Summer's Arrived

It looks like summer has found these isles at long last. The weather man is promising a whole week of sun. Pouring into the parks are English bodies of all shapes and sizes soaking up their vitamin D.

Inner City Mews

Scattered throughout inner city London are Little streets like this known as mews. This one in Bloomsbury an area famed from the 1920's as an artistic and bohemian area

Siberian Singers

Ayarkhaan the Siberian singers at the Bloomsbury Festival last weekend. Their vocal sounds replicate the wind, birds and horses.

Bloomsbury Festival

A three day festival in and around Bloomsbury. Arts and culture. Food and drink. My favourite yesterday was the stall run by the mathematics society, teaching us about probability not only did we have to work out who the murderer was but I'm sure I've got a better chance at winning the lottery. Well I may be able to up the probability from 1 in a million to 1 in 3/4 of a million.

The Royal Mail wagon encouraging us to visit the Postal Museum. That's definitely on my list to visit for you.
The throat singers from Siberia held us all spellbound. Lots more to see today.

St George and the Suffragette

Back in the 1700's the area of Bloomsbury was growing rapidly. An act was passed in 1711 to build 50 new churches in the area. Six eventuated. Among them St Georges, shown here. In 1913 the funeral of Emily Davison, the suffragette killed by the King's horse at the Epsom Derby,was held here.

Who wants to go into the Edible Gingerbread House?

Roof tiles made of chocolate, a cupcake garden, the chimney is popcorn, a marshmallow pond. Who wants to go into the gingerbread house? ME.
Lily Vanilli will show you how to make and decorate your own gingerbread house. Storytelling, singing and dancing.


What fun if you're a kid. The gingerbread house was installed at the Brunswick centre in Bloomsbury over the weekend. All to raise awareness and funds for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity.

The Dancers

The exciting Bloomsbury festival on the weekend was their best yet. Contemporary dance, art, music, theatre, guided walks, food, books, discussions, microbes. Yes you could make your own microbe!
What a dilemma lots of movies in the film festival and all this going on.
It is not possible to be bored in London.

Medical London Free iPhone App

Wellcome Collection have produced a free iPhone app to accompany the Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures book. The app offers an audiovisual tour of Bloomsbury and the surrounding area, delving into the medical heritage quite literally on the Wellcome Library's doorstep.

The original work by author Richard Barnett drew heavily on the Library's holdings. Subtitled Blood, Guts, Brains and Babies, the tour begins at Lincoln's Inn Fields and covers approximately three miles. On average it should take around two hours to complete, but of course depends on your pace - and how sidetracked you get.

If you can't get to Bloomsbury to hit the pavements for yourself, we would still heartily encourage you to check the free app out (or indeed, viewing the content online). For those who are in and around London this coming October another series of medically-themed free walks are scheduled for the Bloomsbury area. Keep an eye on the Wellcome Collection website for more details.

Chap Olympiad

An eccentric gathering of chaps and chapettes held annually since 2005 in Bloomsbury. Plenty of gin & tonics, martinis, moustaches, cucumber sandwiches and of course chap games.
Jousting with brollies, moustache wrestling and the three trousered limbo for starters.

'Archivist, Historian and Trailblazer'

The first issue of new history magazine HerStoria, includes a feature on Dr Lesley Hall, Senior Archivist at the Wellcome Library, the title of which we've quoted above.

The article rightly hails Lesley's work as both an archivist and historian:

"If you are a Radio 4 listener, Lesley Hall's name may be familiar. Over the past year or so her voice has been heard regularly over the airwaves, including on the Archive Hour programme 'Love at the Lighthouse' about Marie Stopes and on Case Notes, talking about the history of abortion. Lesley has also cropped up on on Women's Hour several times where she explored various aspects of the history of women's health such as medical attitudes to childbirth and the treatment of women's cancers.

As well as being an archivist at the Wellcome Library in London, Lesley is also one of the UK's leading historians of sexuality. Her books include Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain (2000) and Outspoken Women (2005) an anthology of women's writing on sex between 1870-1969.

Lesley's contribution to the development of women's history as a discipline, and to bringing it to a wider audience, has been tremendous. She has achieved this in part by encouraging people to look at history from a fresh perspective and discover different histories. Some ten or so years ago Lesley was one of the first to set up a website that explored and reflected on issues in women's history (almost 'blogging' even before the term was invented)".

The article also describes and is illustrated by some of the many sources for women's history available at the Wellcome Library. The issue of Herstoria also includes a Women's History Walk around Bloomsbury, designed by Lesley (and still available through her website).