Rather Splendid Christmas London Walk and its Traditions - Bah Humbug!

hip hip telly ho and a very merry christmas to one and all jewels guides here in which i wander around london and tell you fascinating facts now here we are in st michael's alley near bank in 1843 charles dickens published a christmas carol it's kind of hard to talk about christmas without thinking of the christmas cow by charles dickens in fact his family still come to this pub every year for their christmas meetups charles dickens used to drink in this pub before the victorians came along people did still celebrate christmas but it wasn't a massive festival like it is today it wasn't even a day off a lot of people worked but one such person who definitely was working was ebenezer scrooge and this is where he had his counting house a courtyard off corn hill in the shadow of a church whose gruff old bell was always peeping down a scrooge through a gothic window in the wall and this is the only church that fits that description and this this courtyard so we know that this is where scrooge had his counting house and scrooge says i suppose you'll be wanting the whole day off tomorrow as usual and cratchit says oh yes if it's not too much trouble please sir and he's so happy that he runs down here and out into cornhill which is just through that road over there where the kids have been building a slide out of snow and he slides down it just for the sheer joy of it meanwhile scrooge goes to his usual melancholy dinner at his usual melancholy tavern which many people say is this one over here simpsons have you ever been in here we must go in here sometime [Music] songs from jules guides we're just doing a bit of busking here to promote this new album that i've got out would you like to purchase one yourself sir why should i give you my money simonear it's a bit simple cesar are there no prisons are there no well he'd workhouses die than do that sir well he'd better hurry up and do so and decrease the surplus population hamburg of course charles dickens didn't invent all our christmas traditions he did help to popularize the idea of it being a time for family peace good will and charity in fact in my film about dennis eva's house you can see a typical victorian christmas scene which they've all set up there the annual christmas installation is set in the early 19th century it looks like everybody has simply put down their knives and forks because they've heard us coming the black swan arrived in the 19th century and it also comes from that time when food was dressed and came straight back to the table to look as it did when it was alive mistletoe do you know the whole point in the history of mistletoe and remember the whole point of christmas is that you bring in the dead of winter towards the end of the year you bring in something living which brings you wealth and prosperity and good fortune for the coming year so everything's dead it's freezing cold within that white berry is a seed the only people that traditionally kissed beneath that were people who were betrothed and were awaiting the birth of a baby or wanted a child this is going to be tiny tim's walking stick it is yeah his crutches are next door yeah it's smell it's real christmas purse yeah it smells like christmas yeah everything in the house is real that's the most important thing and then we have a layer of sound and then there's the layer of smell the paint up here is hundreds of years old it's all 19th century and then there's an 18th century layer that's is exposing itself with time the food is still on the table i can imagine people having had a nice christmas meal and gone to the other rooms like my mum's underwear yeah well we've been here quite recently in one of my city of london videos there are many theories as to why we celebrate christmas on the 25th of december that wasn't actually when jesus was born but my favorite one is when the romans occupied london some of them had been serving in persia and there was this religion there something to do with mithras um the mithratic religion and mithras who was the god of the sun or something his birthday was the 25th of december and they started up a temple of mithras here now it is free to enter you just have to go down all the way downstairs and you can see the actual temple itself which they uncovered quite recently and when the emperor constantine came along who was the first christian emperor he decided to absorb all these religions and nick all the best bits and decide i know we'll we'll celebrate on the 25th of december that can be christmas could it be true or could it be bollocks who knows [Music] now this is a look at this but i'm obsessed with post boxes there's a reason i'm talking about this one this is this is a replica of the original penfold post box it says here designed by john penfold in 1866 now the first commercial christmas card was designed for a fellow by the name of henry cole who was director of the victorian albert museum and in this card he was sitting around the table having a beautiful christmas lunch with his family that was the same year the christmas carol was published by charles dickens but henry cole was instrumental in establishing the penny post which made it easier and more affordable for people to start sending christmas cards to each other and um and this this post box is right outside where the main central post office used to be and people including queen victoria had their children start making their own christmas cards so when postage became cheaper it became a much more common thing to do to send christmas cards although i don't know if you've seen some of the victorian christmas cards they're pretty bleak have you seen any of them they've got things like dead robins like on their back they're just it's really funny i think it's in order to remind you that it's a time for charity to help the poor and sick and the needy are you going to send a um christmas card to our mummy in this one it'd be nice and romantic no i'm not going to send anybody off with you christmas cards getting wasted money if you ask me [Music] now i'm not the only christmas grinch back in 1643 oliver cromwell who's over there is staring at king charles the first over here whose head he had chopped off later on um he had uh christmas band in 16th i think that the actual act of parliament came in in 1647 and he he said that it was a sinful abhorrent tradition based on roman catholic mass