Spies and art lovers pass like ships in the night in Millbank these days. MI5 and MI6 aim keep a low public profile in grand buildings by the Thames, while tourists flock to Tate Britain and students study at the Chelsea College of Art & Design, part of […]
Ask anyone who knows London what they understand by the term Whitehall and, more likely than not, they’ll tell you it’s the seat of the British government. And they wouldn’t be wrong – through just a short walk you can take in Downing Street, the Ministry of Defence, […]
Why is it that in such a bustling city as London, do we, Londoners, and visitors alike make such an effort to get out to discover the ‘undiscovered’ and ‘unseen’? Thousands of us take the Tube and visit Underground stations every day, yet tours of so-called ‘ghost’ (disused) […]
Ask a Londoner where the spiritual home of the curry is in the capital and, more likely than not, they’ll tell you to head to Brick Lane, just east of Liverpool Street station. And while you could argue as to whether the restaurants on this stretch serve the […]
Walking past the Beigel Shop in Brick Lane is a real treat. Whatever time of day (or night) it is you can’t fail to notice the wonderful smell of freshly baked bread oozing out. Inside, you get a real mix of people, from City workers to tourists, enjoying […]
If there’s one building that tells the Spitalfields story, it’s the Jamme Masjid Mosque on Brick Lane. Although only a Muslim house of prayer since 1976, it’s been a place of worship for major faiths – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – for some 250 years. The successive uses […]
There’s nothing that exciting about Canary Wharf’s soulless shopping malls and office complexes. Hosting corporate entities ranging from Starbucks and Costa Coffee to HMV and Topshop, you could be in any number of places in Britain, if not the world. And despite the wonderful river views, and the […]
Next to a Pret A Manager store in amongst Borough’s maze of narrow streets there’s an important preserved historical site that helps us remember the time when a major part of Southwark was ruled by a single powerful landowner, the Bishop of Winchester. Most of the Winchester Palace […]
Watching the jugglers, fire eaters and magicians entertain tourists and Londoners alike today at Covent Garden’s elegant piazza, it is hard to imagine that once this was where people lived in simple homes and socialised in timber built halls with thatched roofs. It was a place where residents […]
Turn into Redcross Way, only a few minutes’ walk from Borough High Street, and it’s hard to miss the colourful display of ribbons tied onto tall, sturdy gates blocking access to an overgrown and derelict site. But this isn’t just any old patch of waste ground, far from […]
Past In The Present 