The internet is a global phenomenon, defying geography and scoffing at national boundaries. So it might seem odd to peer solely at the capital through our browser windows, but, trust us, the city looks sensational viewed on the small screen. Clearly, this very site is the font of indispensable London knowledge – but here we present 50 other corkers, all of them useful and entertaining, all of them devoted entirely to the Big Smoke. Go on, log on to London!
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
Blogs
www.london-underground.blogspot.com
The best blogs have a tinge of obsession about them, and Annie Mole’s site delves deep in its coverage of all things tube-related. There’s a comprehensive list of links to other London Underground sites, including www.talkonthetube.com which aims to get conversations going on all London lines.
Check out The ‘Guess Where Tube Quiz’, as submitted by Annie’s fellow enthusiast Ian D. It’s just pictures of stations with the names obscured but is a great office time-waster.
www.diamondgeezer.blogspot.com
We have to declare an interest here: Diamond Geezer has written for TO on several occasions. But that’s because, in our opinion, he’s London’s most interesting blogger. Posting since 2002, he’s the online successor to the likes of John Betjeman, via Peter Ackroyd, though his recent ‘Seaside Postcard’ series could be a sign that his attention is drifting away from the capital.
Check out The Geezer’s ‘Seven Ages of Blog’, which best demonstrates his online savvy.
www.londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com
With reviews from a panel of testers, your first (and most important) meal of the day need never be a disappointment again.
Check out Egon Toast’s review of Alpino in Islington: ‘The beans, soggy scourge of the newly buttered slice of toast, were husbanded expertly by flanks of mushroom.’
pigeonblog.wordpress.com
The concept of writing a blog in the guise of a pigeon is original, and good for a quick laugh – keeping the thing updated with regular posts for three years takes a strange kind of genius.
Check out The ‘A pigeon that looks like’ section. Stare at the Britney Spears pigeon for long enough and you’ll convince yourself the bird’s a dead ringer.
www.londoncabby.blogspot.com
A black-cab driver’s blog that wins points for its sheer detail on everything from obnoxious fares to the mechanical upkeep of the classic London taxi. The anonymity of the author makes for a (sometimes brutally) honest snapshot of the trade.
Check out The photos of how bad a state certain inebriated passengers have left the cab in, which are a sobering reminder of why drivers are reluctant to pick you up after the work Christmas party.
www.onionbagblog.blogspot.com
Slipping around the city on his two wheels, camera at the ready, Mr Onionbag captures the fascinating details of life in south London in a way that epitomises blogging at its best.
Check out The excellent set of Lomo photos (casual, colourful snapshots of London).
www.london.thewayweseeit.org
This collaborative photo blog invites visitors to send in their snaps of specific areas of London, and aims to showcase the diversity of the city (particularly its little-known patches).
Check out The gallery of images for Cork Street, W1, is typically eclectic – stylised black-and-white shots next to reportage and beautifully observed details.
www.route79.org/journal
In the author’s own words: ‘From
London. By a British, European, second-generation Indian. Probably
confused – but proud to be them all! Half of my journey to and from
work is a 20- to 30-minute bus ride: London bus route 79 – between
Alperton in west London and Kingsbury in north-west London.’ If he
proves anything, it’s that bus rides are always good for daydreaming,
digression and philisophical musings.
Check out The slightly unrelated list of recipes, which reflect the author’s ethnic make-up – featuring everything from pakoras to lamb hot-pot.
www.beastsoflondon.blogspot.com
From
mussels in the Thames to black leopards in Bexley, keep a check of the
unlikely creatures that visit our capital. Make this your first stop to
report a sighting of your own (even if it is just your garden hose
mistaken for a python).
Check out The archives will tell you all about the wild inhabitants of our city’s recent past.
www.sub-urban.com
This
one is run by Jondoe and Stoop, two adventurous Londoners who have to
keep their identities under wraps given that their exploits frequently
test the boundaries of the law. They specialise in exploring
underground complexes (storm drains, tunnels, sewers) and derelict
buildings, posting photos and text about what they've found. They’ve
expanded throughout the UK in recent years, but their London
explorations were their first (and, dare we say it, best).
