Bohemian London - stroll through Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- A drift through some streets around Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury in Central London after appearing on Robert Elms show on BBC London Radio. Includes the new development at Pearson Square, Riding House Street, Tottenham Street, the mural in Goodge Place, Charlotte Street, the best Italian Cafe in London, Marchmont Street, Judd Books, the Brunswick Centre, Little Russell Street, and Museum Chambers.
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Love this area, recently visited the beautiful Fitzrovia Chapel bang in the misleading of the bland residential buildings. 😀
I lived in Gordon Street just off the euston road from 1947 -1961/62 and i love Bloomsbury....what i dont love is the desire of the powers that be to tear down as many period properties as they can find - Bloomsbury is all about history and beauty destroy that and you destroy the very heart of what to me is the most beautiful area of London. I take trips down memory lane at least twice a month and it breaks my heart that the area i grew up in as a kid will very soon be gone! I know we all have to accept progress .......but at what cost? love your post John keep 'em coming.
It's not progress in my view. It's cheap commerce. The beauty and quality of the old architecture, the signage, everything is incomparable to the steel and glass monstrosities they've built for the past two decades. Prior to 2000 the old buildings and crucially the atmosphere was still there. But now its gone, given way to greed and bad taste.
My two favourite things on the Internet,Walking with John Rogers and Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury - Thankyou.
Brilliant John,
Brilliant video by a well-educated and informed gentleman. I enjoy these videos immensely and find them calming and also inspirational, especially in these uncertain, up and down times
Inspector Morse is my favorite show ever. I've walked those streets but never saw the connection. If you come from the SW US, London is major sensory overload. It's my favorite city. I lived in Berks for 5 years but went to London often. Thank you for bringing it back to life for me. 💖🏏🎸
The Charles Dickens house is now a button seller as you pointed out but if you go in and meet the old lady she has been there for several decades not only does she sell buttons she actually makes buttons including buttons for the Royal family
She is an amazing character because you can walk in with a button and chances are she will have it no matter how obscure the design may be an even better she will know exactly where it is in her shop
Our home away from home...ah this made me long to be back there. Marchmont Street is my favourite street in London
Hello, thanks for interesting video. Not living in uk now, but am homesick and enjoy watching these familiar London streets. Have just seen your Shepherds Bush one. Are you familiar with the Cato street conspiracy? Just a suggestion maybe?
Interesting fact about the King & Queen pub... It was the first venue for Bob Dylan's first ever gig outside of the USA...
that's a fantastic bit of trivia - thanks
Great Videos I lived in London for years a while ago didn't know half of what you showed us.
i think ch 4 was on that corner of Charlotte st
Yes it was I lived just a few doors away from it
I enjoyed that Thank you. 😊👍
Marchmont St, I believe if memory serves me is where the late Kenneth Williams grew up above his fathers hairdressers.
He lived in Cromer street before as a kid as did I later. He went to Manchester street school which was later renamed Argyle. Marchmont street was our nearest shopping centre although it was always rather expensive. I used to go in the Green coffee bar on the corner in the sixties.
What a great video. I live and work in London and I'm still constantly fascinated by what you can discover if you just wander aimlessly. Watching someone else's discoveries is almost as good!
A short walk but filled with interest. Thanks John.
Brilliant John as always. In my late teens around 1974/5 I used to drink in a pub on Cleveland St. in the shadow of the BT tower called the Cunard (I think) named presumably because of the shape, which was pointed due t it being ing on a junction of two roads. I can't find any any reference to it on the internet. It played all the current music T-Rex & Roxy music etc. very loudly, great times.
Love this. I worked on the corner of Mortimer and Nassau street in the early 90s and a lot of this looked familiar including the King & Queen. I can't believe I didn't spend at least one evening in there.
