I was near Victoria the other day and had a spare few minutes – so I went into a shop that wild horses usually couldn’t drag me into. The Royal Mews Shop, at the back of Buckingham Palace.

Some of the merchandise confirmed my worst fears. Horrible royal tat. There might not have been any corgi covers – but there were tapestry bell pulls (you need one, obviously, to summon your servants) and a book of royal family photos from the 1920s I can’t imagine anyone except my flag-waving grandma being interested in.

But there were also some rather nice souvenirs. China mugs with the royal arms, and chocolate bars in royal wrappings, and surprisingly tasteful teapots.

Let’s face it, some  people queue for hours to buy a tiny bar of chocolate or a bag of tea at Harrods just so they can get the fancy green-and-gold packaging. I think having the Royal Arms on your chocolate truffle selection is just that little bit more classy. Definitely something to impress Grandma, or the folks back home.

So if you’re near Victoria, and want a London souvenir with a difference, head for the Royal Mews shop rather than any of the tourist shops on the main street.

Where:The Royal Mews, Buckingham Palace Road, SW1

When: 0930 – 1700 daily

The photo of course shows something you’re not going to see in the Royal Mews Shop any time soon… but I relished the irony.

Photo credit – SecretLondon123 on flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

Half way along Whitehall stands the Banqueting House - the last remnant of Whitehall Palace.

The palace of Whitehall had grown up during the Middle Ages as a straggling, rather random collection of buildings. Into this Gothic and Tudor muddle, Inigo Jones placed a monument of classical reason – it must have come as a shock,  a building more Italian than English, clashing with everything around it.

Of course  later on, classical style became pretty common in London – Nash’s terraces, Lutyens’s neo-imperial, every other bank and insurance company using pediments and colonnades. But this was pretty much the first classical building of any prominence in the city.

James I commissioned it, and he must have been looking for a touch of ‘modern’ style.  He got a masterpiece.

Outside,  the building is a triumph of symmetry – none of the quirkiness of native Jacobean building. Jones uses alternating round and triangular pediments to set up a fine rhythm, and the whole facade feels light and elegant.

It’s the interior though that is the reason I’d put the Banqueting House on my London top ten list. It was Charles I, James’s son, who commissioned the ceiling,  showing his father’s apotheosis. And it was commissioned not from an English painter, but from the Flemish baroque painter, Peter Paul Rubens – probably the wealthiest and best known painter in the Europe of his day.

This was very different from anything that had been painted in England before. If you look for instance at the allegorical portraits of Elizabeth I, you can see they’re really just portraits with some extra scenery. This is completely different – it’s an entire panorama in which the figure of James is almost lost. (I think you can understand how Parliamentarians and Puritans, looking at this, would have been amazed and disturbed by this imperialist depiction of the divine nature, not just the divine right, of kings!)

If you’re interested,  you can make a little visit to the National Gallery afterwards, to see the preparatory sketch Rubens made for a similar ceiling in the Duke of Buckingham’s house.

Why ‘Banqueting House’? Well, the Stuart court was addicted to masques – small dramas  which were acted by members of the court, with songs and dances, and usually a final chorus praising the King or one of the royal family. Inigo Jones provided the scenery for many of these, working with his friend, the dramatist Ben Jonson. The Banqueting House was a place for staging masques and other court events – a sort of cross between a dining room and a theatre. It opened in 1622 with the Masque of Augurs.

The great irony of the Banqueting House is that it was built as a piece of propaganda for the Stuart dynasty. Yet it was from one of the windows of the upper storey that King Charles I stepped out on to the scaffold in 1649.

Where: Whitehall

When: 10-5 Mon-Sat 

How much:  £4.50 (£3.50 concessions and £2.25 children)

Photo credit: Matt Brown on flickr 

Post from: The London Traveler

Greenwich seems to be where it’s happening right now, with a whole load of summer activities. Among these is the Greenwich Wheel – a competitor to the London Eye.
It’s  taken a little while to get it going, but the Greenwich Wheel is finally up and working.  It will stay in place till September 28th, so you have the whole summer to get over to Greenwich and enjoy it.

