While visiting England for a few weeks I found out about Crossness by accident. I was googling some…read morehistory sites, and up popped some photos of a beautiful Victorian cast iron fantasyland, a monument to 19th century civil engineering and the the sewers that transformed London from a stinky disease-ridden hellhole to a large and thriving metropolis. I was delighted to score a ticket for one of their guided tours, which are held once a week and seem to sell out fast. The trek from Central London in the morning by tube/train was very easy, and I got a cab for the short distance from the Abbey Wood station. This was well worth the trip. The building dates from the 1860s and was nearly lost to the wrecking ball in the 1950s, but has been lovingly restored by many volunteers who continue to work on maintenance, preservation, and expansion. You enter from a separate gate outside the Thames Water facility, and walk up a ramp to a little volunteer-run small-gauge train shuttle. The pumping station looks somewhat nondescript from the outside (especially as some of its original features were removed/scrapped over the years), but once you walk in, you will discover there's no hyperbole to the website's claim that Crossness is a 'cathedral of engineering' - our current-day public works are so half-a** in comparison. Glorious, lavishly ornate painted ironwork and complex machinery, all to handle poo! We started with a slide presentation and talk, about the Thames, backyard privies/cisterns and cholera outbreaks, the Great Stink of 1858 & the building of the sewers. Then we were split up into groups and guided around the property on a leisurely and thorough tour. Much of the facility has been lovingly restored, as funds permit, and the meticulous attention to detail with matching Victorian paint colors, etc., is commendable. The steam engine wasn't operational when I went, but I can imagine how loud it must be when it's going! The outbuilding that once served as a school for the workers, now contains a number of antique mechanical devices that have been expertly restored, and another is the shop where you can see people working away at metal lathes, etc. There is also an impressive array of antique toilets. This was well worth the side trip out of town and I would definitely go back; it would be a great family trip, or school visit. Anyone who doesn't stop to think about how our cities and civilizations deal with human waste, is missing out. Read "The Big Necessity" by Rose George, and "The Ghost Map" by Stephen Johnson, and visit Crossness Pumping Station. Why Bazalgette doesn't have an enormous statue in London I will never understand.

You wouldn't really put 'sewage' and 'beauty' in the same sentence, would you? Well, you might…read moreafter a trip to Crossness in Abbey Wood. The interior of this Romanesque style Grade 1 listed building looks more like an ornate church than a pumping station, but not without reason, as this served as Victorian London's much-needed sewerage system. The Prince of Wales opened this building in 1865 and claimed to feel the whole floor rumble when he turned on the giant engines (a rumble you can still feel today if you go on a steamer day). These engines are the originals and possibly remain the largest rotative beam engines in the world. Adult entry is £4/£5 on streaming day, children under 16 go free. Crossness has just received a large grant from the National Heritage Fund, so check the website for opening times as they will be by appointment only in 2009.

Magnificent palace located in a far out London suburb. This palace was for a time, the home for the…read moreCourtaulds family who built a magnificent house attached to a mediaevel hall. The hall was all what remained of a Royal palace. But its foundations have been partly excavated and exposed for public viewing in the magnificent gardens. If you love art deco interiors, then you will love this place which still remans fresh and contemporary with its numerous en suite bathrooms and fitted bedrooms. And a simply beautiful lobby with a unique domed ceiling. Do buy a bag of carp food and have fun feeding the greedy fishes!

My fiancé and I visited from the US and we're looking to visit some unique attractions in England…read more This is one of them. A beautiful Art Deco house! The staff was very friendly. They have beautiful gardens to stroll in as well. If you can appreciate vintage/antique Art Deco architecture you'll enjoy walking around this palace. They also have a tea room at the end of the walk which we enjoyed a pot of tea and a slice of maple walnut coffee cake. Very good.

The Queen's House is located near the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Observatory. It is a…read morebeautiful 17th century house that has been home to a number of queens. Again, like most of the London area museums, admission is FREE. We took a self-guided tour of the house. We visited in October (off-season) and the house was not crowded nor did we need tickets in advance. I'd suggest, however, that during the busier summer season you might want to make reservations. The furnishings and art are stunning. The decor is beautiful. We spent about an hour in the Queen's House.

This isn't the name of a gay nightclub just in case you were wondering. This museum is in Greenwich…read morebetween the ferry pier and the Royal Observatory, and it would be a damn shame if you bypass this gorgeous 17th-century Palladian-style manor. Admission is free, so you really have no excuse. It was originally built as a present from King James I to Danish-born Queen Anne. Apparently the king uttered profanities in front of her when he accidentally shot one of his favorite hunting dogs. Wow, she sounds like a real Meghan Markle. Royal guilt must be in the bloodlines. The resulting house has been refurbished many times over, and it's quite nice with each room featuring a dizzying array of art from traditional portraits of Elizabeth I to an arresting Kehinde Wiley painting called "Ship of Fools" (photo: https://yelp.to/u5cl20xBM2). All the furnishings were impressive, but the architecture is what resonates the most starting with the Great Hall with its geometric black-and-white marble flooring. However, the Tulip Staircase was definitely the main attraction. It was the first geometric self-supporting spiral staircase in Britain and quite the architectural statement...don't you agree? (video: https://yelp.to/wjykuYT3IU) RELATED - Exploring London? Here's my collection of places I've visited and reviewed: https://bit.ly/3zFACrx

I took my husband here for a secret birthday adventure day out to the not so secret nuclear bunker…read more This place is like a quintessential English day out. It's fabulous. The bunker itself is hidden away on a huge stretch of land that also serves as an airsoft site, so we were able to take the dog and give her a good run before leaving her in the car. (The tour around takes about an hour and it wasn't even a vaguely warm day.. Before anyone worries...) You enter the bunker through the front; it was designed as a bungalow so not to arouse suspicions. It's a pretty ugly bungalow though.. ;) It's declared that you *have* to take one of the audio wands through and that you can't commit to the tour without one. I'm not entirely sure the reasoning behind that and the audio tour is.. Well, it's in depth. Perhaps a little too in depth and I found I was just standing in corners trying desperately to hear what was being said over the other people in the room. I gave up after 9/24.. You pay at the end of the tour aswell. £7.50 cash in the honesty box by the till at the canteen. The place is filled with what would have been high tech gear for the era and some fascinating communication devices as well as air filtration pump rooms, dorms, sick bay and some terrifying models of Margaret Thatcher. There is some defiantly British signage going on, honesty boxes and the canteen at the end selling rainbow rubbers and marbles, Mars bars, soup and tea and cakes. It's like it all the old trips I used to do as a kid over the holidays. Apparently guide/scout troops can even do sleep overs there. Pretty jealous of that to be honest. You are only allowed to take pictures on the inside if you buy a permit from the canteen first, before entering the bunker. They're £5. Bleurgh. Obviously the people who run this place as super passionate about it and it's very well kept and informative and totally worth while. It's only £7.50 (cash only) to enter and I will definitely be going back again!

I was in my friends car one night driving around quite randomly as we often do, and we were hoping…read moreto find something exciting, something unusual, something almost conspiratorial. Because that's what guys do - we drive around like we're in our own spy movie, or like we're police officers. We find life pretty boring and we want to find that something a bit...... special. A bit rare. So imagine our surprise when driving through middle of nowhereville when we saw.... you guessed it....... a sign for a SECRET NUCLEAR BUNKER!. This is what all guys dream of!. What could be better than finding a nuclear bunker!. We rushed over there, desperate to see it. It didn't occur to us that at 3am it might be closed. So we went back another time. This place is amazing. Right there, in the middle of a load of fields in Essex lies a disused nuclear bunker. This was built just after the war; in case of a Nuclear Attack. It was a place the government could go and continue their work, I imagine, while the rest of us got radioactive poisoning. Anyways, the place was decommissioned a few years ago and now it is open to the public. You have to go!. It's great. There are a load of levels, going deeper and deeper underground... and they used to do all sorts of stuff down here; and they have these little beds, and these hundreds of computers. It's just an endlessly fascinating place which is now privately owned. It is almost too strange to be true. Whoever you are, whatever your interests... check this place out, absolutely crazy. And the guy who now privately owns it is usually in the snack bar (which you reach at the end) and is happy to discuss the place whilst selling you a Pot Noodle and a Kit Kat.

