Modern-day London abounds with a multitude of gardens, enclosed by railings & surrounded by houses, which attest to the English love of nature. These green enclaves, known as squares, are among the most distinctive & admired features of the metropolis & are England's greatest contribution to the development of European town planning & urban form. Traditionally, inhabitants who overlooked these gated communal gardens paid for their maintenance & had special access to them. As such, they have long been synonymous with privilege, elegance, & prosperous metropolitan living. They epitomize the classical notion of rus in urbe, the integration of nature within the urban plan
- a concept that continues to shape cities to this day. Todd Longstaffe-Gowan delves into the history, evolution, & social implications of squares, which have been an important element in the planning & expansion of London since the early 17th century. As an amenity that fosters health & well-being & a connection to the natural world, the square has played a crucial role in the development of the English capital.
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The iconic London Taxi is the only vehicle in the world to be specifically designed for hire work in cities, & since its introduction a great variety of taxis have travelled the streets of the capital. Illustrated throughout with many black & white photographs, ” The London Taxi” follows the development of the taxi, painting an image of the changing lifestyles of Londoners through the context of the growing cab trade & the many different styles of taxi that have served the people of London. ...

Much has been written about London`s terraced houses with their simple dignity, their economical use of space & their sense of comfort & human scale. Yet the small gardens that lie before or behind the houses in this great city have until now been overlooked. In this groundbreaking account of the development of the private garden in London, eminent garden historian Todd Longstaffe-Gowan provides a delightful remedy to the oversight. Recognising the contribution of modest domestic gardens to the texture of eighteenth- & early nineteenth-century London, Longstaffe-Gowan explores in detail the small gardens, their owners & their significance to the development of the metropolis. Some two hundred illustrations enhance this rich & fascinating discussion. Town gardening was conventionally maligned as a trifling pursuit conducted within inhospitable & infertile enclosures. This view changed during the eighteenth century as middle class Londoners found in gardening activities an outlet for personal enjoyment & expression. This book describes how gardening affected the lives of many, becoming part of the ritual of the daily round & gratifying material aspirations. Longstaffe-Gowan charts how the private garden became for the first time a common expectation, how the rise of town gardening coincided with new social & economic views, how temporary fanciful gardens became popular, how gardens in the city related to suburban gardens & much more about the origins & growth of domestic gardens in London. Todd Longstaffe-Gowan is a landscape architect in private practice in London. He is gardens adviser to Hampton Court Palace & has worked as a landscape architect on the conservation of historic parks & gardens & the design of new landscapes in Britain, on the Continent & in the West Indies. ...

” The London Train” is a novel in two parts, separate but wound together around a single moment, examining in vivid detail two lives stretched between two cities. Paul lives in the Welsh countryside with his wife Elise, & their two young children. The day after his mother dies he learns that his eldest daughter Pia, who was living with his ex-wife in London, has moved out from home & gone missing. He sets out in search of Pia, & when he eventually finds her, living with her lover in a chaotic flat in a tower block in King`s Cross, he thinks at first he wants to rescue her. But the search for his daughter begins a period of unrest & indecision for Paul: he is drawn closer to the hub of London, to the excitements of a life lived in jeopardy, to Pia`s fragile new family. Paul`s a pessimist; when a heat wave scorches the capital week after week he fears that they are all `sleep-walking to the edge of a great pit, like spoiled trusting children`. In the opposite direction, Cora is moving back to Cardiff, to the house she has inherited from her parents. She is escaping her marriage, & the constrictions & disappointments of her life in London. At work in the local library, she is interrupted by a telephone call from her sister-in-law & best friend, to say that her husband has disappeared. Connecting both stories is the London train, & a chance meeting that will have immediate & far-reaching consequences for both Paul & for Cora. ” The London Train” is a vivid & absorbing account of the impulses & accidents that can shape our lives, alongside our ideas; about loyalty, love, sex & the complicated bonds of friends & family. Penetrating, perceptive, & wholly absorbing, it is an extraordinary new novel from one of the best writers working in Britain today. ...

