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 Fancy telling friends you discovered your latest favourite read floating on Regent’s Canal in King’s Cross? Step aboard ‘Word on the Water’, a 50-foot barge turned bookshop, and you’ll find far more than just a good book. Moored on the towpath beside Granary Square since 2015, this 100-year-old Dutch barge is packed, quite literally, from floor to ceiling. Every nook and cranny has been cleverly claimed for shelves of new and second-hand titles: classics and cult favourites, contemporary fiction and children’s books. It’s chaotic in the most charming way possible.  A book shop and then some Visitors are invited on board to browse at their leisure or cosy up by the stove with a potential purchase. But this is no ordinary bookshop. Throughout the year it hosts author events and poetry slams, and in summer gigs are played on the roof, powered by its own solar sound system. The idea for a floating bookshop was born from chance. Paddy Screech moored his boat beside Jonathan Privett’s, and the pair quickly discovered a shared love of literature. Paddy had studied English at Oxford; Jonathan was completing a Master’s in American Literature while selling books outside London Underground stations and at his Archway Market stall, Word on the Street - the template for the boat’s eventual name. When friend, and latterly, business partner Stéphane Chaudat offered them a 1920s Dutch barge in 2011, the dream became reality. The early years weren’t easy. With only a cruising licence, the shop had to be regularly dismantled, moved and re-moored. In 2015 it finally secured a permanent berth near The Lighterman restaurant and has been a fixture on the towpath ever since.  Jonathan Privett sadly died from cancer in September 2023. Today, Paddy and Stéphane continue to run the bookshop, with Jonathan’s daughter Megan now involved in curating - ensuring the barge’s literary spirit endures. Make a day of it King’s Cross itself is well worth exploring. Not long ago this was one of Europe’s largest brownfield sites. Today it’s a thriving canal-side neighbourhood of restored warehouses, independent shops and dining hot spots. Wander the towpath, browse the boat, linger over lunch - and leave with a story in your bag. I do regular weekend walks around King's Cross, and can also arrange a private tour if you would like to do a deeper dive into the area. Definitely a day out to bookmark! London’s bookshops I have been highlighting some of the excellent independent bookshops that London has to offer over on my social platforms. In a year where we’re celebrating the National Year of Reading, it feels more important than ever to champion the spaces that keep curiosity alive. To see more, head to: Bowl of Chalk tiktok: Word on the Water Bowl of Chalk tiktok: Burley Fisher Books Bowl of Chalk tiktok: Stoke Newington Bookshop Bowl of Chalk tiktok: Pages of Hackney Bowl of Chalk tiktok: Brick Lane Bookshop  
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Introducing the Fitzrovia Chapel – A Jewellery Box of a Building in the Heart of Westminster16/2/2026  Stroll through the maze of glass fronted residential apartment blocks that now occupy the site of the old Middlesex Hospital and, if you’re lucky, you’ll stumble across a small red-bricked chapel that looks rather unassuming. Step inside and you’re in for quite a treat! The Fitzrovia Chapel was built in the 1890s within the heart of the Middlesex Hospital complex. Coincidentally, the hospital is where my parents first met during their early medical careers – though I should clarify, not in the 1890s. When the hospital was demolished in the early 2000s as part of a major Westminster redevelopment, almost everything was reduced to rubble. The chapel survived – thanks largely to its Grade II* listed status and architectural significance. And thank goodness it did.   From the outside, you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s little remarkable about it. It’s a rather plain little red-brick, Gothic-style building. Inside, however, is an entirely different story. The chapel is a Byzantine inspired jewellery box of gold, mosaics and no fewer than 40 different types of marble. The reason? Originally, the building was hemmed in by hospital wards, so hardly anyone saw the exterior. As a result, all the money, craft and imagination were lavished on the interior – and lavished they were.  The chapel was designed by the eminent Victorian architect John Loughborough Pearson and completed by his son. Construction began in 1891 and took 25 years to finish. It offered a place of solace, prayer and rest for staff and patients and their families. Between 2013 and 2015, a £2 million restoration project led by conservation architects Caroe & Partners carefully revived the building’s extraordinary interior. Today, Fitzrovia Chapel is an independent charity, open to the public on Mondays to Wednesdays and one Sunday each month. It is also licensed for weddings and civil ceremonies, and regularly hosts art exhibitions, talks and book launches. You may even recognise it, as it was chosen as the setting for the King’s Christmas Day speech in 2024. It’s a building that doesn’t shout about itself. You have to find it. But once you do, it’s hard to forget. You can find opening times, events and more of its fascinating history on the Fitzrovia Chapel website. I was lucky enough to have a tour with the Chapel's Director, but it is well worth a visit even if just to marvel at the setting. I made a short video about the Fitzrovia Chapel after my visit - take a look here.    