Day 77
St. James's Park - St. John's Wood - St. Paul's
This is my 77th day travelling on the highways and byways (or rather, subways and railways) of London.
True, the whole project has thus far taken up just over three years of my life, but only 77 days of those have actually been spent 'wombling'.
The only reason I mention this is that it gives me an excuse to point out that the number 77 is the lowest whole number to contain (in English) five syllables - a useless fact I picked up in a charity quiz recently...
That aside, it's also the day on which I commence my adventures among the various stations beginning with the letter 'S'.
In my alphabetical list, as provided by TFL on the back of their pocket-sized tube map, the three stations I'm visiting today seem to have got themselves out of place as far as the alphabet goes, as they all begin with 'St'.
Obviously this is the abbreviation for the word 'Saint', which would be at the beginning of this section, alphabetically, but since none of the stations uses the full word in its name, it seems odd not to put them further down the list.
Still, who am I to argue with the TFL powers that be? I thus head off to the first on my list - St. James's Park.
***
St James's Park is named - not surprisingly - after the Royal Park that lies just to the north, and which stretches from Buckingham Palace in the west, to Horse Guards Road in the east, with The Mall and Birdcage Walk forming its northern and southern boundaries respectively.
We'll come back to the park presently, but first I take a look at the station itself, and the road it sits on - Broadway.
The station entrances are towered over by the huge imposing building known as '55 Broadway', which is the headquarters for London Underground Ltd., and which was designed by that well-known Tube Station architect, Charles Holden.
This impressive - if a little brutal - building is Grade I listed, and is often featured in television news reports whenever there's a tube strike: some hapless London Underground official standing in front of it, telling us that it's all the unions' fault (while elsewhere in London a union spokesman vehemently insists that Management is entirely to blame - 'twas ever thus...)
Further south, at number 10 Broadway, was the home, until recently, of New Scotland Yard.
Now, the nomenclature of this establishment requires a little explanation, and could easily get confusing if you don't have your wits about you, so take a few deep breaths and try and keep up.
The original 'Scotland Yard' was the headquarters of Robert Peel's first Metropolitan Police Force in the mid 1800s, and was situated in several buildings on Whitehall Place, which backed onto a street called Great Scotland Yard (just south of Trafalgar Square).
Outgrowing these buildings in the late 1880s, the Met moved to a new building on Victoria Embankment (the first 'New Scotland Yard). It was this building, commonly referred to as simply 'Scotland Yard', which in fiction provided detectives destined to be outwitted by such sleuths as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and their ilk.
As the Met continued to expand, they eventually moved to new, purpose-built buildings at number 10 Broadway in the 1960s - complete with the now-familiar rotating sign. This became officially known as 'New Scotland Yard' (though technically of course it was New, New Scotland Yard).
And here they stayed until last year, when they all moved back to Victoria Embankment, to a building (actually next door to their previous home here) which will now bear the name New Scotland Yard, though which should of course be more accurately called 'New, New, New Scotland Yard'.
Heading a little further south onto the Horseferry Road, I come to the offices of Channel 4 television.
After decades of having only the BBC and ITV as the television channels available to the British public (before the explosion of satellite and cable TV channels onto the scene) Channel 4 was launched in 1982 with a remit to provide "innovation", appeal to "a culturally diverse society", include "programmes of educative value" and "exhibit a distinctive character".
The very first programme seen on the channel was the word-based game show 'Countdown' (beloved of housewives and students ever since) and though you might question the "educative value" of programmes like 'Gogglebox' and 'Come Dine With Me', the channel's news output has always been very well respected and there have been many programmes dealing with (and featuring) the various cultures and minority groups in our society.
But finally, I return to the park after which the station is named.
The park belonged originally to the Palace of Whitehall (the main residence of English monarchs in London until the late 17th Century) but was opened to the public when the residency moved to other palaces such as Kensington Palace and St. James's Palace.
I've come on a good day - as the sun is shining and the flowers are in full bloom.
