Writing the City

Writing the City

Text A
That day, too, I had came not knowing my destination. It was Eights Week. Oxford –
submerged now and obliterated, irrecoverable as Lyonnesse2, so quickly have the waters
come flooding in – Oxford in those days, was still a city of aquatint3. In her spacious and
quiet streets men walked an spoke as they had done in Newman’s4 day; her autumnal mists,
her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days – such as that day – when the
chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables and cupolas,
exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was the cloistral hush which gave our laughter its
resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamour. Here, discordantly, in
Eights Week5, came a rabble of womankind, some hundreds strong, twittering and fluttering
over the cobbles and up the steps, sight-seeing and pleasure-seeking, drinking claret cup,
eating cucumber sandwiches; pushed in punts about the river, herded in droves to the college
barges. […] (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962: 29-30)
Text B
After that the train tooted its whistle and came out of a tunnel.
It ran along a viaduct among the roofs of a city. Rainclouds covered the sky and the day
was so dull that lamps were lit in the streets. They were broad streets, and crossed at right
angles, and were lined with big stone buildings. I saw very few people and no traffic. Beyond
the rooftops were rows of cranes with metal hulls among them The train travelled toward
these and crossed a bridge over the river. It was a broad river with stone embankments,
cracked khaki-coloured mud on the bottom and a narrow black stream trickling zigzag down
the middle. This worried me. I felt, and still feel, that a river should be more than this. I
looked down into a yard where two hulls stood. They were metal cylinders with rusty domes
on top, and a rattle of machinery inside suggested they were being worked on. The train
entered another tunnel, slowed down, came into a marshalling yard and stopped. Through the
windows on either side I saw lines of goods trucks with railway signals sticking out of them.
The sky was darker now. (London: Paladin, Grafton Books, 1987: 17)
Text C
Oxford’s main tourist attractions are reasonably proximate to one another and there are guide
books a-plenty, translated into many languages. Thus it is that the day visitor may cling back
into his luxury coach after viewing the fine University buildings clustered between The High
and the Radcliffe Camera with the gratifying feeling that it has all been a compact, interesting
visit to yet another of England’s most beautiful cities. it is all very splendid: it is all a bit
tiring. And so it is fortunate that the neighbouring Cornmarket can offer to the visitor its
string of snack bars, coffee bars and burger bars in which to rest his feet and to browse
through his recently purchased literature about those other colleges and ecclesiastical edifices,
their dates and their benefactors, which thus far have fallen outside his rather arbitrary
circumambulations. But perhaps by noon he’s had enough, and quits such culture for the
Westgate shopping complex, only a pedestrian precinct away, and built on the old side of St
Ebbe’s, where the city fathers found the answer to their inner-city obsolescence in the full
scale flattening of the ancient street of houses, and their replacement by the concrete gains of
supermarket stores and municipal offices. Solitudinem faciunt: architecturam appellant.
But further delights there are round the corners – even as the guide book say. From
Cornmarket, for example, the visitor may turn left past the Randolph into the curving sweep
of the Regency houses in Beaumont Street, and visit the Ashmolean there and walk round
Worcester College gardens. From here he may turn northwards and find himself walking
along the lower stretches of Walton Street into an area which has, thus far, escaped the
vandals who sit on the City’s planning committees. Here, imperceptibly at first, but soon quite
unmistakably, the University has been left behind, and even the vast building on the left
which houses the Oxford University Press, its lawned quadrangle glimpsed through the high

17
 Peter Ackroyd

wrought-iron gates, looks bleakly out of place and rather lonely, like some dowager duchess
at a discotheque. The occasional visitor may pursue his way even further, past the red and
blue lettering of the Phoenix cinema on his left and the blackened-grey walls of the Radcliffe
Infirmary on his right; yet much more probably he will now decide to veer again towards the
city centre, and in so doing turn his back upon an area of Oxford where gradual renewal,
sensitive to the needs of its community, seems finally to have won its battle with the
bulldozers. (London: Macmillan, 1991: 15-16)

