Towards a catalogue of London’s inter-dimensional gateways
Faraway creatures lurk in Deptford Creek. Take a guided tour along its bed at low tide and the volunteer custodians of this fragile ecosystem will uncover Asian mitten crabs, egrets returned from Africa and eels born in the Sargasso Sea.
But there is a stranger resident still, one most guides won’t speak of – even if, consciously or not, they steer clear of the corner of the Creek it inhabits.… Read more
Six years have passed since the events described below. By nature, the story is difficult to confirm, but key elements make it a candidate for the catalogue.
Glenn White talks a mile a minute. We give over the remainder of this post to his (minimally edited) account:
This was Summer, 2012. The Olympics. The purple-shirt guys everywhere. I was out around Hackney a lot because of my job.… Read more
Recently a post did the rounds on social media. Its author declined to discuss it, but gave permission for us to reproduce it here. We do so unedited:
So a fucking weird and scary thing just happened on the overground. I’m home now, I’m fine, shaking as I type this but housemate’s making me a cup of tea so don’t panic I’m fine but just listen to this.… Read more
Any visitor to the Barbican will know its highwalks. The criss-cross of raised footpaths provide a confusing but just-about functional means of traversing the much loved residential and cultural centre. But follow them to the estate’s edges, attempt to use them to exit to the City at large, and whatever strange logic they possess starts to break down.
A bridge you half-remember led to the tube station you want ends abruptly in mid-air, its access point fenced off.… Read more
Each night, a bright green beam cuts through the sky above Greenwich: a laser, marking the path of the Prime Meridian (the imaginary line – from the north pole to the south pole – from which all other lines of longitude are measured).
It is emitted from the Royal Observatory, high on the hill at Greenwich Park. Another (carved and gilded) representation of the line crosses the building’s forecourt.… Read more
The church buildings of Medieval London have a long reach. 350 years since perishing in the Great Fire, afterimages linger. Outlines exist as small City of London gardens, or live on in the walls of the churches that Christopher Wren built after the fire – Wren’s classical forms had to fit the wayward foundations of their medieval predecessors, which is partly what makes his churches so striking.… Read more
In this post we examine Annabel Freyne’s short story ‘The May Tree’ (1923), and ask to what extent the author drew on her own experiences for this single foray into supernatural fiction.
Mounted on a mock Georgian terrace near Holland Park’s eponymous public gardens is a blue plaque: Annabel Freyne (1873 – 1936), author and hay fever sufferer, lived and died in a house on this site.… Read more
Brockwell Lido on the first warm Saturday of spring. That’s the bittersweet image preoccupying Yua Fremantle in these strange, shut-down days. She wrote about it last year on her blog of Herne Hill life, The Woman in the Lido Cafe:
“Light. Tumbling in from the open sky to splash across pool water, sunglasses, dripping dry bodies and smiles. Light shining into noise – noise reflected as light.… Read more
Browse the Rotherhithe Archive here
Portals of London has accumulated a library of material (pages from old books, deleted social media, other odds and ends) which speaks to London’s fractured temporal boundaries. Some are referenced in our blog posts, but there is another, shadow collection of items that don’t have an obvious home, but resonate all the same.
When I mentioned this small but growing haul to scholars and other amateur portologists, I was advised to do two things:
First, share all findings with Maeve Atkins of the Redriff Society.… Read more
Rotherhithe Archive #C762
PoL notes:
Taken from a page of the famous online forum. This one is a mystery. It contains uncanny resonances for those in our field.
Rotherhithe Archive #P4862
PoL notes:
Lovers of old books, turn away now. At some point in the 20th century, a Westminster Abbey gardener took scissors to a rare copy of The Herball, or the Generall Historie of Plantes by John Gerard (published 1597), and stuck the soil-marked cuttings into their dog-eared gardening journal.… Read more
Rotherhithe Archive #C657
PoL notes:
Peregrine keeps a close eye on this Wikipedia entry, and tells us it is taken down – or edited beyond recognition – as soon as it is put up. He claims ignorance of its provenance, but we can’t help detecting Peregrine’s writing style (and barely concealed editorialising).… Read more
Madeline Lee’s older brother Max disappeared from their teenage home 22 year’s ago, an unsolved family tragedy. Until now Madeline has kept secret the strange notebook Max kept in the days leading up to that night. We alternate extracts from the notebook with Madeline’s own recollections:
Madeline: I’d been happy, having Max back from uni for a bit. He was five years older and our lives were quite separate, but the house seemed empty without him.… Read more
The following story was posted on a Lewisham borough forum, under a discussion about Sydenham Hill in the 1980s and ’90s:
Yes, I remember stories about secret tunnels in the hill. Me and a friend found one once. But it was nothing like they said. This was thirty years back and you may not believe me, but hey.
They closed the branch line to Crystal Palace in the 1950s.… Read more
268-270 High Holborn is an unassuming building, ignored by countless Londoners since it was built almost a century ago. Few, hurrying past in the 1920s and ’30s, would have guessed it housed central London’s foremost telecommunications hub.
But to those who chart the wayward history of London’s anchoring in space and time, 268-270 High Holborn is as famous as they come.… Read more
Ash Malik shouldn’t be talking to me. ‘Stuff like this makes investors nervous. Which is kind of the opposite of my job’. He is a planning officer for the council, and the stalled building site we’re on – in the eastern reaches of London’s Docklands – is testament to the challenges of the role.
There’s no shortage of new developments on the archipelago-like patches of land between Bow Creek, the Royal Docks and the Thames.… Read more
