Remembrance Day 2003 saw the opening ceremony for the Australian War Memorial in London. The unveiling was by Her Majesty the Queen, Tony Blair and the Australian Prime Minister John Howard in front of a huge crowd of Australians, including 25 Australian war veterans.

The memorial serves as a tribute to the Australian military personnel who served in World War I and World War II. The statistics are sobering:

In WWI, 330,000 Australians served overseas. Of these, 60,000 died, 152,000 were wounded, 4,000 were taken prisoner (and of these, 395 died in captivity).

In WWII, 993,000 Australians served overseas. Of these, 27,073 died, 23,477 were wounded, 30,560 were taken prisoner (and of these, 8,296 died in captivity).

Source: National Archives of Australia

The memorial to the Australians who served in the world wars stands at Hyde Park Corner in Knightsbridge and is an imposing sight. Water cascades across the grey-green West Australian granite, onto which is carved the names of 23,844 towns of origin of the service men and women. The carved towns then make up the names of 47 of the battles in which the Australians served.

To visit the memorial, you can travel to Hyde Park Corner station via tube. You can also click here to view the fullscreen 360 war memorial virtual tour.

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London used to be regarded as a bit of a gastronomic desert. The French in particular would mock our 1970’s attempts at epicurean endeavour (remember the ubiquitous prawn cocktail in a glass, sat on top of a piece of wilted lettuce? Perhaps it’s better to forget…). Over the last 30 years things have thankfully moved on, and London is a fantastic place to eat. Whether you’re eating out at a restaurant or selecting ingredients to rustle up a little something at home the choice and the quality of food is superb. London’s food markets are not to be missed if you’re seeking gourmet delights. Here is a pick of five of our favourites…

Alexandra Palace Farmer’s Market
Local North Londoners love this local farmers market at the foot of Ally Pally. There is a great vibe, and the market gets quite lively. The range of produce is good and varies from week to week, so it’s worth going back to. There are butchers, fishmongers and bakers as well as plenty of lovely things to snack on while you wander around (crêpes anyone?!). Once a month specialist traders arrive, and so if you fancy an unusual real ale or a fine olive oil this is the time to come. Every Sunday 10am-3pm - click here for more information.

Borough Market

London’s oldest market has traded on this site for more than 250 years. The market is world-renowned for the quality and range of food available here. It’s open to the public on Thursdays from 11am - 5pm, Fridays from 12pm - 6pm and Saturdays from 9am - 4pm. There are some incredible foods and drinks from around the world on offer here, as well as superb ‘basics’ - we’d highly recommend the bacon from The Ginger Pig. On a Saturday it gets extremely busy, but you can still lose yourself in the wonderful smells and the choices on offer. Click here to see some Borough Market virtual tours.

Parliament Hill Farmer’s Market
Lovely little market that takes place in a school near Hampstead Heath. It’s busy and there’s plenty of ready to eat food (the sausages are particularly good) as well as being one of the rare places in North London that you can go and buy a brace of pheasant should you fancy! The local shops are worth visiting too - in particular the excellent deli, Forks. Saturday’s from 10am-2pm - click here for more information.

Leadenhall Market

© Will Pearson 2009
Leadenhall Market just off Gracechurch Street in the City of London is another ancient market, and whether you’re a foodie or not, it’s worth visiting just to stroll the cobbled streets under the Victorian arches. The old market suffered from the introduction of EU regulations and many of the shops closed. Now, the market has been revamped and is a shopping destination with food stalls every Monday to Friday from 11am and 4pm. Here you’ll find artisan cheeses, foie gras, fabulous salads and more. If you can, avoid the lunchtime rush for a more relaxed browse among the stalls. The stallholders are helpful and will gladly chat to you about their produce. You can wash your purchases down with a drink at the Lamb Tavern. Click here to see a virtual tour of the surroundings at Leadenhall Market.

Spitalfields Market
This Victorian covered market in the City of London is a fabulous place to while away a morning choosing organic ingredients for your evening meal, or just gathering delicacies to snack on. The market stalls are open on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. Sunday is naturally the busiest day, but there’s a great vibe on weekdays too. The stalls are supplemented by some excellent shops around the market where you can select artisan pies, tapas and old fashioned fudge. If you do nothing else, visit the Tandoori Hut for a chicken tikka or veggie curry wrapped in a naan bread. Perfect!

