Fred's Tour   Fred's Blog   Hidden Horrors   Cartoons  

Friday 10 August 2007

Are you aware that Behind the monuments, the palaces, musems and parks of London there lurks evil shadows of the past? Shadows that have been hidden from us. To protect us perhaps, to stop us getting… frightened. I would like to show you these places, to lift up the paving slabs on the streets you walk and unearth the unspoken evils from our city’s murky moments in history.

The recent inclement weather which has caused so much damage across the country has reminded me of the flooding which London has encountered over the years. The last time central London flooded was 1928 when the Thames spilled over the Embankment walls and fourteen people were drowned.

London’s most bizarre flood happened in 1814 when the area around the junction of Oxford Street and the Tottenham Court Road was hit by a damaging deluge of beer. Over a million litres of fermenting alcohol exploded from the decrepit vats of the Horseshoe Brewery and surged through the neighbouring slums. Buildings were destroyed and nine lives were lost as a result of the torrential tipple. The area stank of booze for the next six weeks as desperate parishioners attempted to soak up as much of the dirtied drink as possible. The incident was blamed on an act of God. For some a disaster, for others a miracle.