The main feature of the park is the lake running its entire length from east to west, at the end of which you get a nicely framed view of Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial.
At the other end of the lake is an island called Duck Island - after the various wildfowl which live in the lake. In front of this, on a small collection of rocks, sit the park's resident colony of pelicans.
These (or rather their predecessors) were introduced to the park in 1664 as a gift from the Russian Ambassador and have been here ever since. Apparently one of the pelicans was in the habit of flying off northwards every day to London Zoo in order to steal their fish for his lunch. While none of them fly off during my visit, the one on the left does seem to want to show off its T'ai-Chi moves...
I head eastwards out of the park onto Horse Guards Road and the gravelled expanse known as Horse Guards Parade. This is the site of the annual Trooping The Colour ceremony and the buildings beyond it are the home of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment.
On my way there I stop briefly at a memorial to the 202 people who were killed in a terrorist bombing in Bali in 2002.
I have a personal interest in this memorial, or rather, in one of the names engraved upon it - as I was at school (albeit 30 years ago now) with one of the victims.
Chris Kays was 30 when he was killed, and was on a rugby tour of Bali with a team from Singapore where he worked. The team now holds an annual memorial rugby match named after Chris.
Entering Horse Guards Parade it's immediately obvious where the mounted guard are situated - as they're surrounded by hordes of tourists brandishing selfie-sticks.
I join the throng and manage to get a fairly decent shot of two of the guards (looking, it has to be said, thoroughly fed up with being gawped at all day long - and who wouldn't be?).
The guards here are mainly ceremonial (though I wouldn't dream of considering them any less capable of causing me severe damage were I to give them cause) but the regiment has also played an active part in recent conflicts.
But the crowd is constantly shuffling in and out of my sight-line, so I don't linger, and instead make my way back to the station via Birdcage Walk (named after the Royal Menagerie and Aviary, sited here during the reign of James I and his successors Charles I and II).
***
My next stop is St. John's Wood.
This is just to the north-west of Regent's Park and is named after a forest once owned by the ponderously named 'Order of Knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem' - a medieval order originally formed to care for the sick or injured pilgrims coming to the Holy Land.
The area is an affluent and mainly residential one, with a variety of independent shops on its High Street, which lies to the south-west of the station.
There are two major landmarks in the area, the first of which is Lord's Cricket Ground, which - like the Oval (which I encountered not so long ago) - is one of the historic venues of English cricket.
It doesn't (as you might have thought) get its name from some historical notion that the only people who could afford the leisure time to go and watch several days of cricket were the nobility (though this was certainly true in the early days of the sport).
In fact it is named after it's founder - Thomas Lord (1755-1832) - a professional cricketer and member of the first cricket club to play at 'Lord's', the 'White Conduit Club'. He founded the first 'Lord's' (this one is the third to bear that name) in 1787 but the ground I now find myself standing outside was opened in 1814.
As well as being the venue for international matches, the ground is also home to perhaps the best known of English cricket clubs - the Marylebone Cricket Club, or more familiarly, the MCC.
For many years, the MCC was the governing body for worldwide cricket, until this was transferred to the International Cricket Council in 1993. They were the people who formally established the official 'Laws of Cricket' in 1888 and retain the copyright to these rules to this day.
Next to the ground is the Lord's Tavern, home of another group - the 'Lord's Taverners'. This is a charitable organisation - started in the pub by a group of cricket fans including actors John Mills and Jack Hawkins and broadcasters Roy Plomley and Brian Johnston. They support youth cricket and disabled sports in the UK.
Heading back northwards up Grove End Road from the south-west corner of the ground, I eventually come to the second of the two 'landmarks' in St John's Wood, though this one is nothing more than a set of painted road markings - specifically a zebra crossing - on a street called Abbey Road (yes, that one).
It is, of course, the crossing made famous by the Beatles, who used it on the cover of their album of the same name, recorded at nearby Abbey Road Studios, which gave rise to countless esoteric theories as to the 'meaning' of the various elements in the photograph - not least whether or not certain members of the band were still actually alive or not.
