Month: February 2018

Although we had visited Edinburgh as part of a trip to London in 1991, 2003 was our first full trip to Scotland. We were joining a tour in Glasgow in the evening and had arrived that morning. We had booked a Hop-On/Hop-Off city tour which originated in George Square – not far from our hotel. We got checked in just fine and then walked over to George Square.

There was a marathon going on, so some of the places we wanted to see would be difficult to get to until the marathon ended. The route of the tour bus was altered until then. We were apparently on the wrong side of the marathon route as most of the locations we planned to visit would be unreachable by the tour bus for a few hours. So we decided to make do with what we could see, then have some lunch and reassess.

The commentary on the bus was live and provided by a fella who was on the upper deck (it was a double-decker, open on top). Everyone was given earbuds to be able to hear what was said clearly. The bus took off, the guy began to talk, and Mom and I looked at each other in horror. We couldn’t understand a word he said. It wasn’t a technical malfunction. It was a very strong Glaswegian accent being experienced for the first time by two Americans who had never heard a Scottish accent stronger than Billy Connolly or Sean Connery before. We thought that perhaps we had made an enormous mistake. What were we going to do if we couldn’t understand anybody the entire trip?

Fortunately the first stop we got to was a tall ship in the harbor that we wanted to explore. We got off of the bus there, took our time at the ship (which had everything written on placards, so no needing to understand what anybody was saying) and got on the next tour bus that came along once we were ready to go. This time, we were mighty relieved to be able to understand the fella doing the commentary with very little difficulty. Whew! One of the topics he talked about was explaining that, in Scotland, a jury can vote one of three ways: 1) guilty, 2) not guilty, and 3) not proven. The last one means that the jury thinks the person is likely guilty, but it wasn’t proven by the prosecution. The defendant gets to go free just the same as if they were not guilty. This is where the expression, “Getting off Scot free” comes from.

The Kelvingrove Museum, which was another place we wanted to see (and would have provided us with a couple of hours of time for exploring before the marathon ended) was closed for a major facelift. So we got off at Glasgow University to look around for a bit, then rode back to George Square. We had some lunch while I studied a map to figure out if there was a way we might be able to walk over to the Cathedral. A lovely person at the café where we were eating told us that the runners will have already been by a place where we could cross (which she pointed out on the map) by the time we would finish our lunch. Now we had a plan. Happy day! We took our time eating and visiting the WC before striking off on our way to the Cathedral.

It turned out to be a bit of a hike, but it was that or return to our hotel room or just sit and stare in George Square. The area where the Cathedral was located also included Provand’s Lordship and St Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art.

Nobody is sure when St Mungo (also known as Kentigern) was born. But he died in 614. He built his first church where Glasgow Cathedral now stands. This is also the location where he was buried. His shrine can be seen down in the crypt. The Cathedral was built about 1136 and is considered to be a superb example of Scottish Gothic architecture. We were very disappointed that the crypt was closed (this seemed to be one of those bad timing days) and we couldn’t go down and see St Mungo’s tomb.

St Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art was designed to blend in with Provand’s Lordship, which is right across the street from it. It was an interesting place to visit and contained some beautiful art from various periods. We especially liked the medieval art they had on display. It reminded us of some of the art we had seen at The Cloisters in Upper Manhattan in New York City.

Provand’s Lordship is the oldest house in Glasgow and was built in 1471. It is a museum of medieval life and furnished with authentic 17^th century furniture. A 15^th century garden has been recreated behind the building.

After leaving Provand’s Lordship, we continued on the rest of the route until we were back in George Square again. Heading back to the hotel, a couple women from Edinburgh stopped us and asked for directions. I actually knew how to get to where they wanted to go and explained it to them. The one woman was highly amused that she had actually asked “a Yank” for directions in Glasgow. I tend to memorize maps, so I don’t have to walk around with my face in one. I always have it handy, should I need it, however. The bag that I use for my maps and cameras also doesn’t look like a camera bag. So I sometimes fool people into thinking that I likely live there as opposed to being a tourist.

One of our discoveries regarding understanding the Scots accent is that it is stronger in some areas than others and Glasgow has one of the strongest. I noticed that, some Scots, when speaking among themselves were very difficult to understand. But, if they spoke to me, I had no trouble understanding them at all. They would vary the accent according to the listener, speaking more distinctly when the listener wasn’t Scottish. There is a running joke in the UK, however, that nobody can understand a Scot but another Scot.

To further complicate matters, there are three languages can are spoken around Scotland – English, Scots and Scots Gaelic. Scots Gaelic is spoken more frequently out in the western isles than on the mainland (except in the Highlands) and is a totally different language. It is one of the Celtic languages, along with Irish Gaelic, Welsh, and Manx (spoken on the Isle of Man). One phrase that I know in Scots Gaelic is “Nollaig Chridheil” – meaning “Merry Christmas”. I know this because I have a plaid Christmas ornament I bought in Scotland with that on it.

