View allAll Photos Tagged VictoriaEmbankment

This is a magic lantern side showing a magnificent portrait of a Sandwich Board man standing near Cleopatra’s Needle on Victoria Embankment. His Sandwich Board is advertising a Firework display at Alexandra Palace on Thursday 20th September but with no year. I believe this is 1888 when the Firework Company of James Pain produced a gigantic display with a “Lake of Fire”, the “of Fire” can be seen on the lower part of the Sandwich Board. Pain's Fireworks and Brock's fireworks were the two largest manufacturers of Fireworks in Victorian England. The competition was fierce, and each had a ready-made venue at which to display their wares. Brock's held displays at Crystal Palace in South London and Pains at Alexandra Palace in North London. The displays at Alexandra Palace were held throughout the summer as well as the usual dates for Firework displays but in 1888 there was an added attraction during the summer. Thomas Scott Baldwin otherwise known as Professor Baldwin, was an American parachutist which was a novel occupation back then. He would ascend to 1000 feet in a Hydrogen balloon sitting on a trapeze like contraption with the parachute already deployed and tied to the side of the balloon, when he jumped his weight broke the retaining bonds and he would float safely back to earth. He was getting crowds of over 60000 people at every performance but the firework display on 20th September outdid even him and crowds of 65000 plus were reported. Baldwin is now recognised as the father of the modern parachute.

The building at the center is the headquarters of New Scotland Yard, the home of London's famous Metropolitan Police Service. To the left of it is the Norman Shaw Buildings which contain office space for the UK Parliament. To the right of New Scotland Yard is the headquarters for the Ministry of Defence.

Doing a photo walk up the Victoria Embankment, when motorcycle police turned up, blocked the junction to people and traffic and this swept past.

This is a Magic Lantern Slide showing the view looking east in New Bridge Street, City of London, it shows the statue of Queen Victoria who looks roughly west along Victoria Embankment. The sculpture is by Charles Bell Birch who is known for his many London statues, he also sculpted the Griffin on the Temple Bar Memorial outside the Royal Courts of Justice. He was born in Brixton but as a child moved with his parents to Berlin where he studied at the Berlin Royal Academy. As a result of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, he was commissioned to create a statue of Queen Victoria by the Maharana of Udaipur, Futteh Singh, to stand outside the new Victoria Hall in Udaipur, Rajasthan. The statue was made of Carrara marble and the plinth was locally made to the design and model provided by Mr. Birch. The statue was unveiled in late 1889 by Prince Albert Victor, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales who was on a tour of India and Burma. After India’s independence the statue was removed to Victoria Hall where it remains and was replaced by a statue of Gandhi using the same plinth. Victoria Hall is now known as the Saraswati Bhawan Library. The statue in New Bridge Street was given to the City Corporation by Sir Alfred Seale Haslam, he was an Engineer and former Mayor of Derby and Newcastle-Under-Lyme and later M.P. for Newcastle-Under-Lyme. He invented an improved Ammonia compressor used in refrigeration ships which transported frozen meat from Australia and New Zealand. Sir Alfred was a generous man because not only did he give this statue to the City of London, he gave the same statue to Derby and one to Newcastle-Under-Lyme. There were seven more casts made at the Thames Ditton Foundry owned at the time by Moore and Company. The foundry was famous throughout the 19th Century for producing statues for which there was a great demand. One of the other seven casts was sent to Australia where it was erected in Victoria Square, Adelaide, South Australia. In this case the statue was given to the city by local Brewer, Parliamentarian and Philanthropist, Sir Edwin Thomas Smith. He insisted that the Copper and tin to make the Bronze casting come from Australia and both metals were obtained from the Wallaroo mine near the town of Kadina on the Yorke peninsular. That leaves six castings, if you know where they are or what became of them, please feel free. The City of London statue was unveiled on Tuesday 21st July 1896 by the Duke of Cambridge, Queen Victoria’s uncle and head of the British Army for 50 years despite being born in Germany, he was known to the licentious soldiery as “The German Sausage”. The 1st London Volunteer Rifle Corps (City of London Volunteer Rifle Brigade) were in attendance, the Duke was their Colonel-in-Chief, together with the Lord Mayor of London and other Corporation worthies. The City of London police constable is standing by to direct traffic when needed, succeeding generations of City police did the same duty until February 1937 when traffic lights were installed, and the statue was moved several yards to accommodate them. I think that the statue may have been moved since then, if it has, then not by much.

.

Battle of Britain memorial on the Victoria Embankment London. A bronze and granite sculpture by Paul Day.

