This blog is being made by the students and teachers who are going to London over Easter 2009 currently studying or working in the I.E.S. Francesc Xavier Lluch i Rafecas in Vilanova i la Geltrú. The blog is included in the Generalitat's Innovació Educativa London Calling project.
The activities are addressed to help students prepare -first- the trip to London and -second- the DVD they will create after the experience (A DVD guide to London for youngsters by youngsters)
London is one of the most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities in the world with a story stretching back over a quarter of a million years. Museum of London is committed to recording and explaining change in every part of London life, to tell its past, present and future stories.
Museum of London is one of the world’s largest urban history museums and cares for over two million objects in its collection. The lower galleries are currently undergoing major redevelopment work which will see spectacular new galleries opening in spring 2010 telling the story of modern London from 1666 to the present day.
The Museum also holds the largest archaeological archive in Europe of this wealth of information.
Museum of London's mission is to inspire a passion for London by:
communicating London’s history, archaeology and contemporary cultures to a wider world,
reaching all of London’s communities through playing a role in the debate about London,
facilitating and contributing to London-wide cultural and educational networks.
Staple Inn is a building on the south side of High Holborn in London. Located near Chancery Lane tube station, it is used as the London office of the Institute of Actuaries and is the last surviving Inn of Chancery. In 1292 it contained a building known as ‘le Stapled Halle’, which was probably a covered market. A tradition would make this the Inn of the Merchants of the Staple.
The “Staple” originated in a duty on wool that was introduced in 1275 at the “request of the communities of merchants” with the intention that the burden of tax should fall on the foreign buyers of wool. Staple Inn remained owned by woolstaplers, probably until 1580 when the members of the Society built a new Hall on its current site. The Fellows of the Society were wealthy men and their Hall reflected this. In 1936 the old buildings at the front of Staple Inn on High Holborn were completely restored having survived in their original condition since 1586.
The Staple Inn façade is the only example of Elisabethan style in good condition in London. People from 1580's would recognise the building nowadays. The shops around it remind us of the 19th century, and in the inside court, one can see 18th century buildings.
Alejandro G & David G 1st bat C
The Astronomical Clock at HamptonCourtPalace
• The astronomical clock was constructed between 1540 and 1542 when
Henry VIII was rebuilding Cardinal Wolsey’s original Hampton Court.
The tower that houses the clock overlooks Clock Court, in the centre of
the palace.
• There are three bells in the belfry, the oldest of which was cast in
1478. It had been given to Cardinal Wolsey by the Knights of St John
in Jerusalem who leased the Manor of Hampton Court to Wolsey on
the 11th January 1514.
• The clock was made by French clockmaker Nicholas Oursian and is a
marvel of the sixteenth century clockmaker’s skill. He was appointed
clock-keeper to Hampton Court in 1541 and was clockmaker to
successive monarchs until his death in 1590. The design of the clock is
credited to the Bavarian astronomer Nicholas Cratzer, who came to
England at the invitation of Cardinal Wolsey.
• The dial is extremely complicated. It is fifteen feet in diameter and
consists of three separate copper dials, of different sizes, with a
common centre but revolving at different speeds. The hours, in two
sets of twelve, were originally painted on the stone but are now painted
on metal segments affixed to the stonework.
• The clock tells the hour, month, day of the month, the position of the
sun in the ecliptic, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the number of days
that have elapsed since the beginning of the year, the phases of the
moon, its age in days, the hour in which it crosses the meridian, and,
therefore, the time of high water at LondonBridge. As Henry VIII often
travelled by river in the Royal barge the king insisted Cratzer install an
astronomical clock at the palace to indicate the time of high tide in
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London, and therefore the best time to travel by boat.
• This clock was designed before the discoveries of Copernicus and
Galileo, when it was believed the sun revolved around the earth rather
than the earth around the sun. Consequently the clock depicts the
earth represented as a small globe in the centre, while the sun goes
The elegant Portland stone column was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke to commemorate the fire of 1666, which engulfed much of the city.
