Eccentric London : The Bradt Guide to Britain's Crazy and Curious Capital

by Benedict le Vay

• ISBN13: 9781841620411
• ISBN10: 1841620416
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2002-05-01
• Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides

Summary

A guide to the eccentric people, places and events of London for travelers looking for a different kind of guide to touring the greatest city in the world.

Author Biography

Benedict le Vay is a sub-editor on the features section of The Daily Mail. As author of the hugely successful Eccentric Britain, which involved several years' research into such esoteric pastimes as cone collecting, snail racing and bog snorkeling might number him among Britain's 10,000 or so eccentrics.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements, Dedication	x
Introduction	xi
PART ONE ECCENTRIC LONDONERS AND THEIR ODD PURSUITS	1	(76)
Eccentric Londoners	2	(12)
London's eccentric clubs and collectors	2	(5)
Britain's eccentric royals	7	(1)
Seriously weird, and wired, north Londoners	8	(2)
The man who took the last Tube home	10	(2)
Extraordinary exploits of Marvin the marlin	12	(2)
Eccentric Shopping	14	(6)
Unchanged by the 20th century	14	(1)
Fancy a whip-round? Fetish and erotic London	15	(1)
London's most eccentric bookshops	16	(2)
Bits and bobs	18	(2)
Murderous and Battlefield Londoners	20	(23)
Sites of the capital's most macabre killings	20	(7)
Ghastly crime and worse punishment	27	(7)
Bloody Brentford	34	(2)
Welcome to Wormwood Scrubs, North Kensington and the end of the world	36	(7)
Eccentric Pastimes	43	(12)
London's oddest museums	43	(7)
The London lidos: art deco classics	50	(2)
Theatre: a better mousetrap and other quirks	52	(3)
Career Eccentric	55	(7)
London's oddest and oldest jobs	55	(7)
Dead Eccentric London	62	(15)
London, more dead than alive	62	(3)
Where to find some great dead people	65	(6)
Tooting's odd link with gangland	71	(3)
The London resurrection men and grave crimes	74	(3)
PART TWO THE ECCENTRIC CITY WITH ALL ITS ODDITIES	77	(108)
Immortalised London	78	(9)
London addresses immortalised	78	(1)
The rhyme and reason for it all	79	(8)
London's Road to Eccentricity	87	(17)
London's eccentric road and place names	87	(7)
Transport trivia	94	(6)
London's forgotten transport system	100	(4)
Beneath the Eccentric City	104	(13)
Difficult-to-believe Tube experiences	104	(1)
Ten fascinating bits of underground London	105	(5)
The lost rivers of London and their legends	110	(7)
Eccentric Churches	117	(18)
London's strangest churches	117	(14)
London's most exotic places of worship	131	(4)
London: Home of Eccentrics	135	(13)
Plaque to the future	135	(2)
London's most brilliant road	137	(11)
Eccentric Buildings	148	(9)
Ten eccentric London buildings	148	(5)
Art deco palaces and recognising a sucker	153	(2)
Towering eccentricities around London	155	(2)
Monumentally Eccentric	157	(14)
The historic stones of old London	157	(3)
Twelve rather strange sculptures	160	(4)
London's lost American connections	164	(5)
The origins of down under	169	(2)
Eccentric Boozers, Beasts and Bogs	171	(14)
Peculiar pubs and their strange stories	171	(6)
London's most unlikely beasts	177	(4)
The strangest loos of London	181	(4)
PART THREE BIZARRE BITS OF INNER LONDON	185	(70)
Earl's Court	186	(11)
Irish giants and sparrow's kneecaps	186	(4)
The dead centre of Earl's Court	190	(5)
Making a complete exhibition of itself	195	(2)
Fleet Street	197	(19)
Fleet Street and Smithfield walk	197	(19)
Soho	216	(10)
Fitzrovia to Soho walk: Ariel to Caliban	218	(8)
Southwark	226	(13)
A tour of Southwark's suffering and horror	228	(11)
Whitechapel	239	(16)
Land of grope and gory	239	(2)
Whitechapel's battles: the siege of Sidney Street	241	(6)
A short walk about Whitechapel	247	(8)
PART FOUR VILLAGE LONDON	255	(92)
Dulwich	257	(14)
A crazy mixed up place	257	(2)
Walk: picturesque Dulwich	259	(12)
Greenwich	271	(19)
Walk: the best, and oddest, bits of Greenwich	272	(18)
Hammersmith	290	(16)
A jewel within a toad	290	(16)
Hampstead	306	(14)
Horrid history of highwaymen and hippies	306	(2)
A Hampstead walk	308	(12)
Kensington	320	(18)
Strange secrets behind all the bollards	320	(1)
Kensington walk	320	(14)
Complex Diana and the unpalatable truth	334	(4)
Wimbledon	338	(9)
A Wimbledon walk on the weird side	338	(9)
Appendix 1 The Eccentric Year	347	(14)
Appendix 2 Further Reading	361	(2)
Index	363