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Willow Road","area":"Hampstead","address":"2 Willow Road, NW3 1TH","station":"Hampstead Heath","walk":4,"lat":51.557196,"lng":-0.169145,"hours":null,"hours_raw":"Mar-Oct: Th,Sa 11:00-16:30; Mar-Oct: Fr,Su-We off; Nov-Feb: Mo-Su off","hours_source":"web","hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/london/2-willow-road","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":null,"types":["house","inside","modernist"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Goldfinger built himself a modern terrace in Hampstead and the neighbours never forgave him.","note":"Erno Goldfinger finished this row of three houses in 1939, keeping the middle one, and it is a modern building that behaves like a Georgian terrace: brick and concrete, the proportions of the street, a facade organised on a grid. The row it replaced was Victorian cottages, and the campaign against demolition was joined by Ian Fleming, who is said to have taken his revenge by giving a villain the architect's name. Inside is the argument: partitions that fold away, a spiral stair, built-in storage everywhere, and the art the Goldfingers collected - Bridget Riley, Max Ernst, Henry Moore - hung in the rooms they lived in rather than a gallery.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/2-willow-road.jpg?v=6bcdadfb","thumb":"/img/2-willow-road-480.jpg?v=8eddee65","width":1024,"height":681,"alt":"2 Willow Road is part of a terrace of three houses in Hampstead, London designed by architect Ern\u0151 Goldfinger and completed in 1939. It has been managed by the National Trust since 1995 and is open to the public","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Ashley Coates, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2_Willow_Road.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":"museums/2-willow-road","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Museums","href":"/museums/2-willow-road/"},{"name":"Art","href":"/art/2-willow-road/"}],"maps_q":"2 Willow Road, NW3 1TH, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Keats House","s":"keats-house","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":199},{"n":"Badiani Hampstead Heath","s":"badiani-hampstead-heath","c":"desserts","cn":"Desserts & Gelato","m":248},{"n":"Redemption Roasters","s":"redemption-roasters","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":255}],"near_same":[{"s":"isokon-building","m":763},{"s":"roundhouse","m":1953},{"s":"alexandra-road-estate","m":2199},{"s":"highpoint","m":2325},{"s":"penguin-pool-london-zoo","m":2796},{"s":"carreras-cigarette-factory","m":3325}]},{"slug":"23-and-24-leinster-gardens","name":"23 and 24 Leinster Gardens","area":"Bayswater","address":"23-24 Leinster Gardens, W2 3BH","station":"Queensway","walk":4,"lat":51.512447,"lng":-0.183335,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/154582599","types":["free","oddity","victorian"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Two houses in a Bayswater terrace with nothing behind them: painted windows, no rooms, no floors.","note":"The Metropolitan Railway was cut through here in the 1860s, and because its trains were steam trains they needed an open stretch to let off smoke. That meant demolishing two houses out of a smart stucco terrace and leaving a hole in it, which nobody would accept. So the fronts were rebuilt: five feet of facade, the same cornice and balustraded balconies as the neighbours, and windows painted grey-blue on the render because there is no room behind them to put glass in. From the pavement the terrace is unbroken. Stand back far enough and the two blank houses give themselves away. Transport for London still maintains them, and the trains still run in the open behind.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/23-and-24-leinster-gardens.jpg?v=92b4a6a0","thumb":"/img/23-and-24-leinster-gardens-480.jpg?v=8b72ff59","width":480,"height":640,"alt":"A photograph of 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens.","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Hywel Williams, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:23-24_Leinster_Gardens,_the_%22fake_house%22_-_geograph.org.uk_-_49276.jpg","thumb_width":360},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"23 and 24 Leinster Gardens, 23-24 Leinster Gardens, W2 3BH, London","in_area":{"slug":"bayswater-paddington","name":"Bayswater & Paddington"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Guillam The Whiteley","s":"guillam-the-whiteley","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":394},{"n":"Richard Wagner","s":"richard-wagner","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":502},{"n":"Diana Memorial Playground","s":"diana-memorial-playground","c":"royal","cn":"Royal London","m":505}],"near_same":[{"s":"natural-history-museum","m":1848},{"s":"trellick-tower","m":1969},{"s":"leighton-house-museum","m":2057},{"s":"debenham-house","m":2080},{"s":"michelin-house","m":2387},{"s":"alexandra-road-estate","m":3000}]},{"slug":"30-st-mary-axe","name":"30 St Mary Axe","area":"City of London","address":"30 St Mary Axe, EC3A 8EP","station":"Aldgate","walk":4,"lat":51.514475,"lng":-0.080333,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/4959489","types":["contemporary","tower"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The Gherkin: forty-one floors of curved glass, and only one pane of it is actually curved.","note":"Foster + Partners and Arup put it up between 2001 and 2004 on the site of the Baltic Exchange, which an IRA bomb had wrecked in 1992. The diagonal steel lattice around the outside is what holds it up: the frame is triangulated all the way round, so it is stiff enough without the bracing or the heavy core a tower this shape would normally need, and the floors can spiral. The famous detail is the glass. The whole thing reads as a curve, but every panel is flat except one - the lens at the very top, over the bar on the fortieth floor. At 180 metres it is not close to being London's tallest, and it is still the one everybody can draw.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/30-st-mary-axe.jpg?v=6c53f45e","thumb":"/img/30-st-mary-axe-480.jpg?v=0b1ab0e7","width":747,"height":1024,"alt":"30 St Mary Axe","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Aurelien Guichard from London, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:30_St_Mary_Axe_from_Leadenhall_Street.jpg","thumb_width":350},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"30 St Mary Axe, EC3A 8EP, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Bevis Marks Synagogue","s":"bevis-marks-synagogue","c":"sacred","cn":"Sacred London","m":95},{"n":"Association Coffee","s":"association-coffee","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":127},{"n":"WatchHouse","s":"watchhouse-bishopsgate","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":137}],"near_same":[{"s":"lloyds-of-london","m":221},{"s":"royal-exchange","m":483},{"s":"barbican-centre","m":1110},{"s":"golden-lane-estate","m":1405},{"s":"tate-modern","m":1538},{"s":"the-blackfriar","m":1634}]},{"slug":"55-broadway","name":"55 Broadway","area":"Westminster","address":"55 Broadway, SW1H 0BD","station":"St. James's Park","walk":1,"lat":51.499395,"lng":-0.133668,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/221891219","types":["deco","transport"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"London Underground's headquarters of 1929, with sculpture that got its carvers denounced.","note":"Charles Holden built it between 1927 and 1929 for the Underground group, on a cross-shaped plan over St James's Park station, and on completion it was the tallest office block in London. It won him the RIBA's London medal in 1931. The reason to stand and look is the sculpture. Eight reliefs of the four winds run round the pediment above the sixth floor, each carved by a different avant-garde sculptor of the day - Eric Gill and Henry Moore among them - and halfway along the north and east fronts are Jacob Epstein's pair, Day and Night. The nakedness of the Epsteins caused such a row in 1929 that the figure of the boy was shortened by an inch and a half to quiet it.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/55-broadway.jpg?v=6e15bc12","thumb":"/img/55-broadway-480.jpg?v=670625aa","width":1024,"height":955,"alt":"55 Broadway , designed by Charles Holden , built 1927\u201329. This is the headquarters of London Underground above St. James's Park Underground station","caption":"","credit":"Photo by PAUL FARMER, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:55_Broadway_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1142385.