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  • London – City of London – Noble Street Roman Fort Ruins

    London – City of London – Noble Street Roman Fort Ruins

    The Second World War brought many changes to the streets of London, including the uncovering of pieces of the city’s past. The above map (click to make it larger) is from 1900 on the left and from today on the right, with Noble Street looking very different. Properties had been built backing onto the Roman wall and it had been covered up over the centuries, but the wartime bombings of the city brought the wall back into view.

    The old meets the new.

    It’s not very clear, but there’s an overlay on this panel which gives an indication of what the area looked like in Roman times.

    The Roman wall was built in one go to defend the city, starting in around 190AD and being completed by around 225AD. It served as the boundary wall of London until the medieval period and it wasn’t much changed until the sixteenth century, just some strengthening works in places.

    The bits of brickwork jutting out are from eighteenth to twentieth-century buildings that were damaged or destroyed during the Second World War. There were extensive archaeological investigations here in the late 1940s and 1950s, with a decision being made to protect the area and to prohibit redevelopment.

    A boundary marker.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (Model of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (Model of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral)

    A model at the Museum of London of the old St. Paul’s Cathedral, destroyed during the Great Fire of London in 1666. Work has started on it at the end of the eleventh century and it was already the fourth church to be located at this site. By the time it was completed it was one of the longest churches in the world and for a while, it was also the tallest building in the world.

    The building was in a state of some disrepair, not least due to the English Civil War, by the mid seventeenth century and efforts were underway to restore it. Wooden scaffolding had been placed around the building, but then the Great Fire struck, and the building had little chance, especially given the handy wooden structure around it that soon caught fire.

    And the remains of the building after the fire. It was decided to start again with a new design, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, who had also been supervising the reconstruction of the old building.

    And its replacement, the modern St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (Wellclose Square Prison Cell)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (Wellclose Square Prison Cell)

    This cell is on display at the Museum of London and is from the Wellclose Square Prison, also known as the Neptune Street Prison. It was primarily used as a debtors prison and this cell dates to around 1750, once located under the Cock and Neptune public house. Wellclose Square still exists, a short walk from the Tower of London, with the prison being used until the late eighteenth century.

    And some of the graffiti etched into the walls of the cell.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 169

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 169

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

    Irish Apricots

    This is defined by Grose as “Potatoes. It is a common joke against the Irish vessels, to say they are loaded with fruit and timber, that is, potatoes and broomsticks”. There was no end of similar phrases, with Irish apples, Irish footballs, Irish grapes and Irish lemons all meaning the same thing, ie, potatoes.

    The Irish Apricots phrase wasn’t recorded before the end of the eighteenth century, so it was perhaps quite a new reference when Grose wrote about it. It was used more commonly in the early nineteenth century, but has since fallen out of use.

  • Ramblers – September 2020 Legstretchers Walk

    It was a delight that Maria led the first Legstretchers walk as we returned to walking longer distances. And not only did she lead the September walk, but she’s leading the one in October as well.

    Just photos here….

  • Greater Anglia : London Liverpool Street to Norwich (with Bus Replacement)

    Greater Anglia : London Liverpool Street to Norwich (with Bus Replacement)

    And, here we are again, at London Liverpool Street with a rail service back to Norwich. Or, in this case, a service to Ipswich and a bus took me the rest of the way. I was placed to note that the toilets are back open at London Liverpool Street, all newly remodelled and still free of charge.

    The trains are announced much earlier than they used to be, half an hour before the departure time in this case. I was one of the first couple of people to board, as is evident in the above photo.

    The carriages were from the Stansted Express service, the 745/1 FLIRT cars, which I think are the same (with one caveat below) as the standard services from Norwich to London Liverpool Street. But, I don’t know my trains well enough to say (write) that with any certainty.

    One difference is evident inside, there are no tables at any of the seats and there is some extra space for cases. I don’t know why there are no tables, it’s a bloody nuisance, and I imagine it’s another one of Jamie Burles’s good ideas. There are though power sockets and everything worked as it should, with the train being clean and well presented.

    Another shot of the carriages. The service ran to schedule and the conductor seemed friendly enough in his announcements, although they kept breaking up. He said when we were near to Ipswich that the bus replacement service would depart from Platform 1, which entirely confused me. He changed this when we pulling into Ipswich to say that the bus service was now operating from outside the front of the station and this did make more sense. He’d probably had a long day. There were only two of us in the end carriage and although the other carriages were a little busier, it was still a relatively quiet service.

    I’ve moaned, indeed moaned quite a lot sometimes, about how bus replacement services can be really badly managed. Although at least there were staff around, unlike the little incident that Nathan and I had with Deutsche Bahn last year. This was really rather good, there were staff making clear announcements that customers going to Stowmarket and Diss needed to get a certain bus, with those going to Norwich needing another. All very clear. The service was operated by Wrights Coaches, who I haven’t heard of, and everything seemed professional with them.

    I think there’s a vague plan to try and get buses fitted with seatbelts when they’re used on bus replacement services, but there’s no such requirement at the moment. Ideally, perhaps, there would be. But, the bus was clean and not over-filled, it was all comfortable enough.

