When you look at Medieval Modern London, adjust your window to keep the pictures inside the border of the text. That way the text should line up with the pictures, explaining what you are seeing without having to title the photos.  The editing page doesn’t line up with the post page and until I figure this out, the adjustment is necessary.  The pictures throw off the program and it seems it is a very common problem that hasn’t been addressed.  Hopefully WordPress will do something about it in the future.  If you know anything about computers and programs, you know they have a mind of their own.  In spite of that, off to London!

September 2015

Friday                   Flight and Night

It seems as if we can’t even get out of the airport anymore.  We received an email early on Thursday that the plane was probably going to be two hours late but we should plan on being at the airport at the original departure time, so we left the car at the Park n’ Fly and checked in at the British Airways counter.  Due to a tire that needed changing in London, our plane would be late.  I guess they only have one plane.   We received an $18. voucher for something to eat which we spent it at a little airport café, a cheeseburger and fish tacos, so much better than airline food and a way to spend some time.

Of course we were late getting in to Heathrow, but the Silver Shuttle that I booked on-line said that they know when their customers are arriving and would meet us. We walked back and forth along a barrage of men in suits carrying signs but our name wasn’t there.  We checked outside, then back inside and checked all the signs again.  Kim called the shuttle service and they said our driver was there.  We finally found him and he said he had been at the gate all this time, but he wasn’t.  At any rate we got into his nice clean car and chatted back and forth while we battled our way through horrendous traffic into the city.  Our original arrival time of 3:00 pm was long past and now it was rush hour.

Because of the lost time, I asked our driver to stop at the hotel just long enough to drop off our luggage and check in, then take us to the Victoria & Albert Museum which stays open late on Fridays.  We would be able to see a few exhibits and also get something to eat at their café.  He said no problem.

It was dark by the time we arrived in the city, bright lights, tall buildings, and even more traffic, but finally we pulled into the St. Ermin’s Hotel on Caxton Street.  We checked in, took our luggage up to the room and grabbed our raincoats.  It was cool but no rain in sight.  Got some British pounds at the ATM across the street to pay our driver and we were off again.

The Victoria & Albert Museum grew out of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the profits of which helped to fund the museum.  It finally opened in 1852 in the expanded Brompton Park House and included refreshment rooms; the first museum in the world to do so.  Gas lighting made night openings possible, allowing the working public to take advantage of the museum.  Begun by Albert and Victoria, most of the major buildings were finished by 1909 during the reign of their son Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.  Shortly after, art and science went their separate ways and the V & A focused on its decorative arts collections, becoming the leading museum of decorative and applied arts in the world.

The building is itself a work of art wrapped in an antique treasure box. Approaching the grand building is breathtaking if you love architecture because there is plenty to love.  Over a period of years from 1852 to 1909 the overall design was achieved by several architects doing their own thing while adding to a style already set in stone.  Mainly Italian Renaissance with terracotta decoration, there are medieval accents and Gothic windows; the arched entrance is Romanesque with Classical details.  And yet it all works.

Much of the interior is decorated in High Victorian fashion combined with the newest innovations.  Desire for a cleaner environment led to the use of tile on many surfaces, especially in the cafeteria which was inspired by Prince Albert’s dairy at Windsor.  Different designers worked on the interior as well as when new spaces were added or their uses changed.  Growing, expanding, and now having finished a major renovation, the museum is packed with so much to see that we could only touch upon the exhibits we came upon while admiring the bones of the interior.

Once at the museum, I realized I had left both of my cameras in the luggage. I usually keep my small Lumex in my pocketbook, but knowing airport security, I had put it away.  Kim had her iPhone, of course.  Beyond the massive entrance of the Victoria & Albert Museum the rotunda opened up, spacious and elegant with an enormous Chihuly blue and green glass sculpture spiraling down from the dome.  A wide staircase brought us to the balcony of half-moon arches that wraps around the rotunda, creating an atrium.

Architectural metalwork of all kinds was displayed from sconces, fencing and gates, to frames and metal boxes, all very old, very intricate and beautifully fashioned.   While admiring the architecture of the building we followed a wall hung with ornamental ironwork which brought us to an incredible collection of exquisite locks and lovely keys, each one a work of art.  Many were massive in size but the delicacy of the workmanship was really fantastic.  Imagining the door that such a lock would fit or what was behind that door….well.

We stopped at the museum’s Benugo café where Kim was able to put a plate together.  At this hour most of the kiosks were closed, so there wasn’t much to choose from.  We sat at a tiny table in a room decorated from floor to intricate ceiling with gorgeous tiles, huge windows, massive columns,  and colored marble everywhere.  Such a grand room to host a simple café.

We looked into several exhibits of stained glass, silver, and sculpture and found the Hereford choir screen on the balcony.  The renaissance gallery with altarpieces and stained glass had an elaborate choir screen that covered one whole end of the room.  In the Cast Court is a copy of Trajan’s Column which is so large it had to be divided into two parts to get it into the museum.  It looks even bigger inside a building than it did outside in Rome.  There is a marvelous collection of casts of famous statues that seem a little strange gathered all together in one place.  Donatello’s David stands near Michelangelo’s more familiar David.  Looking carefully at the display, there was the fig leaf kept close by in case Queen Victoria was visiting.  Ghiberti’s Baptistry Doors share space with the Portico de la Gloria from the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.  It is a very interesting as well as important collection in the Cast Courts, because, as the originals deteriorate, the copies survive.

Effigies lay in neat rows, far from their chosen resting place but these are only copies after all.  Berengaria, the wife of Richard the Lionheart sleeps peacefully after a life of following Richard around. The Effigies of Sir Ralph and Elizabeth Fitzherbert were added to the collection partly because of the small figure sitting at Sir Ralph’s feet.  The carving is of a bedesman who is paid to pray for the soul of the departed.  Also present is the carving of a pendant with a White Boar, the livery badge of Richard III.  One case held Queen Elizabeth I’s death mask.  It was like looking into the eyes of history.  I would have recognized her anywhere.  We decided to walk back to the hotel.  The streets were well lighted and there were still plenty of people about.  We got a table at the busy Caffe Concerto and ordered pastries and cappuccinos.

It was fun watching a very mixed group of people, young and old, dressed up and dressed down, enjoying what seemed to be almost a family gathering.  We continued our walk down Victoria Street.  There are huge sculptures in the courtyards and many of the stores’ display windows are filled with imaginative pieces of art instead of clothing.  It was fun to get a taste of the city at night.

Saturday             Walkabout London

In daylight we got our first good look at the huge Late Victorian red brick exterior of the hotel.  Two wings edge a courtyard with a lush garden strip down the middle.  Steps lead up to the porch and into the lobby.

St. Ermin’s Hotel on Caxton Street was built upon the site of a fifteenth century monastery dedicated to St. Ermin.  What started as a mansion block was converted into a hotel in the 1890’s.  During the Second World War   British intelligence services used the hotel for covert operations, meeting spies and passing secrets in The Caxton Bar.  A tunnel is rumored to run from under the grand staircase to the houses of Westminster. 

The ornate lobby is dominated by the double staircase that leads to the curved balcony floating above.  White walls are ornamented with plasterwork and small touches of gold are reflected in the crystal chandelier.

Old Caxton Registry Office

Next door is Caxton Hall, the former registry office where movie stars and the rich and famous got married into the 1960’s.  It closed in 1979 and the rear of the building, containing the halls, was demolished.   A circular office building, named the Asticus Building was built on the site.  The Caxton Street side with the gorgeous façade was restored and converted into luxury flats.

St. Ermins Hotel in Westminster is a great location, just steps away from Christchurch Gardens, a little park that we walked through every day.   It’s only a couple blocks away from Victoria Street and New Scotland Yard, the home of the Metropolitan Police, as well as bus stops and the tube.  There was a Starbucks around the corner (actually 2) and a convenience store for everything else.

The concierge sent us to the Royal Quarter for breakfast, but they were closed so we headed to busy Victoria Street thinking our luck would be better there.  It wasn’t but we ended up walking all the way to Victoria Station, seeing interesting things along the way.     The first pub we saw was The Albert, one of the oldest, Etched glass windows sparkled in its golden walls and a crown of huge hanging baskets overflowing with colorful flowers hung over the entrance and along the sides.

The Victoria Palace was right in the middle of the massive construction going on around Victoria Station.   This theater in the West End opened in 1911, specializing in musical reviews and comedy.

The golden statue of Anna Pavlova, the famous ballerina, on the cupola is a replica.  The original was taken down during the war for safety but was then lost and still not recovered.  They say it’s probably in someone’s garden.

There is a clock called Little Ben located where Victoria and Vauxhall roads meet, but during the construction it was removed for repairs and to make sure it didn’t get damaged.

Detours on the sidewalks sent us wandering along side streets until we came upon Grosvenor Gardens and saw the Shell Huts, little structures covered in designs crafted out of shells.  They were built in 1952 as part of a re-landscaping of the park in a French style to commemorate Marshal Foch and promote Anglo-French understanding.  Known as fabriques in eighteenth century France and follies in England, the small pavilions are now used to store garden tools.

We got our first glimpse of Westminster Cathedral and I hoped that we would get back to it.  The red and cream architecture is fascinating and there is a very tall tower that can be visited.

I had done my homework and decided that the London Pass would work for us, adding the Oyster Card for transportation around the city as well.  Delivery to the U.S. was easier than picking them up in an unfamiliar city, but not less expensive.

On Victoria Street we caught the bus to see more of London on our way to Trafalgar Square.  Signs at the bus stop showed the route and we swiped the Oyster Card for the first time.   Trafalgar Square was a sea of red and white tents, part of a Japanese festival.  All we could see was the top of Nelson’s Column, the head of one of the enormous lions and the tops of the museum buildings.  It was so packed with people there was no way to tell how big the actual square was.

Our first job would be to find breakfast and this early the cafes in the National Gallery and the Portrait Gallery were not open.  We walked down a side street that looked promising and stopped to ask two gentlemen if they knew of a place nearby where we could get breakfast.  They pointed across the square which brought us to another Caffe Concerto.  I had the little continental breakfast served on a tiered tray, little croissants, a biscuit-like scone and sweet little odds and ends.  Kim had Eggs Florentine that she said was really good.

Down the street the truly grand Northumberland House is now The Grand Hotel. It still has the majestic façade and entrance suitable to a great house.  We walked back to Trafalgar Square past an enormous Waterstones book store.

Once we got back to the square I remembered that Eleanor’s Cross was nearby.  Rounding the corner off the Strand and looking down the street we saw the tall spire in front of Charing Cross station.

The original thirteenth century Eleanor’s Crosses were built by Edward I in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile who died near Lincoln.  At each of the 12 stops on the journey to bring her back to London Edward erected a cross in her name; the last being at Charing Cross.  

 

 

 

The ornate cross, now 135 years old, was completely renovated, but also made larger and more ornate.  Its original location in Trafalgar Square was the point from which all distances from London were marked.  The statue of Charles I is in this location now.

 

A small part of Trafalgar Square

 

 

The National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery border the top and the colonnaded St. Martin in the Fields sits across the road.  The site of a church since 1222, and named when this area was outside the city, it was rebuilt by Henry VIII in 1542.  Rebuilt again and enlarged in 1726, the church has a Corinthian portico and a tall steeple.  Inside there is a royal box to the left of altar and another box for the admiralty on the right.  The Café in the Crypt serves meals under a vaulted ceiling.  Many of the old churches have turned their crypts into cafes and the food is getting very  good reviews.

 St.Martin in the Fields

Leaving the crowds in Trafalgar we walked up Charing Cross Road, stopping at a convenience store for water. We’re in heaven; they have Volvic flavored water.  We discovered it in Tahiti but it is not sold everywhere.  The orange flavor is as good as I remember, as if they squeezed a whole orange, peel and all, into the bottle.

 

 

 

London Coliseum & St. Martin Steeple

As soon as we started up Charing Cross Road we spotted the architectural details we love:  domes and turrets, peaked roofs, rounded arches on windows, majestic doorways and decorations of all kinds.

Steeples and fabulous finials on the tops of the buildings made me think that each one must be important but I think now that it was just the fashion in those days, showing off and showing up.

 

 

 

 

Statues sit on rooftops, etched and stained glass sparkles in the sun.  Golden angels hold up a lintel over a doorway.   Even Starbucks has an ornate carved façade that looks like it is right out of the 1800’s which it probably is. I love that they kept the facades even when the interior use has changed.

 

Starbucks              

 

 

 

Costa Coffee

 

 

 

The little streets off Charing Cross are right out of Harry Potter’s London and are pedestrianized which adds to the illusion.  New Row or Garrick or Goodwin’s Court could easily be Diagon Alley.  The narrow twisty lanes are lined with seventeenth century bow-fronted storefronts and are still lit by gaslight.   Just one of many old West End theaters, the beautiful Noel Coward Theater on St. Martin’s Lane, has a fabulous classical façade and a long history of success. The West End of London used to be the best place to live with theaters, shops, restaurants, and homes of the gentry.  It’s still a very lively place if not posh.

Queen’s House

 

 

 

In Cecil Court we saw a shop window crammed with objects that needed checking out.  Mark Sullivan’s Antique shop had shelves and display cases filled with an organized jumble that had to be hiding treasures.  I found an ornate glass and gold display case that reminded me of Mom’s carriage clock.  Then I saw a wonderful little figurine of Mercury sitting on a rock.  It was exactly what I had been looking for.  Another customer was looking at it in the daylight and thinking about buying it.  Once he decided it wasn’t for him, I snapped it up.  Both pieces were probably too expensive, but it is vacation money and I love them both.  A little pendant with semiprecious gemstones caught Kim’s eye and it was typical of the pieces she gets as souvenirs so we bought that too.  We had a fun and interesting time taking to the owner and his customer who turned out to be another dealer.  It was the perfect store to start our shopping, full of a multitude of antiques with some age and history to them.

Hippodrome Casino

At Charing Cross Road and Cranbourn Street is the red sandstone London Hippodrome which dominates the corner. The French Renaissance building with Baroque touches was built in 1900 for circus, variety and even aquatic acts.  Most of the amazing interior was demolished and the space was turned into a nightclub in 1958.  Now a casino complex, the Hippodrome includes a restaurant, six bars and a cabaret theater, but as far as I’m concerned the main attraction is the elaborate exterior which includes a graceful openwork metal cupola which supports a quadiga, a horse drawn chariot.    Pairs of caryatids frame the windows on both sides.   

Cranbourn Street becomes Coventry Street.  Before we knew it we had wandered into and through Leicester Square, a mecca for theatergoers.  The square surrounds a park which is surrounded by theaters.  The colorful glockenspiel from the Swiss Center now stands on its own, decked with flags of many nations and ringing out the hours with its rows of bells.

 

 

Leicester Square

 

 

The  Trocadero, massively white and taking up a whole block, was enormously elegant.  One of London’s most fashionable dining rooms in 1896, it was the first public restaurant with a wine cellar and the first to let women dine alone. Astonishing in that day and age.

The Three Graces

Just before you step into Piccadilly Circus is a gorgeous domed building on Jermyn Street, now the home of Burlington Jewelers.

The Three Graces hang suspended in the air, a trio of golden girls caught in the act of diving off the roof.

 

 

 

 

At the corner of the building are the Horses of Helios, snorting and rearing in silent fury. This is also the location of the Piccadilly Circus tube station, the only station that doesn’t have an aboveground building.

The name ‘Piccadilly’ originates from a 17^th c. frilled collar named a piccadil which became fashionable. Roger Baker, a tailor who became rich making piccadils lived in the area. The word ‘Circus’ refers to the roundabout traffic circle.

Three sides of Piccadilly Circus have no advertising signs because they are leased from the Crown.  The other side makes up for it in typical flash.  Gordon’s Gin was one of the first illuminated signs in 1923.  The Coke sign is now the longest running since 1954.

One of the most gorgeous buildings in Piccadilly Circus is the home of the Café Royal on Regent Street.  The restaurant was established in 1863 by a French couple, fleeing bankruptcy.  As a meeting place the fashionable restaurant gained a reputation for hospitality and great entertainment.  It also had a great wine cellar and served French gourmet cuisine at a time when eating out was becoming the thing to do.  Royalty, celebrities, and the notorious made this a landmark.  The Café Royal closed in 2008 and the fittings and furnishing were sold.  After an extensive restoration of the historic rooms, the iconic building opened as a luxury hotel.

 

 

 

 

The Regent Palace is tucked into a triangular site on Glasshouse Street which dictated the shape of the hotel.  When it opened in 1915, it was the largest hotel in Europe, but the rooms were very small and the bathrooms communal.  Still in existence, an over-street bridge connects the hotel to a building with staff quarters and laundry.  The hotel was allowed to deteriorate over the years and closed in 2006.  In an effort to revitalize this end of Regent Street, the Crown Estate, which manages royal lands bringing profits to the Treasury, has restored the property, turning it into a new mall and office space with even a few luxury apartments.  The historic façade was protected and the dome of cut glass was incorporated into the decorated ceiling over the central court.  Two Art Deco restaurants with many original details were restored.

Within Piccadilly Circus another triangular building holds the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum.  And on one side, the Criterion, opened in 1874, is one of the most historic and oldest restaurants in the world.   Art nouveau details and the gold mosaic ceiling in the Long Bar give just a taste of the interior decoration.  A haunt of Arthur Conan Doyle, the Criterion is where Dr Watson first heard of Sherlock Holmes.   As with most of these wonderful old buildings, the lady has a long and varied past. Notwithstanding the war and a close call with the wrecking ball, the Criterion has been restored and reopened.

In the middle of Piccadilly Circus is the large fountain almost eclipsed by the people sitting on the steps at its base.  The winged figure of Eros, only one of his many names, was sculpted by Alfred Gilbert for the Shaftesbury Fountain, a memorial to the politician and philanthropist.  The graceful archer soars high above against a bright blue cloudless sky.

Gilbert also sculpted a memorial for the son of Alexandra and Edward, who was implicated in several scandals although his involvement was covered up or not proven.  Although he was a successful artist Gilbert was not good with money.  As a perfectionist he spent too much on the tomb, went bankrupt, and had to leave the country. Later he received the commission for Queen Alexandra’s memorial at Marlborough House.  This got him a permanent residence in Kensington Palace which relieved him of financial worries.  He was knighted and came to be seen swanning around St. James wearing a giant fedora hat. I love this image.  He must have been quite a character.

Through a gigantic stone archway on Air Street we walked to Piccadilly Street and St. James Church, Wren’s favorite church.

Built in 1684 of red brick and Portland stone it has the look of a pilgrim church, a plain, no nonsense exterior that was restored after heavy damage in World War II.  Sunlight ripples over the hundreds of tiny panes of old  glass in the windows along the side of the church, brightening the interior.

 

 

Rich dark wood and lovely stained glass windows at the end of the nave add warmth to the small church.

An extravagant wood carving by Grinling Gibbons decorates a panel over the altar with swags of fruited vines and nesting birds.  He also carved the font in which poet William Blake was baptized.

As we walked around we heard a strange buzzing sound that seemed like it was coming from everywhere. Then we noticed that there were a dozen men asleep in the pews, snoring up a storm.

Outside stone steps led up to a small garden, a little wild, but seemed to speak more of freedom than neglect. We sat awhile then left the Garden of Remembrance, walking past the cupids playing in the fountain.

The Piccadilly Market is held in the small churchyard 6 days a week, selling an eclectic mix of everything from produce to antiques. Union Jack pennants were hung across the courtyard and there were booths selling jewelry, leather goods and all sorts of odds and ends.  Today it was mostly arts and crafts, a really nice variety of handmade objects.

As we were crossing Piccadilly Street I noticed a very elaborate clock high on the Fortnum and Mason’s storefront and it was just minutes before the hour.  We stood on the center divider and waited.

The red coated figure on the clock is William Fortnum, a footman to Queen Anne who added to his income by selling off her half-used candles. He rented a room from shop-keeper Hugh Mason, the man in the green coat, and the two went into business together in 1707 selling luxury goods.

When the clock chimes Fortnum and Mason come out, turn to each other and bow.  Right on time, they made their way out and slowly turned, but they didn’t bow.  Maybe they are not friends any more.

This area around Jermyn Street has many old shops; some were originally established during the reign of Henry VIII.  Kings and queens walked and shopped here and it became a fashionable address.  Isaac Newton, Walter Scott, and William Gladstone lived in the townhouses.  They are now mostly offices.

The impressive Royal Academy of Arts fills one side of the street, a massively impressive structure with a central tower over the main entrance.

Originally a private Palladian mansion, it was expanded when it was bought by the British government. Two bright red phone booths are partially hidden behind elaborately scrolled gates, one on either side of the main entrance.  One is the prototype for the iconic phone booth designed by Giles Gilbert; the other is the first one made.  Across the street I noticed two black phone booths.  Painted red when they were sold by British Telecom, the booths were painted black to differentiate them from the other company.

The courtyard of the Royal Academy itself is stately, and entered through the great archway.  The names of several professional societies are labeled in stone over the entrances.  Statues of famous men stand in niches and wonderful masks and sculpted heads are carved into the keystones over the doorways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fountain jets in the courtyard are laid out to match the position of the stars and planets on the night in 1723 when Joshua Reynolds was born.  The famous portrait artist was the founding president of the Royal Academy of Arts.

The Burlington Arcade was Britain’s first shopping arcade, opened in 1819, and is said to have been built to stop passersby throwing rubbish onto his property of Burlington House as well as to give employment to industrious women. The Beadles, its private police force, enforced rules that included no prams, whistling, running, large parcels or opened umbrellas.

