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So Long, Mike Henbrey
Last summer, I was asked if I would meet Mike Henbrey, Collector of Books, Ephemera & Tools, to create a portrait of him in the last few weeks of his life. In the event, we struck up a brief...
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Start Your Own Blog In 2016
Today, I published blogs by two alumni of the Spitalfields blog course, A London Inheritance and Bug Woman London. If you are contemplating starting your own blog in 2016, there is still time to sign...
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A New Year Drink At Dirty Dick’s
These are the dead cats that once hung behind the counter of the celebrated “Dustbin Bar” at Dirty Dick’s Old Port Wine & Spirit House in Bishopsgate. It is a location that holds a special place...
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The Ceremony Of The Baddeley Cake
Harry Nicholls cuts the Baddeley Cake with the cast of ‘Babes in the Wood’ in 1908 Tonight, an excited throng at Drury Lane will celebrate London’s oldest theatrical tradition, the cutting of the...
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The Roman Ruin At The Hairdresser
Nicholson & Griffin, Hairdresser & Barber The reasons why people go the hairdresser are various and complex – but this week Jane Sidell, Inspector of Ancient Monuments, and I visited a salon...
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Simon Pettet’s Delft Tiles
Anyone who has ever visited Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate St will recognise this spectacular chimneypiece in the bedroom with its idiosyncratic pediment designed to emulate the facade of Christ...
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The Holland Estate Is Saved
This week, in response to a triumphant campaign by residents of Holland Estate, they have received letters from East End Homes revoking the demolition notices that were served upon them last year. In...
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Standing Up To The Mayor Of London
This winter, Spitalfields has become a battleground and – thanks to the intervention of the Mayor of London – this is Christ Church seen from across the muddy waste where the Fruit & Wool Exchange...
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Philippe Debeerst At Malplaquet House
Photographer Philippe Debeerst sent me his splendid photographs which are published for the first time here today, and accompanied by my own account of a visit to Malplaquet House in Mile End Rd...
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Trinity Green Needs Friends
(Click this image to enlarge) Trinity Green Almshouses in Mile End only survive because some illustrious friends saved these distinguished and benign examples of social housing, which were built at...
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The Queen Mother’s Rebel Cousin
Roger Mills, author of Everything Happens in Cable Street, is currently researching the life of Lilian Bowes Lyon, a forgotten and barely-documented woman from an aristocratic background who committed...
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At The London Chest Hospital
Plans for the future of the former London Chest Hospital next to Victoria Park are revealed at an exhibition which opens 3-8pm today and 10-2pm on Saturday at the Methodist Church in Approach Rd,...
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Beware The Curse Of Norton Folgate!
Click on Adam Dant’s map to enlarge After Henry VIII destroyed the Priory of St Mary Spital, the Spanish Mystic, Dona Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza who resided in Spital Sq, placed a curse upon anyone...
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The Cries Of Old London
My CRIES OF LONDON exhibition designed by Adam Tuck at Bishopsgate Institute closed yesterday, so I am publishing some of the panels from the show today for those who were unable to visit. Meanwhile,...
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The Creeping Plague Of Ghastly Facadism
As if I were being poked repeatedly in the eye with a blunt stick, I cannot avoid becoming increasingly aware of a painfully cynical trend in London architecture which threatens to turn the city into...
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A Shadow Over Bunhill Fields
The Sick Rose by William Blake Last year, Islington Council rejected an application for an eleven storey development in City Rd that would overshadow Bunhill Fields, the seventeenth century...
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At Clapton Beauty Parlour
Marcia Manning Marcia believes that Clapton Beauty Parlour, opened by her parents in 1930, is London’s oldest family-run salon and I have no reason to doubt her. For me, it was the perfect excuse to...
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A Comic Alphabet
You might like to see other work by George Cruikshank Dick Turpin, Highwayman Jack Sheppard, Thief, Highwayman & Escapologist Tom & Jerry’s Life in London Joseph Grimaldi, Clown The Bloody...
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A Letter To The Times
Today, a new chapter opens in the story of our campaign to Save Norton Folgate with the publication of this letter in the The Times. Already a Judicial Review is scheduled in April to scrutinise the...
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At Arthur Beale
Did you ever wonder why there is a ship’s chandler at the top of Neal St where it meets Shaftesbury Avenue in Covent Garden. It is a question that Alasdair Flint proprietor of Arthur Beale gets asked...
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