There are many excellent maps of Victorian London available in print and on-line but I haven’t seen these unusual and illuminating views published anywhere else and so wanted to share them here.

If you click on any image you can zoom in for much greater detail.

For example here is Buckingham Palace, a detail from Plate V.

Buckingham Palace, detail from Plate V

I didn’t want to risk damaging the original book whilst scanning it and my copy has a very tight binding. So, apologies for the slight shadows in the centre of each map. If anyone knows of better quality scans please do let me know.

From Charing Cross through Whitehall to Westminster

The Strand

Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill

Cannon Street

From Charing Cross, through Pall Mall to Pimlico

Regent Street

St James's Street and Old and New Bond Streets

Piccadilly

From Hyde Park Corner, through Knightsbridge to Kensington

Edgware Road

From Oxford Street, by Uxbridge Road to High Street Notting Hill

Oxford Street

Baker Street

Tottenham Court Road and Hampstead Road

New Oxford Street and Holborn

Euston Road and Marylebone Road

From The Poultry to Bishopsgate Street and to Whitechapel

The City Road

From London Bridge through the Borough to Newington Butts and Saint George's Fields

The Thames - A bird's-eye view from Herbert Fry's "London" (1891)

All these plates come from the 1891 edition of Fry’s London published by W.H. Allen, London.

I originally published them on my Facebook page but they can be enjoyed in far greater detail here.

(If you like this sort of thing, there are many unique albums of vintage London photos to be found on my Facebook page and you don’t need to sign-up in order to see them.)

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured  City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

Seated Man - Sean Henry

Seated Man - Sean Henry

Seated Man - Sean Henry

Then, striding purposefully across the plaza, is Walking Woman.

Walking Woman - Sean Henry

Walking Woman - Sean Henry

Walking Woman - Sean Henry

Finally, with her back to Bury Street, is Woman (Being Looked At).

Woman (Being Looked At) - Sean Henry

Woman (Being Looked At) - Sean Henry

Economist Plaza, in St James’s has a constantly changing programme of free public art, exhibitions there change every 6 months. This new show by Sean Henry, is for me, one of their best in years.  The artist has other, permanent works in London at Holland Park and in Paddington Basin but for me this new temporary exhibition showcases his talents better than anywhere else.

Each of the three figures, perfectly captures a different state of mind, a different type of movement. There is the immobile, desolate despair of Seated Man, a haunting character. The Walking Woman strides forth to tackle the next challenge with confidence and self-assurance, her movement is superb. Then there is Woman (Being Looked At); she is frozen in a moment of indecision ( she has apparently lost her keys) one leg is bent as if to suggest forward movement, but she remains very much rooted to the spot, vulnerable, unsure what to do next and painfully aware that she is now providing an unintended spectacle.

This is engaging, accessible, public art at its very best. It was difficult to get these shots yesterday, even in the rain, as there were so many other people trying to do the same thing. A small informal crowd of people were all surprised, delighted and enthused by what we had stumbled across, each of us wanted to capture an image.

Henry’s choice of materials, bronze, cor-ten steel and  all-weather paint greatly enhance the accessibility of his work too. One can touch or even climb upon the works without doing them any damage at all. They are there to stimulate and to be enjoyed free of barriers, ropes, guards and all the  trappings of a formal gallery space.

The show in Economist Plaza ties in with a  solo exhibition of Henry’s new sculptures and drawings The Way It Is which opens at the Osborne Samuel Gallery in Bruton Street, Mayfair, London, W1 on May 9th and will run until June 9th.

The Figures in Economist Plaza will be in place until October 2012.

There are some more images of the works on my Flickr photostream, there are many more images of Sean Henry’s work on the artist’s website.

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured  City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

This image dates from 1897 and shows the last incarnation of Newgate Prison on the same site, facing the newly built Viaduct Tavern.

Newgate Prison and The Viaduct Tavern 1897

Newgate Prison wasn’t completely demolished until 1902. The Viaduct Tavern was built in 1869. So there is an obvious discrepancy in dates, but that aside, would it really have been conceivable that prison authorities would have wanted some of their cells to be included within the cellars of a brand new pub as it was being built?

