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Bright, Brighter, Brighton – Day Two

Bright, Brighter, Brighton – Day Two

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We got up this morning to find a cloudy sky but it is supposed to get brighter later. After breakfast we paid our bill and booked out but left our luggage until we were ready to leave Brighton later in the day.

We went down the road again to Marine Parade to have another look at the little electric railway. I went onto the platform to take this picture.

In this next picture you may get a better idea of the railway's location. The beach and pier is on the left with the road to the right. The Brighton Wheel is visible above the roof of the train.

Notice the patches of blue sky that have started to appear. Without the sun it was cool enough to give Amanda goose bumps. I didn't feel quite so cold so perhaps I had duck bumps. We walked along Marine Parade away from the pier until we reached the Madeira Lift. Built between 1830 and 1840 the lift was originally hydraulically operated but now uses electricity. It saves a climb between Madeira Drive and Marine Parade and is free so we went for a ride.


Amanda photographed this old Victorian relic at the top of the lift.

We stayed at the upper level and walked back into town to the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery which is in the Royal Pavilion grounds.

We were, originally, planning to visit the Booth Museum in Brighton until we discovered that the one day each week that it closes is a Thursday – today. The Brighton Museum building was originally the stables for the Pavillion which is why it is built in the same style.

It has an eclectic collection with numerous exhibits. When we arrived we went straight to the cafe for coffee and this next picture, of one of the galleries, was taken from the table at which we were sitting.

When we had finished our drinks we went back downstairs to start looking around. You may notice that even the archway in this gallery has the 'Eastern' theme and, remember, this was just the stables.

One of the first galleries we visited was dedicated to ceramics.


I noticed the piece in the lower picture particularly because it reminded me of Tipoo's Tiger that we saw in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and on the label its said:

"Commemorating the death of a young Englishman mauled by a tiger in India in 1792. The popular Staffordshire figure group (1810) was probably inspired by a wooden hand-organ, which was carved and painted to look like a tiger attacking an Englishman in uniform. Displayed in London from 1808, the organ was known as "Tipoo's Tiger" and is now on display in the V&A."

They also had an Egyptian Gallery of which these mummies were part.

There was a gallery about the Ice Age.

Numerous other galleries on varied subjects so there is plenty to see.

It was getting near time for us to leave so we walked back to our B&B to collect our luggage and then caught a bus to the station. So what was our final impression of Brighton? It hadn't really changed from our initial impression in that Brighton did look generally shabby and uncared for although that could not be said of the buses. They have an excellent bus service with frequent buses and the buses themselves are modern, bright and smart with electronic displays on board.

Brighton is not one of those places that we would be keen to see again but it probably would make an interesting day trip from London.

When we reached the station we were really pleased to see that our train was eight coaches with very few people on board, so that we had our pick of the seats, and that it was a modern unit with air conditioning. A relief from the journey up.

The journey was about an hour and we arrived back at Farringdon at around 3:30 PM, caught the Undergound to Liverpool Street and decided to have a slight detour. When we went to Spitalfields last we missed a couple of things which we decided to find this time.

We went back to Bishops Square next to Spitalfields Market.

Although this is a modern development it's not all new round here. If you walk to the north end of Bishops Square farthest from Brushfield Street you will see a large stairwell going apparently nowhere.

You may notice that in the farthest right-hand corner in the above picture there is also a small lift for those that cannot easliy manage stairs. So, what does it all mean?

You'll see that in the left-hand wall there is some glass. This is a window to the ruins behind.

You are looking at the remains of a Charnel House, dating from about 1320, which was discovered during excavations in 1999 and it is thought that parts of the masonry may date back to the 12th century. For those not 'in the know' a Charnel House is a store for human bones disturbed during the digging of graves within a cemetery.

Long before the Charnel House was built, the Romans used the area as a burial ground and a Roman lead coffin was found near this site which contained the body of a woman.

It explains onsite:

"The crypt of the chapel of St Mary Magdelene and St Edmund the Bishop built in about 1320 and sited in the cemetery of the priory and Hospital of St Mary Spital. In the chapel above, services were held to dedicate the bones beneath. After St. Mary Spital was closed in 1539, most of the bones were removed, and the crypt became a house until it was demolished in about 1700. The crypt lay forgotten beneath the gardens of terraced houses and then Stewart Street until it was found in archaeological excavations in 1999."

If you now go back to the other end of Bishops Square, across Brushfield Street, along Fort Street into Artillery Lane, turn left go round the first bend, past Gun Street to the second bend and you will see these:

These are Georgian shop fronts surviving from the 1750s.

Now that was a worthwhile diversion but now we go back to Liverpool Street Station and catch a train home.

 

Bright, Brighter, Brighton – Day One

Bright, Brighter, Brighton – Day One

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Wednesday was cloudy when we got up but we were planning to go to Brighton for an overnight stay and the weather was supposed to be better down south. I had become quite frustrated the day previously in trying, and failing, to find available accommodation in Brighton. I didn't think that Brighton was so popular that every bed would be taken. When I'd got to the point of giving up I thought to call the Tourist Information Office to see if they could do any better and they were able to offer me a choice of two! They also explained that Brighton University was having graduation days so the place was stuffed with students' relatives. That explained it.

We set off from home on the 5 mile drive to our local railway station confident of getting there in plenty of time to buy tickets before the train came in. We reached the edge of the village, wherin lies the station, and joined a long traffic queue. Bummer!

We occasionally get a traffic queue at this junction which we traverse very quickly but it was never this long. We decide that we aren't going to get to the station in time which means we aren't going to arrive in Brighton until 1 o'clock, an hour later than we expected. Double bummer!

We eventually arrive at our car parking place and start our walk across the fields to the station. We weren't in a hurry because we knew that there was no chance of catching our planned train and we were going to have to wait a half-hour for the next train. As we sauntered towards the station we saw a diesel hauled goods train go through the station towards London.

'Hang on', I said to Amanda, 'our train uses that line so it must be at least a few minutes behind that goods train'. So we increased our speed and got to the ticket office with no train in sight yet. Tickets in hand we went on to the platform to see a train approaching in the distance. It turned out to be yet another goods train. Then an announcement tells us that our train is running 8 minutes late. So that was a bit of luck otherwise we would definitely have missed it. We both breathe a sigh of relief.

On the way to Liverpool Street Station we realise that we are going to have no more than 20 minutes to get from Liverpool Street Station to Farringdon Station, using the Underground, instead of the more comfortable 30 minutes it should have been.

We had to wait only 3 minutes for an Underground train and had only 2 stops before Farringdon so we arrived with plenty of time. As we hadn't been to Farringdon Station before we weren't sure how far we'd have to walk to get from the Underground platforms to the platform for the 'normal' train. It turned out to be about 5 seconds. All we had to do was to walk across the platform to the other side.

However the indicator board tells us that the next train to Brighton is due in now – 15 minutes earlier than we expected. It duly arrives but is only 4 coaches long and consequently sails past us to the far end of the platform. We leg it to the train and do manage to get seats even though it is fairly crowded.

One of the stops in London was Blackfriars where the station is built on a bridge across the Thames so that one gets a good view east along the river when the train is in the platford. We could also see St. Paul's Cathedral off to one side and later we went very close to Southwark Cathedral.

The train turns out to be one of the older type trains which don't have air conditioning but do have windows that have openings at the top. The electric motors and driving gear also make a lot of noise – a sort of combined grinding and whining so we had a hot stuffy noisy jouney for an hour.

We were glad to get out at Brighton and were travelling light, as it was only a one night stay, so we walked to our Bed & Breakfast which took us about twenty minutes. It was hot but at least it was a clear blue sky. On that walk we formed an initial impression of Brighton that it was noisy (lots of traffic), scruffy and uncared for – not a good start. Did we have the same impression when we left? I'll tell you when we leave.

The people who were running the B&B were very pleasant and showed us to our room. It was the last room in the place, on the third floor, and was very small but it also had a small price tag – 67.50 GBP for the night including breakfast. We left our luggage in our room and walked the short distance down the road to Marine Parade on the seafront. This is my very first photograph of the trip showing Madeira Drive down below, Brighton  Pier and the Brighton Wheel.

As we started to walk along towards the pier we saw a train coming along on the Volks Electric Railway which is the oldest electric railway in the world having been operating since 1883.

Going down from the upper level to sea level and walking a little further brought us to the little terminus station on the railway.

Shortly after we arrived at Brighton Pier and headed seaward. After a short while we stopped and looked back towards the shore.

You probably couldn't tell from this distance but the beach is comprised of pebbles – no sand. Doesn't seem to deter people from sitting all over it does it?

We very soon found a stall selling fried rice and noodles and it was lunchtime so we thought we'd sample some fried rice. It incorporated prawns and pieces of chicken in no small number. We found a parked flatbed trolley to sit on and eat our food which turned out to be very tasty and there was plenty of it. Neither of us can remember what the stall was called and I don't remember seeing anything else similar but we can recommend it.

Walking further along the pier it widens considerably.

We could see (and hear) that we were getting near an amusemnt park type area and, in places, it was very noisy with piped music often being excessively loud. Amanda spotted this Galloper (Roundabout) which tend to be favourites of hers.

We were now about as far seaward as it is possible to get so we turned back towards the shore. Looking back we could see some of the 'rides' including the Helter Skelter and the Galloper just to its left. I can also remember walking past a Ghost Train.

We were pleased to see that the deckchairs were free to use and there were plenty of people using them.

We left the pier and headed into the centre of the town where we soon found the Royal Pavillion. Well you couldn't really miss it could you?


How about this forest of spires?

Built for the Prince Regent, later King George IV, between 1787 and 1823, it has, as you will probably notice, an exotic oriental appearance.

