The end of December through January is a fun time to be in London.  Christmas may have passed, but the atmosphere is still quite festive, and there are loads of events to ring in the New Year and get you excited about the start of the year.   Below are some of the major events and activities to entice you to plan a visit to our fair capital London which continues to bounce back with an increasing number of tourists!

Working as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide in I often show my guests – especially if they have young children - the bust of the William Buckland in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. He may hardly be a household name but Buckland is memorialised for his appointment as Dean of the Abbey in 1845 and his work as an early palaeontologist and undergroundologist (geologist). He excelled at two of the new sciences that would enthral Britain in the nineteenth century.

Blue Badge Tourist Guides in London are used to taking people around places that have been around for a while and are often asked, ’How old is this place?’. Hogwarts School may have existed for some time, but nothing in the Harry Potter series of books and films is over thirty-five years old. Via this blog post, I'll take a look at some of the places associated with the boy wizard.

In December our thoughts turn to Christmas. We think about our family, friends, Christmas cards, food (lots of it!) and presents - will Santa pass by this year? Also, just as important, the reason for Christmas: the birth of Jesus. But what we also think about is the weather - will it snow? This question set me thinking – why do we feel Christmas isn’t really Christmas if it doesn’t snow?

Blue Badge Tourist Guides on a tour of London will probably go through Trafalgar Square in the centre of the city. One of its most striking features is the sculpture on display on the northwest side of the Square. Known simply as ‘The Fourth Plinth,’ it remained empty until 1999. It was consistently rumoured that a statue of the late Queen Elizabeth II was planned for this space but she had a very long life and died at the age of 96 in 2022.

Most London Blue Badge Tourist Guides have had clients who want to get a snap of themselves by a red London phone box, often with Big Ben in the background. It is almost a rite of passage for a visitor to London and so the red boxes at the end of Whitehall often have long queues of people waiting outside for the chance to take a picture of themselves. The phone booths are rarely put to their original use – namely, to make phone calls. Now, of course, the mobile phone reigns supreme and most people have a smartphone in their pocket.

London was built on clay so it was harder to build high than in New York, which stands on rock. For many years the tallest architects could construct a skyscraper was 5 - 600 feet. Then new technology allowed them to build higher and London’s tallest building is currently The Shard next to London Bridge, which is over 1000 feet tall. One Undershaft in The City was built to match The Shard in height and it too will have a viewing tower with an education centre operated by the recently renamed London Museum (formerly Museum of London).

Also known as Mme de Trenti or Mrs. Smith (1723-1797), Theresa Cornelys was an opera singer, visionary artist, courtesan and mistress of ceremonies who captivated wealthy English society for nearly twenty years. Her scandalous life, both private and public, was a popular topic among European aristocratic circles.

Great Britain may not have a booming car industry these days but it still owns many of the great names of world motoring. These include Rolls Royce, Bentley and Jaguar as well as Aston Martin, made famous as the car of the secret agent James Bond, another British icon.

Unlike in the United States, where the Constitution was written down by the Founding Fathers nearly 250 years ago and is regarded as sacrosanct by many Americans, the British Constitution has never been formally inscribed but instead has evolved over centuries. The Supreme Court in Parliament Square can only decide if the government has acted within the law as it stands and cannot decide what that law should be. The Court does not have the power to overrule the politicians who sit in the Palace of Westminster opposite. Parliament always has the ultimate authority under the British system.

This summer marks 80 years since the Battle of Britain was fought in the skies over southern England. This was a fight for Britain’s survival against a Nazi Germany that had conquered much of western Europe in just a few short months. With the fall of France in June, Britain expected a German invasion, and one was indeed being planned under the codename Operation Sealion. However, for the invasion to be successful the Germans first needed to control the skies over Britain – they needed to destroy the Royal Air Force.

For many visitors to London, one of the iconic sights of a trip to the capital is a traditional London red double-decker bus. Known as a Routemaster, these buses was designed in the late 1940s and manufactured until 1968 when production stopped, mainly because their open back doors – which were one of the attractions for many Londoners – made them unusable by those in a wheelchair. They were still used on many routes until the early twenty-first century and some can be seen occasionally on routes such as the Routemaster Heritage Route 15 which runs from Blackwell to Trafalgar Square.

On the Aldermanbury side of Guildhall, you will find the London Centre, the base for New London Architecture and home to its magnificent London models. These 3D scale models of the capital and its buildings are a great resource if people want to see the architecture of London or the historical development of the city—or simply want to trace routes across the metropolis. Their sheer size is jaw-dropping.

Dates on the calendar we normally use have mainly Christian origin but some of them reflect pagan origins and everything changed in the eighteenth century with the adoption of a new calendar.

One of the most striking and admired structures throughout the history of the City of London is its medieval inhabited stone bridge. Bridges with houses were relatively common in medieval Europe; examples include Bath’s Pulteney Bridge, which is still open for business. However, the old London Bridge, aka the Bridge, as it was commonly known, was the most populous of them all. It is calculated that its 140 houses housed 800 people in the fourteenth century, and the Bridge’s population averaged 500.

According to legend King Charles the Second, who ruled Great Britain for twenty five years after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, was told, when the astronomer royal Sir John Flamsteed complained about the ravens, that the safety of the kingdom was threatened if the birds ever left the Tower of London. King Charles then decreed that there should always be at least six ravens there to prevent the Tower – and the kingdom – falling down. History does not record what Flamsteed thought of this decision but he had to accept it.

If you are looking for a quintessentially British event in February, then you must witness Pancake Day racing.  The old religious festival of Shrove Tuesday is when Christians ate a rich meal using butter and sugar before beginning the fast of Lent.  This day always falls 47 days before Easter Sunday, so the date varies yearly and falls between February 3 and March 9.  This year, Shrove Tuesday will take place on Tuesday, 13th February.

The main attraction in Vauxhall is a building you cannot enter. Vauxhall Cross is the headquarters of the Special Intelligence Services (formerly MI6) and the employer of Britain’s most famous fictional secret agent, James Bond, often referred to simply by the number 007. The double 00 prefix indicates that Bond has a ‘licence to kill’, an invention of his creator Ian Fleming who worked for Naval Intelligence during the Second World War when the double 0 symbol indicated that a document was classified as ‘top secret.’

A viewing gallery has opened on top of the new skyscraper at 22 Bishopsgate.  Visitors to London can get views of the City without paying if they find the London Eye or The Shard too expensive. It joins the Sky Garden on top of the Walkie-Talkie building as a viewing platform which is accessible to the general public and free of charge. Café/bars serving hot and cold drinks can be found in both locations, but visitors are under no obligation to buy anything. Both viewing platforms have free toilet facilities.

London has many street markets that visitors can visit. Smithfield Meat Market and Billingsgate Fish Market are probably the most famous wholesale markets in the capital, but both are facing great challenges. Despite operating for centuries, they face an uncertain future, with supermarkets preferring to deal directly with their suppliers these days.

Officially known as the London Millennium Footbridge, this iconic pedestrian bridge gracefully spans the River Thames, connecting the Tate Modern Art Gallery to St. Paul's Cathedral, two of London's most recognizable landmarks. But to many Londoners, this bridge has another, more affectionate name – "The Wibbly Wobbly Bridge." This moniker hints at the bridge's unique history, a tale of design, engineering, and the resilience of a city that embraces its quirks.

Kensington Palace, nestled at the western edge of leafy Kensington Gardens, has been a royal home since 1689. Today, it is the London base of the Prince and Princess of Wales and the nerve centre of their operations. It is also home to the Dukes of Kent and Gloucester and Princess Michael of Kent.

It is no more than appropriate that in Sir Christopher Wren’s tercentenary, the star feature of his masterpiece, the Whispering Gallery at St Paul’s Cathedral, should have been re-opened after four years of renovation. London’s great sotto voce experience is back.

The Royal Family of the United Kingdom is financed in a number of different ways. Its main source of income is the Sovereign Grant (the Civil List until 2012), which currently costs £86.3 million a year. This comes in the form of a grant from the government that meets the costs of the royal residences, staffing, travel and state visits, public engagements, and official entertainment.

Many visitors to Britain like to partake in the ritual of afternoon tea, which is a long-standing British tradition. It combines the British love of drinking tea with a fondness for cakes and other sweet dishes in the middle of the afternoon. Many hotels and well-known shops, such as Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly, offer afternoon tea packages.

What could be more quintessentially English than afternoon tea? This is often one of the top items on London visitors’ itineraries, but many are unsure of where to go or surprised by how expensive it can be.

The Mission Impossible film series is famous for its use of exotic locations around the globe. Tom Cruise, portraying the top secret agent Ethan Hunt and his team save the world in the world’s tallest building in Dubai or at the Vatican. However, they also use British locations in their films, some of which are seen in the latest instalment, Dead Reckoning: Part One. The second instalment of the film has been made and is due to be released in June 2024.

Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, Greenwich provides the perfect day out for visitors wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of Central London. A short journey down river from Central London, the Royal Borough of Greenwich is home to six museums, stunning historic architecture and a wonderful range of shops, markets, pubs and restaurants.

This year is a very good time to visit the spectacular Old Royal Naval College (ORNC), right in the heart of Greenwich, especially if you love royal and maritime history and architecture. In 2023 we are celebrating Wren 300. This is a commemoration of 300 years since the death of the great architect of the ORNC, Sir Christopher Wren, who gave his time for free when the building was commissioned in 1694. So what is the ORNC, and why should you include it on a visit to London?

Many visitors to London like to see the city from on high and several attractions give them the opportunity to do so. The London Eye and the viewing platform at The Shard are two of the capital’s most popular attractions, while One New Change and the Sky Garden attract people who do not wish to pay an entrance fee or wait in line to look at London from high up. Other towers, such as Arcelor Mittal Orbit in the Olympic Park and The Monument to the Great Fire, may not attract so many visitors but are important parts of London’s skyline.

Tourist guides are normally concerned with what is above ground, but London also has a fascinating underground story. As well as the famous buildings you can see on the surface – Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, and the Tower of London – London has a network of underground sewers and rivers that repay close attention.

Six buildings in central London are royal palaces – but only three of these (Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and Saint James’s Palace ) are still used as homes by members of the royal family. In addition, Clarence House is a royal home but not a royal palace. Three older palaces (Placentia Palace, Richmond Palace, and Nonsuch Palace) on the outskirts of London have now vanished except for memorial plaques while Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, and Kew Palace are intact and open to visitors. Windsor is the royal family’s oldest home, and where Saint George’s Chapel is the final resting place of many monarchs, including the late Queen Elizabeth I.

Most people have heard of the native American princess known as Pocahontas, but not many know that she became a Christian, married an Englishman, and came to London as a young bride and mother. Sadly, she never made it home to America and is buried in the town of Gravesend in Kent, having died in 1617 at the start of her journey homewards.

There is a vast array of Queer spaces and venues in London. Some of my absolute favourites have been closed and shut down, like Astoria, Candy Bar, the Black Cap, and Popstarz as the London streets are revamped and regenerated. While there are many more old, new closed and open, those listed below are some of my personal favourites. They have been collected from my experiences and memories made at each of these locations.

In May 2021, the UK’s first museum dedicated to LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer) history and culture opened in King’s Cross. Queer Britain is located at 2 Granary Square in London and joins destinations including Berlin, San Francisco, and Fort Lauderdale in having a permanent queer museum space.

2023 sees the seventy-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom. The idea of free health care paid through taxes had been around for some time but did not become a reality until the Labour government under Clement Atlee was voted in as the Second World War was coming to an end in 1945.

Britain used to rely almost exclusively on coal for its electricity generation, mining it in Wales and the north and central part of England, then bringing it, usually by train, to power stations where it could be burned to heat up water that would generate electricity. Then the water was cooled down in cooling towers that can still be seen in many parts of the country.

London’s West End has long been a place of fun and entertainment – theatres, cinemas, and nightclubs. We look to the stages and large cinema screens to admire our modern-day idols and hope to meet them in the flesh. For Black History Month, we look at some familiar places in London's West End and discover the people who were not just entertainers; but pioneers, performing on stages and working hard to increase the rights of Black citizens.

They came from far and wide to pay their respects to a woman who had come to the throne as a young mother at the age of twenty-five when her father, King George the Sixth, had died suddenly in his sleep at the age of fifty-six in 1952. George had become king in 1936 because his elder brother had abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, an American woman who had been married and divorced twice and was not considered suitable as a royal consort.

Blue Badge Tourist Guides in London may conduct sport-themed tours – or they may just want to mention some British achievements in the world of sport to their groups and clients as a matter of general interest. While London has successfully hosted the Olympics three times – in 1904, 1948, and 2012, and contains famous venues such as Twickenham for rugby union, Wimbledon for tennis and Lord’s or the Oval for cricket, the England men’s national football team has won nothing since England won the World Cup at Wembley Stadium in 1966 when they last hosted the tournament. England beat West Germany 4-2 after extra time, and Geoff Hurst is still the only man to have scored three goals in a World Cup final.

Dinosaurs first appeared on earth nearly 250 million years ago and survived until a mass extinction event around 65 million years ago. This means that they were dominant animals on the planet for over 150 million years – far longer than human beings. Most scientists believe that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by a meteor landing on earth.

Notting Hill Carnival is the largest street festival in Europe.  It was started in the 1960s as a way for Caribbean communities, part of the Windrush Generation to bond and celebrate their cultural traditions. Now taking place every August Bank Holiday weekend in the streets of London W11, the Notting Hill Carnival is an amazing array of sounds, colourful sights, and social solidarity.

London’s Blue Badge Tourist Guides are often asked to conduct tours based on well-known singers and musicians from the pop and rock eras who make up an important part of the tourist business. Many are remembered with memorial plaques, others with statues or paintings.  Below is a list of rock stars and locations in London that have contributed to the city's rich musical history.

The once-marshy neighbourhood of Bankside was previously a military garrison within the City of London limits. Museum of London archaeologists discovered Roman warehouses here during the development of the Jubilee Line. The Norsemen were here too. King Alfred’s battling with the Vikings gives us the nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge is falling down.’

Visitors to London often want to go inside Buckingham Palace when they come there and see the Changing of the Guard ceremony. Yet, while Windsor Castle is open to the public throughout the year, the chief royal residence of London is only open for ten weeks between mid-July and September every year when the royal family are at Balmoral Castle. The tradition of spending the late summer and early autumn in the Scottish Highlands was established by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and has continued since her reign.

The idea for a line joining the eastern and western suburbs of London was first mooted in 1941 during the Second World War but it took over eighty years before this dream was realised. The Elizabeth Line, as it has become known, was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II who officially opened the line on 17 May 2022  at Paddington Station; passenger services started on 24 May 2022.  Her Majesty was presented with an Oyster Card with £5 on it. Although she was shown how to use the card, she did not do so and left the station in a lift. The Queen spent time at the opening talking to Transport For London staff.

While most visitors to London might not associate the capital with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), the River Thames will be seen on virtually every tour of London and is often considered the backbone of the capital. Four of the RNLI’s 238 lifeboat stations are on the Thames, and their busiest is RNLI Tower Lifeboat Station by Waterloo Bridge. The others are at Chiswick and Teddington in Greater London and Gravesend in Kent.

One of the greatest composers in the history of music, Joseph Haydn, lived in London for four years during the 1790s, just as the Napoleonic conflict was beginning to convulse Europe. The King of England George III himself had mused on bringing the Viennese composer here, and several music-loving earls had sent invitations, all of which had gone unanswered.

Visitors from the United States are often interested to see places associated with their own country in London. There are statues or busts of six American presidents in the capital * and one of them, a statue of George Washington, stands in the centre of London in Trafalgar Square. The area around Grosvenor Square in Mayfair is sometimes referred to as “Little America.”

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is the unofficial start to the summer season in London.  The five-day event held in May each year is attended by approximately 157,000 people and is a must-visit to see cutting-edge garden designs and horticultural exhibits.   Below you will find out some interesting facts related to the history of the Chelsea Flower Show which is popular with royals, celebrities, as well as professional and amateur gardeners.

When Joseph Malins, a young Jewish immigrant to London had the novel idea of combining fried fish (a traditional Sephardi meal) with potato chips to create the now-iconic fish and chips and opened his first shop on Old Ford Road in the East End of London in 1860, little did he know the influence that he would have on the English national palette. He was not the only one. The Jewish contribution to London has been extensive since the first Jewish immigrants arrived with William the Conqueror in 1066.

Easter Sunday falls on the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox on 21st March. This unusual calculation, which uses a mixture of solar and lunar calendars, means that the day itself can occur anytime in a period of over a month - between 22nd March and 25th April. The next time it will fall this late will be in 2038 and you will have an even longer wait for a very early Easter. It will not take place on 22nd March until 2285.

Landing the accommodation just right for you is integral to your London experience, and there’s no shortage of choice. But just because London is a city that never sleeps doesn’t mean it doesn’t go to bed: rooms in sought-after hotels can be booked solid. There are some fantastic hotels around - whatever the price tag - but and always book plan ahead.

Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, was a name that everyone knew at the time of her divorce in 1963 but during her lifetime she had three names, each one making her a legend, Margaret Whigham, Margaret Sweeny, and when a Duchess, Margaret Campbell.

London saw in 2022 to the traditional sound of the bells of Big Ben at Westminster. Although the annual fireworks display which is a part of the New Year festivities was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, Londoners and visitors to the capital were able to see as well as hear Big Ben for the first time in four years since it was covered with scaffolding and silenced as a result of the restoration programme at the Palace of Westminster, better known as the Houses of Parliament.