Interesting to see how many comments refer to this area being where people have stayed on formative visits to London. I too have memories of staying in the area, in a really shabby little hotel on Bloomsbury Square when I was studying part-time and commuting back and forth to the West Country after work once a week. This area always fascinated me, a little city-within-a-city almost, and definitely the springboard for my ventures further afield. It's changed much, much less than some surrounding districts it seems too.
yes that is interesting Mike and a similar response with the Somers Town video I just uploaded. It is an endlessly fascinating area - I have multiple associations with the areas in the video spanning from working as an English teaching on Oxford Street to the birth of my kids when we lived at the Angel and spent a lot of time round Bloomsbury. Long may it continue to fend off the developers
80 Charlotte St. I think it was Saatchi & Saatchi HQ
spent a lot of time around Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury back in the day, some good Pubs and places to eat, love London.
Such a nostalgic video. Thanks for this. You seem like a top geeza
You have the strange ability to make my heart ache for the places of my childhood. Used to play 'had' in the labyrinthine innards of the Brunswick before they gated the entrances.
I'm glad to be able to help take you back there - thanks for sharing that memory. Great place to play. I remember coming there in the late 80's with my Mum when I had a Uni interview and she waited for hours in the old cafe.
Had the 'one' in The King & Queen, researching pubs of Fitzrovia for a play. Love the vids, John.
At one point you were 100 yds from where I'm based from in me job.. to answer your question id suggest maybe and as something quite different I'd head west London and maybe South Acton station to Barnes via Chiswick house .. it's a great walk I could even show you the really interesting bits ..
80 Charlotte Street was the Saatchi & Saatchi building.
+jacek szulecki thanks jacek- in that case poetic justice has been served I suppose
John Rogers Yeah. Right on John. "To the barricades!" an' all that... I used to work for Saatchi & Saatchi 😂
+jacek szulecki ha, you must have used that as a slogan at some point surely. There were Thatcher's agency of choice as I'm sure you know.
love the walks in different areas of London, I used to live in Great Russel St not far from there, that was a great time !
Really enjoy your films, i'm a Londoner was trying to find out more about Hornsey where i was born and bred, that is when i found you on UA-cam now I'm an addict!!
Thanks David - there’s a few pages about Hornsey in my book, This Other London, hope you found the Hornsey vids on my channel that have much of that info in them
Thanks John I grew up in Midhope Street so know all these places. We moved in 1976 to Kentish Town,and
I haven't been around the area since the early 2000s so it lovely to see them again,and so much of it completely changed. Your videos are wonderful they bring London to life.
I used to work in Middlesex House (for about 13 years). So the King and Queen was our local. Nothing especially notable about what it serves, but it does have a function room upstairs. Been to some folk nights in there.
The large development of flats opposite K&Q / Middlesex House replaces the old Middlesex Hospital. Was a teaching hospital (replaced/made redundant by the new hospital opposite Warren Street). Kind of notable in it's own right - Churchill was treated there. Peter Sellers died there. The chapel (Fitzrovia chapel) is the only part of that complex that was retained when the hospital was demolished, and sits within the new development.
thanks for the info Graham - I think the folk nights were still running before lockdown
Apparently lots of Iris Murdoch books set around Fitzrovia. I have read a few but I don't think I have identified the Fitzrovia ones
Thanks for this one, John. I stayed in Bloomsbury on my only visit (so far) to the Motherland, and I traipsed around the British Museum/Fitzrovia/Soho areas for a few days. Just scratched the surface, but your video brought me back. I remember getting a great, cheap sandwich from a tiny place on Hanson Street, next to Foley. Wish I could have stayed and become the London Sandwich Connoisseur!!
Thanks for watching Weldon and a pleasure to transport you back there. Now I must go and find that sandwich bar
Excellent as always John. Two of my favourite parts of town- particularly Bloomsbury.
+John P Lynch thanks John - much appreciated
The King and Queen pub has a folk where apparently Bob Dylan played in the 60s
Brilliant to see you do this bit - I don't live in London but I'm down there fairly often and I frequently stay in Cartwright gardens, Have a lot of meetings up mayfair way and round about this whole area - used to work at the British Library as well (When I lived in Ely) so lovely to see it through your eyes
two places that are interesting - north of Kings Cross is changing dramatically - and last time I was down (staying in a hotel that appears in that video above) I walked up that way up towards Holloway. I worked at TNA a fair bit and along the river from Kew to Richmond is a decent walk. Richmond has some interesting buildings as well.
thanks Mark - it's funny that I only did it as I found myself in the area and had a camera in my pocket, but I love this territory so much, one of my go to places and very local to me when I lived up at the Angel. What are those hotels in Cartwright Gardens like?
