London is among the most vibrant, fascinating cities in the world, seemingly limitless in its variety, but it’s also sprawling and cacophonous, making impossible demands on our time, attention and purse.
Henry Eliot and Matt Lloyd-Rose, Curiocity, in pursuit of London
On 29 November 1814, The Times, known as the London Times was printed by steam, instead of manual power, the first newspaper in the world to be produced by this method. Its owner John Walter, is said to have surprised a room full of printers who were preparing hand presses for the production of that day’s paper. He showed them an already completed copy of the paper and announced, “The Times is already printed – by steam”.
On 29 November 1855, the Nightingale Fund was inaugurated at Willis’s Rooms, King Street, St. James’s Square, establishing the formal training of nurses and auxiliary staff
It was at Francis Bacon’s studio at Narrow Street, Limehouse that he met lover George Dyer as Dyer attempted to burgle the place
The dome of the O₂ weighs less than the air contained underneath it; there’s only one curved piece of glass in the Gherkin – the one right at the top
In 1862, Dr Thomas Orton, one of London’s most senior physicians, established four sibling’s deaths in Limehouse were caused by vivid green wallpaper whose constituent was arsenic
Under Paddington Green is a disused Cold War command centre its entrance covered by a bush, nearby are the top-security jail cells for terrorist suspects inside London’s Paddington Green Police Station
A fight with a fashion designer at a party is said to have inspired Ray Davis to write The Kinks hit Dedicated Follower of Fashion
During World War II the south moat at the Tower of London was used by the Yeoman Warders as allotments to grow vegetables
The neon sign on Hornsey Road Baths is the sole survivor of 12 similar signs commissioned at various London baths in the 1930s
The eastern extension of the Jubilee line is the only Underground line to feature glass screens to deter ’jumpers’
Constructed in 1850 Crystal Palace had nearly 1 million square feet of glass, about a third of all the glass produced in England that year
The Clapham South wartime bomb shelter was later used to house the first ever Jamaican immigrants who arrived in 1948 on the Empire Windrush
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.
When you want West Central Street you don’t wait until you get to Clerkenwell before telling the driver that you have mumbled “West” Central Street.
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