The views are very different from what you’ll see from the Eye. For a start there’s the green expanse of Greenwich Park, and the Isle of Dogs with its docklands developments spread out in front of you. The silver streamer of the Thames runs from here out to sea, and you can see across London to the north all the way to the heights of Hampstead Heath in the distance.

You’ll also get a superb aerial view of the classical buildings of the Royal Naval Hospital  – in whose grounds the wheel is located.

At £7 a go – that’s 12-15 minutes of gradual rotation – the wheel seems pretty good value.

Of course, if you’re a real cheapskate, or just scared of heights, you could always climb up to the Observatory instead – not quite such a great view, but at least you’ll have solid ground under your feet!

Photo credit: Rob Partington (zimpfenfish) on flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

The museum is set in a superb Victorian pumping station, which blends functionality with elegance. The fine Italian renaissance style standpipe tower is a local landmark, its restraining arches and cornices clearly asserting its architectural pretensions.

Still, although I’m a bit of a nerd, I’ve never been a model railway fan, and I find the attractions of a lot of inert engines pall rather quickly. That’s why, unless you’re really into mechanics, I’d recommend you visit on one of the Giants of Steam weekends, when you can see the engines at work.

It’s not just about seeing them working – all your senses are involved; the smell of the coals, the noise of the pistons, the heat of flame and steam.

The museum also houses London’s only steam railway, which you can take a ride on. Railways like this one brought coal to the pumping stations to feed the engines, hungry monsters that devoured fuel in huge quantities.

There are Giants of Steam weekends on June 28/29, July 26/27, and September 27/28 – unfortunately  there’s no steam day in August.

Where: Green Dragon Lane, Brentford, Brentford, London TW8 0EN (Kew Gardens Tube)

When: Tues-Sun, 11-4

How much:  £8.50 (£7.50 OAPs and students), under-16s free when accompanied by a paying adult: Free if you have a London Pass

Photo Credit – Les Chatfield on Flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

City Hall is one of London’s ‘new’ landmarks, a curvy blob on the South Bank that houses the London Assembly.

Designed by Foster & Partners, the building is a tilted glass globe, which purposely has no ‘front’ or ‘back’ – it’s a democratic shape, which can be seen from any perspective. Equally, it’s an energy efficient shape which minimises the surface area, thus reducing the building’s heating needs as there’s less opportunity for heat to leak out of the building.

The dominant feature in the interior is the spiral ramp that works its way up to the top floor. As with the outside, curves replace straight lines, and there’s a sense of airiness to the building.

Now if you want to see inside City Hall, you have the opportunity – just one weekend a month. And you’ll be able to see views of London from the top floor that are, I think, almost as good as from the London Eye – and much more user-friendly if you happen to suffer from vertigo!

Open weekend dates are:June 14th and 15th,July 5th and 6th,August 2nd and 3rd, September 20th and 21st,October 11th and 12th, and November 8th and 9th. The building is open 10-5, but don’t leave it too late – you won’t get in after 430 in the afternoon.
Photo credit – Steve Cadman on Flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

Many of the best museums – including the biggest ones – are free, and so is one of my favourites, the Sir John Soane Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

If you want to go to Evensong or one of the Sunday services in Westminster Abbey, it’s free – and that’s a big saving as otherwise it’s £12 to get in, which even for such a historic building seems a bit much. Okay, you won’t be able to look around all that much, but none the less, if you just want to get a feel for the place, it’s worth considering. The choir isn’t bad either.

And  there are lots of free concerts, particularly at lunchtime. In the City, St Margaret’s Lothbury and St Anne and St Agnes on Gresham Street do fine lunchtimeconcerts of classical music, and the Royal Opera House has free gigs on Monday lunchtimes.

If you’re a really determined cheapskate you should also visit the London is free website,  which has a useful calendar of free events coming up in the next few weeks.

Post from: The London Traveler

The Tower of London is one of the compulsory stops on a tour of London. It’s the oldest complete building in London – parts of it going back to the Normans – with a long and frequently bloody history.

There’s a lot to see, and a lot to learn about it. So make sure you take advantage of the guided tours, led by the ‘Beefeaters’ (Yeoman Warders). These guys really know their stuff.

The tours last about an hour, and leave every half hour up to 330 in the afternoon from the main entrance at Middle Tower.

Even better, once you’ve paid for your ticket to visit the Tower, these tours are free.

