Ode to a newly urbanised tree Of all the trees that nature has endowed There’s one alone outshines the crowd Its name is Ginkgo (culled from the Greek) Its history…
LET’S MEET the commuters of London Town But not the humans of dubious renown Who flood daily across the capital With faces pale and…
Victoria, 6am Road sweepers emerge in line From goodness knows where A convoy of refuse vehicles Files across Lambeth Bridge No-one is ready to admit defeat Everything normal Except the…
Christchurch Gardens, Victoria Street How easy it is to pass them by Excuses fall willingly from the sky The charities speak with one voice They claim that some are homeless…
London History – The railway that ran dead on time This is a redundant track from the former Necropolis Railway which ferried dead bodies from Waterloo to Woking. Now that…
Hackney’s open street art It is Open House this weekend except at Beck Road in Hackney where it is Open Street. The road, consisting of two almost eerily uniform rows…
Secret London History – The magic of the River Wandle First visible source of the Wandle IF THERE’S ever been magic working on London’s rivers it is surely the Wandle…
Secret London History – The lost past of St James’s Park station The former Niagara panorama and ice rink turned garage It is well known that Petty France, by St…
Secret London History – London Bridge – the world’s most successful monopoly An early run of the Doggett’s rowing race . . . . . . . . . .…
Secret London History: Waterloo – the bridge that killed off a rival John Rennie’s Waterloo Bridge – “the noblest bridge in the world” This is the story of two bridges…
From this . . . . . . to this The sole remaining stanchion The original Crystal Palace – built in Hyde Park in six months to house the Great…
Elephant and Castle station Shakespeare would have had to walk but we can visit the sites of three forgotten Elizabethan theatres – with not a plaque between them – by…
The Goldman Sachs building, Farringdon Street GOLDMAN SACHS, the seriously rich US finance group, has just built a huge £1 bn office block on Farringdon Street just south of Holborn…
The world’s first panorama LEICESTER SQUARE is not famed for its churches. An exception is Notre Dame de France. Built on the site of the London pad of the Earl…
Sergio Verrillo (above), an American from Connecticut, prepares to taste the first draft of freshly barrelled Chardonnay from his new winery under a railway arch in Battersea. His Blackbook is…
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