See the Sailor's Homecoming Window at John Betjeman's

Anyone who has ever come across the blue plaque at number 43 Cloth Fair, the former home of Sir John Betjeman, may like your author be interested to know why the window beside it appears to be a false window, with a painting behind it.


Over at the excellent Secret London website, the answer is found, and we are told that it was installed by a firm of architects who had first bricked up the window, and then decided that the wall was actually in need of one.

For more, see http://www.secret-london.co.uk/Smithfield_2.html

Seek out the grave of Giro the dog

In the shadow of the Duke of York Column, at the top of the steps by the Royal Society and Carlton House Terrace is the grave of Giro the dog, whose owner Dr Leopold von Hoesch, whilst he was a well-respected diplomat under both the Weimar Republic and Nazi Government, famously received a full Nazi funeral in London in 1936.


Giro was an Alsatian, who actually died two years earlier in 1934, and probably had no idea what was going on in his home country, being a dog and all. However, often judged guilty by association to the newly-elected Nazi Government, whose British base was at the German Embassy at 8 & 9 Carlton House Terrace, nowadays Giro is almost as famous as his late owner.

Killed by accidental electrocution, having apparently chewed through a live wire during extension work, Giro was laid to rest in what was then the grounds of the Embassy, but is now basically just a patch of bare earth.

Your author is sure he has heard a tour guide tell unsuspecting tourists that Giro's ghost haunts the Carlton House Terrace and Waterloo Place to this day, but that's probably just for effect, and ghosts don't even actually exist. For more, click here.

Attend the Hot Cross Bun Ceremony at the Widow's Son

Your author is away for the weekend, so has sought out an Easter idea. A particularly interesting tradition seems to be the Hot Cross Bun Ceremony which has taken place for many years on Good Friday at the Widow's Son, E3.


Shady Old Lady tells us that there was originally a cottage on the site where a widow lived, with her only son, a sailor. He was apparently due to return home on Good Friday 1824 and asked his mother to bake him some hot cross buns.

Her son never returned, but every Good Friday the mother continued to bake for him and had a new bun waiting. Each year a new bun was hung from a beam in her cottage, and when she died they were found there. It became known as the Bun House.

In 1848 the cottage was replaced by a pub but the successive landlords have kept the tradition alive. Each year a member of the Royal Navy is invited to place a freshly baked hot cross bun in a net above the bar. Your author understands the traditional hanging of the bun takes place roughly between two and three o'clock this afternoon at the Widow's Son, Devons Rd, E3 3PJ. For more, see here

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Find the Webb Patent Sewer Gas Lamp

It's another piece of London trivia, but Carting Lane, just off the Strand, is - legend has it - home to London’s Webb Patent Sewer Gas Lamp.


The lamp is a Webb Patent Sewer Gas Lamp, and was invented in the 19th century as a way to draw off smells from underground sewers. It's probably the only of London's remaining gas-powered lamps with operates all the time, day and night.

Over the years, people have hilariously dubbed the lane "Farting Lane" as a result of the lamp's presence and when your author wandered by yesterday at about 3pm the lamp was, sure enough, lit as usual.

Your author understands that the lamp was almost destroyed some time ago by a reversing lorry, but has since been restored and stands proudly beside the Savoy Hotel, which is still undergoing major refurbishments.

For more on gas lighting in London you could try IanVisits or this old post on here.