Borough Markets and Fortnum & Mason

8 July 2015

Wednesday started with a shopping expedition - not looking for anything for me, but looking for new "smart casual" shirts for Andy.  He had tried to find shirts before we left Sydney, but found the whole experience too overwhelming. He said he wanted my help to choose.  Well I didn't find it overwhelming in the way he did - too many things to look at - but in the sense that that was so little that was even remotely suitable.  We are obviously getting on in years - most of the clothes looked too scruffy or too casual or too floral or too ... extreme.  So we made the decision that he would just manage with the shirts that he did have.

Next was a visit to Borough Market in Southwark.  We had visited on a Saturday on our previous trip to London, but this time were visiting on a Wednesday, so there were only about half the number of market stalls open. It was still wonderful seeing all the fresh produce, and we bought various bits and pieces for a picnic at Green Park.  

By the time we made it to Green Park Tube we could see that the pavement was all wet. It had been raining.  We nearly gave up, but realised that the ground under the trees was still dry - it must have been a short shower - so we had out picnic lunch.

We were almost finished when we started to feel a few drops of rain. Instead of going on the walk we'd intended (in case it poured with rain) we decided to do our own leisurely walk back to out hotel. First detour was into Fortnum and Mason's.  I love that store, but Andy had never been there before.  Amazingly, it was him - not me - who pointed out a couple of things he wanted to buy. I was happy to just look.

After leaving there we continued walking to Leicester Square, where we bought tickets for the theatre that night.

We found a wonderful place for pre-theatre dinner - San Carlo Cicchetti.

That night we went to the theatre to see David Suchet starring as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Ernest.  It was a wonderful production and very funny.

The Play That Goes Wrong

5 July 2015

On our first night we planned to visit the theatre.  As it was a Sunday most theatres were closed, but that turned out to be serendipitous.  We chose a play called The Play That Goes Wrong. It didn't have any actors that I knew, so we probably wouldn't have chosen it if all the other theatres had been open, but I'm glad we did end up there. It was hysterically funny.

The basic premise is that a rather amateurish group of people - the Cornley Polytechnic's Drama Society - are putting on a production of The Murder at Haversham Manor.  Everything that could go wrong with the performance does go wrong. The audience are taking their seats while the stage is still being set up, parts of the sets fall down, the lead actress gets knocked unconscious so the awkward and frumpy stage manager gets shoved out on stage with a dress pulled on over her overalls and a wig on her head (with her plaits showing underneath the wig).  She has a copy of the script to read the lines of the unconscious leading lady, which she does in a very stilted (but totally hilarious) way. One disaster after another had the audience in stitches.  There was even a lighting technician asking the audience if they'd seen his missing Duran Duran CD.

They retain the pretense of being the Cornley Polytechnic's Drama Society in the show program, which is in itself an amusing read.  The slapstick-style humour of the play had me roaring with laughter. If you have a chance to see it then I recommend that you do.

Photo by Alastair Muir, Courtesy Novel Theatre

*Note: This post is late and out of sequence as I was waiting for an official photo with approval to publish.

The Hidden Pubs of Old London Town

7 July 2015

Tuesday I spent visiting The National Archives at Kew, while Andy caught up with work.  I worked at Kew, but also met up with a friend who works there.

In the evening we decided to do another walk and chose The Hidden Pubs of Old London Town. We visited three pubs, but the first stop was in the middle temple, where we learned a bit about the history of theatre in London (as opposed to Southwark on the other side of the river, which is where all the theatres were in Shakespeare's day. 

The first pub we visited was The Edgar Wallace. It was a strange pub. Or rather, the interior decor was strange.  Along with books - mostly if not all written by Edgar Wallace - the ceiling was adorned with hundreds of beer mats and the walls with old advertising signs, many of which were for cigarettes, long since banned from being advertised.

When we left we lost about half our group who had obviously thought it was just a pub crawl, without the stops to discuss history.

Next was a visit to the (closed) Twinings Tea shop, which was an opportunity to discuss its history and the chance to see a few other things along the Strand, like the Royal Courts of Justice and the dragon marking the boundary to the City of London, before going to our second pub.

The second pub was The Old Bank of England.  This has the most impressive interiors. This late 19th century bank closed in 1975 and was converted into a pub. This is also, according to the story, the location of Sweeney Todd's barber shop and Mrs Lovett's pie shop.

More wandering about, past the statues of Gog and Magog, the headquarters of DC Thompson (publisher of Beano and now owner of findmypast), the through courts and alleys to the location of the house lived in by Samuel Johnson and a statue of Dr Boswell's cat, Hodge.

Final pub was Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese where the tour ended.  We had intended to eat there, but while the upstairs rooms looked suitably ancient, the downstairs, where food was served, just did not appeal.  We went to a Thai restaurant instead.

Brunel and Clerkenwell

6 July 2015

On our first full day in London we decided to do two of the London Walks which we found to be excellent on our last visit. Our first walk was Mayflower to Brunel's London. This highlight of this tour was to be allowed inside "the 8th wonder of the world" which was described as "an underground cathedral" - the Grand Entrace to Brunel's tunnel under the Thames But more of that later.

First was a quick walk to the banks of the Thames. It was low tide, so we could see the "beach" and old timbers that would have been covered at high tide. In one direction the view stretched up past Tower Bridge, and in the other down towards (but not quite as far as) Greenwich. 