This modern looking lodge with exterior walls and an inside fire place over looking forest and…read moremeadow is the only surviving Tudor hunting lodge. In the 16th century it was called "The Great Standing" - an elaborate OPEN SIDED viewing platform used by the corpulent Henry the Eighth and court to view hunting and equestrian displays. He was better able to gracefully ascend the "procession stairs" (as you will) that had low risers and wide treads to accommodate his girth, equestrian injuries and the ladies' great skirts. The supporting massive oak beams have survived more than 500 years. Banners with family crests used to festoon the sides of the platform and flags flew gaily above. See what the Royal party will be feasting on and hear the kitchen help chopping and dicing in the background. Children can try on Tudor clothing upstairs. This is a family-friendly destination. The volunteers are great about answering your questions. Many thanks to volunteer Danny, now 94 who used to play about the ruins as a boy and has studied the history of the site for years. He was an incredible font of knowledge.

A beautiful historic building and a wonderful opportunity to visit a Tudor house for free. Henry…read moreVIII hunting lodge, but no proof that Queen Elizabeth actually visited. The ground floor houses the kitchen with its original 16th century fireplace and has dummy mock ups of a wealthy persons dining table. The first and second floor don't have such displays and it's only worth walking up, if you want to explore the architecture. The second and third floor are basically one large room each as this is a hunting lodge after all. There are costumes that kids can try on, on the second floor. It's a 20 minute visit tops. Free to enter, with a donation box at the entry if you would like to contribute something. Do stop to get a glimpse into history if you are entering the forest from this end or visiting the information Center next door at The View.

Business district worthwhile to explore…read more This business area has hidden parks, eateries, waterways integrated into the metal and glass landscape. This whole area is an ode to the modern financial face of London. Ah, there are many faces to this dynamic city.

I stayed here with my friend who has spent most of the Covid period in London. He moved here from…read morethe Nottinghill Area looking for a quieter area of London. I asked how he chose this area versus say the London Eye area. He moved in back in spring of 2021. He said he looked around and this was newly developed. The apt building he moved into was beginning to lease units. It's a bit of a hike but not too bad in my book. I'm the ultimate city dweller who appreciates the public transportation life. Canary Wharf is FiDi.2 while City of London is the FiDi of London. Recently adopting a nomadic life, Canary Wharf reminds me most of Chicago.

This little garden was on a list of strange/offbeat attractions to see on my trip to London because…read moreof the dark history around it. It's basically a garden grown atop a mass grave for poor, unmarried women, sex workers, and children. Small but lovingly cared for by volunteers, it is only open from noon to 3PM on weekdays during the summer. There is some artwork and little memorials. It's a little out of the way, but if you're in the area it's a nice quick stop to pay tribute to the forgotten women and children.

