A London Christmas

Well, it’s that time of year again, so for our last blog of 2010, we thought we’d take a look at some of the odder facts that surround Christmas in London; so saddle up the sleigh for our whistlestop tour through the weird and wonderful events that have marked many Christmases past.

Writers

Many of our most distinguished writers seemed to have a real affection for Christmas. Possibly the most famous is Charles Dickens, author of festive favourite A Christmas Carol (LTH favours the Muppet’s version!).

Dickens’ may have been inspired by the fact that his Christmases were pretty much always white, since he lived through the end of a mini Ice-age which struck London between 1550-1850. It was also partly responsible for the Frost Fairs of Tudor Times.

Regular readers of this blog will know that some of Dickens’ most memorable passages from A Christmas Carol came from really rather mundane things, like the indescribably ugly door knocker at 8 Craven Street, which came to decorate Scrooge’s front door, and host the ghost of Marley.

Robert Louis Stevenson appeared not to enjoy Christmas so much, or at least a close friend of his didn’t. Her birthday fell on Christmas day, which was fine for a while but did get a bit tiresome. Stevenson, being the kind-hearted soul that he was, legally donated his own birthday, a wintry 13^th November, to his friend.

And finally, Rudyard Kipling, a Christmas baby himself was fond of writing items for public service, including The Cenotaph inscription and the very first Royal Christmas address, given by George V in 1932.

Christmas Food

Turkey is not actually the traditional Christmas lunch. Since days of yore, Londoners have supped on goose and boar’s head. The former is still relatively common today. 

Turkeys only came to London in 1530 and it was a good while before they became the centrepiece of the year’s biggest meal.  When they did, they used to be marched down from Norfolk, wearing tiny turkey boots to protect their feet!

The most famous goose was Leadenhall market’s Old Tom. He followed his lady friend over from Belgium in the eighteenth century, only to find himself at the centre of a slaughter which took over 34,000 goose lives in 2 days. Miraculously Old Tom survived and became a market celebrity, fed and cared for by surrounding innkeepers. When he eventually died (of natural causes) his body lay in state at the market, before being buried there.

And to wash all this sumptuous meat down, how about some Pig and Whistle? One of the UK’s most popular pub names actually comes from piggin and wassail, the piggin was a tankard and wassail a lovely Christmassy drink!

Bah, Humbug!

Christmas hasn’t always been so popular in London. During the Republican period, when Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector, Christmas greatly fell from grace. While rumours that he outright banned Christmas are untrue, he did ban mince pies. Whether he was offended by their royalist history – a giant mince pie was served at the coronation of Henry V – or just didn’t like their distinctive taste is unclear, but nonetheless, they were gone for the duration!

But now that Cromwell’s long gone, London Treasure Hunts is free to say to all our readers and hunters – a very merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy 2011!

Dan Leno and the birth of the pantomime dame

We’ve briefly mentioned Dan Leno, AKA the King’s Jester on this blog before. He was a Vaudevillian act of immense popularity, famous in the Victorian era for his clog-dancing, singing and his Pantomime Dames.

Music Halls were a unique form of entertainment; they were very quick-change sketch shows consisting of songs, dance and comedy. Performers frequently indulged in cross-dressing and acrobatics were also a popular part of the act.

Leno was born George Galvin into an already theatrical family – his father was a comedian, his mother a vocalist. When his father died young, Galvin’s mother remarried one Will Leno, from whom George was to eventually take his stage name.

With such a pedigree, it’s not surprising that George was performing from a young age, in scenes which sound suspiciously like Don Lockwood’s vaudevillian rise to fame in Singing in the Rain. He quickly rose to the top of the bill and at the height of his popularity in the 1880s he would perform at anything between three and 20 music halls each evening.

Popular performers would be placed at different points of the bill in different music halls, giving them the chance to get between the various locations.

