Bowl of Chalk

11/09/2026

Met up with Tubemapper - London Photography who is doing a series about various peoples favourite stations.

08/09/2026

London Calling was The third studio album by The Clash, released in 1979 with the first song being the titular track. The lyrics, written by Joe Strummer, like much of the album is very London centric, with London Calling concerning itself with police brutality, debt, worries about the possibility of the Thames flooding and fear of nuclear disaster. The title comes from the introduction used by the BBC World Service during WW2, "This is London calling" and ends with morse code spelling S-O-S.

04/09/2026

In 18th and 19th century London, a small army of people traipsed around London's streets, picking up dog poo. They were called 'pure finders'. The poo was then sold to the many tanneries based in Bermondsey, south east of London bridge, who used the canine excrement to purify, clean and soften animal hides used in leather making.

19th century journalist Henry Mayhew estimated there were about 300 pure finders in and around Bermondsey who scraped a living this way.

There were a lot of deeply unpleasant jobs in Victorian London, but this, surely has to be one of the worst, particularly as many of them picked up the dog waste with their bare hands.

Could you have been a pure finder?

03/09/2026

In Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, the titular character is brought to Clerkenwell Green by the Artful Dodger and Charley Bates. The two boys pick the pocket of Mr Brownlow whilst he is engrossed in a book at a book stall, but when he notices, the two thieves scarper leaving Oliver to be captured by an angry crowd.

He is taken to a nearby office of the law in the neighbourhood and is about to hear his fate when the bookseller appears, verifying that Oliver had not been involved, thus saving him and entrusting him to the care of Mr Brownlow.

Clerkenwell Green still very much exists, as does the late 18th century courthouse, undoubtedly where Oliver is taken, but today it's a super swanky private members work space and restaurants.

For Dickens' fans there are still many locations from his books around London, and also the very house where he wrote much of Oliver Twist on Doughty Street, a 10 minute walk from Clerkenwell Green, which today is The Charles Dickens Museum



Have you any favourites?

31/08/2026

Have you ever noticed the tiny, tiled, relief sculptures on the walls at Bethnal Green underground station?

The station was built in the 1930s and the tiles were created by a guy called Harold Stabler and depict the crests of the various counties that were reached by what was then the London Passenger Transport Board (now TFL). He has also included 55 Broadway, their HQ.

London landmarks like the Houses of Parliament and St Paul's cathedral also feature. There's one you might not recognise; the Crystal Palace which burnt down in 1936.

Next time you're at the station check them out.

28/08/2026

On Sat 19th Sept at 10:30am I'll be appearing in discussion with about 'The Secret Life of London' ...which basically means we'll be sharing stories about our explorations of the capital as 'modern day explorers'. We'll be talking about how we ended up doing what we do and our endless fascination with the city ...amongst other things.

The discussion is part of a four day festival in and around Chelsea focussed on modern day story telling and includes a host of events and other far more interesting people (Johno excepted) like , ridiculously talented author .rundell, .imrie, , .elms.london, .evaristo, comdian ...and loads more.

A link to tickets for mine and Johno's event can be found by clicking on my bio.

Hopefully see one or two of you there.

27/08/2026

The Notting Hill Carnival is 60 years old this weekend.
https://www.bowlofchalk.net/london-blog/how-notting-hill-carnival-found-its-rhythm

Every August Bank Holiday, the streets of west London are transformed by an explosion of colour, music and movement. Today Notting Hill Carnival attracts more than a million people and is widely...

25/08/2026

London has had many notorious gangs over the centuries, but perhaps most unusual was the all female Forty Elephants (sometimes known as the Forty Thieves). Based in Elephant & Castle in south London, this band of female thieves would head to London's West End, robbing deoartment stores and jewellery shops, hiding their loot in their specially adapted clothes.

Operating from the 1870s through to the 1950s, the gang had a number of leaders including Mary Carr (played by actress Erin Doherty in the recent Disney+ TV drama 'A Thousand Blows') and Alice Diamond. Many of them were caught and imprisoned by detectives working at Scotland Yard, the HQ of the Metropolitan Police.

That building down in Whitehall has in recent years been turned in to the Great Scotland Yard Hotel and in their lobby and throughout the hotel have many nods to their illustrious past, perhaps most strikingly, The Forty Elephants bar, a cocktail bar designed around motifs relating to the all female gang of the same name. The centre piece is a vast chandelier made from hundreds (if not thousands) of shards of glass, referencing the ladies' penchant for smashing shop windows to steal valuables.

The bar is open to the public and a reservation is recommeded.

In the making of this video I was very kindly gifted a stay at the Great Scotland Yard Hotel.

21/08/2026

What's in a name? Brockley.

First recorded in the 12th century, the name Brockley, in south east London, is thought to literally mean, 'clearing in the badger's wood'.

Brocc or Brocca was an old celtic word for badger and the ending 'ley' which featured in another of these videos; Bromley, is a clearing in a wood or glade. In old English could meant brook or stream. It's generally thought that Brockley has the badger vibe.

Brockley has had a few famous residents over the years including music hall singer Marie Lloyd and Edward VII's mistress (one of many), Lillie Langtree. Fashion designer John Galliano grew up there, as did footballer Ian Wright. Velvet Underground's John Cale lived on Wickham Road, as did Kate Bush in the 1980s. Kae Tempest is another recent Brockleyite.

Street artists featured in this video include Lionel Stanhope who has painted many of the place name murals in south east London, Dale Grimshaw who has been painting incredible portraits for years and Art Mongers who have their own school of muralism.

19/08/2026

Between Lewisham and New Cross in south east London to the north of Lewisham Way, you'll find a number of roads; Wickham Rd, Ashby Rd, Breakspears Rd, Manor Rd and others. They were developed in the mid 19th century as a suburb for the wealthy middle classes; wide, tree lined thoroughfares, behind which are large villas.

Behind the houses run services roads, originally designed for horses and carriages, stables, servants and deliveries. Today, they form a network of overgrown passageways ripe for exploring and festooned with blackberries, workshops, studios, garages and kids playing, as they have done for generations.

There's also a wonderful community garden which I completely forgot to mention in the video (it was closed when I visited) but will be open during when the will be hosting historical and architectural tours of the area.