Visit London€™s’ blue plaque properties

Scattered across London, in stately prominence and secret corners, the blue plaques scheme brings buildings to life, connecting people with places

From grand residences to quirky and hard-to-find boltholes in unlikely locations, there are around 850 iconic blue plaques spread across London, with a few more in other major cities around Britain. Most are private houses but a few are open to the public, whether as museums such as Leighton House, or as shops, restaurants and public spaces.

See behind the façade of London’s blue plaque buildings with our guide to those that are open to the public:

Museums

Keats House, Hampstead
Handel House Museum, Mayfair
Emery Walker’s house, Hammersmith (open by arrangement)
Charles Dickens Museum, Bloomsbury
Benjamin Franklin House, Westminster
Leighton House
Dr Johnson’s House, Gough Square
John Wesley’s House
Freud Museum, Hampstead
Red House (lived in by William Morris), Bexleyheath
Horniman Musuem, Forest Hill
Rangers House, Greenwich

Shops

Nancy Mitford (Heywood Hill bookshop, Curzon Street)
Richard Sheridan (Savile Row)
Augustus Siebe (Denmark Street)
Collins Music Hall (Waterstone’s on Islington Green)
Randolph Caldecott (Great Russell Street)

Restaurants, cafes and public houses

Frank Brangwyn
Tom Cribb (Tom Cribb PH)
Alexander Pope (Mawsons Arms PH)
Dr Johnson and James Boswell

Hotels

Norman Lockyer, Earls Court
William Hazlitt, Soho
Lillie Langtry (Pont Street façade of the Cadogan Hotel)
Ellen Terry, Earls Court
Paul Robeson, Hampstead

Libraries

Rosenberg (Whitechapel library)
John Beard and William Ewart (Hampton library)
Robert Travers Herford (Dr William’s Library, Bloomsbury)

Public buildings

Alexandra Palace
Sir Nigel Gresley (Kings Cross station – currently awaiting re-erection after current works completed)
The County Hall

New in 2011

Eight new blue plaques went up across London:

Richard Burton, actor (6 Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead)
Graham Greene, writer (14 Clapham Common North Side)
Patrick Hamilton, novelist and playwright (2 Burlington Gardens, Chiswick)
Herbert Howells, composer (13 Beverley Close, Barnes)
John Rae, arctic explorer (4 Lower Addison Gardens, Holland Park)
Sir William Ramsay, chemist (12 Arundel Gardens, Notting Hill)
Sir Basil Spence, architect (1 Canonbury Place, Canonbury)
Edward Whymper, mountaineer (82 Waldegrave Road, Teddington)