From Prayer to Palestra: The Ring at Blackfriars
“In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
‘I am leaving, I am leaving’
But the fighter still remains…”
(From ‘The Boxer’, Simon and Garfunkel, 1968)
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From the ancient Roman amphitheatre to the recent 2012 Olympic village, London has been home to an impressive array of sporting venues over the centuries.
One such arena, now sadly long vanished, was ‘The Ring‘; a boxing stadium which once stood on Blackfriars Road in Southwark.
The Ring, Blackfriars (Image from ‘Wonderful London’, 1926)
Although established as a boxing venue in 1910, the actual building dated all the way back to 1783; originally designed as a chapel by the Reverend Rowland Hill- who reportedly opted for the unusual, circular design so that there would be no corners in which the devil could hide….
The Reverend Rowland Hill (Image: Wikipedia)
Decades later, the man responsible for overseeing the chapel’s conversion from prayer to pugilism was Dick Burge, a former English Middleweight champion who hailed from Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.
Dick Burge in his prime.
Dick retired from the noble art in 1900 but, whilst living on Wiltshire Road in Brixton, he soon found himself encountering financial difficulties.
Foolishly, he sought to remedy his woes by participating in a huge Liverpool-based bank fraud which involved a risky mixture of cheque forgery and high-stakes racecourse gambling.
The scam was soon rumbled and Dick was arrested in October 1901; just one month after he’d married his wife Bella at Brixton registry office.
Tried and found guilty for his part in the crime, the former boxer was sentenced to ten years hard labour.
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Eight years into Dick’s sentence, a violent prison riot erupted.
During the chaos, Dick- who had already proved himself to be a well behaved, model prisoner- courageously risked his neck in order to save a guard whose life was under threat from the rampaging mob.
Thanks to this commendable redemption, Dick was released from prison two years early and promptly vowed to return to a more law-abiding life.
Dick Burge (image: The Ring website)
Supported by his wife Bella, who had stuck by her man throughout the prison term, Dick succeeded in renting out the old, circular chapel on Blackfriars Road.
1860s map depicting the chapel which would later become The Ring boxing venue. Charlotte Street is now known as Union Street.
By this point, Rowland Hill’s old place of worship had fallen into use as a warehouse and was in a very sorry state.
Undeterred by the task ahead, Dick and Bella enlisted the help of local homeless people to clean out the building and transform it into a state fit for presenting boxing to the public.
The Ring opened on the 14th May 1910, quickly attracting keen crowds- and with the Blackfriars arena staging events four to five times a week, there was certainly plenty for fight fans to indulge in.
Not forgetting the help they’d received from London’s homeless, Dick and Bella set up a soup kitchen which they ran from the building during the quieter daytime hours.
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Just four years after The Ring opened, The Great War erupted and Dick, never one to shy away from a fight, enlisted with the First Surrey Rifles.
Tragically, the former boxer contracted pneumonia in 1918 and died a few months short of the war’s end.
By this point, he had become a very popular character and some 2,000 mourners attended his funeral at St Marylebone Church. Following the ceremony, Dick’s body was taken to Golders Green for cremation.
St Marylebone Church (image: Google Streeview)
The death of Dick Burge however didn’t spell the end of the boxing venue.
On his death bed, Dick had asked his beloved Bella to ensure that she kept their business going. Not wishing to let her husband down, and having practically run the venue since Dick’s enlistment in 1915, Bella promised her husband that she would do so; a vow which essentially resulted in her becoming the world’s first female boxing promoter.
Bella Burge (image: The Ring website)
Bella was a tough cookie; a New Yorker by birth who, aged four, had come to London with her mother following the death of her father.
Like her late husband, Bella knew how to put on a good show- she’d worked on the stage and had also been the dresser to one of music hall’s greatest performers; Marie Lloyd; a star with whom Bella became close friends.
Marie Lloyd
When it came to running the Blackfriars boxing arena, Bella was purely hands on, involving herself in every aspect of the venue’s smooth running- right down to personally booting out drunken troublemakers.
Much loved by the local community, the pioneering promoter soon earned an affectionate nickname; ‘Bella of Blackfriars’.
‘Bella of Blackfriars’- cover of a 1961 book detailing the life of Bella Burge.
So successful was The Ring under Bella’s leadership that, in 1928, the Prince of Wales- who was a keen fan of the noble art- decided to pop by and enjoy an evening’s boxing at the Ring; the main fight that night being between two highly regarded fighters; Manchester’s Len Johnson and Birmingham’s Jack Hood.
Jack Hood (left) and Len Johnson (right) who boxed at The Ring in the presence of the Prince of Wales.
During his visit, the Prince was greeted by loud chants of “for he’s a jolly good fellow!” which was rather ironic considering he would later go on to become King Edward VIII; the monarch whose 1936 abdication threw the monarchy into crisis…
The controversial King Edward VIII who enjoyed a night at The RIng in his more carefree days…
In 1932, The Ring added more strings to its bow when it added wrestling to the bill…. and the odd Shakespeare play, performed by the local Bankside Players drama group.
A 1930s London Transport advert listing wrestling at The Ring.
