The Stories Behind London’s Streets (Part Two)

By Peter Thurgood

The streets of London flourish like possibly no other city on earth, with stories from its rich history, stories of death - fire - disease, of riots, and grisly murders, but also of tales of hope, happiness, determination and success. Behind every story and every street however, are the people who lived, worked, played, and even murdered there. Did you know for instance that when Great Scotland Yard was being built in 1890, that the dismembered body of a woman was discovered by workmen, dumped in the basement area? The body was thought to have been probably the final victim of Jack the Ripper!

Another interesting little tale is that of the infamous Ben Crouch, an ex-boxer, who owned a tavern just off Oxford Street during the 1700s. Crouch became a notorious body snatcher, and was known as the Corpse King. He carried out his evil profession in and around London during this period. With the Tyburn gallows only a short distance from his tavern, he was always one of the first to know of a criminal’s demise, and with the large demand from surgeons for fresh cadavers for their lectures, Crouch found this type of work far more lucrative than his profession as a boxer had ever been.

History isn’t just about digging up artefacts from the dim and distant past, history happens every day. It happened yesterday, and most people never even noticed it.

You might have thought you knew London, but this is the London most people never knew existed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Thurgood
• Release date: Jul 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466007178

Book preview

Part 2

By

Peter Thurgood

Copyright Peter Thurgood 2011

Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists

Dr. Samuel Johnson. 1777.

The streets of London flourish like possibly no other city on earth, with stories from its rich history, stories of death - fire - disease, of riots, and grisly murders, but also of tales of hope, happiness, determination and success. Behind every story and every street however, are the people who lived, worked, played, and even murdered there. Did you know for instance that when Great Scotland Yard was being built in 1890, that the dismembered body of a woman was discovered by workmen, dumped in the basement area? The body was thought to have been probably the final victim of Jack the Ripper!

Another interesting little tale is that of the infamous Ben Crouch, an ex-boxer, who owned a tavern just off Oxford Street during the 1700s. Crouch became a notorious body snatcher, and was known as the Corpse King. He carried out his evil profession in and around London during this period. With the Tyburn gallows only a short distance from his tavern, he was always one of the first to know of a criminal’s demise, and with the large demand from surgeons for fresh cadavers for their lectures, Crouch found this type of work far more lucrative than his profession as a boxer had ever been.

History isn’t just about digging up artefacts from the dim and distant past, history happens every day. It happened yesterday, and most people never even noticed it.

Peter Thurgood

Contents

Apple Tree Yard

Downing Street

Great Scotland Yard

Horse Guards Parade

Pall Mall

Adam and Eve Court

Bateman Street

Beak Street

Berwick Street

Dean Street

Frith Street

Gerrard Street

Great Pulteney Street

Great Windmill Street

Greek Street

Oxford Street

Piccadilly

Regent Street

Romilly Street

Savile Row

Shaftesbury Avenue

Soho Square

Wardour Street

Bury Place

Chenies Street

Cockpit Yard

Lambs Conduit Passage

Bow Street

Cecil Court

Covent Garden

Long Acre

Maiden Lane

Portsmouth Street

Portugal Street

Seven Dials

Strand

Strand Lane

Temple Place

Apple Tree Yard

When World War I broke out, William George Mason left his father’s bicycle shop in Swansea, where he helped repair second-hand bikes, and enlisted with the Royal Flying Corps, as an engineer. In order to qualify as an engineer, Mason had somewhat exaggerated his skills, by telling the draft board that he built motorbikes. The truth was that he had built a homemade twin cylinder engine and installed into the steering head of a modified bicycle. Clever stuff indeed, especially for an eighteen year old, what he failed to tell them however, was that when the machine reached the incredible speed of 40 mph, his flimsy cycle brakes would not stop him, and he crashed into the back of a hay-cart.

One year later, Mason was posted to France, and found himself helping to maintain the planes used by the early pilots. He loved speed, and quality, so when he was offered the chance of maintaining the Bristol Scout, which was a very fast plane for its time, reaching speeds of up to 85 mph., he jumped at it. The Scout flew with anti-Zeppelin rockets and four small bombs hung on the fuselage next to the pilot. A new faster version, the Scout D, replaced the original model and had a Lewis machine-gun mounted on the front, but the pilots found this not suitable at all for firing in a straight line in front of the plane, as the bullets could quite often hit the propeller.

