Chiswick House, London

 

Built by 3rd Earl of Burlington in 1725-9, Chiswick House is a magnificent villa modelled on Palladio’s villa rotunda at Vicenza in Italy. It is situated in West London and surrounded by urban areas, but was originally designed as a country villa.

The perfectly formed neo-classical exterior is complemented by spectacular plaster ceilings by William Kent.

The Earl did not actually live in Chiswick House, but in an adjacent Jacobean mansion (demolished in 1758), using the Villa for displaying his works of art and entertaining his friends, who included poets Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, and the composer George Frideric Handel.

The Villa was inherited in 1753 by the fourth Duke of Devonshire and in 1788 the fifth Duke commissioned James Wyatt to add wings to the north and south. These were demolished in 1952.

In 1892 the eighth Duke moved to Chatsworth in Derbyshire and the house became a private mental home.

In 1928 it was bought by Middlesex County Council and is now in the care of English Heritage.

The gardens and grounds, which lead down to the River Thames, were originally adorned with a whole host of follies, statues and other additions. Many of these have disappeared over the years, but what remains include an Ionic temple, a Doric column, statues of Caesar, Pompey and Cicero, two obelisks, a cascade, an avenue of urns and sphinxes, a rustic house, a deer house, a bridge built by James Wyatt in 1788, and a large conservatory attributed to Joseph Paxton.

© John Welford

Cleopatra's Needle, Victoria Embankment, London

 

Visitors to London, walking along the Victoria Embankment of the River Thames, might be surprised to see a genuine Egyptian obelisk standing about halfway between the Waterloo and Hungerford bridges. It has been there since 1878, although it underwent a lengthy and tortuous journey before it arrived at its current destination.

The Needle is nearly 60 feet high and weighs about 186 tons. It was cut from the quarries of Aswan in Upper Egypt. In about 1475 BC it was transported down the Nile to be erected at Heliopolis and was carved with dedications to various gods and symbols representing Pharaoh Tethmosis III. it was later moved to Alexandria.

The connection with Queen Cleopatra is a tenuous and possibly fictitious one. One tradition supposes that it was carved with Cleopatra’s name as a memorial to the son whom Julius Caesar had by Cleopatra, but there is no real evidence for this.

The obelisk stood at Alexandria for many years until it toppled over into the sand. Later Egyptians had little idea what to do with it until the Turkish viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, presented it to the British in 1819. The question then was how to transport it to London?

It was not until 1877 that Gen Sir James Alexander suggested to John Dixon, an English engineer living in Alexandria, that he might turn his attention to the problem. Helped by an enormous £10,000 contribution by Erasmus Wilson, a surgeon, Dixon built a cylindrical iron pontoon to contain the obelisk which would then be towed all the way to London.

The venture nearly foundered during a gale in the Bay of Biscay, off the French coast, which cost the lives of six seamen. However, the obelisk was able to continue its journey and eventually reached London in January 1878.

The original plan was to erect the obelisk outside the Houses of Parliament, but the site proved to be unstable. It was therefore moved to its present position overlooking the River Thames.

Buried beneath Cleopatra’s Needle is a curious time capsule containing contemporary newspapers, a set of coins, a razor and a box of pins, four Bibles in different languages, a copy of Bradshaw’s railway guide and photographs of 12 of the best-looking Englishwomen of the day!

Visitors might notice a number of indentations on the plinth that supports the Needle. These are the result of bomb damage caused by a Zeppelin raid during World War I.

© John Welford

The three Globe Theatres

There have been three theatres on the south bank of the River Thames in London that have been given the name ‘Globe’, but their histories have been very different, especially when that of Number 3 is set alongside those of Numbers 1 and 2.

The First Globe Theatre

This was built in 1599 by the Burbage brothers. Richard Burbage was a leading actor-manager whose company, known as the Chamberlain’s Men (and they were all men, even those that played the female parts), included a quite useful playwright by the name of William Shakespeare.

Burbage was the first actor to play many of Shakespeare’s greatest roles, including Romeo, Henry V, Othello and Macbeth. It was the stage of the Globe Theatre where these performances took place.

There is some doubt about the exact appearance and dimensions of the original Globe. It is believed to have been 20-sided and shaped like a ring doughnut about 100 feet across, with the centre open to the skies. This was where most of the stage was located as well as standing room for the ‘penny stinkards’. The surrounding structure, in which wealthier patrons had seats in several tiers of boxes, was roofed with thatch, which is why the first Globe had to be succeeded by a second.

It was during a performance of ‘King Henry VIII’ (probably a collaboration between William Shakespeare and John Fletcher) on 29^th June 1613 that a cannon was fired on stage as a special effect but had the unfortunate result of setting fire to the thatch. The theatre, which was built entirely of wood, burnt down to the ground, taking less than an hour to do so.

The Second Globe Theatre

Rebuilding started soon after the site had been cleared and the new Globe opened for business early in 1615, although this time with a tiled roof instead of thatch. William Shakespeare died in 1616, but his plays, and those of other Jacobean and later playwrights, continued to be performed to enthusiastic audiences right through to 1642.

However, the Puritans who ruled the capital in 1642, at the outbreak of the English Civil War, decreed that theatres were dens of vice (they had a point) and must all be destroyed. The site of the Globe was given over to house-building, so it was not possible to rebuild the Globe when theatres were again permitted after the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660.

The Third Globe Theatre

The clock now winds forward 300 years, when the American actor Sam Wanamaker conceived the idea of building a full-scale replica of the Globe as close as possible to the original site.

