<strong>история лондона</strong>

Works About London by Period

История и наследие фильма Человек из лозы

Thriving London: Lessons for Cities Everywhere

Воздушное загрязнение в Лондоне: темные дни прошлого

В XIX веке кризис воздушного загрязнения наступил с распространением Промышленной революции и стремительным ростом мегаполисов. Увеличение домашних костров и заводских печей означало, что загрязненные выбросы значительно увеличились. Именно в это время атмосфера, насыщенная туманом Лондона, ярко описывалась в романах Чарльза Диккенса и Артура Конана Дойла. Туманы Лондона могли длиться неделю, и смерти, вызванные туманом, фиксировались на надгробиях в начале XIX века. Несмотря на ухудшение общественного здоровья, мало что было сделано для контроля тумана, учитывая множество рабочих мест, которые предоставляла новая промышленность, и удобства, обеспечиваемые домашними угольными печами.

Причины и последствия

Великий смог 1952 года был зеленого цвета неба с невиданной жестокостью, вызванный как погодными условиями, так и загрязнением. В целом, в течение XX века туманы Лондона стали более редкими, поскольку заводы начали мигрировать за пределы города. Однако 5 декабря над Лондоном установилось антициклон, область высокого давления, вызвавшая инверсию, при которой холодный воздух оказывался запертым ниже теплого воздуха выше. В результате выбросы заводов и домашних печей не могли выйти в атмосферу и оставались запертыми на уровне земли. Результатом стал самый крупный в истории города смог, вызванный загрязнением.

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Последствия

После событий 1952 года серьезность воздушного загрязнения Лондона стала неоспоримой. Сначала действия были медленными, однако британское правительство впоследствии приняло Закон о чистом воздухе через четыре года, в 1956 году, как прям ответ на смертельный туман. В законе устанавливались зоны без дыма по всему городу и ограничивалось сжигание угля в домашних печах, а также в промышленных печах. Кроме того, домовладельцам предлагали гранты, позволяющие перейти на другие источники отопления, такие как масло, природный газ и электричество. Хотя изменения были постепенными и кризис снова случился в 1962 году, Закон о чистом воздухе, как правило, считается значительным событием в истории экологического движения и помог улучшить общественное здоровье в Великобритании.

Римский Лондон (47–410 н. э.)

Монета Караузия из монетного двора Лондоний

Медаль Констанция I, захватившего Лондон (надписан как ) в 296 году, победив Аллекта. Из сокровища Бюрана.

Хотя некоторые источники утверждают, что во время II века Лондиум заменил Колчестер в качестве столицы Римской Британии (Британнии), нет доказательств, чтобы это когда-либо было столицей Римской Британии. Население города составляло около 60 000 жителей. Он гордился крупными общественными зданиями, включая самую большую базилику на север от Альп, храмы, бань, амфитеатр и большой форт для гарнизона города. Политическая нестабильность и спад с 3 века привели к медленному упадку.

At some time between 180 AD and 225 AD, the Romans built the defensive London Wall around the landward side of the city. The wall was about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) long, 6 metres (20 ft) high, and 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) thick. The wall would survive for another 1,600 years and define the City of London’s perimeters for centuries to come. The perimeters of the present City are roughly defined by the line of the ancient wall.

Anglo-Saxon London (5th century – 1066)

Until recently it was believed that Anglo-Saxon settlement initially avoided the area immediately around Londinium. However, the discovery in 2008 of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Covent Garden indicates that the incomers had begun to settle there at least as early as the 6th century and possibly in the 5th. The main focus of this settlement was outside the Roman walls, clustering a short distance to the west along what is now the Strand, between the Aldwych and Trafalgar Square. It was known as Lundenwic, the -wic suffix here denoting a trading settlement. Recent excavations have also highlighted the population density and relatively sophisticated urban organisation of this earlier Anglo-Saxon London, which was laid out on a grid pattern and grew to house a likely population of 10–12,000.

