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Hallows-by-the-Tower Crypt Museum","area":"Tower","address":"Byward Street, Leadenhall Market, EC3R 5BJ","station":"Tower Hill","walk":2,"lat":51.5094,"lng":-0.0794,"hours":[[8.0,17.0],[8.0,17.0],[8.0,17.0],[8.0,17.0],[8.0,17.0],[10.0,17.0],[10.0,17.0]],"hours_raw":"Mo-Fr 08:00-17:00; Sa-Su 10:00-17:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.ahbtt.org.uk/visit/","instagram":"allhallowstower","attrs":[],"osm":"way/59213570","types":["church","crypt"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The oldest church in the City, with a Saxon arch of Roman brick and a second-century Roman floor in the crypt beneath, free.","note":"All Hallows was founded by the abbey at Barking in 675, by its own tradition, which makes it the oldest church in the City, and it stands close enough to the Tower that the bodies of the beheaded, Archbishop Laud among them, were brought here for burial. Pepys climbed its tower in 1666 to watch the Great Fire, which stopped short of it; the Blitz did not, and when the church was rebuilt an arch of reused Roman brick was found in the ruins, built by the Saxons and the oldest piece of any church in London. The crypt museum below keeps a tessellated Roman pavement of the second century where it was laid, in the floor of a house that stood here before the church, with Saxon crosses, the parish registers that record William Penn's baptism in 1644 and John Quincy Adams's wedding in 1797, and the relics of Tubby Clayton, the vicar who founded the Toc H movement here for the soldiers of the First World War. Entry to the church and the crypt is free.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/all-hallows-by-the-tower-crypt-museum.jpg?v=ec9ef636","thumb":"/img/all-hallows-by-the-tower-crypt-museum-480.jpg?v=04a9da0e","width":1024,"height":912,"alt":"All Hallows by the Tower: a brick church with a green copper spire on its tower","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Katie Chan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EH1064671_Church_of_All_Hallows_by_the_Tower_07.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":"museums/all-hallows-by-the-tower-crypt-museum","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Museums","href":"/museums/all-hallows-by-the-tower-crypt-museum/"}],"maps_q":"All Hallows-by-the-Tower Crypt Museum, Byward Street, Leadenhall Market, EC3R 5BJ, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Tower Subway","s":"tower-subway","c":"science","cn":"Science & Engineering","m":112},{"n":"Tower Hill Memorial","s":"tower-hill-memorial","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":125},{"n":"St Dunstan-in-the-East","s":"st-dunstan-in-the-east","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":217}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-olave-hart-street","m":166},{"s":"bevis-marks-synagogue","m":567},{"s":"st-mary-woolnoth","m":703},{"s":"st-stephen-walbrook","m":805},{"s":"southwark-cathedral","m":833},{"s":"london-mithraeum","m":847}]},{"slug":"baps-shri-swaminarayan-mandir","name":"BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir","area":"Neasden","address":"Pramukh Swami Road, NW10 8HW","station":"Neasden","walk":13,"lat":51.547392,"lng":-0.261459,"hours":[[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0]],"hours_raw":"Mo-Su 09:00-12:15,16:00-18:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://londonmandir.baps.org/visit-us/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-06","hours_extra":"Free. Shoes are removed, and shoulders and knees covered.","runs":null,"website":"https://londonmandir.baps.org/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"relation/4128586","types":["mosque"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A Hindu temple in Neasden carved from Italian marble and Bulgarian limestone, with no steel in it.","note":"Opened in 1995 and built by traditional means: five thousand tonnes of Italian marble and Bulgarian limestone shipped to India, carved by hand into twenty-six thousand pieces, then shipped again and assembled in London like a puzzle. There is no structural steel anywhere in it. Under the same roof is Understanding Hinduism, a permanent exhibition, and the whole thing sits in a Brent suburb, which is much of the surprise.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/baps-shri-swaminarayan-mandir.jpg?v=fead4963","thumb":"/img/baps-shri-swaminarayan-mandir-480.jpg?v=92b74b8d","width":1024,"height":761,"alt":"The Neasden mandir's white marble domes and pinnacles above balustraded steps and clipped hedges","caption":"","credit":"Photo by The original uploader was Nikkul at English Wikipedia ., CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_Temple.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Pramukh Swami Road, NW10 8HW, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"OVO Arena Wembley","s":"ovo-arena-wembley","c":"venues","cn":"Performance venues","m":1895},{"n":"Brent Museum","s":"brent-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":2246},{"n":"Paddock, Dollis Hill","s":"paddock-dollis-hill","c":"secrets","cn":"Secrets & Espionage","m":2362}],"near_same":[{"s":"shri-sanatan-hindu-mandir","m":2568},{"s":"london-central-mosque","m":6973},{"s":"st-lawrence-little-stanmore","m":7042},{"s":"brompton-oratory","m":8460},{"s":"fitzrovia-chapel","m":9087},{"s":"st-pancras-old-church","m":9185}]},{"slug":"bevis-marks-synagogue","name":"Bevis Marks Synagogue","area":"Aldgate","address":"4 Heneage Lane, EC3A 5DQ","station":"Aldgate","walk":3,"lat":51.514493,"lng":-0.078948,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://www.sephardi.org.uk/bevis-marks/visit-bevis-marks/","hours_short":"Closed to general visitors while a visitors' centre is built. Services continue, and the synagogue hopes to reopen for tours before the end of 2026.","hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.sephardi.org.uk/bevis-marks/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/225077614","types":["synagogue"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Britain's oldest synagogue, in use since 1701 and still lit by candle for services.","note":"Built in 1701 by Sephardi Jews who had returned to England under Cromwell, set back in a courtyard so that it would not front the street. The interior has never been altered: dark oak benches, twelve columns for the tribes of Israel, and seven brass candelabra for the days of the week, which are still lit with candles rather than bulbs. One bench was carried here from the earlier synagogue in Creechurch Lane.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/bevis-marks-synagogue.jpg?v=61b2f451","thumb":"/img/bevis-marks-synagogue-480.jpg?v=fbaaabbc","width":640,"height":466,"alt":"Bevis Marks Synagogue","caption":"","credit":"Photo by John Salmon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bevis_Marks_Synagogue_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1229874.jpg","thumb_width":500},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Bevis Marks Synagogue, 4 Heneage Lane, EC3A 5DQ, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"30 St Mary Axe","s":"30-st-mary-axe","c":"architecture","cn":"Architecture","m":95},{"n":"Association Coffee","s":"association-coffee","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":96},{"n":"WatchHouse","s":"watchhouse-bishopsgate","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":105}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-olave-hart-street","m":401},{"s":"sandys-row-synagogue","m":455},{"s":"all-hallows-by-the-tower-crypt-museum","m":567},{"s":"christ-church-spitalfields","m":627},{"s":"st-mary-woolnoth","m":656},{"s":"brick-lane-jamme-masjid","m":729}]},{"slug":"brick-lane-jamme-masjid","name":"Brick Lane Jamme Masjid","area":"Spitalfields","address":"59 Brick Lane, E1 6QL","station":"Aldgate East","walk":5,"lat":51.519453,"lng":-0.072052,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":"A working mosque. Visitors are welcome outside the five daily prayers; dress modestly and remove your shoes.","hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://bricklanejammemasjid.co.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/126483845","types":["mosque"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"One building that has been a Huguenot chapel, a Methodist chapel, a synagogue and a mosque.","note":"Put up in 1743 as La Neuve Eglise for French Protestant refugees, it became a Methodist chapel, then in 1891 the Machzike Hadath synagogue for Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe, and since 1976 the mosque of the Bangladeshi community. Three centuries of arrival in one set of walls, on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street. High on the Fournier Street face is the sundial of 1743 and its motto, Umbra sumus: we are shadows.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/brick-lane-jamme-masjid.jpg?v=e913b3c3","thumb":"/img/brick-lane-jamme-masjid-480.jpg?v=1f35f783","width":768,"height":1024,"alt":"A photograph of Brick Lane Jamme Masjid.","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Bobulous, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brick_Lane_Jamme_Masjid.jpg","thumb_width":360},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Brick Lane Jamme Masjid, 59 Brick Lane, E1 6QL, London","in_area":{"slug":"spitalfields-brick-lane","name":"Spitalfields & Brick Lane"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Museum of Immigration and Diversity","s":"museum-of-immigration-and-diversity","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":53},{"n":"Brick Lane Curry Festival","s":"brick-lane-curry-festival","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":175},{"n":"Doppio","s":"doppio","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":179}],"near_same":[{"s":"christ-church-spitalfields","m":121},{"s":"sandys-row-synagogue","m":405},{"s":"bevis-marks-synagogue","m":729},{"s":"st-olave-hart-street","m":1080},{"s":"wesleys-chapel-museum-of-methodism-and-john-wesleys-house","m":1112},{"s":"all-hallows-by-the-tower-crypt-museum","m":1228}]},{"slug":"brompton-oratory","name":"Brompton Oratory","area":"South Kensington","address":"Brompton Road, SW7 2RP","station":"South Kensington","walk":5,"lat":51.497142,"lng":-0.169643,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://www.bromptonoratory.co.uk/","hours_short":"Open daily for prayer and Mass; the Oratory lists its times on its own site.","hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.bromptonoratory.co.