The distance from Hackney to the Royal Exchange and CornhillArea walked in The City
On my second visit to Cornhill, I decided that with only one goal (St Peters) I’d start off with a visit to the Royal Exchange. I’m pretty sure it was closed for a while since it’s a collection of high end shops and a Fortnum and Mason’s restaurant. The view of and from the main entrance has always been one of my favourites in The City.
Even before I’d got off the bus, I was engaged with this view through the bus window, a very clear reflection of the Old City on a New City glass front
I took the bus from Liverpool Street Station intending to get off just after the intersection, but the stop was quite a distance west. I stopped right outside the Bloomberg Arcade and it would have been tempting to spend some time there too, but if I don’t focus these days, my main destination slips my grasp. Best to hurry on, eyes averted from all the photo opps, and head directly for – in this case – the Royal Exchange.
Mary Harris Smith was an accountant and entrepreneur. She became the first woman to complete the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales qualification but was denied membership because she was a woman. This plaque is on the City of London Magistrates’ CourtSt Stephen Walbrook, by Bloomberg Arcade
I almost did it but I chose to travel on the back streets – Bucklersbury, St Stephens Row and Mansion House Place – and got a tiny bit distracted along the way…
Hawksmoor’s St Mary Woolnoth – a clumsy looking church with a very ornate gilded gate. The site has been used for worship for at least 2,000 years. Partially destroyed in the Great Fire, it was repaired by Wren and rebuilt by Hawksmoor after it was found to be unsafe. It reopened in 1727. It’s used by London’s German-speaking Swiss community, and is the official London church of British Columbia, CanadaLombard Street runs between King William Street and the Royal Exchange. It’s a lovely curved narrow street that I must look at more carefully soonCornhill from the Bank intersection
The Royal Exchange is a fantastic building. It looks so impressive and when I first stepped inside many years ago, I was surprised to see that it was really a shopping mall, but a high end one with Tiffany’s, Hermes, Aspinall, Jo Malone, and Fortnum & Mason occupying some of its space. This year it is celebrating its 450th anniversary.
There’s a lot of history in this building so here are some of the highlights.
The original Royal Exchange, a trading floor, was opened by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571. Thomas Gresham, an English merchant and financier, added two additional floors of shops to the original trading floor creating Britain’s first shopping mall in 1660. Only six years later the Great Fire destroyed the building and in 1669 a second site was opened this time with merchants and brokers. In 1838 it was again destroyed by a fire on Lombard Street. In 1844 Sir William Tite won an architectural competition to design the third (and current) Royal Exchange. He reverted to the original layout and included an imposing, eight-column entrance inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The building was officially opened by Queen Victoria in 1844.
To more modern times – in the 1980s, The Royal Exchange briefly became a trading floor again, and the roof was replaced. In 2001 the Grade I-listed building was extensively remodelled by architects Aukett Fitzroy Robinson, and was transformed into a luxury shopping and dining destination. Though an entirely different building from his original design, the modern-day The Royal Exchange pays homage to its founder in its gilded copper grasshopper weathervane – a symbol taken from the Gresham family crest.
The weathervane with a grasshopper, to honour Thomas Gresham (taken by Krish, the tall one!)
Looking up to the iconic Royal Exchange
The entrance is very beautiful
If you stand at the entrance, there’s a great view towards central London. Right now it isn’t as wonderful as it was. So much is lost by Fortnum and Mason’s bow to the pandemic outdoor terrace and its patio umbrellas.
If the exterior is impressive, the interior is just as eyecatching, if not more. The F&M colour scheme rules these days and some of the shops haven’t reopened since closing for the first lockdown, but the overall effect is beautiful.
Fortnum and Mason tea in one of its boutiques
If Gresham was inspired by Belgium, the overall feeling to me is Italian. I think I could be in a grand galliera in Milan or Turin
After the first foiled plan for Krish’s second vaccination, when his text confirmation didn’t arrive, he was given another time and not at St Thomas but Guys. Off we went. At the vaccination centre inside Guys, they couldn’t find his name, but sent him across to where they were vaccinating.