Horatio Walpole (Horace to his friends), born in 1717, is one of those characters from London’s history books that I’d love to have met in real life. Lauded as a brilliant man of letters, historian and antiquarian, he was also, by all accounts, a legendary socialite, prolific gossip…and an unapologetic eccentric. Luckily for us, a generous slice of Horace’s eccentricity survives. You can still visit the incredible home he built (his self-described “little gothic castle”), Strawberry Hill House, tucked away in Twickenham.  From the outside, you’d be forgiven for thinking it looks like something dreamed up by Disney – brilliant white, with turrets, battlements and a distinct fairy-tale feel. But Strawberry Hill is better known for its theatrical interiors and is widely regarded as the finest example of Georgian Gothic Revival architecture in Britain. Ever the trend-setter, Horace built it long before the Gothic revival properly took off – about a century early, in fact! Inside, Strawberry Hill is theatrical to the point of excess – and all the better for it. From chamber to library, chapel to gallery, the whole place is gloriously, unapologetically fantastical. There’s a royal bedchamber that was never slept in and corridors deliberately kept dark to create what Horace described as “gloomth” – his own word for atmospheric medieval doom and gloom, dialled up to maximum drama. The house was so fantastical that it became a tourist attraction in Walpole’s own lifetime. And being Horace, he handled public interest with characteristic flair, printing his own guidebooks for visitors and imposing strict rules - only four visitors per day and absolutely no children!   A bit more about Horace Horace came from rather grand stock. He was the fourth son of Sir Robert Walpole, the man who dominated 18th-century English politics for 21 years and is widely regarded as Britain’s first Prime Minister. Horace entered Parliament at the age of 24 and sat in the House of Commons for 25 years, representing various boroughs conveniently controlled by the Walpole dynasty. But, in the best traditions of the Georgian era, his father also arranged a series of comfortable sinecures, those wonderfully named (cushy) “jobs” requiring little or no actual work, which gave Horace the financial independence to become a man of leisure and letters.  In fact he was a prolific letter writer – nearly 6000 over 60 years – entertaining his readers with his acute and sardonic observations of Georgian social trends. On the mid-18th-century obsession with spa towns and sea bathing, he wrote: “One would think that the English were ducks; they are for ever waddling to the waters.” Back to the house Strawberry Hill is easy to reach from London. Trains run from Waterloo to Strawberry Hill station in around 35–40 minutes, followed by a short, pleasant walk. The house is typically open for guided tours from Saturday to Wednesday (and yes, children are allowed these days), and even if you don’t venture inside, Strawberry Hill’s 5 acre, Grade II listed garden is a lovely space for picnics and pottering. If you like your history serious and sensible, this might not be the place for you. But if you enjoy characters, drama and a healthy dose of Gothic flair, delivered by a man who coined the word “gloomth”, then I think you’ll find Strawberry Hill an absolute delight.     For 76 years, between 1927 and 2003, London’s post was whisked beneath the city streets on a railway few Londoners even knew existed. Seventy feet underground, driverless electric trains rattled through nine-foot-wide tunnels, carrying letters and parcels between sorting offices. This hidden network, which became known as the Mail Rail, stretched for 6.5 miles, linking Mount Pleasant in Clerkenwell to Paddington and quietly keeping the capital connected. The idea of an underground postal railway was first floated in the mid-19th century, when horse-drawn carts and clogged streets were slowing London’s mail to a crawl. But bureaucracy, budget wrangles and the outbreak of the First World War meant the plan didn’t become reality until 1927.  At its peak, Mail Rail ran for 22 hours a day and carried up to four million letters daily. However, the decline in letter-writing told its own story. In 2003, the railway was deemed uneconomical and suspended, almost overnight, and remains closed for postal purposes. Thankfully, this extraordinary slice of London history wasn’t lost. Take an immersive ride on the Mail Rail Today, Mail Rail forms part of the award-winning The Postal Museum at Mount Pleasant. Visitors can hop aboard a specially adapted train and take an immersive ride through the tunnels, learning how this secret system worked and why it mattered so much to the city.  Once a month, there’s also the chance to walk a 1.2-kilometre stretch of the tunnels on foot – a rare opportunity to explore one of London’s most unusual underground spaces. The museum itself makes for a brilliant, family-friendly day out. Alongside the Mail Rail ride, you’ll find hands-on exhibitions, fascinating stories of innovation and design, and Sorted, a popular play space for younger visitors up to the age of eight.  Behind the scenes, the museum cares for hundreds of thousands of objects, from pillar boxes and postage stamps to uniforms, vehicles and, of course, an entire underground railway. Together, they tell the 500-year story of British postal communication and its lasting impact on everyday life in the United Kingdom. There are also plenty of special events running during February half term 2026 – so if you’re looking for something a little different to do in London, this hidden railway is well worth uncovering. Watch my Fun London Fact video about the Mail Rail on TikTok. Find out more at the Postal Museum website.  |
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