This City of London street runs north-south from the junction of Newgate Street, Holborn Viaduct and Old Bailey to West Smithfield. Its name comes from those who once travelled along it.
Looking south down Giltspur Street, with the dome of the Old Bailey visible, in 2018. PICTURE: Courtesy of Google Maps
An alternative name for the street during earlier ages was Knightrider Street which kind of gives the game away – yes, the name comes from the armoured knights who would ride along the street in their way to compete in tournaments held at Smithfield. It’s suggested that gilt spurs may have later been made here to capitalise on the passing trade.
The street is said to have been the location where King Richard II met with the leaders of the Peasant’s Revolt who had camped at Smithfield. And where, when the meeting deteriorated, the then-Lord Mayor of London William Walworth, ending up stabbing the peasant leader Wat Tyler who he later captured and had beheaded.
St Bartholomew’s Hospital can be found on the east side of the street. On the west side, at the junction with Cock Lane is located Pye Corner with its famous statue of a golden boy (said to be the place where the Great Fire of London was finally stopped).
There’s also a former watch house on the west side which features a monument to the essayist late 18th century and 19th century Charles Lamb – the monument says he attended a Bluecoat school here for seven years. The church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate stands at the southern end with the Viaduct Tavern on the opposite side of the road.
The street did formerly give its name to the small prison known as the Giltspur Street Compter which stood here from 1791 to 1853. A prison for debtors, it stood at the street’s south end (the location is now marked with a City of London blue plaque).
Once the biggest hotel in Europe, the opulent Hotel Cecil opened in 1896 on a prominent site overlooking the Thames. But it only survived for little more than three decades.
Subscribe for just £3 a month to support our work and access all of our articles.
• The first major exhibition on mudlarking opens at the Museum of London Docklands tomorrow. Secrets of the Thames: Mudlarking London’s lost treasures features some of the fascinating finds made along the Thames foreshore – from a Tudor head-dress and a medieval gold ring to an an elaborately decorated Viking era dagger and a pair of 18th century false teeth. While mudlarking was historically an activity of the poor, often children, during the 19th century, it has evolved into a popular hobby for some (albeir permits are required) and in recent years led to some spectacular finds. Others among the more than 350 objects on show include a 16th century ivory sundial, the nationally significant Iron Age Battersea Shield, a pair of medieval spectacles, 16th century wig curlers, and a Roman badge decorated with a phallus. The exhibition also features the installation, The Moon by artist Luke Jerram, which highlights the role the moon and tides play in creating the unique conditions for mudlarks to explore the river’s banks. Admission charge applies. Runs until 1st March next year. For more, see www.londonmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/secrets-thames/.
• The hidden world of MI5 is being revealed in a new exhibition opening at the National Archives in Kew on Saturday.MI5: Official Secrets features original case files, photographs and papers alongside equipment used by spies and spy-catchers during the organisation’s 115 year history. Among the items on show are first-hand account of Kim Philby’s confession in 1963, papers related to the past activities of Cambridge spy Anthony Blunt, M15’s first camera – a pocket-sized ‘Ensignette’ made by Houghton Ltd from 1910, evidence that led to German spy Josef Jakobs being the last person executed at the Tower of London, and, advanced radio equipment found buried in the garden of Soviet spies Helen and Peter Kroger in the 1960s. The exhibition also features video insights from former MI5 directors general, intelligence experts including Professor Christopher Andrew – author of MI5’s official history, and Baroness May, former Prime Minister and one of Britain’s longest serving Home Secretaries. The exhibition is free to visit and runs until 28th September. For more, see https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/mi5-official-secrets/.
• The first new permanent gallery at the Natural History Museum – Fixing Our Broken Planet – opens today. The new gallery brings together pioneering research from the museum’s scientists with advice from environmentalists and young changemakers on how to better care for the planet and its future and aims to be a “definitive destination for those looking to explore the threats to our natural world whilst discovering where solutions can be found”. Visitors will come face-to-face with more than 250 specimens including a Sumatran rhinoceros, parasitic worms and whale’s earwax; each telling an important story about our fragile relationship with the natural world and will also see research showing how fungi is used to fertilise crops, how bacteria can be harnessed to extract copper from mine waste, how bison are helping to engineer forests in the UK to store more carbon and how vital DNA analysis on mosquitos is being used to fight mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria. The new display is located in the restored original 1881 Waterhouse building. The gallery is free to visit. For more, see www.nhm.ac.uk.
