Panoramas of Lost London

So popular was the ‘haunting portal’ offered into a bygone age by Philip Davies’ bestselling Lost London, 1870-1945 that Davies has enlarged the project – literally – in Panoramas of Lost London with a large landscape shaped book containing some blown up versions of pictures already seen plus a selection of previously unseen portraits of the capital.

Taking these photographs as evidence, it looks as if Londoners lived in a remarkably empty metropolis under a permanently lowering sky obligingly flocking out onto the pavement to stand on their doorsteps in aprons or caps, arms folded or holding babies or kittens to oblige the camera. At least the poor did – there are many sightings of the residents of Hoxton, Shoreditch, Bankside, Waterloo and Spitalfields. But when it comes to the rich, the grand facades of their houses, the elaborate set of their rooms are unpeopled. An overstuffed set of armchairs, a chandelier, some fine china ornaments suggesting a life lived behind firmly closed doors.