Thames Path - Vauxhall Bridge to Tower Bridge

(Playing around with the burst effect on Photoshop)

london is full of lights at nights and specially by river thames. here we see london eye and hungerford bridge.

 

EXPLORED

This is an S.S.U. Ltd postcard printed in England and dates from about 1908. The view is of an animated scene looking east from an upper floor of Hampton's Furniture store in Pall Mall East. It shows the National Gallery with its cupola and the recycled columns from Carlton House, St. Martin in the Fields, the far off bulk of either the Hotel Cecil or the Savoy Hotel on Victoria Embankment, Charing Cross Hotel and Morley's Hotel on the east side of Trafalgar Square.

A handy place to stop en route along the new north bank cycle route.

This is a painting by John O'Connor entitled "The Embankment" dating from 1874. O'Connor painted the scene from the terrace of Somerset House looking towards the City of London. As well as the Cityscape he has painted the Bank of England picquet or Guard on their way to the Bank marching along Victoria Embankment which is only two years old.

This is a Wildt & Kray postcard of “British Manufacture” showing the view from Waterloo Bridge looking east along Victoria Embankment towards Blackfriars Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Somerset House is on the left and London County Council Trams wend their way to South London over Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges sometime just before WW1.

This is a Judge's of Hastings postcard, originally published in a sepia tone and dating from the late 1930s. The view is looking northeast from Waterloo Bridge and shows the church of St. Clement Danes in the Strand, the R.R.S. Discovery and a marvellous view of St. Paul's Cathedral.

...with a cheeky little peek of The Shard!

Golden Jubilee Bridge - London, Egland.

 

The Hungerford Bridge crosses the River Thames in London, and lies between Waterloo Bridge and Westminster Bridge. It is a steel truss railway bridge—sometimes known as the Charing Cross Bridge—flanked by two more recent, cable-stayed, pedestrian bridges that share the railway bridge's foundation piers, and which are properly named the Golden Jubilee Bridges.

  

Camera/Lens: Nikon D700; 24-70mm f/2.8;

Exposure: 30.0 sec; Aperture: f/11: ISO: 100 : Focal Length: 24mm;

Copyright 2010 - Yen Baet - All Rights Reserved.

Do not use any of my images without permission.

  

This is a Rotary Company postcard in their “London Life” series and dates from about 1910. The white bearded gent is Edwin Crocker and he has been providing mostly children with “a penny a peep” look at the clock face of Big Ben since the early 1890s. He also sold sweets and guide books from his pitch although I don’t know how he got away with setting up in the middle of the pavement, later photographs show the pitch hard up against the plinth of the Boadicea statue. In December 1926 a newspaper report stated that Mr. Crocker was a former sailor and was about 73 years of age and had been providing his telescope service for thirty-three years. In July 1928 he was dubbed the unluckiest man in London after a Cormorant took up residence at the top of Big Ben and had attracted large crowds to watch it, unfortunately over the few days of the Cormorant’s residence, Mr. Crocker was ill and could not take advantage of this golden opportunity, he carried on his business well into the 1930s. I had never heard of Streimers Nougat before but apparently the confection was made in London at a factory in Stratford, East London, owned by Morris Streimer who was an Austrian immigrant.

The Savoy Place is located at a site originally called Savoy Manor, taking its name from Peter II, Count of Savoy. He was given the land by Henry III on 12 February 1246 and built a palace on the site. After his death in 1268, the property was left to a French hospice.

 

The Savoy Palace was extended by successive Earls of Lancaster and John of Gaunt, but was burnt down during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The palace was modified to become a prison in the 15th century.

 

In 1509, Henry VII left money in his will for a hospital. This was completed on the site in 1517 but it fell into decline and eventually became a military barracks and prison. Various religious institutions were based on the site, including a Jesuit school. The area was also a retreat for Huguenots families. In 1723, a German Lutheran church was built on part of the site, but demolished in 1877 for the construction of the Thames Embankment.

 

The current building (seen above), completed in 1889, was built to serve as an examination hall for the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons. The foundation stone at the front of the building was laid by Queen Victoria on 24 March 1886.

 

On 1 June 1909, the Institution of Electrical Engineers bought the lease and various alterations were carried out by H Percy Adams and Charles Holden. The building is currently the headquarters for the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), formed from the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) and the Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) in 2006.

 

Outside the building, there is a statue of the leading Victorian scientist Michael Faraday by the Irish sculptor John Henry Foley (1818–1874).