Scots is a variant of Old English that is mainly spoken in the Lowlands. If you have ever sung “Auld Lang Syne” (which was written by Robert Burns in 1788), then you have sung a song in Scots. “Merry Christmas” in Scots is “Blithe Yule”. The song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” ends up with the following gifts having been received: one capercailzie, two bubblyjocks, three clockin hens, fower roaster dyeuks, five ingen rings, six clootie dumplins, seven trifles reemin, echt robins cheepin, nine clarsachs strumming, ten pipers piping, eleven fiddlers bowing and twai haggis puddins. A bubblyjock is a turkey.

That night we met up with our tour director, driver, and fellow travelers. The next morning we headed out on our nine day Scottish adventure where we both fell in love with the country and people of Scotland.

As with most things in life, on a trip, timing can be everything — both for good and for bad. Most of the time, there isn’t much that can be done about it either way, so it’s best to just go with it. On our 2002 trip to London, we hit three major timing situations – two that were really good and one not so good.

The first one was on the day we visited Southwark. From the Anchor Inn, we decided to walk back along the river to the Waterloo Bridge, which would take us to our hotel. We had tickets to a play that night, but had plenty of time before we needed to be at the theatre, especially since we had already gotten something to eat at the Anchor Inn.

We wanted to see the London Millennium Footbridge, which had been built after our last trip to London. When it was first opened, people were quite taken aback because it swayed. It was nicknamed the “Wobbly Bridge” and was closed again until they could stabilize it. On the Southwark side, it starts near Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and the Anchor Inn and ends across the river not too far from St Paul’s Cathedral. It’s quite graceful-looking. I didn’t get any decent photos of it as it was already starting to get somewhat dim so what I got is pretty grey.

By the time we got to the Waterloo Bridge, it was dark. We saw several people just standing around on the bridge, so we asked them what was up. We were told that they were waiting for the Lord Mayor’s Fireworks. He had done his annual parade earlier in the day, which we had missed by being on the Southwark side of the river, and was about to cap it off by setting off fireworks over the river (the combination of the parade and the fireworks is called “The Lord Mayor’s Show”). They said that the best views were from the bridge we were on. So we stuck around and chatted with folks for a few minutes and pretty soon the fireworks began.

The best part was the fact that it was in London over the Thames. It went on for about twenty minutes and then we made our way across the rest of the bridge, up to the Strand, and a short distance along the Strand to our hotel. We still made it to our play that night with no difficulties.

The not-so-good timing involved the Guildhall. We had tried to see the inside of the Guildhall a couple of times on previous trips. It is large and medieval and supposedly gorgeous. But, each time, the Guildhall itself was closed because of some function. We had managed to see the art gallery attached to it on one visit and the excavations of the Roman Amphitheatre beneath it on another. We were hoping that, this time, we would get to see the actual Guildhall itself. No such luck. The Lord Mayor was using it for a luncheon. It was closed for a few days either side of the luncheon for preparation and security reasons. So we decided to check out some other places we either wanted to revisit or had just passed by before without visiting.

Every London trip, pretty much, includes the Temple, partly because it is very close to the hotel. This time, we spent a little more time in the precincts of the Temple instead of mainly in the church. Though we still went in the church anyway. The first time we visited the church, the effigies of the knights were scattered around and you could practically trip over them. Each visit after, they seemed to show them more and more respect. This time they had them in groups and they were roped off. No tripping. No touching. By my most recent trip, they were completely fenced off and you can’t get anywhere near them. Since two of the effigies are ancestors of mine, I find that disappointing. A third ancestor is also buried there, but doesn’t have an effigy.

The entire Temple area is very nice. There are beautiful, old buildings, fountains, gardens, and the grounds where the knights would joust and drill. There is also a very cool memorial to the playwright Oliver Goldsmith, who wrote “She Stoops to Conquer”. He was buried just outside of the Temple Church.

Back through the gate out on Fleet Street, we visited St Dunstan’s Church. In the past, we had simply walked by on our way someplace else. This time we decided to see the inside. It had originally been founded between 988 and 1070. But in the early 1800s, it was removed and rebuilt over its cemetery in order to allow for the widening of Fleet Street. The interior is an unusual octagonal shape. Several of the fittings of the older church have been incorporated into the new. Both the poet, John Donne and William Tyndale (who was the first to translate the Bible into English) gave sermons or lectures in the older version of the church and Samuel Pepys was a regular.

On the other side of Fleet Street and just a short walk away, is St Bride’s. This is the church whose spire looks like a multi-layered wedding cake. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren (same guy who designed St Paul’s Cathedral) to replace the church that had been gutted by the Great Fire of 1666. Indeed the baker who created the first wedding cake was a London baker who used the steeple of St Bride’s as his inspiration.

