First time to London, thoughts on lodging area

Tammy, the whole city is an hour or more from the airport.

The sites in London are spread out so there is no perfect location. We preferred the Covent Garden/Soho areas because at the end of the day we were within a short walk to plenty of restaurants and pubs. The Tube (subway) will get you to the Tower and the Imperial War Museum. The War Rooms will be within walking distance.

You didn't mention which airport, but both Heathrow and Gatwick are an hour or so away by subway and train.

Covent Garden/Soho is very convenient but it’s also probably the most expensive area of London for hotels and it sounds like budget is a consideration here. It’s fine to stay near the Tower. You’re close to the City (short for City of Westminster) which is the business district of London. As such, not many people live there and it’s quieter at weekends. It has plenty of amenities like restaurants and shops.

If you are near an Underground station or train station, you can get around London and environs, easily.

For a start it’s obviously near the Tower of London. It’s also close to Tower Bridge, St Paul’s, Borough Market, the Globe Theatre, Tate Modern and convenient for a trip to Greenwich. So I’m at a loss to understand how you think it might be too far from anything.

My son lives in East London. His mantra that getting pretty much anywhere in London takes about an hour. London has 6 airports and the Tower area is pretty convenient for 5 of them. It’s perfect for LCY. There are other places nearer Heathrow but they will be a distance from everything round the Tower. Using the Elizabeth line you can get to Tower Hill in under an hour.

Yes, everything in London is about equidistant from everything else. And there are pubs and shopping everywhere. And since there are several ways to get to the airport, it almost doesn't matter.

For London, the sites, venues and activities are spread across the city. I've never thought it to be important to have accommodations near the sites, but rather I've thought it important to know where the tube stations and bus stops are located. Personally I love The City especially the area around St Paul's and prefer to stay near Millennium Bridge. From my accommodations St Paul's, Blackfriars, Mansion House, Bank and Cannon St tube stations were each a short walk. I can travel all over London for museums, walk over to Southwark, do some touristy things and come "home" to a more quiet area.

Heathrow Airport is 17 miles from London and Gratwick Airport is 28 miles. Especially when using tube or trains its going to take an hour or more to get into the city and to your accommodations.

Tammy, I'm heading to London in the early spring of next year and will be staying at the Premier Inn County Hall, which is in the area you are talking about. I am very excited about staying there as there are loads of restaurants, sights, and access to public transportation. So you might want to consider that.

Premier Inns are also very reasonably priced if you book them early enough. I think I'm paying around £140 a night for 5 nights and that is for a Premier Plus room. I could have gotten a regular room for £120.

There’s a Premier Inn near the Tower of London. Haven’t stayed in that one but have stayed in others. Usually well kept and well run. From That one it’s a 10-15 minute stroll to the Tower of London.

The PI is close to a favorite pub, The Princess of Prussia. I encourage you to seek it out.

From the nearby Tower Hill station you can access both the Circle and District underground lines. Its about 15-20 minutes on either line to Westminster station and Parliament Square where you’ll find the Parliament building, Elizabeth’s Tower with Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. From the station its an easy 20minute stroll up to Buckingham Palace.

Don’t hesitate. Perfectly good place to stay.

The Premier Inn County Hall is an especially good location for someone who wants to walk to both the Churchill War Rooms and the Imperial War Museum. Both are only 0.7 miles away. Westminster Abbey is even closer (0.6 miles). The National Gallery is an 0.8-mile walk. The Tate Modern and many of the theatres would be roughly 1 mile away.

It's inclusion of the IWM on the sightseeing list that makes me especially recommend the County Hall location; it's not particularly convenient to other areas where tourists like to stay. However, I'm sure I'm unduly influenced by having needed to make 4 or 5 trips to the IWM to see the whole thing.

"The City" is usually an abbreviation, locally used, for the City of London - the Square Mile, where most of the finance is based, or was until it spread over to the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf. Pretty much from the Tower of London to the Royal Courts of Justice where Fleet Street becomes The Strand (approx); from the Thames to a not straight boundary with the three boroughs adjoining to the north, Camden, Hackney and Islington.

The City of Westminster is the second city within what is called London, along with all the other boroughs, but its abbreviation is often Westminster. When talking about political things the whole name is usually used so as not to be confused with the Houses of Parliament and the expanding area around with political offices, known simply as Westminster. That contains a tube station with the same name, and the Abbey, known as Westminster Abbey.

Confusing, eh? Now maybe you get an inkling why we use the full names for places and things.

If you're walking to The Imperial War Museum from Premier Inn County Hall, you can have a little singalong...

Wot Cher! (Knock'd em in the Old Kent Road)

and The Lambeth Walk (remember to kick out a leg and shout oi!)

