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A Bit of Bishopsgate

Visit the victoria and albert museum in South Kensington and, among its many treasures, you’ll find a rare survival of pre-Great Fire architecture from the City of London. Peter Pindar’s house originally stood on Bishopsgate, about where Liverpool Street Station now stands. When the station was developed the Chairman and Directors of the Great Eastern Railway Company gave it to the museum.  It’s made of oak and dates from around 1600, when merchant Paul Pindar had it built - more of him later. The impressive full-height windows would have originally been glazed, either with imported glass or local greenish glass. The semi-circular window shap...

Dead fascinating

  Brompton Cemetery lies within the shadow of Chelsea FC’s football stadium but you’ll find many more famous people buried under its 40 acres. It’s one of the 7 great cemeteries that sprung up around London from the 1830s to solve the chronic shortage of burial plots. Highgate Cemetery might be the most famous one but Brompton gives it a run for its money. The construction of the cemeteries coincided with the coming of the railways, which meant the trains could transport the stone and granite needed to construct the impressive monuments that fill the grounds. For the first time funeral directors sprung up, and you could order your memorial f...

A Deer Little Ship

    Across the river on the Southwark side, opposite Cannon Street Station, you can see a small Tudor-like ship. This is the Golden Hinde II, a full-sized replica of Sir Francis Drake’s famous ship that circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1580 and made Drake and Queen Elizabeth I very rich. In December 1577 Drake set out from Plymouth with 5 ships, which included the Pelican; however this was changed to the Golden Hinde, in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton, one of the patrons of the voyage. His coat of arms featured a female red deer - a ‘hinde’. This epic voyage brought Drake into the Pacific, where he managed to plunder Spanish shi...

Join the Kew: a short history of Kew Green

Kew Green is one of the delights of west London. Around its picturesque cricket field lie a number of very attractive 18th- and 19th-century houses, where a number of famous people made their homes. Its history goes back to the medieval period, not least because there was a ferry crossing where the bridge now lies. Kew Pond, whose history may well date as far back as 996, was used as a fish pond for centuries. We know Kew was a hamlet in the 1300s, then called ‘Cayho’, which was derived from the Old English word ‘hoh’, meaning spur. In the 16th century Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and brother-in-law of Henry VIII held estates here but it...

Hammersmith Schools for Boys

Renowned actors, sportsmen and musicians have been educated in Hammersmith. Earlier this month a group of 30 followed me along the River Thames to learn about some former pupils of Latymer School and St Paul’s School. Latymer Upper School is nearly 400 years old, having been founded in 1624 by Edward Latymer (1557-1627). A prosperous lawyer, he eft part of wealth for the clothing and education of “eight poor boys” from Hammersmith. The clothing, which included a doublet, a pair of breeches, a shirt incorporated a red cross on the left sleeve, a pair of woollen stockings and shoes, was to be distributed twice a year on Ascension Day and All Sa...

Can City

London loves to give its skyscrapers nicknames, and one of the newest has been christened the ‘Can of Ham’. Its actual name is 70 St Mary Axe, and even that street has an interesting derivation. The Can of Ham has been designed by Foggo Associates, whose distinctive work can also be seen above Cannon Street Station and along Queen victoria Street. Their latest construction has been designed in response to local views and comprises 24 floors and 28,000 square metres of office space. Its unique design could be said to incorporate just 3 facades and no roof; instead, curved glass and anodised aluminium wrap around the building - almost like a tin (...