The image below dates from around 1927. The view is much the same today. Newgate has now been replaced by “The Old Bailey”. The Viaduct looks on.

Old Bailey and The Viaduct Tavern

So the dates don’t add up and the proposal is ludicrous but that doesn’t stop those that peddle regurgitated “hidden gems” of London. Even supposedly authoritative books glibly trot out the same old tosh. This is the entry from the latest edition of The London Encyclopedia.

Viaduct Tavern - From The London Encyclopedia

In the London Encyclopedia entry for Newgate Prison they even use precisely the same illustration that I did to show the Viaduct Tavern and Newgate were both standing at the same time, page 585 for those of you who wish to check.

And here is a typical entry from one of the plethora of “hidden gems” type books. This is from Secret London – An Unusual Guide.

Newgate Cells from Secret London

These beer and coal cellars are interpreted in much the same way elsewhere. Sometimes, as here, in the most embellished and fanciful accounts, the coal holes are  referred to as feeding tubes for prisoners.

This is not a “feeding tube” but a coal plate mounted above a coal cellar, just like hundreds of thousands still to be found throughout London.

Coal plate outside the Viaduct Tavern immediately above one of the "cells"

Here is an image of an actual cell in Newgate, it dates from 1897, about when the pub was celebrating its first birthday. Tellingly, it completely lacks racks for beer barrels, such as those to be found in the Viaduct.

A Newgate Cell 1897

This image is also from 1897 and shows how the cells were arranged, above ground.

Inside Newgate Prison 1897

Even the pub’s own website (via Fullers) doesn’t make the claim that the cellars were once cells in Newgate, preferring a more cautious assertion that they were part of “the Giltspur Comptor, a debtors’ jail affiliated to Newgate Prison”.

Fullers Website

Well it would be nice to think so but the The Museum of London Archaeology Service disagree. The pub wasn’t on the site of the Compter and the Compter’s foundations have long gone in any case.

This is from the 1998 MOLAS report of fieldwork surveys on the site (carried out during the construction of the New Merrill Lynch Regional Headquarters, which occupied the site of Giltspur Street Compter) : King Edward Buildings, former Royal Mail Sorting Office, Giltspur & Newgate Street, EC1, the key paragraph is this one:

In early 1787 the majority of the site was cleared of buildings and later that year the construction of the Giltspur Street Compter prison begun (see London Archaeologist 1993, vol. 7, 115-121), and it was ready for occupation by 1791. The overall layout of the brick-built prison buildings can be established from surviving draft plans. Excavations to date have revealed some unrecorded design features including one stairwell and number of brick-built culverts. Excavation of the foundations of several blocks have revealed that they were interlaced with pine planks and beams, which are being studied as part of an English Heritage funded project on imported softwoods. The prison was in closed in 1853 and demolished in 1854, this work entailed the extensive robbing out of the below ground foundations.

So there we have it. Will this little blog post help to stem the flow of nonsense? Probably not, but at least I have got this particular gripe off my chest.

If you are in the mood for more London “facts” that aren’t actually true why not have a look at this excellent feature from Londonist from a few months back?

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured  City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

A New Rolling Fool

The distinctive jester character is one of a series by street artist Dr Cream. The artist himself alerted me to this new work via a comment on a previous blog post of mine.

There are many plastic sculptures in the series, in different colours, sizes and positions. One has recently been nicked from Manette Street but another can still be found in St Anne’s Court.

I always include one or two Rolling Fools in my regular tours of The Seven Noses of Soho. Many thanks to the artist for enabling me to add his latest work to future tours. You can book tickets for my next tour of the Seven Noses of Soho via Eventbrite:

Dr Cream has also recently uploaded a new animated film  (56 seconds) depicting his creation curling himself into his snail shell at various London locations.

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured  City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

In my last post: Forgotten Images: Before Aldwych and Kingsway, I featured many, long forgotten, images of these lost streets, such as this view of Little Wild Street taken in around 1901.

Little Wild Street just prior to demolition

In this post I am publishing images of the demolition process and the subsequent rebuilding.

