London

The treasure hunt map of the South Bank (click to enlarge)

The South Bank
25 International Brigade statue
This is in front of the London Eye in Jubilee Gardens. From 1936-39, more than 2,100 British volunteers signed up to help the Spanish in their struggle against fascism. ‘Their example inspired the world’ as well as this curious chunk of modern art; but who unveiled our tribute in 1985?
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26 South Bank Centre
Head east along the South Bank to the Royal Festival Hall foyer. Look out for a miniature RFH which proudly shows us what the building will look like when the current overhaul is finished. What is the minimum cost to ‘Take A Seat’ and have your name stuck on a seat in the delightfully breezy new concert hall?
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27 Royal Festival Hall
Up the steps to the higher concrete shelf of the RFH you’ll find ‘Rankin’s Front Row’. Building work is going on behind high wooden fences, decorated with 20 or so large versions of the photographer’s portraits of people with memories of the RFH. When Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour was 18, in 1964, who did he manage to get tickets to see in concert at the Royal Festival Hall?
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28 Wren’s house
Now make your way further east past Tate Modern. Over the 33 years it took to transform an optimistic architectural plan into St Paul’s Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren resided in a house directly opposite the building site on Bankside, lodging on thr thoroughfare as a high-ranking Catholic official (and his hat). But 173 years earlier, in 1502, who found temporary refuge on exactly the same spot in the run-up to a momentous Catholic schism?
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29 The Globe Theatre
In 1997, 130 blacksmiths from around the world set up forges all along Bankside, working to produce a whole cast of individual characters and symbols including a mermaid, a fly, a flea, an octopus, a crab, bluebells and a shrew. Curiously, once the smithies were finished, the resultant pieces of art were all welded to two large iron gates. Yet more curiously, the gates have only since been opened once, and had one person step through: the Queen. A magical moment, for sure; but what is the source of magic in the only burnished, multicolour feature in the whole spectacle?
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30 Winchester Palace
Work you way along the river and into Clink Street. Just when you might have thought you were about to be thrown in the nick, what should loom up in the street but a beautiful palace of bishops, long lost behind Victorian warehouses. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when Bankside was the focal point for fun in London, who better to control the dog-tossing, the bear-baiting, the prostitution and theatrical shenanigans than the right honourable Bishop of Winchester himself? This ‘private retreat from the pressures of medieval governance’ featured ‘a prison, a brewhouse and a butchery’, plus a ‘tennis court, bowling alley’ and what particular type of gardens?
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31 ‘Golden Hinde’ dock
At the end of Clink Street sits a replica of this famous vessel. Nowadays the area isn’t often referred to as ‘St Mary Overie’s Dock’ due to the permanent mooring of a tourist attraction with a cool 140,000 miles on the clock; but presumably somewhere around these parts are some mighty brassed off locals. Replica flagships and gung-ho gap-year students in Elizabethan togs are all very well, but the good people of St Saviour’s Parish would be perfectly within their rights to demand their dock back, together with the restoration of the local perk which allowed them to land absolutely any goods here, no questions asked – how much did they pay for the privilege?
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32 Southwark Cathedral
William Shakespeare is believed to have lived in the Southwark area between 1599 and 1611, during his association with the Globe Theatre. A 1911 memorial to Shakespeare can be found in Southwark Cathedral, but a more touching memorial stone marks the unknown resting place, somewhere in the Cathedral, of an unsuccessful, virtually unknown Elizabethan actor who trod the boards of Bankside during William Shakespeare’s glory years. His name?
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While you're there
Drink: King’s Arms
Nip away from the river to Roupell Street, one of London’s most idiosyncratic
thoroughfares. This is a bustling corner boozer, just far enough away from Waterloo to be pleasant.
King’s Arms, 25 Roupell St, SE1 (020 7207 0784)

Eat: Masters Super Fish
It’s a bit of a walk down an ugly street (if you need something closer, try Wagamama), but serves up plates piled high with lightly battered plaice and hand-cut chips.
Masters Super Fish, 191 Waterloo Rd, SE1 (020 7928 6924)

Kids: London Aquarium
Plenty of strange aquatic life to gawp at (including sharks, with daily talks at 2pm and 4pm), and kids will love the touch tank.
County Hall Riverside Building, SW1
London Aquarium, (020 7967 8000/www.londonaquarium.co.uk). Family ticket £44.