Day 32: Finding Roman London

Today was a busy day and it's late here, so I apologize because this post is not going to be what it deserves.

This morning Ethan and I decided to go see St. Paul's Cathedral.  We had decided not to go in because of the cost, but to walk around and see the exterior.  We wandered around the massive cathedral, taking in the 365' dome.  Outside the front entrance of the church, stands a statue of Queen Anne, the first Queen of Great Britain.

St. Paul's was an important image of British resilience in the face of the German attacks during World War II.  The cathedral was struck with three bombs, two which detonated and caused damage, but not enough severely harm the building.  The third bomb was successfully defused and removed.  A famous image of St. Paul's surrounded by the smoke of London on fire became a rallying image for the British, and the world, against the German Blitz.

We then headed to Southwark Cathedral, where Ethan was meeting with dean of the cathedral.  We also wanted to visit as the cathedral was where Ethan's priest and mentor had been ordained (plus the cathedral has plenty of history).  The cathedral sits in the parish nearest to the Globe Theater, so it has strong connections to William Shakespeare and his troop.  His brother is even buried there.

While we were in the church, Ethan attended a morning prayer service in the Harvard Chapel.  The Harvard Chapel is named for John Harvard, the benefactor whose gift changed the name of New College to Harvard College in 1639.  John Harvard was baptized in the Southwark Cathedral.

After lunch Ethan headed to his meeting and I started my tour of Roman London.  I decided to walk to a wall section at Tower Hill from Southwark Cathedral.  My route took me across Tower Bridge, which gave me a great view of two of London's newest buildings.  The lower building is the City Hall of London, built in 2002 and known as the "Armadillo" (or some more vulgar options), and the taller is the Shard, built in 2012.  They certainly add flair into the London skyline.

I then made my way back to the Tower of London and went up the hill behind it.  It provided a new perspective of the fortress, and one I think that most tourists miss.  I think from this angle it becomes more clear how over time pieces were added to the fortress.

Just above the Tower of London is a remnant of the Roman city walls.  The walls would have stood over 20' high and had a sentry's walk.  There's also evidence that they had tours built in intervals around the wall.  The current remains were adapted in the medieval times, but the use of Roman bricks can still be seen lower down.

I tried to follow the London Wall Walk from the Tower of London to the Museum of London, which houses much of the Roman archaeology of the city, but failed.  I think construction blocked the route, but I soon got lost and decided to head more directly to the museum.  The one advantage of this is the route took me right by yet another of London's newest skyscrapers.  30 St. Mary Axe, better known as the Gherkin, was completed in 2003 and opened the following year.  I tend to think it looks more like a pinecone than a pickle.

After a solid day of walking, I made it to the Museum of London.  I began my tour in the earliest periods of London's history.  One of the highlights of the collection is the skull of an aurochs, a wild ox that stood around 6' tall and thought to have inhabited Britain between 245,000-186,000 BCE.

Skipping ahead many thousands of years, these stone mace-heads from c. 2500 BCE were probably a marker of status and authority.  The rare marbled stone would have made them rarer, therefore representing leadership.

These coins come from the Sunbury Hoard, which dates between 100 and 50 BCE.  The image on the left depicts a "highly stylized" Apollo and a butting bull.  This is particularly interesting as Julius Caesar first invaded Britain in 55/54 BCE.  These coins, if interpreted correctly, show that Mediterranean powers had been trading with the British natives before Caesar's invasion. 

I made my way into the Roman section, which followed the history of Londinium from beginning to end.  A moment of London's Roman history that has always fascinated me is the destruction in the 60s CE at the hands of Boudicca.  As the Roman governor was campaigning against the Druids in northern Wales, Boudicca, queen of the Icenii, ravaged southeastern England.  She burned both London and St. Albans.  Eventually, when he had hurried back, the Roman governor was able to subdue the uprising.  The skull below, found in Walbrook Stream, is believed to be a victim of Boudicca's devastation.