Walking through the new London Bridge Station. We didn’t have time to pause to take photographs but I must do that some time soon
While I was waiting, I looked at the photos along the corridor, which Krish said was the London Bridge Museum. One shows an eye operation in 1900. and another Evelina Children’s Hospital 1895. The original Evelina Hospital for Sick Children opened in 1869 on Southwark Bridge Road, London. Funded by Austrian Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, it was built in memory of his wife, Evelina. Evelina had died three years earlier along with their son who was premature. It is now administratively a part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.Waiting at Vaccination Centre 1 Guys Hospital
After a bit of a wait, he was turned away, since they had only Pfizer. They also discovered that his vaccination appointment was at St Thomas after all. In a rare blip, Krish hadn’t thoroughly read the text that arrived over the weekend – in that text St Thomas was named. However, if we went to their second centre – a short walk away, he’d find a tent where they could do the job.
Queuing at Vaccination Centre 2
Vaccination Centre 2 was in the quadrangle of Kings College, so we walked over and I wandered around the area while he queued – 13 minute wait, he texted me.
I liked this quiet courtyard. There was one modern building and some older ones, as well as the lovely old part. This is where Keats trained as a surgeon. I’ll confess to not being clear on which building is which around here. It’s the usual old London hospital style – a collection of separate buildings and houses with clinics and classrooms, and cafés and what-have-you. With my crutch, bags and cameras, I don’t have the patience or energy to look at plaques and details – but I will.
Not finding a café, I strolled through the arches leading to the inner courtyard of the oldest building. Very calm in here, but no bench. There was one spot for sitting but someone had already found it. There was a statue of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a seated statue of Keats, an old drinking fountain and a couple of plaques. As far as I can tell, this is the original surgeon’s school. I had the usual sense of the centuries-ago students walking through the corridors and inner hallways, unaware of the changes that were to come for the area. I found a place opposite the seated statue where I could download a soundtrack of ‘John Keats’ speaking about why he abandoned surgery for poetry. I wonder if I can embed it here. I went back to where I could sit among the buildings and trees.
Krish came out with another man and motioned me to stay where I was. When he did come over, he told me he hadn’t had the vaccination, that they had him in the seat, syringe loaded and ready to go, when a helper told the vaccinator to stop – his card read AstraZeneca and the syringe held Pfizer. Ooops. He had almost become a guinea pig for mixed doses.
Not a very inspiring view inside the lobby where I waited in Guys Hospital
Back to the main hospital we went, where they said they could try to get permission to give him the AZ dose. While he was doing this, I sat in the lobby, drinking a chai latte – hungry! (We’d planned lunch but it was now getting late.) He came out once to deliver that message, then finally again to say, Let’s go. I didn’t have it. Maybe he could have but he decided that he’d rather just leave and wait for them to sort things out. It had been a long morning. Continue reading “Foiled plans for a vaccination”
In Turin I had a recurring theme of foiled plans. In my last blog I talked about another foiled plan. In the history of foiled plans (mine at least) today was the mother of foiled plans – see the title.
There was perhaps a precursor in the morning. After sewing up my very first no-mistakes postman’s glove, I realised I’d left no hole for the thumb. At first I dug down into my thread kit for a seam ripper, confident I could take out the stiches and sew things up properly. Wrong. I’d used the same wool to sew it up, and I’d used a nice tight stitch so it wouldn’t unravel. Try as I might, it was impossible to see where the stitches were among the knitted seams. Rather than keep trying, I stopped, left it as is, and knew I had to knit a third glove to replace it. Gloom, but it’s only a glove, right?
As the morning went on and Krish talked about his plans to get to Guys for his psoriasis treatment, I let him know that I thought I’d come too unless I’d slow him down too much. He seemed really pleased and said we’d leave earlier and take the bus. I got ready.
The real Chapter of Accidents begins.
