For the last eleven years of my government service, I worked for the Department for Transport (DfT) in Great Minister House (GMH), overlooking Horseferry Road, a dreary thoroughfare. At my previous department I'd once enjoyed a view of the river, so this was a comedown. But in London, nowhere is truly dull. Great Minister House, built in 1995 Rise and Fall of the Horse Ferry There are many blue plaques in the City of Westminster showing where the famous once lived or worked,

When people ask me what I most like to photograph, the word I find myself using often is ‘survivors’ - I like to record examples of things that have largely been swept away over the years - a ghost sign, a telephone box, an old shop front or a traditional pub. We hear so much nowadays about communities losing their pubs, but here is the story of The Palm Tree, a pub that lost its community. Bethnal Green 1922 Imagine for a moment that it’s the early summer of 1922 and you’ve

When people come together to drink there is a change in them, a loss of inhibition, some call it ‘Dutch courage’. Conversation thrives, offering sympathy, empathy, and a good deal of humour. Ideas abound - art is conceived, businesses spawned, romance blossoms. But sadly, only misfortunes are considered newsworthy. The Warrington Hotel (1857) , an opulently decorated Victorian palace in Maida Vale, often used as a location for television and films, has endured many such misfo

When I moved to London in the mid 1980’s I was introduced by housemates and colleagues to many pubs in North London. The Island Queen was...

Thinking of one of the other officers in the Italian camp in which they were prisoners of war, novelist Dan Billany wrote: "He is...

I often claim that London boozers are my natural habitat. Centuries of dramas, great and small, from just one pub can feed the...

Those who have read Until the Real Thing Comes Along and When Summer is Gone sometimes ask about Charlie Brown’s pub, which is heavily...