Day 7: Kenilworth Castle

Day 7 was a Monday, so K had to work.  D very kindly took me on a tour of nearby Kenilworth castle.  Kenilworth was "slighted" in 1649, which means that the walls were deliberately destroyed to prevent the castle being used as a fortress.  This means that only two buildings are fully intact, the gatehouse and the stables.

Gatehouse

Stables

The castle itself is very interesting.  The ruined state means that I could see detail about the underlying construction that would not be visible in an intact building.

Slighted Castle

Castle - View from garden

Castle - Interior view

Castle - Interior View

Recently a project has been completed to reconstruct the original Knot garden at the castle.  The garden was recreated based on descriptions in old records. My host thinks the details available were sufficiently vague that the results are more guesswork than anything, but the garden is pretty.

Knot Garden

Knot Garden with view of aviary

 The building at the back of the garden is this photo is an aviary.

Knot Garden

As well as the castle and garden, there are some wonderful views of the surrounding countryside.  The whole area is so green!

In the evening my hosts went to a concert.  I had originally planned to join them but unfortunately I was too full of cold, so I had an early night instead.

Day 6 - Coventry Addendum

In my previous post I forgot to mention the visit to the Coventry automotive museum.  A huge space, the museum contains many hundreds of cars, from all different eras, all produced in Coventry .  It was fascinating to see the evolution of the car, from the earlier versions with running boards, all the way through to present times.

Day 6 - Coventry

The next day (Sunday) my cold was flourishing, and I wasn't up to much site seeing.  My kind hosts took me on a slow paced tour of Coventry.
The seal of Coventry includes an elephant, and hence there are elephants all over the place!  Here are some little elephants on top of some decorative bollards:

A story that Coventry is famous for is the story of Lady Godiva, who rode naked through the streets of Coventry to persuade her husband to reduce the onerous taxes on the city.  Naturally, there is a statue of her in Coventry:

During World War 2, Coventry, which was a major manufacturing centre, was hit very hard by the Blitz. The city was very nearly levelled.  Only a few remaining buildings date to before World War 2.

One of the remaining buildings is the 12th Century Holy Trinity Church.  Because it was a Sunday, and  service was just finishing as we walked past, we were able to go in and have a look.

Above the archway in this photo you can just make out the lower part of the 15th Century "Doom" painting, which has recently been restored. Unfortunately, this was the best photo I got of it!

There were also some very lovely stained glass windows.

A significant architectural casualty of WW2 was the Coventry Cathedral.  The walls were left standing, but the roof and interior were destroyed.  A new cathedral has been built facing the original cathedral, and the two buildings make a striking contrast.  The first photo is of the new cathedral, with very modern architecture.

In the second photo you can see the columns at the front of the new cathedral, and behind them the archways of the old cathedral.

Finally, the main entry windows of the new cathedral, seen through the original doorway of the old cathedral.

 

The old cathedral, in contrast, looks like this:

The scorch marks on the walls from the incendiaries are still very clear.

There are still some small sections of stained glass that survived the fire.  The edges are melted from the heat, but the stonework is intact.  

The visit to the cathedrals was fascinating and sobering at the same time.  

Afterwards, we went to a small museum near by, with displays about Coventry's history.  There were examples of machines that were used for watchmaking and ribbon making.  The automated ribbon making machines used a kind of metal punch card to control the pattern that was woven into the ribbons.  Really interesting stuff.  

That evening my hosts headed off to a concert.  I had been planning to join them, but the cold defeated me, so I got an early night.

Day 5 - Travel to Coventry

The next day E and A took me out to breakfast at a nearby cafe (mm, crepes) and then we took the train to Fulham Broadway where I was collecting a hire car.  I was due to collect the car at 12pm and arrived at 11:40. Unfortunately, when I got there Europcar had given the car away, and was waiting for another one to arrive from the airport outlet.  Due to the volcano in Iceland a lot of people were stranded, and the demand for hire cars had soared.  I wasn't very impressed, because I had booked the car a couple of weeks before, and arrived on time, but there wasn't much I could do about it.  In the end it took another 2 hours before a car arrived for me.

Once I got the car I drove E and A back to their place, picked up my luggage, and headed off to Coventry, where I was staying with my friend K.  It was a 3 hour drive in the end, by the time I got through London traffic, and allowing for stops I didn't reach K's place until just before dinner time.

I received a very warm welcome from K and her partner D, and after an excellent dinner, got an early night.

Day 4 Evening - Covent Garden

After leaving Marble Arch, I took the train to Covent Garden, where I was meeting E and A.  We were meeting outside Covent Garden station, but I was a bit early, so I took the chance to have a look around.

