The West End

The West End is the name given to the area of central London north from The Mall to Oxford Street. It includes Trafalgar Square, the main shopping areas of Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street, and the entertainment centres of Soho, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Shaftesbury Avenue. Its name is associated with glamour and bright lights.

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square was built early in the last century to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar. Admiral Lord Nelson's statue stands on top of a column in the middle of Trafalgar Square. The square makes a good place for people to meet - coaches pick up parties of visitors, marchers unite for protest meetings, and at Christmas time carol singers gather round a huge Christmas tree which is sent to Britain from Norway every year. Behind Nelson's Column is the National Gallery, an art gallery in which you can find many old masters.

Shopping

Most of London's big department stores are in Oxford Street and Regent Street. They are always crowded, but at sale times, in January and July, there are so many people that it is difficult to move and it is usually safer to go in the direction of the majority! These days, it is often difficult to distinguish the goods in one large store from those in another.

If you are looking for something 'different' (but cannot afford the prices of Bond Street) it is certainly worth going to New Covent Garden. This used to be England's biggest fruit and vegetable market, but a few years ago, the market was moved to a new site on the other side of the River Thames. The old market, now called 'New Covent Garden', was restored and converted into a shopping centre. There are now more than forty shops of many different kinds, and there are several places to eat and drink. The opening hours are different from most other shops: they open at 10 a.m. and close at 8 p.m., whereas most shops open from 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. As well as shopping, there is entertainment with lunch-time theatre groups and classical, jazz, folk and pop music.

Entertainment

PiccadiIly Circus is the centre of night life in the West End. It is usually top of everyone's list of things to see in London, because it is so well known. It is actuaIly quite smaIl, and most people are rather disappointed when they see it for the first time because they had imagined it would be much bigger! To the north of Piccadilly Circus is Soho, which has been the foreign quarter of London since the 17th century. Now it has restaurants offering food from a variety of different countries, especially Chinese and Italian ones, as well as 'adult' entertainment.

London is famous for its live theatre, and there are over thirty theatres within a square mile. NaturaIly there is a great variety of shows to choose from: 'whodunnits', opera, musicals, drama, comedies and so on. lf you want to know what is on in London, the best place to look is in a newspaper.

Susan Sheerin, Jonathan Seath, Gillian White: Spotlight on Britain; Oxford University Press, 1985, page 23