07.09.2011 – 07.09.2011  18 °C

Spent today doing some more site seeing of London (I swear even if you were here for month’s you still wouldn’t be able to see it all!) Started the day by wandering down to the Thames and this time I went over the Millennium bridge to Southbank towards the Globe and the Tate.

I’ve decided to save these two items for when I come back to London before I go to Middle East so instead of entering I continued left towards the London Bridge. At the famous bridge (which isn’t much to look at) I entered an exhibition on the London Bridge that the brochure claimed ‘was to be the scariest day of your life!’. Well I couldn’t pass up the chance for a good fright so in I went.

The first part of the exhibit takes you through some of the history of the bridge. The bridge was first erected by the Roman’s and was a wooden bridge spanning the Thames. It was first destroyed by Viking raider’s centuries after the Roman’s had quite Britain. It is thought that this is where the nursery rhyme “London bridge is falling down” comes from, the song is about the raiders who pulled down and destroyed the bridge. The first stone bridge was built during the reign of William the Conqueror after 1066 and it was the first stone bridge to be built anywhere in the world! This is the bridge that really created the icon of ‘London Bridge’. This stone bridge was built upon over the years until it was actual a town on top of a bridge! At its height the London Bridge was home to over 3000 people! This bridge was badly damaged during the famous London fires of 1676 and it is estimated that over 1500 people perished on the bridge during the inferno. It was determined in the early 1800s that the old London bridge had, had its day and was therefore replaced by a newer stone bridge. It was only a hundred years later that the bridge had to again be replaced as it was no longer able to cope with the volume of daily traffic and the bridge we see today was opened in the mid-60s.

The original stone bridge was in use for more than 600 years and has quite a sordid history. When criminals were hung on Tower Hill their heads were then displayed on the entry to this bridge as a deterrent. I got to find out the gory details today of how prisoners were ‘Hung, Drawn and Quartered’… First step was the hanging part. A criminal was hung with a length of rope but instead of standing up on a platform or something and having a trap door open, the criminal was hoisted from the ground by his neck… he was then taken to the point of death (normally about 6 min) before being dropped to the ground and revived. He was then re-hoisted back up and brought to near death and then dropped and revived. This process continued for at least 7 hours before the executioner would move on the Drawn. Drawn meant that the criminal was tied down onto a chopping block and whilst still alive had his stomach cut open and his entrails removed. These were then burnt or fed to the criminal before he eventually died of blood loss. Lastly, the criminal had all of his arms and legs removed and his parts of his body sent to all four quarters of the land, hence Quartering. Finally, the head was seasoned with salt and some spices to ensure it would not be pecked by the birds and placed on a pike on the London bridge. Gruesome huh??? This was the outcome for such famous prisoners as Guy Fawkes and William Wallace… it’s probably about the worst way I could imagine to die…

The second part of the visit was into the London Tombs… Apparently, a couple of hundred corpses were discovered under London Bridge and so they have turned these ‘tombs’ into a scary tourist attraction. Basically, ‘zombies’ jump out at you as you slowly walk through an underground graveyard. It was actually quite spooky and more than once I jumped and yelled when a zombie came towards me!

After being nicely scared I continued my wander down the Thames and stopped at the Britain at War exhibition. It is describes the life of Londoner’s during the blitz. A funny letter that I saw in the museum was from a lady in London to her husband on the front line, it read; “You don’t know how hard it is here in London. Everything is being rationed. Now they are even rationing the number of corsets’ and brassieres’ a woman can purchase. How are women in London supposed to get on without these essential items of clothing?” I had a good giggle when I read this. Clearly the propaganda from the front must have been strong, if she believed that life on the home front was tougher than the life of the boys in Europe! Another amusing anecdote was about a man who lived somewhere out near Wimbledon. Every evening he would catch a train into London and would sleep in the Bond Street tube station because as he stated “if he was going to die in an air raid he wanted to die surrounded by the right sort!” I also tested out a gas mask to protect me from a potential gas attack. They even had gas ‘tanks’ for babies. Basically the mother would place the baby inside this tank and hand pump air into the chamber to keep the baby alive… Not sure how effective this is if the person pumping ends up dead…..

My last stop on my Southbank Thames walk was the Tower Bridge. I climbed up to the top of the bridge and walked the gang way between the north and south towers of the bridge. I was lucky enough to get down from the tower just before the bridge was opened to allow a sailing yacht access to the Thames. It’s amazing how they open up the bridge; it’s very seamless and surprisingly quick!

On my way back to the hostel I thought I’d pop into St Paul’s and take a look at the interior of the cathedral. I arrived just as the church was closing for the evensong service, so I thought that rather than go and come back and pay to enter the cathedral I would sit through the service and use the service time as time to look at the wonderful roof mosaics. The service was really quite beautiful. For those (like me) who don’t know what an evensong service is, it is a nightly service where the choir sing the prayers of the service to God. It was really nice because the big church organ was accompanying the choir, so between the singing and the organ.. really really nice. The interior of the church is also very WOW! The whole cupola of the church is covered in one big mosaic… really beautiful. Its a shame in some ways I did attend a service because I wasn’t able to take photos, but the service was really beautiful so I haven’t really missed out on much!

After a very relaxing end to my day, I finished it off with a quick bite of Japanese before sitting down to watch some TV with other members of the hostel.