Craig Cross's Blog, page 17

London blog: 18 Stafford Terrace

From the outside 18 Stafford Terrace just looks like a regular townhouse in a regular street -- it's nothing special at all. People must walk past it all the time and not give it a second thought. But if you step inside you'll be transported back to a time when the brightest colour in the world was brown, and the only sound in the house was a ticking clock. You probably haven't heard of Linley Sambourne, but he was quite famous in his day. He did a lot of cartoons for Punch, and the...

London blog: Kensington Gardens

I always think of Hyde Park as stretching all the way from Park Lane to Kensington Palace, but it actually stops at the Serpentine. Anything west of that is called Kensington Gardens. But it's obviously the same place so I think it's a bit daft, but hey... I'm not in charge (I should be). Apart from the lake, the Albert Memorial and Kensington Palace, it's actually quite a flat and featureless place. There must be ten thousand trees at least, but they never look like a wood. They've spread...

London blog: Royal Horseguards

If you want to impress somebody then show them a photo of the Royal Horseguards hotel from the outside. Book a weekend away, and then show them a photo of where they're staying -- I guarantee that they will be impressed. They'll probably agree to marry you on the spot. If you look at the hotel from across the river then it's all turrets and spires and golden lamplights in the leafy trees. It really is a beauty (although some of it is private apartments). Unfortunately the front door is...

London blog: West End

The West End roughly encompasses the area around Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden. A lot of the biggest theatres can be found down Shaftesbury Avenue, Haymarket and the Strand. This is where you'll get a proper taste of London -- bright lights and terrible traffic. Lots of life, lots of strife. Lots of noise, and six inches of pavement per person. Shaftesbury Avenue is absolutely heaving with people tonight. You get carried along in the throng, like a fallen leaf in the...

London blog: All Hallows by the Tower

People pass by this church without giving it a second thought, but please don't be one of them, because there's something very special in the basement that will make it worth a visit. You'll find the church a short stroll from the Tower of London, directly opposite Tower Hill. That's where they used to set up the gallows every Saturday afternoon to give the crowd a bit of rowdy entertainment four hundred years ago. They gathered around here in their thousands to watch them stretch a few...

London blog: Guildhall Art Gallery

ZeEdRV0DTZcIf you're anything like me then you find art galleries a bit boring, but the Guildhall Art Gallery is a bit special because it has something unexpected in the basement: the remains of London's Roman amphitheatre. But before you go inside, have a look at the big ring of black bricks on the forecourt -- that marks out the diameter of the amphitheatre underneath. It always looks a bit small to me -- it's more like a big wrestling ring -- so don't go expecting the Coliseum in Rome. If...

London blog: Temple Church

tD3zles4HlgIf Indiana Jones ever comes to London on a two-day break, then Temple Church is the first place he'll go. But first of all you have to find it... and that is almost an adventure in itself. You can't see Temple Church from the street, so what you have to do is find the big black wooden gate and follow someone else inside. (It's just past the Temple Bar monument, opposite Chancery Lane.) I guarantee that you'll fidget about outside for five minutes wondering whether you've got the...

London blog: Camden Town

I'm too old for Camden. You have to be under thirty and come here for the pubs and clubs and loud banging and clanging music, and cheapo markets. There are three kinds of student in the world. The first type are the quiet ones, who sit at pine tables tapping out essays and letters into their laptop computers, next to a takeaway tub of nuts and salad. The second type walk around with bright blue hair and a steel bar through their nose, impatiently waiting for any kind of trouble to break...

London blog: St. Martin-in-the-Fields

St. Martin-in-the-Fields is famous for helping out the homeless, and whenever you come in here you'll find a few of them kipping in the pews. There are two guys in here at the moment, gently resting their heads against the stone cold columns. The rain is knocking on the window and they've still got their hoods zipped up. I suppose when you're homeless you expect it to rain wherever you go, even indoors. A couple of religious do-gooders have crept up on them and seem to be asking them...

London blog: Christmas Ice Rinks

The best ice rink at Christmas is the one at Somerset House. This is how a winter rink should look, all lit in brilliant blues with a giant Tiffany Christmas tree up the front. It gets dark early in the winter when we put the clocks back so it's pitch black at five-thirty, and people have packed it out already. They are half gliding and half sliding, and they all look scared stiff to me. Once you are in the conga chain you stay in it forever, because you can't get out -- it's a big runaway...