London 2022

Most of the rooms were a tad dark (probably to preserve the art work on the walls) but the library was light and airy on this Saturday in October. The ceiling was painted by Antonio Zucchi c.1769.

Most of the rooms were a tad dark (probably to preserve the art work on the walls) but the library was light and airy on this Saturday in October. The ceiling was painted by Antonio Zucchi.

The only known portrait of Dido Belle, showing her with her cousin and close companion, Lady Elizabeth Murray, at Kenwood in about 1776. Kenwood now displays a photographic reproduction while the original can be seen at Scone Palace. Read more about Dido at www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/women-in-history/dido-belle

Garage door in St George's Mews, Primrose Hill.

Little mews off Regent's Park Road, Primrose Hill.

Streetart on the side of a deli, Sharples Hall Street just off Regent's Park Road, Primrose Hill. Queen Elizabeth stencil is by Paul Don Smith. I don't know who did the stencil of Kate, Will, Megan and Harry.

Streetart on the side of a deli, Sharples Hall Street just off Regent's Park Road, Primrose Hill.

Regent's Park Road, Primrose Hill. It's now a gallery or interior decorating firm. For a photo of the garage in 1976, see primrosehillhistory.org/?attachment_id=1051

From the footbridge over the Regent's Canal in Camden Town, with the Hampstead Road Lock, a Grade II listed double lock, below.

This warehouse was a beer bottling company, bottling for Guinness, Courage and a bunch of other breweries. The front of the building is in Crinan Street, with the back along Battlebridge Basin, where the bottled beer would be loaded onto canal boats.

On Battlebridge Basin. The narrowboat trip through the Islington Tunnel starts here.

I found this info on the Flickr stream of Janet Roberts. Hope she doesn't mind my reposting it. The tug "Bantam IV" was built in 1949-50 by E.C. Jones and Sons of Brentford. She was the fourth of 91 similar tugs built over a period of 20 years. They were designed to push barges from behind. This is around 40% more fuel-efficient than towing a barge behind a tug. Bantam tugs were used for canal maintenance and on gravel pits. No 4 worked first at Walter Smith's gravel quarries at Brasted, Kent, and then at quarries in Surrey. In 1985 she was bought by Christopher Gibson and his father George, who took her to Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, to work on the Kennet and Avon Canal. They enlarged her cabin and carried out renovations before using her for some years for contract maintenance work.

On top of the narrowboat used for the Islington Tunnel tours.

We've just left Battlebridge Basin and have started the trip through the Islington Tunnel, which starts here at Muriel Street.

On the narrowboat heading east in the Islington Tunnel. There's no footpath inside the tunnel, so horses couldn't pull the canal boats through. Instead, the crew moved the boat through the tunnel by "legging" it. Two people lay on their backs and used their feet on the tunnel walls to move the boat along. You can see some photos of 19th c. leggers here: www.vintag.es/2021/03/boat-leggers.html

We come out of the Islington Tunnel and into the daylight under the Colebrooke Row bridge. That's the Caledonian Road bridge up ahead. The boat turned around in this wide section of the canal and we waited our turn to head back west to the Canal Museum.

Another narrowboat comes out of the narrow tunnel. After checking to make sure that there were no other boats coming behind it, we started our journey westward through the tunnel and back to Battlebridge Basin.