The Weekly Machen
In the fall of 1918, Arthur Machen left his position as star reporter with the Evening News, his steady employer since April 1910, to join the staff another London paper, The Daily Express. His tenure at the latter proved brief as he contributed only 14 articles with the last dispatch being published on November 21, 1918. Early the following year, Machen returned to the Evening News where he remained until late 1921.
Starting with the following article, The Weekly Machen will be presenting Machen’s entire run with The Daily Express. These assignment were much shorter, running from only 250 to 650 words each; however every installment is a concentrated burst of Machenalian style and delight. At the conclusion of this series, in early June, we will return with Machen to the Evening News.
Little Sights of London
Quaint Corners That No Tripper Sees
by
Arthur Machen
September 24, 1918
Up and down the streets, to-day and every day, the stream of soldiers flows. They come from all the regions of the earth; there are Americans, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders. They are all seeing London; many of them are being shown London. I saw yesterday a char-à-banc full of American sailors, who were evidently being taken round the sights of the town.
They were to see, no doubt, St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, the Tower, the Monument, Hyde Park, and, perhaps, Mme. Tussaud’s. That is all very well. That is known London. I wonder whether anybody is showing them unknown London.
It lies, this undiscovered world, a wilderness, a land of marvels all about us. Few Londoners have so much as heard of it.
A few days ago, I said to a man: “Do you know where Barnesbury is?” He replied, “Oh, yes, up by Islington.” I interjected sternly, in the geographical manner: “Round Barnesbury.” He could not do it. But there are many wonders there. There is a complete square, built of grey brick, in the most approved sham-Gothic, which means that Sir Walter Scott had written the Waverley novels not long before this great design was planned.
There are secluded little cottages in Barnesbury, with vines on their walls, here is all the {illegible word} of a byway in a remote county town. And all this, and much more within a few minutes of King’s Cross Station.
Then Clapton. How few have penetrated to Clapton. Here is the strangely adorned temple of a strange religion that made itself scandalous a few years ago; here are much better things. Houses hidden by green leaves look at Epping Forest across the valley of the Lea, and high on the common stands a grave Georgian terrace in red brick, quite apart from our age, so that to see it is to make a voyage into the past.
The Tower and St. Paul’s and the rest of it are all very well for a beginning; but I hope that those in charge of the excursions of the men from the ends of the earth are thinking of that London which is strange and hidden and unknown even to the greater part of its own citizens.
There are great secrets in Camden Town.
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darklybrightpress.com 
I wonder if many soldiers with some ‘leave’ left read this, bought a guidebook or map of some sort, and tried to follow up his references? (Wikipedia tells me in the “Geographer’s A-Z Street Atlas” article that the Geographers’ Authentic Map of London with Index of Streets only appeared for the first in 1936.)
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That sham-Gothic square is tantalizing, but I have not yet figured out how best to go about looking for it – or its history (lots of bombing thereabouts, in the Second World War, I believe).
But Wikipedia readily helps with “the strangely adorned temple of a strange religion that made itself scandalous a few years ago” with its “Clapton, London” article including a link to its “Agapamonites” one, which in turn has a link to its “Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lord, Upper Clapton” one (with lots of photos!): it says the church “built for the Agapemonites between 1892 and 1895” and named “Church of the Ark of the Covenant” passed after “the last of the ladies in the abode of love died in 1956” into the hands of “‘the Ancient Catholic Church’ and the building was known as the Church of the Good Shepherd” from 1956 to 2007. “The building became a Georgian Orthodox Cathedral in 2011 and was renamed The Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lord. It serves as the cathedral for the Georgian Orthodox Eparchy of Great Britain and Ireland”.
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Fascinating! Thanks for digging up information on this obscure sect. It is a new one to me! I’ve added a link to the Wikipedia article.
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Thanks! It was all new to me, too, as far as I recall – and I thought I had read a fair bit about curious groups of the period!
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