London Christmas Lights 2014

Published on 28 December 2014

London Christmas Lights 2014

Christmas and New Year Celebrations in London can always be a treat for all age groups. No matter what if I didn’t got the chance to travel to London this year. But I can assure you there is a lot I miss about London. Specially in winters, whole London gets in festive mood and chill in the air makes no difference whatsoever when out and about shopping and celebrating on Christmas eve and New Years night. One thing you will notice about London when you come as a tourist is, that London from November onwards starts getting decorated. The high streets and tourists places with bright, shiny, sparkling lights all in and around London. Christmas lights give such a warm and festive feel to anyone who sees them. It’s like festivities are on their way, when you see them around in central London’s famous shopping street “The Oxford Street” you feel like that you are in a very nice shopping place with lot of people from around the world. The place is lively and vibrant full of colours. When you are in London, make sure you go to these places which are worth going when Celebrating Christmas and New Year in London 2014.

Best Places to see Christmas Lights in London

1. Bond Street – You can expect the best Christmas lights showdown in Bond Street. Year after Year the lights around the city are simply spectacular and bring cheer to passers buy and shoppers from around the world.

: Bond Street Christmas Lights 2014

2. Covent Garden – Covent Garden is a place which is the cosiest and warmest place in town, great sparkling lights. The piazza, the arcade all light up with lights and this time you will also see a huge Christmas tree with red and white lights. I insist not to stay in hotel when you are in London, because at this time of the year London looks gorgeous in the nights too! There is a special installation of Lego Santa with sleigh where you can go and have a selfie taken :). All in all you got to enjoy the lights, the people and the food of Covent Garden. It’s one place i always go every time i visit London.

Lego Santa at Covent Garden

3. Oxford Street – Oxford Street is the shopping Mecca of Europe. Shopaholics get their fix when they visit London. Your London tour is incomplete of you don’t go to Oxford street for exhibiting some shopping madness. Oxford street is not only famous for its shopping discounts on the high street, but also for the Christmas lights. This year 2014 I must say the lights have been rather simple, but no matter still the street is buzzing with tourists from all around the world. Which makes Oxford Street the must visit place when coming to London. Surely every London tour package consists a day of shopping and to be free to hangout. Make sure this is the place to visit ;).

: Oxford Street Lights 2014

4. Regents Street – Regent Street has been another shopping paradise for tourists and locals. Christmas lights again this winter are spectacular, and they’re really make a perfect sparkle to make the list complete best London Christmas lights of 2014. The whole street gets traffic free, and pedestrians have the access to walk around and shop till they drop. You will exhibit many activities happening in this street as it is a nice Georgian style building street with expensive retail chains having there high street outlets.

: The Regent Street Christmas lights were switched on by the pop group Take That on November 16, 2014.

When you explore these areas of London at the time of Christmas, you are rest assured that you will love these places and come back again and again next year.

Georgian London

Published on 3 December 2014

History of London

The early years of the 18th century saw the birth of newspapers in London. The early papers, the most distinguished one of which was Richard Addison’s Spectator, satisfied the demands of an increasingly literate population in London. In many of the newspapers that followed, Addison put up shop along Fleet Street. Fleet Street as we all know it today.

The Georgian period in London overlapped very neatly with the Palladian Revival in architecture and art. Lord Burlington, in his 1715 design of Burlington House in Piccadilly, played a major role in popularizing this classical style which became the norm for much of the 18th century. A few years later, in 1725, Lord Burlington was at it again, with his remodelling of Chiswick House, then a country retreat but now part of Greater Londons irregular spread.

At the same time, Grosvenor Square was built in Mayfair, part of the Grosvenor family’s development of an aristocratic district. More London squares followed, notably Berkeley Square (designed by William Kent). Kent was also responsible for building the Treasury Building (1733), and the Horse Guards (1745).

Theatre, which had been so popular under the Stuart Restoration, became a little too vociferous for the taste of the city authorities. In 1737 a series of satires staged at the Theatre Royal Haymarket so infuriated them that the Lord Chamberlain was given the power of censorship over all public theatre performances. This power was not revoked until 1968.

For some six hundred years the only bridge across the Thames in London was London Bridge, of nursery rhyme fame. However, the growing city required more ease of movement and space to travel, so the shops and houses on London Bridge were moved down, and large sections of the old city walls were destroyed. In 1750 a second stone bridge was added, named “Westminster Bridge”.

If the early Georgian period was influenced by Lord Burlington, the latter was influenced by Robert Adam and his neo-classical followers or I shall say his imitators. Adam was responsible for a spate of influential house designs around London, including Syon House (1761), Osterley Park, and Kenwood House.

A year after Adam’s work at Syon, King George III, and Queen Charlotte moved into Buckingham House (later to become Buckingham Palace). St. James Palace remained the official royal residence.

One of the biggest social revolutions in Georgian London was a quiet one. It was the popularity of coffee houses as a forum for business, entertainment, and social activity. The London coffee houses were immensely popular and certain places became associated with different political viewpoints or kinds of commercial activity. It was in one of these coffee houses, New Jonathan’s, that merchants gathered, and formed what was to become the current London Stock Exchange.

Georgian London saw a new form of entertainment, the pleasure garden, become popular. These pleasure gardens, notably at Ranelagh and Vauxhall, were like outdoor amusement parks, complete with musicians and fireworks.