LondonLife – Remains of Greenwich Palace unearthed…
August 22, 2017
The remains of two rooms, which once formed part of the splendid Greenwich Palace – birthplace of King Henry VIII and his daughters Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I, were discovered during works being undertaken ahead of the construction of a new visitor centre under the Old Royal Naval College’s famed Painted Hall, it was revealed last week.
The rooms, set well back from the river Thames, are believed to have formed part of the service range, believed to be the location of kitchens, a bakehouse, brewhouse and laundry.
As well as the discovery of a lead-glazed tiled floor, one of the rooms, which was clearly subterranean, featured a series of unusual niches where archaeologists believe may have been ‘bee boles’ – where ‘skeps’ (hive baskets) were stored during winter when the bee colonies were hibernating and where, when the bees were outside during summer, food and drink may have been stored to keep cool.
Discussions are reportedly now underway over the possibility of displaying the Tudor finds in situ. Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, hailed the find as “remarkable”.
“To find a trace of Greenwich Palace, arguably the most important of all the Tudor palaces, is hugely exciting,” he said. “The unusual and enigmatic nature of the structure has given us something to scratch our heads over and research, but it does seem to shine a light on a very poorly known function of the gardens and the royal bees. The most exciting aspect is that the Old Royal Naval College is able and willing to incorporate this into the new visitor centre, so everyone can see a small part of the palace, for the first time in hundreds of years.”
Greenwich Palace was built by King Henry V’s brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in 1426 and rebuilt by King Henry VII between about 1500 and 1506.
Substantially demolished at the end of the 17th century (and with plans to build a new Stuart palace on the site never realised), it was replaced with the Greenwich Hospital which became the Royal Naval College designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor between 1692 and 1728.
The Painted Hall, located in the Old Royal Naval College, is currently undergoing an 18 month transformation which includes the creation of a new visitor centre, Sackler Gallery and café. Visitors to the hall currently have the unique opportunity to get up close to the famous ceiling of the hall, described as the “Sistine Chapel of the UK”, on special tours. Visit www.ornc.org/painted-hall-ceiling-tours-tickets for more.
PICTURES: © Old Royal Naval College
LondonLife Special – Big Ben falls silent…
August 21, 2017
And so the day has finally arrived. Following its usual bonging at midday today, the famous bell nick-named Big Ben has now controversially fallen silent as what have been described as “critical” conservation works are carried out.
How long the 13.7 tonne bell, which sits at the top of Elizabeth Tower (formerly known as the Clock Tower) at the northern end of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) and is officially known as the “Great Bell”, will be silent remains something of a mystery.
Following uproar over the initial announcement that the bell would be silent for four years (until 2021), officials have now said that the plan will now be reviewed. There have also been claims that the bell will continue to toll for significance events such as Remembrance Sunday and New Year’s Eve (Conservative MPs also reportedly want the bell to toll as the UK leaves the EU on 29th March, 2019).
It should be noted that while the mechanism which strikes the bell will be stopped from doing so during works to protect the ears of those working on it, the clock faces on the tower will continue to show the time.
The giant bell, which was cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, went into action on 11th July, 1859, and has been bonging almost continually since. It apparently stopped for two years during World War I for fears it would attract Zeppelins to the site and was silent during the funerals of former PMs Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. It was last silent in 2007 when maintenance was carried out.
PICTURE: Athena/Unsplash
LondonLife – Night lights…
August 15, 2017
PICTURE: Gordon Williams/Unsplash
LondonLife – Queen Victoria from on high…
August 8, 2017
The Queen Victoria Memorial, looking from Buckingham Palace across to St James’s Park. PICTURE: Robin Bilney/Royal Parks
LondonLife – London’s DLR celebrates 30 years…
August 1, 2017
London’s Docklands Light Railway – the DLR as it’s better known – is celebrating 30 years of operation. The railway was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in the summer of 1987 and then had just 11 single carriage trains serving 15 stations. Extended six times since and now including some 38 kilometres of track, it now serves 45 stations using mainly three carriage trains. Carrying some 6.7 million passengers in its first year, it now carries a massive 122 million people annually. To mark the occasion, Transport for London has released a Destination DLR travel guide featuring 30 attractions across east and south-east London all easily reached by the DLR, ranging from the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and the Tower of London to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Wilton’s Music Hall. Transport for London have also released a new diagram of the DLR system (pictured below). PICTURES: Transport for London.
LondonLife – Welcome to Zoorassic Park…
July 25, 2017
ZSL London Zoo opened the gates to its new Zoorassic Park last weekend enabling families to step back in time to the Mesozoic era and experience life with the dinosaurs. Featuring life-size, moving dinosaurs ranging from a tyrannosaurus rex (above) to a triceratops (below), the exhibit, will provide insight into the lives of the extinct giants as well as the important work conservationists are doing now to help save today’s animals from the same fate Included in the price of entry into the zoo, the exhibit is only open until 3rd September. For more, see www.zsl.org. PICTURES: ZSL London Zoo.
LondonLife – Rainy day…
July 11, 2017
A rainy day in Marylebone. PICTURE: Anjana Menon/Unsplash.
