Abbey

Probably prompted by reading about Eric Gill, I decided to pay a visit to Westminster Abbey last week, the first time for some years.

Visitors

So off to their website, very much the sort of thing one would expect for a major attraction, doing according to the snip above, between one and two million visitors a year, maybe 5,000 an average day. Bearing in mind that I have no idea whether these statista people (reference 1) are reliable. Slightly puzzled by the huge queues, given that this is only four or five times as many people as they get at Polesden Lacey, and one rarely sees queues - or indeed crowds - there. Maybe they all get lost in the bigger space. Maybe queue theory says there is some tipping point at which queues build up fast.

With the result of all this being that I get a semi-timed ticket, that is to say for the 1130-1330 slot, rather than the more specific time you might get at, for example, the Tate Modern. I take with me our Jarrold's Guide to the Abbey, purchased in 2002 when admission to the Abbey was a paltry £6, compared with the online price of £20 now.

On the train, two middle aged ladies get on at Wimbledon, sit down opposite me and start nattering away in some unknown language. Pale skins, western dress, fairly smart. Eyebrows shaved off and replaced by black paint. Eventually curiosity gets the better of me and I find out that they are talking Arabic, variety Iraq. They tell me that the comprehensibility of other peoples' Arabic decreases with distance, so that from Morocco is getting a bit difficult for them. Not least because of all the French that has sneaked in.

The missing Bullingdon

Pulled a Bullingdon at Vauxhall and pedalled off to Smith Square, just behind the Abbey. Oddly TFL seem to have lost their record of this journey, the first time they have done such a thing. Let's hope this does not result in any unexpected charges. My record included above, including the irritating yellow cycles. To my mind, it would be a lot more sensible if these competitors to TFL were banned. TFL have a much better system, a system which is in place and working well. Why clutter the place up with other systems which are going to suck money away from TFL? A nice comfortable public sector monopoly should rule in this matter.

Carex pendula

Came across an usual use of what looked like carex pendula as a bedding plant in Tufton Street, recently mowed. Looked like it was doing alright.

Into the Abbey via Dean's Yard where I was surprised to find a taxi drivers' hut, still green but rather derelict looking. What was it doing there? Had it been removed from the outside on the grounds that it was a security risk there?

The queues were very big and it was very hot. However, the talk of fast track on the website kicked in once I had got through the security check and I could skip the second and larger queue, to find myself inside a very busy Abbey - but still pleasantly cool after the outside world. I was quite struck by the state of undress of many of the young ladies, and was reminded of the occasional trouble in the far east with young ladies from the west visiting temples in a state of undress. To someone of my age, despite being an atheist, it all seems a bit disrespectful, but thinking about it now I am not so sure: perhaps thoughtless would be a better word, there being no intention to show disrespect.

Intrigued by the variety of style and ornament of the large coffins arranged around the High Altar. Some of them included friezes of wooden human figures, maybe a foot or so high, all with their faces cut off, presumably at some time when Puritans were getting excited by images in churches. Just the sort of thing we have noticed in the past at Ely Cathedral. Also by the fact that a couple of earls seemed to have wangled pole positions right next to the High Altar, not kings at all. Perhaps they were top men at the time this part of the Abbey was built by Henry III in the middle of the thirteenth century. Henry V got a good spot too, right behind the shrine of the Confessor.

Otherwise, the memorials were, certainly to some extent, grouped by profession. So naval people here, politicians there and so on. But there were an awful lot of them, and what with the large stacks of chairs (presumably for occasional use in the nave), it was not always easy to see the church itself. One got a sense of the height of the place and the apse looked well, but that was about it. I can't imagine that St. Benedict - under whose rule the Abbey lived for the first few hundred years of its life - would have approved.

Very flashy Lady Chapel added at the east end for Henry VII and his lady, now used by the Order of Bath for their occasional meetings. On which I came across an informative and interesting trusty, whom I suspected of being ex-army, but I did not like to ask, not being an ex-military man myself. Amused by the high chairs originally being reserved for the knights proper, with the low chairs being for their squires (écuyers according to the tickets) and other hangers on.

