Archives
The Challenge & Manifesto
The Manifesto: pre•fix StrandMan (Full Biography to follow, but I am not: Otto August Strandman VR III/1 (30 November 1875 - 5 February 1941) was Prime Minister of Estonia and Head of State. He was born in Vanda, Undla rural municipality, Virumaa and died in Kadrina, Estonia. He was Estonian Prime Minister 8 May 1919 - 18 November 1919 and Elder of State 9 July 1929 - 12 February 1931; one of the eleven men to serve as Estonian head of state during its period of independence (1918 to 1940). ) Nor I am related to http://www.strandman.no/goto.swf which is bonkers SM -------------------------------------------------------------------
Pronunciation: (
—n.prē'fiks;
—v.prē'fiks, prē-fiks'), [key]
—n.
1. Gram.an affix placed before a base or another prefix, as un- in unkind, un- and re- in unrewarding.
2. something prefixed, as a title before a person's name.
—v.t.
1. to fix or put before or in front: to prefix an impressive title to one's name.
2. Gram.to add as a prefix.
3. to fix, settle, or appoint beforehand.
Strand Overview
Strand Strand stretches from Temple Bar, at the western end of Fleet Street, to Trafalgar Square. Until the Victoria Embankment was constructed in the 1860s the Strand was just muddy riverside bridle path linking the City and Westminster. At the southern end of Strand is Charing Cross station, in front of which is a monument, dating from 1863, commemorating the original medieval cross erected here by Edward I in 1290. Charing Cross was the last of the 12 commemorative crosses erected by the grieving King to mark each stopping place of the funeral cortège of his queen, Eleanor of Castile, as it made its way from Nottinghamshire to Westminster Abbey. From the 13th century onwards the Strand was lined with the water-side mansions of the aristocracy. Among these great houses was the medieval Savoy Palace, now the site of the Savoy Hotel, and the 16th century Renaissance palace of the Dukes of Somerset, replaced in the 18th century by William Chamber's Somerset House. In Georgian times the Strand, like neighbouring Covent Garden, was the notorious haunt of prostitutes and pickpockets. By the mid-19th century, however, the Strand had greatly improved. The neo-classical Somerset House, the capital's first purpose-built office block, was erected in the 1770s and elegant King's College, part of the University of London, was built by Robert Smirk in 1829. The Victorian Prime Minister, Disraeli, considered the Strand it to be one of the finest streets in Europe, and the street's reputation was enhanced by the construction of the grand Savoy Hotel in 1884. SM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number 1 Fleet Street
To start somewhere: Well at Number 1 Fleet Street is Child & Co (my bank) a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland. A charming old world bank opened in 1580's, just a little modernised. I love the guns on display and fantastic cheque books you get. Hannah (the Business manager is excellent and comes highly recommended) Fleet Street began as the road from the City of London to the City of Westminster. The length of Fleet Street marks the expansion of the City in the 14th century. At the east end of the street is where the river Fleet flowed against the mediæval walls of London; at the west end is the Temple Bar and Temple Church ( a must visit place) which marks the current city limits, stretched to that point when the land and property of the Knights Templar were acquired. [The Da Vinci code reference] If you want to saty in great apartment right on Fleet Street and enjoy the sounds, smells, feel and live the famous place try London Legal Lettings which i can highly recommend. Publishing started in Fleet Street around 1500 when William Caxton's apprentice, Wynkyn de Worde, set up a printing shop near Shoe Lane, while at around the same time Richard Pynson set up as publisher and printer next to St Dunstan's church. More printers and publishers followed, mainly supplying the legal trade in the four Law Inns around the area. In March 1702, the world's first daily newspaper, The Daily Courant, was published in Fleet Street from premises above the White Hart Inn. At Temple Bar to the west, as Fleet Street crosses the boundary out of the City of London, it becomes the Strand; to the east, past Ludgate Circus, it evolves into Ludgate Hill. And the Lost River Fleet? best article on line is from Diamond Geezer and I recommend this blogspot. Every inch.....looking down St Bride's Avenue SM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part of a warren of similarly ancient thoroughfares in the Fleet Street area. As its name suggests, this one runs alongside St Bride's church, south of Fleet Street, and turns 90 degrees at the north-west to lead into the church. Thank you The Londonist for finding their way here.
