The other week, I went hunting for dragons. I was poorly equipped for such a venture, lacking as I did both lance and steed. I didn’t even have a squire to send ahead to test for draconic, fiery breath. What I did have was a map of the City of London — a natural habitat for dragons, which are drawn to wealth and greed as moths to a candle.
Category: I Spy
I Spy… the Gentle Glow of More Gas Lamps
You know how I said that London’s oldest street lights are the George IV gas lamps on Birdcage Walk? Well, while they don’t appear to have any actual competition, there are some close runners up.
I Spy… the Gentle Glow of Gas Lamps
Think of Victorian London and what do you see in your mind’s eye? ‘Pea soup’ fogs, the yellow glow of gaslights, hansom cabs, Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. Three of those five things are consigned to history and another one is fictional. But one of them stubbornly refuses to go forth into that dark night. And so long as it keeps refusing, the night will never be so dark…
Gaslights. Apparently, they never went away.
Continue reading “I Spy… the Gentle Glow of Gas Lamps”I Spy… Signs of Old Age
During my investigative wander last week, when I went in search of the Kingsway Tramway Tunnel, I also encountered an old pre-Worboys road sign. By which I mean that it predated the Worboys Committee, which redesigned the UK’s road signs in 1964 to make them clearer, more suited to greater traffic etc and (quietly) more in tune with the rest of Europe.
I Spy… the Kingsway Tramway Subway
MY PLAN to get up early and go for another walk today was derailed by my failing both to get up early and to go for another walk. So I idled away the day doing stuff and things and then, mid-afternoon, decided to go and look for something I’d recently read about but hadn’t actually seen — the Kingsway Tramway Subway.
Just because.
Continue reading “I Spy… the Kingsway Tramway Subway”