Early Anglo-Saxon London belonged to a people known as the Middle Saxons, from whom the name of the county of Middlesex is derived, but who probably also occupied the approximate area of modern Hertfordshire and Surrey. However, by the early 7th century the London area had been incorporated into the kingdom of the East Saxons. In 604 King Saeberht of Essex converted to Christianity and London received Mellitus, its first post-Roman bishop.

At this time Essex was under the overlordship of King Æthelberht of Kent, and it was under Æthelberht’s patronage that Mellitus founded the first St. Paul’s Cathedral, traditionally said to be on the site of an old Roman Temple of Diana (although Christopher Wren found no evidence of this). It would have only been a modest church at first and may well have been destroyed after he was expelled from the city by Saeberht’s pagan successors.

The permanent establishment of Christianity in the East Saxon kingdom took place in the reign of King Sigeberht II in the 650s. During the 8th century, the kingdom of Mercia extended its dominance over south-eastern England, initially through overlordship which at times developed into outright annexation. London seems to have come under direct Mercian control in the 730s.

A silver coin of Alfred, with the legend ÆLFRED REX

The statue of Alfred the Great at Winchester, erected 1899

Viking attacks dominated most of the 9th century, becoming increasingly common from around 830 onwards. London was sacked in 842 and again in 851. The Danish "Great Heathen Army", which had rampaged across England since 865, wintered in London in 871. The city remained in Danish hands until 886, when it was captured by the forces of King Alfred the Great of Wessex and reincorporated into Mercia, then governed under Alfred’s sovereignty by his son-in-law Ealdorman Æthelred.

A plaque in the City of London noting the re-establishment of the Roman walled city

Around this time the focus of settlement moved within the old Roman walls for the sake of defence, and the city became known as Lundenburh. The Roman walls were repaired and the defensive ditch re-cut, while the bridge was probably rebuilt at this time. A second fortified Borough was established on the south bank at Southwark, the Suthringa Geworc (defensive work of the men of Surrey). The old settlement of Lundenwic became known as the ealdwic or "old settlement", a name which survives today as Aldwich.

A Norse saga tells of a battle when King Æthelred returned to attack Danish-occupied London. According to the saga, the Danes lined London Bridge and showered the attackers with spears. Undaunted, the attackers pulled the roofs off nearby houses and held them over their heads in the boats. Thus protected, they were able to get close enough to the bridge to attach ropes to the piers and pull the bridge down, thus ending the Viking occupation of London. This story presumably relates to Æthelred’s return to power after Sweyn’s death in 1014, but there is no strong evidence of any such struggle for control of London on that occasion.

The Normans advanced to the south bank of the Thames opposite London, where they defeated an English attack and burned Southwark but were unable to storm the bridge. They moved upstream and crossed the river at Wallingford before advancing on London from the north-west. The resolve of the English leadership to resist collapsed and the chief citizens of London went out together with the leading members of the Church and aristocracy to submit to William at Berkhamstead, although according to some accounts there was a subsequent violent clash when the Normans reached the city. Having occupied London, William was crowned king in Westminster Abbey.

Norman and Medieval London (1066 – late 15th century)

A depiction of the imprisonment of Charles, Duke of Orléans in the Tower of London, from a 15th-century manuscript. Old London Bridge is in the background

On 17 October 1091 a tornado rated T8 on the TORRO scale (equivalent to an F4 on the Fujita scale) hit London; it directly struck the church of St. Mary-le-Bow; four rafters 7.9 meters long (26 feet) were said to have been buried so deep into the ground that only 1.2 meters (4 feet) was visible. Other churches in the area were destroyed as well; it was reported to have also destroyed over 600 houses (although most of them were primarily wood) and hit the London Bridge, after the tornado the bridge was rebuilt in stone. The tornado caused 2 deaths and an unknown number of injuries; this tornado is mentioned in chronicles by Florence of Worcester and William of Malmesbury, the latter of the two describing it as "a great spectacle for those watching from afar, but a terrifying experience for those standing near".

In 1097, William Rufus, the son of William the Conqueror, began the construction of ‘Westminster Hall’, which became the focus of the Palace of Westminster.

