TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD (n.) King’s throughfare that doth once was the purveyor of electronik goods now is devoid of costermongers.
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
I have been a Londoner all my life, and as a cabbie, there aren’t many places in London that I haven’t been to or through. So I thought I’d look at those I’ve missed, either by design or I’ve just overlooked.
With the catchy new name IFS Cloud Cable Car, or Dangleway as diamondgeezer calls it, at £12 to go to the back of beyond and return to civilisation, while watching planes leave City Airport and fly towards you, seems to me a waste of 20 minutes of your life.
From the toilet on the 68th floor, you can marvel at London’s landmarks as you gaze across the River Thames, but at £32 it seems a rather expensive way to spend a penny.
At the top of the Walkie Talkie building, sorry the prosaically named 20 Fenchurch Street, is the Sky Garden and unlike much of London it’s free. If only I could organise my day better I could apply for free tickets, as it’s the only realistic way that you’d visit this gem in the City.
When the rear of Downing Street was bombed in an air raid which nearly killed Churchill’s cook, the Cabinet moved to this bunker in the basement of the nearby Treasury Building. After the war, this secret underground headquarters was left untouched, until Margaret Thatcher championed the initiative to get the war rooms opened to the public. After visiting Chartwell on numerous occasions, I really should visit.
Why should anyone want to discover more about a misogynistic person who preyed on vulnerable women? If there’s such an appetite for this I’m thinking of starting Dennis Nilsen tours, a necrophile who murdered at least twelve young men and boys in Muswell Hill.
Designed to allow tourists to experience London’s weather, whilst wearing ponchos advertising the stagecoach’s operator seems, to me, something best left to gullible visitors.
Do you really want to annoy London’s cabbies? This can’t be a more positive way to achieve that aim. I’m hardly going to join them.
Madame Tussauds
London Dungeon
London Eye
Tate Modern (the exhibits, not the building)
Oxford Street
Featured image: By Chiugoran – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.
Bram Stoker (1847-1912), Dracula
On 6 August 1889 the first luxury hotel in Britain was opened. Built by Richard D’Oyly Carte, the Savoy Hotel was approached via a cul-de-sac where vehicles travelled on the right. Taking 5 years to build the hotel was the first to have electric lifts known as ascending rooms and electric lighting. Service could be summoned by a speaking tube. César Ritz was its first manager. Later the hotel would be the first to offer en-suite bathrooms with cascading showers.
On 6 August 1966 Mohammad Ali beat Brian London at London’s Earls Court Exhibition Hall in the 3rd round of a heavyweight contention match
In 1682 Duke of Monmouth was executed at Tower Hill, his family retrieved the body had his head sewn back on and had his portrait painted
Charles Holden’s Gants Hill Station was inspired by Moscow’s Metro features Russian styled barrel-vaulted concourse is nicknamed Moscow Hall
On 6 August 1937 Barbara Windsor was born her real surname was Deeks, her stage name was inspired by the Queen’s coronation: “it sounded posher”
Belsize Park was one of eight Underground stations converted into a deep-level air raid shelter during the Second World War
Nicholl’s Antique Arcade, 142 Portobello Road was used as the location for William’s (Hugh Grant) bookshop in the movie Notting Hill
Henry VIII hosted a grand party in St. Etheldreda’s Church crypt for 5 days menu: a feast of swans-stuffed with larks-stuffed with sparrows
Lord’s is surely the only sporting venue in the world where a steward’s duties include collecting champagne corks from the field of play
First fully automatic electric traffic lights were Piccadilly Circus in 1937 called ‘Robot Traffic Lights’, the first one was known as ‘Little Eva’
William Taynton was the first person to appear on television at the attic workshop of John Logie Baird at 22 Frith Street, Soho
Glaciologists believe the ice sheet that once covered much of Britain during the last Ice Age stopped where Finchley Road Station now stands
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.
There are not many times in a person’s life when they know precisely what they were doing on a particular day and time; the time you took your wedding vows, birth of one’s children or the moment news reached you of 9/11 are probably the only events most people can accurately pinpoint in their lives.
