While London sits upon an ancient Roman foundation (Londinium), today’s city was shaped in a powerful way by England’s Industrial Revolution. In 1800, London had about a million people. By 1900, its population had quadrupled to over four million, as people came from the countryside into the big city for the promise of a good job and a better life. “The best of times and the worst of times,” this was the London of Charles Dickens and his A Tale of Two Cities.
Today, London has become a leader in “regeneration”—re-using buildings and spaces from this period to appeal to modern lifestyles, incorporating the city’s rich and rusty industrial heritage as it builds for the future. Seeing these sites is to see some of the best examples of today’s London.
