Before newspapers, Londoners received much of their news from broadsides.

Before there was Instagram and TikTok, there were broadsides.

If you were a literate Londoner between the 16th and 19th centuries, chances are you'd have gleaned a lot of your news, advice, satire and gossip from broadsides — mass printed street lit that was liberally pasted up/dished out around town, often with a nice big image at the top to catch your attention.

The exhibition explores the phenomenon of broadsides as a form of all-encompassing media that was disseminated around London.

From these single-sided dispatches, Londoners learned of devastating fires, picked up new ballads, found out which criminals were most wanted — and even got tips on how to cure that embarrassing health issue that'd been nagging them. Infamously, broadsides were also sold at public executions.

A new, free exhibition at Guildhall Library, Broadsides: Speaking to the People, explores the phenomenon of this pre-newspaper format as an all-encompassing media that was disseminated around London, and available to folk of all classes.

As ever, Guildhall Library has dug deep into the archives to retrieve gem-like artefacts, including an account of a 'strange and wonderful' earthquake that struck the city in 1692 (it features marvellous little details, such as Spitalfields weavers' handiwork being ruined in the shaken-up looms) and another of a fire that ravaged the Tower of London in 1841, in which the Crown Jewels were passed out of a window by a daring police officer.

Love the highlighted 'cumbersome squirting engines'.

One thing that sets these broadsides apart from today's social media: they're notably more text heavy — well, unless you're comparing them to Truth posts from a certain President.

Speaking of which, Broadsides opens a few days after another free Guildhall exhibition gets going; America and London marks 250 years since the founding of the United States, with objects including letters dated 1775, sent to the City of London and acknowledging links between the City and America prior to the Declaration of Independence; and an order of service for the memorial for President John F Kennedy at St Paul's Cathedral on 1 December 1963.

Broadsides, Guildhall Library, 5 May-29 October 2026, free.
America and London, City of London Heritage Gallery, Guildhall Art Gallery, 2 May-29 October 2026, free.

Image: CAV Aerial

What is your favourite historic disinfecting centre?

You don't have one? Us neither. They are a forgotten part of early 20th century life, to the point where just one municipal disinfecting station remains in England. It's right here in Hackney, and it's now endangered.

Disinfecting centres were set up by local councils in the Victorian and Edwardian eras as hubs against infectious disease. In an age before vaccines, thousands died each year from smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever and even measles. 16 in every 100 births would end tragically, mostly caused by diseases that are preventable today.

The disinfecting centres were set up to steam-clean the homes and belongings of families exposed to such diseases, in a bid to limit contagion. In its first year, the Hackney disinfecting centre, on Millfields Road, Clapton, treated 2,800 homes. The site continued to be used for healthcare purposes through most of the 20th century, but it has stood empty and forgotten now for decades.

Rear view from above. Image: CAV Aerial

According to the Victorian Society, the Grade II-listed building is at serious risk from dereliction. It is campaigning for the site to be preserved "through a sensitive sale and reuse". It may not be architecturally distinguished, but the old disinfecting station is the last surviving example in the country. As such, it must be retained.

London Borough of Hackney emblem on the building, featuring St Augustine's Tower. Image: CAV Aerial

The building is one of ten — and the only London structure — to feature in the Victorian Society's Top 10 Endangered Buildings 2026. The full list, in chronological order, comprises:

• Former Library and Mechanics Institute, Devonport, 1843-44
• New Market Hall, Bridgnorth, 1855-1859
• Former Strand Railway Station and Railway Men’s Club, Barrow in Furness, 1863
• Parndon Hall, Harlow. Grade II, Possibly Joseph Clarke, 1867
• Faenol (Vaynol) Mausoleum, Pentir, late 1870s.
• Derby School of Art, Derby, 1876 with additions 1899
• Oakes School, Huddersfield, 1885
• St Michael’s RC Cemetery Chapel, Sheffield, 1898
• Hackney Borough Disinfecting Station, London, 1901
• Tees Transporter Bridge, Stockton-on-Tees/Middlesbrough, 1911

International Telephone Exchange, London, John Cooper (Private collection), 1935.

"Grotesquely underrated and elbowed aside in the story of modern art." That's how Andrew Marr describes members of the East London Group — a coterie of painters who existed for a fleeting moment in the 1920s-40s, and yet produced enduring images of an East End that would change forever once bombs had rained down on it.

Grace Oscroft, Bryant & May's, Bow, E., undated, oil on canvas.

While painters who were part of the contemporaneous Bloomsbury Group like Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry were dedicated artists born into a certain amount of financial stability, the East London Group — who worked and presented together between 1928 and 1936, before losing their leading light John Albert Cooper in 1943 — consisted of members who hailed from ordinary professions and beginnings; Albert Turpin was a window cleaner. Henry Silk was basketmaker. Lillian Leahy was a window-dresser. (Although for balance, Phyllis Bray was the rebellious daughter of an aide to Czar Nicholas II's mother.)

Marian Square, Hackney, Albert Turpin (Private collection), 1952.

Marr writes in the introduction to a limited edition reissue of Artists of the East London Group: From Bow to Biennale, how the Group's work was often derided by sourpuss critics at the time as a 'dustbin on canvas' or 'pictures for narrow purses', but that didn't stop them from selling like hot cakes. "During the 15 years or so of its existence," writes David Buckman, "[the East London Group] received enormous coverage in specialist art periodicals and in the London, provincial and international press."

Hackney Empire, Albert Turpin (Private collection), 1958.

The Group enjoyed early success with shows at Whitechapel Art Gallery, followed by the National Gallery, Millbank (now Tate Britain). Many collectors were non-working class too; interesting given these paintings often reflected working class London: its pubs, factories — and a multitude of flat caps. "The Group's numerous collectors," says Buckman, "included the writer James Agate; composer, writer and painter Lord Berners; the artists Sir Gerald Kelly, Henry Lamb, Rosemary Peto and Gerald and Nora Summers; actor Charles Laughton and leading figures in public life and members of society such as Lady Emerald Cunard, Viscount D'Abernon, Sir Edward Marsh, Lord Radnor, the Duke of Rutland and Sir Michael Sadler."

Old Ford Road, Harold Steggles (Private collection), 1932.

Although certain artists from the group, such as Cooper, perished during the war, others continued for many years to come — including Phyllis Bray, who was married to Cooper, and first made Buckman aware of the Group. This in turn led Buckman to produce the first iteration of this book back in 2012, which did wonders in reigniting interest in the group, and spurring a series of new exhibitions.

Verger's House, Shoreditch, Albert Turpin (Private collection), 1954.

There's so much to love in these artworks: the stillness of empty Bow backstreets is as palpable as the buzz of a chaotic telephone exchange. The fact that, despite those wartime bombs, some of the settings (like that of the Salmon & Ball pub and Hackney Empire featured in this article) are still familiar to Londoners now. Some of these works could have been painted yesterday.

Salmon and Ball, Albert Turpin (Private collection), 1955.

Though London's unfussy E3 postcode was the central stomping ground of these artists, they played, says Buckman, a vital part in the development of early 20th century art across Britain, and even further afield.

An exclusive, limited edition reissue of Artists of the East London Group: From Bow to Biennale by David Buckman is published by Batsford on 14 May 2026.

Geri Halliwell's boots on display at an exhibition all about 1996, at Barbican. Image: Barbican Library

As the Barbican opens a new exhibition celebrating 1996, we also cast our gaze back 30 years to the big stories affecting London at the time.

The mid-90s have been much-celebrated as a time of optimism. Cold War over. Guitar bands dominating the charts. Britpop. Knebworth. Cool Britannia. Spice Girls. Jarvis Cocker 'mooning' at Michael Jackson. That Gazza goal at Euro 96. Three Lions on the Shirt. New Labour. Tories imploding after 17 years in power. etc. etc.

It wasn't all Champagne supernovas, though. The newspapers of the time paint a picture as troubling and scandal-filled as any other. Tube strikes, money woes, royal embarrassments... it's all so very familiar.

Below, we've pulled out one headline for each month of 1996 from the Evening Standard. Let's see how times have changed... or not.

January

Heavy snow was the least of Sarah Ferguson's problems in January 1996. Image: Richard Pennystan

Queen: I Won't Bail Out Fergie

Nothing to do with the Manchester United manager, or the future Black Eyed Peas singer. Rather, the Queen was refusing to help the errant Duchess of York, who reportedly had a seven-figure overdraft. Fergie and her creepy husband would divorce four months later after several years' separation.

30 years on: Still hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Also this month: Fergie wasn't the only one frozen out in January. Exceptionally heavy snow brought chaos to London's transport and schools.

February

Image: Matt Brown

London Wins Millennium

The capital "won its battle" to be the focus of Britain's Millennium celebrations, with Greenwich Peninsula earmarked as the prime location. Birmingham's NEC had been the other main contender, with a pre-Olympic Stratford and a surprise bid from Derby already ruled out. The idea of the Millennium Dome had not crystallised at this point.

30 years on: The celebrations came together in time (in more ways than one), despite a few serious hiccups along the way. The Dome and its year-long Millennium exhibition were widely judged to be an expensive flop, but the building did eventually spur major development of the peninsula. It's now a highly successful music venue and leisure destination.

Also this month: Several people were injured and the perpetrator killed when an IRA bomb exploded on a double-decker bus at Aldwych. The blast came just nine days after another bomb devastated South Quay in Docklands, killing two.

March

Mad Cow Disease's effect was a lasting one. Image: Screenroad

Beef Could be Banned Here

The BSE or Mad Cow Disease epidemic was one of the biggest stories of the mid-1990s. Over four million cattle were slaughtered in a bid to contain the disease, and 178 people lost their lives to the human variant. In 1996, Europe imposed a ban on the export of British beef, which lasted for a decade. As the Standard reported, this almost resulted in a complete ban on beef consumption in the UK as well.

30 years on: It's rare to hear anyone talk about Mad Cow Disease today. Meanwhile, the country's beef herd has steadily decreased in number over the decades, along with red-meat consumption.

Also this month: Legoland Windsor opened its somewhat spendy doors, just outside the capital. Meanwhile, Londoner Frank Bruno was knocked out by Mike Tyson to lose his heavyweight title, in what would be his last competitive fight.

April

Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, knitted. Image: Matt Brown

Blair Demands London Mayor

The capital had been without top-tier government since Margaret Thatcher abolished the Greater London Council in 1986. Young whippersnapper Tony Blair promised to go one-better if Labour were to win the next General Election. He would not only set up a new Assembly, but also give London its first directly elected Mayor. "There is no coherent vision for London," he noted. "There is no sense of London on the move, of a capital city bursting with ideas, ready to go into action. It has strength. It has importance. It has history. But it lacks and yet urgently requires a galvanising, powerful vision of its future. For a vision there does need to be a voice."

30 years on: Labour won a landslide victory at the 1997 election, and made good on Blair's promise to give London an Assembly and Mayor. In 2000, Ken Livingstone became the first incumbent, in a continuation of his stewardship from the old GLC days. We've since had Boris Johnson and Sir Sadiq Khan.

Also this month: The three lead suspects in the murder of Stephen Lawrence were acquitted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court.

May

The 'Boris Island' plans from 2012.

£20 billion Island Airport Plan

Grappling with increasing demand for air travel and freight, the Commons Transport Committee started making positive noises about building a new airport in the London region. A leading suggestion was to construct new runways in the Thames Estuary, near the Isle of Sheppey. Passengers would check in at a terminal in East Tilbury, then take a 12-minute underground rail journey to reach the island airport. This was not the first such proposal. Notably, the government had pursued a watery airport at Maplin Sands near Southend in the 1970s.

30 years on: This is one of those bad ideas that, like Pennywise the Clown, comes back to terrorise each generation. Boris Johnson — himself no stranger to clown comparisons — would revive it in 2008, to much opposition. The current Government are now backing Heathrow expansion, but we're due another bout of estuary speculation any time now.

Also this month: It was revealed that a gang of thieves hijacked a freight train at Primrose Hill and stole crates of vintage wine in what the Standard dubbed The Great London Wine Train Robbery.

June

Image: Londonist

Deadline for Millennium

The Millennium itself was a deadline fixed in stone almost two thousand years ago, when someone decided to put Jesus at the heart of the calendar. The Millennium celebrations had to hit a number of much shorter-term deadlines to stay on track. The project almost derailed in early June 1996. Without private cash by the end of the week, the whole Greenwich extravaganza would be scrapped in favour of smaller celebrations in existing venues. Imagine: no Millennium Dome!

30 years later: The Government never did find private sponsorship, and instead threw tonnes and tonnes of lottery money into the development.

Also this month: England crashed out of Euro 96 after Gareth Southgate missed a penalty at the end of the semi-final against Germany. He'd be back. In the aftermath, 200 arrests were made following rioting in Trafalgar Square.

July

An historic pub with traditional piles of rubbish outside. Image: Matt Brown

London "This Stinking City"

Trevor Nunn, incoming Artistic Director of the National Theatre, had some rebarbative words about the West End. Complaining of stinking, litter-strewn streets, he asked: "Who of sound mind would pay money to visit such a repellent district in search of entertainment?". He also criticised "entirely unnecessary revivals" on the West End stage.

30 years later: It's hard to find objective information, but the streets around Leicester Square and Shaftesbury Avenue seem to have much less litter and stink than we remember from the 90s. (Though you can easily find clouds of piss-smell on an early Sunday stroll through the area.) West End revivals have certainly not slowed down, however.

Also this month: One person who was undeterred by the stinking West End was Tom Cruise. He turned up at Leicester Square to usher in the premiere of the first Mission: Impossible film (and was joined by the topical likes of Noel Gallagher and Robbie Williams). He's been back a few times since.

August

The interior of a 1983 stock Tube train, taken at Dollis Hill in December 1996. Image: John Glover, from this Londonist article

Prescott's Gin Sling Taunt Over Tube Strikes

The summer of 1996 was a rough time for Tube passengers. Some 2,500 drivers went on strike over pay and working hours, bringing the network to a halt on seven separate days. Labour's soon-to-be Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott waded into the row by accusing the (soon-to-be-ousted) transport minister John Bowis of "sitting in his garden drinking gin and tonic and doing nothing to end the strike". The dispute was eventually settled by arbitration... and everyone lived happily ever after.

30 years later: Wikipedia notes that 30 separate Tube strikes occurred between 2000 and 2008. In the period since then, we've had another 16... so things are clearly getting better. Aren't they?

Also this month: A hijacked jet with 200 people onboard was forced to land at Stansted Airport. All were later released unharmed.

September

That said... this was Old Street are recently as 2017. Image: Matt Brown

Tube Heading For Disaster?

More trouble in't Tubes. A leaked report to ministers raises fears that the London Underground is "heading for possible catastrophe". Chronic underinvestment has led to numerous potential points of failure. To pick just a few, parts of the Northern line signalling system, dating from the 1950s, was 'decaying', with raw wire exposed; Ladbroke Grove station's foundation were 'collapsing', causing walls to crack; platforms at Ruislip and Northolt were in danger of crumbling into the tracks; metal fatigue had caused several escalator steps to give way. It should be noted that the alarming report was compiled by London Underground managers, and circulated just before the Tory Party Conference in a bid to get more funding, so it may not have been entirely objective.

30 years later: The Tube saw much greater investment over the coming decades, particularly after the creation of Transport for London in 2000. Accidents due to poor maintenance are rare.

Also this month: Matthew Bourne's record-breaking production of Swan Lake makes its West End debut.

October

The fallout from the Bishopsgate bomb in April 1993. Image: markhillary via CC BY 2.0

New Warning of IRA Bombs

IRA bomb attacks on London were a grimly common occurrence through the 1970s, 80s and 90s. More than 50 people lost their lives in the capital, with many high profile sites such as the Tower of London and Harrods targeted. 1996 alone had seen six attacks, including a massive bomb at Canary Wharf that killed two and caused £100 million of damage. By October, Scotland Yard were warning of possible 'spectaculars' in the run up to Christmas.

30 years later: The predicted attacks never materialised, and IRA activity in London began to ease. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 effectively ended hostilities, though smaller-scale attacks continued for a few years afterwards.

Also this month: David Brookes is fined £45 in Hampstead Magistrates' Court for disrupting the "quiet enjoyment" of the public by playing his bagpipes on Hampstead Heath.

November

Channel Tunnel trains ran into Waterloo at the time, as remembered in the 'Chunnel' sandwich bar on Upper Marsh. Image: Matt Brown

Tunnel Must Stay Closed

On 18 November 1996 a serious fire broke out inside the Channel Tunnel, about 11 miles from the French coast. Nobody was hurt, but some 500 metres of tunnel was badly damaged by the flames, which had started in an HGV aboard a freight train. The tunnel remained entirely closed for many days, and had to run on single track thereafter for weeks. It would only fully reopen in May of the following year.

30 years later: This wasn't to be the last fire in the tunnel. Others hit in 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2015. The 2008 fire also resulted in a lengthy closure and single-track running.

Also this month: The Spice Girls, who nobody had heard of a year before, switch on the Oxford Street Christmas lights.

December

The Golden Jubilee Bridges either side of the Hungerford Bridge. Image: PhilDaBirdMan, creative commons licence

Lottery's £10 million for New London Bridges

The mid-90s was a golden era for big projects. Not only was the Millennium approaching, with its pressing need to be marked in some way, but also the recent launch of the National Lottery had created a new source of funding for nice-to-have cultural baubles. In December 1996, the government announced that £8.1 million would go towards "two seaside-themed pedestrian bridges". These would eventually materialise as the Golden Jubilee Bridges in 2002, which never struck us as particularly seaside-themed before. In any case, the twin spans, either side of Hungerford Railway Bridge, were a joyous replacement for the woefully narrow predecessor.

The remaining £2m, contrary to the headline, was earmarked for nighttime illuminations in Croydon. "Up to 30 buildings will be illuminated, with large images projected onto them offering public information and linked to local radio broadcasts or performances at the Fairfield Halls."

30 years later: The Golden Jubilee Bridges are a much-appreciated link between Westminster and the South Bank, and still feel quite new despite approaching their quarter-century. The Croydon stuff never happened.

Also this month: Aberdeen Steak House — the high-profile West End chain now trading as Angus — announced a major pivot in the wake of the BSE epidemic. Two of their steak houses had given up meat altogether in favour of seafood, under the rebranded name of Maxine's Brasserie.

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

I have a sooty finger. This historic grime issued from a steam engine several lifetimes ago. After clinging to the wall for the entire 20th century, and beyond, the erstwhile coal-motes have now hitched a ride on my digit. Their fate is to be washed down the sink of the Mayflower pub an hour later.

That was a bit naughty of me. The black stuff came from the Thames Tunnel or, more specifically, the immense southern shaft that once led down to this cross-river burrow. It is a Grade II*-listed structure of international significance, and I just removed a microgram of its inky patina. My apologies.

The Thames Tunnel is a curious beast. At 366 metres, it must be among the longest London structures to feature in Historic England’s database. With 16 trains per hour passing through the tunnel on the Windrush line, it’s also one of the most-visited. And yet very few people ever see it. Not properly. We can gain only saccadic snatches of brickwork through the train windows, or get the merest teaser from the platforms at either end.

This is a shame. The Thames Tunnel was the first tunnel under a navigable river anywhere in the world when it opened in 1843. We’re all familiar with the clichéd phrase ‘marvel of Victorian engineering’, but the design and early construction predate that reign. Work began in 1825 — exactly 200 years ago at the time of writing — making it a marvel of Georgian engineering. Behold:

OK, I *did* manage to get a proper eyeful during a rare track closure in 2014. Image: Matt Brown

The one place where you can get a just notion of this exceptional structure is the Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe. This small museum is named after Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel — father and son — whose 18-year struggle to get the tunnel built is worthy of a whole book, never-mind a short feature. The museum holds many treasures connected to the tunnel, including commemorative objects from the time of its opening. You can spend a very pleasant hour in here, reading up on the history.

A Thames Tunnel commemorative flask, as spotted in the museum. Image: Matt Brown

The museum’s biggest treasure, however, is the tunnel shaft. This enormous void was hewn from the London clay two centuries ago as a starting point for the tunnel. Entrance to the museum gets you access to the shaft. If I were to compile a book called 100 Incredible London Spaces That Everyone Should Experience, then this room would be one of the first to go into my research spreadsheet.

The museum was recently kind enough to offer a tour of the shaft to Londonist: Time Machine subscribers. They even let us take drinks down into that tamed abyss.

The first revelation was the temperature. (Not the drinks; the shaft.) It’s cold. Our visit came on one of the hottest days of the year, but this Stygian realm is permanently cool. A modern staircase winds gently down to the floor of the shaft. Access is much improved from my first visit, a decade or more ago, when visitors had to stoop through a hatch onto ad hoc scaffolding to reach basecamp.

You can read the history of this place on the walls. Image: Matt Brown

The room has a subtle damp-dusty smell, though it is not as noticeable as you might expect from such a space. Soot coats the walls. The railway line was electrified as early as 1913, meaning much of this grime was deposited before living memory. Diagonal bands also climb the walls, the ghosts of Victorian staircases, long since removed.

Other senses are stirred in this place. Every few minutes, a deep rumble comes from below. We stand immediately above the Windrush line. The concrete floor was only installed around 2010, during works to reinforce the tunnel for the launch of the ‘Overground’ network. Without these works, the shaft would still be off-limits.

As part of our special Londonist: Time Machine tour, museum volunteer Andrea Vasel gave a sparkling talk about the tunnel’s history. There was much to impart…

Image: Matt Brown

The Brunels (mostly Marc) took 18 years to build the tunnel. It was a fiendishly difficult task. Nobody had ever undertaken such a project before. No blueprint or best practice existed. Every step was an experiment. Marc Brunel, as chief engineer, sold the project on his moveable tunnelling shield. This circular structure, placed at the tunnel head, would protect the diggers from collapse. In theory.

Before any sideways shovelling could happen, though, Brunel had first to dig the shaft. This was also accomplished through a novel technique. Brunel built an iron ring 15 metres in diameter. He then loaded it with weights to the tune of 1,000 tonnes. The whole structure gradually sank into the soft clay like a giant’s pastry cutter. The result is sometimes celebrated as ‘the world’s first caisson’.

Once the shaft innards had been excavated, work began on the tunnel proper.

The tunnelling shield (to the right) in action. A detailed model of the shield can be seen inside the museum. Image: Public domain

This was the tricky bit. The challenges were enormous. The tunnel was only an errant spade’s thrust beneath the riverbed, and water intrusion was a constant menace. This was a time when sewage and industrial byproducts were dumped routinely and comprehensively into the Thames. The filthy water gave off choking, potentially explosive fumes, and many men suffered from its effects.

The constant dribbles and drips were an irritant, but rapid inundation was the real fear. In May 1827, part of the roof caved in at the tunnel head — by this point about half way across the river. The excavation was entirely flooded within 12 minutes. Fortunately, all workers were able to escape without loss of life. The tunnel was patched up by diving bell, pumped clear of water, and work soon resumed.

January 1828 brought a graver incident. This time, water gushed in at such a rate that the gas lamps were extinguished and all workers were swept along in the dark towards the tunnel shaft. Six men lost their lives, and the 22-year-old Isambard K. Brunel was lucky to not be among them.

The Brunel Museum, features a mural showing the tunnelling shield used by the Brunels. This shot was taken around a decade ago, before that Monkey Puzzle grew to the point where it obscures the mural. Image: Matt Brown

Despite these perils, the tunnel became a visitor attraction even during its construction. 600-800 people per day ventured down into the construction site, each paying a shilling. Among them was Dom Miguel, heir to the throne of Portugal. His Royal Highness inspected the works just days before the fatal tunnel collapse of 1828.

The Thames Tunnel was finally complete in 1841, after further floods, fires and financial woes. It was a testament not only to 19th century engineering, but also the grit and determination of Marc Brunel and his team. It would take a further two years to fit out the tunnel for public use. These latter works included construction of a pump house at the southern end, to deal with the constant water intrusion. Its chimney remains a landmark in Rotherhithe today, and that building is now the Brunel Museum.

The tunnel opened with great ceremony on 25 March 1843. Among the dignitaries were many household names, some of whom we still recognise today. Michael Faraday was there, as was computer pioneer Charles Babbage. John Rennie the Younger, too. 20 years earlier, Rennie had built the adjacent river crossing of London Bridge following the plans of his late father — another familial team to span the Thames. Ahead of all of them in the procession was the recently knighted Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, the man whose vision and tenacity had seen the project through. He would later be eclipsed in fame by his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel, but this day belonged to Marc. “The ladies flocked round all sides to do honour to him,” reported the Morning Post.

Marc Brunel. A hit with the ladies, apparently. Image: Public domain

The structure was dubbed the ‘eighth wonder of the world’, because newspapers had lazy journalists even back then. It proved enormously popular in its early years, attracting millions of penny-paying visitors. The Brunels had intended it to be a road tunnel for horse-drawn traffic. Hence, it had been constructed as two separate tunnels to allow vehicles to move in opposite flows. The costs of building suitable ramps proved prohibitive, however, and the tunnel was used only by pedestrians, who would descend and ascend in the Rotherhithe shaft, and its near-twin on the north bank.

A somewhat sanitised illustration of the tunnel from sometime in the mid-19th century. Image: Public domain

The twin tunnels were interconnected by arches in many places, seen in the image above. These were soon occupied by stalls and booths in the manner of a marketplace. The experience was widely advertised as “The fair at Thames Tunnel,” and it seems to have been quite a draw. An item in the syndicated press of 1844 neatly sets the scene, and also introduces me to the excellent word ‘bijouterie’:

“The various archways, or recesses, of which there are upwards of sixty, were occupied by a number of elegant little stalls for the sale of articles of bijouterie, confectionary, &c. Not the least curious amongst these subaqueous establishments was one professing to be a newspaper office, in which a number of men were striking off impressions of “The Royal Thames Tunnel Paper, printed 78 ft. below high water mark".

