Off the tourist track Print E-mail
Written by Anne Gregg, 2004   
London is so vast and contains such a diversity of sights and treasures that it is often difficult for visitors to know where to begin. Anne Gregg offers some of her personal favourites for when you tire of the crowds.
Half-seven on a Sunday morning and I'm up, dressed and waiting for my friend's buzz at the doorbell of my Pimlico flat. "Why am I doing this?" I ask myself, looking back longingly at my bed as I shove bad hair under a baseball cap. The answer is Columbia Road - the best plant and flower market in London, and unless you get there soon after 8.00am you risk missing the bargains.

All I want are pots of herbs and fresh flowers, but the lure of this street goes beyond its greenery. Columbia Road, Bethnal Green, is Eastenders in bloom. I go as much for the camaraderie as the camellias, as much for the doughnuts and bagels as for the herbaceous plants ("Three-fifty each, love, two for six quid!").

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Columbia Road flower market
 Tempting offshoots include bric-a-brac, terracotta and garden accessory shops that have been grafted on to the market itself. It's the kind of offbeat place I prefer to take friends when they come to London. The obvious attractions - like the Eye, the Abbey, the Tower or the two Tate galleries - they can do themselves. So be my guest, come with me and enjoy the London I like.

Small is beautiful

Museums? My favourite is one of the smallest: No 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields. Once the home of Sir John Soane, architect of the Bank of England, it's a house of mirrors. One room alone has more than 100 of them set into the panels of the sideboards, cat's eyes on the fireplace and round ones on the ceiling corners.

Upstairs in an amazing folding library of artworks, you can view the entire series of Hogarth's Rake's Progress as well as Sir John's own model of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. The gallery studio where he used to teach his students has such an array of busts, torsos, Roman columns and fragments of antique plasterwork it makes me want to sit down with a sketch pad and start drawing acanthus leaves.

I love Lincoln's Inn Fields' dappled lawns and venerable Inns of Court, eyrie of London's legal eagles. I especially love the lawyer's chapel, the Temple Church, built at the time of the Crusades by the Knights Templar. After the Great Fire the nave had to be rebuilt and it was restored again after the Blitz, but the round church has survived since the 12th century. Here the recumbent effigies of the knights' patrons rest in remarkable peace considering they're only a step away from Kingsway and the Aldwych.

The juxtaposition of old and new in the capital is often exciting: Butler's Wharf, for instance, where redundant warehouses have been Conran-ed back to life as stylish apartments, shops and restaurants. Even if one can't afford to dine at Le Pont de la Tour it's worth doing the river walk for the floodlit spectacle of Tower Bridge opening and closing.

Along to Southwark and The Globe, the reconstruction of Shakespeare's wooden theatre in the round that was American actor Sam Wanamaker's lifetime obsession. Sadly he died before a Lottery grant helped complete it. Seeing something by The Bard here on a summer evening under an open sky is quite an experience (season runs from April to October).

Over to the city and the impressive Lloyds building on Lime Street, designed by Richard Rogers, and now dwarfed by countless new skyscrapers and the weirdly attractive Swiss Re building (aka The Gherkin).

You need to be a group to visit this glittering monument to Mammon (so perhaps this is something to do with other members of your WI?). Soaring upwards in its vertigo-inducing glass lift is something I would avoid just before or after eating - but I know the perfect place for lunch later. Just behind Lloyds is Leadenhall Market, which Dick Whittington - who really was thrice Lord Mayor - gave to the City of London.

It was recreated in Victorian times by the Tower Bridge designer Sir Horace Jones. He really went to town on the wrought-iron detail, which, after all those girders, is surprisingly frivolous. Actually, Leadenhall is more of a mall than a market, rather like the pretty glass-covered galleries you see in mainland Europe. The mix of fashion and classy food shops is compulsive.

Ah, yes, food. At the nearby Lamb Tavern they make the best roast beef sandwiches in town. Only you have to be swift to grab a seat before the Lloyds-types pour in.
Green space

Now a breath of air. We Londoners are saved by the capital's green spaces. In summer I go to the Chelsea Physic Garden - an extremely beautiful little oasis just off the Embankment (entrance Royal Hospital Road) where they research the medicinal properties of plants. Or to Fenton House in Hampstead. It has a lovely walled garden and a unique collection of early keyboard instruments - virginals, spinets, clavichords, harpsichords - one of which was once played by Handel. The best treat from May to August is to go to one of the chamber music concerts here and see the gardens through a haze of champagne.

In winter the loveliest swathe of greenery is Holland Park where the Japanese Garden is perfect even in frosty weather, and it's not far to two more of 'my' houses. First, the Victorian painter Lord Frederic Leighton's, for its amazing tiled Arab Hallway and a favourite painting, Millais' Shelling Peas - such contentment in the girl's expression as she goes about this soporific task. And then, Linley Sambourne's House: this isn't open until March, but it's a gem to look forward to with the most gloriously cluttered and intact Victorian interior you'll ever see.

Edward Linley Sambourne, Lord Snowdon's great-grandfather, was a star Punch cartoonist and photographer (naughty pictures of the what-the-butler-saw variety are in the bathroom). He left the house to his granddaughter, the Countess of Rosse, who kept it all in a time warp until, together with Sir John Betjeman, she hatched the Victorian Society and handed over the house as its headquarters.

Without breaking the mood, a night of old-time music hall would round things off nicely. Where else but at the Player's Theatre, currently situated in temporary premises at The Venue in Leicester Square. Half the fun is taking the uninitiated and watching their reactions when the Master of Ceremonies throws insults at "our friends in the colonies" or toasts Her Majesty "Queen Victoria, God bless her!" Everyone is encouraged to join in choruses of "Oh, the Fairies!" and "Let's all go down the Strand". However strenuous the sightseeing, this is one show where I guarantee you won't drop off.

Anne Gregg is former editor of Woman's Journal and presented BBC-TV's Holiday Programme for 11 years.

Finding your way around

The London Information Centre is a good place to get free visitor information as well as tour booking services and discounts off hotel rooms. The multilingual team include qualified Blue Badge Guides and visitors to the centre will receive a free useful 3D London map (with comprehensive central London street map on the other side).

The centre is open seven days a week from 8am until 11pm; for information tel: 020 7292 2333.

London TV is a new television channel to help Londoners and visitors find out what's on, when and where in the capital. Broadcast round the clock from a studio overlooking the Thames, it features the latest on culture, shopping, eating and trips out, with news about concerts, events and special offers.

Time Out's London guidebook is updated every year so that it even includes long-running shows in the West End. It is written by a team of local experts and contains all the contact details, maps and comment you need to help you make the most of your time in the city.
 
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