The City of London.

Because my historical romances are set in London or other parts of England, I am fascinated by the enormous growth of the City of London and its importance throughout history. 

I hope you enjoy learning a little more about the Square Mile which is now only a tiny part of 'Greater London' yet is so famous.

Enjoy, 

Suzi Love.

General 

The City of London is an area in central London, England, which made up most of London in Medieval times but is now only a small part of ‘Greater London’. It is just over one square mile (1.12 sq mi/2.90 km2) in area, so is referred to as the ‘City’, or the ‘Square Mile’.

Add Borders of the City of London, showing surrounding London boroughs and the pre-1994 boundary (where changed) in red. The area covered by the Inner and Middle Temple is marked.

 It is one of London’s 32 boroughs, alongside the City of Westminster and only has a little over 11,000 residents, although around 316,700 people work there, mainly in financial services. It is England's smallest ceremonial county by area and population and the fourth most densely populated.

City and financial district

In the 19th century, the City was the world's primary business centre and today it still ranks above New York City as the leading centre of global finance. The legal profession takes up most of the Western area, especially with the Inns of Court in the Temple and Chancery Lane areas, having the Inner Temple and Middle Temple both within the City of London.
Many Roman sites and artefacts can be seen in the City of London today, including the Temple of Mithras, sections of the London Wall (at the Barbican and near the Tower of London), the London Stone and remains of the amphitheatre beneath the Guildhall. The Museum of London, located in the City, holds many of the Roman finds and has permanent Roman exhibitions, as well as being a source of information on Roman London generally.

Boundary

Borders of the City of London, showing surrounding London boroughs and the pre-1994 boundary (where changed) in red. The area covered by the Inner and Middle Temple is marked.
The City borders Westminster, crosses the Victoria Embankment, passes to the west of Middle Temple, along Strand and north up Chancery Lane, where it borders Camden. It turns east to Holborn Circus, with Baltic Street West as the most northerly boundary and in the south in includes Bishopsgate and Petticoat Lane. The City controls the full span of London Bridge but only half of the river underneath it.
Boundaries are marked by black bollards bearing the City's emblem, and by dragon boundary marks at major entrances e.g. Holborn, with a similar monument at Temple Bar on Fleet Street.

 Dragon statue atop the Temple Bar monument, which marks the boundary between the City and Westminster.

Roman London was established as a trading port by merchants on the tidal Thames around 47 AD but by the time of the construction of the London Wall, the city's fortunes were in decline, with problems of plague and fire. Alfred the Great, King of Wessex and arguably the first king of the 'English', began resettlement of the old Roman walled area in 886 and appointed his son-in-law Earl Æthelred of Mercia over it as part of their reconquest of the Viking occupied parts of England.

  The 1666 Great Fire destroyed nearly 80% of the City.

Map showing the extent of the Great Fire of London.

The 18th century was a period of rapid growth for London, reflecting an increasing national population, the early stirrings of the Industrial Revolution, and London's role at the centre of the evolving British Empire. The urban area expanded beyond the borders of the City of London, most notably during this period towards the West End and Westminster.
By the beginning of the 19th century, London was expanding rapidly in every direction and railways and the Tube allowed it to spread over a greater area. To the East, the Port of London grew when new docks were needed because the Thames at the City could not cope with the volume of trade. In 1894, an attempt was made to amalgamate the City and the surrounding County of London, but it did not succeed so the City elected four members to the unreformed House of Commons, which it retained after the Reform Act 1832 and into the 20th century.

St Paul's Cathedral, 1896.

During World War II, The City was aerial bombed in ‘The Blitz’ and although St Paul's Cathedral survived, large swathes of the City did not and the particularly heavy raids of late December 1940 led to a firestorm called the Second Great Fire of London.
 
In the decades following the war, there was a major rebuilding programme with modern and larger-scale developments.

They altered the City's urban landscape, although the parts which survived the bombings retained smaller buildings and old character.

The street pattern, which is still largely medieval, was altered slightly in certain places, although there is a more recent trend of reversing some of the post-war modernist changes made, such as at Paternoster Square.

Political and Legal   

The City is a ceremonial county, although it has a Commission of Lieutenancy, headed by the Lord Mayor, instead of a Lord-Lieutenant. Instead of a High Sheriff, two Sheriffs hold quasi-judicial offices and are appointed by the Livery Companies, another ancient political system based on the representation and protection of trades. Senior members of the Livery Companies are known as Liverymen and form a special electorate called the Common Hall and this body chooses the Lord Mayor of the City, the Sheriffs and certain other officers.
The local authority for the City, the City of London Corporation, has unusual responsibilities, eg. the police authority for the City, and holds ownerships beyond the City's boundaries. The Corporation is headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, an office separate from, and much older than, the Mayor of London.

The Guildhall - the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City

Numerous Functions of the City 

The City has an independent police force, the City of London Police, and the Common Council is the police authority, while the rest of Greater London is policed by the Metropolitan Police Service from New Scotland Yard.

The Corporation owns and runs both the Smithfield and Leadenhall Markets  and a number of locations beyond the boundaries of the City, which include parks, forests and commons eg most of Epping Forest, Hampstead Heath and many public spaces in Northern Ireland through The Honourable The Irish Society.

