Not a very good one but, under the circumstances, rather appropriate.
GREAT LOST TEA (cups)
DREGGS OF LONDON
The ‘Hamlyn Supermarket and Till’ was one of the best selling childrens’ toys of the 1970s, in the UK. It was manufactured by a British company and consisted of a small plastic supermarket till (containing fake coinage) a shopping basket, a miniature 3-tiered shelving unit and a number of fake tinned and boxed products to put on the shelves. It is now a highly sought-after collectors item.
Among the boxes of soap flakes, breakfast cereal and tins of baked beans there is a packet labelled: ‘Dreggs Milkless Tea’ which is described further down the box as: ‘A murky blend’ and which is a sly reference to one of our capital’s lesser known curiosities – The Dreggs Of London.
Villiers Street is a short road in central London that connects the perpetually busy Embankment Underground Station with The Strand. Since 1923, a pair of bone china cups have occupied the second storey windowsill of one of the smart terraced houses on the east side of the street. It is not known when these two cups were first named: ‘The Dreggs’ but this moniker is probably a reference the stagnant water that they collect throughout the year.
Because the cups are positioned some way back on the sill, they cannot be seen from the ground and are best viewed from a walkway, on the opposite side of the street, that connects Charing Cross Station with Hungerford Bridge, and is roughly level with the window. A small semi circular gallery protrudes from the walkway and was built presumably so that interested parties could pause to view The Dreggs without interrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic.
From the gallery, we can see that the windowsill is broad and set at a slight gradient so that it slopes towards the building. The two cups are stamped with the crest of the London China Company and, near the base, there is a grasshopper motif, probably a reference to Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of The Royal Exchange, who adopted the Grasshopper as his crest, in order to remind him of his humble beginnings.
Both cups rest in badly chipped saucers. The curved shards of china that surround them are, in fact, the remains of a teapot, which originally sat between the two cups, but which was destroyed during the second world war.
Over the years numerous methods of preventing birds from roosting in the windowsill have been employed. These have included heavy metal bars, a statue of a falcon, a fine gauze, a ‘pigeon repelling’ paint and currently: a translucent netting.
The Dreggs owe their existence to the habits of a Judge Silas Bendrey, who once held chambers in the building and who used to place his tea on the windowsill while shaving, his bedroom sink being adjacent to the window. According to historical records, he would drink one cup of tea before washing and one after. He had taken to placing both the cups and the teapot on the sill after the finding that, in spite of a heavy cloth, they had left rings on his oak dresser.
On August 19th 1923, Bendry suffered a stroke while returning home It is assumed that in the days following his death the cups were forgotten about. Possibly later they were left on the sill as a mark of respect or as an affectionate memorial.
The history of the cups is interesting in itself: They belong to a service of china rented from the Temple Bar, the ancient legal district of London, where many lawyers and judges still hold their chambers.
A set of china has traditionally been manufactured for the Temple every 3 to 7 years. These particular cups belong to the 1920 service, when a new set of china was produced every five years. Subscribers to The Temple China Archives are charged rent on a yearly basis and this money is diverted into charitable causes.
The current owners of the building on Villiers Street, which is now used as an office, are still invoiced annually for the rent of the two cups. Sixth months after the end of the second world war, the then owners apparently received an invoice billing them for the teapot which had been broken during the heavy aerial bombardment of London.
During the early 1980s, the ground floor of the building was home to a Tea shop called: ‘Dreggs of London.’ Following the stock market crash of 1987, Dreggs café (as it is now known) retreated into the grounds of the college adjacent to Somerset House, on the embankment. Although predominantly used by students and lecturers, the café is still open to the public. The framed invoices for the rent of the two cups are displayed on the walls.
A tea shop in Highgate called: ‘The Two Left Behind’ was also originally named as a tribute to The Dreggs. The original sign outside the café depicted the two cups. Unfortunately it has recently been replaced by a rather mawkish painting depicting two wounded soldiers slumped against the side of a trench.
Every year, The Dreggs are taken down, cleaned and then replaced on the sill. In 1990 it was decided to move them back a few inches from their original positions, in order to shelter them from high winds. The cups listed along with the building and are protected by English Heritage laws.
A post card of The Dreggs was once widely available and can still be purchased from the London Tea Drinkers Association.
------------------
""All my friends are soldiers
and they are getting drunk
Oh, Johnny come and save me
I believe my luck has sunk.""
- Jeffrey Lee Pierce"