In 1176, construction began of the most famous incarnation of London Bridge (completed in 1209), which was built on the site of several earlier timber bridges. This bridge would last for 600 years, and remained the only bridge across the River Thames until 1739.

During the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, London was invaded by rebels led by Wat Tyler. A group of peasants stormed the Tower of London and executed the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop Simon Sudbury, and the Lord Treasurer. The peasants looted the city and set fire to numerous buildings. Tyler was stabbed to death by the Lord Mayor William Walworth in a confrontation at Smithfield and the revolt collapsed.

Trade increased steadily during the Middle Ages, and London grew heavily as a result. In 1100, London’s population was somewhat more than 15,000. By 1300, it had grown to roughly 80,000. London lost at least half of its population during the Black Death in the mid-14th century, but its economic and political importance stimulated a quick recovery despite further epidemics. Trade in London was organised into various guilds, which effectively controlled the city, and elected the Lord Mayor of the City of London.

Medieval London was made up of narrow and twisting streets, and most of the buildings were made from combustible materials such as timber and straw, which made fire a constant threat, while sanitation in cities was of low-quality.

Southern crossroads

You can still eat knockout jollof rice at Lolak Afrique, a café just off Peckham’s main drag. But the neighbourhood, and London’s Nigerian community, are changing. As cocktail bars and sushi restaurants have moved in, the Nigerians have spread out, their numbers falling in Southwark, the borough which includes Peckham, and rising elsewhere. London has never been as ethnically segregated as some American cities; as analysis by Gemma Catney of Queen’s University Belfast shows, it has become progressively less so over the past few decades, the black African population dispersing especially fast.

As it spreads, London’s Nigerian population is growing. In the past couple of years post-Brexit immigration policies have admitted many more students and workers (largely in health care) from beyond Europe. In the year to June 2023, 141,000 Nigerians moved to Britain, more than the total from the entire EU, to which there is now net emigration.

On December 4th the government announced plans to cut immigration. But so far, at least, the fear that Brexit might stem the flow of migrants to London has not been realised. In one of Brexit’s ironies, other arrivals have more than compensated for the shortfall of Europeans. Partly as a result, London’s population, which dipped during the pandemic, is nudging 9m and is expected to hit 10m by 2040. Taking into account the inflow of skills and students, says Jonathan Portes of King’s College London, Brexit’s effect on the city “has if anything been positive”, in terms of immigration, at least. It remains “a roost for every bird”, as Benjamin Disraeli wrote in 1870.

Nor does the latest influx into what was already a spectacularly diverse city seem to have stirred much tension. According to Ipsos, a pollster, Londoners are more than twice as likely as Parisians to say immigrants have had a positive impact on their home town. Suella Braverman, twice forced out as home secretary in Conservative governments, recently claimed multiculturalism has “failed”. She is walking proof of the opposite: a Buddhist brought up in London by parents from Mauritius and Kenya, she found a Jewish husband and rose to one of the highest offices in the land. The London dream, you might call it.

In another widely predicted way, Brexit has indeed bruised London: by damaging the City, an engine of growth already beleaguered by the financial crisis and the rise of other hubs. Yet as at the Eagle, the consequences have, so far, been manageable.

Still, relatively few existing jobs have been relocated from the City because of Brexit. The latest estimate by EY, a consultancy, is around 7,000, far lower than the tens of thousands once anticipated. The City will no longer be the default financial centre for Europe, predicts Mr Wright; but because of its status in global financial markets, it is set to remain the dominant hub in Europe. It is big enough to cope.

Besides sheer size, the City and the rest of London enjoy two other advantages in Brexit’s aftermath. The first is that they already did lots of business with the world beyond Europe, receiving copious foreign direct investment (FDI) from America especially. London has become even more reliant on American investment since Brexit, observes Riccardo Crescenzi of the London School of Economics (lse). Worryingly, when downsizing and divestment are included, in 2021 there was a net outflow of foreign capital from both London and Britain for the first time since 1984. Even so, says Professor Crescenzi, London is still the top city in Europe for new FDI projects.

