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…

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…

Can I have that to go please?

There is at the western end of Fleet Street an opening to an alleyway so small that it is often easy to walk past and not notice it is there. It goes by the quaint name of Hen & Chicken Court. It appears named on John Rocque’s map of 1746 but is shown on maps…

Greek Street, Then and Now

I’ve always found Greek Street in Soho to be a bit of an oasis, if a slightly shabby one when compared to some of it’s more garish neighbours. With the relative tranquillity at its northern end of Soho Square it’s always struck me as a street that’s a bit more laid back, perhaps not as…

Last chance to see… (well for a while anyway)

If you’ve never visited the Museum of London near the Barbican then you’ve got four months to do so as it’s closing. The museum will shut its present site in order to facilitate the move to its new home which will be ready to open in 2025. The new site which is currently in a…

Mr Pattypan

It was not my intention to mention turtles again so soon after my last post on the subject titled Cowabunga dude, but I came across some additional information while researching pubs within the area of the Bank of England. I was reading about a wine bar named Birch’s in nearby Angel Court which existed up…

Cowabunga dude!

“On the contrary! I had two flagons of claret and a double helpingof curried turtle!  I can assure you: it’s no holds barred withus at the annual communion-wine tasting.” So says Lord Melchett in an episode of Blackadder. The claret was obviously readily available, but where would you have gone to purchase the main ingredient…

Dazed and confused

Sometimes London can leave me feeling slightly bemused, it is a city of contradictions, double meanings and inconsistency, but I always think that I’m in a much better position to understand these than those who don’t know the capital just as well. A long time ago I posted a piece called name theory on mispronunciation…

Dustbin Day

While looking at things underground and specially in the last two posts regarding the job known as Toshing, I came across references to several strange occupations. Within the list there was Dustman, which I somewhat disregarded as being a bit banal. However, I found another text that when I read it cast the role in…

What a Shambles

Shambles is a term for an open air slaughterhouse and meat market. Streets of that name were so called from having been the sites on which butchers killed and dressed animals for consumption. As far as I can ascertain there are only about ten streets or areas left in the UK that are known as “The Shambles”. Manchester has one as do Sevenoaks,…