London Miscellaneous

The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens includes statues of Alberti, Brunelleschi, Drer, Pythagoras, Da Vinci and Wren.

After the 1851 Great Exhibition, the Crystal Palace was moved to south London, where the area is still called Crystal Palace and was a popular venue until it burned in 1937. Among other exhibitions, Charles Edward Hoopers chess playing automaton, Ajeeb, was exhibited here in 1881-1886.
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Hooke, Wren, etc. used to frequent Garaways and Jonathans Coffee Houses in Change Alley, where they would discuss problems.
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Dial House, Riverside, Twickenham, adjacent to St Mary the Virgin at the end of Church Street, has a handsome sundial of 1726, erected when Thomas Twining (the tea merchant) converted the building. A descendent presented Dial House to the church in 1890 for use as the Vicarage and it is still in use.
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10 Downing Street is an unlikely place to look for scientific or mathematical interest. However there is a bust of Faraday in the Inner Hall, a portrait of Boyle in the Pillared Drawing-room and the Small Dining Room has representations of Eminent British Scientists : a bust of Newton and portraits of Priestley, Davy and Halley. Unfortunately, these are rarely viewable.

In the 17-18C, most of the scientific instrument makers were based in or near Fleet Street. The street was numbered in c1760.

136 Fleet Street was the shop of several generations of mathematical instrument makers. John Rowley (1673-1728), of the orrery, began at The Globe under St Dunstans Church in Fleet Street. He was Master of Mechanicks to the King from 1714. He was succeeded in 1718 by his student Thomas Wright at The Orrery & Globe. Wright became Mathematical Instrument Maker to the Prince of Wales, later King George II, in 1718 and extended Rowley's orrery to include the other planets: in 1733 he built the Grand Orrery now in the Science Museum. He lists James Stirling's Academy as a purchaser of one of his orreries, c1730. Wright was later at The Orrery, Water Lane (the only likely Water Lane I can find is in Stratford, which doesn't seem very likely - I suspect this is a now vanished street near Fleet Street). Wright was succeeded by Benjamin Cole (1695-1766) in 1748, at the Orrery, Two Doors above the Globe Tavern. His son Benjamin Cole Jr (1725-1813) took over in 1766. They were succeeded by John Troughton and Edward Troughton (1753-1835) in 1782, who developed the circular dividing engine for marking equal intervals on circular scales. The work of Ramsden and Troughton improved astronomical accuracy from 2' to 6" in about thirty years. The firm later became Troughton & Simms in 1826 and Cooke, Troughton & Simms in 1922 and was later amalgamated into Vickers Instruments.

George Graham (1675-1751) was at 67 Fleet Street (corner of Whitefriars St.) with his master, later uncle-in-law, Thomas Tompion (1639-1713), the father of English watchmaking. Graham was then at 148 Fleet Street from 1720. In the summer of 1730, Halley suggested that John Harrison discuss his plans with Graham and Harrison came to Grahams house. There was some hesitancy at first, but they soon hit it off and spent ten hours discussing clocks. Graham invited Harrison for dinner and give him great encouragement and a substantial loan which enabled him to build H1.

George Adams the elder (d. 1773) and the younger (1750-1795) were mathematical instrument makers to George III and had premises at Tycho Brahes Head, Fleet Street. In 1760-1762, Adams built instruments for George III which are now displayed in a gallery in the Science Museum.
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Benjamin Martin was at 171 Fleet Street, first giving a street number in 1767.

The Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS) was set up c1918 a short way down Broadway from Westminster Abbey iand remained there until its removal to Bletchley Park in Sep 1939.

The Hayward Gallery, Lambeth, SE1, is on the west side of the South Bank side of Waterloo Bridge. It is of interest, not only for what is in it, but for what is on top of it, a kinetic sculpture known as the Hayward Gallery Neon Tower. Designed by Philip Vaughan (structure) and Roger Dainton (kinetics), it is a stack of six regular framework octahedra, sharing faces. Along the 54 edges above the base are pairs of neon tubes, 9' 6" long, in five colours. The non-horizontal edges form oblique spirals, one going clockwise as it goes up, the other anticlockwise. These are coloured magenta and yellow. The horizontal triangles are coloured red, green and blue. The lights operate in eight sequences, determined by the direction of the wind, with the speed of operation determined by the wind speed - note the weather vane and anemometer on top of the tower. A model of the idea was commissioned by the Arts Council in 1970 and was displayed in the Kinetics Exhibition at the Hayward. The rooftop version was completed in 1972. Ove Arup and Partners were structural engineers.
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In a parking lot at Heathrow Airport is the northwest end of the original base line for the triangulation of England. This ran 27,404.72 feet across Hounslow Heath and was measured in 1784-1785 by William Roy. The original wooden pipes were replaced by guns buried vertically in 1791. Bronze plates were attached to the guns in 1926 to commemorate the bicentenary of Roys birth. The northwest end was in Kings Arbour Field. This gun was removed in 1944 due to expansion of Heathrow Airport, but was returned to its original position in 1972 -grid reference TQ 077767. The southeast gun has never been moved and is in Roy Grove, Hampton - grid reference TQ 137709. Also at the Airport are examples of anamorphic art by Frances Hegarty in the walkways connecting Terminal 1 to the gates for Irish flights.
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Her Majestys Theatre, Haymarket, was the site of Babbages innovatory experiments with coloured stage lighting.

