17th Century
Robert Herrick’s Love Letter to London
In 1629, Robert Herrick had to leave London to assume a post in Devonshire. Before his departure, he wrote His Tears to Thamesis to say his farewell to the city. It remarkably stands the test of time as an example of how one can feel deeply for their home. As an ex-pat of London, I…
Read MoreSpeculation and Urban Planning after the Great Fire
In the wake of the Great Fire of London (September 1666), many speculative entrepreneurs reinvented themselves as urban developers. These individuals were the major figures of the modernisation of London’s street network. Laying out regular streets over freshly-bought land and building rows of similar (if not identical) terrace houses proved the best way to maximise…
Read MoreWho put the Villiers in Villiers Street? Art, culture and élite life on the seventeenth-century Strand
Villiers Street has always captivated me. Linking the Strand to the Embankment, it remains one of the most vibrant walkways in the area and it plays an important part in connecting people to some of central London’s main visitor attractions – historical buildings and palaces, galleries, theatres, cinemas, museums and parks. It has a buzzy…
Read MoreShops on the Strand: women in business in early modern Westminster, 1600-1740
In October I began work in earnest on a new research project, which will illuminate the lives of women in business on the Strand in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. I am particularly looking forward to uncovering all sorts of material on the myriad shops in this location, whether at street level or in…
Read MorePeople of the Strand: Fortunatus (died 1601)
‘If one could choose a single location in which the encounter with cultural complexity became routine, it would be that unique gathering of peoples along the Thames.’ So says John Cramsie, author of a book about such encounters in the early modern period, though mostly ones away from London (British Travellers and the Encounter with…
Read MoreEssex street’s Watergate: a threshold to the bourgeois Strand
“He crossed the road and went into the darkness towards the little steps under the archway leading into Essex Street, and I let him go. And that was the last I ever saw of him.” – The Diamond Maker by HG Wells (1894). An “in-between” space, the Essex street’s Watergate closes the street on its…
Read MorePeople of the Strand: Jonathan Sisson (1692 – 1749)
Jonathan Sisson established a scientific instrument making business at the corner of Beaufort Buildings in the Strand, London. The attic rooms included an observatory, the exterior visible in a drawing by the freemason, Thomas Sandby.[1] Sandby was the architect of the first Freemasons’ Hall on Great Queen Street, which was completed in 1766. For many…
Read MoreLost buildings of the Strand
Editor’s note: below you can find teasers of Aisha Brady’s research for her Layers of London collection ‘Lost Buildings of the Strand‘. Aisha researched this collection (and many more!) as a Layers of London and Strandlines collaborative volunteer. We are currently recruiting for more volunteers, apply by 7 February 2019! Find out more here. Lost…
Read MoreCan you volunteer for Strandlines and Layers of London?
If you’re reading this on our website, we hope that you already know that Strandlines collects and shares histories and stories of this most central of London’s streets. Why not browse some of our existing ‘strands’ to see what our contributors have preserved so far? Layers of London is a huge collaborative effort to map…
Read MoreThe York Watergate
When the Duke of Buckingham ordered his York House (approximately located at present day 38 Strand) to be modernised in 1623, “it was customary for nobility to be conveyed by water” [1] while the less convenient carriages were preferred for state purposes. This made the building of private watergates by the river very common in…
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