13 May 2010

Quirky London 1 of 20: The flat house


This is the first in a series of posts about quirky stuff in London best experienced by bike. Of course, London's full of quaintly useless old stuff whose purpose is lost in antiquity, much of in Parliament Square. But this set is about curios that make a good target for a bike ride, and which are in some way uniquely enjoyable by bike.

Where is it? The south terrace of Thurloe Square, just south of the Victoria and Albert Museum. (Map below)

What's quirky about it? To squeeze the square against the railway line, but keep the architecture consistent, the builders had to make this last house in line wedge-shaped. View it from the right point, and it looks like it's about to fall down on Buster Keaton. Don't stand in front of it in a storm. The Google map below shows just how needle-shaped the end of the block is.

Why bike there? You can nip up to the V&A, which is free, full of fantastic art-and-design stuff, and has decent bike parking near the main entrance. West of here is South Kensington, full of elegant terraces and quaint mews, nice to poke around.


View Larger Map

6 comments:

  1. A Beautiful Area full of Quaint Old World Charm,Spoilt by all those Cars allowed to Park.

    Mr Boris Johnson would want to put a stop to Cars being allowed to Park in the Historic Part of London. In fact he should try having Car Free Days and stop Pandering to the Motorist Lobby. He is only a Pretend Cyclist,not really interested in Advocacy at all.

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  2. So is it actually a functioning building or just a facade?

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  3. That is a functioning building, albeit a thin one at one end, unlike http://www.urban75.org/london/leinster.html

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  4. This is in Ayr and is pointy for the same reason:

    tiny.cc/mpfbp

    There is a railway marshalling yard behind it.

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  5. @Anonymous II... watch out for a post on that very house soon...

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  6. This is real but barley anything is inside

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