 

The building underwent a major internal refurbishment which was completed last year. This is a rework in B&W of an earlier image in my stream.

A view of Victoria Embankment from an RT bus. This is when the tram replacement bus routes still followed the same routes the trams did. This is a view of the Westminster end.

 

April 1970.

Many Thanks Yet Again To doveson2002 For The Excellent Photo On The Left.... www.flickr.com/photos/99487145@N02/17424883518/ Portcullis House Was Complete In 2002....But Westminster Bridge Has Stood Here Since 1862!!....Boadicea and Her Daughters Statue Has Stood Erect Since 1902!!...Norman Shaw Building In The Rear Dates From 1906 And Was Once Home To The Police...Who Will Be Soon Moving Bck In Next Door...The Curtis Green Building...So Quite A Lot Of History Here...And It Is Always Crowded!!!...

STUDENTS DayX3 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

 

Protest and march against University tuition fee increases, 09th Dec. 2010

 

Over 20,000 students from around the country converged on Central London today to march for a third time to protest against the coalition government's plans to

 

massively increase University tuition fees, which will ultimately mean that far fewer students from poorer backgrounds will be able to even consider a University

 

education because of the massive debts incurred which will follow them for the rest of their working lives.

 

I joined the days proceedings in the afternoon as they were assembling in Trafalgar Square. To throw the police off-guard they suddenly took off, en mass, through

 

Admiralty Arch in a bid to get to Parliament Square, which had been forbidden. That evening the House of Commons was voting on the Education Funding Bill, and the

 

students were determined to make sure that Parliament heard their protests.

 

The day started in a good mood, but by the time they reached Parliament pockets of disorder had started breaking out - Flares were lit and thrown, crush barriers and

 

construction site fencing ripped up to be used as weapons against the massed ranks of riot police and later on the mounted police. I had to leave by around 3pm, and by

 

the time I got home and turned on the BBC news all hell had broken loose outside Parliament. Protesters were pelting the police with lumps of masonry, metal poles and

 

scaffolding. They lit large fires, broke down the doors to The Treasury and the new Ministry of Justice buildings, smashing many windows, daubing graffiti everywhere

 

and generally smashing up the joint. Many people were arrested and many people hurt, some badly.

 

As the police gradually started releasing the by-now contained protesters in small numbers, several small groups headed up to Oxford Street, where they smashed the

 

windows of the flagship TopShop store (owned by Sir Phillip Green who is being attacked for shovelling billions of pounds of what should be UK taxable income into tax

 

haven accounts owned by his wife as part of a legal tax dodge), and in Regent Street they engulfed the Bentley containing Prince Charles and his horse-faced wife

 

Camilla who were in the process of swanning orf the the Royal Variety Performance! The protesters started kicking the vehicle. They broke the windows and threw a tin of

 

white paint over the car. One was not amused!

 

Needless to say the Bill was passed in Parliament tonight, and the students have vowed to continue their campaign of demonstration and civil disobedience...

 

All photos ⓒ Pete Riches

 

Please do not use my photos without my prior agreement.

Please do not re-blog my photos without my agreement.

Email: peteriches@gmail.com

Classic Mini Cooper outside the Regency Cafe, London

 

If you like my work, you can also interact with me on Facebook and Twitter .

This is an E.T.W. Dennis postcard probably colourised in Leipzig and dates from about 1904. The Dennis company was one of the oldest publishing companies in the UK, founded in 1870 in Scarborough they produced the first picture postcard in 1894 and were in business until 2000. This familiar view from Hungerford Bridge shows two Thames paddle steamers, one is moored at Waterloo Pier and the other is leaving Charing Cross Pier for a downstream pier, probably Waterloo Pier. The "Rose" was built for the London Steamboat Company in 1880 at Deptford together with her sister "Lilly". They served several companies over the years until 1908 when they were withdrawn from service. Here the "Rose" is shown in the livery of the City Steamboat Company.

This is a Raphael Tuck & Sons “Glosso” postcard showing Victoria Embankment looking east from Cleopatra’s Needle. The needle itself is out of sight on the right, it is flanked by two bronze sphinxes. The needle was installed in late 1878 after an eventful journey from Egypt, the sphinxes, bronze tablets and bronze surround were designed and sculpted by the Architectural firm of C.H. & J. Mabey who had offices in Storey’s Gate. The casting of the bronze sphinxes etc was undertaken by the firm of H. Young & Son at the Eccleston Ironworks in Pimlico. The sphinxes were placed on turntables and were originally placed with the head facing away from the needle, when the sphinxes, each weighing seven tons were installed in late 1881, the heads faced towards the needle. The “mistake” was noticed straight away but it was explained that if the heads faced away from the needle the whole structure would not form an equilateral triangle, I don’t understand it either, but the sphinxes remain the wrong way round to this day. The photograph, which has captured a Bow Street Police Constable dates from between 1903 and 1905.

