A Putney cottage designed by Erno Goldfinger has been illegally destroyed. Arbus Ltd, of Croydon, applied for permission to pull down the building in 2002, but was refused. Living up to his surname, Director of the company Rajiv Laxman paid little heed to the order and the building’s Grade II listed status, demolishing the cottage anyway. He’s now been ordered to pay £11,000 and forced to rebuild the property using the same design and......

Despite the odd recent mishap, London's lidos take their rightful alongside our parks as great places to go around the capital. 70 years ago lidos were people's cathedrals, masterful municipal palaces to promote community health and wellbeing. Over the years since then they have been left derelict or sold off. But now, they are having their renaissance. Blame global warming for warmer temperatures or the Olympics for increased interest in health - but outdoor pools......

If you're a first-time buyer looking to get onto the property ladder, you may be interested to know that Witanhurst, the 94 year old Georgian-style Highgate mansion, and second largest private residence in London (the largest being the Queen's gaff), has been sold to Marcus Cooper for an estimated £32 million. His firm The Cooper Group plan to "restore and develop Witanhurst beyond its former glory", and transform it into the capital's first £150......

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand since Blair morphed into Brown, the government has now put housing at the forefront of the political agenda, having realised that the current lack of residential units being built is totally inadequate. At the frontline of this campaign is the need to build more homes in brown-field sites in our cities so that we can edge towards those housing targets of about 200,000 a year.......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 7th May 1663: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane opens for the first time. There have actually been four theatres on this site since the 17th century, and the first one didn’t even last 9 years before burning down in 1672. The second was built in 1674, but demolished in 1791. The third lasted from 1794 until it burned down in 1809 (flammable things, these theatres). Finally, the......

See that bunny, there? We call him Cedric. He lives in Clissold Park. It’s a nice place to live. His neighbours are a group of fallow deer and some pygmy goats. When he’s not eating celery Cedric enjoys watching the children splishing about in the paddling pool, listening out for the twitterings from the nearby aviary and the pock, thwack from the tennis courts and feeling very glad that the thousands of dogs that......

Like so many of our stalks, you may or may not have heard of the fellow, but you’ll certainly know his handiwork. Richard Seifert has made more of a mark, some would say stain, on London’s modern skyline than any other individual. His most famous buildings are the NatWest Tower (properly known as Tower 42) and the skeletal Centre Point, but he also contributed, for better or worse, tens of other familiar structures to our......

Get your bids in. The ‘ailing’ Alexandra Palace is now up for grabs, and is looking for someone to take on a 125 year lease. The Grade II-listed complex sits high atop Muswell Hill and is the major landmark of the area. But like Battersea Power Station and the Dome, it’s one of the great buildings of London that misses its full potential. So who’s going to buy it? Well, restrictions stipulate that the......

The Space is a Grade II listed former church in West Ferry, East London, currently used as an arts centre for the local and wider community. A new season of performances is planned, called Out of London, to be performed by (and performed to) the diverse and delightful people of London. The season hopes to reflect and explore how our fair city feels in the 21st century. If you would like to be part......

A Bethnal Green Italian cafe has been given Grade II status by English Heritage due to it's distinctive design as well as the fact that "The 1950s cafe is becoming increasingly rare and the recent proliferation of chain coffee shops is threatening their economic viability". Pellicci's was built in 1900 and it's current owner, Nevio Pellicci, was born above the shop in 1926. It was just after WWII in 1946 that it got its......

No newspaper is happier than when it is at the forefront of a campaign. When that campaign entails what looks like bureaucratic idiocy, you can be sure that one of the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail or the Daily Express will be the loudest in exposing another example of “red tape gone mad”. This week it’s the Daily Telegraph’s turn to campaign for another persecuted species — the window-box in east London. Norwich Union has......