Added: 2 years ago
From: BFIfilms
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  • spot the car!

  • WTF? I've seen Kodak!!

  • @mirocreed yeah,and Nestlé too,They Already Existed at That Time

  • Great video

  • Your vid is a favorite on United States of America

  • Ahhhh....back when men were men (and dapper as fuck, to boot).

  • Your video is a favorite on Grenada

  •  why everyone dress like magicians

  • @yakinoanderson hahaha XDXDXD!!

  • amazing you already see :iptons tea and nestles adverts

  • Great video thank you for sharing this with us..

  • Mesmerically wonderful. The moment at 3m53s is profound when one considers the implications the moment represents. Thank you, BFI for making this available.

  • Why were street scenes in very old films so extremely crowded??

  • @gvt2u No technology for television. Or even standard radio.

  • @gvt2u Maybe because there weren't as many autos are there are now.

  • The plethora of horses must have stunk to high heavens especially in the summer - and they must have been a noisy addition to the already noisy Edwardian London setting. The formality furthermore looks a trifle stiffing. Britain had an vast empire here and thought they were kings of the world. This country came down with a mighty crash post WW2 when the USA rose in power/influence, the old colonial 'subjects' demanded self governance and Soviet Russia came to the fore. A real swing of positions.

  • I take it back. The music is nice to listen to. But it doesn't really sound like its from the 1900s. It sounds more like its from the 1940s and 1950s with the saxophone and trumpet instruments.

  • @MDthornton83 Actually it sounds like post be-bop modern jazz. If you want the 1940s and 1950s you need to look for late swing jazz, early rock and roll, novelty song ballads etc. For 1900s music authentically it would be very early new Orleans type jazz, marching band music, variety/vaudeville songs etc But very few songs were physically recorded in this era (before the 1920s) which is why this type of film is best silent.

  • @rankingtrevor I see.

  • The piano music in these early 20th century films is very soothing and relaxing. As are the films themselves.

  • i feel relaxation to see this footage,how people dressed up, so many animals on the street, and couldnt see their output, perhaps, the cleaner were busey the whole day to remove the parcels,good looking double decker with ten to twelve passengers, no trouble , no fight, no hectic, , still i will not miss my internet, and all other comfortable utilities.

  • The music is wildly inappropriate and ruins the enjoyment of watching the footage. Why not pair the visuals with music from that period???

  • I see Lipton and Nestle advertisements, then, out of nowhere...Grape Nuts?!

  • No one in the video is alive.

  • @whatyouchating True it was terrible then for the "Smog" you can see it on the video! Although they did have cars then you actually see ONE on that whole video LOL only the extremly rich had one.

  • Ah, London before the Islamic invasion.

  • Comment removed

  • nice song.

  • i have to kill all london shit people

  • Awesome, Love it

    

  • When London was still English.

  • @bertyUK

    It was also, literally, a shit hole. Imagine London now, with the traffic, except that the exhausts on the cars are crapping out shit instead of carbon dioxide.

  • @superhamzah85

    Oh right, you were there 100+ years ago weren't you.

    Shit comment.

    You do realise co2 is part of natural life?

    You do realise cars release much more harmful gasses than co2?

    Now go and collect your benefits.

  • @bertyUK

    And you were there?

    You realise cancer is part of natural life?

    You do realise there are worse diseases than AIDS?

    Now go and work, I probably have investments in your sector.

    (lol@me on benefits)

  • @superhamzah85 Why is it not possible anywhere on the internet to enjoy the contents without the misfortune to find ghouls like you extolling your ugly negative comments. Just give the rest of us a break and get lost.

  • @portly24

    "Stop fucking swearing"

    "I'll kill you if things get violent"

    Add those to your sandbox of unintentionally ironic criticism.

  • The video looks good for the same reason a tourism video of London looks good. It's supposed to, it's a form of art.

    I know more, because I fucking read instead of spewing anus vomit on YouTube in m spare time.

  • We owe a lot to the horse

  • Ahh those were the days! Today London is nothing but full of crime and immigrants...

  • look how clean the buildings are ,before that infernal combustion engine

  • Many small rooms, for one's personal use, in comparatively small homes. No AC in the sweltering summer, with all those constricting get-ups.  Imagine the poor horses, as well. And all those pesky insects. No thanks.

  • I dont like this I love it I wish I could see them live their lives

  • CANT BE LONDON....WHERE ARE THE TOURISTS??

  • X people were run down by horse drawn carriages. (where X is the number of dislikes)

  • Very evocative; thanks.

