Day 4 - Westminster Abbey

I had purchased tickets for Westminster Abbey right at the 30 day limit when they go on sale. I was even able to get a Hidden Treasures ticket (capped at 15) for some behind the scenes spaces in the Abbey.  We had entry at 11, so we had a leisurely morning.  I couldn't resist snapping a shot of Big Ben, even though I have several good ones I've taken over the years.  The clock face is always startlingly huge.  We passed the small square across from Parliament and for the first time I can remember, there were no demonstrators there.  I don't know if there was a crack down on allowing demonstrations there or what?  Seems like there is always something to protest.

I've visited the Abbey probably 3 or 4 times in the past 20 years.  My impressions have not really changed.  It doesn't feel much like a worship space to me.  It's more of a cemetery, with dead monarchs going back ages.  I saw one person impossibly trying to avoid stepping on grave markers on the floor.  Every inch of the building is covered with monuments, plaques, memorials, etc. There's nothing wrong with this, the length of its history is stunning, but it doesn't feel worshipful to me.  Apparently most of these were added during the Victorian era and afterwards.  I imagine the space looked much different prior to that. 

Despite the time entry, the space was packed with people - All with audio guides in their ears and paying no attention to anyone else around them.  I tried to be patient, but after an hour or so, I was really tired of being jostled by people. Still, the architecture is beautiful.  The space is so tall!

This picture was actually taken at the end of the day as we were on our way out.  The nave was already closed to visitors and the space was blissfully empty. 

This mosaic floor has seen monarchs crowned for 700 years!

View from the galleries above.

"side plank" anyone?

One of my favorite spaces.  Its a chapel that was added on to the front of the abbey by Henry VII - Lady's Chapel.  The ceiling is amazing, and I really like the standards too - very colorful.  I would have really enjoyed listening to a choir sing in this space. 

Each seat in the choir has the coat of arms for the personage who gets to sit in that seat for special occasions.  I'm not clear at all what such occasions are. 

The Chapter house (above) was one of the less crazy spaces in Westminster Abbey.  Only a handful of people were there when I came in.  The room is light and airy with a cool, single pillar suspending the multi-vaulted ceiling.  Much of the stained glass was damaged in WWII, but some dates back to the 1850s.

These paintings in the Chapter house (monk's meeting space) date back to the 1300's!  Much of the wall space in this chamber is blank, but these paintings are in remarkable condition.  There is nothing that tells about whether they were uncovered and restored or what. 

The tiled floor is original (and mostly covered up to protect it).  The patterns were made by stamping the pattern into the clay, then filling the impression with lighter colored clay, then glazing and firing them. These are original floors dating back to the 1200s.

I liked the sculptures above the door.  To the left is the archangel Gabriel, to the right is May, with Christ in the center.  These were added in the Victorian era. 

The Pyx - One of the oldest parts of the Abbey - underneath the monks dormitories.  Used as a strong room for valuables for many years, with iron bars on the windows and two doors (below) with 6 locks. 

 

Our Hidden Highlights tour was with a guide named Edward who was a fount of knowledge (in a way that did not leave a non-Brit totally lost).  He took us into several functional rooms used by the Abbey leadership.  These were rooms that were used in preparation for the coronation of King Charles. This is the Jericho room (it had a huge closet with priestly garments). 

The circles of stained glass here pre-dated the reign of Henry VIII (early 1500s).  He ended the reign of the Catholic church in England (and started the Anglican church).  The crossed keys here are a Catholic/Papal symbol.  It is rare that such an artifact remains because people vandalized and destroyed many such objects after Henry VIII ousted the Catholic church. 

This room is a functional meeting room for the Dean of the Abbey (the Jerusalem room).

The wooden beamed roof was quite fancy.  The R with a crown was for Richard II who built this extension onto the Abbey. 

Our guide pointed out how the priceless Flemish tapestries had been so poorly treated in this room.  They took this one from another palace and hung it on the wall here, but had to chop it to fit.  If you look in the bottom, left corner, you can see it was cut to allow for a hidden door to be able to open.  The guide said a tapestry expert had come through on the tour once and had been appalled.  She said if the Abbey ever wanted to give up the tapestery, her institution would take it and repair it (and treat it properly!)

This is part of the Deanery, a lovely courtyard space next to the dining hall for the Abbey School.  A bomb fell in this courtyard in WWII, taking out most of the building directly to the right of the frame. 

