On 20 May 1867 Queen Victoria laid the first stone of the The Royal Albert Hall. Originally it was given he catchy nomenclature `The Hall of Arts and Sciences` which to Victorian ears tripped off the tongue nicely. Her Majesty was having none of it and to our eternal gratitude insisted it be named after her late husband. It was the first building to be built top down, the dome was assembled in Manchester taken apart and transported to London.

On 20 May 1913 the Royal Horticultural Society having been forced to relocate from Temple Gardens chose the Royal Hospital Chelsea attracting 200,000 in its first year

Journalists known as running patterers went to executions to record the executed’s last words, they then printed and sold exaggerated versions

10 Hyde Park Place is London’s smallest house: 3’6″ wide constructed in 1805, it has only ever had one tenant

Constitution Hill’s name is nothing to do with the constitution – it’s because it’s where Charles II took his daily constitutional

When Soviet spy Guy Burgess lived at 38 Chester Square, Lower Belgravia he cunningly decorated his flat in red, white and blue

Hitchcock’s first film The Lodger – 1926 had him making a cameo on the Tube now the Underground’s Film Office handles over 200 requests a month

Gordon’s Wine Bar reputed to be the oldest in London, in the same building that was home to Samuel Pepys in 1680 and is owned by the Gordons family since 1890

The Surbiton Club in 1891 requested members playing billiards partaking of snuff to ‘leave no nasal excreta’ on the baize

The total length of the London Underground network is 250 miles; Tube trains travelled 76.4 million kilometres last year

When the south portico of the British Museum was built the colour of the limestone didn’t match, builders used French limestone not English

There is a 19th century time capsule under Cleopatra’s Needle containing money, a rail guide and portraits of ‘pretty English ladies’

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.

On 13 May 1986 Leo Abse, MP and solicitor made legal history exercising his Right of Audience in the High Court. He was the first solicitor able to break through the glass ceiling ending the centuries-old tradition of the barristers’ monopoly representing clients in the High Court. No MP ever claimed a more ancient lineage, unlike the Ashkenazi Jews his name was not shared by any other family of Jews in Europe and was Phoenician in origin.

On 13 May 1842 Arthur Sullivan was born in Lambeth, with his partner Gilbert they wrote 14 comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado are among the best known

The Clink a small prison whose name entered the English language as slang term for gaol, the prison was for those who ran amok in Bankside’s brothels

Strand was the first road in London to have a numbered address Charles II’s Secretary of State residence was No 1 near Northumberland Avenue

Florence Nightingale’s statue outside St Thomas’s Hospital is a glass-fibre copy as the original was stolen in 1970

Near The Houses of Parliament the Silver Cross public house is a licensed brothel as the privilege granted by Charles I hasn’t been revoked

Both Samuel Pepys and Rudyard Kipling both once lived at 47 Villiers Street, Strand now it is Gordon’s Wine Bar

Harrods installed its first escalator in 1898 and dispensed brandy to gentlemen and Epsom Salts for ladies to help the shock of its movement

London’s oldest sporting-related pavilion is at Syon House, built in 1803 by the Duke of Northumberland so his wife could watch regattas in comfort

The River Westbourne was funnelled above a platform on Sloane Square in a large iron pipe suspended from girders. It remains in place today

The original Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair was founded by Lord Byron’s butler, James Brown recently refurbished and is now owned by Rocco Forte

The largest clock in London is not situated on St Stephens Tower (Big Ben) but on the Shell Mex House which is on the Strand

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.