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30 St Mary Axe
Known to one and all as 'the Gherkin' for obvious reasons when you see its incredible shape, 30 St Mary Axe - as it is officially and far more prosaically named - remains London's most distinctive skyscraper, dominating the city despite actually being slightly smaller than the neighbouring NatWest Tower. The phallic Gherkin's futuristic, sci-fi exterior has become an emblem of modern London as recognisable as Big Ben or the London Eye.
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Abney Park Cemetery
Unfairly dubbed by some as 'the poor man's Highgate', this magical place has been left to fend for itself since the 1950s and is as much a bird and plant sanctuary as a delightfully overgrown ruin. The derelict chapel at the heart of the park could be straight out of a horror film, and the atmosphere of the whole place is nothing short of enchanting.
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Admiralty Arch
From Trafalgar Square, the Mall passes under this grand Edwardian monument, a triple-arched stone entrance designed by Aston Webb in 1910. Webb also worked on Buckingham Palace. The large central gate is opened only for royal processions and state visits, but pedestrians can pass through the smaller outer arches.
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Albert Memorial
This memorial is as over-the-top as the subject, Queen Victoria's German husband Albert (1819-61), was purportedly humble. Albert explicitly said he did not want a monument and 'if (as is very likely) it became an artistic monstrosity like most of our monuments, it would upset my equanimity to be permanently ridiculed and laughed at in effigy'.
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Alexandra Park & Palace
Built in 1873 as north London's answer to Crystal Palace, Alexandra Palace suffered the ignoble fate of burning to the ground only 16 days after opening. Today 'Ally Pally', as it is affectionately known, is largely a multipurpose conference and exhibition centre that also has an indoor ice-skating rink, the panoramic Phoenix Bar & Beer Garden and funfairs in summer.
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All Souls Church
A Nash solution for the curving, northern sweep of Regent St was this delightful church, which features a circular columned porch and distinctive needlelike spire, reminiscent of an ancient Greek temple. It was bombed during the Blitz and renovated in 1951, and is now one of the most distinctive churches in central London.
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All-Hallows-by-the-Tower
All Hallows is the parish where famous diarist Samuel Pepys recorded his observations of the nearby Great Fire of London in 1666. Above ground it's a pleasant enough church, rebuilt after WWII. There's a copper spire added in 1957 to make the church stand out more, a pulpit from a Wren church in Cannon St destroyed in the war, a beautiful 17th-century font cover by the master woodcarver Grinling Gibbons and some interesting modern banners.
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Apsley House (Wellington Museum)
This stunning house was the first building one saw when entering the city from the west and is therefore known as 'No 1, London'. It was designed by Robert Adam for Baron Apsley in the late 18th century, but later sold to the first Duke of Wellington, who lived here until his death in 1852. In 1947 the house was given to the nation; 10 of its rooms are open to the public today as the Wellington Museum.
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Arsenal Emirates Stadium
Arsene Wenger's team seemed to have a little trouble settling into the bigger pitch of their brand-new stadium, with a home win seeming elusive at the start of the 2006 season. Still for the spectator, the 60,000 new seats are more luxurious and the extra capacity makes it more likely you might actually snaffle one of them.
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Bank of England Museum
The centrepiece of the museum - which explores the evolution of money and the history of this venerable institution, and which is not nearly as dull as it sounds - is a postwar reconstruction of Soane's original stock office complete with mannequins in period dress behind original mahogany counters. Exhibits range from photographs and coins to a gold bar you can lift up (it's amazingly heavy).
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Bankside Gallery
Bankside Gallery is home to the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. There's no permanent collection at this friendly upbeat place, but there are frequently changing exhibitions of watercolours, prints and engravings. Call ahead for the occasional Artists' Perspectives, where artists talk about their work, and other events.
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Banqueting House
This is the only surviving part of the Tudor Whitehall Palace, which once stretched most of the way down Whitehall, but was burned down in 1698. It was designed as England's first purely Renaissance building by Inigo Jones after he returned from Italy, and looked like no other structure in the country at the time. The English hated it for more than a century.
