The London Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park
In 1829 the Duke of Wellington, the then Prime Minister, fought a duel with the Earl of Winchelsea on Battersea Fields, an area of common […]
The Blog
Victoria’s Campanile – the Western Pumping Station
As one rattles across the Thames in to Victoria station an elegant building appears on the Chelsea Embankment on one’s left. It’s a building on […]
Most secret: the story of the Bletchley Park codebreakers (video of online talk)
Discover the secrets of Bletchley Park’s codebreakers & the cracking of Enigma in this online talk. All ticket money goes to The Brain Tumour Charity […]
A History of London – free talk recording
Last week I did a Zoom talk for 40 or so people as a fundraiser for Prostate Cancer UK. Called “a history of London in […]
Londinium: a new place to see the capital’s Roman wall
Typical, you wait ages for a post about Roman London, then three come along at once. After the Mithraeum and the Billingsgate bath house, here’s […]
Londinium: the Billingsgate Roman Bath House
Dig a hole in the City of London and a few metres down you will hit Londinium, the original city, because before the Romans there […]
All Hail the Sacred Dung Beetle!
When Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, sold his collection of antiquities to the British Museum in 1816, the museum acquired not only his once […]
Contemplating the Infinite in the British Museum
In Douglas Adams’s Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, the Total Perspective Vortex gives “one momentary glimpse of the size of the entire infinity of creation […]
Leake Street – London’s Street Art Tunnel
I feel almost embarrassed to admit that I’m not a huge fan of ‘street art’. One can admire the draughtsmanship, say, or the use of […]
Gluttony and grave robbing – Pye Corner in Smithfield
Stroll up Giltspur Street towards Smithfield Market and look up to your left at the building on the corner of Cock Lane. In an arched […]