Strange laws, heroic deeds, surprising revelations, and quirky stories that have shaped the unique history of Britain’s capital.London’s long history is extraordinarily rich—and whether your interest is political, social, architectural, or historical, you’ll find a variety of topics in this alternative guide to London.Learn about:· Roman ruins· Notorious crimes· Hidden tube stations· The famous London smog· Cockney rhyming...

'An extraordinary history' - Peter Ackroyd, The Times'A lively account of (Bazalgette's) magnificent achievements. . . graphically illustrated' - Hermione Hobhouse'Halliday is good on sanitary engineering and even better on cloaca, crud and putrefaction . . . (he) writes with the relish of one who savours his subject and has deeply researched it. . . splendidly illustrated' - Ruth Rendell...

There have been more prisons in London than in any other European city. Of these, Newgate was the largest, most notorious and worst. Built during the twelfth century, it became a legendary place - the inspiration of more poems, plays and novels than any other building in London. It was a place of cruelty and wretchedness, at various times holding Dick Turpin, Titus Oates, Daniel Defoe, Jack Sheppard and Casanova. Because prisons were privately run, any time spent ...

Victorian Britain was the world's industrial powerhouse. Its factories, mills and foundries supplied a global demand for manufactured goods. As Britain changed from an agricultural to an industrial ecomony, people swarmed into the towns and cities where the work was; by the end of Queen Victoria's reign, almost 80 per cent of the population was urban. Overcrowding and filthy living conditions, though, were a recipe for disaster, and diseases such as cholera, typhoid, scarl...

“Halliday is a pass master at assembling golden nuggets of fact . . . amusingly written . . . a fun way to brush up on your Olympic history” (Londonist).Who reprimanded Hitler during the 1936 Olympic Games?When did the Olympic event “shin-kicking” get banned?Which Shakespearean play refers to the Olympic Games?Who was the first official cheat in 388 BC?Find the answers to these...

For millennia the normal, natural and pleasurable activity of eating has been surrounded by fear and anxiety. Religious traditions have long decreed what foods are right for their followers to eat, but secularisation and scientific progress have not made the situation easier. Our present obsession with health, obesity, ethics and science has seemingly developed from a society that is over-supplied with the necessities of life. For the first time, social historian Stephen H...

London is a City of Markets: markets in meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, money, insurance, shipping and, occasionally, in stolen goods. Stephen Halliday's book is a comprehensive account of the often lurid and controversial history of its markets from Roman Londinium to the London of Boris Johnson as well as a guide to visiting them (and emerging with a bargain).

The English criminal justice system has come a long way since the days when noses were cut off, heretics burned at the stake and rebels were hung, drawn and quartered. Yet the Common Law, which emerged from Henry II's conflict with Thomas a Becket, survives in England (and much of the English-speaking world) and magistrates still deal with 95 per cent of crimes as they have done for at least 650 years. We no longer duck scolds and witches but we still follow Magna Carta in the way we try p...

London's Underground is one of the best-known and most distinctive aspects of the city. Since Victorian times, this remarkable feat of engineering has made an extraordinary contribution to the economy of the capital and played a vital role in the daily life of generations of Londoners.Stephen Halliday's informative, entertaining, wide-ranging history of the Underground celebrates the vision and determination of the Victorian Pioneers who conceived this revolutionar...

'By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.' - Samuel JohnsonFrom Chaucer's pilgrims meeting in a Southwark inn to the Hogwarts Express leaving from King's Cross, London has always been a popular place for writers to weave into their own work. With its bustling, multicultural population and unique localised weather, the city is almost a character in its own right. Fictional London explores the capital thr...

Why did London have to wait so long for a main line railway beneath its streets? For a few years in the mid-nineteenth century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's broad gauge Great Western trains ran from Reading to Faringdon. Now, after many false starts, his vision is being realised as the Elizabeth Line carries passengers from Reading to the City once again and beyond Essex to Kent, using engineering that would have earned the admiration of the greatest Victorian engineers. London historian Step...

In 1801 the population of London was almost one million. A century later it was 6m. Stephen Halliday's beautifully illustrated book shows how the ramshackle collection ofcommunities that entered the 19th century became the world’s first metropolis. This amazing story is told through the lives of eight men: JOHN NASH defined the modern West End with his ‘New Street’ (Regent Street). MARC BRUNEL invented the tunnelling shield that made the underground railways possible. THOMAS CUBITT built h...