I very rarely take photos of tube stations when I’m down in London as usually I’m too busy heading away from them or the exits are too crowded for me to want to wade through to get a good photo. That being said sometimes I do manage it and this is the first in an occasional series, amalgamating several trips to London.
Whenever I travel anywhere I always take photos of buildings and statues that catch my eye without necessarily realising what their significance is at the time. This was the case with the Supreme Court building, where I started taking photos of the beautiful friezes around the outside before realising quite where I was.
As the name suggests this particular branch of Lloyd’s Bank is on Fleet Street, opposite the Royal Courts of Justice. It caught my eye as I was taking photos of the courts because of the sumptuously designed entrance way, so I took a detour to explore the building further.
The Punch Tavern is a Grade II listed pub on Fleet Street that caught my eye as I was passing because of the impressive sign outside.
St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, not to be confused with the Cathedral, was designed by Inigo Jones in 1651 and is also known as The Actor’s Church because of its history with the theatre community. Completed in 1633 it was the first new church to be built since the Reformation.
St Bride’s is one of the oldest churches in London, dating back over 2,000 years. The current building was designed by Christopher Wren in 1627. It’s probably most famous for its spire, said to have inspired a baker to make what is now the traditional tiered wedding cake.
Dr Johnson’s House is the 300 year old townhouse where Samuel Johnson lived and worked compiling his dictionary. Built by Richard Gough, a wool merchant, his is the only house to have survived from that time, including being damaged during the Blitz. It is nestled away down side streets off Fleet Street and it was a little tricky to find, though this could equally have been down to me paying more attention to photographing the area as it was to a surprising lack of signage.
St Clement Danes Church in London is one of a group of churches that I had time to photograph but not go inside and visit properly (and which I do intend to rectify when I’m next in the area). The first church on the site was built by the Danes (hence the name) but the church that stands there now is a 17th century Christopher Wren design.
I spent a lot of time on my last London trip around Fleet Street and the Strand and one of my favourite buildings to photograph was most definitely the Royal Courts of Justice. It’s a large Victorian Gothic building which was built in the 1870s and opened by Queen Victoria in 1882.
Carlyle’s House is the home of Thomas and Jane Carlyle, preserved largely as it was when they lived there from 1834 by the National Trust. I didn’t know anything about the Carlyle’s prior to my visit, but learned that Thomas Carlyle was a writer and historian and that he and his wife Jane entertained the best and brightest of the Victorian literary world in their Chelsea home, including Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
