Cleopatra’s Needle - London - Places of Interest

London, Paris and New York all share a similar landmark, an ancient Egyptian obelisk presented to their countries by the rulers of Egypt in the 19th century, the ones in London and New York being a pair.

London’s Cleopatra’s Needle stands along the banks of the Thames on Victoria Embankment between Waterloo and Westminster Bridges. It was originally made for Pharaoh Thutmose III around 1460 BC and erected in the city of Heliopolis with hieroglyphic inscriptions added 200 years later by Ramesses II. Over a thousand years later the Romans moved the obelisks to Alexandria where they were eventually toppled over and buried in sand.

In the early 1800s Britain defeated Napoleon’s forces in battles in and around Egypt and in 1819 the Viceroy of Egypt Muhammed Ali presented the obelisk to Britain in commemoration of these victories. The Needle is 68ft high and weighs about 180 tons and the cost and difficulty of moving it to Britain prevented it arriving in London until 1878 after a specially built vessel was commissioned to take it on its journey. Cleopatra’s Needle is flanked on either side by a pair of large bronze sphinxes which were added in 1882.

The Needle is about 200 metres to the left of Embankment Underground station as you face the River Thames.

Leadenhall Market - London - Places of Interest

If you’re around the Liverpool Street or Monument areas of the City of London its worth taking a walk along Gracechurch Street to have a look at the site of one of the oldest markets in London.

Leadenhall Market has one of the most distinct looks of any shopping or market place in London, with cobbled walkways and colonnaded rows of shops supporting a wrought iron and glass curved roof. The walls, columns and shop fronts are all decorated with an ornate maroon, cream and gold leaf look that is a complete contrast to the futuristic Lloyd’s of London building which stands right next to Leadenhall, outside the market’s east entrance.

The Romans originally built a forum on the site in the 1st century and it’s been a food market since the Middle Ages. In 1321 it became the meeting place for poulterers in London and in 1397 cheesemongers were bound to take their produce there. Parts of the market were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and when it was rebuilt it was divided into the Beef Market, Green Yard and Herb Market.

The current structure was built in 1881 and designed by the City of London’s architect Horace Jones. Over the years Leadenhall was famous for its fresh fish, meat and poultry but nowadays the shops have been converted into bars, pubs, restaurants, cafes and clothing stores which are open Monday-Friday from 7am-4pm and are popular with the areas office workers.

Recreating a bit of the old tradition, every Friday from 10am-4pm stalls set up in the middle of the market selling gourmet food items. Fans of Harry Potter might also be interested to know it was used as the setting for Diagon Alley in the film version of JK Rowling’s first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Leadenhall Market is located off Gracechurch Street between Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street, just look for the Lloyd’s building if you can’t find it. The nearest Tubes are Monument, Bank and Liverpoool Street.

The Old Operating Theatre-London - London - Places of Interest

If you’re ever unfortunate enough to have to under go a major operation at least be thankful its going to be in the 21st century and that medical techniques are well advanced. There’s a museum in London that provides a look back at the way our ancestors had to deal with surgery when chances of surviving where very much 50/50.

The Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret are in St Thomas’s church, the chapel of the medieval St Thomas’s hospital founded in the early 11th century and described as ‘ancient’ even in 1215. Its in the area just south of London Bridge although the actual St Thomas’s hospital moved in 1862 to Lambeth, currently on the south bank of the Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament. The first translation and printing of the Bible into English took place in the original hospital grounds in 1533.

St Thomas’s church was rebuilt in 1703, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and the large garret or attic room was used to store medicinal herbs as the location was dry and kept the herbs away from rats. The chapel was adjacent to the women’s ward of the hospital and in 1822 the garret was converted into an operating theatre for the women patients, because it was on the same level as the ward, gave medical students a seperate entrance and the thick wooden beams muffled the sounds of operations taking place without anaesthetics.

Before the use of gases was pioneered anaesthetics were unpredictable and might just as well kill the patient during an operation. Doctors decided is was safer to carry out surgery without them. Many patients also died from infections picked up during operations because bacteria weren’t discovered to be the cause until the mid 19th century, also unlike physicians, surgeons weren’t university trained but served an apprenticeship similar to butchers.

It became a museum after being rediscovered in 1956, almost a hundred years after the hospital moved locations. Nowadays it has a regular programme of events for visitors to experience how medicine and surgery were practiced in the past.