Another Halloween visit? This one holds a celebration here…read more Cross Bones Graveyard was a mediaeval burial ground, situated in St Saviours parish, now Redcross Way SE1. There is a long established tradition that it was a final resting place for Winchester Geese, ie prostitutes, from the legalised brothels or 'stews' of Bankside. This dates back to the days when the Bishop of Winchester ran Bankside and licensed the Geese. Recent archaeological digs for the Jubilee Line extension have uncovered evidence of a highly overcrowded graveyard where bodies are piled up on top of each other and tests have shown that many of the bodies are women and children with diseases ranging from smallpox, TB and pagets disease to osteoarthritis and vitamin D deficiency. This is Cross Bones, an unconsecrated graveyard going back to medieval times. The Tudor historian John Stow refers to it as a burial ground for 'single women' - a euphemism for the prostitutes who worked in Bankside's legalised brothels or 'stews'. In his 1603 Survey of London, Stow writes: 'I have heard of ancient men, of good credit, report that these single women were forbidden the rites of the church, so long as they continued that sinful life, and were excluded from Christian burial, if they were not reconciled before their death. And therefore there was a plot of ground called the Single Woman's churchyard, appointed for them far from the parish church.' The burial registers of St Saviour's parish don't distinguish between burials in Cross Bones and those in the churchyard adjoining what is now Southwark Cathedral. However, the long-established local tradition - that Cross Bones was a prostitutes' graveyard - is restated in the Annals of St Mary Overy (1833): 'There is an unconsecrated burial ground known as the Cross Bones at the corner of Redcross Street, formerly called the Single Woman's burial ground, which is said to have been used for this purpose' Such women were condemned to be buried in unhallowed ground. Yet many were actually licensed by the church. For some 500 years, the Bishop of Winchester exercised sole authority within Bankside's 'Liberty of The Clink', including the right to licence prostitutes under a Royal Ordinance dating back to 1161. These women became known as 'Winchester Geese'. Cromwell and the Puritans shut down the Bankside pleasure quarter, with its bear-pits, theatres, taverns and stews. By Victorian times, the area around Cross Bones was known as The Mint - an overcrowded, cholera-infested slum, and a notorious thieves quarter. When William Booth was conducting his survey of poverty, his researcher George Duckworth described it as: ' a set of courts and small streets which for number, viciousness, poverty and crowding, is unrivalled in anything I have hitherto seen in London.' Duckworth walked around The Mint with a policeman who told him: 'Police don't go down here unless they have to, and never singly.' Around this time, Cross Bones witnessed many a pauper's burial. It was also the haunt of body-snatchers, seeking specimens for the anatomy classes at nearby Guy's Hospital. The graveyard was finally closed in 1853, on the grounds that it was 'completely overcharged with dead' and that 'further burials' would be 'inconsistent with a due regard for the public health and public decency'. In 1883, it was sold as a building site, prompting Lord Brabazon to write to The Times: ' with a view to save this ground from such desecration, and to retain it as an open space for the use and enjoyment of the people.' (10th November 1883) The following year the sale was declared null and void, under the Disused Burial Grounds Act (1884). Subsequent attempts to develop the site were fiercely resisted by local people. The land was briefly used as a fair-ground until an action was taken against the showmen for abatement of the nuisance caused by steam organs and noisy music. Apart from these minor intrusions, the graveyard slept peacefully and unmolested for the best part of a century. Then, in the 1990s, London Underground built an electricity sub-station to supply power for the Jubilee Line Extension. Prior to the work, Museum of London archaeologists conducted a partial excavation of the site, removing some 148 skeletons. By their own estimate, these represented: 'less than 1% of the total number of burials that were made at this site.' Some were exhibited at the Museum's 1998 London Bodies exhibition, including: ' a young woman's syphilitic skull with multiple erosive lesions, from Red Cross Way, Southwark, 18th century'.' 'For tonight in Hell, they are tolling the bell For the Whore that lay at The Tabard And well we know how the carrion crow Doth feast in our Cross Bones Graveyard.' They have since conducted many rituals and community events at the graveyard. The rituals are simple, inclusive and non-dogmatic, emphasising respect for 'the Ancestors', and honouring the spirit of

We attended Sunday's Choral Mattins at St. Paul's Cathedral. What an amazing Cathedral to visit,…read morebut I think most attendees were tourists (like me). We arrived early and were allowed to sit with the choir up front. What a great honor to sit with a great vantage point of the service. The choir is composed of children and adults, men and women and the voices are extraordinary. The service was beautiful and I couldn't help but think about the people who had attended over the past 300 years. The Cathedral was designed by the great Christopher Wren and is gorgeous inside with massive arched ceilings and ornate marble archways and statues. The choir seats are a dark aged wood with beautiful carving. Photography was not allowed inside so my only photos are of the outside. Tours during no the week are available and going up into the dome is supposed to be an extraordinary experience where whispers can be heard far away. After the service, the bells rang outside in an amazing display.

