Charing Cross – A Traveling Fool

Although I had a late night, I needed to get up, have breakfast and check out of the hotel. The restaurant was the most crowded I had yet seen, but I had the whole process down plus I was seated near the food. I made my way through the buffet and got back to my room relatively easily (though it took a while to get my tea).

Since I am a member of the Intercontinental Hotels Group Rewards program, I was able to check out at a different desk which only had one person ahead of me. Arrangements had been made ahead of time for my transport into central London to my second hotel. I was tickled to see that the car was ready and waiting for me. So far, so good.

An enormous protest was going on in central London with regards to the situation in Gaza. Whitehall was completely blocked off from all traffic and Trafalgar Square was also blocked. I could hear the crowds in the square as we neared the hotel, which was the Clermont Charing Cross on the Strand. This street was about to be blocked off too, so we made it to the hotel just in time.

The room was not yet ready (it was only 11:30am), so I checked my luggage, gave them my cell phone number so they could text me when it was ready, and headed out to explore a bit. Although I have stayed at this hotel several times before, I had never explored the train station to which it was attached.

The Charing Cross railway station first opened in 1864 with the hotel opening the following year. One of the hotel’s guests back in the day, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame. He set the meeting between Holmes and his soon to be new client at Baskerville Hall at the hotel restaurant.

My first venture to this hotel was during the Gulf War in 1991. I had traveled to the UK with my mom and we were staying at another hotel nearby. The Gulf War had begun while we were on the flight over to London and ended while we were in York a few weeks later. My entire memory of that blessedly short war is from the British viewpoint.

A few days into our time in London during that trip, we went to high tea at the Charing Cross hotel (it had just become the Clermont shortly before I stayed there in 2023 and had been the Amba Charing Cross when I had last been there in 2017). Although I had done cream teas before, this was my first full blown high tea and it was mighty elegant.

Charing Cross has been considered to be the center of London and the point from which all distances from London are measured. Historically the name came from a hamlet called Charing, which means “riverbend” along with the Eleanor cross that had once been there. The original cross was erected in 1294. It was the largest and most ornate of the crosses built by King Edward I in honor of his deceased wife, Eleanor. The crosses were constructed from Lincoln to Westminster along the route of Eleanor’s funeral procession at each location where the procession rested. The cross that currently stands just outside of the hotel and railway station is a reconstruction built in 1884 to replace the one destroyed by Cromwell and his troops in 1647.

The Charing Cross Railway station has some places to eat, a grocers, a chemist, and some other shops inside. There is also a taxi stand right outside which is quite handy for grabbing a cab fairly quickly (depending upon how long the line might be). I planned to get one there that night to get to the OVO Arena Wembley for my third night of concerts.

I decided it would be a good idea to have some lunch before my tour at Parliament began, especially since I would need to walk from the hotel to Parliament. So I headed out to see what looked like a good place for lunch nearby. It didn’t take long to discover the Café Concerto. The menu looked varied and the prices reasonable for London these days. I went in and ordered a BLT with some strawberry lemonade. While there, I received a text from the hotel that my room was ready. Great timing!

I got back to the hotel and checked into my now upgraded room. It was a Deluxe King which was larger and had a sofa as well as an armchair. Best of all, it included a free mini bar that was stocked daily. I collected my cases and headed up and over to the room. It was in the Buckingham Wing, which was on the other side of the road via a little enclosed bridge over the road (Villiers Street).

That part of London had once been the location of property owned by the Villiers family, which were the Dukes of Buckingham. It was sort of confusing that I needed to take the lift from the ground floor to the first floor in the main part of the hotel, then, once I crossed over the little bridge, the floor on the other side was the third floor. I needed to take another lift there down to the second floor to get to my room. The hallway floors were a tad creaky in the Buckingham Wing. I had the feeling that the building was older than the main part of the hotel. I happen to like the charm of older buildings, so I was quite pleased. Plus it was pretty quiet. Good for sleeping.

On my way too and from the Palace of Westminster (as the Houses of Parliament are called), I had to navigate my way through some pretty large crowds. But I made it to the Cromwell Green Visitor Entrance in plenty of time. We were supposed to be there 20 minutes ahead of the tour to go through security. I boosted myself up onto a relatively low barricade normally used to keep vehicles from trying to crash through and sat with a lovely British couple while we waited to get in. After getting through security and gathering inside of Westminster Hall, we were a small group of fourteen people.

