Gobbets of the week #15

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

Gobbets of the week #14

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

1. Victorian London in photographs (via Westminster Walks).

2. A lovely colour film of London Bridge, 1926 by Claude Friese-Green (via Rob Baker).

  
3. Compare detailed historic maps with today’s London. 

  
4. Some 3D views of Central Line tube stations. 

5. A Doric tragedy: demolishing the Euston Arch

6. 1960: when Tommy Steele’s wedding caused chaos in Soho Square. 

  
7. Wonderful archives film of The Barbican, 1969.

 
8. The Last Shift: the seedy side of Regency London.

9. An old map of London’s Theatreland. 

10. Now the site of City Airport, the King George V and Royal Albert Docks in 1930. 

Gobbets of the week #13

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

1. This amateur London Tube Map is better than the real thing.   

   

2. Spitalfields then and now: @thegentleauthor updates Dan Cruikshank’s 1970s snapshots (two separate links!) 

3. Regency London gambling: ‘the two nerdy history girls’ blog visits Crockford’s Club in St James’s. 

4. Rioters & resurrectionists: the turbulent history of Spa Fields. 

5. For our 13th ‘Gobbets of the week’, why is London scared of the number 13?

    

6. The world’s oldest hat shop: the archives of J Lock & Co (via the excellent @ianvisits)

    

7. A map showing the huge acreage of London’s former docks. 

8. Love, health and the weather: what medieval Londoners worried about.

9. More Spitalfields Life: the House Mill of 1776 at Bromley by Bow. 

10. Book review: Summer of Blood: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 by Dan Jones in History Today.