Now I'm as big a fan of the Beatles as the next man, but I have to admit that the sight of hordes of people jostling each other to run frantically back and forth across a zebra crossing and have their photo taken, while bored drivers forced to wait muse idly on the pros and cons of simply mowing them all down, coupled with the fact that the crossing is currently surrounded by unsightly road-works, which most definitely did not feature on the original album cover, leaves me somewhat bemused.
It's not as if they have any chance of recreating the actual look of the cover - what with all the traffic and so on.
Anyway, I leave them to it, and head a few yards further along to the studios where it all happened.
They were opened in 1931 by Sir Edward Elgar, who also made the first recordings in the studios - of his own music, with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Most famous as the venue for the Beatles recordings (not just the Abbey Road album, but almost everything else they recorded) it was also used by many others such as Pink Floyd, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Shirley Bassey, Vera Lynn, Kylie Minogue, Cliff Richard, and film composers such as John Williams and Howard Shore.
Next door to the studios, perhaps inevitably, there is now a gift shop, selling all sorts of memorabilia, as well as copies of the many albums recorded here.
On one wall (not for sale) is a collection of what I assume are the original boxes for the reel to reel tapes used in the studios, complete with handwritten entries on their contents.
Also on display (though sadly not an original) is a copy of the famous Hoffner bass guitar used by Paul McCartney.
I'm not tempted by the Abbey Road fridge magnets or tea-towels, or the 'where it all happened' tea-pot, or even the Lego Yellow Submarine, but the 'Ticket To Ride' travel-card holder does briefly catch my eye as being rather appropriate to my current journey.
But in the end I decide to simply move on, knowing that it's the music - not the tourist tat - that's the reason this place is probably the most famous recording studio in the world...
***
And so to my final 'Saint' of the day, and boy it's a biggie!
St. Paul's Cathedral is deservedly one of the most iconic buildings in London, and is of course the major landmark near the station that shares its name.
Most people will, I'm sure, know that the cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, that it replaced its predecessor which was destroyed in the Great Fire Of London, and that it survived the Blitz largely unscathed.
What you may not know is that it is the fifth cathedral to be located on this site, the first having been built in the year 604 AD.
When the current cathedral was built it was the tallest structure in London, and the famous dome is still one of the largest in the world, at 111.3 metres high and weighing 65,000 tonnes.
I've ordered a pre-paid entrance ticket, but take a brief wander around the outside of the cathedral before venturing within.
At the front of the cathedral are the steps leading to the main (western) entrance. It was to these steps that 'the little old bird woman' came each day to 'feed the birds' in the film Mary Poppins and there are still several pigeons to be found hoping for titbits to be thrown for them (though this is discouraged these days).
However, the 'flocks' that gather here these days are less avian and more human, as the tourists take advantage of the steps as convenient seats on which to enjoy the sunshine.
At the top of the steps, in front of the main doors (which are only opened for special occasions) there currently stands a sculpture called 'Ecce Homo' by Mark Wallinger. This was actually the first piece to stand on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square, and is now being used here in a collaboration between Amnesty International and St Paul's to highlight the plight of political prisoners. It will stand here for the whole of the Easter period.
And so I head inside.
The first, and rather disappointing, fact I learn about the interior of the cathedral is that I'm not allowed to photograph it.
I'm not quite sure why this is - neither the website nor the information available inside the cathedral give any explanation - but it does mean that my description of the interior is, I'm afraid, going to be unaccompanied by visual aids.
And that's a pity, because it is magnificent.
Seemingly every square centimetre of the interior, certainly above head height, is covered in ornate decoration of one form or another. Even the floor has marble tiling that form (beneath the dome) a representation of the sun, with beams shooting out in all directions.
Probably the most famous part of the cathedral is of course its dome, and there's already a 45 minute long queue to visit it when I arrive. Before visiting any of the other parts of the cathedral therefore, I join the queue and listen to the free audio guide given me as I entered.