Paragraph 1 – when checking for the next bus, my app let me know that ‘There are no buses expected in the next thirty minutes.’ Right. It’s OK really, we’d just walk to the bus we’d need to change to. As we went to the landing to get outdoor shoes and clothes, the app cheerfully told me the bus that wasn’t expected was now due. Too late.
Paragraph 2 – As we crossed the intersection for the closest bus, ours – the 254 – drove up and left before we could reach it. We dug our heels in and waited. Bus after bus came, but not the 254. Krish said that it might be tight once we reached our second bus. I told him, when we get there, you rush ahead, don’t wait for me. I’ll let you know when I arrive at London Bridge. And we waited some more. Time was ticking.
Paragraph 3 – After a little bit of waffling, we decided that Krish should go get the train and leave me at the bus stop. I’d never be able to keep up with him. It was my decision to either return home or continue with my plan. I decided to continue after hearing from Krish he was on the train. My bus came. There was a terrible traffic jam and we moved slowly down to our destination, my next bus (this would be a two-bus journey) when the driver announced a destination change. We would be stopping in Whitechapel. Not so bad, I thought, but we didn’t stop in Whitechapel. We stopped before that at a stop that would bring my bus count to three. And I waited there again.
Paragraph 4 – Now there were no buses coming, not for a while. People were fidgeting. At least I had my bus pass and the extra buses wouldn’t cost me anything, but it was getting later. The 106 arrived and I jumped on, as quickly as a person with a crutch can jump on. It would take me to a stop by London Hospital and from there I could walk around to the main road for another bus to take me to my last bus. Easy, you say? So did I. On the main road I was met with a Bus Stop Closed notice. I looked for a temporary stop but there was none. Already hurting, I walked determinedly for another several minutes, past Ambala and on to the next bus stop. The journey that had just taken me close to ninety minutes usually takes about twenty minutes .
A ‘fun’ sight as I waited for my second busThe 106 stops at the London Hospital main entrance
The rest was easy. The bus stopped at the exact place to pick up my final bus. The reward for my pain and waiting came as we passed the Tower of London and across the Thames on Tower Bridge with the sight of City Hall and the Shard cheering me on.
The bus dropped me in a perfect location for my first plan of looking at how the George Inn was doing now it had some outdoor boozing. Encumbered by my backpack, my mask, my glasses, my crutch, the photos would be unlikely to do it justice but I’d made it.
The George Inn is the only surviving galleried London coaching inn. So there’s a long balcony along the stretch of the low building of connected bars. It was originally called George and the Dragon and was rebuilt in 1677 after a serious fire in 1676 that destroyed most of medieval Southwark. Its also featured in Dickens Little Dorrit and Our Mutual Friend. Dickens himself visited the site when it was a coffee house.
Different views from inside the George Inn Yard
Walking along Borough High Street, I felt a little dismayed at how shabby and broken down things were. This is a wonderful area and I’m not sure if some of the construction will be to spruce things up a bit. I do hope so. Across Southwark Road at Brindisa, an expensive tapas bar, people didn’t seem to mind that they were eating their £4 tomato bread and £17 lamb chops under the scaffolding and construction dust.
Enjoying their £4 Brindisa tomato bread under the construction scaffold
I really like Park Street. It runs alongside the south end of Borough Market. I stopped liking the market when the crowds got too heavy, but on Park Street there was the colourful Market Porter pub, the great Monmouth Coffee Company, and Konditor cake shop. Then off of Park Street is Stoney Street and the wonderful Borough Market branch of Neal’s Yard Dairy.
There were outdoor Europe-style (tented) patios bustling with people in all the eating places. Monmouth Coffee Company, where there are normally long queues of people and packed tables was deserted. I knew they didn’t serve decaffeinated coffee but I also found out that they don’t serve anything but coffee so that was out. Sadly, too, Konditor had closed its doors, with a very sad note in the window.