Sam Wanamaker (born 1919) fell foul of the Un-American Activities Committee in 1952 while he was filming in Great Britain. Having been blacklisted for his previous membership of the American Communist Party, he decided to stay put in Britain which then became his home (and that of his daughter Zoe who was only three years old at the time but would grow up to become a leading actress in her own right).

Wanamaker had long been a lover of all things Shakespearean and, from 1970, it became his obsession to rebuild the Globe. He met considerable opposition at first, and he needed to raise more than 10 million dollars for the project, but building started in 1987 on a site about 200 yards away from that of the first two Globes (which was covered by modern buildings).

Unfortunately, Sam Wanamaker did not live to see his dream become reality. He died in 1993 and the Globe was not finished until 1997. He is commemorated by having the nearby Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (opened in January 2014) named after him. This is another reconstruction, namely of the Elizabethan Blackfriars Theatre.

The new Globe is as faithful to the original as could be managed, given that there are no 16^th/17^th century architect’s plans from which the designers could work. The construction was made from English oak, the seats are simple benches, and there is even a thatched roof – this is the only building in London for which the ban on thatch (imposed after the Great Fire of 1666) has been lifted. However, modern fire retardants have been used to ensure that a repeat of the 1613 disaster is unlikely!

There is little doubt that William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, were Doctor Who able to arrange their presence, would feel at home in the third Globe Theatre, where authentic performances of period plays are given regularly during the summer season.

© John Welford

Some treasures of London's National Gallery

London’s National Gallery, which occupies one side of Trafalgar Square, is one of the world’s greatest collections of Western European paintings, containing around 2,300 exhibits dating from the 13^th to the 19^th centuries. For any art lover visiting London, it is a “must see” destination. Here are brief descriptions of just a few of the many treasures on display.

JanVan Eyck: The Arnolfini Portrait

This was formerly thought to be a marriage portrait of a rich Dutch merchant and his heavily pregnant wife, but that view has now fallen from favour. For one thing, the woman is not pregnant but is holding her dress in the style of the time.

There is a lot of detail in this early 15^th century oil painting (it dates from 1434), in which the artist was experimenting with the medium and demonstrating how it could be used to portray subtle variations of light and shade. In particular there is a mirror in the background in which the artist can be seen, and he signs the painting in a typically witty way in the form of graffiti on the wall that translates as: “Jan Van Eyck was here 1434”.

LeonardoDa Vinci: The Leonardo Cartoon

A cartoon was a full-scale drawing on paper that was intended to be a template for a painting, with the outline being pricked through to create an outline on the panel. However, this cartoon, which dates from about 1500, appears not to have been used for this purpose as it is intact, but also incomplete. The drawing was made using charcoal and chalk and measures 56 inches (141 cm) by 41 inches (105 cm).

The cartoon depicts four characters, namely the Virgin Mary, her mother St Anne, and Jesus and John the Baptist as infants. Mary sits on her mother’s lap, which was a common way of portraying them in medieval art, but still adds an intimate touch to a family group that is both symbolic and naturalistic. There are no halos here, but exquisitely beautiful drawings of real people.

Hans Holbein the Younger: The Ambassadors

Holbein was a German who spent much of his working life as court painter to King Henry VIII. In 1533 he painted this extraordinarily detailed double portrait of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, who were on a diplomatic mission from France. The painting also includes a large number of objects and details that are full of symbolism, not all of it being sympathetic to the people being painted.

One very good reason for seeing this painting “in situ” is that there is a very strange object painted across the floor in the foreground. By standing at the correct angle to the canvas the visitor can see that this is a skull, painted as a “memento mori” to say that even the rich and powerful must meet their end eventually.

“The Ambassadors” is a very impressive work, being almost square at about 82 inches (208 cm) each way, such that the portraits are virtually lifesize.

JMW Turner: The Fighting Temeraire

The room that houses this painting contains seven Turners, five Constables, four Gainsboroughs, and more. If time is really short, you could spend your whole Gallery visit in this one room and come away having had a cultural overdose!

Turner painted this canvas (which measures 48 inches by 36 inches (122 x 91 cm)) in 1839, having witnessed the towing up-river of one of the ships that helped win the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Against a flat calm sea and glorious sunset, the ghostly white ship is towed by a busy steam tugboat, belching fire and steam into the sky. It is one of the most evocative scenes ever painted, and one that the viewer can never forget.

John Constable: The Hay Wain

This is another painting that is instantly recognisable. The scene is of an idyllic part of England where the River Stour forms the boundary between Suffolk and Essex. A cart stands in the shallow river as the carters pause in their work of bringing in the harvest from the meadows in the distance. To one side stands a cottage that is still there today, some 190 years after Constable painted the scene in 1821.

Despite the immediacy of the scene, Constable worked from sketches to assemble the finished work in his London studio. The canvas measures 73 inches (185 cm) by 51 inches (130 cm).

George Stubbs: Whistlejacket

This enormous painting of a horse always draws the eye. The canvas is massive, measuring 115 inches (292 cm) by 97 inches (246 cm) and shows nothing but a chestnut horse against a plain brown background. Nobody ever painted horses better than Stubbs, and this painting (dating from 1762) is one of his best. Whistlejacket’s eye is turned towards the viewer, and one can tell that this is a horse with attitude!

Stubbs studied the anatomy of the horse in considerable detail, and his paintings reflect this. Indeed, so realistic was this painting that, when it was nearly completed, Whistlejacket (a racehorse owned by the Marquess of Rockingham) caught sight of it and tried to charge at what he thought was a real horse.

