Showing Tag: " victoria" (Show all posts)

London's First Railway

Posted by Hazel Baker, Director of London Guided Walks on Friday, October 22, 2021, In : Georgian 
London's London Bridge - Greenwich line was the first steam railway in London. It was also the first to be built specifically for passengers. It's an early C19th engineering marvel, an entirely elevated railway and can still be experienced today. Spa Road was the first London terminus but where was it? Spa Road station, Bermondsey, opened in 1836. Built during an era when station design was still in its infancy, the original terminal was very basic indeed, consisting of two narrow timber p...
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Whitechapel: Poverty Breeds Crime

Posted by Jenny Phillips, Jack the Ripper Tour Guidev on Monday, October 11, 2021, In : Jack the Ripper 

The Whitechapel murders by Jack the Ripper took place in 1888 in one of the most poverty-stricken places in London. Whitechapel was an area with massive overcrowding caused by multiple reasons:


From the 1840’s farming started to become mechanised people fled to London looking for work. The Irish Potato Famine from1845 meant one million Irish people left their homes in search of a new life abroad. Some came to London, some of those later went on to America. From the mid 1800’s Jews fled fro...


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Sir William Gull: Ripper Suspect

Posted by Jenny Phillips, Jack the Ripper Tour Guide on Friday, September 24, 2021, In : Jack the Ripper 

Most of the candidates for Jack the Ripper have fatal flaws. For example, the queen’s doctor Sir William Gull. In 1887, Sir William Gull suffered the first of several strokes at his Scottish home, Urrard House, Killiecrankie. The attack of hemiplegia and aphasia was caused by a cerebral haemorrhage. He recovered after a few weeks and returned to London, but was under no illusions about the danger to his health, remarking "One arrow had missed its mark, but there are more in the quiver".


Over...


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William Bury - Jack The Ripper Suspect

Posted by Jenny Phillips, Jack the Ripper Tour Guide on Friday, August 13, 2021, In : Jack the Ripper 

One of the lesser-known suspects for the Ripper murders is William Bury and his is a strange tale indeed!


He was born in May 1859, orphaned at an early age and attended a charitable school in the Midlands. After he left school, he was in regular employment for a while and then got into financial difficulties and was dismissed for stealing. He became a street pedlar. In 1887 he moved to London and met and married Ellen Elliot, who was probably a prostitute. Their marriage was stormy, punctuated...


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Graves of the Victims of Jack the Ripper

Posted by Jenny Phillips, Jack the Ripper Tour Guide on Thursday, June 3, 2021, In : Jack the Ripper 

Walking round on a Jack the Ripper walk, I am sure that most people would be wondering where all the victims of Jack the Ripper were buried. Even though most of these women were buried in common graves as their families either could not be traced or did not have the money to buy them a plot in a cemetery, it is still possible to find and visit their resting places.


Here is a list of all the graves that have been discovered up until now.


Martha Tabram - unknown but most likely common grave in th...


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Was The Crowd Not Amused By Queen Victoria?

Posted by Susan Baker, City of London Tour Guide on Wednesday, April 28, 2021, In : Victorian 

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 ...


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Hats off to Bankside Fashion Icon

Posted by Dr Stephen King, Westminster Tour Guide on Tuesday, March 23, 2021, In : Victorian 

Did you know Bankside’s role in the invention of one of Britain’s most iconic fashion items?

The Earl of Leicester had a problem: his gamekeepers hats kept on being knocked off as they went about their work, because in the mid-19th century gamekeepers wore impractical tall hats. He dispatched his younger brother Edward Coke to posh St James’s hat-maker Lock and Co to find a solution.


Lock and Co got in touch with a certain hat-maker’s on Bankside to design a solution.  Bankside has a lo...


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Dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park - a Virtual Tour

Posted by Hazel Baker on Tuesday, March 16, 2021, In : Victorian 
In episode 47 of our London History podcast we discuss the wonderful dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park. I was going to pop along and do a bit of filming but the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs have beaten us to it. They have included dinosaur names and sound effects too - something we just couldn't even compete with. 

Enjoy!

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Why Was Jack the Ripper Never Caught?

Posted by Jenny Phillips, Jack the Ripper Tour Guide on Tuesday, March 9, 2021, In : Jack the Ripper 

I think there are many reasons why the police did not catch Jack the Ripper, even though at one time they believed that they were only five minutes behind him after the murder of Catherine Eddowes on 30 September 1888, the night of the double event.

