Author: Kevin Flude

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First & Last Coal-fired Power Stations September 30th 2024

Holborn Edison Electric Light Station

Today, Britain’s last coal-powered power station generated its final watt of electricity.  Ratcliffe-on-Stour’s closure means Britain is the first country to meet its target of phasing out coal.

The Nottingham power station opened in 1968, and once employed over 3000 people.

For more details follow this link https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/30/end-of-an-era-as-britains-last-coal-fired-power-plant-shuts-down

The first coal-fired power station in Britain was at Holborn Viaduct in London, opened as the Edison Electric Light Station on 12th January 1882.

The power was generated by a steam engine powered by coal.  The electricity powered incandescent electric carbon-filament lights which lit up 986 lights to illuminate the road from Holborn Viaduct to St Martin’s-le-Grande.  The light bulb was invented 3 years previously. 

The number of lights was soon increased to 3,000. But the Station made a loss and was closed down 2 years later. The lights converted to gas.  The building was destroyed in the Blitz.

A couple of miles to the East, in 1895, the Shoreditch Electric Light Station was established.   It used waste to produce electricity and steam for the local public baths.  The generating and combustion chambers, now houses a Circus School which my children attended.

It was officially opened by Lord Kelvin, the famous physicist in 1897. The Consulting Engineer was Edward Manville who came up with a scheme for a ‘dust destructor’; an electricity generating station; a public bath heated by the waste heat from the generator; a library and museum.  It cost 200,000 pounds.  In 1899, in nearby Nile Street, the Shoreditch Vestry Council set up the first municipal housing scheme powered by electricity.

This level of enterprise by a local council seems like a fantasy of a distant past but also, given the sustainability of the project unbelievably modern.

The motto on the side of the Power Station was ‘Light and Power from Dust’. The scheme was run by the local vestry council which adopted the motto ‘More Light, More Power’. This was also adopted by the new municipal Borough of Shoreditch when it was formed as part of the new London County Council.  The Power Station was renamed as the rather wonderful: Shoreditch Borough Refuse Destructor and Generating Station and adorned with the motto: PULVERE LUX ET VIS ‘Out of the dust, light and power’.

The story of the dust destructor and the generating station is told in some detail here and well worth a read.

Municipal Electricity in Shoreditch: ‘More Light, More Power’

I will add a few more pictures once off the train.

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William the Bastard invades England September 28th 1066

Bayeux Tapestry, Harold with moustache swearing an oath, William with pudding basin haircut sitting down at left.

Harold II was scurrying south after almost annihilating the Viking army of Harold Hardrada, when he heard news that the Normans had landed at Pevensey. (see my post (battle-of-stamford-bridge-september-25th-1066)

William was an unlikely Duke because it is very rare for illegitimate children to take the title of their father. It was normally not even considered as an option. A legitimate cousin or uncle would be chosen instead.  But he not only got the title and survived many rebellions, but was known as the William the Bastard

He came to England in 1051 to see his distant cousin Edward the Confessor, who was the son of the English King Aethelred the Redeless (the Ill advised – more often called ‘the Unready) and Emma of Normandy.  Edward, whose marriage to Emma was not great, insofar as both made claims to be holy virgins, had no children and, according to William, offered the throne to him.

Did he, though? The Pope agreed he did.  William claimed that Harold of England agreed too. And not only that, but he agreed under Holy Oath.

The Bayeaux Tapestry, shows Harold making an oath with his hands on holy relics. But British Historians see it as inadmissible as it either never happened or, if it did, then it was not freely given as Harold had been detained on a visit in 1064 and was probably never going to get home until he took the oath.

They also say that Harold was the legitimate King because he was elected as was traditional by the Witanagemote, the King’s Council.

But was he really? He had no English Royal blood in him, only a very distant touch of Danish royalty on his mum’s side.  It is true the Witan elected Kings and often did not choose the first in line but preferred the best suited candidate be he brother, cousin or uncle. But Harold was only the brother of the King’s wife, no royal blood there.  However, Harold was so powerful that he would have prepared the ground for his election irrespective of whether this was the freely given choice of the Witan. His father, Earl Godwin, had been a disloyal and over mighty subject of King Edward, but had prepared the way for Harold to be virtual ruler of the country long before the King died.

