The horror of the Great Plague of London
The Great Plague of London and how King Charles II fled the city
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A horrific day trip to Georgian London!
A day trip to Georgian London could have involved going to see a prisoner put to death or watching a live amputation by a well known surgeon
The hidden dog cemetery in Hyde Park
There are many hidden treasures in London that I’m still discovering after a lifetime in this city. One that I was completely unaware of until recently was the dog cemetery in Hyde Park. From 1880 till about 1915, about 300 dogs and some cats and birds were interred in a plot of ground near the…
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…
Woman buys rope to hang her husband
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…
When London Bridge was full of houses!
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….
Samuel Pepys – the horror of the London plague
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…
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…
Stealing underwear in a Victorian workhouse
Theft was endemic in Victorian London. Going through court records, one encounters a constant flood of petty stealing. And it wasn’t just precious items like gold watches and jewellery but clothes, bed covers, trousers and even underwear! You have to think of a world where many people had next to nothing. Such was the miserable…
Solomon Eagle predicts the Great Fire of London
Solomon Eagle was a preacher who claimed to predict great events. Just in case nobody was paying attention, he stormed around London with a flaming brazier on his head. During the great plague of 1665, he added to the general misery by screaming at his fellow Londoners that a great fire was about to consume…