BB2618 : Capital Reminiscences

Five distinguished academics held their reunion at the Tabernus Club (motto Caligae Ad Ambulandum) recently, reminiscing about their first collegiate visit to London, many years ago.

Mike, Professor of Gourmetology and Modern English Doggerel, reminded them of the ode he had subsequently composed:

 Five BOOTboys rolled into town,
With sturdy shoes and wisdom renowned.
Don led the charge with map held high,
While Tony debated the shape of the sky.

Robin sought history round every bend,
Robert found pubs he could warmly recommend.
And Mike, with camera ready to shoot,
Captured the gang in their well-travelled boots.

First came churches, old stones and tales,
Knights and merchants and river borne sails.
At Sir John Soane's Museum they wandered in awe,
At every strange treasure and curious drawer.

“There’s a sarcophagus!” someone cried.
“Who keeps that indoors?” Tony replied.
Rooms within rooms and secrets galore,
Each corner revealed yet one wonder more.

Then onward they marched with tremendous exertion,
Though several knees were expressing concern.
Their reward was waiting, as all good things ought,
At The Market Porter beside Borough Market’s court.

There pints were admired with scholarly care,
As if judging fine art or rare antique ware.
The laughter grew louder, the stories more bold,
With each tale improving the older it told.

Two days of history, friendship and cheer,
Of buses and footsteps and excellent beer.
Five Boot Boys returned with memories to store—
Though they may remember the pub more than Soane!

Don, Professor of English Bloggery, recalled that it all started with Tony.  He had two heros from bygone days.  His love for Lady Ann Clifford was well known.  Less so, his admiration for England's Finest Knight- William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1146 - 1219).  There is actually a distant relationship between the two but as it is separated by centuries and marriage, it isn't relevant to this account. What is relevant is that he, Tony, is Dean of the Clifford and Marshal College.

Tony had been keen to visit London with the prime objective of attending the Temple Church to pay homage to his Crusader hero.  He had invited BOOTboys to join him on his pilgrimage and so, in addition to Mike and Don, Robert (now Professor of Organ and Cigarum) and Robin (Ancient and Modern Rugby and Engineering) responded to the call.

The plan was that each would choose a place that all would visit together.

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 
Train, destination London.

Bag drop at the Premier Inn then off to the first chosen feature.

Westminster Abbey, chosen by Don

Don:  Although in my working life I spent a lot of time in London, I never visited Westminster Abbey yet it has played such a central part in the history of England and is the final resting place of many of its monarchs.

After a peep into St Pancras' Church, our route took us past Trafalgar Square.....

..... and Horseguards Parade, with e-bikes lined up like guardsmen.

My first impression on entering the Abbey was its size.  It seemed much bigger internally than I had expected.

My second impression was that the audio guide was pretty rubbish.  There is so much to see that I must have missed masses. However I did find many of its key features; the Coronation Throne, the tomb of the unknown soldier, the tombs of many Kings and Queens dating back as far as Edward the Confessor who died in 1066.  

 Beyond Poet's Corner (I thought it was in St Paul's but that's the Artists' Corner) is the entrance to the to the Weston Tower.  The lady on guard explained that there are two ways up.  Either you can climb the 108 steps or you can take the lift.  She nodded understandably when I said "No contest".  She stared in amazement when this old man charged up the stairs, shouting "BOOTboys don't take lifts."

At the top are the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries which are well worth the extra £5 and not just for the exercise and the external view (of torrential rain). There is a superb video with 3-D dynamic model explaining how the Abbey had grown over the centuries.  Perhaps a touch macabre are the funeral effigies of many kings, queens and other nobles.  It also provides a superb viewpoint to look down onto the main aisles below.  Unfortunately photography is not allowed up there.

It would be possible to spend many hours and still not see everything but we were on a schedule.  Fortunately the rain had eased and we made our way to the tube station without getting too wet, emerging to walk through Borough Market.  It would have been nice had more time to explore but another place awaited us.

