Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. - Charles Reade (8 Jun 1814 – 11 Apr 1884)
Rosemary Clooney - Mambo Italiano (via songbirdsandnightingales)
Entrance to Necropolis Station, Waterloo, London, 1890:
Just outside Woking, in Surrey, is Brookwood Cemetery (also known as the London Necropolis)
The cemetery was opened by the London Necropolis Company in 1854 as an out-of-town cemetery; London was struggling to accommodate the dead in its inner city graveyards, and so this vast space (500 acres) was acquired.
The dead of London would reach the cemetery via a special train station, the London Necropolis Railway Station, which was next to Waterloo.
The photograph above shown the entrance to the Necropolis Station, with its beautifully ornate gates, waiting to welcome the dead on their last journey.
I’m so disappointed it now looks like this.
Omnibus, Upper Richmond Road, London, 1895:
Aside from the adverts on the side of this ‘bus, the most striking thing for me about this photograph is the state of the road - I doubt roads on construction sites are as bad as this these days.
On the side of the bus, on the top board, can be seen an advert for Thomas Tilling. Thomas Tilling started business in 1846, buying horses and buses, along with the rights to operate certain London routes with them.
By the mid 1850’s he had 70 vehicles, and by the time of his death in 1893 he had a stable of some four thousand horses.
(via starfishpaws)
This certificate was awarded to British soldiers in WWII who had returned from behind enemy lines: http://slate.me/10EjOFz
(via starfishpaws)
St. Cuthbert’s, Philbeach Gardens, or is it St. Philbert’s, Cuthbeach Gardens?
Every once in a while you come a across a building which has an atmosphere that takes your breath away, one such building is St. Cuthbert’s Church, Philbeach Gardens (The title is an old Anglo-Catholic joke mocking the unusual name).What is so special about St. Cuthbert’s is that it has been untouched since the early 20th century, with the removable nave altar being the only noticeable addition. It still has the soot from a hundred years of incense, and it has that pleasant feeling that only Anglo-Catholic churches have from numerous artworks and quirky features that litter the place. The pride of these objects is the lectern which incorperates two great horns into the design and was described by John Betjeman as ‘Neo-Viking’.
It is therefore so nice to see a church surviving in its original state, most such churches have either closed, been cleaned up for ‘modern’ catholic worship, or worst of all: adapted for the use of evangelical with the ubiquitous platform for the worship band, usually right in front of the altar. Luckily they have just got a new incumbent from the Holy Redeemer, Clerkenwell (Which is a very Roman place, hopefully he’ll stop using the hideous nave altar) and thus things may turn around and St. Cuthbert’s might once again be brought back to life.
