Dennis Severs
18 Folgate Street, a Tale of a House in Spitalfields
At Liberty
If anywhere, it would have to happen here. At the time of my arrival at this address I was the only person in the street, and it was the darkness that exposed how very alone I was. Around me there were mainly warehouses – abandoned at nightfall – and the remaining townhouses were by now boarded up and empty. Street lamps delivered amber patches – each one, with its beaten post, standing at its own silly angle. That light revealed stone streets with kerbs worn smooth by centuries of commercial traffic – the wear of which would glisten in the damp night air. An uncomfortable smell of market refuse lingered on with the afternoon and waited to join the evening one, wafted up with the warmth of the drains. In the distance – always – was the sound of a train or an unanswered burglar alarm clanging relentlessly out into an ominous gloom. With the view of the market from my back windows I could see a nightly installation performed by homeless tramps – who in long and blackened greatcoats stood holding bottles in a trance around one of the market’s two eternally smouldering bonfires: I named the tableau The Burghers of Calais. An eerie spell reigned, which any newcomer quickly associated with Jack the Ripper. All the inhabitants who once thronged these streets were by now gone; I was alone: I was free.
The Dennis Severs text is from 18 Folgate Street, a Tale of a House in Spitalfields published by Chatto and Windus. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Ltd.