Adapted from a feature that first appeared in August 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Image: Matt Brown

One does not simply walk into the Bank of England.

This titanic treasury is built like a fortress. It stands guard over more than £200 billion worth of gold — enough to run the entire NHS for more than a year. The Bank has other secrets to protect. It oversees payment systems, monitors financial stability, decides interest rates and guards any number of fiscal sensitivities. Its inner sanctums are very much not all over TikTok.

Happily, I’ve been invited in. The Bank’s museum is currently running an exhibition about the building’s architecture, and the curator Jenni Adam is keen to show off the real thing. Even with her generous welcome, I still have to satisfy three different gatekeepers, an ID check and a bag search before I’m allowed past the security gate-line.

I’m in for a treat. The building’s innards are rarely seen by the public. They are an essay in magnificence and embellished solidity — not dissimilar to Gringotts from Harry Potter, though without the ludicrous mine-car ride.

The architectural splendour could, and probably does, fill a book. When faced with such overwhelming riches, it often helps to zoom in on one detail. Five steps beyond the security gates brings me to the perfect candidate:

Image: Bank of England Museum

This spectacular floor mosaic is the work of Boris Anrep (1883-1969), whose handiwork you might have seen inside the entrance to the National Gallery. Anrep laid down this mosaic in the 1930s during the Bank’s reconstruction, along with dozens of other ornamentations.

One might easily stride over the mosaic without giving it a second thought. But it holds a world of symbolism. The two lions and classical column are modelled on those of the Lion Gate in Mycenae, Greece, which also guarded a treasure house.

Beneath the stone plinth, the white trace represents the south coast of England. The single red tessera, easily missed, indicates the location of Cobham in Kent, home of the modern Bank’s architect Sir Herbert Baker. Meanwhile, the top of the mosaic features two constellations: The Plough (Big Dipper) and the Southern Cross. If you use the constellations as a navigator would, then they point not to north and south but directly towards the office of the Governor of the Bank of England. I find that enchanting.

Boris Anrep wasn’t the only mosaicist to leave his mark on the Bank. Someone got there 1900 years before him. Three Roman mosaics have been discovered across the site during various phases of expansion. One of these was removed to the British Museum in the early 19th century where it’s been on permanent display ever since. One is in the Bank’s museum. But the third now forms a focal point at the base of a precipitous stairwell:

The Roman mosaic at the bottom of the stairwell. Image: Matt Brown (one of the few things I *was* allowed to photograph).

These mosaics once adorned a Roman villa on the banks of the now-buried River Walbrook. Those early Londoners could scarcely have imagined that their floor covering would, two millennia later, decorate the foundations of the world’s most famous Bank. Where will your carpet be in AD 4000?

The Bank’s physical evolution is a complicated tale. It was established in 1694, mostly because the government needed a stable source of loans to finance yet another war with France. These were humble beginnings. The early Bank operated out of rented rooms and only got its own site 40 years later when it moved into a purpose-built home on Threadneedle Street in 1734. From this nucleus, the bank expanded to eventually fill the whole block, with additions from architects like George Sampson, Robert Taylor, and especially Sir John Soane. The latter’s plan took decades to reach fruition, and we can get a sense of its scale by looking at its Minotaur-conjuring floor plan:

Note, the image is drawn with north to the left. Image: public domain

Soane was mightily proud of his financial fortress. He even had it depicted as a future ruin, as though to suggest it deserved the same reverence as the great buildings of Roman antiquity.

The Bank of England in imagined ruins, by JF Gandy, 1830.

In a prescient twist, artist JF Gandy depicted the ruined Bank on a rise, with a steep gradient to the lower left. This is exactly the spot where Bank Tube station would be hollowed out many decades later (and itself turned into a crater when a high-explosive bomb scored a direct hit in 1941).

Soane’s Bank was much celebrated, with its soaring halls and walls. Unfortunately, it would only last a century. Despite its gigantic footprint, the Bank was running out of space. Modern, taller offices were needed. And so, from 1925 to 1939, Sir Herbert Baker demolished the bewildering congeries and replaced them with the taller, more rational blocks we see today. In so doing, Soane and Gandy’s vision of the Bank of England lying in ruins was realised:

The Bank of England undergoing demolition in the late 1920s. Soane’s Rotunda can be seen centre-left. Image: Bank of England Museum.

Most of Soane’s work was undone. One exception was the mighty curtain wall, which Baker retained. The Bank of England, then, was a pioneer of ‘facadism’ — the practice of demolishing an interior but keeping the outer walls — which people do so enjoy moaning about today.

Sir Herbert Baker’s rebuild was widely slagged off by the cognoscenti. It still is. Undisputed God of Describing Buildings Sir Nikolaus Pevsner reckoned it “the greatest architectural crime to befall the City of London in the 20th century”. Ian Nairn, the equally lionised if more raffish commentator of the built environment, decried Baker’s “evil superstructure”, and thought its architect should be “indicted".

Bit harsh. A radical redesign had to happen if the Bank were to take on the challenges of the 20th century. Soane’s oldie just didn’t have the floorspace the modern Bank needed. Besides, is the replacement really that bad? I mean, look:

Image: Eluveitie, creative commons licence.

You can pompously argue about proportions and harmony and stuff, but I reckon nine out of every 10 people who look at the building will find it impressive. I still do, and I’ve passed it a thousand times. It can’t be all that bad because Historic England have given the modern Bank a Grade I listing, on par with St Paul’s and the Palace of Westminster.

The real architectural crime which, to be fair, the critics also called out, is not so much the external appearance but what was lost within. Soane’s banking halls and Rotunda were genuine marvels, all chopped down in the name of progress.

Soane’s lost rotunda. Image: public domain

Even then, all was not lost. Some of the banking halls were rebuilt in facsimile, albeit with steel frame. What’s more, you can go see them. The Bank of England Museum, along the site’s eastern edge, nestles within these replica spaces. Though not the original Soaneian articles, these are still eye-popping chambers, and almost a century old themselves.

Inside the Bank of England Museum. That lamp stand isn’t really bent. I used the panorama setting for some reason. Image: Matt Brown

But what of the rest of the Bank — the bits the public can’t normally view? These, too, have a magnificence to them. A series of grand corridors wrap around the inner perimeter, all richly marbled and embellished. Anrep’s mosaics are a constant companion as we make a clockwise circuit. They offer a monetary migration back through the ages. Each successive floor-picture depicts a coin of the realm from a different reign. Henry VIII, I learn, was the first to allow a date in Arabic numerals rather than Roman.

(I’m not allowed to take photographs of these details. Strict rules. Even the official photographer, whose images follow below, operates under restrictions.)

The corridor leads to a grand staircase up to first-floor level. Here, I’m introduced to a sequence of rooms that can only be described as ‘palatial’. These are the famous Parlours, the ornate rooms where the Bank’s most high-profile work takes place. Grandest of all is the Court Room. It’s actually a glorified meeting room where the Court of Directors hold their elevated chinwags.

The Court Room: The Bank of England's governing body, the Court of Directors meets in this room. The original design is by Sir Robert Taylor and dates from 1774. Image: Monica A. Walker Vadillo.

The Court Room is one of the oldest spaces in this temporal gallimaufry. It was originally constructed in 1774 and would look very familiar to banking bigwigs of the Georgian era. During Herbert Baker’s rebuilding in the 1920s-30s, the room was carefully disassembled, then rebuilt a floor higher.

The columns, swags and chandeliers are impressive, but nothing unusual for an 18th century grand room. What is unique is the wind dial (centre top in the image above, and zoomed-in below), connected to a weather vane on the roof:

Image: Monica A. Walker Vadillo (cropped from above)

This feature was installed in 1805 to show the Bank’s Directors which way the wind was blowing. This was no metaphor. In the early 19th century, London was the busiest port in the world, and every ship was powered by the wind. The Bank factored the weather into its monetary policy. If the wind was blowing from the east, then more ships would be making their way along the Thames into London. The docks would soon be flooded with imports, and so the Bank released more money into the economy to take advantage. A westerly wind betokened the opposite course of action. The dial has no practical function today, other than to wear out the wallpaper, but its preservation is a joy for the historically minded.

Behind the dial wall stands the First Floor Committee Room. It’s a beauty:

The First Floor Committee Room. Image: Monica A. Walker Vadillo.

This is the space where the Monetary Policy Committee, chaired by the Governor, make decisions that affect every one of us, not least the setting of interest rates. Discussions in this room are top secret. The entrance is via two sets of doors, which dissuade eavesdroppers. Note also the panelled ‘cabinet’ on the left of the photo. It’s actually a concealed fire escape.

North of the Committee Room stands something more snug. This anteroom is yet another survival from before the 20th century rebuild.

Image: Monica A. Walker Vadillo

Here, my eye is drawn to the paintings of historical London scenes. The one you can see above the fireplace shows the old Stocks Market, on the site of what is now the Mansion House across the road. It’s an image of which I’ve long been fond, and I’ll probably make it the subject of a future ‘Anatomy of a Painting’ article. Wonderful to encounter the original.

Having seen the Parlours, my tour ends. It’s been an unforgettable experience to admire these chambers of fiscal brawn. I’ve only seen a fraction of the building, however. We didn’t pop into the Governor’s office. I was not allowed to set foot in the Garden Court, an old churchyard once connected to St Christopher-le-stocks, which was demolished during one of the Bank’s extensions. Nor could I see the fabled bullion rooms, where all that auric treasure is stored.

There is one final stop on the itinerary, however. Down we go into the bowels; not to see gold bars, but bold guards. We’d been allowed to take photographs in just two locations, and these had to be checked by security. Meanwhile, clocking-off bankers walk past in lycra, for London’s most secure bicycle store is also in the basement.

It’s one of two basements, actually, beneath seven floors of office, ranging over a full block. My final question to my guide is: do you still need all this space?

The answer is yes. The Bank employs over 5,000 people and remains central to the British and world economy. None of this vast building is in mothballs. It will not end up as a Soaneian ruin anytime soon. In an age of digital currencies and virtual meetings, it’s reassuring to see that the Bank of England is as solid as ever. These walls were built to last. (Twice.)

VISIT: The Bank is normally closed to the public (other than a counter for exchanging old banknotes just inside the doors). However, very occasional tours are arranged usually as part of Open House weekend.

MUSEUM: The public can, however, get a splendid taster of the wider banquet by visiting the Bank of England Museum along Bartholomew Lane. (Free, Mon-Fri)

EXHIBITION: Visit the museum in the next few months and you can view the Building the Bank exhibition. This explores the demolition of Soane’s bank and construction of Baker’s replacement. You’ll also be able to see Roman artefacts discovered on site.

All aboard! The London Bus Museum hosts another of its wonderful free heritage bus days in October. Image: © David Bowker

All aboard for free vintage bus rides this October!

London Bus Museum's semi-regular heritage day returns on Saturday 3 October 2026, when buses dating from the 1930s-70s ply a short stretch of the 106 route, pinging between Finsbury Park and Ash Grove Bus Station on Mare Street. Stops along the way are Stoke Newington, Clapton and Hackney Central.

How does it work? Simply show up at one of the bus stops on the route above, between 10am-5pm. Soon enough a vintage bus — most are Routemasters and their predecessor the RT-type, but you never quite know what you might get — will scoop you up.

Some services have a conductor on board too, handing out facsimile tickets. (Just be aware that if you board a modern TfL service on the route that day, you'll need to tap in and pay a fare.)

And the fun doesn't end there. Ash Grove Garage is hosting a 45th anniversary open day, giving you a chance to snoop behind the scenes. There's a small entry fee, with proceeds going to Macmillan Cancer Support.

London Bus Museum Route 106 Heritage Day, Saturday 3 October 2026, approx 10am-5pm, free.

Note that because of the buses' vintage, they're unable to accommodate wheelchairs and most modern buggies, although crews will make every effort to accommodate the less able and those with small children.

All aboard! The London Bus Museum hosts another of its wonderful free heritage bus days in October. Image: © David Bowker

All aboard for free vintage bus rides this October!

London Bus Museum's semi-regular heritage day returns on Saturday 3 October 2026, when buses dating from the 1930s-70s ply a short stretch of the 106 route, pinging between Finsbury Park and Ash Grove Bus Station on Mare Street. Stops along the way are Stoke Newington, Clapton and Hackney Central.

How does it work? Simply show up at one of the bus stops on the route above, between 10am-5pm. Soon enough a vintage bus — most are Routemasters and their predecessor the RT-type, but you never quite know what you might get — will scoop you up.

Some services have a conductor on board too, handing out facsimile tickets. (Just be aware that if you board a modern TfL service on the route that day, you'll need to tap in and pay a fare.)

And the fun doesn't end there. Ash Grove Garage is hosting a 45th anniversary open day, giving you a chance to snoop behind the scenes. There's a small entry fee, with proceeds going to Macmillan Cancer Support.

London Bus Museum Route 106 Heritage Day, Saturday 3 October 2026, approx 10am-5pm, free.

Note that because of the buses' vintage, they're unable to accommodate wheelchairs and most modern buggies, although crews will make every effort to accommodate the less able and those with small children.

Image: Matt Brown

The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield is exceptional, by any definition.

Londoners will be familiar with Dr Johnson's House, the small museum tucked away in the courtyards north of Fleet Street. It's fun to explore, and contains a few surprises, such as a chunk of the Great Wall of China.

Fans of the wordsmith and dictionary compiler will, however, find a much more rewarding experience at the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, the building in which he was born, and lived for the first few decades of his life. It's not in London, but in the small Staffordshire city of Lichfield. You should visit. Both city and museum are lovely.

Image: Matt Brown

Samuel Johnson first entered this world on 18 September 1709 in an upstairs room of a house in Market Square, Lichfield. We can pinpoint the spot to a few metres, because the museum labels this space as the birth room:

Dr Johnson was born in this room. Obviously, he wasn't a doctor yet. Image: Matt Brown

Johnson would go on to spend much of his first 27 years in this family home (before riding down to London with the actor David Garrick, where both would find enormous fame). This is the building in which he learned to walk and talk, and possibly pen his first words. The infant Johnson probably stuck his head up that fireplace, and smeared snotty fingers on those window panes. He would go on to better things.

The house, built in 1707, is a joy to explore. Five floors of Johnsonian memory, some decorated in fancy Georgian style, others crooked, exposed timber frame. The upper floors look down on the market place, where a statue of Johnson now stands. Young Samuel must have gazed out on this square a million times, never guessing his stone likeness would one day be part of the scene.

Johnson's room now looks down on a statue of the big man. Image: Matt Brown

The museum is itself historic, having opened on the site in 1901. Many of the rooms are restored to Georgian look and feel, and occasionally enlivened with Johnson's own furnishings, including a roomy armchair and one of his writing desks.

The upper floors are charmingly crooked and wattlesome. Image: Matt Brown

Johnson achieved A-list celebrity status in his lifetime, which means many of his personal possessions have been saved. Those on show at the museum include his walking stick, writing desk, teapot, prayer books, cup and saucer, knife and fork… even his shoe buckles.

When a man is tired of looking at Dr Johnson's personal effects, then he is tired of life. Image: Matt Brown

The house also has a fingerable copy of the dictionary, so you can look up rude words and discover if he really did leave out 'sausage', as per the Blackadder episode.

Leafing through Dr Johnson's dictionary (a modern copy). Image: Matt Brown

Speaking of which, that's the one aspect that both the London and Lichfield Johnson houses miss out. Neither one mentions Robbie Coltrane's portrayal of Dr Johnson in the 1980s comedy.  

That memorable episode probably did more to re-popularise Dr Johnson and his work than anything from school history or literature classes. The museum should put on a mini-exhibition forthwith — we'll do anything we can to "facilitate their velocitous intramuralisation".

Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum is free to visit, and can be found in the market place at Lichfield. The fastest trains from Euston take 1 hour 12 mins.

Asquith Xavier is now honoured with a Blue Plaque outside his former Notting Hill home. Image: English Heritage

On the first day he arrived in London from the Caribbean island of Dominica in 1958, Asquith Xavier started working.

The 38-year-old Windrusher started out as a porter for British Railways at Marylebone Station, but his work ethic, and popularity among customers, ensured he was soon promoted to train guard — the first Black person to serve as one in Britain.

But something stood in the way of Xavier's next career move. In 1966 when he applied for a transfer to Euston Station, he was rejected, the staff representatives refusing to accept "coloured staff" in public-facing roles. Such unofficial 'colour bars' were both common, and grossly ironic, given that Windrushers had been coaxed to British shores in order to help rebuild the 'mother country'.

Xavier tussled with the powers that be at Euston, to become the staton's first Black train guard. Image: willnoble13, All Rights Reserved

Xavier — who died in 1980 — refused to accept the decision, and worked with a union representative to bring the story to national attention. Eventually British Railways was forced to overturn its decision. Perhaps the divisional manager of the London Midland region of British Railways who spoke at the subsequent press conference should have thought twice before suggesting that "staff representatives as Euston were not really anti-colour so much as pro-white...". We'll leave that one there.

Not only was Xavier awarded the job — becoming the first Black railway guard to work out of Euston Station, on 15 August 1966 — he was given two months backdated pay. "This is my happiest day since I arrived in England eight years ago," Xavier told the press, as he arrived for his first day on the new job 50 minutes early.

Meanwhile, British Railways announced that future job opportunities in London would no longer be closed on racial grounds. This was not, of course, the end of racial discrimination in London's workplaces (indeed, Xavier was the recipient of a number of anonymous abusive letters). But a powerful stand had been made; a big step forward taken.

"Whatever he did, he did it for compassion." Image: English Heritage

"Whatever he did, he did it for compassion," remembered Xavier's daughter, Sandra St John in 2023. "Because he cared about people." This was at an event in which the late Xavier had an Avanti West Coast Pendolino train named in his honour.

In August 2026, he received another honour — an English Heritage Blue Plaque unveiled at his former Notting Hill home on Ledbury Road. Said English Heritage senior historian, Howard Spencer: "Asquith Xavier's story is a powerful reminder that ordinary people can have an extraordinary impact. He was not seeking to become a campaigner or public figure.

"His fight began with a simple desire for a fair opportunity to support his family, but it became a landmark moment in Britain's struggle against workplace discrimination."

Image: Matt Brown

Adapted from a feature that first appeared in August 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Carnaby Street, in the popular imagination, will forever look like this:

May not be an actual historical photo.

Along with King’s Road in Chelsea, the Soho street was the epicentre of the Swinging Sixties; a place that screamed “this is how to be young and trendy” not just for London, but for the world.

That story is oft-told. You’ll find it written up all over the web. I won’t say another word about it. Instead, I want to nudge our neurons towards Carnaby Street before the Swinging Sixties. After all, five-sixths of its history played out before the arrival of Quant, Jagger and Lennon.

It began with plague pits. One of the earliest maps we have of the area comes from John Strype’s Survey of London, published in 1720. Here’s how Carnaby Street is presented:

Image: public domain

You can see Carnaby Street running north-south to the centre-left, with Kings Street (now Kingly Street) parallel to the west. But the eye is drawn more keenly to the oblong of woe marked “Pest-house Fields”, and its adjacent burying place. A pest house was a building in which the sick were isolated, in this case during the 1665 plague. The burying place was where many of them ended up. The despair and suffering on this site must have been immense.

Today, this patch of land could hardly be more alive. The bars, shops and restaurants of Newburgh Street, Foubert’s Place and Lowndes Court are so densely boutiquated that they’ve spawned their own marketing catchall: ‘The Newburgh Quarter’. It has a better ring than ‘The Old-plague Quarter’.

One of the entrances into the ‘Newburgh Quarter’ from Carnaby Street. The 18th century buildings (Grade II listed) were built on land once occupied by pest houses. Image: Matt Brown

The first buildings near the future Carnaby Street, then, were a series of pest houses for quarantining the sick. 36 of these were built during the plague year by William, Earl of Craven, whose own house was nearby on Drury Lane. Despite his name, Craven was one of the few nobles to remain in London during the worst days of 1665. He must have personally superintended the building of the pest houses on his land, and we might therefore declare him the unwitting father of Carnaby Street. He’s not really remembered in Soho today, though for a time the Carnaby area had a Craven Hall, Craven Chapel and Lord Craven’s Arms pub.

Right after the plague came the Great Fire. It didn’t get close to these parts, but the mass destruction of homes and businesses in the City stoked demand for new premises in the West End. Rapid development ensued and Soho was among the first areas to feel the march of bricks.

Carnaby Street itself sprung up around 1685, when the developer Richard Tyler built a number of dwellings and the larger ‘Karnaby House’ on the east side. It was named presumably after a Carnaby/Karnaby family, though there is a touch of onomastic mystery on that point. Tyler would also construct the parallel King Street (now Kingly Street) around the same time, as well as the adjoining cross streets. Among the first residents, so the London Encyclopaedia tells us, were a number of Huguenot immigrants, who’d recently fled Catholic France.

Strype, whose map we saw above, also gives us the first description of the street, from the same 1720 work:

"Carnaby Street is an ordinary street, which goes out of Silver-street [now Beak Street], and runs northwards almost to the Bowling-ground. On the east side of this street are the Earl of Craven's Pest Houses, seated in a large piece of ground, inclosed with a brick wall, and handsomely set with trees, in which are buildings for the entertainment of persons that shall have the plague, when it shall please God that any contagion shall happen."

Strype’s ‘survey’ had been many years in production, however, and it’s possible the pest houses were long gone by 1720.

From these beginnings, and ever after, Carnaby Street was a place of trade. 18th century references paint a picture of the diverse work going on here. We find various butchers, a dealer in Dorchester beer, a linen seller, a looking-glass and picture-frame maker, a mahogany warehouse, an upholsterer, a poulterer, a shoemaker, a ‘chymist’ (a quack pharmacist) and many others. From at least 1732, part of the area east of the street, on the former pest ground, was referred to as Carnaby Market.

We can see this market labelled on the John Rocque map of 1746 as “Marlborough or Carnaby Market”. The market space is divided over two pockets, the last remnants of the old pest fields. Beyond the market, the burial ground of St James’s — subterraneanly teeming with plague victims — is still intact. It would be built over in the early 19th century.

John Rocque map of London 1746, colourised by Matt Brown.

We’re looking at the streets known to Canaletto. The celebrated artist lived just around the corner from Carnaby on Silver Street (now Beak Street) from 1746, and he often displayed his paintings at home. Rocque may well have visited. Canaletto moved out nine years later, and just missed the arrival of another great artist.

William Blake (born 1757) took his first breath on Marshall Street, just metres from Carnaby Market. The natal nexus is now covered by a tower block called William Blake House. Both Blake and Canaletto appear on the left-hand side of the Spirit of Soho mural, which is easily Carnaby Street’s most interesting feature today.

Canaletto’s glazed plaque on Beak Street. Image: Matt Brown.

Like any busy street in Georgian London, Carnaby saw its fair share of the grim and grisly. The street was the scene of a notorious murder in 1737. A Thomas Mudd got into an argument with his wife Ann, during which “she snatch’d a Knife from her Side and stabb’d him through the Back, upon which he dropp’d down dead”. Wilful murder was the verdict. Ann Mudd was later dragged through the streets on a hurdle and burned at the stake at Tyburn. The Daily Gazetteer notes that she “behaved very penitent” at the execution site. Other accounts, however, say she was “insensible” as the horrible fate unfolded. She was just 22.

Other tragedies are not hard to find on 18th century Carnaby Street. In 1739, a Mr Stalley shot himself through the head with a “fowling piece”, or shotgun. Such weapons have long barrels. The fatally ingenious Mr Stalley got round this by tying his garter to the trigger, and then pulling its other end with his foot. Bizarrely, a second man took his own life using garters the following year, this time hanging himself in the stables of a local pub, the Lord Craven’s Arms. A few years later (1747) an unnamed butcher’s boy “had the Misfortune to fall down in the Slaughter House with a large Knife in his Hand, which run into his Belly and ripped it up, so that his Bowels came out”. Needless to say, he died.

Carnaby Street seems to have seen off its residents to a particularly brutal rhythm. In 1750, a Mr Hyndes was beaten near death with hammers. In 1751, a young lad was shot in the back by a plumber. In 1753, a man dropped dead after attempting to dash to Hampstead and back in record time. In 1755, a butcher ate a hearty breakfast, and then “stabbed himself in three places”, dying immediately. It was relentless.

We could cherrypick such misadventures all day long. In truth, Carnaby Street was no more monstrous or ill-fated than any other busy street of the era. Such things were part of life in Georgian London. Besides these occasional episodes, the street remained a relatively quiet backwater.

The 19th century brought more of the same. Carnaby was still “an ordinary street”, as Strype had put it; not exactly impoverished but nor was it a place where you’d spy many top hats. Modest would perhaps be the right word. Charle’s Booth’s seminal ‘poverty map’ at the end of the century paints the street in the muted red to indicate ‘Poor and comfortable (mixed)’, with small pockets of ‘Poor’ in what’s now the Newburgh Quarter. This was essentially a street of tradesmen and shopkeepers. Oh, and pubs. At least seven could be found along the street in the 1880s.

The street’s lowest point came in 1854, when a cholera outbreak swept across Soho. It would ultimately kill around 600 locals. This was the epidemic famously mapped by Dr John Snow. His chart will be familiar to many readers — it’s reproduced in countless books on the history of London. Here it is again; I’ve coloured Carnaby Street in a putrid green.

John Snow’s map of cholera deaths, 1854. Image: public domain.

