The London Daily Newsletter Tuesday 8 August The London Necropolis Railway was opened in 1854 as a reaction to severe overcrowding in London’s existing graveyards and cemeteries. The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.
The London Daily Newsletter Tuesday 8 August The Hungerford Stairs were the entrance point to Hungerford Market from the River Thames. They are now the site of Charing Cross railway Station. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.
The London Daily Newsletter Tuesday 8 August The Hungerford Stairs were the entrance point to Hungerford Market from the River Thames. They are now the site of Charing Cross railway Station. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.
The London Daily Newsletter Monday 7 August A local West Hampstead builder, Thomas Potter, constructed Cedars in 1878. The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.
The London Daily Newsletter Monday 7 August Leytonstone is an area of east London and part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest . Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.
Lillington Gardens Estate Lillington Gardens is an estate in the Pimlico area, constructed in phases between 1961 and 1980. Lillington Gardens was among the last of the high-density public housing schemes built in London during the postwar period, and is referred to as one of the most distinguished.
Notably, seven years before the Ronan Point disaster ended the dominance of the tower block, Lillington Gardens looked ahead to a new standard that achieved high housing density within a medium rather than high-rise structure. It emphasised individuality in the grouping of dwellings, and provided for private gardens at ground and roof levels.
The estate’s high build quality, and particularly the planted gardens of its wide ’roof streets’, blend sympathetically with the surrounding Victorian terraces.
The estate’s high quality design was acknowledged by a Housing Design Award (1961), Ministry of Housing and Local Government Award for Good Design (1970), RIBA Award (1970) and RIBA Commendation (1973). Nikolaus Pevsner described it in 1973 as “the most interesting recent housing scheme in London”.
The site surrounds the Grade I listed Church of St James the Less, dating from 1859–61. The entire estate, including the church, was designated a conservation area in 1990.
The estate is often grouped with the Longmoore Estate, north of Lillington Street.
TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.
An Omnibus Ride to Piccadilly Circus, Mr Gladstone Travelling with Ordinary Passengers (1885)
Credit: Alfred Morgan (1862-1904)
This painting shows Mr Gladstone, the British Prime Minister, travelling with ordinary passengers.
The description of the painting also says that it includes a self portrait. Thus we can perhaps assume that the artist, Alfred Morgan, is seated next to the window on the left-hand side.
RAF Bomber Command Memorial The Royal Air Force Bomber Command Memorial is a memorial commemorating the crews of RAF Bomber Command who embarked on missions during the Second World War. The controversy over the tactics employed by RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War meant that an official memorial to the aircrews had been delayed for many years. Despite describing bombers as “the means of victory” in 1940, British prime minister Winston Churchill did not mention Bomber Command in his speech at the end of the war.
An appeal was made for £5.6 million to build the memorial, and funding came from donations made by the public, as well as substantial amounts from Lord Ashcroft and businessmen John Caudwell and Richard Desmond. Robin Gibb, the singer, became a key figure behind the appeal, working alongside Jim Dooley to raise funds and have the memorial built.
Liam O’Connor designed the memorial, built of Portland stone, which features a bronze 2.7 metre sculpture of seven aircrew, designed by the sculptor Philip Jackson to look as though they have just returned from a bombing mission and left their aircraft.
Aluminium from a Royal Canadian Air Force Handley Page Halifax of No. 426 Squadron that had crashed in Belgium in May 1944 was used to build the roof of the memorial, which was designed to evoke the geodetic structure of the Vickers Wellington. The Halifax, LW682 OW/M, had been removed from a swamp in 1997 with three of the crew found still at their posts. They were buried with full military honours in Geraardsbergen and the remains of the aircraft were sent to Canada. Some of the metal was used for the restoration of a Halifax in Trenton, Ontario, and the rest was melted down by the Bomber Command Museum of Canada in Nanton, Alberta. The Museum provided ingots for the memorial to commemorate the 10,659 of 55,573 Bomber Command aircrew killed during the war that were Canadian.
Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the memorial on 28 June 2012, unveiling the bronze sculpture. The ceremony was attended by 6,000 veterans and family members of those killed, and the Avro Lancaster of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight dropped red poppy petals over Green Park.
TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.
Wellington Arch Wellington Arch is located to the south of Hyde Park at the western corner of Green Park.
Both the Wellington Arch and Marble Arch (originally sited in front of Buckingham Palace) were planned in 1825 by George IV to commemorate Britain’s victories in the Napoleonic Wars. The Wellington Arch was also conceived as an outer gateway to Constitution Hill and therefore a grand entrance into central London from the west.
