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99 TOP EXPERIENCES
From royal ceremonies and blockbuster exhibitions to under-the-radar discoveries
Afternoon teas with a twist The must-see shows of 2020 Secrets of a London cabbie BRITAIN £6.99
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2020 GUIDE
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Welcome to London! Visitors flock to London in their millions every year, and no wonder: the city boasts an unparalleled array of attractions, from landmarks such as Big Ben and Buckingham Palace to the world-class art collections of the National Gallery and the Tate – not to mention numerous hidden gems awaiting discovery. Then there are the shows, the shops, the restaurants: enough choice to dazzle even a lifelong Londoner. The London 2020 Guide, brought to you by London experts, is the perfect travelling companion with which to navigate the city. Start with our hotlist of 2020 happenings (p7), then visit London’s best museums – without the crowds (p39), tuck into a themed afternoon tea (p52) or catch one of this year’s new West End shows (p110). However you choose to spend your time, a memorable trip is guaranteed. Natasha Foges, Editor
39 Features 07 99 THINGS TO DO IN 2020
Don’t plan your itinerary until you’ve consulted our roundup of the hottest events and days out for 2020
28 WHERE EAST MEETS WEST
Sited at the meeting point between two hemispheres, Greenwich may just be the capital’s most perfect day-trip
39 BIG SIGHTS, SMALL CROWDS @BRITAINMAGAZINE FACEBOOK/BRITAINMAGAZINE PINTEREST/BRITAINMAGAZINE @BRITAIN_MAGAZINE www.britain-magazine.com
Dodge the crowds with our insider tips on the quietest times to visit London’s big attractions, and the top tours
44 HOUSE RULES
Combining history, politics and majestic architecture, a visit to the Houses of Parliament is quite an experience LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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CONTENTS
Features 52 TEA WITH A TWIST
For a quirky take on tradition, indulge in the latest teatime trend: a themed afternoon tea
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2020 GUIDE
From the publishers of
www.britain-magazine.com BRITAIN is the official magazine of VisitBritain, the national tourism agency. BRITAIN is published by The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ Tel: 020 7349 3700 Fax: 020 7901 3701 Email: info@britain-magazine.com
61 GREAT COLLECTORS
We examine the legacy of five prolific patrons of the arts, from art-loving royals to private collectors
Editor Natasha Foges Production Editor Jenny Rowe Art Editor Clare White
68 WIN A HOLIDAY AND FLIGHTS
Your chance to win a luxury, once-in-a-lifetime holiday to Britain, including flights to the UK
Sales Director Cameron Hay Group Advertising Manager Natasha Syed Senior Sales Executive Sam Evanson Sales Executives Lee Aden, George Roberts
71 CAPITAL VIEWS
We pick the capital’s best spots for photo-worthy panoramas
Chairman Paul Dobson Chief Operating Officer Kevin Petley Publisher Lindsay Greatbatch Group Editor Steve Pill Chief Financial Officer Vicki Gavin Director of Media James Dobson MD Sales & Create Steve Ross EA to Chairman Sarah Porter Subs Marketing Manager Bret Weekes For VisitBritain Sarah Wagner
77 NELSON'S COLUMN
Guarded by lions and towering above Trafalgar Square, this lofty monument is one of London’s most iconic
82 LONDON UNCOVERED
See three of the capital’s most opulent historic homes through a lens
87 CONFESSIONS OF A CABBIE Gary Mankelow, a cabbie for 25 years, shares his London knowledge
92 LONDON AFLOAT
Take to the water to experience a different side of London
98 SHOPFRONTS OF LONDON
110 CENTRE STAGE
BRITAIN magazine copies To buy issues of BRITAIN magazine, visit www.chelseamagazines.com/shop
116 RAISING THE BAR
BRITAIN magazine subscriptions Subscribe to BRITAIN magazine at www.britain-magazine.com/subscribe
Whether for pre-dinner drinks or a cosy nightcap, here’s our pick of the classiest bars
News distribution US and Canada: NPS Media Group, 2 Corporate Drive, Suite 945, Shelton, CT 06484. Periodicals postage paid at Shelton, CT and other offices.
122 BLOOMSBURY BOLTHOLES Base yourself in London’s literary quarter and explore this historic slice of the capital
UK and Rest of World: Seymour, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT, England Tel: +44 (0) 20 7429 4000
128 TRAVEL ESSENTIALS
In praise of the capital’s small neighbourhood shops
Our easy-to-follow guide to help you get your bearings in the capital
103 THE CHEF RECOMMENDS
130 2020 DIRECTORY
We ask Tom Aikens, chef of newly opened restaurant Muse, for his London gastronomic highlights
Printed in England by William Gibbons Ltd. Production All Points Media
From musicals in historic West End theatres to arty fringe offerings, here are the highlights of 2020
The London 2020 Guide ISSN 2054-2453 (USPS 004-335) is published by The Chelsea Magazine Company, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ , UK Distributed in the US by NPS Media Group, 2 Corporate Drive, Suite 945, Shelton, CT 06484 Periodicals postage paid at Shelton, CT and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BRITAIN, PO Box 37518, Boone, IA 50037-0518
Leaf through our index for more inspiration on where to stay, what to do and where to eat and drink
Publications Mail Agreement Number 41599077, 1415 Janette Ave, Windsor, ON N8X 1Z1. Canadian GST Registered Number 834045627 RT0001 © The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd., 2020. All rights reserved. Text and pictures are copyright restricted and must not be reproduced without permission of the publishers
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The information contained in the London 2020 Guide has been published in good faith and every effort has been made to ensure its accuracy. However, where appropriate, you are strongly advised to check prices, opening times, dates, etc, before making final arrangements. All liability for loss, disappointment, negligence or damage caused by reliance on the information contained within this publication is hereby excluded. The opinions expressed by contributors to the London 2020 Guide are not necessarily those of the publisher.
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Hazel is a great guide. She makes you see things you would never notice or understand without help. Good advice on when and where to do other things. In addition she helps acclimatise to London by showing how to deal with the tube and river boats. Do this early in your trip if you can. Worth the money.
Hazel has a wealth of historical and architectural knowledge providing interesting and insightful facts along the way. As a small group we really enjoyed the tour. Hazel was happy to provide a few detours of things we were interested to see. We finished in a fabulous little restaurant for lunch. I highly recommend if you're a history geek like me.
Alan Perry, West Bay Grand Cayman
Verity Radford, St Albans
99 THINGS
TO DO IN
2020
Our pick of the events, exhibitions, shows and new openings you won't want to miss this year www.britain-magazine.com
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS
Cultural highlights
Explore the mind of a monarch Kew Palace marks the 200th anniversary of the death of King George III with an exhibition that reveals the real man behind the 'madness', from his passion for architecture to his musical talents. George III: The Mind Behind the Myth opens on 3 April. www.hrp.org.uk
Discover new artists The Royal Academy of Arts is one of the oldest permanent collections of art in the UK and is a must-visit for art-lovers. Its Summer Exhibition (9 June to 16 August) has run since 1769 and displays works across all mediums from emerging and established talent. Other big exhibitions in 2020 include Picasso on Paper (until 13 April) and Tracey Emin/ Edvard Munch (from 15 November). www.royalacademy.org.uk Night at the museum The London Transport Museum is launching a series of themed Museum Lates in conjunction with its new exhibition, Hidden London (until January 2021), which delves into the history of London’s Underground. On selected dates you can party like it's 1999 in a disused station or experience the Tube as an air-raid shelter. www.ltmuseum.co.uk Scores of your favourite films As well as the annual BBC Proms (17 July to 12 September), the iconic Royal Albert Hall has another stunner in store for 2020. Films in Concert sees the return of old favourites with a live orchestra, from The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars (both October) to Titanic (May). www.royalalberthall.com
Admire a master of portraiture Alongside the most extensive collection of portraits in the world, the National Portrait Gallery will exhibit David Hockney: Drawing from Life (until 28 June), focusing on depictions of the artist and a small group of his most intimate muses, including his mother and Celia Birtwell. www.npg.org.uk
Go down the rabbit hole The Victoria and Albert Museum is renowned for its exhibitions – we’d expect nothing else from the world’s leading museum of art and design. Its collection covers 5,000 years of history, but 2020 is the year it transforms into Wonderland and invites you to immerse yourself in the mind-bending imagination of CS Lewis, exploring the world of Alice in literature, art, film, music and fashion (from 27 June). www.vam.ac.uk
The Royal Albert Hall has a stunner in store: Films in Concert sees the return of old favourites with a live orchestra
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Treasures of Tutankhamun revealed 100 years ago, Howard Carter unearthed the tomb of Tutankhamun: possibly the greatest archaeological discovery of all time. A touring exhibition, Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh, will be drawing the crowds to Chelsea’s Saatchi Gallery until 3 May. It sold out in Los Angeles and Paris (it was France’s most-visited exhibition of all time), so be sure to book ahead to view King Tut’s priceless treasures in person. www.saatchigallery.com This page, clockwise from top: Pablo Picasso's Head of a Woman at the Royal Academy; gold wesekh collar and gold inlaid canopic coffinette of Tutankhamun at the Saatchi Gallery; the Royal Albert Hall
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS An artist of note Tate Britain houses the largest collection of British art in the world. This year’s standout exhibition is Turner’s Modern World (from 28 October), celebrating the great artist’s portrayals of the industrial revolution. The exhibition coincides with Turner’s appearance on the new £20 banknote. www.tate.org.uk
This page, clockwise from this image: See Turner at Tate Britain; Ori Gersht at the Dulwich Picture Gallery; Cadogan Hall
PHOTO: © VISIT BRITAIN/HISTORIC ROYAL PALACES/RMN - GRAND PALAIS (MUSÉE PICASSO DE PARIS) - BÉATRICE HATALA/JOE HUMPHREYS/ORI GERSHT/HASSELBLAD/DAVID ILIFF/ALEX MACNAUGHTON
Delight in the classics The Southbank Centre has come up trumps with a toe-tapping Classical Season, with nights dedicated to much-loved singers, conductors and composers. Relive Paris in the 1920s (28 April) or fall in love with the Philharmonia Orchestra’s rendition of the American Romantics, Barber, Copland and Bernstein (14 May). www.southbankcentre.co.uk Art in the park Greenwich Peninsula has undergone massive redevelopment in the last couple of years, culminating last summer in the opening of a new five-kilometre elevated park, featuring two sculptures by Damien Hirst, Hydra & Kali and Mermaid, among works by other renowned artists. www.greenwichpeninsula.co.uk All that jazz Early 20th-century architecture and awesome acoustics enhance every one of the musical experiences provided by the Cadogan Hall in Chelsea. Some of the finest choral ensembles will sing there this year, and every November the London Jazz Festival takes over the venue. www.cadoganhall.com
Tate Britain houses the largest collection of British art in the world
Nature through a lens Dulwich Picture Gallery’s major 2020 exhibition, Unearthed: Photography’s Roots (17 June to 20
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS
Clockwise from this image: Tate Modern; a pilgrim's badge of Thomas Becket; The Great Court at the British Museum
September), traces the history of photography through the lens of nature, revealing how the subject led to advances in the medium around the world. www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk
Modern art must-sees For blockbuster modern art exhibitions, Tate Modern is unbeatable. This year it presents a new look at Pop Art superstar Andy Warhol (12 March until 6 September), as well as the first major exhibition of artist and film director Steve McQueen’s work in the UK for 20 years (until 11 May). www.tate.org.uk Saint or sinner? This year the British Museum marks the 850th anniversary of Thomas Becket's assassination, reportedly ordered by Henry II. Transforming from merchant's son to Archbishop in life and from traitor to saint in death, Becket's changing fortunes are documented in artefacts from manuscripts to sacred reliquaries (from 15 October). www.britishmuseum.org
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PHOTO: Š VISITLONDON.COM/JON REID/THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
For blockbuster modern art exhibitions, Tate Modern is unbeatable
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS
All change One of London’s most iconic sights is Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace, when the Queen’s guard hand over responsibility for her protection while dressed in their red coats and bearskin hats. This unmissable spectacle takes place every other day, depending on the time of year. www.changing-guard.com Come face-to-face with a famous clock While tours inside Big Ben and the Elizabeth Tower have been suspended until 2021 while the tower is being refurbished, you can still marvel at the world’s largest four-faced chiming clock, and arguably its most famous. Monthly talks led by the conservation team tell you more about its history and inner workings. www.parliament.uk Pet the royal horses After a nosey around Buckingham Palace, whose jaw-dropping State Rooms are open to the public from 18 July to 27 September, make sure you make a pit stop at The Royal Mews. One of the finest working stables in existence, it’s home to historic royal carriages. The Queen is thought to choose the carriages for processions, and knows each of the horses by name. www.rct.uk
Marvel at the magnitude of Tower Bridge Stand 42 metres above the Thames and watch life go by far below as you gaze down through Tower Bridge's glass floor. A new photographic exhibition highlights the bridge's evolution through 125 years of history. www.towerbridge.org.uk Rackets at the ready For the two weeks that Wimbledon lasts, the British become obsessed with tennis. This year the championships run from 29 June to 12 July. Get hold of Centre Court tickets for the chance to see the best players at the world’s oldest tennis tournament. www.wimbledon.com Cutting-edge garden design The world-renowned RHS Chelsea Flower Show (19-23 May) is a spring highlight in the British calendar. The event showcases gorgeous flower and landscape displays and is attended by thousands of people every year, including the royal family. www.rhs.org.uk Relive royal weddings past Walk down the aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral where Prince Charles and Diana were married in 1981, climb 528 steps to the Golden Gallery for breathtaking views or visit the Whispering Gallery, whose extraordinary acoustics mean a whisper against the wall of the dome can be heard at the other side, 112 feet away. www.stpauls.co.uk
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, a spring highlight, showcases or eo s o er and landscape displa s Ogle antiques at Portobello Market Stroll through the cobbled streets of Notting Hill and pick up a collectable at the world’s largest antique market. Saturday is the main trading day, and even if you’re not in the market for an antique, a stroll is just as satisfying, with trinkets and brightly coloured textiles flowing out of shops onto street stands. www.portobelloroad.co.uk
This page top to bottom: The RHS Chelsea Flower Show; the Gold State Coach
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Don your glad rags for Royal Ascot This high-profile horse-racing event is famous not only for fast horses, but also for top hats and fancy frocks. The elegant affair is held every summer for five days (16-20 June) and is faithfully attended by the Queen. www.ascot.co.uk Right on time Visit the home of Greenwich Mean Time at the Royal Observatory and stand in two hemispheres at the same www.britain-magazine.com
PHOTOS: © JAYNE LLOYD/VISITLONDON.COM/JON REID/JIM DYSON/IAN JONES/ROYAL COLLECTION/HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Essential sights & experiences
Soar to over 400 feet inside one of the 32 capsules and see as far as 25 miles across London
time. While here you can also explore the Astronomer Royal’s house, on one of the oldest parts of the site. www.visitgreenwich.org.uk Get an eyeful of London The London Eye offers 360-degree views of the city from different angles as the wheel turns. Soar to over 400 feet inside one of the 32 capsules and see as far as 25 miles across London. It’s a great way to take in the city’s skyline and get a sense of the bigger picture. www.londoneye.com A thousand years of history The World Heritage Site of Westminster Abbey offers daily services to all comers but also remains a royal church. It has witnessed some pivotal moments in British history, hosting coronations, royal weddings and state funerals. This year is the 100th anniversary of the Unknown Warrior, whose body was brought from France to be buried in the Abbey on 11 November 1920. www.westminster-abbey.org Attend the Queen’s official birthday Every June, the Queen’s official birthday is celebrated with the Trooping the Colour procession and ceremony at Horse Guard’s Parade, Whitehall. The traditional military event is attended by 1,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians. This year, it will be www.britain-magazine.com
This page top to bottom: The view from the London Eye stretches for miles; Westminster Abbey holds the grave of the Unknown Warrior
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS celebrated on 13 June. www.householddivision.org.uk Visit a Neoclassical beauty Enclosing one of the most beautiful courtyards in Europe, the Neoclassical buildings that make up Somerset House constitute the 18th-century architect William Chambers’ seminal masterpiece. Now home to one of the UK’s largest creative communities, you can expect to find exhibitions, talks, and ice-skating at Christmas. www.somersethouse.org.uk Catch a street show at Covent Garden Covent Garden is not only known for its shopping, theatres and restaurants, but also for its street entertainment. Big crowds gather on the cobblestone piazza to be wowed by living statues, musicians, clowns and acrobats performing mind-boggling stunts. www.coventgarden.london
Prepare for battle at Churchill’s HQ Enter the darkest hour by visiting the museum that used to be former Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s secret bunker. This astonishing labyrinth of corridors and rooms stretches below Westminster and was where Churchill made crucial decisions before, during and after the Second World War. www.iwm.org.uk Conjure up a wizarding world Follow in Harry Potter’s footsteps by visiting the Warner Bros Studio Tour and go behind the scenes to see sets, authentic props and original costumes. New for 2020, you can now drop by Gringotts Wizarding Bank and explore a world rich with Galleons, Sickles, Knuts and goblins. www.wbstudiotour.co.uk Be awe-struck by the natural world With over 80 million specimens to explore, the Natural History Museum is a must-see for devotees of
the natural world. The annual Wildlife Photography exhibition (until 31 May) is always worth a look, while the Palaeoart exhibition reconstructs what prehistoric creatures might have looked like (until 28 April). www.nhm.ac.uk Haunt the Tower’s parish church In 2020 the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London celebrates its 500th anniversary. Built in 1520, the Chapel is best known as the burial place of some of the Tower’s most famous prisoners, including three Queens of England: Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Jane Grey. A series of celebratory events will be running throughout the year, from lectures to intimate choral performances. www.hrp.org.uk
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS Clockwise from this image: The Natural History Museum; the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula; Covent Garden
PHOTOS: © JOHN KELLERMAN/ALAMY/VISITLONDON.COM/JON REID/HISTORIC ROYAL PALACES/RICHARD LEA-HAIR
With over 80 million specimens, the Natural History Museum is a must-see for devotees of the natural world
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS
PHOTOS: © SWNS GROUP/FOTOWARE FOTOSTATION/VISITLONDON.COM/JON REID/PETER LANE/ALAMY
A season of events at Hampton Court Palace will mark the 500th anniversary of the Field of Cloth of Gold
Be transported back to Tudor times Experience what life was like during Henry VIII’s reign by visiting Hampton Court Palace. Admire the splendour of the Great Hall, see where feasts were made in the kitchens, or get lost in the gardens’ maze. This year, an exhibition (from April) and a season of events including a “rematch" (23-31 May) will mark the 500th anniversary of the Field of Cloth of Gold, Henry VIII's legendary encounter with François I of France. www.hrp.org.uk Be bowled over at a cricket match Don’t miss the opportunity to watch a match of England’s national sport, cricket, in its most iconic ground, The Oval, where the Ashes were born in 1882. The season runs from April to September. www.kiaoval.com
Clockwise from this image: Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew; Hampton Court Palace Gardens; the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben
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All aboard Last year Cutty Sark celebrated its 150th birthday, and it’s come a long way since its seafaring days. Once the fastest of its kind, it is now the world’s sole surviving tea clipper, and a museum ship where you can discover the drama of life at sea. Fittingly, you can now take afternoon tea on board too. www.rmg.co.uk Treetop views at Kew From the beautiful glass-walled Palm House and Princess of Wales Conservatory to the Treetop Walkway, there’s something for everyone at Kew Gardens. London’s www.britain-magazine.com
largest UNESCO World Heritage Site, the gardens are a horticulturalist’s dream, with one of the world’s most diverse plant collections. October is a good time to visit, when the Temperate House will be colourfully transformed for a new festival celebrating Japan. www.kew.org Stick your oar in One of the world’s oldest sporting events, the Boat Race, an annual rowing competition, is a great day out. Sit on the riverbank at Putney, Hammersmith, Barnes or Chiswick with thousands of other spectators to watch crews from Oxford and Cambridge universities go head to head. www.theboatrace.org
Be dazzled by the Crown Jewels The Crown Jewels, a world-famous collection of 23,578 gemstones, are “working jewels” that are in regular use today, but you can see them under armed guard (they are thought to be worth £3 billion) at the Jewel House in the Tower of London. www.hrp.org.uk Admire a feat of Victorian engineering Built by the Midland Railway Company to connect London with some of England’s major cities, St Pancras Station is a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic architecture – it's been called “the most wonderful railway station in the world” and is well worth a visit. www.stpancras.com
Dance like no-one’s watching The two-day Notting Hill Carnival (30-31 August) is one of the world’s largest street festivals, celebrating the colour and vibrancy of Caribbean heritage. Join locals to dance to reggae, calypso and rumba beats. www.thelondonnottinghillcarnival.com Peep into Parliament The Palace of Westminster encompasses the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Guided tours take you on a journey to the heart of British politics, through the Commons Chamber and the Lords Chamber, following in the footsteps of the Queen during the State Opening. www.parliament.uk
Guided tours take you to the heart of British politics, following in the footsteps of the Queen during the State Opening www.britain-magazine.com
LONDON | 2019 GUIDE
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS
Capital food & drink Time for tea Finger sandwiches, warm scones and sweet pastries are the classic accompaniments that Claridge’s have served alongside their extensive selection of loose leaf teas for the best part of 150 years. No other institution does this most British of traditions so well. www.claridges.co.uk Barter at a thousand-year-old market Borough is London’s oldest food market; there has been one on the same site since 1014. From exotic vegetables to the best cheeses, you'll find delicious gourmet treats everywhere you look. www.boroughmarket.org.uk Dine with the skyline For breathtaking panoramic views and an intimate dining experience, grab a table at Aqua Shard, on the 31st floor of the Shard. This elegant, dimly lit space, revamped this year, has stunning views of the skyline – and of the toytown trains snaking into London Bridge far below. www.aquashard.co.uk Learn the history of London gin With a recipe that has remained virtually unchanged since 1800, Beefeater Gin has a pedigree that’s second to none. The Distillery Tour tells the story of the birth of London gin, a heady tale of international politics, the British Empire, Victorian entrepreneurs and savvy American barmen. www.beefeaterdistillery.com Haute hampers When the weather is fine, pick up a luxury picnic
hamper from one of London’s esteemed hotels or restaurants, find a spot in a royal park and tuck in. Conrad London St James does traditional hampers (April to September) that include ham hock terrine with beetroot piccalilli and peach and rosemary Bakewell tarts, alongside other dainty delicacies. www.conradhotels3.hilton.com Drink to the Mayflower 2020 marks 400 years since the Mayflower’s historic journey from the UK to the US. There is no better