It also owns Old Spitalfields Market and Billingsgate Fish Market, both of which are within the neighbouring London Borough of Tower Hamlets, owns and helps fund the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court for England and Wales, as a gift to the nation, it having begun as the City and Middlesex Sessions.
In 1123, the only hospital, St Bartholomews at Smithfield, was founded. Known as 'Barts', the hospital is undergoing a long-awaited regeneration.

The City is the third largest UK funding-patron of the arts. It oversees the Barbican Centre and subsidises several important performing arts companies.

The Corporation is The Port of London's health authority, includes the handling of imported cargo at London Heathrow airport, oversees the running of the Bridge House Trust which maintains five key bridges in central London, London Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, Southwark Bridge, Tower Bridge and the Millennium Bridge. The City's flag flies over Tower Bridge, although neither footing is in the City.

Mansion House - the official residence of the Lord Mayor

Former Lord Mayor of London John Stuttard during the Lord Mayor's parade of 2006

A Victorian Christmas

A Victorian Christmas  

    

 Carols,  Cards, Trees, 

        and Stories….

    

Many Christmas traditions we celebrate today were made popular by Queen Victoria and her beloved Prince Albert. The Victorians, with their love of nostalgia and history, rushed to copy everything done by their  dear Queen. 

Decorating Christmas trees, sending Christmas Cards, singing Carols, and exchanging gifts found favour with the English masses, who eagerly imitated the Royal Family. From Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, and from church to table.      

                                    Hope you enjoy reading more about them,

                                                  Suzi Love  

Christmas Carols

           The word ‘carol’ comes from the old French ‘carole’ for a song written and played as a courtly dancing song. Carols then took on a more popular form, telling stories and celebrating religious themes for all seasons until the late 19^th century when they became associated with Christmas.  

          In 1822, Davies Gilbert published “Some Ancient Christmas Carols”, in which he described a typical English West Country Christmas. The collection sang of food, drink, and good things celebrated at Christmas.
       The British Museum said: “Mr. Gilbert has taken advantage of old Time, and made safe, for some centuries at least, a record of our ancient Christmas Carols; and for this good deed has secured the gratitude of Antiquaries yet unborn. These Carols are genuine national curiosities.”

       They took the place of Psalms in all churches on Christmas Day and, as the whole congregation could join in, were greeted with huge approval. Carols were passed on orally from place to place, often with different words or tunes.

       The published carols included songs still popular today, including The First Noël, I Saw Three Ships, and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. This collection was followed by compilations of carols from other scholars such as William Sandy’s works  in 1833 and 1852.

                                         

                Christmas Cards

Victorian, circa 1870 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

       At the end of the winter term, schoolmasters would set their pupils to work on Christmas Pieces, samplers of writing on superior paper with engraved borders, to show parents how they had progressed during the year. By about 1820, the engraved borders were enhanced with color and the children’s pieces became more decorative.

In 1843, Sir Henry Cole commissioned an artist from the Royal Academy to design a card he could send to his large circle of family and friends instead of writing them letters. Postage had been standardized  three years earlier and Cole had played a key role in initiating Uniform Penny Post.

Wanting to popularize the use of post, Cole hit upon a brilliant idea of spreading holiday cheer by sending cards. The card was issued from a periodical, Felix Summerly’s Home Treasury, and sold for a shilling a piece.

Lithographed and hand-colored,  it showed a family of three generations quaffing wine and caused a furor among the temperate classes. On either side were allegorical vignettes depicting the feeding of the hungry and the clothing of the naked and the whole thing was enclosed in a rustic frame of carved wood and ivy.

       Sales grew and designs and sizes changed. The first cards were meant to appeal to the masses and encourage them to send large numbers by post. So rather than focus on religious images, they showed sentimental or humorous images of family and children, fanciful designs of flowers, fairies, or reminders of the approach of spring.

       Cards were shaped as a bell, a fan, a crescent, a circle, or a diamond and were folding, decorated with jewels, iridescent, embossed, and carried either simple Christmas and New Year greetings or had verses and carols written in them. The next year, Mr W.C.T. Dobson produced a sketch symbolizing the ‘Spirit of Christmas’ which sold many more than the previous thousand and the novelty caught on. More Victorian Christmas Cards     More on Victorian publishers of Christmas cards

                                
 
      Christmas Trees

      

       After Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert, the English adopted his German customs for trees and presents.

       In 1841, a large tree was decorated in Windsor Castle and the Queen and her family exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve. Presents were laid out on tables, each of which had a Christmas tree at its centre.

       On 24 December 1850 the Queen wrote in her journal, 

‘My beloved Albert first took me to my tree and table, covered by such numberless gifts, really too much, too magnificent.’

In 1860, a visitor to Windsor Castle described how the rooms ‘were lighted up with Christmas trees hung from the ceiling, the chandeliers being taken down. These trees…were covered with bonbons and little wax colored lights, some of the trees were made to appear as if partially covered in snow.’

