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You’ve probably walked past one of London’s biggest mysteries… And now it has a cameo in Netflix UK & Ireland The Gentle...
05/09/2026

You’ve probably walked past one of London’s biggest mysteries… And now it has a cameo in Netflix UK & Ireland The Gentlemen.

Tucked away on Cannon Street is the London Stone, a nondescript lump of limestone with a history that stretches back centuries.

Nobody knows exactly what it was for. Many believe it was a Roman milestone or ancient marker, while others have linked it to Brutus, the legendary founder of Britain, or even claimed it was a Druidic altar.

Then there’s Jack Cade. Legend says the rebel struck the Stone with his sword in 1450 and declared himself Lord of London.

And the story focused on in the show that London will flourish for as long as the Stone survives.

What we do know is that the Stone was once considerably bigger, stood prominently in the street and became one of London’s most curious landmarks.

John Rocque’s 1746 map of Georgian London, offering a view of the capital before it became the sprawling metropolis we k...
29/08/2026

John Rocque’s 1746 map of Georgian London, offering a view of the capital before it became the sprawling metropolis we know today.

London was still divided between the walled square mile of the City of London, Westminster to the west, the centre of political power, and Southwark on the southern bank of the Thames.

London Bridge was the only bridge across the river in central London, still packed with medieval houses and shops. Beyond the built-up areas, places we now think of as London neighbourhoods, including Kings Road, Balham, Dalston and Marylebone, were little more than separate villages surrounded by farms, fields and hedge-lined country lanes.

Even Buckingham Palace was yet to exist. On the site stood Buckingham House, a large private brick mansion that would later be transformed into one of the world’s most famous palaces.

This 1925 postcard by radical journalist W. B. Northrup imagined London’s great landowners as a giant octopus, its te***...
22/08/2026

This 1925 postcard by radical journalist W. B. Northrup imagined London’s great landowners as a giant octopus, its te****les spreading across the capital.

Each te****le represents one of the Great Estates, showing the areas of land they controlled and the rents they collected.

The map highlights estates including Grosvenor, Cadogan, Portman, Howard de Walden and the Duke of Bedford, alongside their acreage and annual rents.

Research by Who Owns England found that in 2017 the Grosvenor Estate still covered around 300 acres of Mayfair and Belgravia, while the Portman Estate covered 110 acres of Marylebone, the Cadogan Estate 93 acres of Kensington & Chelsea and the Howard de Walden Estate 92 acres of Marylebone.

The fortunes involved are enormous. The combined wealth of the owners of the five principal Great Estates was estimated at around £22 billion in 2017.

Even more striking is how far back some of these landholdings go. The Grosvenors’ London fortune began in 1677, when Sir Thomas Grosvenor married the 12-year-old heiress Mary Davies, whose dowry included marshy land north of the Thames. That land would eventually become some of the most valuable real estate in the world.

A collection of historic photographs of Putney High Street. 📸Did you know that the two churches seen in the first image ...
22/08/2026

A collection of historic photographs of Putney High Street. 📸

Did you know that the two churches seen in the first image are the only two churches in the country situated on opposite sides of a bridge?

Look closely at the gates of the Natural History Museum and you’ll find these magnificent gilded lions, but their story ...
18/08/2026

Look closely at the gates of the Natural History Museum and you’ll find these magnificent gilded lions, but their story actually begins almost two miles away at the British Museum.

In 1852, sculptor Alfred Stevens designed 25 cast-iron lions to sit along a low railing marking the boundary of the British Museum. Stevens is thought to have taken inspiration from a particularly impressive cat belonging to a friend. The railing was dismantled in 1895, and the lions were scattered.

Some remained at the British Museum, while 12 were taken to St Paul’s Cathedral in 1899, where they were installed around the Wellington Monument.

And one of the original lions found its way to the Natural History Museum, which itself grew out of the British Museum’s natural history collections, before becoming an independent institution in the 20th century.

The museum opened in South Kensington in 1881.

🌒 Who’s ready for tomorrow’s solar eclipse?On 12 August 2026, London will experience a remarkable 91% partial solar ecli...
11/08/2026

🌒 Who’s ready for tomorrow’s solar eclipse?

On 12 August 2026, London will experience a remarkable 91% partial solar eclipse.

It’s a particularly significant event from a historical perspective: over the past 150 years, London has experienced only three other solar eclipses reaching or exceeding 90% coverage:

☀️ 11 August 1999 — ~96% coverage
☀️ 29 June 1927 — ~96% coverage (images above)
☀️ 17 April 1912 — ~92% coverage

So tomorrow’s eclipse will be among the most significant visible from London in the last century and a half.

Will you be watching tomorrow? 🌑

The Diseases and Casualties in London during the period 15th August - 22nd August, 1665. Infant mortality was rife at th...
30/07/2026

The Diseases and Casualties in London during the period 15th August - 22nd August, 1665.

Infant mortality was rife at the time. “Chrisomes” (15 dead) were infants younger than a month old; “teeth” (113 dead) were babies not yet through with teething.

Tuberculous was known as “King’s evil” at a time when royals were thought to be able to heal the disease with their hands.

“Rising of the lights” was an illness or obstructive condition of the larynx, trachea, or lungs, not to be confused with “Tissick” - a name for any of several diseases of the lungs involving coughing or difficulty in breathing.

The plague had infected 96 of the 130 parishes reporting and has killed 3880in that week alone. It eventually killed between 75,000 and 100,000 Londoners (out of a total population of about 460,000).

Swipe for map of London c.1665

Earl’s Court Farm on Earl’s Court Lane (now Earl’s Court Road), early 1860s.The Manor House on the left belonged to the ...
18/07/2026

Earl’s Court Farm on Earl’s Court Lane (now Earl’s Court Road), early 1860s.

The Manor House on the left belonged to the ancient Manor of Earl’s Court, one of Kensington’s oldest historic sites. Just a few years after this photograph was taken, both the manor house and the farm were demolished to make way for the first Earl’s Court Station—marking the end of Earl’s Court’s rural past and the beginning of its urban future.

The statue popularly known as Eros is actually Anteros, twin brother of Eros, who was the god of selfless love, in contr...
03/07/2026

The statue popularly known as Eros is actually Anteros, twin brother of Eros, who was the god of selfless love, in contrast to Eros, the god of sexual love.

Officially known as The Shaftesbury Memorial it symbolises the selfless philanthropic love of the Earl of Shaftesbury for the poor.

The direction of the statue may have been a visual pun. If the archer were to release his arrow, its ‘shaft’ would ‘bury’ in Shaftesbury Avenue.

Above is a 1914 photograph of a man in a bowler hat feeding four pelicans beside the lake in St James’s Park. Taken by T...
18/06/2026

Above is a 1914 photograph of a man in a bowler hat feeding four pelicans beside the lake in St James’s Park. Taken by Topical Press, the image was intended to promote leisure activities in London and encourage people to make use of transport services outside peak hours.

Although pelicans are not native to Britain, they have been a feature of St James’s Park since the 1660s, when the Russian Ambassador presented a pair of Great White Pelicans to King Charles II.

Last month marked the first successful pelican hatching in the park for around 360 years. Pelicans rarely produce fertile eggs when kept in such small groups. Swipe to see the chicks. 🐣

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