Trafalgar Square 360 Video

Bad noise quality, sorry- but here's what Tralfagar Square looks like. You can see the National Gallery and St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church to its right.

** I'm posting this blog entry slightly early because I'm about to leave for Bath on the midterm trip. I won't have my computer, but I'll be back on Sunday evening so there'll be a short post after I get back. See the post below for photos from the local orientation tour!

The Tate Britain

Tate Britain art gallery

On Friday, after our exam, I travelled with 6 of my archaeology classmates into London for the afternoon/evening. We all had different things we wanted to do so we split up, with me going solo to the Tate Britain art gallery (which houses older, more historical paintings than the Tate Modern down (up?) the river). I had never been before and it was on my list of London places I really want to see. Luckily for me it's one of the big institutions (along with the British Museum, National Gallery, and others) that stays open late on Fridays; it was open until 10.

It was an easy tube journey and walk to the gallery. I always carry a London map and guidebook with me but it's hard to get lost, since these handy signs can be found every few blocks:

The gallery is right on the river Thames so I ate my dinner on a bench by the river, which was lovely.

I was expecting the gallery to be busy, but it was very quiet; I often had the entire room to myself. I was talking to one of the gallery guides, asking if Fridays were always this slow, and he looked at me, surprised, and exclaimed that this was one of their busiest Fridays yet. Lesson learned: Friday evening is the best time to visit the Tate Britain!

There was one painting in particular that I was looking for, and I was so excited when I found it. It's a painting from 1888 by John William Waterhouse called The Lady of Shalott. It depicts the main character in a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson of the same name. I studied that poem in English Lit 12 in highschool; I'm not a "poetry person" at all, but this is my favourite poem. (Find the full text here if you're interested).

I couldn't get a good photo of it but here's two so you can get the idea:

Below it is another painting I recognized, although I'm not sure from where: Ophelia (from Hamlet) by John Everett Millais, 1852.

Here's a mix of some other paintings and pieces that I saw (the gallery does have some modern art too):

?! This one's over my head I guess. I don't really
understand how people paid a lot of
money to put some folded blankets
in a gallery!

Then it was back to the Victoria train station to meet up with my friends. We got back to the castle around 11:30pm and then were up the next morning for our field study trip to Fishbourne Roman Palace and Chichester. Those will be future posts, once I sort through my 300 photos!

sculpture outside house near the Tate

houses in the Pimlico area near the Tate

view across the river

London Video Clip: Tower of London/Tower Bridge

I've got a backlog of videos I've taken during my time in England so far, which I'll be posting now and then. Here's a brief video I took to show the view from a Tower walkway, looking towards the river and Tower Bridge. :)

Day 1: London

London Victoria station

I made it to London! I’m actually at the castle now, but I want to stick to chronological order so I’m going to begin with my day in London yesterday. The place I stayed didn’t have free wifi, so I wasn't able to post (sorry!). Advance warning: this post is extremely long!

I arrived at Gatwick at 6:30 AM UK time, and had a very full but wonderful day. After clearing security etc, I took the train from the airport to London Victoria train and tube station. Victoria has a “left luggage” service where for a small fee you can store bags, so I left my big suitcase there so that I wasn’t stuck with it all day. From there, it was a tube trip to the Tower of London.

First though, between the tube stop and the Tower, I stumbled upon this great memorial to Britain’s merchant navy during WWI. 

WWI merchant navy memorial

The Tower was my main priority for the day and I wanted to go there first so I could spend as long as I wanted there. It’s a collection of many different buildings, so it took me a while- I stayed from 10am-1:30pm. There were so many interesting things to see: different towers (including the “Bloody Tower” where Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned and where the lost Princes in the Tower were thought to be killed by order of Richard III) and several special exhibits. 

Most buildings had dated signs on them. It’s hard to comprehend their extreme age!

Recreated bedroom of King Edward I in the Medieval Palace exhibit

Chapel in the Medieval Palace. This is almost certainly where King Henry VI was killed

There are wonderful costumed guides who perform various roles around the Tower. The guide in the photo below is one of several that I saw dealing with school groups. However, others run tours for the general public. I caught one of the “Restoration and Rebellion” tours, set in the 1660s. 4 costumed actors split the group up into religious factions, and had us walking all around the Tower, spying on each other, catching out some of the actors as double agents, and distracting the guards to engineer the escape of a conspirator. It was quite unusual and so I liked it!

Costumed guide with school group

I also joined one of the hour-long tours led by a Yeoman Warder. The Warders are a real group that used to guard the castle, but now the interpret the site for visitors. Even though their job is entirely peaceful, all the members are required to have served in the Queen’s military forces for at least 22 years. During the tour, I got to see the Chapel Royal where Jane Grey, Anne Boleyn, and Katherine Howard (three beheaded Queens of England) are buried. 

Yeoman warder guide. They’re also known as “beefeaters” and no one can really explain why.