Diego Velazquez: The Toilet of Venus

This is also known as “The Rokeby Venus” from the house of its previous owner before the painting was acquired by the Gallery.

Female nudes are very rare in Spanish art of this period (c. 1650) because of the disapproval of the Catholic Church, and this is the only known nude painting by Velazquez. Venus lies on a couch looking at herself in a mirror held by her winged son Cupid. We can therefore see her face in the mirror as well the curves of her body seen from behind. The beauty of the painting lies in the composition and the many variations of skin tone on both Venus and Cupid.

Vincent Van Gogh: Sunflowers

This is another world-famous painting, although it is one of four that Van Gogh painted on this subject in August and September 1888, intended to decorate the room of his friend Paul Gauguin with whom he hoped to start a new partnership. For Van Gogh, the sunflower was a symbol of happiness, as was the colour yellow.

However, the timeless quality of this painting comes from the realization that these sunflowers are past their best. None of the bunch is fresh, and some have lost all their petals to leave just the seedheads behind.  There is, however, beauty in decay and the promise of new life from the seeds that can only ripen after the flowers have died. The message of the painting is therefore equivocal.

The viewer can see how the artist has used thick brushstrokes (impasto) to produce a variety of textures in this painting.

And the rest?

Needless to say, this brief survey barely scratches the surface. One quick visit to the National Gallery cannot be enough and you will want to return as soon as possible. There is no charge for admission (except to special exhibitions) so you can certainly afford to!

© John Welford

Rotten Row, Hyde Park, London

This broad sandy avenue runs for nearly a mile along the south side of London’s Hyde Park, and there is absolutely nothing rotten about it – either literally or figuratively! 

It was first laid out during the joint reign of King William III and Queen Mary II, which lasted from 1689 to Mary’s death in 1694 (after which William reigned alone for another eight years). 

The avenue was laid out as a private road to grant safe access for the royals between Kensington Palace and the central London residences of St James’s Palace and Whitehall (reached via the adjoining Green Park to the east). 

The route was lit at night by 300 oil lamps, as a precaution against highwaymen, and Rotten Row was thus the first artificially lit road in Britain. 

In later years Rotten Row became a fashionable place for exercising horses, being close to the homes of many upper-class Londoners who lived in the vicinity of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It was somewhere to see and be seen and was often crowded with riders, although these days not many Londoners have houses with stables attached, so the Row is usually empty. 

However, it is still a regular exercise route for the Household Cavalry, whose barracks are close by. 

But why the name Rotten Row? It is simply a corruption of the original name “Rue du Roi”, or “King’s Road”. It is not difficult to see how Londoners with no knowledge of French might convert the name to what it has been for several centuries past! 

© John Welford

Whitehall Palace, London

King Henry VIII seized not only Hampton Court from Cardinal Wolsey when the latter failed to secure an annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1529, but also the Cardinal’s London residence which was then known as York Place, the Cardinal being Archbishop of York.

Henry developed the site with considerable rebuilding and the addition of a new embankment on the side facing the River Thames. The new name for the property was Whitehall Palace, and it became his principal London residence, just as it had been that of the unfortunate Cardinal. 

Henry also acquired fields to the west of the site and added a tiltyard, bowling alley, tennis court and cockpit. These were where St James’s Park is now.

The Palace was where he married both Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, and where the latter died.

The sprawl of buildings lacked a proper Banqueting Hall, and it was not until the reign of King James I that one was added. This burnt down in 1619 and a new one was built, to the design of Inigo Jones. This one survives to the present day and it is open to the public, known now as the Banqueting House. It is notable for its splendid Palladian architecture and ceiling panels painted by Peter Paul Rubens.

It was outside the Banqueting Hall that King Charles I was executed in 1649.

Later monarchs also lived at Whitehall Palace, but William III found that the bad air from the river did not help his asthma and preferred to spend more time at Kensington Palace and Hampton Court.

A fire in 1698 destroyed nearly all the Palace, but fortunately spared the Banqueting Hall. The land on which the Palace had stood became the site of the government offices for which Whitehall is best known today.

© John Welford

The memorial to Sir Arthur Sullivan, Embankment Gardens, London

Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) was the composer half of “Gilbert and Sullivan” who wrote a series of comic operas in the late 19th century that have been performed to great acclaim ever since. Sullivan was also a composer of note in other fields, particularly choral church music. His best-known contribution in this genre was probably the hymn tune to “Onward Christian Soldiers”. 

The Gilbert and Sullivan operas were staged at the Savoy Theatre in London’s Strand, so it is appropriate that the memorial to Sir Arthur stands in the Embankment Gardens facing in the direction of the Savoy Hotel and Theatre, although his bronze bust, if granted the gift of sight, would find that his view was obscured by high buildings. 

The memorial is conventional enough in concept, in that it is a bust on a stone plinth, but there are features that make it somewhat unusual. 

At the base of the plinth, to one side, is an extra piece of bronze consisting of a mandolin, a mask of Pan, and a score of one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s works, namely The Yeoman of the Guard. 

However, what catches the eye to a far greater extent is the figure of a young woman clasping the plinth in a pose that conveys great distress. Even more remarkable is the fact that her emotional state has caused her costume to fall to her waist, leaving her upper portion naked. 

One has to ask – why? The figure of the girl was not originally modelled with the Sullivan memorial in mind, having been made in Paris in 1899 when Sir Arthur was still alive, but somebody clearly thought that it would convey the sorrow that many people felt at the loss of the great man. Whether they would be adequately represented by a half-naked young woman is a matter for conjecture. 

