London in Motion

Victoria and Albert Museum

2010-09-21T03:55:00.000-07:00

VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

A special exhibition entitled ‘Raphael: Cartoons and ‘Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel’ is currently on at the Victoria and Albert Museum between September 8 and October 17. The exhibition was planned to mark Pope Benedict XVI’s state visit to Britain in September 2010. Four of the ten tapestries woven according to Raphael’s designs hang for very first time alongside the original cartoons, or templates inside the V&A. The Raphael Cartoons have always been a highlight of the museum. They make up seven of the series of ten, drawn by Raphael for Pope Leo X and are amongst the most important surviving examples of High Renaissance art. King Charles I bought the cartoons in 1623 and they are on loan to the museum from the Queen.

The Victoria and Albert Museum, commonly shortened to the ‘V&A’ spans five thousand years of art, from ancient times through to the present day and consists of items collected from across the four compass points of the globe. The Victoria and Albert Museum is located in an area of immense cultural, scientific and educational importance in West London. It is one of three large museums situated in South Kensington, the other two being the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. The museum is spread over seven miles of corridors and it is where one can view the finest collection of applied and decorative arts in the world.

An astonishing six and a half million objects are under the museum’s care. Many are contained in the one hundred and forty-five galleries of the museum. Some of the collections are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world. The vast quantity of exhibits determines that only a small percentage is ever on display. Nevertheless, the twelve and a half acres of exhibits is enough to keep visitors occupied for a full day and even then, it is only possible to scratch the surface.

The V&A’s collection of decorative arts and design was founded in 1852 and was partly built up with profits from The Great Exhibition of 1851. In the early years, the collection covered science and a number of exhibits were purchased from The Great Exhibition to form the nucleus of the collection. It was the first museum in the world to include a refreshments room, dating back to 1857. A year later, late night openings were made possible with the use of gas lighting, which allowed the working classes to visit.

The museum we see today is faced in ornate terracotta, red brick and Portland Stone. Built by Aston Webb, the main façade is an eclectic mix of Renaissance and medieval influences. Aston Webb’s foundation stone was laid on the seventeenth of May 1899, unbeknown to those in attendance, the occasion was the last official public appearance by Queen Victoria. During the ceremony, the museum’s name was changed from The South Kensington Museum to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Over the following decade, Aston Webb built onto the existing parts and his additions were opened by Edward VII in 1909. Sculptural images of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are set into the external structure. Prince Albert appears on the main arch above the twin entrances with Queen Victoria seen above the frame around the arches and entrance.

The collection of art from Asia is one of the greatest in existence. It comprises more than one hundred and sixty thousand objects. The collections at the V&A are carefully grouped and subdivided. There are collections of furniture and furnishings, textiles, fashion, sculpture, metalwork, ceramics, glass, words and images, theatre and performance, prints, books, photographs, periods and styles, paintings and drawings, jewellery, cast courts, ceramics, architecture and many more.

The fashion and costume collection is the most comprehensive in Britain. There are more than fourteen hundred outfits, mostly dating from 1600 to the present day. In 2002 the museum acquired the Costiff collection of one hundred and seventy-eight costumes by the British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. The purchase was made possible by the assistance of the National Art Collections Fund, which has funded many other acquisitions at the V&A.

On permanent display in the V&A, is the ‘Chelsea Carpet’ which is thought to date from the sixteenth century. Considered the most beautiful carpet in the world, it was bought on London’s fashionable King’s Road in the nineteenth century and its earlier history is entirely unknown. Another popular exhibit is the ancient 'Bed of Ware’, which was built for an inn in Hertfordshire. Dating to 1590, the bed is so large it could sleep fifteen adults. A curiosity from its earliest days, William Shakespeare mentioned the bed in ‘Twelfth Night’. Some of those who slept in the ‘Bed of Ware’ carved their names into the timber or applied their red wax seals, all of which are still visible today.

At the outbreak of the Second World War most of the collection was transferred to a disused London Underground tunnel and also to a subterranean quarry in Wiltshire. Items too big to be shifted were bricked up ‘in situ.’ Fortunately, the museum survived the war with only minor damage, although sharp eyed visitors will pick out the pock marks still visible on the façade from shrapnel from bombs that fell nearby.

The museum’s curators not only care for the objects in the collection, but provide access to items that are not currently on display to the public. Indeed, much commitment is required in sorting the items in the repository that are not on display. Research continues to be maintained by the curators as an important area, despite underfunding. The museum runs an education department for both casual visitors and school groups. The various annex institutions are managed by the V&A’s own staff, including The Museum of Childhood in East London’s Bethnal Green.

Starting in 2001, the museum embarked on a major one hundred and fifty million pounds renovation programme. The major overhaul included the introduction of new galleries, shops, visitor facilities and the ‘John Madejski Garden’ that opened in 2005. However, a proposal for a spiral extension by the post-modernist architect Daniel Libeskind, caused a public uproar. Ultimately, the trustees voted to abandon the eighty million pounds project after failing to achieve a financial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. From 2001 The Victoria and Albert Museum has been free of charge and it is open daily, from 10.00-17.45 (22.00 Fridays). The V&A is located on Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL

Where to view 'Victoria and Albert Museum' and video clips of London. London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Victoria And Albert Museum’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Sherlock Holmes Museum

2010-09-14T04:05:00.000-07:00

SHERLOCK HOLMES MUSEUM

Sherlock Holmes was the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Raised in genteel poverty, the author was the eldest son of a Scottish failed painter turned civil servant, who consoled himself with fishing and drink. His mother was Irish and said to have been a cultured, strong-minded woman. As a child, it was said of Conan Doyle that he, ‘might come home with a bloodied nose. No sooner was he in the door than his head was buried in a book.’ After university he qualified as a doctor and he began writing the stories to fill his time whilst waiting for patients, a luxury which today’s U.K. National Health doctors can only dream of. As an adult, Conan Doyle lost his Catholic faith and later became interested in spiritualism. His first wife appeared in his writings as Dr Watson’s wife. A keen sportsman, he was instrumental in raising the popularity of skiing in the United Kingdom and imported amongst the first sets of skis from Norway. Also an avid cricketer, he only ever took one wicket, nevertheless a wicket of historical significance, as he dismissed W.G. Grace, considered by many to be the greatest cricketer of all time, for one hundred and ten runs.

The first appearance of Sherlock Holmes was in the 1887 publication of Beeton’s Christmas Annual. The character was an eccentric and brilliant London based consulting detective, prone to much logical reasoning, who used his abilities as a master of disguise to help solve his cases. Sherlock Holmes was partially modelled on Conan Doyle’s university professor, Dr Joseph Bell, whose tendency to draw large conclusions from the smallest of observations was given to the fictional sleuth. Conan Doyle bestowed Holmes with many idiosyncratic habits, such as starving himself during periods of feverish mental activity, or his tendency to be a messy hoarder who knew exactly where whatever he wanted was to found.

Sherlock Holmes was a habitual user of cocaine, which he customarily injected in a seven per cent solution. He was also an occasional user of morphine, but he strongly disapproved of visiting opium dens, preferring to consume narcotics in the privacy of his lodgings. Doctor Watson, his only true friend, disapproved of his friend’s cocaine habit. Sherlock Holmes was a dispassionate man and he may have used cocaine to try to open his calcified heart. Throughout the stories, the only pleasure Sherlock Holmes derived from the company of women were the problems they brought him to solve and on those occasions he sparkled. Apart from mention of his bouts of boxing as a young man, he avoided physical contact. In one story Doctor Watson noted of his companion, ‘there is something positively inhuman in you at times.’ Doctor Watson was his only true friend. He provided practical assistance and played the role of Holmes’s chronicler. They developed a symbiotic relationship and for his part, Holmes supplied his mental vigour and the excitement that came from his extraordinary endeavours.

At one point Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tired of Sherlock Holmes. He wrote to his mother, ‘I think of slaying Holmes…and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind off better things.’ So Conan Doyle had Holmes and Professor Moriarty apparently plunge to their deaths down the Reichenbach Falls in the 1893 tale ‘The Final Problem.’ The public uproar resulted in Holmes being brought back, but not before twenty thousand readers of Strand Magazine had cancelled their subscriptions. Sherlock Holmes ultimately featured in fifty-six short stories and four novels. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle developed many layers to the detective’s character and so convincingly was Holmes’s complicated persona brought to life in the readers’ minds that many began to forget that he was fictional character.

This confusion as to whether Sherlock Holmes was a real person or not has compounded down the decades and in many ways it is hardly surprising, as there is much to help feed the enduring popularity of the detective. In 1999 a nine feet high bronze of Sherlock Holmes was unveiled outside of Baker Street Underground Station in London. It has been described as ‘bearing some resemblance to the real Sherlock Holmes’ and such comments only add a vitality to Conan Doyle’s hero. On the opposite side of the road from the statue can be found the Sherlock Holmes pub. There are frequent Sherlock Holmes walking tours with guides enthusiastically recounting all the exploits of the great detective. A commemorative blue plaque is even displayed on Baker Street, similar to those issued by English Heritage, which further adds to confusion over his existence or not.

For many years a financial institution occupied the site of 221b and their employees always answered the fan mail. On average a staggering twenty letters were received each day and all were answered saying that Holmes has retired to Sussex where he is keeping bees, as was written in the final story. The bank moved out in 2002 and now the fan mail is directed to the nearby Sherlock Holmes Museum.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum is located at 231-241 Baker Street in central London, which is located only a short walk from the sleuth’s lodgings at 221b Baker Street. According to the stories, Holmes lived at this address between 1881 and 1904. Curiously, a real Doctor Watson, a manufacturer of artificial teeth, was found to have lived next door to the museum in the 1890’s. It also transpired that a maid who worked in the lodging house that occupied the museum’s building in the 1930’s was related to a man by the name of Holmes.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum was founded in 1989 and opened its doors in 1990. It occupies a former Victorian lodging house, last used in 1936 and the rooms are faithfully maintained as they would originally have been. The first floor study overlooks Baker Street and it recreates much of what happened within its walls. There is evidence of the detective’s sometimes objectionable habits that Doctor Watson tells of, for example, bullet holes from Holmes’s shooting practise are marked in the wall forming ‘VR’ for Victoria Regina. Elsewhere, there is a carefully placed cigar in a butter dish. Tobacco can be seen in his slipper on top of the mantelpiece and a number of discarded opium needles can be spotted by the careful observer to spot.

Sherlock Holmes’s bedroom is adjoining the study and opposite it are stairs leading up to the second floor. Here can be found Doctor Watson’s bedroom and opposite is the landlady Mrs Hudson’s room, where she would lie in bed, sometimes disturbed by Holmes’s late night, cocaine addled violin playing. There is a further floor above, with wax figures of characters familiar from the stories. To accompany the visit, Sherlock Holmes buffs are offered a questionnaire to fill out for entertainment as they move along. After completing the tour of the rooms, a cafe bearing Mrs Hudson’s name offers Victorian cuisine and afternoon teas. A memorabilia shop sells books, replicas of his typical pipe, deerstalker hats and walking canes, etc.

A man dressed in a Victorian policeman’s outfit is usually positioned to greet visitors at the entrance to the museum. An elderly chap is generally seen, acting as Dr Watson, who guides the visitors and offers friendly chit-chat. Out of work actors, seemingly hired for their Holmes-like large noses, distribute his calling card whilst standing at the entrance to Baker Street London Underground Station. Wearing the sleuth’s customary attire, they spend the day having their photograph taken with tourists before encouragingly pointing them in the direction of the museum.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum is open every day of the year except for Christmas Day between 9.30am and 6pm. The museum staff says that most people spend between half an hour to forty-five minutes looking around. There is no disabled access except for the shop and restaurant. Photography is permitted for non-commercial purposes. The museum is managed by members of the ‘Sherlock Holmes International Society’.

Where to view Sherlock Holmes Museum and video clips of London

London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Sherlock Holmes Museum’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

London Bridge

2010-09-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

LONDON BRIDGE

In early September of 2010, musician Nick Franglen made London Bridge create its own unique musical sound. Over an uninterrupted twenty-four time period, Nick Franglen positioned a theremin beneath an arch on the south side of the bridge. The instrument created washes of sound, partly formed by pedestrian traffic that changed in density throughout the day until it almost ceased in the early hours. A hidden light beam on the bridge registered each passing person and it momentarily muted the gentle ululations of the theremin. A filmed loop of the performance, titled 'Hymn To London Bridge' will be shown during the Thames Festival on the eleventh and twelfth of September 2010. Those walking over the bridge were as oblivious to their participation in this project as they likely were to much of London Bridge's long and extraordinary history.
A river crossing at London Bridge dates back to Roman times, making it the oldest bridge over the Thames in London and one that has rebuilt time and again over its two thousand year old history. It is forty miles from the open sea. Previous bridges have either sunk into the Thames mud, destroyed by a tornado, pulled down by warriors, partly burned down by rioting peasants and even sold and transported stone by stone to a location on the other side of the world. Every time the bridge has been rebuilt, as down the centuries it was always known that London Bridge is perhaps the most important single factor contributing to the existence of London itself.

A wooden bridge across the Thames existed by about half way through the first century AD and it was probably a military pontoon bridge. The Roman trading settlement of Londinium was built alongside their bridge on the north bank. There are several theories as to why the Romans bridged the Thames here. It is known that the river at that time was significantly wider and shallower at this point. It may have been tidal to that point only, or there may have been a usefully positioned midstream islet. What is certain, is that the bridge was where two Roman roads met, the great highways of Watling Street and Stane Street. After the Romans left, it is thought that the bridge fell into disrepair.

In the Saxon period, the bridge was repaired and formed a political boundary between the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex. The Norwegian Prince Olaf pulled down the bridge in 1014, giving rise to the ancient and still popular rhyme, “London Bridge is falling down” and a new bridge was built by 1016. From this time the bridge’s history is well documented, with the Norman’s building their own bridge after the Conquest, only for it to be destroyed by the destructive London tornado of 1091. It was rebuilt by slaves belonging to William II, then destroyed yet again by fire in 1136. The replacement was not deemed suitably permanent and construction of the strongest and largest bridge yet, began in 1176 and was only finished in 1209 during reign of King John.

Of the many London bridges, it is this, the 1209 bridge that is the most famous. Numerous paintings and drawings provide a useful insight as to how the bridge looked and remarkably, had the bridge survived a few years longer, it would have been recorded on an early form of photography. King John licensed the building of wooden houses on the bridge to bring in useful revenue for the bridge’s upkeep. There were soon many shops at street level with the storekeepers living above. Some buildings were up to seven stories high, with the top floors connected to the buildings on the opposite side, creating a tunnelled effect. The roadway between the houses became very congested and sometimes it took an hour to pass over, so many still chose ferrymen as they offered the quickest crossing.

In the centre of the bridge stood St Thomas’s Chapel, complete with a river level entrance for those arriving to worship by boat. Curiously, the ferrymen usually avoided going under the bridge itself. The bridge had nineteen arches, which restricted the water flow, acted as a barrage. Ferocious rapids formed between piers and many drowned whilst attempting to navigate between them. There was sometimes a two metre difference to the water level on either side. The barrage effect made the river more susceptible to freezing over in winter, leading to the popular frost fairs.

At each end stood a fortified gate with spikes, on which the heads of traitors were exposed. William Wallace’s head was the first to be displayed in 1305, starting a tradition that was to last for three hundred and fifty-five years. The heads of Thomas Moore and Thomas Cromwell also at one time adorned the gates. The bridge was considered a safe place to live because the gates were shut at curfew. The inhabitants were healthier too, the river air gave them some protection from pestilence. People continued to live on the bridge all the way through until 1758 when, after a fire, the surviving buildings were demolished for ever. Fires destroyed the buildings on the bridge many times but never the bridge itself. London Bridge was much loved and it was not uncommon for widows to leave their wedding rings towards its upkeep. Records survive that in the year 1300, one Johanna Bytheweye left twelve pence in her will towards the upkeep of London Bridge. Surviving from 1209 until its demolition in 1830, London Bridge served the citizens of London for over five centuries.

It had been the lone crossing over the Thames in London until 1729, when in that year Putney Bridge opened. By the turn of the nineteenth century, it was clear a new bridge was needed. Work began in 1825 to designs by the engineer John Rennie. The new bridge was positioned one hundred feet upstream, allowing the old bridge to keep open during construction. Rennie’s bridge was opened in 1831 by King William IV, with finishing touches only completed the following year. New approach roads cost three times the sum of the bridge itself, with the entire project costing a whopping two and a half million pounds, which is almost two hundred million today. HMS Beagle, the ship used by Charles Darwin on his voyage of discovery, was the first ship to pass beneath the new London Bridge.

After widening work in 1901, the increased weight of traffic on the bridge started it to slowly but steadily sink into the mud of the Thames basin. By the nineteen sixties, 20,000 vehicles and 110,000 foot passengers were crossing it daily which exasperated the situation. The bridge had survived less than one hundred and fifty years. John Rennie’s bridge was dismantled in 1967 with the novel idea of selling it. The 10,276 numbered granite blocks were reconstructed and it now stands in Lake Havasu City, in Arizona, crossing the diverted waters from the Colorado River. Rumours that they thought they had purchased London’s Gothic castellated Tower Bridge at a bargain price were strenuously denied for years. However, Stan Usinowicz the managing editor of Lake Havasu City local newspaper admitted, shortly before he died, that C.V. Wood, an architect involved with building Lake Havasu City, admitted it was true.

The current London Bridge was opened on the seventeenth of March 1973 by Queen Elizabeth IIThe bridge cost only four million pounds to build, a fraction of the cost of the previous bridge and the funding was met entirely by the City Bridge Trust. It is less decorated than many other of London’s crossings, but despite being built at the height of modernism, it is fortunately an attractive looking bridge. It is borne on three arches of pre-stressed concrete faced with granite. It carries 38,000 vehicles on the A3 road across the Thames and 25,684 pedestrians on a daily basis, meaning that in forty years the foot traffic has halved and the vehicular traffic has doubled. Whether the bridge meets with a fate similar to some of its predecessors, only time will tell. For certain, as long as there is a London, there will be a London Bridge.

Where to view 'London Bridge' and video clips of London:

London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places. They are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘London Bridge’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Monsoon Building

2010-09-01T02:17:00.000-07:00

MONSOON BUILDING

The former Paddington Maintenance Depot, off the Harrow Road in northwest London, was occupied by Monsoon between 2001 and 2009. Monsoon and Accessorize is a clothing chain that was founded by Peter Simon in 1972. He started off by trading ethnic apparel on the Portobello Road and when ‘faraway fashion’ became increasingly popular, his business grew. Today there are over four hundred Monsoon and Accessorize stores throughout the United Kingdom and six hundred further outlets in fifty-four countries across the four compass points of the world.

It was typical of Peter Simon’s thinking ‘outside of the box’ to move his business into the abandoned depot, nicknamed ‘The Battleship.’ However, within only years of occupation it became clear that Monsoon had outgrown this building and they decided to relocate further west to purpose built headquarters at the ‘Yellow Building’ in Notting Dale, in the north-western corner of the W11 area, near to the new Westfield shopping centre. Construction of the ‘Yellow Building’ was underway in 2007 and most parts of the Monsoon business had moved in by 2009.

The Paddington Maintenance Depot was designed by Paul Hamilton of ‘Bicknell & Hamilton.’ He was born Paul Albert Herschan in Vienna in 1924. A Jew, he was fortunate to reach Britain under the Kindertransort scheme in 1939 and he went on to lose nearly all his relatives in the Holocaust. As soon as he was old enough, he signed up with the British Army and was advised to take a ‘nom de guerre.’ He was on army training in Glasgow at the time and he saw a bus heading to the local town of Hamilton, so he chose the name in order to preserve his initials. He saw much action in The Second World War, both in Europe and the East. On decommission, he was drawn to helping rebuild bomb riddled London and he studied architecture.

Railway architecture became Paul Hamilton’s speciality and he developed a particular fascination with designing signal boxes. Chosen for the Paddington Maintenance Depot project, Hamilton presented the designs in 1964, work began in 1967 and the building opened in 1969. It was touted as the first London building to come to terms with the symbolisation of a modern transport building. It is located right at the hub of three forms of transportation, a main road, a canal and a railway. The building is right at edge of elevated A40, so it can be seen by everyone travelling into or out of London on the M40. (See earlier blog: WESTWAY.)

