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You might think a museum of waterworks sounds rather dull. But Victorian London excelled in the creation of excellent waterworks - Bazalgette’s huge sewers, fine pumping stations and public fountains - and it’s a heritage that deserves celebration, and gets it at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum.
The museum is set in a superb Victorian pumping […]
If I need a bit of peace and quiet, I’ll sometimes head to Battersea Park. It’s a great place for all kinds of fun - but it also possesses something quite unusual, a Buddhist pagoda.
The pagoda was built in 1985, and donated to the city by the Japanese Buddhist order, Nipponzan Myohoji, which […]
Don’t get too excited. This is nothing at all to do with James Bond.
The Goldfinger in question was leading modernist architect Arno Goldfinger, who built this as his own house in 1939. Look at the horrid half-timber semis being built at the same date all over North London, and you can see just how revolutionary […]
Cecil Court is one of my secret London shopping places. Only for the stagestruck and booklovers - but if you’re either of these (or perhaps both) it will quickly become one of your favourites.
David Drummond’s bookshop specialises in theatre and opera - including ephemera such as playbills and posters, as well as books on the […]
Ironmonger Row Baths are a favourite secret spot of mine. I was introduced to them by a colleague who was a keen competitive cyclist, and wanted to keep fit at lunchtime - he swam three days a week and took a Turkish bath on Friday when everyone else in the City was out drinking.
The building […]
The British Museum, the V&A, the Natural History Museum - London is stuffed with big, impressive museums.
But it’s sometimes the quirky little museums that are more fun to visit. No queues, no throngs of tourists on a schedule, and a chance to see some very unusual things.
I like the Fan Museum in Greenwich. As far […]
Maybe the middle of the East End isn’t the place you’d expect to find a farm. But Spitalfields has many surprises, and this is one of them - Spitalfields City Farm.
London kids need no longer grow up thinking milk comes from Tetrapaks and apples grow on plastic trays!
The Young Farmers’ Club is open every Saturday, […]
London has a rich history of espionage. From James Bond - currently being remembered by an Ian Fleming exhibition at the Imperial War Museum - to Burgess, Philby and Maclean (not to mention ’sleeper’ Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, Sir Anthony Blunt), the city is full of spies and spymasters.
There’s now a spy trail of […]
One of the things I most miss in London is Alfredo’s. I may have blogged it before - it was a real love affair for me, perhaps my first big love affair in London, and whenever I visit Islington, I miss it all over again.
It was a lovely caff, all chrome and wood, very […]
Fancy lunch in a crypt? If you want to mix some history into your lunch break, you can eat in the Norman crypt of St Mary le Bow, which dates back to before 1100.
If you’re looking for the macabre, though, you’ll be disappointed. This crypt has never been a plague pit or full of coffins, […]
A visitor’s and resident’s guide to London - events, attractions, art, ’must sees’ and offbeat sights, restaurants and pubs, and how to get around.
Written by Andrea Kirkby [email] for b5media.
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