Trafalgar Square - Eat Yer Heart Out

This one's all a bit last-minute; if it's been planned for much longer than a week I certainly haven't known about it. But hey - it's all over the place now, and, despite the council having chosen what is probably the least convenient time to have a consultation, it might be a wise idea to hove your way down to Devonport House at some point this weekend (between 19th and 21st December) to see all five possible options (six if there;s a 'do nothing' button) for the pedestrianisation of Greenwich town centre.

Now - I have to say that in principle I have no objection to this. In fact I rather like it. I'm guessing that few Greenwichians would object to the idea - and it would do the place no harm at all for encouraging tourists. It's the guys from outside the area who use us as a rat-run between further into town and the Blackwall Tunnel that will be getting hot under the collar - but there are levels of pedestrianisation and it would do us all good to decide exactly how far we'd want to go with it.

The options range from just cutting off College Approach and making Nelson Road two-way (easiest but a potential log-jam) all the way through to a giant one-way system just outside the centre (elegant but making you go a long way round - which might not be so bad at that), with various permutations along the way.

Those of you in the Greenwich Society will have received a letter about this - it's been forwarded to me several times (thanks, guys) but it's all a bit complex to explain here.

There's only a small window of discussion here as the council want the new system in for (surprise, surprise) the Olympics, hence the awkward date of the consultation. Do try to get along if you can...

Sailor Billy

He's the one everyone forgets - the last of the Hanoverian kings, in between George IV (who is forever engraved on my heart as played by Hugh Laurie) and Victoria (Judi Dench). And he was, frankly, a bit forgotten in his own time too. William IV wasn't ever really meant to be king - he was a third son and he managed to slip through life to the age of 64 as merely a slight embarrassment to the Royal family.

The family did what they always do with younger sons - stuck him in the services - he joined the navy, where he had a marvellous time, doing all the things that sailors traditionally did, bar much in the way of fighting. He did his share of the cooking, a lot of drinking and a little brawling. He was a great pal of Nelson - he insisted on giving the bride away when Nelson married.

He wanted to be a Duke, but the king wasn't having any of it, so William threatened to enter the House of Commons (this was still in the days of rotten boroughs - he was going to buy Totnes) and the king acquiesced at the thought of William on the hustings. He became the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Munster was thrown in for good measure. He was a bit of a loose cannon - he said he was a Whig, but he really just did random stuff - such as opposing the abolition of slavery, saying it wouldn't do the slaves any good to be freed, which on reflection probably wasn't the strongest argument for the case.

A whole load of stuff happened during his seven year reign between 1830 and 1837 - not least the end of those pesky rotten boroughs - but he himself wasn't a particularly exciting king (though I guess after George IV anything must have seemed a breath of fresh air...) There were good and bad things about his reign - he was the last king to install a prime minister against the will of Parliament, for example - but on the plus side he gave most of George IV's paintings to the nation.

I guess what most people remember him for is his relationship with the actress/courtesan Mrs Jordan, with whom he had a staggering ten children. Since none of them were legitimate, when he died the throne went to his niece Victoria though it's possible that the illegitimate kids will have the last laugh - Wikipedia tells me that Tory leader David Cameron is a descendant of one of them...

So why am I writing about Sailor Billy today? Well - because something seems to be happening to him in Greenwich. Our statue of him originally stood in King William Street in the City - here's an old pic:

It was moved to Greenwich in 1936 to fill the gap left by the demolition of St Mary's Church just by the main gate to Greenwich Park, where he's quietly stood ever since, surrounded by a beech hedge and, if memory serves, low stones marking the perimeters of the old church.

I was walking past last week and I saw the hedge had gone, replaced by builders' hoardings. Poor old Billy stood alone in a sea of mud. I can only assume it's part of the new Sammy Ofer wing.

But - can they do this? I have heard rumour that no one actually knows who owns that land - and that underneath the grass still lie vaults with graves and bodies in.

I don't know anything at all about this - but would be very interested to hear if the rumours are true - and if so, how the NMM has managed to sneakily disturb Billy's peace...

Views News

Now here's something you won't hear me say very often:

Hooray for the Mayor.

He has restored the width of the protected corridors of vista on 11 classic views in the City - two of which are on our stamping ground.

Ken narrowed the vistas in 2007 - down to 70 metres in some places, so that developers could build skyscrapers in front of famous views, changing them forever. Boris has reversed Ken's decision, saying "We are privileged to enjoy a fabulous architectural heritage and history as we go about our daily lives. We must protect those views at all costs."

Right n'all.

So The Phantom's General Wolfe's famous view from Observatory Hill now has the much more generous vista of 300m through to St Paul's, as has the lesser-known but clear winner (by a long chalk) of the Phantom's Best View in Greenwich Poll, The Point.

Councils cannot approve a building that obstructs St Paul's, and must not allow a development that would bring "an intrusive element in the view's fore or middle ground." Sadly projects already approved during Ken's tenure are not affected.

Boris has even created two new vistas, though unfortunately that wonderful nearly-local one that peeps through the trees at Nunhead Cemetery through to St Paul's is not one of them :-(

I am, of course, delighted about Boris's change in the rules. But I foresee problems in the future as this vista-thing is used as the planning development equivalent of the Hokey-Cokey every time we get a new mayor with a different agenda - or developers in their pocket...