place to raise a glass than at The Mayflower, the oldest pub on the River Thames. Tucked away down cobbled streets in Rotherhithe, it overlooks the ship’s 1620 mooring point and has an evocatively creaky interior. www.mayflowerpub.co.uk Be transported to East Asia London’s beauty lies in its diversity. Don’t leave this cosmopolitan capital without exploring Chinatown and its restaurants, which number more than 70. Sip a traditional Taiwanese tea or get your chopsticks ready
This page, top to bottom: Afternoon tea at Claridge's; a picnic lunch from the Conrad London St James hotel
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS for an authentic dim sum dinner – it’s all on your doorstep in the heart of the city. www.chinatown.co.uk Cocktails with a view Those with a head for heights can test their nerve at London in the Sky, a 22-seat “sky table” suspended 100ft in the air, where the drinks come with with a side of eye-popping views. As well as cocktails – it’s a popular spot for sundowners – you can tuck into breakfast, lunch or dinner, or try the wine and cheese menu; they also do a next-level afternoon tea. www.londoninthesky.co.uk Wine fit for royalty At 63 Pall Mall, just round the corner from the original 1698 shop at 3 St James’s Street, you will find the family-run Berry Bros & Rudd, its shelves stacked with over 4,000 wines and spirits, priced from £10 to £10,000 a bottle. Two Royal Warrants and the expertise of six Masters of Wine mean it’s the best wine merchants on the block. www.bbr.com
This page, top to bottom: Wine tastings are available at Berry Bros & Rudd; M Manze is the oldest pie and mash shop in London
With two Royal Warrants and the expertise of six Masters of Wine, Berry Bros & Rudd is the best wine merchants on the block Spice things up on Brick Lane Brick Lane is the place to go for one of the best curries in the capital – and in the UK. If you can’t find time to journey so far east, Dishoom is a stylish mini-chain of Indian restaurants with branches in King’s Cross, Covent Garden and Shoreditch. Have the daal. www.dishoom.com Sample street food at Camden Market For diversity and variety, Camden Market can’t be beaten. Open every day and with more than 1,000 places to shop, eat and drink, this historic London market, now a community in its own right, has come a long way since 1974 when there were just 16 stalls. www.camdenmarket.com Tuck into pie and mash M Manze is the capital’s oldest pie and mash shop (since 1902) and the best place to try this traditionally British dish. If you’re feeling brave, get the eels – jellied or stewed – too, in keeping with the authentic surroundings of the original Bermondsey-based caff. www.manze.co.uk
PHOTOS: © VIKTOR KERY/STEVE VIDLER/ALAMY/CHARLIE ROSS
Fill up on arty interiors A restaurant set in a Grade II-listed townhouse with a Mayfair postcode and a Michelin star is intriguing enough, but with the most stunningly quirky interior design of any restaurant in London, sketch is too tempting. www.sketch.london Dine like a Georgian Built for the Duke of Brunswick in 1758, Brunswick House is all crumbling grandeur. This mansion-turned -restaurant is stuffed with antiques including an over-the-top but atmospheric array of chandeliers. www.brunswickhouse.london www.britain-magazine.com
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS
This page, top to bottom: Harrods' new dining hall; gourmet sushi is among the spoils to be had
Thanks to a two-year restoration, Harrods now has a swanky new dining hall, complete with a Grill, Fish Bar, Sushi Bar and its own Indian restaurant Prep your own catch of the day The Seafood School at Billingsgate offers a wide range of fish preparation and cookery courses from their location in Billingsgate Market in London’s Docklands. Pack more into your day with an early start (trading hours are from 4am to 8am) and a tour of the market, whose history stretches back over 300 years. www.seafoodtraining.org Browse Harrods’ new dining hall From humble beginnings as a grocery shop and tea merchants, Harrods is now a Knightsbridge icon, and looks particularly magical at dusk when it lures you into the warm with its glowing lights. Thanks to a two-year restoration, it now has a swanky new dining hall complete with a Grill, Fish Bar, Sushi Bar and its own Indian restaurant. www.harrods.com Food with the royal seal of approval With its roots in devising snacks for hungry travellers – hence the invention of the Scotch Egg – Fortnum &
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Mason remains renowned for its ready-to-eat luxury foods, having provisioned British soldiers during the Peninsular war, the first British Everest Expedition and Florence Nightingale’s hospitals on the request of Queen Victoria. www.fortnumandmason.com Take a masterclass in tea At Twinings’ 300-year-old flagship store at 216 Strand, guests are invited to sign up for a masterclass led by "Tea Ambassadors" in which they’ll learn the history of Twinings and afternoon tea and enjoy a series of food and drink tastings. www.twinings.co.uk Taste traditional fish and chips There are countless chippies in London but The Fryer’s Delight in Holborn is famous for its adherence to tradition, with a charming old-school atmosphere and delicious paper-wrapped fish and chips (alongside other traditional fare such as pickled eggs). www.facebook.com/fishandchips.co.uk
Get close to the chefs Counter dining – allowing a close-up view of the chefs as they prepare your meal in an open kitchen – is a popular foodie trend. London’s best counter dining experiences are to be found at Bocca di Lupo, famed for its stripped-back Italian food, and Barrafina, which serves Spanish tapas on a beautiful marble-topped bar. www.boccadilupo.com; www.barrafina.co.uk www.britain-magazine.com
PHOTOS: © SIMON BROWN/TOBY KEANE PHOTOGRAPHY
2020 HIGHLIGHTS
Set in a former bank, there’s nowhere better than The Ned to soak up the historic atmsophere of the capital’s financial district Bank on a good dinner The Ned hotel near Bank Tube station is set in a former bank, and there’s nowhere better to soak up the historic atmosphere of the capital’s financial district than here. Eight restaurants are housed within the former banking hall; Millie’s Lounge has the most quintessentially British fare. Try the Sunday Feast, a luxurious all-you-can-eat brunch, with dishes from lobster and oysters to the traditional Sunday roast. www.thened.com
This page, top to bottom: Millie's Lounge at The Ned; Hawksmoor's sharing roast
Chill out at -5° For a London bar experience like no other, visit Mayfair’s ICE BAR, whose ice sculptors and designers curate a new experience every year. Thermal capes and gloves are provided – it's a steady -5°C inside – and cocktails served in ice glasses help keep the chill out too. www.icebarlondon.com Feast on roast beef and Yorkshire puds The Sunday roast is one of Britain’s best-loved food traditions. The centrepiece is, of course, the juicy cut of meat. Hawksmoor Seven Dials, located in an old brewery in Covent Garden, has been a go-to for beef since 1807, when the brewer’s annual steak supper was attended by the Prince of Wales and Duke of York. www.thehawksmoor.com www.britain-magazine.com
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Spectacular shows Practically perfect in every way The world’s favourite nanny is proving as much as a hit on stage as on screen, with Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s multi-award-winning musical Mary Poppins lighting up the Prince Edward Theatre throughout 2020. A great family-friendly show, it’ll have you “stepping in time” to its sprightly tunes from beginning to end. www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk Wonders of the West End The West End, home to London’s vibrant theatre district, has something to entertain everyone (see also p116). This year sees classics such as The Lion King (in its 20th year in 2020) and Wicked go up against new shows such as Endgame, starring Daniel Radcliffe, and Sister Act. You can get last-minute tickets for all these shows from the TKTS ticket booth in Leicester Square, often discounted for performances on the day. Alternatively, get a free taster of the shows at West End Live, a weekend of the highlights of musical theatre in Trafalgar Square (20-21 June). officiallondontheatre.com/tkts; www.westendlive.co.uk
Experience beauty at the ballet There are few more classical cultural experiences than this. It’s not often that you can watch The Royal Ballet’s revival of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (until 16 May) at their London home, the Royal Opera House From top to bottom: Mary Poppins cast; The Royal Ballet perform Swan Lake
Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s multi-award-winning musical Mary Poppins will be lighting up the Prince Edward Theatre throughout 2020 – but this year you can. www.roh.org.uk
coloured laser displays, among other dazzling effects. www.royalalberthall.com
Attend a star-studded premiere For film buffs or anyone who wants to revel in the glamour of the red carpet, the London Film Festival (7-18 October) is a chance to discover the Oscar-winners of the future. Get tickets for one of 12 venues across central London or visit the hub at BFI Southbank for even more of a buzz. Galas at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square offer the chance to walk the red carpet, and even if you miss out on tickets you can still watch the action. www.bfi.org.uk
Weather a dancing storm at Sadler’s Wells From contemporary to ballet, tap to flamenco, Sadler’s Wells presents more new dance shows than anywhere else in the world. This season sees Singin’ in the Rain – and more than 14,000 litres of water every show – hit the stage, reprising the iconic British musical made famous by Gene Kelly (24 July to 30 August). www.sadlerswells.com
Visit a Victorian theatre A hub of entertainment on the northern outskirts of London, Alexandra Palace has provided a welcome escape from the working reality of the capital since 1863. The Palace’s historic theatre, beautifully restored after an 80-year closure, is an atmospheric setting for theatre, opera, dance and musical performances. www.alexandrapalace.com De dazzled at the Royal Albert Hall Hosting concerts since 1871, the Royal Albert Hall is a prestigious and dramatic backdrop for the hugely popular Classical Spectacular (19-22 March): an evening of iconic pieces of classical music, from Handel's Zadok the Priest to Ravel's Bolero, accompanied by multi-
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Culture capital The Barbican is the UK’s largest cultural venue. With theatres, a concert and music hall and three cinemas, there is always something on offer. Catch an awardwinning performance of Evita (27 June to 22 August) directed by Jamie Lloyd, or watch one of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s acclaimed productions. www.barbican.org.uk Brand-new at The Old Vic After 201 years of creative adventure, The Old Vic is known as the “actor’s theatre”, having launched many a thespian’s career. One to watch this season is Local Hero (until 28 March), a musical adaptation of the hit comedy film of the same name that tells the story of a Texan oil executive in small-town Scotland. www.oldvictheatre.com www.britain-magazine.com
PHOTOS: © JOHAN PERSSON/ROH/BILL COOPER
Watch a flick in a landmark cinema The Regent Street Cinema, just one minute north of Oxford Circus, was originally built in 1848 and was the first in the country to show moving pictures. It is where British cinema was born, and its legacy continues with different film screenings every day. www.regentstreetcinema.com
Rediscover the RAF Museum London Explore the fascinating story of the first 100 years of the RAF. Debate the future, test your flying skills, be amazed by stories of bravery, love and loss. Catch up with friends in our café and restaurant. Discounted catering for groups available on request. Group Tours available by arrangement. Free coach parking and driver’s lunch voucher available for pre-booked groups of 20 or more. We’re open daily from 10.00am. Entry is free.
rafmuseum.org
020 8358 4849 groups@rafmuseum.org
The Royal Air Force Museum London, Grahame Park Way, Colindale, NW9 5LL Registered charity no. 244708
2020 HIGHLIGHTS
Surprise discoveries
touch a (heavily protected) 99.79 per cent bar of gold. www.bankofengland.co.uk
Blooming lovely Get a feel for London’s East End at charming Columbia Road Flower Market, held every Sunday until around 3pm. And it’s not just about the flowers: lined with 60 independent shops, Columbia Road is a gem worth the journey even if it’s not market day. www.columbiaroad.info
Call in the cavalry In Horseguards, Whitehall, the Household Cavalry Museum is a hidden gem, offering a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at this historic regiment and the key role it plays as the Queen's mounted bodyguard. www.householdcavalrymuseum.co.uk
See London’s oldest house 41/42 Cloth Fair in Farringdon is the oldest house in London. Built between 1597 and 1614 it is the only home still standing to have survived the Great Fire of London in 1666. You can’t enter the property but you can stay at 45a or 43 Cloth Fair, beautiful Georgian houses managed by the Landmark Trust. www.landmarktrust.org.uk Return to the Victorian era 18 Stafford Terrace is the former house of Punch cartoonist Edward Linley Sambourne. Opened to the public in 1980, it offers a unique insight into London during the 1800s. Costumed tours are also available so that you can experience what it would have been like to live in Victorian times. www.rbkc.gov.uk Heaven for bookworms If you're craving peace and quiet, try an evening tour of the London Library. This bookish oasis in St James’s was founded by Thomas Carlyle when he became frustrated by the lack of seating at the British Museum Library. www.londonlibrary.co.uk The history of medicine dissected The Old Operating Theatre Museum is housed in the attic of the early 18th-century church of the old St Thomas’ Hospital. It has staged many gory, painful and not always successful operations in its time: a gut-wrenching insight into the history of medicine. www.oldoperatingtheatre.com
See Soane’s architectural showcase Pitzhanger, Sir John Soane’s country home in Ealing, west London, is newly restored and now open to the public. The influential architect lived there from 1800 to 1804, designing his dream rural residence for his family, which showcased his skills and new-found social status. www.pitzhanger.org.uk
Get a feel for the East End at Columbia Road Flower Market. Lined with 60 independent shops, this gem is worth the journey even if it’s not market day
Great expectations for Dickens' anniversary June marks 150 years since the death of the inimitable Charles Dickens. There are sights associated with the great man all over London, but make time for the highly rewarding Charles Dickens Museum in Holborn, which holds over 100,000 items, from personal keepsakes to original manuscripts. www.dickensmuseum.com Golden handshake Inside the Bank of England Museum you’ll find a reconstruction of the original banking hall used from 1793, originally designed by Sir John Soane. You can also Clockwise from top left: Colombia Road Flower Market; The Old Operating Theatre; hold a real gold bar at the Bank of England Museum
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2020 HIGHLIGHTS Stories of heroic Londoners Near the former General Post Office Headquarters a few streets from St Paul’s, Postman’s Park is so-called because of its popularity with postal workers on their lunch breaks. The park is also home to the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, the work of socialist George Frederick Watt to commemorate the bravery of ordinary Londoners. Their heart-warming stories can still be read on glazed ceramic tablets today. www.postmanspark.org.uk Face the music Fenton House in Hampstead is a handsome 17th-century merchant’s mansion with a charming walled garden. It makes a wondrous setting for lunchtime and evening recitals, which are regularly conducted here in harmony with its fine collection of antique keyboard instruments. www.nationaltrust.org.uk Step back in time A former owner of 18 Folgate St in Spitalfields, Dennis Severs renovated and furnished his property to reflect how its original Huguenot silk-weaving occupants would have lived. Atmospherically conserved in the same state today, the museum is a portal into a bygone age when this niche industry thrived in this northeastern quarter. www.dennissevershouse.co.uk
Atmospherically conserved, Dennis Severs’ House is a portal into a bygone age
From top to bottom: The Dickens Room in Dennis Severs' house; Leadenhall Market; a bust of Florence Nightingale on display in her eponymous museum
Visit a medieval market Located in what was the centre of Roman London, Leadenhall Market dates back to the 14th century. Originally a meat, poultry and game market, it now houses restaurants, pubs and cafés, and scenes from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone were filmed here (it masqueraded as magical shopping street Diagon Alley). www.leadenhallmarket.co.uk
PHOTOS: © ROBERT EVANS/PICTURES/ALAMY/ROELAF BAKKER/SHUTTERSTOCK
Learn about the Lady with a Lamp 200 years since she was born, the Florence Nightingale Museum at St Thomas’ Hospital is celebrating the legacy of the social reformer and founder of modern nursing with a series of talks, night-time walks and exhibitions. www.florence-nightingale.co.uk Time-travel 300 years in music history Adjoining houses in London’s Mayfair have been inhabited by the 18th-century composer George Handel and the 20th-century rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Their homes have been recreated to demonstrate how they lived their very different but equally musical lives. www.handelhendrix.org Explore a gleaming Gothic villa Being one of the best-documented houses in England means that Strawberry Hill House, Horace Walpole’s former home in Richmond, has been authentically restored. It remains a beautiful example of Gothic Revival architecture. www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk www.britain-magazine.com
Tour a working palace A working palace and the family home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace is open to the public for occasional guided tours: a chance to explore its rooms and chapels and learn more about the archbishops who have lived there. www.archbishopofcanterbury.org Stamp of approval The British Library does not only hold books (though it has the world’s biggest collection of them, with over 150 million items, including everything ever published in the UK and Ireland). It also hosts the Philatelic Exhibition, which displays 80,000 stamps dating from the 1850s and sourced from all over the world. www.bl.uk LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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New for 2020 Stay in the Seventies The US-based Standard brand now has its first international outpost and they’ve picked a great location. A two-minute walk from King’s Cross St Pancras, it’s decorated in a stylish, playfully seventies style that’s a nod to the building’s heritage as part of Camden Town Hall. www.standardhotels.com/london A chef returns to his roots Superchef Daniel Humm, of New York’s acclaimed Eleven Madison Park, likes a challenge. In December, the chef opened Davies and Brook, the flagship restaurant at the iconic Claridge’s hotel. Humm has come full circle: he first set foot in the Claridge’s kitchen as a 15-year-old, and returns with three Michelin stars under his belt. www.claridges.co.uk
Clockwise from this image: The new Standard hotel at King's Cross; sea bass at Wild by Tart; Siren at The Goring; the revamped Museum of the Home
Home from home The excellent Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum, will reopen this summer following an £18 million revamp. Set in the creative Hoxton area, the museum presents a series of rooms and gardens through time: a fascinating insight into London style and taste in different eras. www.museumofthehome.org.uk
The excellent Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum, reopens this summer following an £18 million revamp
A film-worthy hotel opening London’s first “super boutique hotel”, The Londoner, will open in Leicester Square in June. The building has been nicknamed The Iceberg thanks to its six subterranean levels, complete with bars, restaurants and two cinemas; it's sure to be a prime spot for premieres in London’s cinema capital. www. thelondoner.com
exquisite seafood is renowned British chef’s Nathan Outlaw’s strength – one of his eponymous fish restaurants in Port Isaac, Cornwall holds two Michelin stars. Siren showcases his signature Cornish creations in the heart of London. www.thegoring.com
A taste of the sea by the Palace Described as being located “practically in the back garden of Buckingham Palace”, The Goring has a new restaurant: Siren. Cooking up simple yet
Jump on the hottest food trends Wild by Tart is the newest multifaceted caférestaurant to take London’s smoothie-sipping, flat white-drinking crowds by storm. Housed in a former
A hotel with Tudor history Hyatt opened the £110-million Great Scotland Yard Hotel in Westminster in December 2019 and it's claimed to be “one of the finest five-star hotels ever built in London”. The site has a rich history, having been the embassy for the kings of Scotland when they visited Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Since then it’s been the original Scotland Yard Metropolitan Police HQ and later offices for the Ministry of Defence. www.hyatt.com
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PHOTOS: © JAYNE LLOYD/NICK ROCHOWSKI
power station and coal store in Belgravia, it has a restaurant serving farm-to-table fare and fresh Cornish seafood, and a deli that does smoothies to suit your mood, as well as selling jams, chutneys, freshly baked pastries and seasonal lunch boxes. www.wildbytart.com
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Greenwich Park and the Queen's House
WHERE EAST MEETS WEST Sited at the meeting point of two hemispheres and boasting maritime history, royal connections and glorious views, Greenwich may just be the capital’s most perfect day-trip WORDS EDWARD AVES
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A
Just yards away once stood the famed Palace of Placentia, birthplace of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and setting for some of the major turning points of Tudor history. It was from here that Elizabeth gave the orders for the attack on the Spanish Armada, and in the palace tiltyard half a century earlier that Henry suffered the catastrophic jousting accident that dramatically altered his personality; three months later, he had Anne Boleyn arrested for treason and sent to the Tower. The Tudor palace may be gone, demolished on the instruction of Charles II, but its replacement – the Old Royal Naval College – is arguably the architectural jewel in Greenwich’s crown, its elegant colonnades and twin Baroque domes bearing the hallmark of its principal architect, Sir Christopher Wren. To appreciate its full grandeur and symmetry, make your approach from the Water Gate, along the Five-Foot Walk that squeezes between the river and the college railings: the view of the Queen’s House, framed by diminishing columns, is one of London’s great visual treats. Now a university campus – the milling students give the grounds a cosmopolitan feel – Wren’s riverside masterpiece was originally founded by Charles’s successors, William and Mary, as a royal hospital for injured and disabled seamen. Its greatest treasure, the Painted Hall, was once the sailors’ ceremonial dining room. Dominating the hall, James Thornhill’s gargantuan ceiling painting, equal parts patriotic celebration and royal toadying, has been restored to its original lustre, and you could happily spend a decadent half-hour deciphering its allegorical stories and in-jokes supine on one of the red-leather benches designed expressly for the purpose. Don’t close your eyes or you might contentedly doze off. The hall’s most famous moment came in 1806, when,
PHOTOS: © GORANQ/GETTY IMAGES/TRAVEL PIX COLLECTION/AWL IMAGES/VISIT GREENWICH. ILLUSTRATION: © LIZ KAY
ll Londoners have their favourite haunts – and for the most part, they’re well away from the tourist honeypots. There’s an alluring corner of southeast London, however – genteel yet with a dash of urban grit – that holds timeless appeal for locals and tourists alike. Leafy Greenwich hugs a crook of the Thames, just seven miles from the centre of town, and its story has always been tied to the river – London’s historic arterial link to the world. While a train will whisk you here from London Bridge in minutes, begin the perfect day by jumping on a Thames Clipper ferry. Leaving the City’s skyscrapers behind as the boat gathers pace beyond Tower Bridge, the centuries peel back as you speed past Victorian wharves (now trendy apartments) and the occasional ancient riverside inn. Stepping out on your sea legs into the briny air at Greenwich pier, you’ll feel ready to embrace some salty tales of seafaring derring-do. You can hardly miss your first port of call. Its elaborate rigging piercing the sky, flags fluttering in the breeze, the majestic Cutty Sark was once the fastest ship afloat. The world’s sole surviving tea clipper was launched in 1869 to service the profitable tea route from China – its lower decks would have been crammed with more than 10,000 tea chests – but, with the opening of the Suez Canal, soon switched to carrying wool from Australia, travelling from Sydney to London in a record-breaking 73 days. It suffered a devastating fire in 2007 but miraculously the majority of the original structure survived, and now this champion of the high seas is looking better than ever. Hop on board to admire its beautifully restored main deck and gleaming alloy-coated hull, now raised three metres off the ground to allow a closer view.