Check out Their forays into the River Fleet, not least because they once took Time Out’s Peter Watts along with them and he nearly drowned.
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
History
www.riverlee.org.uk
Funded by London’s Waterway Partnership, this site offers background on the history, geography and ecology of the Lee, a fascinating and wild patch of London.
Check out The section on water voles. They rock.
www.londonremembers.com
This site aims to document all the memorials in London – from blue plaques to fountains – which, it turns out, is a mammoth task.
Check out The map of Soho, which is littered with memorials to everyone from William Blake to Dr John Snow’s cholera pump on Broadwick Street.
www.classiccafes.co.uk
A chance to pay homage to the capital’s great caffs. You can reminisce over the history of vintage eateries (complete with great archive shots) and check out the reviews of those still going strong. Just don’t offend the author by referring to them as ‘greasy spoons’.
Check out The top ten best ever London cafés, which includes the New Piccadilly (RIP) and the still-kicking East End legend E Pellicci.
www.metroland.org.uk
‘Metro-land’ was a term coined by the Metropolitan Railway company in 1915, and used to describe the areas of north-west London and Middlesex served by the railway. The different stops became the subject of John Betjeman’s famous 1973 BBC documentary (‘Metro-land’), and this site aims to continue the project with a mix of fascinating achive photos, personal memories and historical accounts (including ’70s timetables for the truly interested).
Check out The strangely beautiful 1969 photos taken inside Amersham signal box.
www.portcities.org.uk/london
Put together using local London libraries and archives, as well as the National Maritime Museum, this is a treasure trove of material covering all aspects of the capital’s essential and enduring relationship with the river. The archive photographs are brilliant.
Check out The ‘port facts’ that are littered through the site – like the fact that bird droppings and animal blood were imported and turned into artificial fertiliser at Silvertown.
www.eastlondonhistory.com
An endearingly scrappy collection of stories about the East End, focusing on the people who lived there and influenced the area’s history. The spirit of rebellion runs through all the accounts – with anarchists, suffragettes, trade unionists and criminals all rubbing shoulders.
Check out The story of the fantastically named German anarchist Rudolph Rocker, a Jewish immigrant who led the 1912 garment workers’ strike.
users.bathspa.ac.uk/greenwood
Created by Bath Spa University, this is a simple idea that’s completely engrossing. It’s an interactive map of 1827 London, first drawn up by Christopher and John Greenwood. It covers, in impressive detail, the city from Earl’s Court to the River Lee, and Highgate to Camberwell.
Check out You’ll almost certainly zoom straight into the area you live or work in.
www.history.ac.uk/cmh/cmh.main.html
Unashamedly academic in its approach, the Centre for Metropolitan History was set up with the Museum of London to promote the ‘study and wide appreciation of London’s character and development from its beginnings to the present day’. For the casual browser the site features information on everything from the history of London markets to the city’s epidemics.
Check out The searchable bibliography of London history, which can pull up documents on anything from pimps in interwar London to East End allotment gardening.
www.pepysdiary.com
If blogs had existed in the seventeenth century, Samuel Pepys would have had one – and it probably would have looked a bit like this. It’s a pet project by web consultant Phil Gyford in which Pepys’ diary entries are presented in real time, starting in 2003. It’s an odd approach, but makes the man’s work digestible and rewards daily visits.
Check out Pepys’ posts by subject tag. We’re not sure what Pepys would have thought of such an arrangement, but it’s certainly useful.
www.derelictlondon.com
Paul Talling’s collection of photos of the parts of the city that are falling to bits. With more than 1,000 pictures in the archive, it’s unsurprising that the site’s had nearly 750,000 hits.
Check out The section on disused pubs – surely one of the most depressing portraits of the capital.
