The Tunnel Through Time, A New Route for an Old London Journey

Tindall, Gillian

ISBN 10: 0701188650 / ISBN 13: 9780701188658

Published by Chatto and Windus / Random House, London, 2016

About this Item

First edition, first impression with full number line. Some very slight edge wear to top of jacket and spine, not price clipped (£20.00), no inscriptions, internally clean tight and square, overall a vg+ copy. 306pp, illustrated. Crossrail, the 'Elizabeth' line, with its spacious, light filled stations, is simply the latest way of traversing a very old east west route through what was once countryside to the old City core and out again. Visiting Stepney, Liverpool Street, Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road (alias St Giles in the Fields) and the route along Oxford Street (alias the Way to Oxford and also Tyburn) this richly descriptive book traces the course of many of these historical journeys across time as well as space. Archaeology disinters layers of actual matter, one may also disinter the lives that walked where many of our streets, however altered in appearance, still run today. These people spoke the names of ancient farms, manors and slums that now belong to our squares and tube stations. They endured the cycle of the seasons as we do, they ate, drank, laughed, worked, prayed, despaired and hoped in what are essentially the same spaces we occupy today. As 'The Tunnel Through Time' expertly shows, destruction and renewal are a constant rhythm in London's story.

Seller Inventory # 005136

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Tunnel Through Time, A New Route for an Old London Journey
• Publisher: Chatto and Windus / Random House, London
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0701188650
• ISBN 13: 9780701188658
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Crossrail, the `Elizabeth’ line, with its spacious, light-filled stations, is simply the latest way of traversing a very old east-west route through what was once countryside to the old City core and out again. Visiting Stepney, Liverpool Street, Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road (alias St Giles-in-the-Fields) and the route along Oxford Street (alias the Way to Oxford and also Tyburn) this richly descriptive book traces the course of many of these historical journeys across time as well as space. Archaeology disinters layers of actual matter; one may also disinter the lives that walked where many of our streets, however altered in appearance, still run today. These people spoke the names of ancient farms, manors and slums that now belong to our squares and tube stations. They endured the cycle of the seasons as we do; they ate, drank, laughed, worked, prayed, despaired and hoped in what are essentially the same spaces we occupy today. As The Tunnel Through Time expertly shows, destruction and renewal are a constant rhythm in the city’s story. `A forensic researcher... an imaginative historical sensibility and way of revisiting the past – as if approaching it through the back door – that has both subtlety and poignancy’ Financial Times

About the Author

Gillian Tindall is a master of miniaturist history, well known for the quality of her writing and the scrupulousness of her research; she makes a handful of people, a few locations or a dramatic event stand for the much larger picture, as her seminal book The Fields Beneath, approached the history of Kentish Town, London. She has also written on London's Southbank (The House by the Thames), on southern English counties (Three Houses, Many Lives), and the Left Bank (Footprints in Paris), amongst other locations, as well as biography and prize-winning novels. Her latest book, The Tunnel through Time, traced the history of the Crossrail route, the forthcoming ‘Elizabeth’ line. She has lived in the same London house for over fifty years.