Pass through the squeaky revolving doors and you enter the light and airy foyer of Grade II * listed Hornsey Town Hall. It’s a wonderful building dating back to 1935 and, despite its crumbling appearance (the gents toilets being a case in point), contains many fascinating original features. […]
Two Willow Road is somewhere that looks pretty ugly from the outside. Some may disagree with my analysis, but to me this modernist terrace sticks out like a sore thumb against the pleasant neighbouring Victorian houses, which incorporate on their brickwork interesting, varied designs and shapes. There’s none […]
When I take the rubbish out to the bin store outside my block of flats, I try to perform this necessary task as quickly as possible. Lift the lid, throw the bags in and make my getaway before the smell becomes overpowering. One thing I don’t tend to […]
When antique shops don’t display their prices in the window, you know the individual items on sale inside aren’t going to come cheap. Welcome to Chelsea, the fashionable suburb where the now famous Chelsea Bun was first produced in the 17th century, and an area that is today […]
Chelsea Pensioners don’t have far to go if they want to visit the area’s biggest annual event. The giant white marquee of the Grand Pavilion of the Chelsea Flower Show is quite literally at the bottom of their garden. When I strolled through the beautifully-kept grounds of the […]
As recently as a decade ago King’s Cross was not the place to head to if you wanted to enjoy a pleasant evening out with friends. Anyone arriving from the north of England was advised to jump straight on the Tube and go elsewhere in the capital if […]
When a committee of MPs investigating the state of the country’s gaol’s visited the Marshalsea debtor’s prison in Borough in 1729 the conditions they reported were appalling. Wards were “excessively Crowded, Thirty, Forty, nay Fifty Persons having been locked up in some of them not Sixteen Foot Square”. […]
Oxford Street once boasted London’s best shops, but many would agree that it lost its way long ago. While it isn’t today struggling to pull in the crowds, the outlets on offer are far from imaginative – chain stores you could find anywhere, fast food joints and stalls […]
When the first copies of the Daily Mail hit the newsstands 120 years ago, prime minister Lord Salisbury dismissed the new newspaper as “run by office boys for office boys”. But it was an immediate success, selling nearly 400,000 copies on the first day and it soon would […]
When Francis Russell licensed the development of land in Covent Garden he declared that it needed to be “fitt for the habitacions of Gentlemen and men of ability.” It was most ambitious of West End projects in the first half of the 17th century, with Inigo Jones being […]
Past In The Present 