High Lords, deep Statesmen, / Duchesses, and Whores, / All ranks and stations, Publicans and Peers, / Grooms, Lawyers, / Fiddlers, Bawds, and Auctioneers; / Prudes and Coquettes, the Ugly and the Fair, / The Pert, the Prim, the Dull, the Debonair; / The Weak, the Strong, the Humble and the Proud, / All help’d to form the motley, mingled Crowd.
Count William Combe (1741-1823)
On 24 January 1907 William Whiteley was shot dead outside the office of his own store by 29-year-old Horace George Raynor, who then turned the gun on himself. Raynor, who survived, claimed to be the illegitimate son of the store’s owner by his Whiteley’s long-term mistress, former shop girl, Louie Turner. Raynor’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He was released in 1919 on licence.
On 24 January 1965 Winston Churchill following a stroke died at his home at Hyde Park Gate aged 90, he ordered his coffin leave London from Waterloo just to annoy General de Gaulle
Acid Bath Murderer Haigh dissolved his victims in a house now occupied by the Kentucky Fried Chicken Gloucester Road
On 24 January 1956 plans were unveiled for homes in Barbican a public inquiry considered plans to build in the area left devastated by war
During the plague of 1665 Londoners lived on huge rafts floating on the Thames in an attempt to escape the pestilence
The howitzer sculpture at Hyde Park Corner is pointed at the Somme – but if it was a real, its range would mean it would hit Crystal Palace
The Travellers Club in Pall Mall is the fictional start to Jules Verne’s story Around The World In Eighty Days
Hidden under the Ministry of Defence are Cardinal Wolsey’s wine cellars from the Whitehall Palace which burned down in 1698
The Racing Driver’s Handbook on how to behave on a racetrack is called The Blue Book the same as the Knowledge book of runs for cabbies
Only five Underground stations have ‘X’ in their names: Uxbridge, Brixton, Oxford Circus, Vauxhall and Croxley
The Bowler Hat is named after Mr Bowler who made it but Locks the Hatters call it the Coke after Mr Coke who ordered it
London cabbie George King founded the Aetherius Society to prevent the annihilation of Earth by improving cooperation with alien species
Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
A guide to the symbols used here and source material can be found on the Trivial Matter page.
Sykes & Son Limited based on Essex Street, just off Strand since 1759 Is moving. As London’s oldest builder Sykes & Son was formed by John Willis in 1759 and its earliest records show that it worked at St Clement Dane’s Church in 1759 – where it worked again some 250 years later. Other clients include the Tower of London, Victoria & Albert Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and English Heritage.
They haven’t remained in the same Essex Street building [featured]: 1759-1799 at number 23; 1799-1881 at number 47; 1881-1895 at number 9; 1895-1949 at number 10; 1949-1969 at number 8; 1969-2020 they moved to 23 Devereux Court which is a small turning off Essex Street.
They have worked on Royal palaces, world-renowned museums, galleries and universities but a new possible client for the company has been uncovered, ironically at the same time, Sykes moved to Bloomsbury.
At 54A High Street, High Barnet a crown post timber roof was found intact dating to 1397, or perhaps earlier, which would make it the oldest known surviving timber structure in London. To put it into perspective Westminster Hall with its huge hammer-beam roof, commissioned by Richard II was completed in 1401.
This shop was being converted from a hairdresser to a florist when the discovery was made. Built-in the days when High Barnet was on the route of animal drovers who stopped the night at taverns or perhaps sold animals at a fair. Barnet fare is one of the most well known and oldest in the country.
At some point, it is thought the building was amalgamated into a group of taverns that became the Mitre, which was established in 1633 and is Barnet’s oldest former coaching inn.
Analysis by Historic England has shown that the oldest timbers were from trees felled between 1330 and 1362, those mature trees would have been saplings at the time of the Norman Conquest.
Iam re-reading my old copy of Curious London by cabbie Hugh Pearman, retailing in 1951 at the very reasonable price of 2/6d (12½p) and reminded of the days when I would kick my heels in St. John Churchyard while waiting for my cab to be fixed in a nearby garage.
Written in braille a memorial tablet is affixed to the church’s railings. It is in memory of ‘Blind Fred’, apparently a cheery match seller who for many years had his pitch on this spot.
⠠⠕⠝⠑ ⠞⠓⠊⠝⠛ ⠠⠊ ⠅⠝⠕⠺⠂ ⠞⠓⠁⠞⠂ ⠺⠓⠑⠗⠑⠁⠎ ⠠⠊ ⠺⠁⠎ ⠃⠇⠊⠝⠙⠂ ⠝⠕⠺ ⠠⠊ ⠎⠑⠑. ⠠⠚⠕⠓⠝ ⠊:⠃⠑
The above braille reads: “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. John 9:25.”.
As Hackney churchyards had been closed for burials since the second half of the 19th century, Fred was buried in Bow (Tower Hamlets) Cemetery.
More about Fred including his picture selling matches can be found on the Love East site.
In the graveyard of St. John, buried in the vault of the household she served is Elizabeth Brown, a domestic servant who, so the inscription on the tomb informs us, worked for the Jubbs, a local family, for 89 years, surely a world record for long service.
The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
