London Walk

So, yesterday, I went on two seperate London Walks. The first was the Eccentric London walk, and the second was the Old University Quarter walk. Both were very enjoyable, and I took lots of pictures (and notes!), so, here you go!
This isn't just any old cafe/restaurant - these are specifically built for cab drivers. They were built over 120 years ago by a man named Captain Armstrong when he realized that there was no good place to get a hot meal and/or hot cup of tea during the night. At the time he built 52 in London, and now there are only 11 left. Us regular folk aren't allowed, its only for cab drivers.

This is Gordon's Wine Bar. The lady who did the tour stated that the reason that the front of this bar looks so run down is that the wine bar is actually in the basement, so the owner didn't put too much moola into keeping up the front. Some other interesting things about the wine bar: It's lit compeltely by candlelight and apparently one of the best places to get wine in the city. It's also kinda neat that the owner doesn't require a licence to sell wine. One usually would, but I guess that a long time ago, when the land of London was actually for sale, that this was the area where the wine and alcohol merchants would set up, and as such, they bought and (still) own the land. So it's their land, they don't need a licence.

Right next to Gordon's Wine Bar is this little snack hut. This is just outside Embankment Tube Station, which is a good half kilometre away from the Thames - at least, now it is. But, apparently the Thames used to be a much wider river, and this little hut used to be right on the coast and it would be where people would 'hail' water boats.

This is the York Gate. It used to be the entrance to the palace of the Duke of York. Now it leads nowhere. This also used to be right on the end of the Thames - now it faces a park.

This was on a lovely little street right behind the gate. These buildings were built before the 1700s and as such, had no house numbers. Apparently house numbers weren't introduced until 1718. The window above the door was called the fan light, and each house's fan light was different. If you were to receive an invitation to a person's house, in the invitation would be a drawing of the specific fan light pattern, rather than a (non-existant) house number. I guess the problem is, is that when many people would restore or redecorate their houses/doors, they were told to look at their neighbors to mimick their pattern - and as such, many of the redone doors all have the same pattern. They should all be different, though.

Another neat thing - you might have noticed that the doors are very wide. Originally the doors would've been double doors and they would've opened right up. The tour guide stated that originally, many people travelled by Sedan chair (a chair on poles carried by other men), and that they would've wanted to be carried directly into their homes, rather than dumped on the street. So, the door had to be wide enough to accomodate the chair.

Here's another interesting feature on this door as well. This cone-type-thing was meant so that when the servents would welcome their homeowners home, they would guide them in by candlelight and use these to snuff out the light on their way in.

However, during WWII, people were asked to donate their iron for the war, so most of these are now gone. Unfortunately, as a side note, it was the wrong type of iron needed, and so most of the scraps are sitting at the bottom of the English Channel.

Right across the street from the cool doorway, was this decal. Apparently Samuel Pepys is well known for having written many diaires detailing a lot of Britain's history. An interesting thing about that is that he would constantly write little entries in code. When the code was finally broken, it was determined that he had been detailing his sexual... ahem.... 'adventures' with women other than his wife. Saucy saucy.

As the sign points out, this is the Ship & Shovel - the only London pub in two halves. Apparently they have some really good food!

This is the Sherlock Holmes pub. I am no familiar with Sherlock Holmes at all, but if you are this may mean something to you: The pub is located on Northumberland avenue, at the same address where the Northumberland Hotel would've been where Sherlock Holmes met the Hound of Baskerville.

In 1951, right after the way, there was a huge festival in England that was to celebrate all things British. There was one stand dedicated solely to Sherlock Holmes, where they recreated his study from information provided in his books. The pub actually bought the set and it is located upstairs in the restaurant portion of the bar.

This is looking back down the street towards the pub in two halves and the shopping arcade.

Again, remember what I said about the fan lights? Here are two examples of different ones. Yay!

And now we arrive in Trafalgar Square! This is Nelson's Column, as I'm sure you know. The guy who built this column, before they hoisted Nelson up top, had a celebratory roast beef and champagne meal with 10 of his closest friends! It's bigger than you think up there!

This is still in Trafalgar Square. This would be the world's smallest police station. There had been a lot of riots in Trafalgar Square, and in the late 1800s a death occured as part of the riots, so the police decided to put in a police station to keep an eye on things. This one is just big enough to house one police man, although its no longer used.

Some of you may remember the statue that used to be on the top of this thing - it was some sort of wierd Salvadore Dali pregnant chicken lady thing. Very odd, but art, sure. Well I guess the city of London has held a contest for art to be displayed here. Each art is to sit up there for 18 months before it is rotated and a new one put in. This one was originally called 'Hotel for the Birds', but seeing as they have gotten ride of most of the birds in Trafalgar Square, they just call it "Hotel".

This church is called St. Martins in the Fields. This is the 'royal church', and has records of all the royal hoopla. There is a restaurant in its crypt as well. I guess last year the church was cleaned (on the outside) and as such, they put scaffolding up. I guess the vicar got a lot of flack because he decided to sell advertising space outside of the scaffolding - the first church apparently to do that.

Here is a lovely statue of George Washington. As our guide explained, he once famously said that he would never set foot on English soil. So, when the Brits decided to errect a statue of him, the Americans flew over some of the best American soil to put the statue on. Silly people. That is also where I ate lunch, right in front of him.

These are pictures of the Colleseum. This is the largest theatre space in London, and the first theatre to introduce both seats and the orchestra pit. Before that, theatre was a little bit more rowdy and not as 'serious'. This theatre helped elevate the status of 'theatre' to something the rich people did.

It is built in Edwardian Palacial style, and the chandeliers inside are made by the same people that did Buckingham Palace. This theatre also was the first to use neon lights for advertising purposes.

Not sure what the bright ball in the bottom left hand side is.

Where the white is, there is actually a small alley between the colleseum and the building next to it. It was originally called 'Squeeze Gut Alley'. Hah. It has since been renamed.

This is Cecil Court. It used to be the main shopping street in the area, but now houses tons and tons of rare and unique bookstores. It has also brought back the old style of hanging signs outside the stores as you can see. I guess when this was first introduced, people couldn't read, and as such, the signs would have pictures of what they were selling - fish, meat, etc.

At the same time, people would add so much decoration and things to their signs that eventually the signs on one particular street took off the side of a building. The signs were banned until just recently.

This is the Salisbury Pub. It is modelled after the gin palaces. I guess back in the day gin was the cheapest drink available and people would just get hammered on the stuff. So, to try and get people off of it, the government took the tax off beer and put it on gin, so that it wasn't as cheap anymore. At the same time, they encouraged pubs that sold beer to decorate in the same style, so that you felt regal and important. It's some pretty fancy glasswork, huh?

This is Brown's restaurant, but it used to be the old courts of Justice. You can see the coat of arms, and written underneath in latin is "God is my right". You can also tell in the faces:

This one would be lady Justice I think.

This is a little alleyway called Goodwin's Court. This was a shopping street back in the day, and you can get an idea of how dark London must've been, with narrow walks and high buildings. The glass in the window is called 'Bull's Eye Glass', and while people pay a pretty penny for it now, it was actually the cheapest glass you could buy back in the day. This would've been the 'end of the roll' in terms of glass, and people would buy them to put in places where they did not neccesarily have to look out, like tops or bottoms or corners. Sometimes you can see the broken edge.

That is an original gas lamp, too.

That was the end of the Eccentric London walk, and here are some of the (few) photos I took on the University Quarter tour:

This building is owned by the University of London. The University of London isn't a university in the sense you would think, rather they are a governing body over all the other universities/colleges in the area.

During the war years, it was the headquarters for the Ministry of Defense. George Orwell stayed here as well, during the war years I think. He wrote 1984 while he was here, and he hated the building in fact. He actually based the headquarters for the Ministry of Truth (from the book), on this building.

This building was also used in one of the Batman movies - the lobby was used.

As well, if Hitler had been sucessful in invading London, he had his eyes on this building and would've made it his headquarters.

Oh look! Another green cab hut!

• I didn't take too many other pictures during the tours, but what I did, I will post later. Some of the other things I found interesting during the walk:
• They are starting to sell the area above and below train stations. They are advertising it as 'airspace'. The Price Water building just outside Embankment Tube Station is built completely around a tube station and track. The building is actually suspended on cables far underground. This allows it to deal with the large fluctuations in weight - with the trains and all. As well, they have built a huge water feature in the building to drown out the train noises.
• Telephone Boxes (the red ones) are built so tall in order to accomodate men's top hats.
• As you probably know, the former mayor of London, Ken Livingston, decided to get the pidgeons out of Trafalgar Square to make it more user-friendly. In order to do this, they hired a company that specialises in sending hawks soaring above the square. I guess the birds and the smell that they leave are enough to scare the pidgeons away. Seems to work. Apparently it happens at 10 a.m. every morning. They also do this at Westminster and St. Paul's. As an aside to that, I guess the mayor of NYC tried this as well with Times Square, but got female hawks instead of male hawks (females are more agressive), and the hawks ended up hunting and killing a small dog. Apparently they haven't tried it again in NYC.

Well, there's some information you didn't know before! Hope this was interesting!