I set out in the footsteps of Alan Stapleton seeking ‘London’s Alleys, Byways & Courts’ that he drew and published in a book in 1923, which I first encountered in the archive at Bishopsgate Institute.

From hundreds in his magnificent collection, Ken Sequin kindly selected badges for me with a local connection – and they comprise an unexpected history of the East End. Button badges were invented in ...

Happy in the crypt beneath John Soane’s St John on Bethnal Green of 1828, Piotr Frac works peacefully making beautiful stained glass while the world passes by at this busiest of East End crossroads.

From hundreds in his magnificent collection, Ken Sequin kindly selected badges for me with a local connection – and they comprise an unexpected history of the East End.

Created between 1875 and 1914, sixty of these structures were built by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund established by the Earl of Shaftesbury to enable cabbies to get a meal without leaving their cabs ...

Sian Rees introduces an unexpected discovery in the work of Maria Hack (1777 – 1844), published by Darton, Harvey & Darton of Gracechurch St in the City of London In Maria Hack’s The Little Visitors, ...

John Evelyn arranged introductions for Grinling Gibbons to King Charles II and Christopher Wren, enabling him to set up his workshop on Ludgate Hill – an auspicious and opportune location for a wood ...

We publish these pictures as part of the celebrations of the centenary of the birth of illustrator Charles Keeping (1924–1988) The illustrations of Charles Keeping burned themselves into my ...

This is the face of the dead man in Clerkenwell. He does not look perturbed by the change in the weather. Once winters wore him out, but now he rests beneath the streets of the modern city he will ...