    And back safely into Norwich, four minutes ahead of schedule. The fare was the usual £10 (I say usual, it isn’t always that price, but it’s the price that I’m prepared to pay, so it’s become my usual) which I think is pretty decent value for money. The bus section of the journey is always a faff, but it was handled as well as it could have been, and full marks to Greater Anglia. Although they need tables on their trains, as I like them.

  • London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection (Venice: the Bacino di San Marco from San Giorgio Maggiore by Canaletto)

    London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection (Venice: the Bacino di San Marco from San Giorgio Maggiore by Canaletto)

    Canaletto, one of the few artists whose works are recognisable from the other side of a gallery, painted this artwork in either the late 1730s or the early 1740s. I hadn’t realised how many of his works that the Wallace Collection holds, one of the highest number in the world.

    The painting has an exquisite amount of detail, although the artist shuffled some things about to fit them in the artwork. Artistic licence and all that…. The paintings would have usually been purchased by those on a Grand Tour, a permanent reminder of the things that they had seen on their travels.

    The gallery notes (far better than I can), in its long description, that:

    “The figures in the foreground represent different levels of Venetian society; from the seated beggar on the left, the merchants in the centre, and the priest and lawyer engaged in conversation on the right. There is the customary assortment of sea vessels in the picture, including a burchiello, or passenger boat, being towed in the middle ground. This is a superb example of Canaletto’s attention to composition. The triangle of the foreground terrace – framed by the temporarily-docked burchiello with the detail of passengers embarking – is matched by the boat in the middle of the painting. Its two masts are in turn replicated in the vertical soar of the Campanile di San Marco and the dome of Santa Maria della Salute.”

    It’s not known when Francis Seymour-Conway, the 1st Marquess of Hertford, purchased this painting, but he had been on a Grand Tour to Italy in the late 1730s. It then remained in the family collections until the house and artworks were given to the public in the late nineteenth century.

  • London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum (Kindertransport of Peter Needham)

    London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum (Kindertransport of Peter Needham)

    I’ve been having another look at the photo collection of the Imperial War Museum and this is something I haven’t seen before (© IWM HU 88869). It’s an image taken at Prague Airport on 12 January 1939 of Peter Needham, a half-Jewish Czech boy, with his parents. He was part of a Kindertransport flight bringing him to safety, one of around 10,000 children that the UK accepted. Being realistic, he would have likely died if he hadn’t have had this opportunity.

    Fortunately, the other side of this tale exists, and Peter (original surname of Niethammer) flew into Croydon Airport and had a happy life in the UK. His mother lived until 1993 and his parents had already commenced divorce proceedings.

    An interview with Peter noted:

    “Peter Needham (previously Niethammer), was born in May 1934 in Teplice, Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia). His Lutheran lawyer father, Fritz, was born in Aachen, Germany, on 6 February 1900; his assimilated Jewish mother Anna (nee Bergman), an economic research worker, was born in Most (previously Brux) on 5 November 1910. However, following the September 1938 Munich Agreement ceding the Sudetenland region to Nazi Germany, they divorced, and Anna took Peter to her wealthy parents’ home in Radic, near Prague, of which he retains happy memories.

    Jews, though, were not entirely safe. After Anna’s discussion with German clergyman, Wilhelm (William) Wallner, The Barbican Mission to the Jews helped fly Peter, aged 4, from Prague to Croydon Airport, London, on 12 January 1939 with some 20 other children. She escaped soon after, then her parents on 31 March 1939. Peter’s uncles Hans and Seppl also escaped. Germany invaded and occupied rump Czechoslovakia mid-March 1939; a relative subsequently perished in the Holocaust.”

    His full story is at https://www.ajrrefugeevoices.org.uk/RefugeeVoices/Peter-Needham.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (Lead and Glass from Merton Priory)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (Lead and Glass from Merton Priory)

    This might not look the most exciting of exhibits at the Museum of London, but there’s a lot of heritage in it. It’s a combined lump of smashed glass and window lead from Merton Priory, which would have been caused during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It’s not known how old the glass and lead is, but it’s probably from the mid to late fifteenth century.

    Normally, this would have been carried away by those demolishing the building, but somehow it was overlooked and it was only discovered during excavations of the site between 1986 and 1990. It was quite a fall for the wealthy priory, which in 1437 had held a ceremony in honour of King Henry VI. The site is now a Sainsbury’s supermarket, which isn’t ideal (other than for shoppers) although the foundations of the chapter house remain. Not much else is left, materials were mostly taken to Nonsuch Palace, which in turn was demolished in 1682 to pay off gambling debts. But, at least some of the lead has survived, perhaps not in such a glamorous format as its design intended, but still here as a reminder that the priory once existed.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (Savoy Grill Sign)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (Savoy Grill Sign)

    This sign, now in the Museum of London, dates back to 1929 when it would have been a little exotic in its styling (there would have been light bulbs behind it to provide sufficient illumination), designed to appeal to American tourists to the hotel. I like that museums keep quirky things like this, it reminds me of the Neon Museum in Las Vegas (I accept they have more than one sign though).

    The name of the bar at the Savoy, the American Bar, was also evidence of who it was trying to target, namely those wealthy American visitors to London. The bar, which was most decadent, was one of the first in the city to produce a cocktail menu and this was seen as most sophisticated. The museum notes that the grill restaurant would have served “terrapin, clams and oysters imported directly from the US”. I’m not sure about the terrapin….