THIS is THISTLE, he’s a beautiful Scottie Dog known to Scottish events all over Michigan and here in Florida. I so love this little dog and thanks’ to his bestie friend George, (I managed to remember my camera but forgot to take a memory card so no pictures of the Scottish Festival I attended in Winter Springs this weekend) who sent me a picture of Thistle all decked out in his Tartan and looking very SCOTTIE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My pictures today are from the Cornishman in Tintagel where I stayed for all of May and have mentioned many times before. http://www.cornishmaninn.com/
All quotes are from Fodor’s London Companion. http://www.fodors.com/
This episode is dedicate to the lady I meet at the Scottish event (and fellow Outlander fan and yes we pay homage to that show at the end of this crazy blog) who discussed
That she’d already seen London…..I am going to try to dissuade her on that subject today.
“Down Middle Temple Lane, passing on the right, Plowden Building (1831) and the Inn’s Treasury and Library (1956-8), EM Barry’s Temple Gardens (1878-9), spans the lane and is the river gate of the Temple, beyond which there are nice views back up both Inns’ gardens from the Embankment….”
As I mentioned before I invited a lady from the Scottish Festival to check out my summer trip for some ideas on going to Scotland….but the more I thought about her saying she’d seen London the more I just had to give her a few ideas that might make her want to actually see a lot more of London.
Many people See the British Museum and it is a view of the world, or at least the parts that Britain once ruled…but if you really want to know London go to the
Museum of London
(see picture above)
Outside you can see a nice section of the original Roman wall about the city—it continues on up to another section at Tower Hill—This museum contains thousand of years of London history—that city while in England, has always seemed a being on to itself…whether you want to see prehistoric artifacts, Roman marbles, Victoria bric brac or that carriage pictured you’ll been educated and amazed to say the least
The Museum is in Smithfield—where cattle were butchered and the meat sold for hundreds of years, but also where Wm. Wallace was executed to name just a couple of things about the place
other place to see in the area include
Christ Church Towers
National Postal Museum
St. Bartholomew-the-Lesser
with a 15th c tower and vestry
Smithfield Market (where the butchery of cattle not Wallace occurred)
The Fox & Anchor Pub
Charterhouse
which is a square with the remains of a medieval monastery
Barbican Center
Built after WWII with a major arts complex
Cloth Fair
which includes 2 houses that survived the Great fire of 1660
St Bartholomew-the-Great
which has the best preserved medieval interiors of any London Church.
“Opposite St Benet, the elaborate iron gates of the College of Arms (1671-7) are a rogue addition brought from Hertfordshre in 1956 (Queen Victoria Street….)”
MY second favorite Museum:
the
Victoria and Albert
This is the largest decorative art museum in the world and just won the best museum award (Jan. 2017) and 100,000 pounds to go with it. Here you can see all manner of decorative items, as well as clothes through many centuries. The museum will educate, captivate and innovate in equal porportions…just don’t try to see it all in one day.
Locate in South Kensington
other things to see in the area
Brompton Square
1821 Fashionable residences
Holy Trinity Church
19th c
Science Museum
Natural History Museum
Royal College of Music
Historical musical instruments like a harpiscord from 153`
Albert Memorial
Albert Hall
The Royal Geographical Society
“Bunhill Fields are found on the right along Chequer Street: a tree filled burial ground where the friendly gardeners will put down their rakes to show you where Defoe, Blake, Bunyand ando others lie buried–they also sell the guidebook.”
While
THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
has dinosours and all manner of pre-historic and more recent ones that have gone extinct in more recent life times and some that are still away…there is so much to see, but to me the really amazing thing here is the building which as you can see above is amazing to review to say the least.
See South Kingsington above for more place to see in this area
“This was the first site of the Royal Bethlehem Hospital (founded 1247), known as Bedlam, where the insane were chained to the wall and ducked in water or whipped to calm their tantrums.”
While you’ve probably have seen Westminster Abbey and well you should, London is full of fantastic thought not as high profile church worth seeing.
TEMPLE CHURCH
IS now part of the legends of London thanks to the Templars who built it (it is one of Briton’s few remaining Templar Churches), and it now costs 5 pounds for entrance…when I first visited here in 2001 there was barely anyone but a few of the church official anywhere in sight–but that was before it became a part of the Da Vinci Code fiction that has become a legend for many. The Church which is now part of one of the Inns of Court (all of which have chapels) hold a wonderful area with multiple reproductions of the original Templars–some damaged by the bombings during WWII–you can see the undamaged one at the Victoria and Albert which was part of a collect of a fanatic effort by the people of that age to cast anything and everything.
This area is Holborn and the Inns of Court
Also in this area are
EL Vino’s
An old wine bar where journalists and lawyers mingle
Prince Henry’s Room
Authentic 17th c room in the former gatehose
Temple Bar Memorial
Making the boundaries of London/West Minster
St. Clement Dane
Wren’s 1676 design. Now a Royal Air Force Church
Twinnings
They’ve been selling tea from this store since 1706
and the door dates from 1784.
Royal College of Surgeons 1826
Museum of anatomical specimens
Old Curosity Shop
in a rare 17th c pre-Great Fire (1666) building
Lincoln Inn FIeld
Mock Tudor archway 1845
Sir John Soames Museum
Georgian architect who preserve all manor of architecture in this house and gave it to the city on his death.
Royal Court of Justice 1882
St. Brides
“Southwark, was where haddock-smokers, bone-boilers and makers of catgut and soap worked, a place for all disagreeable smelling trades.”
More horses:
)
“Monuments to the fish trade, vital to London’s diet, are on the left, the Fishmonger’s Hall, church and market, with the gilt-topped Monument to the Great Fire of 1660 behind.”
“Opposite is Friary Court in St. James Palace. As its name suggests, the Palace started life as an Augustinian hospital. It was later women’s leper hospital dedicated to St. James the Lesser before being bought by Henry VIII, who built a hunting manor (1532)…”
“Kensington Court (1883) smothered in cake-decoration terracotta belied the novelties contained inside: hydraulic lifts in the houses man-sized subways beneath the roads for servicing gas and water…”