The tunnel also featured various grottos, amusement stalls and live performances, including a “thirty inch dwarf” menaced by two boa constrictors. “The dwarf appearing to rely for safety upon his being too insignificant to attract the animals' notice,” reassured the Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper.

American writer William Allen Drew, who visited a few years later, reported: “…all sorts of contrivances to get your money, from Egyptian necromancers and fortune-tellers to dancing monkeys.” Rampant commercialisation of public spaces is nothing new, though nowadays we eschew the snakes and simian sambas.

The tunnel’s reputation as the ‘eighth wonder of the world’ gradually diminished, as surely as Brunel’s giant cookie-cutter had once sank into the Thames-side clay. The tunnel became known for prostitution, and muggings were reported.

From 1865, the route was converted to rail use by Sir John Hawkshaw. (An oft-overlooked engineer, who worked on many important rail projects and is commemorated in the best way possible… a namesake pub within Cannon Street Station.)

The northern shaft became the entrance to Wapping station, and you can still walk down its staircase today. The southern shaft was used only for steam venting, with Rotherhithe station built a little to the south. It’s had some major work done to it since, including the 2010 installation of the concrete raft. But the structure, in appearance, would still be recognisable to the men who built it.

During their 18-year slog to complete the Thames Tunnel, the Brunels could scarcely have imagined that their perilous burrowing would find its greatest application 200 years in the future. The Thames Tunnel is today used by more people than at any point in the past two centuries. An estimated 60,000 people pass through this space every single day on Windrush line trains. It carries the equivalent of the entire 1825 population of London every four weeks. That’s the nature of major engineering projects. They often pay their greatest dividends years, decades or even centuries after their early problems have been forgotten (cough, HS2, cough).

So Happy 200th sort-of-birthday to the Thames Tunnel, and well done to Marc and Isambard Brunel. I take my hat off to you.

IK Brunel, probably aware there’s a camera on him.

Visit the Brunel Museum to see many wonders connected to the tunnel, and to visit the southern shaft.

The Crystal Palace mast from a lesser-viewed angle.

Paul Mellers possesses some seriously sought-after keys.

Not only does the Arqiva engineer wield a set giving him access to the BT Tower, he also has the keys to the Eiffel Tower-esque mast that looms 219 metres over Crystal Palace.

"It's the structure that touches most people in this country"

This Latin crest in front of the transmitter station translates as "Whatsoever", a motto adopted by the BBC in 1934.

Crystal Palace is inextricably — if coincidently — intertwined with entertainment for the masses. For just shy of 80 years, the Crystal Palace — a glassy leisure centre packed with all sorts of cultural and scientific goodies  — drew in funseekers from far and wide. All of that ended on the night of 30 November 1936, when a rampant blaze brought the structure crashing to the ground.

Two decades later, a second landmark would rise from the ashes of the Crystal Palace (the site of its old aquarium to be exact). But while the Palace had entertained around six million people during its lifetime, this new structure — despite being fenced off from the public — had the clout to entertain more than that in any given second.

The Crystal Palace transmitter mast is, as Paul Mellers puts it, "the structure that touches most people in this country." And that's a stone cold fact; the various signals transmitted from here reach 11 million — some 16% of the British population.

"Height is might"

"My job is engineering for TV, FM, DAB, AM radio... I cover London and the south east": Paul Mellers in Crystal Palace's transmission station.

In the years leading up to Crystal Palace's fire, John Logie Baird operated a small television studio here, although it was only ever experimental, and the pictures, by all accounts, were weak. Television only seriously took flight with the live broadcast of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in June 1953 (insert boilerplate boomer memories of everyone in the street crowding into the one living room with a television set).

The BBC was the sole broadcaster at the time, initially transmitting from (and producing shows at) Alexandra Palace in north London. Realising it required a more powerful mast — capable of reaching a surging number of homes — the Beeb headed for higher ground, namely at Crystal Palace. "Even though it's nowhere near as tall as the Shard, if you were to climb up and stick your head out the top, you do look down on the Shard," says Paul. "Height is might".

The tower structure nearing completion in the mid 1950s. Image: Arqiva

Commissioned by the BBC, and assembled by BICC Public Limited Company (now Balfour Beatty), the mast was erected between 1955 and 1956. Gladly, the undertaking was recorded for documentary The Phoenix Tower, providing butterfly-inducing shots of topless labourers piecing together the oversized Meccano set from a giddy height.

Sometimes referred to as the 'Crystal Paris' owing to its resemblance to the Eiffel Tower, the Crystal Palace transmitter mast was built the way it was, because tethering it with guy wires wasn't an option. Hemmed in by a reservoir, a busy road and a steep slope, on-site space was limited. "They wouldn't have built it in this way unless they absolutely had to," says Paul, "and they did absolutely have to." And so a London icon was built out of necessity.

Blueprints for the mast stashed away in a drawer. Image: Arqiva

There's no proof of it, but Paul reckons the blueprints of the Parisian landmark must've been studied by BICC: "I'd be shocked if they didn't". As for the blueprints of Crystal Palace's mast; Paul pulls out a drawer in a small archive cupboard, and allows me a glimpse.

Though the BBC had the mast built in the first instance, the advent of colour TV shook things up, forcing the BBC and its newish rival ITV to share the transmitting space. "The government basically said 'OK, you two competing entities,'" says Meller, "start playing nicely, and move in together!'"

ITV built an extension onto the side of BBC's existing transmitting station, got its own set of keys cut (Paul still has both BBC and ITV keys), and became next door neighbours — it sounds like the setup to a 1950s version of W1A.

'Electrical plumbing'

The original 1950s transmitter hall. The equipment has since been updated a number of times. Image: Arqiva

In its early days, the transmission halls were overseen by dozens of full-time engineers — most in shirts and ties, many with cigarettes dangling from their lips — fiddling with dials on chunky bits of broadcasting equipment.

That's long changed, with Arqiva — the latest incarnation of the original engineering company — running the show with a scaled-down workforce. 100% of British TV is broadcast from Arqiva's 1,400 UK sites, as well as 90% of radio. Paul oversees a large proportion of that himself: "My job is engineering for TV, FM, DAB, AM radio... I cover London and the south-east," he says, "And we've got about a dozen people taking care of 130-odd broadcast sites, of which this is just one."

Watching daytime TV is a perk of the job.

"People still deserve to be educated, informed and entertained"

A perpetual buzz rings out through the transmitting halls, packed with transmitter equipment (whatever you do, don't call the mast itself a 'transmitter'). TVs showing QVC and Bargain Hunt are dotted around at intervals, but don't think Paul gets to watch daytime TV/listen to daytime radio for a living. The viewing pleasure of millions relies on him. "Essentially all the TV signals for the whole country come in on a fibre," explains Paul, "and that carries an awful lot of data. Our job then is to turn that into what is essentially a radio/TV signal."

TV-wise, all the stations from around the country have their signals knitted together into six multiplexes. The BBC has one multiplex. ITV and Channel 4 have one together. Public service broadcasters (including BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5) have one for their HD channels. There are also three fully commercial multiplexes (one owned by SDN, two by Arqiva itself). "We take care of the engineering for all the companies, even though there are competitors in that space," says Paul.

The kind of workplace where you really need to know what you're doing.

The output from multiplexes are then converged into increasingly large pipelines ("electrical plumbing" as Paul describes it), which grow thicker and thicker in girth, eventually channeled to cylinders at the top of the mast, which spread the signals far and wide. (The nearby Croydon transmitter was erected in 1962, and now transmits a handful of FM stations, as well as serving as a backup for Crystal Palace.)

Paul must ensure the smooth running of all the equipment; checking, dusting, tweaking. Stickers on the multiplexes bluntly remind him just how many people are counting on him. At the flick of a switch, he could shut down all transmission: it is the remote control to end all remote controls.  

The girthiest lengths of 'electrical plumbing' are warm to the touch, purely from the amount of radio frequency passing through them.

In 2012, the Crystal Palace mast was bathed in a colourful lightshow to mark the digital switchover; a technology that's cheaper to run, and allows more diversity. Explains Paul, "The DAB technology allows the broadcasters to run multiple flavours of their radio station, so Heart, Heart 80s, Heart 70s, Heart Christmas... just like that.

"In theory we could take a DIY DJ in his bedroom to a national audience by the end of the day."

The transmitter station may no longer be run by the BBC, but Paul holds true the traditional Reithian values: "There has been some debate about the future of Freeview," he says. "Arqiva have invested in the future — we've put our money where our mouths are. I used to install smart meters before this. I've been into people's homes, and there's people out there budgeting for the price of a stamp. People who couldn't offer me biscuits because they couldn't afford them.

"I don't want to be making those people subscribe to the internet just to watch TV, when they deserve to be educated, informed and entertained as they did previously."

"It appears on bottles of local gin"

Various sections of the mast are rented out by phone companies, the police, the coastguard, taxi companies, energy companies, and City traders after a millisecond head-start to secure deals worth extra millions.

We emerge outside, directly below the mast, to appreciate its latticed form set against fortuitously blue skies. It makes you shudder to think that just a couple of years after it was built, three young men decided to scale this thing, tying a shirt to the top of it as a makeshift flag. One of them apparently came down looking "a bit green".

Up close, you also appreciate just how useful this 'climbing frame' structure is. It cost 10 times more to build it this way than it would have a normal mast. But it's certainly made up for that; various sections of the mast are rented out by phone companies, the police, the coastguard, taxi companies, energy companies, and City traders after a millisecond head-start, to secure deals worth extra millions. A prime piece of broadcasting real estate, even the lower-down sections are relatively sky high.

"There's a point where it enters the local culture." Image: Antenna Gin

It's surprisingly difficult to find examples of anyone badmouthing the mast as an eyesore when it went up in the 1950s. Perhaps everyone simply loved it from the start, and has continued to do so ever since.

"I love this site particularly because of the way that it touches the locals," says Paul, "There's a point where it enters the local culture. It becomes a homing beacon.

"Business use it for their iconography. You've got Antenna Gin. You've got the Transmitter Knitters. I don't think I can speak for all their personal interests but I'm going to go out on a limb and say they've got no interest in broadcasting infrastructure..."

Paul Mellers jokes that he keeps asking to climb the mast, but hasn't been allowed to yet.

Even the local wildlife is a fan, peregrine falcons establishing their nests in the latticed framework. They go largely undisturbed by humans, too, because everything here is designed from an engineering perspective to keep people on the ground. The mast is inspected once a year, repainted every now and again, and apart from that, left largely unclimbed.

Even Paul has never scaled it himself. "I keep asking," he smiles.

Yet despite being out of bounds to the general public — even its own engineer — Crystal Palace's mast has grown into a bigger icon than the very Crystal Palace that stood here before it.

All images by Londonist, unless otherwise stated.

Sutton House — the oldest building in Hackney — is one of the festival's venues. Image: KotomiCreations via creative commons

A month of walks, talks and films in and about Hackney — plus two super-packed weekends of lectures — celebrate the east London borough's history this summer.

Hackney History Festival is a biggie, taking place across a slew of museums, cinemas and historic venues in May. Throughout the month there are walks, to name a few:

🪧 Hackney During the 1926 General Strike (3 May): learn how the area was badly affected by strikes 100 years ago... and even join in singing an anthem of resistance from the time!

👨🏿 Stoke Newington Black History Quest (20 May): this self-guided treasure hunt leads you to uncover stories of abolitionists, stars and little-known lives in the area's Caribbean and African diaspora.

🌴 Walking Backwards through Time: Loddiges Nursery (30 May): In the 18th and 19th century, the hothouses of Loddiges Nursery contained all manner of exotic palms, ferns and orchids. Here, maps, images and stories help bring it back to life.

Dive into the history of Hackney's public baths. Image: Ian S via CC BY-SA 2.0

The weekends of 9-10 May and 16-17 May see a particularly packed roster, with experts illuminating you with lectures on public baths, poster designers, pie 'n' mash — and plenty of things that don't begin with a P too. Among the happenings over those four days are:

🇻🇳 Well Settled: Archiving Vietnamese histories in Hackney (9 May): A reflective talk on the An Việt Foundation, established in Hackney in 1981, and now the largest British-Vietnamese archive collection in the UK.

🏊 The Rise, Fall and Return of Hackney's Public Baths (10 May): Public baths used to be far more than a form of leisure and exercise — they also kept the poorer denizens of London clean and hygienic. This Sutton House talk dips into the importance of places like Eastway Baths in Hackney Wick, in an era before the NHS.

👻 Ghost Shop Signs: Accidental Finds, Briefly Revealing Lost Shops (16 May): Amir Dotan peels away the layers of Hackney's past to reveal some of its most beautiful ghost signs, which tell us not only about the area's long-lost businesses, but also the fading art of sign writing.

🎥 Secrets from the Savoy Cinema, Stoke Newington Road (17 May): Friend of Londonist Nigel Smith loves his cinemas; this time, he's honing in on the Savoy, and a box of ephemera from the 1960s discovered during its redevelopment, which tells us a lot about the decline of London's cinemas at this time.

All talks and walks cost just £3 each — check out the full line-up.

There are also a number of satellite events happening across May, including tower climbs, cemetery walks, behind-the-scenes theatre tours, Charlie Peel's new maps of old Hackney superimposed on the new, and lots more. Many of these events are free, although booking is suggested.

Hackney History Festival, walks and satellite events throughout may, with two weekends packed with talks on 9-10 May and 16-17 May 2026.

Know which serving US President visited London's most central station? Image: Jordy Muñoz via Unsplash

Charing Cross station is London's most central railway terminus, just a few minutes' walk from Trafalgar Square. But did you know these seven facts about it?

1. Why is it called Charing Cross?

Charing Cross is the name of the road junction to the south of Trafalgar Square, and that's where the station gets its name from. The junction is where all distances to London are measured from.

The word Charing comes from old English 'cierring', which means 'turning', a reference to the bend in the River Thames by the station.

The replica Eleanor Cross outside the station. Photo: Matt Brown/Londonist

As for the Cross, that relates to the final Eleanor Cross, a series of monuments marking the nightly resting places of Queen Eleanor of Castile's body, following her death near Lincoln in 1290. The original London memorials have long vanished, but a Victorian pastiche can still be seen in the taxi rank of the station. IanVisits had a bit of fun with that on April Fool's Day 2014.

An alternative suggestion is that Charing originates from the French 'chère reine', meaning 'dear Queen' and referring to Eleanor. But the area was probably called Charing long before then.

2. The storm tree

The Eleanor Cross, with the Storm Tree to the right. Photo: Matt Brown/Londonist

You might never have noticed this tree outside the front of the station, on Strand. Thinking about it, it's an odd place to have such a large tree, slap bang in the middle of the pavement in the centre of London.

In fact it's a memorial tree, planted as a result of the great storm of October 1987, which destroyed a quarter of a million trees in London. Following the storm, the Evening Standard launched an appeal to plant fresh trees across the London boroughs, this being one. A plaque on a nearby pillar commemorates it.

3. Keeping it in the family

Photo: Steve Daniels via creative commons

Charing Cross Hotel, which opened at the same time as the station, was designed by EM Barry, son of Sir Charles (who was responsible for rebuilding the House of Commons). The hotel is a Grade II listed building. Architectural flair ran in the family — another of Charles Barry's sons, Charles Barry Jr, was responsible for designing the station hotel at Liverpool Street station.

4. A royal first

The Royal Family's train would've looked posher than this. Image: Oast House Archive via creative commons

The Royal Family's was the first passenger train to use the new railway tracks built between London Bridge station and the new Charing Cross station, en-route from Windsor to Dover. This was in December 1863, before the first public passenger train left the station on 11 January 1864. The station itself wasn't quite complete, one newspaper reporting: "As yet the terminal station is a temporary one, the splendid station building requiring at least two months more for its completion, when the hoardings will be removed and disclose a square with a facsimile of old Charing cross [sic] in the centre."

5. A presidential visit

They cleaned up the station nicely for this bloke. Harris & Ewing, photographer - Library of Congress.

A plaque below the wall-mounted clock commemorates the time the station was visited by a serving US president.

Woodrow Wilson arrived at Charing Cross on Boxing Day 1918, to be met by King George V and whisked off to Buckingham Palace. A journalist remarked that the train was 'punctual to the minute', although he hardly recognised the station: "It was not the crimson carpet and the red hangings, the banners and streamers. I am used to such things. It was the effectual way the platforms and the whole dingy place had been swept and washed clean, and all the familiar grimy things moved from sight."

6. The roof collapse tragedy

The glass windbreak wall lies in a heap to the left. The height of the collapsed wall, which fell onto the theatre, can also be appreciated from this angle. From The Sphere, 16 December 1905. © The British Library Board. All rights reserved. Found in the British Newspaper Archive.

In December 1905, six people were killed when the glass and metal station roof collapsed during maintenance works. The station was closed for three months for repairs, reopening in March 1906. As a result of the accident, designs for a similar roof at Cannon Street station were scrapped. Read our article on the roof collapse.

7. Changing names

When Charing Cross Railway station was first built and opened in 1864, The Tube station we now know as Embankment was named Charing Cross. The present Charing Cross Tube station was known as Trafalgar Square station. We'll let Geoff explain the rest:

This feature first appeared in April 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: Doggo19292, Free Art Licence

“Bad enough to knock a dog down”. An overpowering stench descended on Bermondsey in the spring of 1915. Residents were forced to keep their windows closed. Visitors stayed away. Businesses failed. The cause was a surfeit of rotten eggs.

Bermondsey — south and south-east of Tower Bridge — had always been a whiffy place. During the 19th century, you could navigate the area by smell alone. The western quarters were home to the tanners, who scraped gore and rotting flesh from skins, then rubbed animal urine and dung into the leather. Nearby, stood the Sarson’s vinegar factory with its own pungent aromas. Move north and you might encounter Jacob’s Island, a squalid slum immortalised in Oliver Twist, whose foetid ditches presented "literally the smell of a graveyard". To the south, more pleasant odours emanated from the Peek Freans factory in ‘Biscuit Town’, alongside a jam factory and a custard factory. Right through the middle of it all ran the sooty waft of steam trains along the magnificent viaduct that still dominates the area.

By 1915, some of the more unpleasant odours had dwindled. But then a new ingredient defreshed the aromatic landscape: eggs; bad ones.

In the early 20th century, Bermondsey had established itself as a hub for imported eggs. A 1921 trade directory lists five egg importers on Tooley Street alone, including, Bloch & Klein, Foucard & Son, and (great name for an indie band, this) Stern Alfred. Their eggs were sourced from numerous countries, including Denmark, Russia and Egypt. Once offloaded in Bermondsey, the eggs would be distributed by wholesalers at nearby Borough Market and from the adjacent Hop Exchange building, which still bedazzles today:

The old Hop Exchange, later the London Egg Exchange, pictured in 2014. If you’re wondering why the fancy car is sat there, then I’m afraid I’ve forgotten. Probably cheaper to hire this marble floor than to use a Southwark parking bay. Image: Matt Brown

Importing fresh produce is a risky business. Any delay to shipping might spoil the food. Eggs are more robust than some perishables, but even they could spoil when journeying from as far as Egypt. Still, an efficient supply chain had built up and, according to one news report, only half a million rotten eggs were destroyed per year in Bermondsey during the first decade of the 20th century.

Then came war. The European hostilities of 1914 caused unprecedented disruption to shipping. Cargoes were still getting through, but the journey could take much longer. The upshot was food waste on a scale never seen before. In Bermondsey, an estimated 25 million unsaleable eggs were destroyed in the first eight months of war.

Yolk-back Mountain

25 million rotten eggs in eight months is a lot. If we crunch the numbers, that’s 100,000 eggs per day, or 170 eggs every minute (assuming a 10-hour working day, seven days a week). Only the council could muster the resources needed to crack the problem. Indeed, it was their statutory duty. As the local sanitary authority, the council was required by the Public Health Act (1891) to remove and destroy all trade refuse and unsound food. And so an unenviable team of labourers had the task of crushing tens of thousands of stinking eggs daily. It must have been appalling work, though we must remember that shovelling rotten food was still preferable to the most common form of employment in 1915.

The council’s usual waste destructor could handle neither the quantity nor the muculent quality of the rebuffed oeufs. A new egg-smashing depot was therefore built on a Thames wharf near Chambers Street to chomp through all the waste.

Footnote: Egg-breaking was still a thing to the south of the river into the 1960s. If you’ve never seen it, you must watch The London Nobody Knows, in which James Mason tours some of the more unusual sights of London. These include an egg-breaking factory on Bankside, here played for laughs in one of the most idiosyncratic documentaries you’ll ever watch.

Press reports from the time describe the facility. Every day, a steady stream of rotten eggs would reach the wharf by cart. From here, they were introduced to the council’s dedicated egg-crushing machine, which resembled a giant mangle. Crates of old eggs were loaded into the top, and a man would then turn a handle to crush the produce. Shells were caught in a wire mesh, and the wretched egg-gloop would decant into a gully, and thence the public drains.

I can find no account of the feculent sewer omelette that must have ensued. And so — professional historian that I am — I’ve recoloured this screenshot from Ghostbusters II to give some approximation:

Who ya gonna call? How the Bermondsey sewers might have looked after receiving the horrid goo from 25 million bad eggs.

Bodfield vs Bermondsey Borough Council

Needless to say, the stench of this sulphurous splatmatter did not go down well with the neighbours. One sorry complaint came from John Bodfield, a coffeehouse keeper whose shop at 42 Bermondsey Wall was just 25 metres (80 feet) from the plant. By June of 1915, the stink had so thoroughly deterred his customers that the shop had closed down.

He took the matter to the High Court seeking damages for loss of earnings, and to gain an injunction against further egg smashing in the area. The proceedings were widely reported in the newspapers. The council’s legal representative began by outlining his client’s quandary:

“Either we must destroy the eggs and be sued by Mr. Bodfield and his friends who are also coffee-house keepers in the district (for they say that if he succeeds they will also ask for damages), or we must retain the rotten eggs and be sued by all the people in the district, and we don't know what to do.”

In response, the divertingly named Mr Justice Darling quipped: “I don’t know that the judges of the King’s Bench Division are specially qualified to tell you how to destroy rotten eggs”.

OS map of 1896. The space labelled Vestry Wharf is the site of the egg-smashing. Bodfield’s coffeehouse is one of the properties shown just to the south. The egg site today is beside the Chambers Wharf development, long occupied by Thames Water as a shaft site for the Thames Tideway sewer. Image via Layers of London.

It was then the turn of the people to give evidence. Mr Bodfield outlined how his successful business had quickly dropped away after the egg smashing began. He now had to work as a docker to make ends meet. His children had suffered illness from the fumes. Asked whether he would describe the eggs as rotten, Bodfield replied: “From the appearance and smell, I think they were doubly rotten”.

Bodfield was the most vocal local provoked by croaked yolks, but others spoke out too. Samuel Pearcy, the landlord of the adjacent Bunch of Grapes pub registered his disgruntlement here, and in a separate court action. Meanwhile, Miss Elizabeth Searle, a teacher at the nearby East Lane Girls School, complained of headaches and nausea from the fumes.

Arthur James Devereaux, a seasoned waterman, gave grimly corroborating testimony. He described how he’d sat alongside dead bodies which had been in the water six or seven weeks, and was not affected by them, but the smell at the wharf drove him smartly from the coffee-house.

A good egg. As consumed by me, at The George in Stepney in 2017. Image: Matt Brown

Since the closure of Bodfield’s coffeeshop, the council had taken measures to counter the noxious egg honk. The court heard how the mangle apparatus had been enclosed, to help contain the smell. Carbolic acid and chloride of lime were now regularly applied to the machine. An electric exhaust fan had also been installed to deflect the odours up through a stink-pipe.

“That will be bad for the Zeppelins,” quipped Mr Justice Darling, who seems to have considered the case to be one running joke.

Another witness, a local river man named Boss, suggested that the council might have shipped the eggs downriver for disposal in a less populated area. “You might have painted the barges like hospital ships,” suggested Justice Darling, “and then they would have been torpedoed”.

(I am not entirely shocked to find that the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, describes Darling as “known for his erudition and at times inappropriate wit”.)

The council’s actions appear to have been effective. Mr Bodfield himself admitted that the smell had significantly lessened since the measures had been put in place. The judge was satisfied that Bermondsey had done all it could to remedy the situation, and found no cause for an injunction. John Bonfield was eventually awarded £150 damages. Pearcy of the Bunch of Grapes was separately awarded £75.

As the war progressed, London’s egg supply became increasingly domestic and the problem of imported food waste reduced. And so the Bermondsey Bad Egg Boom dissipated as non-mysteriously as it had first appeared. It stands as a small, forgotten chapter in London’s history. But it is also a timely reminder of what can go wrong when supply chains are disrupted by major upheavals in world trade.

Free puppet shows come to Covent Garden in May 2026 © Ned Dyke-Coomes

That's the way to do it! Covent Garden's May Fayre & Puppet Festival is back in 2026, for its 51st edition.

The free, family-friendly event celebrates the anniversary of the first recorded sighting of Mr Punch, an early version of today's Punch & Judy shows.

It was diarist Samuel Pepys who recalled seeing "an Italian puppet play — a great resort for gallants within the rayles of Covent Garden" in May 1662. Pepys' puppet sighting is recorded by a plaque on the wall of St Paul's Church, unveiled in 1962.

© Suresh Anath

This inspired the first Covent Garden May Fayre and Puppet Festival to be held in 1976, bringing together Punch & Judy professors and puppeteers from all over the world. Pandemic aside, the event has taken place on the second Sunday of May ever since.

At 11am, a grand procession, led by the Superior Brass Band, parps its way around the Covent Garden neighbourhood to kick off the day's celebrations, culminating in a birthday toast to Mr Punch in the Covent Garden Piazza. This is followed at 12pm by a special service in St Paul's Church — also known as 'the Actor's Church' for its theatrically-inclined congregation — with Mr Punch in the pulpit.

There's more to the Covent Garden Spring Fayre than puppets. Photo: Ned Coomes

Following the church service, the fayre takes place in the church garden with stalls, Punch & Judy shows (tell the kids that this is what kids TV used to look like), puppeteering workshops, live music and maypole dancing. An afternoon of wholesome, free, family-friendly fun, if ever there was one. Apart from all the fiesty puppets, of course.

