May/June 2017

Sceptered Isle: Entwined and Engaged

Photo Competition: Greenwich Park

“ONE OF MY FAVORITE PLACES is Maritime Greenwich. Over the Christmas Holiday, I went back to see the Armada portrait, the Queen’s House and the Emma Hamilton exhibit. When I left the Queen’s House, I was caught up in the atmospheric landscape. The sun was reflecting on the clouds and buildings through the mist and fog.” —Patricia Peek The picture is taken facing south from the banks of the Thames. Standing on the sight of the old Greenwich Palace, the “new” palace (which soon became a home for disabled seaman) was completed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1696. The college and its famous chapel are open daily and offer free admission. It is also home to the Discover Greenwich Visitors Centre.

Historic Trees: Hearts of Oak

Photo Essay: Rutland and Hidden England

Jump off on the A605 to see the impressive village church of Fotheringhay, with its monuments and tombs of the Dukes of York through the Wars of the Roses. They based at Fotheringhay Castle, now just green mounds of earth across the street. Mary Queen of Scots was executed there in 1587. When her son James I became King of England, he had the castle razed. At the Talbot Hotel in nearby Oundle, the main staircase was constructed of the scaffold where Mary was beheaded. Needless to say, the unhappy Queen’s ghost haunts the hostelry. Bordering the market town of Stamford, Burghley House may be England’s most impressive 16th-century home, built by Queen Elizabeth I’s treasurer, Sir William Cecil. The Cecil family still live in the stately pile in the midst of 2,000 acres of parkland laid out by Capability Brown in the 18th century and surrounded by exquisite gardens, including a “Garden of Surprises.” Don’t be surprised, though, to find the estate’s semi-tame resident herd of 400 deer wandering around. Catch a vintage steam train for a ride from Peterborough to Yarwell Junction on the Nene Valley Railway—home to the original Thomas the Tank Engine. To the west near Corby, Rockingham Castle’s quaint liveability belies its history. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle served as a hunting lodge for Plantagenet kings for 300 years. It was acquired by Sir Edward Watson in the late 1400s and remains the private home of his descendents. The beautiful terraced lawns overlook the broad Welland Valley.

A Day Well Spent: Southwell

Gallivanting Gardens of the Cotswolds

Around Town: Take a Walk on the South Side

The south side of London’s river has historically played second fiddle to its sophisticated northern counterpart, always pampered with patronage, transport and money. Years of regeneration projects and downright lack of space, however, have slowly chipped away at the South Bank’s shabby image, and it has finally found its place in the sun. To walk from Tower Bridge to Putney would take the best part of a day, and that’s without stopping off to enjoy the sights you’re passing. Just as no one sensible would lump the City in with Westminster, Embankment and Chelsea, so Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Bankside, the South Bank and beyond are all destinations in their own right. London’s south side warrants several visits. Since medieval times, “south of the river” was the place Londoners went for fun, a legendary no-man’s land cab drivers refused to visit. The theaters, bearbaiting and brothels of Shakespeare’s day, the notorious Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens of the 18th century and the famous 1951 Festival of Britain, built on a bomb site, all promised escape. The festival’s site now forms the epicenter of a modern London pleasure zone. The Royal Festival Hall was, as the name suggests, built for the expo. It’s an extraordinary piece of postwar architecture, well worth enjoying. It has recently been renovated, stripped back to its original modernist lines. The hall hosts classical, contemporary and high-class pop events, and is a real treat to visit. It has a varied foyer program and a rather nice restaurant, the Skylon (named for the sadly lost centerpiece of the festival) boasting great food and an even better view of Westminster, the Embankment and the Thames. Its younger, quirkier sister, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, is sadly closed for muchneeded renovation until 2018, but her roof garden, which softens the Brutalist architecture, is still open and worth a (free) visit. Another love-it-or-hate-it Brutalist masterpiece, the National Theatre, is most definitely open for business. A sprawling labyrinth of cast concrete, it’s actually much softer than it first appears, and the choice of productions in its three main spaces is wide, challenging and usually excellent. Backstage tours are available, but I’ve never been on one. The entire complex may be reached via the Thames Path, which at this point is a wide promenade, with fairy lights in the plane trees and dozens of eateries of varying quality. Skateboarders have been whizzing round the undercroft below the buildings since the 1970s. If you’re walking across the delightful Hungerford Bridge, do look down at the southernmost pier at their secret skateboard graveyard. Each broken board has its own memorial, lovingly posted online. Run the sculpture-garden gauntlet of living statues in the walk up to the London Eye, still one of my top picks for any visit to the capital. On a clear day (or night), there really is something special about this most touristy of landmarks. Even I love being a tourist sometimes. Unless you have children with you, another tourist mecca, the former County Hall, is probably not one for the must-do list. It houses attractions such as the London Dungeon, Sea Life London Aquarium and Dreamworks’ Shrek’s Adventure, all squarely aimed at the family market. As you pass under Waterloo Bridge, however, a large market of second-hand book stalls makes for entertaining browsing, after which you might enjoy a coffee in the lobby of the British Film Institute or visit one of their four cinemas, always showing something offbeat. If you prefer your screens big, the massive, cylindrical IMAX cinema fills the entirety of Waterloo roundabout, now cloaked in tumbling Virginia creeper; it is rather beautiful to behold. Coming out of the underpass the other side allows one of the best (and only) ways to experience the grand, Art Nouveau entrance of Waterloo station, obscured from most angles by later construction. There are some curious things to see in the station itself, as there are in any London terminus, and I often nip up to the modern mezzanine to enjoy a coffee in Benugo, a decent chain, overlooking the bustle below. The former Eurostar line to Paris (now removed to St. Pancras) is being redesignated as a local line, so is currently under wraps. Behind the station, Waterloo turns into a different beast. Traditionally rather scruffy, the Cut is a funny little street full of curious, single-interest shops, though these are, like the rest of the capital, one by one, being swallowed and turned swanky. A lovely survivor, I Knit London describes itself as a “sanctuary for knitters,” and it is, indeed, more like a club than a store. It’s certainly the only yarn shop I know of that boasts a licensed bar. At the end of the Cut, in Westminster Bridge Road, a rather dull entranceway labeled Westminster Bridge House is worth scouting out for sheer novelty value. Looking up, you’ll see a grand Victorian edifice, the sole remnant of the Necropolis Railway—a railway for the dead. Well-to-do Londoners would bury their loved ones in the leafy, suburban Brookwood cemetery, traveling by train with the coffin. The railway was bombed in World War II and never rebuilt.