Small in area but powerful in profile, the building has a reinforced concrete frame, clad on the upper floors with a glazed ceramic mosaic. It has an irregular, expressionist, triangular plan with four main storeys, topped with a flat roof. The building was divided into two distinct functional parts, with a train shed below the workshops and offices. The design included a distinctive boiler house. There are bands of continuous, metal, mullion-light glazing on the first and upper floors. The main levels are open plan and contain a staircase with a sinuous, ceramic-clad balustrade.

The building marked the culmination of the British post war railways building programme, which began with lightweight prefabs through to this monument to the ‘machine aesthetic.’ After being vacated by British Rail, the Paddington Maintenance Depot became offices during the 1980’s, but was empty by 1990. Squatters moved in and shortly before work started for Monsoon, a huge illegal rave took place at the premises in October 1999. A well documented event, the interior of the building was completely trashed over a forty-eight hour period and afterwards only the streamlined, sculptural blocks of Brutalist concrete remained unscathed.

Care was taken to consult the original architect Paul Hamilton for advice during the renovation of the building for Monsoon’s occupation. The refurbishment, costing ten million pounds, was deemed a sympathetic transformation, offering forty-six and a half thousand square feet of office space for the clothing retailer. Such was its success, that the work, carried out by the ‘Alfred Hall Monaghan Morris’ practice, was given the Royal Fine Arts Commission Trust Award for 2002. Paul Hamilton died in 2004. The Paddington Maintenance Depot was given Grade II* Listed Building status in his lifetime. The building is located at the Paddington Goods Yard, London W2, just off Harrow Road.

Notting Hill Carnival

2010-08-23T02:16:00.000-07:00

NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL

A carnival is held each year in the Notting Hill district of north-west London over the August Bank Holiday weekend. In the United Kingdom, a public holiday is known as a Bank Holiday and the last Monday in August is a welcome day off for most workers. The event begins on Sunday morning with the children’s carnival and continues with the adult floats and processions the following day. The carnival was first held in the mid 1960’s. The event is presently run by the Notting Hill Carnival Trust Ltd. Currently, the route begins to the north of Notting Hill at Great Western Road, progresses down Chepstow Road to Westbourne Grove before heading back northwards up Ladbroke Grove to the finish. A number of prizes are awarded with the floats, costumes and dancers judged at a point along the way.

The carnival started with a few hundred people and within ten years one hundred and fifty thousand were attending. In peak years, organisers claim two millions have attended. Correctly estimating the numbers of people attending has always provoked debate. As it is almost impossible to count, because it is a free event with crowds arriving from all directions, the organizers insist that the police publish attendance figures much lower than their own calculations. For their part, the police reckon that their overhead helicopters are able to give accurate measures using tested methods for calculation. For those attending, crammed in toe to chin and only inching along the route by weight of crowd pressure, the two million figure is more than easy to believe. What is undisputed, is that it is Europe’s largest street party and second in the world only to the Rio De Janeiro carnival.

The carnival organisers’ claim with some justification, that the event is offered precious little newspaper or television news coverage, considering its size and the numbers who attend. Besides the crowds, forty thousand volunteers all have an important role to play. There are seven thousand five hundred participants and over one million man-hours are spent preparing the costumes. The parade stretches out over a route roughly three miles in length with large lorries drawing the carnival floats. The food stalls will sell thirty thousand ‘corn on the cobs’ and an estimated twenty five thousand bottles of rum are consumed, mostly in rum punch. Two hundred first aid crew are on standby, including doctors, paramedics and St John’s Ambulance crew. Afterwards, seventy rubbish collectors are ready to clear the streets.

Britain was first only really introduced to steelband music when the Trinidad ‘All Steel Percussion Orchestra’ came to celebrate the Festival of Britain in 1951. Trinidadians local to Notting Hill specifically promoted this sound further at the first carnival in an attempt to show case the steel bands. Calypso, Soca and other imported sounds soon followed in successive years. It takes bands six to eight hours to complete the circuit, with the musicians usually playing continuously. It is especially tiring for the dancers in their vibrant, colourful costumes, as they seldom break from their routines over the entire distance. There are usually around thirty ‘mas’ bands, using masquerade masks and face painting, perpetuating the historical importance of the masquerade to slavery, an aspect of carnival that is lost on many people.

Public transport arrangements are significantly altered, as the area becomes congested for miles around. Many prefer to approach the last stretch on foot and when they encounter the whistle sellers, they know they are heading in the right direction. In recent years, the authorities have made it more difficult to enter the interior ring within the carnival circuit, in an attempt to control overcrowding, but it is here that the static sound systems are mostly located. Originally, the sound systems were interspersed with the bands on the circuit, but clearly campaigning a war of decibels with the floats, they were sent away to the central streets. The majority of the food stalls are also located in this central area, selling familiar carnival food such as jerk chicken, patties, goat curry and fried plantain.

Curiously, over the past forty years the fortunes of the Notting Hill area have changed dramatically and today it hosts some of the most valuable property and wealthiest residents in London. As people flock in from the four compass points for carnival weekend, many of them from underprivileged neighbourhoods, there is a simultaneous mass exodus for three days by the upmarket residents of Notting Hill, who leave their homes in the ‘care’ of their carnival loving Trustafarian offspring.

For the first twenty years the carnival didn’t have local authority permission which meant that the police were engaged in a losing battle in trying to prevent the carnival taking place. From the late nineteen-eighties this was changed and the police took a more conciliatory approach with up to eleven thousand officers deployed. Each year dozens of police carrier vans are to be seen parked up in side streets, filled with tightly packed officers, their blue uniforms contrasting with pairs of bright yellow ear plugs, firmly inserted to shut out the ‘noise’, whilst they daydream only of the forthcoming overtime payments.

During the carnival an unspoken amnesty seemingly exists, with the police ignoring open use of prohibited narcotics. However, in the weeks leading up to the 2010 Notting Hill Carnival, the Metropolitan Police concentrated their energies on weeding out known troublemakers and gangs who use carnival purely as a vehicle for violence and criminal activity. Called ‘Operation Razorback’ daily raids at addresses across London were aimed at ensuring that those who set out with the sole intention of making trouble at carnival would not succeed. There have been five murders during carnival since 1987 and after extensive rioting in 2008, it means that public order control at carnival costs the taxpayer an estimated six million pounds. However, the London Development Agency is at pains to point out that the carnival brings in an estimated ninety-three million pounds for the London economy.

The forty-sixth Notting Hill Carnival will be held on Sunday the twenty-ninth of August and Monday the thirtieth, 2010.

Buckingham Palace

2010-08-16T04:15:00.000-07:00

BUCKINGHAM PALACE

Buckingham Palace is famous across the four compass points of the world, known to many who have never set foot on British soil. The palace is the official London residence of the British monarch, although Queen Elizabeth II uses it mostly ‘for work’, prefering to live at Windsor Castle to the west of London. At other times, the Queen stays at Sandringham House in Norfolk and spends her summers at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Buckingham Palace is used for entertaining during state visits, audiences in the 1844 Room with incoming ambassadors to the court of St James, investitures, garden parties and in total more than fifty thousand guests pass through the palace on a yearly basis. Those invited are an eclectic mix from all walks of life, for instance in 2007 the Queen invited the entire Arsenal football squad.

Land records on which the palace lies are extensive and date back to the Norman Conquest, with the site falling in and out of royal ownership several times. Buckingham Palace began as a large townhouse, originally built by a Dutch architect in 1703 and commissioned by the Duke of Buckingham. Indeed, the palace originally faced out across its gardens towards Buckinghamshire and today the public are generally unaware that they view the rear of the palace. The title ‘Duke of Buckingham’ is currently dormant. In 1761 King George III acquired the building for £21,000 as a retreat for Queen Charlotte. George IV intended to make Buckingham Palace fit for a royal residence and he commissioned John Nash to reconstruct it in the Palladian style between 1825 and 1826. William IV was not endeared to the building and he even offered it to parliament as the site for its new home after the Palace of Westminster burned down in 1834.

The first monarch to officially occupy the palace was Queen Victoria on her accession in 1837. Ten years later the final wing was completed, enclosing the central courtyard. In 1912, using surplus funds from the public subscription for the Victoria Memorial, a new East façade was built, in straightforward Renaissance design. A stone bulustraded balcony was the centrepiece and it was finished within three months, whilst King George V and Queen Mary were on holiday. The King was so pleased with the speed of the work that he invited all of the labourers to dinner at Buckingham Palace. The palace was bombed seven times during the Second World War and besides the repair work, it has been little changed since.

The young Prince Philip counted six hundred and sixty-one rooms when he moved in, however he apparently included room-sized cupboards. The Prince is said to frequently get lost in areas of the palace unfamiliar to him, as the Royal Family are housed in only the north wing. Much is occupied by members of the Royal Household for their offices and accommodation, as the palace acts as their administrative headquarters. There are nineteen staterooms, fifty-two guest bedrooms, seventy-eight bathrooms, a thirty seat cinema, a swimming pool and an air-raid shelter containing gilt chairs. Best known to many is the balcony where the Royal Family congregate and wave to the crowds on special occasions. The Buckingham Palace gardens are spread over forty acres and contain a lake and tennis courts. Here the three annual summer garden parties take place, catering for eight thousand guests at a time. In 1996, two middle aged women were struck by lightning during a garden party, whilst sheltering from a storm just fifty yards from the Queen. The garden parties are a relatively recent tradition, started in 1958 as a replacement event to the Queen’s ending of the presentation parties for debutantes.

No sign written vehicles are allowed to pass directly in front of Buckingham Palace, a measure that is enforced under legislation stating that it is illegal to advertise in the nearby St James’s Park. St James’s Park was created by Henry VIII in 1532, making it the first Royal Park in London. It is spread over ninety acres and it bridged the land between Henry VIII’s palaces at Whitehall and at St James’s. In 1649 King Charles I walked across the park to his place of execution at the Banqueting House. Chairs have been on hire in St James’s Park since 1735 and they are popular with those listening to the bands that play in the park during the summer months. To the south of St James’s Park is Birdcage Walk, named after an aviary owned by Charles II in the seventeenth century. The aviary contained many weird and wonderful birds, including a crane with a wooden leg and another bird that would eat only scalding hot coals. To the north of the park is The Mall, (see earlier blog: THE MALL.)

Many children who press their noses through the railings of Buckingham Palace wonder whether the Queen is inside. It is simple to tell, as when the Queen is in residence the Royal Standard waves from the roof and when she is absent, the flag does not. The Royal Standard flies wherever the Queen is and only where she is, be it on her car, aircraft and on any building she happens to be visiting. The Royal Standard never flies at half-mast because the monarch is never dead. Led by the tabloid newspapers, ignorance of this caused confusion in 1997, on the death of Princess Diana. Swathes of the general public expecting to see a flag flying at half-mast over the palace, only saw an empty flagstaff or the fully raised Royal Standard. This led to a change to protocol and now when the monarch is absent from the palace the Union Flag flies in its place, which can lowered to half-mast on such occasions.

They’re changing the guard at Buckingham Palace, Christopher Robin went down with Alice…” A.A. Milne’s lines from ‘When We Were Very Young’ were written in 1924 and have been familiar to many millions over the past ninety years. The Changing of the Guard takes place at eleven-thirty in the morning on alternate days, except in the height of summer when it takes place daily and it lasts for approximately forty minutes. It is free of charge and very popular with tourists, so it is advisable to arrive early to be near the front for the finest views. The new guard and accompanying marching band cross over from the nearby Wellington Barracks to the palace forecourt. Under the command of the Captain of The Queen’s Guard, the guardsmen march the length of the forecourt, so all the spectators are able to see. Younger people climb up onto the lower parts of the nearby Victoria Memorial for an elevated view.

The Queen Victoria Memorial was positioned in 1911, but parts were added to it right up until 1924. It is made from white marble and crowned by a gilded bronze figure of Victory. Queen Victoria, sometimes referred to as the grandmother of Europe as she has royal descendants all over the continent, is represented as a seated statue looking down The Mall. Victoria is surrounded by the Angels of Justice, Truth, Charity and Courage. There are other allegorical groups that include peace and progress, science and art, manufacture and agriculture and naval and military powers.

The nineteen state rooms of Buckingham Palace are open to the public between August and September when the Queen is on her summer holidays in Scotland. The money raised goes towards upkeep of the Royal Collection. The Queen’s private apartments are not on view. The entrance to the state apartments is at The Ambassadors Entrance on Buckingham Palace Road. During the tour, visitors pass through the throne room used on royal occasions and the music room where several of the Queen’s children and grandchildren were baptized. They end their visit through part of the garden, which is truly a walled oasis of calm within the central hub of London.

The Queen’s Gallery is a permanent space dedicated to treasures selected from the Royal Collection. Situated on the site of the former chapel, which was bombed during the Second World War, it offers visitors a unique look at tastes of monarchs since 1600. Items are changed each year and there is a continual series of uniquely themed exhibitions. The Royal Collection is probably one of the most valuable and important in the world. It includes 10,000 paintings, 20,000 drawings, 109,000 watercolours, 500,000 prints as well as furniture, jewellery, sculpture and glass. The entrance is to the south-easterly side, on Buckingham Palace Road.

The Royal Mews is set behind the palace with its entrance on Buckingham Palace Road. One of the finest working stables in the world, it houses the State carriages and some motor vehicles. The word ‘mew’ has its origins with the cages in which hawks were kept, hawks and horses being traditionally kept together. The Royal Mews moved to its present site from near to Charing Cross in the 1760’s and was rebuilt by Nash in the 1820’s. The Royal Mews is generally open to the public, although closed during Ascot week, during State visits and on occasions when the horses and carriages are in use. Visitors to The Royal Mews begin by looking at the riding school, one of the oldest in the world, before moving to the coaches and carriages. The Irish State Coach was built in Dublin and is used for the State Opening of Parliament. The 1910 Gold State Coach is reserved for royal weddings and the 1762 Gold State Coach is always used for coronations.

Where to view Buckingham Palace and video clips of London

London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Buckingham Palace’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

The Mall

2010-08-10T04:03:00.000-07:00

THE MALL

The Mall is a wide and straight avenue that runs between Buckingham Palace and Admiralty Arch. The Mall follows an old path at the edge of St James’s Park, which was initially laid out in the reign of King Charles II and it soon afterwards became London’s most fashionable promenade. The Mall was specifically created to be an imposing route for ceremonial occasions. London was late amongst major world cities in creating such an avenue and it was part of a scheme that included a new façade for Buckingham Palace, The Victoria Memorial and Admiralty Arch. The project was commissioned by King Edward VII to commemorate the death of Queen Victoria and the works were completed by 1912.

The road surface of The Mall consists of a distinctive hot rolled asphalt wearing course with red aggregate pre-coats, that gives the avenue a ‘red carpet’ effect, befitting its location in front of Buckingham Palace. The Mall is closed to traffic on Sundays and on public holidays, leaving it free for pedestrians to take the popular walk from Trafalgar Square up to Buckingham Palace. The Mall is also shut for various ceremonial occasions, when vast crowds assemble there, particularly for the occasions when the Royal Family appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. The Mall is closed for events such as the finish of the London Marathon (see earlier blog: LONDON MARATHON), the Queen’s Official birthday with The Trooping of the Colour at Horseguards (see earlier blog: TROOPING OF THE COLOUR) and the celebrations held over the fiftieth anniversary of the end of The Second World War.

The Mall has a distinct nautical feel. It is lined on either side with mighty flagstaffs, reminiscent of the masts of ships. Both a memorial statue to the seafaring explorer Captain Cook and The Royal Marines Monument are located by The Mall. At the easterly end is the Admiralty Arch, designed by Sir Aston Webb who also designed the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. Admiralty Arch consists of three high arches to accommodate traffic. The northernmost arch has a mysterious small human shaped stone nose, protruding from the wall at a point seven feet up. Mounted soldiers are known to touch the nose for good luck as they pass through the arch. The Duke of Wellington was famous for his large nose and the stonemasons may have had the Duke in mind and chiseled this reminder as a prank. In 1997, the British Government temporarily housed a number of homeless folk inside offices and apartments within the arch, from which they could look over to Buckingham Palace from the dramatic semicircular balustrade. Lord Nelson was laid in state above the archway and it was in the Admiralty buildings near to the arch that news arrived on the night of the sixth of November 1805 of the victory at Trafalgar and the admiral’s death.

The Mall acts as a grand processional route from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament. During state visits to the United Kingdom by heads of state from across the four compass points of the world, the monarch and visiting head usually travel down The Mall in a state carriage with the flags of both countries lining the avenue. Alongside the flagstaffs are mature trees on either side, leading down to St James’s Park to the south and up to splendid Nash terraces to the north. Known as Carlton House Terrace, it consists of two terraces of white stucco-faced houses built by John Nash between 1827 and 1832. The terrace was commissioned by George IV following his accession to the throne. The Nash buildings replaced his former palace on the site, Carlton House, where he resided as Prince Regent. The terrace was the final component of John Nash’s master plan, connecting the prestigious development at Regent’s Park with the social and administrative centre of the capital.

The freehold of Carlton House Terrace still belongs to the Crown Estate and each terrace consists of nine large houses. Carlton House Terrace was badly damaged during the Second World War and the exteriors were painstakingly restored but many interiors are now very different to the originals. The addresses remain as fashionable today as they were on construction. William Gladstone lived at number eleven. At number six is located The Royal Society, which is the oldest such society in existence. The Royal Society originated from a group of eminent scholars who began to meet informally in both London and Oxford in 1645, with a Royal Charter of Incorporation dating from 1662. It now numbers about seven hundred and sixty fellows. The rooms contain many busts and portraits of eminent deceased members and there are also interesting relics on display, including Newton’s telescope, watch and his sundial.

Amongst other residents of Carlton House Terrace is The Royal College of Pathologists, located at number two. The College has six thousand five hundred members and it is the professional body for medical specialists and those pathologists who investigate the causes of death. The Institute of Contemporary Arts moved to its present premises on The Mall in 1968. The ICA was founded in 1946 with support from the Arts Council and is separated into departments specializing in visual art, theatre, cinema, music, performance art and rooms for talks and lectures. Adjacent to the ICA is The Mall Galleries and set behind it are British Council offices.

Between The Mall and St James’s Park is the Boer War Memorial to the Royal Artillery which was unveiled in 1920. It shows a winged figure of Peace controlling a horse, which is representative of the spirit of war. A little further beyond is The National Police Memorial which was conceived by the film director and journalist Michael Winner. On the opposite side and at the top of the steps leading to Waterloo Place is the statue of the Duke of York, atop a one hundred and twenty-four feet high Tuscan Column. The Duke of York was the second son of George III. He was the one and same Duke of York immortalised in the well known rhyme, ‘The Grand Old Duke of York, He had ten thousand men.’ He was commander in chief of the British Army until his death in 1827. Every officer and soldier in the army contributed a day’s wages to pay for the monument to be erected. The column was completed in 1834 and the bronze statue of the Duke of York, once known as ‘the soldiers friend’ is by Richard Westmacott.

Also erected just off The Mall on Waterloo Place and only a short walk from the Duke of York Memorial, is a fine statue of King George VI, draped in his garter robes. Unveiled in 1955, the statue is the work of William McMillan, who also made the mermaids in Trafalgar Square. The coffin of his wife, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, passed beneath his gaze on the way to her funeral at Westminster Abbey. She herself is now represented in bronze, neighbouring her husband, the statue was erected in 2009. The Queen Mother’s home from 1953 until her death in 2002, Clarence House, is located behind The Mall and it is now occupied by the Prince of Wales. Close to St James’s Palace is Marlborough House with gardens leading down to The Mall. It houses the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Foundation.

At the east end of The Mall is a solid, brown windowless bunker known as The Citadel, its bomb proof hard edges are softened by climbing plants. Dating back to the Second World War, it was used as a communications headquarters by the navy. It is said to be connected to a number of subterranean government tunnels, some of which run directly beneath The Mall. The Mall also leads to Horse Guards Parade (see earlier blog: TROOPING OF THE COLOUR) and when the guard changes at eleven each morning at Horseguards, the Household Cavalry traverse the length of The Mall, to and from their barracks at Hyde Park.