It is thought that King Cnute had a palace on the land where Parliament now stands during his reign from 1016 to 1035. Edward the Confessor built a palace on that location at the same time he built the first version of Westminster Abbey (roughly 1045 to 1050).

The Palace of Westminster was originally built as a royal palace in the eleventh century. A fire destroyed the royal apartments in 1512, after which the king, Henry VIII, moved to the Palace of Whitehall, which he took from Cardinal Wolsey.

Parliament had begun meeting at Westminster in the 13^th century and continued to do so. A much larger fire destroyed the majority of the palace in 1834. Only the 12^th century Westminster Hall was saved and included as part of the building that now stands.

During World War II, the palace was hit by bombs repeatedly — fourteen different times in all. The worst air raid killed three people and destroyed the House of Commons Chamber. Both that room and Westminster Hall had been set on fire and, since they knew they couldn’t save them both, Westminster Hall was where they put their efforts.

There are three main towers in the palace: the Victoria Tower, which has the Sovereign’s Entrance, which the Monarch uses whenever they come to the palace; the Elizabeth Tower, which is where the enormous bell, Big Ben, resides; and the Central Tower, which stands over the Central Lobby.

The building was planned around the Central Lobby, which is the meeting point for all of the corridors leading to the over 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases, and three miles of passageways, which are spread over four floors. We began our tour in Westminster Hall.

At the time it was built, Westminster Hall was the largest hall in Europe. The hammerbeam roof was built for King Richard II in 1393 and is the largest medieval roof of its kind in England. Westminster Hall has been the site of many trials and lying-in-states over the centuries. The most recent lying-in-state was Queen Elizabeth II.

The hall was where William Wallace (who actually was never called “Braveheart”; that was Robert the Bruce’s nickname) was tried for treason in 1305. It was also where Sir Thomas More was condemned to death back in 1535, mostly because he wouldn’t recognize Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the Church. Guy Fawkes and his fellow Gunpowder plotters were tried for attempting to blow up Parliament in 1606. King Charles I, in 1649, was the only reigning monarch ever tried and condemned to death in Britain.

Westminster Hall and St Stephen’s Hall were the only places where we were allowed to take photos. St Stephen’s Hall stands on the site of the royal Chapel of St Stephen’s, which was destroyed in the fire of 1834 and where the House of Commons met until that time.

We weren’t able to visit the King’s Robing Room in the Royal Apartments, but we were able to see the Royal Gallery, the Norman Porch, and the Prince’s Chambers. The Lords Chamber, the Peer’s Lobby (an antechamber where matters can be discussed and messages delivered), the Peer’s Corridor, as well as a few smaller areas within the precincts of the House of Lords (using the main color red) were next. After that, we went across to the precincts of the House of Commons (mainly green) via the Central Lobby and the Common’s Corridor to visit the Member’s Lobby and the Commons Chamber. We could see the dents on the door where the representative of the Monarch (Black Rod) bangs with their staff on the door at the State Opening of Parliament each year when asking the MPs to attend in the House of Lords to hear the Monarch’s speech.

After roughly 90 minutes, we went back through St Stephen’s Hall and Westminster Hall to leave the building. Then it was a matter of weaving in and out of all of the protestors on my way back to my hotel. I stopped in at the grocers in Charing Cross Railway Station for something to eat for dinner on the way.

Next time – the Simply Red Concert at the OVO Arena Wembley

When the bus to The Making of Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studio Tour returned to the Victoria Bus Station, I walked along Buckingham Palace Road from there to Victoria Street to visit Westminster Cathedral. The only connection that Westminster Cathedral has to Westminster Abbey is that they are both located in the part of London called Westminster and are both essentially on Victoria Street (although it is called Broad Sanctuary by the time it reaches the Abbey).

Westminster Cathedral is a Catholic Cathedral, built in the 19^th century in the neo-Byzantine style, influenced by the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey. It was that influence that made me curious to see it. The exterior is striped with white stone and red brick. The interior is covered with mosaics. The Hagia Sophia influence was the mosaics. Otherwise the basic floor plan of the cathedral was a standard, western, crucifix with side chapels and one long nave.