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Clockwise from this image: Cutty Sark; the copper hull; detailing on the gate of the Old Royal Naval College
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PHOTOS: © VISIT LONDON.COM/JON REID/NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM,GREENWICH, LONDON/TINA WARNER/OLD ROYAL NAVAL COLLEGE
GREENWICH
hung with black drapes, it provided the setting for the lying in state of Horatio Nelson, brought home from Trafalgar in a barrel of brandy. Over four days more than 15,000 people came to pay their respects to the naval hero, and the queue of carriages stretched back all the way to central London. Before leaving the college, have a peep at the exquisite Greek Revival Chapel, and don’t miss the working Victorian skittle alley, complete with cannon shots for balls. Next stop is Greenwich’s historic covered market, hidden down an alley in the bustling town centre. Independent traders sell an array of vintage goods and designer arts and crafts, and you can feast on culinary treats from Ethiopian street food to first-rate fish and chips. Even if seafaring history leaves you dry, you’ll be won over by the National Maritime Museum, a treasure trove of nautical objects that presents Britain’s history on the high seas with verve and ingenuity. Don’t miss the bloodstained uniform – the coat ripped by a musket-ball shot – in which Nelson breathed his last at Trafalgar. The evocative new galleries of the East Wing are full of winning surprises (the recreation of the royal dockyard at Deptford is particularly neat), and there’s plenty here for kids, too, who can learn how to fire a cannon and navigate a ship across a giant map of the world. You can even test your skills as a ship’s captain, steering a ferry into port in a state-of-the-art bridge simulator. Connected to the museum by a colonnade, the elegant Queen’s House was designed in 1616 by Inigo Jones and is the only building still standing from the royal palace complex. It’s now crammed with works from the Maritime Museum’s extraordinary art collection, including www.britain-magazine.com
Opposite: The Painted Hall This page, top to bottom: The Old Royal Naval College; Nelson's uniform, on display at the National Maritime Museum
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paintings by Turner, Reynolds, Hogarth, and the famous Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I, though the undoubted highlight is the beautiful Great Hall, a perfect cube, enlivened by an intricate gold-leaf ceiling artwork added in 2016 by Turner Prize-winning artist, Richard Wright. The hilly expanse of Greenwich Park, capped by the distinctive dome of the Royal Observatory, unfurls behind the Queen’s House. Before making the climb, however, take a detour into the tranquil backstreets, where a restored Georgian townhouse is home to one of London’s most unusual collections. Redolent of a gentler age, the absorbing Fan Museum showcases examples from across the world, and reveals how this simple object has often had a deeper significance – as a status symbol, piece of theatre, political document and more. Cap a visit with afternoon tea in the museum’s hand-painted orangery. Especially glorious in autumn, when its oaks and sweet chestnuts turn fiery hues of orange, Greenwich Park is one of London’s oldest royal parks. It was a favourite of Henry VIII, who introduced herds of red and fallow deer for hunting – their descendants still roam the secluded wilderness in the park’s southeastern corner. Elsewhere, you’ll discover Roman ruins, a rose garden, London’s longest herbaceous border, and a curious sunken plunge pool – all that remains of Montague House, scene of wild orgies instigated by the dissolute Caroline of Brunswick, estranged wife of the future George IV.
PHOTOS: © JOSHUA AKIN/NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM/NADIA ISAKOVA/PICASA
Clockwise from top: Inigo Jones's Queen's House; the original spiral Tulip Stairs inside; the Fan Museum is hidden within a restored Georgian townhouse
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Discover what’s under the spire at St Martin-in-the-Fields
Concerts Brass rubbing and Shopping Historic Architecture Award-winning CafĂŠ in the Crypt St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square
www.smitf.org
+44 207 766 1100
PHOTOS: © IAN DAGNALL/GRANT ROONEY/ALAMY
For more features on iconic London sights, see www.britainmagazine.com
The park’s crowning glory, however, is the magnificent view from its summit that sweeps down over Greenwich’s riverside ensemble and across to the towers of Canary Wharf on the north side of the Thames. This has long been a favourite spot of Londoners – in Sketches by Boz, Charles Dickens relates with relish how young couples would gather here on public holidays to indulge in mass “tumbling”, suitors racing their sweethearts down the hill “greatly to the derangement of their curls and bonnet-caps”. No trip to Greenwich is complete without a visit to the
Top to bottom: The red Time Ball on top of Flamsteed House at The Royal Observatory; Greenwich's bustling centre
Royal Observatory, home to Greenwich Mean Time. Stand astride the Prime Meridian line that separates the eastern and western hemispheres, marked across the courtyard, and you’ll experience quite literally where time begins. The Observatory was founded in 1675 in order to solve the thorny problem of longitude – a major headache for the mariners of Britain’s expanding empire, whose ships had an alarming tendency to end up on the rocks. The story of the century-long search for longitude – eventually solved by John Harrison, a humble carpenter from Lincolnshire – is entertainingly retold by guides in the Observatory’s Flamsteed House, where Harrison’s game-changing sea clocks form a dazzling centrepiece to the Time and Longitude Gallery. At 12.58pm every day, the bright red Time Ball in the house’s northeastern turret climbs to the top of its mast, dropping at 1pm precisely – a signal to passing ships on the Thames to reset their clocks, and testament to how this little pocket of southeast London once set the pace for the entire globe.
GETTING TO GREENWICH Thames Clipper ferries run every 20 minutes from the Westminster and London Eye piers, via London Bridge and Tower Bridge, and take around 45 minutes. There are frequent trains from London Bridge to Greenwich Station (8min), or take the DLR to Cutty Sark. www.thamesclippers.com; tfl.gov.uk
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PROMOTI O N
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tours of the new light installation, ‘Illuminated River’, along London’s bridges. ‘Illuminated River’ is an ambitious public art project that will light up 14 bridges across the River Thames once fully complete. The Illuminated River Official Boat Tours offer the best vantage point and take place every week until at least 26 May, with prices starting from just £5. Thames Clippers offer a variety of ticket options, with discounts for booking online in advance: the daily River Roamer gives visitors unlimited hop-on, hop-off travel for the day, giving you the choice of
stopping at any of the 23 piers served along the route. Visitors can make use of Oyster or contactless to ‘pay as you go’ too.
FURTHER INFORMATION Thames Clippers operate 364 days of the year (closed on 25 December), 5am to midnight. A single ticket costs from £4.50 (adults)/£2.25 (children aged 5-15). Under-5s travel free. www.thamesclippers.com
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THE HEART OF LONDON
N E W LY R E F U R B I S H E D G U E S T R O O M S AVA I L A B L E T O B O O K N O W
New lobby
Central London location
+44 (0)20 7379 4737 strandpalacehotel.co.uk 372 Strand, London, WC2R 0JJ
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ATTRACTIONS
BIG SIGHTS, SMALL CROWDS If you’re planning a trip to one of London’s big-hitter attractions, it pays to be prepared. Dodge the crowds with our insider tips on the quietest times to visit and the best behind-the-scenes tours WORDS NATASHA FOGES
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ith over 20 million visitors to London every year, the city’s most popular sights can get packed. If you don’t fancy jostling with crowds or squeezing through school groups, there are a few golden rules to follow. Firstly, avoid school holidays and weekends if you can, as this is when the biggest sights see the densest traffic. Visit museums on a weekday just after opening for an uninterrupted view of the exhibits. Book ahead. Most sights now offer advance tickets, often at reduced cost, that allow you to skip the queue: well worth the forward-planning involved. Museum membership is another way of avoiding the dreaded queues, and can offer excellent perks such as behind -the-scenes access and special talks and events, as well as unlimited free entry to exhibitions. Finally, consider the weather. When it rains, sights can be deluged with visitors, while on an unseasonably sunny day you might just find you have your favourite museum all to yourself.
British Museum Want to get into Britain’s most popular museum before the doors are opened to the general public? Special morning tours (starting at 9am, £30), limited to 20 places, allow you to experience the highlights of the museum’s mind-boggling collections in peace and quiet. Tours focus on a particular section of the museum – Egyptian sculpture, perhaps, or ancient Greek armour. Advance booking is essential. If you’re visiting the museum within standard opening hours, try the back entrance on Montague Place, which usually has a shorter queue. Some exhibits – the Rosetta Stone, Egyptian mummies and Lewis chessmen, for instance – will be busy all day, while others, such as the Prints and Drawings galleries and the Japanese gallery, are quiet even at peak times. The museum opens late on Fridays (until 8.30pm), when it sees fewer visitors: a good time to check out the most popular exhibits. www.britishmuseum.org
St Paul’s Early birds can take advantage of the 8.30am opening at St Paul’s Cathedral. For behind-the-scenes access, it’s worth signing up for one of the guided tours on offer. At no additional cost, you can tour the cathedral floor and Crypt, as well as the Geometric Staircase and other areas not usually open to visitors; ask at the desk when you arrive. The Triforium Tour (£8, available on selected dates) includes the Library and the Geometric Staircase, and the chance to take in a spectacular view from above the Great West Doors. www.stpauls.co.uk
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Tate galleries Entry to London’s two Tate galleries – Britain and Modern – is usually swift as they’re free to enter, but if you time your visit at the start of the day you’ll be rewarded with a better view of the art. Weekends can get extremely busy but as Tate Modern remains open until 10pm on Friday and Saturday, weekend evenings can be a good option. Finally, avoid the opening and closing weeks of blockbuster exhibitions – there are several every year – for a more serene experience. www.tate.org.uk www.britain-magazine.com
PHOTOS: © TRAVEL PIX COLLECTION/AWL IMAGES/PETER SMITH/THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
National Gallery The National Gallery is free, so queuing to enter is rarely a problem. However, it fills up quickly; if you don’t fancy straining your neck for a view of Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne or Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews, arrive at 10am when the gallery opens and head straight for the most popular rooms (43 for Manet, Monet and the Impressionists, 45 for Van Gogh and Cézanne) to get a head start on the crowds. Another good time to visit is on a Friday, when the gallery extends its hours to 9pm. Membership (from £58) allows you to preview the exhibitions and access the gallery outside of normal opening hours. www.nationalgallery.org.uk www.britain-magazine.com
Clockwise from bottom left: The Sutton Hoo helmet, part of the British Museum collection; inside St Paul's Cathedral Previous page: The Sainsbury Wing in The National Gallery
London Eye The queue for the London Eye can be long, especially on sunny days, bank holidays and weekends. Book online in advance to board more quickly, though bear in mind that the standard tickets are non-transferable: if you’re planning to take photos it’s best to book only a couple of days in advance, having checked the weather forecast. Somewhat surprisingly, crowds thin out in the early evening, although the city is perhaps at its most beautiful when bathed in the glow of sunset. The Eye stays open as late as 9.30pm in summer: the perfect time to photograph the glittering London skyline. www.londoneye.com LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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Westminster Abbey Visit Westminster Abbey when it opens at 9.30am to enjoy the hallowed hush of its chapels and cloisters; tour groups arrive about an hour after opening. Alternatively, take advantage of its little-known late opening (until 6pm) on Wednesdays, when admission is also half price. The abbey is open for worship only on Sundays – a time when peace and quiet is almost guaranteed. www.westminster-abbey.org
Victoria & Albert Museum The world’s leading museum of art and design welcomes over five million visitors every year. The blockbuster exhibitions often sell out, but membership (from £79 per year) allows unlimited entry to all exhibitions, with no need to book. The museum’s tours offer interesting perspectives on the collections and behind-the-scenes access. You can visit the paper, book, sculpture and textile conservation studios, for example, and see the team at work; or join the curators of the Theatre and Performance department for a fascinating backstage tour.
PHOTOS: © JIM DYSON/WESTMINSTER ABBEY/ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST/HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2020
www.vam.ac.uk
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ATTRACTIONS
Clockwise from top left: Lady Chapel in Westminster Cathedral; the Imperial State Crown; the Renaissance collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum
Natural History Museum With its dinosaur displays and giant blue whale skeleton, the Natural History Museum is always a winner with children, and in school holidays the queue snakes all the way down the road. Arrive a few minutes before opening time; there may already be a queue but it will move quickly once the museum opens. The dinosaur section is by far the most popular, so head there first before the crowds arrive. The popular Friday Lates are a good opportunity to see the exhibits without running the gauntlet of school groups (every last Friday of the month, excluding December), while Dino Snores are grown-up sleepovers in the spectacular Hintze Hall, with all manner of themed entertainment laid on, from science shows to monster movie screenings (£185). Museum membership costs from £62 and includes unlimited priority entry to the museum and its exhibitions, plus access to member events, scientist talks and private views. www.nhm.ac.uk
Tower of London Midweek mornings are the best time for a visit to the Tower, but since queues are likely at any time it’s always best to buy your ticket in advance. For exclusive access and an up-close view of the Crown Jewels, consider Viator’s Early Access Crown Jewels tour (from £56). You can see the Tower’s historic opening ceremony, led by Beefeaters, and be among the first visitors to enter the Jewel House: a rare opportunity to take in this world-famous collection of 23,578 gemstones without the crowds. www.hrp.org.uk; www.viator.com
SIGHTSEEING PASSES Art buffs might find the National Art Pass a worthwhile investment. Costing £70 per year, it offers free entry to over 240 museums and galleries, plus half-price entry to major exhibitions, including those at the Tate and the V&A. www.artfund.org The London Pass promises access to more than 80 of the capital’s sights, including the Tower of London, St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey. It’s pricey – from £75 for a one-day pass, with two-, three- and six-day passes also available – but worth it if you plan to visit a lot of paid sights. www.londonpass.com The London Explorer Pass covers the London Eye, Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s, among other attractions, and costs £64 for three sights, or £79 for four sights, which you can visit over 30 days: ideal if you want to spread out your sightseeing. www.londonexplorerpass.com
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HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
HOUSE RULES Combining 1,000 years of history, majestic architecture and the drama of modern-day politics, a visit to the seat of British government is quite an experience WORDS NANCY ALSOP
The iconic London facade of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben
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HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
Above: A statue of Richard I outside the Houses of Parliament This image: Central Lobby was created as a meeting place for Members of both Houses
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HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
PHOTOS: © GETTY/EDDY GALEOTTI/ROBERT HARDING/ALAMY/ILLUSTRATION: © HOLLY SCHOLFIELD
I
f the walls of Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the predominantly Victorian Houses of Parliament, could talk, their 1,000-year tale would be epic in scope and unparalleled in incident. For, more than any other single building, its stone walls, dating from 1097, have borne witness to a millennium’s worth of nation-shaping events and played host to everyone who has ever been anyone in British politics. It is here that the fates of Guy Fawkes, William Wallace, Thomas More and Charles I were sealed, each tried and sentenced to death in this room. It is where Richard II was deposed; where King Henry VIII and later Elizabeth I’s coronation banquets were held; where George V, George VI, Winston Churchill and, most recently, the Queen Mother lay in state; and where the great and good have addressed the houses, from Nelson Mandela to Barack Obama. Its constant evolution is underlined by two recent additions: the Diamond Jubilee window at one end, given by MPs (Members of Parliament) to Queen Elizabeth II in 2012, and New Dawn at the other, a 2016 artwork commemorating the unwavering efforts of the women’s suffrage movements to establish equal votes for women. That the hall survives at all is thanks to some judicious and ruthless decision-making. For when, in 1834, the authorities wanted to burn two cartloads of tally sticks, relics of an outdated Exchequer accounting system,
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the Clerk of Works made the fateful decision to do so in two under-floor stoves in the basement of the House of Lords. Fast forward a few hours and the upper house was ablaze, followed, inevitably, by the rest of the palace; the fire-boats stationed on the Thames could do little but watch in horror as the river’s low tide thwarted any attempt to deliver water. The decision was made to sacrifice the rest of the building to save Westminster Hall. Naturally, the fire was front-page news, covered by all the papers, including by a young reporter named Charles Dickens, as well as being immortalised in paint by one JMW Turner. For some Victorians, the blaze was divine retribution for the earlier Great Reform Act of 1832, a change to the electoral system as divisive then as Brexit is today. Yet for visitors joining a tour, the jewel that emerged from the wreckage only serves to add interest and layered history to the experience. In large part, that is thanks to Charles Barry, the architect who won the competition in the wake of the inferno. His triumphant design ushers visitors through 1,000 years of history, starting with the Normans who built Westminster Hall. He enlisted the help of a young Augustus Pugin, the Gothic Revivalist architect chiefly responsible for the interior of the building. Neither man would see the end result, which only partially adhered to their original design; both had died by its completion, some 30 years later, in 1870. LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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Clockwise from top left: Beefeaters proceed to check the cellars; Central Lobby's ornate vaulted ceiling; a sculpture of Charles Barry; the green benches of the House of Commons
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PHOTOS: © ROGER HARRIS/JESSICA TAYLOR/ROBERT HARDING/ALAMY/UK PARLIAMENT
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
Chronologically speaking, the Norman Porch is a good place to start. The steps that lead up to the Porch from the Sovereign’s Entrance mark the start of the processional route taken by Her Majesty The Queen at the State Opening of Parliament: the, typically annual, moment that all three aspects of Parliament – the Crown, the Commons and the Lords – come together. In preparation for her arrival, a contingent of the Queen’s Body Guard – Beefeaters in their scarlet livery, equipped with lanterns – have already performed a duty of their own: a ceremonial search of the passages beneath the Palace of Westminster, recalling the morning of 5 November 1605, when their predecessors thwarted the Gunpowder Plot in the building’s undercroft. From the Porch, the Queen proceeds to the Robing Room, where she dons her Imperial State Crown and ceremonial robes in preparation for the Opening of Parliament. Robed and ready, she makes her stately progress through the Royal Gallery, a grand hall featuring portraits of monarchs from the Georgian era to the present, as well as two vast paintings by Daniel Maclise, unflinching portrayals of pivotal battles in British military history: Waterloo and Trafalgar. Doubtless feeling the weight of history, the Queen proceeds to the Prince’s Chamber, a spectacular anteroom for the upper chamber. Here to gaze upward at are paintings of the Tudors on one side, a family who worked well if manipulatively with Parliament, particularly when divorces were sought. On the other side are portraits of the Stuarts, who worked rather less successfully with Parliament, believing unswervingly in the Divine Right of Kings. The Prince’s Chamber leads straight into the House of Lords, the upper house, famously characterised by its red-leather seats, where lifetime (plus 90 hereditary) peers www.britain-magazine.com
sit in what must be seen as Pugin’s masterpiece. His vision reaches its resplendent apotheosis in the dais-mounted Royal Throne, a gilded affair based on the Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey. From here, the Queen delivers her speech (written by the Prime Minister), accompanied by Prince Charles. But first, one of Parliament’s most striking traditions must ensue. This is the moment that Black Rod, a senior officer in the House of Lords, is despatched from the upper house to the Commons to summon MPs to the Queen’s address. Tradition dictates that Black Rod should knock three times on the Commons’ door, which has been slammed shut as a symbol of the lower house’s independence. The door is then opened and the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and other senior MPs make deliberately slow progress to the Lords, obliging the Queen to wait, symbolising that the true seat of power in the country lies with the Commons. Anyone surveying the room from the bar, from where the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition listen to the address, should note the Woolsack, in front of the throne, upon which the Lord Speaker sits; a 14th-century innovation, it reflects the economic importance of the wool trade to England, its stuffing made up of wool from each country in the union and the Commonwealth. If the Lords is the most ornate room in the palace, the Commons, in its signature green, is almost strikingly plain. The lack of detail is made up for in atmosphere, keenly felt in the Members’ Lobby, the anteroom for the Commons, where MPs gather before the house sits and where journalists interrogate them on the day’s developments. To enter the Commons, MPs must pass under a blackened archway, known as Churchill’s Arch, which, LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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PHOTOS: © ROGER HARRIS/HOUSE OF LORDS
The Queen at the State Opening of Parliament
For more on the history of the Houses of Parliament, see www.britainmagazine.com
at Churchill’s suggestion, was reconstructed from bombscarred stone after the original was damaged in the Blitz, a symbol of the country’s fortitude during the war. To underline the point, on one side stands the imposing figure of the wartime PM, flanked on the other by his First World War predecessor, David Lloyd George, who stands on an extra plinth, to redress how diminutive his statue appeared in comparison to Churchill. Look closely and you will notice that one foot of either statue is slightly worn, the relic of countless MPs touching them on the way in for luck. A gaze around the room reveals more full-length figures of ex-PMs, from Clement Attlee, who presided over the creation of the NHS, to Margaret Thatcher. Famously, at its unveiling, she was nonplussed at the choice of bronze rather than iron, which would have befitted her famous sobriquet, the ‘Iron Lady’. The arrangement of the Commons dictates that opposing politicians sit facing the opposing side, a tradition that can be attributed to Churchill. After it was hit in the Blitz, there was some discussion of a circular redesign, but the wartime PM discouraged it, preferring the more confrontational style of politics, in the belief that it encourages debate. Indeed, rough and tumble appears bound up with being an MP; only the front benches have reserved seats, the others jostling for position on busy days, since the house cannot accommodate the full complement of members. For any visitor entering the Commons, the gaze naturally falls on the spot where the PM sits: the precise seat from where so much national history has been made. The observant will note the worn edges of the despatch box, where impassioned, or perhaps nervous, Prime Ministers
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have steadied themselves during rigorous debate; Boris Johnson, whose Conservative Party won the UK general election in December 2019, is the latest to join their ranks. If the House of Commons is often a highly charged place, then the Aye and No lobbies that flank it are perhaps even more so. For it is to either room that MPs must quickly flock when the Speaker is not satisfied with the a clear ‘aye’ or ‘no’ vote in the chamber, shouting ‘Division!’ to signify that members have eight minutes to cast their votes, after which the doors are firmly closed. It is Central Lobby, however, that remains the core of Parliament, as the meeting place of the upper and lower houses. It is where camera crews question MPs, and where four large mosaic panels, depicting the patron saint of each of the countries of the UK, sit over the four exits. It is where the Suffragettes chained themselves to metal grilles, and most crucially it is the place that members of the public can make contact with an MP. For this extraordinary repository of history remains, after all, at the service of every citizen of the United Kingdom.
