Discover Marx’s political activities and impoverished existence and suffering in London's Soho

The story of how coffee of arrived in London, not from Italy or America, but from the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century. It tasted bitter, but also of Islam and the East. This is how England learnt to love the 'wine of Islam' and the 'Vertue[s] of the Coffee Drink'.

A weird tunnel beneath Charing Cross station traces the edge of what was once London’s riverside embankment, a waterfront that witnessed the arrival of Viking raiding fleets.

The church of St Alfege was built on the site of the martyrdom of St Ælfheah: the archbishop of Canterbury who, having been kidnapped by Vikings and taken to their camp at Greenwich, was battered to death with animal bones…

St Paul’s was the heart of early London. It was the burial place of King Ethelred (‘the ill-advised’) and also of unfortunate Archbishop Ælfheah whose body was stolen from its tomb by King Cnut The graveyard was once home to the London runestone, a rare monument to a member of London’s Viking elite.

London's walls may have been built by the Romans, but when the Vikings encountered them in the tenth and eleventh centuries 'they suffered', as the anonymous Anglo-Saxon chronicler put it, 'more harm and injury than they ever imagined that any town-dwellers would do to them’.

Queenhithe is the only surviving section of the City of London’s ancient riverfront: excavations from here and neighbouring Bull Wharf have revealed evidence of London’s early medieval role in international trade – including the largest concentration of Viking artefacts in Britain outside York.

Excavations beneath the Royal Opera House have revealed stunning evidence of early London, both the homes and workshops of the inhabitants and also the defensive ditches that may have been built to protect against Viking attacks before the area was abandoned.

Although it was Edward the Confessor who is most associated with Westminster abbey, the first king of England to be buried there was Harold I ‘Harefoot’, the son of King Cnut. He didn't rest there for long...

St Olaf House stands on the site of an ancient church dedicated to St Olaf. It once stood at the southern end of old London Bridge - a bridge that may have been torn down by a Viking fleet: a fleet commanded by the very same Olaf...