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Off the beaten track in London, EnglandAs the capital of England, London is a popular destination in its own right, with many well known attractions, like Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and so on. But for those who have visited all the big sites before, there are some fascinating off the beaten tourist track spots to visit too.
Whether you are enjoying a guided London bus tour through Premium Tours, or heading out on your own, the following are some interesting locations to visit along your way. 1. London’s smallest police stationWhen visiting Trafalgar Square, head to the southeast corner to discover a Lilliputian police station, which has been standing there since the 1930s. You may have walked past it before and never noticed it, but it was built as a watch-post in past days to keep an eye on the square, which still tends to attract rioters, protesters and marchers.It
was built to hold only one police officer, but is sadly now out of commission.
Should you choose to peer through the window, all you will see these days
is mops and cleaning products, as it is now used by cleaners as a storeroom.
2. Hungerford Footbridge Skateboard GraveyardThere’s a place on the River Thames where skateboards go when they die. It is thought the skateboard graveyard was started it memory of a murdered skateboarder. Timothy Baxter, 24, and his friend, Gabriel Cornish, were badly beaten in a mugging and thrown into the river from the bridge back in 1999. While Cornish did survive, Baxter regrettably died. Since then skateboarders have thrown their broken boards onto the support structure of the bridge in his memory.
The graveyard can be found a little downstream from the Golden Jubilee Bridges, which were opened to replace the Hungerford Footbridge in 2002. Apparently the council does remove the broken skateboards occasionally and sometimes daredevils climb their way down to rearrange the broken boards, but it remains there in Baxter’s memory to this day. 3. The Cartoon MuseumLondon is famous for its museums, like the British Museum, Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others. However there’s a fascinating, lesser known museum well worth a visit. The Cartoon Museum was created in 2006 by a group of comic artists, cartoonists and collectors who fall under the Cartoon Art Trust. They went on to put together a permanent home for their work.
The Museum is housed in what was originally a London dairy belonging to the Dairy Supply Company Limited in Little Russell Street. These days the Cartoon Museum is home to more than 4,000 comics, 1,700 original comic strips, 5,000 books and graphic novels as well as animated characters and caricatures. The display is updated regularly to keep things interesting. The Cartoon Museum is just a block away from the British Museum and while it certainly isn’t as stuffy in nature, it turns out the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, was there to cut the ribbon on the day it opened. The museum is also a short stroll from the Holborn and Tottenham Court Road Tube stops, so is easy to reach. Next time you are in London, give these unusual places a visit and make sure you have your camera handy.
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