London After the Games

guided walks around the City of London

London After the Games

When the party is over, the fun has faded and the crowds have gone, will London feel and look a different place? Certainly the Olympic Park will be a visitor attraction as more and more people come to see how a derelict, overgrown and neglected part of East London has been transformed into a remarkable multi-stadium sporting venue.

It has also given me some ideas for new walks which should be popular with those who are interested in the transformation of this great City. If only Sir Christopher Wren and Sir Horace Jones, the renowned Victorian surveyor and architect, could return to see what has been created in the 21st century.

They would surely be impressed but their contributions in previous centuries – St. Pauls Cathedral, Greenwich Royal Naval Hospital and the City of London churches, all Wren creations, and the markets of Smithfield and Leadenhall that bear the trademark of Jones, have not been overshadowed by what we now have at Stratford or the Shard, the Gherkin, the Pinnacle, the Heron Tower and other high-rise buildings.

London has always been a city of change in so many ways. The skyline today is totally changed from the one of 1948 when the Olympics were last held here and the City was struggling under the weight of austerity. So when the 2012 Games are over and the Olympians and Paralympians have gone it will be a chance to discover more by taking a fresh look at London.

That’s an opportunity for those who like walking the streets of the capital to see what the LONDON FOOTSTEPS programme has to offer for late Summer and Autumn. It will soon be available.

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