Yoda in a 14th century manuscript?

Just a short post today, to share something rather wonderful that the good folk at Irish Archaeology tweeted this afternoon: it's an illustration from the Smithfield Decretals (also known as the Decretals of Gregory IX), an early 14th century collection of canon law, probably from Toulouse, or at least southern France.

This manuscript has some gorgeous illuminations, but one in particular might jump out at Star Wars fans.

Familiar he looks, yes?

The good people at the British Library have made the entire manuscript digitally available to browse online here. Do go and look - there are some wonderful illustrations.

Visiting the Staffordshire Hoard

Looking along the table where the entire hoard was laid out -
in the foreground are its 86 sword pommels, with other sword
fittings behind, followed by decorative and religious items.

Sometimes being a journalist is a real boon for this little history nerd, getting me access to places I would never normally see. Until recently the pinnacle of this was being invited to attend the press conference where they announced that the human remains excavated from beneath a Leicester carpark in 2012 were those of Richard III, 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

But last week I experienced something that, for an Early Medievalist, was even more exciting: a top-secret trip to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to see the Staffordshire Hoard, England's largest collection of Anglo-Saxon metalwork, assembled in one place for the first time since its initial discovery in 2009.

Why, if it was that exciting, am I blogging a week after events? Because until today we few journos, we happy few, who had been summoned to come and see the hoard, had been under strict embargo - such were the security concerns surrounding this unique group of objects that we were forbidden from breathing a word about it until it was safely split up among its normal four homes once more.

An astonishing assemblage

The hoard had been temporarily reunited for a major research project, allowing Anglo-Saxon expert Chris Fern to carefully examine every piece and group together matching fragments, and sword fittings that belonged to the same weapon - and as a single collection, spread out across a black tablecloth, the newly-cleaned and conserved pieces of gold and silver were an astonishing sight. It was actually rather moving to see this extraordinary assemblage with my own eyes, having read so much about it - though less than helpful to be struck speechless at a press conference!

Experts have now
matched sword fittings
from the same weapon

Piecing together the hoard physically has allowed researchers to begin to piece together its meaning, and a wealth of new information has already emerged - we now know that the items were collected over a period of some decades, and that they were probably made in a number of different regions of Britain. This helps to narrow down the hoard's purpose.

The enigmatic 'Mystery Object'. Now
reassembled, the jury is still out on
the intended purpose of this item.

Since its discovery, three main theories have been debated: that it was the war chest of a powerful Mercian chieftain; that it is a spectacular votive offering; or, less likely, that it represents the wares of a virtuosic but ill-fated artisan who stashed his stock for safekeeping but was unable to return to reclaim it later. Now it appears that these items, mostly made up of sword fittings roughly stripped from the weapons they adorned, were plunder, gathered from multiple battles with multiple peoples.

Decorative mount shaped like a bird of prey

What has also become evident, now the items have all been painstakingly cleaned (a delicate task; conservators have been using natural thorns instead of metal tools, to avoid damaging the soft gold), is the extraordinary artistic skill of their creators. Garnets barely 3mm across have been shaped into delicate curves, while some items are decorated with filigree (metal wires soldered onto a plate base) curls so fine that three of them are still not quite the length of a grain of rice.

Sword pyramid, boasting delicately
carved garnets barely 3mm in diameter

There is much still to find out about the hoard, but it is extremely exciting to see its secrets beginning to emerge - and even more so to hear about these developments in person. I'd reckoned on being at the museum for an hour... almost three passed before I could tear myself away.

The hoard team have a fab website here, with lots of photographs, as well as blogs and videos giving behind the scenes insights into their work. You can find out more about visiting the hoard here.

All images copyright Birmingham Museums Trust

Vikings: Life and Legend

Three 12th century walrus ivory Lewis Chessmen gnash their
shields in berserkr fury.  But how vicious were the Vikings?

When I was at uni, my Scandinavian History lecturer was so sick of undergrads asserting that 'Vikings were traders as well as raiders' and thinking that they were the first to come up with that neat little rhyme, that he banned the phrase from our essays. Yet this dichotomy still lies very much at the heart of our image of the Vikings - on one hand we have the blood-and-guts stereotype of marauding monk-murderers, setting out in their longships in search of plunder and cheerfully blood-eagling their rivals, while the archaeological record provides evidence of skilled craftsmen capable of creating works of stunning delicacy, and imaginative individuals who dreamed up myths full of dark imagery and earthy humour, and bleak, ringing poetry.

Copper alloy longship brooch, AD 800-
1050, found in Tjørnehøj, Denmark.
Photo: National Museum of Denmark 

To be fair, there is some truth in the violent stereotype; the Old Norse word vikingr means 'raider' - but it's a specific job description, not a synonym for 'Early Medieval Scandinavian'. The British Museum's new exhibition, Vikings: Life and Legend sets out to balance this picture, by drawing together artefacts from all aspects of life, both domestic and martial.

They have a broad palate to work from - the Vikings ventured as far as North America and served as mercenaries in Constantinople, while Swedish warriors known as Rus settled in Kiev and gave their name to modern Russia - and have exploited this to full effect, assembling a simply stunning collection of objects.