    What is the building seen at the very beginning of the film? I thought I knew London well, but I can't place it.

  • @benbisley That is the entrance to Hyde Park Corner, next to Apsley House, which used to be the residence of the First Duke of Wellington

  • They're still driving on the wrong side of the road (ah, the left side).

  • 2:48 that's me with the tints

    

  • imagine jumping into this film standing there and thinking.. yknow in 37yrs time this place will be bombed to fuck.

  • dont like the look of all that horseshit, lucky its not in smellovision.

  • Quite a sobering thought that 11 years on from this film, a lot of these men would be fighting in trenches on the Western front.

  • 1:25 Joan Collins

  • I see traffic was a problem then. 100 years later the only answer we have is charge £10 lol

  • 3:43 Nestle Milk!! I can watch vids like these all day. My mind wanders as I watch, trying to put myself there. Align myself with their thoughts. Seems so long ago, but only the blink of an eye in regard to time.

  • Fascinating. Some of these young people n this video can still be alive, imagine that!

  • @FreeBlago1 well those person's got to be 108 years old now! not very likely!

  • @FreeBlago1 doubt it

  • I love this video! I now have a boutique inside Old Street Station (LaFrock.com) it is strange to see how much things have changed!

  • you can see me there walking on the raod with black hat on the head ,stick in the hand at 1.29 , i Live behind big clock in a apartment.

  • you can see me there walking on the raod with black hat on the head ,stick in the hand at 1.29 , i Live behind big clock in a apartment.

  • The most amazing bit of this movie, is that we se a CAR!!! *:o)

    From 3:46 mins (when the car is coming into shot) to the car becoming centre of film at 3:57 mins is completely class... the first sign of the internal combustion engine in an incredible bit of film! *;o)

    Also, how is it that the traffic jams and work rush hour jhave not changed really in over 100 years? *;o)

  • seems to be a lot of traffic.

  • Wow, when they talked about "horsepower" back then, they really meant it.

  • what a beautiful music!

  • There is something wrong here. It says the film is dated 1896. At the beginning at005-007,is exactly the same scene as shown at the end of the video by British Movietone news which says it was dated 1903. It appears that this one is a contiuation of the one dated 1903

  • Hasn,t anyone noticed THE CAR right at the end.

  • everything and everyone in this movie is long dead. weird.

  • better quality film than my phone camera

  • @9t9t3 looooool

  • All these people gpoing about their business... I would be so cool to follow a few of them during a day or a week, to see what their lives were like.

  • so they even had double Decker horse buggies lol but now double decker buses

  • What a great historical film. Teeming London with nary a horseless carriage in sight. An era and a day long gone and never to return. The London of Sherlock Holmes and the Hansom cab. Horse manure all over the streets and pedestrians carefully stepping around it as they dodged the horse drawn conveyances with seeming little order in the heavy traffic patterns. My only suggestion would be to lose the current background music. It's too modern. Use something from that period if possible.

  • No traffic wardens or health and safety

  • I am amazed at how many of the products advertised are still around!

  • Perhaps we should all go back to wearing hats for it's civilising effect on society.

  • *people in 200 years watching old london street scene (2011)

    WHERE THE FUCK THE WHITE PEOPLE GO

  • @menacinghat we will all mix together and the future will be beige

  • Comment removed

  • Respond to this video...

    Where did all the White People Go...?

    ...They were all wrapped up in Ghastly and Very Terrifying Muslim head wear!

    they were then Forced to learn that Ghastly Disgusting Arabic Language!.. That's Where! 

  • @yaniska100

    more like moved due to an invasion

  • How smart is the gentleman at 1.10? I love how he's holding his arm!

  • Very cool. I was surprised to see the ads on the buses, and even more surprised to see brand names I recognize. Thanks for posting.

  • Once on this familiar spot of London walked other men and women, just like us, as actual as we are today. thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions and worries about money, love and health, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, forever mercilessly gone, as utterly as we ourselves shall eventually dissapear like ghosts that never lived

  • @JeanEtchepare Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.
  • Comment removed

  • @JeanEtchepare

    Where did you get that quote from?

    That was very good.

  • @JeanEtchepare thank you for that

  • @JeanEtchepare It's the ciiiiiircle of liiiiiiiifeee!!! It's a wheeeeeeel of fooooooortuuune!!!!!!!!=)))))

  • Where are all the streets covered in horsesh*t that the lefties and libertarians claim was the norm back then?

    And where are all the black people that the left say have always been a significant part of the British population? You know, the people who attacked the BNP for saying that such a population group as "indigenous English" even existed.

  • there is some in some of the footage. But it was a valued commodity, it was swept up, put onto trains and hauled out of town to market gardens all round the capital. Well certainly to Bedfordshire.

  • And from the stables too. Many establishments would have had those, in parts of London domestic stables were in the Mews. If you go to the Canal Museum near King's cross the upstairs used to be used as stables, so it was like a multi storey car park.

  • jack the ripper!

  • as you can see all the horses and such going on that road... i can see theres alot of smoke or dust.. is that dust comming from the road or smoke from near by store there as the person was filming ? theres allways some kind of smoke comming somewhere on this video as you can see it makes things like sometimes fogy with dust.

  • The score by James Pearson is so wonderful! The past is endlessly fascinating.

  • These days it's wall-to-wall Muslims and illegal African drug dealers, too bad London is dying.

  • As my ol nan would of said "bet their head don't ache no more"

  • Lol, Nestle's milk was the hot shit back in the day ;D Except that nothing changed... today we have bumper-to-bumper buses on Oxford Street anyway ;D

  • nice car

  • What car was that at 3:55? It's the only one....must've been a millionaire....

  • This is why time travel has not been invented, you lot would F it up. :o)

  • so London street must be smellin like horse shit then :P

  • Everyone in the video is already dead... but is still a wonderful video.

  • @UchihaNatsume

    In 108 more years hence----------there WE were

  • I really fancy some Nestle's milk...

  • I really fancy some Nestle's milk...

  • WHAT HAPPEND TO HATS!!!! and epic mustaches :( ... they need a come back :(

  • @Twiggle33333 I know what you mean haha! as much as I would like to see London in its older glory, people could never wear that sort of thing without being called weird or gay. A sorry reminder of the times I'm afraid.

  • I was born and live in London and it is so very different today in many ways, but in some ways it never changes. The hustle and bustle will always be there, as will the pull it exudes to so many people from all over the country. London is truly one of the worlds greatest cities.

  • @WheelieMacBin Yeah. Its changed a lot even in the last 20 years. But I love the energy and ambition of the city, even with all its challenges. There is still a lot to be proud of. Especially our Arts scene. The creativity of London's inhabitants is to be admired. Some of the best live music, theatre, Museums, and Art venues in the world can be found in the city that gave the world Chaplin, Dickens, and Shakespeare's plays.

  • i most likely would have dropped out of school back then too and been employed as a horse poop in the road cleaner upper.

  • Advertising hasn't changed I see

  • So amazing to see how many advertisements there were everywhere...you think you're inundated with them now, maybe it's always been like that...? And a lot of those companies are still around today...interesting...

  • I wonder after 100 year our grand sons saw such a film about london now days will they feel the nice feeling that we are feeling now and wish the old days come back again

  • kodak nestle!

  • Just imagine...No engine noise. ANYWHERE!!

  • @chanctonbury63

    WRONG... The only car in the film (and the best bit of the film for this reason) is a rare (even at the time) sigting of a car with internal combustion engine at 3:56 minutes... it rolls towards the camera from centre right... into centre of the screen and then, off screen to the bottom right corner! *;o)

  • @BongoBrido All right. One car then!

  • SLAVES WAKE THE FUCK UP

  • @CH3MTRAILS

    i think slavery was abolished by now?

  • the soundtrack is beautiful. lovely. thanks for uploading

  • thumbs up if u looked this up just to see it in 1911 mode :D

  • Watching this with the 1911 effect..

  • @iLuckyyy I am too. It's awesome like that!

  • @iLuckyyy Wait, with the 1911 effect, does that mean the video looks 8 years more modern? 0.o

  • I love the way people dressed in those days , the men in suits, the women in long skirts, feathered hats and parasols. What a difference today is.. People dress so drab on the streets. The advertising is a trip. I like the ad for Mrs Winslows syrup ( which was like 80% morphine...oh Yeah). Would love to jump in a time machine and head back

  • @rclark231 although I live in the US, I have always had a love affair w/Victorian England...am unsure of the origin but have always been drawn to reading about life in Victorian London. I agree that it would be wonderful to be able to spend perhaps one day in that time machine u describe.

  • I recognise most of these places from being a cycle messenger in the late 70's. the prevalence of cars now is a real shame- but horses were worked mercilessly hard in the old days, although these for the most part look healthy. My Joy was to ride round London on a Horsedrawn Brewer's Dray- we were high up, and the horses made a fine clatter- and there were just two of them. The streets were very noisy in Victorian London and other cities, but it still would have been quieter than Motors!