The Monument is the tallest isolated stone column in the world, towering above the city at 202ft (61m) and has a spiral staircase with 311 steps leading to the observation platform.
It is located at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill 202ft (61m) from the spot in Pudding Lane where the Great Fire is thought to have started.
Repairs to The Monument are carried out roughly every hundred years, with work last undertaken in 1888.
Memorial. The Great Fire of London began in the early morning hours of September, 2nd 1666 in the Pudding Lane house of Thomas Farynor, a baker to the king. A maid in the house became the first fatality of the conflagration. The fire spread rapidly through the city of wood and thatch under the impetus of a strong east wind. By eight o'clock that morning, the fire had spread halfway across LondonBridge. The fire brigades had no success in containing the fire with buckets of water. The standard fire fighting tactic of destroying the buildings in the path of the flames, creating fire-breaks, were delayed by the indecisiveness of the Lord Mayor. By the time a Royal command for the fire breaks was passed it was far too late for them to be effective against the firestorm. The flames pushed north on Monday into the heart of the City, and on Tuesday, spread over most of the City destroying St. Paul's Cathedral and jumping the River Fleet to threaten Whitehall; flames destroyed Gracechurch Street, Lombard Street, and the Royal Exchange, and halted near Temple Church before it suddenly flared to life again, continuing towards Westminster. Eventually the strong east winds died down, turned south and blew the fire onto itself and into the river. Gunpowder was used to create more effective firebreaks which halted further spread eastward. Sources record only minimal loss of life, officially less than twenty, though that has been disputed, but the magnitude of the property loss was staggering. As much as 80% of the city was destroyed, including over 13,000 houses, 89 churches, and 52 Guild Halls.
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, which is almost always referred to popularly and informally as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English, later British and later still (and currently) Monarchs of the Commonwealth Realms. It briefly held the status of a cathedral from 1546–1556, and is currently a Royal Peculiar.
History
According to tradition the abbey was first founded in 616 on the present site, then known as Thorn Ey (Thorn Island); based on a late 'tradition' that a fisherman called ' Aldrich ' on the River Thames saw a vision of Saint Peter near the site. This seems to be quoted to justify the presents of salmon from the Thames fishermen that the Abbey received in later years. The proven origins are that in the 960s or early 970s, Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, planted a community of Benedictine monks here. A stone Abbey was built around 1045–1050 by King Edward the Confessor as part of his palace there: it was consecrated on December 28, 1065, only a week before the Confessor's death and subsequent funeral and burial. It was the site of the last coronation prior to the Norman Invasion, that of his successor King Harold. It was later rebuilt by Henry III from 1245, who had selected the site for his burial.
The only extant depiction of the original Abbey, in the Romanesque style that is called Norman in England, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry.
The Abbot and learned monks, in close proximity to the Royal Palace of Westminster, the seat of government from the later twelfth century, became a powerful force in the centuries after the Norman Conquest: the Abbot was often employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. He was released from the burdens of spiritual leadership, which passed to the reformed Cluniac movement after the mid-tenth century, and occupied with the administration of great landed properties, some of which lay far from Westminster. The proximity of the Palace of Westminster did not extend to providing monks or abbots with high royal connections; in social origin the Benedictines of Westminster were as modest as most of the order. The abbot remained Lord of the Manor of Westminster as a town of two to three thousand persons grew around it: as a consumer and employer on a grand scale the monastery helped fuel the town economy, and relations with the town remained unusually cordial
The Abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings, but none were buried there until Henry III, intensely devoted to the cult of the Confessor, rebuilt the Abbey in Anglo-French Gothic style as a shrine to honour St Edward the Confessor and as a suitably regal setting for Henry's own tomb, under the highest Gothic nave in England. The Confessor's shrine subsequently played a great part in his canonisation.
Henry VIII assumed direct royal control in 1539 and granted the Abbey cathedral status by charter in 1540. By granting the Abbey cathedral status Henry VIII gained an excuse to spare it from the destruction or dissolution which he inflicted on most English abbeys during this period. Westminster was a cathedral only until 1550. The expression "robbing Peter to pay Paul" may arise from this period when money meant for the Abbey, which was dedicated to St Peter, was diverted to the treasury of St Paul's Cathedral.
