There is something new to discover in London, whether you’ve been there one or 100 times. The city is alive with excitement and packed to the brim with culture and history just waiting to be discovered.
If you’re looking for something new and interesting to do during your stay at the Piccadilly Hotel London, try hunting down the noses of Soho. They were hidden around the area by artist, Rick Buckley in 1997 and have since become a cult sensation. Here are a few clues to some of the locations to get you started.
History
During the 1990s, public security funding in London experienced a huge spike as hundreds of new CCTV cameras were installed throughout the city. The streets were becoming increasingly watched and this concept of constant surveillance inspired the contemporary artist, Rick Buckley to raise awareness through a series of installations around Soho. He proceeded to place plaster of Paris noses on streets and walls underneath the CCTV cameras which represented the eyes of Big Brother. The casts were made from his own nose and originally there were 35. Over the years, the numbers have dwindled and now there are only seven remaining.
What’s interesting is that during and after the project, Buckley never publicised the installations. In fact, he purposefully painted them to match the surface they were attached to in order to make it less obvious and avoid detection- following the theme of trying to escape the gaze of big brother. This has only added to the legend of the noses as they now serve as a challenge for tourists and visitors to the area.
It wasn’t until 2011 that the artist announced that he was responsible for the noses and provided the artistic reasoning behind them. During the years prior to this announcement, Londoners came up with all kinds of strange and fantastic stories about how the noses got there, most of which were unfortunately debunked.
The search
Luckily, if you’re planning to try and hunt down all of the noses, you won’t have to travel too far. According to successful nose hunters, they are all located in and around Soho which means you can travel on foot from our hotels in West End London UK and spend an afternoon searching for them. It wouldn’t be very sporting to give away the exact location but a good place to start your search would be Admiralty Arch. That is usually the first point of call for hopeful hunters trying to locate all seven noses.
There are plenty of resources that will help you in your search but it depends how much help you want. If you find yourself really stuck, you may want to head over to Dean Street after searching around Admiralty Arch. You’ll have to do some research to find the rest but hopefully, your search goes well. Be sure to take a camera and snap some photos of the noses you find.