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Barbican
It's fair to say that its brutalist concrete architecture isn't everyone's cup of tea, but the Barbican is still London's pre-eminent cultural centre, boasting three cinemas, two theatres which feature touring drama as well as dance performances and the highly regarded Barbican Gallery, which stages excellent temporary exhibits.
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Battersea Park
With its riverside promenade, Henry Moore sculptures and Peace Pagoda, erected by a set of Japanese Buddhists to commemorate Hiroshima Day, this park's tranquillity belies a bloody past. It was once the site of an assassination attempt on King Charles II in 1671 and of a duel in 1829 between the Duke of Wellington and an opponent who accused him of treason.
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Battersea Power Station
Familiar to an entire generation from Pink Floyd's 1977 Animals album cover, with the four smokestacks that somewhat resemble a table turned upside down, Battersea Power Station is a building both loved and reviled. Built by Giles Gilbert Scott with two chimneys in 1933 (the other two were added in 1955), it ceased operations in 1983 and since then there have been innumerable proposals to give it a new life.
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BBC Television Centre
If you're interested in TV production, this is the perfect chance to visit the vast complex of studios and offices that bring the BBC's TV programmes to the world. TVC, as it's known to BBC staff, is a pretty monstrous 1960s concrete structure. Visit is by two-hour guided tour only and bookings of two days in advance are essential.
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BFI South Bank
Spring 2007 gave London's cinema lovers a wonderful pressie: the British Film Institute. The spruced-up and extended former NFT includes the Mediatheque (a room with 14 state of the art viewing booths where visitors can browse for free the hundreds of hours of film and TV from the BFI archive), a gallery space with film-related shows, a well-stocked film and bookshop, a restaurant and a gorgeous café with free wifi access and a stand-up piano.
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Borough Market
Here in some form or another since the 13th century, 'London's Larder' has enjoyed an enormous renaissance in recent years, overflowing with food-lovers, both experienced and wannabes, and has become quite a tourist destination.
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Bramah Museum of Tea & Coffee
This is a pleasant, nostalgic place to while away half an hour - provided your visit does not coincide with the arrival of another tour group. Trace the route by which tea conquered the world, making its way to the sitting rooms of Holland and England and further afield from the eastern seaports of China; nearby Butler's Wharf once handled 6000 chests of tea in a single a day.
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Brick Lane
Brick Lane is the centrepiece of a thriving Bengali community in an area nicknamed Banglatown, and today it's one long procession of curry and balti houses intermingled with sari and fabric shops, Indian cookery stores and, to the north, streetwear boutiques. The street's reputation as a place to eat has declined over the years, and the numerous restaurant touts (or curry pimps) don't help.
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Brit Oval
Home to the Surrey County Cricket Club, the Brit Oval is London's second cricketing venue after Lord's. As well as Surrey matches, it also regularly hosts international test matches. The season runs from April to September. It's also famous as the place where cricket-lover John Major went immediately after losing the election to Blair in 1997.
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Britain at War Experience
Under another Tooley St railway arch, the Britain at War Experience aims to educate the younger generation about the effect WWII had on daily life while simultaneously playing on the nostalgia of the war generation who sit in the mock Anderson air-raid shelter listening to the simulated sounds of warning sirens and bombers flying overhead with extraordinary detachment.
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British Library
The British Library moved to these spanking-new premises between King's Cross and Euston Stations in 1998. Colin St John Wilson's exterior of straight lines of red brick, which Prince Charles reckoned was akin to a 'secret-police building', is certainly not to all tastes. But even people who don't like the building from the outside can't fault the spectacularly cool and spacious interior.
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British Museum
One of the world's oldest and finest museums started as royal physician Hans Sloane's 'cabinet of curiosities' - which he later bequeathed to the country - and carried on expanding its collection (which now numbers some seven million items) through judicious acquisition and the controversial plundering of empire. It's an exhaustive and exhilarating stampede through world cultures
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Broadcasting House
Broadcasting House is the iconic building from which the BBC began radio broadcasting in 1932, and where much of the BBC's radio output still comes from. There's a shop stocking any number of products relating to BBC programmes, even though the majority of the Beeb's output is produced in the corporation's glassy complex in Shepherd's Bush (hop on the website if you want to get tickets to a recording).