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"55 Broadway, SW1H 0BD, London","in_area":{"slug":"westminster","name":"Westminster"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"54 Broadway","s":"54-broadway","c":"secrets","cn":"Secrets & Espionage","m":32},{"n":"Nostos","s":"nostos","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":100},{"n":"Guards Museum","s":"guards-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":184}],"near_same":[{"s":"national-theatre","m":1650},{"s":"centre-point","m":1886},{"s":"freemasons-hall","m":1961},{"s":"sir-john-soanes-museum","m":2263},{"s":"battersea-power-station","m":2457},{"s":"michelin-house","m":2509}]},{"slug":"abbey-mills-pumping-station","name":"Abbey Mills Pumping Station","area":"Mill Meads","address":"Abbey Lane, Stratford, E15 2RN","station":"West Ham","walk":6,"lat":51.529417,"lng":-0.002137,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":"Not open except on Open House days; the Greenway path passes it at any hour.","runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/181838239","types":["free","industrial","victorian"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The cathedral of sewage: Bazalgette's pumping station in cruciform plan with Byzantine ironwork.","note":"Joseph Bazalgette built it in 1868 as part of the sewer system that ended cholera in London, and there was no engineering reason for it to look like this. The plan is a Greek cross, the ironwork is Byzantine and Moorish, the columns are painted and gilded, and two Venetian-Gothic chimneys stood over it until they were taken down in the war in case they guided bombers to the Thames. Victorian public engineering was routinely given this treatment - the works were a civic achievement and were meant to be seen as one. It is the best surviving argument that infrastructure used to be architecture, and it opens only on the water company's own days.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/abbey-mills-pumping-station.jpg?v=cefee65c","thumb":"/img/abbey-mills-pumping-station-480.jpg?v=db931796","width":1024,"height":683,"alt":"Abbey Mills Pumping Station","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Simon from London, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abbey_Mills_Pumping_Station_(51551458944).jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":"science/abbey-mills-pumping-station","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Science & Engineering","href":"/science/abbey-mills-pumping-station/"}],"maps_q":"Abbey Mills Pumping Station, Abbey Lane, Stratford, E15 2RN, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"House Mill, Three Mills","s":"house-mill-three-mills","c":"science","cn":"Science & Engineering","m":453},{"n":"ABBA Voyage","s":"abba-voyage","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":870},{"n":"Gandhi at Kingsley Hall","s":"gandhi-at-kingsley-hall","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":910}],"near_same":[{"s":"balfron-tower","m":1821},{"s":"30-st-mary-axe","m":5659},{"s":"lloyds-of-london","m":5848},{"s":"royal-exchange","m":6140},{"s":"barbican-centre","m":6432},{"s":"golden-lane-estate","m":6544}]},{"slug":"alexandra-palace-the-bbcs-first-studios","name":"Alexandra Palace: the BBC's first studios","area":"Muswell Hill","address":"Alexandra Palace Way, N22 7AY","station":"Alexandra Palace","walk":10,"lat":51.594263,"lng":-0.130869,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://www.alexandrapalace.com/whats-on/","hours_short":"Studio tours on occasional dates; the palace, park and terrace are open daily","hours_checked":"2026-09-05","hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.alexandrapalace.com/our-history/bbc-at-the-palace/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/4768526","types":["free","inside","victorian"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The People's Palace of 1873, burned down sixteen days after it opened and rebuilt in two years, still seven acres of glass and brick on its hill above north London.","note":"It opened on 24 May 1873 as a northern answer to the Crystal Palace, and on 9 June it burned to the ground; John Johnson rebuilt it in two years and it reopened on 1 May 1875 with a Great Hall for twelve thousand people, one of the largest organs Henry Willis ever built, a theatre, a concert room, a palm court and a racecourse below. It has never quite paid its way and never quite gone under: a charitable trust has run it for Londoners since 1900, the BBC put television on from its east wing in 1936, another fire took the Great Hall in 1980, and the theatre, dark for eighty years with its Victorian stage machinery intact, reopened in 2018 with its decay left showing. The terrace looks over the whole of London to the Downs, there is an ice rink inside, and the park drops away beneath the transmitter mast that still carries the name.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/alexandra-palace-the-bbcs-first-studios.jpg?v=634d98d2","thumb":"/img/alexandra-palace-the-bbcs-first-studios-480.jpg?v=fd993883","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"Alexandra Palace and park taken from a drone in sunset","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Jack Rose, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:APalace_1.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":"science/alexandra-palace-the-bbcs-first-studios","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Science & Engineering","href":"/science/alexandra-palace-the-bbcs-first-studios/"}],"maps_q":"Alexandra Palace: the BBC's first studios, Alexandra Palace Way, N22 7AY, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Alexandra Palace Fireworks & Drone Festival","s":"alexandra-palace-fireworks-drone-festival","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":53},{"n":"Oliver Tambo","s":"oliver-tambo","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":850},{"n":"Doppio Coffee","s":"doppio-coffee","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":1140}],"near_same":[{"s":"arnos-grove-station","m":2477},{"s":"highpoint","m":2571},{"s":"southgate-station","m":4236},{"s":"2-willow-road","m":4897},{"s":"isokon-building","m":5175},{"s":"roundhouse","m":5857}]},{"slug":"alexandra-road-estate","name":"Alexandra Road Estate","area":"South Hampstead","address":"Rowley Way, NW8 0SN","station":"South Hampstead","walk":5,"lat":51.539433,"lng":-0.183139,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/53727605","types":["brutalist","free","house"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Two curving concrete terraces stepped like a street, and the first post-war council estate to be protected.","note":"Neave Brown designed it in 1968 for Camden's own architects' department, and it was built between 1972 and 1978: 520 flats in long stepped terraces of white, site-cast, board-marked concrete, with a school, a community centre and a youth club built in. It is not a tower and not a slab. The section is the point - every flat has its own front door on a deck and its own outdoor space, and the whole thing is arranged as a street you can walk down rather than a block you enter. It cost far more than budgeted, a public inquiry followed, and Neave Brown never built in Britain again. In 1993 it became the first post-war council estate in the country to be protected.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/alexandra-road-estate.jpg?v=7dee9c54","thumb":"/img/alexandra-road-estate-480.jpg?v=e7e74d45","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"Rowley Way, Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, Camden, London","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Oxyman, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rowley_Way_Camden.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Alexandra Road Estate, Rowley Way, NW8 0SN, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Melanie Klein","s":"melanie-klein","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":242},{"n":"Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art","s":"ben-uri-gallery-the-london-jewish-museum-of-art","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":260},{"n":"Oskar Kokoschka","s":"oskar-kokoschka","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":695}],"near_same":[{"s":"isokon-building","m":2015},{"s":"penguin-pool-london-zoo","m":2137},{"s":"roundhouse","m":2196},{"s":"2-willow-road","m":2199},{"s":"trellick-tower","m":2337},{"s":"23-and-24-leinster-gardens","m":3000}]},{"slug":"arnos-grove-station","name":"Arnos Grove station","area":"Arnos Grove","address":"Bowes Road, N11 1AN","station":"Arnos Grove","walk":1,"lat":51.616492,"lng":-0.133285,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/166387795","types":["free","inside","modernist","transport"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A brick drum on a flat slab: the station that showed what the Underground could look like.","note":"Charles Holden opened it on 19 September 1932 at the end of the new Piccadilly line extension, and it is the best of the group he built along it. The plan is as simple as it sounds: a low single-storey block with a circular ticket hall of brick and glass rising out of it, capped by a flat concrete roof that appears to float. Holden had toured northern Europe with Frank Pick of the Underground looking at new buildings, and the debt to Gunnar Asplund's library in Stockholm is obvious once you know. What makes it worth the journey out is that it still works exactly as designed, with the original ticket hall, passimeter and light fittings, and it is free to walk into.