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
Going out
www.londonarchitecturediary.com
Listing the vast range of events related to our ever-changing built environment, the London Architecture Diary is run by a small team with exhibitions and debates run by the likes of RIBA.
Check out Each month a guest editor is invited to give his or her input on the recommendations – past editors have included Alain de Botton, Tom Dyckhoff and journalist Henrietta Thompson.
www.gingerbeer.co.uk
This vibrant guide to lesbian London lists everything from bars and clubs to committee events and book launches – as well as a smattering of explicit sex tips. And, to ease any fears that you’re ‘the only gay in the village’, there’s a map of the capital’s ‘Gaybourhoods’.
Check out Have a gander at ‘Cleavage Of The Month’. Just, you know, because.
www.untoldlondon.org.uk
This site seeks to ‘discover the history of London’s diverse communities’. What’s impressive is the level to which it delves into local archives and communities, away from the big institutions and exhibitions, to document the past of the capital’s ethnic and cultural groups – so you’ll find a multimedia record of the Greek Cypriot immigrant community next to a profile of Jimmy Peters, the black Greenwich orphan who went on to play rugby union for England.
Check out The huge, and unique, archives.
www.scene-out.com
An online community of London’s gay clubbers, fronted by cute cartoon characters representing the city’s queer tribes (think Lego meets lumberjack). You’ll find news, listings, and photos of previous nights’ debauchery, plus users’ reviews that also cover music and theatre.
Check out If you’re looking for something going on in London that you can’t find anywhere else you’ll almost certainly be able to hunt it down through the scene-out.com forums.
www.walkit.com/london
With the aim of getting more of us to walk around London, this site boasts a nifty set of tools to encourage even the laziest city-dwellers. The key feature is bespoke maps – simply enter start and end points for your journey and the site will give you full directions and an estimate of how long the walk will take (depending on whether you’re shuffling slowly or power walking). You can even customise the route to avoid busy streets.
Check out Learn how many calories you’ll burn – a great motivation after a large lunch.
www.dirtydirtydancing.com
This slick site showcases the photography of Alistair Allen, who spends his nights on the tiles at some of London’s hippest club nights. Boombox, Trailer Trash, Smash and Grab, and others are all extensively documented.
Check out Thanks to the circles he mixes in, Allen is also on the list for plenty of fashion designers' parties, making this is the first place to come if you’re looking to find out what the extroverts are wearing after dark.
www.london-city-churches.org.uk
‘Going out’ in London doesn’t have to involve hedonistic excess – and perhaps this site can provide a welcome change of pace. As its name suggests, this is a guide to City churches – some of the finest ecclesiastical buildings in Europe. So rather than a trip to the obvious St Paul’s, you can hunt out St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe or St Sepulchre-without-Newgate.
Check out The location map of all 47 churches (and nine tours), which will help plan your day’s visits.
www.hidden-london.com
A website, with associated print book, dedicated to the little-known corners of London – from Abbey Wood to Yeading (so far there isn’t a listing under the letter Z).
Check out The ‘Recommended’ section, which includes south-west London’s ‘Korea Town’, Croydon’s beautiful residential gardens and the architectural follies of EG Trobridge up in the north-west.
www.londonisfree.com
A recent addition, possibly capitalising on the famous but now sadly departed www.LondonFreeList.com. There are listings of exhibitions, events and activities that cost nothing, and it’s strong on finding live radio and TV recordings.
Check out The family events section – particularly useful when holiday time comes round again.
www.run-riot.com
This blog-style guide is excellent for hunting out alternative events. It grew from an informal text-only bulletin and is popular with London’s creative types.
Check out The noticeboard has call-outs for everything from stewards and arts industry jobs, to invitations to compete in an alternative beauty pageant.
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
Shopping and services
www.mypropertyspy.co.uk
Get access to property sale prices in London, some dating back to 2000. It’s compulsive reading, and great ammunition when haggling with estate agents who ‘are not at liberty’ to disclose how much your dream house went for when it was gazumped from under your feet.
