This is thought to be the earliest surviving photograph of London. It was taken in 1839 by Monsieur de St. Croixin, a Frenchman who had set up his camera behind the statue of King Charles I. The featured image is from approximately the same position nearly 200 years later.

M. Croixin’s choice of location brings us to the vexing question of just where is London’s centre. It is a quandary that has perplexed geographers, cartographers and general town-planning nerds for generations. In the strictest geographical sense, it should be where lines intersect between the four furthermost locations which would, surprisingly, make the Shell Centre buildings on the Thames riverside just outside Waterloo Station London’s actual epicentre.

The official point, according to The Carriage Office, which is the arbitrary starting point for The Knowledge is the King Charles I Statue in Trafalgar Square, the very spot chosen by the photographer.

In 1649 John Rivett, a brazier, was ordered to destroy the King’s statue by Cromwell, but he buried it in his garden and made a fortune by selling souvenirs allegedly from the metal. He gave it back to Charles II upon the Restoration of the Monarchy, and presumably, he was rewarded for his loyalty.

The image shows the statue behind railings (presumably to protect it from Republicans), these have since been removed and the surrounding pavement turned into a mini-roundabout.

A ghostly form of a Hansom cab driver (the vehicles had only appeared on London’s streets some five years earlier) is seen on the right, waiting outside what is now the Trafalgar Theatre. Was this cabbie the first Londoner ever to be photographed?