Ok, so it’s about time we let you know about a few more unusual things to do in London. These are the things and places that most visitors miss. Perhaps where you can stroll around in relative peace and quiet and enjoy musing about the strange objects in front of you and their history. Oh, and don’t tell anyone, many are FREE – YES!
Let’s start with one of the oldest, and oddest, natural history museums in the UK. If nature and animals, particularly dead ones, are ‘your thing’, you’ll love the newly re-opened Grant Museum of Zoology at the Rockefeller Building at University College, London. There are elephant skulls and elephant hearts, the skeleton of a huge anaconda, a box of dodo bones and 67,000 other specimens to excite your imagination.
Not to far away is The Foundling Museum at 40 Brunswick Square. In the early 18th century, up to 1,000 babies a year were abandoned on the streets of London creating hordes of unwanted children. Fortunately, one man, Thomas Coram, rose to the challenge by founding a hospital which would eventually care for more than 27,000 children. The Foundling Museum tells the story of these children. The museum also houses an impressive art collection by the likes of Hogarth, Gainsborough and Reynolds. There is a small charge to visitors.
Mmm, time to switch emphasis, methinks. You might need to make an appointment or go with a small group but a little effort might allow you to claim to have visited Henry VIII’s Wine Cellar. In fact, it wasn’t really Henry’s. As is his wont, Henry relieved the out-of-favour Cardinal Wolsey of his well-stocked wine cellar and incorporated this into his palace, nice man!
You’ll never guess where it is! Well it’s actually in the bowels of the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. Indeed, Whitehall Palace was once the largest palace in Europe until it burned down in 1698 leaving just the brick wine cellar standing on the current site. Do telephone (0870 607 4455) for details before you visit, though, security and all that!
Our last visit is to Broadwick Street in Soho. Now, in the mid 19th century Soho was a slightly different place than today, with cowsheds, slaughterhouses and all sorts of unsanitary conditions including cesspits under the overcrowded buildings. The polluted water being pumped was causing people to die in their droves. A local doctor, John Snow, simply removed the pump handle and the cholera outbreak ended, pretty much proving the good doctor’s point.
Here then stands John Snow’s Cholera Pump, albeit a replica. Probably not London’s most eye-catching attraction but this iron pump is worth a visit just to make your friends jealous because they won’t have seen or heard of it. And it’s a good excuse to stop for a pint in the John Snow pub!
http://www.londonfreeandeasy.com/ is a free guide to London and its attractions and lots of information on things to do in London.
