Two layovers in London

On my way to Icepops earlier this fall, I had two layovers in London.

Going there, I arrived on the Eurostar at St. Pancras Station. It was my first time in London, there was a tube strike, and apart from needing to catch a train to Manchester in six hours, I had no plans. The weather was beautiful, so I wandered.

A peek at a map showed me the very tempting “Gray’s Inn Road,” so I walked down it past the Inns of Court to the Old Bailey, in Rumpole’s footsteps.

The golden statue atop the Old Bailey is Justice, holding a sword and scales.

A bit further along, I stopped at Christ Church Greyfriars to walk in the garden by the ruins of this church that was destroyed during the Blitz. It was a delight to come upon the “From the Thames to Eternity” installation. Large granite blocks, removed from the Victoria Embankment due to a sewer project, are placed as benches in the garden. This is a temporary placement, until they can be used more permanently. One thing I loved about the signage was that it recognized that the upcoming permanent home of the stones will seem permanent to us, but it won’t be permanent to them — the exhibit anticipates and hopes that they will go one to have many more uses over the long lifetime of granite.

Next, I followed Rose Street to Paternoster Square and Canon Alley into the gardens around St. Paul’s. Talk about irresistible street names! By now I had stepped out of Rumpole’s shoes and into those of Connie Willis’s time-traveling historians from Blackout and All Clear. (A 13-year-old review of those books by yours truly is still kicking around the Web.)

I bought a paper map from the City of London Information Centre and lunch from Counter (having all three of their salads together in one bowl was well worth £11), and then I went to St. Paul’s.

St. Paul’s was wonderful. Something that really struct me as a librarian were the presence of very new items (e.g., Gerry Judah’s 2014 sculptures commemorating World War I) alongside older ones and especially the prominence of new materials that comment on older ones. Projects I noticed include War and resistance in the Caribbean: The monuments at St Paul’s, The East India Company at St. Paul’s, and 50 Monuments in 50 Voices, about which the dean of the cathedral said, “It matters that we should remember the past, including the stories we have not yet told, in order to know how to live together in the present and look to the future.”

I climbed to the top of the dome.

I looked back at the Old Bailey and Christ Church Greyfriars.

The dome near the middle right of this photo is that of the Old Bailey.The tower near the middle of this photo belonged to Christ Church Greyfriars. The wall of arches next to it was part of the nave. In front of the wall you can see the green garden. The granite blocks are pale specks.I looked longingly at the Globe Theatre on the other side of the Thames.

By the time I left St. Paul’s, I had about two hours left before my train. It felt like plenty of time, so I detoured to St. Mary-le-Bow, home of the great bell of Bow, which says “I do not know.” There was a great plaque licensing members of the public to walk through the churchyard:

Here’s a transcription of the plaque:

Rights of Way Act 1932 – Bow Churchyard

That portion of the pavement lying between this wall and the bronze studs forms part of the original churchyard of this parish. This land has in no respect been dedicated to the public as a highway or for any other purpose nor is it intended that any dedication shall take place. Members of the public using this ground do so by way of licence and not as a right.

I wanted to see the Guildhall too, but at that point I was really hurrying. I walked quickly along its modern west wing (past the library!). I wanted to see an exhibit at St. Giles Cripplegate, “Revealing the Medieval Jewish Cemetery,” by the Jewish Square Mile Foundation. I got a bit lost on the way and wound up seeing the Roman wall in St. Alphage Garden, but I did find the exhibit. It was very well done. I am not finding an online version to link to, but this page is similar to some of the exhibit. I really appreciated the Foundation’s work and the support it is getting for it.

After that, I was a bit worried I might miss my train, so I charted the quickest route I could find on my map, along Clerkenwell Road then up Southampton Row to Euston Station. Of course once I got there I was in plenty of time. I got a Cornish pasty, some winegums, and a copy of The Guardian for my train north.

A couple days later, I had another wonderful afternoon in London. It was rainy, so I wandered indoors rather than out, and I didn’t take photos. I went to bookshops (Waterstone’s Gower Street, Oxfam Bloomsbury Street, and Foyle’s Charing Cross Road). At one store I was told that A Birthday for Frances (Russell and Lillian Hoban) is “very old” and thus better ordered online. But I also met The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr), which made up for it. I then rushed down Oxford Street to get to Liberty, where I looked at every by-the-yard (er, by-the-metre) fabric they had and found one that was perfect. I topped it off with afternoon tea at a hotel in Bloomsbury (very good, but not up to the standard set by the fantastic scones I had at Gail’s Bakery in Manchester).