Category: Boroughs
-
The Great Victoria Embankment Retro Victorian Pastiche Lamp Post Paint Job Fiasco
If you’re going to do something, do it properly, right?
-
You are cordially invited…
There is often great pleasure to be had when you open a book and something unexpected falls out of it…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Silver service
This is a post about street lighting in Croydon. Well, no one else is going to write it…
-
The Willesden Survey of 1949
I have a confession to make. I am in love with a 1940s planning document.
-
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…
-
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…
LCC Municipal 