Free Wifi in London

This is a cool list of all the places one can find free wifi in London! I heard Google is going to pay for free wifi for all in the San Francisco bay area. Until it happens in London, we'll have to live with this! - Free Wifi in London

The Evolution of Clapham High Street

Ah.... Clapham High Street. My stomping ground. The street where everybody knows my name. Well, maybe not. The guys in Maharani's call me Mr H. and I've always thought that was pretty awesome.....

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to document (briefly) the evolution of the high street. How have we gone from a small parish & rectory to a heaving street of traffic, double frapaccinos, cricket jumpers knotted round the shoulders and foccaccia seed bread.

Very well, where do i begin?

Clapham started as a Parish (around the Old Town) and quickly grew thanks to, who else, the Romans. Clapham high street is actually one massive Roman military diversion. I'm not sure why the London to Chichester route was diverted, but there you have it, Clapham High Street and a bunch of other streets were born. The area quickly grew up with shops and houses popping up at a startling rate during the 16th Century. Clapham was now a fairly significant village. The came 1666 - The great fire of London. Amazingly, clapham was relatively unaffected. In fact, devleopment was actually expedited by the exodus from the city has a result of the fire and the plague. During the 17th Century, wealthy yuppies began to populate the high street and the surrounding area. The common was a particularly desirable place to live (and still is). Some amazing houses were built on the high street and on the perimeter of the common, but sadly many of these were torn down in the 19th/20th century to make way for new buildings.

With the 19th Century came public transport. Clapham high street believe it or not was quite a hub for Coach & Horse transport into the city centre. It was cheap, quick and perfect for the "common man". In 1900 the tube arrived and resulted in Clapham becoming officially part of London. With this accesibility came a bit of a downturn for the area. This wasd not longer a suburban retreat. It was accesible by all.

Between 1940-45 Clapham was hit pretty hard by the Luftwaffe. Most of the large buildings were destroyed and the high street lost most of its character. Bomb shelters and factories replaced Elizabethan mansions and Clapham became a rather undesirable place.

Clapham remained a little bit edgy until its renaissance period in the 1990's. It is now yuppyville with bread shops and swanky bars replacing gaming shops and off licenses.

The mother of all pub crawls?

I'm really excited about getting back to London a couple of weeks before Christmas. It will be great to catch up with friends and family (and squeeze in a bit of shopping!). I'm particularly excited about the xmas pub crawl planned by the big man (details here - pub crawl). If i can have a beer in each one of those pubs and still be standing, I will be a proud man indeed :)