London Monopoly Challenge Mayfair

 

Mayfair unlike all the other colour properties is not a street. It’s an area, a rough quadrilateral – local resident, the Regency wit Sydney Smith called it a parallelogram. It’s bordered by Park Lane, Oxford Street, Regent Street and Piccadilly. Which, to add insult to injury, are all themselves locations on the London board. I can’t help holding this against Mayfair. I can’t help making an anthropomorphic comparison. To me, if Mayfair is a person, then it’s a spoilt toff, who has everything handed to him on a plate, who wouldn’t last five minutes in a dust up with Whitechapel or the Old Kent Road.

Coming back to reality for a minute or two, then, Mayfair takes its name from a fair held in the area during the month of, well, May. The fair predated the development of the area, first taking place during the reign of Edward I. The fair lasted until 1764, specifically in the part of Mayfair that is now called Shepherd Market – you can see the street sign on the sketch which is based on a scene from the fifties, judging by the clothes.
As tended to be the case with other London fairs, the May Fair became known for its increasing seediness, but the area took a remarkable turn upmarket when the land on which it was held was obtained by the Grosvenor family. The family would acquire the title of the Dukes of Westminster, a title that is still in the family. They developed the land, building the elegant Hanover Square, Grosvenor Square and Berkely Square. I’ve never heard a nightingale singing there, but since I only walked through it at midday once that’s not surprising.
Mayfair has not lost its exclusivity since its development following the demise of the May Fair. The nature has changed, though. Prior to the 20^th century it was a London home to many aristocrats, but now there are more commercial headquarters and national embassies – notably the American embassy on Grosvenor Square.
I can’t help wondering whether Victor and Marge were swayed in their decision to make Mayfair the most exclusive property on the whole board by the presence of some very famous hotels. Brown’s hotel between Albemarle and Dover Street is supposed to be one of the oldest in London. A.G. Bell made the first telephone call in the UK there, and Rudyard Kipling wrote at least part of the Jungle Book there. Even more famous is Claridges on Brook Street. During he Second World War it was said that only Claridges was good enough for exiled European Royalty.
Despite my chip on the shoulder about Mayfair, I have to admit that it is a highly diverting part of London to walk around. It’s squares are beautiful, the area is not short on sculpture – I like Hares by Sophie Snyder in Berkely Square and there’s even a couple of museums – one to Michael Faraday, and another in Brook Street dedicated to residents Handel and Jimi Hendricks. What a musical collaboration that might have been. 

London Monopoly Challenge Park Lane

Park Lane. I don’t know if you’ve ever see the very famous Frost Report Sketch, featuring John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, where the three of them stand in a line, and bowler hatted John Cleese says of Barker ‘I look down on him because I am upperclass.” Barker then looks a Cleese, then down on Corbett saying “I look up to him, but I look down on him. I am middle class.” Ronnie Corbett then adds “I know my place.” Well, to me Park Lane is like the Ronnie Barker character, ad I don’t know whether I should look up to it because its in the most expensive set on the board or look down on it because it is so clearly a second best to Mayfair. Not a heroic Scott of the Antarctic second, nor a Buzz Aldrin second, either. Park Lane never has a helpful Chance or Community Chest telling players to go to Park Lane. Park Lane’s rent with a hotel might well be £1500, but that’s still a whopping £500 less than Mayfair. And Mayfair’s not even a street – it’s an area!

Park Lane runs from Marble Arch to Hyde Park Corner, and this is where the name derives from. Before this it was called Tyburn Lane. The Tyburn is one of London’s underground river, but as we saw when we visited Oxford Street, Tyburn became synonymous with public executions. I can’t help wondering if it’s the name of Park Lane that decided Victor Watson and his faithful secretary Marjorie to put Park Lane exactly where it is on the board. For where they put Park Lane on the London board there is Park Place on the original Atlantic City Board. It must have seemed like a bit of a know brainer, especially considering that when they were out scouting Park Lane was already one of the most prestigious locations in London. The fact that it was home to the very swish newly built Dorchester Hotel can only have added to the attraction.

