Aspects of London - Blogs
This is the spot to read my blogs. First up are themes of London. I plan to add to the list periodically, but also to branch out and write others about places I guide in outside the capital – so watch this space!
To get you in the mood, here are some fun facts about London:
- Mass executions at Marble Arch
- Condemned men trudged to the gallows along Oxford Street;
- Onlookers at a Westminster Abbey coronation butchered by royal protection squad in shock Christmas Day massacre
- Crusaders once lurked where barristers now toil away
- The famous Strand began life as a beach road
- Market traders set up shop in the middle of the river Thames
- A second Battle of Trafalgar was fought on The Serpentine
- Dentists pulled teeth in the nave of St Paul’s Cathedral
- The Roman governor of London’s civil service buildings are under Cannon Street station
- The famous underground railway system, the tube, is the oldest in the world
- A river runs above a central London tube station
Intrigued? One day I hope to tell you more in person. But in the meantime, feel free to scroll down and click on the links below to discover some more in-depth facts about my capital city.
The Blogs
Scandalous London
The Premier and the Prostitutes: The Prime Minister regularly slips out incognito at night from Downing Street and cruises the London streets looking for prostitutes.
A Bargeman’s Blunder Remembered
Who’d have thought that a stupid mistake way back in Roman times would be brought back to life in the hustle and bustle of today’s South London?
A Moving Movie Church
Camera, lights, action! Scene 1, Take one. Outside Greenwich’s Old Royal Naval College Chapel in the 21st century. Or is it?
Children’s London
Childhood in London’s past was far from easy. Many youngsters lived in appalling conditions and could be hanged for minor offences.
Dickens’ London
Charles Dickens, one of our greatest authors, had a huge, real-life canvas to draw on when he created his novels; the London that cropped up in so many of his writings was growing apace as the Industrial Revolution took hold.
Film London
In 2019 alone, it’s estimated that a whopping £7.9 billion was generated from films and TV shoots in London. Then the pandemic brought everything to a grinding halt.
Grumpy Landlord
The best blue plaque to a famous person no longer up on the wall! This commemorated a former pub landlord, Joe Jenkins, who once ruled the roost behind the bar of the Newman Arms in London’s Fitzrovia. As you can see from what’s written he was a colourful character with colourful language who spoke his mind.
Heading into the Lions’ Den
The set of rules for Millwall fans in 1919 couldn’t be applied now…or could they? It was a different world when the club was first formed by a group of workmen champing at the bit to let off steam.
Jewish London
A truly moving experience for British TV viewers came a few years back when astonished world-famous philanthropist Sir Nicholas Winterton suddenly realised he was sitting in a studio full of people whose lives he had saved decades before. Back then they were very young Jewish children for whom, at great personal risk, he had organised trans-European trains that plucked them out of the clutches of the Nazis.
Law Courts
And now for some interesting snippets about London’s Royal Courts of Justice. So let me tell you about Room 666, which so spooked building managers that they ordered professional cleaners to scrub the number off the stonework – to no avail.
Refugees’ London
The thousands of Afghans fleeing their homeland to begin new lives in Britain are just the latest wave of refugees finding safe haven on these shores.
Take a look at our island story and you’ll see throughout history we’ve sheltered…
Royal London
Royalty has left its mark and influence on London in a big way and not just by the obvious landmarks and events.
Shopping London
Do you suppose henpecked husbands hundreds of years ago were also reluctant shoppers?
Sporting London
As a smug, young ignoramus of a north Londoner, I fondly imagined we held all the sporting aces and the world ended on the northern bank of the River Thames.
St Stephen Walbrook
You can imagine why the artistically gifted Lady Sarah Chatto, daughter of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, would have chosen to have her wedding held underneath this beautiful dome.
The Oval – It Just Wasn’t Cricket!
A place of public execution, a market garden, a prison for captured German SS officers, it’s also seen elephants, donkeys, pop stars, Aborigines and boomerangs.
Theatrical London
Gaze across the River Thames at the circular, almost cottagey-looking building nestling in the shadow of the huge Bankside Power Station, and you are looking at a theatrical time capsule.
Three religions under one roof
As the world holds its breath over the latest Middle Eastern conflict, it’s comforting to think that in London’s East End, three religions traditionally normally associated as being at loggerheads with each other have peacefully evolved over three centuries in one building.
Torturers’ London
Violent times bred violent methods to control people in long-ago, lawless London. The rack, thumbscrews, stocks and brutal, bloody public floggings are familiar tales of the savagery of previous centuries.
Vicars’ & Tarts’ London
Psst…wanna hear some good scandal with plenty of sex and violence, blood, guts, robbers, muggers, blackmailers, orgies, vicars and tarts?
Victorian London
The very idea of people travelling below street level to ease traffic congestion in London filled General Wellington with horror.
Wartime London
A short inscription etched on a white stone deep in the City of London is the intro to the story of the capital’s darkest hour.
Waterloo
Leafy walks, pleasure gardens and a fashionable place for London’s glitterati, including royalty. A haven for a famous botanist and the site of the world’s first circus.
Westminster Abbey Crucifixion Statue
A bit of religious London hidden in plain sight. I nipped into the College Garden at Westminster Abbey at the beginning of last year when the world had no idea of our battle to come and re-discovered this beautiful life-size bronze sculpture.