The guide tells me that the dome I'm about to visit is actually three domes (or rather two domes and a slightly rounded cone) one inside the other, as shown in this structural drawing made by Arthur Poley in 1927.
The dome you see from the inside is the lowest of the three, and is not - as you might suppose - simply the interior of the dome outside. This outermost dome is much higher and is supported by the middle dome, or cone, which sits on top of the interior one, giving support and strength to the dome above.
The interior dome is decorated with monochrome murals of the life of St Paul and beneath it (roughly on a level with the lower roof, at the base of the columns supporting the inner dome) is the 'Whispering Gallery' - the first stop on my journey to the top of the cathedral.
The Whispering Gallery (257 steps up from the cathedral floor) is so named because of a curious - and completely accidental - quirk of acoustics. It is said that if you whisper something while standing facing the wall of the dome, then someone standing exactly opposite you, with their ear to the wall on their side, will clearly hear what you've said.
However, this was obviously before the days of mass tourism, because the only thing I can hear at the Whispering Gallery is the argumentative American family bickering by my side and the various nationalities of schoolchildren chattering away in their respective languages all the way around the gallery.
After another - thankfully brief - queue, I'm climbing the next set of stairs (119 of them) to the first of the exterior galleries - The Stone Gallery.
This is at the base of the exterior dome, and is really nothing more than a 'holding pen' for the people waiting to climb the final set of steps up to the very top. There are lots of school parties here today (being the Easter Holidays) so we have to wait again before we're allowed up, and I amuse myself by taking a rather pointless photo of the dome above me.
From the Stone Gallery we head back inside through another door, and up several flights of spiral staircases (a further 152 steps - making a total of 528 above ground level) which take you up around the outside of the middle dome, and give you the opportunity to see some of the construction.
At the top of the final staircase, and before you emerge once more into the open air, is a small window set into the floor. Many people miss it completely as they file past through the doorway to the outside, but always curious, I stoop to have a look down through it.
And there, through the rather grimy window, is the cathedral floor - 85 metres below me.
Outside the dome is the final 'Golden' Gallery (so named because of the golden orb and cross that sit atop the dome).
There are great views across London from here - including the Globe, the Tate Modern, the Shard, and many other landmarks - and I'm sure they speak for themselves in assuring you that it's well worth the climb to see them.
Having spent some time enjoying the view, I head back down the various staircases and emerge once more in at ground level inside the main body of the cathedral.
As I have said - from a photography point of view this is less than satisfying, as I would dearly love to show you some of the fantastically impressive artwork adorning the various nooks and crannies of this magnificent building. But since I can't, all I can advise is that you visit the place yourself at the earliest opportunity.
Outside once again I head to a square next to the cathedral which I spotted from my bird's eye view a short time ago.
This is Paternoster Square and is next to both the cathedral and the London Stock Exchange Building, which explains the number of pin-stripe suits in evidence as I walk around.
At one side is a column bearing a gilded urn, reminiscent of the Monument to the Great Fire of London (though much smaller). This is actually an elaborate way of disguising a ventilation shaft from the service road and car park below the square, but serves also as a reminder that the square has twice been destroyed by fire - once in 1666 and again during the Blitz.
And that's just about it. I head back to the station, but pause briefly as I notice an unusual engraving set in the wall of one of the buildings next to it.
Opinion seems to differ as to what the origin of the figure is, but it is set into a building on a narrow walkway called Panyer Alley, and it's not too much of a stretch (as any linguist will tell you) to imagine that this name has something to do with 'bread' and the bakery trade. The boy might therefore be sitting on a bread basket of some kind, and is either holding a loaf of bread in his hands, or (and the stone is too worn to be sure wither way) picking a thorn or something similar from his own foot.
Whatever the significance of the figure, the inscription beneath it reads:
"When Ye have sought the citty round
Yet still this is the highest ground.
August the 27th
1688"
And though this may not be strictly true geologically speaking, it is certainly an indication of the importance of this part of the City of London to those who lived and worked here in past centuries.
But that's it for another day...