The presence of a turnpike gate at this point had led, in the 18th century, to a strong perception that this was the beginning of London (reflected in the nickname for Apsley House as “No 1, London”) and the arch was intended to reflect the importance of the position.
The arch was built between 1826 and 1830 to a design by Decimus Burton. It was planned as part of a single composition with Burton’s screen that forms the Hyde Park Corner entrance to Hyde Park. The arch was originally positioned directly to the south of the screen, with the end of Constitution Hill re-aligned to meet it squarely, to form a corresponding entrance to a grand ceremonial route towards Buckingham Palace.
The arch has a single opening, and uses the Corinthian order. Much of the intended exterior ornamentation was omitted as a cost-saving exercise necessitated by the King’s overspending on the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, which was underway at the same time. A contemporary account, written in anticipation of its completion to its original plan, describes what was intended.
The entabulature is loft and elegant with a richly sculptured frieze, and a row of boldly projecting lions’ heads on the cymatium, marking the centres of columns and other sub-divisions of the order. Above the entablature, on a lofty blocking course, is raised an attic, the body of which is embellished with a sculptural representation of an ancient triumph. On each of the columns is a statue of a warrior, and on the summit of the acroterium which surmounts the attic is a figure in a quadriga or ancient four horse chariot.
In 1846 the arch was selected as a location for a statue of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, soldier and Prime Minister. The bronze Wellington Statue by Matthew Cotes Wyatt which eventually crowned the arch was at 40 tons and 28 feet high, the largest equestrian figure ever made.
It generated considerable controversy and ridicule at the time. Motions were put in place to move it to a different location but as this could have been seen as insulting to Wellington it was left in place on the orders of the Queen and remained there throughout the remainder of the Duke’s lifetime.
In 1882-3 the arch was moved a short distance to its present location on Hyde Park Corner to facilitate a road widening scheme. In the new location it lost its original relationship to the entrance of Hyde Park, but was now on axis with the main part of Constitution Hill, to which it continued to form a grand entrance. It is now in the centre of a large traffic island, taken from what was the western tip of Green Park.
When the arch was rebuilt in its new position, the Wellington statue was not replaced. It was removed to Aldershot, and a smaller equestrian statue of the duke was commissioned from Joseph Edgar Boehm to stand on a plinth nearby. Decimus Burton had originally envisaged a sculpture of a quadriga on top of the arch. His intentions were finally realised in 1912, with the installation of a bronze designed by Adrian Jones. It is based on a smaller original which caught the eye of Edward VII at a Royal Academy exhibition. The sculpture depicts Nike, the Winged Goddess of Victory, descending on the chariot of war. The face of the charioteer leading the quadriga is that of a small boy (actually the son of Lord Michelham,, who funded the sculpture). The angel of peace was modelled on Beatrice Stewart. The statue is the largest bronze sculpture in Europe.
The arch is hollow inside, and until 1992 housed the smallest police station in London.
TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.
Hampstead Garden Suburb from Willifield Way (1914)
Golders Green crematorium can be seen in the background
William Whitehead Ratcliffe/Tate
Video: Flying into LCY A simulated flight into LCY courtesy of Google Earth Studio.
Purfleet Purfleet-on-Thames is located in the Thurrock unitary authority in Essex. Situated in the easternmost part of the M25 motorway, it is just outside the Greater London boundary. Previously, Purfleet was part of the traditional Church of England parish of West Thurrock. The area has a mix of industrial activity to the south and is encompassed within the Thames Gateway redevelopment area. Purfleet is recognized as one of the seven conservation areas in Thurrock.
The origins of the name “Purfleet” can be traced back to 1285 when it was referred to as Purteflyete. The name signifies “Purta’s stream or tidal inlet,” indicating its geographical features and history as a waterfront settlement.
During the 18th century, Purfleet Royal Gunpowder Magazine was established as a crucial storage site for gunpowder, accompanied by a garrison for protection. The presence of stored gunpowder created a constant risk of explosions, particularly from lightning strikes. To mitigate this danger, Benjamin Franklin was consulted for advice on designing lightning conductors. The Royal Society supported his design for pointed conductors, which effectively protected the powder store from lightning strikes. However, after the American Revolution, King George III insisted on the replacement of pointed conductors with blunt ones, following which the president of the Royal Society was compelled to resign.
Today, one of the original five magazines, Magazine number 5, remains as the Purfleet Garrison Heritage and Military Centre. It holds the status of a Scheduled Ancient Monument and is managed by volunteers. The centre showcases a diverse collection of local and military memorabilia, including items from RAF Hornchurch.
