I wish I had realised it was that Saturday before I booked my train tickets - I would have tried to arrive way earlier to take advantage of this.

On Saturday September 20th hundreds of London buildings are open for visits as part of London architecture week. How cool is that?

http://www.londonopenhouse.org/public/london/find/index.asp

found on Strange Maps, http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/417-as-it-might-have-been-hexagonal-london/  who found it in London as it Might Have Been

Leighton, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, published a scheme to divide London in a number of hexagonals, specifically aimed at preventing overcharging by cab drivers.

“John Leighton suggested that the old borough boundaries should be altered to conform to a honeycomb pattern. Within a 5-mile radius of the General Post Office all the sprawling, differently sized boroughs were to become hexagonal-shaped areas, 2 miles across. There were 19 altogether with the City in the centre of the honeycomb. Each hexagonal borough would be identified by a letter, and the letter as well as a number would be painted or cut out of tin-plate to be visible by day and night on lampposts at every street corner.”

The proposal for a hexagonal London is described in London As It Might Have Been, a book by Felix Barber and Ralph Hyde, also detailing plans for a giant pyramid to house the remains five million dead Londoners, and a scheme to erect a structure in Wembley to dwarf the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Leighton’s hexagonal plan obviously never came to fruition