This April those events include Victorian Surgery, on every Saturday at 2pm, a lecture taking place in the operating theatre that demonstrates ‘the ordeal of Victorian surgery, when a patient’s only relief from agony was the speed of the surgeon’s knife.’ On the 12th April at 2pm there’s Hands On:The Power of Blood, a hands on session with medical instruments, old and new.

From 10-28 April there is a double-bill of plays under the title A Bloodless Field starting each night at 7.45pm in the operating theatre produced by theatre company Metal and Bone. The plays are The Body Snatcher, a chilling Victorian tale about an ambitious medical student who finds his conscience compromised when his anatomy class needs more bodies and The Gift a modern day story about a transplant surgeon who’s forced to question his talent. Tickets for A Bloodless Field cost £13.

The Old Operating Theatre is open daily from 10.30am-5pm and admission is £5.25 and each month there are a changing programme of events happening. Its located on St Thomas’s Street, two minutes walk from London Bridge Underground station.

Greenwich Heritage Centre - London - Places of Interest

The Greenwich Heritage Centre is on the site of the old Royal Arsenal armaments factory in Woolwich on the south bank of the Thames in the east of London. It combines the former Borough Museum and Local History Library and has a number of activities going on including providing extensive historical records of the local area for anybody trying to trace their family history.

It has a free exhibition called Inside the Arsenal telling the 400 year old story of the Royal Arsenal and Royal Woolwich Dockyard. The Royal Arsenal didn’t appear on any maps even though over 100,000 people worked there during World War 1. The exhibition tells the previously restricted stories of life in the Arsenal through films, pictures and documents and follows the advances in weaponry made there.

The centre also has a range of activities for children including illlustrated talks for schools and Saturday clubs for kids. This week there’s also a free art exhibition opening called Trigger featuring ’site-specific work by the best of the up and coming artists from SouthEast London.’ The work is inspired by the history, heritage and architecture of the Royal Arsenal and includes paintings, prints and photography. Trigger will be on show at the Heritage Centre from 14-28 April.

The Greenwich Heritage Centre is open 9am-5pm Tues-Sat and is located in Artillery Square off Beresford Street in Woolwich. The nearest train station is Woolwich Arsenal.

Royal Arsenal - London - Places of Interest

Look at street maps of London and you’ll see an area between the south bank of the River Thames, Thamesmead West and Woolwich Arsenal that has been left completely white. This ’secret’ part of London was the home since 1671 of the Royal Arsenal, Britain’s largest centre for the manufacture of military equipment and munitions and also the place where Arsenal Football Club began, hence the club’s nickname The Gunners.

The ownership of the whole 76 acre site was transfered in 1997 from the Ministry of Defence to the London Development Agency and the site is being converted into 4,200 homes, leisure facilities including restaurants, bars and shops, cinemas and light industrial use that should all be completed by 2015. In 2001 a new £15 million Royal Artillery Museum, named Firepower was opened. I haven’t been there yet but it looks pretty impressive, they’re currently on a winter opening schedule of only three days a week.

The Royal Arsenal expanded greatly due to the Crimean and First World War’s and at its peak employed 80,000 people. It was a group of these workers who formed the football club Arsenal. In the 1720’s a collection of workshops called Artificers Court and Basin Court were built on the site and in 1764 a sundial was put up over the entrance to what became known as Dial Square. This still survives today.

In 1886 some armaments workers formed a team called Dial Square and played their early games on Plumstead Common not far away. On Christmas Day 1886 they voted to change the name to Royal Arsenal and the team carried on as that until 1891 when they became Woolwich Arsenal, finally becoming just Arsenal Football Club when they moved to the Highbury area in 1913. When Arsenal moved to their new Emirates Stadium in 2006 they asked the Royal Artillery Museum if any guns were available to be placed at the new stadium’s entrance. The museum suppiled two 32 pound smooth bore cast iron guns on iron carriages that were made at Royal Arsenal in 1859.

The new Royal Arsenal development should be a big success. Its directly across the river from London City Airport and a short trip down stream from Greenwich, Canary Wharf and North Greenwich where the Dome is. Its certainly not a glamorous part of town at the moment, but if you see how areas further west along the river have changed in ten years, it could be once the regeneration is finished in 2015. One thing that might spoil the new neighbourhood is that its right near Belmarsh maximum security prison which opened in 1991 and houses lots of Britain’s terrorist and high security prisoners.

