Everyday London

01/11/2024

Is this the first new windmill in Hackney for 200 years?

23/09/2024

This autumn we present the Westminster Ghost Walk, more than a ghost tour, a meditation on ghost stories and how they persist among us. That the dead should come back is an ancient idea that appears in many cultures, we could consider it a universal human story.

A thousand years of history means plenty of ghost stories. Come hear spooky tales on our walk through London's Westminster

14/09/2024

In the early 16th century, there are 20 hackney carriages in London, ten years later the city is swarming with them. This new technology disrupts the old way of doing things.

John Taylor, water poet and sculler on the Thames writes these words; “They have undone my poor trade...they do rob us of our livings and do carry five hundred and sixty fares from us. I pray you look into the streets, how they are pestered with coaches, especially after a masque or play at the court, where even the very earth quakes and trembles, the casements shatter, tatter and clatter, and such a confused noise is made, so that a man can neither sleep, speak, hear, write, nor eat his dinner or supper quiet for them.”

11/09/2024

What's the Secrets of Whitehall tour about? A few highlights include the smallest police station in London, Winston Churchill’s cinema where he took refuge in Disney films during the darkest days of World War II, the measuring rods that prevent fraud, Henry VIII’s secret marriage, the scoundrel who built Downing Street, the anchorite of Westminster Abbey, Duck Island Cottage and the intruder who got into the late Queen’s bedroom at Buckingham Palace.

31/08/2024

The singing sharks are back on the Regents Canal, but what are they singing?

29/08/2024

What are ghosts about? People have seen them since earliest times and it’s an idea found in most cultures. There is a Babylonian tablet from 1 500 BCE that shows a ghost being led back to the underworld.
This may be the earliest depiction of a ghost. Back then a ghost was someone who had been deprived of eternal rest and therefore was to be shown compassion. A person’s sin could pull a ghost back to this world and this is what caused disease. The rituals and spells to treat the illness would help the ghost return to the underworld.
https://tinyurl.com/48n7nd8w
Everyday London's Ghost Walk returns in October.

The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies

21/04/2024

In the Natural History Museum there is a cast of fossilised footprints from Laetoli in Tanzania. Three million years ago a group of early hominins walked across fresh volcanic ash by the side of a lake. Their footprints were covered by mud and solidified, surviving for millions of years. They are probably prints from a species of ape like creatures called Australopithecus. They had smaller brains than modern humans and they walked on two legs. Scientists had been arguing about what came first; walking on two legs or larger brains. Here is 3-million-year-old proof that walking on two legs came first.
The cast in the gallery is only a small part of 75 metres worth of footprints. The adults walked side by side and there are smaller footprints in the larger ones. A child walked in the footprints of the adult.

31/03/2023

Discovered under Centre Point this morning...this is Everyday London...

19/03/2023

This is a Sunday stone that I came across in the Natural History Museum. This one comes from a 19th century coal mine.
It’s made of calcium carbonate that settled at the bottom of a water trough, like limescale in a kettle. When the mine was working the coal dust in the air coloured it black.
You can read the history of the mine in this stone. Each dark line is a day of work, each small white gap a weekend and the larger white gaps are holidays.

22/02/2023

Did you know that the spark that ignited the English civil war was a row between a husband and wife? Or that the same husband asked for an extra shirt on his way to ex*****on. So, his shivering from the cold might not be mistaken for fear? That many people consider the builder of Downing Street a traitor. And that Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn in secret in before he was officially divorced?

And people say that history is boring.

Secrets of Whitehall, Fridays and Sundays,

The British Museum is full of wonderful items from all over the world. But with 80 000 objects and nearly a million square feet of floor space it can be a little daunting. If you want the personal touch, I have put together a tour that covers the most famous items in the Museum’s collection along ...

14/02/2023

Before museums there were cabinets of curiosities. These pictures show details of Levinus Vincent’s cabinet that was open to visitors from 1703. Levinus and his wife spent many hours arranging the collection in beautiful displays. The collection became known for that even more than the items in it. These kind of collections do still exist today, a favourite London one is here
https://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/museum/

10/02/2023

Meet Sekhmet, Egyptian goddess of war and daughter of Ra the Sun God.
Ra sent her to punish some humans that had rebelled against him. Unfortunately, she got caught up in the bloodlust and was killing everyone. To stop her Ra dyed some beer with red ochre and poured it out in front of her. She mistook the beer for blood and got so drunk she couldn’t kill anymore. The ancient Egyptians would celebrate this event with an annual festival in Luxor. Great quantities of beer would be drunk with music and dancing to appease the Goddess. Unsurprisingly many thousands of people would gather for this festival every year.

05/02/2023

Our winter hibernation is over and the first colour is breaking through...

09/11/2022

New tours of the British Museum and the Natural History Museum available this winter, Fridays or Sundays.

15/05/2022

In the 1960's a group of stray cats moved into the British Museum and began to multiply. It took 15 years to humanely control their numbers. Eventually there were 6 cats in residence, one of whom was named Wilson, the name of the museum's director who hated cats.

06/05/2022

Within sight of St Paul’s Cathedral is the courtyard garden of St Vedast-alias-Foster. Step through the light blue door on Foster Lane and find a lovely spot to rest on a walk around the city.
Look to the right to see a Roman mosaic pavement and an Assyrian tablet hanging on the wall.
The tablet is written in Cuneiform, an ancient writing system from the Middle East. They used a stylus to make these distinctive markings on wet clay. This tablet is almost three thousand years old.

12/04/2022

Pink blossom is out in London...

17/01/2022

I love the light by the river at this time of year...