18 peachy photos of Londoners from Becky Frances

Last year it was announced that London's oldest park, and the biggest in the City, Finsbury Circus, will close for an entire year to get some much need renovations. Work began on the big green oval back in November 2023. Now, the first pictures of what the new and improved park could look like are here.  Finsbury Circus Gardens have been closed on and off over the past 13 years, with most of the area taken over as a construction site by the Crossrail project from March 2010 until August 2020. One of the oldest greens in the city, the central London glade has been offering Londoners a spot for peace and quiet since 1606 when it was laid out as London’s first public park. The Grade II-listed park is also home to a Grade II-listed drinking fountain which dates back to 1902. The fountain will remain in the park but in a new location.   Image: City of London Corporation  Green fingered workers in the gardens have been busy planting an ‘urban forest’, as well as other greenery that will help introduce a wide range of species and habitats for birds, bees, and bats in the central London oasis. Finsbury Gardens 2.0 will also have improved seating and pathways.  Chair of the City of London Corporation’s Natural Environment Board, Caroline Haines, said: ‘Finsbury Circus Gardens will be transfor med into a tranquil haven for people to relax and spend time outside. ‘Not only are City open spaces hugely important for people's health and wellbeing, they also play a vital role by increasin

What gets us fixated on certain places? Why did a young photographer called Roger Mayne spend five years repeatedly photographing a single street in west London, visiting it 27 times and taking 1,400 photos? Maybe it was the shock of the new: born in strait-laced Cambridge, Mayne was thrilled by the working-class kids of Southam Street in Ladbroke Grove. Maybe it was a sense of foreboding: as concrete estates wiped out the old terraces, Southam Street seemed like a place that would soon vanish. (It did, obliterated by the Trellick Tower in 1969.) Or was it something bigger and more transcendent? That’s the kind of question you’ll find yourself asking after stepping back in time at this new Mayne retrospective with Southam Street at its centre. The Photographers’ Gallery exhibition charts Mayne’s travels across Britain, from bicycle factories in Nottingham and council estates in Sheffield to Brick Lane and Bermondsey. It also includes the first ever recreation of his photo installation ‘The British at Leisure’, commissioned for the Milan Triennale in 1964: five screens, 310 photo slides and a cool jazz soundtrack (nice). ‘These scenes from a lost city radiate history and absence’ But it was in the slums of North Kensington between 1956 and 1961 that Mayne (who died in 2014) found the perfect setting to produce what he called a ‘cinema of stills’: expressive, narrative, realist shots that helped to drag British documentary photography out of straight photojournalism. Mayne wa

How do you sum up a city that changes its look as often as its underwear and always has plenty to say? It sounds impossible, but that’s the challenge we set ourselves when we decided to draw up a definitive list of the best photographs ever taken of the capital. In making our selection we had help. We couldn't do it all by ourselves, obviously. So we enlisted people like Wolfgang Tillmans, Juergen Teller, Nick Waplington, Dorothy Bohm and Eamonn McCabe. Those are just some of the names among the world-famous photographers who shaped our selection. We also picked the brains of the top London photography brass at museums including the Tate, V&A, Museum of London and Imperial War Museum. So it's not just our taste, it's their taste too. The result: a celebration of London’s architecture, its icons and its geography, but also of us: Londoners at work, at play, protesting, rising to a challenge and always ready for our close-up.  With thanks to: Dorothy Bohm, Michael Hoppen, Charlie Phillips, Dennis Morris, David Chandler, Helen Trompeteler, Tina Barney, Bruce Gilden, David Campany, Nick Waplington, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rob Greig, Simon Baker, Eamonn McCabe, Jim Dow, Alona Pardo, Martin Barnes, Brett Rogers, Juergen Teller, Fariba Farshad, Michael Benson, Anna Sparham, Hilary Roberts, By Gabriel Coxhead, Matt Breen, Phoebe Trimingham and Martin Coomer

Back in the nineteenth century, various Victorian bigwigs decided to put on a massive exhibition showcasing Britain’s world-leading industrial technology. But there wasn’t anywhere big enough to house such a show, so one Joseph Paxton was commissioned to create the largest glass building ever seen. His ‘Crystal Palace’ popped up in Hyde Park for six months in 1851 and the Great Exhibition was a huge success. But what to do with the epic edifice after that? The solution: move it to Penge. The Crystal Palace was soon rebuilt on Sydenham Hill, with photographer Philip Henry Delamotte documenting the process. Collage – The London Picture Archive Set on Italian-style terraces in a new park full of fountains and sculptures, the building became a London landmark, hosting concerts, festivals, circuses, diplomatic receptions and even the world’s first cat show. Over the years, the surrounding area became known as Crystal Palace. But in 1936 the building burned to the ground, watched by 100,000 people. All that is left today are those Italianate terraces and the park’s famous dinosaur statues. For more unique looks at London life, sign up here to get Time Out features straight to your inbox.