Part One Twinings has long been associated with fine teas but the company actually sprang from Tom’s Coffee House. This blog explores a little of that early history and links to Tweed family members who lie within my own ancestral tree. Thomas Twining, 1675-1741, by William Hogarth Walking along the Strand in 1706 a waft of aromatic coffee and stimulating ...

“This is a historic judgement today, which will have repercussions for years to come” - Leigh Day Prosecution team. The Mau Mau insurgency, also known in Britain as the 'Emergency Period', was an eight year span of violence in colonial Kenya (1952-60). In 2012, the British High Court of Justice, inside the Royal Courts of Justice, was the site of ...

"I find London lovelier to paint each day" - Claude Monet. Monet's link to London Monet fell in love with London in 1870-71, while in exile from France, during the Franco-Prussian war. After his return to France he vowed to revisit London, which he did in 1899, 1900 and 1901. In each of these three later visits, he stayed in ...

‘For several years my sister always came out and gave out little care packages for people sleeping rough’, Ijlal explains, ‘but we had our first outreach in March and then it’s been once a month every month since’. It’s 2:30pm on what, for many visitors to the Strand, is a regular relaxed Sunday. However, for Ijlal and the busy team ...

The Savoy hotel is a treasure trove of weird and intriguing events over the last century of Strand history. In 1896, per the Fairmont Hotel Group blog, the Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre was the first woman to smoke in public and did so at the Savoy. “The Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, the first woman to smoke in public, chose The Savoy as ...

An Interview with Professor Michael Trapp, Department of Classics, King’s College London By Freya Zhang The Somerset House courtyard, with Michael Pinsky's Pollution Pods, April 2018. In her essay ‘The external sculptural decoration of Somerset House: And the documentary sources’, Susan Jenkins writes: "It is clear that Sir William Chambers planned a sustained and sophisticated iconographical program for the external ...

In 1905, the courtyard of the Savoy hotel was flooded with four feet of water to host the party of American city planner, architect, and millionaire, George Kessler. While probably being one of the most luxurious and ludicrous events to ever occur at a London hotel, and certainly on the Strand, it is rather poorly reported upon by the hotel ...

To mark London History Day 2019, Professor Clare Brant, Director of Strandlines, and Assistant Editor Fran Allfrey put together a tour of past, present, and future green space around Aldwych. We're excited to release highlights from the tour here for anyone to use. All you need is your phone with data, or connected to The Cloud wifi, which is available ...

Editors' note: The Strandlines editors are always scouring for news and research about the Strand area. Below we’re delighted to be sharing an extract from 'Here’s everything we learned from this map of London’s defunct tram network', by Jonn Elledge. You can read the entire article on CityMetric. Anyone who has worked, studied around, or visited the Strand has probably ...