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  #161  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2012, 10:07 PM
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PART NINE: TOFFS

St James’: All Around the Park






























Last edited by Bedhead; Oct 3, 2015 at 7:32 AM.
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  #162  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2012, 10:10 PM
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XXXVI – Charles II

So, we’re back for another instalment in leafy St James’, trying, as ever, to find London’s prodigal sons and daughters – people condemned or punished by the city, only to be honoured after death.

This time, it’s the turn of the aristocrats – those who were born into the highest ranks of society, only to fall the furthest, yet eventually rise again.

And we start at the very top, with Charles II: the patron of St Pauls’ Cathedral, the founder of the Royal Society, London’s most flamboyant - and arguably most influential - monarch.

It was all very different on the 6th September 1651, when, having been defeated by Oliver Cromwell in the battle of Worcester, he spent the day hiding in an oak tree in Shropshire, a wanted man in his own kingdom, with a price of £1000 on his head for treason.

He managed to evade the Parliamentary forces and escaped to France. Nine years later, he returned to England as King, and is remembered with statues in London in Soho and Chelsea, as well as having a street that runs through London’s most swanky neighbourhood named after him.


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  #163  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2012, 10:11 PM
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XXXVII - Charles I



Charles II achieved a great political comeback in his own lifetime, but his father, Charles I, wasn’t so lucky. One of England’s most incompetent Kings (early in his reign, he allowed England to be invaded by Scotland - when he himself was also King of Scotland) he was beheaded by his own subjects in January 1649, at the end of a bitter civil war.

In death, however, Charles rose to even greater status than he had ever enjoyed in life. During his son’s reign, he was canonised. Surprisingly, he is still remembered by some as ‘King Charles the Martyr’. From time to time, flowers adorn the base of the monument to Charles I in Trafalgar square – an equestrian statue of the King that looks down Whitehall, to the site of the hapless Monarch’s execution.







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  #164  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2012, 10:12 PM
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XXXVIII - Oliver Cromwell

On the whole, Londoners are an even-handed bunch, and it just wouldn’t do to have Charles I and II immortalised with all sorts of statues and beatifications without paying tribute to the man who signed the death warrant of the older Charles and put a price on the head of the younger one.

Cromwell had died before Charles II’s restoration, but that didn’t stop his body from being exhumed, hanged and beheaded, and his severed head was displayed on a spike outside Westminster Hall. Nowadays, there is a much more attractive reminder of Cromwell outside the Houses of Parliament, just down the road from the statue of his arch enemy, Charles I.



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  #165  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2012, 10:13 PM
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Greenwich: Paladian Paradise





































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  #166  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2012, 10:14 PM
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Sir Walter Raleigh

Few figures in British history are the subject of as many rich anecdotes as Sir Water Raleigh, the charming buccaneer of Elizabethan England. He was the man who dashingly threw his cloak down in front of Queen Elizabeth, to save her from a muddy puddle. He was the man who brought tobacco to Europe from the New World, only to be doused with a bucket of water by a servant who thought Raleigh had caught on fire when smoke came out of his mouth. He was the man who introduced the potato to Ireland, discovered Venezuela’s Angel Falls and carved love notes to Elizabeth Tudor on a window using a diamond ring.

Is any of this true? Probably not. But who cares?

What is known is that James I, infuriated by Raliegh’s tendency to raid and plunder Spanish towns despite all instructions to the contrary, had Raleigh executed in 1618.

You can’t keep a good man down, though, and Raliegh is remembered on both sides of the Atlantic in many ways. It’s fitting that his most prominent statue in London is by the side of the Thames in Greenwich - a neighbourhood synonymous with London’s maritime past.

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  #167  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2012, 10:15 PM
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XXXIX - Mary, Queen of Scots

Of all the royal dynasties in Europe, the Stuarts were amongst the most accident prone. Charles I was not the first member of the family to be deposed by his own subjects and then executed after bungled attempts to regain former glories.

