Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: London (17 page)

The Skylon

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson

Nearby, the Dome of Discovery was a circular building, 365 feet in diameter, topped by a dome-shaped aluminium roof. At the time of its construction it was the largest dome in the world and, like its Victorian predecessor the Crystal Palace, it was designed as a temporary structure. It contained galleries featuring new discoveries and inventions ranging from the exploration of outer space to new techniques for making sheet glass, together with a reconstruction of Sherlock Holmes’s fictional flat at 221B Baker Street. Though derided at the time as a waste of precious building materials, ten million visitors paid to attend the festival (far more than visited the Millennium Dome in 2000) and the London County Council pocketed a handsome profit. The Dome followed the Skylon into demolition to make way for the Shell Centre, Jubilee Gardens and, in 2000, the London Eye ferris wheel. Only Sherlock Holmes’s flat survived, transported to a pub in Northumberland Street, just across the river near Charing Cross.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum

The London Eye, opened on 31st December 1999 to celebrate the turn of the millennium, was originally intended to close after five years. The largest ferris wheel in Europe at 135 metres in height, it is Britain’s most popular tourist attraction and is used by over 3.5 million people each year. It has likely become a permanent feature of London’s skyline.

L
ondon has an unrivalled selection of markets, some of them dating from Roman times. Leadenhall Market in the City dates from that period though it takes its name from a house with a lead roof which was situated in the vicinity in the 14th century. Both were burned down in the Great Fire of 1666 and the market was most recently developed in 1881 when the present structures were constructed by the City architect, Sir Horace Jones, to sell meat, poultry, vegetables, plants and fish, recently joined by a selection of cafes, restaurants, bookshops and the ubiquitous wine bars. In 1851-66 Jones had built the meat market at Smithfield to replace the live cattle market which had flourished in the area since the 12th century but was, by the 19th century, a scene of mayhem with live cattle, goaded by crowds, running wild in shops and giving us the phrase ‘bull in a china shop’. Billingsgate, originally sited close to the Monument in the heart of the City, is recorded as trading in 1016, selling corn, malt and salt as well as fish. It quickly acquired a reputation for foul language which it retained after its move to the vicinity of Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs in 1982. Its former building – designed, like Smithfield, by Sir Horace Jones – is now the trading floor of an international bank, where no doubt the language employed is of a more salubrious nature.

Smithfield Market

London is also well supplied with street markets, one of the most famous being the Sunday market in Middlesex Street, Whitechapel, which was first referred to as Peticote Lane on a map of 1608. In the late 17th century it was settled by Jewish traders, who had been welcomed back to England in the 1650s by Oliver Cromwell after being expelled by Edward I in 1290, and by Huguenot silk weavers fleeing the persecutions of Louis XIV in France. It was at this time that it became strongly associated with the sale of textiles and clothing. In the early 20th century the authorities tried to stop Sunday trading by driving fire engines through the crowd but the market prospered and spread to nearby streets like Brick Lane, with almost 1,000 separate stalls. Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill also trades on Sunday mornings, beginning in the 1870s amongst gypsies who came to buy and sell horses and herbs. To these were later added costermongers but after World War II the character of the market changed and it began an antiques market, which it remains.

Billingsgate Fish Market

Del Boy paradise

Perhaps the most intriguing of London’s markets is Bermondsey Market, officially called New Caledonian Market just off Tower Bridge Road in Southwark. Normally a person buying goods that were later shown to be stolen would forfeit them if the owner claimed them but Bermondsey was the last of London’s Marchés Ouverts where stolen goods could be sold between sunrise and sunset with good title passing from buyer to seller. The market became a very popular outlet for antiques. In 1995 the ancient law of Marché Ouvert was abolished and this outlet for ‘fenced’ goods was lost.

I
n the Middle Ages ‘usury’, or lending money for interest, was forbidden by the Christian church. Consequently banking, an essential function in the promotion of trade, was dominated by Jews who were not subject to the laws of the church. This was used as an explanation for their unpopularity and also accounted for their expulsion from England in 1290 by Edward I, who owed them money. Into the breach stepped a group of merchants from Lombardy, the region around Milan in northern Italy. They managed to circumvent the laws of the church by becoming, in effect, pawnbrokers. They would advance money against the security of objects of value (jewellery, gold or fine cloth) and would return the items for rather more than they had loaned – interest by another name. They settled in a street in London which still bears the name Lombard Street and came to contain the headquarters of many major banks.

Lombard Street

Nearby, in Threadneedle Street, is the Bank of England which was set up in 1694 by two City merchants, William Paterson and Michael Godfrey, to finance William III’s wars against Louis XIV. Instead of debasing the currency as other monarchs had done when they were short of money, William III guaranteed an interest payment of 8 per cent to those who loaned money to the government via the bank, the loans being underwritten by a ‘Tunnage’ tax levied on alcohol and shipping. Over £1.2 million was raised in 11 days. The bank was known for many years as the ‘Tunnage Bank’ and William further emphasised his commitment to sound money by having new coinage issued by the Royal Mint under the wardenship of Sir Isaac Newton who ruthlessly pursued any forgers. The Bank of England quickly gained a reputation as a sound investment. It was originally based at Mercers’ Hall off Cheapside and moved to its present site in 1734. The government’s (no doubt dwindling) reserves of gold bullion and foreign currency are kept in its vaults.

L
ondon has many Art Deco buildings but two of them have extraordinary origins. The movement originated in France and reached a climax in 1925 with the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. The movement emphasised bold colours and geometric shapes in contrast to the earlier Art Nouveau with pastel shades and sweeping curves. Eltham Palace, a few miles from Greenwich in southeast London, is the unlikely site of one of Britain’s most striking Art Deco designs. The Palace is recorded in the
Domesday Book
of 1086 as belonging to the brother of William the Conqueror and during the following centuries it was turned into a magnificent royal palace with an outstanding hammerbeam roof dating from 1479. Henry VIII added a chapel and both he and his daughter, the future Elizabeth I, spent many years here during childhood. The construction of Greenwich Palace nearby led to its abandonment by the royal family and by the 20th century much of it was in ruins, the great hall being used as a barn.