From an ancient underground temple at London Mithraeum to the poignant Crossbones Graveyard, these eight offbeat sites will take you to parts of London you likely never knew existed London is one of the most touristed cities on the planet: before the pandemic, it welcomed more than 21 million international visitors a year, plus many others from across the UK. The quintessential sights from the Houses of Parliament to Buckingham Palace, the British Museum to Kew Gardens, to name just a few are immediately familiar to people around the world, even those who have never set foot in the city. But if you scratch beneath the surface you'll find the capital is also home to an array of lesser known places that are rather more surprising, offbeat, under appreciated, unlikely and in some cases downright bizarre. Here, we veer off London's well trodden tourist trail to highlight eight of its most intriguing attractions, from an ancient subterranean temple to an odd curiosity shop to a neon fever dream.
Best for a sensory experience: God's Own Junkyard
Stepping into God's Own Junkyard home to one of the world's biggest collections of neon lights and signs feels like being bounced around a giant pinball machine. Located on an industrial estate in Walthamstow, surrounded by a craft brewery, mechanic and furniture workshop, this sensory overload of an art gallery and shop was founded in the 1980s by the late Chris Bracey, who created pieces for Hollywood films such as Batman and Eyes Wide Shut, as well as the likes of Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed and photographer and director David LaChappelle. The walls are covered with neon signs in vivid pinks, blues, greens, yellows and countless other colours advertising hotels and strip clubs, cocktails and Coca Cola. Some have enigmatic slogans such as "It's always your favourite sins that do you in", while others depict the logos for BBC1 music show Top of the Pops and the London Underground. There are plenty of playful juxtapositions a Statue of Liberty wields a lightsaber, while a glowing halo adorns the Virgin Mary as well as a cafe bar named The Rolling Scones that serves fry ups and cream teas to a soundtrack of rock and '80s pop.
Best for those with eclectic tastes: Horniman Museum and Gardens
Towering totem poles and colourful cycle-rickshaws, Spanish Inquisition torture chairs and Uzbek wedding dresses, Rio carnival costumes and Yoruba divination rattles, sperm whale teeth and stuffed three toed sloths: the Horniman has perhaps the most eclectic collection of any museum in the capital. Founded in 1890 by Frederick Horniman, a wealthy tea trader, social reformer and Liberal Party MP who gathered countless pieces of art, artefacts and specimens from across the globe, it aimed to "bring the world to [the London district of] Forest Hill". Today, the Horniman has around 350,000 exhibits and, commendably, the curators make efforts to address the colonial connections of many of the items on display. There are internationally important ethnographic, musical instrument and natural history collections. The latter features an array of animal skeletons, replicas and taxidermy, including the museum's most famous resident: the Horniman Walrus, an over-stuffed, unnaturally smooth creature perched on top of a model iceberg in the centre of the gallery.
Best for quiet contemplation: Crossbones Graveyard
On a quiet side street in the shadow of the Shard, a five minute walk from the tourist throngs in Borough Market, the Crossbones Graveyard sits on the site of a post-medieval burial ground estimated to contain the remains of around 15,000 paupers, many of them sex workers and children. Once surrounded by one of London's most notorious slums, an area know as the Mint, the burial ground was used for centuries before eventually closing in 1853. It was largely forgotten until the 1990, when bones and skulls were discovered by construction workers digging tunnels for the Jubilee line extension of the London Underground. There was subsequently a local campaign that led to the transformation of what had become a derelict industrial site into a peaceful garden of remembrance that aims to both honour the "outcast dead" buried below it and provide a contemplative space for present day visitors. Amid the flower beds, trees and ponds, there is an array of shrines, memorials and tributes to lost loved ones from twists of coloured fabric and fragments of poetry to statues and sculptures. Vigils to "remember the outcast, dead and alive" are also held at 19:00 on the 23rd of each month.
The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History
The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History is not for everyone. A menagerie of animal heads and skeletons zebras, puffer fish, sabre toothed cats protrude from the walls and dangle from the ceiling as you enter the street-level absinthe bar. You then descend a spiral staircase into a house of horrors or, depending on your sensibilities, wonders. Tight and claustrophobic, the basement is lined with cabinets filled with objects that are by turns gruesome, macabre, baffling and bizarre. Many of them also turn the stomach of all but the hardiest visitor: a wax model of a scabies mite, a botfly larvae inside a horse's stomach preserved in a jar, a one-handed toddler mannequin, long locks of human hair. They sit alongside playful frivolities such as "unicorn's tail" and a "magic teacup". There is also a series of obscure books including The Art of Faking Exhibition Poultry and The History and Social Influence of the Potato, as well as others that are rather more adult in nature.
The open faced sandwich, or smørrebrød, is as Danish as a block of LEGO. It is a mini design marvel in its own way too: a delicately balanced dance of textures, flavours and colours piled in a tower built on a buttered rye bread base. Classic varieties include pickled herring topped with onions and capers; prawn, boiled egg and aioli; chicken salad with mushrooms and bacon; and warm liver paté with beetroot. The dish dates to the 19th Century when agricultural workers would pack rye bread and leftovers from the previous night’s dinner to eat for lunch. In Copenhagen, today’s top restaurants have evolved this hearty worker’s food, keeping the heavy rye bread but adding international ingredients like yuzu and kefir to create a fresh take on an old tradition. These modern iterations takes certainly look as good as they taste, focusing heavily on visuals with perhaps an extravagant cloud of micro herbs, a vermillion-bright accent of beetroot and a perfectly sliced, perfectly positioned pickle. Considered one of Denmark’s national dishes, alongside the hot dog and flæskesteg (roast pork), smørrebrød comes in hundreds of varieties, most with the standard heavy rye bread base. These eight spots bring together the city’s most cutting edge and traditional smørrebrød offerings in one list.