It might have been thought that the figure was reminiscent of one of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, namely Patience, which features “rapturous maidens” draping themselves over the object of their affection, the poet Reginald Bunthorne who was loosely modelled on Oscar Wilde. If that is so, potential opera-goers need to be reassured that – in the vast majority of performances – all such maidens stay fully dressed throughout the show! 

At all events, the afterthought of adding the maiden to the plinth has resulted in what is probably one of the more erotic memorials to be found in London!

© John Welford

Billingsgate Market

The buildings in this photo offer a marked contrast in architectural styles! The one on the right is the old Billingsgate fish market on the north bank of the River Thames near the Tower of London.

The site was used as a fish market from at least the 13^th century, when fish were landed at a wharf and sold to traders, although other goods were sold here as well.

From 1698 it was laid down that only fish would be sold here. The building in the photograph dates from the 1870s.

It became the custom for Billingsgate porters to wear large flat hats on which loads of fish were balanced. The name Billingsgate also became used to describe the sort of abusive and expletive-laden language that they tended to use!

The site was abandoned in 1982 when a new market was opened further down-river, which allowed the original building to be restored to its former splendour.

© John Welford

Places associated with Lady Jane Grey

Lady Jane Grey, the “Nine Days Queen” had a very short life, being executed on 12^th February 1554 at the age of 16. Her life was a sheltered one, in that she spent most of her childhood being educated and she did not travel much. The number of places that are associated with her, and which can be visited today, is therefore limited.

Bradgate Park, Leicestershire

It has long been assumed that Jane Grey was born here, in October 1537, but it is possible that she was born in London and was only brought to the family home of the Greys a little later. However, there is no doubt that she spent much of her life here, especially in her earlier years.

Bradgate Hall and Park had been owned by the Grey family since the 15^th century, with the building of the Hall having been begun in 1490. It is fortunate that the estate has been preserved virtually intact down to the present day, having been presented to the people of Leicestershire by a descendant of the Greys in 1928.

Visitors can therefore wander over most of the 850 acres of the park, which forms part of ancient Charnwood Forest to the north-west of Leicester. This area has many features of interest to geologists, botanists and zoologists, with unusual species of plants, birds and animals to be seen, including herds of red and fallow deer. Some of the world’s oldest fossils have been found here.

However, the house that Jane Grey grew up in is mostly a ruin, although some parts are better preserved than others. Bradgate Hall is easily seen from the main track that runs across the southern part of the Park and visitors can walk through the ruins, although deadly nightshade plants have been allowed to grow here!

Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire

Jane Grey found life at Bradgate not much to her liking, as her parents often treated her unkindly. However, she was much happier when, in the spring of 1547, Katherine Parr, the surviving last wife of King Henry VIII, invited her to join her household. Jane had, in effect, been “bought” by Katherine’s new husband, Thomas Seymour, as a potential bargaining chip in his dynastic ambitions, but for the nine-year-old Jane this was a welcome release.

At first, Jane stayed at Seymour House in London, but in the summer of 1548 she travelled with Katherine Parr, who was heavily pregnant, to Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, which had recently been given to Thomas Seymour by the young King Edward VI.

Jane’s stay at Sudeley was short, because Katherine died shortly after giving birth to a daughter, in September of that year, and Jane acted as chief mourner at her funeral. She returned to Bradgate Hall where she remained with only a few brief interludes in London, even after her marriage to Guildford Dudley in May 1553.

Much of the castle that Jane Grey would have known was destroyed during the 17^th century after the Civil War, the current Sudeley Castle being mostly a 19^th century restoration. That said, the west wing of the castle does date largely from the 16^th century. The chapel contains the tomb of Katherine Parr and there is a stained glass window that features Jane Grey.

Sudeley Castle is open to visitors on a limited basis because it is still a family home. General admission is granted to the gardens, grounds and special exhibitions (housed in the west wing of the castle), but access to the castle apartments is only by conducted tour on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The gardens are well worth seeing, especially as they have been designed to reflect past ages, including those of the Tudors. They include a knot garden, a herb garden and the formal Queens’ garden that is lined by yew hedges.

The Tower of London

This is where Jane’s life came to a premature end on the executioner’s block. She was beheaded on Tower Green, as had been two former wives of King Henry VIII, namely Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Private executions out of the public gaze were granted to royal persons, whereas others took place on Tower Hill, outside the Tower walls.

On the day of her execution Jane watched her husband being led away and saw his headless corpse return on a cart shortly afterwards, before her turn came. She met her end with great courage, although she panicked for a moment when she was blindfolded and could not feel her way to the block.

Visitors can see the execution site and the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula where she was buried. However, Jane was housed during the weeks before her execution at the house of the head gaoler, so there is no cell or dungeon to visit that was once her prison.

The admission price to the Tower of London is not cheap, so visitors will want to get their money’s worth by seeing as much as possible of the various towers and buildings within the complex that constitute the site. Among the attractions are the Crown Jewels and many displays and exhibitions that tell the fascinating story of a fortress that has been standing for nearly a thousand years. Tours are led by yeoman warders who wear the same uniforms that would have been seen by Lady Jane Grey during her final days.

© John Welford

St Paul's Cathedral, London

The itinerary of every tourist who visits London should include St Paul’s Cathedral. This is the seat of the Bishop of London, and the place where many great state occasions take place, such as royal weddings and celebrations, and the funerals of famous people.

However, what you see today is not what the architect, Sir Christopher Wren, originally planned. A scientist by training, Wren’s experience as an architect consisted of only two buildings, but one of those was the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, a circular domed building, modelled after a classical Roman design. He was also a great admirer of St Peter’s Basilica at Rome, with its massive dome designed by Michelangelo.