... Except to tell you of one last, rather curious, coincidence.
Having begun the day visiting a memorial dedicated to one of my former school-mates, I'm naturally more than a little surprised to encounter - bustling a huddle of young children onto the train standing at the platform - yet another of my old schoolboy chums (I'll spare his blushes and not mention his name).
His concentration is entirely taken up with the children, and the train (which isn't the one I need) pulls swiftly away from the station, so he doesn't notice me - but it does seem to round the day off neatly, and I'm sure there's a significance there somewhere, if only I could work out what it is...
True, the whole project has thus far taken up just over three years of my life, but only 77 days of those have actually been spent 'wombling'.
The only reason I mention this is that it gives me an excuse to point out that the number 77 is the lowest whole number to contain (in English) five syllables - a useless fact I picked up in a charity quiz recently...
That aside, it's also the day on which I commence my adventures among the various stations beginning with the letter 'S'.
In my alphabetical list, as provided by TFL on the back of their pocket-sized tube map, the three stations I'm visiting today seem to have got themselves out of place as far as the alphabet goes, as they all begin with 'St'.
Obviously this is the abbreviation for the word 'Saint', which would be at the beginning of this section, alphabetically, but since none of the stations uses the full word in its name, it seems odd not to put them further down the list.
Still, who am I to argue with the TFL powers that be? I thus head off to the first on my list - St. James's Park.
***
St James's Park is named - not surprisingly - after the Royal Park that lies just to the north, and which stretches from Buckingham Palace in the west, to Horse Guards Road in the east, with The Mall and Birdcage Walk forming its northern and southern boundaries respectively.
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| St. James's Park |
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| 55 Broadway |
The station entrances are towered over by the huge imposing building known as '55 Broadway', which is the headquarters for London Underground Ltd., and which was designed by that well-known Tube Station architect, Charles Holden.
This impressive - if a little brutal - building is Grade I listed, and is often featured in television news reports whenever there's a tube strike: some hapless London Underground official standing in front of it, telling us that it's all the unions' fault (while elsewhere in London a union spokesman vehemently insists that Management is entirely to blame - 'twas ever thus...)
Further south, at number 10 Broadway, was the home, until recently, of New Scotland Yard.
Now, the nomenclature of this establishment requires a little explanation, and could easily get confusing if you don't have your wits about you, so take a few deep breaths and try and keep up.
The original 'Scotland Yard' was the headquarters of Robert Peel's first Metropolitan Police Force in the mid 1800s, and was situated in several buildings on Whitehall Place, which backed onto a street called Great Scotland Yard (just south of Trafalgar Square).
Outgrowing these buildings in the late 1880s, the Met moved to a new building on Victoria Embankment (the first 'New Scotland Yard). It was this building, commonly referred to as simply 'Scotland Yard', which in fiction provided detectives destined to be outwitted by such sleuths as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and their ilk.
As the Met continued to expand, they eventually moved to new, purpose-built buildings at number 10 Broadway in the 1960s - complete with the now-familiar rotating sign. This became officially known as 'New Scotland Yard' (though technically of course it was New, New Scotland Yard).
And here they stayed until last year, when they all moved back to Victoria Embankment, to a building (actually next door to their previous home here) which will now bear the name New Scotland Yard, though which should of course be more accurately called 'New, New, New Scotland Yard'.
Heading a little further south onto the Horseferry Road, I come to the offices of Channel 4 television.
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| Channel 4 |
The very first programme seen on the channel was the word-based game show 'Countdown' (beloved of housewives and students ever since) and though you might question the "educative value" of programmes like 'Gogglebox' and 'Come Dine With Me', the channel's news output has always been very well respected and there have been many programmes dealing with (and featuring) the various cultures and minority groups in our society.
But finally, I return to the park after which the station is named.
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| St. James's Park map |
The park belonged originally to the Palace of Whitehall (the main residence of English monarchs in London until the late 17th Century) but was opened to the public when the residency moved to other palaces such as Kensington Palace and St. James's Palace.
