London Walks

Lord Lucan went to the family home to murder his wife. He killed the children’s nanny instead. Or so goes the story. This Today in London History podcast tells the tale. TRANSCRIPT London calling. London Walks connecting. London Walks here with your daily London fix. Story time. History time. It’s 9.45 pm on the night […]

"her husband was a coachman to a wealthy family"

the execution was botched

Those birds – and how they are positioned – crystallise the matter for us.

best of all, Guy spoke French

a British commercial/shop version of a giant Swiss cuckoo clock

"monarchy maps 300 years ago are almost solidly red. Kings everywhere..."

“Of the many initiatives of the British government in the First World War, it cast the longest shadow.”

"whoever the killer was he had to avoid being noticed by three different police officers"

Santiago – the slayer of the Moors

The statues all shrieked and ran for their lives.

She sees the stockinged foot of a man protruding from behind an upright piano.

I would have wanted to ask, “what is wrong with you, man?”

"the walk turned into a donnybrook"

Like gorged, albino leeches, sunning themselves on the slopes of that swarthy, unshaven face.

"they fell into eternal darkness"

"Polly was once again a woman alone and with nowhere to go"

"the moment the modern English drama was born"

"make sure you turn that slave girl into cash"

"that'd be a size 33 shoe – you don't see too many of those in Jimmy Choos"

the day the world said, “you’re it, Greenwich.”

"it is proposed to call our king of bells, 'Big Ben'"

“journalism largely consists of saying ‘Lord Jones dead’ to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive”

Jenkins got home, with his ear, like a pickle, in a jar...

"a gang of roughs charged the royal procession"

"In his book Martin Fido describes her as 'a drab little woman who drank her husband's wages'"

The tidal wave of porter blows out the 25 foot high rear wall of the brewery

"a blackened, smoking, stinking ruin"

"he squeezed through the tiny gap"

"The crash was predictable and — more tragically — probably avoidable"

“Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London.”

"it displayed all the hallmarks of sincere swordsmanship"

"one of the greatest headline grabbers of all time was born"

"it transfused right round the world"

On October 10, 1677 a 12-year-old heiress married a 20-year-old baronet. That wedding shaped the feature of London. This Today in London History podcast tells the tale. TRANSCRIPT London calling. London Walks connecting. London Walks here with your daily London fix. Story time. History time. Five points. 1. The bride was 12 years old.  2. […]

A Rubicon was crossed that January day in 1649.

"because I have supped full of horrors"

"Good taste is death. Vulgarity is life" Mary Quant

Did my compatriot really try to bed the Russian empress?

The Jury re-considered their verdict, and returned a general verdict – Guilty – Death.

"how could this Jekyll and Hyde world have come about?"

Fascism is a hydra

"the resulting hoo haw became an international incident"

"a 74-year-old woman died of fright"

"you do realise that October 1st is Railway Station Day in London"

"go home and sleep quietly in your beds"

"their foul-mouthed advertising of their wares was so hilarious that Nell was taken on as a professional performer"

"it's not new and it's not a river"

"he saw a halo of inhibited bacteria growth"

"there are more than 100 suspects that have been put forward"

"the breakout moment for the virus"

he gave them firm instructions that they were to stay put

The work of a civilised man, it was a work of civilisation

"if you didn't know better you would have thought you were in Kansas City"

"You go, girls"

he saved the last fragment of the great Middlesex forest

it's believed to be the first production mounted at the world's most famous theatre

"it made me look at the whole mystery of Jack the Ripper in a new way"

"about to die"

"our little life is rounded with a sleep"

You wouldn’t have wanted to go face to face with either of them...

“an Englishman cannot open his mouth without making another Englishman either hate or despise him"

"live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse"

It looks like a vast hog.

Events and historically important men and women are like radionuclides. They each have their own particular half-life.

He made the mistake of leaving a thumbprint on a newly painted window sill.

It looks down on us from across 35 centuries.

Speaking with a foreign accent, the man muttered, “I am sorry.”

"To my mind it is the perfect portrait."

"the vehicle was driven into the front corridor of the famous actor's house"

His aeroplane resembled nothing so much as a monstrous dragonfly.

"a weapon which gave no warning"

"you could actually feel your eyeballs being sucked out"

That’s way over two football fields long

"the first enemy airship to be brought down on British soil"

"all forms of male homosexuality were illegal"

"All changed, changed utterly"

Four days later he doesn't have a city to be mayor of.

"Cheer up, Ducky"

Cholera was knocking on practically every other door

"three cheers for our queer old Dean"

"that'd be about 75 million pounds in today's money"

"London was abuzz about insects"

"a seasonable show of dying"

The jeep that sailed across the Atlantic ocean took to the road and drove up to London on August 26, 1951. This Today in London History podcast tells the tale. TRANSCRIPT London calling. London Walks connecting. London Walks here with your daily London fix. Story time. History time. We’ve seen it before, we’ll see it […]

Full capacity was sixteen passengers, fourteen inside and two outside.

The conception moment for Romanticism took place on this day, August 24th, 1770. This Today in London History podcast tells the tale. TRANSCRIPT London calling. London Walks connecting. London Walks here with your daily London fix. Story time. History time. It’s one of the great sob stories in English Literature. But it ain’t true. I’m […]

he was pelted with garbage and dung – the Twitter of his day

"the king knighted him on the spot"

"they were in a race to introduce actresses on the London stage"

"the room where the deed was done"

"she ate a £100 banknote [£20,000 in today's money]"

"who gives a damn now anyway?"

"they were walking to a folk dancing display"

"less than a year separated them from the hangman's rope"

"He has to hobble to his place of execution."

"they're fast going the way of the dodo"

"the black cat who adopted two baby rats"

"I met Murder on the way"