Entrance to the grounds is free but you have to pay to go inside and let me warn you that photography inside is prohibited. You may have realised by now that that really annoys me and, probably, a lot of other visitors too. I certainly wouldn't pay the entrance fee under those circumstances but we were able to go in because we each had a free three month Art Pass which expires at the end of July.

We entered the grounds through the entrance which is furthest from the main entrance to the house but we left from the other entrance going past the Brighton Visitor Information Centre and across to East Street where we turned right and were then in The Lanes.

The Lanes is a small area in Brighton which is a maze of small streets and alleys with many small shops of all sorts and used to be the fishing town of Brighthelmstone dating from the late 18th century.

It is, in our view, probably the most attractive area of Brighton and certainly didn't look scruffy in the slightest. We saw an amazing variety of shops from expensive jewellers to cake shops.


We were both beginning to tire by this time so decided to call it a day and headed back to our B&B via Steine Gardens and the Victoria Fountain.

More tomorrow.

 

Medieval, Monumental and Modern

Medieval, Monumental and Modern

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8:30 PM Wednesday 1st May 2013.

Just back from our day trip today and this comes under the ‘Modern’ category.

Before I continue with this post I’m going to get you to guess what/where this might be. I’ll give you a few days and I’ll also give you a clue. It’s in London. There, that narrows it down a bit doesn’t it? smilies

9:30 AM Sunday 5th May 2013.

Clever-clogs Annecyborn was the first with the correct answer. It was, indeed, the Gherkin and this shows the whole width of the base.

Another sunny day forecast, another trip.

We arrived at our London terminus, Liverpool Street Station, and went out into Bishopsgate where we turned north and walked until we reached Brushfield Street on the east side of Bishopsgate. Walking along Brushfield Street we soon arrived here:

That is one of the entrances to Old Spitalfields Market. The area belonged to St Mary Spital, a priory or hospital erected on the east side of the Bishopsgate thoroughfare in 1197, and the name is thought to have been derived from that.

By the later 19th century inner Spitalfields had eclipsed rival claimants to the dubious distinction of being the worst criminal area in London and it is this area that is associated with Jack the Ripper.


The market building is 19th century and turned out not to be particularly interesting architecturally unlike, for example, Leadenhall Market. There are plenty of shops including cafes which seem popular but we weren’t really interested in those so we moved on.

We came out of the eastern end on Spitalfields Market and walked south along Commercial Street, turned right into White’s Row, left into Bell Lane until we came to Frying Pan Alley. There is nothing special about Frying Pan Alley except it’s name and with a name like that we just had to walk through it.

It is an old alley although, sadly, all the old buildings have been razed to make way for modern buildings. However this alley once housed numerous Ironmongers who identified their premises by displaying a frying pan outside.

On the map above Spitalfields Market is top right and Frying Pan Alley is marked with an arrow.

We came out of the west end of Frying Pan alley, turned left into Sandy’s Row, right into Middlesex Street, forked left into Catherine Wheel Alley (named after the Catherine Wheel Inn which was demolished in 1911) then left again into Cock Hill. It’s a maze of narrow streets and alleys round here. That took us, via a dog leg, into New Street and after turning left into yet another alley we found ourselves in Devonshire Square. You may be able to trace our route on the map above in the darkened rectangle.

Devonshire Square is area enclosed by buildings and accessible only via alleyways. All these alleys and squares are old but the buildings have obviously been replaced.

Devonshire Square is actually a number of individual squares connected by alleyways and as we wandered through we came across this life-size sculpture of a knight on horseback.


King Edgar (944-975) made an agreement with a group of 13 knights that he would give them land near to this spot on condition that they would each engage in three combats, one on the ground, another on water and the third below ground.

We did wonder how they could have fought below ground but after thinking about it we decided that they could have used a cellar or crypt.

We made our way out of these squares and alleys and headed south towards the Gherkin.


We couldn’t really miss it could we?

Nearby is the medieval church of St. Helen’s dating from the 11th century. It is the largest surviving church in the City of London and it contains more monuments than any other church in Greater London except for Westminster Abbey.

It is unusual in that it was designed with two parallel naves, giving it a wide interior.  Until the dissolution of the priory in 1538, the church was divided in two by a partition running from east to west, the northern half serving the nuns and the southern the parishioners. That partition has since been removed. It is the only building from a nunnery to survive in the City of London and one of the few churches to survive both the Great Fire of London of 1666 and the Blitz during World War II.


You can see that they have cornered the market in monuments and there were more all over the floor. This church was William Shakespeare’s parish church when he lived in the area in the 1590s.

Heading south down St. Mary Axe towards Leadenhall Street we passed another medieval church – St. Andrew Undershaft dating back to the 10th century although the current building is mainly 16th century. This is another city church that survived both the Great Fire of 1666 and the Blitz.

The church’s curious name derives from the shaft of the maypole that was traditionally set up each year opposite the church until 1517 when the custom ended.