I mostly use them because we have a fairly strict expenses policy at work and you can usually get a pretty good deal on them but I really like them - basic, smallish rooms but they are clean, comfortable and quiet for the most part. One or two of them are quite old school with hotel keys with bits of metal attached that you have to hand into reception!
thanks for the suggestions. yes I actually shot some footage around Somers Town in January but not enough to make a video, and I keep meaning to do Caledonian Park so could hook in Holloway there and perhaps up to Kentish Town. Here are a couple of blog posts on those areas from the past - great suggestions thelostbyway.com/tag/somers-town
thelostbyway.com/2015/10/return-to-caledonian-park-islington.html
Enjoyed that. Love getting lost in all the unknown London Streets like Woburn Walk. Good stuff
+Behind the Scenes with Stu Betty thanks Stu - really love it round that way, celebrated the birth of my first son with a curry in Woburn Walk - best one I've ever had
Hey John it was Saatchi & Saatchi ad agency...i used to work there!
Ah, thanks Will
London is always full of the undiscovered.
Can I suggest a challenge for next summer. You walked 28.5 miles from.Waltham Cross to Welwyn Garden City earlier this year- what about trying the 34.5 miles of the Greenwich Meridian Trail between Waltham Abbey and Royston in a day. I once walked 34 miles along the Three Castles Path in Hampshire in one day- it took 12 hours and I was very very tired at the end!
+voxley19 what a great idea - thanks Voxley
great very intresting seeing london today Thanks Brian
my pleasure Brian - thanks for watching
Praise Marx and pass the ammunition :) This was fun, thanks again John Rogers
my pleasure - thanks for watching
Great coverage. 80 Charlotte Street used to be the Saatchi building. We'll add to our playlist if that's OK. (The Fitzrovia Partnership)
Thanks Bee - yes please add to your playlist
If you like books, you really found the part of London to come to! Other than the two places you showcased in the video, there's a lovely used book shop just outside the Brunswick Centre, Skoob Books, I prefer it to Judd Books IMO. Heading south on Marchmont, you turn left just before the Brunswick and it'll be behind a garden in the outer wall of the Brunswick. There's also Gay's the Word, one of the most storied LGBT places in London and full of specialty books, it's on the south half of Marchmont. People are still squeamish about this sort of thing, which is a shame, because regardless of your gender or orientation it makes a lovely visit. The Waterstone's nearby on Gower St is the best bookstore in the country, with maybe Blackwell's in Oxford a close second. Persephone Books on Lamb's Court Rd a little southeast of the Brunswick is a leading seller AND publisher of forgotten literature, especially women's literature. And if you're feeling the Halloween spirit, Treadwell's on the aptly named Store St has loads of stuff on pagan and occult beliefs. You're always talking about river confluences and votive offerings, so you seem learned in the area, so if you want further information they'll have it. Anyway lovely video thanks so much for sharing~
+account user wonderful recommendations - many thanks. I walked past Skoob, daren't go in as I'd spend more money I don't have. Had a great evening signing copies of my book at Gower Street Waterstones one Christmas while they filled me up with Gin. Ah yes, Treadwells- what a treat, was in there the day before I shot this oddly enough - bought some herbs there once to make a votive offering at the Lady's Well. Greatly appreciate your detailed comment - thank you
Just been reading the autobiography and writing several essays on Elaudah Equiano for my History degree with Liberty University
I love the Brunswick Centre. It appears in the 1970s film 'The passenger' with Jack Nicholas. Clip is on youtube
Really enjoyed it as usual, Thank you for sharing.
thanks Darrell
Nice to see my old manor
Great video, I love getting nostalgic about London's past
Top stuff as usual John & thought you were splendid on the Robert Elms show beforehand as well.Keep em coming.