The lovely Burlington Arcade is a glass-covered walkway with shops on both sides.   Spotting some small gold crown charms in the Michael Rose jewelry store, we sat in luxury surrounded by lovely pieces while the saleswoman showed us our choices.  I still remember the little gold crown in the window of a Hilton boutique when I was in London in the 60’s.  I didn’t even ask the price, knowing it was probably too expensive and I have regretted it ever since.  Kim chose the one she liked best, a perfect miniature that looked like the tiny crown that Queen Victoria wore for most of her life.  I had just read an article about the crown and the craftsmen of Goddard’s jewelry store who made it.  I left the choice to Kim; she can see details that I miss.  I was very glad she picked that one.

Hanging from the glass ceiling in the middle of the arcade were enormous hanging decorations created from hundreds of little paper flowers in bright colors.  The arcade is beautiful and elegant, upscale and full of goodies.

From the Burlington Arcade you progress into the Royal Arcade which is also glassed in and flooded with daylight, smaller but just as tempting.

At the end of Albemarle Street is Garrard’s, the oldest jewelry house in the world. Opened in 1735, they were Jewelers to the Crown for 150 years. They designed and repaired fabulous creations, and also cared for the Crown Jewels. We asked if we could look around and they were kind enough to give us a tour, showing pieces they had made and telling us some of the history of the shop and their commissions.

The façade of the Faberge store mimics the quilting design of a Faberge egg and is inset with diamond shaped showcase windows in the crisscross pattern surrounded by what looks like pink enamel.

 

Where Old Bond Street meets New Bond Street 2 sculpted figures Roosevelt and Churchill sit on a bench with just enough room to squeeze between them for a photo op.

Savile Row, where the elite are suited and booted, home of bespoke tailoring since the 18^th century, was originally a residential neighborhood.  Only #14 still looks like as it did then, although it too is a fashion house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the wonderful architecture seen while just walking the streets around Mayfair. 

The Coach & Horses Pub

Just a short distance away is a real reminder of London’s history.  A cholera epidemic was traced back to the Broad Street Cholera Pump which is located near Lexington & Broadwick. Even with specific instructions we couldn’t find  the pump, but after walking back and forth several times and passing a construction fence, we finally realized that the pump was on the other side of the fence.  We had found the location even if we didn’t actually see it.

The London Palladium on Argyll Street is a grand old theater and one of the most famous in London, mainly for its variety performances.  The building was redesigned by the famous theatrical architect of the Hippodrome.  A successful but controversial policy in the 1940’s brought in big name American acts to perform which relegated British stars to second billing.  The Palladium turned 100 years old in 2010.

The Liberty of London Department Store on Great Marlborough Street was just as fabulous and interesting as I expected.  Liberty is one of London’s treasures and a testament to one man’s vision and persistence.  Starting with one store in 1875, he sold ornaments, fabric and objects d’art from the Far East.  He bought adjacent buildings to enlarge the store, arranging the spaces to feel like a home.  Some of the rooms still have the original fireplaces. Liberty became a fashionable and exotic place to shop.  He hired talented designers of Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau, but their designs were sold as Liberty’s and designers were often not given credit.

The mock Tudor façade promised all kinds of wonderful things inside. The atrium holds a waterfall of crystal strands spilling out of a large light well in the vaulted glass ceiling.

All of the woodwork is dark, the edges rounded with age.  The original elevator is wrapped in mirrors and mellow, carved wood.  We walked up the creaky staircase past colored glass windows to the balcony that wraps around the upper floor.   The different floors can be seen through the crystal waterfall in the atrium.  Carved animals and birds perch on the railing. 

Tables and shelves hold an eclectic assortment of household goods and off the wall craziness, like faux animal heads covered in patterned fabric. 

 

 

 

 

A display of hundreds of clear glass milk bottles hang from the ceiling.

On the roof Liberty’s golden weathervane is an exact model of the Mayflower.  The painted hanging sign could be from another age.

 

 

 

 

 

On the archway over the entrance to Kingly Street is a huge clock.  Every 15 minutes St. George chases the dragon and on the hour he slays it. There are many clocks suspended from iron brackets or fitted into carved stone façades.  These and church bells told the time in an age when many people could not afford watches or saw no need.

The Clachan Pub is ornate, glittering with brass and warmed with dark wood.  It was very welcoming and buzzing with activity.  We sat at a bar table by the window and ate the best fish and chips I think I’ve ever had.

 

 

 

 

Right around the corner was Carnaby Street.  I was here years ago when it was so famous in the 60’s.  I actually bought a dress in one of the shops, but nothing looks familiar.  It’s been too long.  Thinking about the 60’s, I want to see Abbey Road and the zebra crossing and I want to revisit the building that was the home of the original Apple Shop.  I know the mural is gone, although it lasted longer than the store. 

People were milling around the now pedestrian street Carnaby Street and there were lots of shops to discover.  A huge mural called the Spirit of Soho fills the side of a building with a vibrant splash of color.   Strings of lights were crisscrossed over the street.  Whether it was an art exhibit or just street lighting, I’m sure it is pretty at night.

On Oxford Street it was so crowded that it was an effort just to walk and impossible to look at the buildings without bumping into people.  We couldn’t wait to turn the corner and get out of the crush.  The people who were there to shop, however, obviously knew the saying “Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply don’t know where to shop”.

 Many buildings have survived as far back as the 1800’s and now the architecture is being protected.   London is a mixed bag from medieval up to the most outlandishly designed sculptured buildings imaginable.  Major buildings are obvious and set apart, but each and every street is packed with smaller examples, little gems with something of interest and surprising details.  One group of five buildings seemed to march through the centuries from the Georgian and Victorian to Art Nouveau and then to a slick modern edifice shimmering with blue glass. 

Eclectic  Oxford Street buildings

I saw so many great houses that we would call mansions.  Like Berwick House on Oxford Street they have turrets or domes, grand entrances or stacks of elaborate windows, rows of columns lining the stories and archways sweeping across grey stone facades.

I looked up several of these beautiful buildings when I got home to learn their history but there was little to find.  They were and are commercial buildings, the bread and butter in a world of buying and selling.  Then as now, the upper floors are apartments and office spaces, the ground floors occupied by pharmacies or clothing stores.

 

 

 

 

Apple’s London store is housed in an enormous regal building on Regent Street where Murano glass and mosaics were sold.  Now it’s a palace of technology of another sort.  Regent Street was not quite as crowded.

Regent Street was laid out by the architect John Nash and named for the Prince Regent, who would later be George IV.  The plan was to transform London the way Haussmann had changed Paris, but the city insisted on rebuilding along the old medieval streets so most of the grand plan never materialized.  

Ahead I saw the spire of All Souls Langham Place on the circular porch ringed by Corinthian columns that make the church so distinctive.   Consecrated in 1824, All Souls is the only original building left on Regent Street and the only surviving church designed by John Nash,

We arrived just as a wedding was ending and pushed through the people milling around on the porch to be rather underwhelmed by the interior of the church.  It seems as though Nash just tacked the circular porch and spire onto a rectangular box.   Absolutely loved the exterior, so unusual.

On Margaret Street is the Lo Guang Shan Temple in an old Catholic church.  Every time I see a building being reused instead of torn down, it makes me happy.  We asked if we could look around but they were holding a service.

Across the street is the Victorian Gothic All Saint’s church, patterned in red and black brick and banded with stone.

The interior of the church is glorious, brilliant mosaics splashed with gold and framed by arches of pale polished wood.  

The beamed ceiling adds warmth to the soft pastel drawings that border the walls.

 

 

 

 

 

The glowing colors and the light left me breathless and I still get that feeling when I remember the photographs.

 

London has a colorful art scene, visible in the shop displays as well as painted murals and the facades of modern buildings.  No matter where we walked shops had imaginative displays, whether just decorative or of their merchandise.  One shop had an entire ceiling covered with a swirling design of little lights.

A lighted window displayed  a leaping fish with a slice of lemon and underneath what was clearly a pile of chips. 

Next door fashionably dressed manikins lounged attractively, framed like a painting, exotic  and striking.

The Ritz on Piccadilly Street opened 8 years after the Ritz Paris.  There is a delicacy in the wrought iron and gilded metal fretwork in the archway over the entrance, a lightness that speaks of French architecture.  We stepped in to see the lobby and the staircase that spirals up into the skylight dome.        

The Ritz spiral  stair

 

 

 

 

The Mayfair area around St. James Square is filled with stately buildings, many  of which are original houses, and the streets are lined with old fashioned lanterns. 

Gentlemen’s clubs grew out of the coffee houses that proliferated in the area.  Many of the elegant mansions are mainly offices now.

 

Off St. James Place is Pickering Place, a long dark alleyway that leads into a tiny courtyard.  The smallest square in Britain was once the Texas Republic’s Embassy to the Court of St. James until Texas joined the United States in 1845.   Known for its unsavory reputation, Pickering Place was the last place where a duel with swords was fought.

Right next door is the  Georgian storefront of Berry Bros. & Rudd, Britain’s oldest wine merchants.  Their wine cellar stretches underground for several blocks and holds thousands of dust covered bottles.

The 16^th century St. James Palace was built by Henry VIII and much survives; the great Tudor gatehouse bears his initials.  It is the most senior royal palace and is still the official residence of the monarchy.  Benjamin Franklyn was received in the Court of St. James as ambassador of the United States.  The palace is used as residences and offices, as well as special events.

At the entrance of this wonderful building a crowd had gathered to watch the arrival of automobiles and pretty people.   We were just trying to make our way back to our hotel.  A gateway led us past the gardens of the ancestral home of the Spencer family and into St. James Park.

The sun was going down when we reached Buckingham Palace but there were still people hanging out.   

Wrought iron railings and gates decorated with gold enclose the forecourt of the palace, emblazoned with huge gilded medallions bearing the arms of the royal house framed by the lion and unicorn and surrounded by palm fronds.

Chubby cherubs tumble over the massive locks on the gates, others clutch at a golden crown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The white marble memorial to Queen Victoria is topped by a golden angel called Liberty  or Winged Victory (depending who you believe, but both nice sentiments) and surrounded by figures symbolizing peace and industry as well as a reminder of Britain’s history as a naval power. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A statue that used to be a fountain and is now known simply as The Boy sits at one of the entrances of St. James Park.  Along one side of the park is Birdcage Walk, named after the aviaries that were hung in the trees during the reign of James I to amuse the king and his courtiers. Edward Storey was Keeper of the King’s Birds and the gate at the eastern end of Birdcage Walk was named for him.  Only royalty and the keepers were allowed to ride along the walk.  Tonight it is our way home.

St. James Park   

 

 

 

 

 

Narrow lanes lead us through the elegant townhouses around Queen Anne’s Gate and past her statue.

 

 

One simple doorway has been turned into a grand entrance with a carved wooden canopy and antique gilded hardware.  These small and twisting lanes hold so many surprises.  There are too many details to recount and always more to see.

It’s always a pleasure to walk through Westminster, past the abbey and Parliament, to see the city wake to the night as the lights come on.  The tower of Big Ben was lit up against a dark blue sky with the colored lights of the London Eye in counterpoint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Ermin’s is a lovely old hotel to come back to at the end of a busy day.  There’s always someone coming or going in the courtyard and the red brick wings seem to extend a warm welcome.

Once back at the hotel there was the question of food.  I was afraid we would be starving later if we didn’t have a little something to eat and the bar seemed like a good choice.  There were no spies or double agents in evidence when we entered the Caxton Bar.  It was dark and rather modern looking.  We sat at an out of the way table and settled into the comfortable chairs.  The menu was tiny but Kim found something.  I had a drink which was too strong, but after adding more mixer and taking a few sips, it wasn’t bad at all.  Kim experimented with a couple of specialty drinks that the waiter recommended and liked them both.  We were soon laughing and relaxed.  A nice end to a fun day.  On the way back to our room we stopped by to visit the honey bees that reside on St. Ermin’s rooftop.

Sunday                   Hampton Court Palace

I wanted to begin our day a little earlier because we would be visiting Hampton Court which involved traveling by train from Vauxhall Station.

MI-5 from the train station

Luckily Hampton Court has its own station now at the end of the line. The train to Hampton Court and the visit to the palace is included in the London Pass with the Oyster card.   A porter at the turnstile pointed the way to the platform and the train arrived just a few minutes later.  A short walk across the bridge and we could see the palace. 

The grand entrance has columns of red brick edged with stone that are topped with a lion and a unicorn.  

In the small gift shop I bought a keychain of the crown that Henry VIII would have worn and a small black dragon that looked like a gargoyle. There were a lot of dress-up clothes for children but not a lot of things that interested me.

Hampton Court is the oldest surviving Tudor palace in England.  Cardinal Wolsey, as Henry VIII’s prime minister, built the palace for himself and lavished luxury upon it, wanting to impress the king who would stay there at times.  Instead of impressing the king, Henry was envious of it and he made it impossible for Wolsey not to present him with the palace as a gift.  Henry poured even more money into the palace, adding touches to please his new wives, beginning with Anne Boleyn.

He would erase all traces of the former wife when he took a new one, but some of Anne’s initials still remain.

In 1689 King William III commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to rebuild the palace, but lack of money and time stopped the project and saved the building from demolition.

Henry VIII’s Great Hall is hung with tapestries and spanned by a hammerbeam ceiling.  Up in the rafters there are eavesdroppers, carved figures peering down, a reminder that there is always someone watching and listening.

Stairs led up to the Chapel Royal, where there was a line waiting to see the newly recreated crown. The replica is exhibited in the Royal Pew in the balcony where Henry VIII could look down into the main body of the chapel.   The original crown was worn by Henry VIII at Hampton Court, particularly on the feast of Epiphany when he would process to the Chapel Royal in full regalia to offer gold, frankincense and myrrh to celebrate the visit of the three kings to the newborn Jesus. The crown was later used at the coronations of Henry VIII’s children, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. Oliver Cromwell had the crown melted down at the Tower of London when the monarchy was abolished. The replica crown was recreated using detailed inventories, written by Henry’s servants, which detailed how it was made and the size and position of the 344 rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds and pearls.  A portrait of Charles I painted in 1631 helped to show the design.

I would like to have seen the crown but I don’t think it was worth an hour’s wait so we descended the Queen’s staircase to the first floor and proceeded to the Royal Chapel.  This magnificent chamber is incredibly beautiful, brilliantly painted and gilded. 

Carved oak timbers form the fan vaulted ceiling on a background of deep cerulean blue, a popular color in Tudor England.  Everything is heavily ornamented in gold.  The chapel is luxurious, the colors and gilding lit by tall windows separated by painted panels.   Much later Grinling Gibbons carved the cherubs on the walls and the reredos behind the altar.     It was in this chapel, in 1540, that Archbishop Cranmer handed Henry VIII a letter outlining various accusations against the King’s third wife, Catherine Howard.  She was accused of unchaste behavior before her marriage. Feeling betrayed once again, Henry refused to listen to her pleas and she was executed at the Tower soon after.

We made our way through the palace trying to find the gardens, but found the kitchens instead, so unlike anything we think of as a kitchen but interesting.

The kitchen for the palace occupied more than 50 rooms for preparing the meat, poultry, bread, vegetables and sweets, not to mention making candles, beer, cheese and butter, and a million other chores besides the actual cooking of the food in the massive heaths.  A huge staff from master cook to the servants who served the food worked there, feeding six hundred to twelve hundred members of the court who were entitled to eat twice a day.

In one anecdote it seems that Henry visited the kitchens on the spur of the moment and seeing the condition of the servants, issued orders that although working in the kitchens was a dirty, sweaty job, the scullions should stop going about ‘naked or in garments of such vileness as they do now, nor lie in the nights and days in the kitchen or ground by the fireside’. One can only imagine!  But it was probably one of the few warm places in the entire palace.

A tight corridor led out of the kitchens and past another gift shop, but again there were no Christmas ornaments or clever items to tempt us to spend.  I always have a list of things that would be great souvenirs and most of the time I don’t find really special things.  Kim and I kid about opening a store which will have all of these wonderful items that we haven’t been able to find.  How about a bookmark or ornament shaped like a Gothic window?

The first tennis court at Hampton Court was built for Cardinal Wolsey and Henry was a keen and talented tennis player.   Anne Boleyn was gambling on a game of tennis when she was arrested and taken to the Tower of London. She complained that she hadn’t had time to collect her winnings!

Behind the palace an allee of trees shaped like mushrooms lines the wide path leading to the Great Fountain, a wide pool with a single jet in the middle.

Deck chairs, their canvas backs painted with the portraits of long dead royals, lounge in wide pools of shade.

A little bridge crosses the stream where swans float among the lily pads.  Bunches of crocuses have sprouted in the middle of the sprawling lawn. A brilliant mix of flowers borders the pathway to the Lion Gate, a wrought iron fantasy flanked with columns topped by crouching lions.  A dark green arbor of twisted vines shot through with sunlight curved toward the maze.

The puzzle maze is the oldest surviving hedge maze still in use.   It was commissioned around 1700 by William III as part of his Wilderness Garden.  The maze is not quite thin enough to see through, but it is looking a little the worse for wear.  I had a map of the layout but quickly lost track of where we were.  When we found the exit without having reached the center, Kim took over and we were there in no time.   Tiny fragments of conversation and music are piped in to make it seem like you are back in the days of the court when secret rendezvous might have taken place here.

Another path along a stretch of the palace wall brought us through the courtyard and out the back.

The entire side of the palace is one garden after another, stretching along gravel paths in neatly organized patterns which end at the Great Vine.  The Privy Garden appears as it did in 1702 with sundials and statuary.  An ‘E’ appears on the wall overlooking the Knot Garden that Elizabeth I rebuilt.  Because they were sheltered, the sunken Pond Gardens were used for the collection of exotic plants.  One small gated garden was guarded by a bronze child who looked very mischievous. 

Lichen colors the stone wall a dusty green and mustard yellow.  Airy blossoms of pink and lavender border the enclosed space.  We found the entrance and sat for a while under an apple tree.  From the gardens the roof line of the palace is visible, a lovely jumble of turrets, towers, and carved brick chimneys all designed a little differently.

The Great Vine was planted in 1769 by Capability Brown in the first greenhouse at Hampton Court.  It is now 12 feet around at the base and the longest branch is 120 feet long.  The black dessert grapes are sold in September.  In 1969 a new aluminum glasshouse was built over the vine which was entangled in the old wooden glasshouse.  Upon completion the glass and wood was removed, leaving the 1900’s iron framework and the Great Vine.  The narrow greenhouse is quiet, except for the buzzing of the bees.  The tightly woven vines let filtered sunlight shine through the dark green leaves.

Making our way out of the palace brought us through room after room decorated with ornate windows, vaulted ceilings, and marble fireplaces. Hampton Court is a grand residence meant to impress.  However, that is where any personality ends.  The rooms are unfurnished and cold, no draperies or fabrics add color to the bare walls; no carpets soften the wood floors.  Manikins are dressed in white paper clothing from the 16^th century.  Sounds are piped in to make it seem like people are whispering, dancing and eating just out of sight.  But even that does not add life to the vignette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A vine of gold metal wraps around a garden gate by the entrance reminding me of a door to a secret garden.

 

 

 

Across the bridge a cluster of shops and cafes offered food and a chance to sit down.  Henry’s Kitchen is not large, but the menu looked promising and the scent of barbeque came wafting out the door.  Again, Kim’s choice proved to be a good one.  The pulled pork was spicy, delicious and very messy; the barbeque chicken at the next table looked great too.  Kim must be getting tired of salmon salad but at least I had French fries to share.  A great little restaurant in a row of little restaurants and just what we needed.

Because Hampton Court is at the end of the line there is almost always a train waiting at the station.  We took a seat and the train gradually filled up and started the trip back.  Sitting opposite was a girl with a big brown bag.  Inside of the bag was a huge warthog made of beads.  We had fun talking to her about this strange purchase.

At the Vauxhall station we walked to LassCo, an architectural salvage company that also operates a restaurant in Brunswick House, a Georgian mansion. The restaurant was open but the store was closed for a special event.  We would have to try again on Thursday on the Thames walk.

We hopped on a bus to get to Westminster Cathedral.

Set back into a courtyard off Victoria Street the neo-Byzantine cathedral is distinctive for the red brick and white mortar that the Edwardians called blood and bandage.  Much of the surrounding neighborhood is built in this style. The 273 foot campanile also sets it apart.  The bell tower is dedicated to Edward the Confessor and the bell is called Edward.

 

 

Ducking into the gift shop, we bought our tickets and stepped into the tiny elevator for the ride to the top. The elevator operator answered questions for the few minutes it took to reach the Viewing Gallery.

Iconic buildings to see, but even more interesting was looking down onto the domes of the church from this height.  The view was expansive and continued on all four sides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the elaborate exterior the nave seems sedate, until we began to notice the details.

 

 

 

Chandeliers with huge haloes hang down the length of the nave.

 

 

 

 

 

Columns support galleries that divide the sanctuary allowing it to have the widest aisles in England.

 

 

There is a cool blue cast to the light in the cathedral except around the white marble baldachino over the high altar. The very ornate quire is hidden from view in the apse behind the altar.

 

Bronze grilles enclose a golden chapels with  medallions emblazoned on the double gates. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over a hundred different varieties of decorative colored marble from all over the world were used in the cathedral. 

