Six word Saturday Taken during the last tour of TFL’s offices at 55 Broadway, soon to become a luxury hotel.
Tag: History
Doing the talking while you’re walking
Phew! Well that was a mammoth recording session. For those who haven’t read an earlier post Technotours the recording is for some self guided walking tours of London that I’ve recorded. The previous post highlighted the difficulties of putting my words into speech both from a technical basis and also in the narration. Happily since… Continue reading Doing the talking while you’re walking
Dark times in the Kings Road
I must admit I don’t know Chelsea very well, it’s on my “to do” list to get more familiar with it. Recently I visited the Saatchi Gallery just off Sloane Square and was vaguely aware that some of the buildings that the gallery inhabits used to be the Duke of Yorks Royal Military School. The… Continue reading Dark times in the Kings Road
Musca domestica Linnaeus
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
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
A LONDON MISCELLANY 