Favorite Fotos: London churches, etc.

Living in London will make a church-goer out of anyone—for one reason or another. I'm living proof. There are just so many beautiful, historical, fascinating and acoustically fine church buildings in London (and in all of the UK, for that matter) that you just can't help but get interested in them, no matter your normal religious persuasion, or absence thereof.

The imposing structure on the right is the grand-daddy of them all, Westminster Abbey, justifiably on everyone's London must-see list. But there are literally hundreds of other fine church buildings in the city, and you could do worse than start your tour of them with the cheerfully-colored Westminster Cathedral on the left. You can climb its tower and get great views for £3.

Here are some other beautiful churches I saw on my London rambles, starting with one in my backyard (practically), St. Luke's on Redcliffe Gardens, shown at the left and below. There's a school operated by the church, too, so I was often treated to the sight of cute English kids in the playground as I walked by. As you probably can tell from the photos, the church is right in the middle of a fairly quiet residential neighborhood, through which I walked almost daily to work. And I could have snapped shots of at least 3 or 4 other impressive churches had I varied my route minutely.

(As an extra treat in the photo below, be sure to note the wonderful plane trees—this shot was obviously taken late in my stay.)


Venturing further afield, to a section of London crammed full of many more tourist-worthy buildings than my little neighborhood, you'll find some more famous, and quite lovely, churches, like St. Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside at the right, and St. Martin in the Fields (no actual fields any longer in evidence, just Trafalgar Square) at the left.

Near the Inns of Court and the City, right on the busy Strand, you'll find the imposing structure, with the equally imposing name of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, shown below, in as good a panoramic shot as I could get, with the top half in bright sunlight and the bottom in the deep shade that envelopes most of London at street level, especially when the sun stays low on its winter course.


And, on the right, there's a close-up of the large clock which is one of St. Dunstan's claims to fame.

Most of the churches I've shown so far are still being used as churches (while many church buildings in the UK have been turned to other uses) and have been well-maintained, at least to the untrained tourist eye. An interesting contrast comes from Christchurch Greyfriars, which did not have its bomb damage repaired after World War II (on the left). Its tower (designed by the ubiquitous Christopher Wren, a name you must know if you do any church tourist-ing in London) is still quite lovely, but the rest of the church grounds have been made into a garden.

All Saints, on Margaret Street, gives you a different look, with its interesting exterior patterns, particularly in the low light of a winter afternoon.


The fading light also made for easily dramatic photos of St. Pancras near the station of the same name and the British Library....


.... and St. Clement Danes, on the Strand.

Whereas most, if not all, of the churches in this post are Church of England, there are other denominations that worship in London, like the Methodists, whose Central Hall is a very handsome (and massive) building in Westminster:


Of course, given London's extreme multicultural makeup, there are other religions a lot further afield from C of E than the Methodists. Here is a glimpse of the tower of the London Central Mosque, near Regent's Park, peeking over the leafless trees of late autumn.


I'll close by returning to a very traditional London church landmark, Southwark Cathedral, which is a most impressive edifice, both architecturally and historically.

Random walks

My walking around yesterday wasn't exactly random, since I was on the trail of an elusive Christmas gift (that I did, finally, manage to acquire!) and I wanted to take a winter look at some parks that I'd enjoyed earlier in my stay.

But I did run into to several instances of the "random beautiful churches" phenomenon that happens all over this town. The one at the left is All Souls, being somewhat menaced, it seems like, in my photo, by an army of construction cranes (also a very frequent London sight). It really does seem that down almost every street there's a photo-worthy church, and a raft of photo-worthy secular buildings as well.

The parks ramble was interesting and the parks are still lovely in winter. Here's Green Park, not quite as Green as when Hal and I visited it in September, but still quite nice:


I also made it to Hyde Park's Speaker's Corner, a section of that park at the opposite end of where I've visited before. Considering that it was a sunny Sunday, there were orators out in force. Altogether a rather surreal experience, seeing several people standing around on kitchen stools (the modern soapbox?) exhorting small or large crowds on topics that I didn't really stick around long enough to be able to categorize.

That part of the Park has a vast expanse of parade ground, too, and there were several football games going on, some more organized than others. It was sunny, but also quite cold, as you can see from the leftover frost here in the shade (and it was 2 in the afternoon when this was taken).

Living off the land as far as lunch was concerned, I had a late one at a little Lebanese restaurant on Curzon Street (in case you can't read the street sign in this photo). This name reminded me of a favorite character in Deep Space Nine and since I was more or less randomly walking, I let that help me decide where to eat. The falafel was a bit over-priced, but really delicious. And that leads to a question: now that I've discovered this exquisite food, will I be able to find satisfactory falafel in San Antonio? Any tips on where to look will be welcome!

More out and about

After another morning spent piously grading papers, I rewarded myself yesterday with a visit to the last of Rick Steves' major London recommendations, the Courtauld Gallery. What a gem of a place! It's small enough (three levels reached by the winding stairs at the right, but it has a small footprint) that it doesn't feel overwhelming the way the larger museums do. However, it packs quite a punch in the quality of its collection. Cezannes, Gaugins, Manets, Degas' and Rubens' by the dozens—thanks, again, Rick, for not steering me wrong!

A special treat was their current temporary exhibition of Turner watercolors—a mesmerizing little collection of small paintings and drawings. Can't ever get enough Turner!

Actually the Gallery was my second stop of the day. I first headed to the Temple Inns of Court, which had always sounded intriguing to me—a cluster of offices and residences for barristers, like a little college in the middle of London. It was intriguing in person, too, especially since I had trouble finding my way out of the maze of buildings. It would probably be a more interesting place during the week, when there would be more activity. As it was a Saturday, I just enjoyed admiring the architecture, and eventually found my way out using breadcrumbs that led back to the way I entered—apparently the only open gate at the weekend.