So, there was plenty of scope for a contested succession. Harold was the English contestant who had already defeated the Norwegian claimant. Now, he was rushing to put to rest the Norman claim.

William had begun by getting Pope Alexander II’s blessing and with that, spent 10 months planning the invasion. He recruited adventurers from Normandy, France, Brittany, and Flanders. His allies collected boats for the invasion, while William had hundreds of new boats built, using thousands of carpenters, metalworkers, carters etc and cutting down a vast number of trees. 

The boats were ready by 12 August near Caen on the River Dives.  They set sail, but contrary winds blew them into Saint Valery-sur-Seine.  Winds in the summer are usually blowing south on that coast, and William had a long, frustrating wait for a north wind.

Meanwhile, Harold was waiting with his army and a 400 ship navy at his manor of Bosham on the South Coast.  Then he heard about the Norwegian invasion of the north and calculating that it was getting too late in the year for William to risk invasion, decided, on September 18th to go North with his army, which was the more immediate risk to his throne.

Map of the the progress of William;s fleet. Opinion suggests landing was on 28th September 1066

On September 27th, the north winds blew, the Normans embarked, and on the 28th of September William and his boat, given as a present to him by his wife, found themselves alone in the Channel off the English coast.

After an anxious wait, the rest of the fleet was spotted sailing towards William.  They landed at Pevensey.  Built a castle at Hastings and proceeded to ravage the land of Harold’s homeland. Harold had by now destroyed the Norwegian threat at Stamford Bridge on 25th September, and was marching South when he heard William had landed.

To be continued

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Battle of Stamford Bridge September 25th 1066

Battle of Stamford Bridge by Matthew Paris

Following the defeat at the Battle of Fulford Bridge, York, on September 20th the victorious Viking army camped at Stamford Bridge, unaware that King Harold I of England had left London for the north on September 18th.

Five days later, on September the 25th, Harold’s army surprised the Vikings by marching towards the bridge over the Derwent.  It is said that Harold’s army marched 185 miles from London in 4 days which is a scarcely believable 46 miles a day. But if they left on 18th and battle was 25th that’s 7 days but still 26 miles a day which I would struggle with without having to carry weapons and armour.

But no wonder the Vikings were surprised!

According to tradition a large Viking held the English army up as he controlled the narrow wooden bridge across the river.  An enterprising English soldier found a boat, floated under the bridge and killed the Viking by pushing his spear through the bridge timbers, killing the Viking.

According to the 13th Century Icelandic historian, Snorri Sturlson, the fight began only after a rider approached the Viking Army and offered Tostig back his Earldom if he would withdraw from the fight.  Tostig asked what would be in it for, his ally, the King of Norway? The reply was ‘ Seven feet of English ground, as he is taller than other men’.  The offer was refused and it was said that the rider was King Harold himself.

Once over the Bridge the English found the Vikings had formed a defensive formation.  However, they had left their armour behind at Riccall.   The battle lasted all day but ended with the slaughter of most of the Vikings. King Harold Hardrada, one of the greatest warriors of his age and Tostig were both killed.  The extent of the slaughter can be gathered as of the reputed 300 boats of the Viking army only 24 returned to Norway.

A boat of the period, derive from the Bayeaux Tapestry

A stunning victory for Harold I, but following terrible losses at the battle of Fulford.  And three days later, on September 28th, William,Duke of Normandy would land with his army at Pevensey. 256 miles south.

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‘Crack Me This Nut’ Play performed at the Rose in Southwark September 25th 1595

List of plays performed in February 1596 by the Admiral’s Men

‘Crack me this Nut’ was performed by the Admiral’s Men at the Rose Theatre in Southwark, London. One of the dates it was performed was on September 25th 1595, and as you can see, above, it was also performed on February 7th 1596.

The play was performed 16 times in all, then sold by Edward Alleyn. Sadly, no one knows what it was about. It might relate to the sense of our phrase ‘a tough nut to crack.’ You can find the other dates it was performed, and the income generated in this blog from Henslowe’s papers.

The list of February dates for the Admiral’s Men is from my dossier for my Shakespeare’s London walks. I’m not entirely sure of the book I photocopied it from, but it derives from the wonderful archive of Philip Henslowe and his leading actor Edward Alleyn. Henslowe’s records were stored in a locked trunk for 260 years.

