Monthly Archives: July 2015

Gobbets of the week #17

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Here are links to the top 10 gobbets of London history we liked this week:

1. Three very big cheers for @thegentleauthor for spearheading the successful campaign to #savenortonfolgate.

  
2. Gresham College lecture: the wonderful John Schofield waxes lyrical on the Archaeology of St Paul’s Cathedral. 

  
3. The real site of Arthur C Clarke’s ‘Tales from the White Hart’. Thanks to @Rachel_Bedder for prompting! 

4. The Berners Street Hoax

5. A gate at the Royal Exchange

  
6. From Foyles to Hatchards – slip between the covers of London bookshops. 

7. More bookshops: the Antiquarian Bookshops of Old London. 

8. Robert Hooke and the dog’s lung: animal experimentation in history. 

  
9. A walk through King’s Cross at the turn of the Millennium. 

10. Blitzed Tottenham Court Road, 1940.

If you like this, do take a look at these longer posts on London’s history:

The Dragon and the Grasshopper

Make mine a Liptrap!

London’s bare necessities 

Cricket, Coffee & Canals: Gobbets of the week #16

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Here are links to the top ten gobbets of London history we liked this week: 

1. Time Warp: it’s a Lord’s Ashes Test weekend, so a timely piece on the home of cricket’s famous weathervane  Old Father Time. 

  

2. OK, not (yet) history, but we loved the taxonomy and geography of London’s hipster coffee shops! 

3. The antiquarian book shops of Old London

4. Plague and pestilence at the Guildhall Library’s new exhibition. 

  

5. Canals of London, Part 1: great new video by Geoff Marshall of Londonist. 

6. Some great detective work to identify William Hogarth’s frame-maker. 

  

7. The Man Who Drew London: a look at Wenceslaus Hollar.

8. Lovely film on the heights of North London, 1850-1939. 

9. Now viewable online: London on the C14th Gough Map, the oldest road map of Britain. 

10. More cricket: a lovely old London trade  card of a Brick Lane cricket bat maker. 

More? If you like our weekly gobbets, you might also like some of our longer posts on London’s history: 

London’s bare necessities

The Dragon and the Grasshopper

A Load of Old Billingsgate

Gobbets of the week #15

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Here are links to the top 10 gobbets of London history we liked this week:

1. The secret stairs at the top of the Monument! Gorgeous photos and video feat. Tee Dobinson, shared by @mylondontours.

  
2. Wimbledon – as it was in 1921 (video). 

3. Anthony Geraghty’s slide deck from his Gresham College lecture on Wren and the rebuilding of London’s churches. 

4. The relentless evolution of London’s Underground network is cleverly explained by this Londonist video. 

5. The 4th of July: London’s Inns of Court and the founding of the USA. 

6. St Alban Wood Street: an old library book and a lonely church tower. 

  
7. London Then & Now: this old painting of the Watling Tavern, and my pic below comparing it today with another old photo. 

  
8. Lovely paintings of Chiswick House, 1729-31.

9. Vintage panoramas of modern London. 

10. The strange history of London’s Roman Bath. 

If you like our weekly gobbets, you might also like some of our longer posts on London’s history:

Five Cockney Poets

A Load of Old Billingsgate

Poppies, Pepys and Ghastly Grim