Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Christopher Winn
Title Page
Dedication
Preface
Guide to using London by Tube
Bakerloo
Central
Circle
District
Hammersmith & City
Jubilee
Metropolitan
Northern
Piccadilly
Victoria
DLR
Overground
Gazetteer
Index
Acknowledgements
Copyright
BY THE SAME AUTHOR:
ABOUT THE BOOK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For Mai
By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can shew
James Boswell
London is a city of surprises and variety, over 600 square miles (1,554 square km) packed full of character, spectacle and sensation. There are broad vistas and quiet corners, iconic sights and grand boulevards, historic buildings, quaint villages, verdant parks, smart squares, cobbled alleyways, museums, monuments, statues, markets, shops, theatres, cathedrals and ancient churches. Indeed, as Dr Johnson said, ‘There is in London all that life can afford …’
Dr Johnson also tells us, ‘If you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts.’
He is right. Really to know London you must look beyond the obvious, maybe venture a little further afield, be bold. London is so big and sprawling, and so full of places to see, that much about the city that is most interesting and appealing can be missed.
Of course, the best way to see London is to go by London Underground or, as it is affectionately known, the Tube. The Tube is itself one of the great sights of London. With 270 stations and over 250 miles (402 km) of track, the London Tube – first, best and biggest underground system in the world – can take you wherever you want to go in the world’s most fascinating city.
London richly rewards the curious and the inquisitive and with London by Tube to hand, those who seek shall find … It unearths and explores a stupendous gallimaufry of interesting places – some well known, some less well known, some almost unknown – all of which lie within a short walk of a Tube station. There are surprising facts and untold tales, unexpected treasures, incredible monuments and undiscovered landmarks – indeed, for those who are prepared to sally forth and look around, London can offer up a truly amazing array of wonders and delights.
Each Tube line has its own chapter and there are stations from every line shown on the Tube map except for the Waterloo & City Line. Under the name of each station featured are the names of the Tube lines that serve that station, other than the chapter line. For example, Oxford Circus in the Victoria Line chapter reads:
Also served by Bakerloo and Central Lines
Each entry is headed with the following information:
Opening times • Entry fee
The information about opening times and entry fees is just a guide. Opening times and entry fees are always changing; where relevant, the telephone numbers and websites of places of interest are listed in the Gazetteer so that readers may check for the current status.
All places of interest featured are within a short walk from the Tube station unless otherwise specified. Depending on the speed of the walker, a ‘short walk’ means no longer than 10 to 15 minutes. Places of interest that are worth a slightly longer walk are indicated.
The duration of the circular walks, such as that around Hampstead, depends on how long the reader stays at each place of interest on that walk, but each individual place of interest is still only a short walk from the station, unless otherwise specified, so that the reader may return to the station at any point on the walk.
Directions are given for each entry. Many readers will have a London A-Z with them (recommended) but the directions have been carefully detailed so that readers should be able to find their way to the place of interest without the need of a map. Where there are official signs to the place of interest this is indicated.
London by Tube takes you to 88 stations and some 150 different places of interest, viewpoints, walks, unique museums, historic pubs, ancient churches – if you want a day out and you want to do something different, then London is your town, the Tube is your means and London by Tube is your guide.
CHAPTER ONE
The Bakerloo Line
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green
‘The Rolling English Road’, G.K. Chesterton
COLOUR: BROWN
YEAR OPENED: 1906
LENGTH: 14.4 MILES
FASCINATING FACT:
NAMED FROM BAKER STREET AND WATERLOO
North and west from Baker Street
Also served by Overground
Britain’s first garden cemetery
Open daily • Free
Turn left outside the station, cross the Harrow Road and turn right. After 200 yards (180 m) you will see to your left a sign saying ‘West London Crematorium, enter here.’
