City of London Gallery

Gin Lane, 1751. Artist: William Hogarth

Gin Lane, 1751.The scene is the St Giles slums. A child falls to its death from the arms of its drunk mother who sits with ulcerated legs. A skeletal figure holds an empty glass. Goods are being pawned in order to buy gin, a baby is being fed with gin, a corpse is put into a coffin in the background.The pawnbroker, distiller and undertaker are the only well-off and successful people in the neighbourhood. Third of four states of plate. This print was published in support of a campaign directed against gin drinking among London's poor. Consumption of cheap spirits by the poor had soared in the early eighteenth century, with dire social consequences. Gin inspires violence and careless inebriation. Addiction to spirits leads to negligence, poverty and death

© London Metropolitan Archives (City of London) / Heritage-Images

Panorama of London, 1616 (engraving)

XOS1448854 Panorama of London, 1616 (engraving) by Visscher, Nicolaes (Claes) Jansz (1586-1652); Private Collection; (add.info.: View of London from South bank with its Tudor theatres, London Bridge spanning the river and old St Paul's beyond. The large church of St Mary Overie in the foreground is now Southwark Cathedral.); Dutch, out of copyright

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St Giles Cripplegate FF003274

The Church of St Giles and the Barbican Estate, City of London, 1962-??4. John Gay (1909-??99), cellulose acetate negative. The Church of St Giles in Cripplegate Ward dates from the 16th century, and it is associated with some of the nation'??s most significant historic figures, including Oliver Cromwell, the author John Bunyan and the poet John Milton. A bombing raid on 29 December 1940 reduced the church to ruins, and the neighbourhood was destroyed by fire. St Giles was restored by 1960 to become the parish church for the high-rise Barbican Estate, designed by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, and built between 1959 and 1982

© Historic England