5^th October 2013 – another busy London day.

We did a lot today, but we also had a lot of little things going wrong. Mostly, things kept being closed – today is a Saturday, but that is no excuse!

In to London again on the train – we’ve worked out the system now and managed to catch the express which got us to Paddington in less than 20 minutes. Our first stop was St Paul’s Cathedral – the beautiful church designed by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London in 1666, with a dome unlike anything any Londoner had ever seen – including Christopher Wren! He knew the theory but had never actually seen it in practise.  

From there, the next little while was a bit frustrating, really! We had a pleasant enough little stroll past the Temple Bar, a gate also designed by Christopher Wren following the Great Fire but originally in a different location, then sold by the city in the 19th Century when it was causing traffic congestion (it was bought by owners of a stately home in the country) and finally returned to a traffic-free location in 2004.  Wandered on through some interesting little laneways.

We wanted to visit St Bride’s church, a few blocks away. It’s a really interesting church. The current building is another Christopher Wren design, which, like St Paul’s, replaces a previous building destroyed by the Great Fire.  The name in its modern form implies weddings, and it is said to have inspired the popular shape of wedding cakes with white icing and multiple layers. The older meanings of the name are even more intriguing, though.  It’s not known how old exactly this site is as a church, but certainly very ancient. The name and some archaeological evidence hold the possibility that it is connected with St Brigid, from the era of Irish missionaries to England in the 5th or early 6th century. In other words, BEFORE the time of St Augustine, who had such an important role in introducing Christianity to England as we learnt yesterday.The history is absolutely fascinating, and a lot of it was only discovered during excavations for repairs after damage in World War II. So, it was quite disappointing to find that St Bride’s was covered in scaffolding and also closed for the day.

Not too daunted by this disappointment, we headed for Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub built directly after the Great Fire and full of fascinating old nooks and crannies. This is on Fleet Street, an area of London which was associated with writers and newspapers for centuries, and the pub is said to have been a favourite of any number of well-known London literary names from 1667 onwards. Guess what? It was closed too.

Never to worry – Fleet Street and the neighbouring districts are full of interesting places to see, and we were only a block or two from the Temple church. This is older again, a unique 12th-Century round church with square chancel, built by the Knights Templar mediaeval military order. The pavement outside is made up of tombstones, many of them hundreds of years old. But – a quick quiz – do you think the church was open or closed?

Yes, it was closed to the public, although for some reason a group of business-suited, earnest-looking young people were queuing up to file in. We were clearly not going to be able to blend in enough to bluff our way through, so we had a bit of an explore of the Inns of Court area, with its narrow cobbled lanes and pleasant small garden squares. Many of the oldest buildings were damaged in the Great Fire, and there were also several buildings completely destroyed by the German bomb raids known as the Blitz in World War II.

On again down Fleet Street to where it becomes the Strand - normally a street called the Strand is at the edge of a river, beach or other body of water, unlike this one, several blocks from the Thames. This name has existed for this street for centuries, and before the embankment was built in the 19th Century, this is where the riverside reached. We saw the only building in this part of the Strand that wasn’t destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 – now a Thai restaurant just like the one in Hazelbrook.

As a brief respite from the Disappointment of Closures, we visited the Twinings shop. This tiny temple of tea is a post-Great Fire building from 1702, which has stood in its brave and dignified way while all the other buildings in the neighbourhood have been developed into larger and flashier forms. We sniffed our way through dozens of different teas and sat down for a nice cuppa in the tasting area at the back of the shop – after a brief discussion of the weather, we felt like true Londoners, drowning our disappointments in tea.

Ever onwards, to St Clements, a few doors further along. We were not even a little bit surprised by now to find that it was closed to the public today, but perhaps our British tea experience helped us to gain a new perspective. This wasn’t inexplicably closed like St Bride’s, or just not yet open like the Cheshire Cheese – this was closed with style. The front of the church was barred by a Rolls Royce bearing British and French flags. Anyway, the most important features of this church can be appreciated without going inside. Firstly, the outside of the church has been kept as a memorial of the Blitz – you can see the damage caused by German bombs. Secondly, you know the nursery rhyme? Well, the bells do indeed play Oranges and Lemons! We were there right on 12 mid-day, and we heard the whole song from the church bells.

 

                                                                                                                                         

After this, things improved. We had a picnic lunch in Bloomsbury Square, then walked up to the British Museum. What an amazing place – we stayed for hours, until we were thoroughly exhausted, but we didn’t see much of the collection at all. Like the National Gallery, it’s hard to get away, because you can always see something amazing around the next corner.

We did manage to see a few of the really well-known, significant things. The Lewis Chess Pieces, found in Scotland but probably made in Norway in the 12^th Century.

Some well-preserved mosaics and stonework from the Roman occupation of Britain.

The Egyptian collection.

The Rosetta Stone – what an amazing thing. The real one is behind glass; there is also a replica to touch and look at more closely.

The museum has staff at desks with a few small pieces that you can hold and touch. We held a stone-age axe head and a piece of inscribed brick from ancient Babylon with an inscription about Nebuchadnezzar II.

We then headed back to Windsor and had a walk along the river in the evening.