Christchurch Greyfriars Garden

This week I am focussing on the area surrounding St Paul's Cathedral in London.


Visiting the sights of London and want a sit down or fancy a sandwich outside rather than a restaurant. Well if you are near St Paul's here is a peaceful place to go. It is just a couple of hundred metres away from the Cathedral but you would be surprised how many people don't know it exists. There has been a church on this site since the 13th C. It was rebuilt and consecrated in 1322 but this medieval church was destroyed in the Great fire of London in 1666.

The name Greyfriars originated from the grey habits worn by the  Franciscan monks.

Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt the church after the Great Fire but sadly it was bombed during World War 2.

Now the Church is a beautiful garden with the garden beds laid out where the original pews were.

Sharing with Our World Tuesday

St Lawrence and Mary Magdalene Drinking Fountain

Across the road from St Paul's Cathedral is a large monument but on closer inspection it turns out that this was a drinking fountain.

It is known as the St Lawrence and Mary Magdalene Fountain. I have walked past this monument many, many times and wondered what it was but today I stopped and photographed it so I could research it a little more when I got home.

The fountain was originally erected in 1866 outside the church of St Lawrence Jewry near Guildhall as a gift to the City of London from the Metropolitan drinking fountain and cattle trough Association. When the Guildhall was redeveloped in the 1970s the fountain was dismantled into 150 pieces and put into storage. It was restored and rebuilt in its present position in 2010. So now I know and if I could remember all these interesting facts I could really impress all those people who stop to look at the monument.

The water fountain was designed as a sculpture that produced drinking water into a bowl  when a metal knob was pushed.

Above the large drinking bowl is this relief which  shows Moses striking a rock from where  water still trickles down into the bowl beneath. To the left of Moses a woman holds a small drinking bowl to the lips of a small child. 

 So the next time any of you are in London, take a minute to look across the road from St Paul's Cathedral and have a look at the fountain yourself.

Clipper Race

The Clipper race ended last weekend after 40,000 miles. It started from St Katherine's Dock in London and ended there. Twelve boats took part.

There are 16 races over 8 legs:

There was a competition today to win a place on the 2015 race. In case you're wondering, I didn't enter.

Sharing with James at Weekend Relections

Impromptu concert

Walking through Trafalgar Square the other evening I heard a very familiar Beatles classic.

 It was the cast of the show ' Let it be' which has just returned to the West End and they decided to publicise it with a free concert

 Quite a crowd gathered very quickly.

 Everyone enjoyed the feel good factor of the music.

Tea at the Ritz

Here is the Palm Court at the Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly London. This is where afternoon tea is served and where myself and 'the girls' went for our Summer outing. It is ridiculously extravagant and expensive but nowhere does afternoon tea like The Ritz.

You begin by choosing which tea you would like from a wide range on offer. We all chose different teas hence the number of tea pots on the table. For those of you who enjoy tea here is the choice we were given: Ritz Royal English, Darjeeling first flush, Assam Leaf, Ceylon orange pekoe, Russian Caravan, Camomile flowers, Lemon Verbena, Earl Grey, Oolong Formosa, Jasmine with flowers, Rose congou, Rooibos red, Chun Mee, Moroccan mint and one or two others.

 On the cake stand you can see the sandwiches on the second layer and the small cakes and pastries above. The sandwiches had no crusts and were elegantly cut.  You could eat as many as you wanted as they were replenished before we had finished eating them all.

After demolishing the sandwiches we were served with warmed fruit and plain scones with raspberry jam and clotted cream.

More pots of tea arrived. We ordered different varieties to go with the pastries this time. Wouldn't like to be the person responsible for polishing  all these silver teapots.

Just when we thought we had finished more cake was brought to the table. I would have refused but it sticky toffee pudding cake and I thought it would be rude to say no.

Not being able to eat another mouthful we left our table to be cleared, cleaned and reset ready for the next indulgent group.

Soho Village Fete

Here in the middle of London's West End is Soho. Today was their village fete held in the grounds of  St Anne's Church. Once you stepped into the Church garden you could have been forgiven for thinking you were in a small village in Kent rather than the busy, noisy streets of  China town and Theatreland, London.

 It was organised by the Soho Society which aims to help local residents and businesses maintain an independence and not allow Soho to be swallowed up by the larger companies and become another  shopping mall.

There was good food, music and the usual side shows including a snail race and spaghetti eating contest for the children.

Two boys in blue (The boys in blue are THE BROTHERS GRIMM ( Robert Anthony and Thom Rijpstra
their FB page: https://www.facebook.com/GebroedersGrimm)

 The local police were also there in force (sorry!) enjoying the fun.

Sharing with ' Our World Tuesday'

Reflections of St Paul's

Everywhere I looked today there were reflections of St Paul's Cathedral.

 Sharing with James at Weekend Reflections