| Postcards of the Past |
Custom Search
| London - City of Westminster |
| Whilst not geographically huge, the City of Westminster contains most of London's major tourist attractions. Thus, over the past 100 years or so, very many postcards have been produced. We have several pages of old cards of the area - follow the links at the bottom of each page to see them all. Whilst we have tried to group them according to location, this has not always been possible. Included in the City of Westminster are: Bayswater, Belgravia, Covent Garden, Fitzrovia, Holborn, Hyde Park, Knightsbridge, Lisson Grove, Maida Vale, Mayfair, Marylebone, Millbank, Paddington, Pimlico, Queen's Park, St James's, St John's Wood, Soho, including Chinatown, "Theatreland", Westbourne Green, West End, Westminster City Centre. Mainline railway stations in this area are Charing Cross, Marylebone, Paddington and Victoria. |
| A 1906 "Oilette" postcard by Raphael Tuck. "Westminster Pier. This is one of about 45 piers on the Thames between Hampton Court on the west and Southend on the east. They are floating piers, made of iron, which rise and fall with the tide. Westminster Pier is almost immediately under the new buildings on the Victoria Embankment known as New Scotland Yard." |
| A 1905 postcard of Parliament and Westminster Bridge from the South Bank. |
| The Cecil and Savoy Hotels seen from the Embankment in a postcard dated 1907. |
| A postcard mailed in 1926. |
| An undated postcard - however, the Hotel Cecil has changed. It was taken over by Shell in 1930. The river facade was remodelled and the building renamed Shell Mex House, so this gives a clue to the date of this postcard. |
| Another good view of the Cecil and the Savoy. |
| "Westminster Abbey, North Transept. This Abbey stands on the site of an Anglo-Saxon Church, built by King Serbert, about 616; the Danes destroyed it, but it was rebuilt by Edward the Confessor, and entirely renovated by Henry III and Edward I. The Facade of the North Transept was restored in 1890 by Scott and Pearson. In this part of the Abbey are the statesmen's monuments, and Gladstone's grave." |
| A 1930s postcard of the Clock Tower on a pleasant, sunny afternoon. |
| St Margaret's, Westminster - an undated postcard. |
| "The Houses of Parliament, erected in 1840 on the site of the old Palace of Westminster. They cover an area of eight acres, have 100 staircases, 11 open courts, and 1,100 apartments. Can be seen on Saturdays 10 to 4. The Victoria Tower is 340 feet high, and the Clock Tower 318 feet. The four clock dials are each 23 feet in diameter." |
| The statue of Richard Coeur de Lion in Old Palace Yard, Westminster. |
| Two views of the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament. |
| Westminster Cathedral - a 1929 postcard. |
| The Dean's Courtyard, Westminster Abbey. |
| Whitehall - about 1912. |
| "The Thames Embankment is one of the finest promenades in London, and was constructed in 1870. Public gardens line the greater part of the north side of the road, behind which are palatial hotels and magnificent public buildings. The picture shows Waterloo Bridge and Cleopatra's Needle, the latter a 3,000 year old Egyptian monument, transported to England in 1877 by the generosity and enterprise of Sir Erasmus Wilson." This "Oilette" by Raphael Tuck was posted in 1906. |
| A 1907 postcard. |
| A postcard of the War Office in Whitehall sent to Paris in July 1918. |
| Downing Street - an unused postcard but probably from around 1910. |
| I used to work on Arundel Street in the 1970s, and used the Temple Underground station daily. |
| Two more of the popular "Moonlight" postcards, both dating from the early 1900s. |
| Search the internet for more about London and the City of Westminster. |