London

[March-Hare]

Can anyone recommend any usual tours in London - something you wouldn't expect to see, something not on the usual tourist top ten? Have thought of The Old Bailey, Lincoln's Inn - but where else?

[FredPuli43]

Middle Temple Hall and the Temple Church. An Elizabethan hall, scene of the first performance of Twelfth Night and with a high table made of timber from Sir Francis Drake's ship, and a round church. Check times of opening

The real pleasure in Middle Temple, and Inner Temple next door, is wandering around the charming courtyards. Nothing has changed outwardly for hundreds of years; certainly Dickens would recognise it. The barristers' chambers have hand-painted lists of the barristers' names, the head of chambers and the most senior at the top, down the most junior at the end, with the clerk's name in different script at the very bottom. Even the lamps outside were lit by a lamplighter until recent times. Lincoln's Inn has not got the same atmosphere; there aren't the courtyards.

[Sharingan]

Freddie Foreman ( ex Kray Twins associate) has a company which runs guided tours of the East End gangland haunts of the 1960's, that's quite interesting and a bit unusual or you could go on a Ripper Tour and everything that FredPuli suggested is wonderful too.xx