General Chat

Vauxhall Gardens.

Spring Gardens are all that is left of the Celebrated Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens which opened as the new spring gardens in 1661. They boasted illuminated fountains,, lamp-lit walks ,, sculpture galleries, firework displays, music and pagents. In the 19th century Vauxhall Gardens became a centre for balloon ascents. In recent years it was possible during the summer months to ride above Vauxhall in The World's Biggest Helium Balloon.

Famous Residents of London

Sherlock Holmes
The famous but fictitious detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle first appeared in 1891. He still gets regular fan mail sent to his equally fictitious address of 221b Baker Street (the museum is next to No. 239).

2. Charles Dickens
The great Victorian novelist and social campaigner (1812–70) lived in Doughty Street for two years from 1837. The house is his only surviving London home, and he thought it “a frightfully first-class family mansion, involving awful responsibilities”

3. Dr Johnson
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,” said Dr Samuel Johnson (1709–84). He lived in the City from 1748 to 1759 and much of his famous dictionary was compiled here, with six copyists working in the garrett. His companion James Boswell reported on the social comings and goings in the house.

4. John Keats
The London-born Romantic poet (1795–1821) lived in Hampstead from 1818 to 1820 before leaving for Italy to try to cure his fatal tuberculosis. After falling in love with his neighbour’s daughter, Fanny Brawne, he wrote his famous and beautifulOde to a Nightingale in the garden .

5. Sigmund Freud
The Viennese founder of psychoanalysis (1856–1939) spent the last year of his life in a north London house. A Jew, he had fled the Nazis, bringing his celebrated couch with him.

6. Lord Leighton
Yorkshire-born Frederick Leighton (1830–96) was the most successful painter in Victorian London and president of the Royal Academy. He had this exotic house built for him in 1899.

7. Thomas Carlyle
The Scottish historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle, famous for his history of the French Revolution, lived in London from 1834.

8. The Duke of Wellington
Charles Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852), lived at Apsley House, which has the unique address of No. 1 London, following his victories in the Napoleonic Wars.

9. Georg Friedrich Handel
The great German-born composer first visited London in 1710 and settled here permanently in 1712.

10. William Hogarth
The great painter of London life (1697–1764, see Tate Britain) was used to the gritty life of the city and called his house near Chiswick “a little country box by the Thames”.

Berkeley Square
This pocket of green in the middle of Mayfair was planted in 1789 and its 30 huge plane trees may be the oldest in London. In 1774 Clive of India, hero of the British Empire in India, committed suicide at No. 45. Memorial benches in the square bear moving inscriptions, many from Americans who were billeted in Mayfair during World War II. The main UK Bentley and Rolls-Royce dealer’s showroom is on the east side of the square.

Chelsea probably has more Blue Plaques than any other district of London. Some of the great and not-so-good who have lived here include

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James Bond (fictional) and John le Carre's Smiley.
Sir Marc Isambard Brunel and Isambard Kingdom Brunel (civil engineers) (Cheyne Walk)
George Eliot
Elizabeth Gaskell
Mick Jagger and (at one time) all the Rolling Stones (Edith Grove)
Roger Keyes
Freddie Mercury (1 Logan Place, W8), the outer wall is covered in graffiti and messages by Queen fans from around the world, particularly from Japan.
Sylvia Pankhurst (Cheyne Walk)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Gerald Scarfe and Jane Asher
Algernon Swinburne
Margaret Thatcher (Flood Street)
William Turner
James McNeill Whistler
Oscar Wilde (Tite Street)
Bob Marley composed his hit "I Shot The Sheriff" in a one-bedroom flat off Cheyne Walk in the mid-Seventies.

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Gwyneth Paltrow has recently put in an offer for a £1.25 million apartment just off the King's Road. Johnny Depp rented a property on the King's Road for the duration of filming Finding Neverland, which follows the life of J.M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan.

