I want to visit the dead in London....

[Survivor]

The hubby and I are going to London in a few weeks and I'd love to do some off the wall stuff.

My idea of a good time in New York is visiting places I've read about on Forgotten New York

If we were going to Paris, we'd be touring the Catacombs and checking out Pere Lachaise Cemetery...

Last time I was in L.A., a friend and I did the cemetery tours - finding all the graves of our favourite actors and actresses... And if the Death tour of Hollywood had still been up and running, we woulda been there like a shot...

We've been to London a few times and have done the standard tourist stuff.. Visiting Madam Tussauds and looking at wax figures just doesn't do it for me any more...

I've heard of different walking tours of London, but I'm not sure how good they really are... Visiting a pub and eating overpriced food with 25 other tourists and a guide just doesn't do it for me either

If only So Graham Norton was taping while we're there... But then again... Flying from SFO and then going to watch TV??? Maybe not...

Any suggestions on weird, odd stuff to do?

Thanks,

Survivor

[Sir Doris]

The following are on my to do list:

house of detention

the old operating theatre

Royal College of Surgeons museum

And there are several fine Cemeteries

I'm sure some of the LondonDoper's could suggest pubs that might be of interest for their history or architecture (and hopefully their beer )

[jjimm]

Apparently there's a mummified head in St. Botolph's Church in The City.

Then there's the London Dungeon, which is a rather gruesome waxwork thing.

The vast Highgate Cemetary has Karl Marx in it.

For a really gothic cemetary experience, go to the cemetary in Stoke Newington - well creepy.

[paulberserker]

The Natural History museum started doing tours of their archives of specimens, ie the pickled stuff in formaldehyde a while back. try www.nhm.ac.uk for more info.

The Cemetry in West Norwood (SE London) is worth a look.

Also, there are tours occasionally of the abandoned tube stations, especially Aldwych as I recall. www.thetube.com may tell you more.

Hope that might be of interest to you. If you want pubs to go to, just say, theres shitloads of interesting ones I can recommend, given an area.

[APB]

Highgate is the most famous of the garden-style cemeteries, but don't just see the eastern half (which is the bit with Marx); the western half, for which you need to go on the excellent tour, is much more atmospheric. It's easy to get to by Tube.

[SpoilerVirgin]

I love London Walks. I've been on quite a few, and enjoyed them all (well, except for the pub crawl, but it sounds like that wouldn't be your thing anyway). I did a Jack the Ripper walk and a Ghosts of London walk which are more in the creepy and odd category. Ooh, the Darkest Victorian London walk sounds excellent too ("...a paupers' burying ground...")

[Survivor]

Oh my God... Suddenly there are alot of things I want to do... The cemeteries sound great, and the London Walks are going to keep us busy for sure...

Thanks for all the ideas, you've all just made our holiday

Survivor

[Jack Sarang]

Its a tourist spot but it has lots of dead people in it:

St. Pauls Cathedral. Specifically the crypts beneath it. You have both Horatio Nelson and the Duke of Wellington interred there. As well as several other historical notables and lesser known nobility.

[jjimm]

I would like to apologise to all here present for consistently spelling the word "cemetery" incorrectly. I knew it looked wrong, but was too lazy to look it up.

Back to the ghoulish London, you could also visit the Tower of London where various people were imprisoned over the years, and left by "Traitor's Gate" to be executed; their heads were impaled on spikes by the river for all and sundry to see. Also at the Tower are the ravens, which preserve the crown of England: if they were ever to leave, England would fall.

If you go off to Spitalfield (great market there on Sunday to buy unusual souvenirs) there's a pub called the Six Bells (IIRC) where some of Jack the Ripper's victims drank. Their bodies were all found in this area. They have leaflets about Ripper Tours. The church next to the pub is also a very spooky piece of architecture.

And finally, the British Museum has a fine collection of Egyptian and other mummies, no doubt dripping with curses.

[GorillaMan]

In the Tower of London, they'll show you the spot where Anne Boleyn was executed, on Tower Green - except it's a big fat Victorian myth.

There's a fairly gruesome history of medicine in the Science Museum.

There's a good site on 'ghost' (disused) tube stations here, but unfortunately that's about as close as you'll get to most of them.