One reason was that policing in those days was far removed from the efficient methods of today. Just imagine no fingerprinting until 1906, no crime scene analysis, no DNA, no genetic sequencing, or any of the other tools that the police now have.

On...


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Drawing London's Buildings

Posted by Hazel Baker on Sunday, February 28, 2021, In : Podcast 
In episode 45 we talk to architect and artist Christian Coop about his inspiration for drawing London's buildings.
You can follow Christian on instagram here
I have also added a selection on places we mention in the podcast. Enjoy:
Elizabeth Tower, Westminster
Tower Bridge, from the foreshore
Westminster Abbey, Westminster
Woolwich Town Hall, Royal Borough of Greenwich
Queen Anne Gate, St James

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The Old Operating Theatre Museum

Posted by Hazel Baker, London Tour Guide on Thursday, June 11, 2020, In : Things to Do in London 

Up a narrow 52-step spiral staircase and in the attic of the early eighteenth-century church of the old St Thomas' Hospital is the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe. Predating anaesthetics and antiseptics, this atmospheric museum offers a unique insight into the history of medicine and surgery. The original timber framed Herb Garret was once used to dry and store herbs for patients' medicines and in 1822 an operating theatre was included. The Old Operating Theatre Museum has a sp...


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Looking for Old London Bridge

Posted by Rob Smith, Clerkenwell and Islington Tour Guide on Friday, April 17, 2020, In : Great Fire of London 
London Bridge is Falling Down. Anyone know a song about that? London Bridge certainly has a record of having been built and replaced many times. The first Roman bridge was built around 43AD but was replaced by a more permanent structure in 55AD (there is a great model of this bridge in the Museum of London). When the Roman’s rule ended their bridge fell into disrepair and London was left bridgeless until 878 when a Saxon bridge crossed the Thames slightly downstream from the Roman one. Acc...

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End of the Line for London’s Effluent

Posted by Ian McDiarmid, City of London Tour Guide on Saturday, April 4, 2020, In : Victorian 

Situated 11 miles down river along the Thames Path from London Bridge is a Victorian building 

containing the world’s largest rotative steam engines. Crossness Pumping Station, built between 1859 and 1865,  is the end point on the south bank of the river of Joseph Bazalgette’s sewer system.


There were four engines built by James Watt & Co. named Albert Edward, Alexandra, Prince Consort and Victoria, named after the leading members of the royal family, which lifted the raw, untreated waste a...


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Why we provide Jack the Ripper tours

Posted by Hazel Baker, Director of London Guided Walks on Monday, February 10, 2020, In : Jack the Ripper 

In today’s Guardian author and social historian Hallie Rubenhold has announced her plans to commemorate the lives of the women murdered by Jack the Ripper with a new mural in Whitechapel.  She claims Ripper tours are ‘atrocious’. 

One of the most popular questions we get asked by people is if we provide a Jack the Ripper tour. Yes we do. If we didn’t, they would just go with someone else. Is it not better to provide a Ripper tour which truly reflects the Whitechapel of 1888, the murky...


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Cartwright Gardens: classical calm off the Euston Road

Posted by Ian McDiarmid on Friday, December 20, 2019, In : Kings Cross 

Cartwright Gardens is a graceful crescent of brick buildings with stuccoed ground floors. The first floors facing the street have finely wrought iron balconies and the top, fourth floor is marked off from the lower levels by a heavy white lintel. Otherwise, the facades are plain with recessed sash windows picked out in white.

The effect is of restrained classical elegance. It lies just south of Euston Road in Bloomsbury, and features in our King’s Cross Walk. The buildings a...


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Victorian Christmas in Islington with Rob Smith

Posted by London Guided Walks on Friday, December 13, 2019, In : Christmas Events 
Brand New for 2019

London Guided Walks are proud to present A Victorian Christmas in Islington presented by our very own Clerkenwell and Islington tour guide Rob Smith

The Victorians totally reinvented Christmas and this walk looks at how it was celebrated in Islington in the 1860s. Taking stories from local newspaper's of the period Rob will conjure up the sights of sounds of Christmas - the shops being readied for Christmas day, acts performing at the music hall, decorations for sale and ba...
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Guided Walks this Christmas

Posted by Hazel @ London Guided Walks on Friday, December 13, 2019, In : Christmas Events 

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Nunhead Cemetery Open Day 2019

Posted by London Guided Walks on Thursday, May 2, 2019, In : Events 
Saturday, 18th May, 2019 11am - 5pm
FREE
Nearest Station: Nunhead

What does the event entail?
Cemetery tour including visits to the chapel and crypt which are not usually open to the public.
Seek guidance on family history
Food and drinks at our café.

