South Bank

On Monday we had administrative things to do on campus in the morning--getting our student IDs (good for concessions at places that charged admission), being briefed on safety procedures, things of that nature--and a general introductory talk.  In the evening there was a welcome party of a multitude of good British finger foods in the department's graduate common room, and the hours between were free to help us get over our jetlag.  For my part, I hurried off to the Underground to make my way to London Bridge station, on the south side of the Thames.

Southwark is one of London's boroughs, of which there are 32 (not counting the City of London, a strange beast with its own rules in many regards); of those 32 there are 12 Inner and 20 Outer boroughs, and Southwark is among the former, making it part of the core of historic London.  The borough is home to landmarks like the Globe Theatre, the Tate Modern, the Shard, and Borough Market.  Not far from the theatre is a replica of the Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake's ship that sailed all the way to California during Elizabeth I's reign.  The ship is tucked into a small dock at St Mary Overie.  Golden Hinde II is parked between a few buildings and next to a pub, and may be toured for a fee.  In my brief perusal of it I was struck by how awful a position it's in for good photos, since the buildings around it must cast awkward shadows over it during much of the day, but more importantly how small it is.  I can't imagine that circumnavigating the Earth in a ship only 120 feet long was much of a picnic.

My main goal in Southwark was to visit the cathedral.  One of the first things I saw on the grounds was a monument to a Mohegan chief, Mahomet Weyonomon, who traveled to London to petition King George II for the return of his tribe's lands.  While awaiting an audience Mahomet died and was buried near the cathedral, then outside of the city boundaries. 

Though Westminster Abbey has Poets' Corner, one might argue that Southwark Cathedral has more authentic ties to some of the writers who founded English literature.  The cathedral includes a monument to Shakespeare, a sometime congregant, in which he lounges before a relief of the area's skyline, and the tomb of medieval author John Gower.  There are also stained glass windows with scenes from famous works, including the Canterbury Tales, and some of the stalls in the choir are named for authors associated with the area.  As if all of this literary glory isn't enough, the cathedral was also the site of the baptism in the 17th century of a boy named John Harvard.  A photocopy of the page that records the event hangs outside the chapel named after him, given by grateful alumni of his college in the other Cambridge.

Once again, the question of 'What makes a building mediæval?' reared its head on this trip, since castles and cathedrals especially often went through several stages of development.  I suppose the most accurate wording would be to call these things buildings that originated in the Middle Ages, but brevity's sake demands less precision.  I bring this up because several elements of Southwark Cathedral aren't mediæval, from the aforementioned Harvard Chapel to much of the stained glass--though it seems more common to see replacement than original stained glass anyway.  The eastern end of the cathedral features a few modern windows, including one commissioned to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012.  It was designed by Leifur Breidfjord.  When the sun shone through it, it was especially beautiful.

The cathedral's grounds now include a café, gift shop, and conference centre in modern buildings.  The corridor between the old and new is covered a glass roof.  At its far end is a space where some excavation work was done, and labels point out everything from the Roman paving to the 19th-century lead pipe.

Near Borough Market you might notice a wall with the tracery of a rose window just below its jagged top.  I say might, because despite the rose window hanging out in the middle of nothing, you might also miss it while you're looking at other stuff.  This wall, along with some adjoining bits and the garden below, is what remains of the Palace of Winchester, once home to the area's bishops.  It's odd to see the window devoid of glass, and the stonework of the wall so much older than the surrounding ones.  The garden looks to be fairly new; I hope they've planted kitchen herbs and vegetables appropriate to the original building's time period. 

London Bridge has good views up and down the river; it might not be the best place from which to photograph Tower Bridge, though, because HMS Belfast is anchored between the two.  I thought of Neverwhere a lot while I was in London, from looking for signs of a floating market on the Belfast to expecting to hear Neil Gaiman's voice over the loudspeakers telling Underground passengers to mind the gap.

