Category: Heritage

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Black Lives Matter & London Heritage

A couple of my regular places have been affected by the effects of the toppling of the Colston Statue in Bristol.

Firstly, the statue of Robt Milligan outside the Museum of London, Docklands has been taken down. I have often used this as a meeting point for my students from Westminster University as we explore the Docks and the Docklands Museum.

Slavery was a big part of the visit, although we didn’t make Milligan the villain.

Interesting article on the Museum of London Web site https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/mapping-londons-legacy-slavery-docklands

Another site is the Geffrey Museum which is going to open as the Museum of the Home, although this was determined before the George Floyd murder, but now I expect the Geffrey part of it to quietly disappear, as he is also contaminated by slavery.

Interesting fact about slavery, is that UCL have done a brilliant study of all the recipients of the compensation for the end of slavery. The govt at the time paid compensation of £20m to the slave OWNERS. This was a vast amount said to be 45% of the GDP for the year. It was funded by a long term loan which was paid back, as late as, 2015. In modern terms it was 16 billion £.

This has completely changed my mind on compensation for slavery which I was against. But it seems to me if we know that £16 billion was spent then to compensate the owners we could set up a fund of £16 billion now to give, for example, educational grants and start up grants for black people to give them the boost they need to make up for centuries of oppression..

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Virtual Tour – British Library

An email from the British Library exhorting me to:

Email from British Library

So I did. And what did I find?

A dullish page, but with hopefully many delights hidden in the links.

I began with an exploration of the architecture, which was just a bit of text with a few images. And, much to my delight a whopping typo when referring to the wrong Gilbert Scott as inspiration to the architect, Colin St John Wilson. 4 out of 10, I fear.

I then took a safe bet to look at the Virtual Books. I have long admired the ability to look through the books in the Treasures Gallery in digital form – mostly looking at the Lindisfarne Gospel, Leonardo Da Vinca, and Alice. So, I clicked the link, to another surprisingly dull page with only 6 books to excite. But I knew there must be more, and to the top right was a link to ‘View All‘. Clicking this revealed some of the wonders of the world of books; from a Ethiopian Bible, to Lewis Carroll’s handwritten Alice’s Adventures Underground to works by Jane Austen. Each one in blazing colour and which the visitor can zoom in on and thumb through.

Beautiful and I chose a Psalter that is annotated by Henry VIII’s himself. Wow!

Virtual Henry

Why, I wonder, do the British Library make so little of it? I only got to it as i knew that had it. Most would pass by.

This gets a 10 out of 10 for awe-inspiring content, and a 3 for hiding its light under a bushel.

Next, I was excited to see a exhortation to ‘Visit an Online Exhibition.‘ This was what I had come here for. Really, excited. When I got there, there were 44! I was really looking forward to this.

But they were not exhibitions, they were a series of articles and blog posts. All very interesting, and all illustrated with lots of images of beautiful objects. But in no-way an online exhibition.

So very disappointed.

Overall, the British Library web site has some absolutely marvellous stuff. But its not really digital, its just online. There is no feeling of a digital experience, digital content yes, a digital experience. no.

It should be a 10 out of 10, and it is for content but for a digital experience, I’m hard pressed to give it a 6.

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Southwark & Bankside Pub Tour. London Bridge Tube, 7.15 22nd Feb Tooley St Exit

Southwark & Bankside Pub Tour.

London Bridge Tube, 7.15 22nd Feb Tooley St Exit

Southwark has a unique historic and literary heritage and an authentic historic ambiance, with beautiful views of the Thames and the City of London. Plus some of London’s most famous Pubs!

Historic Southwark is chock-full of famous people, and we encounter traces of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens as we explore the history of London’s most famous suburb. Its location at the south end of London Bridge made it a key strategic and commercial site. This was where the great Medieval Inns were located, and from where Chaucer’s pilgrimage set off for Canterbury. Its independence from the City made it a haven for ‘undesirable’ elements and it became the home of the Medieval Stews (Brothels), and also the home of the Shakespearean Stage. On the walk we explore the sites of the Globe, the Rose, the Swan and the Bull and Bear Baiting Pits and Shakespeare’s role in the area. By the Victorian period its nature had changed completely into an industrial centre, home of notorious slums, of debtors prisons, and of charitable hospitals. It became one of the main inspirations for Dickens London fiction whose father was imprisoned here for debt when Dickens was a young boy. It was at the White Hart that Dickens introduced Sam Weller into the flagging story of the Pickwick Sporting Club – the character who saved Dickens literary career.

This is a London Walks Guided Walk by Kevin Flude

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Blackfriars to Fleet St. Pub Tour. Jan 25th 7.15 Blackfriars Tube

Blackfriars to Fleet St.  Pub Tour.
Jan 25th 7.15 Blackfriars Tube

We take a slice of London’s history as we explore the banks of the River Fleet. On the East Bank, the Roman Wall and Blackfriars Monastery in the shadow of St Pauls. On the West Bank, Fleet Street and Legal London. To reflect on our discoveries we stop in some of London most historic and beautiful pubs.

Our timespan will stretch from the Romans to the Present day, and we will discover Palaces, Monasteries, Roman Temples, and visit the home of Katherine of Aragon; the Street of Shame, the best modernist building in the City, and Wren’s best Spire. A feast of topography, history, architecture and literature not to mention the best pubs!

