A blustery Friday..... in London
Mr Cee had the day off today and we went up to visit 2 Temple Place not far from Covent Garden and the Strand in London. I was pleased to get free tickets for the first day it's re-opened since the very first lockdown last year in March when it closed it's doors. The house was built by William Waldorf Astor in 1895 and I learned all about it on my 5 London Houses course, so it was great to be able to visit after so recently learning about it's history and to see the ecclectic interior.
Under the cut for a few photos.
It's well worth reading the Wikipedia entry for the house which has further information about all the amazing interior decorations, but here's a few of the photos I took.
The main entrance with the electric lights that were installed (very progressive and modern for the time!).
I love how one of the cherubs is listening to the telephone (one of the modern inventions also in the house)
Behind the cherub at the back of the lampost is the other little cherub who's talking.
The main staircase has wonderful carvings
And a rather spectacular stained glass ceiling. This is a false ceiling with another glass roof above it as this would be too fragile to withstand being the roof of the house. It is rather beautiful.
More stained glass in the main grand hall which Astor used to receive visitors and talk business to his cronies. This view is sunrise.
This one is sunset. The scenes are totally fictitious and done just for effect.
The back stairs for the servants - a wonderful suspended staircase. Unfortunately we couldn't go into the basement and look at the original servant's quarters as the building was severely damaged by a flying bomb in the war, so that part of the premises has not been restored.
The library had a frieze of little figures representing the arts and sciences. This one has a microscope LOL!
It's much smaller inside than I thought it was going to be, so we only spent about 40 minutes looking around. I was pleased we went though, but when we came out the weather (which was pretty blustery when we'd gone inside) had turned to wind and rain, so we walked along to Covent Garden to look around. Unfortunately some of our usual places to shop have sadly closed down, but we had a good look around before heading to the Strand Palace Hotel for an afternoon tea.
Honey roast ham and cheese in a brioche bun; salted cucumber and cream cheese with dill sandwiches; smoked salmon and avocado sandwiches; coronation chicken wraps. Lovely light fruit scones with strawberry jam and thick delicious clotted cream. Tiny cute Eton mess in shot glasses; lemon cheesecakes, tiny Victoria sponges; chocolate and rum delice and mini Banoffee pies. Served with tea. YUM!!!!!
We treated ourselves to some rose Prosecco which was very very delicious - it turned out that our server had given us rose champagne instead of Prosecco accidentally - but having realised their mistake they only charged us for the Prosecco, so that was rather nice *g*
By the time we came out the drizzle had turned into torrential rain and gale force wind (ah May, how I don't love you!), so we bought some treats for dinner and some lovely fresh bread from the French delicatessen before jumping on a train and coming home. Now (having changed out of our wet clothes) we are relaxing and that's on the menu for the rest of the day as we walked nearly 5 miiles and that always seems further in the wind.
Today's question: 21. Do you have any bumper stickers on your car? Short answer - no. In fact I don't think I've ever had any stickers any of our cars apart from when we drove to France years ago with the boys to Disneyland Paris and had to have a GB sticker on the car.
Under the cut for a few photos.
It's well worth reading the Wikipedia entry for the house which has further information about all the amazing interior decorations, but here's a few of the photos I took.
The main entrance with the electric lights that were installed (very progressive and modern for the time!).
I love how one of the cherubs is listening to the telephone (one of the modern inventions also in the house)
Behind the cherub at the back of the lampost is the other little cherub who's talking.
The main staircase has wonderful carvings
And a rather spectacular stained glass ceiling. This is a false ceiling with another glass roof above it as this would be too fragile to withstand being the roof of the house. It is rather beautiful.
More stained glass in the main grand hall which Astor used to receive visitors and talk business to his cronies. This view is sunrise.
This one is sunset. The scenes are totally fictitious and done just for effect.
The back stairs for the servants - a wonderful suspended staircase. Unfortunately we couldn't go into the basement and look at the original servant's quarters as the building was severely damaged by a flying bomb in the war, so that part of the premises has not been restored.
The library had a frieze of little figures representing the arts and sciences. This one has a microscope LOL!
It's much smaller inside than I thought it was going to be, so we only spent about 40 minutes looking around. I was pleased we went though, but when we came out the weather (which was pretty blustery when we'd gone inside) had turned to wind and rain, so we walked along to Covent Garden to look around. Unfortunately some of our usual places to shop have sadly closed down, but we had a good look around before heading to the Strand Palace Hotel for an afternoon tea.
Honey roast ham and cheese in a brioche bun; salted cucumber and cream cheese with dill sandwiches; smoked salmon and avocado sandwiches; coronation chicken wraps. Lovely light fruit scones with strawberry jam and thick delicious clotted cream. Tiny cute Eton mess in shot glasses; lemon cheesecakes, tiny Victoria sponges; chocolate and rum delice and mini Banoffee pies. Served with tea. YUM!!!!!
We treated ourselves to some rose Prosecco which was very very delicious - it turned out that our server had given us rose champagne instead of Prosecco accidentally - but having realised their mistake they only charged us for the Prosecco, so that was rather nice *g*
By the time we came out the drizzle had turned into torrential rain and gale force wind (ah May, how I don't love you!), so we bought some treats for dinner and some lovely fresh bread from the French delicatessen before jumping on a train and coming home. Now (having changed out of our wet clothes) we are relaxing and that's on the menu for the rest of the day as we walked nearly 5 miiles and that always seems further in the wind.
Today's question: 21. Do you have any bumper stickers on your car? Short answer - no. In fact I don't think I've ever had any stickers any of our cars apart from when we drove to France years ago with the boys to Disneyland Paris and had to have a GB sticker on the car.