10 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT

LONDON

Liana Vahanyan

1The oldest church in the city, All Hallows by the Tower, near Tower Hill,

was founded in 675. The undercroft has Roman

pavement dating from the 2nd century A.D.

2

London buses were not always red. Before 1907,

different routes had different-coloured

buses.

3London has not always had this

name. In the past it has been called Londonium, Ludenwic, and

Ludenburg!

4

Arsenal are the only football team in London to have a Tube station named after

them. The station was called Gillespie Road and was renamed in 1932 after

the team moved from Woolwich to North London.

5Big Ben is not actually the name of the clock, it is the name of the bell which is

inside the clock.

In 1945, a flock of birds landed on the minute hand of Big

Ben and put the time back by 5 minutes.

6

More than half of the London Underground network in fact runs

above ground.

7

The Houses of Parliament are officially known as the Palace of Westminster and it is the largest palace in

the country.

It is illegal to die in the Palace of Westminster.

8The Palace of

Westminster has eight bars (where prices are

kept cheap, thanks to the taxpayer), six restaurants,

1,000 rooms, 100 staircases, 11 courtyards,

a hair salon, and rifle-shooting range.

9The London Eye is not a

Ferris wheel. It’s the world’s tallest cantilevered observation wheel.

The 32 capsules on the London Eye are

representative of the 32 London boroughs, and

each one weighs as much as 1,052,631 pound coins.

10The original medieval London Bridge was in use for more than 600

years; it featured heads displayed on spikes for more than half of that time, including that of

Guy Fawkes and William Wallace.