We were now headed west to the Guildhall where I was hoping to get a photograph which is better lit than the last time we were here. We went via St. Michael’s Alley, which we previously visited when we went to Leadenhall Market, and I took a photograph of the Jamaica Wine House. This was originally London’s first Coffee House.


We soon arrived at the Guildhall where I took my photograph.

The last time I tried it was late in the day when the sun was low and there was a large dark shadow across the courtyard and across part of the building. Much better this time.

We now headed for the Barbican and arrived at about lunchtime. This is the Barbican Centre Terrace and that low building ahead on the left is the Barbican Food Hall (not a particularly imaginative name) where we were going to have lunch.

It was not at all expensive at around £9.50 for a main course and the food was beatifully cooked and very tasty. We both had Thai Red Curry of Duck Leg with saffron rice, vegatable rolls and Coconut Dip. The duck meat just fell off the bone and we thoroughly enjoyed it. To be recommended if you are ever this way.

After lunch and before we left we went up 3 levels to where the conservatory is situated. It was not open today as we expected but I took a photograph from the outside of part of it to show what the construction is like.


We left Barbican and emerged into Aldersgate Street a little north of the Museum of London where we caught a bus going north to the Angel, Islington, where another bus took us west along Pentonville Road to St. Pancras.

For a railway terminus that is a pretty impressive victorian building. However we hadn’t come here to see that specifically we had come to visit the British Library.


That’s St. Pancras Station peeping over the wall in the second picture.

This is a large, impressive modern building with a very interesting construction. This is the entrance hall.

The library holds over 150 million items from many countries, in many languages so it may take you a little while if you want to read them all. It also includes the King’s Library; a collection donated by King George III and housed in the King’s Library Tower, a six-storey glass and bronze structure in the entrance hall. This shows just part of the King’s Library Tower.

A number of books and manuscripts are on display to the general public in the Sir John Ritblat Gallery which is open seven days a week at no charge. Some of the manuscripts in the exhibition include Beowulf, the Lindisfarne Gospels and St Cuthbert Gospel, a Gutenberg Bible, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (King Arthur), Captain Cook’s journal, Jane Austen’s History of England, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and a room devoted solely to Magna Carta. That lot should keep you amused.

They also hold copies of all web sites and blogs which have the suffix .uk which will include this web site and blog. In that copy of this web site there will be a picture of the British Library and in that library will be a copy of this web site and …. ad infinitum.

We decided it was time to leave and so went out into Euston Road. Walking south-west along Euston Road we turned left at Dukes Road which led us to Woburn Walk.

This attractive pedestrian street features beautifully preserved bow-fronted buildings that were built in 1822. A plaque on one of the buildings marks the house of W. B. Yeats, who lived here between 1895 and 1919 and the street is home to restaurants, bookshops, and galleries.

Our next, and last, planned stop was the Charles Dickens Museum just off Grays Inn Road in Doughty Street. We planned to walk through a number of what we hoped would be attractive squares on the way. It turns out that they were.

Starting with Tavistock Square:


and finishing with Russell Square.

We soon after arrived at the museum. The entrance door is the one on the right.

There is a sign on the railings giving opening times and it closes at 5:00 PM with last entry at 4:00 PM. So what’s the time? 4:10 PM. Oh #@**&^!! smilies

So we didn’t get to see it after all that. Next time perhaps. We caught a bus to Holborn, changed to a bus to Liverpool Street Station and caught the train to go back home.

Trains, Cranes and Cobbles

Trains, Cranes and Cobbles

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Chance is a fine thing. Our weather forecasters invariably get it wrong but occasionally a forecast will turn out to be right purely by chance. Saturday was one of those forecasts. It was forecast to be sunny all day and so it was.

We leaped on a train, figuratively speaking, and leaped off at Stratford (one station before our normal terminus – Liverpool Street Station). There are two stations at Stratford now; the one that we just used, which has been there a long time, and Stratford International which is relatively new. It's called Stratford International because the international trains don't stop there (what?). They were supposed to but the train operators refused to stop there because it's only a few minutes out of St. Pancras. However they were threatened with being forced to stop there so they agreed to re-examine the situation after the Olympics. We shall see.

However there are trains that stop there which go to parts of Kent. Well that's foreign because it's south of the river and we are thinking of taking a day trip down into Kent at some point so we thought we'd see what was involved in getting from one station to the other.

This map shows the relationship between the two stations with Stratford International just below the top (Blue lettering), Stratford Station just below that and to the right (grey lettering) and the Olympic Statium lower down and to the left.

The large grey/brown block between the two stations is the Westfield Shopping Centre. It turned out to be a fairly straightforward walk through the shopping centre from one station to the other so we'll know for next time.

Having walked to Stratford International we didn't have to walk back because we were then going on the Docklands Light Railway, henceforth known as the DLR, to Blackwall. We managed to get a front seat looking out the window so I took a few photographs on the journey.

