Where To Visit Whilst You’re In London For LeakyCon!

So, you’re going to LeakyCon London? Hooray! With the big event fast approaching, I’m sure you’ve checked out the programming schedule and cherry-picked the bits that you’d most like to do. However, whilst there’s lots of fun things happening as part of the con, it’s easy to forget that London is a big and bustling place, jam packed with fun things to do, see and experience. So if you’ve got a gap in your schedule, or you’re hanging around a few days before or after, we’ve got a few suggestions of where you might like to visit! Of course, all within a short tube ride from The Grand Connaught Rooms, where LeakyLondon is being held!

For starters, you’ll be needing this:

Or something along those lines… Anyway, on with the list!

1. Platform 9 3/4, King’s Cross Train Station
How to get there on the underground from Covent Garden: Take the Piccadilly Line. King’s Cross is the third stop.

So this is probably already on your list if you’re a Potter fan heading to London this summer, but it couldn’t go unmentioned! It’s such a great photo opportunity and since our last visit they’ve even added a wizarding shop, just in case you can’t make it to Diagon Alley before term starts in a month’s time. What’s more, it’s only six minutes away from LeakyCon when you hop on the underground!

2. The Sherlock Holmes Museum, Baker Street
How to get there on the underground from Covent Garden: Take the Piccadilly Line, change at Piccadilly Circus to the Bakerloo line. Baker Street is the third stop.

Located (of course) at 221B Baker Street, the Sherlock Holmes Museum is housed in a charming town house. The door is guarded by a victorian policeman who will hand you a hat and a pipe to enhance your sleuthing powers. Within, you’ll find lots of recognisable scenes and trinkets from Arthur Conan Doyle’s writings.

Also on our visit to Baker Street, we found a Beatles shop, jam packed with all the Fab Four merchandise and memorabilia you could possibly imagine. Very apt, as we’ll be peforming as Sgt. Potter’s Lonely Horcrux Band on the Thursday night of LeakyCon!

If you want to pay a visit to Speedy’s Cafe, which you’ll definitely recognise if you’re a Sherlock fan, you’ll want to hop off at Euston Square!

A bemused policeman took this jubilant photo of us and our friends…

3. Abbey Road, St John’s Wood
How to get there on the underground from Covent Garden: Take the Piccadilly Line, change at Green Park to the Jubilee Line. St John’s Wood is the 3rd stop. 5 minute walk to Abbey Road Studios from there!

If you were intrigued by the Beatles shop, you’re definitely going to fancy a trip to Abbey Road – where The Beatles recorded their music. This has been on our To Do list for so long and we haven’t got round to making the pilgrimage yet – but maybe this trip could be the time we make it to that famous crossing and recreate that album cover. I suggest you do the same, it would be especially  fun if you were to take your picture in costume, think about it…

4. Science Museum, South Kensington
How to get there on the underground from Covent Garden: Take the Piccadilly Line. South Kensington is the 6th stop.

Situated on a road full of museums, the Science Museum has lots to offer to fuel your mind! Especially awesome is the space exhibition, with real rockets overhead. There’s lots of interactive exhibits about the museum, making it lots of fun. The last time we visited was when on our museums week, where we visited a different museum around the country each day for a week. That was a nice time.

Also, they make a mean cupcake in the cafe. Important.

5. Camden Market, Camden Town
How to get there on the underground from Covent Garden: Take the Piccadilly Line, change at
Leicester Square to the Northern Line. Camden Town is the 5th stop.

Camden is a must every time we visit London! There’s so much to explore there; stalls full of vintage clothes and hats, quirky jewellery, tasty food and t-shirts you won’t find on the high street – and that’s just a small selection of what’s on offer. Who knows what you might find in this vibrant part of London.

I hope we’ve given you a few nice ideas if you’re not too familiar with our capital city. If you’ve got any suggestions yourself, do feel free to leave them in the comments!

Wizard Rock means lots of travelling! Watch our Edinburgh adventures from when we visited in December for the Snow Ball.

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer Cover

We’ve been very busy – hence not updating for a couple of weeks. We are bad. We shall try not to leave it this long again. Really.

We’ve made a couple of videos for our youtube.

One was a cover of The Beatles song, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, in which we pretended to be puppets, as one does, naturally.
Recording was interesting for this. To achieve the ‘infamous’ hammer sound we had to resort to clanging two soup ladles together. We like to think it produced an interesting effect. Coming up with the make-up for the video was pretty fun as well and you can see the whole thing right here