The wonderful Christmas lights in Central London are coming down, and red lanterns are beginning to appear around Soho and in particular Chinatown. This is part of the celebration for Chinese New Year which is also known as the Spring Festival. This year it falls on the 28th January, the first day of spring in the lunisolar calendar.

Visitors who arrive in London via Heathrow Airport will pass the Hogarth roundabout in Chiswick as they approach the city along the A4 from the west. They may see the house in which William Hogarth (1697 – 1764) lived, which is now a museum. Their Blue Badge Tourist Guide may even tell them that it is believed that Hogarth’s habit of sketching people’s faces on his thumbnail gave us the phrase ‘a thumbnail sketch.’

January is the best month to visit London if you are a bargain hunter.  To start, the shops have sales which usually start a couple of days after Christmas. Plus most ice skating rinks and funfairs are still open during the first week so if you missed out pre Christmas, now is the perfect time to visit as they are less crowded. Most shops and many museums open on New Years Day.

London is a series of villages and we Londoners are all villagers at heart, fiercely proud of our own corner of the city. I live in urban Islington but was born in leafy Wimbledon on the other side of London. Wimbledon Common was a frequent destination in my youth - for childhood rambles, winter snowballing, and teenage high-jinx. So, on the 150th anniversary of the Wimbledon Common’s 1871 creation, I re-visited this much-loved green space finding it much as I’d always remembered.

The word ‘leotard’ is used to describe a one-piece stretch garment in various colours and styles and is commonly used in dance, sport, and exercise. Leotards allow flexibility of movement and are worn by dancers, gymnasts, and fitness fanatics. The name is referred to without thought for its origin, but it is interesting to learn that a young Frenchman, Jules Léotard, who wanted to show his acrobatic skills in mid-air, created this functional garment which continues to provide comfort for those who wear it.

One of London’s iconic buildings, the Battersea Power Station has gone from being an engineering marvel to a symbol of industrial dilapidation and is now home to one of the capital’s most prestigious redevelopment schemes. Gossip news may reveal a stream of high profile celebrities moving in but chief amongst its tenants will be Apple, which will use six floors of the station’s former Boiler House, as its main London HQ.

Which is the most important clock in the world? Many visitors to London would answer ‘Big Ben,’ even though this is officially the name of the bell behind it rather than the clock itself. However, as a London blue badge guide, I would say that the world’s most important timepiece is the John Harrison H4 which can be seen in the Greenwich Royal Observatory museum near where the Prime Meridian is marked on the ground.

With the new James Bond 007 movie Spectre starring Daniel Craig set for release on 26 October, we thought we’d put together a quiz.  Specifically, below are ten questions each about the James Bond 007 books and films.  How many will you answer correctly?  

Spitalfields, Shoreditch, and Penge have established themselves as London’s hottest spots when it comes to street art, where you will find uncensored, clandestine, and sometimes sanctioned works adorning any spare wall or surface in reach of stealthy street artists.

As well as being the major royal church of the United Kingdom, Westminster Abbey contains the tombs of many famous people who were not born into royalty. Over 3,000 people are buried at Westminster Abbey - many forgotten by history - but it remains the final resting place for celebrated Britons. Others who are not buried there are honoured with commemorative plaques. Below are some of the famous Westminster Abbey burials.

Every year in late summer, London plays host to The Proms, a series of classical music concerts held in the Royal Albert Hall, South Kensington. The Albert Hall was built in memory of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert in 1871 and stands opposite the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. It has a capacity of over 5,000 and is always packed out for the Last Night of the Proms in September, an event that is as much about patriotism as music.

The Waste Land by Thomas Stearns Eliot (T. S. Eliot), who came from the United States but lived in England, is often called the greatest poem of the twentieth century. Its 433 lines depict the London of 1923 in the fragmented form of an abstract painting. Scenes appear like shapes without title or outline. To celebrate the centenary of the poem, I have devised a walk through The City connecting locations mentioned by Eliot. The Waste Land was published as a single entity by Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press as Eliot was associated with the artistic intellectuals of The Bloomsbury Group.

I can pinpoint the moment that I knew that the London Olympics were going to be great. James Bond was in Buckingham Palace meeting the Queen. It had to be a lookalike, didn’t it? Then she turned around and it really was the Queen.

Shoreditch is one of Central London’s most surprising neighborhoods as it is where the world of high-finance and tech meets the East End. It is a great neighbourhood to unearth little corners of secret and lost London via a walking tour with a Blue Badge Tourist Guide.

I was once asked to do a walking tour of Croydon, my borough in London and also where the composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor lived for most of his life. He was a man of mixed heritage who studied music and composed the Hiawatha Wedding Feast inspired by Hiawatha, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Opposite the church of St Mary The Virgin, Mortlake a path called Tapestry Court leads to the River Thames. Here you will find a plaque memorialising the seventeenth century Lower Dutch House, one of the former buildings of the Mortlake Tapestry Works.

This is the final article in a series written by London Blue Badge Tourist Guides, who used to be key workers in our capital city. Kathryn Hallam-Howard was a law enforcement officer for over thirty years, working in the West End, South London and at New Scotland Yard. She tells us about her work in the police before she became a guide.

David Hockney is a celebrated British artist, who was born and lives in Yorkshire and is well known in the USA after living for many years in California. This summer Hockney has an exhibition at the Royal Academy which was inspired by his trip to Normandy in 2020. It starts on 23 rd May and continues to late September. If it is anything like his show there in 2012 it will be an uplifting experience and not to be missed.

The recently re-elected Mayor of Greater London Sadiq Khan has launched a ‘Let’s Do London’ campaign to promote the capital as a major world tourist destination once again. Blue Badge Tourist Guides aim to play a major part in the re-opening of tourism in London.

This is the fourth in a series of articles written by London Blue Badge guides who used to be key workers in the capital. Janet Robinson writes about her work as a nurse before she became a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide.

Let me take you back to the Britain of 1951. The Second World War had ended just six years earlier. London, like many other British cities, had been bombed relentlessly and still bore the scars of the Blitz. Surviving buildings were covered in layers of dark sooty dust and rationing was still the order of the day and, for fresh meat, remained in place until 1954.

This is part of a series of articles written by London Blue Badge Tourist Guides who used to be key workers in our capital city. Barry Walsh qualified as a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide in 2000 while working for Public Health England. He writes about his life as a guide and doctor.

Want some exercise but want to be entertained too? There is no better way to explore Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and discover its history than a walking tour with a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide. Hear about the history of the area, the regeneration and legacy work being carried out on the Park. Relive the memories of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and discover little-known stories and fascinating facts and figures.

The Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery on the South Bank are now closed, preparing for a two-year refurbishment, and will re-open in 2017, which is exactly 50 years since they first opened in 1967-8. They are immune from listing status, unlike the Festival Hall, which is Grade 1 and the National Theatre is Grade 2 listed.

Step outside central London and you might find the suburbs are brighter than you think. Come out of the underground station at Walthamstow Central, walk around a little and you will find there is plenty to see: bric-a-brac shops dotted around, a long street market and great museums like the Vestry House in the Walthamstow Village area. My top tips for three must-sees in this area are the William Morris Gallery, God’s Own Junkyard and the Street Art.

As one of London’s blue badge tourist guides, much of my spare time is spent adding to my knowledge of the history and events taking place in Central London. With plenty of extra time on my hands and not being able to travel, I decided it was time to look at history closer to home. So one frigid afternoon, I took Eric out for an extra-long walk, which he just loves. Eric is my bichon frise, still a puppy with oodles of energy, so that means several walks during the day to try and tire him out. My mission that afternoon was to visit the ruins of Barking Abbey in the East End of London.

Charles de Gaulle, a junior minister in a collapsing government and a relatively junior general in an army that was ceasing to exist, landed at Heston airport after a gruelling and perilous flight from Bordeaux, on Monday 17 June 1940. Few of his British hosts knew who he was, Winston Churchill being the exception. During his visits to France, Churchill had immediately noticed “a young, energetic general called de Gaulle.” `(In Gabriel Le Bomin’s biopic of de Gaulle, which features the early days of the two men’s relationship, Churchill is brilliantly played by Tim Hudson – who is also a London Blue Badge Guide!)

Every tour of London will include a view of the Houses of Parliament and most guides conducting one will arrange for a stop so that people can take a photograph or selfie with Big Ben in the background. This provides the perfect souvenir of a visit to London.

The indelible mark left by the Huguenot community and their development of the silk weaving industry is the stuff of legend. Their skills and entrepreneurial drive led them to settle across the south of England and in America. In the aftermath of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the small trickle arriving in Britain turned into a steady flow and, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, Huguenots made up five per cent of London’s population. Some of these refugee families headed to a small village, now a suburb of South London called Wandsworth.

This is the second in a series of articles written by London Blue Badge Tourist Guides who used to be key workers in our capital city. Ray Sharman describes his work as a London black cab driver.

