Black Plaques
LightNews LightNews
banner
blackplaques.bsky.social
Black Plaques
@blackplaques.bsky.social
260 followers 580 following 27 posts
Memorials to Misadventure; Black Plaques® lift the carefully-placed rug to discover an awkward stain. London book out now.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
blackplaques.bsky.social
Black Plaques @blackplaques.bsky.social · Oct 9
With apologies to those Notting Hill residents whose fabulous homes turn out to be where a Victorian surgeon meddled with ladies' twit-twots.
uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blac...
Black Plaques London: Memorials to Misadventure a book by John Ambrose Hide.
Black Plaques are not to be found proudly mounted on a wall – and for good reason. What with their commemoration of a brutal execution outside Westminster Abbey, the selling of sex toys in St James�...
uk.bookshop.org
blackplaques.bsky.social
public service announcement: it's St John's Eve so horny dragons are planning to Spermatize in your water supply which is considered suboptimal
an extract from John Brand's 1810 'Popular Antiquities' which describes how on midsummer's eve 'in ancient times', people lit bonfires to dissuade lusty dragons from ejaculating in the wells and fountains, thus causing 'grievous distemper' or death.
June 23, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Black Plaques
robralley.bsky.social
Napier's social round. 5 July 1608 he visited the Countess of Cumberland at Grafton Regis '& was most kindly intertayned & she gave me hartes hornes the pissle of a hart. bezoar stone & the Earle gave me a black stone & a peece of a stags horne yellow seedes.' 'The Countes showed unto me her urine.'
Manuscript image of the quoted text (CASE33688 in the online edition).
March 25, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Black Plaques
regretteruane.bsky.social
They keep Sooty in a display case on the north pier in Blackpool like a glove puppet Jeremy Bentham
A sooth glove puppet in a glass display case in front of a photo of the Blackpool tower
March 23, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by Black Plaques
physiciansgallery.bsky.social
This is the first known asylum patient art ever printed. It is by Bedlam inmate James Matthews. It shows the range of his delusions - he feared a machine which was powered by the ‘effluvia of dogs’ and which attacked him using ‘lobster-cracking’ and ‘thigh-talking’
Black and white illustration. At the centre of the image is a large device, known by Matthews as an 'air loom'. It looks like a huge (perhaps 5 metres wide, 10 metres deep and 2 metres high) chest of drawers. It has pipes coming out of it and a man sits in front of it, pulling two giant levers. There are nine wooden barrels attached to the pipe with tubes. There are also 3 people who are connected to the loom by rays - they are being mesmerised by the rays it is emitting.
March 6, 2025 at 7:55 AM
blackplaques.bsky.social
Nice bed head oh hang on
18th century engraving of a man reclining on a bed stark bollock naked with his penis on show
February 25, 2025 at 9:08 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
**New Entry** (or rather, Exit) this week in 1728: LOOSENESS
London's Bill of Mortality for this week in 1728 including 1 death from Bleeding, 2 from French Pox, 2 from Grief, 1 from Looseness, 5 were Suddenly, and 5 from Worms.
February 24, 2025 at 9:41 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
She Was Very Fond of Sausages
(London, 1894)
Victorian drawing of a well dressed lady about to attack a butcher's shop with her umbrella. The headline reads: 'She was very fond of sausages'.
February 23, 2025 at 10:58 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
Spoiler: it's Italian opera.
Title page of a book published in 1728: Plain Reasons for the Growth of Sodomy in England
January 21, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Black Plaques
hane.bsky.social
a short thread of Nicolas Cage resembling various philosophers

1. Spinoza
left: Nicolas Cage with long black hair and a moustache in a black top right: Spinoza with long black hair and a moustache in a black top
December 19, 2024 at 12:05 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
oh to hear Victorians shouting for their dogs
Newspaper clipping from 1833 which reads: "Dog strayed, on Wednesday the 8th instant, A black greyhound bitch – answers to the name of SLUT. She has a white breast; top of the tail white; the toes on all the feet white, with some grey hairs over the body."
December 19, 2024 at 4:29 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
It's 359 years to the day since Samuel Pepys first tried hands-free masturbation 🥳 #OnThisDay
December 16, 2024 at 7:54 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
Demented Nude Girl's Extraordinary Adventure – Middlesbrough, 1925
(British Newspaper Archive)
Three pictures showing the adventures of a naked young lady illicitly driving a steam locomotive. They are titled: The naked girl drove the engine into some wagons, The police boarded the engine, and they wrapped her in a coat.
December 12, 2024 at 4:01 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
Putting #Worcester on the map with musings from the Gents lavatory, 1940. Pic: @massobsarchive.bsky.social
A transcription of some graffiti spotted in a gents toilet in Worcester, 1940 which says: "A wank a day keeps the pox doctor away" as well as "All boys are the same, except the 'Daily Wanker and Tosser'" with what looks like a 1 pence coin or symbol. There is also a primitive illustration of a cock and balls to accompany it.
November 27, 2024 at 5:05 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
We interrupt your joyscrolling to bring you a turnip
An engraved illustration from 1820 showing a multi-limbed 'turnip' with an enigmatically smiling face and leaves like bouffant hair. Accompanying text (not shown) explains that this example of the mildly peppery but sweet tasting root vegetable was dug up in Germany in 1628.
November 22, 2024 at 12:36 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
Anyone given this a go? #WhoopingCough #Pertussis
An 18th century cure for chin-cough. Take a spoonful of woodlice, bruise them, mix them with breast milk and take them three or four mornings according as you find benefit.
November 12, 2024 at 9:57 AM
blackplaques.bsky.social
Men – what’s stopping you from doing this?
Text from an 1833 medical book on The Testicle, describing a demonstration by a man who could raise and lower each spud independently.
January 10, 2024 at 10:36 AM
blackplaques.bsky.social
If you're looking for somewhere historic to stay in London, South Place Hotel in Moorgate stands on the site of the Wonder-Worker butt plug factory
A photograph of South Place Hotel in Moorgate, London A 1920s advertisement for the Wonder Worker - a medical device for inserting in the rectum with "no discomfort or unpleasantness" and which "no man or woman should be without."
October 19, 2023 at 7:24 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
With apologies to those Notting Hill residents whose fabulous homes turn out to be where a Victorian surgeon meddled with ladies' twit-twots.
uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blac...
Black Plaques London: Memorials to Misadventure a book by John Ambrose Hide.
Black Plaques are not to be found proudly mounted on a wall – and for good reason. What with their commemoration of a brutal execution outside Westminster Abbey, the selling of sex toys in St James�...
uk.bookshop.org
October 9, 2023 at 8:02 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
Happy Pepys "six or seven small and great farts" day to all who observe 🥳🥳🥳 #OTD 1663
Extract from the diary of Samuel Pepys, 1663 describing his difficulties with constipation and how a coach journey prompted a sustained sequence of farts, and some temporary relief.
October 7, 2023 at 9:57 AM
blackplaques.bsky.social
Hot feet? Sorted ⬇️
To cure hot feet (according to a remedy of 1653) soak them in stale urine in which snails have been boiled.
October 5, 2023 at 10:23 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
The long lost verse from The House Of The Rising Sun 🎵
A newspaper report from 1721 that reads: "There is a house of sodomites discovered in Leicester Square."
October 2, 2023 at 9:44 PM
blackplaques.bsky.social
With apologies to those Notting Hill residents whose fabulous homes turn out to be where a Victorian surgeon meddled with ladies' twit-twots.
uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blac...
Picture of Black Plaques London book for sale on bookshop.org
September 19, 2023 at 6:14 PM