Sights in London
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Brunswick Centre
This now-wonderful 1960s complex consists of apartments, restaurants, shops and a cinema. A £24-million project transformed it from a dreary, stern space to a lovely, cream-coloured airy square in 2006, and the centre is now packed with people seven days a week. The original architect, Patrick Hodgkinson, worked on the renovations and claimed that the centre now looks like what he’d orginally planned in the ‘60s (but at the time the design was stunted by the local council). For more information and a complete listing of shops and restaurants, check the website.
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Leicester Square
At the time of research, Leicester Square was undergoing an extensive – and much-needed – makeover to turn it into a lively plaza and glamorous premiere venue. The revamp is much overdue; although the square was very fashionable in the 19th century, in the last few decades it had become synonymous with antisocial behaviour, rampant pickpocketing and outrageous cinema ticket prices (a whopping £18!).
The square will retain its many cinemas and nightclubs, and city planners hope it will attract high-profile film premieres, with all the associated celeb-spotting and publicity.
Works on the square started in December 2010 and were scheduled to be complete in April 2012,…
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London Dungeon
Older kids tend to love the London Dungeon, as the terrifying queues during school holidays and weekends testify. It's all spooky music, ghostly boat rides, macabre hangman's drop-rides, fake blood and actors dressed up as torturers and gory criminals (including Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd). Beware the interactive bits.
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Brick Lane
Full of noise, colour and life, Brick Lane is a vibrant mix of history and modernity, and a palimpsest of cultures. Today it is the centrepiece of a thriving Bengali community in an area nicknamed Banglatown. The southern part of the lane is one long procession of curry and balti houses intermingled with fabric shops and Indian supermarkets. Sadly the once-high standard of cooking in the curry houses is a distant memory, so you’re probably better off trying subcontinental cuisine in Whitechapel.
Just past Hanbury St is the converted Old Truman Brewery, a series of buildings on both sides of the lane that was once London’s largest brewery. The Director’s House on the left…
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Covent Garden Piazza
London’s first planned square is now the exclusive preserve of tourists who flock here to shop in the quaint old arcades, be entertained by buskers, pay through the nose for refreshments at outdoor cafes and bars, and watch street performers pretend to be statues.
On its western flank is St Paul’s Church. The Earl of Bedford, the man who had commissioned Inigo Jones to design the piazza, asked for the simplest possible church, basically no more than a barn. The architect responded by producing ‘the handsomest barn in England’. It has long been regarded as the actors’ church for its associations with the theatre, and contains memorials to the likes of Charlie Chaplin…
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Fleet St
As 20th-century London's 'Street of Shame', Fleet St was synonymous with the UK's scurrilous tabloids until the mid-1980s, when the press barons embraced computer technology, ditched a load of staff and largely relocated to the Docklands. It's named after the River Fleet, which it once crossed. This substantial river was a major feature of the London landscape until the 18th century, when it was relegated to the sewers. It now flows subterraneously from Hampstead Heath and joins the Thames near Blackfriars Bridge.
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Inns of Court
All London barristers work from within one of the four atmospheric Inns of Court, positioned between the walls of the old City and Westminster. It would take a lifetime working here to grasp all the intricacies of their arcane protocols, originating in the 13th-century. It's best just to soak up the dreamy ambience of the alleys and open spaces and thank your lucky stars you're not one of the bewigged barristers scurrying about. A roll call of former members would include the likes of Oliver Cromwell, Charles Dickens, Mahatma Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher.
Lincoln's Inn still has some original 15th-century buildings. It's the oldest and most attractive of the bunch, with a…
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London Bridge Experience & London Tombs
Winner of the ‘Screamie’ award (a prize for scary and haunted attractions in the UK) three years on the trot, this attraction marries history with hysteria. Stuffed away in the vaults beneath so-called New London Bridge (dating back to 1831), the history part takes you on a whistle-stop tour of London’s most famous span – from the Romans to the Vikings, from Peter de Colechurch’s ‘Old London Bridge’ (1209) with all the shops, to the American Robert McCulloch, who paid US$2.50 in 1967 for the privilege of transporting the dismantled bridge to Arizona. It’s essentially for kids, so the roll call includes ‘the Keeper of the Heads’, who preserved (mummified) the severed heads…
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Museum of London Docklands
Housed in a converted warehouse dating from 1802, this museum offers a comprehensive overview of the entire history of the Thames from the arrival of the Romans in AD 43. Well-organised with knowledgeable and helpful staff, it's at its best when dealing with specifics such as the docks during WWII, as well as their controversial trans-formation into the Docklands during the 1980s.
The tour begins on the 3rd floor (take the lift to the top) with the Roman settlement of Londinium and works its way downwards through the ages. Keep an eye out for the scale model of old London Bridge. Other highlights in-clude Sailortown, a re-creation of the cobbled streets, bars and lodging…
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O2
The 380m-wide circular O2 cost £750 million to build and more than £5 million a year just to keep it erect. Once the definitive white elephant, it has hosted big acts like Madonna, Prince, Justin Timberlake and Barbara Streisand in its 23,000-seat O2 Arena and soul, pop and jazz bands in the 2350-seat IndigO2. Massive exhibitions (Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, The Human Body) and sporting events have made their temporary homes here, as well as a slew of bars, clubs and restaurants. During the Olympics, this venue will host the basketball and gymnastics events as the North Greenwich Arena.
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Sea Life
One of the largest aquariums in Europe, Sea Life has all sorts of aquatic creatures organised into different zones (coral cave, rainforest, River Thames), culminating with the shark walkway. Check the website for shark-feeding times and book online for a 10% discount.
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White Cube Gallery
Jay Jopling, dealer to the stars of the Brit Art firmament, made his reputation in the 1990s by exhibiting then-unknown artists such as Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley and Tracey Emin. This Hoxton Square cube is aptly named and, while the gallery is now part of Britain’s ‘new establishment’, it’s always worth a visit just to have a look at the latest shows. There’s another White Cube in St James’s.
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Abbey Road Studios
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Down House
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Fourth Plinth Project
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Middle Temple
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Postman's Park
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St Alban's
A Wren-designed church destroyed in WWII.
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St Bartholomew's Hospital
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St Christopher's Inn
St Christopher’s Inn has 50 beds, a pub below and a small veranda.
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Tower Bridge Exhibition
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World Rugby Museum
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19 Princelet St
This unique Huguenot town house was built in 1719 and housed a prosperous family of weavers, before becoming home to waves of immigrants, including Polish, Irish and Jewish families, the last of which built a synagogue in the back garden in 1869. In keeping with the house’s multicultural past, it’s now home to a museum of immigration and diversity, with carefully considered exhibits aimed at both adults and children. Unfortunately the house is in urgent need of repair and, as such, opens only infrequently (usually no more than a dozen times a year). Check the website for dates.
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Alexandra Palace
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Brixton
The years that most shaped contemporary Brixton were the post-WWII ‘Windrush’ years, when immigrants arrived from the West Indies. (Windrush was the name of one of the leading ships that brought these immigrants to the UK.) Economic decline and hostility between the police and particularly the black community led to riots in 1981, 1985 and 1995.
Although violence returned to Brixton during the London riots of August 2011, the mood today is upbeat. Soaring property prices have sent in house-hunters, and pockets of gentrification sit alongside the more run-down streets. Apart from some great restaurants and clubs, the big sights are the fantastic Brixton Village – a…
reviewed