BOOK AHEAD HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT TOURS Tours (with a tour guide £26.50, with a multimedia guide £19.50) run every Saturday, and most weekdays in parliamentary recesses, including Christmas, Easter and summer, and can be paired with afternoon tea in one of the House of Commons’ riverside rooms (£30). Book through www.parliament.uk/visit
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AFTERNOON TEA
TEA with a TWIST
For a quirky take on tradition, tuck into one of these themed afternoon teas WORDS NATASHA FOGES
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AFTERNOON TEA
London Landmarks tea, The Kensington Taking inspiration from the capital’s iconic landmarks, The Kensington’s Town House restaurant offers a sweet homage to the city’s skyline. Tea is served in an elegant salon with linen-clad tables and velvet banquettes, warmed by a roaring fire in winter. The stunning centrepiece of each table is a London Eye-inspired tea stand, its tiers decked with a skyline of sweets, sandwiches and scones. Tempting though the cakes are, tradition dictates that you start with the savouries, and these are a cut above, with a stilton and broccoli quiche, mini steak and ale pie and crab cake, alongside an array of sandwiches. But it’s the sweets that steal the show: a white chocolate Gherkin filled with dark chocolate ganache, a carrot cake Shard, the classic red telephone box made of rhubarb jelly and a lemon curd tart Big Ben. After nibbling on these minimasterpieces, you can visit their full-size counterparts: guests are given an illustrated map of the city to take home. From £42. 109-113 Queen’s Gate, Kensington. townhousekensington.com www.britain-magazine.com
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NY-Tea, Balthazar
In Roald Dahl’s children’s classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the sweet-toothed hero finds a Golden Ticket and is granted access to Willy Wonka’s factory of delights. The recently remodelled One Aldwych hotel, in the heart of Theatreland, recreates the magic with a scrumdiddlyumptious slap-up tea. Proceedings begin with savouries such as cheesecake sandwiches and a not-quite-as-itseems salmon and beetroot macaron. The main event is a parade of Wonka-worthy cakes, from whipple-scrumptious red velvet cake pops and lemon candyfloss to scones with snozzberry jam. Drinks are as delightfully bonkers as the food – minty chocolate milk mixed by waterfall; chocolate or lemon sherbet tea; Swimming Pool Fizz and Pistol Punch cocktails, or fizzy lifting Champagne. Looking for a tea with a touch of magic? This is just the (golden) ticket. From £45. 1 Aldwych, Covent Garden. www.onealdwych.com
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From £29.95. 4-6 Russell St, Covent Garden. www.balthazarlondon.com
PHOTOS: © THOMAS ALEXANDER/DAVID COTSWORTH
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tea, One Aldwych
Balthazar has been a staple of the London restaurant scene since opening in Covent Garden to wild reviews in 2013. Its all-day French bistro menu and buzzy atmosphere continue to pull in punters looking for a memorable dining experience in the heart of theatreland. Their NY-Tea pays homage to the original Balthazar in Manhattan, introducing some all-American flavours alongside familiar British afternoon tea favourites. A pastrami brioche accompanies the more classically British sandwich selection, but it’s the cakes and pastries that really evoke the spirit of the Big Apple. A bittersweet key lime pie, moreish cookies ‘n’ cream tart and – our favourite – the Liberty peanut butter and apricot eclair are all beautiful to look at and even better to eat. Wash down the cakes with a selection of teas, and finish with “The Yankie”, a sweet cocktail of bourbon and champagne. Yee-ha!
AFTERNOON TEA
Science tea, The Ampersand Hotel The Ampersand Hotel is a mere scone’s throw from London’s Science and Natural History museums, so it’s no wonder that the hotel used its neighbours as inspiration for a themed afternoon tea. The room – part English drawing room, part French salon – is relaxed and a touch quirky: the perfect setting for an unconventional tea. Guests are invited to dust for mini dinosaur biscuit “fossils” hidden beneath chocolate soil; sample orange and lemon half-moon cakes ands milk chocolate spacemen; and tuck into an out-of-thisworld caramel and passionfruit “planet” mousse. Props – lab beakers, petri dishes, test tubes – and special effects such as smoking teapots add to the fun. The Teapot Tails menu offers a tipsy alternative, with curious cocktails including the Marie Cure-All, a mix of Genmaicha-infused rum with Aperol, vermouth and Amer Picon, to fuel your voyage of discovery. From £39.50. 10 Harrington Rd, South Kensington. www.ampersandhotel.com
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Mad Hatter’s tea , Sanderson Sanderson hotel, with its out-there Philippe Starck interiors, has always been a bit different – and its afternoon tea, served in the courtyard garden, is as whimsical as they come: Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland provides the theme for a wildly imaginative afternoon tea. Menus are hidden inside vintage books, teapots adorned with kings and queens, and sandwich plates feature ticking clocks. The menu includes outré offerings such as a “Drink me” potion of exotic fruits, a chocolate and pistachio Blue Caterpillar, Queen of Hearts rose and strawberry Jammy Dodgers and a Mad March Hare vanilla pocket-watch macaroon – all curious concoctions, but traditionalists will be pleased to note that scones and jam are also on the menu. Wash it all down with Alice-inspired tea infusions and a glass of champagne, for Cheshire Cat grins all round.
PHOTOS: © JOHN CAREY/REBECCA HOPE
From £48. 50 Berners St, Fitzrovia. www.morganshotelgroup.com
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AFTERNOON TEA
Prêt-à-Portea, The Berkeley Can’t afford couture? Console yourself with an edible frock. The Berkeley is one of London’s most fashion-forward hotels, and its haute couture afternoon tea is as well-dressed as the fashion editors that flock here for its legendary Fashion Week parties. The “collection” changes seasonally to reflect the latest looks on the catwalk. Recent standouts on the menu have included a Moschino million dollar bill-topped pistachio delice, and Emilia Wickstead’s red velvet gown transformed into a croustillon-covered choux bun, as well as the neon pink Molly Goddard design that became a dressed-to-kill showstopper on Killing Eve, reimagined in spun sugar and finished at your table with glitter. From £60.Wilton Place, Knightsbridge. www.the-berkeley.co.uk
Seasonal tea, Dalloway Terrace Dalloway Terrace at the Bloomsbury Hotel must be London’s mostphotographed restaurant terrace: the hashtag #dallowayterrace has almost 11,000 Instagram posts at the time of writing. Its secret? A fabulous nature-inspired backdrop that’s almost an art installation in itself. Both the display and the tea change seasonally. Visit in winter and you might find yourself in a snow-dusted forest, with cheesecake fondue on the menu. In spring, the terrace might be covered with a lush jungle canopy woven with exotic orchids. Summer’s botanical blooms make a pretty backdrop to flower-themed cakes; while autumn is celebrated with flame-coloured foliage and treats such as “conkers on a string” (chestnut and milk chocolate cream). It’s pretty as a picture at any time of year; selfie obligatory. From £40. 16-22 Great Russell St, Bloomsbury. dallowayterrace.com
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Saint and Sinner tea, L’oscar Be sure to work up an appetite before tackling afternoon tea at the L’oscar hotel – perhaps with a few laps of the nearby British Museum, or a stroll through the garden squares of Bloomsbury. Chef Tony Fleming has had some fun with his Saint and Sinner menu, a nod to the hotel’s setting in a former Baptist church: a sticky apple tart – Adam and Eve’s pudding – is topped with an icing sugar serpent, while the gooey chocolate Devil’s Food Cake has horns and a tail. Saints can choose from a variety of exotic teas, while sinners can opt for tea-infused cocktails. The richness of the food is matched by the opulence of the setting. Deep purple banquettes, dark walls with gilded accents, a mirrored ceiling and warm light filtering through glass and translucent stone complement the Baroque-style architecture, evoking Venetian cafés. A suitably sumptuous setting for a properly indulgent afternoon. From £38. 2-6 Southampton Row, Holborn. www.loscarlondon.com
Moroccan tea, Momo
From £32. 25 Heddon St, Mayfair. www.momo.london
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PHOTOS: © JEAN CAZALS
Momo’s reimagining of the classic afternoon tea adds a welcome spiciness to this much-loved ritual. The restaurant’s recently revamped souk-like interior sets the tone, with a golden hand-painted dome, illuminated palm trees and twinkly lighting; or you can sit alfresco on the terrace, which transports you to sunnier climes with its mimosa plants and exotic lanterns. Moroccan mint tea, with infusions such as orange blossom, rosewater and cardamom, is poured with a flourish from traditional silver teapots, and the classic finger sandwiches are given a North African twist: cucumber with labneh and mint and halloumi with tomato and basil are standouts. Sweets include a tasty plum and almond macaron and a fig and saffron choux, while traditional scones are given a Mediterranean twist with quince and prickly pear jam: sunshine on a plate.
LONDON FROM A B OV E Pair high-end design with modern cuisine, all while enjoying panoramic views from one of London’s most iconic skyscrapers, The Gherkin. With 360-degree views from levels 38, 39 and 40, The Gherkin’s sky-high bar, restaurant and private dining rooms allow for just the type of celebration you have always imagined.
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Guided tours to London’s iconic pubs
Following in the footsteps of Shakespeare & Dickens, we pause to enjoy a drink in art nouveau gems, literary classics, ancient alehouses and fine Victorian gin palaces.
SMALL GROUPS. LOCAL GUIDES. HISTORIC DAYS OUT.
Drunk on history since 2011...
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PHOTOS: © PJRSTATUES/AL AMY/ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST/HER MAJEST Y QUEEN ELIZABETH II/THE WALL ACE COLLECTION/SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM, LONDON/HORNIMAN MUSEUM AND GARDENS/TREVOR HADDON
CULTURE
GREAT COLLECTORS We examine the legacy of five prolific patrons of the arts, from art-loving royals to private collectors of curios WORDS FELICITY DAY
M
any of London's finest museums owe their existence to the magpie instincts of a private collector or two, and their generous desire to share the fruits of their labours with the nation. Though the collectors themselves are long gone, their personal treasure troves give us a glimpse into their lives and loves, personal tastes and inspirations. Here we’ve gathered five of the capital's great collectors, whose collections can still be visited today.
Top, left to right: Sir John Soane; George IV; Middle, left to right: Sir Richard Wallace; Frederick Horniman Bottom: Sir Julius Wernher www.britain-magazine.com
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CULTURE
SIR JOHN SOANE Architect Sir John Soane, designer of the Bank of England, rose from humble beginnings as the son of a bricklayer. His famous collection of art and antiquities started with his Grand Tour of Europe in 1778, funded by a scholarship from the Royal Academy. It was fuelled in later years by his desire to assemble pieces that would inspire and encourage students of architecture. Soane gathered architectural models and fragments (some from sites on which he worked); antiquities such as his famed Egyptian Sarcophagus; classical sculptures; and paintings by artists such as Hogarth, Canaletto and Turner. The collection became so large that he bought and re-built three neighbouring properties in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in Holborn to display it all. His presentation was deliberately eclectic; pieces were squeezed into every nook and cranny and objects creatively juxtaposed. Visitors can still experience it as Soane intended, thanks to his express instruction that both house and collection be preserved as they were on his death in 1837. www.soane.org
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CULTURE
PHOTOS: © GARETH GARDNER /ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST/HER MAJEST Y QUEEN ELIZABETH II
KING GEORGE IV He may have been voted our “most useless” monarch in an English Heritage poll, but King George IV is arguably Britain’s greatest royal collector. A connoisseur of the arts, he purchased some of the Royal Collection’s finest Old Masters. He also commissioned works from the most talented artists of his day, notably Sir Thomas Lawrence, who created the spectacular series of portraits in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle. George was also a zealous collector of French furniture and decorative art. He gave the Royal Collection its unparalleled selection of Sèvres porcelain, including an entire service commissioned by Louis XVI. His fascination with Napoleon is responsible for some of the Collection’s more intriguing objects, like the Emperor’s cloak and travelling cutlery. George’s abundant treasures fill the state rooms at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. They’ve provided the backdrop to countless royal and state occasions, and this year (until 4 May), he is being remembered with a dedicated exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, exploring his unrivalled collection. www.rct.uk www.britain-magazine.com
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PHOTOS: © NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTION/HORNIMAN MUSEUM AND GARDENS/SOPHIA SPRING/MAURITIUS IMAGES GMBH/ALAMY
SIR RICHARD WALLACE Sir Richard Wallace had collecting in his blood. He was the illegitimate son of the fourth Marquess of Hertford, one of Europe’s richest men and an obsessive collector of fine art and furniture. Brought up by his paternal grandmother in France, Sir Richard acted as his father’s assistant and sales agent. After inheriting from him in 1870, he made his own eclectic contributions to the family treasure trove, most notably a collection of rare and impeccably preserved armour and weaponry – one of the most important in Britain. Sir Richard was a generous philanthropist throughout his life (his actions during the Franco-Prussian war earned him both a baronetcy and the Légion d’honneur); his collection was one of the most significant donations ever made when it was bequeathed to the nation on his wife’s death in 1897. It’s sumptuously displayed across 25 galleries in the couple’s former home, just minutes from the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street. www.wallacecollection.org
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CULTURE
FREDERICK HORNIMAN Frederick Horniman’s father was a tea trader, the first to devise a means of packaging tea in machine-sealed containers. This innovation made the family rich, and Frederick was able to indulge a passion for natural history that he’d developed in boyhood, collecting insects, moths and birds. He travelled the world searching for new specimens, and objects that would illustrate the arts and crafts of its different peoples. From far-flung destinations like Sri Lanka, Burma, India and Egypt he brought birds, beasts and botany, cultural artefacts, costumes and instruments – anything that would ‘interest and inform’. His burgeoning collection eventually forced his family out of their home in Forest Hill in South London. They opened it as a museum in 1890, though it was soon replaced by a larger arts and crafts building, gifted to the people of London in 1901, along with the entire collection. That’s grown tenfold over a century, but Frederick’s items remain stars of the show, particularly his Canadian walrus. Over-stuffed by a Victorian taxidermist, it’s so beloved by visitors that it has its own Twitter account. www.horniman.ac.uk www.britain-magazine.com
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SIR JULIUS WERNHER It was the “splendidly ugly” that fascinated Sir Julius Wernher. A German-born diamond magnate, he began collecting in earnest after returning home to London in the 1880s, having amassed an enormous fortune in South Africa. Though he purchased paintings, ceramics and tapestries like many of his contemporaries, his passion was for unusual, small-scale pieces from the medieval and Renaissance periods. Exquisitely carved in ivory, wood or enamel, these were often macabre, depicting skulls, skeletons and rotting corpses. His distinctive collection was left without a home when his descendants sold his country house in Bedfordshire. Luckily, trustees agreed to a long-term loan to English Heritage, who have displayed it to great effect in the 18thcentury Ranger’s House in Greenwich. www.english-heritage.org.uk
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BE AMAZED BY WILDLIFE Meet our amazing animals at this family friendly zoo in the heart of Battersea Park. After listening to our many keeper talks and watching the feeding sessions, why not have fun on our adventure play areas. Located next to our farm you will find a life sized helicopter, fire engine and tractor along with a sandpit, swings, wooden fort, climbing ropes and much more. Battersea Park Children’s Zoo Battersea Park, London SW11 4NJ
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Capital days out. From the hidden history of London’s Underground to the famous figures who called the capital home, Martin Randall Travel’s London Days bring the past to life. Spend the day turning back time in the company of our expert lecturers who offer deeper insight into both the familiar and less well-known corners of the capital. Over 40 London Days itineraries including: London’s Underground Railway | A history of the Tube The London Backstreet Walk | From Hyde Park to The Tower Roman London Walk | Billingsgate, Mithraeum & Guildhall Wellington in London | With private access to Apsley House Hampstead in the 1930s | A walking tour & visits ‘An eye-opening day in my favourite city, good company, good food – it was a winner!’ Contact us: +44 (0)20 8742 3355 martinrandall.com/london-days ABTA Y6050 AITO 5085
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COMPETITION
WIN A GREAT BRITISH HOLIDAY
Your once-in-a-lifetime trip includes: Free international flights (if applicable) Two-night London stay Tickets on Caledonian Sleeper to Edinburgh Two-night stay in Edinburgh A British food tour Tickets to Blenheim Palace A night in a Cotswolds hotel Afternoon tea West End tickets with dinner
Enter our competition for your chance to win a holiday in Britain for two worth up to £5,000, including free international flights What would your dream holiday to Britain include? A five-star stay in London and tickets to a West End show? A trip to historic Edinburgh? How about a stay in the Cotswolds, including a visit to one of Britain’s finest stately homes? Well, with our Great British Holiday competition, you can win all of this and more.
London luxury Starting with free flights (for overseas entrants), the winner and their guest will travel to London for two nights in a London landmark, staying at the five-star Shangri-La Hotel, At The Shard, London. Enjoy afternoon tea at the TÎNG Restaurant 35 floors up, with the London skyline far below.
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Your visit will also include tickets to a top West End show of your choice, with a lavish three-course meal to make your night in the capital one to remember.
tastings of traditional Scottish dishes and drinks, rounded off with a delicious afternoon tea.
The charming Cotswolds Dream your way to Edinburgh Next, our winner and their guest will be whisked to Edinburgh on the Caledonian Sleeper train. Departing central London at night, you will bed down in a Club Room and wake for breakfast in the Club Car before arriving in Edinburgh. Your base in the city will be the luxury Radisson Collection Edinburgh, located on the famous Royal Mile, with stunning views of the Old Town. During your stay you’ll enjoy a food tour of the city, with
To conclude your trip, it’s time to escape to the countryside to visit one of Britain’s finest stately homes and the birthplace of Winston Churchill: Blenheim Palace. Accommodation for the night will be at The Feathers hotel, an inviting 17th-century townhouse hotel in the historic market town of Woodstock. After a full English breakfast, you’ll be free to explore your surroundings: the idyllic Oxfordshire Cotswolds, home to some of England’s most beautiful villages. www.britain-magazine.com
COMPETITION
Two-night stay for two including breakfast and afternoon tea at the Shangri-La Hotel, At The Shard, London, the capital’s highest hotel. www.shangri-la.com
Return tickets for two on Caledonian Sleeper from London to Edinburgh. Accommodation and breakfast included. www.sleeper.scot
Two premium theatre tickets in the stalls or dress circle, plus a three-course meal with wine from Buyagift, the UK’s leading provider of experience days. www.buyagift.co.uk
Two-night stay for two including breakfast at the Radisson Collection Edinburgh on the city's Royal Mile. www.radissonhotels.com
Two tickets to Blenheim Palace, one of the country's finest stately homes and the birthplace of Winston Churchill. www.blenheimpalace.com
Enjoy an Edinburgh British Food Tour for two with upgraded drinks package, including traditional afternoon tea, from go-to gift experience company Red Letter Days. www.redletterdays.co.uk
One-night stay for two at The Feathers, a charming 17thcentury townhouse hotel near Blenheim Palace. Includes breakfast. www.feathers.co.uk
HOW TO ENTER Go to www.britain-magazine.com/
GBH2020
or fill in the coupon on the right with the answer to the question: Question: Which of these cities sits on an extinct volcano? a) London b) Edinburgh c) Newcastle
SEND YOUR COUPON TO: US readers – Great British Holiday Competition 2020, BRITAIN, C/O NPS Media Group, 2 Corporate Drive, Suite 945, Shelton, CT 06484 UK and ROW – Great British Holiday Competition 2020, BRITAIN, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ , UK My answer: Name: Address:
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Closing date for entries is 31 July 2020. The winner will be announced on www.britain-magazine.com on 7 August 2020, and the holiday can be taken between 1 September 2020 and 31 May 2021, subject to availability. For full terms and conditions, go to www.britain-magazine.com/GBH2020
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DISCOVER LONDON’S HIDDEN HISTORY
Did you know that Churchill’s secret bunker is still under the streets of Westminster? And Handel and Hendrix shared the same address in Mayfair, but not at the same time? These are just some of the fascinating insights into London’s history you’ll discover on a tour with one of the capital’s 600 professionally-trained guides. Every qualified Blue Badge tourist guide brings unrivalled expertise and knowledge of the city’s past. We’re the only guides allowed into some of the capital’s major attractions, including Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. We can lead you across the metropolis and beyond, to important regional attractions like Windsor, Stonehenge and Canterbury. We can organise bespoke tours on foot, by car or coach and by bike. As official guides, we can reveal secret histories and arrange access behind-the-scenes. We’ve got the inside knowledge and we wrap it up in a great visitor experience.
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LONDON VIEWS
CAPITAL
VIEWS We pick London’s best spots for photo-worthy panoramas WORDS FLORENCE SHEWARD
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One New Change
Parliament Hill Hampstead Heath covers 790 acres and you could easily lose yourself for days in the many fields, ponds and woods. While the photo opportunities are plentiful, the prime panoramic view across the capital can be had from the top of Parliament Hill. Previously Traitor’s Hill, it is thought the name change was either a tribute to the Parliamentarian forces that gathered here during the English Civil War or a reference to the rumour that Guy Fawkes intended to watch the Houses of Parliament blow up from this vantage point during his unsuccessful Gunpowder Plot on 5 November 1605. While the hill was common land for cattle grazing for many years, today it is more popular with runners, kite-flyers and people enjoying the view. www.cityoflondon.gov.uk
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ANTONINO BARTUCCIO/4CORNERS IMAGES/PRJTRAVEL/ MARCIN ROGOZINISI/PANAGIOTIS KOTSOVOLOS/ALAMY
Opened a decade ago, this shopping centre, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, is often bustling with lunching workers. While the interior is stylish with its brown glass walls, it is the public roof terrace that provides Nouvel’s crowning glory, largely thanks to the building next door: St Paul’s Cathedral. The sixth-floor terrace gives visitors an unexpectedly close look at Sir Christopher Wren’s iconic dome, as well as a slice of the London skyline beyond. www.onenewchange.com
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LONDON VIEWS
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The Shard Spare a thought for the 17 window cleaners tasked with wiping down the 11,000 glass panels that make up the facade of the Shard. The three-month job is required to keep the views from Renzo Piano’s skyscraper as immaculate as they are unlikely. The Shard opened in 2013, after rising more than 300 metres upwards from London Bridge station. The stunning views include this perspective on the Thames and Tower Bridge.