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/arnos-grove-station.jpg?v=d9795afb","thumb":"/img/arnos-grove-station-480.jpg?v=7fc6d900","width":1024,"height":685,"alt":"The old Passimeter has a good exhibition about underground architecture and Charles Holden","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Chris Sampson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ARNOS_GROVE-03_240710_CPS_(4837089899).jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Arnos Grove station, Bowes Road, N11 1AN, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Oliver Tambo","s":"oliver-tambo","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":2163},{"n":"Alexandra Palace","s":"alexandra-palace","c":"venues","cn":"Performance venues","m":2477},{"n":"Alexandra Palace Fireworks & Drone Festival","s":"alexandra-palace-fireworks-drone-festival","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":2488}],"near_same":[{"s":"southgate-station","m":1800},{"s":"alexandra-palace-the-bbcs-first-studios","m":2477},{"s":"highpoint","m":4800},{"s":"2-willow-road","m":7043},{"s":"isokon-building","m":7447},{"s":"roundhouse","m":8246}]},{"slug":"balfron-tower","name":"Balfron Tower","area":"Poplar","address":"St Leonard's Road, E14 0UY","station":"Langdon Park","walk":5,"lat":51.513574,"lng":-0.008806,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/135465165","types":["brutalist","tower"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Goldfinger's first tower, and the one he moved into for two months to see what he had done.","note":"Erno Goldfinger designed it in 1963 for the London County Council and it was finished in 1967, the prototype for Trellick five years later: the same slim service tower of lifts and chutes, joined to the flats by bridges every third floor, standing over the Brownfield Estate beside the approach to the Blackwall Tunnel. What sets it apart is what he did next. Goldfinger and his wife moved into flat 130 for two months in 1968, held drinks parties for the neighbours and asked them what did not work. It has been protected since 1996 and refurbished for private sale, which is its own argument about what happened to social housing.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/balfron-tower.jpg?v=31032694","thumb":"/img/balfron-tower-480.jpg?v=d2fea573","width":679,"height":1024,"alt":"Erno Goldfinger brutalist architecture","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Graeme Maclean, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balfron_tower.jpg","thumb_width":318},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Balfron Tower, St Leonard's Road, E14 0UY, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"ARC","s":"arc","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":1028},{"n":"FOLD","s":"fold","c":"venues","cn":"Performance venues","m":1072},{"n":"Notes","s":"notes-canary-wharf","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":1075}],"near_same":[{"s":"abbey-mills-pumping-station","m":1821},{"s":"30-st-mary-axe","m":4950},{"s":"lloyds-of-london","m":5094},{"s":"royal-exchange","m":5424},{"s":"barbican-centre","m":5925},{"s":"golden-lane-estate","m":6118}]},{"slug":"barbican-centre","name":"Barbican Centre","area":"Barbican Estate","address":"Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS","station":"Barbican","walk":4,"lat":51.519867,"lng":-0.093841,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.barbican.org.uk/","instagram":"barbicancentre","attrs":["stepfree"],"osm":"way/34038687","types":["brutalist","free","inside"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Thirty-five acres of concrete, water and planting, built on ground the Blitz had cleared.","note":"Chamberlin, Powell and Bon began work in 1955 on a bombed site where almost nothing was left standing, and the estate took until 1976 to finish and the arts centre until 1982. It is one idea carried out completely: a raised deck for people with the traffic underneath, towers and long blocks arranged around lakes and gardens, and every surface of concrete hammered by hand with a pick to expose the granite aggregate - a job that took years and is the reason the walls have that rough, quarried look. Nobody agrees on the way-finding. Follow the yellow line on the floor, get lost anyway, and come out on a terrace above a lake with a conservatory of palm trees behind you.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/own-barbican-centre-3.jpg?v=e0754fa3","thumb":"/img/own-barbican-centre-3-480.jpg?v=8d3a2e35","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"The lakeside terrace in winter: rows of white benches on brick paving, round brick planters with fountains at the water's edge, a long terrace block on stilts across the lake, and a church tower among the towers of the City behind.","caption":"The Lakeside Terrace, St Giles Cripplegate's tower at the far end."},"figures":[{"src":"/img/own-barbican-centre-2.jpg?v=caea59a7","thumb":"/img/own-barbican-centre-2-480.jpg?v=768387a9","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"The Barbican's lake seen from under a concrete walkway: a long block of flats with rows of balconies curving round the green water, a waterfall spilling from a raised platform, benches on the brick terrace and glass towers beyond.","caption":"The lake from the high walk."},{"src":"/img/own-barbican-centre-4.jpg?v=f6ca5ba0","thumb":"/img/own-barbican-centre-4-480.jpg?v=f385342f","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"Stepping stones of brick crossing the green lake to a platform where someone sits at a small table, tall reeds along the bank, a long terrace block on stilts with balconies of plants beyond, and the dark brick school building on the right."},{"src":"/img/own-barbican-centre-5.jpg?v=bebe408c","thumb":"/img/own-barbican-centre-5-480.jpg?v=172d4431","width":768,"height":1024,"thumb_width":360,"alt":"Looking down on the lake: a round brick platform at the edge of a weir in front, a brick walkway leading out to planted islands of reeds and shrubs under iron domes, and the terrace blocks with their curved balconies around the water."},{"src":"/img/own-barbican-centre-6.jpg?v=ce4bc128","thumb":"/img/own-barbican-centre-6-480.jpg?v=8a24f5fe","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"The lake from under the high walk: planted islands and reeds in green water, a brick terrace with benches, a long block of flats with rows of balconies enclosing the far side, and glass towers rising behind it."}],"from":"museums/barbican-centre","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"concrete-and-clay-archiving-the-barbican","name":"Concrete and Clay: Archiving the Barbican","href":"/museums/barbican-centre/concrete-and-clay-archiving-the-barbican/","verdict":"The Barbican's own archive on the mezzanine, with the 1:22 model at the centre.","runs":{"to":"2027-01-01"},"types":["exhibition","free","history"],"clue":["Exhibition","History"]},{"slug":"concert-theatre","name":"Concert Theatre","href":"/venues/barbican-centre/concert-theatre/","verdict":"The strand for 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M. E. and O. H. Collins, with A. G. Porri, gave it a colonnade of papyrus capitals, a solar disc to Ra over the entrance and two enormous bronze cats flanking the door - the company's trademark was a black cat. A 1961 conversion to offices stripped every bit of it off. 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It was protected in 1995 and turned into flats in 2015.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/centre-point.jpg?v=c0955947","thumb":"/img/centre-point-480.jpg?v=7bbba464","width":617,"height":1024,"alt":"Centre Point , London","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Photograph by Mike Peel ( www.mikepeel.net )., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Centre_Point,_London_2a.jpg","thumb_width":289},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Centre Point, 101-103 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1DB, London","in_area":{"slug":"covent-garden","name":"Covent Garden"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Arcade Food Hall","s":"arcade-food-hall","c":"food-markets","cn":"Food Markets","m":16},{"n":"Donutelier Soho Place","s":"donutelier-soho-place","c":"bakeries","cn":"Bakeries","m":59},{"n":"Outernet","s":"outernet","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":60}],"near_same":[{"s":"freemasons-hall","m":625},{"s":"sir-john-soanes-museum","m":854},{"s":"national-theatre","m":1490},{"s":"st-pancras","m":1550},{"s":"daily-express-building","m":1660},{"s":"the-blackfriar","m":1859}]},{"slug":"charlton-house","name":"Charlton House","area":"Charlton","address":"Charlton Road, SE7 8RE","station":"Charlton","walk":10,"lat":51.480684,"lng":0.037144,"hours":[[9.5,15.5],[9.5,15.5],[9.5,15.5],[9.5,15.5],[9.5,15.5],[9.5,15.0],null],"hours_raw":"Mo-Fr 09:30-15:30; Sa 09:30-15:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://www.greenwichheritage.org/visit/visit-charlton-house-and-gardens/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-08","hours_extra":"The gardens are open 10:00 to 16:00; closed on Sundays.