Not surprisingly, when it came to submitting designs for the new St Paul’s Cathedral, a dome was always going to be a prominent feature. Indeed it was only a matter of days after the Great Fire of 1666, which destroyed Old St Paul’s and much of the surrounding city, that 34-year-old Wren presented his first ideas, leading some cynics to wonder who really started the fire! King Charles II quite liked Wren’s plan, which was to rebuild the whole area on a grand classical plan with broad avenues, but this was too radical for most people, especially as the pressing need was to build new houses as fast as possible.

Plan B consisted of a cathedral in the shape of a Greek cross, surmounted by - you’ve guessed it - a massive dome. However, the clergy objected to this as being too “Romish”, meaning “Catholic”. If you visit the Cathedral today, one thing you can see (by appointment) is a scale model of this design, and decide for yourself if this would have been better or worse than what you see today.

Plan C was therefore a compromise. Wren could have his dome, but a small one, please, and surmounted by a tall spire, which was the dominant feature of the old cathedral. Wren eventually got to work in 1675, nine years after the fire, and proceeded steadily to build the walls. King Charles had given Wren a little leeway, in the shape of a clause in the contract that allowed for “variations, rather ornamental than essential”. Wren took this to mean that he had virtual carte blanche to do what he wanted, but he erected screens around the walls so that prying eyes could not see what he was up to. When the screens came down, it was too late for anyone to change was what obviously under construction, namely a huge dome in place of a spire, as well as several other neo-classical (and thus pagan) features that the clergy would never have sanctioned.

From beginning to end, St Paul’s took 33 years to build, which was a remarkable achievement in itself. By the time it was finished in 1708, King Charles was long dead, which is why the statue outside the cathedral entrance is of Queen Anne. The West Front is impressive in its own right, being based on a classical temple design, with a double colonnaded portico, flanked by towers, and a pediment displaying in stone the conversion of St Paul.

You will also be struck by the whiteness of the stone from which St Paul’s was built, and which has recently been cleaned. This is Portland stone, one of the world’s finest building stones, brought by sea from Dorset to the Thames by barge. If you visit Portland today you can see where the blocks of stone were lowered onto the barges, and there are even a few blocks lying around that were rejected as being sub-standard.

Inside the nave, you will be struck by how light and airy the space is. There is no “dim religious light” here, and there is as much plain glass as stained. There are also no pillars or screens to block your view along the length of the building, which comprises one continuous space. The only pillars in the building support the arches of the broad aisles and the dome.

There are many memorials to famous people in St Paul’s, some of which were rescued from the ruins of the old cathedral. These include a memorial to John Donne, the poet of “no man is an island” fame, who was also Dean of St Paul’s. Prominent memorials include those of Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington. Most of the memorials will be found in the crypt. However, only a plaque commemorates Sir Christopher Wren. This reads “Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice”; “Reader, if you seek a monument, look around you”.

American visitors will almost certainly want to visit the American Memorial Chapel in the apse behind the High Altar. Although St Paul’s escaped relatively unscathed from the wartime bombing that created a second “Great Fire”, the apse was one part that was destroyed and had to be rebuilt. This chapel contains the roll of honour of 28,000 American servicemen who died during World War II whilst stationed in the United Kingdom.

The choir stalls are worth a second look, as they were carved by Grinling Gibbons, Britain’s greatest ever woodcarver. Gibbons also decorated the casing of the organ, which was once played by Mendelsohn.

However, the outstanding feature of St Paul’s has to be the dome, which is the world’s second largest after St Peter’s. You can stand at the centre of the cathedral and look straight up above you, nearly 200 feet, bearing in mind that those relatively slender columns on either side of you are supporting a total weight of 65,000 tons! Or you can make the climb up a series of staircases to the top of the dome.

259 steps up, you come to the Whispering Gallery, from which you can look down into the cathedral interior. The peculiar geometry of the dome means that words spoken in an ordinary voice on one side of the gallery can be heard perfectly clearly on the far side, 112 feet away.

Keep going upwards, and at 378 steps you reach the Stone Gallery that runs around the base of the dome itself, above the colonnade. From here, at 173 feet above floor level, you get a wonderful, relaxed view over London.

The dome is really three domes, with a conical brick structure sitting on top of the inner dome and supporting the wood and lead fabric of the outer dome. A series of staircases between the cone and the outer dome allows you to reach the Golden Gallery at the top of the dome, just below the ball and cross at the very top. This is 280 feet above ground level and you will have climbed 530 steps to get here. The view from here is amazing, but there is not a lot of room at this level and your visit may have to be brief. Whether you would have fancied being hauled up to here in a basket from street level, once a week, is another matter. This is what happened to Wren in his later years as he inspected the work in progress, and in 1708, at the age of 76, he witnessed his son putting the final stone in place.

When I first visited St Paul’s, more than 40 years ago, it was possible to go even higher, into the golden ball that supports the cross, but this is no longer allowed. At that time, St Paul’s, at 355 feet, was the tallest building in London, but it has now been outstripped by several buildings in the “Square Mile”, which is the name given to the Central Business District that is only about a mile away.

On one of my visits some years ago I came across a cathedral guide who was clearly fed up with being asked questions all day. In the Whispering Gallery, a party of schoolchildren were clustered round and one of them, gazing up into the interior of the dome, which is covered with murals depicting incidents from the life of St Paul, asked, “How did they get to do those paintings, all the way up there?” The guide replied, “Long brushes”. I’m sure Sir Christopher would have been amused.

