Walking alone: Aldgate to St James's Palace... and beyond

Monday August 31, 2026.

Sunny with cloudy spells 24°C (75.2°F)

The last Bank Holiday saw me take on a solo walk, which wasn't set in stone until I was aboard the train.

A Baker Street-bound train from Watford took me to Finchley Road, where I finally decided on a route. So, a few minutes later I boarded an Aldgate-bound train, deciding to start on the eastern edge of the City of London and head towards the West End.

On leaving Aldgate station I headed along Aldgate High Street, before moving onto Leadenhall Street and then Whittington Avenue. After a wander around Leadenhall Market, where I saw the new Leadenhall Wunderkammer at No. 27¼, which opens properly on Thursday September 3 and runs until December. It consists if the City’s smallest serving window, a miniature wool boutique and a mouse-sized video shop.

Shadows of Whitechapel: Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, Shadows on the Cobblestones

Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols.

Everyone knows the terror that ripped through the East End, in 1888, but many forget the victims and who they were: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. Each of these women was a living, breathing person with a unique history and story.

Here I have tried to piece together the lives of the women who would go on to become known as 'The Canonical Five', resulting in a small glimpse into their lives. There is much that I have left out, but what I believe to be the important pieces of their lives are here.

Obviously, with census records, online records, books, newspaper articles, archives and much more, there are discrepancies and contradictory accounts, resulting in confusing timelines.

So, where there has been contradictory information, I have left that out, or bracketed the information, so that I could create the most accurate account of their lives.

If you do spot an error, please do get in contact.

Mary Ann Nichols (born Mary Ann Walker; August 26, 1845 – August 31, 1888)

Early Life in the Fleet Street Slums

On Tuesday, August 26, 1845, Mary Ann Walker was born to Caroline Walker. She drew her first breath in a cramped room within Dawes Court, a dilapidated, 200-year-old tenement on Gunpowder Alley, near Shoe Lane. Newspapers of the day described the weather as "fine and dry." Her father, Edward, was a blacksmith who had crossed south of the River Thames to find work near Fleet Street.

Driven by fluctuating costs and wages, the Walker family moved frequently, cycling through Dean Street, Robinhood Court, and Harp Alley, never far from High Holborn.

Tragedy struck early. On Thursday, November 25, 1852, Caroline Walker succumbed to tuberculosis, a disease bred by the horrendous, overcrowded conditions of the slums. In April 1854, Mary Ann’s youngest sibling, Frederick, died of the same affliction. He was buried alongside his mother at St Andrew’s Church in Holborn.

Fact or Fiction: London Underground's Urban Myths

Carving through centuries of buried secrets, the London Underground is far more than a transit system: it is a 160-year-old subterranean labyrinth. Over the decades, phantom trains, ghost sightings, and strange folklore have spread through its tunnels as relentlessly as the tracks themselves. Some of these enduring tales grew out of misunderstood history, while others were born from pure fiction. 

These are just three of the urban legends that haunt the world's oldest tube network.

Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and Dr Thomas Barnardo are recorded as the only two people to ever have their coffins transported via the London Underground, 

during their funeral processions.

William Ewart Gladstone (1898): Following his death at Hawarden Castle in North Wales, his coffin travelled by train to Willesden, where it was transferred onto a District line underground train to reach Westminster for his lying in state and state funeral at Westminster Abbey. Gladstone had been on a tour of the world's first underground line with the directors and engineers of the Metropolitan Railway Company and, along with his wife, took part as passengers in a trial ride of the new railway in 1862. He had also been a shareholder in the London Underground since its flotation.

Dr Thomas Barnardo (1905): After the children's charity founder passed away in Surbiton his body lay in state at the Edinburgh Castle, Limehouse, in the East End. His coffin was then processed through the streets to Liverpool Street station, from where his coffin was placed on an underground line train for the final stretch of his journey towards his burial site in Barkingside.

The Central line, which is the only underground line to Barkingside, 

didn't take over this part of the line until 1948.

In 1905, the only way to get from Liverpool Street station to Barkingside

 was via steam train, operated by Great Eastern Railway. 

It was a specially chartered GER train that was used for the journey.

Therefore, William Gladstone is the only person to have their coffin transported on the underground.

Exploring Shad Thames

On the south bank of the River Thames, directly east of Tower Bridge, lies a historic pocket of London that has endured for centuries. Stretching from Tower Bridge Road along the riverfront to St Saviour's Dock, and bounded to the south by Tooley Street, this unique neighbourhood is known as Shad Thames.

Much of this area was originally part of Horselydown, a vast open space dating back to the 12th century. While the exact origins of the name "Shad Thames" remain a mystery, it first appeared in print on John Rocque's 1746 map of London.

Though buildings have lined this section of the Port of London since the 16th century, the oldest structures surviving today are from the 19th-century industrial boom. Throughout the Victorian era and well into the 20th century, the area thrived as a bustling hub of river commerce, packed with cargo warehouses, wharves, and granaries.

Walking with family: Canada Water to Greenwich... and beyond

Wednesday August 19, 2026.

Cloudy start, turning sunny 25°C (77°F)

Thames Path (south side)

Uncle Martin picked Keilyn and I up, just after 09:20, and drove us to Croxley station. After parking the car we headed into the station and made our way to the southbound platform, from where we caught a Metropolitan line train to Harrow-on-the-Hill. Here we changed to an Aldgate-bound train that whisked us off to Finchley Road, where we boarded a West Ham-bound Jubilee line train to Canada Water.

Martin and I had visited this part of London back in July, when we had walked around the world, by walking through the old Surrey Commercial Docks. Today, we would be heading south along the River Thames, through Deptford towards Greenwich and onward from there.

We began by buying hot drinks from a coffee van in Deal Porter Square, before heading around Canada Water, via Maritime Street, to Surrey Quays Road. This brought us to Redriff Road and the Greenland Dock Bascule Bridge, from where our exploration would begin.

Walking along the western edge of Greenland Dock we spotted a heron, swans, a cormorant, moorhens, coots, and more that were not concerned with the children practising their sailing skills in yachts and boats of varying size close by. We followed the path and continued along the docks southern edge, heading towards the South Dock Marina. This is London's largest working marina. 

After looking at some of the boats we spotted a wire-mesh fish sculpture. This serves as a dedicated environmental art bin and has been deployed to encourage boat owners, residents, and visitors along the Thames path to responsibly recycle single-use plastic bottles, keeping the local waterways clear of litter. We then crossed the lock gates and joined the Thames Path, leaving Rotherhithe, to begin our journey through this historic part of Deptford.

As we passed the boatyard, with its various businesses ensuring that those using the marina, along with other customers, had access to boat repairs, we noticed a stone marker. This informed us that we were moving from St Mary's parish, Rotherhithe, into St Paul's parish, Deptford. This was also, up until 1899, the Surrey-Kent boundary. 

Slovakian Diary: What's in the Pot?

Shortly after my father, Joseph Anthony Gerard Morrissey, passed away in 2009, I discovered three handwritten diary entries on loose A4 sheets. He had already typed up and published many other entries on a Slovakian website, which is unfortunately no longer online. 

I do not know who wrote these pages or how to trace the author, 

so I am sharing them here to finish what he started.

If you have any information about these entries or recognise who might have written them, 

please get in touch by leaving a message or sending an email.

Enjoy reading.

What's in the Pot?

My partner and I use on our ancient wood-burning range—probably contemporary with our three-hundred-plus-year-old cottage—my long-departed 'aunt's' cooking pot and two skillets, one large and one small. The latter still have their original, detachable teak handles. They are extremely weighty, being made of heavy-gauge cast iron.

At first sight, when I unpacked them from a cardboard box they were far too heavy for, my partner pooh-poohed them. Understandably so, as these utensils are emphatically not for your Aga-owning bourgeois with a compulsory range of colourful, enamelled cast-iron casserole pots. My aunt, if she had known of these expensive kitchen accoutrements, would have heartily despised them.  

My partner dismissed them because, apart from being extremely heavy (the large pot and skillet, even without their lids, are a two-handed job), they had an encrusted interior due to four generations of deposits from the soot, smoke, and ash of countless campfires. They were often buried deep in the embers of a dying campfire without their handles—partly to conserve firewood, but much more importantly, so as not to betray the camp to the watching Japanese by building up a fresh fire with its tell-tale plume of smoke.  

However, for our ancient wood-burning range, they proved ideal. I showed, much to her surprise, that they were very functional and non-stick by virtue of having been cleaned from first use without detergent—just boiling water, and then, while still hot, the interior smeared with oil. This rendered them non-stick: better than any Chinese-made, Teflon-coated, aluminium frying pan guaranteed to last three years, but not four generations.  

It was the sight of these ancient utensils quietly bubbling on the stove that inspired this diary, which is a homage to my aunt's memory and her remarkable life.  

My mother's family was born into the Indian Raj and had lived there for generations. I was the last member of the family to be born there, in 1941, up in the hill station of Simla with its incongruous mock-Tudor bungalows and neat English gardens (no shortage of gardeners and water-boys, then or now). It is at the end of a narrow-gauge mountain railway and boasts a convalescence and maternity hospital because its elevation above the hot, teeming, dusty plains far below ensured a quiet, cool peace for the memsahibs, their babies, young children, and convalescing walking wounded. Both my grandmother and mother were born there.  

When the Japanese—'Nips', as they were termed in those oh-so-politically-incorrect times—invaded Burma and approached India proper, the women and children of the Raj, including my mother and me, were evacuated by convoy via Cape Town to Britain, as Rommel was then threatening the Suez Canal.  

Fact or Fiction: London's Urban Myths, part 1

With two millennia of history under its belt, London is as much a city of myth as it is of stone and mortar. Some of its most famous tales grew out of misunderstood history, while others were born from pure fiction.

These are just three of the urban legends that continue to define, confuse, and deceive the capital.

London is not a city and therefore does not exist.

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, home to nearly nine million people, and a major global hub for finance, culture, and politics with a history stretching back nearly 2,000 years to its founding by the Romans as Londinium.

Yet, while London operates as a single physical metropolis, its legal and administrative structure is uniquely complex, which explains why you might hear people claim it technically does not exist. It serves as the de facto capital of the United Kingdom, recognised by custom and tradition, but not by any single statutory charter or royal proclamation.

Is London a City?

In everyday terms, London is an enormous metropolis. However, under strict British constitutional law, a location is only an official 'city' if it has been granted a specific royal charter by the reigning monarch.