A temple to Mithras, a Persian god beloved by the Roman army, was found in London in 1954.  The site has had a deal of controversy, with all the remains being moved and then being rebuilt inaccurately.  The Mithraeum is now currently being worked on and restored in a more accurate manner, which sadly makes it unaccessible.  Luckily for me, some of the pieces of the Mithraeum are in the Museum of London.

There is evidence that around 350 BCE the Mithraeum was rededicated to Bacchus.  Some sculptures, like the one below, were re-carved to depict Bacchus, when they had originally shown Mithras.

I could go on for a long time about what I saw in the Roman section of the Museum of London, but sadly, it is late and I'm still trying to process it all!

Ethan met me at the museum and managed to look at basically the whole collection in the time it took me to go through about half of the Roman section.  After I finally finished, I had him show me some of his highlights from the other parts of the museum.  One of the first ones he showed me as this century old model of the old St. Paul's.  The St. Paul's depicted was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.

We also saw an early printed book containing the Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder.  I think the illustrations certainly helped readers understand the massive tome, which covers topics ranging from astronomy to zoology to mining to painting.

Another favorite piece of mine was fragments of broken stained glass windows, smashed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.  This has really become a theme of my trip, with all the churches I've seen.  The fractured glass and bent metal really captured the destruction the Dissolution caused for me.

I'm sorry I can't capture this day to the fullest.  It was really wonderful to explore Roman London in the Museum of London (although I did have questions about their collection and use of replication).  Certainly showed me a lot about the Roman side of a wonderful city!

Fun Fact #32: Going of yesterday's sidetone, today I stumbled upon this list of plants that were introduced (or attempted to be introduced) to London by the Romans:

Cherry

Cucumber

Fig

Grape

Mulberry

Pea

Walnut

Apple

Pear

Hazel

Plum

Lentil

Quince

Olive

Stone Pine

Peach

Coriander

Rue

Dill

Summer Savory

Fennel

Day 30: Getting Rained on in St. Albans

Today we had a stressful day, but a pretty successful one.  Ethan had a meeting the the Dean of St. Albans Cathedral and Abbey and I was tagging along to see the church and explore the Roman city of Verulamium.  Sadly, we had issues finding the right train station to get to St. Albans and then more issues with tickets.  After spending far too much time on the tube, we got on the train on a very rainy day and headed to St. Albans.

We went to the cathedral-abbey first and explored a very amazing church.  With Norman and Saxon origins, the church grew into a massive abbey complex and then dwindled again after the Dissolution.  It was revived and is now the thriving cathedral of the diocese.  The church is named for St. Alban, a 3rd century martyr who was a Roman citizen in the local town.  He was martyred for converting to Christianity and sheltering a priest.  His cult probably began around the middle of the 5th century and there is a shrine that holds relics of the saint in the cathedral.

St. Alban is depicted in the new nave screen, which depicts seven martyrs.  Four are locals: St. Alban, St. Amphibalus, George Tankerfield, and Alban Roe.  They range in period from the 3rd century to the 17th.  The other three are St. Elizabeth Romano, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Oscar Romero.  All three come from the 20th century and are meant to remember the sacrifices still made for the church.  Together, they represent early Christianity, Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, Russian Orthodoxy, and Lutheranism.

The cathedral has centuries of history, most of which I learned from Ethan after his talk with the dean.  The Lady Chapel, pictured below, was for a long period separated from the rest of the church.  There was quite literally a road running between the church and the chapel building.  The chapel was used as the local grammar school before being reincorporated to the cathedral.

The Wallingford Screen was built in the late 15th century but was devastated by the Dissolution.  Every statue in the screen was torn down and destroyed.  In the 19th century, the cathedral went through major restoration and renovation.  The two main benefactors disagreed on how the screen should look.  One felt that it should be restored into its original state and the other wanted to go more modern (and more egocentric) with just a silhouette of himself and Queen Victoria.  Apparently the conflict went all the way to the House of Lords, and luckily (in our opinion) the more traditional restoration won out.

The abbey greatly benefited in the 12th century when an Englishman was elected Pope.  Nicholas Breakspear, better known as Adrian IV, had been educated at the Abbey School of St. Albans and his selection as Pope increase interest in St. Albans as a pilgrimage.