Both of the properties in the purple set have had their names used for cigarette brands. While we’re on the subject of Park Lane trivia, being part of London’s inner ring road, along with Pentonville Road Park Lane marks a boundary of London’s inner city congestion charge zone. Since the start of the 20^th century Park Lane has had a rather uncomfortable relationship with motorised traffic. It officially reached saturation point in 1950s, so work was carried out to widen the road between 1960 – 63 so hat has 3 lanes each way separated by a central reservation. This time also saw the building of the largest underground car park in London, underneath Park Lane and Hyde Park. I remember my father in the early 70s thinking about parking there and taking us to see the Christmas lights, seeing how much the car park cost, changing his mind and driving us all home again. Well, as he informed us, it was the thought that counts.

Park Lane saw its ties with the worldwide game of Monopoly when the Park Lane Hotel hosted the 1988 world Monopoly Championships. Bearing in mind how long a game can take I wonder if it was finished in time for the 1989 championships. In the Sherlock Holmes short story “The Adventure of the Empty House” the house in question is located in Park Lane. Now that’s one achievement where Park Lane did come first. Mayfair has not held one yet!

London Monopoly Challenge Liverpool St. Station

Here’s a question for you to think about. In 1935, when Victor ad Marjorie made their scouting visit to London to work out which properties to use, which of the four stations they picked was the busiest? Answer? Liverpool Street. How come? Well, actually, between the two world wars, Liverpool Street was the busiest station in the whole world.

Compared with Kings Cross and Fenchurch Street, Liverpool Street was a relative newcomer, first opening in 1874. If you’re wondering how it could be that the London North Eastern Railway ended up with all of these termini in Central London, well, none of them were actually built for the LNER. The LNER was only 14 years old when Vic and Marge first alighted at King’s Cross – previously the terminus of the Great Northern Railway. Liverpool Street was built as the terminus of the Great Eastern.

In his book, “Britain’s 100 best stations” journalist Sir Simon Jenkins, who served on the board of British Rail throughout the 1980s, described how Liverpool Street came close to being demolished in the 70s. It survived not least because of the energetic defence by the preservation movement, led by Sir John Betjeman, still smarting from the demolition of Euston Station, which led to a public enquiry in 1976 – 7.

Since then the station has been greatly redeveloped but sympathetically so. Every effort has been made to keep the character of the original station and has largely succeeded really well.

Monopoly Challenge Bond Street

Bond Street is now divided between New Bond Street, the northern section and Old Bond Street, the southern section. But it’s still commonly called just Bond Street. Just visually you might wonder why Bond Street, relatively narrow and modest in appearance when compared with the elegance of Regent Street and the wide, eternally crowded bombast of Oxford Street, is actually the ‘boss’ location of the green set. Well, if we boil it down to simple terms there’s a couple of reasons. Firstly, it going as an exclusive shopping street far earlier than the other two. It was built up by Sir Thomas Bond around 1720. History does not reveal if he was ever shaken, or indeed stirred. Prestigious shops were established on Bond Street throughout the 18^th century.

Secondly, Bond Street has managed to maintain this air of exclusivity. So much so that Carl Faberge’s only establishment outside of Russia came to Bond Street in 1910. It closed five years later due to turmoil in Russia caused by the First World War. Bond Street is still home to upmarket jewellers like Asprey and Garrards. It’s also the auction capital of London, being home to both Sotheby’s and Bonham’s.

There’s a sculpture that I really like in Bond Street. It shows what looks like a bench with two old codgers chewing the fat on it. It’s called Allies, and the two old codgers are actually FDR and Winston Churchill. It was erected in 1995 by the Bond Street Association to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. 

Monopoly Challenge - Oxford Street

Oxford Street is only one short section of one of the main thoroughfares leading west out of the centre of London. Just about four miles along the road it becomes Uxbridge Road, which is the main street running through West Ealing and Hanwell, where I grew up. It follows the route of a Roman road, the Via Trinobantia which led all the way to Hampshire. The Oxford Street section of the road runs from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch. Marble Arch was built by John Nash as the ceremonial gateway to Buckingham Palace, but was moved to its present location to make room for the extension work on the Palace in the 1850s. It’s current location was once called Tyburn, which is where the gallows held public executions.

