The Knowledge Boy's Corridor of Fear

The former Public Carriage Office at Fifteen Penton Street in London served from 1966 to 2010 as the examination center where prospective black cab drivers proved their mastery of 25,000 streets. Originating after complaints at the 1851 Great Exhibition, the four-year testing process required candidates to memorize 60,000 points of interest. University College London neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire discovered that passing this exam physically expanded the drivers' posterior hippocampus, reshaping their memory.

London Β· from the walk β€œLondon Through the Eyes of a Black Cab Driver” Β· audio ~4 min Β· Generated

15 Penton Street, London N1 9PU

How did exams at Fifteen Penton Street in London physically change taxi drivers' brains?

Look at this unremarkable building. Fifteen Penton Street. If you didn't know what happened inside these walls, you'd walk straight past. But for generations of London's black cab drivers... this was the most terrifying address in the city.......... The Public Carriage Office moved here in nineteen sixty-six, and from that moment on, this became the place where dreams were made... or shattered. Every aspiring cabbie β€” known in the trade as a "Knowledge Boy" or "Knowledge Girl," regardless of their age β€” had to walk through these doors and sit face to face with an examiner in a ritual called an "Appearance."

...... Now, let me tell you what they were up against. The whole thing traces back to the Great Exhibition of eighteen fifty-one at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, when hundreds of thousands of visitors complained to the authorities about how Bad their cab journeys were because the drivers didn't know the routes. So a system was created to test their knowledge of London's principal streets, squares and public buildings.......... And that system became a Monster. Today, candidates must memorize twenty-five thousand streets, sixty thousand points of interest, and around twenty thousand monuments β€” a process which, on average, takes four years to complete.......... But the real terror? It wasn't the studying. It was This building. The old Pco offices were an incredibly intimidating place β€” like the most oppressive characteristics of a typically traditional school. Most cabbies who went through their apprenticeship here have rather unpleasant memories of the place.......... Until the early two thousands, the Knowledge was run by the Metropolitan Police, and most examiners were retired bobbies. The Public Carriage Office was not-quite-affectionately known as... "the last bastion of the British Empire."

...... Appearances were highly ritualized. Candidates wore suits and ties and addressed the examiners formally β€” one wrong turn in your route could send you back Months. These Appearances were designed to be a test of character as well as topographical knowledge. And the examiners? They had nicknames. One was called "the Smiling Assassin" β€” because he'd grin while failing you.......... And here's a detail most people never hear. Legend has it that one examiner, spotting a candidate who'd recently been released from prison, opened his appearance by saying: "Right then... leave Hmp Pentonville, and take me to..." The man had to call his first route starting from the very jail he'd just left β€” which, by the way, is barely half a mile from where you're standing now.......... But here's what makes all of this extraordinary. Neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire at University College London discovered that cab drivers who completed the Knowledge had More grey matter in their posterior Hippocampus than people of similar age and intelligence who didn't drive taxis. The Knowledge literally Changes their brains. The more years of experience a cabbie had, the larger their Hippocampus grew. Learning London's streets physically reshaped the organ responsible for memory and navigation.......... The Pco moved away from Penton Street in twenty ten, and this building took on a quieter life. But every working cabbie who passed through these doors carries a scar... and a badge. A yellow one for the suburbs, or the coveted green one for all of London β€” proof that they conquered the hardest geography test on Earth, right here in this corridor of fear.

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