COLOURS OF LONDON : A HISTORY

Celebrated novelist, biographer and critic Peter Ackroyd paints a vivid picture of one of the world's greatest cities in this brilliant and original work, exploring how the city's many hues have come to shape its history and identity. Think of the colours of London and what do you imagine? The reds of open-top buses and terracotta bricks? The grey smog of Victorian industry, Portland stone and pigeons in Trafalgar square? Or the gradations of yellows, violets and blues that shimmer on the Thames at sunset - reflecting the incandescent light of a city that never truly goes dark? We associate green with royal parks and the District Line; gold with royal carriages, the Golden Lane Estate, and the tops of monuments and cathedrals. Colours of London shows us that colour is everywhere in the city, and each one holds myriad links to its past.

Celebrated novelist, biographer and critic Peter Ackroyd paints a vivid picture of one of the world's greatest cities in this brilliant and original work, exploring how the city's many hues have come to shape its history and identity. Think of the colours of London and what do you imagine? The reds of open-top buses and terracotta bricks? The grey smog of Victorian industry, Portland stone and pigeons in Trafalgar square? Or the gradations of yellows, violets and blues that shimmer on the Thames at sunset - reflecting the incandescent light of a city that never truly goes dark? We associate green with royal parks and the District Line; gold with royal carriages, the Golden Lane Estate, and the tops of monuments and cathedrals. Colours of London shows us that colour is everywhere in the city, and each one holds myriad links to its past.