London's Strangest Tales

by Tom Quinn

  1828

  Birdcage Walk runs along St James’s Park from Buckingham Palace almost to Parliament Square. It’s a curious street with the park on one side and the backs of houses on the other.

  Casual visitors and tourists who notice the name of the street at all probably imagine that it commemorates the fact that people once kept birds here – perhaps in cages hanging from the elegant windows in the tall old houses that still overlook the park. In fact, Birdcage Walk reminds us that in the days when the Palace of Whitehall stretched far along the River Thames nearby this was the site of the royal aviary.

  Built by James I, the aviary was doubled in size by his grandson Charles II. Neither James nor Charles were known for their love of budgerigars – in fact the aviary housed the royal falcons and hawks, birds kept specifically for hunting.

  Birdcage Walk was once the focus of a bizarre set of rules. Although it is now a wide, busy road, it was once a route that had to be walked for the simple reason that only the king and the Hereditary Grand Falconer were allowed to drive their carriages along the route. This rule was rigidly adhered to until as recently as 1828 and when the route was opened to lesser mortals the downfall of Empire was predicted.

  The houses that line the walk are some of the earliest still standing in central London. They were built right at the beginning of the eighteenth century, but what you see from the walk are actually the backs of the houses. A narrow set of old stone steps lead up past their gardens to the house fronts. Here you will see the best complete group of Queen Anne houses in the capital. Queen’s Anne’s statue stands against the wall of one of the mellow red-brick houses which still have their fine staircases, sash windows and original doorcases.

  WHEN THE DEAD MOVED OUT OF LONDON

  1832

  Most visitors brave enough to include a graveyard on their London itinerary go to Highgate cemetery to the north of the city, but tucked away by the side of the Grand Union Canal over to the west in what was until recently a fairly poor part of North Kensington, Kensal Green Cemetery is an extraordinary monument to Victorian funeral piety – and even more bizarre funeral rituals.

  Until the coming of the canal in the eighteenth century this was a quiet place: there were a few houses at the junction of Harrow Road and Kilburn Lane but the rest was open farmland with an odd isolated inn and London half a day’s walk away. But by the early 1800s the small village centred round the junction and its green was expanding. By the 1830s London’s church graveyards were filled to bursting and All Soul’s Cemetery, as Kensal Green Cemetery was originally known (the land was owned by All Souls College, Oxford), was opened in 1832 to ease the problem.

  Within a few years Kensal Rise Cemetery – as it quickly became known – was the fashionable place to be buried. Among the bizarre monuments the cemetery contains are Greek temples, Egyptian halls, gothic fantasies and medieval castles, as well as more ordinary but equally fascinating gravestones and tombs.

  The cemetery is full of mature trees and shrubs and gives every indication of being deep in the heart of the countryside – among the tombs to look out for are those of Sir Anthony Panizzi (1797–1879), who created the famous round Reading Room at the British Library (now part of the British Museum), Charles Babbage (1791–1871) who created the first computer, authors Wilkie Collins (1824–1889), William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) and Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), as well as the greatest of all the Victorian engineers, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859).

  But Kensal Rise Cemetery has a strange secret – here and there are tombs that reveal an astonishing obsession that gripped Victorian Londoners for several decades. And what was this obsession? It was the fear of being buried alive.

  From roughly 1870 until 1900 an idea grew up that doctors were constantly making mistakes when it came to deciding when a person had died. It was said that in many cases death certificates had been issued and the body was being prepared for laying out, when suddenly an eye flickered or the apparent corpse groaned. If a corpse could come back to life at this stage, who was to say that dozens – perhaps hundreds – had not been buried and only then come back to life?

  Visitors to Highgate and Kensal Green cemeteries in London even today may see the remnants of a strange invention designed to guard against the risk of being buried on Monday and waking up in one’s coffin on Wednesday. A number of tombs were built with a hollow stone column running down into the buried coffin. At the top of the hollow column two or three feet up in the air above the tombstone would be a small bell tower complete with bell.

  The idea of the bizarre contraption was that if the deceased happened to wake up after burial he or she would be able to pull vigorously on a chain that ran up the hollow column to the bell, which would ring out, bringing rescuers hotfooting it across the fields.

  A number of different coffin alarm systems were created around this time and, indeed, from then until well into the twentieth century, when in a few cases nervous relatives had electric alarms fitted to their relatives’ coffins.

  Despite all the terror and fears, however, there is no record of anyone buried with an alarm pressing the button or ringing the bell.

  THE MAN WHO HAD HIMSELF STUFFED

  1832

  In earlier epochs the belief in the resurrection of the body – central to Christianity – meant that cremation was frowned on as a means of disposing of the dead. By the eighteenth century, in England at least, such ideas were being questioned and among the rationalists of the Enlightenment arguments about cremation versus burial came to seem absurd. It may well have been partly why the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), one of the great political and social thinkers of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, came up with a rather more unusual way of disposing of his own corpse.

