Wide Eyed London

28/05/2026

🙂 I’ve been exploring Canary Wharf
🌸 Here the Diamond Tower with part of the Rising Nature installation in the foreground - yes, those two green sitting figures
🙂 Each of the figures have been hand crafted by specialists from from moss and dried flowers to create striking statues representing the blending of the natural world with urban life
🙂 With fab architecture & nature combined I had a wonderful day exploring

26/04/2026

🌳🌱 Kew Gardens - utterly fabulous
🌼🍄 This is the measuring of the Titan Arum or the Co**se Flower
🌳🌼 Great excitement as it will shortly be flowering and that only happens for a couple of days
🌳🌳 It has an incredibly foul smell of rotten flesh when in bloom, which evolved to attract pollinators that love to feed and breed on flesh
Titan arum only grows in the rainforests of Sumatra, but there are a few in here in the wonderful Kew Gardens
👉🏼👉🏼 To see other attractions in this UNESCO site - and if you love sculpture, a Henry Moore Exhibition is due to open in May

09/04/2026

🌼The Natural History Museum was designed by architect Alfred Waterhouse and officially opened in 1881, although its origins trace back to 1753 when collections began as part of the British Museum.
🙂 The building itself is a masterpiece of Victorian Romanesque architecture, featuring intricate terracotta tiles decorated with carvings of animals, plants, and fossils that reflect the museum’s scientific focus.
🌼 One of the most striking exterior details is the contrast between extinct and living species sculpted on opposite wings of the façade.
🌼 Inside, highlights include the famous Hintze Hall with its suspended blue whale skeleton, as well as extensive dinosaur exhibits and rare gemstones.
🌼 The museum began as a way to house and display natural specimens for research and public education, and today it remains one of the most important natural history institutions in the world.
🌼🙂 It’s amazing ……

25/02/2026

🙂 Meet Jeremy Bentham
⭐️ Born in 1748 he devised the doctrine of utilitarianism and was a major thinker of legal philosophy
🙂 In his will he left his body to medical science and requested that his body be preserved
⭐️ This is his ‘auto-icon’ and was gifted to University College London in 1850 by Bentham’s surgeon
⭐️ His skeleton was dressed in his clothes & topped with a wax head
🙂 If you walk past the university you will be able to see him through the window!
❓Let me know what you think!

03/02/2026

⭐️ Looking for something different to do?
🙂 Head to in Greenwich
👉🏼👉🏼 Swipe to see more fans, the Orangery & the front of the two listed Georgian buildings which were restored to house the museum
🙂 With many thanks to the team there so a brilliantly informative tour
⭐️ The details, the messages, the skill in making these fans is fascinating 🪭

28/01/2026

🙂 The Painted Hall at Old Royal Naval College
⭐️ Painted between 1707 & 1726 this Baroque delight was designed by Sir James Thornhill
🙂200 figures are depicted including kings & queens and mythological creatures
👉🏼👉🏼 Scroll to see who you can spot
⭐️ It currently has a light installation as you can see
🙂 It is open daily 10am -5pm
⭐️ You can find out more

24/01/2026

21/01/2026

⭐️ The Cutty Sark was built exclusively for the China tea trade
👉🏼👉🏼 for more photos
🙂 A fashion developed among Victorians for consuming the first tea to be unloaded in London
⭐️ And this spurred the ‘great tea races’- Get home first and you could command high prices
🙂 That is why as a clipper ship, The Cutty Sark was designed to be fast
⭐️ It was built in 1869 in Scotland

⭐️ If you’ve only ever seen it whilst watching the London Marathon , then now is the time to visit
🙂 Open daily 10-5pm
⭐️ Head to Greenwich DLR or travel by boat to Greenwich Pier ( Cutty Sark DLR closed until spring)
⭐️ This is part of the

20/01/2026

⭐️ The houseboat community along the Thames in Chelsea
🙂 With the distinctive red brick World’s End Estate behind
⭐️ Houseboats started after the 2nd World War when decommissioned landing crafts and sailing barges arrived here and due to the desperate shortage of housing were converted into accommodation
⭐️ The first inhabitants were former members of the navy
🙂 Today the houseboats have mains services, vacuum drainage & individual pontoons
⭐️ The “houseboat village” is a permanent feature of the London landscape
🙂 The World’s End Estate was completed in 1977 - it is a large monolithic consisting of 7 high-rise tower blocks of varying heights interlinked by 9 low-rise walkway blocks in a figure of 8 design with two internal courtyards
⭐️ Make sure to take a good look next time you are in the area - the variety of London is fascinating
🙂⭐️🙂

10/01/2026

🙂 The Francis Crick Institute
⭐️ One of Europe’s largest biomedical research centres named after a British scientist who won & shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of structure of DNA in 1962
🙂 There is a small gallery inside & a café and you can see the Nobel prize medal
👉🏼👉🏼 scroll for the medal & photos of the sculpture outside called Paradigm by Conrad Shawcross 2016
🙂 You can find the institute on Midland Road near King’s Cross station