London History, Up Close

At the northern end of the Palace of Westminster, the Elizabeth Tower rises above the Thames and the rooftops of Westminster to a height of 96 metres. Most people call it Big Ben, though technically that name belongs only to the great bell inside. Stand at its base on a clear day and you can hear the chimes carry across the river. In homes and offices across the world, those same chimes have marked the hour on BBC broadcasts for nearly a century. On 1 April 1980, the BBC announced they were...

An illustration of the British Museum. Great Russell Street in Bloomsbury runs west to east past the vast neoclassical facade of the British Museum – 44 Greek-temple columns, a triangular pediment, those enormous steps leading up to the main entrance. Walk through the gates, cross the forecourt, and pass Westmacott’s carved allegory of human progress overhead as you enter one of the great repositories of human history. Tourists move in clusters. School groups trail behind their...

The London Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women The building that stands on the corner of Hunter Street and Handel Street, just off Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury, carries a stone inscription above its door: “London Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women.” It was built between 1897 and 1900 by J.M. Brydon, on the site of earlier, more modest premises. That earlier building, a spacious, old-fashioned house with long rooms on the ground floor and a walled...

Gordon Square, the heart of Bloomsbury and UCL. Gordon Square, at the heart of Bloomsbury, is built around gardens. The grassy enclosure’s benches, flowers and old trees make for a charming spot for students and passersby to enjoy London’s rare sunny days. Ringed by elegant Georgian houses, a church, and many of University College London’s buildings, it’s a tightly enclosed oasis. Yet it’s hard to imagine that this neighbourhood was barely built when UCL opened its doors...

Statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury Tavistock Square sits at the heart of Bloomsbury, enclosed by tall London brick terraces. In the middle of its central gardens, a bronze figure looks down from a stone plinth. It’s the nonviolent anti-colonialist Mahatma Gandhi. The ‘father of modern India’ was perhaps the most celebrated Indian student ever to attend the nearby University College London. When founded in 1826, UCL became the first English university...

25 Noel Road, where Joe Orton lived, wrote and died. Walk along Noel Road in Islington, where the street runs parallel to the Regent’s Canal, and you’ll find number 25. It’s a Georgian terrace that looks much like any other on the street. Look up to the second floor and you’ll spot a pale green plaque from the London Borough of Islington, bearing the name Joe Orton. It is placed high on the building, easily missed, perhaps fitting for a man whose life outpaced his...

UCL’s main building. On Gower Street in Bloomsbury, University College London’s iconic façade overlooks the perpetual motion of student life, with lectures beginning, seminars ending, and ideas forming. UCL’s student body is one of the most diverse in the country. In a way that matters, it always has been. In 1828, England’s third university arrived in Bloomsbury with no royal blessing, no religious test, and no shortage of enemies. For centuries, the only...

24 Chapel Street in Belgravia, where Joe Orton and Beatles icon Paul McCartney met in 1967. Number 24 Chapel Street sits on a quiet Belgravia corner, all elegant white stucco and understated wealth. The sort of address where nothing scandalous could possibly happen. Except on the evening of 24 January 1967, when Britain’s most transgressive playwright sat down to dinner with the world’s biggest pop stars. Joe Orton arrived at Brian Epstein‘s house just before...

On Essex Road in Islington stands a grand Victorian building that looks slightly out of place amongst its neighbours. Red bricks with sturdy stone pillars flanking wooden doors, and a stone crest above. This is Islington South Library, and in the early 1960s it became the unlikely battleground for one of British literature’s most audacious pranks. Between 1959 and 1962, playwright Joe Orton and his partner Kenneth Halliwell waged a campaign of cultural sabotage against...

There’s a certain kind of writer who believes their best work comes from somewhere else. The muse, the subconscious, divine inspiration. W.B. Yeats took this literally. For nearly 25 years, he lived on Woburn Walk in Bloomsbury, and during that time he became convinced that some of his finest poetry was being dictated by the spirit world. Whether you believe in spirits or not, the results are hard to argue with. Yeats won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. And a significant...