If you want to see where the greatest football club in the world originated take the SouthEastern train from Charing Cross to Woolwich Arsenal station.

Foyles bookshop in London - London - Places of Interest

Charing Cross Road has always been known for the bookshops along it, but the most famous is Foyles on the corner of Charing Cross Road and Manette Street, just a few blocks down from Tottenham Court Road station on the right hand side.

Foyles was started in 1903 by the two Foyle brothers, William and Gilbert, who began by selling second hand books. They moved into the current store in 1906 and for a long while Foyles was recognised as the largest bookshop in the world. Its still one of the biggest in Britain, spread over five floors with a huge stock of books and is still privately owned.

Foyles was always different from other bookshops, apart from the size of the shop they had so many books on just about every topic under the sun and they were all piled everywhere. It definitely wasn’t the slick marketing style of somewhere like Borders, the philosophy seemed to be order as many books as you can and let the customer root around for the one they want.
It was a great shop because they would have the book you wanted when 99% of others would not.

If you were a university student looking for some little known book on an obscure topic Foyles would be likely to stock it. They’d have a huge amount of fiction but also covered subjects like medicine, science, anything technical in depth. They also had a system where the books on shelves were arranged by publisher rather than author or subject.

One of the really idiosyncratic things they had going that always threw me when I went there was that when you bought a book you had to go to a counter and get a written invoice for the book and take that to another counter to pay for the book. Confusing and annoying if you didn’t know where the counters were or there were long lines.

Foyles has had a major makeover in the last few years and walking around it now there’s none of the books piled high clutter there used to be. They’ve also added a cafe and an art gallery which I guess they had to do to keep up with the competition.

It still a great shop to browse around and they’ll most likely have something you’ll want. Foyles is open Mon-Sat 9.30am-9pm(10pm in the run up to Christmas), Sun 12-6pm, they’re closed Christmas Day.

The Thames Barrier - London - Places of Interest

The River Thames snakes its way through the heart of London and is a tidal river for about half of its 200 mile length. It flows eastwards into the Thames Estuary and out into the North Sea and this makes areas along its course susceptible to floods, the Thames Barrier was built to protect London from the threat of serious flooding.

The last time central London was flooded was in 1928 when 14 people drowned, but it took until 1974 for construction of a flood control barrier to be started. The Thames Barrier is a series of ten separate movable gates positioned end-to-end across a 520m stretch of river, about 1.5 miles down stream from where the Millennium Dome is. The gates are pivoted and when they’re closed they seal off the upper part of the Thames from the sea. Construction was finished in 1982 and the barrier was first used a year later.

Global warming means low lying south and eastern England is under a considerable threat from floods and beside that the tide levels in the Thames Estuary have been rising by 60cm a century in relation to the land. The Thames Barrier particularly protects London from surge tides, which occur when low pressure coming across the Atlantic goes north of Scotland and pushes water from the deep ocean into the shallower North Sea. If this surge water meets a high spring tide (of which there are two a month) around the Thames Estuary, the flooding risk greatly increases.

Tides and surges can be predicted up to 36 hours in advance and the Thames Barrier can be closed in a matter of minutes although they usually allow a lot longer time to do it.
There’s a Thames Barrier Information and Learning Centre that is open to the public and has a working model of the Barrier and a video that shows its construction, operation and how flood protection works. There’s also a cafe and picnic area with great views of the barrier.

Admission is £2 and its open daily from 10.30am-4pm April-Sept, 11.30am-3.30pm Oct-March. Its located on the south bank of the Thames at Unity Way in Woolwich, the nearest rail station is Charlton about a one mile walk from the Thames Barrier. The closest Underground is North Greenwich by the Dome.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre - London - Places of Interest

On the south bank of the River Thames between Southwark and Blackfriars bridges is the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, where many of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed. The original Globe was built in 1599 and owned by the company of actors to which Shakespeare belonged. It was destroyed by fire during a performance in 1613 when a cannon used as a prop misfired setting alight the timber beams and thatched roof. It was rebuilt but closed and knocked down again by the Puritans in the mid-17th century.