+Chris Thompson many thanks indeed Chris - much appreciated
John I have since been thinking re new walk suggestions & living in Kent I would love you to come south of the river! If you haven't already I think you would really enjoy walking alongside /exploring the Thames at Gravesend during which you could also possibly take in a ferry crossing over to Tilbury for a mooch around on the north side. It would be an easy place for you to reach as you could use HS 1 from Stratford to Ebbsfleet-(although the fare's not cheap) think it would take about 15 mins!
Another suggestion would be the River Medway between Rochester & Gillingham taking in the Royal Historic Boatyard in Chatham. Both places are steeped in history & atmospheric & your choice of soundtrack music would be the icing on the cake.
+Chris Thompson that's a great suggestion Chris- I haven't been beyond Dartford on that side and I like the idea of the Tilbury ferry, previously been scuppered by that not running on a Sunday but will have to plan more carefully
When I was the coming man, I took flat in Cleveland Street. It had a buzz, which it still has. CBS Studios, Whitley Street and an office in Denmark Street. All are little changed, though it's been a few years since I've visited them.
Sounds like interesting times - thanks for sharing
Stayed on Cartwright Gardens a couple years ago. Very quiet and nice and about 80% less in price for something comparable in San Francisco. If you think it seedy please come visit the hotels in my town (Oakland CA). Marchmont also has a nice pub near Judd Books. Wonderful area. British Library and Museum not far away. There’s a canal behind the nearby train station that leads to Camden (and beyond!?). I love London but can tell it’s being built over in the image of its developers: flashy, obscene, tasteless, bland, ostentatious. ahistorical (except what they project as THEIR history 100 yrs from now), and a total disregard for anything but themselves. And money, of course. Really sad. Still-I was absolutely amazed out how quickly London becomes rural going out towards Epping. In the US it’s city, suburb, the suburb of the next City, fast food, suburb...etc
Thanks for your uploads
Thanks for watching Katie-Jo
Old street and city road will be a nice walk
What a pleasant video introducing a more authentic London - nice one John
thanks Edward
Hi John, that Brunswick building reminds me of an ageing WW2 Aircraftcarrier ,still a nice bit of English archiecture, tho, pity the streets are loosing there identity due to redevelopment .Just thinking about what went on in those streets over hundreds of years ago,i suppose us and everything change and as a result we become ghost's in the machine. great film John,cheers.
+richardgreen1970 thanks Richard. - great image of the old aircraft carrier washed up on the edge of Bloomsbury
John, I love the film, I love Fitzrovia!
thanks Rocky - such a great area
top man thanks mate let me know when you are coming to east ham
The October Gallery in Old Gloucester St. used to do a lovely Italian country soup with bread. Recommended. Thanks John; much appreciate your travelogue's :D
Arthur Stone thanks for the tip Arthur, kicking myself because I intended to include that little area in this video but got distracted
Thank you so much for another great video, I live by Leytonstone but have worked in Euston now for 15 years so know the kings cross area very well from when it was a deprived area to regeneration, its great to see the area from another prospective, next time when there always worth taking a walk back of Euston station to Drummond St the curry houses there been there since the 1960's old buildings much talk about demolishing the street for HS2 or walk to Sommers Town again off Euston road by station Charlton St if walking back to kings cross, even close road off on Fridays for small market. Talking about cemeteries City of London Aldersbrook is the most peaceful like a hidden part of London
thanks for the suggestion - shot a video round here the other day and gave you a mention. Also a good opportunity to include footage I shot in Charlton St. back in January but for some reason I never finished the Somers Town video then - so after a delay of 10 months finally made it thanks to your comment. I'll also link to the podcast I made on the area a few years back
Please take a walk thru Winchmore Hill and the new river
+TheHigherCraft ah, great idea, I'd like to walk the whole New River Path one day
@4:48 My brother and I stayed in Charlotte Street 1996 when we visited an airshow at Duxford. There were a lot of students rooms let out in the summer for tourists so you could sleep there for very little money. It was excellent. Everything at walking distance or otherwise just a Tube station away. I loved it. We drank at the Fitzroy Tavern which had a writers bar downstairs. I wouldn't drink there now though going by the reviews they get. Expensive drinks and also rude waiters.