Check out The detail includes house numbers, taking nosing on your neighbours to new heights.
www.crockattandpowell.blogspot.com
Crockatt and Powell is an independent bookshop behind Waterloo station, and a nicely old-fashioned purveyor of interesting tomes a world away from the likes of Borders. Through its site you can make enquiries about stock but the chatty and passionate blog is the real draw.
Check out The authors are clearly (and expectedly) voracious readers, so keep an eye out for their tips on the next big thing. Currently, it’s Jennie Walker, author of print-on-demand book ‘24 for 3’.
www.streetsensation.co.uk
Take a virtual tour of London’s busiest shopping streets. With photos and links to more than 3,500 shops, restaurants and bars, the idea is that you’ll always know what to expect when you stumble out of the tube station.
Check out Streets are presented as a scrollable set of photos of shop fronts, so you really will be able to find them.
www.lynku.com
This is a designer fashion and furniture sales website specifically for London. It offers free weekly update emails and alerts on sales and promotions and lists them all by category.
Check out The sample sales calendar is one to check if you’re thrifty as well as well-dressed.
www.londoncyclesport.com
A huge online resource for anyone looking to take cycling beyond the functional commute to a more competitive level. There are comprehensive guides to gear, upcoming events and race reports.
Check out The forums where London’s two-wheeled demons swap advice (it’s also a great place to buy or sell a high-quality bike).
www.theratandmouse.co.uk
Presented in the form of a blog, this site sifts through the endless (and often conflicting) reports on the state of the London property market and tries to present an expert digest, giving you both useful information and an excellent source of dinner-party gossip.
Check out Search the archive by postcode and find out exactly what’s been muttered about your street.
www.londonrate.com
This is a neat resource for busy Londoners: a growing collection of service-industry contacts, rated and searchable. You’ll find everything from computer experts to cleaners, hairdressers to housekeepers and babysitters to builders.
Check out The clearly laid-out prices. None of that ‘ring for a quote’ malarkey.
www.propertysnake.co.uk
Yet another house-obsessed site, but the twist here is that the prices are laid out in a ‘Top of the Pops’ format, so you can see at a glance who’s up, who’s down, and by how much. The name is a cheeky twist on ‘Property Ladder’, obviously.
Check out The easily digested stat on the homepage that tells you how London house prices have gone down recently, and by how much (possibly bringing more joy to first-time buyers than property owners).
www.dalstonoxfamshop.blogspot.com
The genius of this idea is its simplicity: the author (a DJ, admittedly) heads to Oxfam in Dalston, buys up a load of music cassettes, and then digitises them so that they can be played online. The result is a resurrection of nostalgic old tapes that might otherwise have been lost. It also features the sleeve art and other charity-shop finds.
Check out Where else online will you find ‘Disco Beach Party 2’, complete with the ‘Birdie Song’ and ‘Una Paloma Blanca’?
www.londonnoisemap.com
As it sounds – a digest of official goverment measurements of volume levels across the capital, presented in colour-coded map form. You can search by postcode and instantly see how much racket there is on your street relative to the rest of the capital.
Check out It goes into so much detail you could even use it to plan a tranquil picnic – the lowest noise areas, not surprisingly, tend to be bang in the middle of parks.
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
Communities
www.urban75.org
A non-profit community site based in Brixton, this site is strongest on protests and activism, with bulletin boards and listings for upcoming marches and rallies.
Check out The ‘bullshit-free’ guide to drug taking (which neither condones nor condemns the practice), which would no doubt cause uproar at the Daily Mail, a selling point in itself.
www.londonist.com
‘A website about London and everything that happens in it’, Londonist is a lively and eclectic ongoing conversation about the capital, put together with real passion and insight.
Check out The map of free wi-fi spots in the capital is a work in progress; add your own local finds.
www.kudocities.com
We’re just about willing to give this ‘city knowledge exchange’ the benefit of the doubt; its recent revamp expressed global ambitions but it undeniably built its London community first (under its previous name, Friday Cities). It’s a highly user-friendly site that relies on (and enthusiastically encourages) users to start whatever conversations they want about London.
