The English Heritage Guide to London's Blue Plaques

The blue plaque helps us make poetry from the everyday, infusing the hard materials of the city with the feeling of lives lived: a memory of the past making the present richer.' Antony Gormley, Guardian

The official English Heritage guide, with over 900 of London's most interesting inhabitants and their former homes brought to life.

Blue plaques, bearing names both familiar and intriguing, can be found all across the capital. From VIRGINIA WOOLF to VINCENT VAN GOGH, CHRISTOPHER WREN to ALAN TURING, MAHATMA GANDHI to EMMELINE PANKHURST, the plaques celebrate an incredible array of London's past residents.

Whether they be musicians, scientists, sports stars, artists, actors, inventors or politicians - this compact English Heritage guide reveals, with wit and insight, the stories of London's most extraordinary men and women and the homes in which they lived.

The blue plaque scheme's historian, Howard Spencer, draws on the text of 2009's Lived in London while adding his own expertise for over 100 new plaques. At 512 pages, and with over 150 colour and black-and-white images, this is the definitive guide to London's blue plaques.

'I love London's blue plaques - they're integral to the life of the city, monuments that keep your eye connected to history in such a wonderfully simple way.' Martin Scorsese, Guardian