Exciting London!

Day 18  London   Thursday, Sept 28, 2017

We began our four days in London with a walking tour. There's the HMS Belfast anchored back there, and it took place in the D-Day landings. A highlight came later when we met with my Nestlé colleague, Sheila Ralston, and Mark van Leeuwen for dinner at an iconic pub.

We could not depart the Richardsons without hearing David play his organ, which had been in his family for many years. He resisted, but Hilary "pestered" him until he relented. The grandfather clock in the background was cool too.

He played a little bit from several pieces. The organ, over 100 yrs old, was built by the Bell Organ and Piano Company in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

After a warm goodbye to Hilary, David drove us to the Croyden train station. Another thankful goodbye to David, and we had an uneventful 30-minute trip into Victoria Station in London. Here is the huge train station, where we discussed with the tourist office how best we should travel around London over our four days. The fellow asked several questions, and decided to recommend we use Oyster Cards. You put any amount of money on them, and can add more later, and also get a refund if there's still a balance on them when you're done.

We took the Underground to Leicester Square station, with one long-walk line change at our first stop. We had to carry our heavy luggage up and down several flights of steps along the way, but it wasn't that bad. We sure noticed how crowded the subways are, even in the middle of a Thursday. Since an Underground bombing had occurred only a week earlier, we thought we'd be facing strict security screenings, but there was nothing.

 After emerging from the Underground at Leicester Square, we had a short walk to our Airbnb flat. On the way, we passed this attractive pub, The Salisbury, on St. Martin's Ave., which was the street of our flat.

And this pub, Mr. Fogg's Tavern, was directly across the street from the one above. As you can see, I couldn't help myself taking pictures of pubs!

We checked into our flat, and our host, Wynn, was gracious and helpful. It was a nice large room, and we even had our own loo. We could use his kitchen and shower. Wynn was Belgian, and his partner, Steve lived there too, although we never saw Steve, we only could hear him.

We soon headed out to find a pub for lunch. We continued down the street instead of going back to those beauties in the photos above, and found this one, The Marquis. The restaurant was upstairs, in the Charlie Chaplin Room.

 This was their Charlie Chaplin wall. It says there that the building, from 1878, used to be a theater and that he used to rehearse there.

 There is the bar maid pouring our beers!

On our way back downstairs at the pub, they had these framed pieces and I liked seeing the old poster from the London Olympics in 1948. A star of those Games was California high schooler Bob Mathias, who won the decathlon. 

We then walked a very short distance to Covent Garden, famous to us because of My Fair Lady. That market across the street was HUGE, with numerous restaurants and upscale stores.

I could almost see Eliza Doolittle here in the street selling flowers, but that's not the opera house, it's St. Paul's Church.

There must have been a school nearby, because all these kids were eating McDonald's. We just thought it looked funny, all the Mac bags. It looks like one girl there saw me taking the photo, and gestured.

This is the pub where we were to meet Sheila and Mark following our walking tour. We located it before our tour so that we'd know where it was - a few meters from Leicester Square. I had seen on Facebook that Mark and Sheila were in London, so I asked if they'd still be there when we would be. Mark said Thursday was their final night, and they wanted to meet for dinner. He proposed this Lamb and Flag, which turned out to have quite a history.

David and Hilary had given us their London Pubs book, and it said that the Lamb and Flag was the oldest tavern in Leicester Square, dating from Elizabeth I. In the 19th century, it was nicknamed Bucket o' Blood because bare-knuckled prize fights were held upstairs (where we ate). That room is called the Dryden Room, after poet John Dryden, who was almost killed in the alleyway next to the pub by thugs hired by one of King Charles II's 13 mistresses. It also was the favorite pub of Charles Dickens.

One of many street acts in Leicester Square. This group was pretty good not only with their classical music, but their dancing around while they played. I watched them a while because we used the W/C near here. I took two videos of them, but I can't put them on this blog.

We still had some time to kill before our 3:30 tour, so we stopped in the Nag's Head for a pint.

This photo was on the pub's wall, and it was the Covent Garden flower girls ala Eliza Doolittle. Cool!

We finally set off on our Old London Walking tour with about 15 others. This Wellington pub, on Wellington Street, was our first stop to hear a story from the guide. She wanted to tell us that London has dozens and dozens of establishments named for the Duke of Wellington, who is probably the top British hero in history. What did he do to deserve that honor? He defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. There was more, of course - he served in 60 battles during his military career, was Prime Minister twice, was a leading figure in the House of Lords until his retirement, and remained Commander-in-Chief of the British Army until his death.

