London, England

by Helen Moat

Early evening in London and its dark and cold, just a few weeks off Christmas. Whilst people are thronging the pavements of Oxford and Regent Street, I’m making my way down Grace’s Alley, a quiet paved lane somewhere between Tower Bridge and St Katherine’s Dock in Wapping.

As the London traffic hums faintly in the distance, I stop outside an old crumbling building, the walls oozing patchy brick-red and mustard-yellow; a cracked wooden double door bearing the last remnants of faded paint. Surrounding the door frame, the stonework is exquisitely sculpted. It feels as if I have stumbled into a Dickensian scene.

Wilton’s, the world’s oldest surviving music hall, was opened in 1858. If its disintegrating walls could talk, they would have a few tales to tell. It began its life as a sailor’s club (and possibly a brothel); then became a music hall. The burlesque lyricist and performer, George Leybourne, aka Champagne Charlie stepped onto the stage here, as did the dancers of the risqué can-can (only to be promptly banned). Sadly, Wilton’s only initially survived a short 20 years as a music hall. In 1877, the hall had to be rebuilt after a disastrous fire. Soon after, this place of twilight glamour was closed down and it took on a series of very different functions from Methodist mission hall, soup kitchen, refugee centre, safe house (from the fascists) to a sorting house for rags.

It was the only building in the area to survive the Blitz. But for years, Wilton’s lay empty, neglected and forgotten but for the ghosts of the past. In 1997, Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw (of Harry Potter fame) reopened it with an impressive stage production of T.S Eliot’s Wasteland. It is presently managed by Wilton’s Music Hall Trust, a dedicated team of people, who are determined to breathe life back into this magical, living piece of Victoriana.

It’s an almost impossible task, and the building (in its unsafe state) has come very close to closure. When I was there, I could see daylight appearing through the rafters in places. There were unsafe electrics, leaking plumbing, and floorboards in the bar so rotten that the number of people permitted at any one time restricted. The whole of the second floor was boarded up, unfit for public use. Even the stone walls were eroding in places. Yet, it’s this forgotten, neglected state that’s given Wilton’s its indescribable atmosphere. It has the feel of Miss Havisham’s mansion in Great Expectations – as if someone had stopped the clock on time and left the building in a state of decaying beauty.

Money has started to trickle in to save this extraordinary building. The custodians of Wilton’s are determined to stop further deterioration and make it safe, but they also want to ensure that the haunting atmosphere contained in its faded glory is kept intact.

I head upstairs and into the Great Hall. I’ve walked into a Victorian fable. From the gallery a hundred fairy-lights cascade outwards from the centre of the ceiling. Yet more fairy-lights line the gallery’s railings. Pastel frescos fill the peeling walls between great arches. The gilt banister is decorated with delicate, intricate detail. A red silk curtain drapes the stage. Musician and artiste Duke Special enters the stage, eyes black with kohl, long dreadlocks, draping shirt cuffs and velvet jacket. To his left sits a string quartet: Behind him a projector screen. For two hours, he sings and plays the piano – songs he has written to accompany the black and white photos of the renowned early twentieth century American photographers, Stieglitz, Steichen and Strand. The music (commissioned by the Met Museum in New York) is heart-wrenchingly moving, the images haunting. The beauty and timelessness of the music and the photographic images fit perfectly in this magical, ethereal building. A great deal of thought is put into the theatre pieces and concerts that are produced at Wilton’s. The art, like the building, is sumptuous. So the next time you are in London, take the tube out to Wapping and to Wilton’s Music Hall and step back in time. Book a tour, or better still, one of their exceptional shows. You won’t regret it.

If You Go:

More info on Wilton’s Music Hall, Duke Special and Stieglitz, Steichen and Strand at:
www.wiltons.org.uk
www.dukespecial.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_VdxPtlnso
www.sphericalimages.com/wiltonsmusichall/index.html (Virtual Tour)

Private London Music & Art Tour

About the author:
Helen Moat is a British teacher and travel writer. She has won several travel writing competitions, including runner-up with the British Guild of Travel Writers, and has been published in The Daily Telegraph. Her greatest passions in life are music, travel and writing (not surprisingly). Find other travel pieces by her at:
moathouse-moathouseblogspotcom.blogspot.com

All photographs by Gail and Michael Watts.