His grandmother, Mary Stuart, was forced to abdicate from the Scottish throne in 1567 after an uprising against her marriage to the Earl of Bothwell, a man suspected of murdering her second husband (and first cousin), Lord Darnley.

After a failed attempt to regain the throne from her son, James VI, she fled to England. It was a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire: as the first Catholic in line to the English throne, her cousin Elizabeth I regarded her as a major threat, and had her imprisoned. Eighteen years later, and after several failed plots to kill Elizabeth, Mary was executed.

Mary’s revival in public affections is less dramatic than that of martyrs like Thomas Moore, and she was never canonised the Catholic Church - but she does command some sympathy as a woman who struggled to hold her own in brutal times.

In 1905, one of her admirers, a Scottish MP and property developer called Sir John George Tollemache Sinclair (who was himself descended from the Earl of Caithness, one of Mary Stuart’s contemporary supporters) built an ornate neo-gothic building in Fleet Street and named it after Mary. Today, her statue continues to inhabit a nook above a sandwich shop.


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  #168  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2012, 10:15 PM
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The Tower: First of Many

























Last edited by Bedhead; Mar 30, 2015 at 7:29 PM.
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  #169  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2012, 10:16 PM
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XXXVI – Julius Caesar




The French make all the best monuments – The Eiffel Tower, The Statue of Liberty, even the sculptor of the famous statute of Christ in Rio was a Frenchman.

It’s no different in London – the Tower, a tall, proud castle synonymous with the defence of the realm, was itself built by invaders from over the Channel.

So it seems fitting that in its shadow should stand an even older invader: Julius Caesar, the Roman geezer – London’s first unwanted immigrant.

Of course, London wasn’t built when Caesar invaded Britain for the second time in 54 BC, but that didn’t stop the Ancient Britons from organising an unwelcome party for him on the shores of the Thames – probably where Westminster is now.

Caesar only stuck around in Briton long enough to remark that it had a lot of buildings and cows, before making his way back to Gaul, never to be seen again.

Nowadays, a lot has changed. There are fewer cows in the area, and more buildings. Today, Londoners also think more fondly of Caesar than they did back then – in Stanmore, on the northern fringes of Greater London, there is even a street called Julius Caesar Way – just round the corner from Cleopatra Close.

(Many thanks to LSyd for suggesting this stop on the tour!)
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  #170  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2012, 3:16 PM
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That reflection of the shard is a cracker . I can't wait for the walk way to be built over the O2 arena roof and the new cable cars should be fun.
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  #171  
Old Posted Mar 9, 2012, 3:05 PM
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absolutely brilliant bedhead!
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  #172  
Old Posted Mar 9, 2012, 3:06 PM
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Quote:
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I must get myself down to the big smoke haven't been for years and it's only just over 2 hours from lime street .Anyway great photos of London, i always feel like i am abroad when visiting.
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  #173  
Old Posted Mar 9, 2012, 3:13 PM
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Man oh man this thread is awesome.
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  #174  
Old Posted Mar 10, 2012, 10:32 PM
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I have no comment except that this is the forever rival city.

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  #175  
Old Posted Mar 16, 2012, 12:02 AM
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Good stuff out of you Bedhead....keep em coming.
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  #176  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2012, 2:29 PM
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Thanks for the comments!

Fern - I had no idea about the cable cars and the walkway - they should be fantastic.
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  #177  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2012, 3:04 AM
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great update

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  #178  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2012, 2:59 PM
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Amazing tour!!! London clearly isn't near as "hillbilly" as the world has been led to believe.
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  #179  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2012, 5:27 PM
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amazing thread bedhead. can't believe i never saw this one before. you've captured the essence of why london is my favorite city.
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  #180  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2012, 8:01 PM
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amazing thread bedhead. can't believe i never saw this one before. you've captured the essence of why london is my favorite city.
You have really never seen this thread? wow. This thread is consistently awesome.
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