Welcome

The Society was formed in 1985 to save from demolition London's first public library in Great Smith Street (above right).  Since then we have kept a watchful eye on developments in this area, which includes the World Heritage Site encompassing the Abbey and Houses of Parliament. We respond on behalf of residents and businesses to local planning applications. Our 250+ members enjoy local visits & talks & more recently virtual on-line talks, of historic and other interest, social events and an archive of books, prints, plans and ephemera.

Events 2021 / 2022

Our 2021 Programme of Zoom talks has now finished but they can nearly all be watched on YouTube, 3 months after the live event. 

CLICK HERE to be redirected to our YouTube Channel

Thank you to the members, guides, historians, authors and speakers for their contributions and support which made our talks so informative, varied and entertaining. 

PLEASE BOOK VIA EVENTBRITE HERE

Tuesday 9th November, 6.30pm - The Society's 35th AGM and Talk is free to members and will be held via Zoom.  Registration is via Eventbrite.  After the business of the meeting, Dr Pat Oakley, Head of Pharmacy at the old Westminster Hospital and Research Fellow of Kings College, London will talk on The Magic of Pharmacy at Westminster Hospital in the 19^th Century:  Making Unguents, Oleums, Tinctures, Powders, Pills, and Misturae.  Our consideration will focus on the development of therapeutics based on a hospital’s Drugs Register in The Thorney Island Society's Archives. 

Monday 6th December, 6.30pm - Christmas Party and carols by the South Westminster Community Choir will be held at the Blue Orchid Wellington Hotel in Vincent Square.  Our first in-person event in 2 years !  Welcome back and meet the Committee and other members for drinks and canapés with performance by our local choir together with brass accompaniment.

Our Events Programme for 2022 will be published and ticket sales opened in mid October

The Stag Brewery, Palace Street - Collection of Photographs held at the Westminster Archives

(Of course, we know that the Stag Brewery was not in Pimlico, but in Victoria !)  Fascinating photographs and talk.  Click image below:

Dead After Dark - Holloween Walk in St James's Park & The Green Park - 21st October 2021 6pm

The Queen's Gardens Ghost Walk:  Take a deep breath as you immerse yourself in the strange and chilling tales of buried secrets and nightmarish hauntings in St James's Park and The Green Park.

Thorney Tales (21) - Aphra Behn, playwright, poet, feminist, spy - Ahead of her times (1640-1689)

There are no women poets or playwrights buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey but in the nearby East Cloister lies Aphra Behn. She was a star of Restoration drama, writing 18 successful plays which was more than any male dramatist at the time with the possible exception of John Dryden. She was held in esteem by her peers but not long after sank almost without trace for centuries. This was partly because Restoration drama fell out of fashion but mainly because she wrote in a bawdy fashion which was tolerated in the permissive reign of Charles II but later not thought a fit occupation for a woman. 

In recent years she has made a comeback into fashion partly due to Virginia Woolf’s famous exhortation on her tomb, that “all women together ought to let flowers fall”. Which is what happened in the Summer of 2021, when pupils from Urswick School in Hackney laid  flowers on her grave with personal messages after they had given a - socially distanced - performance of some of Aphra’s work in the hallowed atmosphere of Poets’ Corner. I (Victor Keegan) was delighted to be part of the audience along with others from London Historians. 

She was from a humble background but became an icon and role model way ahead of her time. She is still a fascinating talking point among feminists because while she dealt with gender mixing themes and was a proud libertine at a time when it was fashionable, she was also a Tory and a fierce royalist, which don't always go together. She didn't seem to believe in a God yet she dedicated part of a play to the staunchly Catholic James II before he did a moonlight flit out of the country.

In her time Aphra was a poet, novelist, spy and translator. She was probably the first woman to earn her living from writing even though she was always short of money. Nell Gwynn appeared in one of her plays as did Anne Bracegirdle, the esteemed actress, (in The Widow Ranter in 1689). Anne is buried next to Aphra in the East Cloister, close to Poets’ Corner but not quite in it. 

 

 

 

 

The Victoria Tower Gardens & The National Holocaust Memorial & Learning Centre

29th July 2021 - DECISION !  Government marks its own homework ....

Please CLICK HERE to read today's Press Release

The definitive book on the history of VTG ......

You can purchase Dorian Gerhold's book via the PayPal “Buy Now” button below, for £12 + £3 p&p per copy. You can use a PayPal account if you have one, or you can pay by debit or credit card without needing a PayPal account.

Alternatively, please send a cheque for £12 + £3 p&p per copy (made payable to “The Thorney Island Society”) to TTIS, 10 Old Pye Street, London SW1P 2DG with your name and address.