London Trivia: Jurassic junket

31 December, 2017 Gibson Square Leave a comment

On 31 December 1853 celebrating the installation of life-sized dinosaur models at Sydenham Park. A 20 strong dinner party was held inside the stomach of the partly completed a concrete iguanodon made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins of the Crystal Palace Company. The model was surrounded by a tent decorated with a chandelier and four plaques honouring famous palaeontologists. Guests were served by waiters, what was on the menu is unknown.

On the 31 December 1923 the chimes of Big Ben were first broadcast by the BBC and every evening since are transmitted live via a microphone

On 31 December 1919 the first woman law student was admitted to study at Lincoln’s Inn which had been in existence since at least 1422

Westminster Catholic Cathedral, Victoria Street stands on the foundations of Tothill Fields Prison demolished in 1884

In 1952 pollution was so bad a theatre performance at Sadler’s Wells had to be abandoned as smog crept into the auditorium

The Palace of Westminster has 8 bars, 6 restaurants, 1,000 rooms, 100 staircases, 11 courtyards, a hair salon, and rifle-shooting range

The harrowing battle scenes in the last hour of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket were filmed at Beckton Gas a latticework and appropriate advertising hoardings added make it believable

Russian for railway station ‘vokzal’ derives from Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens as its first track went from St. Petersburg to a pleasure garden

Arsenal are the only football team to have a Tube station named after them, called Gillespie Road it was renamed in 1932 when the team went to Highbury

Heathrow Airport is so named because the land it was built on was once a sleepy hamlet called Heath Row

Cock Lane didn’t get its name due to any association with poultry, but because it was the only street to be licensed for prostitution

Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg who lived off Farringdon Road predicted there would be a special part in heaven reserved for the English

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.

An urban view

Some pretty uninteresting facts about Big Ben

29 December, 2017 Gibson Square Leave a comment

In a couple of days time, as some even stand out in all weathers, the nation will hold its collective breath and look at a clock, now encased in German scaffolding, and for no reason whatsoever, begin a countdown.

So here are a few facts about this iconic tower, and its timepiece, all of which will look pristine once we have spent £61 million giving it a makeover.

[A] PROFILE template of Big Ben, the largest bell ever cast at Whitechapel Bell Foundry, once stood inside the door of their museum, until the foundry closed this year after 500 years in business.

Big Ben might be Radio 4’s time check of choice, but it’s not London’s largest bell. That accolade goes to the Great Bell at St. Paul’s.

At a diameter of 23ft, it doesn’t even have the Capital’s largest clock face. It’s the ‘Big Benzene’ aloft the Shell Mex Building that can claim big is best.

If you want to get up close and personal, it has a smaller brother at the junction of Vauxhall Bridge Road and Victoria Street. Unfortunately, it’s painted black.

If the capital could keep the noise down you might just discern its chimes 5 miles away.

Originally designed by the famous clockmaker Edward Dent, but it was a lawyer, Edmund Beckett, who refined the design and curiously chose not to patient the modifications, making certain that anyone can copy Big Ben should they so choose.

The first radio broadcast was at the start of New Year 1923.

The mechanism is regulated using a high-tech solution, an old penny or two are either added or removed. The clock gains ?ths of a second for each penny added.

The original hammer was too heavy (they were warned), which then cracked the bell giving the distinctive tone we hear today.

Twice before the bells have been silenced, it first chimed on 11th July 1859, but by that September a crack was discovered causing it to fall silent for 4-years. Repairs to the mechanism in 2007 lasting for 7 weeks and again 1976 for 9 months caused a brief silence for sleeping neighbours.

In 1949, a flock of starlings perched on the minute hand, slowing it by 4.5 minutes.

In 1940, during World War II, before the 9pm BBC Radio News a Silent Minute was introduced to encourage members of the public into contemplation and prayer during the minute when the chimes would normally sound.

Look out for the Ayrton Light at the top of the tower to see if Parliament is in session and earning the fortune we pay them.

The tower leans 0.04 degrees to the north-west, caused, in part, by the construction of the Members underground car park. Pisa, it definitely isn’t.

Now that it’s surrounded by scaffolding, catch it on film and TV: 28 Days Later; V for Vendetta; Lost; Doctor Who; Thunderbirds are Go; and Mary Poppins.

It is the largest 4-faced chiming clock and the 3rd tallest free-standing clock tower in the world.