Drinking the Fleet dry
Drink your way along Fleet street
(click here to find out where and whom you will be drinking with)
I will be...... The George Chesire Cheese Milford Arms
The Old Bell Tipperary Old Bank of England
SM
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The Zebra Divide
Fleet Street / The Strand
The Zebra Divide
In the United Kingdom the crossing is marked with beacons on either side of the road, called Belisha beacons. These are black and white poles topped by flashing orange globes. They are named after Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Minister of Transport who introduced them in 1934. Pedestrians have right of way on this kind of crossing once they have put a foot upon it; cars then have to stop and give way, if they can do so safely.
Don't know how to use them? help is it hand- The Guide to using Zebra Crossings.
Famous Zebra Crossings?
I think probably the one at Abbey road where the Beatles did their famous picture. pause- Is Paul dead? A great web site of clues by the way and not to give the game away but....the clue is there under The Truth.
SM
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What is in a name?
Strand / The Strand
What is in a name?
I was taken by a comment on my first day of blogging (thank you Visitor 63) whether it was (or indeed I was) Strand or The Strand. The street is popularly referred to as The Strand although the street address is actually just "Strand", hence, strictly speaking, "100 Strand" and not "100, The Strand". Just try telling the Post Office that! On the Monopoly board it is written as "Strand", while on the title deed card it is "The Strand". So I am Strandman and we will not be popularist from now on. All errors and emissions excepted.
SM
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Strand Visits 1: Buildings to visit
- Australia House to be reviewed
- The Adelphi Theatre to be reviewed
- Bush House to be reviewed
- Charing Cross railway station to be reviewed
- King's College London to be reviewed
- Royal Courts of Justice done 19.10.06
- Shell Mex House to be reviewed
- Simpson's-in-the-Strand to be reviewed
- Somerset House to be reviewed
- St Clement Danes done 16.10.06
- St Mary-le-Strand to be reviewed
- Strand Palace Hotel to be reviewed
SM
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Something for the Weekend? Sweeney Todd
The Barber of Fleet Street
Something for the Weekend, Sir?
I love this story which appears to be a truthful and correct story about Sweeney Todd. The demon barber of Fleet Street had his shop at number 186 Fleet Street, which is now the Dundee Courier building with a copier shop below. Been there and looked around- no blood or clues.
At 186, he is believed to have robbed and murdered over 150 customers, thereby making him the number two serial killer in British history (let us assume that a certain Doctor Shipman was number one).
Sweeney was born on 16 October 1756, at number 85 Brick Lane in London's East End. Todd's mother was a silk-winder and his father a silk weaver, working for the French Huguenots in nearby Norton Folgate, Spitalfields. In 1770, aged only 14 years, Sweeney Todd was sentenced to a five year term in Newgate Prison for theft of a pocket watch.
While in prison he met up with an old barber named Plummer, who was serving ten years for embezzlement, he taught Sweeney how to cut hair and shave, and how to pick pockets of the customers, Sweeney was keen to learn and soon became Plummer's apprentice lathering-up and shaving some of the prisoners who could afford their services.
After his release in 1785, with a few pounds he had stolen at work in the goal, and the little knowledge of haircuts he gained, Sweeney Todd opened his Barber Shop at 186 Fleet Street, next door to St Dunstan's Church, just a few blocks away from the Royal Courts of Justice, and next to Chicken and Hen Court near to the corner of Fetter Lane.
Going west wards from Chancery Lane opposite the Temple Bar is Bell Yard, a narrow alleyway where Mrs Lovett a girl friend of Sweeney’s had her meat pie shop.
The first murder account in the 'Daily Courant' (Fleet Streets first newspaper) that may have been the work of Todd, recalls:
'that on 14th of April 1785 a murder was committed in Fleet Street on a gentleman from the country on a visit to London. The gentleman was seen arguing with a barber when the barber took from his white coat a razor and slit the throat of the young man, and then ran towards white friars disappearing in the fog.'
The story of this wonderful (?) barbers shop tells us that when a customer was seated in the revolving chair, that stood in the centre of the shop over a trapdoor above a disused basement cellar, the chair would be swung over and an identical empty chair would take its place. Meanwhile Mr. Sweeney would exit through the rear door and down a flight of stairs to where the unconscious customer was lying after their drop. Sweeney would take out his razor and slit their throats (through Sweeney Todd's act this type of razor became known as a cut throat razor).