For 2026, the event is produced for the first time by Small Pond Theatre, who take over the reins from previous organisers, Alternative Arts.

The Covent Garden May Fayre & Puppet Festival, Sunday 10 May 2026, St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, 11am-5.30pm. Admission is free.

The Whittington Stone monument has stood since 1821, with the feline embellishment added in the 1960s.

Richard 'Dick' Whittington — the man who was four-times Lord Mayor of London (thrice in the pantomime version), and bestowed to the city a massive toilet — is enshrined in everything from pantos to pubs.

He is also immortalised in the Whittington Stone, a small monument erected at the foot of Highgate Hill in Archway in 1821, at the spot where a down-and-out Dick supposedly heard the bells call out "Turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London" — calling him back to the medieval City. That quote is emblazoned on the milestone-like monument, and in 1964, was embellished with sculptor Jonathan Kenworthy's limestone cat, referencing Whittington's (likely fabricated) feline accomplice.

Children from local schools have been involved in creative workshops, meeting conservators and contributing directly to the project.

Over the decades, the monument has fallen foul of soot, moss and general erosion, but now — thanks to a project funded by Islington Council and Heritage of London Trust with support from Englefield Charitable Trust — it's been restored to former glory. Work by SSH Conservation has seen stone repairs, recutting and repainting of the lettering, plus refurbishment and repainting of the railings surrounding the monument. A new panel has been installed nearby, giving more context to the Whittington Stone and the story behind it.

Children from local schools, including St John's Upper Holloway C of E School and Yerbury Primary School, have been involved with the project too, some even helping with the repainting. Says 11-year-old Betty Rose: "I think it's important for young people to know the story of Dick Whittington because it's a really inspiring story for all of us and basically it's to never give up and you should always try!"

"It was really nice just knowing about that job [of a conservator] and the work they do. Otherwise, I doubt we would even have half of what we've got around us.": 10-year-old Rufus from Yerbury Primary School.

The annual Whittington Walk — which retraces Whittington's route back from Archway to the City — takes place this year on Sunday 19 April, with many of London's mayors gathering at the Whittington Stone at 10.15am. Sadiq Khan himself is not expected to be in attendance, but he is, only (so far at least) only thrice Mayor of London.

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

Dream of travelling to a bygone London? This May you can do just that, thanks to a series of heritage rides on a 1938 Tube train.

The burgundy-hued art deco style stock — consisting of four carriages, and replete with wooden frames windows, sleek light fittings, and a sumptuous red and green cut and loop wool moquette — is running on sections of the Piccadilly line across the early May bank holiday.

The journeys take place between Northfields and the Heathrow Loop (Saturday 2 May 2026), Cockfosters to Northfields (Sunday 3 and Monday 4 May 2026) and Northfields to Cockfosters (also Sunday 3 and Monday 4 May 2026). There are multiple trips on each day, each with a time slot.

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

Though you can't reserve individual seats, carriages are divvied into 'Gold', 'Silver' and 'Bronze'. (Fitting, if coincidental, given that early London Underground trains were indeed split into classes.)

In all, over 1,100 of these 1938 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 these were replaced with 'new' (aka 1980s) London Underground stock.

Nowadays, you can admire these beauts in museums and depots, but you get a chance to ride them a few times a year.

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

Unfortunately these heritage rides are very much NOT at 1938 prices: adult tickets start at £25, going up to £30, though there are concession rates for kids. As usual spaces are going fast.

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, 2-4 May 2026.

Trackside Transformation: The Evolution of British Mainline Stations 1923-1947 is a new book that digs into the station architecture of the 'Big Four' — Great Western Railway, London Midland and Scottish Railway, London and North Eastern Railway, and Southern Railway — between the 1920s-40s.

Here, author Daniel Wright heads south to discover the gorgeous interwar stations built apart from those on the London Underground.

Tolworth station (1939). Image: Philip Butler

When speaking of railway stations in London from the 1920s and 1930s, most would no doubt think of the remarkable work of Charles Holden for the Underground.

Revered in period, and celebrated ever since, his estate of stations from 1923-1947 revolutionised the approach to modern architecture in Britain and left an enduring legacy on the capital's streets.

However, the Underground wasn't the only company building striking stations in London at the time. South of the Thames one of the four national railway firms was designing its own take on the modern British railway station.

Bromley North station (1925-6). Image: Philip Butler

Between the two World Wars, railway commuting in London boomed. The creation of new lines and the rebuilding existing stations to meet the demand occurred at a dizzying pace. Development north of the Thames was the domain of the Underground and Metropolitan railways, but south of the river, it was the Southern Railway which operated and expanded a dense network of mainline commuter routes.

Byfleet & New Haw station (1927). Image: Philip Butler

One of the 'Big Four' railway companies created in 1923 by government legislation, the Southern was responsible for all the mainline rail routes operating from the capital out to the south coast, from Kent to Devon. However, it was also building a significant commuter business for itself in London's suburbs by electrifying its lines to introduce faster and more frequent services, replicating the Underground's service offer, but on the surface. That meant bigger and better stations where existing buildings couldn't cope with increasing passenger numbers.

Surbiton station (1937). Image: Philip Butler

At first, these new stations were designed in a polite neo-classical style, like the charming survivor at Bromley North (1926). This wasn't to last, and within a few years the Southern was being influenced by the same international design trends as the Underground, with its chief architect James Robb Scott designing a collection of modernist/art deco mainline stations in south London. Though much less well known now than those of the Underground, they nevertheless have a lot to offer and when newly built rivalled their Underground cousins in the design and architecture stakes.

Wimbledon station (1929). Image: Philip Butler

The most famous is undoubtedly Surbiton (1937) with its lofty booking hall restored and lit by bronze uplighters, as well as other surviving features like its dramatic clock tower. Recent restoration work at Richmond (also 1937) makes the case for that station too, with stylish 1930s glass signage uncovered and restored, complemented by replica art deco light fittings and an original sign returned from the London Transport Museum in the booking hall.

Chessington North station (1939). Image: Philip Butler

While these two are undeniably celebrated examples of Southern's work, it was the vast number of lesser-known examples built, and the fact that no comprehensive book on the subject existed, that led photographer Philip Butler and myself to create their book Trackside Transformation – The Evolution of British Mainline Stations 1923-1947.

Waddon station ticket hall (1937). Image: Philip Butler

Perhaps one reason Scott's mainline stations are less famous than Holden's Tube stations is that the Big Four's bosses simply weren't as interested in architecture and architects as Underground CEO Frank Pick was. While Pick was promoting his marvellous new stations, the Southern focussed more on publicising the services it offered.

Carshalton Beeches station (1925). Image: Philip Butler

That lesser interest was compounded by nationalisation of the mainline railways in 1948, privatisation in the 1990s which saw stations passing between short-lived franchises, and now re-nationalisation, meaning that their value and 'brand' hasn't always been recognised by their various owners, and maintenance has been inconsistent. Many original features have been lost over the years, more so than at the inter-war Tube stations.
One of the Southern's very first Streamline stations, Wimbledon Chase (1929), has been allowed to deteriorate so much that there are plans to demolish and replace it with a block of flats. Built on the Southern's brand new Wimbledon-Sutton line, which saw off attempts to extend the District and Northern lines to Sutton, its architecture was a clear response to the challenge posed by the more limited Northern line extension to nearby Morden, which included stations by Holden. For now, it is — just — possible to appreciate Wimbledon Chase's mould-breaking concave frontage and the 1920s tiling inside.

Richmond station (1937). Image: Philip Butler

Nevertheless, there are plenty of surviving Southern Railway stations in London's southern suburbs that still possess much kerb appeal, with period features there for those with a keen eye. While completing the project, Philip found himself particularly taken by a later batch of four stations on the Chessington branch line, completed between 1938 and 1939. Each one has a streamlined art deco station building, and the platforms are sheltered by dramatic curved canopies. Unique on the mainline railway network, they were originally lit by rows of circular glass lenses. The lenses are still there but painted over awaiting restoration to their original art deco glory.

Tolworth station (1939). Image: Philip Butler

I, meanwhile, have a soft spot for Waddon (1937). Beneath garish commercial signage is a striking Modernist building which can hold its own against any inter-war Tube station. Little-noticed today, it is a hidden gem of the sort that Trackside Transformation aims to bring to a new audience. Trackside Transformation profiles over 100 stations built or rebuilt by the Big Four nationwide which survive, often unrecognised, to this day. Philip's photographs capture the characters of the range of the stations, from cottage-like stations in suburban and rural locations to art deco giants in city centres, while my pen portraits add historical context.

Trackside Transformation: The Evolution of British Mainline Stations 1923-1947, by Daniel Wright and Philip Butler, published by Art Deco Magpie Publishing.

This feature first appeared in April 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

I was sucked in by the wicker work.

This gravestone, in Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, is not like the others. It stands in isolation, protruding from a wicker basket. Why?

Closer inspection reveals all. This is the grave of somebody who spent a good deal of time in baskets. A famous balloonist. Or, rather, a balloonist who had been famous. Margaret Graham was once a household name, but who now remembers this aeronautical pioneer?

Image: Matt Brown

IN MEMORIAM
MARGARET GRAHAM
1804-1864
CELEBRATED AERONAUT
-AND-
FIRST BRITISH WOMAN
TO FLY SOLO
IN 1826
BURIED NEARBY
WIFE OF AERONAUT AND CHEMIST
GEORGE GRAHAM 1784-1867

I was intrigued. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by such a headstone? The first British woman to fly solo? Why had I never heard of her?

In fact, I had heard of her. A while back, I wrote a feature about Rosine Simonet, the brave 14-year-old who became the first woman (well, girl) ever to fly in England, as a passenger in a balloon launch from Barbican in 1785. Margaret Graham was a footnote in that story. I’d forgotten all about her until I stumbled across this gravestone.

Margaret Graham, I’ve since learned, was a remarkable woman. Not only was she the first woman to pilot a balloon in Britain, but she did so in her early 20s. She played an equal role with her husband in managing their balloon flights, and she even engaged in what we’d now call PR, spinning her aerial adventures to an eager press.

This is her story…

Alone over Islington

Mark the date: 28 June 1826. This would be the occasion on which a woman first flew alone through the skies of London. It was not the most reassuring of days to make a solo flight. Thunderstorms had troubled the  region, and the wind remained blustery. No balloonist would take off in these conditions today.

Margaret Graham, however, was a plucky 22-year-old with no fear. She’d made several balloon flights by this point, accompanying her husband George in a hydrogen balloon. A lovely sketch of the couple can be viewed here, though I’m unable to ascertain the copyright status.

The pair had narrowly cheated death a few months earlier, when they’d ditched their craft in the English Channel near Plymouth. Undeterred, Margaret was back for more. Adverts were placed in the press, to attract a paying audience to White Conduit Gardens, close to present-day Chapel Market in Islington. This was never intended to be a solo flight. Graham was to be accompanied by Miss Jane Stocks. Aged around 20, Stocks was also a veteran of several balloon flights, including one in 1824 in which the pilot was killed during a crash landing.

From the Morning Herald, 27 June 1826, via the British Newspaper Archive

The present balloon ascent was being sold on its novelty: this would be the first time that an all-female crew had flown from British soil. We might draw comparisons with the recent all-woman spaceflight of Katy Perry et al. However, Margaret Graham would need to use considerable skill to pilot her hydrogen balloon, whereas the millionaire space-hoppers were simply passengers.

As it happened, Miss Stocks turned up 20 minutes late to the gathering. She’d supposedly lost track of the time while taking tea with friends. By now, the balloon had been sitting around full of hydrogen for longer than anticipated. The brisk wind had caused it to oscillate, and lose its expensive gas. The diminished balloon could now only carry the weight of one occupant, and the tardy Miss Stocks was dismissed.

And so it was that Margaret Graham ascended into the heavens alone, with a strong south-westerly wind to carry her over Islington.

We should note at this point that Graham was not the first lady to fly solo. That honour goes to Jeanne Labrosse, who achieved the feat in France as early as 1799 (coupled with the first parachute landing by a woman). Nor was she the first woman to fly in Britain. As we’ve seen, that honour went to the 14-year-old Rosine Simonet, who took to the skies over the Barbican in the company of Jean-Pierre Blanchard in 1785.

Graham was, however, the first woman to fly over British soil without company. This also made her Britain’s first female pilot, more than 80 years before Hilda Hewlett became the first woman to gain a pilot’s licence (for aeroplanes).

As flights go, it was a mere hop. You might walk it in an hour. Yet it was filled with incident right from the take-off. Graham’s under-inflated balloon struggled to clear the adjacent trees. She had to drop much of her ballast to avoid snagging. And this was only the beginning of her problems, as she later told the press:

“The car became entangled with the coping of a house, but, by pushing my foot against it, it was disengaged, and I then passed down a street, the car being as low as the second floor windows, and the monstrous machine, swaying from one side of the way to the other. I now anticipated immediate death.”

The embattled pilot threw out all her remaining ballast and eventually lifted above the rooftops. The wind carried her north-eastwards, over Liverpool Road and Upper Street, after which she tracked north-eastwards alongside what is now Essex Road (then Lower Street). All the while, her husband followed behind in a horse and cart. Here’s a period map (Greenwood, 1828) which I’ve annotated to show the route:

Click or tap for larger version. The route east of Islington church is speculative

I can’t be sure, but I suspect the street Graham describes travelling along was Richard Street, now Ritchie Street, immediately east of the gardens. It lines up with the reported trajectory.

After clearing the early streets, Graham passed alongside Islington Church (St Mary’s). Here, a crowd of people had ascended the spire to get a prime view. “[They] hailed me as I passed,” Graham tells us, “many attempting to shake me by the hand”. Rather wonderfully, it’s possible to climb the spire today, courtesy of tours put on by Islington Guided Walks. This is the view you get:

View from the steeple of St Mary’s Islington. I was 197 years too late to shake Margaret Graham’s hand. Image: Matt Brown

Graham describes the “delightful” view, which included St Paul’s and every other church spire in the City. Sadly, that’s been lost to us from this vantage, as a wall of skyscrapers overwhelms the old Wren skyline.

After passing Islington church, Graham crossed the New River, where a “great number of persons… huzzaed”. She travelled about a mile up Essex Road towards Newington Green, where she made a premature landing:

“When I got near Mr. Barr's nursery [shown on the map above], a gust of wind passed over the top of the balloon, which caused it instantly to descend, and in a very short time I touched the earth, falling amongst some beans in a garden. The balloon immediately ascended again, and passed through a tree, and descended in an adjoining field, when, to my delight, the first person that caught hold of the car was my husband.”

And so the very first solo flight by a woman in Britain concluded. This was not to be the end of the peril, however. Mr Graham subsequently got into dispute with a group of bricklayers, who’d offered to convey the balloon to the nearby Green Man pub in exchange for beer. It seems that the labourers damaged both the balloon and the pub when they didn’t get as much beer as they’d expected. The Green Man’s landlord then took Mr Graham to court over liabilities. It would not be the last time that the Grahams would find themselves in legal difficulties.

The ups and downs of an aeronaut

Margaret Graham would go on to make hundreds of further ascents. Flying became a career, at a time when few women had such a thing. Among many successes, she made the first female balloon ascent at night, rising by moonlight from Vauxhall Gardens in 1850. Remarkably, the Grahams found time to have at least 10 children, most of whom lived into adulthood. The family dwelt at various addresses across London, including Poland Street in Soho, Newington in Walworth, King Street in St James’s and Eastcheap in the City.

Ballooning was a hazardous enterprise, and Graham came close to death on many occasions. In 1836, for example, she was seriously injured after falling from the basket near Doddinghurst in Essex. The aeronaut estimated her drop at 1,000 feet. That’s over 300 metres, or a similar height to the Shard, and seems unlikely. She was left insensible for two weeks, but somehow made a full recovery. The following year she was once again thrown from the basket, along with her husband, after colliding with Reigate suspension bridge. The pair fell 50 feet (15 metres) but landed on a sloping bank and escaped serious injury. Then, in 1850, she came close to immolation after a naked flame ignited the balloon’s gas supply shortly after a landing near Edmonton. Graham escaped with only minor burns (pencil sketch here).

1851 found Mrs Graham making a number of ascents with her husband around the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. On one occasion, her balloon careered into the Crystal Palace, snapping flag poles. The incident could have been far more serious. The balloon’s grappling hooks came dangerously close to snagging the building’s frame, which may well have caused a collapse. Thousands of people were inside the glass structure at the time. In a parallel universe somewhere, the Great Crystal Palace Ballooning Catastrophe of 1851 is a tragic landmark in national history.

Graham might have survived her various scrapes, but her balloon escapades would prove fatal for at least one other person. On 28 June 1838, Graham and a Captain Currie ascended from Green Park, as part of the celebrations marking Queen Victoria’s Coronation. While hovering over Mayfair, a sudden gust caused the balloon to descend rapidly. It crashed down on a house in Marylebone Lane near Wigmore Street. Graham and Currie were unhurt, but falling debris struck a man called John Fley (age 26) on the head. He later died from his injuries.

Graham’s final flights came in 1854. She then seems to have fallen into some legal difficulties and, eventually, poverty. Having survived so many high-profile scrapes, she slowly deflated into obscurity. Her pauper’s burial in 1864 was in an unmarked grave in Stoke Newington, a short walk from the landing point of her first solo flight. And there she lay for 150 years, one of the country’s most celebrated aeronauts, almost entirely forgotten.

No longer. In 2022, the new headstone was unveiled close to the site of Graham’s previously unmarked grave. It came after a successful campaign by the Abney Park Trust and author Sharon Wright, who’d researched the story for her book The Lost History of the Lady Aeronauts. “It’s taken 158 years to get Mrs Graham a gravestone, said Wright at the time, “but it’s never too late to celebrate women who make history”. May Margaret Graham ascend once more into the the starry firmament of great Londoners.

To find Margaret Graham’s grave, visit Abney Park cemetery in Stoke Newington, and consult the information boards at either entrance. The cemetery contains many other notable graves worth seeking out, with full information given on-site.

Guided tours of the Roman bathhouse for 2026 have been announced. Image: City of London Corporation

One of the most fascinating finds from the ancient city of Londinium has reopened to visitors.

Billingsgate Roman House and Baths in the City of London — an extraordinary subterranean find on Lower Thames Street dating back to around AD 150 — is available to visit on guided tours on Saturdays from April until November.

Rediscovered by chance in the mid 19th century, these are the ruins of a private house and adjoining baths which would've been used by particularly wealthy inhabitants of Londinium. Bathers could move between the cold room (frigidarium), warm room (tepidarium), and hot room (caldarium) of the baths (sounds lovely, although the tepidarium experience would sometimes involve some painful hair-plucking.) All have been revealed by excavations.

A chance to glimpse a portion of Londinium. Image: City of London Corporation

The Roman remains were uncovered in 1848, as construction workers dug the foundations for what would become the Coal Exchange on Lower Thames Street. At the time, the Illustrated London News hailed it "A discovery of the greatest interest to the London antiquary." Today, an office block sits atop the ancient ruins.

Tickets for Saturday slots are now on sale, costing £16.96 for adults and £11.55 for children (14 years and younger) and concessions, including booking fee.

The Roman ruins were chanced upon in 1848. Image: City of London Corporation

The ruins are not to be confused with the 'Roman Bath' in Surrey Street near Temple, which is not actually Roman at all.

In February 2022, two stunning Roman mosaics were revealed on a site near London Bridge, at what was once possibly a 'mansio' — an upmarket inn across the water from Londinium.

Billingsgate Roman House and Baths guided tours, April-November 2026.

2026 marks 75 years since the Royal Festival Hall opened on London's South Bank — or to be more precise, a stretch of industrialised marshland. A new book, Royal Festival Hall: A Living Icon, celebrates the cultural institution — and from it, we've selected some photos of the Hall's construction.

Architect Leslie Martin (far right) explains a model of the RFH during construction. Image: Southbank Centre Archive

"What this country needs is a tonic.
a clean white box from the future to brighten a blackened city
with foyers where people can really meet people
and stairs that sweep in and out of filtered sun."

So begins Erica Hesketh's 2024 poem Centrepiece. In fact, that very tonic first appeared 75 years ago, as the Royal Festival Hall; as the historian Dan Cruickshank puts it: "a tangible expression of a burning desire to create a better society after the destruction inflicted on London during the Second World War."

The roof during construction. Image: Southbank Centre Archive

OK, so the RFH might not have quite been a 'clean white box'. The conductor-composer Sir Thomas Beeching even ranted to the Liverpool Echo on the building's unveiling in 1951: "In the course of a long life I have seen very many important buildings in this country and I question whether in 350 years there has ever been erected on the soil of this grand old country a more repellant, a more unattractive — unattractive is an understatement — a more ugly and more monstrous structure."

A visit from Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) in May 1950. Image: Southbank Centre Archive

But time is a great healer, and most Londoners would concede now that the RFH is an integral cog in not only the South Bank's landscape, but that of London's rich culture. In the book's foreword, Cruickshank describes the Hall as "a place of myth and imagination as well as of tangible fact... palatial, but open to all — a palace for the people."

The exterior of the RFH during construction. Image: Southbank Centre Archive

Cruickshank also recalls the impression it had on him in its early years: "I still remember how mighty its presence seemed to me at the time."

Indeed, as a post-war Londoner, it must've been quite something to see this brutalist 2,700-seat concert hall slowly rise on the riverbank. Certainly it was quite a job to make it a reality. Not only was the proposed site surrounded by busy rail lines, it was on industrialised marshland which had to be drained, before a new river frontage was built in front of it. Few concert halls of its size had been constructed before; what's more, space was extremely tight.

The 2,700-seat auditorium before it had any seats at all. Image: Southbank Centre Archive

The architects Robert Matthew and Leslie Martin were called on to make it happen. "The solution to these problems," write Eleanor Jolliffe and Sandy Rattray in Royal Festival Hall: A Living Icon, "was to raise the auditorium as an 'egg' within the box of the outer envelope of the building. This provided a degree of sound isolation, further improved by giving the 'egg' two layers of concrete 25 centimetres thick and two sets of doors at each entrance."

A rare early colour photo of the Belvedere Road façade.Image: Southbank Centre Archive

While the architects were inspired by Gothenburg's concert hall, Finsbury Health Centre, which had been built in 1938, was perhaps an even greater influence; the Twentieth Century Society still insist it's "arguably modern architecture's most important single achievement in England in the first half of the 20th century".

This temporary 'Grasshopper' canopy over the entrance to the ballroom was designed by Trevor Dannatt. Image: Southbank Centre Archive

If the Royal Festival Hall's exterior was a statement, then the interior of its concert hall was a statement and a half: "The internal walls, stage canopy and floor were clad in elm, sycamore and birch, with a lower section to the side walls of teak ribs with air gaps, often referred to as 'Copenhagen knuckle'." the book tells us.

As for the 'floating' boxes — something straight out of a sci-fi movie, albeit one with a healthy budget — the great Le Corbusier once called them "a joke, but a good one".

The Hall as it looks today. © Edmund Sumner.

Ian Nairn was similarly pithy: "An extraordinary building," he smirked, "It nonplussed everyone when it was built, and after fifteen years public feeling still seems to be just as equivocal and disturbed... In a hundred years' time, after a concert, people will still leave out of key with its cerebral relentlessness."

Whether your opinion of the Royal Festival Hall veers towards that of Nairn or Cruickshank, three quarters of a century on, it continues to be not only an architectural talking point, but the kind of landmark building that people will happily write (and buy) entire books about.

Royal Festival Hall: A Living Icon edited by Eleanor Jolliffe and Sandy Rattray and with a foreword by Dan Cruickshank and photography by Edmund Sumner, published by Merrell Publishers on 16 April 2026.

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.

This feature first appeared in March 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 trio of figures catch the eye in a stained-glass window. They could be the Three Magi pointing to the crescent moon. But look again. Those are not turbans, but ladies’ hats. And in place of gold, frankincense and myrrh, one of the women carries a tote of fish.

Image: Matt Brown

The three ladies — one of whom is clearly based on Ena Sharples from Coronation Street — are not on their way to adore the Holy Child. Their thoughts are more with the omnibus than the omnipotent…

Image: Matt Brown

This remarkable stained glass window can be found inside Christ Church Southwark, a 1950s rebuild just off Blackfriars Road. Its details are delicious. The bus is clearly a classic Routemaster, a beloved design that can still be spotted on the roads of London today (albeit not in regular service). Its roof is painted white to reflect sunlight and reduce heat. The bus stop carries three route numbers, 4, 45 and 63. During the 1950s, all three routes would have stopped outside the church (the 63 still does).

This is just one of 10 distinctive windows in the nave of Christ Church, designed in the late 1950s by Frederick Cole and Kenneth Bunton, working for Wippell and Co. If you look carefully, you can see Bunton’s name immortalised on one of the shop fascias.

Image: Matt Brown

The remaining windows show various scenes from Southwark life, past and present (i.e. as was, in 1959-60). They include familiar buildings. The window shown below, for example, features a depiction of Bankside Power Station, now Tate Modern:

Image: Matt Brown

Behind the power station we can, of course, see the dome of St Paul’s. But look behind the chimney. The tallest of the salmon-coloured structures is, I think, the Faraday Building, constructed in the 1930s as a telephone exchange. Power and communications are also referenced in the larger section of the window, which shows an engineer monitoring a bank of dials, with three telephones in the foreground and electricity pylons out of the window.

Here’s another one for you:

Image: Matt Brown

The main image shows a lady and two children in 18th century garb. Behind her, we can see typical housing of the period, along with the previous tower of Christ Church (destroyed in the Second World War). The lower panel, meanwhile, depicts the housing estate of Nelson Square, a little south of the church. This was completed in 1958, just before the windows were installed. The housing estate remains today. The boy and girl featured in the upper panel would be as delighted as my daughter if they could see the playground hidden away inside the square — worth a diversion if you’re on Bankside with children.

