Important Reminder:The Foursquare City Guide app officially sunset on December 15, 2024, with the web version following in early 2025. However, your check-in journey doesn’t end here! Join us on Swarm, where new adventures await.
Rail Station · King's Cross · 307 tips and reviews
HISTORY UK: ‘Platform 9 and 3/4 ‘ is a site of pilgrimage for fans of Harry Potter, as this is the place of departure for the Hogwarts Express. A luggage trolley ‘disappearing’ through a wall marks the spot.
AnyTrip: London's rock and metal cathedral (well, basement). The Smashing Pumpkins, Offspring, Placebo and Queens of the Stone Age have all played here.
Great Russell St (btwn Montague & Bloomsbury St), London, Greater London
History Museum · Bloomsbury · 1008 tips and reviews
HISTORY UK: The British Museum began from the collection of naturalist Sir Hans Sloane which he left to the nation on his death in 1753. Now it houses 7 million objects including more than 100 Egyptian mummies.
Art Museum · Kensington and Chelsea · 649 tips and reviews
HISTORY UK: The V&A is the world’s largest museum of decorative art and design and holds 4.5 million objects. Henry Cole, the museum’s first director, printed the world’s first Christmas card in 1843.
Science Museum · Kensington and Chelsea · 443 tips and reviews
Londonist: If you like retro-exhibitions, head up to the first floor communications gallery, whose labels clearly haven't been updated since the early 90s...possibly the 80s.
Westminster Bridge Rd. (Victoria Embankment), London, Greater London
Bridge · Waterloo · 115 tips and reviews
HISTORY UK: The lion sculpture was once painted red and stood over the Red Lion Brewery on the South Bank in the 18th century. When the area was redeveloped in the 1950s the lion was saved and moved here.
Cormac Heron: London's hidden gem and largely untold secret.So much history, central to London and still got a village feel.Travel to and from central London by bus, train, DLR or boat
HISTORY UK: In 1894 a French anarchist named Martial Bourdin was carrying a bomb through the park to the Observatory when it exploded and killed him. No one knows why he had decided to target the Observatory.
The Queen's Walk (Belvedere Rd), London, Greater London
Attraction · Waterloo · 970 tips and reviews
HISTORY UK: Currently the third tallest Ferris wheel in the world (the tallest when built in 1999, but now behind Singapore and Nanchang), it moves at 0.6mph, and you can see 25 miles from the top.
HISTORY UK: Big Ben refers to the 13 ton bell in the clock tower of Westminster Palace. Opinion is divided as to whether it was named after the then Commissioner of Works, or a famous prize-fighter of the time.
Louis Vuitton: While the daily changing of the guards is a tourist magnet, this majestic palace is a London icon and home of the Queen. You know that she is in residence when the flag is flying above the palace!
HISTORY UK: The world’s largest toy shop began life in 1760 as Noah’s Ark at 231 High Holborn. The Regent Street branch opened in 1881, and was bombed 5 times during the war.
HISTORY UK: The market began life in 1974 as a weekly crafts market, and now has about 100,000 visitors each weekend. The Stables Market is where the horses used to be kept for towing canal barges.
HISTORY UK: This is London’s oldest live music venue and jazz club. It opened during the war in 1942. Many of its earliest performers and patrons were American soldiers, including Glen Miller.
HISTORY UK: Soho is home to Europe’s largest Chinatown, which developed in the 1970s. Earlier generations of London’s Chinese population had centred around the docks of Limehouse.
Electronics Store · City of Westminster · 289 tips and reviews
Londonist: Yeah, it looks all shiny now, but go back 230 years and you'd be watching graverobbed corpses being dissected by the Hunter brothers. How quickly people forget.
HISTORY UK: The second bridge here was completed in 1945. Because there was a war on, much of the work was carried out by women and so this used to be known as ‘the ladies’ bridge’.
Vegan and Vegetarian Restaurant · Soho · 27 tips and reviews
Mary C O'Sullivan: During the day there's a "one visit" rule operating, it's all you can eat at certain times only.The food is so good we nearly cried when we went back late the next night&it had already closed:'(
HISTORY UK: The shop with the big clock is where Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood opened ‘Let It Rock’ in 1971 (renamed SEX in 1974). It’s considered the birthplace of the British punk scene.
HISTORY UK: This vegetarian restaurant began life as a squat kitchen in the 1980s. Today it’s still run as a collective, with a different cook every night, and boasts of its friendly bohemian atmosphere.