On this day in London history

1915: Kilburn Park station was opened at the height of the First World War

1969: The Beatles’ rooftop concert took place on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building in London. It was their final public performance as a band and was unannounced, attracting a crowd of onlookers. The concert lasted for 42 minutes and included nine songs. The concert is remembered as a seminal moment in the history of rock music and remains one of the most famous rock performances of all time.

Coulsdon
Coulsdon is a town mainly within the London Borough of Croydon, approximately 13 miles from Charing Cross.

The location forms part of the North Downs. The hills contain chalk and flint. Several dry valleys with natural underground drainage merge and connect to the headwaters of the River Wandle, here named the ’River Bourne’. Although the Bourne river floods periodically, the soil is generally dry and is the watershed which has constituted a natural route way across the Downs for early populations. Fossil records exist from the Pleistocene period (4 million years ago) There is evidence of human occupation from the Neolithic period, Iron Age, Anglo-Saxon, Bronze Age, Roman and Medieval. It appears as Colesdone in the Domesday Book. Most housing in Smitham (Bottom/Valley) and the clustered settlement of Old Coulsdon, as well as the narrower valley between them, was built in the 80 years from 1890 to 1970. The area developed mixed suburban and in its centre urban housing. Old Coulsdon occupies the south-east of the district. Scattered, rather than clustered are six listed buildings, for their national heritage and architectural value, at Grade II. It is the southernmost settlement in all of Greater London. At the heart of the geographical feature Smitham Bottom (where three dry valleys merge into one) is the central part of the district. Most commerce and industry is here, set beside the Brighton Road, which is since 2006 a town centre arc of the A23 road and on Chipstead Valley Road which terminates half way along the arc, leading directly to Woodmansterne.

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)

Frederick Brown (1851-1941)

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On this day in London history

1915: Kilburn Park station was opened at the height of the First World War

North Ockendon
North Ockendon is the only area of Greater London which is outside the M25 orbital motorway.

North Ockendon parish had an ancient shape that was elongated east-west. With the adjoining parishes this formed a large estate that is at least middle-Saxon or, perhaps, even Roman or Bronze age. The parish church of St Mary Magdelene has a probably re-used Norman nave door on the south side of the nave. Its tower was used in the first accurate measurement of the speed of sound, by the Reverend William Derham, Rector of Upminster. Gunshots were fired from the tower and the flash thereof was observed by telescope from the tower of the church of St Laurence, Upminster; then the time was recorded until the sound arrived, from which, with an accurate distance measurement, the speed could be calculated. To the east is a small area of fenland, which extends into Bulphan and the rest is clays and Thames alluvials. The land is very low lying. The field boundaries are wholly rectilinear. To the far north, beyond the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway, it borders the villages of Great Warley, Little Warley and Childerditch in the borough of Brentwood, the settlements of West Horndon and Bulphan to the east and South Ockendon to the south which is in the borough and unitary authority of Thurrock. From 1894 until it was abolished in 1936, North Ockendon formed a parish in the Orsett Rural District of Essex. The majority of its former area was used to enlarge the Cranham parish of Hornchurch Urban District and the remainder of the former parish, around 383 acres was used to form part of Thurrock Urban District in 1936. In 1965 Hornchurch Urban District was abolished and its former area, including North Ockendon, was transferred to Greater London and used to form the present-day London Borough of Havering. North Ockendon and Great Warley were to the east of the M25 motorway when it was constructed. In 1992 it was proposed that the part of Greater London to the east of the M25 should be transferred to Essex, with the Great Warley section north of the railway transferred to Brentwood and the North Ockendon section to the south transferred to Thurrock. The transfer of North Ockendon from London to Essex was strongly opposed. Following the review the Great Warley section was transferred to Essex, but the North Ockendon part was not, leaving it the only part of Greater London to be outside the M25 motorway. North Ockendon is the location of Stubbers, a former stately home which was demolished in 1955.

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: You Can’t Always Get What You Wanstead
Jago Hazzard went to the far reaches of the Central Line

South Mimms
South Mimms is a village in the Hertsmere district of Hertfordshire.

It is a small settlement located near to the junction of the M25 motorway with the A1(M) motorway and is perhaps more widely known because of the service station at that junction which takes its name from the village, and for mountain biking routes in the area which start from the service station. Before 1965’s creation of Greater London, it was part of Middlesex rather than Hertfordshire and, along with Potters Bar, was transferred to the latter county in that year.

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.

View of London from Southwark (c1630), section A forest of church spires. More morbidly, London Bridge displays heads on spikes at the southern gate

Dutch School (Museum of London)

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Downham
The Downham Estate dates from the late 1920s.

