Trips, Visits and Events
Free Things (or nearly free) to do in London
© Paddy Salmon 2008
Drawing on the experience of countless trips to London, Paddy Salmon has put together an inspiring list of places you can visit and still have money left over for shopping.
NB Nearly all museums and art galleries are free in London. This list is mainly a list of extras. Have fun!
1) Walk along the South Bank to the Tate Modern and visit the Rothko Room. Stare at the huge pictures for ten minutes and you will discover a strange hypnotic force coming from the colours. Get your friends to wake you up if you go into a trance. Then walk on to the Globe Theatre and take a quick peek inside if possible.
2) Visit Hamleys, the world’s biggest toy shop. Try out new toys or have a game of table football in the basement. Regent Street Tube and along Regent Street.
3) See the free music and entertainment at Covent Garden. From there you can walk to Somerset House in the Strand and visit the Courtauld Collection which has some magnificent impressionist paintings as well as paintings by some of the Bloomsbury Group - post Impressionism too.
4) Visit some of the universities! You can just walk in and roam around to get a feel of the place. There is Imperial College (near the Science Museum), King’s College in the Strand (and LSE just opposite) and University College near the British Museum.
5) Visit the British Museum and see one of the earliest and biggest “bande dessinnée” in stone – the Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt (in Room 10 a) will astound you. Also visit the maunuscripts room and see the handwriting of many very famous people.
6) The Royal Hospital Chelsea: Home of the Chelsea Pensioners See if you can interview one of Britain’s elderly retired soldiers in their colourful uniforms.
Individual and small groups of visitors are welcome to visit The Royal Hospital. Hours of opening are as shown below.
Museum and Shop - Open to the public daily.
10.00am - 12 noon and 2.00pm - 4.00pm
Entry to The Royal Hospital is FREE.
Visitors are able to see the Great Hall, Octagon and Chapel, walk around Figure, College and Light Horse Courts and visit the Museum and Shop.
7) Harrods. Marvel at the Egyptian Room, the shrine to Diana and Dodi, and the sumptuous Food Hall. But leave your credit card at home.
Harrods, Brompton Rd, SW1 (www.harrods.com). Knightsbridge tube
The owner Mohammed El Fayed is the father of Dodie, who died with Princess Diana. You could then visit the memorial walk in Kensington Gardens (if you REALLY wanted the full Di experience!)
8) Take a walk along the canal from Camden Lock Market (Camden Tube). _ When you are at the lock with your back to the main road, take the path on the right side of the canal. This will lead you on a great walk through the middle of London Zoo (you don’t see many animals, but you hear them) and along the towpath until you come out at Regent’s Park. Walk down Park Road until you hit Baker Street ( 221B - the “home” of Sherlock Holmes) . There’s a museum but it charges £6 for over 16s. If a group of 10 go, they get a 10% reduction. For enthusiasts of Sherlock Holmes. There is a very good gift shop for excellent souvenirs of the Great Detective.
9) Nunhead Cemetery. Creep through 52 acres of Victorian gothic watched over by 1,000 ivy-draped angels, rare butterflies, jays and woodpeckers. Nunhead Cemetery, Linden Grove, SE15 (020 7525 2000). Nunhead rail
10) Or visit Karl Marx’s tomb at Highgate Cemetery. Take the Undergound Tube to Archway Station which is on the Northern Line (not Highgate Station) and then either walk up Highgate Hill to Waterlow Park (+/- 10 minutes) or catch a 271, 210 or 143 bus to Lauderdale House. In either case, walk through Waterlow Park for about five minutes. The exit to the Park is adjacent to the Cemetery gates. £3 entrance fee but you can photograph for free.
11) Record shop gigs. Pure Groove records and Rough Trade East regularly invite bands to play in-store – for free. Some are even good.
Pure Groove, 6-7 West Smithfield, EC1 (www.puregroove.co.uk). Barbican tube;
Rough Trade East, Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, E1 (020 7392 7788, www.roughtrade.com). Liverpool Street tube/rail
12) Pose with pelicans at St James’s Park. This patch of serene green adjacent to Green Park looks on to Buckingham Palace, where they won’t be counting tenners.
St James’s Park, SW1 (www.royalparks.org.uk). Green Park tube
13) Free lunch-time concerts often at St Martins-in-the-Fields Church (Trafalgar Square)
14) V&A Museum of Childhood
Cambridge Heath Road
London E2 9PA
Bethnal Green Tube Station
14) For the best view of London (free) go to Hampstead (near Keats’ House) and climb Parliament Hill. Wander round Hampstead Heath, but don’t get lost.
15) Take a walk down Brick Lane (and read the novel - see the film - after). _ It is a real East End experience.
History
Winding through fields, the street was formerly called Whitechapel Lane, but derives its current name from former brick and tile manufacture, using the local brick earth deposits, that began in the 15th century. By the 17th century, the street was being built up from the south. Successive waves of immigration began with Huguenot refugees spreading from Spitalfields, where the master weavers were based, in the 17th century. They were followed by Irish weavers, Ashkenazi Jews and, in the last century, Bangladeshis. The area became a centre for weaving, tailoring and the clothing industry, due to the abundance of semi- and unskilled immigrant labour.
In 1742, La Neuve Eglise, a Huguenot chapel, was built on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street. By 1809, it had become The Jews’ Chapel, for promoting Christianity to the expanding Jewish population, and became a Methodist Chapel in 1819 (John Wesley having preached his first covenant sermon at the nearby Black Eagle Street Chapel). In 1898, the building was consecrated as the Machzikei HaDath, or Spitalfields Great Synagogue. In 1976, it became the London Jamme Masjid mosque to serve the expanding Bangladeshi community.
Brewing came to Brick Lane before 1680, with water drawn from deep wells. One brewer was Joseph Truman, who is first recorded in 1683, but his family, particularly Benjamin Truman, went on to establish the sizeable Black Eagle Brewery on Brick Lane.
The Brick Lane Market, developed in the 17th century for fruit and vegetables, sold outside the city. The Sunday market, like the ones on Petticoat Lane and nearby Columbia Road, dates from a dispensation given to the Jewish community.
Emma Elizabeth Smith was viciously assaulted and robbed in Osborn Street, the part of Brick Lane that meets Whitechapel High Street, in the early hours of 3 April 1888. It was one of the first of the eleven Whitechapel Murders, some of which were attributed to the serial killer, Jack the Ripper.
16) For £1.50 you can visit the home of the man who invented dictionaries, the great Dr Samuel Johnson. It’s an amazing house, hidden behind the former Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. Find out as much as you can about this strange man – the father of dictionary makers or “lexicographers”.
17) For free – visit the public gallery at the House of Commons. The best is Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesdays 12h-12h30.
18) Visit the Old Bailey, the Criminal Courts – (St Paul’s Tube) 10h-12h & 14h-16h - FREE.
19) FREE SPEECH. Hyde Park Corner is very famous for its mad speakers. Go and listen on a Sunday and better, take a box with you and deliver your own speech. About ANYTHING! (except incitement to hatred)
© Paddy Salmon 2008
Dernière modification le 25-03-10 par
