LONDON WANDERINGS

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are

Today I hit the mother-load  of famous dead people at Westminster Abbey. I collect the dead . I have a photo album; it's been a long time hobby to travel and find graves of famous people or intriguing headstones.  I would have loved to have added these people to my photographic collection and was truly looking forward to it, but no photos are allowed inside the Abbey. After the initial disappointment , I was glad because without the distraction of the camera I slipped into a sort of drifting meander through the solace and spirituality of the building and its history, in the presence of the dead and let them tell their story.  I took the collection with me, just not in a camera to be regurgitated. It's for sure a sacred place. it was easy to respect that and feel it, in fact it commanded it.  I could Google the ones that left the biggest impression but I don't want to, it wouldn't be the same. It seems wrong for some reason. The feeling that I found being there with them and how they're living on hundreds of years after they were gone, as we continue on for now, seems to belong there without the photography. It's something to experience first hand and take in a more ephemeral way.  

All those men and women . now dust, hair and teeth, who lived and loved, had friends, enemies, and died , standing apart, to be remembered forever.

Westminster Abbey, Burial Place and Coronations of Kings and Queens

And so many memorials! There can't possible be any room left. Besides the tombs there were statues, carved effigies, Latin inscriptions, urns, faces, chapels. 

The Biggies

 St Edward the Confessor :1066
Henry II :1189

Henry II

Edward I : 1307  - and his wife Eleanor of Castile
Edward II: 1327  
Richard II:1400
Henry V : 1422
Edward V :1483
Edward V & Richard, the Princes in the Tower : 1483 respectively
Anne Neville , the White Queen, Richard III's wife : 1485
Margaret Beaufort : 1509, Henry VIII's grandmother
Henry VII:1519 and his wife Elizabeth of York 1503
Anne of Cleves : 1557, Henry's wife that got away
Mary I and Elizabeth I : 1558 & 1603, Henry VIII's daughters
Mary, Queen of Scots : 1587
Thos. Cecil, Lord Burghley : 1623 Elizabeth I's buddy
Mary II : 1694



In the Poets Corner are buried Robt. Browning, Thos. Hardy, Kipling, Tennyson, Handel, Dickens. Then there's Isaac Newton , Charles Darwin and David Livingstone. There was a marker for Oliver Cromwell's body... we know where his head went! (Hint: Cambridge Sidney Sussex) . and those were just the named. An amazing experience. 

Cute bat thingummy.

In an outer area, the Cloisters, was a door with a sign pointing out the 900 year old oldest door in England. It looked like any other door. The door was once thought to be covered in human skin but was since found out to be cow hide. Legend had it somebody in the Middle Ages had been caught committing sacrilege in the Abbey, had been flayed, and his skin nailed to the door as a deterrent to other would be felons. Got to love these stories! 

Archaeologists discovered the oak door was put in place in the 1050s, during the reign of the Abbey's founder, Edward the Confessor.

It makes it the only surviving Anglo Saxon door in Britain.

 It is thought it's only survived because it's been indoors and in constant use. 

The door is made from one tree, with its rings suggesting it grew between AD 924 and 1030. 

It opens into the  Chapter House, where monks met every day for prayers in the 13th century.

Mortons Tower 1490 and St Mary's Church

Back into the busy world of the living, we took a walk along the Thames, beside Parliament, Lambeth and Southbank then back to the hotel . Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Morton's tower is a classic surviving example of early Tudor style of brick building. Sweet! 

Secret Burial Found!

Whitehall Guard

No Fooling Around at Downing St, Uzi's and Iron Gates

Sooooo Many People!
Even though London is overflowing with humanity, there's a lack of edgy anxiety you find in NYC. People seem happy, they're polite, no horns blowing, no pushing, no hurrying. Everyone seems to be happy and enjoying themselves even though there's barely room to move sometimes. With all the people I only bumped into someone once and they were backing up to take a picture. At night the streets are hopping with drunks, drinkers deep on the sidewalks, sports fans, huge groups of revelers, loud and obnoxious but all good fun. Still, I hold onto my bag and remain alert. 

This looked like a fun ride, but G wasn't up for it. Darn! 

The Amazing London Eye

And what's a better end to a city afternoon than tea served to you 
in a  sunlit library....

.... then dinner out at J Sheeky, on quiet St Martin's Court, with a front row seat watching people parade by, followed by La Gelateria dark chocolate gelato!