Heading into London

Primrose Hill on Monday

On Monday we were anxious to get on with our London adventures and upon the advice of Lorenzo we forayed out to Primrose Hill Park, a lovely PLACE with a long history that dates back to Tudor times. It was an easy walk down Hampstead High Street and Haverstock Hill past the Belsize Park Underground Station then right on Belsize Grove and finally left on Belsize Park Gardens then Primrose Hill Road. It was a beautiful day, the kind that invites Londoners to get out, bask in the sun, and sit in the grass with a picnic lunch. We perched on a low wall shortly before noon and looked out over the expansive view of London and people watched for a good long time before making our way back the way we came. We’d passed The George in Belsize Park on our way down to Primrose Hill so we opted to pop in for some Steak & Ale Pie with tea on the way back. 

Victoria Memorial on Tuesday

On Tuesday we actually got around to taking The Tube from Hampstead Station down to Embankment and doing a wander. We meandered through Whitehall Gardens then through Horse Guards Parade going past the grandstands still set up for the Trooping of the Colours to celebrate King Charles’ birthday this past Saturday. Before long the two of us decided to do something we’d not experienced when we visited last year. We walked The Mall, the grand ceremonial approach to Buckingham Palace. Right in front of the palace stands the imposing Queen Victoria Memorial, envisioned in 1901 by her son King Edward VII, authorized by Parliment to be placed on The Mall just outside Buckingham Palace, and financed by subscriptions especially from the colonies. It was an amazing experience to be able to get up close and personal with this iconic sculpture. From there we visited a kiosk in St James’s Park and enjoyed some cold water and a light snack before moseying along a foot path past Duck Island and back through the Horse Parade to Whitehall to watch the 1:00 PM Changing of The King’s Life Guard. Since we were so close we trekked over to Walkers of Whitehall just off Trafalgar Square in the hopes of having a conversation with George, who was our server on two occasions last year, but we missed him by just a few days. 

Carlo Gatti Icehouse on Wednesday

Wednesday found us in the King’s Cross neighborhood visiting the London Canal Museum at Gatti’s Ice House where we had an amazing conversation with Mandy, a volunteer who not only encouraged us to sign up for a Thursday canal boat tour but spoke in depth about Gatti’s Ice House with it’s ice wells that Gatti used to store the natural ice that he imported from Norway and sold to London businesses for storage of meat and dairy products, for medical purposes in the era before widespread anesthesia, and as a luxury product to the very wealthy in the 19th Century. Between his pioneering restaurant business, his ice trade, his ice cream manufacture, and a music hall, the Swiss immigrant Carlos Gatti made an impression on 19th Century London and died a millionaire. Once we knew we’d be returning for a canal ride we chose to concentrate our visit on learning more about Gatti and the ice trade. Once we reached our museum saturation point we sought out a decaf Americano and a croissant at a cafe just across from the entry to the Tube station and lingered while we shared a phone to read the introduction to The Frozen Water Trade by Gavin Weightman before making our way back to Hampstead and popping in to The Horseshoe for some alcohol free refreshment.

HMS Belfast on Thursday

HMS Belfast video here

Thursday we made the decision over breakfast to visit the HMS Belfast. We booked tickets online and were outside the museum when they opened at 10 AM, having taken The Tube from Hampstead to London Bridge Station then walking to the ticket office and the HMS Belfast at her mooring on the Thames. She’s one of the most advanced of the ten Town Class light cruisers built in the 1930’s for the Royal Navy. Her keel was laid in December 1936 at Harlan & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was launched in March 1938 and commissioned in August 1939 just weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War. Then just four months later she was severely damaged by a German magnetic mine near Edinburgh. The extensive repairs and upgrades took three years. She re-entered service in November 1942 and headed for the Arctic where she served as a protector of convoys headed to northern ports in the Soviet Union as well as distinguished herself in the Battle of the North Cape north of Norway in December 1943 in which the German battleship Scharnhorst was sunk.  She served as the leading ship of Bombardment Force E during the Invasion of Normandy 6 June 1944 providing fire support for the troop landings. After the German surrender in May 1945 she was deployed to the Pacific theater arriving just as Japan surrendered. She served in the Korean War before being refitted in the late 1950’s and then serving again in the Pacific before being decommissioned in 1963. In 1971 she became a museum ship and has since served to educate visitors. We truly appreciated the opportunity to tour multiple decks, witness some of the amazing technology of the era, the comforts and the challenges of life aboard what was then a state of the art vessel. We got to climb up and down the original narrow and steep stairways, visit crew areas and officers quarters, sit in the captain’s seat from which he commanded the ship and visit the admiral’s bridge from which he commanded the fleet and even had a chance to try our hand at the ship’s wheel. We ended our visit after three and a half hours when a second emergency alarm pulled us up from the engine room. We could have once again waited on the forecastle for clearance to continue our visit but decided at that point we were ready to make our way to London’s oldest surviving galleried coaching inn, The George for a lovely lunch at a location that has appeared in books we’ve read set in 19th Century London and earlier. After an engaging conversation with our server, Dean we moved on, taking a quick walk through Borough Market (video here) before returning to London Bridge Station for the trip back to Hampstead. It’s a great start to our London adventure but tomorrow we head out of London for a couple of days.