I've come on a good day - as the sun is shining and the flowers are in full bloom.
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| Bloomin' marvellous |
The main feature of the park is the lake running its entire length from east to west, at the end of which you get a nicely framed view of Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial.
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| Lake with Buckingham Palace beyond |
At the other end of the lake is an island called Duck Island - after the various wildfowl which live in the lake. In front of this, on a small collection of rocks, sit the park's resident colony of pelicans.
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| Pelicans with Duck Island beyond |
These (or rather their predecessors) were introduced to the park in 1664 as a gift from the Russian Ambassador and have been here ever since. Apparently one of the pelicans was in the habit of flying off northwards every day to London Zoo in order to steal their fish for his lunch. While none of them fly off during my visit, the one on the left does seem to want to show off its T'ai-Chi moves...
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| "This one's called the 'prancing pelican'..." |
I head eastwards out of the park onto Horse Guards Road and the gravelled expanse known as Horse Guards Parade. This is the site of the annual Trooping The Colour ceremony and the buildings beyond it are the home of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment.
On my way there I stop briefly at a memorial to the 202 people who were killed in a terrorist bombing in Bali in 2002.
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| Bali Bombing Memorial |
I have a personal interest in this memorial, or rather, in one of the names engraved upon it - as I was at school (albeit 30 years ago now) with one of the victims.
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| Bali Bombing Memorial |
Chris Kays was 30 when he was killed, and was on a rugby tour of Bali with a team from Singapore where he worked. The team now holds an annual memorial rugby match named after Chris.
Entering Horse Guards Parade it's immediately obvious where the mounted guard are situated - as they're surrounded by hordes of tourists brandishing selfie-sticks.
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| Horse Guards Parade |
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| Household Cavalry |
The guards here are mainly ceremonial (though I wouldn't dream of considering them any less capable of causing me severe damage were I to give them cause) but the regiment has also played an active part in recent conflicts.
But the crowd is constantly shuffling in and out of my sight-line, so I don't linger, and instead make my way back to the station via Birdcage Walk (named after the Royal Menagerie and Aviary, sited here during the reign of James I and his successors Charles I and II).
***
My next stop is St. John's Wood.
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| St. John's Wood |
The area is an affluent and mainly residential one, with a variety of independent shops on its High Street, which lies to the south-west of the station.
There are two major landmarks in the area, the first of which is Lord's Cricket Ground, which - like the Oval (which I encountered not so long ago) - is one of the historic venues of English cricket.
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| Lord's Cricket Ground |
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| Inside the gates. |
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| Thomas Lord - sign at Lord's Tavern |
As well as being the venue for international matches, the ground is also home to perhaps the best known of English cricket clubs - the Marylebone Cricket Club, or more familiarly, the MCC.
For many years, the MCC was the governing body for worldwide cricket, until this was transferred to the International Cricket Council in 1993. They were the people who formally established the official 'Laws of Cricket' in 1888 and retain the copyright to these rules to this day.
Next to the ground is the Lord's Tavern, home of another group - the 'Lord's Taverners'. This is a charitable organisation - started in the pub by a group of cricket fans including actors John Mills and Jack Hawkins and broadcasters Roy Plomley and Brian Johnston. They support youth cricket and disabled sports in the UK.
Heading back northwards up Grove End Road from the south-west corner of the ground, I eventually come to the second of the two 'landmarks' in St John's Wood, though this one is nothing more than a set of painted road markings - specifically a zebra crossing - on a street called Abbey Road (yes, that one).
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| Abbey Road |
It is, of course, the crossing made famous by the Beatles, who used it on the cover of their album of the same name, recorded at nearby Abbey Road Studios, which gave rise to countless esoteric theories as to the 'meaning' of the various elements in the photograph - not least whether or not certain members of the band were still actually alive or not.
Now I'm as big a fan of the Beatles as the next man, but I have to admit that the sight of hordes of people jostling each other to run frantically back and forth across a zebra crossing and have their photo taken, while bored drivers forced to wait muse idly on the pros and cons of simply mowing them all down, coupled with the fact that the crossing is currently surrounded by unsightly road-works, which most definitely did not feature on the original album cover, leaves me somewhat bemused.