© John Welford

The Senate House Library of London University

This building is the Senate House in the Bloomsbury area of London (next door to the back of the British Museum). It is where I started my first job as a librarian, more than 40 years ago.

This is the central administrative building of the University of London and it houses a library that is open to students and staff who belong to any of the University’s many colleges. The library occupies most of the building in the picture, beginning at the second row of small windows and going all the way up to the top of the tower. When I was there it contained around one million books – what its capacity is today I simply don’t know.

On finishing my degree course (at Bangor, North Wales) in 1974 I was unsure what I wanted to do as a career. I thought that librarianship was a possibility, so I applied to join a scheme that offered one-year placements for graduates at university libraries, at the grade of “student assistant librarian”. This was like an internship, but a proper salary was part of the deal. 

So in September 1974 I started work. I found a place in a hostel in Muswell Hill (north London) and commuted into central London by bus and tube.

I learned a lot at the Senate House. There were three of us who started on the same day, all from different universities, and the library staff devised a plan by which we would work in two different departments in each of the three terms. They shifted us round so that we never worked together at the same time.

I therefore got a grounding in Circulation, Acquisitions and Reference work, as well as working in some specialist subject libraries. It was in the pre-computer age, as far as libraries were concerned, so there were rows and rows of catalogue drawers to file cards into, a highly complicated filing system for Acquisitions records, and a huge row of trays of tickets for the manual issue system. 

A regular job involved searching the closed stacks for rare items and for PhD theses, the latter of which were stored at the very top of the tower – the only part of the building that was not heated!

The library contained a number of special collections that had been bequeathed to the University at various times. The strangest of these had to be the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature. Harry Price had been a noted psychical researcher (i.e. ghost hunter) in the inter-war years and he had acquired a large collection of material on many aspects of the paranormal. The library was stored in a remote part of the building to which the public were not normally admitted. The wind whistled through the pipes to add a distinctly eerie atmosphere, and many of the library staff did not like visiting this collection as they sensed a “presence” when they did so.

In recent years I have often wondered if J K Rowling ever used this library as part of her research for the “Harry Potter” books. She would certainly have gained a lot of information had she done so, and the similarities between the Harry Price Library and that of Hogwarts School are quite striking. I also wonder if that is why Harry Potter is called Harry.

After my year at the Senate House I felt ready to carry on and become a proper librarian. I therefore won a place at the College of Librarianship Wales (at Aberystwyth) where I gained my professional qualification in 1976 (I returned in 1987 to take an additional Masters degree).

© John Welford

The George Inn, Southwark

The George Inn, in the Southwark district of London, not far from London Bridge and The Shard, is a remarkable survivor from the past.

The outstanding feature of The George is the part that contains two galleries that overlook an enclosed courtyard. It is the only surviving galleried inn in London. However, it is the reason why the galleries were built that is of real interest.

This district of London was renowned in Elizabethan times for the theatres it contained, including The Globe where William Shakespeare performed and for which he wrote a number of his plays. However, before dedicated playhouses were built, it was customary for plays to be performed in taverns and inn yards. Inns that featured galleries were able to offer their wealthier clientele a better view of the performers, not to mention the advantage of not having to mingle with “penny stinkards” who comprised much of the audience!

When purpose-built theatres were being designed this feature was incorporated in the plans.

Galleried inns continued to offer entertainment of this nature long after the theatres had become established, such was the demand for theatrical performances of all kinds. It is believed that at least six such inns were in business during the latter part of the 16^th century.

The mixture of drama and alcohol often led to rowdy behaviour and the general belief that acting was a shady career. There was one recorded incident (not at the George Inn) when two actors took exception to an audience member and attacked him and his companion with the swords they had been using on stage, with fatal consequences. This sort of incident was a prime cause behind the suppression of the theatres by the Puritans in the 1640s, only to be lifted in 1660 after the restoration to the throne of King Charles II.

The George Inn we see today is not the original one, which was lost in a fire in the 1670s. The inn was rebuilt in 1677 along exactly the same lines and functioned as a coaching inn for many years. It was mentioned by Charles Dickens in his 1855-7 novel Little Dorrit. 

The George Inn is now maintained by the National Trust but still functions as a licensed premise. You can still be entertained at the George, although not in quite the same way that they did it 450 years ago!

© John Welford

Paddington Station, London

London’s Paddington Station was designed by the chief engineer of the Great Western Railway, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-59). His plans were drawn up at the end of 1850 and the building was completed in 1855.

These dates are significant, because they coincide with the creation of the Crystal Palace that was built to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. Joseph Paxton’s masterpiece of metal and glass no longer exists, but its influence was clearly evident in Brunel’s thinking. Not only that, but the engineers who built Paddington Station – Fox, Henderson and Co – were also the contractors for the Crystal Palace.

Paddington Station consists of three glass-roofed vaults, the widest of which spans more than 100 feet, with two “transepts”, or crossing points, that were originally designed so that locomotives could make “three point turns” before the invention of the turntable. Brunel needed plenty of space for this, given that the Great Western was based on the “broad gauge” system in which the tracks and trains were three feet wider than those currently used.

Practicality was combined with artistry, in which Brunel was aided by Matthew Digby Wyatt (1805-55) who designed the decorative detailing of the ironwork and brickwork.

Brunel’s visionary aim was to transport passengers in comfort all the way from London to New York, via the Great Western to Bristol then by his steamships across the Atlantic. Paddington Station would be where the journey would begin, so passengers could enter a palace of the steam age and enjoy opulence all the way.

