Discover London with Don Brown - Blue Badge Guide

22/04/2026

Wherever in the country people are, you'll hear them saying that they're going "up" to the capital. Why is that?

Why do we go 'up' to London, regardless of the actual direction of travel? You can blame the Victorians.

21/04/2026

One of the most famous statues in London, Ivor Roberts-Jones's likeness of was felt to look a little too like Mussolini when it was first modelled.

Ivor Roberts-Jones's statue of Britain's wartime Prime Minister was unveiled in 1973. Grade II listed, it is a 12ft high bronze on a white stone plinth.

20/04/2026

In there is a memorial to Thomas Thynne of Longleat in Wiltshire - murdered by a hit squad in Pall Mall.

A 17th century love triangle, a teenage bride, an assassination and an ex*****on. The story behind just one of the memorials in Westminster Abbey.

19/04/2026

Boadicea, Boudicca or Boudica - whichever she was she burned Roman Londinium to the ground in 60CE. Find out about her (and her statue on the Embankment) here

The statue of Boudicca, by Thomas Thorneycroft, stands by Westminster Bridge. Discover the history of the statue and of the queen of the Iceni.

19/04/2026

A flashback to a pic from a couple of years ago.

On the South Bank Lion in the foreground and (yes, I know) in the background.

The lion was made in 1837 – the year of Queen Victoria’s accession – and is made from an artificial stone called Coade Stone (in fact, a type of ceramic stoneware, fired in a kiln), so our lion was cast in a mould, rather than carved like a sculpture.

He’s known as the South Bank Lion because this is where he has always been – first on the roof of the Lion Brewery (located on the site of the present day Royal Festival Hall). This area was cleared in 1949 and the brewery was demolished. The lion might have gone the way of the building except that thousands of Londoners petitioned the LCC for him to be saved. Even King George VI intervened, so the beast was reprieved and erected at Waterloo entrance to the 1951 Festival of Britain. (The lion was painted bright British Rail red.)

He outlasted the Festival as he outlasted the brewery, being moved in 1966 to his present spot when Waterloo station was extended.

He's seen six monarchs, 38 Prime Ministers, the creation and dismantling of both the London County Council and the Greater London Council.

And still he stands - averting his gaze from the illegal ice cream vans and garish on the south end of the bridge.

17/04/2026

The Mystery of the Reformers’ Oak

At a confluence of footpaths in the NE corner of Hyde Park, not too far from Marble Arch, is a circular mosaic that marks the spot (perhaps) of what became known as the Reformers’ Tree. The monument, by sculptor Harry Gray (who was also responsible for the statue of Hugh Myddleton on Holborn Viaduct), was unveiled by Tony Benn, former Labour cabinet member and the erstwhile Viscount Stansgate, in 2000....

The Reformers' Oak memorial in Hyde Park: probably in the wrong place, to a tree of another species, commemorating an event that might not have happened.

17/04/2026

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16/04/2026

Victoria Street’s verdant hideaway. The very wonderful the brainchild of Danish gardener Jens Jakobsen who took a bit of wasteland between a road and a tube line and turned it into a glorious bit of green space; a place to meet, to chat, have a coffee or just sit and be still while London gallops away around you. It is an unalloyed good, a place that contributes to making the world a better place.

15/04/2026

In praise of the National Portrait Gallery: a visit to the NPG takes you on an illustrated walk through British history and the characters that made it.

15/04/2026

from a family from North Carolina who I took round the capital.

14/04/2026

The Lloyd George Statue in Parliament Square

WHAT: David Lloyd George WHERE: Parliament Square (map) BY WHOM: Glynn Williams WHEN: 2007 Back when I was involved with the London Society we ran a poll, along with London Historians, for London’s worst public sculpture. It was generally assumed (by me at least) that the winner would be ‘The meeting place statue…...

One of my least favourite public statues in London, the 2007 commemoration of Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George,

13/04/2026

New blog post about Chartwell NT - Winston Churchill's country home in Kent.

https://stuffaboutlondon.co.uk/stuff-about-london-blog/days-out-chartwell-churchills-country-house/