City to City

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This was a very pleasant walk, City of London to City of Westminster. Most of it lay south of the river, through areas I hadn't visited before.

I arrived at Bank Station at about half past twelve in the afternoon and because of visiting museums and churches along the way it was quite dark before I reached Westminster. Unfortunately I hadn't taken my camera with me so I had to use my iPhone. And even more unfortunately, I took most of the pictures using the Camera Plus app, without realising that I had to save them. So out of the many photos I took, only four were on the iPod when I got home :-)

The walk started with a bit of a wander around the Bank area, walking around the Royal Exchange. Then the route went past the Bank of England itself and I took the opportunity to visit the Bank's museum. I have an idea that I may have visited this museum before, back in the sixties when I was at school. I have a vague mmeory that it was very boring, just some collections of old coins and banknotes. The museum as it is now is really good and I spent almost two hours looking around.

There's lots of stuff about the history of the bank and the currency. There's a genuine million pound note on display - apparently nevr intended for general circulation but only for internal clearing purposes within the bank - but still, a million pound note! There's a solid gold bar worth over £100,000 that you can handle and pick up. I tried to manouvre it out of its case but had to admit defeat :-( There are all sorts of interactive displays where you can try to handle inflation and keep it to 2%. The audio guides are free and give valuable commentary but all the displays are very well labelled and explained. For the first time I think I understand the difference between Bank notes and Treasury notes.

You're not allowed to take photgraphs within the museum which was a shame, but even if I had they would probably not have come out, anyway. I managed to figure out the combination of a safe which entitled me to a prize of a badge! Unfortunately, I could not work out how to close the safe again afterwards :-(

After leaving the museum the walk led me to St Mary Woolnoth (apparently named after an anglo-saxon benefactor whose name was Wulnoth). I visited the church but didn't stay long. The walk then went back outside Mansion House and then down Walbrook to my namesake's church, St Stephen Walbrook. This is an amazingly beautiful church inside and my visit was enhanced as someone was playing the organ as I walked round. The interior is so light and airy that it almost seemed as if the space was completely open. There is a modern circular altar, carved by Henry Moore, which fits in perfectly with the Wren design. This was the church where Chad Varah founded the Samaritans and the telphone used for the first Samaritan call is preserved in a glass case.

I took a short detour from the route to look at the London Stone. No one knows what this stone actually is but we know that it was thought to have great importance in the Middle Ages. Some say it was part of an altar consecrated by Brutus of Troy when he founded Britain (and fer over the French flode Felix Brutus / On mony bonkes ful brode Bretayn he settes), some that it marked the centre of Roman London, but I like the idea that it could be the very stone from which the as yet uncrowned Arthur drew his splendid sword. I tried to take a picture of it but the angle and the grille and the iPhone made it rahter a mess.

The walk led down Dowgate Hill, past the halls of various livery companies.

The next church on the route was St Michael Paternoster. It's another Wren church but for me the main interest was that it was the church of Sir Richard (Dick to his friends) Whittington. There was a nice stained glass window showing Dick and his cat near the door and I took a good photo but, of course, didn't save it :-(

I then walked to St James Garlickhythe, dedicated to St James the Great, whose feast day falls on my birthday. Unfortunately, it was closed to the public. It's known as Wren's Lantern and I'd have liked to see if could possibly have been even better naturally lit than St Stephens Walbrook.

The route now took me south of the Thames, over Southwark Bridge. Southwark is associated with three of England's literary greats - Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens - and the walk had a Dickensian element as it led through Copperfield Street and past Quilp Street (named after the villain in The Old Curiosity Shop). The route then took me past the Young and Old Vics and St Thomas Hospital. There was a Florence Nightingale museum next to the hospital which I hadn't previously known about. Unfortunately it was too late for me to take a look around.

Then it was over Westminster Bridge and past the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey and then a short walk to St James Park tube station marked the official end of the walk. However, I carried on to Victoria Station, enabling me to see Little Ben as well as Big Ben (or the Bell Tower that houses Big Ben) and looked around the shops in the station and had something to eat there, before catching the tube back home.

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Photos

My namesake's church
Mosaic of the eponymous saint at entrance to St Stephen Walbrook

London Stone
Not a good photo but I like to imagine that this is the very stone from which Excalibur or Caliburn was drawn

Dickens themed street names
Quilp wouldn't have been my first choice for a street name based on Dickes characters. There was a Copperfield Street just over the way

South Bank Lion
On Westminster Bridge