Oxford Street’s reputation as a shopping street largely came about with the 20^th century, and if there was one pivotal factor in its development it was probably Harry Gordon Selfridge’s decision to open his eponymous department store on Oxford Street in 1908. Amongst the many distinctions the store holds, it was the venue for the first ever public demonstration of a form of television in 1925.

Like Regent Street, Oxford Street is famous for its annual Christmas lights and every year since 1959 a celebrity has ceremoniously turned on the lights (not the same celebrity, obviously). Oxford Street also boasted its own lovable eccentric for many years. From 1968 until his death in 1993, Stanley Green paraded the street with a placard advising people to eat less meat and reduce their libido, which would make them kinder. He also produced a pamphlet on the subject, which sold an estimated 87,000 copies. I saw Mr. Green once or twice in Oxford Street. I didn’t speak to him. Later I saw him interviewed on a segment for a TV show and he came across as a very pleasant if slightly unworldly gentleman.

Monopoly Challenge Regent Street

 

Regent Street is named after the Prince Regent, who would become King George IV. I have a soft spot for this particular obese royal reprobate, not least because I took him as a specialist subject on a well known British quiz show. Regent Street was one of the very first planed developments of London to actually be developed. Both Sir Christopher Wren and John Evelyn drew up plans for redeveloping the City of London under brand new street plans, but it took so long for anything practical to be done about the plans that people just went ahead and built new houses according to the old street plan.

The street was originally built by architect John Nash. He was responsible for rebuilding the Regent’s elegant and sedate Marine Pavilion in Brighton into the glorious madcap folly of the Royal Pavilion. He became so synonymous with a particular style that George Cruikshank labelled him as “The one wot builds the arches’ in a cartoon from 1829. Originally Nash planned a straight boulevard, but this was impossible because of land ownership issues. Today, Regent Street without its elegant curve at the Piccadilly Circus end would be unthinkable, and it makes the Street one of the most instantly recognisable of all London’s great thoroughfares.

The Green set of properties are three London streets particularly known for shopping, and Regent Street is certainly not short on famous stores, including Liberty’s and Hamley’s, noted in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s oldest Toy shop. For a long time it was also the largest toy shop in the world, but that record passed elsewhere in the 1990s.

Under a change of name Regent’s Street continues to Oxford Circus, which forms the junction with the green property, Oxford Street. 

Monopoly Challenge Go To Jail

When I reached Jail I decided to draw London’s Newgate Prison. Now I’ve reached Go To Jail it only seems right to draw the Old Bailey. After all, we know that the instruction Go To Jail means go directly to jail. Prior to the demolition of Newgate Prison, the Old Bailey Court stood as part of the prison complex, so it really was a direct route from one to the other. After Newgate was demolished, the current Old Bailey building was erected on the same site.

The Old Bailey is more correctly called The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales. It has become known as the Old Bailey because that’s the name of the street on which it stands. Bailey derives from the old roman wall of the city of Londinium, and Old Bailey Street follows part of the course of the wall.

The current building was opened in 1907. It’s possibly best known for the statue that tops the dome. If you ask a majority of Londoners I’d guess that they would tell you the statue is called Blind Justice. Yet she’s not blind! It’s common to depict the personification of Justice as a young woman, holding a sword and a pair of scales, who is blindfolded to represent impartiality. Yet the Old Bailey statue is not blindfolded and is actually called Lady Justice. She wears a diadem from which sun rays radiate, and looks a bit like the Statue of Liberty’s younger sister who has given up enlightening the world and taken up swordfighting and greengrocery. 

Monopoly Challenge Piccadilly

Many people think that Piccadilly on the London Monopoly Board means Piccadilly Circus. Well, that’s understandable. Piccadilly Circus is probably the most important road junction in the West End. However, it is also at the end of a mile long road, called Piccadilly. Piccadilly is a small section of a main thoroughfare leading West out of London, connecting with the M4 motorway.

So, let’s start with Piccadilly Circus. Throughout the 20^th century it was particularly notable for its huge neon advertisements displayed on the side of some of its buildings. Through my childhood there was a huge one advertising Coca Cola. The word circus in this case has nothing to do with the type popularised by the Ringling Brothers in the USA and Billy Smart in the UK, but simply refers to the round shape of the junction. At the other end of Regent Street the junction with Oxford Street is called Oxford Circus. There is also a Cambridge Circus within walking distance.

The most famous feature of Piccadilly Circus is the statue of a winged archer. Ask most Londoners who it represents and they will incorrectly tell you it is the Greek God Eros. Some who think they know better might tell you that it is the Spirit of Christian Charity. Both are wrong. The statue actually represents Anteros, the God of requited love, brother of Eros. It stands on top of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain. The 7^th Earl of Shaftesbury was a Victorian philanphropist who successfully campaigned to end child labour in the UK and replace it with free education. In the 1980s extensive repair work was done to Sir Alfred Gilbert’s aluminium statue. It had to be removed from the square, and as work was completed put on public display in London’s Festival Hall, where you could view it from a platform.

Bearing in mind the names of the other properties in the yellow set you might be forgiven that the street was named after Sir Absolom Piccadilly, King Charles II’s ceremonial bottom-wiper. However since he never existed, this is not true. It takes its name from the piccadill. During the time of King James I – Charles II’s grandad – a man called Robert Baker bought land in the area and began to manufacture piccadills. If you think of portraits of prosperous Jacobean men, like the engraving of Shakespeare at the front of the first folio – they are often wearing broad, white cut lace collars. These are piccadills. They probably derive their name from a Spanish word meaning pierced or cut.

Piccadilly has been home to many grand and stately houses. Most of these are long gone, although Burlington House still stands an is the home of the Royal Academy of Arts. It’s also home to the very exclusive Burlington Arcade of shops, and Fortnum and Masons. You could argue that Fortnum and Masons are the world’s oldest department store, opening in 1707. However they were specifically a grocers until much later. The Ritz hotel is only one of several along the length of Piccadilly. While we’re going through the edited highlights it also boasts the church of St. James, designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Piccadilly Circus Underground station with its underground circular booking hall was a pioneering achievement which caused a sensation when opened in the 1920s. The last remaining station surface buildings were removed at the end of the 20^th century.

All done

Just today I finished the last London Monopoly Sketch. I’m going to post all of them one day at a time as I have been doing which means I make it that there’s 8 days still to go before I’ve posted them all. If you can’t wait then I do have a page with all of the sketches already posted – its on my links under London Monopoly Challenge.

So I have spent just a little time reflecting on the challenge. Overall I’ve enjoyed it immensely. All of the sketches have been made in the month of April 2024, with the exceptions of Euston, Strand, Fleet Street and Piccadilly, where I used some of my old sketches. So that’s 27 new sketches. I would estimate that each one has taken an average of four hours. That’s over 100 hours. Not for me to say that it shows in the results. So I gave myself a set of questions about the challenge to help me get my thoughts in order about the whole thing.

Which set did you enjoy most?

I have to say that my favourite set to sketch was the yellows. Alright, I’d already sketched Piccadilly a few years ago so that made it easier, but it wasn’t that, or I’d have picked the reds. I think that what I enjoyed was that for Leicester Square and Coventry Street I ended up using quite different subject matter than the majority of other sketches I made. For Leicester Square my main focus, at least at the start, was the two figures talking on the bench. For Coventry Street I ended up sketching a modern building, the Swiss Centre. Although I can see the mistakes I made clearly it’s still a sketch I really enjoyed making.

Which set did you enjoy least?

If you hold my arm up behind my back I’d probably say the pinks. I don’t think that any of them are bad sketches – in fact I think that the green Northumberland Avenue sketch is pretty good, but there was a sameyness doing Pall Mall and Whitehall. And by that stage of the challenge I had started thinking – I’ve done ten sketches which have taken ages and I’m not even halfway there yet. – It’s one of the reasons why I tried using the different colours as a way of maintaining my interest. In any 'long-distance' challenge that you undertake there's a pain barrier you have to go through. 

