Dick Hughes is mentioned in the Newgate Calendar as a robber who came to London at the start of the eighteenth century to make money the dishonest way. He’d already been arrested and tried in Worcester for theft. On that occasion he’d been whipped at the cart’s tail “crying carrots and turnips” as he was…
To look at London Bridge now you see….well…..a bridge with traffic on it. But go back three centuries or more and the bridge was full of houses and some illustrious tenants. During the reign of Henry VIII, the court painter Holbein lived there. Two hundred years later, another artist – Hogarth – was a resident….
The London Blitz of 1940 and 1941 saw many stories of heroism and sacrifice from Londoners. As German fighter planes dropped bombs on the city during the Second World War, the people of London rose to the challenge. There was a desperate scramble to rescue the trapped and wounded as well as tackling the danger…
Samuel Pepys kept his famous diary of London life during the year 1665 when plague ravaged the city – killing thousands. He first noticed the onset of the pestilence when red crosses appeared on a door in Drury Lane. In a matter of a few days, King Death had galloped through the City of London…
Old soldiers didn’t die in Georgian London – they became Charlies. Allegedly these early police were named after the flamboyant monarch Charles II. Though they cut a rather more pathetic figure. Shabby old veterans given something to do and hardly up to the job of tackling your average London criminal. These were watchmen who were…
On the 16th October, 1834, the old Houses of Parliament were completely burnt down by a huge fire. It took several days to extinguish an inferno that engulfed ancient medieval halls, Georgian houses and most of the palace of Westminster. Westminster Hall – a vast space dating back to the Norman period – was only…
This is a curious story about how Sir Walter Raleigh allegedly caught fire and was extinguished by his manservant. Raleigh – swashbuckling adventurer under Queen Elizabeth I (or Queen Bess if you prefer) – and Islington don’t exactly sit together in your mind. But Raleigh and other Elizabethans loved popping over to the village of…
As you come out of Leicester Square towards Charing Cross Road and the Leicester Square tube station, you can cross over at the traffic lights and continue down Cranbourn Street. It’s a pretty innocuous street – very unmemorable. But two hundred years ago, it was the known as Cranbourne Alley and regarded as the “great…
The Tower of London still possesses the axe and “heading block” used for executions right up to the mid-18th century. There’s also a mask that was worn by the executioner. The block is chipped and dented as a result of some considerable use. On this block, the heads of three Scottish rebels – Lords Lovat,…
Here’s a picture of the Brick Lane Mosque – which was built as a protestant church in 1743 for the French Huguenot community and then became a synagogue in the 19th century before its current incarnation as a mosque. Proof, as if it was needed, that London has always been a very mixed up and…