Where to view The Mall and video clips of London

London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘The Mall’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Thames Barrier

2010-07-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

THAMES BARRIER

The Thames River Barrier was completed in 1983 and it was officially opened by the Queen the following year. It remains the world’s second largest moveable flood barrier. The barrier has successfully prevented London from flooding for nearing thirty years and flood specialists consider it unsafe to work and live in London without its protection. It was constructed to prevent London from being flooded by exceptionally high tides, storm surges and descending fluvial flood waters. The barrier protects one hundred and twenty-five square kilometres of central London.

During its long history, London has periodically suffered from flooding and after the narrowing of the Thames in central London with the construction of the embankments in the 1860’s (see earlier blog: EMBANKMENT) the risks worsened. During the twentieth century, there was particularly bad flooding in 1928 and again in 1953 when three hundred people died across the United Kingdom. A solution clearly needed to be found and the authorities looked to the four compass points to see how flooding had been confronted elsewhere. In 1957 the river Turia flooded in Valencia, Spain, submerging the city centre in two and a half metres of water and afterwards the decision was taken to divert the entire course of the Turia out of the city centre. Such drastic action would be out of the question for London, so the authorities looked at the experiences of the Dutch, which lead for plans to build a barrier across the Thames to the east of London.

With the closure of the Pool of London as a port, the feasibility of a barrier grew in acceptance. Its chosen position was Woolwich, both for its straight river banks and because the underlying river chalk is strong enough to support weight of a barrier. The winning design was selected from forty-one proposals and work began in 1974 with the concept of rotating gates devised by Charles Draper. The barrier spans five hundred and twenty metres across the Thames and divides the river into four, sixty-one metre, and two thirty metre navigable passages. There are four smaller non-navigable channels between nine supporting concrete piers, each formed from half a million tonnes of concrete. The actual floodgates are circular segments set in cross-section, that operate by rotating upwards by ninety degrees. They are the height of a five storey building when in position and weigh more than a naval destroyer. The gates are made of forty millimetre thick steel and they are all hollow, enabling them to be filled with water when submerged and they empty on way up.

Storm surges occasionally drive currents into the shallow waters of the North Sea which then flow south towards the Thames Estuary. Should the surges coincide with a spring high tide, the water levels become dangerous and the barrier has to be raised. The barrier is closed when forecasts indicates that water levels would exceed 4.87 metres in central London. It is designed to protect against floods of 7.2 metres above sea level. The barrier only needs raising in flood tides, on the ebb tide it is then opened to allow water to flow back out. In the 1980’s there were four closures of the barrier, thirty-five in the nineties and seventy-five closures during the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Its steadily increasing use is of concern. The designed resistance of the barrier met projections taken before considerations of climate change. New research suggests a greater level of sea level change, meaning that at current estimations the barrier will now cope only until 2070 and thereafter the barrier might not suffice. The sea surrounding the south-east coast of England has historically risen by twenty-five centimetres per century. This has mostly been caused by the land mass sinking, an effect of post glacial rebounding, with north-west Scotland rising in accordance. In the eighteenth century the high tide was two feet lower than today.

After periods of heavy rain, floodwater travelling down the Thames also creates a significant threat. The source of the Thames is more than fifty kilometres inland and on its way to the heart of London it reaches Teddington, where it effectively begins opening into its estuary. The Thames is tidal as far as the lock at Teddington, the town’s name derives from ‘Tide End Town’. Approximately a third of barrier closures up to 2010 have been to alleviate fluvial flooding.

The threat from flooding is clearly taken very seriously by London’s authorities. Whether needed or not, the barrier is raised monthly for tests. Few people know that every Tuesday morning at ten the flood sirens in south London are tested and have been ever since the 1953 floods. In 1997 a dredger collided with the barrier preventing it from being closed for several days, as the dredger’s contents of shingle was deposited on the submerged floodgates. Fortunately the barrier wasn’t required, as the results may have been catastrophic. In the years ahead, London may well be threatened by a further source of flooding, as there are estimations that London’s water table will have risen so much by 2030 that we will be swamped from beneath. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, industry kept the water table low by extraction, but since industry has almost entirely moved away from central London the water table has significantly risen and is in places now only ten feet beneath the foundation of some buildings.

The Thames Barrier can be reached by road, but many prefer to see it by boat and many daily tourists trips travel as far downstream as the barrier. It is worth a visit to the barrier to gain a sense of the scale of its size alone, but also because architecturally it is a structure very much ahead of its time. Designed by Rendel, Palmer and Tritton in the late 1960’s and modified in the early 1970’s, it could easily have been a boxy, concrete eyesore typical of the era. However, its curves and reflective surfaces are suggestive of Frank Gehry’s 1997 Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and many twenty-first century projects by the likes of Calatrava or Libeskind. The Thames Barrier Visitors Centre has inexpensive admission and it is located at 1 Unity Way, Woolwich, London SE18 5NJ

Where to view Thames Barrier and video clips of London

London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Thames Barrier’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

02 Arena

2010-07-14T04:28:00.000-07:00

02 ARENA

The 02 Arena is situated on the Greenwich peninsula in East London. The 02 Arena is a multi purpose indoor arena with a capacity of up to twenty-three thousand people, making it one of the largest indoor arenas in Europe. It is best known as a music venue and since opening it has played host to some of the world’s best acts and most famous rock and pop stars. Such has been its success that it is now the third most popular venue worldwide for concerts and family shows and the venue was named the world’s best by Pollstar in 2009. The late Michael Jackson was booked to play fifty dates at the arena at the time of his death and all of the tickets sold out within a few hours of their release. The 02 Arena is used for many other events besides concerts, the ground surface can be transferred into an ice rink or basketball court. It is also suitable as an exhibition space, conference area and private hire venue. There is also a music club, a cinema, bars and restaurants. During the 2012 London Olympics the 02 Arena will be used for a number of events.

The 02 Arena was designed to minimize echoing, which is a problem that has affected many other London venues. The 02 Arena is housed within the ‘Millennium Dome’ which was built as a centrepiece for the millennium projects held in London. Very little was retained besides the shell of the dome and the 02 Arena takes up just forty per cent of the total dome structure. In the immediate years after the millennium celebrations the dome remained empty, reputedly costing one million pounds a month to maintain and upkeep. Portentously, the dome reopened as the 02 Arena on 24th June 2007, the very same day that Tony Blair resigned as prime minister. Purchased by the Anschutz Entertainment Group, they sold the naming rights to the 02 telecommunications group in a six million pounds a year deal.

Plans to build a dome to celebrate the beginning of the third millennium were seeded by the final Conservative government of the twentieth century and the Dome of Discovery, built for the Festival of Britain in 1951, was to be the inspiration. Michael Heseltine, the deputy prime minister of the day, was at the time busy masterminding the regeneration of the Thames Gateway and the Greenwich Peninsula proved the logical location for such a project. In 1985 a complex of gasworks had closed after ninety-six years and the brown field site was awaiting a clean-up operation. Conveniently, the site fell directly over the Greenwich Meridian Line, which suited the ‘time-line’ theme to the occasion.

The incoming New Labour government of 1997 embraced and expanded the project and media across the four compass points of the world took an interest. It is twice the size of America’s Georgia dome and in the USA it quickly became known as the ‘billion dollar dome’. Built by Richard Rogers, it won the Royal Academy of Engineering’s prestigious MacRobert Award. The Millennium Dome is the largest fabric structure in the world. A dozen, one hundred metres high yellow painted steel towers support forty-three miles of high strength cables. These in turn pull the tensional fabric so taught that it could easily support the weight of a jumbo jet. Covering twenty acres, it is the biggest roof in the world and ten cathedrals the size of St Paul’s in London could be contained within. The top of the dome is fifty-two metres high in the centre, meaning that should it be placed over Trafalgar Square, Nelson’s Column would fit comfortably inside. If the Millennium Dome was tipped upside down and placed beneath the Niagara Falls, it would take an astonishing ten minutes to fill with water. The dome wouldn’t stay filled with Niagara River water for long, as its symmetry is interrupted by a large hole through which a ventilation shaft for the Blackwell Tunnel rises. All things said, it is no wonder that the dome is one of London’s most recognisable landmarks!

The dome drew considerable political controversy. Tony Blair called it a, ‘beacon to the world’ but many commentators in the press called it an example of Blair’s excessive, wasteful, evangelical optimism. New Labour held a New Year’s Eve party with an exuberant Tony Blair seizing hold of the Queen’s hand and shaking it around during their singing of Auld Lang Syne. The following day ‘The Millennium Experience’ opened and ran from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2000. The exhibition was derided by the press but proved popular with the public, indeed it was the most popular tourist attraction of 2000 pushing Alton Towers, the previous top spot holder, into third place. Most visitors felt the entry fee was worth the price for the trapeze show alone, regardless of the blandness of some of the themed zones with different experiences subsidized by National Lottery ticket purchasers. Nevertheless only half of the twelve million expected visitors actually attended, leading to financial problems. Its current use as the 02 Arena has lead to thriving business and continued regeneration, which was always the ultimate plan for the once bleak and abandoned Greenwich peninsula.

The 02 Arena is at Peninsula Square, London SE10 0DX and the closest tube, London Underground, is North Greenwich.

Where to view 02 Arena and video clips of London
London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘02 Arena’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Trooping Of The Colour

2010-06-01T04:38:00.000-07:00

TROOPING OF THE COLOUR

The Trooping of The Colour is a peculiarly British pageant that is held on the occasion of the Queen’s official birthday. The Queen has two birthdays, one to celebrate the anniversary of her birth on April the twenty-first 1926, followed by her official birthday which is always in early June. With two birthdays a year, some would expect the Queen to be one hundred and sixty-eight years old, but only one of them counts towards aging and she is a youthful eighty-four. The official birthday was created to enable sovereigns who were born in winter to enjoy a day of pageantry in summer weather. The official birthday is otherwise useful, particularly as the British do not have a national day. The official birthday is customarily celebrated with lavish parties in all British embassies, to entertain diplomats from other foreign missions, who generally reciprocate on their own particular country’s national day. The Queen has only missed one Trooping of The Colour, in 1955, when it was cancelled due to a national rail strike.

The Trooping of The Colour dates to the reign of Charles II in the seventeenth century. ‘The Colours’ were the brightly coloured flags of a battalion. The colours were used as a rallying point in battle, much in the same way as the Roman Eagle galvanized the troops during the campaigns of imperial Rome. The colours were regularly brought out in front of the soldiers to ensure that every man would be familiar with those of his own regiment. Although first mentioned in 1748, The Trooping of The Colour became specifically linked to the Sovereign’s birthday on the accession of George III in 1760. Later, George IV made them an annual event. The pomp has changed very little down the years.

The two hundred years old ceremony begins with the Queen riding in procession from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade. Horse Guards Parade is to the west of ‘Horse Guards’ the name of the building that stands on the site of the old tiltyard for the ancient Palace of Whitehall. Horse Guards is surmounted by a fine clock tower and on the clock face, at the hour of two, a black dot is to be seen. The black dot commemorates the momentous occasion in British history, when at that hour on the thirtieth of January 1649, Charles I was executed from a scaffold positioned opposite, at the Palace Of Whitehall.

As the clock on Horse Guards building strikes eleven the royal procession arrives to Horse Guards Parade where the Queen finds the brigade of Guards of the Household Cavalry awaiting her. The Queen takes the Royal Salute, which is followed by a display of marching guards and the ‘trooping of the colour’ of a selected regiment. Only battalions of infantry regiments carry colours. During the proceedings, the Queen leads an inspection of her personal troops in the centre the parade ground. All the troops are fully trained and operational. At one stage, the six Foot Guard companies take a specific shape, echoing the ‘Hollow Square’ that in battle would have stood to protect the colour.

In the earlier years of her reign, the Queen rode side-saddle as she inspected the troops. With the retirement of her favourite horse in 1987, the Queen chose the moment to attend the spectacle in a carriage rather than on horseback. The event usually has over fourteen hundred officers and men on parade, four hundred musicians from ten different bands in attendance together with corps of drummers. In very hot weather it has been known for guardsmen to faint, after suffering heat stroke from the heavy uniforms, just to be left prostrate between their colleagues still standing rigidly at attention.

At the end, the Queen leads a contingent of guards back to Buckingham Palace and joins other members of the Royal Family on the palace balcony and the entire parade once again marches past in salute. At one o’ clock the royals watch an RAF flypast. Meanwhile, opposite Buckingham Palace in Green Park The King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, fire a forty-one gun salute and a second gun salute is performed at the Tower Of London.

Trooping of The Colour takes place on the second or third Saturday of June, always starting at 11am. In 2010, the Trooping of The Colour takes place on Saturday 12^th of June. The Colour will be trooped by the First Battalion of Grenadier Guards. The monarch’s spectacular official birthday parade can be enjoyed by all as tickets for the event are by ballot only. Applications must arrive in January or February of each year. Those successful in the ballot are invited to buy tickets with many people traveling from the four compass points of the world to witness the event. To apply for a ticket, write to: The Brigade Major, Headquarters Household Division, Horseguards,  Whitehall, London SW1A 2AX United Kingdom. Many spectators line up along The Mall, where there is free viewing although it is advisable to arrive early. There are also rehearsals held on both of the two Saturdays preceding the event which can be viewed from afar.

Where to view Trooping Of The Colour and video clips of London
London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Trooping Of The Colour’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Westway

2010-05-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

WESTWAY

The Westway is a two and half miles long elevated dual carriageway in west London. More precisely, it is a short section of reinforced concrete, constructed between 1964 and 1970, forming part of the much longer A40 route that runs from Paddington to North Kensington. Similar flyovers are common in cities across the globe, but they are mercifully rare in London. Even before the Second World War, plans were underfoot to ease the flow of traffic in and out of London. Right through until the 1970’s the thinking of the Greater London Council was to combat congestion through road building rather than to deter drivers through charges and fines. When observing the maps of early road building schemes intended to manage traffic flow, it is clear that had they actually come to fruition, they would have caused demolition on a massive scale. A combination of the huge construction costs together with widespread public opposition meant that nearly all the schemes were cancelled by 1973. Only Westway and a similar project in east London were built. On opening, it was the largest continuous concrete structure in the United Kingdom and an advanced highway for its day, with innovative features that included heating grids to control the formation of surface ice.

Although Westway was constructed in an era before environmental considerations were taken into account, care was taken to ensure that it followed what was considered the easiest path, running parallel with existing railway tracks. The flyover firstly follows the main line railway coming out of Paddington for half a mile, before veering over to the Hammersmith and City Line on an open surface stretch of the London Underground. Nevertheless, there was much controversy, largely ignored by the government of the day, because it cut through an area of densely populated North Kensington. Compulsory purchases of thousands of mostly Victorian built properties ensued and the residents watched from the sidelines as they were unceremoniously demolished. The initial jubilation for the inhabitants of the houses that were spared was short lived, as they soon found themselves in the shadows of vast concrete pillars supporting the weight of the mighty road. Their daylight almost vanished as the views through windows became filled with concrete. The constant din of roaring traffic from the lanes high above only lessened during the early hours, when most of the residents were sleeping and were oblivious to the quiet.

The hostility towards the serial demolition to make a path for the Westway had one notable exception as the bulldozing of number ten Rillington Place was keenly awaited. 10 Rillington Place was the home of the whispering serial killer, John Christie. He subdued at least six women, including his wife, with domestic gas before dispatching them by way of strangulation. Another man was hanged for a murder almost certainly committed by John Christie and the case was later used in favour of the abolition of capital punishment. Christie would have been caught sooner were it not for police incompetence, they missed the glaring clue of a human thigh bone propping up his garden fence.

Westway’s elevated position means that there is much to see to the four compass points, although drivers and passengers mostly only catch chimneys and rooftops in the near vicinity. A familiar landmark from the flyover is a good view of the Trellick Tower (see earlier blog: TRELLICK TOWER.) Travelling from the east, Westway rises to form the Marylebone flyover, which passes over the Edgware Road. Edgware Road is part of what was once Watling Street, a Roman Road that began at Dover and headed north through England. On the north side, it then passes the high security Paddington Green Police Station with its secure cells in which terrorist suspects are customarily held. To the south is the Paddington Basin with its new housing and offices development. It then crosses over the branch of the Grand Union Canal that heads up to Little Venice, before curling around to pass over the market stalls of the Portobello Road. After crossing above Ladbroke Grove, the flyover has a junction for Shepherd’s Bush and then the road curls just to the north of the BBC’s Television Centre off Wood Lane. Westway then descends to ground level and its lanes contract as it approaches the Western Avenue and the well-worn route out of London to the north-west.

Where to view Westway and video clips of London
London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Westway’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Houses of Parliament

2010-05-13T03:57:00.000-07:00

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

The May 2010 General Election in the United Kingdom resulted in the first ‘hung parliament’ since 1974. The political parties negotiated with each other in an attempt to form stable government and at times it verged towards brinkmanship. The finer points of the detailed talks were thrashed out well into the early hours of each passing day. The media grew ever more frenzied and audience viewing figures for news broadcasts rose dramatically. The Liberal Democrats flirted back and forth, the Labour Party wooed them but the talks stuttered. Before long they had settled back where they had started, trying to deliver a deal with the Tories. Both sides, feeling the weight of history, concentrated on the key issues and were able to cast a number of differences aside. The personal interplay between the two leaders was crucial and eventually a deal was sealed. The United Kingdom had its first coalition government for seventy years. The theatrical setting for this new and unfamiliar politics of coalition is the Houses of Parliament.

The Houses of Parliament are the two chambers that form the upper and lower houses, they being the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They are situated at opposite ends of The Palace of Westminster. This written piece does not allow for an examination of the British political system, but will instead concentrate on a very brief history and description of the building itself, which is familiar to many millions of people across the four compass points of the world.

The Palace of Westminster stands on the site of a royal palace that has existed since the time of Edward The Confessor. It was later expanded by William The Conqueror. Today, the oldest remaining part of The Palace of Westminster is the Westminster Hall, which was built by William II in 1087. On New Year’s Day in 1236, Henry III chose Westminster Hall as the setting to provide a feast for six thousand of London’s poorest people. Richard II added the ‘hammer beamed’ roof to Westminster Hall, existing to the present day, it is one of the finest timbered roofs of any building in the world. The Westminster Hall is usually empty and entirely bare of ornament, which has the effect of drawing the eye up to the majestic roof and at sixty-nine feet, it is the largest medieval span in Europe. Both Guy Fawkes and King Charles I were tried in the hall. Its walls witnessed the installation of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector and some years later his head was exposed on a pole from the roof. A number of monarchs, politicians and notable figures have been laid in state in the Westminster Hall. Three hundred thousand people passed through the hall in 1898 when Gladstone was laid in state and later as many again for Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Henry VIII broke the tradition of The Palace of Westminster being a residence of the reigning monarch. He moved the short distance to the palace at Whitehall, leaving The Palace of Westminster to the politicians and the lawyers of the royal law courts. Members of Parliament had first met there in the year 1265, but it only became the permanent site for parliament in 1547. After three hundred years of political intrigue, The Palace of Westminster burned down on October 16, 1834. A young Augustus Pugin observed the fire and prophetically said, “There is nothing much to regret and a great deal to rejoice in.” By the middle of the nineteenth century Londoners were weary of the grace and austerity of the many developments that seemed to have been exclusively designed by John Nash. Sir Charles Barry was commissioned to refashion the palace in an orgy of Perpendicular Gothic and the slow process of rebuilding began in 1840 and it was only fully completed thirty years later.

Sir Charles Barry only brought Augustus Pugin in to the project due to his lameness in a leg, initially to design the fittings and decorations for the House of Lords. However, Augustus Pugin went much further and provided many other detailed drawings and designed much more than had been originally planned. His contributions ensured that the interior of the House of Lords is considered the finest specimen of Gothic civil architecture in Europe. Augustus Pugin, born in Bedford Square in London in 1812, was said to have grown up, ‘a lover of medieval shapes, a student of theatre design, a hater of beer and tobacco, an inmate of Bedlam and one the greatest advocates of Christian architecture.’ Pugin threw himself into the project like a man possessed, a typical example being his throne in the House of Lords, which is considered to be invested with every idea that Pugin ever had.