Every black mark on the map indicates one death from cholera. As you can see, the chief cluster is on Broad Street (now Broadwick Street). Dr Snow believed, correctly, that cholera was transmitted by infected water. His map pointed to the Broad Street water pump as the source of the disease, and it was later discovered to be faecally tainted. Carnaby Street, just a minute’s walk from the pump, was less affected. It had its own pump to the north. Once again, however, we find bad tidings for the ‘Newburgh Quarter’, where over 30 deaths were recorded. This was history repeating for the former pest-lands.

But now for something completely different. The end of the century saw construction of a power station on Carnaby Street. Yes, a power station, decades before Austin Powers. The St James's and Pall Mall Electric Light Company’s massive facility took up much of the south-east of the street. Built in the 1890s, it boasted a pair of 60-metre-tall chimneys which looked quite alien on the Soho streetscape. A man fell to his death down the middle of one of these in 1902.

The power station closed in the 1920s, but the building lingered on unto the very eve of the Swinging Sixties. Though now long demolished, part of the site was converted into a substation, which famously sports one of London’s most arresting sculptures.

The giant plug socket (street lamp to the bottom-left for scale) of Ganton Street is a reminder of the site’s history of electricity supply. I’m not sure what the exotic birds betoken. Image: Matt Brown

Aside from the hum of turbines, Carnaby Street still had little buzz about it as the 20th century dawned. It continued as a street of trade, with occasionally seedy corners. The area experienced mixed fortunes during the Second World War. Most of the street was undamaged by bombing, and numerous buildings still survive from the 18th century. However, the southern part around the electricity station took a clobbering.

The street’s modern reputation for music, fashion and youth culture really began in 1936, when the Florence Mills Social Parlour, named after the late singer, opened at number 50, opposite the power station. This restaurant and jazz venue was set up by Marcus Garvey, Amy Ashwood, and the calypso singer Sam Manning. It soon became a key social centre for the Black community, and a hub for discourse around Pan-Africanism. The venue then went through a number of evolutions, becoming the jazz-focussed Club Eleven, then the Sunset Club, and later the Roaring Twenties, where both the Beatles and Rolling Stones played gigs.

Meanwhile, the first boutiques were blossoming. Among them, from 1957, was John Stephen’s His Clothes. This store is often cited as the well-spring of the Carnaby revolution. It proved so influential to men’s fashion that it today carries a plaque. "He made Carnaby Street,” said Mary Quant of John Stephen. “He was Carnaby Street."

She was talking metonymically. Stephen made Carnaby Street synonymous with fashion, but he didn’t make Carnaby Street itself. As we’ve seen, this short road already had almost 300 years of history behind it. This isn’t a glamorous history, nor a momentous one. But the area’s gradual transformation from a plague-ridden backwater, from the bubonic to the iconic, from mass graves to bass grooves, is arguably more fascinating than Swinging London phenomenon itself.

The V&A hosted an exhibition dedicated to Winnie the Pooh in 2017. Image: V&A Museum

Alan Alexander Milne, the Londoner best known as AA Milne, is more often associated with Hartfield in East Sussex than the big city. Yet, he and his ursine creation Winnie the Pooh have plenty of links to London — let's take a wander through them...

AA Milne's birthplace: Kilburn

Image: David Howard, Creative Commons

Milne was born in Kilburn in January 1882. His father John Milne ran Henley House School at 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Mortimer Crescent), so Milne was a student there and was briefly taught by H.G. Wells. He also lived at the school, which was destroyed by a V1 in the war. Remsted House, part of the Mortimer Estate, has now taken its place at the junction of Mortimer Place and Kilburn Priory.

Westminster School and AA Milne

AA Milne attended Westminster School. Image: Anthony O'Neil, Creative Commons

Milne attended Westminster School from 1893 to 1900. After his death, he bequeathed a one quarter share of the copyright of Winnie the Pooh to the school, which remains the largest benefaction given to the school to this day. Today, the school's AA Milne Society oversees all gifts, distributing funds for things such as scholarships, bursaries and building improvement work. One of the school's houses is named Milne's in his honour.

AA Milne plaque in Mallord Street, Chelsea

Image: Matt From London, Creative Commons

When Milne was discharged from the military in 1919, he moved into a house in 13 Mallord Street in Chelsea, just off King's Road. It now has a blue plaque on it and is Grade II listed. It went up for sale in 2013. When Milne first moved in, he was writing for Punch magazine, but while at the house he wrote poetry for his son Christopher Robin (who was born there) and found that his talents lay elsewhere. Milne owned the house until 1942.

Melina Place, St John's Wood

5 Melina Place, in the shadow of Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, is where artist E.H. Shepard lived until he retired to West Sussex in 1955. During his career he illustrated the Winnie the Pooh books. Shepard's Melina Place home was put up for sale in 2012, and appears to have since been subdivided into multiple properties. The house bears no plaque or nod to Shepard's time there.

AA Milne and London Zoo

One of two Winnie the Pooh statues at London Zoo. Image: Matt From London, Creative Commons

Ever wondered where the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh came from? Winnipeg was a black bear given to London Zoo in 1914 by a Canadian regiment called up to fight at the trenches in France. AA Milne used to take his son Christopher Robin to the zoo, and began telling stories about Winnipeg. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, there are two statues in the zoo dedicated to the literary bear — the one pictured above, and another showing Winnipeg hand-in-hand with a soldier. Parts of film Goodbye Christopher Robin were filmed on location at London Zoo in 2017.

More on Winnipeg the bear here and here.

AA Milne in the London Evening News

Pooh's first appearance was in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve 1925, in a story called The Wrong Sort Of Bees. Began the story:

This is Big Bear, coming downstairs now, bump-bump-bump on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't. Anyhow, here he is at the bottom, and ready to be introduced to you. Winne-the-Pooh.

AA Milne at the British Film Institute

As well as his children's books and work for Punch magazine, Milne wrote four stories for Minerva Films which were filmed in the 1920s (at least one of them at Bushey Studios in Hertfordshire). Some of these films survive in the BFI archives today, including The Bump and Five Pounds Reward.

Lovers in London by AA Milne

Lovers in London (1905) was Milne's first book, a series of fictional sketches, although he himself wasn't happy with it, and later in his life chose to identify his 1910 book The Day's Play as his first book.

As the title of his debut work suggests, it makes use of several London locations including St James's Park, Battersea, Finsbury Park, Victoria Park, Piccadilly and more.

AA Milne and the Lyric Theatre

Milne's animal writings weren't limited to anthropomorphised bears and their friends; he adapted Kenneth's Grahame's 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows into Toad Of Toad Hall for the stage. The first performance of this adaptation is reported to have taken place at the Lyric Theatre on 17 December 1929 (other reports claim the first performance was four days later, in Liverpool, and that the production didn't make its West End debut until December 1930).

AA Milne and the Garrick Club

Image: No Swan So Fine, Creative Commons

As well as Westminster School, The Garrick Club Charitable Trust was another of the four beneficiaries of AA Milne's literary estate, though in 2001, the Club sold its part of the estate to the Disney Corporation. Milne had been a member of the club and, to this day, a room in the Covent Garden building is named the Milne Room in his honour.

AA Milne and Sotheby's

In 2008, a collection of E.H. Shepard Winnie the Pooh illustrations sold for more than £1.2m at the London branch of Sotheby's auction house. 10 years later, Shepard's original map of the Hundred Acre Wood — familiar to many from the inside cover of childhood books — sold at Sotheby's for £430,000.

Winnie the Pooh at the V&A

Winnie the Pooh came to the V&A in 2017. Image: V&A Museum

In 2017-18, the V&A in South Kensington hosted Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring A Classic, an exhibition exploring the partnership between AA Milne and E.H. Shepard in bringing the books to life. Exhibits included sketches, cartoons and more recent uses of the characters, including a Winnie the Pooh fashion range launched by Cath Kidston.

AA Milne and Buckingham Palace

"Alice is marrying one of the guard". Image: KirkandLynn_photos, Creative Commons

In Milne's book of poems When We Were Young, published in 1924, a work called Buckingham Palace reads:

They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
Alice is marrying one of the guard.
"A soldier's life is terrible hard,"

says Alice

Christopher Robin of course is Milne's son. Alice refers to Olive Brockwell, the nanny who cared for him as a child. When he went off to boarding school aged nine, she married a man named Alf Brockwell. Christopher Robin Milne dedicated his 1975 memoir, The Enchanted Places, to "Olive Brockwell. "Alice" to others, but "Nou" to me".

The links between Winnie the Pooh and Buckingham Palace strengthened in 2016, the 90th birthday year of both the bear and the late Queen Elizabeth II. A new book, Winnie-the-Pooh and the Royal Birthday, was released to mark the occasion, though of course original author AA Milne wasn't around to see it.

Winnie the Pooh art in Yonge Park, Finsbury Park

Look up high to see it. Image: Geoff Holland, Creative Commons

Most people wandering down the residential Yonge Park in Finsbury Park completely miss it. But if you ever find yourself here, cast your eyes to the eastern side of the street and look up. You'll need to look very carefully as it's ever so tiny, but at the top of one of the houses is a charming painting of Winnie the Pooh holding an umbrella, followed by Piglet.

The reason for its existence can presumably be attributed to a whimsical homeowner, as the address bears no known links to AA Milne's world. As of September 2025 it was still in situ, having been there for at least 14 years... and long may it stay.

Mr Sanderz' grotto at Syon Park

Mr Sanderz's grotto at Syon Park in 2009. Unfortunately it's no longer there. Image: Matt From London, Creative Commons

For a few years, west London's Syon Park was home to a replica of Mr Sanderz' house — AKA Winnie the Pooh's own home. Pooh "lived under the name of Sanders" (also variously spelt "Sanderz") in the Hundred Acre Wood, having moved into the tree stump vacated by the previous resident. The name "Mr Sanderz" was carved over his door, an imitation of which was mounted at ground level of Syon's trees, made all the more magical by the inclusion of a tiny chair and other details.

Sadly the door was removed a few years ago, and hasn't been replaced, but a similar replica can be found near Pooh Sticks Bridge in the real Hundred Acre Wood: the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex.

AA Milne's life beyond London

In 1924, AA Milne bought a country home in Hartfield, East Sussex, near to a spot now known as Pooh Corner, and his family moved there from Chelsea. Milne died at that residence, Cotchford Farm, in 1956.

These days, Cotchford Farm is a private residence, though very occasionally the gardens open to the public.

AA Milne and All Hallows-by-the-Tower

After Milne died, he was given a private funeral. But shortly afterwards, a memorial was held at City church, All Hallows-by-the-Tower, alongside the Tower of London, to allow fans to mark his passing.

Not one, but four, Samuel Pepys tours take place on 4 September. Images: public domain

Ask anyone to name a London diarist, and the answer is near-unanimous: Samuel Pepys.

Though the 17th-century naval clerk and Tory MP only kept a diary for nine-and-a-bit years, that was plenty of time to open a visceral window into the London of that era, both fascinating and problematic; indeed Pepys himself was involved in the slave trade, and gave unwanted attention to women.

His diary is most famous of all for documenting the ravages of the Great Fire of London, which ignited in the early hours of 2 September 1666. Pepys was already documenting it in his journal by mid-morning that day: "By and by Jane comes and tells me that she hears that above 300 houses have been burned down to-night by the fire we saw, and that it is now burning down all Fish-street, by London Bridge."

To remember Pepys — and to mark the anniversary of the Great Fire  — City of London Guides are having another Samuel Pepys Day on Friday 4 September 2026.

Pepys kept his diary for just over nine years. Image: public domain

Two different walking tours leave at five-minute intervals starting out from the City Information Centre, St Pauls Churchyard from 12pm, with the last departure at 12.22pm:

"To the Exchange and Beyond" heads eastwards, taking in the places, people and incidents from Pepys' life — and ending at the site which sparked the Great Fire broke out.

"To the Wedding Cake and Beyond" heads westwards to Pepys' place of baptism, early childhood and the areas where he socialised, dined and went to the theatre.

Both 2024 and 2025 were sell-outs, so we'd advise booking in advance. Proceeds from tickets go to the Lord Mayor's Appeal.

Samuel Pepys Day tours, Friday 4 September 2026, £15

Tube trains could've had wooden wheels. Image: Phillip Ridlen, Unsplash License

"Screeeeeeeeeeeee!"

The toe-curling squeal of steel alloy wheels grinding on Tube tracks is enough to make you leap up from your moquette seat and yell: "ARE WE SURE WE'VE TRIED EVERYTHING, PEOPLE?!"

Londoners in 1930 were going through the same frustrations. By this time, cast iron wheels had been ditched in favour of steel, but the grinding of metal on metal often remained insufferable.

And then an inventor by the initial-heavy name of A. A. D. Lang suggested he might have the solution: wooden wheels.

Lang was no crackpot. A successful inventor, he'd created a laminated wooden propellor built up via layers of thin wood. After five years of tinkering, his company, Lang Wheels, introduced a similar design for wooden wheels, created by layering discs of wood on top of one another, and cementing them firmly together. "Each layer," explained the Herald of Wales, "is composed of six sectors of specialy [sic] chosen spruce, so arranged that the grain of each sector runs in a different direction. The layers are placed on top of one another in such a way that the joints between the sectors of one do not coincide with those of the other."

Image: from the Herald of Wales, July 1930, courtesy of Newspapers.com

As well as being lighter and less noisy than steel, the wheels were supposedly 'immune to moisture or heat', plus there was a suggestion they were actually more resilient than steel. Lang had already shown off the strength of his wheels during War Office trials for gun carriages, held in Woolwich. The wheels had been run on tracks for a distance of 192 miles, before being subjected to machine gun fire and shelling. After which, they were still fine.

Interest in Lang's wheels was understandably high, and test wheels were made for the London Underground Railway and London Tramways, as well as for the Manchester Corporation. Mr Murray Griffiths, Director of the London District and Underground Railways, hailed the invention as "A wheel that will wear, and that will obviate the terrible noise we now experience in our towns." Griffiths went on to say he was quite satisfied that the wooden wheels would go on to be used on the railways.

Wooden wheels never became a thing. Image: Ketut Subiyanto, Pexels License

Meanwhile, Lang challenged the Central London Railway to stick a mic in one of its carriages to record the noise, before refitting the carriage with one of his wooden wheels and doing the same again.

These were thrilling times for screech-phobes. So what happened with Lang's wooden wheels? Well, we're not entirely sure. The records fall silent about the experiments. Perhaps subsequent tests saw the wheels crack, splinter, catch fire or all of the above. The whole 'machine gun fire' thing did sound incredulous after all. As far as we know, wooden wheels were never properly, well, rolled out on the London Underground.

Lang Wheels carried on regardless; in 1933 they diversified into the fairground and theme park game, quickly trebling its workforce to manufacture roundabouts, dodgems, autodromes and the like. The screeching from those riding on such contraptions would have matched the wheels on any Tube train. But at least in this case, the passengers were having fun.

Adapted from a feature that first appeared in August 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

This is actually a sculpture, on a quiet road near Canary Wharf. Image: Matt Brown

9 December 1868 is a doubly important date in world history. In the city of Breslau in Prussia, Fritz Jakob Haber vacated his mother’s womb and settled down for his first feed. 40 years later he would develop the ammonia-producing Haber process, which now feeds half the planet (through fertilisers), and kills vast numbers of people (through explosives). Haber was, arguably, the most consequential scientist of all time.

On the same day as his birth, the world’s first traffic light was unveiled in Westminster.

It was a spectacle. The contraption behaved like a railway signal, but towered six metres (20 feet) over the carriageway, with a trio of four-foot arms and a glowing headpiece, “like a dovecote”. Here’s a press image from the time:

The Westminster street semaphore, from the Illustrated Times, 16 January 1869. Copyright the British Library Board via the British Newspaper Archive.

This “frightful monument,” as one letter-writer saw it, was quite alien, like something from the pages of HG Wells (though not yet; he was currently toddling around his parents’ china shop a few miles away in Bromley). It might have been a “gratuitous hideousness” (another letter-writer), but the street semaphore was sorely needed.

Victorian London was a crazed clopjumble of horse-drawn traffic, all vying for progress along the ill-paved streets. The rules of the road had yet to be codified. Nobody indicated. Nobody had assumed priority. It was a dung-scented free-for-all.

Well, not quite. The busier junctions enjoyed the superintendence of a policeman. The short arm of the law would bend, stretch, and beckon, to let drivers know when it was their turn to proceed. It must have been a hellish job. Many policeman were injured amid the vehicular maelstrom.

One junction had a particularly bad reputation. This is the one where Parliament Street runs into Parliament Square and the approach to Westminster Bridge… the junction nearest Big Ben. It’s still a wretched grimfest today, but back in the 1868 it was a right old snarl up. Two Members of Parliament had recently been injured trying to cross on foot, while a traffic policeman had been killed earlier in the year. The spot was chosen, then, for Britain’s (and the world’s) first traffic lights.

A “dreadful portent”

The brains behind the scheme was John Peake Knight, a respected superintendent on the South Eastern Railway. Knight had a simple idea: that signals like those used on the railways might also tame London’s road traffic.

His experimental apparatus was duly installed at the Westminster junction, roughly where the Winston Churchill statue stands today. It did not look much like a modern traffic light. For daytime operation, a semaphore system could start and stop the traffic by the raising or lowering of mechanical arms. Only at night, when red- and green-filtered gas lamps were used, did the system look the part. None of this was done automatically, of course. A policeman still had to stand on the island and operate the device, and he was usually backed up by more than one colleague to help further manage the flow with gesticulations.

Should you accidentally ‘quantum leap’ into the body of an 1860s coachman, then you’ll need to know how to understand the signal. Happily, this contemporary information sheet has survived in the archives:

Richard Mayne, whose name appears at the bottom, was head of the Metropolitan Police… or, at least, he was for a few more days. He died at the end of December 1868 while the trial was still ongoing. Image: Public domain.

Simply put, you were free to guide your vehicle forwards unless both arms were in the horizontal, or the red signal lamp was illuminated. Notice that the sign mentions a pedestrian crossing. This was actually the whole point of the exercise. This first traffic light was a binary: either it was on to all vehicles or off to all vehicles. The arms could not be moved independently. During the ‘stop’ phase, all traffic halted and pedestrians were able to cross (in all directions) safely. During the ‘go’ phase, traffic would proceed in all directions, with some orchestration from a policemen. You’d be mad to try and cross on foot.

The traffic lights had some initial success. "The regular town drivers are fairly, and to quite an unexpected extent, amenable to the signals," thought the Illustrated Times, soon after the lights were installed.

A plaque to John Peake Knight near the Westminster junction he tried to tame. Image: Matt Brown

Others were more skeptical. One commentator, on approaching the “Dreadful Portent” from Westminster Bridge, asked his driver what it was. “Another o' them fakements put up to wex the poor cabbies,” came the reply. A more serious limitation was the manpower needed. The signal still required a police presence. The lights and semaphore reinforced the hand gestures of the constabulary, but didn’t replace them.

Appearances aside, these early traffic lights were simply not good enough. Many drivers did not understand what the angled semaphore blades were supposed to indicate. Others ignored them. The technology often broke down. In January 1869, a gas leak caused an explosion at the base of the semaphore, badly burning the face of the police operator.

The lights lingered on for a few more months, but constant breakdowns and general ineffectiveness led to their removal by the end of the year. Semaphore systems were adopted elsewhere, but London would not see further signalling for many decades. The roll-out of traffic lights in London was proving to be a stop-start affair.

The first electric traffic lights

Regular readers may recall that London’s first traffic island was supposedly installed at the top of St James’s Street in 1864. Remarkably, London’s first electronic traffic lights were anchored to that very same spot.

Eight sets of lights were placed along Piccadilly — between the Circus and Clarges Street. They were switched on on 3 August 1926, to coincide with the remodelling of traffic flow in Piccadilly Circus. Much as today, London’s first lights had three colours: green to go, red to stop, and amber to be ‘ready for a change’. This time, London was behind the curve. Electric traffic lights had been in limited use in the United States for over a decade by this point, and numerous European cities had also dabbled.

The locations of London’s first eight traffic lights, as deduced from newspaper reports of the time. The blue house symbol represents the control booth on St James’s Street. Image: Matt Brown in Google MyMaps.

Circuitry wasn’t yet reliable enough for an automatic system. Rather, the lights were overseen by “a perspiring policeman in full uniform, including helmet,” perched inside a grey, glass-fronted booth on St James’s Street. The poor fellow would sit there squinting down the road, pushing buttons for hours on end, and sequentially scrolling through the phases on each signal.

These light signals were not for the direct benefit of drivers. Rather, they were intended as cues for the regular traffic police, who were stationed at each set of lights, to perform the customary gestures. This was, after all, an experimental system, and motorists had no previous experience at obeying coloured lights. The chief benefit was that one man could now coordinate the entire street, rather than the existing anarchy of independent junctions.

A policeman on point duty at Piccadilly Circus in 1911. Image: public domain

The Piccadilly lights were of limited success. Traffic flow was judged to be improved, but the mixture of a beckoning human and a guiding light caused confusion. The police on point duty could not always see their lights, which then as now were hooded. “A hundred times a day, drivers are waved out of Bond-street into Piccadilly be the policemen on point duty, although the signal at the corner is set to danger," reported the Evening News one month into the trial. “Similarly, a hundred times a day drivers see the green and think all is well for straight ahead, and find that the policeman will not let them pass”.

These mixed messages, and the sheer cost of employing so many members of His Majesty’s Constabulary on traffic duties (around 1,300 across town at any given time) meant that moves towards a fully automatic system were inevitable. London was again slow to adopt such a system. Detroit had automated lights as early as 1921, and the technology was widespread in North America by the end of the decade. Meanwhile, various towns across the UK, including Hastings and Wolverhampton, held their own trials before London.

The first large-scale system in central London was installed in Trafalgar Square in 1933. It was surprisingly sophisticated. The lights were informed by pressure sensors on the road surface, which relayed information about traffic levels on different approaches. Drivers were even given filter arrows, which allowed traffic to turn from the National Gallery onto Charing Cross Road, even though other directions were on ‘red’. These pioneering lights had their teething issues, but were quickly deemed a success. 14 police officers were reassigned from traffic duty.

Trafalgar Square is today notable for its novelty pedestrian lights, which feature various designs inspired by Pride and the LGBT+ community. This one has a subtle heart between the figures. Image: Matt Brown

Automatic lights enjoyed their finest hour in November 1937, when “the biggest unit of traffic signals in the world” was installed at Piccadilly Circus. The “robot master mind” controlling the junction was officially named “Little Eva”. This box of wonders received signals from nine detectors on approach roads, and could vary the phase times according to demand. It was estimated at the time that Little Eva would save some £3,600 a year on police time, and provide a smoother flow as well. Pedestrians were an after-thought. According to one news report: “The loud speakers of a police car continually barked: "Use the subways, they are safer!" but few people did so.”

From that point on, it was a big green GO for traffic lights in London. They spread across the city and country like a tricoloured rash, and remain a key part of road infrastructure today.

Now, there’s an unwritten rule of feature writing that your final paragraphs should always include a call-back to the opening paragraphs. How on earth am I going to pivot back to Fritz Haber? Well, watch this manoeuvre…

Another of those early traffic light set-ups was placed at the corner of Southampton Row and Russell Square at some point in 1932-33, during measures to disentangle an experimental one-way system. It was at precisely this time that Fritz Haber made a series of short visits to London. He almost certainly stayed in the Russell Hotel, right next to the traffic lights.

Long-time readers of this newsletter will know how important this particular set of traffic lights proved to be. It was here, also in 1933, that one of the most important thoughts in human history took place. While on his way to the Russell Hotel (the same one Haber used), the physicist Leo Szilard paused at the crossing to wait for the traffic to stop. It was then that he had a ‘Eureka moment’ in which he conceptualised the nuclear chain reaction — the process that would lead to both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Szilard is therefore a rival to Fritz Haber as the most consequential scientist who ever lived. One was born on the same day as the traffic light, and the other was inspired by one. Like the road-traffic control network, everything is connected.

After that unhinged conclusion, I’ll sign off with some music. Behold, this uplifting ode to traffic lights by Monty Python:

Some serious monkey business went down in London late in 1926. Image: Matt Brown/Bob Brewer via Pexels

Yes, you did read that right. The hijinks-laden escapade of 13 monkeys — all members of a travelling 'jazz band' — really did happen in London, 100 years ago.

The place: Notting Hill. The time: Friday 19 November 1926. Thieves break into the premises of 'amusement caterer' Mr T Murphy on Latimer Road. They're about to get more than they bargained for.

Spying a wooden, coop-like structure, they crack open the door, expecting a hen or two to waddle out. Instead, out pour 13 more-than-cheeky monkeys. The alarmed thieves scarper. So do the monkeys – making for the rooftops, then on to nearby Latimer Road station, where they entrench themselves beneath the railway arches/platform.

The monkeys, by the way, are pro musicians. In town for an engagement at the World's Fair, to be held at the Agricultural Hall on Christmas Eve. Reports do not suggest they take their instruments with them as they flee. (When you're on the lam, a drum kit is not your best friend.)

One monkey broke into a confectioners, troughing a pound of peppermint creams. Image: Phil Beard, Creative Commons

Keeping up with the rambunctious escapades of the monkeys isn't easy — especially as newspapers give slightly differing reports as to their names, crimes and whereabouts. But in a roundabout way, here is what unfolds:

🙊 From their makeshift Latimer Road lair, the escapees sally forth with all manner of monkey business — frightening old ladies, breaking into homes, yanking off roof tiles, tearing down curtains and making frequent raids on grocers' shops and stables ("One this morning was observed sitting on a horse's back"). Snookums, a cymbalist, helps himself to cigarettes. The drummer, Jennie (or Jenny or Jeannie, depending which report you read), ransacks a local sweetshop, troughing a pound of peppermint creams. She is caught soon after by "an old army man who had been in Singapore and understood monkeys".

