| Six
million people visit the British museum every year, making it London's
greatest tourist attraction. It was built in the first half
of the nineteenth century, at a time when Britain's empire building activities
were putting more and more peoples and lands under British control.
This was also a period of incredible curiosity in many different areas
including science, technology and history. The military and
economic strength of the country allowed private collectors and the government
to amass first rate collections of artifacts from many of the world's major
civilizations, including the Rosetta stone from Egypt, the Elgin marbles
from the Parthenon in Greece, statues and tablets from Mesopotamia as well
as Mayan and other cultural items from Central America. |
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| For
centuries British history largely revolved around the kings and queens
of the day. Nowadays real power lies elsewhere, but there's
still a very strong royal presence throughout the city. The
focal point is Buckingham Palace, the residence of the queen, which is
next to St James' Park, about a kilometer or so from the houses of parliament.
The park is open to the public and is home to a large collection of live
birds from around the world which was started during the reign of Charles
II. |
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 Queen
Victoria is a former inhabitant of the palace, and you can still find her
sitting in front of her old abode. Her long reign saw the United
Kingdom reach the peak of its power, allowing its inhabitants to boast
that "the sun never sets on the British Empire". Ironically,
things might have been different if Victoria's German consort, prince Albert
had his way. Albert was politically very liberal and he sided
with liberal politicians who abhorred the idea of empire building.
But Albert died young, and Victoria spent the next 40 years of her reign
preserving his memory by keeping his clothing and other personal belongings
handy in case he returned, building monuments to him like the Royal Albert
concert hall and the tacky gold plated Albert Memorial, and encouraging
the militarists and adventurers who delighted in the idea of empire building.
The outcome of all
this was that English became the dominant language on the planet, and London
became the wealthy and powerful center of a vast empire. The
Victorian era also became synonymous with prudery and about the only saying
of hers that anyone remembers nowadays is "we are not amused", though the
exact circumstances of its utterance are now a matter of debate.
It's not apparent whether she would have approved of the rampant display
of nudity going on just behind her, but since they're clearly angels then
it must be OK. No doubt that charming little cherub isn't leering
nastily, but is instead just concerned that the rather distracted angel
might catch a chill. |
| The
English have always been very class conscious, which is one reason why
my parents emigrated to New
Zealand. While the royals and the upper class were
doing their thing, the lower classes developed their own culture with its
peculiar traditions and pageantry. The woman standing next
to the guardsman looks every bit the expression of a third element of society,
the middle class, looking up to the royals and down on the working classes.
It's been said that the queen and her generation of the royal family are
more middle class than the middle classes, not because they look up at
themselves but because they are the greatest adherents to middle class
moral and social values, whereas the upper classes and the lower classes
both do what they feel like rather than what conventional morality says
they should. The shenanighans of Prince Charles, Lady Di, Fergie
and their offspring are one more sign of the breakdown of this class system. |
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| The
houses of parliament, with one of the most misidentified sights in all
of London on the right-hand side. Although the clock tower
is commonly referred to as "Big Ben", that is actually the name of one
of the bells within the tower. Immediately behind parliament
is Westminster Abbey, where many kings, queens, poets, writers and other
famous inhabitants of the UK are buried. Many of London's most
interesting buildings, statues and other historical items are located within
a short distance of the Thames River, with most of them concentrated in
an easily walked stretch of the river between parliament and Tower Bridge,
which is another widely misidentified landmark. |
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| The
Embankment is a wide footpath which follows the Thames river from the Houses
of Parliament to Tower Bridge. This sphinx is one of a pair
which stand fairly near Parliament, and between them stands "Cleopatra's
Needle". The sphinxes are recent castings and Cleopatra's Needle
doesn't really have anything to do with the Egyptian Queen of the same
name, however it is a genuine Egyptian obelisk dating from the reign of
Thutmoses III around 1450BC. It was one of a pair found in
Heliopolis and given to the British as a gift in 1819 by the Egyptian ruler
Mohammed Ali, but they refused to pay for it to be transported until 1877.
The pontoon it was on capsized during a storm off France and six people
died, but it remained floating and it was eventually towed to London.
The other obelisk of the pair is in Central Park in New York city.
The damage you can see on this sphinx's pedestal was caused by a bomb during
the war - the first world war! This happened on September 4
1917, during the first raid made by German planes against London.
There's similar damage from world war two preserved on the walls of the
Victoria and Albert museum. |
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Further east, and just a short walk away from the river is St Paul's cathedral,
the masterpiece of Sir Christopher Wren. The Great Fire of
London in the middle of the 17th century was a golden opportunity for Wren,
and he used it to design a multitude of interesting churches.
However, apart from Westminster Abbey and St Paul's, the other must-see
church in London is a bit west of here and a bit nearer the river, the
Temple Church, so-called because it is in an area called The Temple which
has traditionally been associated with lawyers and barristers.
