When it’s a school founded by a Tudor king. In the Middle Ages a hospital was not what we think of today. The word has the same origins as hospitality or hotel, coming from the Latin hospes meaning both guest/visitor and host. A medieval hospital could be almhouses for the poor, a hostel for pilgrims or a school for the poor.

The sculpture by Andrew Brown commemorates the founding of Christ’s Hospital in 1552 by King Edward VI on part of the site of Greyfriars, a Franciscan monastery in th...

The Great Fire of 1666 was devastating, destroying around four-fifths of the City of London. The main reason it was so destructive was the wind which was blowing from the south-east, and which was particularly fierce. The Dutch and English fleets vying for a fight in the Channel the night before the fire broke out had been unable to join the battle because the winds were so strong. 

The direction of the wind was important as it helped usher the flames away from the river which might in other c...

If you go through the Blackfriars Bridge underpass on the south bank of the Thames look out for this tiled replica of a picture which appeared in the Illustrated London News on 13 November 1869.

It was eight years since Queen Victoria’s beloved husband Prince Albert had died and since then she had been in deep mourning and had very rarely appeared in public. Her and the monarchy’s popularity had plummeted. In an effort to change this, the Prime Minister William Gladstone had persuaded her ...

The Monument was built between 1671-1677 to commemorate the Great Fire of London of 1666 which ended up destroying four-fifths of the city. It is a column standing on a very large pedestal, some 20 feet high, much of which is covered in dense Latin writing.

This goes unremarked today, partly because so few of us read Latin. Then as now only a minority of people would be able to read it, even if in the 17th century Latin was a more important language and in theory if you were a gentleman it was...

As you cross the Thames on the Millennium Bridge (the “wobbly bridge”) you may well not be aware that immediately below you on the north bank river path there is a fascinating record of the history of London and the UK, scientific instruments/inventions and religion in London over the last 2,000 years.

Leading up to the year 2000 the northern riverside, round where the bridge is now, was completely regenerated. An accessible and pleasant riverside promenade was created where previously it...

London’s first coffeehouse was founded in 1652 by the churchyard of St Michael’s, Cornhill. It was not quite the first coffeehouse in England, which had been founded in Oxford two years earlier, and it was not really a coffeehouse - more of a coffee shack. Business blossomed for the man behind it, Pasqua Rosee, and soon he was selling 600 dishes a day. From this start, the capital had acquired several hundred coffeehouses by the turn of the century, a development which set London apart fr...