From Henge to Ham: a week of new adventures (aka London, Part 3)

It’s been busy times lately. Jessica and I have continued trekking all over London, eating well, and visiting a bunch of museums. But, to focus in a bit, the last week of February was a particularly fun and interesting chunk of time.

That Monday, we got up early and zipped down to Waterloo Station to catch a train to Salisbury. Our first trip out from London! Of course, we arrived to find that our train had been cancelled…

No worries, though. It turns out that our train was cancelled because the one going the same direction from an hour or so earlier was delayed until later than when our train was supposed to leave. So, while it took a bit to get going from the station, we did eventually get to Salisbury, about a two hour ride out from London.

The town was super-cute with tons of old buildings and a swan-filled river-and-canal-system. We took a long walk that looped around the city, through the industrial area (less pleasant), into some suburbs, and back to the Cathedral.

The Cathedral, of course, is the main attraction in town. I vaguely remember visiting there in 1999, only a year after I had taken a class in Medieval Architecture in which we had studied Salisbury along with about a hundred other cathedrals. Well, it’s been a long time since I had the historical review, or knew which details to look for, but the place is still pretty stunning. Let’s start with the exterior — featuring the tallest spire in Britain — and the gorgeous cloisters…

Not bad for a place built 800 years ago! But, the intererior was perhaps even more gorgeous. The enormous columns, vaulted ceilings, stained glass, etc. were all pretty spectacular. Also note the arches built under the spire more recently as the pillars slowly began to buckle (you can see that they bend if you look at them from underneath–photo didn’t do it justice, sadly).

We also learned about and saw some odd and interesting bits:

• There is a gorgeous fountain that was recently added in the middle of the Cathedral, where you can see reflections of several stained glass panels depending where you stand.
• One of the guides showed us just how close the water flows beneath the Cathedral (about a meter) and we learned about its not-infrequent flooding.
• It turns out the wooden stalls in the choir were built in 1236. They still look impressively gorgeous.
• There’s a list of the organists of the Cathedral dating back over 500 years. Some of them had rather long tenures.
• Another guide recognized our accents and pointed out the regimental colours hanging on one wall, noting that one of the regiments had fought against the US in the War of 1812.
• The “Bumping Stone,” where boys who join the choir have their heads bumped seven times. Girls bump their heads on a prayer book. Jessica was (rightly) indignant about the gender disparity.
• A medieval clock that still tells time accurately. It was built in 1386 and can still get the hours correct. It isn’t connected to a bell, though, because that would be annoying.
• Finally, there are tons of tombs of various important folks around the Cathedral. One was eerily skeletal. But, the most interesting was that of William Longespee, Earl of Salisbury in the 12th and 13th Century, and the first person buried in the Cathedral. (He is listed on the Magna Carta as an advisor to his half-brother, King John.) The plaque next to him says he died very suddenly after having dinner with another very powerful man. Foul play was suspected, but never proved. However, recently, forensic scientists found a dead rat inside his skull and that rat contained traces of arsenic…

Another treasure of the Cathedral is one of only four surviving copies of the original Magna Carta. It was accompanied by some interesting exhibits about the influence of the Magna Carta, ranging from how it impacted the American Revolution and Constitution to debates around COVID restrictions. Unfortunately, photos of the document aren’t allowed, but the Chapter House, in which it is located is quite amazing!

Of course, the real reason to go to Salisbury wasn’t the Cathedral. No offense (really, it was quite impressive), but we’ve seen a lot of them. The main reason we went was to visit Stonehenge, about 10 miles out of town.

To prep ourselves, before leaving London, we visited the “World of Stonehenge,” a special exhibition that just happened to be opening at the British Museum the week before our trip. It had some impressive stuff, placing Stonehenge in the context of shifting technologies and belief structures of the Neolithic era, both in Britain and Europe more broadly. In particular, they made an interesting point about Stonehenge as an example of communal religious expression, whereas later individual connections to the Sun became more evident in jewellery and other sacred objects. They also used forensic evidence to highlight individuals who had travelled between Britain and the Italian Alps multiple times in their lives 5000-or-so years ago, just one example of the links they showed between Britain and elsewhere. The most beautiful object was the Nebra Sky Disk from Germany, which showed how ancient people used the Pleiades to align their lunar calendar to the solar years.

Upon arriving at Stonehenge, we took a quick tour of the museum there, but found that it mostly repeated what we had learned in the British Museum exhibit. There was, however, a great display of photos people had taken at Stonehenge over the last 150 years along with their stories–everything from a rock band that played at a festival there in the 1960s, to an American girl who decided to move to England (and later did!) after visiting there with her family at age 8. That was pretty fun. And the museum also had an outdoor bit with a giant replica of one of Stonehenge’s sarsen stones which you could pull on to see how many people of your strength level it would take to move it.