The View from the Shard is the official viewing platform with an open-air Skydeck on level 72 and 360-degree views around the capital, reportedly for as far as 40 miles. A selection of restaurants and bars, including the British flavours of Aqua Shard in a special three-storey atrium, offer a more leisurely way to look out, while the Shangri-La Hotel has 202 guestrooms with your choice of aspects. www.the-shard.com
PHOTOS © CHRIS MOUYIARIS/FOTOWARE FOTOSTATION/PJRTRAVEL/ALAMY/ANTONINO BARTUCCIO/4CORNERS/OLIVIER GUIBERTEAU
Sky Garden It is rare to find agapanthus, rosemary and lavender growing at high altitudes, but this is no ordinary garden. Designed by the architectural practice Gillespies, this three-storey atrium at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street – or the “Walkie -Talkie” building – is a stylish green space far above most of the capital’s rooftops. The planting is mostly Mediterranean and South African species, designed to survive with minimal water. A restaurant, a brasserie and two bars all look out on to the garden which starts on the 35th floor, yet free tickets can be booked for a quick glimpse of the view. The garden remains open to the public until 9pm on weekends and bank holidays, giving you a good chance to catch the sunset. www.skygarden.london
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LONDON VIEWS
Primrose Hill Primrose Hill was originally owned by Eton College, the Berkshire boarding school that counts princes and prime ministers among its alumni. As early as 1822, plans were made to develop the farmland for housing, but nothing came of it and it was eventually bought by the crown in 1841 and turned into an extension of Regent’s Park. One of only six protected views in London it soon became a favourite with London’s artists and writers. A stone at the summit bears a William Blake quote – “I have conversed with the spiritual sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill” – while the so -called “Shakespeare’s Tree” was planted here on the Bard’s 300th birthday in 1864. www.royalparks.org.uk
Duck & Waffle
King Henry’s Mound Legend has it that in the early hours of 19 May 1536, Henry VIII stood on this burial mound in what is now Richmond Park, eagerly scanning the skies over the city. He was looking for a rocket to be fired from the Tower of London, an indication that the execution of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, had taken place, thus paving the way to marry his new love, Lady Jane Seymour. Historians may have debated the accuracy of this creepy story, yet it was important enough for the landscaped view through the trees to be officially protected so that no building will be granted planning permission if it blocks the sightline from here to central London. www.royalparks.org.uk
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PHOTOS © ROBERT HARDING/ALAMY/BLICKWINKEL/MAURIZIO RELLINI/4CORNERS
The private lift that transports guests from ground level to this 40th-floor restaurant moves at five metres per second, so it is a thrill even before you’ve seen the view. Heron Tower is one of the capital’s tallest buildings and Duck & Waffle has prime views over the nearby 30 St Mary Axe (“The Gherkin”). The restaurant remains open 24 hours a day and boasts a menu to please all comers as British produce mixes with cuisines from across the globe – enjoy everything from duck kebabs to a foie gras crème brûlée. www.duckandwaffle.com
The Palace of Westminster While the Houses of Parliament and in particular the famous Big Ben clocktower are hardly camera-shy, featuring as they do in millions of tourist snapshots, the best view of this Neogothic masterpiece is perhaps less familiar. Cross Westminster Bridge away from the Palace and walk down the first set of steps you reach on the south side of the bridge. A passageway under the stairs frames a fantastic view back down the line of the bridge to Big Ben in the distance. Arrive as the sun sets for a perfectly atmospheric shot of the Palace of Westminster. www.parliament.uk
THE ENGLISH GARDEN TOUR SPECIALISTS
Let’s take a journey to England. Across the magnificence of Devon and beyond in Spring. Through quaint English villages and floriferous displays to spectacular historic estates and Autumnal colours. Not to mention, a selection of the greatest flower shows in the world. Immerse the senses. Relax with tea. Feel inspired. Violets & Tea specialise in providing luxury small group and tailor-made tours of English gardens. We invite you to make your next holiday memorable.
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LANDMARKS
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ELSON’S COLUMN
Guarded by lions and towering above Trafalgar Square, this lofty monument is one of London’s most iconic WORDS LAWRENCE ALEXANDER
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Clockwise, from above: A portrait of Lord Nelson; Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column; progress on the column was slow Opening page: The statue of Lord Nelson was carved by Edward Hodges Bailey
PHOTOS: © NEIL EMMERSON/ROBERT HARDING/GL ARCHIVE/ISTOCK/MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY
n 12 November 1918, London saw wild celebrations as an armistice declared the end of the First World War. Nowhere was the occasion more rumbustiously marked than Trafalgar Square, memorial to another British victory. As night fell, euphoric crowds lit a bonfire around the square’s centrepiece, Nelson’s Column, using army recruitment posters, wooden paving blocks, and even a night-watchman’s hut for fuel. A fire engine arrived; it was commandeered and the firemen themselves doused. One hundred years on, the resulting cracks to the Devon granite pillar are long since repaired but deep scars in the stone base remain, telling their tale of public outburst in the very hour of peace. The Battle of Trafalgar claimed the life of Admiral Lord Nelson in 1805, even as Britain gained one of its most famous victories. Already a national hero, Nelson’s reputation was now nigh-on godlike. Up and down the land, memorials sprang up. The first, an obelisk, was unveiled in Glasgow in 1806, followed by pillars, statues, plaques and columns from Edinburgh to Great Yarmouth, Derbyshire to North Wales, Bridgetown, Barbados to Montreal, Canada. Salisbury Plain saw ‘Nile Clumps’ of trees planted, commemorating victory in Egypt. It seemed the one place that hadn’t honoured the admiral was England’s capital. A fund to raise money for a memorial was set up by prominent Lloyd’s underwriter Sir John Julius Angerstein, but it failed to get enough money for the kind of monument he envisaged. This embarrassment was not unnoticed by ‘sailor king’ William IV, who, in his youth, had served alongside Nelson. Architect John Nash had begun clearing the site of the Royal Mews for a triumphal square but after he died, construction slowed. It was eventually completed by Charles Barry and named, by the king, after the Battle of Trafalgar. In 1837 the authorities were finally shamed into creating the Nelson Memorial Committee. Angerstein’s
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Walk by the Royal Albert Hall on a summer’s evening and you may well be caught up in a whirl of excited concertgoers on their way to a Prom.
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LANDMARKS Below: The lions in Trafalgar Square were originally made from stone Bottom: Nelson's statue overlooks the London skyline
the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar. Once again, there were delays. The last frieze wasn’t completed until 1851, not least because the owners of the foundry responsible for casting were jailed for adulterating the bronze and using false weights in their costings. Trafalgar Square’s lions were originally stone, handsomely carved by Thomas Milnes. Naturalistic and majestic, they were nonetheless pronounced not impressive enough and the commission was given to artistic flavour-ofthe-month, Sir Edwin Landseer. The stone lions were taken by manufacturer Titus Salt to his new town, Saltaire, near Bradford, and Landseer began sculpting his upgraded, bronze lions. This took a long while and the dead lion he was using as a model started to decompose. He was forced to improvise, which is why, famously, the square’s lions have cats’ paws. The lions eventually took residence in 1867, by which time the total cost of the monument had soared to £47,500, including £18,000 for the lions. In the 19th century steeplejacks used to climb to the top of Nelson’s Column on Trafalgar Day to crown the Admiral with a laurel wreath. Today the tradition continues at ground level, with wreaths laid at the base of a monument which is as symbolic today as it ever was.
For more on great British landmarks, visit www.britain-magazine.com
PHOTOS: © RICHARD PEEL/ALAMY/JOHN AND TINA REID/GETTY IMAGES
fund had been gaining interest over nearly 30 years and subscriptions were opened again, including £500 from Queen Victoria. A competition for a design attracted 140 submissions. It was won by William Railton’s fluted Corinthian column, channelling the ancient temple of Mars Ultor (the Avenger) in Rome. The ‘Roman Candle’, as described by French writer Max O’Rell, was designed to be 203 feet tall; health and safety relegated it to a mere 170 feet, 6 inches (though the exact figure is contested). The capital was embellished with acanthus leaves fashioned from a cannon recovered from the wreck of HMS Royal George, lost at Spithead in 1782. A statue of Nelson in full dress uniform, supported by a miniature capstan, was carved in three pieces by competition runner-up, Edward Hodges Bailey, and needed a steam-powered crane to hoist it up. Legend holds that, just beforehand, fourteen people enjoyed a rump-steak dinner on the pedestal where Nelson now stands, facing south towards the Admiralty, Portsmouth, and his flagship, HMS Victory. Approved in 1839, construction was haltingly slow, the subject of local jokes. Fountains arrived in 1845, supplied by two artesian wells on Orange Street, but the rest of the monument was nowhere near finished. Each side of the column’s base was to sport a bronze relief of famous victories, cast from French cannon captured at the battles of St Vincent,
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HISTORIC HOUSES
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HISTORIC HOUSES
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London Uncovered
The capital's opulent historic homes through a lens WORDS MARK DALY IMAGES PETER DAZELEY
www.britain-magazine.com
series of dazzling London locations are brought to life by the creative eye and searching mind of Peter Dazeley, celebrated photographer and lifetime Londoner, in a new book, London Uncovered. “Uncovered” does not mean the disclosure of a private place, because these buildings and sites are all available to visit without special insider access. The common thread is the photographer’s ability to uncover a fresh perspective on a special piece of London. The subjects are eclectic, encompassing buildings, monuments and walks, with some places famous and others obscure. Here, we feature three of London’s magnificent historic homes.
APSLEY HOUSE
The fi rst London house seen by travellers entering from the west through the old turnpike toll gates at the edge of town was Apsley House, famous for being the home of the Duke of Wellington. According to legend at least, it was therefore known as Number One London. The true address today is 149 Piccadilly, and it is still a London home for the current Duke of Wellington. A smaller red brick house designed by Robert Adam existed on this site, taking its name from the fi rst owner Lord Apsley. In 1807, it was bought by Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, once Governor -General of India, who lived there lavishly and ran out of money. He sold the house to his younger brother, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. Wellington bought the house anonymously to save his brother embarrassment and solve his bankruptcy. Wellington commissioned Benjamin Dean Wyatt to renovate Apsley House. Work began in 1819, when Wyatt clad the brick exterior in Bath stone and added an extension of three storeys to the northeast, including a state dining room, where today a magnificent silver-and-gilt dinner service, a gift to Wellington in 1816 from the Portuguese Council of Regency, is on view. Apart from paintings of the British, French, Flemish and Italian schools, treasures include a pair of candelabra gifted by Nicholas I of Russia, urns from Charles XIV of Sweden, a dinner service from Frederick William III of Prussia, and a dinner service of Sèvres porcelain given by Louis XVIII of France. 149 Picadilly. www.english-heritage.org.uk LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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HISTORIC HOUSES
SYON HOUSE Syon House, which belongs to the Duke of Northumberland, is famous for a series of beautiful and civilised rooms. Scottish architect and designer Robert Adam was commissioned to create a series of Neoclassical interiors at Syon House in 1762. Filled with statues and artefacts shipped from Italy, it was one of the architect-designer’s first commissions and defined a style for new grand houses being built for the remainder of the century. At Syon House, Adam was required to rework a Tudor mansion building, which had existed since 1550, with dated and worn interiors, set in unfashionable formal landscape. He was not permitted to change the interior layout, but applied Neoclassical
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decoration and clever design techniques to modernise and vary the sense of proportion of the rooms. In the Long Gallery, Adam replaced the former heavily wood-panelled Tudor space with a design featuring 62 Corinthian pilasters, gilded and painted, along with classical trailing stucco mouldings. Roundels of the Percy family run the length of the room, with portraits of dukes and duchesses on one side, and the Earls of Northumberland on the other. The gallery also has two hidden turret rooms at either end, one of which is decorated with colourfully painted stucco and complete with a mechanical singing-bird timepiece. Syon Park, Brentford. www.syonpark.co.uk www.britain-magazine.com
HISTORIC HOUSES
LEIGHTON HOUSE MUSEUM The best-known picture by the Victorian painter Lord Frederic Leighton is Flaming June, a sleeping classical maiden reproduced on thousands of cards and posters, but the artist’s own house at 12 Holland Park Road also deserves recognition as a great creation. Built in stages over 30 years behind plain unadorned red brick exterior walls, it was at first a modestly sized house with six rooms. It was designed as a studiohome – a place to live and paint – and the walls were soon hung with Leighton’s own paintings and others by his peers. The architect for Leighton’s house was his friend George Aitchison, and they worked again together in 1879 to create a further wing. This included the spectacular Arab Hall, inspired by a room in the 12th-century Arab-Norman castle at Zisa, near Palermo. The space rises into a high gilded dome, and the walls are decorated with 600 individual tiles – mostly from Damascus and dating from the 16th century – with a lattice window from Egypt. The supporting columns, mosaic frieze, screens and some stained glass were made by leading contemporary artists. A pool with a fountain was set in a Victorian mosaic floor. Leighton, an enigmatic and contradictory character, lived in the house alone, save for his servants, for three decades. 12 Holland Park Rd. www.rbkc.gov.uk
This feature is an edited extract from London Uncovered by Mark Daly and Peter Dazeley (£35, White Lion Publishing). www.britain-magazine.com
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ST. JAMES’ COURT, A TAJ HOTEL, LONDON When St. James’ Court Hotel debuted in 1902, society’s elite frequented its elegant halls. Today it continues to retain the sophistication and charm of one of Britain’s finest luxury hotels. The discreet Victorian masterpiece occupies pride of place in Central London, situated between Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, aptly positioned to explore London, whether it be for business or pleasure. The perfect balance of old-world charm and contemporary design can be experienced in the newly renovated Premium rooms, blending style and innovation with state-of-the-art amenities in accordance with the hotel’s commitment to ‘reinventing tradition’. St James’ Court, A Taj Hotel– English Classics, Reinvented.
St. James’ Court, A Taj Hotel 54 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6AF +44 20 7834 6655 | sjctaj.london@tajhotels.com
INSIDER'S LONDON
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ONFESSIONS OF A CABBIE
London taxi drivers have a knowledge of the city that’s second to none. Gary Mankelow, a cabbie for 25 years, shares his secrets WORDS JENNY ROWE
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our black cab driver might be the first person you meet when you arrive in London. Though a chirpy cockney accent and friendly welcome are commonplace, flawless knowledge of their home city is a given. Gary Mankelow, a London tour guide and black cabbie for 25 years, tells us what it takes to be a driver in one of the world’s largest cities and spills a few of the cabbies’ best-kept secrets. London’s taxi service is famously reliable. How are the city's black cab drivers selected? If you can stick at it, anyone can become a London cab driver, it just takes a lot of time and commitment. When I applied to Transport for London 25 years ago, I was given
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what we know of as “The Blue Book”. This is what you need to pass The Knowledge – the test that has challenged prospective London cabbies for over 150 years. Inside “The Blue Book” is all 320 of the “runs” that we have to learn: the quickest route between any two points within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross. You need to learn all of these routes, plus all the roads and landmarks within a quarter-mile radius of the start and end points of each route. The exams are called “appearances” and the time between each one gets progressively shorter, starting from a 56-day gap until you have only 7 days to learn the routes before being tested by your examiner. Then you have to learn the suburban routes – anything within the M25 counts. It usually takes three to four years, but I have friends who took seven!
INSIDER'S LONDON
PHOTOS: © ROBERT CRACKNELL 01/CLASSIC/ALAMY. PORTRAITS: DIANA JARVIS
WaInside “The Blue Book” is all 320 of the “runs” that we have to learn: the quickest route between any two points within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross
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How do you remember the road map of such a huge, complex city? I learnt most of The Knowledge parrot-fashion, but I also made sure I got into the city to learn the routes in practice. The best way is to do this on a moped. It’s cheaper, and it also means you start to develop a working knowledge. So you know not only the main, quick routes but have inside knowledge on alternative routes when roadworks get in the way, for example.
This page, top to bottom: Gary and his cab take a break in front of Tower Bridge and the Thames; Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster at night as seen from Waterloo Bridge
What would we be surprised to learn about London black cab drivers? We’re actually called Hackney Carriage Drivers – that’s the official term anyway. Carriages were originally an ostentatious way of getting around. They were horsedrawn by the hireable ‘Hackney’ breed, who were famed for their high leg lift and ability to trot long distances. It’s thought that they were so-called because Hackney, now in east London, was once a rural area where the horses were put to pasture in the 12th century. The modern-day Hackney carriages are much more efficient, but they’re still a symbol of prestige. Hackney carriages have been working London for 450 years, ever since Cromwell set up the Fellowship of Master Hackney Carriages by Act of Parliament after the Civil War in 1654. This was when taxi driving first became a profession. This makes the licensed taxi trade the oldest regulated public transport system in the world.
Opening page: Gary Mankelow, London cabbie and city tour guide
Any top tips for a tourist on a tight schedule? Walk as much as you can and don’t forget to look around you. There is so much history to take in. One look at a building could tell you who built it. If you spot pineapples outside it could be that whoever built it had made his money from trading them. Pineapples became a symbol
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INSIDER'S LONDON of wealth. Christopher Wren even picked this spiky fruit to be the crowning feature of each of the towers of St Paul’s Cathedral. If you see a window that has been bricked up, you could make a fair guess that it was blocked during Queen Anne’s reign, when a tax was levied on windows and many people boarded theirs up to make savings. This is actually where the saying “daylight robbery” came from. The city is full of history and stories if you keep your eyes peeled. What London sight is worth taking a detour for? Waterloo Bridge at night. The view is the best the city has to offer. You can almost imagine Peter Pan and his crew flying past the illuminated face of Big Ben. A drive up Constitution Hill to take in Buckingham Palace is also a must. From top to bottom: Trooping the Colour at The Mall; golden pineapples crown the towers of St Paul's Cathedral; Dragon statues guard the entrances of the City
What is the strangest thing you’ve been asked? “Does the Queen live at Number 10 Downing Street?” Some people don’t know London that well, and you really have to go back to square one. You also get those who think they know London, but don’t. It’s harder to help them. Plus, it took me a while to learn what Americans meant when they said they wanted to drive to somewhere “a few blocks” away. I’ve got the measure of that now. What do you dread being asked? Often someone will hail a cab only to be driven 50 yards to their destination just so they can be seen to arrive in style. They’ll get as close as they can on foot and using the tube or buses. Favourite time of year in London and why? Christmas. Everyone is dressed up and so much happier to be here.
If a tourist wants to experience London at its best and most British, what should they do? Nobody does parades better than us. When it’s summer and a lovely sunny day, go to The Mall and Horse Guards Parade. This is where you can watch the Household Division’s Beating Retreat [10-11 June], a spectacular evening pageant of music and military precision drill, including horses, cannon and fireworks. This precedes Trooping the Colour [13 June], the Queen’s official birthday parade, a few days later. And if it’s pouring with rain? Quite likely… In that case, take a tour in my cab!
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PHOTOS: © JEP NEWS/HAYN HANSELL/STEVE VIDLER/ALAMY
Most underrated attraction in London? The City of London. People might think that the financial and commercial centre of the city is boring, or they might be confused about its name. The City is also called the Square Mile, which has its origins in the fortified Roman settlement of Londinium that occupied one square mile within its walls. Today, iron dragons in the street mark its boundaries from Temple and the Tower of London on the River Thames to Chancery Lane in the west and Liverpool Street in the east. You can see the more modern monuments of the Gherkin, the Cheesegrater and the Walkie-Talkie here too. Thousands of years of history in one place.
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ON THE WATER
London afloat
Take to the water to experience a different side of London WORDS MONICA WOODS
From Waterloo sunsets to shimmering Impressionist masterpieces, the Thames has long been a source of artistic inspiration. Hop aboard the Tate Boat to get a closer understanding of what stirred painters from Monet to Canaletto to pick up their brushes. The eye-catching polka-dot Thames Clipper service runs daily between Tate Modern and Tate Britain, providing a quick and easy link between the two powerhouse galleries, plus some sightseeing along the way. Spend the morning at Tate Britain, admiring Whistler’s moonlit rendering of Old Battersea Bridge and Turner’s tumultuous-looking Thames, before boarding at Millbank for the 20-minute journey downriver. En route, you’ll pass London landmarks old and new, including the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Royal Festival Hall and Somerset House. International contemporary art
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awaits at Tate Modern, followed by the delights of a stroll along the South Bank. www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-boat
Glide past swans on the Serpentine Hyde Park’s Serpentine, created back in 1730 at the command of Queen Caroline, is named for its curving shape and was one of the earliest artificial lakes designed to blend in with its natural surroundings. Rent a pedalo and calmly cruise past ducks and swans whilst rollerbladers zoom by on the lake’s north bank. If you’d rather spare your legs, board the SolarShuttle, a remarkable solar-powered vessel which glides between the Boat House and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain. Athletes braved the Serpentine’s waters during the 2012 Olympics, but you don’t have to be superhuman to take a dip. The Lido and paddling pool are open throughout the summer; plucky members of the Serpentine Swimming Club
PHOTOS: © GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO/RICHARD TAYLOR/4CORNERS IMAGES
Go gallery-hopping on the Tate Boat
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ON THE WATER Left to right: A Thames Clipper river bus cruises past the London Eye; canal boats at Little Venice
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ON THE WATER
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ON THE WATER LoClockwise from this image: The Thames Rocket; Word on the Water; the Serpentine Lido and lake; watersports at the Royal Docklands
famously compete for the Peter Pan Cup on Christmas morning. www.royalparks.org.uk
Rocket along the Thames Ready to mix theme-park thrills with fast-paced sightseeing? If you’re short of time, or simply tired of dawdling river cruises, a Thames Rocket tour could be just the ticket. With a number of waterborne adventures on offer, speed is the name of the game – this is the very antithesis of sedate. Slip on your life jacket (plus waterproof layers and goggles, should the rain set in), hold on tight, listen up and prepare to indulge those James Bond fantasies as the skipper accelerates past Tower Bridge. As the Thames widens out, you can fully appreciate its deceptive twists and turns, with sights like the Shard popping up where you’d least expect them. To head closer to the mouth of the river, opt for the Break the Barrier tour, which whooshes all the way to the Thames Barrier. www.thamesrockets.com
PHOTOS: © MICHAEL HEATH/FINNBARR WEBSTER/ALAMY
Browse on the Bookbarge
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The resurgence of independent bookshops is a good news story we could read about all day. Indies are celebrated for their personal touch, their community spirit and eclectic events, their quirks and charm. Word on the Water ticks all of those boxes, and then some. A converted 1920s Dutch barge, with inside and outside shelves heaving with new and secondhand titles, it also boasts a woodburning stove, cosy seating and a resident dog (who no doubt helps bolster trade). The London Bookbarge, as it’s also known, hosts talks, readings and live
music, with musicians performing on the roof when the sun shines. After an itinerant spell, this favourite floating bookshop now has a permanent mooring on Regent’s Canal, just beside buzzing Granary Square in King’s Cross. www.facebook.com/wordonthewater
Cruise London’s prettiest waterway Lined with lush greenery and colourful narrowboats, London’s canals can be a welcome respite from the traffic-clogged city streets. Regent’s Canal, stretching from Paddington to Limehouse, offers the prettiest stretches of all, especially at the absurdly picturesque Little Venice. Grand white stuccoed mansions and swooning willows overlook the triangular pool formed where the Grand Union meets the Regent’s Canal. Join a boat trip and meander eastwards, skirting Regent’s Park, peeking in at London Zoo and sitting back while your guides navigate Camden Lock. Disembark for a mooch around jam-packed Camden Market and a bite to eat from globetrotting street-food stalls. If you’re feeling flush, and up to steering your own ship, take the opportunity to rent a motorboat at Paddington Basin and picnic at your very own captain’s table. www.jasons.co.uk; goboat.co.uk
Tuck into tea with a view Nothing beats a proper afternoon tea: delicate finger sandwiches, dainty cakes, plump scones and bottomless pots of tea. For a touch of luxury and riverside views, book a table at Sunborn, a superyacht-turnedhotel moored in Royal Victoria Dock.