By by the late 1930s however and with the clouds of WWII looming, The Ring began to experience fiscal problems which soon became so tough, Bella was forced to pawn her jewellery and other valuables in order to pay the venue’s staff.
Sadly, her stoic attempts would prove to be in vain.
At the height of the Blitz, one night in October 1940, The Ring suffered a direct hit.
The Ring in ruins (image: Nickel in the Machine website)
The 18th century building, which Bella had steered to greatness after a promise to her dying husband years before, was wiped out in a flash.
Smashed trams on Blackfriars Road, a few yards away from the bombed Ring (image: Nickel in the Machine)
To this day, substantial damage from the raid which blasted the popular boxing venue, is still clearly visible beneath the railway bridge spanning Blackfriars Road.
Blackfriars bomb damage, just across the road from the former Ring venue.
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Years later in 1958, Bella Burge was invited onto an early episode of This is Your Life and, in 1961, a book about her entitled ‘Bella of Blackfriars’ was published and serialized in newspapers (the cover of the book can be viewed earlier in this article).
Bella Burge on ‘This is Your Life’, 1958 (image: Big Red Book website).
The formidable lady died in 1962, aged 85.
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The Ring bombsite remained in tatters until the 1960s when a modern office block named ‘Orbit House’ was constructed over the ruins. Orbit House became home to the India Office’s library and archive (now housed in the British Library).
Orbit House (right of picture) as seen from Union Street (image: Rebecca Allen).
By 1998 this block had also plunged into ruin and, in the first decade of the 21st century, Orbit House was demolished and replaced by an ultra-modern structure called ‘The Palestra’.
The Palestra
Quite fittingly, Palestra is an Ancient Greek term denoting a public arena for wrestling.
The futuristic office complex is now the HQ for Transport for London… something which I’m sure commuters will appreciate considering how much of a fight it can be contending with tubes and buses during the height of the rush hour!
As the base for Transport for London, the Palestra is also the venue where those studying The Knowledge of London (the intense training course you must pass in order to become a London cabbie) attend their ‘appearances’; verbal examinations which are a true wrestle for the mind!
To find out more about my own experience of this process, please click here.
As well as the Palestra’s referential name, a few subtle reminders of Dick and Bella’s much beloved arena can be found nearby.
About half a mile away, in a rather forlorn, windswept section of the Southbank complex (just off of Belvedere Road, near the Purcell Room), a simple mosaic of Bella Burge can be seen embedded into the pavement.
Bella Burge Mosaic, Southbank.
Another mosaic in the set depicts Ernie Izzard; a boxer who lived in Herne Hill and cut his teeth at the Blackfriars ring. Other local heros- including Daley Thompson and Kevin Spacey- can also be glimpsed on this understated walk of fame.
Ernie Izzard mosaic
Closer to the Palestra itself, you’ll find The Ring boxing gym on Ewer Street and, right across the road from where the legendary arena once stood, there’s The Ring pub; a boozer which boasts an array of boxing memorabilia… the perfect place to raise a toast to one of London’s most fascinating, lost sports venues.
The Ring pub
To see The Ring in action, please click the short clip below, which includes footage of a 1930 bout between Charles Desmet and Jim Shippen.
Happy Birthday, London Underground
January 10th 2013 is an extremely important date in the capital’s history, for it marks the 150th anniversary of the inauguration of the London Underground; the world’s oldest subway system.
VIPs gaining on a sneak preview of the Metropolitan Railway.
First opened to the public on the 10th January 1863 as the Metropolitan Railway, the pioneering line originally ran between Paddington and Farringdon; a distance of 3.75 miles.
Although the original route and tunnels are still in use today (now occupied by trains running on the Circle, Hammersmith & City and of course the Metropolitan lines), passengers travelling on the Underground during its earliest days would have undergone a very different experience indeed.
Being the mid-19th century, trains were powered by steam and, despite a special engine design and the inclusion of regular ventilation shafts, clouds of choking smoke still swirled within the dingy tunnels.
Open wagons rumbling through the world’s first underground railway… no need for air conditioning here!
As with main-line services of the time, the carriages were designated into first, second and third class. The coaches themselves were wooden and lit by atmospheric gas-lamps; a health and safety nightmare by today’s standards.
A steam engine at Baker Street station, carrying out a a trial run for 2013’s commemorative trip. (Image: The Daily Mirror)
Some idea of how these pioneering locomotives would have appeared whilst in service can be seen in the following BBC clip:
Carrying tens of thousands of passengers on the first day alone, the revolutionary underground railway proved popular with Londoners from the outset and has remained packed ever since.
Rush hour at Baker Street… Victorian style.
Being a totally new concept there were naturally one or two teething problems; the main ones being summed up in the Times just ten days after the Metropolitan Railway opened.
The main issue was clearly that of smoke which, despite the best efforts of the skilled railwaymen, still managed to accumulate and create discomfort.
An early Metropolitan steam engine (image: Watchet Museum).
Those who suffered most were the engine drivers, who complained of “pains in the head from working the trains”; an apparent result of the build-up of sulphurous fumes- a phenomenon which the early railway staff quickly nicknamed “choke-damp.”
