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Hawksmoor at Somerset House 25 Aug 2013 | 09:56 pm
There is a mystique around Nicholas Hawksmoor, Wren's assistant and architect of churches including St Mary Woolnoth and Christ Church Spitalfields. The concrete reality of the churches has perhaps be...
East Greenwich Pleasaunce 23 Aug 2013 | 03:31 am
Tucked away behind Woolwich Road, the East Greenwich Pleasaunce is some way off the Greenwich tourist trail. However, it is not only a popular local park but one full of history. The Royal Hospital,....
Ghost signs (96): Westcombe Hill 20 Aug 2013 | 08:25 pm
It was as if Westcombe Hill realised that walking up it in drizzling rain wasn't much fun. To motivate me, it offered not one but two ghost signs on the way. The first is a rather dashing, if ver...
Compton, artists' village 18 Aug 2013 | 07:41 pm
G F Watts, one of the most famous of Victorian artists, was also the founder of the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice at Postman's Park. Much of his art can now be found in a gallery bearing his name ...
The guiding virtues of Queen Alexandra 16 Aug 2013 | 01:42 am
Outside St James's Palace in the wall of Marlborough House is a sculpted scene showing four female figures, one a child. Its significance is not immediately apparent, but partly explained by the words...
Bristol Balloon Fiesta 13 Aug 2013 | 04:32 pm
Every year for the last 35 years, hot air balloons have floated above Bristol for its Balloon Fiesta, the largest in Europe. Half a million people visited the Ashton Court launch site this year - a...
Two-for-one in Bexley 11 Aug 2013 | 07:24 pm
Among the hidden jewels of South East London is this stately home. And this one. In fact, they're really a single house: Hall Place in Bexley. This lovely Tudor mansion, built in 1537, was originall...
Picture quiz 9 Aug 2013 | 03:14 pm
Where would you find this topiary mole? Leave your answer as a comment. (Clue: it's not really a mole!)
Ghost signs (95): George Mence Smith 6 Aug 2013 | 06:30 pm
In Oxford Mews, near Bexley Station, is a large but faded ghost sign headed 'George Mence Smith'. Fading and over-painting have made the rest tricky to read: there are at least two separate signs here...
Books in Chains 4 Aug 2013 | 07:10 pm
When books were truly expensive, libraries were so careful to prevent theft that they chained each volume to its shelf. Far from borrowing it to take home, a reader couldn't even move it from that sec...