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ON THE WATER
Top to bottom: Explore Camden via the Regent's Canal; take afternoon tea while on tour with City Cruises
Alternatively, why not combine this indulgent teatime ritual with another British tradition, messing about on the river? A gentle cruise along the Thames takes in the key sights of the city from St Paul’s and HMS Belfast to Shakespeare’s Globe and Big Ben – a feast for the eyes that’s matched, just about, by the array of savoury
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and sweet treats served up on board. City Cruises, departing from Tower Pier, offer uninterrupted views of the sights through panoramic windows, and are great value compared with the better-known afternoon tea haunts, such as The Ritz or Fortnum & Mason – that’s the icing on the cake. www.sunbornhotels.com; citycruises.com
It’s all very well puttering along London’s waterways, but aren’t you tempted to jump right in? Rest assured, the Thames has never been cleaner – in fact, it’s the world’s cleanest inner-city river and home to over 100 species of fish, as well as the occasional seal or porpoise. Head out to the Royal Docks at the capital’s eastern edge, don a wetsuit and get ready to make a splash. There are various outfits offering daredevil volunteers the chance to try kayaking, paddleboarding, sailing or wakeboarding – proving that distance from the coast is no impediment to watersports adventures. With the Emirates Air Line cable car, the O2 Arena and Canary Wharf’s glinting skyscrapers as a backdrop, this is one unmissable, fully immersive London experience. www.wakeupdocklands.com www.britain-magazine.com
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SHOPS
SHOPFRONTS OF LONDON In praise of the capital's small neighbourhood shops WORDS KIRSTIN WORDS & ILLUSTRATIONS ELEANOR CROW VON GLASOW
L
ondon is comprised of many small communities and, commonly, each one has a terrace of useful shops at the centre. Despite the ubiquity of supermarkets and larger multi-purpose shops, and despite the ease of internet shopping, these small shops persist because of the density of the local population and the convenience of their location. They furnish our wish and whim for any small portable item – a prime cut of beef or an Eccles cake, a garden rake or a fillet of plaice. Yet they are more than merely useful businesses. Where great care has been taken over their appearance and where the shopkeepers have won many loyal customers, these shops deliver an invaluable community service that cannot be equalled
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by more impersonal forms of shopping. As well as drawing their trade from the immediate vicinity, these small shops may also acquire reputations that bring customers from further afield. Perhaps unsurprisingly, public affection for small shops – particularly those that have survived for a great many years – is partly because we feel these shops belong to us. They are landmarks on our daily journeys and their presence on the street offers a visual and emotional anchor in an ever-changing cityscape. They are familiar points of reference in a mutable world. As the city skyline alters beyond recognition, the presence of these premises built on a human scale brings us pleasure. It is the small shops that manifest the character of any community. www.britain-magazine.com
SHOPS
Paxton & Whitfield
Cheesemongers to Queen Victoria and holders of a string of Royal Warrants of Appointment, Paxton & Whitfield was founded in 1797, moving to Jermyn Street in 1896. Now in their third century of cheesemongering, they are proud to offer “exceptional cheeses” and cherish the dignified black and gold shopfront that proclaims their illustrious history. 93 Jermyn St, St James’s www.paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk
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Lina Stores
More delicatessen than greengrocer, this Soho establishment was opened in 1944 by Lina, a woman from Genova. Since then, it has established a formidable reputation for quality imported Italian produce sold alongside freshly made pasta and sandwiches. The recent refurbishment retains the historic detailing, while
refitting the interior in a complementary modern design. By virtue of its distinctive mint green paintwork, glazed tiles and natty typography, Lina Stores declares its presence with panache in the narrow streets of Soho. 18 Brewer St, Soho www.linastores.co.uk
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SHOPS
John Sandoe Books
Founded in 1957, only three years after the end of rationing and when Chelsea was still scruffy, this local bookshop now spans three floors of three Georgian shops with an astonishing selection of titles crammed into every available space. Since the King’s Road
became dominated by upmarket chain stores, this independent bookshop has become a popular destination for those hungry for literary sustenance. Blacklands Terrace, Chelsea johnsandoe.com
F. Cooke
Robert Cooke opened his first eel and pie shop in Brick Lane in 1862 and his family still run shops in the East End to this day. This one opened in Broadway Market in 1900 and is distinguished by its fine glazed interior with marble table tops, wooden benches and the old clock behind the counter, commissioned by Robert in 1911. The exterior boasts elegant gold swash lettering on a Brunswick green ground painted behind a glass fascia. Note the sills and panels in marble, sitting below wide sashes that are opened in summer. Robert Cooke’s grandson Bob runs this shop today, while his brother Joseph runs the one in Hoxton Market and both continue to make pies to their grandfather’s recipes. Broadway Market broadwaymarket.co.uk
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SHOPS
P J Murray P J Murray sits in a parade of shops developed by Thomas Cubitt in Greek Revival Style in 1822, originally called Woburn Buildings. Each features a flattened bow window with parallel doors on either side, and is separated from its neighbour by twin pilasters. In this quiet neighbourhood close to Euston and King’s Cross, P J Murray stocks a range of international newspapers, catering for travellers and foreign students as well as locals. Woburn Walk, Euston www.britain-magazine.com
This feature is an edited extract from Shopfronts of London by Eleanor Crow (ÂŁ14.99, published by Batsford in collaboration with Spitalfields Life Books). LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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RESTAURANTS
The chef recommends We ask Tom Aikens, chef of newly opened restaurant Muse, for his London gastronomic highlights WORDS JENNY ROWE
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RESTAURANTS You opened Muse in January. How does it differ from your other London restaurant, Tom’s Kitchen in Chelsea? Well, Tom’s Kitchen is an all-day British brasserie that serves seasonal British comfort food in a relaxed, informal setting. Muse is quite different because it is inspired by my life and all its pivotal relationships, experiences and influences, from the moment I first discovered food with my mother until I finally became a professional chef. Drawing from poignant memories of my childhood and career, each signature dish spotlights one key ingredient or element, allowing it to tell a story.
Muse has two theatre kitchens so that every guest feels involved. Why did you incorporate this intimate aspect into your restaurant? Watching chefs live in front of you is always magical and fun, and for each customer to see their entire meal created in front of them has always been popular. I want to give every guest the very best level of service and this includes feeling a part of and understanding the cooking processes. It’s now important to give guests a real journey and experience as well as a great plate of food and high level of service. How has the restaurant scene in London changed since you first came here 30 years ago? Restaurants have become far more diverse and even
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PHOTOS: © JAMES MCDONALD/THOMAS ALEXANDER PHOTOGRAPHY/VIRGINIE GARNIER
Why did you choose Belgravia as the location for Muse? I had been looking for a new space to house a finedining restaurant for almost five years. I must have looked at 40 or 50 sites before I found the right building in June 2018. I was not searching for somewhere in Belgravia particularly, it was just luck. It has just the right amount of space I need to seat 25 guests and to be able to offer the right level of food and service.
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RESTAURANTS
PHOTOS: © DUKE'S HOTEL/ KIM LIGHTBODY
Previous page from top: One of two intimate theatre kitchens inside Muse; fine dining inspired by Aikens’ life and career; the renowned chef Clockwise from far left: Outside Tom Aikens' new restaurant, Muse; The Wolseley; fresh fare at Perilla; Pimlico Road Farmers' Market
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RESTAURANTS Clockwise from this image: The Good Life Eatery; Mont Blanc for dessert at Frenchie; the Harwood Arms
more popular than ever before, which means that every single type of cuisine is now available in London at every price point. From fast casual to fine dining, there is something for everyone. What kind of food does Britain do best? Britain does so many things right at the highest level, from a great curry and the best fish and chips to an amazing gastropub feast; from organic plant-based food to the heady heights of Michelin-star dining. I ate recently at the Quality Chop House and it was all delicious and very British. I’d wanted to eat there for ages. What’s the most romantic restaurant in the city? I actually don’t think it’s the restaurants that provide the romance, it’s the couples that dine in them that have the magic. It depends on what floats your boat! Some say high-end fine dining, some say a great view, some say a great atmosphere… but I will never take my wife out on Valentine’s Day, for example, as you shouldn’t need an excuse to be romantic. What’s your favourite cheap eat in London? I ate fairly recently at Chick‘n’Sours. It was superb and ticked all the boxes of affordable, great, tasty food. Do you have a favourite food or farmers’ market? As I live in Chelsea I would say that the Pimlico Road Farmers’ Market is great to go along to. Depending on my mood, I’ll go for anything from a veg burger to a 28-day-aged medium-rare rib eye. What’s your go-to pub to grab a drink outdoors in the sun? The Harwood Arms in Fulham is a good one, great food… What’s the most atmospheric bar in the capital? There are a couple that I like. The first because
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RESTAURANTS
From top to bottom: Golden Egg Flan from Cakes & Bubbles; China Tang; The Quality Chop House
they do a superb whiskey sour, which is my go-to cocktail and if done well, is always a sign of a good bar. You can get the best at China Tang at The Dorchester. I also like Lyaness cocktail bar set within the iconic Sea Containers hotel on the South Bank. It’s very swanky, with a beautiful marble bar and views over the Thames. What’s your most frequented café? I go to the Good Life Eatery on Sloane Avenue occasionally, or Café Colbert on Sloane Square. Come wintertime at breakfast I always order a bowl of hot porridge with mixed grains, banana and pumpkin seeds.
PHOTOS: © DAVID JENSEN PHOTOS/CHRIS COULSON
Where did you have your last truly memorable meal out? I had a really great meal at Perilla not so long ago, cooked by the chef Ben Marks who has worked at Claridge’s, Noma and The Square – and he’s only 26! That’s an amazing pedigree, so it’s no wonder the food at Perilla on Newington Green is sublime.
Where would you recommend for a late-night dessert? I would go to Cakes & Bubbles as it’s dessert heaven. It’s run by Albert Adrià at the Hotel Café Royal and it will definitely give you the sugar rush you’re looking for. And what to eat? That’s tricky – it’s all great! What’s your favourite spot for eating and people watching? The best place, without question, is The Wolseley. You’re in Covent Garden for the first and only time in your life and only have an hour. Where do you go? It has to be Frenchie. Gregory Marchand has worked at The Savoy, Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan, as well as for Jamie Oliver. When he was about to launch his first solo spot, he needed a name. And so Frenchie was born; opening in Paris first and now, of course, in Covent Garden. It’s great food – inventive and tasty.
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RESTAURANTS
TOM'S PICKS Muse Belgravia; www.tomaikens.co.uk Tom’s Kitchen Chelsea; www.tomskitchen.co.uk Quality Chop House Farringdon; www.thequalitychophouse.com Chick‘n’Sours Covent Garden, Islington, Spitalfields, Haggerston; www.chicknsours.co.uk Pimlico Road Farmer’s Market Pimlico; www.lfm.org.uk Harwood Arms Fulham; www.harwoodarms.com China Tang at The Dorchester Mayfair; www.chinatanglondon.co.uk Lyaness South Bank; www.lyaness.com Good Life Eatery Chelsea; www.goodlifeeatery.com Café Colbert Chelsea; www.colbertchelsea.com Perilla Dalston; www.perilladining.co.uk Cakes & Bubbles at Hotel Café Royal Soho; www.cakesandbubbles.co.uk The Wolseley St James’s; www.thewolseley.com Frenchie Covent Garden; www.frenchiecoventgarden.com
Left to right: Café Colbert; Chick'n'Sours
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THEATRE
CENTRE
STAGE
From jukebox musicals in historic West End theatres to arty offerings in the fringe venues, here are the highlights of 2020 WORDS SALLY HALES
L
ondon has arguably the most vibrant theatre scene in the world, and the capital is abuzz year-round. This season, theatreland has launched itself into the new year with a raft of high-profile openings. First up is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece of malaise, Uncle Vanya, at the Harold Pinter Theatre. A top-notch British cast, including Toby Jones, Richard Armitage and Ciaràn Hinds, should ensure a spectacular production. It runs until 2 May. The Royal Shakespeare Company will shake things up with Kunene and the King at the Ambassadors Theatre
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until 28 March. Written by actor, activist and playwright John Kani, who stars alongside RSC legend Sir Anthony Sher, the two-hander explores contemporary South Africa. Distinguished director Richard Eyre and actress Jennifer Saunders are the dream duo breathing new life into Noël Coward’s witty comedy Blithe Spirit, at the Duke of York’s Theatre until 11 April. Following a sell-out season at the Theatre Royal Bath, it’s sure to delight in London too. A seamless blend of intellectual heft and witty accessibility means Sir Tom Stoppard is widely regarded as Britain’s greatest living playwright, and a new work by the www.britain-magazine.com
THEATRE
PHOTOS: © TA IMAGES/ALAMY/MATTHEW MURPHY
Left: The historic Garrick Theatre Bottom: Jake Gyllenhaal stars in Sunday in the Park with George
master is always an event. His latest, Leopoldstadt, is at Wyndham’s Theatre until 16 May. Set in 1900 in Vienna and featuring a bumper cast of 41, the play promises to be the writer’s most personal yet: expect whip-smart dialogue, ingenious plots and thought-provoking themes. Blockbuster, budget-busting musicals love the West End and they tend to stay in situ for years, meaning a new opening is something special. The Prince of Egypt, which rolled into the Dominion Theatre in February, is based on the Book of Exodus, and is a production with serious credentials: music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, who www.britain-magazine.com
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THEATRE
has given us Wicked among other gems, and a book by Philip LaZebnik, of Mulan and Pocahontas fame. Positive rumblings suggest this could be a classic in the making. A trip to Shakespeare’s Globe is essential, but don’t worry – the winter chill sees the action move indoors to the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. The Bard’s study in strong-willed women, The Taming of the Shrew, plays there until 18 April. Acclaimed theatre director Josie Rourke revives her much-lauded 2014 Donmar production of City of Angels at the Garrick Theatre from 5 March. The original star, the inimitable Rosalie Craig, returns, but this time she’s alongside US legend Vanessa Williams. Dubbed “blissful” and “the punchiest, most intelligent musical in town” at the time, you can expect no less this time around. Director, writer and theatre wunderkind Robert Icke’s 2019 production of The Doctor for the Almeida Theatre, starring regular collaborator Juliet Stevenson, amassed
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five-star reviews, so it’s no surprise it’s getting a second outing. Opening at the Duke of York Theatre on 20 April (until 18 July), expect a provocative deep-dive into modern social mores. Playwright Laura Wade’s The Watsons left critics and theatregoers alike agog during runs at Chichester and London’s Menier Chocolate Factory. A West End transfer seemed nailed-on, and so it proved. The characters in The Watsons, which is based on an unfinished Jane Austen novel, threaten to mutiny against their author, a playwright named Laura, who arrives in the thick of the drama to retake control of her story. Philosophical and funny, catch it at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 8 May (until 26 September). Welsh actor Rhys Ifans is back to tread the boards as Atticus in the Broadway transfer of Harper Lee’s courtroom classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Adapted by West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin, the production arrives at the Gielgud Theatre on 21 May, promising a spellbinding evening of theatre.
Clockwise from top left: A summer performance at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre; the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is atmospherically candlelit; Jennifer Saunders stars in Blithe Spirit; the Dominion Theatre
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PHOTOS: © DAVID JENSEN/MARK SYKES/AWL IMAGES/NOBBY CLARK/VIBRANT PICTURES/ALAMY
THEATRE
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PHOTOS: © IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY/JOHAN PERSSON
THEATRE
Top to bottom: The National Theatre on the South Bank; Life of Pi will play at Wyndham's Theatre
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London’s stages are awash with Hollywood stars: also arriving is Jake Gyllenhaal. He’s starring in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s masterpiece Sunday in the Park with George, which follows Georges Seurat leading up to the completion of his famous painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The musical will be at the Savoy Theatre from 11 June to 5 September. Summer in the city isn’t the same without some Shakespeare in the open air, and Regent Park’s pretty Open Air Theatre is obliging by putting the famous young lovers centre stage. Enjoy Romeo & Juliet from 27 June to 25 July.
One of London’s newest theatres, the Boulevard in Soho, opened in 2019 with some exciting productions. It continues to challenge with Hello and Goodbye, a South Africa-set tale of how the past can strangle the present by director Yaël Farber, running from 4 June to 25 July. Yann Martel’s Booker-winning novel about a boy and a tiger became an acclaimed film directed by Ang Lee. Now it’s set to conquer the London stage, too. Life of Pi will run at Wyndham’s Theatre from 28 June to 4 October. A big hit with audiences and critics who got a sneaky peek in Sheffield last year, it promises dazzling puppetry and a riot of colour and music. Jamie Lloyd Productions serves up film stars in searing contemporary takes on classics throughout 2020. Jessica Chastain makes her West End debut at the Playhouse on 10 June as tragic heroine Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Helmed by Jamie Lloyd himself – a young director with bags of talent – tickets will be gold dust. A blast from the past is due in Hammersmith this summer as Whoopi Goldberg arrives to reprise her role from the beloved film Sister Act on the stage. Assisted by Jennifer Saunders, this is sure to be a red-hot ticket. See it at the Eventim Apollo from 29 July. Under the tenure of its former boss, Nicholas Hytner, London’s National Theatre recreated Phillip Pullman’s astonishing His Dark Materials trilogy with stunning results. Now Hytner has his very own theatre, the elegant www.britain-magazine.com
THEATRE
PHOTOS: © RUSSELL KORD/ALAMY/MANUEL HARLAN/TONY FRENCH/ALAMY
Bridge, and is taking on the latest instalment of the saga, La Belle Sauvage, from 11 July to 10 October. Expect similarly dazzling flights of the imagination. The powerhouse that is actress Imelda Stanton will keep the West End ticking along single-handedly in August – when the rest of theatreland decamps to Edinburgh for its festivals – as she opens a revival of Hello Dolly at the Adelphi from 11 August to 6 March 2021. Staunton is sure to be nothing short of dynamite as the meddlesome socialite turned matchmaker. Director Emma Rice is fast becoming a national theatrical treasure. Her short stint leading Shakespeare’s Globe lead to several wildly popular productions. Now at the helm of her own company, Wise Children, she’s taking on Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights for the National Theatre this autumn. Frozen needs little introduction: the Disney production conquered the box office, Broadway and the hearts of young and old alike. The stage show rolls into the Theatre Royal Drury Lane this autumn. Another new musical arrives in October: The Drifters Girl. It’s based on the story of the woman who saved the eponymous 60s group from oblivion, and British songstress Beverley Knight has already been cast in what promises to be a toe-tapping jaunt through their classic hits. See it at the Garrick Theatre from 1 October. At the other end of the spectrum, director Robert Icke is bringing his groundbreaking Internationaal Theater Amsterdam production of the Greek classic Oedipus from the Netherlands to the West End. Luckily for London, the play will be performed in English, and stage and screen superstars Mark Strong and Helen Mirren will star. Details of the theatre and dates will follow – as will theatre-lovers for what’s sure to be an unmissable spectacle.
Top to bottom: Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End is lined with theatres including the Lyric, the Apollo and the Gielgud; The Watsons at the Harold Pinter Theatre; the Bridge Theatre near Tower Bridge www.britain-magazine.com
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COCKTAIL BARS
Raising
THE BAR
Whether you’re heading out for pre-dinner drinks or looking for a cosy spot for a nightcap, here’s our pick of the capital’s classiest bars WORDS CHANTAL BORCIANI
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he perfect cocktail requires finesse, precision, craftsmanship and just a little magic… Mix in surroundings that evoke bygone eras, bars steeped in tradition and the reassuring clink of the finest crystal, and a simple drink in a bar is elevated into an experience to remember. Whether you want to follow in the footsteps of royalty or discover discreet hideaways that have inspired literary legends, London is home to some of the most exquisite and timeless cocktail bars in the world.
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GEORGE’S BAR
PHOTOS: © JASON BAILEY/TOM MANNION/BEN CARPENTER PHOTOGRAPHY
A cocktail bar from one of Britain’s finest chefs, George’s Bar at Marcus Wareing’s The Gilbert Scott restaurant exudes all the elegance of the gilded grand cafés of Europe. Grand, ornate and with celestially high ceilings, the bar sits amid the Victorian Gothic splendour of the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. Named after the building’s architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott, George’s Bar was redesigned courtesy of David Collins Studio in 2018 and its sparkling glamour still shines brightest in north London. Essential order: Every month sees a new seasonal cocktail, often using produce such as honey from Wareing’s own farm in Kent. Alternatively, savour cuvées from Champagne’s oldest wine house, Gosset. Euston Road, King’s Cross. www.georgesbar.co.uk
FITZ’S Patrons enter a fabulous world of jazz-age lustre at Fitz’s, named after Charles Fitzroy Doll, architect of The Kimpton Fitzroy hotel. The decor has a frisson of naughtiness and flamboyance about it, with ostrich plumes, plush fabrics, antiques lining the shelves and a glitter ball hanging from the ceiling. Its Art Deco accents and original stained-glass windows add a dash of history, while the music drifts from mellow jazz to up-tempo funk. The menu is inspired by Bloomsbury characters, from novelist Emile Zola to spy Noor Inayat Khan. Essential order: Follow Head of Bars Sean Fennelly’s passion for Armagnac and order the Zola in Exile: Laubade Armagnac Blanche, Quaglia Camomile, Suze, Merlet Apricot Brandy, lavender, lemon and pink peppercorn tonic. 8 Russell Square, Bloomsbury. fitzs.co.uk
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COCKTAIL BARS
PUNCH ROOM
PHOTOS: © PAUL RAESIDE
Tucked away on the ground floor of the London Edition hotel, this intimate, reservations-only oak-panelled bar takes inspiration from aristocratic manors and private gentleman’s clubs. It’s famed for its decadent punches, served individually or ladled from vintage silver bowls. The menu, a handsome tome bound in racing green linen, takes inspiration from the elements of ancient philosophy – Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Aether – with specially created punches. Guests peruse the menu on teal velvet banquettes or sink into dark leather club chairs to take in the music, a mix of vintage jazz, reggae, soul and blues, regularly punctuated by impromptu live performances. Essential order: Savour the Mayflower punch, a mix of Plymouth Gin, grapefruit sherbet, Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, green tea, lemon juice and Fernet Branca. 10 Berners Street, Fitzrovia. www.editionhotels.com
THE CONNAUGHT BAR The Connaught Bar serves artful, innovative cocktails with impeccable service and quintessential British flair. The drinks in its Vanguard cocktail menu have been inspired by the bar itself and created under the watchful eye of Agostino Perrone, the hotel’s Director of Mixology. Each chapter of the menu is arranged from strongest to lightest, while several creations use the Connaught’s own house-distilled gin. Essential order: Select from the legendary martini trolley and revel in the theatre as your personalised drink is expertly mixed at your table. Carlos Place, Mayfair. www.the-connaught.co.uk
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COCKTAIL BARS
THE FUMOIR The pinnacle of London’s intimate cocktail scene, The Fumoir has room for just twelve guests and has been a drinking haunt for those in the know since 1929. Enviably located in London’s legendary Claridge’s hotel – a favourite sanctuary of the royal family, Prime Ministers including Winston Churchill and reams of Hollywood royalty – The Fumoir oozes the seductive charm of the 1930s with deep aubergine walls, low crystal lighting and retro decor. The original crystal panel that sits above the door has graced the former smoking lounge since it was presented by René Lalique in 1931. Crafted from original recipes and served in exquisite Lalique glasses, the cocktails are a celebration of the dashing, debonair 1930s, with Swizzles, Daisies, Sours and Juleps to savour. Essential order: The Claridge’s Julep, a heady blend of champagne, calvados and raspberry preserve with fresh mint. Brook Street, Mayfair. www.claridges.co.uk
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GONG For one of the best backdrops in town, pull up a stool at Gong on the 52nd floor of the glittering Shard and savour the spectacular sunset views with a cocktail as London twinkles far below you. Luxurious, with a modern crowd bringing a bustle of city energy, Gong is part of the Shangri-La Hotel at The Shard. The name originates from “dougong”, a traditional Chinese architectural use of interlocking wooden brackets, widely evident in the bar’s striking design. Another nod to Gong’s heritage and namesake is the “interlocking” menu, whereby each cocktail is one half of a pair, connected to another by a single shared ingredient. So why stop at one? Essential order: Try the chocolate and eucalyptus digestif, a blend of Eucalyptus Tanqueray gin, Campari Creme de Cacao Blanc, coconut split milk and citric acid. 31 St Thomas Street, London Bridge. www.gong-shangri-la.com
DUKES
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PHOTOS: © NICK J REDMAN
Steeped in tradition, Dukes Hotel has a history dating back to 1532. Its smart bar has mahogany panelling, white-jacketed bartenders and portraits from Dukes’ private collection adorning the walls. Yet above all else, it is the bar’s expertly mixed martini that brings connoisseurs from far and wide. The ritual begins with a spray of extra dry vermouth from a crystal atomiser into a chilled glass, followed by a pour of frozen vodka or gin, and a zest of organic Amalfi lemon. This tableside flair even inspired author and Dukes patron Ian Fleming to create 007’s “shaken not stirred” line. Convivial, traditional and reassuringly British, it’s the ultimate hotel bar. Essential order: Add a dash of 007 magic to proceedings with the Vesper: London dry gin, Polish vodka, Lillet Blanc, Angostura bitters and orange oil. 35 St James’s Place, St James’s. www.dukeshotel.com
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PLACES TO STAY
BLOOMSBURY BOLTHOLES Base yourself in London’s literary quarter – all leafy squares and Georgian terraces – and explore this historic slice of the capital WORDS NATASHA FOGES
This image: The library at the Charlotte Street Hotel Right: The hotel's terrace
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PLACES TO STAY
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loomsbury. The name conjures up visions of bookish types on bicycles, free-wheeling through leafy London squares. Sitting between the busy central London districts of King’s Cross, Clerkenwell, Holborn and Fitzrovia, the Bloomsbury quarter has always been a bit different. London’s literary and intellectual capital has a reputation not only as a place for heavyweight learning – it harbours many of the University College London buildings – but also for liberalism and free-thinking. It was made famous in the years between the two World Wars by the Bloomsbury Group, a coterie of influential writers and artists, including Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell. Their experimental lifestyle – they “lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles”, quipped American satirist Dorothy Parker – made a lasting mark on this enduringly bohemian area. Since 1669, the entire district has been owned and managed by the Bedford Estate, whose family seat is Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire. The continuity of ownership has ensured that the area’s defining features – grand squares and terraces of elegant Georgian townhouses – have remained much as they have been for centuries. It makes an excellent choice for a central London stay, especially if you like townhouse hotels with character.
