London Urban Legends by Scott Wood Page B

combination of pre-Raphaelite, Art Nouveau, Art & Crafts and more. He used his first wife Emily, described as having ‘delicate features and slender figure’, as the model for his ‘almost burlesque’ tile decorations for the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. But Irvine twice tells, in different journals, the story that he was so jealous of other possible suitors for his wife that he kept her locked up at home with the blinds down.
    Rather than a jobbing ceramicist for building exteriors, Neatby is often called an artist who is unable to express himself through his commissions, though another article suggests that The Chase was created so quickly for Harrods that he could not have consulted the client too closely. The devils on 54-55 Cornhill follow his trademark images that stop anyone looking at them in their tracks. They also resemble the grotesques he created for the exterior of another London building, the Fox & Anchor pub on Charterhouse. There are foxes on this stunning building, described to me by a Blue Badge guide as London’s only Art Nouveau pub, but they have demonic faces and huge yowling maws. They are more similar to the hyena-like creature on Cornhill than a fox.
    If not revenge, then why are there three devils on 54-55 Cornhill? One could answer ‘why not’? Neatby was an eclectic and evocative artist who, like other designers, decided to put gargoyle-like creatures on one of the façades he was designing. This was his first large piece in London and it is possible that he would want to make a lasting impression. It is a credit to his talent that the impression he makes is still so shocking.
Demonic Cornhill
    If that explanation does not suit some, then I can offer some speculation. Cornhill’s fame as the highest point in the City may have inspired Neatby, or the people who commissioned him, to represent the bible story of the Devil tempting Jesus by taking him up high and offering him the world. Perhaps the top demon on 54-55 Cornhill is the Devil waiting on the highest peak to tempt others.
    Cornhill has its own demonic history too. There is a satanic legend attached to the previously mentioned St Michael’s Cornhill, retold in the Reader’s Digest book Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain , of a stormy night in the sixteenth century and a group of bell-ringers who were horrified by an ‘ugly shapen sight’ that floated through one window and over to another. The bell-ringers fainted and awoke to find claw marks in the stonework which became known as the Devil’s claw-marks. This devilish calling card was annihilated in the Great Fire of London, but it may be that Neatby was referring to this legend with his sculptors. There are also rumours that the self-styled devil worshipping decadents of the Hellfire Club met in the nearby George & Vulture eating house. This side of Cornhill has enough satanic geography for any myth-maker or rogue Blue Badge guide to weave a spooky story.
    The problem in trying to prove that something did not happen is that evidence for a non-event is a tenuous and circumstantial thing to try and find. It’s like investigating a crime that may not have happened by looking for a gun that is not smoking. It is almost certainly true that the demons of Cornhill are a striking piece of decoration and nothing more; they were not put there as any sort of revenge. The nearest thing I have found to a non-smoking gun on this is an illustration of 54-55 Cornhill which appeared in 29 June 1894 issue of The Architect . It is an architect’s drawing of the building, giving it the name ‘Tudor Chambers’, published after its completion but not from life. The devils on the top and corner of the building are not the robust and grotesque creatures we have now, but winged, dragon-like beasts which are small and unimposing compared to Neatby’s devils. This would suggest that Runtz, the architect and so the person with the biggest axe to grind against St Peter’s Church, did not plan to