A database of several hundred historical descriptions and references to London's sounds. They're drawn mainly from primary sources such as autobiographies, diaries and statutes, as well as novels written around the times they depict.
Sound category: Ceremony > Regular rituals of court and state
Title of work: The Daily Courant
Type of publication: Newspaper
Author: Not known
Year of publication: 1717
Page/volume number: 17 July 1717
George the First is conveyed along the Thames to music by Handel
On Wednesday evening at about eight the King took water at Whitehall in an open barge [. . .] and went up the river towards Chelsea. Many other barges with persons of quality attended, and so great a number of boats, that the whole river in a manner was covered.
A City Company's barge was employed for the music, wherein were fifty instruments of all sorts, who played all the way from Lambeth, while the bargers drove with the tide without rowing as a far as Chelsea, the finest symphonies, composed express for this occasion by Mr. Hendel, which His Majesty liked so well that he caused it to be played over three times in going and returning.
At eleven His Majesty went ashore at Chelsea, where a supper was prepared, and there was another very fine consort of music, which lasted till two, after which His Majesty came again into his barge and returned the same way, the music continuing to play until he landed.