Last year, marked the completion of the project to bring this archive to the public. The Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation project. As well as digitising the Archive, elements that had been separated from the original archive have been brought back, so the greatest archive of information on the Shakespearean theatre is now unified and available. It is an immense bit of news for the Shakespeare industry.

I searched the archive for ‘Crack me this nut’ but their search engine searches for anything that mentions ANY of the words, and as the word ‘this’ is in virtually everything in the archive, the search is effectively useless. Putting ‘Crack me this nut’ in quotes does not help. I have emailed them!

A subscriber sent me another link which has various speculations, and the following entry.  For more read https://lostplays.folger.edu/Crack_Me_This_Nut

Master Ponsonby. Entred for his copie vnder the hands of the Wardens A booke
Intitled The Paragon of pleasaunt histories . . . vjd
Or this Nutt was neuer Cracked Contayninge a Discourse of a
nobl[e] kinge and his Three sonnes /


(S.R.1, 3.57 / Fol. 7)

This raises a possibility that it was not a comedy but a history or a tragedy.

I often use this list of plays performed in February 1596 in the walks and lectures I give on Shakespeare. It shows you how hard-working Shakespeare’s contemporaries were. The actor’s companies were essentially small repertory companies. This list shows that the Admiral’s Men performed 14 different plays, if I count correctly, in the short month of February. Moreover, the list is from a winter month. Now, the guides at the rebuilt Globe tell you the Shakespearian Playhouses were used in the Summer. No! This was deep winter and 23 performances in an outdoor theatre in February! Imagine what a modern actor would think of that work load.

A badly photocopied page of the archive.

First published on February 7th 2023, and revised and republished on September 25th 2024

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St Matthews Day September 21st

Christ’s Hospital from Wikipedia

In the City of London, this was the day that they elected Governors to Christ’s Hospital, it was followed by a service at Christchurch attended by Aldermen, Sheriffs, the Lord Mayor and a procession of the children attending the school. 

Christ’s Hospital was founded in 1552 by a settlement arranged by Edward VI after the Reformation.  The abolition of the Monasteries by Henry VIII caused a huge problem for the City of London with the destruction of education and social services managed by monks and nuns.  Henry VIII had already re-established St Bartholomew’s to look after the Poor Sick in the City.  Edward established three Royal Hospitals to sort out additional problems.  Bridewell Hospital became an orphanage and place of correction for wayward women.  St Thomas Hospital for the homeless and poor sick of South London. Christ’s Hospital was to provide schooling.  The school was originally near Newgate and Christchurch Church which was originally the Choir of the Greyfriars Church.

The school was set up in 1552 and was for boys and girls.   The Mathematical School was added in the late 17th Century to provide navigation skills for sailors.

In 1815 a shocking event took place. An MP named Sir Eyre Coote entered the Mathematical school.  He shooed  the younger boys away but paid the older ones to participate in mutual flogging. He was discovered by the school nurse doing up his breeches.  George Cruikshank, a vaunted caricaturist, created a cartoon of the occasion, and it is extraordinary how it was treated far from seriously.  In 2016 former pupils opened up about historic sexual abuse leading to the prosecution of 6 teachers.

Cruikshank Cartoon

The blue-coated boys of Christ’s Hospital, eventually moved to Hertford but are now in Horsham.  They maintain their City affiliation and still come to the City on or around St Matthews Day and take part in the Lord Mayor’s Show.  The school is a public school but has a large percentage of its students funded by bursaries. 

For more information look here: https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2015/09/st-matthews-day.html

Also on St Matthews Day, the historic Bush Hotel in Farnham distributed bread to the poor.  This began in 1660 a local benefactor bequeathed one pound annually to pay for the bread.

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Battle of Fulford September 20th 1066

Sketch from a photo of a Saxon Shield Wall

This post should have been published on the 20th of September, but the website crashed, so here it is better late than never?

In 1066 England’s destiny was at stake, would the new King, Harold Godwinson, maintain the rule of an English King over England?  Or would William of Normandy impose an alien French dynasty?  Could Harold Hardrada of Norway re-establish Scandinavian control of England? 

The fighting began, on September 20th, when the Norwegian King, accompanied by Harold Godwinson’s own brother, Tostig Gidwinson, sailed up the Humber with 300 ships, disembarked and matched towards York.

