The Archangel Michael, in the Catholic Church, is the leader of the Army of God in their triumph over the forces of Evil. He is also an important figure for Jews and Muslims. But in cockney rhyming slang – the native patois of the City – Michael has other associations. I apologise in advance if […]
In 1500 there were 15 churches in the City of London dedicated to a St Mary. St Mary was by far the most popular dedication with the next most poplar being All Hallows (8 churches) and St Michael (7 churches). This, of course, was helped by the fact that there are two St Marys – […]
One of the best places to explore old parish boundary markers in the City is Cheapside. In medieval times, Cheapside was a bustling marketplace; it’s wide street filled with hawkers, pedlars and shops of all kinds. It is still one of the main shopping centres of the City with the huge New Change mall at […]
As the well known phrase has it, “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good”. It is assumed that this saying originates from Shakespeare’s Henry VI who put it like this “Ill blows the wind that profits nobody”. But wherever it stems from, it certainly applies to Guy de la Bédoyère’s watercolours of some of […]
“When the embodied living being controls his nature and mentally renounces all actions, he resides happily in the city of nine gates, neither working nor causing work to be done” Bhagavad-gita 5.13 In Vedic literature, the “city of nine gates” is a metaphor for the human body. There are nine entrances, or gates, to our […]
So which saint’s names were unlucky enough not to have survived at all? This walk is dedicated to two of them – St Leonard and St John.
Have you ever tried to colour in areas on a map? Here we describe the four colour map method. This a mathematical problem first posed by Francis Guthrie in 1852. He was trying to colour in a map of the counties of England with the fewest possible colours (colour printing was expensive), and found he […]
Before the Great Fire of 1666 there were eight churches in the City dedicated to “All Hallows”, meaning “all the saints” rather than one saint in particular. It seems the bankers and traders of the City 400 years ago already knew something about hedging their bets. It’s a circular walk of just over 4.5 kilometres […]
This circular walk of 4 km takes you around the four churches dedicated to St Botolph. As you may know, St Botolph is the patron saint of trade and travel so his churches were next to city gates. That meant travellers could say a prayer and ask for a blessing before setting off on a […]
The Great Fire of London wiped out three quarters of the City in 1666. It started in a bakery in Pudding Lane around midnight on Sunday 2 November. The site is marked by the famous Monument – a tall stone column with a golden representation of the fire at its peak. The fire raged until […]