St Bride’s origins are really ancient. It was founded by St Bridget in the 6^th century. The current church is the seventh built on the site. Remains of all seven churches can be viewed in excavations beneath the church. These excavations came about when, during the Luftwaffe bombing raids of World War II, the 6^th century foundations of the church were exposed. This is also the church where the parents of Virginia Dare, the first child born in the British colonies of what became America (in Roanoke), were married.

We stopped off at St Paul’s Cathedral to explore the area around it before heading off to the Museum of London. The museum was built in the 1970s to house items found in archeological digs and exhibits on life in London in different historical eras. There is a very good exhibit on the Great Fire of 1666 as well as what the city was like back in Victorian times, with a reproduction of a Victorian street and buildings. The route within the museum takes visitors from prehistory to the modern day in chronological order. We spent a large amount of time in the museum.

Even its location is historic as it is located on the road named London Wall that follows the course of the northern stretch of that wall. A sizeable hunk of the wall itself lies exposed just outside of the museum. The wall was begun by the Romans and then expanded by the Saxons and maintained all through medieval times plus up to the time of the Great Fire. After the Great Fire, parts of the wall were pulled down or incorporated into buildings. Another large chunk of the wall stands just outside the Tower Hill Tube Station. This piece is largely 3^rd century Roman. Some street names, such as Ludgate, Aldgate, and Cripplegate reflect where the city gates were once located.

From the museum, we went by the Guildhall and took a photo from the outside. Then we continued over towards the Tower of London and St Katherine’s Dock. Tower Hill has archeological evidence showing that it once was a Bronze Age settlement as well as a Roman site. This was part of the Londinium that Boudicca burned down during her uprising against the Romans in around 60 or 61 AD. Tower Hill is just north of the Tower of London and was the site of countless executions of prisoners who had been held in the Tower of London and were executed publically (as opposed to the private royal executions within the Tower precincts).

Just to the east of the Tower of London is St Katherine’s Dock. This was an area with warehouses for tea and spices that is now a marina for pleasure boats with shops, restaurants and flats (apartments and condos). In the midst of the marina is a lovely, 18^th century building that was either a former tea or spice warehouse or a brewery. It is the Dickens Inn, which includes a pub and a restaurant. This was where we went to have our main meal of the day. Although we couldn’t get inside of the Guildhall, we still had a memorable day.

The final example of really good timing came a couple days later when we were heading down Whitehall to visit Westminster Abbey. There were barricades along the sides of the road and police stationed at regular intervals all along the route. There weren’t a large number of people waiting to see what was going to come down the road, however, so we thought that whatever was happening wasn’t going to happen until later. Wrong.

We got about as far as Downing Street and then heard the clatter of horse’s hooves on pavement from behind. There was a low wall to sit on at that point. So Mom sat down and I got my camera out, stepped up to the barricade and started taking photos. First there were loads and loads of the mounted horseguards. Then came an ornate carriage followed by many more horseguards.

There was just me standing by the barricade and my mom sitting on the low wall. No other people at all. The police kept their eyes on us and on the area in general, but that was it. Then the carriage went by and I found myself looking face to face at the Queen, who was smiling and waving at me. I smiled and waved back. By the time I recovered my composure enough to take a picture, both she and the Duke of Edinburgh were looking the other direction. That is the photo you will see below.

What we had happened upon was the Official Opening of Parliament. Because it was near Westminster Abbey, the Abbey would be closed until 1pm. So, once all of the various guards and carriages (one held Princess Anne and another, the Prime Minister – Tony Blair) passed by, Mom and I continued down the way towards the Abbey and had some lunch at the Westminster Arms, which was near the Abbey. We ate upstairs, which is a very nice place for a good meal. The ground floor is strictly a pub and the lower level is a cool place with little blocked off areas for tables around the periphery and a very casual, pub grub kind of atmosphere.

After lunch we checked out the Field of Remembrance next to the Abbey (it had just been their version of Memorial Day shortly before we arrived in London) before visiting the Abbey itself. Afterwards we walked up to Buckingham Palace and then headed back to the hotel through Covent Garden. We stopped off at St Paul’s Covent Garden to pay our respects to the victims of the 1665 plague who are buried beneath the churchyard.

A meat market has existed in Smithfield since the 10^th century. In and of itself, that would not make the place interesting enough for a visit. But Smithfield is also where William Wallace and Wat Tyler were executed, the location of St Bartholomew the Great (the oldest intact church in London and where a pivotal scene took place in “Four Weddings & a Funeral”), the neighborhood of Cloth Fair (a group of houses that escaped the Great Fire of 1666), an area where legal brothels once thrived, and the location of the Old Bailey and the former Newgate Prison.

