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.

A Cabbie’s View of London (19.10.12)

As any artist, writer or photographer will tell you, professionally they will observe the world around them in ways that others can take for granted, it is that same attention to detail that’s needed when one undertakes “The Knowledge”, the qualification required to become a London cabbie; every street, club, bar, church, hotel and even blue plaque must be committed to memory.

In pursuit of all these facets of London the Knowledge student discovers that there is more to London than is apparent at first sight. Just like a writer they stop looking at the features of London in isolation and try to put them into some context linking them together and discovering their relation to London’s history and its people.

The Knowledge was introduced in 1851 after complaints by visitors to the Great Exhibition that cabbies didn’t know where they were going, now after 160 years we are regarded as the world’s finest taxi service. But our pedigree goes back even further; London was the first city in the world to have a licensed taxi trade and the licensing can be blamed on a little-known English playwright called William Shakespeare, his productions were so popular that all the carriages that arrived to pick up and drop off the theatre-going public would cause a “stop” – in modern day parlance a traffic jam; and just to show that red tape is not a modern phenomenon, it took the authorities about 40 years after Shakespeare’s death to introduce licensing – on 24th June 1654 the City of London authorised the use of 200 licenses for Hackney coachmen. With such a long history it is hardly surprising that anachronisms abound in the cab trade: the modern cab has a high roof so that gentlemen wearing a top hat may leave them on when travelling to Ascot; while a cabbie is required to carry sufficient hard food for his horse’s midday meal this is now interpreted as having a boot large enough to take a bale of hay; and to show some consideration to the poor old cabbie in a time of need, he may urinate over the rear nearside wheel if a police constable is in attendance to protect his modesty by shielding him with a police cape; but should he wish to stop at a Cabbies’ Green Shelter he may eat and drink tea but political discussion is forbidden by the philanthropists who originally donated the shelters.

While studying the Knowledge a student discovers that some streets in the City: Milk Street, Poultry, Goldsmith Street, and Ironmonger Lane are named after the goods once sold there; or Old Jewry was an area set aside for Jewish money lenders. On the Knowledge when given London Stone to locate in Cannon Street a little research suggests that London’s prosperity for many years was thought to depend on the Stone’s safekeeping and that the Romans could have used this limestone block as the point in which to measure all distances from Londinium.

Above all else the words of Dr. Samuel Johnson should be the mantra for any prospective Knowledge student: “Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.”

Johnson was right, the city isn’t just a collection of buildings, roads, lanes and courts; its magic is in Londoner’s belief that this complicated friend can fulfil the dreams and aspirations of those residing within its boundaries.

It is this belief that has given London its longevity as the world’s premier city, the result of generations of these resourceful, hard-working individuals coming together to improve their lives and in so doing adding another strata of history, business and culture to this incredible city for future Knowledge students to go out and discover.

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 King’s Cross Lighthouse (16.10.12)

It has been degenerating since Edison Lighthouse appeared in the charts during the 70s and has lay empty for years, but recently scaffolding has appeared surrounding the building. Could this be the start of the regeneration that this forlorn building has needed for the best part of a quarter of a century?

Sandwiched between two converging roads – Pentonville Road and Gray’s Inn Road – opposite King’s Cross railway station perched on top of a narrow building, sometimes referred to as the flatiron building (it shares a similar footprint to the iconic Manhattan block), stands an architectural folly some people think of as a windmill or lighthouse.

It has looked much as it does today since 1884 but its date of building and original purpose are unknown.

Now apparently owned by the splendidly named – The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (or just P&O) it has been left to rot in this area of huge regeneration.

There are many explanations for this strange Grade II listed building, which was erected in 1875, but no one seems to be absolutely sure. It has been semi-derelict for many years and always seems to be on the point of being regenerated, or falling down, but never quite getting there.

Used as the location for Harry Palmer’s office in the 1967 film Billion Dollar Brain, some say it was a clock tower, Victorian helter-skelter, or even a camera obscura.

Another explanation, although it has to be said that no other examples have been found, is that when oysters were the cheap and popular fast food of the day, Netten’s Oyster House was marked with a lighthouse – a kind of the Mcdonald’s golden arches’ of their day.

An architectural practice called Richard Griffiths has been charged with redeveloping the area, so it’s already spawned a suitably gentrification-friendly, nom-de-plume, ‘The Regent’s Quarter.’

Let us hope this eccentric and loved building gets the refurbishment that it deserves.

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.

Letting off steam (12.10.12)

In the 1930s a successful hoax succeeded by selling hundreds of 10 guinea tickets for a charity ball to be held at a house in Leinster Gardens.

When the underground line was being built Nos. 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens were dismantled leaving just their 5ft-deep façades, the space left behind allowed the trains to empty their smoke boxes before entering the next tunnel. Today the fake houses can still be seen while behind them the District Line rattles along its way.

At Crystal Palace Park in 1864 a novel way of transporting the public through a tube was opened which obviated the need to let off steam.

