See the mosaics and hypocaust in Verulamium Park

Visit the shrine of St Alban in the cathedral

Verulamium grew into a major Roman town of some 125 acres, sacked by Boudica and rebuilt; Watling Street ran through it, and it had a forum, a basilica and a theatre whose remains are still visible, with mosaics from its houses in the museum. Above it, the abbey church was raised near the traditional site of the martyrdom of Alban, the first British martyr, with Roman bricks from the ruined town built into its tower.

St Albans: Verulamium and the Martyr's Shrine

Tour the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter at Leavesden, walking through the Great Hall set and Diagon Alley

See Dumbledore's office and the Ministry of Magic sets

Stand on platform nine and three quarters with the Hogwarts Express

See the 1:24 model of Hogwarts used for the exterior shots

Warner Bros. built the Harry Potter films at Leavesden, on the site of Leavesden Aerodrome, a wartime de Havilland aircraft factory, and kept the sets when the shooting finished: the Great Hall, Diagon Alley, the Hogwarts Express on its platform, the Forbidden Forest and the 1:24 model of the castle that was filmed for the exteriors.

Leavesden: The Harry Potter Studio Tour

Tour the house that stood in for Wayne Manor

Walk the formal gardens Lutyens simplified and Gertrude Jekyll's herb garden

Stand on the concert lawn where Oasis played to 250,000 over two nights

Walk the dinosaur trail through the park woods

Knebworth has belonged to the Lytton family since 1490, and the Victorian rebuilding covered the Tudor house in turrets, domes and gargoyles — which is why it was used as Wayne Manor in Batman in 1989. Since 1974 the lawns have held some of the biggest concerts in Britain, from Led Zeppelin to Oasis.

Knebworth: Wayne Manor and the Concert Lawn

Tour Wembley Stadium, the 90,000-seat stadium under its 133m arch, opened in 2007

Visit Lord's Cricket Ground and the MCC Museum, home of the Ashes urn

Visit the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and Centre Court

Wembley seats 90,000 under a 133m arch that can be seen across London; Lord's has been the home of cricket since 1814 and keeps the Ashes urn in its museum; and Wimbledon has been played on grass at the All England Club since 1877.

London's Sporting Legacy: Wembley, Lord's and Wimbledon

Cross the zebra crossing on Abbey Road, photographed for the Beatles' album cover on 8 August 1969, outside Abbey Road Studios

Attend a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, opened in 1871 and home of the BBC Proms

Hear jazz at Ronnie Scott's in Soho, the club founded in 1959

Walk Denmark Street, Britain's old Tin Pan Alley of music publishers, now lined with guitar shops

The Beatles were photographed on the zebra crossing outside Abbey Road Studios on 8 August 1969 for the album cover. The Royal Albert Hall opened in 1871 and is the home of the BBC Proms, Ronnie Scott's has been playing jazz in Soho since 1959, and Denmark Street, Britain's old Tin Pan Alley of music publishers, is now lined with guitar shops.

London's Musical Journey: Abbey Road to Soho

Walk among the veteran pollarded hornbeams

Visit Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, the grandstand built for Henry VIII's hunts in 1543

Find the Iron Age earthwork at Ambresbury Banks

Walk to Connaught Water and look for the fallow deer

Epping Forest runs twelve miles from the edge of London into Essex, saved when public outcry pushed the City of London Corporation to buy it — the first big win of the environmental movement in Europe — and the Corporation owns it still. It holds thousands of veteran pollarded hornbeams and oaks, the Iron Age earthworks of Loughton Camp and Ambresbury Banks, and the Tudor building now called Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge.

Epping Forest: Twelve Miles of Ancient Pollards

Visit the Charles Dickens Museum at 48 Doughty Street, his home from 1837 to 1839

Go into the Sir John Ritblat Gallery at the British Library and see the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Lindisfarne Gospels

Visit Dr Johnson's House at 17 Gough Square, where he compiled his Dictionary, published in 1755

Find the Platform 9¾ trolley at King's Cross station

Charles Dickens lived at 48 Doughty Street from 1837 to 1839, and it is now his museum. At 17 Gough Square, Dr Johnson compiled his Dictionary, published in 1755. The British Library's Sir John Ritblat Gallery shows the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Lindisfarne Gospels, and at King's Cross a luggage trolley disappears into the wall at Platform 9¾.

Literary London: Dickens, the British Library and Dr Johnson

Walk down through the Bronze Age smithy, the broch and the Norse longhouse

Go inside a wheelhouse with its stone piers standing

Find the Norse longhouses and the later laird's house

Look across to the lighthouse on Sumburgh Head, and from April to mid-August look for puffins on its cliffs

A storm in the late 19th century washed away part of the shore at Sumburgh and revealed a site that had been built on again and again: a Bronze Age smithy, an Iron Age broch and roundhouses, a complex of Pictish wheelhouses, a Viking longhouse and a medieval farmhouse, with the laird's house on top. Walter Scott visited in 1814 and invented the name Jarlshof, 'Earl's Mansion', for his 1821 novel; excavation proved the Norse settlement more than a century later.

Jarlshof: Four Thousand Years in One Place

Find the carved leaves in the chapter house and name the trees

Walk the Norman nave and see the pyramid-capped west towers

Walk the minster close and the Archbishop's Palace ruins

The Norman rebuilding of Southwell began in 1108, and in 1288 the chapter house was added — its capitals carved with foliage of exceptional quality, oak, maple, hawthorn, hop and ivy cut so precisely that the species can be identified. They are known as the Leaves of Southwell, and the minster's twin western towers carry pyramid caps, rebuilt in 1880 on the Norman pattern.