Before Mayfair became one of the most expensive districts in central London, this area was simply open countryside: fields and pasture known as Great Brookfield. The River Tyburn, one of Thames’ tributaries, ran through the peaceful meadows undisturbed before finally disappearing beneath the growing metropolis in the second half of the eighteen-century. For centuries, this…
For an aristocratic woman, the London Season was not simply a succession of balls, dinners and fashionable entertainments. It was an annual inspection, a marriage market and, for those who failed to secure a husband, a rather unforgiving countdown. For the gentleman, on the other hand, the London Season was not invented merely so that…
The most clichéd image of London anyone can sell you before you ever visit the city is that of fog-shrouded streets, relentless cold rain, restless ghosts, and gentlemen of questionable mental stability duelling over some tragic heroine in the shadows. We can blame Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle for helping to…
Executions are among the darkest chapters in London’s history. For more than seven centuries, public death shaped the lives of thousands of people across the capital. The condemned were only part of the story. Families, friends, judges, executioners and the crowds who came to watch were all drawn into the spectacle. Executions became part of…
The Industrial Revolution, which began in the eighteenth century, reached its peak during the Victorian era, bringing immense wealth to the British Empire. Britain dominated not only the seas but also the world’s markets. Inventors and engineers developed ever cheaper methods of production, while new machines drove efficiency to unprecedented levels. The price of this…
It was yet another ordinary day in London at the beginning of March 1848. On the border of the ever-busy Clare Market and Clement’s Inn Passage, a few men had been hired to stroll up and down the densely packed streets of the surrounding slum, each carrying a human skull. Their task was to lure…
Exploring the rich history of London, one often comes across the opinion that the city centre quite literally stands upon the dead. Wherever you walk, wherever you pause, the likelihood that you occupy the very spot of some forgotten plague pit, an unmarked grave of a prostitute, or some other ghastly site of execution, is…
The working-class district of Whitechapel lies in London’s East End. The stark, post-industrial character of this part of the city is rooted in both geography and history. London was once enclosed by a defensive wall first raised by the Romans, pierced by seven gates positioned at strategic points. For centuries, the land immediately east of…
John Hunter is not a man who lends himself comfortably to summary. To attempt to write the entire life story and long list of his accomplishments in a single article would be impossible – not to mention dismissive of the breadth of his relentless quest to uncover the workings of the human body, and the…
Green Park has a very particular atmosphere for a stretch of greenery situated in the very heart of tourist-heavy London. Even on the brightest summer days, one can sense an unusual stillness here – a feeling of suspension and a quiet sadness drifting among the shaded paths lined with twisted, ancient trees. The long, mist-shrouded…
