Now had heard a great many very strange things about the great city called London; for the country people at that time thought that folks in London were all fine gentlemen and ladies; and that there was singing and music there all day long; and that the streets were all paved with gold.
(1. there was singing and music...
2. there were singing and music....
Which one is right?)
Who is writing these? There shouldn't be semicolons in there since there are also conjunctions ("for" and "and").
HOWEVER, this is far too long and has too much information to be only one sentence. It would be better to have this properly broken up into 2 or 3 sentences.
Grammatically, it should be "there were" since there are two subjects, but that sounds awful! I'd rephrase like this: Singing and music were going on all day long.
The correct phrase to use in this context is "there was singing and music." This is because the subject of the sentence is "singing and music," which is considered as a singular noun phrase. Therefore, the verb "was" should agree with the singular subject. If the subject were plural, then the correct phrase would be "there were singing and music."
To determine the correct form of the verb, it is helpful to identify the subject of the sentence and whether it is singular or plural. In this case, the subject is "singing and music," which is treated as a single entity and thus requires the singular verb "was."