  Bentham’s more than sixty published works cover everything from the need for political reform to animal welfare, discussions of the state of the colonies and the evils of swearing. Most famously, of course, he is associated with the creation of utilitarianism – the doctrine of the greatest good of the greatest number. He was also closely involved in the whole idea of a dissenters’ university, which is what the University of London originally was. Dissenters were not allowed to study at the old universities so they set up their own. Bentham was considered wildly eccentric in his day for advocating universal suffrage and the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

  The University of London started life in 1828 when Bentham was in his eighties and though he took no practical part in establishing it he is often considered its spiritual father, largely because of his advocacy of religious tolerance and education for all. Bentham loved the new university so it should come as no surprise that he left the university (later to become University College London) all his manuscripts. But he also left a legacy of surpassing eccentricity. Visitors to the South Cloisters of the main building cannot fail to see the large wooden and glass cabinet that stands in the corridor.

  Inside the cabinet is a surprisingly lifelike and life-size Jeremy Bentham, comfortably seated with a stick in his hand and dressed in the very clothes he wore in life. The figure is not a model but the actual preserved remains of the great man. It was Bentham’s last joke, if you like, at the expense of those who argued over burial and cremation for superstitious (i.e. religious) reasons.

  When Bentham first arrived in his case a few weeks after his death in 1832, the head and face were actually those of Bentham, but the embalming technique used wasn’t up to scratch and the head deteriorated badly until a wax replica had to be made. Bentham had left his body to the college on condition that it was preserved in this way and beneath the clothing even today Bentham’s skeleton keeps an eye on the academic world he so loved in life.

  Legends and extraordinary stories about the preserved philosopher abound – one says that he is wheeled into every university council meeting. At the end of each meeting the minutes record: Jeremy Bentham – present but not voting. Another legend has it tha
t for a decade before he died Bentham carried around the glass eyes he wanted used in his preserved head. When they were finally used in the preserved head they fell out; then the head itself fell off and was found between Bentham’s feet. Whatever the truth or otherwise of these and many other stories (including the one about the students found playing football with the head) we do know that in fact the real head is kept in the college vaults.

  No one knows precisely why Bentham stipulated in his will that he should be preserved and set up for public display in this way, but it ties in nicely with the philosophy of a man who took a practical view of affairs and who thought it was important to make a contribution to the day-to-day life of the society in which he lived – at the end of his life he probably thought it would be nice to be in some position where he could watch the world go by and it was good to cock a snook at the more religious among his colleagues who were outraged at this refusal to stick to the Christian rules about the dead. No doubt Bentham also thought that if there was anything in the stories about the survival of the soul then his could hover where it had been happiest – in the corridors of the university.

  WHY THE NATIONAL GALLERY HAS GIANT PEPPERPOTS

  1835

  When the National Gallery was built the architect found himself in a tricky position. His brief was to build something long and very narrow, as the access road behind the site (which is still there today) had to remain as it was when the royal stables, or mews, was here.

  Not only that but, in a typically English and eccentric fudge, he also had to agree to build his new gallery no higher than the mews buildings it replaced. The idea was that the skyline at this point should look pretty much as it had done since the Middle Ages when the Royal Mews, a little to the north of the Palace of Westminster, was first established. The mews was where the king’s animals – particularly his falcons – were ‘mewed up’.

  The architect of the National Gallery, as good as his word, came up with the design we see today and the oddest echo of the building the gallery replaced can be seen at either end of the present building. If you look carefully at the roof there are what look like two stone pepperpots, one at either end of the structure.

  The reason these are here is that the original stables had almost identical decorative pepperpots – the originals were actually part of the ventilation system for the stables. As the heat and smell of the dung of several hundred horses rose it had to be dispersed from the building as quickly as possible – the pepperpots with their open stone latticework allowed just that to happen and the replacement pepperpots on the building have the same open decorative latticework, despite the fact that the horses departed forever nearly two centuries ago.

  WORLD’S SMALLEST PRISON

  1835

  At one time most English towns and villages had lock-ups – small single-celled buildings where local drunks might be kept secure for the night or where thieves or other antisocial individuals could be kept to await the arrival of the magistrate.

  At the southeast corner of Trafalgar Square and missed by almost every tourist who comes to this place is a lock-up that is unique even by the standards of these odd little prisons, because the Trafalgar Square lock-up is also Britain’s (possibly the world’s) smallest police station.

  The structure looks like a rather fat lamppost and it is only when one looks closely that one notices the tiny door and window. There is barely room for two people to stand upright inside but it is said that this tiny lock-up had and still has a direct telephone link to Scotland Yard.

  Right up until the 1960s the Trafalgar Square lock-up was still in use, but it is by no means the only strange thing about this part of London.

  Take the famous lions at the bottom of Nelson’s Column, for example. When the column was being built an artist had to be found to design the four huge lions round the base of the column. They are so much bigger than life size that it was feared the final result would be embarrassingly out of proportion unless someone with the right talents was chosen to complete the work.

  Queen Victoria wanted Edwin Landseer (1862–1873), one of her favourite painters, to carry out the work but Landseer was horrified at the suggestion. He was not a sculptor and had no useful experience to bring to bear. He refused the commission, but the Queen would not give up. After being approached by peers and MPs, Landseer finally agreed but only on condition that he could take as long as he needed and that a dead lion would be sent round to his studio so he could study it before putting pen to paper.

  It took several months before a lion died (presumably of natural causes) at London Zoo. It was immediately sent round to Landseer’s house where he kept it until it stank so badly the neighbours began to complain. It took more than a year of preparatory drawing (and several more dead lions) before Landseer was finally happy – and the result was the splendid lions we see today.

  But a century and more ago nothing seemed quite so straightforward – the drawings were ready but the sculpted lions were not installed until 25 years after they should have been put up. When Landseer died wreaths were draped around the lions’ necks as a mark of respect.

  Another curious tale concerns the capital at the top of the column on which Nelson’s statue stands and the bronze bas-reliefs at the bottom of the column showing Nelson’s victories (as well as his yet more famous death). All are made from French cannons captured after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

  PERFORMING PIGEONS

  1835

  We’ve all heard of flea circuses – though they are rare now – and animals were for centuries a central part of circuses and shows that toured the country. In medieval times and right up until the mid-nineteenth century London, like most parts of Britain, had numerous fairs. London’s most famous fair was probably St Bartholomew’s but almost all were gradually suppressed by an increasingly puritanical government that saw fairs as a waste of time – the common people who enjoyed fairs (which, like St Bartholemew’s, were often held on old saint’s days) were seen not as enjoying themselves, but as wasting time that would be better spent at work. But try as the authorities might to suppress the whole idea of the fair they never quite succeeded. Fairs, though far fewer in number, did continue and they offered a spectacle that in many cases we would find extremely offensive today. Deformed animals and humans – like the ‘elephant man’ John (Joseph) Merrick (1862–1890) – were often exhibited but animal trainers also produced some of the most bizarre entertainments ever seen in London. It is hard to know now if smaller performing animals were badly treated or not but the extraordinary skill of their trainers cannot be doubted. The following comes from Joseph Strutt’s The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England. It describes a group of birds, probably pigeons, that travelled the country entertaining ordinary people at shows and fairs. They were known as Breslaw’s Birds after their trainer. Strutt quotes a contemporary description of the show when it came to London:

  The birds formed themselves into ranks like a company of soldiers; small cones of paper bearing some resemblance to grenadiers’ caps were put on their heads and diminutive imitations of muskets made with wood were secured under their left wings. Thus equipped they marched to and fro several times; when a single bird was brought forward, supposed to be a deserter, and set between six of the musketeers…who conducted him from the top to the bottom of the table on the middle of which there was a small brass cannon charged with a tiny amount of gunpowder; the deserter was situated in front of the cannon; his guards then divided, three retiring on one side and three on the other, and he was left standing by himself. Another bird was immediately produced and a lighted match being put into one of his claws, he hopped boldly on the other to the tail of the cannon and applying the match discharged the piece. The moment the explosion took place the deserter fell down and lay like a dead bird, but at the command of his tutor he rose again and the cages being brought the feathered soldiers were stripped of their ornament and returned into them in perfect order.

  TH
E TRAIN DISGUISED AS A SHIP

  1836

  The train was to the nineteenth century what the internet is to our century – the greatest scientific innovation of the age. It transformed Britain from a land of remote villages where people rarely travelled more than a few miles in all their lives to a place where eventually even the relatively poor could afford to travel distances undreamed of by their parents and grandparents.

  The huge success of the very earliest railways in the north of England meant that trains quickly spread and, of course, part of the spread took the iron roadway to London. The earliest London service of all was that which ran from the City to Greenwich.

  Crowds gathered in those early days to see the extraordinary new invention – a breathing monster that could pull huge loads without the assistance of horses. The new method of transport was very popular with the travelling public, or at least that part of it wealthy enough to indulge in what was seen as a luxury, but much as people admired the technology there were many complaints about the aesthetics of the whole enterprise. The chief complaint was that somehow the engines were rather ugly. Letters were written in great numbers to the railway company asking if they could not brighten up these dismal-looking locomotives. The real problem was that the first generation to experience railways judged them against the brightly coloured mail coaches that still dominated the national transportation system. Since coaches were still on the scene, though declining in numbers, older people looked back to them through the rose-tinted spectacles of nostalgia and hoped that the rather brash trains could be somehow given the glamour and glitter of the older form of transportation.

  According to the then editor of the Railway News, the London and Greenwich Railway (L&GR) company took the complaints about the appearance of their engines very seriously. They studied the problem and after some time one of their engineers came up with a solution. Because the brick-built viaducts that carried the line into London looked rather like Roman aqueducts an eccentric engineer at the L&GR suggested to Braithwaite and Milner, who made the company’s engines, that they should build a locomotive in the style of a Roman galley!