Not all the windows have aged so well…

Image: Matt Brown

Here we see what must be London’s only stained glass window to depict a filing cabinet. The more central feature, though, is the secretary taking dictation from her boss. The body language here shouts volumes. The lady slumps; the man stands confident and pointing. It is an image of subservience. Further clerical work can be seen below. The desks look empty to modern eyes; where are the computers?

I’ve shown just a third of the main windows above. The rest are also of interest, and feature numerous local trades including bakers, printers, watermen and brewers. Do go have a look for yourself!

The church includes a second set of smaller stained-glass windows in the northern aisle, installed by John Lawson in 1984 to mark the rebuilt church’s 25th anniversary. These, too, have a local flavour. This one’s my favourite:

Image: Matt Brown

How many stained glass windows feature shopping trollies? This one, as the text suggests, highlights the supermarket Sainsbury’s, whose headquarters were on the corner of Blackfriars Road and Stamford Street until a move to Holborn in 2001. The building shown to the bottom-left has since been demolished. The same fate has now befallen Sampson House (bottom-right). This brutalist office block beside Blackfriars Bridge was home to a Lloyds Bank processing centre for many years. It’s now a big hole in the ground, awaiting redevelopment as part of the Bankside Yards project.

One final example depicts two Southwark buildings that do still stand:

Image: Matt Brown

On the left is Sea Containers House. This bulky building is today a hotel and restaurant complex, but was previously a nexus of container shipping operations. The right panel shows the Kirkaldy Testing Works on Southwark Street. This was a place where construction materials, such as steel bars, were tested for their strength. It operates today as the Kirkaldy Testing Museum. Its most famous feature, suggested on the window, is its pediment, which reads FACTS NOT OPINIONS.

Christ Church Southwark. Image: Matt Brown

The grounds of Christ Church Southwark are also worth attention. Round the back, we find a curious memory of things past. In 1941, the previous church was reduced to rubble by enemy action. During the conflagration, a wooden cross fell from the church steeple, scorching its own impression onto the grass below. The seared turf was covered over with stone, leaving a poignant reminder of the destruction of war.

Image: Matt Brown

In the background, we can see a pointy-roofed drinking fountain. This was donated by the philanthropist John Passmore Edwards in 1900. It was recently restored and brought back to water by the Heritage of London Trust, who kindly invited me along to the ribbon cutting. It was during this visit that I was able to view the stained glass within the church, and thereby write this article. So we began with a double-decker, and we end with a double thank-you!

If you enjoyed this feature, you might also like my previous article on other unusual stained glass around London.

Luke Jerram's Moon installation, here on show at London Museum Docklands, but it's been exhibited at various locations. Image: Matt Brown

London's lunar legacy explored.

Humans are returning to the Moon. NASA's successful Artemis II mission marked the first time we've left Earth's orbit since 1972. The groud-breaking mission took humans further from Earth than ever before, and included the first woman (Christina Koch) the first person of colour (Victor Glover), and the first non-American (Jeremy Hansen, Canadian) ever to leave low-Earth orbit.

To mark the historic mission, we took a look at London's many surprising connections to the Moon, including unexpected memorials and even an early design for a lunar lander. Let's see what's out there...

Moon rock

We're lucky enough to have a few actual piece of Moon right here in London.

Moon rock is precious and scarce on planet Earth. Just 381 kg were brought back by the six Apollo missions, supplemented with much smaller amounts from Soviet and Chinese probes. Add to this about 370 meteorites thought to come from the Moon, and it still adds up to not very much.

Fragments of our neighbour can be found in the Natural History Museum (alongside a Union Flag taken to the Moon on Apollo 17), as well as the one pictured in the Science Museum's new space gallery.

Other Apollo relics

Apollo 10 command module. Image: Matt Brown

The Science Museum also holds a space capsule that flew humans around the Moon. The Apollo 10 Command Module was used on the 1969 'dress rehearsal', shortly before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's historic landing. We're very lucky to have such an historic space vehicle in London.

Neil Armstrong's comms equipment. Image: Matt Brown

The same gallery holds a few other Apollo keepsakes, including Neil Armstrong's emergency radio and other comms gear. You'll also find a prototype for a miniature nuclear reactor, designed for use on a future Moon base.

Lunar craters

There are at least 70 Londoners on the Moon. Well... craters named after prominent Londoners. These include Geoffrey Chaucer, optician John Dolland, computer pioneer Charles Babbage and astronomer Mary Somerville. We've covered this in a previous article, including links to their position on the lunar map.

Astronaut trees

Image: Matt Brown

Next time you walk along the western side of Kennington Road, pay close attention to the trunks of the plane trees. Many contain labels bearing the name of an Apollo astronaut. The labels have been up there for decades. The leading theory is that the labels were placed there by the British Interplanetary Society, located nearby. Speaking of which...

The British Interplanetary Society

Image: Matt Brown

The British Interplanetary Society was an advocate of Lunar missions long before NASA existed. This wonderful members' organisation in Vauxhall drew up plans for the conquest of the Moon in the 1930s. These included a lunar lander not entirely dissimilar to the ones used by the Apollo missions three decades later.

A lunar lander, designed in London in the 1930s. Image: Matt Brown

The society is still going strong today. It possesses a large library of books relating to space exploration, and puts on regular events, often with a lunar theme.

Lunar namesakes

London contains various places named after our natural satellite. One of the streets leading from Piccadilly into Mayfair is called Half Moon Street. If memory serves, this was briefly home to space tourism company Virgin Galactic. The street is eclipsed — in name if not history — by a short residential row in Islington called Moon Street.

Half Moon Street was named after an old tavern, and many watering holes have celestial names to this day. Most famous, if only because of its prominent location in Leicester Square, is the Moon Under Water. It's a name adopted by several Wetherspoons pubs, all taking their lead from George Orwell, who wrote an essay about his ideal pub under that name.

A now-defunct Wetherspoons on Whitehall (not The Mall), whose hanging sign featured the chain's boss, Tim Martin. Image: Matt Brown

London also contains a handful of Half Moon pubs, the pick of which has to be the landmark boozer in Herne Hill. It's also a hotel, and each of its boutique bedrooms is named after one of the 12 moonwalkers.

Keith Moon

Image: Matt Brown

OK... nothing to do with the actual Moon. But The Who drummer led a very London life... and death. His talents are remembered with a heritage plaque on the site of the Marquee Club in Soho (above). His death in Mayfair is not memorialised, but it is well remembered. Moon died at in a flat at 9 Curzon Place aged 32. This was the same flat where Mama Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas died a few years earlier... also aged 32. It was also just metres from the aforementioned Half Moon Street.

This feature first appeared in December 2024 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.

St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate. Image: Matt Brown

St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe
St Vedas-alias-Foster
St Benet Fink
St Matthew-le-Tissier

At least 75% of those names are genuine City of London churches. Such intriguing dedications are an aspect of the Square Mile you can’t help but query. So it's time we teased apart the meanings and derivations of the odder ones. In alphabetical order…

St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe

We can infer from the brush of Rubens that St Andrew must have possessed a robust wardrobe; just look at the volume in that robe. The wardrobe name-checked in this church is not St Andrew’s, however, but the monarch’s. The Royal Wardrobe was a department of the Royal Household charged with looking after the King’s garments and accoutrements. From late medieval times, all through the Tudor period and up to the Great Fire it was based off Carter Lane in the Square Mile. The name is still commemorated by this church, and the nearby Wardrobe Place — where it’s today possible to rent a serviced apartment with its own wardrobes.

St Andrew Undershaft

This colourful ‘shaft’ under the Cheesegrater building is there to remind us of a local tradition… Image: Matt Brown

Another church dedicated to the Scottish patron saint. Its curious epithet remembers a large maypole, which was traditionally erected opposite the church in spring, up to the 16th century (when it was burned as a pagan symbol). The church we see today is from that sort of time, and somehow survived the Great Fire. It’s now dwarfed by much loftier structures than maypoles, with the Gherkin, Cheesegrater and Scalpel buildings for neighbours.

St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate

Whenever you see a church described as ‘without’ (and there are quite a few) it means the place was without, or outside, the City walls. We can clearly see this with St B-w-B. A nearby mitre-shaped marker on Bishopsgate shows the location of that old gateway. The church lies just beyond, outside the walls.

Image: edited from Google Streetview

London contains three St Botolphs: this one, St Botolph-without-Aldgate and St Botolph-without-Aldersgate (I’m guessing that the last two often get each other’s mail). They’re all named after a seventh century saint, whose body parts travelled to London 300 years after his death, where they supposedly entered by different gates. Churches were founded in his memory at these three sites, as well as the now-vanished St Botolph Billingsgate near the river. The whole confusing story can be read in more depth here.

St James Garlickhythe

London’s most vampire-resistant church stands on Upper Thames Street near Cannon Street station. The name’s origins are much as you might expect; it is close to the hythe, or landing place, where French garlic was unloaded in medieval times. It’s not the only eyebrow-raising name the church has gone by, mind. In some old sources it’s known as St James super Ripam, which means ‘above the bank’ (i.e. on the Thames).

St Lawrence Jewry

Image: Matt Brown

This is the compact church that stands in front of Guildhall, and carries a weather vane resembling the griddle upon which the eponymous saint was roasted. The second part of its name is a reference to the Jewish community, who clustered in the streets hereabouts in medieval times. Nearby Old Jewry and the tower of St Olave Old Jewry also remember this legacy, more than 700 years after the Jews were expelled by Edward I. Such is the long memory of London.

St Margaret Pattens

‘Pattens’ were wooden overshoes. The streets of old London could be filthy, with layers of mud, animal dung and even human waste forming a grim porridge. Pattens lifted the wearer above the sludge, protecting the shoes. This church, beside the Walkie Talkie building, was probably named after the trade, which was represented by the Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers (still in existence).

St Mary Aldermary

I mean, this has got to be better than Starbucks. Image: Matt Brown

This fine Wren church on Watling Street now houses an excellent cafe. Please stop reading for 30 seconds and make a note to visit. You can thank me later. The double-Mary’d name is a bit of a mystery. The most convincing explanation is that this is the oldest church in the City dedicated to the Virgin Mary, predating St Mary-le-Bow, which I measure to be just 80 metres away (and named after the bow-shaped arches in the crypt). The problem with that theory is that St Mary-le-Bow dates from at least 1080 and probably has Saxon origins, so Aldermary must be very old indeed to beat that.

St Mary Woolnoth

About 350 metres away is another St Mary. This one is the best, because it is (a) designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and therefore a bit weird, and (b) name-checked in The Waste Land by TS Eliot, the most potent bit of poetry ever to trouble our city. Its unusual name is attributed to Wulnoth de Walebrok, a local bigwig of the 12th century. The church must often have been confused with St Mary Woolchurch Haw, a long-demolished neighbour named after the wool trade (a ‘haw’ was a beam for weighing wool).

St Nicholas Cole Abbey

Another Wren church with a cafe, St Nick’s is named for the same chap who’s now venerated as Santa Claus. I’d love to report that the second part of the name relates to coals and fires and chimneys, but no. "Cole Abbey” is thought to be a corruption of “coldharbour”, a common term for a traveller’s shelter, like a hostel. It was certainly cold in there immediately after the Second World War. The Blitz blew the roof off, as can be seen in the film The Lavender Hill Mob.

St Vedas-alias-Foster

A church name that smacks of espionage and spy-craft. St Vedas was a French holy man of the 6th century. His name was rendered in Flemish and Norman as St Vaast, which then got garbled into English as Foster. The neighbouring road, Foster Lane, is also named after him.

And now some vanished City churches with odd names…

St Mary Axe

This name is well appreciated thanks to the presence of The Gherkin, which is officially known as 30 St Mary Axe. The namesake church got the hatchet long ago, demolished decades before the Great Fire. The history books record that it was decorated with the sign of an axe, positioned on the east end of the church, as a mark of association with the Skinners’ Company. The church also went by the equally intriguing name of St Mary, St Ursula and Her 11,000 Virgins (a reference to a semi-legendary medieval massacre, before you start making crude jokes).

St Faith under St Paul’s

From the name you’d think that someone had built a church underneath the famous cathedral. And you’d be right. A 13th century expansion to Old St Paul’s required the demolition of the original St Faith’s. Unwilling to give up its hallowed ground, the displaced church simply moved into the crypt of the extension and carried on regardless. The subterranean church was finally disbanded after the cathedral was destroyed in the Great Fire. Faith no more.

St Mary Staining

Image: Matt Brown

Yet another Mary with an unusual name, this time up near London Wall. The church has no known connection to dyeing or any other form of taint. It is first recorded in the 12th century as ‘Ecclesia de Staningehage’, and probably refers to a benefactor from Staines in Surrey. A local street also carries the stain name.

St Michael-le-Querne

Micky-le-Quicky, as I have no doubt Londoners called it, stood just south of St Paul’s, on Carter Lane, until the Great Fire chanced across it. The name is almost certainly a reference to quern stones used for grinding grains; a corn market stood nearby.

St Benet Fink

St Barton Fink, as I have no doubt Londoners didn’t call it, stood halfway along Threadneedle Street. It also succumbed to the Great Fire, was rebuilt by Wren, only to be torn down by the Victorians. The Benet bit is short for Benedict, while the Fink is thought to refer to Robert Fink, a 13th century benefactor (after whom nearby Finch Lane is also named).

St Womble-by-the-Wazzbaffle

I made this one up. Sorry. It’s been a long day.

This feature first appeared in March 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

Have you ever leaped out of a car at 4am to prostrate yourself over a manhole cover?

I have.

Back in 2013, I participated in a five-hour nocturnal motor race around the Square Mile. My team was competing against dozens of other treasure hunters, many of whom were in vintage cars. The clues had us peering into bushes, examining street furniture and photographing statues, before driving off towards the next clue. Imagine Wacky Races, by moonlight, among the churches and skyscrapers of the City of London.

This wasn’t a one-off event. Motorised treasures hunts have enlivened London’s nights for over 100 years. They’ve even had royal patronage. And yet very few Londoners are aware of this curious, long-running tradition.

Let’s crank the time machine back to 1924 to see how it all began…

Bright Young Things

Neil Maclean, the Labour MP for Glasgow Govan, rose to his feet with resolution, and peered across the House of Commons. He had three questions for the Home Secretary:

1. Had his attention been drawn to the actions of certain people who have been organising freak treasure hunts in London?
2. Whether any of those people had been arrested for violation of police regulations during any of those hunts?
3. Whether the Home Secretary intended to ask the recently appointed Commissioner of Lunacy to enquire into this midnight exhibition of smart-set imbecility?

Maclean was venting about the latest London craze. Every weekend, the streets of the capital would screech to the sound of men and women scorching through the West End in motor cars.

The activity is described in detail in the syndicated press:

“'Treasure hunting' describes the game exactly. A large sum of money, sometimes a thousand pounds, is raised by the players and hidden away, somewhere in London. At two o'clock in the morning all the players meet near Hyde Park in their fastest motor cars. They are directed to a certain spot, where they will find their first clue to the treasure. If they follow directions they will find another clue, and another, until the fiftieth clue leads to the treasure cache — probably an old tin can, under some back porch. It takes plenty of ingenuity to follow directions, as they are cryptically worded, and often misleading. But the principal factor in the game is speed.”

The answer to Maclean’s second question — had anyone been arrested — was “Yes”. No lesser personage than Miss Lois Sturt, sister of Lord Alington, had been collared by police following one of the first treasure hunts (this one during daylight hours). The wealthy socialite was spotted speeding around the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park at an estimated 51mph.

Socialite and dangerous driver Lois Sturt, painted in 1920 by Ambrose McEvoy. Image: Public domain

Sturt was followed by the police and arrested at the finish line (having come-in third). A fine of £6 and £3 3s ensued, and her licence was suspended for three months.

Women seem to have played a leading role in these motorised treasure hunts. Sturt was one of the initiators, and it was her arrest that first brought the races to wider attention in May of 1924. Another race a few weeks later was planned by actress Viola Tree (daughter of Herbert Beerbohm Tree).

A typical clue is provided in one of the news accounts. It read simply “October 21st, 1805”. To any educated English man or woman at the time, this would suggest the Battle of Trafalgar. That, in turn, would yield an obvious location for the next clue — Nelson’s Column. “And presently the historic monument is surrounded by scrambling, screaming men and women in full evening dress”.

That last bit is key. Only the rich could afford the vehicles, and only the young had the idle time and energy necessary to enjoy an all-night treasure hunt. Consequently, these were glamorous affairs. The participants included film stars, socialites and nobility. They called themselves the Society of Bright Young People, more famously known as the “Bright Young Things”.

Wealthy, posh gads-about-town, the Bright Young Things included the Mitfords, the Plunket-Greenes and Evelyn Waugh (who would later satirise the scene in his novel Vile Bodies). They were known for their bohemian lifestyles, fancy-dress parties and a taste for high-jinx escapades.

The BYT’s could be an obnoxious bunch. One of their games was called “Beaver”. The rules were simple: you had to walk along the street, and compete with a friend to shout “Beaver” whenever a man with a beard came into view. The childish pastime led to the near-extinction of beards in London. No gentleman could risk the shame of being “beavered” while going about his business.

The fad for nocturnal treasure hunts was similarly irksome to the wider population. As the weeks went on, the game evolved to become ever more daring. One clue was somehow chalked onto the back of a policeman’s overcoat, without his knowledge. “The perplexity and indignation of the worthy constable were infinitely amusing as car after car drove up and the titled occupants peered cautiously at his back and drove madly away.” Another clue was hidden inside an undertakers. The proprietor was obliged to answer the door with every ring of the night bell, only to find some hooray-Henry seeking his next riddle. Another sinister instalment had contestants racing to the site of a plague pit, to retrieve a clue from a model of a dead baby.

The most bizarre report I’ve found involved a clue that was concealed on a second-storey bedroom window. An elderly gentleman, asleep behind that window, was woken by a scratching noise on the glass. He threw back the curtains and was shocked to see the face of Lady Eleanor Smith, daughter of Lord Birkenhead. She’d reached the second floor by mounting the shoulders of a young gentleman who, in turn, was standing on the roof of a limousine. It must have looked like an over-entitled version of the Musicians of Bremen.

Socialite and accidental peeping tom, Lady Eleanor Smith, photographed in 1920. Image: Public domain

If the scene actually happened, of course. These press accounts contain a suspicious amount of detail, but don’t say how it was obtained. Apparently, Lady Eleanor was able to persuade the confused householder to hand her the clue. After reading its content she supposedly told him: "Put the paper back, like a good boy, and go right back to sleep."

“With an Englishman's instinctive respect for nobility the old gentleman did as he was told, and stood there in a bewildered trance as more and more limousines backed up and the high life of London, people whose pictures he had seen in the papers every day, swarmed up his wall. It was not surprising that when he tried to tell his good wife what had happened to him during the night, she hid his clothes and kept him on a milk diet for two weeks, convinced that he had been delirious.”

Some of these antics are surely exaggerated, or even made up, but they nevertheless stirred the Dull Old Things of the Establishment into action. The Press, too, grew increasingly critical of the treasure hunts. The Manchester Guardian opined “that those who have to use the London streets at night should be imperilled by the furious driving of a fleet of treasure hunters is preposterous”. The Times called it a “vulgar nuisance”. The Evening Standard: “bad form and silly”.

Not all of the Establishment were against the jollity, however. In September 1924, the craze reached its apogee when the Prince of Wales himself took part. The future Edward VIII was invited to select the starting point, and he chose Claridge’s Hotel in Mayfair. His august presence brought out many a celebrity racer, including the noted actresses Tallulah Bankhead and Gladys Cooper. By all accounts (which, again, may be embellished), the Prince got into the spirit of things. One description had him leading a party through Seven Dials on hands and knees, in search of a chalked clue.

The fad ran out of steam as the summer wore on, and the Bright Young Things retired to the coast, or to overseas resorts (a few of which then had treasure hunts of their own). The speeding conviction of Lois Sturt also put a dampener on things. By the time the season rolled around again in 1925, the in-crowd had moved on to pastures new. Nocturnal treasure hunts were passé, and left to less-glamourous copycats.

An earlier craze

The 1924 treasure hunts represented a unique phenomenon, which saw Britain’s toffs speeding around London in cars by the light of the moon. But the capital had been troubled before by a different class of errant puzzler.

"The treasure-hunter is becoming a serious nuisance," scowled The Times in 1904. London was witnessing a wave of petty vandalism. Roads were dug up, trees were damaged and walls demolished in a frenzied hunt for concealed lucre.

The craze was started by the Weekly Dispatch, which secretly buried dozens of treasure medallions around the country. By solving clues printed in the paper, the public could hunt down the tokens and claim a prize. 20 such deposits were buried in London alone, each worth £50 to the discoverer (perhaps £5,000 today).

The promise of instant wealth caused chaos. Westbourne Terrace was inundated with shovelers, while Blomfield Road in Maida Vale attracted hundreds of gold diggers. Tree roots were damaged on Wimbledon Hill. The very first clue had indicated a treasure "near a place where people go against their will", prompting frantic scrabbling around the borders of Pentonville Prison.

A giant question mark in the Square Mile. This had nothing to do with treasure hunts, but it sort of fits the mood. Image: Matt Brown

Unlike the 1924 craze, this earlier treasure hunt attracted many working class people, keen to turn their fortunes around with the flick of a trowel. But many professionals took part, too. Architect Arthur Stuart was arrested for causing a nuisance in Claremont Street, Clerkenwell. The judge summed up: "You are an educated man. Does it not seem to you to be a very foolish thing that a man in his senses should be scraping around the roadway with a corkscrew? It seems to me to be the act of a lunatic. Go away. You are discharged."

The notion of the mass treasure hunt has never been entirely discharged. The 1904 and 1924 crazes would be followed by many smaller-scale hunts. The next ‘biggy’ was Kit Williams’s ‘Masquerade’ puzzle which, in 1979, set tens of thousands of people hunting for a golden hare. In more recent times, the geocaching concept has created a democratic, permanent treasure hunt across the whole world.

But there’s one more treasure hunt — and it is another motorised, nocturnal treasure hunt — that began a generation after the Bright Young Things, and which would continue every year until very recently. Hardly anybody knew about its existence.

The Miglia Quadrato

11pm on a balmy spring evening in 2013. The pubs are kicking out around Liverpool Street Station. The largest gathering, however, is in Finsbury Square. Here, a ragtag bunch of motorists, many huddled around vintage cars, await the start of the 53rd annual Miglia Quadrato (Italian for Square mile).

The event was first held as far back as 1957, in response to the Suez Crisis. Oil prices were soaring, and the Miglia Quadrato was conceived as a stimulating rally, but one that would use comparatively little fuel. The clue-solving element also proved popular. It would continue annually for another 60 years, under the auspices of the United Hospitals and University of London Motoring Club.

The secretive event sees 100 teams compete in a five-hour treasure hunt around the Square Mile. The race is done with the full cooperation of the City of London Police, but very few members of the public know of its existence. It’s not exactly a secret (it has a Wikipedia page), but it’s not exactly advertised either. You will search the newspaper archives in vain for the Miglia Quadrato. Flickr only has nine photographs tagged with those words; a third of them are mine.

A colourful camper van, with occupants preparing to set off on the 2013 Miglia Quadrato. Image: Matt Brown

The teams prepare for a midnight start. Their vehicles are diverse. Race rules allow for “Anything (roadworthy) on four wheels”. Most competitors (including my team) turn up in a regular car, but plenty of novelty vehicles are also in attendance. A 1926 Morris T-type truck called Clementine is a mainstay of the event. Ditto a First World War fire engine called Jezebel.

Jezebel, owned by Imperial College, prepares to take part in the 2013 Miglia Quadrato. Image: Matt Brown

On the stroke of midnight, every team is handed a set of 60 geo-referenced clues. We spend a frantic 20 minutes attempting to plot these onto a map, to give us the best route for our five-hour mission. Keen to get moving, we set off with only half the points plotted. It’s enough to make a good start.

Alongside the driver, I attempt to navigate, while two comrades in the back work on further clues. Happily, there isn’t much traffic around. The only people we encounter are other competitors and confused security guards. Our un-orchestrated manoeuvres in the dark are accompanied by the chug, chug, chug of the vintage fire engine, always a street or two away from our own position.

My geeky knowledge of London is of little help. The 60 clues are of the form “Find a lamp post near these coordinates, and note down the serial number”. I’m also challenged by the transport. I know the Square Mile like the back of my hand, but only from a pedestrian’s point of view. It is an entirely different matter to navigate one-way systems and find legal places to park.

We return to Finsbury Circus at 5am, with perhaps two-thirds of our clues filled in. Needless to say, we do not win. Dawn breakfast at the top of the Heron Tower awaits which, after five hours or rushing about the City, feels like treasure enough. I slump over my full-English, a Dim Tired Thing, but infinitely grateful to have taken part in this little-known escapade.

Sadly, it was to be among the last. The final Miglia Quadrato was held in 2019. Covid scuppered the following years and, by the time it became possible again, the organisers called time on proceedings. The logistics of organising a mass rally in the Square Mile had become prohibitively tough.

Another one of London’s unusual and obscure traditions has come to an end, more than 60 years after it began. But the urge to explore the city by streetlight seems to be a persistent one. Even as the Miglia Quadrato was winding up, a new annual challenge called Midnight Madness arose (similar deal, but on foot rather than in vehicles). Others will come and go. To paraphrase the prototype Bright Young Thing: we are all in the gutter, but some of us are searching it for clues.

Blenheim Palace hosts a three-day jousting tournament. Image: Blenheim Palace

Forsooth! Gadzooks! And while we're at it... NI!

Each summer, Blenheim Palace winds the clock way back to a time of brave knights, noble steeds and all sorts of other shenanigans that bring to mind King Arthur, round tables and possibly Monty Python — courtesy of its annual Jousting Tournament.

Taking place on the first May bank holiday — Saturday 2 May-Monday 4 May 2026 — the Jousting Tournament is a feast of bowdlerized ye olde English hijinks. The Walled Garden is transformed into a medieval camp, while the South Lawn hosts archery, falconry, jester workshops — as well as the main event, namely people dressed from head to toe in tin cans charging full pelt on horseback while pointing very long sticks at one another.