A large tube enough to accommodate entire carriages was assembled, and the air was forced through the tube, in the manner of a bicycle pump, to propel the train and its hapless passengers along the tube’s entire length, at the other end of its quarter-mile length giant fans would suck the train to its destination.

It cannot have come as a surprise to any passengers of this mode of transport to learn that it closed after a few months. Rumours later persisted that the tunnel was haunted by skeletons dressed in Victorian clothes still sitting in an old railway carriage. We shall never know as the site was demolished in 1911 to make way for the Festival of Empire celebrations.

Travel along the southern section of the Bakerloo Line and you enter the tube that the Waterloo & Whitehall Railway laid down in 1865. Running parallel with Hungerford Bridge this underwater cast-iron pipe was expected to take passengers in trains propelled along its length by fans sucking or blowing the carriages along. Fifteen trains an hour and costing 2d for a first-class ticket, second class for a ha’penny less and third class at a bargain 1d. Unfortunately for its operators, the company went bust before they could experience this ‘commodious, and well-lighted’ form of transport.

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.

A gaping problem (09.10.12)

When taking my daughter for her first job interview, we were sitting on the tube when a drunk sitting opposite awoke to the announcement “Mind the Gap”. Our slumbering passenger then started to doze off again, until that is, we reached a later stop and upon hearing the Mind the Gap announced a second time declared to the rest of the carriage “Blimy! That bloke gets around”. It was the perfect antidote to break the pre-interview nerves my daughter was feeling at the time.

The original Mind the Gap announcement which had awoken our slumbering friend was first heard in 1968 when AEG Telefunken supplied the recording of an unknown actor, unfortunately, the fellow had insisted on being paid a royalty every time his voice was heard. Unsurprisingly that recording was scrubbed and re-recorded by someone cheaper.

Sound engineer Peter Lodge then took up the baton and his sound tests proved so popular with the powers that be it was decided that his own voice should be the announcement broadcast.

The Earl of Portland was a title bestowed on the first Earl for mopping the fevered brow of King William III who at that time was struck down with smallpox. The 12th and current Earl can be heard on the Piccadilly Line, his Mind the Gap announcement earning him the princely sum of £200. He is best known as the actor who plays David Archer in Radio 4’s The Archers.

The gap problem like so much these days can be blamed on London’s bankers. When tunnelling commenced early in the last century, engineers were concerned that the excavations would undermine the City’s banks. It was decided, where possible, to tunnel beneath the roads, many of which followed their Medieval routes.

As a consequence despite billions being spent on planning, building, refurbishing and rebuilding our trains just don’t fit the stations. Passengers on the Central line at Bank are regularly reminded of this fundamental flaw in the Tube system.

This fear of being sued by powerful property owners has meant Bank Station has one of the sharpest bends on the Tube network. This sharp bend has even become represented on John Beck’s iconic Tube map where the station’s given its own unique kink. There is even some speculation the bend had to be made even sharper so the tunnel didn’t end up in the Bank of England’s vaults.

The company clearly didn’t fear the church though because it gained permission to demolish St. Mary Woolnoth. A public outcry prevented this but it still dug up all the bodies in the crypt to build lift shafts.

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.

Running out of puff (05.10.12)

It wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that underground rail travel was envisaged, deemed to be quieter and less disruptive than overground, not to say obviating the need to demolish properties in more salubrious areas. Underground rail travel posed a problem for the engineers as passengers rather inconsiderately needed to breathe, and existing coal-fired trains emitted a toxic mixture of steam and sulphurous smoke which had a tendency to suffocate both crew and their passengers.

The world’s first underground railway opened on 9th January 1863. The line, which still runs alongside Farringdon Road, was built as cheaply as possible so rather than design new locomotives, the company simply adapted existing ones – steam trains.

Trials were undertaken burning coke instead of coal but because of poisonous gases it was thought preferable that tunnels were filled with coal smoke instead, prompting The Times to comment ‘A journey . . . is a form of torture which no person would undergo if he could conveniently help it’. Train drivers were not convinced by the company’s assertion that asthmatics found the smoky atmosphere helped to breathe and grew thick beards to try and filter the black soot; they even named their locomotives after tyrants – Mogul, Czar and Kaiser.

Fowler’s Ghost Enter Sir John Fowler, Bt. who designed the world’s first experimental fireless locomotive nicknamed “Fowlers Ghost”. Propulsion was achieved by using heated bricks placed in a conventional coal-fired engine to produce steam. It was deemed a failure after only one test run presumably the locomotive’s footplate was just a little too hot for comfort for the engine drivers trying to manhandle red-hot bricks. Fowler would later redeem himself as the genius who designed the Forth Rail Bridge.

It was back to the drawing board this time to design condensing engines which emitted less steam and smoke, the engine’s emissions were routed into large tanks behind the locomotive, which were then vented off as the train emerged from the tunnel. Because the tunnels were under roads, the venting would spook any horses that happened to be overhead, so doubt prompted the cabbies driving Hansom cabs to complain. This method meant that frequent breaks in the tunnel were needed to let off steam and evidence of which we can still see today.