so all these puritans they didn't like people having fun they even tried to close the pubs and things like that anyway it didn't end that nicely for oliver cromwell in the end um they hanged him um no he died of natural causes didn't he anyway they dug him up and posthumously hanged him that was it they dug him up and hanged him even though he was already dead um but uh yes and then they brought back king charles ii to the throne and he loved christmas yay so he brought it all back in 1660. good job could do with him now actually i should think you've seen the film hook right hook it's all yeah that's another christmas eve it is a christmasy film and there's a scene with tinker bell when she flight julia roberts she flies over the bridge and then there's a couple there and then the sprinkle from tinkerbell makes them float up and in an embrace above the bridge and uh that couple's played by george lucas and carrie fisher princess leia well yeah yes look we're back here again underneath charing cross station which is where charles dickens used to work in the shoe blacking factory but um this street here craven street is where he got the idea for the door knocker where jacob marley's face turns into the door knocker it was one of the knockers that he saw along the street here could really imagine this door knocker turning into the face of jacob marley ebenezer [Music] lighten up and stop being such a miserable old gift because charles dickens would have walked down the streets on his way to work as a 13 year old boy in the shoe blocking factory over there now funnily enough in london we've only had four white christmases in the whole of the 20th century i think we had a few more recently actually but but in general we hardly ever have a white christmas the only reason why everyone imagines christmas as being this snowy time is because charles dickens whenever he talks about christmas in his books not only christmas carol also pickwick papers and all sorts of other books that he writes he describes it as being a snowy scene and that's largely because when he was born in 1812 we had a mini ice age it was like one of the coldest decades on record and the thames froze over so as he was growing up his first eight or nine christmases of his life would all have been really snowy affairs and he probably went down to one of these frost fairs you see down here on the the river is down the end there and he probably would have seen an elephant crossing the river and they even built fires on the river and all sorts that's why we think that christmas is a snowy sort of business but actually we've hardly ever had any down here up north they've got a few [Music] now in 1848 the illustrated london news published a picture of queen victoria and prince albert next to their christmas tree and ever since then everybody decided they wanted a christmas tree too they had presents and sweets and stuff hanging from their tree and candles in those days this is the one that's given to us by norway every year since 1947 because they're thanking us for the help that we gave them during the second world war but yes it's a little bit a little bit thin that's crazy because they just sort of lazily just hung the lights out from the top so they sort of dropped down now why we can't blame the norwegians they're present no it's the tree is not the problem it's the lighting i could have done better than that but anyway there are some much nicer christmas trees around the place there's a really beautiful one in covent covent garden is my favorite one and there's a few instant james's as well which we shall go and see [Music] look there's santa santa be careful he has splat in 1822 that's when we first got an idea about what sound to look like it was in that famous poem by you know the famous one that was the night before christmas not a creature was stirring not even a mouth yeah that's why clements see more and in that he described what santa looked like he was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot his eyes how they twinkled his dimples how merry his cheeks were like roses his nose like a cherry he was chubby and plump actually the real um santa claus he's based as you know on saint nicholas saint nicholas saint to claw saintly claws um and saint santa claus uh is actually from turkey he's turkish which is really cool because we eat turkey from christmas and father christmas is from turkey he was originally the bishop of myra back in like the 4th century or something he was quite famous for giving presents and gifts away to the poor and needy now you'll like this he was the patron saint of sailors merchants repentant thieves children's children unmarried women and most importantly of course what do i always mention in uh jules guides prostitutes yes it was a patient said rather pleasingly saint nicholas is a patron saint of prostitutes as well yeah that's superb i had no idea it's actually actually an ancient song as well it's the oldest song in england that's it my friend will walking on facebook he's recorded a version yes and it's about nicholas which they can later who is [Music] it's about the closest we can get to a christmas market at least they've got a christmas tree and it's by a church which is nice but um yeah oh no no carols i suppose [Music] christmas carol comes from the french karol which is a kind of song of praise or something and christmas songs have been sung for years usually pagan songs sung at the the winter solstice but the first ones in english were in 1426. one mold wine please from your sailing bowl that's quite good i like that now they would have been sung by wassailers originally and these were sailors would have gone calling on to the lord of the manor and offering them a drink out of their sailing bowl and he'd in return offer them free gifts but sometimes these were sailors could get quite violent and aggressive like in the in the carol we wish you a merry christmas when they say we won't go until we get some we won't go until we get something they're demanding some figgy pudding whatever that is i'm not sure they're a happy piggy but i don't even know what fizzy pudding is and we won't go until we've got something what that means be healthy i think and then drink hail i mean in in anglo-saxon or something it means uh be drink drink healthy or be drink and be healthy or something um yeah my my anglo-saxon's a little bit rusty i'll be honest do you know what the first