This guide covers the six places that most visitors see on their first day in London, all in Westminster and all within walking distance of each other: Westminster station, the Palace of Westminster with Big Ben, Parliament Square, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square. Together they hold the country's parliament, its coronation church, the monarch's London home and its best-known square, so one walk takes you through a thousand years of British history.
Westminster station
Most people arrive at Westminster by Tube, and the station is worth a look in its own right. It opened on 24 December 1868 as Westminster Bridge, on the District Railway, one of the first underground lines in the world, and took its present name in 1907. Today it serves the District, Circle and Jubilee lines. The deep Jubilee line platforms, opened in December 1999, were designed by Michael Hopkins & Partners, and digging the station box meant an excavation 39 metres deep, the deepest ever made in central London at the time.
- The huge concrete and steel hall around the Jubilee line escalators, with exposed beams and struts crossing the void: it won several architecture awards and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2001.
- Portcullis House, the parliamentary office building with tall bronze chimneys that sits right on top of the station; take the exit towards Westminster Bridge and Big Ben is in front of you.
The Palace of Westminster and Big Ben
The Houses of Parliament stand on the site of a medieval royal palace. On 16 October 1834 a fire destroyed most of it, and only Westminster Hall and a few other parts survived. Charles Barry won the competition to rebuild it, in Gothic Revival style, and Augustus Pugin designed much of the detail, from the woodwork to the tiles. Building started in 1840 and went on for about thirty years. The result has more than 1,100 rooms, and together with Westminster Abbey and St Margaret's Church it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
Big Ben is, strictly speaking, the name of the great bell inside the clock tower, not of the tower itself. The tower was called the Clock Tower until 2012, when it was renamed Elizabeth Tower for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The Great Clock went into service in 1859. The palace is still the working seat of the House of Commons and the House of Lords; Parliament decided in 2018 that both Houses should move out for a full restoration, but no final plan had been agreed by 2026, so the building remains in use.
- Westminster Hall, built in 1097 for William II: its oak hammerbeam roof, made for Richard II in the 1390s, is the largest medieval roof of its kind in England.
- Victoria Tower at the other end of the palace, the tallest of its three main towers, with the Sovereign's Entrance at its base.
- The view of the whole river front from Westminster Bridge or from the South Bank opposite.
Parliament Square
Parliament Square was laid out in 1868, to Charles Barry's plans, to clear the space in front of the new palace and to ease traffic. Its lawn and edges are lined with statues of statesmen and campaigners, British and foreign, and reading them is a quick lesson in who the country chose to honour.
- Winston Churchill by Ivor Roberts-Jones, unveiled in 1973, facing the Houses of Parliament; nearby are Abraham Lincoln (1920), Nelson Mandela (2007) and Mahatma Gandhi (2015).
- Millicent Fawcett holding a banner, by Gillian Wearing, unveiled in 2018: the first statue of a woman in the square, and the first one there made by a woman.
Westminster Abbey
Benedictine monks settled here around 960, and Edward the Confessor built a great church on the site in the 11th century. The church you see today was begun by Henry III on 6 July 1245, and the two western towers were added only in the 1740s by Nicholas Hawksmoor and John James. Since William the Conqueror in 1066, forty English and British monarchs have been crowned here, most recently King Charles III in 2023.
The abbey is a royal peculiar, a church answerable directly to the sovereign rather than to a bishop, a status it has had since 1560. Kings and queens are buried here, and so are writers, scientists and soldiers, among them the Unknown Warrior, buried on 11 November 1920 in memory of the dead of the First World War.
- Poets' Corner in the south transept, which began with the burial of Geoffrey Chaucer around 1400.
- The Coronation Chair, used at coronations since the 14th century; the Stone of Scone, which sat in it for centuries, is now kept in Edinburgh Castle and brought back for each coronation.
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace began as Buckingham House, built in 1703 for John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. George III bought it in 1761, and in the early 19th century John Nash and later Edward Blore turned it into a palace. Queen Victoria, who came to the throne in 1837, was the first monarch to live here. The front you see from the Mall, with the famous balcony, is younger than it looks: Aston Webb redesigned it in 1913.
The palace has 775 rooms and is in the middle of a long programme of repairs to its wiring, plumbing and heating, approved in 2016. Outside, the Changing of the Guard takes place in the forecourt every day from April to July and every other day the rest of the year.
- The balcony on the east front, where the royal family traditionally appears to the crowds on great occasions.
- The Victoria Memorial in front of the gates, a white marble monument to Queen Victoria by Thomas Brock, with a gilded figure of Victory on top.
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is named after the Battle of Trafalgar, the British naval victory of 21 October 1805 in which Admiral Nelson was killed. John Nash began clearing the site in the 1820s, Charles Barry's plans were accepted in 1840, and the square opened on 1 May 1844. Nelson's statue was raised on top of his column in November 1843, and the four bronze lions by Edwin Landseer were added at its base only in 1867. The north side is closed by the National Gallery, built in the 1830s, with St Martin-in-the-Fields on the east side.
- The Fourth Plinth in the north-west corner, which since 1999 has carried a changing series of contemporary artworks.
- The two fountains, redesigned by Edwin Lutyens in the late 1930s as memorials to the admirals Jellicoe and Beatty.
How to see them in one walk
Come out of Westminster station and look up at Big Ben, then walk along the front of the Palace of Westminster to Parliament Square and its statues. Westminster Abbey is on the far side of the square. From the abbey, walk up through St James's Park to Buckingham Palace, ideally in time to watch the guard change, and then follow the Mall east past Waterloo Place and through Admiralty Arch to Trafalgar Square, where you can finish in the National Gallery.
See London with World City Trail
Our London scavenger hunt turns Westminster into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from Westminster to Trafalgar Square, and Big Ben, Parliament Square Garden, the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square are all stops, along with St James's Park, Waterloo Place and Admiralty Arch. At each stop you solve a puzzle and learn a story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in London, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the London scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of London →
Play the outdoor escape game in London →
Facts checked in October 2026.