The first ever project built by engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel – London’s underwater Thames Tunnel – has just reopened to the public as a new attraction, exhibition space and concert hall. It forms part of London’s Brunel Museum.
The tunnel was built by the young Brunel and his father in the mid-19th century to connect the districts of Rotherhithe and Wapping and is now part of London’s rail network.
A freestanding, cantilevered staircase and viewing platform has been constructed to enable access down the tunnel’s 65ft entrance shaft into the Grand Entrance Hall which is half the size of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and is available as gallery or performance space.
The Brunel Museum is a converted industrial building. Facilities include the Engine House - one large space divided into Upper Gallery, Lower Gallery and a mezzanine accommodating up to a hundred delegates on the upper level and sixty on the lower. A marquee is also available for extra space.
The Brunel Museum is easily accessible via Canada Water on the Jubilee Line and Rotherhithe station on the London Overground. It is two minutes from the Rotherhithe Road Tunnel and ten minutes from Tower Bridge by road.
Rotherhithe was an East India Company Town long before it was a crossing point on the Thames. The Tunnel was designed to move ships’ cargo. From these jetties the Pilgrim Fathers left for the New World on the Mayflower. The re-opening coincides with the 210th anniversary of Brunel's birth.
Details: http://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/
- Details
- Published: 18 April 2016
- Hits: 3063
_images_thumb200px_.jpg)
The Royal Mail Visitor Centre allows ‘behind the scenes’ access to the world’s leading export mint and follows the journey of a coin, from ‘blank to a bank’.
The guided Factory Experience will enable visitors to gain first-hand knowledge of the manufacturing process as well as providing an insight into the 1,000 year heritage of the Royal Mint.
The Royal Mint offers companies the opportunity to create a unique, bespoke product to mark an anniversary, celebrate a special event or recognise or reward achievement. Visitors will also be able to strike their very own coin as a memento of the visit.
The Royal Mint is located in Llantrisant in Mid-Glamorgan, close to junction 34 of the M4 motorway.
Details: http://www.royalmint.com/
- Details
- Published: 11 April 2016
- Hits: 2868
Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, the hotel that inspired the John Cleese's classic television series, ‘Fawlty Towers’, is to be demolished. Cleese, co-writer of the television series, stayed at the hotel in 1971 when he was in the area filming Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
He was amazed at the chilly greeting the team received from their hosts, Donald Sinclair and his wife, Beatrice; treatment that was later immortalised in the television series.
The 41-bedroom hotel closed last year. It will make way for 32 retirement flats on the site.
The Sinclairs tried to distance themselves from the Cleese connection. However, when the hotel was renovated in 2006, the new owners fully embraced the connection.
They ran Fawlty Towers-themed events and attracted a steady stream of fans from across the world who stayed there or posed for pictures outside.
The Gleneagles Hotel merely provided the inspiration for Fawlty Towers. The series was filmed in the Thames Valley and the opening exterior shots are of the Wooburn Grange country club in Buckinghamshire.
- Details
- Published: 17 March 2016
- Hits: 2948
The smart phone can be used in the bedroom or on the move around London. Guests can use them for browsing as well as unlimited business and personal calls to land lines and mobiles within the UK, USA and Europe.
The smart phone availability is just one aspect of the Eccleston Square Hotel technology-driven service.
The hotel bedrooms are equipped with 46 inch HD 3D Neo plasma Panasonic televisions with surround sound that can be connected to a smart phone. Touch pads control almost everything in the bedroom including the lighting, curtains, room temperature and even the ‘Do Not Disturb’ signal.
The bathrooms are equipped with rainfall showers, heated flooring and a flat screen television concealed in the bathroom mirror. SmartGlass shower walls can be adjusted from clear to opaque at the touch of a button depending on the level of privacy required.
Eccleston Square Hotel also offers a guest iPad which can be used to order meals (available 24hr), for housekeeping services, to have a 3D Blu-ray film delivered to the room or to request an in-room massage.
Eccleston Square Hotel has been formed from two Grade ll-listed Georgian townhouses. It borders Belgravia in the heart of central London and is around a five minute walk from Victoria Station.
Details: http://www.ecclestonsquarehotel.com/
- Details
- Published: 23 March 2016
- Hits: 3091
New owners, Allied London, are consulting widely about the future of this Grade II-listed building. The majority view favours a mixture of uses – including a hotel, signature and all-day restaurants, workspace, apartments, visitor attractions, live music venues, cinema, museums and galleries.
Allied London begin external and internal renovation work towards the end of the year. In the meantime they have released previously unseen internal images of the fire-station.
London Road Fire Station overlooks Piccadilly station in the centre of Manchester and is surrounded on all sides by a range of budget through to four star hotels.
- Details
- Published: 16 March 2016
- Hits: 2459
Page 23 of 43
