Time Travelling through London's History

[boohoo]

I'd like to go forward a hundred years ............ and visit the mosque built on the tower of london bombsite , hopefully the radiation wouldn't be too bad by then !

Go forward to the olympics!

 

[bluestreak]

The 1600s. Man, to walk those streets would be an experience. Civil War, restoration, the birth of the modern, fire and plague and wow!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'd like to go back to 1930s east London, and avail myself of the many opportunities to bottle or brick Sir Oswald Mosley.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The 1600s. Man, to walk those streets would be an experience. Feeling human and animal turds squish underfoot and inhaling the fetor of close-packed humanity

Corrected.

 

[ringo]

I'd like to go back to 1930s east London, and avail myself of the many opportunities to bottle or brick Sir Oswald Mosley.

My Grandad did that at the battle of Cable Street. Nice one Grandad.

 

[ViolentPanda]

My Grandad did that at the battle of Cable Street. Nice one Grandad.

Well done, your grandad!!

 

[Brainaddict]

My Grandad did that at the battle of Cable Street. Nice one Grandad.

Cool, was just reading about the battle of cable street today - not sure it would have been fun exactly though - so many people turned out to resist the fascists that a lot never got near the front line, while those who were at the front line were being trampled by police horses. Victory must have tasted pretty damn sweet though

 

[kyser_soze]

Corrected.

Ah, 'fetor', nice choice.

Bluey, we could go together and cause no end of trouble...

 

[Bungle73]

Bermondsey, IIRC.

Actually it was at Execution Dock at Wapping on the other side of the Thames.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_Dock

 

[HackneyE9]

My Grandad did that at the battle of Cable Street. Nice one Grandad.

Nice one. Shame he didn't get a direct hit on the nuts and cancel Max.

I'm thinking:

1603: Bit of Hamlet, King Lear, Winter's Tale with Shakespeare at the Globe.

May 23 1966: Bit of Bob Dylan, live at Royal Albert Hall

May 1964: Bob Dylan, live at Royal Festival Hall (detecting a theme here )

1370ish [?]: Bit of Chaucer reading his tales at Southwark Cathedral.

1981 Brixton Riots

1994: Buy my dream home in Hackney. For £70,000.

 

[HackneyE9]

Oh yeah - 1936: watch Crystal Palace burn (or, even better, put the fire out!)

 

[Dan U]

jazz clubs in Soho in the 1950s
walk through a pea souper
watch the blitz as mentioned
find out who Jack the Ripper really was
somehow convince which ever king it was to build the whole of Wren's master plan for the area around St Pauls
dispel the myth of the Kray's loving their mum
going to the original Globe would good as mentioned
i'd quite like to see Henry VIII
see the Port of London @ it's peak

loads basically, i could go on for ages. I love London and it's history

 

[HackneyE9]

see the Port of London @ it's peak

Good one.

Even in A Clockwork Orange (filmed 1972) it's a bit of a shock to see 'Alex' walking down Chelsea embankment - with loads of goods ships sailing by, and in-use wharfes in the background.

(I realise that's not the port, but if that was what Chelsea was like, how busy was docklands??)

 

[davesgcr]

1949 West London

10 Rillington Place

(have a quiet word with Tim Evans about his ground floor neighbour)



Seriously - 1940s London would be more than interesting with the trams and the Southern Electric ....

 

[zenie]

jazz clubs in Soho in the 1950s

Can I be your moll?

 

[RubyToogood]

I'd be more interested in seeing the bits that were not London at the time but now are, like the Great North Wood that used to cover large areas of South London and gradually got chopped down. All the little rivers like the Effra and the Fleet that are now invisible, and the country villages that are now suburbs.

Was it in Roman Britain that the Thames was shallow enough to ford? I'd like to see that, and who was living here, and how, in the Bronze Age.

 

[ringo]

Was it in Roman Britain that the Thames was shallow enough to ford? I'd like to see that, and who was living here, and how, in the Bronze Age.

During the time of the first prehistoric habitation of the London area the Thames consisted of a number of little tributaries and sand/mud flats around the region we now call Southwark. From memory the place you could ford the river was roughly in front of Lambeth Palace.

Quite a bit of the land around the Thames flood plain was marshy. I remember reading up for a dig I did near Moorgate and finding out that in the Middle Ages the animal bones from tanneries, and other rubbish, used to get carted out of the city walls and dumped as a way of rasing the level of the land so that the land could be built on and the city could expand.

 

[Belushi]

1949 West London

10 Rillington Place

(have a quiet word with Tim Evans about his ground floor neighbour)

He was a mate of mines Nans cousin, poor lad.

 

[Belushi]

Even in A Clockwork Orange (filmed 1972) it's a bit of a shock to see 'Alex' walking down Chelsea embankment - with loads of goods ships sailing by, and in-use wharfes in the background.

I was watching Smileys People again recently and theres a bit where he goes to Woolwich Dockyard and the view across the river is amazing, mile after miles of cranes.

 

[Belushi]

watch the blitz as mentioned

I loved my Grandparents stories of the blitz as a nipper, as a lad my grandad used to stand on the top board at Chiswick Baths (his Dad was the caretaker there for forty years) watching the Doodlebugs come in.

 

[northeastoipunk]

battle of cable street for me

 

[boohoo]

I'd like to see the Highway men waiting in the woods at Seven Sisters for the coaches to come over Stamford Hill.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

Gping to see one of Shakespeare's plays would be cool but having been around for the 20th to turn into the 21st century I'd like to experience the 19th turn into the 20th Century then Victorian London turn into Edwardian London then plant myself outside the Palace of Westminster campaigning for Vote For Women

 

[ska invita]

Go back to around 1100 to go and walk in the Great North Wood - a wood that covered all of South London. Would love to have picked my way through wild 'south london' and snuck up on London through the trees - perhaps checking out the view from a vantage point like Hilly Fields in what is now Brockley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_North_Wood

What is the best period of London? Anything between 1000 and 1700 would be amazing (ROman London a bit boring by copmparison ...):

Roman London:

1300s

1600s

full size version here>>>

1700s
1700s

I think "wooden" London in 1665 (!) would have been top of the list of London incarnations, "concrete" London of the early 1700s a close second. WOuld love to have bowled about in a cape!

But having said that I would love to have seen 'London' when it was all swamps, maybe going back to something like 200 a.c.e.pr even earlier.

 

[ska invita]

Regal London in 1749...

 

[ringo]

I'd also like to see the moat at the Tower when apparently it was so smelly you couldn't go near it. Eventually the Duke of Wellington drained it in 1830 'cos it was such a health hazard.

 

[Dan U]

i watched a time team on the internet last night that was all about the defences against german WW2 invasion on Shooters Hill. proper interesting it was.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

1381 and make sure that Wat Tyler knifed the mayor first and that the peasants didn't fall for the king's bullshit.

 

[boohoo]

i watched a time team on the internet last night that was all about the defences against german WW2 invasion on Shooters Hill. proper interesting it was.

oohhh
I was watching time team on the internet last night - about a castle in Ireland...

So do you know to hand what that episode is called? or am I gonna have to have a good nose for it?

 

[Onket]

During the time of the first prehistoric habitation of the London area the Thames consisted of a number of little tributaries and sand/mud flats around the region we now call Southwark. From memory the place you could ford the river was roughly in front of Lambeth Palace.

Bloody hell- You OLD!