Southwark Cathedral, chosen by Robert

Robert:  It was actually Mike B who originally suggested the Southwark Cathedral. This suited me as the Choral Evensong at 5:30 would add to my tally of cathedral evensong attendances.  Standing at the oldest crossing point of the Thames and mentioned in the Doomsday Book, the Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie (‘over the river’) became a cathedral only in 1905.  A fine monument and stained-glass window commemorate William Shakespeare, a parishioner in the early years of the nearby Globe Theatre.

Chaucer’s friend the poet John Gower (1330-1408) lived in the priory and has an elaborate tomb. The Harvard Chapel commemorates John Harvard (1607-1637), born in Southwark and major benefactor of a proposed Massachusetts college, now known as Harvard University.

For evensong, we had the privilege of sitting in the quire with the choir - sadly not the full Cathedral Choir but the Lay Clerks, six professional singers employed part-time to make up the back row of the full choir. What they lacked in numbers they made up for with decibels.

Don: I was particularly intrigued by this memorial to a quack doctor:

Borough Market was more or less closed by the time the service was over.  Mike had missed out on the Cathedral as he had been meeting his son before heading for the Market Trader to meet us for dinner.  As we approached, we could see him in the window, waiting for us upstairs.

After dinner, we wandered back along the river.....

..... passing the Golden Hind (replica) and the Globe Theatre (replica), crossing the Minellium Bridge with St Paul's Cathedral straight ahead.  

 We were returning wearily to the hotel when, back on the Strand, we paused to recuperate in Ye Olde Cock Tavern.  We weren't totally rejuvenated so tried to find a taxi but, as some of the tubes were on strike and it was theatre land, there were no cabs to be seen.  Eventually we found a bus to put us out of our misery.

Wednesday 3rd June  2026

Sir John Soane's Museum chosen by Mike

Don : Breakfast in the Premier Inn proved to be surprisingly good and set us up for the first item on the day's agenda.  Mike had previously been to the Museum at Sir John Soanes' house and had recommended it to us for its eclectic collection of antiquities, sculptures, paintings and much more beside.  Plus a room dedicated to his fellow architect, Vanburgh.  We were trusting that it would open on time at 10 a.m. as rain was heading our way and a queue was building up.  Mike had fun struggling with a precautionary plastic poncho but fortunately the door opened before we got properly wet.

Deliberately kept as it would have been at the time of his death in 1837 (and therefore without labels), the house is so jam packed with all sorts of items that, in places, there was hardly room to move.  

The prize possession seemed to be the Sarcophagus of Egyptian King Seti I, though I found the 118 paintings, including Canelletos and Hogarths, more interesting.

There's too much to describe, but you can enjoy an on-line interactive tour at Explore Soane. 

One thing puzzled me.  Where were the clocks?  Something on which to ponder over coffee before we moved on to our next selection. 

Temple Church chosen by Tony

Tony:  For some time now I’ve wanted to visit the tomb of William Marshall (England’s greatest Knight) who fought under five kings and saved us from the French fighting hand to hand at about 70 years old in the second battle of Lincoln in 1217. I’ve actually stood where he stood in the gates of the castle when he was involved in hand to hand combat! He also built Cartmel Priory.

William’s last resting place is in the Templar’s Church on London’s Fleet Street.....

..... and his effigy is shown in our photos.

Sadly I wasn’t able to view his actual tomb as his body is in an inaccessible crypt sealed forever under the church garden. Still, it was an amazing visit. If anyone is interested in his life story I can heartily recommend ‘The Greatest Knight’ by Thomas Asbridge. It’s a cracking read!!

Robin : Sealed in 1215 at Runnymede by King John and the Barons, gathered under the leadership of Sir William Marshal, Magna Carta is the foundational document of the rule of law laying the groundwork for modern democracy, parliamentary governance, and the protection of individual liberties. Providing the framework of the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, Magna Carta remains a globally recognized symbol of freedom. 

Robert:  Our visit to this extraordinary church included the bonus of a recital on the Harrison & Harrison organ - the same builder of organs in Westminster Abbey and King’s College, Cambridge. With four manuals, 66 stops, massive 32-foot pedal stops, and around 4,000 pipes, this a magnificent instrument.