Few people are as passionate about the Battersea area of London than muralist Brian Barnes MBE, who for the last forty-five years has been leaving his artistic touch on derelict industrial carcasses and council housing estates, some in plain sight and others in the most inconspicuous of locations. He first gained recognition in 1976 with his 267 foot long mural: Battersea: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, on Battersea Bridge Road, which depicted a brush sweeping away the industrial dilapidation along Battersea’s riverfront, and replacing it with a colourful utopian vision of social prosperity for the local community.

When Henry VIII dissolved England’s monasteries in 1534 he handed over Islington and Archway to Thomas Cromwell. However, the unfortunate Cromwell had little time to enjoy his acquisition as he was beheaded in 1540. Today, Islington is a part of London supposedly full of well-off people living in expensive homes who like to feel they are spokespeople for those less fortunate than themselves. In fact, over 40% of Islingtonians live in social housing and almost 30% live in privately rented flats, so homeowners make up only 30% of this diverse Borough. Some of those houses are now very expensive!

Blue Badge Tourist Guide Richard "Rick" Jones explores sites in London with links to Lionel Lockyer, a physician espousing questionable remedies in the plague era. According to Chambers dictionary, a quack is ‘someone who claims, and practises under the pretence of having, knowledge and skill that he or she does not possess.’ A quack doctor, then, is a fraud.

During the Second World War London was home to, or visited by, tens of thousands of American Servicemen and women. When they wanted entertainment in the evenings they headed to the West End and the American Red Cross (ARC) Club was the first stop for many of them. There were several ARC clubs in London and many around the world offering meals and recreational activities, and the larger ones could provide overnight accommodations and facilities such as barbers and laundries.

Until perhaps the last thirty years, there was some truth in the belief that north of the River Thames was smart, wealthy and desirable but south of the river was the haunt of thieves, vagabonds and only approached with caution. Even London’s cabbies were reputed to be reluctant to go south of the river at night. Times have changed. Peckham and Brixton as well as Clapham are now achingly trendy and expensive and other areas like East Dulwich and Forest Hill are up and coming.

Many of London’s Blue Badge Tourist Guides have a knowledge of contemporary popular music, in particular the Beatles, the famous group who came from Liverpool but settled in London and recorded their music here. A little known early influence on them was the calypso musician called Lord Woodbine, whose real name was Harold Adolphus Phillip.

Since its inception in the first part of the 20th century, the cinema has been a staple of British entertainment. The multiplexes of the 21st century have enjoyed a resurgence following the nadir of the 1980s and early 1990s, but the real golden age of cinema came with the development of the “talkies” in 1927 and the subsequent boom in the construction of new cinemas in the 1930s.

Inspired by the new exhibition “Black Greenwich Pensioners” at the Old Royal Naval College (which at the time of writing I have yet to visit), my mind recently turned to Britain’s Black seafaring past, particularly to the time Britain was most actively involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the enslavement of Africans, a time which loosely coincides with what we refer to as the Georgian age (1714-1837).

Blue Badge Tourist Guides conduct many different types of tours, from individual families to large groups, and each type requires different skills to be successful. Here, Olga Romana shares her experiences of guiding student groups. I have worked with students my whole life!

In addition to offering customized private tours, many London Blue Badge Tourist Guides also conduct regular walking tours and virtual tours for groups. Joining a group tour can be a fun and affordable way to take in the sights. For locals, a walk with a knowledgeable and passionate Blue Badge Tourist Guide can reveal fun facts and hidden gems you may not have been aware of.

This is part of a series of articles written by London Blue Badge Guides who used to be key workers in our capital city. First up is Neil Parker, who worked for 30 years as a postman before becoming a tourist guide. I qualified as a London Blue Badge Guide in 2013 and now, as my mates from the post would say, ‘I’m paid to be me!’ At least I was until March 2020 when Covid-19 arrived. This got me thinking, what was life like for my mates in the post? So, after it reopened, I went to the pub to find out.

Hello Internet! I'm excited to introduce myself to you as one of the newly hatched Blue Badge Tourist Guides! While I'd already been guiding for a number of years, it was only in 2020 that I finally qualified as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide...

The Mayflower story has an almost mythological status in American history, particularly in the northeast of America where I grew up. Unfortunately, the story of Plymouth Colony traditionally has been told from the perspective of the Mayflower sailors. In fact, a sophisticated Native American society had long been established in Patuxet before English settlers claimed this land and renamed it Plymouth.

As a Blue Badge Tourist Guide, I feel proud and privileged to introduce visitors from around the globe to the greatest and most historic botanic gardens in the world: the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Both a UNESCO World Heritage Site with hundreds of years of history and a key scientific research centre at the forefront of saving our planet, the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew offers endless wonders for all to enjoy.

St. Paul’s Cathedral is one of London's most famous landmarks, its majestic dome visible from many parts of the capital. This architectural masterpiece - a symbol of London’s strength and resilience - and has been the site of many historic occasions, including royal weddings and state funerals. It is a working church and a place for quiet reflection, but there are also many wonderful things to see inside on a visit. Blue Badge Tourist guide Patricia Gentry shares just a few of her favourites below.

October is Black History Month in Britain. It is a great opportunity for everyone to learn more about people, places and objects that help tell the story of the Black presence in Britain - those whose names are not well known, and events that included people from Africa and the Caribbean who can help to inform the narratives of British history.

To put it mildly, attitudes towards witches and sorcerers in the Elizabethan period were confusing and often contradictory. While Bloody Mary (reigned 1553 - 1558) was vicious in her treatment of witches, Elizabeth I (1558 - 1603) had a more ambivalent relationship to this subject. After all her mother, Anne Boleyn had been accused of being a witch because of a malformation of her left hand, which appeared in the form of an extra finger. Elizabeth, as a strong female ruler, may not have been happy about hunting down the fair sex, therefore, and accusing those who might be innocent of any crime.

Fifty years ago this month, we lost one of the greatest musicians of all time. Jimi Hendrix died in Notting Hill, on 18 September 1970. Johnny Allen Hendrix was born on 27 November 1942 in Seattle. He became “Jimi” only later. He had a diverse lineage with African-American and Native American roots. His grandmother Nora was said to be one-quarter Cherokee. Early 20th-century photos reveal her fine features, which bear a striking resemblance to those of her grandson.

A virtual tour is so much more than an on-screen stroll… Professional tourist guides are using their imaginations to show so much more detail than when guiding on the street. What at first seemed an uphill mountain to climb…. creating tours for a small screen …. has developed into a quiet revolution – and a creative one.

On the afternoon of 7th September 1940, 350 German bomber planes attacked London, devastating the docks area and killing over 400 people. The day became known as Black Saturday and marked the beginning of a bombing campaign – the Blitz – that terrorised the city for eight months. Around 20,000 Londoners were killed. Eighty years on from Black Saturday, Blue Badge Tourist Guide Ruth Polling explores how remnants of that period can still be seen in London today.

Lady Diana Spencer, who would have turned 59 this summer, made a huge impact on British life. She helped modernise the monarchy, and her death in 1997 shocked the institution to its core. Diana also made history in other ways: She was the first woman of English birth to marry the heir to the throne in 300 years, and the first royal bride to have had a job. Here we take a look around some of the sites in London with connections to the late princess.

It's got to be one of London's best-loved events: from the arrival of the eagerly awaited annual catalogue and the feverish planning of visits, to that autumn weekend when the city flings open its doors to citizens and visitors. Yup, it's Open House - time for Londoners to get up close and personal with buildings they normally can't access.

The Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew make a wonderful day out away from the hustle and bustle of central London. Learn 5 new things from Blue Badge Guide Patricia Gentry on: * How the gardens evolved from hunting grounds to a private royal pleasure garden, and then into a public garden for all to appreciate * Kew Gardens’ largest champion tree * The ‘Loneliest Bachelor in the World’ * The smallest of all royal palaces in England * How Kew Gardens became a clearinghouse for rubber seeds and saved the Amazon Rainforest

It’s time. Slowly and with resolve, I close my bedroom window upstairs and walk down the steps into the hallway. It’s been a while. I open the front door. The world is at my feet. But like so many around me and around the world, I look to the left and to the right and I wonder: Is this what I want? In almost four months I’ve seen acts of human kindness positively overflowing, enough to fill that half-empty glass many times over.

Lockdown has been pretty devastating for London Blue Badge Tourist Guides, as you can imagine. However, rather than sitting at home polishing up our shining badges waiting for the clients who were never going to arrive, we decided to bring London to the world.

I’m looking out the window to the street below. One of those annoying yappy dogs is dragging its owner on an exceptionally long leash. Everything about it bugs me, including its colouring (which, by the way, matches the oblivious owner’s hair). `That dog has a brown head and a black body,’ I hear a voice say. I jump and turn but see no one. But I know who is speaking.

