Ghosts of London

How many people, even among Londoners, know why a squad of soldiers marches nightly to the Bank of England at six o’clock; why at the same hour the sound of an ancient horn can be heard mooing in the courts of the Temple; where one can buy snuff and herbs and leeches; what an ‘ordinary’ is; that the College of Arms still has officials called Heralds, Poursuivants, and Kings of Arms, or that the bell of Big Ben is cracked? Against a background of London as it is in wartime today, H. V. Morton places these accounts of little-known customs and traditions, emphasizing the continuity of its long existence and the hidden links which bind its present to its past.