The Tower of London
Built by William the Conqueror on a Roman site, and now houses the crown jewels and the royal armouries. A fortress on the bank of the river Thames to the east of the City. The keep, or White Tower, was built about 1078 by Bishop Gundulf on the site of British and Roman fortifications. It is surrounded by two strong walls and a moat (now dry), and was for centuries a royal residence and the principal state prison. Today it is a barracks, an armoury, and a museum. In 1994 the crown jewels, traditionally kept in a bunker in the tower, were moved to a specially designed showcase, the Jewel House, situated above ground level.

St Paul's Cathedral
Cathedral church of the City of London, the largest Protestant church in England, and a national mausoleum second only to Westminster Abbey. An earlier Norman building, which had replaced the original Saxon church, was burned down in the Great Fire of 1666.The present cathedral, designed by Christopher Wren, was built 1675-1711. St Paul's before the great fire Tradition ascribes a temple of Diana to this site, but authentic history begins with an early 7th-century cathedral built by Ethelbert, King of Kent, with Mellitus as the first bishop of London. This building was destroyed by fire in 1087. Its replacement was not completed until 1287, and combined Norman, transitional and Early English styles. It had the tallest spire and was probably the largest church in Christendom. In the last century or so of its existence the fabric deteriorated, and Inigo Jones carried out restoration, including a new west front with a vast portico. It was largely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, which, however, merely hastened its inevitable end or complete reconstruction. This was the `Old St Paul's´ of history. `Paul's Walk´, as the nave was known, was a secular meeting place, frequented by merchants and wits. Wren's church After the Great Fire, Christopher Wren at first thought that St Paul's should be restored, but later agreed that a new edifice was required. From the beginning he planned to dominate the city with a great dome. His first design was for a church of a single storey in the form of a Greek cross, but it was rejected, and he submitted another design based on the orthodox cruciform plan. Building began in 1675, the plan undergoing considerable alteration before completion in 1711. Wren achieved a magnificently successful union of Gothic plan and Classic detail, and the interior is of majestic proportions and beauty. The dimensions are: length 175 m/574 ft; width at transepts, 75 m/246 ft; length of nave, 68 m/223 ft; width of nave, 37 m/121 ft; length of choir, 51 m/167 ft; height to top of cross, 111 m/364 ft. Among those assisting Wren were Nicholas Hawksmoor, Grinling Gibbons, Caius Gabriel Cibber, and Jean Tijou, the Huguenot iron worker. The furnishings include carved stalls by Grinling Gibbons, and a number of famous tombs. The dome of St Paul's The dome is a particular feature of interest, ingeniously constructed to give a more reposeful outline than that of St Peter's in Rome, whose steeply curving ribs help support the lantern. Wren's lantern is supported on a brick cone, concealed between the inner dome and the outer, which is of wood and lead, and curves almost hemispherically. The interior of the dome is decorated with paintings (1715-20) depicting scenes from the life of St Paul by James Thornhill. Bomb damage The choir and high altar were damaged in the German raids of 1940-41, and Wren's chapter-house was destroyed, but the bombing also cleared away many surrounding buildings to the south and east, leaving wide unobstructed views of the building. St Paul's Cross In the northeast corner of the churchyard is St Paul's Cross, a modern structure replacing the medieval cross destroyed by Parliament in 1643. Here in medieval times and later sermons were preached, heretics made to recant, offenders punished, and papal and other pronouncements made.

St. James' Palace
The Tudor Gateway on the outside of this palace looks very impressive. The interior of the palace is equally so, with carvings by Grinling Gibbons and fine tapestries but alas, as it is the London residence of Prince Charles, the heir to the Throne, it is closed to the public. Following the tragic death of Princess Diana in August 1997, the royal princes William and Harry also now have rooms in the palace. The Foot Guards from the Household Division stand guard at the palace gate. The guards march from there to Buckingham Palace for the Changing The Guard ceremony. A Leper hospital stood on this site before Henry VIII built the palace in the 1530’s.