Little Wild Street in the course of demolition

All of the images come from this souvenir programme, produced by London County Council for the grand opening on the 18th October 1905, written by Sir Laurence Gomme. I can’t find them anywhere else on the net.

The programme produced for the opening of the Kingsway & Aldwych "Improvement"

At the time one of the great justifications for the new development was slum clearance. The loss of buildings was argued to be a price worth paying. For example the old Clare Market area was regarded by the authorities as “insanitary” and so as part of the plan all of its “3,172 working class” inhabitants would mostly packed off to new flats in Millbank. In total around 600 historic properties were to be demolished.

Looking at the images of the old streets published in the previous post they certainly don’t look like irredeemable slums to me.

Holywell and Wych Streets also had a reputation for booksellers specialising in erotic books and prints. To clear this “infamy” from Central London was seen as desirable. (Although by the time of the development this reputation for smut was perhaps no longer strictly deserved – see the excellent Victorian London page on Holywell Street.)

But perhaps the greatest justification given was to improve traffic flow. It was argued that Strand needed widening and a mighty new thoroughfare needed to be created in Kingsway, the latter complete with a magnificent new Tramway Subway.

Ultimately Parliament gave the go ahead for the entire scheme when it passed the London County Council (Improvements) Act in 1899.

The plan below shows a cross section of Kingsway, 100 feet wide, 60 feet of carriageway and pavements 20 feet wide on each side. The Tramway Subway was constructed in the centre of the highway with sewers and pipe subways to the sides.

Cross Section of Kingsway

These four images show the subway under construction using the same “cut and cover” method that had been employed on the earliest underground lines.

Excavations in Kingsway

View of Kingsway during the progress of the Improvement (August 1905)

The Subway in the course of construction

View in Kingsway during the progress of the Improvement (September 11th 1905)

The pace of the work was quite incredible. These four images were taken from the same vantage point work between August and October 1905.

Central portion of Kingsway on August 3rd, 1905.

Kingsway - Same view as above on August 22nd, 1905 (showing chimney stack demolished).

Kingsway - Same view as above on September 16th, 1905 (lower part of Subway commenced).

Kingsway - Same view as above on October 5th (showing roof of Subway near completion).

So, just to note the breakneck speed of the development; that last photo was taken on October 5th, Gomme finished writing his programme (and included that image) on the 14th of October and just four days after that copies of the freshly printed programme were being presented to The King and Queen at the official opening.

By then this is what they would have seen:

The Subway complete:

The Kingsway Subway

Kingsway open for traffic and the entrance to the Tramway looks much as it still does today:

The entrance to the Subway (Southampton Row)

The Tramway Subway was still in use until the 1950′s. Today it is a Grade II listed structure. You can read more about its history here.

Kingsway (Northern End)

Aldwych too was open for traffic.

Aldwych - East of Kingsway

The New Gaiety Theatre on the Western corner of Aldwych and Strand.

The New Gaiety Theatre - Aldwych

The New Gaiety Theatre, suffered damage in the Blitz and was eventually demolished itself  in 1956.

The final image is from a different source and dates sometime between 1923 and 1928, but I wanted to include this unusual view as it is relevant to the Kingsway and Aldwych development.

It shows the first central development at Bush House, before the various wings were added over the course of 12 years; the Bush House we know today being completed in 1935.

This is the elevation of Bush House facing the bottom of Kingsway. It was 100 feet tall (the same as the width of Kingsway and Aldwych) and 80 feet wide. The proportions were seen at the time as “almost uncomfortably unusual in a London building”.

Bush House Aldwych

Towards then end of his souvenir programme Gomme provides a table of “Interesting Figures in connection with the improvement”.  Today we can look back with sadness and disbelief at the wholesale destruction of such an historic area of Central London but perhaps we can still marvel too at the sheer scale of the work required to construct Aldwych and Kingsway as we know them today.

 Interesting Figures

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured  City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

This map from the programme give some idea of the scale of the works. The buff area of development covers many of the streets that were demolished.

