London - Day 1

With an early start, SatNav did its thing once more, and got me to Heathrow in good time to drop off the rental car. Heathrow Express train into Paddington is expensive, but not when you book it well in advance, so I was at the hotel before noon – too early to check in, but they stored my bags so I was free to wander. The hotel is five minutes away from Paddington, but in a quiet little square – it’s one of those tall narrow houses, and there’s no elevator. I’m on the second floor – thank goodness it’s not the one above, which has narrow attic-type stairs. It’s a very small room with a bathroom that perhaps twice the size of an airplane bathroom – shower, toilet and basin. Good job I’m not claustrophobic!

I'd not heard of this Finnish artist - Akseli Gallen-Kallela - 
1905, and wonderful treatment of light

I walked down to Bayswater Road and caught a bus to Pall Mall, and then walked along to the National Gallery, where I spent a very pleasant couple of hours exploring.  There was a good Francis of Assisi exhibition, which I really liked, and some imaginative children’s work coming from a Gallery project. I should probably have gone to the Portrait Gallery first – I’ll have to do that another day.

The Sermon to the Birds

Then I walked along the Strand – with a late-lunchtime stop for a very nice salad nicoise – and then on with en route halts at St Clement Dane and the Courts of Justice and a couple of other places – to St Paul’s. 

St Clement Dane - the Air Force church

The Courts of Justice

I have to say, I quailed when I saw the lineup, but they cut off access to sightseers just as I got to the front, and said “people for Evensong only”, so that was good timing.   It was actually 40 minutes pre-service, so there was a good wait with too much chatter around me, and (thank goodness!) some folks deciding that they weren’t going to stay after all.

St Paul's dome

The visiting choir was from San Antonio, Texas – more than 40 of them – and they sang Murrill in E and Wood’s “Hail Gladdening Light” – both quite well. The psalms were pretty unintelligible, though – the organist was having too much fun, and the acoustic just blurred everything/

Then back to the hotel to sort my room out, and then leaving once more, this time to head for St Stephen’s Gloucester Road, for a concert by The Kings Men – the current batch of choral scholars who aspire to be the next Kings Singers.

St Stephen's Gloucester Road - very red and ornate!

I was a little disappointed – they sang a Morales motet and two Byrd ones (for the centennial) but almost everything else was slightly-too-clever choral arrangements of folksong, jazz and pop. And sometimes they were having so much fun that details of balance were a little lacking. The classic arrangements – Bob Chilcott’s and Philip Lawson’s – have an unfussy clarity that stand up very well against all the clever stuff. Actually, what I enjoyed most was listening to the organ scholar play the Vierne “Carillon de Westminster”!

I discovered these in Gloucester Road station - the work of a woman called Monster Chetwynd! Apparently the giant water-lily was the inspiration behind the design of Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition in 1851.  These wonderful water-lily pads are installed on the tunnel wall facing the platform. Fascinating!

A sprinkle of rain as I headed back – let’s see what the weather makes of tomorrow’s plans!