This Week In London’s History
Random London Fact Of The Week
Pond Square in Highgate is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a frozen chicken.
In the spring of 1626, Sir Francis Bacon was journeying through a snowy Highgate, when he was struck by the idea that it might be possible to preserve meat by freezing it. Striking while the iron was hot (or rather, in this case, while the snow was cold), he immediately bought a chicken and stuffed it with snow, in an attempt to verify the theory.
As we now know, his theory would turn out to be essentially correct. However, he would not live to gain any satisfaction from this, as his snowy exertions caused the onset of pneumonia, from which he died shortly afterwards.
Despite Bacon’s somewhat premature death, the world’s first (intentionally) frozen chicken was apparently not so easy to get rid of. Various sightings of phantom poultry in the area have been reported ever since.
London’s Weather This Week
Finally, just as British Summer Time arrives, it looks like the temperatures will start to creep up. Nonetheless, there is still plenty of scope for rain, wind, and a couple of chilly nights this week, so don’t get carried away.
View from the restaurant at the National Portrait Gallery taken from Gaetan Lee’s Flickr photostream.