In response, the Army of the North, led by the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, left York to march the mile and a half to Fulford, which is on the banks of the Ouse.  They, apparently, did not know that on the 18th of September, King Harold of England had left London with the Army of the South to confront Hardrada and would arrive with valuable reinforcements in a few days.

The Norwegians and Tostig had, perhaps 7,500 troops, and the English Earls Edwin and Morcar who were brothers had an ‘immense’ army.

The Norwegians were lined up at Fulford, with their left flank protected by the Ouse, their front protected by a ditch and having the benefit of the higher ground.  The English drove the Norwegians back but Hardrada responded by pushing forward his left flank where he had his best warriors and enfolded the English who eventually broke.  As they retreated they suffered terrible casualties, so many that the Norwegians could walk dry-shod over the marshy ground.

Google Satelite view of the Battle of Fulford battle field. The stream/ditch the Viking lined up behind can be seen running East West just to the South of the road above the label Fulford Village Hall.

The jubilant Norwegians arranged the surrender of York without sacking it. It probably escaped because Tostig had come to England to reclaim the Earldom of Northumbria, and it would be a bad start to slaughter the citizens of his capital city!) and matched to Stamford Bridge, to celebrate, rest and recover.

Things looked grim for the continuation of English rule over England with Hardrada victorious in the North; the Normans with a huge invasion fleet ready to invade the South and a defeated army.

Read post on the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

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Partial Eclipse September 18th 2024

Loughcrew Neolithic carvings.

September 17th/18th sees a partial lunar eclipse. In London, the peak of the eclipse will be visible around 3:45 a.m. BST on September 18, while it was on the 17th September in the USA.. And it’s also a supermoon when the moon is at its closest to the Earth.. Sorry, you are unlikely to get this on time!

Could ancient people’s predict eclipses? Well, lunar eclipses are relatively easy to predict, while solar eclipses are difficult. But it is likely that Babylonian and Assyrians astronomers could. Have a look at https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/eclipses-were-once-associated-death-kings-attempting-predict-played-key-role-birth for more details,

There are plenty of people who believe that eclipses can be predicted by Stonehenge. And it certainly can be used that way, but this doesn’t mean it was. A series of stones, and posts in concentric circles with sight lines to innumerable features on the horizon offers many ways of making calculations which combined with observations over a long period COULD predict, predictable celestial phenomena. Doesn’t mean they were. So it is very difficult to say what they were capable of, and only the most obvious alignments can be certainly confirmed.

This Washington Post article below suggests the Loughcrew Cairns near Dublin were built about the time of a total eclipse, and that one of the stones with complicated carvings on may show a lunar eclipse. If you look at the sketch of the stone above, you will see the biggest circle, near the middle, may represent the moon, and it obscures the circle behind it which may represent the sun. Read this for the details: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/18/this-5000-year-old-stone-carving-may-be-the-worlds-first-drawing-of-an-eclipse/

What is striking is how can they say it was built around the time of a total eclipse and make that seem significant because there is no way archaeological dating is accurate enough to give any idea whether it was built for a particular day. Also, there are many more circles and objects on the large stone, and to pick two out to prove what you want it to prove, is not proof. We are left with the intriguing possibility, but it is no more than that.

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John Goodricke and the Variable Star. September 17th 1764

What I really admire are people who, through their sheer brain power, can change our views of the world.  The first example that comes to mind is Newton’s insight that if the universe were infinite, the night sky would not be dark as everywhere there would be tiny pinpricks of starlight.  So, we don’t live in a infinite universe. Another one is Einstein’s thought experiment that proves that time is relative. But see below for a description of that. 

But now to Goodricke.

Yesterday in York, near the Minster, I saw the blue sign above, which I read and thought, what on earth are ‘variable stars’?  Behind me, I heard two women say something like. ‘Here it is,”variable stars”‘.  I turned around and asked them what was a variable star?

‘Donno’ they said, ‘we’ve ‘just doing this escape room walk around York.’  They showed me a booklet they had received on the internet, which was what I would call a treasure trail.  But no, they insisted, ‘this is an escape room adventure where we collect clues to decipher the code to escape’.

Such is the modern tourist!  Sadly, they showed no interest in finding out what a variable star is!