🙊  The mood is not so humorous as it is threatening. Any attempt to approach the monkeys is met with a volley of banana skins and nutshells. One monkey finds a tobacco pipe and "puffed this while he gazed with scorn at his would-be captors." Another — or perhaps the same psychotic simian — "clutched at a hammer and brandished it with threatening intent."

🙊 Three of the sax players head to Notting Hill Gate station, where they take up residence and hurl chunks of wood at children.

🙊 "Smart little trumpeter" Issacs lets himself into the bedroom of a Mrs Harris of Mersey Street and her baby, almost scaring the former to death. "Issacs," writes the Province, "has already established a reputation for 'frightfulness' in the area".

🙊 Another monkey plays Santa, by sliding down a succession of chimneys (well it is almost Christmas). A woman taking tea spots the be-sooted monkey on her dresser and faints, the tea tray crashing to the floor. The monkey nicks a slice of bread then scarpers back up the chimney. "Another woman who has lived with her window open for ten years," writes the Courier and Advertiser, "has now nailed it up".

🙊 Reports from startled locals files steadily into police stations: "Latimer Road indeed has an endless supply of jungle tales." Mr T Murphy receives bills left, right and centre for everything from stolen chocolates to broken crockery, It's a wonder he doesn't suffer a nervous breakdown.

A photo of one of the captured primates (which one exactly we're not sure). Image: British Newspaper Archive

🙊 A group of the monkeys (reported as seven, but possibly six otherwise the figures don't add up) get hungry and bored, and are easily lured back to their cages.

🙊 Two more monkeys are captured the next day, as is Issacs.

🙊 That still leaves four: Bimbo, a drummer; cymbal crasher/cigarette snatcher Snookums; Sandy (specialist instrument unknown); and Franko, the band's leader — a dab hand with the baton, and described by the Daily News as "a saxophonist with ambitions for a cabaret career in the West End". Franko is worth over £100, and the show can't go on without him, says Mr T Murphy. A £25 reward is offered for his capture.

🙊 Some 20 people are now part of the hunt for the remaining fugitives: station staff, police, livid shopkeepers, bounty hunters. Traps are set, but the monkeys are wily/quite violent. The press know a good story when they see it. "I went monkey hunting in Notting Hill yesterday," writes an excited reporter for the Daily News.

🙊 Snookums is eventually captured, although not before an acrobatic display around Latimer Road station, which crescendos with him biting the hand of his captor.

🙊 Franko is spotted jumping on the roof of a Paddington-bound train (some say he boards the train), before vanishing into the night.

🙊 Meanwhile, Mr T Murphy receives a telegram from Tom Norman, a travelling showman at the Saracen's Head in Rugby:

Monkey captured here this morning, after doing considerable damage, for which I shall expect you to pay. Am sending him passenger to Euston.

It's Bimbo! In RUGBY ffs! And Norman has managed to bag him up in a sack, and send him back to London. Writes the Guardian: "The monkey, looking cold and crestfallen, struggled vigorously when the guard led it on a chain to the Parcels Office. It took three porters to hold it down while press photographers secured a 'snap'".

🙊 Fears grow that Franko and Sandy may have perished from exposure. But then, on 27 November, the Daily Express reports that Sandy has demonstrated that very morning that such reports are exaggerated, "by sitting on a pile of logs in a wood yard... and hurling lumps of wood at the custodian." Classic Sandy.

🙊 After this, the reports peter out. Was Sandy ever captured? And what became of Franco? We like to think that, as the Lancashire Daily Post suggested, he made it to Paddington and the Cornish Express, on which he journeyed to the softer climes of the English Riviera, living happily ever after. Hard to swallow perhaps, but then so too are the previous 1,000 words.

Image courtesy First Rail London

Four new community roundels have been installed at Bethnal Green station.

Head over to Bethnal Green station (the Overground one, not the Underground) and you'll find that it's been decorated with four eye-catching roundel mosaics.

Each one was pieced together at community workshops with contributions "from babies as young as six months old to residents aged 85".

The mosaics are inspired by the Weaver line, which runs through the station and is itself named for the rich textile history of the area. Look closely at the artworks and you'll see numerous references to Huguenot weavers, bobbins, warps, wefts and looms.

Image courtesy First Rail London

The roundels also weave in references to other features of the area, such as Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, the Museum of Childhood and even local bus routes. Some of the tesserae namecheck local notables such as textile designer Anna Maria Garthwaite and boxer Daniel Mendoza.

The project was overseen by Maud Milton of Artyface, who has created mosaic roundels for numerous Overground stations. This batch were created with the help of First Rail London (who operate the Overground on behalf of TfL), Good Shepherd Mission and Young V&A.

Image courtesy First Rail London

These are such joyous objects, which not only look gorgeous but also involve local communities. We can only hope that similar creations one day beautify every station on the network.

Adapted from a feature that first appeared in August 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

A cartoon from 1831 lampooning bus travel. Image on display at London Transport Museum, photographed by Matt Brown

Should you ever find yourself miraculously transported back to pre-Victorian days, then you will assuredly want to ride on one of the new-fangled London omnibuses, recently introduced by Mr George Shillibeer (see the previous article).

These early buses came with their own codes of conduct, just as today we all habitually stand on the right-hand side of escalators and give up our seats for those in greater need (well, some of us do).

In January 1836, The Times codified these rules for their readership. Here they are, with my own comments in square parentheses.

The Laws of the Omnibus

The omnibus could get a little cramped. To reduce conflict, a set of norms and courtesies developed. This engraving is from 1859, some 30 years after the first omnibuses. Image: Public domain

1. Keep your feet off the seats.
[Still a good one to observe. In the 1830s, feet would have been all the dirtier, thanks to a preponderance of horse dung.]

2. Do not get into a snug corner yourself, and then open the windows to admit a northwester upon the neck of your neighbour.
[To this day, I occasionally hear cries of ‘can you shut the window please’ on the top deck in wintertime.]

3. Have your money ready when you desire to alight. If your time is not valuable, that of others may be.
[A forerunner of the message played in Tube elevators that reminds us to have ‘Oyster Cards, tickets and PAYG cards ready for the barriers’. Omnibuses, it seems, charged passengers at the point at which they got off.]

4. Do not impose on the conductor the necessity of finding you change; he is not a banker.
[Typical fares were a shilling or 6d. Most passengers would have coins to these values in their purse. Bank notes were not normally used for day-to-day transactions at this point.]

5. Sit with your limbs straight, and do not let your legs describe an angle of forty-five, thereby occupying the room of two persons.
[Is this the first description in recorded history of manspreading?]

6. Do not spit upon the straw. You are not in a hog-sty, but in an omnibus, travelling in a country which boasts of its refinement.
[If this vehicle is so refined, you might ask, then why is there straw on the floor in the first place? It functioned as a renewable floor covering, which could be swept out and replaced once it had got too claggy with mud and horse dung. Spitting was not uncommon in Regency and Victorian times thanks to high rates of smoking and snuff use. I suspect that the sooty fogs of the age would also have irritated the airways, encouraging a surfeit of phlegm.]

The Victorians were not known for succinctness. This verbose ‘No Spitting’ sign is from a railway, but similar signs might have appeared on the omnibus. Image: Matt Brown

7. Behave respectfully to females, and put not an unprotected lass to the blush because she cannot escape from your brutality.
[Shudders.]

8. If you bring a dog, let him be small and confined by a string.
[Lapdogs only. Early omnibuses could be cramped spaces, so not an acceptable domain for a mastiff. Modern London buses allow dogs of all shapes and sizes, but they must be kept on a lead and off the seats.]

9. Do not introduce large parcels; an omnibus is not a van.
[Worth remembering if you were going to try and sneak your friend on in a crate.]

10. Reserve bickerings and disputes for the open field. The sound of your own voice may be music to your own ears—not so, perhaps, to those of your companions.
[A rule still observed to this day on the Tube, where even the most nugatory comment is frowned upon. Silence is golden. Not so on the buses, where you’re now almost guaranteed an intense auditory experience on the top deck.]

11. If you will broach politics or religion, speak with moderation; all have an equal right to their opinions, and all have an equal right not to have them wantonly shocked.
[Can we have that one over on social media today, please?]

12. Refrain from affectation and conceited airs. Remember you are riding a distance for sixpence which, if made in a hackney-coach, would cost you as many shillings; and that should your pride elevate you above plebeian accommodations, your purse should enable you to command aristocratic indulgences.
[The 19th century equivalent of moaning that the Piccadilly line is not as swish as the Heathrow Express.]

1929 replica of an 1829 Shillibeer omnibus, at London Transport Museum. Image: Matt Brown

Modern Omnibus Law

Given that these instructions are now approaching their 200th birthday, it’s high time that someone updated them. Here, then, are my rules for catching a bus in 21st century London:

1. Do NOT form an orderly queue at the bus stop. That is for provincials. Instead, stand where you will, and examine your phone until the bus arrives.

2. If your bus is taking a long time, do not consume 50 bottles of Smirnoff and arrange them mysteriously in groups of five behind the bus shelter… unless you’re in the village of Bedfont near Heathrow, where this seems to be a thing:

Image: Matt Brown

3. DO say hello to the driver. It gives them an enormous sense of wellbeing to ignore you completely, but at least you made the effort.

4. Do not try to pay with cash. It is an unheard-of commodity on the London bus. Travel cards will work, but you’ll immediately mark yourself out as a tourist. Even Oyster cards and debit cards are passé these days. Smartphone or smartwatch payments are the overwhelming norm.

5. Do not offer to show your ticket to the conductor. No London bus has employed a conductor for decades. If you do see a conductor, then either you’ve just consumed 50 bottles of Smirnoff, or it’s a ghost.

6. Select a seat somewhere towards the middle-back. The options nearest the driver are for those who most need a seat. The benches nearest the middle doors are for those looking after buggies or wheelchairs. The back seat is reserved for troublemakers. This leaves just a handful of seats, and so you may want to head upstairs.

7. If heading upstairs, stay as far from the back as you can. The rear five rows are typically taken by passengers who like sharing their music with the whole bus.

8. The front-top seats are reserved for younger passengers who might “pretend to drive the bus”.

9. The bus will inevitably pause five minutes from your destination “to regulate the service”. It is expected that you will emit a mild groan at this juncture.

10. Always ring the bell if you’d like the bus to make a stop. Without a bell, drivers will studiously not stop, and will even accelerate if they can see that people are agitating to get off.

11. Shout “Thank you driver!” as you effect your egress. This once neglected custom has seen a resurgence in London in recent years. And, despite my joshing, bus drivers are among the great unsung heroes of London, and deserve our thanks.

The ill-conducted Conductor

A horse-drawn double-decker from much later (circa 1890) at the London Bus Museum (actually in Surrey at Brooklands). Image: Matt Brown

In 1841, The Times followed up their Omnibus Laws with two new lists. One set out the behaviours of a ‘well-conducted conductor’ and the other essayed the habits of an ‘ill-conducted conductor’. The first list is essentially a ‘good’ version of the second, so here I reproduce only the six hallmarks of the bad busman:

An ill-conducted conductor…

1. Always bawls out “Bank—Bank—City—Bank—Bank—Bank—City—City—Bank—Bank—Bank!” by which disgusting noise his own lungs are injured, the public peace is disturbed, and not any advantage gained.
[Modern buses are pretty good at giving out just the right amount of information. “The next stop is…” and “This is the 107 service to New Barnet”. The Tube, however, still favours an exhausting onslaught of safety messages. See it. Say it. Sorted.]

2. Always bangs the door so violently that if you are sitting next the door you are likely to be deafened for life.
[No such thing as automatic hydraulic doors in the early Victorian period. Manual slam-doors only. I am old enough to remember slam doors on trains, however.]

3. Never provides any check-string, but compels the passengers who want to be set down to use their sticks, canes, and umbrellas, and loud shouts into the bargain, thereby creating a most intolerable nuisance.
[The check-string was a simple mechanism whereby the pull of a cord would ring a bell, alerting the driver to stop… much like the buzzer-bells on modern buses.]

4. Always takes up and sets down his passengers in the middle of the street; by which rudeness they are sometimes bespattered with mud and always exposed to danger.
[Some omnibuses had check-strings on either side of carriage; passengers would pull the appropriate string to indicate which side of the road they would like to set down on. This was possible because doors were typically at the back of the bus, rather than on one side.]

5. Always stands at the door of the omnibus staring in upon the passengers, particularly after he has been eating his dinner of beefsteak, strong onions, and stale beer; and generally has some cad or other crony standing and talking with him. The air that would otherwise circulate through the omnibus, in the way of ventilation, is obstructed and poisoned.
[London’s buses have their problems today, but I think we can all be grateful that the menace of the beefy-breathed conductor haunting the rear window is a thing of the past. The engraving near the top of this article shows one such man.]

6. Always bawls out “All right!” before the passengers have taken their seats, by which gross carelessness, great inconvenience and even danger are often occasioned.
[This still happens today. We’ve all been on buses that have moved off before new passengers have sat down, only for a tumble to ensue. I’ve seen it happen to a parent carrying a baby.]

Adapted from a feature that first appeared in August 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Image: Matt Brown

They say you should always look up in London. But not too far. Leave the rooftops for the pigeons and chimneysweeps. Instead, cast your eyes to the first floor (second if you’re American). Here you’ll find a neglected, orthogonal catalogue of shop signs clamouring for attention on the high street.

Most of today’s signs are humdrum. Every Pret, Poundland and Paddy Power has its perpendicular glowing herald, thrusting out from the brickwork. They’re little more than eye-clutter. Occasionally, though, you’ll find an individualistic gem, like this cheesy pendant in Seven Dials:

Image: Matt Brown

The dominion of the hanging sign has always been bossed by pubs. Their flapping nameplates remain one of the visual joys of London, even if many characterful pub signs have been lost or blandified in recent years. Here, I can’t help intruding on the text-flow to share a few of my favourite pub signs from around London:

The Old Nick in Holborn. That’s Niccolò Machiavelli, by the way. Image: Matt Brown

The Adam and Eve in Mill Hill, included mostly because I’m not entirely sure which one is Adam and which one Eve. Image: Matt Brown

The Chancellor in Hammersmith has two Tudor boffins anachronistically teaching Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence. Image: Matt Brown

The Three Kings of Clerkenwell. The chosen kings are Elvis, King Kong and Henry VIII. This is the pub's old sign. The current one is more tame. Image: Matt Brown

Hanging signs can rise to immortality. Many of the evocatively named passageways of London take their names from lost pubs, which in turn were named for the images on their hanging signs. Witness Hanging Sword Alley off Fleet Street, or Hen and Chickens Court, or Magpie Alley, all in the same area. In the case of Elephant and Castle, an old pub sign eventually denominated a whole neighbourhood.

Creative hanging signs today are nowhere near as ubiquitous as once was the case. Traditionally, almost every business of quality had its own, unique sign. This was a necessity at a time when most of the population could not read. Pictorial identifiers were easy to spot, and could be reproduced on business cards. Find me at the Crown and Three Sugar Loaves, you might say to your illiterate buddy. Or, as Gandalf tells the hobbits, “I’ll be waiting for you at the Inn of the Prancing Pony.” I don’t think that was London, though.

Hanging signs have been around forever, usually marking taverns. But they got a fillip during the reign of Charles I, who commended them “for the better finding out such citizens’ dwellings, shops, pubs or occupations, without impediment, molestation, or interruption to their heirs or successors.”

Thereafter, businesses of all types began to adopt signs. These might occasionally bear some relation to the trade carried on within: a bunch of grapes for a wine shop, for example, or a golden boot for a shoemaker. More often than not, though, the sign had only cryptic relevance, or none at all. Signs were often passed down to succeeding tenants, who might not carry on the same trade as the previous occupant. Sometimes, a merger could precipitate a fresh sign, with unusual combinations like the Sheep and Dolphin, or the Bell and Neat’s Tongue. (I recall a pub in Greenwich, long gone, called the Frog and Radiator… though that is clearly of more recent vintage.)

Almost all barbers still display a striped pole sign, even those named after barber-immune footballers. The three golden balls of the pawnbroker is another surviving example. Image: Matt Brown

The practice of decorating your shop front with an imaginative hanging sign seems to have withered in the 18th century for a number of reasons; and one of those reasons was numbers. Door numbers. They began to creep in around mid-century as a more rational means of identifying properties. The population was also becoming more literate, so the old pictograms were now merely charming rather than necessary.

Hanging signs could also be dangerous. In 1718, a sign came loose on Fleet Street, bringing down a fair amount of brickwork with it. Two young ladies, the king’s jeweller and cobbler were supposedly killed by the falling masonry. That, at least, is the story regularly repeated in books and websites. It may well be true, although I’ve been unable to find an account of this disaster written before 1810, almost 100 years after it purportedly happened.

After incidents like that, the decline and fall of the hanging sign was inevitable as well as literal. An Act of Parliament in 1762 called for the withdrawal of hanging signs on the grounds that they were dangerous. From that point on, shop signs were supposed to be fixed parallel to the wall, rather than cantilevered out over passing heads. I don’t think this was rigorously enforced for long, however, as a quick scan of old photographs and drawings confirms.

If you seek classic hanging signs today, head to Lombard Street in the Square Mile. This features a sequence of evocative signs, none more photogenic than this auric grasshopper:

Image: Matt Brown

The grasshopper, as any Londonophile will know, was the personal sigil of Thomas Gresham (you can see his initials on the hanging sign). This wealthy Tudor banker founded the Royal Exchange (above which another grasshopper presides) and set up Gresham College in his will. He also maintained a goldsmiths on Lombard Street from 1563, hence the date on the sign.

Is the sign itself that old? Does it predate the Great Fire?

Sadly, I don’t think so. A newspaper article of 1844 notes that the building had a grasshopper sign “as late as 1795, until the erection of the present building, when it disappeared”. A similar tale of absence is told in the Illustrated London News of 13 June 1857. For most of the 19th century, then, there was no grasshopper dangling over Lombard Street.

The first clue that the grasshopper had returned comes from an 1892 account which states that the insect is “the sign which still decorates Martin’s Bank”. My reading is that the original sign was long vanished, and Martin’s Bank hung a replica in the late 1880s… though, of course, it’s possible they found the original in storage.

Lombard Street contains more dangle-treasures than this superannuated grasshopper. Further signs depict a fiddling cat, a golden anchor and a king’s head.

Image: Matt Brown

These also look proper ancient but, in fact, they’re 20th century pastiche. 23 mock-Georgian signs were placed here in 1902 as part of the celebrations for King Edward VII’s Coronation procession, as a “unique and historical” decoration. This street had a long association with hanging signs. It was here, for example, that the black horse still used by Lloyd’s Bank has its genesis. It originally hung over a goldsmiths — a popular trade on Lombard Street — but made a suitable rebus for Barnett’s, Hoares & Co. Bank who took over the building. Lloyd’s absorbed this bank in 1884 and appropriated the sign.

Lombard Street's traditional signs had mostly vanished by 1902, but local banker and antiquarian Frederick George Hilton Price hit upon the idea of reviving them as a “unique and historical” decoration for the King’s big day. His book The Signs of Old Lombard Street provides many details about the signs, including the pastiche ones he helped to erect. These are listed below:

From The Signs of Old Lombard Street

As you can see, the Grasshopper is listed among them. This was one of the few signs that was not pastiche, though as mentioned above, this iteration had only been on show for a decade or two.

Sadly, the signs were only considered temporary and the Corporation of London took most of them down the following year. Now only four remain. Perhaps we should bring them back again. I’ll add it to my list of ideas for the Great Exhibition of London of 2051… which I hope to be around to see.

In truth, I think hanging signs are making a modest comeback. I’ve noticed a rise in imaginative signs of late, including a hanging typewriter in Shoreditch, a pendant bulldog at Two Temple Place (indicating the Bulldog Trust charity), and this menacing set-up on the Lord Napier pub in Hackney Wick:

Artwork by the street artist Phlegm. Image: Matt Brown

Meanwhile, Camden High Street has long been famous for its giant fibreglass signs. Doc Martens, Chinese dragons, anthropomorphic fruit and women of negligible clothing all lean out from the brick terraces.

And then we have the Dog and Pot sign on Blackfriars Road. This is a replica, installed about a decade ago, of a sign Dickens recalled seeing here as a 12-year-old in the 1820s.

Image: Matt Brown

As the resurgence of the hanging sign gathers momentum, we should remember that they can still constitute a public nuisance. ⬇️ This is the Duke of York in Fitzrovia ⬇️ — the pub where Anthony Burgess was once mugged, in an incident that inspired the Droogs in his A Clockwork Orange. Until recently, its hanging sign depicted another character of dubious quality:

The Duke of York in Fitzrovia a few years ago. The sign is now gone. Image: Matt Brown

The Duke of York recently stopped swinging. The sign was removed in early 2025. The pub has new owners who are not willing to trade under their predecessor’s sign. And thereby hangs a tale.

The British Optical Association Museum is one of over 40 places taking part in 2026's Heritage Open Days. Image: Matt Brown/Londonist

An eye-opening museum stuffed with glasses, a bat walk through a cemetery and a trip to an integrated waste management facility.

All feature as part of the Heritage Open Days taking place this year, running from 11-20 September 2026.

In all, we've counted 44 London-based happenings this year, at the city's museums, palaces, mills, churches, cemeteries and various other cultural nooks and crannies. It's all free, and a lot of events don't even require pre-booking.

Venture into Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park in search of bats. Image: Torsten Reimer, Creative Commons

Here's a selection of events ruffling our truffles:

♻️ "Let's all take a trip to Southwark Integrated Waste Management Facility!" said no one ever... until now, that is. This family-friendly 'Wonder Day' shows you what happens to your recycling once it's taken away, plus there are upcycling and craft workshops; a display of vehicles that work on-site; and a bouncy castle. (12 Sept)

🐟 Visit the moated manor at Scadbury, replete with excavations of Tudor great hall and kitchens. (12-13 Sept)

📻 The place we once suggested might be the best shed museum anywhere, Dulwich's British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum is also home to the terrifying Stooky Bill (12 and 20 Sept)

🦇 Bat expert Kenneth Greenway bids you to bring a torch, in order to light your way through Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park in search of resident bats. (13 Sept)

👓 The British Optical Association Museum is "the only museum where the exhibits look at you!" We visited recently, and would highly recommend this eye-opening experience. (13 Sept)

♀️ From organists to bellringers, and scientists to suffragettes, discover the stories of the women connected to St Alfege Church through the centuries. (20 Sept)

All Heritage Open Days events are free to visit/do, but you'll need to book in advance for some. Peruse the calendar and plan from there.

Mid-September also sees the separately organised Open House Festival (12-20 Sept), which has now published a rundown of 600+ venues/tours which opening to the public.

Heritage Open Days, 11-20 September 2026.

Adapted from a feature that first appeared in July 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Lyme Regis is the place for fossils. Visit the Dorset town at low tide and I guarantee you’ll find something, even if you couldn’t spot a goose in a bath tub. The ammonite fossil shells are unmissable. I had my first prehistoric encounter within seconds of gaining the beach ⬇️:

It’s easy to get blasé about fossils, but just consider this for a few seconds. It was once a living creature, and died, perhaps, 70 million years ago. Now imagine some as-yet-unevolved animal sharing photographs of your remains 70 million years from now. Quite a thought. Image: Matt Brown

Lyme Regis is justly famous for its fossils, and for the work of fossil hunter Mary Anning (1799-1847). Anning and her brother Joseph made some stunning finds on this stretch of coast, including important examples of ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pterosaurs.

Her life story is very well told above the beach at the superb Lyme Regis Museum, which stands on the site of her house and fossil shop. But the museum also draws us into the lives of other remarkable women associated with Lyme Regis. Jane Austen, for example, set much of Persuasion in the town. Meryl Streep brought it to the big screen in the adaptation of The French Lieutenant's Woman. And before you even reach the museum door, you must step over the the legacy of a famous London businesswoman, Eleanor Coade:

Image: Matt Brown

Eleanor Coade (1733-1821) made fake stone. She was really good at it. The curly forms in my photo above are not real ammonites, and nor are they sculpted. These are Coade-stone casts, and they are very convincing.

Coade stone was a revelation in the late 18th century. Others had made artificial stone before, but Eleanor perfected a recipe that was durable and weather-proof. Its chief advantage over real stone was that it could be poured into a mould, then fired until it became hard. Statues and architectural ornaments could now be mass produced without the need for expensive chisel-hours.

Georgian London was awash with Coade stone, and you can still find examples all over the city. The most famous is surely this dazzling white lion who guards Westminster Bridge. I hope I’m looking as robust as this when I approach my 200th birthday:

Coade-stone lion of Westminster Bridge. Image: Matt Brown

Eleanor Coade was a serial entrepreneur. By the mid-1760s (still in her early 30s) she was running a linen drapers in the City of London. By the 1770s, she was directly managing the artificial stone factory in Lambeth. You don’t need me to tell you how rare it was for a woman to run a business in the 18th century, let alone a highly successful firm with royal warrants to both George III and the Prince Regent. Coade must have been exceptionally skilful to overcome the male gatekeepers of the time, even with wealth on her side.

Incidentally, the ‘recipe’ and firing technique for Coade stone were lost in the 1840s after the factory closed down. Only in recent years has it been revived. The ammonite pavement at Lyme Regis Museum is one such modern example.

