This little tale provides a heady mix of rural nostalgia, history, one of London’s best views, a mysterious bump in the ground and a touch of culture, before ending up in a haunted pub. In the event, the stroll was…
Christopher Wren did not live here
And neither did Catherine (or Katherine) of Aragon. What?! Let me explain…my London reader may have seen a plaque – not one of the official, blue, ones, but an altogether more elaborate, individual, affair – on the wall of 49…
London’s Temple Bar
Mention the Temple Bar and my thoughts inevitably turn to a pub. It was close by East Lane (or East Street) market in London’s Walworth Road, SE17, where far too many pints of Bass IPA were sunk after work, often…
Art and the amphitheatre
It’s sometimes easy to forget that London is a Roman creation. A site occupying a good position on the north bank of the tidal Thames, which offered deep enough anchorage for ocean-going vessels and which was narrow enough to bridge. …
London’s Sky Garden
“Sell the sizzle, not the steak”, the old hand tells the young salesman. In other words, people buy what they think a product does for them, not what it is. Sky Garden is a bar and restaurant complex on the…
The British Museum – origins, controversy and internationalism
The British Museum is regularly at the top of the list of the most visited attractions in Britain. Something in excess of 6 million people – considerably more than the population of Denmark – walk through its doors and tour…
HMS Belfast
When you visit London, it’s hard to avoid seeing HMS Belfast moored by London Bridge. This grand old lady of the seas, the Royal Navy’s last surviving cruiser and the largest preserved warship in Europe, has been part of the…
National Service of Remembrance
Amazing; moving; humbling; impressive: words you could choose to describe the annual National Service of Remembrance held in London on Remembrance Sunday, the second Sunday in November. Thousands attend every year; thousands watch it on TV; thousands more attend similar,…
Nancy’s steps
“ ‘Not here,” said Nancy hurriedly, “I am afraid to speak to you here. Come away – out of the public road – down the steps yonder!’ The steps to which the girl had pointed were those which, on the…
Herb garret
Herb Garret sounds like it should be a band leader (perhaps of a similar vintage to the chap pictured below). In fact, the Herb Garret acts as a kind of anteroom to the Old Operating Theatre, perched in the roof…
The old operating theatre
This is a Victorian operating theatre, where proceedings were watched by an audience of gawping students and operations were conducted without anaesthetic or antiseptic. I mean, you really can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like, can you?…
London’s forgotten cathedral
Head west out of London Bridge Station. If you’re very careful, you will discover London’s third Anglican cathedral, Southwark; it’s easily missed. Hemmed in between the colourful and vibrant Borough Market and the occasionally vulgar Montagu Close, and often hidden…
Winchester Palace
Here’s a thing: you’re strolling along by the Thames at Southwark in search of a pint when you suddenly come across some ruins; you look closer and, high up on one its remaining walls, is a beautiful rose window. Most…
Imperial War Museum
I can’t remember how many times I’ve visited the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. The entrance is a statement, dominated by two massive gun barrels pointing straight at you, with the classical lines of a 19th century cupola-topped former hospital…