dramaturgy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dramaturgy) wrote2007-02-03 05:18 pm
dramaturgy) wrote2007-02-03 05:18 pm
Thursday - Embankment, River Tour, and Antony and Cleopatra
So Thursday was our first "London as a Visual Text" class. Basically we walk around the city, look at arcitecture and such things, and then talk about how it effects the city now, or did in other times - that sort of thing. Honestly, I'm a little lukewarm to this class. I love history and symbolism and everything and love going to museums, but this is a tiring class. Not because all of the walking - honestly, walking doesn't bother me - it's the speed at which she walks. The teacher (Sarah) will be talking, and we'll be taking notes and pictures, and all of the sudden she'll say, "Right! Let's move on, then!" And then she's GONE. She's like The Historian from Spamalot meets Speedy Gonzales. Wham. Other than that we got to talk about the Romans and I love the Romans, and also a lot of talk about the river - and actually my first paper due Tuesday is 1000 words on the river.
This is Embankment. The tube stop exit is just to the left of this picture, but it's a beautiful area.
This is the York Waterate. (That's Sarah in the lower left hand corner of the picture.) I won't give you the entire diatribe that I got, but the York Watergate was built in 1626 by George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. He was a favorite of James I/VI, and the stone used to build this watergate was actually a gift from James. It was the water entrance to the house, which was what all the rich did - they lived on the Thames, which was the most important mode of transportation via boat until 1750, when the second (yes, only the second) river crossing was built.
Now, you may be saying, if that is a watergate, how is it that you are standing on solid ground? Should you not be in the middle of the river? Well, because of the embankment, the river doesn't go there anymore, thanks to a guy named Bazalgette, but we get to him a little bit later.
A detail of the arch.
Our next stop was Craven Street.
These were built in the 1720's after the great fire (1666) as urban housing, and mostly middle class, skilled individuals lived here. The Benjamin Franklin house (where, as you might guess, Benjamin Franklin stayed at for a time while in London):
was a boarding house sort of place, I guess, and the land lady's daughter was married to a doctor. They recently discovered bones in the cellar that have marks of surgical tools in them, and it's suggested that he ran an illegal anatomy school in the basement. They're mere meters from the Thames river, and so they'd also pull bodies out of the river for educational purposes, that sort of thing. I love London.
But by the time Herman Melville got here in 1849, the street was not one of the most desireable places to live thanks to the river. Because cesspits and such would overflow into the river and with no sewer system and oh I feel so gross just talking about it.
Okay, so that guy I mentioned earlier, Joseph Bazalgette? This is him. I suppose that the Victorians were really big on monuments and such, and this is his. Basically what he did was create the embankment to keep the river back and then created a sewer system that intercepted trash and other ickiness before it hit the river and taking it further away. The inscription up top reads "Flumini vincula posuit" - "he put the river in chains" for those of you not Latinate.
The pilaster (I might have that spelled wrong, she talks fast and doesn't always spell things) strips that depict tools of building. Nerd that I am I began with the "MASONIC CONSPIRACY!" again in my head, but was forced to shut up.
Sarah's hand pointing to the Thames eels that the bottom of the monument is decorated by.
Next, we boarded a cruise boat to go up the river, away from Westminster and to the City. (What we think of as London is a collection of larger boroughs, the City is London proper, an area of 1.1 square miles.) Yay! I like boats. Except for walking on them. Our tour guide was a very laconic young man who was, in my humble opinion, hilarious. I had a laugh, anyway.
There's the London Eye! It's... massive. It makes one revolution every half hour and I'm not sure if I'll go up, but it's kind of interesting to look at. Apparently people have gotten married in the capsules, had wedding receptions, I shudder to think of what else has gone on up there. XD
Oh and look, Big Ben! Well, actually (and I was pretty sure that I'd known this already, but) Big Ben is the name of the bell inside the clock tower. The tower itself is St. Stephens clock tower. It's... impressive. No other words.
Big Ben and the parliament building where, I'm sure, all sorts of Very Important and Serious Business takes place.
That building right in the center is the London School for Boys (not totally sure on that name, but it sounds right). Winston Churchill went there, and overall it's a very beautiful building.
The top photo is the Blackfriars Bridge, and the second are the supports from the old Blackfriars Bridge. They didn't take them out of the river because they didn't want to stir up and/or wreck the foundations for the other bridges. So they're just kind of standing there.
I believe this is the Millenium footbridge, part of the Millenium projects. When it first opened, it wobbled and was declared unsafe. But they've fixed it and now it's perfectly all right to walk across. :D
St. Paul's Cathedral (I went there on Friday and have more pictures, that entry is coming as soon as I can write it) from the river.
THE GLOBE THE GLOBE MY FIRST VIEW OF THE GLOBE AL;DJF;JLDASKAF
London Bridge! I know, I know, you were thinking of something impressive. Well, this is it. According to my guide it's the fourth London Bridge to span the river. One sort of went Pfft in the Great Fire, one was sinking into the mud, and I forget what he said the other one did. Fell down, maybe.
The Tower of London. OOH SCARY.
Traitor's Gate to the Tower, built by Edward I (aka Longshanks, Hammer of the Scots, etc. etc.).
The four spires right there up top is the White Tower, built by William the Conquerer in the 1070's. Simultaneously to protect his lands and himself.
A rather startling mannequin outside a store in the Tower Hill area called Traders Gate. Traders, Traitors, LOLZ.
There was a walkway from the Tower to the tube station that had these paintings in them. There were several different ones, but this one really struck me the most. It's the murder of the two princes, the uncrowned Edward V and his brother Richard. Supposedly by their Uncle Richard III, although I just read a (fictional) book where the idea was proposed that Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor, kidnapped the boys. (In this fictional novel, the heroines [Princess Elizabeth who would later marry Henry and Nell Caxton] whisked away the boys to safety, so. It was a pretty good book, To the Tower Born by Robin Maxwell.) There's no proof that they were murdered on Richard's orders but for Tyrell's confession years after the fact. It's one of the great mysteries.
A shot of the north side of the Tower.
And then of course, I left my lunch in the hostel and was forced to instead purchase, because I was starving.
So I had fish and chips. And I have to say that that was a lot of fish. But it was really good. And I felt very awesome.
After that, I headed home because I was tired and we still had the theatre that night. :D I watched the House episode (SO GOOD), and then got dressed and headed to the Novello:
Where we saw Patrick Stewart as Marc Antony in Antony and Cleopatra. I... I have no words. Nope. It was awesome. I kept expecting him to tell one of the soldiers, "Make it so, number one!" He didn't, of course, but that doesn't mean that I can't be a nerd about it. Once I acclimated to the level of AWESOMENESS in the theatre, I was able to pay attention to other things and other characters. The guy who played Caesar I was particularly interested with. They went for an incesty angle with Octavia, which I think was interesting. Sort of woke me up, anyway. It was very artful, and I really enjoyed it. I wish I could have heard something from my classmates besides "It was long," but I guess I can't have everything. (They think this is long, wait until we have to sit through Coriolanus.
This is Embankment. The tube stop exit is just to the left of this picture, but it's a beautiful area.
This is the York Waterate. (That's Sarah in the lower left hand corner of the picture.) I won't give you the entire diatribe that I got, but the York Watergate was built in 1626 by George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. He was a favorite of James I/VI, and the stone used to build this watergate was actually a gift from James. It was the water entrance to the house, which was what all the rich did - they lived on the Thames, which was the most important mode of transportation via boat until 1750, when the second (yes, only the second) river crossing was built.
Now, you may be saying, if that is a watergate, how is it that you are standing on solid ground? Should you not be in the middle of the river? Well, because of the embankment, the river doesn't go there anymore, thanks to a guy named Bazalgette, but we get to him a little bit later.
A detail of the arch.
Our next stop was Craven Street.
These were built in the 1720's after the great fire (1666) as urban housing, and mostly middle class, skilled individuals lived here. The Benjamin Franklin house (where, as you might guess, Benjamin Franklin stayed at for a time while in London):
was a boarding house sort of place, I guess, and the land lady's daughter was married to a doctor. They recently discovered bones in the cellar that have marks of surgical tools in them, and it's suggested that he ran an illegal anatomy school in the basement. They're mere meters from the Thames river, and so they'd also pull bodies out of the river for educational purposes, that sort of thing. I love London.
But by the time Herman Melville got here in 1849, the street was not one of the most desireable places to live thanks to the river. Because cesspits and such would overflow into the river and with no sewer system and oh I feel so gross just talking about it.
Okay, so that guy I mentioned earlier, Joseph Bazalgette? This is him. I suppose that the Victorians were really big on monuments and such, and this is his. Basically what he did was create the embankment to keep the river back and then created a sewer system that intercepted trash and other ickiness before it hit the river and taking it further away. The inscription up top reads "Flumini vincula posuit" - "he put the river in chains" for those of you not Latinate.