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/851727368","types":["church","music"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Italian Baroque in South Kensington, with marble apostles that stood in Siena Cathedral for two centuries.","note":"The Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, opened in 1884 for the Oratorian fathers whom John Henry Newman brought to England, and the largest Catholic church in London until Westminster Cathedral was built. Its nave is the widest in England after St Paul's. The twelve marble apostles along it are Giuseppe Mazzuoli's, carved for Siena Cathedral in the 1680s and bought when Siena took them out. The choir sings the Latin Mass.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/brompton-oratory.jpg?v=229c54eb","thumb":"/img/brompton-oratory-480.jpg?v=d9c6f753","width":1024,"height":856,"alt":"Brompton Oratory, London, England","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Sarah Stierch, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brompton_Oratory_-_Sarah_Stierch.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"solemn-latin-mass-with-the-oratory-choir","name":"Solemn Latin Mass with the Oratory choir","href":"/venues/brompton-oratory/solemn-latin-mass-with-the-oratory-choir/","verdict":"Renaissance polyphony sung every Sunday at eleven by a professional choir, and you walk in.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-13","to":"2026-11-08"},"types":["concert","free","music","classical"],"clue":["Concert","Classical"]}],"also_in":[{"name":"Performance venues","href":"/venues/brompton-oratory/"}],"maps_q":"Brompton Oratory, Brompton Road, SW7 2RP, London","in_area":{"slug":"south-kensington","name":"South Kensington"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Victoria and Albert Museum","s":"victoria-and-albert-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":173},{"n":"National Art Library","s":"national-art-library","c":"literary","cn":"Literary London","m":186},{"n":"Brompton Road","s":"brompton-road","c":"shopping","cn":"Shopping","m":360}],"near_same":[{"s":"westminster-cathedral","m":2090},{"s":"st-jamess-piccadilly","m":2618},{"s":"westminster-abbey","m":2935},{"s":"st-martin-in-the-fields","m":3245},{"s":"fitzrovia-chapel","m":3256},{"s":"london-central-mosque","m":3554}]},{"slug":"buddhapadipa-temple","name":"Buddhapadipa Temple","area":"Wimbledon","address":"14 Calonne Road, Wimbledon, SW19 5HJ","station":"Wimbledon","walk":18,"lat":51.430716,"lng":-0.220546,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://buddhapadipa.com/","hours_short":"The temple publishes office hours rather than visiting times: every day 09:00 to 11:00 and 12:30 to 17:30.","hours_checked":"2026-09-06","hours_extra":"Chanting and a Dhamma talk at 06:00 and again at 18:00 daily. Meditation classes Tuesday and Thursday 7\u201320:30, Saturday and Sunday 3\u201317:00.","runs":null,"website":"https://buddhapadipa.com/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/61227876","types":["mosque"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The first Thai temple in Britain, and an ordination hall painted inside by thirty artists over eight years.","note":"Thailand bought a house in East Sheen in 1965 and the first monks arrived that November; King Bhumibol named the temple \u2014 Light of the Buddha \u2014 and opened it himself the following summer. Wanting room for a proper ordination hall, the community moved in 1976 to four acres on Calonne Road, and the hall was consecrated in 1982. Inside are three Buddhas, one of them a bronze from the Sukhothai period some seven centuries old, and the murals that made the place famous: thirty Thai artists worked on them from 1984, led by Chalermchai Kositpipat and Panya Vijinthanasarn, in a vivid contemporary manner that was unorthodox for Buddhist painting at the time and is now read as the moment neo-traditional Thai art arrived. The life of the Buddha runs round the central room; the side rooms took until 1992. The grounds \u2014 lawns, a lake and an orchard \u2014 are the other half of the visit.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/buddhapadipa-temple.jpg?v=f5a31b93","thumb":"/img/buddhapadipa-temple-480.jpg?v=683e8d5c","width":1024,"height":769,"alt":"The white and gold Thai temple at Wimbledon, seen from the south-west","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Doyle of London, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wat_Buddhapadipa_Temple,_Wimbledon_(Southwest_View_-_02).jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Buddhapadipa Temple, 14 Calonne Road, Wimbledon, SW19 5HJ, London","bank":0,"near_all":[{"n":"The Championships, Wimbledon","s":"the-championships-wimbledon","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":580},{"n":"Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum","s":"wimbledon-lawn-tennis-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":666},{"n":"Megan's in the Village","s":"megans-wimbledon","c":"breakfast","cn":"Breakfast & Brunch","m":689}],"near_same":[{"s":"brompton-oratory","m":8224},{"s":"westminster-cathedral","m":9179},{"s":"westminster-abbey","m":10002},{"s":"croydon-minster","m":10240},{"s":"st-jamess-piccadilly","m":10437},{"s":"st-martin-in-the-fields","m":10876}]},{"slug":"christ-church-spitalfields","name":"Christ Church Spitalfields","area":"Spitalfields","address":"Commercial Street, E1 6LY","station":"Aldgate East","walk":5,"lat":51.519101,"lng":-0.073721,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://ccspitalfields.org/visit-us/","hours_short":"The church lists its visiting times on its own site; it is also open around services and concerts.","hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://ccspitalfields.org/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/420026096","types":["church","hawksmoor","music"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Hawksmoor's masterpiece, its spire closing the view down Brushfield Street since 1729.","note":"One of the six churches Nicholas Hawksmoor built under the Fifty New Churches Act, finished in 1729 for a parish of Huguenot weavers, and the boldest of them: a portico of four huge Tuscan columns, a tower that becomes a spire without appearing to change its mind, and inside a nave of giant columns under clear glass. It was derelict and propped with scaffolding in the 1970s; a restoration lasting thirty years brought back the box pews, the plaster and the light. Concerts are held under the vault.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/christ-church-spitalfields.jpg?v=b4d073e0","thumb":"/img/christ-church-spitalfields-480.jpg?v=f5ea2aca","width":559,"height":1024,"alt":"Christ Church, Spitalfields, as viewed from Brushfield st looking east","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christ_Church_exterior,_Spitalfields,_London,_UK_-_Diliff.jpg","thumb_width":262},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Performance venues","href":"/venues/christ-church-spitalfields/"}],"maps_q":"Christ Church Spitalfields, Commercial Street, E1 6LY, London","in_area":{"slug":"spitalfields-brick-lane","name":"Spitalfields & Brick Lane"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Climpson & Sons Coffee Bar","s":"climpson-sons-coffee-bar","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":111},{"n":"Museum of Immigration and Diversity","s":"museum-of-immigration-and-diversity","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":119},{"n":"Old Spitalfields Market","s":"old-spitalfields-market","c":"food-markets","cn":"Food Markets","m":126}],"near_same":[{"s":"brick-lane-jamme-masjid","m":121},{"s":"sandys-row-synagogue","m":284},{"s":"bevis-marks-synagogue","m":627},{"s":"st-olave-hart-street","m":995},{"s":"wesleys-chapel-museum-of-methodism-and-john-wesleys-house","m":1028},{"s":"all-hallows-by-the-tower-crypt-museum","m":1148}]},{"slug":"city-of-london-churches","name":"City of London churches","area":"The City","address":"Across the City of London, EC2 to EC4","station":"Moorgate","walk":5,"lat":51.5158,"lng":-0.0925,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://www.fotcc.org.uk/church-finder/","hours_short":"Most open on weekdays only, on a rota; check the church finder for which are open today","hours_checked":"2026-09-08","hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.fotcc.org.uk/church-finder/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":null,"types":["church","wren"],"deep":null,"scope":"Across the City of London","scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":{"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[-0.07806,51.5158],[-0.07828,51.51736],[-0.07894,51.51887],[-0.08,51.52029],[-0.08144,51.52157],[-0.08322,51.52268],[-0.08528,51.52358],[-0.08756,51.52424],[-0.08999,51.52465],[-0.0925,51.52478],[-0.09501,51.52465],[-0.09744,51.52424],[-0.09972,51.52358],[-0.10178,51.52268],[-0.10356,51.52157],[-0.105,51.52029],[-0.10606,51.51887],[-0.10672,51.51736],[-0.10694,51.5158],[-0.10672,51.51424],[-0.10606,51.51273],[-0.105,51.51131],[-0.10356,51.51003],[-0.10178,51.50892],[-0.09972,51.50802],[-0.09744,51.50736],[-0.09501,51.50695],[-0.0925,51.50682],[-0.08999,51.50695],[-0.08756,51.50736],[-0.08528,51.50802],[-0.08322,51.50892],[-0.08144,51.51003],[-0.08,51.51131],[-0.07894,51.51273],[-0.07828,51.51424],[-0.07806,51.5158]]]},"geo_zone":true,"verdict":"Forty-odd churches in one square mile, most of them Wren's, most of them with almost nobody left to live in the parish.","note":"The City had more than a hundred parish churches by 1183, one for roughly every three acres, because every parish had to have one and the parishes were tiny. The Great Fire destroyed eighty-six of them in 1666; a tax on coal paid to rebuild fifty-one, and Christopher Wren's office designed them. Then the people left. As the square mile turned commercial in the nineteenth century the congregations went with them, and about two dozen churches were pulled down by law; the Blitz took most of the rest of the losses.\n\nWhat is left is around forty-five churches for about nine thousand residents and more than half a million people who arrive in the morning and go home at night. That shapes when they are open and what happens in them: weekday services at lunchtime, free recitals, a great deal of choral music, and Sundays that are often silent.\n\nThe Friends of the City Churches send volunteers to sit in them so they can be unlocked, which is why the doors you find open change from day to day. Their church finder has a downloadable map and lets you search by the day you are coming, which is the thing to look at before setting off rather than after.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":null,"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"City of London churches, London","bank":1},{"slug":"croydon-minster","name":"Croydon Minster","area":"Croydon","address":"Church Street, Croydon, CR0 1RN","station":"West Croydon","walk":9,"lat":51.372683,"lng":-0.105921,"hours":[[8.25,14.5],[8.25,14.5],[8.25,14.5],null,[8.25,14.5],null,[7.75,18.5]],"hours_raw":"Mo-We,Fr 08:15-14:30; Su 07:45-12:00,17:15-18:30","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/610/find-us/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-08","hours_extra":"On Thursdays it closes after Morning Prayer, and the office asks anyone travelling any distance to ring first.