 

 

 

 

Exquisite mosaics fill the curve of the barrel vaulted ceiling, glowing with brilliant colors and glinting with gold. 

 

The architect was inspired by Byzantine churches but died before the cathedral opened, leaving few of his designs for the mosaics.  Instead donors, architects and designers were allowed to choose designs that reflected the times and their own wishes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. James Court at Buckingham Gate is one of the two hotels in a historic complex of converted Victorian apartment buildings built in 1894 that we walked by almost every day.

Originally Lord Dacre and his wife Anne built a group of cottages which grew into the charity schools known by their uniforms, Bluecoat, Greencoat, Greycoat and Browncoat.

The cottages were later replaced by Queen Anne buildings around a quadrangle. The next owner enlarged the property, adding houses which were each named for their part in the area’s history. From here the extravagance began until it seems there was nothing more that could be added.

An enormous amount of money was spent ornamenting the property that became known as St. James Court. The immense body of the hotel is red brick with window frames and arches picked out in white.  In the most elaborate fashion, turrets and towers and banks of balconies were added.    Statues hold up architectural elements.   The revolving door, wrapped in shimmering brass, is enthroned under an elegant arched entrance with gates of hammered iron.

Because of its proximity to the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall, the hotel became a popular political meeting place.  In 1982 it became a Taj Hotel.  A reminder of a long ago past is the cockle shell on the wrought iron gates, the symbol of the Dacre family.

In the lobby we asked about afternoon tea and were led on a labyrinthine trek through this enormous hotel. Instead of looking at the details, I was trying to remember how to find my way back out.  Our guide left us at a small tea room.  The menu was posh and expensive and Kim wasn’t all that hungry so we decided to continue on.

Catherine Place with the little bluecoat child.

 

 

 

Blewcoat Charity School

As we turned into Caxton Street I noticed a little figure dressed in period clothing in a niche over the entrance of a building and realized that it was one of the charity schools in Victorian times.  This one was called a Bluecoat charity school because the uniform was dyed the cheapest color which was blue. The children’s socks were dyed in saffron as they thought it would stop rats from nibbling their ankles.  This building is owned by the National Trust and has had several uses.  During the war bored soldiers on guard duty carved grafitti into the side of the entrance.

I never get tired of passing by the Old Registry Office.  It’s good to know there are people living in this beautiful building, but I wonder if they notice the statues on the façade or appreciate how lovely this piece of history is.

After our experience this morning finding all the cafes closed, we wondered if we would be able to find something to eat, but just blocks away on Palace Street we found The Phoenix pub, a bright, modern café with an eclectic mix of seating arrangements scattered about the room.  Pubs are very comfortable and easy.  Find a menu, order at the bar and they bring the food when it’s ready.  Amid a rousing soccer match we sat and ate.  It was a relief that The Phoenix was open, but the ambiance was fun and the meal was really good.

Monday     Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London

On our way to breakfast we stopped at Westminster Chapel on Buckingham Gate.

The Italian Romanesque Revival building is stark and greyish brown, but it could partly be because the clouds have closed in.  We tried the door but it was too early.  I would have liked to see a space that seats 1500 people.  As we walked down the steps, it started to sprinkle.  I did my best to ignore it

Just across the street is the Royal Quarter on the ground floor of the wedge-shaped Wellington House.  We had eaten breakfast there several times because it was close to St. Ermin’s and a sit down café, not like the grab and go places that are everywhere.  In general, the food was very good, but the scones were such a disappointment, like heavy biscuits, not at all like the ones I had had in London at the Hilton or in fact what is served at afternoon tea in the states.  These were more like what our bakeries call scones which are really just muffin tops but much drier and they don’t give you Devonshire cream or jam.  Kim had a real breakfast every time, an omelet today, and really enjoyed it.  After the first day I stuck with a cappuccino and one of their pastries.

It was cool and grey, just starting to sprinkle when we got to Parliament Square.  A continuous stream of traffic moves into and through the square.  With traffic driving on the opposite side of the road from the U.S. looking to the right when crossing the street became something of a habit and the English have helpfully painted a huge white LOOK RIGHT sign in the pavement at the curb – just for tourists and out-of- towners.  Mind the Gap was another reminder at every tube station when the doors of the subway train open.  Easy to get used to but always nice to be reminded.

Across Parliament Square

We dodged through the traffic but then found we had ended up on the opposite side from where we needed to be. There didn’t seem to be any crosswalks nearby so we took the steps down into the tube tunnel of Westminster Station and came out on the other side of the wide street.  Two more traffic lights got us across to Westminster Abbey.   Every time we walked through the square and alongside the abbey and Parliament, we had to take more photographs.  The buildings just have so much to see.

We had a little time before the abbey opened so we went into the gift shop and wandered around. Come to think of it, I should have followed my own advice and bought the guide, because once inside we weren’t allowed to take pictures.

The site of a church since 1050, Westminster Abbey has been the coronation church since 1066, beginning with William the Conqueror. The present church was begun by Henry III in 1245; the massive square towers were not added until 1745.  The abbey is the final resting place of 17 monarchs and 16 royal weddings have been held there. 

The exterior details of Westminster Abbey are just amazing from the color of the stone to the tracery around the windows and the elaborate entrance.

The flying buttresses look like ornate turreted towers attached to the building with lacy brackets.  They line the exterior of the apse and border the windows which are mitered to an outward point whether to emphasize the perpendicular style or perhaps to make the curve of the wall possible.  The design is wonderfully Gothic.  The rain has brought out the golden brown hue of the stone.

There was plenty to admire as we waited in line to enter.  Flashing our passes got us into the already busy church. One of the first monuments we noticed was the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, a slab of black marble surrounded by a floral tribute, as if we could forget the debt owed.  The interior is crowded with tombs, memorials and monuments, dimly lit and dusty with age.  Small chapels line the walls, in turn lined by one sarcophagus after another, some topped with carved effigies, but all fitted closely together, leaving only enough room to edge by.

In front of the gilded choir screen is the tomb for Sir Isaac Newton on the left side.  Being a Da Vinci Code fan, we had to see that one.  Remember – In London lies a knight a pope interred.

Edward the Confessor’s tomb is an elaborate affair, a multilayered shrine that holds pride of place in the abbey.  He was a king and saint who was much revered and it was said could cure illness with the touch of his hand.   The Lady Chapel, begun by Henry III in 1220, shares its name with Henry VII who rebuilt it in 1516.  The pendant vaulted ceiling is even more elaborate than the one at Hampton Court.  Much smaller chapels, enclosed in gilded wooden grilles, house plaques and other sculpted monuments jammed together until you wonder if they can fit one more person in.  And these are the burials with markers, most have none.

I especially like looking for people I had read about and it was like a treasure hunt to find famous names or very early dates.  St. Edmund’s Chapel holds late medieval tombs.  In this chapel alone was Lady Jane Grey’s mother and Frances Brandon, the daughter of Princess Mary, Henry VIII’s sister.   Eleanor de Bohun was buried here in 1399.  Lord Darnley, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots, has a little statue on his mother’s tomb chest.  A beautiful alabaster chest tomb has an effigy of Prince John of Eltham, the second son of Edward II and Isabella.  The cutouts in the sides show weepers, mourners who cry and pray for the dead.  The infant children of his brother, Edward III, lie in a small tomb next to his monument, their miniature effigies on top.

Covering one end of the chapel is a marble and alabaster wall monument with carved and brightly painted figures representing the Pecksall family in their niches.  He was the Master of the Royal Buckhounds and died in 1571.

In a tiny room off to one side of the Lady Chapel, the effigy of proud Elizabeth lies on her tomb under a marble canopy; her body stacked inside on top of her half-sister Mary.  I wonder what they would have thought of that arrangement with all they went through.  On the other side of the chapel in an equally grand tomb Mary Queen of Scots sleeps in her own tiny alcove, closer to Elizabeth now than she ever was in life.

For whatever reason, and no one knows for sure, James I moved Elizabeth’s remains from the vault that she shared with her grandparents into the vault where her half-sister Mary was already interred.  He then had two monuments constructed, one for Elizabeth (and Mary) and one for his mother, Mary Queen of Scots.

Scattered through the body of the abbey and the cloisters are names that ring of history, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s minister, Thomas Cranmer, one of Henry VIII’s most influential advisors, Charles Darwin, scientist, Benjamin Disraeli, Victoria’s prime minister, the astronomer Edmund Halley, and Winston Churchill.  There are monuments to well known people from around the world, as well as military regiments, philanthropists and donors to the abbey – not to mention all the kings and queens of Great Britain with very few exceptions.  Poets’ Corner brims over with names like Chaucer, Tennyson, Kipling, and Dickens.  Lawrence Olivier is in very good company.

There was a clever epitaph for Samuel Butler that caught my eye:

While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,

No generous patron would a dinner give;

See him, when starv’d to death, and turn’d to dust,

Presented with a monumental bust.

The poet’s fate is here in emblem shown.

He ask’d for bread, and he received a stone.

The Great Pavement, an ancient mosaic crafted out of marble, colored glass and gemstones was laid down in 1268 by order of Henry III.   A medieval puzzle, the pavement is supposed to symbolize the world or the universe and its end.

It was difficult to see the Great Pavement because it is on the raised space in front of the high altar and only the clergy and those participating in ceremonies are allowed to walk on it.

Toward the exit we spotted the coronation chair behind a grill in St. George’s Chapel.  Made for Edward I and to hold the Stone of Scone upon which kings and queens were crowned, the rustic throne was once covered with gold and bits of precious glass.  After being stolen by Scottish nationalists and brought back, the stone has returned at last to Scotland.

There is a huge gap in the photographs because the abbey doesn’t allow photographs.  I don’t understand the restriction.  I see so much more when I get home and put the photos into the albums and see them on the monitor.  It shows me where I was and things I may not have noticed at the time.  The photographs often help me find answers to questions that I thought of while I was there.  I remember several of the churches we visited so much better than the abbey because of the lack of pictures.

We left the abbey and walked along the Parliament building, always seeing more that we missed before.  In the courtyard is an equestrian statue of Richard I, the Lionheart.  He is backed by the majestic neo-gothic Parliament building every inch of which is covered with ornamentation.  Pinnacles rise along the façade between masses of windows inlaid with elegant tracery. Hundreds of statues grace the façade, saints and sovereigns from as far back as the Norman conquest.   Dozens of turrets, towers and chimneys dot the roofline.  The slender spire of the octagonal Central Tower is balanced by the square towers.  Enormous carved stone archways frame the entrances.  Beautifully intricate wrought iron fences surround the Parliament building with sharp spikes alternating with crowned finials at the top.

After the Great Fire when Parliament had to be rebuilt, it was important that the old architecture blend with the new, gothic but reinvented in a more modern way. Gothic Revival architecture didn’t really need a purpose; beauty and symmetry were reason enough.

 At the entrance to Parliament the guards told us that Parliament was closed to visitors on this day.  We pleaded with them, jokingly, and I swear they almost let us in, but then told us we would have to come back the next day.

We decided to go to the Tower of London, even though the research for that day was back at the hotel.   So, throwing caution to the wind.

The tube stops right at the Tower.  A short walk down the steps gave us a glimpse of the walls and towers before arriving at the entrance.  The Fast Pass got us right in and we walked across the stone bridge over the moat.

Henry III gave London its first zoo in the Tower of London in 1235.  The royal zoo contained a wide variety of animals, many gifts from visiting royalty.  An elephant was given wine to drink and died, although the zebra seemed to do well enough on ale from the soldiers’ mess.  The polar bear, on a very long leash, swam and fished in the Thames.  Eventually the zoo started charging for entry; the fee could be paid with money or food for the lions, like dogs or cats.

During excavations in the Tower moat, lion skulls were found of a species which is now extinct. The skulls were those of the Barbary lions which had been in the royal zoo.  The huge statues in Trafalgar Square are Barbary Lions.

We entered the Tower of London through the 13^th century Byward Tower that was once the Royal Mint.  There was a tour gathering in the courtyard but it was packed with people and the tower is easy to get around. 

On the right side of the wall is the infamous Traitor’s Gate, a dark watery archway that is the main entrance from the river.  What began as a Watergate for the fortress became the gloomy entry into the prison.  To get the overall layout of the Tower grounds, we took the steps leading up to the walkway that connects all the towers along the walls.

Each tower was slightly different from the next, but most had narrow windows and not a lot of space inside.  One tower had a display of the castle.  In another tower there were orders posted, telling us where to go in case of attack.  The next sign gave a pep talk telling us what we would be fighting for.

The Salt Tower and Beauchamp Tower had graffiti carved by prisoners or bored soldiers.  The Bloody Tower is associated with the death of the little princes.  This section of the wall is called Raleigh’s Walk for Sir Walter Raleigh who took his daily exercise here when he was a prisoner.

Queen Victoria had the Lanthorn Tower rebuilt to look more medieval, just as she had had the Tower Bridge.  Although it was a very grey day, there was a good view of the Tower Bridge across the Thames.

 

In the middle of The Green is the White Tower, the oldest medieval building at the Tower, which was built as a fortress by William the Conqueror in 1070 to impress the people with his power.  The armory at the top of the steps displays pieces of armor and weapons are mounted in striking designs on the walls. A wall of breastplates is a background for individual suits of armor decorated with gleaming silver and gilded metal.

There was a hefty one for Henry VIII and a miniature suit of armor covered in gold leaf for a boy of about 13.   The recently renovated Line of Kings has life-sized wooden horses carved around 1690 which shows what the kings would have worn in battle or tournaments.  The armor of the horses was as ornamented as that of the kings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lion grotesque

 

 

 

The little Chantry Chapel has an encaustic tile floor, an hexagonal design inlaid with luminous priory tiles in deep red and gold. The clay tiles have medieval designs pressed into them and are made the same way today as they were 750 years ago.

The Chapel of St. John in the White Tower is in the Romanesque style with heavy columns supporting arches that curve around the apse.  Built in 1080 the simplicity of the design only emphasizes its Norman roots and quiet strength.

The modern Jewel House is dimly lit to the point where it seemed like a haunted house. Photographs of royalty and the process to create the crowns were set in lighted frames.  A moving sidewalk slides past the long glass case where the royal regalia is displayed, but it moves so fast it was difficult to pick out each crown and remember its history.  St. Edward’s crown is the most recognizable and the truly memorable royal scepter with the gigantic Cullinan diamond that’s as big as a fist.  I saw Queen Victoria’s tiny crown and it was delicate and perfectly beautiful.

A Ravenmaster cares for the eight ravens that live at the Tower. Their flight feathers are clipped to keep them from flying away because there is a prophecy that if the ravens leave the Tower, England will fall.  Ravens don’t breed if they can’t fly but in 1989 the first raven in over 400 years was born at the Tower.  His name is Ronald Raven.

It was really starting to rain so we headed into St. Katherine Docks, hoping to find a nice restaurant.  Crossing a bridge we came to a wide courtyard, surrounded by buildings that looked medieval.  Whether they were or not did not really matter.  The Dickens Inn seemed like a good choice to get out of the weather and have lunch.  The large dark building, built with heavy timbers, occupies the site of an old brewery that made ale for the Tower of London.  Across the façade, window boxes overflowed with gaily colored flowers adding a splash of cheer to the grey and chilly day.  They have different menus for the restaurants which occupy the building on different floors.  At the top was a very large open room with a dark beam ceiling and heavy rustic furniture.  It looks like an 18^th century public house but is said to be a stage set for Fagin’s Lair in Oliver. It certainly looks the part and although it was a very large room it felt inviting and comfortable.  My chicken sandwich turned out to be huge and Kim had a cheese tart.  Service was friendly and the food was good.

It was wet on the walk back to the tube station but The Girl With the Dolphin fountain has the Tower Bridge as a backdrop and it doesn’t get much better than that.  The abbey and Parliament Square are beautiful even in a driving rain.  I remembered that we hadn’t seen the Chapter House and knew it was nearby and worth looking into.

The Chapter House is reached through the cloisters, a part of the ancient palace of Westminster that has survived, along with the Jewel Tower and the Chapel of St Mary’s Undercroft. 

The stone walkway around the   Cloisters is lined with arched windows glazed with diamond shaped panes of leaded glass and decorated with ornamental ironwork. We stood looking out through the windows at the wide green lawn surrounded by medieval walls.

 

 

The Chapter House was Henry III’s council chamber.  Parliament had its origins in the tall eight-sided hall.   Faded figures can still be seen in the fourteenth  century paintings within the recessed Gothic arches.  A stone seat wraps around the room.  Above, the walls are lined with slender stained glass windows.  

 

 

 

 

 

The central column stands like a tree trunk supporting the fan-vaulted ceiling which opens like a gigantic flower overhead with petals of stained glass.  On the floor small encaustic tiles of burnished orange and chocolate brown warm the high stone room.  The medieval tile floor laid in the English tradition was found under a timber floor during renovations in the 1800’s.

The Pyx Chamber held wooden boxes called pyxes, where a sample of the coinage of the realm is kept. The sample is melted down in order to measure the silver content  to ensure that the coinage is pure.

The rain had let up by the time we reached Starbucks for frappucinos and a sit down before heading back to the hotel to decide what was next.  A couple hours later we left the St. Ermins and went for dinner around the corner at Feathers, a pub in existence since 1745.  The address on old maps was Great Chapel Street, but is now Broadway.  The pub was dark, cozy and warm and bustling with energy.  We sat at a high bar table and watched the after work crowd shake off a busy day at the office.  I had a delicious macaroni and cheese and they gave us a voucher for a discount on breakfast.

Tuesday               Parliament and Kensington

We started our day at Parliament. There were different guards at the gate and they told us we would have to go to Portcullis House on the other side of St. George Street to buy our admission tickets. That building is named after the chained portcullis used as the emblem of the Houses of Parliament. Portcullis House is faced with exposed metal and stone.

Rows of tall chimneys on the roof are supposed to fit with the Victorian Gothic design of the Parliament. I don’t see it but I love the whole look of the building.  It is very dark but also very interesting and you can see that the windows really do look like a portcullis, especially from the side.

Crown finial on the fence around Parliament

We entered Parliament through the visitors’ entrance at Cromwell Green for a quick but thorough security check.

St. Stephen’s Porch leads into Westminster Hall and the incredible hammerbeam ceiling.  The guard we had seen the day before was there and we asked him why he hadn’t told us we couldn’t buy the tickets inside Parliament.  He didn’t have an answer for us.  Maybe he thought we had already bought them the day before.

The old Westminster Hall is one of the largest medieval halls in Europe and is one of the surviving medieval buildings of the Palace of Westminster along with the Cloisters, the Chapter House of St. Stephen’s and the Undercroft Chapel.  After a fire in 1512 Henry VIII abandoned the palace and it became home to the Commons and the Lords of Parliament.  During the 14^th  century the courts of law met here and major trials were held.  Shops and stalls sold wigs, pens and other legal equipment.  A second fire in 1834 destroyed everything except the medieval Westminster hall and the Jewel Tower.  The new Palace of Westminster combined ancient and modern buildings in a Gothic design made to serve the needs of Parliament.

The unsupported hammerbeam ceiling in Westminster Hall is so high and dark it doesn’t photograph well.  There are angels high above but the lighting makes it difficult to see them.   The room is huge and practically empty with a few carved stone doorways and rows of wide arched windows along its length.  Bronze plaques set into the floor mark the important trials that took place in the hall.

At the end of the hall a flight of steps leads up to an enormous stained glass window with statues in niches and tall candelabras.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another stone and wooden carved doorway opens into St. Stephen’s Hall where statues of early kings and queens and famous politicians line the walls. Photographs are not allowed once you pass the door.  The long hall reminds you that this is or was a palace.  A row of chandeliers hang down the length of the room competing with the stained glass windows.  Mosaic panels show events in British history. 

The octagonal Central Lobby is located directly under the spire which hides the fact that it is a ventilation chimney. The lobby is a beautiful open space where constituents can meet with members of the Lords and Commons to “lobby” them. The immensely high vaulted ceiling of the Central Lobby is covered in vibrant mosaics that curve around the window alcoves.

We started down toward the House of Lords, but a guard told us we had to go back to the hall to get the audio guide even though we weren’t going to use it. It was a long way back to Westminster Hall, but the elegant rooms are beautiful; the tile floors alone are worth the walk.

The House of Lords is richly decorated, beginning with the solid brass gates at the entrance. The carved and gilded ceiling curves overhead, set with painted panels.  At the far end of the chamber sits the ornately gilded Royal Throne.  Visitor galleries of carved wood with stained glass windows above wrap a room where the members’ benches are upholstered in red leather.

The Royal Gallery and the Robing Room are both long narrow rooms used for ceremonies, decorated lavishly with paintings of monarchs and events in Britain’s history.  As we were about to turn the corner I realized that we were standing on the Norman Porch, looking down the Royal Staircase to the Sovereign’s Entrance, the one the queen would use at the base of the Victoria Tower.

The Prince’s Chamber was intimate and warm with the feeling of a den or library. Tudor portraits lined the upper part of the walls, paintings of people I had read about for years.  I think that was one of the most interesting parts of the building.

The House of Commons was designed in a simpler style with mellow oak paneling and a much lower ceiling. Rows of double windows are set with plain glass instead of stained.  Green upholstered benches face each other across the chamber and the overall effect is plain and utilitarian, especially when compared with the opulent Lords Chamber.

There used to be grilles in the Ladies’ Gallery to ensure that the men were not distracted by the women watching from above, but the grilles made the gallery hot and effectively excluded women from the proceedings. Eventually the grilles were removed and some were placed inside glass panels of the doors in the Central Lobby as a reminder of the women’s battle for the right to vote that took place.

