Saturday, 1st July, 2023
Our day started with a visit to the Postal Museum. This
includes a ride on a short section of the London Post Office Railway.
This was an underground railway that ran for over 10km between
Paddington and Whitechapel. It was a narrow gauge railway with
driverless trains which moved mail between a number of mail sorting
centres. It was opened in 1926 and closed in 2003. Because of the
size of the tunnels, the tourist train is very cramped. As soon as I
got inside, I realised that I would not be be able to stay because
of claustrophobia. Apparently, a lot of people struggle with this
because they provided a video of the complete ride with the same
narration provided on the actual ride. I had not heard of this
railway before and found it all most interesting. The other section
of the museum consisted of exhibits relating to the Post Office from
the time of Charles II up to the present day. Again, it was most
interesting.
A battery-operated maintenance
locomotive, built in 1927. It was run by 127 cells.
The tourist train arriving back at the station
A fleet of 90 four-wheel rail cars carried the mail in 1927
when the railway opened.
The Postal Museum Building
The text above reads:
"Yesterday, Sunday 20 October 1816, an ASTONISHING ATTACK took
place at Winterslow Hut coaching inn near Salisbury. The
Exeter-London Mail Coach is known as Quicksilver for its speed
and efficiency but yesterday's event tested this to its
limits. Half-way through its journey to London, the passengers
aboard were astounded to see A LIONESS trotting alongside the
coach.
The driver, mistaking her for a calf, was not alarmed. But
when the coach pulled into the Winterslow coaching inn, the
lioness pounced and TOOK ONE OF THE HORSES, POMEGRANATE, IN
HER JAW.
The passengers, fearing for their lives, stormed the coaching
inn and barricaded themselves inside, shutting out Joseph Pike
- the Mail Coach Guard. Mr Pike's primary job was to ensure
the safety and security of the mail. To this end, he reached
for his regulation blunderbuss gun...
BUT BEFORE HE COULD FIRE at the lioness, a Mr Ballard appeared
pleading for the creature who, it seems, had escaped from his
travelling menagerie of animals.
Pike did not shoot. Instead, Mr Ballard set his Newfoundland
dog on to the lioness which then promptly hid under a grain
store.
The lioness was safely removed.
Rumours abound that Mr Ballard has today purchased Pomegranate
the horse and, although injured, he can now be seen at the
menagerie along with the lioness and the dog.
A spokesperson from the Royal Mail reported that there was NO
LOSS OF MAIL and the Mail Coach was only delayed by 45 minutes
before a new horse was found to complete the journey to
London.
Made to a Post Office design and built in 1935, this Morris
Minor mail van helped staff collect, transport and deliver the
post. Its small capacity made it perfect for rural areas.
This is Arnold Machin's final plaster cast, known as the
'Dressed Head', which provided the iconic portrait of Queen
Elizabeth II for use on British stamps from 1967 to date.
The next destination was All Saints' Church in
Margaret St. This church was designed by William Butterfield who was the architect of
our own St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne. It is a Grade I listed
building. The CEO of English Heritage called it "one of the ten most
important buildings in the country". Given the number of important
buildings in the country, that is high praise indeed! As soon as we
entered, we noticed the many similarities between the two buildings.
There were a great many works of art in the building including tile
murals, stone carvings and stained glass windows. There is also a
four-manual Harrison & Harrison pipe organ with 65 speaking
stops. We spent about an hour exploring this wonderful church.
After a ride on some very hot and crowded
Tube carriages, the garden at All Saints' was like an oasis in
the desert!
The Font
Detail of above
One of the tile murals
Enoch, Isaiah and Malachi
The Altar in one of the chapels
The Pulpit
I marvelled at how the person who made this could cut the
stones to such perfect sizes in order to construct this
decoration on the font.
Each panel was different
The Quire and the Sanctuary
The Altar
The Ceiling of the Sanctuary
The Choir stalls on the cantoris side and some of the organ
pipes
The view from the Quire, looking West
St Catherine (with the wheel on which she was martyred), and
St Alban (I'll leave it to your imagination as to why he is
shown with a sword).
St Athanasius, St Augustine of Hippo
St Augustine of Canterbury, Christ in Glory, and King Edward
St Gabriel, St Michael and St Raphael
The view from the west
The floor tiles
Almost every surface is decorated!
The Ceiling of the Nave
Alpha and Omega
Our third activity was to attend Evensong at Westminster Abbey. The
service was due to start at 5:00pm. After taking a wrong train on
the Underground, we arrived at 4:20pm. This still gave us first
place in the queue and a guaranteed place to sit in the Quire. We
were seated directly behind one side of the choir. This meant that
the balance of the sound was not perfect but we were so close we
could read the scores! The music included the responses by Morley
and Stanford's setting of the canticles in A Major. The reason for
my particular interest, though, was the anthem which was the "Chichester Psalms" by
Leonard Bernstein (who also composed the music for "West Side
Story"). This is a wonderful piece of music that runs 20 minutes and
requires a harp and percussion as well as the organ and, of course,
the choir. This is a difficult piece of music (the words are in
Hebrew for a start) which all the musicians performed superbly. If
you are not familiar with the work, you can hear it here with the score provided as well.
The organ voluntary was "Litanies" by Jehan Alain (another favourite
piece of music).
We were due at the Swan Bar and Restaurant for dinner at 6:00pm.
Unfortunately, the lengthy stay at the Abbey made us half an hour
late. Although I had called to let them know of our late arrival,
the restaurant staff were initially reluctant to provide all three
courses for us (which we had already paid for!). Satoshi made the
helpful suggestion that they could bring out the starter and main
course together. This seemed to settle them down and we managed to
eat dinner and arrive in a comfortable time frame at the Globe
Theatre (within the same complex) for a performance of Shakespeare's
"A Midsummer Night's Dream". The Globe Theatre is a
reconstruction of the theatre as it would have been in Shakespeare's
time, including a large standing room only section. We were
surprised to see how many people (300?) who were willing to stand
for the whole play (2.5 hours). Our seats were benches (without
backs) but cushions were provided! The cast was excellent and we
both enjoyed the performance very much.
Dinner at the Swan Bar and Restaurant
Outside the Globe
Theatre