Exploring London (1996)

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Tradition

The most famous of London's regular events is the Changing of the Guard. It is worth remembering that this takes place in several different locations. In summer the crowds at Buckingham Palace often block the view, and you may prefer the alternative ceremonies at Whitehall or St. James's Palace, while the hour-long event at Windsor Castle, with its marching bands and music, is perhaps the best of all.


January's big event is the Lord Mayor of Westminster's New Year's Day Parade. This only started in 1986 but has become a popular attraction, with floats, bands, and American-style cheerleaders, who march from Piccadilly to Hyde Park starting at 12:30 pm. On the anniversary of Charles I's execution (January 30th) members of the Royal Stuart Society, in appropriate costume, retrace the monarch's route to the scaffold from St. James's Palace and lay a wreath on his statue at the head of Whitehall.


Shrove Tuesday, which usually falls in February, is celebrated with pancake races in Carnaby Street; seven weeks later, on Easter Sunday, there is a carnival in Battersea Park, while on Easter Monday there is a parade of working horses (still used to draw brewers' carts) in Regent's Park at noon.


In May and June another piece of pageantry takes place in Horse Guards Parade, called Beating the Retreat, when military bands mark the setting of the sun and perform by floodlight. Chelsea Pensioners parade in honor of their founder, Charles II, on Oak Apple Day, May 29th, and most Wednesday evenings in May and June you can see traditional Morris dancers performing outside Westminster Abbey.


There are festivals galore in July, but for something more unusual you can watch the start of the Swan Upping ceremony at Temple Stairs on the Embankment: From here, the Queen's Swan Keeper travels upriver to Henley-on-Thames to mark the cygnets born that year (which enjoy royal protection).


The annual Costermonger's Harvest Festival, held in early October at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, brings together the hardy characters who sell fruit and vegetables from stalls all over London. It is here that you are most likely to see London's famous Pearly Kings and Queens, so called because of their coats covered with buttons made of mother of pearl. They were originally elected by costermongers to act as unofficial community leaders, sorting out disputes between street traders, who were reluctant to involve the police in their affairs. Today most Pearly Kings and Queens devote their spare time to raising money for charity.


On the first Sunday in November you can watch the start of the famous London to Brighton Veteran Car Run; only cars made before 1905 can take part, and their owners dress in period costumes. The rally commemorates the abolition in 1896 of the law requiring all cars to be preceded by someone walking with a red warning flag. The second Saturday in November sees the colorful Lord Mayor's Show and soon afterwards there are numerous events leading up to Christmas, from the turning on of the lights on Oxford and Regent Streets to carols around the tree in Trafalgar Square (every day at 4 pm from mid-December onwards). Even Christmas Day itself, one of the quietest days in the London year, has its traditional outdoor event: the annual Peter Pan Cup swimming race, when competitors brave the bitter cold to swim the Serpentine in Hyde Park.


A New City


The Thames embankments

Post-modernism has broken out all over London but is especially striking along the Thames. At Vauxhall Bridge is the conspicuous green and white building, completed in 1992, that houses the headquarters of the secretive MI6, the government organization responsible for "foreign intelligence" (or, in plain terms, spying). Farther east, one of the leading proponents of the postmodernist style, the architect Terry Farrell, has built an eight-story office building above Charing Cross Station, which seems to hover like a giant glowering beetle above the water. On the opposite bank, at Waterloo Station, a major extension was completed in 1992 to serve trains and passengers using the Channel Tunnel. This is expected to be the catalyst for a major redevelopment of the whole south bank of the Thames, long the poor relation, lined with dull industrial buildings. Visitors to London in the late 1990s can expect to see the stretch from County Hall to London Bridge slowly transformed into a pedestrianized area of shops,
hotels, offices, gardens, and entertainment centers.


Docklands

The availability of so much development land within the core areas of London (including a 125-acre project for King's Cross, plus the wholesale redevelopment of Spitalfields, London Wall and the area around St. Paul's Cathedral) may mean even slower progress in developing the Docklands, already hit by the effects of recession. Canary Wharf, Europe's largest commercial development, is already a major landmark, but it remains to be seen whether it will fulfill its promise as a non-central business center. The government has announced plans to extend the Underground system to the Docklands (the so-called Jubilee Line extension) on the assumption that improved access will overcome the reluctance of many companies to move here. In reality, the future of the area will depend very much on whether London remains one of the world's most important financial centers, against some very stiff competition from Frankfurt.


The Future Now

Several projects in London show what the city may look like in the near future. The massive Broadgate development, alongside Liverpool Street Station, is a typical example, using steel frames hung with cladding. There are those who would dearly love to turn London into a new Venice, with paved squares, colonnades, and soaring bell towers. For a vision of how that might look, go and see the architect Quinlan Terry's work at Richmond Riverside.