Westminster Cathedral
Following almost 300 years of persecution, the Roman Catholic Church was again allowed to practice in England, from about 1829. As the popularity of the church grew over the next few decades, the need for a cathedral arose and in 1884 the site of the old Tothill Fields house of correction for paupers was brought and it is here that the Cathedral now stands. The campanile, or bell tower, is 273 feet high. Visitors can go up the tower via a small lift. There is a small charge but the view from the top is well worth it. Westminster Cathedral is a unique example of Christian Byzantine architecture in Great Britain. The foundation stone was laid in June 1895 and can be seen just north of the Sanctuary steps. The cathedral is now regarded as the “mother church” for Catholics in this country. In addition to its stunning architecture, its marbles and mosaics are reminiscent of St Mark’s, Venice and Santa Sophia, Constantinople. The Westminster Cathedral choir is regarded as one of the finest in the country. It specialises in plain chant and 16th century polyphony, although it also performs many other major works during the liturgy. The choir sings every day at 5.30pm and on Sunday at 10.30am and 3.30pm

Lloyds Building
Built in 1986 this most futuristic building is the headquarters for Lloyd’s Insurance. Richard Rogers, the architect, made the bold decision not to cover up the internal workings of the building such as lifts and water pipes. Instead he made them a feature of the building by putting them on the outside. This lead to it being described as an inside out building. It is hard to imagine that Lloyd’s began life as a group of businessmen meeting in Edward Lloyd’s coffee shop back in 1688. Inside, some traditions are observed, such as the ringing of the Lutine Bell, which was taken from a French ship that sank in 1799. The bell is rung when a major insurance claim is made! Surprisingly the American-born poet T S Elliot worked at Lloyds as a clerk for 7 years.

Houses of Parliament
Home of the British Government, the building is actually called the Palace of Westminster, but is more commonly known as the Houses of Parliament, due to the two parts of government that live here. These are the elected House of Commons and the House of Lords, made up of hereditary and life peers. The Commons introduces new legislation but the Lords acts as a kind of quality control department and debates the issues again, before they are made law. The British Sovereign today plays a mainly ceremonial role in the running of the country. This includes the ceremony of the state opening of Parliament. The oldest part of the Palace of Westminster is Westminster Hall, dating back to the year 1097. Geoffrey Chaucer (English poet 1340-1400) worked in the Palace as Clerk of Works, a very prestigious position given to him by Richard II. A fire in 1834 destroyed all but Westminster Hall and the Jewel Tower across the road, so the rest of the present building is surprisingly new, having been built in the period 1840-1860 to a mock-Gothic design. Strangely, the hall tends to be ignored, except for on state occasions. Visitors to the public gallery do pass through the end of the hall on their way in through the airport style security checks. When Parliament is sitting a light is turned on above the Clock Tower that houses Big Ben, and a flag is flown from Victoria Tower (the tall tower at the opposite end from Big Ben’s Clock Tower). On the corner near Parliament Square a beacon flashes and a bell rings when a Member of Parliament wants a taxicab. Visitors are welcome in both the Lords' and Commons' public galleries when the houses are sitting. Join the queue outside St Stephen’s entrance (in the middle of the building). The queue for the commons can be quite large during the afternoon but the house sits until around 10pm and during the evening there is often no need to queue. Arrangements must be made in advance to tour around the rest of the Palace. You’ll need to speak to your local M.P. if you live in the UK, otherwise arrangements can be made through your embassy. The original plans for the Houses of Parliament can be seen at Sir John Sloane’s Museum. At the road junction next to the Houses of Parliament is Parliament Square. This small area of grass is an oasis in a sea of traffic. There are now plans to pedestrianize the area around the square and also Whitehall and Trafalgar Square, but at the moment the traffic deters many people from reaching the square. Those who do will find statues honouring a number of past British Prime Ministers. There is also one of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the 16th President of the USA. Opposite ‘The House’ is a green and grassy area where news crews conduct interviews with politicians. This is known variously as ‘Abingdon Green’, ‘College Green’ and ‘St Stephen’s Green’. The official line though, from the Head of Public Information at the Palace of Westminster, is that it’s just called ‘The Green’. Similarly, the Clock Tower that houses Big Ben, the giant 13.5ton bell that strikes the hour, is simply called ‘The Clock Tower’! The Public Galleries are open when the houses are sitting. The House of Lords is in recess from 28th July 2000, until 27th September 2000. Tours of the rest of the building can be arranged through local MPs and embassies.