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A run of five such townhouses dating back to 1776 make up The Academy, a boutique hotel that curates a luxurious-yet-bohemian atmosphere. Little nooks like the cosy library and bar are stacked with books by members of the Bloomsbury Group for guests to read on the velvet banquettes. The rooms have a home-from-home warmth, with comfy leather armchairs, and some benefit from marble fireplaces. Stroll from the hotel on Gower Street and you’ll soon spot one of the area’s many blue plaques, attesting to Bloomsbury’s intellectual credentials. Charles Darwin worked on his theory of natural selection at no.110; no.10 was once home to Lady Ottoline Morrell, a patron of the arts, who hosted members of the Bloomsbury Group; while at no.7 a trio of young painters – John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti – shook up the British art establishment when they founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. Just down the road, a small independent publisher, Bloomsbury, became a world leader when it accepted a magical manuscript that many other publishers had turned down: Harry Potter and the
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PHOTOS: © JEFF GILBERT/AL AMY/SIMON BROWN/HEMIS/SIOBHAN DOR AN/ THE RED CARNATION HOTEL COMPANY
PLACES TO STAY
PLACES TO STAY
Clockwise, from top left: The Duchess Suite at The Montague on the Gardens; the library at The Academy; the British Museum; the Charles Dickens Museum
Philosopher’s Stone. It turned out to be one of the wisest investments in publishing history: over 120 million copies have since been sold. The area’s main cultural focus is undoubtedly the British Museum, which contains a staggering eight million artefacts spanning two million years of human history and culture; you could wander its rooms of Egyptian mummies and classical sculptures for weeks and still not see it all, so focusing on just one or two sections is best. Our top tip is to start with the beautiful yet under-visited Enlightenment gallery, whose floor-to-ceiling display cases are filled with objects donated to the museum in its early days. Nearby, the Bloomsbury Hotel adeptly channels the bohemian Bloomsbury Group spirit. The sitting room, with its roaring fire, low lighting and forest-green wallpaper, is hung with artworks that echo the style of the Group’s leading painters, while the arty theme continues in the Coral Room bar, a gorgeous pink-hued space transported from the Jazz Age. The rooms themselves are in a more muted palette, to ensure a sound night’s sleep. The biggest of the area’s famous squares is Russell Square, www.britain-magazine.com
The Bloomsbury Group “lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles”, quipped Dorothy Parker a peaceful oasis with park benches and a welcoming little café. On one corner is a vast terracotta-red building with an impressive facade of columns and dancing putti. A landmark hotel since the 19th century, it is now the Kimpton Fitzroy, which has recently undergone an £85 million revamp. The lobby sets the tone with acres of marble, chandeliers and mosaics, while the rooms are suavely luxurious in tasteful shades of taupe. Just off the square is The Montague on the Gardens, a townhouse hotel whose elegant Georgian rooms are livened up with luxurious yet lighthearted touches. The chicly spotty Leopard Bar hosts live jazz, while in winter an alpine ski lodge pops up here, complete with falling snow and reindeer. The Duchess Suite is our pick of the characterful LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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PLACES TO STAY For more inspiring ideas of places to stay, visit www.britainmagazine.com
PHOTOS: © DURSTON SAYLOR'13/SIMON BROWN/TOM MANNION
rooms, a jewel box of a bedroom with floor-skimming drapes and views over the secluded gardens. In summer, afternoon tea can be organised in these tranquil gardens, which are usually off-limits to the public. A short stroll away are two unmissable sights. Fans of Charles Dickens will want to make a pilgrimage to his Victorian home at 48 Doughty Street, where the novelist lived with his young family, and where he penned Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, among other works. The house is filled with their treasured belongings, including handwritten manuscripts and his wife Catherine’s engagement ring. Dickens was famous for his philanthropy, and he lived in an area that must have had an impact on his developing social conscience. On the corner of Brunswick Square is the Foundling Museum, which explores the history of the Foundling Hospital, Britain’s first children’s charity, established in 1739 to care for babies that would otherwise have been abandoned. It was also England’s first public art gallery, supported by Dickens, as well as William Hogarth and George Frideric Handel. Don’t miss the poignant display of tokens left by mothers. These acted as identifiers – each child was given a new name – and range from engraved coins to a humble walnut. Further south, Bloomsbury merges into Holborn, where the Rosewood London is a magnificent palace of a hotel tucked off busy
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PLACES TO STAY
Clockwise from this image: The lobby of the Kimpton Fitzroy; the Bloomsbury Hotel's cosy sitting room; the grand entrance to the Rosewood London
High Holborn. Tweed-clad porters greet you in the courtyard and whisk your luggage away, so that you can make your entrance into the showstopping lobby unencumbered. With a zebra-striped marble floor, it’s dotted with bird cages, outsize paintings and cabinets of curiosities on a scale to rival those in the British Museum. The rooms and suites are decorated in soothing natural tones, while the generous bathrooms gleam with polished marble. Those lucky enough to stay in one of the hotel’s top suites can expect butler service and monogrammed pillows; book the vast Manor House Wing and you’ll be staying in the only suite in the world with its own postcode. The on-site restaurant, Holborn Dining Room, is a buzzy, glamorous brasserie, with a bar that stocks more than 500 gins. Finally, just beyond Bloomsbury on the fringes of Fitzrovia, the Charlotte Street Hotel takes its Bloomsbury Group theme seriously. The drawing room and library display originals by the Group’s principal artists, Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry and Duncan Grant, while a mural in the restaurant is influenced by their style and colour palette. The theme is carried through to the bedrooms, where carefully chosen paintings impart a welcoming, lived-in feel. The Woolf Suite contains artfully clashing prints, whimsical wallpaper and a cosy corner lined with books. Virginia Woolf, who wrote so passionately about having a room of one’s own, would have felt right at home. www.britain-magazine.com
BOOK AHEAD The Academy The five townhouses that make up this hotel have snug rooms and a bookish bar that puts on a literary afternoon tea. www.theacademyhotel.co.uk
The Montague on the Gardens A leopard-print bar, stripy walls and ornate mirrors; minimalists should look elsewhere, but this hotel certainly has character. www.montaguehotel.com
Bloomsbury Hotel Celebrated hotel designer Martin Brudnizki has breathed new life into this Lutyens-designed building with Deco touches and bold colours. www.doylecollection.com
Rosewood London A fashionable hotel with plenty of highend touches, as well as various dining options, a cocktail bar and a spa. www.rosewoodhotels.com
Kimpton Fitzroy For grandeur and opulence at a more affordable price than the capital’s heritage five-stars, this is a good bet. www.ihg.com
Charlotte Street Hotel This homage to the Bloomsbury Group painters offers plenty to catch the eye. Features such as an honesty bar and film nights are nice touches. www.firmdalehotels.com
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TRANSPORT AND TOURS
Travel essentials Our easy-to-follow guide to help you get your bearings in the capital
GETTING TO THE CAPITAL London officially has six airports, but most international visitors come into either Gatwick Airport or Heathrow. From the former, you can get the Gatwick Express non-stop train service into London Victoria
station in around 30 minutes. Trains run up to four times an hour and cost from £17.80 for a single and £33.70 for a return. Booking online saves 10 per cent off the price at the train station, and if you are travelling in a group of three to nine adults, booking
Clockwise from this image: Farringdon Station with St Paul's and The Shard in the background; Trafalgar Square; an Oyster card; map of the London Underground
together in advance will save you up to 34 per cent off the normal price. Southern trains also serve London Victoria, as well as London Bridge and Clapham Junction (tickets from £12 single; journey time around 30 minutes to Victoria). Thameslink trains run to London Bridge, London Blackfriars, St Pancras International and Farringdon (from £11 single; journey time around 30 minutes to London Bridge). Heathrow Express is a non-stop service from the airport to Paddington station and takes as little as 15 minutes, depending which terminal you are travelling from. Trains run every 15 minutes. Singles cost from £22, with returns at £37, while if you book at least 90 days in advance you can get tickets for just £5.50 each way. Alternatively, TfL Rail trains take around 30 minutes to get to Paddington and cost £5.10 for a single ticket (you can pay with your Oyster card). Trains are useful if you’re staying near the Paddington, Lancaster Gate or Bayswater areas; if further afield consider travelling from the airport by Tube on the Piccadilly line, with central stops such as Knightsbridge, Green Park, Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden (50-60 minutes).
PHOTOS: © CHARLES BOWMAN/ALAMY/JON ARNOLD / AWL IMAGES
www.gatwickexpress.com; www.heathrowexpresscom; tfl.gov.uk
GETTING AROUND While London is undoubtedly huge, many of the biggest attractions are within walking distance of each other, and sometimes taking a stroll between Tube stations (say from Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square) makes much more sense than travelling underground. That said, Londoners are very proud of the Tube network and you can pick up a colour
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TRANSPORT AND TOURS
PHOTOS: © RICHARD TAYLOR/4 CORNERS IMAGES/STUART KELLY/ALAMY
Clockwise from left:
map from all Tube stations, which will help you navigate the different lines. When it comes to buying tickets, though single fares are still available, by far the most economical way to travel is to use a tap-andgo Oyster card. This smartcard is a quick and easy way to pay once you’re in the city, reduces the cost of fares and can be used on Tubes, buses, trams, the DLR, most train services, Thames Clipper River Bus services
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and the Emirates Air Line. If you’re in London for at least five days, it’s worth getting a seven-day Travelcard loaded onto your Oyster card, so you can hop on and off public transport as many times as you like. A seven-day Travelcard covering zones 1 and 2 costs £36.10. Visitor Oyster Cards can be bought in advance and posted to your home address. They cost £5 to activate, plus however much credit you’d like to top up by. You can reclaim any unused credit at the end of your trip, or (since they don’t expire) save the card for your next visit. If you are in a rush or simply want to travel in a bit more luxury (and don’t mind being held up in traffic), then hail a black cab, which can be spotted on all main roads and often line up outside train stations. Taxis are run on meters and cost more than the Tube (about £15-20 for a journey of
10-20 minutes) but can be a nice way of seeing the city, plus most of them now accept credit and debit cards. tfl.gov.uk TOURS The choice of sightseeing tours is seemingly endless. If you’re short of time and want to cover a wide area, ticking off the big sights as you go, a hop-on-hop-off bus tour can be a good bet. Try Big Bus London, which offers four different routes on one-, twoor three-day tours, including a one-way river cruise. Tickets cost from £35.10 online for a one-day pass (£39 on board). Alternatively, walking tours provide a more in-depth perspective. Blue Badge Tourist Guides are reliable and experienced and offer tours on everything from royal London to Harry Potter. www.bigbustours.com; britainsbestguides.org LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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2020 DIRECTORY
T
ired of London, tired of life, so the saying goes, and we couldn't agree more. The capital's attractions – big and small, grand and lowkey, ancient and modern – are too numerous to be contained within the pages of this guide. You could spend a lifetime in London and never visit the same place twice: the sheer variety of the city's attractions is astonishing. Whether you have a day, a week or more at your disposal, our London 2020 Directory is packed with inspiration to help you choose what to see and where to shop, eat and stay: all you need to get the most out of this fascinating city.
PHOTOS: © VISITLONDON.COM/JON REID/ANTBUCHET
DIRECTORY
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132 TOURS & EXCURSIONS 137 MUSEUMS 140 ACCOMMODATION 142 ATTRACTIONS 146 FOOD, DRINK & SHOPPING LONDON | 2020 GUIDE
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Thames Tigers 88 London Ltd, 2 Vinegar Street, London E1W 2QQ T: +44 (0)20 7871 3097 www.thamestigers.com
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et your ticket for a trip to remember. Ride a Tiger through London! Jump on at Blackfriars Pier and see the sights of the world’s greatest city from a different perspective. See Tate Modern, The Tower of London and get the selfie of all selfies as you pass under the iconic Tower Bridge. Then hold on as we blast through historic Wapping, past Canary Wharf, the Cutty Sark at Greenwich to the O2 Arena and back for home. The Thames Tigers are the largest rigid inflatable boats operating on the River Thames and, equipped with Ullman suspension seats, shock and vibration will be minimised making the ride not only fun but more comfortable. This will be a trip you’ll never forget!
Tour & Explore London & Beyond T: +44 (0)794 710 3318 E: vaniabr@brasilianguidelondon.com www.brasilianguidelondon.com
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ello, my name is Vania and I am a qualified Blue Badge Tourist Guide. My tours are engaging, fun and informative and can be tailored to suit your requirements, whether you want to visit royal palaces, galleries, museums, parks, or the shops and entertainment venues of the West End. If you wish to venture outside London, I can plan a wonderful day to some of England’s most charming places such as Windsor, Bath or the Cotswolds. Tours can be adapted to suit the first time visitor or the London enthusiast and I can deliver personalised individual tours in both English and Portuguese. If you would like a professional, reliable and entertaining guide to take you around the many sites of London and its surroundings, I can help you to plan a perfect tour.
Westways Carriage Horses T: +44 (0)7734 050094 E: info@westwayscarriagehorses.co.uk
Q
uintessential British experiences don’t get much better than a horse-drawn carriage ride through the magnificent grounds of Woburn Abbey, home of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford. Take a trip back in time with an enchanting horse-drawn carriage ride through the grounds of this prestigious country estate, Europe’s largest privately owned deer park and home to over 1,200 deer. Both open-topped and enclosed carriages are available for family and friends to enjoy on a journey of up to two hours, starting from Woburn Village and returning to the renowned Woburn Hotel, where afternoon tea can be served (optional, but highly recommended.) In addition, why not escape for the weekend and turn your visit into an overnight stay at the award winning Woburn hotel, before embarking on a VIP tour of Woburn Safari Park .
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TOURS AND EXCURSIONS
Discover diversity T on The Northbank T: +44 (0)20 3697 9270 www.thenorthbank.london
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he Northbank is home to some of London’s most famous art venues, architecture, theatres, bars and restaurants. Situated to the north of the Thames and stretching from Trafalgar Square in the west to the Royal Courts of Justice and Temple Gardens in the east, iconic London institutions including the National Gallery and The Savoy call the Northbank home. The area has a long history as a cultural hub, having emerged as an entertainment district in the early 20th century, and this reputation has grown in recent years. You’ll now find an exhibition to explore, a show to watch, and an olde worlde pub to drink in at every turn. Somerset House is just one of the world-famous attractions that all the family can enjoy on a day out. Shopping on the Northbank will give you a taste of both old and new London. From Stanley Gibbons, the world’s biggest stamp shop, and Twinings Tea Shop, to high street chains and hidden gems. The area also boasts an outstanding food and drink scene. From London’s most central micro-brewery at Temple Brew House to the capital’s oldest and perhaps most atmospheric wine bar at Gordon’s, and world renowned venues such as The American Bar at The Savoy, there is something for everyone to sip on. The Northbank offers dining from across the globe; highlights include ROKA which offers Japanese specialities in abundance and Indigo which showcases foraged foods and seasonal ingredients from across the British Isles. With so much on offer for visitors whether a day-tripper, a local worker or a tourist - make sure the Northbank is on your London ‘must see’ list.
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smallcarBIGCITY
Black Cab Heritage Tours
8 Northumberland Avenue, London, WC2N 5BY T: +44 (0)20 7839 6737 E: info@smallcarbigcity.com www.smallcarBIGCITY.com
250 Broadway, Twydall, Kent, ME8 6DT T: +44 (0)7853 128823 E: contact@blackcabheritagetours.co.uk www.blackcabheritagetours.co.uk
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T
e believe that visitors to London should feel like locals. We have restored a fleet of classic Mini Coopers and trained a team of passionate local Londoners to show you this great city from a different perspective. COST: Experiences start at £149 per car for a 1hr Landmarks of London Tour. (3 people can travel in each car, 4+ will travel in multiple cars)
here can be no better way to get up close and personal with ALL of London’s famous landmarks than in a traditional London Black Cab with a knowledgeable and affable London cabbie, who is also an experienced London Tour Guide accredited by City, University of London. The vehicles can accommodate up to six passengers including wheelchairs – and are licensed by Transport for London. OPEN: Tours available all-year from 7am to 10pm. COST: Tour rates start from £170 per service (not per person).
Twizy Tours 21 Bryanston Street, Marble Arch, London, W1H 7AB T: +44 (0)7376 428363 E: help@twizytours.com www.twizytours.com
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eet Twizy. The self-drive phenomenon combining the best sights and sounds of London with immersive entertainment for both visitors and locals alike. Twizy Tours offers a unique way to experience the city and create unforgettable memories that will become social media highlights and stories to tell your friends. Twizy Tours puts you in the driver’s seat of your very own four-wheeled city adventure. Each 100 per cent electric, two-seat, Union Jack-wrapped Twizy is fitted with a bespoke GPS entertainment system to guide you through your sightseeing journey whilst playing immersive narration, music and captive reenactments that bring the city to life as you go. Twizy Tours has experiences for everyone ranging from the historical to seasonal. Choose your flavour and enjoy an exhilarating tour fit for the royal family in the Driving Miss Markle experience, or dive into the sights and sounds of Britain’s rich and infamous history in Royal Flash or Rule Britannia. Alternatively, if you wish to rent a Twizy without a tour and be free to roam at your own pace, then this is the experience for you. Prices and bookings are for one Twizy or tour. Each Twizy accommodates two people and all drivers must be at least 21 years old and have held their driving licence for a minimum of one year (licences are accepted from any country.) Please visit their website to access the full terms and conditions. OPEN: All year round, 24 hours subject to availability. Bookings on website from 9am to 5pm (subject to change). Later by arrangement.
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TOURS AND EXCURSIONS
British Tours 615 Linen Hall, 162-168 Regent Street, London, W1B 5TE T: +44 (0)20 7038 0688 E: tours@britishtours.com www.britishtours.com
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ritish Tours Ltd is Britain’s longest-established private tour operator. We specialise in personal and flexible touring with the best guides in Britain. Groups of up to six people travel by car with their own driver-guide and larger groups by minibus or coach. You can also tour on foot or using public transport. Our expert guides are chosen for their knowledge, special interests, backgrounds and personalities. Your guide will collect you by car from any central location and return you to your hotel. Our London day tours include a flexible London Sightseeing Tour, a Greenwich Tour, and a British Museums Tour amongst others. As well as covering the most famous landmarks, we pride ourselves on showing our clients the more authentic, less “touristy” sights. Some of our special interest tours include Stonehenge at Dawn, Overnight in a Castle, Film Locations, Normandy D-Day sights by private plane, private views of the Crown Jewels and many more. We also offer private tours in France and Italy. Spend a day in Versailles, drive through Champagne country or take an overnight tour of France and visit the WWII sights in Normandy. Take a day-trip to Ancient Rome to see the Colosseum or spend two days in Italy visiting Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. British Tours Ltd is ideal for families and small private groups who want to see the real Britain away from the large coach groups.
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TOURS AND EXCURSIONS
Greenwich Royal Tours
Chocolate Ecstasy Tours
Small groups - Unique tours - Local guides
T: +44 (0)20 3432 1306 E: info@chocolateecstasytours.com www.chocolateecstasytours.com
Greenwich, London Tollfree: +44 (0)800 1804565 www.greenwichroyaltours.com
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reenwich Royal Tours specialise in small group guided walking tours in Greenwich and central London. Greenwich tours: Best of Greenwich Day Tour; Greenwich Highlights Half Day Tour; Greenwich Food Tour; Greenwich Peninsula Tour and National Maritime Museum Tour. London tours: Best of London Day Tour; Secret Gardens of London Tour; Art in London Tour; Shakespeare in London Tour and Law in London Tour. Max. 6 per tour. Private tour option. Book today to get your chosen dates!
