Britain’s first escalators were installed at this famous department store in 1898. Women were offered brandy at the summit in order to calm their nerves.
Fortnum and Masons claim to have invented the Scotch egg here in 1738, for the picnic hampers of lords and ladies heading out of London by coach along Piccadilly.
The London home of the Duke of Northumberland is built on the site of a medieval nunnery. There in 1547 the coffin containing Henry VIII, en route to Windsor, exploded due to build up of gasses!
To mark the 50th birthday of the Royal Air Force in 1968, Flight Lt. Allan Pollock flew his Hawker jet under the walkway of Tower Bridge. This unauthorised stunt won him a court martial.
Horace Walpole, art historian and son of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, built his ‘little Gothic castle’ over 30 years, recreating medieval styles that helped spearhead the Gothic revival.
This pub takes its monastic theme from the Dominican priory which once stood here. The elaborate and witty decorations date from 1904 and make this a unique London watering hole.
This grand Tudor palace was built by Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor Cardinal Wolsey, but passed to the king in 1529. His 4th queen Catherine Howard is said to haunt the gallery outside the chapel.
The Bankside Power Station was built as a ‘cathedral of power’ in 1963, but closed in 1981. It reopened as one of Europe’s finest modern art galleries in 2000. The Turbine Hall is 35m high.
The luxury department store began life in 1813 as a linen shop run by Benjamin Harvey from a terraced house. His daughter married Colonel Nichols in 1820, an expert in oriental rugs and silks.
The first German V-2 rocket hit London in Sept 1944, killing 3 people. The spot is marked by a memorial on Staveley Rd in Chiswick. To prevent panic, the government claimed it was a gas explosion.
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.
From 1235 until 1835, the monarch’s personal zoo was kept at the Tower, and it included many exotic animals given as presents by other monarchs, including polar bears, leopards and elephants.
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.
An inn was built here in the 15th century by the monks from Bermondsey Priory. It’s said the crew of the Mayflower were recruited here, and it’s from where Turner and Whistler drew the river.
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.
The floors above the grand Victorian station were run as an upmarket hotel, the Midland Grand, between 1873 and 1922. They are currently being renovated and returned to this purpose.
The first bridge here was inaugurated on 1 June 1759, when the Prince of Wales (later George III) and his mother Princess Augusta rode across it. The bridge was rebuilt in 1789 and 1903.
The name of this hill dates back to the English Civil War when it was occupied by Roundhead (Parliamentary) soldiers. The panoramic views over London are protected by law.
Opening in 1797, this is the oldest book shop in Britain and once stocked the country house libraries of Britain’s aristocrats. Byron, Wellington, Disraeli and Wilde were all regular customers.
The V&A is the world’s largest museum of decorative art and design and holds 4.5 million objects. Henry Cole, the museum’s first director, printed the world’s first Christmas card in 1843.
Oxford Circus got its new diagonal pedestrian crossing in 2009. It was inspired by crossings in Tokyo like the one at Shibuya, and in recognition of this Japanese musicians played at the opening.
The Coliseum opened in 1904 as a ‘people’s palace of entertainment’. During WW2 it became a canteen for air raid wardens, and Winston Churchill once addressed them from the theatre stage.
Opening in 1960 on the site of the White City exhibition park, the studios here have witnessed much of the best of British television over the years. It won’t be used for broadcasting after 2013.
This WW2 cruiser, now a tourist attraction, took part in the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst and in the D-Day landings. Her guns are aimed at an M1 service station 12.5 miles away.
The parish church of Greenwich is the resting place of General James Wolfe, who at the age of 32 defeated the French at the Battle of Quebec in 1759, which led to British control of Canada.
This Palladian villa was built in the 1720s for the Countess of Suffolk, a mistress of George II. Here she would entertain the poet Alexander Pope and the satirist Jonathan Swift.
In 1616 Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, commissioned Inigo Jones to build the Queen’s House, the first fully Classical building in England. The house now forms part of the National Maritime Museum.
Peter Rees Jones, the son of a Monmouthshire hatter, opened a shop here in 1877 which was instantly successful. It was bought by John Lewis, another famous department store owner, in 1914.
In the 18th century the park was notorious for highwaymen and Horace Walpole was one of many robbed here. Handel’s ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks’ was composed for an event here in 1749.
