We've seen everything from Tower Bridge to life-sized tube carriages made from Lego. But now someone's gone and created the whole darn history of our city out of the plastic playstuff.
Laura Davison's timeline is a glorious jumble of history in which Romans rub shoulder with Vikings, and Sherlock Holmes (haplessly) seeks out Jack the Ripper. Like London itself, it's a lot of fun — but downright violent and gory in places too.
Let's look at a few of the highlights.
The Romans
These Romans aren't dicking around. Indeed, they'd been trying to invade Britain since BC 55 — and were persistent enough to keep at it for almost another century. Finally, they made the place theirs in AD 43, calling it Londinium (d'uh guys, everyone knows the correct pronunciation is 'London'). We assume there were more than two Roman centurions at the time. Helmet tip to the gladiatorial ruck going on in the background. Why the bloke on the left is wielding a dinosaur tooth, we're not sure. Wrong time period, mate.
The Vikings
The Vikings basically make the Romans look like One Direction. They mercilessly attacked Lundenwic numerous times during the 9th century (and in contrast to the image above, their swords were much bigger and not plastic). Horrible Histories taught us that Viking helmets probably didn't have horns, so we feel that's a slip-up on the part of the Lego people who are, after all, Danish. As for female Viking invaders? They were a thing.
16th-17th century
A terrifying era of fire and pestilence is brilliantly imagined in this frieze. Never has Lego oozed so much death and destruction. Will Shakespeare is referenced nicely with what we assume is Hamlet's skull at his feet (alas poor Yorrick). He does look disconcerted that the guy next to him is on fire, and to be honest so would you. We swear we saw that queen hanging out with Vikings a moment ago...
City
Is it us or are these City types from various periods in London history dressed in some uber cool garb? TM Lewin be damned — THIS is how you should dress if you work for Slaughter and May. But hang on — are those Victorian businessmen over to the right, or modern day hipsters? So hard to tell. We were unsure why Indiana Jones has crash-landed a single prop plane into the top right hand corner of the picture — Laura tells us it's a second world war plane creeping into shot (and to be fair Indy did help us defeat the Nazis).
Crime
Bloody hell. The identity of Jack the Ripper is finally revealed — and it's a solo period John Lennon in a top hat. A nearby bobby, and Sherlock Holmes himself, fail to spot the murder, and the ensuing trail of plastic blood. Not that the victim seems to mind all that much, given her huge grin. A pot of yellow flowers does its best to offset the surrounding horrors. As for the Dick Turpin... where can we get one of those please?