Poor Konditur. They now have only two branchesOn Park Street looking over to Stoney StreetEuropean style dining on Park StreetNot the dining experience I really want – Park StreetLooking west along Park Street – the road ahead leads to the Golden Hind, the Clink, The Globe and the Tate Modern
On Stoney Street, I stopped at Neal’s Yard. Only half of the store is open now, and a Wait Here notice greeted me. A man was buying a lot of cheese, but I knew I had only my very squashable backpack so, when it was my turn, I chose carefully: a small pack of cheese curds – I’ll try my hard at some poutine! – a small clotted cream to make some scones and fruit, and a jar of rather lovely looking marinated (with garlic and thyme) soft raw cheese.
Maybe my chapter was getting brighter.
The empty shelves in the larger part of Neal’s Yard Dairy
I was quite shocked to see the market very quiet. I’ve become very used to it being so crowded and noisy that I’ve avoided it more and more. It was quite empty, other than a ‘hot food’ area that I kept away from. It was very odd to see it this way, although the big plus was that I could take photos with few obstacles. I looked at the fruits and vegetables, the cheeses, sausages, breads, and herbs, and the alcohol kiosks, the giant pan of paella cooking, the fish stands…it’s like a different market, but some things are still familiar.
All I bought was some ‘milk bread’ – I can’t carry a bag anymore because of my crutch. My backpack was full.
Paragraph 5 – I feel so encumbered by everything I have to remember and carry around when I go out – first the Pandemic and then the Knee Contingency. Since I can’t carry my credit cards in my little bag, so they go with my travel card into a pocket in my backpack. However, after so many changes of buses and dealing with increasing pain from the chopping, changing, and extra walking on my journey, I’d become frustrated and put the travel pass in my pocket. Except now it wasn’t there.
I had a flash of hope, that I’d tucked it away after I’d arrived by bus, but every place I looked at while juggling my crutch and mask and phone and camera and the food I’d just purchased was pass-less. It was gone. I walked around, hoping to see it laying somewhere. I went into Neal’s Yard Dairy asking if they had it – no. I decided to do one last walk into the market and on the ground I saw the little granola bar that had been in my pocket with the pass. It struck me someone had left the bar and pocketed the pass. Done!
Time to head to the hospital to find a toilet and meet Krish. My knee hurt quite a lot so I rested outside a rather magnificent building. I wrestled with my phone to take a photo or two but gave up and limped over to Guys.
Funny doughnut names on Borough High Street. I was tempted by the Bruno MarsJohn Keats – educational! He was apprenticed to a surgeon in 1811. He broke off the apprenticeship in 1814 and went to London, where he worked as a dresser, or junior house surgeon, at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ hospitals. His literary interests had crystallized by this time, and after 1817 he devoted himself entirely to poetry. He died at 25 – what a life! And I didn’t know about Henry Stephens who was an English doctor, surgeon, chemist, writer, poet, inventor and entrepreneur. At medical school in London he was a friend of, and shared rooms with, poet John Keats, later wrote treatises on hernia and cholera, and conducted experiments to improve writing fluids and wood stains. (Long caption!)
I sat in the Bermondsey Wing café drinking a hot chocolate and feeling a little sorry for myself. I tried to order a new pass online, but the payment option wouldn’t work so I’ll call that a half paragraph in my Chapter.
Paragraph 6 – This would be five paragraphs if I were to tell you everything, but you may be getting tired and I know I am. We grabbed the 343 to head to Whitechapel where Krish would buy some food and I would wait until we could both get the 254 home. Foiled again. Part way along the route, the bus stopped – ‘trouble at Aldgate’ – and we had to walk to the next bus, more walking on my knee (I should give my knee a name, it figures so large in stories these days). A second bus, the 205, over to where Krish would get out and I would wait. When Krish came back with his bags of food our 254 had dropped from 8 minutes to being 28 minutes away. We jumped on the next bus that would take us to the road for the fourth bus heading home…and sailed past where we needed to be, and more walking on my unnamed knee. The fourth bus was annoyingly the 254, having definitely not taken 28 minutes. It crept along – it was rush hour. And the very last leg saw me taking a fifth bus to our door with Krish going ahead on the bus we had been on – he’s more able to walk. I’d paid two fares, since one trip fare is for a maximum of an hour.