The museum didn’t choose Coade stone arbitrarily. Eleanor Coade had strong links to the area. She was born a little to the west in Exeter, into a wealthy Devon/Dorset family. She would later move to London, but also maintained an enviable bolt-hole in Lyme Regis. Here it is:

Image: Matt Brown

It’s called Belmont because it’s beautiful (bel-) and practically on a mountain (-mont)… or, at least, the biggest hill in the exceptionally hilly Lyme Regis. It also happens to be adjacent to the long-stay car park, for those of weaker leg.

Coade was given the recently built house by her uncle in 1784, to be used as a holiday villa. The various urns, quoins, swags and rustications you see in my photo are all made of Coade stone. Belmont was as much a product showroom as a seaside retreat.

Belmont had another celebrity occupant in more recent times. It was here that the novelist (and former Londoner) John Fowles lived from 1968 until his death in 2005. And it was here that he finished writing The French Lieutenant’s Woman, which includes Belmont as a setting.

Eleanor Coade’s wider story is well told inside the museum, and numerous accounts can be found online (Katie’s is particularly good, and gives many examples of where to spot Coade stone in London; meanwhile, Historic England has a map of Coade across the country). But Eleanor Coade is just one famous Londoner to have links with this part of the Jurassic Coast. Let’s meet another.

The foundling father

Recognise this fellow?

Image: public domain

This is Thomas Coram (1668-1751), as painted by his friend William Hogarth. Coram may have saved the lives of more Londoners than anyone outside the medical professions. It was he who, in 1739, set up the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury. This charitable institution took in, cared for, and educated an estimated 25,000 vulnerable children over its two centuries of operation. Most were orphans, or came from families unable to cope with another child. Without Coram’s charity, many would have died.

Coram’s own early childhood was spent in Lyme Regis, and also involved parental loss. His mother died in 1671, when the boy was just three. His father, probably a master mariner, packed him off to sea aged 11. He eventually washed up in Massachusetts, where he pursued various maritime trades for the next two decades. He did not arrive in London until 1704, but thereafter became a dogged campaigner for children’s welfare. Coram poured everything into his foundling project, often at personal expense.

“Dear old Coram died in 1751 a complete pauper,” wrote our old friend John Fowles, more than two centuries later. “Every penny of his fortune had been ‘lost’ in the hospital. Lyme has more famous names attached to it, but none of kinder memory”.

Coram’s links with Lyme are limited to his early childhood, but his formative years, tinged with the tragedy of his mother’s death, must have been important in the shaping of his character. The museum devotes a small display to the good captain, including these buttons and dolls from the Foundling Hospital.

Image: Matt Brown

The Foundling Hospital moved out of London in the 1920s, and eventually closed in the 1950s. The original site in Bloomsbury is, however, still devoted to child welfare. Here you’ll find the Coram charity, which serves as an adoption agency and advisory centre. Next door is the Foundling Museum, which tells the story of Coram and his young charges. It also displays important works of art, including the March to Finchley painting that was the subject of a recent newsletter. A large open space is now the Coram’s Fields Playground, which adults can only enter ‘if accompanied by a child’.

Henry Fielding’s despicable behaviour

Our third noted Londoner is perhaps the most famous. Henry Fielding (1707-1754) was a prominent judge who set up the Bow Street Runners, London’s first attempt at a professional police force. He was also a playwright and novelist, best known for the highly influential Tom Jones (1749), though I’d give him more credit for writing a parody of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, puntastically called Shamela.

The grown-up Fielding was a leading light of both judiciary and proto-constabulary, but the youthful Fielding seems also to have dabbled in villainy. How else to explain this Lyme Regis plaque?

Image: Matt Brown

The plaque marks a narrow path called Long Entry, and records that here, in 1725, the novelist Henry Fielding attempted to abduct Sarah Andrew. What gives?

Fielding, aged 19, was spending the summer in Lyme Regis where he met distant cousin Sarah Andrew (then aged 15). She was an elegant young heiress on the cusp of a vast inheritance. He had a profile like a bottle-opener, and a wallet that was more accustomed to crumbs than currency.

Later accounts relate how Fielding had fallen desperately in love with the heiress. His attempts to woo her, though, were thwarted. Sarah was under the guardianship of her uncle Andrew Tucker, who hoped to see her married to his own son John Tucker. Fielding was an annoying rival.

Things came to a head one Sunday in November 1725. Sarah and the Tucker family were on their way to church (the same one, incidentally, where Mary Anning would be buried in the following century). One street away, Fielding and his servant grabbed the young lady and attempted to spirit her away. Mr Tucker was having none of it, and fought off the attempt on his niece.

Tucker went to the Mayor with his grievance. A surviving record states that Fielding and his man were “bound over to keep the peace, as he [Mr Tucker'] was in fear of his life or some bodily hurt to be done or to be procured to be done to him by H. Fielding and his man. Mr A. Tucker feared that the man would beat, maim, or kill him.”

Fielding fled town to avoid prosecution. As a parting shot, he posted a sour public notice, which still survives in Lyme Regis Museum:

Image: Matt Brown

The note reads: “November 15 1725. This is to give notice to all the World that Andrew Tucker and his son John Tucker are Clowns and Cowards. Witness my hand Henry Feilding [sic].”Clearly, there’s more to this episode than the scraps of documentation disclose. Was Fielding really trying to abduct Sarah, or was that Tucker’s spin on a more orthodox street confrontation? What was Sarah’s side of the story? Why did Fielding view Tucker as cowardly?

We may never know. The experience — whatever its true nature — certainly left a lasting impression on Fielding. His novels and plays are littered with kidnappings. As a judge, meanwhile, Fielding would go on to preside over many cases of abduction, including the famous mystery of Elizabeth Canning. Lyme Regis had left its mark on Georgian London’s pre-eminent judge and novelist.

I began with Mary Anning and I’ll finish with Mary Anning. The great fossil hunter had only tenuous connections with London (though many of her best fossil discoveries now hang in the Natural History Museum). As a woman of the early 19th century, she was barred from joining the learned societies of the capital, though she did correspond with many of the leading lights. Anning spent almost all of her time in Dorset, contributing much to our understanding of ancient life and the vastness of geological time. Tragically, her own time was to be short. Anning died of breast cancer aged just 47. Had she lived another 12 years, she would, I’m sure, have been utterly thrilled to see the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, which finally made sense of the “endless forms most beautiful” that she had chiselled from the rocks.

Thanks to a campaign by locals, she now has a statue on the Lyme Regis seafront. Lovely though this is, her real tribute is down in the ammonite beds of low tide. To paraphrase Christopher Wren’s tomb in St Paul’s “If you seek her monument, look around you”.

Limpets shelter in the remains of an ammonite shell. Image: Matt Brown

You wait ages for one vintage Routemaster, and then 25 turn up at once. Image: Peter Hendy, with permission

What's that coming over the hill — is it a 'master, is it a 'master?

Actually it's over 25 Routemasters. This is Imberbus — the annual parade of double-decker London buses from Warminster to Chitterne — via Salisbury Plain and a collection of bucolic villages, including Imber (hence the event's name).

Ohh, a green one. Image: Shutterstock

The uncanny sight comes with a backstory to match. Residents of the small village of Imber in Wiltshire were turfed out of their village by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1943 so the land could be used for military exercises. They were promised their village back at the end of the war. That never happened.

You may spot the odd modern Routemaster too. Image: Imberbus

Fast forward to a tipsy conversation in a Bath pub in 2009, some schmoozing with the MoD's top brass, and the concept of Imberbus was born. Imber may not have any residents, but by heck, it was going to have a (once-annually) bus service.

Imberbus has since ballooned into a cult event, some bus fanatics even coming from overseas to take part.

You ain't seen nothing quite like Imberbus before. Image: Imberbus

So, how DO you take part? All you need to do is get to Warminster station in Wiltshire on Saturday 15 August 2026. Trains from Paddington to Warminster take as little as 1 hour 35 minutes.

Not the usual view you get from a London bus... Image: Ed Webster via creative commons

The 2026 timetable is now live, with the first vintage Routemasters of the day running from Warminster to Imber at 9.30am, and then throughout the day every 15 minutes or so until late afternoon.

On arrival at Imber, some buses from Warminster will carry on to Gore Cross, then either to Brazen Bottom and the Lavingtons or to Tilshead & Chitterne. Extra buses link Tilshead, the Lavingtons, Gore Cross and New Zealand Farm Camp.

In the pretty village of Chitterne. Image: Imberbus

There are various landmarks, events and refreshments to get stuck into, including Imber Church, Caspers Cafe at Warminster Station, the village halls in Tilshead and Chitterne, and the refurbished Market Lavington Museum.

London's urban sprawl is getting ridiculous... Image: Imberbus

Day tickets for Imberbus are £10 (children ride for just £2). This allows unlimited rides, allowing you to try different buses, and stop off in various villages along the way. There's no need to book ahead — in fact you can't. Buses only accept cash, although you can purchase tickets from a special desk at Warminster in the morning using a card/contactless. Cash machines are also available in Warminster Market Place, five minutes walk from the rail station.

In recent years, the event has raised tens of thousands for the Imber Church fund and the Royal British Legion, so your cash is going to a good cause.

Battle bus! Image: Imberbus

By the way, cars, motorbikes, cycles, scooters and pedestrians are NOT permitted access to the military roads on Imberbus day, so don't try to join in that way.

Imberbus, Saturday 15 August 2026.

Image: Robert Lamb, Creative Commons

The surprising connections between London and Norway.

We've all heard of Tooley Street, the characterful road that slots between the Thames and London Bridge station. But did you ever wonder about the name? Turns out it's Norwegian.

Tooley Street is a corruption of St Olave's Street. Try saying it fast. It comes out something like S’Tooley Street. We can see this gradual change from Olave to Tooley on old maps.

St Olave's was a prominent church on the south bank, next to London Bridge. Here it is in the 16th century 'Agas map', where it's labelled as St Tovolles.

Image via Layers of London.

The St Olave remembered in the church's name, and in Tooley Street, was Olaf Haraldsson, an 11th century King of Norway. Before he became king, Olaf/Olave/Olav helped Æthelred the Unready to recapture London from Danish forces. According to legend, Olaf's men tied ropes to the piers of London Bridge, then pulled away until the span collapsed, thereby weakening the defenders who had heavily fortified the bridge.

The history is murky, but Olaf's Thames adventure possibly formed the origins of the nursery rhyme 'London Bridge is Falling Down'.

Olaf went on to become not only a King in his own right, but also a Saint, thanks to his work in converting Norway to Christianity. At least five London churches were dedicated to his memory, including the one beside London Bridge and the one to the east of the City noted for its connections to Samuel Pepys.

This was arguably Norway's most important contribution to London's history, but the Scandi nation has always held close ties with the capital.

🇳🇴 Another medieval figure who loomed large over London was Cnut, famous for commanding the tides to recede (probably apocryphal), and his lewd anagram potential. Cnut was Danish rather than Norwegian. However, he later went on to unite Norway with his other Kingdoms in England and Denmark under one 'North Sea Empire'. Cnut captured London in 1016, and was crowned King of England here the following year.

🇳🇴  As a neighbouring country and maritime power, there would always have been some Norwegian presence in the bustling port of London. These communities needed churches, and they were well served by various iterations of a St Olaf. The current Norwegian church stands in Rotherhithe and was consecrated in 1927.

The Norwegian church, St Olaf's (with a Bifröst in the background?). Image: barry.marsh1944, Creative Commons

🇳🇴  Timber from Norway was a major plank of London's imports for centuries. From the 19th century, wood was shipped in to a dedicated basin in the Surrey Commercial Docks in Rotherhithe. Most of those docks have since been filled in, but a remnant of Norway Dock survives, now surrounded by housing.

🇳🇴  Another import was ice. During the 1850s and 60s, ice cream pioneer Carlo Gatti imported huge blocks, which were sailed across the North Sea, up the Thames and along the Regent's Canal to his ice wells in King's Cross. (You can still seem them at the London Canal Museum.)

🇳🇴  Norway was invaded by the Nazis in 1940. Many political figures escaped and fled to London, where they continued as a Government in Exile. King Haakon VII led the government from his residence in Kensington (there's a blue plaque). They met regularly in Norway House near Trafalgar Square, where a golden Olav still gazes out:

Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, Creative Commons

🇳🇴  Meanwhile, another plaque inside what is now the Supreme Court in Whitehall records the use of the building as a courthouse by the Norwegian Government in Exile, along with four other violated nations.

Image: Matt Brown

🇳🇴  Every year, Norway sends London a Christmas tree as a thank-you for assistance in the Second World War. This is the one erected in Trafalgar Square each December, to both acclaim and ungrateful sneering.

🇳🇴  Another, lesser-known 'thanks for the support' gift can be found all-year-round in Hyde Park. Here, just south of the Ranger's Lodge, stands a lump of pre-Cambrian granite, sent from Norway after the war in commemoration of naval ties.

Image: Matt Brown

🇳🇴  The Beatles recorded their most intricate ballad, Norwegian Wood, at Abbey Road Studios. The track included a sitar — the first time the instrument was played on a western record — which was bought on Oxford Street. According to Beatles lore, the title is a reference to cheap Scandinavian panelling, then in-vogue, including in the London bedroom of Peter Asher (brother of Paul's girlfriend Jane).

🇳🇴  Speaking of the Beatles, a short walk from Paul McCartney's St John's Wood home is the much-lauded Oslo Court Restaurant, which comedian Matt Lucas chose as his Desert Island Discs luxury. Not much doing in the way of Nordic food, alas; it's classic French fare here. Your best bet is ScandiKitchen.

A once-in-a-year opportunity to descend into these King's Cross ice wells.

There's a once-in-a-year opportunity to visit the Victorian ice wells at London Canal Museum this July — as part of a dedicated 'Ice Weekend'.

Before the days of electric refrigeration, fresh-cut ice was vital in everything from making ice cream, to relieving inflammation. Mammoth blocks of the stuff were transported by ship from Norway, then onward by horse-drawn canal barge — in this case to King's Cross. (Wouldn't it melt? is the obvious question, the answer being: only a quarter of it.)

In the 19th century ice was 'harvested' in Norway then transported by sea and canal to central London.

When the ice blocks reached the King's Cross warehouse — then owned by ice merchant and ice cream pioneer Carlo Gatti, now the London Canal Museum — they were lowered into one of these 42-feet-deep brick-lined ice wells, which would help keep them solid for months at a time.

Well well...

On Sunday 26 July 2026, the London Canal Museum opens up the ice wells to the public; you'll descend into the beautifully-illuminated spaces to learn more about how they worked, and what the ice would've eventually been used for (there's a small extra fee on top of museum entry for this experience). The ice well tours are always popular, and you'll need to book your slot in advance.

Victorian ice cream making demos take place throughout the weekend.

That's just part of a veritable blizzard of ice-related activities over 25-26 July for the museum's 'Ice Weekend'.

On the Saturday you can partake in a family-friendly ice trail, hear tales of the ice trade and the Victorian ice cream craze from a 'magical storyteller'; take part in the Ice Trade Challenge — and get up to plenty more besides.

On the Sunday, in addition to the ice well visits, there are tours of the museum and ice cream making demos.

Boat trips along the surrounding canals take place on both days. All in all, sounds like a very cool way to spend a weekend. 🧊

Ice Weekend at London Canal Museum, King's Cross, 25-26 July 2026

In an extract from his memoir Juniper Street E.1.: A Life in London's East End, Henry Say remembers what night time was like as a post-war kid.

Henry Say's memoir recounts life on Juniper Street, east London. Image: Henry Say

I've often heard that East End children played out until the street light came on. They clearly hadn't visited Juniper Street at night.

The street's lighting was appalling. There were few lamp posts, and little or no lighting fixed to buildings. Consequently, the street was perpetually dark, especially when fog rolled in. Juniper Street formed a valley, sloping down from King David Lane at one end and up towards Glamis Road at the other. While these hills gave us hours of childhood fun, the valley setting compounded the effect of the inadequate light.

"A rumour suggested one resident had tapped into a street lamp to power his flat"

"The ancient lamp posts hadn't been updated since the early 1900s." Image: Yuri Krupenin

The ancient lamp posts hadn't been updated since the early 1900s. They held weak incandescent bulbs, little better than a domestic lamp, and instead of reflectors, each was topped with an enamelled "Chinese hat." They were so dim that even moths couldn't be bothered. Most leaned at peculiar angles, never having been set correctly into the ground. A persistent rumour suggested one resident had somehow tapped into the public supply via a street lamp to power his flat. Could it be true? Maybe.

If the main street was dark, the back of Drews Buildings, Sun Tavern Place and Hunt's Mews were like a coal mine. Dark doesn't even describe it. It was certainly a no-go area for me, yet the poor people who lived in the third entrance to Drews Buildings along Hunt's Mews had to navigate it every day.

But these ancient cast iron posts had their uses. Children would practise gymnastics, shinning up the pole. If a post had a crossbar or bracket, they could swing their legs over and hang upside down; I confess, the girls seemed better at that. Another use was to tie one end of a skipping rope to a post, allowing just two children to skip together, one to turn and the other to skip.

The lighting for the entrances and stairs in both Juniper Street and Drews Buildings barely existed. It felt like a miser was penny-pinching. But did it feel homely? Yes, it did. You could look out and see your friends' bedroom lights turning on, knowing they were there, and that you would see them tomorrow. People were preparing their children for bed and because the bedrooms faced onto the street, there was a constant hive of reassuring activity. You could sleep easy in your bed tonight.

"The telltale sign of a cigarette was a little red light glowing and moving up and down"

"A couple of girls might be found there, giggling and drawing on a crafty shared cigarette taken from their mum's pack." Image: Pixabay

There were always people walking somewhere: maybe a docker on a late shift, a lighterman leaving to take a craft on the tide, or a print worker heading in for the next morning's newspaper. The mix of people, trades, and shifting work patterns meant the street was always busy. If a docker failed to get a day's work, he would be home all day, adding to the constant activity and buzz of life. East End life. On the other hand, sometimes men needed to work through twenty-four hours, to get a ship loaded and out to sea.

The shadowy entrances were useful. A couple of girls might be found there, giggling and drawing on a crafty shared cigarette taken from their mum's pack. The telltale sign was a little red light glowing and moving up and down.

Another person who took advantage of the lack of light: the bookie's runner. He was a moving target, often standing in the entrance doorway of Drews Buildings, or sometimes in a Juniper Street entrance, always heading for the middle of the street. I remember him wearing a heavy dark blue overcoat, perhaps for camouflage. He had to be super careful, as policemen were always patrolling to and from the Police Section House.

Frequently, people would walk up to the entrance, enter the shadows, spend about four minutes with him, and leave, looking quickly left and right. I later learned he acted as an agent to illegally collect bets from punters, written on scraps of paper or cigarette packets, before taking them to a bookmaker. People obviously met up with him again at some point to collect their winnings, though I never witnessed that part. The whole clandestine activity instantly reminded me of the film The Third Man, Harry Lime, when I saw it later in life.

I doubt he ever operated towards King David Lane. Not only were police walking about, but the Lane itself had a bright yellowy-orange glow. For reasons known to themselves, the Council had installed bright sodium lighting there, which stood in sharp contrast to Juniper Street's blackness. Looking up to King David Lane from our buildings always reminded me of the opening of a spaceship door.

"I thought he was selling dogs. It was only years later I was told he was announcing the greyhound results!"

Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer via Public domain">

"You didn't get a completely new paper; instead, a narrow column at the bottom of the page carried the new story, printed sideways, at a right angle to the main columns." Image: Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer via Public domain

There were rituals that defined the time of day. The paper man would walk through the streets about five o'clock in the evening with the latest news. No 24-hour news stations then. Occasionally he surprised us by coming back later, sometimes quite a bit later, shouting: "Extra! Extra! Extra!"

This happened especially if a big story had broken after the last regular edition. Though I always thought it was a bit of a con trick. You didn't get a completely new paper; instead, a narrow column at the bottom of the page carried the new story, printed sideways, at a right angle to the main columns. I think it was called the "Stop Press" column, or something like that. Because most papers were much taller than wide, it took some manoeuvring to read the brief story without turning your head, or the paper, completely around.

Strangest of all was a very late seller. If I had woken up late at night and was trying to get back to sleep, I could just hear a faint, drawn-out cry. I couldn't understand the words, but gradually he would get louder:
"Dogs! Dogs! Dogs!"

Honestly, I thought he either wanted to sell you a dog, buy one, or both. It was only years later I was told, "No, it’s the greyhound racing results!" The last race was pretty late, so they must have had a slick operation to get those results out so quickly.

Juniper Street E.1.: A Life in London's East End by Henry Say, published by Prime Cadence

Adapted from a feature that first appeared in July 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

A Tube train at Golders Green in 1911. Image: Public domain

Let’s catch the Tube 115 years ago, through the eyes of a newcomer to London.

Kate Evelyn Isitt (1876-1948) cut her journalistic teeth writing for New Zealand newspapers, including a stint as the first editor of the women’s page on Wellington’s Dominion newspaper. In 1910, she moved to London and quickly established herself as a trusted journalist, working in this capacity until the 1940s. Her personal story would be a fascinating one to pursue (a bit more here), but today I’d like to focus on a barnstorming feature she wrote in 1911, concerning London’s Tube network.

She gives us a first-hand account of what it was like to catch the Tube all those years ago, when George V had just taken the throne, William Taft was US President, and the almost-complete Titanic had no word associations with icebergs.

Below, I’ve quoted and commented upon about two-thirds of that feature. The full version can be read on the British Newspaper Archive.

The Tube Travellers

You may be only a few minutes in London before you find yourself diving into the depths of the earth to get from the railway terminus to your suburb; you will hardly be a day in the city before making the acquaintance of this strange twentieth-century London, the underground city which extends from Hampstead Lane and Finsbury Park in the north to Hurlingham and Clapham Common in the south, and from Whitechapel in the east to Turnham Green in the west, lacing and interlacing its paths into a perfect labyrinth between these points.

114 years on, and this could read Barnet in the north to Morden in the south; Chesham in the west to Upminster in the east.

"To the trains" — the words and the pointing arrow stare you in the face, and to the trains you go, down slopes and stairs, round curves and corners, walking for a distance that often seems interminable, til at last you come to a long, narrow platform, in a tunnel lighted with electric lamps. A very nice tunnel it is, lined with white and coloured tiles that look cool and clean, emblazoned with advertisements, and, generally speaking, so light and airy that it is very difficult to believe that the streets and the sunlight are so far overhead. The ventilation, indeed, is so good that sometimes away down there you will meet with a very respectable young Wellington gale.

I think I snapped this in Stepney Green. Many other ‘To the Trains’ signs survive around the network. Image: Matt Brown

I’m not sure the modern commentator would describe the Tube as ‘light and airy’. Despite a recent graffiti surge, the network remains a clean place and very much ‘emblazoned with advertisements’. The white and coloured tiles have also been maintained through the decades, and are one of the most celebrated aspects of the Tube network. A ‘Wellington gale’ refers to the noted problem that Isitt’s home city has with wind, so to speak.

Before you have time to read more than one or two of the advertisements which decorate the walls, into the station will come rushing an engineless train looking for all the world like a headless caterpillar. As it stops the iron gates on the platform of each carriage fly open, the guard earnestly exhorts the waiting crowd to "let the passengers off please”, and while the train throbs with desire to rush off into the darkness again the passengers file out with a sad and funereal dignity.

Lots to unpack here (once we’ve got over the phrase ‘throbs with desire’). The ‘iron gates’ identify the train as the 1906 Stock. Passengers got on or off via metal gates at either end of the carriage, which must have taken a while during busy periods. The trains are noted as ‘engineless’, which we take for granted today, but would have still seemed quite novel in the early 20th century. Then, as now, the power came from electricity below rather than a hauling locomotive. The lack of an engine presumably prompted the ‘headless caterpillar’ comment.

1906 Gate Stock. Note the iron gate to the left. Image: Public domain

The other notable detail here is the presence of a guard. All trains had one. Indeed, they’d remain a permanent fixture until 1984, when the move to driver-only trains began. Some Underground trains would keep their guards right up until 2000.

At last you are allowed to enter, the gates snap shut once more , and the train runs round a curve from the bright station into a dark tube just large enough to let it slip through, but almost before you realise that you are really journeying it runs out into the light of another station.

Aside from the snapping of the metal gate, that description holds up pretty well today. Tube trains still enter a ‘dark tube just large enough’.

Image: Matt Brown

Fortunate is the passenger whose trip is made without a break, for it is the changing from one line to another, the walking along endless passages, or sometimes out into the street again from the station of one company to the adjoining station of another — for two companies divide this underground system between them — the riding up and down in lifts, that make a trip across London wearisome.

Today, we’re used to a unified, joined up system. Back in 1911, the various lines were controlled by different companies, making interchange and ticketing a confusing business.

Alighting from his train, the new arrival in London who is in a hurry races along the platform and up the stairs to the lift, with an idea that by hastening he will arrive the sooner at his destination, and then for all his pains he will have to wait with the liftman as his solitary companion, waiting for the laggard crew to toil up after him, an experience which, repeated several times each day, will at last teach him, too, to walk: very slowly. Because of those lift delays it is hardly worth while taking a tube for a very short journey or a brief trip with a break in it, if a motor ‘bus will serve one’s turn.

At the time of the article in 1911, all deep-level Tube stations were accessed by lift or stairs. (The first Tube escalators, at Earl’s Court station, would open later that year.) Lifts could take a while. They were slow to climb, and were operated by a liftman who could hold the lift back until it was full to his satisfaction. It was a job with its ups and downs.

