London

Child’s play

Excavations in Wapping, east London, have uncovered tangible traces left by Victorian schoolboys, as well as illuminating glimpses of a diverse dockyard community. CA reports.

Stories of St James’s Burial Ground

A new exhibition running at St James’s Church in Piccadilly tells the story of how HS2 works uncovered a huge Georgian and Victorian burial ground near Euston Station, and introduces some of the individuals laid to rest there. Carly Hilts visited to find out more.

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St Bartholomew the Great

Packed tightly between Smithfield meat market and the Barbican’s brutalist towers, St Bartholomew the Great (or Great St Bart’s, as it is often called) is London’s oldest surviving parish church, and also one of its most atmospheric. Founded by Henry…

St Bartholomew the Great: tracing the history of London’s oldest surviving parish church

Making people laugh in the 12th century proved to be lucrative work for Rahere (d. 1143), who is variously described as a jester, minstrel, and courtier to Henry I (c.1068-1135; r. 1100-1135). But that was in his early life: Rahere later became a devout cleric who, falling ill on a pilgrimage to Rome, vowed to establish a hospital in London if he survived. The result was St Bartholomew, founded in 1123 as a joint foundation of hospital and priory. A commemorative volume has just been published to mark the 900th anniversary of the church, as Chris Catling reports.

‘Not so much a residence as a tradition’: the evolution of St James’s Palace from leper hospital to royal court

Buckingham Palace has been the main London residence of the British monarch since 1837, when Queen Victoria chose it as her base, but St James’s Palace remains the official seat of the sovereign, as it has since 1698. Newly appointed ambassadors, therefore, are accredited to ‘the Court of St James’s’, and it is from there that the public proclamation of a new sovereign is first read. Despite this, a comprehensive account of the 800-year history of this royal palace has only just been published, as Chris Catling reports.

The London Gasketeers

The London Gasketeers (the name alludes, one assumes, to the swashbuckling heroes of the Alexander Dumas novel) are a newly created group set up to campaign for Britain’s historic gas lamps. Founded in January 2022, the Gasketeers operate by using…

London in the Roman World

Review by Sadie Watson Scholars of Roman London might wait years for a major synthesis such as Dominic Perring’s London in the Roman World to be published. This is hardly surprising when you consider the amount of research that has…

LEFT The Lost King is a new film about the rediscovery of Richard III’s grave in 2012. Here, Sally Hawkins is shown as Philippa Langley, the amateur historian who spearheaded the search, and Harry Lloyd appears as Richard III. He wears armour based on pieces from the Wallace Collection, where a temporary exhibition about arms, armour, and the last Plantagenet king is now running.

The Lost King: imagining Richard III at the Wallace Collection

A finely crafted suit of armour can be as much a work of art as it is a carefully honed piece of military technology. Carly Hilts visited the Wallace Collection to explore a new temporary exhibition that showcases its internationally important holdings of arms and armour, tying into a new film about the search for Richard III’s grave.

Above This drawing by Peter Urmston shows the bridge as it might have looked in about 1250, based on the evidence from leases and rent books; the drawbridge is being raised to let masted ships through.

Life across the water: exploring London Bridge and its houses

When it was completed in 1209, medieval London Bridge was the only fixed crossing of the Thames downstream of Kingston-upon-Thames (until Fulham Bridge was built in 1729). Remarkably, it was also home to some 500 people – equivalent to the population of a small medieval town. In London Bridge and its Houses, Dorian Gerhold has scoured the archives of Bridge House – the medieval charity that managed the bridge – to find out more about the community that lived on this extraordinary structure, as Chris Catling reports.

The East End Preservation Society

Founded in 2013, the East End Preservation Society (EEPS) is an informal group that uses the power of social media to bring people together who ‘care about the East End and are concerned about the future of its built environment’.…

Below Marble Hill in Twickenham is one of the last survivors of a grand neighbourhood of Georgian villas that once stood beside the Thames.

Restoring Marble Hill: how archaeology helped to revive a Georgian gem

When Henrietta Howard (née Hobart) built her Thames-side country house in Twickenham in the 1720s, it represented so much more than a fashionable escape from the bustle of court life: it was a refuge from her abusive marriage, and a sign of hard-won independence. With the house and its grounds now restored to their Georgian glory, and the site reopening to the public, Carly Hilts visited to find out more.

London in the Roman World

Review by Owen Humphreys. You wait decades for a new book about Roman London, then two come along at once. Dominic Perring’s previous work Roman London (Routledge, 1991) was the standard reference for nearly 30 years. Now, just three years…

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London Clay: journeys in the deep city

London Clay is an impressionistic survey of London and its history, filtered through the prism of the underlying geological strata. It is at once personal and overarching, meandering from pre-Roman to Victorian, south London to north, via what Chivers (a…

LEFT A city of contrasts: St Andrew Undershaft (named after the shaft of the maypole that once stood alongside the church) now sits in the shadow of 30 St Mary Axe (commonly known as ‘The Gherkin)’.

Friends of the City Churches

The Friends organise a rota of more than 100 volunteer ‘watchers’ to keep the churches open. They put on lectures, tours, and special events, while encouraging others to make use of the buildings.