Did you know that Royal Marriages have taken place in the chapel Royal at St James Palace. including that of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert in 1840.
The Duke of York and Princess Mary of Teck, later King George V and Queen Mary were also married there in 1893.

rita

Thanks for tread yes very intresting reading.

Well done

Helen I was born on the outskirts of London and know it well my sister lives in London. and my relations all come from London.
It is a very interesting city and people who live there often do not know what is on their doorsteps. I worked in London when I was 16 years old a very long time ago. just off Oxford Street.
I go and stay with my sister a lot during the year and yes we go to lots of places of interest even places we have visited before, i never tire of finding out fact of London that l never knew.

Rita

London Bridge of today is not the original bridge that crossed the Thames. when it was first built.
Peter a Priest and Chaplain of St mary's of Colechurch began the foundation of the original bridge in 1176. this was to replace a wooden bridge. which repeately burn't down.that one was first built by the Romans. The original bridge consisted of 19 pointed arches, each with a span averaging 7 meters.and built on 6 metre wide piers. A twentiieth opening in the bridge.this was span by a wooden draw bridge.
The tide when it roared through the arches every day with such force it was so dramitic it created temporary 5 foot high cataracts everyday as it went in and out.
A new sport was based on this was "Shooting the Bridge " slipping through the arches in a small boat when the tide was turning.
Peter of Colechurch died in 1205 and the work was completed by three other citisens by 1209. the bridge already rather narrow for its function became even narrower when shops and homes were built along both sides of the roadway right on the bridge itself.
by 1358 138 places of business were recorded. The houses were built to hang over the water as well as the roadway they were anchored by tying them together across the street with arches of strong timber. in 1580 a Water MIll was added
The bridge was not only a homes and business. It was a defensible structure.More than once the draw bridge was raised and men fought under its strong tower to stop the invaders.or rebels which put the houses on the bridge at some risk. .

Rita

Seeing you all talk about London I thought I would bump up this thread again, I am London born and Bred and find this city so interesting.
Hope you enjoy all the reading.
Carol

n

Ghost that are suppose to haunt in and a round London.
one is in the Wakefield Tower . it is said as you walk through two rooms in this part of the tower you get a cold feeling and it increases as you turn left.it continues through a series of twisting staircases and you arrive at the actual Wakefield Tower.. That most tragic of Monarchs, the unfortunately Henry V1 was imprisoned here. His weak and ineffectual reign ended with his imprisonment and murder before Midnight on 21st May 1471 as he knelt at the small window alter. It is beieved ,though not proven that the dagger with which he was stikked full of holes was used by none other than the Duke of Gloucester (later the infamous Richard 111) On the Anniversary of his death , as the clock ticks towards midnight, Henry's pale and mournful wraith appears and paces fitfully around the room, until, as the last stroke of midnight chimes, he fades slowly into the stone and rests peacefully for another year.


rita

The "Leicester " of the square comes from Sir Philip Sidney's family. his collateral descendants, the Earl of Leicester ,had thier London house on the north side of what was then Leicester fields.
"The Fields "had been enclosed and laid out as Dutch gardens in 1720 in 1748 Fred Prince of Wales by way of indicating contempt for his father errected a gilt esquestion statue of his Grandfather (George 1 )in the middle, populary known as the "Golden Man and Horse "this was the centre of public admiration during the period of the squares high fashion but the area decayed so too the statue decayed in 1851 somewhat battered already by vandals it was banished for some eleven years then resurrected losing rider its rider until its final indignity when in a night of revelry it was white washed and covered with large dapples spots like a rocking horse By then the area besides being a hunting ground for hooligans had already for years been a centre of popular enterainment.

Rita

I might be related to Richard the Lionheart....

Boogie if we go far enough back we are all related to the royals in someway or another. I went back and found i had royal connections but it amounted to a teaspoonful of blood./.
Lo

Rita

The most historical event was...........