Didn't think much of the stained glass. Rose windows disappointing.

Ceiling, from Pinterest

I had not noticed the ceiling decoration before, with geometric designs in paint, around the ribs and bosses.

A communion service going on in the nave, led by a priest from Scotland, quite well attended by properly behaved visitors - if a little casual in their dress, by the standards of divine service in Agatha Christie costume dramas.

A view from upstairs

Quite by chance came across the new gallery in the triforium, not long opened. Quiet and excellent value for a fiver, with the triforium being interesting in itself - plus one had the opportunity to be up close and personal with the stonework that one usually only sees from a distance. Or as BH put it later, stuff which had been intended for the private consumption of the deity himself. Consecrated to his greater glory, rather than to our entertainment. From where, I now associate to the mysteries of the Greeks, only available to adepts and initiates. All that stuff which is and which should be withheld from the hoi polloi. Winston Churchill would have understood - and would, once again, have been wrong.

Followed by interesting views of the Abbey below - including an excellent view down the length of the sanctuary, quire and nave, all the way to the west door - and a good selection of stuff moved up from the museum. Some of it rather strange. Handsome new spiral staircase tacked onto the side of the old building, maybe between the Lady Chapel and one of the smaller chapels adjacent.

To the chapter house to see the three inch heating pipe running around, underneath the remnants of ancient wall paintings. A place which must have been very cold in the winter at the time of its construction back at the end of the middle ages. To the much smaller pyx chamber next door to see its heavy duty double door, a reminder of its one-time function as a treasure chamber.

Second Bullingdon of the day from Storey's Gate, Westminster to Stamford Street, South Bank in 11 minutes and 16 seconds. Very few pedal rickshaws parked up in the cycle lane on this occasion. Down to Konditur & Cook to see what they could do in the way of hot weather cakes and eventually settled for a summer fruits frangipane tart, after a scare about cranberries. On the second time of asking, it turned out that there was only a trace rather than an ingredient, along the way being amused by the shop girl saying that she would ask her decorator about it.

Much waffle from the guard in my delayed train about red lights and passenger safety, waffle which served to camouflage a straightforward signal failure.

Stopped at Raynes Park to collect a boxed set of books about Minecraft which might help me keep up with the grandchildren which do that, a game which might be displacing Lego among the amusements of older boys. (I don't suppose many girls do it despite the best efforts of all concerned). Plus a conveniently small copy of Büchner's Woyseck in the original German, all 29 pages of it. Made up with 'Leonce und Lena'. 2 euros from Philipp Reclam jun. Stuttgart. See references 3 and 4. Sadly, more or less useless, as I don't do German and I can't see these fragments of a play ever being put on here in anything close to the original.

Home to a modest celebration involving baked cod loins from Waitrose (what used to be less grandly called cod fillet when I was small and cod was cheap), the cake from Konditur & Cook and some of Waitrose's finest white, that is to say Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot, 2015, out of Louis Jadot.

Cake

Wine

All very good, and the cake had indeed survived the heat on the way home. We passed on the Calvados, bought against the occasion, but having done enough for one day.

Spirit

Note the Holman Hunt sheep in the background. It seems that he was much admired by French painters of his day for his skill in painting the thin part of a sheep's ear with the sun behind it.

In the evening, I turned out the old picture book about the abbey, noticed at reference 5 and where I was pleased to find handsome photographs of most of the things that had struck me during the day. And to read, once again, a little of the history of the place.

Reference 1: https://www.statista.com/. 'Within just a few years, Statista managed to establish itself as a leading provider of market and consumer data. Over 500 visionaries, experts and doers continuously reinvent Statista, thereby constantly developing successful new products and business models'.

Reference 2: https://minecraft.net/en-us/.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/06/woyzeck-two.html.

Reference 4: https://www.reclam.shop/service/impressum.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/better-late-than-never.html.