The Downham Estate arrived on the scene in 1926, but its name originates in 1914 when the London County Council (LCC) agreed to build three large housing estates. The land was acquired in 1920. Downham covered the lands of two farms, Holloway Farm to the west and Shroffolds Farm to the north. Before the Estate was built, there had been little building south of Whitefoot Lane – many local residents took weekend walks over the ’Seven Fields’. The name ’Downham’ derives from Lord Downham who, as William Haynes Fisher was a former chairman of the LCC. Many of the road took their names from Tennyson’s ’Idylls of the King’. Other roads took their names from places in Devon. By summer 1930, 6000 houses had been completed by builders Holland, Hannen & Cubbits. An additional section of just over 1000 houses was developed at Whitefoot lane in 1937 by builders Higgs & Hill and generally known as ’North Downham’. On completion, some 30 000 people lived on Downham’s newly built Estate. Generally people commuted to work elsewhere. A cheap “workman’s ticket” from Grove Park station became available from November 1928. Shopping facilities came to the the New Bromley Road in 1926, followed by centres at Grove Park, Burnt Ash Lane and one adjacent to the Downham Tavern. The Downham Tavern was the only public house built on the area owned by the LCC. It was for some years considered the world’s largest pub, containing a Dance Hall, Beer Garden, two Saloon Bars, a Public Lounge, a Lunchroom where service was by waiter only. When Downham was first built, it was regarded as a showpiece. A Lewisham official guide from the 1930s described Downham as a ’Garden City’. By 1960, the first LCC houses were being put up for sale as local policy changed.

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.

Queen’s Road Station, Bayswater (c. 1916) The artwork is a melange of two stations – the name comes from the old name for Queensway station but the depiction more resembles Bayswater station itself. The Camden Town Group was a group of English Post-Impressionist artists who gathered frequently at the studio of painter Walter Sickert in Camden Town.

Walter Richard Sickert (1860–1942)

Video: Flying into LCY
A simulated flight into LCY courtesy of Google Earth Studio.

Fortis Green
How Fortis Green got its name is not clear.

’Fortis’ suggests a place before something, but the ’something’ is obscure. It appears in 1558 when it was considered part of Finchley Common. The green may simply have been a gap in woods and ran as far as where Muswell Hill Odeon is today. Even into the 20th century Coldfall Woods came as far south as the present back fences of the houses on the north side of the road. On a map of 1754, Cherry Tree Woods (then Dirt House Woods) to the south had been cleared and the land enclosed with at least two large houses. More houses were built along the road from the beginning of the 19th century. By the middle part of the 19th century there were about 60 houses, mostly belonging to labourers, which had been erected on the green between the woods and the road. The National Freehold Land society developed what had been Haswell Park into southern, eastern, and western Roads after 1852, with 180 plots, but development was slow. However, by 1913 the whole of the area south of the road had been developed as we see it today. In the interwar period, the northern sections were developed at the expense of Coldfall woods, but even by 1936 much of the wood was still standing, with only the remaining northern sections being kept as a recreational area. From about 1843 until 1888 there was a brewery owned by the Green family, which was latterly taken over by Inn Coop, finally closing in 1902. The police station was opened the same year. The naturalist William B Tegetmeier lived in the area. Possibly the most important residents were Ray and Dave Davies (of the 1960s band, The Kinks), who were brought up at 6 Denmark Terrace, and had their first performance at the Clissold Arms. Contacts Local Studies Centre Hendon Library (first floor), The Burroughs, London NW4 4BQ Tel: 020 8359 3960 Email: library.archives@barnet.gov.uk

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.

Entrance to the Fleet River, c. 1750

Samuel Scott

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North Finchley
North Finchley is centred on Tally Ho Corner, the junction of the roads to East Finchley, Finchley Central and Whetstone.

The name of the whole of the modern area covering North Finchley and neighbouring Whetstone was North End, a name first used in 1462. The rapid enclosure of the countryside in the first years of the nineteenth century meant the end of Finchley Common in 1816, opening up North Finchley from urbanisation – this still took a while nevertheless. 21 cottages were built in Lodge Lane during 1824 and by the 1830s there were other houses – even a chapel by 1837. By 1839 North Finchley had a blacksmith (on Lodge Lane and not the High Road). In 1851 there was a regular bus service from the ’Torrington’ to Charing Cross and next came the local railway lines. Christ Church was opened in 1870 and a new parish was formed in 1872. In 1905 the Metropolitan Electric Tramways started a route between Highgate and Whetstone – a tram depot was opened in Woodberry Grove. Trams and buses together promoted North Finchley’s development.

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.

Christmas, Tower of London Ice Rink New English Art Club 2018 annual exhibition

Andrew Macara

Video: You Can’t Always Get What You Wanstead
Jago Hazzard went to the far reaches of the Central Line

On 25 January 1915, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated the transcontinental telephone service in the United States with a call made between New York City and San Francisco, which was answered by Dr. Watson, his longtime assistant. The previous long distance limit was New York to Denver, and only then with some shouting. Two metallic circuits made up the line; it used 2500 tons of hard-drawn copper wire, 130 000 poles and countless loading coils. Three vacuum tube repeaters along the way boosted the signal. It was the world’s longest telephone line.