Map showing part of the Kingsway & Aldwych development of 1905

The programme was written by Laurence Gomme, Clerk to the Council, who was also a keen historian. Gomme  helped to found The Victoria County History series and The Survey of London and it was he who persuaded LCC to adopt the Blue Plaque scheme. Incidentally he also suggested naming the development “Aldwych” to reference the ancient nearby settlement.

The programme enthusiastically details the construction of the whole development but such an enthusiast for London’s history and architecture couldn’t let the new development open without also documenting what had been destroyed.

So Gomme provides us with numerous superb and unique images of  many of the old streets and courts, immediately prior to their demolition in 1901.

I haven’t seen such a fine collection elsewhere and can’t find any equivalent on the net.

I’ll post more details in future posts but for now I’ll let these hauntingly beautiful images speak for themselves.

Plummer's Court

Sardinia Place

Sardinia Street

New Inn Banqueting Hall

A Corner in New Inn

New Inn

Hall's Yard, Little Wild Street, showing rear of Mission Chapel.

Holywell Street (eastern end).

Holywell Street (western end).

Houghton Street and New Inn Passage

Wych Street

Wych Street

Corner of Wych Street and Holywell Street

Windsor Court

Sheffield Street

Little Wild Street

And finally, the one that got away, still standing in Portsmouth Street.

The Old Curiosity Shop, Portsmouth Street (said to have been the original of Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop").

In a companion post  Forgotten Images: Destruction & Construction in Aldwych & Kingsway I  look at the demolition of the area and some of the subsequent construction work.

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured  City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

I enjoy the insights these old adverts provide into the everyday social & commercial life of Central London nearly 80 years ago. The guide is packed with adverts and many more of them can be found on my Facebook page.

I wonder, are such specialist pipes still being produced today?

Bargains to be had at the Lost Property Office:

All your household’s spring needs could be catered for in one place:

Pleating to make you look slim:

A gadget-free man’s pipe:

To be really fashionable you needed to have your indentation measured scientifically:

Where can one still buy a decent quality, pure wool, chest protector or pair of pyjamas?

SEO for the inter-war years?

I wonder how many cuckoo clocks the average family required in the 1930s.

A new false eye, fitted within the hour, marvellous!

They “Spare no pains in fitting” this genuine truss:

Still going strong, I think it’s the only business in the whole guide that is, the venerable umbrella and walking stick supremos: James Smith & Sons.

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured  City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

"The Growler" a four-wheeled Hackney Carriage in the 1860s.

Nothing very arduous about that, I actually enjoy the romance of hailing a cab in time-honoured fashion. The only problem is that there are some times and places where, despite there being around 21,000 black cabs in London, not one of them is anywhere to be seen.

Well a new app brings the black cabs to you, wherever you are. You can now turn any restaurant, pub, club, or even your own living room into a high-tech taxi control centre and play at being a  cab dispatcher.

The app is called Get Taxi and has just been launched in London. They offered me £50 worth of free cabs to check it out and are offering a free £3.00 credit for every reader of this blog to do the same (see below for the promo code). Now, I have never accepted a sponsored post before but I do really enjoy catching a proper black cab once in a while, so I took their shilling and am really glad that I did.

How it Works

The app first locates you by GPS. You then select your precise location e.g. “No 2 or No 4 Easy Street”. You then hit a single button to book. The app locates all available drivers in the area and immediately dispatches the one nearest to you.

You then get a screen a bit like this one from the demo version:

You can watch the cab’s location in real time as it moves towards your pick-up point. In the full version you also get a photo of the driver, their name, the reg number of their cab and how they have been rated by previous customers.

You get the option to phone the driver or send a message with additional details, such as “Give me a minute or two to get down the stairs” or “Please can you help me with my luggage.”.

You can specify a destination or just tell the driver where you want to go when they arrive.

A London Motor Taxi, around 1907.

Today arrival looks like this:

I haven’t had to wait for more than a couple of minutes when using this app but then I haven’t really used it at peak times. However, even if I found myself  in for a considerably longer wait, I would personally find it much easier to be patient knowing that a cab was definitely on its way and being able to watch its progress towards me.