By the way, if you  turn up nice and early, you can see the ceremonial unlocking of the Tower at 9 o’clock in the morning. The keys are brought by the duty Yeoman Warder with a military escort. It’s not the Changing of the Guard, but it’s a nice understated ceremony. And getting there early also gives you a chance to be first in, and see the Tower before it starts getting more crowded.

Photo credit: David Dennis on Flickr – this Yeoman Warder took David round the Tower

Post from: The London Traveler

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 this was.

Look at the wonderful use of light – one huge window on the first floor, creating a well lit, open plan space, with small windows on the floor above for bedrooms.  (In fact if you look carefully you can see this is a terrace of three houses, but the horizontal emphasis of that big window disguises it rather well and makes the whole terrace look so much grander than three separate houses ever could have.)

The Goldfinger house is a work of incredible purity with its rationalism and straight lines. It feels quite cool to me, with its smooth surfaces – plywood, paint, parquet floors. But it’s spacious and airy, too – nothing cramped or fiddly.

The house itself is a work of great architectural value, but that’s not all you’ll see. Goldfinger also collected the art of his day and you’ll see pieces by artists such as Henry Moore and Max Ernst. So what’s preserved here isn’t just a fine modernist house, but an entire modernist lifestyle – even the books on the shelves.

Now I did say this had all got nothin to do with James Bond. But apparently, when Goldfinger applied for planning permission, not all the local residents were happy. One in particular objected to the demolition of the old cottages that originally occupied this site. His name was Ian Fleming…. and he gave Erno Goldfinger’s name to his next villain.
Where: 2 Willow Road,  Hampstead

When: guided tours at 11, 12, 1 and 2 on Saturdays, and open viewing from 3-5

How much: £5.10

Photo credit by Steve Cadman on Flickr 

Post from: The London Traveler

When I lived in Stoke Newington I got to know the North Circular pretty well. One of the great sights just off that road was the Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium, with its illuminated facade redolent of the fairground.

A night at the greyhounds isn’t my preferred entertainment, to be honest. I’d rather see a play or an opera, or spend the evening in the pub. But I have been to the dogs one or two times, and it’s an enjoyable way of passing time with your mates – better than ten pin bowling, anyway (IMHO). And less dangerous than go-karting; but I’ll save that particula story for another time.
If you fancy a night out at Walthamstow, though, you don’t have long to do it.  The stadium will close for good in August.

There are two reasons. One is that greyhound racing just isn’t cutting edge entertainment any more.  It’s the kind of thing your grandad used to do. The rise of the betting shop and its all-day television fodder means that if dog racing is your thing, you no longer need to go to the track. Other stadiums have closed already – London will be left with just two, Wimbledon and Romford.

But I suspect the other reason is that London perennial – you make more money by selling land for housing development than by running a viable business.

It’s the end of 75 years of history.  And I shall miss the light display.
Photo credit: DanPea on Flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

There seems to have been a tradition of displaying the monarch’s body openly in public. It was one way of making sure the king had died ‘honestly’ – not been made away with – though apparently, the murderers of Edward II managed to avoid being traced by the use of a red hot poker and a piece of antler. (I won’t go into that in detail – but if it was that secret, how come everyone nowadays knows all about it, eh?)

Of course, if time elapsed between death and burial, displaying the body became impractical, and so a wooden effigy was displayed instead. The first one that still exists in England is that of Edward III. It aims for dignity, showing the king’s fine long hair and beard – but also shows the drooping mouth, sign of the stroke he suffered three days before his death. It’s a surprisingly realistic face.

Even more realistic is the effigy of Henry VII. The striking head is clearly modelled from a death mask. It’s utterly realistic – you can imagine you are face to face with him. An encounter of such startling intimacy is something you rarely get with even the best painted portraits.

Among all the kings and queens you’ll also find Horatio, Lord Nelson. This has to be the summit of his social climbing (Nelson was a great man, but an indefatigable arriviste)! The effigy wasn’t made for his tomb – he was buried in St Paul’s, not Westminster – but for exhibition to the public, in the same way that Madame Tussaud’s displays David Beckham or Johnny Depp to us today.

If you’re headed to Westminster, don’t miss the effigies – your chance to come face to face with the Kings of England.

Post from: The London Traveler