While this review is to draw your attention to the former Greenwich Palace commemorated by an easily missed stone plaque I will also outline, in a very summary form, the royal connection with Greenwich. Continue reading “Greenwich Palace (Placentia) and the Royals”
One of the most mementos events to take place in the history of London started in Thomas Farriner’s bakery in Pudding Lane on the morning of 2 September 1666. What occurred on this day and the three days following was to very literally change the face of London. The event to which I refer was, of course, the Great Fire of London. Continue reading “The Monument to the Great Fire – The Monument”
Having moved around a bit (always a problem with magic train platforms, I guess) Platform 9 ¾ appears to have settled down now, albeit slightly out of place, at a spot to the right of Platform 9 on the New Western Departures Concourse at Kings Cross Station. Continue reading “Platform 9 ¾ – Kings Cross Station”
On the death of his long time wife, Eleanor of Castile, at Harby in Nottinghamshire, close to the city of Lincoln, in 1290, King Edward I, commonly known as Edward Longshanks due to his tall statue for the time, was grief stricken and distraught and spoke of his “Queen of Good Memory” as he referred to her thus: “whom living we dearly cherished, and whom dead we cannot cease to love”. Continue reading “Eleanor’s Cross at Charing”
If one were the try and draw the limits of “London” on a map and somehow managed to establish a geographic centre today, by tomorrow it would have moved.
While the geographical centre of London cannot be defined what is generally agreed upon are various points from which distances from London were and are measured including the Marble Arch, St Paul’s Cathedral, Hicks Hall in Clerkenwell and the doors of St Mary-le-Bow church among others. Continue reading “Centre of Empire and London”
Between Paternoster Square and St Paul’s Cathedral, behind a fence, you will find this water pump inscribed thus:
“Erected by St Faith’s Parish 1819” Continue reading “St Faith’s Water Pump”
Access to the Middle Ages City of London was via one of a number of barriers/gates set up to control movement and regulate traffic into the City and protect trade within the City. Continue reading “Temple Bar Gate”
In 1958 a rather scraggly bear from darkest Peru turned up at Paddington Station with a battered suitcase and a label around his neck saying, “Please Look After This Bear. Thank you.” Continue reading “From Darkest Peru to Paddington Station”
I feel it rather fitting that this, my first review on London, is about something upon which the very future of the City is inextricably dependent. Continue reading “The London Stone and London’s Survival”
The Rambling Wombat 