This is a London Walks guided walk given by Kevin Flude

 

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Smithfield Pub Tour

The Smithfield Pub Tour takes place at 7.15 pm

on Saturday, November 30.

Meet Kevin just outside the exit of BarbicanTube Stop.

One of the greatest place for London history. Just outside the Roman City Wall and used by the Romans as a cemetary. The “smooth field” became the main live stock market of London, occassional tiltyard and place of public executions. The Peasants’ Rebellion climaxed here. On 23 August 1305 William Wallace (‘Braveheart’) was hanged, drawn and quartered here. Religious martyrs were burnt here and forgers boiled in oil. There are two monasteries which give a great insight into the Reformation, with connections to Thomas More. St Bartholemews hosted Britains’s greatest fair, and provided the oldest hospital in the United Kingdom – the second oldest in Europe. There are more pre-Great Fire buildings than anywhere else in London. There are also the trace of World War 1 bombing and Zeppelin raids. There are street names that sing: Cow Cross Street, Giltspur Street, etc. There are people names that resonate: Ben Franklin, John Milton, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rahere, to name but a few.  Oh,  and did we mention this is where Holmes met Watson and where Benedict Cumberbatch fell off the roof.

 

This is a London Walks walk given by Kevin Flude

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Hampstead Village Pub Walk 23 Nov 2019

Hampstead Village Pub Walk

Hampstead Underground station, London 7.15 Saturday 23 Nov 2019

Hampstead is one of the best place to be on a Saturday night in London. It’s the roof of London. We’ll look down and see the lights of the greatest city on earth spread out before us. On a clear night we’ll even nip into the Old Observatory for a look through the telescope at the starry heavens above. What else? Well, it’s London at its most picturesque – a perfectly preserved Georgian village. There’s a superb cast of characters – ranging from the highwayman Dick Turpin to the painter Constable to the poet Keats; The Du Mauriers, Freud and D.H. Lawrence to Liam Gallagher and Boy George; from Elizabeth Taylor and Rex Harrison to Peter O’Toole and Jeremy Irons. There’s London’s most villagey atmosphere, great cafes, magnificent Hampstead Heath, and well-hidden, cosy old pubs you’ll fall in love with. This is a great walk – they just don’t come any better. N.B. the walk ends just round the corner from Hampstead Tube.

 

This is a London Walks Guided Walk given by Kevin Flude

 

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The City Backstreets Pub Tour

The City Backstreets Pub Tour
from Roman Forum to Scrooge’s place of work.
7.15 pm on Saturday, October 5.
Meet Kevin just outside exit 3 of BankTube.

A tour though the lanes and alleys that wend their way picturesquely through the centre of one of the world’s greatest Cities. This walk has it all, not only at the centre of London and its history, but also one of the most hidden, unexpected and atmospheric routes, through lanes, alleys and courtyards between the main streets.. On route we will explore the origins of London’s financial heart, places associated with Dicken’s fiction, and explore the Roman origins of the City.

 

This is a London Walks Guided Walks. Look at their web site for a list of other of their amazing walks

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Chelsea From Thomas More to the Swinging 60s Saturday Night Pub Tour

Chelsea From Thomas More to the Swinging 60s
Saturday Night Pub Tour

September 28 7.15 Sloane Square Underground

The walk will look at the history of Chelsea from its origins in the Saxon period with the Palace of King Offa to the present day.

Chelsea may be best known as the spiritual home of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ but it has many other claims to fame, and its pleasures are attested by the unrivaled quality of its architecture, its famous residents and its local history.

It was home to: Thomas More, Henry VIII, Turner, Bram Stoker, George Elliot, Rossetti, Whistler, Oscar Wilde, Lawrence Olivier, Mike Jagger, James Bond, George Smiley, Richard Rogers and many many more!.

It was known as a Village of Palaces in the 16th and 17th Centuries but it changed profoundly in the 18th Century when the palaces were torn down and the gardens turned into streets of Town Houses. By the 19th Century it had gone ‘downhill’ to become a centre of bohemian London, but enriched by a colony of writers and artists. The recovery from urban decline began in the 1950’s when Chelsea became the centre of a new vibrant youth culture that rescued London from mediocrity. Sadly, fame contains the seeds of its own destruction, and as it became more fashionable it became less affordable so although the creative ‘buzz’ has moved somewhere cheaper, Chelsea remains a beautiful place to stroll around in company with its illustrious natives.

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London Bridge to Bermondsey Guided Walk July 13th

July 13 2019 7.15

London Bridge Tube Stop, Tooley Street exit

This is a London Walk’s walk.

On this walk we are going to explore the eastern half ot the Borough as it was known to Dickens. We walking from the Tube Station east along the River and then follow the route to the famous Monastery at Bermondsey. This route takes us through one of the famous working class areas of Old London, full of traces of London’s extensive industrial heritage, in particular the leather industry.

Enroute we will visit a pub or two, and explore working class lives before ending the tour at Barmsey Abbey, (as Londoners called it). It was patronised by the Queens of England and became one of the most famous places in London. Some of the Ruins survive, and it still influences the street pattern. The tour will provide a history of Southwark since the Bronze Age as well as much more. And then there are a couple of great pubs.