Step into the Dark City: Evocative 1930s' pictures reveal the eerie alleys and lost buildings of London

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

These atmospheric images show buildings, alleys and streets from the rapidly-disappearing London of the 1930s - cloaked in darkness.

 

Collated by photographers John Morrison and Harold Burdekin, for the book  'London Night', published in 1934.

In the book the capital is shown as it was before smog, before the Blitz changed the face of the city forever, and before the brutalist concrete monoliths of post-war rebuilding.
 

Mossison and Burdekin used newly-emerging night photography techniques to capture London's unique atmosphere.
 

It was a city of alleys lit by dim lamps, stark contrasts of light and dark and looming, oppressive architecture.

 

More...

• Read The Library Time Machine's article on London Night here

The cinematic photos are again in the limelight having been posted on The Library Time Machine, a blog run by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Library Service. Vintage enthusiasts and photography bloggers across the UK have delighted in the newly-emerged, dramatic and beautiful images.

Spooky: Light streams through a gate in these images capturing the London of a bygone era

Light and dark: A lantern hangs in a doorway and a park's lights blaze in the surrounding darkness. And, an ominous aerial shot of a gateway and pillars cast shadows in a blaze of light

 

Stark: The photos make extensive use of the glaring contrast of streetlights in the London mist and gloom

Past: The images give historians insight into a London now lost to time

State-of-the-art: The photographers collated the images in 1934 used pioneering night photography techniques

The pictures from a book called London Night published in 1934 and recently unearthed by library staff in the capital

Metropolis: Some of the images are reminiscent of the films of German director Fritz Lang