Sights in London
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All Hallows-by-the-Tower
A church by the name All Hallows (meaning ‘All Saints’) has stood on this site since AD 675, and the best bit of the building today is undoubtedly its atmospheric Saxon undercroft (crypt). There you’ll find a pavement of reused Roman tiles and walls of the 7th-century Saxon church, as well as coins and bits of local history. 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 that was destroyed in WWII and a beautiful 17th-century font cover by the master woodcarver Grinling Gibbons. From April to September, free 20-minute church tours leave at…
reviewed
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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 and burned down in 1698. It was designed as England’s first purely Renaissance building by Inigo Jones after he returned from Italy, and it looked like no other structure in the country at the time. Apparently, the English hated it for more than a century.
A bust outside commemorates 30 January 1649 when Charles I, accused of treason by Cromwell after the Civil War, was executed on a scaffold built against a 1st-floor window here. When the monarchy was reinstated with Charles II, it inevitably became something of a royalist shrine. In a huge, virtually…
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Dulwich Picture Gallery
The UK’s oldest public art gallery, the small Dulwich Picture Gallery was designed by the idiosyncratic architect Sir John Soane between 1811 and 1814 to house nearby Dulwich College’s collection of paintings by Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Poussin, Lely, Van Dyck and others. Unusually, the collectors Noel Desenfans and painter Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois chose to have their mausoleums, lit by a moody lumière mystérieuse (mysterious light) created with tinted glass, placed among the pictures. In the Wolfson Room, seek out ‘Bridge in an Italian Landscape’ by Adam Pynacker, with its masterful use of light. Celebrating its bicentenary in 2011,…
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St John’s, Smith Square
In the heart of Westminster, this eye-catching church was built by Thomas Archer in 1728 under the Fifty New Churches Act (1711), which aimed to build 50 new churches for London’s rapidly growing metropolitan area. Though they never did build all 50 churches, St John’s, along with a dozen others, saw the light of day. Unfortunately, with its four corner towers and monumental facades, the structure was much maligned for the first century of its existence thanks to rumours that Queen Anne likened it to a footstool, though it’s also said that she actually requested a church built in the shape of a footstool. Whatever the case, it’s generally agreed now that the church is a…
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Kenwood House
This magnificent neoclassical mansion stands at the northern end of the heath in a glorious sweep of landscaped gardens leading down to a picturesque lake, around which concerts take place during the summer months. The house was remodelled by Robert Adam in the 18th century, and rescued from developers by Lord Iveagh Guinness, who donated it to the nation in 1927, including the wonderful collection of art it contains. The Iveagh Bequest, as it is known, contains paintings by such greats as Rembrandt (one of his many self- portraits), Consta-ble, Turner, Hals, Vermeer and Van Dyck and is one of the finest small collections in Britain. Robert Adam's Great Stairs and the…
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Institute of Contemporary Arts
Housed in a traditional building along the Mall, the ICA is as untraditional as you can possibly get. This was where Picasso and Henry Moore had their first UK shows, and ever since then the institute has sat comfortably on the cutting and controversial edge of the British arts world, with an excellent range of experimental/progressive/radical/obscure films, music and club nights, photography, art, theatre, lectures, multimedia works and book readings. There’s also the licensed ICA Bar & Restaurant. The complex includes an excellent bookshop.
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St Clement Danes
An 18th-century English nursery rhyme that incorporates the names of London churches goes: ‘Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clements’, with the soothing final lines: ‘Here comes a chopper to chop off your head/Chop, chop, chop, chop, the last man’s dead!’ Isn’t that nice? Well, even though the bells of this church chime that nursery tune every day at 9am, noon and 3pm, this isn’t the St Clements referred to in the first line of the verse – that’s St Clements Eastcheap, in the City. But we all know that historical fact needn’t get in the way of a good story.
Sir Christopher Wren designed the original building in 1682 but only the walls and a…
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Britain at War Experience
You can pop down to the London Underground air-raid shelter, look at gas masks and ration books, stroll around Southwark during the Blitz and learn about the battle on the home front. It's crammed with fascinating WWII memorabilia.
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Fulham Palace
Summer home of the bishops of London from 704 to 1973, Fulham Palace is an interesting mix of architectural styles set in beautiful gardens and, until 1924, when filled with rubble, enclosed by the longest moat in England. The oldest part to survive is the little red-brick Tudor gateway, but the main building you see today is from the mid-17th century and was remodelled in the 19th century. There’s a pretty walled garden and, detached from the main house, a Tudor Revival chapel designed by Butterfield in 1866. You can learn about the history of the palace and its inhabitants in the museum. Guided tours, which depart a couple of times a month on Sunday, usually take in…
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Dennis Severs' House
This extraordinary Georgian House is set up as if its occupants had just walked out the door. There are half-drunk cups of tea, lit candles and, in a perhaps unnecessary attention to detail, a full chamber pot by the bed. More than a museum, it's an opportunity to meditate on the minutiae of everyday Georgian life through silent exploration.
