Interesting Facts About London

1. 10 INTERESTING
FACTS ABOUT
LONDON
Liana Vahanyan

2. 1
The 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.

3. 2
London buses were
not always red.
Before 1907,
different routes had
different-coloured
buses.

4. 3
London has not always
had this name. In the past
it has been called
Londonium, Ludenwic,
and Ludenburg!

5. 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.

6. 5
Big 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.

7. 6
More than half of
the London
Underground
network in fact runs
above ground.

8. 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.

9. 8
The 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.

10. 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.

11. 10
The 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.