Tag: London

It is an unusual place to visit at London, but also an impressive one: the Victorian-era Crossness sewage pumping station. The fast growing city had a massive problem to get rid of the human waste produced by the rising number of inhabitants. Initially, cesspits were used that had to be emptied by the night soil men: they’ve put the solid remains (and ‘night soil‘ was the euphemism for them) on their carts and sold them to farmers on the land surrounding the city as fertilizer. On the way back they used the same carts to transport grain into the city. Well, hygiene wasn’t so well developed in these days.

Wetlands at todays London, is that even possibly? Well it is, but of course the Walthamstow Wetlands aren’t natural. A city like London needs to do water management and that is how these artificial lakes between Walthamstow and Hale were created between 1863 and 1904. The first reservoirs protecting the city from droughts were even dug by hand. Today the wetlands are a protected nature conservation zone which is especially used by birds passing through the metropolitain area.

In 1969 The Beatles published their 11th album, one of the most successful albums of all times with still today well known songs like Come Together, Octopus’s Garden and Here Comes the Sun. It was the last studio album of the band and recorded at the Abbey Road Studios in the city quarter St. John’s Wood of London. The band initially wanted to name the album Everest and fly to the Himalaya to shoot the cover picture, but then found it more convenient to just walk out the door and take the picture directly in front of the recording studio.

One of the pleasures I had on my list for very long time is visiting Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre at the riverside of the Thames between Southwark Bridge and Millenium Bridge. The current building was opened in 1997 and it is a replica of the original Globe Theatre built in 1599 (burned down in 1613 and finally removed after reconstruction in 1644). Even though it had to be modernized for security reasons the Globe still gives you the original feeling of a playhouse of Elizabethan times.

A place that locals use to hang out and have a picnic is the centrally located St. James’s Park. You can find the 23 hectares large green area at Westminster, bet ween Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and 10 Downing Street. It includes a round course around the long stretched lake, but also a coffee bar and a kiosk. The area was formerly used for hunting in the 1530s and is named after St. James the Minor.