The White Tower

There’s a legend that if the ravens ever leave the Tower, the tower and the monarchy itself will collapse. Currently there are 8 ravens, whose wings are clipped to prevent the prophecy from coming true. They’re enormous!

Below are some photos of a memorial on Tower Green remembering several people who were executed there, including the three queens mentioned above. 

I also got to see the Crown Jewels! It reminded me a lot of how the Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College in Dublin is set up. They’re obviously used to massive crowds, so even once you’re “in” there’s big holding rooms leading up to the real thing, just with some photos and/or text projected onto the wall that give a shallow introduction to the topic. 

Luckily there was no lineup today; in the photo below, you can infer the amount of people they are prepared to deal with!

No photos allowed inside, unfortunately. There were maces, swords, crowns, robes, gilded plate and baptismal fonts, banquet paraphernalia, and so on. It was definitely impressive, although almost not quite as much as the hype had led me to believe; I have no doubt the artifacts in there are worth millions and/or priceless, though. I guess really what it is, is that I was picturing more actual jewels instead of other types of regalia. I’m still very glad I saw it though! Below are a few pictures from outside the exhibit.

Another exhibit was about the Tower’s function as an armoury:

This armour was made for Henry VIII!

This was made for the boy king Edward VI, Elizabeth I’s younger brother, who died of tuberculosis at 15.

I thought this was a great concept visually, as a way to present the timelines of various offices (eg the Royal Mint) that the Tower has housed.

You can buy almost anything in a Tower of London-themed container! 

After leaving the tower, I walked next door to Tower Bridge. 

Thames water gate

Tower Bridge

With the Tower Bridge Exhbition, I got to go up to the walkways at the top of the bridge (42 metres up!). There are exhibits about the history of London and the bridge all the way along both walkways. 

View from the wallkway

The exhibit also included entrance to the Victorian Engine Rooms, which demonstrate 

how the bridge was raised and lowered by steam and hydraulics

Speaking of raising the bridge, look at the angle of the road here- the centre of the bridge was raised when I visited.

Afterwards, it was a 10-minute walk over to The Monument, which was built in the late 1600s and commemorates the Great Fire of 1666. 

I climbed up all 311 stairs to the viewing balcony, 50 m above street level, to see the great view! 

Tower Bridge from The Monument

St Paul's Cathedral from The Monument

Then a quick tube trip brought me near Foyles, a bookstore I had read about. It was definitely the most comprehensive book store I’ve ever been in. It’s 4 floors high and takes up the length of a city block. Almost the entirety of one floor is dedicated to different subcategories of history, archaeology, and anthropology! It is amazingly thorough in other, very different areas too: there were entire sections for Arabic Literature in Translation and Russian Dictionaries, just to name two. 

Foyles

I had noticed that M&Ms World was right on my walking route between Foyles and my next stop, the National Portrait Gallery. A store entirely devoted to M&Ms sounded too intriguing to pass up, so I stopped in to have a look. It was massive, 4 floors, a rainbow of colour, selling every piece of M&M-themed clothing, knick-knack, and school supply that you can possibly imagine, plus a hundred different types of packaging for the actual candy. 

They even had a “World of M&M’s” section where they sold containers with candy colours corresponding to the flags of different countries. Not just the common big ones- I wonder how many they sell with the colours of the 

United Arab Emirates, for example!

On the bottom floor they have M&M figurines taller than me, in the classic Beatles pose walking across the crosswalk

As I mentioned, my final stop of the day was Trafalgar Square and the bordering National Portrait Gallery. I went to the National Gallery with art history class this fall, but I’d never been to the Portrait Gallery. On Fridays they stay open late and have special events, so I got to see a free concert in one of the gallery rooms, and attended a talk by one of the art curators. Unfortunately, the gallery doesn’t allow any photography. 

Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square; the left photo is the National Gallery

National Gallery

The talk was called “Not on the Label” and so it was about quirky facts that you wouldn’t know just from reading the label the gallery had created for the painting. It was in the 19th and 20th century galleries. I wasn't familiar with most of the subjects, so my favourite was the one where I had actually heard of the people depicted: a portrait of the three Bronte sisters, done by their brother Branwell. 

National Portrait Gallery

I was also really impressed by one called “Statesmen of WWI"  because of its sheer size: 13' x 11'. We also saw a clever exhibit called "Imagined Lives: Portraits of Unknown People", who have had backstories created for them for this exhibit by leading British writers. 

Then it was back to various tube transfers back to London Victoria to get my suitcase and then out to near Heathrow where I stayed. A busy but wonderful day! :)

Here’s some a few other random shots from the day:

South African High Commission

New Fourth Plinth Statue: "Powerless Structures, Fig 101", replacing
"Ship in a Bottle"

I know it's hard to read, but I thought the slogan
was funny because it seemed very British:
"We're the official smoothie of the London
2012 Olympic Games. And very chuffed
we are too."