Back in Westminster Hall Kim saw a sign in the gift shop mentioning that a carving of Richard II’s badge, a White Hart, was in the hall, but it did not say where it was. When Kim asked me, I heard heart.  We asked one of the guides who had been working there for years, but she had no idea what we were talking about.  Then I saw the statue in the middle of the hall and I realized that The White Hart was the deer and suddenly it made sense, but we still couldn’t locate the one mentioned in the sign.  It wasn’t until we got home and looked at the photographs that I discovered I had a picture of the emblem that is carved on the molding around the hall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Victoria Tower was for many years the tallest and largest square stone tower in the world.  It is certainly one of the most beautiful. The Queen enters through the Sovereign’s Entrance, which is even more extravagant from the outside, up to the Norman Porch, through the Robing Room and the Royal Gallery on her way to address Parliament.

The tower was completed in 1860 and was designed to hold the archives of Parliament.  All documents are original and cover over 500 years of British history.  Most are written on animal skins sewn together in strips and rolled up.   Three million documents include every Act of Parliament to be passed in Britain, the first Act of Parliament signed by King Henry VII, the death warrant of Charles I signed by Oliver Cromwell, and the Stamp Act of 1765.  There is also a journal with an entry from 1605 telling of the 36 barrels of gunpowder found in a cellar in the Parliament and the arrest of Guy Fawkes who was planning to blow it up.

The rain was really coming down. Making a path through a sea of black umbrellas, we crossed Abingdon Street and ducked into St. Margaret’s Church alongside the abbey.

Basically we walked in one end and out the other, stopping to admire the beautiful stained glass and the joined columns that form an arcade along both aisles.  But really, how could a small parish church measure up against the great abbey right next door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were wondering where to have lunch so we hopped on a bus going down Victoria Street, saw Harrod’s and thought we’d check out the Edwardian food court.  The store is so big it was hard to see anything.  We had dumplings at a little kiosk called Mango Tree, walked past the incredible pastry counter and Kim bought some special truffles.  We found a beautifully carved wooden staircase and walked up to the next floor which turned out to be designer dresses.   It reminded me that when Harrod’s first opened, pavements were raised so that ladies could come to shop and wouldn’t get their skirts dirty.

The exterior of the Brompton Oratory is rather drab, but the interior more than makes up for it. Built in the 1880’s the Italianate church has a gilded nave and mosaics in the neoclassic dome.  When the style of decoration changed on the continent it allowed the church to acquire sculptures and  altarpieces from churches that were remodeling and updating.  Marble of many colors from many areas were used in carvings, columns, pilasters, and in the apse.  Not to be missed is the shrine of St. Cecilia in the chapel of St. Wilfrid which holds a glass and marble casket with a lovely statue of Saint Cecilia, a replica of the one in her sanctuary in Trastevere in Rome.

Natural History Museum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just past the Victoria & Albert Museum is the immense Victorian Neo-Gothic edifice of the Natural History Museum with carved stone animals perched between the dormers on the roof and monkeys alternating with flowers on the façade. 

The exterior is grand and the interior is even more so.  Open to the vaulted glass ceiling, the enormous main hall is so big a cast of the diplodocus dinosaur is right at home.

 

 

 

 

 

Wide staircases at each end lead up to the balcony that wraps around the enormous room.

 

Looking across to the other side of the central hall you can see carved monkeys climbing up the wooden arches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One large room off the Central Hall are filled with display cases, exhibits of thousands and thousands of gems and minerals.  At the far end is a nice collection of space rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even the wrought iron fence surrounding the property is beautiful, adding to the overall design.

 

 

Around the corner in the gardens of the museum at 140 Queens Gate is The Lodge, a charming little Victorian town house with terracotta tiles and an unusual chimney.  It was built in 1883 to house an engineer and messenger employed by the museum.

A short distance away is Queen’s Gate, a large and very elaborately detailed gate but it is painted Pepto Bismol pink!.

 

We were close to Kensington Palace, so we walked down the Broad Way into Kensington Gardens to the Round Pond where there is a statue of Queen Victoria that was sculpted by her daughter, Princess Louise. 

Kensington Palace began as a country retreat in 1689 for William III to escape from the damp of Whitehall Palace.

 

Queen Victoria was born here and was baptized in the Cupola Room.  As the heir to the throne she lived here until her accession, sharing the palace with other royal retainers and relatives.  The public was first admitted into the palace by Queen Victoria to mark her 80^th birthday.

Kensington Palace Gardens

 

 

As in the past the monarch decides who gets to live here rent-free. Kensington Palace was often a retirement home for the royals.  Princess Margaret lived in Kensington Palace for many years in an apartment which is now being renovated for William and Katherine.

The Orangery, now the café, is a glassed-in gallery which was built in 1704 for Queen Anne who died there of apoplexy from overeating.  In an article I read about the restaurant, a woman was contemplating having another slice of cake, but when she heard about the queen dying from overeating she decided one slice was enough.

From the Round Pond we followed a graveled path to the ornate palace gates. More pathways brought us to the Orangery and on through a pergola of vines to a formal garden.  A little curvy path through the garden was roped off.

A squirrel on a bench chattered at me, but I had nothing to give him.

Inside the palace,  Wren’s  Grand Staircase curves up and around, bordered by a tromp l’oeil balcony which has been painted as though a crowd of people are standing at the railing, chatting and gossiping and being seen.  This is a portrait gallery of the courtiers who actually lived in the palace in the early 1700’s.   Hallways off the small lobby lead to the different sections of the palace.  One walk leads to a display of the gowns worn by princesses and queens.  Fashions worn by Queen Elizabeth in the 50’s, Margaret in the 60’s and Diana in the 80’s were dated but spoke to the times.  The exhibit Included photographs showing the women wearing the dresses.  One of the docents recounted personal experiences that had made it very personal for him.   Another hallway took us to the gallery of royal portraits, framed in gold and hung against a red background.  The Cupola Room has an immense golden ceiling which floats over the chamber.  In the center of the floor is (I’m sorry) a very strange, huge musical clock.

Off Kensington High Street is the incredibly ornate Milestone Hotel, with interesting architecture on both of the sides that are visible from the street.  It looks like it would be a beautiful place to stay.

We walked into the little pedestrian street that is Kensington Court, looking for a place to eat.  Kim picked out a café that turned out to be one of the finds of our trip, the lovely little restaurant Cote Bistro.  I had chicken in a mushroom sauce that was to die for and Kim added some grilled tuna to a salad which they were very happy to do for her.  It was a great meal, friendly service, and a really nice experience.

Continuing our walk, the private entrance to Kensington Palace was under heavy guard and it did not seem like we should even be looking in.  However, the rest of the street did not seem to mind us enjoying the gorgeous architecture of sleek hotels and old banks now turned into smart restaurants.   On the sidewalk was the bright green Cabman’s Shelter, harking back to an earlier time, although they may still be in use.

Everything is different from the first time I was in London and that shouldn’t surprise me – after all, it’s been over 40 years.

Inspired by the Eleanor Crosses, the Albert Memorial is very ornate in true high Victorian Gothic tradition. Because he was the beloved husband of Queen Victoria, the style is probably very appropriate.  The substance of the memorial however speaks more of the man and what he accomplished as the prince consort.   The prince was interested in all kinds of technology and ways to apply science to practical industries.  He was progressive and had liberal ideas, especially for the day.  He helped to reform and modernize the educational system as well as the finances of the palace.  His memorial has the prince holding the catalog of the Great Exhibition of 1851 that was held in The Crystal Palace.   Prince Albert inspired and helped organize the exhibition and it is shown in his memorial with nearly 200 carved figures representing Victorian achievements in the arts, commerce, agriculture, and engineering.

Albert Memorial

The prince is looking across the street at Royal Albert Hall, England’s most famous concert hall. The success of the Great Exhibition led to the prince’s proposal for more permanent cultural facilities and the Royal Albert was one of these buildings, built in 1871 and named for him.

Kim needed some cold medicine. Our concierge sent us to the Boots pharmacy on Victoria Street but they were already closed.  It was chilly and damp but we kept walking, hoping to find another pharmacy.  A salesperson in another store told us that there was a 24 hour Boots in Victoria Station and we knew where that was.  Victoria Station is enormous and full of all kinds of stores which are open at all times of the day and night.  We found the Boots Pharmacy and stocked up on cold meds.

Wednesday       St. Paul’s Cathedral and Fleet Street

We took the tube from St. James to the Mansion House station. It was a short walk to the top of Ludgate Hill and the brilliant white cathedral of St. Paul with its glorious dome. 

 

Paternoster Square, the large open space around the church, was already busy with people enjoying the sunny morning.  Through the Temple Bar archway we came to Paul’s Bakery where we had decided to have breakfast.  We carried our cappuccinos and pastries up a tiny little staircase to the tiny little tables at the top.  Very tight quarters but a lovely way to start the day.

I had bought tickets on-line for the day, a small savings which would probably end up in the gift shop.  At the registration desk they gave us our tickets and the guidebook I had purchased as well.  Photographs are not allowed inside the cathedral so at least we would have the gorgeous pictures in the guide.

Wren was in the process of rebuilding old St. Paul’s when the Great Fire destroyed much of London including the church.  When it came to choosing a design, Wren’s view of what the cathedral should look like and what the king and clergy expected were far apart.  A compromise was reached and the design was finally agreed upon, but in the end Wren got his way by just going ahead with his design and presenting a fait accompli. St. Paul’s was completed in 1711.

A 15 year restoration ended in 2011 with the general view that it was a transformation, bringing back the splendor of the cathedral inside and out. I didn’t realize how lucky we were to see the cathedral now that the work was finished. Three centuries of grime had been stripped away as well as repairs on three hundred year old structural elements that age and weather had caught up with.  And the scaffolding was long gone!

St. Paul’s outer dome is a landmark that can be seen from all over London.  The 2 inner domes, visible from the cathedral floor, create the illusion that the dome is all one piece.  Between these two layers is a brick cone that provides strength and supports the stone lantern at the top of the dome.  This is the same trick used in the Pantheon in Paris.

The nave, the main body of the cathedral, is floored using a harlequin pattern in marble. A huge medallion in colored marble is embedded in a circle design that swirls around under the dome.  The inscription in Latin written by Wren’s son translates as “Here in its foundations lies the architect of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument–look around you. Died 25 Feb. 1723, age 91.”   It makes me smile to see such a large and beautiful memorial because Wren had to fight and in fact deceive to build his design, hiding the plans so that no one would halt the construction

Looking up, the inside of the dome is lined with monochrome trompe l’oeil paintings which appear to be  architectural elements.  At the time Wren’s choice of mosaics for the decoration were considered too expensive and time consuming.

The side chapels are perfect little churches in miniature. Gilded wrought iron gates near the sanctuary catch every bit of light.  Some of the carvings in stone and wood are by Grinling Gibbons.  Cherubs climb over the pipes of the organ. Wide arches with coffered vaults lead into the quire lined with elaborately carved dark wooden seats for the clergy and choir.

Individual lamps like white candles march like soldiers down the quire rows, their tiny shades like little helmets. The shallow saucer domes in the ceiling are masterpieces of color and intricate detail in mosaics, done because Queen Victoria called St. Paul’s dull and dingy.  It’s certainly not dull anymore.

The wide arch of the apse crowns the unusual baldachino, called a ciborium because it is shaped like a cup, with round openings around the top that allows light to flow in and out. It becomes another architectural feature instead of just a canopy over the altar.  This design, taken from a sketch made by Wren, replaces the original which was destroyed by a bomb in World War II.

Bolstered by a delicious breakfast, the St. Paul’s dome was next.  We took a deep breath and began the climb.  The little staircase spirals up and up and up.  The 528 steps to the top are in three stages, not easy, but do-able, and there are several beautiful rest stops at the galleries along the way, as well as a few stone benches in the wall if you get desperate.

The first section is 257 steps up to the Whispering Gallery which runs around the interior of the dome.  We really could hear people speaking quietly on the other side.  Looking down over the railing the medallion of colored marble to honor Christopher Wren sits in a gigantic patterned circle that is impressive viewed from above.

    Stone Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clock Tower

The next stage is the 376 steps to the Stone Gallery, the first one that takes you outside for the glorious view over the top of the cathedral and almost a complete panoramic view over the Thames and London.

You can take your time and catch your breath using as your excuse that you are admiring the view. It is certainly worth your attention.

The two towers at the front of the cathedral are worth more than a glance; the detail is amazing. The clock tower has three faces, each of which is over 16 feet in diameter.  The clocks are as reliable as when they were installed in 1893.  The bell that rings on the hour is called Great Tom.  The largest bell ever cast in the U.K. called Great Paul, however, no longer tolls because of a broken chiming mechanism.                                   Millennium Bridge

The Golden Gallery is the highest and smallest gallery at the lantern that sits on the top of the dome.  It is well worth the 528 steps and gives an even wider view over the city.

Just before you get to this gallery, there is a framed glass square set into the floor which gives a view down to the cathedral floor.  A few more steps takes you to the narrow Golden Gallery breathtakingly spectacular view.     

 

It is easy to pick out the iconic buildings and count the bridges that cross over the sinuous river.

Building cranes stalk the city like giant birds with slender legs.    If London wasn’t putting up a building, it was renovating one.   From The Eye and the spires of Parliament on one side, the Millennium Bridge below, and the Guerkin and Shard and all the way to the Tower Bridge is a view I still see in my imagination.

Paternoster Square

 

Looking down is one of the loveliest steeples that survives, all that is left of the church of St. Augustine Watling Street.  The Wren steeple is now attached to St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir School.

 

 

 

 

While researching the Tower of St. Augustine, I found a wonderful anecdote that seems to be true.  There was living in the church a cat named Faith.  In the days before an air raid destroyed the church of St. Augustine’s, the cat was seen moving her kitten to the basement of the church.  Although she was brought back several times, Faith kept returning with her kitten to the basement.  On the morning after the bombing the rector searched through what remained of the church and found the cat in her basement refuge, now a mass of rubble, but still guarding her kitten in the place she had chosen just days earlier.  Faith was given a silver medal for her courage and her death in 1948 was reported on four continents.

I love the little stories that are connected with sites whether they are true or urban legend. They give a human face to ancient places that you might not otherwise feel.  And they make me smile.

The crypt of St. Paul’s is arched and open; the floor paved with colored marble.  The space is as carefully designed as the cathedral above.  A black marble casket holds the remains of Horatio Nelson who was fatally wounded and died in the Battle of Trafalgar, Britain’s greatest naval victory over the Franco-Spanish fleet.  His body was placed in a cask of brandy and taken to Gibraltar.  Brought back to England, he was laid in a coffin made from the mast of the Orient, a French ship he had defeated in battle, and interred in St. Paul’s in a sarcophagus originally intended for Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey before his fall from favor. Nelson’s viscount coronet rests on top of the casket.

A massive casket of Cornish granite held up by sleeping lions holds the remains of the Duke of Wellington. The Iron Duke commanded a multinational army that helped to defeat Napoleon.   Wellington had a very busy political career including prime minister during the reigns of George IV, William IV and Victoria.  He was a popular national hero but these were turbulent times for the government and he was known to be bluntly honest.  He installed metal shutters on the window of Apsley House which was cheaper than replacing the glass every time the windows were smashed. Wellington is remembered by many things, streets, a college, and in many towns there are pubs named the Duke of Wellington.  In Glasgow his equestrian statue is regularly given a traffic cone for a hat as a prank.

Christopher Wren’s tomb is in an area where he keeps company with painters, scientists, and artists of all kinds. It  is marked by a plain dark stone carved with a simple epitaph. For those of us who can’t read Latin, the famous inscription is translated on a wall plaque.

I could swear that there was a memorial to the stonemasons who did the work but I cannot find any mention of it. And, of course, I have no pictures.  But at the time I thought it was kind to remember those who put all of their time, effort, and skill into building St. Paul’s.  Sometimes it sounds as though Wren did everything all by himself when in truth he had hundreds of very skilled artisans making his designs a reality.

We visited the cathedral gift shop which had a lot of fun things. Kim loves her London gift wrap and the kings and queens poster so she can keep track of the people we are talking about.  I got a sun catcher with a stained glass angel and a tiny little St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Leaving the cathedral we peeked into the southwest tower which holds the geometric staircase. It’s called the Dean’s Staircase but everyone knows it as Harry Potter’s.  If you have time and money there is a Triforium tour that allows you to walk up the magnificent spiral staircase.  For us it will be another time.  Another time.

The Dean’s Staircase – funny how these two lined up!

From the porch of St. Paul’s we came out into the sunshine and the statue of Queen Anne, who was the reigning monarch at the time of the Cathedral’s completion.  A comment from a Tory politician at the time wrote that “it was fitting she was depicted with her rump to the church, gazing longingly into a wineshop”.  A tantalizing tidbit from the past.

Through Paternoster Square we walked to the back of St. Paul’s which is  more enclosed, surrounded by trees and quiet.   We’ve made it a point to always walk around great buildings so we won’t miss anything.

At St. Paul’s Cross, once the site of the tiny medieval wooden pulpit used for preaching as well as political speeches, stands a Baroque Revival fountain with a column of Portland stone topped by a golden statue of St. Paul. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stone column is highly decorated with cherubs, now lightly cloaked in moss and accompanied by pigeons. Patinated plaques on the fountain tell the history.

A lovely wrought iron fence hung with flowering vines wraps around the garden that leads to the street.

 

 

 

 

 

Temple Bar

 

 

 

The huge stone archway of Temple Bar that was once used for ceremonial processions as far back as 1351 is the only surviving gateway to the City of London.  Its name comes from the gate’s original location on Fleet Street near the Temple and evolved from a simple chain across the road to a wooden arch with a prison on top, and finally to a Wren design in stone decorated with statues.  The heads of traitors were hung on spikes from the main arch in the 17^th century.

Another charming story:   The last decapitated head to be displayed there was reclaimed by a faithful retainer who  brought it back to the family home where it was kept in a basket covered with a napkin in the drawing room of the family manor.

When the street was to be widened Temple Bar was deconstructed, the pieces numbered and stored away.  The Temple Bar Memorial was erected with a dragon on top, the symbol of the City of London as the guardian of its treasure.

Ten years later a barmaid who had married well, rebuilt Temple bar at her estate, using its history and novelty as the focus of her entertainments to enhance her reputation as a hostess.  She decorated the upper chamber lavishly and dined with guests such as the Prince of Wales, Edward VII, and Winston Churchill.

In 2004 it was once again dismantled, brought back to London, and re-erected in Paternoster Square.

Walking through Temple Bar and knowing its history is one of the  reasons I love to travel.  I’ve been reading about European history for years and can just imagine the pomp and pageantry that this archway has witnessed.

From the seventeenth century St. Paul’s to the London Stock Exchange building of the 1960’s we reached Newgate Street and the ruins of Christchurch Greyfriars.  Destroyed in the Great Fire, it was rebuilt by Wren in 1704, but only the tower survived WWII bombing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tower of the church is now a private residence, surrounded by a small walled public garden with bits of the old church scattered about.  There are a surprising number of residential steeples around London, beautiful reminders of the past. I love that they are being preserved by being lived in.

Just down the street is the fifteenth century church of the Holy Sepulcher, the largest church in the city.

 

 

 

 

On the porch is the wooden font cover topped by a carved angel that was saved from Christ Church Greyfriars during the fire.

 

Rows of brilliantly colored stained glass windows line the nave above a black and white checkerboard floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faces of cherubs look longingly up at the light from the dark font cover.

 

Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame is buried here.

 

 

 

 

 

There are rows of small chairs instead of pews.

 

A block away is the Old Bailey courthouse. Newgate Prison was conveniently next door. For centuries, a bellman from St. Sepulchre’s would ring a hand bell and call out a warning to prepare to meet their maker to the prisoners who would be executed the next day.  The hand bell remains in the church, displayed in a glass case attached to a column.  The bell in the medieval style square tower would ring on the morning for their execution.

On a happier note, London’s first public drinking fountain with its little metal cup on a chain is set into the red railings of St. Sepulchre at the corner of Newgate and Giltspur, back in the original spot where it was installed in 1859.

There were griffins and dragons on the Holborn Viaduct, the bright red bridge that crosses over Farringdon Street.  Cast iron arches connect granite columns which are anchored by buildings on both sides.  It is a strange but interesting crossing.  After all of the decoration we’ve just seen Holborn Circus, the wide intersection we have to cross is a letdown with only an equestrian statue of Prince Albert near the middle, but he is jauntily waving his hat.

Down New Fetter Lane we came to a walkway that led us past the 19^th century neo-Gothic Maugham Library of King’s College.   Attached to the golden façade and supported by pillars is a small enclosed balcony of dark stone.

An elegant stone archway through the immense building brought us into Chancery Lane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clifford’s Inn Passage is a tiny alley off Fleet Street which leads to the stone gatehouse of Clifford’s Inn.  Previously an Inn of Chancery, educating students in the law, Clifford’s Inn was the first inn to be founded and the last to be demolished.  The small gatehouse is all that remains.  I wish I had seen what lay beyond the open gateway door.

St. Dunstan’s in the West is a great dark hulk of a neo-Gothic church, jammed between two buildings on Fleet Street. Attached to the fence just outside the main entrance is a public drinking fountain installed in 1848.    A huge clock juts out toward the street.  In a large niche behind the clock two giants strike the hours and quarters, and turn their heads.  The clock dates from 1671, and was the first public clock in London to have a minute hand.

