All posts by Gibson Square

A Licensed Black London Cab Driver I share my London with you . . . The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Previously Posted

Previously Posted: Formally Off Alley

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For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Formerly Off Alley (28.01.11)

This little alley close to Charing Cross Station commemorates York House which once occupied a 7-acre site overlooking the river Thames.

Originally owned until the Dissolution in 1536 by the Bishops of Norwich, Henry VIII then passed it on to an old friend the Duke of Suffolk and in 1624 the estate eventually came into the possession of George Villiers, The Duke of Buckingham.

Villiers restored the bishop’s old estate and built the magnificent York Watergate which survives marooned in Embankment Gardens.

Villiers was murdered in 1628 by a Puritan fanatic, but the Duke’s wife lived there until she lost the property in the Civil War. Her son, the second Duke, fortuitously fell in love with the daughter of York House’s new owner and on marriage regained his family’s home.

He had a better eye for heiresses than finance, for by 1672 he found himself in hoc up to his neck and sold the house to speculators to redevelop the site. The second Duke of Buckingham secured £30,000 for the house and gardens to repay his debts.

But one stipulation of the sale Buckingham insisted upon was that the developer Nicholas Barbon record literally every sound and syllable of his Grace’s name and title; Buckingham Street; Villiers Street; Duke Street and George Street still remain.

But unfortunately the Burgers of Westminster don’t possess the wit of Nicholas Barbon when he named the streets, for Of Alley has been given the rather prosaic title of York Place.

A footnote: George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham started the first foxhunt in England, The Bilsdale Hunt in 1668 and later started the Sinnington Hunt in 1680. He died from a chill after digging for a fox above Kirkbymoorside. At his death in 1687, the title again became extinct.

Thinking allowed

Steve Wright remembered

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The most often asked of cabbies is the question “Who you had in the back?” A rather indelicate way of phrasing the request to my mind, but this week with the untimely death at 69 of Steve Wright got me reminiscing.

My first brush with celebrities wasn’t very auspicious. Soon after gaining my badge, I picked up DJ Steve Wright and his young son from a restaurant. Upon arriving near Swiss Cottage he asked his 10-year-old son if he had the front door key. Needlessly to say the lad didn’t but suggested that they returned to the restaurant to see if the keys had been left on the table. A futile trip back to central London ensued with Steve returning from the restaurant to say the keys hadn’t been handed in, then it was back to their house with the pair of them walking off to a securely locked home.

Thinking allowed

Putting on a show

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My neighbour was burgled recently, and within 10 minutes three police cars, and six coppers turned up. The next day, forensics arrived and by the third day, we had posted details of the break-in and advice through our letterboxes. Then nothing, I’m pretty sure this is the usual way police go about ‘reassuring the public’, reactive not proactive, that we once had from the boys in blue.

Puppydog tails

Johnson’s London Dictionary: London Lickpenny

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LONDON LICKPENNY (n.) Something that licks up, or is a drain upon, one’s money, from an early 15th-century ballad that today doth refer to the price of London housing.

Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon

A window on My World

Trusted Places

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I wrote about the National Trust last year, and despite its annoying agenda, by lecturing us about the guilt we should feel visiting their properties which were built on dodgy proceeds, after over 40 years I’m still a member, and today my 2024 NT handbook arrived, from the small niche charity that I joined many decades ago, the Trust has now become a commercial leviathan.

Now the Trust is no friend of postmen, I should know after lugging great sacks of mail on my round in the past, and it was with a great thud that awoke the dog that my National Trust slot hit the mat.

I have grown old, now becoming typical of the Trust’s membership demographic, but now the package’s contents that once reflected my age group have disappeared, naturally its contents were wrapped in the predictable compostable bag, but leaflets like that grovelling letter begging me to sign up a friend; Scotts of Stow catalogue; insurance offer for the over 50s; offer to receive a free copy of Which magazine; holiday bond share scheme (as recommended by Judith Chalmers); advert for walking holidays in Austria; mini NT garden catalogue;  private medical cover; invitation to join the RSPB; and a National Trust car windscreen sticker, all are missing.

In fact, flicking through the magazine only three adverts appear, Forthglade dog food, Starling Bank and Sanderson wallpaper, there aren’t any classifieds at the back.

So are advertising shunning this veritable charity or is the National Trust so large these days it doesn’t need propping up with pesky advertising?

I haven’t used my Trust card since before Covid, but I still maintain my subscription since this is one of the few charities that gets my support. This year I should try harder to visit some buildings nearer home. There aren’t many Trust properties in London, so I thought I’d knock up the following list and see how many more I can check off as the year progresses.

National Trust properties in London that I have, or haven’t been to:

✅ Bluecoat School (this is just a shop)
❌ Carlyle’s House (Chelsea townhouse and Victorian literary hub)
❌ Eastbury Manor House (Despite a friend once having a working responsibility here, I’ve yet to visit)
✅ Fenton House (A country house in Hampstead with a lot of musical instruments)
❌ George Inn (London’s last galleried inn)
✅ Ham House (Stuart mansion beside the Thames)
❌ Lindsey House (Chelsea townhouse, only open during Open House weekend)
❌ Morden Hall Park (Once a private family estate, now incorporating the Trust’s only garden centre)
✅ Osterley Park and House (So inspired by the Robert Adam decorations I spotted a gardener there with tattoos to match)
❌ Petts Wood (Ancient woodland and memorial to William Willett who gave us British Summer Time)
✅ Rainham Hall (Small house, unfortunately, you have to park in a Havering Council car park, just watch the time or you’ll get a ticket)
❌ Red House (William Morris’s house, still haven’t been despite always promising to go)
✅ ‘Roman’ Baths (I had to find this in Strand Lane on The Knowledge, not much to look at ‘thou)
✅ Sutton House and Breaker’s Yard (A favourite, Hackney boasts this fine Tudor townhouse near where I would have my cab fixed offering great lunches)
❌ 575 Wandsworth Road (Bring a pair of slippers to protect the hand-painted floors)
✅ 2 Willow Road (Ernö Goldfinger’s modernist Hampstead Heath hideaway, I visited this property on my own as my wife doesn’t do modern)