The City of London Corporation’s most senior decision-making body, the Court of Common Council, has voted to make the Square Mile the first area in the UK with a 15mph speed limit, subject to government approval. This means the fastest form of transport in the financial centre of London will be an electric scooter.
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Johnson’s London Dictionary: Kew Gardens
KEW GARDENS (n.) Botanical spectacle that is ill-named as ingress doth seems unhampered by those waiting at entrance
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
Protected: A pedant’s guide to London
London in Quotations: Sándor Márai
London is a huge, stony desert: even boredom feels endless there.
Sándor Márai (1900-1989), Portraits of a Marriage
London Trivia: St Ethelburg-the-Virgin destroyed
On 24 April 1993, an IRA truck bomb exploded 23ft from the church of St Ethelburg-the-Virgin within Bishopsgate, totally destroying it. First recorded in 1250, and sustaining only modest damage in the Blitz, the church was rebuilt.
On 24 April 1963 HRH Princess Alexandra of Kent married Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey. The marriage was televised worldwide to an estimated 200 million.
The Clink a small prison whose name entered the English language as slang term for gaol, the prison was for those who ran amok in Bankside’s brothels
Strand was the first road in London to have a numbered address Charles II’s Secretary of State residence was No 1 near Northumberland Avenue
Florence Nightingale’s statue outside St Thomas’s Hospital is a glass-fibre copy as the original was stolen in 1970
Near The Houses of Parliament the Silver Cross public house is a licensed brothel as the privilege granted by Charles I hasn’t been revoked
Both Samuel Pepys and Rudyard Kipling both once lived at 47 Villiers Street, Strand now it is Gordon’s Wine Bar
Harrods installed its first escalator in 1898 and dispensed brandy to gentlemen and Epsom Salts for ladies to help the shock of its movement
London’s oldest sporting-related pavilion is at Syon House, built in 1803 by the Duke of Northumberland so his wife could watch regattas in comfort
The River Westbourne was funnelled above a platform on Sloane Square in a large iron pipe suspended from girders. It remains in place today
The original Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair was founded by Lord Byron’s butler, James Brown recently refurbished and is now owned by Rocco Forte
The largest clock in London is not situated on St Stephens Tower (Big Ben) but on the Shell Mex House which is on the Strand
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.
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