It's high-octane stuff, although hopefully none of them will end up like this.

"'Tis But a Scratch". Image: Blenheim Palace

All special events at Blenheim over the weekend are included in the ticket price of entry to the palace and grounds.

Blenheim Palace Jousting Tournament, 2-4 May 2026. There's a British Sign Language (BSL) jousting session, date and time TBC.

Images: Blenheim Palace.

London Airport opened on 25 March 1946, and was renamed Heathrow London Airport 20 years later. To mark its 80th birthday, the airport has released these photos, charting a history that began with tents as terminals, and went on to see the service of the world's fastest passenger plane.

The ground is prepared for Heathrow, which became London's premier airport in March 1946. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Early passenger terminals were ex‑military marquees which formed a tented village that was basic but comfortable and equipped with floral‑patterned armchairs, settees and even small tables containing vases of fresh flowers. In winter, they could be bitterly cold, and in the summer the walls were removed to allow the breeze to blow through. In these early stages, passengers walked across wooden duckboards to protect their footwear from the muddy airfield as they reached their aircraft. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Star Light, a converted Lancaster bomber, was the first aircraft to take off from Heathrow, doing so a couple of months before the airport officially opened. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

A WH Smith open for business in one of the canvas terminals. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Queen Elizabeth II returns from a Commonwealth tour, to mourn her father's death, in February 1952. She instantly became Queen upon his death at just 25. Wearing all black, she was met at the steps of the aircraft by senior politicians and dignitaries, including Prime Minister Winston Churchill, before returning to Clarence House. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Edmund Hillary (centre left), Tenzing Norgay (centre) and John Hunt (with the pick-axe) return from conquering Everest in 1953. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

The Beatles are mobbed post-American tour, in 1964. British pop acts almost never succeeded in the United States until The Beatles stepped on a flight from the London airport. Their return on 22 February 1964 was celebrated as a triumph not just for music fans but for the entire country, sparking an invasion of British music across the Atlantic. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Heathrow welcomes the first Boeing 747 Jumbo to Britain. The 361-passenger Boeing 747 arrived for the first time on UK soil in January 1970. And the plane itself had a cruising speed of 625 miles per hour, cutting the journey time to London by 30 minutes. This image shows the captain and crew walking away from the Pan Am jumbo. The 747, dubbed the 'Queen of the skies' revolutionised travel as the world's first twin-aisle plane. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

On 21 January 1976, seven years after Concorde's maiden test flight, the first commercial flights took place, leaving Heathrow for Bahrain at 11:40am. A simultaneous flight also departed from Paris to Rio via Dakar as part of its launch. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

One passenger on board Concorde's maiden commercial flight was Bob Ingham, a superfan of Concorde who saved for three years to buy his ticket. Wearing a 'sunrise' headdress and silver face paint with white and purple robes, he became a popular figure, widely covered in the media. 27 years later, British Airways carried out the final Concorde flight from Heathrow's Terminal 1. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Prince Charles and Princess Diana open Terminal 4 On 1 April 1986. The then-Prince had his arm in a sling following a gardening accident in which he hit and broke his index finger while hammering a stake into the ground. As a result, he struggled to cut the ribbon, and Diana stepped in to steady the scissors as they completed the opening together. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Prime Minister Tony Blair officially opened the Heathrow Express on 23 June 1998, a new high-speed rail link between the airport and London Paddington station. Blair spoke to Claire Pick, the driver of the train, part of a privately financed £450 million project creating a 15‑minute journey from central London to the airport. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

In a campaign to rebuild confidence in airline travel following the 9/11 attacks, Hollywood actor and self-confessed “airline geek” John Travolta partnered with Qantas to fly his vintage Boeing 707, formerly of the airline, to 10 countries. The actor said the moment he was presented with his Qantas golden wings was "one of the proudest of my life", and he took as much pride in them as in his two Oscar nominations. He was photographed holding a Union Flag from the cockpit window on 19 August 2002 and flew more than 30,000 miles between Auckland, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, London, Rome, Paris, Frankfurt, New York and Los Angeles. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

In 2003 Heathrow starred in festive rom-com Love Actually. One of its most memorable scenes was filmed in Heathrow's Terminal 3 building. Starring Olivia Olson and Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Joanna and Sam, the pair exchange an innocent and heartfelt moment as he chases her to say goodbye as she boards her flight home. The film opens with real shots of travellers reuniting, as well as a final scene that reunites key characters such as David and Natalie, played by Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

England’s victorious rugby team landed at Heathrow on Tuesday 25 November 2003 from Sydney after bringing home the World Cup following Jonny Wilkinson's decisive extra‑time drop goal. Fans surrounded Terminal 4 to welcome them home, and crowds broke into "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", despite the team arriving at 4:35am. The trophy itself had its own seat reserved on the aircraft. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Queen Elizabeth II opens Terminal 5 in March 2008. A 30‑strong choir performed, with the terminal formally opening to passengers on 28 March. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Heathrow became the home base to the Airbus A380 in 2013 as British Airways became the first UK airline to operate the world's largest aircraft. The first and only full‑length double‑deck airliner can carry 500 passengers. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Madonna arrives at Heathrow in 2016. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Following a ban on all non‑essential travel due to the Coronavirus pandemic on 17 March 2020, the country went into national lockdown six days later, halting all travel. As a result, Heathrow had to close its doors, operating only essential flights in and out of the country. With restrictions largely lifted in early 2022, demand rebounded and 2024 saw a recovery to pre‑pandemic passenger levels. Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Heathrow's long-running bid for a third runway has the backing of the current government, although the airport concedes that "delivering the project remains complex". Image: SWNS/Heathrow

Spot the life-saving cockatoo in the photo.

Venture to the end of the Met line to find a life-saving cockatoo.

If you've been to the Cheshire Cheese pub in central London, you'll probably have met Polly, the parrot notorious for terrorising punters with his foul mouth beak — and now enshrined forevermore in a glass case above the front bar.

Travel to the northern end of the Metropolitan line, however, and you'll discover a parrot who used its voice for an altogether more noble cause: saving the lives of people asleep inside a burning hotel.

Why fit a fire alarm when you can have a pet cockatoo? Image: Reach PLC via British Newspaper Archive.

It was 4.30am on the morning of 14 December 1935, when a blaze broke out in the lounge of the historical Crown Hotel in Amersham. No guests were staying at the time, but various staff members were sleeping, and they'd soon owe their lives to Joey, a white sulphur-crested cockatoo belonging to the landlord.

"The screechings of a cockatoo more than 100 years old gave the alarm on Saturday morning, when fire destroyed the Crown Hotel," reported the Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser. Stirred awake, the hotel chef, a Mr Rochester, rescued two hotel maids, lifting them out of an upstairs window, while the manageress, Mrs Horner, ran barefooted to the nearby house of the fire brigade superintendent.

Joey the feathered fire alarm can be found in Amersham Museum.

Having successfully woken the hotel up, Joey flew to safety, although two of the landlord's pet cats — including a Persian cat said to be an 'inseparable companion' of Joey's — weren't so fortunate, and were later found dead. All the human inhabitants, however, were accounted for, and though the hotel suffered extensive damage, it was restored and reopened.

The Crown still survives as a handsome hotel overlooking Amersham's Market Square.

Joey lived on for another year/a few more years depending on which museum account you read, passing away at the ripe old age of 118. The feathered fire alarm was afforded the same gilded treatment as the aforementioned Polly of the Cheshire Cheese, stuffed and displayed in a glass case above the hotel bar, where he presided over the punters for many years, before being donated to Amersham Museum.

The museum has some great exhibits on Metroland.

If we're being totally transparent, Joey's life-saving alarm-sounding may have been over-exaggerated for the papers. In a report published a week or so later, Mrs Horner claimed she'd actually been woken by the sound of crackling, and the sight of flames. But let's not allow that to get in the way of a good story.

The walk from Amersham station to see Joey is markedly pastoral.

Cockatoos aside, Amersham Museum — which is set inside a medieval hall house — will interest Londoners with its displays on Metroland, those sunlit suburban uplands, which this area became home to from the 1920s. Though technically in Buckinghamshire, by dint of being a pastoral stroll from the Tube (through woodlands, then steeply undulating fields), Amersham Old Town is an uncomplicated day trip from anywhere inside Greater London.

Everything in Amersham errs towards the quaint.

Meanwhile, if you head through 'new' Amersham, you'll discover the bewitching reliquary of self-playing instruments that is Amersham Fair Organ Museum. And don't forget to stop off at the half-sized Metropolitan line steam train en route. Everything in Amersham, it would seem, errs towards the quaint.

All images by Londonist, unless otherwise stated.

Trooping the Colour is a regal slice of London pomp and ceremony that harks back to the time of Charles II. Though not for everyone, it's a well-known London tradition and a big draw for tourists. If it's up your alley, here's what you need to know.

Atten-shun! Image: Corporal Paul Shaw/MOD via creative commons

What are these colours you speak of and why are they being trooped?

Two excellent questions. The 'colours' in this case are the various flags or standards held aloft by military regiments. Back in the days of hand-to-hand battlefield combat, these colours were a proud proclamation of who was fighting and also a useful visual aid for soldiers prone to losing their way in the melee.

For a long time now, Trooping the Colour has been a ceremony to mark the Sovereign's birthday (the one they all celebrate in June, rather than Charles' human birthday which is on 14 November). The five regiments of Foot Guards (Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards) take it in turns to parade in front of the monarch in a highly-orchestrated inspection on Horse Guards Parade.

Each ceremony entails around 1,200-2,350 soldiers plus hundreds of horses and musicians.

Queen Elizabeth II doing her last Trooping the Colour on horseback, in 1986. Image: Sandpiper via creative commons

When did Trooping the Colour first take place?

Charles II was the first monarch to preside over it, although it wasn't until 1748 that Trooping the Colour was used to mark the sovereign's (i.e. George II) birthday. In 1760, the year King George III acceded to the throne, it became an annual thing.

Queen Elizabeth attended almost all of her Trooping the Colours, missing just 1955 (rail strikes) and 2020 (you-know-what).

1,350+ troops take part in the spectacle. Image: Jon via creative commons

When is Trooping the Colour 2026?

There are actually three ceremonies, taking place over three consecutive Saturdays:

• The Major General's Review (Saturday 30 May 2026). It's a first rehearsal.
• The Colonel's Review (Saturday 6 June 2026). The second rehearsal.
• The King's Birthday Parade (Saturday 13 June 2026). This is the biggie, which traditionally sees the King ride on horseback* from Buckingham Palace down The Mall to Horse Guards Parade. Here the troops march slowly past the King, while he inspects the colours. The King then rides back up The Mall to Buckingham Palace, where he and family assemble on the balcony. 250 soldiers from the Foot Guards line the processional route along The Mall on 13 June too, and the special birthday ceremony is rounded off with a flyover from the RAF at lunchtime. Spiffing stuff. 2026 ballot closes 12pm on 27 March.

*Given the King's age and recent state of health, it's more likely he'll travel by carriage.

There are actually three Trooping the Colour ceremonies. Image: Ibagli via creative commons

What time is Trooping the Colour?

If the times are the same as in recent years, for each of the above ceremonies, the parade begins at Horse Guards at 10.30am and finishes by 12.25pm. (Just make sure you stick around for that flyover on 13 June.)

How do I get tickets for Trooping the Colour?

You can buy tickets for Trooping the Colour for £5-£30 depending on which you attend, and whether you're sitting or standing. Tickets for the King's Birthday Parade are available via ballot only (closes 12pm on 27 March), and you can apply for a maximum of four seated tickets per person at £30 each.

Is there a free option?

Absolutely. Just turn up to The Mall/the north east corner of St James's Park on any of the three dates, and you can watch without handing over a dime. While you might struggle to get a good view of the actual Trooping the Colour, you should be able to catch some of the parading up and down The Mall. If you're tall enough/get there early enough, anyway.

Not much chance of seeing these lot sharing a carriage in 2026. Image: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States via creative commons

And is it on TV?

The King's Birthday Parade on 13 June 2026 will be broadcast on the BBC from around 10am.

Which Royals will be at Trooping the Colour 2026?

In 2025, most of the major players of the Royal Family showed up for the Birthday Parade ceremony, waving from the Buckingham Palace balcony. It's likely that a similar line-up will be there on 13 June 2026. One or two Royals may also make an appearance during the ceremonies on 30 May and 6 June, but that's unconfirmed.

This feature first appeared in March 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 keen reader of Londonist: Time Machine — who wishes to remain anonymous — has kindly sent me a selection of aerial photographs from 1984. He or she took these rare images at a pivotal moment in the history of London. They show the abandoned quaysides, decaying sheds and moribund power stations of Canary Wharf and the wider Docklands. It is a post-industrial landscape still in quiescence, yet on the cusp of transformation.

That transformation would be so comprehensive that it may be difficult to work out exactly what we’re looking at in each photograph. To help, I’ve recreated the scenes in Google Earth, a technology of science fiction when our anonymous photographer flew over the Docklands just 42 years ago. Comparing the images helps us to better appreciate the enormous changes wrought within the lifetimes of most people reading this.

Looking north to Canary Wharf

We start with the most radical transformation. In 1984, the north of the Isle of Dogs was essentially flat. Few people strayed here, save for the occasional watchman or grit-seeking film crew. Fast-forward 42 years and behold the bulwark of skyscrapers. A quarter of a million people can be imagined within the mid-ground of that second image; in 1984, we’d struggle to reach the hundreds (though note the housing to the far left and right).

We can thank (or curse, should you be a staunch anti-capitalist) the London Docklands Development Corporation for the change. It took control of this abandoned land in 1981 and turned it into a business district to rival the Square Mile. The first tower to go up was, of course, One Canada Square. The pyramid-topped ‘scraper, completed in 1991, remains the tallest structure in Docklands.

I’ve marked its approximate site on the annotated image below, along with a few other ghosts-of-London-yet-to-come.

Rough locations of some notable Canary Wharf landmarks.

The historic image captures the area before almost any significant development had begun. The one exception, just visible to the top-right of the docks, is New Billingsgate Market. This wholesale fish market opened in 1982, and is now threatened with closure.

West India Dock and Greenwich Peninsula

New Billingsgate can be seen more clearly in the centre of this image. We also get a much closer look at the quayside buildings that formed the original Canary Wharf, named because it was the main import dock for products from the Canary Islands.

Greenwich Peninsula peeks into view in the top-right. Today, this land is dominated by the O2 dome and its cultural accoutrements. In 1984, this was an entirely industrial zone, whose main attraction was the Blackwall Tunnel. The other notable feature, towards the top left, is a structure that looks somewhat like Battersea Power Station, only with two chimneys. Happily, we get a closer look in the next photo…

Brunswick Wharf Power Station

This brickish chunkster is Brunswick Wharf Power Station. If it looks a bit like Battersea Power Station, that’s because it was designed shortly afterwards, though it was not completed until 1956 due to war delays. The architects, Farmer and Dark, were clearly influenced by Giles Gilbert Scott’s better known building.

This coal- and gas-fired power station only lasted about 30 years. It became surplus to requirements and was decommissioned in 1984, the same year as this photograph. It would be demolished four years later. I have to wonder: had the power station survived, might it have found an afterlife like its upstream siblings at Bankside and Battersea? Perhaps this would have become the centrepiece for the Millennium celebrations, rather than the Big Top across the water.

The Google Earth image of the area shows that the power station site is now occupied by apartment blocks, either side of the DLR line. Those white towers are curiously named: Proton Tower, Neutron Tower, Elektron [sic] Tower and Switch Tower — clearly recalling the power station, though perhaps tending more towards nuclear energy for half their inspiration.

The power station’s twin chimneys are today recapitulated by the two pylons holding up the dangleway (cable car) a little downriver. Despite rampant redevelopment in the area, a few sizeable sites of cleared but undeveloped land remain in the modern image.

Poplar

Now let’s flip the view 180 degrees and look westwards towards the Wharf from Poplar. To get your bearings, Norman Foster’s Canary Wharf Elizabeth line station is visible in the top-left corner of the modern image.

We’re mostly looking at Poplar — then, as now, a residential area. We can spot many of the same housing blocks in the two images, and the steeple of All Saints church rises from the top-centre in both pictures. We can also see a very important housing development in the process of redevelopment. Robin Hood Gardens fills the left-centre of the 1984 image, where we see two immense slab-blocks forming an acute angle. This 1970s development was much lauded by the architectural community, though the estate was not without its problems. Its demolition began about a decade ago, amid some controversy.

The Google Earth image shows one of the two large blocks has been completely erased and replaced by modern housing. The second block still remains in this image, though its demolition has since been completed. A section has been preserved for exhibition at the V&A East storehouse.

The biggest changes, however, have occurred in the foreground. In the modern image, this area is filled with mid-rise office blocks, one of which was Tower Hamlets Town Hall until recently. Back in 1984, the space was given over to light industry, with a sizeable accumulation of shipping containers. Note the water washing into the lower area. This is a remnant of the old East India Dock. There’s still a liquid presence in the more recent image, but it’s tamed into campus water features.

Millwall Dock towards Greenwich

We finish with a series of three views, all of which look to the south-east from the Isle of Dogs. We begin over Millwall Dock, the reverse-L shaped docks south of Canary Wharf.

Looking at the lower-right of the two images, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d spotted a site that had remained undeveloped through all these decades. Not so. From 1988 until 2017, this patch was home to the West Ferry Printworks — the largest printing facility in Western Europe. The printers played an important role in enabling Rupert Murdoch to shake up the newspaper industry in the 80s, when he moved his titles out of Fleet Street into modern offices at Wapping. The printworks have completely gone now, and a new housing development will soon emerge on the site.

Towards Greenwich

This view leaps over Millwall Dock to give us a closer look at Mudchute Park and farm (mid-left), and across to Greenwich on the far bank. These areas are little changed compared with some of the other views we’ve seen. That said, significant amounts of housing have been added since 1984, especially in the areas closest to us, and along the riverside.

Mudchute Park closeup

Our final view closes in on the tip of the Isle of Dogs. The blue-roofed structure in the modern image is Island Gardens DLR station. It’s the second station of that name, neither of which had been built in the 1984 image. Do you see the viaduct (in both images) heading towards the river? This originally continued almost to the waterside, and it was there that the original DLR station was built. The station hit the headlines in 1987 when a test train over-ran the station and ploughed through the wall. It was left balancing precariously like something from a movie set. Happily, nobody was injured.

The original Island Gardens station closed in January 1999 when the route was extended under the river to Greenwich and on to Lewisham. As a Greenwich resident at the time, I remember this well — though sadly I didn’t have the foresight to take photographs. A new station building (the one with the blue roof) opened just before the Millennium slightly to the north.

One other big change: just look at all those mature trees!

This feature first appeared in December 2024 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.

Note: The following was written entirely on location, in the cafes, pubs and churches of Putney, drawing on whatever historical material I happened to stumble across.

Image: Matt Brown

Fred Russell, the “father of modern ventriloquism”, lived in flat No. 71. So claims a Blue Plaque on Kenilworth Court, next to Putney Bridge.

(Can we start a rumour that he really lived in flat No. 72, but convinced everybody he lived next door, by throwing his voice?)

Russell was an interesting character. He was the first to go on stage with a single dummy and do the whole “gottle-of-gear” thing to a live audience. He kept at it, too. Just look at the dates on his plaque; 1862-1957. This man honed his vocal tricks in Victorian London, and was still performing in the age of television, a medium in which he appeared regularly. Russell was known in the business as “the oldest ventriloquist in the world”, and died at the grand old age of 95.

Besides being the ‘father of modern ventriloquism’, Russell was also the actual father of Val Parnell, the theatre impresario who gave a 12-year-old Julie Andrews her first paid gig. (She would go on to do her own puppet act, in the ‘goatherd’ scene of The Sound of Music.) This, as I’ve said many times before, is why I love finding plaques. They are not so much solid discs as rabbit holes, which lead into branching tunnels of curiosity if only we can be bothered to google.

Putney, it turns out, is a hotbed of puppets. Gerry “Thunderbirds” Anderson and Jim “Muppets” Henson both leased the same workshop in Rotherwood Road for a time. Mary Shelley, creator of the twisted, rebellious puppet known as Frankenstein’s monster, twice lived in Putney. Meanwhile, erstwhile Putney resident Nick Clegg is in the news this week [when I wrote this in 2024] for suggesting that Elon Musk is becoming a “political puppet master”.

More animated history can be found on Festing Road, to the west of Putney. This road always takes me back to my childhood. Not because I ever strayed over this way — I’d never heard of Putney — but because of the street’s on-screen identity of Festive Road. This was the abode of children’s character Mr Benn, a bowler-hatted gent who, when the fancy took him, wandered into fantasy realms via his local costume shop. The TV show, which ran in the 1970s and 80s, was written by David McKee, perhaps more famous for Elmer the patchwork elephant. McKee lived on Festing/Festive Road, as a subtle pavement plaque attests. A small footpath to the north of the road was recently named Festive Walk in another tribute to the show.

Images: Matt Brown, except for the picture of Mr Benn, which is all the work of the late, great David Mckee.

Putney’s history, of course, starts long before the age of famous puppets and cartoon adventurers. The name traces to Anglo-Saxon times, and means Putta’s landing place (on the river). Putta is another of those fellows like Wemba and Billing whose name lives on a thousand years after his death, but about whom we know nothing whatsoever.

One historic Putney resident about whom we do know a lot is Thomas Cromwell. The commoner-turned-Earl was born and raised on the Putney shore in the late 15th century. Almost nothing remains of Cromwell’s Putney — indeed, the whole town is conspicuously lacking in truly old stuff, when compared with, say, Fulham across the water, or Richmond upriver. There is one exception, however…

St Mary’s Putney. Image: Matt Brown

The church of St Mary’s goes back to at least the 13th century. It was old, even when the young Thomas Cromwell cobble-squabbled with his eel boy. What we see today is largely an 1830s reconstruction, heavily patched up again following a fire in the 1970s. However, the tower survives from the 15th century. We’re looking at the very same stones that once deflected photons into the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, 500 years ago. A few arches within the church also date from this time.

Thomas’s great-great grand-nephew, Oliver Cromwell, also knew this church. St Mary’s was the scene of the ‘Putney Debates’ of 1647. This was a protracted discussion over how the nation should be governed after Cromwell’s forces had claimed victory over Charles I. The Debates are most remembered for raising the possibility of universal male (but not female) suffrage, centuries before that happened. They concluded… well… inconclusively, but would prove influential on later developments. If you visit the church today — and I’m sat inside it right now, typing these words from the excellent cafe — then you’ll find a stone plaque that commemorates the Debates. Not only that, but head into the church proper and they’ve built a small but nourishing display about this landmark of English democracy.

Good work, whoever put this display together. It’s very informative, if a little bit brown. Image: Matt Brown

I suppose the other key event popularly associated with Putney is the Boat Races. These take place every year, with crews from Oxford and Cambridge duking it out on the waters between Putney and Mortlake. We’re coming up to the 200th anniversary of the men’s race (2029) and the centenary of the women’s race (2027). The historic granite marker for the start line stands close to Putney Bridge, beside a new piece of embankment built in the 2020s as part of the Super Sewer project.

A new section of embankment, the University Boat Race (UBR) marker, two unsuspecting people on a bench who don’t know that they’re starring in my article, and a curiously unadorned Christmas tree. Image: Matt Brown

If you’re ever over this way at low tide, be sure to head down the ramp to the foreshore, where you can gain some unique views of Putney Bridge and St Mary’s. I was able to dip my toes in the Thames, at a place where the young Thomas Cromwell must once have paddled. He wouldn’t have seen a bridge. The first would not be built until a century after his death, and that was a temporary structure resting on boats. A permanent span arrived in 1729.

Image: Matt Brown

The bridge almost claimed a famous life. Women’s advocate (and mother of Mary Shelley) Mary Wollstonecraft leaped from the deck in 1795 in an attempt to take her own life, but was rescued from the water. The current bridge, opened in 1886, was designed by none-other than Joseph Bazalgette, architect of London’s sewer system.

I finished my morning in Putney by climbing the long high street, which leads up towards Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common. Around the time of the Putney Debates, the wealthier locals were agitating to have their high street paved over. Its pronounced slope would become an impassable quagmire during wet weather. A thousand tons of stone were laid, at a cost, I learn from the small museum in the church, of £360. But when it came time to settle the bill, the ratepayers claimed they’d never wanted it done in the first place. This is just the kind of volte-face my five year old plays, after I’ve spent considerable time sorting out his Lego. The contractor had to go to court to get his dues. I have no place of higher appeal with my offspring.

I encounter no paving issues today, as I make my way up the hill. This is not a pleasant road, mind. It leads directly down to Putney Bridge, and so is a continuous jam of traffic. But I’m soon up by Putney Heath, a place with its own deep history. It was here in October 1684, in the twilight of his reign, that Charles II held a parade of 6,000 soldiers. The location, conspicuously far from royal centres, may have been chosen with an arch side-eye to the Putney Debates, which had presaged the execution of the King’s father, Charles I.

I consider walking on to explore the heath further, but I think that’s best left for the summer months. Instead, I find myself drawn to the Green Man, a 300-year-old pub with a roaring fire and legends of highwaymen. Inside, I learn that the heath was a favoured ground for 18th century duelists. Two Prime Ministers, William Pitt and George Canning, engaged in pistol fights on this high ground. They may well have stopped by the Green Man for some Dutch courage.

I follow their lead and settle beside the fire with a pint of Young’s Best. So here ends my picaresque pootle round Putney.

Was there ever a more welcoming fireplace on a cold winter’s day? Image: Matt Brown.

This feature first appeared in March 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

Did you know that you’re not permitted to climb a tree on Hampstead Heath? Nor may you place a tripod, train a whippet, harry a fish or ride a donkey faster than 12mph. Them’s the byelaws. I love scrutinising byelaws. They often include measures that seem preposterous today, but which were designed to counter a real nuisance in days of yore.

