This morning, determined not to waste any of our time on our last full day in London, Hadyn and I got up relatively early, ate breakfast at the hostel, and headed to Westminster Abbey. We were hoping to beat some of the crowds and avoid standing in line for a long time, but the Tube from South Kensington to Westminster took longer than expected. By the time we got to Westminster Abbey, there was already a long line for tickets stretching down the sidewalk; as there was nothing else we could do (no teleportation to the head of the queue), we settled down to wait for a while. The upside of standing in line for Westminster Abbey is that Parliament is right across the street, giving those in line a good view while they wait. We finally got to the front of the line, paid the (rather hefty) admission fee, and were ushered into perhaps the most important church in the United Kingdom. As I entered the abbey, I was overwhelmed by the size before even reaching the nave: the church is long and wide, with enormously tall ceilings and a huge amount of side chapels. Furthermore, Westminster Abbey is packed with tombs, statues, and monuments to royalty, scientists, writers, and nobility. To guide us through the maze of chapels and tombs, Hadyn and I picked up the complimentary audioguide, which was quite good at explain the history of the church.
Once we reached the nave, it quickly became clear that, as with every other church or cathedral I have seen in England, Westminster Abbey is a Gothic church, with the traditional pointed arches on the inside and flying buttresses on the outside. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside Westminster, so you will have to bear with my poor explanations of what I saw. The more time I spent inside the church, I began to come to the conclusion that, while Westminster Abbey is undoubtedly beautiful and magnificent, I still found York Minster to be more spectacular. I think this is partially due to the fact that York Minster was brighter on the inside, especially in the nave, as the stone was of a lighter color and the windows were located in different places. For all of the abbey’s importance, I actually found the nave in Westminster to be rather plain, more akin to that in Ely Cathedral. Historically speaking, this might be due to the fact that the choir and high altar were reserved for the monks and priests alone in the medieval period (and beyond), while the nave was for the laity. Perhaps when Westminster was built, the Catholic Church did not want to share its wealth with the laity, reserving the best ornamentation for the clergy.
From the nave, we passed through the choir screen separating the area reserved for the laity from the domain of the monks, entering the choir. This part of the church reminded me much more of York Minster, with ornately carved pews and a more decorated floor. After viewing both the nave and the choir, it became clear that it was the choir that was heavily featured on the television coverage of the royal wedding a few years ago, not the nave. Besides the fact that the choir is more beautiful, this is also because, as one proceeds through the choir, they approach the high altar, where weddings and coronations take place. Personally, I stood as close to the high altar as I was allowed to (which was not very close), amazed that I was standing in the same spot as royalty; furthermore, I was less than two feet away from the platform where the coronation chair is placed. For a person greatly interested in the British royal family, being so near where almost every British monarch since William the Conqueror has been crowned was history heaven. I was definitely having a moment: the first of many to come in Westminster.
After standing near the high altar for a while, Hadyn and I proceeded onwards, beginning our viewing of the many side chapels and tombs in Westminster Abbey. For me, this was a series of one history moment after another, beginning with the monument to James Wolfe, the British commander in North America during the French and Indian War. Soon after, I saw the tomb of Edward I, king of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, which is in a chapel somewhat raised above where we were standing; behind Edward I’s tomb, barely visible from ground level, is the shrine to Edward the Confessor. Edward the Confessor was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England (except for Harold, who only ruled a few months) and the person responsible for constructing the first Westminster Abbey. The current church was remodeled and rebuilt by Henry III in the mid-13th century, explaining the presence of his tomb in the church as well. So far, three kings of England, and we weren’t even halfway done touring the abbey! Near Henry III’s tomb was that of Eleanor of Castile, the first wife of Edward I, as well as that of Edward III and Richard II; in a side chapel close to these tombs was the resting place of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester (son of Edward III) and his wife Eleanor de Bohun.
