An overview of London’s neighbourhoods- part 1

Like any city London has neighbourhood’s of all kinds, wealthy, poor, fashionable, dangerous and the average tourist probably only ever gets to see a section concentrated towards the centre.

First time visitors will inevitably spend a lot time in an area stretching roughly from Notting Hill in the west to Tower Bridge in the east, bordered on the south by the River Thames. This zone will include a lot of the main tourist attractions, trendy neighbourhood’s around Notting Hill, the great museum’s and Harrod’s department store in the Knightsbridge area, great park’s like Hyde and Green Park, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.

Soho for nightlife, Covent Garden, the heart of London’s theatre district, then as you carry on east you move into the financial centre of London, the City of London, known just as the City. From Blackfriars east to Tower Bridge this area includes the Bank of England and the London Stock Exchange as well as historical landmarks like the Tower of London and St Pauls Cathedral.

Most visitors would probably not go much further east, if they did they’d be in the East End of London, a part of town that’s traditionally very working class and has had a high concentration of immigrants. A hundred years ago European Jews would have been crowding in here, now the Jewish presence in the East End has been taken over by new arrivals from the Indian subcontinent and places like Brick Lane have become famous for Bangladeshi and Indian food.

The River Thames horseshoes at this point in its journey and the tongue of land known as the Isle of Dogs used to be the heart of the docks when London was the busiest port in the world. When container ships got to big for the Thames the docks went in to decay for years until in the early 1980’s regeneration started on the Isle of Dogs. Now its all gleaming glass office towers, hotels, penthouse apartments and fashionable restaurants, the dockers of fifty years ago wouldn’t recognise the place.

Close to here is London City Airport and then if you continued heading east you pass through solidly working class places like Barking, Ilford, Dagenham and Romford before heading off into the Essex countryside.

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