Visitors to London have a choice of ways of getting to Britain’s capital these days. Travel by road, rail or plane are probably the most popular ways of reaching the centre, but the list is by no means exhaustive. Those with money to burn can find even more […]
Looking from afar across to Shoreditch, the Theatre would have been an incredible sight: a “gorgeous playing-place erected in the Fields”, noted one contemporary. Playgoers – who had grown up watching plays outside inns or on village greens – would have seen nothing like it before. Opened in […]
Sunday morning and the towpath of the Regent’s Canal was a hectic place to be. Joggers – headphones plugged in and sweating from the heat of the sun – and cyclists fought for their share of the narrow space between the water’s edge and towering brick-built buildings. Things […]
Landing at London City Airport is an absolute pleasure. I’ve flown in and out of there a few times recently and each time I’ve been on the platform at the adjoining DLR station within minutes of my plane touching down. If I’d have gone to Gatwick or Heathrow, […]
To understand the changing face of Hackney Wick, you need only need to take a short walk from the Overground station to a derelict site surrounded by graffiti-covered hoardings. Running along the top of boards is a phrase that not only sums up the area’s past, but also […]
“Save Norton Folgate,” shouts the large black print on a white banner flapping in the wind above a fine Georgian terrace a few minutes walk from Liverpool Street station. Four decades on from when Dan Cruickshank, Sir John Betjeman and many dedicated others fought a long hard battle […]
You don’t need to look far to find vivid accounts of the poor living conditions that many experienced in London’s East End in the 19th century. So-called social explorers flocked from the more salubrious areas of the capital – and even overseas – to witness and report on […]
It was “the handsomest pleasure room in the district” noted the Daily News in 1864. Wilton’s Music Hall, nestled down an unassuming alley way behind Cable Street in London’s East End, was in Victorian times a popular variety venue enjoyed by Whitechapel locals and international sailors visiting the […]
Like others in the 19th century, Thomas Barnardo planned to train as a doctor and use his new skills to help the poor on the other side of the world. As a medical missionary, he set his sights on ministering to the needy in China. The fact that […]
26 Chittys Lane looks like many other houses built on British council estates to provide “homes for heroes” following the First World War. But the presence of a Blue Plaque on the front of this Becontree property suggests there is a specific story to tell. It wasn’t however […]
Past In The Present 