Instead of taking the Underground back the same way I came, I decided to cross the river and catch a train on the north side.  Using the Millennium Bridge was the obvious choice; I believe it's the only pedestrian-only bridge in the area, and it's so distinctive.  From either side it's difficult to see the bridge against the larger ones behind it, giving it an insubstantial feel.  The bridge lines up almost perfectly with St Paul's Cathedral on the north side of the Thames, so that the dome is framed between the buildings on either side as you approach.  It makes one wonder why there was no bridge in that location before.

Though I didn't know it at the time, it turns out that in searching for a Tube stop whose line would take me close to UCL I walked through Vintry Ward, where Chaucer was born.  I arrived at our party only a few minutes late and very satisfied with my afternoon's exploration.

Arrival in London

It's hard to know where to start after two jam-packed weeks.  I suppose where and why would be the best place: I was taking part in a graduate seminar in London hosted by the University of North Carolina and University College London.  In the course of the seminar we visited many cultural institutions, but also had enough free time to pursue our own interests.  A bank holiday Monday helped in that regard by giving us a three-day weekend in the middle of the trip.  Even so, I hadn't run out of things to look at by the time I had to leave, and the only reason I needed to come back to the US was because my knees were suffering.  Given better shoes, I could easily spend a year or more exploring the UK.

The other problem is that I don't feel up to the task.  It doesn't seem possible that I could really convey what it was like--I could easily relate where I went and what I saw, but that wouldn't help anyone understand the giddiness of walking out of a Tube station to see the Tower of London opposite bathed in afternoon sunlight, or the tranquility of a garden built in the ruins of a medieval church, tucked away on a back street not far from City workers enjoying their after-work pints.  And I'm afraid that if I try my hardest to describe everything it will sound soppy and foolish (and will take so long that I'll run out of steam).

I arrived at Heathrow on Sunday morning and encountered no major problems with immigration or my luggage, though several of my classmates said later that they'd been grilled by the immigration agent over the length of their stay in the UK.  I figured since I'd said I was there for a seminar, rather than summer school, that that allayed any of my agent's suspicions that I might be trying to stay for an extended amount of time.  The Piccadilly Tube line runs from Heathrow all the way into London, and even with a large suitcase it's a fairly easy journey, at least provided you don't need to change lines; it's also reasonable price-wise, and almost certainly cheaper than any other transportation into the city.  My stop was Russell Square, where I hauled my things up a short flight of stairs before getting on one of three large lifts to street level.  Then it was a few blocks' walk to the hotel, with a few more stairs to the entrance.  Because it was around 11 when I got there and check-in wasn't open until 1 I stowed my bag with several of my classmates' things.  One of them happened to be there at the time and joined me on a quick trip to the British Museum.

Like many museums in London, the British Museum is free to enter, and huge.  (I would later learn that the cylindrical structure, at right in the picture above, in the middle of the Great Court is the former reading room, which was emptied when the British Library was established.  Though the room is currently only being used as a temporary exhibition space, the museum is trying to come up with a better use for it.)  It was a short walk in the opposite direction from the Russell Square station, which meant that it was pretty easy to find, though finding our way once inside was a bit more difficult.  Still, we managed to see the Rosetta Stone and items from the Sutton Hoo hoard, though I realised later that I missed the Lewis chessmen.  Since the Museum was so close to the hotel, I thought maybe I'd get a chance to return later and explore some more.  Spoiler alert: I did not.  It's okay, though; I am content with what I saw.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped into the Tesco Express opposite the station for some sustenance.  Several supermarket chains have smaller shops around the city in places that can't accommodate full-size stores; the three I remember seeing were the Tesco Express, Sainsbury's Local, and Little Waitrose.  I learned later that there was a full-size Waitrose in a shopping center near the station, though you could hardly tell that there were any stores inside, since from the outside it just looks like a modern block of flats.  When we returned to the hotel and got our keys I found that my room was on the top floor.  It was bad enough getting my suitcase up the first few flights of stairs, but the last was narrow and steep and curved at both the bottom and the top.  The room itself was unremarkable, with two beds, a wardrobe and chest of drawers, a TV, and a small bathroom; it was at the back of the hotel, which meant that the view was not of the park opposite the entrance but of other buildings.  I liked it, though, and there was construction going on in the park anyway.  After I'd caught my breath I enjoyed my sandwich, or rather three half sandwiches of cheese and onion, cheese and tomato, and cheese and pickle.  I love cheese sandwiches.