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.croydonminster.org/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/140546672","types":["church","medieval","music"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Six Archbishops of Canterbury lie in Croydon's parish church, rebuilt by Gilbert Scott after the fire of 1867 around its medieval tower.","note":"There was a minster here in Saxon times, a base for a company of priests serving the country round, and the archbishops of Canterbury kept a palace next door from the twelfth century, which is why six of them chose to be buried in the parish church: Grindal, Whitgift, Sheldon, Wake, Potter and Herring, Whitgift under the tomb he built for himself and Sheldon under a monument by the sculptors of his day. The medieval church, a big Perpendicular building of the 1400s, was gutted on the night of 5 January 1867 by a fire from its new stoves, and George Gilbert Scott, who had restored it ten years before, rebuilt it on the old plan between 1867 and 1869, keeping the west tower and the south porch and pushing the east end further out. It became a minster again in 2011, and its choir keeps the cathedral tradition. Whitgift's almshouses stand a few streets away in the town he endowed.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/croydon-minster.jpg?v=a883cff5","thumb":"/img/croydon-minster-480.jpg?v=c768af1f","width":1024,"height":683,"alt":"A photograph of Croydon Minster.","caption":"","credit":"Photo by hahnchen at Wikimedia Commons (must include link if medium allows), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Croydon_Parish_Church_-_North_East.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Croydon Minster, Church Street, Croydon, CR0 1RN, London","bank":0,"near_all":[{"n":"Museum of Croydon","s":"museum-of-croydon","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":468},{"n":"\u00c9mile Zola","s":"emile-zola","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":4960},{"n":"Ira Aldridge","s":"ira-aldridge","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":5300}],"near_same":[{"s":"buddhapadipa-temple","m":10240},{"s":"st-alfege-church","m":13719},{"s":"westminster-cathedral","m":14110},{"s":"westminster-abbey","m":14175},{"s":"brompton-oratory","m":14558},{"s":"southwark-cathedral","m":14881}]},{"slug":"fitzrovia-chapel","name":"Fitzrovia Chapel","area":"Fitzrovia","address":"Fitzroy Place, 2 Pearson Square, W1T 3BF","station":"Goodge Street","walk":4,"lat":51.518969,"lng":-0.138277,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://www.fitzroviachapel.org/visit","hours_short":"Most Mondays to Wednesdays, 11:00 to 17:00, free.","hours_checked":"2026-09-08","hours_extra":"Also at least one Sunday a month, 12:00 to 17:00, and daily while an exhibition is on; the chapel's What's On page carries the dates.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.fitzroviachapel.org/","instagram":"fitzroviachapel","attrs":[],"osm":"way/194704902","types":["church"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The Middlesex Hospital is gone; the gold chapel it was built around is still standing.","note":"John Loughborough Pearson began it in 1891 as the chapel of the Middlesex Hospital, and it took more than forty years to finish - he died in 1897 and his son Frank carried it on, so what you stand in is two architects' work. The first service was on Christmas Day 1891 and the Bishop of London opened it properly the following June.\n\nThe interior is the reason to come: more than forty kinds of marble, cobalt and gold inscriptions, and a vaulted ceiling of gold mosaic carrying Pearson's Alpha and Omega. The hospital closed in 2005 and was demolished, and the chapel was left standing alone in the middle of the flats and offices that replaced it. A charity restored it between 2013 and 2015 - seventy per cent of the ceiling needed re-gilding - and reopened it in 2016. Free, and no booking required.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel.jpg?v=06500491","thumb":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-480.jpg?v=a2a6d369","width":1024,"height":685,"alt":"Looking east down the chapel: gold mosaic vaults studded with stars over marble-clad walls, a band of mosaic roundels along the arch, and tall stained-glass windows in the apse and on either side.","caption":"Pearson's chapel, looking towards the apse.","credit":"Photo by Colin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fitzrovia_Chapel_2017-09-17-6.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":[{"src":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-2.jpg?v=76e04867","thumb":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-2-480.jpg?v=fb5960cc","width":1024,"height":682,"alt":"Straight up at the vault: gold mosaic panels scattered with small stars, crossed by patterned ribs meeting at a roundel, with the tops of arched windows at the edges.","caption":"The nave vault, in gold mosaic.","credit":"Photo by Clyde Charles Brown, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mosaic_ceiling_of_Fitzrovia_Chapel,_Westminster,_London,_GB.jpg","thumb_width":480},{"src":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-3.jpg?v=d9bdafad","thumb":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-3-480.jpg?v=b1b2103b","width":1024,"height":682,"alt":"Through a marble arch to the altar at the far end of a lamp-lit passage of marble walls, with memorial tablets to the hospital's surgeon and to the two Pearsons set into the wall around the arch.","caption":"The way in, past the tablets to Pearson and his son.","credit":"Photo by AndyScott, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fitzrovia_Chapel,_view_through_arch_2.jpg","thumb_width":480},{"src":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-4.jpg?v=f14e81f3","thumb":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-4-480.jpg?v=8b025d70","width":1024,"height":682,"alt":"A domed mosaic ceiling of dark blue and gold: a cross in a starred roundel in the middle, an angel on either side holding a scroll, and bands of gold leaf pattern around the rim.","caption":"The baptistery dome.","credit":"Photo by AndyScott, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fitzrovia_Chapel,_baptistery_ceiling.jpg","thumb_width":480},{"src":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-5.jpg?v=162a0488","thumb":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-5-480.jpg?v=39a57470","width":1024,"height":660,"alt":"The ceiling of the chapel from below: gold mosaic vaults crossed by patterned ribs, marble-lined walls and stained-glass windows all round.","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Colin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fitzrovia_Chapel_2017-09-17-7.jpg","thumb_width":480},{"src":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-6.jpg?v=a5724941","thumb":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-6-480.jpg?v=399a7d6b","width":1024,"height":700,"alt":"A marble arch inscribed in mosaic letters with Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis, framing the organ's pipes in a carved wooden case, with a brass lantern hanging in front.","caption":"The organ, under the Gloria.","credit":"Photo by Colin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fitzrovia_Chapel_2017-09-17-5.jpg","thumb_width":480},{"src":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-7.jpg?v=9d892905","thumb":"/img/fitzrovia-chapel-7-480.jpg?v=68c52a23","width":1024,"height":689,"alt":"Looking west across the chapel to the organ gallery under its inscribed arch, the gold-starred vault above, stained-glass windows on either side and marble and mosaic walls below.","caption":"The organ end, from the nave.","credit":"Photo by Colin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fitzrovia_Chapel_2017-09-17-4.jpg","thumb_width":480}],"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Fitzrovia Chapel, Fitzroy Place, 2 Pearson Square, W1T 3BF, London","in_area":{"slug":"fitzrovia","name":"Fitzrovia"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Kiss The Hippo","s":"kiss-the-hippo-east-marylebone","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":69},{"n":"Olaudah Equiano","s":"olaudah-equiano","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":73},{"n":"XO Chocolate","s":"xo-chocolate","c":"desserts","cn":"Desserts & Gelato","m":145}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-georges-bloomsbury","m":947},{"s":"st-jamess-piccadilly","m":1151},{"s":"st-pauls-covent-garden","m":1303},{"s":"st-martin-in-the-fields","m":1383},{"s":"st-pancras-old-church","m":1863},{"s":"temple-church","m":2039}]},{"slug":"gurdwara-sri-guru-singh-sabha-southall","name":"Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall","area":"Southall","address":"Havelock Road, UB2 4NP","station":"Southall","walk":8,"lat":51.500403,"lng":-0.380951,"hours":[[3.0,21.0],[3.0,21.0],[3.0,21.0],[3.0,21.0],[3.0,21.0],[3.0,21.0],[3.0,21.0]],"hours_raw":"Mo-Su 03:00-21:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://www.sgsss.org/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-08","hours_extra":"Free. Shoes off and heads covered inside; scarves are provided at the door.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.sgsss.org/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/194555947","types":["mosque"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The largest Sikh temple outside India, on Havelock Road in Southall, open to anyone from three in the morning, with a free meal for all who sit down.","note":"Southall has been the centre of Sikh life in Britain since the 1950s, and this is its great temple: a building of white marble and gold domes on Havelock Road that opened on 30 March 2003, paid for entirely by the congregation at a cost of \u00a317.5 million, and the largest gurdwara outside India. Some fifty thousand people come through in a week. Anyone may follow them, whatever their faith: shoes come off at the door, heads are covered with a scarf from the basket at the entrance, and the prayer hall upstairs holds the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture, read and sung to through the day. Downstairs is the langar, the kitchen that feeds everyone who sits down, free, in rows on the floor, which is the heart of what a gurdwara is for. The community's older gurdwara on Park Avenue is a short walk away.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/gurdwara-sri-guru-singh-sabha-southall.jpg?v=3e67e9ad","thumb":"/img/gurdwara-sri-guru-singh-sabha-southall-480.jpg?v=6aab49f4","width":1024,"height":682,"alt":"Gurdwara.Sri.Guru.Singh.Sabha.Southall","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Sukh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gurdwara.Sri.Guru.Singh.Sabha.Southall.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall, Havelock Road, UB2 4NP, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Osterley Park and House","s":"osterley-park-and-house","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":2350}],"near_same":[{"s":"shri-sanatan-hindu-mandir","m":7465},{"s":"baps-shri-swaminarayan-mandir","m":9779},{"s":"st-lawrence-little-stanmore","m":13571},{"s":"buddhapadipa-temple","m":13690},{"s":"brompton-oratory","m":14631},{"s":"london-central-mosque","m":15272}]},{"slug":"london-central-mosque","name":"London Central Mosque","area":"Regent's Park","address":"146 Park Road, NW8 7RG","station":"London Marylebone","walk":7,"lat":51.528985,"lng":-0.165074,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://iccuk.org/page4.php?section=visits&page=visits","hours_short":"Open for the five daily prayers. Guided group visits run Monday to Thursday and are booked in advance through the cultural centre.","hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://iccuk.org/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/5983916","types":["mosque"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The gold-domed mosque on the edge of Regent's Park, on land Britain gave in wartime.","note":"The government gave the site in 1944, in exchange for land in Cairo for an Anglican cathedral, and Frederick Gibberd's building opened in 1977: a golden dome over a plain white hall that holds several thousand, with a minaret beside it. The main hall has no furniture and one enormous chandelier, and the galleries above are for women. An Islamic Cultural Centre runs alongside it.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/london-central-mosque.jpg?v=7dc56542","thumb":"/img/london-central-mosque-480.jpg?v=02c8b5a3","width":682,"height":1024,"alt":"London Central Mosque - Regent's Park, London","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Asim Saleem ( Asim18 ), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_Central_Mosque_2.jpg","thumb_width":320},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"London Central Mosque, 146 Park Road, NW8 7RG, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Marylebone Cricket Club Museum","s":"marylebone-cricket-club-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":563},{"n":"Alfies Antique Market","s":"alfies-antique-market","c":"classic-british-shops","cn":"Classic British Shops","m":596},{"n":"Jos\u00e9 de San Mart\u00edn","s":"jose-de-san-martin","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":643}],"near_same":[{"s":"fitzrovia-chapel","m":2162},{"s":"st-pancras-old-church","m":2504},{"s":"st-jamess-piccadilly","m":2996},{"s":"st-georges-bloomsbury","m":3060},{"s":"st-pauls-covent-garden","m":3458},{"s":"st-martin-in-the-fields","m":3475}]},{"slug":"london-mithraeum","name":"London Mithraeum","area":"City of London","address":"12 Walbrook, EC4N 8AA","station":"Cannon Street","walk":1,"lat":51.512379,"lng":-0.090676,"hours":[null,[10.0,18.0],[10.0,18.0],[10.0,20.0],[10.0,18.0],[10.0,18.0],[12.0,17.0]],"hours_raw":"Tu-Sa 10:00-18:00; Su 12:00-17:00; Mo off; Th[1] 10:00-20:00; Dec 25-26 off; Jan 01 off","hours_source":"web","hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.londonmithraeum.com/","instagram":null,"attrs":["stepfree"],"osm":"way/512846335","types":["free","roman"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A temple to Mithras, sunk into the ground because his worship belonged in a cave.","note":"Mithras was the god of a mystery cult, which means its members were sworn to secrecy, wrote almost nothing down for anyone outside it, and appear to have admitted only men. What is known is mostly architectural. Their temples were built long, low and partly below ground, because the act at the centre of the religion - Mithras killing a bull - was said to have happened in a cave, and the room was meant to be that cave. The carving of that scene stood at the end of the hall, where the altar stands in a church.\n\nThis one went up in the middle of the third century on the east bank of the Walbrook, then a real stream running down to the Thames. Early in the fourth century somebody dug pits in the floor and buried the marble heads of Mithras, Minerva, Serapis and Mercury, and the building seems to have been rededicated to Bacchus. Whether the heads were being hidden or disposed of is not known.\n\nIt was found in 1954 during the rebuilding of the bombed City, taken apart, and put back together in 1962 a hundred metres away at street level - a reconstruction criticised for decades. In 2017 it was returned to roughly its own ground, seven metres beneath Bloomberg's headquarters, and staged with light and sound.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/london-mithraeum.jpg?v=5840643d","thumb":"/img/london-mithraeum-480.jpg?v=6648991e","width":1024,"height":678,"alt":"London Mithraeum, Bloomberg\u2019s European headquarters, London","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Carole Raddato from Frankfurt, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_Mithraeum,_Bloomberg%E2%80%99s_European_headquarters,_London_(25502116578).jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":"museums/london-mithraeum","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Museums","href":"/museums/london-mithraeum/"},{"name":"Monuments & Ruins","href":"/monuments/london-mithraeum/"}],"maps_q":"London Mithraeum, 12 Walbrook, EC4N 8AA, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Mansion House","s":"mansion-house","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":106},{"n":"London Stone","s":"london-stone","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":124},{"n":"Crosstown Cannon Street","s":"crosstown-cannon-street","c":"desserts","cn":"Desserts & Gelato","m":144}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-stephen-walbrook","m":64},{"s":"st-mary-woolnoth","m":189},{"s":"st-mary-le-bow","m":250},{"s":"st-pauls-cathedral","m":559},{"s":"st-giles-without-cripplegate","m":735},{"s":"southwark-cathedral","m":779}]},{"slug":"sandys-row-synagogue","name":"Sandys Row Synagogue","area":"Spitalfields","address":"4a Sandys Row, E1 7HW","station":"London Liverpool Street","walk":3,"lat":51.518519,"lng":-0.07772,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://www.sandysrow.org.uk/","hours_short":"Open for services, and for tours the synagogue arranges and lists on its own site.","hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.sandysrow.org.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"node/4406285891","types":["synagogue"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in London still in use, inside a Huguenot chapel of 1766.","note":"Built as a French Protestant chapel and taken in 1867 by a congregation of Dutch Jewish immigrants who had been meeting in a room nearby since 1854. They moved the entrance to the other end so that the congregation would face east, which is why the door is on Sandys Row and the building appears to face the wrong way. It is the last of the dozens of small East End synagogues still holding regular services, and its cellars sheltered the street during the Blitz.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/sandys-row-synagogue.jpg?v=730a72f4","thumb":"/img/sandys-row-synagogue-480.jpg?v=c0c07ad0","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"Sandys Row Synagogue","caption":"","credit":"Photo by This picture has been taken by Oleg Yunakov . Contact e-mail: yunakov gmail.com . Image can be used in accordance with the terms of the \u0421\u0421-BY-SA license. Other photos can be seen here ., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandys_Row_Synagogue_-_01.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Sandys Row Synagogue, 4a Sandys Row, E1 7HW, London","in_area":{"slug":"spitalfields-brick-lane","name":"Spitalfields & Brick Lane"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Darlish Spitalfields","s":"darlish-spitalfields","c":"desserts","cn":"Desserts & Gelato","m":89},{"n":"% Arabica","s":"arabica-spitalfields","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":108},{"n":"Store Street Espresso","s":"store-street-espresso-broadgate","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":111}],"near_same":[{"s":"christ-church-spitalfields","m":284},{"s":"brick-lane-jamme-masjid","m":405},{"s":"bevis-marks-synagogue","m":455},{"s":"wesleys-chapel-museum-of-methodism-and-john-wesleys-house","m":844},{"s":"st-olave-hart-street","m":856},{"s":"st-mary-woolnoth","m":957}]},{"slug":"shri-sanatan-hindu-mandir","name":"Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir","area":"Alperton","address":"Ealing Road, Wembley, HA0 4TA","station":"Alperton","walk":4,"lat":51.543368,"lng":-0.298028,"hours":[[7.0,19.0],[7.0,19.0],[7.0,19.0],[7.0,19.0],[7.0,19.0],[7.0,19.0],[7.0,19.0]],"hours_raw":"Mo-Su 07:00-19:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://svnuk.com/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-08","hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://svnuk.com/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/27748245","types":["mosque"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"A temple of hand-carved Indian limestone on Ealing Road, fourteen years in the building, without a bar of steel in it, opened in 2010 and open to anyone.","note":"The charity Shri Vallabh Nidhi UK began it in 1996 and opened it in the summer of 2010, built to the rules of the Shilpa Shastras, the Hindu texts on sacred architecture, which allow copper, silver and gold in a temple but no iron or steel: every stone is load-bearing, yellow Jaisalmer limestone outside and pink Bansi Paharpur inside, all from Rajasthan, carved by hand in the town of Sola in Gujarat, shipped to Wembley and fitted together. It is 182 feet by 115 and 66 feet high, on two hundred and ten pillars, with two domes and three spires, and holds forty-one deities in eleven shrines and twenty-nine smaller sanctums, with Mother Teresa and Guru Nanak among the figures carved on its walls. Shoes come off at the door. Outside, Ealing Road is the sari shops, sweet shops and grocers of one of the largest Gujarati communities in Britain.