We had a bit bigger day today! We left home around 9:30am and caught the No.6 bus expecting to get off at Drury Lane, but no, this No. 6 terminated at Piccadilly Circus! Go figure huh! So we got off this No. 6 bus and got the No.6 bus that was just behind us that was going to Aldwych, where No.6 buses are meant to go! ?
After we got off the bus we walked up to Holborn to Sir John Soane’s Museum. Soane was an influential and wealthy architect. In the last 30+ years of his life he accumulated a vast array of worldly artifacts and treasures. So much in fact, that he bought and renovated 3 adjoining house to accomodate his collection. On top of his vast collection of antiquities, furniture, sculptures, sarcophaguses, books, roman busts and figures, etc he had a collection of over 30,000 architectural drawings.
Before he died, he had a private Act of Parliament passed, leaving his home to the nation. The interiors and collections are as they were at the time of his death in 1837, over 180 years ago. The house has its own Catacombs, Crypt and Sepulchral Chamber, complete with the sarcophagus of Seti I (1303-1290 BC). The walls and every corner of every room are filled with his eclectic collection. Well worth the visit.
As we left Soanes on our way to the Silver Vaults it started to rain. We took shelter under the very small eaves of a few buildings as we edged our way forward. Eventually we came across a small arcade leading into the garden square of what turned out to be Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It is the largest public square in London, and was the site of some notable executions in the 16th and 17th centuries. The square evolved from a pair of common fields used by students of the nearby Lincoln’s Inn Courts of Law in the middle ages. The crown seized the fields in 1537. The buildings surrounding the square are impressive in their presence and form, there is a large church in one corner and an impressive Chapel. The Honourable Society of Lincoln Inn is one of 4 Inns of court in London and is recognised worldwide for its’ prestige in law.
On our way out of the square we saw 2 eagles tethered to a couple of metal roosting stands. It turned out that they were middle eastern Harris Hawks, and they were kept there to ward of other birds. Previously, the area was infested with pigeons and gulls, and their droppings were causing huge amounts of damage and cost to the old buildings. They have found it is cheaper to employ the hawks to control the birds than the cost of maintaining and repairing the damage caused by the birds.
WOW day 18 already and once again you’ve done heaps, glad the weather fined up for you ?