The disappearance of King Edward V and his brother, Richard, Duke of York, after being last seen in the Tower of London is one of London’s most famous mysteries. And while it’s one we’ve written about before, we thought we’d take a look at the recent announcement that new evidence had been found in the matter.
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LondonLife – The ups and downs of life at Canary Wharf…
What’s in a name?…Archway…
This north London district in the London Borough of Islington owes its name to a bridge which straddles Archway Road (part of the Great North Road or A1).
The bridge’s origins go back to the early 19th century when work began on a 230 metre-long tunnel underneath Highgate Hill which would allow users to bypass the hill’s steep gradient. If completed, it’s said it would have been the earliest road tunnel in Britain.
But in April, 1812, the tunnel collapsed and a cutting through the hill, utilising the work done on the collapsed tunnel, was then proposed. It would become Archway Road.
Hornsey Lane, however, ran across the top of the hill linking Highgate to its west to Crouch End in the east, and to ensure the lane remained when the cutting was completed, it was decided to build a viaduct to carry the lane across the cutting.
The resultant structure was designed by none other than John Nash in the style of a Roman aqueduct and opened in 1813.
Archway Road, which ran underneath the arch, was operated as a toll road until 1871.
The bridge, meanwhile, was demolished in 1900 and replaced by a cast iron bridge, designed by Alexander Binnie, which still stands.
The area was referred to as Highgate Archway but gradually the Highgate was dropped and plain Archway adopted.
This was reinforced by the naming of the Tube station in Junction Road which was originally named Highgate when it opened in 1907 as the terminus of the Northern Line but was renamed Archway (Highgate) in 1939 and then just Archway in 1947.
Landmarks in this predominantly leafy residential area include the Whittington Hospital, originally built as the Holborn Union Infirmary 1877-79, on Highgate Hill.
On a similar theme, the Whittington Stone can also be found at the bottom end of Highgate Hill. It is said to commemorate the spot where Dick Whittington, having decided to leave London after failing to make his fortune, heard the Bow Bells ringing and turned back (the stone is topped with a statue of Whittington’s famous cat).
The green expanse of Hampstead Heath lies just to the west.
This Week in London – New artworks on the Tube network; Boulle clocks at the Wallace Collection; and, see extinct-in-the-wild doves at London Zoo…
• Transport for London has announced it will be unveiling four major new artworks on the Tube network this year as part of its Art on the Underground programme which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary. The works include Saved by the Whale’s Tail, Saved by Art, a large-scale piece by artist Ahmet Öğüt in collaboration with New Contemporaries In Art which, to be unveiled at Stratford Underground station in March, explores the role art plays in everyday life. There’s also a new artwork by Hungarian-born American artist Agnes Denes which will be featured in a new pocket Tube map, a new audio work produced by artist and composer Rory Pilgrim with the Mayor of London’s Culture and Community Spaces at Risk (CCSaR) programme which will be heard at Waterloo Station in June and July, and, a new mural by Rudy Loewe which will be unveiled at Brixton Tube station in November. For more on Art on the Underground, see https://art.tfl.gov.uk.
• On Now: Keeping Time: Clocks by Boulle. This exhibition at the Wallace Collection in Manchester Square explores the art and science of timekeeping through a display of five pieces created by André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732). Boulle, the most famous cabinetmaker working for the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV (1638–1715), ended up giving his name to a style that featured elaborate veneer designs incorporating turtleshell, brass and other materials. The objects on show in the Housekeeper’s Room include a monumental wardrobe from 1715 that encloses a clock; two mantel clocks, one from around 1715 featuring Venus and Cupid, and another, from a decade later, with the figure of Father Time; as well as two pedestal clocks. A complementary display in the museum’s Billiard Room brings together two artworks as it explores the concept of time – The Dance to the Music of Time (about 1634-6) by Nicolas Poussin in which the Four Seasons dance to the song of Father Time, the composition of their rhythmic bodies echoing the workings of a clock movement, and The Borghese Dancers (1597–1656), where five female figures masquerade as the Hours, attendants to the goddesses of the Dawn and Moon. Runs until 2nd March. Free admission. For more, see www.wallacecollection.org.
• London Zoo has welcomed three new Socorro doves as part of a global effort to breed and reintroduce them to the wild. The three doves, which moved from Portugal’s Lagos Zoo at the end of 2024, have joined six other Socorro doves at the zoo. The species, which is extinct in the wild, is endemic to the tiny Socorro Island off the coast of Mexico and the Socorro Dove Project, an international initiative, is working to reintroduce the species to the island by 2030. The Socorro doves can be seen in Blackburn Pavilion, London Zoo’s historic tropical birdhouse, which is also home to the endangered Sumatran laughingthrush, the critically endangered Bali starling and the critically endangered blue-crowned laughingthrush. For more, see www.londonzoo.org.
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LondonLife – London, 1879…
This Week in London – Natural History Museum scientists name new species; Ketna Patel at the Heath Robinson Museum; and, David Hoffman’s images of the East End…
• A snake named after actor Leonardo DiCaprio, fossilised dung named after the author of Winnie the Pooh and a piranha named after Sauron, the evil Lord of the Rings figure, are among 190 new species named by London’s Natural History Museum scientists in 2024. The Anguiculus dicaprioi, or DiCaprio’s Himalayan snake, was named after DiCaprio while Alococopros milnei is a fossilised dung named after AA Milne in recognition of Winnie the Pooh (get it?) and a vegetarian piranha, or pacu, was named Myloplus sauron due to its resemblance to JRR Tolkien’s Eye of Sauron. Other newly named species included a new dinosaur from the Isle of Wight, now known as Comptonatus chasei, which was named for fossil hunter, Nick Chase, and a new species of pterosaur which was named Ceoptera evansae. For more on the museum, see www.nhm.ac.uk.
• The work of British-Indian artist Ketna Patel is the subject of a new exhibition at the Heath Robinson Museum. REMIXOLOGY: The Art of Cultural Storytelling by Ketna Patel invites audiences to
“reflect on how identity is shaped – by ourselves and by society” and celebrates what is described as her “signature approach” to her work which involves remixing diverse cultural influences into something new. The display can be seen at the Pinner museum until 8th February. Museum admission charge applies. For more, see www.heathrobinsonmuseum.org.
• Now on: Endurance & Joy in the East End: The photography of David Hoffman. This exhibition, hosted by the Museum of the Home, features the work of one of the leading “photographers of protest” in the UK and spans a 10 year period starting in 1973 when Hoffman lived in a squat in Fieldgate Mansions and documented issues seen in Whitechapel including homelessness, racism and the rise of protest. Running until 30th March, it can be seen in the Undercroft at 136 Kingsland Road. For more, see www.museumofthehome.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions-and-installations/endurance-and-joy-david-hoffman/
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LondonLife – Christmas fog…
LondonLife – London, wrapped for Christmas …
Cartier with a cosmic display in New Bond Street. PICTURE: JuliaC2006 (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
This Week in London – London homes at Christmas; Christmas Eve at the Dickens’; and, ‘Women & Freud’…
• The Museum of the Home in Shoreditch has once again redressed its ‘Rooms through Time’ display for the festive season. Located in the Grade I-listed Almshouses and adjoining Branson Coates Wing, the display spans the some 400 years and explores how seasonal festivals, culture and personal traditions” have shaped our lives at home during the winter months. This year the redressing also includes seven new period homes which reflecting the stories of East London. See everything from a Midwinter Celebration in 1630 to a Midnight Mass in 1956, a Christmas Party in 1978, and a futuristic New Year’s Eve in 2049. Runs until 12th January. Admission is free. For more, see www.museumofthehome.org.uk/whats-on/rooms-through-time/winter-past-2024-2025/.
• Join the Dickens family for Christmas. The Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury is holding a special Christmas Eve opening with the house decorated in a traditional Victorian style. Guests, who each receive a free mince pie and mulled wine or soft drink alternative, will be able to watch adaptations of A Christmas Carol, including The Muppet Christmas Carol, throughout the day in ‘The Smallest Theatre in the World.’ Admission charge applies. To book, head to https://dickensmuseum.com/blogs/all-events/christmas-eve-at-the-charles-dickens-museum.
On Now: Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists. This display at the Freud Museum in South Hampstead draws on manuscripts, images, objects, visuals, and film footage to bring to life the many women who shaped Freud’s life including everyone from the early “hysterics”, who Freud called “his teachers” to later patients such as Princesse Marie Bonaparte (who went on to become an analyst) through to his daughter Anna Freud and her partner Dorothy Burlingham, to artists such as Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, Louise Bourgeois, Paula Rego, Alice Anderson and Tracey Emin. The exhibition also celebrates the 100th anniversary of the first publication of Sigmund Freud’s work by Hogarth Press, founded and owned by Virginia and Leonard Woolf and a key feature in Bloomsbury life. Admission charge applies. Runs until 5th May. For more, see www.freud.org.uk/exhibitions/freuds-women/
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10 London mysteries – 5. The St Pancras walrus…
Archaeologists were excavating the former St Pancras Old Church burial ground ahead of the expansion of St Pancras Railway Station to accommodate the Eurostar in 2003 when they came across a rather unusual coffin.
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Where’s London’s oldest…greeting card shop?
