Emily Cockayne

Although subtitled 'A History of Neighbours', Cheek by Jowl is more a social history of housing, town planning, public health and the effects these have had on community relations over time. A lot of the book is gossipy, snatches of tittle tattle about neighbours falling out. Some of it is funny. Most of all the book acts as a digest of other people's research, where neighbourly relations might have been mentioned in a wider historical context. Cockayne has seemingly used her literature review to populate the narrative she wanted to employ. Why not? This is popular history, not a rigorous academic text. Anyone wanting more depth can read the many books and published reports Cockayne references. Anyone who merely wants a peep at what neighbourly life has been like over a 600 year stretch of British history will be satisfied by this chatty book. Occasionally there are non-sequeteurs, where an anecdote is shoe horned into the narrative without any consideration of its relevance to what has gone before. Sometimes these jar, but by and large it's an enjoyable book.… (más)

Heavily repetitive, a continuous narrative of researched facts on the 'Noise, Filth and Stench'of ancient English cities in the 16 and 1700s and with nearly a quarter of the book taken up with source notes this work reads like a doctorial thesis - and that may well have been its origin.

However; this sometimes heavy read is leavened with over 70 maps and illustrations (many of them the marvelous William Hogarth prints) and sparkling bursts of the actual voices of the citizens of those mud daubed, filth flooded and noisy bedlams. Some treasured nuggets gives us the whimsical spellings of the original English language as it evolved, we read of the crude disposal of sewerage as being; “dampnifyed” and “rite ineffecion” and ‘verye noisome .. whereof maye ensue a pestilent harme”.

With conditions like these it in the poorer streets it is with surprise that we read that even the prestigious Colleges of Oxford suffered flooding with foul water to the extent that “the servants used to punt themselves in a wooden wash tub across the flooded cellar in order to draw beer”.

Among other delightful nuggets that author Emily Cockayne describes are the bedlam of the street’s traffic, with accidents, fisticuffs and “grosly abused” pedestrians. One offered solution, even in the late seventeenth century, was that traffic should keep to the right hand side. How strange then that the English choose instead to drive on the left!

A book to be read and enjoyed by the “history buff” and then added to the collection of books on London, civil works and civilization and the trials of city living.… (más)

I felt greasy and grimy (like gopher guts?) after reading this but it's good grime.
Chapter titles like these:
Ugly
Itchy
Mouldy
Noisy
Grotty
Dirty
Gloomy....
Give an idea of the visceral "pleasures" within.
Fascinating and painstakingly researched, this is a must for those wondering what life was really like in the 1600s.
Jaw-dropping plates by William Hogarth abound.

"This book inhabits a grubby and squalid world, truffling out details that are vivid, colourful and sometimes downright nauseous. It's a veritage feast of filth and foulness, and I loved every minute of it,' - Christopher Hart, Literary Review

BUY, BORROW, OR BURN?
BUY.… (más)