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The 1695 London to Harwich Roads Act allowing country justices to collect tolls is to be repealed – traffic cameras have made the law obsolete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.

On 4 August 1914 whilst enjoying an open-air concert given by a German band at the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre, the conductor stopped the music declaring “Ladies and Gentlemen, war has been declared”. With that the musicians filed out silently. It is not recorded if the concert goers received a refund. By the time the war more than 16 million people were dead – and presumably some of the band.

On 4 August 2011 gang member Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham, his death would cause riots to break out

At the Old Bailey in 1468 jurors who returned a verdict unacceptable to the trial judge were forced to wear dunces’ caps

Tins holding Old Holborn rolling tobacco featured a drawing of the front of Staple Inn, Holborn. It still exists poorly restored

On 4 August 2000 40,000 well-wishers gathered in the Mall to celebrate the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday she received a telegram from the Queen

Parliament’s jail was last used in 1880 imprisoning atheist Charles Bradlaugh for refusing taking oath of allegiance to the Queen on a Bible

Wimpole Street was once home to poet Elizabeth Barrett, author Arthur Conan Doyle and Paul McCartney who wrote Yesterday there

Alexander Pope planted the first Willow Tree in England in his garden at Twickenham. All the willows in Britain are related to this tree

When David Walliams swam 140 miles of the Thames for charity raising £2m he also found time to save a dog that had joined him in the water

The District Line opened on Xmas Eve 1868. River Westbourne had to be channelled over track at Sloane Sq in a metal pipe (still there today)

Henry Harrod’s first grocery store was in Stepney before he moved to Eastcheap in 1835 and Belgravia in 1849

McVitie’s make their chocolate Hobnobs in Harlesden, but for some reason the plain Hobnobs are made in Glasgow

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 28 July 1906 the Tooting Lido, at 50 metres England’s largest public swimming pool, opened, with the catchy title of The Tooting Bathing Lake. It still holds the record as the UK’s largest fresh water swimming pool by surface area and contains a million gallons of unheated water. The alternating bright red, yellow and Green changing room doors are a popular film location. Brad Pitt’s boxing ‘pool’ scene in Snatch was filmed at the Lido.

In 28 July 1866 Beatrix Potter was born at 2 Bolton Gardens, she was looked after by a nanny, spending most of her time in the big nursery at the top of the house only seeing her parents at bedtime

On 28 July 1879 Kate Webster was hanged for murder of Julia Thomas whose skull was later found in Sir David Attenborough’s garden in 2010

From the early 19th century to the late 20th century Holborn/Clerkenwell was home to London’s Italian community and known as “Little Italy”

1769 – St Katharine Cree Church – man wins bet he can dig grave 10ft deep – but as climbs out to collect winnings it collapses and kills him

On 28 July 1964 Winston Churchill awoke at his London home to find himself no longer a Member of Parliament for the first time since 1901

The Phoenix, East Finchley is London’s oldest continuously working cinema. Opening in 1910 and restyled to it’s Art Deco glory in 1928

The Naval and Military Club known as the ‘In and Out’ refers to its previous home in Piccadilly with the in and out painted on the gateposts

As the boat race is taking place Spitalfields City Farm raise funds for animal feed by racing three goats: ‘Oxford’, ‘&’, ‘Cambridge’

In 1633 the Horse Ferry sank in the Thames with the weight of Archbishop Laud’s possessions en route to Lambeth Palace

Finchley Central on the Northern line was the local station of Harry Beck, who designed the Underground Map, it displays an original copy

The Great Fire of London 1666 raged for 5 days despite Mayor Thomas Bloodworth’s doubts when he declared, “Pish! A woman might piss it out!”

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 21 July 1921 a coroner’s court jury returned a verdict of death caused by strychnine poisoning, on the death of Sir Alfred Newton. The chairman of Harrod’s had died in his store. It transpired that his indigestion medication prescribed by Harrod’s own pharmacy contained enough of the poison to kill a large number of people. The post-mortem discovered he had a weak heart and would not have lived much longer.

On 21 July 2005 explosions at two trains and a bus came exactly a fortnight after four suicide bombers killed 52 on the transport network, this time only the detonators exploded

The Queen can still exact the maximum penalty on souvenir traders using her coat of arms without permission – beheading

The first permanent bridge into what would become London was built near the site of London Bridge by Emperor Claudius’ Roman army in AD55

On 21 July 1964 Tottenham Hotspur’s Scottish striker John White was killed by lightning playing golf in North London

The 1782 Land Tax Act, as with all other Acts is written on vellum, at a quarter of a mile it is longer than Parliament

The corner of Lapstone Gardens/Mentmore Close, Kenton where Basil Fawlty thrashed his car with a tree, nowhere near the fictional coastal hotel

More than 42 million people have visited Tate Modern since Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s Bankside Power Station was converted and opened in 2000

London Fives is a dartboard game with 12 large segments counting down from 505, players standing 9ft away. Henry VIII was said to play it

4 Tube stations have names that contain the colour of the line the station is on: Redbridge, Stepney Green, Turnham Green and Parsons Green

Burlington Arcade built to remove an alleyway beside the mansion is patrolled by Beadles who stop whistling running and unfurling umbrellas

Early phone boxes were made tall enough for a man wearing a top hat to use them in comfort, later versions had sloping floors because people were using them as urinals

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 the 14 July 1989 a turnip killed 56-year-old Leslie Mervy whilst shopping in East London, the turnip was thrown from a passing car, he suffered a punctured lung and a rib broken in three places. After being discharged from hospital his condition deteriorated and he died of a ruptured spleen on 23 July. Detective Superintendent Graham Howard said the death was being investigated as a murder, London’s only case of death by turnip.

On 14 July 1921 The Times reported that cocktails drunk before meals were harmful, and shockingly that 50 per cent of consumers were women

At 6ft 7ins Bank of England clerk William Jenkins fearing bodysnatchers offered a 200 guineas advance to the Bank of England to be buried in the Bank’s garden

Huge flocks of starlings are now rare, called ‘murmuration’ as 100,000 birds choose where to sleep, they once stopped Big Ben by perching on the hands

In 1653 Old Parr was buried at Westminster Abbey at the reputed age of 152, Charles I accorded this honour having met the world’s oldest man

Should a whale become stranded on the Thames foreshore the King may claim its head, his Queen the body – presumably to make her corset stays

Prince Albert lent Thomas Thorneycroft the horses on which to model those being reined in by Queen Boudicca sculpture on Victoria Embankment

Buck’s Club founded in 1919 by returning army officers was said to be the place where Buck’s Fizz was invented by its barman called McCarry

The Lamb and Flag in Rose Street was called The Bucket of Blood as hidden away in an alley made it the ideal venue for illegal prize fights

Opened in 1863 the Metropolitan Railway between Paddington and Farrington was the world’s first urban underground passenger-carrying railway

London’s first drive-in bank for lazy motorists was installed by Drummond’s Bank housed in a building adjacent to Admiralty Arch

Battersea Dogs’ Home was founded in Holloway in 1860 by Mary Tealby as ‘The Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs’

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.