![]() ![]() Head out and explore, and you might discover one of the London Noses, a public art installation by Rick Buckley, who affixed plaster replicas of his nose to random walls around the Soho area. ![]() London is positively brimming with art – and not all of it commissioned. Postman’s Park contains the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, which is made up of plaques commemorating ordinary Londoners who showed extraordinary valor, like Alice Ayres, who saved three children from a burning house on Union Street in 1885, at the cost of her own young life. Like all cities, London tips its cap to important historical figures through statues and the like, but it also saves room for more humble folk. Postman's Park's Wall of Heroic Self Sacrifice is a moving tribute to ordinary Londoners © Will Jones / Lonely Planet London celebrates its ordinary heroes The majority slip quietly into the Thames from some gloomy riverbank tunnel, like the River Fleet, whose exit can be seen under the northside of Blackfriars Bridge if you crane your neck at low tide. To be fair, all the others are small tributaries, long since built over and now mostly hidden deep below street level. The Thames is a majestic thing, rising and falling with the tides as though the city itself is inhaling and exhaling, but its topographical dominance can distract from the fact that it’s just one (albeit a mighty one) of many London rivers. So now you know.but almost all the city’s rivers are The London Underground mostly isn’t underground.ĥ5% of the London Underground is above ground. Like in 1091, when a Force 4 tornado (the winds of which can reach 260 mph) whisked its way down the Thames, destroying London Bridge and 600 houses. The British spend a ludicrous amount of time discussing what is mostly incredibly uninteresting weather, but occasionally something genuinely worth talking about happens. #Beatles and the mighty vikings album driver#Don’t worry if you forget: most Londoners are unaware of this fact too, and any cab driver will still know where you want to go. That is to say, Big Ben is the name of the largest bell in the clock tower, not the name of the clock tower itself. © Patryk Kosmider / Shutterstock Big Ben is not Big Ben If you think this is Big Ben, you need to read on. ![]() Less than a century earlier (animal lovers, look away now) it was possible to gain entry to the Tower of London and see its collection of exotic beasts by handing over a live cat or dog to be fed to the lions. 1881", and are indicative of an increasingly humane society. The 300 plots, which date from the 1880s, include one (the graveyard's very first in fact) with the simple but moving headstone inscription "Poor Cherry. and it’s satisfyingly spooky, though how much we have to thank Stephen King for that is unclear. For something equally incongruous but less lethal, check out the present-day pelicans at St James’s Park, descendants of birds gifted by the Russian ambassador back in 1664. It was one of several exotic animals Henry III kept at the Tower of London and allowed out to play. If you happened to live in London in the 1250s, you might have been surprised – and faintly alarmed – to see a polar bear swimming and hunting in the Thames. The ravens are about as exotic as the wildlife gets in the Tower of London these days © Anna Kucherova / Shutterstock The birds and the bears of London Luckily, they failed (though school children wading through Hamlet might disagree). But while his plays were (and still are) hugely popular, many influential people in Elizabethan London fought zealously to delete theaters from the cultural landscape altogether, as they created crowds, which increased the spread of the plague and other diseases. Shakespeare, as you might have heard, was one of the best playwrights of all time, filling London's theaters in a literary golden age. Okay, we’ve taken a bit of licence with that heading, but hear us out. William Shakespeare was a threat to public health Snap your photo and tell your friends you received VIP treatment on your trip to London. ![]() Fortunately, there’s a Plan B for that all-important selfie, and it's only a five-minute walk away – 10 Adam Street, just off the Strand, is an exact replica of the real thing. Most people know that the official London residence of the British Prime Minister is 10 Downing Street. Most people also know that they're only ever going to get a glimpse of it thanks to the uniformed folk holding large weapons who stand between them and the famous door. Or is it? (Yes, it is.) © pcruciatti / Shutterstock There's a replica 10 Downing Street ![]()
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