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On the Buses
Saturday 13th June saw the 213 heritage bus running day, organised by the London Bus Museum. The route has run between Sutton and Kingston in one form or another since 1921, initially as the 113, and then as the 213 from 1934. Having grown up in the area, and…
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Hilversum Calling
Mention Hilversum, and people of a certain age will probably think of the radio. That was my first encounter with the place, listed alongside Luxembourg, Sottens, the BBC and others on the dial of my grandparents’ old radio set. Hilversum was, and remains, the centre of the Dutch national broadcasting…
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Mind Your Own Middlesex
Let me introduce you to a wonderful little planning consultation document from the late 1940s called “Mind Your Own Middlesex”. But first… Middlesex. Like many childhood first impressions of unfamiliar places, my formative experiences of Middlesex came from looking out of the car window. And those impressions were disproportionately influenced…
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The Great Victoria Embankment Retro Victorian Pastiche Lamp Post Paint Job Fiasco
If you’re going to do something, do it properly, right?
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You are cordially invited…
There is often great pleasure to be had when you open a book and something unexpected falls out of it…
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Just Say No! Defining the Greater London boundary Part Two
The Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London thought Epsom & Ewell should be part of Greater London. So did the Government. The local residents had other ideas…
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Just Say No! Defining the Greater London boundary Part One
If you have ever wondered why the Greater London boundary is an odd shape, then here is the tale of how this eccentric border came into being…
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Full circle: Celebrating Hounslow Civic Centre
April 2019 sees the closure of Hounslow Civic Centre after 44 years of service and I was lucky enough to go on a tour of this great building in its final month…
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Good conduct and meritorious work…
I have long enjoyed collecting school (and other) certificates from the London County Council. For some reason, I always find myself strangely moved by them – they offer little glimpses into the proud and hard earned achievements of persons unknown…
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The naming of the London Boroughs: Part Three
Now it is time to consider the final bunch of authorities for whom no local agreement on proposed names was reached, leaving a series of squabbles of varying degrees of intensity…
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The naming of the London Boroughs: Part One
Here is a tale of political expediency, Civil Service pragmatism, frequent local outrage and, in one particular instance, Establishment stitch up…
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As good as new: Hackney Town Hall
When an email arrived from the London Society offering the chance to tour Hackney Town Hall, I found myself booked on it within three minutes. Here are some pictures from its fabulous refurbishment…
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The Peckham Palimpsest
Although I had often travelled past the old Camberwell Town Hall on the bus as I made my way to work, I had never set foot in it until recently…
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The lost logos of the London Boroughs
The “lost logos of the London Boroughs” – my somewhat indirect tribute to all those who have served the London Boroughs over the past fifty plus years…
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The tale of the GLC’s London Exhibition Centre at Northolt…
Who can resist the lure of an abandoned infrastructure project? The LCC and GLC provide rich material for fans of unrealised planning dreams and this is no exception – the tale of the exhibition centre that never was…
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Silver service
This is a post about street lighting in Croydon. Well, no one else is going to write it…
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Let’s move to Bracknell
In which I celebrate the life of one particular building. Not, I hasten to add, a masterpiece of the LCC Architects Department, or beloved public library, or brutalist municipal swimming pool. But rather a privately owned temple of consumer capitalism that is quite possibly of no architectural merit whatsoever…
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The Willesden Survey of 1949
I have a confession to make. I am in love with a 1940s planning document.
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Rediscovering the Tower Hamlets Neighbourhoods – Part 2
Local branding and a sense of local identity – the main pre-occupations of this site – were a key component of the Tower Hamlets Neighbourhood political experiment. So, what remains of them visually? Early in January 2017, I set out on a walk around the Borough to find out…
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Rediscovering the Tower Hamlets Neighbourhoods – Part 1
Remember the Tower Hamlets Neighbourhoods? As an experiment in political devolution they only lasted from 1986 to 1994, so you could be forgiven for having forgotten about them. Building a sense of neighbourhood identity was an essential element of the scheme and on a crisp and cold morning in January…
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Welcome
Welcome to the LCCmunicipal site. As time permits I will add blogs to this site that go into more detail on the themes that I cover at my @lccmunicipal Twitter feed: the London County Council, the Greater London Council and the various Boroughs that made up pre- and post-1965 Greater…
LCC Municipal 