This one is as we were leaving Stratford Internaional because I thought that arch looked rather graceful.

A little further on and we were approaching Stratford and the Olympic Park with the stadium on the right and the strange twisty helter-skelter thing on the left.

One has to be very quick in composing a shot when trying to take photographs from a moving train and it's also tricky holding the camera steady whilst bouncing up and down with the train's movement but I managed this shot of the Millenium Dome as we went past.

We had to change trains at Canning Town to get to Blackwall and this is our next train arriving. They are rather cute. The nice thing is being able to sit behind the front window as there is no driver (they are controlled by computer).

Arriving at Blackwall DLR Station we went to start our walk. The first thing to do is look for the sign pointing to Billingsgate Fish Market and follow the wide paved path going out of the picture on the right.


So we did that. This brought us to a main road and a very short way away to the left was a short flight of wide stone steps which took us up to the edge of Poplar Dock.

It was nice to see, when this dock was redeveloped for housing, that the old dockside cranes were left in position.

Walking along the dock we saw a lot of boats and from here the cranes can be seen over to the left and a red DLR train in the distance on an elevated section of railway. Walking to the southern end of Poplar Dock we were able to cross into Blackwall Basin and see the buildings in Canary Wharf reflected in the water.

 We also caught a glimpse of the Millenium Dome again just beyond these waterside apartments which we saw from the footbridge.


We eventually reached the lock which is the entrance to West India Dock with yet more, and larger, cranes just off Prestons Road. The buildings of Canary Wharf are prominent in the background.

On the other side of Prestons Road is yet another view of the Millenium Dome. That thing seems to pop up everywhere.

We eventually reached the western end of West India Dock and headed east along the other side of the dock and started to see a bit of greenery.

Bearing in mind that the London Marathon comes through here tomorrow we saw very few signs of that. Just a few TV broadcasting vans with dish aerials on their rooves but nothing else. We did wonder if there might be crowd barriers is place specifically to spoil any photographs I might want to take but, no, not a sign.

We reached No. 1 Canada Square which is one of the very tall buildings and went into the shopping centre at its base. This shopping area must go under a large number of the buildings because it is v-a-s-t. There are also free public toilets here if that interests you (and if you can actually find them – we did smilies ).

We did finally find our way through to Cabot Square and emerged once more into sunlight and were surprised by a couple of little attractive cameo views that suddenly appear here from time to time.


We left Cabot Square and made our way north towards West India Quay, not to be confused with West India Dock which we have already passed, and we emerged from the left onto the footbridge in the distance just beyond the cranes.

This view was obtained by going up on to one of the DLR platforms of West India Quay station which is on an elevated section of the railway at this point. Yet more cranes which, I thought, looked a bit like Martian War Machines. Here is another view of the Martian War Machines with the DLR showing in the background in the station from which I took the previous view.

The area on the right of the footbridge includes some of the original docklands buildings which have been restored and fronted by the original cobbled surface. This includes the Museum of London Docklands and also numerous restaurants. Walking along here and looking at all the different menus one is rather spoiled for choice. We eventually decided on one particular menu at a restaurant called Henry's and decided to have lunch.

We were shown to a table in the sun with padded seats, which was nice, and our order was taken very soon after. Our drinks arrived first and our meals not long after that. Table service was very efficient but drinks and meals took longer than we would have expected although not too long so I expect the slight hold up was in the kitchen.

Amanda had roast belly of pork with dauphinoise potatoes and vegatables and I had pork schnitzel with red cabbage and sautéed new potatoes. We both enjoyed our meals and the food really was very good. So much so that I had to refrain from licking the plate. Amanda made the point that her dauphinoise potato was some of the best that she'd had.

The problem started when we decided to have a dessert. We placed our order and waited, and waited, and waited. We queried this a number of times and were told it would arrive soon. It didn't. We finally got our order 30 minutes after it was placed. Both of our desserts were cold items so no cooking needed. The desserts, like our main courses, were very nice and although we were given an apology I said that waiting 30 minutes really was unacceptable. They cancelled the cost of the desserts by way of compensation.

In spite of that long wait I think that it must have been an unusual problem because it was busy and obviously very popular so we will go back if we are that way again and give then another chance. From the point of view of table service and quality of food I would recommend them without hesitation.

We now headed to the Museum of London Docklands shown here in part of the restored warehouse with a cobbled frontage.

The museum is big with a variety of exhibits including some which try to show what the narrow streets of old London would have looked like.

After spending some time looking around we realised that we were both feeling tired and so decided to head for home. Leaving the museum we headed through the grassy Canada Place.

Then through Jubilee Park

and towards the nearest DLR station thence back to Stratford and on the train home. Our second trip of the year (our first being to meet Marie in London on her birthday).

 

Plan A or Plan B?

Plan A or Plan B?

