Welcome to Guides and Tourism Books | City Books

Writing (and updating) this book has been a pleasure, an education and a labour of love. This fully revised and updated second edition is long overdue (although frequently revised over the years), exacerbated by the pandemic. Despite having lived in most areas of the city at various times, and happily pottered around it for many years, we now realise how much we had (and still have) to learn, and how many little-known delights London has to offer. Not only had we failed to visit many of the 139 ‘secret’ places covered in this book, we hadn’t even heard of many of them!
    London is a city with a cornucopia of hidden treasures, being ancient, vast and in a constant state of flux. Newcomers have, of course, a wealth of world-renowned attractions to keep them occupied for a month of Sundays, which are more than adequately covered in a plethora of standard guide books. What Secret London does is take you off the beaten path to seek out the more unusual places that often fail to register on the radar of both visitors and residents alike. It aims to sidestep the chaos and queues of London’s tourist-clogged attractions and visit its quirkier, more mysterious side.
    Secret London includes some of the city’s loveliest buildings, hidden gardens, bizarre museums, ‘lost’ graveyards, medieval pubs, cutting-edge art and design, and much more. The entries range from the enchanting canals of Little Venice to eccentric Thameside sculptures, from the stuffed remains of a philosopher to the poignant Foundling Museum, from the home of Sigmund Freud’s famous sofa to where Handel and Hendrix meet, and from the spectacular treasures of Ham House to atmospheric Kensal Green cemetery.
    Although Secret London isn’t intended as a walking guide, many of the places covered are close to one another in central London – notably in the hubs of Westminster and the City – where you can easily stroll between them, while others are further out in the suburbs. However, all are close to public transport links and relatively easy to get to. And, conveniently for a city with a (largely unfounded) reputation for rain, many of the attractions are indoors, meaning you can visit them whatever the weather.
    So there’s no excuse for not getting out there and exploring. I hope you enjoy discovering secret London as much as we did.