The development of the system during the past five or six years has been rapid. Fifteen years ago there was an electric railway running partly underground and partly in the open from Euston round by the Bank, and down to Clapham, and the old District Railway, also underground for the most part, was electrified five years ago. It is about nine years since the first of the tube railways was opened, the one that runs from the Bank to Shepherd’s Bush, passing along somewhere beneath Cheapside, Holborn and Oxford Street, and in 1906-7 were opened the three lines which link the others up and especially serve the theatres, the Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Hampstead Railways.

The London Underground as it looked in 1908, three years before the article (though essentially the same network). Note, most of the colours differ from today’s Tube map and, of course, it lacks the clean, schematic qualities of Harry Beck’s 1930’s map. Image: roger4336, Creative Commons

The expansion of the network was stupendously rapid in these early years of the 20th century. To use their modern names, the core of the Central line opened in 1900, followed by those of the Bakerloo and Piccadilly in 1906, and the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line in 1907. Plus lots of extensions all over the place.

What London did without these railways it is difficult to imagine, for they now seem absolutely essential. The companies between them own 864 miles of railroad, and last year carried 312,500,000 passengers, or nearly a million each day. The average length of a journey is about two and a half miles, and as the average speed, including stops, is over seventeen miles an hour, one may reckon that the average Londoner spends nearly a quarter of an hour each day over one underground journey, while a wonderfully elaborate calculation shows me 7000 people travelling down among the foundations of London at any given minute of the day.

What a marvellous compendium of stats. The network has greatly grown since 1911, and today supports around 1.2 billion passenger journeys per year. That’s roughly the entire population of China. To put it another way, Elon Musk could afford to hand out $833 to every person who crosses the ticket line for a whole year. I made about 100 Tube journeys last year, so I figure he owes me $83,300.

The average length of journey today, according to this FOI request, is 9km, which is 5.6 miles — more than double the average of 1911 as reported here. The average speed today (according to another FOI request) varies by line, but hovers around 30 kph, which is 18.6 mph. In other words, it’s very similar to the pace in 1911. How many people are ‘travelling down among the foundations of London at any given time’ today? Well, about 3 million people use the service every day, between the hours of 5am and midnight (ignoring Night Tube). So that’s about 160,000 people per hour. So I’d guess about half that (80,000) are on the network, as an average, at any given moment.

The tubes proper are only large enough to allow a single train to shoot through, the trains always running in the same direction. In these a collision would be impossible, unless indeed one train should overtake another which had broken down, as was pleasantly suggested by a man in our carriage the other day, when something went wrong and for three or four minutes the train was stuck groaning in the dark tube, while the motormen scampered to and fro and shouted at each other, and the experienced passengers looked on undisturbed. As a matter of fact the man was wrong. On these lines they have automatic signals and brakes, and at a danger signal the brake springs up from the live centre rail, holding the rain until the danger is removed. On the old underground lines there are double lines, but on one of them at least the same automatic brake is used, while of course aall the trains are lighted by electricity.

Collisions of any kind between London Underground trains are vanishingly rare. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the last collision between passenger trains on the network was in 1986. Most fatalities on the network, through its entire history, have been through passenger incidents or terror attacks. There are exceptions, though, like the Stratford Tube crash of 1953 and, of course, the Moorgate disaster of 1975, as well as various derailments.

The lifts that people complain of so much are in their way as interesting as the tubes, some of them going down to great depths. The one at Holborn goes down to a depth of 130ft, while the Hampstead one, according to a liftman, is about 190ft deep, and the station there is 200ft below the surface of the earth. Even then so high is Hampstead that the train running from the city is on an upgrade all the way. The tubes run far below the sewage system, the run beneath the river, and cross and recross each other while down there in the darkness, they climb up and down little slopes according to the level of the ground above, and they twist their way round many a curve, as one can see when watching the track from the end window of the Hampstead train by the light of the red and green lamps set here and there.

All of this is still true (apart from the red and green lamps). Hampstead’s platforms remain the deepest below street level, though the Jubilee line at Westminster is furthest beneath sea level (or closest to the centre of the Earth).

Also at Hampstead, more of those lovely tiles, and another glimpse of the iron-gated Tube trains. Image: Matt Brown

Everything works so smoothly that one does not realise what an enormous amount of traffic is dealt with each day, but on one line alone, between the Mansion House and South Kensington, a thousand trains are run each day, one every ninety seconds, and the Mansion House Station holds the record when at one period in the day it despatches three trains in each direction in three minutes.

This also remains true today. We might like to moan about the Tube, but the frequency and reliability are enviable when compared to most other rail systems in the UK. When all’s going well, the route between Mansion House and South Kensington today sees five or six trains every 10 minutes in each direction (timetables here), on par with 1911 levels. The other important thing to know about Mansion House station is that it’s the third-closest station to the Mansion House. Also, it’s one of only two station names to contain all the vowels. It’s this kind of trivia that keeps you reading, isn’t it?

There is material for many a detective novel in the possibilities of the tubes, and I have wondered for days over an incident I saw which might well have served for the beginning of a sensational novel. A little old lady, rather peculiarly dressed, came into the carriage at an underground station, and as she passed to her seat she paused to stare with sudden interest at a passenger seated near the door, a quite harmless looking boy. So interested was she that she afterwards changed her seat to have a better view of his face, and gazed at him conspicuously throughout the journey, hurrying out to keep near him when the arrived at the Bank Station, which is the terminus, and watching to see which lift he would enter. He made for the first lift; she followed him, so he turned back to the second, which was just the thing she had always meant to do. Then he thought better of it and came towards the third lift, she following him without a word. I heard the boy complain to the lift-man in an injured tone, and then the door slammed and we shot up, leaving them both behind. I was so curious to see what would happen that I waited near the head of the shaft till the next lift came up, and the old lady appeared alone, hurrying off with a worried look up one of the half-dozen subways. The youth, presumably, had slipped through an archway into a train going in the other direction and once he was off, pursuit was hopeless. But what did it mean? Why should such an elderly lady be so angry with such an innocent-looking lad, and did they ever meet again, and if so, what happened? One would like to know.

I know at least three murder/mystery/detective novelists who read Londonist: Time Machine… so there’s your challenge. It strikes me that a fourth person might have observed Ms Isitt following the strange pair and might, in turn, have wondered why she was so interested in them.

The underground companies advertise enormously, boasting their immunity from fogs and blocks and road upheavals, and the inexpensiveness of their fares. At the door of every station is a poster bearing the words which won a newspaper prize: “Underground to anywhere; quickest way, cheapest fare,” a jingle that is almost as maddeningly reiterative as Mark Twain’s famous “Punch, brothers, punch with care; punch in the presence of the passenger.”

It’s no longer the cheapest fare — buses or cycle hire will beat the price for most journeys. And Mark Twain wrote pithier words than these. Incidentally, trivia fans, Mark Twain was one of the very first people to ride on the Central line.

Quickest way it certainly is, and cheapest fare, but this in the long run makes it very expensive both as regards time and money - so far as the visitor to London is concerned. When one can get to the other end of town in no time at all, why not go, and when it costs only twopence or threepence to go, one forgets it will cost as much to come back, and as in the course of the day the visitor anxious to see the most of London takes the most tremendous journeys, hardly realising as the train rushes through the darkness how very long they are. A journey on a horse ‘bus is a journey without doubt, a journey on a motor ‘bus is an adventure for the passenger or the passer-by, but a journey underground is merely an episode, and it is not till the end of the day that visitor discovers why a London working day contains only six working hours that two others have been dropped somewhere deep beneath the city’s foundations, and then in his reckoning of the day’s expenditure he discovers also the cost of shooting through those labyrinthine passages.

The Tube can still be a spendy business. Happily, today we have the transport cap, which means you can never spaff more than £16.30 on pay-as-you-go Tube journeys, even if you visit all 272 stations in one day, or spend the entire 5am to midnight window riding from Cockfosters to Mudchute in some lewd, avant-garde performance-art project. Which, of course, I’m now going to have to do.

And that concludes Ms Isitt’s account of the Tube, and our time-travelling adventure through the Edwardian network. All change, please. This article terminates here.

They don't make 'em like they used to. Image: London Transport Museum

Dream of travelling to a bygone London? This July you can do just that, thanks to another batch of heritage rides on a 1938 Underground train, as well as the chance to be pulled in 1950s carriages by a 1920s Metro-land loco.

From 25-26 July, various Metropolitan line rides set off from Amersham aboard burgundy-hued art deco-style 1938 stock — replete with sumptuous red and green cut and loop wool moquette. In all, over 1,100 of these cars were built, with some still in use in London up until 1988. A handful were recycled on the Isle of Wight's Island Line, but in 2020, were replaced with 'new' (aka 1980s) London Underground stock.

The Sarah Siddons was one of 20 locomotives built for the Metropolitan Railway in 1922-23 for service between the City and Metro-land. Image: Roger Carvell, Creative Commons

Between 24-26 July, there's also the chance to ride in 1950s ex British Rail 4TC coaches, as hauled by the Sarah Siddons, a beautiful electric locomotive which first served the swelling suburbs of Metro-land in the early 1920s.

The 1938 stock has been lovingly restored. Image: London Transport Museum

The journeys all start out at Amersham (though they take slightly varied routes), and can be purchased as returns, or otherwise singles to Harrow-on-the-Hill:

🚇 Sarah Siddons: 24-26 July, details here.

🚇 1938 Stock: 25 and 26 July, details here.

Ticket bundles also allow you to experience both trains.

As usual, spaces are going fast. Image: London Transport Museum

Unfortunately these heritage rides are very much NOT at vintage prices: adult tickets start at £22, going up to £40, though there are concession rates for kids. This price includes a souvenir guide, and activity sheets for children. We're told these will be the last heritage rides of 2026.

If you're looking for a thriftier heritage Tube experience, you can always hop on the Bakerloo line, the stock of which which is way over half a century old.

Heritage Tube rides on the Metropolitan line, 24-26 July 2026.

Zweig's Hallam Street flat is one of only two Blue Plaque locations to be explicitly named. Image: English Heritage

Rumours abound about London locations that the Nazis supposedly wanted to occupy, should they have won the Second World War — most famously Senate House in Bloomsbury.

We do, though, know for certain that a series of more humble addresses were jotted down in the Nazis' notorious 'Black Book' (aka Sonderfahndungsliste G.B.) — the list of figures they wanted to arrest, and likely execute. One of these addresses — Marylebone's 49 Hallam Street — has just been installed with an English Heritage Blue Plaque.

A photo of Stefan Zweig by F. X. Setzer, published in 1927. Image: public domain

It was here, at flat 71, that the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig lived from 1936-39, having fled his motherland in 1934, anticipating Nazi rule. Among the writings Zweig worked on during his stint in London was The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European, an autobiographical work which pined for an "out of reach" past, and for an open, borderless world — the antithesis of Nazism. Much of Zweig's research was done in the nearby British Museum's Reading Room.

The writer's exile was not a happy one: "So I belong nowhere now, I am a stranger or at the most a guest everywhere," he wrote in The World of Yesterday. In 1942, with Nazism at its height, and The World of Yesterday finally completed, Zweig — who, by this time had moved to Brazil — posted the manuscript to his publisher, then committed suicide in despair, along with his wife, Lotte Altmann.

Zweig did much of his research at the British Museum's Reading Room. Image: Bobulous, Creative Commons

His legacy remains potent. Says English Heritage Blue Plaques historian Dr Susan Skedd: "This plaque marks Stefan Zweig's time in London, when, living in exile, he continued to write works that engaged deeply with the experience of displacement and cultural loss. Zweig's writing has had a lasting influence on European literature, particularly the literature of exile."

Zweig was also the influence for the poetry-spouting concierge M. Gustave in Wes Anderson's 2014 movie Grand Budapest Hotel.

Eva Alberman, Zweig's niece who lived with him at this address, was at the unveiling of the plaque in July 2026. She is pictured with her great-granddaughter, Rosa. Image: English Heritage

Though more than 30 Blue Plaque recipients appear on the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B., Zweig's Hallam Street flat is one of only two plaque locations to be explicitly named. The other is H. G. Wells' apartment at 13 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park.

There's an excellent BBC Culture article on Stefan Zweig here.

Just like the old days. Image: The Worshipful Company of Carmen

An historic ceremony harking back centuries takes place in the City, with the chance to see a slew of vintage vehicles roll into Guildhall Yard.

The Cart Marking ceremony — hosted on Saturday 18 July 2026 by the City of London and the Worshipful Company of Carmen — first began around 500 years ago, as a form of vehicle licensing.

One of the carts from 2021. Image: The Worshipful Company of Carmen

"Carters," says the Carmen, "were a rumbustious crowd. They plied for hire, and ignored authority." As carts increasingly clogged the streets, causing increasing chaos, the Fraternity of St Katherine, the Virgin and Martyr of Carters was formed in 1517, "to serve the King... cleanse, purge and keep clene the streets" and "move wares and merchaundyses". But with the Fraternity lacking authority, in 1529, the City decided it was time to impose licensing; carts to be marked 'with the sworde crowned'.

This in turn led to a 1582 rule that each cart in the City must be sealed with branded 'chip and brass' for a penny a year per cart (or five pence for a new cart).

A bicycle getting marked. Image: The Worshipful Company of Carmen

The practice of cart marking survived through the centuries (despite carters finding various devious ways to swerve regulation), and when, in 1965, the Town Clerk decreed that the tradition did not 'create a forward looking image of the city authorities', Carmen Past Master Norman Letts remarked "There is a modern tendency among the ignorant to discredit those things which have at least the virtue of antiquity." The tradition continued.

Image: The Worshipful Company of Carmen

Got a feeling the officials are going to be a tad sweaty. Image: The Worshipful Company of Carmen

The modern Cart Marking Ceremony, which takes place every summer, was prompted in 1981, when a steam engine was driven into Guildhall Yard to be marked. It's since evolved into a celebratory public event, with vehicles passing through Guildhall Arch to pay 'five shillings' (25p) to the City of London.

A red hot iron brand is still used, although it's pressed onto a block of wood attached to the vehicle, rather than the chassis itself, which is probably sensible.

Image: The Worshipful Company of Carmen

Vehicles are no longer limited to wooden carts; in 2026 expect to see the likes of vintage fire engines, buses, funeral carriages, omnibuses, trade bicycles — plus modern additions like road sweepers and vacuum tankers.

The vehicles are greeted by the City's top brass, including the Lord Mayor of London (or as is the case in 2026, the Lady Mayor of London), masters from two different City of London Livery companies, and the Keeper of Guildhall Yard — all dressed in traditional robes, and wearing gloves made by the Worshipful Company of Glovers — before being marked with the iron brand.

Is it us or did ambulances used to look much cooler? Image: The Worshipful Company of Carmen

Image: The Worshipful Company of Carmen

It all adds up to create a glorious timeline on wheels — one of the most joyful vehicular events of the London calendar, alongside the London To Brighton Veteran Car Run and the World Naked Bike Ride.

Here's a video of the ceremony from 2022:

Cart Marking Ceremony, Guildhall, City of London, Saturday 18 July 2026, 10am-12.30pm, free entry

Image: Matt Brown

Did you know that part of the Great Train Robbery money was recovered from a London phone box... as well as a wax dummy of the Queen's brother-in-law?

Today, it's not uncommon to find unusual items in phone boxes, as the moribund kiosks find new purposes. Book swaps, defibrillators, cash machines (themselves slowly becoming obsolete), miniature coffee shops... the one outside the British Museum even has an art-dispenser:

Image: Matt Brown

We've looked before at such repurposing. But phone kiosks have a much longer history as repositories for unwanted items. Here, we present some of the more curious booth-based discoveries in London's history.

1939, BOMB: Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, two telephone kiosks in central London were wrecked by bombs. One exploded on the Hampstead Road, and the second nearby on Euston Road directly opposite what is now the Wellcome Collection. One man was injured, and a woman had to be treated for shock. The blasts were later attributed to the IRA. It's an early example of the kind of attack that would become all-too-common later in the century.

1952, FORGED BANKNOTES: Seven crumpled $100 bills were discovered outside a telephone kiosk at an undisclosed London location. The notes were found to be forgeries from a large batch that was then flooding European countries. The notes were traced to a Daniel Green, who'd dumped them after realising he was being followed by police. Curiously, Green was the former husband of "Black Rita" Green, who'd been murdered in her flat on Rupert Street, Soho five years before. That case has never been solved.

1954, RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH: David's theatrical brother starred in a 30-minute television drama called 'Box for One', set entirely inside a London phone box.

1957, AVIATION TROPHIES: Three solid-silver tankards and a commemorative cup were discovered in a Putney telephone kiosk. They were traced to test pilot Neville Duke, who had reported the missing trophies a few days before. "But the ones we value most are still missing," Mrs Duke told the Press. One of those not recovered was a trophy given to Duke for breaking the Air Speed Record. In 1953, the air ace had been the fastest man on the planet for all of 19 days, when he got his Hawker Hunter up to 727 mph.

1957, A PUP: Goldie, a five-week-old Labrador, was discovered in a phone box on Whitehall. After reports appeared in the newspapers, the RSPCA received some 2,000 letters and calls from people wanting to take the pup home.

1960, QUEEN'S BROTHER-IN-LAW: In May 1960, Antony Armstrong-Jones (later known as Lord Snowdon) married Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II's sister. A month later his wax effigy was stolen from Madame Tussauds. It would turn up after a few days in a phone box on Savoy Hill, where it had presumably confused passers-by.

The non-wax version of Lord Snowdon pictured in 1963. Image: Geoff Charles, creative commons

1963, GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY CASH: Arguably the most famous phone-box recovery occurred in December 1963, when police were tipped off to a stash of £47,245 in a kiosk on Great Dover Street, Borough. The cash had been returned by one of the Great Train Robbers, under circumstances that still remain mysterious (possibly under a deal struck between one of the robbers and a police officer). The location, opposite Black Horse Court, retained a modern phone box until 2024.

1967, NEWBORN BABY: Unwanted babies and infants were a depressingly common discovery in phone kiosks. In March of this year, a newborn was discovered in a plastic bag, inside an east-London kiosk. In the absence of any identification, he was named Edward Larksville: Edward after the Whipps Cross ward he was sent to, and Larksville after the local telephone exchange. Oddly, I can't find any other reference to an exchange of that name, and it was presumably a mistaken form of Larkswood exchange in Walthamstow.

1970, OLD/NEW MASTERS: Paintings worth £36,000 were dumped by thieves in a Battersea telephone box. After a tip-off to Scotland Yard, police recovered paintings from Renoir, Picasso, Van Dyck, Lautrec, Lowry and Pissarro from the box on Albert Bridge Road. The prized works had been stolen from a number of Mayfair galleries and had presumably become too hot to handle.

Today, you can *buy* art from kiosks (this one is outside the British Museum). Image: Matt Brown

1970, GOVERNMENT FILES: A cache of top-secret government files was recovered from a kiosk outside Ravensbourne station in Lewisham. The documents reportedly contained details of the pay packets of senior military figures and civil servants.

1973, MORE BOMBS: A kiosk on Chenies Street in Marylebone was targeted with a fire bomb in March, causing slight damage. Another incident that year saw a bomb explode in a kiosk at Sloane Square station. Nobody was injured.

Not, we hope, a bomb, but a suspicious collection of wires and display screen in Russell Square. Image: Matt Brown

1982, ANOTHER BABY: A day-old baby found in a kiosk at the corner of Epsom Road and Waddon New Road in Croydon was named 'Rufus Waddon' by nurses: Rufus for the red colour of the phone box, and Waddon for the location. (Though nobody of that name can be found on Google, so presumably he took on another name from whoever welcomed him into the family.)

Adapted from a feature that first appeared in June 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Image: Matt Brown

What is a Londonist - besides the name of this website? It's a question I'm often asked.

At risk of sounding like Alan Partridge, Londonist is an attitude; it’s a frame of mind. It’s a way of looking at this great city.

To be a Londonist is to be one who celebrates or champions London. Not in a blind or naive way — for London has many problems. But with optimism, positivity, curiosity and an eye for the history and continuities of the city.

Londonist.com and Londonist: Time Machine (our history newsletter) strive to embody all of those characteristics. Always have, always will.

Where did the phrase ‘Londonist’ come from?

The word Londonist was coined in 2004 by Rob Hinchcliffe and Euan Mitchell. They set up Londonist.com as a UK analogue of already popular American sites such as Gothamist (New York) and Chicagoist. (Note that the website is Londonist, not The Londonist… in the same way you wouldn’t say The Time Out.)

Londonist in its current form might only be 22 years old, but the term has a much older antecedent.

The first person to use the phrase in a meaningful way was Marcus Fall in his 1880 book London Town: Sketches of London Life and Character. Fall titles his very first chapter ‘The Londonist’, and sets out to define such a person:

This vast confluence of streets, and lanes, and squares, and parks, and institutions, and nationalities, and telegraph wires, and interests, and commerce, and ambitions called London is to him the most amazing and glorious spectacle ever presented to the human eye, the most enthralling theme ever given to the human tongue.

Fall notes that a typical Londonist is not necessarily from London, but often from a small northern or midland town. Incomers from big cities like Manchester or Liverpool, or from overseas, have too much sense of rivalry and pride in their origins to ever fully embrace London. I’m not sure how true that is generally, but as someone from a small midland town (Grimsby), it certainly describes me.

For the Londonist there is no place in all the world like the region of his worship. You may seek to argue with him. You may tell him Calcutta is hotter; Quito is higher; Paris is less muddy; Rio Janeiro is better situated; Rome is crowned with the laurels of successive histories;—all to no purpose. So far as he is concerned, he thinks it better to be buried in London than live and reign anywhere else on Earth.

Oh dear. I feel seen. Almost 150 years after those words were written, here I am, Mr Londonist, a man who has not left the country in 12 years, because he gets all the travel thrills he needs from a rainy bus journey through Penge. No, I really do.

Are you a Londonist?

Here are some habits that might mark you out as a Londonist, as opposed to a regular Londoner. How many can you tick off?

• You never walk by the quickest route, but by the most interesting route.
• A regular Londoner will never admit to visiting ‘tourist traps’ like Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus or (shudders) The Mall. But you do, because you know that there is life and wonder and history in these places, too.
• You carry a Tube map everywhere. Not for navigation, but so you can tick off every station you’ve been to.
• You instantly know the answer to the old pub-quiz question: “Which is the only Tube station to contain none of the letters in ‘mackerel’".
• You know precisely where to stand on the station platform so that you’re in the optimal spot for the exit at your destination.
• Open House weekend(s) in September, when lots of buildings open their doors to visitors, is marked on your calendar a year in advance. You have turned down wedding invitations to ensure you don’t miss it.
• You know the difference between a K2 and a K6 phone box. And who designed them. And what else he designed. And who his grandfather was.
• You know your alleyways, and you’re not afraid to use them. (Except on Sunday mornings when the uric miasma is impassable.)
• The words ‘secret’, ‘underground’ and ‘tunnel’ individually send a demi-quiver of glee up your spine.
• While regular Londoners might do jocular impressions of the ‘Mind the gap’ announcements, you can replicate the unique ways that ‘Neasden’ and ‘Highgate’ are enunciated on the Tube.
• You take your family on holiday to Swanage, ostensibly to have a nice seaside vacation, but really because you want to photograph the various bollards, railings and clock towers that were shipped there from London in Victorian times.
• You know the difference between Northwood, Norwood, Northolt, Norbury and Northfields.
• The words “Do not touch the walrus” are meaningful.
• You have a niggling desire to visit North Ockendon, purely because it’s the only significant part of London outside the M25. You may already have been.
• You’ve visited every pub in the Square Mile, or walked the entire Thames Path, or photographed every one of Mark Wallinger’s Tube labyrinths… or some other completer-finisher task with a London flavour.

One of Mark Wallinger’s 272 labyrinths (Chancery Lane), one at every Tube station. Image: Matt Brown

• You’re late meeting friends because you stopped to photograph a curious example of street furniture.
• You’re more likely to have been in the Sewing Machine Museum or the Ink Museum than Madame Tussauds.
• You have pet names for each of the City boundary dragons.
• You can name at least one Lord Mayor of London who isn’t Dick Whittington.
• You know very well that ‘Big Ben’ is the name of the bell and not the tower, but you still call the tower Big Ben to troll people into saying “Big Ben is the name of the bell and not the tower,” just so you can then correct them by replying “No, Big Ben is the name of a bell, not the bell (there are five), and in any case it is a nickname for the Great Bell of Westminster, so if it’s OK to use the nickname for the bell, then I shall also use the nickname for the tower, which is known as ‘Big Ben’ to 90% of the world’s peoples”. … “No, wait, come back!”

So, are you a Londonist?

St Martin-in-the-Fields from Trafalgar Square. Image: Matt Brown

Happy 300th birthday to the Trafalgar Square landmark.

October 1726. Jonathan Swift publishes Gulliver's Travels, and Mary Toft of Godalming causes a sensation by giving birth to live rabbits (supposedly). Meanwhile, in London, a landmark church is dedicated to St Martin.

You'll know the church, which rises prominently over Trafalgar Square. You may very well have been inside. Its crypt, in particular, is popular with both tourists and Londoners as an unusual subterranean cafe.

Now, to celebrate the building's tercentenary, St Martin-in-the-Fields has opened a lovely little exhibition looking at the church's past.

You won't go bust visiting the exhibition — it's free. Image: Matt Brown

The current building was designed by James Gibbs, but it occupies the site of a medieval church, built at a time when it really did stand 'in the fields'. London had closed around it by the time Gibbs' church was erected, but the rural name remains today.

