weird and wonderful London street names.

Hello all,
Just a quick one, as I have some friends to meet on Nelsons column, but, during my travles around London I do noticed some very strange street names.
All the wat up in N3 there's a road called Crokked Usage, for example.
There's also Quaggy Walk in Blackheath and of course tiny little Tweezers Alley just off the Strand.

Houndsditch , a very well known road and it is believed was named after the ditch where often all sorts of stuff, including dead dogs, were thrown.
Soho, as we all know was once a hunting ground, and the Square, originally Kings Square, was named after a hunting cry.
The Aldwych is a Saxon word meaning Old Village and Crutched Friars derived from Crossed Friars, a Roman catholic religious order from the 13th century.
There's many more,but thats start..if you have any interesting ones do send me a message.

Bye for now
Pepys

London's underground and the old style advertising

Being a pigeon I don't get to use the tube very much at all..but through my searchings for unusual and interesting London things I do come across some lovely vintage and antique underground related items and have noticed how very stylish and well designed they were.

The London underground was the first underground train system in the world...wow...and opened on January 10th 1863 .We have some underground 'railways' maps from as long ago as 1898, right through the 1900's, 20's 30's 40's, you get the picture...and they are all wonderful.We also have a small number of publicity items on the site which are slightly harder to come across.Here is just a few I thought I'd share with you.

This wonderful display card was produced in 1907 and advertised the Hampstead tube. These are very scarce nowadays so I'm very pleased we have this one.

I love the style of the cover of the booklet, which was produced in 1947 and describes how London transport 'carried on' during the war and the blitz. It's a fascinating booklet showing images of the destruction caused by the war and what Londoners did to cope.

This is a classic, produced in May 1968 and lets you know what you can do and how to get there using the buses or underground, with a bit of spare time, if you have it whilst you're in London.Simple really is often best.

And finally, this super flyer advertising the Victoria Line, 'London's new tube' as they called it, in 1969.This little leaflet lets you know how to use the automatic gates, how much the fares are and how quick the journey is.
Oxford Circus to Walthamstow cost 2/6!

So there you are, lovely old fashioned advertising...pity they don't revive them!

cheerio all,

Pepys

reviving the old...

Hello all,

For us here at London Peculiar, seeing an old document or piece of paper all tattered, worn and un cared for can be a bit sad...especially if it was once quite important, or interesting or simply a bit querky!
We see it a lot...and once we got over being cross about it we decided to do something constructive.
So here is our first little rivival project.

This wonderful little booklet was produced about 7 months before the start of the 2nd World War.
It was classified information and only to be released to people with an official position in his majesty's service.

The book is full of intelligence and security information ,censorship, how to understand aerial maps and reconnaissance photography  and so on.

There is also a small section called 'conduct of British Prisoners of war' which reads:

'under internation law every prisoner of war is bound to give his name, rank and number..the duty of a British soldier is to refuse any information to the enemy except these details.He must not reveal any information about his uniform or badges.A prisoner of war cannot be punished or disadvantaged for giving limited or false information. Beware of pseudo prisoners who will be planted to listen in to prisoners conversations.A prisoner who has commited treachery will we liable to severe disciplinary action on termination of hostilities.'

Pretty scary stuff
This little book is a fascinating piece of wartime history and deserved to be looked after and revived.
The cover design is taken form the map within the book.
This little piece of history will go onto the site very soon.

bye all,
Pepys.