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":null,"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir, Ealing Road, Wembley, HA0 4TA, London","bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Sudbury Town station","s":"sudbury-town-station","c":"architecture","cn":"Architecture","m":1473},{"n":"Hoover Building","s":"hoover-building","c":"architecture","cn":"Architecture","m":1835},{"n":"OVO Arena Wembley","s":"ovo-arena-wembley","c":"venues","cn":"Performance venues","m":1948}],"near_same":[{"s":"baps-shri-swaminarayan-mandir","m":2568},{"s":"st-lawrence-little-stanmore","m":7248},{"s":"gurdwara-sri-guru-singh-sabha-southall","m":7465},{"s":"london-central-mosque","m":9333},{"s":"brompton-oratory","m":10262},{"s":"fitzrovia-chapel","m":11378}]},{"slug":"southwark-cathedral","name":"Southwark Cathedral","area":"Borough Market","address":"London Bridge, SE1 9DA","station":"London Bridge","walk":1,"lat":51.50613,"lng":-0.08958,"hours":[[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[9.0,18.0],[8.5,17.0]],"hours_raw":"Mo-Sa 09:00-18:00; Su 08:30-17:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org/visiting/visitor-information/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-05","hours_extra":"Services restrict visiting: the cathedral suggests Saturday 09:30 to 15:45 and 16:30 to 17:00, Sunday 12:30 to 15:00 and 16:00 to 17:00.","runs":null,"website":"https://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/26183417","types":["church","free","medieval"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Shakespeare's parish church while he lived on Bankside, with his brother buried in it.","note":"The priory church of St Mary Overie was the parish church of the Bankside players. Edmund Shakespeare, the playwright's younger brother and an actor, was buried here in 1607, and the dramatists John Fletcher and Philip Massinger lie in one grave in the choir. In the south aisle an alabaster Shakespeare of 1912 reclines against a carved Bankside skyline under a window of scenes from the plays, and John Gower, Chaucer's friend and the poet of Confessio Amantis, has a painted tomb in the north aisle with his head resting on his three books.","note_links":null,"regular":[{"what":"Choral Evensong","when":"Most weekdays 17:30, Sundays 15:00","price":"Free","url":"https://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org/worship-and-music/music/choral-services/","note":"Sung by the cathedral choir or by a visiting choir; the month's singers and the music are posted in advance. Sunday also has a Choral Eucharist at 11:00."},{"what":"Lunchtime organ recital","when":"Mondays 13:20 to 13:50","price":"Free","url":"https://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org/whats-on/lunchtime-organ-recital/","note":"Half an hour on the 1897 Lewis organ, one of the least altered of its date in the country."},{"what":"Afternoon music recital","when":"Tuesdays 15:15 to 16:00","price":"Free","url":"https://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org/whats-on/"}],"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/southwark-cathedral.jpg?v=2c97d82a","thumb":"/img/southwark-cathedral-480.jpg?v=2ffb11bd","width":1024,"height":769,"alt":"A view of Southwark Cathedral from the northwest, with the Shard in the background","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Ethan Doyle White, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia 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11:00-16:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://st-alfege.org.uk/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-08","hours_extra":"Free lunchtime recitals on Thursdays and Saturdays at 13:05; closed Mondays except bank holidays.","runs":null,"website":"https://st-alfege.org.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/158230794","types":["church","hawksmoor","music"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Hawksmoor's first church, on the spot where the Danes killed an archbishop in 1012, with Thomas Tallis and General Wolfe in its ground and Henry VIII in its font.","note":"On 19 April 1012 the Danes who had sacked Canterbury and held Archbishop Alfege for ransom at their camp in Greenwich got drunk at a feast, pelted him with ox bones and finished him with an axe when the money did not come, and the church has stood on the spot of his death ever since: Henry VIII was baptised in it in 1491, Thomas Tallis, the composer of the Tudor chapel royal, was buried in it in 1585, and when the medieval building collapsed in a storm in 1710 the parish petitioned Parliament and got the first of the fifty new churches. Nicholas Hawksmoor built it between 1712 and 1714, his first church, a plain rectangle with a Doric portico facing the street and a tower at the wrong end, and inside a flat ceiling over a wide space of galleries and dark wood. General Wolfe, who took Quebec and died doing it in 1759, was brought home to the family vault here. 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Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love and Sherlock Holmes were all filmed inside.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/own-st-bartholomew-the-great.jpg?v=4da83fe2","thumb":"/img/own-st-bartholomew-the-great-480.jpg?v=510ddfdd","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"St Bartholomew the Great's chequered flint front and brick tower, modern City blocks rising behind","caption":"Flint and stone, hemmed in by the modern City."},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"St Bartholomew the Great, Cloth Fair, EC1A 7JQ, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"St Bartholomew's Gatehouse","s":"st-bartholomews-gatehouse","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":66},{"n":"Sir William Wallace Memorial","s":"sir-william-wallace-memorial","c":"politics","cn":"Power & Politics","m":95},{"n":"St Bartholomew's Hospital Museum","s":"st-bartholomews-hospital-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":149}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-giles-without-cripplegate","m":385},{"s":"st-etheldredas","m":553},{"s":"st-pauls-cathedral","m":571},{"s":"st-mary-le-bow","m":701},{"s":"st-brides-fleet-street","m":708},{"s":"london-mithraeum","m":943}]},{"slug":"st-brides-fleet-street","name":"St Bride's Fleet Street","area":"Fleet Street","address":"Fleet Street, EC4Y 8AU","station":"City Thameslink","walk":3,"lat":51.513776,"lng":-0.105504,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://www.stbrides.com/visit-us/","hours_short":"Open and free every day, in the church's own words.","hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":"https://www.stbrides.com/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/4076420","types":["church","crypt","wren"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The printers' and journalists' church, under the tiered spire that invented the wedding cake.","note":"Wren's tallest steeple, a stack of diminishing octagons that a baker on Ludgate Hill is said to have copied for a wedding cake in 1703, fixing the shape for good. 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The crypt, opened by bombing in 1940, holds Roman pavement and a medieval charnel house.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/st-brides-fleet-street.jpg?v=8da54ee4","thumb":"/img/st-brides-fleet-street-480.jpg?v=5ae620bd","width":771,"height":1024,"alt":"St Bride's tiered spire above the roofs off Fleet Street","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Andy Li, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Bride%27s_Church,_Fleet_Street_2025-01-07.jpg","thumb_width":361},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"St Bride's Fleet Street, Fleet Street, EC4Y 8AU, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"St Bride Foundation","s":"st-bride-foundation","c":"literary","cn":"Literary London","m":53},{"n":"Daily Express Building","s":"daily-express-building","c":"architecture","cn":"Architecture","m":73},{"n":"Rosslyn Coffee","s":"rosslyn-ludgate-circus","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":83}],"near_same":[{"s":"temple-church","m":334},{"s":"st-pauls-cathedral","m":489},{"s":"st-etheldredas","m":556},{"s":"st-bartholomew-the-great","m":708},{"s":"st-mary-le-bow","m":827},{"s":"st-giles-without-cripplegate","m":973}]},{"slug":"st-etheldredas","name":"St Etheldreda's","area":"Holborn","address":"14 Ely Place, EC1N 6RY","station":"Farringdon","walk":3,"lat":51.518643,"lng":-0.1074,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":null,"hours_checked":null,"hours_extra":"Open daily; Mass times are on the church's site.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.stetheldreda.co.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/98820374","types":["church","crypt","medieval"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The chapel of the medieval Bishops of Ely, built in the 1280s, and the oldest Catholic church in England still in use.","note":"Ely Place is a private road with its own gates and beadle because it was once the Bishop of Ely's London estate, and this was the bishops' chapel, built around 1284 for John Kirkby, treasurer to Edward I. 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Lions and unicorns fight around its base. Hogarth put the steeple in the background of Gin Lane.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/st-georges-bloomsbury.jpg?v=f1724385","thumb":"/img/st-georges-bloomsbury-480.jpg?v=d63ca501","width":1019,"height":1024,"alt":"The 6th and final church on our Hawksmoor crawl. There's a rather odd stitching artefact in the bottom right, where one of the columns appears to drop in front of the ticket machine - some M. C. 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Oliver Cromwell was married at the altar in 1620, John Foxe of the Book of Martyrs is buried here, and Lancelot Andrewes, who oversaw the King James Bible, was the vicar. Bombed out in 1940 and restored inside the Barbican's concrete, it keeps a stretch of the Roman and medieval city wall beside it and its bells ring out over the lake.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/st-giles-without-cripplegate.jpg?v=260df475","thumb":"/img/st-giles-without-cripplegate-480.jpg?v=62af44b9","width":683,"height":1024,"alt":"St Giles-without-Cripplegate, the medieval church standing among the Barbican towers","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Beko, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Giles%27_Church-without-Cripplegate_Barbican_London.jpg","thumb_width":320},"figures":null,"from":"literary/st-giles-without-cripplegate","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Literary London","href":"/literary/st-giles-without-cripplegate/"}],"maps_q":"St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Fore Street, EC2Y 8DA, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Barbican bastions","s":"barbican-bastions","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":53},{"n":"Lakeside Terrace","s":"lakeside-terrace","c":"beautiful-streets","cn":"Beautiful Streets","m":97},{"n":"London Wall at St Alphage","s":"london-wall-at-st-alphage","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":122}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-bartholomew-the-great","m":385},{"s":"st-mary-le-bow","m":549},{"s":"st-pauls-cathedral","m":630},{"s":"st-stephen-walbrook","m":729},{"s":"london-mithraeum","m":735},{"s":"wesleys-chapel-museum-of-methodism-and-john-wesleys-house","m":754}]},{"slug":"st-jamess-piccadilly","name":"St James's Piccadilly","area":"St James's","address":"197 Piccadilly, W1J 9LL","station":"Piccadilly Circus","walk":2,"lat":51.50866,"lng":-0.13664,"hours":[[10.0,16.5],[10.0,18.0],[10.0,18.0],[10.0,18.0],[10.0,18.0],[10.0,16.5],[10.0,17.5]],"hours_raw":"Mo 10:00-16:30; Tu-Fr 10:00-18:00; Sa 10:00-16:30; Su 10:00-17:30","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://www.sjp.org.uk/visit-us/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-06","hours_extra":"Sunday Eucharist at 11:00. 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church, squat and strange on Lombard Street, with Bank station dug out beneath it and a slave captain's pulpit inside.","note":"Nicholas Hawksmoor built six churches under the Act of 1711 that paid for fifty, and this, finished in 1727 on a site where a church had stood since before 1191, is the only one in the City: a square block with a front of banded rusticated stone, two squat turrets instead of a spire, and inside a single room lit from above, with twelve Corinthian columns in threes at the corners holding up a clerestory of semicircular windows. John Newton was rector here from 1780, the former slave-ship captain who had written Amazing Grace and who spent his last years preaching against the trade and steering William Wilberforce, and his memorial gives his own summary of his life. In 1900 the City and South London Railway bought the crypt for Bank station, dug out the dead and put the lifts under the church, which is why the building stands on the Underground rather than on the ground. T.S. Eliot, who worked in a bank round the corner, put its clock in The Waste Land, keeping the hours with a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/st-mary-woolnoth.jpg?v=b418ad14","thumb":"/img/st-mary-woolnoth-480.jpg?v=3a82dfd6","width":711,"height":1024,"alt":"A photograph of St Mary Woolnoth.","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Amanda Slater from Coventry, West Midlands, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Mary,_Woolnoth_(36640083551).jpg","thumb_width":333},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, EC3V 9AN, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Mansion House","s":"mansion-house","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":103},{"n":"Royal Exchange","s":"royal-exchange","c":"architecture","cn":"Architecture","m":114},{"n":"Fortnum & Mason Royal Exchange","s":"fortnum-mason-royal-exchange","c":"classic-british-shops","cn":"Classic British Shops","m":127}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-stephen-walbrook","m":126},{"s":"london-mithraeum","m":189},{"s":"st-mary-le-bow","m":398},{"s":"st-olave-hart-street","m":626},{"s":"bevis-marks-synagogue","m":656},{"s":"all-hallows-by-the-tower-crypt-museum","m":703}]},{"slug":"st-mary-le-bow","name":"St Mary-le-Bow","area":"Cheapside","address":"Cheapside, EC2V 6AU","station":"Mansion House","walk":3,"lat":51.513748,"lng":-0.093546,"hours":[[7.5,18.0],[7.5,18.0],[7.5,18.0],[7.5,18.0],[7.5,18.0],null,null],"hours_raw":"Mo-Fr 07:30-18:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://stmarylebow.org.uk/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-06","hours_extra":"Weekends informally; the church asks visitors to email first.","runs":null,"website":"https://stmarylebow.org.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/90244113","types":["church","crypt","wren"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The church of the Bow Bells, within whose sound a true Cockney is born.","note":"Wren rebuilt it in 1673 and thought the steeple among his best. To be born a Cockney is to be born within the sound of its bells, which rang until the Blitz brought them down and were recast afterwards. Underneath is the Norman crypt of stone arches - the bows the church is named for - which is a caf\u00e9 now, and outside stands Captain John Smith of Virginia, a parishioner.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/own-st-mary-le-bow.jpg?v=b937f7a8","thumb":"/img/own-st-mary-le-bow-480.jpg?v=f03f767c","width":768,"height":1024,"thumb_width":360,"alt":"St Mary-le-Bow's Wren steeple rising over the trees on Cheapside","caption":"Wren's steeple on Cheapside, where the Bow Bells hang."},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, EC2V 6AU, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Rosslyn Coffee","s":"rosslyn-cheapside","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":34},{"n":"Bow Lane","s":"bow-lane","c":"beautiful-streets","cn":"Beautiful Streets","m":63},{"n":"Merchant House","s":"merchant-house","c":"cocktails","cn":"Cocktails","m":66}],"near_same":[{"s":"london-mithraeum","m":250},{"s":"st-stephen-walbrook","m":286},{"s":"st-pauls-cathedral","m":338},{"s":"st-mary-woolnoth","m":398},{"s":"st-giles-without-cripplegate","m":549},{"s":"st-bartholomew-the-great","m":701}]},{"slug":"st-olave-hart-street","name":"St Olave Hart Street","area":"Tower Hill","address":"8 Hart Street, EC3R 7NB","station":"London Fenchurch Street","walk":2,"lat":51.510898,"lng":-0.079471,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":null,"hours_short":"Weekdays","hours_checked":"2026-09-05","hours_extra":null,"runs":null,"website":null,"instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/142196708","types":["church","free","medieval"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Pepys's own church, where he and his wife are buried and where he watched the plague fill the churchyard.","note":"Samuel Pepys lived in Seething Lane beside the Navy Office, and St Olave's was 'our own church', where he sat in the Navy gallery and eyed the congregation; Elizabeth Pepys, who died at twenty-nine in 1669, has a bust he commissioned looking towards where he sat, and he was buried beside her in 1703. The churchyard gate of 1658 with its skulls made Dickens call it St Ghastly Grim in The Uncommercial Traveller, and hundreds of plague victims of 1665 are buried here, which the diary records with dread. The church survived the Great Fire by yards, and Pepys has a bust in the garden on Seething Lane.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/st-olave-hart-street.jpg?v=c52d7aeb","thumb":"/img/st-olave-hart-street-480.jpg?v=ea265bf4","width":1024,"height":809,"alt":"St Olave Church, Hart Street, London","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Lonpicman, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Olave_Church.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":"literary/st-olave-hart-street","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Literary London","href":"/literary/st-olave-hart-street/"}],"maps_q":"St Olave Hart Street, 8 Hart Street, EC3R 7NB, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"All Hallows Staining","s":"all-hallows-staining","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":90},{"n":"Rosslyn Coffee","s":"rosslyn-fenchurch-street","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":131},{"n":"The Garden at 120","s":"the-garden-at-120","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":178}],"near_same":[{"s":"all-hallows-by-the-tower-crypt-museum","m":166},{"s":"bevis-marks-synagogue","m":401},{"s":"st-mary-woolnoth","m":626},{"s":"st-stephen-walbrook","m":741},{"s":"london-mithraeum","m":792},{"s":"sandys-row-synagogue","m":856}]},{"slug":"st-pancras-old-church","name":"St Pancras Old Church","area":"Somers Town","address":"Pancras Road, NW1 1UL","station":"London St. Pancras International","walk":4,"lat":51.534945,"lng":-0.130156,"hours":[[9.5,15.0],[9.5,15.0],[9.5,15.0],[9.5,15.0],[9.5,15.0],[9.5,15.0],[9.5,15.0]],"hours_raw":"Mo-Su 09:30-15:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://stpancrasoldchurch.posp.co.uk/worship/opening-times/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-05","hours_extra":"Closes between 15:00 and 17:00 depending on concerts; the churchyard is open until dusk.","runs":null,"website":"https://posp.co.uk/st-pancras-old-church/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/26638075","types":["church","free","medieval"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Mary Wollstonecraft's grave, where her daughter met Shelley, in the churchyard of the Hardy Tree.","note":"One of the oldest Christian sites in England, and the churchyard is where the sixteen-year-old Mary Godwin met Percy Shelley in 1814 at the tomb of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft; the future author of Frankenstein is said to have learned to read by tracing the letters on the stone. The Wollstonecraft tomb still stands, though the bodies were moved to Bournemouth in 1851. In the 1860s the young Thomas Hardy, then an architect's assistant, oversaw the clearing of graves for the railway and had the headstones stacked around an ash tree that grew through them; the Hardy Tree fell in 2022 but the stones remain. Sir John Soane's tomb, which gave Giles Gilbert Scott the shape of the red telephone box, is here as well.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/st-pancras-old-church.jpg?v=0fb9f03f","thumb":"/img/st-pancras-old-church-480.jpg?v=60bffd46","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"St Pancras Old Church among the plane trees of its churchyard","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Elliott Brown from Birmingham, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Pancras_Old_Church_-_Pancras_Road,_St_Pancras,_London_(31352873461).jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":"literary/st-pancras-old-church","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Literary London","href":"/literary/st-pancras-old-church/"}],"maps_q":"St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, NW1 1UL, London","in_area":{"slug":"kings-cross-st-pancras","name":"King's Cross & St Pancras"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Camley Street Natural Park","s":"camley-street-natural-park","c":"outdoors","cn":"Outdoors & Nature","m":187},{"n":"Gasholder Park","s":"gasholder-park","c":"science","cn":"Science & Engineering","m":268},{"n":"Coal Drops Yard","s":"coal-drops-yard","c":"shopping","cn":"Shopping","m":275}],"near_same":[{"s":"fitzrovia-chapel","m":1863},{"s":"st-georges-bloomsbury","m":1952},{"s":"st-etheldredas","m":2400},{"s":"london-central-mosque","m":2504},{"s":"st-pauls-covent-garden","m":2639},{"s":"temple-church","m":2776}]},{"slug":"st-pauls-cathedral","name":"St Paul's Cathedral","area":"St Paul's","address":"St Paul's Churchyard, EC4M 8AD","station":"St. Paul's","walk":2,"lat":51.513785,"lng":-0.098436,"hours":[[8.5,16.5],[8.5,16.5],[8.5,16.5],[8.5,16.5],[8.5,16.5],[8.5,16.5],null],"hours_raw":"Mo-Sa 08:30-16:30","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://www.stpauls.co.uk/visit-us","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-05","hours_extra":"Last entry 16:00, \u00a327; the dome galleries from 09:30. Sundays for worship, which is free.