The aftermath of a Tram leaving the track whilst negotiating the curve coming off Westminster Bridge and entering Victoria Embankment. I think there are one or two Cannon Row PCs at the scene, New Scotland Yard looms in the background. The date is probably post WW2, the last Trams ran on this track in July 1952.

Immediately after meeting a school friend from long, long ago who is now the Member of Parliament for Cleethorpes, I had a chance encounter with another friend, a classic London bus. Now in the care of the Newman family (former proprietors of EnsignBus), RTL453 (KLB648) looked splendid as it passed the Victoria Embankment before taking up a private hire duty.

 

By chance, I was passing the very spot where my father parked the family car on my first-ever visit to London, aged 15 in August 1965. I recall the thrill I felt when I first stepped out, seeing Big Ben and hearing its sonorous chimes, and hearing a departing train rumble over the nearby Hungerford Viaduct.

 

On that first brief visit, we explored London by bus. Most of our rides were on RTL-type buses, rather than the more prevalent RTs. I resolved there and then to pursue my fortune in London as soon as I possibly could - fulfilling that dream from 1972 to 2016. London Transport buses were that catalyst.

Police Constable 649 'A' Tony Phillips, Victoria Embankment, opposite Scotland Yard, London, Circa Mid 1960's. Constable Phillips was attached to one of London's more famous police stations, Cannon Row (AD), 'Alpha Delta'.

  

This picture exemplifies the standards of dress and overall public expectations required of a London police officer during this period.

 

Note, no guns or weighted down equipment belts, kevlar jackets, stab proof vests, machine guns or tasers that we see carried by today's police officers. How times have changed!

 

The Metropolitan Police policy in those days was to post officers over 6 feet tall to Cannon Row Police Station from training school as the station covered a major London tourist area including, Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace, Clarence House, Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and The Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) etc. Cannon Row Police Station was the Headquarters of the Metropolitan Police's 'A' or Whitehall Division.

 

For pictures and information of everyday life at Cannon Row (AD) visit:

 

www.alphadeltaplus.20m.com

 

OR

 

www.flickr.com/photos/hillview7/sets/72157607214191367/wi...

 

OR

 

Archive (1960's) footage of 'Canon Row Police Officers At Work' -No Sound - with short advertisement as lead in

 

PLEASE NOTE THIS PICTURE IS COPYRIGHTED

 

To view a superb video image of London life circa 1930 including Police Officers attached to Cannon Row Police Station (AD) directing traffic at Parliament Square j/w Whitehall & Bridge Street j/w Victoria Embankment, London SW1 click on this link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui63-Zjbcvo

   

Z. D. Berry & Son, Regent Street Westminster is stamped on the base of this handsome cast iron bench. Installed in 1874. The camels follow the Egyptian theme of sphinx benches and Cleopatra's Needle further along the Embankment in the City of Westminster. The camels are in the City of London. They were restored in 2008.

 

Five Seats on Riverside Pavement Opposite Temple Gardens. Grade II listed. Late 19th century Cast iron supports with figures of crouching camels. Wooden slats.

 

All along Victoria and Albert Embankments are beautiful Sturgeon Lamp Standards .The lamps were designed by George John Vulliamy in 1870. The lamps on Victoria Embankment are original but the lamps on Albert Embankment are replicas which were installed to commemorate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977.

  

