Downing Street in Westminster

29 August 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London Reading Time:  10 minutes

© Drow male/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Drow male/cc-by-sa-3.0

Downing Street in London has for more than three hundred years housed the official residences of two of the most senior British Cabinet ministers: the First Lord of the Treasury, an office now synonymous with that of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; and the Second Lord of the Treasury, an office held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Prime Minister’s official residence is 10 Downing Street; the Chancellor’s official residence is next door at Number 11. The government’s Chief Whip has an official residence at Number 12, although the current Chief Whip’s residence is at Number 9. Downing Street is in Whitehall in the City of Westminster, a few minutes’ walk from the Houses of Parliament and a little further from Buckingham Palace. The street was built in the 1680s by Sir George Downing on the site of a mansion, Hampden House. The houses on the south side of the street were demolished in the 19th century to make way for government offices now occupied by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. “Downing Street” is used as a metonym for the Government of the United Kingdom.   read more…

Victoria and Albert Museum in London

1 August 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  10 minutes

Victoria and Albert Museum entrance © Davild Iliff/cc-by-sa-3.0

Victoria and Albert Museum entrance © Davild Iliff/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A), London, is the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The V&A is located in the Brompton district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area that has become known as “Albertopolis” because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Royal Albert Hall. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Like other national British museums, entrance to the museum has been free since 2001. Since 2001, the museum has embarked on a major £150m renovation programme, which has seen a major overhaul of the departments, including the introduction of newer galleries, gardens, shops and visitor facilities.   read more…

Royal Opera House in London

8 July 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries Reading Time:  12 minutes

Royal Opera House and ballerina © Russ London/cc-by-sa-3.0

Royal Opera House and ballerina © Russ London/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden in London. The large building is often referred to as simply “Covent Garden“, after a previous use of the site of the opera house’s original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Originally called the Theatre Royal, it served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, Handel‘s first season of operas began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there.   read more…

Albertopolis in London

8 June 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  6 minutes

Albertopolis © Andreas Praefcke

Albertopolis © Andreas Praefcke

Albertopolis is the nickname given to the area centred on Exhibition Road in London, named after Prince Albert, spouse of Queen Victoria. It contains a large number of educational and cultural sites. It is in South Kensington, split between the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster (the border running along Imperial College Road), and the area bordered by Cromwell Road to the south and Kensington Road to the north. The closest tube station is South Kensington, linked to the museums by a tiled tunnel beneath Exhibition Road constructed in 1885. The tunnel originally continued as a covered route to the south porch of the Royal Albert Hall via a second tunnel, subsequently used for a period as Imperial College’s shooting range, emerging into the arcades and conservatory of the former gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society.   read more…

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich

23 May 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  9 minutes

National Maritime Museum © ChrisO/cc-by-sa-3.0

National Maritime Museum © ChrisO/cc-by-sa-3.0

The National Maritime Museum (NMM) in Greenwich in London, is the leading maritime museum of the United Kingdom and may be the largest museum of its kind in the world. The historic buildings form part of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, and it also incorporates the Royal Observatory, and 17th-century Queen’s House. In 2012, Her Majesty The Queen formally approved Royal Museums Greenwich as the new overall title for the National Maritime Museum, Queen’s House, the Royal Observatory, Greenwich and the Cutty Sark. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the National Maritime Museum does not levy an admission charge although most temporary exhibitions do incur admission charges.   read more…

Theme Week London – Covent Garden and Soho

7 October 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, London, Shopping Reading Time:  14 minutes

SOHO

Berwick Street Market - Soho © Fin Fahey

Berwick Street Market – Soho © Fin Fahey

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

1 October 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month, London Reading Time:  6 minutes

Tower Bridge and 20 Fenchurch Street © mattbuck/cc-by-sa-4.0

Tower Bridge and 20 Fenchurch Street © mattbuck/cc-by-sa-4.0

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 in Greenwich

10 September 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, London, Museums, Exhibitions, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  8 minutes

© flickr.com - Karen Roe/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Karen Roe/cc-by-2.0

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 in London

20 June 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  16 minutes

© flickr.com - Mark Fosh/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Mark Fosh/cc-by-2.0

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…

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