The other plus is that the industries in which London specialises—not just finance but law, accounting, consulting, the media and higher education—have been less hampered by post-Brexit rules than other sectors. Between 2016 and 2021 London’s exports of services grew by 47%, notes Emily Fry of the Resolution Foundation, another think-tank; for the rest of Britain the rise was just 4%. Places that import parts and export goods have suffered more Brexit-related costs and bureaucracy.

The momentum of the tech scene, in particular, is too strong to be “stopped in its tracks”, insists Brent Hoberman, a tech guru and investor. Because of Brexit “we have to be more paranoid” about competition, but, he reckons, London remains the best place to start a tech firm in Europe. American venture capitalists are still keen. The record supports his confidence: London has produced more tech unicorns than its three nearest European rivals—Berlin, Paris and Stockholm—combined.

The 11th to 15th centuries

The Lord Mayor of the City of London, elected annually, leads the City of London Corporation, overseeing the Square Mile’s vibrant and thriving community. Committed to supporting a diverse and sustainable London, the Lord Mayor acts as a global ambassador for the UK’s financial and professional services sector, working closely with the Mayor of London.

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For centuries, the City has been a place where people come together to shape new ideas that spread across the world. Its inventive spirit is forever evolving.

The City is the birthplace of London, with 2000 years of history and tradition – from the Romans to modern day. It is the ancient core from which the rest of London developed. Its unique history and significance have developed from it being a centre for settlement, trade, commerce and ceremony. In fact, the City of London has its own government (the oldest in the country with origins pre-dating Parliament), its own Lord Mayor, as well as an independent police force. Today, the City is home to world-class arts and culture, as well as some of London’s most outstanding restaurants, cafes, hotels, pubs, and bars.

Take a look at the timeline near the end of the page to discover some of the key events in the City’s fascinating history.

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Orient compress

In late Victorian times the East End was known as “the empire of hunger” and “the city of dreadful night”. Today overcrowding in Newham runs at double the rate for the city, itself more than double the national average. The basic causes of the shortage are a failure over decades to provide sufficient new homes and to use space as imaginatively as does Mr Barber.

The result has been at once inevitable and stunning. James Carville, an American political strategist, once joked that he’d like to be reincarnated as the bond market, because then he could intimidate everybody. Another good choice would be to come back as the London house price: perhaps only the city’s brazen foxes can match its indestructibility. True, a finance-driven boom that lasted two decades has recently flattened, but at a dizzying plateau.

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image: The Economist

All this means the perception of Londoners as wealthy is incomplete. It is a rich city with many poor people. Factor in housing costs and the poverty rate is higher than in the rest of England. Eight times as many London households live in temporary accommodation as in the country overall. The most affluent decile has nearly ten times the income of the poorest. Because of London’s unusually integrated economic geography, deprived and well-heeled families rub shoulders more than in Paris or New York, pound shops abutting artisan bakeries on the high street.

Complaints about how packed London is, notes Professor Travers, recall the old joke of the restaurant that is so crowded, no one wants to go there any more. Still, the pandemic may open up solutions to this age-old problem. In a place with an oversupply of offices and a deficit of homes, it would make sense, where possible, to repurpose commercial buildings as residential ones. More than ever, in an age of hybrid work it is time to build on some of the protected land of the “green belt”, starting with existing commuter corridors.

Something like this happened after crises of yore. Christopher Wren reimagined the city in the ashes of the Great Fire. Idealistic urban planners did so again in the rubble of the Blitz. The evidence of the past few years, and of the past two millennia, is that London—one of the world’s greatest cities, and perhaps its most resilient—will find a way to cope, and to thrive.

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This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Invincible city"

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Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

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Foundations and prehistory

Its perennial virtues—the time zone, English language and rule of law—are reinforced by the proximity of top universities and an abundance of skills and capital. Babs Ogundeyi, the founder of Kuda, a fintech firm based in London, says savvy local angel investors helped attract more capital. Kuda runs a digital-only bank in Nigeria and a remittance service for Africans in Britain. For all Brexit’s hassles, Mr Ogundeyi notes, it has led to closer ties to Africa.

