still more london

(i promise: i'll be done soon with all the london-trivia!)

Clerkenwell Green

The area of London I worked in is called Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell took its name from the Clerks' Well in Farringdon Lane. Just beyond the green (which is not ‘green’ at all; it is a small area enclosed by buildings with a disused public washroom in the middle) are the relics of the 11th Century church and hospital of St John, where the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller had their headquarters; the crypt survives intact. A few yards to the south of the crypt, in the early 16th Century, was erected St. John’s Gate; this also still remains. Just on the northern edge of the green itself can be found the original site of the medieval well from which the district derives its name; in the 18th and early 19th Centuries it was simply a broken iron pump but, since that time, it has been restored and preserved behind a thick glass wall. It marked the site of the stage where mystery plays were performed for centuries 'beyond the memory of man' and in fact for many hundreds of years Clerkenwell was notorious for its dramatic representations. The yard of the Red Bull Inn, to the east of the green, is reputed to be the first theatrical venue where women appeared on stage.

Amazing, Super Cheap!

On Pentonville Road, in Clerkenwell, lived a notorious miser named Thomas Cooke, who did not care to pay for his food and drink but ‘when walking the streets he fell down in a pretended fit opposite to the house of one whose bounty he sought’. With his powered wig and long ruffles, he seemed a respectable citizen so he was promptly taken in, given some wine and nourishing victuals. ‘A few days after he would call at the house of his kind entertainer just at dinner time, professedly to thank him for having saved his life …’ He turned his flower garden into a cabbage patch, which -- in order to waste nothing -- he enriched with his own and his wife’s excrement! On his death-bed, in the summer of 1811, he refused to pay for too much medicine since was convinced that he would live only six days. He was buried at St. Mary’s, Islington, and ‘some of the mob who attended the funeral threw cabbage stalks on his coffin when it was lowered into the grave’.

Did you know: That the name "Notting Hill" comes from a band of Saxons, the 'sons of Cnotta' + 'inga', a Saxon word generally accepted to mean 'groups of people."

Subterranean Rivers

London has many subterranean rivers. These are the tributaries of the River Thames and River Lea that were built over during the growth of the city. The River Fleet is the largest of these underground rivers, that flow through culverts. The Fleet can be heard through a grating in Ray Street, Farringdon in front of a pub called the Coach and Horses. The position of the river can still be seen in the surrounding street-scape with Ray Street and its continuation, Warner Street, lying in a valley where the river once flowed. It can also be heard through a grid in the centre of Charterhouse Street where it joins Farringdon Road.