Passport 4 London

30/10/2021

A novel way to highlight Black History Month!

01/10/2021

Silver Sunday in WestMinster, October 3 – check out the details on Eventbrite:

Visions, Values and Victories

19/04/2021

Pomp and Power
Visit London from anywhere in the world and take a virtual tour with the City of Westminster Guides on Sunday 25 April at 7pm (6pm GMT).
The area was shaped by the pomp and majesty of past kings and queens, but political power has now slipped from royal hands and today lies with politicians, who nevertheless conduct the affairs of state from a royal palace. From Trafalgar Square, which is a relatively new London landmark, the tour will take you to Buckingham Palace, again a relatively new palace, and Westminster Abbey, where you will discover why this church is unique in the UK. For further details, go to:

Join a Westminster Guide for an online tour to reveal the people and places behind the ceremonial "Pomp and Power".

29/08/2019

Free Open House walks coming up on September 21 run by City of Westminster guides
Secret Belgravia:
Discover the architectural treasures of Belgravia—the grand terraces that contrast with narrow mews and compact squares. First walk starts at 10am from Cardinal Place, Victoria tube. Register on Eventbrite, https://tinyurl.com/secret-belgravia-walk
Secrets of the Devils Acre:
If you are interested in social history this walk is for you. In the 19th century the area was described harbouring “nests of … depravity and crime … as well wretchedness and disease”. Meet the charity workers and philanthropists who founded schools and built social housing to improve conditions for the poor. First walk starts at 10:15, Cardinal Place, Victoria tube. Register on Eventbrite, https://tinyurl.com/devils-acre-walk

You might think that the area between Westminster Abbey and Victoria has always been home to the royal, rich and famous, but you’d be wrong. For centuries, it was one of the worst slums in London, where the desperate and destitute poor sought shelter. This walk will take you past 17th almshouses a...

06/07/2018

Mixing the law with luxury: Bow Street’s long police record
What do writer Oscar Wilde, suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst and wife poisoner Dr Crippen have in common? Well, aside from the sumptuous meals served to Wilde and Pankhurst provided by local hotels at the request of their friends, they all appeared on charges at the grubby building in the photo, which can be found opposite the Royal Opera House.
This is Bow Street Magistrates’ Court and Police Station, which, apart from the Old Bailey is arguably the most famous legal building in the UK. Although the building dates back to 1879, there has been a magistrates’ court here since 1740. Towards the end of the 1740s, Henry Fielding became a Westminster magistrate and, together with half-brother and fellow magistrate John, known as the ‘Blind Beak’ of Bow Street, created the forerunners to the Met Police, the Bow Street Runners.
Sir John was blinded at 19, but this did not hold him back. He established Bow Street has a hub for crime reporting and investigation. He published and distributed a leaflet called Hue and Cry, which listed wanted criminals and details of stolen property. This is still going strong today as the Police Gazette.
He used the money from fines to clothe and educate poor children, set up schemes enabling boys to join the armed services and used his contacts to give girls work as domestic servants to prevent them drifting into prostitution. A remarkable Georgian visionary.
Aside from Wilde, Pankhurst and Crippen, Bow Street has dealt with Michael Fagin, the man who surprised the Queen in her bedroom after scaling the walls of Buckingham Palace in 1982, and notorious East End gangsters the Kray twins.
So what’s happening there today? After the court was closed in 2006, Bow Street was sold to developers, with current plans to turn it into a luxury boutique hotel (with rooms in the old holding cells) and a police museum.
Sumptuous meals will, no doubt, be served in the old courtroom, which is destined to become the restaurant.

21/06/2018

Not exactly des res…
Have you ever thought about how mews came into being? And why on earth do they have that name? They’re not roads, lanes, crescents or pathways. In the days when birds of prey were habitually kept by the ruling classes, the birds lived in these properties whilst ‘mewing’ or moulting. These premises are a particularly London phenomenon, built to the rear of large townhouses, in order to accommodate, primarily, the horse and carriage for the household.
As a secondary thought, the servants could live there, too, along with the straw, hay, horse feed, manure and birds’ feathers! Gulleys ran along the cobbles, washing away the animal excrement and a pub was often a feature, serving as the social centre for the servants.
Mind you, no windows were built into the rear of the mews houses – the servants weren’t allowed to look into the master’s house – and the pub was tucked away, too, so that the bosses didn’t have to hear the noise of its drunken patrons.
What a transformation today. The mews are much sought-after and often charming properties, set in the best parts of town!