The upshot is another irony of Brexit; you might also call it karma or poetic justice. London, the only region of England that in the referendum of 2016 voted to stay in the EU, has fared better than regions that wanted to leave. For overlapping reasons, it has bounced back faster from the pandemic. Head to north London to see why.

Sally north

On a chilly evening at Arsenal’s football stadium, the club’s new anthem rings around the ground: “North London for ever/Whatever the weather/These streets are our own.” It is a sentimental but affecting tune, especially after the lockdown months in which spectators were barred. Now the stadium is packed; Gunnersaurus, the team’s mascot, is high-fiving young fans. The faithful are loudly outraged by lunging tackles on their hero, the winger Bukayo Saka (he duly scores).

Like the carousing at the Eagle, London’s entertainment economy is buoyant again after the deathly doldrums of covid-19. Its seven Premier League football clubs project soft power around the globe. Tourism has almost returned to pre-pandemic levels, boosted by a rise in American visitors. The Society of London Theatre says audiences are up. On some weekends the Tube is busier than in 2019.

All told, London’s nimble economy has recovered much more strongly than has the rest of the country’s. Like other cities, it faces obstacles in the post-covid world. But it is better equipped for them than many.

Already under pressure from online shopping, some retail districts are struggling—notably Oxford Street, which this year looks somewhat bedraggled beneath its Christmas lights. Along with a rise in rough sleeping, vacant shops have contributed to a dilapidated air in parts of central London. By some accounts, however, the main threat to its pizzazz is Londoners’ reluctance to return to the office full-time.

The ghostly building is not unique. Vacancy rates in commercial property in central London are high, in part because—as elsewhere, only more so—people are loth to kick the working-from-home (WFH) habit acquired during the pandemic. A recent survey for the Centre for Cities, also a think-tank, found that, on average, workers in central London were in the office 2.3 days per week, less than other Britons. Of 32 countries surveyed for research by Nick Bloom of Stanford University, British workers stayed home more than any bar Canadians. Taken together, these findings imply Londoners are among the most absent workers anywhere.

Face-to-face interactions are good for productivity, already stalling in London before the pandemic. Low office attendance could in time deter foreign investors. Then again, in a WFH future, London has enticements that other places lack.

A three-days-a-week office will have to look different from the antediluvian sort: more flexible and alluring. Yet networking, transport and entertainment possibilities mean the case for keeping a central-London HQ is stronger than for having a satellite office. Notably, the WFH culture has not led armies of Londoners to retreat beyond striking distance of the workplace. Most inner Londoners who moved home between the summers of 2021 and 2022 circulated around the city, rather than fleeing it.

It has brushed off another crisis that some thought would nobble it: the war in Ukraine and ensuing sanctions on Russia’s elite, who had brought joy to London’s libel lawyers, estate agents, PR firms and football fans. For all their notoriety and flamboyance, their largesse was always less important than that from China and the Middle East, says Oliver Bullough, author of “Butler to the World”, an exposé of Britain’s services to kleptocracy. In any case, plenty of other high-rollers still call London home, or one of them. (For an Ozymandian monument to London’s indulgence of oligarchs, stroll west from Harrods and look out for a disused Tube station. In 2014 the government sold it for £53m—$87m at the time—to Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian tycoon wanted in America on charges of alleged corruption, which he denies.)

London, after all, has absorbed all manner of shocks in its 2,000-year history. Its most precarious period, considers Tony Travers of the lse, came after the Romans left in the fifth century AD. The Black Death killed much of its population in the 1340s; the Great Fire of 1666 razed swathes of it. A port city that adapted to the decline of its port, it was also an imperial capital that acclimatised to the loss of empire. It defied the Blitz of 1940-41—when, rather than sheltering in the Tube as urban myth has it, most Londoners simply slept at home.