The Abbey was restored to the Benedictines under the Catholic Queen Mary, but they were again ejected under Queen Elizabeth I in 1559. In 1579, Elizabeth re-established Westminster as a "Royal Peculiar"—a church responsible directly to the sovereign, rather than to a diocesan bishop—and made it the Collegiate Church of St Peter, (that is a church with an attached chapter of canons, headed by a dean). The last Abbot was made the first Dean. It suffered damage during the turbulent 1640s, when it was attacked by Puritan iconoclasts, but was again protected by its close ties to the state during the Commonwealth period. Oliver Cromwell was given an elaborate funeral there in 1658, only to be disinterred in January 1661 and posthumously hanged from a nearby gibbet.
Until the 19th century, Westminster was the third seat of learning in England, after Oxford and Cambridge. It was here that the first third of the King James Bible Old Testament and the last half of the New Testament were translated. The New English Bible was also put together here in the 20th century.
Westminster suffered minor damage during the Blitz on November 15, 1940.
Coronations
Since the coronations in 1066 of both King Harold and William the Conqueror, all English and British monarchs (except Edward V and Edward VIII, who did not have coronations) have been crowned in the Abbey. Henry III was unable to be crowned in London when he first came to the throne because Prince Louis of France had taken control of the city, and so was crowned in Gloucester Cathedral, but this coronation was deemed by the Pope to be improper, and a further coronation was held in the Abbey on the 17th of May 1220. Lady Jane Grey, whose reign lasted just nine days and was of doubtful legality, was also never crowned. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the traditional cleric in the coronation ceremony. King Edward's Chair (or St Edward's Chair), the throne on which British sovereigns are seated at the moment of coronation, is housed within the Abbey and has been used at every coronation since 1308; from 1301 to 1996 the chair also housed the Stone of Scone upon which the kings of Scotland are crowned, but pending another coronation the Stone is now kept in Scotland.
Burials and memorials
Henry III rebuilt the Abbey in honour of the Royal Saint Edward the Confessor whose relics were placed in a shrine in the sanctuary and now lie in a burial vault beneath the 1268 mosaic pavement, in front of the High Altar. Henry III was interred nearby in a superb chest tomb with effigial monument, as were many of the Plantagenet kings of England, their wives and other relatives. Subsequently, most Kings and Queens of England were buried here, although Henry VIII and Charles I are buried in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, as are all monarchs and royals after George II.
Aristocrats were buried inside chapels and monks and people associated with the Abbey were buried in the Cloisters and other areas. One of these was Geoffrey Chaucer, who was buried here as he had apartments in the Abbey where he was employed as master of the Kings Works. Other poets were buried or memorialized around Chaucer in what became known as Poets' Corner. These include; William Blake, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, John Dryden, George Eliot, T. S. Eliot, Thomas Gray, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Masefield, John Keats, John Milton, Alexander Pope, Nicholas Rowe, Percy B. Shelley, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Shadwell, William Shakespeare and William Wordsworth. (This is a must-see corner, students; Where can you find a place with so many wonderful writers buried so close?)
Abbey musicians such as Henry Purcell were also buried in their place of work. Subsequently it became an honour to be buried or memorialised here. The practice spread from aristocrats and poets to generals, admirals, politicians, scientists, doctors, etc.
Leighton House is unique among the capital's museums in that it combines outstanding collections of High Victorian art with the atmosphere and intimacy of a private home. It was built betweewn 1864 and 1879). The house has maintained the opulent decoration like a monument to the Victorian time. It is especially outstanding the Arab Hall with a great collection of Islamic mosaics, some with the inscriptions from the Coran.
Leighton House was the home of the artist Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830 - 1896) and is one of the most representative buildings of the 19th century. The house was extended and embellished to create a private palace of art. The Leighton Drawings Project catalogues, has photographs and exhibits the collection of 700 drawings by Leighton at Leighton House Museum.
