We continue our tour of London. Our second trip to the city 15 years later.
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13rd February
After lunch, we went for a walk to see nearby points of interest. We had to make time to get into the Sky Garden, which we had entrance at 16.15.
The first thing we visited was The Monument, the monument to the Great Fire of 1666. It is a fluted Doric column located near the north end of London Bridge.
It was built between 1671 and 1677 on the site of St. Margaret’s, the first church destroyed during the fire.
You can go inside and climb the 311 narrow steps to see the view, but the views are not very good. It is not worth the £6.00 fee.
We continued walking to our next destination. A place that I saw on Google Maps and that later I started to see as a ‘secret place’ in some reels.
I have to point out that the reels I saw of ‘secret places’ are not such. In London there are places that are extremely overcrowded, very overcrowded or overcrowded with tourists. Although in this one there were few people when we arrived.
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This is St. Dunstan in the East Church Garden. This was a parish church located halfway between London Bridge and the Tower of London.
The church was originally built around 1100. A new south aisle was added in 1391 and repaired in 1631. It was badly damaged in the Great Fire of London in 1666 but was not fully repaired, only patched up a little.
Between 1695 and 1701 the Gothic bell tower designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the same as St Paul’s Cathedral, was added.
The church was largely destroyed during World War II. Its ruins are now a public garden maintained by the City of London Corporation.
It is actually a very peaceful place to sit and rest for a while.
From here we come to nearby St. Olave’s Church, one of the few medieval churches in the city to escape the Great Fire of London in 1666.
The church is first recorded in the 13th century as St Olave-towards-the-Tower. It was a stone building that replaced an earlier wooden one.
It is dedicated to the patron saint of Norway, King Olaf II, who fought alongside the Anglo-Saxon King Æthelred the Unready against the Danes at the Battle of London Bridge in 1014. He was canonised after his death and St Olave’s Church was built on the site of the battle.
The present building dates from around 1450. One of the main benefactors of the church in the late 15th century was the wool merchant Richard Cely. On his death, Cely bequeathed money to build the steeple and an altar in the church.
It survived the Great Fire of London but not the German bombing in 1941. It was rebuilt in 1954.
From the church we went in search of the remains of the Roman Wall. But on the way we passed Trinity Square Gardens. There you will find the Tower Hill Memorial, a set of memorials of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The memorials, one for World War I and one for World War II, commemorate civilians, merchant seamen and fishermen who died as a result of enemy action and have no known grave.
We continue on and finally reach the remains of the Roman Wall. It is a defensive wall built by the Romans around the port city of Londinium around 200 AD.
The end of Roman rule in Britain, around 410 AD, led to the deterioration of the wall. It was restored in the late Anglo-Saxon period. This process is thought to have begun with Alfred the Great after 886.
The wall defined the boundaries of the City of London until the late Middle Ages. Then population growth and the development of neighbourhoods around the city blurred the perimeter.
From the 18th century onwards, the expansion of the City of London led to the demolition of large parts of the wall, including the city gates, to improve traffic flow. Since the Second World War, conservation efforts have helped to preserve the surviving sections of the wall.
We retrace our steps to go to the Sky Garden. It is a spectacular garden that occupies the top three floors of a 35-storey building. The building was opened in 2014 and is 160 metres high.
The observation deck has all glass walls and offers 360º panoramic views of London. It also has a terrace, a café and a restaurant.
Admission is free but tickets must be obtained in advance. We recommend at least one month in advance. When you arrive you will have to queue and go through a security check. There were more people there than in the war and it took us about half an hour from the moment we arrived at the building until we got out of the lift.
On the way down from the observation deck we decided to go into a café to sit down for a while to rest and have a hot chocolate. We went to a place called WatchHouse Fenchurch Street. A very modern and very nice place where they charged us £4.20 (€5.07) per hot chocolate. It was really good, though.
We took the underground to Embankment and from there we started our walk. But before going to Covent Garden, we took a little detour.
At the entrance of Charing Cross station there is an element that caught our attention, Eleanor Cross.
Eleanor’s Crosses were a series of twelve decorated stone monuments topped with crosses. They were erected in a line across part of eastern England.
King Edward I had them built between 1291 and 1295 in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile. After 36 years of marriage she died during a royal journey in the East Midlands in November 1290.
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Crosses, erected in his memory, marked the night’s resting places along the route taken when his body was transported to Westminster Abbey.
Crosses were erected at Lincoln, Grantham and Stamford in Lincolnshire; Geddington and Hardingstone in Northamptonshire; Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire; Woburn and Dunstable in Bedfordshire; St Albans and Waltham (now Waltham Cross) in Hertfordshire; Cheapside in London; and Charing (now Charing Cross) in Westminster.
Of the original twelve only three survive, those at Geddington, Hardingstone and Waltham Cross. The one we see at Charing Cross is an 1865 reproduction 200 metres north-east of the original site.
Nearby is Trafalgar Square, built in the early 19th century in the City of Westminster.
