I don’t know about you but I love nostalgia. I love to come across things from the past, not necessarily beautiful or well preserved things but things where your imagination can take you back in time. To picture an object or a scene as it once was, as it was once used, not as it might be now, forgotten and redundant, or worse, unloved and buried under the detritus of modern day living.
London has so much to offer visitors and people who love or are just plain interested in our great capital. But how many of us look beyond the iconic sites of Big Ben and Tower Bridge and the like to those quirky bits that our forebears created? Like what, you may ask!
Well, how about a Sewer Ventilating Lamp powered by methane waste from you-know-where? And little did the posh guests at the nearby Savoy Hotel realise their body waste was lighting a London street. Let’s hope not too many Victorian gents stopped for a quiet smoke under this particular street lamp! By the way, this lamp, known as Iron Lily now operates safely as a standard gas lamp (but don’t light up, just in case!)
Not far away from Iron Lily lies one of the archaeological puzzles of London, a ‘Roman’ bath most likely dating from the 18th century. You have to work a bit to find this oddity in Strand Lane just off the Victoria Embankment. Mentioned in Dickens’ David Copperfield, the spring-fed bath was reputed to have health-giving qualities. Today, a crude light switch illuminates the interior of this once sought-after but now forgotten old London gem.
Mmm, all that talk of spring water has made me thirsty. Time, possibly to head for London’s first drinking fountain. Close to Smithfield Market and set in the railings of St Sepulchre Church, the fountain dates to 1859. At one time, 7,000 people a day quenched their thirst here. I’m not sure we can rely on the water supply to be fresh spring water these days but thirsty passers-by are admonished to “Replace the Cup”. Be warned!
If your thirst remains unquenched, try a tipple in the nearby Viaduct Tavern and, if the staff are not too busy, ask if you can have a peek at their beer cellars. What? Ok, seems a touch cheeky, but part of these cellars were once the cells of the old Newgate Prison, London’s main jail for 500 years. Not a place you would have chosen to be at the time and, furthermore, rumoured to have “a stench that would choke a horse”.
So there you have it, a few hidden gems of old London. Not that photogenic perhaps, but hopefully your imagination will paint much more beautiful pictures.
http://www.londonfreeandeasy.com/ is a free guide to London and it’s attractions and lots of information on things to do in London.