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.greenwichheritage.org/visit/visit-charlton-house-and-gardens/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/162578773","types":["free","house","inside"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"London's one complete Jacobean mansion, built in 1607 for the tutor of James I's heir, with the most exuberant plasterwork in the style, and free to walk into.","note":"Sir Adam Newton, tutor and then secretary to Henry, Prince of Wales, built it between 1607 and 1612, probably to designs by John Thorpe, and the prince for whom it was half intended died of typhoid at eighteen in the year it was finished, leaving the throne to his brother Charles. It is red brick with stone dressings on an H-plan, and the inside is the point: oak staircases, panelled rooms, chimneypieces carved to the ceiling and plaster ceilings that Pevsner called the most exuberant decoration of any Jacobean interior, with the Prince of Wales's feathers and the King's monogram worked in wherever there was room. In the garden are a summer house attributed to Inigo Jones and a mulberry tree reputedly planted in 1608, when James I was urging the country to grow silk. The Maryon-Wilson family had the house for two centuries, the council bought it in 1925, and it is a library, caf\u00e9 and community centre run by the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust, which lets anyone in to look.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/charlton-house.jpg?v=8b43ca53","thumb":"/img/charlton-house-480.jpg?v=466f1a52","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"en:Charlton House , London","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Bencherlite, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charlton_House,_London.JPG","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Charlton House, Charlton Road, SE7 8RE, London","bank":0,"near_all":[{"n":"Charlton Lido","s":"charlton-lido","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":616},{"n":"Thames Barrier","s":"thames-barrier","c":"science","cn":"Science & Engineering","m":1569},{"n":"The Paragon, Blackheath","s":"the-paragon-blackheath","c":"beautiful-streets","cn":"Beautiful Streets","m":2005}],"near_same":[{"s":"severndroog-castle","m":2227},{"s":"eltham-palace","m":3813},{"s":"balfron-tower","m":6471},{"s":"peckham-library","m":7407},{"s":"horniman-museum-and-gardens","m":8074},{"s":"abbey-mills-pumping-station","m":8239}]},{"slug":"crystal-palace-subway","name":"Crystal Palace Subway","area":"Crystal Palace","address":"Crystal Palace Parade, SE19 1LG","station":"Gipsy Hill","walk":7,"lat":51.422054,"lng":-0.077225,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":"Opens for tours and events on set days; check the trust's own calendar.","hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"http://www.cpsubway.org.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"node/2978897656","types":["oddity","victorian"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A fan-vaulted brick undercroft built for first-class passengers walking to a palace that burned down.","note":"The high-level station opened on 1 August 1865 to carry visitors to the Crystal Palace, and Edward Middleton Barry gave it a subway to take them under the Parade and into the grounds without meeting the road. It is the only part still standing: a vaulted chamber of red and cream brick, the ribs fanning out from octagonal columns, closer to a Byzantine crypt than to anything a railway would build today. The palace burned in 1936 and the station closed in 1954, leaving an underpass to nowhere under a car park. Volunteers cleared it and it is protected at the second-highest grade; it opens for tours and events a few times a year.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/crystal-palace-subway.jpg?v=f748b6e1","thumb":"/img/crystal-palace-subway-480.jpg?v=8645832f","width":1024,"height":640,"alt":"A photograph of Crystal Palace Subway.","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Peter Cooper, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crystal_Palace_Subway_at_Open_House_London_2018.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Crystal Palace Subway, Crystal Palace Parade, SE19 1LG, London","bank":0,"near_all":[{"n":"Crystal Palace Terraces","s":"crystal-palace-terraces","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":109},{"n":"Camille Pissarro","s":"camille-pissarro","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":275},{"n":"Crystal Palace Park","s":"crystal-palace-park","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":501}],"near_same":[{"s":"horniman-museum-and-gardens","m":2485},{"s":"peckham-library","m":5833},{"s":"battersea-power-station","m":8115},{"s":"eltham-palace","m":9127},{"s":"55-broadway","m":9455},{"s":"tate-modern","m":9616}]},{"slug":"daily-express-building","name":"Daily Express Building","area":"Fleet Street","address":"120 Fleet Street, EC4A 2BE","station":"City Thameslink","walk":2,"lat":51.514392,"lng":-0.105907,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/32893368","types":["deco"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Black glass and chrome on Fleet Street, with a lobby that has to be seen to be believed.","note":"Ellis and Clarke designed it in 1932 for the Daily Express, and the front is a sheet of black vitrolite and clear glass with rounded corners and chromium strips - Streamline Moderne, and startling on a street of stone. Behind the skin is a stacked reinforced-concrete portal frame by Sir Owen Williams, the engineer, which is half the reason for the building's protected status. The lobby by Robert Atkinson is the part people talk about: plaster reliefs by Eric Aumonier, silver and gilt everywhere, an oval staircase and a silvered pendant lamp, all of it done for a newspaper. The presses left Fleet Street in the 1980s; the building was restored in 2000 and the lobby is visible from the pavement.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/daily-express-building.jpg?v=716d7a22","thumb":"/img/daily-express-building-480.jpg?v=668f187f","width":685,"height":1024,"alt":"A view of the Streamline Moderne architecture of the (former) Daily Express building on Fleet Street \u2014 London. The image was taken with a Canon EOS D30 with a Sigma 70-300mm lens","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Russ London -- ( Russ London ), CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Express_Building.jpg","thumb_width":321},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Daily Express Building, 120 Fleet Street, EC4A 2BE, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"St Bride's Fleet Street","s":"st-brides-fleet-street","c":"sacred","cn":"Sacred London","m":73},{"n":"Rosslyn Coffee","s":"rosslyn-ludgate-circus","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":84},{"n":"Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese","s":"ye-olde-cheshire-cheese","c":"literary","cn":"Literary London","m":88}],"near_same":[{"s":"the-blackfriar","m":293},{"s":"sir-john-soanes-museum","m":853},{"s":"tate-modern","m":950},{"s":"barbican-centre","m":1033},{"s":"freemasons-hall","m":1037},{"s":"golden-lane-estate","m":1126}]},{"slug":"debenham-house","name":"Debenham House","area":"Holland Park","address":"8 Addison Road, W14 8DL","station":"Kensington (Olympia)","walk":7,"lat":51.502449,"lng":-0.208743,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/508004041","types":["house","victorian"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A house in Holland Park glazed all over in peacock blue and green, like a bathroom turned outward.","note":"Halsey Ricardo designed it in 1905 for Ernest Debenham of the department store, and it is the fullest surviving statement of an idea Ricardo argued for all his life: that in a city as sooty as London, buildings should be faced in glazed material so the rain can wash them. So the outside is Royal Doulton Carrara ware and green and blue Burmantofts brick, an Italianate villa in colours no London street had seen, which is why it is known as the Peacock House. Inside it turns Arts and Crafts, with work by William De Morgan and Walter Crane. It is a private house and opens rarely, but the outside is the point and it is free to stand and look at.