In the first half of the 19th century seven large private cemeteries were created outside central London to ease the overcrowding of the city’s existing burial grounds, which were usually small parish churchyards. The first of these huge suburban cemeteries, now known as the ‘Magnificent Seven’, was Kensal Green, which opened in 1833 as Britain’s first garden cemetery. It was founded by barrister George Carden, who had been inspired by a visit to the Père Lachaise in Paris. The General Cemetery Company, which was set up by Carden to run Kensal Green, still owns and manages the cemetery today.
Kensal Green covers some 72 acres (29 ha) with the largest area set aside for Church of England burials and centred around the Anglican chapel, a magnificent Greek Revival building completed in 1838 which sits at the end of a wide avenue running from the main entrance. There is also an area for Dissenters with a Dissenters’ chapel, the West London Crematorium, where singer Freddie Mercury and actress Ingrid Bergman were cremated, and two conservation areas. The Grand Union Canal runs along the southern border of the cemetery and this allowed coffins to be brought here by barge.
To wander through these peaceful green acres amongst the extraordinary array of strange and spectacular Gothic monuments – there are 140 listed buildings and memorials here – is an unforgettable experience, restful and yet somehow stimulating. There is also an element of the treasure hunt as you thrill to the discovery of some notable person’s last resting place. Amongst the 650 members of the titled nobility and over 550 individuals featured in the Dictionary of National Biography buried at Kensal Green are Princess Sophia and Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, children of George III, Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, grandson of George III and the last Duke of Cambridge before Prince William, Blondin, the acrobat who crossed the Niagara Falls on a tight-rope, engineers John Rennie the Younger (builder of the London Bridge now in Arizona), Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his father Marc Brunel (builders of the world’s first underwater tunnel, see Rotherhithe), Winston Churchill’s daughter Marigold, who died aged three and is buried beneath a monument by Eric Gill, authors Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope and William Makepeace Thackeray, playwrights Harold Pinter and Sir Terence Rattigan, Lord Byron’s wife Anne, Oscar Wilde’s mother Jane, the first W.H. Smith and Charles Babbage, inventor of the calculating machine.
As well as the normal burial plots there are three sets of catacombs, one of them underneath the Anglican chapel. For lowering coffins from the chapel to the catacombs the chapel has one of only two working coffin lifts left in England – the other is in the chapel of St Mary’s Cemetery next door.
St Mary’s Cemetery for Roman Catholics was established at the western end of Kensal Green in 1858. Amongst the notables buried here are Napoleon’s nephew Louis Lucien Bonaparte, Sax Rohmer, creator of Dr Fu Manchu, nurse Mary Seacole, Cardinal Manning and Danny La Rue.
Guided tours of Kensal Green, including the catacombs, run on Sundays at 2pm. There is no need to book and the tour is free but a donation is suggested.
Also served by Overground
The first traditional Hindu temple built outside of India in modern times
17 minutes • Open daily • Free
Exit station, turn right and then left up slip road, following brown signs to Neasden Temple. At top, using pedestrian crossings, bear right and go over the bridge across the North Circular. Cross slip road and turn left into Conduit Way. Neasden Temple is straight down at the end, about 15 minutes’ walk.
Commonly known as Neasden Temple, this was the largest Hindu temple outside India when it was completed in 1995, and is the London headquarters of an organisation within the Swaminarayan branch of Hinduism called Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS). London’s first Hindu temple was opened in a converted church in Islington in 1970 but this building became too small after the city’s Hindu population was swelled by Asians fleeing from Idi Amin in Uganda. The temple then moved in 1982 to a warehouse in Neasden, which was far from satisfactory, and BAPS leader Pramukh Swami Maharaj declared his wish that a marble temple worthy of London’s Hindus should be built. Funded and built entirely by the Hindu community, Neasden Temple was completed in just over two years.
The Mandir, the temple at the heart of the complex, is built of Italian Carrara marble, Indian Ambaji marble and Bulgarian limestone, all hand sculpted in India. The pure, clean white of the building’s interior highlights the intense colour of the monks’ orange robes and of the golden shrines that are revealed from behind folding wooden doors, while a forest of pillars, carved with stories and symbols, soars upwards to an elaborate central dome.
Next to the Mandir is the Haveli, a cultural centre based around a vast hall used for prayer meetings and sports, made with gloriously carved English oak and Burmese teak. There is also a souvenir shop and a permanent exhibition called ‘Understanding Hinduism’, which explains the origins, history, traditions and philosophies of the world’s oldest living religion.
Neasden Temple is a stunningly beautiful addition to the architecture of north-west London, rightly described by Time Out as one of the Seven Wonders of London.
South and east from Baker Street
The Regent’s Park covers 395 acres (160 ha) and was fashioned out of a royal hunting ground by John Nash between 1818 and 1828. It was opened to the public in 1835. Three sides of the park are lined with terraces, faced with white stucco, while the Regent’s Canal runs along the park’s northern boundary.
Open daily • Free
Turn left on exiting the station, cross right over the Marylebone Road at the first set of traffic lights and walk straight ahead into Park Square West. Turn right at the end and left into the park. You are now on the Broad Walk. Running alongside are the formal Avenue Gardens, planted with seasonal flowers and decorated with fountains and statues. Continue along the Broad Walk to London Zoo OR turn left into Chester Road. Turn right into the Inner Circle and look for a small, discreetly signposted, entrance passage on the right, which leads to …
St John’s Lodge Gardens, a secret garden ornamented with sculptures and ponds and a delightful place to escape the crowds and enjoy birdsong and nature. St John’s Lodge was the first house to be built in Regent’s Park, the second to be occupied, and is one of only two villas remaining from John Nash’s original vision for the park. While the house is a private residence, the gardens have been open to the public since 1928.
Return to Inner Circle, cross the road, turn left and right into …
Queen Mary Gardens. Named after the wife of George V and opened in 1932, these gardens contain the largest collection of roses in London, as well as a spectacular delphinium border, begonia garden, waterfall and lake. The best month to see the roses is June.
In the north-west corner of Queen Mary Gardens is the …
Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Britain’s oldest, professional, permanent outdoor theatre. It opened in 1932 with a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The auditorium, one of the biggest in London, seats 1,250 and many of Britain’s greatest actors have appeared here including Vivien Leigh, Dulcie Gray, Dames Flora Robson and Judi Dench, Michael Gambon and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Leave Queen Mary’s Gardens by the western exit past the restaurant and cross Inner Circle. On your right is The Holme, built in 1818 by Decimus Burton for his father and now one of the most expensive homes in the world. Ahead of you on the right is the Memorial Bandstand, moved here from Richmond Park in 1975. In 1982, during a concert by the band of the Royal Green Jackets, it was the target of an IRA terrorist attack, which killed seven soldiers and injured 24. Today there are regular lunchtime concerts here.
Walk towards the lake, bear left and cross over the lake via the footbridge on your right. (Baker Street station is a few minutes’ walk from here.) Turn right and walk along the lakeside to the boating pavilion. There is boating here for adults and children between 10am and 6pm in the summer months.
Take the footbridge across the lake and bear left across the playing fields towards the zoo. On your left there are glimpses of Winfield House, built in 1935 on the site of a former Nash villa by Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton. She sold it to the US government for one dollar after the Second World War and it is now the US Ambassador’s official residence.
When you reach the Broad Walk turn left and walk to the road. Turn left for the entrance to …
12 minutes • Open daily • Charge
London Zoo was founded in 1828, originally for scientific research, and is the world’s oldest scientific zoo. It opened to the public in 1847. Managed by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), which was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1826, London Zoo can also boast the world’s first reptile house, opened in 1849, the world’s first public aquarium, opened in 1853, and the world’s first insect house, opened in 1881. Amongst the zoo’s famous inmates over the years have been Obaysch, the first hippopotamus seen in Europe (arrived in 1850), Jumbo the elephant, the first seen in England (1865), Winnie the bear, the inspiration for Winnie-the-Pooh (1914), and Goldie the Eagle, who caused a furore when he escaped into the park for 12 days in 1965. Today the zoo houses some 800 species of animal and a variety of animal attractions including Gorilla Kingdom, Tiger Territory, Penguin Beach, Rainforest Life with monkeys, sloths and armadillos, a butterfly house, an aviary, otters, hippos, lions, giraffes, elephants and more.
Return to Regent’s Park station along the Broad Walk (15 minutes) or follow signs to Camden Town on the Northern line (10 minutes).
Also served by Northern Line
Two world-class art galleries and
three extraordinary museums
Open daily • Free
Take the Trafalgar Square exit and you will emerge into the south-east corner of the square. The National Gallery is on the north side of the square.
Known affectionately as the ‘National Salt and Pepper Pot’, in reference to the two small domes at each end, the National Gallery building fills the entire north side of Trafalgar Square. The view from the gallery’s elevated portico south across the square and down Whitehall towards Big Ben is spectacular. The building was designed by William Wilkins and the gallery opened to the public in 1838. Begun with just 38 pictures purchased from the estate of banker John Julius Angerstein in 1824, the gallery now houses one of the greatest collections of paintings in the world, with over 2,300 works. In 1991 the postmodernist Sainsbury Wing was added to the western end of the gallery to house the collection of Renaissance paintings. The new building was at the centre of a memorable controversy when the original architect’s proposal for the wing was described by Prince Charles as a ‘monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend’.
Highlights of the National Gallery’s collection include the Wilton Diptych, an altarpiece showing Richard II, painted for the King himself in 1395 and the oldest known contemporary portrait of an English monarch, J.M.W. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire (see Bermondsey, Jubilee line), Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Holbein’s The Ambassadors, Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus, van Dyck’s Equestrian Portrait of Charles I and John Constable’s The Hay Wain.
Open daily • Free
Take the Trafalgar Square exit from Charing Cross tube station. Climb the steps to the National Gallery and turn right then left into St Martin’s Place. Entrance on the left.
The National Portrait Gallery moved here into its own purpose-built premises in 1896. It was the first portrait gallery in the world, formed originally in 1856 with 57 portraits, and it now owns the world’s largest collection of portraits in all types of media – paintings, drawings, caricatures, sculptures, photographs and video. The primary aim of the gallery is as a historical record of prominent British people, with the fame of the subject more important than the quality of the picture, although there are many portraits by the great artists. The 9,000 or so portraits on display are arranged chronologically from the 15th century to the present day and there are frequent exhibitions by contemporary and individual artists in addition to the permanent galleries. Highlights include the Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare, which was the first work given to the gallery on its foundation in 1856, the only known authentic contemporary likeness of Jane Austen, a sketch by her sister Cassandra, Holbein’s portraits of Henry VIII, self-portraits by William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, the anamorphic portrait of nine-year-old Edward VI attributed to William Scrots, which needs to be viewed from the right-hand side for the correct perspective, and the only surviving group portrait of the three Brontë sisters, an oil painting by their brother Branwell Brontë.
Advance booking only • Free
Take exit to mainline station and go out across the forecourt to Strand. Turn left and immediately left between two sets of red telephone boxes into Craven Street. Go down ramp and the museum is the first Georgian house on the left.
Founded in 1901, this is the oldest museum of its kind open to the public in the world. The museum covers the history and development of optometry and visual aids for the human eye and possesses some 20,000 related objects, including more than 3,000 pairs of glasses, from the 17th century to the designer spectacles of today, spyglasses, eye-baths and other varieties of corrective eyewear. Highlights include the only known pair of Scarlett Temple spectacles in the world, made in 1730, spectacles belonging to Dr Johnson, C.P. Snow and Ronnie Corbett, and some wonderful optical-themed cartoons by George Cruikshank and James Gillray.
Open daily except Tuesdays • Charge
Take exit to mainline station and go out across the forecourt to Strand. Turn left and immediately left between two sets of red telephone boxes into Craven Street. Go down ramp and museum is a few doors down on the left.
Benjamin Franklin, author, diplomat, scientist, inventor and Founding Father of the United States of America, lived in this fine early Georgian (1730) terraced house in the heart of London for nearly 16 years from 1757 until 1775, when he was forced to return to America as the War of Independence loomed. From here, as a diplomat, he attempted to negotiate between the British government and the American colonies, making this house the de facto American embassy. This is the only one of his homes to survive anywhere in the world and since 2006 has been run as a museum dedicated to his memory.
Actually, it is not so much a museum as a theatrical experience. Visitors are shown through the house by a guide dressed as Polly Hewson, the daughter of Franklin’s landlady. In each room a film is projected onto the walls with dialogue that tells how Franklin’s life played out in that room – daily living and meals in the basement kitchen, social life and visitors on the ground floor, scientific work and political intrigues on the first floor. The visitor learns that Franklin was the only person to sign all four of the documents that forged America: the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Treaty of Alliance with France in 1778, the Treaty of Paris establishing peace with Britain in 1783 and the American Constitution in 1787; also that while living in England he conducted experiments to prove that oil and water don’t mix (in Mount Pond on Clapham Common), measured the effect of the Gulf Stream and invented the Franklin stove, bifocal spectacles, the harmonica, for which Mozart and Bach composed, and a new, more effective lightning rod – indeed he had a famous public squabble with George III about what sort of lightning rod to put on top of the steeple of St Bride’s in Fleet Street. It seems a little unfair that we in London should be the ones to have this unique shrine to the ‘First American’, but we do and it makes for a fascinating experience. Booking in advance is advised.
Open daily • Charge
Take Trafalgar Square exit and cross at the lights to the traffic island on your left. Now cross to your right to the round traffic island where the equestrian statue of Charles I stands. Cast in 1633, this was the first bronze statue in England and the first equestrian statue of a king. Today it marks the centre of London, from where and to where all distances are measured. Whitehall is ahead of you (with Big Ben at the end). Cross to the traffic island in the middle of Whitehall, then cross at the lights to your right and go down Whitehall. Horse Guards is on your right.
Located in Horse Guards, the official entrance to London’s royal residences, the museum gives visitors the chance to see the working stables of the Household Cavalry (the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals) and watch the horses being groomed and prepared for duty. The museum celebrates the history of the regiment that has guarded successive kings and queens since the days of Charles II and plays such an integral part in the pageantry and traditions of Britain’s monarchy. There are displays of royal standards, ceremonial uniforms, helmets and cutlasses, gallantry awards and musical instruments.
Highlights include items from the Battle of Waterloo, such as the bugle on which Lord Somerset’s trumpet orderly, 16-year-old John Edwards, sounded the charge for the Household Brigade; a silver snuff box fashioned out of a hoof of Marengo, the horse ridden by Napoleon at Waterloo; and the cork leg fitted to the 1st Marquess of Anglesey to replace the one he lost at Waterloo – an irksome experience that provoked him to exclaim to the Duke of Wellington, ‘By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg!’ to which Wellington replied, ‘By God, sir, so you have!’ Other items include two silver kettledrums given to the regiment by William IV in 1831, silverware by Fabergé, and the bridle off Sefton, the horse who heroically returned to service after being horrendously injured in the Hyde Park IRA bombings and became the first horse to be placed in the British Horse Society’s equestrian Hall of Fame.
Two gentle circular walks from Lambeth North taking in an art gallery, a cathedral, a war museum, the world’s first museum of garden history and the life of the world’s most famous nurse
WALK 1
Across the road in front of you as you exit the station is the tall, white Lincoln Memorial Tower, opened in 1876 on the centenary of the American Declaration of Independence by Christopher Newman Hall, the pastor of Surrey Chapel, in memory of Abraham Lincoln and his fight to abolish slavery. Built into the spire are stripes of red stone intended to create the impression of the ‘Stars and Stripes’ of the American flag. This Gothic tower, which now stands alone, was built as an integral part of a new home for the Surrey Chapel, originally located in Blackfriars Road. Cross the road at the lights and turn left, keeping the Lincoln Tower on your right. After 100 yards (90 m) on your right is Morley College, opened in 1889 with an endowment from MP Samuel Morley as a college for working men and women. Today it offers courses in a wide variety of artistic fields and is particularly noted for its music and drama departments. A little further on and across the road in front of you is the …
Open daily • Free
Located in a former pub, this gallery puts on art exhibitions, events and talks throughout the year.
Leave the gallery, turn right, and right again along St George’s Road. After 100 yards (90 m) you will come to the entrance, on your left, to …
Open daily • Free
In 1852 this became the first Roman Catholic church in London to be raised to cathedral status since the Reformation and is today the seat of the Archbishop of Southwark. It was built in 1848 by Augustus Pugin, who became famous for working on the interiors of the Houses of Parliament and in particular for designing the Elizabeth Tower (the clock tower that houses Big Ben) and the clock faces of the Great Clock (known as Big Ben). Pugin was the first person to be married in St George’s, in August 1848. The cathedral was badly bombed in the Second World War but was restored and reopened in 1958. Pope John Paul II visited in 1982 and the Dalai Lama in 1999. While the cathedral may be considered unremarkable from the outside, this is partly because it is hard to achieve a full view of it. The beautiful interior of tall, slender pillars, which seem to be marching like sea-sprayed trees towards the lovely stained-glass window at the west end, more than makes up for it. The acoustics are superb and ensure that the cathedral is a renowned venue for concerts and choir recitals.
As you leave the cathedral you will see diagonally across the road the distinguishing dome of the …
Open daily • Free
Formerly part of the Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam), this became the headquarters of the Imperial War Museum in 1936. The museum was established in 1917 to collect and display material related to the Great War and opened in the Crystal Palace in 1924. It then moved to the Imperial Institute in South Kensington before settling on a permanent site here in Lambeth.
The guns on the lawn at the entrance are 15-inch guns from the battleships Ramilles and Resolution, cast in 1915 and 1916, and the last survivors of their kind. Nearby is a section of the Berlin Wall, which divided East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. This section stood near the Brandenburg Gate and was acquired by the museum in 1991.
The exhibits inside, both permanent and temporary, now encompass weaponry, documents, artwork, films, photographs, sound recordings and books covering the two world wars and all military operations involving Britain and the Commonwealth countries since 1914.
Permanent exhibitions include the First World War Galleries, the Holocaust Exhibition, the Lord Ashcroft Gallery, which holds the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses and George Crosses and tells the stories behind them, the Curiosities of War, which includes a section of the bar where the Dambusters crews used to drink, A Family in Wartime and Witnesses to War, where you can see a Harrier Jet, a Spitfire, a V2 rocket, a T-34 tank and a Reuters Land Rover damaged by a rocket attack in Gaza. Highlights include a Canadian Red Ensign carried at Vimy Ridge in 1917, Lawrence of Arabia’s rifle, Winston Churchill’s automatic pistol, Field Marshal Montgomery’s staff car, and a midget submarine used to attack the German battleship Tirpitz.
The park that surrounds the museum is named after Geraldine Mary Harmsworth, mother of the newspaper baron Viscount Rothermere, who gave the land to the ‘mothers of Southwark’ in her memory in 1934.
Located a touch incongruously right next to the war museum, and well worth a visit, is the Tibetan Peace Garden, opened by the Dalai Lama in 1999.
On leaving the museum turn left on Lambeth Road and cross Kennington Road. For the Garden Museum (Walk 2) carry straight on down Lambeth Road to the roundabout at the end. To return to Lambeth North turn right on Kennington Road and the station is at the end of the road.
WALK 2
Exit station and take the pedestrian crossing to your right across Baylis Road, then proceed straight ahead along Westminster Bridge Road towards the railway bridge. After about 50 yards (45 m) look across the road at the building with the wide stone arch, Westminster Bridge House. This was the entrance to the London Necropolis Railway station from where, between 1854 and 1941, the deceased of London were taken by train for burial in Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking in Surrey.
Cross the road to your left at the next pedestrian lights, turn left then right into narrow Carlisle Lane. Go under the railway and then right into Archbishop’s Park, once part of the gardens of Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s London home. The garden at Lambeth Palace dates from the 12th century and is the oldest continuously cultivated private garden in London – the remaining private section of the palace gardens, which can be glimpsed beyond a high wall at the far side of the park, is open to the public on the first Wednesday of the month between March and October, from 12pm to 3pm.
Walk through Archbishop’s Park, keeping the play area to your right, and exit along a narrow passageway at the far end into Lambeth Road. Turn right and continue to the roundabout at the end, enjoying glimpses of the Lambeth Palace outbuildings through iron gates in the wall on your right.
On your right, after passing through a small garden with a fountain in the middle, is the grand 15th-century red-brick Morton’s Tower, gatehouse to Lambeth Palace.
On the right of Morton’s Tower is the church of St Mary at Lambeth, now home to the …
Re-opens daily from 2017 • Charge
Founded in 1977, this is the world’s first museum of garden history. The body of the church has been converted into an exhibition and event area with permanent displays of garden tools and historic gardening artefacts, and information on Britain’s famous gardeners. The churchyard has been transformed into a knot garden around the splendid tomb of John Tradescant the Elder and his son John Tradescant the Younger, royal gardeners to the Stuarts and the first of the great British plant collectors who travelled the world looking for plants to bring home. Amongst those they introduced to Britain are the tulip tree, the plane tree and the pineapple – if you look at the columns on nearby Lambeth Bridge you will see they are crowned with pineapples in honour of the discovery. The Tradescants allowed the public into their home in Lambeth to see their unique plant collection, thereby creating the first public museum in England, and the collection eventually formed the basis of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the establishment for which the word museum was invented. Its founder Elias Ashmole is buried here in St Mary’s, as is Anne Boleyn’s mother Elizabeth.
Also in the churchyard of St Mary’s is the impressive tomb of Captain William Bligh, who was famously cast adrift in the Pacific Ocean by Fletcher Christian and the crew of HMS Bounty during a mutiny in 1789. Bligh and 18 loyal crew members survived 47 days in a small launch and navigated over 4,000 miles of empty ocean to reach Timor and rescue.
On leaving the museum cross over at the lights to the Albert Embankment and turn right, keeping the river to your left. The short walk to Westminster Bridge provides spectacular views of the Houses of Parliament across the water. On reaching Westminster Bridge climb the steps to road level and turn right. Bear right into Lambeth Palace Road and on your right is the entrance to the …
Open daily • Charge
Located in the very hospital where she set up her training school for nurses, the Florence Nightingale Museum tells the story of the Lady of the Lamp, the founder of modern nursing, and traces the history of nursing. Highlights include the writing slate Florence used as a child, her pet owl Athena and the medicine chest she took with her to the Crimea.
Exit museum, go straight ahead across Lambeth Palace Road, bear left and then right under the railway bridge into Westminster Bridge Road and return to Lambeth North.
Also served by Northern Line
Unique museum of cinema in historic building
Open daily for pre-booked tours only • Charge
Exit station and turn left, noting the grand Metropolitan Tabernacle across the road. At the first pedestrian lights turn right across the road and then left, keeping a small park on your right. Bear right at the next fork into Kennington Lane, take the first right into Renfrew Road and the first right again into Dugard Way. Walk on between the brick pillars and turn left. The museum is a little way down on the right.
Now based in the administration block of the former Lambeth Workhouse, where Charlie Chaplin lived for a while as a child when his mother was destitute, the Cinema Museum was established in 1986 in Brixton from the private accumulations of cinema buffs Ronald Grant and Martin Humphries. It houses an extraordinary collection of memorabilia related to the cinema from the earliest days in the 1890s to the present day, including posters, art deco cinema furniture, usherettes’ uniforms and hats, a popcorn machine, tip-up seats, old tickets, film canisters, a 1912 Pathé projector, sections of carpet, a pair of art deco entrance doors and even a container of the Floradol perfume that used to be sprayed into the auditorium after a show to mask the smells of nicotine and the unwashed. As well as the permanent displays there are regular talks and presentations by film industry enthusiasts and film historians, classic film screenings and live events.