Bookings are required for the Monday evening candlelit sessions (£12; 6pm to 9pm), but you can just show up on the first and third Sundays of the month (£8; noon to 4pm) or the following Mondays (£5; noon to 2pm).
reviewed
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Lloyd’s of London
While the world’s leading insurance brokers are inside underwriting everything from cosmonauts’ lives to film stars’ legs, people outside still stop to gawp at the stainless-steel external ducting and staircases of the Lloyd’s of London building. The work of Richard Rogers, one of the architects of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, its brave-new-world postmodernism strikes a particular contrast with the olde-worlde Leadenhall Market next door. While you can watch people whizzing up and down the outside of the building in its all-glass lifts, sadly you can’t experience it yourself.
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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. Encouraged by attendance figures, investors decided to rebuild and it reopened just two years later. Although it boasted a theatre, museum, lecture hall, library and Great Hall with one of the world’s largest organs, it was no match for Crystal Palace. It housed German prisoners of war during WWI and in 1936 was the scene of the world’s first TV transmission – a variety show called Here’s Looking at You. The palace burned down again in 1980 but was rebuilt for the third time and opened in 1988. Today ‘Ally…
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Richmond Park
At 1012 hectares (the largest urban parkland in Europe), this park offers everything from formal gardens and ancient oaks to unsurpassed views of central London 12 miles away. It’s easy to escape the several roads that slice up the rambling wilderness, making the park excellent for a quiet walk or a picnic with the kids, even in summer when Richmond’s riverside can be heaving. Herds of more than 600 red and fallow deer basking under the trees are part of its magic, but they can be less than docile in rutting season (May to July) and when the does bear young (September and October). Birdwatchers will love the diverse habitats, from neat gardens to woodland and assorted…
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Somerset House
The first Somerset House was built for the Duke of Somerset, brother of Jane Seymour, in 1551. For two centuries it played host to royals (Elizabeth I once lived here), foreign diplomats, wild masked balls, peace treaties, the Parliamentary army (during the Civil War) and Oliver Cromwell's wake. Having fallen into disrepair, it was pulled down in 1775 and rebuilt in 1801 to designs by William Chambers. Among other weighty organisations, it went on to house the Royal Academy of the Arts, the Society of Antiquaries, the Navy Board and, that most popular of institutions, the Inland Revenue.
The tax collectors are still here, but that doesn't dissuade Londoners from attending…
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Crossbones Graveyard
One of the area’s more unconventional sights is this unconsecrated post-medieval burial ground. A 16th century ‘single women’s graveyard’, this is the burial place for prostitutes who worked in the brothels of Southwark. Despite being licensed to work here by the Bishop of Winchester (giving them their popular name, ‘Winchester geese’), the women were excluded from Christian burial, and by the 18th century the local parish was using the grounds for dumping the remains of paupers. It was closed down in the 19th century due to high numbers of bodies buried here; there were serious sanitation issues caused by the gravediggers’ sloppy burial technique that left many of the…
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Regent’s Park
The most elaborate and ordered of London’s many parks, this one was created around 1820 by John Nash, who planned to use it as an estate to build palaces for the aristocracy. Although the plan never quite came off – like so many at the time – you can get some idea of what Nash might have achieved from the buildings along the Outer Circle, and in particular from the stuccoed Palladian mansions he built on Cumberland Tce.
Like many of the city’s parks, this one was used as a royal hunting ground, and then as farmland, before becoming a place for fun and leisure during the 18th century. These days it’s well organised but relaxed, lively but serene, and a local but…
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Museum in Docklands
Housed in a converted 200-year-old warehouse once used to store sugar, rum and coffee, this museum offers a comprehensive overview of the entire history of the Thames from the arrival of the Romans in AD 43. But it’s at its best when dealing with specifics close by such as the controversial transformation of the decrepit docks into Docklands in the 1980s. The tour begins on the 3rd floor (take the lift to the top) with the Roman settlement of Londinium – don’t miss the delightful Roman blue-glass bowl discovered in pieces at a building site in Prescot St E1 in 2008 – and works its way downwards through the ages. Keep an eye open for the scale mode of the old London Bridge…
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The Strand
From the time it was built, at the end of the 12th century, The Strand (from the Old English and German word for beach) ran by the Thames. Its grandiose stone houses, built by the nobility, counted as some of the most prestigious places to live, sitting as they did on a street that connected the City and Westminster, the two centres of power; indeed, its appeal lasted for seven centuries, with the 19th-century prime minister Benjamin Disraeli pronouncing it ‘the finest street in Europe’. Buildings included the now-no-more Cecil Hotel, the Savoy hotel, Simpson’s, King’s College and Somerset House. But modern times haven’t treated The Strand with the same sort of respect…
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Royal Observatory
Following an ambitious £15-million renovation the Royal Observatory is now divided into two sections.
