Monday Miscellanea

Dave Haste
By Dave Haste Last edited 201 months ago
Monday Miscellanea
St Mary-le-Bow

This Week In London’s History

  • Monday4th June 1762: A newly installed peal of ten bells at St Mary-le-Bow church in the City is rung for the first time to mark the 25th birthday of George III.
  • Tuesday5th June 1734: The Bank of England’s current premises on Threadneedle Street are opened for business. Wednesday6th June 1997: Another anniversary for the Bank of England, which uses its newly granted independence to set interest rates for the first time (raising them by 0.25% to 6.50%). Thursday7th June 1695: Hackney carriages are banned from Hyde Park, following an incident where a cab full of “unruly ladies” affronted “several persons of quality”. The ban stays in place for almost 230 years. Friday8th June 1995: At the Old Bailey, ex-cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken is sentenced to jail for 18 months, having been found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice.

    Random London Fact Of The Week

    If you’re offended by coarse Anglo-Saxon language, you might want to skip this section.

    Still here? Good. Well believe it or not, in the 13th century one of London’s streets went by the rather graphic name of ‘Gropecuntelane’. As vulgar as the name was, it was also very descriptive, as the street was somewhat disreputable and housed a number of brothels and the like.

    It has been reported that Gropecuntelane was renamed to an abbreviated Grope Lane, and then Grub Street. Some accounts place this road in Southwark, whereas others claim that it is now Milton Street in the City. Hmmm.

    One Thing You Must Do In London This Week

    Donate an object to some artists who are trying to do something a bit silly, and very difficult.

    To be more specific, we think that you should track down the guys from Lone Twin who are trying to walk a nigh-on-impossible route across the Barbican, starting this Saturday at 8am and taking about a week. The name of this quest is ‘Spiral’, and the Barbican website describes it thus:

    Onto a map of the Barbican Gregg Whelan and Gary Winters of Lone Twin will draw a spiral, a path cutting through offices, apartments, cafés, schools, museums and theatres. Over the course of a week, Whelan and Winters will attempt to walk the spiral’s impossible path, following it through walls and under doors. The difficult journey is further challenged by the objects that will collected along the way, unrestricted in size or nature from people encountered en route. Whelan and Winters, and the growing snowball of materials, will gradually spiral through the Barbican, finding their journey’s end at its geographic centre.

    To donate an object, simply find Gregg and Gary on their journey and hand it over; a pencil is as welcome as a wardrobe.

    In case you were wondering how to find Gregg and Gary so that you can give them your used teabag or least-favourite pillow (or whatever), their location can be tracked from the ‘Spiral Information Point’ by the Barbican’s Advance Box Office, Level G.

    Nutters.

    London’s Weather This Week

    Aaaah, at last. It looks like we’re going to get plenty of sunshine this week, if the weather forecasters are to be believed. Not before time, either. There’s a suggestion that we might have a spot of rain in time for the weekend, though.

    Picture of the interior of St Mary-le-Bow taken from Homemade’s Flickr photostream under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike 2.0 licence.

    Last Updated 04 June 2007