Leighton house has 81 oil paintings by Leighton . 9 of these 81 paintings are on loan to Leighton House from other private institutions . Some of the paintings of Leigthon House are:
The Museum has five albums and sketchbooks of drawings and water colours by Leighton
Prints of Leighton’s work
There are 54 prints of Leighton's works at the Museum
Material related to Leighton
14 items of personal material including documents embroideries, enamels and caricatures.
Leighton House Museumis exceptional for entertaining, providing an unforgettable setting for corporate and private dinners, receptions, lectures, concerts and photographic or filming shoots.
The exotic Arab Hall is a perfect setting for drinks and canapés. Leighton's Studio on the first floor caters for 80 people and is ideal for both corporate and private dinners.
One of the finest examples is Howard House, No. 14 Fournier Street, a mansion house, built circa 1726 by 'carpenter and gentleman', William Taylor, for his own occupation but subsequently leased by silk weavers, 'Signeratt and Bourdillon'. It has three floors and a large attic which once contained the loom. It is here that the silk for Queen Victoria's Coronation gown was woven. The unique hardwood staircase balustrade is carved to display fluted columns with Ionic capitals placed on each turn for one hundred steps.
No 23 Fournier Street is perhaps the best surviving example of a classic, single-fronted early Georgian town house of simple but elegant design. This house retains the original, typical arrangement of cellar-basement, three brick storeys and a mansard garrett with a weather boarded front and wide weaver's windows.
A Cathedral dedicated to St Paul has overlooked the City of London since 604 AD, a constant reminder to this great commercial centre of the importance of the spiritual side of life.
The current Cathedral – the fourth to occupy this site – was designed by the court architect Sir Christopher Wren and built between 1675 and 1710 after its predecessor was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Its architectural and artistic importance reflect the determination of the five monarchs who oversaw its building that London’s leading church should be as beautiful and imposing as their private palaces.
Important services have included the funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Winston Churchill; Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria; peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars; the launch of the Festival of Britain; the Service of Remembrance and Commemoration for the 11th September 2001; the 80th and 100th birthdays of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother; the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, to Lady Diana Spencer and, most recently, the thanksgiving services for both the Golden Jubilee and 80th Birthday of Her Majesty the Queen.
In the crypt are effigies and fragments of stone that pre-date the Cathedral, relics of a medieval world. From Wren’s original vision, Jean Tijou’s beautiful wrought iron gates of 1700 still separate the quire from the ambulatory; children still test the acoustics in the Whispering Gallery; and the 1695 organ which Mendelssohn once played is still in use.
St Mary-le-Bow is a historic church in the City of London, off Cheapside. According to tradition, a true Cockney must be born within earshot of the sound of the church's bells. The bells are also credited with having persuaded Dick Whittingtonto turn back from Highgate and remain in London to become Lord Mayor (three times in the story but four times in reality).The church is also immortalised in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons. Traditionally, distances by road from London have been measured from the London Stone, or the "Standard" in Cornhill, but, on the road from London to Lewes, the mileage is taken from the church door of St Mary-le-Bow. To emphasize the difference, mileposts along the way are marked with a cast-iron depiction of a bow and four bells.
History
Archaeological evidence indicates that a church existed on this site in Saxon period England. A medieval version of the church had been destroyed in 1091 by one of the earliest recorded (and one of the most violent) tornadoes in Britain, the London Tornado of 1091. During the Norman period, a church known as “St Mary de Arcubus” was built and was famed for its two arches (“bows”) of stone. From at least the 13th century, the church belonged to the Diocese of Canterbury and the seat of the Court of Arches, to which it gave the name. The church with its steeple had been a landmark of London and the “Bow bells”, which could be heard as far away as Hackney Marshes, were once used to signal a curfew in the City of London. This building burned in the Great Fire of London of 1666.
The current building was built to the designs of Christopher Wren, 1671-1673, with the 223-foot steeple completed 1680.
In 1914, a stone from the crypt of BowChurch was placed in Trinity Church, New York, in commemoration of the fact that King William III granted the vestry of TrinityChurch the same privileges as St Mary-le-Bow. A recording of the Bow Bells made in 1926 has been used by the BBC World Service as an interval signal for the English language broadcasts since the early 1940s. It is still used today preceding some English broadcasts.