The northern half deals with time and is contained in the original Observatory that Charles II had built on a hill in the middle of Greenwich Park in 1675, intending that astronomy be used to establish longitude at sea. It contains the Octagon Room, designed by Wren, and the nearby Sextant Room where John Flamsteed (1646–1719), the first astronomer royal, made his observations and calculations.
The globe is divided between east and west at the Royal Observatory, and in the Meridian Courtyard you can place one foot either side of the meridian line and straddle the two…
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Temple Church
This magnificent church lies within the walls of the Temple, built by the legendary Knights Templar, an order of crusading monks founded in the 12th century to protect pilgrims travelling to and from Jerusalem. The order moved here around 1160, abandoning its older headquarters in Holborn. Today the sprawling oasis of fine buildings and pleasant traffic-free green space is home to two Inns of Court (housing the chambers of lawyers practising in the City) and the Middle and the Lesser Temple.
The Temple Church has a distinctive design: the Round (consecrated in 1185 and designed to recall the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem) adjoins the Chancel (built in 1240),…
reviewed
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Horniman Museum
This museum is an extraordinary place, comprising the original collection of wealthy tea merchant Frederick John Horniman, a pack rat who had the art nouveau building with clock tower and mosaics specially designed to house it in 1901. Today it encompasses everything from a dusty stuffed walrus and voodoo altars from Haiti and Benin to a mock-up of a Fijian reef and a collection of concertinas. It’s wonderful. On the ground and 1st floors is the Natural History Gallery, the core of the Horniman collection, with usual animal skeletons and pickled specimens. On the lower ground floor you’ll find the African Worlds Gallery, the first permanent gallery of African and…
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Southbank Centre
The flagship venue of the Southbank Centre, the collection of concrete buildings and walkways shoehorned between Hungerford and Waterloo Bridges, is the Royal Festival Hall. It is the oldest building of the centre still standing, having been erected to cheer up a glum postwar populace as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. Its slightly curved facade of glass and Portland stone always won it more public approbation than its 1970s neighbours, but a recent £90-millionrefit added new pedestrian walkways, bookshops, music stores and food outlets below it, including a restaurant called Skylon. Just north, Queen Elizabeth Hall is the second-largest concert venue in the centre…
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Barbican
Londoners remain fairly divided about the architectural legacy of this vast housing and cultural complex in the heart of the City. While the Barbican is named after a Roman fortification that may once have stood here protecting ancient Londinium, what you see today is very much a product of the 1960s and ‘70s. Built on a huge bomb site abandoned since WWII and opened progressively between 1969 and 1982, it’s fair to say that its austere concrete isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Yet, although it has topped several polls as London’s ugliest building, many Londoners see something very beautiful about its cohesion and ambition – incorporating Shakespeare’s local church,…
reviewed
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St John’s Gate
This surprisingly out-of-place medieval gate cutting across St John’s Lane is no modern folly, but the real deal. During the 12th century, the crusading Knights of St John of Jerusalem (a religious and military order with a focus on providing care to the sick) established a priory on this site that originally covered around 4 hectares. The gate was built in 1504 as a grand entrance to the priory and although most of the buildings were destroyed when Henry VIII dissolved every monastery in the country between 1536 and 1540, the gate lived on. It had a varied afterlife, not least as a Latin-speaking coffee house run, without much success, by William Hogarth’s father during…
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Museum of London
One of the capital's best museums, this is a fascinating walk through the various incarnations of the city from An-glo-Saxon village to 21st-century metropolis. The first gallery, London Before London, brings to life the ancient settlements that predated the capital and is followed by the Roman era, full of interesting displays and models. The rest of the floor takes you through the Saxon, medieval, Tudor and Stuart periods, culminating in the Great Fire of 1666. From here head down to the modern galleries, opened in 2010, where, in Expanding City, you'll find exquisite fashion and jewellery, the graffitied walls of a prison cell (1750) and the Rhinebeck Panorama, a…
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