Welcome to Londonist: Time Machine’s Friday edition for paying subscribers, with a good old dollop of article for everyone else.
You could spend your life exploring and reading about London and still find a new surprise at every turn. Today’s “I never knew that” moment was the discovery that early Victorians could ride a loop-the-loop roller-coaster… in Soho of all places. That’s for the main section. First, the History Radar.
History Radar
Upcoming events for those who enjoy London history.
🏡 OPEN HOUSE LONDON: Plenty of opportunities to go behind the scenes in all corners of London this week for Open House Festival. The programme is huge — almost overwhelmingly so — but highlights include a deep-dive into medieval graffiti, and tours of Canada House on Trafalgar Square, among many others.
⛪️ HERITAGE OPEN DAYS: Also ongoing until the end of next week, Heritage Open Days is a national festival of heritage and culture, with several events here in London. Visit the little-known British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum, take a guided bat walk around Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, or hear about the process of rebuilding the Golden Hinde. Browse the full programme.
🏛️ WANSTEAD FRINGE: Next week’s Wanstead Fringe programme has plenty for fans of E11 history. Hear from local historian Davis Watson about Wanstead during the Second World War, find out about the tragic story of demolished mansion Wanstead House, or take a tour of the crypt at St Mary's Parish Church.
📖 SAMUEL JOHNSON: On 15 September, lexicographer Bryan A. Garner explores the evidence surrounding Samuel Johnson, often regarded as the father of the English dictionary. Does Johnson really deserve to be credited as the first English-language lexicographer, when at least 25 people preceded him in making English-language dictionaries? Takes place at Dr Johnson's House near Fleet Street, with a free copy of Garner’s book, Hardly Harmless Drudgery, for the first 30 people.
💷 BUILDING THE BANK: The Bank of England Museum opens its new, free exhibition Building The Bank - 100 Years On on 16 September. Find out how its Threadneedle Street home underwent a massive rebuild a century ago, reimagining John Soane's original building when it was no longer fit for purpose. The museum also holds a free late on Thursday 18 September to celebrate the exhibition's launch. Read my preview and tour of the building.
⛪︎ CHURCHILL AND ST PAUL'S: Allen Packwood, Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, reflects on the key moments that link Sir Winston Churchill and St Paul's Cathedral, in a talk at the cathedral. Both were seen as defiant symbols of the Blitz, and Churchill's state funeral took place there in 1965. 16 September
🇫🇷 TUNNEL TO FRANCE: On 17 September, our friends at the Brunel Museum start a new season of film screenings all set during the French Revolution, and screened within the historic tunnel shaft dug by Marc Brunel 200 years ago. Tonight's film is Dangerous Liaisons (1988). Future weeks include Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and, of course, Les Misérables.
👶🏼 HISTORY OF CHILDBIRTH: Join midwife Jenny Wylam at the Old Operating Theatre on 18 September for a talk exploring the history of childbirth. Using museum exhibits, she discusses childbirth practices from ancient remedies of wise women to the evolution of obstetrics and midwifery into modern times. Be warned, the event includes accounts of very gruesome procedures.
💨 BATTERSEA POWER STATION: Also on 18 September, Battersea Power Station is the place to head for a talk about... Battersea Power Station. Battersea Bookshop hosts Sebastien Ricard, Board Director at WilkinsonEyre, to talk about new book Battersea Power Station – The Architectural Rebirth of a Romantic Ruin, looking at how the chimneyed building was brought back to life after almost four decades of decay. Part of London Design Festival.
🎸 BLITZ CLUB: The Blitz — the shortlived London club night which launched the careers of Spandau Ballet and Boy George — is the subject of a new Design Museum exhibition from 20 September. Expect a "sensory extravaganza" of over 250 items: clothing and accessories, design sketches, instruments, flyers, magazines, furniture, artworks, photography, vinyls and rare film footage.
🏗️ RICHARD ROGERS: The work of late architect Richard Rogers is the subject of the latest exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum, which comes to an end on 21 September. Talking Buildings showcases him as a thinker, campaigner, humanist and activist, as well as the designer of iconic buildings including Lloyd's of London, The O2, and Paris's Pompidou Centre.
A Loop-the-Loop Roller Coaster in Early Victorian London
“Ladies and gentlemen," said the hump-backed showman, "the Centrifiggle Railway is now to be seen.”
Had you walked along Great Windmill Street, Soho in 1842 then you, too, might have been approached by an old man singing the praises of the ‘Centrifiggle Railway’. The superannuated promoter wore a sandwich board over his weary shoulders. It depicted “some insane person tumbling out of an immense carriage, which, by some undiscoverable means, has fixed its wheels on the top of some prodigious hoop”.
Further enquiry would have led you to Dubourg’s Grand Saloon, a place of spectacle, entertainment and ‘moving waxworks’. Its latest wonder was the ‘Centrifugal Railway’. Today, we’d call it a loop-the-loop roller-coaster.
The mechanism was simple. You can deduce it from the picture. The unpowered car builds up speed on the down ramp, enough to carry it over the loop and part of the way up the other side. The single passenger, it is hoped, would not “tumble out”, but would be held in place by the centrifugal force. “It travels at the rate of a hundred miles an hour,” lied the tout, parroting an impossible speed that is repeated in newspaper advertisements.
A better illustration of the Great Windmill Street roller-coaster can be seen here, in a copyrighted image.
The best account of this marvel appeared in the syndicated press in December 1842. The anonymous journalist who pays the attraction a visit does not venture into the carriage himself, but looks on as “a heroic looking youth, all grease and long hair, seated himself in the machine, and performed the somerset more, apparently, to his own satisfaction than that of any one else”.
This is one of the earliest accounts of a ‘loop-the-loop’ anywhere in the world. A French inventor named Clavieres reportedly pioneered the concept in 1833, but never put it into practical purpose until almost a decade later. It’s not clear from the accounts I can find whether M. Clavieres was involved with this Soho venture, of if it’s a copycat.
The ride received mixed reviews. One anonymous correspondent, perhaps connected to the set-up, gushed about its virtues: “This ingenious plaything is well worthy of a visit. As a piece of curious and amusing machinery, it cannot fail of creating surprise and interest in the general spectator; whilst as an exemplification of the laws of gravity and motion, it must furnish delight and instruction to the man of science.”
Apparently, it could fail to create surprise and interest. “No more than a stone in a sling,” commented one unimpressed observer, “Or a glass of water in a hoop at Astley’s,” he added, referring to the famous circus in Lambeth. Another bemoaned its lack of utility: “It's all rig'lar rubbage, that centriffagle railway… for what's the use o't? Who the mischief is going from London to Birmingham, twirling half the time on their heads? I don't think it'll ever be useful.” (We still encounter his type today — the “complete waste of money” moaner for whom everything has to have some practical use, rather than simply being fun or amusing.)
Still, it seems to have attracted enough interest to last for at least a year. According to an advertisement in the Morning Herald, the ride counted many notable ladies and gentlemen among its white-knuckled patrons. If we can believe the advert (which we can’t, because it also cites the 100mph nonsense) then future Prime Minister Lord Palmerston was among them. As well as ending the Crimean War, abolishing the East India Company and securing independence for Belgium, Palmerston may also be the first Prime Minister to loop-the-loop.
(An adroit satirist might here note Liz Truss’s similar achievement: a short, expensive, nauseating ride downhill, the world turned upside-down, before the whole system grinds to a halt and she’s kicked out for the next person. Sadly, I’m not that kind of writer.)