Peter Ackroyd

From Hawksmoor
Text A
And so let us beginne; and, as the Fabrick takes its Shape in front of you, alwaies keep the
Structure intirely in Mind as you inscribe it. First, you must measure out or cast the Area in as
exact a manner as can be, and then you must draw the Plot and make the Scale. I have
imparted to you the Principles of Terrour and Magnificence, for these you must represent in
the due placing of Parts and Ornaments as well as in the Proportion of the several Orders: you
see, Walter, how I take my Pen? And, here, on another Sheet, calculate the positions and
influences of the Celestiall Bodies and the Heavenly Orbs, so that you are not at a Loss on
which Dayes to begin or to leave off your Labours. The Designe of the Worke, together with
every several Partition and Opening, is to be drawne by straight-edge and compass: as the
Worke varies in rising, you must show how its Lines necessarily beare upon one another, like
the Web which the Spider spins in a Closet; but Walter, do this in black lead and not in inke –
I do not trust your pen so far as yet.
[…] Draw the erect elevation of this Structure in face or front, then the same object
elevated upon the same draught and centre in all its optical Flexures. This you must
distinguish from the Profile, which is signifyed by edging Stroaks and Contours without any
of the solid finishing: thus a book begins with a frontispiece, then its Dedication, and then the
Preface or Advertisement. And now we come to the Heart of our designe: the Art of
Shaddowes you must know well, Walter, and you must be instructed how to Cast them with
due Care. It is only the Darknesse that can give trew Forme, for there is no Light without
Darknesse and no Substance without Shaddowe (and I turn this Thought over in my Mind:
what Life is there which is not a Portmanteau of Shaddowes and Chimeras?) I built in the Day
to bring News of the Night and of Sorrowe, I continued, and then I broke off for Walter’s
sake: No more of this now, I said, it is by the by. But you’ll oblige me, Walter, to draw the
Front pritty exact, this being the Engraver to work from. And work trewe to my Design: that
which is to last one thousand years is not to be praecipitated. (1985: 5-6)
Text B
And this is the Creed which Mirabilis school’d in me: he who made the World is also author
of Death, nor can we but by doing Evil avoid the rage of evil Spirits. Out of the imperfections
of this Creator are procreated diverse Evils: as Darkness from his Feare, shaddowes from his
Ignorance, and out of his Teares come forth the Waters of this World. Adam after his Fall was
never restor’d to Mercy, and all men are damned. Sin is a Substance and not a Quality, and it
is communicated from parents to children: men’s Souls are corporeal and have their being by
Propagation or Traduction, and Life itself is an inveterate Mortal Contagion. We baptize in
the name of the Father unknown, for he is truly an unknown God; Christ was the serpent who
deceiv’s Eve, and in the form of a Serpent entered the Virgin’s womb; he feigned to die and
rise again, but it was the Devil who was truly crucified. We further teach that the Virgin
Mary, after Christ’s birth, did marry once and Cain was the Author of much goodnesse to
Mankind. With the Stoicks° we believe that we sin necessarily or co-actively, and with

18
 Peter Ackroyd

Astrologers that all Humane events depend upon the Starres. And thus we pray: What is
Sorrow? The Nourishment of the World. What is Man. An unchangeable Evil. What is the
Body? The Web of Ignorance, the foundation of all Mischief, the bond of Corrupcion, the
dark Coverture, the Living Death, the Sepulture carried about with us. What is Time? The
Deliverance of Man. These are the ancient Teachings and I shall not Trouble myself with a
multiplicity of Commentators upon this place, since it is now in my churches that I will bring
them once more into the Memory of this and future Ages. For when I became acquainted with
Mirabilis and the Assembly I was uncovering the trew Musick of Time shich, like the rowling
of a Drum, can be heard from far off by those whose Ears are prickt.
Text C
The phrase DON’T FORGET was printed across its top, suggested that the lined paper had
been torn from a standard memorandum pad. Four crosses had been drawn upon it, three of
them in a triangular relation to each other and the fourth slightly apart, so that the whole
device resembled an arrow:

X X

X
X
The shape was familiar to Hawksmoor; and suddenly it occurred to him that, if each cross
was the conventional sign for a church, then here in the outline was the area of the murders –
Spitalfields at the apex of the triangle, St George’s-in-the-East and St Anne’s at the end of the
base line, and St Mary Woolnoth to the west. Underneath had been scrawled in a pencil, ‘This
is to let you know that I will be spoken about.’ And there followed another line, so faint that
Hawksmoor could hardly read it, ‘O misery, if they will die.’ Then he turned the page and he
trembled when he saw the sketch of a man kneeling with a white disc placed against his right
eye: this had been the drawing which he had seen issuing from the hand of the tramp beside St
Mary Woolnoth. Beneath it was printed in capitals, ‘THE UNIVERSAL ARCHITECT’. And
he wondered at this as, surreptitiously, he placed the letter in his pocket. (1985: 166)

19
 Peter Ackroyd

Text D

20
 Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively

From City of the Mind

And thus, driving through the city, he is both here and now, there and then. He carries
yesterday with him, but pushes forward into today and tomorrow, skipping as he will from
one to the other. He is in London, on a May morning of the late twentieth century, but is also
in many other places, and at other times. He twitches the knob of his radio: New York speaks
to him, five hours ago, is superseded by Australia tomorrow and presently by India this

21