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Wednesday 20th February was Marie's birthday and we had planned to meet her in London for a day out. The weather forcast for that day was cold and overcast but dry so we planned to visit the Museum of London, then lunch, then the Wallace Collection.

On the Tuesday before, the weather forecast suddenly changed, and it was going to be sunny spells around 11:00 AM and then clear sun around lunchtime for the rest of the day. So when we spoke to Marie on the phone the night before we formulated Plan B which was to meet at Paddington Station and walk along the Regents Canal to Camden Lock.

On Wednesday morning the weather forecast had changed again (this is all par for the course as far as weather forecasting in this country goes) and the sunny spells weren't going to appear until mid-afternoon. When we met Marie in Paddington Station we decided to revert to Plan A, but in reverse, as it  appeared that there wasn't going to be much sun and it was cold with an icy wind. It was very nice to see Marie once again and she looked very well.

We walked from Paddington to Manchester Square, which is where the Wallace Collection is based, passing a few nice little mews on the way.

It was nice to get inside in the warm and we left our outer coats in the Cloak Room before setting off to wander round. Entry is free and even the cloakroom works on a donations basis. I did take a few more photographs, having taken many on our previous visit, but photography here is not easy. The light levels are low and using flash or a tripod is forbidden.

Those two backs belong to Amanda and Marie.

In one of the nearby cases was this rather fancy bowl. Not sure I'd like that staring at me though. It doesn't look terribly friendly.

Even this horse was a little surprised to see Marie and I think that the knight is using his sword to point out something on the ceiling. That's Amanda in the background looking at the other knight on horseback.

After a couple of late knights we left the Wallace Collection, walked the short distance to Oxford Street, and caught a 23 bus to St. Paul's where we were planning to have lunch in the Crypt. It did not go according to plan. We discovered that not long before a party of 67 Americans had descended, like a plague of locusts, and had virtually cleaned the place out. There was now only one main course available which involved goats cheese and Amanda and I didn't want that although Marie was happy to have some. We decided to have soup and bread except they were out of bread too. I don't like parties of 67 Americans. You'd think that they would have had the decency not to eat so much.  :???:

After that we had some cups of tea and coffee with cake to fill any gaps then it was onward to the Museum of London.

After looking at various exhibits, of which there are a lot, we took Marie into another part of Barbican to see some Roman wall before the light started to go.

The semi-circular area is the base of a medieval guard tower which had been built into the old Roman Wall and the obvious length of wall is Roman.

We went back to the Museum of London, which is easy to do as entry is free, and looked at some more exhibits. Did I mention that there are a lot?

Our last exhibit was the Lord Mayor's Coach after which we were all feeling approximately knackered after so much wandering round. We wandered off to find Barbican Underground Station and on the way I taught Marie how to say 'tomato' properly.  ;-)  We said our goodbyes at the station and Marie went west and we went east.

We enjoyed our day and I hope that Marie did too. Until next time Marie. :grin:

 

It’s a jungle out there!

It’s a jungle out there!

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It's definitely a jungle

although perhaps it's a desert!

Well actually it's both! For the sake of the narrative we'll call this place 'The Conservatory' irrespective of the fact that emblazoned across the top of each entrance doorway are the words 'The Conservatory'. I'm glad we've got that straight.

Just recently the weather has been mostly cloudy but fairly mild then a few days ago the temperature dropped to around freezing. Brrrrrr! Where better to warm up than a semi-tropical environment – so on Sunday off we went (no it's not Kew).

This is a very large conservatory and although we had only a quick look round it still took us an hour. It also features a small aviary about the size of a small garden shed but containing an amazing number of different species. There were small quail no longer than about seven inches

and some Zebra Finches. All these birds were devilishly difficult to photograph because they kept hopping or flying around. Very inconsiderate.

This small area may give you an idea of the conservatory's size:

The people on the high level walkway on the left and the people below gives an idea of scale. It is not hot and humid in here but pleasantly warm with a remarkable number of plant species not to mention the occasional fish.

This next picture is that same pool, seen from a higher level, showing a small part of the little wooden footbridge which crosses the small channel which connects this pool with a larger pool elsewhere.

There are, of course, the inevitable palm trees including some quite tall ones.

There are other types of tree, also quite tall, and we saw some nice flowers.

You may be able to tell from the conservatory structure that this is not a Victorian structure but something that is much more modern. There is also an Arid Plants Gallery which has an amazing collection of Cacti. Amanda commented that she prefers this one to the Cactus House at Kew and would like to return in Spring when the cacti should be flowering.

Some of the cacti were rather tall. A lot taller than Amanda.

There were also orchids in this gallery.

This is one of the high level walkways which leads into the Arid Gallery.