I think you should look for something like this in your next law office, Henry:


I'd ridden buses often on the streets around the Temple and the Courtauld, but never walked them, and there were lots of fine views of wonderful buildings and churches like St. Mary-le-Strand and St. Clement Danes, seen at the left (St. Mary's in the foreground). After ambling around this area for a while, I still had some time to kill before evensong at St. Paul's, which was my plan for finishing off the day. So I stopped off in one of Joan's favorite haunts, a Costa Coffee, this one on Oxford Street, to warm up and refresh myself with tea and a muffin.

I'm enjoying these last few days of London sight-seeing (and it is nice not to have competition for the computer 8-) ) but I really miss my guests! Wish you all could have stayed longer!

Evensong at St. Paul's was very nice. The choir (mixed children and adults) and the organ sounded marvelous, but overall the musical selections weren't anything special. However, just being in such an amazing space, with any kind of musical accompaniment, is a pretty awesome experience.

Here is the view along a festively decorated Watling Street (I think) as I approached St. Paul's just before dark (this is at 4:30). I cannot get anywhere near this edifice without "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins starting to play on my mind's radio, and it even plays when I see this picture. Anyone else have this malady?

Sublime lunchtime

After eating a sandwich in my flat yesterday for lunch (and after spending the morning grading papers) I took advantage of the London tradition of free lunchtime concerts. I had previously done my research and found a close-by location—St. Mary Abbot's, the lovely church in the photo, which happens to be right across the street from the London Whole Foods!—where students from the Royal College of Music were performing gratis at 1 p.m.

I know that I've somewhat neglected to take advantage of the wonderful musical entertainment that London has to offer, so I'm determined to do all I can to remedy that in these last days. It just so happens that St. Mary's is putting on a Messiah production on the 14th, and I bought my ticket for that yesterday, too. So I'm feeling better, music-wise, already.

The short concert yesterday was fabulous. Do Londoners realize how lucky they are to have easy access to such high-quality performances? I mean, this was free lunchtime music, that sounded, at least to my somewhat inexperienced ears, like a top-flight concert at home. The selections were a Bach flute-harpsichord sonata re-arranged for violin and guitar (!) and a Schubert piano sonata. My favorite—surprise!—was the Bach. It was amazing from start to finish. Usually, I prefer the peppier movements to the slow ones in this kind of music, but the two young people performing this piece played the second movement so expressively and beautifully, I was almost in tears. Ahhh, Bach....indeed!

Back to the flat refreshed for more grading (after a trek to the grocery store) and I was greeted by this lovely sunset (at around 4 o'clock!) from my living room window. London is making it harder and harder to say good-bye!

Among the stones

Last weekend we had our greatest adventure yet: driving on British highways!

After a rather exciting 10 minutes or so negotiating roundabouts, making U-turns, stalling the standard shift Golf we rented and generally getting a little hysterical, we found our way from the Sixt car rental lot near Heathrow onto the comforting familiarity of the M-4, heading west. Comforting, because we knew there'd be no more roundabouts until we had to exit for Avebury in a hour or so, and we knew that the roundabouts out in the countryside would have less confusing choices for us to make. Which turned out to be true.

We got more and more comfortable with the left-handed shifting, the roundabouts and the odd highway signs (almost all of which we were eventually able to interpret correctly) and found our way to Avebury (use a long-A pronunciation, we learned). Which is a really neat place! The picture above is of only a part of the very large, though incomplete, stone circle there. We happened to get to the tourist office soon before a tour departed and were very glad we did. Otherwise, we would have been impressed with the sights but wouldn't have really known what we were seeing. We wouldn't have known, for example, that this stone H comically tried to move weighs several tons:


Here is one of the pairs of stones they think formed a gateway in the circle:


Such impressive stones, but what's really cool is that they just sit among the roads and cottages of the little village!

There's also a very nice, and very old, church in the town, St. James', which we enjoyed visiting. I was pleased to recognize the decorative elements of black stone set in the outer walls (see left). We'd seen the same type of decoration at Southwark Cathedral in London, which, if I recall correctly, was of a similar age. The interior of the church was simple, but no one else was there so we wandered about and took pictures to our hearts' content. There's a tastefully simple war memorial, a Norman font, and some interesting windows. I felt like Lord Peter Wimsey discussing church architecture with the vicar!

Here on the right is a photo of the church tower from the tourist center. The roundish building in the foreground they call the dovecote, and it's the very oldest building in the complex, dating from Saxon times.

We spent a very pleasant couple of hours in Avebury, which I highly recommend as a tourist complement to Stonehenge. Unless you can find a tour to take, though, you really need a car to get there. Although I suppose a complicated train-and-bus-scheme like we used to get to Duxford might be possible. However, we were glad we had our little Golf, and after stopping for mid-day sustenance at a nearby pub, we were off to points west.

A blog gap

There will be a paucity of blogging the next few days. A combination of lots of sight-seeing, three people sharing a computer, and work that I need to do when it's my turn on the machine mean less time for blog posts.

I do have time this morning to pose a quick question: what do the following London landmarks and disparate images have in common?

Hint: they're a Mexican food restaurant and and famous church (St. Martin's in the Fields) near Trafalgar Square.

Answer: Because of their proximity to each other, we chose to eat a light dinner (fine chicken quesedillas) at the restaurant before attending a fabulous concert in the church last night. The restaurant was a somewhat disorienting experience, given the food and the decor, but the concert was sublime. A selection of short choral pieces (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert) both new (to me) and familiar, followed in the second half of the programme by the complete Mozart Requiem. Fabulous!

I'll try to catch you up on our other activities as quickly as I can.