A man of many parts

It’s 1665 and you’ve caught the coach from York to London and are recuperating at the White Hart Inn on Bishopsgate prior to a business meeting the following day. The merchant you are meeting has left word that he will meet you outside St Botolph’s church at midday. The Inn being being next door to…

Stop and have a cuppa

Sometimes you walk past a building and give it no attention whatsoever, it doesn’t matter how grand or humble it is, it just doesn’t ask you to stop and take a look at it. The small shabby building in the middle of the photo and it’s neighbours have been slowly lapsing into decay for as…

The three ships of Great Marlborough Street

Great Marlborough Street runs roughly parallel to Oxford Street emerging into Regent Street. One of it’s most famous confluences is Carnaby Street, the once vibrant centre of 1960s fashionable London. At the Regent street end the street definitely has the retail vibe of the surrounding area, but as you travel eastwards it becomes more non…

Terrorism 17th century style

In the last post, Hide and Seek in Moorgate, I relayed the story of the run up to the English Civil War and how five members of Parliament escaped the clutches of Charles I. One of these five was John Pym at the time the leader of the opposition in the Commons and staunch Puritan.…

Hide and Seek in Moorgate

I’ve had an interest in the English Civil War for some time, but have never really got to grips with it, that is until this Christmas when I received a really good book on the subject. As far as actual battles go, London, or to be exact it’s suburbs only had two. The Battle of…

Ham Yard, an apt setting

Philanthropy at Christmas comes in many forms whether it is sending money to an appeal, donating to a food bank or possibly even volunteering to serve Christmas dinner to those who find themselves homeless. I’m afraid I can only own up to one of these and its not the last one. I came across a…

“Why was the Snowman sorting through the carrots?”

The answer can only be found in one place and that is the inside of a Christmas cracker, for it is one of the many terrible jokes that have become a festive institution. What has the Christmas cracker and a rather hideous drinking fountain have in common? No not another one, this is a fact…

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting…..stolen!

I came across a seasonal tale recently, one that Charles Dickens if he’d been alive at the time might have woven into one of his stories about the metropolis. It’s a tale with a lesson, one that warns against greed during the festive season. It also goes to show that as today Christmas to some…

Seasons Greetings

Not a flake of snow or a plump robin to be seen in the picture above, but this grand building in Chancery Lane is probably the birth place of the modern Christmas card. Whether you like them or not, Christmas cards are a part of the season. They may feel like they’ve been around forever,…

Chez Scrooge

Following on from the last post and keeping up the festive theme, I thought I’d spend a very wet Wednesday in the warm searching for the home of Ebenezer Scrooge. Dickens describes Ebenezer’s abode as follows,”He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms in…