More Nunhead open day information

Find out more about Nunhead Cemetery in our blog post.
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Beasts of London, Museum of London

Posted by London Guided Walks on Wednesday, May 1, 2019, In : Events 
When: 5 April 2019 – 5 January 2020
Where: Museum of London
Suitable for: 7 years+
Price: Variable. Family tickets from £20

Beasts of London experience at the Museum of London explores the fascinating role animals have played in shaping the capital. Step into a self-guided tour through London’s beasty history, narrated by the animals who once lived here. 

Follow the footprints to travel through time, from the Roman era through Medieval London and right up to present day, narrated by the b...
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Have you visited Nunhead Cemetery yet?

Posted by Hazel at London Guided Walks on Thursday, March 16, 2017, In : Victorian 
Nunhead Cemetery was originally called All Saints. Covering 52 acres, it is the second largest of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries established around the outskirts of London between 1832 and 1841 during a time when inner city churchyards were unhealthily overcrowded.
The cemetery was built on Nunhead Hill which rises two hundred feet above sea level with views of the City of London and St Paul’s Cathedral to the north and the North Downs to the south.
The London Cemetery Company, th...

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Why did Charles Dickens choose the name Ebenezer Scrooge?

Posted by London Walks on Wednesday, October 12, 2016, In : Christmas 

Charles Dickens was prompted to write A Christmas Carol as his response to the evident evils of capitalism; but it was also an attempt to pay his ever-increasing unpaid bills. Six weeks after visiting Manchester where the fancy first occurred to him, his novella was complete. Dickens was in the event underwhelmed with the profits it generated, but his story went on to become synonymous with the modern Christmas ideal.

The first few paragraphs of the novella set the scene of Ebenezer Scrooge i...
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Visit the Wellington Arch

Posted by London Guided Walks on Thursday, June 18, 2015, In : Georgian 

Today is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Wellington Arch is an English Heritage property which has an interesting exhibition about the battle and reveals a few details which are missed from the English history class rooms.

Wellington Arch now sits at Hyde Park Corner, where Kensington Road meets Piccadilly near its junction with Park Lane, and where the Kensington Turnpike Trust had its tollgate. As a result, Hyde Park Corner became thought of unofficially as the new entrance...


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Follow the Footsteps of Oliver Twist

Posted by London Guided Walks on Sunday, January 4, 2015, In : Victorian 


Many of Dickens’ contemporary critics and reading public feared that novels could be too realistic, and that naïve readers (often female readers) wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between fiction and reality. Especially for a novel like Oliver Twist, which is about “dangerous” subjects like poverty, crime, and the relationship between the two.

"Please sir, I want some more"

London is repeatedly described as a labyrinth or a maze – once you get into it, it’s hard to get back o...


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Notable Priors of St John's Priory, Clerkenwell

Posted by London Guided Walks on Saturday, September 6, 2014, In : Local History 


Thomas Docwra Shield

Notable Priors of St John's Priory, Clerkenwell



The shields in the Chapter Hall of St John's Gate are a wonderfully visual timeline of the English Grand Priors of the Order of St John, Clerkenwell. The following are Priors who made history.

Thomas Docwra

Responsible for the rebuilding of the gateway in 1504. He was very close to King Henry VIII and accompanied him to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Val d’Or in 1520. 


Sir Robert Hale

By the 1200s the Knights Hospitaller were h...


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A brief history of Barnsbury, London

Posted by London Guided Walks on Monday, September 1, 2014, In : Local History 

Where does the name Barnsbury come from?


The name ‘Barnsbury’ comes from the de Berners family, which owned the medieval manor that occupied the site until the early C16th. The Manor of Barnsbury (also called Bernersbury or Iseldon Berners) was held in 1086 by Hugh de Berners.


Who owned The Manor of Barnsbury?

The Berners family retained the manor until 1502 when it was sold to a Merchant, Thomas Fowler. He passed the manor on to his son Edmund (d 1560) who left it to his son Sir Thomas (d 1...


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