“I’m going to drink a pint in every pub on Tottenham Court Road,” said Karl Marx, eyeing up the 18 establishments he would visit on his night out. With his friend and double act Friedrich Engels, they got blindingly drunk, stealing a gate from a local church and […]
It doesn’t take long once you’ve walked through the doors of Crewe Arms Hotel that you clock its railway connections. In reception, there’s a screen showing departures for the vast mainline station across the road, while the wall opposite the check-in desk has a black and white picture […]
Bedminster without the tobacco industry would have been like London without its port or Nottingham without lace. At its peak some 13,000 people were directly employed by the trade in this inner Bristol suburb. But many other related businesses and their employees benefitted indirectly from tobacco manufacturing in […]
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 […]
Whatever day of the week you visit Canary Wharf, it seems to be busy. On weekdays, the 100,000 office workers that commute here make good use of the shopping mall, where they can pick up a sandwich at lunch and perhaps also a last minute birthday present for […]
The best way to understand why London’s East End docks closed for good in the 1980s comes if you take a 40 minute train journey east from Fenchurch Street. At the Port of Tilbury, piled up one of top of another are vast containers which are awaiting onward […]
“The rozzers,” shouted one of the lads acting as a look out. And with that ‘Billy the bet’ abruptly ended a monologue about his illegal trade and vanished into the back streets of Walworth. Billy’s talk – on a street corner not far from the Old Kent Road […]
Bermondsey Street is a busy stretch of upmarket cafes, galleries and craft shops that is gentrifying fast. Lying in the shadow of the Shard, it’s an area of prime real estate, with developers sitting on vacant properties waiting for prices to rise as the ambitious re-building of London […]
With rubbish strewn on the roadside, lorries thundering by to waste incinerator plants, distribution centres and oil storage depots, this is hardly the most picturesque part of London. Exploring on a Saturday morning, there are not many souls about as I weave my way around this desolate area […]
Hackney is not a place that most people would think of heading if they were on the search for Tudor country mansions. But jump off the Overground train at Hackney Central station and history enthusiasts won’t be disappointed. After just a 10 minute walk you arrive at Sutton […]
Past In The Present 