Just a quick follow on post from Wednesday’s musing on the rat infestation around the Strand in 1903. During July 1707, the 8th of July to be exact, there was if records are to be believed the culmination of a heatwave in London, and as it was a Tuesday the day went down in the… Continue reading Musca domestica Linnaeus
Tag: History
Rattus norvegicus
Definitely my favourite and probably the best studio album by The Stranglers, released in 1977, so the copy in my collection is now 44 years old which is a sobering thought. Anyway I digress. Rattus norvegicus is the latin name for the Brown or common rat which is the most prevalent native London rats. The… Continue reading Rattus norvegicus
Sheer Folly
Last week I posted about the debacle of the Marble Arch Mount, which got me thinking of a similar instance of abject failure over 125 years earlier. Watkin’s Tower was a partially completed viewing tower in Wembley Park. Its construction was the vision of Sir Edward Watkin the railway entrepreneur and was an ambitious project to create a 358… Continue reading Sheer Folly
Streets, Stories and a Soft Shoe Shuffle
Now and again A London Miscellany Tour goes so well that it calls for a little celebration. After a faultless tour yesterday, where I remembered all the names and dates without reference to my notes (it was a new tour) I felt the urge to break out into a little jig.
…”and something for the weekend sir?”
Six Word Saturday I really like the old Dundee Courier building on Fleet Street, if it wasn’t for the lettering it would be quite an austere plain brick facade, but the typography lifts it and turns it into quite a warm looking building. It sits at number 186, the location of the fictional demon barber… Continue reading …”and something for the weekend sir?”
Market Day
In the last post I wrote about Clare Market an area of London that from the 1600s was synonymous with Butchers and Greengrocers. So today I thought I’d look at a few of the other markets that once drew in the punters. The largest and probably best known of all of London’s markets was Cheapside.… Continue reading Market Day
How Curious
There is a small area of central London crammed in between Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Strand and Aldwych. The area is known as Clare Market and is taken up in the most part by the London School of Economics (LSE). The area of Clare Market was originally centred on a small market building constructed by… Continue reading How Curious
Shoe Leather
A while ago I posted a piece about a London guidebook that was published in 1937. In Quantity, not quality I shared an itinerary that was in the guidebook for the visitor to London that has a day to take in the sights. The amount of places and distance travelled were quite staggering and I… Continue reading Shoe Leather
Stairway to Heaven
I’ve always wondered at the design of the escalator system on many of London’s underground stations. It is such a simple idea, but the machinery involved is quite complex. The only design limitation came when they were retro fitted to existing stations with limited space. It was in 1892 that the first working escalator materialised,… Continue reading Stairway to Heaven
Doh!
I had a Homer Simpson realisation today. A few weeks ago I wrote about my surprise at finding Bull Inn Court on the north side of the Strand, because I never walk on that side of the street. During my perusal of the court I discovered another alley about 30 yards back down the Strand… Continue reading Doh!
A LONDON MISCELLANY 