 Over the entrance of the old schoolhouse is a stone statue of Elizabeth I with scepter and orb, the only outdoor statue of the queen in London.  It is the only one known to have been carved during her reign, in 1586, and she is wearing the fashion of the day. The statue was made for the new Ludgate, the main western entrance in the Roman Wall, and moved to St. Dunstan’s following the demolition of that gate in 1776.

It was getting to be lunchtime and there were many choices but I’ve always liked a recommendation, so we stopped two men in business suits and asked where we should go for something to eat.  They pointed up Chancery Lane and gave us two names.

The Seven Stars is one of the very old pubs, surviving the Great Fire because it was wrapped protectively by the Royal Courts of Law buildings. We found it on Carey Street behind a plain façade massively covered with enormous flowering baskets.  We looked at the tiny menu, but decided to go back up the street to the Knight’s Templar pub.

The Knights Templar pub, a former Union Bank, is a huge elegant room decorated with carved wood details, ornate columns and chandeliers.  The coffered ceiling holds painted panels.  An enormous mirrored back bar echoes the Templar name with a very stylized statue of a knight.  We had a really good lunch, pulled pork for me and more salmon for Kim.

Down a curving staircase is the ladies room, white walls, marble floors, arched ceilings and black columns. Each stall is a little room of its own that opens off the hallway.   A white statue of a maiden stands in a tiled basin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the middle of the anteroom is a round sink built like a fountain.

Chancery Lane, Fleet Street, and the Strand all have wonderful buildings on both sides and, in the case of the Strand, even in the middle of the road.  Some are unusual like the very tall, very thin Ye Olde Cock Tavern with a gilded cockerel outside which is believed to have been carved by Grinling Gibbons. 

Some look the same as when they were first built as is the case of the only surviving timber framed Jacobean townhouse, Prince Henry’s Room, which was built over the carved stone gatehouse of The Temple.

For a while part of the townhouse was a tavern called the Hand Inn. Later it was renamed the Prince’s Arms in honor of James I’s short-lived son, Henry, the Prince of Wales.  Built in 1610, Prince Henry’s Room survived the Great Fire which stopped about a block away and was renamed The Fountain Inn.  The building once held a collection of celebrity waxworks, then fell into disrepair.  Prince Henry’s Room was restored only after years of neglect and the gateway still leads into The Temple.

The Order of the Knights Templar was formed to protect pilgrims on their journey to and from the Holy Land.  They were basically the first banking establishment, accepting money on one end and paying it out on the other.  They loaned money to kings and the nobility which brought wealth and powerful connections, but also made them enemies, powerful enemies who owed them a lot of money.  To discredit the Templars in order to gain their wealth, King Philip of France convinced Pope Clement V to disband the Templars in 1312.   Dissolving the Order would fill France’s treasury and rid Philip of the huge debt he owed to the Templars as well as stripping the Order of their power.  The Templars were arrested on false charges.  Many were killed, some went underground and some were allowed to join other orders.

The Temple Church and monastery are some of the oldest buildings in London and were built by the Knights Templar, beginning around 1160 and continuing for almost a century.  The design of the round church mimics the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.  The rectangular chancel was added in 1240 by Henry III; one of his infant sons is buried here.

In the 1300’s rooms in the monastery buildings were rented to law students. Because the Royal Courts are right across Fleet Street, The Temple area eventually became the Inns of Court, which educate lawyers, called barristers, as well as housing them.  Two of the inns, Middle Temple and Inner Temple are major buildings in the Temple complex.

During Henry VIII’s dissolution of the churches and monasteries, The Temple was confiscated by the crown but was too expensive to maintain. A deal was made for the land with the lawyers of the Inns of Court on the condition that they would tend to the upkeep of the church and house the Master in a mansion, also paying him £17 11/6 a year. In those days a mansion was defined by its frontage, so it looks impressive but really is only 15 feet deep.  However, this deal satisfied both the crown and the lawyers.  As in the past the present Master has been described as being under paid and over housed.

The Middle Temple, built in 1563, was used for plays and banquets.  Twelfth Night was performed in the hall for Elizabeth I. The other two inns, Grey’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn are closer to Holborn, the location of the original Templar headquarters in London.

During the war incendiary bombs hit the Middle Temple twice.  The first fire damaged 8,000 books but only one had to be replaced.  The second bomb smashed the hall’s oak screen into thousands of pieces which took over 14 years to put back together.  The Inner Temple Hall was damaged beyond repair and was redesigned when it was rebuilt after the war.  The Temple holds one of the copies of the Magna Carta.

The Gothic changes, called “the Great Vandalism” that had been done in Victorian times were destroyed by the bombs but the repairs restored the church to its original design, except for the medieval gargoyles in the round nave which remain.  Even the replacement columns in the round nave are angled outward like the originals.

And we entered the sacred precincts…too much?

 

My heart actually fluttered as we walked through the gateway into The Temple courtyard. Just ahead was the round wall of the Templar Church with its small ornate porch, a little heavy but a nice addition.  The design of the church is solid and strong; a simple dental molding rings the roofline and follows along the top of the chancel.   Small merlons at the top give the look of a fortress, suitable for a Templar Knights’ church. The entrance is through the Norman door, an elaborate carved stone archway framing massive dark doors.  They charged admission though it was supposed to be free, but not enough for me to miss this little gem.  I could already see the effigies in the floor.

The round ceiling of the nave

 

The round nave is studded with pillars connected by Gothic arches that echo the shape of the room. Grotesque little faces peer from between the arches.

Tall, slender windows are filled with tiny panes of wavy glass.  The inside of the dome has a chevron pattern in wood with an inverted scalloped edge; a golden medallion of stylized flowers is set into the very center.  Over the door that opens on to the porch is a small rose window.

Of the 400 years between 1200 and 1600 few records exist of the changes in the Temple.  During the restoration and repairs made in Victorian times which added Gothic changes to the church, scant if any records were kept and original details were lost. Many of the buildings in The Temple have been restored or rebuilt on a number of occasions especially in the years after the Blitz.  The Round Church poses as many questions as it answers and it might be wise just to enjoy the quiet and the details we see today.

The thirteenth century marble effigies of fallen knights lie embedded in the floor.  In groups of four, two by two, clad in armor with swords and shields, legs crossed or not, the knights are still getting only a little less attention than they would have in life.  Two raised biers have sculpted metal lids with glass enclosing the dark figures which are preserved much better than those in marble.  One marble coffin has a large cross carved on the lid; the other has degraded to the point where I will try to learn more about it later.    The effigy of Eleanor of Provence lies next to Henry III, sculpted in metal and encased in glass.

Educated guesses give an idea of their identity, but the truth of the matter eludes researchers. Some are known, but they are not all Templar Knights.  William Marshal, the most famous knight of his time, advisor to kings, friend to Eleanor of Aquitaine, protector and regent to Henry III, was inducted into the order as he was dying, although he did fight with the Templars in the Holy Land.  His sons are assumed to be two of the effigies, but there is no record of them being Templars.  Maybe being knights and William Marshall’s sons was enough to allow their burial here.  Of course, without records, assumptions rule the day.

Unfortunately, the armor the knights are wearing does not help to prove their identities. Those supposed to be William’s sons are dressed in armor that predates that of their father.  I would think that it would be important to depict the knight’s armor correctly.  And the effigies could have been carved several or many years later than the actual death.  Also, effigies were carved of the person in the prime of life, not the way they looked at the time of their death.

In addition, the effigies have been moved several times in the course of restorations. They were painted in the 1700’s, maybe incorrectly, and, of course, damaged by bombs.  What we see today were probably the lids of burial chests and not meant to be mounted in the floor of the Round.  Still, the fact that these effigies from a medieval age remain for us to wonder about and want to know more, this is enough for me.

I found two wonderful articles on line, one written during the time of a restoration in 1842, is The History of the Knights Templar by Charles G. Addison, in particular Chapter XII and the much more recent A Case of Mistaken Identity by Catherine Armstrong, 2009. Both had way too much information to be printed here but so worthwhile to check out.  And, if you can stand it, both tell of the destruction of the church (while speaking of restoration) and the careless treatment, often with an eye to Victorian tourism, that this site endured.  I have to warn you, reading this is sometimes like watching stained glass windows being broken up for the lead.

More pillars fill the room blossoming into the vaulted ceiling.  Fat white candles sit in ancient metal stands. The interior of the chancel, added in 1240, is crafted in wood the color of dark honey; the pulpit balances on a slender stem of wood and is reached by a spiral stair.

Back in the round nave another spiral staircase, this one of stone, leads up to the triforium and a beautiful view of the church and effigies below.  There is a tiny prison cell, not big enough to lie flat, for knights that needed discipline.  The floor of the triforium is paved with encaustic tiles in rich tones of orange, rust and a deep dark brown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Temple proper is like a village unto itself.  From the courtyard narrow side streets lead to red brick buildings with white details, oriel windows, and towers capped with little turrets.

 

 

 

 

 

The Middle Temple Hall, closed to visitors, sits in a paved courtyard shaded by tall trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fountain splashes in a round pond while students read and tourists stroll about.

 

 

 

Along the lanes are lush gardens, some clipped and formal and some spilling over with enthusiasm.

 

 

 

 

 

All of the buildings in The Temple have names and emblems carved above the entrances or on the corners of buildings.  

There are flying horses, coats of arms, and sheep carrying crosses with banners, all as mysterious to the layman as are the Templars themselves.  There must be a million stories.

The public is always welcome, sometimes more than others. You might even meet the Master of the Temple.  One article said that when the Master of the Temple is asked, “Have you read the book?” he pretends to believe they are talking about the bible.

Back on Fleet Street, many of the fine old buildings so obviously from another era are now occupied by coffee shops and fast food places, different from those in America but as omnipresent; names you get to know because they are everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A charming pair of old buildings caught my eye.  One of brown stone has a small statue of Mary, Queen of Scots in a niche between the windows on the second floor.  The building was designed for a Scottish insurance company in 1905 and named the Mary Queen of Scots House.  On the ground floor is a Pret a Manger.  The other building has the green patina of aged copper.  Chilango, a Mexican Kitchen, sells burritos and tacos where The King & Keys pub pulled taps of beer.  This was the pub of choice for the people who worked next door at the huge Art Deco Daily Telegraph’s old offices, a  building which seems to be keeping a watchful eye over the busy street.

At Nos. 154-158 Strand are four late 17^th century buildings all with different and unusual facades.  They are unlisted and may soon be demolished to build a flat, dark grey addition to King’s College, marring the look of the historic road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A short distance away but curiously not on St. Bride’s Street is St. Bride’s Church, Wren’s most famous steeple and inspiration for the wedding cake.  

The interior is interesting and unusual.  The ancient crypt was damaged during the war, revealing a medieval chapel and bodies in an underground area which had been sealed up when burials were no longer allowed in the city.

The Old Bank of England pub on Fleet Street was supposed to be a masterpiece of art nouveau, but the ornate painted ceiling and chandeliers were covered with soccer pennants and memorabilia hides the antique back bar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twinings Tea Shop is the oldest continuously run shop in the City.   Twining bought Tom’s Coffee House in 1706  and began selling tea, an exotic new product at the time.  The coffee house was a meeting place for men to discuss business and socialize.  The city water was contaminated so the people drank anything but.  Gradually, drinking tea became fashionable, even more than coffee, and Twinings was selling dry tea as well.  Ladies weren’t allowed inside the coffee house, but they would send their footmen in to purchase it.  In 1837 Twinings was given a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria.  The company has the oldest commercial logo in the UK.

Over the entrance of the little one story shop squished between its much taller neighbors are Twinings’ Chinese mandarins suggesting the days of the merchants who brought tea from the orient and Twining’s vision for its future.  In the long, very narrow shop there are shelves and more shelves of teas in glass jars.  Cubbyholes are filled with bags, boxes and tins of teas from all over the world and everything you could possibly use to brew a cuppa.  Copper canisters hold and dispense coffee beans to mix and match and grind yourself.  The shop offers samples to taste and gives us one of their mottos – Dry tea is great but wet tea is better.  And if you sign up for the latest news, they will send you a teamail.

If you ever imagined a medieval castle built in stone with turrets and a massive façade of towers, porches and archways that stretch for over a block, you will recognize the Royal Courts of Justice, home to the High Court of England and Wales, which presides over the most serious civil trials.

Built in 1882 the Victorian Gothic edifice is so huge, it won’t fit in one photograph and the hundreds of details are too many to count.  It looks like cathedral, a palace, a fortress, and a castle gave birth to a law court and I guess that is what happened.

The façade has rows of Gothic windows grouped in twos and threes. Slender turrets flank one of the porches, every inch of which is filled with carvings of everything from a cat and dog (litigants fighting like cats and dogs in court) to the heads of lawyers and judges.  Statues of Jesus, Solomon and Alfred the Great share the space, perhaps some of the wisest judges known.  The courtrooms were designed by different architects.  Opened in 1882 the first addition was built less than 30 years later to accommodate more divorce courts.

We passed through security but of the 1000 rooms in the building we were still only allowed into the Great Hall of the medieval palace and also no pictures.  It’s a magnificent chamber with a brilliantly colored marble mosaic floor.

A row of gothic arches joined by decorative ironwork serves as a fence along the sidewalk.

Walking down Fleet Street the road splits and becomes The Strand.  The next interesting feature is St. Clement Danes, another by Wren, which sits on a traffic island in the middle of the street. The Central Church of the RAF, a memorial to the men and women who served, as well as a working church, was gutted during the Blitz and not restored until much later.  The church claims that it is the one named in the children’s rhyme, Oranges and Lemons, but St. Clement Eastcheap also claims the title.  If it adds credibility to their claim, St. Clement Danes has more lines to the rhyme, citing eight more bells.

This rhyme is the most common.

Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement’s.

You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin’s.

When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich, Say the bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know, Says the great bell of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

At the beginning of the Aldwych crescent a moment must be spared to think about the area where Elizabethan houses jutted out over the narrow streets and where the book stalls and tiny shops along Wych Street were demolished to make way for the future.   

On the other hand, Australia House, or as it is better known, Gringott’s Wizarding Bank, now sits grandly on the crescent, decked out with statues beside the entrance and a qradriga overhead. 

 

 

 

 

It was worth trying to get a peek inside but we only got a glimpse of the glittering lobby through the ornate glass and metal door before guards stopped us from going any further.

I noticed a fenced opening in the middle of the sidewalk with a stairway leading underground.  I thought it was a tube station but then saw the sign saying that it was a public restroom.

We had to backtrack to the Temple Bar marker because I had been looking at so many other things I really had missed it.

 

 

 

 

On a tiny island in the middle of Fleet Street where the Temple Bar once stood is a memorial, topped with a winged rampant dragon.  In one of the niches is a statue of Queen Victoria crowned in gold, she and her son were the last royals to pass through the old gate.

London is full of great buildings and Fleet Street is lined on both sides with the changes that fashion or whim dictated through the years.  You can drive down the street in minutes, but only walking allows the time to notice and appreciate the details.  Decades and even centuries are captured in facades of stone.  Elaborate windows look out upon a busy, modern thoroughfare.  Ancient archways curve around grand entrances that now lead into the ordinary.

We had had to retrace our steps but walking in that direction brought us to a Paul’s bakery where we had pastries and cappuccinos.  We sat at the tiny counter and talked to the guy minding the store as we were the only ones there.

We hopped on a double-decker bus and sat in the front seats at the top. It’s a whole different view from this height. 

In a space just wide enough for the body of the church is St. Mary le Strand in the middle of the street where the maypole for the May Day festival once stood. It looks deserted but we passed by  very quickly.  I would have liked to see the angels in the ceiling.  I keep reminding myself, you can’t see everything.

Our bus was taken out of service at Trafalgar Square so we decided to walk the rest of the way through Whitehall and down Parliament Street.  We were hoping to see more of the enormous square, but again it was jammed with people.

Trafalgar Square was designed by John Nash.  Admiral Nelson’s Column commemorates the victory over the Franco-Spanish fleet which was defeated at Trafalgar and in which Nelson was fatally wounded.  Two fountains were added to break up the vast open space of the square and to leave less room for unruly street demonstrations.  Each December a Christmas tree is erected in the square, a gift from Norway to thank Britain for its liberation from the Nazis.  The equestrian statue of Charles I was rescued by Charles II after being hidden away during the Civil War.

Statues stand on three plinths about the square. The fourth plinth which was empty for years displays contemporary art, now the skeleton of a horse.  They’re calling it a gift horse.  A year ago a big blue cockerel was installed there and that ruffled a few feathers because the cockerel is the symbol of France and the square commemorates the British naval victory over France.

Nelson’s Column

 

 

We stopped in the shadow of one of the enormous lions that lord it over the busy traffic circle. These are the Barbary Lions, now extinct but skulls of this species were found in the moat of the Tower of London where the zoo was located.

In 1793 Madame DuBarry, the mistress of Louis XV, came to London, bringing with her some of the crown jewels of France. She supposedly buried the treasure somewhere on the grounds of the Royal Mews before returning to France.  But she was caught up in the Revolution and lost her head to the guillotine. Trafalgar Square covers the area once occupied by the Royal Mews.

There are a lot of stories about what happened to the French Crown Jewels, a fabulous collection of diamonds, emeralds and sapphires, during and after the French Revolution, but probably much the same as the fate of many of the British Crown Jewels during the English Civil War, which were auctioned off, melted down, stolen, re-cut and sold.

I almost missed Admiralty Arch because I didn’t think we had walked that far. We could still see Nelson’s Column towering over the square.

If you like treasure hunts, the one in London is a search for the Seven Noses of Soho.  The saying goes that if you find all seven you will attain infinite wealth.  The reason I mention this is that there is one nose on Admiralty Arch, and it is probably the easiest one to find.  There are different stories that surround this particular nose but the two I liked the best are:  The nose is a spare for Nelson or a tribute to Wellington who had a big nose.  The nose on the arch is located on the inside wall of the northernmost arch (the one taking traffic out of the Mall) about seven feet from ground level.

Parliament Street is a feast of listed buildings, now offices and taverns and filled with the history accumulated through hundreds of years and their connection to men like Chaucer and Dickens.

From Charing Cross to Admiralty House and the old Whitehall Club, past the Old War Office Building and the Royal Horseguards Cavalry Museum it is a parade through time.

 

 

 

 

 

The Banqueting House is at one time the largest royal palace in Europe.  Surviving two fires, the Banqueting Hall became a royal chapel.  Charles I was beheaded on a platform outside one of the tall windows during the English Civil War.  Charles II marked his restoration here.  Inigo Jones design, Italianate Renaissance, only Ruben’s ceiling paintings by him in original position.   

The Banqueting House is the only surviving section of Whitehall Palace and it is where Charles I was put to death, but it was unrecognizable, the façade covered while London’s continual repair and restoration goes on.  On the side of the Banqueting House was a huge mural of a painting with the wrapping paper being torn away.  Under the walkway of scaffolding that lined the front wall were painted faces from history accompanied by appropriate quotes.

On the corner The Red Lion pub, festooned with orange and gold flowering baskets, serves a political crowd as the location near 10 Downing Street would suggest.

We crossed the intersection where traffic streams toward Westminster Bridge.  I took a moment to glance at Portcullis House.  There’s something about the design that captured my eye.  Across the way marking this end of Parliament is St. Stephen’s Tower, now named for the queen and Big Ben.  We followed the walk we had come to love along the ornate metalwork fence connected by carved stone columns that wraps around Parliament, across the street to the little path that passes between St. Margaret’s and the abbey and out onto the square where a marvelous collection of buildings surrounds us on every side. 

From a distance the spires and towers of Parliament look more like a whole village than one huge building. The Central Hall with its blue dome stands near the Middlesex Guildhall across from Westminster Abbey and the Westminster School medieval one of the most expensive

Middlesex Guildhall

 

 

 

 

Central Hall

 

 

 

 

 

The Sanctuary  Westminster School

On the top of the tall marble and stone column in the square St. George is slaying the dragon, a memorial remembering former pupils of Westminster School who died in the Crimean War 1854-56 and the Indian Mutiny 1857-58.   The column is another contribution by Sir George Gilbert Scott, who designed among many, many other building, the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park and the Gothic Revival Midland Grand Hotel at St. Pancras Station.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abingdon Street leads out of the square, passing by the medieval Jewel Tower which held the king’s private collection of jewels, gold and silver, and later served as storage for Parliamentary papers and a testing office for weights and measures.

Built in 1365 by Edward III, father of the Black Prince, the Jewel Tower has a ribbed vault ceiling with carved bosses of grotesque faces.  The Tower is a small part of the Palace of Westminster that survives today.

At the end of the Victoria Tower Gardens on the corner of Great College Street stands One Milbank, a great house with a distinctive look because it has hundreds of windows in almost as many different styles.  Built in 1906 as the home of the Church Commissioners, it has one of the first elevators for an office building in England.  One Milbank is now used for offices and meetings by the House of Lords.

On Victoria Embankment we came to the Buxton Fountain built in 1865 as a memorial for the members of Parliament who advocated the abolition of the British slave trade. Moved from Parliament Square to Victoria Tower Gardens, the original fountain was decorated with eight figures of British rulers. Four of the figures were stolen in 1960 and another four in 1971.  Replaced by fiberglass figures in 1980, by 2005 these too were missing and the fountain was no longer working. It is now restored.  Kim didn’t like the bright colors but I think it’s true Victoriana.

