Edward the Confessor’s shrine in WESTMINSTER ABBEY was one of the very few to survive the Reformation unmolested. The Abbey was spared much damage because in 1546 Henry VIII declared it to be a cathedral. However, during this time the Bishop of London took the opportunity to divert a goodly portion of the Abbey’s revenues towards his beloved St Paul’s Cathedral, giving rise to the expression ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’.
The Abbey only remained a cathedral for a few years, after which Elizabeth I made it a royal ‘peculiar’ under an independent Dean and Chapter, whose successors rule it today.
THE OLDEST GRAVES IN THE ABBEY are those of King Sebert and his Queen, located near Edward the Confessor’s tomb in the Sanctuary.
Facing the West Door, and often overlooked, is an important portrait of Richard II, THE FIRST TRUE-LIFE PORTRAIT OF AN ENGLISH KING.
A walk through Westminster Abbey’s Dark Cloister, by the grave of England’s first woman novelist APHRA BENN, and on past a tinkling fountain in the ancient and magical Little Cloister, leads to COLLEGE GARDEN. Laid out by the monks of the Benedictine abbey in the 10th century, this is THE OLDEST GARDEN IN ENGLAND. During the summer months lunchtime concerts are held in the garden, which is open to the public.
The stretch of river in front of the Houses of Parliament is THE ONLY RESTRICTED AREA ON THE THAMES. In order to prevent the risk of anyone lobbing a bomb on to the terraces of merry-making MPs, boats are required to keep to the St Thomas’s side of the river.
The Chamber of the House of Commons was destroyed in an air raid in 1941. It was rebuilt by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and reopened in 1950. Running along the carpet of the centre aisle that separates the two sides of the House are two red lines exactly two sword lengths and one pace apart. No member may put his foot beyond the line on his own side – this is to prevent members from arguing their case with swords and gives us the expression ‘toe the line’, meaning to behave.
Behind the Speaker’s Chair in the Commons chamber hangs a bag into which MPs deposit the petitions they have received from their constituents that they wish to present to Parliament. Not many petitions get accepted, and so to get one placed in the bag is a triumph – hence the expression ‘It’s in the bag!’
A light burns in the top of the Clock Tower when Parliament is sitting. At the foot of the tower, and visible from WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, is the SPEAKER’S GARDEN. This small, private patch of lawn leads to the SPEAKER’S STEPS, from where Members of Parliament could escape on to the river if threatened by the mob.
VICTORIA
DEAN’S YARD – MILLBANK – PIMLICO – BELGRAVIA – VICTORIA
Westminster Cathedral – with the widest nave in England
Dean’s Yard
In the Shadow of History
DEAN’S YARD IS a quiet garden square behind Westminster Abbey. On the east side is WESTMINSTER SCHOOL, founded by the monks of the Abbey in the 12th century. Former pupils have included Christopher Wren, John Dryden, Charles Wesley, Sir John Gielgud, Kim Philby, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tony Benn and Sir Peter Ustinov.
The south side of Dean’s Yard is dominated by CHURCH HOUSE, headquarters of the Church of England, built on the site of LONDON’S FIRST PUBLIC LIBRARY. Parliament met here after the Commons chamber was bombed in the Second World War. It was on the steps of Church House that Tony Blair posed with his ‘Blair Babes’.
Lord North Street
A Street Full of Character
THIS WHOLE AREA is filled with narrow Georgian streets, none lovelier than LORD NORTH STREET, home to many politicians and, at one time, a Prime Minister. No. 5 is where HAROLD WILSON lived during his last term as Prime Minister from 1974 to 1976, despite being convinced that the house was bugged.
No. 8 doesn’t look big from the outside but it has ten bedrooms and its own ballroom. From 1933 to 1958 it was the home of political schemer BRENDAN BRACKEN, Minister for Information during World War II who delighted in being called B.B., quite unaware that he had given George Orwell the idea for Big Brother. Bracken was also portrayed in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, as Rex Mottram. From 1981 to 2001 No. 8 was home to another schemer, JONATHAN AITKEN, who not only blotted his copybook by treating Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s daughter Carol badly, but went to jail for perjury in 1999. White letters on the outside wall point the way to a wartime air-raid shelter.