Mason spent a great deal of his spare time in trying to find a way of limiting the possibility of such accidents. He came up with an idea of putting in a cut-out switch, which would cut the plane’s engine for a few seconds, while the machine gun did its work, then cutting back in again as soon as the gun’s trigger was released.

A few seconds, was however, deemed as much too long. In those far off days of aviation, a plane’s engine could literally die on its pilot if it were not kept in motion full time. It was back to the drawing board for Mason, and within weeks he had developed a machine gun that could be fired in perfect synchronisation with the plane’s propeller. Before Mason’s gun could be taken from the drawing board to the production line, the firm of Vickers, had developed a completely synchronised machine gun, which was quickly fitted to all planes fighting in the war, including the famous Sopwiths, and Mason’s favourite, the Bristol Scout. Mason however, was undeterred by such a setback, and went on to learn to fly and to become an Airman 1st class.

When the war ended, Mason, who was still only twenty-two years old, decided to chance his luck in London. He found no difficulty in finding himself a job repairing motor cars in Fulham, where he also rented a flat, but less than a year later, the firm he was working for went bust, and Mason found himself out of work.

A friend then told him about some mews workshop properties, which were for rent in London’s west end, with your sort of expertise, you’d have no problem finding customers for your own car repair business, and these places in Apple Tree Yard are so cheap that you can’t go wrong.

Mason took his friend’s advice, and rented one of the mews properties in Apple Tree Yard, which also incidentally had living accommodation above the workshop. He set himself up firstly as a garage, repairing motorcars, which were generally regarded as a relatively new fad at the time. The business did well, and before long he found that his customers were also asking if he could find them another car, or a vehicle for a friend.

The area was beginning to attract the upwardly mobile, and within a few years his firm started to prosper, so much so that he applied for and obtained a Rolls Royce dealership. Business flourished and in 1922 he bought the house on Jermyn Street, which adjoined the mews property.

The ground floor was converted into a car showroom, with folding doors, the complete width of the house. The whole of the ground floor was opened up to form one uninterrupted space going right back through the house, as far as a new building on the mews behind. The floors of the house had to be strongly reinforced, to support all the Rolls Royce motorcars. But even with all this modernisation, the planners still went to a great deal of trouble to keep the upper floors of the building intact, as well as the 18th century front of the building. It is thought that Rolls Royce Motors insisted on this, in order to instil confidence in the history and reliability of the Rolls Royce motorcars that were for sale within the showroom.

William George Mason went on to become a millionaire. He was killed in a car crash in France, in 1950, just a few miles from where he was stationed during the Great War. He was 54 years old. There is no sign now, of the Rolls Royce showroom in Jermyn Street that Mason used to own, or indeed the workshop at the back, in Apple Tree Yard. Jermyn Street today, is one of London's most elegant thoroughfares, lined mostly with shops for the fashionable man.

Apple Tree Yard is, as its name suggests, a small yard rather than a main thoroughfare, which means it isn’t the easiest place in London to find. Walking south from Piccadilly Circus, along Regent Street, you would need to turn right into Jermyn Street and after a couple of hundred yards, turn left into Duke of York Street and Apple Tree Yard is on the left.

History isn’t exactly self evident in this street, there are no beautiful old buildings with wooden beams, or leaded windows, or plaques on the wall commemorating some famous person or other. There are some nice little shops, some offices and a restaurant or two. There isn’t even a pub, which one normally expects to find on almost every London street.

The nearest pub however is the Red Lion which stands just a few yards away at number 2 Duke of York Street. The Red Lion is surely one of London's most magnificent pubs, for both visitors and locals alike. The exterior of the pub has plain brickwork bedecked with masses of hanging baskets of flowers, while above the glass fascia is a cast-iron railing of elaborately scrolled design. The interior is of typical Victorian design, with a central bar, made from a rich Honduras Mahogany. The ceiling is lined with a cigar-brown lincrusta paper, the walls and partitions being formed in frames, matching the polished mahogany of the bar, with glass panels enriched with frosted, brilliant-cut and partly mirrored arabesque patterns. The cut glass and mirrors sparkle as the light catches them, leading to an illusion of a much larger space.

The Red Lion was built in 1821 on the site of an earlier inn of the same name, which dated back to the 1700s. During the 1870s, the Red Lion underwent a major overhaul. There doesn’t seem to be any records of what the original inn looked like, but it was often described as a 'gin palace'. The revamped pub was designed to create an air of respectability in this up and coming area, catering not just for the elite of the area, but also their staff, who classed the Red Lion as their own preserve, somewhere where they could go and be their own masters in almost as opulent surroundings as the grand houses in which they worked.

