"New Turnstile and Little Turnstile: New Turnstile, named because it was more recently built than Great turnstile, was one of the gates erected for the passage of pedestrians at the four corners of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Adjacent, to the east, Little Turnstile was the predecessor to New Turnstile. It presumably fell into disrepair and was replaced. There are no great thrills to be had from either of these little passages but perhaps Little ‘T’ has the edge. It is heralded by a solitary telephone kiosk where the passage branches from Holborn in the corner of a triangular patch set back from the line of the pavement. There are four handy food establishments each offering their own speciality fare: Dunkin Doughnuts, Bagel Express, a Thai restaurant, and a sandwich and snack bar. Ladbrooks, bookmakers, have an office in New Turnstile and just around the corner in Gate Street is Bernies Grills. A specialist in luggage repairs has his shop here and to complete the picture, the Ship Tavern is at the end of the passage."
5 comments :
I had to know. It turns out Dunkin Donuts is actually owned by Allied Domecq PLC, a UK company. Curiously, though, their Global Presence page doesn't mention England. Their "most significant presence overseas" is in southeast Asia.
... but there's a Krispy Kreme at Harrods.
--Erik (again)
Good grief!! They have practically colonized New England. There are more Dunkin D's here than there are Starbucks in Seattle. This is saying something. It's fascinating, because on the surface they look like the quintessential American fast-food-style company -- caffeine and sugar and deepfried oil, bright colors, with no real ambience or seating.
an anonymous weasel writes:
But no mention of 'Of Alley'. Allegedly (I may have got the story slightly wrong) when the Duke of Bedford named all the streets in the area his family own (quite a lot in Bloomsbury near lots of the University of London central stuff and UCL), as well as Duke Street and Bedford Square, there was an 'Of Alley'. Egomaniac or what? Anyway, it is "York Place" now with a smaller sign saying 'Formerly Of Alley', which in the crap novel I am writing very slowly is the name, in the backstory, of an album of a band that one of the protagonists was in.
I am trying to put plenty of 'sense of place' in it, but this is let down by the fact that most of my experiences of London were wandering round it in my teens slightly pissed, though London is more of a state of mind than a place anyway.
Yes -- well, if it's more of a state of mind than a place, that might explain why I react with loathing and think of it as a tip, while other people think it's a cultural and historical mecca worth traveling to for its own sake. I mostly remember it pissed, lost, tired from overseas flights, penniless, and with hurting feet...
Post a Comment