I spoke with Sarah Murden to talk about dental care during the Georgian era. 

My first question was 'What did the Georgians use to brush their teeth?'

Here's what she said:

"A Frenchman, a chap called Pierre Fauchard, actually studied the anatomy of the mouth and looked at the actual teeth, looked at the construction of the teeth and he started to write documents and, I think, wrote a thesis on what we were doing wrong, this is what we should be doing and this is how to look after the teeth bett...

Albemarle Street is one of Mayfair’s quieter streets, but it has not always been so. It is home to the Royal Institution and with its imposing classical columns it is one of the most notable buildings on the street. But it is also the reason Albemarle Street became Britain’s first one- way street.

The Royal Institution (RI for short) is one of the UK’s leading scientific institutions, founded in 1799. It has always had an emphasis not only on research but also teaching and you may have s...

A small churchyard in a quiet corner of Clapham has a largely forgotten and sad part in

Britain’s black colonial history. Zachary Macaulay was one of the leading members of the

Clapham Sect, a network of individuals working for the abolition of slavery in the British

dominions. He is remembered by a memorial in Westminster Abbey, a plaque on the site of

his former house just by Clapham Common Tube and a road next to the Common.

Macaulay had worked in the Caribbean and seen slavery first hand and...

Henry Greathead had been pressed into his Majesty's navy in Portsmouth having returned to England in 1784. His dream was to become a boat builder in his home in South-Shields. He had designed a boat to withstand rough seas. In order to build the boat he needed materials, and to get those he needed money (something which he didn't have). 

Greathead wrote to two underwriters with whom he had been in correspondence with during an incident in Calais of a false insurance claim by his captain. He wr...

Clapham Common has a hidden history from Samuel Pepys and Noel Coward to the first successful measurement of the weight of the planet. Not bad for an often overlooked suburb.

One of the hidden features is Clapham’s very own classic temple. From the 17th century onwards Clapham became the place to be, as connections to the City improved and highwaymen decreased, meaning that you could do a day’s work in the dirty, unhealthy commercial centre and return safely to your family in the country ...

Today Danson House in the London Borough of Bexley is home to a rather wonderful tea room and provides a stunning venue for weddings, but it was built on the proceeds of human misery and was not a happy place for its owner Sir John Boyd.

John Boyd’s father Augustus left Donegal in 1700 to run a sugar plantation on the island of St Kitts that had belonged to his uncle. The plantation was worked by African people brought as slaves from Sierra Leone. Augustus bought more plantations but gradua...