Westminster Abbey, formally the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is close to being the national church. It has been at the centre of English, and British, state occasions – coronations, weddings, funerals, services of commemoration – since William the Conqueror was crowned there on Christmas Day 1066. Indeed, 40 monarchs have been crowned
For years, Apsley House was simply known as ‘No 1, London’ – it being the first house of any note encountered when arriving from the west. No other address was needed. These days, its location is more forlorn, one of the busiest traffic roundabouts in London, Hyde Park Corner. It was, famously the London home
This is where the English Parliament executed the King of Great Britain and established a republic in England and Wales. It was also a place of extravagant Jacobean entertainment. Banqueting House is a surviving relic of the great Palace of Whitehall, which was originally the medieval London home of the Archbishops of York and known
The National Portrait Gallery does what it says; it was founded in 1856 to collect portraits of famous British people. Its collection includes over 200,000 portraits from the 16th Century to the present day, created in a wide variety of mediums. These include drawings, miniatures, negatives, paintings, photographs, prints, sculptures and many more. It can
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The church of All Hallows by the Tower, sometimes known as All Hallows Barking, is one of the most interesting in the City of London, with innumerable features and memorials. It is claimed to be the oldest of the City’s churches, founded as early as 675AD, and had a long association with Barking Abbey, a
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Cleopatra’s Needle is one of several interesting monuments on London’s Embankment, not far from Westminster. It is an Egyptian obelisk, one of a pair originally made for the Pharaoh Thutmose III in c1500 BC, erected in Heliopolis and moved to Alexandria in 12 BC. The link to Cleopatra is spurious. It is a single piece
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Cutty Sark is a famous 19th century sailing ship, built in Dumbarton in 1869, and is the world’s only surviving tea-clipper. She was one of the last clippers ever built, and one of the fastest; before improvements in steam-power, Cutty Sark held the record sailing time between Australia and Britain for a decade. The ship
St Paul’s Cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of London and one of London’s iconic landmarks. It stands at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, where it is believed the first church, dedicated to St Paul the Apostle, was built on the same spot in 604AD. The
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The church of St Dunstan in the East is essentially an atmospheric garden inside the ruins of a medieval-Baroque church destroyed during the Blitz. The church dates from 1100 and was part of the community for some 800 years. It was severely damaged in the Great Fire of 1666 and repaired, with a new tower
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Established by an Act of Parliament in 1753, the British Museum opened its doors in Montagu House, on its present site in London’s then fashionable Bloomsbury area, on 15 January 1759. It is an astonishing place that, in its own words, tells the story of cultural achievement throughout the world, from the dawn of human
HMS Belfast has been one of London’s landmarks since 1971, a World War Two Royal Navy cruiser permanently moored by London Bridge. Launched just in time for World War II, Belfast saw service on the Arctic Convoys, taking supplies to the Soviet Union (Russia), during D-Day when she supported troops on Gold and Juno beaches
Discovered during building work, the remains of London’s Roman Amphitheatre lie 20 feet beneath the Guildhall Art Gallery. Dating from the 2nd century, here up to 7,000 people would watch animal fights, executions and gladitorial contests.
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