London is a palimpsest city, each era inscribed over the last but never quite erased. Know where to look and you'll find strata of hidden worlds: a Roman amphitheatre beneath the Guildhall's foundations, a Victorian operating theatre secreted in a church attic, globe-makers in Stoke Newington pursuing their craft.
This is a city where magicians still peddle their secrets in Clerkenwell, where cigar merchants have occupied the same premises since the Regency, where you can launder your shirts in mint-green machines that have stood, immutable, since Ted Heath was Prime Minister and Marc Bolan topped the charts. The capital contains multitudes: darkrooms channeling the spirit of Kreuzberg, trattorias hidden in factory corners, neo-Gothic cathedrals erected in service of sanitation.