Much of the current building was destroyed by a German bomb during the London Blitz on May, 10th 1941. Restoration was begun in 1956 and the bells rang again only in 1961 to produce a new generation of Cockneys. The church was formally reconsecrated in 1964 and was designated a Grade I listed building on the 4th of January 1950.
Roman roads, together with Roman aqueducts and the vast standing Roman Army (in the 2nd century, c. 28 legions plus auxiliary units, totaling c. 400,000 troops, of which c. 50,000 deployed in Britain), constituted the three most impressive features of the Roman Empire. In Britain, as in other provinces, the Romans constructed a comprehensive network of paved trunk roads (i.e. surfaced highways) during their nearly four centuries of occupation (43 - 410 A.D.).
The pre-Roman Britons used unpaved track ways for their communications, including very ancient ones running along elevated ridges of hills, such as the South Downs Way, now a public long-distance footpath. In contrast, most of the Roman network was surveyed and built from scratch, with the aim of connecting key points by the most direct possible route. The roads were all paved, to permit even heavy freight wagons to be used in all seasons and weather.
Most of the known network was complete by 180 A.D. Its primary function was to allow the rapid movement of troops and military supplies, but it also provided vital infrastructure for trade and the transport of goods.
Roman roads remained in use as core trunk roads for centuries after the Romans withdrew from Britain in 410 A.D. Systematic construction of paved highways did not resume in England until the 18th century.
The old Roman proverb that "all roads lead to Rome" was largely applicable in Roman Britain (Britannia) to London (Londinium), the city founded on a virgin site by the Romans, which soon became the province's capital and largest city. From London, six core routes radiated.
Nowadays you can see part of a Roman Road in the Crypt of All Hallows by the Tower.
Historical development
The earliest roads, built in the first phase of Roman occupation (the Julio-Claudian period 43–68), connected London with the ports used in the invasionand with the earlier legionary bases.
Construction and maintenance
Standard Roman road construction techniques, long evolved on the Continent, were used. A road occupied a wide strip of land bounded by shallow ditches, varying in width from 86 pedes (25.3m) on Ermine Street in Berkshire to 338 pedes (100m) on Ackerman Street in Oxfordshire. In the centre a carriageway was built on a raised agger after stripping off soft topsoil, using the best local materials, often sand or sandy gravel. The two strips of ground between the agger and the boundary ditches were used by pedestrians and animals, and were sometimes lightly metallic. Theagger was sometimes, but not always, bordered by deep ditches to take rainwater and keep the road structure as dry as possible. The metalling was in two layers, a foundation of medium to large stone covered by a running surface, often a compacted mixture of smaller flint and gravel.
Archaeological evidence
Extant remains of Roman roads are often much degraded or contaminated by later surfacing. In many places, Roman roads were built over in the 18th century to create the turnpikes. Where they have not been built over, many sections have been ploughed over by farmers and some stripped of their stone to use on turnpike roads.
Wayside stations have been identified in Britain. Roman roads had regularly spaced stations along their length - the Roman equivalent of motorway service areas. Roughly every 5 miles (8 km) - the most a horse could safely be ridden hard - there would be a mutation (literally: "a change"), essentially stables where mounted messengers could change horses and a tavern to obtain refreshment. Relays of fresh riders and horses careering at full gallop could sustain an average speed of about 20 mph (32 km/h). Thus an urgent dispatch from the Army base at York to London - 200 miles (320 km), a journey of over a week for a normal mounted traveller - could be delivered in just 10 hours. Because mutations were relatively small establishments, and their remains ambiguous, it is difficult to identify sites with certainty.
Post-Roman legacy
In some places, the origins of the roads were forgotten and they were ascribed to mythical Anglo-Saxon giants and divinities: for instance, Wade's Causeway in North Yorkshire owes its name to Woden, the supreme god of Germanic and Norse mythology. Chaucer's pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales almost certainly used Watling Street to travel from Southwark to Canterbury.
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