The new Globe was built to the Elizabethan plan and finally opened in 1997, 200 yards from the original site, although it only holds 1,500 for performances compared to the 3,000 in Shakespeare’s day. It was also the first thatched building allowed to be built in London since the Great Fire of 1666.

Nowadays with both the stage and the audience open to the elements, performances of Shakespeare’s plays take place between May and September. Year round you can visit the Globe to take a tour of the theatre and the Globe Exhibition and learn about the costumes and clothes, special effects and music that were used in Shakespeare’s time. They also detail how Shakespeare’s plays were published and the reconstruction of the Globe.

During the October to May period you can take the tour and see the Exhibition between 10am-5pm, daily. In the summer period when performances are held you won’t be able to tour the theatre in the afternoons. Tickets for the Exhibition and tour are £9, £7.50 for the over 60s.

The Globe has a restaurant, cafe and coffee shop which are open all year. The stage is in the middle of the circular theatre facing audiences on three levels, you can get a good idea of this by looking at the Globe website’s virtual tour.

You can start booking tickets for plays in February when they release the details of the summer performances. Southwark is the nearest tube on the south side of the Thames or you could go to Mansion House north of the river and walk across the Millennium Bridge, with the Globe to your left.

London Bali bombing memorial - London - Places of Interest

I went and had a look yesterday at the British memorial to the victims of the 2002 Bali bombings that was unveiled by Prince Charles a couple of days before.

The attack in Kuta in 2002 killed 202 including 28 Britons and the UK Bali Bombing Victims Group applied for permission to erect the memorial in 2005 and the British Foreign Office contributed £100,000 to the £300,000 cost of the project. The memorial is located just below the Clive Steps at the rear of the Foreign Office, opposite St James Park and a couple of hundred yards up from Horse Guards Parade. The UKBBVG says it hopes it will provide a focus for relatives of the dead and survivors from across Europe.

The memorial is a 5ft(1.5m) marble globe, to represent that people from 21 countries were killed, and has 202 doves carved into it. The names of all 202 are on a curved stone wall behind the globe. Its the work of artist Garry Breeze and sculptor Martin Cook and is really simple and effective. The area its in is a fairly quiet stretch of road on a weekend, its next to the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum so may get a lot of tourist traffic at peak times but relatives should be able to come and have some time to themselves at certain points.


When I visited there were still many flowers and personal items left from the dedication ceremony a few days before. If you’re around St James Park or at Horse Guards Parade its worth a few minutes to walk to and take a look at.

Golden Jubilee Bridges - London - Places of Interest

Central London has three major pedestrian bridges across the River Thames, the Millennium Bridge near Tate Modern which opened in 2000 and had a lot of problems with it moving around when large numbers of people used it, and the two Golden Jubliee Bridges opened in 2002 and named for the Queen’s fiftieth anniversary as monarch.

They are also known as the Hungerford footbridges because they have been built on each side of the Hungerford Railway Bridge that takes trains coming from south London into Charing Cross Station. The footbridges were the result of a competition in 1996 and the designers had to take into account the fact the railway bridge had to be kept in use during construction and that the Bakerloo Underground Line was directly under where the bridges were to be erected.

Each footbridge is 320m long and over 4m wide and provide a nice way to cross the river. They’re located about halfway between Westminster and Waterloo Bridges and even though they have high pylons and struts supporting the footbridges they do offer some good positions to take photos up and down the river.
They pretty much hide the steel framed railway bridge which is no bad thing because its not the best looking bridge across the Thames.

If you’re near Trafalgar Square and want to cross to the south bank, the quickest way is to walk down past Charing Cross Station to the Embankment and the footbridge will bring you out on the other side of the river between the Royal Festival Hall and the London Eye area.

London’s Gherkin - London - Places of Interest

One of the most distinctive buildings in the City of London, that can be seen for miles around is 30 St Mary Axe, otherwise known as The Gherkin.
Its the blue coloured, glass, missile shaped office tower that’s on the site of the old Baltic Exchange, the former headquarters for world shipping sales that was severely damaged by an IRA bomb in 1992.

The Gherkin’s off Bishopsgate, between Liverpool Street and Monument stations, but its also London’s sixth biggest building at 590ft(180m) so you get a glimpse of it from a lot of places around town.

