The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451 making it the fourth oldest university in the UK and second oldest in Scotland. They do run tours of the building for visitors but they weren’t running on the day I went so I did the self-guided tour which can be found on the university’s website.
Gedling Country Park is built on the site of Gedling Colliery which started producing coal in 1902 and closed in 1991. It was opened in 2015 as a 580 acre park with lots of open space, a choice of walks of varying difficulty and two viewing platforms that on a bright day allow for views across to Lincolnshire and Leicestershire.
Today for the first time since March I ventured into Nottingham City Centre in order to photograph the 10 owls that make up the Wise Owl Walk. It was quite a good work out as the owls are spread out around the city centre and I walked there and back to avoid using public transport. The owls are really well designed and it’s a nice way of getting people back into the city centre, though personally I didn’t stick around other than to take photographs which is probably what I would have done pre-pandemic as well! You can find a map of the trail to download here.
It should be obvious by now that I enjoy exploring a good cemetery and Glasgow’s Necropolis is one of the best. Established in 1832 it’s located on a hill next to Glasgow Cathedral (featuring in a future post) that, like Highgate in London, was inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Despite having visited Kensington Palace in the past I’ve never really spent much time in Kensington Gardens so I decided to rectify that on my last visit to London when the weather was surprisingly warm. Of course, my main reason for visiting was to photograph the Albert Memorial but I also wanted to see some of the other sculptures such as that of Peter Pan and to see if I could spot any of the famous Kensington parakeets, which as you can see below was a success.
Horse Guards Parade is the ceremonial parade ground by St James’s Park in London. Horse Guards is the building itself which dates from the 18th century, replacing an earlier building. It was built as a barracks and stables for the Household Cavalry and though still a military barracks it is also the site of the Household Cavalry Museum.
Soho Square was built in the 1670s when it was called King Square after Charles II, and a statue of him can still be found there. It’s possibly the earliest square in London to be built around a purposely laid out enclosed garden. It used to be a very fashionable residential area.
I travel through St Pancras a lot but don’t often have the chance to take photographs so I made sure to do so on my last trip. A beautiful example of Victorian Gothic architecture it was opened in 1868 by the Midland Railway Company. Designed by William Henry Barlow, after it opened the MRC built the Midland Grand Hotel as part of the station’s facade (I’ll talk about that in the next post).
The memorial to Queen Victoria outside of Buckingham Palace was created by the sculptor Thomas Brock in 1901 and unveiled ten years later, though it wasn’t completed until 1924.
Please note photos have been removed due to lack of hosting space.
I’ve had the Temple Church on my to visit list for a while now and I finally got around to it on this most recent trip to London. The London headquarters of the Knights Templar, from where Temple Church took its name, it was consecrated in 1185. The Templar’s churches were always built to a circular design in remembrance of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which certainly makes it a striking building.
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