Renowned artist J. M. W. Turner documented Purfleet in his sketches created between 1805 and 1808, with a particular focus on the Powder Magazines. These sketches, found in the River and Margate Sketchbook, are part of the esteemed Tate Britain collection and were accepted as part of the Turner Bequest in 1856.
TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.
London from Greenwich Park (1720)
From the Dutch school of painting in vogue at the time, notable features of this painting are the palace in central Greenwich (later demolished), St Paul’s as the tallest London building on the horizon and a very green Isle of Dogs
Perivale Halt Perivale Halt railway station was a station on the New North Main Line of the Great Western Railway. The station was opened by the Great Western Railway on 1 May 1904, originally being named Perivale. It had long wooden platforms, and pagoda huts, on an embankment reached by sloping paths west of Horsenden Lane South.
The steam “push-and-pull” passenger service ran to Paddington (Bishop’s Road), the line was shared with freight, and express trains to Birmingham (2 hours, non-stop). Until the late 1920s, Perivale was entirely rural, despite its proximity to Ealing. A similar halt was at South Greenford before it was modernised by Network SouthEast.
The station closed temporarily on 1 February 1915, reopening on 29 March 1920; and on 10 July 1922 was renamed Perivale Halt. It closed permanently on 15 June 1947, after the extension of the Central line to Ruislip.
TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.
View of a House and its Estate in Belsize, Middlesex (1696)
London and its smoke is visible on the left horizon
Blue Peter Garden The original garden, adjacent to Television Centre, was designed by Percy Thrower in 1974. Its features include an Italian sunken garden with a pond, which contains goldfish, a vegetable patch, greenhouse and viewing platform. George the Tortoise was interred in the garden following his death in 2004, and there is also a bust of the dog Petra, sculptures of Mabel and the Blue Peter ship, and a plaque in honour of Percy Thrower.
When the programme’s production base moved to Salford MediaCityUK in September 2011, sections of the garden, including the sculptures and the sunken pond, were carefully relocated to the piazza of the new studio facility.
TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.
Impromptu Dance, a Scene on the Chelsea Embankment (1883)
Quantum Cloud The Quantum Cloud is a sculpture located next to the Millennium Dome in London. The sculpture was commissioned for the site and was completed in 1999.
It is 30 metres high and designed by Antony Gormley. It is constructed from a collection of tetrahedral units made from 1.5 m long sections of steel. The steel sections were arranged using a computer model with a random walk algorithm starting from points on the surface of an enlarged figure based on Gormley’s body that forms a residual outline at the centre of the sculpture.
In designing Quantum Cloud, Antony Gormley was influenced by Basil Hiley, quantum physicist (and long-time colleague of David Bohm). The idea for Quantum Cloud came from Hiley’s thoughts on pre-space as a mathematical structure underlying space-time and matter.
TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.
The Building Of Westminster Bridge (1749)
Samuel Scott/Bank of England Museum
Video: Flying into LCY A simulated flight into LCY courtesy of Google Earth Studio.
Greenwich Peninsula The Greenwich Peninsula is bounded on three sides by a loop of the Thames, between the Isle of Dogs to the west and Silvertown to the east.
Formerly known as Greenwich Marshes and as Bugsby’s Marshes, it became known as East Greenwich as it developed in the 19th century, but more recently has been called North Greenwich due to the location of the North Greenwich tube station. This should not be confused with North Greenwich on the Isle of Dogs, at the north side of a former ferry from Greenwich.
The peninsula was drained by Dutch engineers in the 16th century, allowing it to be used as pasture land. In the 17th century, Blackwall Point (the northern tip of the peninsula, opposite Blackwall) gained notoriety as a location where pirates’ corpses were hung in cages as a deterrent to other would-be pirates. In the 1690s the Board of Ordnance established a gunpowder magazine on the west side of the peninsula, which was in operation by 1695 serving as the government’s primary magazine (where newly-milled powder was stored prior to being distributed, on board specially-equipped hoys, to wherever it was needed). Alongside the magazine was a wharf, a proof house and accommodation for the resident Storekeeper. From the early 18th century, however, local residents began petitioning Parliament, asking for the magazine (and its dangerous contents in particular) to be removed; this eventually led to the establishment of a new set of Royal Gunpowder Magazines downriver at Purfleet, which was opened in 1765. By 1771 gunpowder was no longer stored at Greenwich (though the buildings remained in situ for some decades afterwards).