It’s a private office block that also has the highest restaurant and bar in London, used by the companies that occupy the building during the day but which are available for private functions and weddings on weekends and after 6.30pm during the week. The restaurant has 360 degree views over London and combined with the bar can handle about 260 people. There are also five private dining rooms that are for hire for breakfast, lunch and dinner weekdays.

The Gherkin only opened in 2004 and is a very ‘green’ building using around half the energy of a typical office block its size, doing this by combining natural ventilation with a double skin, along with the tower allowing in lots of light.

Its an impressive place to walk around and being in the heart of the historic centre of London you find a lot of old buildings and churches with this really modern tower as a backdrop.

After the Baltic Exchange was bombed the planners in charge of the area had tight regulations on what could be built but with the growth of Canary Wharf and the shift of businesses to offices custom designed for their needs, the rules on what could go up were relaxed and The Gherkin today is one of the most recognizable structures in London, although I bet if you asked most Londoners to describe 30 St Mary Axe they wouldn’t have a clue what you were talking about.

The Monument - London - Places of Interest

In 1666 in a fire started around midnight in the bakery of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane, close to London Bridge. The Great Fire of London went on to destroy large parts of the old city and led to a major rebuilding programme. As part of this new construction a monument was proposed that would commemorate the losses caused by the Great Fire and like so much of the new London built at that time it was designed by Sir Christopher Wren.

Completed in 1677 and called simply The Monument, its a column 202 feet high made from Portland stone and is the tallest freestanding stone column in the world, topped out with a flaming urn of copper symbolising the Great Fire.

Inside the column is a narrow spiral staircase which visitors can climb to the viewing platform at the top. It’s 311 steps up but The Monument offers fantastic views over that part of central London. There’s a doorway and ticket booth on the eastern side of the base and its normally open everyday from 9.30am-5.30pm with admission £2. Unfortunately at the moment visitors won’t be allowed in until December 2008 as The Monument is undergoing an 18 month refurbishment.

The base of the column features reliefs depicting the fire and the reconstruction. The Monument’s height of 202 feet is said to be the distance from the start of the fire and on the north side of the base is the inscription ‘In the year of Christ 1666, on 2 September, at a distance eastward from this place of 202 ft, which is the height of this column, a fire broke out in the dead of night which, the wind blowing, devoured even distant buildings, and rushed devastating through every quarter with astonishing swiftness and noise … On the third day … at the bidding, we may well believe, of heaven, the fire stayed its course and everywhere died out.’

The Monument is located just north of London Bridge on Monument Street, the nearest Tube is Monument on the District and Circle Lines.

City Hall London - London - Places of Interest

On the south bank of the River Thames, directly across from the Tower of London is an unusual looking building, the recently built City Hall. Its a 10 storey glass office block that looks like its leaning over to one side.

It was designed by Norman Foster, cost £65million and was opened in July 2002. It’s the home of the London Assembly, the body that oversee’s the activities of the Mayor of London, and the building has been leased to the Assembly for 25 years. There are 25 members of the Assembly and they are elected at the same time as the Mayor.

City Hall was designed and built after a competition to find the best location and design and the public had a say in which one was chosen. It’s 45 metres high and has 25% less surface area than a cubed building of the same volume. The design means that its the most energy efficient shape and combined with internal features allows it to run on a quarter the energy used normally for a coventional building that size.

If you’re around Tower Bridge or the Tower of London go into City Hall and take the elevator to the 9th Floor which is given over to public viewing. There’s an outside balcony that runs almost 360 degrees around the building and offers great views, its the best place to take photos of Tower Bridge or the Tower of London on the opposite river bank. You can see west to St Paul’s, down river to Canary Wharf or off into deepest south London.

The public are allowed into City Hall between 8am-8pm Monday- Friday and on certain weekends. Access to the lower ground, ground and 2nd floor’s is not restricted but it is to some of the floors with offices above. There’s a security check once you enter the building similar to airports where they’ll x-ray any bags and ask you to empty your pockets.


Outside City Hall along the riverbank there’s currently an outdoor exhibition of large photographs by the Japanese photographer Hiroji Kubota who spent four years travelling around Japan to capture some of the images on show.

On the west side of City Hall is a sunken area known as the Scoop, an area of circular steps that can seat up to a 1000 people but is probably more used by as some to eat a quick lunch, it faces the cafeteria on the lower ground floor of City Hall.

New Zealand War Memorial - London - London - Places of Interest

The new New Zealand War Memorial was unveiled and dedicated by the Queen and the New Zealand Prime Minister on 11 November this year. Its located on the large area at Hyde Park Corner between Hyde and Green Park’s. This is where the Wellington Arch and the striking Australian War memorial already are and the NZ Memorial is in the northeast corner, basicially at the bottom of Park Lane.

The memorial is called The Southern Stand and is made up of 16 large bronze ’standards’, crossed shaped pieces of different sizes weighing up to 700kg each and some 4.5 metres long, set in the ground at an angle and all facing south. Some have been set in the path going round that part of the area, some in a grassy bank, six of which make up the shape of the Southern Cross.

Each standard has text and a sculptured image representing reflecting New Zealand and the tops have LED lights lighting up the shape of the cross. It’s the work of architect John Hardwick-Smith and sculptor Paul Dibble who won a design competition that started five years ago. The pieces were built at a studio in Palmerston North on New Zealand’s north island and shipped to London by sea.
It should provide a focal point in London for Anzac Day and Waitangi Day celebrations for New Zealanders.

Its maybe not as visually striking as the Australian Memorial, about 70 yards away on the other side of the Wellington Arch, but I guess the thing with this memorial is you can walk through and around it, get up really close and see it from various angles not just front on.

Its in a good location in London, Hyde Park Corner’s a busy intersection but the site itself is quite large, the NZ Memorial’s in its own corner and going there’s not going to take people out of their way too much, its a big crossroads to many parts of the West End.

Australian War Memorial London - London - Places of Interest

If you're ever around Hyde Park Corner, where Park Lane, Piccadilly, Grosvenor Place, Knightsbridge and Constitution Hill meet, have a look at the roundabout area in the middle.

It’s dominated by Constitution Arch, the large pillared arch with the chariot on top that’s dedicated to the Duke of Wellington, but as you walk towards it from Hyde Park tube look in the right hand corner and you’ll see the Australian War Memorial commemorating Australians who have died fighting along side Britain in two world wars.


This is a new memorial that was only opened in 2003 on 11 November, Rememberance Sunday, by John Howard, Tony Blair and the Queen. It’s a very contemporary design, with elements maybe of the Vietnam wall in Washington and Berlin’s Holocaust memorial with a clean granite look, strong lines, names in small lettering, this time on a curved wall. It’s very effective and doesn’t set out to glorify any particular battle but all the people who’ve died in wars for Australia.

It’s made from 200 tonnes of Verde Laguna granite from Jerramungup, Western Australia and was designed by a team of Sydney architect’s. The curved wall is around 8ft high and on it are the names of 24,000 Australian towns where servicemen have come from and the names have been sandblasted in such a way that certain letters are cut densely enough to spell out the larger names of 47 battle sites where Australians have fought when viewed from further back. Parts are also a water feature, with a slow trickle of water from the top of the wall not a cascade.

It’s a very well made and thoughout piece of work and it seems to fit perfectly in its location. There are no large signs around advertising it and as the path cuts across the roundabout and the memorial is in a corner, it’s easy to miss.


I think this memorial has already become popular with Australian’s for Anzac Day celebrations and a New Zealand one is due to open on Rememberance Sunday 2006.
The nearest tube is Hyde Park Corner and if you are walking between Green Park and Hyde Park it’s right along your path.

The Royal Albert Hall - London - Places of Interest

The Royal Albert Hall is one of the most recognisable music venues in Britain. Located in Kensington Gore on the south side of Hyde Park,opposite the Albert Memorial, it opened in 1871 and is generally known as a classical music venue but just about every kind of music has been played there and also a lot of non-music events have taken place inside.

It was built in honour of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert and the design gives the feel of a Roman amphitheatre and can hold around 8,000 people. The hall is oval shaped inside and measures 83m x 72m. The building is Grade 1 listed, meaning its of exceptional interest and any work carried out must be done under strict conditions.

The most famous annual event to take place in the Albert Hall are the Proms or the Sir Henry Wood Promenade Concerts which are classical music concerts that happen over a number of weeks in the summer, which include the famous Last Night of the Proms when the audience wrap themselves in the Union Jack, release loads of ballons and sing patriotic songs like Land of Hope and Glory.

