Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable transformation. It now is predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry venues. read more…
20 Fenchurch Street is a commercial skyscraper in London that takes its name from its address on Fenchurch Street, in the historic City of London financial district. It has been nicknamed ‘The Walkie-Talkie’ because of its distinctive shape. Construction was completed in spring 2014, and the top-floor ‘sky garden’ was opened in January 2015. The 34-storey building is 160 m (525 ft) tall, making it the fifth-tallest building in the City of London and the 13th tallest in London. Designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and costing over £200 million, 20 Fenchurch Street features a highly distinctive top-heavy form which appears to burst upward and outward. A large viewing deck, bar and restaurants are included on the top three floors; these are, with restrictions, open to the public. read more…
The Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion. read more…
St Paul’s Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London. It sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present church, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed within Wren’s lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme which took place in the city after the Great Fire of London. The cathedral is one of the most famous and most recognisable sights of London, with its dome, framed by the spires of Wren’s City churches, dominating the skyline for 300 years. At 365 feet (111 m) high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1962, and its dome is also among the highest in the world. In terms of area, St Paul’s is the second largest church building in the United Kingdom after Liverpool Cathedral. read more…
Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The main building is in Art Deco style, with a facing of Portland stone over a steel frame. It is a Grade II* listed building and includes the BBC Radio Theatre, where music and speech programmes are recorded in front of a studio audience, and lobby that was used as a location for filming the 1998 BBC television series In the Red. read more…
Greenwich is a district of South East London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time. The town became the site of a Royal palace, the Palace of Placentia from the 15th century, and was the birthplace of many in the House of Tudor, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The palace fell into disrepair during the English Civil War and was rebuilt as the Royal Naval Hospital for Sailors by Sir Christopher Wren and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. These buildings became the Royal Naval College in 1873, and they remained an establishment for military education until 1998 when they passed into the hands of the Greenwich Foundation. The historic rooms within these buildings remain open to the public; other buildings are used by University of Greenwich and the Trinity College of Music. The town became a popular resort in the 17th century with many grand houses, such as Vanbrugh castle established on Maze Hill, next to the park. From the Georgian period estates of houses were constructed above the town centre. The maritime connections of Greenwich were celebrated in the 20th century, with the sitting of the Cutty Sark and Gipsy Moth IV next to the river front, and the National Maritime Museum in the former buildings of the Royal Hospital School in 1934. Greenwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created. To mark the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, it was announced on 5 January 2010 that in 2012, the London Borough of Greenwich is to become the fourth to have Royal Borough status. The three others being The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Royal Borough. Due to its historic links with the Royal Family, and its status as home of the Prime Meridian and as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. read more…
Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in London. It was originally a private Palladian mansion, and was expanded in the mid-19th century after being purchased by the British government. The main building is at the northern end of the courtyard and houses the Royal Academy, while five learned societies occupy the two wings on the east and west sides of the courtyard and the Piccadilly wing at the southern end. These societies, collectively known as the Courtyard Societies are: read more…