It's not as if they have any chance of recreating the actual look of the cover - what with all the traffic and so on.
Anyway, I leave them to it, and head a few yards further along to the studios where it all happened.
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| Abbey Road Studios |
They were opened in 1931 by Sir Edward Elgar, who also made the first recordings in the studios - of his own music, with the London Symphony Orchestra.
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| The man who started it all... |
Next door to the studios, perhaps inevitably, there is now a gift shop, selling all sorts of memorabilia, as well as copies of the many albums recorded here.
On one wall (not for sale) is a collection of what I assume are the original boxes for the reel to reel tapes used in the studios, complete with handwritten entries on their contents.
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| Mr G. Martin - The Beatles - 'Revolution No 2, Hey Jude' |
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| Hoffner Bass |
I'm not tempted by the Abbey Road fridge magnets or tea-towels, or the 'where it all happened' tea-pot, or even the Lego Yellow Submarine, but the 'Ticket To Ride' travel-card holder does briefly catch my eye as being rather appropriate to my current journey.
But in the end I decide to simply move on, knowing that it's the music - not the tourist tat - that's the reason this place is probably the most famous recording studio in the world...
***
And so to my final 'Saint' of the day, and boy it's a biggie!
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| St. Paul's |
St. Paul's Cathedral is deservedly one of the most iconic buildings in London, and is of course the major landmark near the station that shares its name.
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| St Paul's Cathedral |
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| Cathedral Front |
What you may not know is that it is the fifth cathedral to be located on this site, the first having been built in the year 604 AD.
When the current cathedral was built it was the tallest structure in London, and the famous dome is still one of the largest in the world, at 111.3 metres high and weighing 65,000 tonnes.
I've ordered a pre-paid entrance ticket, but take a brief wander around the outside of the cathedral before venturing within.
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| Please DON'T feed the birds! |
At the front of the cathedral are the steps leading to the main (western) entrance. It was to these steps that 'the little old bird woman' came each day to 'feed the birds' in the film Mary Poppins and there are still several pigeons to be found hoping for titbits to be thrown for them (though this is discouraged these days).
However, the 'flocks' that gather here these days are less avian and more human, as the tourists take advantage of the steps as convenient seats on which to enjoy the sunshine.
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| West Entrance and Steps |
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| Ecce Homo |
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| Collaboration with Amnesty International |
At the top of the steps, in front of the main doors (which are only opened for special occasions) there currently stands a sculpture called 'Ecce Homo' by Mark Wallinger. This was actually the first piece to stand on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square, and is now being used here in a collaboration between Amnesty International and St Paul's to highlight the plight of political prisoners. It will stand here for the whole of the Easter period.
And so I head inside.
The first, and rather disappointing, fact I learn about the interior of the cathedral is that I'm not allowed to photograph it.
I'm not quite sure why this is - neither the website nor the information available inside the cathedral give any explanation - but it does mean that my description of the interior is, I'm afraid, going to be unaccompanied by visual aids.
And that's a pity, because it is magnificent.
Seemingly every square centimetre of the interior, certainly above head height, is covered in ornate decoration of one form or another. Even the floor has marble tiling that form (beneath the dome) a representation of the sun, with beams shooting out in all directions.
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| From 'St. Paul's Cathedral' by Arthur Poley |
The guide tells me that the dome I'm about to visit is actually three domes (or rather two domes and a slightly rounded cone) one inside the other, as shown in this structural drawing made by Arthur Poley in 1927.
The dome you see from the inside is the lowest of the three, and is not - as you might suppose - simply the interior of the dome outside. This outermost dome is much higher and is supported by the middle dome, or cone, which sits on top of the interior one, giving support and strength to the dome above.
The interior dome is decorated with monochrome murals of the life of St Paul and beneath it (roughly on a level with the lower roof, at the base of the columns supporting the inner dome) is the 'Whispering Gallery' - the first stop on my journey to the top of the cathedral.