The school's dining hall reminds me of Hogwarts.  It is a "public school", meaning its open to members of the public, but only if you have 50,000 pounds/year to spend. There are about 700 students. 

The dining hall used to have an open fire in the center of the floor for heating.  The smoke would exit through this open space in the roof (now glassed in). 

The next room we visited was the library (once the monk's dormitory).   The guide told us no pictures (and meant it). He would be in trouble if we took any, so I managed to restrain myself.  The whole room smelled of old books and it had a lot of OLD books!  He said they used to be bolted and chained to the book cases and had to be read on small fold out racks set in each book case.  The library/dormitory sat along the other side of the wall you see here in the south transcept of the church.  The monks had a special entry directory from the dormitories. If you look toward the top of the photo on the right, you'll see a partial set of steps leading from the dormitory. 

This is the same view from above.  You can see an open workspace (part of the existent library) that was not visible from below.  The stairs on the left side of the photo. 

Our behind the scenes tour ended with a visit to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries above the floor of the nave.  If you know me, you know I am all about climbing up to the highest point for a good view, so this was awesome! Looking up, the Gallery is the smaller row of arches in the wall, below the top glassed-in windows. [Randomly, of all the chandeliers in the building, the one in the center here was the only mismatched one.]

This is a view from the gallery level, looking across the nave.

This is a view from within the galleries, looking down the length of the building.

Our guide.  This sarcophagus was found on the north side of the Abbey and dates to 300 AD.  It's original occupant was Roman (Latin text engraved on the side), but the body inside was Saxon and dated to about 900 AD (and the cross on top was added).  #rude removing the previous burial for another one. 

In case you were wondering how they got a giant sarcophagus up a bunch of stairs to the gallery level, they didn't! They put a hole in the ceiling and lowered it in with a big crane!

The framed glass panels above and below are fragments of painted glass from Henry II's rebuilding of the Abbey in 1245.  I thought the display against the current flower windows was beautiful. 

Painted image of Katherine of Aragon (Henry VIIIs first wife) on glass from 1520.

This was a really cool device that creates an illusion of distance looking down the length of the Abbey. (See below)

There were quite a few items displayed in this space, including a number of effigy frames and clothing from effigies.  Some of the textiles they had dated back to 1377 from King Edward III's burial.

One of the two Coronation chairs is up in the Galleries (the other in on exhibit behind glass by the exit).  A second one was created when a queen was coronated along with her husband the king.  The older one used to sit in the church and people could actually sit in it.  Many carved their initials in it and defaced it for years before it was finally removed for preservation. 

Lovely windows in the galley

One of my favorite photos of the day, looking down the length of the nave from the galley level.

I feel like the story of my day was "no pictures please".  I wasn't supposed to take pictures down below, so I sneaked this when the staff member wasn't looking.

This is one of the Magna Carta documents.  The notation with this display dates it to 1300 and says it is one of 24 remaining 'original' charters.  I did some further reading and apparently this agreement (that no one, including the king, is above the law) was first made in 1215 by King John, and re-agreed to six times by later kings.  It is estimated that about 250 versions with copied during this period to make sure it was documented and carried out. BBC article

I love architecture and angles.  I kept trying to get some cool shots through the stonework.  This shows a neat view of the cathedral ceiling in the distance. 

Similar view but with the flower window in the distance.

Flower window seen through the flower window.

Exterior view.

Yet another instance when I was told to "step down please" from the bench where I was standing to capture this photo (there were hoards of people below me and I just wanted the glass and stonework, not the people)

My favorite photos of the day were in the gardens around the Abbey.

Parliament in the background

Flying buttresses are awesome

We walked up to Trafalgar square, over to Covent Garden and then headed home.  A pretty satisfying day!

Day 3 - Worship at St Paul's and the Docklands Museum

When I'm traveling, Sunday often passes just like any other day, but I thought it would be nice to try to attend worship at one of the cathedrals in town.  St Paul's was not too far from our lodging.  We got there a bit early and were some of the first allowed to enter and be seated, so we got a place right in the middle of the Crossing (where the nave intersects with the north and south transepts).  We had perfect view of the organist and organ console.  

The church is now an Anglican church, so it was a high church service with a full processional of clergy/worship leaders.  The bulletin had their titles, but I don't know the difference between a 'Deacon', a 'President', and the 'Rev Canon'.  They all had fancy vestments on. The gospel lesson was read in Yoruba (with the Yoruba and English translation in the bulletin).  It is a pretty language.  The sermon was given by the Canon of Racial Justice, Adeola Eleyae.  A guest choir from Norfolk Virginia sang and the organist was a post-doc who was playing for the last time during his study at the cathedral.