Located just to the east of the Tower of London, St Katharine Docks were opened in 1828 following the demolition of more than 1,000 houses along with a brewery and what was left of the medieval St Katharine’s Hospital.
Subscribe for just £3 a month to access all our content!
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.
Subscribe for just £3 a month to access all of Exploring London’s content (and support our work!)
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.
Support our work for just £3 a month to gain access to all Exploring London’s content!
• The Lord Mayor’s Show – featuring the 696th Lord Mayor of London, Alastair King – will be held this Saturday. The three-mile long procession – in which the Lord Mayor will ride in the Gold State Coach – features some 7,000 people, 250 horses, and 150 floats. It will set off from Mansion House at 11am and travel down Poultry and Cheapside to St Paul’s Cathedral before moving on down Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street to the Royal Courts of Justice. The return journey will set off again at 1:10pm from Temple Place and travel via Queen Victoria Street back to Mansion House where he will take the salute from the Pikemen and Musketeers at 2:40pm. For more information, including where to watch the show, head to https://lordmayorsshow.london.
• An immersive sound and light show commemorating World War I and II opens at the Tower of London tomorrow ahead of Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. Historic Royal Palaces has partnered with Luxmuralis to present Poppy Fields at the Tower with visitors invited to go inside the Tower where – recalling the 2014 display Bloodswept Lands and Seas of Red in the Tower of London moat to mark the centenary of World War I – the walls will not only be illuminated with tumbling poppies but also historic photographs, documents and plans. The display is being accompanied by music composed by David Harper, and poetry recordings. Visitors will also be granted special access to see the Crown Jewels after-hours to learn more about their removal from the Tower during both World Wars. Runs until 16th November and should be pre-booked. Admission charges apply. For more, see https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/whats-on/poppy-fields-at-the-tower/.
• An exhibition celebrating the golden age of the Mughal Court opens at the V&A in South Kensington on Saturday.The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence examines the “creative output and internationalist culture” of Mughal Hindustan during the age of its greatest emperors, a period spanning c1560 to 1660. More than 200 objects are on display arranged in three sections corresponding to the reigns of the Emperor Akbar (1556-1605), Jahangir (1605 to 1627) and Shah Jahan (1628 to 1658). The objects include paintings, illustrated manuscripts, vessels made from mother of pearl, rock crystal, jade and precious metals. Highlights include four folios from the Book of Hamza, commissioned by Akbar in 1570, and the Ames carpet which was made in the imperial workshops between c1590 and 1600 and is on display for the first time in the UK. There’s also a unique wine cup made from white nephrite jade in the shape of a ram’s head for Shah Jahan in 1657, two paintings depicting a North American Turkey Cock and an African zebra created by Jahangir’s artists, and a gold dagger and scabbard set with over 2,000 rubies, emeralds and diamonds. Runs in Galleries 38 and 39 until 5th May. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.vam.ac.uk.
• Send all items for inclusion to exploringlondon@gmail.com.
This tower – said to be the oldest building in Hackney – is all that remains of a 16th century church and, as a local symbol, appears on the London Borough of Hackney’s coat-of-arms.
Support our work and subscribe for just £3 a month – less than the price of a cup of coffee – to see all of Exploring London’s content.
The Bloody Tower (centre, with the gateway) at the Tower of London. PICTURE: David Adams
Carrying rather a gruesome name, this rectangular-shaped tower sits over a gate leading from outer ward into the inner ward in the Tower of London.
The tower, which once controlled the watergate before the outer walls were constructed, was originally known as the Garden Tower due to its location adjoining the Tower Lieutenant’s Garden.
To see the rest of this post (and all of our coverage), subscribe for just £3 a month. This small contribution – less than the cost of a cup of coffee – will help us continue and grow our coverage.We appreciate your support!
Members of the Household Division in London rehearse for the King’s Birthday Parade, known as Trooping the Colour. The Colonel’s Review is held one week before and saw some 250 musicians, 20 pipers, 240 military working horses, and almost 1,000 dual role soldiers of the British Army’s Household Division run through their paces on Saturday. Trooping the Colour will take place on 15th June.
