Eye on London - Sweets and Sparklers

London from the inside Monday 31st October - Sunday 6th November 2016

Pennies for the guy and pumpkins at the ready! Our two favourite autumn events are bookending this week and we’ve got the goss on the best places to get spooked and enjoy the sparkles. Plus a mini history lesson thrown in for free!

TRICK OR TREAT

Topical 2016 ideas for costumes or pumpkin carvings include Donald Trump (obvs), Paul Hollywood and Pokemon. If you’re a fan of The Force then the Star Wars website has a selection of free pumpkin stencils.

 

Planning on going out and about? Here’s some of London’s reportedly most haunted venues that you may (or may not) want to give a wide berth...

• The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
• Greenwich Foot Tunnel
• Westminster Abbey
• Heathrow Airport
• The Ten Bells pub, Tower Hamlets

 

And if you’re staying in don’t forget to stock up on sweets...and try not to eat them all!

 

GO OUT WITH A BANG

Five of the best London Bonfire Night fireworks displays (and they’re across three different nights for triple the firework fun!)...

 

• Battersea Park Fireworks display - 5th November
• Alexandra Palace Fireworks Festival - 4th and 5th November
• Wimbledon Park Fireworks - 3rd November
• Crystal Palace Park Firework Display - 5th November
• Waltham Forest Fireworks - 4th November

 

If fireworks are really your thing, buy tickets for London’s most exclusive New Year’s Eve spot with the ultimate view of the fireworks display.

 

EYE ON… TOWER HAMLETS

There are 32 capsules on The Coca-Cola London Eye, representing the 32 London boroughs, so each week we explore a different London borough.

There’s plenty of haunted history around this area so read up on the Krays and Jack the Ripper and head out hunting. Tower Hamlets often makes the news for all the wrong reasons but it’s a great borough for an afternoon’s exploring. There’s walks around the wharfs, Mudchute City Farm and one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ (London’s seven large private Victorian cemeteries) - Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. The long-neglected characteristic of the park is undoubtedly what makes it so captivating and it’s also a brilliant nature reserve.

 

ON THIS DAY… 5th November 1605

 

Remember, remember the fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot,

I see no reason,

Why gunpowder treason,

Should ever be forgot!

 

Guy Fawkes was arrested when he was found guarding explosives placed beneath the House of Lords ready to blow up Parliament in an attempt to kill King James I.

 

London, in this era, had a population of about 75,000 residents. It was a disease and rat-ridden place with many dying of the plague and tuberculosis. In entertainment news, Shakespeare was in full flow, putting on his plays at the Globe. In the season of 1600-01 he was showing Hamlet and Merry Wives of Windsor. The Tower of London (where prisoners were kept and sometimes executed) and London Bridge (complete with shops and houses) were the city’s two main focal points.

 

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