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Coldharbour is a street located on the Isle of Dogs which has managed, unusually, to withstand the curse of modern development and remain in its pre-nineteenth century condition. Either by oversight or by sheer luck the street managed to avoid any kind of development performed in the name of modernisation through both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. If ever there was a place where you could truly step backwards through time, it is here. When you step into Coldharbour you are entering the period in the life of the city…

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One of the fantastic things about wandering around London is that you are walking on century’s worth of history without even realising it. Some of it will be related to royalty and some of it to the more sinister aspects of this ancient city, but it is there, beneath your feet all the same. Most of it is not even hidden, open for all to see instead of being locked away in a place that you are charged admission to enter. Instead it is what makes the city what it…

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Visit any major city in the UK and the majority of the tourist attractions that are advertised will be the biggest, the grandest or the oldest of whatever they have to offer. Very rarely do you come across something that is the smallest of anything. This is why London is such a great place to visit, its attractions are both ancient, modern and occasionally rather quirky. Take the smallest police station for example. You could walk past it, think nothing of it and fail to give it even a second…

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If you don’t know it’s there you may well walk past it, or you could cast a glance in its direction and think that for some reason the building you are seeing looks out of place. The fact is, it’s not so much out of place as out of time. Take a walk down a small street called Cloth Fair in the area of Farringdon and you will walk past a house straight from the streets of Old London Town. The building that occupies 41-42 Cloth Fair was built somewhere…

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As you reach the junction of Leadenhall Street, Fenchurch Street and Aldgate High Street you will notice a rather unusual feature. What you are looking at is a water pump, a rather historic one at that. The pump that is on the site now is relatively new, bring placed there in 1876, but before the pump was installed this was the site of a well, a well that was in existence in the 1500’s and probably a long time before that too. It is a throwback to a bygone age,…

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Everyone has heard tales about how if the ravens were ever to leave the Tower of London, the building would crumble and fall, but there is a little bit more to it than that. No one has an exact date for when the ravens were first held in captivity at the Tower but their presence there is shrouded in myths and legends. According to the most common legend there must be a minimum of six ravens in residence at any time in order to stop the Tower from crumbling and…

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At the topmost northern point on the Greenwich Peninsula you will find Blackwall Point.  This area is notable for a couple of things; firstly because it marked the entrance into the port of London and secondly because it is the point where convicted pirates were left to hang, visible to all ships that entered the port. The trip to Blackwell Point was not all that they had to endure though, the display here was to serve as a warning to those who looked upon piracy as their way of life.…

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Little Italy in London is located in Clerkenwell.  This part of the city has a link with Italy that spans at least two centuries, since the very first immigrants came to city to make a new life. This area was once known as the Italian Quarter and even Italian Hill, and the area is defined by the roads of Roseberry Avenue, Farringdon Road and Clerkenwell Road at its perimeter. This is a part of the city that once went by the name of Saffron Hill, and was the place where…

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In recent years the stag party has been taken to a whole new level, with the celebrations (or commiserations on the impending marriage) lasting for an entire weekend. But why go to the expense of heading abroad for your weekend when the attractions of London are a home grown party opportunity right on your doorstep? Here are a few suggestions of how to make your stag weekend a celebration to remember. Need for Speed Blow away those pre wedding nerves on an exhilarating speedboat trip on the Thames. Forget the…

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A unique visual spectacle takes place in London during the 11th to the 13th January 2013. Teams from around the world will be in the city to take part in the 2013 Ice Sculpting Festival and competition. Due to the popularity of the event this year’s festival has been extended to cover three whole days and sees more international teams than ever taking part. The event is not purely a visual thing, there is also the opportunity to take part yourself and create something in ice of your own, as…

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