You choose whether to pay for your journey by cash or card; if you choose the latter then neither the driver nor you will pay the credit card handling fee. This made the app very popular with the drivers that I spoke to. Drivers also liked the app because they pay a simple fee of £1.00 per job and aren’t tied into more expensive and complicated contracts.

Happy drivers:

A group of veteran London cabbies, photographed in the 1920s.

At the end of the journey you can rate your driver and let others know whether you had a good experience or not. I imagine that if, as a driver, you get consistently poor reviews you will probably stop using the system. Anyway, all the drivers I met obviously had nothing to hide, they were all happy to allow public scrutiny and comment on their services and all of them got the full 5 stars from me.

 How You Can Try it Yourself for Free

The app is free to download and comes in iPhone, Blackberry and Android flavours.

You can get it her via the Get Taxi Website.

For a free £3.00 credit towards your first journey simply use this promotional code after you have downloaded the app: 02502fe63 (You do this in the “Me” section, under “Promotion Code” on your phone)

I can understand if you are a bit skeptical, or maybe even just plain bored by the idea of yet another London based app.

I too have loads of London related apps on my phone and  I never really use any of them them; I just collect them because they are there and they have the word London in the title, I am a bit of a nerd in that way.

This app is a cut above most of the rest though: it is completely free, it does something genuinely useful and it works properly. I am really glad I gave it a go and I know that I will use it in future.

This post was sponsored by Get Taxi. Well sort of …  I have actually used Get Taxi “for real” and spent my own cash in doing so (I used up the 50 quid’s worth of freebies in just a couple of days) so I feel that I can now genuinely recommend this app here.

]]> http://www.peterberthoud.co.uk/2012/04/taxi-hailing-cab-app/feed/ 0 http://www.peterberthoud.co.uk/2012/04/londons-sights/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=londons-sights http://www.peterberthoud.co.uk/2012/04/londons-sights/#comments Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:07:42 +0000 Peter Berthoud http://www.peterberthoud.co.uk/?p=2731 In 1824 William Darton (Junior) wrote a guide to London: A Description of London: Containing a Sketch of Its History and Present State, and of All the Most Celebrated Public Buildings, &c.

The tiny, 36 page, book was published by William Darton (Senior) of 58, Holborn Hill. It was available in two editions, plain for 1s. or, for just sixpence more, you could buy a copy with all eight engravings beautifully hand-coloured.

I couldn’t find the book or the images anywhere else on the net so here are all eight of the Most Celebrated Public Buildings, in colour, accompanied by the original captions and text.

I find it interesting to note what Darton chose not to illustrate, St James’s Palace, The Tower of London, St Paul’s or anything else in The City for that matter. But what most amuses me is his history, he  frustrates and illuminates in equal measure.  I imagine many a London enthusiast going back to double-check their trusted sources after reading Mr Darton’s version of many well-worn “facts”.

Westminster Abbey

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

This interesting edifice was founded by Sebert, King of the East Saxons; but being afterwards destroyed by the Danes, it was rebuilt by Edgar in 958. Edward the Confessor again rebuilt the church in 1065. The present Church was built by Henry II, and his successor, except the two towers at the entrance, which are the work of Sir Christopher Wren. It is 360 feet long; the breadth of the nave is 72 feet, and of the cross aisle 195 feet.

The roof of the nave and of the cross aisle is supported by two rows of arches, one above the other, each of the pillars of which is a union of one ponderous round pillar, and four of a similar form, but extremely slender, continued from the base to the roof, which produce an uncommonly grand and awful effect. The choir is one of the most beautiful in Europe; and the elegant and interesting monuments with which the church is stored, especially in Poets’ Corner, add greatly to its attractions.