It’s that time of year and while it seems less people are these days sending Christmas cards, there are many who still do.
While we’ve previously written about the origins of greeting cards at Christmas (and who first sent them), today we’re taking a look at the oldest shop in which they’re still sold in London – often said to be the Medici Gallery in South Kensington.
The gallery was opened by the Medici Society in 1908. This organisation had been founded by Philip Lee Warner and Eustace Gurney with the intention of promoting the work of artists to a wider audience. It initially operated on a subscription basis under which subscribers pay a set rate and then obtain copies of prints but later became a limited company.
The name Medici was said to have been chosen as a homage to the Medici family known for, among other things, the promotion of the arts in Florence during the Renaissance.
The gallery first started selling greeting cards in the 1930s and continues to do so today.
For more on the shop at 26 Thurloe Street, see www.medici.co.uk/.
Lost London – Richmond Lodge…
Located close to the River Thames, Richmond Lodge was a royal hunting lodge before becoming a favoured residence for Hanoverian royals for several decades in the 18th century.
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This Week in London – One of the world’s most valuable watches at Science Museum; medieval silk bag (with a story) goes on show at Westminster Abbey; and, new electric bus display at London Transport Museum…
© The Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem
• One of the world’s most valuable watches – the No 160 watch which Abraham-Louis Breguet designed for Marie Antoinette but which wasn’t completed until the 1820s, well after her death – is the star of the show at the Science Museum’s new exhibition Versailles: Science and Splendour. Opening today, the exhibition, created in partnership with the Palace of Versailles, takes visitors on “a 120-year journey through the evolution of science at Versailles” and explores how Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI encouraged the pursuit of scientific knowledge and harnessed that knowledge as a tool of power. More than 100 objects are on display and, along with Breguet’s watch, they include Louis XV’s rhinoceros, a detailed map of the moon by Jean-Dominique Cassini, and Claude-Siméon Passemant’s Clock of the Creation of the World (1754). The watch, meanwhile, has its own fascinating history, including two decades in which its whereabouts were unknown after it was stolen in 1983 (in fact, its display in this exhibition marks the first time the timepiece has travelled abroad since its safe return to the LA Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in 2008). Runs until 21st April. Admission charge applies. For more, see sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/versailles.
• A medieval silk seal bag, which dates from the reign of King Henry III, has gone on public display for the first time in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries at Westminster Abbey. The display follows the discovery by scholars that the bag’s material is a perfect match to the silk cloth used to wrap the remains of the Emperor Charlemagne when he was buried in Germany’s Aachen Cathedral (Charlemagne, seen as the first Holy Roman Emperor, died in 814 but was re-buried in the karlsschrein (Charles’s shrine) at Aachen in 1215). The bag at the abbey contains a wax seal, the Great Seal of King Henry III, which was attached to an inventory of the jewels and precious items on Edward the Confessor’s shrine located in the heart of the abbey. It was drawn up in 1267 when Henry III was in financial difficulties and forced to pawn items from the shrine to Italian merchants to raise funds (it is believed the items were all returned within 18 months). The silk used for Charlemagne’s shroud is believed to have been spun in the 12th century in Spain or the eastern Mediterranean and, while the small piece at the Abbey originates from a separate silk, it is understood that it would have been produced by the same weavers on the same loom. The bag can been seen until Easter next year. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.westminster-abbey.org/visit-us/plan-your-visit/the-queens-diamond-jubilee-galleries/.
• A new interactive electric bus display has opened at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. The Wrightbus Electroliner display – which has been provided by Transport UK London Bus – is based on an electric vehicle bus type which has been part of the fleet of buses operating in London since 2023. The new display features the front of the bus and includes an interactive driver cab and passenger space. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk.
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10 London mysteries – 4. How did King Henry VI die?
The Tower of London is known for many mysteries – the most famous, perhaps, being the fate of the two ‘Princes in the Tower’. But among the other mysterious deaths which took place behind the closed doors of the fortress is the death of the deposed King Henry VI.
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LondonLife – Christmas intersection…
Looking toward the Royal Exchange in the City of London.
