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 6th 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 6th 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 3rd 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, 18th 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.