St Martin-in-the-Fields as it appeared in 1746, 20 years after construction Trafalgar Square was still a century away. Image via the coloured-in John Rocque map of London © Londonist.

The exhibition tells the story of the church from its earliest times right up to its many diverse roles in today's London — from a place of worship, to a music venue, to a friendly place where Londoners come to hang out over a coffee.

Art and press cuttings at the exhibition. Image: Matt Brown

Objects on show include the original church key and door handle, mudlarked objects from the Thames, and a mighty model of the church and crypt used during a major restoration and expansion about 20 years ago.

The walls are lined with numerous paintings, sketches and newspaper clippings relating to the church's past.

Another curious exhibit is the 'pearly stole', worn by the vicar during a special harvest festival. The church has close ties with the Pearly Kings and Queens, and a statue of the first Pearly King, Henry Croft, can be found in the crypt.

It's a small exhibition, but one that will quickly give you an overview of the building's fascinating history.

The church's archivists have certainly been busy. As well as preparing the exhibition, they've also been tracing the stories of the many parishioners commemorated on the crypt tombstones. The project has thrown up some remarkable stories.

Chief among them is William Fatt, chimney sweep to the King's palaces in the mid-18th century. New research has found that Fatt was one of the first Black people to vote in this country, when he made his mark for Viscount Trentham in a Westminster by-election.

Fatt family tomb stone in the crypt. Various members of the family served as chimney sweeps to the royal palaces. Image: Ash Knotek/St Martin in the Fields

Fatt can now be recognised alongside John London, who voted in the same election. This, and other stories from the tombstones, can be explored on the church's website.

There were already many reasons to visit St Martin's, but this free exhibition and the anniversary are the pearly icing on the cake. Look out, too, for a series of events to mark the 300 years.

St Martin-in-the-Fields 300 can be viewed for free in the crypt until 15 November 2026.

This feature first appeared in June 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Hands up if you can identify this Tudor confection?

Image from 1981: Chirstine Matthews, creative commons licence

I’m not seeing many hands go up. Anyone? Ah, a few at the back. Locals, I presume.

There are at least two reasons why the treasure box called Broomfield House is under-appreciated. First, the years have not been kind. This is the same view today 👇. The Tudor estate’s in a chewed-up state, for reasons we’ll come to shortly. I suspect it does not suffer from a surfeit of Instagrammers.

Spot the difference. Image from 2025: Matt Brown

The second reason you might not have heard of Broomfield House is that it is in Palmers Green. Very few people go to Palmers Green. “Is that down near Fulham?” puzzled my wife. “Never heard of it,” rejoined my neighbour. Even I had not been to Palmers Green, despite having spent 20 years writing about the capital.

Perhaps because it’s not on the Tube map, Palmers Green slips between the cracks of cognisance. For those who’ve not had the pleasure, this is where Palmers Green can be found:

Palmers Green, it turns out, is a charmer of a neighbourhood: characterful high street; gem of a railway station (on the Hertford Loop line), with a conjoined-gem of a cafe (The Yard); and an historic old pub (The Fox). You’ve probably seen Palmers Green in the movies. For some reason, the makers of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban directed the Knight Bus along Palmers Green high-street.

There’s real magic here, too. I give you the gorgeous Broomfield Park:

Image: Matt Brown

These green and pleasant lands were once the grounds of Broomfield House. Wander around and you’ll find 18th century ponds, magnificent mature trees, a bandstand, sports facilities, one of the first model-boating lakes in the country, a peace garden and that glorious view of Alexandra Palace.

What’s missing is the house. It’s still there — partially — but a series of unfortunate events have left it charred, crumbling and cloaked in scaffolding. It’s a sorry situation for a building that has stood for almost half a millennium, and which was once the centre of community.

What was Broomfield House, anyway?

A mosaic of old Broomfield House, recently installed (with other icons of local history) in Palmers Green’s Devonshire Square. Image: Matt Brown

Broomfield House is one of those buildings whose age is hard to describe. Its wooden-framed nucleus was hammered together at some point in the 16th century, probably around 1550. It was much expanded over the ensuing centuries, as successive owners made it ever-more grand. The half-timbered facade we see in the top photo is, according to Historic England “fake timberwork added by the Council in 1928-32”. In other words, it is mock-Tudor grafted onto actual Tutor, with addendums from every era in-between. Trigger’s Broom(field).

Its early origins and Frankenstein construction make it of great architectural interest. Historic England long ago gave Broomfield House a Grade II* listing, one of the highest forms of protection. Unfortunately, no heritage credentials can safeguard a building from fire. Broomfield House has suffered disastrous conflagrations on four occasions: 1984, 1993, 1994 and 2019. We’ll come to those in a bit, but first, let’s just check in on the history of this ill-fated building.

Broomfield House through time

Given that it was built some 500 years ago, the house has naturally had many owners. I won’t get bogged down in a complete chronology, because I’ll lose your attention. So here are the edited highlights.

The first owner was a leather merchant called John Bromfylde. “Aha,” you might think, “that’s where the house’s name comes from”. In fact, it’s more likely the other way round. The house, so it’s reckoned, took its name from the local "bromfield" — a field of long grass that provided hay and grazing. Our man Bromfylde then affixed the name to himself, as in “I’m John, from the fancy house called Bromfylde. You can call me John Bromfylde if you like”.

Bromehowse… another variation on the name. Image: Matt Brown

That’s what the history books and websites say (albeit in a less flippant tone). But etymology is often a mix of scholarship and guessmanship. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another explanation. For instance, could it not be named for a field of broom shrubs instead, given that’s how distant Bromley is supposed to have got its name?

Anyhow, by 1599 Broomfield was in the hands of Sir John Spencer, a former Lord Mayor and reputedly the richest man in England. This chap collected big houses. His other residences included Crosby Hall on Bishopsgate and Canonbury Hall in Islington, both of which will be well known to London history fans. John Spencer was no relation to the aristocratic Spencer family nor, I presume, to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

The house next came to merchant Joseph Jackson. Under his family’s stewardship, the property was greatly embiggened, with the construction of a grand staircase and a series of baroque murals designed by Gerard Lanscroon. Lanscroon was no workaday interior decorator. He also contributed wall paintings to the palaces at Hampton Court and Windsor, as well as nearby Arnos Grove House. His murals of Broomfield depict various gods and heroes from Greek myth.

Minerva, depicted on one of the Lanscroon murals. Image courtesy of John Cole/Unlocking Broomfield.

After a few more changes of hands, the house moved into the public realm in 1903. The local authority, Southgate Urban District council, bought the property and surrounding land to prevent their development, and turned the whole lot over to the people. The Middlesex Gazette at the time noted that the building contained “some of the finest timber to be found on the northern heights of London”. It also harboured a ghost; the shade of an old man, who’d been seen loitering about the place, sometimes on the lawn, sometimes in the wine cellar. Strange tappings were also reported.

Broomfield House in 1903. Ghost not pictured. Or is it? Image via British Newspaper Archive, from The Middlesex Gazette, 25 April 1903

Spectral visitations did not stop the house from being put to good use. Indeed, it was put to almost every use, including a school, maternity services, a dental surgery, a military base, and finally, in 1925, a museum. It remained as such for the next 60 years. Then, disaster struck.

Fire and aftermath

Broomfield House effectively died on 26 August 1984. An electrical fault set fire to the roof, destroying the upper floor. Extensive damage was done to the rest of the building, and it was cordoned off from public access. The superstructure remained sound, however, and it was hoped that the local landmark could be revived. As detailed on the Council’s website, numerous attempts were made over the years, from an ominous-sounding “Prometheus Scheme” to an unsuccessful bid to appear on the BBC’s Restoration series. The money and willpower never quite came together, alas. Further fires in the 1990s — probably arson — made the task all the more daunting.

As recently as 2015, Enfield Council undertook a public consultation to look at ideas for restoring the house. The problem was not just cost (estimated then at £6-7 million), but also ancient covenants that restricted the site’s use for commercial ventures. Those restrictions effectively ruled out private money, or would have required the council to mount an expensive legal challenge. So again, the house was left waiting. A further fire in 2019 seems to have been the final nail that broke the camel’s coffin.

The remains of the house today. The structure is so fragile, it’s now considered beyond any kind of repair, and will probably be demolished. Images courtesy of John Cole

Very little now remains to be saved. While many walls are still standing, they are in a parlous state and it’s unlikely they can be preserved.

Sweeping changes for Broomfield

It is gutting to hear that London has effectively lost a rare Tudor building. But positive change is also coming to the area. In December 2023, a grant of over half a million pounds was secured from the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), which will be pumped into improving the park and its facilities. The successful grant application was put together by the Friends of Broomfield Park, Broomfield House Trust, The Enfield Society, Southgate District Civic Voice, and Enfield Council.

The money will also fund a study into what can be done with the site of Broomfield House. It’s almost universally agreed that the house remains will have to come down. But how best to do this? What can be salvaged? How will it be displayed or conserved? And what exactly should go on the old site by way of memorial? This report will then be presented back to NLHF as part of a follow-on bid to secure the money to make it all happen.

One part of the building that has already been saved is the Lanscroon Murals. The damaged artworks were removed from the building following the fire of 1984. Unfortunately, their initial preservation was not ideal. A conservation report undertaken in 2018 noted (and I can only read this in the voice of Douglas Adams) :

“…more detailed examination of the materials that had been applied after the fire in 1984 revealed that the first two layers of facing material were not the acid-free tissue mentioned in the early correspondence, but that they were in fact nappy liners”. Tom Organ, Arte Conservation report, 2018

One hopes they were, at least, unused nappy liners. Conservation work has since been carried out and the panels may once again be good for display, perhaps on site.

Meanwhile, the park contains a handful of other structures that have survived from previous centuries, and which you can visit any time. The most striking is the imposing gatehouse, also thought to be Tudor. You can even see hooks on the inside that would have been used to hang game. Nearby stretches of wall, a stable block and a gazebo are of Georgian vintage.

The gatehouse. Image: Matt Brown

Broomfield House has now sat behind protective scaffolding for two generations. Nobody under 40 has ever seen the grand house out in the open, and now they never will.

While it awaits its next evolution, the site was recently brightened up by local artists, who painted a series of historical snapshots on the hoardings. To orbit the house today is to journey through the eons.

The first mural seems to depict a future in which robots and flying saucers tend to Broomfield Park. We then, walking clockwise, go back to one of the disastrous fires; then the painting of the staircase murals; then a hunt across Enfield Chase; further back to the Stone Age forest and, eventually, the Big Bang itself.

One section of mural, showing the burning of Broomfield House (left) under scrutiny by a nonplussed pigeon, and then the sci-fi robots to the right. Image: Matt Brown

Not many local history projects have the confidence to trace themselves back to the dawn of time and space. We can only hope that the site’s future will be equally self-assured, even if Broomfield house itself must be swept away.

Update: June 2026

Since the first appearance of this article, a few developments have taken place.

My thanks to Adrian Day (who does local tours) and John Cole (Enfield Council’s community engagement officer) for showing me round the site and providing further information. Check the Friends of Broomfield Park website for details of upcoming events, including the Palmers Green Festival in September. With further thanks to Richard McKeever of Friends of Broomfield House for the update.

Using AI, Daniel Coughlin has brought to life a Continental-style London that could have been. Image: Daniel Coughlin/AI

An AI video brings Wren's unbuilt London to life.

London pre-Great Fire was a congeries of rambling, filth-strewn lanes and alleyways, punctuated with only a few pockets of real grandeur, such as Inigo's Jones' Covent Garden.

But after the conflagration of 1666, architects leapt into action, excited by the clean slate that fate had gifted them. Chief among them was Christopher Wren, who dreamed of Continental-style boulevards and open squares — a London of "pomp and regularity". Charles II himself was sweet on Wren's bombastic blueprints.

Wren wanted to build a be-fountained piazza to the west of St Bride's church, with an uninterrupted avenue powering towards St Paul's. Image: Daniel Coughlin/AI

However, this wholesale grand scheme had many hurdles to overcome: scores of powerful people to win over,  financial frailty and the ticking clock that was a London desperate to get back to work. Although fragments of Wren's masterplan were realised — not least, St Paul's Cathedral — the majority remained a pen and ink teaser of what might've been.

Imagine London with a grand 17th century canal. In fact, don't — just watch Daniel Coughlin's video. Image: Daniel Coughlin/AI

Cue Daniel Coughlin, a writer/researcher who has pulled together old drawings and engravings, maps, historical plans and archival photos to "build" Wren's alternative London using AI.

Slop this is not. In the video above, you will see photorealistic renderings of:

🏛️ The Monument on the banks of the Thames, broad avenues radiating from it like rays of sunshine. (The Wren/Hooke-designed Monument was built, but is stashed away on Fish Street Hill, once the approach to London Bridge, but now more hidden.)

🏛️ A baroque Royal Exchange framed by its own Rome-inspired piazza. (A baroque Exchange sans piazza was built in 1669 to designs by City surveyor Edward Jerman, but it burned down in 1838.)

🏛️ A be-fountained piazza to the west of St Bride's church, with an uninterrupted avenue pointing towards St Paul's. (Instead we retained the less grandiose Fleet Street.)

🏛️ The fetid Fleet river cleaned up, widened, straitened and transformed into a grand canal peppered with picturesque bridges. (A scaled-back version of this canal was constructed, but was not a success; instead the river was culverted and now runs underground as a sewer.)

A baroque version of the Royal Exchange. A structure similar to this was built after the fire, before itself succumbing to flames in 1838. Image: Daniel Coughlin/AI

What we love about the video most of all? The decision to set these scenes in 21st century London: by adding in skyscrapers and red buses, we can get a feel for the metropolis we're missing out on. Begging the question: which do you prefer — Wren's London, or the one we ended up with?

Edward Shawcross, author of The People's Emperor: The Unlikely Rise and Spectacular Fall of Napoleon III, writes how London fell head over heels for a deluded Frenchman who turned out not to be so deluded after all.

Napoleon III lived in London twice, befriending the likes of Charles Dickens and Benjamin Disraeli. Image: Public Domain

"Really", recorded an overwhelmed Queen Victoria, "to think of a Gd Daughter of George IIIrd, dancing with the nephew of our great enemy, the Empr Napoleon now my most firm Ally, in the Waterloo Gallery, — is incredible!"

In her bewilderment, Victoria was speaking for Britain. The ball she described was the culmination of a state visit — arranged to celebrate the Anglo-French alliance formed to fight Russia in the Crimean War in April 1855 — by the emperor of the French, Napoleon III, and his wife, the empress Eugénie. On 16 April, the imperial couple arrived at the Bricklayers Arms station in Southwark where they were met with the inscription "England and France for ever! Long live the Emperor and Empress!". One correspondent was so thrilled by the visit that he wrote to The Morning Post to suggest that Marble Arch be renamed the Arch of Napoléon.

That idea was not taken up, but tens of thousands lined the route as the imperial couple were driven in triumphant procession from Southwark through central London. Union Jacks vied with Tricolour flags in the streets; suspended from the roof of a house in the churchyard of St Paul's cathedral a banner fluttered with the imperial eagle embroidered on it; tickets for stands or on balconies in private houses sold out. As the cortège passed King Street off St James's Street, the emperor pointed out a nondescript townhouse to the empress. The crowd cheered ecstatically, for they knew this was where Napoléon III, then merely Louis-Napoléon, had once lived.

Twice a Londoner

Napoleon III was a remarkable anglophile. Image: Public Domain

For a French emperor, Napoleon III was a remarkable anglophile. Twice he had lived in London. First from 1838 to 1840 and then from 1846 to 1848 before he returned to Paris to become France's first ever directly elected president. This was an unlikely rise. In London, this nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte had been known as a dilletante — he spent much time at the British Museum writing books few people read — and a dandy. Gorgeously arrayed in the finest clothes money could buy, Louis-Napoléon hung out with disreputable literary types like Charles Dickens and Benjamin Disraeli at a salon in then-unfashionable Kensington in between seducing as many actresses and ballerinas as he could.

But what drove Louis-Napoléon in London was unwavering belief that it was his destiny to rule France and reestablish his uncle's empire. An incorrigible conspirator, he did not hide his ambitions — frequently dropping into conversation plans for what he would do when emperor, much to the amusement of those who listened with the kindly patience afforded to the deluded. After he suddenly left London in August 1840, it came as no surprise to acquaintances in England to discover that he had been arrested and condemned to life imprisonment for failing in farcical fashion to overthrow the French government. In 1846, he escaped prison, walking out the front gate disguised as a workman. Soon, he resumed his old life in London.

"'Vive le Hempereur!"

On one excursion, the emperor and empress with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert went to see the monumental iron and glass hall, the Crystal Palace. Image: Jacques-Émile Blanche, Creative Commons

Extraordinarily, his belief in his star was undimmed. As one London-based satirical newspaper commented, "it was a pity that" Louis-Napoléon indulges "so ridiculous a delusion; for strange to say, however eager this would-be Emperor may be to govern the French, they have never shown the least anxiety to become his subjects."
That changed. Revolution broke out, again, in France in February 1848 and by December of the same year Louis-Napoléon, after winning a presidential election by a landslide, had swapped King Street for the Elysée Palace. Three years later, he launched a coup d'état against the government he had sworn to protect, proclaiming himself emperor soon after. His first foray into foreign policy saw him ally with Britain and declare war on Russia.

The nation's traditional nemesis had become, as Victoria said, its firmest ally. Much to the delight of the British people, Napoléon III came back to London as emperor for the state visit in 1855. Wherever he went, crowds, bunting and flags were in abundance; ovations deafening. On one excursion, the emperor and empress with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert went to see the monumental iron and glass hall, the Crystal Palace. As they made their way cries of "Vive l'Empereur" and "Vive l'Impératrice" rang out, and, much to Victoria’s delight, she noted, "sometimes even 'Vive le Hempereur', in cockney English!".

The 1855 visit proved to be the high-water mark of Anglo-French relations; however, there was to be an elegiac final flourish. After being taken prisoner at the battle of Sedan in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war, the emperor lost his throne. The last years of his life were spent in exile in the decidedly unimperial village of Chislehurst, then in Kent. He died here on 9 January 1873.

"The English can reach phenomenal heights of political immorality"

Image: English Heritage

Blamed for catastrophic defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, French newspapers celebrated his passing. "It is in vain that this great criminal, to escape punishment, tries to take refuge in a coffin. The future will know all his crimes", ran one obituary. In Britain, however, he was mourned. He "schemed much that was grander, nobler, more daring than any English statesmen", was The Evening Standard’s judgement.

Much to the annoyance of French journalists who came to cover the funeral, British Bonapartemania went into overdrive once more before the funeral. In London, Dickensian street urchins hawked cheap images of the late emperor. "The fervour, the adulation, the baseness of cockneys and the English bourgeoisie have not slowed for five days", complained one French correspondent. All this sympathy, he wrote, was proof that "the English can reach phenomenal heights of political immorality".

Worse was to come for the journalist, for some 20,000 turned out for the funeral on 15 January. At most, only 1,000 were French. Perhaps this was a fitting tribute. After all, speaking to a visitor about politics at Chislehurst months before he died, the former emperor of the French sighed, "How I wish the French would follow this country's example!" And, while there are few public memorials to Napoleon III in France today, the oldest surviving blue plaque in London, put up in 1867 in King Street, reads, 'Napoleon III. Lived here. 1848'.

The People's Emperor: The Unlikely Rise and Spectacular Fall of Napoleon III by Edward Shawcross, published by Faber & Faber

We featured this book because we know it's the kind of thing our readers will enjoy. By buying it via links in this article, Londonist may earn a commission from Bookshop.org — which also helps support independent bookshops.

A fully functioning teahouse operated at the Japanese Village. Image: British Library Newspapers via CC BY-SA 4.0

In Victorian London, you could walk down a Japanese street of bamboo shops and dwellings fitted with thatched roofs and oiled paper windows, call in at a Buddhist temple then retire to a teahouse to sip a steaming cup of sencha.

Japan sits high in the conscience of modern day London, everywhere from Kensington's Japan House, to the mountains of katsu curry and takoyaki inhaled with gusto in London's glut of Japanese restaurants. Late Victorian Londoners harboured a similar fascination. With trade and diplomatic relations between Britain and Japan galvanised in the mid-19th century, the drawing rooms of middle class Londoners began to clutter up with "paintings, pottery, china, kimonos, fans, screens, silks, and swords". The 1862 International Exhibition in South Kensington even housed a Japanese Court. But 1885 was the year Japanomania really made its mark on the British capital.

Real shops, temples and teahouses

The Mikado debuted at the Savoy Theatre a couple of months after the Japanese Village opened, and W.S. Gilbert visited the latter to inform his writing on the opera. Image: public domain

While writing duo Gilbert and Sullivan put the finishing touches to their Japan-set comic opera The Mikado, over in Humphrey's Hall, Knightsbridge, a full 'Japanese Native Village' opened. The concept of impresario Tannaker Buchirosan, a man who'd already hosted Japanese events around Britain, the unprecedented village layout prided itself on on its 'authenticity', an advert declaring it to be:

...erected and peopled exclusively by natives of Japan (males and females). Amongst whom are skilled artificers and workers who will illustrate the manners, customs, and art industries of their country, clad in their national and picturesque costumes.

For the price of a shilling, curious Londoners could step into a distant land; wander around Japanese gardens; watch marital arts demos; visit temples officiated by real priests; peruse shops and buy fans, toys and musical instruments; then retreat to the teahouse, to be served cups off lacquer trays by kimono-wearing attendants.

Importantly, Londoners could rub shoulders with real Japanese people. It was the closest most would ever get to exploring Tokyo or Kyoto, and the Japanese Village was wildly popular, clocking in quarter of a million people in its first five months. W. S. Gilbert popped his head in for some inspiration, while provincial towns up and down the country hastily constructed "many wretched imitations", as Buchirosan would call them.

A true picture of Japan?

The Village Here painted a picture of a 'quaint' and 'simple' Japan that didn't reflect the rapidly changing country. Image: public domain

On the one hand, this really was an authentic experience. Not only did some 100 Japanese craftspeople and performers populate the village, some had spent months building it, and most even slept here at night.

But the Japanese Village had an agenda. Here was a picture of a 'quaint' and 'simple' Japan; one which glossed over the country's rapid modernisation and industrialisation during the Meiji era — not to mention that in the real Japan, folk were increasingly wearing Western attire. As Anna Jackson, Keeper of the Asia Department at V&A, says: "The lives of these supposedly simple, innocent, primitive Japanese people could be viewed with escapist longing by those coming to terms with the complexities of life in the industrialised West.

"This admiration for the simplicity and purity of Japanese life was, however, entirely dependent on the unshakeable belief in the ultimate superiority of Western civilisation."

To put it another way, if this had been a British Village in Tokyo, everyone would've been whirling around a maypole while singing Scarborough Fair, glugging flagons of mead and rolling cheese wheels all over the place. All very pleasant, but all rather disingenuous.

"One of the prettiest sights in London"

Kyoto Garden in Holland Park. Image: Ivelin Donchev

On 2 May 1885, disaster struck, when a fire — probably caused by the gas lamps that lit the place at night — burned the entire village down, killing a Japanese wood carver. The West London Standard blithely suggested (using a slur we won't replicate here): "While the carts of the contractors are at work, it might have been well had carte blanche been given to Carte of the Savoy, to add to the realism of the 'Mikado,' by introducing the unemployed [Japanese people] in some of his scenes."

London's Japanese Village was reconstructed before the end of the year, and even expanded with "various free-standing idols, and a pool spanned by a rustic bridge" — running until June 1887. The Graphic declared it "one of the prettiest sights in London".

Though such a setup would be deemed stereotypical now, the Japanese Village was an influential moment — a precursor to the sights, sounds and tastes of Japan we enjoy in London today — from Kyoto Garden in Holland Park, to the Royal Albert Hall 's recent sell-out Grand Sumo Tournament, to the Hyper Japan festival, now so popular it visits London twice a year. What might baffle anyone who visited that whimsical Japanese Village 140 years ago, is how so many of the cutting edge gadgets used by Londoners in 2026 were made in Japan, not here.

This feature first appeared in June 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Baker Street: the best preserved platforms from the original 1863 opening. Image: Matt Brown

It all began on 10 January 1863. The world’s first underground passenger railway opened to the public. The origins of the Metropolitan Railway, from Paddington to Farringdon, are well documented. So instead of rehashing that, we’d instead like to dig into some notable and unusual ‘firsts’ on the railway. We’ll start with the more serious stuff, then get gradually more lighthearted.

The first accident on the underground railway

Farringdon station was the scene of the very first crash on the running railway. The collision happened on Friday 27 February 1863, just seven weeks after the line opened. A departing train struck another coming in from Paddington, after an error by a pointsman had sent it down the wrong track. We learn from news reports that around 25 people were injured, often with cuts to the head and face. Mr James Best and Mrs Charlotte Shortland received the most serious injuries, and we may consider them to be the first passengers to be harmed while riding the London Underground.

The line was cleared and reopened within half an hour. Today, it would (rightly) have been declared a major incident with serious ramifications, but the Victorians just got on with things.

First fatal accident on the railway

It would be almost four years before the first fatal accident on the Metropolitan Railway. The location was again just outside Farringdon, but this time in the opposite direction at Barbican station, then called Aldersgate Street.

