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The next successful invasion of Britain came from northern France. It was led by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, who was crowned King of England in the newly completed Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066.

The first parliament sat in Westminster and became a seat of government separate from the mercantile City, which continued to expand on the former Roman site.

A quarrel between Henry VIII and Pope Clement VII over the king’s divorce led to Henry breaking with Rome and declaring himself head of the church in England. Today, the sovereign remains the head of the Church of England.

Originally designed to link the main London railway termini, the Metropolitan Line was the world’s first underground railway. When it opened, the carriages were little more than trucks.

Built on either side of the river, the Embankments were among the great engineering works of the Victorians. They were designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette to contain a vast new sewage system to take waste to pumping stations outside London.

Docks that were once hives of activity began to be deserted in the 1960s as trade moved to a modern container port at Tilbury. In the 1980s, regeneration of the area began, notably around the West India Dock, where Canary Wharf was built in 1992. A new City airport was created on the site of the former Royal docks.

Designed in 1939 by the architect Ernö Goldfinger for himself and his wife, the artist Ursula Blackwell, this is one of the most important examples of modern architecture in the UK. A film helps put the life and times of the couple in context. Goldfinger designed all the furniture and collected some fine works by Henry Moore, Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp.