Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: London Read Online Free PDF

engineers built things to last! The Millennium Bridge, which opened on 10th June 2000, lasted three whole days before it was closed because of a persistent wobble which caused some pedestrians to feel sick as well as unsafe. Its structure was modified and it reopened after two years, linking Bankside with the north bank of the Thames near St Paul’s.

A river runs through it (usually)
London’s long-gone frost fairs
    T he Thames is first recorded as having frozen in AD 250 during the Roman occupation of Britain, a phenomenon recorded at regular intervals until 1814. In 1410 wheeled traffic was able to cross the river for fourteen weeks and in the winter of 1683-4 an ox was roasted on the ice as part of a Frost Fair while market stalls covered the river from Temple to Southwark. The last and greatest Frost Fair occurred in 1813-14 with a grand mall called City Road running upstream from Blackfriars. The Thames watermen, alarmed at the loss of trade, carved a channel in the ice alongside the north bank and charged twopence to ferry visitors to the merriment occurring in mid-river.
    In the following half century two developments ensured that the Thames would not freeze again, but they were the work of engineers rather than global warming. The replacement of the 19-arch medieval London Bridge by the 5-arch structure of John Rennie in the 1820s enabled the river to flow faster. And the construction of the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea Embankments by Sir Joseph Bazalgette in the 1860s reclaimed 52 acres from the river, narrowing it so that it flowed faster through the City. To build the three embankments Bazalgette used the spoil which he had excavated during the construction of London’s sewer system and from the construction of the Metropolitan Underground Railway. This is seen most clearly at York Gate, situated at the bottom of Buckingham Street, off the Strand. York Gate was once the point from which the owners of the houses of the nobility (Essex House, the Savoy, etc) stepped into their boats moored on the river. York Gate is now about 100 yards from the Thames, firmly placed in Victoria Embankment Gardens. And the Strand itself is so called because it used to run close to the river. The Thames doesn’t freeze any more, because it simply runs too fast.

    York Gate
    WHY THE SAVOY?
    The Savoy takes its name from Peter, Count of Savoy in what is now Franco-Italian territory, to whom in 1246 Henry III granted the land on which the palace was built. Destroyed in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, its chapel was rebuilt in 1510 and in 1890 it became the first church to be lit by electricity. In 1909, under the incumbency of the Reverend Hugh Chapman, vice-president of the Divorce Reform Union, it became one of the first churches in which divorced people could be remarried. It contains some fine examples of pre-Reformation stained glass.

    Sir Joseph Bazalgette

Dirty old town
Bazalgette and the Great Stink
    I n the summer of 1858 the smell from the River Thames was so foul that Members of Parliament were unable to use rooms which overlooked the river. The reason? The sewage of two and a half million citizens was flowing into the river and not only causing the phenomenon which the press dubbed ‘The Great Stink’ but also polluting water supplies with poisonous bacteria. Cholera alone had killed almost 40,000 in the capital while typhoid killed Prince Albert and struck down Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales, though both survived. And since the Thames is a tidal river the sewage never went away, being borne back and forth on the tides.
    VICKY’S NAUGHTY KNICKER NICKER
    Typhoid wasn’t Queen Victoria’s only problem. Early in her reign a boy called Edward Jones broke into Buckingham Palace three times and stole items of Victoria’s underwear. He was gaoled twice and when he offended a third time he was despatched to Australia, dying in 1893 an alcoholic.
    The MPs were so worried by the threat to their health that they