London/Westminster

Westminster is a district of central London, at the heart of the United Kingdom's royal and political life. Many of its attractions are of an historical and cultural variety. Even so, Westminster very much retains a bustling, modern feel as the centre of British government and is often used as shorthand for Parliament and the political community (including the elected Government) of the United Kingdom generally.

Understand
Westminster is a city in its own right, the twin to the ancient City of London further east and historically they jointly formed the focus of what is today regarded as London. The Palace of Westminster came to be the principal royal residence after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, and later housed the developing Parliament and law courts of England. The neighbouring Westminster Abbey became the traditional venue of the coronation of England regents. Westminster has therefore been the seat of royal, and later parliamentary, government and power for 900 years.

For the traveller and for the scope of this article, it is important to understand though that the district of Westminster is bounded to the north by Trafalgar Square and Mayfair, to the east by Covent Garden and to the west by Knightsbridge and Chelsea. The district is much smaller in area than the City of Westminster, which also includes Trafalgar Square, Mayfair, Covent Garden, and Paddington.

St. James's is the area of Westminster that encompasses Buckingham Palace, the Palace of Westminster and the eponymously named park. This is a very affluent area of the city and has a great deal to offer visitors. Belgravia to the west of Buckingham Palace is probably the grandest residential area in the whole of the United Kingdom. Victoria and Pimlico in the south-west are the least grand parts of the district but still have much to offer including the Tate Britain, some wonderful Regency architecture and a number of good value accommodation options.

To the southeast, there is a smaller area called Milbank, where the view is quite beautiful looking at the ships crossing the river.

By Tube
The district is serviced by the following Tube stations, all in Zone 1:


 * Westminster (Circle, District and Jubilee lines)
 * Embankment (Bakerloo, Circle, District and Jubilee lines)
 * Green Park (Jubilee, Piccadilly and Victoria lines)
 * Hyde Park Corner (Piccadilly line)
 * Pimlico (Victoria line)
 * St James's Park (Circle and District lines)
 * Victoria (Circle, District and Victoria lines)

By train
The nearest mainline train stations are London Waterloo and London Victoria; it is worth taking the Tube from these two stations to arrive at Westminster.


 * South Western Railway trains from southeast England: Alton, Basingstoke, Leatherhead, Reading, Guildford, Portsmouth and Windsor
 * South Western Railway trains from southwest England: Salisbury, Weymouth
 * South Western Railway trains within London: Chessington, Hampton Court, Kew Bridge and Twickenham


 * Southeastern offers services to Dover, Ashford International (with Eurostar connections to France and Belgium), Ramsgate and Orpington.
 * Southern Rail offers services to Brighton, Eastbourne and Portsmouth.
 * Thameslink offers limited service to Sevenoaks in Kent.

There is also the nearby Victoria Coach Station with even more connections via National Express and Megabus coaches.

By coach


National Express and Megabus are the two main coach operators in the UK and are well-served by the Victoria Coach Station. Just about every city or large town in England can be reached and usually at a significantly cheaper price than a train ticket.

Stagecoach Oxford Tube run a service from Gloucester Green in Oxford to London Victoria Coach Station.

Palace of Westminster




Watch committees and debates
While the house is sitting (most of the year), visitors can sit in the Strangers' Gallery of the Commons and Lords. There is no charge to do this.

You should queue at St. Stephen's Entrance (opposite Westminster Abbey). Depending on the popularity of debates happening in the Houses, queueing for admission can take 30 min or more. Avoid Wednesday lunchtime when the Prime Minister takes questions, and you are unlikely to find space at all unless you have a ticket from a Member of Parliament. If you do not wish to visit the Commons, then tell one of the police officers standing guard outside that you only wish to see the House of Lords, and you should be able to enter immediately.



Tours of Parliament




Buckingham Palace
Other royal residences around the country include Sandringham House, Windsor Castle, Holyrood Palace and Balmoral Castle. These other residences are open more days and fewer queues. The former Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh may also be of interest.

Royal parks




Statues and monuments
As the centre of government and a city with nigh on a millennium of history, Westminster is not short of statuary. A lot of this is part of other attractions, such as the statesmen commemorated in Parliament Sq, but many stand elsewhere.


 * The same roundabout is the site of several war memorial sculptures:
 * The same roundabout is the site of several war memorial sculptures:

Guards
Due to the number of palaces, government buildings and barracks in the area, there are several opportunities to witness guards and the ceremonies related to them. Buckingham Palace and some other royal residences are guarded by the King's Guard while the King's Life Guard are on duty on the other side of St James's Park, at Horse Guards Parade near Whitehall. Along the same lines, there are also the less ostentatious armed police guarding Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament, but they do not perform any ceremonies.