However, the highlight of the tombs in Westminster Abbey had to be Henry VII’s Lady Chapel, where most of the Tudor monarchs are buried. Edward VI, only son of Henry VIII, is buried under the stone floor, while Henry VII and Elizabeth of York are buried in a rather elaborate double tomb; according to the audioguide, the effigy of Henry VII bears striking resemblance to the man in real life, with a long nose and somewhat tight mouth. My favorite part of the Lady Chapel in a historical sense, though, were its two side chapels. One contained the elaborate tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots, reinterred in Westminster after her son became King of England, as well as that of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII; the detail on Margaret Beaufort’s tomb was incredible, especially her hands, which appeared quite lifelike. Across the Lady Chapel, the second side chapel holds the double tomb of Elizabeth I and Mary I; ironically, these two half-sisters, who were antagonists in life, lie together for all eternity. Despite the double burial, there is only one effigy atop the tomb: that of Elizabeth I. In life, Elizabeth rose above Mary, outwitting and outmaneuvering her, surviving long enough to succeed her on the throne of England; perhaps, therefore, the sole effigy of Elizabeth I is somewhat appropriate. After all, she is the Tudor queen historians remember as one of the greatest English monarchs, the true successor to her father, not Mary. For my part, I am inherently biased toward Elizabeth I, as she was one of my historical heroines growing up (and still is).
From the Lady Chapel, we made our way toward Poets’ Corner, which memorializes great British writers throughout the centuries. Despite the abundance of monuments to writers such as Dickens, Austen, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Byron, Wordsworth, and the Bronte sisters, not all of them are actually buried in Westminster Abbey. For instance, there is a memorial to Jane Austen, though she is buried in Winchester Cathedral. However, the founding member, so to speak, of Poets’ Corner, is buried there: the greatest English medieval poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. Though his reputation is great today as the author of The Canterbury Tales, ushering in an era of English literature written in the English language, Chaucer was not buried in Westminster because of his literary eminence. Rather, Chaucer earned his spot in Westminster Abbey because he was a tenant on Abbey property, as well as the fact that he had a long career as a civil servant. Writing about Poets’ Corner reminds me of several graves and memorials that we passed in the nave of the Abbey; instead of writers, these memorials were to famous scientists, such as Newton, Darwin, Charles Lyell (father of modern geology), and Ernest Rutherford. Poets’ Corner was the last major sight within the Abbey proper, so Hadyn and I toured the cloisters and the Abbey Museum rather more quickly than we had the Abbey itself, then exited Westminster Abbey, passing by the coronation chair, safely locked away behind glass.
After leaving Westminster, Hadyn and I turned our focus from great cathedrals to Sherlock Holmes; we are both fans of the current BBC TV show, as well as the original stories, so decided to spend the afternoon finding Holmes sites in London. Therefore, we rode the Tube to Baker Street, where we ate lunch before touring the Sherlock Holmes Museum, which was quite interesting. The museum gave a representation of how 221B Baker Street would have looked during the Victorian era, when the original Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson lived there; all I have to say is that it was not the spacious flat I was envisioning. Instead, the flat was spread across three floors, with only two small rooms per floor, emphasizing the fact that in Victorian London, similar to today, there was little room. If this rather nice flat in central London was so small, just imagine what conditions in the East End would have been like at the time! From Baker Street, Hadyn and I rode the Tube to Euston Square, in the new (to us) borough of Camden, to see Speedy’s Café on North Gower Street, which features prominently in the TV show Sherlock. In the show, Speedy’s is right next door to 221B Baker Street; in reality, though, it is several Tube stations away.
Continuing on the trail of Sherlock Holmes, we next rode the Tube to Barbican and walked to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, which also features prominently in Sherlock as the place where Sherlock and Watson first meet, as well as the place where Sherlock falls to his “death.” Hadyn and I were lucky enough to approach the hospital from the right direction, so that we were looking straight on at the wing where Sherlock’s fall was filmed. For a couple of Sherlock fans, this was pretty close to heaven! The added benefit of seeing St. Bartholomew’s was that we were able to walk past St. Paul’s Cathedral on our way to the Tube, allowing me to get a quick glimpse of the exterior. From St. Paul’s, we rode to Leicester Square, where we had dinner and rested our feet after doing a lot of walking; however, the night (and the walking) was not over yet, as we proceeded to Harrods after dinner. The only thing I can possibly say about Harrods is that it was an entirely different world; the most I could afford to buy there would possibly be one chocolate truffle (and I’m not exaggerating too much). Overall, it was like being in an Edwardian dream, due to the turn-of-the-century decorations in the food halls and the Egyptian escalator, with twenty-first century prices. Leaving Harrods, we made one last stop at Eaton Square in Belgravia to see where the exterior of Irene Adler’s house was filmed in Sherlock before returning to the hostel and collapsing.
Tomorrow, we are unfortunately leaving London for the last time. Though I could never live in London, as it is too big for me, I have loved being a tourist in the city. There is only one solution: I’ll just have to come back!
Making the Past Present 