A vision of the little house in Soho flickered across his mind’s eye, his mother at a desk, writing in her journal, with hazy sunlight streaming through the morning windows. The woman inhabited a world he had once thought his own – a world of publishers and reliable suppliers. A London that was confident and competent amid its grey, puddle-strewn streets.
Sara Sheridan (b.1968), On Starlit Seas
On 11 February 1862 Elizabeth Siddal died from an overdose. Her grief stricken husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti touchingly placed his notebook in the coffin before internment and buried her in Highgate Cemetery. Seven years later, and presumably suffering from writers’ block he exhumed the body to retrieve his notebook. Her body was said to have no trace of decomposition, probably as a sop to poor old Dante.
On 11 February 1987 at Cynthia Payne was acquitted of 9 charges of controlling prostitutes at her home, in 1978 a police raid had found elderly men exchanging luncheon vouchers for sexual entertainment
Beneath an unmarked alleyway off Sans Walk, Clerkenwell hides the labyrinth that was the House of Detention
Holborn’s Dolphin Tavern contains an old clock with hands frozen at the time when the pub was hit during a 1915 Zeppelin raid
Covent Garden is haunted by William Terris who met an untimely death nearby in 1897 Farringdon has the Screaming Spectre a milliner
It was at The Garrick Club, 15 Garrick Street that Stephen Ward met Soviet Captain Yevgeny Ivanov implicated in the Profumo Affair
Actress and singer Dame Gracie Fields (born Stansfield in Rochdale) once lived at 72A Upper Street, Islington
The Garrick Club was founded in 1831. Many legendary actors, writers and artists have been members, from Charles Dickens to Lord Olivier
Alexandra Palace once famous for its horse racing at ‘The Frying Pan’ it was the last racecourse in London until its closure in 1970
The former poet laureate John Betjeman created Metroland series, a homage to the people and places served by the Metropolitan line in 1973
Baring Brothers, the former merchant bankers on Bishopsgate, helped William Pitt the Younger finance the Napoleonic Wars
The very first Salvation Army hostel was opened by General William Booth at 21 West India Dock Road in February 1888
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.
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.
The Excalibur Estate is threatened with demolition, but unlike an Arthurian legend there are no Knights of the Round Table galloping to the fair maiden’s rescue.
In a part of Catford that few cabbies would know, or travel to, against the odds, there is the last surviving estate in London of post-war prefabricated houses (“prefabs”), some 187 two-bed roomed homes with St. Mark’s a prefabricated church which were built for bombed out Londoners and given road names such as Pelinore or Mordred by someone in the planning department all those years ago with a liking for Arthurian tales.
After the Second World War 150,000 prefabs were built across Britain. Created to accommodate homeless families with young children, these “palaces for the people” as they were called at the time were synonymous not only of comfort and luxury but also a feeling not lost on the demobbed armed forces of freedom. The Excalibur Estate in Catford South East London is still one of Britain’s largest estates of prefabs.
Erected in 1946-47 by German and Italian prisoners of war, who were in no hurry to return to war ravished Europe, these detached houses with their own gardens, bathroom and the luxury of a separate indoor toilet were the solution to the chronic housing stock shortage after the end of the Second World War.
Plonked on top of pre-plumbed concrete slabs, these homes could be built in a day, and were only expected to last between 10 and 15 years, by which time the Brutalist tower block of the 60s would accommodate these once homeless families.
By the Seventies the Brave New World of modernist architecture was starting to crumble, along with some of the buildings. Many people found that they hated living in high-rise blocks, no matter how much the council and social planners told them how lucky they were.
Tower blocks and even whole estates were demolished while the remaining prefabs, and the residents, with their little gardens stayed put. They remained as an uncomfortable reminder to planners that modernisers don’t always have the answers and home need more than boxes stacked one upon another, with the only way to see the sky is to walk to the municipal park.
With 12 acres of valuable land the property developers are showing an unhealthy interest in the Excalibur Estate and are proposing to squeeze 400 new homes onto the plot.
After years of neglect by Lewisham Borough Council who own all but 29 of them these houses are deemed unfit for human habitation and in the lingo that only local authorities can dream up “these houses are subject to a Sustainable Community Strategy”, demolition to you and me.
Only six have been granted protection from destruction, but these survivors should prove to be a nice little earner for their owners, filmmakers love the, Only Fools and Horse and BBC’s How We Built Britain have featured them.
The Twentieth Century Society (where were they when Centre Point’s fountains were removed?) wants to preserve as much as possible for students to study the design and the estate’s demography, while the local group just want to live there in peace.
The Excalibur Estate’s prefabs might not be the prettiest of dwellings, nor situated among leafy north London’s liberal elite in Barnsbury, but they are a remaining example of how we built homes “Fit for Heroes”.
You probably haven’t heard of the journalist Anne Kadet, for why should you as she lives in New York?
Anne writes regularly on Substack under the name Café Anne. Here she stalks the streets of the Big Apple finding interesting people to write about.
For the 100th post, she had a brainwave after being sent a $100 Christmas gift by an admirer of her project (she even has over 330 admirers willing to pay for her free posts).
She then decided to ask 100 New Yorkers for $1 of wisdom. At the end of this piece of random research, 64 gave their nuggets for free.
She then polled her readers on what to do with the remaining $64. Fifty-six per cent voted to fund another adventure. Now bear with me here, she decided then to divide the money four ways corresponding to the 4 poll options and using the percentage voted for each option.
This left her with $36 for the next adventure which she then opted to have two ‘adventures’.
Half of which was to be spent on an arbitrary taxi ride, and the purpose of this rambling post. Hailing a taxi near her home she asked the driver: “Could you take me in any direction until the meter gets to $18, please?”
Hoping to be taken to an interesting place with plenty of people worthy of writing about, the driver’s few words were to get her to confirm her request.
Little was spoken thereafter until they reached the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street.
“Is okay?” he asked.
Not really. They were at the city’s Civic Center, which is mainly government buildings—an unlikely spot for adventuring. As she said: “But what could I do?”
This got me thinking if a London cabbie had the same instruction. First, he would ask for confirmation, he would want to know why, ask her all about her blog, and then, using his knowledge of London, take her somewhere that was really interesting with people to interview.
So where would $18 (£14.21) take you?
Assuming this was undertaken during a weekday, starting from London’s topographical centre: King Charles I roundabout at Trafalgar Square this could get you for instance to Shakespeare’s Globe, London Zoo or Broadcasting House.
Plenty of scope at these places to talk to interesting people.
Or with the traffic nowadays 100 yards up the road to Charing Cross Station.
In London, there are 9,000 buses and 15,000 black taxis. How many were killed and seriously injured by buses, and how many by black cabs? But black cabs continue to be banned from London’s roads by Transport for London. Why?
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