Another place with a long set of Thou Shalt Nots is Covent Garden Market. If someone tells you to meet them at Rules, they’re probably talking about the fancy restaurant on Maiden Lane. But they might just be referring to the lengthy list of prohibitions that decorates a wall within the old market buildings.

Image: Matt Brown

Covent Garden was, of course, a famous fruit, veg and flower market for most of its history. Its streets and alleys were filled with traders, right up until the 1970s when they decamped to Nine Elms. In their place, the old market buildings are now inhabited by delicious cake shops, chocolatiers, superior souvenir shops and purveyors of luxury beauty products. There’s even a Moomin shop. Yet here and there, echoes of the fruit & veg market remain, and nowhere more potently than in the four wooden panels that spell out the bye-laws.

It’s clear from their language that these rules were drawn up some time ago. The preamble pins them to an Act of Parliament in the ninth year of George IV, which would be 1829. The board itself is only half that age, however. It carries a date of 1924.

Most people walk straight past this ancient sign without giving it a second thought. But let’s pay it the attention it deserves. The 25 byelaws it advertises have surely been repealed. Let’s hope so, anyway, otherwise the surrounding businesses will have to pay out many a shilling for transgressions...

Panel 1

Note the security camera, making sure no rule-breaking is going on.
Image: Matt Brown. Click/tap for larger version

Panel 1, it has to be admitted, is a bit of a dull start. Its seven rules are mostly concerned with the coming and going of goods for sale. Basically, you’re not allowed to leave empty hampers or carts lying around, you must pay any demanded tolls on goods, and you must declare, if asked, where your produce has come from. All pretty mundane stuff. Next please.

Panel 2

Image: Matt Brown. Click/tap for larger version

Now we’re getting a bit juicier.

First up, Rule VIII, you can be fined 40 shillings for trading on a Sunday anywhere in the market. For the benefit of overseas readers, the UK still has rules about Sunday trading, with larger stores only permitted to open for six hours. Small shops and stall-based vendors can do as they wish. Modern Covent Garden is all a-bustle on a Sunday, which would have horrified the Victorians.

Rule IX lays out what can be traded from Covent Garden. The list, repeated throughout the rules, is very specific: Fruit, Flowers, Vegetables, Roots, Herbs or Seeds. Sadly for the surrounding businesses of 2025, there is no mention of gelato, iPhones or Moomins among the permitted produce — though perhaps the Apple Store flies under the radar thanks to its fruity name. The one exception to this rule is in Public Houses (pubs), where you can trade “such articles as are usually sold in Public Houses”, which is presumably beer, crisps and nuts.

Rule X is an extraordinarily long-winded way of saying ‘market workers must carry ID’ — here in the form of a numbered ticket that had to be visibly worn. The opening words make it sound like the market suffered from malicious imposters, adopting the dress of porters and ‘basket women’ for purposes of fraud and theft.

Rules XI and XII both concern themselves with respectful behaviour to other market workers and inspectors. Rule XII is a giddying bit of legalese, where the clauses keep coming and coming in such relentless waves that the reader can no longer hold the whole sentence in memory. I think it amounts to ‘no swearing’.

Panel 3

Image: Matt Brown. Click/tap for larger version.

Rule XIII is all about recycling. Every vendor has to have a tub for “trimmings and shells” and other perishable waste, which is collected daily by a “scavenger”, who would then presumably sell it on as animal food.

Rule XV is another warning against dumping waste. The market must be kept clear of “Dust, Dirt, Offal, Dung, Soil, Ashes, or Waste,” which sounds like a particularly grotesque parody of the Seven Dwarfs.

Rule XVI outlaws a multitude of sins, from putting up posters to shelling peas. I shall be especially careful not to “shake nuts” when passing through the market in future.

The other orders on this board warn people against sleeping in the market, stealing from traders, and guarding against fire risk. All fairly obvious. But look at Rule XVIII. It makes an offence of throwing. Among the specific cases, you may not throw a root vegetable over the market. Next time you’re tempted to hurl a turnip, think twice.

Panel 4

Image: Matt Brown. Click/tap for larger version.

Woe-betide anyone who carries a candle thorough the market. Rule XXI forbids naked flames, restricting illumination to “lanthorns” only.

Rule XXIII is a challenge. Can you read the whole thing out without taking a breath. I cannot. It employs several hundred words to say “Shift your stuff if someone needs to sweep up”.

Rules XXIV and XXV get a bit meta. They reinforce that fines can be levied against anyone breaking the preceding 23 rules, even though this was clear from the fact that most of those rules have fines written next to them. I guess they had to pad things out to get a neatly balanced board.

The market contains a second historic noticeboard in the eastern passage. This one looks very similar, but concerns itself with tolls and fees rather than fines.

Image: Matt Brown. Click/tap for larger image.

It is, frankly, a dry read, unless you’re researching the intricacies of market practice in the 19th century. We learn, for example, that any cart trading carrots would have to pay a shilling and sixpence in market tolls, whereas a seller of “strawberries, raspberries and other fruit of that sort” can expect to surrender two pence for every round load.

Taken together, the two boards reveal the minutiae of a lost world. They conjure a market not just of “Ripe, strawberries ripe!” barrow sellers, but also of tax collectors, cart manoeuvrings, scavenger men emptying waste buckets, fraudulent porters and surreptitiously hurled parsnips. You won’t find any of that in the Moomin shop.

Up she rises: this curious ritual has been performed by the Blackheath Morris Men for over 40 years. Image: Blackheath Morris Men

For the last 40 or so years, the Blackheath Morris Men have been in Greenwich on Easter Monday, offering a uniquely uplifting experience.

And by uplifting, we mean they'll sit you on a florally-festooned chair and hoist you above their shoulders, between dances. Provided you're a woman, that is.

The Blackheath Morris Men are ushering in the spring with a flourish once again on Easter Monday (6 April 2026). Making the rounds alongside landmarks such as the Cutty Sark, Royal Naval College — not to mention a local pub or three — the group of Morris Men will bring the sound of jangling bells and clacking sticks, as well as the sight of womenfolk being lifting into the heavens.

You'll often find the group outside a good boozer. Image: Blackheath Morris Men

"It's an Easter celebration which used to happen all over England — we're one of the few groups who still do it," Humphrey, aka the 'Blackheath Bagman', tells me. "It was an old custom all over Britain until a hundred years ago. It consists of the simple compliment of being elevated on Ēostre's Throne of Flowers. Ēostre was the Anglo Saxon Goddess of spring."

Many centuries old, chair lifting was especially popular in 18th and 19th century England, though not everyone was a fan. In 1783 , Gentleman's Magazine branded it 'improper and indecent', because it was seen as a cheeky riff on the Crucifixion. It was, grumbled the publication, "A custom, which ought to be abolished." Chair lifting also used to be a somewhat frisky; the University of Leicester says: "In Warwickshire, Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday were known as 'heaving-day' because on the Monday it was the tradition for men to 'heave and kiss the women' and on the Tuesday for the women to do the same to men. (Petting is not a part of the chair lifting experience anymore.)

Will you be asking for a raise in 2026? Image: Blackheath Morris Men

The Blackheath Morris Men formed towards the end of the 1960s, and have performed all over the country, including as support to Hawkwind in the 1970s, and with Eric Idle at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Games. Safe to say, they know how to put on a show.

Oh, and what's a 'bagman' by the way? "The Bagman is a sort of secretary and does administration for the side," Humphrey the Bagman tells me, "May also often carry a bag of sticks." So there you have it.

The Blackheath Morris Men will be in Greenwich again this Easter Monday (6 April 2026). The schedule is as follows:

• 12pm - Cutty Sark Gardens
• 1pm - Old Brewery
• 2pm - Trafalgar Tavern
• 3pm - Greenwich Tavern
• 4pm - Final dance outside the Ashburnham Arms

If you're interested in joining the group email bagman@blackheathmorris.com

Naked bike rides. Men dressed as holly bushes flinging cider at the gates of the Globe Theatre. A 'ghost parade' that almost no one ever sees. London is downright strange sometimes, and we love it all the more for that. Mark your calendars with these kooky events — some tracing back centuries, others box fresh.

Twelfth Night (first Sunday of January)

One of the first events of the year is also one of barmiest. © Sas Astro

While some of us spend the nascent days of the new year browsing the January sales, David Risley has an entirely different way of putting together a winter wardrobe; dressing up as the Holly Man, to lead this Bankside bacchanal featuring cider-flinging (at the gates of the Globe Theatre no less), an al fresco mummers' play (think Mighty Boosh, then dial up the doolally) and the chance to be crowned King Bean or Queen Pea. Alternative wassailing events take place around this time, but Bankside's is the daddy. Read more.

Blessing of the River Thames (first Sunday after 6 January)

Pay homage to the River Thames every January. Image: Londonist

As the life source of London, and numerous settlements besides, people have paid spiritual tribute to the Thames for centuries — that continues to this day with the Blessing of the River Thames, a nifty service held between two congregations smack dab in the middle of London Bridge, which culminates with a wooden cross being lobbed off the side and scooped out up by a police boat. The cross isn't the only thing to get wet; it always seems to be raining for this outdoor service. Read more.

No Trousers Tube Ride (January)

Trousers off, and hop on the Tube. Photo: Dave Selkirk

For the uninitiated, the event is exactly what it sounds like: people getting together to ride the Tube with no trousers on. If nothing else, it's a hell of an icebreaker: "The first time I did the No Trousers Tube Ride, a man in his sixties sitting opposite me said sternly: 'Young man! What are you doing in your pants?'" one participant told Londonist. "I told him, and he said, 'that sounds splendid!'". In the interest of keeping things legal, underwear with decent coverage is very much required. Why they chose January of all months is beyond us. Read more.

March in Commemoration of Charles I (last Sunday of January)

Nothing to see here, just an annual Civil War reenactment.

A very long time ago, we executed one of our monarchs, and some people are never going to let us forget it. On the last Sunday of the first month, The King's Army — a branch of the English Civil War Society — garbs up in Royalist costume and parades up and down The Mall to mark "His Majestie's horrid murder". A sombre, but crowd-mustering event. Wonder if Charles III ever goes to watch. Read more.

Clown's Church Service (first Sunday of February)

Go to church with a bunch of clowns. Image: iStock/AmandaLewis

You can celebrate Joseph Grimaldi — godfather of all clowns, and a man who sadly wound up drinking himself to death — anytime you like, by dancing on his 'grave'. But it's only once a year you can join in a cuckoo memorial to him, surrounded by a congregation of clowns from all over the country, honking their noses, making balloon animals and causing general mayhem. Respectfully, of course. Read more.

Trial of the Pyx (February)

Randomly selected coins (and the Chancellor of the Exchequer) are put on trial every year. Image: HM Treasury via creative commons

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is put on trial every year — well, in a roundabout way. The Trial of the Pyx, which dates back to 1282, making it one of the most storied happenings on this list, sees randomly selected coins from the Royal Mint examined for weight, shape, metal content, etc — to ensure they're up to code. The results aren't announced till a few months later, and no Chancellors have wound up behind bars yet, so far as we know. Limited public tickets are released for this one. Read more.

Swearing on the Horns (perhaps February, March, August and potentially other times)

A nonsense ceremony harking back to 17th century, the Swearing on the Horns began as a farcical trend around the pubs of Highgate, in which revellers were bid to take an oath read out by a clerk, swearing their allegiance to debauchery, while putting their hands on a set of antlers and promising to do things like forgoing brown bread whenever white bread is an option (told you it was peculiar). The pub most associated with it is the Wrestlers, which bears a plaque claiming it hosts the ceremony in March and August each year (although the above video from when the Joolz Guides did it was actually at the end of February). We've heard tell of other pubs doing similar things at other times of the year. Keep your ear to the ground. Read more.

Pancake Day races (Shrove Tuesday)

A flippin' eggs-ellent event.

Pancake races are held across the country every Shrove Tuesday: in London a few of the biggest are at Leadenhall Market (where bowler-wearing local workers and visitors go head-to-head across a 20-metre cobbled course), and the Inter-Livery Pancake Race outside Guildhall, in which the Poulters provide the eggs, the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers fires the starting pistol and the Clockmakers time the race. Talk about a team effort. Read more.

Boar's Head ceremony (March)

You won't get boar-ed at this ceremony. Image: The Worshipful Company of Butchers

Dating back to 1343, this livery company tradition saw the Butchers of London thank the Mayor for providing a space where they could clean and dispose of offal, by parading a boar's head to the Mansion House once a year, for an ultimate meat feast. The ritual continues to this day, and you can watch the boar's head (now papier mache) piped from outside the Worshipful Company of Butchers to Mansion House, where the Mayor is presented with the porcine noggin. Read more.

Pints Day at the French House (1 April)

When you see these balloons up in the French House, you know it's Pints Day. Image: Londonist

Unlike 'Washing the Lions' at the Tower of London, here's an April Fools Days event that's no joke. Soho's French House pub usually frowns deeply on anyone who orders a pint; measures here are strictly in halves. That is, unless it's 1 April (or the nearest weekday if 1 April falls on a weekend). On this day — and this day alone — the crates of pint glasses are lugged up from the cellar and given a good rinse, before full pints are poured day-long — with celebrities auctioning them off for charity, sometimes for hundreds of pounds at a time. (You can just buy yourself a pint for a normal price, too.) Read more.

The Widow's Buns (Good Friday)

Sailors come ashore to place a bun in a net. Image: The Widow's Son

This story begins with a death: that of a young sailor who drowned on duty in the Navy. His mother — a widow — had promised to bake him a hot cross bun on his return. She did so anyway, and continued every year for the rest of her life, nailing the buns to the wall. The wistful tradition has carried on in the Widow's Son pub since it was built on the site of the cottage in 1848. A sailor is hoist up to place a locally-baked bun in a net above the bar, bulging with incrementally-ageing buns. We haven't been for a few years, but last time we were there, the bun lift was followed by a disco and a free buffet (feat. hot cross buns) — proper East End pub style. Read more.

Chair Lifting (Easter Monday)

"We're one of the few groups who still do it". Image: Blackheath Morris Men

"It's an Easter celebration which used to happen all over England — we're one of the few groups who still do it," explains Humphrey, aka the 'Blackheath Bagman', of the chair lifting ceremony that takes place each Easter Monday around the landmarks (and, importantly, pubs) of Greenwich. "It was an old custom all over Britain until a hundred years ago. It consists of the simple compliment of being elevated on Ēostre's Throne of Flowers. Ēostre was the Anglo Saxon Goddess of spring." If you've got a head for (slight) heights, perhaps this year you'll catch a lift. Read more.

The Tweed Run (April)

No energy gels here; it's all cups of tea and post-pedal cocktails. Image: Tweed Run

While the World Naked Bike Ride (see June) encourages cyclist to saddle up without a stitch on, this upmarket cycle ride does pretty much the opposite. Tweed jackets, faux-fur collars, golfing socks, tank tops and straw bonnets are the order of the day... you might even spot the odd pearly king and queen. No energy gels here, either; it's all cups of tea and post-pedal cocktails. Read more.

Islington Milkmaids Garland (1 May)

Harking back to the days when London's milkmaids decked themselves out in flowers and ribbons, the Islington Milkmaids Garland is these days performed by New Esperance Morris, a group of women morris dancers. A verdant pyramidal garlands stands nearby, laden with silver trinkets. Read more.

London Hat Walk (May)

Hat's the way uh-huh, uh-huh... Image: London Hat Week

'Wear More Hats' is the simple message that the London Hat Walk has for us (in fact this is a global movement, sweeping through some 50-odd cities across the world). The capital (or should that be cap-ital, geddit?) becomes one big catwalk for millinery disciples, many who've crafted their own headgear. If you like this walk, know that there's an entire London Hat Week to go with it. Read more.

Grand Flaneur Walk (May)

Going nowhere in particular, and looking great while headed there. Image: Martin SoulStealer via creative commons

This really is the dapperest time of the year. If you haven't got your fashion fix from the Hat Walk/Tweed Run (above) the Grand Flaneur Walk oughta do it; an almost forcibly nonchalant flotilla of dandies/flappers, who make a point of not straining themselves too hard as they drift around London, going nowhere in particular. One of the only rules is that they congregate at the statue of London's original dandy, Beau Brummel. Read more.

Beating the Bounds (May)

Even the Thames can't escape a good beating. Image: Andrea Clayton Vail via creative commons

Anyone who takes their bounds serious will give them a good beating this time of the year; that's certainly the case for All Hallows by the Tower, whose clergy folk lead a procession of stick-wielding students around the parish boundary markers, which they in turn give a whack and a prayer (maybe the prayer's that they don't get done for petty vandalism). One of the boundaries in unhelpfully out in the Thames, which doesn't stop a group of beaters commandeering a boat, and giving the water a good thrashing too. Read more.

Oak Apple Day (29 May)

Celebrate a king hiding up a tree. © Royal Hospital Chelsea

If you had an episode in which you went and hid up an oak tree as a fully grown adult, you may choose to forget about it. Not so with Charles II. After a life-saving game of arboreal hide and seek, which led to him reclaiming the throne, Parliament decreed that "the Nine-and-twentieth Day of May, in every Year, being the Birth Day of his Sacred Majesty, and the Day of his Majesty’s Return to his Parliament, be yearly set apart for that Purpose…" While most of us have become somewhat lax with our oaky commemorations of late, at the Royal Hospital Chelsea (which was, after all founded by Charlie boy), they still make a big deal of it. In fairness, it's a happier occasion than the one marking his dad's decapitation (see January). Read more.

Bubble Sermon (first of Tuesday June)

Life is but a bubble. Image: Braedon McLeod via Unsplash

"Life is but a bubble" the congregation is told at a sermon at St Bride's Church, organised by the London Stationers' Company. It's the highlight of the annual Richard Johnson service, Johnson being the Stationers' benefactor. What makes this particularly lovely is the demonstrative blowing of bubbles (although given the above Grimaldi event, this is not the only church service in which bubbles are blown). There's also a rendition of I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles — a shoo-in for West Ham fans, then. Read more.

World Naked Bike Ride (June)

The nude bike ride passes many of London's famous sights.

London becomes a sea of flesh each June, as the World Naked Bike Ride streaks into town, with hundreds of cyclists in various states of undress (many in little but their shoes) pedalling around in the name of body freedom, cyclists' rights, curb car culture and other such wholesome clarion calls. Any adult is welcome to dress down and saddle up, although it certainly helps if you know how to ride a bike. Read more.

Covent Garden Rent Day (July)

Paying the rent was so never so fun. Image: Covent Garden Area Trust

Who says rent in London is expensive? While City butchers get away with forking out a single boar's head (see above), Covent Garden Area Trust has but to pay a peppercorn rent of five red apples and five posies of flowers — symbolically at least. Since 1994, the centuries-old tradition has been revived, a town cryer bellowing out "Covent Garden Area Trust is paying its rent!" and various musicians and street performers adding to the sense of occasion. Well it is Covent Garden, after all. Read more.

Soho Waiter's Race (July)

An indelible part of Soho's social calendar. Image: __andrew via creative commons

An offshoot of the quirky Soho Village Fete, which takes place on the same day, the Soho Waiters' Race has its roots in Paris, by way of Chiswick, but since 1955 has firmly been part of Soho's social calendar. The idea — as if you need it explained — is that local waiters do a circuit of the surrounding streets, the twist being they're holding a tray with a napkin, a bottle of fizz and a glass balanced on it. Post smoking ban, the ashtray no longer features. Gather by the finish line outside the French House and open your gob in case you're lucky enough to get some prosecco sprayed your way. Read more.

Scotch Egg Race (July)

Anyone can take part in the races. But don't eat your egg if you drop it on the ground.

We reckon someone who was really good at Leadenhall Market's Pancake Race (see Shrove Tuesday) couldn't wait a whole year to bask in glory once again, and so invented the Scotch Egg Race — a traditional sports day egg and spoon race, but with extra pork meat and breadcrumbs. Will this, like the Trial of the Pyx (see February) last 800 years? We'll let you know. Read more.

Regent's Canal Rubber Duck Race (July)

Don't worry - they fish them out later!

The launching of 3,000 rubber ducks into the Paddington Bason might sound like a very serious bathtime-related case of fly-tipping, but no — everything's above board here. For a few quid, you can sponsor a duck, with the money going towards local charity Cosmic (Children of St Mary’s Intensive Care). If you're lucky enough that your ducky is first across the finish line, you'll clean up with the prizes. Read more.

Cart Marking Ceremony (July)

A wheely interesting event. Image: The Worshipful Company of Carmen

Before the days of sliding a tax disc in your windscreen (come to think of it, that's an ancient tradition now too), vehicles passing through the City of London were brandished with a licence to show they'd paid their dues. It's continued today as this ceremonial event, in which a parade of vintage carts, fire engines, vans and what-not are branded with a hot iron (well a piece of wood attached to them is, anyway) by members of the Worshipful Company of Carmen. They even do it to bikes. Read more.

Swan Upping (third week of July)

Posh people have been staking their claim on swans since the 15th century. Image: Matt Brown/Londonist

When it comes to the Thames' swans, the upper echelons of society are unabashedly possessive. Specifically, the Crown, the Vintners' Company and the Dyers' Company lay claim to these feathered beauties, and to hammer the point home, for about five days in late July, they row along the river in skiffs, catching swans and ringing them to flag who's whose, before set them loose again. (Think of it, if you will, as the feathered version of cart marking). Thankfully the swans are no longer served up at banquets, though this was still happening as late as the 1960s. Read more.

London Pearly Kings and Queens Costermongers Harvest Festival (September)

Pearly kings and queens have been a fixture of London for 150+ years. Image: Anthony March

Pearly kings and queens have been a fixture of London since road sweeper Henry Croft decided to pimp up his threads with mother of pearl buttons in the 1870s for a charitable cause, but the best way to glimpse them now is at this annual knees-up in Guildhall Yard, followed by a service at home of the famous Bow Bells, St Mary-le-Bow. Read more.

Sheep Drive (September)

The London Sheep Drive is a baa-my annual event. Image: @ThisMediaLarke

Those City of London folk: when they're not upping swans, they're driving sheep. Specifically, driving 50 North of England Mule Sheep over Southwark Bridge every September, in a nod to the drovers who herded various livestock over London Bridge (it's now too busy with traffic to host), en route to Smithfield when it was a livestock market. In this revived tradition, a different celebrity is called on to do the honours each year, and have lately included Mary Berry, Alan Titchmarsh and Damien Lewis. While the hoi polloi don't get that hounour, you can watch, before buying some wool at the accompanying livery fair. Read more.

Surbiton Ski Sunday (October)

For not taking itself too seriously, this event wins Gold. Image: The Community Brain

Beckton's ski slope is long gone; so too is Hampstead Heath's shortlived ski jump. But every October the spirit of the Winter Olympics lives on in London, thanks to Surbiton Ski Sunday, an afternoon of makeshift ski and luge events played out on a very wet layer of tarp. Participants ski with blocks of ice tied to their shoes and clamber into bathtubs for scenes which recall a bougie twist on Last of the Summer Wine. For not taking itself too seriously, this event wins Gold. Read more.

Peckham Conker Championships (October)

Conkers, but make it brutal. Image: Don Blandford/Peckham Conker Club

There's nothing all that bizarre about conker fights — at least not in the UK — but in Peckham they (literally) hit different. Here, in the oak-tree flecked badlands of SE15, everything's ratcheted up to 11. A Battle Royale to win the coveted Golden Nut means you'll find yourself up against names like Willie Conker, Stompy Mcstampface, and Conk-ussion, as you brave graffitied alleyways, baying mobs and the looming threat of stampsies. "It would have been an easier loss if I hadn't kissed the floor thinking I'd won," 2022's runner-up Lil Lilz admitted to us. Read more.

Halloween dog parade (Halloween time)

The inaugural Halloween Dog Parade was in 2025.

A mere puppy of a London tradition, Chelsea's Halloween Dog Parade only made its debut in 2025, and so we wait with bated breathe to see if it'll return for a second instalment. Anyone keen to coo over pooches dressed as Scooby-Doo, Dogzilla or a classic pup-kin will have their paws crossed. Read more.

London to Brighton Veteran Car Run (November)

An utterly endearing Wacky Races-esque event. Image: Londonist

Maybe it's because this happens to pass a road near to where we live, but the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run is an utterly endearing Wacky Races-esque event, in which pre-1905 road vehicles pootle their way from central London, down to the coast. Lots of them break down, and every participant gets sodden wet, making it all the more important to be on the sidelines giving them a wave. Read more.

Lord/Lady Mayor's 'Ghost Parade' (November)

The most secretive procession in London takes place just before the most trumpeted one. Image: Harry Rosehill/Londonist

This 'secretive' event has no official title — in fact it doesn't even officially happen. But you can bet your bottom dollar that a few days before the Lord/Lady Mayor's Show, there'll be a dry run through the City in wee small hours, featuring the historical golden coach, pulled by a herd of glossy-coated steeds. We've seen it with our own eyes — I swear!. Also listen out (or rather, don't) for the Silent Ceremony, which takes place the day before the parade. Read more.

Santacon London (December)

"I'm Santa Claus!" "No, I'M Santa Claus!" etc. Image: Jack Oughton/Londonist

"What do we want? Christmas! When do we want it? Now! Hoooooooooooooo!" It was over three decades ago that Santacon started out in the streets of San Francisco, with hoards of Santas accruing on the streets, not unlike the nightmarish opening scene from The City of Lost Children. Now, it's ensnared on the tree of London's yuletide traditions, like a particularly tangled set of fairy lights. To be fair, there is plenty of goodwill to all men (and women) on this epic drinking crawl — though when people start clambering on the back of rubbish trucks, perhaps it's time to put the cork back in the sherry bottle and head back to the North Pole. Read more.