We walked eastward across Strand, and reached the Australian Embassy. This photo shows the pock marks from bomb damage during the Blitz in 1940-41. They decided not to restore it, but to leave it as a reminder of what the Londoners endured.

Here's our group listening to our guide tell us stuff in front of a statue of Samuel Johnson, the 18th century writer and poet. Behind him is a church called St. Clement Danes. It's now the Church of the Royal Air Force, but was originally built by the Danish Community in the 9th century! It was then rebuilt by both Wm the Conqueror and Sir Christopher Wren, but was completely gutted by German incendiary bombs on May 10, 1941. Its final restoration was in 1958.

This was the view farther east up Strand, where we would continue to walk. As the guide kept telling us, we still had not reached The City of London. More explanation of that later.

A close-up of the clock you can see in the previous photo, on the Royal Courts of Justice buildings.

We scurried past The George, but our guide managed to tell us that it was the only wooden building to survive the Great London Fire of 1666. It became a pub later, in 1723.

We also scurried past Twinings, the famous tea house. Thomas Twining bought the coffee house that was here in 1706, and from that day forward his name has been famous for selling some of the best teas in the world. The coffee houses of London were male only, but Twinings opened up his tea shop to both men and women, making him an early part of the women’s rights movement.

Our tour guide explained that this Temple Bar monument, in the middle of the street and with Queen Victoria on its side, marked our entrance into the City of London. This where there used to be a ceremonial entrance gate, shown below in 1878:

This Temple Bar gateway was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the 17th century, but was removed just after this photo was taken to widen the street. It was reassembled piece by piece (2700 stones) on a private estate in Hertfordshire, but then moved to just north of St. Paul's Cathedral in 2004. Check out my picture of it farther down, after my picture of the cathedral.

The street name on this side (the west side) of the Temple Bar is Strand, which is in the City of Westminster, and beyond the name changes to Fleet Street in the City of London.

You see, our guide explained that the City of London is a distinct city (as is the City of Westminster) within the Greater London metropolis (there are also 31 boroughs). It's where the original city began, and was walled during Roman times. But today, it's still distinct, with its own laws and police and mayor.

The City has a resident population of 9401 but over 300,000 people commute to and work there. About 3/4 of the jobs in the City of London are in the financial, professional, legal, and associated business services sectors.

Our tour guide reminded us that we were on a walking tour of the City of London, not Greater London, so we would finally be stopping more often to learn about the City and seeing more of the back courtyards and alleyways.

We walked south off of Fleet St. and through this Pump Court between various court chambers, under those arched cloisters, and then to the glorious Temple Church - which we did not get to go in. The guide just talked to us next to it.

Temple Church was from the late 12th-century, built by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. The Knights Templar order was very powerful in England, among the wealthiest and most powerful charity throughout Christendom. 

The photo above was atop a column in the church square where we listened to the guide tell us about the Templar Knights and their church. She said this statue was a bit controversial because it made the two knights look gay! Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades.

The church was regularly used as a residence by kings and Papal associates. The Temple also served as an early safety-deposit bank, sometimes in defiance of the Crown's attempts to seize the funds of nobles who had entrusted their wealth there.   

We then walked back to Fleet Street and saw the old Sweeney Todd Barber Shop (1902). It's the narrow building in the middle, which is now the Dundee Courier building ("Sunday Post", "People's Journal"). But it's infamous for its alcohol-loving journalists who produced some incredible work in their day. It's where Sweeney Todd worked and killed as a barber to become the number one serial killer in British history. The church to the left is the Romanian St. George Church.

Continuing east on Fleet St, we soon came to The Tipperary pub (across the street from a McDonald's and Starbucks!). That inscription on the side tells how the building was from 1300, and next to a monastery where the monks brewed ale. This site used to be on an island between the River Thames and River Fleet. The Boars Head pub was then built in 1605, and it survived the Great Fire in 1666 because it was stone and brick whereas the surrounding premises were of wood.

In 1700, a brewery chain from Dublin purchased The Boars Head and it became the first Irish pub outside Ireland. The one piece of trivia our tour guide told us was: It was the first pub outside Ireland to serve Guinness! (The name changed to Tipperary after WWI because of the song "It's a long way...")

On the next block heading east, our guide pointed out Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub across the street. She said it's one of London's most historic pubs, in operation since 1538. It continues to attract interest due to its curious lack of natural lighting inside, which generates its own gloomy charm. Rebuilt after the Great Fire and one of only a few remaining 17th century pubs, it is known for its literary patrons including Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Samuel Johnson. Dickens used the pub frequently, and due to its gloomy nature, they assume that Dickens modeled some of his darker characters there. It's even famously alluded to in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities.