This is a Magic Lantern Slide showing the preparations in Parliament Square for V-Day which took place on Saturday 8th June 1946. The view is looking east from the middle of Parliament Square, from the left is Bridge Street, the entrance to Westminster Underground Station and St. Stephen’s Club on the corner with Victoria Embankment, the roof line of County Hall can be seen on the south bank of the River Thames; the statue of Viscount Palmerston was removed from the east side to the west side during the 1950 re-modelling of the square. On the right is the Palace of Westminster and the base of the clock tower. The structure being built is a street decoration for the V-Day march past of contingents from all the nations which fought on the allied side during WW2. I can only describe it as the S.H.A.E.F Tower, a tribute to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force headed by General Eisenhower and staffed by senior Military Officers from the allied powers. This is probably late May or early June and the finished tower would have large depictions of the SHAEF emblem which was worn as a shoulder patch by its members, between the columns of the tower. The emblem (see below) consisted of a Gold flaming Crusader’s sword on a black background which represented the Nazi occupation of Europe and above five narrow bands of colour which represented all the colours on the flags of all allied nations, it was topped by a broad band of blue which represented future Peace and Tranquillity. SHAEF was disbanded in July 1945 and replaced by USFET, United States Forces European Theatre, then in 1948 by WUDO, Western Union Defence Organisation, then in 1951 after the NATO treaty was signed in 1949, SHAPE, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. Needless to say, the Soviet dominated countries which were previously allies were not members. I did say that the march past consisted of contingents from all allied powers, this is not strictly true, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Poland did not send contingents and the large Polish population of the UK did not either. The day was marred by the absence of a contingent from the free Polish forces which was the fourth largest contributor in terms of manpower to the allied cause. In 1945 the new Labour Government had recognised the Soviet puppet regime in Poland as the legitimate Government of Poland and not the Government in exile which had been based in London throughout the war. In April 1946 the Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin sent a letter to all the Poles still living in the UK urging them to return to Poland, he didn’t get many takers for obvious reasons. There was an outcry in Parliament regarding the situation and a group of Polish pilots who had fought in the Battle of Britain were invited to take part in the march past, they declined because of the existing invitation to the Government of Poland, so in the end no Pole took part. This has been a running sore in the Polish community ever since and it was only in 2005 on the 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe that a free Polish contingent took the lead in the march past down the Mall after the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair had apologised to the Polish community for a previous Labour Government’s omission. The march past in 1946 also ended up in the Mall at the saluting base opposite Marlborough Road where King George VI and Queen Elizabeth took the salute.

New in December 1973 and entering service the same month, this was the very first Leyland Atlantean AN68/1R for Nottingham City Transport, previously purchased being the PDR/1 examples.

 

Bodied by East Lancashire Coachbuilders, in Blackburn to a capacity of 47 upstairs and 30 downstairs with a dual door layout, it was one of a batch of 45 vehicles which entered service on the OTO---M registrations throughout 1973/4.

 

With the exception of the first few months of its service life, the bus operated almost exclusively on West Bridgford routes from the Trent Bridge depot.

 

The bus was withdrawn from operations in May 1988 when a number of brand new E-reg Volvo Citybuses entered service, only to be stored at Bulwell depot, then relicensed in the end of the summer for one more winter of service.

 

In 1989, Confidence in Leicester took the bus on for private hire work and school runs, proving to be a reliable workhorse for them for well over a decade!!

 

This was the first Nottingham vehicle Nottingham Heritage Vehicles acquired for preservation, whilst under their original Notts & Derby Heritage Transport Group banner in December 2000.

 

Restoration works commenced in 2004, with most of the framework and outer panels replaced, brake actuators replaced, wheelarches reskinned and painted, mud flaps fitted, bonnet hood exchanged for new, the corner units removed and refitted, a new exhaust system fitted, replacement air tanks, a refurbished motor and new batteries!!

 

The bus was then rubbed down to bare metal late in 2004, before being repainted in 2005, the bus finally repainted by that September.

 

The interior was then looked at, with all seats being reupholstered, and seats frames cleaned.

 

And here's the result....!! Hard to think this Atlantean is approaching 42 years old.

 

540 basks in the sunshine at Nottingham City Council's Riverside Festival with a number of people having a nosey inside and out the vehicle, the parents probably remembering these in service back in the day.

This is a found Kodachrome slide dated April 1972. It shows an AEC Regent bus turning into Horse Guards Avenue from Victoria Embankment en route to pick up more sightseers on the sightseeing No. 100 route in the Avenue outside the Ministry of Defence.

ST922 is the sole survivor of a Tilling ST with open staircase and entered service with Thomas Tilling, a prolific south London operator, in November 1930. The bus was taken into London Transport stock with the formation of that company in 1933. Later it was kept at Tunbridge Wells garage as a “Guard Room” from August-December 1940, and then sent on loan to the Birmingham & Midland Motor Omnibus Co, Smethwick from December 1941 to November 1944. On return to London, it stayed in service until the end of 1946. In early 1947, it was then converted into a mobile staff canteen, serving as fleet number 693 J, until withdrawal in November 1954. Disposal was to British Road Services in May 1955, passing to a dealer, until purchased by Mr P Marshall for restoration in December 1966. It eventually returned to London service, on sight seeing route 100 in the early 1970s. It was re-certified for passenger service to run for London Transport on daily seasonal sightseeing duties. Even more remarkable was the extremely high level of reliability of ST 922 during its “summer seasons” when operating generally for around 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The bus now resides at Cobham Hall bus museum.