Check out Kudos points, awarded for interacting with the site, can be exchanged for ‘offline’ treats.
www.skeptic.org.uk/pub/
Skeptics In The Pub meets on the third Tuesday of the month at The Penderel’s Oak, Holborn. Usually there’s a speaker who will be linked to The Skeptic, the UK magazine for anyone who gets really agitated by the unchecked nonsense spouted by fans of the paranormal (see below).
Check out Recent topics discussed have included ‘How not to investigate the Paranormal’ and ‘Why don’t creationists just shut up?’ Expect a heated debate if you disagree.
www.spacehijackers.co.uk
Back in September 2007 thes London-based ‘anarchitects’ were kind enough to let Time Out’s Rebecca Taylor join them in their tank to help disrupt an arms fair. Their modus operandi is to reclaim public spaces from amoral corporations in the most imaginative ways possible.
Check out The ‘Equipment’ section, which reveals their secret armoury of gadgets, including graffiti boots and an all-terrain Morris Minor.
www.wildweb.london.gov.uk
This Mayor of London-sponsored site is designed to tell you where your fellow (non-human) Londoners are living, absolving you of any pressure to head to ‘the countryside’ ever again.
Check out Apparently Tottenham rail sidings provide ‘a substantial area of relatively undisturbed habitat’, which is impressive.
www.londonparanormalsociety.co.uk
Who isn’t tempted by the idea of a darkened tour around a ‘haunted’ house, pub or public building? These guys organise just that. Skeptics (see above) would be wise to avoid unless they have genuine nerves of titanium.
Check out We don’t want to take the piss, but the ‘Testimonials’ section is amusing, including a ‘10 out of 10’ from the possibly biased Fate and Fortune magazine.
www.stitchandbitchlondon.co.uk
We’ve been covering this ad hoc group of London knitting enthusiasts for a while but it still gives us a warm glow to see the information superhighway being used to promote such an endearingly old-fashioned pastime.
Check out The story of their ongoing project to knit giant scarves for the lions in Trafalgar Square to raise money for Cancer Research.
www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/guide/london.shtml
Technically, this site should be both in our ‘Going out’ section or excluded because it covers the whole UK. There are reasons for its appearance here, though. Firstly, the amateur reviewers have such an interest in the subject that it goes beyond mere reviewing of boozers; and secondly, it covers London so comprehensively that it simply cannot be ignored. Granted, the reviewers (men, on the whole) are of a type, but it’s the type that despises the gentrification of every pub in London and yearns for an era of quality, tradition and polite service.
Check out The ‘Crawl Generator’. Enter the number of pubs you want to visit, the maximum distance you want to stumble, and it comes up with a route. Nobel Prizes have been awarded for less.
www.pearlysociety.co.uk
Could a website be any more London? Dedicated to the community of pearly kings and queens, this site hasn’t been updated for a while but it’s a fascinating historical record with a great archive of photos of the pearlies fully dolled up (and in some cases having a right old knees-up).
Check out The section on St Paul’s, the ‘Actors' Church’ in Covent Garden, a proper hidden gem.
Blogs | History | Going out | Shopping and services | Communities
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19 comments
just for the record... our website is here...
http://www.hungamunga.co.uk
I think we should all meet under Waterloo Bridge at dawn with sharpened knitting needles.
well you cant say we dont live up to our name can you !
Me thinks there are some lessons to be learned here. Lets all do something positive and go get crafting instead.
ROTFLOL! Thanks ladies, this is one of the funniest things I've read in ages. Who knew knitting could be so cut-throat and, well, bitchy! Knit On!
It is clear that you don't like that the group got chosen. You think the girls "got their mates" to attack (I personally am a group member, but hardly know the girls, though I do have a great amount of respect for what they do). You accuse their events of being "all part of other people's events" which is utter rubbish since they solely organised the Knit Crawl and the Lion Scarf. Also the girls have worked with other groups and organisations such as IKnit and Twisted Thread in harmony with them, rather than jumping on their coattails as you seem to imply (and again all in their spare time for no pay!)
