Ferrets at Buckingham Palace, swearing at Wimbledon and the real-life incident that inspired Del Boy’s fall through the bar – it can only mean that our trivia tour of London’s postcode areas has reached SW…
- The Clermont was the first hotel in London to have lifts. The ‘ascending rooms’ (as they were known when the hotel opened in 1862) were powered by water pressure. Back then the five-storey building, next to Victoria station, was known as the Grosvenor and was a favourite of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So much so, in fact, that he included it in ‘The Final Problem’, the short story with which he first tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes. The detective and his sidekick Watson stay at a Swiss hotel whose owner speaks ‘excellent English, having served for three years as waiter at the Grosvenor hotel in London’. Rooms from £202; stay@theclermont.co.uk
- During the 1992 men’s singles final at Wimbledon, Goran Ivanisevic was warned for swearing – but only after a TV viewer rang in to complain.
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