A short history of Great Queen Street

Laid out around the time of construction of Covent Garden and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Great Queen Street, just to the North East of Covent Garden, was the third step of the quest for homogeneity that seventeenth-century London then wished to pursue. Following the same principles of houses already built in the Covent Garden area, brick…

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Thirteen Lions

The Gunpowder Plotters meeting at the Duck and Drake, as rendered by Maz Hemming.

The work of illustrator, graphic designer and game maker Maz Hemming, Thirteen Lions is a webcomic retelling the story of the Gunpowder Plot. It’s now being published online in instalments. While the conspiracy is currently in its infancy, there’s already been a pivotal cameo for the Duck and Drake – the pub on the Strand…

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The Old Watch House and Roman Bath in Strand Lane

The so-called ‘Roman’ bath, though not the buildings over it, dates from the early seventeenth century. The Watch House (the white building with the balcony) once belonging to St Clement Danes, looks early nineteenth century in its present form, but there are documents to show that there was a building of this shape (projecting over…

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Memories of the Strand: Dr Barrie Morgan

As part of the Strand Lines Project I met with Dr Barrie Morgan to talk about his associations and interactions with the area whilst working at King’s. Dr Morgan was initially a Lecturer in the Geography Department when he first joined King’s in the late 1960’s. His career spanned to become founding Director the International…

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Donald McDonnell – an artist among the people

“It is a living place”, said Donald McDonnell to me near the beginning of our interview. Donald is an artist living and working on the Strand. He is heavily involved with the Peabody Trust, and his artistic mediums range from poetry, photography and painting, to sculpture. Having spent the last (and my first) three years in…

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St Mary Le Strand

In 1147 the site of St Mary le Strand was occupied by the church of The Nativity Of Our Lady and the Innocents. This was demolished in 1549 to make way for Somerset House, Protector Somerset promised to rebuild it but never did so and for nearly 200 years the parishioners had used the Savoy…

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Panoramas, Dress Circles and Tubes

In 1787 Robert Barker put a patent on a way of seeing: ‘panorama’. It is said that he came upon the term when surveying the city of Edinburgh from the top of Calton Hill. Moving to London, Barker reconstructed 360 degree views in a Leicester Square art gallery; an initiative mimicked by his son on…

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