The peninsula was steadily industrialised from the early 19th century onwards. In 1857 a plan was presented to Parliament for a huge dock occupying much of the peninsula, connected to Greenwich Reach to the west and Bugsby’s Reach to the east, but this came to nothing. Early industries included Henry Blakeley’s Ordnance Works making heavy guns, with other sites making chemicals, submarine cables, iron boats, iron and steel. Henry Bessemer built a steel works in the early 1860s to supply the London shipbuilding industry, but this closed as a result of a fall in demand due to the financial crisis of 1866. Later came oil mills, shipbuilding (for example the 1870 clippers Blackadder and Hallowe’en built by Maudslay), boiler making, manufacture of Portland cement and linoleum (Bessemer’s works became the Victoria linoleum works) and the South Metropolitan Gas company’s huge East Greenwich Gas Works. Early in the 20th century came bronze manufacturers Delta Metals and works making asbestos and ’Molassine Meal’ animal feed.
For over 100 years the peninsula was dominated by the gasworks which primarily produced town gas, also known as coal gas. The gasworks grew to 240 acres, the largest in Europe, also producing coke, tar and chemicals as important secondary products. The site had its own extensive railway system connected to the main railway line near Charlton, and a large jetty used to unload coal and load coke. There were two huge gas holders. Originally manufacturing gas from coal, the plant began to manufacture gas from oil in the 1960s. The discovery of natural gas reserves in the North Sea soon rendered the complex obsolete.
On the eastern shore was Blackwall Point Power Station; the original station from the 1890s was replaced in the 1950s by a new station which ceased operation about 1981. A large area including the site of the Victoria linoleum works later became the Victoria Deep Water Terminal in 1966, handling container traffic.
At the southern end of the peninsula Enderby’s Wharf was occupied by a succession of submarine cable companies from 1857 onwards, including Glass Elliot, W T Henley, Telcon, Submarine Cables Ltd, STC, Nortel and Alcatel.
The peninsula remained relatively remote from central London until the opening of the Blackwall Tunnel in 1897, and had no passenger railway or London Underground service until the opening of North Greenwich tube station on the Jubilee line in 1999.
Closure of the gasworks, power station and other industries in the late 20th century left much of the Greenwich Peninsula a barren wasteland, much of it heavily contaminated.
In the early years of the 21st century, surviving industries were mainly concentrated on the western side of the peninsula, between the river and the A102 Blackwall Tunnel southern approach road. They included Alcatel, a Tunnel Refiners/Amylum glucose plant (from 1976 until about 2008 part of Tate & Lyle) which closed in 2009, and two large marine aggregate terminals on the Delta Metals and Victoria Deep Water Terminal sites. One of the two gas holders also remains.
Public and private investment since the early 1990s has brought about some dramatic changes in the peninsula’s topography. In 1997 the national regeneration agency, English Partnerships, (now named the Homes and Communities Agency) purchased 1.21 square kilometres of disused land on the peninsula. The agency’s investment of over £225m has helped to enhance the transport network and create new homes, commercial space and community facilities and to open up access to parkland along the river.
In addition to the construction of the Millennium Dome, new roads were built on the eastern side of the Peninsula in anticipation of new developments. New riverside walkways, cycle paths and public artworks were also created, including Antony Gormley’s Quantum Cloud and A Slice of Reality, a work by Richard Wilson.
North Greenwich tube station on the Jubilee line opened in 1999. It is one of the largest London Underground stations and also has a bus station. The North Greenwich Pier offering commuter boat service to other parts of London, both east and west, is located on the Thames just to the east of the tube station.
Transport for London constructed a cable car over the River Thames just before the 2012 Summer Olympics began.
The peninsula is being developed with new homes.
TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.
Old Battersea Bridge, Walter Greaves (oil on canvas, 1874)
Old Battersea Bridge, seen from upstream, on Lindsey Row (now Cheyne Walk), with Battersea on the far shore. The boatyard belonging to the Greaves family is in the foreground. On the extreme left is the wall surrounding the garden of the artist William Bell Scott. In the far distance Crystal Palace is just visible.
Battersea Bridge was demolished in 1881, and replaced with the present bridge. Before the alterations Greaves recalled the danger to shipping and the difficulty of steering through the arches unless the ‘set of the tide was known’.
On the horizon, Crystal Palace can be seen
Emirates Air Line The Emirates Air Line is a cable car link across the River Thames, built by Doppelmayr with sponsorship from the airline Emirates. The service opened on 28 June 2012 and is operated by Transport for London. In addition to transport across the river. The duration of a single crossing is ten minutes (reduced to five minutes in rush hour as the service speed is increased).
The service, announced in July 2010 and estimated to cost £60,000,000; comprises a 1-kilometre gondola line that crosses the Thames from the Greenwich Peninsula to the Royal Victoria Dock, to the west of ExCeL London. Construction of the cable car began in August 2011. The cable car is based on monocable detachable gondola (MDG) technology, a system which uses a single cable for both propulsion and support.
TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.
On 1 June 2002, the first national law prohibiting ‘light pollution’ went into effect. The Czech Republic became the first nation to outlaw excess outdoor light.
All outdoor light fixtures in the country must be shielded to ensure light goes only in the direction intended, and not above the horizontal. Czech astronomers had lobbied for the legislation.
Light from street and road signs bounces off molecules in the atmosphere, making skies less dark. This light pollution is a particular problem for astronomers since even low levels of man-made light from distant cities can obscure their view of faint objects far away in space. Better designed, non-polluting light fixtures should give everyone better more energy efficiency and reduce glare on roads and in residential areas.
Blackwall Tunnel The Blackwall Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels which pass underneath the River Thames. The tunnel links the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and forms part of the A102 road.
A tunnel in the Blackwall area was originally proposed in the 1880s. According to Robert Webster, then MP for St Pancras East, a tunnel would “be very useful to the East End of London, a district representing in trade and commerce a population greater than the combined populations of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham.” By this time, all road bridges in London east of the ferry at Chiswick were toll-free, but these were of little use to the two fifths of London’s population that lived to the east of London Bridge. The Thames Tunnel (Blackwall) Act was created in August 1887, which provided the legal framework necessary to construct the tunnel. The initial proposal, made by Sir Joseph Bazalgette, called for three parallel tunnels, two for vehicular traffic and one for foot, with an expected completion date of works within seven years. It was originally commissioned by the Metropolitan Board of Works but, just before the contract was due to start, responsibility passed to the London County Council (LCC) when the former body was abolished in 1889 and Bazalgette’s work on the tunnel ended.
The original tunnel as built was designed by Sir Alexander Binnie and built by S. Pearson & Sons, between 1892 and 1897, for whom Ernest William Moir was the lead engineer. It was constructed using tunnelling shield and compressed air techniques and a Greathead shield (named after its inventor, James Henry Greathead). It was lit by three rows of incandescent street lights. To clear the site in Greenwich, more than 600 people had to be rehoused, and a house reputedly once owned by Sir Walter Raleigh had to be demolished. The work force was largely drawn from immigrants; the tunnel lining was manufactured in Glasgow, while the manual labour came from provincial England, particularly Yorkshire.
The southern entrance gateway to the tunnel, also known as Southern Tunnel House, was designed by LCC architect Thomas Blashill and was built just before the tunnel was completed. It comprises two floors with an attic.
The tunnel was officially opened by the Prince of Wales on 22 May 1897. The total cost of the tunnel was £1.4 M and 800 men were employed in its construction, during which seven deaths were recorded.
The tunnel has several sharp bends, in order that the tunnel could align with Northumberland Wharf to the north and Ordnance Wharf to the south, and avoid a sewer underneath Bedford Street.
Horse-drawn traffic was partially banned from the tunnel during peak hours in July 1939 and completely banned in August 1947. Pedestrians have been banned from using the Blackwall Tunnels since May 1969.
Due to the increase in motor traffic in the early 20th century, the capacity of the original tunnel was soon perceived as inadequate. In 1930, John Mills, MP for Dartford, remarked that HGVs delivering from Essex to Kent could not practically use any crossing of the Thames downstream of the tunnel. The LCC obtained an act to construct a new tunnel in 1938, but work did not start due to the outbreak of World War II. Construction eventually started in 1958 with preliminary work on the northern approach road.
It was opened on 2 August 1967 by Desmond Plummer, Leader of the Greater London Council.
TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.
The Fighting Temeraire (1838)
This is a renowned oil painting created by the English artist J.M.W. Turner. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839 and is currently housed in the National Gallery in London. The painting depicts the HMS Temeraire, a famous 98-gun ship that played a significant role in the Battle of Trafalgar, being towed by a steam tug along the Thames in 1838. The ship was being taken to Rotherhithe in order to be dismantled and sold as scrap.
Turner was known for his atmospheric and evocative paintings, often focusing on maritime subjects and the effects of light and weather. Although it is unclear whether Turner personally witnessed the towing of the Temeraire, he used artistic license in the painting to convey a symbolic meaning that resonated with the viewers of the time.
The choice of the Temeraire as the subject of the painting was influenced by its historical significance and the public attention surrounding its sale by the Admiralty. In the painting, the Union Jack is not seen flying on the ship, but rather a white flag, symbolizing its transfer to private ownership.
In 2005, the paintingwas voted the nation’s favourite painting in a poll organized by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Furthermore, in 2020, a depiction of the painting was featured on the new £20 banknote alongside Turner’s self-portrait from 1799