After booking reservations online weeks in advance, the hard part was waiting to see Christopher…read moreWren's masterpiece on the inside. Because the building does not open until 10am, the front doors are closed and guests are expected to queue up. Surprisingly, there are no signs to tell you where to queue up, so people are waiting in front of the doors until they open. Upon entering, my bag is inspected and you can pick up an audio tour device which has not only information about the cathedral, but has reflection and prayer passages where you can take a seat (there are plenty) and just be. At intervals, the pastor will ask everyone in the building to be silent as he prays for our world. After the prayer and blessing, the pastor makes himself available to anyone. Taking time to pray to God for us and our world was special. While the audio tour was good, talking to the red-sashed volunteers was special in that they had information that was not in the audio tour. For example, the wood carvers would leave a signature on the carving that would be unique like a hidden rocket ship with stars behind some carved vines. If you're a Harry Potter fan like me, you can ask a red-sashed volunteer to show you the Dean's Staircase, a stairway leading to Professor Trelawny's divination class that was used in the film. Unfortunately, you can't walk up the staircase, but you can take some amazing photos. Walking to the Stone Gallery and Golden Gallery requires climbing up 31 flights of stairs, so train well before you arrive. Not only does the Stone Gallery give you a closer look at the paintings on the Dome, but the wall offers a neat little trick, but it takes two people. If you speak into the wall, another person standing on the opposite side (180°) will be able to hear you. On a non-foggy day (good luck with that), you can walk around outside and be able to have stunning views of the city. There's so much to say, but I would rather you experience it for yourself.

Great place to be outside in the sunshine and have a walk around the well kept gardens. My mum and…read moreI went in the blazing heat a few weeks ago. Parking was easy (and free!) and we had a drink and a slice of cake in the cafe and then a walk around the gardens. The cafe is reasonably priced and had a large selection of cakes and snacks. We grabbed a seat outside overlooking the lake and gardens which was lovely. There is a historical house that you can pay to visit, but we gave that a miss this time due to the beautiful weather and stuck to the gardens. My favorite thing we saw were the Queen's Beasts, the topiary. They were immaculately maintained and I got some great photos. There is plenty to explore and lots of space if you wish to sit and bring your picnic. We decided to visit the Butterfly Jungle experience. It costs £4 for adults, which isn't very much, but the 'experience' is very small and although there were lots of butterflies, it's wasn't really even worth the £4, you could walk around the space in under a minute and if there are other people in there you get stuck and have to wait for them to move on or you miss seeing those butterflies! It was enjoyable to see them, but I wouldn't bother visiting that area again when I return. Equally the owl experience looked very short and sweet, you could see the Owls through the doorway before the pay point, and there were 4 owls in perches. You'd be done after a few minutes. I look forward to returning to visit the house and for a walk around the gardens and a slice of cake!

I have been to Hall Place numerous times with the family, there is a HUGH car park (free), there…read morewas no admission price into Hall's Place, instead donations were invited. The grounds are vast and truly beautiful especially in the spring & summer periods and perfect for families to take children with a picnic and just enjoy the outdoors. The House itself was interesting and well maintained, parts can be hired for functions. The house is rather unique, with some bits tudor, some bits much more recent, some interesting art and artifacts, and the history of the building was well explained. Hall Place is not just a pretty historic house. It is also an art gallery, a fantastic garden, and the borough museum that captures the Bexley's history from the Romans to the end of the twentieth century. The Jacobean house and its connections to all sorts of British and world events from the Doomsday Book, through to the reformation, Levent Trade,slavery, abolition, the East India Company, the great estates and the Irish road to independence. The formal gardens around the house were lovely. There is a little river with a bridge which is lovely and very scenic!. There is also a plant nursery as well!. The cafe around the grounds was perfect for a light snack. If you do want a meal there is a nice steak house next door (WHICH IS FIRST CLASS). A programme of events are available regularly throughout the year, (i.e Open Air Cinema, Farm Animals etc), Well worth a visit. Extremely, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Beautiful place, great for lunchread more