I was born there

the hotel Cadogan Hotel is where Oscar Wilde stayed to await his inevitable arrest after losing his libel action against The Marquis of Queensbury . the Hotel was also the home of Lillie Langtry The Jersey Lily mistress to the Prince of Wales .Bertie the future Edward v11 .

rita

I was born in London and Rita, I worked just off Oxford Circus too, two different companies. :))

n for anyone to add any other interesting facts.............................

I have been away on a short break and met a lovley couple whose son had been killed in the 7/7 bombings in London, they spoke of the memorial been built and I have added this as it is going to be in Hyde Park.

Pillar memorial for 7/7 victims

Antony Gormley has acted as an independent adviser
A £1m memorial of 52 stainless steel pillars is to be erected in memory of those killed in the 7 July London bombings, relatives have revealed.

The columns, one for each victim, will be grouped together in four clusters, representing the four separate attacks that took place in the summer of 2005.
One bereaved father said they would be as "indestructible as the memories" relatives retained of those killed.

The memorial will be unveiled in London's Hyde Park on 7 July .
Each of the three-metre columns will be inscribed with the date, time and location of each of the four separate attacks.

Visitors will be free to wander around them.
A plaque inscribed with the names of the 52 victims will also be placed in the grass banks at the far eastern end of the memorial.

Grahame Russell, who lost his son Philip in the bombing at Tavistock Square, said many ideas originating from victims' families were incorporated in the design and that its development had taken time because they wanted "a proper memorial".

"The stelae remind me that prior to July 7 these 52 people that died stood tall in this world, the material itself is as indestructible as the memories we have of them," he added.

'Say the unsayable'
Julie Nicholson, who stood down as vicar in Bristol because she felt unable to forgive her daughter Jennifer's killer, said she felt it would be "difficult" to find a memorial that would "express everything that needs to be expressed".

But she said she was reassured when designers stated their intention "was to find a silent thing that can eloquently say the unsayable".

Saba Mozakka, whose mother Behnaz was killed at King's Cross, added that the memorial was "also about giving something back to the city".
Artist Antony Gormley, creator of the Angel of the North, has acted as an independent adviser for the memorial.

He said the monument was "an opportunity for loss victims to be in contact with the living".

The public can view the design on its website.

What is “Big Ben”? Most people have an impression that it’s the name of the world famous clock, or perhaps the tower that houses it. Not true! The name actually refers to the 13 ton bell, while the tower is known as St. Stephen’s Tower.
The Queen’s official residence, Buckingham Palace, was built in 1702… on the site of a notorious brothel!
In 1870, thanks to the potato famines in Ireland, there were more Irish living in London than there were in Dublin. (At the time, there were also more Catholics living in London than there were in Rome.)
The Thames is the oldest place name in Britain, and the river is a combination of four other rivers.
The Great Fire of London in 1666 created substantial damage across the city and raged for days, causing parts of London to be rebuilt. However, only around eight lives were lost in the catastrophe.
The city that is presently known as London has gone through a variety of names during its history. At the time of the Roman Invasion, it was called Londinium. In Saxon times, it became known as Lundenwic. And during the kingdom of Alfred the Great, the city was known as Lundenburg.
About 25% of all people today living in London were born in another country.
A culturally diverse and multi-ethnic city, London is home to people speaking over 300 languages.
There are over 19,000 listed structures in the British capital.
Gaslight was introduced in London in 1807; prior to this, torchlight was used.
Her Majesty the Queen is not allowed to go into the House of Commons because she is not a commoner.
Rumor has it that Windsor Castle is haunted by a range of ghosts, including King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I, Mad King George, and Charles I.
About sixteen percent of the UK’s restaurants are located in London, and there are more Michelin-rated restaurants in London than in any city except for Paris.
London’s underground system, commonly called “the tube”, was the first to be built anywhere, and it is one of the largest. Now, however, it is one of the most unreliable –and costliest.
Each week, the 409 escalators in the London subway cover an astonishing distance: The equivalent of several trips around the globe!