The Time Out London blog team

Good news for pet parents, bad news for those who aren’t such huge fans of man’s best friend. Pampered pooches reign the streets of Fitzrovia, flush with Georgian architecture, old-school pubs, quaint coffee shops and some not-so-secret celebrity dwellings – and soon the area could be set for a sumptuous new hotel for mutts.  The titular ‘dog hotel’ is not a wholly new establishment but new expansion plans by a luxury, welfare-focused pet grooming centre called Fido’s of Fitzrovia. The Great Portland Street business has requested permission from Westminster Council to board a limited number of dogs overnight on its basement level.  Fido's currently offers acupuncture, microbubble therapy and ‘pawdicures’ for its clientele. The boarding setup will be equally lavish, featuring six temperature-controlled sleeping pods. Photograph: Anneleen Akle With luxury treatment fit for the most royal of king charles spaniels, you’d think this neighbourhood of dog-lovers would be rejoicing at the prospect of a lavish overnight stay for their beloved pooches. However, a number of residents are reportedly frustrated with Fido’s plans, reckoning that the dog hotel will disrupt everyday life. Some objectors to the plans have said dogs staying overnight in Fido’s will cause ‘torturous and unbearable noise’ in their homes. Another resident, who has lived in the area for 25 years, has described the plans as ‘wholly incompatible with the surrounding residential use.’ ‘Residents are entitled to...

There are, despite rumours to the contrary, still plenty of London pubs where you can bag a pint for less than six quid. As we explored in our handy round-up, some central boozers even meet the brief.  Your quest to swerve the capital’s much-lamented £8 pint will, however, sometimes lead you to search further afield. Luckily, two of the destinations on the Telegraph’s recent list of ‘England’s 10 greatest pub towns’ make ideal day trips from London. Indeed, Ramsgate and Southsea are both easy-peasy to reach from the Big Smoke – leaving plenty of your day free for sinking pints. Ramsgate Writer Will Hawkes wrote of Ramsgate: ‘Kent’s frothy northeastern tip has become very fashionable of late, at least amongst middle-aged ex-Londoners. The decades when it was less hip, though, have left it with some tremendous pubs, particularly in Ramsgate.  ‘This town might be most famous for having Britain’s biggest Wetherspoons, but its best pubs are the Artillery Arms and the Montefiore Arms, both of them street-corner delights. The latter was recently taken over by Gadds’ brewery, also based in Ramsgate and one of England’s finest beer-makers.’ Ramsgate’s Artillery Arms, with its curved bar and only vaguely alarming bust of a bulldog on the wall, is certainly a mouthwatering proposition. The Montefiore Arms is a slightly (key word) more modern affair, with a trendy mural across its exterior, though the similarly curved bar certainly looks like it’s seen a thing or two.    How to get...

Where did Shakespeare really belong? Stratford-upon-Avon draws in millions of tourists annually as the playwright’s birthplace and burial site, yet a new finding suggests Shakespeare spent a lot more of his later life down south than we originally thought. For the first time, scholars can pinpoint the exact spot of Shakespeare’s only London home. An unknown floor plan, found by a professor at King’s College London, indicates the playwright’s residence has been hiding in plain sight all along, on a quiet street not far from the contemporary location of the Globe.   Your average historian can tell you the playwright bought a property near the Blackfriars Theatre, and likely called it home for some time. However, an inscription on a City of London plaque only states he had a home ‘near this site.’ Professor Lucy Monro’s discovery is much more precise: she has found the exact location, size, and layout of the flat Shakespeare bought in 1613.  Monro was conducting research at The London Archives and The National Archives when she came across an unfamiliar map. It turned out to be a detailed floor plan of Shakespeare’s L-shaped home, which had been converted from a medieval monastery. It also revealed the kind of buildings that would have been nearby – and many are still there today.   Photograph: Alena Veasey / Shutterstock.com   The property would have spanned Bergon Street and Ireland Yard, stretching round onto St Andrew’s Hill, brushing shoulders with his playhouse and...