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The Gentle Author In The Tower
Next Monday 16th June, I shall be giving a MAGIC LANTERN SHOW in St Augustine’s Tower in Hackney, showing one hundred of my favourite photographs of London old and new, and telling the stories of the...
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At Bob Mazzer’s Launch
We had a grand celebration on Thursday when we launched Bob Mazzer’s UNDERGROUND and celebrated the opening of his debut exhibition at Howard Griffin Gallery in Shoreditch on the same night with a...
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Clive Murphy, Autograph Hunter
“May I have your autograph?” My friend Clive Murphy, Oral Historian, Novelist, Writer of Ribald Rhymes, Philumenist, Snapper and Exhibitionist, was once also an Autograph Hunter. “I was already...
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The Summer Of Love 1814
. Click Adam Dant & Jean-Baptiste Marot’s map to spot Prince Charles, The Beatles, Jane Birkin, Barbara Cartland, Georges Meliès, Marcel Proust, The Montgolfier Brothers, Pepé le Pew, Gerard...
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In Old Clerkenwell
In St John’s Path At weekends, when the crowds throng in Spitalfields, I sometimes walk over to Clerkenwell. Apart from those carousing in Exmouth Market, the place is like a ghost town on Saturday...
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At Quality Castings
Andrew Hudson, Master Caster Quality Castings has occupied a string of old buildings alongside the Regent’s Canal in Haggerston for the last thirty years but, now the property has become more valuable...
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An Astonishing Photographic Discovery
Today, it is my great delight to reveal these breathtaking photographs taken by Horace Warner in Spitalfields at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These pictures which have never...
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The Return Of British Land
British Land were responsible for the destruction of the northern half of Elder St in the seventies A famous battle took place here forty years ago between British Land, who wanted to create a...
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Calling All Huguenots!
Click to enlarge Adam Dant’s Map of Huguenots in Spitalfields This week sees the inauguration of the Map of Huguenots in Spitalfields at Townhouse in Fournier St to which anyone with Huguenot...
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Thomas Bewick’s Dogs
Inspired by the report on The Dogs of Shoreditch this week, I consulted my copy of Thomas Bewick’s General History of Quadrupeds 1824 that I found in the Spitalfields Market recently to see what breeds...
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The East London Aquarium, Menagerie & Wax Work Exhibition
Today I tell the strange story of the Aquarium, Menagerie & Wax Works that once stood in Spitalfields upon the site that British Land have earmarked for controversial redevelopment Click to enlarge...
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Bob Mazzer On The Buses
After more than forty years photographing on the tube, Bob Mazzer revealed to me that recently he has been photographing from the bus. Over recent weeks while his debut exhibition UNDERGROUND has been...
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New Hope For The Terrace In Dalston Lane
Tim Whittaker’s sketch of his proposal for the terrace restored This spring, when Hackney Council granted itself permission to demolish this late Georgian terrace in Dalston Lane as part of a...
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Naz Choudhury, Bollywood Dancer
The fourth of seven stories by Writer & Anthropologist Delwar Hussain, author of Boundaries Undermined, who grew up in Spitalfields If ever a real-life Bollywood story was to be set in East...
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Calling All Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club Members!
Boys’ Club Summer Camp Banquet 1942, Max is on the far left My pal Maxie Lea rang to convey the sad news that this year’s Cambridge & Bethnal Green Old Boys’ Club Dinner, celebrating ninety years...
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In Old Rotherhithe
St Mary Rotherhithe Free School founded 1613 To be candid, there is not a lot left of old Rotherhithe – yet what remains is still powerfully evocative of the centuries of thriving maritime industry...
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Charles Hindley’s Cries Of London
The most recent acquisition in my Cries of London collection is a second edition of Charles Hindley’s ‘History of the Cries of London, Ancient & Modern’ from 1884. My predecessor had the same idea...
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At Hyper Japan
On Saturday, Earls Court was teeming with manga characters – from fairies to steam-punks and schoolgirls to super-heroes. There were those with pointy ears, there were those with tails and plenty with...
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At Fulham Palace
You leave Putney Bridge Station, cross the road, enter the park by the river and go through a gate in a high wall to find yourself in a beautiful vegetable garden with an elaborate tudor gate. Beyond...
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Lyndie Wright, Puppeteer
As a child, I was spellbound by the magic of puppets and it is an enchantment that has never lost its allure, so I was entranced to visit The Little Angel Theatre in Islington recently for the first...
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