About Me and this Blog

29/08/2022 donbrown 0

Welcome, thanks for discovering this blog and taking the time to find out more. It is a pretty random collection of posts of curiosities, museum […]

"the glorious dead" inscription on the cenotaph london

The Cenotaph – Lutyens’ ’empty tomb’ on Whitehall

10/07/2025 donbrown 0

The focus for the annual Remembrance Day commemorations each November, Edwin Lutyens’ Cenotaph is the monumental sculptural piece that stands in the centre of Whitehall.  […]

elysyng spital tower in the city of london

Elsyng Chapel Tower on London Wall

28/05/2025 donbrown 0

Elsyng Spital tower, once the church for, in turn, a nunnery, a hospital, an Augustinian priory, a grand house, a college and the parish church of St Alphage’s.

tower hill sundial

The Egregious Error of the Tower Hill Sundial

26/05/2025 donbrown 0

All about the huge architectural sundial on Tower Hill, and the big mistake it makes about London’s history.

Brendan Bracken and the Churchill Clock

20/05/2025 donbrown 0

Above the Cannon Street doorway of the FT’s Bracken House is a remarkable astrological clock featuring the face of Winston Churchill.

A Journey to the Source of the Thames

18/05/2025 donbrown 0

Viewed purely on the facts and figures, the Thames is not one of the great rivers of the world. At around 215 miles (345km) long […]

a view from the lookout viewing gallery of tower bridge

Up On the Roof (one more time) from The Lookout

18/05/2025 donbrown 0

Back up into the sky, this time with a trip up the neighbour of ‘The Beast’, The Lookout on the 50th floor of number 8 […]

temple church london wikimedia image

A lot more than the Da Vinci Code: Temple Church

05/05/2025 donbrown 0

At the top end of Strand opposite the Royal Courts of Justice is Devereux Court. Step off the main road along there and you enter […]

cover of echolands by duncan mackay

Book Review: Echolands: A Journey in Search of Boudica

03/05/2025 donbrown 0

This is a wonderful, scholarly and fun read, an exploration of history and of landscape, as author and archeologist Duncan Mackay follows the Boudiccan uprising […]

red coated guards leaving buckingham palace

Guards! Guards! (And the changing thereof)

21/04/2025 donbrown 0

All you need to know to catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace (whether or not you go with Alice).

Exhibition: London in the Second World War

14/04/2025 donbrown 0

To The London Archives in Clerkenwell for the small but (genuinely) perfectly formed ‘London in the Second World War’ exhibition. It runs until the end […]