Stories from the magazine
Pyramid Of Death
In the 1820s, the tallest building in London was St Paul’s Cathedral, at 111 metres high. But architect Thomas Willson had grander plans. In 1829 he proposed to build a massive granite pyramid on Primrose Hill. It would rise 290 metres and cover a site of 18.5 acres....
Petrichor
The natural world is full of gods, goddesses and other mythological creatures, in name, if not spirit. For nomenclature convention draws heavily on the Greek and Roman classics when labelling new species and other scientific phenomena. One particularly pleasing term –...
Hallucinogenic Books
Libraries can expand your mind in more ways than one. A leading London mycologist has claimed that old books, particularly those stored in less than perfect conditions, can provide inspiration without the need to read even a single word; just take a deep breath. In...
Witches Brew
The general knowledge of women’s role in the invention of beer, and the establishment of the industry around it, has largely been lost to the hands of time, and…. witch-hunters? “Some 10 years ago, on a warm autumn afternoon, I saw a witch and had an epiphany – an...
Photographic Revolution
Edwin Herbert Land was a visionary scientist and inventor who 70 years ago changed the picture-taking habits of people around the world, the result of which is still felt today. Land pioneered a technique that produced fully-developed photos at the touch of a button,...
X Marks The Spot
This is a tale of two halves. It begins around the turn of the 20th century, with the establishment of a new private printing press near the banks of the Thames, and comes to a dramatic close in the winter of 1916, under cover of darkness, on Hammersmith Bridge. The...
Oh Coffee, How We Do Love Thee
Britain is in love with a little brown bean called coffee. It's an affair that dates back more than 350 years to the edge of a churchyard in St Michael's Alley, off Cornhill, in east central London. It was there, in 1652, that Pasqua Rosee (servant to a businessman...