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/debenham-house.jpg?v=addfdbc8","thumb":"/img/debenham-house-480.jpg?v=1357a94d","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"Debenham House","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Matt Brown from London, England, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Debenham_House_(35482927182).jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Debenham House, 8 Addison Road, W14 8DL, London","in_area":{"slug":"notting-hill-holland-park","name":"Notting Hill & Holland Park"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Chaim Weizmann","s":"chaim-weizmann","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":235},{"n":"Kyoto Garden, Holland Park","s":"kyoto-garden-holland-park","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":379},{"n":"Muhammad Ali Jinnah","s":"muhammad-ali-jinnah","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":420}],"near_same":[{"s":"leighton-house-museum","m":579},{"s":"23-and-24-leinster-gardens","m":2080},{"s":"natural-history-museum","m":2361},{"s":"trellick-tower","m":2365},{"s":"michelin-house","m":2976},{"s":"alexandra-road-estate","m":4477}]},{"slug":"eltham-palace","name":"Eltham Palace","area":"Eltham","address":"Court Yard, SE9 5QE","station":"Mottingham","walk":10,"lat":51.447086,"lng":0.048177,"hours":null,"hours_raw":"Apr-Oct Mo-Su 10:00-17:00; Nov-Feb Sa-Su 10:00-16:00; Mar We-Su 10:00-16:00; SH \"Various\"","hours_source":"web","hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/eltham-palace-and-gardens","instagram":null,"attrs":["stepfree"],"osm":"way/17110975","types":["deco","house","inside"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A 1930s Art Deco house grafted onto the great hall of a medieval royal palace.","note":"Stephen and Virginia Courtauld took a lease on the ruins of Eltham Palace in 1933, restored Edward IV's fifteenth-century great hall, and built themselves a house next to it that could not be less medieval: a triangular entrance hall lit from a glazed dome, blackbean veneer and marquetry by Rolf Engstromer, a bathroom lined in onyx and gold mosaic, underfloor heating, a centralised vacuum system and a loudspeaker system piping music through the rooms. Their pet lemur, Mah-Jongg, had a heated sleeping quarters with a bamboo mural. The two halves are joined and both are open, which makes it the best place in London to see five hundred years skipped in one doorway.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/eltham-palace.jpg?v=fbd790d1","thumb":"/img/eltham-palace-480.jpg?v=06d2c142","width":1024,"height":558,"alt":"A photograph of Eltham Palace.","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Tom Parnell from Dunfermline, Scotland, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eltham_Palace_(25098625346).jpg","thumb_width":480,"alt_generic":true},"figures":null,"from":"museums/eltham-palace","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Museums","href":"/museums/eltham-palace/"}],"maps_q":"Eltham Palace, Court Yard, SE9 5QE, London","bank":0,"near_all":[{"n":"The Rusty Bucket","s":"the-rusty-bucket","c":"beer","cn":"Beer","m":457},{"n":"Oxleas Wood","s":"oxleas-wood","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":2809},{"n":"Charlton Lido","s":"charlton-lido","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":3197}],"near_same":[{"s":"severndroog-castle","m":2323},{"s":"charlton-house","m":3813},{"s":"horniman-museum-and-gardens","m":7633},{"s":"peckham-library","m":8683},{"s":"balfron-tower","m":9002},{"s":"crystal-palace-subway","m":9127}]},{"slug":"freemasons-hall","name":"Freemasons' Hall","area":"Holborn","address":"60 Great Queen Street, WC2B 5AZ","station":"Holborn","walk":3,"lat":51.515129,"lng":-0.120854,"hours":[null,[10.0,17.0],[10.0,17.0],[10.0,17.0],[10.0,17.0],[10.0,17.0],null],"hours_raw":"Tu-Sa 10:00-17:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://museumfreemasonry.org.uk/visit-us/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-07","hours_extra":"Closed on Mondays and public holidays. The Grand Temple is on the daily tours when the building is not in use.","runs":null,"website":"https://museumfreemasonry.org.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/28416499","types":["deco","free","inside"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A vast Art Deco temple behind a Covent Garden street door, built as a war memorial.","note":"The third Masonic hall on this site, built between 1927 and 1933 by Henry Victor Ashley and F. Winton Newman, and not built as an office: it is a memorial to the 3,225 freemasons killed in the First World War, and the scale follows from that. The Grand Temple at the centre seats seventeen hundred under a mosaic ceiling, behind bronze doors weighing more than a tonne each that a child could push open on their bearings. Everything else - the vestibules, the staircases, the light fittings - is Art Deco of a quality London has almost nowhere else, which is why film crews are in it constantly. Parts are open free every day the museum is.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/freemasons-hall.jpg?v=19cf62d9","thumb":"/img/freemasons-hall-480.jpg?v=1ed4f086","width":682,"height":1024,"alt":"Freemasons\u2019 Hall , headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England , located in Great Queen Street . Note Camden benches","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Eluveitie, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freemasons%27_Hall,_London.JPG","thumb_width":319},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Freemasons' Hall, 60 Great Queen Street, WC2B 5AZ, London","in_area":{"slug":"covent-garden","name":"Covent Garden"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Library and Museum of Freemasonry","s":"library-and-museum-of-freemasonry","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":31},{"n":"Stephen Jones Millinery","s":"stephen-jones-millinery","c":"classic-british-shops","cn":"Classic British Shops","m":70},{"n":"Drury Lane","s":"drury-lane","c":"beautiful-streets","cn":"Beautiful Streets","m":119}],"near_same":[{"s":"sir-john-soanes-museum","m":318},{"s":"centre-point","m":625},{"s":"daily-express-building","m":1037},{"s":"national-theatre","m":1042},{"s":"the-blackfriar","m":1235},{"s":"st-pancras","m":1671}]},{"slug":"golden-lane-estate","name":"Golden Lane Estate","area":"City of London","address":"Golden Lane, EC1Y 0RN","station":"Barbican","walk":4,"lat":51.522466,"lng":-0.096075,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/201851998","types":["free","house","modernist"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The council estate that won Chamberlin, Powell and Bon the Barbican: 1950s flats around courts, a yellow tower with a curled roof, and a swimming pool, still lived in.","note":"By 1950 the Blitz had left the City of London with five hundred residents, and the Corporation held a competition in 1951 to build council housing for the people who worked in it, on a bombed site north of Cripplegate. Three young lecturers at Kingston School of Art entered separately and agreed that whichever won would take the others into partnership; Geoffry Powell's scheme won, Chamberlin, Powell and Bon built Golden Lane between 1953 and 1962, and it was the job that got them the Barbican next door. It is the gentler of the two: a village of low blocks around courtyards, a sixteen-storey tower with a curved canopy on its roof and a yellow front, a swimming pool, a bowling green and a community centre, colour in the panels and light into every flat from two sides. It has been protected since 1997, its residents are fierce about it, and anyone can walk through to see how good the postwar promise could look.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/golden-lane-estate.jpg?v=ad5d6f51","thumb":"/img/golden-lane-estate-480.jpg?v=4de31a36","width":480,"height":640,"alt":"Gold Block Golden Lane estate from Fann Street","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Steve F, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gold_Block_-_geograph.org.uk_-_681894.jpg","thumb_width":360},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Golden Lane Estate, Golden Lane, EC1Y 0RN, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Whitecross Street Market","s":"whitecross-street-market","c":"food-markets","cn":"Food Markets","m":226},{"n":"The Charterhouse","s":"the-charterhouse","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":279},{"n":"Black British Book Festival","s":"black-british-book-festival","c":"literary","cn":"Literary London","m":327}],"near_same":[{"s":"barbican-centre","m":327},{"s":"daily-express-building","m":1126},{"s":"royal-exchange","m":1156},{"s":"the-blackfriar","m":1261},{"s":"30-st-mary-axe","m":1405},{"s":"lloyds-of-london","m":1417}]},{"slug":"highpoint","name":"Highpoint","area":"Highgate","address":"North Road, N6 4BA","station":"Highgate","walk":6,"lat":51.574703,"lng":-0.150727,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/514629992","types":["house","modernist"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Two white slabs on the hill at Highgate, and the building Le Corbusier came to look at.","note":"Berthold Lubetkin designed Highpoint I in 1935 for Sigmund Gestetner, the office-equipment manufacturer, with the structure engineered by Ove Arup: sixty-four flats in a double cross plan, in reinforced concrete, white, flat-roofed and unlike anything else in England at the time. Le Corbusier visited that year and called it a revolution. Highpoint II followed in 1938 next door, and Lubetkin - by then arguing with the planners, who wanted something more traditional - answered them by propping the entrance canopy on two plaster casts of caryatids from the Erechtheion in Athens. It is a joke and it is load-bearing.