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If asked to name a Sir Christopher Wren building - most of us would get as far as St Paul’s cathedral and then be stumped. It’s astounding quite how prolific Wren was - more than 89 buildings are attributed to him, and when you consider the scale of some of these buildings, that’s no mean feat. St Paul’s took more than 30 years to complete, and by the end of the construction Wren was 76 and being hoisted up in a basket to inspect the building works. His son laid the final stone on his behalf. We have created virtual tours of some of Wren’s works that remain intact (wholly and partially) in London, and you can see these below:

St Alban
St Clement Danes
St Lawrence Jewry
The Monument

Here’s a complete list of Wren’s architectural works in London - we will be adding further virtual tours of these locations over time.

Remaining Intact
Hampton Court Palace, South and East Ranges
Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich
St Benet, Paul’s Wharf
St Clement, Eastcheap
St Clement Danes, Strand
St James’s Church, Piccadilly
St James, Garlick Hill
St Paul’s Cathedral
St Peter, Cornhill
St Martin, Ludgate
St Mary Abchurch
St Margaret, Lothbury
St Margaret Pattens, Eastcheap
St Stephen, Walbrook
The Monument, Fish Street Hill
The Royal Hospital, Chelsea
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Restored after the Blitz
St Andrew, Holborn
St Andrew by the Wardrobe
St Anne and St Agnes, Gresham Street
St Mary-at-Hill, Thames Street
St Michael, Paternoster Royal
St Vedast, Foster Lane, London
St Edmund King and Martyr, Lombard Street
St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside
St Lawrence Jewry
St Nicholas, Cole Abbey
St Bride, Fleet Street

Buildings Partially Remaining
Christ Church, Newgate Street - tower remaining
St Alban, Wood Street - tower remaining
St Anne’s Church, Soho - ruins only remain
St Mary Aldermary, Bow Lane - only tower remaining
St Michael, Cornhill - tower and part of church remain
St Olave, Old Jewry - tower remaining

Destroyed – demolished or bombed
All Hallows, Bread Street
All Hallows, Lombard Street
All Hallows the Great, Lombard Street
Bridgewater Square Development, London
Catholic Chapel, Council Chamber and Privy Gallery, Whitehall Palace
Drury Lane Theatre, London
Kensington Palace Reconstruction
Marlborough House, St James’s
Royal Society Respository, Crane Court, Fleet Street
Queen’s Apartment and Terraced Garden, Whitehall Palace
St Antholin, Watling Street
St Augustine, Watling Street
St Bartholomew, Exchange
St Benet, Gracechurch Street
St Benet Fink, Threadneedle Street
St Christopher-le-Stocks, Threadneedle Street
St Dionis Backchurch, Fenchurch Street
St Dunstan in the East, London (1670-71)
St George, Botolph Lane
St Magnus Martyr, Lower Thames Street - substantially altered
St Mary, Aldermanbury, London – rebuilt in Fulton, Missouri, USA
St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street - gutted by fire
St Mary Somerset, Thames Street
St Matthew, Friday Street
St Michael, Bassishaw
St Michael, Crooked Lane
St Michael, Queenhithe
St Michael, Wood Street
St Mildred, Bread Street - bombed
St Mildred, Poultry
St Stephen, Coleman Street - bombed
St Swithin, Cannon Street - bombed
State Apartments, St James’s Palace
The Cloisters, Pump Court, Middle Temple
The Custom House, London
The Navy Office, Seething Lane
Writing School, Christ’s Hospital

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Bankside Power Station was built by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott - his name may not be familiar, but his other major London building will be - Battersea Power Station. He also designed the much-loved Red Telephone boxes (you can see four of these in a virtual tour here), the Salvation Army’s William Booth Memorial Training College in Camberwell, and Waterloo Bridge.

Bankside had the reputation as a debauched and squalid area, packed with brothels, bear-baiting pits and (horror of horrors) theatres! Bankside had suffered much from bomb damage during the war, and plans were afoot to regenerate the entire area. Many people felt that a building a large power station at Bankside was hardly in keeping with this regeneration and there was huge local opposition to the building of the power station, with questions raised about ‘noise and sulphur or other noxious fumes’. The proposed Bankside Power Station was considered architecturally incongruous with St Paul’s Cathedral (which is directly opposite), threatening the views to and from the cathedral. Lord Llewellin said in Parliament that “However good the architect, however well designed it may be, it will be rather like introducing an alligator into the water-lily pond in one’s garden.”

