London (Fodor's 2012) - Fodor's [31]
QUICK BITES: Several of London’s most storied and stylish hotels are in Mayfair. Even if you’re not staying at one, sample the high life by popping into their glamorous bars for a cocktail or some afternoon tea. Claridge’s Bar takes its cue from Art Deco, as do the Ritz’s intimate Rivoli Bar and the eponymous Connaught Bar; the bar at Brown’s Hotel is modernist.
Marble Arch.
John Nash’s 1827 arch, moved here from Buckingham Palace in 1851, stands amid the traffic whirlpool where Bayswater Road segues into Oxford Street, at the top of Park Lane. The arch actually contains three small chambers, which served as a police station until the mid-20th century. Search the sidewalk on the traffic island opposite the cinema for the stone plaque recalling the Tyburn Tree that stood here for 400 years, until 1783. The condemned would be conveyed to London’s central gallows in their finest clothes from Newgate Prison, and were expected to affect a casual indifference, or face a merciless heckling from the crowds. Towering across the grass from the arch towards Tyburn Way is a vast patina-green statue of a horse’s head called “Horse at Water” by sculptor Nic Fiddian, commissioned in 2010. Cross over (or under) to the northeastern corner of Hyde Park for Speakers’ Corner. | Park La., Mayfair | W2 2DS | Marble Arch.
Piccadilly Circus.
Although it may seem like a circus with its traffic and the camera-clickers clustered around the steps of Eros, the name refers to the five major roads that radiate from it. The origins of “Piccadilly” are from the humble tailor in the Strand named Robert Baker who sold picadils—a stiff ruffled collar all the rage in courtly circles—and built a house with the proceeds. Snobs dubbed his new-money mansion Piccadilly Hall, and the name stuck.
Eros, London’s favorite statue and symbol of the Evening Standard newspaper, is not in fact the Greek god of erotic love at all. Neither is he the Angel of Christian Charity as is otherwise supposed, but rather he is Anteros, the Greek God of requited love. The work of young sculptor Alfred Gilbert in 1893 is a memorial to the selflessness of the philanthropic Earl of Shaftesbury (the god’s bow and arrow are a sweet allusion to the earl’s name). Gilbert cast the statue he called his “missile of kindness” in the novel medium of aluminum. Unfortunately, he spent most of his £8,000 fee ensuring the bronze fountain beneath was cast to his specifications. Already in debt, he eventually went bankrupt and fled the country. (Not to worry—he was knighted in the end.) Beneath the modern bank of neon advertisements are some of the most elegant Edwardian-era buildings in town. | St. James’s | W1J ODA | Piccadilly Circus.
Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! London’s latest tourist attraction contains five floors of curiosities: natural mutations (an albino alligator), cultural artifacts (Eucadorian shrunken heads), and historic memorabilia (a piece of the Berlin Wall). | 1 Piccadilly Circus, Mayfair | W1J ODA | 020/3238–0022 | www.ripleyslondon.com | £23.25 | Daily 10–midnight.
Fodor’s Choice | Royal Academy of Arts.
Burlington House was originally built in 1664, with later Palladian additions for the 3rd Earl of Burlington in 1720. The piazza in front is a later conception from 1873, when the renaissance-style buildings around the courtyard were designed by Banks and Barry to house a gaggle of noble scientific societies, including the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Linnean Society of London and the Royal Astronomical Society. Burlington House itself houses the draw card tenant: the Royal Academy of Arts and, the statue of the academy’s first president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, palette in hand, is prominent in the piazza of light stone with fountains by Sir Phillip King. Within the house and up the stairs are further