View From The Mall

by Alexis Brett

One third of the world’s population tuned in to watch the Royal Wedding coverage on TV, and nearly one million people took to the streets of London on Friday, April 29th just to be at the epicenter of all the festivities. Luckily for me, I was one of those people.

The Royal Wedding is not only important because it means that Prince William, (the future King of England who is second to the throne after his father), will now have a future Queen to help him with his reign, it’s also important because his wife (Kate Middleton) is Britain’s first middle class queen-in-waiting, and some say her humble upbringing may change the future of the British monarchy forever.

The public’s fascination with Kate

Believe it or not, when Kate was growing up in Bucklebury, England she used to have posters of Prince William and Prince Harry hanging up in her bedroom. Little did she know that a few years down the road she would end up meeting her beloved Prince William while studying at St. Andrews University in Scotland and end up becoming his wife nearly ten years later.

The Brits are fascinated with Kate not only because of her simple background which most British girls can identify with, but also because she seems to have a charming aura to her that has been comparable to the late Princess Diana, Prince William’s mother. But unlike Princess Diana, Kate Middleton has a university education (she completed a degree in Art History), and also seems to be surprisingly prepared for life in the British monarchy given that she’s 28, and Princess Diana was only 20 when she married Prince Charles.

But even though Kate Middleton grew up living the simple, middle-class life, she has now become one of the most talked about women on the planet; and within a few hours of me arriving in London I noticed that Kate was the topic of nearly every conversation in the streets of London.

The day of the ceremony

I woke up at the crack of dawn (6 a.m. to be exact) just so I could grab a good spot along the royal carriage route near Buckingham Palace. (Not being a particularly upbeat morning person I was committed to waking up early because I spent close to $100 USD so I could stay at a centrally-located hostel).

Even though it was early I could almost feel the buzzing of excitement as I quickly strolled through the streets. I saw people were wearing William, Harry and Kate masks, and there were tons of people waving around Canadian flags, American flags, South African flags…even Tesco and Hello Magazine flags.

You could tell there were many people who had camped in tents overnight just to get the first row along the carriage route, some of whom were still washing their teeth by the time I got there. I heard some parents claiming that they dragged their children out of bed at 4 a.m. just to see “Wills and Kate” in the flesh, but by mid-morning they had realized that this was probably not a good idea.

I walked down towards The Mall (the long stretch of road leading to Buckingham Palace) and as soon as I found a good spot I immediately searched for the shortest group of people in line so I could take my place behind them; (I ended up standing shoulder to shoulder with these people for the next eight hours and got to know them very well).

I talked to one Londoner who said he was in London celebrating Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981 and felt that it was only right to attend William and Kate’s wedding 30 years later…only this time he was celebrating with his daughter.

By 8 a.m. the crowd was awake and festive, and many would start cheering whenever police cars or even garbage trucks would drive up and down The Mall. By 9 a.m. some people in the crowd started blasting their hand-held radios to listen to the local news for pre-service announcements. Some were gossiping about who the designer of Kate’s wedding dress would be and there were even families recording their own bets about what color of dress Carole Middleton would be wearing or whether Kate’s hair would be styled up or down.

By 10 a.m. the excitement in the streets was electrifying. There were people feverishly waving their flags whenever a film crew stopped to point a camera in their direction, and some started sitting on top of the porta-potties that were lined up behind us but were soon told to get off by the police. Being a stone’s throw away from royalty

As the start of the ceremony edged closer and closer we started to see cars driving wedding guests and buses of foreign royals being escorted to Westminster Abbey. The ones who were smart enough to bring radios with them were listening through their headphones and shouting out reports about who was in the vehicle. Word started to spread that we would soon see members of the royal family being escorted to the service.

The crowd went wild as soon as the car driving Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles drove past us, but as soon as the Queen’s car came into view there was a lot of friendly pushing and shoving just so everyone could get a good shot of the Queen from their camera; (the cars were all driving very fast so this proved to be difficult). You could almost hear the gasps in the crowd when everyone saw that the Queen was wearing a bright yellow dress, as there was much talk prior to the wedding that the Queen would wear blue or red.

But immediately after the Queen’s car passed our section of the crowd started chanting “We Want Kate! We Want Kate!” And soon enough…Kate came. I couldn’t get a good glimpse of her because the crowd was frantic by this point, but I saw a corner of her veil in the backseat window. After Kate’s car drove past us teenage girls broke out into tears and sobbed about how beautiful she looked.

As soon as Kate arrived at Westminster Abbey at 11 a.m. the service started broadcasting over the megaphones and the crowd fell silent for the first time. It seemed as though the streets were at a complete standstill so people could listen to the service and sing along with the traditional British hymns.

Some members of the crowd sat down and took a cat nap or started eating the packed lunches that were in their backpacks all morning. Others were discussing how they were expecting a lot more people to show up along the route, but we found out later on that during the service policemen had blocked hundreds of people off from lining up behind us.

As soon as the couple started exchanging their vows the crowd started to get emotional and cheered as soon as they heard William or Kate’s voice.

Then when the ceremony had wrapped up the streets immediately came back to life as people started cheering and waving their flags, and some even crying as soon as they heard the sound of the bagpipes. Soon the newlyweds would make their way from Westminster Abbey back to Buckingham Palace, and as soon as the royal carriage came into sight the whole crowd went wild yet again.

People were shoving each other and getting their cameras ready, and some children in the crowd broke out into tears because the atmosphere was so intense.

This time around I was lucky enough to get a good view of Kate as she and her now-husband were being escorted back to Buckingham Palace. She was smiling from ear to ear and her eyes lit up as she waved to the crowd and scanned over both sides of the street. It seemed as though she was trying to look at every single person in the crowd as if she was still taking it all in.

Seeing the Queen, Prince Charles and even Prince William was an experience I will never forget, but seeing Kate’s big smile up close is something I will remember for a lifetime. This is truly what fairy tales are made of.

And although there were lots of complaints about how the Royal Wedding was a waste of money and that there were more important matters in the world to worry about, being in London during the Royal Wedding made me realize that this is just what the world needs right now: To forget about unemployment, rising gas costs, terrorists and war in the Middle East, and to come together to celebrate a fairy tale love story that came true for one middle-class girl from Bucklebury who ended up marrying her Prince Charming.

London Combo: Westminster Abbey with Changing of the Guard, Buckingham Palace and Afternoon Tea

About the author:
Alexis Brett is a Canadian journalism graduate who works as a freelance writer and recently moved to the UK. You can read her travel tweets @RambleOnEh.

All photos are by Alexis Brett.

 

by Andrea Kirkby

Some cities have grown continuously through the ages. They’re like onions, layer on layer of skin which you can unpeel all the way back to the foundations. Rome is like that, for instance, or Venice. But London was scarred forever by one single disruptive event – the Great Fire which laid the city waste in 1666. It’s a city whose history began again with Sir Christopher Wren, a city which lost its past.

So if you want to see the London that Shakespeare knew, the London where John Harvard grew up, you’ll have to look hard. But it can be found – if you try hard enough.

Of course Shakespeare would have known the older medieval buildings of London – the Tower, for instance, and Westminster Abbey. But his London was one in which the great monasteries had disappeared a generation ago, and their buildings had all been privatised – sold off to nobles and gentry, sometimes for use as houses, sometimes just as quarries for building materials.

The City, in particular, was thriving, as London became a great trading centre dominated by an oligopoly of wealthy merchants. There’s almost nothing left in the City itself of Shakespeare’s London – this was where the Great Fire started, and burned most fiercely – but if you head out along Fleet Street or High Holborn towards the Inns of Court, you’ll find a few gems of Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture.