The Thames from Lambeth Bridge to Vauxhall has turned a steely grey as the sun goes down.  Kim’s friend had told her about the horses in the Thames.  I had no idea what she was talking about but we could see something far down the river.  If it was an installation of modern art, we would get a closer view the next day when we walked along the riverside, starting at the Vauxhall Bridge.

On Smith Square is the fine old English Baroque St. John the Evangelist Church.   Legend says the design of the church was inspired by Queen Anne kicking over her footstool to show what she wanted the church to look like.  With delicate finials atop the pillared corner towers down to the broad base, I guess you could say she got her wish.  The church suffered damage in the war, but local efforts turned the ruin into a concert hall, now considered one of the best in London.  The legend gains provenance because the hall includes the Footstool Restaurant.

Through unfamiliar streets just a few blocks from those we knew, we made our way back through Westminster to Caxton Street and St. Ermins.

Thursday                 Thames Walk

We had breakfast at the Royal Quarter again. It’s difficult to pass up a nice place that is so convenient.  As I passed a huge display of pastries on the way in, I knew what I would be having.  Kim decided on French toast.  Then we were off to Great George Street to catch the bus to Vauxhall station.

Dwarfed by the St. George Wharf development, Brunswick House on Wandsworth Road is only a short walk from the bus and train station.  LassCo is an architectural salvage company housed in the 18^th century Georgian mansion that they restored.  LassCo deals in bits and pieces of the past, stained glass from demolished churches, antique hardware and furnishings, old pub signs and giant metal letters.  Outside under a leafy tree, chubby stone cupids sit pondering deep thoughts or smile mischievously.  In the dark and cavernous basement larger pieces wait for someone to give them new life.

They had had an event the day before and were putting the store back in order, but there were boxes to pick through fragments from stained glass windows.  After a look at some of the pieces scattered outside, sections of columns and decorative ironwork, we ventured into the basement where the larger pieces of furniture, old metal signs and antique mirrors were kept.  It was a fun place to rummage around in.

I bought a Late Victorian stained and painted glass trefoil from St. George’s Church which was demolished due to structural problems.  I found out later my trefoil was painted by Daniel Cotter, a successful Scottish stained glass colorist, known for using rich colors and floral motifs.

While looking on LassCo’s website for the information on my trefoil, I found that they were handling another sale of some importance.  They are selling sections of the cast iron balustrade from the original Victorian Westminster Bridge that were removed during the restoration.  Having heard of people buying the Brooklyn Bridge, I would be cautious if someone offered to sell me the 160 year old Westminster Bridge.  But LassCo is a respected company so the only drawback I can see is that the buyer must purchase the whole consignment, amounting to a little more than 984 feet, but it does have a nice repeating trefoil design and even some of the original paint.

The Thames is the longest river in England.  It flows for 215 miles but we’re only covering a little over 4 miles that winds its way through the heart of the city to the Tower of London.  From shipbuilding and repair and the commerce if one of the world’s foremost trading ports, as transportation for goods and people, London life has revolved around the Thames.  Because of the Thames, London is still one of Britain’s leading ports and the embankments are being continually redeveloped into retail, commercial and entertainment spaces.

In medieval times the Thames would freeze over, creating a venue for all kinds of activities.  Frost Fairs with tent cities sprang up on the ice offering sleigh rides, dancing, eating and drinking and many other amusements.  The last fair was held in 1814, although even in 1900 people were skating on the frozen river. England lived through a little ice age and this may have been part of it.  It’s said that now the river flows too fast for it to freeze.

 

 

 

 

 

Our river walk along the Thames began at the Vauxhall Bridge which has allegorical statues placed on the piers between the arches.  One figure holds a model of St. Paul’s Cathedral.   The Albert Embankment is on the south side of the Thames across from the Victoria Embankment on the north side.

It is a level, easy walk on a wide stretch of pavement with benches scattered all along both sides of the river.  Our plan was to cross back and forth over the many bridges, depending on what we wanted to see.

On the right is the green and cream building of MI-6, home of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The building looks pretty good for having been blown up in the James Bond movie Skyfall.

The weather today is good for walking with thick puffy clouds in a bright blue sky. The view across the river is beautiful and constantly changing, but there is plenty to see right in front of us; dolphins curl around the lampposts and the armrests on the benches are swans, winged Egyptian figures, and resting camels. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above flowering vines that spill over the walls are the tops of Italianate villas.

 

Working boats make their way along the Thames while a brightly colored party boat sits on a wooden cradle, waiting for the tide to come in and partygoers to arrive.

 

 

 

 

 

The ever present building cranes

 

 

 

The International Maritime Organization

 

 

 

The art installation called The Rising Tide is indeed located just off the south bank.   

A set of white featureless horses and riders are submerged and revealed as the tide ebbs and flows.  I have no idea what it is supposed to suggest.  It is rather melancholy and definitely strange, but then isn’t all modern art going in that direction.

Lambeth Bridge was the bridge used by the House of Lords and is painted with red details to reflect the color of the leather benches in their chambers.

The Commons crossed on Westminster Bridge which was decorated in green for the same reason.  We would see this later when we visited Parliament.  When the Knight Bus that Harry Potter is riding in the Prisoner of Azkaban squeezes between two oncoming double-decker buses, it is Lambeth Bridge that they are crossing.

Actually just as exciting or arguably more so is the next bridge which is Westminster Bridge.   From here the river side of Parliament always seems to be bathed in a soft golden light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a design that reflects its name, Portcullis House has rows of dark little chimneys along the roof.

 

 

 

Some people just will not duck!

 

 

The South Bank lion, one of a pair, is an enormous statue of Coade stone (named for the woman entrepreneur who created the ceramic process).

It was cast in 1837 as the mascot of a brewery.  When the brewery was sold, King George VI rescued the lion.   The statue apparently suffered no damage during the war.  It was painted red as the symbol of British Rail and mounted outside Waterloo Station.   New construction forced the lion’s next move.  He was stripped of the red paint and now stands at the end of Westminster Bridge.  The South Bank lion has a troubled expression, but he’s had quite a life or maybe he’s pondering the decisions of Parliament within his gaze.  His twin is painted gold and resides at Twickenham Stadium.   That lion’s attitude seems much more belligerent and is perhaps a better choice for a sports venue.

As we walked over Westminster Bridge, there was a great view of the London Eye just before the river begins a wide curve   Big Ben towered over us and as we came closer we were able to see more of the amazing Gothic details and gilded decorations that cover the exterior of Parliament.

Even the bridge lights are of the time with little golden finials on each lantern.  The intertwined initials V and A on the center support must be for Victoria and Albert.  Who else?

 

 

We continued our walk on the Victoria Embankment, passing a kiosk hung with row after row of little Union Jacks that fluttered in the wind. Every inch of the stall was covered with brilliantly colored souvenirs of London.

At this end of the Palace of Westminster is the Elizabeth Tower, home of the bell, Big Ben.  The clock has four faces and is the largest clock in Britain.  The hands are so long they act as a sail in the wind, driving the clocks instead of the clockworks driving the hands.  There are four bells to ring the quarter hours but only one Big Ben to chime the hour.

 

 

 

 

A statue of Boadicea, the woman warrior of the Iceni who put the Romans in their place for a little time, rides triumphantly in a chariot drawn by two spirited horses.

That a woman could bring many of the small warring tribes together and take on the Roman Empire is reason enough for a memorial.  Her story ends sadly but nobody could doubt her courage or her thirst for revenge.

Matching its triangular site, the lovely Corinthia Hotel on Whitehall Place is a former Victorian grand hotel which served for a while as part of the Ministry of Defense.  Some of the original features have been blended into the new hotel.

 

The great circle of the London Eye looks huge from this side.

 

 

On both sides of the river near the high water mark are rows of lion heads, wearing the green patina of age, which served as a warning sign when the Thames rose too high and there was danger of flooding.  The early flood warning system had its own rhyme in case anyone forgot why they were placed there.

When the lions drink, London will sink       When it’s up to their manes, we’ll go down the drains       When the water is sucked, you can be sure we’re all …in trouble

The monument for the Battle of Britain has soldiers emerging from a concrete bunker and on the side closest to the river, major buildings like St. Paul’s Cathedral are depicted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A giant golden eagle perches at the top of a very tall column on the Royal Air Force Memorial.

Over the trees is a glimpse of the towers and roofline of the Royal Horseguards Hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just below the Golden Jubilee Bridge abutment is a little Baroque stone building called Hungerford House which was built to generate electricity to power the street lights.  On the roof is a small cupola and a triple stack chimney.  A nicely carved round arch over the columned entrance features the goddess of, perhaps, electricity?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

art or memorial or both?

 

 

A little way through the green space of the embankment is the York Watergate that was commissioned by the Duke of Buckingham in 1626.

York House was acquired by the duke and the gate was built at the bottom of the mansion’s garden.  A set of steps led down to the river’s edge, marking the north bank.   Also called the Buckingham Watergate and with the Buckingham crest at the top, it was rescued and moved back to where it now stands within the Embankment Gardens.

Cleopatra’s Needle stands in its own space guarded by a sphinx on either side.

The inscription on the obelisk says that the scars on the bases of the sphinxes were caused by fragments of a bomb during the first raid on London by the Germans in 1917.

 

 

The platform that juts out into the river gives a close up view of the lion heads with their mooring rings, for the use of small boats in an emergency.

We starting thinking about finding a place for lunch and thought the Strand which turns into Fleet Street would be a good bet.  Leaving the river we walked up Carting Lane, also called Farting Lane, (the reason for its name will become apparent very soon). London’s Last Sewer Gas Lamp is still burning.

The late 19^th century invention was used to burn off the smells and germs from the sewer system while providing low cost street lighting.  Carting Lane’s nickname reminds me that there are other wonderful and some quite rude street names still in use today, those that are real and the ones that clever wags of the day renamed. London was a terribly filthy city as it grew through the years and many of the names reflected those conditions.  But that’s another hundred pages at least.

The façade of the Savoy Taylors Guild is beautifully distinctive. Ornate carved wood tracery wraps around each panel of the wide display windows and frames the entrance.  A gorgeous sign overhanging the street is held by delicate ironwork.

The Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy was not easy to find, but it was supposed to be next to the famous 1889 Savoy Hotel.  Just one word about that:  The entrance to the hotel is set back from the Strand, down what looks like a side street which turns into a wide courtyard with a fountain in the center.  The Savoy Theater is enclosed in this jumble of buildings and shops line the short drive, but compared to the subdued elegance of the buildings on the Strand which I assume are part of the Savoy, it is a gloomy welcome to a luxury hotel.  Only the distinctive Art Deco Savoy sign suggests the hotel’s location.  If you didn’t know it was there, you could easily pass it by.

While I was looking for the Savoy, a stone plaque, carved within an inch of its life with curls and flourishes, gave a thumbnail history of the tiny court.  I spotted the large letters S A V O Y on the silvery sign with a golden statue on top and knew that if anyone could tell me where to find the little chapel, it would be one of their employees.  A friendly doorman sent us further down the Strand to Savoy Street.

The Savoy Chapel is a royal peculiar, which means the monarch has authority over it, not the church. The small chapel, one of three in the hospital complex that Henry VII built, is the only survivor.   When the hospital closed, the other buildings fell to ruin and were gradually demolished.  The Savoy Chapel was referred to in Brideshead Revisited as “the place where divorced couples got married in those days—a poky little place”.   One of my disappointments is that it was closed the day we were there.  Although I had done the research, somehow I had missed the fact that it would be closed in August and September.

Fenced and gated, the little chapel could only be seen from the street, a pretty stone building with a cottage feel, set in a garden plot just a block from the busy Strand.

Tip: Because August can be very hot in the city and school is out, Londoners often take their holidays during that month, so it’s best to check closures of places that you really do not want to miss.

Over and over we saw the same places to eat – namely EAT, Pret a Mange, Pizza Express, Costa Coffee, Caffe Nero, and Yo! Sushi, but there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of pubs to try with menus and histories to explore.

Today we tried the Wellington Pub, housed in a gorgeous Edwardian building with an elaborate neo-Gothic exterior of dark wood extending to the top floors in stone.

 

A steep set of stairs led up to the dining room which was flooded with sunlight through leaded glass windows on two sides of the dark wood interior.   Small square panes of clear glass were topped with panels of delicate stained glass.  There was a nice view of the buildings on the Strand bordered by flower boxes outside filled with red and white impatience.

Many of the historical pubs are now under the umbrella of Nicholson’s Pubs which tend to have the same menu.  As a fishetarian, Kim doesn’t have as many choices and usually ends up with a soup or salad.  I had their chicken pot pie, a puffed pastry shell packed with large pieces of white meat in savory gravy.  It was delicious.

 

 

 

 

Back to the Thames: A new Waterloo Bridge was built during the war to replace the only bridge to be damaged during the Blitz.  Constructed largely by women, who agreed to be paid less than the men and give up their jobs when the men returned from the war, it was called the Ladies Bridge.    Clad in Portland stone which possesses a very useful property, Waterloo Bridge cleans itself every time it rains.

At this point there is a street running between the buildings on one side and the embankment.   We passed a wall of vibrant green plastic vegetation around what seems to be a service entrance into One Embankment, a huge complex.  The very long, grey stone façade turned out to be Somerset House where the Courtauld Gallery resides.  We crossed the road under the watchful eye of one of the dragons of the City of London, a glittery silver dragon clutching a shield with the red cross of St. George on it.  Also painted red are his wings and long flickering tongue.

In this area the street was under construction, with signs and stanchions at the edge of the sidewalk.  Portable fences which were often covered with tarpaulins as well, lined both sides of the road, obscuring our view and when we found a space that was open, the busy traffic made crossing risky.

In a gap through the fencing Kim noticed a large block of buildings that we had missed because of the roadwork, so we braved the rush of cars.  Once on the other side of the road we could see the elaborately carved stonework on the façade and I realized we had found the riverside entrance to The Temple.  Thank heaven for Kim’s sharp eyes.

Looking like a great French chateau, the massive building of Portland stone fronting the Temple entrance facing the Thames is a glorious mix of architectural flourishes with just enough plain space to set off the work of the craftsmen.

 

Statues stand under tiny ornate canopies on either side of the gateway and other figures seem to be supporting the upper floors.  A railed balcony curves from one side to the other.

 

 

 

 

The cobblestone drive passes under the great archway into the Temple precincts beyond where narrower streets lead through buildings which provide chambers for the lawyers on the ground floor and residential spaces above.           Middle Temple hall and gardens

 

 

 

 

Many doorways had panels overhead with brightly painted escutcheons or little gilded figures.  Several had depictions of the Lamb and the Flag or plaques with the name on the side of the building.  Streets crisscross the compound past red brick structures trimmed in white and gardens full of color.

 There are wonderful quirky details, such as the dark cupola on the Middle Temple that is crowned with golden finials and a copper dome that encloses a tiny room.  Small courts hold surprises or just a place to sit under a shady tree and enjoy the peace and quiet.

Over a wrought iron fence we saw a building that had a very medieval look to it.

 

Passing through a vine covered arbor brought us to tiny winding Milford Lane which runs alongside this fortress of a building.

 

 

We were looking at the little details in the small courtyard when a couple entered and made their way to the entrance.   We asked what the building was for but they didn’t answer.  They looked rushed as if late for a meeting.  When I got home I learned that we had discovered Two Temple Place and I found out later we probably could have gone in at least for a peek. 

Two Temple Place, although it looks medieval, was built in 1895 as a home and offices for William Waldorf Astor, the only child of John Jacob Astor, the wealthy financier.

Inside the little courtyard cupids clinging to lampposts guarded the steps leading to the front door. One cupid held an early telephone receiver, a strange ornament until you learn that this was the first house in London to have a telephone.

The caravel on the lamppost is Columbus’ Santa Maria.  Now it is the home of the Bulldog Trust, an organization that hosts exhibitions and private gatherings to raise money for charity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bulldog Trust

 

Tip: If you want to see the interior of a building, try the door.  If someone sees you, admire the building or ask about its history.  The worst they can do is ask you to leave.  At least you will have made the effort.  There are still places I was too chicken to attempt but will try not to add any more to the list.  Stick to the rules in a government building.

There are more law offices on Temple Avenue and the architecture is equally as turreted, ornamented and elegantly faced as The Temple itself. 

 

 

 

 

Gigantic flowering baskets spilling over with yellow and orange begonia blossoms were hung on the wrought iron fences all the way down the street. 

 

Two slightly different pictures, the camera moved only inches, the framing changed.  The lens will never capture enough. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stone faces are carved into the keystones over windows while Mercury flies on winged feet delivering, perhaps, the latest ruling of the court.

                                 Temple Chambers

In Dorset Rise in a very modern courtyard surrounded by very unspectacular buildings was St. George, mounted on a horse, and still trying to kill the dragon.

 

Blackfriars pub is located in a wedged shaped building on Queen Victoria Street. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a wild and crazy little pub that everyone needs to see.  Above the front door there is a black statue of a fat smiling monk; Friar Tuck springs to mind.  The pub could not seem more interesting or welcoming.  The exterior looks like it has survived from the middle ages with stone carvings and mosaics while the inside is covered with art nouveau decorations and lit by colored glass windows.  A copper relief above the bar shows scenes of the daily life of the monks. 

 

 

 

 

 

Built in 1875 Blackfriars Bridge is now a pedestrian bridge due to its age and the old girl is showing it.  But gilded medallions stud the arches, now faded to a dusty rose color, and the piers are wonderfully decorated in the ornate Victorian fashion of the day.  Blackfriars doesn’t just cross the river, it reminds us of another time.

Parallel to Blackfriars is the new railroad bridge.  Between the two are the chubby red pylons from the original railroad bridge from 1864, what some now call Old Stumpy. One wit suggested that the empty pillars should be used to display art from the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square when it is replaced by the next installation.  Whether the suggestion was frivolous or not, the art would certainly be seen by a lot of people.

We crossed the river on the Millennium Bridge because the walkway along the embankment disappears and streets turn away from the Thames, heading into the city.  What were probably warehouses at one time have more modern uses now, but still cling to the edge of the river and leave no room to walk.

Beneath the Millennium Bridge approach is the Millennium Measure, a glass and steel obelisk etched with events that have taken place in history during the past 2000 years. It was designed and made by the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers, a gift to the city. 

We stopped in the middle of the Millennium Bridge for a stunning view of St. Paul’s on one side and the Tate Modern on the other before crossing over to Southwark, pronounced Suthic.  Downstream the Southwark Bridge has graceful arches painted green, a decorative railing and piers made of blocks of stone. 

Straight ahead on the south bank of the Thames is the Tate Modern which opened in 2000.  The 325 foot chimney makes it hard to miss. Britain’s National Gallery of International Modern Art has brought the Bankside Power Station back to life and restored the landmark central chimney.

 

Reconstructed just a short distance from the original site, the new Old Globe Theater can be seen through Shakespeare’s Gate.

 

Highlighting characters from his plays, the gate is made of cast iron strands, interlaced to form pointed arches and inset with dozens of small sculpted metal figures of all kinds; birds and bees, flowers, several mermaids and a dragon, among many other creatures.

 

As we passed a Greek restaurant I spied the Ferryman’s Seat, now installed on a side wall. The seat is very old, very narrow, and very hard.   Like me the ferrymen probably didn’t sit there for very long.

The Southwark area has been the site of a bridge for almost 2000 years; the first stone version was completed in 1209 and lasted over 600 years. A stone chapel dedicated to Thomas a Becket was one of the first buildings built on London Bridge.  Crowded with houses and shops, London Bridge was six stories high by the sixteenth century. There were so many buildings that there was only room for a cart to pass through and houses almost touching overhead created a tunnel.  A focal point of every day life, the bridge was also used to display the heads of traitors on spikes above the stone gateway.

London Bridge is Falling Down, the nursery rhyme we are all so familiar with tells of the many disasters that happened through the years. Fires broke out, feeding on the wooden buildings.  Ice from the frozen river caused parts of the bridge to collapse.  In places the arches caused the Thames to dam, causing dangerous conditions for the traffic on the river.

Compared to some of the other bridges on the Thames, London Bridge, which opened in 1831, was a study in restraint.  Built of grey stone blocks with solid piers, it denotes strength rather than the flamboyant design of the previous Victorian and Edwardian eras.  Always one of London’s very busiest bridges, age and the advent of cars added to the stresses and widening increased the weight, causing the bridge to begin sinking until it became necessary to replace it.  Like others before it, the new bridge was begun while the old one was still in service, then the traffic was diverted to the new bridge.

An American bought London Bridge in 1968, and it was dismantled block by block and numbered so that it could be reconstructed in Lake Havasu in Arizona.  I was in London just a month before they dismantled it and was one of the last people to walk across.

The concrete and steel London Bridge is plain and bare of decoration, a flat span with a nice view of the new Cannon Street Station with the twin red brick towers of the old station on either side.    A large stone block from the old bridge is inset into the paving stones of the Southwark walkway.  There are still a few other architectural elements from the bridge placed around the city as reminders.

Southwark has always been the main road connecting London to the southern parts of England and the continent.  It stands at the oldest crossing point of the Thames and was, for many centuries, the only entrance to the city of London.  In medieval times Southwark was the haunt of thieves and drunkards, good reason to have the prisons there as well.  Brothels flourished under the bishops of Winchester who taxed them instead of closing them down.  Coaching inns sprang up along the pilgrim route, serving those on the way to the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.  The chapel on London Bridge was a natural stop along the way.