Next stop was to look at some statues made in honour of local man Dr Salter and his family, and then the remains of a Manor House that had been built for Edward III.  After that was another stopping point by the river. Up until that point we had been only in Bermondsey, but then we ventured into Rotherhithe. There we saw the Mayflower Pub, which claims to be the oldest pub on the Thames. It was from here in 1620 that the ship of the same name sailed down to Southampton to collect the people destined to become known to history as the Pilgrim Fathers.  I assume there must have been Pilgrim Mothers, too, but history only talks of the Pilgrim Fathers.

Then it was off to see the entrance hall to Brunel's tunnel - the highlight of the tour.  Well, that was the theory. The advertising online had shown a picture (see below) that showed sweeping staircases and gentile people, with the tunnel(s) coming off this entrance hall.

The reality was quite different.  We were in a blocked off entrance shaft, that looked tired and grubby. It was very disappointing. And apart from saying that Henry, the son of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was one of the architects/engineers responsible for the design and building of Tower Bridge, this is the only time the Brunels were mentioned.

This guide also went over time, meaning that we couldn't get to the 2pm walk we wanted to do if we wanted to eat anything for lunch. We decided to have a very quick lunch in the Mayflower and then get a taxi to a walk that started at 2.30.  Andy asked the pub to call us a taxi, but he told them we wanted to go to Tower Hill, which is where the earlier walk had started.  We were told the taxi would be 5 minutes, but it took 20, and when it turned up it was a mini-cab.  We told the driver we wanted to go to St Paul's Cathedral, not Tower Hill, and he had no idea where it was - he just kept asking us to give him the postcode.  Luckily we had smart phones so could quickly look it up.  Surprisingly we made it just as the 2.30 walk was starting.  This walk was London's Secret Village.  The village in question is Clerkenwell, but before we got there we looked around St Bartholomew's Hospital, Smithfield, Charterhouse square and St John's Gate.  Then we were into Clerkenwell, which surrounds Clerkenwell Green.  Except it isn't green.  And there is no sign of the well that used to be there and gave the area its name.  

Florin Court - "home" to
Hercule Poirot

Clerkenwell School

Smithfield Market

St John's Gate

I have to say Clerkenwell itself was pretty ordinary, but some of the places we saw before we got there were very interesting.

That night we decided we were too tired to go to the theatre, so had a relaxed dinner and an early night.

Down to London

5 July 2015

We headed down to London from Norfolk where we had been staying with Andy's cousin.  Very soon after we set off the rain started, but by the time we made it to London it had cleared up.  While Andy was returning the hire car to Heathrow I had a bit of a wander around.

The first area I headed to was Covent Garden. By now not only had the rain stopped, but it was sunny and quite warm. This sunny warm Sunday afternoon had brought out the crowds in force, and I really didn't enjoy being in those crowds or with the noise. 

Covent Garden

Figure of Higlander showing the
shop stocked Scottish Snuff

I tried to go and visit St Paul's Covent Garden, but it seemed to be closed to visitors,  so I decided to wander off in a general westerly direction through some little alleys etc in the hope of discovering something interesting I had not seen before. I didn't really find anything,  but did end up at Leicester Square.  When I had lived in London for a year Leicester Square had been boarded up the whole time, so it was the first time I had seen the square. From there I went to Trafalgar Square.  The lions and fountains had also been boarded up when I lived there, so it was the first time I had seen the lions.

I wandered around a bit longer before I got a call from Andy saying that he had arrived, and we arranged to meet in a pub we had been to when we last visited London.  We discussed our room. I was very pleased to have gotten a good price on a room in the Waldorf, but the reason was obviously because the room was minuscule. There was no room to lay a suitcase down on the floor to find anything, so since we are staying six nights, we decided to request an upgrade.  So it turns out not to have been such a bargain, but never mind. It's a very convenient location. And the upgrade gets us access to the Executive Lounge, where we can get breakfast, afternoon tea and pre-dinner drinks and nibbles for free.

Oxburgh Hall and Castle Acre

3 July 2015

We decided to visit Oxburgh Hall, a fortified and moated manor house, built in 1482 by the Bedingfeld family.  Apart from the very interesting architecture, there was some gilt leather "wall paper" that was most unusual. Obviously we couldn't touch the wall coverings, but they had provided a piece that could be touched.  It was quite thin leather, and the pattern was embossed on it and then coloured and gilded.  There was also a library that looked so comforting, and which had a jib (concealed) door, which when shut looked just like a bookcase full of books.

Gilded Leather Wallpaper

The Library

Concealed Door

The Hall also had on display three embroideries done by Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick when the former was a prisoner at Fotheringhay. The panels were mounted onto the green hangings at a later date.

One of the towers of the castle had a priest's hole cut into the thick stone walls, and it is believed that it was used twice. Spiral stairs lead up to the roof of one of the towers, where there are extensive views over the Norfolk countryside.

After going around the castle and then having some lunch we went to the village of Castle Acre, which has an old priory and a castle.  The village looked lovely as we drove through it en route to the Priory. When we got to the ruined priory it was really quite expensive to go in, so we just had a look from outside the fence, and then headed back to the picturesque village for a cup of tea and a piece of cake.  On the way out we stopped by the ruined castle and took a photo and then headed back to our accommodation.

Castle Acre Priory

Castle Acre