Near Chancery Lane tube station, for instance, you can find Staples Inn – a marvelous, long range of fine half timber with huge gables facing the street, and a peaceful little courtyard tucked behind. This was one of the Inns of Court in Shakespeare’s day – the Inns were later reduced to just the four that now exist. The vast majority of buildings in Shakespeare’s London were wooden, like Staples Inn – one reason that the Fire was able to take hold so quickly. Yet wooden buildings didn’t have to be humble or unpretentious – this building shows the immense size that half timber work could achieve, and it’s mightily impressive.

Visit the Victoria & Albert museum and you’ll find an even greater work of half timber – the façade of Sir Paul Pindar’s house from Bishopsgate, in the City, dated about 1600. With its fine oriel windows, expansive glazing, and rich carving, it’s a testament to Pindar’s taste and wealth – he had made a fortune trading with Venice, and was later England’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Imagine a street full of such house fronts and you’ve got an idea of what the richer areas of the City would have looked like at the time.

Another Jacobean house stands at number 17 Fleet Street, by the entrance to the Temple. This fine half timber building was erected in 1610, as a tavern, originally known as ‘The Prince’s Arms’. The way the first floor is jettied out over the street, and the projecting oriel windows, are typical of seventeenth century vernacular architecture. But the house’s real treasure is inside – Prince Henry’s Room, which contains a fine plasterwork ceiling with the three feathers of the Prince of Wales set into a fine geometrical framework.

The name commemorates the investiture of Henry, James I’s oldest son, as Prince of Wales. Had Henry lived to become Henry the Ninth, who knows how English history might have developed – Charles I would never had come to the throne, and there might never have been a Civil War; Oliver Cromwell might have remained a local worthy in Huntingdonshire and never got involved in politics. But Henry died at just eighteen.

The Middle and Inner Temple were not just centres for lawyers’ training in Shakespeare’s day – they were centres of literary culture. The poet John Donne studied here, masques by Middleton and Beaumont were performed here, and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was first performed at Middle Temple Hall. Although the Temples are still working environments, occupied by barristers’ chambers, the grounds are open to visitors – like Staples Inn, another oasis of calm in the middle of bustling London.

In Shakespeare’s day, the City was the preserve of trade and commerce, while Westminster was a separate urban area, the seat of the court and of government. Both the City and Westminster were tightly regulated. So to see Shakespeare’s real home, we’ll need to go south of the river, to Southwark – which as it didn’t come under City rules and regulations, but under the personal rule of the Bishop of Winchester, became a free enterprise culture. Here were the coaching inns at the start of the main road south to Kent; here were taverns, and also brothels, bear baiting, bathhouses, and theatres. This was where City apprentices escaped to on their infrequent days off, and courtiers went slumming.

And here you’ll find the Globe Theatre. Not Shakespeare’s original – that stood on a site a few hundred yards away, in Park Street – but a reconstruction, that still hosts plays in the summer. There’s a museum you can visit, but I find it a bit disappointing. The right way to experience the Globe is the way Shakespeare’s audience did – to come to a play here. And if you want to, you can be a ‘groundling’ – standing up throughout the performance in the open centre of the auditorium; though if it rains, you may be in for a soaking.

Shakespeare Walking Tour in London

If You Go:

www.elizabethan.org/compendium/27.html – Map and history of Tudor London
www.shakespeares-globe.org

 

Image credits:

London tower bridge by: Diliff / CC BY-SA
William Shakespeare portrait: Martin Droeshout / Public domain
Sir Paul Pindar’s house: Henry Dixon / Public domain
Middle Temple Hall: Diliff / CC BY-SA

About the author:
Andrea Kirkby is the founder of Podtours, a company which provides downloadable audio tours of European destinations. She is also a travel writer and photographer. The Podtour of Shakespeare’s Southwark takes you through Elizabethan theatre land and can be downloaded from www.podtours.co.uk/Southwark-podtour.htm.

by Susan Radcliffe

London, city of Shakespeare, has an illustrious literary history. If you’re taking a trip to England’s capital on the trail of your favourite writers, you might like to stay in a hotel with some kind of literary connection. There are several of these to be discovered if you know where to look.

Brown’s Hotel

This is a quintessentially English place, in the heart of Mayfair. It opened in 1837 to provide accommodation for genteel people and is said to be the oldest hotel in London. Going inside this Georgian building is a little like stepping back in time; you can take a traditional afternoon tea with scones and sandwiches whilst listening to the sounds of the Baby Grand Piano.

