There were once plans to build a cable car that would link the Millennium Dome with the DLR on the north side of the river. Obviously, no such cable car was ever built.
In the early 1890s, a Scottish architect published a grand scheme to rebuild central London. Away with tired old narrow streets and hello to Parisian boulevards. Goodbye to St James’ Park and hello to a massive road network and roundabout.
Today, the land behind Paddington station is an array of glossy office blocks. But they shouldn’t be there. It’s supposed to be a 1960s array of housing towers.
No not that one, the other one. No, not that one either, the other one. Yes, this one — the giant airport right in the centre of London on the Thames, next to Parliament.
In an age where people were thinking the future of mankind was more leisure and less work, thoughts turned to how such pleasure was to be enjoyed.
A massive pyramid, topped with a pillar, and then some more — not the Post Office Tower, but a monument to the Battle of Britain.
The River Thames is a rather curvy beast, especially around the Isle of Dogs, but had a plan in 1796 been carried out, it would be considerably straighter.
Greenwich could today be less famous for its observatory and meridian, than for a gigantic statue which would have dominated the area.
In 1967, the Conservative Party published a document calling for the scrapping of buses in central London – and replacing them with a huge Monorail network.
In 1832, Parliament passed the Great Reform Act, and London’s skyline was nearly as radically reformed, with a 1,000 feet tall gold plated column to commemorate the occasion.
When planes were small and buildings expected to be large, putting an airport right in the centre of a city was seen as a very sensible idea.
Just over 200 years ago, plans were shown off to replace the venerable London Bridge with a massive single span iron bridge.
Nearly a hundred years ago, plans were shown of for a mighty civic new building for the east-end of London that would have dominated the skyline for miles around.
200 years ago, a plan was announced to plonk a giant pyramid in the centre of London, for no purpose other than to cock a snoot at the French.
In the post-war period when London had a surplus of rubble and empty spaces, an airport was planned in the docklands area with SIX runways.
London has in recent years gained a loop railway that runs around the suburbs, but 100 years ago, a proposal was made for a much larger loop which would have dramatically changed how we see the city today.
Back when London was surrounded by more green and had just one airport, a radical scheme was cooked up for a high-speed monorail linking city to airport. And not just any monorail — these “trains” could also run on roads!
Imagine if you will, a giant flat surface larger than Trafalgar Square overhanging the River Thames — this was the proposed central London Helidrome.
A giant railway terminus was once planned for central London that would have swept away all the land between Holborn and Farringdon. Obviously never built, its failure indirectly lead to the creation of the London Underground.
Around 160 years ago, plans were announced for a skyscraper in London that would have a summit even higher than The Shard stands today.
Imagine a tube tunnel running under Southwark and the City, but carrying full size mainline trains — and you would be imagining something that was actually proposed.
When London Bridge was being shipped off the to USA, one of the ideas mooted for its modern replacement was a high level, covered travolator to help speed pedestrians from the railway station to the City.
Back in the late 1980s, plans were seriously looked at which could have seen a new Northern Line spur constructed between Kennington, and either Streatham, or along the proposed Bakerloo Line extension, towards Peckham.
Fairly recently, a chap called Moffat wrote a story about an underground railway in Westminster — to considerable fury of tube geeks who spent an inordinate time chewing over holes in the plot.