Although born in the Hampshire village of Steventon, the author of novels such as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility had many reasons to visit London during her life. In fact, many of the sites Jane Austen visited served as direct inspiration for descriptions of fashionable neighbourhoods where characters such as Mrs Jennings from Sense and Sensibility live.

I would very much like to continue gazing out my window – front or back – but the views are, well, fairly restricted at the moment. Scaffolding has edged up to the top floor to the north and the south. Someone had the bright idea of using this time to have the window frames and the masonry painted, the rain-ravaged cills repaired. Oh, that was me? Ooops, never mind. With Carole King belting out at the mic, I go Up on the Roof.

It is often stated that fact is stranger than fiction, and to prove the point, many literary figures have complicated and interesting stories themselves. Let’s explore some of them on a tour of London’s Chelsea neighbourhood.

Guide London has successfully launched a live broadcast series during the COVID-19 lockdown.  Streaming live via Facebook, YouTube and Twitter on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays at 4 pm London / 11 am New York time, the series features many of the 600+ Blue Badge Tourist Guides who are members of the Association of Professional Tourist Guides.  Topics covered include British culture, history, Monarchy, and then the lighter side of London.

I believe in ghosts. Not the chain-rattling, shroud-clad nebulae that float in and out of Shakespeare’s plays and Dickens’ stories. I’m referring to people who have `moved on’ but still come back for a visit, who can talk and walk with you. Souls... Spirits… Whatever we want to call them, it’s impossible to have lived in a place like Hong Kong like we did for a dozen years and not believe in them. Just impossible.

Like all of us, I’ve found lockdown hard. As usual at the start of the year, I was preparing for the new season with info-gathering and reorientation walks, but this all came to a shuddering end in mid-March. I live in suburbia, so that’s not really much use to me as a London guide.

Perhaps the most obvious place to see animals in London is at London Zoo, the world’s oldest scientific zoo. But did you know you can see more creatures great and small by travelling across the capital? Next time you’re able to visit, see just how many animal sculptures and objects you can spot in this great city.

I’m helping my husband, Michael Rothschild, re-arrange the window boxes in our bedroom upstairs. I do the lifting, not the nurturing; my thumbs are black. Two doors to the east scaffolders are erecting staging across our neighbour’s roof. Yet another loft conversion is in progress. The workmen are Polish.

London is a port city, and Britain became great because of its navy and ability to trade across the globe. The capital’s wealth is built upon that sea trade. There are reminders of London's maritime history everywhere. In Trafalgar Square, we commemorate the 1805 victory (and the death) of Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. At Tower Hill, we remember the 36,000 merchant mariners lost at sea with no known grave. And the Museum of London Docklands examines the triangular trade in goods, sugar and slaves, upon which so much of the city’s wealth was built.

I’ve taken my cue from an erstwhile neighbour – Alfred Hitchcock was born just up the road in Leytonstone – and I’ve moved to the rear window. I’m in search of the colour purple. But instead of the lilac that coyly shows its first blush this time of year through the satin-white of the magnolia tree and the billowing chartreuse of the willow, I’m getting a Phoenician purple that would have turned Queen Elizabeth I, who banned the royal colour from her court, apoplectic.

My husband, Mike Rothschild, thinks I’ve been staring out the window for too long now and suggests a bit of exercise. But our lovely lady, Vicky Park, is off-limits, I pout. `Let’s go to the Olympic Park,’ he suggests. So off on our bikes to the big green space just east of us we go, with Mike, my own personal optimist trying to keep my head above water as I struggle to submerge, wallowing in the black ink of despondency. I’ve been cooped up way too long watching the world sink from my window.

Time is weighing heavily as I sit at my window, sewing. Yes, buttons. Has it really come to this? Every once and awhile I’ll lean forward to wave or nod to a friend or a passing acquaintance. The window washer, the Baptist preacher, the local councilwoman, the `kids’ next door (who are now adults) … We know everybody. But truth be told, it didn’t get off to a good start. My husband Mike Rothschild and I moved into this house in Bow in East London at the end of the first year of the new millennium. Almost immediately we flew to the USA to visit family before returning to begin a massive renovation of our new home.

I’m standing in the bathroom on the upper floor – you really don’t have to know what I’m doing –looking wistfully through the chartreuse-coloured cascade that is the weeping willow at the bottom of our garden and across the canal to Victoria Park. It is `just spring when the world is puddle-wonderful’ as American poet E.E. Cummings once put it, and we can no longer enter it. Like pints after work and an evening at the theatre, our beloved park is just a memory. It’s encaged by tall iron gates.

At no time in recent history have we appreciated the NHS and medical staff more than in our current crisis. Doctors, nurses and public health specialists are working flat out to save our nation. Not alone in their endeavours; we are seeing the army and teams of construction workers build new hospital facilities out of conference centres in London, Manchester and Birmingham. These new hospitals are being called Nightingale Hospitals. So, what’s behind the name?

Like all of us, I’m housebound. In a bid to allay cabin fever and death by boredom, I’ve taken a front-row seat by the window. With a tip of the chapeau to Colette, who wrote Paris de Ma Fenêtre (Paris from My Window) from her apartment on the Place du Palais Royal during the German occupation of WWII, I’ll begin my random musings on the city from one small corner of London during the `occupation’ by the coronavirus COVID-19.

Blue Badge Tourist Guides in London need to have a working knowledge of some of the famous writers and poets associated with the city: William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, William Blake, and Ben Jonson, all of whom made London their homes for at least part of their lives.

The Tower of London is one of the most popular sites in our capital city, attracting more than 2.8 million visitors a year. One of the main draws is the Jewel House, located in the heart of the Tower grounds. It contains some of the most precious gems you’re ever likely to see: the royal ceremonial regalia known as the Crown Jewels.

There are half a million people of Russian descent in London, three quarters from the form Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Amongst them are the actors Helen Mirren, David Suchet, and Peter Ustinov, writer Stephen Poliakoff, the former politician Nick Clegg and the recently deceased opera director and television personality Jonathan Miller.

Westminster Abbey is definitely one of London’s must-see attractions. And you’re sure to discover new things every time you visit, especially if you go with a knowledgeable Blue Badge Tourist Guide. Among other things, the Abbey is the burial site of many of the most famous people in British history.

Did you know that the word museum means a “Temple to the Muses”, all of whom were female? The British Museum in London is a museum of world history, but all too often that history has ignored half of the world. This is true even though women have wielded power in a variety of ways. In ancient Greece, Aristotle believed it was the natural order of things for women to be subordinate to men, that men were more virtuous, brave and intelligent. He also believed that men's blood was hotter than women's blood! Well, on both counts, he was wrong of course.

Most Blue Badge Guides, when conducting a tour of London, will give priority to what people can see. Occasionally, however, they will mention a building that has been lost to fire, bombing or development. One such is the Crystal Palace, originally found in Hyde Park.

As well as the important buildings and monuments, Blue Badge Tourist Guides have to be aware of distinctive characters on the streets of London. None are more distinct than the Pearly Kings and Queens who dress up in the ‘colourful’ costumes and raise money for charity. In fact, a Pearly costume is usually made from black and white materials, with occasionally a brightly coloured scarf (as on this photograph) or feathers adorning a pearly hat or cap.

The famous film director Alfred Hitchcock lived half of his eighty years in London and half in America. He was born in the East End of London in Leytonstone into a family of shopkeepers and fans of his work can see several memorials to him in the area. The house in which Hitchcock was born is long gone and has been replaced by a garage but they do have a plaque on the wall commemorating him as well as several nearby places named after him.

To celebrate the upcoming centenary of Howard Carter’s discovery of the tomb of the young Egyptian Pharoah, the Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharoah exhibition runs at the Saatchi Gallery in the Duke of York HQ until 3 May next year.

It was around 11:30 in the morning of the 8th August 1969 when Iain MacMillan took a photograph of John, Paul, George and Ringo crossing the most famous pedestrian crossing in London – and probably the world. This was in Abbey Road just outside the studio where the Beatles made their records. It remains one of the most iconic album covers of all time and is imitated by around half a million people every year.

Since time immemorial, the Vintners’ and Dyers’ companies, livery companies of the City of London, have shared the ownership of mute swans on the River Thames, along with the Sovereign. During July, the Queen’s Swan Marker, accompanied by the Vintners’ Swan Marker and Dyers’ Bargemaster, spend five days travelling 79 miles along the Thames.

Summer is always a spectacular time of year to visit London and the rest of the United Kingdom. This year is no exception and here are five great reasons to visit over the next few months.

The London Marathon starts and finishes in two of London’s most beautiful areas. The starting point is a wide-open expanse of grassland lined by historic houses and cottages on the edge of the pretty village of Blackheath itself. The London marathon route then winds its way past some of our most recognised historic sites, and some of its newer attractions, before finishing near to Buckingham Palace on The Mall.

