The Ornamented Being

After dinner I went to check of Saint Mary’s Cathedral with my dad. After looking at the architecture I announced that I thought it was built somewhere in the end of the 13th and during the 14th century but there was some definite 15th century architecture in there.

My dad didn’t think so but since I pride myself on history I pointed out all the awesome features :D

According to the internet I rock :

“St. Mary’s is by a long way the largest church in the county (saving, of course, St. Alban’s Cathedral). It is also one of the oldest churches in the entire country. A Benedictine Monastery was founded here in 792 AD by King Offa (he of Dike fame). This church was destroyed by fire in 910 and the Monks moved to St. Albans Abbey.

However, the church in Hitchin was rebuilt only to be partly destroyed by the “Great Wind” of 1115 and then almost entirely taken down by an earthquake in 1298.

Work began immediately on rebuilding the church and most of what can be seen today was built between 1300 and 1450. An underground tunnel linked the church with Hitchin Priory across the other end of town and the basements of the shop properties in Churchyard and Sun Street contain remains of this tunnel – one of the few instances of these tunnels being authenticated.

This new church was dedicated to St. Andrew, but became St. Mary’s in the late 15th Century due to the influence of the Guild of Our Lady which was very powerful in Hitchin.

Sadly most of the stained glass fell victim to wind, fire and Henry VIII. Cromwell’s men used part of the church as a prison during the Civil Wars, but Hitchin was obviously a Royal town as there is a sundial on the tower above the door which was placed there to mark the Restoration of Charles II in 1660.

Things to look out for around the church are any heart-shaped things which were placed there when James Herte was vicar and also the Thompson mouse carved on the altar rail – the trademark of Robert Thompson the famous “Mouseman of Kilburn” – a master carpenter from the 19th Century. “

The market place was lovely. The black and white Tudor buildings are stunning and I never tire of looking at their warped roofs. Sadly I forgot my camera and it was nightime so my own cellphone photos are rather creepy (especially since I lost interest in the Cathedraland generally spazzed about the cemetery.) so I found a good photo of the Cathedral in the daylight. I plan on coming back in about three weeks and looking at St. Albans so hopefully I can stop by St. Mary’s Cathedral again and look at the inside.

Nunshead cemetery in London. 

I’m adding this right under Kensal Green. 

I’m going to the Hardy Tree before I go home for Summer. Oh my God and it’s in Camden. I live two stops away!

The Hardy Tree, St Pancras Churchyard. London. Photograph and text 2006by by Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL.]

The plaque accompanying the tree explains that “before turning to writing full time,” Thomas Hardy “studied architecture in London from 1862-67 under Mr. Arlhur Blomfield, an architect based in Covent Garden. During the 1860s the Midland Railwayline was being built over part of the original St. Pancras Churchyard. Blomfield was commissioned by the Bishop of London to supervise the proper exhumation of human remains and dismantling of tombs. He passed this unenviable task to his protegé Thomas Hardy in. c.l865. Hardy would have spent many hours in St. Pancras Churchyard … overseeing the careful removal of bodies and tombs from the land on which the railway was being built. The headstones around this ashtree (Fraxinus excelsior) would have been placed here about that time. Note how the tree has since grown in amongst the stones.

Misguided ghosts
Traveling endlessly
The ones we trusted the most
Pushed us far away
And there’s no one road
We should not be the same
I’m just a ghost
And still they echo me
They echo me in circles.

Totally has nothing to do with what I usually blog but OMG I am going to go hunt this building down.

According to Wiki: The London Necropolis railway station was a special railway station constructed by the London Necropolis Company for funeral trains, specifically to serve their Brookwood Cemetery.

The station opened on 13 November 1854 just outside London’s Waterloo station on the London and South Western Railway. Three-carriage trains took coffins and mourners from the station — located between York Street (now Leake Street) and Westminster Bridge Road — directly to platforms within the cemetery. The station was rebuilt a short distance away at 121 Westminster Bridge Road in 1902 when the mainline station was reconstructed.

Prior to 1900 funeral trains usually ran once each day, but after this only operated “as required”, until by the mid-1930s they only ran twice each week; much of their traffic having moved to the road network. On the night of 16 April 1941 the station was hit by bombs and never rebuilt or re-opened. However, the entrance to the station still stands in Westminster Bridge Road.