Another peer, Viscount Samuel imagined tourists on a Thames boat trip a century down the line demanding to know how such a thing could be built, asking why the people of London tolerated such a thing without rising up against it.

In the end, the government overruled those against it (namely the City of London and St. Paul’s, apparently alongside 822 other cultural bodies in the country) and went ahead with the construction of Giles Gilbert Scott’s edifice in the name of private enterprise. The power station was built in two stages, between 1947 and 1963, in deco style. The central chimney is 99 metres tall - designed to be lower than St Paul’s 114 metre dome opposite.

Bankside Power Station started generating electricity (from oil) in 1952, with the Eastern half of the station starting to generate in 1963. The power station didn’t remain useful for long - and was closed in 1981 after just 29 years of electricity generation. The hike in oil prices in the 70’s meant that other forms of electricity production became more cost-effective, rendering Bankside an expensive white elephant.

For 13 years, Bankside Power Station remained empty, until the Tate Modern acquired the site in 1994. Various international architects competed for the contract to redesign the site, with Herzog & de Meuron the eventual winners. Their design was the only one which retained the existing power station shell substantially intact, with the two storey glass roof being added to allow light in to the gallery. The building of the Tate was funded by the Millennium Commission (monies from the National Lottery fund - £50m), further funding was provided by the Arts Council, English Partnerships, the London Borough of Southwark and donations from corporations and private individuals to a total of £134m.

The Tate Modern has been a great success fom the day it opened - two million people visited in the first three months alone. The gallery complements St Paul’s Cathedral, and tourists can walk across to the Cathedral from the Millennium Bridge directly outside the Tate Modern. With Tate Modern, the new Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, shops and offices (and not a bear pit in sight) Bankside’s regeneration could finally be considered complete. And we can only guess at whether Lord Llewellin would still think of it as an alligator in his lily pond.

To see a virtual tour of the Tate Modern, please click here.

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The Bank of England is personified as ‘The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’ - conjuring images of a benevolent and homely old spinster at her sewing. However, the ‘old lady’ has a slightly less peaceable heritage than this image implies - the Bank of England was borne out of funding the war with France. In 1694, William III’s coffers were running low, threatening his war against the French. Two merchants agreed to loan the King the money - they would found a national bank who would lend money to the Government to finance arms and men to fight the French. The interest on the loan was to be paid by levying a public tax on alcohol and a further tax on shipping. The merchants who had put up the capital would get interest at 8% back from the British people.

The bank’s history has not always been smooth, with goldsmiths angry at a large proportion of their trade being snatched from them by the Bank, rival financial institutions gaining political capital and even an attack by a mob during the anti-Catholic Gordon riots. However, it survived with its stately reputation intact. Here are a few facts about the Bank of England…

• The Bank of England was the first private national bank in the world.
• Queen Elizabeth II is the only monarch to have appeared on a banknote, as monarchs have only appeared on banknotes since 1960.
• The outer walls of the bank were designed by the famous Georgian architect Sir John Soane but the buildings inside were completely reconstructed between 1925 and 1939 by Sir Herbert Baker (who remodelled Cecil Rhodes’ house in South Africa and who built South Africa House in Trafalgar Square).
• The bank has had it’s own security force since 1973 - before that it was protected by the government Brigade of Guards.
• There’s more space below ground at the Bank of England than there is above ground at Tower 42.
• The Bank of England bears the nickname ‘The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’ after a 1797 cartoon by James Gilray depicting the bank as an old lady sitting on a chest of gold being forcibly courted by William Pitt the Younger (see below)
• A bank clerk who died in 1798 was worried that his body would be stolen by body snatchers (who supplied London’s surgeons with corpses for dissections) as at 6ft 7½inches tall he was considered a giant. The bank’s directors agreed to allow him to be buried in the bank garden, and the coffin was discovered during the rebuilding works in 1933 and safely removed to Nunhead cemetery.

Please click here to view the Bank of England & Royal Exchange virtual tour.

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An Indian native has made its home in the chillier climes of North London. Hampstead Heath is now home to a flock of Rose-ringed Parakeets (also known as Ring Necked Parakeets). Although they hail from India, they tend to live at high altitudes, meaning that they’re able to adapt well to Britain’s cold winters.

