The Dukes house and Blackfriars

This weeks trips were a visit to Apsley house and another walk from the London secret walks book.

Saturday we visited Apsley House is the London townhouse of the Dukes of Wellington.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/apsley-house/history/

There are numerous painting in the house and a lot painted by the masters. 

 Its located about 2 miles from our house near the corner of  Hyde Park. The 9th Duke of Wellington still lives in the upper floors. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Wellington_(title)

 The first Duke (Arthur Wellesley) was a military leader that fought in 60 battles and never lost one. He was the commanding general in the battle of Waterloo against Napoleon. When he returned from the battle he was bestowed the title of Duke. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington

Saturday night we saw the show, Beautiful: the Carole King Musical. 

The show is the history of her from 16 years old till she plays at Carnegie hall in the 1970's. A great show that showed a lot of the songs that she wrote. Leanne and I were both surprised as we heard them.  

Sunday was a walk using the "London Secret walks" book. Leanne pick this book up when we first got here and we try to do them as often as possible. This one would take us from Blackfriars tube station to streets around St. Paul's Cathedral and then back to the tube station.

Why is it called Blackfriars, at one time there was a group of monks that wore black robes.

The walk was 2 miles long and there were bits of history along the way. We found this sign at the beginning of the walk. 

Before you think that all the Kings clothes were burned here is a history of Wardrobe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardrobe_(government)

From there we walked down more small streets 

till we got a view of St. Paul's Cathedral 

The front of  St. Paul's

We have not visited it yet, that is a latter entry.

https://www.stpauls.co.uk/

This is the Temple Bar, the only surviving gateway to the city of London.

http://www.thetemplebar.info/history.html

And no trip would be complete with out a stop at Amen corner, leading to Amen Court.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_Corner,_London

Just in case you were wondering no one was there saying "can i have an amen"

Another area that was destroyed during the Blitz the Christ Church Greyfriars designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1687. Wren name is mentioned a lot of most of the tours we have been on. He was very busy after the great fire of 1666

More views of St. Pauls

Another small street, this is called Bow Lane. It has a lot of small specialty shoppes and pubs. Today being Sunday most of the shops were closed

and it was a good thing, i really liked these shoes.  They probably don't have my size anyway.

At the end of the lane was St. Mary-le-Bow church, this is one of the ornate door ways.

The next church we came to was the St. Michael Patermoster Royal church. It was original built by Dick Whittington and one of the stain glasses has Dick and his cat. 

 the cat is in the lower right left hand corner.

At the end of the walk we ended up at the Blackfriar pub across from the tube.