The Handy London Map & Guide

£2.95

A5-size, 48 page pocket atlas based on Benson’s excellent London Street Map, with additional brief descriptions of essential sights and numerous places of interest, including houses and palaces, churches and cathedrals, museums and galleries, shopping including street markets, parks and gardens, and many other places from Admiralty Arch to Women’s Library in Whitechapel - all star rated according to their relative importance and interest.

Using tube stations as markers to indicate the coverage, the atlas covers an area extending from Kilburn Park/ Notting Hill Gate/Earl’s Court to Shoredich/ Aldgate East (i.e. just beyond the Tower Bridge), and from St. John’s Wood/Mornington Crescent/Angel to the Oval/Kennington/Borough. Excellent use of colours and symbols enables the publishers to indicate parks and green spaces; street markets and selected shops; pedestrian zones and access to streets and passages by steps; places of interest including tourist information centres, theatres, cinemas, and selected well known pubs: transport network including streets with bus routes, Underground stations, overground railway lines with local and main line stations; for drivers, car parks and streets with restricted access or no entry, although one way streets are not marked; selected hotels, places of worship, post offices, police stations, viewpoints, etc., and last but certainly not least, public toilets!

Overall, however, the atlas version of this excellent map carries slightly less information that the folded London Street Map, with an enlargement only for the very central part of the West End, often referred to as the “Theatreland”. Separate small maps are also provided for the areas around the Greenwich Maritime Museum and Camden Lock, plus plans of Westminster Abbey, The Temple, and St. James’s Palace. A map of the Underground network is shown on the back cover. Street index lists only selected streets, with a separate index for places of interest.