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.stpauls.co.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/369161987","types":["church","music","wren"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Wren's dome, and the whole of the City arranged around it for three hundred years.","note":"The fifth cathedral on the site, and the one Wren spent thirty-five years building after the Great Fire; it was finished in 1711. The dome is really three domes. There is an inner one, shallow enough to look right from the floor; a brick cone hidden inside it, which carries the weight of the stone lantern on top; and the outer one in lead, the shape that shows above the rooftops from half of London and that planning law protects by keeping certain views of it clear. The Whispering Gallery runs round the inside of it, and the crypt holds Nelson, Wellington and Wren himself, under an inscription that tells the reader to look around for his monument.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/st-pauls-wedding-1981.jpg?v=75db87f2","thumb":"/img/st-pauls-wedding-1981-480.jpg?v=09bb1dd5","width":1024,"height":1563,"credit":"Photo by the White House Photographic Office, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prince_Charles_and_Princess_Diana_and_crowd_outside_of_St._Paul%27s_Cathedral_during_the_Royal_Wedding_-_DPLA_-_7ba7daccb514108a0ef232b0175243b9.jpg","alt":"Charles and Diana coming down the steps of St Paul's after the wedding, her train spread out behind her, the open carriage waiting below","caption":"Coming down the steps, 29 July 1981."},"figures":[{"src":"/img/own-st-pauls-cathedral-2.jpg?v=c6fa1ff7","thumb":"/img/own-st-pauls-cathedral-2-480.jpg?v=6d0d8b2f","width":768,"height":1024,"thumb_width":360,"alt":"St Paul's dome floodlit at night above wet paving and a lit street lamp","caption":"The dome at night, after rain."}],"from":"royal/st-pauls-cathedral","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"soul-and-the-point-of-unity-at-st-pauls","name":"Soul and The Point of Unity at St Paul's","href":"/royal/st-pauls-cathedral/soul-and-the-point-of-unity-at-st-pauls/","verdict":"Two light works by Mykola Kabluka for the London Design Festival: a participatory projection across the west front, and a mirrored canopy in the churchyard that lights up at night.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-11","to":"2026-09-21"},"types":["art","exhibition","festival","free"],"clue":["Exhibition","Art & design"]},{"slug":"celebrity-organ-recital-george-inscoe-on-cesar-franck","name":"Celebrity Organ Recital: George Inscoe on Cesar Franck","href":"/venues/st-pauls-cathedral/celebrity-organ-recital-george-inscoe-on-cesar-franck/","verdict":"Franck on the cathedral organ, under the dome, at half six.","runs":{"from":"2026-10-08","to":"2026-10-08"},"types":["concert","music","classical"],"clue":["Concert","Classical"]}],"also_in":[{"name":"Performance venues","href":"/venues/st-pauls-cathedral/"},{"name":"Royal London","href":"/royal/st-pauls-cathedral/"}],"maps_q":"St Paul's Cathedral, St Paul's Churchyard, EC4M 8AD, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Temple Bar","s":"temple-bar","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":91},{"n":"Shepherd and Sheep","s":"shepherd-and-sheep","c":"art","cn":"Art","m":101},{"n":"Paternoster Square","s":"paternoster-square","c":"beautiful-streets","cn":"Beautiful Streets","m":104}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-mary-le-bow","m":338},{"s":"st-brides-fleet-street","m":489},{"s":"london-mithraeum","m":559},{"s":"st-bartholomew-the-great","m":571},{"s":"st-stephen-walbrook","m":609},{"s":"st-giles-without-cripplegate","m":630}]},{"slug":"st-pauls-covent-garden","name":"St Paul's Covent Garden","area":"Covent Garden","address":"Bedford Street, WC2E 9ED","station":"Covent Garden","walk":2,"lat":51.511547,"lng":-0.123689,"hours":[[9.0,17.5],[9.0,17.5],[9.0,17.5],[9.0,17.5],[9.0,17.5],null,null],"hours_raw":"Mo-Fr 09:00-17:30","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://www.actorschurch.org/visit/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-06","hours_extra":"Weekdays only, and the church says it is sometimes closed for weddings, memorials and its summer theatre season \u2014 worth ringing ahead for a special visit. Services Wednesday 13:10 and Sunday 11:00.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.actorschurch.org/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/173544229","types":["church"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Inigo Jones's barn of a church, and the actors' church since the theatres arrived.","note":"The Earl of Bedford asked for something plain and cheap \u2014 not much better than a barn, he is supposed to have said \u2014 and Jones answered that he should have the handsomest barn in England. It went up in 1633 as the first wholly classical church in the country and the first new Anglican church since the Reformation. The great Tuscan portico facing the piazza is a false front: the altar is behind it, so the real door is round the other side in the churchyard. 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In 1987 a round altar of Travertine marble by Henry Moore was placed beneath it, which took a court case to allow. The Samaritans were founded in the church in 1953 by its rector, Chad Varah.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/st-stephen-walbrook.jpg?v=46c237f0","thumb":"/img/st-stephen-walbrook-480.jpg?v=833c863b","width":1024,"height":768,"alt":"The round stone altar under Wren's dome inside St Stephen Walbrook","caption":"","credit":"Photo by amandabhslater, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2025-09-02_-_St_Stephen,_Walbrook_-_05.jpg","thumb_width":480},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"maps_q":"St Stephen Walbrook, 39 Walbrook, EC4N 8BN, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Mansion House","s":"mansion-house","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":46},{"n":"London Stone","s":"london-stone","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":121},{"n":"Crosstown Cannon Street","s":"crosstown-cannon-street","c":"desserts","cn":"Desserts & Gelato","m":129}],"near_same":[{"s":"london-mithraeum","m":64},{"s":"st-mary-woolnoth","m":126},{"s":"st-mary-le-bow","m":286},{"s":"st-pauls-cathedral","m":609},{"s":"st-giles-without-cripplegate","m":729},{"s":"st-olave-hart-street","m":741}]},{"slug":"temple-church","name":"Temple Church","area":"Temple","address":"Temple, EC4Y 7BB","station":"Temple","walk":5,"lat":51.513259,"lng":-0.110263,"hours":[[10.0,16.0],[10.0,16.0],[10.0,16.0],[10.0,16.0],[10.0,16.0],null,null],"hours_raw":"Mo-Fr 10:00-16:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://www.templechurch.com/contact-and-find-us/opening-times-and-charges","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-06","hours_extra":"\u00a35, \u00a33 concessions, free for children. Closed at weekends except for services.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.templechurch.com/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/128454313","types":["church","medieval","music"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"The Knights Templar's round church of 1185, with stone knights lying on the floor of it.","note":"Consecrated in 1185 and built round in imitation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as the English headquarters of the Knights Templar; the long Gothic chancel was added in 1240 for royal burials. Nine effigies of knights lie in the round nave. The church was gutted by fire-bombing in 1941 and rebuilt, and it serves the two Inns of Court around it, with one of the finest choirs in London.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/temple-church.jpg?v=365ec728","thumb":"/img/temple-church-480.jpg?v=f15f7b51","width":682,"height":1024,"alt":"Inside Temple Church: Purbeck marble columns and a vaulted roof above the pews","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Tilman2007, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temple_Church_City_of_London_1064646_20230821_0046.jpg","thumb_width":320},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"finzi-anniversary-gala","name":"Finzi Anniversary Gala","href":"/venues/temple-church/finzi-anniversary-gala/","verdict":"Two concerts in a day for Gerald Finzi, matinee and evening.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-27","to":"2026-09-27"},"types":["concert","music","classical"],"clue":["Concert","Classical"]},{"slug":"purcells-dido-and-aeneas-at-temple-church","name":"Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at Temple Church","href":"/venues/temple-church/purcells-dido-and-aeneas-at-temple-church/","verdict":"Dido's Lament in a round twelfth-century church built by the Knights Templar.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-29","to":"2026-09-29"},"types":["concert","music","opera"],"clue":["Opera","Opera"]}],"also_in":[{"name":"Performance venues","href":"/venues/temple-church/"}],"maps_q":"Temple Church, Temple, EC4Y 7BB, London","in_area":{"slug":"the-city","name":"The City"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Inner Temple","s":"inner-temple","c":"politics","cn":"Power & Politics","m":49},{"n":"Middle Temple","s":"middle-temple-hall","c":"politics","cn":"Power & Politics","m":128},{"n":"Twinings","s":"twinings","c":"shopping","cn":"Shopping","m":178}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-brides-fleet-street","m":334},{"s":"st-etheldredas","m":630},{"s":"st-pauls-cathedral","m":820},{"s":"st-pauls-covent-garden","m":948},{"s":"st-bartholomew-the-great","m":978},{"s":"st-georges-bloomsbury","m":1116}]},{"slug":"wesleys-chapel-museum-of-methodism-and-john-wesleys-house","name":"Wesley's Chapel, Museum of Methodism and John Wesley's House","area":"Finsbury","address":"49 City Road, EC1Y 1AU","station":"Old Street","walk":3,"lat":51.523745,"lng":-0.086575,"hours":[null,[10.5,16.0],[10.5,16.0],[10.5,16.0],[10.5,16.0],[10.5,16.0],null],"hours_raw":"Tu-Sa 10:30-16:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://wesleysheritage.org.uk/visiting-us/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-06","hours_extra":"Closed to visitors on Sundays and Mondays. The chapel holds Sunday worship; the times are on its own site rather than here.