Chugging along… The junction represented here lies beneath Praed Street, Paddington.
Porters and signalmen were also prone to feeling ill from smoke inhalation; so much so that in the first few days of service, several of these workers were “carried away insensible from the effect of noxious vapours.”
However, the report also suggested that staff’s weakened state may have been caused by “exhaustion from long hours of work” and “that, owing to the pressure of traffic, the men had not really been able to leave for their meals.”
Shame these early tube workers didn’t have Bob Crow around to fight their corner!
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Just like today, the prospect of anti-social behaviour on the underground network was a concern in Victorian London.
On April 2nd 1863, when the Metropolitan line had been open barely three months, a letter appeared in the Times from an anonymous, “occasional traveller” who wished to bring to light the details of a rather humiliating situation which he’d experienced whilst using the new subterranean line.
The passenger describes how, travelling between King’s Cross and Portland Road (now renamed Great Portland Street), he took a seat in a third-class carriage…
“When a somewhat powerful man entered, and after pushing and showing by gestures he wished for my seat, remarked it was no matter to him, if I did not like to move he should sit on my knee which he accordingly did”!
Unable to summon help at King’s Cross, the commuter resigned himself to “nursing my amiable companion until we reached the Gower-Street station [now Euston Square]…I contrived after some difficulty to get out and immediately sought the guard.”
Sadly, the poor victim of the unprovoked knee-sitting was unable to find anybody willing to help and, after much buck-passing, was eventually granted an audience with the stationmaster- who simply said by way of consolation,
“That there were a number of persons continually travelling on the Metropolitan Railway for no other purpose than annoying the passengers.”
Certainly something to bear in mind next time you find yourself on a crowded tube with rising blood pressure!
The infuriated Times correspondent concluded that,
“If such excuses as these are to be accepted for allowing insulting scoundrels, thieves, or persons guilty of any other crime to escape scot-free, the Metropolitan Railway is likely to become, instead of a great public benefit, a disgrace to the metropolis.”
150 years on, I think we can safely say that the occasional traveller’s fears have been proved unfounded!
Happy birthday, London Underground
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Cabbie’s Curios: A Quack in Hatton Garden
Back in the days when medicine was messy, painful and still in its infancy, ‘Quack Doctors’ were big business.
‘The Visit to the Quack Doctor’ by William Hogarth, 1743.
Exploiting the public’s medical naivety, these roguish characters promised a staggering array of seemingly miracle cures- all for a tidy sum of course.
In 18th century London, one of the more brazen quacks appears to have been a certain Doctor Sangrado who, in the summer of 1788, established a practice on Hatton Garden (home today to the capital’s jewellery quarter).
Hatton Garden today (image: Google)
Arriving from a spell in Jamaica where he claimed to have forged a lucrative career as a veterinary surgeon, Doctor Sangrado took out a lengthy advertisement in The Times, claiming that he had now “turned philosopher” and intended to “cure all kinds of disorders.”
In the marketing stunt, Doctor Sangrado listed his catalogue of apparent skills, including the supposed ability to “restore reason to a mad-man in three minutes”, “to make a new leg grow out of the stump from which the former had been amputated”, “to recover a person drowned after he had lain six weeks in the water” and, in a boast which was surprisingly ahead of its time, to “change the male into the female sex” and vice versa- a procedure which he stated would take a mere “one hour thirty three minutes and a half”!
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Ludicrous as all this may sound, some gullible Londoners with more money than sense appear to have been willing to entrust their bodies to Doctor Sangrado.
On the 5th June 1789, another edition of The Times printed the contents of a mysterious medical bill which had been discovered abandoned on Hatton Garden.
Although the patient and practitioner were never identified, it is highly likely that, due to the location in which it was found, the bill was drawn up and accidently dropped by the Hatton Garden quack.
The baffling receipt detailed work conducted between 1788 and 1789 and read thus….
Aug 2nd. Taking your right arm off, repairing and fitting the bone below the shoulder.
Aug 6th. Three new fingers to your left hand.
Aug 10th. A new knee-pan to your left knee, replacing your thigh bone…and one new toe nail.
Aug 19th. A new foot to your left leg.
Oct 20th. Taking out three of your old ribs, and putting in three new ditto, and stitching your sides.
Oct 30th. Taking out your guts, untwisting them; turning, cleaning and putting in ditto.
Nov 1st. Filling your old bones with hog’s marrow.
Nov 12th. Filling your veins with goat’s blood.
Nov 20th. Mending your skull and putting in some…brains, altering your face and reparing the bridge of your nose.
Jan 20th. A new eye and brigtening the other.
Jan 31st. A new toungue, new lining for your mouth and widening ditto, the old parts being put repair.
March 10th. Cleaning and reparing the foul parts of your heart.
March 11th. Rubbing up your bad memory and sundry other repairs done to your person.
March 12th. A new cheek and mending your wind pipe.
March 13th A complete set of new lungs… and some repairs done to the stomach….
‘Hymn’ by Damien Hirst, exhibited outside the Tate Modern in 2012.
View from the Mirror 