The name of the square commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the British naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars over France and Spain that took place on 21 October 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar.
The area was already an important site in the 12th century. On the present site was once the King’s Mews, an elaborately designed enclosed courtyard. After George IV moved the gardens to Buckingham Palace, the area was remodelled by John Nash, but progress was slow after his death and the square was not opened until 1844.
Presiding over the square is Nelson’s Column. It was built in 1840 and 1843 to a design by William Railton. The four bronze lions surrounding its base, designed by Sir Edwin Landseer, were added in 1867.
Important: it is strictly forbidden to ride the lions. Don’t be a fool.
At the northern end of the square is The National Gallery. It is a picture gallery opened in 1824 and has a collection of 2,300 paintings. The works date from between 1250 and 1900 and are mainly European.
Admission is free and you can get in on the spot, although it is advisable to do so in advance.
To the northwest of the square is St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, a parish church dedicated to St Martin of Tours. It was built in neoclassical style between 1722 and 1726 by the architect James Gibbs.
It was built to replace a medieval church that stood on the same site when it began to fall into disrepair. At the time, the site was farmland and fields beyond the London Wall.
Now we are on our way to Covent Garden. This is a London neighbourhood dominated by shops, street artists and other leisure elements.
The first thing we come across is the Jubilee Market, located in the Jubilee Hall. The first Jubilee Market was built in 1904, but there had been a market here since 1654.
It is the only market in London that is wholly owned by the merchants. The traders took over the market to save it from bankruptcy. After a major renovation in 1985, the market was opened on 5 August 1987 by Queen Elizabeth II.
The market changes its goods throughout the week. Monday is dedicated to antiques. Tuesday to Thursday is the general market and Saturday and Sunday are devoted to art and craft items.
It is also home to the London Transport Museum which houses mainly exhibitions relating to London’s transport heritage. As well as preserving and explaining its history.
In the vicinity of the market is also the Royal Ballet and Opera, the Royal Opera House. It is the main home of the Royal Opera, the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera Orchestra. The first theatre, called the Theatre Royal, opened in 1732 and operated for 100 years.
The façade, foyer and auditorium date from 1858, but almost all the other elements of the present complex are the result of extensive reconstruction carried out in the 1990s.
Throughout the centre is Covent Garden Market. The first record of a “new market in Covent Garden” dates from 1654, when market traders set up their stalls against the garden wall of Bedford House.
In 1670, the Earl of Bedford obtained a private charter for a fruit and vegetable market from Charles II. It allowed him and his heirs to hold a market every day except Sundays and Christmas Day.
The original market, made up of wooden stalls and sheds, became disorganised and untidy. John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, sought an Act of Parliament in 1813 to regulate it. He then commissioned Charles Fowler in 1830 to design the neoclassical market building that is now the heart of Covent Garden.
After this short walk we sat down to rest and to look for a place to have dinner. We were exhausted so we decided to go to the hotel. There we had booked a giant supermarket nearby where we could buy something to eat quietly in the room.
We also discovered an oriental supermarket that had millions of types of instant noodles. As we had a kettle in our room, we had some noodles and a delicious sandwich.
For a total of 12.30£ (15€) we had dinner and went to bed.
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14th February
What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than to go sightseeing. So let’s get down to business. We get up early. We buy some breakfast in the supermarket next to the hotel and go to the underground.
Today we have tickets for the Palace of Westminster and then we will visit the abbey. We took the Jubilee line and in about 15 minutes we were at Westminster station.
At the station gate, as soon as we got out, we found this spectacle:
We had tickets for the palace at 10.00 am. As it was early we went for a short walk to make time. We approached the Jewel Tower.
The Jewel Tower is a surviving element of the old Palace of Westminster. It was built between 1365 and 1366, under the direction of William of Sleaford and Henry of Yevele, to house the personal treasury of King Edward III.
The tower continued to be used to store the monarch’s treasury and personal possessions until 1512. Then a fire at the palace caused King Henry VIII to move his court to nearby Whitehall Palace.
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In the late 16th century, the House of Lords began to use the tower to store its parliamentary records. The tower continued to serve as the Lords’ record office throughout the 18th century. Several renovations were carried out to improve its fire protection and comfort. This created the current appearance of the tower.
It was one of only four buildings to survive the fire in Parliament in 1834. After which the archives were moved to the Victoria Tower, built to store archives and part of the new neo-Gothic Palace of Westminster.
Now we are on our way to the entrance. It is recommended to go 15-20 minutes in advance because of the queues, but today there was no one there.
We went through a strict security checkpoint where they even frisked me. Remember that the country is run from this building.
The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is commonly referred to as the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords. These are the two legislative chambers that occupy the building.
The Elizabeth Tower of the palace, nicknamed Big Ben, is a landmark of London and the UK in general. Although Big Ben is actually the bell and not the tower.
The building was originally built in the 11th century as a royal palace. It was the principal residence of the kings of England until 1512, when a fire destroyed the royal apartments. The monarch moved to the adjacent Palace of Whitehall. The rest of the palace remained the seat of the English Parliament, which had met there since the 13th century.
