Four New Blue Plaques NW5

OK, this was another weekend blue plaque visit, I'm going to try and up the amount I'm visiting during the week otherwise I'll still be doing this for approximately another four years

I was going to try and see a couple on Saturday down in Putney as I was visiting friends in the area but I ended up working on the Blue Plaque Website all day instead, whilst Jess read the new Harry Potter. Those are on the backburner for now, but it'll be a good excuse to visit my Putney pals again soon.

On Sunday we were meeting Jess's step mum, Jane Ogden for a meal in the evening so we invited her along for a bit of blue plaque spotting during the afternoon. We arranged to meet in Kentish town for lunch and headed up to a pub called The Pineapple mainly as I had seen a stop motion animation video featuring it on youtube and was feeling a bit web 2.0, mixing up the online and offline to create what I call Web 2.go. See it online and then go see the real thing.

After a great meal we headed off to the first spot. Burghley Road is a quite residential road just off Fortress Rd in Kentish town. We found the plaque about half way up ,dedicated to Kwame Nkrumah the first president of Ghana.

For a man that accomplished so much in his life, it was an extremely normal looking home, but I imagine that I will see this again again and again over the coming months.











We nearly couldn't see the next plaque as it almost completely obscured by scaffolding, but standing on a railing on the other side of the street I managed to take this shot. This was the home of the painter Ford Maddox Brown who lived here from around 1855 he worked with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. You can see an example of some of Ford Madoxs' work here

Those were the only two in north NW5 so we headed back down past Kentish town tube to the property I'd been most looking forward to all day.





George Orwell lived at 50 Lawford Road from 1935 to 1936. Having read 1984 as a teenager I had been really keen to see something more of the man that had first made me enjoy reading for pleasure. During his time here he finished another one of his most famous works, Keep the Aspidistra Flying













Just around the corner was our last stop of the day, Camden School for Girls. The blue plaque here to to recognise the work of Frances Mary Buss who was headmistress here from 1879- 1894. She is remembered for her work pioneering the right for an equal education for women.


Adam suggested I add a link to the Plaques I've been to see. So here you go

Not a bad weekends Blue plaquing, but must try harder during the week

OK, feeling a bit bad about not updating the blog since last Saturday but am aiming to get a few in this week as I've inadvertently found quite a few on my daily commute to work.

Anyway, the last blue plaques that I went to visit were all local quick wins. We were off to visit some friends in Hertfordshire and had an hour or so in the morning spare. After figuring out where they were on google maps I jotted the addresses down and we hopped on the bikes and headed down to the first of the five I hoped to find.

Currently a branch of Waterstones, 10-11 IslingtonGreen, is the former Collins Music Hall. During its heyday from 1885 onwards the biggest stars of the day inclusding Arthur Lloyd








Just around the corner is the former house of Charles Lamb, 64 Duncan Terrace, who is also known as Elia (Elia being the pen name he used as a contributer to The London Magazine). He lived here with his sister who had been placed in his care after she had murdered their mother in a fit of madness. During his time working at East India House, on being told by his bosses that he was always late to arrive, he would quip "Yes, but see how early I leave!"

*update 20-07-2007 (note the date!) I have just found some audio recordings of Charles Lambs work that you can listen to here





A couple of minutes on the bike later saw us outside 4 Claremont Square this was the home of Edward Irving, founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church. Of all the five this was the least impressive being just off a very busy road and in desparate need of a lick of paint.




If the previous one was pretty unimpressive 25 Highbury Place stands statesman like overlokking Highbury Fields. The home of Joseph Chamberlain the former Politician and father of the prime minister to be, Neville Chamberlain, I've walked past the property dozens of times without ever noticing the dark brown, square plaque that sits on the front of the building.

This was a flying visit but very interesting to see Highbury and Islingtons blue plaques that are only minutes from our home.

After a great night we headed over to our hosts pub, The Vine in Ware for some lunch and a few drinks before heading back to london. On the walk home after getting off at stoke newington we passed a pub called The Daniel Defoe and looking up I saw that the adjacent road was called Defoe Road, it was Jess that pointed out his blue plaque high above what is now a dry cleaners on the corner of Defoe Road and Stoke Newington Church St. Real proof that even when you go out looking for Londons History it will still throw up a few surprises!

The First Blue Plaque Visit - Luke Howard "Namer of Clouds"

So this is my first blog post for www.blueplaquelondon.co.uk. I wanted to start the site and the blog as I've always felt a strong affinity with London's history, and it seems to me that their are few better, representations of this than English Heritages blue plaque scheme. Over the next year or so I hope to be able to make a personal visit to the 800+ buildings that have been home or work to the people deemed by English heritage to have met it's tough criteria.



So last Friday, 6th July 2007 Jess and I headed up to Tottenham Hale to visit the plaque of Luke Howard "The namer of clouds" I'd never heard his name before and was very surprised by what an important contribution he had made to our heritage and the world of meteorology. In 1803 Luke Howard published a paper called Essay on the Modification of Clouds in which he outlined what he thought should be the process for classifying clouds. So the names that we are all familiar with today, such as, stratus, cirrus and cumulus began to be used across the world to
describe the different formations in the sky.

The visit was a bit upsetting, in that the house has fallen into a state of disrepair, with broken windows and lots of surrounding it. It would be nice to see such a historic building being treated as well as it treated it's most famous resident as Luke Howard went on to live until the ripe old age of 91!

After the photos we took a walk up near the Lockwood reservoir. The sky was so huge up there it was easy to imagine Luke Howard stood in the very same spot 200 years ago looking up in to the sky planning his groundbreaking paper.

In the second photo below you can just make out Canary Wharf between the two pylons in the centre of the shot.