In Pursuit of London Trivia
Some curious facts, and why they matter.
Welcome to your Friday edition of Londonist: Time Machine for paying subscribers with a generous teaser for everyone else.
A couple of days ago I posted this throwaway observation in the Notes section. It went a bit viral — or as viral as things can get at this stage of Substack’s growth.
People really do love random factlets. So in today’s newsletter, I thought I’d let rip and fill your screen with my favourite London trivia (with an historical bent, of course). I’ve thinly disguised this as an essay about trivia, to kid myself that I’m behaving like a proper writer and not some two-bit anecdotalist. But really, it’s just an excuse to offload some very odd facts about London. I think you’ll like them.
That’s for the main section. First and announcement, and the usual History Radar.
📣📣 SITE VISIT: (UPDATE: ALL PLACES NOW TAKEN) I’m delighted to announce that I’ve arranged for another site visit for paying subscribers: specifically, to the wonderful Thames River Police Museum in Wapping. The river police were London’s first professional police force, in operation a whole generation before the Metropolitan Police was founded. The museum details their rich history with some very unusual artefacts. The site is not generally open to the public, and I could only get us entry on a weekday, which is Thursday 7 November 2024, late morning. If you’d like to come along, please email matt@londonist.com (paying subscribers only), and I’ll send more details.
History Radar
Upcoming events for people who like London history.
🏠 OPEN HOUSE: Just a reminder that this weekend (21-22 Sep) is the finalé of Open House London, when hundreds of historic buildings open their doors to the public for free. I’ve just heard that if you pop to St Lawrence Jewry beside Guildhall, you can meet the people behind those wonderful Tudor and Medieval maps I featured a few months back, the Historic Towns Trust. I’ll be stopping by to say hello, before running around town like a headless architecture-obsessed chicken to see some other Open House venues.
⚓️ TOTALLY THAMES: We’re approaching the final full week of this year's Totally Thames festival, a celebration of London's main waterway, which ends on 30 September. Highlights over the coming week include a sketching session on the Thames Pathway, and a talk about the history of London Bridge. Browse the full programme to find events that take your fancy.
🧵 COLLECTING MORRIS: The William Morris Society in Hammersmith has launched its latest exhibition, Collecting Morris: Highlights from the Helena Stephenson Collection, which features original William Morris designs, wallpapers, textiles and Kelmscott Press books, which belonged to Stephenson, the last person to privately own Kelmscott House. Until 13 April 2025
🏙️ CROYDONOPOLIS: On 24 September, Londonist editor and fellow Substacker Will Noble is at the Golden Ark micropub in Selsdon, chatting about his new book, Croydonopolis: A Journey to the Greatest City That Never Was with his publisher and erstwhile Croydonian, Graham Coster. One for folks with a fondness for Croydon nostalgia and good beer.
📕 CHELSEA HISTORY FESTIVAL: Returning for its 6th edition, Chelsea History Festival (25-29 September) is extra special this year, as it celebrates the launch of the new Chelsea Heritage Quarter. Events include a preview of the new Soane Stable Yard at Royal Hospital Chelsea, which opens in October — the first time part of the RHC site has been permanently open to the public. Also on the programme are talks by bestselling author Kate Mosse, author and broadcaster James Holland, and Horrible Histories author Terry Deary.
🧑🏻⚕️ THE PLACE I AM NOT: From 25 September, Cypriot artist Maria Loizidou is thrust into the limelight at the Freud Museum in Hampstead and the Hellenic Centre in Marylebone, which jointly host her exhibition The Place I Am Not. It explores the themes of identity, belonging, and the immigrant experience through the lens of Sigmund Freud’s life in London.
☠️ VICTORIANS IN MOURNING: On 26 September, Wellcome Collection's Lou Brook is at Keats House in Hampstead, for her talk Victorians in Mourning, which discusses out ancestors' approach to death, with its many rules and regulations.
🎨 MONET AND LONDON: On 27 September, the Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House opens new exhibition Monet and London: Views of the Thames. See paintings of Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and the Houses of Parliament, which were put on display in Paris in 1904, but have never been shown in London until now. A special edition of Courtauld Lates, giving you a chance to be one of the first to see the exhibition, and enjoy themed cocktails from a pop-up bar.
