With glorious weather such as the one we've been lucky to enjoy in the last few days and with a weekend to spare I thought it would be a crime to stay home and just stick to the Sunday Matinee on TV.So I decided to go for a stroll without a map and enjoy a bit of London at its best - free from the crowds and the hustle and bustle of the city.
Armed only with a small bag (to store some of the delicious rye bread the shop round the corner makes and which one has to get early before it sells out), I walked in the direction of Fleet Street.
The first call and big surprise was to happen only a few minutes into my journey.
I'd heard of Lincoln's Inn Fields - the largest public square in London and, allegedly thought to be one of the inspirations for Central Park in New York - but had never set foot on it, despite having passed practically by it every day for a while when I used to live in Bloomsbury.
It's right beside Kingsway and among its many wonderful buildings is the Sir John Soanes museum. The square was practically empty, apart from a young family also enjoying the early Sunday; apparently the best time of the week since, I'm told, the square and its gardens are beset by office workers and students from the LSE during practically every other day of the week.
Lincoln's Inn Fields features in Dickens' Bleak House and was also the stage of the public beheading of Lord William Russell, son of the First Duke of Bedford, of Rye House Plot fame, the conspiracy to assassiante or mount an insurrection against King Charles II (who is also one of the English Kings who interest me the most, due partly to his marriage to Catherine of Braganza).
At the southestern end of the square, the Royal Courts of Justice will take you to the stretch of the Strand that becomes Fleet Street, and it was there that I found the gate to my first planned port of call: The Temple Church.
Being a bit of a Templar follower - recently having followed the track of the Templars in Portugal all the way to the Convent of Christ in Tomar, bought a house in the border region of the French Pyrenees and the Languedoc and planning to visit as many vestiges of their presence around the world as possible, even Denmark (!), on the island of Bornholm - where history says the Templars have never set foot but where one can find four round churches, typical of the Templars.
Not only were the chambers deserted, there was a sung service going on inside Temple Church. To avoid disturbing I walked to the outside of the Round and stood by the door where I could listen to the music reaching us from the inside.
I wasn't able to follow my steps back to Fleet Street as someone decided to lock up the small gate that led to the Church, so I decided to walk round via Bell Yard past the place where Shakespeare dramatized the outbreak of war between the rivals houses of Lancaster and York, plucking roses for their badges from... Temple Gardens!
But there were more surprises to come.
I then walked up to St Pauls and bumped into Little Britain, a small road on the way to Smithfields where I almost rented a flat once. Nearby Smithfields Market was closed, so I decided to head to Spitalfields, another visit which was long overdue.
But first I ended up in the Church of St Bartholomew The Great. Although its main claim to fame today seems to be the fact that it featured in Four Wedding and a Funeral (and later in Shakespeare in Love and the new Elizabeth movie) - and, I've just found out while reading a little more about it, being the chosen site of worship for the Worshipful Company of Butchers (no doubt due to Smithfields' proximity), St Barts is one of London's oldest churches (established in 1123) having survived the Great Fire of 1666.
Again, there are sung services and concerts at the Church (only got a glimpse since the service was, again, just ending).
Before reaching Spitalfields I walked past the Barbican, that great divisive piece of architecture. For me it's a failed masterpiece, with some amazing details and ideas but also big mistakes; the two biggest, in my opinion, the lack of communication with the city where it was built and the way circulation happens in the building - which, on the other hand, always forces us to use the space a different way each time we pass it.
I quikly negotiated the dark, unremarkable and overbuilt stretch around Liverpool Street (which made me ,momentarily miss the real thing - Manhattan) and there it was Spitalfields.
Well, I admit this was a bit of a disappointment. I was expecting stalls full of antiques and artists selling their unique creations and what I found was a brand new shopping complex - clean, sleek and practical no doubt - with some of the same old stuff: free head massages, incense sticks and printed T-Shirts. It was all to Islingtn for my taste; all too cute and overpriced. Someone even pretended to trick me into buying a cheap copy of a really famous Danish designer using the old trick: I ask, "do you know who made that vase?", woman replies "I'm not sure, let me ask John. John do you know what that is?", John, says disinterestedly "I'm not quite sure, I once saw something similar by a Danish designer but I'm not quite sure". Well, I can tell you John that was no Axel Salto because if that were Salto you wouldn't be asking £95...
Anyway, the food stalls offset any disappointment I might have felt, for that part of the market was a real treat: banana cake, cheses, salads, chocolate, olives, bread and other delicacies, even fresh Irish oysters (which, for the record, I didn't eat but, I think, looked great nevertheless).
And the day ended as it started. I had to try the rye bread from Spitalfields.
It was yummy.
And now toying with the idea of getting a playstation...
I'd heard of Lincoln's Inn Fields - the largest public square in London and, allegedly thought to be one of the inspirations for Central Park in New York - but had never set foot on it, despite having passed practically by it every day for a while when I used to live in Bloomsbury.
