Welcome to London Overlooked, home to true stories about the lesser known people, places and peculiarities of London, with a bias towards the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
While the great and the good may make an occasional appearance, we want to remember the lives of ordinary Londoners. The only qualification for inclusion is that something or somebody has an interesting story.
We are Londoners with interests in historical and genealogical research and a desire to share the sometimes arcane knowledge we have picked up over the years.
You may use our written content for non-commercial purposes. Please attribute it either to Karen Ellis-Rees or to William Ellis-Rees.
Our books
The Elephant of Exeter Change
by William Ellis-Rees
This is the remarkable true story of one of the most notorious incidents in early nineteenth-century London.
A five-ton elephant confined in a menagerie above a shopping arcade in the Strand suddenly goes berserk, with horrifying and tragic consequences. Set against a backdrop of theatres, schools of anatomy and dangerous slums, the story offers a vivid insight into life in the rougher quarters of the city.
The showmen and the animal dealers who operate in this shadowy world are roguish impresarios masquerading as respectable scientists. But at the heart of the story are two good men: a ship’s captain and the founder of the new Zoological Society of London.
London Ghosts Unveiled: The True Stories behind the Capital's Hauntings
by Karen & William Ellis-Rees
Whether or not you believe in the supernatural, you will enjoy discovering the truth behind these ten scary stories.
Discover the real Nurse Lizzie Church, haunting the wards of University College Hospital. Feel for the Bacons of Bermondsey, tormented by a malicious poltergeist. Read about the real victim of a murder whose screams are heard in Farringdon Station. Meet fraudulent spiritualists, eccentric recluses, a twitchy Methodist minister, and a melancholic with a fear of being buried alive.
Vengeful witches and gibbering spectres, haunted houses and dismal graveyards—they are all to be found in this entertaining anthology.
The Splintered Eye & Other Haunting Stories
by Karen & William Ellis-Rees
A collection of chilling stories to entertain and disturb in equal measure. A Victorian clergyman is tormented from beyond the grave.
A lonely photographer struggles to separate image from reality in post-war London. A terrifying journey down the Regent’s Canal turns a young man’s world upside down for good. A child’s innocence is shattered at Christmas.
These eleven tales, which range in tone from the ghostly to the weird and eerie, and in setting from the nineteenth century to the present day, reveal how greed, cruelty and violence bind the spirits of the dead to the world of the living.
Welcome to London Overlooked, home to true stories about the lesser known people, places and peculiarities of London, with a bias towards the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
While the great and the good may make an occasional appearance, we want to remember the lives of ordinary Londoners. The only qualification for inclusion is that something or somebody has an interesting story.
We are Londoners with interests in historical and genealogical research and a desire to share the sometimes arcane knowledge we have picked up over the years.
You may use our written content for non-commercial purposes. Please attribute it either to Karen or to William Ellis-Rees.