Aristotle and ancient philosophers held that the universe was unchanging and eternal. The first breach in that theory was the identification in 1638 of star Omicron Ceti by Johannes Holwarda who discovered that the start pulsed on an 11 month cycle.  This and the discovery, of supernovae (first observed in 1572), proved that the ‘The starry sky was not eternally invariable’.

John Goodricke was educated at Thomas Braidwood‘s Academy, school for deaf pupils in Edinburgh, and Warrington Academy. He returned to live with his parents who rented an apartment at the Treasurer’s Hall, near the Minister in York, and used a friend’s personal observatory to look for variable stars. He found two of the first 10, and was the first to propose a solution, which was that two stars orbited each other causing eclipses between them and the observer, and thus creating a variation in the light emitted. To be able to extrapolate from a simple observation and provide an explanation which necessitates a complete rethink about the nature of the universe seems, to me, to be awesome.

Back to Einstein, his thought experiment was something like this:

A train is travelling through a station. There is an observer on the train towards the front, another on the platform as the train goes through. There are two simultaneous lighting strikes at either end of the train. The observer on the platform sees the strikes as simultaneous as she is in the middle between the two lighting strkes and light travels at the same speed. The observer on the train who is near the front of the train will see the lighting strike at the front of the train before the light from the back of the train can reach him as it has further to go.

This is mind-boggling, and I’m never sure what to make of it but it means that time is not a constant it is relative to the observer. And yet, we see time as a constant, something that remorselessly ticks forward and which we cannot alter. But it isn’t.

For a better explanation, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity

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The Ultimate RAF London Blitz Story September 15th 1940

Black and white photo from a german plane above another german bomber over docklands in the Blitz

On September 15th 1940 Ray Holmes, World War 2 RAF Pilot, flying a Hurricane, took on three Luftwaffe Bombers over Central London.  He shot one down, chased another off and engaged the third which seemed to be heading for Buckingham Palace. Between the 8th and 13th of September 1940, the Palace had been hit 5 times. The London Blitz had only ‘begun’ on September 7th though the first raid on the City of London was on the 25th August on Fore Street.

Holmes, by now had ran out of bullets, but deliberately targeted the fin of the Dornier bomber, and crashed into it causing the bomber to spiral down into Victoria Station. Holmes’ hurricane, spiralled down out of control, but he was able to bail out and landed in a dustbin, much to the bemusement of the locals. Holmes died aged 90 in 2005.

This post is heavily based on the story below, which is told in full detail.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/battle-britain-fighter-pilot-who-19963243

Al;so on September 26th – The Mayflower sails from Plymouth, finally getting away from the Old World for the New World. 1620

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Roodmass and the Legend of the Holy Cross September 14th

One of my favourite places to go is the Chapel of the Guild of the Holy Cross at Stratford-upon-Avon. It offers a convenient place for a group to sit down and listen to further information about Shakespeare, and the fascinating story of the Guild Chapel.

This is an appropriate place to look at Roodmas which is celebrated today on May 3rd and September 14th because Rood is another word for the Cross. Parish Churches used to have a Rood Screen separating the holy Choir from the more secular Nave. This screen was topped with a statue of the Crucified Jesus.

Roodmas commemorates two events:

The Discovery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in 326 by Queen Helena, wife of Constantius Chlorus and mother of Constantine the Great. Most of the Cross was sent back to the care of Constantine the Great.

The part of the Holy Cross that was left in Jerusalem was taken by Persians but recovered by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 628.

The Guild Chapel, built in 1269 and developed in the 15th Century, was dedicated to the legend of the Holy Cross which held, that seeds from the Tree of Knowledge were grown on Adam’s Grave, honoured by the Queen of Sheba, buried by King Solomon, possibly used in the building of the Temple, and used as the Cross to crucify Jesus. Then buried and found, with the nails, and the crown of thorns by Queen Helena. She knew it was the real thing we a deathly sick women was revived by contact with the timber of the Holy Cross.

Over the years the cross was shivered into ever smaller pieces as Emperors, Kings, Dukes, Counts, Popes, Bishops, Abbots and Abbesses swopped relics with each other. The fragments were cased in beautiful reliquaries and had enormous power for those of faith and those who could be helped by healing by faith.

This post is still, really, in draft form.

For the story of Charles III, his coronation, and the true cross please look here: