For Helmut

Imprint

© Emons Verlag GmbH // 2016
All rights reserved
Text: John Sykes
© Photographs: Birgit Weber, except
chapter 4, 8, 15, 20, 25, 28, 30, 35, 52, 53, 59, 69, 85, 102, 106 ( John Sykes)
Design: Emons Verlag
Maps based on data by Openstreetmap, © Openstreet Map-participants, ODbL
ISBN 978-3-86358-549-5
eBook of the original print edition published by Emons Verlag

Did you enjoy it? Do you want more? Join us in uncovering new places around the world on: www.111places.com

111 Places in London that You Shouldn’t Miss

John Sykes

emons: Verlag

Foreword

In a particularly rainy English summer we pounded miles of wet pavements, visiting well over 111 places and taking more than 8000 photos in order to arrive at the selection presented here.

Famous sights like Big Ben and tourist magnets such as the British Museum are not included, as they have already been described in countless travel guides. We looked at places that visitors might only find on their second or fifth trip to London. Most of them are in inner London, but excursions beyond the city centre to all points of the compass are also included.

We aim to show the breathtaking diversity of a city where all the cultures of the world meet. Its architecture ranges from aristocratic residences to heritage-listed wooden huts, its places of leisure from gentlemen’s clubs with strict admission criteria to pubs for everyone, its shops from historic emporiums to stores selling in-your-face young fashion. We invite readers to accompany us to a synagogue, a Hindu temple, a Buddhist pagoda, some churches and an unconsecrated cemetery.

We look at the grave of a king of Corsica in Soho, the wine dealer that kept records of its customers’ weight, the spot where pirates were hanged in the river, the subterranean cycle path to Scotland, the high-rise block of flats designed by James Bond’s mortal enemy, and a hidden haven for Thames mudlarks.

There is a deliberate gap in the list of 111 places: 110 is followed by 112. Fans of cricket will know the reason for this superstition, and everyone else can read about it in connection with Lord’s Cricket Ground (number 53).

We hope those who explore London with this book will enjoy the experience as much as we enjoyed researching, taking photographs and writing it.

John Sykes & Birgit Weber

1_Albert Bridge

A frail old soldier

Tower Bridge may be world-famous, but nothing spans the Thames more beautifully than Albert Bridge a few miles upstream. Named after Queen Victoria’s consort, the bridge is truly enchanting after dark, when 4000 fairy lights put a magic sparkle on its octagonal towers and iron stays. During daylight hours, the pastel shades of its paint – pink, blue and yellow – pick out the intricacies of the structure. The dainty appearance of Albert Bridge is not misleading: ever since its inauguration in 1873, it has given headaches to civil engineers, as its 19th century nickname, the »trembling lady«, indicates. The historic signs that warned companies of soldiers from nearby Chelsea Barracks to break step as they marched across are still in place.

The engineer Rowland Mason Ordish designed Albert Bridge as his own patented variant of the cable-stayed bridge. It had to be reinforced only eleven years after opening. In the late 1950s, a vigorous campaign by prominent supporters, including the poet John Betjeman, prevented demolition. For the centenary of the bridge in 1973, piers were placed in the river to shore it up. Recent structural problems are connected to the social make-up of the neighbourhood: residents from the north bank drive across in their heavy, four-wheel-drive »Chelsea tractors«, but the brittle cast-iron structure was never intended to carry motorised traffic. They also walk their poodles to Battersea Park on the south bank. As some dogs cannot wait till they reach the other side, urine corrodes the wooden deck beneath the roadway.

Following restoration, Albert Bridge was reopened in 2011, not by royalty but with »walkies« for Prince and Albert, two residents of Battersea Dogs’ Home. A splendid sight but frail with age, like the uniformed veteran soldiers of the nearby Royal Hospital, the bridge stands upright and does its duty.

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2_The Albert Memorial

A shiny gold prince

London’s most elaborate monument honours Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819–61). Cast in bronze and gilded, the husband of Queen Victoria is enthroned in Kensington Gardens beneath a 54-metre-high Gothic canopy. Seated in a pensive pose, his head slightly turned to the left, he looks towards the South Kensington museums rather than the Royal Albert Hall opposite. One hand holds the catalogue of the Great Exhibition of 1851, in which he played a leading role. In the Crystal Palace, a huge structure made of iron and glass, this first-ever world fair presented the triumphs of Western civilisation and above all of Great Britain, the world’s leading industrial and colonial power. The profits from the Great Exhibition were used to found the institutions now known as the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum.

The monument, unveiled in 1876 by Queen Victoria, embodies his faith in progress. Groups of white marble figures on the plinth symbolise industry, commerce, engineering and agriculture. Beneath these stand 169 life-size relief carvings of European writers, painters, composers, architects and engineers, including a solitary woman, Nitocritis of Babylon. A magnificent gilded fence keeps visitors at a distance, but around it sculptural allegories of the four continents can be admired from close up. For all the exotic garments of the human figures, the animals steal the scene: Asia is represented by a friendly-looking elephant, America by an imposing buffalo, Africa by a camel wrinkling its nose. Europe sits on her bull, holding a sceptre as a sign of authority, next to Britannia with a trident, the symbol of sea power. During his lifetime, Albert rejected the idea of being commemorated by a monument, fearing an »artistic monstrosity«. In fact the architect, George Gilbert Scott, and the sculptors created a masterpiece.

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3_Apothecaries’ Hall

A survival from the age of guilds

In the alleys and courts between Ludgate Hill and the Thames, you can still get a feel of a bygone, small-scale London – for example in narrow Black Friars Lane next to a railway viaduct. The friars were Dominicans, whose refectory became a theatre after the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII. Shakespeare once trod the boards there, in the place now called Playhouse Yard, and bought a house in nearby Ireland Yard. Another part of the Dominicans’ premises was taken over in 1632 by the Society of Apothecaries, one of London’s 109 »livery companies«.

The livery companies, so called for their ceremonial gowns, originated in the Middle Ages as guilds of tailors, wine merchants, goldsmiths and other occupations. They laid down the rules of their trades, had religious roles and elected the Lord Mayor. Most of them have now become charitable organisations, but some still have professional functions. The Society of Apothecaries possesses the oldest remaining livery hall. Parts of it, including the 18-metre-long Great Hall with its oak panelling, large chandelier and historic portraits of officers of the society, date from 1670. The coat of arms that adorns the modest façade in Black Friars Lane shows Apollo slaying a dragon, the symbol of disease, with a Latin motto meaning »I am called a bringer of help throughout the world«.

Originally organised within the guild of pepper merchants, the apothecaries founded their own livery company in 1617. Half a century later, they established a botanical garden for growing plants, the Chelsea Physic Garden, which still exists. Past members include the poet John Keats and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836–1917), the first Englishwoman to qualify as a doctor. Until 1922, the Society of Apothecaries ran a pharmaceutical business. Today it holds post-graduate examinations in medicine and awards a prize for medical history. And the senior members still elect the Lord Mayor.

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4_The Argyll Arms

A refuge from shopping hell

Pushing and jostling along Oxford Street, Londoners and visitors from all over the world engage in a collective retail frenzy. For those who find this place unbearable, and for fashion victims seeking to recuperate after their shopping trip, there is a haven close to Oxford Circus Tube Station in Argyll Street: a pub that is also a gem of interior design.

In the 18th century, the Duke of Argyll resided in the street – the Palladium Theatre now occupies the site – and the sign over the door bears his coat of arms. A tavern has stood here since 1742, but the wonderful interior of the Argyll Arms dates mainly from 1895. This was the golden age of pub architecture when breweries, facing stiffer competition than ever from other places of amusement such as theatres, bought up modest watering holes and turned them into gleaming palaces. They aimed to counter the arguments of the temperance movement by demonstrating taste and decency.

The Argyll Arms is fitted with dark wood, mirrors and etched glass. Three snug screened-off drinking areas lie between a corridor and the long bar. The partitions are made from carved mahogany and frosted glass into which delicate patterns have been etched: floral motifs, cornucopias and vases. Subdued lamplight glows in the dimness, sparkles in the mirrors and lends depth to the patterns in the glass. Above this, painted dark red, is a ceiling of Lincrusta, a deeply embossed material related to linoleum that was used as a wall covering in Victorian times. This ceiling may well be as old as the building, which dates from 1868. To the rear is a rare surviving example of a publican’s office, also partitioned off with panels of etched glass and mahogany, and boasting a clock with a carved encasement. As The Argyll Arms is a listed building, its beauty will be preserved for future generations of drinkers and exhausted shoppers.

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5_The Athenaeum Club

The goddess admits those who are worthy

Among the grey stone façades on Pall Mall and St James’s Street, the district of gentlemen’s clubs, one club stands out from the others thanks to its bright, cream-coloured paint, a replica of the Parthenon frieze in white on a blue background and a brilliantly gilded female figure, the goddess Athene, who stands above the Doric columns of the entrance with her helmet and spear. Her gaze lowered and left arm outstretched, she seems to be inviting deserving mortals into the club.

In 1824 the writer John Wilson Croker, the artist Sir Thomas Lawrence and other eminent men founded the Athenaeum Club, intending it to be a meeting place for outstanding persons in the fields of science, art and literature. Whereas other clubs appealed to army officers, politicians, travellers or gamblers and drinkers, the Athenaeum was a refuge for intellectuals. The decision to spend money on the expensive Parthenon frieze instead of facilities to cool members’ drinks underlined its aspirations, as a satirical verse recorded: »I’m John Wilson Croker, I do as I please; instead of an ice house I give you – a frieze!« The members have included Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, J. M. W. Turner, Charles Darwin and, to date, 52 Nobel Prize laureates. The scientist Michael Faraday, whose wheelchair has been preserved in the club, ensured that the rooms had electric lighting as early as 1886. At the foot of the wide staircase Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, the latter mortally ill, were reconciled in 1863 after a quarrel that had lasted for years.

