On 29 December 1940, the largest area of continuous Blitz destruction anywhere in Briain took place. The Luftwaffe dropped over 24,000 high-explosive bombs, times to coincide with a very low tide, making it difficult for firefighters to get water. The famous picture of the church surrounded by smoke and fire was taken by photographer Herbert Mason from the roof of Northcliffe House, the Daily Mail building on Tudor Street.

On 29 December 1860 HMS Warrior an armour-plated warship, the biggest in the Navy was launched and froze on the slipway, six tugs were need to pull her off into the Thames

The term ‘clink’ is derived from the Clink Prison in Southwark a private lock-up owned by the Bishops of Winchester

Under Cleopatra’s Needle, a Victorian time capsule contains railway timetables, bibles, newspapers and photos of beauties of the day

Great Ormond Street was the first hospital in England exclusively for children when it opened in 1851 42 per cent of deaths were children under 10

Queen Victoria’s Coronation Ring was jammed on to the wrong finger by the Archbishop of Canterbury and as a result got stuck

Carving Handel’s statue for Westminster Abbey the artist objected to the size of the maestro’s own ears and modelled them on a young lady’s

Opened in 1881 the Savoy Theatre was the first public building in the world to be lit throughout by electricity, fitted out with 1,200 incandescent light bulbs

To make balls more visible early tennis courts were painted red using lampblack and oxblood the animal being slaughtered on the floor itself

Daimler made the first petrol-driven cab in 1887 but it was 17 years before the vehicle was licensed to ply for hire in London

When escalators were first installed at Earls Court Bumper Harris a one-legged man was employed to demonstrate their safety and ease of use

When weddings take place at Bevis Marks, London’s oldest synagogue, the building is lit by candlelight as it would have been in 1701

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 22 December 1974 Conservative Leader and former Prime Minister Edward Heath’s home in Victoria was bombed by the IRA. Thrown from a Ford Cortina the 2lb. bomb damaged the exterior of the house. Two policemen and a patrol car chased the vehicle as it drove off, but the Cortina crashed a few minutes later in Chelsea and several men fled from the vehicle. Edward Heath was not at home at the time but arrived 10 minutes later.

On 22 December 2003 the London Frost Fair was revived with a 1-day festival at Bankside, it is now a regular feature in December

The London Hackney Carriages Act 1843 forbids a cabbie whose ‘For Hire’ light is on to seek trade whilst the vehicle is moving – fine £200!

Designed by Giles Gilbert Scott – who gave us the telephone box – Grade II listed Battersea Power Station is Europe’s largest brick building

Jeremy Bentham proposed eminent men be preserved and stuffed for prosperity unfortunately his head rotted and replaced with a wax replica

Horse drawn Hansom Cabs gained a renaissance in the Great War as petrol cabs slumped by 60% due to petrol shortages-1947 saw the last horse

When opened in 1928 the owners of the Piccadilly Theatre claimed that the bricks used if laid end to end would stretch from London to Paris

Peach Melba created at the Savoy for soprano Nellie Melba used her favourite ingredients to reduce the cold of ice cream on her vocal cords

On 22 December 2007 after being on the pitch 1.2 seconds Arsenal’s Nicklas Bendtner scored the fastest goal by a substitute in English Footy

North End (nicknamed Bull and Bush) Station on Northern Line between Hampstead/Golders Green closed in 1907 before seeing a single passenger

In 1901 Westminster Abbey became the first public building to be vacuumed when cleaned by a ‘Puffing Billy’ for Edward VII’s coronation

Barges rarely ply the Thames but when the Crown Jewels travel by carriage they traditionally do so in the company of the Queen’s Bargemaster

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 15 December 1720 John Potter, a carpenter advertised that: ‘At the New Theatre in the Haymarket, between Suffolk Street and James Street, which is now completely finished, will be acted French Comedies, as soon as the actors arrive from Paris . . .’ Musket. It was the third public theatre opened in the West End. The theatre cost £1,000 to build, with a further £500 expended on decorations, scenery and costumes.

