Where to stay and what to do in London: hotels, attractions, day trips and city break ideas.
The original Hoxton hotel opened on Great Eastern Street in 2006, and it has marked its 20th birthday with a refurbishment, a rooftop Peruvian restaurant and a 2006-themed party.
Housed in Carlo Gatti's Victorian ice warehouse beside Battlebridge Basin, the London Canal Museum combines a narrowboat cabin, a giant ice well and trips on the Regent's Canal.
A 45-minute trip aboard a historic narrowboat between Little Venice and Camden Market is one of the most relaxing ways to see north London from the water.
Robert Adam's Georgian masterpiece at Osterley, with its lake, parkland and Tudor walled garden, hosts a Marigold Festival for Diwali from 7 to 29 November.
Where Henry VIII spent his childhood, the Courtaulds built a 1930s Art Deco mansion, and this winter Eltham Palace hosts wreath workshops and a Christmas fair.
Robert Adam's Kenwood, on the edge of Hampstead Heath, houses works by Rembrandt and Vermeer with free entry, and hosts Father Christmas weekends this winter.
Designed by Philip Webb for William Morris in 1860, Red House in Bexleyheath is where the Arts and Crafts movement took root, with a garden made to clothe the house.
Built in the 1720s for Henrietta Howard, Twickenham's Marble Hill has restored gardens, 66 acres of Thames-side parkland and a winter programme of wreath making and Father Christmas.
Charles Darwin lived at Down House for 40 years and wrote On the Origin of Species there; in November it hosts an Origin Weekend among his garden and greenhouse.
Lord Burlington's Palladian villa and its free-to-roam gardens host a Duck Pond Festive Market, a Christmas food market and Father Christmas's grotto this winter.