They welcomed all who had been baptized to take communion.  I received a wafer from the clergyman, but instead of dipping it in the wine and eating, you eat it and then drink from a communal cup.  That was a little more than I had bargained for, so I skipped the drink (as did some others).  They managed to serve several hundred people efficiently from multiple stations. 

Most of the hymns we sang I was familiar with, but it was a little tricky in a space with so much reverberation.  I enjoyed the chanting of the prayers and especially the organ postlude.  Though quite different from home, a sacred and peaceful experience.

I discretely video recorded some of the music during the service with my phone on my lap looking up at the dome, but I can't successfully load video content on the blog, so suffice it to say it was wonderful!

After the service, we went up to the top of the dome for some great city views.  I had thought it was closed on Sundays, but at the end of the service, the deacon said people could go up with a ticket.  I jumped online and grabbed one. 

It was a gray day, but you could still see quite a ways, and we didn't get rained on. 

We ate a picnic lunch on the stairs, avoiding "feeding the birds for tupence" (Mary Poppins reference).  Then we headed to the "Isle of Dogs" and the Docklands Museum.

I had never been in this part of the city before.  It's a ways from the center of the city (down the river toward the sea).  You can see from the map that its not actually an island, just the land caught in a large loop in the Thames River. The West India company excavated a HUGE canal and inland docks across the neck of the area in 1802.  They built a fortified dock space to try to cut back on theft of the goods that were coming from all over the world.

The museum is in the one remaining warehouse dating to the 1800s.  It had a well curated set of artifacts telling the history of the area and the role of global trade as part of the British Empire.  It had a whole section on the slave trade that was well done and disturbing.  It even included a part at the end for you to reflect a bit on how that section of the exhibit made you feel. It was different from US exhibits on slavery, which tend to put it in the past and not fully link it to the present.  This exhibit included art from modern
British citizens of African origin, talking about their blackness and culture within British society.  

The area was heavily bombed in WWII, facing 13 straight weeks of bombing raids at one point.  Over 23,000 vessels were converted and maintained and launched to support the war effort from these docks. The area closed as a dock for goods in the 1980s and has since been rebuilt into a trendy residential and international business hub. 

These "BBQ boats" made me laugh.  There's a small grill in the center and a small outboard motor on the side, which a suspended shade umbrella.  You just motor around the dock area and bar-b-que...

We headed to Whitechapel for some Indian food and managed to be seated just as a torrential rain storm hit.  We enjoyed our meal and then head home for the evening. 

 

Day 2 - Musuem, Show and Ripper Walking Tour

With our jet lag and late night out on our first day, we slept in a bit.  We eventually started moving and David, Delaney and I decided to visit the Victoria and Albert extension that was not too far from us.  The gigantic warehouse is located in the 2012 London Olympic park grounds and houses all of the items that are not on exhibit at the V & A in central London: 250,000 objects, 350,000 books, and 1,000 collections. A small portion of these are on exhibit within the warehouse.  They are 'curated' and have digital tags/signage, but the way they are group together feels very random - Beautiful teak inlaid desks next to plastic molded patio furniture from the 1970s.  In not sure of the intended effect, but it's rather jarring.   It didn't take too many pictures, it was pretty overwhelming.  I just enjoyed wandering around and looking.

3 stories you could walk on and view of a fourth floor below. 

It's a working museum space with active conservation and study taking place.  We were there on a weekend, so we only saw one person working on some clothing.  I would have really enjoyed watching more of them at work and learning more about the preservation efforts.  There was an interesting display that talked about whether the museum chooses to let things degrade naturally or takes steps to preserve it exactly as it is.  Each choice has advantages and disadvantages. 

I really enjoyed stopping to talk with several of the employees to ask about the work done there and how this was essentially a 'pre-exhibit' exhibit.  One guy talked about how some of the curators (the ones who do the research and write the 80 words about each object) were uncomfortable "letting so many of the objects speak for themselves", instead of labeling all of them meticulously and providing context for the visitors viewing the objects.  I had never given much thought to the meta-perspective on museum design, although I've always appreciated exhibits with just the right balance of background and narrative to make the displays meaningful but not over-the-top. 

