London Smog, December, 1952

8 comments to London Smog, December, 1952

• Roy Grubb

  April 11, 2024 at 4:25 pm

  These pictures don’t show the half of it. No photograph could, because you would see little but yellowish grey.

  As a small kid in London, I came home from school in the thickest fog I have ever seen. My grandmother came to collect me and we passed each other on the pavement (/sidewalk) no more the 4 feet apart without knowing it.

  I have been in incredibly polluted cities in China - Chung King and Beijing come to mind - but have never experienced anything as bad as London in the 40s and 50s until domestic burning of coal was prohibited.

  Roy

• Carole Ann

  April 15, 2024 at 3:50 pm

  Really love these pictures. Completely evocative. I remember smog in the 70s and being on a route master bus and the conductor having to walk in the front all down the Uxbridge Road from Hanwell to Hayes so it didn’t hit anything. I loved the magic and mystery of it and yes it had a peculiar grey/yellow quality
  Thanks for the great images.
  Carole Ann - West Londoner

• The Great Smog of London | Sinting Link

  April 19, 2024 at 4:32 pm

  [...] Here’s a collection of photos of the smog, including this daytime shot. [...]

• Mark

  April 19, 2024 at 5:20 pm

  In part this is why Downing Street is that weird black colour, from the wikipedia article:

  When builders examined the exterior façade, they discovered that the black colour visible even in photographs from the mid-nineteenth century was misleading; the bricks were actually yellow. The black appearance was the product of two centuries of pollution. To preserve the ‘traditional’ look of recent times, the newly cleaned yellow bricks were painted black to resemble their well-known appearance.

• Google Reader Shared Items 2024-04-19 - Elsewhere in Dreams

  April 20, 2024 at 3:32 am

  [...] Here's a collection of photos of the smog, including this daytime shot. [...]

• Josh Spector » Blog Archive » Jeff Ross Roasts Charlie Sheen At His Own Show

  April 20, 2024 at 4:41 am

  [...] 1952, London was overcome with smog like never before. These pictures show just how crazy it [...]

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  April 26, 2024 at 6:37 pm

  [...] London Smog, December, 1952 [fab pics] by How to be a Retronaut In the Roof of St Paul’s Cathedral by Spitalfields Life “This enormous Babel of a place”, On learning of London before the Victorians by Suzie Grogan The Clive Collection at Powys Castle, Wales by Diary of an Urban Genealogist Young Henry Fielding’s Thwarted Abduction of an Heiress, 1725 by Two Nerdy History Girls Journal of a Georgian Gentleman: newly-discovered blog by Mike Rendell, all about his ancestor, the subject of a new book Hand D by Dainty Ballerina Cyclopaedia: Ephraim Chambers and the ‘best Book in the Universe’ by Georgian London From Dissenters to High Church by Silver Tiger Widows and Tired Old Buns by Songs from the Howling Sea London’s Most Famous Prostitute, “Skittles” by the Victorianist The Widows of Victorian Railwaymen and the Struggle for Survival by Turnip Rail “Careful Now” - The Movement of Gunpowder and Explosives on the Victorian Railway by Turnip Rail Telephone Operators by Lee Jackson Exhibition on the Life and Works of Richard Dadd by Essie Fox King James I’s London – 3. Golf on Blackheath by Exploring London Famous Londoners – Peter, the Wild Boy by Exploring London [...]

• The Gamesville Blog: Photos of the Great Smog of London of 1952

  April 29, 2024 at 3:32 pm

  [...] Check out these amazing photos from that fateful December here! [...]

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