This Week In London’s History Monday – 26th November 1983: An armed robbery at the Brinks Mat warehouse near Heathrow Airport becomes the largest heist in British history, as £25 million worth of gold bullion is pinched. Tuesday – 27th November 2000: 10-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor is stabbed in the leg and dies in Peckham, south London. The following six years would see several trials and re-trials over the killing, finally culminating in the......

It’s probably fair to say that the couple of hundred people who wandered up to the Union Chapel in Islington last Friday were expecting a fairly low-key affair. Arguably the biggest name at the Little Noise Sessions gig in aid of Mencap was to be the compere, Radio 1’s Jo Whiley, although we accept that a few of the audience may have been a bit excited about US indie rockers We Are Scientists. Not......

28. Urban Legends Of The Underbelly! Urban legends are often vague, friend-of-a-friend tales (FOAFtales) similar to ‘Chinese whispers’, in that they are distorted, exaggerated and through generations of storytelling, they become myth, embedded in our society. For the last fifty or more years there has been a sinister legend pertaining to the London Underground that a mysterious, possibly caped figure, lurks in the cold tunnels, and is known for the ghastly act of pushing......

Due to earlier technical vexations of a non-Stratford-related variety, Monday Miscellanea is a bit later than usual today... This Week In London’s History Monday – 12th November 1974: A 9lb salmon is caught in the Thames – the first time that such a fish has been caught in the dirty old river since 1834 – and sent to the British Museum for identification. Improvements in the water quality are hailed. Tuesday – 13th November......

26. Going Underground Urban legends of the more sinister variety have always intrigued me, so continuous whispers and friend-of-a-friend tales concerning a mutant race of beings inhabiting the dark tunnel systems, sewers and subterranean passages beneath the capital are always welcome, even if unfounded (despite rumours circulating as far back as the nineteenth century). However, one thing us folklorists do know is that the underbelly of the city is teeming with all manner of......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 29th October 1986: The M25 ‘London orbital’ motorway is officially opened by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, at a ceremony at the last section to be completed (junctions 22 and 23 in Hertfordshire). Tuesday – 30th October 1883: A group known as the Fenian Dynamiters detonates a bomb on the Metropolitan Railway, injuring 62 people. Wednesday – 31st October 1971: An IRA bomb explodes on the 33rd floor......

24. Haunted Roads For Halloween! Despite London’s congested roads and the daily chorus of thousands of beeping horns, ghosts of the cities roads are in fact sporadic. Look through any catalogue of phantom hitchhikers or ghostly vehicles (for example http://www.roadghosts.com/) and you’ll notice a distinct lack of activity within the capital pertaining to tarmac terrors. Why this is we’ll never know – maybe it’s simply down to the fact that elsewhere in the country,......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 22nd October 1809: The Croydon Canal, linking Croydon to Deptford via Forest Hill, is opened. Requiring 28 locks to overcome the gradients of the route, it would never become a commercial success, and would be closed just 37 years later. Tuesday – 23rd October 1731: A fire breaks out in Ashburnham House in Westminster, damaging much of the Cotton Library – a renowned collection of Middle English......

23. The Woman In Black This week’s feature on London’s darker side is more of a review, simply because last week, Saturday 13th October, myself and my cousin ventured to see The Woman In Black stage show at the Fortune Theatre, on Russell Street in Covent Garden. For those of you who are not familiar with this chilling ghost story, it is an adaptation of Susan Hill’s fine book and has been running in......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 15th October 1881: The Royal Comedy Theatre (now simply known as the Comedy Theatre) opens in the West End. Tuesday – 16th October 1987: In the early hours of the morning, a huge storm of hurricane intensity wreaks havoc across London (and much of the rest of southern England). Wednesday – 17th October 1814: At the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road, a colossal vat containing......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 8th October 1965: The Post Office Tower (now known as the BT Tower) in Fitzrovia becomes operational as a major hub for national microwave telecommunications. Today it is the only building in the UK that is legally allowed to be evacuated using its lifts. Tuesday – 9th October 1975: An IRA bomb explodes at a bus stop near Green Park tube station, killing one person and injuring......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 24th September 1917: A zeppelin drops a 50 kilogram bomb that lands just outside the Bedford Hotel on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, central London. 13 people are killed and a further 26 injured. Tuesday – 25th September 1818: The first human-to-human blood transfusion is performed at Guy’s Hospital. Previous blood transfusions had used animals’ blood. Wednesday – 26th September 1850: The first stretch of the North London......

19. Freakish Falls! During the August of 1920 in Woodford, stones poured from the sky for three consecutive days without explanation. Four years later at Eltham, Plumstead, Woolwich and Shooters Hill a great ice storm battered the area, despite the afternoon being the hottest for two years! The hailstones were the size of eggs, and some jagged in nature, measuring five-inches which fell from the sky, cutting residents who ran for cover. In January......

From BBC News: London must become car-free if it is to substantially cut carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new report. Crikey. In response to the findings London Green Party member Jenny Jones said: "I have asked the London mayor to do a feasibility study into creating a car free pedestrian zone in central London linking all the main squares and parks. "We need to show that the car no longer rules in London......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th September 1973: IRA bombs explode at King’s Cross and Euston mainline stations, injuring 13 people. Witnesses describe a teenager planting the first bomb by throwing it into the crowded ticket hall at King’s Cross. Tuesday – 11th September 1980: Armed robbers steal almost £1.5m worth of diamonds from a jewellery shop in Knightsbridge, west London. The haul includes a famous stone known as the Marlborough Diamond,......

