London Calling

Including this trip, I’ve now been to London five times.  The first time, January 1984, I was a junior at American University in Washington, D.C. and when I got to London for the first AU-Leeds Program, I hadn’t slept on the flight.

It was my first time overseas, and I was beyond excited.  After making my way to the cheap hotel that thankfully ended up not being our home for five months, I was so tired I fell asleep.   When I finally woke up it was nighttime, I decided to take the Tube down to Westminster to see Parliament (where I was to work), Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey.  

Westminster Abbey was open that night, free, and completely uncrowded.  I was thrilled beyond words to see Big Ben/Parliament all lit up at night, and I was completely captivated to walk around in Westminster Abbey.

So, each trip back to London, my tradition is to go to Westminster Abbey for our first stop.  And it’s never a disappointment.  Well, Westminster Abbey wasn’t the first stop, but it was the major goal of going to Westminster.

My older brother Rick and his wife Sandy joined us for the week, and it was their first time in London.  So my first goal in planning the trip was to get lunch at a pub down in the  Westminster area.  So we went to the Westminster Arms, where my steak shin and ale pie was so-so, but the pint of bitter was perfect.

St. Margaret’s 

St. Margaret’s Church is considered the House of Commons Church.  It’s part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site that encompasses Westminster Abbey, Parliament Building/Big Ben, and St. Margaret's.  

Built in between 1486 and 1523, the church is famed for

• The Speaker’s Pew (the Speaker of the House of Commons is the sole user of the pew);

• The East Window, stained glass of Henry VIII’s wedding to his first of six wives, Catherine of Aragon (she failed to give him a male heir during three years of marriage, but at least she didn't get a neck adjustment like two of his other five wives.);

• Sir Walter Raleigh is celebrated in stained glass and is buried near the high altar;

• Winston Churchill was married here;

• Winston Churchill brought the House of Commons here for prayer on the eve    of the end of World War II;

• There is massive stained glass featuring John Milton’s life and poems;

• John Milton married his second wife here; and,

• The Piper windows which replaced those damaged in World War II. 

The church is infamous for not allowing photographs, despite the fact that right next door, in the older and more renowned Westminster Abbey, photos ARE allowed.  Not that I’m bitter.

(Editor: Two written posts thus far on the London trip blog, and you've used some form of "bitter" three times already.  Maybe it's time to retire that word.  Writer: Well, when it is a type of beer, I'm gonna keep using it!)

Rick and Sandy were quite taken with St. Margaret’s.

Westminster Abbey

From St. Margaret’s, we headed next door because it was close to our 2pm ticketed time.  If Rick and Sandy were quite taken with St. Margaret’s, they were blown away by Westminster Abbey.

The visit got off on the right foot, as my penchant for purchasing advance tickets worked to perfection.  We bypassed the long, slow moving line for people to buy tickets, and waltzed right in.

Travel tip: I know I’m sounding like a broken record (and what analogy could be more fitting as I write this within a few days of the death of Brian Wilson), but if you are traveling to a major city or visiting major sights like Westminster Abbey, the Alhambra, the Eiffel Tower, or the Vatican Museum BUY YOUR TICKETS AS SOON AS YOU KNOW THE DATES YOU WILL BE THERE.

(Editor: You climbing off your soap box now?  Writer: Look, I know some people like to be spontaneous and not make plans, but it’s nuts to think you can waltz up to these iconic places and hope that some same day tickets are still available.  Yeah, you might get lucky, but why count on luck when you can have the certainty.  Editor: Okay, but you keep pounding this point in your blogs.  Writer: Yeah, for a reason!)

The Abbey was built in 1065 by King Edward the Confessor.  A year later came the William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest.  While I won’t be there, hopefully some readers of this blog are young enough that they may visit it in 2065 for the 1000 year anniversary.

Westminster Abbey is chock-a-bloc with historical memorials and monuments to great Britons.  Except for the fact that they are dead, it is quite an honor to be buried or memorialized there.  And, while there are 30 kings and queens buried there, there are scientists, poets, writers, prime ministers, war heroes, and more of England’s greats.  There are also plenty of dead people you’ve never heard of as well, but they are there and none of us will be, so it’s still impressive they are there.

(Editor: “great Britons” is kind of clever, especially for you.  Writer: Thank you, I think?)

The visitors entrance is no longer through the impressive front doors/facade, but coming in through the side is still pretty impressive, as you are between two Rose windows.  You go to the right, through Scientist’s Corner, where are buried famed British scientists including Charles Darwin, William Herschel, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Stephen Hawking, and a doctor named Roger Bannister, who rocketed to fame by being the first to break the four minute mile in 1954.

Soon you come to Prime Ministers Corner, including Clement Atlee, Harold MacMillan, and Harold Wilson.  Infamous for appeasement, Neville Chamberlain is also buried nearby in the Abbey, although I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

From there, at the beginning of the center aisle, is the flower-lined Grave of the Unknown Warrior of World War I, buried in soil from France and the lettering made from melted-down weapons from that war.  When Kate Middleton walked up the aisle on her wedding day, she followed the tradition of step around that grave.

Near there is a memorial to Winston Churchill, one of many in London, and deservedly so.

There is so much more than one dead unknown and many dead famous people. There’s stained glass of kings and queens, carved tombs of kings and queens, gothic arches, the Great Cloister (the name fits well, given that it is, well a great cloister), a high altar, an impressive choir, side chapels, the spectacular Chapel of Henry VII, the Royal Air Force Chapel, rooms with tombs of Mary Queen of Scots, Queens Elizabeth I and Mary I, and of course, Poets Corner.

The carved wood that makes up the Choir is a stunning beauty.  If I make it back, I would like to go to see the evensong, sung by the Abbey’s boys choir.  

Next is the high altar, where the new monarchs are crowned, either often, or as in the 70 year gap between Elizabeth II in 1953 and Charles III in 2023, not very often.  Royal marriages and funerals can take place anywhere, only the Abbey can hold the coronations.  Every English coronation since 1066 happened here.

Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral was here as well in 2022.  With an estimated 4 billion people watching the televised service, it is the most-watched funeral in the world.  Both Princess Diana (1997) and the Queen Mum (2002) had their funerals here too.

I’ve seen the argument made that England’s greatest art comes in the written word.  Poets’ Corner includes memorials or tombs for Geoffrey Chaucer, Lord Byron, Dylan Thomas, W.H. Auden, Lewis Carroll, T.S. Eliot, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, Samuel Johnson, Laurence Olivier, and one more writer of some renown, William Shakespeare.

The Chapter House, out by the Great Cloister, is well worth checking out with impressive stained glass, medieval floor tiles, and in the hallway leading to it, the oldest door in England, from the 1050s, making it nearly 1,000 years old.

The final stop is at a gold-painted oak chair in its resting place until the next coronation.  It’s been used for every coronation except two since 1308.  Underneath is the space for the famed “Stone of Scone,” a large Scottish sandstone that used to be kept under the chair, but now is in Scotland since the 1990s.  The Scots did loan it back to the Brits for King Charles II’s coronation two years ago.

As you step out of Westminster Abbey, go to the nearby monument out the front doors and study the carvings on the facade, and the two famed towers.

If you go to London, you don’t have to go first to Westminster Abbey, but you have to go there at some point.  Oh, and buy tickets in advance.