The parakeets were popular pets in Victorian times, but many people believe that the current colonies around London were formed when a number of birds were released from the tropical film set of The African Queen at Shepperton Studios in Surrey. This may be an apocryphal tale, given that I can’t find any evidence that any of The African Queen was filmed at Shepperton (the English scenes were shot at Worton Hall Studios in south-west London). Nonetheless in the 1960’s and 70’s London saw a population explosion of these noisy visitors. The RSPB expect there to be 50,000 of them by 2010 and despite the fact that the parakeets are an introduced species, they are now protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

There are some concerns that as a non-native species their presence and competition for food resources may be detrimental to native British species. Apparently, as yet there’s no evidence that this is the case, but the RSPB are keeping an eye on the situation.

Wherever the parakeets came originally from they are a fantastic sight on Hampstead Heath - even in the snow you’ll hear their noisy calls and catch glimpses of their bright green plumage as they flit between the trees. To find them, just listen - the screeching will lead you straight to them!

To see the place these birds now call home, click here to view Hampstead Heath in the snow or click here to view the Highgate Ponds virtual tour.

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Leadenhall Market is one of London’s oldest food markets, standing on the site of a 1st century Roman basilica (a Roman public building). There has been a market on this site since the 14th century, and people travelled from all over the neighbouring counties with their produce. This was one of the markets that allowed people from outside London (known as ‘foreigners’ or ’strangers’!) to come and sell their produce. Farmers would drive herds of sheep down from Essex, would walk flocks of geese up from Kent or bring their cattle on foot from Middlesex. Animal skins, cheese, eggs, fruit and vegetables were all sold here.

Perhaps surprisingly, many of the market porters were women. John Murray in Blackwoods Magazine in 1841, writes:

It would scarcely be credited that, in splendid London, women are subjected to various kinds of severe and repulsive toil …. For example, the porterage of meat at the wholesale markets, as Newgate and Leadenhall, is performed by women, many of them old. You will see these wretched creatures stagger under the weight of a side of beef, or having an entire sheep upon their heads, conveying their burdens to the butchers carts, drawn up in the vicinity of the market …

The noise and smells are hard to imagine looking at the beautiful clean, bright Victorian buildings now in the 21st century. But if you look closely at the shop fronts, you will still see the wrought iron hooks where the produce used to be hung. If you can imagine these hung with animal hides and carcasses, with stalls protruding into the cobbled streets and blood swilling down out into Gracechurch Street, where the carts delivering more produce queued up, then you’ll start to get a picture of how Leadenhall Market once was.

In the 18th century, 34,000 geese were slaughtered and sold here each year. One of the many geese was a dedicated escape artist and managed to escape being sent for the pot. ‘Old Tom’s’ determination to live earned him the position of market mascot, and he lived here till he died at the grand old age of 38, when he was laid in state in the market and then buried here.

Fans of the Harry Potter films may recognise Leadenhall as the setting for Diagon Alley and The Leaky Cauldron where it recaptures much of its ‘olde worlde’ feel (though without the swilling blood!).

To view the Leadenhall Market virtual tour, please click here.

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In 1959, the Strand in London lent its’ name to a brand of cigarettes from W.D. & H.O. Wills (part of Imperial Tobacco). Strand Cigarettes were launched with a massive marketing campaign based around the line ‘You’re never alone with a strand’. A Frank Sinatra lookalike in a private-detective style trench-coat and trilby (think Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity) wandered London’s streets alone in the rain. He pauses under a streetlight, lights a Strand and cue the music (The Lonely Man Theme) and the strapline ‘You’re never alone with a Strand. The cigarette of the moment.’

It turns out the line was pretty prophetic - it really was the cigarette of the moment. A very, very short moment. The public voted with their wallets, declining to puff on cigarettes that marked them out as lonely. The launch bombed and Strand cigarettes were withdrawn in the mid-1960s.

To see the Strand that has lasted, click here to view the virtual tour.

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The Black Death is thought to have originated in Asia, and was gradually spread west by black rats on shipping routes. It was not the rats themselves that were the source of the infection of course, but the flea who lived and feasted on their blood. Despite a physician floating this theory behind the disease in 1630, the rat-connection was not recognised, and people thought that plague was spread by the breath from person to person, and so the best option would be flight - which was only an option for the wealthy. Many Londoners carried herbs or flowers in an attempt to avoid the plague breath.