Today government ministers, high-ranking civil servants and bishops are among the members. Women were not admitted until 2002, but now they too can dine and stay overnight in the club, read the 80,000 volumes in the imposing library, invite guests to private occasions, or simply snooze behind a newspaper in a leather armchair beneath the heavily framed portraits in the Morning Room.

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6_The Barbican

A monstrosity or a home with culture?

It is said that no-one lives in the City, that square mile within London’s historic city wall where more than 300,000 people have their place of work and a mere 12,000 their dwelling. One third of the latter group are at home in The Barbican.

Wartime bombing turned the parish of Cripplegate into an uninhabited field of ruins. In order to breathe life into the City, plans for residential development began in the 1950s, but the project was completed only in the mid-1970s. Some 2000 flats were constructed from raw-looking, dark concrete, many of them in three towers that rise 123 metres with 42 storeys each. The labyrinth of steps and raised walkways that link the 13 residential blocks can be relied upon to confuse visitors. In keeping with the word »Barbican«, meaning outworks of a fortification, the whole complex turns inwards, saluting its surroundings with concrete cliffs. Is it an urban atrocity?

In fact the Barbican has become a popular, traffic-free place to live and in 2001 received the accolade of a Grade II listing as a site of special architectual interest. The closed-off architecture keeps out the roar of London’s streets. Residents are soothed by the sound of splashing fountains on the café terrace and the sight of hanging green gardens or water lilies and reeds in the big pond. The Barbican Arts Centre is a respected venue for cinemas, plays, concerts and exhibitions, and home to a conservatory filled with 2000 tropical plants. Tourists find historical sights such as the 1000-year-old church of St Giles-without-Cripplegate. Built in its present form in 1394 and altered many times, it is the church where Oliver Cromwell married and the poet John Milton was laid to rest. Gardens and a moat flank substantial remains of London’s medieval city wall with its Roman foundations. As the stone cladding was taken for other purposes, only the core of the wall survives – rough masonry, hardly more attractive than the concrete of the Barbican towers.

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7_Belgrave Square

Family property

In previous centuries, the art of making the right marriage often determined the prosperity of aristocratic dynasties. In the case of the Grosvenor family, whose head bears the title Duke of Westminster, a well-chosen bride has been effective to this day. The undeveloped land that came to the Grosvenor estates through a 17th-century heiress is now one of the poshest parts of London: Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico. The family has kept hold of this prime land, which makes the seventh Duke of Westminster, born in 1991, the richest man of his class.

A centrepiece of this property portfolio is Belgrave Square. At the north-east corner of the square is a memorial to Robert Grosvenor, under whom the neoclassical rows with their columned entrances and white stucco façades were built in the years up to 1840 on marshy terrain that had been a haunt of highwaymen. The duke’s architect, George Basevi, designed a row of eleven or twelve imposing houses on each side of the square. In the corners between these terraces he placed palatial detached houses, and the space in the middle was laid out as a garden. Once the home of the aristocracy and the rich, Belgrave Square now serves mainly as a prestigious address for the embassies of Germany, Portugal, Serbia, Bahrain, Norway and Syria. The Duke of Westminster himself has his town house nearby in Eaton Square, which is named after the family’s country seat in Cheshire. His London neighbours include Roman Abramovich and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Fenced in and screened by shrubs from the prying eyes of passersby, the gardens in the middle of Belgrave Square are a private space. Once a year, however, during the Open Garden Squares Weekend in June, everyone has an opportunity to stroll where otherwise only the privileged residents are admitted. To gain possession of a key to the gate, you need more than a few million pounds.

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8_Berry Bros. & Rudd

Wine merchants for 300 years

The dark green paint on the shop front is the first clue to its age. The windows and doors look as if they have been painted a hundred times without the woodwork ever being sanded down. The surface is covered with little hollows and blisters, and all the corners are rounded, but the paintwork has a deep shine. Inside the shop, oak panelling, dim lighting and the alarming slope of the floor confirm the first impression.

The present building dates from 1731, but a certain Widow Bourne started selling spices, tea and coffee on the site as early as 1698, and soon added wine to her assortment. These origins are displayed by the sign of a grinder over the door and by huge scales for weighing sacks of coffee beans – and customers too. Regulars can still take advantage of this service and have their names entered in a ledger that records the weight of Lord Byron.

In 1810 George Berry took over the business that now bears the names of his sons and a partner, Hugh Rudd, a specialist in German wines. Today Berry Bros. employ five qualified »masters of wine« to advise a discerning clientele. The shop has a separate room for »fine wine reserves«, but anyone can walk in and buy a single bottle at an affordable price. If the desired vintage is not on the shelves, the friendly sales staff will find something suitable among the 20,000 bottles in the cellar.

The longevity of this wine merchant is connected to its prime location in St James’s, where the well-to-do gentleman has his essential suppliers. Opposite Berry Bros., Truefitt & Hill sell exquisite shaving accessories. The hat maker Locke, the shoe maker Lobb and Dunhill’s cigar shop are close by, and fine shirts can be purchased round the corner in Jermyn Street. For all its air of tradition, Berry Bros. has large modern storehouses outside London and sells online – but to buy their wine in style, only one place will do.