CHAPTER TWO
The Central Line
When a man wants to write a book full of unassailable facts, he always goes to the British Museum
Anthony Trollope
COLOUR: RED
YEAR OPENED: 1900
WEST LONDON (WEST RUISLIP) TO NORTH-EAST LONDON (EPPING)
LENGTH: 46 MILES – THE LONGEST LINE ON THE TUBE NETWORK
FASCINATING FACT:
MARK TWAIN WAS A PASSENGER ON THE INAUGURAL RUN
West from Oxford Circus
A Martyrs’ Shrine
The arch from which this station takes its name sits rather forlornly in the middle of a swirling traffic system, an undignified fate for what was once a grand entrance to Buckingham Palace. The Marble Arch, made of white marble from Carrara, is modelled on the Arch of Constantine in Rome and was designed in 1827 by John Nash. It was moved here in 1851 to make way for the new east wing of Buckingham Palace that faces the Mall today.
The arch may look a little melancholy, but before it arrived much worse had happened here, for this was Tyburn, London’s main place of execution. On the traffic island dividing Edgware Road where it meets the Marble Arch roundabout, there is a round stone plaque in the pavement which reads ‘The site of Tyburn Tree’ – the gallows. The first execution next to the stream known as the Ty Bourne took place in 1169, and then in 1571 the Tyburn Tree was erected on the spot, a much more efficient type of gallows on which several people could be hanged at one time. The first victim of the Tree was a Roman Catholic called John Story who was accused of being involved in a plot to replace Elizabeth I with Mary Queen of Scots. In fact, between 1535 and 1681, 105 Catholics were executed at Tyburn, including Oliver Plunkett, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, and Jesuit priest Edmund Campion. A little way up Bayswater Road there is a plaque commemorating them on the wall of …
Tours daily at 10.30am, 3.30pm and 5.30pm • Free
Turn right out of the station, go across Edgware Road, noting the Tyburn Tree plaque on the traffic island, and on into Bayswater Road. The convent is 200 yards (180 m) along on the right.
Tyburn Convent is one of those places that make London such a uniquely fascinating city. Here, within spitting distance of London’s heaving shopping mecca of Oxford Street, and one of London’s busiest road junctions, is another world, a haven of peace and devotion where gentle nuns glide through quiet cloisters and contemplate in silence – how different from Speaker’s Corner, just across the road, where they never shut up. In 1585 a priest, Father Gregory Gunne, visited the gallows at Tyburn and prophesied that one day there would be a religious house founded there to preserve the memory of the Reformation Martyrs executed at Tyburn. In 1903 his prophesy came true when an order of French Benedictine nuns, fleeing from religious restrictions in Paris, set up Tyburn Convent and established the Shrine of the Martyrs.
Today the convent is home to some 20 nuns of all ages from many different countries. They rarely leave the Convent, instead spending their days in silent contemplation and maintaining a vigil over the shrine. Each nun has her own room but life revolves around the chapel, where they sing Mass seven times daily and there is always a nun kneeling in prayer before the altar. Hanging in the chapel is a frame holding two pieces of wood: all that is left of the Tyburn Tree, which was finally taken down in 1783. Beneath the chapel is the Shrine of the Martyrs. There is a replica of the Tyburn Tree and around the walls are hung relics of the Martyrs, bits of straw and linen stained with their blood, pieces of skin or bone or hair, a fingernail, all taken from the bodies on the gallows, at great risk. One of the nuns is always available to take visitors on a tour of the shrine three times daily, at 10.30, 3.30 and 5.30 – ring the doorbell and wait by the staircase and she will appear as if by magic. The nun who guides you is allowed to talk and will answer questions about the shrine and life at the Convent. After time spent in this remarkable and refreshing place, where everyone smiles, the thought of returning to the noise and chaos outside is a little disheartening.
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