The steamships no longer ply their trade from Bristol, but the Crystal Palace of Victorian engineering still stands as a monument to the dream. It is also perfectly possible to travel via Paddington to New York, by taking the “Heathrow Express” to Heathrow Airport!

© John Welford

The Golden Hind: Sir Francis Drake's famous ship

Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world between 1577 and 1580 in his ship the “Golden Hind”. He returned to England a wealthy man, largely due to his piratical behaviour towards the Spanish en route, and was able to repay his investors, including Queen Elizabeth I, many times over.

His ship went on public display in London, and was the first such ship to have that honour.

The ship in the photo, taken by me, is not Drake’s ship, as the original rotted away to nothing within 100 years, but a full-scale authentic replica that was built in Devon in 1973. It has sailed even further than Drake’s ship, notching up more than 140,000 miles in numerous voyages across the oceans, including a full circumnavigation of the world.

The replica is now moored permanently in a small dock, hemmed in by modern buildings, on Bankside near Southwark Cathedral and London Bridge. If you walk along the Thames Path on the south bank you will suddenly come across it as you turn a corner.

It is amazing to think that a ship as small as this could have carried 80 men around the world more than 400 years ago, but the voyage of the replica proved that it could be done. 

The ship is now used mainly for educational purposes, with a fully costumed crew showing schoolchildren of all ages just what life was like on a 16^th century sailing ship.

© John Welford

Hyde Park Corner: Memorials to the Duke of Wellington

The area around London’s Hyde Park Corner is of great interest to anyone who admires the memory of one of Britain’s greatest ever generals, namely Arthur Wellesley, the 1^st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), who was the hero of the Battle of Waterloo.

For one thing, this is where you will find the Duke’s London home, Apsley House, which once had the iconic address “No 1, London” because it was the first house inside the turnpike gate at Hyde Park Corner, which is traditionally the point from which all distances to London from everywhere else in the country are measured.

Apsley House, now under the care of English Heritage, is open to visitors and contains many paintings and other items that were formerly owned by the Duke of Wellington.

Opposite the front of Apsley House is a small green area, surrounded by a busy traffic circulatory system, on which are several memorials and monuments of military significance.

Wellington Arch

The most notable of these is the massive Wellington Arch – not to be confused with Marble Arch which is at the northeast corner of Hyde Park as opposed to the southeast. It was built in 1826-30 to a design by Decimus Burton and was originally sited as the western entrance to Constitution Hill, which runs from Hyde Park to one side of Buckingham Palace. However, it was moved a short distance to its present position in 1882-3, although it is still in alignment with the course of Constitution Hill. The Arch is also known as Constitution Arch.

The Arch originally had a large equestrian statue of Wellington on top, but this was moved to Aldershot early in 1887 to eventually be replaced by a statue by Adrian Jones entitled “Peace in her Quadriga”, which was cast in 1912 and remains Europe’s largest bronze statue.

The Arch contains rooms on either side and across the top, and these are open to the public, who can view an exhibition about London’s statues. From the 1950s until 1992 these rooms comprised London’s smallest police station, providing a base for two sergeants, 10 constables and a cat!

Wellington Memorial

Directly opposite Apsley House, and therefore at an angle to Wellington Arch, is the monument that took the place of the one that was removed from the top of the Arch. This is a bronze, by J E Boehm, of Wellington astride Copenhagen, his favourite warhorse. It was erected in 1888.

Copenhagen was certainly a remarkable horse, having been Wellington’s mount at the Battle of Waterloo for more than 16 hours all told. The story goes that, after the battle, Wellington dismounted in the stable block and Copenhagen, relieved to be off duty at last, lashed out with such fury in his master’s direction that, had he connected, Wellington would have joined Nelson as a great military victor cut down in the hour of his triumph.

The Memorial statue stands on a stone plinth that is “guarded” by the figures of four soldiers who are representatives of troops at the Battle of Waterloo. These are a Grenadier, a Welch Fusilier, an Inniskilling Dragoon and a Royal Highlander. These figures were cast from 12 French cannons that were captured during Wallington’s campaigns.

The Statue of Achilles

On the other side of Apsley House, just inside Hyde Park, is a somewhat curious memorial to the Duke of Wellington, namely a huge bronze figure that purports to be Achilles.

This was the “Ladies’ Trophy”, so called because it was paid for by subscriptions from the women of Britain as their tribute to the Duke. It was modelled by Sir Richard Westmacott and erected in 1822.

One problem with the statue is that it has nothing to do with either the Duke of Wellington or Achilles. It is actually a copy of a statue of a horse-tamer, with sword and shield, in Rome. However, the main reason why it raised plenty of eyebrows in 1822 is that the warrior depicted is almost entirely naked without even the benefit of a fig-leaf! The question has often been raised about how much the ladies who commissioned the statue knew about what they were going to get!

© John Welford

Must-see items at London's British Museum

The British Museum houses more than 8 million objects. Not all of them are on permanent public display, but there are enough there to keep you busy for many days, should you have the time. However, this is unlikely to be the case, especially if your time in London is limited. What you will regard as a “must see” item will doubtless depend on your personal interests, but there are a number of objects that it would be a shame to miss, and some of these are suggested below.

These suggestions are from the Museum’s permanent collection, as opposed to the temporary exhibitions that are mounted from time to time. Such exhibitions often include treasures from private or overseas collections that are only viewable on very rare occasions, and it is therefore a good idea to plan your visit so that you can take in a temporary exhibition as well as your selected items from the main collection. One factor to bear in mind is that the permanent collection is free to view, whereas an entrance fee is usually charged to view a temporary exhibition.