christmas song to be broadcast from space was it was in 1965 the gemini 6 mission i think they played a prank they smuggled a harmonica on board and then they radioed back to mission control and there we go if we've spotted an object passing from the outer orbit from north to south he's got a sleigh and some bells and then they broke out into a rendition of jingle bells jingle bells batman smiles simon look it's an advent calendar yeah it's really nice they've made a whole thing look like an advent candidate and if we're lucky mr fortnum and mr mason will come out and say hello out of their clock [Music] oh bye he did actually move his head to be fair to him they did do something after all i was being a bit unkind fortnum mason opened in 1707 it was actually william fortman who started it off he was a butler or something to queen anne it was his job to replace all the candles in the palace and he was allowed to keep the old ones and he got together with his mate hugh mason and they started this business selling candles straight from the queen's palace and even queen victoria started to shop there speaking of queen victoria she sent some of these hampers to the to the people fighting in the crimean war she's um she's famous for that i want a mince pie i want a gingerbread man originally mince pies actually did have mincemeat in them back in the tudor times that's how they made them but then it was the victorians that started putting sweet stuff in like raisins and whatever the hell is inside mince pies i don't actually know but i secretly snuck one in my pocket i guess it was some sort of sweet upper class treat kind of gimmicks actually for rich people i think um and then that's why that's why it took off now another thing from victorian times is in 1848 tom smith a confectioner he um now i think he went to paris or france somewhere in france he saw christmas well i think he was some sort of sweet that he saw some sort of rapper twisted around an almond or something they gave him the idea for christmas crackers and originally they would have just had sweets inside but um then later i think towards the end of the 19th century they started putting gifts inside and then they haven't changed since clippers yeah yeah like or a rubbish like a puzzle that doesn't work or minister because they always have jokes inside these famously rubbish jokes there we go merry christmas merry christmas so what we got in there what do you get if you cross santa with a duck i don't know what do you get if you cross santa with a duck a christmas quacker that was classic that was suitably rubbish why did the scarecrow get awarded the nobel prize for being out standing in his field [Music] [Laughter] what do you call a frenchman in a pair of sandals philippe flop what would you call a woman with one leg longer than the other eileen [Music] oh at least it finally feels like christmas now that we're in covent garden it's amazing it's really nice there's actually quite a lot of people around i'm not sure i'm not sure how socially distanced everybody is but um but let you see where under the mistletoe mistletoe actually comes from the anglo-saxon missile meaning dung and tan meaning twig so you see it because mistletoe it's like a parasite it doesn't grow on its own it grows on other branches near bird droppings that's why they call it mr tan dung twig it's the twig that grows around bird poo and uh and we kiss underneath it what do you think of that see if you can get a kiss then julian from one of these lovely young ladies i know there's going to be much kissing under the mistletoe these days not with a virus as it is ah julia i was uh wondering if you would like to join us for christmas day christmas is a humbug simon i'm going off to my own friends to see if i can scrounge some dinners off them [Music] yeah see that bloke walking around with his blooming bowler out on and his blooming cane tip tip no his pit pip tally oh that's jules and jules guides he's a famous youtuber he's got like over a hundred thousand subscribers hundred thousand that's it i don't believe it at christmas time when london sleeps beneath the snow i look through my address book for friends i used to know christmas cards or facebook posts are not what i intend i want to see you in real life cause i'm truly your friend knock knock rats attacks i dress up like a santa so they can't say no evil [Music] merry christmas jules what a nice surprise what's that in the oven oh it smells so nice it's really nothing special but you're welcome mate oh go on then stick a bit of turkey on my plate it isn't actually turkey it's a vegan substitute that's fine i don't mind eating a turkey made of food merry christmas kyle fellow how are you i'm sorry we don't have much as the chef's got blue i'm really not that hungry i'm just passing by but those do look awfully nice so i'll have a large mint pie do you think he'll notice if we give him grandma's height is probably okay but it's past [Music] itself [Music] is merry christmas simon joshua at my door i have tried to ring you several times or more i haven't been too well i'm sorry to report you can tell me all about it where'd you keep your finest port can't we just pretend that we're not home this time that's not very nice but hide the vintage wine on christmas day cause it's the time to share [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] dear friends is it too late to accept your invitation to dinner ebenezer jewels we'd be delighted for you to join us merry christmas everybody thanks for watching don't forget to hit the subscribe button and above all don't forget to buy little lost loose album of all the jewels guide songs that she's written very highly recommended on her website littleosloo.com but most important of all have a very merry christmas [Music]

Channel: Joolz Guides - London History Walks - Travel Films

Views: 263,603

Keywords: London, tourism, travel guides, julian mcdonnell, joolz guides, hidden London, london history, london christmas lights 2020, london christmas vlog, london christmas walk, london christmas traditions, christmas, christmas in london, lockdown christmas london, christmas walking tour london, London walks dickens, london christmas, london christmas music, facts about christmas trees, christmas fun facts, london christmas walk 2020, christmas carol London walk

Id: WH-rreUJ3-s

Length: 22min 58sec (1378 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020