Tower Bridge
Bridge over the River Thames in London, England, between the Tower of London and Bermondsey. Designed by Horace Jones and John Wolfe Barry, it was built in 1886-94. The central span between two towers consists of two drawbridges which can be raised to allow vessels to pass to and from the Pool of London. Tower Bridge is the most easterly of the London Thames bridges. It has two high Gothic Revival towers 70 m /200 ft apart, and is connected with each bank by single-span suspension bridges.

Trafalgar Square
Square in central London. On the north side of the square is the National Gallery and to the south is Whitehall. It was laid out from the designs of Charles Barry 1829-67 to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar, the naval victory of 1805. The central feature is Nelson's Column, about 52 m/170 ft high and surmounted by a statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson. At the base of the column are four bronze lions designed by Edwin Landseer. Trafalgar Square is a focal point for rallies and demonstrations. On its west side is Canada House, on the east South Africa House, and the church of St Martin's-in-the-Fields 1722-26 by James Gibbs. In the square are two fountains and an equestrian statue of Charles I by Eustache Le Sueur.

Buckingham Palace
Home of the British sovereign, it stands at the west end of St James's Park. The original Buckingham House was begun in 1703 for the 1st Duke of Buckingham, who sold it to George III in 1761. George IV obtained a grant from Parliament for the repair and enlargement of the house, but he and the architect, John Nash, ignored Parliament's intention, and began a new building (1821-6). Buckingham Palace, as it came to be known, was incomplete at George IV's death in 1830, when Nash was displaced by Edward Blore, who completed the building and reputedly covered nearly the whole of Nash's work with a new façade. It is difficult to ascertain how much of the finished building was Blore's design or as Nash intended. Nash's gateway was removed in 1851 and became Marble Arch. William IV did not like the palace, and it did not become a regular royal residence until the accession of Queen Victoria. In 1914 a new façade by Aston Webb replaced Blore's. The state rooms are of sumptuous grandeur. The great ballroom, added in 1856, measures 37.5 m/123 ft by 18 m/59 ft. The picture gallery contains many masterpieces. The Queen has opened a small gallery on the eastern side of the palace, where exhibitions of portions of the royal collections are held throughout the year. The palace retains a park of 17 ha/42 acres. As well as the Queen's Gallery, the State Rooms and the Royal Mews are open to visitors.

