Lancelot Andrewes is hardly a household name, but he arguably had as much influence on the English language as William Shakespeare. Andrewes would have walked the same London streets as Shakespeare. He was born in the shadows of the Tower of London in 1555 and has a handsome tomb in what is now Southwark Cathedral, close to Shakespeare’s Globe. He was one of the most respected theologians and translators of his day and rose to become the Bishop of Winchester. He was the last Bishop of Winch...

The Festival of Britain was one of the first occasions where many women artists and designers had opportunities to take part. The famous sculptor Barbara Hepworth received two important public commissions; Turning Forms which was a motorised abstract piece, made of reinforced concrete, painted white and 84 inches (just over 2m) in height was commissioned by the Festival of Britain authorities. In 1952 it was moved to Marlborough Science Academy, in St Albans and in October 2020 was moved to a...

Much of what was built for the Festival of Britain was temporary and after the event was dismantled. In both Wales and Scotland, little remains. In London some remarkable examples have survived, which is what I will be sharing with you today...

The Southbank

One could argue that the greatest legacy of the Festival of Britain is the stretch of former industrial riverside near Waterloo we call the South Bank. Since then it has grown to embrace the London Eye, the BFI and the Tate Modern (the most...

As the centenary of the Great Exhibition approached, politicians had begun to ask whether a celebration in the same vein might operate as a tonic to lift the nation’s spirits.

1951 Britain was very different from the context in which the Great Exhibition took place. Britain had lost its sense of purpose and place in the world. The Second World War had sounded the death knell for the days of the Empire, which had been in a phase of steep decline since 1918.

Where the Great Exhibition had been ...

The 23rd of April is Saint George’s day, but also William Shakespeare’s birthday (1564) and death day (1616). He was born and died in Stratford-Upon Avon, where you can visit his childhood home and actually stand in the room he was (probably) born in. As a young man Shakespeare moved to London, although scholars are not sure when or indeed why.

One of the first records of Shakespeare in London is when the drunk, drugged and hugely bitter critic Robert Greene in 1592 refers to the new write...

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...

Lockdown has been such a strange time for us all but there has been so much culture available to us online.  However, the other day whilst making my way through the back streets from the South Bank to Waterloo Station I came across a physical example of what has been produced.  A celebration of the heroes of our time – the NHS - through street art.

Under the railway bridge between Waterloo and Waterloo East is this tribute - the NHS as Superman - by Lionel Stanhope. He trained as a sign writ...