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 | City scenes of London: St Katharine's Dock is today a marina for yachts and pleasure craft. The Victorian warehouses have been transformed into offices and residences, with restaurants, pubs and shops at street level. For 700 years, a charitable organization was here. The Royal Foundation of St Katharine, established by Queen Mathilda in 1148, cared for the sick and gave hospitality to foreigners forbidden to enter the City. All queens consort were directly responsible for it, and, because of the intervention of Catherine of Aragon, St Katharine's survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1825, when England had no queen, the hospital moved and the premises were redeveloped as a dock designed by Thomas Telford. click to open  |  | City scenes of London: "Cutty Sark" in Greenwich dock. click to open |  | City scenes of London: Tobacco Dock:Two threemasters are moored in Bobacco Dock: The"Sealark" a pirate ship for children and the "Three Sisters" a floating pirate museum. click to open |  | City scenes of London: The noisy centre of the West End id Piccadily Circus which is the "Hub of the World" to Londoners. From here the four main roads Piccadilly, Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avinue and Haymarket Radiate into the shopping area and world of theatres and entertainment of the surrounding streets. click to open |  | City scenes of London: The strict regulations that applied in St James's Park did not prevent undesirable ruffians from frequenting it. In 1712, Dean Swift complained he had to come home early 'to avoid the Mohocks', rowdy Young men who contemporaries were led to believe were named after cannibals in India'! Standards of behaviour improved in the nineteenth century when it was suggested that park benches be installed and soldiers admitted. Queen Victoria look a personal interest in any such changes and once, when she heard the railings on Birdcage Walk had been moved without consulting her, she rebuked the official responsible. The proposal to allow, boating on the lake was, fortunately for the ducks and geese, not adopted. click to open |  | City scenes of London: When Henry Jermyn planned St James's Square, it was his intention that only people acceptable at Court should live in thefine houses. Arabella Churchill and Catherine Sedley, both mistresses of James II, were among these early residents. They looked out on a prospect which has changed. Jermyn's builders had an ornamental circular pond with a railed surround as the square's architectural feature. This was replaced in 1808 by the equestrian statue of James's son-in-law, William III, and the present gardens. By the middle of the century fashionable London was moving west again, to Belgravia. Clubs and commercial premises were creeping into rebuilt houses, and the square, as the magazine The Builder observed, was 'losing caste'. click to open |  | City scenes of London: Giraffes have been an attraction at London Zoo since four arrived in 1836, shortly after the royal menageries at the Tower of London and Windsor were moved to Regent's Park. The one female gave birth to six babies within five years. Today, the zoo houses many thousands of animals in environments which try to simulate the creatures' natural habitats. The appeal of exotic animals goes back to the thirteenth century when the Tower's menagerie was started with the gift of leopards and an elephant to Henry III. The King of Norway presented him with a polar bear which was allowed to go fishing in the Thames at the end of a long rope. Five hundred years later, Queen Charlotte was given the first zebra to arrive in England. She kept it in a menagerie near Buckingham House where the curious came to see it. click to open |  | City scenes of London: St Katharine's Dock is today a marina for yachts and pleasure craft. The Victorian warehouses have been transformed into offices and residences, with restaurants, pubs and shops at street level. For 700 years, a charitable organization was here. The Royal Foundation of St Katharine, established by Queen Mathilda in 1148, cared for the sick and gave hospitality to foreigners forbidden to enter the City. All queens consort were directly responsible for it, and, because of the intervention of Catherine of Aragon, St Katharine's survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1825, when England had no queen, the hospital moved and the premises were redeveloped as a dock designed by Thomas Telford. click to open |  | City scenes of London: The saloon bar door, windows and interior partitions of the Salisbury are all of ornate engraved glass. Inside, the dark wood counter overlaid with pink, streaked marble, the brass fittings and the curvaceous lampholders between yellow button- backed seating combine to give the late Victorian pub the flavour of a gin palace. The raffish atmosphere is accentuated by the knowledge that it was a haunt of the flamboyant defector, Guy Burgess. click to open |  | City scenes of London: Several public houses have stood on the site occupied by the Salisbury, which gets its name from the Victorian Prime Minister, the third Marquess of Salisbury, a descendant of Sir Robert Cecil who bought land in St Martin's Lane in 1609. Ben Caunt, the prizefighter after whom 'Big Ben' is possibly called, ran an earlier tavern here in the middle of the last century. click to open |
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