At around 2 everyone who'd arrived met up for introductions and a walking tour of Bloomsbury.  Our guide was a PhD student at nearby Goodenough College and an Australian who's lived in London for the past five years.  She pointed out more things than I can remember, but one of them included the blue plaques on buildings that note what famous people hung about them in the past.  True to its reputation, Bloomsbury has been host to loads of famous writers over the years (and the Waterstones pictured at right is a great bookshop that sells everything from new bestsellers to used Penguin paperbacks to signed Terry Pratchett first editions; I was very tempted).  One of the public parks in the neighbourhood is on land that used to be a foundling hospital; nowadays adults are not allowed in some of its playing fields without child supervision.  I can't say that the tour was terribly successful in orienting me to the area on a geographical level, but I'm sure I absorbed some of its history, and it did help acclimate us to the time zone (a mere five hours ahead for me).  At the end of the tour our guide left us at the Marlborough Arms, a pub near UCL's campus.  Some people ordered food, but having eaten my Tesco sandwich earlier I wasn't hungry, so I got a pint of cider.  After chatting with my new classmates for a while several of us headed back to the hotel, where I settled in and got ready for the coming days.

To be honest, I don't remember what this building is; I think it belongs to UCL.  But I wanted to include it as a counterpoint to the older architecture that is the usual fare on this blog.

Present but Not Voting

At the outset I feel obliged to say that I am not making any of this up.

University College London has quite the interesting campus, with a mix of architectural styles in such a warren of buildings that I was never entirely sure how to get to anywhere but the DIS offices.  There's even one building, snug amongst several others, that if I recall correctly doesn't even belong to the college, even though it's on their grounds.  UCL has several collections in its main campus, including the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy.  To me, though, those pale in comparison to UCL's oddest oddity.

Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher, most widely known for utilitarianism and the idea of the panopticon.  He invested the not insignificant sum of £100 in the university as it opened.  Had that been his only connection to UCL, it would hardly be worth mentioning; as it is, he still maintains a presence on campus.

Rather than a traditional burial, or even cremation, Bentham wanted his corpse to be dissected and then made into an 'auto-icon,' wishes his family and friends carried out upon his death.  Bentham's skeleton was mounted and dressed in his clothes, which were stuffed with straw.  All of this was topped with a false head.  Today Jeremy Bentham sits in a handsome wooden cabinet, fitted with a glass front and a pair of doors that can be closed at night, in the South Cloisters.  On occasion he leaves his box to attend important functions, like a celebration of the school's sesquicentennial in 1976, and a more recent dinner during the 2006 John Stuart Mill Bicentennial Conference.  Urban legend has it that at such meetings of the College Council Bentham is recorded as present but not voting.

Jeremy's real head was on display along with the rest of him for a while.  Unfortunately, it was once kidnapped by students of rival school Kings College, London, and held for ransom, and upon its return was secured in a vault.  (If you consult UCL's auto-icon page, be warned that clicking on the link titled 'Bentham's head' takes you to a page that includes a picture of his real head.  It's not something I would recommend.  You can, however, spin him around using the Virtual Auto-Icon.)  Given all this, I'm sure that in the event of a zombie apocalypse, Jeremy would not become one of the undead, since his head is already missing.

I waved to him every time we walked by.

To see the view from slightly above Jeremy's head, check out the Panopticam.

The Great British Onomastic Challenge

To prepare for our upcoming posts, try your hand at pronouncing these British names.

Beauchamp
Beaulieu
Belvoir
Bicester
Colquhoun
Cholmondley
Culzean
Dalziel
Featherstonehaugh
Gloucester
Kirkcudbright
Leicester
Leominster
Mainwaring
Marjoribanks
Menzies
Salisbury
StJohn
Strachan
Wodehouse
Worcester