The London Underground is the heart of London life, used by millions of commuters & shoppers every year, its tentacles extending into the suburbs it has helped to create. Its turbulent life has been determined by the trials & tribulations endured by the people it carries: it provided an network of life-saving shelter in the Blitz, but has also been the scene of numerous tragedies. The London Underground will transport you vividly back to the past: well over half the illustrations are in colour, & most of the photographs have not seen the light of day since they were taken. ...

There are a multitude of ` London Calling` cards in the collection at Rocket 68. This lively illustrated range of London themed prints & cards aims to portray the vibrancy & beauty of London`s architecture, areas, life & communities. Each card is supplied with quality Gunpowder grey envelope in a cellophane wrapper. These cards are all illustrated by Jill White & printed in the UK on a lovely soft Calisto FSC accredited board. ...

Fred West. Ian Brady. Harold Shipman. These names haunt the national consciousness & yet none was as prolific as the little-known ` Underground Killer`, Kieran Kelly. Operating without motive or rationale he pushed sixteen souls to their deaths on the tracks of the London Underground, before vanishing back into the crowd. Geoff Platt has painstakingly researched the `career` of Kelly, whose name may be unfamiliar even to those who study the minds & misdeeds of the criminal underworld. In a time of greater governmental control of the media, the case was hushed up, lest the residents of London be gripped by mass hysteria at the thought of a faceless killer lurking on the platforms of the Central line. Kelly`s first victim was his best friend & could have been called a crime passionnel, as it was committed in the heat of an argument after an evening of heavy drinking. However when Kelly realised his crime had gone undetected he felt a rush of power which he sought to recreate again & again. The killer took delight in his apparent cunning
- he often passed himself off as a star witness, who had been talking to the `poor, depressed man about his unfaithful wife, when the train arrived at the station & he jumped underneath it`. The implications of Kelly`s actions spread wide, leaving families unable to claim life insurance once the death was ruled as suicide. The officers involved in the case were a small, select cadre of elite Flying Squad & Serious Crime Squad Officers from South London, the same ones who had also been dealing with the Krays & the Richardsons. Their story is equally compelling, involved as they were in extreme, unusual & certainly unorthodox tactics. These intricate strands of a murky underworld weave together to make a fascinating, if gruesome, story.
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Travel Tin The classic race game through London`s Underground Travel version of the popular board game. Be the first commuter to travel to each of your landmarks & get back to your start station. Watch out for station closures & hazards!2-5 players ...

London, over the centuries, has become used to change, giving way to the pressures of succeeding generations each with its ideas to put into practice. This title is a celebration of the lost buildings, industries & entertainments which evolved & made London a centre of commerce & culture. Here is London as you can no longer see it
- the Rose Theatre, horse troughs, trolleybuses, Swan & Edgar & many more, The author writes with a hard-nosed realism but a welcome sense of nostalgia for what has been lost.
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Magnolia Square in South London was a friendly & vibrant place to live, not least for Kate Voigt & her father. Carl Voigt had been a WWI prisoner of war who had married a cockney girl & never gone back. Now widowed, he & Kate were part of the London life of the square with all its rumbustious & colourful characters. Then came the war. Suddenly it seemed the Voigts were outcasts because of their German blood. When Carl was interned, Kate`s only support was her best friend Carrie, & Toby, the R.A.F. pilot whom she loved. Finally, when Toby was killed, & even Carrie turned against her, she found herself pregnant & totally alone. Late one Christmas evening, during the Blitz, she was approached by a wounded sailor asking for lodgings. Leon Emmerson, like Kate, was also a lonely misfit because if his parentage. It was to be the beginning of a new friendship, of startling & dramatic events in Kate`s life. & as the war progressed, as the Londoners fought to help each other while their city was bombed & burned, so the rifts in the community were healed, & Kate & those she loved became, once more, part of Magnolia Square. ...