I wandered through the Covent Garden Market, which is small, but has some nice shops.

It's not really a street market any more.  Opposite the market is St. Paul's Church (not to be confused with the Cathedral).

In front of the church I joined a crowd watching a street performer, a juggler. He was really good.  The finale to the act was him climbing up a ladder, which he just stood straight up right and climbed, no support, then juggling a set of knives from the top of the ladder, while rotating the ladder 360degrees.  It was pretty impressive.

By the time the juggler was finished it was time to meet E and A, and we had dinner, then walked to the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane.

On the way we passed the royal opera house:

The play we were seeing was Oliver, with Gryph Rys Jones as Fagin.

It started off a little slow, but by the second half it was wonderful.  Nancy was great, Bill was terrifying, and Fagin was human and believable.  All in all, another great night.

Day 4(Fri) Kensington

The next day I took a double decker bus to Kensington Gardens.  I was the only passenger at my stop, so I was able to sit right in the front a the top!  Here is a shot of what I could see.

As you can see, terrace houses are the norm in London, or at least the parts that I saw.

Once I got to the gardens I visited Kensington Palace.  I wasn't allowed to take photos inside the palace.  When I was there, the palace had a kind of themed "art installation" thing happening, based around the various princesses that had lived there.  Some of it was pretty cool, but unfortunately a lot of the rooms had very low light levels as a result of the "art installation" stuff, with made it hard to see the architecture of the rooms themselves.  Some of the painted ceilings were amazing.

Near to the palace is an old carved tree:

There is a similar one in the Fizroy Gardens in Melbourne, but the one in the UK is probably the original.

Here are some general shots of the gardens:

They are very green and very lovely.

At the south end of the gardens is the Albert Memorial, which Queen Victoria had built in honor of her late husband Albert.  It is very.... flashy.

Over the road from the Albert Memorial is the Albert Hall.  I took a photo, but I didn't go in.

After the Albert Memorial, I walked along the Flower walk section of the Kensington Gardens, where I saw squirrels.

The Squirrels were smaller than I expected, and moved very very fast.

I stopped into a small gallery in the gardens, with a small photographic display.  It was interesting, but not really my kind of art.

I headed up to the north east corner of the gardens, where the Italianate section is and got some lunch from a coffee cart there.

Then I walked along the northern edge of Hyde Park to Marble Arch.

Apparently there is a single room flat in the top of Marble Arch.  I don't think I'd like living there!

I then took the train to Covent Garden, where I was meeting E and A to go to the theater.

Day 3 (Thurs) The British Museum

On Thursday I went to the British Museum. In the tube station on the way there, I heard a somewhat garbled announcement.  Something to do with planes at Heathrow being delayed by volcanic activity.  I assumed that I had heard wrong, and resolved to check the internet when I got back to A and E's place that night.

Now to the British Museum.  The building itself is magnificent, both inside and out.  The reading room in the centre is supposed to be well worth seeing, but unfortunately it is only open as part of special exhibitions these days.

The first thing I saw once I entered the exhibition spaces was the Rosetta Stone.  It was in a large glass case, which made it hard to photograph, but I could clearly see the different blocks of text in different languages, including the section in hieroglyphs.  My reaction can basically be summed up as:  Wow!

The next port of call in the museum was the Elgin Marbles.  These are carved marble plaques taken from the Parthenon in Greece. There is a bit of controversy about them now, as the Greeks want them back, but at the time Lord Elgin removed them it seems clear that they were subject to a fair bit of vandalism.  The photos here are a very small sample of what is on display at the museum.

As well as the plaques, there were some pieces of statues from the Parthenon.  Most of the statues had notes under them saying things like: , or similar.

After having a good look at the Elgin marbles, I wandered around the Egyptian section of the museum.  Lots and lots of stuff!

Then came the Assyrian section, with lots of statues and carvings taken from tombs.

There was far too much to see properly in one day, or even in one month, but I did a very quick walk through of the remainder of the museum.  Another standout item was the Easter Island Statue.

I staggered out of the Museum near closing time, feeling utterly exhausted, but still amazed by the things I had seen.  I headed back to E and A's place, and checked the internet, where I discovered that the garbled announcement about planes and volcanic activity was due to a volcano in Iceland sending up vast clouds of ash, which had caused a shut down of British airspace (and a fair bit of European airspace!).  Apparently I had arrived in England just in time!

That evening E and A took me to a local wine bar.  Very nice, and very civilized.  An excellent end to another great day.