Well, I know for a certainty what I was doing at 10.00 am on Saturday 1st January 2000, for while the rest of London were sleeping off the previous night, I was planting a Aesculus hippocastanum seed, or a conker to you and me.
In a rare surge of optimism I went out on a cool overcast day and planted my conker to mark the start of a new millennium. Now thanks to the good offices of my local Tory councillor, my three metre high Millennium Tree has been planted in our local park, and God (and yobbos) willing, will grow and give generations of children pleasure.
I only give this fascinating snapshot of my life because recently I’ve been reading The Great Trees of London by Jenny Landreth, for according to the author there are only 56 trees exceptional for their height, girth, reach, age or rarity, and in what most of us think of as central London there are only nine, so few that I can list them all:
The Brunswick Plane, London planes are estimated to make up around 50 per cent of the capital’s trees, with tough shiny leaves readily washed clean in the rain and bark that is able to renew itself by peeling off in small plates has made it an ideal tree for London’s polluted atmosphere. This beauty, according to the author, has been left free to grow to its full glory, ignoring any health and safety issues regarding low hanging branches.
The Dorchester Plane, a large semi-mature London Plane, planted around the time of the opening of the Dorchester Hotel. Standing in Park Lane it is probably London’s most famous tree as its beautiful form and shape is dramatic when lit up at night.
The Abbey Plane, on 8th July 2005 Dean of Westminster Abbey, Dr Wesley Carr laid a wreath on the memorial to Innocent Victims at the Abbey to remember those who had been killed or injured in the bombings the day before. The wreath contained London Plane leaves from the tree that stands close to Westminster Abbey symbolizing London.
The Embankment Plane, standing at the junction with Horse Guards Avenue, this area has some fine examples of London’s ubiquitous trees and this is the finest example lining this major thoroughfare.
The Cheapside Plane a 25m tall London Plane has stood on the corner of Cheapside and the appropriately named Wood Street for 250 years. Originally within the churchyard of St Peter Cheap, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, it stands behind some of the oldest shops in the City. The tree was thought to have survived a direct hit during World War II bombing.
The great London plane in Berkeley Square with a known planting date of 1789; in 2008 it was valued at £750,000 making it Britain’s most expensive tree. Despite the popularity given by the song, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, this drab square, is redeemed by over 30 enormous plane trees planted at the same time and are among the finest specimens in the whole of London.
An elm on Marylebone High Street [pictured] which survived bombing in World War II (which destroyed the adjacent church and has since been spared the threat of Dutch elm disease, making it the last Elm tree standing in Westminster.
An ash in the graveyard of St Pancras Old Church, reputed to be the oldest church in Britain; King’s Cross was being regenerated in the 1860s, at this time the exhumation of human remains and the removal of tombs was supervised by the architect Blomfield, although he delegated much of this unpleasant task to his young protégé Thomas Hardy. The tree known as “The Hardy Ash” has since grown around the gravestones.
Indian Bean Tree in the yard of St James’s Piccadilly. As a welcome diversion when stuck in the inevitable traffic jam that Piccadilly’s one-way system has become, this tree with its beautiful summer flowers is a relatively uncommon tree species, being brought from America by Mark Catesby in 1726. This tree, one of the oldest of its kind in the country, creates a tranquil setting in St James’s churchyard, particularly when in flower during the summer months.
Great trees have always made London beautiful; they lined the roads, they were planted on the banks of the Thames, they were grown in the gardens of great houses and in the newly created garden squares, so where are they all now; St John’s Wood is no more, are we losing our botanic heritage? Mature trees are supposed to be protected by preservation orders and even the most necessary and responsible pruning requires the display of notices of intent and consent from local planners, but these often useless safeguards are easily ignored.
Trees are beautiful, mysterious, and remind us of our insignificance among the natural wonders of the world; all planning officers should insist that developers plant trees that will grow big, tall and wide in future developments, the 2012 Olympic site should have as its legacy a vast number of mature trees to soften the coldness of it architecture, we for our part this autumn should go about with pockets full of acorns and conkers, to plant trees to make our city more beautiful for our grandchildren.
CabbieBlog 