A Royal Weekend

Exploring some of the old and posh of London.

The weekend started early on the Friday, a visit to the Natural History Museum, to celebrate our beloved Nina (a friend of mine from work who recently got a promotion)…

We didn’t take the time to explore the insides this timea round, but instead took a journey through time in the new(ish) Evolution Gardens.

We hit a remarkably sunny day and so chatted our way past trilobites and ammonites and tiny mammals and giant dinos.

Big shout-out to the fact that they had an actual Wollemi Pine (see above, right photo), and Aussie ancient plant, whose lineage was believed to have dissapeared until the species was rediscovered near Sydney in the late 1990s.

I also learned that the whole outside of the museum itself is well worth a gander- it’s designed to have extinct animals and plants on one side, and extant ones (still alive) on the other.

Although to be perfectly honest, even the more modern creatures were definitely sculpted with either a healthy amount of creativity, or (more likely I suppose), by someone who had never come across them in real life.

The Saturday began with more Aussie Trees (a gum tree!), as well as cake, breakfast and fancy coffee at Ozone.

And then we hit up the Guild Open House, in which various of the old workers/ trade guilds open up their buildings for the public.

The guilds originated back in the middleages, with the intention to train members, regulate quality, and help out their members in hard times (a kind fo welfare). They also had a kind of voice in the city, able to elect council and court memebers.

Back in the day, there were 89 111? guilds, with the Great 12 Livery Companies at the top. They included:

The Mercers Company
The Grocers Company
The Draper’s Company
The Fishmonger’s Company
The Goldsmith’s Company
The Merchant Taylor’s Company
The Skinners Company
The Haberdashers Company
The Salter’s Company
The Ironmonger’s Company
The Vintner’s Company
The Clothworker’s Company

… but the list goes on and on.

We only had a couple of hours, so we hit up the guilds that were around, and closeby.

Can you guess where we made it first?

Number 22.

Armourers’ Hall

The home of The Armourers & Brasiers’ Company

We somehow managed to sneak into a guided tour, despite our names very much not being on the list (the problem with London is that free things fill up fast, but then the anti-problem to that is that people just don’t bother to show up).

So we got to learn about the guilds’ largest-in-the-world (??) collection of these types of spoons..

^^ and see this lovely little testiclevestibule that was used to pay dues into (and from which money could ultimately be taken out of for the Hard Times….

We got to chill in the banquet hall, and learn about the current activities of the guild (not just celebrating it seems, but also some scholarships!…

… and we got to see some rather nice coat of arms:

Obviously the one with the two majestic kittens is the best.

Once we’d had our fill of metal, we went to try our luck with something else:

Did you guess it yet?

How about now:

Or Now?

Guild 26: The Carpenters.

Some lovely wood….

Beautiful stain-glass:

including the angriest little hoots:

And some frankly offputting stonework:

Onwards!

Through one of those weird parts of London that is ridiculously empty in the weekend:

To Guild Number Three: The Drapers

Which was certainly magnificent….

.. but to be honest, I wanted a bit more clothing.

We did also try to swing by the Leathersellers.

But for some reason, they would not let us in.

In any case, we had other plans for the day, and joined by our friend Giulia, made our way home to do a little bit of hairtime magic.

And then, it was Sunday.

Which was the day that Sameer had to catch his flight back home.

But before he did, we had a very quick picnic to attend.

Sameer’s work – which, luckily for me, is generous with the plus-ones- had just casually rented out Hampton Court for the day. Aka, the favourite place of Henry VIII.