We then came to St. Bride's Church, just off Fleet St. Our guide said its steeple was the inspiration for the traditional wedding cake. Do you see it? The cake is said to date to 1703 when a baker’s apprentice was getting married and wanted to make an extravagant cake, and drew on the design of this steeple for inspiration. (It is not, however, named St. Bride's because of this!)

The church is one of the most ancient in London, dating to the 7th century. The current church was yet another Christopher Wren design following the Great Fire. It was gutted during the Blitz in 1940, except the spire (2nd tallest in London next to St Paul's) survived. 

Just up ahead is St. Paul's Cathedral! Our tour did not include going in the church. Our guide did tell us some information about it, but the next day our tour DID include going inside, so I will tell about it in tomorrow's posting.

I will, however, include this masterpiece selfie, with Queen Anne's statue in the background. She was the Queen when the current cathedral opened officially on Christmas Day, 1711.

 Just a few yards on the north side of the cathedral is the old Temple Bar that spanned Fleet St until 1878. As I mentioned farther up in my posting, this gateway was reassembled here in 2004.

There's even an actual gate under both sides of the Temple Bar's arch. Beyond the gateway is the Paternoster Square Column, whose flame at the top represents the two fires that destroyed this area in 1666 and 1940.

Continuing east, we walked down Cheapside St. (love the name) and found our way onto some small side streets, and past this crowded Jamaican Wine House, "the historic birthplace of London's coffee scene." The City's first coffee house opened here in 1652. Our guide told us that it's always crowded with the local professionals, mainly because it's hidden from tourists. Probably that's why we got some dirty looks as our tour group pushed its way through everyone to continue ahead.

From the Jamaican Wine House we walked south, almost to the river, where we viewed The Monument. It commemorates the Great Fire, and was designed by...you guessed it, Christopher Wren. It was finished in 1677, built at the spot where the fire started. Our guide then told us about who was blamed for starting the fire, and who actually started it.

It was actually started inside a bakery here on Pudding Lane, from an oven that was left on over night. However, the locals wanted to quickly scapegoat a foreigner since they had been wary of foreign insurgents at the time. They quickly accepted the confession of a simple-minded French watchmaker who claimed that he was an agent of the Pope and had started the Great Fire in Westminster (a long ways from where it actually started). He later changed his story to say that he had started the fire at the bakery in Pudding Lane. He was convicted and hanged just two weeks after the fire ended. After his death, it was learned that he had been on board a ship in the North Sea, and had not arrived in London until two days after the fire started.

The death toll is unknown but traditionally thought to have been small, as only six verified deaths were recorded. However, they now know that the toll was far higher because the deaths of poor and middle-class people were not recorded. It is estimated to have destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the City's 80,000 inhabitants.

 We next walked a short ways to the river at a viewing spot, and the Tower Bridge was the attractive sight. Just behind us was the London Bridge (1973), and our guide told us how the rich oil baron from Missouri bought the previous London Bridge (1831-1967) and had it rebuilt at Lake Havasu in AZ in 1971. She said that there's always been a rumor that the oil baron thought he was buying the Tower Bridge, and was shocked when it was rebuilt and it was not what he thought he had bought. This legend is false, however, but makes a nice story since to this day, our guide said that most people think the Tower Bridge is London Bridge.

Our walking tour ended at the Tower. She told us a little about it, said the tour was over, and tips are accepted. We took an extensive Tower tour the following day on our all-day tour, so I will describe it then.

Janet and I then walked across the boulevard to the nearest Underground station, and passed this section of the original Roman wall. It used to surround the entire city in the Roman times and after, but only a few segments remain.

 This shows the thickness of the Roman wall, with the Tower of London in the background.

We took the subway back "home", and prepared for meeting Sheila and Mark at the Lamb and Flag pub for dinner.

 While waiting for them just outside the pub entrance, I took this photo to illustrate how crowded and popular the pubs were in this section of town - the West End. I didn't realize the drinking crowds would spill out into the sidewalks and alleys because there were far more patrons than seats or standing room inside. We actually were waiting a while because Sheila and Mark were late. I went upstairs to request they continue to hold our reservation beyond the 15-minute window, and luckily they did.

Here they are, and we had a very nice dinner and talk, about politics, Nestlé, our travels, our kids, etc. Thank you to Mark for pulling off paying for the whole thing. He thanked me later for helping them by hiring back Sheila after their brew pub venture in Canyon Country had gone under.

What a day! We had to hit the hay because our all-day tour the next morning was starting early, at a bus station quite a ways away.