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/highpoint.jpg?v=cea0df0c","thumb":"/img/highpoint-480.jpg?v=7d280a2b","width":800,"height":533,"alt":"View of Berthold Lubetkin's Highpoint I from the gardens","caption":"","credit":"Photo by SilvaBarral, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Highpoint_I_1.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":[{"src":"/img/highpoint-caryatid.jpg?v=4e0bc630","thumb":"/img/highpoint-caryatid-480.jpg?v=5b0d9471","width":681,"height":1024,"thumb_width":319,"alt":"One of the plaster caryatids under the entrance canopy of Highpoint II, the concrete soffit resting on the basket on her head, the second caryatid behind her","caption":"Lubetkin's answer to the planners: a cast of an Erechtheion caryatid, holding up the canopy.","credit":"Photo by Julian Osley, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caryatids,_Highpoint_2,_Highgate-geograph-2997602-by-Julian-Osley.jpg"}],"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Highpoint, North Road, N6 4BA, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Margot Bakery","s":"margot-bakery","c":"bakeries","cn":"Bakeries","m":406},{"n":"India House, Highgate","s":"india-house-highgate","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":830},{"n":"Highgate Cemetery","s":"highgate-cemetery","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":922}],"near_same":[{"s":"2-willow-road","m":2325},{"s":"alexandra-palace-the-bbcs-first-studios","m":2571},{"s":"isokon-building","m":2649},{"s":"roundhouse","m":3498},{"s":"alexandra-road-estate","m":4516},{"s":"penguin-pool-london-zoo","m":4530}]},{"slug":"hoover-building","name":"Hoover Building","area":"Perivale","address":"Western Avenue, Perivale, UB6 8DW","station":"Perivale","walk":5,"lat":51.53375,"lng":-0.3196,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":null,"types":["deco","industrial"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The great Art Deco factory of the A40: white faience, coloured tile and a sunburst over the door.","note":"Wallis, Gilbert and Partners built it for the Hoover Company and it opened in 1933 as their British headquarters, factory and repairs centre - one of a run of Art Deco factories the firm put along the new arterial roads out of London, designed to be read at speed from a car. The front is white faience with green and red tiling, a stepped and glazed centrepiece and Egyptian touches in the columns. Historic England's citation calls it possibly the most significant arterial road factory of its date, and one of the most attractive. 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What it attracted was extraordinary. Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy of the Bauhaus all lived here after leaving Germany; so did Agatha Christie, from 1941 to 1947. So, in flat 7 in the mid-1930s, did Arnold Deutsch, the NKVD officer who recruited Kim Philby and the rest of the Cambridge Five. 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It was finished in 1986, and in 2011, at twenty-five years old, it became the youngest building ever given the highest grade of historic protection in England. 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Then he had the animals modelled into it. Living species are on the west side and extinct ones on the east, so the columns and arches carry monkeys, pterosaurs and fish, all of them made by Gibbs and Canning of Tamworth. The central hall is a Romanesque nave with a whale in it. 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Historic England calls it a key symbol of British and international Modern Movement architecture. It worked better as architecture than as an enclosure - concrete is hard on penguins' feet and the pool was too shallow for them to dive - so the birds were moved to Penguin Beach in 2004 and it has stood empty since. 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Within a decade locomotives were too long to fit and it was finished as a railway building. Gilbey's the gin distillers then used it as a bonded warehouse for fifty years, and it fell empty before the war. In 1964 the playwright Arnold Wesker took it on for Centre 42 and it became the room the sixties happened in - the launch of International Times in 1966, one of only two British appearances by the Doors in 1968. 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The covered courtyard inside is now shops and a bar, and is free to walk through.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/own-royal-exchange.jpg?v=3a0cba99","thumb":"/img/own-royal-exchange-480.jpg?v=cd0b3b73","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"Bank junction: the Royal Exchange's tall columned portico and carved pediment, with the equestrian statue of Wellington in front, the Bank of England's stone wall on the left and the glass towers of 22 Bishopsgate rising behind, on a bright afternoon with cyclists crossing.","caption":"From Bank junction, the Bank of England on the left and 22 Bishopsgate behind."},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Classic British Shops","href":"/classic-british-shops/royal-exchange/"}],"maps_q":"Royal Exchange, Cornhill, EC3V 3LR, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Fortnum & Mason Royal Exchange","s":"fortnum-mason-royal-exchange","c":"classic-british-shops","cn":"Classic British Shops","m":13},{"n":"Rosslyn Coffee","s":"rosslyn-bank","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":41},{"n":"Bank of England Museum","s":"bank-of-england-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":68}],"near_same":[{"s":"lloyds-of-london","m":338},{"s":"30-st-mary-axe","m":483},{"s":"barbican-centre","m":829},{"s":"tate-modern","m":1115},{"s":"the-blackfriar","m":1151},{"s":"golden-lane-estate","m":1156}]},{"slug":"severndroog-castle","name":"Severndroog Castle","area":"Shooters Hill","address":"Castle Wood, Shooters Hill, SE18 3RT","station":"Eltham","walk":17,"lat":51.466624,"lng":0.060054,"hours":[null,null,null,null,null,null,[10.0,15.5]],"hours_raw":"Su 10:00-15:30","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://www.severndroogcastle.org.uk/","hours_short":"Tower and viewing platform Sundays; tea room Thursday to Sunday","hours_checked":"2026-09-04","hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.severndroogcastle.org.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/32825099","types":["georgian","oddity"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A triangular gothic tower on Shooter's Hill, put up by a widow for a naval victory in India.","note":"Lady James built it in 1784 in memory of her husband Sir William James, who had taken the fort of Suvarnadurg on the coast of Maharashtra in 1755; the tower carries an anglicised version of the fort's name. Richard Jupp designed it as an equilateral triangle with a hexagonal turret at each corner, gothic and only two rooms wide, which is a strange shape for a strange purpose. It stands on one of the highest points in London, and on a clear day the platform at the top looks over several counties. It fell derelict, was restored by a local trust and now opens on set days with tea in the room below.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/severndroog-castle.jpg?v=bf127d47","thumb":"/img/severndroog-castle-480.jpg?v=a7d4228a","width":768,"height":1024,"alt":"Severndroog Castle, Oxleas Wood, London","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Veghead, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Severndroog.jpg","thumb_width":360},"figures":null,"from":"monuments/severndroog-castle","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"comedy-at-the-castle-in-the-woods","name":"Comedy at the Castle in the Woods","href":"/monuments/severndroog-castle/comedy-at-the-castle-in-the-woods/","verdict":"Four comedians in the courtyard of a Georgian folly, in a wood on Shooters Hill.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-17","to":"2026-09-17"},"types":["adults","comedy","food_available"],"clue":["Comedy"]},{"slug":"poetry-and-spoken-word-open-mic-with-greenwich-libraries","name":"Poetry and Spoken Word Open Mic with Greenwich Libraries","href":"/monuments/severndroog-castle/poetry-and-spoken-word-open-mic-with-greenwich-libraries/","verdict":"Eltham Library's monthly open mic, moved for one night into the castle's first-floor room.