The pilaster (I might have that spelled wrong, she talks fast and doesn't always spell things) strips that depict tools of building. Nerd that I am I began with the "MASONIC CONSPIRACY!" again in my head, but was forced to shut up.
Sarah's hand pointing to the Thames eels that the bottom of the monument is decorated by.
Next, we boarded a cruise boat to go up the river, away from Westminster and to the City. (What we think of as London is a collection of larger boroughs, the City is London proper, an area of 1.1 square miles.) Yay! I like boats. Except for walking on them. Our tour guide was a very laconic young man who was, in my humble opinion, hilarious. I had a laugh, anyway.
There's the London Eye! It's... massive. It makes one revolution every half hour and I'm not sure if I'll go up, but it's kind of interesting to look at. Apparently people have gotten married in the capsules, had wedding receptions, I shudder to think of what else has gone on up there. XDOh and look, Big Ben! Well, actually (and I was pretty sure that I'd known this already, but) Big Ben is the name of the bell inside the clock tower. The tower itself is St. Stephens clock tower. It's... impressive. No other words.
Big Ben and the parliament building where, I'm sure, all sorts of Very Important and Serious Business takes place.
That building right in the center is the London School for Boys (not totally sure on that name, but it sounds right). Winston Churchill went there, and overall it's a very beautiful building.
The top photo is the Blackfriars Bridge, and the second are the supports from the old Blackfriars Bridge. They didn't take them out of the river because they didn't want to stir up and/or wreck the foundations for the other bridges. So they're just kind of standing there.
I believe this is the Millenium footbridge, part of the Millenium projects. When it first opened, it wobbled and was declared unsafe. But they've fixed it and now it's perfectly all right to walk across. :D
St. Paul's Cathedral (I went there on Friday and have more pictures, that entry is coming as soon as I can write it) from the river.
THE GLOBE THE GLOBE MY FIRST VIEW OF THE GLOBE AL;DJF;JLDASKAF
London Bridge! I know, I know, you were thinking of something impressive. Well, this is it. According to my guide it's the fourth London Bridge to span the river. One sort of went Pfft in the Great Fire, one was sinking into the mud, and I forget what he said the other one did. Fell down, maybe.
The Tower of London. OOH SCARY.
Traitor's Gate to the Tower, built by Edward I (aka Longshanks, Hammer of the Scots, etc. etc.).
The four spires right there up top is the White Tower, built by William the Conquerer in the 1070's. Simultaneously to protect his lands and himself.
A rather startling mannequin outside a store in the Tower Hill area called Traders Gate. Traders, Traitors, LOLZ.
There was a walkway from the Tower to the tube station that had these paintings in them. There were several different ones, but this one really struck me the most. It's the murder of the two princes, the uncrowned Edward V and his brother Richard. Supposedly by their Uncle Richard III, although I just read a (fictional) book where the idea was proposed that Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor, kidnapped the boys. (In this fictional novel, the heroines [Princess Elizabeth who would later marry Henry and Nell Caxton] whisked away the boys to safety, so. It was a pretty good book, To the Tower Born by Robin Maxwell.) There's no proof that they were murdered on Richard's orders but for Tyrell's confession years after the fact. It's one of the great mysteries.
A shot of the north side of the Tower.
And then of course, I left my lunch in the hostel and was forced to instead purchase, because I was starving.
So I had fish and chips. And I have to say that that was a lot of fish. But it was really good. And I felt very awesome.
After that, I headed home because I was tired and we still had the theatre that night. :D I watched the House episode (SO GOOD), and then got dressed and headed to the Novello:
Where we saw Patrick Stewart as Marc Antony in Antony and Cleopatra. I... I have no words. Nope. It was awesome. I kept expecting him to tell one of the soldiers, "Make it so, number one!" He didn't, of course, but that doesn't mean that I can't be a nerd about it. Once I acclimated to the level of AWESOMENESS in the theatre, I was able to pay attention to other things and other characters. The guy who played Caesar I was particularly interested with. They went for an incesty angle with Octavia, which I think was interesting. Sort of woke me up, anyway. It was very artful, and I really enjoyed it. I wish I could have heard something from my classmates besides "It was long," but I guess I can't have everything. (They think this is long, wait until we have to sit through Coriolanus.