The tragedy occurred on 19 December 1866. The fatal blow came from above rather than from another train. A four-ton girder fell from the construction site of Smithfield Market, just over the tracks. It smashed through the roof of a second-class carriage with devastating results. One lady, 68-year-old Sarah Johnson, was killed immediately, "her skull having been frightfully fractured and her neck broken". Two other passengers in the car (Henry Lukey and Charles Passmore) and the guardsman (Charles Dant) were thrown onto the tracks. They were found still alive beneath the girder, but "crushed by its superincumbent weight... fearfully mutilated". St Bartholomew's Hospital was mercifully close to the site but the three could not be saved.

Once again, the line was up and running within half an hour.

The first subterranean pickpocket

Crowds of people huddled together on dimly lit platforms made for a pickpocket’s paradise. Petty theft was rife. As far as we can tell, the earliest trial for pickpocketing occurred on 28 January, just 18 days after the line opened. The alleged malefactor was John Rice, a “stylishly dressed” 17-year-old. He was accused of lifting a purse from a Mrs Clementson, who was awaiting a train at Gower Street (now Euston Square) station. He seems to have been acquitted, for he appeared again in court later that year on similar charges (which he again overcame).

The first fatal umbrella attack

Gower Street was also the scene of the network’s first known death by umbrella. While riding the Metropolitan Railway, Mr Frederick Klein got into a heated argument with James Vaughan, who had squeezed into the already overcrowded carriage. “I’m a first-class passenger,” claimed Vaughan, as if that should merit him a place. “If you are, then you have not a first-class tongue,” countered Klein.

After much exchange of insults, Klein alighted at Gower Street. He was followed onto the platform by Vaughan who proceeded to ram the point of his umbrella into his opponent’s eye. The injury proved fatal, but only after a few days of agony. The delay meant that Vaughan could only be charged with manslaughter rather than murder. Bizarrely, he received only a 12-month sentence for the appalling attack.

The first person to ride on the London Underground

Now this would be quite a claim to fame, wouldn’t it? Sadly, the names of the first passengers are lost to history (or hidden in an archive somewhere). We do know, however, that the first trial with passengers who weren’t railway men occurred on 28 November 1861, more than a year before the line opened to the public.

A group of journalists boarded a train at Great Western (Paddington) and took a short run to Chapel Street (Edgware Road). They then strolled through the tunnels to Euston Square, where another train took them to King's Cross. Said one adjective-spewing reporter: "The tunnels, instead of being close, dark, damp, and ill-smelling passages, are wide, spacious, clean, and excellently well lit, resembling more a well-kept street by night than a subterranean passage through the very heart of the metropolis".

The names of the journalists are not recorded, but we do know that the journey included railway bigwigs John Fowler (chief engineer) and WH Wilkinson (Chair), and a secretary by the curious name of Mr Henchman. These, then, are the first named individuals ever to ride on London Underground. We’ve told the story in more depth in a previous article.

In case you’re wondering, the famous image of William Gladstone riding in an open-topped wagon (see below) occurred almost half a year later. This was the first train to run the full length of the line with passengers:

We thought we'd colourise this famous image for you. Gladstone’s the one in the tall hat.

First poetry on the Underground

According to a contemporary Punch magazine, this clunky stanza was pinned to the insides of carriages in January 1864.

PASSENGERS ARE EARNESTLY REQUESTED
NOT TO OPEN THE CARRIAGE DOORS
UNTIL THE TRAIN STOPS AT THE PLATFORM;
OR THEY'LL COME CROPPERS ON THE FLOORS.

Of course, this might just be an invented merriment from the satirical magazine, but I think it’s genuine because the newspaper then go on to critique its clumsy style and verbiage. “The ‘Carriage doors’? Why carriage? What other doors are there to open?”

Punch then goes on to suggest its own, more succinct, messaging:

“DON’T TOUCH THE DOOR TILL THE TRAIN STOPS, YOU ASS.”

First Underground jokes

Punch is also the source for the first witticisms (‘joke’ would be pushing it) that we can find about the Underground. The following appeared in July 1862, about half a year before the line opened:

The sideswipe relates to a series of incidents that saw sewer water pour onto the tracks. The most serious occurred in June 1862, when the Fleet Sewer burst out of its culvert after heavy rain. The damage to the under-construction railway was severe and took two months to make good, delaying the opening.

It’s not that hard to find other ‘jokes’ about the new railway. It is hard to find good jokes about the new railway.

(From Punch, Feb 1863).

And finally, here’s yet another we chanced across from the Western Morning News, 7 February 1867:

Even in the 1860s, that would have raised more groans than guffaws.

The first graffiti on the Underground

In 1864, just 14 months after the opening of the Metropolitan Railway, Mr Aquila John Williams was up before the magistrate accused of writing "obscene words... calculated to pollute the minds of the passengers on that railway" [Cork Examiner, 10 March 1864]. History does not record his selection of phrase. For the sake of argument, let’s assume it was some lewd wordplay involving Lord Palmerston.

He pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay 40 shillings plus costs. In summing up, the judge said he was confident that the case's publicity "would be effectual in preventing such conduct in future." And no one ever wrote a naughty word on the tube ever again.

Sir Ian McKellen unveiled the plaque at Olivier's childhood home in Pimlico. Image: English Heritage

Laurence Olivier already has a statue, a spot in Poets' Corner, and a theatre auditorium named in his honour. Now add to that an official Blue Plaque.

On 10 June 2026, said plaque was unveiled at Olivier's childhood home at 22 Lupus Street, Pimlico. It was here that Olivier lived between the ages of 6 and 11, his father serving as curate at the nearby St Saviour's Church.

The young Olivier was already flaunting his thespian chops. After the actor Sybil Thorndike saw him in a school production, she gushed to Laurence's dad: "But this is an actor. Absolutely an actor. Born to it."

Olivier's statue on the South Bank. Image: Londonist

At 22 Lupus Street itself, the budding actor is said to have transformed a wooden box and a set of blue curtains into a stage, performing songs, dances and dramatic scenes for hours at a time. He would go on to sell out stages across London and the globe. Shakespeare was a speciality, although he also appeared in Hollywood films throughout his career, including Rebecca, Sleuth and Marathon Man.

Said English Heritage Senior Historian Howard Spencer: "What makes Lupus Street so special is that it is where it all began for Olivier, as an imaginative London child first discovering a love of performance. The plaque celebrates the formative home where one of Britain's greatest cultural figures first found his voice as an actor."

"In his lifetime Laurence Olivier's achievements, on stage and on screen, were unique and legendary," said McKellen. Image: English Heritage

Another great actor, Sir Ian McKellen, was there to unveil the plaque. In his lifetime Laurence Olivier's achievements, on stage and on screen, were unique and legendary," said McKellen. "He was a Hollywood star, the first Director of the National Theatre of Great Britain, producer, director, as well as actor."

Last year, a Blue Plaque was erected at the former Mayfair home of Audrey Hepburn.

This feature first appeared in June 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Today, I’d like to talk about the history of traffic islands.

We have a lot of them in London. They help pedestrians get across busy roads by offering a refuge between lanes of traffic. Here’s one near Trafalgar Square, tested to its limits:

Image: Matt Brown

We have so many traffic islands in London that, contrary to all expectations, a few of them might be described as “quite interesting”.

I’d nominate the one opposite the Hilton on Park Lane, for example, where Mungo Jerry made their promotional video to In The Summertime (by some estimates, regarded as the biggest-selling single by a British band thanks to its international success).

Certainly, I’d put forward the one from the opening credits of Bottom, the second-best British comedy of the 1990s:

If you go to that spot today, you will find that the bench carries a plaque to “The man, the myth, the legend; Pan Global Phenomenon, Dr The Rik Mayall”, who died in 2014.

Meanwhile, you might have used this triangular traffic island at the foot of Edgware Road:

One of London’s most historic spots… not that you’d know it. Image: Google Street View

This is where the Tyburn gallows stood for centuries. Thousands of lives were snuffed out on the site of this crossing. Its triangular plan mirrors the ghastly geometry of the Tyburn Tree. Today, it is a convenient way to get across to Wagamama.

The Tyburn crossing stands within sight of Marble Arch, itself marooned on a glorified pedestrian island. At the other pole of Park Lane we find Hyde Park Corner, yet another pedestrian sanctuary, which boasts the Wellington Arch and numerous war memorials.

I shall ignore these inflated examples of the traffic island, however, in favour of something more humble. The rest of today’s newsletter will concern itself with this elementary refuge:

Image: Matt Brown

It is a traffic island so humble that I bet you didn’t even notice it at first. The eye bounces off it; heads towards the truck or the buildings. It scarcely enters the cognisance of the people who pass by. But, in London, even the most insignificant places can have a rich history. In this case, we’re looking at London’s very first traffic island (allegedly). You can probably guess where it is. The prominent window display of CAVIAR would rule out Whitechapel or Willesden Green. We’re somewhere much more fancy: at the rarified junction of Piccadilly and St James’s Street.

The Origin Story

St James’s Street, as you’re no doubt aware, is a place of gentlemen’s clubs and high-end shops of such class that they could (and indeed did) feature in the Kingsman films. Thanks to the nearby presence of St James’s Palace, the street has been a place of quality since the 17th century.

Back in 1864, a gent by the name of Colonel Pierpoint was on his way to White’s club, on the north-east corner of the street. An elderly man, the Colonel had some trouble getting across the opposing lanes of traffic. This resourceful veteran of the Napoleonic wars resolved to do something about it. He petitioned the local vestry (council) to install a refuge mid-way across the road, so that pedestrians had only to contend with one direction of traffic at a time.

The traffic island was duly installed. It was widely hailed as the first of its kind in London. Pedestrians could now cross safely, even after a few too many recommendations from the White’s sommelier.

Colonel Pierpoint was delighted with his initiative. He led an inspection party down the steps of White’s and onto the carriageway, there to admire his handiwork. Pierpoint was promptly run over by a passing carriage and killed, and on the very same day that his safety measure had opened.

We Brits don’t just live with a deep sense of irony; we die by it too.

The man, the myth, the legend…

This, at least, is the story recounted across several reputable websites, as well as MyLondon. Yet it sounds a little fishy to my ear. Can it be true?

There is, it turns out, more than a kernel of truth in the tale, if not a colonel. The gentleman concerned was the Hon. Philip Sydney Pierrepont, part of the aristocratic Pierrepont family of Northamptonshire (but sadly no relation to Albert Pierrepoint, the noted hangman). As far as I can tell, I’m the first person to identify him as a real individual. Every other source can point only to a misspelled, mis-ranked “Colonel Pierpoint”.

Here’s our man, tub-thumping for a traffic island as early as 1860:

Morning Post, 25 May 1860. Image via British Newspaper Archive

Pierrepont, though self-identifying as “aged and inactive”, was tenacious and persuasive. His letter-writing campaign was next directed at the local authority, who eventually moved forward with his proposals. The following is taken from the Minutes of the Committee of Works of St George’s Hanover Square, as reported in April 1863.

Sir, -In reply to your favour of yesterday, I beg to say that your sketch and plan of the proposed pillar of refuge at the top of St. James's-street, meet my entire approval, and I am quite ready to bear the expense, provided that it does not exceed £50, and also that it is completed and in operation by the 1st of May next. It would gratify me to have the words "Pierrepont's Refuge, 1863," cut on the stone plinth, on which I conclude it is to stand. But I by no means wish to make this a stipulation, or a sine qua non.

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

(Signed)

P. S. PIERREPONT.

We can, then, confirm the first half of the story. The crossing was initiated by a man almost-called Pierpoint, and was brought into being some time shortly after April 1863. He even paid for it himself.

Now, the big question. Was the Hon. Mr P. mowed down while inspecting his own road safety measures? Was he busted by his own refuge, to coin a new variant of the hoisted-petard?

The good thing about posh people is that they’re easy to trace. I found Pierrepont’s dates with little difficulty. Born 13 June 1786, died 15 February 1864. He did indeed meet his end in 1864, just as the legend says. But this may just be coincidence. He was approaching his 78th birthday after all. “Being old, he would have died soon anyway,” to paraphrase The Day Today, the runaway best British comedy of the 1990s. Can we find a cause of death, to clinch the matter either way?

I discovered in the archives that he’d expired at his home at 4 Seamore Place, Mayfair. This now-vanished street was at the western end of Curzon Street in Mayfair.

Having already written my introduction to this article, I was rather amused by the coincidence. Pierrepont’s sick room may well have looked out onto Park Lane and — had he and his property somehow survived another 106 years — straight onto the traffic island where Mungo Jerry recorded their record-breaking hit. Honestly, if this article has one more unlikely call-back, then it’ll self destruct*.

The road layout changed a bit in the interim, but this is roughly how traffic-island pioneers Mungo Jerry and the Hon Philip Sydney Pierrepont were spatially if not temporally neighbours.

But what did he die of? Most newspaper accounts of the Pierrepontian demise deal only with the contents of the Will. One report, however, mentions that he passed “after an illness of some weeks”. A longer obituary says that he slipped away “after a period, we fear, of much suffering”. Nowhere reports the actual cause of death.

Now, it could have been a road-traffic accident that left him critically injured. Then again, I can find no accounts of any elderly gentleman being struck by a carriage in the right time frame, and certainly not on St James’s Street. Sadly, Pierrepont had no children, and therefore no descendants, so he’s been largely overlooked by the genealogists on sites like Ancestry. Short of ordering a death certificate (which I’m tempted to do), I am unable to establish what fatally ailed him.

My hunch is that the Hon. Mr Pierrepont died of an illness unrelated to any road accident, but we can’t rule it out. That’s as it should be. A good urban legend should always retain an air of mystery, even in the light of contradictory evidence**.

Speaking of the urban legend, it began to circulate three decades after Pierrepont’s death. In 1895, several newspapers published a ‘Notes and Queries’ item about the curious and barely legible inscription on St James’s Street commemorating “Pierpoint’s Refuge” (it seems he got his wish). All of them give the punchline about the gentleman being killed at his own crossing, but with an air of scepticism. At some point in the 20th century the tale had been spun enough times to Chinese-whisper his name into “Colonel Pierpoint”.

The real Pierpoint, the Hon. Philip Sydney Pierrepont, has been all-but-forgotten by history. I think we should revive the memory of this putative inventor of the traffic island. This obituary in the Bicester Herald (26 Feb 1864) paints the picture of a man who lived up to his honourable honorific.

Pierrepont’s Refuge remains in place today, albeit much altered and no-doubt repaved a dozen times. The “Pierrepont’s Refuge” plaque was noted as missing as early as 1897, and calls for its return can be found in the press a decade after that. It never was replaced. Perhaps my friend Martin Wilkie of World Origin Sites, which marks ‘world first’ locations, might care to look into it.

Finally, let’s go out with the greatest song ever recorded on a London traffic island. Take it away, lads:

*FOOTNOTE: I mean, there are other connections I could interweave. I’m too young to remember In The Summertime’s original release (and video) of 1970. My generation associates the song more with an anti-drink-driving commercial from 1992 which, like the Pierpoint myth, also ends in a fatal car crash. Rik Mayall of Bottom was also strongly associated with motor accidents. He was seriously injured and almost killed in a 1998 quad-bike crash. His character was clipped by a van in Four Men in a Car. And the unforgettable finale to the The Young Ones saw Rik’s character Rick and the rest of the cast plummet of a cliff in a double-decker bus.

**FOOTNOTE: After publication of this article, an intrigued reader ordered the death certificate and it turns out Pierrepont died of kidney disease — not usually contracted from a road collision.

Enjoyed this article? We publish two or three a week of similar quality (if not always quite so wacky). Sign up for Londonist: Time Machine below.

This article was originally published in 2019.

This year's Covent Garden Rent Ceremony takes place on 2 July 2026, from 4.30pm. It's a public event so anyone on the piazza by St Paul's Church at that time can join in or just watch.

"Hear ye! Hear ye!"

The cry rings out around Covent Garden on a balmy Thursday afternoon, alerting people it's time for one of London's strangest annual traditions: the Covent Garden Rent Ceremony.

The historical ceremony is held each summer, as a merry band of misfits — that is, the Lord Mayor of Westminster, the Deputy Mayor of Camden, Covent Garden Area trustees, musicians, street entertainers and a town crier — march around Covent Garden Piazza.

Their every step is followed by a determined group of photographers, and bemused yet gleeful tourists.

Because every parade needs a man on a unicorn unicycle.

But what exactly is the Rent Ceremony? It's an event where the trustees pay the "peppercorn rent" of five rosy red apples and five posies of flowers — a callback to the fruit and flower market on which Covent Garden was founded — to the landlords of the five properties of the 'Protected Lands'.

The trust has a 150 year lease on the properties and this is the 31st edition of the ceremony, meaning there's another 119 years left to go.

The Lord Mayor of Westminster with The Deputy Mayor of Camden and some of Covent Garden's trustees behind.

The parade winds its way around Covent Garden, pausing for the town crier to make a booming speech explaining what on Earth is going on, followed by a musical interlude from the string quartet. The parade then sets off again.

Most impressively the quartet includes a man marching with a massive double bass, often for brilliant comic effect. (As someone who played the instrument abysmally at school, I cannot stress enough how physically impressive a feat this is.)

One of the rosy red apples being handed over.

At two different points, the peppercorn rent is exchanged. The first time comes reasonably early in the parade for the lease on the St James's buildings. The second is at the end of the parade, for the lease on the main Covent Garden Piazza building.

After that, a few speeches thank all involved in the merry day out, before the parade marches out of the piazza and dissipates.

Take a look at some photos we captured at 2019's ceremony, followed by the video we shot in 2017.

Wahey!

Not the traditional way to play a double bass.

Festivities come to an end and the trade is made.

Image: public domain

See re-creations of the War of the Roses battle.

Barnet. Famous as a terminus of the Northern line; and widely deployed as a slang term for haircuts. But it's got some proper serious history going on, too.

A throne was won on Barnet's lofty slopes. It was here, on Easter Sunday 1471, that Edward of York saw off the Lancastrian forces, all but securing his future as Edward IV. The Battle of Barnet is seen as one of the most important battles of medieval England, and it happened right here, within what is now Greater London's borders.

Every year, the good citizens of Barnet put on a big shindig to celebrate their manor's momentous past. The 2026 Barnet Medieval Festival takes place on 6-7 June and promises to be a spectacle for all the family. As well as battle recreation, you can also see archery and cannon demonstrations, medieval artwork, mounted knights in combat and... well, we might as well just drop the flyer in:

Sadly (though perhaps wisely) the battle won't rage throughout the town, nor on the prime battle site in Hadley Green. Instead the action takes place at the wonderful Lewis of London farm — famous for its ice cream cafe — on Galley Lane. It's a bit of a schlep if you're coming from afar, perhaps a 45-minute walk from the Tube station. But there is a shuttle bus from the Spires shopping centre, and parking is available on site for those who drive.

The Battle of Barnet memorial, a little north-east of the festival site, in Hadley Green. Image Matt Brown

Although the main action is at the ice cream farm, a walk through central Barnet will also turn up plenty of nods to the battle. Look out for the 90-or-so medieval banners, fitted to lamp posts and hanging in the Spires shopping centre (photo above from 2023). The pennants were created by volunteers at the Museum of Barnet, and are based on the heraldic devices used by combatants in the battle. The town even has a commemorative bench or two:

Image: Matt Brown

The main event is organised by the Barnet Medieval Festival Committee. Tickets are available on the gate or in advance at £10 for adults, £5 for teens (children free). Parking is available. While you're in the area, check out the whalebone arch, or go hunting for fairy doors.

Buckingham Palace in the 1920s, although judging from the clothing, probably not those balmy days of May 1922. Image: Suzy Hazelwood

Until now, the hottest daily temperature record for spring in London — 32.8°C — was on 22 May 1922, during a spell of sweltering heat. So in a world without air con and corner shops stocked with ice pops, how exactly did Londoners cope?

The heatwave came as a shock, not least because March had seen the coldest day recorded in some 40 years. "The heat trick has been sprung on us with such unfair celerity that our tempers are exacerbated almost into doing something to cope with the futility of our anti-heat precautions," sweated an Express reporter, who'd winced at a 'limp' waiter's suggestion of steak and kidney pie. "lce-cream? Not enough to be had. lce? What is it? Cool, luscious salads? All green stuff very scarce. Coats off on the golf course? Not to he heard of: simply not done, sir!"

As Londoners clamoured for lighter clothing, a Lewisham draper moaned "The public wait until the weather comes before they ask for the goods, and you cannot cope with it". Meanwhile, a group of guards marching through the city did away with their trousers altogether, opting instead for khaki shorts.

"Cool, luscious salads? All green stuff very scarce." Image: Karolina Kołodziejczak

Working from home with a bag of frozen peas on your head wasn't an option in 1922, although even smart office dress fell momentarily lax, as the Perthshire Advertiser's London correspondent (who was apparently on heat) reported:

In city offices on Monday afternoon [22 May] the male staffs worked in their shirt sleeves, and even then they cast envious eyes on their female colleagues looking so cool and comfortable in the diaphanous blouses and peek-a-bo [sic] stockings.

Many office workers would have filed into town on the Tube, back then with no air conditioning, of course, although the network was cooler than it is in 2026, and when the heatwave struck, enormous electrical fans were installed, pumping 1,000,000 cubic feet of air through the Underground system every minute. Indeed, the Hampstead News claimed that Tube stations were the coolest place to be during a London heatwave. Homeward bound, some of those office workers surely came armed with a Lyons Ice Brick, the frozen treat that'd launched in 1921, and claimed to remain unmelted for two hours. Provided, of course, it hadn't already sold out.

As Londoners stumbled around in various states of heat exhaustion — heat blisters breaking out on their foreheads — the pubs were surely packed, although parts of the West End ground to a halt: "The hot weather playing havoc with the theatres," said the Bystander, which reported that some shows in the stuffier Victorian theatres had been cancelled. They weren't the only thing off-limits; Trafalgar Square's fountains had been cut off since the war and weren't to be restored until the following year (when children happily took to the pools as giant paddling pools). The Thames was a tempting alternative for many, although tragedy struck when one 16-year-old boy got cramp and drowned in the river in front of the Tate.

A thunderstorm on brought some relief, although not to Kentish Town Parish Church, which was struck by a thunderbolt. Image: NOAA Photo Library via Public domain

Up on Bolton Road in Kilburn, three lads quenched their thirst with one too many beers, and after being warned by an officer to keep the noise down, one retorted "Come on you ——; you can have it if you want it." Finding themselves in court, one of said lads bashfully admitted 'it was all his fault. Owing to the heat he had some drink and got excited.'

Some things never change, and the complaint that rang through town was one we're familiar with now: Yes, we wanted it to be warm, but not this warm! "But what is the matter?" asked the salad-searching Express writer. "Would we have bartered yesterday for a fog? Or for a sleet-storm? Let us be honest. Let us confess at once that there are many worse temperatures in the year than — eighty-seven in the shade!"

A thunderstorm on 25 May brought some relief, although not to Kentish Town Parish Church, whose belfry tower took a hit from a thunderbolt 'resembling a great ball of crimson fire', and was badly damaged. The warm spell would last until the end of the month, when, as the London Daily Chronicle put it, "Heavy men breathe again, and there is a slump in ice-cream bricks." For the Londoners of over a century ago, 1922's heatwave was a strange blip — one that wouldn't be mirrored again for another 22 years. And even then, the record was only equalled, not broken.

For us Londoners of 104 years on, however, the next record temperature could already be warming up in the wings.

The latest book by Paul Talling — the man behind Derelict London — is an epic pub crawl of London's drinking establishments which have bitten the dust. But within this sad story, there's a more positive narrative; the pubs that've risen from the dead, and in many cases, are now in finer fettle than they've ever been before.

Here, Paul takes us to 10 such resurrected boozers.

1. Clayton Arms (now the Prince of Peckham), Peckham

2015.

The Clayton Arms has a history tracing back to at least 1867. A tragic incident occurred at the pub in 1948 when a patron, Mrs. Annie Newson, mistook the door to the wine cellar for the ladies' restroom. She fell down the stairs and later died in the hospital.

During the 2011 riots, the pub was ransacked by a group of 50 youths, leaving it in a severely damaged state. This decline ultimately led to its closure in 2013.

Now.

The pub briefly reopened in 2015 as the Dolls House which was part cocktail bar/gastro pub with a members club type private area. It promptly closed and re-opened again in 2016 as the Clayton Arms before being taking over by businessman Clement Ogbonna who sold his flat to finance the venture renaming it the Prince of Peckham. The name is inspired by 90s TV show, Desmond's and its character Lee 'The Peckham Prince' Stanley.

The Prince of Peckham has been a roaring success and recently Time Out magazine voted it the 19th best pub in London. It's been used to film TV programmes such as Sky's drama, Temple, as well as being used for numerous commercials, music videos and photo shoots.

Prince of Peckham, 1 Clayton Road, Peckham, SE15 5JA

2. Greyhound, Sydenham

2008.

An inn has occupied this site since at least 1730, originally serving as a meeting spot for local hunters when the surrounding area was an ancient forest. Greyhounds were used for hunting here, valued for their speed and sharp vision. Business at the Greyhound Inn thrived with the construction of the Croydon Canal, which operated from 1807 to 1836. The inn offered refreshments to the navvies who built the canal and served as a rest stop for those using the canal for work or leisure. An early painting depicts pleasure boats moored at a landing stage near the inn.

Now.

In the 1990s, the Greyhound was renamed the Fewterer and Firkin, but reverted to its original name in 2001. The pub later closed as plans emerged for a development of flats, and it caught fire while vacant later that same year. In 2012, the 18th century building was demolished without authorisation, leaving only the front wall standing. The construction company was fined by the council, and the pub was subsequently rebuilt and reopened in 2018.