The Houses of Parliament sit beneath three towers, the smallest of which is The Central Tower, which acts as a ventilation shaft. The Clock Tower, housing Big Ben, lies at the north end (see earlier blog: BIG BEN) and to the south stands the vast Victoria Tower. Inside the Victoria Tower are housed over one and a half million documents relating to parliamentary matters, all of the ballot papers for a year after a general election and every law passed in this country. When parliament is sitting the Union Flag flies above the Victoria Tower and when it is not the pole is usually flagless, excepting when the Monarch is attending the state opening of parliament and the Royal Standard waves atop. The fifty-five feet tall archway below the Victoria Tower serves as the royal entrance to the building and through it the Monarch enters for the state opening of parliament. No sovereign entered The House Of Commons since Charles I attempted to arrest five members in 1641 through until 1950, when George VI visited the rebuilt chamber after restoration from severe damage suffered during the Second World War.

The Palace of Westminster covers an area of eight acres. It has eleven courtyards, one hundred staircases, eleven hundred apartments and two miles of passages. There is a post office, travel agent, hairdresser, gymnasium, souvenir shop and almost as many amenities as are found on an ocean liner. Curiously, what is lacking are enough seats in the House of Commons, as there are only 602 seats for the 650 Members of Parliament. A portent maybe, as there are increasing murmurings that it is time to drastically reduce the number of Members of Parliament. With a reduction in numbers, the remaining representatives would have somewhere to sit. The Palace Of Westminster also has a prison cell and a police station. Emmaline Pankhurst was the last person to be incarcerated there.

The televising of debates in the House of Lords began in 1985 and the House of Commons followed suit in 1989. With the coming of television, the general public was better able to observe many of the objects used in parliamentary rituals. The Woolsack in The House of Lords is a plain cushioned ottoman stuffed with wool and was occupied by the Lord Chancellor (Lord Speaker since 2006) as presiding officer in the House of Lords. The Woolsack was adopted in the reign of Edward III as a reminder of the importance to England of the wool trade. Close to the Lords’ Chamber is the Peers’ Lobby, where are displayed the arms of six dynasties of English rulers, Saxon, Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian. At the heart of the building is the Central Lobby, also familiar to many as it is where television news reporters are frequently interviewed by anchors.

In the House of Commons the chair in which the Speaker sits came from Australia. Before it, the table on which the mace rests during the sittings came from Canada. To the north of the Commons is the Speaker’s House, the name given to the rooms occupied by The Speaker of The House Of Commons and the apartment is positioned close to Big Ben. It is where the state bedroom is located, the bed originally made for kings and queens on which to rest before the day of their coronation. Never used, it was moved and then lost during the Second World War and later discovered in a Welsh barn. The Speaker has use of a beautiful octagonal table designed by Pugin who, incidentally, never designed either a round or a square table.

There is public admission to the Strangers Gallery in the House of Commons by queuing at the doorway at the St Stephen’s Entrance near to the statue of Richard The Lionheart, which is in the same vicinity as the peers entrance to The House Of Lords. For admission to observe Prime Minister’s Questions (12 -12.30pm on Wednesdays, when parliament is in session) entry is by appointment only and in advance. To obtain a ticket write to your own Member of Parliament or your embassy. Once inside the Strangers Gallery, visitors can look down on proceedings through a glass screen. In 2004 activists for ‘Fathers 4 Justice’ threw flour filled with purple dye from the gallery, down at Tony Blair, which resulted in the installation of the glass screen. On the opposite side is the press gallery, which contains 161 seats for parliamentary correspondents. During the summer recess, when Parliament is not in session, there are guided tours of The Palace of Westminster, the precise details of which change from year to year.

Where to view Houses of Parliament and video clips of London
London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Houses of Parliament’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Bond Street

2010-05-07T04:42:00.000-07:00

BOND STREET

One of the main stories to recently hit the British press outside of the ‘hung parliament’ resulting from the UK General Election on May the Sixth, concerns the start of the trial in relation to Britain’s biggest ever jewellery robbery. Nine defendants are all charged in connection with the £40 million jewellery heist on New Bond Street in London’s West End. The De Graff heist took place in August 2009 when a gang forced an employee to fill a bag with watches, earrings and necklaces at gunpoint. The proprietors of Bond Street’s luxury high-end retail stores are no strangers to robberies, but this raid was particularly well orchestrated with raiders hiring a professional make-up artist to disguise their looks. A high level of violence was involved and the trial is likely to last for two months.

How Bond Street became and remains one of London’s most exclusive shopping streets is an interesting story. Nowadays Regent Street is considered the easterly boundary of Mayfair, but traditionally it was Bond Street, which stretches from Oxford Street in the north to Piccadilly in the south. Requesting “Bond Street” to a taxi driver will invariably be met with the reply, “Old or New?” The one seamlessly turns into the other for pedestrians, but taxis and all other vehicles cannot drive through, an enduring reminder of their separate origins.

Old Bond Street was laid out by the seventeenth century financier, Sir Thomas Bond, in 1686, as London expanded to the four compass points in the decades after The Great Fire of London and The Great Plague. It very early acquired a reputation as a luxury shopping area and with its popularity, it was decided to extend the street. The Earl of Oxford, who owned much land in the area, raised funds for the creation of New Bond Street, which was completed in the 1720’s, cementing the shift of luxury shopping from The City to the West End.

Just as groups of youths lounge around shopping malls today, Bond Street had its eighteenth century equivalent, although typically for the area these were not casual hoodies, but the dandy offspring of Mayfair’s wealthiest subjects. Known as the ‘Bond Street Loungers’ they had their own way of talking, walking and dressing. ‘The Bond Street Roll’ was much copied and was nicely satirised by George Colman The Younger in his play, ‘The Heir At Law’ set in 1794. The character Lord Duberly describes of his son, “The boy rolls about like a porpoise in a storm.” His son, Dick Dowlas responds, “That’s the fashion, father; that’s modern ease. A young fellow is nothing now without the Bond Street roll, a tooth-pick between his teeth and his knuckles cramm’d into his coat-pocket. Then away you go, lounging lazily along.”

Dozens of historical figures are associated with the area. James Boswell held well documented literary gatherings at his home on Bond Street. Admiral Lord Nelson lived at no fewer than four different Bond Street addresses. The Regency Dandies were equipped for everything they needed on Bond Street and the most well known of them all, Beau Brummell, lived a short walk away. Lord Byron was a member of the Pugilist Club at number thirteen. The statesman Charles James Fox, is documented as having had a bet with Prince George as to the number cats to be seen on either side of Bond Street. As they strolled its length, Fox counted thirteen cats and the prince, (later to be crowned George IV) counted none. Fox, not known for his prowess at gambling, uncharacteristically made a small fortune, having wisely chosen the sunny side of the street.

Amongst Bond Street’s most famous institutions is Sotheby’s, the celebrated auctioneer, established in 1744 and originally it sold only books. By 1840, Bond Street hosted twenty-two tailors, seventeen milliners and a dozen of both wine merchants and booksellers. After twenty years of seclusion following her retreat from public duties after the death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria chose the location of Bond Street for her first reappearance, to purchase hankies, perhaps persuaded by her courtiers that a timeless spot of retail therapy might cheer her up.

Bond Street has never fallen from fashion and many of the early occupants are still resident, prospering both before and after the tumultuous events of the twentieth century. Between the world wars Queen Elizabeth II was born on Bruton Street, in a house a mere two minute walk from Bond Street, onto which it leads. A statue of her first prime minister is positioned where Old and New Bond Street meet. Passers-by are met by the unobtrusive street level bronze sculpture by Lawrence Holofcen, depicting Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt in conversation and both sitting on a bench.

In nearby Berkeley Street is the Fleming Collection of Scottish art, acquired by the banker grandfather of novelist Ian Fleming. Despite its close proximity, Fleming took Bond’s name not from Bond Street, but from an ornithologist he admired, a certain James Bond who wrote ‘Birds of The West Indies.’ Nevertheless, fans of Ian Fleming will know that in the novel, ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ James Bond was told he might be related to Sir Thomas Bond, founder of the street. James Bond was too busy serving his country to follow up talk of chasing a begging inheritance. Ian Fleming is known to have choosen character names from the members’ list of Boodles Club, a stone’s throw from the southerly corner of Old Bond Street.

In the twenty-first century, British traditions still prevail in the street where prices are seldom marked and never asked. Asprey’s, the royal jeweller and its ilk are juxtaposed with the most contemporary international names. From tiny boutiques in the Royal Arcade to the large interiors of Loewe, the Spanish company founded in 1744, the street continues to sell, ‘nothing essential to man’s survival and anything for a man or woman with everything.’ Tens of thousands of people, to whom Bond Street is prohibitively expensive, are nevertheless keenly aware of its ‘cost’, as it is priced at a handsome three hundred and twenty pounds on the London Monopoly board.

Loewe, Chanel, Valentino, Yves St Laurent, Armani, Tiffany, Calvin Klein, Donna Karen, Bulgari, Alexander McQueen, Dolce Gabbana, Etro, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Versace, Louis Vuitton, Nicole Farhi, Westwood, Jigsaw, Rolex, Prada, Holland and Holland, Mulberry, Fenwicks, Hardy Amies, Cartier, Church’s, Mont Blanc and Smytheson’s for stationery and many others are all located there. London Underground (Tube) Bond Street or Green Park.

Where to view Bond Street and video clips of London
London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Bond St’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

London Marathon

2010-04-24T09:20:00.001-07:00

LONDON MARATHON

The traffic in central London grinds to a standstill on the day of the London Marathon and it is advisable to avoid the area entirely if trying to cross the city by road. The course of the race neatly dissects London in half, never straying too distant from the river Thames and the road closures divide the north of the city from the south for much of the day. Many forget that the race is taking place and wonder why they haven’t moved three car lengths in half an hour, only to then witness the heart sinking reminder of half-bent competitors wandering away aimlessly from the finishing post, gasping for air and wrapped in foil capes emblazoned with the race sponsors’ logos.

Of course, tens of thousands deliberately head to the circuit, to cheer on the runners from the sides of the roads from Blackheath, where the race starts, to The Mall where it finishes. There are twenty-six miles and three hundred and eighty five yards of asphalt on which to stand and encourage the often wilting figures. Many of them are barely able to manage a modest trot as they pass by, dreaming of reaching the finishing post alive. Regrettably, some indeed do not, as there have been nine fatalities since the first London Marathon, despite the superlative medical support provided by the St John Ambulance volunteers.

By dropping dead, those nine competitors met the same fate as the fabled Greek soldier Pheidippides. The herald collapsed and died from exhaustion after announcing Greek victory over Persia at the Battle Of Marathon in 490 B.C. He ran the twenty-six miles to Athens from the battlefield and on arrival uttered the famous words, ‘we have won’ before expiring and thereby provided the inspiration for our modern day competitive marathons.

The London Marathon dates to 1981 and it is considered one of the five ‘World Marathon Majors.’ It is the only marathon in the world to be run in both hemispheres, as it criss-crosses the Greenwich Meridian along its route. Modeled on the New York marathon, the 2010 race was its thirtieth running. In the early races the top athletes would cross the finishing line hand in hand, but now it is a highly competitive race with fast times. The quickest finishing time in the men’s race is two hours, five minutes and thirty-eight seconds, achieved by Khalid Khannouchi in 2002. This was just a couple of minutes off the world record of two hours, three minutes and fifty-nine seconds. In the women’s race, the fastest time is held by Paula Radcliffe who managed two hours, fifteen minutes and twenty-five seconds in 2003. In the London Wheelchair Marathon the record is set by Kurt Fearnley who achieved the finish in one hour, twenty-eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds. In the women’s wheelchair race the record is one hour, forty-eight minutes and four seconds, set by Sandra Graf.

The mostly flat course, which is seldom above sea level, benefits those who originate from countries with high altitude. Since 2003 the men’s winner has come from a country with thin air and each has prospered from lungfuls of London's dense oxygen filled atmosphere. Despite this, since the inception of the London Marathon, when all the different categories are combined, there have been more victories by British competitors than of any other nationality. The first marathon had a lowly 6747 competitors but to date well over 700,000 people have run the race since inception.
120,000 people applied for the 2010 race and 37,527 started with approximately 36,000 expected to cross the finishing line. There was a fight to get all the key runners to the 2010 race, as the marathon fell just days after an aviation ban was lifted, arising from ash clouds from an Icelandic volcanic eruption. In particular, key competitors from Kenya and Ethiopia literally had ‘marathon’ journeys to reach the United Kingdom, travelling by land, air and sea.

The organisers of the London Marathon state with some confidence that the occasion is the largest annual fundraising event in the world. Across the four compass points, the British are renowned for their generosity and deep-pocketed goodwill when donating money for charity. Well over three hundred million pounds have been raised since the London Marathon’s inception, with eighty per cent of runners arranging sponsorship. Partakers often see their fundraising as being as much of an achievement as the run itself. Nevertheless, the moments after crossing the finishers’ line, clutching the competitors medal and being photographed by adoring family members is said to be euphoric, especially for those who prepared with many months of training.

Many of those collecting money run in ludicrous fancy dress, which helps to draw attention, sometimes television coverage, to their charitable causes. The highlight one year was an Indiana Jones being chased by a giant rock. In 2002, the world record for the slowest time was broken by a ‘runner’ inside a deep sea diving suit. He was to be seen dragging the weighty outfit around for many days afterwards, plodding his route over the twenty-six miles and making welcome pauses for photographs alongside suited office workers. His outfit is now on display in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, with his entry number still attached.

The runners have much to look at along the way, as when they reach the six mile mark they see the Old Royal Naval College and the other sights of ancient Greenwich. They cross over Tower Bridge towards the Tower of London at the halfway point and enter the Isle of Dogs, running beneath the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. Towards the end of the race, they see the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral before reaching the Victoria Embankment (see earlier blog: ‘Embankment’) with views of The London Eye and Big Ben. At the finish they pass Buckingham Palace and mostly collapse into a heap on The Mall, alongside St James’s Palace.
The 2010 London Marathon Results: The men's race was won by the Ethiopian Tsegaye Kebede with a time of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 18 seconds. The Russian Liliya Shobukhova won the women's race in 2 hours and 22 minutes. The men's wheelchair race was won by Josh Cassidy in 1 hour, 34 minutes and 21 seconds. Wakako Tsuchida won the women's wheelchair race in 1 hour, 52 minutes and 33 seconds.

Where to view London Marathon and video clips of London
London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘London Marathon’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Spring

2010-04-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

SPRING

The second week in April has seen sunshine in London and the warmest days since early autumn of 2009. Many flowering trees and plants on the streets of London have suddenly sprung to life and have provided an uplifting sight to the millions who live and work in the metropolis. London is a beautiful sight in spring, with thousands of ornamental cherries lining the streets, in the main of the Japanese varieties, which have been cultivated for their majestic blossoms rather than fruit production, making them ideal for urban streets.

In London, the first signs of spring have been evident earlier in the year for many seasons now, although 2010 has proved a welcome exception. This year saw London’s coldest winter for thirty years, with the deepest freeze since 1978-1979. Temperatures during December, January and February were often below freezing and only hitting double figures on several dates over those ninety days. Typically, London has a mild climate for its latitude, benefitting from the Gulf Stream, which draws warm moist air up from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. In addition, the vast urban sprawl heats the atmosphere over the city, generally giving it a couple of degrees higher on average than the surrounding countryside.

This year’s cold winter has kept spring so dormant that not only were daffodils unopened on St David’s Day, but the snowdrops were still in flower seventeen days later on St Patrick’s Day. The Meteorological Office has confirmed that spring of 2010 was delayed by around three weeks, restoring the seasons to the pattern last seen in the 1970’s. A benefit of spring arriving when it should, is that it avoids nature being thrown into confusion, with blossom appearing sometimes as early as January, often only for the quick return of a cold snap rendering spring petals limp and lifeless from frost. This year, with blossom erupting in the mild April air, the cherries are resultantly all filled with the fluffiest and most rewarding pink or white flowers.

A walk through London in the height of spring is most cheering, whether in the city centre or in the suburbs. The pedestrian is never far from open spaces, as London is one of the greenest cities of its size in the world. The parks act as a lung running through the capital and in springtime their beauty is unsurpassed. In particular, the gardeners of the Royal Parks are always careful to provide ample of spring colour. For instance, a bus ride heading north up Park Lane in spring will provide breathtaking views of undulating fields of crocuses inside the adjacent Hyde Park. Elsewhere, thousands of spring bulbs are planted on Primrose Hill, a short distance to the north of Regent’s Park which always has avenues of trees alight with spring colour.

The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew have five million different flowering bulbs during springtime. Visitors who only head to Kew Gardens once a year often choose this season and are duly rewarded with the sight of two million crocuses carpeting the site. The harsh winter means that even late flowering spring plants will be set back, with the Kew bluebells not expected until mid-May. Many tiny birds, such as the goldcrest and the wren, are likely to have perished over winter. For hibernating creatures, the late spring could increase their chances of survival, as the cold deterred them from stepping out too early. It is also good news for some migrating birds, which in recent years have arrived too late to feed on caterpillars, that have hatched too early and pupated before their arrival.

The spring air is filled with song of blackbird, great tits, robins, song thrushes, chaffinches and the sound of bees. Honeybees are already buzzing around magnolias, lilacs and the yellow spring flowers of the forsythia. London’s bees are enjoying better health than many of their rural cousins. The hundreds of thousands of urban gardens provide a vast wealth of plant varieties for foraging. Importantly, London bees benefit from an absence of polluted farmland, as their catchment areas do not extend to the green belt. The ever more frequent ‘colony collapse disorder’ is considered by most beekeepers to be caused by farmers’ pesticides and herbicides and their prolific overuse. Bees have for some reason been unable to find their way back from the four compass points leaving hives almost empty. Urban bees have mostly avoided the poisons and diseases that have been destroying hives in the countryside.

Over the course of the second weekend in April, it was observed that many urban trees with bare branches on the preceding Friday were showing the first leaf points by Monday, particularly horse chestnuts, sycamore and hornbeam. Amongst the last common trees to break into leaf in London are the ash and the oak. The saying, ‘oak before ash, we are in a for a splash - ash before oak, we are in for a soak’ as a portent to indicate a wet or dry summer doesn’t work particularly well in the capital. The city’s ashes come into leaf almost invariably after oaks, even when the city has gone on to experience summers with very high rainfall. So whether the summer of 2010 be wet or dry, take time to enjoy the ever too brief delights of springtime, as its marvels will be evident to all from the humble inner city window box, through to London’s wooded parkland.

Where to view Spring and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Spring’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Albert Memorial

2010-04-07T03:23:00.000-07:00

ALBERT MEMORIAL

The name ‘Albert’ appears all over London, particularly with nineteenth century buildings and construction projects. There are three squares, there is the Albert Bridge, Albert Embankment, Albert Docks, Albert Mansions, Albert Hotel, more than one Albert Tavern, the Royal Albert Hall and its neighbour the Albert Memorial. They are all named after Prince Albert, The Prince Consort, the husband of Queen Victoria. Prince Albert died many years before the monarch, succumbing to typhoid, at the age of forty-two. The combination of his early death, Victoria’s painful years of mourning and the rapid expansion of London at that time, led to the profuse use of his name in conjunction with many projects of the Victorian era.

After Albert’s untimely death, it was the Lord Mayor of London who first started the initiative for a memorial, with thoughts towards founding a university bearing his name. However, Queen Victoria was determined to have a memorial in its literal sense. During the following years, the plans for the memorial were frequently altered, caused in the main by the deaths of a number of those involved. The memorial we see today was eventually unveiled in 1872, eleven years after Albert’s death and it took a further three years for the statue of Albert to be positioned in his seat, as the centrepiece of the monument. It took twenty full years for the final details to be completed.

The memorial was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and he considered it to be the masterpiece of his working career. The statue of Prince Albert is robed as a Knight of the Garter and is positioned beneath a decorated Gothic canopy, rising one hundred and seventy six feet above his seated figure. Clearly visible from the four compass points, Albert is shown holding a catalogue from The Great Exhibition of 1851. Prince Albert had taken much pleasure in masterminding the preparations the exhibition, which was held on the lawns of Hyde Park, only a short walk away from the memorial in Kensington Gardens.