Which is your favourite sketch you made for the challenge?

Probably the Swiss Centre for Coventry Street. I don’t think it’s the best sketch out of the lot, but I just really enjoyed it. I don’t often sketch modern buildings, especially in this amount of detail.

Which is your least favourite sketch you made for the challenge?

Probably Free Parking. It’s not a bad sketch, but I wasn’t in love with the subject matter and I couldn’t find enough detail in the reference photos I’ve looked at to extend the picture into a proper street scene.

Do you think you’ve learned anything doing the challenge? If yes, then what? If no then why not?

Yes, certainly have. I’ve been showcasing the sketches in a Facebook group. There’s a lot of highly talented artists who belong to the same group, and some of them use a stippling technique. I haven’t used this before, but used it in several of these pictures for roadways and shadows.

Taking my two latest sketchbooks together I’ve done almost 100 sketches since Christmas and all of them have been detailed and carefully shaded. If nothing else I’ve developed my self belief that I can sketch anything I can see, and if I just keep working at it sooner or later it will become what I want it to become.

In terms of information, I did not know about the early London multi storey car parks before.

What’s next for you?

Watch this space.

Monopoly Challenge Waterworks

 

London has had many heroes throughout its almost 2000 years of History, many of them very well known, and some of them unsung. Such a hero was Joseph Bazalgette. He was awarded a well deserved knighthood during his lifetime, but it’s not that well known that thousands of Londoners owed their lives to him. It was under his direction that the sewer system was built, which finally relieved London from the great scourge of cholera.

So, for Water Works I have chosen to draw Bazalgette’s Crossness Pumping Station. This was a state of the art facility when it opened in 1859. It was decommissioned in the 1950s. Ironically the building and the machinery inside the building was only initially saved because the cost of demolishing it, and scrapping the machinery far exceeded any value to be gained by doing so. It wasn’t until 1970 that the building became a grade 1 listed building – if you’re not in the UK, this means that it has the legal standing of a building of huge national importance and virtually guarantees its preservation for prosperity. Work on preserving and restoring the interior began in 2008 and the building opened as a museum in 2015. The elaborate ironwork restored in the octagon hall is worth a visit by itself.

Monopoly Challenge Coventry Street

 

You can walk along Coventry Street from one end to another without even realising you’ve done so. It’s one of the shortest streets on the London Monopoly Board. You come to the western side of Leicester Square, and you’re near as anything already in Piccadilly Circus. Still, that short thoroughfare you’ve just walked down between the two is actually Coventry Street.

Like Leicester Square it does date back to he reign of Charles II. It’s named after Henry Coventry, one time secretary of state to the merry monarch.

For a long time Coventry Street had a seedy reputation, with gambling houses and prostitution. In the second half of the nineteenth century its reputation slightly improved as it became home to several music halls. In the last century it became particularly known for restaurants and nightclubs. Notable establishments have included the Swiss Centre, where Coventry Street becomes Leicester Square. This was a very modern building which lasted from 1966 until being demolished in 2007. Its most notable feature was a carillon clock which has been preserved on the site, which is now home to the M and M store. I wrote more about this building last week. Coventry Street is also home to the Trocadero, which has during its colourful life housed many attractions.

Monopoly Challenge Leicester Square

 

Leicester Square is very much an entertainment hub nowadays. London’s biggest cinemas are clustered around the square, and it is the venue for more film premieres than all other locations in the UK combined. Leicester Square is at the heart of the ‘West End’ of London, the theatre district. It’s also home to many restaurants, and is noted for Chinese cuisine, bordering as it does on Soho’s ‘chinatown’.

Like Pall Mall. Leicester Square came into being during the Restoration period , just a few years later in 1670. It developed around Leicester House, home of the 2^nd Earl of Leicester, Robert Sidney. For almost a century it was a highly genteel area, amongst whose residents included Frederick, Prince of Wales, the father of George III. Poor old Frederick never had much luck. He co-wrote a play which nearly caused a riot on the first (and only) night and lost a fortune giving the audience their money back. Like most of the Hanoverian kings, he never got on with his father, who refused permission for him to see his mother, Queen Caroline, when she was on her death bed. Finally he died at the age of 44, supposedly after being struck by a cricket or a real tennis ball.