From 1943 until 1973 No. 14 was where theatrical impresario BINKIE BEAUMONT employed his casting couch for male actors. Something of a waste when Marilyn Monroe came to stay. No. 19 was the home of society hostess LADY SYBIL COLEFAX during the 1940s.
Millbank
You Are Being Watched
MILLBANK, WHICH DERIVES its name from the long gone Westminster Abbey mill, houses the headquarters of the Church Commissioners for England at No. 1. At No. 4 are the Millbank Studios, where politicians give interviews for television ‘live from our Westminster studios’. Next are three massive, overpowering Edwardian blocks built in the 1930s for ICI and together forming one of the biggest buildings in London.
Across Horseferry Road and the approach to Lambeth Bridge, THAMES HOUSE, with its massive metal doors, is the headquarters of the domestic security service, MI5. They came here before the Second World War, then left and had various homes around the capital before returning in 1994.
The windows of the steel and glass 32-storey MILLBANK TOWER gaze out blankly over Westminster, reflecting the grey sky. It was originally built in 1963 as the Vickers Tower, headquarters of the Vickers Group, with a Spitfire displayed on the forecourt. Today the Tower has more sinister connotations. The roof, 387 ft (118 m) above the street, is festooned with communication masts and listening devices, many of them placed there by the New Labour collective, following their move to Millbank in 1997. Tales emerged of vast banks of computers, monitoring equipment and cloning in the basement, and the word ‘Millbank’ became associated with ruthless political spin. The Party eventually ran out of money and moved out in 2002, but sensitive souls still pass by in trepidation.
Such a Millbank is actually a worthy successor to the infamous, star-shaped MILLBANK PENITENTIARY, which stood here throughout the 19th century. It was THE LARGEST PRISON IN BRITAIN and its design was based on the ideas of the prison reformer Jeremy Bentham. The prison wings radiated out from a central guard tower intended, in the words of Bentham, to ‘induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power’.
The prison was closed in 1897, and standing in its place today is the much more delightful TATE GALLERY, built on sugar cubes by Sir Henry Tate (1819–99), as a place to show off the finest of British art. Sir Henry donated his own collection of British paintings to form a nucleus for the early displays. Since May 2000 and the opening of the Tate Modern on Bankside the Millbank gallery has become the Tate Britain.
Pimlico
Poor Man’s Belgravia
PIMLICO, ON THE north bank of the Thames between Vauxhall Bridge and Chelsea Bridge, is built on former marshland that was reclaimed using soil excavated during the construction of St Katharine’s Dock. It is the work of Thomas Cubitt and was designed as a more affordable version of his Belgravia. The RIVER TYBURN, which gave its name to the Tyburn gallows near Marble Arch, runs into the Thames just west of Vauxhall Bridge. It rises in Hampstead and flows south under Regent’s Park, Marylebone High Street, Piccadilly and Buckingham Palace.
The WESTBOURNE RIVER joins the Thames by Chelsea Bridge. It rises in Hampstead and then runs through Kilburn and Paddington, under Westbourne Park and Westbourne Grove and on into the Long Water in Hyde Park. Then it tumbles down a waterfall at the eastern end of the Serpentine and flows under the Knights’ Bridge, over the station at Sloane Square, channelled in a great square pipe, and into the Thames.
CHELSEA BUNS originated at Mr and Mrs Hand’s Bun Shop in Jew’s Row, off Pimlico Road, in the early 18th century. George II and George III both dropped in for a bun and on one Good Friday 50,000 people
queued up outside. When the Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens closed in 1803, business tailed off and the shop finally closed in 1839.
Belgravia
Rich Man’s Pimlico
EBURY STREET FOLLOWS the route that George III and his family would have taken home from Ranelagh Gardens to Buckingham House. On the way they might have heard music emanating from No. 180, for it was here, in 1765, that MOZART WROTE HIS VERY FIRST SYMPHONY, at the age of eight.
A left turn takes you into Chester Square, where a policeman at the door gives away the home of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at No. 73. Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein and widow of the poet, died at No. 24 in 1851.
Eaton Square is one of the most exclusive addresses in London, home to George Peabody the philanthropist, at No. 80, and two Prime Ministers, Stanley Baldwin at No. 93 in 1920–3 and Neville Chamberlain at No. 37 in 1923–35.