Nice little walk :)
another fascinating walk - great music BTW, fits perfectly - not intrusive but adds atmosphere. Tip for anyone coming into London to explore this particular area who needs a cheap but characterful lodgings - St Athans Hotel just round the corner from the Brunswick centre
Just seen this (!), Great vid. I think there's a story that the King and Queen pub is referred to in Don McLean's "Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie'. The story goes that Bob Dylan, who had a nickname of "the Jester", played there, and wore a leather jacket he had, in fact, borrowed from James Dean. Would love it to be true, but ...
like your films, thanks....what about Kilburn, lots of history, especially music...
Thanks Martin - good idea, it features briefly in a couple of videos but only as I'm passing through
Brilliant walk and video...I really appreciate your personal thoughts and comments. I agree with you on the Brunswick and the Barbican...but for the life of me I could not go along with Robin Hood Gardens. It was a horrible place in the 1980's when I regularly visited nearby with a terrible reputation. I'd say it detracted from the nearby Balfron Tower which is absolutely superb. However...this is all just my opinion...which I hope you don't mind. Keep up the great work...it is essential in record our current history for future generations.
thanks for that Eddie - I did actually make a video about Robin Hood Gardens a couple of years ago (after this one) and forgot I had that book. I think in some cases it was down to how well maintained they were, and it seems RHG was allowed to decline a bit, but I could be wrong. Agree about Balfron - now privatised I believe
Would like to see Museum Chambers at dusk with some lights in those windows.
My great grandmother was born in Foley Street in 1851 round the corner from Cleveland Street. Dickens based ‘Oliver Twist’ on a workhouse which was in Cleveland Street. Also there was a notorious male brothel in one of the houses in the street frequented by Oscar Wilde. Apparently Ted Hughes, the poet and future poet laureate, was staying with a lady friend who lived in a Cleveland St. on the night of Feb 10th/ 11th 1963 when his wife Sylvia Plath killed herself after having attempted to phone him there.
Lovely, John. I was going to say "what about Skoob?" But I notice that's already been dealt with. My other recommended for this area would be the wonderful cheap veggie canteen in the Mary Ward Centre.
+Peter Blundell thanks - and yes great suggestion, I loved that Cafe and the street beside the Mary Ward where the Gallery is (Red Door?)
Ealing Broadway and the areas around Heathrow are going through some major changes - maybe you'd want to document that? I don't know what's the current status with the Norton Folgate proposals, so I'd film that whilst you still can as well.
+EliteXtasy brilliant suggestions many thanks- my old mate Nick Papadimitriou wrote about Bedfont Court Estate near Heathrow about 10 years ago, maybe I can coax him back out there
Nice one John...bit of a bonus getting two videos in the same week from you...
I'd like you to do a Rayners Lane walk if possible thanks.
+Jag Betty thanks Jag, yes didn't want to hold on to it till Sunday - would love to upload more videos but can't seem to manage it somehow. Rayners Lane now definitely on the list
John Rogers yeahhhy .... I ditto a Rayners Lane stroll
John Rogers john can any of us come with you on these walks?
The buildings diametrically opposite the King and Queen (across the road from the school) are the remnants of the old workhouse. I used to work at All Souls School (playground on the roof built by Beresford-Pite grade II listed) and I lived at 6 Charlotte St - I edited Poetry London Newsletter there in the 80's which eventually became the second incarnation of Poetry London - the original Poetry London Magazine was also produced from Fitzrovia in the 1940's by Tambimuttu.
We did a lot of local history at the school - unfortunately a lot of it was too colourful for the kids. Look up the Telegraph boy scandal on Cleveland St clevelandstreetscandal.com.
A couple of years ago I was photographing the new development in Riding House St when a security guard told me to stop as it was private property. I told him to sling his hook. Wonderful area to work and live in.