Smithfield Meat Auction (24 December)

Forgot to buy the Christmas turkey? If you can make it here on Christmas Eve your goose isn't cooked. Image: Matt Brown

Vegans may choose to swerve this festive tradition, in which the remaining pre-Christmas stock of Smithfield — i.e. turkeys, sides of beef, suckling pigs, etc — are flogged by traders at serious discounts. Though it's called an auction, prices are set, and this is really more a case of catching the seller's attention. It's all good spirited, so you shouldn't go away empty handed, though it doesn't hurt to come prepared with a sign begging for a particular piece of meat. Also, it's cash only — now that is unusual. Read more.

Peter Pan Cup (25 December)

Only members can partake. Aww, what a shame! Image: Sinister Dexter in the Londonist Flickr pool.

What an end of year mic drop: a gaggle of hardened swimmers plunging into the icy Serpentine on Christmas Morning, making a 100-yard dash then towelling off pronto in the hope they don't have hypothermia for Boxing Day. If that doesn't earn them the right to eat all the good Celebrations, I don't know what does. The Peter Pan Cup is so called because author JM Barrie donated the prize in 1904 — the same year Peter Pan was first performed on the London stage (Barrie himself didn't take part, coward). Only swimming club members can partake these days. Aww, what a shame! Read more.

Note: by and large we've kept this list to events which anyone can attend. Almost all are free. Do check details ahead of attending any of these — exact dates and times are liable to change yearly.

The French House only sells beer in half pints... except for one day of the year.

A pub that only sells pints one day of the year, namely 1 April? Must be an April Fools', right? Except it's not.

The French House on Dean Street — originally called the Wine House, and later the York Minster — is one of Soho's best-loved pubs. A throwback to the stewed glory days of Soho, its photo-trimmed walls ricochet with raffish tales, such as the time Dylan Thomas mislaid his manuscript for Under Milk Wood here. How many more stories like this must have been lost to the sands of time/dregs of drunkenness.

It's the most wonderful time of the beer.

It's in aid of charity, so going to the bar at 12pm midweek is totally fine.

The French House is known for something else, too: only selling beer in half pints. Stories circulate about why this is so. Time Out claims it stems back to an incident in the 1920s, when a bunch of sailors started breaking pint glasses over each others' heads. Londonopia suggests a more prosaic reason: that serving beer in smaller measures promotes the practise of folk chatting to one another, rather than slogging away at vast amounts of liquid. When Londonist asked the French House, they remained tight-lipped on the reason, but whatever it is, it's London lore that you cannot get a pint in the French House.

100 Londonist points for spotting one of these pints.

Suggs has regularly served the first pint for most Pint Days, but other celebs get in on the action these days.

That is, unless you visit on Pints Day — an event that started around 2000, and which falls on 1 April (or, if 1 April date lands on a weekend, the closest weekday to it).

On Pints Day, and Pints Day alone — this year it's Wednesday 1 April 2026 — antique pint glasses are ferried up from the cellar, and given a good rinse, before the beer flows at twice the usual rate.

Never wanted to drink a balloon so much.

Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett get behind the bar.

The first pint of the day is not just served by any old bartender. "Suggs has poured the first pint for at least 23 of those years," French House landlady Lesley Lewis tells Londonist. In 2025, however, the Madness frontman took a backseat, with other celebrity pourers — including Ed Tudor-Pole and ex EastEnder Lucy Benjamin doing the honours (we never said they were A-lister celebs). As for 2026? You'll just have to shirk off work to find out.

As well as being a quirky excuse for a drink, pints are auctioned off — alongside a few framed photos and paintings — between 2pm-4pm, in aid of Soho Parish School ."We have various pourers coming and the pints often go for over £100," says Lesley, "Ken Stott's went for £240!" Who says that no good can come from daytime drinking?

Seriously though, ordering a pint at the French is usually deeply frowned upon.

Soon that pint glass will be back in the cellar for another year.

Pints Day is not the only eccentric event to unfold at the French House. Each July, the Soho Waiter's Race sets off from outside the pub.

Pints Day at the French House, Soho, Tuesday 1 April 2026, from opening at 12pm

All black and white images © Peter Clark — check out more superb work on his website. Other images taken in 2025 by Londonist.

The shirt collar that Dickens was wearing when he suffered a fatal stroke in 1870 has been acquired by London's Charles Dickens Museum.

"Death in one of the suddenest and startling forms has just taken from us one of the greatest minds of this or any age."

When Charles Dickens died on 9 June 1870, aged just 58 years old, it was a shock to the entire world. The author had suffered a stroke the previous day — while having dinner at home at Gad's Hill Place (though there are suggestions he may have actually been at his lover, Ellen Ternan's house in Peckham).

A pair of black stockings worn by Dickens in 1870, and which he described as 'fancy dress'.

The detachable linen shirt collar Dickens was wearing during the time of that fatal stroke has now been acquired by London's Charles Dickens Museum, and will go on permanent display as of Wednesday 11 March. Deeply yellowed, and now framed alongside an image of Dickens, the collar was first purchased by actor and music hall performer Bransby Williams, famed for his portrayals of characters from Dickens' novels, later passing into a private collection.

The collar is joined by a small collection of Dickens' personal grooming items.

The collar is joined at the house museum on Doughty Street by a collection of other personal items, in a permanent display in Dickens' former dressing room. Among these is a pair of black silk stockings that form part of Dickens' only surviving suit, and which the writer wore along with a dark jacket, trousers and white waistcoat — as well as a sword — to a formal reception at St James’s Palace, earlier on in the year of his death. Dickens wryly described this getup as 'fancy dress'.

Dickens was famous for his beard, but owned some decent razors, and shaved daily.

Other pieces include grooming items: six silver razors (despite his famous beard, Dickens shaved daily), a perfume bottle, silver candle snuffers and a gold locket containing photos and locks of hair from Dickens and his son, Henry.

But surely it's Dickens final collar, which — along with Nelson's blood-stained undress coat on display at the National Maritime Museum — will become one of London's most morbidly curious museum items.

All images: Charles Dickens Museum

For a few years during the 1930s, the Ace of Spades club had a dedicated space for planes to land. Image: Ian Kirk via creative commons

Imagine a London club so glitzy, it not only had its own swimming pool and polo field, but a dedicated aerodrome too.

That place briefly existed in the interwar years, as the Ace of Spades Club roadhouse in Kingston — and what a ball its patrons must've had.

Designed by Ernest Brander Musman, opened in 1927, the Ace of Spades is described by the Art Deco Society as a curious hybrid of Tudorbethan/country club/art deco/pub. It capitalised on the rapid ascendency of the motor cars; you could swing off the Upper Richmond Road in your Austin 7, park up and enjoy a spot of dinner and dancing.

While daytime pursuits included miniature golf, a riding school and a polo club, the evening entertainment — live music, comedy and cabaret — ploughed on till the small hours; posters show that Percy Chandler and his band played till 4am on Saturdays, revellers fuelled by BYOB bottles of champagne and brandy (there was no licence to sell booze on the premises).

While most punters were arriving by car, an altogether more sprauncy way of getting to the Ace of Spades became an option in June 1933, with the addition of an airstrip, 400 yards to the west of the club. This set the scene for 'aerial garden parties', air races, flying circuses, and 'joyrides' for guests. Pilots were often given a free lunch if they landed here, because the very sight of their plane would cause curious drivers to pull over at the club.

A report of the lion cage incident in the Birmingham Daily Gazette (sadly the picture isn't very good). Image: Reach PLC, courtesy of British Newspaper Archive.

One airman — Ben Turner — almost became lunch himself, after attempting to parachute into the aerodrome, and instead getting carried by a sudden gust of wind onto the top of the lion's cage at Chessington Zoo. "Two African lions in the cage, hungry and enraged," reported the Birmingham Daily Gazette, "made repeated attempts to reach his legs by leaping to the roof..." Turner was eventually saved by the Zoo fire brigade and a lion tamer armed with a whip and a gun.

At the same time the aerodrome opened, so too did an outdoor pool, the master of ceremonies at the opening party diving into the water still wearing most of his clothes. Happily, this British Pathe features footage of that dive, alongside a shot of the Ace of Spades from the air:

The Bystander magazine visited the Ace of Spades that year:

I went down to the Ace of Spades on the Kingston by-pass the other evening and found the place crowded. It was a cool evening, but the water was so warm that you could see the steam rising and several people stayed in the water for at least half an hour. This roadhouse must be coining money.

The aerodrome had already run its course by 1937 (by then, the area was already filling up with housing), but  the pool lived on a lot longer (it's said the actress Diana Dors taught her husband to swim here in the 1950s.) The Ace of Spades was badly damaged by a fire in 1955, but soldiered on, eventually giving up the ghost as a nightspot in the 1970s.

The Ace of Spades as its looks now. Image: Google

Happily, the mock Tudor facade still exists today — converted into a prosaic triumvirate of Tool Station, Topps Tiles and Laser Quest. If you happen to find yourself stuck in traffic at the Hook Junction, just imagine how once upon a time, you'd have been able to pull up here in your car — or indeed, land here in your plane — for a slap-up meal and a night of frolicking.

Still, one thing we have over those Bright Young Things is that they never knew the unbridled joy of a Laser Quest.

We first discovered the Ace of Spades in the brilliant book Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub.

Wonder if this gave Pret an idea for a new sandwich... Image: The Worshipful Company of Butchers

A 700-year-old ceremony that London's never got boar-ed of.

The Boar's Head Ceremony started out as a peppercorn rent payment/meaty thank you from the butchers of the City of London, who, in 1343, were allotted a Fleet-side parcel of land where they could clean and dispose of any 'beast entrails'. To show their appreciation to then-Lord Mayor of London, John Hamond, the Butchers' Guild, now the Worshipful Company of Butchers, presented Hamond (we like to think he was aptly nicknamed 'Hammy') with a boar's head, for the centrepiece of a winter feast. As these traditions sometimes do, it stuck.

Though the banquet at Mansion House was natural off limits to the rabble, anyone could watch the prized boar's head — jaws jammed cartoonishly with a sphere of fruit — paraded from Butchers' Hall to the Mayor's residence. The head these days is a well-glossed papier-mâché facsimile, and frankly looks all the more agreeable for it.

For many years, the procession took place in the run-up to Christmas, but now it's been shifted to late winter/early spring, this year falling on Wednesday 18 March 2026. Gather outside Butchers' Hall at 87 Bartholomew Close a little before 2.30pm, and you'll see the boar's bonce carried out on a litter by blue gown-clad freemen and women. Led by a beadle, the head is then piped/drummed on its way by the Epping Forest Pipe Band Mayor-wards — this year, Lady Mayor Dame Susan Langley. The butchers will have already enjoyed a bangers and mash lunch, but you're not invited to that bit, so maybe grab a Gregg's sausage roll.

Until the 1820s you could've gone for a post-ceremony jar in the Boar's Head Tavern on nearby Eastcheap — as featured in Shakespeare plays — but someone went and demolished it, the swines.

In Oxford, another centuries-old boar's head procession plays out each year at Queen's College; this one still happens at Christmastime, and is heralded by the Boar's Head Carol. The boar's head, as far as we can make out, is genuine.

Boar's Head Ceremony, gather outside Butchers' Hall from around 2.30pm on 18 March, to follow the boar's head as it's processed to Mansion House, arriving around 3pm. It's free to watch.

This feature first appeared in March 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.

People find my chest irresistible. At least, they do when I wear this t-shirt.

Image: Matt Brown

Complete strangers will stop me in the street.

“Nice t-shirt,” they’ll say.
“Yes,” I’ll agree.

The conversation doesn’t go much further. This is London, after all. But I like to think we all share an admiration for the simple device that is the Tube roundel.

Only, it’s not so simple. As my T-shirt shows, this icon of London has evolved considerably over the years, and it’s been used for many more services than just the Tube. The seemingly standard corporate logo comes in near endless variety only hinted at in the 20 forms emblazoned across my torso.

Even so, this simplified evolutionary chart is a good place to begin in discussing the history of the roundel. It’s a story I need to get off my chest.

Image: Matt Brown

1. The Winged Wheel (1905)

The year is 1905. The suffragettes stage their first London protest. The word ‘hormone’ enters the English language. Greta Garbo and Henry Fonda are born; Jules Verne dies. Albert Einstein reformulates the universe. And somewhere in London, a draughtsman doodles some wings upon a wheel.

(It’s faded into the background on my shirt, but you can see a resplendent version here.)

The designer, whom some sources identify as a ‘Mr Crane’, was working on a new logo for the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC), one of the main bus operators in the capital. The symbol of a winged wheel is an ancient one, which can be traced back to Greek representations of Hermes, and was a natural choice for a transport company.

The winged-wheel logo would only appear briefly on LGOC’s buses, but became a fixture on staff uniform badges. More importantly, it would become a key influence on the future Tube roundel.

2. The Bulls-eye (1908)

Image: Matt Brown

Much can, and has, been written about Frank Pick (1878-1941), a man who helped create the ‘identity’ of London Underground. His contributions were many and varied, but for today’s purposes, we can think of him as the main progenitor of the roundel.

In 1908, the 30-year-old Pick became publicity manager for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL). This company ran three deep-level tube lines: truncated versions of what are now the Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Charing Cross branch of the Northern line. Pick sought to impose consistency across the lines, and part of that drive involved a common design for station platform names. After some experimentation, and inspired by the LGOC design, he alighted upon the idea of a blue bar across a red circle, which could stand out from the ubiquitous advertising. It was first trialed at St James’s Park in 1908. Versions of this early design can be seen today at Ealing Broadway and Covent Garden (as shown above).

The symbol and its successors would be commonly called the bullseye for decades to come, but for simplicity, I’m going to use the term ‘roundel’ from hereon.

3. Metropolitan diamond (1914)

Image: Matt Brown

The Metropolitan Railway — London’s original underground line, though by now much extended — was still an independent company, and liked to do things its own way. From 1914, it introduced a diamond logo for platform names, which had the ‘feel’ of Pick’s UERL symbol but also asserted Metropolitan independence. A pastiche sign can be seen at Moorgate. It was installed in 2013 to mark 150 years of the London Underground.

4. General (1920)

In 1912, Pick’s tube company (UERL) had bought out the old bus company (LGOC), and the design aesthetic began to creep across. Around the same time, a new roundel design was introduced with distinctive capitalisation on the first and last letters: UndergrounD. This style found its way onto the buses, which carried a ‘GeneraL’ logo from 1920. Note how the once-solid disc has now become a circle.

Image: Matt Brown

5. Shoreditch diamond (c.1913)

Another design used by the independent Metropolitan Railway. These green signs were deployed on the East London Railway, now part of the Windrush Line, from around 1913. They apparently remained in place until the 1950s.

6. Maturing style (1924)

By the mid-20s, the roundel was settling down into its familiar style. Some variation remained, however, such as the red bordering around the nameplate shown in this example.

7. Johnston’s roundel (1925)

Edward Johnston is most noted for the Johnston family of typefaces, which are still used across London transport more than a century after his first version (commissioned, of course, by Frank Pick). But Johnston also did much to standardise the roundel. Working on its design from 1915, he would eventually write an exact specification of standard proportions, colours and lettering. The example shown here is very close to the design still in place in the 2020s. We’ve since lost the ‘ribbon’ styling around the border, though vintage examples can be found across the network.

8. London Transport (1933)

1933 was a watershed moment in the story, with the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board, commonly abbreviated to London Transport. It brought together many of the hitherto separate companies that had overseen trains, trams, trolleybuses and buses in the London area. The roundel could now spread its wings further (even though it hadn’t sported wings since the old LGOC days). London Transport’s own parental roundel had to have a wider name bar than usual to fit in the long name.

Image: Matt Brown

9. Wide application (1935)

London Transport put the roundel to work. Hard. It now wandered beyond the purposes of platform names, to play various roles in signage, marketing and even architecture. Charles Holden was particularly deft at weaving the symbol into his tube station designs, slipping it into windows and raising it on flagpoles.

10. Trolleybuses (1935)

Johnston had adapted his roundel to services beyond the London Underground from the mid-1920s. The evolution continued in the 30s. This distinctive T-bearing roundel was first used to symbolise the trolleybus network from 1935.

11. Trams (1936)

Today, the tram network is confined to the deep south of London, and carries a green roundel. The original network was much more widespread, and was represented by blue roundels like this. Note that all the letters are by now the same height. None of this capital ‘T’, capital ‘S’ malarky.

12. Trolleybus Tram (1948)

I’m not entirely sure how this unsatisfying tangerine effort was used — perhaps as a combined symbol for trams and trolleybuses. Whatever, it’s my least favourite roundel on the t-shirt.

Image: Matt Brown

13. Bus and coach stop (1949)

A janus of a roundel, introduced at thousands of bus stops across the capital from the late 40s. The two colour schemes encompass both regular London bus routes, and also Green Line routes out to the surrounding commuter towns. The words ‘compulsory’ and request indicate that regular buses were mandated to stop, while the coaches would only pull up on request.

14. Railways roundel (1950)

A generic roundel used to represent the various underground railways collectively — both tube lines and cut-and-cover routes like the Metropolitan. Note that, by this time, the standard roundel had lost its border to create a simplified silhouette.

15. London Transport black and white (1960)

Badly faded on my t-shirt, this simple outline roundel was used to represent London Transport in the 1960s.

16. Victoria Line (1965)

Image: Matt Brown

This special one-off roundel was created to promote the Victoria line, the first wholly new deep-level line in half a century. The surviving example pictured here can be found at the Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum.

Image: Matt Brown

17. Red Arrow (1968)

From the late 1960s, London Transport introduced so-called Red Arrow services. These made use of longer single-decker buses, to make swift and short journeys across central London. The buses had few seats, to pack in as many commuters as possible. The services lasted, in much-reduced form, well into the 21st century. They were initially marked out with black roundels, as shown here

18. Underground (1972)

By the 1970s, the roundel was considered the official logo of London Transport. This example shows an updated version used to promote Underground services, following a review by the London Transport Design Panel. The word ‘roundel’ was also adopted as the official name for the logo at this time. The earliest use of the word by the press that I can find comes from 1976.

19. London Buses (1987)

Another tangerine nightmare introduced in the 80s to encapsulate London bus services. The roundel coincided with the creation of London Regional Transport in 1984, which saw buses and trains operated from a national level, rather than by local government. According to London Transport Museum, it was phased out in 1994, and is surely little-missed.

20. Elizabeth line (2022)

An Elizabeth line roundel, about to break out of its chrysalis in 2022. Image: Matt Brown

The Elizabeth line, launched in 2022, is not classed as a Tube line. It has larger trains in a deep-level tunnel, and so is classified as a separate mode of transport to the wider Tube. Hence, it gets its own roundel, in a fetching shade of purple.

It is the final symbol on my t-shirt, but the roundelverse rarely stands still for long. Already, TfL has introduced another official roundel to promote its Superloop bus services. Others will surely follow.

Further variations on a theme

The roundel has been with us now for over a century. It is a logo popular with both Londoners and visitors, widely recognised as a symbol of London itself.

In recent years, Transport for London has got a bit playful with its emblem. Alternative versions are regularly deployed. We’ve seen Remembrance roundels, Coronation roundels and Pride roundels; a heart-shaped roundel (below) to mark 160 years of the Underground; children’s roundels and artists’ roundels.

Heart-shaped roundel at Baker Street. Image: Matt Brown

Somewhat controversially, the roundel has also been adapted by sponsors to generate revenue for TfL. Sony Playstation had its four controller symbols turned into roundels during 2020 (though very few saw them thanks to the pandemic). Green Park was converted to ‘Green Planet’ to promote a BBC television series; Bond Street became Burberry Street at the behest of the clothing company. Most groansomely of all, Piccadilly Circus boldy changed to Picardilly Circus, and the roundel became a Starfleet logo, to promote a new show centred on the greatest captain.

Image: Matt Brown

Our story started with a black and white image of a winged wheel from 120 years ago. “From so simple a beginning,” said Charles Darwin, possibly about something else, “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved”. I am proud to wear some of those subspecies across my chest.

This March, the musical 'Ruth' debuts at Wilton's Music Hall, telling the story of Ruth Ellis — who shot dead her abusive lover David Blakely in 1955, and became the last woman to be executed in the UK. Here, Caroline Slocock explains why she wrote the musical, how she set about it, and if society might view Ruth Ellis differently were she convicted of the murder today.

"It was one of those lightbulb moments. I could see it and hear it and imagine it so powerfully. I decided there and then that I would write a musical about her." Images: Ewan Munro/fair use

I'd always been aware of Ruth Ellis' story and I loved the 1985 film Dance With A Stranger, but had no special interest beyond that.

And then one day, many years later, I was sitting and musing about ideas for a stage musical and out of nowhere Ruth Ellis popped into my head. It was one of those lightbulb moments. I could see it and hear it and imagine it so powerfully. I decided there and then that I would write a musical about her.

It's a very operatic story, it has all those big operatic themes — love, death, obsession. And there's a love triangle at the heart of it. It really is packed with drama. I felt it needed that deeper level of emotional storytelling that musicals can bring.

I have to say under normal circumstances I wouldn't rush to write a story about a murderess, but to me Ruth is such an intriguing character. I can empathise with her very easily. She wasn't born evil. She was just very damaged by her upbringing and was abused by men her whole life, and then with David Blakely's violence towards her things spiralled out of control. If she hadn't been given a gun and taught how to use it by a certain individual, I don't believe the murder would have occurred.

"I also visited her grave in Amersham. The emotions were rather overwhelming that day." Image: Swan So Fine via creative commons

I did a very thorough tracing of her footsteps. It really helped me to get into her character. I went to the Magdala (the Hampstead pub where Ellis shot Blakely) and the house where Blakely was staying that fateful Easter weekend. Also the location in Knightsbridge where the nightclub Ruth worked at was, and her flat. I also visited her grave in Amersham. The emotions were rather overwhelming that day.

I've rooted as much of it as possible in fact. There are thing she says that she actually said in real life. But there is one major leap of imagination I've taken, something that definitely never happened, that is very much at the heart of the story. Not going to expand on that, it would give too much away!

There's a song in the courtroom scene which is particularly timely, given the current tawdry behaviour of certain high-ranking individuals. Ruth's fellow hostesses call out the judge and the barristers for their hypocrisy, singing: "You’re all hippo, hippo, down with the zippo, off with the suit and let it all rippo, gripping and whipping and nipping and dripping hypocrites." That's one of my favourites!

The show debuts at Wilton's Music Hall

One of the things that always stays with me is Ruth's extraordinary courage and her immediate acknowledgement of her guilt. Three days after the shooting she wrote a letter to David's mother saying "I shall die loving your son". So even before the trial she had accepted that she would probably be sentenced to death and executed.

The defence of 'diminished responsibility' was introduced two years after her death, partly as a response to Ruth's case, so that's a pretty huge legacy. And in this era of #MeToo, viewing her story through the more informed lens of the present day, people's response to the case is very different. There's a greater understanding of what drives women to commit murder.

If Ruth Ellis shot David Blakely today, society would definitely view it differently. There are a number of cases that have been in the news, Sally Challen for one, of women who have murdered their partners after years of abuse, be it physical or mental abuse or coercive control, and the thinking around that whole subject has shifted massively. There's a deeper understanding now of the psychological aspect, although it's still a sad fact that a large proportion of the women in prison today are themselves victims of domestic abuse.

Ruth is on at Wilton's Music Hall, 18-28 March 2026.

This feature first appeared in February 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.

Bollards, coal and tax. Not words to get many hearts racing. But this unpromising material leads into a fascinating London story.

If you’ve ever wandered through the outer reaches of Greater London, then chances are you’ll have stumbled across one of these sturdy fellows.

Image: Matt Brown

More than 200 of these cast-iron sentinels form a ring around the capital. Each is about 1.2 metres high, painted white and emblazoned with the shield of the City of London. Not one of them is in the City of London, however.

Rather, the bollards engirdle the capital 20 miles out from the centre. You’ll find them at Uxbridge, Potters Bar, Dagenham, Caterham, and many places in-between.

If you hadn’t already guessed from the title, these are coal tax posts. They mark the frontier beyond which inbound coal merchants would have to pay tax to the City of London Corporation.

The system was scrapped over a century ago, but it does have parallels with the modern Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ). Here was a duty on a heavily polluting fuel, levied on anybody entering a clearly defined boundary far outside central London. Where it differed (apart from the lack of number-plate recognition technology) was that coal tax had no environmental purpose. It was simply to raise money for improvement works in the City of London.

“We built this city on rocks of coal…”

Today, so little coal is used domestically that Londoners scarcely think about the black stuff. Yet for hundreds of years this was the principal fuel for both heating and mechanical work (e.g. steam engines). Huge quantities were shipped to London annually, even before the Industrial Revolution. The city became known as the Big Smoke, thanks to all the coal it burned. All of it was taxed.

This wasn’t just a money grab. Coal tax played a crucial role in shaping London. After the Great Fire of 1666, St Paul’s Cathedral and many of the Wren churches were rebuilt largely with money from coal duties — the ultimate expression of fighting fire with fire. In a later age, the Victoria Embankment and wider sewer system were made possible by coal tax. The choky fuel thereby helped to end the Great Stink. This most hard-working of taxes also supported the building of Holborn Viaduct, New Oxford Street, and numerous other road improvements. London would look utterly different were it not for the tax on coal.

Until the Industrial Revolution, the carboniferous cargo was brought in to the Port of London exclusively by barge. Taxation was easy. Johnny Q. Collier could only tie up and offload his barge at a handful of dedicated quays. Tax inspectors would collect their dues and deposit them straight into the coffers of the City of London Corporation (or, in times of emergency, the national exchequer).

Then the canals came along, swiftly followed by the railways, and a more reliable road network. Suddenly, coal could make its sooty way into London via hundreds of different routes. Great for the coal supply, but a challenge for the customs men.

Many of the coal tax posts are in rural areas, but this one lurks unenviably in a Watford alleyway. The ‘24 VICT’, by the way, refers to the 24th regnal year of Queen Victoria, when the key legislation for the posts came in. Image: Matt Brown

How to account for a commodity that could reach the region unseen by the inspectors? A load of old bollards. That’s how.

