please empty your brain below

Holborn Viaduct London's first flyover?

Depends on your definition of London, I suppose, but the original Archway in Highgate was built half a century before Holborn Viaduct.
If Holborn Viaduct replaced an existing flat road crossing, then its a flyover, I don't know if Archway replaced an existing flat road crossing.

Although you could argue that a bridge that replaced an existing ferry is also a flyover.
Superb. I feel like I'm there walking the route alongside you!
Can't wait for parts 2 & 3
New Street Square is pretty typical modern office block stuff, in the glass, steel and stone vernacular, but much better than the awful 1950s/60s slab thing it replaced - Newspaper House, I think it was. The redevelopment won a RIBA award and a Civic Trust award in 2009. See here. Perhaps we will regret the early-2000s style of the new buildings in 40 years time?

The recent redevelopment swept away the (not-so-old) buildings, but did it disrupt the ancient street plan much? I suppose Great New Street disappeared in the middle (how old is the new street?) but I think some other changes were caused by previous developments, if not before - for example, when New Fetter Lane was driven through (after the war?) to connect with what was Bartlett's Buildings.

I doubt many deals are struck on the square - it is mostly lawyers and accountants around here.

The old open-air River Fleet was pretty disgusting, what with gory run off from the butchers at Smithfield and human effluent too. Perhaps Wren's wider version would have been flushed out by the tide, but probably better that the narrower canal was culverted. Much cleaner now, of course, but little chance it will ever be reopened.
Love the 1672 map, by the way. Looking forward to the remaining two instalments.

You can see the boarded up General Market building at Smithfield in the background of your final photo. It has been in a sorry state for years. Lets hope the Museum of London gets on with its restoration and relocation.
I'm going to have to strap on my pedant's goggles for the phrase "A4 trunk road".

A trunk road in the UK is defined as a road under national rather than local control (i.e. in England, managed by Highways England). Currently only two small bits of the A4 are trunk roads: a small section east of Bath and an even tinier section linking Avonmouth Dock to the M5. But even in the pre-M4 days when most of the A4 was still trunk, it only picked up trunk status at Chiswick - specifically where it exited the erstwhile County of London, as county boroughs and metropolitan boroughs were exempt from trunk roads.
I'd likes to apologise in advance for all the errors, inaccuracies, omissions and glib generalisations in tomorrow's post.
We went up to Liverpool Street last night and into the Broadgate Centre to watch the Holoscenes underwater performance which was quite mesmerising. We then walked up to the One New Change shopping centre and took the lift up to the roof terrace. Hugely entertaining for our teens and us to walk into the very fancy club night that was being held up there. We weren't the only people in less fashionable get up though as, as advertised, it gave a fantastic view on to the fire projections on to St Paul's. Finally we crossed the wobbly bridge to see the Fire Garden outside the Tate. Really good atmosphere at all points and all repeated tonight. Artichoke proved once more (as they did with the Sultan's elephant) that they can put on a very good show.
It was the Knights Templar who built the Temple Church - the Hospitallers only acquired it after the Templar order was suppressed in 1307.

(Sorry!)
Apologies. Obviously the wrong sort of comments again today.
"If Holborn Viaduct replaced an existing flat road crossing, then its a flyover, I don't know if Archway replaced an existing flat road crossing."

They both did - Farringdon Street already existed before the Viaduct spanned the valley. The Archway was more of an underpass - Hornsey Lane ran along the ridge that the Great North Road cut through - its original route being further to the west through Highgate Village
But if Hornsey Lane already existed, and the road underneath was a new build, doesn't that make the road the Highgate Village by-pass?

Anyway, here's more info, courtesy Hidden Highgate.

http://hidden-highgate.org/mystery-tunnel-highgate/
Comments aren't going well, no.
OK, now I'm home from Liverpool I've updated the post, amending several deficiencies kindly pointed out above, thanks!

I remain worried that tomorrow's post kicks off again at Holborn Viaduct, but have attempted to edit the first paragraph so as to minimise the risk of recurring tangential pedantry.
Just noticed the apt 3:50am time of posting!

Hope you enjoyed your time in Liverpool on Saturday.
"..recurring tangential pedantry" made me splutter into my tea.

I always enjoy DG posts, but also find the comments very entertaining, on most days!
I'm in he USA and it's 8:50 PM Sunday your time. As I suspected, the idiots who put this on give us a lot of shots of talking heads... and very little of the burning 190 buildings. I really expected better than this. What a waste of good wood.
@Colesville

For some reason it wasn't broadcast live, (although a few seconds were shown on the 10 o clock News). A programme is to be broadcast tonight on BBC4 at 8:30pm.

After the panning they got for their coverage of the Diamond Jubilee flotilla, maybe the BBC has decided that live broadcasting of river borne events is too risky.
It was broadcast live online.
That's how Colesville Garth watched it.
That's how I watched it.

(too many talking heads, not enough burning)
There is a technical difference between broadcasting and making available for streaming, but I was mistaken in not realising it was available on line before the BBC transmitted it. Mea culpa










TridentScan | Privacy Policy