Of course, the one hour or so we spent outside, circling Stonehenge itself was the only hour of our trip when it was raining. Yay. But, it wasn’t too bad, and the clouds made a dramatic backdrop for the ancient site. Jess and I aren’t mystics or anything, but the sheer artistry of the place and massive work done so long ago really is incredible. It’s pretty spectacular and I highly recommend it if you get the chance to check it out.

By the way, notice the lumpy bit on the top of one of the standing stones in that last photo? It turns out the lintels aren’t just balanced on top of the other stones, but they are carved to fit together. I never knew. Nice work ancient folks!

From Stonehenge, the bus took us to Old Sarum, a former Roman fort and then an English castle. It was also the original location of the Salisbury Cathedral. The stones of the original cathedral were relocated and used in the construction of the new cathedral in the 13th century. After poking about at the ruins there we had a lovely muddy hike back to Salisbury, whose cathedral we could see from everywhere…

So, yeah, the Salisbury trip was a major highlight of the week, but there was some other great stuff too. One was on Thursday: our first trip to the theater. It was a lowlight in that it was really the worst COVID exposure scene–we were two of about ten people in the entire audience who bothered to wear masks. Ugh. But, ignoring that, the play was spectacular. We saw a National Theatre adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Both Jess and I had read the story, but couldn’t remember it at all until the play started and we were both like, “Oh! That one! This is gonna get trippy.” And it did. The script, acting, and set were all fabulous. (The young woman playing Lettie was especially fun.) But, what set the play over the top was the puppetry. As the story features magical creatures and settings, they had to figure out how to interpret that on stage, and that took the form of some incredible puppets. At some parts there were giant puppets operated by four or five cast members at once, at others, the main characters operated tiny puppets of themselves on stage. There was gorgeous use of thin sheets of plastic(?) to create the illusion of being underwater. Overall, it was quite incredible. A good start to our ignoring COVID-safety in favor of enjoying what London has to offer. (Note: photos stolen from the web. Thanks internets.)

On Saturday, we did our usual wandering of the city, heading towards a walking tour we were joining in Kensington. On the way, we had the good fortune to be able to join a crowd expressing their anger in front of the Russian Embassy. It was a good reminder of why living in a capital city feels like a much more effective political location (reminding me of my time in DC…)

We didn’t spend too long there, sadly, as we then went on to our much more mundane tour of the Kensington area. It was a decent tour, focusing on changes in London over time while meandering over just a few blocks. We learned that mews (which are usually now back streets with access to garages and such) were originally stables, and that the name may originate with bird sounds from when horses were kept further outside the city. Hmmm. Probably the most interesting bit of trivia was that the frequent location of pubs on the corner of residential streets comes from the fact that they were often built first and served as places to eat and drink for the workers building the rows of “terrace houses” extending out from the pubs themselves. I won’t bore you with too much more, but it was a lovely little walk, with some fascinating bits of history and lovely architectural variety.

The week ended with another major highlight: we went to a Premier League Football match. On the way we had a great lunch at the market at Victoria Park. It was a gloriously sunny day and we got some great seats. It was super-fun to see the game (West Ham defeated Wolverhampton 1-0), but even more fun was watching the crowd. Many of the seats go to season-ticket holders, so the people around us all seemed to know one another and were catching up on their lives over the past week. There was also a cranky old fan behind us who basically announced a play-by-play of the game, giving his commentary on who was playing well or not. He also shouted, “Come on you irons!” about a hundred times. (The team started in 1895 as the Thames Ironworks F.C.)

The best part, though, was the “tiny bubbles” song that the entire crowd sang.

If you look closely at the video, you can see they have giant bubble machines going during the song. Jess did some research and found there are conflicting stories about how the song relates to West Ham United, but it definitely originated in a musical and somehow became popular with fans of the team about a century ago. It’s been sung ever since. As you can see, it’s quite popular. It was sung several times.

For those who are curious: Here’s a link to the song with lyrics.

Even better is the Cockney Rejects version from 1980.

And, here’s game highlights. You can fast forward to the one goal at about 1:30.

Finally, on a completely different note, I just need to share that an increasing amount of my consciousness has gone into working on Space Station Phoenix. I’ve got a ton of expansion material for the game I’m working on (making Jess play all the time), but, most significantly, a sample copy of the finished product was shipped to me from the factory in Germany. It’s gorgeous! And huge! Jessica and I have a tiny table in our flat, and we can just barely fit a two-player game of SSP on the table. Regardless, I’m pretty excited for when this hits stores in late April…

That’s all for now. More adventures to come…