Christmas

1. Home of the Christmas card
Elm Row, NW3
Sir Henry Cole, the brains behind the 1851 Great Exhibition, also introduced Christmas cards.

2. Turkey lurky
Ham Yard, W1
In 1852, celebrity chef Alexis Soyer laid on Christmas dinner for 22,000 poor Londoners in this shabby yard. Try that, Jamie.

3. Festive addresses
Snowman House, Abbey Road, NW6
The suitably icy-looking block is named after a local mayor. Rudolph Road is round the corner.

4. Scrooge mural
Marylebone Road
Charles Dickens is intimately associated with the festive season. This mural depicts the close encounter between Ebeneezer Scrooge and a haunted door-knocker from ‘A Christmas Carol’.

5. Christmas lecture hall
Royal Institution, Albemarle Street, W1
Michael Faraday began the tradition of scientific lectures for young people here in 1825. Props from some of these seminars can be viewed in a first-floor corridor. Feature continues

6. Norwegian Wood
Trafalgar Square, W1
The most famous Christmas tradition is the Norwegian tree in Trafalgar Square each year.

7. Carol composer's pad
30 Torrington Place, WC1
A plaque on this terrace house is for Christina Rossetti, composer of ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’.

8. Cake-scoffing tradition
Drury Lane Theatre, WC2
The cast at Drury Lane maintains an tradition of eating cakes on Twelfth Night (January 5) in memory of Robert Baddeley, a cook-turned-actor.

9. Panto's provenance
Portugal Street, WC2
The Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre staged the earliest panto in 1716.

10. Crackers' birthplace
Finsbury Square, EC2
Tom Smith invented Christmas crackers in a shop north of the square. This commemorates his wife, Martha.