And finally . . .

A third of the way up the tower at 114 steps is a prison for unruly MPs. It was last used in 1880 when newly elected Charles Bradlaugh, an atheist, refused to swear allegiance to Queen Victoria on the Bible. A pub in Northampton is named in his honour.

Featured image: Clipart-Library.com

Puppydog tails

Christmas Quiz

26 December, 2017 Gibson Square Leave a comment

The presents have been unwrapped; you’ve had more than your fill of turkey; and the kids are ensconced in their bedrooms playing with their latest gadgets. To while away your free time CabbieBlog gives you 20 questions about London, no prizes, just the satisfaction of being as knowledgeable as a London cabbie.

If you have been paying interest to the daily trivia posted @cabbieblog you should know most of the answers.

[B]UT don’t worry you can find the answers lower down beneath the mistletoe. And don’t forget weekly trivia is posted every Sunday. Check it out to arm yourself with enough knowledge to try next year’s Quiz.

Good Luck!

1. Which toilets in one Victorian pub are of such historical interest they have a protection order slapped upon them?

(a) The Princes Louise, High Holborn
(b) The Red Lion, St. James’s
(c) The Flask, Hampstead

2. In Waterloo Place there stands the 124-foot tall Duke of York’s Column. Standing majestically on top is a statute of Prince Frederick, the 2nd son of George III. When it was built, why did wits say the column was so high?

(a) So onlookers would not notice his large nose
(b) So that he could escape his creditors
(c) It gave him a sense of superiority, looking down upon common folk

3. Kasper the Cat joins diners at certain times. Where can this wooden feline be found?

(a) The Savoy Hotel
(b) The Guildhall
(c) The Tower of London

4. The Museum of London has many exhibits worthy of your perusal, but which type of World War II gas mask is on display?

(a) One suitable to protect a horse from breathing noxious gases
(b) A walking stick with a mask hidden within its ferrule
(c) A Mickey Mouse gas mask for a child

5. Attending a service at St. Dunstan-in-the-West Samuel Pepys would record in his famous diary that on the 18th August 1667 he was not as attentive to the sermon as he should have been. What distracted him?

(a) He eat some oysters
(b) He was distracted by a comely woman
(c) He decided to write up his diary for the day

6. Bar Italia coffee shop in Soho is popular with local and tourists alike, but what invention was first demonstrated in a room above?

(a) The television
(b) The world’s first espresso machine
(c) A vacuum cleaner which blew instead of sucked

7. Colonel Pierpoint is celebrated for inventing what life-saving device in the 19th century?

(a) The first traffic island
(b) The first parachute
(c) The world’s first hard helmet

8. Brown’s Hotel in Dover Street bore witness to a London first which took place in a ground-floor room in 1876. What ground breaking event happened?

(a) Roller skates were first demonstrated by its inventor
(b) HP Brown Sauce was invented
(c) The first telephone call

9. In 1905 two brothers named Stratton were convicted of robbery and murder at a paint shop in Deptford High Street. What methodology was used to secure convictions?

(a) The first identikit portrait from a witness, the local milkman
(b) The first case in which fingerprints were successfully used to convict
(c) Their getaway car, which had an early number plate was identified leading to the police tracking them down

10. In the 19th century Radcliffe Highway – now just The Highway – was a dangerous part of London. Nevertheless Charles Jamrach made a living selling what from his store?

(a) Exotic animals
(b) Opium supplied by Chinese seamen
(c) Sex aids

11. What did Sir Richard Whittington (Dick of Lord Mayor fame) in the 15th century pay to have built by the Thames near to modern day Southwark Bridge?

(a) A church
(b) A memorial celebrating his benevolence
(c) A public lavatory seating dozens at a time

12. Playwright and poet Ben Jonson as one might expect is interned in Westminster Abbey’s poets’ corner. But what was unusual about his burial?

(a) He was buried standing up
(b) He was buried at 6pm on 6th June 1666 – all the sixes
(c) His burial was attended by all members of the Royal family

13. By Victoria Gate in Kensington Gardens away from preying eyes is a cemetery. But what lies entombed there in the unconsecrated ground?

(a) Suicide victims
(b) Dogs
(c) Slaves

14. On 17th October 1814 eight people met an untimely and unusual end, but what was the cause of their demise?

(a) The Great London Earthquake
(b) The Great London Fireworks Display
(c) The Great Beer Flood

15. A performance of La Traviata at Sadler’s Wells theatre in 1952 had to be abandoned, but what was the reason?

(a) Smog drifting into the theatre obscured the stage from the audience
(b) The tenor in mid-aria collapsed with a heart attack
(c) Sadler’s Well overflowed flooding the auditorium

16. At the junction of Kensington Gore and Exhibition Road is known by cabbies as ‘Hot and Cold Corner’. Why?

(a) Either you are inundated with work or there’s nothing
(b) The statutes of David Livingstone, explorer of Africa and Ernest Shackleton hero of the Antarctic is to be found there
(c) Cold air rolls off Hyde Park, while the Albert Hall shelters you from the icy blast

17. You probably see it every day, but what is Johnston Sans?

(a) The design of a street waste paper bin
(b) The typeface used on London Underground
(c) French for an Oyster card

18. In a little courtyard off St. James’s Street lays Pickering Place, it once housed an embassy, but which short lived nation-state was represented?

(a) Texas
(b) The Republic of Crimea
(c) The State of Somaliland

19. The Russian word for a railway station is also a main line terminal in London, which one?

(a) Waterloo
(b) Marylebone
(c) Vauxhall

20. London has experienced many ‘Great Storms’, but one in 1703 dislodged a well-known icon, what was it?

(a) The lantern on the roof of St. Paul’s just recently completed
(b) Oliver Cromwell’s head
(c) The plaque commemorating the beheading of King Charles on Whitehall Palace

1. Which toilets in one Victorian pub are of such historical interest they have a protection order slapped upon them?

(a) The Princes Louise, High Holborn. Once the inebriated would be surprised to find the sight of live goldfish swimming majestically around the glass cisterns in the gent’s toilets. Built in 1872, named after Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter it boasts original interior decorative tile work by the firm of W. B. Simpson of Clapham. The building (including the loos) are Grade II listed.

(b) Remembered as the ‘Grand Old Duke of York’ he of marching them up the hill and down again, was the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. Not only upon his death was he in debt to the tune of £2 million, every soldier had 1/- (5p) deducted from his pay to pay for the monument.

3. Kasper the Cat joins diners at certain times. Where can this wooden feline be found?

(a) Superstition has it that 13 diners is unlucky. If your companions make up that unlucky number a 1920s three-foot-high black wooden cat is introduced to a 14th chair, a napkin is placed around his neck and he is served with each course by a diligent waiter.

4. The Museum of London has many exhibits worthy of your perusal, but which type of World War II gas mask is on display?

(c) Micky Mouse gas masks were manufactured in bright primary colours intended to be less distressing to wear for young children.

(b) The young woman responded to his advances by taking several pins out of her pocket and threatened to jab the old reprobate.

6. Bar Italia coffee shop in Soho is popular with local and tourists alike, but what invention was first demonstrated in a room above?

(a) In 1924 John Logie Baird rented an attic room at 22 Frith Street using it as a workshop, it was there on 26th January 1926 members of the Royal Institution made up the first television audience.

7. Colonel Pierpoint is celebrated for inventing what life-saving device in the 19th century?

(a) At his personal expense in 1864 Colonel Pierpoint had London’s first traffic island constructed in St. James’s Street opposite his club in Pall Mall. On its completion his excitement (and possible inebriation) encouraged him to dash across the road to admire his contribution to society. Alas he was knocked down and killed by a passing cab.

8. Brown’s Hotel in Dover Street bore witness to a London first which took place in a ground-floor room in 1876. What ground breaking event happened?

(c) Alexander Graham Bell visited London in 1876 to tell the Government about his latest invention. He chose to stay at Brown’s during his trip — and made the first ever telephone call from the hotel to the family home of the hotel’s owner in Ravenscourt Park.

9. In 1905 two brothers named Stratton were convicted of robbery and murder at a paint shop in Deptford High Street. What methodology was used to secure convictions?

(b) On 27th March 1905 Chapman’s Oil and Paint Shop was raided and the shopkeeper murdered. A thumb mark was left on the emptied cash box. Using a method of identification that had been in use for a couple of years, it was the first time the Crown achieved a conviction.

10. In the 19th century Radcliffe Highway – now just The Highway – was a dangerous part of London. Nevertheless Charles Jamrach made a living selling what from his store?

(a) At Tobacco Dock there is a statue of a small boy in front of a tiger. It commemorates the incident when a fully grown Bengal tiger escaped from Charles Jamrach’s shop which supplied exotic creatures for the circus. Seizing a small boy in its mouth the tiger was persuaded by the shop’s proprietor himself to release the boy unharmed.

11. What did Sir Richard Whittington (Dick of Lord Mayor fame) in the 15th century pay to have built by the Thames near to modern day Southwark Bridge?

12. Playwright and poet Ben Jonson as one might expect is interned in Westminster Abbey’s poets’ corner. But what was unusual about his burial?

(a) He told the Dean of Westminster that ‘six feet long by two feet wide is too much for me: two feet by two feet will do for all I want’. The small grave also, of course, reduced the cost of internment.

13. By Victoria Gate in Kensington Gardens away from preying eyes is a cemetery. But what lies entombed there in the unconsecrated ground?

(b) The Dogs’ Cemetery was started in 1881 by the gatekeeper at Victoria Lodge, a Mr Winbridge, who started burying dogs in the lodge’s garden. The first dog to be buried was called Cherry, a Maltese Terrier, who died of old age. Cherry’s owners used to visit the park regularly and were friends of Mr Winbridge, so when Cherry died they thought it would be a fitting tribute to be buried in Hyde Park. By the time the cemetery closed in 1903, three-hundred tiny burials dotted the grounds.

14. On 17th October 1814 eight people met an untimely and unusual end, but what was the cause of their demise?

(c) Beer was the drink of choice as water was often unsafe. The demand led to brewers constructing huge vats as an economical way of producing the beverage. One such vat burst its hoops which in turn ruptured nearby vats. Eventually more than 323,000 gallons became a tsunami drowning 8 people. The Dominion Theatre stands on the site of the ill-fated Horseshoe Brewery.

15. A performance of La Traviata at Sadler’s Wells theatre in 1952 had to be abandoned, but what was the reason?

(a) It was The Great Smog of 1952, coal fires and industrial emissions had reduced visibility in London to inches, lasting from Friday 5th December to Tuesday, 9th December in those few days over 4,000 would die.

16. At the junction of Kensington Gore and Exhibition Road is known by cabbies as ‘Hot and Cold Corner’. Why?

(b) The Royal Geographical Society building has a statute of Shackleton looking towards Exhibition Road by Charles Jagger, a sculptor best known for war memorials and Livingstone setting his sights on Kensington Gore by Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones.

17. You probably see it every day, but what is Johnston Sans?

(b) Edward Johnston took the popular Gill Sans and re-designed it for all signage on the Underground, apart from slight changes it has remained the same since it was first used in 1916.

18. In a little courtyard off St. James’s Street lays Pickering Place, it once housed an embassy, but which short lived nation-state was represented?

(a) Britain was one of the first nations to recognise the Republic of Texas when it broke away from Mexico in the 1830s, it would later become the twenty-eighth state of the United States.

19. The Russian word for a railway station is also a main line terminal in London, which one?

(c) One theory is that a Russian parliamentary delegation visited London to view a fabulous new invention, the railway. Their hosts from the House of Commons took them over the river to the nearest station, Vauxhall in South London. When the Russians asked what it was called, meaning the type of building, they got the reply ‘Vauxhall’. So vokzal to this day means railway station in Russian.

20. London has experienced many ‘Great Storms’, but one in 1703 dislodged a well-known icon, what was it?

(b) Upon the restoration of the Monarchy Cromwell’s body was disinterred from its tomb in Westminster Abbey, given a posthumous trial and subsequent execution. His head was then placed on a long spike upon the roof of Westminster Hall. It remained there for over 40 years before the storm dislodged the gruesome remains.

Did you manage to answer all twenty questions? Every Sunday CabbieBlog posts 11 pieces of trivia about London. They might help you in answering next year’s Christmas Quiz which will be published on 25th December.

London trivia

London Trivia: Straw bail

24 December, 2017 Gibson Square Leave a comment

On 24 December 1997 Home Secretary, Jack Straw’s 17-year-old son was given police bail after a Daily Mirror journalist following an anonymous tip-off had met him in a pub and been offered a small chunk of cannabis resin for £10 claiming it was “good strong hash”. The editor of the Mirror had phoned Jack Straw to confront them with the story and the minister apparently insisted that his son received no special privileges.

