The Sign Of The Two Headed Swan

I was prompted to take this uninspiring photograph after coming across an old image of the same location. The first picture is Gresham Street in 2020 and the second image is the same street a hundred years earlier in 1920. The most prominent building in the second image is Pickfords the removal company and I…

Ambrosia

ambrosia /amˈbrəʊzɪə/ noun 1. GREEK & ROMAN MYTHOLOGY The food of the gods, often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. It was brought to the gods in Olympus by doves and served by either Hebe or Ganymede at the heavenly feast. Not sure about the dove reference, but the rest of…

Cock And Pye

To make a Peacock Pye. Pick it, and leave the Feathers on the Neck, cut the Neck off close to the Body, skin the Neck close to the Head, and cut it off; put a Stick tight into the Skin up to the Head, dry it in an Oven; cut off the Legs, and keep…

……..AND THE BONUS BALL IS

The Nation Lottery started in the UK on the 19th November 1994, however, this was not the first nationwide lottery to be run in Britain. “The Lottery” by William Hogarth 1721 showing the two lottery wheels. The first state lottery was the idea of Master of the Royal Mint, Thomas Neale in order to raise…

The Yorkshire Stingo

At the Lisson Grove end of Marylebone Road, you will find Westminster Magistrates Court. What to my mind is a rather drab building has been enlivened by the addition of an art installation by artist and blacksmith Bex Simon. The artwork references Marylebone life and in particular the former building that sat on the site…

Owen’s Fields

The entrance to this small park was once the entrance to a school playground that separated Dame Alice Owen’s Girls’ School and Owen’s Boys’ School and is now known as Owen’s Fields in Clerkenwell, London EC1. The girl’s school was built in 1890 and was a substantial building with underground cellars. At the outbreak of…

Clerkenwell

Today’s Clerkenwell is popular with creative firms and dotted with smart apartment blocks in converted warehouses, with many good restaurants and a great street food market held in Exmouth Market. Clerkenwell is quite a large area, running from Pentonville in the north to Smithfield Market in the south. Some parts of the district are covered…

The Bridge of Sighs

So, you have the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, then there’s the one in Oxford and another in Cambridge. I counted another twelve in Europe and North America. The one I want to write about today no longer exists, or rather it has been replaced by a newer bridge, and that is Waterloo Bridge which…

A Little Bit of The Pharaohs In Piccadilly

Egyptian House 170-173 Piccadilly is one of those functional early 20th century buildings that in the next hundred or so years people will begin to love. It’s a bit of a hybrid, echoes of Georgian and Victorian architecture muddled up with just a glimpse of what was ahead in terms of Art Noveau and Art…

The Strange Tale of Mr Fribourg and Mr Treyer …….. and Mr Fribourg and Mr Pontet

Friborg and Treyer were fashionable snuff sellers in the 18th century. Based at 34 Haymarket their clientele included King George IV, the actor David Garrick and all-round dandy Beau Brummell. The Fribourg’s had originally come to England from Switzerland, and the claim is, that the firm was started in 1720 by P. Fribourg, although the…