What would you see and do in London to get a good feeling for this grand era?

I'm compiling a list of places and things associated with the lifestyle, art, and architecture of Victorian London. A modest beginning is found below. Would appreciate feedback and additions.

I plan to visit as many as I can on future trips. Also welcomed, are recommendations on websites and books for further research.

Albert Memorial
All Saints Margaret Street Church
Bank of England Building & Museum
British Museum
Caryle House
Cavendish Square
Dickens House
Stock Exchange Building
Natural History Museum
Geffrye Museum - Victorian Rooms
Highgate Cemetary
Leighton House
Linley Sambourne House
Liverpool Street Station
Mansion House Building
Marble Arch Monument
Marylebone Station
National Army Museum
Natural History Museum
Nelson Column - Trafalger Square
Paddington Station
Ragged School Museum
Somerset House - the Strand
St Pancras Station
St Paul's Cathedral
St Mary Lambeth Church
Temple Church
Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria Station

Forgot this one - Leadenhall Market on Whittington St in the city. Late victorian structure that is very ornate. Open 0700 to 1600, M-F.

Add the museum of London to your list. If memory serves me correctly, this is near the Barbican. It shows the history of London proper from the early times through the plague and fire to now. You also get a peek at the Mayor of London's gold carriage.

Kensall Rise cemetary is probably an even better example of the Victorian way of death than Highgate (not every inhabitant of London was writing the Communist Manifesto)

The hotel at St Pancras (now St Pancras Chambers) is probably THE most spectacular example of Victorian insanity outside Asia. Getting inside is tricky: see www.lcrproperties.com

Kings Cross Station doesn't look like our idea of Victorian. But it is, and that rather Spartan clasicissism is quite typical of the period up to the really big Railway Bubble.

The Durbar Court at the Foreign Office, and whatever other bits of Whitehall you can get into.

The Albert Hall as well as the Memorial. In fact the whole of Albertopolis: many of the non-moumental stuff in the area is probably just as important as the cathedral-like structures.

A good source for other monumental stuff is the catalogue of London Open House (londonopenhouse.org), the annual weekend when lots of stuff usually closed is open - usually with enthusiastic guides.

All of this, and your list, is about Grand Architecture. There were also a few million houses lived in. Probably the biggest surviving swathe of middle-class houses lived in during the 19th century is Islington through to Hackney: mostly built in the time of William IV (you can tell by the retrofitted letter boxes: post-1840, letter boxes were installed at construction). But inhabited through Victoria's reign, and restored back to single-family occupancy from the late 1960's to 1980's. The mile or so north, west and east of Camden Passage.

Wilton's Music Hall.

The best gin house-style pub (outside Liverpool and Dublin, of course, where the best Victorian pubs are. As are many other of the greatest buildings of the era) is probably the Salisbury, St Martin's Lane.

The Encyclopedia of London is quite indispensable for this. Buy it (from Amazon) and just read it like a novel.

Have fun.

And you walk through a re-creation of a Victorian street with a range of shopfronts from the era.

The old New Scotland Yard building?

Thanks for all the ideas and feedback. I'll take a look at those soon. Keep those things coming.

Was going to add: Wellington Arch, Faraday Musuem, Bloomsbury area, Hamsptead Heath, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Royal Opera building, Sherlock Holmes Museum, and Florence Nightingale Museum.

What about some streets in "The City"?
Any of those still retain some character?

Hi Degas,

Not too long ago Ben Haines posted a web site for Victorian research. You might find this interesting:

http://VictorianResearch.org

Here's an updated listed based on your inputs and some research on the sites you gave me.

Albert Hall
Albert Memorial
Albert Pub
All Saints Margaret Street Church (behind Oxford St)
Anchor Pub (Bankside)
Apsley House
Bank of England Building & Museum
Blackfrairs Pub (The City)
Bloomsbury Area
British Museum
Caryle House
Cavendish Square
Cheyne Walk - Chelsea
Courtauld Gallery - 19th Century paintings
Dickens House
Dickens Inn Pub (St Katherine's Dock)
Exchange Building
Faraday Museum
Florence Nightingale Museum
Geffrye Museum - Victorian Rooms
George Inn Pub (Borough High St, SE1)
Grenadiar Pub
Hamspstead Heath
Highgate Cemetery
Kansal Green Cemetery
Kew Gardens - Maids of Honour Tea Room
Lamb and Flag Pub (Covent Garden)
Lyceum Theatre - the Strand: a classical building with big portico and pillars dating from 1830s
Law Courts - on the Strand
Leighton House
Leadenhall Market
Linley Sambourne House
Liverpool Street Station
Mansion House Building
Marble Arch Monument
Marylebone Station
Museum of London
National Army Museum
Natural History Museum
National Portrait Gallery ? 19th Century paintings
Nelson Column ? Trafalger Square
Old Operating Theatre Museum
Paddington Station
Palace of Westminster (Parliament)
Parliament Square through to Victoria Tower Gardens
Portland Hotel
Ragged School Museum
Red Lion Pub
Royal Opera House
Salisbury Pub
Sherlock Holmes Museum
Somerset House ? the Strand
St James the Less Church (Vauxhall Bridge Road): a few minutes walk from Pimlico Underground, under 10 min from Victoria Station, easy to visit from Tate Gallery. Open for a long lunch-hour most weekdays.
St Pancras Station
St Mary Lambeth Church
Sculptures at Waterloo Place (end of lower Regent St along Pall Mall)
Tate Britain ? 19th Century paintings
Temple Church
Theatre Royal Drury Lane
Wellington Arch
Victoria Memorial (In front of Buckingham Palace, a short walk from Piccadilly across a corner of Green Park, or by walking along the Mall from Trafalgar Square)
Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria Station
Victorian houses in Hampstead, Greenwich, Blackheath, & Sydenham Hill

Wow that is some list! I would suggest skipping Liverpool Street station as it has was comprehensively refurbished some years ago. It certainly doesn't have any Victorian feel now (Have you seen Mission Impossible? Tom Cruise makes a phone call from the main station concourse). Check out the interior of Kings Cross station instead, and the exterior of St Pancras station right next door. Both are more impressive (you can also see the mythical platform featured in the Harry Potter movies too!)

Also, Marble Arch. Hmm this is basically a large, very busy, traffic roundabout and you might find it a bit of a let down. The Arc de Triomphe it ain't.

Your list is long and comprehensive. You will probably only get to a fraction of them - but you left off one of flanneruk's best suggestions. Wilton's music hall is a must for "victorianaphiles". www.wiltonsmusichall.co.uk/

stevelondon88, thanks for the feedback.

I've got a feeling many of these places are just "pass-by's" if already in the area. Trick is to ID those worth a special trip and to also group several of them together to hit while doing an area exploration.

...and you left out Islington's houses! Far more a part of Victorian London than those Edwardian suburbs halfway to Birmingham or France. Where do you think all those merchants who created global commerce lived?

And while I'm back on: Coalhole covers.

Walk round the Victorian residential areas (the ones with real houses) looking at the ground. Outside every house is a near-masterpiece of cast-iron craftsmanship. Almost every one different. They seal the chute down to the coal cellar, and 99% of them have been undamaged by vandalism, Hitler or gentrification.

flanneruk, this list is a "living" document that grows longer by the minute. I'll have to go back to the UK on many trips to finish it all.

I did note all your recommendations on my latest copy (I'll have to start numbering them) and found an Islington walk that might work in Walking London by Andrew Duncan.

degas, thanks for the great list. I was interested in the same thing and didn't know where to start. Here's one you might add:

Marlborough House. Pall Mall, London SW1. Built for Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, a close friend of Queen Anne. The Duchess wanted her new house to be "strong, plain and convenient". Designed by Christopher Wren, both father and son, it was completed in 1711. In the 19th century the house was substantially enlarged and used by members of the Royal Family. From 1863 until he became King Edward VII in 1901, it was the home of the Prince and Princess of Wales. During this period Marlborough House became the social centre of London.

Today the building houses the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Here's another one:

Trafalgar Square. London WC2. Built in honour of Admiral Lord Nelson after his victory in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar. Designed by John Nash and constructed in the 1830s, on the site that was originally the mews for royal hawks and then royal stables.

Dominating the square is the 171 feet column, Nelson's Column (1843), with its 18 feet statue of Nelson on top. At its base are friezes cast from metal from French and Spanish cannon captured at the Battle of Trafalgar. The four bronze lions were added in 1868.

degas, one more for you:

Albert Bridge. Spanning the Thames from Chelsea to Battersea, this is without doubt London's prettiest bridge. Built in a grand Victorian manner, the bridge was finished in 1873 with lanterns and topped by ornate pagodas giving it a vaguely oriental appearance. In 1983 it was repainted in delicate ice cream colours and it adds great variety to the London river scene. At each end of the bridge is a notice instructing the soldiers of nearby Chelsea Barracks to break step when marching over the bridge. It was thought that the vibrations caused by marching in step would damage the delicate structure.

Hi Degas,
I don't know if you're interested in fiction books regarding this period, but I love Anne Perry. She writes mystery novels set in Victorian London, and she certainly sets her scenes very well with vivid imagery and description. I'm sure many of the places you've listed are mentioned in her books.

Incidentally, Anne Perry herself is quite interesting. I recently discovered that she is the subject of a movie called "Heavenly Creatures" about 2 teenage girls in New Zealand who murdered one of the girl's mother (happened years ago). Anne's name was changed after she was released from prison. Just a bit of trivia...

Wow - I go away for awhile and come back to some really great inputs. You good folks are really educating me today.

Please continue, as it just gets better and better.

Since John Nash has been brought up, who's generally of the late Georgian period, but only predates Victoria by a little bit...

I personally find the Crescent Park arc at the end of Portland Place, facing Regent Park in Marylebone to be an absolutely stunning piece of work.