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| Just a few of the 528 steps up to the top. |
However, this was obviously before the days of mass tourism, because the only thing I can hear at the Whispering Gallery is the argumentative American family bickering by my side and the various nationalities of schoolchildren chattering away in their respective languages all the way around the gallery.
After another - thankfully brief - queue, I'm climbing the next set of stairs (119 of them) to the first of the exterior galleries - The Stone Gallery.
This is at the base of the exterior dome, and is really nothing more than a 'holding pen' for the people waiting to climb the final set of steps up to the very top. There are lots of school parties here today (being the Easter Holidays) so we have to wait again before we're allowed up, and I amuse myself by taking a rather pointless photo of the dome above me.
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| St Paul's Cathedral Dome - Close-Up |
From the Stone Gallery we head back inside through another door, and up several flights of spiral staircases (a further 152 steps - making a total of 528 above ground level) which take you up around the outside of the middle dome, and give you the opportunity to see some of the construction.
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| Looking down from the top of the middle dome. |
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| Through the keyhole... |
And there, through the rather grimy window, is the cathedral floor - 85 metres below me.
Outside the dome is the final 'Golden' Gallery (so named because of the golden orb and cross that sit atop the dome).
There are great views across London from here - including the Globe, the Tate Modern, the Shard, and many other landmarks - and I'm sure they speak for themselves in assuring you that it's well worth the climb to see them.
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| Some other tall buildings in London |
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| Tate Modern |
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| Millennium Bridge |
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| Paternoster Square |
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| Shakespeare's Globe |
Having spent some time enjoying the view, I head back down the various staircases and emerge once more in at ground level inside the main body of the cathedral.
As I have said - from a photography point of view this is less than satisfying, as I would dearly love to show you some of the fantastically impressive artwork adorning the various nooks and crannies of this magnificent building. But since I can't, all I can advise is that you visit the place yourself at the earliest opportunity.
Outside once again I head to a square next to the cathedral which I spotted from my bird's eye view a short time ago.
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| Paternoster Square - Ground Level |
This is Paternoster Square and is next to both the cathedral and the London Stock Exchange Building, which explains the number of pin-stripe suits in evidence as I walk around.
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| Paternoster Column with St. Paul's beyond |
At one side is a column bearing a gilded urn, reminiscent of the Monument to the Great Fire of London (though much smaller). This is actually an elaborate way of disguising a ventilation shaft from the service road and car park below the square, but serves also as a reminder that the square has twice been destroyed by fire - once in 1666 and again during the Blitz.
And that's just about it. I head back to the station, but pause briefly as I notice an unusual engraving set in the wall of one of the buildings next to it.Opinion seems to differ as to what the origin of the figure is, but it is set into a building on a narrow walkway called Panyer Alley, and it's not too much of a stretch (as any linguist will tell you) to imagine that this name has something to do with 'bread' and the bakery trade. The boy might therefore be sitting on a bread basket of some kind, and is either holding a loaf of bread in his hands, or (and the stone is too worn to be sure wither way) picking a thorn or something similar from his own foot.
Whatever the significance of the figure, the inscription beneath it reads:
"When Ye have sought the citty round
Yet still this is the highest ground.
August the 27th
1688"
And though this may not be strictly true geologically speaking, it is certainly an indication of the importance of this part of the City of London to those who lived and worked here in past centuries.
But that's it for another day...
... Except to tell you of one last, rather curious, coincidence.
Having begun the day visiting a memorial dedicated to one of my former school-mates, I'm naturally more than a little surprised to encounter - bustling a huddle of young children onto the train standing at the platform - yet another of my old schoolboy chums (I'll spare his blushes and not mention his name).
His concentration is entirely taken up with the children, and the train (which isn't the one I need) pulls swiftly away from the station, so he doesn't notice me - but it does seem to round the day off neatly, and I'm sure there's a significance there somewhere, if only I could work out what it is...
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