So, where could this possibly be? I'll give you a clue. When we had finished looking around we left and then walked south for ten minutes and ended up at – St. Paul's Cathedral! The road we walked down was Aldersgate so, yes, this is in the City of London, believe it or not, and is part of the Barbican Centre on Level 3 not far from the Museum of London. We 'discovered' this many months ago when we were in the Barbican during the week and, currently, the Conservatory is open to the public only on Sundays so we were unable to go in then. It is not really publicised and so is pleasantly uncrowded. It is also free. The days on which it is open to the public are displayed on this page http://www.barbican.org.uk/visitor-information/conservatory which you should check before you go. That page describes it as 'a little hidden treasure' but I would have thought that it's a big hidden treasure.

Having walked to St. Paul's Cathedral we went into the Crypt for lunch and very nice it was too. Amanda (on the left) had spicy chicken and I had fish pie.

After lunch we hopped on a number 23 bus and headed west. Regent Street was pretty crowded with, probably, Christmas shoppers

but Oxford Street looked manic from the top deck of the bus and we were both glad not to be walking along down there. We got off at Bond Street Station and headed north for a short distance to Manchester Square and the Wallace Collection.

The Wallace Collection, we found, was even more astonishing than the Barbican Conservatory. It was rather like a mini Victoria and Albert Museum and Amanda commented that some of the displays here put the V&A to shame. It is free although they do ask for a donation if you are so inclined.

This is the view you will see if you approach north from Oxford Street via Duke Street.

The main stairway will be your first sighting as you walk into the main hall.

The Back State Room apart from having bright red wallpaper and curtains has displays of paintings and porcelain.

This is just some of the Sevres porcelain in the Back State Room.

This vase and cover is not glass, as you might imagine, but engraved rock crystal.

One of the painting galleries upstairs. They do have some bright wallpapers here.

One of their most famous pieces – the Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals painted in 1624 displayed in the Large Drawing Room upstairs.

In the Oval Drawing Room, upstairs, this amazing writing desk is just like the one I have at home. Well mine has four legs too.

You want armour? They have armour. There is also a comprehensive display of weapons.

We finally left the Wallace Collection to head home although we had one last venue planned which was the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in, unsurprisingly, Great Ormond Street which is north east of the British Museum and we caught the number 98 bus to get there. If you go into the main entrance of the hospital, veer to the right around the reception desk, then go left along the corridor you will see a sign sticking out on the right-hand side saying 'Chapel'. We went in.

Dating from about 1875 this is a good example of Victorian 'over-the-top-ness' and really is worth a look. It is very small, about 21 feet square, so it won't take you long. The view below of part of the ceiling demonstrates that just about every inch of space is decorated in some way with plenty of gilding. It is said to be decorated  in "elaborate Franco-Italianate style". It's certainly that.

We were the only visitors in the chapel.

Finally we caught the number 8 bus to take us back to Liverpool Street Station and thence home. A very interesting trip.
 

The Republic of Texas

The Republic of Texas

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Just in case you wondered, the subject heading is relevant and we'll get to it later.

Days where the sun has been out for most of the day have been few and far between this year and, we are told, this summer has been the wettest for 100 years so we couldn't afford to miss the opportunity of a sunny day. We woke on Friday morning to a clear sky and made preparations to go to London. Having arrived at our local railway station a good ten minutes before the train was due to leave we thought that we had plenty of time until, that is, we saw the queue for the ticket office. We have never seen such a long queue here. Normally we wouldn't expect to see more than 3 people queuing at most and very often there is no one waiting at all. We assumed that it must be people going to the Paralympics as Stratford is the last stop before Liverpool Street Station. Our train was due to depart at 09:23 and we were worriedly watching the clock as we moved all too slowly towards the ticket office which we reached about 09:23,  although our train hadn't arrived yet, and bought our tickets. The train came in about two minutes late – phew!

The train stopped at Stratford and the Olympic Park didn't seem to be very busy at this time of day and we continued to Liverpool Street Station arriving about 10:20. On the western side of Liverpool Street Station there is a row of doorways each of which has a bus stop by it and one of those buses is the number 11 which we were going to catch.

The No. 11 is quite a good sightseeing route so we went to the upper deck and found a seat at the front. The bus leaves Liverpool Street Station along Sun Street, crosses London Wall into Old Broad Street and thence along Threadneedle Street to Bank. From there we go down Victoria Street, fork right into Cannon Street and eventually pass this:

Do I need to tell you where we are? I don't think so.

Along Ludgate Hill, Fleet Street and past the Royal Courts of Justice:

Along Strand to Aldwych where we got off. The bus goes on to Fulham Broadway via Trafalgar Square and Westminster which would be the last of the sightseeing route. Who needs a tour bus?

We now walked north up Kingsway, turned right into Portugal Street then eventually left into Portsmouth Street which runs up towards Lincolns Inn Fields. The building in Portsmouth Street that we came to see was this:

The Old Curiosity Shop with its jettied upper storey and wooden beams dates from the 16th century and is probably the oldest shop in central London. It has been suggested that this was the inspiration for Dickens' novel but there is no evidence to support this idea. Made using the wood from old ships the building miraculously survived the the Great Fire of 1666 and the bombs of the Second World War.