More than any other public tribute to Albert, it was declared that ‘this memorial assuaged the ecstasy of Queen Victoria’s grief.’ Put up by public subscription, it is a glorious reminder of Victorian architecture, in fact it is considered the grandest high-Victorian gothic extravaganza of such a scale. It cost one hundred and twenty thousand pounds to build, with, ‘varied and valuable materials befitting the pain of his loss felt right across the British Empire.’ The memorial is inlaid with precious stones and crystals, which were intended, ‘to hold the attention of visitors as they leisurely examined its artistic beauties.’

The Frieze of Parnassus surrounds the central pedestal of the memorial and depicts nearly two hundred figures, consisting of celebrated painters, poets, sculptors, musicians and architects, all reflecting Albert’s enthusiasm for the arts. On top of the corners of the frieze are four groups of sculptures that represent the Victorian industrial arts and sciences of agriculture, commerce, engineering and manufacturing. Beneath the frieze is a pyramid-like quadrangular flight of steps, leading to four further groups of sculptures. They are positioned at the ground level corners and represent Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

The Albert Memorial is in better shape now than since its very earliest years. The fourth and most extensive renovation was completed in 1998, after eleven years of painstaking work and costing eleven million pounds. The potentially fatal rot in its iron skeleton was successfully halted. The repairs involved delicate work on more than a thousand square feet of mosaics. Fifty thousand pounds were spent on replacing the missing gold leaf, after it was stripped off in 1914 as a preventative measure to stop Zeppelins from spotting it in the glare and bombing it. The efforts were worthwhile as the memorial escaped unscathed during The Great War and likewise survived The Blitz of The Second World War.

Prince Albert, facing south, gazes over towards the Royal Albert Hall, (see blog: ROYAL ALBERT HALL) and the nearby modernist Royal College of Art, which was built one hundred years after his death in 1961. A little further on is The Royal Geographical Society, which boasts the first passenger elevator built in London, using technology that would certainly have interested the prince, who died a dozen years before it was constructed. The Albert Memorial is just inside Kensington Gardens, clearly visible from Kensington Road, London W8 5NX. London Underground (Tube): South Kensington or Knightsbridge

Where to view Albert Memorial and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Albert Memorial’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Tower Bridge

2010-03-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

TOWER BRIDGE

Tower Bridge is one of the most iconic buildings in London and it is associated with the Untied Kingdom’s capital city by people who have never come close to setting foot on England’s shores. It is a much loved landmark, in part because of its ‘fairyland appearance,’ which has been copied in amusement parks from ‘Legoland’ in Windsor, to the ‘Beijing World Park’ in China. Delicate scale models have even been constructed from thousands of matchsticks by jailed drugs barons in Bogotá.

When Tower Bridge was first completed, the critics of the day were scathing and one said, “a more absurd structure than the Tower Bridge was never thrown across a strategic river,” never realising that its very absurdity would endear the bridge to many millions, across the globe and down the generations. Indeed, the initial widespread disapproval evaporated and Victorian hearts and minds soon warmed to the bridge. Tower Bridge is not as old as is commonly thought, particularly by tourists visiting London. It is actually one of the last major buildings of the Victorian era.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the traffic congestion over London Bridge could be ignored no longer and another bridge to cross the Thames, situated to the east, had to be constructed. Such a bridge had been needed for centuries but there was an enduring problem. Tall ships needed access to the world’s largest port, The Pool of London, which lay to the immediate east of London Bridge. By the late nineteenth century, technology and funding allowed for the construction of a bridge with moveable parts large enough to allow the safe passage of merchant vessels into the port.

In 1876, a design competition was opened to public competition for the new crossing. Over fifty design entries were submitted from across the four compass points of the British Isles. Eyebrows were raised when the eventual winner of the competition turned out to be one of the competition judges. The bridge was designed by Sir Horace Jones and built by Sir John Wolfe Barry, together with four hundred and thirty-two construction workers. The bridge took eight years to build and opened in 1894. Costing ninety-seven million pounds in today’s money, the internal structure is metal, using eleven thousand tons of steel. Clad in Cornish Granite and Portland Stone, the Victorian Gothic design was to compliment the neighbouring landmark, The Tower of London.

The most notable feature of the bridge is the two bascules, each weighing a thousand tons, that raise up to enable the river traffic to enter and leave The Pool of London. The bascules, deriving from the French for ‘see-saw,’ were operated by hydraulics, using steam to power the enormous pumping engines. The energy created was stored in six accumulators, so as soon as power was required to lift, it was always available. The accumulators supplied the driving engines that powered the bascules, taking only about a minute to raise to their maximum angle of eighty-six degrees. It was the largest and most sophisticated bascule bridge of the era. Today, the bascules are still operated by hydraulic power, but steam was abandoned in the 1970’s and they are now driven by oil and electricity.

Navigational control consisted of red semaphore signals in daytime and coloured lights at night, to indicate whether the bridge was open. A tug was always on standby in the rare event of ships getting jammed in the middle. Today, twenty-four hours notice must be given before the bridge will be raised. It is now common for vessels to provide many weeks of notice. A ship entering or leaving gives a radio signal eight minutes away and the bridge master will prepare to open the bascules. The vessel needs to be thirty feet or taller to require opening and only the very largest require the bascules to lift for the full ninety seconds to reach their fullest extent. Since the introduction of electronics, the bridge has failed to open occasionally, which was never the case under steam.

The walkways at the top were designed with a duel purpose, primarily as a strengthening device to prevent the two towers pulling away from each when the bascules lift and secondly, to allow the uninterrupted flow of foot passage across the water when the bridge was raised. However, most people preferred to wait at street level for the road to drop, rather than climb up and down the hundreds of stairs. The walkways soon became a popular haven for prostitutes and pickpockets, leading to their closure to the public in 1910.

Over its history, Tower Bridge has had a number of notable incidents. On a chilly December 30^th in 1952, the customary bell was not sounded that warned of an imminent bridge lift, leading to a crowded number seventy-eight bus being nearly half-way across Tower Bridge when it began to raise up. The driver slammed his foot on the accelerator and the vehicle crossed over a three feet gap, smashing its chassis as it landed on the other side. The following decade, Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollock flew past Big Ben and then beneath Tower Bridge in protest that senior staff were not going to celebrate the R.A.F.’s fiftieth anniversary. The service bigwigs had a sense of humour failure and it proved to be his final flight in uniform. In the late 1990’s, Bill Clinton’s presidential motorcade was unexpectedly divided in two by the bridge raising, with panicking security officials stranded on one side and Clinton on the other. The occurrence was a reminder that on Tower Bridge, shipping always takes precedence over vehicular traffic.

Tower Bridge is crossed by over forty thousand motorists, cyclists and pedestrians every day. Its popularity as a crossing point is partly to do with the bridge being just outside of the Congestion Zone, inside of which motorists are charged to drive. Currently, Tower Bridge is having all the paint stripped in a four million pound programme that is estimated to be completed by 2012. It is being repainted with twenty-two thousand litres of the same red, white and blue, which has adorned the metalwork since the Queen’s Jubilee in 1977, prior to which, the bridge was chocolate brown in colour.

The re-painting programme work will at times affect those visiting the Tower Bridge Exhibition, located inside the bridge. Allow at least an hour and a half to see The Tower Bridge Exhibition, where access to the high level walkways offers stunning views of London. The original Victorian pumping engines, accumulators and boilers are open for display. The Bridge Master’s dining room and the walkways may be hired for corporate hospitality, wedding receptions and private parties.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge Road

London SE1 2UP

Where to view Tower Bridge and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Tower Bridge’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Royal Albert Hall

2010-03-12T04:12:00.000-08:00

ROYAL ALBERT HALL

The idea for the Royal Albert Hall was seeded from the aftermath of The Great Exhibition of 1851. Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, the husband of Queen Victoria, was the mastermind behind The Great Exhibition and afterwards he saw the need for a permanent structure to replace the temporary ‘Crystal Palace.’ It was only after Albert’s death that the ball was set rolling for what was to originally be named, “The Central Hall of Arts and Sciences.’ It was opened ten years after his death in 1871, with Queen Victoria altering its name to, ‘The Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences.’

The Royal Albert Hall suitably reflected Albert’s unflagging enthusiasm for technology. The idea for the design of a huge amphitheatre was said to have come from a German immigrant acquaintance of Prince Albert’s. Built by an engineer rather than an architect, it had six million bricks used in its construction. The engineering skills are particularly evident in the forty-one metres high steel and glass dome that caps the building. A dominant feature is the mosaic frieze depicting ‘The Triumph of Arts and Sciences’ that runs around the exterior building. The finer details are best observed from the smoking gallery, although it is clearly visible even from ground level.

The hall is situated alongside Kensington Gore, on the south side of Hyde Park in central London. The hall is best known for ‘The Proms’ which take place daily over eight summertime weeks of each year, making it the world’s largest music festival, with listeners tuning in to listen from across the four compass points of the globe. However, when the hall first opened, there was widespread despair when the notoriously bad acoustics first became apparent. The echo was so bad that a common joke circulated about the Albert Hall being the only place where a British composer could be sure of hearing their work twice.

‘The Proms’ are classical music concerts that first took place at the Royal Albert Hall in 1941 and nowadays they are they are relayed to audiences in the open air in the nearby Hyde Park. ‘The Promenade Concerts’ were started by Henry Wood in 1895 and only moved to the Royal Albert Hall when their customary venue was destroyed during The Second World War. The Proms conductors’ batons wave at an average speed of three and a half miles per hour, no doubt a similar pace to the batons of Elgar, Wagner, Verdi and Rachmaninov, who all had the opportunity to conduct at The Royal Albert Hall.

Besides ‘The Proms,’ there are up to three hundred and fifty shows annually. Performers ranging from Frank Sinatra, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin to The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain have all performed on the stage. However, the amphitheatre has been used for events as random as tennis tournaments, religious meetings, poetry recitals, television and film awards, business conventions, university graduation ceremonies, circus shows, ballet and even prize fights, with the Kray twins boxing there in the 1950’s and Mohammed Ali in the 1970’s. Winston Churchill, The Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and The Queen have all spoken to distinguished audiences at the hall.

The Royal Albert Hall originally had seating for eight thousand people, reduced during renovation, completed in 2004, to just over five and a half thousands, to comply with twenty-first century safety demands. During the renovation, it was discovered that the terracotta used in the façade is a material with a tough skin and a soft heart, needing much careful attention. As a Grade I listed building, English Heritage had to oversee the renovation project, particularly every structural change, which mostly took place beneath ground level, with a new loading bay. The seven-year redevelopment cost over sixty-six million pounds, with the intention of seeing the hall through to the end of the twenty-first century in fine shape.

The Royal Albert Hall,

Kensington Gore,

London SW7 2AP

Where to view Royal Albert Hall and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Royal Albert Hall’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Embankment

2010-03-04T04:18:00.000-08:00

EMBANKMENT

The Victoria Embankment was constructed after a centuries old problem had been avoided to the point where it could be ignored no longer. The river Thames, as it passed through London, had always been used as an open sewer. As the population of London grew, the problem escalated and during the exceptionally hot summer of 1858, the smell became so overpowering that it permeated to the four compass points of London and duly became known as, ‘The Great Stink.’ Sheets soaked in chlorine and lime were hung on the Houses Of Parliament windows whilst inside the politicians of the day were forced to debate a solution, which resulted, in part, with the construction of The Victoria Embankment.

The idea of an embankment was not a new one, it was touted after the Great Fire Of London in 1666, but the plans were not adopted. At low water, even as late as the Victorian period, large muddy reaches were exposed and were considered a ‘hotbed of pestilence and fever.’ The new embankment narrowed the river, with thirty acres of land being reclaimed from the low tide flats. Coupled with dredging, the flow of the water increased in speed, making for a cleaner river. The river had to be dammed during construction, which was no mean feat, to allow the positioning of 650,000 cubic feet of granite, 80,000 cubic yards of brickwork and 140,000 cubic yards of concrete.

The project clearly allowed for no half measures and many vast and expensive riverside properties were destroyed when building began in 1865. Sir Joseph Bazalgette masterminded the engineering feat and it won much applause when it was completed five years later. However, the most important factor was the incorporation of Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s many miles of sewers with Gothic vaulting more reminiscent of the undercroft of a cathedral. Above the sewers the track for the District Line Underground (Tube) trains were positioned and at surface level a new highway was laid, easing traffic congestion from Strand and Fleet Street.

Behind the busy lanes of traffic on the embankment are The Victoria Embankment Gardens, which were opened in 1872. The government wanted the valuable land for development, but Sir Joseph Bazalgette insisted it be laid out for public enjoyment. To this day free concerts take place there, not far from the fine statues of Robert Burns and William Tyndale, who was the first to write an English bible translated from the Greek. In the gardens is ‘The Water Gate’ by Inigo Jones, the only relic of York House, which was destroyed to build the embankment. The Victoria Embankment is lined with fine London Plane trees, which were planted at intervals of twenty feet. Some were vandalised and rewards of twenty pounds, a huge sum for the day, were offered for information leading to convictions of any person caught damaging them. Nowadays, the trees reach high above the splendid original lampposts, all with stylized dolphins at their bases.

Several ships of importance are permanently moored on the riverside and have become fixtures of the landscape. H.M.S. President was built in 1918 and designed to look like a merchant vessel, the intention being to draw German U boats, which would then be attacked using hidden weapons. At one time all land based officers of the Royal navy were enlisted to H.M.S President, as all those serving in the Royal Navy had to be ascribed a ship. In the early twenty-first century, the vessel is hired out for private parties and functions.

A short way upstream from H.M.S. President is H.Q.S. Wellington, built in 1935 and purchased by The Honourable Company Of Master Mariners in 1947 and it is the city’s only floating livery hall. During the Second World War, she was on ‘ocean convoy escort duty’ in the north Atlantic. King Edward the Eighth was the first master of the company and his portrait hangs on board, the only picture of him to have been painted whilst he was king.

Further upstream along the embankment are moored several ships turned into bars and restaurants. The Queen Mary is the only London pub to have spent forty years crossing the Clyde, where it served as a ferry. If you find yourself swaying after only your drink, it probably means you are aboard the Hispaniola by Hungerford Bridge, which vies for business with the neighbouring PS Tattershall Castle, an old coal burning paddle steamer that once carried passengers across the Humber river, that is now also a pub and restaurant.

Old Scotland Yard, The Ministry Of Defence, Charing Cross Railway Station, The Savoy Hotel, Somerset House and The Middle and Inner Temple all overlook the Victoria Embankment and amidst them is ShellMex House. This distinctive early thirties Art Deco construction is distinctive for having the largest clock face in London, visible high up behind the oldest monument in London, Cleopatra’s Needle.

Cleopatra’s Needle was given to the British in 1819 by an Albanian who ruled Egypt on behalf of the Turks. A prominent freemason paid the £10,000 it cost to transport the needle to London the year before it was erected. The sea voyage was difficult, it was towed across the sea in a huge iron cylinder. It was cut loose during a violent storm and was found floating aimlessly like the Marie Celeste, by chance, by another English ship. Six sailors died during transportation to London and it was finally positioned on the Victoria Embankment in 1878.

The obelisk is erroneously named, as Cleopatra never saw it. A staggering 3,500 years old, it came all the way from Heliopolis at Memphis in Egypt. The sphinxes positioned at its base should be pointing outwards not inwards as they are supposed to be guarding it, not admiring it. Stone was blasted away from the plinths and the bronze paws of a sphinx were punctured when a shell narrowly missed the needle during The First World War. Beneath the needle is a Victorian time capsule, which includes a Victorian railway timetable and photographs of those considered to be the most beautiful twelve ladies of the time. The needle has suffered more weathering on the windswept embankment than in the previous three thousand years. There are suggestions it should be moved to the protected atmosphere of British Museum, which would allow the hidden time capsule an untimely opening.

The Victoria Embankment may be accessed by Westminster, Embankment and Temple London Underground (Tube) stations. River cruises offer terrific views of the embankment and can be taken from the Westminster Pier by Westminster Bridge on the Victoria Embankment.

Where to view Embankment and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Embankment’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Achilles

2010-02-26T04:17:00.000-08:00

ACHILLES

The statue of Achilles, correctly known as The Wellington Monument, is positioned just inside the south-easterly corner of London’s Hyde Park, alongside Park Lane. Not so much a lane any longer, it is more like a motorway with eight lanes of traffic roaring past Achilles at speed. Occasionally, a driver will take a moment to glance across at the monument, standing eighteen feet high atop a pediment of granite blocks. Achilles is positioned a stone’s throw from Apsley House, the home of The Duke of Wellington which nowadays houses the Wellington Museum, (see earlier blog: HYDE PARK CORNER.)

Richard Westmacott won the commission for The Wellington Monument, with the project funded by donations from the women of England. Erected in 1822, the inscription on the pediment reads: “To Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and his brave companions in arms, this statue of Achilles cast from cannons won at the victories of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse and Waterloo is inscribed by their countrymen. Placed on this spot on the XVIII day of June MDCXXII by command of His Majesty George IIII.” Achilles is depicted with a cloak draped over his arm and bearing a shield. When the statue was unveiled, the size and shape of the shield was criticised for being historically inaccurate, however, defenders of the sculptor insisted the shield was allegorical in purpose. Achilles is depicted suitably muscular and heroic in stature and certainly in Greek mythology Achilles was the most handsome of the heroes assembled against Troy.

Achilles was invulnerable except for his heel. In an attempt to make him immortal his mother, Thetis, dipped his infant body into the sacred river Styx of The Underworld. Whilst doing so, she held him by his heel and Achilles was thereby never fully submerged, leaving his heel vulnerable. By extraordinary bad luck, during the Trojan War, Paris shot an arrow that directly pierced his heel, resulting in his death. The only weakness in the bronze statue of Achilles is not the heel but his fig leaf, which was twice removed by pranksters, in 1870 and 1961. Achilles was the very first statue of a naked man in London and the fig leaf was added as an after thought, on account of the public reaction. It was reported that, “The bronze colossus…excited at first something like wonder, then an ignorant or canting clamour, because it was undraped.”

Situated to the immediate south of Achilles are The Queen Elizabeth Gates, at the entrance to the South Carriage Drive into Hyde Park. The one hundred and twenty feet wide gates were raised through public subscription and presented to Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother on the occasion of her ninetieth birthday in 1990. Made from aluminium and steel, they are adorned at the centre with a rather stylized version of her coat of arms. To the east of Achilles is the statue of Lord Byron, in pensive mood together with his dog ‘Bo’sun.’ He sits on a pink marble slab that was a gift from the Greek government, in memory of Byron who fought for the Greeks during their War Of Independence.

The statue of Byron is somewhat stranded in a traffic island in the centre of Park Lane, one of the capital’s busiest highways. The four lanes to the west were introduced in 1983, taking out a large ribbon of parkland in the process. The southerly part of Park Lane is lined with grand houses and hotels, first built up in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The grandest is The Dorchester, where Elizabeth Taylor spent nights during several of her honeymoons. The hotel is owned by The Sultan of Brunei, who spent £130 million restoring its beautiful Art Deco interior. The Dorchester ballroom was used by General Eisenhower during The Second World War, its soundproofing conveniently doubled up as bomb proofing. The nearby Park Lane Hilton Hotel was built in 1963 and at the time of construction, it was the tallest of London’s hotels. From the Windows restaurant on the twenty-eighth floor of the hotel, there are fine panoramic views to the four compass points. Diners are even able to look into the gardens of nearby Buckingham Palace and of course, back down below to Westmacott’s statue of Achilles.

Achilles

Park Lane

London W1K 1BE

London Underground (Tube) Hyde Park Corner

Where to view Achilles and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Achilles’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

County Hall

2010-02-22T04:24:00.000-08:00

COUNTY HALL

The County Hall is situated on the South Bank in London besides Westminster Bridge and looks across to The Palace Of Westminster across the river Thames. It was the headquarters of the London County Council (L.C.C.) from 1912 and its successor, The Greater London Council (G.L.C.) from 1965 until it was disbanded in 1986. With an impressive façade of Portland Stone, the hall was built in the ‘Edwardian Baroque’ style and stands out from its mostly modernist neighbours, in an area that was heavily bombed during The Second World War.