So, if you’ve not been adding up, that’s a total of nine buses – close to triple the time it usually takes for the round trip – and a lost travel pass costing me £12. Krish has decided that from now on, he’s going to the hospital alone. Who can blame him? And the anonymous knee feels guiltily pleased.
I think about my blog every day. I think about writing for it every day. A day becomes a week becomes a month. I’m at once restless and lethargic, and how do I come to terms with that?
I’m not exactly sure.
My mother always told me, Janice, you think too much. She was right. What I think most about is other people. Who are they? What are they doing? Why don’t I know them? Where do they live? What do they eat? What are their lives when they are not in front of me, inside my head? Yes, all of that and more.
The short version of the story is I’m not getting out much and I’m not seeing that many people. Lockdowns combined with a deteriorating knee keep me indoors and away from things I normally love to do. I try to think about people who have written whole books while being (what I consider) prisoners of home and even bed. My hat’s off to them. Yes, the stories are still in my head but I lack the motivation. I’ve heard that inspiration is something being taken in, and motivation is about movement – a driving force. Motivation is more closely connected to external stimuli, while inspiration is based on the internal stimuli. I’d say that right now I do feel inspired, but not really motivated. So if I’m not getting out that much, external stimuli are dampened, and the thoughts stay inside my head. So let’s get them out a bit.
I say I haven’t been out much, but I’m blessed by living in an area that is infinitely walkable (even now, and even though that might be limited) and infinitely fascinating. Those who feel at one with nature have a hard time understanding that. In nature I understand the peace and beauty, but as large as the vista might be, it’s harder for me to examine. Where are the people? Maybe I don’t want to face the person who is there – me. Hmm.
Right now ‘me’ is a person who can barely walk. My knee has given up and more than a few minutes on it becomes unbearably painful. Except I do bear it, and don’t want to. I’m doing my best. If I don’t try, then I’m missing out on so many things. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve managed what I could. Now my radius is shrinking and I’ll still do what I can. So let’s look at what I’ve managed to do and think positive and look ahead.
Not in order but a smattering of life chez moi at the moment.
We are still mourning the loss of a favourite haunt, Poetto – a nice pizza and pasta with friendly service. Gone a few months before lockdown. Maybe it was a blessing for them.
Krish noticed a dragon standing over a building – now building supplies but we’d love to know what it was before. I’ll keep researching!There was apparently a tram depot in Clapton and this is the yard. Nowadays it’s a collection of rental studios for film and photography called Hackney Studios. Notice the ghost sign, centre right.After the tram depot, we visited Tram Shop. You can normally have a meal here, but right now it’s a general store. We found a few things to buy, none were food.I wanted to buy something at the Dusty Knuckle in Dalston. By the time I made it there (damn you, bad knee) the shelves were bare. Absolutely everything had sold out. This is the alley leading down to the bakery yard.
I hadn’t been in the Curve Garden for months! It was looking very green and wasn’t too busy. So Melodie and I sat by the Stik wallart and Melodie, who used to be his landlady, sent him texts, unanswered. I’m still a groupie, it seems.When Krish had his vaccination, we made time to visit Fremont Street, home of my great grandmother and father, and where my maternal grandmother was born. Along the way we saw Five King Edwards Road, once a women’s fashion factory, now fancy flats.We think this grand facade was likely the offices for the factory. Such elegant stonework.
6 Fremont Street. My maternal great grandparents lived here. It seems strange that I am now only 1km away from an ancestral home. Strange but fitting.My maternal great grandmother, Phoebe, with my maternal grandmother, Charlotte (looking incredibly like my mum)
Tesco Morning Lane. In just one year the world has changed. Shopping is a new experience and sometimes it feels like it was always like this, especially when I see people looking like they are used to it.
I have always been a bad needleworker, but I enjoy creating things, watching them take shape. I made these ‘postwoman’s gloves’ from a simple pattern and decorated them. I’ve now made a third pair in light orange.I went for an XRay on my knee and made sure I stayed a while in front of the Stik mural in one of the courtyards. On 28 March the clocks went forward in the UK. The evenings are longer. The trees on Sandringham Avenue will soon be in leaf, and the skies will stay lighter.