The Temple Church is much older than St Paul's, it was constructed by the
Knights Templar during the 12th century and is the only round church in
London - one of only five round churches in the whole of the UK (another
is the
Round Church in Cambridge).
It's
rather amazing that St Paul's is still standing, since the area all around
it was largely flattened by German bombers during world war two.
Much of the glass in the windows was blown out, but the structure survived
virtually intact. There's a statue, scarcely visible beyond
the most distant tree on the left-hand side of this photo, commemorating
the work done by London firefighters during the Blitz. |
| Here
is perhaps the greatest achievement of Christopher Wren's labours - the
Whispering Gallery under the dome of St Paul's cathedral. The
gallery is accessed via long flights of narrow steps, and it's even possible
to go to an outside viewing area at the top of the dome - 530 steps in
all from ground level. As you can see, the dome is huge, second
only to the dome of St Peter's in Rome. This area is called
the Whispering Gallery because if you whisper (rather loudly) with your
face perpendicular to the wall, someone on the other side of the dome can
clearly hear what you're saying. |
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| St
Paul's and other buildings in London are very impressive for someone coming
from a country like New Zealand which has no ancient buildings or other
structures, and where no world shaking historical deeds have ever been
done. However St Paul's hardly rates as ancient history in
London. I've already mentioned the 12th century Temple Church,
but it's 200 hundred years newer than the White Tower, part of the complex
making up the Tower of London. However even they are relatively
recent compared to other artifacts which can be seen nearby.
For instance, right outside the Tower of London is this section from the
original Roman wall around the city of Londonium. It was the
Romans who founded the city, and who built the first London bridge - it
wasn't until Westminster Bridge was built in 1749 that there was more than
one road across the Thames. The original Roman bridge is long
gone, having been replaced several times over the last two thousand years
but other evidence remains, including the Temple of Mithras, or at least
its foundations, which were excavated in 1954 just down the road from St
Paul's. |
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| Here's
the Tower of London, dominated by the huge square White Tower, which was
started by the invading Norman king William the Conqueror, who was the
victor at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Once the home of
kings and queens, the Tower of London included barracks for soldiers and
arsenals for weapons and explosives, and was a place of imprisonment and
execution for men and women who found themselves on the wrong side of the
ruler's favour. Many of them who taken inside through the entry
to the Traitor's Gate visible near the river. It remained an
active military establishment for many centuries, and was even used during
world war two as a prison for Rudolph Hess and an execution ground by firing
squad in 1941 for German spy Josef Jakobs. |
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 The
Tower of London has a number of permanent inhabitants. There
are assorted ghosts of royal and noble lineage, including Anne Boleyn and
the two young sons of King Edward IV who many believe were murdered by
their uncle, who thus became King Richard III. Then there are
the 36 Beefeaters or Yeoman warders, best known for their red and gold
outfits, whose job it is to guard prisoners and the crown jewels.
Finally there is a small flock of ravens, one of which you see here.
It's said that as long as the ravens remain here, England is safe from
invasion. |
| As
you can see from the previous photo, Tower
Bridge crosses the Thames right next to the Tower of London.
Although it looks ancient and is often misidentified as London Bridge,
it was actually built in 1894 of steel and was merely faced with stonework.
The June 1894 issue of The Builder called Tower Bridge "the most monstrous
and preposterous architectural sham we have ever known" and said they would
just be wasting photographic plates if they published photos of it.
You can tour the workings of the bridge to view the equipment which raise
and lower the bridge deck and to go across the walkways between the towers,
which provide an excellent view along the river. |
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| Between
my two visits in 1999 and 2002, someone decided to plonk this thing down
next to Tower Bridge on the south bank of the Thames. It's
the new London city hall, seat of power of the Greater London Authority,
which is the successor to the Greater London Council, shut down in 1986
by Margaret Thatcher because its head, Ken Livingston and his cohorts were
too leftist. For 14 years London was the only major city in
the world with no central adminstration, but in 2000 Londoners once again
elected a mayor, by the name of Ken Livingston! |
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| The
London Eye is another new addition to the London scene, looking for all
the world like a giant bicycle wheel, 135 meters (443 feet) in diameter.
It's also sometimes called the Millenium Wheel because it's one of a number
of projects built to celebrate the new millenium. Like several
of these it turned into something of a financial black hole, however it
remains far more popular than most of the other projects. |
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| The
London Eye is a must-do on any visit, with great views over the central
area of the city. A single rotation takes about 30 minutes,
slow enough that the wheel doesn't even need to stop as one set of passengers
departs a capsule and the next set enters. In this photo you
can see Cleopatra's Needle on the riverbank on the left-hand side and the
dome of St Paul's cathedral on the right-hand side. As you
can clearly see from the previous photo and others on this page, the myth
that the United Kingdom suffers from poor weather is a complete concoction,
designed to keep uncivilized colonials from flooding in and spoiling the
place. |
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