Well I got sent home from work today because I was too late, but I love London so much that I thought I would some up the best parts of my tour in a blog post for you, so here you go:

One of the first things we come to is the Theatre Royal Haymarket, designed by John Nash, an apprentce of Sir Christopher Wren (responsible for St Pauls Cathedral). This was the first theatre in the world to produce Matinee performances, a tradition that is used all around the world these days.

The famous Trafalgar Square is currently home to a contemporary piece of art called One & Other by an artist named Antony Gormley, on the empty Fourth Plinth. Every hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 days, a member of the public gets up onto the plinth and does anything they like. Due to the nature of my job I pass this piece of art about 9 times a day, so get to see a lot of the installments, I’ve seen people dressed up as everything from a Panda to a CCTV camera. Other people have championed various charities. My favourite so far has been a lady called Amanda, who said the following about her hour on the plinth;

Amanda from London says: “I will be constructing a sculpture as an acknowledgment of Antony Gormley’s role in conceiving the project. Its form is loosely based on Antony’s Event Horizon, which saw casts of the artist situated around London in Summer 2007. Rather than cast iron my sculpture is made from bread. I chose bread because I like baking, it is light, cheap, and it has a limited lifespan – like my hour on the plinth. As an Archers listener, I am also pleased to be able to action Jill Archer’s plan to ‘bake bread’ on the plinth.”

Just off Trafalgar Square is The Texas Embassy, it is not actually an Embassy, rather a Bar & Grill, but it used to be home to the White Star Shipping Line, where you could buy tickets to the ill fated HMS Titanic. They do great cocktails, just don’t ask for extra ice, it’s still a bit of a sore point!! : )

The  picture above is of Truefitt & Hill, a barber shop on St James’ Street. St James’ Street is home to many of London’s oldest shops including D.R.Harris & Co, the oldest chemist in London, formed in 1790. You may notice that above the door is a Royal Warrant, shops that have these above the door have provided a service or a product to The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh or the Prince of Wales for more than 5 years. Truefitt & Hill is where the Duke of Edinburgh gets his haircut!

At the end of Picadilly is the Hard Rock Cafe London, a lot of people think that Hard Rock is an American chain, in fact it started here in 1971. The tradition of putting rock memorabilia on the wall started when Eric Clapton hung his guitar above the seat where he used to sit.

Above is the former home of the Duke of Wellington, Apsley House. It has the address Number 1, London. As this was the first house that people would see when they came into London from the west.

Marble Arch was initially in front of Buckingham Palace, however Queen Victoria didn’t like it, so it was moved to its current position and used as the gateway to the Great Exhibition that took place in Hyde Park in 1851.

Buckingham Palace is the London Home & Office of Her Majesty The Queen. It has 775 rooms, 16 of which The Queen reside on the east side of the palace overlooking Green Park. Amongst the other rooms there are 19 Staterooms, 52 Royal & Guest bedrooms, 188 Staff Bedroom, 92 Offices and 78 Bathrooms. Electricity was introduced to the palace in the late 1800’s and there are 40,000 lightbulbs throughout the palace. They must like keeping the time in the palace as there is 350 clocks & watches which 2 full time caretakers wind up and keep in order every single week. Inside the gardens of the palace there is a lake, helipad and tennis court where King George VI played tennis with Fred Perry. The Palace itself has a Doctors Surgery, a Chapel, a staff Cafeteria, a swimming pool and a cinema.

Buckingham Palace was originally called ‘Bucks House’ and was owned by the Duke of Buckingham, John Sheffield. George III bought it for his wife Queen Charlotte and it was inherited by King George IV who commissioned John Nash (Who designed the Theatre Royal Haymarket & Trafalgar Square I talked about earlier) to extend the building into Buckingham Palace that we know today. However it wasn’t until Queen Victoria moved in at the tender age of 18 in 1838 that the monarchy resdided at Buckingham Palace.

If you take a trip around the perimeter of Buckingham Palace you will notice that the walls are very secure, this didn’t used to be so; In 1981 a man named Michael Fagan managed to get over the wall and find his way up to the palace. Out of 775 rooms he managed to find The Queen’s bedroom,  he sat on the edge of her bed and chatted to her for 10 minutes then asked for a light for his cigarette, The Queen phoned down to her butler who realised something was wrong as she doesn’t smoke, and sent security up to whisk Fagan away. After that you would have thought they would have learnt, but 2 years later two German men got over the wall, they thought it looked like a nice place to set up their tent, they thought they were in Hyde Park!!! The Queen found them the next morning washing themselves in her lake, needless to say she wasn’t too pleased, she ordered that sercurity be stepped up and since then there has been no further invasions.

Above is 55 Broadway, the Headquarters of the worlds Oldest & Longest Underground Railway network. Established in 1863, the last public execution took place in 1868, so theoretically you could have got a tube to the last public execution!!!

Ever since Christmas Day 1066 when William the Conqueror rode in on horseback and was proclaimed King, all but 2 of our Monarchs have been crowned in Westminster Abbey. It is also where many of them are buried, including Elizabeth I and her cousin Mary Queen of Scots, but it is not just Royalty buried here, you also have other greats such as Chaucer, Dickens, Darwin, Newton, Handel, Purcell, Tennyson, Kipling, Tennyson & Livingstone. Ben Johnson is buried standing up as he didn’t want to take up too much room in the Abbey, it is full up for burials now however they are still accepting ashes, and the ashes of Laurence Olivier are in Westminster Abbey.

It is not actually an Abbey, it takes the denomination of the Monarch in reign, the actual name for the building is ‘The Royal Peculiar of the Collegiate Church of St Peters in Westminster’, and it is where we get a popular phrase from, for when they where building St Pauls Cathedral they took money from St Peters Church, coining the phrase ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul’.

On the South side of Westminster Bridge is London’s newest and largest hotel, the Park Plaza Westminister Bridge, with 1,021 rooms is cost £350million to build!

Parliament Square is lined with statues of great world leaders including Nelson Mandella & Abraham Lincoln, but perhaps the most important statue of them all is that of our great war time leader Winston Churchill. He originally said that he didn’t want a statue of himself made as he was scared of what the pigeons might do to his head, so rumour has it there is an electric current running through his head to scare off any birds that might land there!

Banqueting House on Whitehall was where on Tuesday 30 January 1649 King Charles I was led out of the front window onto a platform and executed at 2pm. It was a cold day and it is said that he wore two shirts so that he didnt shiver and appear scared. 59 people signed his death warrant including the man that took over from him, Oliver Cromwell.

I have obviously missed a heck of a lot out, but these are some of the parts that I find most interesting, if you have any questions about London, email me on lordhewis@hotmail.com, and I will see if I can help!

Stay tuned for ‘My London’ – The East…………..