Reflecting its connections with the theatre and later, with cinema, the gardens in the Square contain a famous statue of William Shakespeare and Charlie Chaplin and more recently statues have been added including Paddington Bear, Mary Poppins, Harry Potter and Bugs Bunny. Mind you, you’ll have to really look to find some of them, for example, Wonder Woman is halfway up a wall, and Batman is standing on the roof of the Empire Cinema.

You’re really spoiled for choice for things to sketch in Leicester Square. I settled on this view from the mid fifties. The film showing in the Warner cinema is Hondo, which was a Western released in 1953. I just really liked the two Londoners chatting on the park bench. Even now in the third decade of the 21^st century, you can’t beat yakking on a bench in Leicester Square on a sunny day.

Monopoly Challenge Fenchurch Street Station

There aren’t many London Monopoly Board properties that I have ever visited in real life. In fact Fenchurch Street station is the only one.

The world’s first railway linking two cities, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened in 1830. The railways reached London in 1836, with the opening of London Bridge station. By the middle of the 1830s new railways were booming and would go on booming for 10 years until the crash of 1845. Everyone wanted a piece of the pie and although he majority of planned railways in his period were never even built, a large number of companies had their eyes on London.

Fenchurch Street Station was built in 1841, for the London and Blackwall Railway. Through acquisitions and mergers it served a number of different railway companies. When the vast majority of Britain’s railways were rationalised into four companies in the 1920s,Fenchurch served the LMS (London, Midland and Scottish Railway) and the LNER (London North Eastern Railway). This is why it’s included on the London Monopoly board, as an LNER terminus.

Fenchurch Street is the only London terminus which is not also a London Underground station. In the 90s it was planned to either connect Fenchurch Street with the Jubilee Line or to extend the Docklands Light Railway a few hundred yards to Fenchurch Street, which would put it onto the network, but neither of these plans came to fruition. Fenchurch Street largely connects the City of London with Essex. The current building dates back to 1854.

Monopoly Challenge - Trafalgar Square

 

The name Trafalgar Square references the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. What is now the square once housed the Royal Mews, until King George IV moved the mews to Buckingham Palace in the 1820s. John Nash was asked to develop the site, but he died and work progressed very slowly. In 1830 the site was going to be called King William IV Square after his accession that year. Finally in 1835, the 30^th anniversary of Trafalgar, it was decided to name the square Trafalgar Square, and include a memorial to Nelson. One can guess that the owner of the square, King William must have been enthusiastic, bearing in mind that he had been a brother officer and a personal friend of Nelson during his own time in the Navy.

The Square wasn’t opened until 1844. Its most well known feature is Nelson’s Column, a 145 feet tall Corinthian Column topped with Edward Hodges Baily’s statue of Nelson. This has become one of London’s most iconic and recognisable landmarks. The base of the statue is flanked by four pedestals, each bearing a bronze statue of a lion, sculpted by Sir Edwin Landseer.

Throughout its history Trafalgar Square has see a huge number of mass gatherings and demonstrations. It became the unofficial focus of London New Year celebrations, and I remember dancing in the fountains on New Years Eve in the early 80s very fondly. I remember the 2 hour walk home sopping wet less fondly. The Square is still home to a large number of pigeons. Up until the 21^st century feeding the pigeons in the square was seen as an essential component of any visit to London. Then people began to realise the public health risk of a gathering of 35,000 pigeons in such a small space. Feeding the pigeons has been banned since the early 2000s.

There are four plinths surrounding the square. Three of them have permanent statues – George IV, General Charles Napier and General Henry Havelock. The fourth plinth was unoccupied until the 21^st century, since when it has been used for temporary displays of sculpture by some of the leading names in contemporary sculpture in the UK and the rest of the world.

