Insider London is just launching a new tour – Innovative Interiors.

I blogged about Insider London’s green tours a while back. This new tour takes you from classic British design interiors to funky futurism – from clutter to minimalism and back again.

The tour takes in the high points of the West End, from Piccadilly, through Soho (home of the movie industry) to luxurious Mayfair.

Tourists are  promised, among other delights, an indoor thunderstorm and a golden cave.  With 15 sites visited, the three hour tour gives a fascinating view of the capital – and guide Cate Trotter can arrange cocktails or even a meal at one of the venues to complement the regular coffee break.

Cate also offers bespoke tours featuring design, and focused on retail or restaurant design – definitely worth taking if you’re employed in one of these sectors.

Where: all over the West End

When: Third weekend of the month – starting November 23

How much: £25 (£20 concessions)

How to book: Through Insider London

Picture credit: Insider London

Post from: The London Traveler

Forty five minutes by train from any London station you find these places. Southend. Sidcup. Croydon. Harlow. Basildon.

What’s wrong with Basildon? 

It’s a ghastly place. A town in the middle of nowhere, among the muddy flat fields of Essex. Inhabited by no-hopers who can’t afford to move out. Where the shopping centre is the most interesting place you can go.

But one brave man is trying to  rehabiliate Basildon’s reputation. In fact, says Vin Harrop, it’s a fine example of the Utopian ideals of the nineteen-sixties – and it has some amazing modern architecture.

He is behind a Heritage Trail of the town that shows visitors some architectural gems. Sir Basil Spence’s Brooke House, for instance, is a Grade II listed block of flats. (Remember, Sir Basil also designed Coventry Cathedral, widely regarded  as a landmark of 60s architecture.)

I actually think Basildon has a bit of a split personality. On the one hand, it’s a mess. Litter everywhere, uncared-for buildings, no real spirit to it. And on the other hand, that Utopian dream – the idea that things could be better, if only we designed them better.

And if you like the ironies contained in that split personality, Basildon might be an interesting place to visit. Start off at Fenchurch Street Station – there are four trains an hour.

More info on Basildon here – a blog from one of the members of the Heritage Trail team.

 Picture credit: Nick Ellis on Flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

LT: How did you first get interested in the history of London? (And are
you a Londoner – or did you grow up somewhere else?)

SR: I am a sufferer of ‘The Alexander The Great Syndrome’. Meaning, someone not born of the culture, but the biggest fan of it. I am a Kiwi of British and NZ/Italian stock. I grew up in Auckland NZ in the 1950s/60s when all NZ history was BRITISH – Churchill and World War II etc.
Now, of course down there it is much more Polynesian and now even East Asian, as well.

So in the 60s/70s I couldn’t wait to get here to London. Everything was Bond
and Blow Up and the Beatles.

The first thing I did when I got off the plane in 1975 was head for The
Roundhouse, to hear Patti Smith supported by The Stranglers. I had arrived!

So …

1. I am a history nut

2. I love walking

3. I read a lot of biographies, so that here in London, uniquely, there are
the physical buildings still existing, where my heroes lived/worked/played.

LT: And that all makes a potent mix which made you into a tour guide! Tell me a bit about the process of getting your Blue Badge – how long it takes, which bits you found most difficult (I know for me remembering dates would be a real problem), what else you were doing at the time.

SR: At 50 years old I enrolled in the Blue Badge qualification – an adult education course, lasting 2 years, that trains up professional British tourist guides.

It’s tough – rather like joining the Marines – they ‘break you down to build you up’ – two 2-hour lectures a week, plus every Saturday an all-day practical on the mic, to the Tower, or Bath or Canterbury or Stratford etc. Then, there’s the exams! Written and practical. The pass rate is around 40% only.

LT: That’s worse than taking the driving test. 43% of people pass that the first time. (I didn’t…)

How do you see your job? We often see images of Big Ben, royal pomp, guardsmen in their bearskins, as if that’s all there was to London – but I see you have Sufragette tours, a James Bond tour, a da Vinci tour, all sorts of interesting off-beat destinations.

SR: London is a 2000 year old city – the world centre for foreign exchange and
insurance, dominated by the mighty Lloyds of London.

And because of the British Empire, London is the world’s most multi-racial and
multi-cultural city, and with the 2012 Games coming our way, it is getting
better all the time. So it is my job to make sure people enjoy this fantastic and ancient river/port city.

Post from: The London Traveler

Ken Livingstone put London on the Green map with the amazingly energy-efficient ‘Testicle’  – City Hall. Now, Future London is launching a Green Tour of London. I spoke to Cate Trotter, who leads the tours.