CHOPIN GAVE HIS FIRST RECITAL, at No. 99 Eaton Place in 1848. In 1922 Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson was shot by two Irish assassins as he got out of his car outside No. 36, on his return after unveiling the war memorial at Liverpool Street Station (see City). He died while being carried into the house. The 1970s drama series Upstairs, Downstairs was set in Eaton Place.
Victoria
Fit for a Queen
HIDDEN AWAY IN the middle of a huge traffic system just north of Victoria Station, but away from the scrum, is the quite lovely, early 19th-century VICTORIA SQUARE, Westminster’s smallest and least spoiled square. IAN FLEMING lived at No. 16, on and off from 1953 until his death in 1964.
Back in the mêlée of Victoria Street, on a traffic island outside Victoria Station is LITTLE BEN, a 30 ft (9 m) replica of Big Ben. Across the road is the VICTORIA PALACE THEATRE, where Me and My Girl was premièred in 1937 and where the Black and White Minstrel Show had its origins. VICTORIA is LONDON UNDERGROUND’S BUSIEST STATION.
East off Victoria Street is Caxton Street, named after England’s first printer, William Caxton, who had his working press near here. At the western end is one of the most sublime buildings in London, surrounded by drab office blocks and red-brick hotels. THE BLEWCOAT SCHOOL was established here in 1709 as a place for 20 poor boys and girls to ‘read, write and cast accounts and catechism’. It is now run as a National Trust shop and has been exquisitely restored as an oasis of calm and beauty. Above the door is a statue of a charity boy in his blue coat.
The Blewcoat School
At the other end of the street is CAXTON HALL, at one time the place for celebrities to wed, such as Elizabeth Taylor, to Michael Wilding in 1952, Peter Sellers, to Britt Ekland, as well as George Harrison, Ringo Starr and, twice, Diana Dors. In February 1907 the early suffragettes held THE FIRST WOMEN’S PARLIAMENT here before marching off to protest outside No. 10, and they continued to make the hall their headquarters until their cause was won. In 1937 Sir Michael O’Dwyer, a former governor of the Punjab, was shot dead by his chauffeur, Udham Singh, while attending a function at Caxton Hall. Singh held his employer responsible for the massacre at Amritsar in 1919.
At No. 55 Broadway is the extravagant headquarters of London Transport, a massive, snow-white building festooned with huge sculptures by Eric Gill and Jacob Epstein. When it was built in 1929, to the design of Charles Holden, the central tower was one of the tallest structures in London. In the run-up to the Second World War German spies would lurk in the doorways here, photographing people who went in and out of No. 54 opposite, which in those days was the MI6 headquarters. The secret service remained here until 1966, and this is where Ian Fleming envisaged James Bond throwing his hat across the room on to the hat stand and chatting up Miss Moneypenny.
Behind Broadway is QUEEN ANNE’S GATE, a paradise for those who like Queen Anne architecture. The whole street is lined with every kind of pink-and-white house, marvellously ornate porches, delicate iron railings and small treats such as the cone-shaped torch snuffer outside No. 26. There is also a statue of Queen Anne looking pleased with herself, as well she might. William Caxton’s printing press was located near here.
Westminster Cathedral
Widest Nave
WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL HITS you right between the eyes as you turn the corner from the massively modern and soulless Victoria Street into the Cathedral piazza. Opened in 1903, it is the mother church of England’s Roman Catholics and was designed by J.F. Bentley in a glorious, early Christian, pink-and-white striped Byzantine style. The campanile is 273 ft (83 m) high, and on a good day the views from it are stunning.
Inside, the effect is extraordinary with a dark, bare brick roof of four high domes that soar into blackness, contrasting spectacularly with the rich gold mosaics of the side chapels. The nave is THE WIDEST NAVE IN ENGLAND, 60 ft (18 m) across. On the red Norwegian granite piers are the 14 Stations of the Cross, carved in low stone relief by Eric Gill. A remarkable place to find next to McDonald’s.
Well, I never knew this
ABOUT
VICTORIA
Just off Victoria Street, opposite the ghastly New Scotland Yard, with its revolving sign, is the busy market street of STRUTTON GROUND, home to the GRAFTON ARMS (now the Strutton Arms). Here the four Goons, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine, got together on Sunday nights to thrash out early GOON SHOW scripts, under the watchful eye of the landlord, radio scriptwriter JIMMY GRAFTON.
