserve an annual record of buildings that were under threat from demolition.

Headed by Honorary Secretary Alfred Marks, the society continued to use photography to coordinate a survey of architecture threatened with urban change, accompanying photographs with a descriptive text of the historical background to each building over the next decade; acting less as a campaign group (the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings had formed in 1877) the society ensured some visual evidence remained of local landmarks.

Many of the photographs - initially taken by Alfred & John Bool, and later by Henry Dixon and his son Thomas James - focus on Tudor and Stuart period architecture.

Small domestic buildings are the subject rather than major landmarks and illustrate how the understated, as well as grand designs, inform the character of a city.

The reasons for the redevelopment and restructuring of the city, like the expanding industry and population, are missing from the narrative, but the exhibition is curated sensitively. Adjacent to the archive material are photographs that show how these sites appear now and it’s this juxtaposition that continues the story of the London of old and the city today.

By Alex Pearlman