Blue Badge Tourist Guides in London are expected to know their history and knowledge of the major sites associated with popular singers is now also a part of our job. For example, sites connected with the iconic singer David Bowie in London have joined the famous pedestrian crossing used by the Beatles in Abbey Road as places to visit.

You don't have to wait for Valentine's Day to plan a romantic day or  vacation in London. You also don't need to limit yourself to traditional romantic gestures such as cards, flowers, chocolates and candlelight dinners while in London. You can create a more memorial experience by exploring and experiencing the best that London has to offer with your significant other.  With this in mind, below are 5 suggestions of romantic things to do in London.

London Blue Badge Tourist Guides often talk about the construction of new buildings when they conduct their tours. However, this is often preceded by destruction, the most common cause being fire. They start as small acts of carelessness and end up altering the London skyline.  Below are three famous fires in our history stand out.

Where is the best view in London? There are many contenders. Some would say the view of the Houses of Parliament from Lambeth Bridge, others the sight of Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral, and the City of London from Waterloo Bridge.

A themed walking tour for the family around London can be great fun with a Blue Badge Tourist Guide. Guides can use great creativity to design a tour to match your needs and interests as part of our Specialist Tours. Here is an example: Does your family love cats? Let’s go on a feline-themed walking tour in search of famous cats in London.

Besides the usual well-known places such as Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London, London’s Blue Badge Tourist Guides are sometimes asked to include in their tour a visit to sites such as William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

London is blessed with numerous green parks and gardens, most importantly the eight main Royal Parks, from the central London Parks of Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, St James’s Park and Green Park to those further out such as Richmond Park, Bushy Park and Greenwich Park. These are often called “London’s Lungs” and are a green haven for Londoners and visitors alike.

Most of us think that we know what this most famous poet and playwright William Shakespeare looked like. Our image of him comes from the portrait in the First Folio of his plays, a rather mediocre woodcut by Martin Droeshout, which nevertheless gave a fair likeness, according to his contemporary, friend and rival Ben Jonson.

London is growing skywards. With the high rental price for offices and a lack of space in the ‘square mile’ of the old City of London going up is the only practical alternative. Because of the soft clay in which London was built the maximum height of a skyscraper in the city used to be around 600 feet (200 metres) but new technology allows architects to design buildings – such as Enzo Piano’s The Shard – which are around 1000 feet (300 metres) high with further high rise structures being built and planned for the future.

London's Blue Badge Tourist Guides often have to take groups to West End theatre shows and, even if they do not do this regularly, it is a good idea to know what is running in Theatreland in order to advise people. With this in mind, I thought it would be fun to see which were the longest running shows on the London stage. I wonder if we are now reaching the stage of the permanent play - as much a part of the London tourist scene as the Changing of the Guard.

Rising elegantly above the River Thames halfway between the Tower of London and Big Ben is the Temple. Inner and Middle Temples, and beyond them Lincoln’s and Gray’s Inns make up the four Inns of Court. Here are time-forgotten havens of shady courtyards, scented gardens, and spooky gas-lit passageways. For hundreds of years, lawyers in their chambers and courtrooms have beavered away, crafting and refining the Common Law.

People entering the interior of Saint Pancras can now see a new LED sculpture by Tracey Emin, a twenty-metre message in bright pink saying “I want my time with you.”  Emin is a notorious and controversial modern British artist, whose most famous work is probably her bed, which she put on display at the Tate Gallery surrounded by empty vodka bottles and used condoms.

London is a city in the love, yes truly, madly, deeply in love with football!  We are of course talking here of the game us Brits know of as football. Not futbol, not association rules, and absolutely, definitely, 100%, not soccer. In our game the ball is round, the officials are referees, the offence is the attack, periods are called halves and the fans eat pies with brown sauce, ketchup and scolding-hot meat of mysterious content. And yes, London loves it!

Think you've seen all there is in London? Well, think again! Just step east over the border from the Financial City and you'll find another world of contrasts reflecting the waves of immigrant workers who have passed through over the centuries. My top ten list of things to see in London's East End will take you on a journey of atmospheric Georgian and Victorian streets, bustling markets, great nightlife, and some historic villains. Enjoy!

Most English people are familiar with the song Jerusalem which is a kind of unofficial national anthem for England - as opposed to God Save the Queen which is the official anthem for the United Kingdom as a whole. The words were written by the poet and painter William Blake, one of the great English eccentrics, a born and bred Londoner.

The neighbourhood of Notting Hill in London today is a vibrant, exuberant and colourful reflection of its heady, diverse, rich and multi-cultural past. An eclectic mix of people, places and attitudes give this affluent and fashionable area a unique vibe, combining both the bohemian and the traditional. International financial traders rub shoulders with artists, musicians and writers in the many coffee shops, bars, and restaurants or behind handsome stucco-fronted pillar-porched houses, pretty mews dwellings and of course, regular flats.

Chinese New Year has arrived and as London celebrates the Year of the Dog with the biggest Chinese New Year celebrations outside of Asia, my thoughts turned to this city's longstanding love affair with man's best friend, the dog. There's a lot of puppy love in the Great British capital - a phenomenal 200,000 dogs and counting call London home.  That's almost twice the size of the population of Reykjavik! 

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 at Portsmouth and was one of the first world superstars both in his own lifetime and ever since. He was recognised not only in Great Britain as a great writer but abroad, particularly France and the United States where he travelled extensively. He emerged as a writer in a stratospheric way in 1836, with Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist.

London is a "world class" city on many levels, and attracts visitors for a wide variety of reasons, and none more so than for its theatrical reputation, credentials and concentration of West End theatres, known as "Theatreland." Today there are well over sixty theatres both large and small located in a fairly tight geographical area.

London is the link that unites all of us who were rocked in the soft cradle of the English language or first slept on its comfortable cushions at a later age. Our shared language is the tie that binds everyone reading this, and the capital is our tongue's birthplace. At its heart is the British Library, which automatically receives a copy of everything published in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Blue Badge Tourist Guides, when they conduct a tour of London, often take the time to show their groups buildings and places which remind them of their own countries. This is a way of connecting with the group and makes them feel at home -even though they may be thousands of miles from where they actually live.

Who is the best-selling writer in history after Shakespeare and the Bible? The answer is Agatha Christie who was born in Devon in 1890 but whose stories often feature London and who wrote what is the capital’s (and the world’s) longest-running play The Mousetrap, which is still playing at Saint Martin’s theatre sixty-five years after it opened. One of the original cast was the late Sir Richard Attenborough, who was paid partly with a share of rights from the play. These were never expected to be worth much but later in his career he was able to sell them to help finance his film about the life of Mahatma Gandhi starring Sir Ben Kingsley.

Here in London we feel very privileged to have hosted the National Football League (NFL) games now since 2007, known as the International Series. At first it was just one game each year. The Miami Dolphins hosted the New York Giants at Wembley Stadium on October 28, 2007. The Giants defeated the Dolphins 13–10 in the first regular season NFL game held outside North America. The first 40,000 tickets sold out for the game in the first 90 minutes of sales, and mainly to British and other Europeans.

The new £10 is the second plastic or polymer note issued by the Bank of England and features a portrait of Jane Austen. It follows the introduction of the first polymer note in September 2016, a fiver with a picture of Winston Churchill and an extract from his famous speech: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, tears and toil.’ The new twenty-pound note, with a portrait of a young J. M. W. Turner and a version of his painting of the Fighting Temeraire in the background will be released in March 2020. As yet no decision on a polymer fifty-pound note has been made and who would feature on it.

The first Harry Potter book was published in 1997 with a hardback print run of just 500, each of which is now worth £40-50,000. Since then the seven Harry Potter books have sold nearly 500 million copies and the eight films based on these books have grossed £6.5 billion, making J K Rowling the world’s richest author with a fortune of around £600 million.

To celebrate BBC Music last month the BBC Local Radio stations and Asian Network in England teamed up with the British Plaque Trust to unveil forty-seven historic Blue Plaques celebrating iconic musicians and venues.

Charlie Chaplin, one of the greatest stars of early cinema, has been honoured with an English Heritage blue plaque at his former London home in Glenshaw Mansions on Brixton Road in Kennington. The blue plaque was unveiled by the British comedian and Chaplin admirer Paul Merton, Chaplin’s granddaughter Kathleen, a singer, was also present with her seven-year-old son.

What – not another one? Yes, but not an election. This time it’s a tunnel – another one under London, from west to east and this one is less in the news because it is all about our waste. After London’s population doubled between 1840 and 1900 Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s literally ground-breaking tunnel, his great Intercepting Sewer, saved London from the Great Stink of 1856.

Coaches usually take one of three roads into/out of London - the M3, the M4 or the M40. I was coming back to London along the last recently and talked about football (soccer to our American visitors) as we passed Wembley and the Battle of Britain as we passed RAF Northolt and between the two I gave a mention to Art Deco architecture as we passed the Hoover Building.

There's a revolution happening in London. But it's not a political one, or even a social one. Far away from the headline-dominating machinations of governmental Westminster and the bright lights of the glitzy west end theatres, an artistic revolution has been gathering pace in the East End of the city. Into this atmospheric, edgy neighbourhood come the artists, often incognito, to adorn the walls with their creative, talented, sometimes controversial works.

They may have to travel across an ocean to get here, but for Americans in London, home is never that far away. Britain and the United States have a long shared history, and there are many sites in London associated with America. They reflect the close political, cultural and military ties between the two countries. The term "special relationship," often used to refer to the Anglo-American friendship, was first coined by Britain's wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, whose mother was American.

London, has (or had) a reputation for housing members of the international awkward squad. One exile was the French writer Émile Zola who arrived at Victoria Station on 19 July 1898 without any luggage or knowledge of the English language. He spent his first night at the Grosvenor Hotel and later moved to the more modest Queen’s Hotel in Norwood.

William Shakespeare. Revered throughout the world as one of the greatest playwrights, Shakespeare wrote some of the best known and best loved words in the English language. Over 400 years on, these words still have the power to question, console, illuminate and inspire us today.

At 215 miles long and neatly dividing London between North and South, the River Thames is the silvery thread that provides continuity for a City that is always changing. The sinuous loops and eccentrically named reaches provide the focus for some of London's greatest sights.

Brixton is one of London’s most diverse and exciting neighbourhoods. It is bit of a hidden gem tucked away south of the river Thames and less than 3 miles from Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. Known for its Caribbean heritage and referred to as London’s Harlem by the US actor Will Smith, immigration has been a theme in Brixton’s history that defines its character as well as its cultural diversity.

Of all the European capitals, London is arguably the one with the greatest architectural variety, be it residential, commercial or public buildings. What adds to the impression of an incessantly ‘creative kaleidoscope’ is the juxtaposition of old and new, of a mediaeval church next to a 21st century glass building or a Roman ruin in the middle of a 1970s Brutalist development.

Which hobby is loved by 1 in 6 British adults and generated revenues of £5.5 million in 2016? No, not fishing or horse riding, but old cars, buses, vans and lorries. Yes, petrolheads, according to the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs, are doing their bit for the economy, and London is right at the forefront of the movement.

Mother’s Day is fast approaching – let our knowledgeable and entertaining Blue Badge Tourist Guide reveal the origins of the festival and introduce some beautiful ideas for treating her on Mother’s Day. Mothers’ Day is often confused with Mothering Sunday; an old Christian tradition when believers visited their "mother" church on the fourth Sunday in Lent. Domestic servants were given a day off to do this, usually with their mothers - often the only time a family could reunite all year.

The official title of the Houses of Parliament is the New Palace of Westminster. The name reminds us that the earliest Parliaments were consultations between the King and his closest followers, together with representatives of the Church, held at his London residence. The Houses of Parliament combine spectacular architecture with a fascinating history. Located next door to Westminster Abbey and inextricably linked to it by history the Houses of Parliament are an intriguing place to visit.

Ian Fleming created the character of 007 whilst living in London and his novels are filled with references to London. Subsequent filmmakers took Fleming’s character and have developed him into the super spy we know today, and along the way set many of their iconic filming locations in London.

Southwark is a borough in South London that has much to offer visitors. The areas of the South Bank and Bankside are situated by the River Thames and have been a particular draw for many visitors. You can stroll along the banks of the Thames any time night or day to enjoy the scenic views, go to the theatres, art galleries, enjoy the street entertainment, seasonal fairs or dine al-fresco.

No fictional character has been portrayed more often on stage and screen than Sherlock Holmes. Fans flock from all over the world to see the locations where he lived, worked and brought justice to Victorian London. The BBC’s Sherlock series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman has only increased his popularity.

London is one of the world’s leading cites for a number of reasons and one of them is the diversity of musical talent that has lived, worked and played in the city. Our London Rock "N" Roll Tour takes you to some of these key locations and your knowledgeable Blue Badge Tourist Guide will relate some of the larger than life antics that occurred in this musical city.

The Port of London has changed beyond all recognition in the past four decades. Once the docks teemed with men and ships from all over the world, now all is transformed and a new and vibrant area has grown up with commerce, stylish housing, fashionable shops and restaurants. Here are my Top Ten Facts about London’s Docklands.

London covers 600 square miles and has a population of 8.6 million, but only its oldest part, just one square mile in size, is called the City of London. That is where the Romans founded the city of Londinium shortly after they arrived in 43AD. Today, the City of London – or simply “the City” – is the centre of London’s finance industry. The City is where you find the Bank of England, the London Stock Exchange, the investment banks, insurance companies and financial markets. It combines the most modern headquarters buildings with Roman remains and medieval churches, and it is great to explore on foot.

Granted Freedom of the City of London in 1993, I have often been asked whether I had ever exercised my right to herd sheep or cattle across London Bridge. This ancient privilege to bring animals into the City without payment of tolls had long since been abandoned when the livestock markets closed and in any case was of no special importance once the gates and a single river crossing were replaced by the modern landscape we all know today.

The Beatles are the best-selling band in history and – with 17 No1s – hold the record for the group with the most No1 singles in UK chart history. The Fab Four shot to fame in 1963, the year they left their native Liverpool in the north of England for the nation’s capital London, which was to play a major part in the band’s career over the following seven years until their break-up in 1970. Below are 10 facts about the Beatles in London, facts that can be brought vividly to life through a London Beatles Tour with a Blue Badge Tourist Guide.

London has lots of links to Harry Potter whether it be the numerous locations used for the films or the links to the folklore behind the stories. Blue Badge Tourist Guides regularly lead Harry Potter tours around London and as a teaser here are the 10 top things linking London to Harry Potter.

On 2 September 2016, it will be exactly 350 years since the catastrophic Great Fire of London started in Thomas Farynor's bakery in Pudding Lane. The fire raged for four days, destroying 13,200 homes and leaving 65,000 people homeless. The speed at which London recovered, and the way it did so, laid the foundations for the global city we know today.

Students and fans of American politics will be pleasantly surprised to find that dotted across London are seven statues of six American presidents. These can be discovered on a guided tour of London with a knowledgable Blue Badge Tourist Guide but I have highlighted below.

In 1866 the Blue Plaque scheme was founded by the Society of Arts and so this year they celebrate their 150th anniversary. Now managed by English Heritage, London's blue plaques are handmade in Cornwall by the Ashworth family. The first blue plaque was awarded to the poet Lord Byron in 1867, but his house in Holles Street, was demolished in 1889 – today it is the site of John Lewis department store.

London welcomed nearly 18million international visitors in the last 12 months, and this number is expected to increase.  Many visitors come to see the artwork and cultural artifacts at major museums like the British Museum, National Gallery and Natural History Museum.  Others are interested in exploring major attractions like the Tower of London, Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and Hampton Court Palace.  However, an increasing number are visiting London for international sporting and culture events.

London’s tourism boom has continued during the second quarter of 2015, with the city welcoming a record 5.1 million international visitors between April and June this year, 6% more than the same period last year, according to the Office for National Statistics International Passenger Survey (IPS).

1.9m legal and criminal documents have been collated from the records of institutions such as the Old Bailey and Newgate Prison held by the National Archives.

First held in 1964 as an offshoot of the Trinidad Carnival, the Notting Hill Carnival has remained true to its Caribbean roots, bringing a spirit of diversity to London. When it first started, around 500 people attended the Caribbean festival.  Today, the carnival attracts lots of people to London, and continues to grow in popularity. Expect some 50,000 performers, nearly 40 sound systems and more than 1 million spectators over the bank holiday weekend.  

21 DNA-inspired double helix sculptures have appeared across London as part of Cancer Research UK’s campaign to raise awareness and funds for the Francis Crick Institute, a world-leading centre of biomedical research and innovation due to open in 2016.

The boy wizard is coming to the West End in a show likely to be the hottest ticket of 2016. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will open at the Palace Theatre next summer.

The Ministry of Defense has announced plans for the 70th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day taking place on 15 August 2015.   Working in collaboration with The Royal British Legion, the commemorations will take place in Central London. 

Film4 Summer Screen returns to the iconic courtyard at Somerset House in London from 6–19 August for 14 nights of open-air film screenings.

Cornelia Parker's One More Time was unveiled recently at St Pancras International station as the inaugural artwork in Terrace Wires, billed as "the fourth leg" of London’s rotational public art spaces alongside the Fourth Plinth, Serpentine Gallery and the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.

It was one of the jewels in the crown of Georgian London: a building so unusual that a suspicious public were unconvinced it would remain standing when it was built in 1762.  Designed at the height of the 18th century craze for Chinoiserie, The Great Pagoda at Kew was famously adorned with 80 brightly coloured wooden dragons. The eye-catching dragons were the talk of the town for 20 years, before disappearing in the 1780s, rumoured to be payment for the Prince Regent’s gambling debts.