In 1834, a second fire destroyed most of the palace. But the 12th-century Westminster Hall was saved and incorporated into the replacement building.
In 1840, construction began on the new building in the Gothic Revival style. The design was by the architect Charles Barry. Construction was delayed for 30 years due to delays, cost overruns and the death of Barry and his assistant.
After the Second World War, major repairs had to be carried out, including the reconstruction of the House of Commons, which was destroyed.
Free audio guides will be available during our visit. We will visit Westminster Hall and St. Stephen’s Hall, where we will be able to take photos. In the rest of the building, such as the House of Commons and the House of Lords, it is strictly forbidden to take photographs and videos. We saw a few warning calls.
Despite the high ticket price (£26 – €31.50), the visit is well worth it. You will learn how the country is run from within.
At the end of the visit we sat down for a while to rest in the palace cafeteria. The coffee was actually cheaper than in other places, 2.80£ (3,40€) each coffee.
This is the end of this entry. We leave the day halfway through so that it doesn’t take too long. Stay tuned for more to come.
We left the palace and headed towards the entrance to Westminster Abbey. Here, the queue was tremendous. It took us about half an hour to get in. We went through a small checkpoint where they searched my backpack. The tickets are another 30£ (36,30€) per head.
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Westminster Abbey or St. Peter’s Collegiate Church in Westminster has been the coronation place of 40 English and British monarchs since 1066. It is also the resting place of the remains of 18 monarchs. What’s more, 16 royal weddings have taken place within its walls since 1100.
On this very spot in the middle of the 10th century there was already a Benedictine monastery. At that time, the site was an island in the Thames called Thorney Island.
Between 1042 and 1060 the first large building was built by order of King Edward the Confessor. This was the first cruciform church in England. It was consecrated on 28 December 1065. Just a week before Edward’s death on 5 January 1066. Edward and his wife Edith are buried here.
The present church was begun in Gothic style in 1245 by order of Henry III. Part of the new building included a rich shrine and chapel to Edward the Confessor, of which only the base remains standing.
From 1376, Abbot Nicholas Litlyngton and Richard II donated large sums to finish the church. What remained of the old nave was demolished and rebuilding began.
In the 1530s, Henry VIII broke with the authority of the Catholic Church in Rome. He then took control of the monasteries of England, including Westminster Abbey. This began the English Reformation.
Henry’s agents took many relics, images of saints and treasures from the abbey. The gold casket that housed the coffin of Edward the Confessor was melted down. The monks had to hide his bones to save them from destruction.
The Diocese of Westminster was dissolved in 1550, but the abbey was recognised as the second cathedral of the Diocese of London until 1556. The Benedictine monks returned under the Catholic Mary I, but were expelled again by Elizabeth I in 1559.
Numerous personalities such as Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin are buried within its walls.
This is one of the essential visits to make in London. It is very worthwhile. The visit lasts approximately two hours.
As it was getting close to lunchtime, we decided to go for a walk to see if we could find something on the way. And while we were at it, we saw some places of interest.
Right next to the abbey is St. Margaret’s Church. It is dedicated to Margaret of Antioch and was founded in the 12th century by Benedictine monks. It was built so that the people living around the abbey could worship in their own parish church.
Most of the building that remains today is a reconstruction from between 1486 and 1523. In 1625 a separate cemetery was added in what are now Christchurch Gardens.
Between 1734 and 1738, the north-west tower was rebuilt by the architect John James. At the same time, the entire structure was clad in Portland stone. In 1878, Sir George Gilbert Scott restored and modified most of the interior of the church.
Directly opposite the abbey is Central Hall Westminster. Officially The Methodist Central Hall is a multi-purpose venue that serves primarily as a Methodist church and conference centre.
The building also houses an art gallery, restaurant and offices. These were previously used as the headquarters of the Methodist Church of Great Britain until 2000.
To the north of the abbey is the Parliament Square Garden built in the 19th century. It is a large open green area in the centre and trees to the west. It contains twelve statues of statesmen and other personalities.
To the north of Parliament Square Garden we come to Parliament Street and Whitehall. Here you will find a number of notable landmarks. Such as the Government Offices Great George Street, a large UK government office building.
It was designed by John Brydon and was built between 1909 and 1917.
Opposite is one of London’s legendary pubs, The Red Lion. It stands on the site of a medieval tavern from 1434 called Hopping Hall. In 1531 the Crown bought the tavern.
When it was already the Red Lion, the young Charles Dickens became a regular visitor. Given its location it also became a frequent haunt of British politicians such as Sir Winston Churchill and Clement Atlee.
The food was very good but not cheap. One course each and two drinks £53.04 (€63.74). By the way, in London you have to pay for service. It varies from restaurant to restaurant but we paid between 5% and 12% of the bill. It is not a suggestion, it is included in the final bill.
We’ll leave it here for now so that the entry doesn’t get too long. See you in the next entry.
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