The George Inn on Borough High Street is a busy place on Friday evenings as office workers, holding a pint or two in their hands, fill the rooms inside and outdoor courtyard. But this is nothing new – this pub has a history of being hectic. Writing in […]
Lying just a stone’s throw from the shiny new Blackfriars station – a fabulous structure with platforms stretching right across the Thames – the Blackfriar pub looks out of place against all the modern development going on in this part of London. The exposed outside terrace out the […]
While the Globe theatre is the most famous of the Elizabethan playhouses on Bankside given its links to William Shakespeare, far less is known about it than about its neighbour, the Rose. The latter (opened in 1587) was one of two such venues already in operation in the […]
Britain’s weather can be miserable, even in the summer months. Planning any public event in the open air runs the risk of visitors getting extremely wet from a freakish downpour or freezing cold during an artic chill. So why on earth would anyone decide to open a new […]
Looking from afar across to Shoreditch, the Theatre would have been an incredible sight: a “gorgeous playing-place erected in the Fields”, noted one contemporary. Playgoers – who had grown up watching plays outside inns or on village greens – would have seen nothing like it before. Opened in […]
The breadth of history on show in London for all to see never ceases to amaze me. Last week I saw the remains of a Roman bathhouse hidden below a City office block. This weekend I viewed, beneath another modern building, traces of the first theatre to be […]
It’s getting trendy these days for museum exhibitions to examine the world that famous historic figures would have seen. ‘Dickens and London’ which ran at the Museum of London earlier this year for example was an excellent portrayal of the Victorian capital, timed to coincide with the 200th […]
Past In The Present 