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njoy London’s history with a fun and friendly guide, with delicious tastings in some of the city’s finest chocolate boutiques, patisseries, bakeries and gelaterias. Chocolate Ecstasy Tours have had rave reviews of their walking and tasting experiences for fifteen years. Tours are organised by founder and international food judge Jennifer Earle, with a brand new Sweet Vegan Tour launching this year. Every guest will leave feeling completely full of delicious chocolate, ice cream or sweet treats! OPEN: Tours operate year-round almost every day. ADMISSION: Starting at £40. Use LONDONGUIDE for a 5 percent discount.
London Luxury Chauffeuring www.llccars.co.uk T: +44 (0)208 004 1555 E: info@llccars.co.uk
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ondon Luxury Chauffeuring (LLC) offers luxurious cars and highly professional chauffeurs for prestigious drives in London and surrounding areas. One of the leading chauffeur car hire companies in the capital, LLC has moreLthan 15L yearsC of experience. Luxury cars on offer include the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, S-Class and V-Class as well as the classic Rolls-Royce Ghost to ensure you travel in comfort and style. Forget the crowds using public transport. LLC can provide you with a meet and greet service from the very moment you step off the plane with their airport transfers from Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and or Luton. All your luggage can simply go in the boot so you don’t need to worry about carrying it on and off the train. During your stay, they can also organise tours around the capital – taking you to the London Eye or Buckingham Palace – and escort you on day trips from London to historic towns and cities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Bath or Windsor. Trained to the highest standard, the chauffeurs with LLC are known for their politeness and affability, taking the stress out of your journey and ensuring you get to see all the key attractions. Many also speak other languages. Look out for the London Luxury Chauffeuring loyalty scheme, too, enabling you to save when you book multiple drives and trips. ONDON
UXURY
HAUFFEURING
PRICES: Hourly rates from £35, depending on the model of car. Tours from £255 for a half day (5 hours) and £550 for a full day (10 hours)
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MUSEUMS
Photos: Florence Nightingale Museum
Florence Nightingale Museum 2 Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7EW T: +44 (0)020 7188 4400 www.florence-nightingale.co.uk
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eading the international bicentenary celebrations of Florence Nightingale, the social reformer and founder of modern nursing, is London’s Florence Nightingale Musuem. Its landmark exhibition, ‘Nightingale in 200 Objects, People and Places: Leader, Icon and Pioneer’, will offer unparalleled insight into the real life of the woman behind the mythical ‘lady with the lamp’. Located on the South Bank and running from 8 March 2020 to 7 March 2021, the exhibition will explore Florence’s heroic role in the Crimean War, which propelled her to fame, as well as shine a light on the next thirty years of her life, during which she revolutionised nursing while suffering physical illness and depression. Key exhibits include her ‘lamp’; medicine chest; and the first nursing uniform, featuring the Scutari Sash designed by Florence. It is a must-see in 2020, the year of this national heroine’s 200th birthday, though other events, including Evensong and a lamp-lit wreath-laying at her statue, make up the museum’s year-long celebrations. OPEN: Daily from 10.00am until 5.00pm (last entry at 4.30pm). ADMISSION: Adult: £9. Children (under 16): £5. Student: £6. Concession: £7. Families (2 adults and up to 4 children under 16): £20 (additional children £3). Under 5s: free. Carers: free.
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MUSEUMS
Household Cavalry Museum Horse Guards, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2AX T: +44 (0)20 7930 3070 E: museum@householdcavalry.co.uk www.householdcavalrymuseum.co.uk
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royal gem in the heart of ceremonial London, the Household Cavalry Museum is your secret entrance to the famous Horse Guards building and a world of horses, stables and dressing up to boot. An iconic must-see, the Household Cavalry are world famous as HM The Queen’s mounted bodyguard. Recognisable worldwide by their colourful uniforms and remarkable horses, these sentries have guarded the Horse Guards building – the entrance to the Royal Residences – since the 1660s. The museum celebrates this tradition and showcases the best items from one of the world’s finest regimental collections alongside superb interactives and graphics. You can see the troopers at work, caring for the horses, from the historic Stables Gallery and even try on real uniforms. Selfies encouraged. Colourful sentry changes happen hourly and the Guard Change and Garrison Inspection occur daily. This is your chance to see unique British pageantry at its best. The museum is open daily with the exception of Easter Friday, marathon day and Christmas Eve to Boxing Day inclusive. Please see website for ceremonial season closures. OPEN: 1 April to 31 October 10am to 6pm; 1 November to 31 March 10am to 5pm. ADMSSION: Adults: £9. Children: £7. Seniors: £7. Families (2 adults, 3 children): £24.
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MUSEUMS
London Canal Museum
The Foundling Museum
12-13 New Wharf Road, London, N1 9RT T: +44 (0)20 7713 0836 E: info@canalmuseum.org.uk www.canalmuseum.uk
40 Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AZ T: +44 (0)20 7841 3600 E: enquiries@foundlingmuseum.org.uk www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk
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he museum tells the story of London’s colourful canals, their boats, cargoes and horses, and of the families who lived afloat to make a meagre living from carrying goods. Enjoy the traditional artwork of “roses and castles”, too. A second theme is the Victorian ice trade, for which the building was built in the 1860s. Two huge ice wells remain beneath the floor and visitors can peer down and marvel at the way ice from Norway kept London’s milk cool. OPEN: All year, Tues -Sun and bank holiday Mondays, 10am-4.30pm. Late opening to 7.30pm on the first Thurs of each month. ADMISSION: Adults: £6; cons: £5; children £3.50; family entry £14.
ituated in the heart of Bloomsbury, the Foundling Museum explores the fascinating history of the Foundling Hospital, the UK’s first children’s charity and public art gallery. Discover the intriguing story behind this important institution and the children who grew up there. See original interiors, poignant artefacts and thought-provoking exhibitions. You’ll also learn about the Hospital’s benefactors including Hogarth and Handel, or take the opportunity to attend a lunchtime concert, curator’s talk or object handling session. OPEN: Tues to Sat 10am to 5pm; Sun 11am to 5pm; closed Mon. ADMISSION: Adults: £9.50. Concessions: £7.50. Under 21s, Foundling Friends and National Art Pass holders: free.
Dr Johnson’s House 17 Gough Square, London, EC4A 3DE T: +44 (0)20 7353 3745 www.drjohnsonshouse.org
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r Johnson’s House is a charming 300-year-old townhouse, nestled amongst a maze of courts and alleys in the historic City of London. Samuel Johnson, the writer and wit, lived and worked here in the middle of the eighteenth century, compiling his great Dictionary of the English Language in the Garret, amongst other significant works. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Johnson is the second most-quoted Englishman, and he most famously said ‘...when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’. Today, the House is open to the public with a collection relating to Johnson, a research library, restored interiors and a wealth of original features, which include historic panelling, a fine open staircase, wooden floorboards, a quirky cellarette cupboard, coal holes and even the original door handles. The eighteenth-century front door still has its historic anti-burglary devices intact, including a heavy chain with corkscrew latch and spiked iron bar over the fanlight. Try on our Georgian costumes and explore with the family trail, mull over Johnson’s great Dictionary in the Garret where it was written or simply relax in the Library and soak up the peaceful atmosphere. Often described by visitors as a hidden gem, 17 Gough Square is a tranquil spot in the midst of the bustling City. OPEN: October to April, 11am to 5pm and May to September, 11am to 5.30pm ADMISSION: Adults: £7, children: £3.50.
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ACCOMMODATION
Ace Hotel London Shoreditch 100 Shoreditch High Street, London, E1 6JQ T: +44 (0)20 7613 9800 www.acehotel.com/london @acehotellondon
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ce Hotel London Shoreditch hangs its hat in London’s most creative, engaged district. A hub for galleries, theatre and design, Shoreditch is home to Brick Lane Market, landmark creatives and renegade artists from around the world. Walkable, bike-able and let’s-get-lost-able, Shoreditch is the open-air version of what they aim for each Ace Hotel to be: somewhere you don’t want to leave. From their rooftop bar and lounge, you can enjoy panoramic views of the city. With DJs, dancing, cocktails and Sunday brunch, the bar and terrace is open to groups large and small, raucous affairs and intimate gatherings. Meanwhile the hotel’s fine dining brasserie, Hoi Polloi, serves up English modernist food. Chef Peter Woods takes a fiercely seasonal approach, offering the forward-thinking local area and hotel guests a unique dining experience. On top of this, the hotel also holds the friendly Bulldog Edition cafe helmed by a World Barista Champion and a World Cup Tasters Champion, who provide its guests with a passion for coffee and the very best beans. Finally, Ace Hotel London Soreditch offers a stellar late-night programming and drinks at their celestial basement artspace, Miranda. Plus, if you like sleeping, – and don’t we all – they’ve got the comfiest beds in the universe, too. They can’t wait to see you.
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ACCOMMODATION
The Independent Traveller Apartments T: + 44 (0)1392 860807 E: help@gowithit.co.uk www.visitapartmentslondon.co.uk
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ook your London apartment the safe and easy way. Established in 1980, The Independent Traveller is a family business with a selection of apartments, from studios to four-bedroom apartments to suit every budget. We offer a personal yet fast booking service - simply email us your dates , number of guests and any particular requirements , and we’ll reply with available suggestions to suit your party. OPEN: Available all year, from 3 nights to 3 months or more RATES: Studios/1 bedroom from £100 per night; 2 bedroom apartments from £175 per night; 3/4 bedroom apartments from £250 per night. No booking fees.
Coach House Rentals T: +44 (0)20 8355 3192 E: mail@chsrentals.com www.chsrentals.com
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ive like a local. Stay in one of our vacation rentals and spend your holiday in a real London home – you will have the place to yourself and we provide a full concierge service, including arranging an airport transfer. With some 50 hand-picked London holiday rental properties and the services of our experienced reservation team, we can help you choose what’s right for you, taking the hassle and frustration out of choosing and booking your ideal London holiday home. Join the many thousands of happy guests we’ve looked after since 2001.
Stay QM Residences Reception, Sir Christopher France House, Westfield Way, London, E1 4QA T: +44 (0)20 7882 8177 E: stay@qmul.ac.uk www.qmul.ac.uk/stay
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tay QM is the individual and group accommodation team at Queen Mary University of London. Their accommodation is located in vibrant east London – in zone two – just one mile from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Canary Wharf and the City of London. This excellent location ensures that you won’t spend your entire visit on public transport and can make the most of your time to London. All accommodation is located in a village-style layout bordering Regent’s Canal, with a 24-hour reception, laundry, restaurant and complimentary wifi. The complex contains over 1,000 single, modern and inviting ensuite rooms grouped in flats of four to ten bedrooms, with a communal space to relax in each flat. This makes them inviting for singles or couples, as well as ideal for group bookings who are able to comfortably and freely spend time together during their holiday. This campus environment – with accommodation, reception and restaurants adjacent to each other and all in easy walking distance – is suited to those who seek single rooms with private bathrooms close to central London on a budget. For comfort, convenience and low cost, Stay QM could offer everything you need; rooms have recently received a three-star campus accommodation grading from Visit England. This year they are available during the summer months from 10 June to 6 September 2020. COST: Rooms from £40 per night. Bed and breakfast from £50 per night (£60 in July).
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ATTRACTIONS
Canterbury Cathedral
Carquest Rentals
The Precincts, Canterbury, CT1 2EH T: +44 (0)1227 762862 E: enquiries@canterbury-cathedral.org www.canterbury-cathedral.org
34 Aldershot Road, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 8AF T: +44 (0) 1444 471289 E: info@carquest-rentals.com www.carquest-rentals.com
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o visit to the UK is complete without exploring the wonderful Canterbury Cathedral – UNESCO World Heritage Site, Mother Church of the Anglican Communion, and seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Cathedral’s history spans over 1,400 years, telling thrilling stories that have shaped England – King Henry IV and the Black Prince are entombed here – and 2020 marks the 850th anniversary of St Thomas Becket’s murder in the Cathedral with a series of unique ‘Becket 2020’ events planned. OPEN: All year, 9am to 5pm (4.30pm on Sundays). ADMISSION: See website for details.
arquest Rentals is a bespoke and personal vehicle hire company providing customers with both cars and minibuses. Carquest offers a fast, easy and professional service, allowing you to drive away from the airport in under 15 minutes with no queues, no shuttles and no fuss. Operating out of Heathrow, Gatwick and other London airports on request, cars are available seven days a week. Choose from small economy cars to prestige Mercedes E-Classes or Mitsubishi Shoguns and SUVs – all at competitive rates. OPEN: Mon-Fri 8am-6pm; Sat 8am-12pm.
Royal Tunbridge Wells T: +44 (0)1892 515675 www.visittunbridgewells.com
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xperience a different pace of life the Tunbridge Wells way. Get away from the commotion of London and take a break in the only historic spa town in the South East of England, just an hour’s train ride from the capital. Spa breaks, rural rambles, cosy country pubs, delicious local food, live music festivals: there is plenty for visitors to experience across the region. Royal Tunbridge Wells lies at the heart of one of the most scenic stretches of countryside in England, nestled in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. With easy access to the countryside, here you can take part in outdoor adventures like mountain biking, rock climbing, yoga in the forest and foraging for your dinner! If you’d prefer a more relaxing stay, you can shop in designer boutiques, admire the stunning architecture or simply lose yourself in a luxurious hotel and spa visit. The Pantiles, the famous white colonnaded walkway and the historic heart of Royal Tunbridge Wells, retains much of the charm and buzz of its Georgian heyday, with unique boutiques and cafés. The site of the original Chalybeate Spring (a natural well) discovered in 1606 is also found here. Its reputation for health-giving properties was the reason for the town’s growth as a fashionable place to visit. In Tunbridge Wells there is a higher concentration of castles, historic houses and gardens than any other area in England, making it the ideal getaway from the city. Kent is known as the ‘Garden of England’ for good reason - perfect for long walks, quaint country villages and secret gardens! Notable gems include: Bedgebury Pinetum, Bewl Water, Penshurst Place, Hever Castle, Scotney Castle, Hole Park, Pashley Manor Gardens and the world famous Sissinghurst Castle Garden.
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TWBC/D Hodgkinson
Hole Park.
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ATTRACTIONS
Skuna – Hot Tub & BBQ Boats Skuna Boats, West India Quay, London, E14 4AL T: +44 (0)207 205 2827 E: info@skunaboats.com www.skunaboats.com
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kuna Boats provide two of London’s most unique and highly rated experiences, providing unforgettable adventures on the Thames in their Hot Tub and BBQ boats. The Hot Tub boat is the world’s first hot tub that you can sail around in. They can be rented privately or as part of a tour. The water is heated via a stove and is a wonderful experience at all times of year. The BBQ boats operate in summer, providing a chance to dine on the water and take in the sights as you feast. OPEN: 7 days per week, all year round. Please see website for price details.
Cadogan Hall 5 Sloane Terrace, London, SW1X 9DQ T: +44 (0)20 7730 4500 www.cadoganhall.com
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adogan Hall is an iconic music venue in the heart of Chelsea, London. The hall hosts a range of events that enjoy intimate acoustics, from classical music with its Resident Orchestra – the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – or the BBC Proms, to rock, jazz and pop, comedy, talks and musical theatre. Originally built as a church in 1907, Cadogan Hall opened as a music venue in 2004, yet maintains many of its charming and unique features beloved by audiences and performers alike. OPEN: Most days, see website for details of events and ticket prices.
Carlyle’s House
The Ginstitute
24 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, SW3 5HL T: +44 (0)20 7352 7087 E: carlyleshouse@nationaltrust.org.uk www.nationaltrust.org.uk/carlyleshouse
The Distillery, 186 Portobello Road, London W11 1LA T: +44 (0)20 3034 2234 E: info@theginstitute.com www.theginstitute.com
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joy for anyone interested in the Victorian period and its leading characters, this Chelsea house was the home of a celebrity couple. Opened to the public in 1895, the house presents an entertaining view of the Carlyles’ illustrious friends, including Charles Dickens, John Ruskin and the Brownings. As William Makepeace Thackeray put it, “Tom Carlyle lives in perfect dignity in a little house in Chelsea with a snuffy Scotch maid to open the door and the best company in England ringing at it.” OPEN: 29 February to 1 November 2020, Wed to Sun 11am to 4.30pm. ADMISSION: Adults: £8.50. Children: £4.25. Family: £21.25. NT members: free.
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isit the highly acclaimed Ginstitute for an in-depth journey through gin’s colourful and chequered past. Once you know your history, your Ginstructor will guide you through to a Blending Room to nose your way through an eclectic range of botanical distillates and choose your favourites to create your own bespoke blend of gin. You’ll be lubricated by a multitude of gin cocktails along the way and leave the session with a bottle of your own personal blend to take home. OPEN: Sessions held seven days a week, year-round. 18 and overs only, pre-booking required. ADMISSION: £120 per person.
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ATTRACTIONS
Bletchley Park Bletchley, Milton Keynes, MK3 6EB T: +44 (0)1908 640404 E: enquiries@bletchleypark.org.uk www.bletchleypark.org.uk
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ust 40 minutes by train from London Euston, Bletchley Park is the historic home of British codebreaking and a birthplace of modern information technology. It played a major role in the Second World War, producing secret intelligence that had a direct and profound influence on the outcome of the conflict. Now an internationally renowned heritage site and accredited museum with immersive exhibitions, activities and events, visitors can discover the stories of the incredible men and women whose vital work here stayed secret for so long. HIGHLIGHTS Visit the restored codebreaking huts, with their Second World War interiors faithfully recreated, the mansion and hands-on displays in the blocks. Explore the beautiful grounds and historic buildings with an interactive multimedia guide and enjoy the atmospheric soundscapes, galleries and exhibitions. Visit Hut 11A to see ‘The Bombe Breakthrough’ exhibition and learn how this Polish-inspired machine helped the Allies break into Enigma. Not to be missed is a new immersive cinematic experience - ‘D-Day: Interception, Intelligence, Invasion’ – detailing for the first time how intelligence produced at Bletchley Park directly impacted the Normandy Invasion. OPEN: Every day, see website for more details and to book.
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ATTRACTIONS
Clapham Common C ww.thisisclapham.co.uk/visit
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lapham Common is one of the most desirable places to live in London and home to A-listers such as Vivienne Westwood and Margot Robbie. Situated ten minutes from Central London on the Northern line, it’s a great place to visit too. Here are some recommendations... – Food: The Dairy, Counter Culture and Sorella are owned by celebratory chef Robin Gill and draw on influences from Italy and the Basque region of Spain. For a world-class dining experience try Trinity Restaurant, which was awarded a Michelin Star in 2016. – Drink: WC (Wine and Charcuterie) is situated underground in a converted public toilet by Clapham Common Tube Station. Venn Street Records offers live music throughout the week and for something completely different, the Two Brewers is a long-established LGBTQ venue with cabaret every weekend. – WW2 Tunnel Tours: Explore WW2 air raid shelters situated 33 metres under the streets of Clapham and now converted into the world’s first underground farm. This is your chance to discover the fascinating history of the tunnels, how the farm came to be and its future role in a sustainable world. – History: Trinity Church on Clapham Common was at the epicentre of the abolition of the Slave Trade. A plaque on the church commemorates the world-defining events that took place here. There are six other historical plaques that commemorate famous people who have lived in the area, such as Graham Green.
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FOOD, DRINK AND SHOPPING
Tea and Tattle Tea Rooms
Classic British Fountain Pens
41 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3PE T: +44 (0)7722 192703 E: teaandtattle@googlemail.com www.apandtea.co.uk
T: +44 (0)333 006 4646 E: sales@.bespokebritishpens.co.uk www.bespokebritishpens.co.uk
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ea and Tattle is a unique yet traditional tea room that is full of charm. Located opposite the British Museum in Bloomsbury, it is the perfect place to stop off and enjoy a delicious lunch or afternoon tea. You can choose from an exciting assortment of loose leaf teas, fresh coffee, smoothies, sandwiches, pastries, scones, jams and various home-made cakes. The tea room is entered through the family-run book shop and gallery, which was established in 1903. OPEN: Tea and Tattle is open Monday to Friday from 9am until 6.30pm. On Saturday it is open from 12pm until 5pm. Reservations welcome.
ICE BAR London 31-33 Heddon Street, Mayfair, London, W1B 4BN Ë Piccadilly circus T: +44 (0)20 7478 8910 E: res@belowzerolondon.com www. icebarlondon.com
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exts and emails are great, but there are occasions when only a handwritten note will do. Rediscover the delights of ink on paper with a classic British pen, handmade in the heart of England. Bespoke British Pens offer nearly 100 British-made fountain pens including classic brands like Conway Stewart, as well as iconic models such as the Churchill, the Winston, the Shakespeare, the Doctor’s Pen and the Lawyer’s Pen. With their elegant designs and outstanding quality, they are a pleasure to use and a delight to own. Rollerballs, pencils and ballpoint pens are also available. Your pen will always remind you of your trip to London.
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n your next visit to London do not miss a trip to ICE BAR London, one of London’s most iconic and unique venues that has recently celebrated their 15th anniversary. Visit one of London’s most iconic venues, the ICE BAR. Your experience includes a faux-fur hooded cape and gloves to keep you cosy in the chilly -5 degree temperatures. Your general entry ticket includes your first ice cocktail served in a bespoke frozen ice glass. Favourites include the Norse Negroni (Beefeater gin, Martini Rosso, Aperol, mandarin purée, pink grapefruit juice) and Bifrost Bite (Absolut Blue vodka, Passoa, passion fruit purée, lychee juice, lemon juice). After the freezing ICE BAR, the Fire Bar serves a different selection of cocktails within a contrasting setting, lit by a dramatic backdrop of flickering flames. Cocktails include the Rum Blazer (Havana Especial Rum, crème de framboise liqueur, grenadine syrup, fresh strawberry, fresh blackberry, fresh raspberry, cinnamon powder, served warm) and Kiss from a Rose (Four Roses Bourbon, passion fruit, lemon, cranberry juice). These can also be enjoyed out on the heated al fresco terrace of the Fire Bar, which offers a beautiful space to sit on the bustling Heddon Street, alongside the iconic David Bowie telephone booth. OPEN: Mon 2-10.15pm, Tues-Thurs 1.15-11pm, Fri 1.15pm-12.30am, Sat 11am-12.30am and Sun 12.30-10.15pm ADMISSION: Starts at £14 and children under 9 go free.
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rmg.co.uk
Only 8 minutes from London Bridge
Unmissable Visit Cutty Sark and discover the dramatic history of the fastest ship of its time. Royal Museums Greenwich National Maritime Museum | Royal Observatory | Cutty Sark | The Queen’s House