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods have taken cars away from some smaller streets and forced them to the larger streets, like mine. Every day starting around 3pm the parade of cars begins, ending almost four hours later. Continue reading “COVID – Restlessness and Lethargy”
Well, here it is, almost the end of the most unusual year ever – the same year I’d anticipated back in January, thinking that 2020 must be perfect after all (a reference to vision).
We are now in our third lockdown and this is the most serious, serious enough that they created a whole new label for it – Tier 4. This means ‘you must stay home’ but it seems like quite a few aren’t listening. This is no big surprise.
Last weekend I did a lovely virtual Christmas lights tour with Look up London and really enjoyed it. I did this tour because I thought I wouldn’t be able to do one in person. However, yesterday it was a dry day and I had the idea that maybe with lockdown in place and no Boxing Day sales, just maybe I might go down and see some lights for myself. So off we went.
The bus wasn’t busy and we felt pretty safe. It was the first time I’d been into the west end since last year at Somerset House. Along the way, I was trying to remember the way – what were we going to pass by and see on what would a year ago have been a familiar journey. What follows is a great many photos, I think, with some narrative.
There were very few on the bus, with the traffic lights lending a Christmassy feeling
There was a very light rain so things were shiny and sparkly and, with not much traffic, and not many stops requested, we sped to Tottenham Court Road in a little over 20 minutes.
James Smith & Sons umbrella shop marks the approach to Oxford StreetTottenham Court Road is unrecognisable as construction continues on the Elizabeth line
My plan was to get off near Fortnum and Mason, back over to Piccadilly Circus, up Regent Street and into Soho, Chinatown and home again. It’s much less than I’d really like to do but it’s important to allow for the journey home and not need a rest or the toilet.
To get to Fortnum and Mason, you have to go through Piccadilly Circus, and Piccadilly Circus is just about the busiest intersection in London – that and Oxford Circus. It was less quiet and busy than usual, but still bustling compared to elsewhere. They’ve put in extra walking space and there are more bicycles than I usually see but just as many buses in the same London-narrow space.
Fortnum and Mason is a very posh place. It’s been here since 1707, and it stands for luxury. Hugh Mason ran a small store and met an entrepreneur called William Fortnum, whose family were high class builders reinvigorating Mayfair in the wake of the Great Fire. The partnership evolved. When I can get inside again, I’ll say more. For now, I’ll just say that it’s Christmas eye candy.
This extraordinary year F&M are featuring windows from their 313 years . And most splendidly, the front of their store has become a giant advent calendar. I find the whole thing magical.
Piccadilly Street itself has the same angels that it’s had each time I’ve visited. They’re looking over a grand street in an afluent, fashionable area called Mayfair that takes its name from the May fair held in Shepherd’s Market in the area (a fantasticvstreet for another day). Here are fashionable arcades and fancy boutiques and also the Royal Academy founded in 1768 by a group of 40 artists and architects who became the first Royal Academicians. I love its gates (now closed) and courtyard.
The Royal Academy GatesAngels over PiccadillyEntrance to Burlington Arcade
Behind Fortnum and Mason is Jermyn Street. This area dates from 1661 and often looks the part. Sir Isaac Newton, William Pitt, Sir Walter Scott, William Gladstone; and W. M. Thackeray have all lived here. The shops along here are exclusive – mostly it was quiet, even quieter than lockdown Piccadilly today.
At the entrance to Piccadilly Arcade is this statue of Beau Brummell, an iconic figure in Regency England and for many years the arbiter of men’s fashion. I asked Krish to pose the same way behind him
This video shows the Piccadilly Arcade entrance from Jermyn Street. Very elegant.
A touch of Europe – Corner window, Piccadilly ArcadePiccadilly Arcade from PiccadillyMore angels, Jermyn Street styleAn impressive display of shoe lasts at Joseph Heane’s show store on Jermyn StreetSir Isaac Newton lived here