From there we walked through the side streets and made our way towards Trafalgar Square passing through Covent Garden Market on the way.

There were two noticeable differences compared with when I was here last. There are Olympic flags suspended under the roof (no surprises there) and there seemed to be few people. When I was last here it was positively seething.

We eventually entered Trafalgar Square at a point right next to St. Martin-in-the Fields. As it was now 11:00 we decided to go into the crypt cafe for some coffee. There are also toilets down there and there is nothing to stop you walking in off the street and using them like public toilets. However, as we discovered, there is a prominent notice in the toilets which explains that it costs £32,000 annually to maintain them and although they have no objection to you using them in that way they do hope that you will either buy something in the cafe or shop or at least leave a donation in their donations box. Pretty generous I thought.

We left Trafalgar Square via Pall Mall and part way along Pall Mall we had a look in the Royal Opera Arcade. Just ignore the strange woman looking in the window.

Where Pall Mall turns into St. James's Street we saw the main gate of St. James's Palace which is the gatehouse from the palace of Henry VIII and is, of course, Tudor.

We turned up St. James's Street and on the corner of St. James's Street and Pall Mall we saw this old shop.

Berry Bros. & Rudd is one of Britain's oldest wine and spirit merchants and in 1698, the building dates from that time, opened its doors for the first time at 3 St. James's Street, London and it still  trades from the same premises.

Note the alleyway on the left-hand side. That is Pickering Place and at the far end is a small very attractive courtyard. This is the view down the passageway with the courtyard showing at the far end. The timber construction of Berry's old shop can be seen in the wall.

Before we go into the courtyard can you see that little metal plaque on the wall? Well this is what it says:

It's amazing what one can find in London. And so we go into the courtyard.

Having left the courtyard, and the Republic of Texas, we went a little further along St. James's Street to Blue Ball Yard on the opposite side of the street.

Those buildings, apparently, are stables built in 1742 which have now been converted into living accommodation. I imagine that originally the stables would have been at ground level and accommodation for the staff above.

Further up St. James's Street we came across a modern development called the Economist Plaza. It wasn't really of interest to us but we wandered across it and went down some steps on the other side which were made of some very obviously fossiliferous polished limestone which was absolutely stuffed with fossils.

Having emerged into Bury Street we walked up into Jermyn Street where a little further along we first came to this statue of Beau Brummel.

One of the reasons this statue is here is that Jermyn Street is stuffed with tailors shops and, further along still, we came to this shop.

It is, I have to admit, a rather boring shop but they make and supply my shirts. I thought you might like to know that. :cool: Beau Brummel eat your heart out.

We then went up into Piccadilly and shortly after came to Hatchards Bookshop.

It is known world-wide among those who like books and bookshops and the other reason I mention it is because Amanda's maiden name was Hatchard. You may notice that I'm standing in the road in order to take the photograph and Piccadilly is a very busy road but I managed to take this one picture just before I was run over by a bus.

A few yards along is the Fortnum and Mason department store and opposite is Burlington Arcade. If you have more money than you know what to do with then these are good places to shop.

We walked further west along Piccadilly until we reached Albemarle Street and walked north up there until we reached the Royal Institution.

The Royal Institution is an independent charity dedicated to connecting people with the world of science and this building houses the Faraday Museum. They are most famous for their Christmas Lectures which were started by Michael Faraday in 1825.

Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include that of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. The Faraday Museum details some of his experiments.

The Royal Institution also has a nice little cafe, where we had lunch, and toilets and if you are lucky enough to visit on a day when there are no lectures being held, as we were, then you may visit the lecture theatre where Faraday gave his first Christmas Lecture.

Impressive!

We moved on further west towards Shepherd Market passing through Berkeley Square on the way but didn't hear any nightingales. :lol: Shepherd Market is a small village-like area with a maze of narrow streets and lanes. Running parallel to White Horse Street is Half Moon Street where the fictional Bertie Wooster (the perfect upper-class Mayfair resident and his faithful valet Jeeves of P.G. Wodehouse's novels) lived.

In the 1920s Shepherd Market was considered to be London's most fashionable and opulent district by the city's bourgeois social elite. Shepherd Market remains a peculiar and curious collection of charming alleyways, eclectic cuisine, 18th century pubs and discreet residences.

Leaving Shepherd market and moving further west we arrive at Hyde Park Corner with the Wellington Arch.

We decide that we will now catch a No. 9 bus to the Royal Albert Hall as our last port of call which we do.

You may notice that the cloud has increased somewhat. It was forecast to increase by about 6:00 PM but it has arrived a bit earlier so the sun is fading fast and so are we. We decide to call it a day and head back to the station first on the No. 9 as far as Aldwych and then the number 23 to Liverpool Street.

We go back through Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly, St. James's Palace and Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square, Aldwych, Fleet Street and past the Old Exchange thence to Liverpool Street Station and home.

An enjoyable day.