the London Dungeons

[EIM]

the London Dungeons

JtS wrote:

Just so long as I can avoid the hideous Oxford Street/Regent Street/Piccadilly Circus/Leicester Square areas

You're missing out on some fantastic stuff woven in between those places

like?

[Caliban]

the London Dungeons

I was always terrified of the very idea of the London Dungeous when I was at primary school, and the fear has never left me. UXB was going to take the young UXBs this year (till he found out it would cost him £60), and I chickened out right from the start. I imagine it to be full of things that will haunt me forever - things like waxwork entrails and waxwork people being horrible to each other. Is that what it's like, or is it really all about a guide trying to be spooky and telling you stories about Jack the Ripper, because I might be able to handle that.

[EIM]

the London Dungeons

There are a few models, but most of it is guides telling stories, as well as a few multimedia shows. The Sweeney Todd bit is genuinely frightening, but the rest is fairly hammy and amusing - sometimes intentionally, othertimes not.

[Caliban]

the London Dungeons

Was Sweeney Todd real?

[EIM]

the London Dungeons

In the show, or in real life?

[Guest]

the London Dungeons

Checked out the Hadrian exhibition at the British museum yesterday. A fine collection of militarism, man love, anti-semitism and house-building.

[Tubby Isaacs]

the London Dungeons

Shame about that, Sash. Your best hope for seeing more (assuming you don't have holiday owing) is probably to go on one of the Friends Of The City Churches walks which they hold a couple of times a year.

You've still got some good ones in store. St Mary Abchurch has wonderful wood carving inside by Grinling Gibbons but is rarely open. St Olave Hart Street is like an old country church, nicely restored after bomb damage.

As you say, St Katherine Cree is an interesting one. Only 40 or so years before Wren, but how archaic it looks. They really hadn't worked out what a Protestant church should look like.

St Botolph Aldgate is a bit odd too. It's by George Dance The Elder, generally regarded as a plodder architect, a favourite of the City who got to do the Mansion House as well. Nonetheless, St Botolph is good, and feels pretty bold.

His son, George Dance the Younger, is more highly regarded today. Check out the astonishingly narrow All Hallows London Wall.

[Guest]

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I don't miss London at all.

[Tubby Isaacs]

the London Dungeons

This thread stopped a little abruptly. It's not the first time things have gone quiet as soon as I mentioned City churches.

If Sash is about, did you get to see any more?

[Anton Gramscescu]

the London Dungeons

Oh, hey, Tubby - my parents are asking about what books I want for XMAS...back in April you gave me the name of a must-read on the history of London. What was it again? I've lost the reference.

Just reading Peter Hall's book Cities in Civilization, and am currently reading the bit on Elizabethan London, which made me think of you.

[Ginger Yellow]

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It gets annoying when you realise you'll never have enough cash for all the really great cafes, bars and restaurants that the Davinas and Hughs all hang out in, blowing £10,000 a pop on champagne.

Really? That doesn't annoy me at all. Why would I want to do that?

[E10 Rifle]

the London Dungeons

I was about to say the same thing. The great thing about London is that all the hideous Hughs and Davinas fuck off to their own places, well out of the way of the rest of us. Your London animus becomes much more clearly explainable, Rogin, if you actuallywant to hang out in those places.

I get a much more positive vibe out of London every time I pop into the Birkbeck in Leytonstone.

Although there's hellholes aplenty, London is also a great place for pubs.

[Tubby Isaacs]

the London Dungeons

It was London by Stephen Inwood, Antonio. He also wrote one called City of Cities on the crucial period of 1870-1914. This is great too but you'll probably want the broader history first.

Is the Birkbeck not under threat?

[E10 Rifle]

the London Dungeons

'Fraid so, Tubbs. The usual economic ill wind threatening pubs up and down the country. Being in a quiet side street, and not having entertainment or extended licences, can't help. It's weird to think that matchdays at Brisbane Road are keeping it afloat, just, but they probably are.

I will probably actually cry if it shuts.

[JtS]

the London Dungeons

Remember those OTF drinks we had a few years back where we started at the Lamb, then went into some UCL bar then walked over to Mount Pleasant to a very square pub tucked away, before heading over to the bar on Exmouth Market in the early hours?

What was the square pub hidden in Clerkenwell called? Near Margery Street as I recall.