explore
I have started this guide because guests at ePad London have asked me to recommend off the beaten track places that I think they might enjoy visiting. I shall add places I come across as I go along. Please contact me if you find any of this information incorrect.
Museum of Brands
Branding is an important side to design. This cool museum tracks the history of consumer culture from Victorian times to the present. Surround yourself in the classic designs, vintage adverts and retro stylings that fill this museum and take a trip through time.
Leighton House Museum
Design Museum
2018's European Museum of the Year, this is the home for product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. A permanent exhibition on one of its floors features product design while the other floors are dedicated to spectacular temporary exhibitions.
Pitzhanger Manor
This was Sir John Soan's House before he bought the one in WC2 and has only just been restored. You'll wonder at his architectural additions but there's also an art gallery attached to it which has exhibited works by contemporary artists such as Rana Begum and Julian Opie
The Isabella Plantation
Within the more well known Richmond Park, there is a secret garden which is best visited in late April and early May when its pink azaleas are in full flower. Feel fabulous and serene surrounded by beauty. Impress everyone with your selfies.
Tate Viewing Platform
In particular the one at Tate Modern. Take in the contemporary art and the museum shop (well, we all do, don't we?) Sitting on the tenth floor of the Blavatnik Building is the platform, offering 360 degree views across the city, without costing you a penny.
Free British Films
The British Film Institute is the UK’s lead organisation for film, television and the moving image but did you know that you can call up many weird and wonderful titles from the BFI archive and view them for free at their Mediatheque? Great idea for a rainy day.
Floating Word
Forget Amazon and look for your book on this 100 year old Dutch barge - Word On the Water. Warm the cockles of your heart not only by the stories within the books but also by the shop's wood burning stove. Both new and second hand books on offer
Pub Theatre
The King's Head Theatre is an intimate theatre space behind a pub staging ambitious productions ranging from opera to musicals to challenging theatre pieces. Gay themes seem to be frequent. When last there, I heard the theatre was planning on moving to a larger space.
Jean Cocteau's mural
Some of you might be familiar with Jean Cocteau's homoerotic drawings, far less tame than the ones on Roman or Greek vases, so to come across his light stylised strokes in a church must come as a shock. Somehow his drawings lend themselves to anything holy.
The Saatchi Gallery
If you can forgive Charles Saatchi for his part in helping Margaret Thatcher win the election in 1979, this London gallery he opened in 1985 in order to exhibit his cutting edge contemporary art collection might be up your street. Free to visit -so terribly socialist.
The Ledbury Restaurant
A restaurant that gives you compost to take home instead of a doggy bag gets my attention. That way the kitchen's food waste doesn't go to... waste. It also now keeps deer as they're more environmentally friendly than any other meat to produce. Expect to pay over a £100.
All things Alice
If you like shopping for beautiful things but hate the thought of Oxford Street, let yourself fall down this magical rabbit hole - a little shop called Alice Through The Looking Glass, amongst some beautiful and charming book, art and art deco jewellery shops in Cecil Court.
Coffee cottaging
When I first arrived in London from Italy, 25 years ago, I craved a decent Italian coffee but none could be found. Now they're everywhere... including public conveniences (It's difficult finding one of those now). The aptly named Attendant has charme and ambiance aplenty.
Curiouser & curiouser
Enter the Victor Wynd Museum of Curiosities and for a mere £6 you'll behold wonders of horror and curiosities. The museum presents, by their own admission, "an incoherent vision of the world displayed through wonder enclosed within a tiny space".
Leadenhall Market
This one is London's version of Milan's Vittorio Emanuele gallery and Brussels' Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, and was featured in the Harry Potter series. The ornate Victorian marketplace sold meat and fish as far back as far as the 14th century and now hosts a series of boutique shops.
Where prostitutes lie
The Cross Bones Graveyard is for the romantic amongst you. In Medieval times, since women of ill-repute could not be given a Christian burial, Cross Bones became their unofficial place of rest. People still leave flower and ribbon tributes on the red fence outside it.
Novelty Automation
Retro arcade style games, with satire built in. Buy your tokens and experience divorce, launder money, eat your pet dog, tamper with a Nuclear reactor, experience an eclipse and win a Nobel prize. I guess you never thought you could do all of that in London.
The Wellcome Collection
Intriguing place of science and art with exhibitions exploring the world we live in. Both permanent and temporary exhibits. Relax and browse through the books in the library upstairs or have a cake and eat it at the lovely cafe at ground floor.
The Soane Museum
The historic house, museum and library is a remarkable showcase of the 19th century architect Sir John Soane's experiments with architecture, but it's also a spellbinding maze of a collection of Egyptian & Roman treasures mixed with pieces by Hogarth, Turner and Canaletto.
The Electric Cinema
Sit down on the sofa and sip your cocktail - No, not at home, but at this lovingly restored boutique cinema dating back to 1910. Where else could this be but in the fashionable Notting Hill. Choice of king size sofas and even red velvet beds if you book early enough.
