Soho is home to Europe’s largest Chinatown, which developed in the 1970s. Earlier generations of London’s Chinese population had centred around the docks of Limehouse.
The bridge had to close within days of its opening in 2000 because of a slight wobble, which caused people to walk in step with each other, causing the wobble to become much worse!
Europe’s largest brick building was given classical flair by architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. The station went off-line in 1983. In 2010 plans were approved for redevelopment into offices and homes.
The famous illuminated advertising of Piccadilly Circus began as early as 1893, before most of the city had electric street lighting.
The area takes its name from the church of St.Mary at the Bourne (a variation of Tyburn, a local river). The 18th century Marylebone Gardens were famous for bear-baiting, prize-fighting and duelling.
Today one of London’s most important contemporary art galleries, the Hayward is named after Sir Isaac Hayward, Labour leader of the London County Council from 1947 until its abolition in 1965.
Great Marlborough Street gives its name to the world’s leading cigarette brand – it was home to the original factory that made them. London’s first discotheque (La Boubelle) opened here in 1959.
During the London Blitz in January 1941, the Central line ticket hall of Bank station took a direct hit, killing 57 people. The crater measured 100 feet by 120.
Laid out in the 1630s, this is the largest public square in London. Anthony Babbington, who led a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, was hanged, drawn and quartered here.
Opened in 1881, the museum facade uses terracotta tiles which were resistant to the soot of Victorian London. The largest of the famous dinosaur skeletons in the central hall is a diplodocus.
Run by the British Film Institute, it has easily the biggest cinema screen in the country – 20 metres high by 26 wide, with 12k Watts of digital surround sound.
Currently the third tallest Ferris wheel in the world (the tallest when built in 1999, but now behind Singapore and Nanchang), it moves at 0.6mph, and you can see 25 miles from the top.
The street takes its name from Admiral Vernon’s 1739 conquest of the Spanish port of Portobelo in modern-day Panama. On Saturdays it’s now home to a famous antiques and street market.
This church has origins in a 7th century nunnery and was rebuilt as a church in the 12th century. Its Harvard Memorial Chapel is named after the Southwark-born (b.1607) founder of the US university.
The Hotspur Football Club was formed in 1882 by grammar-school boys who played on Tottenham Marshes. The club is credited with inventing revolutionary ‘push and run’ tactics (the one-two) in 1949.
In 1991 an IRA bomb hidden in a bin in Victoria station killed one man and injured 38. This led to the removal of all litter bins from London stations.
Arsenal Football Club was formed by workers from the Woolwich Arsenal in the 1886, hence their nickname ‘the Gunners’. The club moved north of the river to Highbury in 1913.
A market at the southern end of London Bridge is first mentioned in 1276. In 1755 it was closed by Parliament for causing congestion, but soon reopened and is now one of London’s busiest.
Six major roads converge here and the bus station is now London’s second busiest. The new bus station, completed in 2004, receives 30% of its power from solar panels in the roof.
The smallest of the three Southbank music venues specialises in chamber music, solo performances, mime and spoken word. It has a capacity of 370.
Piccadilly is named after a type of broad lace collar fashionable in the early 17th century, the ‘piccadil’. The best examples were sold by a local tailor whose shop became known as Piccadilly Hall.
‘Soho’ is thought to come from the hunting and battle cry of the Duke of Monmouth, a local landlord. He used it at the Battle of Sedgemoor where he was defeated in 1685, and later executed.
Built in 1922 for the London County Council, this was the home of London municipal government until the abolition of the GLC in 1986. It now houses an aquarium, art galleries and restaurants
The extraordinary Sir Henry Wellcome (d.1936) founded one of the great multinational pharmaceutical companies, and this museum is based on his amazing collection of medical artefacts.
St.Thomas’s moved here from Southwark in 1871. Florence Nightingale’s School of Nursing, the first of its kind in the world, was established at the old St.Thomas’s in 1860.
This club was still being built as a cinema when the First World War broke out, and it became an aircraft factory. It opened as the King’s Cross Cinema in 1920, which closed in 1974.
This museum houses more than 80 vehicles including the first tubes, horse-drawn trams and the earliest motorised buses, plus iconic posters from the last 100 years.
Charles I gave a license for a market here in 1638, selling ‘flesh, fowl and roots’. The wholesale fruit and veg market moved to New Spitalfields in Leyton in 1991 .
This, the first aluminium statue in the world, represents Christian Charity, as a tribute to Victorian philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury. The winged archer is actually Anteros, brother of Eros.
Opened in 1848 as Waterloo Bridge Station, it grew in such a chaotic way (16 platforms, 10 platform numbers) that it was a running joke amongst Londoners, and had to be completely rebuilt in 1899.
