Your Local Neighbourhood Bell Foundry

I met Bob after work for a bit of a walk, starting near Whitechapel tube station, making our way west into bits of the City, ending at Tower Hill station. We vaguely followed another of our favourite online walking tours, although our decision to do it in reverse led to some confusion (we're rather simple folk, you see), and in hindsight, 5:30 P.M. on a weekday probably wasn't the best time to be traipsing through parts of the City, since everyone seemed to be getting off work and the streets were crowded with the usual throngs of people in suits, rushing, pushing (no, PUSHING), scurrying to their destinations. In any case, it was still a worthwhile walk, taking us down streets we've not yet seen, and showing us more than a few fascinating perspectives of this crazy city. Our first stop was at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry,

founded in 1570, and listed in the Guinness Book of Records as Britain's oldest manufacturing company.

The foundry is on an extremely non-descript part of Whitechapel Road, but its history is anything but boring. The foundry has cast some of the world's most famous bells, including the American Liberty Bell (1752) and its replacement (1976), as well as London's most famous bell, residing in Big Ben and weighing 13.5 tons, the largest ever cast at the foundry (1858). If you need any help imagining what a 13.5-ton bell looks like, a cross-section of the bell frames the foundry's public entrance:

With a small museum, shop, and foundry tours, the foundry is quite a fascinating place, even for laypeople like us (although the man we spoke with was very excited to hear that I had played handbells in junior high school and the last thing he said to us when we left was, "If you feel like trying handbells again, come on back!"). Although full tours of the foundry are only available by signing up in advance for their Saturday tours, we were treated to a lovely peek at the foundry's attractive courtyard. The large bell lying on its side, facing the camera has a crack near the top and its owner is currently raising the necessary funds to pay for it to be remade (our guide told us that they smash the bell and then melt it down before recasting it). "Do you wear protective gear while you smash it?" Bob asked. "Oh no, we're tough!" was the smirking reply.

The courtyard was one of those strange, hidden-away London places that makes me gasp. How many wonderful treasures are there in this labyrinth of a city?

We weren't far from the foundry when we spotted this unique bell tower, and wondered if the bells were made by the craftspeople just up the road.

Our next stop was at The Women's Library, currently housed in the old East End wash houses building:

From 1977-2001, the women's studies research collections held by the library were kept in a crowded basement space that was often in danger of flooding, but, thanks to a lottery grant, they were able to move into their present site in 2002, and now have a substantial exhibition space in addition to the library collections. We wandered through the current exhibition, Sinners, Scroungers, Saints: Lone Mothers, Past and Present, an interesting survey of the ways in which single mothers have been represented in Britain over the last two centuries.

St Botolph's Aldgate is dedicated to the saint associated with travellers, and Daniel Defoe was married here:

As we walked past the futuristic Lloyds building, we walked toward a London landmark that we'd not yet been into--Leadenhall Market.

As we entered the market, we seemed to be witnessing a living anachronism when we looked back at the green-glowing elevators climbing the Lloyds building, framed by the ornate details of Leadenhall Market. In a way though, I suppose such contrasts are the very definition of London!

Simply gorgeous--there's no other way to describe it. Dating back to the fourteenth century, parts of the market were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, after which it became a covered market for the first time. In 1881, the existing market was knocked down and completely redesigned in the style that we see today.

The fifteenth-century tower is all that remains of All Hallows Staining church, demolished in 1870:

After our walk, we were sitting on the tube platform waiting for our train when this District Line train pulled up (we wanted a Circle Line train). It sat for quite some time with its doors open--long enough for me to snap this pic of what I'm pretty sure was the cutest commuter in the carriage: