Caught a morning flight from Barcelona to Stansted Airport and then the Express Train to Liverpool Station, then caught the Tube to Notting Hill and a hotel just north of Kensington Gardens. Which meant I had come home to where I had lived as a boy for three years (Battersea before that) a long time ago. After checking in I started walking toward what I thought was the Thames and got turned around. Asked a lady which direction to go and she replied in a snotty tone, “You can’t walk there!”
I begged to differ, and eventually made it to Harrods…it had been a few years since I had been and I quickly realized how I am definitely not the target audience for the clothing. But I am for the food! Picked up some delicious num nums that were gobbled soon after in a park.
But first stumbled on The Map House, which bills itself as the world’s oldest map store, and didn’t disappoint. Owner/director Philip Curtis heard me speaking to his colleague about my interest in Chaucer and in walking the streets of London, and Philip showed me the earliest map of London available to private collectors. Published in Cologne in 1574, it was produced by cartographers Braun & Hogenberg, and is called Londinum Feracissimi Angliae Regni Metropolis.
Produce two hundred years after Chaucer roamed these streets, but still helpful in seeing that the only link between the City of London and Palace of Westminster was still The Strand, and clearly showing Three Cranes Wharf and the Vintry district. Also showing the original St. Paul’s Cathedral, which Chaucer would have seen, and which burnt down shortly after the map was created.
For a cool $15,000 pounds, the map could be mine…
Carried on, got lost again (lost internet connection to Google maps, somewhat ironically). Which perhaps was just as well as stumbled onto lovely vistas and side streets. As you do.
Lovely to see Buckingham Palace. I have a blurry black and white photo of the Queen Mom in a carraige travelling along The Mall from the 60’s that my parents must have taken. Vague memories twigged. Playing cricket with my grandfather in Hyde Park (he bowled out my brother). And walking the streets I was now walking.
Big Ben was under wraps four years earlier when I was there. Now it stood shining, golden in the setting sun. Then proceeded to Westminster Abbey and across the street to the Parliament buildings and where the Palace of Westminster stood. Then a bit further west to the Thames and Victoria Tower Gardens South. Here is the location of the Maypole scene in The Storyteller’s Desire and the puy in The Storyteller’s Reputation. It was so helpful to revisit the space. Also good to try and see Southwark Cathedral (the view now blocked by bridges and buildings) and clear to me it would have been around the bend of the Thames. A level of verisimilitude only possible when standing on the spot, and why I love to do this kind of research for my novels.
My dogs were barking so caught a cab back to the hotel and an early night. Up early for writing in a coffee shop that was open at 6am. packed up then off to the British Museum.
It had been 30 years since I had been and so I had not seen the Great Court and the fantastic renovation done by Foster and Partners. Such a stunning mix of the old and the new.
What a fantastic medieval collection! And so much more I only had a bit of time for.
Then back on the Tube to the hotel to check out and catch the tube across town to London Bridge and walked to the last hotel near Tower Bridge.
Bit early to check in so had a pint under Tower Bridge – cool bar. After checking in, walked to the City and the Waterstones in Leadenhall Market to pick up an excellent biography of Queen Philippa.
Then to the Vintry district and a bite and pint in The Banker. This was a very lively pub under the Cannon Street railway bridge, and above what used to be the Fleet River, now far beneath 650 years of development. Then walked west beside the Thames to where the Three Cranes wharf would have been.
Then to where Chaucer would have lived and up the incline to the tallest point in London, St. Paul’s Cathedral and surrounds.
I’m always struck by the fact that the cathedral Chaucer would have grown up near (Old St. Paul’s) was much larger. It was begun in 1087 and completed in 1314 and its spire was nearly 500 feet tall!
The current cathedral was built after the Great Fire of 1666. A walk along Paternaster Row, where scriveners like Adam Pinkhurst (who copied Chaucer’s texts) laboured to produce the works of Chaucer, Gower and the many other poets that were beginning to write in English. A stone’s throw from less desirable environs.
Then as the sun was setting back to Southwark via the Millennium Bridge. Looked at my watch – 28,000 steps -and fell into bed, exhausted.
The next morning it was pack and go to Heathrow and the flight home. An amazing research trip that provided a bounty of riches and memories.
Now off to San Antonio and the Historical Novel Society North America conference. Can’t wait…