That phlegmatism is one of London’s abiding traits. Its biggest worries now may not be external threats but the repercussions of success. Moscow, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo: other cities dominate both the politics and economies of their country. Even so, London stands out for its grip on government, finance, media and the arts (worlds that collide at the Eagle, a watering hole for moneymen and media types and home to an art gallery). Equally glaring are the differences in the demography and outlook of Londoners and their compatriots.

At the last count, disposable household income per person was 43% higher in London than in the country as a whole. Londoners are younger, more left-wing and far more diverse: ethnic minorities account for 46% of residents, over double the proportion in England and Wales. Two-fifths of Londoners were born abroad. Contrary to its reputation in the shires as a latter-day Gomorrah, on average London is slightly more socially conservative and less boozy than other regions.

For that, thank its immigrants, many of whom are devout. They have also helped raise standards in London’s schools, which this century have been transformed from the worst-performing of any English region to the best. For a close-up look at that phenomenon, go west.

Known as “Little India”, the western suburb of Southall is studded with Punjabi and Afghan restaurants, mosques and Sikh temples. Nathan Walters, head of the local Featherstone High School, says 85% of its pupils use another language at home. Almost a third receive free school meals (a standard measure of poverty). Whether or not they speak English themselves, parents are “unfailingly positive” about education; results far outstrip the national average. Proximity to opportunity is a motivation, says Mr Walters. Pupils “can almost see it from their bedroom windows”.

London’s dominance, and voracity for people and capital, have been concerns for centuries. Over 400 years ago King James I griped, “Soon, London will be all England.” In the 19th century it was dubbed “the great wen” (cyst). These days polling finds other Britons view it as crowded and expensive and its denizens as arrogant and insular. Many think it is favoured by policymakers and the exchequer, though it contributes far more than it gets back. London’s net fiscal contribution per head is over £4,000.

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That sort of resentment has fed populism across the West. In Britain it coloured the Brexit referendum. Yet since then, the divide—in wealth, diversity and opportunity—has grown (see chart 1).

In its bid to narrow the gaps, the current government, like its predecessors, has recycled failed ideas. As a recent parliamentary report noted, for instance, schemes to shift civil-service jobs to the regions are reliably launched every ten to 15 years. Often such efforts involve constraining London’s growth in hope of diverting it elsewhere. A good example was a misguided rule of 1964 (since discarded) that in effect banned new office developments in central London.

Too often, policies have corseted the capital without boosting other places—and have wound up punishing everyone. The other big cost of London’s appeal has proved just as hard to tackle. This distress cry comes from inside the house.

“Affordable housing isn’t always as nice as this,” a resident of McGrath Road says with droll London understatement. Home, for her, is one of 26 houses in a beguiling development in Stratford, in the east London borough of Newham. Set amid unlovely 20th-century estates, the units, some of them public housing, form what looks like a Moorish citadel, with turrets and crenellations but also welcoming arches, balconies and a tree-lined central courtyard. Walk up to the railway tracks and you spy the glinting towers that were part of the regeneration spurred by the Olympics.

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Space poor, opportunity richimage: Josh Edgoose

Clogged roads, air pollution, long and pricey commutes, a discredited police force—inevitably London suffers from many big-city ailments. Compared with their compatriots, Londoners report a low sense of neighbourhood belonging; as is common amid such hurly-burly, life can feel lonely and atomised. (“It is strange with how little notice”, wrote Charles Dickens, “a man may live and die in London.”) But the most acute problem, and most enduring, is the scarcity and cost of housing—and it is sharpest, and most intransigent, in the East End.

Roman ruins beneath your feet, glass towers above your head. It’s past, present and future all at once.

It’s where the Romans built Londinium, where Dickens wrote novels, where Shakespeare lived, worked and dreamed. And there are endless stories around every corner. Heroes, villains, innovators, and creators.

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Early history to the 10th century

It’s where the first wireless signals were sent, and where code for green tech is written today. Walking around the City you will discover hidden gardens, rooftop bars, ancient streets, the latest restaurants, culture, and unique events. This is where it happened and where it’s happening.

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