LondonLife – On board the London Eye…
July 4, 2017
PICTURE: designerpoint/Pixabay
LondonLife – Camden Lock…
June 27, 2017
PICTURE: Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash
Floral tributes for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster outside the Notting Hill Methodist Church. PICTURE: ChiralJon/CC BY 2.0. (image cropped)
LondonLife – The City rising into the clouds…
June 13, 2017
PICTURE: Rob Bye/Unsplash
Created by Russian-born artist Erik Bulatov to mark the centenary of the revolution, the 10 foot high steel Cyrillic letters, some of which appear to have fallen over, spell out the word ‘forward’ four times and are arranged in a circle. Forward 2016 is Bulatov’s first sculpture and was apparently conceived after a visit to a decommissioned 19th century iron foundry in France which Bulatov, who was born in 1933, felt represented – through its sheer scale and lost sense of power and energy – not only the aspirations of his generation but the disillusionment they experienced. While the bright colours of the letters create a sense of energy and movement, their distribution in a closed loop seem to imply that progress may not really be possible. The work, which is installed on the south terrace of the Tate Modern, will remain on display throughout the summer as a precursor to two major art exhibitions being held at the gallery in autumn – Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Not Everyone Will Be Taken Into The Future, the UK’s first major exhibition of the works of this pioneering couple (from 18th October), and Red Star Over Russia, an exploration of visual culture and design in the decades following the revolution (from 18th November). For more, see www.tate.org.uk. PICTURE: Courtesy of Tate Photography.
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show was held in London last week at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea and was once again a celebration of horticultural creativity and beauty. Here’s just a sample of what was on show…
Above, animal sculptures are displayed on the Easigrass exhibit while, below, a visitor listens to an audio recording whilst viewing a floral installation on the Interflora exhibit.
ALL PICTURES: RHS/Luke MacGregor.
Above, a visitor views “Neoteric” a floral installation by Robert Hornsby.
Above, lilies are displayed on the Harts Nursery exhibit.
Above, stilt walker “Mrs Flora” poses on the Big Hedge Co. garden.
LondonLife – King’s Cross railway station…
May 23, 2017
King’s Cross railway station, the western concourse. Designed by John McAslan, the semi-circular building – which opened in 2012 – features a steel roof engineered by Arup, claimed to be the longer single-span station structure in Europe. The image was taken with a fisheye lens. PICTURE: Colin/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0.
LondonLife – Taking in the view…
May 16, 2017
Looking over the River Thames from the Tate Modern at the dome of St Paul’s. PICTURE: Christian Battaglia/Unsplash
LondonLife – Going places…
May 9, 2017
PICTURE: Tom Eversley/Unsplash
LondonLife – City by night…
May 2, 2017
PICTURE: Negative Space/CC0. Taken in 2015.
The remains of several archbishops of Canterbury are believed to have been found beneath a former parish church in Lambeth. Workers were carrying out renovation works at the deconsecrated St Mary-at-Lambeth, removing flagstone, when they found a hitherto unknown crypt containing some 20 lead coffins one of 
which had a small gold archbishops’ mitre resting on top of it. Among those whose coffins have been identified are those of Archbishop Richard Bancroft (in office 1604-1610), who played an important role in the creation of the King James Bible, and Archbishop John Moore (1783-1805) as well as Moore’s wife Catherine and that of John Bettesworth, Dean of Arches, Judge of the Archbishop Prerogative court. It is also believed that archbishops Frederick Cornwallis (1768-1783), Matthew Hutton (1757-1758) and Thomas Tenison (1694-1715) were buried in the tomb under the church’s chancel. The church, which is located beside the River Thames adjacent to Lambeth Palace – London home of the archbishops of Canterbury, originally dates from the 11th century and was deconsecrated in the 1960s. The burial place of John Tradescant (c1570-1638), described as the first “great gardener” in British history, it was subsequently transformed into what is now known as the Garden Museum, the world’s first museum of garden history. The museum closed in 2015 for a £7.5 million redevelopment project and is expected to reopen in late May. PICTURE: Top – the lead coffins with metallic bishop’s mitre; a still taken from video posted on the Garden Museum website/Right – St Mary-at-Lambeth (right side of image).
LondonLife – Shoreditch’s giant Hedgehog…
April 11, 2017
Located in Chance Street in Shoreditch, the hedgehog mural was created in 2012 by Belgian street artist ROA. It’s recently had a make over by Jim Vision who added cavemen along the base attacking the poor creature with spears (as well as a self-referencing caveman version of the artwork).
PICTURE: Davide D’Amico/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
LondonLife – In the aftermath of tragedy…
March 28, 2017
Flowers on Westminster Bridge, placed there in the wake of last week’s terror attack in which an assailant, named as 52-year-old Khalid Masood, killed three people and injured at least 50 as he drove a vehicle at high speed across the bridge along a pedestrian walkway. Crashing outside the Houses of Parliament he then stabbed to death PC Keith Palmer before he was shot dead by another officer. Addressing a vigil in Trafalgar Square in the aftermath of the attack, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the city “will never be cowed” by terrorism. “Those evil and twisted individuals who try to destroy our shared way of life will never succeed and we condemn them,” he said. PICTURE: David Holt/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