Dan Leno was a World Champion Clog Dancer, a form of dance that combines folk and tap traditions. Even more remarkable, despite his ability to command some of the biggest stages in England, and his larger than life persona, Leno was only 5ft 3”.

Leno was central to the development of Victorian pantomime, from which originated many of the hallmarks of today’s Christmas theatre. He became attached to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1887; and between Christmas and Easter for the next 16 years, he could be seen playing any one of a number of dames, from Mother Goose to Widow Twankey.

Today the Dame is an integral part of pantomime, played by talented comic performers in outrageous costumes. Our interpretation, and expectation, of how a dame should perform is largely dictated by Leno’s work during his time at Drury Lane, when he essentially created the modern pantomime dame. He was the first ever Mother Goose, after the role was written for him, bringing topical humour, and sly innuendo to the role, along with his own brand of wit. 

It’s for this reason we’re featuring Leno on the blog at this time of year, as there’s nothing like a dame!

By the time he was commanded to perform for the King in 1901, Leno was known as The Funniest Man on Earth. Unfortunately there was very little comedy in his death, which was tragically young. Leno suffered a mental breakdown in 1903 and died soon afterwards aged just 43. His death certificate listed insanity, some murmured syphilis; modern medicine thinks he probably suffered from a brain tumour.

His funeral was public and on a scale normally reserved for royalty and military commanders, with crowds flocking to see his funeral procession. He was interred in Lambeth Cemetery and his grave, with the epitaph King of Laughter-Makers, can still be visited today.

We’re not much for advertising on this blog – but if you want a truly remarkable, fictionalised account of Leno’s character and life, wrapped up in one of the most startling murder mysteries ever created, London Hunts can highly recommend Peter Ackroyd’s Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. Just don’t read it when you’re sleeping alone...

For more hidden London visit London Treasure Hunts.

All the fun of the (Frost) Fair

As the snow hits London, everyone begins to grumble about how cold it is, and how difficult the commute. Still, at least the Thames hasn’t frozen over! Not this year anyway. It used to though – on a pretty regular basis, which was a bit of a pain as most of London’s trade was conducted by water. The Thames was the city’s lifeblood. Still, rather than get upset about it, Londoners made the most of the enforced break from work, creating impromptu ‘Frost Fairs’ on the frozen river.

The medieval London Bridge slowed the water current down to such a speed that in cold weather it was able to freeze over. The first sign that a frost fair was on its way was the gathering of ice around the legs of the old bridge, this further blocked the current and the freeze spread across the river. The process was helped as the world was in a ‘little ice age’ during the period the fairs lasted – roughly the late 16^th to early nineteenth centuries. The last fair was in 1814.

The first Frost Fairs were little more than an excuse for a community game of football on the ice, but as the fairs became an annual occurrence, they also became a fully blown fairground, with refreshments, souvenirs, sideshows and attractions all forming part of London’s favourite winter day out.

The ferrymen, put out of work by the river’s inconvenient freezing, instead made their money by destroying the ice at the water’s edge, except for ‘approved fair entrances’, where they set up toll booths, charging a small fee to let people onto the ice.

Popular attractions would include whole hog or ox roasts, puppet shows, and stalls selling souvenir certificates. Even royalty got involved, Charles II bought a certificate on the ice, Henry VIII used to travel along the river by sleigh from his palace at Hampton Court to participate and Elizabeth I would take to the ice for shooting practice at the fairs.  

The last ice fair, in February 1814, took an exotic twist when an elephant was led across the ice, just below Blackfriars Bridge. After this, changes in the design of London Bridge, and the end of the Little Ice Age meant the Thames no longer froze, although Bankside hosts a land-based equivalent every year in December to commemorate the events.

Trafalgar Square’s Christmas Tree

For all its contemporary design and fast-pace of modern life, London’s a traditionalist at heart, and none more so than around Christmas. None of these traditions is more famous than the massive Christmas tree that stands in Trafalgar Square and has its annual lighting-up ceremony on Thursday 2^nd December.