Caution - May Contain Fingernails...

They kept this one quiet, folks. A bizarre artefact dug up back in 2004 in Greenwich has turned out to be a 17th Century Witch Bottle - complete with its frankly unsavoury contents.

It's no magic lamp. You didn't rub it for a witch to pop out and grant your every wish; it was more an insurance policy against witches casting evil spells on you.

You got yourself a bottle - this one's a salt-glazed 9" job (which I'm informed is a Bellarmine jar - there's a splendid one in Greenwich Heritage Centre found near the Woolwich Ferry) with a flower and a jolly beardy face stamped into it (it's either The Green Man - or our very own Rod in a former life*) and filled it up with urine, to represent the witch's bladder.

Then you added a sprinkling of nails, pins, hair, fingernails - anything that would be seriously uncomfortable to said witch every time she needed a pee.

Recipe complete, you stoppered the whole lot up and gave it a good shake. The witch would be in such agony she'd reverse the spell. Bish-bosh...

As a final precuation, you buried it in the back garden.

Because Greenwich gets all the best finds, ours is the only one ever that's been found complete with its contents - yup, including that 17th Century wee-wee. Usually they're found empty - or whoever's unearthed them has taken one sniff and tipped the whole lot down the sink.

But when the Maritime Trust dug this up, they shook it and it splashed around, despite being sealed, so they did the right thing and sent it Alan Massey, who's an expert on such things.

The New Scientist's article tells me that he did some CT scans and X-rays,which revealed urine, bent nails, a nail-pierced leather 'heart,' fingernail clippings hair and belly-button fluff. What I want to know is how any one found enough of the latter to know it was naval fluff...


Interestingly, a sample of the 380 year-old urine, after being carefully syringed out (now there's a job...) showed that whoever supplied it was a smoker, and the nail clippings were manicured, so they were procured from someone who didn't have to work all day long...

And finally, slooshing around in that lot, was some brimstone, just in case the hell-fire, damnation and naval-fluff didn't work...

Blimey.

All this puts me in mind of a very strange (and little-known) character called Edward Lovett, who used to hang around these parts, collecting strange folkloric objects, many of which have ended up in the delightfully eccentric Cuming Museum and the equally-curious Wellcome Collection.

Which brings me rather neatly to an event this Sunday (7th) and the following Sunday (14th June, where Ross Macfarlane, who I heard speaking on this very subject a few weeks ago, will be conducting a Medical London Walk around Greenwich.

It's the one included in the very fine Medical London boxed set and, if the rain holds off, one that I can recommend wholeheartedly.

But I'm going off-topic. For my Londonist friends, I am on the case about exactly where the witch bottle was dug up. It's not as easy as it first looks - it was found by the Maritime Trust - who look after the Cutty Sark - and I can't see that they would have been digging 1.5 metres under the dry dock at that time. Or at all for that matter. Breaking seals on dry docks are generally not recommended...

However they were also responsible for the Gipsy Moth IV, which, if memory serves, left Greenwich in 2004. She was in dry dock too; I can't remember what happened to that, maybe it was demolished. More research is needed...

Update: I have now heard that it was discovered in a cellar and is in posession of the Greenwich Foundation. Just where that mystery cellar is, is still - well - a mystery...

Hopefully more will be revealed when I get my sweaty paws on the full report on ye olde witch bottle in the latest edition ofBritish Archaeology. And I've heard that the bottle itself will eventually go on show at the Naval College - in the new Discovery Centre, perhaps?

A tip of the tricorn to Roger for flagging this up...

*Just joshing there, folks. The Hairy One is supposed to be a German civic dignitary, sumbolising prosperity. The name 'Bellarmine' was a snigger at the unpopular Cardinal Bellarmine, partially because he persecuted Protestants, but mainly for his opposition to alcohol...

Thames Oysters

Scared of Chives has just sent me this link to an announcement by the mayor that as from November we'll be able to use Oyster cards on the Thames Clippers, which is obviously good news, especially since if we do, we get a reduction on the price.

He's also introducing a new service - sadly for us, only between London Bridge and Canary Wharf - a shame - it would have been nice to go to Greenwich. But with rail and road getting so full, maybe he'll look at putting in more boats that go further - perhaps to Woolwich or even Thamesmead - in future. For the moment, though, a small victory for the commuter...

Now let's see Pay As You Go Oysters useable on the trains...

Pun-Free Snow Pictures Headline

What can I say that hasn't already been said about the weather? Heaviest snow for 18 years, bin lids for toboggans, no rail information 'due to weather,' yadda, yadda.

Every website going has dozens of pictures, and terrible snow-puns. Me? I'll just go for the first. Thank you so much, everyone who's sent in pics. I haven't included here any sent on Flickr as I am a Phantom of such little brain I can't work out how to get them off the Flickr pages - soz...

I may well do aother batch later - hell - everyone likes pics of snow, don't they...

Rod was responsible for the fine photo of Yours Truly above. He also sent me the fab aerial shot and the gates as most of us have never seen them before.


But ultimately on days like this, everyone just heads for the park. And this ghostly pic of the Observatory is just a little deceptive. The place was crawling with people - Rod must have got up pretty early to get this.

It was as crowded as it gets on a sunny day in August, as Emma's pics show:

I just adore this snowman and his dog - how many hours did that take..?