  • had to chuckle when I saw the ads for Nestle and Kodak on the carts.

  • @9grlfriday and it will be so much more smelly.

  • Enchanting film of the old days when the world was simple and young and not grown old and crabby!

  • @DeepakMenon very romanticized version of the 'old days' but a nice thought

  • jack the ripper could well be present in these street scenes

  • Reading these comments to this video makes my stomach churn. London has had immigrants since the Roman's came and set up camp. Thats what makes it so great. No other city in the world (not even NY) can you see so many different worlds all in one place. I'd hate it if it was 100% white / British.. whatever you care to call it...It wouldn't be the same.

  • 1:18 pm

  • wow thats koo

  • 23 years later all these wagons n horses will be replaced by cars n buses

  • amazing

  • London used to look prettier in 1903.

  • @yeliz93 And why is THAT, Mr German Person?!

    :)

  • @tomsega LMAO

  • the worst thing is that whenever you see a small boy in this video, in about 15 years time they probably would have been in the horror of world war one's killing fields. A beautiful video nevertheless.

  • hello friend what is the movie's song name????

  • @rodrietm1993: Yeh, anyone know the name of the music please?

  • I recall many years ago people would dash into the road with a hand scoop and pail to scrape up the droppings. Then it was off to a local garden for the tomatoes.

    Street sweepers were employed to remove droppings, especially at pedestrian crossing points

  • still the greatest city on earth...thank you for sharing such a beautiful piece

  • 10 points for spotting the only car. 

  • ooooooooh very old ! this film before 108 years

  • Thank You for this movie... :D

    You could tell me the name of this magnificent music? Please... :D

    Greetings from Portugal

  • woahhhhhh, is that actually 1903!!!!!!!! u have got to be kidding me!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • I can't believe I'm watching life in 1903 unfolds...I don't like to watch old films usually. Occasionally, I'd fall in love with a beautiful young thing and I'm keep thinking she's now fertilizing daffodils.

  • If you lived then, horse manure would not be unusual. It would be as common as litter on the side of the road is for us today. People ignored it because it had been there for centuries. It is only now that we would think about it, because we have no horses on the street, except for maybe a parade.

  • I love old films like these, there's such an eerieness to them.

  • You know what i find fascinating. The advertising? all what we see on this film is still around today. Lipton's Teas, Nestle. amazing.

  • Driving whilst drunk wouldn't have been as unsafe back then. Unless the horse had one too many as well;)

  • Imagine the smell of the streets these days...

  • So many horses used as the engines of the day!

    Near my home, Tower bridge area on the south bank, I often go to the river side at low tide and look for Londons 3 historic elements, clay pipes pieces, brick fragments and horses teeth.

    Dead horses were " knackered" for glue and other useable products and the bones were ditched in the Thames. Countless million horse bones sit there today

    It is strange to think that all those filmed here are now dead. Film has power as evidence of things past

  • Absolutely delightful !

  • Sadly all these people died.I often wonder how many of the younger men in the scenes were to perish 11 years later in the mass slaughter that was WW1.

    So much everyday Industry.People travelling,working hustle and bustle.We think our life`s are Hectic.And I wonder what they would have made of the Net,t.v.,cars,Space travel. etc etc.

  • Did you see the old man making piss against the wall? My goodness people sure were casual back then.

  • "Nestlé's milk OMG"

  • I wish i could drive there in a Bugatti Veyron :)

  • Footage and photographs of this period really scare me, but it's a good scare. I find it oh so creepy, but completely intriguing. I'm fascinated by it but terrified at the same time and I can't explain why!

  • @TheRenoReviews Haha yeah same here dude. =')

  • They walked with such class. Look at their suits. Now look at. These bloody fools wearing.

  • Good old England, Full of English people!

    Now...Well not so full of English People.

  • @xReDxWatchx It's London in 1903 there would have been loads of immigrants.

  • I like the car that appears in the last few frames.........the future!

  • the horseless carriage at 3:55 was the only one in town apparently.he must have got all the chicks.

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  • Take a look at 2.17 - just a glimpse of another car

  • well now London looks like Bangladesh....with chip shops.

  • @pentogram23

    ireland looks like poland

    belgium=muslims

    malmo sweda=mussys

    europe is on a path of destruction

  • Thanks for this footage. The traffic, crowds, the coach advertisements and at 3:10 to 3:18 two female coach drivers in a row. It's hard to believe that some places in the world could be filmed today and be far less urbanized than this old film.

  • What is the soundtrack?

  • What is the sound track?