An Illustrated Map Of Weird Things That've Happened In London

Last Updated 06 October 2024

An Illustrated Map Of Weird Things That've Happened In London
A map of curios happenings over the years in London
Click to enlarge

A lot of weird stuff has happened in London, and we're not just talking about that time Liz Truss was prime minister.

One of our readers — and an incredibly talented artist to boot — Clair Rossiter decided to put some of the strangest happenings to unfold over the years, onto this beautifully-illustrated map.

A close up showing the escaped monkey jazz band

Animals feature heavily in the feast of fantastical episodes, including 'Willy' the Whale, who swam up the Thames in 2006, and later inspired a Damon Albarn song; and the Philpot Lane mice, the smallest statue in London, which marks a sandwich-related tragedy (or so the story goes).

Taking the biscuit banana, though, had to be the escaped monkey jazz band; this bizarre happening unfolded in Notting Hill in 1926, when 13 members of the simian group went AWOL. One of the escapees got as far as Rugby; apparently it had taken the train.

A close up of the map showing the London Bridge banquet and a frost fair

Playing out elsewhere on Clair's map is the Great Beer Flood of 1814 (in which 2.5 million pints of London porter gushed out of a central London brewery with fatal consequences), the altogether more pleasant London Bridge Banquet of 1831, Edward Jones pinching Queen Victoria's under-crackers from Buckingham Palace, and the Mole Man of Hackney having a well-deserved lean on his shovel, after digging a network of tunnels beneath his home. Seeing all of this mad stuff together in one illustration does make you think: what if it had all unfolded on the same day?

Limited edition prints of the map are available to buy here. A guaranteed conversation starter, wherever you decide to hang it.

All images © Clair Rossiter