Grim business being in debt in the old days – a debtor could expect to end up behind bars! London had its fair share of prisons located very centrally and one of them was the Fleet – where debtors were flung. The location is quite hard to imagine now but it would have been roughly…
If you’ve ever been to Wong kei in London’s Chinatown, you may have experienced the joy of being shouted at by the waiters – it had the reputation for years of being the rudest restaurant in London. I understand that as of last year, they’ve refurbished the place and decided to tone down the bad…
Londoners do some very odd things but taking a dead man’s head to the pub is probably one of the more unusual. Read on! There’s a monument that many office workers pass under every day that they’d never realise has a ghoulish past. It’s an innocuous old gateway that leads from the front of St…
The Calves Head Club comprised a group of wealthy London traders and merchants who welcomed the beheading of King Charles the first and the rule of Oliver Cromwell. Even after the Restoration of King Charles the second, the executed king’s son, to the throne – they continued to meet in secret. Wealthy people who disliked…
1862 saw a new crime trend hit the streets of London. The city was terrified of alleged garrotters – strangling and stealing from victims. One thief grabbed a victim from behind, garrotting them, while the other relieved the breathless person of their belongings. This outbreak of “garrotting” horrified the great and the powerful – especially…
Queen Victoria experienced a very long reign and by 1897 had been on the throne for an astonishing sixty years. She processed through the city of London as part of her celebrations. Vast crowds assembled to see the sovereign drift past in her carriage. The Diamond Jubilee festivities saw dignitaries and soldiers come to London…
Another blog post in my current series on Newgate prison – demolished over a hundred years ago and replaced by the Old Bailey court building By the end of the nineteenth century, if you committed a murder north of the Thames – you would face the hangman at Newgate. If you committed it south of…
Stand at Tottenham Court Road station and let your eyes drift from the Dominion Theatre past New Oxford Street and down Charing Cross Road. Now imagine that this whole stretch of London extending down to St Martin’s Lane and back to Drury Lane was one huge enormous slum. A warren of impenetrable alleyways, wooden houses,…
This is one of a series of blog posts about the once notorious Newgate prison that stood on the site of today’s Old Bailey George Cruikshank was a caricaturist who drew the illustrations for the books of Charles Dickens. He was also vehemently opposed to the death penalty, following something he saw outside Newgate prison….
Behold the Earls Court wheel – forerunner to the London Eye. For just over ten years – 1895 to 1906 – this dominated the skyline at Earls Court in west London. It was a hit with visitors to exhibitions at the nearby large events venue. In one book of photos I have from the turn…