It's a different, puzzling and frankly bizarre world in the bingo hall; the little slips of paper, the special pens, the stream of what sounds like nonsense coming from the chap at the front which only the initiated are able to translate into numbers... still, it is a world of winners and losers, of champions and inspirational figures. Even figures that stand below 5 foot tall have an indefinable streak of success running through......

Lights go on... lights go off... lights go on... lights go off... Contemporary life hums, buzzes, whirrs and recharges with electricity that we take for granted. It's always there - coming out of our wall sockets, stored in our batteries and flowing around us in cable after cable, concealed in every wall and under every floor. BOiLEROOM is a theatre company with a fantastically eclectic line-up, bizarrely well-suited for the kind of stories and......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 20th August 1989: The Marchioness pleasure boat collides with the dredger Bowbelle under Cannon Street Railway Bridge, causing the Marchioness to sink rapidly. 51 of the pleasure boat’s 132 passengers drown. Tuesday – 21st August 1920: A boy who would be named Christopher Robin Milne is born in Chelsea, West London. His father, the author A. A. Milne, would use him as inspiration for the Christopher Robin......

14. The Jewel House Apparition Mr Edmond Lenthal Swift was the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, at the Tower Of London from 1814 to 1842. It was here, as mentioned in a previous episode, that a sentry encountered a huge phantom bear, which he reported to Mr Swift, before dying of shock two days after the frightful incident in which he speared the creature with his bayonet, only for the blade to pass right......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 6th August 1937: Barbara Windsor is born in Shoreditch in central London. She would achieve fame as an actress, notably as a ‘saucy strumpet’ in the Carry On films of the 60s and 70s and later as a major character in Eastenders. Tuesday – 7th August 2001: The Department of Health pays £27 million for a private Harley Street heart hospital, re-nationalising it and bringing it into......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 30th July 1966: England defeat West Germany in the FIFA World Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, claiming the Jules Rimet Trophy (and, of course, the status of Football World Champions for the next four years). Tuesday – 31st July 1962: Violence erupts at a rally of the Union Movement (formerly known as the British Union of Fascists) in Dalston, East London. Sir Oswald Mosely, leader of the......

11. The Weirdest Creature! It was a sunny day in October, the year 1878, when a naturalist and London Aquarium employee named Mr Davy exhibited his unusual beast, whilst on an afternoon stroll. Many onlookers and passers by gasped at the bizarre form, a creature most certainly unknown to science and described at the time as, ‘a living cube’ – standing two-feet in height, being two-feet in length and bereft of abdomen, with its......

10. Scareships Just previous to the First World War, as Germany prepared to release the Zeppelin air ships, a spate of phantom airship sightings took grip on the world. London was just one city in the UK to become besieged by the mysterious aircraft that had no definitive origin. Were they the first UFOs? How did such craft seem to vanish or escape pursuit? Here's a chronicle pertaining to the capital: 9th May 1909......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 16th July 1924: Crowds of photographers, reporters and ‘autograph seekers’ greet the pilots of the first (successful) round-the-world flight as it landed at Croydon airport for its London stopover. Tuesday – 17th July 1974: A bomb explodes in a tourist-packed room of the Tower of London, killing one person and injuring 41 others. No-one claims responsibility for the bombing, and no culprits are found. Wednesday – 18th......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 9th July 1968: The Hayward art gallery on the South Bank is opened by the Queen. Tuesday – 10th July 1958: Britain’s first parking meters are installed in Mayfair. Soon there would be 625 of them in the district, charging 6 pence per hour. Wednesday – 11th July 1848: Waterloo Station is opened. The original station would survive just 52 years until 1900, when it would be......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 2nd July 1865: One-time Methodist minister William Booth preaches to a large crowd at an open-air ‘mission’ in Whitechapel, founding the ‘East London Christian Mission’, which would later be renamed ‘The Salvation Army’. Tuesday – 3rd July 1981: A punk concert at the Hamborough Tavern in Southall, West London, leads to fighting between skinheads and Asian youths. The riot is just one of many violent ‘uprisings’ to......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 4th 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. Tuesday – 5th June 1734: The Bank of England’s current premises on Threadneedle Street are opened for business. Wednesday – 6th June 1997: Another anniversary for the Bank of England, which uses its newly granted independence......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 21st May 1853: The Aquatic Vivarium, the world’s first public aquarium, is opened in Regent’s Park. Tuesday – 22nd May 1897: The Blackwall Tunnel is officially opened by the Prince of Wales, becoming the longest underwater tunnel in the world (at the time). The original tunnel now forms the western (northbound) carriageway – the adjacent tunnel that houses the eastern (southbound) carriageway was opened in 1967. Wednesday......

We know people can love their pets a great deal and this morning, we have learned of how far a dog owner is willing to go to protect his puppy pal. About as far as the nearest police station, if you are Jose Mourinho. Mourinho, Chelsea Football manager, was arrested last night for obstructing police when two officials tried to remove his Yorkshire terrier dog from his home as it was suspected of entering......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 14th May 1842: The first fully illustrated weekly newspaper, the Illustrated London News is launched, costing sixpence. It was still being published weekly as recently as 1971, but its publication frequency has since declined. Tuesday – 15th May 1981: Zara Phillips, the daughter of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips, is born in a private wing of St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. She is currently the world......