Finding Loughborough connections in London!

Last weekend I was very lucky indeed, as I spent a few days wondering around London, something I hadn't done for a very long time. I was thrilled to happen upon some direct Loughborough connections, like products made in Loughborough, and some less direct ones, of course!!

Super to see that Loughborough is trendy! There were numerous buildings in London that were being renovated and refurbished, and it seems a covering with a building facade photographed onto it is the new way to hide what's going on, and to look appealing rather than having the traditional hoarding. You can see this in Loughborough town centre, surrounding the HSBC in Market Place. Since the blog post about changes in the town centre was written, the base of the surrounding of our HSBC is now painted with leaves!

Like all cities, towns, villages, and probably hamlets, London has a selection of telephone kiosks dotted around the city. Many are still operating as telephones, some are a little unloved, one which had a perforated, rather than a solid gold crown on the top (below, bottom right), and, of course, those in the city of London are painted black rather than red! You can read about Loughborough's Grade II listed K6 kiosk in an earlier blogpost. 

Likewise, it comes as no surprise to find that London has letter boxes! We passed very many of these, and there were an amazing number of double ones. I've written loads of posts about Loughborough's letter boxes, which you can find at Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Burton Street box; and Unusual and unreal boxes!

I must admit I was hugely surprised by the number of clocks I saw in London, mostly on the sides or fronts of buildings! One of these reminded me so much of our town hall clock!

On a related topic, in the London Transport Museum, I spotted rather lovely pocket watch - sorry, the photo really doesn't do it justice - which reminded me about one of Loughborough's watch and clock makers - Frederick Stubbs. 

As you'd expect, there were all types of vehicles in the transport museum - like sedan chairs, stagecoaches, trams, trolleybuses, buses, underground trains, steam trains, charabancs - but surprisingly, I couldn't find a single Brush body! 

In another museum, there was a poster from the time of the First World War, which helped the person on the street to identify specific aircraft. One of these was the Zeppelin, and I was reminded about the attack on Loughborough on the night of January 31st 1916, about which I've written numerous blogposts, and shared a virtual walk. 

I've only written briefly on this blog about the Freemasons Hall in Loughborough, which is on Orchard Street, in a building that used to be a congregational chapel. It is quite, quite different from the one in London (which although you can't see it in the photograph, does actually have a clock above the entrance).

As in Loughborough, drain covers bearing the name of their makers were also in evidence in London! This is just one example of the hundreds we saw, and examples of ones in Loughborough are on this blogpost.

Goodness me, it's already time to share this post with you, and all I've managed to do so far is share some of the more generic things with you! Pop back to the blog next week, for some direct Loughborough connections - books, bricks, perfumes, and pharmaceuticals!

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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