This Week in London – Queen Victoria’s Christmas childhood; Parmagianino’s Madonna and Child with Saints; and, Buckingham Palace winter tours…
• Step back in time at Kensington Palace this Christmas with an experience inspired by Queen’s Victoria’s childhood at the palace. Victoria’s Childhood Christmas features intricately designed installations – everything from trees hung with sugar ornaments and handmade paper decorations to bespoke illustrations and period-style gifts – as well as an exploration of how some of the traditions still celebrated today – such as arranging numerous Christmas trees on table tops and displaying unwrapped presents around them – can be traced back to the 1830s at Kensington Palace. There’s also a pop-up theatre set which captures the magic of Victoria’s winter trips to London opera houses and a festive-themed afternoon tea inspired by Princess Victoria’s Christmas traditions served in The Orangery. The experience, which is included in general admission, can be seen until 5th January. For more, see www.hrp.org.uk/kensington-palace/
• Parmigianino’s Madonna and Child with Saints (1526‒7) returns to display in The National Gallery for the first time in a decade in honour of the gallery’s 200th anniversary. The work, which is also known as The Vision of Saint Jerome, was presented to the gallery in 1826 and is being displayed with a selection of some of the most important preparatory drawings providing a rare opportunity to follow the artist’s creative process. The painting can be seen in Room 46 until 9th March. Entry is free. For more, see nationalgallery.org.uk.
• The Buckingham Palace State Rooms are open for one hour tours on select dates throughout winter. Led by an expert guide, the tours, which have a maximum of 30 people, include a complimentary guide. For more, see https://www.rct.uk/whatson
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10 London mysteries – 3. Where is Boudicca buried?
The location of Queen Boudicca’s grave has remained a mystery for almost 2,000 years and, dare we say it (yes, thinking of you, King Richard III), is likely to remain so.
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LondonLife – Christmas comes to 10 Downing Street…
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria Starmer turned on lights on the Christmas tree outside 10 Downing Street on 2nd December. The couple were joined by NHS workers, military personnel and members of the police. The Christmas tree is the winner of a competition run by the British Christmas Tree Growers Association, chosen for showcasing “the finest dedication, craftsmanship and commitment of British Christmas tree growers”. This year’s Nordmann Fir was grown by Evergreen Christmas Trees – a family run business based on the Welsh border who have been growing Christmas trees since 1992. The runner-up in the Christmas tree competition – Cadeby Tree Trust from Warwickshire – have supplied two Christmas trees for inside Downing Street. The wreath for the famous door at Number 10, meanwhile, was provided by Santa Trees, a Christmas tree farm from Cornwall. Lights on London’s most famous Christmas tree – that in Trafalgar Square – are being turned on this Thursday (5th December).
This Week in London – ‘Electric Dreams’ at Tate Modern; The Reflection Room; and, last chance to get NYE tickets…
“Arte Virtual”, Metro Opera, Madrid, Spain, 1994 (detail). ZKM Karlsruhe. © Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss
• Early innovators of optical, kinetic, programmed and digital art are being celebrated in a new exhibition which opens today at Tate Modern. Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet features the work of more than 70 artists who worked between the 1950s and the dawn of the internet age and “who took inspiration from science to create art that expands and tests the senses”. Works on show include Electric Dress (1957) by Japanese artist Atsuko Tanaka of the Gutai group which is being shown alongside her circuit-like drawings, German artist Otto Piene’s Light Room (Jena) which surrounds viewers in a continuous light ‘ballet’, British-Canadian Brion Gysin’s homemade mechanical device, Dreamachine no.9 (1960-76) which creates kaleidoscopic patterns, and Tatsuo Miyajima’s eight-metre-long wall installation of flashing LED lights, Lattice B (1990), which is a meditation on time. A series of rooms, meanwhile, explores the art shows which played a key role in the development of digital art including London’s groundbreaking ‘Cybernetic Serendipity’ exhibition held at the ICA in 1968, and the exhibition also features the work of early adopters including US artist Rebecca Allen and Palestinian Samia Halaby as well as some of the earliest artistic experiments in virtual reality such as Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss’ interactive installation Liquid Views (1992). Runs until 1st June. Admission charge applies. For more, see tate.org.uk.
• The Museum of London Docklands is launching The Reflection Room, a new display space for artists on Friday. The new space, which the museum says will offer “room to explore a range of ideas and perspectives that foreground emotions and human experiences connected to London’s history”, will open with British-Caribbean artist Zak Ové’s mixed media installation Exodus. The installation, which is said to suggest a “reflection on today’s discourse around migration” will be accompanied by a wall of historic maps that present a visual sense of data on international migration, agricultural trade, and tourism between 1500 and 2005. Exodus can be seen until May. Admission is free. For more, see www.londonmuseum.org.uk/docklands/.
• The final tranche of tickets for London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display go on sale on Monday, 2nd December, at noon. Tickets must be bought in advance to attend and cost between £20 and £50 depending on the viewing area while Londoners will pay £15 less on each ticket booked than those living outside of the capital. Tickets will be available at www.ticketmaster.co.uk. For more on the event, see www.london.gov.uk/nye.
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10 London mysteries – 2. Who was Jimmy Garlick?
This week we look at a mysterious mummified figure who was “discovered” in the vaults beneath the floor of St James Garlickhythe in the 1850s.
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