• The City of London has unveiled a new blue plaque commemorating the Royal National Lifeboat Institution which is this year marking its 200th anniversary. The plaque is on the Furniture Makers’ Hall in Austin Friars which is where the organisation has its first headquarters from 1824 to 1826. The plaque was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of London, Professor Michael Mainelli. The RNLI, which today operates 238 lifeboat stations in the UK and Ireland including four on the River Thames, was founded by Sir William Hillary in the City of London Tavern in Bishopsgate on 4th March, 1824, and early meetings were held at various addresses until it moved into 12 Austin Friars. Meanwhile, ‘Ian Visits’ reports that a new plaque has also been installed at Limehouse Basin to commemorate Lifbåt 416 which was built there by Forrestt & Son’s boatyard in 1868 and sent as a gift to the King of Sweden, Karl XV. The Lifbåt 416, which has been restored, returned to Limehouse Basin this week after attending RNLI commemorations in Poole, Dorset (where it was the oldest lifeboat to take part in a mile-long flotilla).
Hargila army papier-mache headdress close up. PICTURE: Courtesy of Natural History Museum
• The “weird and wonderful” ways birds have adapted to survive are celebrated in a new exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Birds: Brilliant and Bizarre, which opens at the South Kensington institution on Friday, has been created in partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and features installations and hands-on exhibits which allow visitors to feel how fast a hummingbird’s heart beats when in flight, smell the strange oil one bird uses to protect its eggs and listen to the sound of a dawn chorus of birds in the year 2050. Objects on show include the ‘Wonderchicken’ – the oldest known fossil of a modern bird, a replica of a stork that flew across the world from the African continent with a spear lodged in its neck, and a headdress of the ‘Hargila army’ (pictured), a group of women in the Indian state of Assam who work to protect one of the world’s rarest storks. Admission charge applies. Runs until 5th January. For more, see www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/birds-brilliant-bizarre.html.
• A walk-through photographic exhibition featuring some of the most iconic photos of Princess Diana opens on Saturday.Princess Diana: Accredited Access features 75 life-sized photographs by her official royal photographer, Anwar Hussein, and his two sons – Samir and Zak – which include behind the scenes access. The exhibition at the Dockside Vaults, St Katharine Docks, runs until 2nd September. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.princessdianaexhibit.com.
• A landmark exhibition exploring the final three decades of the life of Renaissance master Michelangelo has opened at the British Museum. Michelangelo: the last decades focuses on how his art and faith evolved and centres on the two metre high Epifania (about 1550–53), which is being displayed for the first time since conservation work on it began in 2018. Showing alongside it is a painting made from it by Michelangelo’s biographer, Ascanio Condivi, as well as preparatory drawings from the Last Judgment, which chart how Michelangelo invented a fresh vision of how the human form would be refashioned at the end of the world, and works created as part of his correspondence with his friends Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and the poet Vittoria Colonna. The latter include The Punishment of Tityus (about 1532) showing an eagle tearing out the liver of a bound naked man which was gifted to Tommaso as moral guidance for the young man. Other highlights include a group of drawings of Christ’s crucifixion which he made during the last 10 years of his life and through which he explored his feelings about mortality, sacrifice, faith, and the prospect of redemption. Runs until 28th July in the Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org/michelangelo.
• A new exhibition has opened celebrating the expressionists’ radical experimentations with form, colour, sound and performance at the Tate Modern. Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider features masterpieces from the Lenbachhaus in Munich and includes some works never previously seen in the UK. Among the artists whose work is on display are everyone from renowned artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, Franz Marc and Paul Klee, through to lesser known figures like Wladimir Burliuk and Maria Franck-Marc. Highlights include Marianne Werefkin’s Self-Portrait (c1910), Münter’s Listening (Portrait of Jawlensky) (1909), Erma Bossi’s Circus (1909), Kandinsky’s Impression III (Concert) (1911), Franz-Marc’s Deer in the Snow II (1911), Klee’s Legend of the Swamp (1919), and a selection of photographs from the Masterpieces of Muhammadan Art exhibition staged in Munich in 1910. Runs until 20th October. Admission charge applies. For more, see tate.org.uk.