It’s the perfect setting for a period story and you can see why it inspired Agatha Christie to write the murder mystery “At Bertam’s Hotel.” This is Brown’s Hotel, disguised beneath a layer of fiction. Christie often stayed here, and her novel delves into the lives of the upper class guests and the darker secrets hidden beneath the highly polished veneer.

The Cadogan

This Edwardian town house in Knightsbridge has been a hotel for more than 100 years. Outwardly elegant and respectable, it was the setting for some scandalous and controversial events during Victorian times. Modern guests climbing under the velvet-edged bouclé bedspreads can remember the stories of forbidden love that have flourished inside the damask papered walls. It was here that the future King of England, Edward, carried on an affair with the courtesan and actress Lillie Langtry. And it was here that the writer Oscar Wilde was arrested for having a relationship with another man. Until then, he had been enjoying the critical and financial success of his plays, such as “An Ideal Husband” and “The Importance of Being Earnest.” In happier times, he made frequent and decadent visits to the hotel, always accompanied by plenty of Perrier Jouët Champagne and Green Carnations. But this would all come to an end in 1895, as he awaited the police in room 118, where he was arrested on a charge of gross indecency. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to two years’ hard labour. Before his trial, Wilde had been a celebrated and successful artist; after his release, he was a broken man, and he never recovered his creative powers.

Hazlitt’s Hotel

This hotel occupies a Georgian building off Soho Square. It was once the home of the famous essayist William Hazlitt. He was a contemporary of Wordsworth and Coleridge and, during the early 19th century, he published books on philosophy and grammar; he was also a gifted political journalist, art and literary critic. Many features that he would recognise have been preserved in the hotel. All the guest bedrooms and suites are kept in traditional style, with paneled walls and antique furniture. Many of them have four poster beds. They’re named after other writers like Jonathan Swift, as well as Hazlitt’s friends, associates and lovers. One of the suites bears the name of Teresa Cornelys, a beautiful courtesan. As you might expect, it features a show-stopper of a bed, decorated with hand carved gilded cherubs. There’s another treat in the bathroom, which has a period bathing machine, designed to squirt water onto surprising parts of your anatomy. Hazlitt’s is still a favourite with writers today; JK Rowling of “Harry Potter” fame likes to stay in the Lady Frances Hewitt room when she visits London.

The Kingsley

A stay at this hotel will bring you a little closer to the legacy of the Bloomsbury Group, who lived, worked and studied in this area of London between the turn of the 20th century and World War II. It was a hotbed of revolutionary thought and creativity, with writers, intellectuals and artists producing work that would have a lasting influence on literature, aesthetics and economics, as well as shaping progressive attitudes towards feminism and sexuality. The hotel is named after the author Charles Kingsley. It was known for a time as the Thistle Bloomsbury, but has reverted to its original name. E M Forster, one the Bloomsbury Group’s most distinguished members, lived here between 1902 and 1904. The hotel’s beautiful Edwardian façade has recently been restored, but inside the building has been made over with new décor and furnishings, so it’s perfect for those who like a little modern comfort along with their history.

London Literary Walking Tour Of Bloomsbury

If You Go:

www.brownshotel.com
Nearest tube station is Green Park.

www.cadogan.com
Nearest tube stations are Knightsbridge and Sloane Square

www.hazlittshotel.com
Nearest tube station is Tottenham Court Road

www.kingsleyhotel.com
Nearest tube station is Holborn.

About the author:
Susan Radcliffe is a writer and researcher, with a passion for travel. She lives in London and loves to share her knowledge of its historic sights and hotels with visitors. She writes for London Hotels, a price comparison site for London hotels.

Photo credits:
London by Seoyeon Choi on Unsplash
Brown’s Hotel by CVB / CC BY-SA
Cadogan Hotel by Spudgun67 / CC BY-SA
Hazlitt’s Hotel by See page for author / CC BY-SA
Kingsley Hotel by Jim Linwood via CC BY 2.0