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Royal Mews
South of the palace, the Royal Mews started life as a falconry but is now a working stable looking after the royals' immaculately groomed horses, along with the opulent vehicles the monarchy uses for getting from A to B. Highlights include the stunning gold coach of 1762, which has been used for every coronation since that of George III, and the Glass Coach of 1910, used for royal weddings.
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Spencer House
Just outside the park, Spencer House was built for the first Earl Spencer, an ancestor of Princess Diana, in the Palladian style between 1756 and 1766. The Spencers moved out in 1927 and their grand family home was used as an office, until Lord Rothschild stepped in and returned it to its former glory in 1987 with an around £18 million restoration. Visits to the eight lavishly furnished rooms of the house are by guided tour only.
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St Katharine's Dock
With its cafés and restaurants, St Katharine's Dock makes an ideal spot to pause for a brief rest after a morning's sightseeing at Tower Bridge or the Tower of London. There's a row of twee shops and a popular pub called the Dickens Inn but it's more entertaining just admiring some of the opulent luxury yachts in the marina.
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Syon House
Just across the Thames from Kew Gardens, Syon House started life as a medieval abbey named after Mt Zion, but in 1542 Henry VIII dissolved the order of Bridgettine nuns peacefully established there and had the abbey rebuilt into a handsome residence. (In 1547, they say, God got his revenge when Henry's coffin was brought to Syon en route to Windsor for burial and burst open during the night, leaving the king's body to the estate's hungry dogs.)
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Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park
Opened in 1841, this 13-hectare cemetery was the last of the so-called Magnificent Seven, then-suburban cemeteries (including Highgate and Abney Park in Stoke Newington) created by act of Parliament in response to London's rapid population growth and overcrowded burial grounds. Some 270,000 souls were laid to rest here until the cemetery was closed for burials in 1966 and turned into a park and nature reserve.
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Trinity Buoy Wharf
London's only lighthouse, built for Michael Faraday in 1863, is located at this brown field site about a mile northeast of Canary Wharf. Also here is the unusual Container City, a community of artists' studios made from brightly painted shipping containers, stacked side by side and one on top of the other. The web designers, architects and other creative tenants even have their own balconies.
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Winchester Palace
All that remains of a huge palace complex, built by the powerful and corrupt bishops of Winchester in the early 12th century, is a 14th-century rose window carved in a wall from the Great Hall, and parts of the flooring, both visible from the street. The rose window was discovered in a Clink St warehouse in 1814.