The King's Guard are usually drawn from one of the five regiments of Foot Guards in the British Army, wearing their dress uniforms of red tunics and bearskins (or a grey overcoat in poor weather). Occasionally soldiers from other regiments, including those of other Commonwealth nations, form the Guard instead. When the King is in residence, there are four guards on duty outside Buckingham Palace; at other times there are just two. Guards are also on duty outside St. James' Palace.

The King's Life Guard is drawn from the Household Cavalry which is made up of two regiments, the Life Guards and the Blues & Royals. The Household Cavalry are the monarch's official bodyguard. When the King is in residence in Buckingham Palace, there are fifteen guards on duty; at other times there are just twelve. Both regiments have similar uniforms but the Life Guards wear red tunics and have white plumes on their helmets, and the Blues & Royals wear blue tunics and have red plumes on their helmets. On special occasions, the King's (or Queen's) Life Guard has also been mounted by the Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

The five regiments of the King's Guard wear very similar dress uniforms but they can be recognised by little details. The shoulder and collar badges of each regiment are different but this may be hard to spot for many travellers. The key clues are the buttons on the tunic and the plume on the side of the bearskin. Each regiment arranges the buttons in groups, with a different number of buttons per group for each regiment. Each regiment also wears a certain colour of plume on a certain side of the bearskin (except the Scots Guards who wear no plume at all). The Queen's Colour Squadron of the Royal Air Force also mounts the King's Guard for about three weeks every year; they can be identified by their dark blue uniforms and peaked caps. On special occasions the King's Guard (or Queen's Guard) has also been mounted by distinguished units from other Commonwealth countries, some examples being the Jamaica Regiment in 1999, Malaysia's Royal Malay Regiment in 2008 and Canada's Royal 22e Régiment in 2014.

Although the King's guards may look relatively harmless and even quaint or ridiculous, and their famed stolidness in the face of almost all potential stimuli might hint that they can take a joke and are used to interference from tourists, it's important to remember that they are actual guards rather than purely ceremonial figures there for the sake of tourism, they tend to carry actual guns with live ammunition and that touching them or getting too close to them will get you bellowed at with a bayonet pointed in your direction. There are plenty of YouTube videos of tourists who have discovered this the hard way.


 * There are two rehearsals for Trooping the Colour:
 * There are two rehearsals for Trooping the Colour:
 * There are two rehearsals for Trooping the Colour:
 * There are two rehearsals for Trooping the Colour:
 * There are two rehearsals for Trooping the Colour:

Theatres
Outside of Leicester Square and Covent Garden, there are several important theatres in Westminster, most notably near Victoria Station. For current programmes please check the relevant theatre website or the Official London Theatre listings. Budget travellers should look for last minute bookings and off-peak performances. Most of the booking office numbers given will only work from within the United Kingdom. If you want to make a booking from overseas, use the relevant website.



Buy
A lot of the land in this district is owned by a small number of entities—most of Belgravia is owned by the Duke of Westminster via his family's Grosvenor Group property company and a lot of the rest comes under the Crown Estate, the Royal Parks, or central government—and the residents prefer exclusivity, so chain stores have mostly been kept out of the northern, more upper class, areas. Victoria, on the other hand, hosts a lot of the common high street shops found elsewhere in the UK, as do the riverside areas Pimlico and Millbank.



Clothing
Perhaps the world's most famous shirts are made in Jermyn St, SW1, running parallel south of Piccadilly and between Green Park and Piccadilly Circus tube stations. The street's resident shirtmakers include:

Belgravia
Like neighbouring Knightsbridge, Belgravia was built with its pubs out of sight down side alleys and mews. They were intended for the household servants rather than their masters, who did not wish their views spoiled by such unsightly establishments.

St. James's


with 3 pubs named after Lions (plus The Prime Minister's Local in Parliament Street).

Afternoon tea
Take tea at:

Budget
There are lots of small B&Bs in the Pimlico and Victoria areas which offer very good value for this part of London.



Public toilets

 * Westminster Council list of toilets.

Go next

 * South just across the river on the South Bank are the London Eye, London Aquarium and the Royal National Theatre
 * West to South Kensington & Chelsea for Chelsea & Knightbridge shopping and a cluster of museums in South Kensington