The Elgin Marbles

The Elgin Marbles is the name usually given to the Parthenon sculptures that were acquired in Athens (Greece) by Lord Elgin between 1799 and 1810 and bought by the British Museum in 1816, although Elgin brought back objects from buildings other than the Parthenon, and some of these can be seen elsewhere in the Museum.

There has long been talk about whether the British Museum should continue to house the sculptures, or if their rightful home is in Athens. Although it is unlikely that they will be returned to Greece in the near future it is possible at some stage, so if your visit to the British Museum is a once-in-a-lifetime event, the opportunity to see them should not be missed.

The sculptures are housed in the Duveen Gallery (Room 18), which is on the extreme “left” of the building from the main entrance. The visitor with little time will therefore have to avoid the temptation to look at all the other treasures he or she will pass on the way!

Having reached the gallery, you could easily spend an hour or more taking everything in. What you have here is a huge collection of reliefs and three-dimensional sculptures that were carved in about 440 BC to adorn the upper walls and pediments of the Temple of Athene (known as the Parthenon) on the Acropolis at Athens. You can see these sculptures at eye-level, whereas the original viewers would have had to look far above their heads. The collection is far from complete, many pieces having been lost before Elgin’s time and others being housed in museums in Athens, Paris and elsewhere.

You will be rewarded with a view of beautifully carved marble figures of men, women and animals. Some of these, from the frieze of the temple, represent a ceremonial procession that presents a picture of life in ancient Athens in considerable detail. Other pieces show scenes from Greek mythology, the most dramatic being of the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapiths. This is sculpture of the very highest quality which, even in its damaged state, for example with heads and limbs missing, cannot fail to impress.

The Rosetta Stone (see photo above)

This is a stone slab (or “stele”) that is of immense importance to Egyptology. Consisting of a form of granite known as granodiorite, it measures 45 inches (114 cm) in height and weighs about 1,700 pounds (769 kg), although it is not complete and it is easy to see where parts of it have broken away. It dates from 196 BC but was only discovered in 1799 during Napoleon’s occupation of the Nile Delta, at the town of Rosetta (Rashid).

Its value as an object comes from the inscription on it, which the viewer can easily see is in three distinct sections. These represent the same text (a decree issued on behalf of Ptolemy V) but in three languages, namely Ancient Greek, Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Demotic (a script used in Egypt after hieroglyphics fell out of general use). Despite the fact that the amount of hieroglyphic text is relatively small in comparison with the other scripts, it was enough to provide the key to a lost language.

As it happens, the Rosetta Stone is not the only example of a trilingual or bilingual ancient text, but it is certainly the best known. Like the Elgin Marbles, it has been the subject of conflicting claims as to where it truly belongs, but it has been a central feature of the British Museum’s collection since 1802 and is now displayed in Room 4 (Egyptian sculpture), which runs alongside the Great Court at the centre of the building.

Also in this room is the massive statue of Ramesses II which weighs more than seven tons and was carved from a single piece of granite in about 1250 BC.

Sutton Hoo ship-burial

The discovery in 1939 of the burial site of a 7^th century Anglo-Saxon king or warlord was one of the most important in the history of British archaeology. The dead man had been buried in a ship together with many of his possessions, the whole being covered with earth to form a barrow. The finds were presented by the owner of the land, at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, to the British Museum, where they are now one of its greatest and most visited treasures.

Pride of place goes to a ceremonial helmet which was originally found in about 500 pieces but which has since been reconstructed, and replicas have been made to show how it would have looked originally. The workmanship is extraordinary as is the decoration; for example, the nose and eyebrows of the mask form the shape of a bird, and it also has a moustache.

As well as the helmet, the display in Room 41 (upper floor) contains some other remarkable objects from the burial, including a sword, bowls, spoons, a magnificent gold belt buckle, an intricately decorated purse lid, and a reconstructed lyre.

Next door, in Room 40, are the Lewis chessmen that were carved from walrus ivory and whale teeth in the late 12^th century, probably in Norway. The detail on these pieces is fascinating and bound to bring a smile to the face.

Hinton St Mary mosaic

This was found in a field in Dorset in 1963, having originally been part of the floor of a 4^th century Romano-British villa of which hardly any trace remained. However the mosaic was in excellent condition and was carefully lifted so that it could be transported to the British Museum, where it is now on view in Room 49 (upper floor).

This is one of the most complete mosaic floors ever found and is remarkable in several respects, including its size (about 26 by 17 feet, 8 by 5 metres) and its excellent condition. However, what makes it stand out is the inclusion, in the central roundel, of a head and shoulders that could have been intended to be a representation of Jesus Christ. The clue is in the Greek letters “chi” and “rho” that are the first two letters of “Christ” and are often found in early Christian art.

If this is an imagined portrayal of Christ it is one of the earliest known, and it is certainly the only known example on a mosaic floor anywhere in the Roman Empire.

The rest of the design consists mainly of geometric patterns and hunting scenes, but there is also a mythological scene of Bellerophon slaying the Chimaera, which can be interpreted as good conquering evil. It is possible that the four heads within the corners of the main design are those of the four evangelists. Even if this is not the case, and there is no way of knowing, the combination of Christian and Pagan imagery provides a fascinating glimpse into the mindset of wealthy Romano-Christians of this period.

Other “must-sees”

If time permits, other items that might be high on your list could include the Easter Island statue in Room 24, the Egyptian mummies in Rooms 62 and 63, items from the Oxus Treasure in Room 52, and the 16^th century mechanical galleon clock in Room 39.

You will soon decide that one visit to this amazing museum is not enough and you will want to come back as often as you can and stay for much longer!

© John Welford