09/05/2018

London’s newest office tower blocks

Lloyd’s of London, or the inside-out-building (left): Richard Rogers’ iconic 1986 building was constructed on the site of an older structure built in 1928. Based on The Pompidou building in Paris, it is a bowellism creation, which means that all its services, lifts etc. are on the outside, allowing for a bright central atrium. Due to its inside-out design, it has been unkindly likened to an oil rig.
Described by architectural critic Nicholas Pevsner as “the most consistently innovative building the city has seen since Soane’s Bank of England”, Rogers gave the city its first 20th century building that can truly be called famous in the way that St Paul’s or the Tower of London are famous. Despite its relative youth, it is a grade 1 listed building.

30 St Mary Axe, aka The Gherkin: Opened in 2004, it was designed by Sir Norman Foster as headquarters for the Swiss Reinsurance Corporation. Described by the Wall Street Journal as “the most ingenious and elegant new skyscraper built anywhere in the world for at least 30 years”, it replaced the Baltic Exchange following its destruction by an IRA bomb in 1992.
The iconic shape is designed to preserve the views of St Paul’s Cathedral, which are enshrined from certain vantage points of London under a 1935 Act of Parliament.
The building has enough glass to cover three football pitches and, despite appearances, the only curved piece of glass is the “lens”, or panoramic dome, at top. The 180-metre high building was awarded the prestigious Royal Institute of British Architecture Stirling Prize in 2004.

28/04/2018

Paddington Street Gardens are the lungs at the centre of Marylebone. Visit these charming gardens for a breath of fresh air, reflection and peace.
Today, they are a far cry from their origins as graveyards, where an estimated 80,000 burials took place. These were not the ordered graves that we associate with burial grounds today; these were bodies stacked, one on top of the other, in the rush and constrained space available when the area was troubled by abject poverty, disease and death. Just think how unpleasant it was when heavy rain washed away the mud and bodies appeared to rise out of the ground!
Luckily, thanks to people like Octavia Hill, who wanted to improve living conditions for all, along with open space and fresh air, Paddington Street Gardens were turned into the gardens we all enjoy today – benches line the footpaths and rose varieties reflect the gardens’ history. A certain, and surprising, forerunner to the National Trust!

09/04/2018

If you think concrete is a rather boring 20th century building material, maybe it’s time to think again. Not only did the Romans use a natural form of it for construction, but a few millennia before them, the Egyptians, the Chinese and the Greeks had used it too.
And, surprisingly, so did the Victorians. The grey house pictured, which stands on London’s south circular road, is made of the stuff. As the photo shows, it’s built in the Gothic style, but instead of bricks and render it's made of concrete. The pioneering builder was Charles Drake, who built it for his family. But this was not his first concrete home – a few years earlier, he'd built a slightly larger version, again in Gothic style, in nearby Norwood, also pictured.
It didn't catch on, and these two buildings are rare examples of concrete use for domestic housing in Victorian times. Both are now listed. One is split into housing association flats and the other is a care home.

03/04/2018

An original Penfold pillar box in historic Bexley, originally part of land granted to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 9th century. The hexagonal post box is more than 130 years old and, like the Alms Houses pictured, it is Grade II listed. It was designed by John Wornum Penfold, an architect who redesigned the naval training school at New Cross in south London, now part of Goldsmiths College.
The homes were built in the mid-1750s to house 12 poor parishioners following a bequest from John Styleman, who had made his money with the East India Company and who had been one of its directors. The Alms Houses continue to be run by a charitable trust today, but, unlike the early days, going to the loo no longer involves a trip to the bottom of the garden!