Last week’s blog asked for a family name. The answer was ‘Stanhope’, recently topical owing to the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery, one of whose founders was the 5th Earl Stanhope. NPG, new entrance The story of the Stanhopes could be said to start with Philip Stanhope, (1584-1656) created 1st Earl of Chesterfield, by Charles I in 1628. He was a royalist in the civil war, imprisoned and eventually died under house arrest in Covent Garden. His wife, Catherine Hastings, had 13 children and from these are descended the Earls of Chesterfield. But Philip had a second wife, Anne Packingto ..read more

Friday, 11 August, 3pm -Hidden Westminster Answer the question below for the ‘buy one get one free’ offer for Friday’s walk. PRIZE QUIZ This week’s challenge is tricky but I hope you enjoy looking up some of the items. Which family name links the following: A long awaited event in London in June A monument in a Dublin park ‘A wit among lords and a lord among wits’ An intrepid female traveller A country house in Kent A founding governor of the Foundling hospital in Bloomsbury Our first prime minister (open to debate!) A previous lover of the wife of one of the Dukes of Buckingham A forme ..read more

George Bernard Shaw was born on 26th July 1856 George Bernard Shaw One of only two men to receive an Academy Award and a Nobel prize. He didn’t think much of the latter, saying ‘only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel prize’. He wrote in a rotating shed to maximise use of the available sunlight. He campaigned for a new phonetic alphabet to promote literacy. He thought eating was a troublesome necessity. Vegetarian and teetotal, he also avoided tea and coffee. Find out more about Shaw, his play Pygmalion, his Westminster friends, and the Nobel prize on one of my Friday afternoo ..read more

So where is this new cocktail bar?! Answers by email to: info@walkinglondonhistory.com Do you need a clue?: “I really must organise a tour there soon!” Public tours coming up soon include: Tuesday 25th 2pm Strand and Embankment Wednesday 26th 2pm Westminster Thursday 27th 11am Mayfair Book through the website or, better still, simply email me. And if you would like a private tour again please email: info@walkinglondonhistory.com ..read more

Parliament SquareEmbankment Gardens Two open spaces. Embankment Gardens and Parliament Square. Can you find a link between them? Clue in the photo below. So who are they? And was there something a little unusual about how they met? Discover more on a walk around the Embankment Gardens and Strand area. For dates use the link below: Walks in London ..read more

1 The crown in the photo is the Imperial State Crown. Charles III was crowned with St Edward’s crown. After retreating to St Edward’s chapel he emerged wearing the Imperial State crown for the procession to Buckingham Palace. It’s a much lighter and more valuable crown 2 Henry IV’s head was allegedly full of lice Henry IV 3 The almost blind Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple, placed the crown the wrong way round on the head of Edward VII. The Archbishop died before the end of the year. 4 The queen who refused to have anything to do with her husband’s coronation was Marie Antoinette in ..read more

A coronation quiz. Email the answers to info@walkinglondonhistory. com Which crown is this? 2. Which king’s head was allegedly full of lice when he was crowned? 3. On which king’s head did the Archbishop of Canterbury place the crown back to front? 4. Which king’s queen simply refused to take part in the coronation? 5. Which king’s queen insisted on taking part but was turned away at the door of the Abbey? 6. Which 17th century king abandoned the traditional pre-coronation procession but spent £100,000 on his queen’s jewels and dresses? (that is £100,000 in ‘old money’ not current values-i ..read more

1821 “If any person denies our most gracious sovereigns, our king and queen of England, then he is a false hearted traitor and a liar, and I, as Champion, do challenge him to single combat”. The tradition of the monarch’s ‘Champion’ throwing down the gauntlet during the coronation banquet in Westminster Hall was introduced at the crowning of William I’s queen, Matilda in 1068, and featured in coronations until that of George IV in 1821. The tradition ended when William III dispensed with the banquet in 1831. The first Champion was Robert de Marmion who was granted the manor of Scrivelsbury in ..read more

An operatic soprano, born in Venice. She leased a house in Soho Square which became London’s entertainment hotspot, specialising in masked balls and banquets. Her concerts featured Johann Christian Bach. She introduced a one-way traffic system to control the crowds flocking to her venue. She had a child by Casanova. At one point she controlled all the theatres in The Austrian Netherlands. She was imprisoned for debt in Paris, after which she returned to England under a false name and died of breast cancer in Fleet debtors’ prison. Mentioned by Laurence Sterne, Dickens, Thackeray and Tobias Sm ..read more

Odette Hallows was an agent for the Special Operations Executive who survived the second world war but only at the cost of repeated interrogation at the hands of the Gestapo during which she lost all her toenails and enduried three months’ solitary confinement in complete darkness on starvation rations in an underground bunker. She witnessed others screaming from torture and cannibalism by starving prisoners. How did she survive? Perhaps she had been toughened by suffering temporary blindness and paralysis as a child. Her approach was “surviving another minute – that was experiencing another ..read more