Strandlines
The King’s Shop in 1847
With thanks to Professor Michael Trapp of King’s, this is the (now former) location of the King’s shop as it was in 1847, long before the 1905 rebuild that brought the present building into being; from the second, 1847 edition of John Tallis’s Steet Views.
Read MoreThe Strand in November
A set of photographs taken by Clare Brant, showing the Christmas tree being assembled in Somerset House courtyard, and remembrance poppies on display in the window of Coutts bank. The Christmas tree goes up in Somerset House courtyard The Christmas tree goes up in Somerset House courtyard The Christmas tree goes up in Somerset House…
Read MoreBalloon on the Strand
The history of crazes is an enormously rich subject. We seem to be in the middle of a craze for fidget spinners, of which all sorts of varieties are on sale in the Strand. In 1784, the Strand was a key location for what became, for two or three years, a mad craze for balloons…
Read MoreSouvenirs on the Strand
A recent walk along the Strand in search of fidget spinners led me to start thinking about souvenirs. Sadly the Strand doesn’t feature in London-themed merchandise – it’s not as cool as the other big streets. A couple of years ago I asked a souvenir seller why he didn’t have items with the Strand? He…
Read MoreFrom the Electrophone to the Xbox Kinect: Remediating the Gaiety Girls
In my last post I described how the Strand’s Gaiety theatre became famous as the home of the Gaiety Girls. Under the stewardship of impresario George Edwardes the Girls changed the face of London’s theatre world while helping to lay the groundwork for modern celebrity culture. In this post I want to focus on two…
Read More‘Gaiety George’ and the Making of Modern Celebrity
During the 1890s and 1900s the Strand’s Gaiety theatre played host to a string of dazzlingly successful shows featuring the ‘Gaiety Girls.’ For the project Moving Past Present I invited artist Janina Lange to ‘reanimate’ two of the Gaiety’s best-known stars, Constance Collier and Ellaline Terriss, as digital avatars. The process of researching their lives…
Read MoreThe All-New Watch House
The scaffolding has recently come down from around the Old Watch House in Strand Lane, after a five-month restoration project sponsored by King’s College London and carried out by PAYE Conservation . It has been completely re-rendered, the zinc sheathing of the penthouse storey has been replaced, and the zinc, woodwork and wrought iron of the balcony…
Read MoreMoving Past Present: Digitally Reanimating the Gaiety Girls
In the 1890s the Strand’s Gaiety theatre became famous as the home of a new genre: the musical comedy. The brainchild of Irish impressario George Edwardes, musical comedies like A Gaiety Girl, The Shop Girl, The Quaker Girl, A Runaway Girl and The Circus Girl beguiled audiences with a mixture of songs, spectacle, romance, daring…
Read MoreThe Eagle Hut and King’s College London
World War One undoubtedly had an impact on the Strand area. When the United States of America entered the European conflict in 1917, the American Y.M.C.A. found space along the Strand for the Eagle Hut – a rest and recreation centre for their troops in the Aldwych which began services in August 1917 – in…
Read MoreTrue harmony and brotherhood
18th century freemasons meeting in and around the Strand The history of freemasonry as a secular, fraternal organisation in England dates from the late seventeenth century, when several private lodges are known to have existed before four London-based lodges formed the first Grand Lodge in 1717. Another group of masons formed a rival Grand Lodge…
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