Intersected by a main road and blighted by an open air car park, Cecil Square today seems little more than a busy traffic hub. While there are clearly some interesting heritage buildings on one side, the eye is drawn to the ghastly post war concrete library structure on […]
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 […]
It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon and Finsbury Park is alive with the infectious sound of drumming. More than 25 people are sitting in a circle holding their instruments and jamming along to the lively rhythms. The session in front of Finsbury Park Art Club, on the Seven Sisters […]
Shoreditch is known today for its trendy bars, arty coffee shops and retro clothing stores, but it was once more famous for being the beating heart of England’s furniture trade. Wholesale warehouses lined Curtain Road, from Old Street to Great Eastern Street, while workshops and factories were sandwiched […]
“We went like a shot from a gun,” wrote an excited railway passenger in 1835. “No sooner did we come to a field than it was a mile behind us.” Charles Young was travelling on the pioneering Manchester to Liverpool line just five years after its opening and […]
Peter Beuth, a German visitor to Manchester in 1823, wrote of a place where “machinery and buildings can be found commensurate with the miracles of modern times – they are called factories.” Clearly not believing his friend would be familiar with this new type of workplace he felt […]
For centuries London’s cattle market was Smithfield on the eastern fringes of the City. Drovers brought animals down what is today the A1, which incorporates Holloway Road and Upper Street in Islington, on long journeys from Scotland and the north of England. The animals would then often be […]
Market day in Brixton is a noisy affair. The minute you step out of the Tube station and onto the main shopping stretch you are struck by a sea of music and chanting. Gospel choirs, steel drum bands and gig promoters all compete for the attention of passers-by. […]
Entrepreneurs will tell you that to succeed in business the political environment needs to be right. For William Hesketh Lever, the son of a wholesale grocer from Bolton, the removal of tax on soap and the government’s desire to promote a clean living agenda amongst working classes created […]
Past In The Present 