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.wesleyschapel.org.uk/","instagram":"wesleyschapel.lm","attrs":[],"osm":"way/157892853","types":["church"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Where John Wesley lived, preached and died, with the museum of the movement he began in the crypt.","note":"John Wesley was a Church of England priest who spent fifty years riding the country to preach to people the parish system was not reaching: miners, weavers and the poor of the new industrial towns. At Oxford he and his brother Charles had belonged to a small group whose strict timetable of study, prayer and prison visiting got them mocked as Methodists, and the nickname stuck to the movement that grew out of his preaching. He rode perhaps a quarter of a million miles and preached more than forty thousand sermons; Charles wrote the hymns, several thousand of them. Wesley never intended to leave the Church of England, and Methodism only became a separate church after his death.\n\nHe built this chapel in 1778, the first the Methodists put up in London for the purpose, and lived in the house beside it from 1779 until he died there in 1791. The house is kept as he had it, down to his study and the electrical machine he used to treat melancholy \u2014 he thought electricity the great unexploited medicine of the age and wrote a book arguing for it. He is buried behind the chapel and his mother Susanna lies across the road in Bunhill Fields. Margaret Thatcher was married in the chapel in 1951.\n\nThe Museum of Methodism is in the crypt, with a collection of some fifteen thousand objects, Wesley's teapot among them. Chapel, house and museum are all free.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/own-wesleys-chapel.jpg?v=5f5505e9","thumb":"/img/own-wesleys-chapel-480.jpg?v=ef7d0189","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"John Wesley's statue on the cobbled forecourt in front of his chapel on City Road","caption":"Wesley in his own courtyard."},"figures":[{"src":"/img/own-wesleys-chapel-2.jpg?v=e0e1c4a0","thumb":"/img/own-wesleys-chapel-2-480.jpg?v=fb7a1f75","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"Wesley's Chapel's brick front, a portico between round-headed windows","caption":"The chapel front, of 1778."}],"from":"museums/wesleys-chapel-museum-of-methodism-and-john-wesleys-house","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"also_in":[{"name":"Museums","href":"/museums/wesleys-chapel-museum-of-methodism-and-john-wesleys-house/"}],"maps_q":"Wesley's Chapel, Museum of Methodism and John Wesley's House, 49 City Road, EC1Y 1AU, London","in_area":{"slug":"shoreditch-old-street","name":"Shoreditch & Old Street"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Lantana Shoreditch","s":"lantana-shoreditch","c":"breakfast","cn":"Breakfast & Brunch","m":83},{"n":"Ozone Coffee Roasters","s":"ozone-leonard","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":107},{"n":"Honourable Artillery Company Museum","s":"honourable-artillery-company-museum","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":149}],"near_same":[{"s":"st-giles-without-cripplegate","m":754},{"s":"sandys-row-synagogue","m":844},{"s":"christ-church-spitalfields","m":1028},{"s":"st-bartholomew-the-great","m":1039},{"s":"brick-lane-jamme-masjid","m":1112},{"s":"bevis-marks-synagogue","m":1156}]},{"slug":"westminster-abbey","name":"Westminster Abbey","area":"Westminster","address":"20 Dean's Yard, SW1P 3PA","station":"Westminster","walk":3,"lat":51.499401,"lng":-0.127391,"hours":null,"hours_raw":null,"hours_source":null,"hours_url":"https://www.westminster-abbey.org/visit-us/opening-times","hours_short":"Monday to Saturday from 09:00 or 09:30; last entry varies by day, \u00a331","hours_checked":"2026-09-05","hours_extra":"Free for services, including evensong most days.","runs":null,"website":"https://www.westminster-abbey.org/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/364313092","types":["church","medieval","music"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"Where every English coronation since 1066 has happened, and where much of the country is buried.","note":"Henry III began the present church in 1245 in the French Gothic manner, on the site of Edward the Confessor's abbey, and it has crowned every monarch since William I. Behind the high altar is the Confessor's shrine, and around it the tombs of kings; the Lady Chapel Henry VII added has a fan vault that seems to hang rather than rest. Poets' Corner started with Chaucer, who was buried here because he lived nearby.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/own-westminster-abbey.jpg?v=58507ac6","thumb":"/img/own-westminster-abbey-480.jpg?v=b58d218d","width":768,"height":1024,"thumb_width":360,"alt":"One of Westminster Abbey's west towers in low sun, seen from the lane below","caption":"A west tower in the last of the sun."},"figures":[{"src":"/img/own-westminster-abbey-2.jpg?v=9f2f7e93","thumb":"/img/own-westminster-abbey-2-480.jpg?v=f4839108","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"The Abbey's pinnacles at night above lit street lamps and bare trees","caption":"The roofline at night."},{"src":"/img/own-westminster-abbey-3.jpg?v=b7af1268","thumb":"/img/own-westminster-abbey-3-480.jpg?v=00322be5","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"The Abbey gardens, a brick range in front and the transept's rose window behind","caption":"The gardens, with the rose window over the roofs."},{"src":"/img/own-westminster-abbey-4.jpg?v=c0e7f619","thumb":"/img/own-westminster-abbey-4-480.jpg?v=28d67876","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"The abbey's north front at dusk: a great rose window above three deep pointed porches crowded with carved figures, pinnacled turrets either side, and plane trees in leaf overhanging the view.","caption":"The north door of Westminster Abbey."},{"src":"/img/own-westminster-abbey-5.jpg?v=8253e0fc","thumb":"/img/own-westminster-abbey-5-480.jpg?v=38d05a3f","width":1024,"height":768,"thumb_width":480,"alt":"The fan vault of the Lady Chapel from below: carved stone fanning out into hanging pendants across the whole ceiling, rows of heraldic banners in green, blue, red and gold along both sides above the stalls, and tall stained glass at the east end.","caption":"The Lady Chapel with its intricate fan vaulted ceiling."}],"from":"royal/westminster-abbey","country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"free-sunday-organ-recitals","name":"Free Sunday organ recitals","href":"/venues/westminster-abbey/free-sunday-organ-recitals/","verdict":"Half an hour on the Abbey organ at five on a Sunday, free, no ticket.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-13","to":"2026-11-08"},"types":["concert","free","music","classical"],"clue":["Concert","Classical"]}],"also_in":[{"name":"Performance venues","href":"/venues/westminster-abbey/"},{"name":"Royal London","href":"/royal/westminster-abbey/"},{"name":"Power & Politics","href":"/politics/westminster-abbey/"}],"maps_q":"Westminster Abbey, 20 Dean's Yard, SW1P 3PA, London","in_area":{"slug":"westminster","name":"Westminster"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Jewel Tower","s":"jewel-tower","c":"museums","cn":"Museums","m":122},{"n":"Supreme Court of the United Kingdom","s":"supreme-court-of-the-united-kingdom","c":"politics","cn":"Power & Politics","m":122},{"n":"Millicent Fawcett statue","s":"millicent-fawcett-statue","c":"monuments","cn":"Monuments & Ruins","m":141}],"near_same":[{"s":"westminster-cathedral","m":929},{"s":"st-martin-in-the-fields","m":1049},{"s":"st-jamess-piccadilly","m":1212},{"s":"st-pauls-covent-garden","m":1374},{"s":"temple-church","m":1944},{"s":"st-georges-bloomsbury","m":2044}]},{"slug":"westminster-cathedral","name":"Westminster Cathedral","area":"Victoria","address":"42 Francis Street, SW1P 1QW","station":"Victoria","walk":3,"lat":51.49582,"lng":-0.139519,"hours":[[7.5,19.0],[7.5,19.0],[7.5,19.0],[7.5,19.0],[7.5,19.0],[7.5,19.0],[7.5,19.0]],"hours_raw":"Mo-Su 07:30-19:00","hours_source":"web","hours_url":"https://westminstercathedral.org.uk/the-cathedral/plan-your-visit/","hours_short":null,"hours_checked":"2026-09-06","hours_extra":"The campanile has a lift to a viewing gallery, charged separately.","runs":null,"website":"https://westminstercathedral.org.uk/","instagram":null,"attrs":[],"osm":"way/10810446","types":["cathedral","church","music"],"deep":null,"scope":null,"scope_icon":null,"route":null,"venue_group":null,"geo":null,"geo_zone":null,"verdict":"England's Catholic cathedral, in striped brick and Byzantine domes, with a lift up the campanile.","note":"J. F. Bentley's cathedral of 1903, in red brick and Portland stone, built in a Byzantine manner chosen so that it could never be compared with the Abbey down the road. The lower walls are a hundred kinds of marble and the mosaics have been added a chapel at a time for over a century, while the vaults above them are still bare brick - unfinished on purpose, and the more powerful for it. Eric Gill carved the Stations of the Cross.","note_links":null,"reading":null,"figure":{"src":"/img/westminster-cathedral.jpg?v=ac9d9d03","thumb":"/img/westminster-cathedral-480.jpg?v=0cfc1413","width":889,"height":1024,"alt":"A photograph of Westminster Cathedral.","caption":"","credit":"Photo by Frank Kovalchek, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons","credit_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Westminster_Cathedral_London,_4th_May_2024_-_53708806889.jpg","thumb_width":417},"figures":null,"from":null,"country":null,"country_name":null,"also":null,"years":null,"plaque":null,"whats_on":[{"slug":"free-lunchtime-organ-recitals","name":"Free lunchtime organ recitals","href":"/venues/westminster-cathedral/free-lunchtime-organ-recitals/","verdict":"Thirty minutes on the Willis grand organ at quarter past one, free, every Wednesday in term.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-16","to":"2026-11-04"},"types":["concert","free","music","classical"],"clue":["Concert","Classical"]},{"slug":"grand-organ-festival","name":"Grand Organ Festival","href":"/venues/westminster-cathedral/grand-organ-festival/","verdict":"Four Wednesday evenings on the Willis organ, ending on a Michael Berkeley premiere.","runs":{"from":"2026-09-16","to":"2026-09-30"},"types":["concert","music","classical"],"clue":["Concert","Classical"]}],"also_in":[{"name":"Performance venues","href":"/venues/westminster-cathedral/"}],"maps_q":"Westminster Cathedral, 42 Francis Street, SW1P 1QW, London","in_area":{"slug":"westminster","name":"Westminster"},"bank":1,"near_all":[{"n":"Luminiscence","s":"luminiscence","c":"whats-on","cn":"What\u2019s On","m":6},{"n":"Coffee Geek and Friends","s":"coffee-geek-and-friends","c":"coffee","cn":"Coffee","m":249},{"n":"Joseph Conrad","s":"joseph-conrad","c":"world","cn":"The World in London","m":252}],"near_same":[{"s":"westminster-abbey","m":929},{"s":"st-jamess-piccadilly","m":1441},{"s":"st-martin-in-the-fields","m":1698},{"s":"st-pauls-covent-garden","m":2063},{"s":"brompton-oratory","m":2090},{"s":"fitzrovia-chapel","m":2575}]}]}