Page 68 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - London

66  INTRODUCING L ONDON

Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge

Until World War II, this stretch of the Thames marked the
division between rich and poor London. On the north bank
were the offices, shops, luxury hotels and apartments of
Whitehall and the Strand, the Inns of Court and the newspaper
district. To the south were smoky factories and slum dwellings.
After the war, the Festival of Britain in 1951 started the revival
of the South Bank (see pp188–95), which now has some of the
capital’s most interesting modern buildings. Savoy Hotel
This hotel is on the site of a
Shell Mex House medieval palace (see p120).
Built in 1931 on the site
of the vast Cecil Hotel, Somerset House, built
this once housed offices in 1786, houses an art
for the oil company. gallery (see p121).

Temple

Embankment Gardens Cleopatra’s Needle
is the site of many was made in ancient
open-air concerts held Egypt and given to
in the bandstand during London in 1819 Waterloo
summer (see p122). (see p122). Bridge

Charing
Cross
Festival
Pier
Embankment
Embankment Pier The
Southbank
Centre was
the site of the
Charing Cross 1951 Festival of
The rail terminus is Britain and is London’s
encased in a Post- most important arts
Modernist office London complex. It is dominated
complex (see p123). Eye by the Royal Festival Hall,
Pier the National Theatre and the
Hayward Gallery (see p192).
Hungerford Bridge Jubilee Gardens
and Golden Jubilee
Footbridges The London Eye offers incredible
views over London (see p193).
The Banqueting
House is one of Inigo
Jones’s finest works,
built as part of
Whitehall Palace
(see p84).
The Ministry of
Defence is a bulky Westminster County Hall
white fortress Pier This is home to the state-of-the-
completed in art Sea Life London Aquarium and
the 1950s. Westminster Westminster Bridge its 350 species of fish.

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