The home of the City of London School from 1882 to 1986.

 

This Victoria Embankment building, overlooking the River Thames at Blackfriars, a grand building said to be in the Italian Renaissance style but actually in a high Victorian style with a steep pitched roof resembling that of a French chateau, was designed by Davis and Emanuel and constructed by John Mowlem & Co at a cost exceeding £100,000 (over £9,350,000 in 2015). The designers designed the school as "amazingly unscholastic, rather like a permanent Exhibition Palace."

 

On the front of the building are statues of Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Newton and Sir Thomas More with "the first four emphasising the school's literary and scientific traditions [and] the last being a religious martyr, a famous lawyer and the author of Utopia."

 

The building remained the home of the school for 100 years, although the site expanded to include not only the original building (above) itself, but a range of buildings at right angles along the whole of John Carpenter Street (to the left of shot), which was named after the founder of the school, and further buildings constructed at the back along Tudor Street, with the school playground, Fives courts and cloisters enclosed within the site. These other buildings were demolished when the school moved to its present site in 1986.

 

Here the school was adjacent to the City of London School for Girls, which was founded by the City of London Corporation as a sister school in 1894 and moved in 1969 to its present site in the Barbican, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama which has also since moved to the Barbican. It was also next to the traditional home of the British newspaper industry in Fleet Street.

 

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest. It is presently occupied by the investment bank JPMorgan and it appeared on the left of the famous Thames Television ident for 20 years from 1968 to 1989. The building still features the school's name above the door.

 

Former pupils (Old Citizens) who have attained eminence in various fields are Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, the Reverend Theodore Bayley Hardy, VC DSO MC, Nobel Prize–winning scientist Peter Higgs, former England cricket captain Mike Brearley and Booker Prize-winning authors Kingsley Amis and Julian Barnes.

View from the London Eye, South Bank of the Thames river. Standpoint close to Waterloo Railroad Station.

Victoria Embankment, London.

The lines on this photo don't lead anywhere but maybe that is why I like it, it is an observation of connection or rather the lack thereof. London is a fascinating place but crazy, strange, lonely. These days many people jog in their lunch hour, that's okay, good for them, but in London especially along the embankment they do it with a kinda fury, oblivious to whoever else is passing, ducking and diving in between folks, on an urgent mission like streams of lemmings. More than once in the short time it took me to walk between two bridges I was bumped into, twirled around and nearly knocked to the ground. No sorry or even an acknowledgment that I exist. Then I came across an opposite set of people like the ones in this photo, equally oblivious but quiet, still, engrossed, switched into an alternative ether via their cell phones. A sad reflection on modern city life. What do you think?

This is a W. H. Smith postcard in their Kingsway Real Photo series showing the scene looking north towards the Victoria Embankment from the south bank with from the left, The Adelphi, The Hotel Cecil, The Savoy Hotel and the Medical Examination Hall. Travelling upstream in line with Cleopatra’s needle is a paddle steamer belonging to the City Steamboat Company operating a former London County Council paddle steamer. In the foreground are a number of dumb barges and another two paddle steamers in City livery also formerly LCC paddle steamers, the boat on the left nearest the camera is a screw driven steamer also belonging to the City Steamboat Company. When the ill fated LCC river bus service was wound up in 1907 several of the boats were moored at this location between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge until they were all sold by auction in 1909. Twelve of the thirty boats were bought by the City Steamboat Company and used on the Thames, some were sold on and that was the fate of “PS Raleigh” which is the paddle steamer on the right, it was sold to a company in Belgium. When the boats were built, they cost the LCC £6000.00 each, the “Raleigh” was sold to the City Company for £393.00, they probably made a profit when they sold it on. This is probably 1910 or 1911. The Adelphi and The Hotel Cecil were demolished in the early 1930s, The Adelphi was replaced by The New Adelphi which is an Art Deco building and the Hotel Cecil was replaced by Shell Mex House which is also Art Deco. The Savoy Hotel and the Medical Examination Hall still stand but the Hall has been given a new façade and is no longer recognisable as the same building.

The River Thames | Victoria Embankment | London

 

The River Thames, London from Victoria Embankment on the lunchtime of Wednesday 26-03-2025.

The London Eye seen from Victoria Embankment.

1 2 ••• 8 9 11 13 14 ••• 79 80