📖 Overview
Secret London: An Unusual Guide serves as an alternative guidebook to lesser-known locations throughout England's capital city. The authors reveal hidden spots, forgotten history, and obscure places that most tourists and even locals have never encountered.
The book organizes its discoveries by geographic area, allowing readers to explore each London neighborhood's concealed treasures and overlooked corners. Maps and practical visiting information accompany descriptions of underground bunkers, ancient ruins, peculiar museums, and architectural oddities scattered across the metropolis.
The guide moves beyond conventional tourist sites to highlight the authentic, strange, and mysterious elements that make up London's true character. Through its focus on the unconventional and the forgotten, this book presents a portrait of a city filled with endless layers of history and untold stories waiting to be discovered.
👀 Reviews
Readers value this guide for uncovering hidden locations absent from typical London tourist books. Many appreciate the clear organization by neighborhood and practical details like opening hours and transport links.
Likes:
- Reveals lesser-known historical sites and curiosities
- Easy-to-follow neighborhood maps
- Mix of free and paid attractions
- Concise, informative descriptions
Dislikes:
- Some locations have closed or changed since publication
- Not enough photos or visuals
- Walking directions could be more detailed
- Print size described as small and hard to read
Ratings:
Amazon: 4.5/5 (385 reviews)
Goodreads: 3.9/5 (248 ratings)
Sample review: "Found places I never knew existed despite living in London for 20 years. The Dennis Severs House and Wilton's Music Hall were incredible discoveries." - Amazon reviewer
Critical review: "About 30% of entries were either closed, relocated or had restricted access. Needs updating." - Goodreads reviewer
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Secret New York: An Unusual Guide by T.M. Rives Reveals New York City's overlooked spaces, from abandoned subway stations to rooftop gardens and hidden speakeasies.
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Lost London by Richard Guard Documents vanished and forgotten places from London's past, including destroyed buildings, buried rivers, and disappeared neighborhoods.
🤔 Interesting facts
🗝️ Secret London features over 250 hidden and overlooked locations across the city, many of which even lifelong Londoners have never visited.
🏺 The book reveals the location of a 4,000-year-old Egyptian artifact hidden in plain sight on a busy London street.
🍺 Authors Rachel Howard and Bill Nash spent three years exploring London's underground bars, forgotten cemeteries, and secret gardens to compile their findings.
⚰️ The guide includes directions to Jeremy Bentham's auto-icon—his preserved skeleton, dressed in his own clothes, which sits in a wooden cabinet at University College London.
🌳 One featured location is the Hardy Tree in St. Pancras Old Church gardens, where novelist Thomas Hardy arranged dozens of gravestones in a circular pattern around an ash tree while working as a railway company's architect.