Westminster Abbey
Gothic church in central London, officially the Collegiate Church of St Peter. It was built 1050-1745 and consecrated under Edward the Confessor in 1065. The west towers are by Nicholas Hawksmoor, completed after his death in 1745. Since William I nearly all English monarchs have been crowned in the abbey, and several are buried here; many poets are buried or commemorated there, at Poets' Corner; and some 30 scientists, including Isaac Newton, Lord Kelvin, and James Prescott, are either buried or commemorated here. The Coronation Chair until recently included the Stone of Scone, on which Scottish kings were crowned, and which was brought here by Edward I in 1296. Poets' Corner was begun with the burial of Spenser in 1599. Westminster School, a public school with ancient and modern buildings nearby, was once the Abbey School. Legendary history The legendary history of the abbey goes back to the foundation of a church by Lucius, the legendary 2nd- century `first Christian king´ of Britain, upon the alleged site of a temple of Apollo. This was supposedly followed by the building of another church by Sebert, the first Christian king of the East Saxons, and was consecrated in 616 by the Apostle St Peter, who appeared on earth for the occasion. Origins and architectural history The authentic history of the Abbey begins with a charter (preserved in the chapter-house) of Offa of Mercia, who in 785 granted lands and privileges to the church of St Peter at Thorney; but certainly there was a Benedictine monastery here in the 10th century. About 1050 Edward the Confessor began building an immense church on this site, the island of Thorney. Fragments of this church, which was consecrated in 1065, are embodied in the present structure. The style was that of the advanced schools of Romanesque architecture. By the early 13th century the old sanctuary had become cramped and inconvenient, and Henry III decided on a new building and a fitting shrine for the canonised Confessor. Demolition began in 1245, and by 1258 the new east sanctuary was completed. In 1258 the demolition of the Norman nave was begun, and in 1269 the body of St Edward was placed in a gold shrine which stood on the present marble mosaic base. The original design of the east part was by Master Henry de Reyns, who was succeeded by John of Gloucester, who did little. The third master mason, Robert of Beverley, finished these parts. Nothing was done to complete the nave until 1275, when the remainder of the Norman nave was demolished, and it was completed in a style similar to that of the 13th-century work, by Henry Yevele, designer of the Perpendicular nave of Canterbury Cathedral. Ecclesiastical history In 1298 a great fire destroyed all the monastic buildings. The whole of the damage was not made good until the time of Abbot Nicholas Litlyngton (1362-86). The monastery, which had been one of the greater Benedictine houses for over 400 years, was suppressed in 1540, and the abbey raised to the rank of a cathedral. When the only Bishop of Westminster ever appointed resigned in 1550 the see was united to that of London. In 1556 under Mary I it became again a monastery, which was suppressed in 1560 by Elizabeth I, who established it as a collegiate church with a dean and chapter, a ` Royal peculiar´, which it has remained. Architectural detail The general plan of Henry III's church is very complex, but it was designed to meet the diverse needs of the monks, the king and his court whose royal chapel it was. The extreme length is 161.7 m/530 ft, breadth 67 m/220 ft, length of the nave 47 m/154 ft, and its height 31.4 m/103 ft, making it the highest English church. The triforium is one of the most impressive of all the constituent portions of an early Gothic church in England. Structurally, Henry III's is a French church, but much of the detail is English. The royal chapels at the east end contain several monumental tombs of the highest medieval craftsmanship. On the back of the tomb of Philippa of Hainault is the Westminster Retable, a 13th-century oak altarpiece with what is considered to be probably the finest early medieval painting in Europe. Jerusalem Chamber, part of the deanery, was originally the abbot's parlour and dates from the late 14th century. It derives its name probably from the tapestries of the history of Jerusalem which formerly adorned it. The chamber, which contains outstanding mid-13th-century stained glass, was restored in 1624. Henry VII's Chapel, which replaced the Lady Chapel of 1220, was begun in 1503. This was the work of the brothers Robert and William Vertue. The fan vault is technically remarkable from the fact that the architects discarded the use of ribs, the unribbed vault being fitted together with as much precision and accuracy as the parts of a mosaic. The chapter-house was built in 1245- 50 and is one of the largest in England. From the reign of Edward I until 1547 parliament generally met here. It was completely restored by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1865. The tile pavement dates back to about 1250. The mural paintings have been skilfully restored. South of the chapter-house is the chapel of the Pyx, a vaulted chamber built about 1050. The king's treasure chamber was once the crypt under the chapter -house. On the left is the dark cloister, from which a doorway leads to the Norman undercroft of the dormitory, now the Abbey Museum. Tombs and monuments Westminster Abbey is not only the scene of the crowning of British sovereigns (the Coronation Chair of 1300-01 and the Stone of Scone are in the Confessor's Chapel), but the great national mausoleum, and many kings, statesmen, soldiers, writers and others are buried or commemorated there. Edward the Confessor, Henry III, Edward I, Henry VII, Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles II, William III, Anne, and George II are buried in the Abbey. In the centre of the nave is the tomb of an `Unknown Warrior´ of the First World War. Airmen of the Battle of Britain are commemorated by a memorial in the apse bay of Henry VII's Chapel. From a very early date the east corner of the south transept has been called Poets' Corner; the earliest represented is Chaucer, and amongst the most recent is W H Auden.

Covent Garden
London square (named from the convent garden once on the site) laid out by Inigo Jones 1631. The buildings that formerly housed London's fruit and vegetable market (moved to Nine Elms, Wandsworth 1973) have been adapted for shops and restaurants. The Royal Opera House, also housing the Royal Ballet, is here; also the London Transport Museum. The Theatre Museum, opened 1987, is in the Old Flower Market.

Piccadilly
Main road in London, England, running between Piccadilly Circus and the southeast corner of Hyde Park. In Piccadilly are St James's Church, designed by Christopher Wren; Burlington House, home of the Royal Academy of Arts; and the Ritz Hotel. In Piccadilly Circus, at the eastern end of Piccadilly, is a fountain with a statue, popularly known as Eros, erected in memory of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. Piccadilly was extensively developed and made fashionable in the late 17th century, when the life of the court centred around nearby St James's Palace.

Cutty Sark
British sailing ship, built 1869, one of the tea clippers that used to compete in the 19th century to bring their cargoes fastest from China to Britain. The name, meaning `short chemise´, comes from the witch in Robert Burns's poem `Tam O'Shanter´. The ship is preserved in dry dock at Greenwich, London. The biennial Cutty Sark International Tall Ships Race is named after it.