Visitors who arrive in London via Heathrow Airport will pass the Hogarth roundabout in Chiswick as they approach the city along the A4 from the west. They may see the house in which William Hogarth (1697 – 1764) lived, which is now a museum. Their Blue Badge Tourist Guide may even tell them that it is believed that Hogarth’s habit of sketching people’s faces on his thumbnail gave us the phrase ‘a thumbnail sketch.’

William Shakespeare (1552 to 1616) was undoubtedly our greatest playwright and poet. He lived until the age of fifty-two and although he was born and is buried in Stratford-upon-Avon, it was in London that he made his fame and fortune. Known as The Bard of Avon, his plays are regularly revived on the London stage, and the Globe Theatre, where he made his reputation as a playwright, was rebuilt in the late twentieth century largely as a result of the efforts of the American actor and theatre director Sam Wanamaker.