The GROSVENOR BRIDGE was THE FIRST RAILWAY BRIDGE ACROSS THE THAMES. It opened in 1860 and was rebuilt in 1967.
ST GEORGE’S SQUARE is THE ONLY LONDON SQUARE BUILT TO FACE THE RIVER. Bram Stoker (1847–1912), the author of Dracula, died at No. 26, and it was while working in St George’s Square, at the Young England Kindergarten, that an innocent young Lady Diana Spencer was famously photographed holding a child and wearing a see-through skirt.
When DOLPHIN SQUARE was completed in 1937 it was THE LARGEST BLOCK OF FLATS IN EUROPE. It comprises 1,250 luxury apartments and covers 8 acres (3.2 ha). Along with the neighbouring Churchill Gardens Estate it was heated with hot Thames water from Battersea Power Station opposite.
The church of ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST, SMITH SQUARE, is known as Queen Anne’s Footstool because, with a tower at each corner, it looks like an upturned footstool. London’s smartest address was here. When a former MP for Westminster lived in a corner house of the square his address was the smartest in London – John Smith, No. 1 Smith Square.
East
TOWER
TOWER OF LONDON – TOWER BRIDGE – ST KATHARINE’S DOCK – LONDON DOCKS
The Tower of London, showing the White Tower and Traitor’s Gate
Tower of London
Well Executed
THE TOWER OF London stands sentinel just outside the City of London, in the borough of Tower Hamlets. It was begun by William the Conqueror in 1078 to replace a temporary wooden structure put up not long after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The first building to be erected was the central keep, which had walls 15 ft (4.6 m) thick and reached a height of 90 ft (27 m), THE TALLEST BUILDING IN LONDON at the time and THE OLDEST AND MOST COMPLETE NORMAN CASTLE OF ITS TYPE IN ENGLAND. It was renamed the White Tower after being whitewashed in 1240. The White Tower is THE OLDEST COMPLETE BUILDING IN LONDON. St John’s Chapel, one of the first parts of the Tower to be completed, is THE OLDEST UNCHANGED CHURCH IN LONDON.
By the time Edward I completed the building work at the end of the 13th century the outer wall enclosed an area of 18 acres (7.3 ha). The White Tower was THE FIRST BUILDING IN ENGLAND TO HAVE LATRINES, with two garderobes, complete with seats and chutes, on each of the top three floors.
The Tower’s FIRST PRISONER was RANULF FLAMBARD, Bishop of Durham, who was sent there in 1101 for selling benefices.
In 1235 the Holy Roman Emperor gave Henry III three leopards, in honour of the leopards on the Plantagenet coat of arms, and these were the start of the Royal Menagerie at the Tower. In 1252 the King of Norway gave a polar bear, and in 1255 an elephant arrived, a gift from Henry’s cousin King Louis IX of F
rance.
In 1300 the Royal Mint moved to the Tower from Westminster, and in 1303 the Crown Jewels were brought to the Tower after a series of mysterious thefts from their stash at Westminster Abbey.
In 1381, during the Peasants’ Revolt, a mob broke into the Tower and dragged Archbishop Sudbury out on to Tower Hill and beheaded him. This seemed to start a trend and, five years later, THE FIRST OFFICIAL EXECUTION took place on Tower Hill, that of SIR SIMON DE BURLEY, Richard II’s tutor.
In 1399 RICHARD II was imprisoned in the Tower and forced to abdicate in favour of his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. On the eve of his coronation as Henry IV, Bolingbroke initiated the CEREMONY OF THE BATH, choosing 46 of his followers to be spiritually cleansed in the baths adjoining St John’s Chapel. As the men washed, Henry made a sign of the Cross on each man’s back and knighted him. They then spent a night of prayer in the chapel, at the end of which they offered up a taper to God and a penny to the King. The spiritual home of the Order of the Bath is now Henry VII’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey.
On 21 May 1461, HENRY VI was murdered while praying in the Wakefield Tower, and on the anniversary of his death staff from Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, both founded by Henry, come and place flowers on the spot.
In 1478 Edward IV’s brother the DUKE OF CLARENCE was arrested for treason and locked up in the Bowyer Tower, where he mysteriously drowned in a butt of malmsey wine, malmsey being a kind of sweet wine from Madeira.
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