Let’s come back to Nelson. In July 2020 protestors in the city of Bristol pulled down a statue of the 17^th/18^th century trader Edward Colston. The statue was supposedly erected by a grateful city, as a way of memorialising his charitable support of almshouses, churches, workhouses and schools. The protestors’ argument was that in our modern, multicultural Britain, glorifying a man who organised and greatly benefited from the Slave Trade is untenable. to me, tha makes sense, bearing in mind that the city authorities seem

This action focused public attention on the question of public memorials to men associated with the slave trade, and Nelson’s Column became the subject of public debate. This is a question which leads to very heated views on all sides. The older generation as a rule don’t even want to discuss it – my mother and stepfather both being examples. Look, I’m a Londoner myself, and I get an emotional buzz whenever I see an iconic image of the city like the column. But. . .

Symbols matter. Images matter, and the messages that they convey matter.

Now, as I understand it Nelson did not own slaves. As far as I know Nelson did not trade in slaves. Okay. However, he was certainly opposed to Wilberforce’s campaign to abolish the slave trade, and he seems to have been very friendly and protective towards the slave owning elite in the west Indies. I’m not saying this in itself means we should convict him and tear his statue down at once. But I am very much saying it is at least grounds for a constructive public debate on the subject. If Nelson was as great a hero as his defenders think he is then his reputation will survive any amount of public debate. But if he wasn’t, then we certainly should be discussing it.

Monopoly 18 Fleet Street

 

Allow me to indulge myself with a little more Old English. Fleet derives from the River Fleet, one of London’s lost rivers. The word fleet derives from the Old English fleot, which has several meanings, one of which is stream.

The Fleet ran in the open from Hampstead down through London to join the Thames. Fleet Street was originally called Fleet Bridge Street, since the road was bisected by the Fleet. By the 1870s the whole course of the Fleet was covered over.

Fleet Street runs up Ludgate Hill past St. Paul’s Cathedral. There are many interesting stories about St. Paul’s, and its destruction in the Great Fire and subsequent rebuilding. Many people have read Samuel Pepys accounts of the fire, and very informative they are too. However if you’re interested you should also have a look at John Evelyn’s diary too. I like the story that Christopher Wren visited the burnt out shell of the old cathedral and found a broken stone with the word ‘resurgam’ which of course means I will rise again.

Fleet Street was also the home of the (probably) fictional Sweeney Todd, the barber who killed his customers and had them baked into pies. I say probably fictional. There have been some claims he was a real person, but there’s been nothing I’ve ever seen that would stand up in a court of law.

In the 19^th and especially the 20^th centuries Fleet Street became synonymous with the newspaper industry and was home to most of Britain’s national newspapers. They’ve all moved out to pastures new now. Although the newspapers have gone, some printers still remain, maintaining an association with Fleet Street that goes back to 1500, when Wynkyn de Worde, the apprentice of England’s first ever printer, William Caxton, first set up his press here. 

Monopoly 17 - Strand

Many good things have come out of Germany, not the least of which is the original English language. Not surprising when you consider that the tribes settling in England in the fifth -7^th centuries, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were all from areas hat are now part of Germany. The language they spoke – which we’ll call Old English for convenience sake - was actually a dialect of Old German. If you know modern German, you’ll know that 'strand' is a word which means beach. This is also what it meant in Old English. After the Roman legions were recalled to Rome for good, Londinium (Roman London) was pretty much deserted. Over a period of time an Anglo Saxon trading settlement grew along the banks of the River Thames, extending along the shoreline – beach – of the Thames  from west of Londinium. His settlement was called Lundenwic.

In Anglo – Saxon times the River Thames was wider then it is now. The Strand is not very close to the northern bank of the Thames at all now, but this is a relatively recent development. At Lundenwic’s height, the road we call the Strand was right by the shore, hence the name.

King Alfred the Great, in the late 9^th century, ordered people out of Lundenwic and into the old Londinium. However the Strand remained an important thoroughfare, and retained its name unchanged for well over a thousand years.