• On Now – Dinosaur rEvolution.This exhibition at the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill highlights discoveries from recent decades which have changed the way we envisage dinosaurs – not all as scaly green reptiles but many with an array of colours, feathers, quills and spikes. At the centre of the display are five large animatronic dinosaur models – including a seven metre-long Tyrannosaurus rex – as well as well as artworks by artist and exhibition curator Luis V Rey. The exhibition also features fossil casts including the horned skull of a Diabloceratops, the claw of a Therizinosaurus, and skeletons of Velociraptor and Compsognathus – a chicken-sized, feathered dinosaur. Runs until 3rd November. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.horniman.ac.uk.
A suffragette and women’s right’s campaigner, Princess Sophia Jindan Alexandrovna Duleep Singh was the daughter of the deposed Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, last Sikh emperor of Punjab, and god-daughter of Queen Victoria and is known for having leveraged her position to advocate for the rights of others.
Princess Sophia Duleep Singh selling subscriptions for the ‘Suffragette’ newspaper outside Hampton Court in London in about 1913. PICTURE: Via Wikipedia/Public Domain.
Singh was born on 8th August, 1876, at a house in Belgravia, the third daughter of the Maharajah and his German-born first wife, Bamba Müller. The fifth of six children, she was named Sophia for her maternal grandmother, a formerly enslaved woman from Ethiopia who married a wealthy German banker, and Alexandrovna in tribute to her godmother, Queen Victoria.
Following his forced abdication, the Maharaja had travelled to England as a boy in 1854 where he lived on an annual government pension of £25,000. Having later married Bamba in Cairo, he returned to England where in 1863 he purchased Elvedon Hall in Suffolk (which he later rebuilt). Sophia subsequently spent her childhood there.
But after the breakdown of her parents’ marriage (after which her father remarried before being exiled to Paris where he campaigned for a return to India until his death in 1889) and the death of her mother in 1887 from typhoid (she had contracted the disease but survived), Sophia and her siblings were placed in the care of Arthur Craigie Oliphant – chosen by Queen Victoria to be guardian – first at their home in Folkestone and then in Brighton.
After finishing her education at a girls school in Brighton, Sophia and her sisters sisters Bamba and Catherine embarked upon a six-month tour of Holland, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Egypt.
Sophia, who had inherited some of her father’s fortune, was given Faraday House – part of the Hampton Court estate – as a grace-and-favour apartment by Queen Victoria in 1896 (along with an annual grant to maintain the property and a key to Hampton Court Palace where she could walk her dogs).
The princess took a keen interest in dogs – she was a member of the Ladies’ Kennel Association and showed her dogs on several occasions – as well in music, photography and fashion. She also supported Indians in London, particularly those in the Sikh community, and travelled to India a number of occasions.
Princess Sophia is known for her work in the women’s suffrage movement and was an active member of the Women’s Social and Political Union. She was present in Parliament Square ion 18th November, 1910, when more than 300 suffragettes including Emmeline Pankhurst gathered and demanded to see the Prime Minister HH Asquith and, having refused to disperse when he refused to see them, were met with a violent response by police. The day, which resulted in injuries to more than 200 women including two who died of them, became known as Black Friday.
Sophia was also, perhaps more importantly in terms of public impact, a member of the Women’s Tax Reform League and refused to pay fines on a couple of occasions, protesting that taxation without representation was “tyranny” (with the result that some of her jewels were confiscated and auctioned off).
During World War I, Princess Sophia – as well as being part of a 10,000-strong march calling for the establishment of a female volunteer force – was involved in fundraising for organisations such as the Red Cross and in support of Indian soldiers and also worked as a nurse at the Brighton Pavilion and other hospitals where Indian soldiers were recovering.
During World War II, Sophia moved to Penn, Buckinghamshire, with her sister Catherine, and took in evacuee children from London.
Having never married, Princess Sophia died in her sleep in Penn on 22nd August, 1948. A full band played Wagner’s Funeral March at her cremation and her ashes were taken to India for burial.
Sophia’s name and image are among those on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square. In 2023, an English Heritage Blue Plaque was unveiled on Faraday House in Richmond.
Sources: Historic Royal Palaces; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; BBC.
Exploring London 