280 of the distinctive coal tax posts were erected in the wake of the London Coal and Wine Duties Continuance Act 1861. This defined the 20 mile boundary in near harmony with that of the Metropolitan Police District, as it was in the mid-19th century. The posts sat on prominent roads, as well as beside canals and rail links. These were not the first such markers. Others survived and were, indeed, reused from earlier schemes. But it is the 1861 white posts that remain most prominent today.

How did they work? No tax was paid at the bollard itself (with a tiny number of exceptions). Rather, the post stood as a reminder to the coal-importer: “Beyond this point, you are liable to pay tax, or face a serious fine”. It’s much like certain toll roads today — or the ULEZ charge for that matter — where you don’t pay during the journey, but once you reach your destination (via the internet).

As it happened, most coal continued to come in by river and, later, the railway, so the markers didn’t play a huge part in the grand scheme of things. Still, every little helps.

Will Gray sent us this snap of a coal tax post he found in Broxbourne Woods.

Despite all the good works that coal tax was channeled into, it was always unpopular. It’s a tax. They are never popular. But this one seemed a trifle unfair. Most taxes were applied across the whole of the country, but this oddity only troubled London. Meanwhile, those living outside the centre complained that they saw little benefit from the tax, which nevertheless put up the price they paid for coal.

This latter issue was acknowledged in the 1870s, when some of the duties were spent on removing bridge tolls further out of town. The spans at Kew, Kingston, Hampton Court, Walton upon Thames and Staines all became free to cross thanks to coal money. Two bridges of the Lea, near Chingford and Tottenham, also threw off their shackles.

It wasn’t enough. Agitation to remove the tax continued to grow. The levy was finally nixed in 1889, when the deeply unpopular Metropolitan Board of Works (who had some oversight of the scheme) was replaced by the London County Council.

The system of white posts had been in situ for less than 30 years. It’s remarkable, then, that around three-quarters of them remain in place today.

Moving the coalposts

You will — being the inquisitive individual that you are — now wish to track down some of these curious relics for yourself.

I had intended to map the full set, but this was proving too time consuming. Instead, this indicative map shows the shape of the boundary, with a few key locations marked. Meanwhile, Martin Nail has compiled an exceptionally detailed list of every extant post (he counts 218), including coordinates. If you’re anywhere near the Greater London boundary, then a coal tax post is likely to be within easy reach.

As Martin also points out, the white posts we’ve lingered on here were not the only flavour of coal tax post. A few plainer markers survive from earlier schemes, as well as variations on the standard white pillar. There’s a whole tax-onomy out there.

Not all the surviving posts are by the roadside. The one included at the top of this article, for example, sits within the superb Chiltern Open Air Museum, which is home to dozens of salvaged buildings (and bollards) from around that area. Another can be found at the Valence House Museum in Dagenham. We mention this fact mostly so we can get a “moving the coalposts” pun into the heading.

Finally, we should clear up one issue, to put geekier readers at their ease. Earlier on, we mentioned that the posts were set about 20 miles from the “centre of London”. But where exactly is the centre of London? By consensus, the modern centre is considered to be Charing Cross, at least for the purposes of mileage measurement. Other standards were used in the past. For coal-tax posts, the General Post Office near St Paul’s was chosen. This prominent building was often selected to define catchments, and its location in the City of London put it in better accordance with the Corporation (who collected the taxes) than would Charing Cross (in Westminster).

So there we have it. Coal, tax and bollards can be interesting, wouldn’t you agree? Next week: The history and provision of Sluice Valve markers in suburban settings. (Possibly not.)

Special thanks to Will Gray, who sent in one of the photos above and pointed out the ULEZ analogy.

Beef joints carved tableside are back on the menu at Simpsons.

Every Londoner will have passed the chessboard frontage of Simpsons In The Strand, but for five years now, the wonderland of wood panelling and roving beef joint trolleys has been on pause.

That changes in March, when the famous Edwardian chess club-turned-restaurant — which once enjoyed a clientele including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Winston Churchill and Audrey Hepburn — reopens its doors under the auspices of restaurateur Jeremy King (the man behind The Ivy, Le Caprice and The Wolseley).

Refitted with dark leather banquettes, the Grand Divan — where chess masters once whiled away hours tussling in a game of wits — begins serving lunch and dinner from 3 March as part of a soft launch (breakfast from mid-March), with bookings now being taken for 30 March onwards.

Much of the Simpson's interior was auctioned off in 2023, and the restaurant has been revived in classic Edwardian style.

Not too much tinkering has been done with the Grand Divan's a la carte menu, which continues to doff its chef's hat to British classics: think chilled Scottish langoustines, rabbit & tarragon terrine, boiled ham with parsley sauce, and bubble and squeak. The signature hot trolleys of roast rib of beef are, of course, back: carved at your table and served with all the trimmings, these cost £39.50 per person, and will surely be a bestseller.

The Grand Divan is one of four spaces in the Grade II Listed building at 100 Strand: Simpson's Bar (an art deco style cocktail setup) and Nellie's Tavern (a sumptuously theatrical lounge bar) will open soon after, with Romano's — a more laid-back Grand Café setting — will arrive later on in March. In short: it's all coming together nicely.

A word to the wise for influencers though: if you do get an invite, for goodness' sake, behave.

Simpsons in the Strand, reopen with soft launch from 3 March, with bookings now taken from 30 March.

Dick Turpin — one of London's most infamous rogues — stars in the free London Archives show.

The latest exhibition at London Archives explores Londoners' relationship with crime.

Moll Cutpurse, Dick Turpin, Oscar Wilde, William Anthony and Sylvia Pankhurst are among the thieves, rogues, demonstrators, law enforcers, victims — and those who simply didn't align with the society of their time — who appear in Londoners on Trial: Crime, Courts and the Public 1244-1924.

William Anthony (1789-1864) was a night watchman in the Norton Folgate and Spitalfields areas. 'Charly' was slang for watchmen. Image dates from c1863.

As they always do for their excellent free exhibitions, the team has rooted through its extensive Clerkenwell archives, producing an array of fascinating material, including original posters offering cash rewards for the apprehension of highwaymen and footpads; a photo of William Anthony (1789-1864) one of the East End's last nightwatchmen; and information about Mary Frith — aka Moll Cutpurse — the cross-dressing pickpocket of 17th century London.

There's also this rather sloppy scene of a 19th-century street bust-up — one participant using an umbrella (how very London):

A rowdy street scene from 1822.

A (police) line-up of events supplement the exhibition, including a talk on the Questioning of Eleanor Rykener (dating back to 1395, this is is the oldest known document in the collection that speaks directly to LGBTQ+ history); a screening of silent Hitchcock film The Lodger; and an artist-led workshop in which you're encouraged to respond to your experience of the exhibition, through empathetic drawings.

As the exhibition's on for a year — and it's free to access — we daresay it'd be criminal to miss it.

Londoners on Trial: Crime, Courts and the Public 1244-1924, London Archives, 9 March 2026-25 February 2027, free. You can also sign up for one of the occasional curator-led exhibition tours (these cost £5 per person)

This feature first appeared in February 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.

“Not a single part of her… resembles any thing to be found among the infinite variety of craft which have hitherto floated in the Thames.” Morning Advertiser, 11 June 1850

I recently did a double-take. I was at the London Archives, admiring a wall-mounted, mid-19th century panorama of the Thames, mentally ticking off the familiar features on the north bank. Then I noticed this:

ROYAL CHINESE JUNK. An unfamiliar sign a little west of Waterloo Bridge. Why, I wondered, were the Chinese royal family piling up their garbage on the shores of the Victorian Thames?

Then I spotted the masts sticking out of the top. The penny dropped. Of course, a junk is also a type of Chinese sailing ship. The structure shown on the panorama was presumably a moored Chinese vessel.

That only raised further questions. What was it doing here? Who brought it to London? Was it a genuine Chinese ship?

This is why I love London. I know this bit of the Thames extremely well. I’m familiar with its history. But this city always throws up surprises, even when you think you know the terrain. So I got Googling and, well, I’m ashamed I’ve never encountered this remarkable ship before.

Slow boat from China

This is the ship in question, the Keying, named after a noted Chinese commissioner of the time:

“You could hardly tell its head from its tail,” as one old salt reminisced some 50 years later. Image: public domain

As even the unsaltiest landlubber can see, the Keying looks nothing like western ships of this period. With its great curving hull (probably exaggerated), ribbed sails and mighty stern, it resembles one of those ‘pirate ship’ fairground rides to modern eyes. (Or, indeed, a banana, to reprise a recent theme, although the yellow colour is probably artistic licence.)

To Victorian peepers, the ship was truly special. The Illustrated London News came close to treason when it hinted that the vessel might even be superior to British vessels:

“She proved herself an excellent sea-boat; and her powers of weathering a storm equal, if not surpass, those of vessels of British build.”

There was, it has to be said, a hint of subterfuge about the Keying. One had only to learn the captain’s name, Charles Alfred Kellett, to sense that this might not be an entirely oriental affair. 30 of the ship’s crew were Cantonese, but 12 were British. Indeed, the Keying was British-owned. You might have noticed the flag on an earlier image.

Materially, though, the Keying was a thoroughly Chinese ship. Kellett and some businessmen had secretly bought the junk in 1846, much against Chinese rules prohibiting the sale of ships to foreigners on pain of death. Reports from the time suggest these men adopted disguises in order to enter the country and purchase the vessel, which might become a lucrative novelty if it could be sailed over to Britain. It’s a fascinating ‘more research needed’ topic for anyone looking to write a screenplay or novel set between the Opium Wars.

The Keying disembarked from Hong Kong in December 1846, and rounded the Cape of Good Hope three months later. After a sojourn in St Helena, the the ship made for America. It became the first Chinese vessel to reach New York City in July 1847. Here it was a sensation, visited by thousands. Greatest Showman PT Barnum was so impressed that he built a replica. Captain Kellett and his bold business partners seemed to be getting a good return on their perilous investment.

They Keying in New York (it’s the one out in the harbour). Image: Public domain

The Keying then popped up the coast to Boston, before sailing to London. It made that crossing in just 21 days, a phenomenal speed for the era. The voyage ended in tragedy when a storm damaged the ship and sent one of the hands overboard. After repairs in Jersey, it sailed on to the Thames.

For the next five years, this well-travelled ship would become a Londoner.

The Great Thrall of China

After all its scrapes and adventures, the Keying finally arrived on the Thames in late April 1848. It anchored briefly near Gravesend, before proceeding into London’s docks. Here, it found a berth at the East India Dock, which today lies opposite another curiously masted structure:

Entrance to East India Dock as it looks today, with the O2 dome in the background. Image: Matt Brown

As in America, the idea was to open the ship as a novelty, to attract paying customers. East India Dock was intended as a short stop-over, where the Keying could be repainted and prepared for visitors “remote from Cockney curiosity,” as one newspaper put it. In the event, it remained at the dock for two years, and opened to the public here just a couple of weeks after arrival.

Despite being stuck out in the distant docks, many notable people trekked out to see the Keying. The very first were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, along with the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Prince of Prussia. They were followed by dowager Queen Adelaide on one of her last public appearances. This extraordinarily august outing addresses the second part of my ignorance from the opening paragraph — why the ship was called the “Royal” Chinese Junk. To spin out their future titles, the party included three queens, two kings and a prince consort. I think the regal adjective was deserved.

The Morning Post of 17 May 1848 gives a detailed account of the royal visit. Queen Victoria seemed particularly amused with the vessel:

“… the Queen mounted the steps leading [to the poop deck] with the activity of a school girl, and her beaming countenance, when it looked around, evidenced a degree of delight and satisfaction not inconsistent with the character allured to.”

Let us step onboard ourselves…

A visit to the Keying

We make the trip out to Blackwall by river, having read a review in The Times that promised: “one step across the entrance, and you are in the Chinese world; you have quitted the Thames for the vicinity of Canton”. We disembark at Blackwall Pier and make our way over to the entrance hut. Here, we hand over one shilling to the attendant and proceed up the gangplank. “Wait!,” he calls us back. “Would you like a catalogue?” We consider for a second, then assent. He hands over a description of the Chinese curiosities we’ll find on board, for the price of 6d.

The ship is quite a sight. Measuring around 50 metres (160ft) from bow to teak-wood stern, and capable of carrying 800 tonnes, it compares favourably with the larger ships on the Thames. Its rudder alone weighed 17 tonnes.

A model of the Keying in Hong Kong Maritime Museum. Image: Ceeseven, creative commons

We are welcomed onboard and ushered directly into the galley or cook house, where ‘the ladies can have explained to them the “Celestial” method of preparing rice and fish’. We then enter the State Cabin, a treasure room of lanterns, idols, carvings and incense. About 30 crewmen are onboard, but two in particular are of note. Sam-Sing is a talented painter. Hesing, introduced as a mandarin of the fifth class, is an exquisite calligrapher. We admire samples of their handiwork.

From here, we inspect the decks and the Grand Saloon, “Gorgeously furnished in the most approved style of the Celestial Empire,” and filled with Chinese curiosities. More adventures lurk above, where we’re invited to clamber up onto the poop deck. This involves a somewhat precipitous climb, but we proceed with confidence, safe in the knowledge that out good Queen has made the ascent before us. From the poop, we get a fine view of the Peninsula across the water, and the reed beds and pastures of Bugsby’s Marshes. I dare say nothing much will ever come of that unfavourable land.

We conclude our visit in enthusiastic agreement with a recent edition of the London Evening Standard, which described the Keying as “Well worth a dozen visits; and calculated to afford ample gratification to the most intense curiosity. Every inch of her is a book full of history of the manners and customs of the Chinese.”

A Chinese Temple

After two years at Blackwall, space was finally found for the Keying in central London, specifically at Temple Pier. This was one of many landing points on the central Thames, found at the end of Essex Street.

Here, the ship was enclosed in a dry dock by a substantial timber-framed structure, apparently painted blue. This was in part to keep the elements off the ship, making it an all-weather attraction, but also added to the sense of mystery and theatre. Anyone could get a ‘teaser’ from the river, from where the masts could be seen protruding from the shed. But to witness the full glory, you had to step inside.

Despite the central location, the ship does not seem to have attracted the same attention as previously. Perhaps the novelty had worn off. Perhaps it was forgotten amid all the publicity and razzmatazz attending the Great Exhibition of 1851. Or maybe it had something to do with the open sewer, which disgorged into the Thames right alongside the attraction. You could not visit “without inhaling the effluvium”. Either way, the ship gradually faded into the background.

Keying remained at Temple Pier for about two years. For such a magnificent and popular ship, it went out with a sigh rather than a bang. By May 1852 the ship had been retired to the West India Import Dock, where today you’ll find the London Museum Docklands. Here, it was purchased by a Birkenhead firm and towed up to the Mersey. It was briefly put on public display again, in Rock Ferry, Cheshire but, by the end of 1855 the ship was “rotting neglected and uncared”. It was then broken up without ceremony, a junked junk. In just seven years it had gone from a royally endorsed wonder to a pile of broken timbers.

The dry-dock near the temple is long gone. The whole riverfront has changed beyond recognition thanks to the building of the Embankment. Were you to visit today, however, you might still spy a curvaceous golden ship. Two Temple Place — itself a treasure box of wonders — stands at the foot of Essex Street, on the site of the old dry dock.

Its rooftop sports a gilded, ship-shaped weather vane. They say it represents Christopher Columbus’s flagship Santa Maria. But from now on it’ll always remind me of another historic ship that conquered the Atlantic (twice). A ship to make the Times gush, Queen Victoria beam, and your present correspondent double-take in surprise. Let’s remember the Royal Chinese Junk Keying.

Two Temple Place with, inset, the golden caravel weather vane. Image: Tony Hisgett, creative commons.

The Royal Albert Hall holds an International Women's Day concert. Photo: Matt Brown/Londonist

March is Women's History Month, while 8 March is International Women's Day 2026 — and there are loads of events celebrating women and girls, non-binary and female-identifying people this month.

These are our picks of events and things to do in London:

An Open Letter To My Younger Self at The Barbary

Hear from Mary Portas OBE at The Barbary

Ahead of International Women's Day, Mary Portas OBE is interviewed by comedian and cultural critic Viv Groskop at The Barbary in Notting Hill. The event, An Open Letter To My Younger Self, raises money for the King's Trust's Change a Girl's Life, while inviting the retail businesswoman and broadcaster to pass on her wisdom and experience.

An Open Letter To My Younger Self at The Barbary in Notting Hill, 4 March 2026.

Women's History Month at Poplar Union

East London community centre Poplar Union hosts a programme of Women's History Month events, including a Women Building Futures panel discussion (5 March); the EmpowerHer Market celebrating female-makers and women-led grassroots organisations (15 March); a wellness workshop and empowering panel talk for female entrepreneurs (21 March); and a guided canal walk and coffee morning led by Women Building Futures.

Women's History Month at Poplar Union, 5-21 March 2026.

EVE Wrestling: Women Behaving Badly at Big Penny Social

EVE: Riot Grrrls of Wrestling was founded to destroy misconceptions that wrestling is a male-dominated industry. It's described as a "punk-rock, women's wrestling and cabaret night out", and comes to Big Penny Social in Walthamstow for a special International Women's Day event.

Eve Wrestling at Big Penny Social, 6 March 2026.

International Women's Day at Cavita

Marylebone Mexican restaurant Cavita celebrates International Women's Day with a special lunch, bringing together five trailblazing female chefs from all over the world. Adriana Cavita, Ayesha Kalaji, Keshia Sakarah, Maria Bradford and Sabrina Gidda whip up a collaborative feast, to be enjoyed alongside a Q&A hosted by entrepreneur, cookbook author and podcast host Justine Murphy, focusing on the chefs' journeys, their influences — and their experiences building careers in the UK food industry today.

Profits from the event go to women's and children's charity Refuge.

International Women's Day at Cavita, 8 March 2026.

International Women's Day at the Royal Albert Hall

Described as "classical music's Taylor Swift", Royal Albert Hall organist Anna Lapwood MBE rose to fame with her online videos of performances during lockdown. For International Women's Day 2026, she hosts a special concert showcasing the work of female composers, particularly in the film scores genre, with performances by trailblazing saxophonist Jess Gillam and singer-songwriter Katie Melua.

International Women's Day Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, 8 March 2026.

Women's Spring Open Exhibition at Brady Arts Centre

Whitechapel's Brady Arts & Community Centre holds the Women's Spring Open Exhibition, a group art show celebrating the talents of both amateur and professional female artists from across Tower Hamlets. The work includes pastels and watercolours, prints and collages, acrylics, photography and more, across a variety of topics and styles.

Women's Spring Open Exhibition at Brady Arts Centre, 8-23 March 2026.

Women in Jazz at Southbank Centre

Musician Celeste discusses her career. Image: Siam Coy

Over one weekend in the middle of March, Southbank Centre hosts the Montreux Jazz Festival Residency, an offshoot of the annual music festival in Switzerland. There are two Women in Jazz events on the programme this year: vocalist Lucy-Anne Daniels showcases her talent in a live performance on 13 March, while music journalist Emma Warren speaks to singer-songwriter Celeste about her career on 14 March.

Women in Jazz at Southbank Centre, 13-14 March 2026

Iranian Women's Voices at the British Library

WritersMosaic presents an evening of conversation, poetry, film and music at the British Library to celebrate new publication Iranian Women's Voices. Writers Marjorie Lotfi, Sana Nassari and Shara Atashi take part, along with Iranian musicians, and there's a chance to view the photography of Hengameh Golestan, documenting women protesting the oppression of the Iranian authorities.

Iranian Women's Voices at the British Library, 16 March 2026.

Threads of Liberation at Mile End Library

Queen Mary Archives and Tower Hamlets Archives team up to showcase materials from their collections relating to women's liberation in east London. Get an insight into local women who have fought for justice, and the lasting impact they had, through presentations from the archive teams. That's followed by a nakshi kantha (traditional Bengali embroidery) workshop led by Oitij-jo Collective, an organisation platforming British/Bangla women.

Threads of Liberation at Mile End Library, FREE, 25 March 2026.

Insight: Portraits of Women in Surgery at the Hunterian Museum

Anusha Edwards, by Rebecca Sellick and Dawn White, North Bristol NHS Trust

In 2025, for the first time ever, the UK had more female than male doctors, something celebrated in the Hunterian Museum's current (FREE!) exhibition, Insight: Portraits of Women in Surgery, which happens to run though Women's History Month. The exhibition shines a spotlight (or should that be operating light) on women in surgery working across the UK today, offering an intimate and contemporary look at surgical life through photographic portraits taken by NHS trust staff, including specialist clinical photographers and, in one case, a fellow surgeon.

Insight: Portraits of Women in Surgery at the Hunterian Museum, FREE, until 18 April 2026.

TfL renames some of its hire cycles

As we reported in January, TfL is marking International Women's Day 2026 by renaming 10 of its cycle-hire bikes after notable women cyclists.  Some will be named after famous women (think Olympians Victoria Pendleton and Dame Laura Kenny), while others will be unsung heroes.

International Women's Day 2026 walking tours

Hear about women linked to Southwark Cathedral and the surrounding area. Photo: Matt Brown/Londonist

WOMEN OF LONDON: A history tour company focusing on women's history, Women of London offers female-centric tours all year round, including one focusing on women in the British Museum, and another telling the stories of working women in the East End. Keep an eye on the website for Women's History Month/International Women's Day specials.

WARRIOR WOMEN: Tour company Footprints of London offers two different Warrior Women themed tours, each one taking place several times throughout the month. Warrior Women at the National Portrait Gallery takes you through the institution, hearing about women who have shaped history by fighting for what they thought was right. Elsewhere, the Warrior Women Walking Tour begins at Westminster Millennium Pier and takes you through Westminster and Whitehall focusing on queens, campaigners and spies — and the monuments and buildings marking their achievements. Throughout March 2026

SHOREDITCH TOWN HALL: Tour the Grade II listed Shoreditch Town Hall, with a focus on the stories of Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst, women's rights advocate Helen Taylor, and Shoreditch's first woman mayor Henrietta Girling OBE. 8 March 2026. The venue also holds a talk about the women historically linked to Shoreditch Town Hall, on the same day.

WOMEN OF SOUTHWARK: A Southwark Cathedral guide leads an hour-long Women of Southwark tour, focusing on women whose lives were connected to the cathedral, including Victorian educator Octavia Hill and Queen Mary. 9 March 2026

HERSTORY AT ROYAL OPERA HOUSE: Covent Garden's Royal Opera House offers regular HerStory tours, telling the stories of women who shaped the legacy of the building and institution since the 18th century, through managing, directing and performing in shows — or otherwise exerting their influence. Hear about women who defied gender convention, visionary choreographers, and those who supported the Allied war effort. Currently booking until 18 April 2026

Women's History Month 2026 talks, lectures and debates

Hallie Rubenhold takes part in The Conversation

OLD MASTERS: Art historian Franny Moyle kickstarts Women's History Month at the National Gallery with an illustrated talk reassessing the work of two of the most significant and innovative painters of the 18th century: Angelica Kauffman and Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. Find out how these women referenced Old Masters in their work, inviting positive comparison while showcasing their considerable talents, at a time when the professional cards were stacked against women in the art world. 2 March 2026

THE BRONTES: Author Sharon Wright marks International Women’s Day with the story of the iconic and much-loved Brontë portraits in the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection. Hear the artworks' stories, including their long journey from West Yorkshire to London via Ireland, and some of the questions which surround them. 5 March 2026

BLACK WOMEN SPEAK VOLUMES: Celebrate the launch of two powerful new books, which showcase the stories of older Black women, at the British Library. The books are Yvvette Edwards' tragi-comic novel, Good Good Loving, and creative entrepreneur Joy Francis' Challenging Britannia, where she interviews seven ground-breaking older black women in the arts. Broadcaster and author Andi Oliver takes part in the event, chaired by writer Bernardine Evaristo. 6 March 2026

DEEDS NOT WORDS: Hear about the Suffragettes' radical fight for the vote, the women behind the protests, and their lasting impact, in a talk by art historian and Blue Badge guide Eleanor Jackson, at Wilderness Kitchen in Clerkenwell. 8 March 2026

STATUES OF GEORGIAN WOMEN: Juliet Rix, author of London's Statues of Women, gives a talk about both London's Georgian statues of women and London's statues of Georgian women. Among those mentioned are celebrity actress Sarah Siddons — the first named non-royal woman to get a statue in London — as well as the more recent depiction of Mary Wollstonecraft by Maggi Hambling. 10 March 2026

WOMEN IN WILDLIFE: The Zoological Society of London, the charity which runs London Zoo as well as various conservation projects around the world, offers a free talk about the women who shaped the organisation's history, and those working within it today. Zoologist, author and broadcaster Julie Cooke hosts. 10 March 2026

HALLIE RUBENHOLD: Best known for her book The Five, which gave a voice to the women who became victims of Jack the Ripper, author Hallie Rubenhold is guest speaker at The Conversation, a weekly series of talks at St Martin-in-the-Fields. She discusses what their stories tell us about gender and social justice in 19th and 20th century London, and what that means for today. 24 March 2026

Read about more great London women

Female Muslim boxers feel empowered at classes in the Docklands. Image: Momtaz Begum-Hossain/Londonist

Plenty of Londonist articles to get stuck into:

♀️Noor Inayat Khan: A Very Important Statue You Probably Never Noticed

♀️10 Black Women Who Changed London For The Better

♀️It's 320 Years Since Britain's First Newspaper Was Founded by A Female Editor

♀️In Pictures: The Women Shaping London's Grime Scene

♀️The Docklands Gym Where Muslim Women Are Toughening Up And Feeling Empowered

♀️In Pictures: The Women Who Keep London Underground Going

♀️In Pictures: The Pioneering Women Of London Transport

♀️A Tube Map Of Well-Known (And Should-Be-Well-Known) Women

♀️Muslim Girls Fence - The Movement That's Slicing Up Stereotypes

♀️Inside London's First All-Female Mechanics' Garage: Spanners With Manners

♀️Women's London by Rachel Kolsky - one of the best guides to exploring London we've ever seen.