Thanks for that info, I saw a reference to a workhouse in the area when looking up the Dickens association but didn't know where it was so that's really helpful. I love your link to the 1940's Fitzrovia too - a great area full of stories
50 years ago, as an 18 year old, I lived in Gower Street in a block owned by Bourne and Hollingsworth; next door to RADA. I was a barman at the Marquee Club….😂
The king and queen pub is mentioned in Don Mccleans song American Pie as Bob Dylan performed an impromptu set.Inside are photo's of Bob Dylan performing.
The King and Queen pub is one of the meeting places of the Ghost Club, the oldest paranormal investigation club in the world.
+Ian Rubenstein that's wonderful Ian thanks
In 1962 Bob Dylan played his first gig outside of USA in Fitzrovia's King & Queen pub: www.thekingandqueenpub.com/the-folk-club.html They still have a photo from that gig in the bar.
East Ham would be a great walk, John, William Stukeley is buried in the churchyard there; although access is problematic....
Yes, Carl, not sure how I've skirted around it so far, good suggestion and def on the list. Never managed to get inside the churchyard even to visit Stukeley's grave, might have to go for a Sunday service
Try walking on Wanstead Flats
Have you thought of doing the great London cemeteries?
I knew Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia intimately at one time as a motorcycle courier, but the new year zero flats left me completely flummoxed as to the location.
That's a great idea. I shot something in Abney Park a few years ago which you can see on this channel but I've mostly just walked past the others - thanks very much, will add to the list
Great video John! Great to see mention of Olaudah Equiano and Dickens. Probably some of the best shop fronts I've seen in any of your videos.
Let's see suggestions:
Possibly something interesting about Barnes &Hammersmith Bridge area or Richmond Park where I was around almost twenty years ago?
Or as Halloween approaches, maybe try and find some of the old Hammer Horror locations around London? Or day trip to Whitby maybe?
Thanks Ross - and love those suggestions
Looking at a place on Cleveland St to stay with my family. Would you recommend it, or can I get what it offers with a bit more charm and quiet, as well as trees, elsewhere? Thanks!
Good question Daniel, I'm not sure what it's like to stay there, I'm sure it's fine but if you want more trees nearby perhaps look at Bloomsbury
John, there is a clip on youtube, ua-cam.com/video/aQ7gHY7E-II/v-deo.html which has Jack Nicholson in a film called The Passenger from 1975 where the actor is at the Brunswick Centre. From this you can see the initial desire of the architect. Unfortunately the new cluster of pristine sheer glass shops and the Waitrose shop which has been erected to span the end of the concourse is a tragedy. It is totally unsympathetic to the initial concept.
great reference ralph - and although I'm a fan of Antonioni I've never actually seen that film
another interesting walk John. have you walked around Paddington or Little venice
Great walk! Did you ever go to the Lorelei in Soho before it closed? Amazing little Italian restaurant not decorated since the 60s with a mural of the German Lorelei myth on the wall
+Andy Stead thanks Andy. No don't recall ever going there, sounds great and a sad loss. I'm writing about Soho at the moment so will look it up
Can't listen to this because of overwhelming background noise
edgy & interesting.
+Carole Mora thanks Carole
Chiswick
Been to Bermondsey yet?
Hi Janette - I haven't filmed a new video yet but I made a whole documentary in the area ua-cam.com/video/dPrsDCU2qUc/v-deo.html
There is a socialist bookshop called Bookmarks not far away from it if you fancy something a little bit different
Thanks Priscilla - didn't realise Bookmarks is still going - I tend to prefer Housman's up at Kings Cross for my radical books
Great video and all that, but it's an area utterly beyond 99.999% of us.
Ultra rich only.
Not saying that's bad in and of itself, I'm a capitalism supportive Conservative, just saying.
Now the London bomb sites and wasteland has gone they've started to destroy the good bits
as soon as you mentioned black history month l turned off....
Sorry, I don't see much appeal to living in modern London.
Still going on about the slaves are you going to give them your money 💴. It’s only right it was your fault