The West End
The Cenotaph, completed in 1920 by Edwin Lutyens and fashioned from Portland stone, is Britain’s most important memorial to the men and women of Britain and the Commonwealth killed during the two world wars. The Queen and other public figures lay poppies at its base on Remembrance Sunday, the second Sunday in November.
The word 'cenotaph' derives from the Greek words kenos ('empty') and taphos ('tomb').
20.7 MILES
The world’s largest and oldest continuously occupied fortress, Windsor Castle is a majestic vision of battlements and towers. Used for state occasions, it…
0.21 MILES
A splendid mixture of architectural styles, Westminster Abbey is considered the finest example of Early English Gothic. It's not merely a beautiful place…
1.2 MILES
One of London's most amazing attractions, Tate Modern is an outstanding modern- and contemporary-art gallery housed in the creatively revamped Bankside…
2.22 MILES
With its thunderous, animatronic dinosaur, riveting displays about planet earth, outstanding Darwin Centre and architecture straight from a Gothic fairy…
1.42 MILES
Sir Christopher Wren’s 300-year-old architectural masterpiece is a London icon. Towering over diminutive Ludgate Hill in a superb position that's been a…
2.19 MILES
Few parts of the UK are as steeped in history or as impregnated with legend and superstition as the titanic stonework of the Tower of London. Not only is…
1.31 MILES
Seeing a play at Shakespeare's Globe – ideally standing under the open-air "wooden O" – is experiencing the playwright's work at its best and most…
1.13 MILES
With almost six million visitors trooping through its doors annually, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, one of the oldest and finest museums in the world,…
0.08 MILES
The London Metropolitan Police has moved several times since its founding in 1829 but the latest move – to this renovated neoclassical block with a modern…
0.09 MILES
The official office of British leaders since 1735, when King George II presented No 10 to 'First Lord of the Treasury' Robert Walpole, this has also been…
0.14 MILES
Banqueting House is the sole surviving section of the Tudor Whitehall Palace (1532) that once stretched most of the way down Whitehall before burning to…
0.14 MILES
Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill helped coordinate the Allied resistance against Nazi Germany on a Bakelite telephone from this underground complex…
0.15 MILES
In a more accessible version of Buckingham Palace’s Changing the Guard, the horse-mounted troops of the Household Cavalry swap soldiers here at 11am from…
0.15 MILES
The most famous feature of the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) is Elizabeth Tower, more commonly known as Big Ben. A major £61-million…
0.18 MILES
The Supreme Court, the highest court in the UK, was the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords until 2009. It is now housed in the neo-Gothic Middlesex…
0.19 MILES
This small museum looks at the roles and work of the two regiments of the Queen's Household Cavalry, the Life Guard and the Blues & Royals. The tour is by…