The Monument, by London Bridge, was designed by Hooke, who was City Surveyor at the time. It was built in 1671-1677. Wren made an unused proposal for a hollow column for astronomical purposes and the Monument has often been erroneously attributed to Wren.
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The Park Lane Hotel, Park Lane, was the site of the worlds greatest draughts (= checkers) match in Aug/Sep 1992. Dr. Marion Tinsley, World Champion since 1956, who had lost only 7 games in the previous 44 years, played Chinook, a computer program developed by Jonathan Schaeffer of the University of Alberta, running on a Silicon Graphics parallel series super-computer. Tinsley won, 4-33-2. One of Chinooks loses was due to using a line of play from a standard source which turned out to be poor (this may be referring to the last game?). Another was due to looping which ran out of time. The last loss, in game 39, was due to Schaeffer instructing Chinook to go all out for a win and avoid a draw, leading to an untried move, the loss of the game and the match. In the rematch in 1994, the score was 0-6-0 when Tinsley had to retire due to ill-health and he died in 1995. His retirement meant that Chinook was now World Champion and it has retained the title against the worlds number two player. Chinook is now rated a few points higher than Tinsley was.

In Pinner Churchyard is a large pyramidal monument with coffin inside. The father of the noted gardening and horticultural writer, John Claudius Loudon, had requested to be buried above ground and this was the sons solution.
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The Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, is where the code-breaking machines Heath Robinson and Colossus were built in 1943 for Bletchley Park. The Robinson was chiefly designed by C. E. Wynn-Williams. The Colossus was directed by Max Newman and Tom Flowers was the leader of the Post Office design group.

67 Rodenhurst Road, Clapham Park, SW4, had a magic square with constant 67 carved in stone on its gatepost. This uses the numbers 9, 10, ..., 20, 22, 23, 24, 25. Studying this, I observed that one could not get the constant 67 by using consecutive numbers and I was led to formulate the idea of an almost consecutive magic square, i.e. one using a set of consecutive numbers with at most one number skipped. Such an almost consecutive square can be made for any magic constant. Sadly, the owner/carver has died. The new owners have rebuilt the front wall in wood and they have not yet figured out where to resite the carving, so it is not presently in view.

Royal College Of Surgeons, (of England), 35-43 Lincolns Inn Fields, Holborn, WC2A 3PN, Tel: 020-7405 3474 (ext. 3011 for the Museums). The brain of Charles Babbage is on display in the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Victor Horsley published a Description of the brain of Mr. Charles Babbage, F.R.S. in the Phil. Trans., Ser. B, 200 (1908) 117-131.
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Slaughters Coffee House, St. Martins Lane at Cranbourn St., was a major chess venue in mid 18C, attracting De Moivre and Philidor. De Moivre acted as a consultant mathematician here.
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Somerset House, Strand, was built in 1776-1786. In the late 18C and early 19C, much of the building was used by the main learned societies. The Royal Society was here from 1780 to 1857. The names of some of the societies remain over the doorways on each side of the entrance vestibule. There is a bust of Newton above the entrance to former Royal Society rooms, on the left of the vestibule. For many years until about the 1980s, this was the office of the Registrar General, where all births, marriages, divorces and deaths were recorded. One author reports that there is a white watch face set in the wall over the door to the Stamps and Taxes Office. The Stamps and Taxes office was in the eastern part of the South Block. I cannot find this mark and the staff at Somerset House do not recall it. The Royal Society's Main Room has a painted ceiling of the zodiac.
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A handout about Somerset House says there was an Admiralty exhibition here which was moved to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich in the 1870s. Since the Museum did not exist then, this may refer to some forerunner of it.

In the corridor of Block 5 of the South Wing of St Thomas's Hospital, Lambeth Palace Road, is a set of 10 silk screen prints by Eduardo Paolozzi. One of these, Computer-Epoch (Jun 1967), uses the pattern of Pascals Triangle (mod 2). I think I have seen these prints in other places.
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Trafalgar Square. The zero point for road mileage from London is marked by a plaque on the ground just behind the statue of Charles I on the island at the south of the Square. Copies of the Imperial standards of length were set in the north wall by the Standards Department of the Board of Trade in 1876 and they are still there. The tablet has 1, 2 and 3 feet shown, with a chain (66 ft) and 100 ft lengths laid out nearby.
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There is a Trig Lane in the City of London, but sadly it has no connection with mathematics, having been named from a 13-14C family of fishmongers named Trygge.

In Waltham Abbey, on the northern outskirts of London, is the tomb of Robert Smith (1637-1697) a successful sea captain. The tomb is handsomely decorated with symbols of his profession, including accurate depictions of navigational instruments of the time: sounding lead, backstaff, astrolabe, dividers, compass, cross staff, hour glass.
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The Prime Meridian passes near the Abbey and is marked at several places.
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Warren Street Station on the Victoria Line of the Underground has a handsome maze motif done in tiles on the walls of the platform and the floor of the station. It was designed by John Burrell in 1979.
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There is a brick pavement maze in the Warren Street childrens playground, which is a short distance down Whitfield Street.
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It includes: the earliest known (1713) clock movement and dial by John Harrison, almost entirely of wood, signed and dated; an equation of time table in Harrisons hand, from his third clock of 1717; and several of Harrisons manuscripts. In 1753, a skilled London clockmaker named John Jefferys made a pocket watch for Harrison under his supervision and incorporating many of his ideas. The success of this inspired Harrisons H4. Sobel says the Jefferys watch is here. Also here is Harrisons chronometer H5 which was tested by Kew Observatory and by Demainbray in the 1770s. It was accurate to

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of a second per day over a ten week period.
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Sobel also says that one of the long-case clocks made by John and James Harrison in 1725-1727 is here.