Entering Southwark is like walking into a village.   The street winds around The Anchor pub, site of a Roman grave, a place where bear and bull baiting was held and which may also mark a pit where plague victims were buried.  We continued through a high tunnel with a huge modern mural on one side.  Purple light streamed down from the curved roof.   Framed in the arch at the tunnel’s end is the notorious medieval Clink Prison, which is now a museum; a metal cage for torturing prisoners hangs above the entrance.  This is where the term for a jail comes from.  Throw him in the clink.

The wall of the ruined thirteenth century Winchester Palace,  the home of the very corrupt bishops of Winchester, stands like a tombstone at the head of a medieval garden.  A cool grey sky was outlined in the rose window, now empty of colored glass.

 

 

The reconstructed garden was planted below the current ground level in what was the cellar beneath the great hall.   A tiny spiral staircase leads down into the garden.

 

A replica of The Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake’s ship, sits in its tiny berth. Drake was an explorer and one of Queen Elizabeth’s sea captains, a privateer or, according to the Spanish whose shipping he preyed upon, a pirate.   Located near the ship is a street bollard, which was cast from the cannon of an 18th century warship and used to moor ships to the bankside.

On a side street we noticed a sign for a new kind of bar called Alcoholic Architecture where the air is filled with alcoholic fumes and you just inhale. It had just opened; the next new thing.  I can only imagine what it would be like to work there.

The pebbly texture of black flint cobbles on the exterior walls of the twelfth century Southwark Cathedral somehow gives it a modern look.

This type of stonework is much used in areas where flint is plentiful and buildings faced with it are called puddingstone.  The side of the church took up the entire view in front of us, but a sign pointed toward the entrance.  The modern annex is juxtaposed with the medieval-looking Gothic church and the relationship seems odd.        

At the end of the nave, separating the choir from the retro-choir, is an ornate altar screen with dozens of little figures that was installed in 1520.  The statues represent saints, apostles and prophets as well as a king who found his faith.

The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St. Saviour and St. Mary Overie is one of London’s oldest Gothic churches.  The priory that began as St. Mary’s Overie (meaning over the water) was destroyed by fire in 1212 and the church was rebuilt in the early English Gothic style.  By the early nineteenth century most of the church was unsafe and it was almost demolished.  In 1890 the nave was rebuilt close to the original early English style.   

 

 

 

The organ

 

The interior is much as you’d expect, a high vaulted ceiling with Gothic arches running down both aisles, but there were also unusual wrought iron chandeliers beautifully framed by the ribs of the ceiling and highlighted in alcoves lit by stained glass. 

 

 

 

Around the church are many remnants of its long past.  Wealthy merchants, benefactors and other dignitaries are memorialized with colorful plaques in Gothic niches.

Bliss Monument

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shakespeare is remembered in stained glass and by a statue reclining in an alcove.   A monstrous brass chandelier, hung from a lacey cross between a monarch’s crown and a bishop’s mitre, was given by an innkeeper’s wife in 1680.

 

 

 

 

At one end of the nave three Renaissance angels stand in front of three stained glass windows; the backdrop for a towering gilded font cover.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dates I’ve found continually astonish me. I remember having this feeling the first time I saw the trees in Hyde Park and realized that they were older than America, centuries older.

One of the things I like about research and then actually seeing a place happened when I was labeling pictures I had taken in Southwark Cathedral. There was a golden ornamented tower in front of some really nice angels in front of a brace of stained glass windows.  I couldn’t find out what it was for.  I checked images on Google and I saw something very similar in the Harvard Chapel of the cathedral.  It was a tabernacle used to hold the sacrament.  (Although this golden object was in the wrong part of the church, I knew I was on the right track.  As you can see from a previous paragraph I learned that it was a font cover.)

Now here is where the research veered off, because the tabernacle in the Harvard Chapel was designed by Pugin. Pugin is the man who did nearly all of the interior design of Parliament that we had seen, and appreciated, just days ago.  After we returned home, when an item was being appraised on Antiques Roadshow, Pugin was mentioned.  Because of my trip research, I knew who they were talking about and it is so interesting when I can put things together like that.  I found several artists and architects whose work would take you on a wonderful tour of London and England and beyond.

The whole day had alternated from sun and blue skies to totally overcast and even a few tiny showers. The weather was really changeable, quickly turning cloudy, then hot again.  We crossed on London Bridge a little sad that the crazy jumble of houses and shops that once crowded the bridge is long gone.  In the distance Tower Bridge was lit by the sudden arrival of the sun which had again broken through the clouds. 

We passed the square tower and dark stone walls of St. Mary Aldermary, then stopped at Bea’s of Bloomsbury for afternoon tea, hoping to get some good scones.  Not even close.  The table upstairs had a nice view through wall to wall windows and the ceiling was hung with a collection of creamy white tea pots of all shapes and sizes.

Very cute.  The tea was plentiful, a little more rustic, but delicious.  There was so much leftover that we brought most of it back to the hotel.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering a circuitous route through neighborhoods of little streets filled with a wonderful collection of steeples, some chanced upon and some seen from a distance over the rooftops, all slightly different with little details that set them apart and helped me to identify them later.   The steeple of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey is distinctive because it is less ornate than Wren’s usual designs.  Perhaps he was in a rush.

We walked up Bread Street to Watling and wandered into Cheapside Passage.  I had decided not to bring my backpack to London and I was regretting that, because the Nikon is so heavy.  The weight of my bag was making my shoulder ache.   So now I was looking for a small backpack with a light colored interior and found one in a gorgeous shade of red with nice wide padded straps.  Too expensive but it turned out to be totally worth it.

Tip: I know a backpack doesn’t look classy, but other then that there is little bad to say about them.  But never buy any kind of bag with a dark interior.  You just cannot see what you are looking for in almost any kind of light.

We passed by Milk Street, one of the many streets named for the businesses that were located there.  The custom brings another age to life, in times that were not better, but perhaps simpler because it speaks of necessities when most people had little time or money for more than that.

On the tower of St. James Garlickhythe on Garlick Hill is London’s oldest public clock. The mechanism has been working since 1682, the same year that Halley’s Comet was observed by Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley.  The original dial was destroyed in World War II and was replaced.

At Queen Street Place is Five Kings House, a gorgeous building which houses The Vintners’ Company, one of the twelve great livery companies of the City of London, which was given its first Charter in 1363 for the import, regulation and sale of wine.  The fifteenth century Vintners’ Hall was destroyed in the Great Fire and the new hall was rebuilt on that site in the 1670’s.

 

 

The church of St. Michael Paternoster sits in its own little park with a birdbath fountain and raised flower beds.  A quiet, shady place to contemplate the beautiful steeple.

 

 

 

This was Dick Whittington’s church.  Born about 1350, he eventually became a four-time Lord Mayor of London, but the facts of his life vary wildly from the many myths that surround him.  As a dealer in luxury cloth with royal connections, Dick Wittington became rich and upon his death he made many generous bequests to the City for the benefit of the poor.

However, the myth with which he is remembered is almost a direct opposite to the truth, but much more amusing.  The myth says that he was a poor boy who walked to London to seek his fortune.  He went to work for a rich merchant, living in the attic of the merchant’s house.  He kept a cat to catch the rats in the attic and found that the cat was an excellent ratter.  The merchant invited his servants to invest in his next trading voyage.  Dick had no money to invest but offered his cat which was taken on the voyage.  The ship returned a year later with a fabulous cargo and a fortune in gold for Dick.  It seems that when the ship arrived in the foreign land, they learned that the king’s court was overrun by rats.  The captain presented the ship’s cat to the king and soon there was no longer a rat problem.  The grateful king bought the cat for a huge amount of gold.  Now a very wealthy man, Dick married the merchant’s daughter and eventually became Lord Mayor of London.

We crossed the paved churchyard of St. Mary le Bow, one of the more famous churches in London. 

The London home of the archbishops of Canterbury from around 1080, this medieval church has survived three devastating collapses, was  completely destroyed in the Great Fire, was rebuilt by Wren, destroyed in 1941, was again rebuilt and re-consecrated in 1964.  Whew!  Now that’s perseverance. 

A golden dragon weathervane tops the ornate, colonnaded steeple.  It probably should be a phoenix.

A long row of taxis stretched along Cheapside and traffic came to a standstill.  The church bells started to ring and tolled on and on, giving the impression that there was some kind of disaster happening somewhere but it must have been a memorial for some reason.   

After a few minutes the ringing of the bells became very eerie and unsettling as it went on and on.  We were not the only people who were relieved when the bells finally stopped.  I never did find out the reason.

Everywhere we walked there were unusual modern buildings mixed with the old.  Striking and eclectic was a grand entrance bordered with Grecian statues surrounded by glass and steel.  I don’t know if it is progressive or eccentric but design is really being pushed in London and Londoners are quick to give these new additions nicknames.

The Monument commemorates the Great Fire of 1666 and the rebuilding of the city. It is surrounded by nondescript buildings and a steady flow of traffic constantly streams past.  A great crane keeps it company, watching over what was at this time a construction site for one of the nearby buildings.  The gigantic column crowds the busy space, demanding a moment to contemplate what it stands for.  The column is 202 feet tall, the exact distance between it and the site of the bakery in Pudding Lane where the fire began.  A cantilevered stone staircase leads to a viewing platform.  The Monument was completed in 1677.  The first suicide happened in 1788, 111 years later.  Among those who jumped from the gallery were 2 bakers and the daughter of a baker.  What is it about that profession?  This led to the iron bars which enclose the viewing platform.

On the other end of Fish Street Hill is St. Magnus the Martyr with a tiny cupola on top of the domed steeple. We entered the tiny churchyard garden through the deep passageway built into the tower, a remnant of the medieval London Bridge through which pedestrians walked to cross over the Thames.

 

 

 

In the garden are several curved stones from the bridge and a timber from a Roman wharf that was found during excavations nearby, dated 75 AD. St. Magnus the Martyr has the distinction of being one of the churches that survived the Great Fire but it was razed anyway and rebuilt by Wren.

I was really looking forward to St. Dunstan in the East, a ruined church that has been turned into a peaceful garden in the middle of the city.

St .Dunstan in the East on St. Dunstan’s Hill was damaged in the Great Fire, was patched up over the years and later a Gothic steeple by Wren was added.  In the 1800’s the church was completely rebuilt around the Wren steeple.  After being gutted during the Blitz, it was decided not to rebuild.  Once again the steeple survived. 

A garden was designed inside the nave with leafy trees and flowering plants.  Vines cling tenaciously to walls pierced by Gothic windows and tumble from the open roof.  The overgrown ruins evoke an air of mystery and frame the square tower with the lovely and elegant Wren steeple.  I’ve never seen two of his that were the same.

There was a building at Great Tower Street and Mincing Street that I called medieval modern because it looked like someone’s modern take on a castle.  In one direction was the building that I thought looked like a giant speaker, but which Londoners call The Walkie Talkie.

It’s 20 Fenchurch and is gaining fame for its Sky Garden.  In the other direction the Guerkin can be seen, just beyond its more conventional neighbors.

 

Where Great Tower Street meets Lower Thames we found The Hung Drawn and Quartered pub.  The after work crowd had spilled out onto the street, drinking and having a great time.  I’ve been surprised to see that people are allowed to drink standing around outside on the sidewalk.

Reflected in the dark glass of a modern building All Hallows By The Tower seems mysterious, but maybe that has something to do with the name which Americans associate with Halloween.

All Hallows, the oldest church in London and dating from 675 in Saxon times looks old, in a good way, rebuilt and pieced together through the years.  The stone façade has the original 7^th century arched doorway.  The red brick tower was added in 1659 and the slender copper clad steeple added later.    

 

 

 

I couldn’t find any information on the tracery windows on the side of the building. The wide windows have a flattened arch and are fitted with clear leaded glass in tall, narrow sections with a half trefoil design at the top.

 

Unusual and beautiful.  Along the façade are similar windows, best seen from inside, again with clear glass but inset with painted and stained glass emblems commemorating people and companies involved in shipping, beautifully designed and very colorful.

 

 

Ship models hang from the ceiling, perfect miniatures from the past. The elaborate font cover was carved of wood by Grinling Gibbons and is very famous.  John Quincy Adams was married in this church.  William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, was baptized and educated in the church.  During the Great Fire the diarist Samuel Pepys watched London burn from the tower. 

 

Just beyond All Hallows are the crennalated walls and turrets of the Tower of London with the blush of sunset behind and a rising moon.

Tower of London by moonlight

Near the steps up to the tube station is a large piece of the old Roman Wall and a statue of the Emperor Trajan. We caught the tube back to the hotel.   Kim’s a trooper but still doesn’t feel well.  Stopped for more cold meds to try to ease some of the symptoms.

Friday         St. Pancras and Highgate Cemetery

We caught the bus on Victoria, passing through Trafalgar Square and up Tottenham Court Road to Bayley Street for breakfast at Gail’s Artisan Bakery. The tiny café is attached to a small hotel and there isn’t much room inside but what is there is filled with the most wonderful assortment of baked goods. The sugar buns were incredible.  I bought one for later as well.

We walked through Bedford Square, past the Georgian houses, some with blue plaques denoting historical people.  The British Museum was opened in 1857 and holds a collection spanning over 2 million years of history.  We arrived at the entrance on Great Russell Street and walked to the wide steps leading into the colonnade porch.

Scattered around the courtyard were small groups of people sitting in the sun, studying or, like us, entering the museum.  Just inside is the Grand Court with the iconic glass, cast iron and concrete ceiling.  A huge British lion lies in wait. 

Among all of their other treasures, our quest was to see the Elgin Marbles that were stripped from the Parthenon in Athens and brought to England by Lord Elgin.  It didn’t take long to find them among quite a few other Grecian statues and large relief panels where the horses seemed to be galloping out of the marble.  The Elgin carvings from the pediment are familiar and it is amazing to see something I have been hearing about for years, but I can’t help thinking they should not have been taken or should be returned to Greece.

It took some looking but we finally found the Flood Tablet, a fragment of clay inscribed in cuneiform relating the Epic of Gilgamesh.  The Babylonian account caused a sensation when it was deciphered here in 1872 because it was so similar to the story in the bible of Noah and the Flood.  The tablet is so small that we walked past the display case several times and finally had to ask for its location. 

In the bookstore window was a unique display stand of books which formed a complete circle. Practical or not, it was really cool.

We were disappointed to learn that the vast round reading room was closed for renovation and in the future will only be used for special exhibits. A waitress at the restaurant on the second floor took us to a place where we could catch a glimpse of the beautiful glass dome. At the time there was no opening date planned.

Across the street is the Museum Tavern with a façade of dark wood inset with etched glass windows. There’s been a pub here since the 18th century, one of which was called the Dog and Duck.  I love the old pubs, the ornate facades, the imaginative carved woodwork, and the wonderful signs.  On the opposite corner we visited a large souvenir shop but I had no luck finding a pop up card with the skyline of London.  It would have made a great souvenir of the city.

Sitting on one side of Russell Square we came to the enormous Hotel Russell, where we almost stayed.  Too late to book a double room, I had decided to try to find a great hotel in Westminster.  Even with the good transportation available around the hotel, Westminster is a much better location, especially for the first time visitor.

The Hotel Russell in Bloomsbury was built in 1898 in the tradition of The Great Midland and Great Eastern hotels, if not quite as mammoth or opulent.  The huge red and white edifice faced with terra cotta fills an entire block with views of Russell Square, a sizeable park just across the street.  The Palatial design has an intricate façade with balconies that line the second floor. The Renaissance entranceway sits under a Dutch revival roofline that is flanked by embedded turrets with cone-shaped roofs of copper.   Four stylized statues of queens of England stand in canopied niches beside the entrance and have suites in the hotel named for them. But their clothes give more clues to their identities than their idealized faces. Elizabeth wears her famous ruff and Victoria is probably the one holding the orb. The statues of Mary and Anne, on the other hand, are assumed to be James II’s daughters. Anne’s gown fits the times but Mary’s seems to belong to a much earlier date.   As a Catholic, Tudor Mary probably would not have been chosen to stand beside her half sister, but the gown she wears seems more consistent with Elizabeth’s than that of James’ daughters. 

Cupids cavort on the dark cast iron lampposts and dance in ribbons of stone on columns that ornament the steps leading into the hotel. The foyer is decorated in colored marble, the different patterns and colors fitted together like a puzzle. Over the doorway to the Woburn Suite is a lovely fan light of painted and stained glass.  The golden marble staircase leads up to a dragon on the second floor; the dragon’s twin now lies on the ocean floor in the wreck of the Titanic.

It really is a nice touch to our day that every little convenience store we stopped in has the flavored Volvic water we are so fond of.

After seeing the Russell, I could hardly wait to make our way to Euston Road but I don’t think I was really prepared for how enormous the incredible building is that houses the hotel and the train station.  The sweeping curve of the driveway leads to the entrance of the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel.

The St. Pancras began as the Midland Grand Hotel in 1873, sharing the site with the train station. Dominating the area, the truly enormous Victorian Gothic Revival building combines red brick and terra cotta with the latest innovations in iron construction.

Because of the clock tower, for awhile the hotel was the tallest building in England   The rooftop is crowded with spires, towers, crennalated turrets and sections of small gables.  A stone balustrade runs along the length of the roofline held up by hundreds of corbels.

 

 

The grand entrance of orange, red and creamy stone is subtly lit to make it glow and opens into an enormous reception area which is roofed in glass.

Off the lobby is the restaurant which would not put a cathedral to shame with a high beamed ceiling and wall of Gothic alcoves each with tall leaded glass windows. The hotel was built with new fangled devices like revolving doors and lifts (called ascending chambers), but there was no running water.  A Ladies Smoking Room must have been just this side of scandalous in its day.

A statue of Sir John Betjeman serves as a monument to the work he did to save St. Pancras from demolition in the 1960’s.  The effort of several organizations allowed the grand building time to find someone with the money and the willingness to undertake the massive renovation.

Occupying the other side of the building along St. Pancras Road is the St. Pancras Train Station which at the time was the largest enclosed space in the world and is still big enough to impress.  At the time the skeleton of the vaulted canopy of iron and glass was painted light blue to melt into the sky.

Across the street is the yellow brick King’s Cross terminal, built in 1852. The recently restored Victorian station is set back in a square paved in York stone.  Huge semicircular windows flank the square clock tower. 

In the very bright, modern concourse of the Kings Cross Station, a metal structure rises out of the floor and flows upward to cover the ceiling. It looks like a tornado of mesh, caught suddenly in mid-spin.  The crisscrossed geometric pattern is static, but gives the impression that at any given moment it will begin to turn.

Right now one of the main attractions of Kings Cross Station is that this is the location of Platform 9 3/4 in the Harry Potter books where the wizarding students catch the train to Hogwarts.  Next to the entrance for Platforms 9, 10 and 11 is the arched wall between Platforms 4 and 5 where an enterprising person has set up a luggage cart or rather half of a luggage cart that seems to be disappearing into the brick wall.  A large crowd of people were waiting in line to have their pictures taken at that iconic place.  Next door is the Harry Potter store, stuffed with a great variety of quality merchandise.  The small shop was so crowded that all we could do was shuffle slowly up one aisle and down the other.

Highgate Cemetery has always been at the top of my must-see list.  Getting there meant leaving from the bus stop at the St. Pancras train station. 

Knowing I would be able to see the hotel was just the cherry on top.  Waiting for the bus gave us a few more minutes to admire the details of the building.

 

Highgate Cemetery has two sides, the West section which is the oldest part, overgrown and very Victorian and the newer East section which is open to the public.  The only way you can see the West side is on a tour by appointment and tickets sell out quickly, so I had scheduled it on-line.

Highgate Cemetery is one of the seven cemeteries around London built in the 1800’s because the smaller city cemeteries had reached their capacity and were already a health hazard.  Before long Highgate became the fashionable place to be buried and, being Victorian, their tombs had to be elaborate and memorable.

We were let off the bus in the little town and stopped for water before making our way to the cemetery. We had wandered around for some time, not seeing any signs, when a kind lady pointed the way.  The entrance to the West section of Highgate is through a Gothic style building topped with wooden turrets.  We checked in at the tiny chapel and had only a few minutes to wait.   An archway beneath the bell-tower opens into the courtyard where we joined our small group. 

 

Our guide took us along the winding paths, telling stores and pointing out certain graves.

 

 

There are dozens of angels and crosses of every description, overgrown with lichen and softened with moss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tombstones lean in ragged rows, draped with vines and half obscured.  The caretakers don’t tend the cemetery like a garden, allowing the stones to move as tree roots lift them or wind and water loosen the soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Egyptian Avenue leads to an archway and up past stone crypts holding dusty remains in niches buried deep in the darkness.  Looking back through the archway an angel is framed by stone walls and delicate hanging vines.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

The light was beautiful, striking down through the leaves and spreading through the trees.   Clusters of stone crosses stand in a greenish glow, the white marble soft in the shadows.

 

One tomb looked like Ta Prong in Cambodia, with thick vines climbing over the sarcophagus.

Along with the carved florals and elegant designs, several dogs stand guard over the tombs of their masters and Nero, a famous lion, sleeps on the tomb of his owner, who owned several menageries. 

 

Highgate is wildly overgrown with towering trees and lush undergrowth. Soft green sunlight filters through the leaves lighting a row of tombstones leaning drunkenly against one another. 

There are angels everywhere, some strong, some lithe, some hefting crosses or strolling through the woods.