The history of Apple Tree Yard and the area in which it sits, however, goes back much further than this. In the 1100s a hospital was founded thereabouts, for the victims of leprosy, in the fields west of King Edward the first’s memorial to the memory of his dead Queen, Eleanor, (now Charing Cross). At this time the risk of becoming a victim of leprosy put hysterical fear into the minds of every man and woman. So contagious was the disease that the only effective guard against infection was to keep those stricken with the illness locked up as far away from civilisation as possible. The hospital, which was known as St James in the Fields was ideal, far enough away from the inhabitants of London as it was then, and so 14 women, and 8 men that were leprous were confined there, to live out the rest of their lives away from society, living chastely and honestly in divine service. Excavations in 1925 and 1990 have located a burial ground and parts of the old hospital including what is thought to be a chapel.

It is a well-documented fact that King Henry VIII was a keen huntsman, and with this in mind, he started looking for a new hunting ground within the western reaches, and in 1530, he decided to seize the old hospital and convert it for his personal use. He built himself a 'goodly manor' surrounded by parkland and all enclosed within a 'wall of brick'.

The King had all the hospital’s occupants moved to another location and granted them a life-long pension as the work went ahead.

Henry surrounded his new manor house with beautiful gardens, the envy of all who set eyes upon them. There were flower gardens, vegetable plots and huge orchards where all types of fruit grew. During his relatively short time at his new manor, Henry entertained there quite often, and his guests, who included foreign royalty as well as his own lords and ladies, would often stroll in these sumptuous grounds whilst eating, drinking, and making merry.

The royal gardeners pruned and tended the orchard’s trees, with apples being the prominent fruit, and often used in the royal kitchen and to fill the fruit bowls of the royal households. Samuel Pepys noted in his diary for 1688 that he did 'steal some apples off the trees' in the King's garden. The apple trees continued to produce fruit until the end of the 17th century. When the area was taken over for development, a number of the apple trees were allowed to remain within the new scheme. When the streets were eventually named, the naming of Apple Tree Yard was an obvious one.

On the outskirts of Henry’s land during the 16th century, stood a dairy farm, which for one reason or another seemed to survive the local redevelopment, even though it was happening all around it. Throughout the centuries, the farmhouse stood in one form or another, right up until the early 1900s when it was demolished and a large modern shed was built upon the site. The farm at this time was still on private hands, and was still providing dairy produce even though its land had by then been sold off, and its herd of cattle was being kept permanently indoors in cowsheds. By the 1950s, the large shed was being used as a bottling plant. The last of the cows finally left in the 1970s and the cowsheds were demolished. The bottling machinery was eventually removed and the large shed became a milk distribution depot, which has also now disappeared from the area.

Another building which actually stands on Jermyn Street, but which backs onto Apple Tree Yard, has also been dated to the 16th century, but dendrochronology has confirmed that it was substantially rebuilt early in the 18th century. The building had been altered several times in its life. The interior, especially the upper floors, still shows much evidence of the early rebuilding. Census information indicate that at the end of the 19th century the building contained a housekeeper who maintained furnished rooms there which were rented out to professional men and their families, sometimes for the social season. At the back of the house was a garden running down to a mews, which is now the delightfully named Apple Tree Yard. Stables and coach houses were built in the mews, with living accommodation above them to house the grooms who looked after the horses.

Apple Tree Yard, on the other hand, is far from elegant. Nondescript brick faced buildings, the backs of office buildings, some integral garages here and there, and if it’s a particularly nice day, you might even manage to catch a glimpse of the sky and the sun. But if you are looking for the lush greenery of Henry VIII gardens with its flowers and trees I am afraid you will need to look further afield, for there are no apple trees now in Apple Tree Yard.

Downing Street

The name, Downing Street, is synonymous with one house in that street, which sits at number 10. No other country in the world can boast of such a world-renowned name, and certainly no other country can boast of such a world-renowned leader, as Sir Winston Churchill, who took office there on May 10th, 1940 and remained there, all through WW II as British Prime Minister, until 1945, when he surprisingly lost the General Election. He did however return as Prime Minister again in 1951 until 1955, and remained a Member of Parliament until 1964. But it was as Britain’s wartime leader, that most people remember Winston Churchill.

To get to this point in time we need to go back some months, to September 3rd 1939, when the then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, announced in a radio speech, that the British deadline for the withdrawal of German troops from Poland had expired. He said the British ambassador to Berlin had handed a final note to the German government that morning saying unless it announced plans to withdraw from Poland by 11.00, a state of war would exist between the two countries. Mr Chamberlain continued: I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and consequently this country is at war with Germany.

That very same day, Chamberlain appointed Winston Churchill into the government as First Lord of the Admiralty. In May 1940 Neville Chamberlain resigned after pressure from Labour members for a more active prosecution of the war, and Winston Churchill became the new head of the wartime coalition government.

Churchill loved the historical significance of Downing Street, but like the pragmatist he was, he also realised that number 10, and indeed, all the buildings in the street, were not of first class construction, and would certainly not stand up to German aerial bombardment. Downing Street, was built by Sir George Downing, who has been described as an enterprising rogue - a spy, traitor and shady property developer, who saw building houses on prime London land as a means to getting rich quick.

Downing didn’t have any intention of building quality properties, he was in this purely for the money, and so his houses were cheaply built, and lacked proper foundations, which they should have had, considering the boggy ground they were built upon. Downing even cheated on the brickwork, and instead of neat brick façades; they had lines drawn into the mortar to give the appearance of bricks.

There was nothing much that Churchill could be taught about building, as he had most famously built a very large wall at his house, Chartwell in Kent some years earlier, and at one time had held a card in Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers.

One solitary German bomb declared Churchill, could demolish this building, and wipe out the entire British Government within minutes. He demanded a bombproof bunker, large enough to hold the entire Cabinet, to be built immediately. He was informed that work had already begun the previous year, in adapting some humble storage areas, ten feet below ground, in King Charles Street, which runs adjacent to Downing Street. The site was originally planned to house the central core of government and a unique military information centre. The events of the Munich crisis in the early autumn had speeded up the process.

Churchill’s demand, of immediately, wasn’t possible, as he had made demands, which were not part of the original plans for the site. He was assured however, that the remaining work could be finished within weeks. In the meantime, somewhere else was needed, which could be used until the Cabinet War rooms were finished to his specifications.

Underground railway stations (the Tube) were at this time being considered as temporary air-raid shelters for the populace. When Churchill heard about this, he commented, If they are good enough to protect the people of London, then surely one can be found to protect me and my cabinet? A list of disused Underground stations was drawn up and it was found that ‘Down Street’, which was situated between Dover Street (now renamed Green Park) and Hyde Park Corner, had been redundant as a station for some years, and was currently being used as the headquarters of the Railway Executive Committee. Churchill immediately took control of the station, under the Railway Control Order of 1939, and within days it was being used by Churchill's War Cabinet, who nicknamed it, the Burrow.

The Burrow was put to good use during the limited time it was used, and several cabinet meetings, chaired by Churchill, took place there, but as soon as the new Cabinet War Rooms were ready, the entire operation moved to there, which of course was much closer to Downing Street, and the Houses of Parliament.

Churchill’s calling for the new Cabinet War Rooms, had nothing to do with personal fear, it was based entirely upon his need for an operational headquarters, as close as possible to Downing Street and Parliament, where his entire Government would be relatively safe from German bombing raids. In fact, later on, during the Battle of Britain, Churchill would often go up onto the roof of 10 Downing Street, to watch the RAF do battle with their German counterparts, in the skies above him.

When the new Cabinet War Rooms were at last ready, Churchill rushed around the corner from Downing Street, to view them, and to make sure his orders had been carried out to the letter. He was more than pleased at what he saw, with the entire site stretching over an area of three acres, and including, the Cabinet Room, the Map Room, Churchill’s own private room, complete with a bed for overnight stays, should it be necessary, a canteen, a hospital, even a shooting range.

Another room, which could be almost overlooked, if visited today, was the Transatlantic Telephone Room, which was used by Churchill to keep in touch with Washington. This room was, and still is, probably the smallest room in the whole complex, used originally as a broom cupboard, but converted on specific orders from Churchill himself, in order that nobody else could be present there when he was using the Transatlantic line to Washington. As a further precaution, to make sure his telephone conversations were kept absolutely top secret, Churchill had a complicated telephone system, installed, which had a scrambler device, codenamed Sigsaly, which was so large, that it had to be housed in the basement of the Selfridges store in Oxford Street. Sigsaly was developed by the American Bell Telephone Laboratories, to partially encipher telephone conversations from Churchill’s Telephone Room, and transmit them by cable from the 'hot-line' to the Selfridges site where it was then enciphered and sent by radio waves to the President in Washington, thus ensuring Churchill to talk to Roosevelt in complete privacy.

