I’ve been walking about London for the last 30 years, and I find something fresh in it everyday.
Walter Besant (1836-1901)
London Trivia: Pepys pricked by a pin
On 18 August 1668 Samuel Pepys wrote: “ . . . turned into St. Dunstan’s Church . . . stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body; but she would not, but got further and further from me; and, at last, I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again – which seeing I did forbear, and was glad I did spy her design. And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty maid . . .
On 18 August 1274 arriving in London, a full two years since his accession, King Edward I received an enthusiastic welcome
On formal occasions judges attending at the Old Bailey carry nosegays of aromatic herbs their scent were once thought to ward off typhus
Under Clapham Common are three wartime shelters which were a temporary home for Jamaicans arriving via the Windrush in 1948
Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots never met but are entombed within yards of each other (one without her head on her shoulders)
In 1940 from Room 36 at Brown’s Hotel the Dutch government in exile declared war on Japan as it wasn’t broadcast Japan was hardly terrified
Bob Dylan’s cue card video for Sub.Home.Blues – you’d think it was New York City, right? But actually shot at the back of the Savoy in London
The American Bar at the Savoy – where the barman used to be called Joe – hence “set ’em up Joe” in Sinatra’s One For My Baby
The German Gymnasium by St. Pancras station was built in 1864 by the German Gymnasium Society for use of visiting German businessmen
The woman recording the Tube announcements was asked for different pronunciations of Marylebone – including (no word of a lie) “Mary-Lob-On”
18th-century artist Hogarth was an Inspector of Wet Nurses in Chiswick near his home which is open to the public
The only Celtic name in London not a river is Penge from penn ced ‘the woods end’, originally a woodland swine pasture by Battersea manor
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.
Previously Posted: Let the train take the strain
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.
Let the train take the strain (15.07.11)
All over central London holes are appearing, some small, some like at Tottenham Court Road, huge, all for the purpose of improving your travel experience with Cross Rail. The scheme might, at this point, seem a crazy idea, but its predecessors were simply barking mad.
The first ever railway in London was the London & Greenwich Line and ran for almost its entire 3.75-mile length along an elevated viaduct, thereby, its planners reasoned, avoiding congestion at ground level. Unfortunately, it would take 878 brick arches to construct which were both expensive and time-consuming, for what was a journey that could be walked in less than an hour.
Later in 1840 the Blackwall Tunnel to Minories line used stationary engines at either end and hauled the carriages along using stout cables attached to the carriage ends.
In 1861 a London engineer Sir John Fowler designed a smokeless engine for London’s new underground network. Fuelled by red-hot bricks placed under the boiler it unsurprisingly made only one brief experimental run and was for given the moniker “Fowler’s Ghost”.
Before electrification smoke-filled tunnels continued to be the norm, and how anybody survived a journey, one can only imagine. Early Metropolitan Line trains were initially fitted with a tank in which the smoke was routed allowing it to be discharged each time a train broke cover.
At Crystal Palace in 1864, the new atmospheric railway was launched. It was smoke-free as its tightly fitting carriages were pushed into a circular tunnel in the manner of a piston forcing them along using only air pressure. History doesn’t record how many ear drums were perforated. In 1867 a similar system was demonstrated at the American Institute Fair in New York [pictured], Alfred Ely Beach demonstrated a 32.6 m long, 1.8 m diameter pipe that was capable of moving 12 passengers plus a conductor.
In 1943 Professor Sir Patrick Abercrombie, forgetting that there was a war on, proposed that tunnels were excavated all over the place in order to reduce congestion on the surface. Apart from the fact that hardly any traffic was seen in London during the war, it proposed that a tunnel be bored under Buckingham Palace; the plans probably to this day lie on a shelf gathering dust.
Not content with the Victorian vandalism of removing the colonnades along the length of Nash’s Regent Street. The Greater London Council in 1967 (probably at the behest of Ken Livingstone) commissioned a feasibility study for twin overhead passenger monorails to run down the middle of Regent Street. Once they were built one supposes that another feasibility study would be needed to decide where the Christmas decorations should be situated.
London in Quotations: Sara Bareilles
Aesthetically, London is just beautiful; it’s a gorgeous city. The architecture, monuments, the parks, the small streets – it’s an incredible place to be.
Sara Bareilles (b.1979)
London Trivia: Villain’s funeral
On 11 August 1982 Ronnie and Reggie Kray were allowed out of prison to attend their mother’s funeral. The service was attended by Diana Dors who arrived wearing a fetching black dress and sunglasses. Ronnie was brought from Broadmoor for the criminally insane, Reggie from Parkhurst where he was held as a Category ‘A’ prisoner. The brothers were not allowed to attend the graveside service at Chingford Mount Cemetery.
On 11 August 1897 Enid Blyton was born at 354 Lordship Lane, she would go on to sell more than 600 books and have been translated into 90 languages
Marc Brunel invented a tunnelling machine to bore the first Thames Tunnel after watching the common shipworm while in a debtors’ prison
The site of the previous New Scotland Yard was originally to be an opera house, after spending £103,000 they couldn’t afford the roof and it was pulled down
In 1878 Britain’s worst river disaster happened on the Thames when the paddleboat Princess Alice was struck by a collier with the loss of 640 lives
Fearing its gold would illuminate Kensington Palace at night the Albert Memorial was painted black during World War I, it wasn’t restored until 1998
In 1970 Dan Crawford founded The King’s Head Theatre, Islington the first pub theatre in the England since the time of Shakespeare
In 1905 millionaire George Kessler flooded the Savoy’s courtyard to float a gondola, a birthday cake on an elephant’s back and Caruso singing
Wisden were one of the original office tenants above Leicester Square station their name is still there in Cranbourn Street side of building
The 1695 London to Harwich Roads Act allowing country justices to collect tolls is to be repealed – traffic cameras have made the law obsolete
The former headquarters at 1 Cockspur Street of The White Star Line, owners of the Titanic, is now a US restaurant the Texas Embassy Cantina
In one of our favourite derivations, Chiswick is Old English for ‘cheese farm’, and was first recorded as Ceswican around the year
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.
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