 

 

 

The curving path is lined by table tombs; the aging stones covered with patches of lichen, which smooth and soften the edges.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A tomb like a small chapel sits next to an obelisk.  Sunlight strikes white marble half hidden among the trees.  It’s a perfect day to visit.  A gloomy day would not reveal her secrets.

As we were coming to the end of the tour, our guide led us to a tomb which had been gently cleared of vegetation.  The white marble figure that lay sleeping on the top was one of the loveliest angels I have ever seen.

Our guide told us that the sleeping angel was discovered when they were tending some storm damage.  Shortly thereafter a branch fell from a tree and chipped off the tip of her wing.

After all that time when she was in hiding, she was fine. I guess it says something about leaving things as they are.  Now they have to find the money to restore her. 

We returned to our starting point in the chapel where our guide had a few more stories to tell. With some time to spare we crossed the road to the East section and more angels, too many to count on both sides.  

The East section was interesting but the tombs are not as ornate and the grounds not overgrown or crowded as they are in the West section, definitely the side to see.

Back in the village of Highgate we stopped in Cucina Italiana for margherita pizza and a salad.  The owner was from Naples, so we talked about friends we know living there and that we would be visiting next year.

From Highgate High Street we passed a few more interesting buildings along the way and took the tube to Tower Bridge station.

The Old Crown Inn

 

 

St. Joseph’s Highgate Hill

 

 

 

It was too late to go up into the tower but the  sun was setting over the Thames so we stopped for “golden hour” pictures of the bridge then took the river cruise back to the pier at Westminster Bridge. 

The Thames boat ride was included in the city pass and all we had to do was check in and join the line.  The open top deck was lined with seats already half full.  

There were great views of the fine buildings on both sides, beginning with the Shard in Southwark.   The modern Walkie Talkie looms over the Old Billingsgate Market from Victorian times with golden dolphins and a large golden fish on the weathervane adorning the roof.

The steeple of St. Magnus the Martyr holds its own in the shadow of modern neighbors and down the street I could see the top of the Monument.   The Fishmongers Hall, home of one of the oldest of the city’s livery companies, stands at the foot of London Bridge. 

We glided under London Bridge, passing the Cannon Street Station just as a train was passing over the railway bridge.

Further up the river were the graceful green arches of Southwark Bridge and then the gigantic chimney of the Tate Modern at the Millennium Bridge.  This is the underside of Southwark Bridge.  It’s interesting to see the underside of the famous bridges and the way they were constructed. Each bridge was very different.

 

 

Just after Old Stumpy and Blackfriars Bridge a trio of beauties caught my eye:   the curve of the Art Deco Unilever building flows toward the High Victorian City of London School that looks more like a French chateau than a boy’s school. 

 

 

 

 

They are joined by Sion Hall,  a brilliant Gothic castle with all the bells and whistles.

 

 

 

We passed under Waterloo Bridge, built mostly by women during the war, and Hungerford Footbridge,  renamed for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.   The towers and turrets of the Royal Horseguards Hotel are visible just over the treetops.  As we floated along the London Eye kept getting bigger and bigger.

 

 

 

 

 

Too soon we were making a wide loop into Westminster Pier with Parliament silhouetted against the sky.

 

Westminster Pier

The river cruise is a great way to see a different view of London and the river that is so much a part of the city.  There is another river cruise that goes downriver to Greenwich which would give many interesting views and it also goes under the Tower Bridge near the massive supporting piers.

We left the Thames and made our way up through Parliament Square.  The solid grey Middlesex Guildhall, home to the Supreme Court, was opened in 1913.  The Art Nouveau Gothic design, built in Portland stone, makes the building look much older than it is.  Across the way is the huge blue dome of the Methodist Central Hall, built to honor the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. Swags of stone decorate the columned façade.

At the Prince Albert pub on Victoria Street we fought through a very noisy, crowded bar to the stairway up to the dining room. We’d passed the Albert several times and knew a little of its history.  It’s an eye-catcher, built of yellow brick with original wrought iron balconies bright with flower boxes.

The pub survived the Blitz and there are still Victorian touches, shiny brass fixtures, an elegant ceiling, and windows with hand-etched frosted glass.  It’s one of the oldest pubs, built in 1862 on the site of the Blue Coat Boy pub, named for the charity school nearby.  When the pub was bought by the Artillery Brewery it was renamed The Albert in tribute to the Prince Consort. It is the only remaining building from the original development of Victoria Street.  I never got used to the doors of restaurants and public buildings opening in.

Saturday      Portobello Market and Little Venice

Our day began by heading off to the weekend market on Portobello Road in Notting Hill.  My carefully planned route on the tube was foiled because on this Saturday the underground did not go to Notting Hill Gate Station so we got out at the end of the line, figuring that we were close enough to walk the rest of the way.  There’s almost always plenty to see and we had not been in this area before.

On Kensington High Street outside Stafford Court, there was an old drinking fountain dated to 1900, made from the omnipresent Portland Stone.   It has an arched top and is decorated with shells and cherubs.

The Flower Corner

A short distance away is the bright display of a flower shop in front of the entrance to the cloisters of St. Mary Abbots.

We passed a giant tree that was eating the church’s wrought iron fence.  The entrance of the tiny Prince of Wales pub is flanked by fat marble columns now painted black.  It was a nice walk past things we wouldn’t have seen riding the tube and the weather was fine.

Notting Hill is a lovely little neighborhood and the streets leading up to Portobello Road are lined with colorful little matching houses.  The author George Orwell lived at number 22 and, in the area, people still look for the blue door and the travel book shop, locations in the Hugh Grant film, Notting Hill. 

At Chepstow Villas the market begins, continuing for several blocks along both sides of the road already cheek by jowl with the regular brick and mortar shops which occupy the sides streets as well.

Booths are set up curbside and overflow, leaving a walkway down the middle of the street.  There is no rhyme or reason to the way we saw the market, just a wandering from side to side, stopping when something caught our eye.  From a booth filled with a blinding display of silver to antique hardware and glass, paintings and posters, hand-crafted metal stamps, boutique clothing and hats (the fashionable fascinators were so pretty), souvenirs, t-shirts and everything in between is packed into this small area.

We stopped for breakfast at Gail’s Artisan Bakery. The Portobello location is a very busy little café, crowded but the service was fast and friendly.  Great cappuccinos and oh, those sugar buns!  Layers of croissant dough sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon are rolled up and baked in cupcake tins.  Warm, sweet, crispy, and wonderful.  A bottled lemonade was so strong I kept adding water to dilute it, but it was cold and thirst quenching and it lasted all day.

Kim found a lovely little silver case.  She is seldom so taken with things that I am often tempted to buy but this one made her smile.  We quickly found a cash machine and made it hers.  I looked over the hat pins that I had seen on Antiques Roadshow, but none stood out over the hundreds that were there.  They all seemed like something I could have put them together with a few interesting beads.

Down Portobello Road we walked back and forth and side to side until we got to the fruit and vegetable section.  Having reached the end of the market we decided it was time to make our way to Little Venice.  Again, because the subway wasn’t running, we caught a bus which left us with a 10 minute walk to Little Venice and far from the tube station near Paddington Basin from which I had planned our walk.  Best laid plans!

Little Venice is where Regent’s Canal and Grand Union Canal meet.  Robert Browning lived there and it’s said he or Lord Byron named it.  The village around the basin where Jason’s Canal Cruise was berthed seems small and quaint with Victorian and Regency architecture adding charm to Maida Vale.  Long ago canal boats carried cargo along the waterways before they were converted to carry passengers.   Horses towed the narrow boats along the towpaths, which are now sidewalks. There are breweries, waterside cafes, restaurants and inns, offering all kinds of choices.

One small tragedy for Maida Vale is that The Carlton Tavern, built in the 1920’s with its original interiors still intact, the only building on the street to survive the Blitz, was demolished just days before it was to become a listed building.

My first plan had been to walk the towpath along the canal to Regent’s Park, seeing the zebra crossing and saying hello to the Beatles and Abbey Road Studios at the same time. Plan B would be to take the canal boat cruise which was scheduled to leave at 2:15.  With several hours to decide on our options we decided to make our way to Paddington Basin to see the rolling bridge, even though it was the wrong day for it to be unrolled.  Just off the basin is St. Mary’s Hospital where Prince William was born.  The building is old and ornate and there is a nice entrance gate.

I do a lot of research and end up with pages of notes. I make plans that would be useful for the area.  But it is a hassle to check at times and toward the end of the trip I sometimes think – oh, to hell with it.  Later I find I missed something because I didn’t look at my notes or I missed the map I had gone to such trouble to include.  There’s no right or wrong, it just is.  You can’t see everything and stuff will happen.  Because we didn’t arrive at the tube station we missed the hospital and the rolling bridge.  Because I didn’t look at my map, we took a wrong turn which entailed twice as much walking and time and we ended up reaching Paddington Basin but far from where we wanted to be.  I guess the TIP would be, if you don’t look at your notes, don’t let the fact that you didn’t bother you.

Instead of following the map I had so carefully made we wove our way through various streets and through a park, passing the Church of St. Mary with a tomb in the front yard. 

 

 

 

                         After many wrong turns we finally reached Paddington Basin and were greeted by the strange sight of a boat overflowing with pots of flowers and other colorful paraphernalia, as well as a fully dressed manikin.

We walked around for a bit but didn’t see anything else interesting.  Spotting a Starbucks we stopped for a rest and frappucinos then headed back. 

Having already walked so much we decided to take Jason’s canal boat cruise which would take us into Camden Town.

 

Our London Passes had expired so we paid for the cruise and climbed aboard.

The authentic 108-year old narrow barge, filled with loose chairs and elbow to elbow people, slipped into Regent’s Canal and under the first bridge. 

 

 

Barges turned into houseboats were moored together, colorfully decorated with personal touches, potted plant gardens on their decks and curtains on the windows.  Other barges, painted in a rainbow of primary tones, hugged the sides of the canal, all similar but showing their individuality.  Part of the canal passes under the roadway and through a long tunnel.  People on the towpath were enjoying the weather as they walked or rode bicycles. 

Primrose Hill is on the left side and Regent’s Park is on the right. Both were Henry VIII’s hunting grounds, but in the early 1800’s the parks began to be developed and the area became a fashionable address for the wealthy. The top of Primrose Hill has great day and night views of Central London.  Regent’s Park is also the location of the London Zoo.

As the barge passed through Cumberland Basin we caught a glimpse of the bright red Feng Shang Princess, a two story floating oriental restaurant.

Minutes later we glided into Camden Town through the brilliant green duckweed that covers the surface of the water.

The town looks like it could be right out of a Dickens’ book.

We moored and stepped out onto the dock and that is where the similarity ended. Camden Town surrounds the basin; the old buildings that serviced the Regent’s Canal are now restaurants and tourist venues.

The town was horribly crowded, absolutely shoulder to shoulder with people. From the time we got off the boat it was one step at a time just trying to work our way through the people to try to get away from the waterfront.  There was no way to see the buildings, find the market or even discover the area.   Finally we reached the edge of the crowd.  We boarded a bus headed in the back to the city and hoped for the best.  Soon we were right in the middle of the most horrendous traffic jam.  At a cross street when no vehicle could move because several buses had jammed the intersection, it took us six lights to get through.  Exasperating but what can you do?  It was fun to see the British Museum as we passed by, to recognize places we had been and street names which gave us an idea where we were.

Our last must-do thing on the list was to go to the top of Tower Bridge.  Today was our last full day and we would only have a few hours tomorrow morning before we had to leave for the airport.

When a new bridge was needed to cross the Thames, Queen Victoria wanted one to blend in with the faux medieval additions to the Tower of London. Tower Bridge, clad in stone to protect the steel framework and give it a more Gothic look, opened in 1894.

The Tower Bridge was a huge disappointment, not the view from both banks, but for the “experience”.  We bought our tickets and took the elevator to the top. The high-level walkway that connects the north and south towers is enclosed by glass with a metal structure that blocks the view so you can only see the city in sections.  A large square of glass was installed in a small section of the floor  where you can look down and watch the bridge as it opens and closes.

The interior didn’t offer much to see except for the thick wooden banisters in the south tower that curve down the staircase and the charming Gothic windows that look down upon the roadway. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between the struts the view was grand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A much better way to see Tower Bridge is free by walking over the bridge, stopping to enjoy the unobstructed views upstream and down and continuing along both banks.

Kim did not like the blue paint on all the details which dates from 1977, when it was painted blue with red and white details to mark the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. It used to be chocolate brown and definitely suited its castle appearance better.

It’s especially interesting to stand under the towers and look up. There are gargoyles watching overhead and leaded Gothic windows.

The cables and the hardware of its construction are enormous but look very delicate against the study grey towers.

I had checked the lift times for the bridge; they are posted on-line.  For some reason the times were not correct on the previous day, but we just happened to be there when the bascules were raised for a boat that was passing through and we had a great view standing by the dolphin fountain on bankside.  In fact the opening and closing of the bridge lasts so long that we were able to get several different views of it. 

 

We crossed to Southwark which stands at the oldest crossing point of the Thames and was, for many centuries, the only riverside entrance to the city.

We ate at the Strada restaurant on the south bank.  At first we asked to sit outside but it was too windy; the placemats and napkins kept blowing away so we moved inside.  Floor to ceiling windows offered views of The Tower of London and Tower Bridge, bathed in a sunset glow. 

 

 

 

 

My ravioli was barely warm even after reheating and Kim’s salmon salad had no taste; they had forgotten the dressing. After eating a so-so meal we noticed another Cote restaurant just a few doors down.  Having thought that Cote was one of a kind, we wondered if we had just missed another fabulous meal.  Later I found out that Strada was a same company as the Highgate Cucina Italiana where we had had a very good pizza.  You just never know.  It’s all a part of traveling, hoping for the best and taking everything in stride.

Sunday           Our Last Day in London

We finished our packing begun the night before, brought the bags to the lobby and checked out, leaving the luggage in their care. Our last breakfast was at the Royal Quarter.  Kim ordered French toast again.  I had a cappuccino and finished my last sugar bun from Gail’s Artisan Bakery.  Although at the moment I could not have eaten another one, I knew I would miss them in the near future, especially after I got home.

We took a walk to say goodbye to London, starting in Kensington with its lovely tree-lined streets and beautiful houses. The huge expanse of Hyde Park is cut with wide paths that wind through towering trees and luscious lawns, leading  past Wellington Arch and into the bustle of people that always seems to be happening around Buckingham Palace.

   

 

 

 

 

The green spaces are filled with flower beds that swirl through the grass, bright with stripes of red and patches of blue. The gilded wrought iron Canada Gates of Green Park glitter in the distance, closed now but they don’t keep people out. 

The Mall is a pedestrian walkway today with lots of people out in the sunshine.

 

 

 

Queen Victoria’s memorial is blazingly white in the sun.     She is looking a little grumpy,  enthroned at the front of a magnificent column that is topped with a gilded angel, Winged Victory.

 

 

 

Buckingham Palace is her backdrop, a fitting reminder that she was one of the first persons to live there.

 

She is surrounded by marble statues, one of which represents Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

I call this “copy cat”.

 

 

We sat in the sun, people watching, then headed back to the hotel, past our Starbucks and New Scotland Yard. We retrieved our luggage from the lobby and waited for our ride on the porch.  Our driver was right on time.  Our last ride took us through Kensington, down Victoria Street and past Harrods, driving along some of the same streets we had walked that morning and then out of the city.

Kim is still fighting her cold, but she had made a pop-up Kleenex bag out of her carryon, so that a tissue was dispensed automatically through the drawstring opening.   Clever girl.

We got to the airport and went through customs and security. Spent a lot of time checking in at one point until I thought there might be a delay, but we were finally passed on.  Our British Airways flight left on time, but the seats were very close together.  People were commenting that they had never seen such a small amount of legroom on any other flight.  British Airways joins Air France on our Never-Fly-Them-Again list.  We arrived back on time, thankful that we are so close to home.  Took the shuttle back to the car and stopped at In and Out on the way home.

Comments and Remembrances:

Each day shows where we walked in a day which should give you an idea of how you want to spend your time for a more in-depth visit.  Our days are long, beginning around 9:00 am.  Lots of places don’t open until 10, so take some time for a good breakfast.  We often don’t get back to the hotel before dark, but make sure you have something to eat before you take that wonderful shower and settle down.  I can guarantee you will wish you had.  If some of the photos are not the best, they are at least explanatory and for me, they spark a memory.

There were little disappointments, among them two days of rain which I should have expected in London.  Actually it was kind of funny seeing all the huge black umbrellas shoot out of nowhere and suddenly take over the sidewalk, moving along like a giant centipede.  But they also do not watch where they are going or have any idea what that umbrella is doing as they rush along.  September is supposed to be one of the driest months and the chance of rain decreases later in the month.  (paraphrased from a reliable guide).

One note about St. Ermins Hotel in Westminster. I requested a room with a view of the courtyard and we were given one overlooking an alley with heating and cooling units.  During the night we were awakened quite often by a noise that sounded like people were moving furniture around. We asked the maids and other employees if they knew what was making the noise but they did not know.  Kim said she heard dishes clinking sometimes.  We finally went searching and found there was a service elevator nearby which must have been the problem.  It appears that elevator was used quite often all night long.  We mentioned it at check out and, after a consultation with her manager, they gave us a small discount.

Westminster was a great location, but as pretty as the St. Ermin’s is, inside and out, and with its interesting history of spying, I would look for another hotel in the area, maybe see how much the least expensive rooms are at the St. James Court.

The area around Victoria Station was in the middle of a huge remodel and the Little Ben clock was put away for safe keeping so we missed seeing it. The reading room at the British Museum was closed for renovations and we could only peek through an outside window.  There is a huge gap in the photographs because you’re not allowed to take pictures in St. Paul’s or Westminster Abbey.  I can understand Parliament because it is a secure government building, although they did allow pictures in the old Westminster Hall.

Tip: If a major site does not allow photographs, buy the guidebook.  Most places have a gift shop and sell beautifully photographed postcards or a booklet.  When all else fails, you can usually find a picture book on-line, but it is so much better to buy it there as a souvenir of the country.

History is everywhere in London, in cobblestone streets, in the elaborate antique store fronts, in leaded and stained glass, in crosses and weathervanes, along famous streets and tiny alleys, over bridges and along the river, and in the stone of statues and grand buildings that march through changing times and remind us of the past. I loved the evocative signs on pubs and shops, the polished brass, the lampposts, all different sizes and types but all added to the ambiance, whether historically accurate or not.

I had read London by Edward Rutherfurd which has a wealth of information about life in the early years of the city’s growth.  This just added to the things I saw.  For example, in the name of churches, the first name is the saint the church is dedicated to and the second is the name of the benefactor or the area in which it was built, St. Lawrence Silversleeves became St. Lawrence Jewry.

When I got home I started reading a mystery and found that some of the action took place in London.  I followed the couple as they made their way around the city and in fact as they raced across the grounds of Hampton Court.  Fun to see the places in my head instead of only imagining them.

I think that the huge hanging baskets spilling over with begonias and other bright annuals which decorate pubs and hang on fences are a throw back from medieval times when the city was filthy and smelly. The streets were cesspools of manure, butchers’ offal and every other waste one could imagine.  The stench would have been unbearable.  There is a record of the Black Prince’s house on Fishmongers Street which had huge hanging baskets of herbs all over it, to mitigate the smell.

The flowers are not needed for that purpose anymore but I’m glad they’ve kept the custom because the enormous baskets, looking so happy and healthy that you would think everyone in England had a green thumb, were one of the things I will never forget.

Any trip should involve a little history, a little architecture, a little tourism and a lot of humor.

I read in Sarum, again by Edward Rutherfurd about a thatcher’s mark that the craftsman affixes to the roof to show who did the work.  The traditional craft of Britain uses straw or grasses, tied in bundles and pegged into place.  When a thatcher thatches a roof he leaves his mark, usually in a   distinctive pattern in the thatch itself or as a small animal or bird made of thatch.  Well, I wanted to see if there were pictures or more information about the marks so I Googled thatcher’s mark and got Mark Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher’s son.  It is a huge topic of scandal in London that when Margaret Thatcher died, her daughter sold off over 4 million bps of her mother’s personal possessions and Margaret’s son is not happy about it.  The auctioned stuff went mostly to Korea and there is little left for her museum.  Anyway, I never found out about the thatcher’s mark because I was drawn into the scandal.

Later while looking for Five Kings House because I wanted to label one of my pictures, I found another incredible website for London, Ornamental Passions, with pictures around London of stone carvings, statues and details on buildings with explanations and even their locations.  The site also links to several other fabulous sites which I just sampled but want to go back to.  Another website with a truly unbelievable amount of interesting information is The Knowledge of London.

And then I noticed that hours had passed. The computer had eaten up another day, absorbing time like a sponge.  At least it’s  not wasted in a video game, although sometimes it feels like one.  The afternoon is gone.  I’ve done absolutely nothing and had a great time doing it.

Tip: Always look up.  I don’t know why most of the ceilings were so decorative in earlier days.  Maybe it was that life was so hard that they looked up to heaven for something better.

We didn’t go in all the buildings. You have to decide how thorough you want to be.  My searches for London included Wren churches and especially steeples and residential towers, old statures and details on buildings, the oldest pubs that survived the fire, and things most tourists don’t see.  Wrap all that up with the places you must see and then assume you’re going to miss some.  Most of all, enjoy the days which will pass much too quickly.