In 2011, Windsor Castle’s Christmas  display follows Victorian tradition with a lavish dinner table setting and an artificial tree suspended from the Octagon Dining Room ceiling, where the chandelier usually hangs.

More on the Victorian Christmas Tree looks at Windsor Castle here.

Though carols, cards, and trees were either revived or started, a new trend began in the early Victorian era where Christmas stories were no longer simply told in families but were written down and published.

In 1843, Charles Dickens turned the Christmas season back to one of festivity and merriment when his novel, A Christmas Carol, was published.Under financial stress, he wrote it during a period of intense creativity and completed the work in a mere six weeks, having made no working notes, outline, plans, or preliminary drafts.

The sixty-eight-page manuscript is viewable at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. The Morgan’s collection of Dickens’ manuscripts and letters is one of the two greatest collections in the world, the other being Britain's Victoria and Albert Museum. 

NB - This story was immediately popular and critically acclaimed, and has been in print continuously for 157 years.

Historical Hearts Launch Party - Day 1

Hi and welcome to the Historical Hearts Blog Launch Party!

We're all very excited to announce a blog for Australian Historical Romance Writers. Over the next five days we'll be giving away books, critiques, bookmarks, wonderful prizes of all kinds to celebrate the launch of this fabulous blog.

I'm Tamara Gill and will be kicking off the celebrations by telling you a little about myself. Country born and bred I started reading historical romances while on maternity leave with my first child but didn't start to write them until my second son was a year old. To this day I blame Stephanie Laurens who made me fall in love with the Regency era and the beautiful 'Empire Style' gowns. What can I say, those dresses are divine.

Jump ahead four years and I'm now published with Noble Romance Publishing. I have two Regency (ebooks) for a randomly picked guest who can answer my Regency trivia question correctly. I'll also be giving away bookmarks to the first five guests who leave a comment. Just remember to leave your email address so I can contact you about the prizes.

Question: "Where did the ton like to promenade, ride and gossip in the afternoon?"

Okay, I'll admit, my question isn't very hard, and any loyal reader of Regency historicals will know the answer immediately, but...we're here to have fun, not to tax our loyal followers too much.

So, two books up for grabs, To Sin with Scandal and A Captain's Order - A Duke's Command. Both I should warn you, are a little naughty. *grin*

Good Luck!

Tam.

  

I’m Suzi Love and I’m so glad you’ve joined us for the Historical Hearts Launch Day.

I’ve always loved reading historical romances, so I’m very excited to now be writing them. My books are set in England around the end of the Regency and the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign. The true Regency era is admired for its glittering ballroom scenes, gorgeous fashions, and its often ridiculous adherence to social manners and class distinctions while the Victorian era began with drastic changes to those rigid social structure as inventors, scientists, and tradesmen became more important and wealthier than those who held titles and land. These years of upheaval offered amazing opportunities for adventurous women and men of all classes to break free from convention and follow their own paths.

I’m very grateful that those rapidly changing times allow me to write about heroines who devote time to scientific pursuits rather than embroidering. Heroes who ignore old rules and welcome inventions on their estates or in everyday life, openly use their talents, and participate in money-making ventures rather than watch their inheritance become worthless.

If you’d like to read more weird and wacky things I find fascinating in history, pop over to my other blogs. I’m at Suzi Love and also at The Beau Monde World.

Now, for the exciting bit! I have three wonderful historical books for one lucky commenter, though I’m not going to make it too easy for you. Whoever answers the most questions correctly will win the prize.

1. Around 1810, an open-air owner-driven two-wheeled vehicle came into use but only reached its peak of popularity during the early Victorian years. It was designed for a single horse and with only a small platform at the back for the ‘Tiger’ to stand. What was it called? 
2. In 1822, the word ‘tranquilizer’ was invented to describe the effect of opium. The book was called Confessions of an English Opium Eater and the author was….Who?
3. In 1822, Charles Babbage proposed a difference engine. This was an early version of ….. What?
4. In 1840, the earliest adhesive postage stamps in the world were placed on sale in the United Kingdom. They carried the head of Queen Victoria and were called….What? 
5. During Napoleon’s military campaigns, he reportedly always carried something with him which he ate when he needed a boost of energy. What did he carry?

Good Luck!

Suzi.

Welcome to Historical Hearts. My name is Sheridan Kent and I’m on a quest to become a historical romance author. I started with reading and progressed to writing when storylines and characters started running through my head at the most inopportune times. I’m currently dipping my fingers into the Victorian era, plucking out the juicy bits to bring my adventures to life!

My heroes are heart-stopping, tortured souls, while the women who love them are bewitching and bold. I’d love you to join my characters as they fight to overcome all obstacles on the way to love. Also, check back regularly to catch my post on some of the wacky laws of Old England, some you will not believe! To celebrate the launch of Historical Hearts, I have a copy of ‘The Perfect Rake’ by Anne Gracie to give away. Just mention the first name of the hero within your comments to go into the draw.

Good Luck!

Sheridan.

Note: For your chance to win today's prizes, when answering the trivia questions or replying, please leave your name, email address and what draw you'd like to enter. Of course, you are more than welcome to enter all prize draws up for grabs. Good Luck!