On 15 December 1906 the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway, later known as the Piccadilly Line opened

Abingdon Street is named after Mary Abingdon who wrote the letter which led to uncovering the gunpowder plot to blow up Parliament in 1605

Bartholomew The Great nicknamed the ‘weeping church’ when cold/wet the stones become porous, an inscription reads unsluice your briny floods

George II was the last English king to be born abroad, the last to lead his troops into battle but died ingloriously sitting on the loo

When George IV first clapped eyes on Caroline of Brunswick, the woman he was expected to marry, he called his man to pour him a large brandy

In 1848 the group of artists known as the Pre-Raphelite Brotherhood was founded at 7 Gower Street WC2 in 1848

Opening in 1956 at Old Compton Street Soho’s 2i’s Coffee Bar was Europe’s first rock’n’roll venue it featured Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele

In 1875 the first tennis match took place at Worple Road, two years later it was renamed the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club

The world’s longest continuous railway tunnel is the Northern Line: Morden to East Finchley totalling 17.3 miles, 24 stations and 3 junctions

Maxwell Knight head of MI5 from 1931 to 1961 and the original ‘M’ lived in a London flat with a brown bear called Bessie

According to the London Wildlife Trust there are 125 types of fish to be found in the Tidal Thames (the estuary mouth to Teddington Lock)

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 8 December 1660, the earliest extant cheque held by the Bank of England Museum is for £200 and was drawn by Vanacker on his account with Clayton & Morris. They were the leading bankers of the Restoration, with offices at Cornhill, their business was centred in the private market of lending money to landowners, a unique contribution to banking history integrating the mortgage as a form of long-term security for banking loans.

On 8 December 1995 head teacher Philip Lawrence was stabbed to death outside St George’s Roman Catholic School, Maida Vale, while protecting a pupil who was being assaulted

Watchhouse Coffee Shop, Bermondsey Street is a room where Victorian police once spied on grave robbers it overlooked an affluent graveyard

At 103 Borough High Street once stood the Queen’s Head Inn owned by the Harvard Family, the ones that set up Harvard University in the USA

Inventor of the pedestrian refuge Colonel Pierpoint left his club in St James’s Street stepped back to admire his work was run over by a cab

At the base of Big Ben is a cell to incarcerate any agitators causing trouble in The Houses of Parliament last used for Emmeline Pankhurst

On 8 December 1660 a Mrs. Hughes scandalised the public becoming the first woman actor to take to the stage in London

From 1934 to 1971 with the blessing of George V 1,500 bargeloads of sand were dumped by Tower of London creating at beach attracting 100,000

Laid out in the 1980s the Wood Lane Estate, Sudbury Hill has 11 streets named after sportspeople: Lilian Board Way; Mary Peters Drive etc

Maida Vale was the first Tube station to be manned without men – opened in 1915 with an all-female staff because of the First World War

The Greenwich Time Ball has several dents after renovations, builders assumed the historic ball was for the skip and played football with it

On 8 December 1954 a huge tornado ripped through Chiswick, Gunnersbury, Acton, Golders Green and Southgate

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 1 December 1652 the Act of Parliament which ordered the sale of the Crown lands, after the execution of Charles I excepted Hyde Park from its provisions, but on this day it became the subject of a special resolution namely, ‘That Hyde Park be sold for ready money’. The Park’s sale realised £17,068 2s. 8d. The purchasers of the three lots were Richard Wilson, John Lacey, and Anthony Deane.

On 1 December 1930 Matt Munro was born Terence Edward Parsons in Shoreditch. He also sang as Terry Fitzgerald, Al Jordan and Fred Flange

Traitors’ Gate at the Tower of London is not the original, in the 19th century they were sold to a Whitechapel shopkeeper for 15/-

Original Waterloo Bridge was to be named Strand Bridge, during construction the famous victory over Bonaparte took place so Waterloo it was

Just below Tower Bridge, marked by a sign, is ‘Dead Man’s Hole’ where bodies thrown into the river from the Tower and surrounding districts were retrieved and stored in a mortuary before burial

The Imperial War Museum has sections of the original Berlin Wall outside in the gardens, a stark piece of history that anyone can visit

London’s smallest statute in Philpot Lane is a lifesize mouse. It depicts the mouse that would regularly eat the builder’s lunch in 1700

You can drink a Churchill Martini at Browns Hotel where the war leader frequented. It’s rumoured they built a bomb shelter for his use

In 1879 rugby club Saracens named after mediaeval Muslim warriors merged with a club called the Crusaders

On 23 December 1865 Aldersgate Street Tube Station opened. It wasn’t until 1 December 1968 that it was renamed Barbican

Threadneedle Street was once part of the medieval red-light district of London and, as the haunt of prostitutes, rejoiced (if that is the right word) in the name of ‘Gropecuntelane’

The Old Kent Road is the only Monopoly property located south of the River and likewise Whitechapel is the only east London property

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.