On 22 June 1953, Reginald Christie was tried for the murder of his wife at 10 Rillington Place, he had previously admitted to 7 murders, corpses were found in the house, garden and shed.
On 22 June 1814, the first cricket match was played at the new Lord’s cricket ground in St. John’s Wood between Marylebone and Hertfordshire
On 22 June 1535 John Fisher was martyred at the Tower refusing to submit to the Act of Succession his head was displayed on London Bridge
Waterstone’s elegant premises in Piccadilly was the world’s first steel-framed shop built at the time for Simpsons the previous owner
50 Berkeley Square is reported to be the most haunted house in London, the attic room is haunted by a young woman who died there, and a whole range of deaths followed throughout the 19th Century
The Thames is the second oldest geographical name in the country only Kent pre-dates it. Julius Caesar called it Tamesis, no one knows why
Lilian Baylis, the manager of the Old Vic, cooked her meals backstage during the show and the aroma filled the theatre
The Great Eastern Hotel once boasted two Masonic temples, its own railway siding and weekly sea water deliveries for its natural brine baths
Old English skittles, once popular in pubs across the southeast, but now confined to a single alley at the Freemasons’ Arms in Downshire Hill, Hampstead
A taxi rate of a shilling (5p) a mile was established in an Act of 1662 by King Charles II it was not increased until 1950 nearly 300 later
St. Margaret Pattens Church in Rood Lane has a memorial to James Donaldson, a ‘City Garbler’, and a person who specialised in selecting spices
The Japanese term for a business suit is a sebiro, a simple transliteration of Savile Row a street famous for London’s finest tailors
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.
Where Rillington Place was situated was on the other side of the Westway Flyover behind North Kensington Ambulance Station in Malton Road, where I worked for almost 20 years. It had been renamed Ruston Mews, as local people did not want to be associated with the murders.
Best wishes, Pete.
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