Thames Mudlarking — The Final Solution to a Finial Problem

The cast-iron finial from a railing found on the Thames Foreshore at Queenhithe
many moons ago. An object that had defied my identification attempts ever since.

A few weeks ago we stayed overnight at a hotel in the area of St James Park, London, and the next morning we decided to go out and look for a local cafe where we could get ourselves breakfast. 

Could we find anywhere local? 

No, we could not! 

We crossed the river via Westminster Bridge and eventually wound up in a cafe somewhere beyond Elephant & Castle and there we sat down. It was rather expensive — the menu poncified to an extreme. I do not need to know the names of both the pig and the man who reared the pig who made my bacon! But I have to say, it was very tasty... 

Afterwards, we wandered back through the streets of South London in the general direction of the river at Jubilee Gardens, when I was stopped in my tracks by the decorated stone capital of a church gate post.

I had seen something familiar!

It was decorated with an ornamental motif that bore a striking resemblance to something that I had once found on the Thames Foreshore and that had been knocking about the house for decades. I had always known that it was a cast-iron railhead finial - that much was obvious - but I had never seen anything similar to it upon any railing anywhere in the city. And London has a lot of railings to see...

I was so preoccupied with the capital that it took a while before I dropped my eyes to the gate itself,  and saw that its finials and those of the entire railing surrounding the church were of the same design — and so very similar that I now believe that they were cast from the same mould.

The only difference was that every finial had a longer point than mine and so it was clear that it had broken off at some point. I checked around and eventually found one that had also had its point broken away whilst in situ. A perfect match!

The church is St Johns, Waterloo, which was built in 1822-24 to the designs of Francis Octavius Bedford. in the increasingly unfashionable Anglican Greek Revival style of architecture. During WW2 it was struck by a bomb, suffered considerable damage, and was left as an open wreck for a decade thereafter. It was finally restored in 1950.

I wonder if my finial was one that was blown away from the railing in the blast? 

If so, then I very much doubt that it flew as a red-hot missile from Waterloo all the way to the City of London. Surely must've got there by another means entirely!