London in Quotations: Peter Ackroyd
London is a labyrinth, half of stone and half of flesh.
Peter Ackroyd (b.1949), London: The Biography
London Trivia: Flying high
On 14 March 2008, The Queen officially opened Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5, in her speech she described it as “a 21st Century gateway to Britain”. The opening followed a major security alert after a man with a rucksack scaled the perimeter fence and ran into the path of an aircraft. Ketheeswaran Uthayakumar, of no fixed abode, was charged with endangering aircraft security, not to mention himself.
On 14 March 1885 Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Mikado premiered at the Savoy Theatre running for 672 performances
It’s against the law to roll or carry a cask, tub, hoop, wheel, ladder, pole, showboard or placard upon any footway unless loading a cart
Southwark Street laid out in 1862 by Sir Joseph Bazalgette was the first street in London with water and gas pipes in the middle of the road
Accused of murder John Williams committed suicide, his body was buried with a stake through his heart at New Road/Cannon Street Road
The American Declaration of Independence was printed in Caslon typeface designed in Chiswell Street by William Caslon, it’s now a Tesco
On 14 March 1805 fourteen-year-old William Betty played Hamlet on the London stage. The House of Commons was adjourned to enable Members to watch the performance
Opening in 1910 with 2,286 seats the London Palladium had its own telephone system, so patrons could talk to each other
In the 18th century at the Cat & Mutton, Broadway Market hosted the Soapy Pig Swinging Contest, drovers lathered a pig’s tail and hurled it
Sir Christopher Wren sat on the Parliamentary Commission regulating hackney cabs knowing nothing about them, nothing has changed then
The last executioners were Harry Allen and Robert Stewart. A scaffold is reputed to exist at Wandsworth Prison and still used for practice
Twice the Channel Tunnel’s length, deeper and wider than the Tube the Water Ring Main’s could fill The Royal Albert Hall in under 3 hours
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.
Protected: Top or bottom
Highest and lowest
Ihave been thinking recently of just how high and how low I’ve travelled whilst driving a cab.
If you take sea level as the mean, the lowest seems easy
The UK’s Ordnance Datum is based on measurements at Newlyn in Cornwall, so it’ll come as no surprise to hear that the midpoint between high and low tides is generally how the zero point for altitude is defined. The highest spring tides at North Woolwich reach 12ft above sea level whereas the very lowest gets down to 9½ft below.
How low can you go?
As they say, every cloud has a silver lining. One night one of those fortuitous events happened, the London to Brighton train service was cancelled.
So here I was in a convoy of cabs heading for Brighton. Long after midnight found me parked on Madeira Drive on the seafront taking a picture of the pier, with the cab a few feet above the sea, although I’m not sure how close the tide was to the Datum Mean.
But where was the highest?
Heights can be measured above ground level, which is what we do with tall buildings, or above sea level, which is what we normally do with hills. The two measurements give different answers. The bottom of the Shard is 43ft above sea level, for example, which lifts the elevation of the observation deck from 1,014ft to 1,057ft. This turns out to be important because the highest ground in London at Westerham Heights is 804ft above sea level, and that extra 43ft makes the Shard substantially higher.
Obviously, I couldn’t take the cab to the top of the Shard, so just where have I been whilst sitting in the cab?
Researching this post using Wikipedia (naturally), I’ve discovered that a road and a house with the most magical name and address, the Grade II Listed house is very near me – Blue Boar Hall on Orange Tree Hill in Havering-Atte-Bower is at 344ft the 18th highest in London.
One of my favourite places in London, the curiously named Vale of Health in Hampstead, is slightly higher at 427ft above sea level.
I’ve never been to Westerham Heights, but if memory serves me right, its got be Stanmore Hill, the third-highest in London at 499ft that is the highest I’ve pushed the cab.
As we are on distances, what were the shortest and longest journeys?
The short is very short
The shortest journey I ever undertook involved picking up two young Japanese girls from the Heathrow Express rank in Paddington. Both were carrying suitcases twice as heavy as them and nearly their height. Not knowing their hotel’s location, and with my Japanese a little rusty, they thrust a piece of paper at me. The Prince William Hotel is located just 400 yards from the station’s exit. After much giggling and struggling, they left my cab after paying the princely sum of £1.80.
And the long is much longer
On a Saturday night, a desperate pair hailed me near Victoria station. The men had gone to a football match and downed a pint – or two. Then they discovered that a replacement rail service was in operation. Nothing unusual you might say, except there was a two- or three-hour wait for the bus and they had to get back to close their wine bar – in Bristol. I questioned their overall planning abilities but dutifully drove them home. Before leaving Bristol I was even hailed again! Pity I didn’t hold a Bristol licence.
Featured image: Havering Atte Bower farm is the 18,306th highest peak in the British Isles and the 3,942nd tallest in England © Derek Voller (CC BY-SA 2.0)
CabbieBlog 