Walking London, 9th Edition

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Throughout the book certain key people and seminal events in London's past crop up again and again. To save explaining who and what they were each time, I have brought them all conveniently together here.

The development of modern London

First, something about the City and the history of London. The City is the financial district of modern London and the oldest part of the capital. It actually means the City of London, the ancient Roman city founded 2,000 years ago and, although not physically demarcated in any way, still very much an entity in its own right as well as being entirely self-governing with its own Lord Mayor and police force. The City of Westminster, the other 'city' within modern London, was founded 1,000 years later. It grew up around Westminster Abbey and the royal palace built alongside by Edward the Confessor (now the Houses of Parliament). This was in the 11th century, shortly before the invasion of the Normans from northern France in 1066.

In subsequent centuries the land between the cities of London and Westminster was gradually built up (the modern Strand and Fleet Street), and streets and houses were built east, west and north. As late as 1800, however, London was still a comparatively small city, bounded on the west by Hyde Park, on the north by Marylebone Road and Euston Road, and on the east by poor working-class settlements beyond the Tower of London and the City. In the south there was a fringe of building along the river bank, nearly matching in breadth the developed area in the north, but not nearly so deep. The population was about 1.1 million.

In the 19th century London positively exploded, thanks to the railways. Its land area increased by about seven times and its population shot up to 6.6 million despite a phenomenally high death rate caused by over-crowding, disease and insanitary living conditions. Hundreds of farms, cottages, country houses and villages were swallowed up in this remorseless expansion, hence the frequent references in the walks to such and such a place having been a quiet country village until it was engulfed by the tide of new building in the 1800s. London's population reached an historic peak of 8.6 million in 1939. Subsequently it fell. Now it is rising again and in January 2015 broke through the previous highest total.

The dissolution of the monasteries

Henry VIII initiated the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 as part of his religious policy of a break with Catholic Rome, but he was also motivated by a desire to grab the enormous wealth of the religious houses. Inmates were either executed or pensioned off, depending on whether or not they accepted the king instead of the pope as head of the church. The actual buildings, of which there were many in medieval London, became royal property. Most of them were subsequently sold off and knocked down and their sites redeveloped.

The Great Fire of London

The Great Fire broke out on the night of 2 September 1666 in Pudding Lane in the east of the City. During the next three days, fanned by strong easterly winds, it spread west as far as Fleet Street. The extent of destruction was great. Two-thirds of the medieval City was destroyed, including 13,200 houses, 44 livery halls and 87 out of more than 100 churches, old St Paul's Cathedral among them. Only nine people were killed, however. The City was subsequently rebuilt, but on the old medieval street plan.

Burial grounds

By the 17th century the graveyards of London's parish churches were full to bursting, so detached burial grounds were opened. By the 1850s these, too, had become grossly overcrowded, so large cemeteries in the suburbs were created. These are still in use. Many of the old central London burial grounds and churchyards have been converted into public gardens. Several feature in these walks.

The Blitz

The Blitz or heavy bombing of London began in August 1940 and lasted until May the following year. Once again the City was very badly hit, nearly a third of its built-up area razed by bombs and fires. In June 1944 the VI and then the V2 rockets began to descend on London, particularly affecting the suburbs. Overall, air raids during the Second World War killed over 15,000 people and damaged or destroyed over 3.5 million houses.

Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723)

The most famous architect in the history of London. A scientist to start with, he became professor of astronomy at Oxford while still in his 20s. In the early 1660s he turned increasingly to architecture. While the ashes of the Great Fire were still warm he produced a plan for the rebuilding of the City. Although it was not adopted, Wren was still commissioned to design 52 of the new City churches and the new St Paul's Cathedral, his masterpiece. As Surveyor General of the King's Works from 1669 he designed Kensington Palace, vast new wings at Hampton Court, the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich and the Royal Hospital at Chelsea.

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)

Civil servant and diarist. Born in London, the son of a City tailor, Pepys rose to become the most senior civil servant in the Admiralty and an important figure in the history of British naval administration. But it is his intimate and acutely observed diary that has made him such a well-known and popular historical figure. The diary covers the years 1660 to 1669 and is a mine of information on the London of the period. It is particularly important for its vivid eye-witness accounts of two cataclysmic events in London's history: the Great Plague of 1665, which killed nearly 100,000 people, perhaps one-seventh of the city's population, and the Great Fire of 1666. Pepys himself watched the City burn from an alehouse on Bankside.

The Adam brothers (18th century)

Architects and interior designers. William Adam, a leading Edinburgh architect and laird of Blair Adam, had four sons, three of whom he trained as architects. His second son Robert (1728-92) was by far the most talented. After he had opened an office in London in 1758, Robert became the leading neoclassical architect and interior designer of his day, ably assisted by his brothers, James and William. The Adam brothers were responsible for the Adelphi, Apsley House, Home House in Portman Square, Portland Place and Chandos House.

Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84)

Writer, scholar and brilliant talker. Johnson was born in Lichfield but lived in London from his late 20s onwards. With his bulky figure and rasping Midlands voice he was familiar to all who frequented the taverns and coffee houses of Fleet Street and the drawing rooms of fashionable London society. In 1763 he met James Boswell (1740-95), dissolute son of a Scottish judge and himself a lawyer. Boswell recorded much of Johnson's pungent and witty conversation and later used it as the basis of his marvellous biography of the great man. It included Johnson's often-quoted remark: 'When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.'

John Nash (1752-1835)

Architect. The son of a Lambeth engineer and millwright, Nash's early career was chequered; in 1783 he was even declared bankrupt. But re-established and with the patronage of George III's eldest son, the Prince Regent, Nash became the architectural king of Regency London, responsible for Regent's Park and its terraces, Regent Street, Buckingham Palace, Marble Arch and the Haymarket Theatre.

Charles Dickens (1812-70)

Novelist and social campaigner. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens was brought to London by his parents when he was 10. Not long afterwards his father was imprisoned for debt in the notorious Marshalsea debtors' prison and Dickens found himself put to work in a blacking warehouse, though he was still only 12 years old. Later Dickens found more congenial employment as a reporter and then, while still in his 20s, became a popular and successful novelist. He had an obsession with London and all its horrors and degradations, and regularly tramped the streets going into the dingiest and most dangerous districts in search of scenes and characters for his stories. Today Victorian, or rather Dickensian, London lives on in his still popular novels.

Kings and queens

Events and places are often dated by reference to kings and queens. For those of you who are rusty on your royals, here is a quick reminder of their regnal dates - from William the Conqueror to our own Elizabeth II.

William the Conqueror

1066-87

William II

1087-1100

Henry I

1100-35

Stephen

1135-54

Henry II

1154-89

Richard I

1189-99

John

1199-1216

Henry III

1216-72

Edward I

1272-1307

Edward II

1307-27

Edward III

1327-77

Richard II

1377-99

Henry IV

1399-1413

Henry V

1413-22

Henry VI

1422-61

Edward IV

1461-83

Edward V

1483

Richard III

1483-85

Henry VII

1485-1509

Henry VIII

1509-47

Edward...