1920-1929
Simpson’s-in-the-Strand – In literary, in historical, and in contemporary London
Why write about this? Though the website of Simpson’s-in-the-Strand advertises itself as the “Home of Chess,” this is not what drew me to writing about this almost-two-century old restaurant. I was reading a novel by J.G. Farrell, The Singapore Grip, when I stumbled upon the following passage. “But then, one day in 1925, on a…
Read MoreBuilding Bush House: Britain and America’s ‘Special Relationship’
Before Bush House was home to the BBC or, more recently, to King’s students, it was a personal project of one Irving T. Bush within his larger agenda of cementing America and Britain as pillars of international trade. Bush’s vision for an international trade centre was unlike the primarily electronic centres of exchange we might…
Read MoreAlienation on the Strand; Solitude in Street Haunting
Woolf’s writing has been a part of my life for so long I no longer know if it taught me to see the world this way or just taught me to notice that I do. – Tracy Seeley There is perhaps no greater comfort nor reward granted by reading than resonance. It is an indescribable…
Read MoreIntroducing Motherland to Fatherland
Editor’s Note: Motherland to Fatherland, an exhibition, is set to open at the India Club at 143, Strand, on the 29th March 2020, 5pm to 9pm. Strandlines invited the project’s creator, Shrutika Jain, to explain how the project came about, and to give an insight into the stories the exhibition will explore. What is Motherland…
Read More‘that Strand which is lost as Atlantis’: Arthur Machen’s memories of the Strand
Mystic, theatre critic, teller of weird tales and tramper of London’s obscurer byways and thoroughfares, Arthur Machen was also very fond of the Strand. Available through the Internet Archive (courtesy of the University of California libraries) his memoir of the 1870 and 1880s, Far Off Things (Martin & Secker, 1922) recounts ‘the first time I saw the Strand, and…
Read More170 Strand with reflections of Bush House
Morning light, early autumn. Before becoming part of King’s College London, this building was known as Aldwych Chambers; this floor was occupied at one time by the stamp merchant Bridger & Kay—the fixing-points for the letters of their name can be seen along the architrave at the top of the photo. It’s a good balcony…
Read More‘Like a festering wound covered by cloth’: cleaning, cutting and curing the Strand
Today I stumbled across a strand story written by E. Beresford Chancellor in 1927. It is from his ‘Introduction’ to Disappearing London (ed. Geoffrey Holme, London: The Studio Limited, 44, Leicester Square). ‘[T]here is beginning to spring up a generation which remembers, but cannot for the life of it recall, the Strand and its northern purlieus…
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