The Lord Mayor's Show

With so many things going on in London each weekend, you know that something must be good when we keep going back for more. Today we stopped at Broadway Market again,

for a quick lunch of delicious burgers (this one's mine: a scrumptious pork and Stilton delight)

and a repeat of last week's Vietnamese coffee.

We left the market from its south end, instead of from the north (London Fields) end, from which we usually come and go, passing another great wall of graffiti

and a typical east London landscape, straight out of Spider:

We were on our way to the City, for something that Bob saw a poster for in the tube last week. At the time, he asked me, "What's the Lord Mayor's Show?" and I had absolutely no idea. It sounded like another inane reality TV show and I didn't really think about it again until earlier this week, when news about it started cropping up everywhere. The Lord Mayor's Show (the Lord Mayor's ceremonial journey from the City of Westminster to pledge allegiance to the Sovereign) has been a part of London's history for 784 years. But just who is the Lord Mayor? The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, is responsible for working with each of London's 33 boroughs (which retain individual governments) to regulate the overall administration of the Greater London area. Livingstone works out of the city hall building that we visited last weekend and he's the one who gets praised (rarely) or criticised (often) depending on what's going on in London at the time. In contrast, the modern Lord Mayor takes on a primarily ceremonial role, and as head of the Corporation of London, the Lord Mayor represents the interests of the City (an area slightly larger than the one square mile for which it's called), serving as a social figure who promotes London as a financial centre. History aside, the Lord Mayor's Show is a good excuse for a parade through the Square Mile, with the Lord Mayor riding in the same coach that has been used in the parade since 1777. We arrived a bit late to see the Lord Mayor's coach, but there was still plenty going on away from the crowded parts of the route:

This was the first pet-related group we saw in the parade, complete with small fluffy creatures

and slightly larger fluffy creatures.

I bet you didn't know there was a Worshipful Company of Hackney Carriage Drivers!

Round two of creatures of both sizes came shortly after,

along with the parade-standards of kids

and more bands.

In a funny way, this was the part of the parade that made me smile the most--representatives from different professions, out marching in their livery best:

The Worshipful Company of Environmental Cleaners even brought props.

We wanted to catch a glimpse of the Lord Mayor, so we headed over to his residence, Mansion House, just in time for the final ceremony of the parade, the greeting of the new Lord Mayor by the Livery Company Masters and City Aldermen.

Here's who all the fuss was about today: the Lord Mayor, David Lewis.

After the ceremony finished, some people started clearing out, while others milled about. I'm not sure who these cloaked men were, but their outfits seemed photo-worthy:

What's a Lord Mayor's Show without some celebratory drinks for the hard-working participants?

It's been a very long time since either of us have been to a parade, and I must admit it was fun in a rather silly way. It was also nice to experience the City in a very different setting than we ever have before. During the week, the City is a zoo of suited people, with busy traffic and even more hectic sidewalks. There's little room to stop and look around or you'll be trampled on! Then, on the weekend, the place becomes a ghost town, without any people or open businesses. Today was a nice counterpoint to both of these usual faces of the City; with streets closed, but a nice number of people here for the Show, we could walk in the City in new ways, with new views, but still feel some life in the air.

Almost immediately after the festivities ended, the cleaners came out in force, and within an extremely short time, there wasn't much evidence that a parade had taken place--except for the cleaner-than-normal streets.

We weren't ready to leave the area just yet, since I had heard about some free walking tours that the City was putting on as part of the celebrations. We made our way through the crowds at the advertised meeting point, were assigned our guide, and after a bit of waiting as the various tour groups were given staggered departure times, we were off! Our lively and personable guide led us on an interesting ninety-minute walk through parts of the City, showing us streets we hadn't been on before, and sharing bits of history that we had no idea about until today.

We started our tour at a City building that I must admit makes me cringe every time I pass by. Even with the interesting tidbits related to us by our guide (such as the alternating stone being meant to echo the pinstripes of the male City workers' uniforms, er, I mean, "suits"), I can't say that I like the building much more.

We walked into Frederick's Place, a quiet cul-de-sac unique for the number of seventeenth-century houses that line its cobbled road, where two-time Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli worked:

The church of St. Olave, Old Jewry was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, rebuilt to a Christopher Wren design in 1679, and mostly demolished in 1887. The remaining Wren tower now houses offices:

Our next stop was Guildhall, the historical site of the City of London's government, which was looking a tad messier than usual, due to the cleaning up going on after today's festivities.

This "police public call post" was just outside Guildhall, and although they're meant to remain throughout London, I can't say that I remember seeing one before. In the old days (the theme of today, to differing degrees, and in fact, often the theme of daily life in London!), police officers used these boxes to communicate with the station while they walked their beats. When the red light at the top of the box flashed, this was a signal for the officer to call in for specific information. Members of the public could also use the phone to call for help in an emergency. The sign on this box reads, "An original police telephone box free for use of public. The telephone is no longer operational. Please use nearby payphone."

We stopped at this soap-opera address square,

which is notable for two reasons. The Shakespeare bust in the park was erected as a memorial to John Heminge and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare's who collected his plays and arranged for the publication of the first folios in 1623. The park also contains a very few remains of the church of St. Mary Aldermanbury,

which was rebuilt in 1670 by Christopher Wren, only to be destroyed by fire during WWII. The Portland-stone remains were shipped to Fulton, Missouri, where the church was painstakingly reassembled as a memorial to Winston Churchill, on the site where he gave his 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech. Just around the corner from here, we stopped at the tower of St. Alban's, once one of London's oldest churches (first built near 960AD). Damaged in the Great Fire, rebuilt, and then damaged again in WWII, the tower is all that remains. Incredibly, it is now a private residence.

The Pewterers' Hall in Oat Lane stands in the shadow of shiny buildings all around,

including this Norman Foster building, which was designed to curve in order to preserve this tree!

The London skyline can often be a jumble of shapes, eras, and histories,

and a particularly salient historical reminder was our next stop as we peered at some of the remains of a Roman fort and the City wall (along with more contemporary ruins running alongside the historic foundations).

The Richard-Rogers-designed Lloyd's offices in Gresham Street make for pleasant offices,

and this plaque tells of the site's previous history.

I think this police tape is someone's idea of a prank,

and when we went around the corner into Paternoster Square, we thought that the carnival was also some form of prank, set amidst the contrasting sights of St. Paul's Cathedral

and Temple Bar, but it was just another element of the Lord Mayor's festivities. Our guide told us how Temple Bar was an ancient gate in the City of London, which was dismantled in 1878 in order to widen the road, purchased and reassembled in 1880 at the home of a wealthy brewer, then purchased back by the City, dismantled, and reassembled on this site in 2004!These striking sculptures near the square decorate the air shafts below them:

Our guide ended up having to cut the tour short, because it was almost 5:00 P.M., which was when the fireworks were set to start, so we thanked him and walked down to the Thames to join the crowds.

Quite a few thorough planners had secured themselves a spectacular viewing point along the terraces of the OXO building across the river:

We watched the fireworks cascade over the Thames, with the London Eye in the background,

and as we walked toward what we hoped would be a less crowded tube station than the ones in the immediate vicinity, we were drawn toward St. Clement Danes church, one of two churches that claim the "St. Clement's" line in the nursery rhyme. We stopped here because the church bells were ringing with the depth and fullness that only church bells can. The church was open this evening in honour of the Lord Mayor and when we went inside to see its beautiful interior, we learned that the bells had been ringing for ninety minutes and would ring for ninety minutes more in celebration of this latest historic day in a long series of historic London days.