June 24: London

Today I could not face the V&A for another four hours, as I am still nursing a sore heel on my left foot and also had plans to thoroughly see Westminster Abbey.  So I had a later breakfast than usual (8:00 a.m. instead of 7:30 a.m.).  Four people were there—one a very nice English couple; an Australian man, a lady I had met yesterday and who is a museum fiend, and then there was myself.  These people really travel, and provide an endless fount of travel wisdom.  I certainly enjoyed myself in their company, and they were impressed that I was going to Cornwall next.  They told me they bet I’d live there one day!  If it’s as beautiful as the filming of “Poldark” makes it out to be, I might just consider it as a future opportunity!

I was hoping my friend Nicole, the lady I saw yesterday and again today, would accompany me, but she decided on another agenda to the British Museum.  I, however, decided that Westminster should be my objective today for a thorough investigation.  

I consulted Google Maps for the first time and found the info as to how to get there most helpful.  I didn’t consult anyone, and was proud, at the end of the day, that I was capable if I kept my wits about me.  Nancy, the Oyster cards continue to be a blessing.  Thanks very much.  Let me know if you would like me to bring them with me when I come to see you later in the summer.  

I had great luck today at Westminster.  There was a long line, but somehow an official pulled me out of it and in no time had me at the register paying for an entry ticket and a ticket for a 90-minute tour of the Abbey by a fantastic verger guide.  Vergers are not priests, but they do give tours.  We were 14 in my group, and our guide was knowledgeable, quickwitted, and immensely amusing.  Time flew by in his company.  Later, after noon had passed, he spotted me in a line at the Cellarium, a wonderful cafe associated with the church, where I had radicchio and apple salad, with lemonade.  He moved me to the front of the line, and I was quickly seated.  Another kindness!  So far I have met with nothing but kindness.  

Westminster Abbey was formerly titled the Collegiate Church of St. Peter at Westminster.  It is one of the United Kingdom’s most notable religious buildings, and the traditional place of coronation and a burial site for British monarchs.  Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of British monarchs have occurred at Westminster.  16 royal weddings have taken place there since 1100.  

The church was originally part of a Catholic Benedictine abbey, which was dissolved in 1539.  It then served as the cathedral of the Diocese of Westminster until 1550, then as a second cathedral of the Diocese of London until 1556.  The Abbey was restored under the Benedictines by Mary I in 1556, then in 1559 became a “royal peculiar”—a church responsible directly to the sovereign—under Elizabeth I.  

The Abbey is the burial site of more than 3,300 people, usually of prominence in British history.  At least 16 monarchs, 8 prime ministers, poets laureate, actors, scientists, military leaders, and the Unknown Warrior are buried there.  The first person interred in the Abbey’s “Poets’ Corner” was Geoffrey Chaucer in 1400.  A real Valhalla!  My finds were many, but I will toss out some of the names you might recognize:  Dylan Thomas, Geoffrey Chaucer, Sir William Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I; Edward the Confessor, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Handel, Muzio Clementi, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Laurence Olivier, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Byron.  A feast!  The cathedral, our guide said, was running out of room to bury bodies, so ashes will be the rule shortly.  

After lunch, I toured the Abbey on my own for another two hours.  At about 4:30 pm everyone was shooed out and the rest of us stayed in order to participate in Choral Evensong.  The organist was practicing as the church emptied, and we could hear the wonderful acoustical power of the space.  About 10 minutes before the Evensong, we were moved into the choir stalls, close to the singers and priests.  Today, Evensong was sung by the men and boys of Westminster, with about 15 boys and 10 men participating, all singing chants of such purity and poignancy that I was moved by the experience. The celebration, on June 24, is the Feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist in the church year.  I felt so privileged hearing the service.  Boys and men wear red cassocks and white ruffs, and the sense of ceremony is palpable.  And listening to the timeless Scriptures read in the King James version is so appropriate and so right in a space like this.  

And now I am back in my little nest.  Alexandra immediately got a phone call, and it was her presence that I wish I had been able to conjure up during the time I was at the Abbey!  Another one of those moments you want to freeze in time.  

Tomorrow, perhaps more V&A, and then, at 4:00 p.m. a 30-minute ferris wheel ride on the London Eye.  Sunday I leave for Cornwall.