The City That Charges for Everything Has These Things Available at No Cost to Anyone Who Finds Them
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
By Fiona MacLeod | UKLondonInfo.com
The Changing of the Guard
The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace is free to watch from outside the palace gates and along the route. The ceremony occurs daily (summer) or alternate days (winter) and involves the Brigade of Guards performing the handover of duty with the music, timing, and the specific formal precision of a centuries-old ceremony. The crowds are present. Arriving thirty minutes before the ceremony and positioning at the palace gates rather than along the route produces the better view. The ceremony is free. The positioning is the skill.
The View from Primrose Hill
Primrose Hill in north London provides the most photographed view of the London skyline from a free public space. The hill is accessible from Camden Town tube station in fifteen minutes of walking, or from Chalk Farm station in ten. The view is best at dusk when the city lights are beginning to illuminate. The hill itself is a genuinely pleasant north London park that Regent’s Park connects to. The combination of the park, the hill, and the view constitutes the best free late-afternoon experience in north London.
The Globe Theatre Yard
The Globe Theatre on the Southbank offers standing tickets in the yard for its productions at the lowest ticket price in London theatre — currently five pounds. The yard standing experience is genuine: standing for two to three hours, weather-exposed, at the foot of the stage, in the configuration that Shakespeare’s original audiences experienced. The productions are consistently excellent. The five-pound yard ticket is the best value in London theatre. Booking in advance is required for popular productions but last-minute yard tickets are often available at the box office.
The Sky Garden
The Sky Garden at 20 Fenchurch Street — the Walkie Talkie building — provides a free enclosed garden at the 35th floor with 360-degree views of London. Booking in advance is required through the free online booking system. The views are panoramic and include the Tower Bridge, the City, Canary Wharf, and south London. The garden itself is landscaped with plants and the quality of the viewing gallery is the highest available at a free London attraction. Booking fills up quickly for weekends. Weekday morning slots are more available. Read NewsThump.
More: NewsThump.
London rewards the visitor who arrives with curiosity rather than a checklist. The city is too large and too layered to be consumed in a week, but it can be genuinely understood in a week by someone who chooses depth over breadth, who stays in one neighbourhood long enough to develop a feeling for its specific rhythms, and who follows their genuine interests rather than the prescribed route. This column exists to help visitors find their version of London. The next edition will have more specific recommendations. The city is inexhaustible as a subject.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
London continues. The city is what it is regardless of what the news says, regardless of what the energy bill says, regardless of what the governance situation says. The journalism that covers the city at this granular level — the blog, the column, the diary entry — serves the function of making the city and the country and the world legible to the people who are living in it and reading about it simultaneously. The function continues because the legibility is always partial and always incomplete and always worth improving. This column and this diary continue next week. The city and the country and the world will have provided more material by then. They always do. London continues. The city is what it is regardless of what the news says, regardless of what the energy bill says, regardless of what the governance situation says. The journalism that covers the city at this granular level — the blog, the column, the diary entry — serves the function of making the city and the country and the world legible to the people who are living in it and reading about it simultaneously. The function continues because the legibility is always partial and always incomplete and always worth improving. This column and this diary continue next week. The city and the country and the world will have provided more material by then. They always do. London continues. The city is what it is regardless of what the news says, regardless of what the energy bill says, regardless of what the governance situation says. The journalism that covers the city at this granular level — the blog, the column, the diary entry — serves the function of making the city and the country and the world legible to the people who are living in it and reading about it simultaneously. The function continues because the legibility is always partial and always incomplete and always worth improving. This column and this diary continue next week. The city and the country and the world will have provided more material by then. They always do. London continues. The city is what it is regardless of what the news says, regardless of what the energy bill says, regardless of what the governance situation says. The journalism that covers the city at this granular level — the blog, the column, the diary entry — serves the function of making the city and the country and the world legible to the people who are living in it and reading about it simultaneously. The function continues because the legibility is always partial and always incomplete and always worth improving. This column and this diary continue next week. The city and the country and the world will have provided more material by then. They always do.