He became lovers with the pie maker Mrs Margery Lovett, who would often bake him his lunch time pie ( I still feel slightly ill when you go over to the Bank of England pub and there is a sign up declaring that this is where she sold her pies and on the sign outside? Pie and ale house...). They discovered a disused underground tunnel leading from the cellar of Sweeney’s shop, that ran beneath St Dunstan's Church and the burial crypt, finishing up under Mrs Lovetts pie shop, making it an ideal business partnership.
On January 25, 1802, in the prison yard at Newgate, Sweeney Todd was strung up on the gallows before a crowd of thousands, who had waited all night to see the event, and after his execution, his body was given over to a handful of learned “barber-surgeons” (or indeed the news that we are to have NHS Doctor surgeons)where it was taken away to be dissected. Sweeney Todd ended up, like so many of his victims, as a pile of meat and bones. And as for Mrs Margery Lovett she was to cheat death by the hangman, she was found poisoned in her cell at Newgate prison.
If you presuming you needed a hair cut and had been walking along Fleet Street London in the summer of 1785, heading west towards Strand and Covent Gardens, from the old Ludgate, you would have crossed over Fetter Lane on your right and then immediately afterwards you would have noticed Hen and Chicken court, perhaps you may have paused and if a young woman asked you to go down the alleyway with her for some sport, you would have felt the danger of walking down such a dark alleyway alone, you would not have been aware of the horror lurking inside the old brown wooden barber shop at the side of the alley would be a great deal more of a danger than the girl beckoning in the alley, and if you decided not to have a haircut or shave you would have passed by Todd's barber shop with a lucky escape.
This old brown wooden barber shop would not have caused you any delay whatsoever, as there was no window display, and the windows were misty with steam and dirt. You may have noticed the red and white striped pole projecting from the shop front, denoting its dual role as a barber surgeon.
If curiosity had got the better of you and by chance you looked in through the window you would have seen several dusty wigs hanging from wood blocks roughly the shape of heads. You may have become distracted by the number of jars with coagulated blood, alongside some old gin bottles containing rotten teeth. These displays were to advertise the skills of pulling out teeth and bleeding clients for minor ailments. Had you looked at the sign above the shop you would have seen the worn out hand painted yellow sign proclaiming 'Sweeney Todd, barbers'. Had you been in need of a shave, you may have walked into the shop.
On opening the door, a rusty old bell would ting to announce your arrival. Once inside the shop you would have been no more impressed than with the outside. Heavy brown wooden beams run across the low ceiling, meeting up with the dark walls, that only went to make it even more gloomy. Two oil lamps flickered at either end of the shop and were only lit when the last bit of natural light had vanished. A grimy bench ran along the side of the wall, where a few dirty-looking sheets, some with spots of blood, that were put around customers necks ready for shaving. Also on the bench were arranged the tools of the barbers trade, razors, combs, brushes, shaving bowls, sharp knives and pincers. By the side of the chair was a leather strap that was used to sharpen a blunt razor or knife.
On the left side of the wall was a small open fire, with bits of coal and some smouldering burnt hair, with a pot of water being heated for shaves. You would not have failed to notice the bare wooden floor boards, with dark stains around the old fashioned barbers chair that stood in the centre of the shop. The chair was made of oak wood with ornate legs, with a small step to rest your feet when in the chair, by which time it might have been to late.
The demon barber himself was even more off putting than his shop was. He sounds grim!:a sullen figure with heavy eyebrows, a long hard mouth, and an awkward stance. Every day a few people would gather outside the barbers shop, to witness Gog and Magog (still there), being the name given to the two statues above the church who every hour would hit with a club the large bell of St Dunstan's Church that was next door to Todd's shop. The figures were installed in 1671, and are carved in wood, each holding a club, they would swing from side to side, with two hits each quarter. As the crowd stood watching this amazing sight, they would not have known of the underground tunnels that were beneath the church. They were part of the priory of white friars monastery, that stood opposite in what is today's Bouverie Street. Our barber surgeon was most certainly aware of the tunnels, it may have been one of the reasons why he took the shop in the first place, as tunnels were of course full of rats. So from his small shop on Fleet Street with living accommodation up stairs, Sweeney set about making his fame and fortune.
I like his style.....
SM
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