The construction of County Hall was a particularly costly building project. A ‘Cross and Blackwell’ factory stood on the intended site and being only a dozen years into a 999 lease, a whopping £100,000 had to be paid to the makers of the world famous ‘Branston Pickle’ relish, to persuade them to vacate the site. In addition, £10,000 was spent on reclaiming land from the river, to bring the embankment in line with the neighbouring St Thomas’s Hospital. During the process, a third century Roman Thames riverboat was discovered and it is now on display in The Museum of London.

Plans for an even vaster edifice were scaled down in size after intensive debate between government and the chief architect W.E. Riley. King George V laid the foundation stone in 1912 and formally opened the building in 1922. However, at the official opening, the building was far from complete, with work having been halted during the First World War and construction duly continued over the following decades. ‘The North Block’ of County Hall was commissioned in the 1950's. Extraordinarily, the project was delayed after all ten firms tendered the identical sum of 50,238 pounds, 19 shillings and three pence, leading to a mass referral to the Monopolies Commission!

Expansion continued as late as 1974, with the ‘The Island Block’ annex. It was a truly perfect example of rotten ‘Brutalist’ architecture. Attached to the back of County Hall by a walkway, the bulk of the building was itself stranded within a busy roundabout. Within a meagre twelve years, it was empty and abandoned. The Island Block remained a wretched blot on the landscape until it was pulled down in 2006. On its destruction, the unrepentant architect, John Bancroft, declared, “I am absolutely devastated – I consider that it was a distinguished building.” The general public disagreed, in a nationwide poll it was voted the eleventh most ugly building in Britain.

The Labour Party had controlled the London County Council from 1934 and the political opposition complained that elections were one-sided because the L.C.C. only covered the mostly Labour voting inner London districts. After much debate and procedure, the metropolitan boundaries were extended at all four compass points. Thirty-two boroughs were formed including the more genteel suburban areas, swallowing up chunks of the surrounding counties. The first Greater London Council elections were held in 1964. Some argued that the G.L.C. was ‘created to be a Conservative poodle that turned into a mighty monster of the left.’ During its last five years, the G.L.C. was led by Ken Livingstone, commonly known as ‘Red Ken.’ In 1982 Ken Livingstone was voted runner up to the Pope in a BBC Radio 4’s Today programme’s ‘Man Of The Year.’ At the same time a national newspaper described him as ‘the most odious man in Britain.’ The Left’s strength at the G.L.C. contrasted with the power of the Conservative Party in Westminster. Margaret Thatcher finally disbanded the G.L.C. in 1986. In retrospect, historians generally agree that the vision of the G.L.C. was utopian and its achievement modest.

By 1993 County Hall had been sold to the Shirayama Shokusan Corporation, a private Japanese company, for sixty million pounds. Mr Makoto Okamoto is the family-run corporation's European head and an article published in The Independent Newspaper on 28 September 2005 reported that he had allegedly refused to allow war veterans into the County Hall building to pay respects at a war memorial listing more than a thousand L.C.C. staff who died in the two world wars. The resulting uproar forced the Japanese ambassador to intervene. The Independent likewise reported that in 1998, Mr Okamoto allegedly was accused of making sexist and racist comments at Lisa-Jane Statton, the manager of the London Aquarium, which currently rents the lower ground floors of County Hall. She told an employment tribunal that he called British women ‘bloody fat pigs’ with ‘legs like tree-trunks’, but withdrew the case after she was paid an estimated £100,000 to settle. Mr Okamoto’s wife is herself English. The Saatchi Gallery left County Hall after only three years, likewise after disputes with Mr Okamoto, who allegedly kicked a Gavin Turk sculpture. Another sculpture mysteriously had its nose removed and was spat on, when the gallery was closed to the public and very people had access to the space.

County Hall is now home to the aforementioned London Aquarium, the London Film Museum and two hotels, The Marriot and The Premier Inn. There are several restaurants and a number of one and two bedroomed apartments. Dali Universe moved out in 2010. County Hall is also a popular location for marriage ceremonies. The entire fourth and fifth floors have been left entirely empty since the G.L.C. was disbanded in 1986.

County Hall, Belvedere Road, London Se1 7PB. Waterloo and Westminster London Underground (Tube) stations.

London Underground Railway (Tube): Bond Street and Marble Arch

Where to view County Hall and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘County Hall’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Selfridges

2010-02-11T10:05:00.000-08:00

SELFRIDGES

It was announced on February 11^th 2010 that the forty year old fashion designer Alexander McQueen has been found dead at his London address. One of the creations from his last year alive was passed by hundreds of thousands of ordinary shoppers during the last months of 2009, in London’s Selfridges department store. In collaboration with the two hundredth anniversary celebrations of the first performance of Cinderella at The Theatre Royal and as the centrepiece of Selfridges 2009 winter collection, Alexander McQueen made a one-off £16,000 ‘pantomime dame’ dress. It was a truly exquisite creation and typical of Selfridges to display such a jaw dropping crowd puller.

Every day in central London, people can be seen clutching distinctive yellow and black carrier bags, each betraying a visit to Selfridges, famous across the four compass points of the world. It is the second largest shop in the United Kingdom, after Harrods, (see earlier blog.) Selfridges has remained fashionable since it first opened up in 1909 and this is in no small part to its founder, the extraordinary H. Gordon Selfridge who, leading by example, totally transformed the experience of shopping in this country.

Gordon Selfridge was an American who learned his trade in Chicago. On his first visit to London, he was astonished to find on more than one occasion, that he was asked to leave stores for simply browsing, rather than making an obligatory rapid purchase. His encounter with frosty shopkeepers standing behind imposing counters, protecting the shelves from shoppers, inspired him to leave America and open the store that still bears his name to this day.

The store cost £400,000 to build and is positioned on the northwest side of what was to become London’s premier shopping thoroughfare, Oxford Street. It was a massive sum to pay at the time, partly because it was one of the first buildings in London to have a steel frame construction. Gordon Selfridge called it a ‘trade palace’ and the expression was hardly an exaggeration. He wanted the exterior of the building to be indicative of the quality of goods on sale within. The store is fronted by load bearing ionic columns, with a 1928 Art Deco clock, known as ‘The Queen Of Time’ riding her ‘Ship Of Commerce.’ The ground was not levelled before construction and the entire building slopes eleven feet from one end to the other, a feature that may be noticed by careful observation.

Back in Chicago, Selfridge had been the first to promote Christmas with the expression, “only x number of shopping days left until Christmas.” Never one short of a catchphrase, he also coined, “less servility and more service,” and this motto was drummed into his staff, who were made to have three months of training before the grand opening. Such was the anticipation, that on the first day of business people queued around the block (unlike most of London this area is laid out in grid pattern and does have blocks) and a million people passed through its doors during the first week.

Marketed as the equivalent of Macy’s in the USA, its popularity was instant. Selfridge was the first to put expensive popular items, such as perfumes, near to the entrance. He tried to make shopping fun rather than a chore, merchandise was displayed so that customers could touch and examine it, leading to profitable impulse purchases.

Bristling with ingenuity, he exhibited Bleriot’s airplane in Selfridges one day after its pioneer flight across the channel, attracting people 150,000 people into the store who would never otherwise cross its threshold. He staged the first public show of television in 1925 and installed a seismograph, which in 1932 recorded a well-documented earthquake in Belgium.

The roof of the building is nowadays covered in air conditioning units, but in Gordon Selfridge’s time, a garden with trees and a lily pond covered the roof. At times, ‘mini golf’ was played up there and a seasonal ice rink provided further excitement. Selfridge even threw election night parties for English society on the roof, which was also where in 1930, he exhibited the work of sculptors from ‘The London Group’ whose members were the most pre-eminent artists of the day.

Like many, Gordon Selfridge made a fortune during the First World War. In 1919, he planned to build a huge mansion on the south coast of England, with grand intentions for it to be taller than St Paul’s Cathedral, a plan that was never realised. Ultimately too extravagant, Gordon Selfridge lived the life of Croesus and he died a pauper. He became a British subject in 1937, three years before he was forced to relinquish control of the store, shortly after the start of the Second World War. It was during the war that the lowest of the three floors beneath ground level was used by U.S. personnel. At a depth of sixty metres, it was safe enough for both Churchill and Eisenhower to hold meetings there.

In his last years, Selfridge was reduced to travelling through London by bus, sometimes making the trip up to Oxford Street to gaze across at his greatest achievement. He died almost penniless in 1947, but was held alive in the memories of loyal staff of longstanding service. Indeed, many of the staff served out their entire career there, which was unusual for retailing, where a high turnover of workforce was common, even during the earlier part of the twentieth century. There was much to be proud of, from its history of bold window displays, to its marvellous food hall.

The Selfridges food hall is one of four major food halls in central London, Fortnum and Mason, Harrods and Harvey Nichols incorporate the other three. Selfridges food hall has the best reputation amongst internationals, with Middle Eastern cuisine comfortably stacked around the corner from the famous kosher department. If you cannot afford the oyster bar, then fill up with free samples, Selfridges has a longstanding generous tasting policy. Although now surpassed in cost if not by flavour, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Selfridges Food Hall sold the world’s most expensive sandwich, at £85. Consisting of Wagyu beef, brie de Meaux, foie gras and black truffle mayonnaise, the sandwich was reportedly most often requested from and dispatched to, a number of luxury hotel rooms on the nearby Park Lane.

The store is open from ninety-thirty in the mornings until eight, nine on Thursdays and Sunday opening is midday until six. Finally, to answer the question that every child asks when first encountering the famous name, yes, they do sell fridges…

Selfridges

400 Oxford Street

London

W1A 2LR

London Underground Railway (Tube): Bond Street and Marble Arch

Where to view Selfridges and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Selfridges’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Piccadilly Circus

2010-02-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

PICCADILLY CIRCUS

The West End is the location of many theatres, restaurants, bars and clubs and a popular place to meet at the start of the evening is at Piccadilly Circus. In fact, it is very rare to not see people waiting for friends and loved ones, standing near the famous and much admired Statue Of Eros (see earlier blog entitled EROS.)

Piccadilly Circus is sometimes described as being the Times Square of London, its many illuminated advertising signs being a comparable feature. The very first illuminated sign was put up in 1909, advertising Schweppes, which was then a mineral water supplier. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the signs had long since abandoned neon and were mostly state-of-the-art LED video displays, costing millions of pounds per year to rent each space. One computer animated sign posted personal messages with a special rate for marriage proposals. After a romantic kiss at The Statue Of Eros, loved ones would be encouraged to look up to the sign, to see the personal message scrolling across. The service was discontinued in 2007.

Piccadilly Circus was built in 1819 and it is named a circus from the Latin word for ‘circle’ or ‘ring.’ Although no longer truly circular, it is the hub of six streets, including both Regent Street and Piccadilly. It has over a million pedestrian visitors each week and a further two million people pass through it by bus. Six hundred thousand people use Piccadilly Circus underground station on a weekly basis. Besides being filled with pedestrians and swirling traffic, Piccadilly Circus is closely surrounded by many famous locations.

Situated on the south side of Piccadilly since 1925 is Lillywhite’s, a multi-floored sports store. Nowadays it draws in tourists by selling replica Premiership football sports kits cheaply, but still specializes in outfitting for minority sports. Beneath Lillywhite’s is the Criterion Theatre, one of only two subterranean theatres in London and decorated with extravagant gilding by Verity in 1884. Nearby, on ground level is The Criterion, the restaurant where Sherlock Holmes first met Doctor Watson in its splendid Long Bar. The Criterion was a favourite of the French artist Toulouse-Lautrec who, when visiting London, ate porterhouse steaks there whilst gazing across to The London Pavilion.

A published statistic states that of the twenty-six million visitors to London each year, the majority pass through Piccadilly Circus and one in twenty-five of those go inside the London Pavilion. The north side pavement (sidewalk) on Coventry Street, outside the London Pavilion, has the highest density of pedestrian traffic in the United Kingdom. The London Pavilion was originally a music hall, nowadays it is part of The Trocadero Centre. The Trocadero Centre has been a London landmark for two and a half centuries, its fortunes almost changing on a decade-by-decade basis. In the late 1990’s, a forty-five million pound investment programme transformed the venue into a ‘high-tech’ indoor entertainment complex.

The entrance to The Café De Paris is on Coventry Street, which leads off Piccadilly Circus to the east. It opened in the roaring twenties, much of its early success rose from the patronage of King Edward VIII, who often visited when he was Prince Of Wales. The Aga Khan, the Mountbatten’s and Cole Porter were also regulars and its subterranean location allowed it to remain open at the outbreak of The Second World War. However, tragically, in March 1941, two fifty-kilogram explosive devises came through the roof during an air raid, landing straight onto the dance floor. Eighty people were killed including the young bride of Group Captain John Darwen RAF DSO DFC. Aged just twenty and married only weeks earlier, she died in his arms on the dance floor. John Darwen went on to become a heroic and much documented pilot, until a little over two years later he was killed in action, shot down by stray flak over Italy in 1942. The Café De Paris remains a popular venue to this day.

Not far from the entrance of The Café De Paris, is a street level statue called The Horses of Helios and the four beasts, Pyrios, Eos, Aethon and Phleyon, rear up above foaming fountain water. Directly above them, high up on the building’s top are three golden naked figures. They represent Faith, Hope and Charity, known as The Three Graces and they can be seen frozen mid-leap, heading downwards into the crowds beneath.

Not only is Piccadilly Circus at the meeting point of six thoroughfares, it has Mayfair, Soho, St James’s and China Town all quickly accessible to the four compass points, with the remainder of central London stretching beyond. Indeed, at one time, Piccadilly Circus was said to be the hub of the British Empire itself. It is hardly surprising then, that a flagship retail store bordering Piccadilly Circus has recently contracted to pay 1.95 million pounds a year to rent its premises.

Many descend on Piccadilly Circus simply to soak up the atmosphere and the saying goes, that if you wait in Piccadilly Circus long enough, you will meet someone you know. Be prepared, it may well be quicker than you think! Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly, London W1J 7BX.

Where to view Piccadilly Circus and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Piccadilly Circus’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Embassies

2010-01-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

EMBASSIES

To be posted as ambassador to London is considered to be a top job, the reward after many years of service for a career diplomat. For countries that offer ambassadorial roles as favours, political or otherwise, three years in London is likewise a coveted position. New ambassadors are accredited to The Court of St James. St James’s Palace technically remains the senior palace of the British monarchy, although the sovereign has not lived there since King William the Fourth. Nevertheless, The Marshal of the Diplomatic Corp is permanently based at St James’s Palace and it from where all ambassadors and high commissioners are received at court.

There are one hundred and seventy-two foreign missions in London, mostly located in St James’s, Mayfair, Belgravia, South Kensington, Knightsbridge, Holland Park and Kensington Palace Gardens and its surroundings. One hundred and twenty-eight of these are embassies and there are forty-six high commissions from the Commonwealth countries and many missions have consular sections in separate locations to the chancery sections of their embassies. It means that in some streets and squares in the above areas, many of the buildings have large flags from the four compass points of the globe, waving from poles above the grand entrances.

The Diplomatic Protection corps seldom have a dull moment, as embassies are frequently the target of demonstrations. The Israeli Embassy, in particular, is well accustomed to such occurrences. The French Embassy saw protests by British Muslims after the banning of headscarves in French schools in 2004. The Royal Danish Embassy was targeted in 2006 after a Danish cartoonist produced material deemed offensive by some British Muslims. There has been a continuous peaceful protest outside the Chinese Embassy for many years by practitioners of the ‘Falun Gong’ spiritual movement.

It is usually rare for those inside the embassies to take much notice of such protests on an outward level, but that was not the case at the Libyan Embassy in 1984, when Yvonne Fletcher was shot and killed in St James’s Square whilest on duty during a protest. The exact series of events has never fully been explained, however, it is allegedly thought machine gun fire was directed at her from the second floor of Libyan Embassy. Her death resulted in the longest police siege in London’s history, lasting nine days, resulting in a souring of diplomatic relations between the two countries that lasted for many years afterwards.

In 1980 Iranian Arab Separatists took over the Iranian Embassy, at its premises overlooking Hyde Park. Inside were twenty-six hostages including police constable Trevor Lock, who later received the George Cross for his bravery. On the sixth day of the siege the kidnappers killed a hostage and threw his body outside. Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister at the time, decided it was time for action and the SAS, (Special Air Service) stormed the building. In ground-breaking manner for the day, the whole episode was played out live, with a short time delay, in front of the media. To disguise the noise of the SAS approach, aircraft approaching Heathrow Airport were diverted to fly at low height directly over the embassy. As an additional precaution, British Gas were instructed to start noisy drilling nearby. Five of the six militants were killed during the release of the hostages. Suggestions that the final captor survived after one of the hostages protected him, whilst suffering from a dose of Stockholm Syndrome, was later denied.

Canada House, which faces onto Trafalgar Square, is Canada’s oldest diplomatic posting, dating to 1880. Greek revival in style, it was built by Sir Robert Smirke, the architect of The British Museum. Canada House looks across to South Africa House, where Nelson Mandela spoke to the crowds from a balcony, whilst he was president of the country in 1996. A little further to the east is Zimbabwe House. Stunning architecturally, the exterior of Zimbabwe House features Epstein sculptures, from his first major commission in London. President Mugabe was reported a few years ago to have allegedly handed over the deeds of his country's High Commission in London to Colonel Gaddafi in a last ditch effort to keep the flow of Libyan oil heading southwards to Zimbabwe.

The Czech Embassy, near to Notting Hill Gate, is seen by the local residents as being one of the ugliest buildings in the neighbourhood. An effort to counter this was made in 1999 when three sculptural pieces were mounted on the side of the building by the Czech artist David Cerny, who first came onto the international scene during The Velvet Revolution. In contrast, for an example of award winning late twentieth century design, look to the Royal Danish Embassy in Sloane Street. The building fits in perfectly against the backdrop of some of London’s most expensive and upmarket boutiques and fashion stores.

At thirty-one Portland Place is located the aforementioned Chinese Embassy. Unexpectedly to many, it was pulled down in 1980, giving the protected buildings committee a shock, but it was rebuilt with an exterior almost identical to the original 1785 Adam brothers’ building. Sometimes the elegant facades of foreign embassies have been left to rot, the French Embassy on Knightsbridge was for many years the scruffiest looking building in the neighbourhood, with the exterior paint so weathered there were scarcely any peelings left to fall off. The largest embassy in London is the American Embassy, (see the previous Grosvenor Square blog in Tom’s Guide for full details.)

It is often the case that on entering an embassy one feels almost arrived in the represented country itself. Even in the twenty-first century, when paying for a travel visa in the London embassy of one large African country, the money handed across is dropped into a cavernous wooden drawer with notes and coins loosely floating around and the receipt is hand written on a piece of lined paper torn from a notebook. At one Southeast Asian mission, a sweeper in local attire seemingly pushes dust from one side of the hall to another, as tourists stand in the middle, queuing for visas.

In 1907, the idea to build The Titanic was conjured up over a dinner at the Spanish Embassy. A great deal of what is said and done behind the four walls of London’s foreign embassies is unknown, in fact often deliberately secretive. The world of espionage has long overlapped with the more mundane aspects of diplomatic life and it would be an injustice to such an occluded environment to attempt to tackle the subject in this short text.

Diplomatic immunity is essentially legal immunity from the host country’s laws, meaning that diplomats are not susceptible to lawsuits or prosecution, although they can be expelled. It is argued by some that this leaves the privilege open to abuse. It was reported by The Independent On Sunday newspaper in 2006, that between 1999 and 2004, one hundred and twenty-two serious offences were committed by those protected by diplomatic immunity in the United Kingdom. These figures were released by the then foreign secretary Margaret Beckett. It is alleged that this included murder by a Columbian diplomat and rape and child abuse by a member of the Moroccan Embassy staff. Elsewhere, person or persons protected by diplomatic immunity from the Dominican Republic were allegedly accused of fraud and money laundering, embassy staff from France accused of assault and from Germany of assisting illegal immigration. Many embassies consider London’s traffic controlling Congestion Charge to be nothing more than a tax and the American Embassy alone allegedly owes nearly four million pounds in Congestion Charge fees and other traffic fines. Zimbabwe personnel top the league of driving without a license.