It’s not just classical music that takes place there though, the only time The Beatles and the Rolling Stones shared a bill was at the Albert Hall in 1963, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan have played there, Cream’s farewell gig was also there. Major rock acts will regularly play at the Albert Hall and it holds comedy shows, tennis tournaments and even circus events.

You can take a tour of the Royal Albert Hall from 10am -3.30pm Fri-Tues. Tickets cost £6 and are conducted in English, the tour lasts for about 45 minutes and departs from inside the South Porch at door 12.

The Millennium Bridge - London - Places of Interest

It didn't turn into the white elephant the Millennium Dome did but it was up there with it for a while. The Millennium Bridge was one of the big projects designed to celebrate the year 2000, proposed in the mid-90’s and started in 1998, it was going to be the first new bridge across the River Thames in London since Tower Bridge opened in 1894.

It was to be a pedestrian only suspension bridge linking the north side of the river around Upper Thames Street with the south bank directly next to the Tate Modern. It came in at a price of £18million and opened on 10 June 2000, so far so good.
It was very popular as soon as it opened, much to popular for the designer’s because when the large numbers of people walked in some kind of unison the bridge began to sway from side to side. A fun item on all the tv news bulletins for a day or so but then reality set in and with the ‘Wobbly Bridge’ swaying getting quite pronounced the bridge had to close on the 12th June 2000.

To fix the problem required the installation of 89 dampers to absorb the energy and control the horizontal and vertical movement of the bridge. This cost £5million and took from May 2001 till January 2002 to complete, the Millennium Bridge finally reopened in February 2002.

It is a nice bridge to walk across, it’s directly in line with St Paul’s Cathedral on the northern side and is a good spot to take photos from, up and down the river or of St Paul’s or Tate Modern. Traffic on it seems fairly busy, lots of joggers coming from the City, but there may have been an event of some kind on today.
Nearest tube Blackfriars.

Albert Memorial - London - Places of Interest

In between Kensington Gardens and the Royal Albert Hall is a very non-British looking memorial, this one in honour of Prince Albert, Queen Victroria’s husband who died aged 42 in 1861.

The memorial took 15 years to build and is 175ft high with a black and gilded spire, a multi coloured marble canopy and almost 200 sculptured figures around the base.

About thirty yards from the base of the main memorial are four sets of sculptures one in each corner depicting people from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.

With this memorial and the close by Royal Albert Hall Queen Victoria no doubt hoped to preserve her husband’s memory, but I doubt if she would have suspected that almost 150 years later the name Prince Albert is most associated in Britain with a piece of ‘body art’, namely piercing the end of your penis and putting a ring through it similar to what cows have put through their nose.

What possesses people to do this I have no idea, but legend has it that Albert wore one to secure himself to his thigh and keep a tight line in the trousers of the day. There’s a hell of a lot to be said for baggy pants.

Greenwich - London

Greenwich is known for its fine buildings and park that dominate the area east of the market and Greenwich Church Street. The University of Greenwich has 20,000 students, around 4,000 from overseas and has a large campus on the banks of the Thames in the home of the Old Royal Naval College.

The buildings were built by Sir Christopher Wren in the late 16th and early 17th century and form part of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. The University took over some of the main buildings in 1999, a year after the Royal Navy stopped using the site and Trinity College of Music moved into the King Charles Court building in 2001. If you walk past Greenwich Market and through the gates at the end of College Approach you’ll hear people doing their stuff in music classes.

Greenwich must be just about the grandest university campus in London, big and imposing with columns everywhere, but nicely spread out with a large manicured lawn are in the centre. If you walk down to the riverside Canary Wharf rise’s above the trees from the other bank and if you go further down the bank towards the Trafalgar Tavern you get a good look at the Millennium Dome which sits at the head of the next bend down river.

There’s no problem walking around here but if you’re taking photos try to come on a sunny day, the light will just lift the architecture in the pictures. A number of films have shot scenes around the college including Patriot Games, Lara Croft:Tomb Raider, and Four Wedding and a Funeral among others.

If you stand with your back to the river and look up towards the road, the two large buildings with domed clock towers are Queen Mary Court on the left and King Charles Court on the right, both used by the university. Looking past them over the road is the white two storey Queen’s House, part of the National Maritime Museum and located in Greenwich Park.