Temple Church organist and Royal College of Music Professor, Charles Andrews, demonstrated the full range of the organ’s capabilities and volume from quieter, lyrical pieces to J S Bach’s ‘Prelude in E flat’. Marcel Dupré composed the final piece, ‘Prelude & Fugue in B’, and for many years was the only virtuoso capable of playing it. Wow.

We had lunch at The George on the Strand, originally a coffee house and used as a postal address by Dr Samuel Johnson, the compiler of the 1755 Dictionary of the English Language.

Afterwards, we made an impromptu visit to St Clement Danes at the Aldwych end of the Strand, a 1682 Sir Christopher Wren church thought to be on the site of one built by the Danes in the 9th century.  It is now the central church of the Royal Air Force.  Statues of ‘Bomber’ Harris, Chief of Bomber Command, and Dowding, Chief of Fighter Command, stand outside the entrance to the church.  Unfortunately, the statue of Dr Johnson escaped our attention.

Guess what tune its bells play every day? No, not the Dambusters March!  Think fruit.  Sadly, we just missed the 3 p.m. rendition.

British Library chosen by Robin

Robin : The last item on the itinerary, a visit to the British Library - five minutes’ walk from our hotel and only a few minutes more to Euston Station – would be complementary to our visit to Temple Church and a relaxed end to our epic two days in London. The British Library’s web site boasts of displaying two of the only four surviving copies of Magna Carta in a comprehensive permanent display that includes The Articles of the Barons, being the Barons’ original draft of Magna Carta; the Papal Bull issued by Pope Innocent 111 annulling Magna Carta just ten weeks after it was sealed, copies of the Charters based on Magna Carta subsequently sealed by Henry III in 1225 thus ensuring their permanent place in English Law, and a recording of Nelson Mandela's defence speech at the Rivonia Trial of 1964 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment completing the exhibits.

As we searched for the display in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery, an observant attendant, noting we were looking lost, approached to see if he could help. ‘’Where’s the Magna Carta Exhibition?’’ Tony asked. ‘’Well,’’was the drawled response, ‘’it used to be over there, but not so long ago two women activists came in and defaced it. But if you look on the wall over there,’’ he said, pointing to a small alcove opposite, ‘’you will see a copy of Magna Carta, all there is while we decide whether we can resurrect the original exhibition’’.

Maybe this was a blessing in disguise as by now we had seen and enjoyed superlative history, song, music and culture in abundance, so an original Shakespeare’s First Folio, Jane Austen’s jottings, Lennon and McCartney’s handwritten lyrics, Mozart’s musical scores, Leonardo’s illuminating notebooks and Michelangelo’s cartoons all had to roll over with Beethoven. Enough is enough, so when a proposal to visit the six storey glass structure housing the 65,000 book collection of King George 111 met with a unanimous shake of the head, we knew it was time to collect our rucksacks and head for Euston Station.

Relaxing in the Club lounge after dinner, the old boys happily exchanged reminsences from days of yore.  The excitement of exploration and edification.  "A most splendid evening," declared Tony.  "Capital, old boy, capital," responded Mike. Inevitably, one by one, they drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the many times they had caught the train back to the north, hoping that they would wake before they reached their station.

Don, Wednesday 3rd June 2040

Comitibus:   

Mike,                  Tony,                  Don,                  Robert,                  Robin

STATISTICS

BB2618 :  Capital Reminisences

Date:

Tuesday 2nd - Wednesday 3rd June 2026

Features:

Westminster Abbey, Southwark Cathedral,
Sir John Soane's Museum, Temple Church, British Library

Comitibus:

Don, Mike B, Robert, Robin, Tony

Home

BB04

BB05

BB06

BB07

BB08

BB09

BB10

BB11

BB12

BB13

BB14

BB15

BB16

BB17

BB18

BB19

BB20

BB21

BB22

BB23

 BB24

 BB25

BB26

Archive