Where to view Embassies and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Embassies’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Grosvenor Square

2010-01-25T03:37:00.000-08:00

GROSVENOR SQUARE

Grosvenor Square is the largest of the three squares in the area of central London commonly known as Mayfair. Mayfair is so named because fairs were held here during the month of May, before the district was developed. Grosvenor Square has remained a fashionable place to live since it was laid out, between 1721 and 1725 by Sir Richard Grosvenor. The square covers the site of Oliver’s Mount, an earthwork thrown up by the English subjects in 1643 when Charles I was approaching London after the Battle Of Edge Hill.

The original buildings of the square have almost entirely been rebuilt over the centuries, one of the better known redevelopments being the American Embassy, built between 1958 and 1960 and still the largest embassy building in Europe. The Americans have had a presence in Grosvenor Square and its surrounding streets since its independence. At number nine Grosvenor Square is where John Adams, the second US president lived, when he was ambassador to London in 1785. In fact, the area is fondly known to many as, ‘Little America.’ Grosvenor Square was where anti Vietnam War protests by many thousands of students and workers took place in 1968, in front of the American Embassy.

The American Embassy is said to be the only American Embassy in the world where the Americans do not own the land beneath the four walls of the embassy. When the U.S.A. were first planning to expand into this building, the British Government placed great pressure on The Grosvenor Estate to sell the west side of Grosvenor Square to the Americans. There were mutterings of compulsory purchase. The Duke Of Westminster, head of the Grosvenor family, who was a good friend of the American ambassador of the day, offered to sell the freehold if the Americans returned to the Grosvenor family twelve thousand acres in East Florida which had been granted to his ancestor, the first Earl, in 1769. The land had been forfeited at the War Of Independence. The land in question today includes the site of Cape Canaveral. The Americans chose to back off and a compromise was reached whereby they pay rent one peppercorn a year to The Grosvenor Estate. It is believed that this was paid in full, some years ago, with the presentation of three solid gold peppercorns, covering the period up until the end of the nine hundred and ninety-nine year lease.

On top of the embassy, beneath the American flag, can be seen the bald eagle, its wingspan is longer than a London bus, it is made from aluminium and any American will tell you its head is pointed in the wrong direction. Today, anti terrorist devices are positioned around the building and there are many concerns about its exposed position. For this reason there are advanced plans to move the entire embassy to a five acre site in Nine Elms, Vauxhall, south London, where tightened security will be easier to achieve. The Grosvenor Square site was bought in late 2009 by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, although the Americans are unlikely to fully move out before 2017, at the earliest.

Positioned outside the embassy is a statue of Dwight D Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander during The Second World War. This is the only statue of him in London and was unveiled by Baroness Thatcher in 1989. It was presented by the people of Kansas City. Eisenhower is depicted his hands on his waist, looking across towards his old headquarters of strategies, over at number twenty, on the other side of the square.

The American Embassy was previously located in what is now part of the Canadian High Commission, at number one, on the opposite side of the square to its present location. London is Canada’s oldest foreign mission and the High Commissioner is based here at Macdonald House, this fine building on Grosvenor Square. The Indonesians also have their London diplomatic mission in Grosvenor Square, at number thirty-eight.

The large garden within Grosvenor Square, covering six acres, was originally a key garden, solely for the use of its residents, but is now open to all. Memorials are positioned to the four compass points of the garden, on the north side stands a fine statue of Franklin D Roosevelt. The Roosevelt Memorial was put up with donations of five shillings by most Londoners. The memorial shows the figure of Roosevelt clutching his stick hidden under his cloak, his other hand is on his lapel.

Opposite Roosevelt is the memorial to the Royal Air Force American Eagle Squadron by Dame Elizabeth Frink. The squadron was made up of mostly American citizens who had volunteered to join the Royal Air Force. Also, within the garden of Grosvenor Square stands a smaller memorial garden dedicated to those who lost their lives on September the eleventh 2001.

Grosvenor Square

Mayfair

London W1

Nearest London Underground (tube)

Bond Street and Marble Arch

Where to view Grosvenor Square and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Grosvenor Square’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Harrods

2010-01-15T05:50:00.000-08:00

HARRODS

Harrods is one of the largest departments stores in the world and also one of the oldest. The original shop was situated in Eastcheap, in The City Of London, which was opened by a tea merchant, Charles Henry Harrod, in 1834. He moved the store in 1849, to a single room, in what was then the village of Knightsbridge, partly to capitalise on the forthcoming ‘Great Exhibition’ due to be held in the nearby Hyde Park in 1851.

The store flourished and grew until it was destroyed by fire in 1883. Extraordinarily, despite being raised to the ground, all orders were honoured within three working days. In retrospect, the fire was seen as a blessing in disguise, with a vast new building, covering four and a half acres, finally completed by 1905 and still standing to this very day. Built in the ‘High Victorian’ style, with visible Art Nouveau influences, seen from the elegant shop windows to the stylized ‘H’s for Harrods, positioned at the bases of the many pilasters.

The exterior of the store is illuminated at night by over 15,000 light bulbs and the national flags of countries from across the four compass points of the world wave on the sides of the building and from high up on the roof. Inside, nine hundred customer attendants work in three hundred departments, serving, at peak periods, up to a staggering three hundred thousand customers a day. It is said to be the only department store in the world to have an annual turnover of in excess of one billion pounds sterling.

The very first escalator in the United kingdom was installed in Harrods in 1898 and the shoppers were so afraid of its new technology, that a man with one leg was employed to travel up and down the escalator all day, simply to reassure the nervous customers. At the height of his popularity, Oscar Wilde was a regular customer and Harrods has served everybody from the modest middle classes, to the last Tsar of Russia and the British Royal Family. However, the four vast Royal Warrants displayed above the store’s entrance have all been removed, one after the death of The Queen Mother, the remaining three allegedly connected with the well documented events surrounding the death of The Princess of Wales in 1997.

Be careful what you wear into the store, a story once circulated about a girl who bought a pair of designer ripped jeans in Harrods, she later wore them back into the store and was refused entry by doormen, for being dressed too scruffily. If you do get past the entrance staff, the Egyptian Hall awaits and do visit the splendid food hall. After tiring of shopping, there are restaurants on every floor, said to number twenty-eight in total, including a highly rated oyster bar.

If you are more accustomed to shopping in a ‘pound store’, then the cost of two and half kilos of beluga caviar may came as a shock. It is no surprise then, that the store is said to take up to fifteen million pounds a day. Indeed, the Harrods boss was taking dividends of seven hundred thousand pounds a week at the height of the boom in 2007. The owner is the well known Mohammed Al Fayed, together with his publicity shy brother, who together purchased the store in 1985 for 615 million pounds. The purchase made for much controversy, as the rival bidder Tiny Rowland insisted Al Fayed had lied and cheated his way to winning the battle for the store. Tiny Rowland fought Al Fayed more or less up to his death in 1998, even accusing the Egyptian of stealing items from his Harrods safe deposit box.

Dubbed the ‘Phoney Pharaoh’ by his critics, the more he has tried to join the British establishment, the more Al Fayed has apparently been cold-shouldered. His relationship with the Harrods staff is said to be equally at odds, newspapers reported that he regularly addresses the five thousand employees over the in-store public address system and allegedly, even telling staff which way to vote in an election. Allegedly, secret recording equipment was hidden inside fire extinguishers, not so much to observe shoplifters, but in order to keep an eye on his own floor staff.

It cannot be denied that over his twenty-five years of ownership, Mohammed Al Fayed has shown dedication to the world famous store. Sometimes he has even been known to take on a hands-on role, sometimes serving customers fish in the food hall, or sweating beneath heavy boxes in the storage rooms. Al Fayed rarely misses a trick, the Harrods bank has been selling gold bars since late 2009, cashing in on the demand for gold with its surging prices.

During its long history it hasn’t always been rosy, as besides the aforementioned fire, terrorists attacked the store with a car bomb in 1983 and six people were murdered. Also, anti fur trade demonstrators, a familiar thorn in the side of the retail business as a whole, which is not always known for its ethics, have regular protests outside the store, with verbal clashes allegedly occasionally spilling over to violence. Finally, inside the store are two memorials dedicated to the memory of the lives of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed, son of Mohammed, a reminder to a very painful and dramatic series of events for the Harrods owner.
Postscript: On May 8th 2010 the British media reported that Mohamed-al-Fayed had sold Harrods to 'Quatar Holding' which is owned by the Qatari royal family, for £1.5 billion. Mohamed-al-Fayed will continue as honorary chairman. Qatar Holding will become only the fifth owner of Harrods in its long history.

Harrods

87-135 Brompton Road

Knightsbridge SW3 1RT

Nearest London Underground Station (tube): Knightsbridge

Where to view Harrods and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Harrods’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Snow London

2009-12-18T13:24:00.000-08:00

SNOW LONDON

A snow covered London is a rare sight, so if ever the city is blanketed, it draws excited crowds straight to the parks and open areas for snowmen building, snowball fights and all manner of excitement. The playing is often with a sense of urgency, for the city dwellers know that soon enough it will melt and very often be gone for another year. The United Kingdom is, for much of the time, in the path of the warming Gulf Stream which generally flows across from the southwest Atlantic. Also, the island status means that the country is surrounded by much slower cooling sea water, making for less severe winters than almost all the other countries lying on the same latitude. Coupled with the milder winters of recent decades, the sparse snowfalls are generally met with enthusiasm rather than irritation.

The national preoccupation with the quickly changing weather patterns experienced by those living in the United Kingdom, means that wagers are regularly placed with bookmakers as to whether a white Christmas in London is likely to happen. To win the bet, a single flake of snow needs to fall during the twenty-four hours of December 25th. The meteorological office states that London had only ten white Christmases during the twentieth century, which was slightly above average, as the city has only a six per cent probability of having a white Christmas.

In times gone by, white Christmases were more common, with snow falling and lying on the ground for months on end. From the Middle Ages to the mid nineteenth century, winter temperatures in the United Kingdom were on average lower than today, with the coldest winter recorded being that of 1684, just twenty-five years after records first began being taken. The river Thames often froze in winter in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the well-documented 'frost fairs' were held. The old London Bridge aided the freezing of the river, its many broad arches acted as a dam slowing the passage of the water. The Thames froze twenty-three times between 1620 and 1816, the year when it last froze downstream of Teddington, where the river becomes tidal. That final year of freezing, 1816, became known as the, ‘year without summer’ when London saw snow in June and July. This was a phenomenon experienced across the four compass points of the globe, which was caused by volcanic ash set high in the atmosphere, from an earlier massive explosion of a volcano in the East Indies.

The novelist Charles Dickens saw six white Christmases in the first nine years of his life, so it is hardly surprising that snow and all that comes with it, is so evocatively described in his works. Christmas cards first became fashionable in Victorian times and the snowy scenes depicted have continued through to those of the present day. Anyone wishing to recreate the joys of a typical snowy Christmas card scene, should head to Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath or Greenwich Park for the opportunity for steep hill tobogganing and snowball rolling.

There is much pleasure to be had in watching the very young enjoying their first encounter with a London snowfall. Most Londoners hold onto memories of a particularly cold winter throughout their lives. For the old living today, it is the notoriously snowy winter of 1947, the next generation remembers well the winter of 1961. Londoners in their forties will talk of the London snows of 1981-1982 and those born later remember 1990-1991. The very youngest will hold relatively fresh memories of London blanketed in the white stuff from early winter of 2009. As I sit writing these words towards the end of that same year, through the window, here in London, I see white roofs and snowflakes falling.

Where to view video clips of Snow London and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Snow London’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Christmas

2009-12-11T05:28:00.000-08:00

CHRISTMAS

London at Christmas time is excellent for shopping, for festive attractions and many breathtaking activities for children, making the city a popular destination to visit for young and old alike. The city is adorned with lights, Christmas trees, mistletoe, nativity scenes and thousands dressed as Santa Claus many of whom can be seen out on the streets collecting for charities. There are many carol services and concerts and the peculiarly British form of popular theatre, known as pantomime.

Forty million shoppers visit the main shopping thoroughfares central London over the Christmas period and one in four are from abroad. The weakness of Sterling against the Euro currency has led to the number of visitors from Europe overtaking the number from the United States, who in previous years have accounted for half of the two billion pounds spent by foreign visitors in central London each year. Visitors are up fifteen per cent from the Middle East, likewise benefitting from the exchange rate. Oxford Street and Regent Street always have spectacular festive lights, with different themes each year. These Christmas lights are funded by the shops themselves and are famous across the four compass points of the world. The initial switching on ceremony is always a glitzy event attended by many celebrities and their fans.

Open air ice-skating beneath the stars continues through to January the twenty-fourth 2010 in the courtyard of Somerset House. It is one of London’s finest neoclassical buildings, right in the heart of central London, providing a beautiful backdrop for the skaters.

The Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park is an exciting day out with funfairs, grottos, Christmas markets, ice-skating, a German food market, Zippos Circus and a giant observation wheel offering fine views over the surroundings. Winter Wonderland continues until January the third 2010. Entry is free and tokens for the rides and the grotto can be purchased on the day of visiting. Tickets for ice-skating, the wheel and the circus must be purchased in advance. Information for this event and all the others mentioned in this article, are easily found on the Internet.

London’s New Year Day Parade starts at noon on January the First, setting off from Piccadilly and finishing around three in the afternoon on Parliament Street. This will be the twenty-fourth New Year’s Day Parade in the capital, with more than 10,000 performers from over twenty countries worldwide taking part. More than half a million people line the streets to see what is always a spectacular occasion. The event is broadcast across the globe allowing millions to see the marching bands, cheerleaders, clowns, acrobats, giant balloons, vintage vehicles and much else besides.

Church services and carol services take place at most of London’s hundreds of churches, including St Paul’s Cathedral. Also, there is a series of carol services held in Trafalgar Square, under the huge Christmas tree positioned there each year.

Children can meet Father Christmas in Santa’s Grotto at Harrods department store up until to Christmas Eve and there is also a grotto at Selfridges. Also very popular, The English National Ballet performs The Nutcracker at The London Coliseum until the twenty-fourth of January 2010. The Hackney Empire theatre performs an annual pantomime, a long standing tradition and this year Aladdin is their treat.

Where to view video clips of Christmas and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Christmas’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Nelson's Column

2009-12-03T03:40:00.000-08:00

NELSON'S COLUMN

Nelson’s Column is positioned in the centre of London’s Trafalgar Square. The statue of Horatio Nelson stands on top of a Corinthian column, the base of which is surrounded by four alert lions, guarding this statue of a man widely considered to be one of the greatest sailors who ever lived. Trafalgar Square was laid out to commemorate the decisive victory over the combined fleets of the French and the Spanish at the Battle of Trafalgar off the South coast of Spain in 1805 with Nelson’s Column as the centrepiece.

The granite column itself is forty-six metres high and was designed by William Railton. It was built between 1840 and 1843, weighs 2500 metric tonnes and with a ninety-five per cent quartz content it has weathered extremely well. Nelson alone weighs sixteen tonnes. During restoration in 2006 the monument was discovered to be shorter than had previously been thought, it is exactly fifty metres from the base to the tip of the admiral’s hat. The restoration finally repaired Nelson’s arm, which had been damaged by lightning in 1896.

The statue was carved from sandstone by the Royal Academician E.H. Baily. Nelson is depicted three times larger than he was in real life. Nelson is shown looking towards The Admiralty buildings on Whitehall and beyond to distant Portsmouth where the Royal Navy flagship HMS Victory is docked. Nelson died aboard the vessel, which was painstakingly restored by Arthur Bugler and as a consequence it is open for the public to visit.

Facing out to the four compass points, the quartet of bas-reliefs at the base of the column were cast from the captured French cannon at The Battle Of Trafalgar. They depict the battle of Cape St Vincent, The Battle of Nice, the bombardment of Copenhagen and the death of Nelson. The four lions are by Sir Edwin Landseer and they were added after much delay in 1867.

Adolf Hitler boasted in 1940 that after he had successfully invaded England, he would transfer Nelson’s Column from Trafalgar Square to Berlin as an impressive way of underlining German victory as it represented, ‘A symbol of British naval might and world dominion.’

During his lifetime Admiral Lord Nelson lost one of his eyes and one of his arms. The statue shows the sailor as having one arm and two eyes. However, Nelson lost his eye before he lost his arm, so the sculptor should have carved the statue with either two eyes and two arms, one eye and two arms, one eye and one arm, but never as Nelson is actually shown, with two eyes and one arm.

Every year a Christmas tree is positioned to stand alongside the column in Trafalgar Square. A majestic Norwegian Spruce, around seventy feet tall, it is an annual gift from the Norwegians, to mark the support from the British people during the Second World War. For many Londoners the ceremony marks the start of Christmas. In 1996, when the fiftieth tree was presented, Queen Sonja of Norway said, ‘The star on the top is a reminder of what Britain did for us in a dark and difficult period of our history.’ The tree is traditionally one foot longer each year.

This year marks the sixty-third tree to come from the City Of Oslo and it is always decorated in traditional Norwegian style. The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree lighting up ceremony took place on Thursday 3rd December 2009. The tree will remain at Trafalgar Square until Tuesday 5th January 2010.

Carol singing takes place daily from 5pm - 9pm, starting on Monday 7th December and continuing until Sunday 20th December 2009. The carol services are free to attend.

Nelson’s Column is near to Charing Cross and Leicester Square Underground stations. Many bus routes pass through Trafalgar Square.

Where to view video clips of Nelson's Column and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Nelson's Column’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Marble Arch

2009-11-16T07:34:00.000-08:00

MARBLE ARCH

The Marble Arch stands at the northeasterly corner of Hyde Park in central London. It is positioned at an ancient crossroads, where two Roman highways once crossed paths. Today, the arch is stranded within a huge traffic island, at the meeting point of Oxford Street, Park Lane, Bayswater Road and the Edgware Road. Being surrounded by busy lanes of fast moving vehicles, means that it is safest to gain access to the arch through the subterranean walkways, with entrances at four compass points. Once in the central reservation, the many benches, fountains and a grassed rose garden provide a popular resting point for local office workers and tourists alike, albeit with the incessant roar of the surrounding traffic.

The arch was designed by John Nash in 1828 and it is loosely based on the Arch Of Constantine in Rome. At one time Marble Arch stood outside of Buckingham Palace, as a gateway, but it was too narrow for the royal carriages to comfortably pass through. When the east front of Buckingham Palace was remodeled in 1851, the arch was brought to the present location to replace the Cumberland Gate as the north-easterly entry into Hyde Park. Only senior members of the Royal Family and 'The King's Troop', Royal Horse Artillery, can pass through the arch on ceremonial occasions. The King's Troop will cease to go through the arch when they are relocated from St John's Wood to Woolwich in 2012, some fifteen miles distant from where they carry out their ceremonial duties.

The arch has given its name to much of the surrounding residential and business locality. For those exploring the area, to the east is Oxford Street, offering a mile of shops and department stores, with many of the larger ones at the Marble Arch end. To the south, just inside Hyde Park is Speakers Corner, where many gather to rant and rave, perched on the proverbial soapbox, whilst others prefer to heckle. Park Lane, flanked with some of London's largest hotels, leads down to Hyde Park Corner. To the north is the cosmopolitan Edgware Road, with many noted Lebanese restaurants and shisha cafes. To the west is the Bayswater Road, where at number 10, can be seen the narrowest property in London. A few doors away is the Oranhaven, which was a famous refuge for Dutch soldiers during the second world war.

An important part of London's history took place very close to Marble Arch, although nowadays it is marked solely with a plaque set into a small traffic island. The plaque marks the site where the public hangings took place for seven hundred years. The first recorded hangings took place in 1196 and here they continued until 1783. The prisoners were hanged on the Tyburn Tree. Not a real tree, it was a three armed wooden construction and on each arm eight people could be hanged, twenty-foyr at any one time. On the nearby Bayswater Road is to be found the Shrine Of The Sacred Hearts And Tyburn Martyrs, where nuns pray for the souls of the victims of the Tyburn Tree to this very day.

Marble Arch is very occasionally open for the public to climb its interior, sometimes during 'Open House' weekend when many buildings not ordinarily accessible by the general public throw open their doors. Marble Arch is nearest the London Underground station of the same name. Many bus routes converge at this busy junction.

