London’s Pocket Parks: Fleet Valley Pocket Park, WC1

A new pocket park has appeared in Farringdon, replacing a former bland paved plaza with plants, seats and some interesting pocket hills to climb up.

The memorial to the founding of the Labour Party

A modern office block in Farringdon has three old metal plaques on the side - for this is the place where the Labour Party was founded.

Faulkner’s Alley, EC1 – London’s Alleys and Passages

This is an alley that many people pass walking to and from Farringdon station with an alluringly ornate ironwork grill and gate.

London’s Alleys: East Passage, EC1

This alley is a result of the dissolution of the Monasteries, as it sits within the lands owned by St Bartholomew's Priory.

London’s Alleys: Turk’s Head Yard, EC1

This rather shabby looking car park of an alley is a lingering remnant of a time when the area was filled with old warehouses and factories.

London’s Alleys: Crawford Passage, EC1

This alley just around the corner from Farringdon Station is the famous one with the weird double yellow lines.

See inside the Museum of London’s new Farringdon home

The Museum of London is set to move soon from its current home into a cluster of semi-derelict Victorian iron and 1960s concrete buildings.

London’s Alleys: Harp Alley, EC4

This is a fairly wide modern looking alley just off Fleet Street that follows a path which is traceable back to Tudor times.

London’s Alleys: Bear Alley, EC4

That rather unpromising looking alley may be today a facilities route for offices, but its heritage is ancient.

London’s Alleys: White Horse Alley, EC1

This short little alley certainly brings home the bacon, as conceals a vast modern courtyard, which was until recently the old Danish Bacon warehouse.

London’s Alleys: Herbal Hill, EC1

A fairly steep little passageway that's wide enough to be a road, was originally an extension of Saffron Hill to the south.

London’s Alleys: Greenhill Rents, EC1

A sanitized road that was once much less posh and an awful lot longer.

London’s Museum of Funeral History

A funeral home in Farringdon has recently opened a most unusual museum, of the history of funerals. Not just British, but how humanity entire seeks to commemorate the death of loved ones and noble ones.

Advent Calendar – Day 16

The annual tradition of posting a different vintage image each day during advent, and this year, it's of London's old railway stations.

Unbuilt London: Farringdon’s massive railway terminus

A giant railway terminus was once planned for central London that would have swept away all the land between Holborn and Farringdon. Obviously never built, its failure indirectly lead to the creation of the London Underground.

How the world’s first underground (passenger) railway was built

As we edge ever closer to the 150th anniversary of the opening of the world's first underground railway which is now just a couple of weeks away, it might be interesting to review of the newspaper reports about how the construction of the railway progressed up to that momentous date.

Unbuilt London: The City Terminus Railway

Mr Charles Pearson was a City Solicitor, and politician of great ambition for London's railways, but sadly for him at least, very little direct success.

Photos – The railway tunnels underneath Smithfield Meat Market

People using Farringdon tube and Thameslink stations will not be unaware that a considerable amount of construction work has been taking place over the past few years, and may know that a lot of work is going to carry on as the Thameslink upgrade is completed, just in time for Crossrail to drill its way through the site.

One hundred and fourty years of London Underground complaints

I have a small (and slowly growing) collection of old issues of the wondrous Illustrated London News. I originally started collecting them as sources for research, but I actually find they are quite wonderful to read (although sometimes I think…