There was a very interesting glass coffin containing Saint John Southworth, who was a Catholic martyr in the 17^th century. He was hanged, drawn & quartered. But his pieces were gathered up, sewn together and parboiled to preserve them. I do have to admit that I was glad there was a gold mask over his face.

I took a taxi back to the hotel. A friend of mine, who had never been to London before, was supposed to be flying in that day and was going to contact me so we could get together for dinner. I waited for quite a while to hear from him and even tried texting him at one point. Unbeknownst to me, he was having some issues with his phone.

At about 8:20pm I received a text asking me to meet him in the middle of Blackfriars Bridge at 8:30pm. The only way I was going to make it in time was to take another cab. Fortunately, since the hotel was right next door to Charing Cross Rail Station, a line of taxis was always there ready to take folks coming into the station to their destinations. I leapt into one, apologized to the driver for the strange request I was about to make and sat back as I was taken to the bridge, arriving just in time to see my friend walking towards me.

Actually the driver spotted him before I did. I lowered the window and called out to him. Then I paid the driver and hopped out of the cab.

From the bridge, we headed up towards Fleet Street, but I wanted to show him the Temple first. By this time of night, there was only one entrance open and that was the entrance nearest to where we were. Not being a resident of the area, I explained to the person manning the guard house why I wanted to come in for a short time. She was fine with it and let us in.

The Temple had once belonged to the Knights Templar. The only vestige of their prior ownership was the Temple Church. The rest of the area that belonged to the Templars from the 12^th through the 14^th centuries had been taken over by two of the Inns of Court – the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple from the 14^th century on.

Wat Tyler had sacked the Temple during the late 14^th century Peasant’s Revolt. One of the Jack the Ripper suspects lived on King’s Bench Walk in the Temple. The War of the Roses began at the Temple when each side picked a rose from the Temple rose garden to symbolize their cause.

I knew my way around when coming in through the entrance under Prince Henry’s Rooms on Fleet Street. But I had never entered the Temple from this particular entrance before and so was unable to navigate the maze satisfactorily to get to the Temple Church from there. I was able to point out the rose garden and King’s Bench Walk however, and called it a day.

I had planned that we would eat at the George Pub, which was a very old, very traditional, half-timbered Elizabethan pub at about the spot where Fleet Street became The Strand. So I wasn’t in any big hurry as we sauntered along Fleet Street. I pointed out St Dunstan’s Church which was reportedly where Sweeney Todd hid the remains of his victims in the crypt (until the stench started coming up into the church).

I told him about the Great Fire stopping just before Prince Henry’s Rooms (so they were authentic to their time) and that Prince Henry would have been king instead of Charles I had he lived. What a difference in history that might have been.

We walked by the Griffin marking the border of the official City of London from the rest of London (and where Fleet Street became The Strand) and gazed at the Royal Courts of Justice (where civil trials are heard) before turning our attention to the George Pub. Although it still looked the same outside, it had radically changed its menu since I was there last (and probably had changed ownership too). It had gone from being a traditional pub with traditional pub food to being a trendy restaurant with trendy, and expensive, food.

So we walked a couple blocks further along The Strand and had our dinner at a café. We sat by the window and marveled about how we were hanging out in London instead of Minneapolis. Had I known that the George had changed, I would have taken him to the Olde Cock Tavern (16^th century) just a short distance before Prince Henry’s Rooms. I had wanted to show him a place with some real traditional English atmosphere. Oh well.

After dinner, we continued along The Strand, veering off to Trafalgar Square to take a look at it all lit up at night before getting a few groceries for him from the Sainsbury’s by my hotel and putting him into a cab at the Charing Cross rail station. He was staying in the part of town near Victoria Station.

Then I prepared for my flight home the following day. I thought it was a shame that we only had that one evening in common.

Next – some time spent at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia where Confederate General Robert E Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S Grant to end the American Civil War.

Tag: Charing Cross

London Adventure: A Change of Hotels, Touring the Houses of Parliament & A Massive Protest

The Mysterious Meeting on Blackfriars Bridge