Stories
London History Day 2019
Greening Aldwych: A walking tour of lost and future green spaces of Aldwych 31 May 2019 12:30pm – 2:00pm Free! Booking required (link opens Eventbrite booking page). Join the Strandlines editorial team, researchers and archivists at King’s College London, on a tour of past, present, and future green space around Aldwych. We are marking London…
Read MoreLayers of the Strand
Today, I have been time travelling. I explored the farm around Trafalgar Square. I squeezed into a tiny top room in Devereaux Court to hear Isaac Newton speak. I paid a ferryman tuppence to take me to the floating coffee house on the Thames to look over the water at Somerset House. This is all…
Read MoreA Quixotic Ramble along the Strand
The Knight of the Woeful Countenance in the Street of the Sagging Purpose: A Quixotic Ramble along the Strand[1] by Charles Lock Professor of English Literature, University of Copenhagen On Strand Green was a windmill…[2] For Clare Brant A strand is both a thread and a margin, an agent of binding and…
Read MoreSearching for ‘green’
The Northbank Bid have collaborated with Groundwork and King’s College London scientists to suggest ‘Green Walks’ around the Strand area. You can download the map with suggested loops and routes from the Northbank website. The idea is to help Londoners and tourists to avoid the most polluted streets as they travel from A to B:…
Read MoreFruity Wordplay and Weird Forests: Now Play This 2019
The Now Play This festival of experimental game design returned to Somerset House this weekend, bringing another smorgasbord of games and playful artworks, digital and otherwise, to the Strand. This year the theme is community. In many cases, this means works designed to spur competition and collaboration – works like Patrick LeMieux’s Octopad, in which…
Read MoreEngland’s stage
Walking down the “Hausmann-like boulevard” that is Aldwych, Alan Read points out the sweeping curve of white buildings, “it looks like it should be in Paris. I sometimes imagine is in Paris when I want to think of myself flâneuring around the city”. The red busses are a reminder, however, that this is very much…
Read MoreThirteen Lions
The work of illustrator, graphic designer and game maker Maz Hemming, Thirteen Lions is a webcomic retelling the story of the Gunpowder Plot. It’s now being published online in instalments. While the conspiracy is currently in its infancy, there’s already been a pivotal cameo for the Duck and Drake – the pub on the Strand…
Read MoreDigging in the Archives with Patricia Methven: An Interview
The soft-spoken yet direct Patricia Methven is no stranger to the Strand, having lived in London since 1969 and worked at King’s College since 1978 in various positions. Today she is the Acting Director of Information Service Systems, which includes IT and Library Services. Today she is the Director of Archives and Information Management, a…
Read MoreMemories of the Strand: Dr Barrie Morgan
As part of the Strand Lines Project I met with Dr Barrie Morgan to talk about his associations and interactions with the area whilst working at King’s. Dr Morgan was initially a Lecturer in the Geography Department when he first joined King’s in the late 1960’s. His career spanned to become founding Director the International…
Read MoreA memory of the Strand
This story has been kindly contributed by Gerald Collins. The Strand is the gateway to Temple Bar and the City boundary. Originally lined with palaces and mansions, the only reminder of these old estates today are the street names i.e. Essex Street, Villiers Street. As a child in the early 1950’s my parents would take…
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