Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
UCCELLO'S
BATTLE OF SAN ROMANO
, NATIONAL GALLERY
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
St Martin's Place Charing Cross 020 7306 0055,
www.npg.org.uk
.
Daily 10am-6pm, Thurs & Fri till
9pm.Free.
MAP
Founded in 1856 to house uplifting depictions of the good and the great, the National Por-
trait Gallery has some fine individual works. However, many of the studies are of less in-
terest than their subjects, and the overall impression is of an overstuffed shrine to famous
Brits rather than a museum offering any insight into the history of portraiture. Nevertheless,
it is fascinating to trace who has been deemed worthy of admiration at any moment: aristo-
crats and artists in previous centuries, warmongers and imperialists in the early decades of
the twentieth century, writers and poets in the 1930s and 1940s, and latterly, sportsmen and
women, politicians and film and pop stars. The NPG's audiovisual guide (£3) gives useful
biographical background information and the gallery's
special exhibitions
(for which
there's often an entrance charge) are well worth seeing - the photography shows, in particu-
lar, are usually excellent.
WHITEHALL
Westminster or Charing Cross.
MAP
Whitehall, the unusually broad avenue connecting Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square, is
synonymous with the faceless, pinstriped bureaucracy charged with the day-to-day running
of the country. Yet during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it served as the chief res-
idence of England's kings and queens. Having started out as the London seat of the Arch-