LT – Where did the idea come from for your green tours?

Cate – I have a background in ethical marketing and ecological design, and since we do trend tours of London, I thought a green one would be exciting. We have plans for lots more.

LT – Who ’s coming on your green tours?

Cate – We have lots of professionals, architects and developers, wanting to come on our tours, as well as individuals.

LT – Okay, what are they going to see  on the tour?

Cate – We visit a vegan bus-restaurant on Brick Lane, a restyled clothing shop, we see some green architecture on the South Bank, and an eco-textile shop, as well as an innovative natural remedy store. My guideline for selecting sites is if it doesn’t interest me, then I don’t include it. At the moment, I do all the tours myself, so it’s quite a personal tour.

LT – What do you think of Boris Johnson’s green credentials? Will he turn out to be as concerned with environmental issues as Ken Livingstone was?

Cate – Well he hasn’t had time to do very much yet! Ken was really hard on carbon; it looks as if Boris is more generalist in his green thinking, but he seems to be continuing the same initiatives. And his advisers obviously realise that people think green issues are really important.

LT – But people on your tours will see ‘grass roots’ green initiatives too, will they?

Cate – Very much so. We want to show, for instance, how ethical businesses can work, how green principles can be applied anywhere. A lot of people say ‘It’s nice to be green, but it’s not practical’ – we want to show that’s not true.

LT -I’ve heard a lot about the Coin Street development on the South Bank. Could you tell me a bit about that?

Cate – It’s a project that goes all the way back to 1977, when the housing co-op pitched again a big hotel development, and won. There are four housing co-operatives, all held together by a social enterprise, Coin Street Community Builders. All the profits go into social and environmental initiatives, not shareholders’ dividends. The enterprise has created affordable housing, together with thirty retail units giving independent designers an opportunity to set up shop.  What’s really interesting about Coin Street is that it’s constantly reinvigorating  and redeveloping; it’s created a truly sustainable community, not just some green buildings.

LT – Is the message about being green getting through to architects at last? Looking at the Gherkin, the new City Hall, and some other high profile buildings, I get the impression that it is.

Cate – Well, yes, the message is getting through to architects, but not always to their clients. Many architects are still saying  that they’d love to be greener, but the cost rules out going all the way to fully sustainable building practices. So there’s still a lot of work to do.

The first three Future London  green tours are already fully booked – but there will be two more, on 28th June and 6th July. Each tour takes 8 people, and will cost £10. On 6th July, there’s a chance to see inside City Hall, and catch the view of London from the top floor, too.

Photo credit -  Cate Trotter of Future Tours. The photo shows the Downings Roads moorings,  currently threatened with closure.  It’s one of the top recycling communities in London, with over 75 percent of its waste recycled rather than going into landfill.

Post from: The London Traveler

I must admit I’ve never been that turned on by Harry Potter. I was brought up on Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy, with a much smarter, much more interesting wizard, Ged, or ‘Sparrowhawk’. Yes, I did read the Harry Potter books- but I was soon back in Earthsea.

Still, there’s no denying that Harry Potter has a huge fan club. The other day I was going through King’s Cross Station and saw a load of people photographing a wall. Then I saw the sign they were photographing – platform 9 3/4, the platform from which Harry takes the Hogwarts Express.

You can now take a tour of Harry Potter’s London with London Taxi Tours. I can imagine this is something that will make a lot of kids happy. All the film locations are pointed out – though not all can be visited. The same outfit also does tours to other Harry Potter locations in the UK, at Oxford and Lacock.

The tours don’t come cheap, at £190 for up to five people sharing a taxi. But you do get 3 1/2 hours for that – and no hassle trying to find the sites or struggling on public transport.

There’s also a guide to the film sites on London Taxi Tours’ web site, if you want to try discovering London’s wizard wonders on your own.

Photo credit: Ann Biddle on Flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

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 London which will help you view the sites of skulduggery.  In fact, two trails – one covering the Second World War, showing how the work of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was crucial to beating Hitler, and one covering the Cold War.

On the Cold War trail, you’ll see the anodyne bus stop on Waterloo Bridge where Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by a poisoned umbrella.

Peruse the maze of links and sites attached to the trail carefully, and you can also find out who was the last person executed in the Tower of London – in 1941. (I’m not going to spoil it. If you really want to know, go and find out!)

Photo credit – M16 building by Sheila Thomson, on Flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

Sunrise and sunset on the Thames always make it special. Once or twice I’ve got up early so I can go and stand on Waterloo Bridge as the sun rises, tinting the grey river with pink and orange, softening the brutal lines of the South Bank and making the Shell Building look like a romantic fairy castle.