When you consider the conditions in which many Londoners lived - densely packed in close into poorly-lit, badly ventilated, dirty spaces, it’s no wonder that the black rats and their fleas were able to thrive.

Attempts to halt the spread of plague had been ineffectual, and sometimes even damaging. Chewing tobacco was meant to help ward off plague, or trying to become infected with syphilis. London’s cesspools were opened up in the hope that the stench might drive the disease away. Cats and dogs were slaughtered (approximately 40,000 dogs and 200,000 cats according to Daniel Defoe in his Journal of the Plague Year), who might have otherwise helped limit the spread of the disease by keeping the rat population down.

On the 16th October 1665 Pepys wrote in his diary this lament: But Lord, how empty the streets are, and melancholy, so many poor sick people in the streets, full of sores, and so many sad stories overheard as I walk, everybody talking of this dead, and that man sick, and so many in this place, and so many in that. And they tell me that in Westminster there is never a physician, and but one apothecary left, all being dead—but that there are great hopes of a decrease this week: God send it.

London’s graveyards were overflowing, and Pepys remarked on how high the burial ground at St Olave’s Hart had become as more and more victims were buried there. 75,000-100,000 Londoners died - about a fifth of the population. To put that into perspective, if a fifth of London’s population were wiped out today, that would be 1,500,000 dead.

And what of the end of the plague? It’s thought that the Great Fire of London helped halt plague, though it’s now thought that it’s possible that the black rats became immune to the disease, and fleas ceased to snack on humans and infect them as there was a plentiful supply of rats. Perhaps comfortingly, the black rat is now comparitively rare, having been supplanted in London by the brown rat. Before you relax entirely, the brown rat is definitely NOT a rarity in London - I watched one scuttle across the path at Alexandra Palace just last week.

Here are some ratty stats for you:
- There are more than 60m rats in the UK.
- At least 1 in 20 properties is infested with them (1995 National Rodent Census).
- At least 4,000 rats are born every hour in London.
- Rats’ urine can infect humans with Weil’s disease, which can be fatal. It can be caught through contact with rat’s urine in water. However, don’t panic unduly - according to the River and Lake Swimming Associatioon in 1999 and 2001 there was only one death from Weil’s disease in England and Wales.
- The enamel on rats’ teeth is stronger than industrial diamonds, so yep, they can chew through pretty much anything - even masonry!

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In 1982, Queen Elizabeth II woke up to find an unemployed labourer with a bloodied hand and a broken glass ashtray sitting on her bed.

Michael Fagan was (according to his mother) inordinately fond of the Queen. Perhaps this is why he allegedly chose her bedroom as the place he would commit suicide, but apparently then decided that it wasn’t “a nice thing to do” once he arrived. It wasn’t his first break-in to Buckingham Palace - a month previously, he’d wandered around the state rooms, helped himself to half a bottle of white wine, and then left when he was tired. Although the alarm had been raised when he’d been seen climbing the wall, no-one had been able to find Fagan, and he was able to leave without event.

On this occasion, he’d scaled the wall unseen at about 6am and found an open window. He’d wandered though the Palace, looking at portraits, sitting on the throne, picking up a glass ashtray and breaking it before making his way towards the Queen’s apartment. He met a housekeeper on the way who’d bidden him ‘Good Morning’, despite his unkempt appearance (a grubby t-shirt and bloodied hand). The officer who normally guarded the bedroom was out walking the Queen’s dogs.

When the Queen woke, Fagan was sitting on her bed, dripping blood onto the bedlinen. She rang for the police and in the interim very cooly chatted to the intruder about family, making two phone calls requesting police help during their chat. Apparently no-one realised the urgency of the call, and so the Queen was left with her uninvited guest for about 10 minutes before a housemaid entered and exclaimed “Bloody hell Ma’am! What’s he doing in there?!”.

Michael Fagan was charged with theft of half a bottle of wine (charges which were later dropped), and was not charged with any criminal offence. The British press were up in arms about how someone with mental problems was able to effectively walk in to Buckingham Palace - and the Queen’s bedroom.

For a more legitimate view inside the palace, you can view Will Pearson’s virtual tours of Buckingham Palace if you click here (the Grand Staircase) or here (the White Drawing Room).

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