This is my 200th blog and to celebrate I thought I’d do one of the things I enjoy most, just wander around the City taking pictures of the incredibly diverse trees and plants that live there. First up is this noble fig tree that lives in the Smithfield Rotunda garden (EC1A 9DY) … I don’t […]
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It was a lovely sunny day last Saturday so I wandered along Whitecross Street to gaze at some of the wonderful art works. Many of these have been produced over the years at the famous Whitecross Street Party. Who wouldn’t smile at this splendid pair of potato heads … Then there’s a crazy cat with […]
Hello, friends, Happy Christmas! It’s time again for the Christmas Quiz based on my blogs from 2020. I trust you are all OK in these difficult times and send you my very best wishes for 2021. I am sure that, like me, you hope that it will bring happier times for everyone than the year […]
Women feature on many City sculptures (often in an allegorical role) and I have been on another sculpture safari to see how many I can identify. I have written about female sculptures twice before and you can find links here and here. In quite a few cases they are located high up on buildings and […]
I’d like to quote from the City Corporation’s little booklet on Fountains – it’s rather poetic in places. ‘Fountains are an important sensory diversion in the urban scene of the City. Whether a municipal drinking fountain or a monumental water feature, they provide a rich diversity of sculptural form, movement and sound. The movement provided […]
Once upon a time, access by foot to the River Thames was absolutely essential since it was London’s main highway. These ‘Watermen’s Stairs’ were also of great benefit if you were unfortunate enough to fall into the river. A Waterman would usually be nearby plying for hire and might be inclined to rescue you (and […]
When I discovered that, at one time, the London Bridge authorities employed a Keeper of the Heads I was inspired to write about the many reincarnations of London Bridge since the Romans built the first crossing about AD 50. The relationship between the bridges and London is fascinating and so I want to do it […]
The Guildhall Art Gallery in Guildhall Yard (EC2V 5AE) is one of my favourite places in the City. The reason for this is that the Gallery’s collection of London paintings opens a window onto unusual, memorable and colourful scenes from the City’s history. Dating from the 17th century onwards, they provide a vivid record of […]
The longbow was a crucial English weapon of war and King Edward III’s second Archery law of 1363 made it obligatory for Englishmen to practise their archery skills every Sunday. Stray arrows proved to be extremely dangerous and the wind played a part in diverting arrows away from their intended targets. The answer they came […]
At the north end of Whitecross on the corner with Old Street a plaque on a wall tells us that there once lived here a lady called Priss Fotheringham who had been ranked ‘the second best whore in the City’. This description appeared in 1660 in a serial publication called The Wandring Whore by John […]
I was walking through the Tower Hill memorial garden last Sunday when I noticed a small cross resting on one of the allegorical figures, just above the dolphin’s head … Here it is in close up … How wonderful. Arthur Myers remembered by a grandchild and two great, great grandchildren. His ship, the Empire Lakeland, […]
The City has been home to thousands of pubs over the years. Some have continued to flourish for, literally, centuries whereas others have disappeared. I have been exploring to see if I can identify some remnants of those lost hostelries. At 12 Old Street is the building that once housed The Old Rodney’s Head … […]
I started my westward walk at the old Billingsgate Market on Lower Thames Street. Once the centre of London’s fish trade, it has been comprehensively smartened up and no trace remains of its pulsating, pongy past, its interior now a soulless ‘event space’. Billingsgate was originally a general market for corn, coal, iron, wine, salt, […]
Well, I didn’t know that the little town of Yatsuka in Japan had presented the City with a rather special gift in 2004 – a selection of tree peonies to bring ‘peace of mind to people in the United Kingdom’. I took this picture of one last week when we actually had some sun … […]
‘I have emptied a cesspool, and the smell of it was rose-water compared with the smell of these graves.’ So declared a gravedigger during an 1842 enquiry into the state of London’s graveyards, a problem acknowledged even in Shakespeare’s day … ‘Tis now the very witching time of night When churchyards yawn, and hell itself […]
Since I wrote last week’s blog I became a bit obsessed with old boundary markers and started recording the ones I hoped my readers might find interesting. The City contains over 120 parishes, known primarily by the name of a church rather than a location, and although some may consist of only a few streets, […]
Last Saturday I headed off to St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, my intention being to take a photograph of the founder Rahere’s tomb for a future blog I am planning. I hadn’t been there for at least five years and was very happy to pay the entry fee and enjoy the church as virtually […]
When I read that over 120,000 people had been interred in the Bunhill burial ground over the years it immediately made me think of Thomas Hardy’s 1882 poem The Levelled Churchyard O passenger, pray list and catch Our sighs and piteous groans, Half stifled in this jumbled patch Of wrenched memorial stones! We late-lamented, resting […]
Mythical dragons do seem to keep finding themselves guarding pretty, captive maidens who are then rescued by brave heroes who slay the poor old dragon. So I thought I would combine dragons and maidens for this blog, especially since the dragon is a well-known symbol of the City of London. The first thing I must […]
I have chosen these four statues because I love the background stories behind them and hope you find them interesting too. First up is the one of Henry VIII over the main entrance to St Bartholomew’s hospital, the only outdoor statue of the king in London. If you have seen and admired the famous Holbein […]
