London Bridge refers to several bridges that have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge constructed from concrete and steel. It replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded a 600-year-old medieval structure. This was preceded by a succession of timber bridges; the first was built by the Roman founders of London. [1]
The current bridge still stands at the western end of the Pool of London but it is positioned 30 metres (98 ft) upstream from the original alignment. The traditional ends of the medieval bridge were marked by St Magnus-the-Martyr on the northern bank and Southwark Cathedral on the southern shore. Until Putney Bridge opened in 1729, London Bridge was the only road-crossing of the Thames downstream of Kingston-upon-Thames.
The modern bridge is owned and maintained by Bridge House Estates, an independent charity overseen by the City of London Corporation. The A3, which it carries, is maintained by the Greater London Authority.[2] The crossing also delineates an area along the southern bank of the River Thames, between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, that has been designated as a business improvement district.[3]
After spending quite some time walking about, we went over to the London Eye,what a view.
The London Eye is a giant Ferris wheel situated on the banks of the River Thames, in London, England. The entire structure is 135 metres (443 ft) tall and the wheel has a diameter of 120 metres (394 ft).
It is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, and the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom, visited by over 3.5 million people annually.[3] When erected in 1999, it was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, until surpassed first by the 160 m (520 ft) Star of Nanchang in 2006, and then the 165 m (541 ft) Singapore Flyer in 2008. It is still described by its operators as "the world's tallest cantilevered observation wheel" (as the wheel is supported by an A-frame on one side only, unlike the Nanchang and Singapore wheels).[4]
The London Eye, or Millennium Wheel, was officially called the British Airways London Eye and then the Merlin Entertainments London Eye. Since 20 January 2011, its official name is the EDF Energy London Eye[5] following a three-year sponsorship deal.
The London Eye is located in the London Borough of Lambeth at the western end of Jubilee Gardens, on the South Bank of the River Thames between Westminster Bridge and Hungerford Bridge
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After the London Eye we went to Westminster Abby
Westminster Abbey is steeped in more than a thousand years of history. Benedictine monks first came to this site in the middle of the tenth century, establishing a tradition of daily worship which continues to this day.
The Abbey has been the coronation church since 1066 and is the final resting place of seventeen monarchs.
The present church, begun by Henry III in 1245, is one of the most important Gothic buildings in the country, with the medieval shrine of an Anglo-Saxon saint still at its heart.
A treasure house of paintings, stained glass, pavements, textiles and other artefacts, Westminster Abbey is also the place where some of the most significant people in the nation's history are buried or commemorated. Taken as a whole the tombs and memorials comprise the most significant single collection of monumental sculpture anywhere in the United Kingdom.
The Library and Muniment Room houses the important (and growing) collections of archives, printed books and manuscripts belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, providing a centre for their study and for research into all aspects of the Abbey's long and varied history.
Royals & the Abbey
Westminster Abbey has always enjoyed close links with the monarchy not least in its unbroken role as the coronation church since 1066.
Westminster Abbey or - to use its formal name - the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, is a ‘Royal Peculiar’. This means it is a free chapel of the Sovereign, exempt from any ecclesiastical jurisdiction other than that of the Sovereign. Royal Peculiars originated in Anglo-Saxon times and developed as a result of the unique relationship between the Norman and Plantagenet Kings and the English Church. In 1222 the Abbey was declared a Papal Peculiar, exempt from the jurisdiction of both the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury. It has been a Royal Peculiar since 1533 when the Ecclesiastical Licences Act, as confirmed by the Act of Supremacy of 1559, transferred to the Sovereign the jurisdiction which had previously been exercised by the Pope. Other Royal Peculiars include St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle and the Chapels Royal.
Coronations at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey has witnessed 38 coronations: the first documented coronation here was that of William the Conqueror in 1066, the most recent was that of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953.Before 1066 there was no fixed location for the coronation ceremony. Bath, Canterbury, Kingston-Upon-Thames and Winchester were all at various times places of crowning and Edward the Confessor does not seem to have deliberately planned the Abbey as a coronation church. However, his immediate successor, Harold Godwineson, is known to have been at Westminster when the king died and it is likely that his crowning the following day was in the Abbey, though there is no surviving contemporary evidence to confirm it.
William I (‘the Conqueror’), who as Duke of Normandy defeated Harold at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, marched to London with his army after the battle and, perhaps to reinforce his claim to be King Edward’s legitimate successor, chose the Abbey for his crowning on Christmas Day. His is the first certain crowning of a king at Westminster and all subsequent coronations have taken place here. Only two monarchs - Edward V (a boy king, one of the Princes in the Tower) and Edward VIII (who abdicated) - have not been crowned at all.