Where to view video clips of Marble Arch and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Marble Arch’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Lord Mayor's Show

2009-11-09T12:54:00.000-08:00

LORD MAYOR’S SHOW

The Lord Mayor’s Show is always held on the second Saturday of November of each year. In 2009, Nick Anstee became the six hundred and eighty second Lord Mayor. The procession was hit by strong gales and driving rain, an occasional hazard for the time of year.

The Lord Mayor’s Show has been a part of London life for seven hundred and eighty-four years. It is a great day out for half a million people, with many millions more watching on television across the globe. Below is a brief history and description of the event, with details and timings given at the end. The first recorded Lord Mayor of The City Of London Henry Fitz-Ailwyn, in 1189. The seeds of The Lord Mayor’s Show were sown in 1191, during the prolonged absence of King Richard I, when a procession took place as he fought at the crusades. Over twenty years later in 1215, King John granted the people of The City Of London the right to choose their own Lord Mayor. There was an important condition attached, that every year the new Lord Mayor should swear loyalty to the crown. To this day, it is the procession from The City Of London to the City Of Westminster to swear allegiance and the return journey, that forms the centrepiece of The Lord Mayor’s Show.

The Lord Mayor’s Show has approximately 6,500 participants with around seventy colourful floats and music from over twenty bands. There are hundreds of eye-catching costumes and more troops than are on parade for the Trooping Of The Colour. Usually there is a thrilling fly past of military aircraft. The day ends with a splendid fireworks display from a barge on the Thames between Waterloo and Southwark Bridges.

The Lord Mayor’s Show has never been cancelled, with the procession marching on unscathed throughout the years of the Black Death, even during The Blitz of The Second World War and right through to the present day. With the advent of television in the twentieth century, The Lord Mayor’s Show was the first event ever to be broadcast live.

To this day Dick Whittington is, in the eyes of many, the most famous Lord Mayor of all, he held the office three times. His popularity is undiminished down the centuries, he was Lord Mayor in 1397, 1406 and 1419 and many Londoners would be hard pressed to name another Lord Mayor between then and now.

Originally, the journey was from The Mansion House to The Great Hall, inside The Palace Of Westminster where the oath of allegiance was sworn. Since 1883 the venue was changed to The Royal Courts Of Justice, still just inside the boundaries of The City Of Westminster. Over the years the occasion became more resplendent until the procession became known as ‘The Lord Mayor’s Show’.

The Lord Mayor always chooses the overall theme of the procession. The ‘great twelve livery companies’ participate in the procession by right, other livery companies participate by invitation and The Lord Mayor’s own livery company is always amongst them. The Lord Mayor usually invites pupils from his old school to participate and also any businesses he has been associated with through his earlier career. Certain army regiments attend by privilege and also have the right to march through The City Of London with fixed bayonets.

Certain streets of the route are unchanged over the centuries. If attending the spectacle, it is worth pausing to think that where you are standing, someone stood four hundred and fifty years ago, watching the novel and exotic sight of a camel on its way to parade beneath Queen Elizabeth The First.

In 1711, The Lord Mayor was knocked from his horse and broke his leg, all caused by a drunken flower girl and he gained the distinction of being last mayor to ride the route by horse. Thereafter they travelled by coach and in 1757 The State Coach was built in 1757. It is pulled by six horses, which, as a mark of respect, is two horses fewer than the eight horses that draw the monarch in The Gold Sate Coach. For most of the year it can be seen in The Museum Of London.

The term ‘float’, used when referring to carnivals and parades, derives from The Lord Mayor’s Show. The quickest route was often by boat and from 1422 until the mid nineteenth century, The Lord Mayor often travelled part of the journey in gilded barges. The decorative floats kept their name even when the occupants travelled on dry land and were transported by wheels.

The City Of London has had over eight hundred years of experience of civic government. The Lord Mayor is supported by aldermen, sheriffs, guildsmen and deputies. There are now one hundred and eight livery companies, which were established mostly between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries. Today, The Lord Mayor is the head of The Corporation Of London, which is broadly speaking The City Of London’s local authority. Uniquely, it is a non-party political authority, whose responsibilities extend far beyond The City.

One of the main activities of The Corporation Of London is to support The City within the fields of international business and finance. The Lord Mayor’s job is crucial, travelling to the four compass points of the globe in an ambassadorial role, continually promoting the city along the way. Besides this, there is a year round daily schedule of civic and ceremonial duties. The City Of London is a vital contributor to the country’s coffers and The Lord Mayor is seen as both a symbol of stability and strength, representing and promoting its interests.

The Mansion House is the official residence of the Lord Mayor Of The City Of London. Built by George Dance The Senior in 1739, it is a Renaissance style edifice with an imposing Corinthian portico. Contained within the building is the vast Egyptian Hall, where banquets and feasts take place throughout the year, including the annual dinner at which the Chancellor Of The Exchequer makes a speech. The building contains a dungeon, with ten cells for men and one cell for women, called the ‘Birdcage’ where suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was held. On the roof of the Mansion House flies The City Of London flag, consisting of the red cross of St George on a white background, with a dagger positioned in the top left hand corner. The Mansion House is occasionally open to the public.

The Lord Mayor’s Show usually begins with a Royal Air Force flypast at 11am, to mark the start of the Lord Mayor’s procession and the Lord Mayor begins his slow journey to The Royal Courts Of Justice. Grandstand seats can be booked for the spectacle. The return procession sets off from The Victoria Embankment to The Mansion House at around 1.10pm, arriving at 2.30pm. A fireworks display usually takes place at 5pm, but it is sometimes cancelled in extreme weather conditions. The display is lit from barges on the river Thames, situated between Waterloo and Southwark bridges.

Further details can be found at: www.lordmayorsshow.org

Where to view video clips of Lord Mayor's Show and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Lord Mayor's Show’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Big Ben

2009-11-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

BIG BEN

One can never see Big Ben, one can only ever hear it. Big Ben is the name of the bell inside the clock tower at the northerly end of The Palace Of Westminster. The entire tower is commonly referred to as Big Ben and it is an iconic symbol of London recognizable the world over. Visitors to London often assume Big Ben to be considerably older than it is. At the other end of the Palace Of Westminster stands the immense Victoria Tower and the Houses Of Parliament and the Westminster Hall lie between the two.

The previous Palace Of Westminster burned down in 1834 and it was rebuilt in the 1840's and 1850's by Sir Charles Barry in the mock Gothic style that was fashionable in part of the Victorian era. Big Ben itself was built between 1854 and 1859 by Augustus Pugin, a masterful champion of medieval shapes, to whom Sir Charles Barry entrusted the project. When Pugin had watched the fire at the Palace Of Westminster in 1834 he uttered, “There is nothing much to regret and a great deal to rejoice in.” Little did he realise that he himself would play such a significant role in its rebuilding. Pugin was a great genius who ended up as an inmate of Bedlam lunatic asylum. Ironically, he despised beer and tobacco, both of which are copiously imbibed inside the Palace Of Westminster.

There are two schools of thought regarding the origins of the name Big Ben. The first is from Sir Benjamin Hall, who was the chief engineer of the project, who oversaw the positioning of the bell. Others suggest that it was from the workers in the foundry where the bell was cast who coined the name. They were said to be supporters of Benjamin Caunt, who was a popular prize fighter of the day, either way, the name quickly took on.

Big Ben weighs thirteen and a half Imperial tons. Big Ben is the world’s third tallest clock tower and has the world’s largest four faced chiming clock. The clock face has a diameter of seven metres. The minute hand is over two and a half metres long. The pendulum beats once every two seconds. Big Ben is still wound by hand and it takes two men thirty-two hours to wind the mechanism.

At the turn of the millennium, Big Ben started to lean, by a significant twenty-two millimetres, after new tunnelling for the Jubilee Line extension of the London Underground railway was completed. The only major breakdown suffered by Big Ben was in August of 1976, during what is recorded as the hottest summer on record in the United Kingdom, when the original speed regulator finally gave in. Again, during extremely hot weather in 2005, the rare occurrence of failing parts stopped the clock. Big Ben works fine in the cold, although on New Year’s Eve of 1962, settled snow on the hands meant that the chimes saw in the new year a full ten minutes late.

During the Second World War, the clock faces were darkened at night to prevent the possibility of guiding Blitz pilots towards The Palace Of Westminster. In the same war, the chimes of Big Ben were nightly broadcast out to the four compass points of the world at nine o’ clock. It naturally became a symbol to countless millions of people in occupied countries that there was still hope of deliverance. The clock is accurate to within a second and it is checked against Greenwich meantime on a daily basis. With such accuracy, its chimes continue to be broadcast on the World Service and other radio and television stations, usually to mark the start of news bulletins. Should you live one mile away from Big Ben, the sound of the chimes take four a half seconds to reach your ears, which is a fraction longer than hearing them on the radio news bulletin, meaning listeners have the peculiarity of hearing thirteen chimes.

Big Ben has a distinctively odd sounding twang because the bell is cracked. The first bell was badly broken when it fell during positioning. A second bell was cast and it was soon cracked when a hammer of twice the recommended weight was used to strike it. Rather than suffer the expenditure of casting a third bell, it was instead repaired and the striking position was altered, leading to its curious sound.

If looking up at Big Ben in darkness, check to see whether the signal light in the lantern towards the very top is lit. Whenever the House Of Commons is sitting at night, this distinctive light, known as The Ayrton Light, burns bright. As we see, Big Ben does far more than to simply show the time. Its worldwide familiarity is testament to Pugin’s mastery and the Palace Of Westminster’s historical importance. Splendid views of Big Ben are to be had from Westminster Bridge, Parliament Square and from The London Eye on the South Bank. Frequent Thames river tours take passengers directly past Big Ben. The nearest tube station (London Underground) is Westminster.

Where to view video clips of Big Ben and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Big Ben’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Serpentine

2009-10-30T04:37:00.000-07:00

SERPENTINE

The Serpentine is an urban lake situated in central London's largest parkland. It marks the dividing point between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. The surface area of the lake covers twenty-eight acres, or sixteen hectares. The name derives from its snake like shape. It is an artificial lake, landscaped in 1730 and it was one of the first manmade lakes deliberately intended to look natural. Before then, created bodies of water had been straight and angular and The Serpentine set a precedent, with its curving lines afterwards widely copied in estates across the country.

The history of The Serpentine begins with Caroline, the queen of George II, who was responsible for enclosing three hundred acres of Hyde Park to form Kensington Gardens. Enthused with the results, she inquired of the prime minister of the day how much it would cost to enclose the remainder of Hyde Park together with the neighboring Green Park and St James's Park, solely for royal use. The Prime Minister replied, "Three crowns, those of England, Scotland and Wales." The hint was taken and her landscaping was limited to the area from Kensington Palace to The Serpentine.

The Serpentine was formed from the river Westbourne, now surviving as one of London's many subterranean rivers. A small stretch of the hidden river Westbourne can be seen from one of the platforms of Sloane Square underground station, contained within a large pipe that traverses above the tracks and trains, on its journey towards the much larger river Thames. The Westbourne tributary formed eleven natural ponds in Hyde Park which were then enlarged to create The Serpentine.

The north-western half of lake is properly known as the Long Water and it is partly surrounded by the ornately laid out Italian Gardens, with the larger south-eastern area officially being The Serpentine. The divide between The Long Water and The Serpentine is at the point of the magnificent 1826 George Rennie bridge. The river still feeds four ornamental fountains in the Italian Gardens, thereby maintaining the water level of the lake, even during drought. The inflow of fresh water attracts wildfowl, arriving from the four compass points, many being winter visitors to the lake. Great Crested Grebes, Black Swans, Buzzards and Egyptian Geese have all been spotted in recent times.

Since its creation, The Serpentine has been actively used for recreational purposes, it has never been a purely ornamental feature. In Queen Caroline's lifetime it was popular for ice skating. Up until the 1850's twelve thousand people regularly swam in the lake. The lido remains open in the summer, with swimming between 10.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. At its deepest the lake is twelve metres. In the summer time there are over a hundred pedalos and row boats available for hire.

A longstanding tradition continues with a one hundred yards swimming competition held on Christmas Day of every year. The cold winter water is considered hazardous for those unaccustomed to it, so the competition is only open to members of The Serpentine Swimming Club. The event began in 1864 and after JM Barrie had awarded the prize to the winner in 1904, the contest was named, 'The Peter Pan Cup.' JM Barrie lived on the nearby Bayswater Road, the house is marked by a plaque and he wrote the story of Peter Pan whilst living there. On the shores of the lake stands a famous statue of Peter Pan, created by Sir George Frampton in 1912.

At only twenty-one, Harriet Westbrook, the pregnant wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, walked the short distance from her lodgings to the park and was found drowned in The Serpentine in the winter of 1821. Curiously, her surname of Westbrook effectively means the same as Westbourne, the one being a regional variation of the other. Thirty years later in 1851, The Great Exhibition with its majestic centre piece of the Crystal Palace was held on parkland just to the south of The Serpentine.

To the south west of the lake is The Serpentine Art Gallery and a little further beyond is The Albert Memorial. The Princess Diana Memorial Fountain is also to the south. The Holocaust Memorial Gardens are located at the eastern shore of the lake, the gardens are poignantly marked by two large boulders with emotive inscriptions.

The Serpentine Bar and Kitchen is a popular restaurant bordering the lake. The Serpentine lake is situated between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens with access by road from The Serpentine Road, London W2. Car parking is available. Underground Stations include Lancaster Gate and Bayswater to the north of the park and Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge to the south.

Where to view video clips of The Serpentine and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Serpentine’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Copyright: London In Motion 2009
Email: tom@londoninmotion.com

London Eye

2009-10-22T03:13:00.000-07:00

LONDON EYE

The London Eye is an observation wheel positioned on the south bank of the river Thames in central London. At the time of construction it was the largest wheel in the world. Now surpassed by The Singapore Flyer which is thirty metres higher but of a different design. The London Eye remains the worlds tallest cantilevered wheel. Its construction was a marvel of engineering, manufactured with a huge international effort involving hundreds of people.

When it was built, l remember seeing the barges, arriving from Rotterdam, slowly carrying the parts up stream. The wheel was assembled over the river, before being slowly hoisted into position in October of 1999. Weighing three hundred and thirty tonnes, it is twenty times heavier than Big Ben, which stands on the opposite bank. The spindle is the size of a church tower. The wheel travels at twenty-six centimeters per second, taking a full thirty minutes to complete a revolution. It moves slowly enough for passengers to hop on and off whilst in motion, only halting for the disabled or elderly.

Not strictly a ferris wheel, it is London's fourth tallest structure, offering views to the four compass points and up to twenty-five miles distant. It is possible to see Windsor Castle on a clear day when reaching the top, a full one hundred and thirty five metres up. There are thirty-two capsules, one for every London borough, each with a capacity of twenty-five passengers.

It is not the first wheel of size to be erected in London. In 1894 'The Great Wheel' was constructed at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre and only dismantled in 1907. The twenty minute journey turned out to be much longer for some passengers when on one occasion the wheel stuck and those aboard had to spend a whole night and half the following day in situ. The stranded people were given compensation of five pounds and five shillings, which was a sizable fee in those days. Such an occurrence is yet to befall The London Eye, which has been largely problem free, apart from early technicalities which delayed its opening by a few months. Since then, the attraction has been a terrific success, despite practitioners of the ancient Chinese tradition of Feng Shui predicting trouble, citing the wheel’s rotation in the opposite direction of the river's flow as being ‘energy blocking.’ Fortunately, the Feng Shui doom mongers had failed to take into consideration that at the location of The London Eye, the Thames is still strongly tidal, with many thousands of cubic metres per second of estuary water surging back up past the wheel, on a twice daily basis and in the same direction as the rotation.

The wheel cost twenty million pounds sterling to build and prior to opening it was expected have two million visitors a year. Extraordinarily, this was a conservative estimate, with three and half million visitors in the first year alone. From 2002 onwards the Euro currency was excepted as payment and by September of that year, the ten millionth flight had been recorded, rising to thirty million flights by 2008.

Originally, the attraction was given only a five year license by Lambeth Council. However, many pointed out that the Eiffel Tower in Paris was likewise intended as a temporary structure. Sure enough, by 2006, the popularity of The London Eye had secured a twenty-five lease. Attempts by the South Bank Centre, which owns the small patch of land beneath the wheel, to massively increase its rent from sixty four thousand pounds to two and a half million, were prevented by direct interference from City Hall and a more acceptable compromise was reached. This in part helped The London Eye to defy the 2008-2009 recession, by turning a record profit of almost five million pounds according to accounts filed in October 2009. Its finances were boosted by a surge of European visitors since the recession's drop in Sterling and The London Eye remains one of the world's top fifty tourist destinations. This is in terms of visitor numbers, coming in just behind The Statue Of Liberty and The Coliseum but ahead of the Taj Mahal and Versailles.

In late 2009 The London Eye was operated by Merlin Entertainments, having taken over from British Airways in 2005. There are a number of novelty packages on offer and it is possible to hire a whole capsule for themed occasions, including the aptly entitled 'Eye Do.' This offers private hire for civil partnership ceremonies and the capsule comes filled with flowers and champagne.

The London Eye opens at 10 am and closes at different times depending on the seasons of the year. In late 2009 the ride cost £17. Check precise opening times and prices with The London Eye. In previous years the attraction was closed during the month of January for maintenance. Contact The London Eye for the exact dates of closure.

Where to view video clips of London Eye and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘London Eye’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Copyright: London In Motion 2009
Email: tom@londoninmotion.com

Eros

2009-10-16T02:24:00.000-07:00

EROS

The statue commonly known as Eros stands in Piccadilly Circus, which is considered the Times Square of London. It is where six well known London streets meet and the name ‘Circus’ derives from the Latin word for circle or ring. When Eros was unveiled in 1893 it stood right in the centre of this circular junction. In the early 1980’s, Eros was moved slightly to the south and the traffic diverted to the north. This allowed pedestrian access right up to it, without first having to cross over busy lanes of traffic. It is said, should one pledge one’s love beneath Eros at midnight that their love will never fail.

Indeed, the Greeks worshipped Eros as a fertility deity and the god of sensual love, but in fact, the statue was intended by the sculptor to be Anteros, the twin brother of Eros, who was the god of selfless love. The reason being that the memorial was dedicated to the seventh Earl of Shaftsbury, a prominent nineteenth century philanthropist, who was a fine example of a human being who expressed selfless love and unconditional giving. The subtle difference between the twins was little understood at the time and the statue was widely assumed to be Eros. The authorities reckoned its, ‘brazen and impudent nakedness at the hub of empire to be too much’ and attempts were made to have the memorial known as ‘The Angel Of Christian Charity.’ Certainly, Anteros better suited the Earl of Shaftsbury, but the character of Eros was more fitting to the neighbourhood, with the seedier streets of Soho only a short walk away.

Eros is positioned up high in the centre of ‘The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain.’ The fountain is of bronze, in contrast to Eros, which was the very first British statue to be made from aluminium. The aluminium is fragile and Eros is usually clad in protective boarding to prevent revellers climbing atop, at times of celebration in central London.

The sculptor Sir Alfred Gilbert was paid £3000 for his efforts but it cost him £7000 to make and he was well out of pocket. It is hardly surprising that he was soon afterwards bankrupted and he fled to Bruges. Gossip of the day told that he was exiled to Belgium because the statue was so despised by both the establishment and the critics alike. The statue was indeed largely disliked initially, but the rumours were untrue and only added to his misfortune. After twenty-five years he returned from Belgium to England and received an overdue knighthood only two years before he died.

Alfred Gilbert’s Eros is a universally familiar figure, much reproduced and photographs of it are in tourist albums across the four compass points of the world. A graphic illustration of Eros is used as the symbol for the London Evening Standard letterhead, the perfect icon for the capital’s newspaper. For many decades Eros has been a famous meeting point and it is said that it doesn’t matter who you are, or from where you have come, if you wait under Eros for long enough, you’ll eventually meet someone you know.

Eros

Piccadilly Circus

London W1

Where to view video clips of London

London In Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Eros’ category of this website. New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Email: tom@londoninmotion.com