Rogers Govender must be a busy man. As well as presiding over the city’s cathedral he is also the rector of a parish church and the warden of the Collegiate Church. But the Dean doesn’t have far to to go to move from one to the other – […]
“It is all done and you are the Lady of Hughenden”, Benjamin Disraeli told his wife in September 1848 after the purchase of their Buckinghamshire manor and estate was complete. Surrounded by woodland in the heart of the Chilterns, it was here that they would enjoy peace and […]
Buildings aren’t all they seem in Wroclaw’s central squares. These colourful painted structures in Poland’s fourth largest city appear as if they’ve been here for centuries, but looks can be deceiving – some are skilful re-constructions. Until 1945 Wroclaw (previously known as Breslau) was part of Germany and […]
“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 […]
Arriving at ‘Greenhithe for Bluewater’ you could be forgiven for thinking that this station on the Kent side of the Thames estuary provides access to the sprawling shopping centre and nothing more. As soon as you get off the train, successive signs usher you to shuttle buses that […]
An abandoned terraced house in south London seems a fitting setting for such dark a story. Amongst the peeling walls and bare floorboards of this crumbling Peckham property, unfolds the tragic events of the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572 when Catholic mobs attacked protestants, known as Huguenots, […]
All board, the Mail Rail is ready to leave! There has been quite a buzz surrounding the opening of the London’s newest underground passenger line. Initial timed weekend tickets sold out months in advance when they were first released, but after a patient wait I have now finally […]
“I want us to disrupt this street,” Rupert Murdoch says after his purchase of the Sun in 1969. The young Australian sheep farmer, turned newspaper proprietor wanted big things from the ailing broadsheet founded five years earlier, which under his watch would be re-born as a lively tabloid. […]
In the final part of my series on the City’s churches, I look at how some needed to be re-built following the IRA bombs of the 1990s and consider how they are preparing for the future. There is a tragic story behind the Gherkin in the heart of […]
Continuing my series on the City of London’s churches, I take a look this week at examples of buildings where only towers and steeples survive. St Dunstan in the East in the City is a place that you will probably have all to yourself if you visit at […]
Past In The Present 