The great London tornado of 1091
In the year 1091 a huge tornado hit the city of London tearing down its famous bridge as Tony McMahon discovers
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Trafalgar Square – the history you didn’t know!
Trafalgar Square is a relatively recent addition to the centre of London dating back 150 years and it has a strange and turbulent history
The mysterious Mummy in the City of London
The church of St James’s Garlickhythe in the City of London has a little secret that’s not put on display anymore. It’s a mummy that used to be a key attraction. In a 1937 guide to London, there’s a photo of what’s claimed to be a medieval body. It was discovered in 1839 when the…
First a church then a synagogue and now a mosque
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…
Terrible accident at St Mary-le-Strand
St Mary-le-Strand has been an unloved London church, viewed as a bit of a problem. This wasn’t helped by a terrible accident in the early nineteenth century, which I’ll detail below, caused by its shoddy construction. In 1887, The Daily Telegraph asked: “What is to be done with the internally handsome, externally cumbrous, and obstructive…
LGBT men hanged in London – in 1743
In 1743 two LGBT men were hanged in London for the crime of sodomy and as Tony McMahon discovers, being outwardly gay was a very dangerous business