In 1984 the Cabinet War Rooms was designated as a historic site and opened to the general public. It has been kept, as near as possible, to how it was left at the end of WWII, even including such touches as one of Churchill’s cigar butts, left in an ashtray on his desk, and the Map Room, which ceased to be operational on 16th August 1945, the day after VJ Day, and was left almost exactly as we see it today, every book, map, chart, pin and notice occupying the same position now that they occupied then.

Not every part of the Cabinet War Rooms however, is open to the general public. It is alleged that there are underground tunnels leading from 10 Downing Street to the Thames, and from Buckingham Palace to the Thames, as well as a tunnel leading from the BBC Radio centre to Admiralty Arch. All these tunnels are supposedly inter-linked, and all link directly to the Cabinet War rooms. These tunnels were allegedly built in Victorian times and extended during WWI and further extended again in WWII.

For security reasons we will probably never know the truth about these alleged tunnels; do they really exist, or are they just wildly exaggerated stories, made up by the press and other writers over the years? The Buckingham Palace Tunnel for instance, could be the tunnel, which supposedly runs along the Mall to the underground citadel called Q-Whitehall, which is rumoured to stretch as far north as Holborn. Supporters of this theory, point to the huge extractor fan which can be seen outside the gent’s toilets in the ICA, which the ICA deny as being anything to do with them. There is also the top-secret fortress on the corner of the Mall and Horse Guards Road, which is said to be an entrance to Q-Whitehall, although there are supposed to be others scattered around London. The Q-Whitehall complex is also alleged to connect to 10 Downing Street via the nuclear bombproof bunker, which was built under the Ministry of Defence building at a cost over £110 million in the early 1990s.

Much of the affairs of Government, are kept for security reasons, as closely guarded secrets, and as such, we will probably never know the true facts regarding the alleged tunnels connecting Downing Street, with all these other locations. We do know however, the historical facts regarding the building of Downing Street, which has already been briefly dealt with here. That it was built by Sir George Downing, a shady property developer, who built it as a means to getting rich quick.

But how many know that Downing once worked for Oliver Cromwell, as his Chief of Intelligence, and part of his inner circle? But when Cromwell died in 1658, Downing immediately changed sides, and offered his services to King Charles II. When the diarist, Samuel Pepys heard of his U-Turn, he described Downing as a perfidious rogue.

After the Restoration, King Charles II rewarded Downing with honours and money, but it seems this wasn’t enough for him, and so he set about making his fortune elsewhere. With the type of contacts he had, he was soon tipped off about a piece of land around Hampden House, which was originally called Knyvett House, after Lord Thomas Knyvett, the Keeper of Whitehall Palace, who was famous for capturing Guy Fawkes in 1605 and foiling his plot to assassinate James I. The previous year, Knyvett had moved into a house next door, approximately where Number 10 Downing Street is today.

From this time, members of the royal family and the government usually lived in Hampden House. Princess Elizabeth lived there from 1604 until 1613 when she married Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and moved to Hanover. She was the grandmother of George the Elector of Hanover, who became King of England in 1714, and the great-grandmother of King George II

Downing registered an interest in the land in 1654, but had to wait until 1682 before he finally secured the leases to the property, which allowed to him to start building there. He immediately set about pulling down what was left of existing properties, and building a cul-de-sac consisting of approximately 15 to 20 terraced houses along the northern side of Downing Street.

Houses at that time were not numbered in sequence, as they are today. They tended to be known by the name or title of their occupants, and those that were numbered, were done so quite haphazardly. The current Number 10 started out life as Number 5, and was not renumbered until 1779. The present Number 10 is actually made up of two houses joined together, with Downing’s cheap terrace house stuck on the front, on the Downing Street side, as we know it today, and a much grander building, adjoining it on the back, and overlooking Horse Guards Parade.

The grand house on Horse Guards Parade was built around 1677, as the home of the Countess of Litchfield, daughter of Charles II. The Countess was very proud of her house, and not at all happy when the cheap row of terrace houses were built so close to her property. Her father, King Charles, advised her to have a high wall built around her property in order to preserve her privacy. Her surveyor, who just happened to be Sir Christopher Wren, set about the task immediately, and that terrible row of cheap houses (Downing Street) were obliterated from her site.

