Broad Street in Oxford, now pedestrianised with car parking removed and seats added

'The Buffet.' (1934) Danila Vassilieff rejected all forms of academic training, believing it would ruin the natural rhythm of his work. The work in his solo shows in 1930s London, was praised for its spontaneity and distinct use of colour.

5 yrs in Cabinet, under 4 PMs, in 8 ministerial roles, across 5 depts. Brandon, this reads more like a GCSE maths question than a resignation. Like your political career, this letters is multitasking - vacillating between a CV, a scrapbook and a tribute act. 13/20

St Crispin is the Patron saint of shoemakers and you’ve certainly cobbled this together. Top marks for brevity, lovely handwriting & delivery by goose. You end with the literary equivalent of a curtsey, ‘I have the honour to remain et cetera…’ X11 out of XX.

'Kensington Gardens' || Early 20th century || Rex Vicat Cole

(Leighton House Museum)

The Talgarth Road - before it was widened in the 1950s into a 6 lane beast of a road cutting through West London.

The magnificent frontispiece to Thomas Rowlandson’s English Dance of Death from 1815.

With all eyes on Westminster, I thought I'd offer a view before the Houses of Parliament were even built. Taken in June 1841, from the window of his flat in Cecil Street, this is Fox Talbot's view towards Westminster Abbey 181 years ago, amongst the very earliest photos of London

Had a drink with some mates tonight. Thanks ⁦Brian Klaas⁩ for organising. The finest minds of their generation…and me.

I’m intrigued - getting a lot of new followers this evening and can’t work out why. Lovely to have you though!

Flooding in Hammersmith,
1928

Stanley Gardens, Notting Hill in 1900

DID YOU KNOW?

Epping Forest (just outside London) was in the process of being Enclosed and made private in the 19th century, but a campaign of mass trespass forced the government to place it in common hands. This 1871 image was made just months after a demonstration there. 1/9

Chatting to Brian Hagger’s daughter, Row Rowena Hagger-Utting a real high point recently, as are the excerpts from her work to organise her Dad’s archives.

This painting, ‘North End Road, Fulham’ was exhibited in the RA Summer Show of 1975 and is posted with her kind permission.

Back in Time West London Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Morning commuters on London Bridge, 1958

Billionaire banker and former president of the Oxford University Conservative association, Guy Hands, tells #r4today that the Conservative Party and Brexit is turning Britain into the 'sick man of Europe' with a 'doomed' economy that will eventually need bailing out by the IMF.