You could get a sore neck every day in London, trying to look around at all the lovely older buildings. The photos on this page, and even the larger number in the Flickr set, can only give you a taste of this architectural splendor. These photos are, for the most part, of just miscellaneous buildings. I've identified them as much as possible, but there are some that I included not caring what or where they are—they're just too impressive not to share.

Some of London's more famous old buildings, such as St. Paul's, the Houses of Parliament, and Tower of London, have their own pages. Plus, the History and Churches sections have some more. And a lot of domestic and commercial architecture is on view as background in the London Streets section.

Not surprisingly, some of the more impressive older buildings serve some official function. Here are, clockwise from upper left, Australia House (Commonwealth countries don't have "embassies"), the London Port Authority building, as seen from the Tower of London complex, and two shots of towers on government buildings in between Parliament and #10 Downing Street, probably along Great George Street:

The English legal system is one of its gifts to the world, and it's fitting that the Royal Courts of Justice reside in such lovely buildings as these. On the left is their spire as seen from across the Thames, and there's a closer detail shot on the right:

But the amazing thing about London is that buildings used for much more mundane things, like living and sleeping and such, are just as beautiful as the buildings serving loftier purposes.

The feature I love the most about the houses on the upper left were those beautiful medallions above the porches; at night they glowed from the porch lights within them and were even more impressive. The house on the lower left has one of the famous blue plaques on it, (which you might not be able to see at this resolution, but check the full-sized version in Flickr) this one for W.S. Gilbert, who gave the world the "model modern major general," the "gay and gallant gondolieri," and so much more delightful nonsense. The handsome house on the right is in a fashionable near-Hyde-Park neighborhood and I'd rather not know how much it would cost to live there—it would spoil the fantasy.

I could also fantasize about staying in this very handsome Hotel Russell (on Russell Square, of course) next time I'm in London. I took the picture from the doorway of a building across the way where I'd just had a meeting with a British librarian:

I think the building on the left below might also be a hotel, but I can't positively identify it. I know it's on Knightsbridge Street, though, near Harrod's. And the other lovely building, which I used as the headline graphic for this section of the website, is a complete mystery. I cannot determine, from its place in that day's sequence of photographs, where it is. But, who cares, when it's that gorgeous?

I'll close with a couple of academic buildings that I certainly wouldn't have minded going to class in. (I felt the same way about Oxford and Cambridge, as you can understand from the pictures I took there.) On the left is the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, as seen from across the river, and on the right is the Royal College of Music, from right across the street from the Royal Albert Hall.

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