London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead. Story time. History time.
Up it goes.
Higher. Higher.
Steady now – mind the neighbours.
There it is. Upright. Proud as you like. Ribbons fluttering.
Youths capering. Music piping. Tankards clinking.
And half of London pretending not to notice what it so obviously is.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… the Maypole.
And if you think it’s just a bit of rustic bunting and a village fête, think again.
The Maypole is history’s cheekiest wink.
A great big wooden joke planted right in the middle of things.
A sort of civic stiffy, if you like. And at 130 feet high, it was a member of quite extraordinary proportions – the kind that, legend has it, caused the occasional maiden to swoon at the mere glimpse of it.
And on this day – May 1st, 1661 – London went all in.
There was dancing round a Maypole 130 feet high.
The tallest in the capital.
Imagine it. Ribbons streaming, crowds circling,
the whole city in on the joke.
London loved it.
Then London banned it.
Then London brought it back with a vengeance.
Let’s start somewhere agreeably ancient.
Maypoles go back to pre-Christian Europe.
Spring arrives, the sap rises, the crops need encouraging, and what better way to give nature a nudge than by erecting something tall, straight, and festooned with ribbons.
Around it you dance.
You weave. You celebrate fertility, renewal, life.
The Romans had their own version in the Floralia,
dedicated to Flora,
goddess of flowers and, depending on who’s telling the story, a certain looseness of morals.
Cue non-conformist minister Adam Martindale, wagging a stern Puritan finger in 1660 and declaring the Maypole a “relique of the shamefull worship of the Strumpet Flora in Rome.”
You can almost hear the harrumph.
Because by the mid 17th century, the Puritans had had enough of this sort of thing.
Christmas. Gone.
Maypoles. Gone.
Merriment generally.
Strongly discouraged.
The Interregnum was not a golden age for dancing round anything, let alone something so brazenly symbolic.
And then – oh, glorious reversal – comes 1660.
The Restoration.
Charles II sweeps back in, and with him comes music, theatre, laughter, and yes, up they go again –
Maypoles, sprouting across the land like…
well, you get the idea.
And then there’s the king himself. Charles II.
Nicknamed Old Rowley – after the royal stud stallion.
Not because he enjoyed a gentle canter, but because, well… he didn’t.
Twelve acknowledged illegitimate children.
A court that sparkled with actresses, courtiers, clever women, and a king who liked his pleasures lively and frequent.
If the Maypole is the symbol of spring’s… resurgence, then Charles was its most enthusiastic patron.
He didn’t just restore the monarchy.
He restored merriment.
Theatre doors flung open. Music returned. Dancing, flirting, festivals, non-stop bonking – all back on the calendar.
You can almost hear the collective exhale.
After years of Puritan restraint, England wasn’t just putting up Maypoles again – it was positively vaulting them.
With gusto.
Henry Newcome, a clergyman with a face like a wet Wednesday, was not amused.
He complained of “May-poles in abundance” and people “making a business of playing the fool.” Quite.
London, meanwhile, was having the time of its life.
Which brings us to the big one. The whopper.
The skyscraper of its day.
The Strand Maypole.
Right by St Mary le Strand – where today the traffic thins, the space opens out, and you can actually get your bearings –
they raised a Maypole so vast it became a landmark.
About 130 feet high, we’re told. That’s the height of a modern ten-storey building.
A single, towering shaft of timber, the erection of erections, hoisted into place with ropes, pulleys, and a good deal of swagger.
It dominated the skyline. People used it as a point of reference. Turn left at the enormous pole.
And it lasted. Long enough to give its name to the neighbourhood.
The Maypole in the Strand. Edward Phillips, Milton’s nephew, ran a school nearby “near the May-Pole.”
That’s how fixed it was in London’s mental map.
Until it wasn’t.
By the early 18th century,
the fashion was fading.
London was changing.
Space tightening. Tastes shifting. And the great Strand Maypole, weather-beaten and past its prime, was taken down around 1713.
But here’s the twist.
It didn’t just vanish.
It was repurposed.
Given a second act.
Sir Isaac Newton got involved.
As you do.
The pole was acquired and used as a mast for a telescope at Wanstead.
So the great,
swaggering emblem
of spring revelry ended up helping to chart the heavens. From fertility rites to astronomy. Only in London.
After that, the Maypole slowly slips away from city life.
Not overnight. But steadily.
It retreats. It dwindles. It goes limp.
By the end of the 18th century, London has largely outgrown it.
Or has it?
Because look around.
What are those towers piercing the skyline? Glass and steel, yes. Offices, apartments, ambition made solid.
But line them up and squint a little… and you could argue London never really gave up its fondness for the vertical statement piece.
Different materials. Same instinct.
As for the last true Maypole in London? There’s no single farewell. No final dance.
It fades rather than falls.
Today, the Maypole survives elsewhere in England – ribbons, music, laughter – but in London it lives on as memory.
As echo. As story.
And what a story.
Of Puritans sawing them down in the night.
Of crowds dancing in defiance.
Of a king whose return was celebrated with an enthusiasm that was, frankly, more anatomical than constitutional.
Old Rowley indeed.
So next time you’re on the Strand, in that newly opened-up space by St Mary le Strand, spare a thought.
Right there. Where you’re standing.
Once rose a 130-foot declaration that winter was over, life was back, and London was displaying a quite remarkable stiffness of purpose. It was party time. Time to celebrate.
Up it went.
And London, for a moment, stood and stared.
And on that unmissable, unforgettable, uplifting note…
see you tomorrow…