🐏 SHEEP DRIVE: On 29 September, one of London's wackiest annual events is the Sheep Drive and Livery Fair. Each year, a chosen celebrity has the honour of herding sheep over Southwark Bridge -- and this year it's TV star Damian Lewis.
⛪️ HARVEST FESTIVAL: Also on 29 September, the London Pearly Kings and Queens Costermongers Harvest Festival brings together pearly kings and queens from across London and beyond for a gathering in Guildhall Yard, followed by a church service at St Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside.
🔔 ST AUGUSTINE'S TOWER: Afterwards, give your calf muscles a workout by climbing St Augustine's Tower in Hackney, the oldest building in the borough. The tower opens on the last Sunday of the month, offering access to its rooftop viewpoint. Alternatively, browse the ground floor exhibition, where you'll find a VR panorama of the view from the top, no climbing required.
In Pursuit of London Trivia
“Did you know that the City of London has no street lamps? They’re all cantilevered out from the buildings.”
So bombshelled my friend and fellow London explorer Ian Visits, over a recent pint. I was gobsmacked. I thought I knew the City reasonably well. I am especially hot on street furniture. But here was a major oddity I’d totally overlooked.
Ian went on to tell me that the lighting is elevated to cut down on “street clutter”, and make the pavements more open. No bleedin’ bins, either — as I rediscover every time I finish an apple while wandering around the City.
Ian’s trivial revelation is not quite true. I’ve since found some 100% real lamp posts near Petticoat Lane, while others decorate the central reservation along Upper Thames Street. But to a close approximation, he’s right. Very few streets in the Square Mile harbour a lamp post. No other city can say that1.
I live for facts like this. I have a head full of them. Knightsbridge boasts six consonants in a row. New Cross was called Hatcham for most of its history. The silvery piers on the Thames Barrier are actually made from pine wood. There is a crater on Mars named after Tooting. More people were executed in the Tower of London in the 20th century than all preceding centuries put together. There is no Bond Street2.
That kind of stuff.
Such learning will not help me fix a leaky tap. I can’t organise a children’s party by knowing that 152 Lord Mayors of London were called John, while only two women, of any name, have held the position. I will never negotiate a better mortgage by explaining that Lambeth Bridge is red to match the House of Lords, while Westminster Bridge is green for the Commons (especially if I mention that it also casts penis-shaped shadows). My map of Edward VIII postboxes will not speed up a delivery.
This is all deeply useless stuff. But I love it. And so do many people, I suspect.
The most deeply useless thing you can do with deeply useless stuff is to break it down into deeply useless sub-categories. This is my attempt at a taxonomy of trivia:
Wordplay trivia: Here I’m thinking of the Knightsbridge nugget, or that hoary quiz question about St John’s Wood being the only tube station to contain none of the letters of ‘mackerel’. (Incidentally, only one tube station contains none of the letters of ‘Londonist’. See if you can work it out.) Finsbury Park, said backwards, is Krapy Rubsnif. I could go on…
…And I will. Only two tube stations contain all the vowels: Mansion House and South Ealing. Whitechapel is the only place where the Underground goes over the Overground. And Swiss Cottage is the only station to be named after two types of cheese. Actually, that last one is full of holes.
Straight-out trivia: The most common form of trivia is the simple, one-sentence factlet. If we return to Mansion House tube station, for example, we can observe that it is only the third closest tube station to the Mansion House. There are people alive today who are older than the place name “Fitzrovia”. Croydon means “valley of the crocuses”. The Shard is the tallest structure in London, but only the 10th tallest in England (think radio masts). And the itchiest fact of all: every time you walk along the eastern side of Gower Street, you’re passing directly over this room containing tens of thousands of mosquitos 👇.
Unlikely coincidence trivia: Mama Cass from the Mamas and the Papas died in the same Mayfair bedroom as Keith Moon from The Who (in different years). They were both borrowing the apartment from singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. Both were aged 32. Isn’t that something?