Chandler’s Cross
Chandler’s Cross is a hamlet south of Sarrat, Hertfordshire.

Its pub, the Clarendon Arms, became a restaurant in the 2000s. A nearby hotel is The Grove, set in 300 acres. This has hosted major events such as the G20 London summit and the 2013 Bilderberg Conference. As a house, it was remodelled by various architects including Surveyor of the King’s Works, Robert Taylor on the site of a medieval manor house as a home for the Earls of Clarendon, second creation, the Villiers family who downsized their estates to one they have long held at Swanmore, Hampshire following the 1914 increase of estate duty.

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.

Trafalgar Square at Christmas

Stanley Roy Badmin (1906-89)

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On 24 January 41AD, Gaius Caesar (Caligula) who had been Roman Emperor from 37AD, was murdered. Caligula, whose name means “Little Boots”, succeeded Tiberius and became so unpopular he was assassinated by Cassius Chaerea at the Palatine Games.

Whiteley Village
Whiteley Village is a retirement village, much of it designed by the Arts and Crafts movement-influenced architect Reginald Blomfield.

Whiteley Village was created as the result of a bequest of £1 000 000 realised in 1907 upon the death of William Whiteley. A major feature of Whiteley Village is that it consists of more than a hundred listed Arts and Crafts buildings. The surrounding land on which the community is for the most part wooded and until the 19th century was wholly part of Walton Firs and Walton Heath in Walton on Thames. Hersham, of which Whiteley Village is nominally part was created in 1851 from the southern part of Walton-on Thames. The village is owned and administered by the Whiteley Homes Trust and provides over 250 almshouses for older people of limited financial means who are capable of independent living. Much of the design work was by architect Reginald Blomfield. This movement had been prevalent in the neighbouring area to the west – St George’s Hill – where W.G. Tarrant was a major designer-builder. Arts and Crafts remains a Whiteley Village style occasionally used where building costs allow it to be implemented without forsaking its original decorative and traditional core principles.

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.

Westminster Abbey with a procession of Knights of the Bath (1749)

Canaletto

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On 24 January 41AD, Gaius Caesar (Caligula) who had been Roman Emperor from 37AD, was murdered. Caligula, whose name means “Little Boots”, succeeded Tiberius and became so unpopular he was assassinated by Cassius Chaerea at the Palatine Games.

St George’s Hill
St George’s Hill is an upmarket area of Weybridge.

St George’s Hill is a private gated community having golf and tennis clubs, as well as approximately 420 houses. The summit is 78 metres above mean sea level. In April 1649, common land on the hill had been occupied by a movement known as The Diggers, who began to farm there. They are often regarded as one of the world’s first small-scale experiments in socialism. The Diggers left the hill following a court case five months later. With its broad summit, the hill results in views of Surrey varying from one observation point to another. This spurred on the idea for the development with views along the estate roads. St George’s Hill first served as a home and leisure location to celebrities and successful entrepreneurs after its division into lots in the 1910s and 1920s when Walter George Tarrant built its first homes. Land ownership is divided between homes with gardens, belonging to house owners and the estate roads and verges belonging to its residents’ association.

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 Thames from Millbank”, oil on canvas, Richard Redgrave (1804-1888), created around 1836. The scene depicted is around the year 1815.

Richard Redgrave/Victoria and Albert Museum

Video: You Can’t Always Get What You Wanstead
Jago Hazzard went to the far reaches of the Central Line

Latimer
Latimer is a village that sits on the border between Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.

Latimer was originally joined with the adjacent village of Chenies. Both were anciently called Isenhampstead, at a time when there was a royal palace in the vicinity. However, in the reign of King Edward III of England the lands were split between two manorial barons: Thomas Cheyne in the village that later became called @@@Chenies@@@, and William Latimer in this village. Latimer came into possession of the manor in 1326. At the time of the English Civil War Latimer belonged to the Earl of Devonshire. When Charles I was captured by the Parliamentarian forces he was brought to Latimer on his way to London. The small village includes 17th- and 18th-century cottages around a triangular village green with a pump on it. The church of St Mary Magdelane was rebuilt by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1867. The rectory was built in the 18th century in grey and red brick. The nearest railway station to Latimer is Chalfont and Latimer situated in the nearby town of Little Chalfont which is on the Chiltern Line between Aylesbury and London Marylebone with London Underground services between Baker Street and Amersham. Latimer House is an historic country house just outside the village.

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.

’A View of Erith, Looking Up the Thames” , hand-coloured etching by John Boydell (1750)

Yale Center for British Art

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