Every Christmas and New Year, Trafalgar Square becomes the centre of London’s festive celebrations. At the heart of all the parties taking place here is a massive Norwegian Spruce, usually around 20 ft high and transported from the forests outside Oslo. The tree is usually around half a century old and has been pre-selected, sometimes, as much as years in advance.

The tree has been a London fixture since 1947, when Norway donated the first Spruce as a symbol of their gratitude for Britain’s help during World War II. This help extended to housing Norway’s exiled King Haakon II during the war. The King and his Cabinet moved here in 1942, and ran the Norwegian government in exile from Windsor between 1942 and the end of the war.

Every Christmas they were here, the Norwegian resistance managed to smuggle a Christmas tree, thankfully not as large as the one in Trafalgar Square, out to their banished monarch. It became an important morale boost for the Norwegian people, as King Haakon remained a crucial figure for the resistance, even while in England.

In late November, the tree is ceremonially felled at a ceremony attended by the British Ambassador in Oslo, the Lord Mayor of Westminster and the Mayor of Oslo. It’s then conveyed to Britain and simply decorated with lights in the traditional Norwegian style.

Throughout December the tree becomes the focus for a carol singing programme. Most afternoons in December London singing groups and charities lead carols under the tree to spread some Christmas cheer, and hopefully raise some awareness and money for their good cause.

So if you find yourself in Trafalgar Square this Christmas, take some time to admire this majestic symbol of Norwegian-English friendship, and maybe sing a carol or two to celebrate the season! 

For more hidden London, visit London Treasure Hunts.

Roman remains found in leafy Syon Park

Hidden amongst the fervour of the royal wedding, a far more exciting announcement was made this week as archaeologists revealed they had uncovered substantial Roman remains on a Syon Park building site.

The amazing discovery consists of around 11,500 items, including human remains, buried a mere 50cm beneath the modern concrete jungle. That’s something to think about next time you pound the pavements – who or what is napping just half a metre beneath your feet?

As well as individual pieces of pottery, coinage, skeletons etc. a part of one of Londinium’s most important Roman roads has been found. This road would have originally linked the Roman’s key city of Londinium with the important town of Silchester, where Roman remains are still visible today. It’s thought Londinium was connected to the rest of England by six major routes, now we know one of them went right through Syon Park!

For such an important find, those sneaky bods at the Museum of London have kept it well under wraps – this incredible discovery was made in 2008, but is only now coming to light! Some of the finds, which also include a beautiful Bronze Age bracelet, will soon go on display at a new hotel, currently being built on the site and the reason for the excavations.

Syon House, whose estate borders the site, is the London home of the Duke’s of Northumberland. This historic aristocratic home was built in the style of the Italian Renaissance over the ruins of an Abbey which stood on the site until the Reformation. 

The Abbey was founded here in 1431, long after the Roman’s left Londinium. Their re-emergence on a building site offers a fascinating glimpse into Syon Park’s unknown history and helps fill in a number of blanks which remain in our knowledge about our Roman predecessors.

Discover more hidden London with London Treasure Hunts.

Something to Gog-gle at!

The giants Gog and Magog feature in most world religions, with appearances in the Book of Genesis, the Book of Revelation and the Qu’ran, among others. As well as their religious significance, Gog and Magog are also the legendary guardians of London, and statues of them have stood at the Guildhall and featured in the Lord Mayor’s Show on-and-off since Henry V sat on the throne.

As Gog and Magog feature throughout global folklore, there are hundreds of different stories as to who they are and what they did. The most popular story of their origin, as it relates to the City of London, is the one preferred, and hence propagated, by the Lord Mayor of London. This tale dates back to the days of the Roman Empire, when Diocletian ruled as Emperor. 

It was said that he had 33 beautiful daughters, who were ill-behaved. Hoping to curb their wickedness, Diocletian arranged for them all to be married off, to 33 willing husbands. The daughters were really not happy with these arranged marriages and, spurred on by the eldest daughter Alba, they each murdered their husband, slitting his throat as he slept.

