On Tuesday evening, we took a train to London and as normality had been restored after the previous day’s strike, it was only a short Tube journey to reach our hotel. We had come down to see an exhibition at the British Library so that was our first destination on Wednesday morning. En route, I popped into Waterstones near UCL as it sells remainders and some secondhand books as well as new. However, I did not find anything on this occasion. We have an extensive collection of old maps but this exhibition focussed on the 20th century when the use of maps became widespread and was influenced by war and peace, trade, the movement of people and technological development. There was a large collection of many different maps, some familiar, many not and the exhibition is is on until 1 March. Photography was not allowed so this is an image from the exhibition website:
Afterwards, we walked to Spitalfields and visited what has been described as ‘London’s newest and innovative bookshop’. Libreria opened in 2016 and the books are organised in a very idiosyncratic way with some mini-collections curated by different people. They also hold events from time to time. When I came to pay for my purchase, two attempts to do this electronically failed due to problems with their broadband and I had to use cash. This was quite a surprise as I am used to very slow broadband speeds at home but did not expect to find this in London.
Spitalfields has lots of street art, curry houses and vintage stores on Brick Lane which warrant further exploration at some point.
I find specialist shops fascinating and spotted this bag shop on Commercial Street.
Walking back towards Bloomsbury on the road called London Wall, it is possible to see fragments of the old wall near the Museum of London and the Barbican. There is another section near Tower Hill Tube Station. The hoardings around the Crossrail works had signs listing the archaeological finds dug up during the seemingly never-ending construction project. I also spotted this bindery on Clerkenwell Road that I had photographed a couple of years ago:
On the way back to Euston I called in at Skoob Books in the Brunswick Centre. which claims to be the largest secondhand bookshop in London and found a few books. I have never been disappointed here> they once gave me a bag as I was such a good customer.