Our limits will allow us only to mention, but not to describe, some of the curiosities in this venerable pile, and in the other public buildings that are to follow. The most worthy of notice are Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, one of the finest places of gothic  architecture in. the world, called, by Leland, the wonder of the world; Edward the Confessor’s chapel, in which, among a great variety of valuable antiquity, models, and monuments, are the coronation chairs of the British sovereigns, and the very stone on which the ancient kings of Scotland used to be crowned. There are nine other chapels. The Cloisters, the Crypt, the Chapter House, in which Domesday Book is kept, the beautiful prospect from the towers of the Abbey, the Choir, the Altar, and the west window, must not be omitted. Prices of Admission—Henry VII.’s Chapel, 6db; North Transept, 6d.; Henry V.’s Chapel, 3d.; West-end and North-west Tower, 6d.; but it is usual to give a trifle to the conductor.

Westminster Hall

WESTMINSTER HALL
This is the largest room in Europe unsupported by pillars, except the theatre at Oxford; it is 275 feet long, and 74 broad. Westminster Hall, with the Houses of Lords and Commons, and other contiguous buildings, are the remains of the Old Royal Palace of Westminster, built by Edward the Confessor. This great hall, which has a curious chestnut roof in the gothic style, was built by William Rufus, and enlarged by Richard II.

It was originally used as a place to entertain the king’s guests and dependants in, on great festivals; Richard II.  entertained 10,000 persons within its walls, and it is still used for the coronation feasts. It is also fitted up for the trial of peers, or persons impeached by the House of Commons.

Under the roof of this hail, or in intimate connexion with it, is performed the most effective public business of this great empire. Here the representatives of the people deliberate ;—here every department of the law is administered in the three supreme courts, (King’s Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer,) and in the Court of Chancery ;—and here sit the Court of Final Appeal, and the other House of Legislature—the House of Lords.

Carlton Palace

CARLTON HOUSE
Is situated on the northern side of St. James’s Park, fronting Pall Mall, and is the residence of the present King. it is a modern building, and contains several magnificent apartments. It has the finest and most extensive armoury in the world, in which are some of the rarest specimens of the arms, &c. of all nations.

The principal front is separated from Pall Mall by a low screen, surmounted with a beautiful colonnade.

Hay Market Theatre

NEW THEATRE ROYAL, HAYMARKET
This is a summer theatre, opening about the middle of May, and closing in September. Though it is not so spacious as either of the winter houses, it is fitted up in a neat and tasteful style, and contains three tiers of boxes, a pit, and two galleries.

The price of admission to the boxes is 5s.; pit, 3s.; galleries, 2s. and 1s.; half price is not taken. The doors open at six, and the performance begins at seven o’clock.

The Horse Guards

HORSE-GUARDS, OR WAR OFFICE

This is an elegant stone building, separating Parliament Street from the eastern end of St. James’s Park, to which,it is the principal entrance. Here is transacted all the business of the British army in a great variety of departments. Two regiments of horse-guards do duty here; and here also three regiments of footguards have their orderly rooms. Under the two small pavilions at the entrance, two of the horse-guards, mounted and in uniform, are constantly stationed as sentinels.

White Hall

WHITEHALL

The old palace of this name occupied a space along the bank of the river, a little below Westminster Bridge, beginning at Privy Gardens, and ending near Scotland-yard; it extended from the river to St. James’s Park and to Spring Gardens, and was originally the property of Hubert de Burgh, Justiciary of England, under Henry III., from whom it passed to the prelates of York, and was long called York House. Henry VIII. purchased it from Cardinal Wolsey, then Archbishop of York, when it became the residence of the kings of England, till the reign of Queen Anne, who held her court at St. James’s, in consequence of this palace being burnt down in 1697.

The Banqueting House occupies but a very small part of the site of the ancient palace, and derives its appellation from an old building used for public entertainments in the reign of Elizabeth. It is only a small portion of the vast plan of a palace, intended to be worthy of the residence of the British monarchs, but left incomplete. It was begun by order of James I.. and is the work of Inigo Jones. The great room is converted into a chapel, and over the altar stand several eagles taken from the French at the battles of Albuera and Barossa. The ceiling was painted by Rubens, and represents the apotheosis of James I.; it was lately retouched by Cipriani. In the court behind the Banqueting-house is a very fine statue of James II. Before the Banqueting-house Charles I. was beheaded on a scaffold erected for the purpose, to which lie passed through one of the windows, since bricked up: and he slept here the night before, in one of the small rooms.

