Category: City of London

The City’s shadowy figure in the under-gallery

The City Remembrancer, a role dating from 1571, is just one of the curious officials employed by the City of London Corporation. I walk the tightrope of political impartiality to explain what he does.

The City of London’s ‘Abbey Road’ Moment

The Square Mile is not the sort of place one associates with recording studios, yet Decca once had their main studios in the heart of the City, close to London Bridge.

Random Observations on Currants

I strike a blow for small dried black grapes in this modest, whimsical and ever-so-slightly-festive post

London’s Other Banqueting House

For almost two hundred years the Lord Mayor of London had his own Banqueting House - but it wasn't in the City of London.

‘That Absurd Excrescence’: The life & death of Middle Row

A hazard to traffic for at least 700 years, this block of tenements had a remarkable ability to survive the disapproval of generations of Londoners.

The Perils of Buggins’ Turn

The turbulent mayoralty of Sir Charles Whetham shows the pitfalls of assigning an important job by seniority rather than on merit.

The Great City of London Coffee-house Robberies of 1803

By examining a minor criminal case in the City, I conclusively prove that the past truly is a foreign country

Noxious niffs, nauseous nickers & blue-billy? It’s the City Gasworks

For more than half a century the few blocks between Blackfriars and Whitefriars in the City's south western corner were dominated by the City of London Gas Light and Coke Company.

Protests, Petitions & Poverty: The Fellowship Porters’ Chaotic Fall

The centuries-old Fellowship of Free Porters couldn't survive the seismic changes of the Victorian era. I chart its chaotic and tragic collapse mainly through the eyes of newspaper journalists.

The Everyday Story of a City Wharf

The everyday story of the last surviving Thameside warehouse in the Square Mile, featuring tea, Frankenstein, arson, frost fairs, John the pony and Timothy West.
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