Londonopia is a website that celebrates London through features, guides, and articles exploring the culture, history, and hidden stories of the city.

What type of content can I find on Londonopia?

You can find guides, features, articles, and cultural insights about London.

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Londonopia – Celebrating London

Quirky London

Fox Found in MP’s Stationery Cupboard

Eric Patcham /

They have conquered the suburbs. They have mastered the railway lines. They know when the bins go out. Now London’s foxes have access to Parliament.

Evening traffic in most UK lobbies now concentrates on live dealer tables, and Spinformula casino carries both the classic games and the newer wheel-based formats.

Hidden London

Pickering Place: London’s Smallest Public Square

Eric Patcham /

London is very good at hiding things in plain sight. Entire alleys vanish between shopfronts. Courtyards sit behind blank doors.

Quirky London

Inside the South London Lab Helping to Save the World’s Coral Reefs

Eric Patcham /

London is miles from the sea and even further from the warm, bright waters where tropical coral reefs usually belong. And yet, it is playing a small but significant part in saving the world’s coral reefs.

Hidden London

Spa Road Station: London’s First Railway Terminus Was a Cramped Bermondsey Afterthought

Eric Patcham /

London’s railway age did not begin beneath the grand iron ribs of King’s Cross, nor in the Gothic drama of St Pancras, but in Bermondsey.

London Landmarks

Lincoln’s Inn Fields: London’s Largest Public Square

Eric Patcham /

At roughly 4.5 hectares (about 11 acres), it is significantly larger than Leicester Square or Trafalgar Square.

London Crime

The Hackney Turks and Tottenham Turks: London’s Long-Running Turkish Gang War

Eric Patcham /

One of the most disturbing examples in modern London crime is the long-running feud between two rival Turkish/Kurdish organised-crime groups: the Hackney Turks, also known as the Hackney Bombers or Bombacilar, and the Tottenham Turks, sometimes called the Tottenham Boys.

Mural of Sherlock Holmes with magnifying glass and pipe near Lloyds Bank entrance on Baker Street

London Crime

The London Bank Job Inspired by Sherlock Holmes

Eric Patcham /

One of the strangest Sherlock Holmes stories ever attached to Baker Street did not come from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s pen. It came from a gang of real criminals, a closed leather goods shop, a basement, a tunnel, a 100-ton jack, gelignite, and a Lloyds Bank vault full of safety deposit boxes.

London Characters

The Homeless Man Living on the Doorstep of London’s £200 Million Empty Mansion

Marie Bradbury /

It is one of the starkest images of London’s housing crisis: a man with no money sleeping outside a billionaire-owned property that no one appears to use.

London, London Characters

Meet RastaRolla: The Penny Farthing Rider Turning Heads Across London

Eric Patcham /

If you’ve spent enough time walking the streets of London, you may have spotted one of the city’s true originals: RastaRolla,

London Pubs

The Carlton Tavern: The London Pub Ordered to be Rebuilt

Eric Patcham /

The extraordinary story of the London pub that rose from the rubble.

London

Shomrim: The Volunteer Patrols Keeping Jewish London Safe

Aisha Rani /

Fluorescent jackets, radios, patrol cars, and men who arrive quickly when something goes wrong.

London

20 Songs About London

Matthew Cobden /

From classic rock anthems to modern pop hits, London’s heart beats in the soundtrack of its own making.

Quirky London

Hampstead Heath Seeks Volunteer Shepherds as Sheep Return to the Heath

Eric Patcham /

A small flock of sheep is returning to Hampstead Heath and volunteers are being sought to help look after them.

London Crime

Gypsy Hill: The Queen of London’s Underworld

Eric Patcham /

In that murky half-light between fact and legend stands one of the most vivid figures of the old London underworld: Gypsy Hill.

Hidden London

London’s Ghost Stations: The Secret Platforms Beneath Your Commute

Eric Patcham /

Threading quietly through clay and darkness, sits a parallel version of the Underground: a network of stations that no longer exist.

London, Fun Things to Do in London, London Shopping

London’s Top 5 Car Boot Sales

Marie Bradbury /

Somewhere in a school playground or academy yard, beneath a grey sky and the smell of instant coffee, lies the lamp, leather jacket or box of vinyl you suddenly feel destined to own.

London, Quirky London

London’s Cosmic House

Eric Patcham /

London’s Cosmic House is one of the strangest, cleverest private houses in the city: a Holland Park villa turned postmodern manifesto, cosmic joke, architectural puzzle box and museum.

London

Olympia’s £1.3 Billion Makeover

Matthew Cobden /

Olympia is midway through a £1.3 billion transformation designed to turn the historic exhibition complex into a full-blown new London neighbourhood.

London, London Diversity, London Neighbourhoods

Little Tehran: The Persian Heart of North London

Eric Patcham /

London is full of unofficial capitals. Southall has long been called Little India. Golders Green has its Jewish bakeries, delis

London, Sightseeing London

London’s Varied Wildlife

Eric Patcham /

London’s wildlife is a reminder that even in one of the world’s most densely populated cities, nature has a way of carving out its own space.

London, Quirky London

New Banksy appears on Pall Mall

Eric Patcham /

A new Banksy has appeared in Central London.
This time its not graffiti but a sculpture

London, Quirky London

North Korea’s London Embassy: Pyongyang by the North Circular

Matthew Cobden /

The strange story of Kim Jong Un’s London suburban house.

Hidden London

The Best Places to See Wisteria in London

Aisha Rani /

There is a brief stretch each spring when London goes gloriously over the top. Quiet streets turn theatrical. Front doors

London, Hidden London

Shepherd Market: Mayfair’s Beautiful Secret

Eric Patcham /

Tucked behind the polished theatre of Piccadilly and a short, knowing stroll from Green Park, Shepherd Market sits like a secret that never

London, London Neighbourhoods

Things to Do in Islington: A Smart Guide to North London’s Quiet Show-Off

Eric Patcham /

Islington doesn’t advertise itself loudly. It just gets on with being one of London’s most liveable, walkable, quietly self-assured neighbourhoods.

London Neighbourhoods

Is Canning Town Worth Visiting? A Guide to One of East London’s Most Changed Corners

Eric Patcham /

Canning Town has never really traded on charm. It is not one of those parts of London that arrives gift-wrapped but…

London, Quirky London

The London Tree Slowly Eating a Postbox

Eric Patcham /

London does eccentricity well, but sometimes the city doesn’t even need to try. In Chelsea, on the corner of Drayton

London Pubs

The Grenadier: Belgravia’s Hidden Pub

Eric Patcham /

There are pubs you stumble into, and pubs you have to find. The Grenadier belongs firmly to the latter

London Markets

Walthamstow Market Guide: London’s Longest Street Market

Eric Patcham /

Walthamstow Market is one of those places that makes central London feel oddly over-rehearsed. It is louder, messier, more practical

Quirky London, London Pubs

The London Pub That Floods

Eric Patcham /

The White Cross isn’t just any riverside pub. It’s a pub where the river sometimes rises and takes over, transforming the outdoor seating area into a temporary lagoon.