Monday, May 8, 2017

15 Facts About London

1. The Houses of Parliament are officially known as the Palace of Westminster and it is the largest palace in the country.
2. The Palace of Westminster has eight bars, six restaurants, 1,000 rooms, 100 staircases, 11 courtyards, a hair salon, and rifle-shooting range.
3. It is illegal to die in the Palace of Westminster.
4. Big Ben is the bell, not the clock tower. Its chime is in the key of E.
5. Unusual street names in London include Ha Ha Road in Greenwich, Hooker's Road in Walthamstow, Quaggy Walk in Blackheath, and Cyclops Mews and Uamvar Street in Limehouse.
6. Jimi Hendrix lived at 23 Brook Street, which has been used as offices but is now being converted into a museum.
7. Two doors down at 25 Brook Street is where the composer Handel lived from 1723 to his death in 1759, and that flat has already been tyrnes into a museum.
8. Only one house where Charles Dickens lives still stands, at 48 Doughty Street, which is now a museum. He lived there from 1837 and 1839, and it's where he wrote Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers.
9. Manette Street in Soho is named after the character from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens describes the street having a golden arm — the one above Goldbeaters' House was built in modern times to match his description.
10. Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club on Frith Street was the site of Jimi Hendrix's last public performance in 1970.
11. The reading room at the British Museum is where Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital in between bouts of getting very drunk and asking Friedrich Engels to lend him more money.
12. Until 1994 there were no "Road"s in the City of London, and now there's only one, Goswell Road, which became part of the Square Mile in 1994 after boundary changes. There are plenty of Lanes, Streets, and Ways, but public paths weren't generally referred to as roads until the 16th century.
13. Before the statue of Nelson was placed on top of the 17-foot-tall column in Trafalgar Square in 1842, 14 stone masons had dinner at the top.
14. Hitler wanted to dismantle Nelson's column and rebuild it in Berlin.
15. Perhaps the strangest pub name is I Am the Only Running Footmanin Mayfair.

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