Greenwich Park is one of the Royal Parks and as well as being home to the Maritime Museum it also includes the Royal Observatory and the Greenwich Meridian Line. Once you go past the Museum there’s a large open grass area that’s criss-crossed by paths that leads up the hill to where the Observatory is. It’s one of those places that have always been occupied because its the only hill overlooking the Thames on its eastern approach and if you’re in Greenwich you have to walk up for the views and to get your picture taken with everything in the background.

The park looks pretty popular with joggers and runners and the inclines of the hill would give a good workout, ther’s also enough space to stay clear of groups of tourists. Greenwich Park is open from 6am-dusk year round.

At the top of the hill leading away from the Observatory is Blackheath Avenue, a long straight treelined road and a little way along on the left is The Pavilion Tea House, a cafe that has a large outdoor seating area and is open from 9am-8pm in the summer, 9am-4pm in the winter and they do serve alcohol.

The main road leading back down the hill and out of the park is King William Avenue and it comes out to the left of the museum. Right near here is Greenwich Theatre which has a changing schedule of productions.

If you’re in London for a visit spending a day in Greenwich is well worth your time, its more relaxed than central London with a less frantic pace. There’s a lot of good things to see, the Maritime Museum, the Observatory, the Naval College are all free and the town’s compact enough that you aren’t going to get tired walking around it.

Holland Park - London Parks - London

Holland Park is the largest park in London’s wealthiest borough, Kensington and Chelsea. It’s not huge, 54 acres, but has a very rustic, woodland feel that makes it seem a lot bigger than it is when you’re walking around it. All the trees and thick foliage help cut out of traffic noise and disguise you’re in a busy part of west London.

It’s bordered on its east by Kensington Palace (Princess Di’s old pad), trendy Notting Hill on the north and Kensington High Street on the south and all over this area are four and five storey Victorian townhouses that provide a great location for sections of London’s weathly to live. If I had the money I’d love to buy a place around here.

You can tell the park attracts a different type person because the dogs even have their own designated pooping area. Whether a dog thinks to itself ‘I hope she hurry’s up and gets to the dog toilet area quick, I’m dying for a shit’ when its being walking around the other end of the park I don’t know, but its a nice idea.

One thing that struck me walking around there the other day was the number of Russian voices I heard, it seemed like every other person was speaking it, they definitely are the new money in Britain at the moment.

There are a lot of different areas to Holland Park, on the north side its mainly woodland with a number of paths and tracks to walk down. These are mainly stony, uneven paths which with all the autumn leaves and moisture on them can be a bit slippery, so be careful if you go for a jog.

There’s a pond called Lord Holland’s Pond in this northern part with a statue of a seated Lord Holland in the middle. A lot of wildlife are attracted here, foxes, a couple of types of bat, over 30 species of bird and there are even some great looking blue, green and yellow coloured peacocks running around. The squirrel’s here are very tame and almost run up your leg looking for something to eat.

Holland Park has a Japanese garden called the Kyoto Garden, that was built by the Kyoto Chamber of Commerce to signify friendship between Japan and the UK and was opened by Prince Charles in 1991. The centre piece is a waterfall and pond but the water at the moment looks like it could use a good clean, there’s a thin grey film all over the surface which can’t be good for the fish in there.

The old Holland House in the centre of the park is not what it was a 100 years ago and is used as a youth hostel. Around the house are large formal garden’s with low clipped box hedges and plenty of park benches that provide lots of quiet places to sit. Next to here are a restaurant and outdoor cafe, the house’s old orangery (a type of greenhouse) being converted, there’s also an ecology centre.

Holland Park is known for its summer outdoor theatre and opera performances in the grounds of the old house. There’s a busy and varied programme of shows from early June to the middle of August. They do erect a large canopy to cover the stage and auditorium.

The southern section of the park is more open with tennis courts and a large cricket/sports pitch. There’s also a good size children’s play area but that’s more towards the eastern side.
Holland Park’s a nice, peaceful place to come for a walk or a quiet sit down, maybe if you need a break from all the shopping on Kensington High Street. The entrance there is right next to the Commonwealth Institute building, which looks like its in disrepair and no longer in use.

The nearest tubes are Holland Park on the north side and High Street Kensington on the south.