For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

The Spirit of London (06.06.13)

One of the projects that I have been most proud of is my contribution to The Spirit of London, a magnificent coffee-table book, produced by Anthony Osmond-Evans to celebrate the London Olympics and HM Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. The book which was presented to Her Majesty was also given to all athletes competing in the London 2012 Olympics. The paints with a broad brush the changing seasons, personalities and cultures, which make up the colourful mosaic that is London today. In addition to my contribution the Mayor of London Boris Johnson and the Lord Mayor both wrote forewords for the book.

A Cabbie’s London Spirit by David Styles

Any artist or photographer will tell you that professionally they observe the world around them in ways that others take for granted, and it’s this same attention to detail that’s needed when one undertakes The Knowledge, the qualification required to become a London cabbie; every street, club, bar, church, hotel and even blue plaques must be committed to memory.

In pursuit of all these facets of London the student discovers that there is more to London than is apparent at first sight. Just like a photographer they stop looking at the features of London in isolation and try to put them into some context of London’s history and its people.

The Knowledge was introduced in 1851 after complaints that cabbies didn’t know where they were going by visitors to the Great Exhibition in pursuit of obtaining the Knowledge a student discovers that some streets in the City; Milk Street, Poultry, Goldsmith Street are named after the goods once sold there, or Old Jewry was an area where Jewish money lenders lived before being expelled by King Edward I.

On the Knowledge when given London Stone to locate in Cannon Street a little research suggests that London’s prosperity was thought to depend on London Stone’s safekeeping and that the Romans could have used the limestone block as the point to measure all distances from Londinium.

While London Bridge enabled London’s cab trade in the 16th century to challenge the watermen’s monopoly to go south of the river ferrying wealthy City merchants to Southwark so they could enjoy the delights of the gaming houses and stews (brothels) on Bankside in an area owned by the Bishops of Winchester and known as the Liberty of the Clink – unregulated by the city authorities.

The latest place for Knowledge students to find – The Shard – London’s newest building nearing completion at London Bridge Quarter is the European Union’s tallest building and students will be expected to know its formal name – London Bridge Tower – and the entrance to the 5-star Shangri-La Hotel within its walls.

London’s longevity as the world’s premier city is the result of generations of resourceful, hard-working individuals coming together to improve their lives and in so doing adding another strata of history, business and culture in this incredible city for future Knowledge students to go out and find.

The words of Samuel Johnson should be the mantra for any prospective Knowledge student:
“Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts . . . that the wonderful immensity of London consists.”

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

What’s in a name? (31.05.13)

It is the Celts who probably named the Thames. It is thought by some to come from the Old English word ‘Temese’, meaning ‘to flow turbidly’. A simple name for a river full of detritus you might think, but it was probably the only waterway in the region that actually flowed, even if a little muddily.

The river’s sinuous looping remains central to the idea of London and is frequently used on graphic devices representing the capital even the BBC’s Eastenders uses it on the titles.

Today we Londoners refer to this lower stretch of England’s longest river as, well, ‘The River’ in the definite article as if it was the only river that existed, or at least the only one that mattered – which of course it is.

Ham comes from a bend in the shore, similar to ‘ham’ from the bend of the knee, a cut of meat from the thigh of the hind leg of certain animals, especially pigs. Hampton gets its name from a pig’s anatomy.

At times it has erroneously been given a male gender and nicknamed Old Father Thames a kind of post-modern quasi-tutelary deity when in reality at times it has flooded and rather than protected Londoners has taken lives.

Over time most goods that entered London came via The River, so landing places were crucial. In Old English the word for a landing place was Hythe, some locations on The River’s foreshore still bear this out: Rotherhithe or cattle harbour from which cattle may have been shipped across The River for the market at Smithfield. Greenhithe and Bablock Hythe in Oxfordshire are also locations of mediaeval docks.

Lambs were landed just west of Westminster – you could say today politicians act like a flock of sheep – but from that, we get the corruption, Lambeth.

Further, upriver Chelsea was where the chalk was landed and Putney (once Puttenhuthe, possibly where hawks were landed, but more probably named after a man who had hawk-like features).

Greenwich was first recorded in 964, its name derives from the Old English for a green trading place or harbour. At Shadwell, its name is derived from a shallow spring or stream, not a shady well as some might think of the area.

Further downriver Woolwich unsurprisingly is named after a trading place for wool, while its neighbour Thamesmead sounds as if it should be a bucolic place to enjoy a glass of mead.

Thamesmead’s name in fact was the winning entry in a newspaper competition. The area’s topography of lakes and canals relieving the starkness of the built environment was once dubbed ‘the town of the 21st century. I doubt if many of its residents today would agree with that sentiment.