On 24 December 1832 thirteen-year-old Princess Victoria recorded in her diary at Buckingham Palace ‘we then went into the drawing room . . . on tables were placed two trees hung with lights ad sugar ornaments’

The first man to wear a top hat in public caused so much hysteria and commotion in St. James’ that he was arrested for disturbing the peace

During World War II number 77 Baker Street was requisitioned by the Special Operations Executive, using it as a homing station for message-carrying pigeons

Aldgate tube station is built on the site of a plague pit mentioned by Daniel Defoe in Journal of a Plague Year in which over a thousand were buried

The Penderel Oak, High Holborn is named after yeoman farmer, Richard Penderel, who helped Charles II escape by hiding him in a wood

The opening scene in The Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night was shot at Marylebone Station not Liverpool’s Lime Street as depicted

In the mid-19th century Thomas Barry was famous for sailing between Westminster and Vauxhall Bridges in a tub towed by four geese

Smithfield was once the play area of London, where jousting and tournaments took place, later it would be where William Wallace was hanged, drawn and quartered

The Thames still handles more material by tonnage annually than all of London’s airports combined, the equivalent to 400,000 lorries every year

As a boy Charles Dickens worked in a boot polish or blacking factory on Villiers Street off the Strand. Embankment station now occupies the site

Diarist Samuel Pepys buried his parmesan cheese and wine in his garden to protect them from the Great Fire of London in 1666

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.

An urban view

Down Your Alley: Angel Place

22 December, 2017 Gibson Square Leave a comment

Off the north side of Long Lane, opposite St George’s church, only a few strides from the junction with Borough High Street you will find Angel Place.

Years have passed and scenes have changed since Charles Dickens, the man who arguably defined Christmas, would know this area, he went in search of the Marshalsea Prison, where his father was jailed for debts.

[A]NGEL PLACE (then called Angel Court) is still here. It is named after a tavern which stood on the north side of the Court and in the reign of Henry VIII was owned by Richard Fulmerston.

For a number of years, a room had been set aside in the tavern for use as a prison, but Fulmerston was unhappy with the situation and so erected a new building alongside his tavern and surrounded it with a high wall. In later years this building was sold to the Crown who leased it to the Marshal of the King’s Bench for use as a prison. By 1755 the King’s Bench Prison was in a desperate state of repair and was declared inadequate for the custody of prisoners.

The old building was demolished and on the same site, enlarged through the purchase of part of St George’s Fields, a new prison was erected at a cost of £7,800. Who better to describe this little area than the master of story-telling himself, and for the very words we need only turn to the preface to Little Dorrit:

Wandering, however, down a certain adjacent Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, I came to Marshalsea Place, the houses in which I recognised, not only as the great block of the former prison but as preserving the rooms that arose in my mind’s eye when I became Little Dorrit’s biographer. . . . Whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea Goal; will see its narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon the rooms in which the debtors lived; will stand among the crowded ghosts of many miserable years.

The history of the Marshalsea and the King’s Bench Prisons is more than slightly confusing due to the rebuilding and the loose terms applied in those days to each prison. Marshalsea was closed in 1842, twenty-eight years before the death of Dickens (1870) but the King’s Bench continued to receive prisoners until 1869.

Angel Place still has pitted old red bricks resembling those surrounding the prison. On the site of that dreadful place is a tatty garden reached from the passage by ascending a few steps and passing through the wrought iron gates. When taking a stroll down here, the aspect may be vaguely similar to the view that Dickens experienced, although not quite as daunting, but you can still pick up the flavour of the old times.

Down Your Alley: Angel Place

Angel Place: A view from Tennis Street at the east end of this historic alleyway. The tapered brick wall seen here is the only part of the old prison wall still standing. Angel Place is a long, narrow alleyway connecting the present residential area of Tennis Street at its east end with the historic Borough High Street at the western end. The alleyway forms part of the site of the former Marshalsea Prison, before that the Surrey County Gaol. Southwark Council ‘improved’ it with new lighting and paving in 2004, and in 2010 added a series of inscribed stone plaques in the pavement. By Stephen Craven (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Much of the original source material for Down Your Alley has been derived from Ivor Hoole’s GeoCities website. The site is now defunct and it is believed Ivor is no more. Thankfully much of Ivor’s work has been archived by Ian Visits and Phil Gyford.