London Town! (Day Eight)

Here is where I start to lose track of chronology, because we did two days worth of London and I can’t begin to describe how much we did! About half of it was touristy things, and the other half was having our family take us around to spots that were close to home. My great grandmother of my mother’s maternal line lived in London, as did many other family members, and so we were shown some of her old homes, where she went to school and where she walked to work. It was really an incredible two days! I will try my best to recount it all, for my memory’s sake. I’ll divide day one and day two, because there is so much to tell.

Day one in London, we got up early to get ready and leave by nine. We stayed in Croydon which is about 30-40 minutes to an hour outside of London by public transportation. We left early, with John and Dot (my nannie’s cousin and his wife), to get tickets for the tram. The ticket machine ended up not working, so we got on with one ticket and one voucher between three of us. John and Dot had their cards already, so it was us who would be in trouble if a tram inspector came on. However, we got away with it! Arriving at East Croydon, we bought tickets and got onto a train that took us to London Bridge station.

Going in on the train I caught my first glimpses of London, mostly residential areas but then the London Eye and Big Ben from a distance! The station that we ended up at, Charring Cross, was huge and bustling, but not as busy as I would see it later. We met our Uncle Bill, a man as old as the Queen and as hilarious as anything! He refuses hugs and kisses, but my mom managed to squeeze him hello and his response was a guffaw and a tut tut! We stepped out into London, at the central point of London from where everything is measured from. The first thing we decided to do, after much deliberation, was head toward King’s College campus (where I want to go to grad school) and on the way we passed the church where my great-grandmother Margaret was married to my great-grandfather Hector. It was called Corpus Christi, and from the outside it just looked like another building. However once inside it was big and beautiful! John said this was the church where he was baptized; there were a lot of family connections at this church. I took a picture of Madison outside in the same spot where my grandmother’s wedding picture is. It was lovely to see!

Off to King’s College, a division of the University of London. We walked along the Strand Campus. It is right in the heart of London and where I’d be living and going to school if I end up going there! Inside I asked for the admission’s office and asked a few questions to a not so helpful woman. I pretty much gave up with her and we continued on, but the Strand Campus was really pretty and in a fantastic location!

Fleet Street, of the Demon Barber variety, was next on our route. Just walking up and down to see some old buildings was great! The weather that day was cooperating, it was a bit cool but there was no rain. I can’t say the same for Friday…

Along Fleet Street we saw The Royal Court of Justice, Twinings Tea (woo!), the building where Sweeney Todd’s barbershop was said to be, and the most gorgeous old bank. I was trying not to be the most obvious tourist and took some sneaky snaps, but that was to no avail. We were definitely playing the tourists!

Royal Courts of Justice

Old bank!

If it weren’t for our wonderful tour guides, John and Bill, we would have gotten no where fast. St. Paul’s Cathedral was the next thing we saw, and after a couple of pictures we stopped into Starbucks for a spot of tea. Uncle Bill mentioned that the top of one of the shopping complexes near by had a lookout, so we made our way up there to see St. Paul’s from higher up and a bit more of London.

It was very exciting to next walk to the Tower of London!!! It was so much larger than I ever thought. Not so much the square tower itself in the middle, but the walls and gates around the perimeter. We did a lot on this trip on the cheap, so we didn’t buy tickets to actually go in but we walked along the outside. There were some great spots, like the Traitor’s Gate where it was thought Anne Boleyn entered the tower! I stood beside those very walls! Just beside was the Thames and Tower Bridge, which I got pictures of as well. Just to think how many prisoners and well known people were kept in that tower, along with exotic pets and today the crown jewels… it was incredible to be there! On our way out of the area, we passed a spot on the Thames called Dead Man’s Hole, where all the bodies in the Thames (whether by suicide, accident, or murder) were washed up and collected. It was quite cold at this point, so we decided on eating lunch.

John looked up some of the oldest pubs in London, and his research led us to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. With my love of history, I can’t tell you how excited I was to eat in a 400 year old pub. The Cheshire, which was rebuilt after an even longer history in 1667, is still open and running. On the outside, they even have a list of British sovereigns who were in reign while the pub was open. Inside was like going into the past! I am so glad we got to eat there, not to mention had some delicious food. I ordered a chicken and mushroom pie with chips (which I have to keep reminding myself to say, not fries) and peas and carrots. We searched around a bit and found tons of old rooms. It was incredible!

Dot and John!

The basement of Cheshire Cheese

Regrettably we had to move on, and we did a bit of walking through London and got to Covent Garden. This is where Eliza Doolittle met Henry Higgins, who taught her to speak proper English. In the play, anyway (:

We went through a huge flea market in Covent Garden where a few things caught my eye, but I didn’t buy anything. There was a ton of cool stuff though! In Covent Garden we saw some of the original piazzas and the church where the big columns are (like you see in My Fair Lady). It was really beautiful! Around there were some more posh places like Burberry which we didn’t even dare go in.

Through a small alleyway by an old pub called the Lamb and Flag, we entered Floral Street and took a pit stop for Madison in H&M. On the other side of H&M we walked out to Long Acre and off to Langley Court, another spot where our relatives used to live. While Kate Spade and other boutiques are there now, it used to be much different. Uncle Bill was explaining to me that air raids and bombs used to fall here during WWII. My family used to live right in the area and Bill himself was once evacuated from his home. It was so nice to walk around with them to get a history we would have not found elsewhere.

A relative used to live in this area, when it was a house.

When I write about walking between places, it was not just walking. There was so much to look at everywhere we went! So as we walked to the school my great grandmother and Uncle Bill (her brother) used to go to, we saw so much. The school, Macklin Street School, had girls and boys entrances that would have been used at the time. To think my great grandmother Margaret, who I was named after in my middle name, walked those streets and went to school was amazing.

We hopped on a bus and drove down Oxford Street, very slowly in the traffic, and saw the seas of people getting out of work. We would be stopping to do some shopping at a huge department store called Primark, but on the way one of the notable things I saw was one of the oldest stores on the block, an umbrella shop. Looking in a book of John’s, I saw how it used to look in the late 1800s with the storekeepers standing out front.

Primark is a bit like Forever 21, but with men’s and children’s departments as well as ladies with a much wider selection. It’s like a huge fashion store for very cheap. My sister and me went in while the rest of our group went for tea. I almost wish I went along, because Primark was crowded and the lines for fitting rooms and checkouts were horrid. We had been walking all day and I could have sworn my feet were bleeding. I bought a few things, so did Madison, and we regrouped with our fam and visited Grosvenor’s Square. This is where a lot of the embassies rest, including Canada’s. It was a lovely park with lots of monuments.

Canadian Embassy

Outside of the square was one of the ritziest districts I’ve ever walked through, called Mayfair. Where else do you see Jenny Packham, Oscar de la Renta, and a Porsche dealership on the same block? The fanciest hotels were around here, and we saw two events going on (what seemed like galas) as we passed through. We even saw paparazzi running around! There was also a Rolls Royce store front, and there I was carrying a Primark bag where I bought a dress for 5 pounds. It was starting to rain, and I didn’t have suitable clothing on or an umbrella. This was where we ended our day, and we got on a bus to get to Victoria station to get a train back to Croydon.

The first day in London was tiring and my feet ached after driving everyday for seven days straight! We got a train and a bus back to Croydon and once settled in, there was more tea and cakes to go around than I could have ever wished. We sat and chatted all night with John and Dot, before heading to bed. I wrote a bit for the blog and uploaded some pictures and immediately fell asleep. It was such a cozy bed and much needed!

Soon to be up, London day two!