For those unable to visit, we made a virtual walk around the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs! Complete with labels for the sculptures, and a fake soundtrack (it was windy in th...

The little Old St Pancras church lies to the north of Kings Cross station. Lovely though the church may be it seems an unlikely location for a royal wedding, and indeed it is, but in 1826 a royal wedding of sorts took place there – between Louisa Constance Bouchier Smith and Charles Edward Stuart, Count Roehenstart – pretender to the British throne.

The last of the Stuart monarchs, Queen Anne, died childless in 1714, and the 1701 Act of Settlement prevented Catholics from the throne. This ...

In these strange times we have more time to look more closely at some of the familiar spots in our own locality. So, I had time to stop and study this over-the-top shop frontage in the historic market place of Kingston-upon-Thames – normally full of shoppers but it was very quiet as most shops were still closed. 

At first sight this Grade II listed building might be thought to be Medieval or Tudor but the two dates 1909 and 1929 give away the fact that it is just over 100 years old and built...

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...

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...

It is said that it is bad luck to leave your Christmas decorations up past Twelfth Night. But when is Twelfth Night?

One of the biggest surprises for those on my Victorian Christmas Walk is that at the beginning of the 19th century Christmas was hardly celebrated. It’s hard to imagine that many businesses did not even consider it a holiday and for most it was simply yet another working day. Instead Twelfth Night was the big event in the calendar associated with parties and drinking....

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...

There is one question whilst doing my Christmas Carol Tour which I always get asked: who is your favourite Ebenezer Scrooge?

Hmmm….who do I think plays ‘a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping….old sinner’ the best? 

It’s fair to say there is plenty of choice:

• 1910 Marc McDermott - A Christmas Carol (silent film)
• 1938 Reginald Owen - A Christmas Carol
• 1951 Alastair Sim - Scrooge (UK) & A Christmas Carol (USA)
• 1962 Mister Magoo - Mister Magoo’s Christmas
• 1970 Albert Finney - Sc...

The British tradition of Mothering Sunday is rather muddled. Mothering Sunday has been celebrated in the UK on the fourth Sunday in Lent since at least the C16th. 

In the early twentieth century Mothering Sunday underwent a revival thanks to Constance Penswick Smith (1878-1938). It was in 1913 where she was inspired after reading a newspaper report of Anna Jarvis’s campaign for Mother's Day in America.

What is the connection between Laetare Sunday and Mother's Day? 
Laetare Sunday g...

Victorian London was the largest city in the world for much of that time. London's population grew from about 1 million people in 1800, to about 6.7 million in 1900.  Many of the city’s residents lived in poverty.

Middle class England grew rapidly and the upper class, which was formerly purely hereditary, came to include the nouveau riche, who made fortunes from successful commercial enterprises.

However, a large proportion of Victorian society was still working class, and they remained disgr...

In Victorian literature London is often described as a labyrinth or a maze; once you enter it’s hard to get out. Even though we may look back at the Victorian era with fond sentimentality Victorian London was a dangerous place especially after dark, with highway men and other scoundrel’s waiting to pounce on anyone crossing their path. 

Our Victorian Covent Garden & Soho walk we delve into the world of Music Halls, the introduction of ice cream to the masses and the fortitude of V...

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...

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...

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...