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.

Exporting Churches (021.06.09)

The early churches of New England are based almost entirely on the design of St. Martin in the Fields. Completed in 1724 its revolutionary design of having its steeple at the east end of the church, not the west end was the brainchild of architect James Gibbs who decided to turn convention on its head and build the steeple where we see it today. He also built it above an imposing portico that looks like the grand entrance to a Greek temple. Critics marvelled at the audaciousness of the new church and despite the innate conservatism of churchgoers and the church authorities, the new design soon became very popular, so much so that several members of Gibbs’ architectural practice were enticed to American by the offer of large sums of money. With the design of St. Martin’s packed in their bags they moved west as the American settlers moved west, building identical or near-identical copies of St. Martins as they went.

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.

Happy Birthday Gordon (19.06.09)

On Monday 15 March 1909 Selfridges Department Store celebrated its centenary. Here is the story of its founder taken from CabbieBlog’s Hidden London.

Gordon Selfridge the American department store magnet was an interesting fellow who provides a salutary moral lesson for us all. He devoted his productive years to building Selfridges into Europe’s finest shopping emporium. During that time he led a life of stern rectitude, early bedtimes and tireless work. But in 1918 his wife died and the sudden release from marital bounds rather went to his head. He took up with a pair of Hungarian-American cuties known in music-hall circles as the Dolly Sisters, and he fell into rakish ways. With a Dolly on each arm, he dined out every night, invested foolish sums on racehorses, cars, the casinos and even bought a castle in Dorset. In ten years he had spent $8 million, lost control of his department store, his racehorses, Rolls Royces and his castle. He ended up living in a small flat in Putney and travelling everywhere by bus. He died penniless and forgotten in 1947, with a smile on his face thinking of the time he had shagged the twin sisters.

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.

Want to buy a bus, going cheap (16.06.09)

Arthur Daily would have managed to move them. But it seems that the London mayor’s first attempt to sell off the capital’s bendy buses has not met with success. A batch of thirty-one of these 58ft-long monsters from Mercedes Benz advertised in a trade magazine has failed to attract a buyer after six weeks.

Those with the £80,000 spare can buy one of the 350 which ultimately will be sold.

But buyers may have been put off by their chequered history. Introduced by then-mayor of London Ken Livingstone in 2001, bendy buses were temporarily taken out of service in 2005 when three suddenly caught fire. A year later, the evidence presented to the London Assembly showed that they are more likely to be involved in an accident than other buses in the fleet. Critics also said fare-dodgers were sneaking on the buses using the back doors, instead of the front ones next to the driver.

Go on, give a bus a home it would look great on the drive.

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.

Time Gentlemen, Please! (12.06.09)

Pubs are quintessentially English as scones, cricket, Marmite or Stephen Fry. In Ireland or America most bars have mundane names, Murphy’s or Clancy’s, while English pubs have historic and often funny names; Cat and Fiddle, Hare and Hounds, The Red Lion, The Cricketers, The Battle of Trafalgar, The Rose and Crown, The Royal Oak (commemorating the time Charles II as a boy hid from Cromwellian troops after the Battle of Worcester), The Lamb and Flag and The King’s Head.

These names are centuries old, from the time when most of their customers were unable to read and pictorial signs could be readily recognised and even now English pubs have beautifully painted signs above their doors.

Over the centuries, the English Public House has been a place to drink with friends; magistrates would hold court in pubs; people have been hanged in them.

In the eighteenth century the Tyburn Road what has become Oxford Street was the route prisoners would be taken to be hanged. At The Mason’s Arms, a pub in Seymour Place its cellars still have the manacles on the walls, which show that prisoners enjoyed their last pint in very unusual conditions. As they left the pub and were loaded back onto the cart, prisoners would shout to customers “I’ll buy you a pint on the way back!”

The “Ye Olde Man and Scythe” in Bolton, Lancashire is the third oldest pub in England, dating back to the 1200s. In 1651, the Earl of Derby had a last drink and meal inside the pub before being beheaded in the street right outside the pub for his part in the Bolton Massacre. His head supposedly missed the basket and rolled along the street. To this day, the wooden chair which he sat on during his last meal and the axe used to behead him and on display inside the pub. On the chair is an inscription which reads: “15th October 1651 In this chair James 7th Earl of Derby sat at the Man and Scythe Inn, Churchgate, Bolton immediately prior to his execution”.

But, unfortunately, the Great British Pub is in danger of becoming a dying breed. Each week in the past six months, an average of 39 of the nation’s 57,000 pubs have closed.

Most pubs have become restaurants or television rooms, after centuries in which they were the social focus of British life. “There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves as well as at a capital tavern,” Dr Johnson in the late 18th century. “At a tavern, there is general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome; and the more noise you make, the more things you call for, the welcomer you are.”

Urban pub numbers are declining even more steeply because the city- dwellers enjoy such a choice of restaurants and coffee shops.

A survey of 227 out of 936 North London pubs that have closed since 2002 shows that 84 have been turned into flats, while 143 have become businesses or voluntary projects.

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.

Waterborne Cabbies (05.06.09)

In the 16th Century the Company of Watermen were the equivalent to today’s cabbies. Created by an Act of Parliament in 1556 and given a grand of a Royal Patient in 1585, their trade like ours today was carefully licensed. They would ply for hire from designated locations along the Thames, with the cry of “Oars! Oars!” which later was forbidden as the cry could be confused by tourists with “Whores! Whores!”

When the watermen were not transporting people they would turn their hand to salvage and found a brisk trade in finding bodies, either suicides or those who’d accidentally drowned or been murdered.

By a curious quirk of history, the origins of which are now lost, bodies were almost always landed on the south side of the river because the authorities would pay a shilling for a body landed in Southwark but only sixpence for one landed on the north bank. Clearly waterborne cabbies were not averse to “going south of the river” in those days.

A nice little earner would be from the City to as far up river as Hampton Court, and by 1700 over 10,000 watermen plied for hire.

The trade was not without its dangers; if you wanted to travel downstream below London Bridge you risked life and limb. A major feature of London Bridge was the effect it had on the Thames. The location of the bridge’s 19 timber pier supports (called starlings) was determined by riverbed conditions and this meant that they were varied in spacing across the river. Consequently, the arch spans varied in size too and boats navigating the arches encountered different currents and river conditions at each one. Some were more dangerous than others. Over the years, boatmen christened the arches with various names, such as Gut Lock and Long Entry.

Navigating through the bridge in a boat could be very dangerous because the closeness and number of starlings backed up the river water, creating rapids. In some places the drop in water height from one side of the bridge to the other was more than the height of a man. Many people lost their lives “shooting” the bridge and “Drowned at the bridge” became a common entry in the registers at nearby graveyards.

Most Londoners took Cardinal Wolsey example. On his frequent visits to Greenwich to see Henry VIII, he would have his barge stopped above the bridge and get out and travel to Billingsgate by mule, where he would rejoin his barge, providing it had successfully negotiated the rapids.