The Top 6 Graves of Chartreuse

Feminists, mummies and Death himself: Cimetrie de la Chartreuse is literally crammed with history and fascinating people Opening in 1791, it was built on the former gardens of a Carthusian monastery and is a literal suburb of the dead; many of Bordeaux’s great and good have been laid to rest here. I was supposed to […]

A Visit to Agatha Christie’s Grave

Agatha Christie, the world’s best selling author, was born on 15th September 1890 in Torquay. She is know as the Queen of Crime for her detective fiction stories and her two most famous detectives are Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She is also the only female playwright to have had three productions in London’s West End […]

The Lost Docks, Prince and Engineer of Southwark

On a chilly Sunday morning, Steve and I went to Bermondsey tube station to go on a tour of Thames-side Southwark, led by the charismatic Tim Thomas (who wore the best flat cap I’ve ever seen). An actor (gleefully telling us it was he who bumped off Simon Callow in the third act of Four Weddings and […]

Outside London: Stumbling on a Medieval Church in Kent

by Christina Last week, on an uncharacteristically sunny day in February, I came across a brown sign with a picture of a church on it. It was pointing down a dirt track that led up a hill and then disappeared into the trees. I was in Kent, looking for Oast Houses to photograph (I love […]

Outside London: Capel Mynydd Seion – The Gothic Chapel On The Hill

by Christina I went on a recent road trip in my trusty battered Nissan Micra to see friends, and at some point during this trip I found myself standing on a hill in Abergele, North Wales, staring up at a grand old chapel made out of dark brick with a dark slate roof, unable to […]

Outrage! A Disturbing Find

I left the comfortable surroundings of London and ventured up north to Newcastle. Newcastle is a place I knew very little about, and what I did know was largely influenced from Auf Weidersehen Pet, which my father watched as I was growing up from battered old VHS recordings. I’d also recently seen a very moving […]

A New Cemetery

by Ian So, you’ve run out of space in your cemetery: what do you do? Devotees of Cemetery Club will recall Sheldon, Christina and other describing how the Magnificent Seven were forced to close to new internments as demand outstripped supply. The living may be forced to bury their dead in far-flung places not of […]

St Ghastly Grim

The City is a place of fascination and intrigue. I wonder if any other square mile on this planet has experienced such changes as the heart of our City has? From the first Roman settlement near the present Tower of London, to being the world’s premier financial and business heartland: the City has undergone a […]

Postman’s Park

Our contributor today is City of London & Westminster tour guide Tina Hodgkinson. Tina leads guided walks combining world famous landmarks with hidden treasures often missed by the crowds. I invited her to write about a little known gem in the City near the Museum of London – Postman’s Park. One of my favourite places in the City of London is […]

If You Seek His Monument

Celebrated author Charles Dickens stipulated that his legacy would be his books: yet a memorial was unveiled in Portsmouth in 2014 to celebrate his 202nd birthday. He stated in his will that ‘I conjure to my friends on no account to make me the subject of any monument, memorial or testimonial whatsoever’. This has been […]