Greyhound, 313-315 Kirkdale, Sydenham, SE26 4QB

3. Hope & Anchor (now Cafe Koko), Camden Town

2014.

The Hope and Anchor opened in the 1860s. The name comes from the Epistle to the Hebrews of the New Testament: "We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope."

By 1900 the Camden Theatre opened which gave the pub increased trade. Over the years the Theatre changed into a nightclub, now Koko. During recent decades the pub's staff and locals endured clubbers popping in for a drink but were pretty hostile to the ones in the queue solely coming in to make use of their toilet facilities. In fact, the pub often seemed hostile to any passing trade. Old school Camden was quite rough and ready but some of the regulars of this pub were quite abrasive right up until its closure in 2013. I used to come here after walking tours but ceased to visit after a near altercation at the pool table when heading to the gents toilet. In happier times bands like Madness and Radiohead had been known to stop off at the pub before a gig.

Now.

After abortive plans to convert it into flats the pub has been renovated and reopened in 2022 as Cafe Koko, a tap bar and pizzeria. It's certainly friendlier than the old place, though quite upmarket.

Cafe Koko, 74 Crowndale Road, Camden Town, NW1 1TP

4. Jolly Sailor, South Norwood

2021.

The pub has a rich history, first opening in 1810 alongside the newly completed Croydon Canal and later being rebuilt in its current form in the late 1860s. Legends surround the pub, including tales of a haunted cellar once used by smugglers to stash contraband, and the original building even featured a boxing gym upstairs. In 1828, the London and Sporting Chronicle reported on a notorious prizefight between Ned Savage and Peter Sweeney, who trained at the Jolly Sailor, a bloody match held on the canal banks that shocked the local community.

The Croydon Canal, however, proved a financial failure and closed in 1836. A railway line from London Bridge to Croydon was constructed, roughly following the canal's path. South Norwood's first station opened in 1839 and was initially named The Jolly Sailor after the pub, before being renamed Norwood in 1846 and the current name of Norwood Junction by 1856.

Now.

The Jolly Sailor closed in late 2019. A harsh review on Beer in the Evening described it as "a local pub for local people, like the Slaughtered Lamb in American Werewolf," though in my experience, it was a cozy little pub, and the landlady, Val, was friendly, even inviting me to a free BBQ shortly after. The only downside was the 1990s blue and purple lighting. Popular with Palace fans on game days, the pub featured football on TV, a darts board, and a pool table. Evenings included karaoke and occasional live bands playing ska and reggae. After a period of uncertainty, the Jolly Sailor reopened in 2023.

Jolly Sailor, 64 High St, South Norwood. SE25 6EB

5. Kensington Park Hotel (now the Knight of Notting Hill), Ladbroke Grove

2018.

The Kensington Park Hotel, widely known as the KPH or "Keep Paddies Happy", was built during the 1860s, catering to Irish labourers who built Notting Hill. In 1956 a 19-year-old labourer from Dublin who had been performing songs in the saloon bar left the pub and was found stabbed to death on the pavement a few yards away. In 1929 a theatre was opened on the first floor of the KPH, where Tom Jones sang his first London concert in 1960.

Now.

One regular drinker here was Timothy Evans, who was wrongly hanged in 1950 for murders committed by serial killer John Christie at 10 Rillington Place. Other regulars over the years have been Oswald Moseley, Cerys Matthews, Eddie Izzard and members of The Clash and Thin Lizzy.

The survival of the pub had been in doubt for over a decade. The landlord who ran it for 40 years became too ill to run the pub and management was, in 2013, handed over to music venue and festival entrepreneur Vince Power though a new freeholder set about terminating the lease. After closure in 2017 the KPH reopened two years later but had closed down again by 2022. The pub reopened as the Knight of Notting Hill in 2023.

Knight of Notting Hill, 139 Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill W10 6HJ

6. Lord Napier (now Lord Napier Star), Hackney Wick

2018.

This pub opened in 1865 as The White's Arms, named after its original owner, Mr. White, but was soon sold and renamed the Lord Napier. Together with the nearby Lea Tavern — demolished 15 years ago — it was one of two 19th century pubs serving a district of Victorian houses and industrial sites. Across the street stood a distillery operated by the Carless, Capel & Leonard Company, a leading British producer of American crude oil. The company is best remembered today for coining the trade name "petrol" in the 1890s to market its fuel.

The adjacent railway station, visible in the background of this photo, has a dark history. In 1864, the body of Thomas Briggs was discovered on the line between Bow and Hackney Wick: while aboard the train from Fenchurch Street, he had been robbed and murdered by a German man named Franz Müller.

Now.

The Lord Napier finally closed in 1995. Along with the adjoining two derelict houses, it is one of the sole survivors of the original 19th century development. The pub was squatted for many years and was noted for its rave parties, becoming a Hackney landmark thanks to the colourful street art on its walls. But the area has rapidly gentrified, and the pub reopened in 2021 as a lively and successful pub.

Lord Napier Star, 25 White Post Lane, Hackney Wick, E9 5EN

7. Red Cow (now the Copper Tap), Peckham

2015.

The history of the Red Cow in Peckham goes back over 200 years. Peckham was mostly a farming community and drovers used Peckham as a stopping place before going onto the markets of London. Their herds were put out to graze while the drovers took refreshments at the various inns. Rebuilt in Victorian times, the Red Cow stood here as a grand three-storey pub at the junction of Peckham High Street and Consort Road (originally called Cow Walk) until being demolished in the late 1960s to build a housing estate. The replacement pub sits beneath a local authority housing block.

Now.

During the early 1980s the landlord of the Red Cow was Joey Singleton, a former British light-welter champion, winner of the Lonsdale Belt and known as "Joey the Jab" to his friends.

The Red Cow, which had a typical estate pub vibe, closed in 2015 but reopened only a year later after refurbishment to give it a more rustic feel, and was renamed the Copper Tap.

Copper Tap, 190 Peckham High Street, Peckham, SE15 5EG

8. Star of the East, Limehouse

2018.

The Star of the East, built in the 1840s and Grade II listed in 1973, has a fascinating history. During Victorian times, it served as a venue for coroner's inquests. From the 1870s into the 20th century, the pub was managed by the Baxter family. In its early years, Mr. H.W. Baxter drew visitors by showcasing an unusual attraction: the purported 2,000-year-old Peruvian mummy of a teenage girl.

Now.

The pub closed down in 2008, reopened, then limped on until 2016. Most of the times I went in this place it was pretty dead with a couple of regulars and the pub cats. Sometimes very friendly though I stopped going there as the lager didn't taste right, the Guinness was lumpy and the red wine was terrible.

After renovation the pub reopened, and it is very different to the old days, having been reinvented as a gastro pub.

Star of the East, 805A Commercial Rd,Limehouse, E14 7HG

9. Well & Bucket, Bethnal Green

2011.

The Well & Bucket goes back to the early 19th Century when this road was originally called Church Street. According to What's in a London Pub Name? by James Potts and Sam Cullen, the name Well & Bucket is thought to originate from the fact there was a well by the site of the pub, which potentially even supplied the water to help make the beer here.

Now.

During the 1970s the Stage newspaper described the pub as the "cheerful little Well & Bucket" and several articles talk about when singers and comedians performed charity shows. Live music became a mainstay of the pub when it was renamed the Stick of Rock in 1988, run by Steve Bruce the drummer from Cock Sparrer who hosted metal and punk bands here, including Tenpole Tudor, U.K. Subs, Demented Are Go, The Adicts and Blitz. The popularity of the venue led to Steve getting offers to reform Cock Sparrer, which he did and they performed a warm up gig/rehearsal in the pub in 1992 just before playing the 2,000 capacity Astoria that evening. They're playing gigs around the world to this day.

The Stick Of Rock closed in 1993. The ground floor was later used as a leather wholesalers who had vacated by 2011, before being converted back to the Well & Bucket in 2013.

Well & Bucket, 143 Bethnal Green Road, Bethnal Green E2 7DG

10. Tipperary, Fleet Street (reopening again in 2027)

2023.

The Tipperary was declared as 'London's original Irish pub' on signage by the door — though, that's incorrect, as I'll explain in a minute. For many years it was a well-known haunt for editors and journalists, alongside barristers from the nearby chambers.

2024.

Originally there was a 15th century inn here called the Boar's Head adjacent to the site of a Carmelite friary known as Whitefriars. Although the front of the pub is early 20th century, the main building dates from 1667 after being rebuilt after the Great Fire of London. Dublin based Mooney's Irish House acquired its first pub in London in 1889 on The Strand, and the Boar's Head was its fourth London outlet, taken over in 1895. The pub was renamed The Tipperary in 1968. The pub claimed to be the first pub outside Ireland to have bottled Guinness, and later draft, though Guinness was actually exporting to inns in Bristol from earlier that century in both cask and bottle.

The pub shut in 2020, having struggled to cope with the lack of office workers in the City. However, with workers returning, the pub reopened in 2024. Since then it has closed once again, but plans are afoot to reopen once more in 2027.

Tipperary, 66 Fleet Street, Temple, EC4Y 1HT

London's Dead Pubs by Paul Talling, published by Damaged Goods on 25 June 2026 — available for pre-order now.

We featured this book because we know it's the kind of thing our readers will enjoy. By buying it via links in this article, Londonist may earn a commission from Bookshop.org — which also helps support independent bookshops.

All images in this article © Paul Talling.

This feature first appeared in May 2025 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Image: Matt Brown

What’s the last thing you expect to happen to you at church?

“Mr. Goodson, a master-taylor in Craven-buildings [Drury Lane], being at the late Mr. Whitefield's chapel in Tottenham-court road, was struck dead by a flash of lightening; the studs in his sleeves were melted, his shirt was burnt, and the hair on one side of his head.” - Caledonian Mercury (syndicated), 30 March 1772

Bartholomew Goodson was struck by lightning, during divine service. Not only that, but his fate seems oddly specific — a master tailor getting fried until his buttons melted. Not only that, but one of the world’s leading authorities on atmospheric electricity died that very same day (22 March 1772), a couple of miles away in Spitalfields. God moves in mysterious ways.

The lightning strike was no idle hearsay. Three gentlemen of the Royal Society were in attendance and even got a scientific paper out of it, complete with diagram. They found that the lightning bolt had been attracted to a pineapple-shaped finial on the roof, which was “shivered into very small fragments.” The electricity then conducted down through the building into the unfortunate tailor’s head. He left behind “a wife and two children in distressed circumstances, who were entirely dependent on his labour”. Goodson was buried in the churchyard just metres from the scene of his electrocution. He might lie there still.

Then again, probably not. The one acre of land where Whitfield’s (sometimes Whitefield’s) Chapel once stood is among the most turbulent sites in London. You probably know it. It’s that peculiar open space mid-way along Tottenham Court Road, just north of Goodge Street station:

Whitfield Gardens, most famous for its Fitzrovia mural. Image: Matt Brown

Today, it’s called Whitfield Gardens, though it lacks any turf. (As does Fitzrovia in general; nearby Crabtree Fields is the only bit of publicly accessible grass.) This former graveyard is now paved over with flagstones. 250 years ago, however, these were the verdant limits of London. It was here, in 1756, that the celebrated evangelist George Whitfield chose to build his third tabernacle. As a non-conformist, Whitfield was often at loggerheads with the Anglican church. Hence, he’d been looking for somewhere well away from the central parishes to establish his ministry. This was his plot of choice:

The area in 1746, according to the John Rocque map, here coloured in by me.

Now, if you were presented with the map above in Sim City or some other town-planning computer game, where would you place your new church? Whitfield opted for the least auspicious spot. He took out a lease on the field containing that Africa-shaped pond. The pool was known as the ‘little sea’ or ‘little deep’ at the time, and it came with a woeful reputation. In 1735, a young apprentice was fished out of the pond, quite dead. Heavy stones were found in his pockets. In 1755, just months before Whitfield gained the lease, another young man was found drowned in the pool, “the Misfortune was occasioned by a Matter of Love”. This was not prime real estate.

Whitfield drained his plot and began to construct his tabernacle. As a dissenting preacher, he was unable to get the ground consecrated through the Anglican church. According to legend, he had a cart-load of blessed soil brought over from one of the City of London churches, which he then covertly sprinkled around the grounds. Consecration by stealth. In the gardens, which would become the churchyard, he erected an epitaph: “Stop giddy World, and consider this Place”.

270 years later, here we are taking up that invitation.

Whitfield had a curious career. He’d been one of the key players in John Wesley’s Methodist movement, though he’d since parted ways and was preaching his own flavour of evangelical non-conformism. He was a celebrated orator, attracting crowds that could sometimes reach the tens of thousands, including such luminaries as Horace Walpole and David Garrick. But he also had a dark side. Whitfield made several voyages to America, where he acquired a plantation and became a slaveholder. He would often preach to enslaved groups, and spoke frequently against their mistreatment. Yet he never decried the slave trade itself, and benefited from forced labour.

His London orations were wildly popular, and could often get rowdy. In 1766, two men “very genteelly dressed” were locked up after “breeding a riot” in the church. Accounts of pickpocketing among the congregation were common.

Whitfield died in 1770, but his church continued. We get a good glimpse of the chapel in the 1799 Horwood plan of London. Here we see the original square tabernacle, with its octagonal extension built just a few years later. Open land to the north and south served as twin burial grounds for Whitfield’s flock (as well as his wife Elizabeth, who died in 1768).

Whitfield’s Chapel, on the site of the old pond, in the 1799 Horwood map of London.

Despite Whitfield’s zealous, uplifting energies, the plot of land would not shake off its tragic associations. Traces of the old pond still remained around the building, prompting an ongoing battle with subsidence. In 1768, an old man was fished from a vestige of the pond, repeating the fate of the two drowned apprentices. In 1785, a man called John Fray caught pickpocket Thomas Waking practicing his light-fingered arts on Tottenham Court Road. He proceeded to throw the thief into the Whitfield pond, where the lad got into difficulty and drowned. Fray was later convicted of manslaughter.

All this time, the adjacent church yards were filling up with bodies. These included the noted abolitionist Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797). Himself a Black former slave, Equiano lived locally and had dabbled in Methodism and Evangelism. He probably worshiped at the tabernacle, and it was the natural burial place when he died in 1797.

Image: Matt Brown

Equiano might not have remained underground for long. The churchyard was a notorious spot for grave robbers, seeking recently deceased bodies to sell to surgeons. The year after Equiano’s burial, the Kentish Gazette describes a scene that would make the swimming pool in Poltergeist look like a wildflower meadow:

“It is a most afflicting scene to witness the concourse of people who daily flock about the burial ground in Tottenham court-road, to discover whether the remains of their relatives are still left interred in their graves. Numbers of coffins have been opened for this purpose; and on Tuesday no fewer than twenty-nine coffins were broken up in the church-yard for fire-wood, the bodies having been stolen. There was quite a scuffle for the wood.”

Most of the purloined cadavers were reportedly children, which is… well, I don’t want to think about it. The Kentish Gazette concluded with the kind of insinuation that would have libel lawyers drooling today: “The Sexton supported his family very genteelly, and, exclusive of of his house in town, had a place in the country, without any known means, except the emoluments of his situation.” In other words, he was (allegedly) taking back-handers to allow the grave robbers free reign.

Whitfield’s tabernacle in 1826. Image: Public domain.

So things continued for many decades. The Tabernacle remained a popular place of worship, but its grounds were an allotment of corpses. New interments only added to the problem. By one estimate, some 30,000 souls were buried in this awful acre; no one can say how many remained there.

The churchyard was finally closed down by the General Health Board in 1849. Even so, a cloud would remain over this spot for many years. A serious fire almost destroyed the tabernacle in 1857. The roof was consumed, and serious damage was done to the interior. It was quickly patched up and continued as a place of worship.

The closure of the graveyard, meanwhile, did nothing to improve its reputation. After a protracted series of ownership disputes (expertly essayed by Paul Slade), the land became neglected, to put it mildly. A press account from 1886 paints a grim picture:

This burial place is now a "no man's land," a hideous eyesore visible to every passer by, in one of London's main arteries. It has become a receptacle for rubbish of all kinds; old shoes, broken bottles, scrap iron, dead cats, and other abominations lie scattered over its surface, with here and there a fragment of human bone. The two of three tombstones which remain are fenced in by a hoarding covered with gaudy advertisements... All the rest have disappeared, carried away in fragments by the urchins who, before the present board fencing was put up, used to play football with the skulls which they scooped up from the reeking mould with their sacrilegious hands… it is a disgrace to this mighty city that, in one of its most frequented thoroughfares, there should be seen a sight so exquisitely painful and shocking to a sense of decency as this neglected Golgotha. -Pall Mall Gazette, 9 Jul 1886

This and other reports prompted St Pancras Vestry (the equivalent of a local council) to acquire the land and turn it into a public park. This did not go well. Within months, the space had been occupied by a tawdry funfair, with a “steam hurdy-gurdy attached to a merry-go-round" along with attendant fortune tellers, coconut shies, a rifle range and freak shows. The hurdy-gurdy and rifle range were so loud that services in the tabernacle became impossible. The church would not last much longer, in any case. In 1889 it was found to be dangerously unstable, “shored up like a cripple on crutches”. The structure was demolished and rebuilt to a new design.

To recap, this sorry corner of London had seen a fatal lightning strike, covert consecration, a drowning or three, the worst excesses of body-snatching, a maddening carnival, fire and ruinous subsidence.

The worst was yet to come.

On 25 March 1945, Whitfield’s Tabernacle received another bolt from the blue. This time, however, the agent was man-made rather than natural. A V2 rocket shot up from the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, crossed the threshold of space, and then arced down towards Tottenham Court Road. It struck just south of the tabernacle. 11 people were killed and many more injured. The surrounding area was devastated. Only one building survived intact, and it still stands today in isolation:

V2 survivor, now a Costa coffee. Image via Google Street View

Following the war, the land became a kind of ‘meanwhile’ space, with a sunken sports pitch and a small playground. (This had to be removed in 1953, after repeated vandalism.) In 1957, the tabernacle was rebuilt as the Whitefield Memorial Church. It remains in religious use today as the American International Church.

The link to America is strong here. Whitfield, as we’ve seen, travelled to the colonies several time to preach. Then, during the Second World War, General Eisenhower maintained a secure bunker adjacent to the church, in one of those deep-level shelters whose entrances can still be found along the Northern line.

The American International Church (top left) behind a street-food market. The graffiti-covered structure to the right of the plane tree is part of Eisenhower’s bunker. Image: Matt Brown

And what of the churchyard today? Camden Council gave it a big overhaul a few years back, adding in new benches and plantings. Even so, there remains an air of disquiet about the place. I popped into the gardens last week, only to be shouted at by a drunk within seconds of arriving. I’ve twice seen mice scrabbling in the borders, presumably attracted by the street-food market that operates to the north of the church. Pigeons are everywhere; same reason.

Yet for all this, Whitfield Gardens is perhaps more welcoming than it’s ever been. The Fitzrovia mural is a much-loved local landmark; the seating provides a rare (for Fitzrovia) space to relax outdoors; the church does good work for the community, including a daily soup kitchen. There’s much to commend the place.

See the pyramidal trip-hazard… that’s one of the last remaining grave markers on the plot. Image: Matt Brown

After a lightning bolt, drownings, scuffles, fire, mass exhumations, collapse and a rocket attack, perhaps this turbulent site is finally able to rest in peace.

The latest book by Darren Coffield, Hen: Mistress of Mayhem - A Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, explores the riotous (and tragic) life of the late model, muse and memoirist. In this extract, the author sets the scene as Moraes settles into Soho, making friends with the infamous barkeep, Gaston Berlemont.

The French House (then the York Minster) was a regular haunt of Henrietta Moraes when she arrived in London. Image: Londonist

When Henrietta first arrived in 1950s bohemia, Soho was still a village in the West End of London.

Its hub was the French pub, formerly known as the York Minster, now officially named The French House, but forever known as 'the French' to the locals. Of all the surviving pubs, the French is still the truest to the spirit of Soho: no fruit machine, no jukebox to drown the conversation and definitely no television.

For someone who led such an unconventional lifestyle, Henrietta's days fell into a set pattern. They would usually begin late morning when she'd leave the attic of the Queen Anne house at the top of Dean Street (where she lived) and amble south down the road with her boyfriend, Michael Law, until they reached the Café Torino on the corner of Old Compton Street. The place reeked of old rubber and disinfectant as a long sticky strip of paper swayed from a central light fitting, brown with glue and black-dotted with dead flies. Here they sat at one of the marble-topped tables listening to Spanish anarchists and Republicans discussing how to overthrow Spain's fascist dictator Franco. It was nicknamed 'The Madrid' and became a favourite haunt of Hen's because the café sat betwixt the Colony and the Gargoyle clubs, from which vantage point she could observe the familiar faces of her quarry going by. It also commanded a clear view of the French, so Hen and Michael would wait at the café to watch the pub fill up before entering the premises by the left-hand door.

"Part of its appeal with women was that they could go unchaperoned and not get hassled"

"Gaston never served pints of beer, only half pints, and refused to serve Coca-Cola because he said he didn't like the type of person that drank it." Image: Londonist

The pub itself was pretty basic, but part of its appeal with women was that they could go unchaperoned and not get hassled, which was unusual back then. Women were often segregated in the other pubs or refused admission altogether. Each day at noon, the French was where Hen would congregate with kindred spirits. It was run by Gaston Berlemont, a balding middle-aged gentleman of Gaulish heritage, who sported a dark suit and had twinkling eyes and a long twirly handlebar moustache. He was also gracious to the working girls — the local prostitutes — who regarded the French as a sanctuary. Once inside they were off-duty and would complain bitterly to Gaston if any man tried to pick them up.

The pub's oak interior had a defiantly French ambiance, the walls lined with faded sepia photographs of the many famous French artistes who'd drunk on the premises between the wars. In keeping with the continental atmosphere, Gaston never served pints of beer, only half pints, and refused to serve Coca-Cola because he said he didn't like the type of person that drank it. But he did sell quarter bottles of champagne, that’s how stylish the French was — as a woman you could go into a pub and order a quarter bottle of champagne for yourself or (as in Hen's case) persuade an unsuspecting admirer into buying you one.

One of the quirks of the French was that Gaston ran it more as a club than a pub. There were two ends of the bar, one end was for the 'intellectuals' — artists, poets, writers, publishers, etc. It was very cliquey. When you first entered through the left-hand door, you'd see all the regulars at the other end of the bar, drinking. After a few years drinking at the 'Shallow End' of the bar you'd become established as a regular and slowly be allowed to move down the bar in a southerly direction towards the 'Deep End'. The cash register in the middle of the bar marked the demarcation line where both ends met. Once you'd got there, you'd made it to the 'Deep End' or V.I.P. (Very Inebriated Person) area. To reach it was considered an honour, despite it being where the grim reaper was regularly harvesting his crop, and Gaston expected those who'd graduated to undergo an initiation ceremony. He would bring out a bottle of 1912 pre-Prohibition French absinthe, and with all the ceremony of a high mass he would also set out paraphernalia; the bottle, the glass, the perforated spoon upon which he would place a sugar lump that helped shoot the alcohol into your system. However, some said his rare bottle of absinthe tasted suspiciously like the house Pernod…

"Gaston had his favourites, and Henrietta was certainly one of them"

"He would bring out a bottle of 1912 pre-Prohibition French absinthe, and with all the ceremony of a high mass he would also set out paraphernalia; the bottle, the glass, the perforated spoon upon which he would place a sugar lump that helped shoot the alcohol into your system." Image: Викидим via CC BY-SA 4.0

Gaston had his favourites, and Henrietta was certainly one of them. He remembered her as 'smashing, voluptuous', and confessed, 'It was as much as any red-blooded man could do to keep his hands off her'. For Henrietta, Gaston was a genius of a landlord, welcoming her with a cheerfulness that lit up her day. Once she became so bored listening to a man complain about his life that she threw her glass of champagne in his face. The pub fell silent, and everybody expected Gaston to bar her. But instead, he twirled his handlebar moustache and smiled, 'Madame, I see that your glass is empty. Please allow me to refill it for you'. He was very diplomatic with drunks too: 'One of the two of us will have to go, and I'm afraid it's not going to be me!' And he would throw people out with such courtesy that they wanted to thank him.

For those bohemians perpetually short of cash, such as Henrietta, Gaston proved a very generous landlord too. The first words she'd utter upon entering were, 'Good Morning Gaston, could I have a glass of Pernod please and could you possibly lend me a fiver?' Whereupon he'd proffer a rolled banknote, handing it over to her discreetly with a nod and a wink and the reassurance that he was willing to wait for repayment. By the till he kept a list of people and their debts written in tiny handwriting in black ink. He said he loaned people money because: 'nine out of 10 people pay it back, one in 10 don't but the amount of money they spend coming in here explaining why they weren't paying me back far exceeds the debt.' So, cultivating customers like Henrietta was a shrewd business move.

But Gaston was less generous in other respects. If someone had the cheek to ask for an extra cube of ice to go with their drink there would be outrage, and if a man wanted to have a crap they had to go through the indignity of asking for the key to the gents washroom, whereupon all the customers' heads would swivel in unison as Gaston bellowed across the bar: 'Who wants the key?'

Hen, Mistress of Mayhem: A Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, by Darren Coffield, published by The History Press.

We featured this book because we know it's the kind of thing our readers will enjoy. By buying it via links in this article, Londonist may earn a commission from Bookshop.org — which also helps support independent bookshops.