Only the Coronation Spoon survives from the medieval regalia; everything else in the Jewel House was made for Charles II in 1661 or later, and the display was rebuilt in May 2023.
An index to the London pages: the royal buildings, the churches, the free museums, the parks and the zoo, the theatre district, the City and the markets, and the squares and the river — with the distinctions that are most often got wrong, and a note on how much time each one really takes.
The Bronx Zoo and the botanical garden next door with its uncut old-growth forest; the World's Fair ruins and the ten-thousand-square-foot model of the city in Queens; the food neighbourhoods that are the real reason to go; and what is actually on Staten Island for anyone who gets off the boat. Including why there is no subway to it.
Two things almost every account of the zoo still promises are no longer there. The cable car stopped in January 2023 and its replacement is not due until late 2027. And the elephants have gone — the last two left Sydney in April 2025, for a new herd in South Australia rather than for Taronga's own second zoo at Dubbo.
The aquarium older accounts describe has largely ceased to exist — no platypus, no crocodile, no seal, no tiger or lemon shark, and not one of the five zone names in circulation survives. Of the two rescued dugongs, one has died and the other has moved out of the exhibit built for them. One warning about figures: the operator's own website gives three different species counts on three different pages.
The aquarium in the lower floors of County Hall opened in 1997 and has carried the Sea Life name since 2009. Its gentoo penguins are to move to Birmingham.
