Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and enjoyed its greatest moment of fame in the 1980s as the headquarters of the GLC
(Greater London Council), under the Labour leadership of Ken Livingstone, or “Red
Ken”, as the right-wing press called him at the time. The Tories moved in swiftly,
abolishing the GLC in 1986, and leaving London as the only European city without an
elected authority. In 2000, Livingstone had the last laugh when he became London's first
popularly elected mayor, and head of the new Greater London Authority (GLA), housed
in City Hall, near Tower Bridge. The building's tenants are constantly changing, but it's
currently home to, among other things, several hotels and restaurants, an aquarium and an
amusement arcade. None of the attractions that have gravitated here is an absolute must,
and several have fallen by the wayside, but they prosper (as do the numerous buskers
round here) by feeding off the vast captive audience milling around the London Eye.
London Aquarium
County Hall • Mon-Thurs 10am-6pm, Fri-Sun 10am-7pm • From around £21 online • Snorkelling with Sharks daily 11.30am, 1.30 &
3.30pm; £125 •
T
0871 663 1678,
W
visitsealife.com/London •
!
Waterloo or Westminster
The most enduring County Hall tenant is the
Sea Life London Aquarium
,
housed in the
basement across three subterranean levels. With some super-large tanks, and everything
from dog-face puffers and piranhas to robot fish (seriously) and crocodiles, this is an
attraction that's pretty much guaranteed to please kids, albeit at a price (book online to
save a few quid and avoid queuing, or save over a fiver by buying an after 3pm ticket).
Impressive in scale, the aquarium boasts a thrilling Shark Walk, in which you have
sharks swimming underneath you, as well as a replica blue whale skeleton encasing an
underwater walkway. Ask at the main desk or check the website for details of the daily
presentations and feeding times and if money's no object and fear's not in your
vocabulary, enquire about the Snorkelling with Sharks Experience.
15
London Dungeon
County Hall • Mon-Wed & Fri 10am-5pm, Thurs 11am-5pm, Sat & Sun 10am-6pm; school holidays closes 7pm • From £22 online •
T
0871 423 2240,
W
thedungeons.com •
!
Waterloo or Westminster
The latest venture to join in the shenanigans at County Hall is the
London Dungeon
,
a
Gothic horror-fest that remains one of the city's major crowd-pleasers - to shorten the
amount of time spent queuing (and save money), buy your ticket online. Young teenagers
and the credulous probably get the most out of the various ludicrous live action scenarios,
each one hyped up by the team of ham actors dressed in period garb. These are followed
by a series of fairly lame horror rides such as “Henry's Wrath Boat Ride” and “Drop Dead
Drop Ride”, not to mention the latest “Jack the Ripper” experience.
London Film Museum
County Hall • Mon-Wed & Fri 10am-5pm, Thurs 11am-5pm, Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 11am-6pm • £13.50 •
T
020 7202 7040,
W
londonfilmmuseum.com •
!
Waterloo or Westminster
he
London Film Museum
occupies a labyrinth of rooms on the first floor of County
Hall. It's not a particularly hi-tech exhibition, so the main draw is really the vast array
of props and costumes from Hollywood franchises like
Alien
,
Star Wars
and
Batman.
And there's a firmly British bent to the place, with each exhibit chosen either because
the studio, the designer, the writer or the director was a Brit. Appropriately enough,
there's a whole section on Charlie Chaplin, a local Lambeth boy born in the borough
in 1889, and naturally enough there's a room of Harry Potter props, from the
Tri-Wizard Cup to Hogwarts school uniforms. The museum also regularly features
special exhibitions on recent film releases with a British connection.
North Lambeth
South of Westminster Bridge, you leave the South Bank proper behind (and at the same
time lose the crowds) and head upstream to what used to be the village of Lambeth (now a