The Abbey’s role as a coronation church influenced Henry III’s rebuilding of the church in the mid-thirteenth century. The worshipping requirements of the monastic community had to be reconciled with the need for a large space or ‘theatre’ in which an assembly of people could witness the anointing and crowning of the monarch. The plan of the Abbey copies the French coronation church, Reims Cathedral, in placing the quire to the west of the crossing and transepts. This created a large space between the quire and the sanctuary suitable for the coronation ceremony. At other times wooden screens across the transepts provided the enclosed quire required for monastic worship.
The first king to be crowned in the Gothic abbey church was Edward I in 1274, though only the eastern portion of the new building was complete by that stage. Later, around 1298, Edward ordered the construction of the Coronation Chair which is said to have been used at every subsequent coronation.
From at least the thirteenth century the monarch made a formal progress from the Tower of London to the Palace of Westminster on the eve of the coronation. On coronation day the ceremonies began in Westminster Hall whence a grand procession made its way to the Abbey for the coronation service itself, returning to the Hall afterwards for a lavish banquet. These ceremonies no longer take place. James II declined the procession from the City, and the preliminary ceremonies and banquet in Westminster Hall were abandoned after George IV’s coronation in 1821. Instead, for the coronation of William IV in 1831, a temporary building was erected at the west end of the Abbey to provide space for the processions to form. An ‘annexe’ of this kind has been constructed ever since.
The coronation service, though always following a common pattern, has also proved remarkably adaptable. The Latin order of service of the middle ages gave way, at the crowning of Elizabeth I in 1558, to a mixture of Latin and English and then, at the coronation of James I (James VI of Scotland) in 1603, to an entirely English liturgy. In 1689 the service was adapted again so that William III and Mary II might be crowned as joint monarchs. A second Coronation Chair (now in the Abbey’s Museum) was made to emphasise the shared nature of their sovereignty.
At eighteenth and early nineteenth century coronations public spectacle sometimes overshadowed religious significance. At George III’s coronation in 1761 some of the congregation began to eat a meal during the sermon! George IV’s coronation was a great theatrical spectacle and the king spent vast sums of money on it. In contrast his successor, William IV, had to be persuaded to have a coronation at all and spent so little money that it became known as ‘the penny coronation’. With Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838, however, came a renewed appreciation of the true significance of the coronation ceremony.
Twentieth century coronations combined the solemnity of the religious service with magnificent pageantry and, because of Britain’s history as an imperial power, became truly international occasions. Dignitaries from all over the world and from many different ethnic and religious backgrounds attended, some to witness the coronation of their own Head of State, others as diplomatic representatives of foreign countries. The decision to televise the coronation of the present Queen in 1953 made it possible for the general public to witness the ceremony in its entirety for the first time. It is possible that few watching realized just how far back into history the roots of that magnificent ceremony stretched, and how little fundamental change had occurred over the centuries.
Royal Weddings at Westminster Abbey.
Westminster Abbey has hosted only sixteen royal weddings in its long history (of reigning monarchs or those who, had it been established at the time, were entitled to the style “Royal Highness”). History records a number of weddings taking place “at Westminster” but his did not necessarily mean at the Abbey. Another probable venue was St Stephen’s chapel in the Palace of Westminster. Whitehall Palace and Greenwich Palace were two of the locations used by Henry VIII. St James’s Palace and St George’s chapel Windsor were also popular with later monarchs and their children. Princess Patricia, a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, began the modern trend for royal marriages at Westminster Abbey in 1919 and Princess Mary and Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, who married the future George VI, chose to follow her example.Royal Burials at Westminster Abbey.
St Edward the Confessor built a new Abbey Church at Westminster, refounding the monastery there. Thus he created his own burial place, a symbol of his kingship and grandeur to bear comparison with anything contemporary monarchs could show. The Abbey was ready for Edward’s burial in January 1066. It was not until Henry III rebuilt Edward’s church in a more magnificent style 200 years later that another English monarch chose the Abbey as his burial place. Even then Henry decreed that his heart should be buried at Fontevrault Abbey in France where his predecessors had tombs.As space for royal burials around the Shrine of St Edward was full Henry VII built a new Lady Chapel at the east end of the Church, with vaults beneath the floor, for burials of himself and other members of the Tudor dynasty. Elizabeth I, who died in 1603, was the last English monarch to have a monument erected at the Abbey. In 1612 James I chose to bring the body of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Abbey from Peterborough cathedral where she had originally been buried and he erected a magnificent monument for her in the south aisle of Henry VII’s chapel. For the burial of his queen, Caroline, George II constructed a large new vault under the central aisle of the Lady Chapel and in 1760 he was the last monarch to have interment in the Abbey. Lack of space for royal monuments and burials meant that subsequent monarchs were buried at Windsor.
Some regular pics on London Again-3
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