ZSL London Zoo has petitioned to build nine wooden cabins next to the lion enclosure which will allow visitors to stay overnight – and fall asleep to the sound of roaring.

Visitors to London will be pleased to hear that Transport for London will launch a night time tube service starting the early hours of 12 September. Thereafter, there will be a round-the-clock service on Fridays and Saturdays on Jubilee, Victoria, and most of the Central, Northern and Piccadilly lines.

Sir Kenneth Branagh has announced a whirlwind season of five plays at the Garrick Theatre, created by his own theatre company in a tradition dating back to actor-managers. 

The Little Ealing History Group publishes  An American President in Ealing: The John Quincy Adams Diaries 1815 to 1817 The Little Ealing History Group has published a unique local history book based on the diaries of John Quincy Adams, a leading nineteenth-century American statesman and diplomat.

It is not often that the name of Sir Norman Foster is associated with gardening. He is more well known for being the architect behind the Gherkin (he is thought to hate the nickname and prefers 30 St Mary Axe), the British Museum Great Court, City Hall and Wembley Stadium. But gardens?  No, not really until the opening of Crossrail Place in early May. 

Open Garden Squares Weekend takes place in London this year with 218 hidden and little-known gardens opening to the public on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 June. The gardens range from the historic and traditional to the new and experimental. They include classic London square gardens, roof gardens, community allotments, urban wildlife and ecology centres as well as the gardens of historic buildings, institutions, restaurants, schools and shops.

Spring is here and Whitehall Gardens offers an ideal place to sit awhile and enjoy the colourful spring flowers that are in bloom.

Commander Mansfield Cummings, founding father of the Secret Service, has at last received his Blue Plaque. It was unveiled Monday 30 March, with your correspondent in attendance, not, as I had anticipated at the site of the Cummings’ 1923 death – corner of Melbury Road and Addison Road, W14 – but the site of the first proper SIS office and workshop on top of the National Liberal Office, aka Horse Guards Hotel.

On a rather dreary and wet day, two dozen Blue Badge Tourist Guides met in the foyer of the National Theatre for a "behind the scenes" tour. We were split in two groups, all dressed in fetching high viz jackets. Even before we set off our little band was buzzing with excitement, as we were promised a goody bag full of information leaflets on our way out.

On a recent education and training session, we met in Piccadilly Circus near the Shaftesbury Memorial and the statue of Eros. Fellow Blue Badge Tourist Guide Martin Harvey who led the session started off by talking about "meetings", apparently we were in the ideal meeting place! The only challenge for us initially, was that he was talking in another language – "Polori". Once translated, we understood it was the gay version of Cockney Rhyming slang which facilitated secret communications. So we started on the route from Piccadilly through Soho to Chinatown.

A statue of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled by India’s Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday 14 March in Parliament Square. In attendance was Prime Minister David Cameron, the popular Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan and Gandhi's grandson, the former governor of West Bengal, Shri Gopalkrishna Gandhi.

Angela Morgan, our London Blue Badge Tourist Guide for the Brixton walk in December, definitely has the street cred for a walking tour of Brixton, being familiar with not only the people of the area but the kind of fruit, veg, fish and meat you can buy in the market.  We had a great lesson in sweet potatoes, yams, akee and even breadfruit, which was transported on the Bounty by Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian to feed the slaves who were ancestors of many of the current occupants of the area.

The London trail for Shaun the Sheep (Nick Park – Wallace and Gromit spin off) will take place from 28 March to 25 May and will feature 60 5ft high Shaun the Sheep sculptures, decorated by celebrities and artists.

For visitors to London who want to document their trip through photography for sharing on social media or with family and friends back home, here are 10 iconic photo locations around the city. 

On a briskly cold January morning, fellow Blue Badge Tourist Guide Steven Szymanski inducted an enthusiastic group into his passion for bridges on a walk that took in Tower Bridge to Waterloo, via St Magnus Martyr, the Steelyard and Bankside. 

Keith Harding led a group of fellow Blue Badge Tourist Guides around Surrey Quays – an area often unfairly overlooked, as it lies between Rotherhithe and Greenwich. From Greenland Pier we walked along the bank of the Thames, known as Deptford Strand. Then to Convoys Wharf, the site of the Royal Naval Dockyard since the time of Henry VIII and Tsar Peter the Great’s sojourn in the area and finally the Royal Victorian Victualling Yards.

My friend Phil Coppell, a Liverpool Blue Badge Tourist Guide, tells me that he took Ray Davies a member of the English rock band The Kinks on a Beatles tour some years ago. He queued up and paid for his ticket like everyone else and, during the tour, mentioned that he had originally set his song Waterloo Sunset in Liverpool but the line ‘Mersey Sunset’ did not scan and he moved it to London. He had always had a soft spot for Liverpool and said that whenever The Kinks played at the Cavern or other venues they always had a great reception.

This year Easter falls early in April and many families will no doubt head to London during the break. There are several Easter Egg hunts, including the annual one at Kew, but also at more unexpected venues, like the Bank of England Museum.

What a treat it was to inspect gas lamps around Westminster last November with Ian and Garry from British Gas, who love their lamps. They clean and polish them, feel pain when one gets smashed by a passing truck and complained to the Royal Parks who repainted lamps in St. James’s Park without gold paint. Lamps are listed by English Heritage so if one gets knocked down, it must be replaced with an exact copy.  Below are some more interesting facts as shared by Ian & Garry while on this education and training tour for Blue Badge Tourist Guides.  

There are over 400 sculptures scattered across London with several in the Bishopsgate and Liverpool Street area. My favourite is a gigantic sculpture outside the Broadgate exit of Liverpool Street station called “Fulcrum” by the American sculptor Richard Serra. I am absolutely taken by it not only because of its size, and at 55 ft or 16.7m height it is sizeable enough, but because of its simplicity and elegance.

Lambeth Council has given the go-ahead to the proposed £175million Garden Bridge, which will span the river between Temple and the South Bank. 

Lions are first mentioned in London at the Tower Menagerie in the reign of King John in 1216 and since that time they have not left the city until now.

Members of the Serpentine Swimming Club, one of the oldest swimming clubs in the country, will swim their traditional 100-yard (91-metre) Christmas Day race in the Serpentine.

A series of walking tours has been launched to allow Londoners and tourists from afar to hear about the history of Stratford and how it was transformed to host the world-famous London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.  Those who join one of these Olympic Park walking tours will take in views of the world-class sporting venues which saw the likes of Jessica Ennis-Hill, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Sir Chris Hoy and Sarah Storey win gold.

Continuing on with the successful walking tours launched this past summer to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Great Dockers Strike of 1889, UNITE in partnership with The Association of Professional Tourist Guides announces a series of additional walking tours from October 2014 to March 2015. 

A Scottish couple down in London for the day, the Chair of Tower Hamlets Labour Party, a Sri Lankan woman attending a course in London, the UNITE officer for Tilbury dock workers and a German speaking Blue Badge trainee – all came along together with many others, including many Blue Badge Tourist Guides, to the tailor-made walking tours commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Dockers’ Strike in 1889.

Be prepared for a large surprise on the Thames River at Nine Elms this September.   What surprise exactly?  Well Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman is preparing his first UK commission.  This will be semi-immersed in the Thames, and will rise and fall with the tide.   Almost certainly it will be large.  Very large.  It is closely under wraps until 2 September, when it will be transported along the Thames, and is likely to be a talking point in the up and coming Vaxhall area.  Hofman is famous for large scaled up sculptures of everyday objects.  Not surprisingly his 26-metre high inflatable “Rubber Duck” has been the focus of much attention in a variety of cities, including Auckland, Sao Paolo and Osaka.

This year’s Open House London programme on 20-21 September sheds light on the latest contemporary architecture, from the newest completed city building The Leadenhall Building (The Cheesegrater”) by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, to Kew House, a striking transformation of a 19th century brick stables into a corteen steel façade.

Curious about what you would experience on a driving tour with a London Blue Badge Guide?  Then watch this short video which provides insight and also imparts some information about London off the beaten tracks. 

Walking tours organised by UNITE and led by London Blue Badge Tourist Guides mark a ground breaking moment in history:  The Dockers Strike 12 August - 14 September 1889.  

Books about Town launched in July with benches shaped like open books popping up all over London. The BookBenches feature stories linked to London and are based on a range of iconic books from treasured children’s stories such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Peter Pan to classic adult titles including 1984 and The Day of the Triffids.

Talking Statues is a project using playwrights, actors and mobile technology to put words into the mouths of several public statues around London and Manchester. The statues will begin to talk on 19 August and in order to hear them you need to swipe your smartphone over signs beneath the statues. Actors lending their voices to statues include Dominic West as Achilles in Hyde Park, Jeremy Paxman as John Wilkes in Fetter Lane and Patrick Stewart as the unknown soldier at Paddington Station.