London Transport Museum; The Courtauld; and More – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

Why did I go to the London Transport Museum and the rest? Well, let me tell you.

While I was having lunch after leaving the British Museum this morning, I opened my walking tour app and used its sort-attractions-by-distance feature to find nearby sights that looked interesting to me. That’s becoming a common way of touring cities for me: I often start the day with only one sight in mind, and then use the app to find nearby ones that catch my fancy.

Sometimes I start the day with a plan for a few sights, rather than just the first one, but I’m doing that less and less. That’s not intentional. That’s just the way it’s working out.

You know me, I’m a live-in-the-moment sort of guy. (In truth, if you know me, you know I’m not normally a live-in-the-moment sort of guy. But, hopefully, I’m moving in that direction.)

The closest attraction I found that interested me, and that I hadn’t seen on my two previous trips to London, was the London Transport Museum. After that, it was Somerset House and the Courtauld Gallery therein. Then, I didn’t use the app, but rather I just used Apple Maps to find some green space near the River Thames to enjoy. Finally, I did some random walking, which unexpectedly took me to … well, I’ll save that for later in this post.

Because my website was unexpectedly down for most of the day, I had to communicate via online support with my ISP to let them know about the problem and ask them to fix it. Then, because I’m me, I had to compulsively keep checking on my phone while I was out to see if they had. I needed the website to be active to type my posts. Consequently, I’m late getting to this, and I’m eager to finish it. So, let’s get this over with, shall we? I apologize if it ends up short, rushed, and, therefore, even more typo-ridden than usual.

London Transport Museum

The London Transport Museum is more interesting and fun than I thought it would be. The exhibits are on three levels of this small museum. You start on the top floor. The exhibits up there include old omnibuses, or replicas thereof, that were horse-drawn.

One of them was a replica of a 1829 Shillibeer omnibus. It was called that not because it was designed to sell (shill) beer, but because it was made by a coach designer named George Shillibeer. They were called omnibuses because “omnibus” comes from French, via Latin, meaning “for all.” They were transportation for all. The replica itself wasn’t all that new. It was built in 1929, on the hundredth anniversary of the building of the original.

The next level down in the London Transport Museum discusses both trains and the building of the London Underground, commonly referred to as the Tube. There are some old train cars on that floor.

For a while, there were “ladies only” carriages on some Metropolitan trains. They were introduced in 1874 to address women’s safety concerns about travelling on the trains. They were abandoned in 1875 because of a lack of use. Ladies-only cars were considered for the Underground, but the mayor of the day rejected the idea.

Ladies-only carriages were reintroduced on Metropolitan trains in 1931 and lasted until 1961.

London had the world’s first underground railway. The company that built it was founded in 1854. The first segment of the first line opened in 1868. Over the course of 14 years, more segments were added to form the Circle route. I’ve been on the Circle Underground (among other lines) a couple of times already on this trip.

The original lines were built to carry passengers from London’s main train stations into the centre of the city. They used cut-and-cover construction to construct the original lines by hand.

Over the decades, more lines were added, and the Underground route map grew to be the giant bowl of spaghetti that it is today.

On this level, I also learned that 15 vehicle or pedestrian bridges were built or replaced over the Thames during the 19th century. At first, they were toll bridges, but then they were free. There was also a vehicle ferry, and it too was free because it was considered to be a moving bridge.

Downstairs, the London Transport Museum has some old double-decker buses and a double-decker electric tram. The tram had a pantograph above the upper deck to make the connection with the catenary. Those wires must have been quite a distance above the ground.

It’s not huge, nor spectacular, but I quite enjoyed the London Transport Museum.

Somerset House

After the London Transport Museum, I again used my app to find an interesting nearby sight. I came up with Somerset House.

Somerset House is a huge, palace-like stone-block building built around an expansive courtyard paved with granite paving stones. The building was constructed in 1776 among riverside mansions. At one point, an embankment was built between the mansions and the Thames to protect the mansions from the river, meaning that they were no longer riverside. You win some. You lose some.

The Somerset House was built among the mansions, but it was not itself a mansion. It was constructed to house government offices.

The nearby mansions are now gone, but Somerset House remains.

Courtauld Gallery

The Courtauld Gallery is in one of the wings of Somerset House. It is home to the greatest collection of Impressionist art in the UK. I know this because there was a sign standing on the sidewalk out front advertising the Courtauld and saying, “Home to the greatest collection of Impressionist art in the UK.” So I guess it must be true.

The exhibit space is on three levels of this small museum. The Impressionists are restricted to the top floor. The artists represented there included Cezanne, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Degas, and some other artists I’ve forgotten.

One of the Van Gogh paintings is a self-portrait with his ear heavily bandaged after he hacked most of his left ear off. Maybe that’s where Donald Trump got the idea for his ear bandage after his ear was nicked by a bullet.

On the level below that, the Courtauld Gallery displays European Art from 1400 to 1800, including paintings and sketches by Peter Paul Rubens and Sandro Botticelli, among others.

The lowest level displays Medieval and Early Renaissance art.

The wing of Somerset House that the Courtauld Gallery is in was once home to the Royal Academy. Signs in some of the rooms describe what the room was used for. For example, in one room, the sign said that,
“In this room, students at the Royal Academy practised drawing by copying plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. This was an essential element of the Academy’s teaching. Having learnt from these celebrated works, students progressed to drawing from the live model in the Life School, located in the current ticketing area on the ground floor.”

I imagine that the museum left unsaid that, after mastering live models, they went on to the height of the art world to paint pictures of Elvis on black velvet. I might be wrong about that.

Victoria Embankment Gardens

The green space I found on the map was the Victoria Embankment Gardens. It’s a linear park with trees, grass, bushes, exotic-looking plants, fountains, statues, and, most importantly, benches. It’s very beautiful and relaxing.

Being positioned on an embankment, it’s close to the Thames. Upon leaving the park, I crossed the road to take a look at the river. Here are a few pictures from the park and one of the Thames:

Trafalgar Square

After leaving the Thames, I took a ramble through some lovely London streets, with no planned destination or route in mind. I had no intention of visiting Trafalgar Square on this trip because I’d been there on my two previous visits to London, and I made a pledge to myself (already broken) that I’d try to stick mostly to sights I hadn’t seen before this time.

Because I wasn’t looking at any maps at that point in my walk, coming upon Trafalgar Square was a surprise to me. However, ironically, it wasn’t the Trafalgar monument sitting atop its enormously tall pillar that signalled my approach to the square. The monument was eclipsed by some trees as I approached it.

What twigged me to the fact that I was close to Trafalgar Square was that I saw through in a gap in the leaves of the trees a Canadian flag waving in the wind on a flagpole atop a building. As it turned out, it was immediately beyond the square on the other side of the street I was on. I remembered from my previous trip that the Canadian High Commission is in a building beside the square.

It was only when I got a little closer that I saw the monument, the square and the beautiful buildings around the square.

What a great city this is. I’ve got one more full day here, plus my flight back to Toronto doesn’t leave until mid-afternoon the next day.

What will I do with the rest of my time here? I haven’t the foggiest. I’ll probably decide that tomorrow over breakfast.