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, […]
Abbey Mills Pumping Station cuts a striking impression on the east London skyline. The palatial Victorian monument near Stratford will be familiar to many given it has featured on both the small and big screens in everything from Batman to The Bill, but there is nothing quite like […]
Load up the website of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers and look at the organisation’s coat of arms. Flanking a red painted shield with three pairs of crossed swords, the eye is drawn to two white elephants standing on their back legs and with their trunks raised. The […]
After three days of rioting, Queen Square in the centre of Bristol lay in ruins. Properties on two sides of it were completely wiped out and the Mansion House – the home of the city’s Lord Mayor – the Excise Office and Custom House were all badly damaged. […]
It may have been a bank holiday weekend, but a team of three were hard at work restoring Independence, a vessel owned by the Bristol Ferry Boat Company. On a 1880s slipway overlooking the picturesque Bristol Floating Harbour, they were lovingly painting on a grey undercoat before the […]
The history books have a very precise date for the end of Roman Britain. In 410AD the superpower refused a request from the British for military aid and Britain ceased to be a Roman province. Within a generation Londinium – today the vast area that is the City […]
Out of the dust, a new European headquarters for media company Bloomberg is emerging near Bank station. The new building will consist of two bronze-and-stone towers, connected by sky-bridges, and as well as office space will contain restaurants and shops. Bloomberg says it will become a “dining and […]
Roman London in the second century AD would have been an impressive place to visit. Spanning both sides of the Thames, it was by then the largest city in Britain – a cosmopolitan settlement that was full of hustle and bustle. The skyline was dominated by the forum-basilica, […]
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 […]
“Last Thursday they were turned out of their lodgings into the streets because they were in arrears with their rent,” reported the Illustrated Police News in 1900. “She had seven children….“ London has, in years gone by, been a trying place for many to live as a result […]
Past In The Present 