When Diocletian found out, he had the girls exiled to sea. Their ship was wrecked on an island, named Albion after the ringleader eldest daughter. Albion is the earliest recorded name for the British Isles. It was here the girls met, and mated with, a race of demons. This peopled the island with a monstrous brood of giants, of whom Gog and Magog were the last known descendants.

The pair were then enslaved by England’s first mythological King, Brutus, and made to stand guard at the site of Brutus’ palace, about where the Guildhall is today. The name Britain is supposed to derive from Brutus.

It’s a pretty horrendous story, what with its components of murder, enslavement and unnatural behaviours. It’s also slightly confused chronologically as Brutus, grandson of Trojan hero Aeneas, ruled England about 1500 years before Diocletian ruled Rome. But that shouldn’t get in the way of a good legend!

If you want to see our mythical guardians today, you can visit the Guildhall in London. The original wooden statues are long since gone, and their replacements were destroyed in the Blitz, having stood for over 200 years. Today’s statues are striking sculptures, created by David Evans. If you can’t tell the two apart – Magog has a phoenix on his shield!

You can also see the giants at the head of the Lord Mayor’s procession, after their wicker effigies were reinstated in 2006.  The new effigies were created by the Company of Basketmakers, and are drawn by the Society of Young Freemen, as they would have been during their original figures in medieval times.

This year’s Lord Mayor’s Show takes place this Saturday 13^th November, and Gog and Magog will be heading the parade, so if you want to come face-to-face with a London giant, make sure you’re in the old city, around Bank/ Moorgate / St Paul’s area, from 11am. 

Discover more hidden London at London Treasure Hunts.

Nothing grotto about Pope

Poet Alexander Pope was the archetypal small man with a big personality. Famous for his satirical poetry and translations of Homer, Pope bought a villa in Twickenham in 1719. He lived there for twenty five years, earning the moniker ‘The Bard of Twickenham’. 

Pope was a true eccentric, alienated from society by his religion, ill health and feelings of inadequacy over his height (he was only 4 foot 6 inches tall), he developed waspish habits and strange tendencies, including the desire, and means, to build a full grotto beneath the villa. He also had the land surrounding it beautifully landscaped to create a pleasure garden, which became the talk of the town.

The grotto was a place of absolute splendour, decorated with shells and glass which caught and reflected the dim light to create a magical effect. As Pope himself commented ‘Were it to have nymphs as well – it would be complete in everything’. Although the nymphs were absent, the Grotto was filled by the sound of running water, after the excavations for the feature struck an underground spring, adding to the peaceful atmosphere down there. It also featured a Camera Obscura, projecting images of Twickenham above on the walls around the grotto.

After 1739, Pope redecorated the Grotto to resemble a mine, after being inspired on a trip to Hotwell Spa at the Avon Gorge. He brought in precious ores, marble and alabaster and imported stalactites and stalagmites to create the desired industrial cave effect. Although the grotto’s appearance greatly changed, contemporary reports suggest its unusual and calm atmosphere largely remained untouched after the makeover.

Sadly Pope’s stunning Palladian Villa and the surrounding gardens were demolished around 1808. The Grotto remains, but now sits beneath what will be Radnor House Independent School from September 2011. It’s occasionally open to the public, but chances are rare, and likely to become more so as the house above comes back to life next year. 

 

Luckily, an equally fantastic Grotto is open to the public in Ware, just outside London. Scott’s Grotto dates from a similar period and had functioned as a garden folly and talking point, just like Pope’s in Twickenham.

It does seem Twickenham attracted eccentric builders, as just down the road from the Grotto is the superb Gothic castle Strawberry Hill, built by Horace Walpole. This is open to the public, recently restored and well worth a visit!

For more hidden London, visit London Treasure Hunts.