My Favourite Places in London

Maryon Park, Greenwich

This is the park used extensively in Antonioni's seminal film 'Blow-Up'; a film that explores the intricate correlation between the real and unreal, the seen and unseen and the vagaries of imagination. There is real delight to be had in discovering that despite the nearly 50 years since the film's release, the park has barely changed at all which, given the churning rate of change in London, must make it something of an anomaly.

It even seems to have retained the washed-out green and grey 60s patina of the film-stock. Take the steep steps upwards and you find yourself in the beguiling and mysterious plateau of enclosed space where the film's 'murder' is photographed by David Hemmings.

In the three or four times that I've been here it has always been deserted which instils its allure as an undiscovered pocket of London that the city has forgotten about and, since any view into or out of the space is hindered, encourages you to temporarily forget about the city in turn.


Bookmongers, Brixton

A veritable Aladdin's cave of words, the sort of place you can distractedly peruse away time scouring the second-hand spines, too wary of leaving in case in so doing you overlook a real find.

Often with an eclectic selection of Burroughs and the Beats enticingly placed in the front window, and a floppy Alsatian manning the door, the stock - once its been segregated into its rightful category in the scruffy shop - is joyfully anarchic, the pleasure persisting in not knowing what you might come across next

There are still many delightful secondhand book shops in London but this is my first choice; in fact I don't think I've ever left empty-handed.


Gordon's Wine Bar, Villiers Street

This is an antiquated vinous institution tucked away just off the Strand; a dingy stone-walled grotto with a low-arched ceiling that basks in the orange tinge of wax candles. The affordability of the menu might tend toward visits being infrequent, and its predictable congestion persuade towards going at odd times (in my experience, only at around 3 or 4pm on a summer weekday are you guaranteed an inside table).

That being said, it maintains a hold on me in the fact that it conjures up vague and romanticised imaginings of a Dickensian London – subterranean drinking dens, gin houses and decadent wine cellars – a place you can imagine Boswell and Johnson holding court in one corner and Prime Minister Pitt supping on a post (or pre)-Commons port in another.


Brockwell Park, Brixton

Aside from Hampstead Heath, the finest open green space in London has to be Brockwell Park, a protuberant expanse that has been wonderfully adapted to the needs of the local community – the lido, tennis courts, bowling green, play park, etc.

A circuit round the park will take you on a steady incline to a panoramic spread of the city skyline, from the tusks of Battersea Power Station in the west to Canary Wharf in the east. On a summer’s day the congested and manic up-thrust of the Shard and the minions that flank it, appear to shimmer with the heat haze like a mirage of an Emerald City painted onto a bright blue canvas.


The gallery of the Royal Albert Hall

Whilst the Proms purists might gaggle together like over-zealous seals on an outcrop nearest the crashing sonic waves, I prefer to head higher to a promontory on the rim of the great ceremonial bowl. At this higher altitude one can survey the full breadth of the orchestra at a remove from being down in the hubbub of the auditorium, as the symphonic tones evaporate upwards like a musical convection current.

Seeing a great orchestra in full flow is, I like to think, the musical equivalent of a tuna fleet swimming in synchronicity, their motion mandated almost by an instinctual telepathy, and there's still probably nowhere in the UK to rival the Royal Albert Hall as a setting in which to play witness.


Postman's Park

Hidden away like a secret cupboard amidst the bustling corridors and antechambers of the City, this diminutive park is a place of calm reflection hemmed in by the Barbican, St. Paul's and bunches of anonymous office buildings, which succeed in neutralising the constant hum and grind of the operational city.

What marks this particular spot out though is the sombre memorial wall opened in 1900 by George F. Watt, to commemorate ‘those who have heroically lost their lives trying to save another’. Each panel paints a different snapshot of selflessness, like a 19th-century Twitter feed that stirs the mind to pondering further on the enigmatic glimpses of particular characters and situations.

The place was a focal mise en scene for Patrick Marber’s play ‘Closer’, as well as in the underrated film adaptation; centring on Alice Ayres who ‘saved 3 children from a burning house in Union Street, Borough at the cost of her own young life’. Others that are personally intriguing are William Donald – ‘was drowned in the Lea trying to save a lad from a dangerous entanglement of weeds’, and Ernest Benning – ‘upset from a boat one dark night off Pimlico Pier, grasped an oar with one hand supporting a woman with the other but sank as she was rescued’.

In a city that is so often characterised by, or redolent of, the self and all the associated ambition, pride and endeavour bound up with it, it is disarming and affecting to pause in a place emblematic of such antipodal virtues.

The Shacklewell Arms, Dalston

The hipster diaspora may have migrated north-eastwards to envelop the province of Dalston but the Shacklewell Arms retains its grungy ‘armpit-pub’ ethos that even the craft ale and inevitable menu of ‘rustic’ £8 burgers and ‘artisan’ hot dogs cannot dispel.

The gig room itself is the perfect intimate setting for seeing a band raw and without pretension; the stage space is nicely confined with the drummer isolated in a kind of rear alcove, whilst the soundwaves scintillate outwards in ever higher waves of nauseating volume, and sweat drips from the ceiling tiles like the inside of a damp cavern.