Newgate Prison was established in 1188 just south of Smithfield Market. It was a very notorious prison where people were held in a cramped, unsanitary and inhumane fashion. Prisoners were also charged for their food and bedding. The gallows were moved from near Marble Arch to just outside of the prison in 1783. Hangings were quite a spectacle for the public and continued until 1901, just three years before the prison was demolished.

Some of the more famous prisoners held at Newgate included Giacomo Casanova, author Daniel Defoe, playwright Ben Jonson, pirate William Kidd, and Pennsylvania founder William Penn.

In 1585, the Old Bailey (officially the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales) was established right next door to Newgate Prison. The current building was built in 1904 when the prison was torn down. Although people can watch trials, no cameras are allowed. You can’t even have one with you (so no mobile phones either). Since we had cameras with us, we weren’t allowed in. If I want to watch a trial in the future, I’ll just go over there on a day when that’s the only thing I plan to do and leave the camera (and phone) locked up back at the hotel. There are several shows that have  had scenes shot at the Old Bailey. One of my favorites is “The Escape Artist”, which was shown in the US on PBS as a Masterpiece Mystery.

A very short distance north of Old Bailey is St Bartholomew’s Hospital, which was founded in 1123 by a monk named Thomas Rahere. He was a favorite of King Henry I and also founded the church of St Bartholomew the Great, which is right by the hospital.

St Barts is still very much a working hospital and has been rebuilt and remodeled several times over the centuries. It does still have the Henry VIII Gate, which dates to Tudor times and has the only statue of King Henry VIII in London. There is also a plaque on the outside of the hospital facing Smithfield Market (and the little round park) that mentions that William Wallace was executed in 1305 nearby. According to what I understand, he was hanged, drawn and quartered (a very gruesome and painful way to die) at the little round park. He had been found guilty of treason because he had led an army against the King of England (Edward I). The film, “Braveheart”, was a highly fictionalized representation of his life (he wasn’t even the person called Braveheart — Robert the Bruce was). But he truly was a great Scottish hero.

Wat Tyler, the leader of the Peasant Revolt in 1381, was also executed in the same area. Not certain if it was closer to the meat market or to the hospital. It was also more of a rushed deal. Tyler and King Richard II (who was about 14 at the time) met at Smithfield to discuss an end to the Peasant Revolt. The King’s men weren’t happy with the way Tyler was behaving and attacked him. He was fatally wounded. Then they decapitated him and placed his head on a pole. Despite this, Richard was credited with the successful suppression of the crisis.

Next to the hospital is another Tudor gate. This one is of the half-timbered variety. Passing through this gate takes you into the grounds of the church of St Bartholomew the Great. The reason why this is the oldest intact church in London is because most of the rest of them have had to be restored or rebuilt due to fires or World War II bombs or both. Even the Temple Church, which managed to survive the Great Fire of 1666 ended up with bomb damage from WWII. Benjamin Franklin worked inside the church for a year as a journeyman printer when he was living in London.

Rahere, the fella who founded both the hospital and the church, is buried in the church. He also reportedly haunts the church. It seems that, in the 17^th century, while some repairs were being made to his tomb, someone removed a sandal from one of his feet. Eventually the sandal was returned to the church, but not replaced in his tomb on his foot. Apparently he is still peeved.

During the reign of Mary Tudor (Elizabeth I’s older sister), several executions of “heretics” took place in the environs of the church. They say that there are times when one can definitely smell the odor of burning flesh. I have been there on a couple of visits and have yet to encounter Rahere’s ghost or smell anything bad. Now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably get hit with them both on the next visit. The important “fourth wedding” in “Four Weddings & a Funeral” was filmed in St Barts as have scenes from several other films and TV shows.

Next door to the church, to the west, is Cloth Fair. In medieval times, merchants bought and sold cloth in the street during the Bartholomew Fair. The street contains the oldest house in London. Just as the church escaped the Great Fire, so did this little block of houses. A little bit of time traveling can be had here.

Nearby is Cock Lane. This was where, in medieval times, brothels were allowed to operate legally. The road is short and narrow as it was back then, but the buildings are not all original. So the only thing remaining from the medieval era is the street name.

After we were done exploring the area, we stopped off for some food at the Viaduct Tavern, across from the Old Bailey on Newgate Street. It is built over a portion of the Newgate Prison (roughly five cells in the cellar) and is supposedly quite haunted. If you ask nicely, you can go downstairs to see the cells from the prison. I did and found it pretty eerie down there. The person who worked there said they never go down there alone at night.

There are plans to move the Museum of London from its current location on the London Wall in the Barbican to Smithfield Market. The idea is to provide a much larger area for exhibits than what the current space contains without venturing too far from the current site.