After the church visit, I headed to the Verulamium Museum and site while Ethan met with the Dean.  I first headed to the theater at Verulamium.  Unlike the other theaters I've seen this trip, it is a true theater, not amphitheater.  The first theater at the site was built around 140 CE and was enlarged in 160 CE.  The theater could fit 7,000 people and featured columns 5.8 meters tall on the stage.  The theater eventually fell out of disuse, even before the Roman occupation ended.  It's unclear why it was no longer used.

Around the theater were the local shops and a few homes.  One third century villa contained an underground shrine, possibly suggesting that Christianity had forced pagan rituals into private settings.  Although, it may have just been a private shrine and that might be too much of an attachment.

Below is a pendant with a triskele, which is a design featured in cultures around the world.  It was particularly important in Celtic culture and art.  I'm curious how this was influenced by the Roman occupation and vice versa.

The gold ring below has a depiction of an ear of wheat.  The native Catavellauni tribe had a culture dominated by farming and it seems that the Romans continued the tradition.  Along with the ring, there were also depictions of Ceres, the goddess of the harvest and crops.

Below is a variation on the classic pennanular brooch.  The pair of silver brooches were connected by a thin chain.  I'm unsure if this would have been done to hold a cloak or just as a decorative statement.  Either way it seems like a fairly unique and beautiful piece.

There were many burials around Verulamium, fitting for a large Roman city.  They varied in their use of inhumation and cremation.  Some of the burials were in ornate lead coffins and others were in more simple stone ones.  One very interesting find was this Septimius Severus coin found in a child's grave.  The coin, shown with the child's teeth, was placed in the mouth of the child for burial and the copper in the coin turned the teeth a bluish-green color.  The coin probably dates the child's death to around 210 CE.

The depiction of Venus below, done in bronze, was originally depicted holding a golden apple.  The golden apple was won by Venus in the judgment of Paris, when she bribed him with the love of the most beautiful woman, Helen.  And we all know how that ended.  As a decline of Roman religion in Verulamium, the statue was found in what is believed to be a scrap pile in the workshop of a metalworker.

Verulamium had a unique triangular temple at a major intersection of roads.  The temple was dedicated to Cybele, an Anatolian goddess imported to Rome, and her consort, Attis.  The ceremonies dedicated to the gods involved the sacrifice of an ox, pine cones, palm leaves, and ceremonial pottery, all of which were found in the site of the temple.  The skull off an ox is shown below.

From the museum I went into Verulamium Park, which contains some more Roman artifacts.  Sadly, I was only able to peak at a large mosaic since the building had been closed for the day.  I did get to walk along portions of the city walls and see the foundation of a massive gateway.  The walls were a later addition, being added towards the end of the 3rd century.  Unlike most sites I have been to, the military presence in Verulamium was much smaller and the site was never really a fort.

I headed back towards the abbey through the park to meet Ethan in the rainy weather.  Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, as I arrived back at the abbey, Ethan headed to the museum to find me.

I took a few more minutes to walk around the abbey before Ethan and I reunited.  We eventually found each other and headed back to the train station.  By the time we were back to London, we were wet, hot, sweaty, and ready for a break.  Though the day was successful, the travel logistics were messy and the rain dampened both our hair and our moods.  But with a little rest, we were able to rally for dinner and a quiet evening.

Fun Fact #30: There were several breeds of Roman dogs at Verulamium, shown by the various dog skeletons found at the site.  Romans had three divisions for different types of dogs, villatici or house dogs, venatici or sporting dogs, and pastorales or shepherds' dogs.  The villatici could be small lap dogs and the sporting dogs were divided into further categories: fighting (pugnacious) and hunting (celeres, sagaces).

Day 20: Singing a Goodbye to Wales

I made a tough decision this morning.  I had been planning to go visit Caerwent today, but when I woke up, it felt like too much.  I would have to take a train back to Newport, catch a bus, visit Caerwent, and then wait for the next bus, and then back to the train.  It would have taken the whole day and I just didn't feel up to it.  I was bothered by my lack of motivation and it felt a bit like I was going out on a fizzle.

But I decided to head a bit out of Cardiff to see Llandaff Cathedral, which was supposed to be beautiful.  I walked down Cathedral Road and came to Llandaff Fields.  The park is full of open, grassy areas, a playground, and cricket pitches.

As I walked through the fields, the day turned from gray and slightly rainy to a beautiful, warm, sunny day.

At the other end of the park, I came into the village of Llandaff, which has been incorporated into the city of Cardiff.  It's a very picturesque little place to live.  The town seems mostly dominated by The Cathedral School, an co-educational independent school for ages 3 to 16.  There is a short High Street (the British equivalent of Main Street), leading to the town center.

Just off the town green, are the ruins of the Bishop's Palace.  The building was probably built in the mid-13th century, but was abandoned after it was attacked by Owain Glyndŵr.  Now it houses some beautiful rhododendrons.

In case you didn't know, rhododendron comes from two ancient Greek words, ῥόδον, meaning rose, and δένδρον, meaning tree.  One of the trees had beautiful, large, white blossoms, living up to its Greek roots.

I then headed to the ruins of the old cathedral bell tower.  The ruins are now memorial to those who died in World War I and have been designated to always be a protected, open space.  The stones sit on a rise over the current cathedral.

The contraction of the first cathedral in Llandaff began in 1120, under the bishop Urban.  The church has been renovated and rebuilt multiple times over the centuries.  The church was expanded and refurbished throughout the Middle Ages and then again in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Llandaff Cathedral was the second most damaged cathedral in the British Isles, after Canterbury Cathedral.  On January 2nd, 1942, a parachuted mine detonated near the cathedral, destroying the roof and damaging the spire, among other portions of the building.  The building was extensively repaired and reopened by 1958.

The poor luck continued in 2007, when a lightning strike damaged the cathedral again, ruining the electronics of the organ.  The organ was replaced in 2010 and the new one looks fantastic.

In the 1950s, an aluminum sculpture, titled "Christ in Majesty," by Jacob Epstein was installed in the church on a concrete arch, designed by George Pace.  George Pace also designed a free-standing bell tower for the Chester Cathedral.  The sculpture is suspended over the nave of the cathedral, with Christ looking towards the entrance.

Behind the sculpture and the high altar, there is a lovely chapel.  The Lady Chapel features a beautifully painted ceiling, a stained glass window depicting the story of Jesse, and a reredos with flowers labeled in Welsh.  The original, Victorian reredos of the cathedral, that would have been behind the high altar, was painted by famed pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  It was moved both to protect the paintings and to make a more open view from one end of the cathedral to the other.

In this view, looking from the Lady Chapel back towards the entrance, you can see the rear of "Christ in Majesty," sitting on its arch, and parts of the newly installed organ.

The exterior of the cathedral is just as beautiful as the interior.  The spire is covered with statues, depicting saints and monks, and gargoyles, both demonic-looking and angelic.  This small statue of an angel crowns the chapter house of the cathedral.  If you look closely (and watch Game of Thrones), he bears quite a striking resemblance to Joffrey Baratheon.

In the evening, I went into Cardiff center for my final dinner in Wales.  I had heard from my tour guide yesterday that there was an all male choir that had open rehearsals very close by.  I ate quickly, trying to make sure I could go (and not walk in late).  When I sat down to the side, with some other observers, I was immediately approached by one of the choir members.  He asked me if I sang, and when I told him I did, he asked me what part I sang.  Next thing I knew, I was placed in the choir with the rest of the Tenor 1s.

For the next hour and a half, I sang with the Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir.  I would say that we ran through fifteen to twenty songs, both in Welsh and English.  I recognized maybe three of them.  I'm still not sure which was more challenging, sight reading the music or sight reading the Welsh.  It is really impossible for me to express how wonderful this experience was.  The music was beautiful, the people were lovely, and I was struck by just how similar the experience was to so many I've had in singing groups I've participated in.  It was truly an amazing, spontaneous experience.

As we finished singing, the man I had been sitting next to gave me a pin from the choir.  It is something I will treasure forever.

What a wonderful way to say goodbye to Wales.

Fun Fact #20: The Welsh National anthem, "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" (Land of Our Fathers), became the de facto national anthem because it was so popular at rugby games.  The national anthem had been "God Bless the Prince of Wales" and was meant to be sung before rugby matches.  To accommodate the popularity of "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadua," for a time both songs were sung before the start of the match, but eventually it was just reduced to "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadua."  Though the anthem has never been legally made the national anthem, it has been accepted by all and is used in government ceremonies.  And on a sidetone, it's far easier to sing than "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Day 19: Turning to the Sylvan Wye

Today I went on tour of some amazing sites outside of Cardiff.  When doing research for this trip, my mother stumbled upon a company called See Wales Tours that runs trips from Cardiff, including one title Romans and Ruins.  The itinerary was a visit to the Roman amphitheater, baths, and museum in Caerleon, the Roman town in Caerwent, Tintern Abbey in Wye Valley, and Raglan Castle.

I met the group outside the National Museum Cardiff at 9:00 and we were soon heading out of Cardiff.  Our first stop was the the amphitheater at Caerleon.  Unlike the two other amphitheaters I've seen on this trip, the whole circumference of the Caerleon theater is excavated.  This made it a really striking sight.  The ground level is about twelve to fifteen feet higher than in Roman times, so though the theater looks very low today, it would have been a very imposing fixture on the banks of the River Usk.  

One of the amphitheater's main features was a shrine to Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution.  There was a very similar shrine in the amphitheater at Chester, as Nemesis was closely connected to gladiatorial competitions.  The amphitheater at Caerleon is slightly smaller than the one in Chester, seating around 6,000 people.

From the amphitheater, we headed to the bath complex.  The complex was much larger than what is shown today.  Today, platforms take you around the full extent of the natatio (an open air swimming pool), part of the apodyteria (warmed changing rooms), and a small portion of the frigidarium (the cold room).

The lightly in the museum hosting the bath remains was not particularly conducive to photography, so I haven't included any photos.  That being said, the lighting did some very cool effects.  A project played videos of swimmers doing laps in the natatio, accompanied with the sounds of splashing and cannonballs, and red light played over the hypocaust that would have heated the apodyteria.  It was a sort of lovely effect, breathing some life into the ruins.  I think it's especially great with the large number of school trips we saw visiting the site.

The museum at Caerleon had a lot of great items, but I was surprised that it might not have been quite as extensive as the museum in Newport.  Still, I got see lovely collections of local and imported pottery, large inscribed stones, coins from throughout the occupation of Britain, and, of course, Roman military paraphernalia.

Caerleon was home to a Roman fort, built by the Legio II Augusta.  The first fort was built around the mid-70s CE and was occupied until the Legio II Augusta left Britain in around 290 CE.  Evidence left behind by the army included spearheads, like the bronze one seen above, arrow heads, a helmet, axe heads, and everything else needed to wage war and house an army.  It was also nice to see some artifacts from the Roman cavalry, which are not very commonly seen in Britain.  These artifacts probably came from a cavalry attachment to the legion.  One piece that they had seems to have been a nailed on horse shoe, but I've heard conflicting stories about when these were invented and came into use.  I'll have to investigate more!

The museum also had plenty of artifacts from the everyday life in a Roman town.  A great detail the exhibit included was a model of a Roman loaf of bread.  It's wonderful because it shows how Roman bakers marketed themselves.  With a stamp bearing his name, the baker imprinted the loaves of bread, so every bite reminded the buyer who had baked the delicious bread and maybe tipped off a few passersby as well!

The museum had a fair number of Roman inscriptions, ranging from commemorations of temple renovation to funerary markers for Roman veterans.  Now I have to feel bad for Julia Senica (maybe Seneca) and whomever paid for her tombstone to be engraved.  I don't think they did a very good job.  But it probably suggests that Julia Senica was from a rather poor family who could not afford one of the better engravers, and instead ended up with something that looks like my handwriting.

To my disappointment, we missed the barracks in Caerleon and headed out.  This disappointment continued as our next destination was announced as Tintern Abbey in the Wye Valley, rather than Caerwent, the other Roman site I was planning on visiting.  But I had planned an extra day in the Cardiff area if something like this occurred, and I was soon distracted by the beauty of the Wye Valley.

I think I quite literally lost my breath when I first saw Tintern Abbey from the van.  Huge, open stone arches in the middle of the beautiful valley landscape.  I was struck by the immense scale of the ruins and the haunting skeleton of the buildings.

Wandering through the abbey, I was pretty overwhelmed; I wanted to capture everything, but almost didn't know how to start.  Though the ruins are extensive, the most beautiful portion (in my opinion, and I suspect many others) is the ruined church.  The building in ruins today dates from the 13th century, although the abbey was founded in the 12th century.

Tintern Abbey was home to Cistercian Monks, who are also known as White Monks because of the color of their cucculas, robes worn over a habit.  Cistercians, like most monks it seems, rejected opulence and lived austere lives, so they did not dye their robes, leaving them the off-white color of a sheep.  Our tour guide, Adrian, did have a great point though: how could you live in such a magnificent, beautiful place, and not find it opulent?

Responding to a request from my mother, I had Adrian and some fellow travelers take photos of me throughout the day.

Like almost all abbeys and monasteries in the British Isles, the Dissolution destroyed any chance of Tintern's survival.  The abbeys valuables were sent to the crown, the about and monks were paid and sent off, and the lead from the abbey roof was sold, leading to the quick demise of the buildings.  Over the centuries, the abbey lay vacant and was slowly reused to building homes and farms around the area.

Tintern Abbey has inspired a great deal of amazing art, from painting to poetry.  J.M.W. Turner painted the ruins in 1795 and writers, such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Allen Ginsberg were inspired by visits.  Perhaps most notably, and the inspiration of this post's title, was William Wordsworth's poem "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey."  I recommend rereading it, as it is a beautiful, classic English Romantic poem.

Also, if, for any reason, you are traveling to Wales, make sure you go to Tintern Abbey.  I can't express, and I don't think my photos can either, how beautiful and fascinating it was.

After having lunch at the Tintern Abbey Mill Craft Center, we headed out of the Wye Valley and towards Raglan Castle.  Raglan Castle is one of the youngest castles in Wales, being built in the mid-1400s.  The castle has a wonderful main gateway, called the White Gate.  It would have been a dominating sight from throughout the countryside.

I've also been struck by the Welsh countryside throughout my trip.  It often reminds me of the Tuscan hills, especially the farmland around Raglan Castle.  I feel like this view from a window in the castle could easily be looking at the Italian countryside.

There is also a Norman style motte and keep built next to the castle.  Apparently I was feeling a bit masochistic, and decided to climb to the top of the keep.  It gave great views of the main castle and the countryside.  I have lots of great facts about the castle, but to be completely honest I'm too tired right now decide which to share.  So ask me another time!

After our Raglan Castle, we made our way back to Cardiff, fighting through some traffic, but getting back to Cardiff Castle in about forty-five minutes.  I then had a quiet evening, dominated by processing and editing my 500+ photos from the day!  A pretty amazing day, especially for one of my final ones in Wales!

Fun Fact #19: Did you know that both garderobes and wardrobes are derived from medieval toilets?  A garderobe was a small hole, providing an exit for detritus from the castle.  This detritus included human waste, as castle residents would go to the bathroom by these holes and then it would be washed out.  Now, you would be very right to ask how clothes got combined with toilets.  Folks in medieval times theorized that the garderobes smelled so badly that it would pretty much scare off anything.  So, if they hung there clothes near the garderobes, all the fleas and lice that bothered them would scurry out of their garments.  I wonder how this worked.  It seems like all the smell might just attract more bugs...  Either way, I'm sure we're all very happy that garderobes and wardrobes are sonly for clothes now!