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-25","to":"2026-09-25"},"types":["books","free"],"clue":["Books & writers"]},{"slug":"after-dark-on-the-severndroog-viewing-platform","name":"After Dark on the Severndroog Viewing Platform","href":"/monuments/severndroog-castle/after-dark-on-the-severndroog-viewing-platform/","verdict":"The widest view in London, opened at night, in twenty-minute slots for ten people at a time.","runs":{"from":"2026-11-07","to":"2026-11-07"},"types":["heights","tour"],"clue":["Guided tour"]}],"also_in":[{"name":"Monuments & Ruins","href":"/monuments/severndroog-castle/"}],"maps_q":"Severndroog Castle, Castle Wood, Shooters Hill, SE18 3RT, London","bank":0,"near_all":[{"n":"Oxleas Wood","s":"oxleas-wood","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":1198},{"n":"Charlton Lido","s":"charlton-lido","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":1752},{"n":"The Rusty Bucket","s":"the-rusty-bucket","c":"beer","cn":"Beer","m":1887}],"near_same":[{"s":"charlton-house","m":2227},{"s":"eltham-palace","m":2323},{"s":"balfron-tower","m":8434},{"s":"horniman-museum-and-gardens","m":8862},{"s":"peckham-library","m":9001},{"s":"abbey-mills-pumping-station","m":9095}]},{"slug":"sir-john-soanes-museum","name":"Sir John Soane's Museum","area":"Holborn","address":"13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2A 3BP","station":"Holborn","walk":2,"lat":51.517075,"lng":-0.117469,"hours":[null,[10.0,16.5],[10.0,16.5],[10.0,16.5],[10.0,16.5],[10.0,16.5],null],"hours_raw":"Tu-Sa 10:00-16:30","hours_source":"web","hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.soane.org/","instagram":"soanemuseum","attrs":["stepfree"],"osm":"way/61453261","types":["free","georgian","house","inside"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"An architect's own house, left exactly as he arranged it, with mirrors and light shafts everywhere.","note":"Soane rebuilt three houses on the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields between 1792 and 1824 as a place to live, to teach and to keep the things he had bought, and an Act of Parliament in 1833 required that nothing be moved after his death. Almost nothing has been. What makes it an architectural pilgrimage rather than a collection is what he did with daylight: coloured glass, concealed shafts, domes over rooms with no visible windows, and mirrors set at angles to double a space that is only a few feet across. The Picture Room's walls open outward on hinges to reveal more paintings behind them. Book ahead for the candlelit evenings if you can get one.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/sir-john-soanes-museum.jpg?v=4d6d2a14","thumb":"/img/sir-john-soanes-museum-480.jpg?v=157bf66f","width":590,"height":1024,"alt":"Sir John Soane Museum","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_John_Soane_Museum_(13952611347).jpg","thumb_width":276},"figures":null,"from":"museums/sir-john-soanes-museum","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"sir-john-soanes-museum-highlights-tour","name":"Sir John Soane's Museum Highlights Tour","href":"/museums/sir-john-soanes-museum/sir-john-soanes-museum-highlights-tour/","verdict":"An hour through Soane's house as he left it in 1837, with the sarcophagus and the Hogarths.","runs":null,"types":["art","history","tour"],"clue":["Guided tour","Art & design"]},{"slug":"madelon-vriesendorp-mind-games","name":"Madelon Vriesendorp: Mind Games","href":"/museums/sir-john-soanes-museum/madelon-vriesendorp-mind-games/","verdict":"Fifty works by the Soane Medal winner who paints skyscrapers in bed together.","runs":{"from":"2026-07-15","to":"2026-09-20"},"types":["art","exhibition"],"clue":["Exhibition","Art & design"]}],"also_in":[{"name":"Museums","href":"/museums/sir-john-soanes-museum/"},{"name":"Art","href":"/art/sir-john-soanes-museum/"}],"maps_q":"Sir John Soane's Museum, 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2A 3BP, London","in_area":{"slug":"holborn","name":"Holborn"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Scarfes Bar","s":"scarfes-bar","c":"cocktails","cn":"Cocktails","m":71},{"n":"Hidden London: Holborn \u2014 the secret platforms","s":"hidden-london-holborn-the-secret-platforms","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":167},{"n":"Hunterian Museum","s":"hunterian-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":227}],"near_same":[{"s":"freemasons-hall","m":318},{"s":"daily-express-building","m":853},{"s":"centre-point","m":854},{"s":"the-blackfriar","m":1101},{"s":"national-theatre","m":1211},{"s":"st-pancras","m":1528}]},{"slug":"southgate-station","name":"Southgate station","area":"Southgate","address":"Station Parade, Southgate, N14 5BH","station":"Southgate","walk":1,"lat":51.632318,"lng":-0.127786,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"node/5182424566","types":["free","inside","modernist","transport"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Holden's flying saucer of 1933: a circular ticket hall whose flat roof seems to rest on nothing but a ring of windows, with a Tesla coil on top.","note":"Charles Holden opened it on 13 March 1933 on the Piccadilly line's last push to Cockfosters, and it is the strangest of the stations he built along it: a drum of brick, concrete and glass with a wider flat roof floating above a band of clerestory windows, held up, invisibly, by a single column in the middle of the ticket hall, and finished with an illuminated finial like something out of a mad scientist's laboratory. He designed the curved parade of shops and the bus station around it as one composition, and it survives almost whole: the escalators keep their bronze uplighters and the bronze panelling runs through the building. Protected at the higher historic grade. On the day it opened, local residents were given a free return to Piccadilly Circus.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/southgate-station.jpg?v=4d4e0ae0","thumb":"/img/southgate-station-480.jpg?v=8b3f190c","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"Southgate tube station building","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Sunil060902, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Southgate_station_building2.JPG","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Southgate station, Station Parade, Southgate, N14 5BH, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Trent Park","s":"trent-park","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":3092},{"n":"Trent Park House of Secrets","s":"trent-park-house-of-secrets","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":3122},{"n":"Enfield Museum","s":"enfield-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":3840}],"near_same":[{"s":"arnos-grove-station","m":1800},{"s":"alexandra-palace-the-bbcs-first-studios","m":4236},{"s":"highpoint","m":6599},{"s":"2-willow-road","m":8828},{"s":"isokon-building","m":9245},{"s":"roundhouse","m":10044}]},{"slug":"st-pancras","name":"St Pancras","area":"St Pancras","address":"Euston Road, NW1 2AR","station":"King's Cross St Pancras","walk":2,"lat":51.529877,"lng":-0.125502,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://stpancras.com/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/15694166","types":["free","inside","transport","victorian"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The largest enclosed space in the world in 1868, with a Gothic hotel bolted across the front of it.","note":"Two buildings by two men who were not collaborating. William Barlow's train shed of 1868 is the engineering: a single span of 240 feet on wrought-iron ribs, 100 feet high and unsupported down the middle, which made it the largest enclosed space anywhere when it opened - the width was set by the beer barrels from Burton stacked in the undercroft below. George Gilbert Scott then won the competition for the Midland Grand Hotel and put a red-brick Gothic palace across the front, hiding the shed completely from the road. British Rail proposed demolishing the lot in the 1960s. The campaign led by the Victorian Society and John Betjeman got it protected ten days before the bulldozers.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/st-pancras.jpg?v=efd985eb","thumb":"/img/st-pancras-480.jpg?v=7f1fdb82","width":1024,"height":863,"alt":"St Pancras station and the former Midland Grand Hotel from the Euston Road","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Colin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Pancras_Railway_Station_2012-06-23.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":[{"src":"/img/own-st-pancras-shed.jpg?v=ff1db7b1","thumb":"/img/own-st-pancras-shed-480.jpg?v=2770d2ea","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"The Barlow train shed at St Pancras: two Eurostar trains at the platforms under the single span of iron and glass","caption":"William Barlow's train shed of 1868, a single span of 240 feet and the widest roof in the world when it opened."