Personally I prefer heading a little south of there. As a local I find the area just back from the river in Lambeth and Waterloo is a bit dead. It doesn't really start to get interesting until you go east to The Cut, where you've got The Old Vic and The Young Vic and my favourite tapas place in London, Don Felipe, amongst other decent pubs and restaurants. I've spent quite a bit of time south in Peckham, because I have friends there and there's some cool places to hang out. In the summer I like Frank's and CLF in the Bussey Building (closed at the moment unfortunately).

Stuff that I like that's a short walk from PI County Hall might include The Cinema Museum and Leake Street Tunnel.
Edit: just to add, there's also Lambeth Palace, somewhere very significant in the English church. I've never been but it's something I might look into if I was visiting that area. It's not open to the public as such but tours can be booked it seems.

There are dozens of mosaics based on works by William Blake more or less on the path from the PI Country Hall to the Imperial War Museum. I stumbled upon them by accident a few years ago, but the sight is documented here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/william-blake-mosaics-lambeth. It's definitely worth a visit for fans of William Blake or of mosaics.

Gerry, that’s so funny that you mentioned the song, The Lambeth Walk. It has been in my head constantly since booking my hotel at the Premier Inn in that area. I love that musical! In fact, I designed costumes for it many years ago when I was doing freelance costuming. 😊

another vote for the Covent Garden area. We stayed there at a Premier Inn Hub last year and thought the location was very convenient since it was only steps from Trafalgar Square, several tube lines, and Covent Garden. Also there was a direct tube from the airport. Hub is a variant of the Premier Inn chain that has smaller rooms but can have lower prices. We just needed a place to sleep, shower, and leave our stuff so it worked fine for us.

Don Felipe was a favourite of mine when I worked in the area 20 years ago.

It was through work I got to know it too. We booked a big table upstairs when we wrapped up projects a couple of times. I went with a friend after a screening the BFI a year or so back and it was still very good.

There used to be a pie and mash shop sort of near the Old Vic. I wonder if it is still there?

I don't know it, but it's probably closed. Not many pie and mash shops left. I was in Cooke's in Broadway Market before it closed. Not somewhere I'd rush to eat, unless for novelty value with a visitor maybe. I'm pretty sure there's Manze's around still. There is one in Walthamstow for sure. [edit: Nope, that's closed too]

best pie and mash shops - https://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/londons-best-pie-and-mash-shops

Different people have different tastes. That's why you can get so many different things to eat in London, including Fish and Chips and Pie and Mash and jellied eels.

It may not be London, but an hour away in Southend on Sea there are still several pie and mash shops.

Plenty of people still and always did like them- and it was a cheap and nutritious meal. for the working class. You do not have to have jellied eels if you don't want to, nor the 'liquor' (the parsley sauce).

Eels were one of the few fish who could survive in the then polluted River Thames.

Many of the shops have a late Victorian or Art Deco style, and are interesting to visit for that alone. And long before the shops (which are not called cafes or restaurants, just a convention) the pies were an early take away food, sold from carts on the street, for the workers of the East End.

Oh, and to be up to date, Manze's closed in May 2023.

At the risk of this turning into the pie and mash thread (sorry OP!) F. Cooke in Broadway Market that I mentioned earlier is now a branch of the same optician that I ordered my new specs from earlier this week. Quite a good example of the late Victorian / Art Deco frontage that was common, as Stuart mentioned further up. Manze's in Walthamstow is now a Japanese place, but they've preserved the wonderful interior completely faithfully.

Gordon's wine bar is a long way from Tower Bridge

I spend quite a bit of time in London since my daughter lives there. I am typically there 3 - 6 weeks at a time two or three times a year and have stayed in various areas including Canary Wharf, Kensington and Knightsbridge. The Tube is easy and simple to use and can get you anywhere fairly quickly. If you have Apple Pay, you can just touch and go. If you use this option, just be sure to change your Apple Pay setting for transportation on your phone to "no" facial ID or double tap.

I do want to mention the newest rail line: the Elizabeth Line. It is really a line unto itself; it is not considered a Tube line or a National Rail line. It runs in a west/east/west direction starting from, in the west, Reading, stopping at a number of terminals at Healthrow Airport in to Abbey Wood (one branch) and Shenfield (another branch) in the east. What is great is that it cuts the commute from Heathrow into the "center" of London measurably not to mention how much less the cost is than taking a taxi or Uber. The Elizabeth Line map is noted on the Tube line maps and can be downloaded from the internet, of course! It is simple and easy to take it from Heathrow as it stops in the terminals; you don't have to exit the terminals to get the line.