London General Tips by kris-t

Favorite Thing: Trafalgar square is the busy heart of London full of pigeons and tourists...

Nelsons column comemorates the battle of trafalgar. Riotous new year celebrations take place here.

Fondest Memory: It was built between 1840 and 1843 to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson, who died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It consists of a 5.5m (18ft) statue of Nelson on top of a 56 m granite column. The statue faces south, towards the Palace of Westminster. The top of the Corinthian column is decorated with bronze acanthus leaves cast from British cannon. The square pedestal is decorated with four bronze panels, cast from captured French guns, depicting Nelson's four great victories.

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Favorite Thing: HORSE GUARDS where the trooping of the colour takes place and beyond the old Admiralty buildings.

The Royal Horse Guards (RHG) was a Household Cavalry regiment of the British Army.

Founded in 1650 by Oliver Cromwell as the Regiment of Cuirassiers, the regiment became the Earl of Oxford's Regiment during the reign of King Charles II. As the regiment's uniform was blue in colour at the time, it was nicknamed "the Oxford Blues"; hence the Royal Horse Guards was also nicknamed the "Blues." In 1750 the regiment became Royal Horse Guards Blue and eventually, in 1877, the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues).

In 1918, the regiment served as the 3rd Battalion, Guards Machine Gun Regiment. During the Second World War the regiment served as part of the Household Cavalry Composite Regiment.

The RHG was amalgamated with the Royal Dragoons (1st Dragoons) to form the Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons) in 1969.

Fondest Memory: HORSE GUARDS PARADE is used for the "TROOPING OF COLOUR" in june.

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Favorite Thing: between The Mall and DOWNING ST

Admiralty House in London was designed in the 1770s. It was the official residence of the First Lord of the Admiralty until 1964, and has also been home to several British Prime Ministers when 10 Downing St. was being renovated. Famous Winston Churchill lived here while serving as First Lord of the Admiralty. It now contains government function rooms and few ministerial flats.

Admiralty House is part of a complex of former Admiralty buildings and is sometimes confused with the more visible Ripley Building (also known as the Old Admiralty) or the Admiralty Extension.

Fondest Memory: Admiralty House itself is a small three storey building of yellow brick. The front of the house faces Whitehall but it does not have its own main entrance as it is entered through the Ripley Building.

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Favorite Thing: The Mall in London is the road running between Buckingham Palace at the western end and Trafalgar Square through Admiralty Arch at its eastern end. It is closed to traffic on Sundays and on public holidays and ceremonial occasions.

Fondest Memory: The Mall was created as a ceremonial route in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, matching the creation of similar ceremonial routes in other cities, from Washington DC to Paris, Berlin to Vienna. Such routes were intended to be used for major national ceremonial in the era of the nation state. As part of the development, a new facade was constructed for Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial erected.

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Favorite Thing: Tower Bridge was opened 30 june 1894.
It is a bascule bridge in London, over the River Thames

You'll never be tired of taking pics of this Bridge!

The bridge sits almost directly above the Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway (1870), which, until the bridge was opened, was the shortest way to cross the river from Tower Hill to Tooley Street in Southwark.

Fondest Memory: At the Tower Bridge Experience you can see one of the most famous bridges in the world and spectacular views from the high level walkways 140ft above the Thames. In the two towers, there's an exhibition which explains the history of Tower Bridge.

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Favorite Thing: One of the MUSTS for the sightseer are the Houses of Parliament, facing the Thames, on one side, and Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey, on the other. The House of Commons sits to the side of the Clock Tower (Big Ben), the House of Lords - to the Victoria Tower side.

Fondest Memory: The four dials of the clock are 23 feet square, the minute hand is 14 feet long and the figures are 2 feet high. Minutely regulated with a stack of coins placed on the huge pendulum, Big Ben is an excellent timekeeper, which has rarely stopped.

The name Big Ben actually refers not to the clock-tower itself, but to the thirteen ton bell hung within. The bell was named after the first commissioner of works, Sir Benjamin Hall.

This bell came originally from the old Palace of Westminster, it was given to the Dean of St. Paul's by William III. Before returning to Westminster to hang in its present home, it was refashioned in Whitechapel in 1858

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Favorite Thing: One of the "musts" for the sightseer is The Palace of Westminster, known also as the Houses of Parliament , facing the Thames, on one side, and Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey, on the other. The House of Commons sits to the side of the Clock Tower (Big Ben), the House of Lords - to the Victoria Tower side.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland consists of the Queen, an upper house of Parliament called the House of Lords and a lower house called the House of Commons and is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The Parliament is bicameral in that it contains two houses. Both Houses meet in the Palace of Westminster, sometimes called the Houses of Parliament.

Fondest Memory: Prior to the 1640s, there was no standing Parliament in England. The word 'parliament' designated one of a series of temporary committees, summoned occasionally at the pleasure of the King. Parliaments had no right to give orders to the King, and no means to enforce their wills.

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Favorite Thing: Trafalgar Square is so-named in commemoration of Nelson's great victory. In the middle stands the famous Nelson Column with the statue of Nelson 170 feet high so as to allow him a view of the sea. The column stands in the geographical centre of the city.

Fondest Memory: The area had been the site of the King's Mews since the time of Edward I. In the 1820s the Prince Regent engaged the landscape architect John Nash to redevelop the area. Nash cleared the square as part of his Charing Cross Improvement Scheme. The present architecture of the square is due to Sir Charles Barry and was completed in 1845

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Favorite Thing: Buckingham Palace is the official London residence of the British monarch. Originally Buckingham House, it was built for John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, in 1703, and was purchased from his descendant Sir Charles Sheffield in 1762 by King George III, becoming the Royal residence in 1837.

Tour the palace Aug-sept, to see state appartments.Including: Grand Staircaise
Green, Throne, White, Music, Blue rooms, also Picture Gallery

Adult - 13.5 BPs

Fondest Memory: The winged statue is the Queen Victoria memorial. With a gilded statue of "victory".

http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp

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Favorite Thing: The Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster (Westminster Abbey), a mainly Gothic church, on the scale of a cathedral, in London is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English monarchs.

Westminster Abbey also is the crowning and burial place of British monarchs. It has its world famed Poet’s Corner with memorials to Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, the Bronte’s sisters, Tennyson, Longfellow, Wordsworth, Burns, Dickens, Thackeray, Hardy, Kipling and other leading writers. Only a few however, are actually buried there.
Here too is that touching symbol of a nation’s grief, The Grave of the Unknown Warrior.

Fondest Memory: According to legend, the Abbey was founded in the time of King Saberht of Essex, when a fisherman saw a vision of St. Peter. It was built on a then-island in the River Thames called Thorney Island. It was rebuilt by Edward the Confessor between 1045 and 1065 in the Norman style. Edward had vowed to go on pilgrimage, but had failed to keep his promise. The Pope suggested he redeem himself by building an Abbey.

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