When the sun is shining London’s open spaces suddenly become much more attractive places to visit. Groups of friends gather for impromptu team games, families enjoy picnics and some (hoping they won’t get caught by the authorities) fire up a barbecue. For a city as populous as London, […]
When the capital’s first railway – the London and Greenwich – opened in 1836, Deptford became an overnight haven for commuters and day trippers. Passengers could reach southeast London from the company’s London Bridge terminus in a matter of minutes and some 20,000 travelled on the line during […]
Little changes immediately for contemporary visitors as they head east from the City towards Shoreditch and Whitechapel. High property prices carry across what was originally the jurisdiction’s outer wall – and there are swanky bars to match the upmarket clientele. Gone are the days when to leave the […]
Central London is awash with pop-up markets these days. Come the weekend, they are the place to head if you want to get your hands on some of the finest produce around. People of course buy the majority of their food in supermarkets and other (permanent) shops, but […]
Visitors to London have a choice of ways of getting to Britain’s capital these days. Travel by road, rail or plane are probably the most popular ways of reaching the centre, but the list is by no means exhaustive. Those with money to burn can find even more […]
Dulwich Village is one of the most picture perfect postcard spots in South East London. With an array of interesting independent shops, upmarket cafes spilling out on the pavements and protected from the main road by wide grass borders (themselves surrounded by white picket fences), visiting here seems […]
Lying just a stone’s throw from the shiny new Blackfriars station – a fabulous structure with platforms stretching right across the Thames – the Blackfriar pub looks out of place against all the modern development going on in this part of London. The exposed outside terrace out the […]
While the Globe theatre is the most famous of the Elizabethan playhouses on Bankside given its links to William Shakespeare, far less is known about it than about its neighbour, the Rose. The latter (opened in 1587) was one of two such venues already in operation in the […]
Britain’s weather can be miserable, even in the summer months. Planning any public event in the open air runs the risk of visitors getting extremely wet from a freakish downpour or freezing cold during an artic chill. So why on earth would anyone decide to open a new […]
Looking from afar across to Shoreditch, the Theatre would have been an incredible sight: a “gorgeous playing-place erected in the Fields”, noted one contemporary. Playgoers – who had grown up watching plays outside inns or on village greens – would have seen nothing like it before. Opened in […]
Past In The Present 