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…

Portrait: The Astor family

27 June 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time:  11 minutes

John Jacob Astor by Gilbert Stuart

John Jacob Astor by Gilbert Stuart

The Astor family is a family known for its prominence in business, society, and politics in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Astor family is of German origin, appearing in North America during the eighteenth century with John Jacob Astor.   read more…

Bristol International Balloon Fiesta

24 June 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Events Reading Time:  5 minutes

© Bradleylewis/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Bradleylewis/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Bristol International Balloon Fiesta is held annually England. Teams from the UK and other parts of the world bring their hot air balloons to Bristol and participate in mass ascents where as many as 100 balloons may launch at a time. The event was first held in 1979 and is now one of the largest in Europe. It is common to have crowds of over 100,000 on each of the four days of the festival. It takes place in a large country estate Ashton Court. Mass launches are made twice a day, at 6am and 6pm, subject to weather conditions.   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…

Portrait: 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare

1 June 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time:  8 minutes

William Shakespeare by John Taylor

William Shakespeare by John Taylor

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet, and the “Bard of Avon”. His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.   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…

The Bluewater Shopping Centre

1 February 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month, Shopping Reading Time:  9 minutes

© Fay1982-cc-by-sa-4.0

© Fay1982-cc-by-sa-4.0

Bluewater Shopping Centre (commonly referred to as Bluewater) is an out of town shopping centre in Stone (postally Greenhithe), Kent, outside the M25 Orbital motorway, 17.8 miles (28.6 km) east south-east of London‘s centre. Opened on 16 March 1999 in a former chalk quarry after three years of building, the site including car parks occupies 240 acres (97 ha) and has a sales floor area of 154,000 m2 (1,600,000 ft2) over two levels, making it the fourth-largest shopping centre in the UK (after the MetroCentre, Trafford Centre and Westfield Stratford City). Elsewhere in Europe only Istanbul‘s Cevahir Mall and Vienna‘s Shopping City Süd are bigger. The floor plan is a triangular shape with 330 stores, including 3 anchors, 40 cafés and restaurants, and a 13-screen cinema. The centre employs 7,000 people and serves over 27 million visitors a year. A main rival is the Lakeside Shopping Centre and its two retail parks by road 8 miles (13 km) away in West Thurrock, Essex, just across the River Thames or 3.2 miles (5.1 km) point-to-point. It is owned by four major UK institutions, Prudential plc and PRUPIM (35%), Land Securities (30%), the Lend Lease Retail Partnership (25%) and Hermes (10%).   read more…

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