Somerset House

SOMERSET HOUSE

On the site of Somerset House formerly stood a magnificent palace, built by the great and amiable Duke of Somerset, protector in the reign of Edward VI., who being barbarously attainted and executed, it fell to the crown. The present edifice was erected, under the powers of an Act of Parliament, by Sir William Chambers, for several public uses. It is an immense stone edifice, raised on piers and arches, on the banks of the Thames,and fronting the Strand. The terrace, as seen from the river, is very noble; it is raised on a grand rustic basement, having thirty-two spacious arches, and commands a beautiful part of the river, including Blackfriars and Westminster Bridges. The front of Somerset House, in the Strand, has a very magnificent aspect, and that which looks into the court is elegant in its composition, and considerably wider than the former.

In the extensive court is the statue of the late king, and at his feet a figure of the river Thames, pouring wealth and plenty from a large cornucopia. The three open arches in the Strand-front form the principal entrance; they lead to a spacious and elegant vestibule, in which are the rooms of the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries, and the Royal Academy of Arts. The various public offices, and houses of the officers, are at once commodious and elegant, worthy of the nation to which they belong. The hail of the Navy Office is a fine room, one of the fronts facing the terrace and river, and the other the court. The Stamp Office consists of a multitude of apartments, and the room in which the stamping is executed is very interesting to the curious.

Here are also the offices of the Auditor of the Exchequer—Chancellors of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster—Hawkers and Pedlars—Lottery—Stage Coach —and revenue establishment of the Tax Offices. Somerset Place is also one of the wonders of the financial system of Great Britain.

Covent Garden Theatre

COVENT-GARDEN THEATRE

This theatre was rebuilt in 1809, after the conflagration in 1808, and is, as a building, one of the ornaments of the metropolis, and the completest theatre in Europe. Great exertions have been made to raise its amusements to the highest pitch of scenic splendour and dramatic perfection; accordingly the dresses are more costly, and all the arrangements are on a more expensive scale than were ever before known in this metropolis. The colour of the interior is gold upon white. The prices for admission, time of opening and closing the house, and of commencing the performances, are the same as at Drury Lane.

The half-price begins at both theatres at the end of the third act of a play of five acts, or at the end of the second act of a play of three acts. Each theatre employs, as actors, artists, musicians, and mechanics, from 200 to 250 persons, at salaries from 30l. to 2l. a week. Each holds, when crowded, about 750l.; and with a full house., about 650l.; the nightly expenses are at least :200l.; hence the proprietors have clear profit of about 40,000l. per annum.

How many times did you disagree with Mr Darton? But have you got sources to back up all of your assertions? I know that he has not only given me some new information but that he will also make me think very carefully before I trot out some of the “universally accepted facts” of London’s history.

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured  City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.

Swamp Cypress at Syon Park

The knobbly, stalagmitish, roots belong to a fine group of Swamp Cypresses (taxodium distichum) that grow around the lake at Syon Park.

“Where the roots of the swamp cypress are submerged or in waterlogged ground, the tree will grow roots above ground known as ‘knees’ or pneumatophores, which can grow up to 3m but are usually much smaller.

It is thought that these knobbly roots act as snorkels by carrying supplies of air to the underground roots which may be starved of oxygen. They may also be acting as additional stabilisation for this large tree.

The swamp cypress is one of only a few conifers growing in Britain that sheds its foliage in winter. For this reason it is also known as the bald cypress.

The tree is a native of the south east of the United States, it was introduced to Britain in 1640 by the famous plant hunter John Tradescant the Younger.” (Proper tree knowledge via Kew, more here).

I was at the inspirational Gardening Against the Odds Awards  at Syon the other day. This annual event recognises the remarkable achievements of amateur gardeners who, despite many obstacles, have brought beautiful gardens to the unlikeliest of places.

Alan Titchmarsh was one of the guest speakers and he drew our attention to these marvellous trees during his speech. He thinks they are probably London’s finest examples, well, who am I to disagree? Other Swamp Cypresses can be found in Kew and Bushy Park.

The author of this blog is a qualified and insured  City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London, please see tabs for details.