The Strand is part of the main route linking Westminster with the old City of London. It ends where the medieval City walls once stood. This was marked by the gateway shown in the sketch, Temple Bar. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the relatively narrow gateways caused increasing traffic congestion and so it was carefully taken down. It was bought by Lady Meux, the wife of a brewing magnate, and erected in the grounds of their house, Theobalds Park. In fact I visited it in Theobald’s Park in 2003 on the day before work began to deconstruct it and rebuild it in the shadow of St. Paul’s, just off our next property, Fleet Street.

Monopoly 16 Free Parking

In the centre of London, which contains almost all of the properties on the London Monopoly board, there really is no such thing as free parking. The first multi-storey car park in London opened in 1901. It had space for 100 vehicles. I’d love to know how many motor vehicles there actually were in London in 1901. My sketch shows what is thought to be the oldest surviving multi-storey car park building in London. It stands in Wardour Street, which runs from Leicester Square to Oxford Street. It’s now a pub.

Free Parking as a square on the Monopoly Board was inherited from the original Atlantic City board. It’s hard to imagine that Victor Watson would have found many free places to park when he was scouting locations in the mid 1930s. But then Victor, clever boy, took the train into Kings Cross on his visit, and could afford to use taxis.

I can’t afford to use taxis. To be honest, after I moved to Wales, whenever I was visiting London in the 1990’s it was so much cheaper to drive that I would always park the car in a residential street in Ealing, then use public transport until it was time to go back home.

Monopoly Fifteen: Vine Street

 

Unlike Bow Street and (Great) Marlborough Street, Vine Street wasn’t home to a magistrates court. However it was at one time home to one of the busiest police stations not just in London, but the whole world.

Vine Street itself was named after a pub, the Vine. Its possible that the pub may have drawn its name from a roman vineyard nearby, but this is a matter of speculation. The street was laid out in the 1680s. It was originally longer than it is now, but when Regent Street was built it bisected Vine Street and led to one end of Vine Street becoming a dead end.

Vine Street Police station was built at number 10, and had to be rebuilt after a fire in the 18^th century. Vine Street nick, as it was colloquially known, closed in 1940 and services removed to West London Police station in Savile Row. Due to a rise in crime the station was reopened in 1966, then closed for good in 1997 and demolished in 2005. Incidentally Vine Street is one of the London Monopoly streets without licensed premises, so I’m informed that the etiquette for a London Monopoly board pub crawl is to take a drink in one of the hostelries on nearby Swallow Street.

Monopoly 14: Marlborough Street

 

As a quiz question master I have in the past asked the question – which street on the traditional London monopoly board does not actually exist in real life? – the answer to which is Marlborough Street. This is because it has never been called just Marlborough Street, but rather Great Marlborough Street. A bit of a trick question, but trust me, quizzes are full of those.

The street is named after John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, and in the view of Queen Anne, he was pretty great. It was first laid out in 1704, during her reign. Like Bow Street, Great Marlborough Street was home to one of the most important Magistrates’ Courts in London. This closed in 1998.

One of the most remarkable things about the street is that it gave its name to the Marlboro cigarette brand. Makers Philip Morris had a factory on the street at one time, and used an americanised version of the name for a cigarette brand that consciously plays on the image of the rugged, wild western Marlboro Man.

Monopoly 13: Bow Street

The naming of the street is a little confusing because it’s in the centre of London, and not really near the area of Bow at all. Bow street is actually very close to Covent Garden, the former fruit and veg. market, which is now London’s unofficial capital of street entertainment. Both the side entrance to the market and the Royal Opera House can be seen on the left hand side of his picture.

Prior to being included amongst the orange set of properties on the London monopoly board, Bow Street was possibly most famous for being the home of the Bow Street Runners. This was a forerunner of the first police forces, a group of volunteer law enforcement officers founded by the London magistrate and novelist Henry Fielding. They were disbanded soon after the formation of the Metropolitan Police force. All of the properties in the London orange set have connections with the law and law enforcement. Courts were held in the homes of city magistrates on Bow Street – including Henry Fielding – and between 1878 and 1881 the current building which house the Magistrates Court – one of the most famous in England – and Bow Street Police Station was built. The Police Station closed in 1992 and the last case was heard in the court in 2006. The building still stands, but since 2021 the building has housed a hotel – how appropriate! – and a museum of local police History.