You can't like everything all the time, but it seems to me you should just let the girls have their moment, and leave it at that. You have told the world you think their website isn't good enough for the top 50. The rest of your put downs they could have done without, I think.
You tell them to take it on the chin, but you are basically putting down five very hardworking girls who go out of their way to organise events and write newsletters that benefit you. This seems rather ungrateful to me.
I think the girls who have replied have been remarkably restrained in their comments. And I love the website. It makes me laugh. Well done girls.
I think this all may have spiraled a little out of control! Charley, you are more than welcome back to the group and are completely entitled to your opinion on the site and the group itself. There was no move to gang up and we are sorry if you feel that way - those that have posted obviously feel very protective of the group and I'm sure they meant no offense to you. Perhaps we can all do a few stiches and cast off this matter now!
Charley, I am not picking on you but it seems to me that you're missing the point of of Time Out's article and being needlessly brash about it. The introduction to the article says: "here we present 50 other corkers, all of them useful and entertaining, all of them devoted entirely to the Big Smoke."
Stitch and Bitch London may not have the slickest website but their website has lead to a community being formed centred around knitting and being in London.
Fair enough, Hungamunga also do crafts but they don't necessarily have a London-specific theme. Also, iKnit is a yarn and knitting shop/cafe so it is primarily a business.
Flipin heck, there's nothing like a stitch n bitch scorned. I do get the newsletter, I have been to the group...all I wanted to say is I don't think, of all the craft sites in London, it deserved to be the only one in the top 50 BEST WEBSITES IN LONDON. I take it very personally that Amy says I'm slagging off a charity event - the link says 'check the progress of it' and I'm just saying that the progress has finished - Time Out's fault not yours. It was a brilliant idea and it looked fabulous. Maybe my beef is with Timeout for choosing the site and I realise you've probably got all your mates here to attack any kind of criticism and I'm feeling a bit ganged up on. Take it on the chin - it's just my opinion! You are all mighty and powerful and the best knitting group in the world, your sacrifices 'to spread the pure love of the knit' are truly astonishing and your projects (all part of other people's events - although I loved the knit-crawl too) are worthy of the highest praise - I just didn't like your website's all. Will I be allowed to come back?
sounds like sour grapes to me. thanks for the extra publicity though
Charley, Stitch and Bitch London meet every week. I would think that is fairly regular. How much more regularly would you like them to hold events?
Also they arrange events all the time. They did the Knit Crawl in the summer (which I loved), the Champagne bar at Ally Pally's Knit Show, and the UK Blanket for all the knitting groups. And they have stuff coming up all year.
Both sites you mentioned have had their Time Out glory in the past. Why not let Stitch and Bitch have theirs?
Charley, luckily most people in the craft community are more supportive of each other. You're wrong about the lion scarf event too - I just checked, it was less than a year ago. Pretty bad form to slag off a charity event.
I think it's awfully sad that a Londoner interested in crafts, is so critical of the stitch and bitch group being given a little credit. Shame on you Charley.
Charley, I think it is a terrible shame that you can't just be happy that craft is getting a nod, since you seem to support it so much.
It is also very sad that you can't let a non-profit group, who do so much for charity and have an passionate love of London, get a bit of praise.
If you have a website of your own, run a knitting group of your own, write a fortnightly newsletter, teach people to knit for free weekly, pay out of your own pocket to spread the pure love of the knit, then I would be very interested to see it, to see how we can improve.
OK, point taken. I'm an avid crafter and I just thought, IMO, that there were better craft websites available - afterall this was the best 50 websites in London article, not the biggest group or community, or non-commercial organisation list.
I've been to a SNB London meeting before, I've also been to a couple of other knitting groups who also meet weekly, run by people who work and they are free too. Funny thing is...your comment is almost an ad in itself! Happy stitching.
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