I first went up to the top floor because the wooden exhibit caught my eye. I thought it was a boat hull or something.  When I got up there, I realized it was the exterior of a fancy ceiling (see below) that could be viewed from the floor below. 

One of the other displays that I spent a lot of time with was a video collection of a block-long public housing complex that had been demolished a few years ago.  It showed apartment after apartment and the different decor of the residents (very diverse ethnically).  It was kind of mesmerizing. 

The only other photo I got was of this hat from an Italian opera (I don't remember which one).  It was huge! (you can see the person's head at the bottom). It had a shark (on the left) and small boats sailing around the Sydney opera house). 

The V & A was also along a different canal (this one had more algae). You can see parts of the Olympic park on the horizon.

Some really cute apartments along the canal. 

This building was originally the Public Baths (sign at the top). With entrances for men and women.

I appreciated seeing the bee-friendly spaces along the canal.  There was a sign about helping pollinators.

I was worried we wouldn't get to see Six because I accidentally purchased tickets from a 3rd party vendor, but they came through and we got to see the show.  It was so much fun!  I had to listen really hard to catch the lyrics/dialogue and I know I missed some good lines, but we had some good laughs. 

They also did a finale and invited the audience to take pictures/video.  I don't know if this is a new trend in the theatre or what, but it definitely had its appeal. 

Fish and chips dinner and then a Jack the Ripper walking tour in Whitechapel. 

Our guide was an apparent researcher, with two published books (one on Jack the Ripper and one on active shooting incidents in the US).  When he heard we were from Wichita KS, he immediately noted BTK and then said the first mass shooting incident in the US was in Winfield KS in 1903.  I'm not sure how he defines active shooting when there was the Wild West...

I didn't take too many pictures along the walk.  I'm not a Ripper fan and wasn't familiar with the string of murders attributed to him, so the various places and victims didn't mean a lot to me.  Our guide was a good storyteller, however, and gave the gruesome details for those who wanted to know. 

I liked this wall art near the end of the tour.  It reminded me of a Banksy, but I don't think it was. 

Had to laugh about this.  There were tons of walking tours going through the neighborhood that evening.  So many guides in 'the business'.  

Day 1 - Canal walk and Mamma Mia!

Arrived in the morning after an uneventful flight.  I normally take the Picadilly line into central London, but the new(er) Elizabeth line was the fastest connection to our AirBnb in Hoxton.  It was one smooth, quick ride!  They are remodeling the pub on the first floor, but the rooms above were quite nice.  We got a "loft room" that was fun!   

Hoxton station is relatively new and built from an old viaduct.

Charlene is training for a half marathon and has to do a training run tomorrow, so we explored a canal route leading to a park where she could run.  It was fun exploring a little ways and looking at all the different canal boats. 

There was a local street market on Sat am, but only Charlene got to see it when she went for run. 

The canal was tucked away right in the middle of the district with flats all along it and some eateries as well.  

A sunken skiff

In most places the path was not very side, so when bikes came along, you had to step aside.  

Riders would call 'bike', but any walker with earbuds did not hear them.  They ended up stopping a lot until the walker became aware of their presence. lol.

The water was amazingly clear, which surprised me. I'm not sure where the water comes from or goes too, but it was not stagnant and not full of algae.

This was one of the tidiest boats I saw.

This looked like a trash scow, but had someone on board. (Yes, that is a metal, wood burning stove sitting on the gunnel)

Look closely...Yes, that is three large plastic sharks rising out of the water!

After walking along the canal and taking a little nap, we headed down toward the river to meet up with Delaney and catch a show.

It was a pretty sunny day on the Thames.  Temp about 73. 

We arrived about an hour before the show and walked around and had a pastry snack. 

Delaney's train was delayed and she had to dash from Waterloo to the theatre and was just seated when the lights went down. 

The show was great!  The set quite simple, but the story and music - wow!  The cast did several encore numbers with some great costume changes.  My favorite was Dancing Queen.  Everyone in the audience was on their feet singing and dancing. 

It was a pretty theatre.

I had to laugh when we came out of the theatre, there were 5 or 6 blinged out rickshaws that were prowling for riders.  All of them were blaring songs from the show. 

 

UK 2025

Happy to be traveling with friends again to the UK.  Scott is attempting the London-Edinburgh-London bike event, David is helping Delaney move to her new flat, and Charlene and I are seeing what we can around London, Edinburgh, and York.