When the Countess of Lichfield eventually left the house, it passed to Lord Overkirk, who was William III’s Master of the Horse, and when he died it passed yet again to Count Bothmor, and renamed Bothmor House. The last private resident of Downing Street, was Mr. Chicken. Nothing much is known about him except that he moved out in the early 1730’s. In the 1730s Number 10 began to be linked to the office of prime minister. It was a period of great change. Rule by a powerful monarch had given way only a few decades earlier to a different style of government led by Parliament and party politics. It became important to house the chief ministers in buildings grand enough for their status.

King George II took possession of both the house on Downing Street, and the house overlooking Horse Guards, and in 1732 offered them as a gift to Sir Robert Walpole, who held the title First Lord of the Treasury and effectively served as the first prime minister. Walpole however, accepted them on the condition that they were a gift to the office of First Lord of the Treasury rather than to him personally.

In 1766 it was found that parts of the house were in desperate need of repair. It was decided to take down the front adjoining the street as well as the eastern wall, which flanked the wall of the hall. In 1781 further extensive works were carried out and in June 1781, the Board of Works called attention to the dangerous state of the old part of the house inhabited by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was during these extensive works that the fronts of number 10 and its adjoining buildings were rebuilt with bricks, as we see them today.

Downing Street today is a cul-de-sac, which runs from Whitehall to St James's Park and consists of a row of buildings numbered as 10, 11 and 12. Number 10 Downing Street is arguably the most well known address in the world, and is the official residence of the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Number 11 is the residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and number 12, the office of the government whips. Number 10 however, is not just the family home of the Prime Minister, it is also a workplace for the many civil servants who support the Prime Minister. There is also a large staff, which includes the secretaries of the basement Garden Room, a busy press office, switchboard clerks, a unit to handle correspondence, as well as security, cleaners, and kitchen staff. The Prime Minister has his own office where he works, meets colleagues, receives important guests, and gives interviews. Regular Cabinet meetings are held in the Cabinet Room at number 10 every Thursday while Parliament is in session, and this has been going on since 1856. As number 10 was built as a private house, with another house adjoining it, the offices are spread across many rooms on different floors.

Official functions, meetings, receptions, lunches and dinners are held at number 10 almost every week. The State Dining Room holds up to 65 guests seated around a huge D-Ended mahogany dining table. For small events, such as lunch, the small dining room seats a maximum of 12 guests.

It isn't just important heads of state and official dignitaries who visit number 10; functions are also held on a regular basis for people from all walks of life and all areas of the UK, including notable achievers, public service employees and charity workers. Receptions tend to be informal gatherings, where drinks and canapés are served, as guests are encouraged to meet and talk to the Prime Minister and other hosts, and wander through the historic staterooms enjoying the art and historic objects on display.

Prior to 1989, the general public used to be able to walk into Downing Street, and pose, as many tourists did, outside the famous black door of number 10 to have their photograph taken. But in 1989, following a bombing campaign by the IRA, cast iron security gates were installed at the entrance to Downing Street on the orders of Margaret Thatcher. It is unlikely the gates will be removed in the foreseeable future, as Britain's security services still perceive there to be a threat from overseas militant/terrorist organisations, as well as other less hostile pressure groups.

There are many strange things about Downing Street, some of great significance, and others to a much lesser degree, but one curious little piece of trivia that is not widely known, is that the front door of number 10 has no keyhole and can only be opened from the inside. For the sake of the country, let us hope that there will always be someone at home to answer that famous door.

Great Scotland Yard

In September 1890, Richard Lawrence, a builder’s labourer from Stepney in east London, was working on the site of a new building on the Thames Embankment. The building was originally designated to be the site of a new London opera house, with an impressive granite facade that had been quarried by prisoners on Dartmoor. Unfortunately, the opera house project ran out of money and had to be abandoned. Their loss however, was the Metropolitan Police Force’s gain, as they were looking for a new headquarters, and this location, in Great Scotland Yard, fitted their needs perfectly.

Builders and designers were quickly drafted in and work started immediately. Richard Lawrence was part of a team of workmen whose job was to dig out the old basement of the building, which apparently dated back to at least the middle ages, possibly even Roman times, as did most sites along the Thames Embankment.

Lawrence and his workmates didn’t particularly like being in the old basement area, as there was