It's right beside Kingsway and among its many wonderful buildings is the Sir John Soanes museum. The square was practically empty, apart from a young family also enjoying the early Sunday; apparently the best time of the week since, I'm told, the square and its gardens are beset by office workers and students from the LSE during practically every other day of the week.
Lincoln's Inn Fields features in Dickens' Bleak House and was also the stage of the public beheading of Lord William Russell, son of the First Duke of Bedford, of Rye House Plot fame, the conspiracy to assassiante or mount an insurrection against King Charles II (who is also one of the English Kings who interest me the most, due partly to his marriage to Catherine of Braganza).
At the southestern end of the square, the Royal Courts of Justice will take you to the stretch of the Strand that becomes Fleet Street, and it was there that I found the gate to my first planned port of call: The Temple Church.
Being a bit of a Templar follower - recently having followed the track of the Templars in Portugal all the way to the Convent of Christ in Tomar, bought a house in the border region of the French Pyrenees and the Languedoc and planning to visit as many vestiges of their presence around the world as possible, even Denmark (!), on the island of Bornholm - where history says the Templars have never set foot but where one can find four round churches, typical of the Templars.
Not only were the chambers deserted, there was a sung service going on inside Temple Church. To avoid disturbing I walked to the outside of the Round and stood by the door where I could listen to the music reaching us from the inside.
I wasn't able to follow my steps back to Fleet Street as someone decided to lock up the small gate that led to the Church, so I decided to walk round via Bell Yard past the place where Shakespeare dramatized the outbreak of war between the rivals houses of Lancaster and York, plucking roses for their badges from... Temple Gardens!
But there were more surprises to come.
I then walked up to St Pauls and bumped into Little Britain, a small road on the way to Smithfields where I almost rented a flat once. Nearby Smithfields Market was closed, so I decided to head to Spitalfields, another visit which was long overdue.
But first I ended up in the Church of St Bartholomew The Great. Although its main claim to fame today seems to be the fact that it featured in Four Wedding and a Funeral (and later in Shakespeare in Love and the new Elizabeth movie) - and, I've just found out while reading a little more about it, being the chosen site of worship for the Worshipful Company of Butchers (no doubt due to Smithfields' proximity), St Barts is one of London's oldest churches (established in 1123) having survived the Great Fire of 1666.
Again, there are sung services and concerts at the Church (only got a glimpse since the service was, again, just ending).
Before reaching Spitalfields I walked past the Barbican, that great divisive piece of architecture. For me it's a failed masterpiece, with some amazing details and ideas but also big mistakes; the two biggest, in my opinion, the lack of communication with the city where it was built and the way circulation happens in the building - which, on the other hand, always forces us to use the space a different way each time we pass it.
I quikly negotiated the dark, unremarkable and overbuilt stretch around Liverpool Street (which made me ,momentarily miss the real thing - Manhattan) and there it was Spitalfields.
Well, I admit this was a bit of a disappointment. I was expecting stalls full of antiques and artists selling their unique creations and what I found was a brand new shopping complex - clean, sleek and practical no doubt - with some of the same old stuff: free head massages, incense sticks and printed T-Shirts. It was all to Islingtn for my taste; all too cute and overpriced. Someone even pretended to trick me into buying a cheap copy of a really famous Danish designer using the old trick: I ask, "do you know who made that vase?", woman replies "I'm not sure, let me ask John. John do you know what that is?", John, says disinterestedly "I'm not quite sure, I once saw something similar by a Danish designer but I'm not quite sure". Well, I can tell you John that was no Axel Salto because if that were Salto you wouldn't be asking £95...
Anyway, the food stalls offset any disappointment I might have felt, for that part of the market was a real treat: banana cake, cheses, salads, chocolate, olives, bread and other delicacies, even fresh Irish oysters (which, for the record, I didn't eat but, I think, looked great nevertheless).
And the day ended as it started. I had to try the rye bread from Spitalfields.
It was yummy.
And now toying with the idea of getting a playstation...
1 comments:
you've made me feel rather jealous, as it is one of the things I miss about living in London... going for a wander.
My two favourite walks were from Chalk farm, over Primrose Hill, through Regents Park and then round the West End to Hyde Park before heading down to Trafalgar Square.
Or Highgate Cemetary, through Highgate to the Spaniards, them around Hampstead Heath and on to Camden Town - and if I was in a good mood I would sometimes go from there along the canal to the Edgeware road.
And your mention of Licolns Inn reminds me something else.
When I was at Drama school our voice teacher constantly whittled on about this Polish princess and her daughter who were the epitome of grace and elegance.
After I left I happened to be in a show with the daughter and was invited to her birthday party at her flat in Lincolns Inn.
The voice teacher was there, and I still remember the shocked look on his face when she got drunk on champagne, stood on a chair, flashed her knickers at everyone before doing a moony.... now that's what I call real class:)
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