The Great Metropolis

This is a tentative list of possible story sites in the city. It should be considered suggestions and requests, not a mandate, and by no means exclusive -- London has centuries of history and any given city block has something interesting in it. All page numbers refer to Baedeker’s Guide to London, 1885

Bayswater (p.245)

If you are looking for housing or shopping . District between Kensington and Paddington, mostly middle-class homes. Notable for William Whiteley's departmental stores, which claim to be able to find anything a customer may desire - one rich joker ordered an elephant, and received it a few days later - and other shops in and around Westbourne Grove and the Queen's Road (later Queensway).

British Museum (p.219-240, map)

The headquarters for the League in its comics and film, and a great source of adventure hooks.

Bunhill Fields (p.97, very brief)

If you are looking for a cemetery, this is a Non-conformist one (which means people who did not worship the Church of England). It appears in From Hell and includes the tombs of William Blake and Daniel Defoe. It has several tall obelisks and is, in our period, unmaintained and overgrown.

Christ’s Chuch, Spitalfields

This terrible, magnificent, church is the work of Hawksmoor, and features prominently in From Hell. It is a satanic place, with a tall obelisk and plenty of pyramids and other pagan symbols decorating it. In our game, it will be the center of all that is evil in the city. A diabolical Ground Zero, as it were. Spitalfields is mentioned briefly in Baedeker’s as a manufacturing area north of the Thames, but this is not a tourist area and no description of the church is in that book. If you can’t look it up in From Hell – and the reference and mood there is awesome – wield thy Google Fu.

Cleopatra’s Needle (p.111)

This Egyptian artifact is reputedly cursed and several men died trying to get it to London. It is on the Thames Embankment and the area is haunted by several ghosts and suicides. This needle is the twin of the one in New York; both were outside the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis in the time of Moses, before being sent across the globe.

Clubs

Clubs are specialized by membership group. Here's some possibilities, leaving aside any new ones we might want to invent:

• Reform is a political club catering to liberals and favored by businessmen, bankers, and publishers. Phileas Fogg is a member of the Reform Club.
• Carlton is right across the street, for conservatives. Lots of industrialists and so-called "Steam Lords." Stuffy, formal, but a lot of political clout.
• Chatelaine is a women's club (the only I have found so far), in theory for the wives of the gentry, centering around the events of the social season, but really about investment and political power.
• Geographic Society is for explorers, travelers and colonizers. The "White Man's Burden" and "Great White Hunter" mentality prevails.
• Whitefriars is the literary club of the London set, for the clever and witty.

Crystal Palace, Sydenham, Kent (p.293-299, map)

A gigantic glass exhibition hall originally erected in Hyde Park in 1851, moved to Sydenham Hill in 1854. The Sydenham site, 7 miles S.S.E. of London, is the terminus for several railways and bus and tram routes. Triv asked for the Crystal Palace to be in the game and it is a great adventure site, even after it has moved out of the city proper. It makes a great place to spend a day's vacation.

Hyde Park (p.245-247)

Large park adjoining Kensington, Chelsea, Bayswater, and Marylebone. It is notable mainly for Marble Arch, a modest triumphal column which houses a tiny police station, for Speaker's Corner, a popular site for political and other speeches, and for Rotten Row (or The Row), a fashionable riding area. It adjoins Kensington Gardens to the West and Green Park to the East.

Kensington (p.247-248)

Exclusive area notable for its park, two royal palaces, the Albert Hall and Albert Memorial, Harrods department store, and several museums and scientific institutions.

Lambeth (p.65, 286)

I don’t know much about this region yet, but Ken Hite put his underground Martian colony there so that is my tentative spot for the pre-invasion Martians.

London Bridge (p.107)

Mayfair

According to Daniel Pool, an "ultrafasionable West End residential area. Mayfair was the location of the posh gentlemen's clubs on Pall Mall, the exclusive shops on Bond Street and the fancy houses on the ritziest residential street in the city, Park Lane, overlooking the great greensward of Hyde Park on Mayfair's western border."

Opium Den

We need one, don't you think? Watson gives a pretty good description of one called the Bar of Gold, Upper Swandom Laine. You can read it for yourself here: http://sherlock-holmes.classic-literature.co.uk/the-man-with-the-twisted-lip/

Paddington

Inner London district most notable for its station, residential areas ranging from slums to genteel, a canal basin, and several small factories. Parts of North Paddington are officially regarded as the poorest areas in London.

Prospect of Whitby

Based on Jess Nevins' annotations to League vol 1, which state this pub is the site of "much of the action of Dracula", I had originally asked we include it as a public house on the grid. However, upon checking the novel for myself, I find that much of the action in Dracula takes place in the town of Whitby, not in the Prospect of Whitby pub, which is never mentioned. So forget about this place.

Regent’s Park (p.214-219)

A fashionable park and formal gardens in the West End of London. It is best known for the Zoological Society's menagerie, the London Zoo. Regent's Canal, part of the national network of waterways, runs through the park past the Zoo. Baedeker actually has maps of the Zoo, but they are fold-out so we can't see them.

Seven Dials

According to Marcus Rowland, "Notorious criminal slum area near Oxford Street." According to Pool, Seven Dials and the neighborhood of St. Giles is where Fagin's gang hung out in Oliver Twist.

St. Paul’s (p.81-89, map)

The largest church this side of Rome. Thick with history.

The Strand (p.133)

Avenue running near the Thames Embankment from Trafalgar Square to The Aldwych, London's theatre district. Notable for expensive shops and hotels, especially the Hotel Cecil.

The Tower (p.114-120, map)

It’s home to many superstitions, haunting spirits, and deaths, not to mention it’s a right spiffy castle. I don’t know if the crown jewels were yet housed here, or if it was a museum yet (the modern Tower has a collection of weapons and armour).