Christina Faraday on Placecloud

From a mechanical garden to an automatic tea-table, in the early nineteenth-century you were bound to find something extraordinary at Merlin's Museum of Mechanical Amusements. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: 11 Princes St, London W1B 2LJ

Join the crowds at a royal joust in honour of Elizabeth I. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: Whitehall, London SW1A 2AX

The court performances of the early seventeenth century presented an image of perfect political harmony; but backstage the reality was very different. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: Banqueting House, Whitehall, London SW1A 2ER

Flames are racing towards your house: what do you save? In 1666, Samuel Pepys prioritised his cheese. A viewpoint originally recorded for Placecloud. Address: Seething Ln, EC3R, London EC3N 4AT

Scholars fleeing the burgeoning Nazi Party find a safe haven in 1930s Bloomsbury. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: The Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB

Polymath and rogue Thomas Gemini peddles his wares in Tudor Blackfriars. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: Somewhere around Playhouse Yard, London EC4V 5EX

For more than a thousand years, in frosty weather the frozen Thames played host to spectacular festivals. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: Victoria Embankment, Temple, London WC2R 3AA

Step inside a sixteenth-century house in Smithfield. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: 85 Bartholomew Cl, London EC1A 7EB

For Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway the clocks of Big Ben and St Margaret's, Westminster do more than just tell the time. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: St Margaret St, London SW1P 3JX

In Elizabethan London, Richard Walweyn's 'monstrous and outrageous' trousers were a literal crime of fashion. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: Guildhall Yard, London EC2V 5AE

One of the largest medieval public toilets stood on this site for over four centuries. Explore the turbulent history of Dick Whittington's Longhouse, founded by the famous Lord Mayor of London. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: Bell Wharf Lane, Upper Thames St, London EC4R 3TB

Two blue plaques, almost side-by-side in Tavistock Place, commemorate very different people. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the founder of the USSR with no sense of humour, and Jerome K Jerome, a British humourist with a sceptical take on Socialism. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: 32-36 Tavistock Place, Kings Cross, London WC1H 9RH

Peel back the centuries on a walk down St John's Lane, as we explore the industrial, literary and religious histories of this street. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: St John's Gate, 26 St John's Ln, Clerkenwell, London EC1M 4BU

The ruins of this Wren church house a tranquil garden in the centre of the City, but it is the product of four centuries of disasters. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: St Dunstan-in-the-East, St Dunstan's Hill, London EC3R 5DD

St Pancras Old Churchyard has a turbulent past, from body snatching to an unexpected walrus. Memorials in the churchyard recall the invasion of the railway, which gave the writer Thomas Hardy one of his earliest, and most gruesome jobs. A viewpoint originally made for Placecloud. Address: St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Rd, Camden Town NW1 1UL