}],"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"St Pancras, Euston Road, NW1 2AR, London","in_area":{"slug":"kings-cross-st-pancras","name":"King's Cross & St Pancras"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Aux Merveilleux de Fred St Pancras","s":"aux-merveilleux-de-fred-st-pancras","c":"bakeries","cn":"Bakeries","m":58},{"n":"Origin Coffee","s":"origin-euston-road","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":109},{"n":"British Library","s":"british-library","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":153}],"near_same":[{"s":"carreras-cigarette-factory","m":1067},{"s":"sir-john-soanes-museum","m":1528},{"s":"centre-point","m":1550},{"s":"freemasons-hall","m":1671},{"s":"penguin-pool-london-zoo","m":1990},{"s":"daily-express-building","m":2191}]},{"slug":"strawberry-hill","name":"Strawberry Hill","area":"Twickenham","address":"268 Waldegrave Road, TW1 4ST","station":"Strawberry Hill","walk":4,"lat":51.438194,"lng":-0.334814,"hours":[[11.0,16.0],[11.0,16.0],[11.0,16.0],null,null,null,[11.0,16.0]],"hours_raw":"Mo-Su 11:00-16:00; Th off; Fr off; Sa off","hours_source":"web","hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/","instagram":"strawbhillhouse","attrs":[],"osm":"way/207444024","types":["georgian","house","inside"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Horace Walpole's white gothic villa, the house that started the whole gothic revival.","note":"Walpole bought a coachman's cottage at Twickenham in 1747 and spent the next thirty years turning it into a castle, working with a committee of friends rather than an architect and taking details wholesale from medieval tombs and cathedral screens - a chimneypiece from a tomb in Canterbury, a ceiling from Henry VII's chapel. It is all plaster, papier-mache and paint pretending to be stone, and that is the joke and the point. The Gallery is the room people come for: fan vaulting in papier-mache, gilded, under crimson damask. He wrote The Castle of Otranto here after a nightmare, and invented the gothic novel in the house he had invented gothic revival in.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/strawberry-hill.jpg?v=2e2102ee","thumb":"/img/strawberry-hill-480.jpg?v=0aa83197","width":1024,"height":598,"alt":"Horace Walpole's Twickenham house, Strawberry Hill, gleaming white in spring sunshine, soon after restoration","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Chiswick Chap, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Strawberry_Hill_House_from_garden_in_2012_after_restoration.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":"museums/strawberry-hill","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"strawberry-hill-house-flower-festival","name":"Strawberry Hill House Flower Festival","href":"/museums/strawberry-hill/strawberry-hill-house-flower-festival/","verdict":"Thirty florists fill Walpole's Gothic villa with British-grown flowers, for four days.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-10","to":"2026-09-13","repeats":"yearly"},"types":["art","festival","nature"],"clue":["Festival","Art & design"]}],"also_in":[{"name":"Museums","href":"/museums/strawberry-hill/"},{"name":"Literary London","href":"/literary/strawberry-hill/"}],"maps_q":"Strawberry Hill, 268 Waldegrave Road, TW1 4ST, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Pope's Grotto","s":"popes-grotto","c":"literary","cn":"Literary London","m":492},{"n":"Church Street, Twickenham","s":"church-street-twickenham","c":"beautiful-streets","cn":"Beautiful Streets","m":1101},{"n":"Twickenham Museum","s":"twickenham-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":1151}],"near_same":[{"s":"hoover-building","m":10677},{"s":"debenham-house","m":11282},{"s":"leighton-house-museum","m":11331},{"s":"sudbury-town-station","m":12594},{"s":"natural-history-museum","m":12765},{"s":"michelin-house","m":13039}]},{"slug":"sudbury-town-station","name":"Sudbury Town station","area":"Sudbury","address":"Station Approach, Wembley, HA0 2LA","station":"Sudbury Town","walk":1,"lat":51.550825,"lng":-0.315639,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/229108527","types":["free","inside","modernist","transport"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A brick box with a concrete lid: Holden's rebuilding of 1931 that set the pattern for every Underground station of the thirties.","note":"The District Railway's country halt of 1903 was pulled down in 1930 and Charles Holden, fresh from a tour of the new architecture of Holland, Germany and Scandinavia with Frank Pick, replaced it with the first station of a kind he would repeat along the Piccadilly line: a tall block of a ticket hall in plain brick, lit by panels of window high in the walls and capped by a flat slab of concrete, with low wings for the shops and the offices. He called it a brick box with a concrete lid. Everything about it was new for a railway, the daylight, the lack of ornament, the lettering in Johnston's alphabet, and it is protected at the higher historic grade with much of its first fitting-out still in place.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/sudbury-town-station.jpg?v=c7f1b051","thumb":"/img/sudbury-town-station-480.jpg?v=69aaf05d","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"Sudbury Town tube station main entrance on eastbound side","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Sunil060902, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sudbury_Town_stn_main_entrance.JPG","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Sudbury Town station, Station Approach, Wembley, HA0 2LA, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir","s":"shri-sanatan-hindu-mandir","c":"sacred","cn":"Sacred London","m":1473},{"n":"Ealing Beaver Project Safari","s":"ealing-beaver-project-safari","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":1778},{"n":"Old Speech Room Gallery and Museum, Harrow School","s":"old-speech-room-gallery-and-museum-harrow-school","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":2756}],"near_same":[{"s":"hoover-building","m":1918},{"s":"trellick-tower","m":8201},{"s":"debenham-house","m":9144},{"s":"alexandra-road-estate","m":9249},{"s":"leighton-house-museum","m":9713},{"s":"23-and-24-leinster-gardens","m":10097}]},{"slug":"tate-modern","name":"Tate Modern","area":"Bankside","address":"Bankside, SE1 9TG","station":"London Blackfriars","walk":5,"lat":51.507429,"lng":-0.099386,"hours":[[10.0,18.0],[10.0,18.0],[10.0,18.0],[10.0,18.0],[10.0,21.0],[10.0,21.0],[10.0,18.0]],"hours_raw":"Su-Th 10:00-18:00; Fr-Sa 10:00-21:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern","instagram":"tate","attrs":["stepfree"],"osm":"way/24642569","types":["contemporary","free","industrial","inside"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Giles Gilbert Scott's power station, hollowed out and left as raw as they dared.","note":"Bankside Power Station was built in two stages between 1947 and 1963 by Giles Gilbert Scott, who also designed Battersea and the red telephone box, and it was deliberately given a single chimney lower than the dome of St Paul's across the water. It shut in 1981. Herzog and de Meuron won the competition to convert it in 1995 by proposing to do less than anyone else: keep the shell, keep the turbine hall as one enormous empty room, and add a horizontal glass beam of light along the roof. The Blavatnik Building of 2016 is theirs too, a twisted brick pyramid at the back with a free viewing level on the tenth floor.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/tate-modern.jpg?v=cadbf674","thumb":"/img/tate-modern-480.jpg?v=f017f793","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"Tate Modern from across the Thames: the long brick power station and its single chimney","caption":"The power station from the north bank.","credit":"Photo by Acabashi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tate_Modern_-_Bankside_Power_Station.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":"museums/tate-modern","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"gathering-ground","name":"Gathering Ground","href":"/museums/tate-modern/gathering-ground/","verdict":"Nine artists on the ecological crisis, free, in a former power station.","runs":{"to":"2027-03-07"},"types":["art","exhibition","free"],"clue":["Exhibition","Art & design"]},{"slug":"tate-moderns-permanent-galleries","name":"Tate Modern's permanent galleries","href":"/art/tate-modern/tate-moderns-permanent-galleries/","verdict":"Matisse, Picasso and Rothko for free, in a power station the size of a cathedral.","runs":null,"types":["art","exhibition","free"],"clue":["Exhibition","Art & design"]},{"slug":"julio-le-parc-light-colour-action","name":"Julio Le Parc: Light. 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