You can see Tower Bridge in a new light if you take one of Thames River Adventures’ canoe cruises.  Start off at five or six in the morning and canoe underneath the bridge as the sun rises.

At £70 per person, it’s not cheap – but it’s a unique way to see London, in the expectant hush before the city awakens.

Thames River Adventures also organise canoe trips on the Regent’s Canal and upriver at Teddington, but I can’t imagine anything better than paddling my way through the open, deep river of the Pool of London as the sun rises.

Photo credit – Calum Davidson, on Flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

Southwark was never part of the City of London. It was run by the Bishop of Winchester – and successive bishops seem to have decided to create an anarchic free-enterprise zone opposite the tightly regulated City. This paid them dividends – pleasure houses, theatres, bath houses (meaning roughly the same thing in Elizabethan London as in today’s San Francisco), bear baiting rings, and hundreds of taverns all paid rent to the enterprising bishops.

I must admit to a vested interest here – I’ve been researching Shakespeare’s Southwark for my own company, Podtours, and I’ve just put out an audio tour of the area narrated by a thespian friend of mine.  We focused on the theatre history of the area – with the New Globe, the site of the old Rose Theatre, and a house said to have been a brothel where some of Shakespeare’s actors were customers. But you get a trip through the foodie Borough Market and the brewing traditions of the area, too.

A more general audio tour that covers the same area is available from Tourist Tracks.  From London Bridge, this tour visits Southwark Cathedral, Borough Market, the Menier Chocolate Factory, and the George Inn and Guy’s Hospital, before heading east towards Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

Southwark is one of London’s least known neighbourhoods – but there’s a lot going on there. There are great old pubs, there’s Vinopolis with its fine wines, there’s the Globe, and of course there’s Tate Britain.  There’s the Hop Exchange, where hops from Kent were brought to be traded, and fortunes were made and lost, and there are still the old tavern yards off Borough High Street. It’s definitely worth giving up half a day to explore – if you’re visiting Tate Britain, just stroll along the river bank towards Southwark Cathedral.

Southwark is definitely becoming trendier – driven by the presence of Tate Britain and the foodie delights of Borough Market – and yet it’s still got the authentic griminess and spontaneity of old London. You know,I like to think Shakespeare would still be happy here – perhaps drinking a cappuccino in Borough Market and doodling a few lines of verse on the tablecloth…

Post from: The London Traveler

It was a London that didn’t have Stoke Newington or the Edgware Road in it. A London without curry houses or balti places. A London without gurdwaras or mosques or black people or council estates. In short, it was London presented for the slightly literary traveller as a neat poached fillet – skinless, no gristle, and no spice.

Well I’m glad to report some tourist authorities have made the transition to the twenty first century, and are recognising that London is considerably more diverse than the pictures of Big Ben and bearskin-wearing guards would imply.

Hammersmith & Fulham Council now offers a series of walking tours including one that particularly took my fancy – the Middle Eastern Food Tour.

There are 19 different nationalities of restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush, according to the council – including Lebanese, Syrian, and Turkish. (If like me you’ve spent some time in the Middle East you’ll be able to tell the difference between the national cuisines; they’re subtle but unmistakable. North Africans like their fiery harissa and chili flavours; the Lebanese have a special line in pickled veg; and the Omanis like cardamom, mace and nutmeg. So this isn’t a one-destination tour – it’s more like a whistlestop tour of five countries. If it’s Tuesday this must be Belgium sort of thing.)

The tour lasts two and a half hours, and is led by a qualified Blue Badge guide. And it includes a chance to sample some mezzes (amuse-gueules, nibbles, hors d’oeuvres, whatever) and sweets. (WARNING! If you are on a calorie controlled diet, don’t even think about the baklava and other nut pastries!)

The next tours this year are May 10th, August 2,November 1 and December 6. You will need to book; contact Catherine Knight, at Hammersmith & Fulham Council (020 8753 3412 or tourism@lbhf.gov.uk).

If Middle Eastern food doesn’t appeal, H&F also offers a Polish tour of Hammersmith, and a curry trail down North End Road in Fulham. There’s a black history tour too.

But I shall be booking myself up for an investigation of Middle Eastern food, I think. Or possibly curries… I could really murder a methi gosht right now!

Photo courtesy of London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

Post from: The London Traveler

If you’re tired of sticking to the central areas of London and want to get out of the centre a bit, the twelve trails can give you six whole weekends of fun discovering the outlying districts and the little known and often highly entertaining sights of the suburbs. A couple of them also have an audio tour / podcast thrown in if you want to take your mp3 player with you.

Post from: The London Traveler