Displays include the poignantly domestic - toy boats and ivory ironing boards - to impressively elaborate jewellery and staggering hoards of plundered booty, chopped up into 'hack silver' and stashed for safekeeping in the ground. These latter finds reinforce the image of the ferocious Viking warrior, though of course the fact that the owners of these caches were unable to return to reclaim them might suggest that their battle-luck had ultimately run out.

Housed within a metal shell, the remains of 37m-long Roskilde
6 represent the largest Viking vessel yet excavated.

More dramatic evidence of what happened when a raid went awry can be found in a low glass case nestled against the great steel flank of a reconstructed longship housing the fragmentary remains of Roskilde 6 - at 37m, the largest Viking vessel yet excavated. Sprawled beneath the glass are a number of human skeletons, arranged as they were found in an old quarry pit up on Ridgeway Hill, Dorset. The chaotic arrangement of their bones testify to their bodies being thrown into the grave, while the men themselves had evidently met a violent end: they have all been decapitated, their heads piled in a heap to one side.

These are some of the roughly 50 individuals, dated to the 10th or 11th century, who were excavated from this pit during the construction of the Weymouth Relief Road. With an average age of 18-25, and isotopic signatures suggesting they grew up in the Viking world (albeit with disparate origins across Scandinavia, the Baltic regions, and Russia), it is thought that this was the crew of an ill-fated raiding expedition, who were captured and executed by local Anglo-Saxons.

Silver Odin figure, from Lejre, Zealand, Denmark.
Dated c.AD 800-1050. Photo: Roskilde Museum.

Equally arresting are the religious items, not least a fabulous silver model of a one-eyed man, seated on a throne with two ravens beside him - surely the god Odin - and a beautiful set of silver figures depicting armed women, perhaps the Valkyries, 'choosers of the slain' who fetched doomed warriors from the battlefield to join Odin's ranks in Valhalla. I was delighted to see that among these is a very recently-discovered example: an unusual 3D version of the motif, with adorably big eyes and a long plait of hair. I understand the exhibition had to be reworked several times to incorporate new finds, and it's wonderful to see so much up-to-date material.

Speaking of new, this is also the first exhibition to be held in the BM's new purpose-built facility. It's certainly bigger than the Reading Room, where exhibitions used to be held, and doubtlessly it is easier to design displays for a big open space than a circular room, but it is also a lot less atmospheric. There is something of the aircraft hanger about this new building, not helped by the fact that the decor is so overwhelmingly grey - though perhaps this is not helped by the fact that so many of the objects on display are also varying shades of black, grey, or brown. The next exhibition to inhabit this space will be Ming China - perhaps a more colourful range of artefacts will dilute this effect somewhat.

Gorgeous little Valkyrie figurine.
Photo: Asger Kjærgaard, Odense City Museums

I also felt that Vikings would have benefitted from a clearer narrative structure - I would be hard-pressed to say which themes the various areas were arranged around - and the labelling in many of the cases is minimalist at best, and absent at worst, but if the design merits only a B+, the contents are definitely A* material. And yes, for those of you worried that the revisionism has gone too far, there are swords and axes on display too.

Vikings: Life and Legend runs until 22 June 2014. Visit the exhibition website for more information.

All photos copyright of the Trustees of the British Museum, unless otherwise stated.

Into Parliament I shall go!

 It never hurts to have friends in high places, and today I took advantage of a rare Monday off to visit a friend who works in the House of Lords. Having lived in London for the best part of 4 years the Palace of Westminster is a pretty familiar sight, but shamefully I'd never made it inside. Until today.

Getting into the Lords is a bit like getting into departures at an airport - security scans for me, and a trip through an x-ray machine for my satchel. I also had to wear the most unflattering photo ID I've ever had the pleasure of hanging round my neck for the day - I was talking at the time it was taken, so I can't say I was unhappy that at the end of the day I had to surrender that gormless portrait at the gate rather than keep it as a souvenir.

Westminster Hall
Image: David McKelvey

From there our tour started, rather unexpectedly, with a trip through the service passageways and carparks - with a bit of impromptu Prescott-spotting en route. There are some fab things to see even in this more mundane environment, though: fixed to on one concrete pillar is a plaque marking where Guy Fawkes was apprehended in his attempt to blow up Parliament, while the sight of a sign marking two parking spaces as 'Peers' motorcycles only' is always good for a giggle.

From there we made our way into Westminster Hall, the oldest building in the complex: a cavernous stone space with a soaring Medieval timber roof and a veritable floor of brass plaques marking historic events. It's an inspiring sight - and also home to both the palace's gift shop, and home to what I'm told is a beautiful crypt, though it wasn't open on the day we visited.

House of Commons

The palace itself is a bewildering warren of corridors, though you can always tell when you have strayed from Commons into Lords or vice-versa due to the strict colour-coding; should the carpet or furnishings switch abruptly from red to green, you know you've wandered into the other territory. Along these passages are committee rooms and other official chambers, sometimes opening out into vast galleries glittering with gilded picture frames and elaborate floor tiles, their walls packed with huge murals and regal statues.

Royal Gallery

Largest of these is the Royal Gallery, which forms the main procession route for the Opening of Parliament, and often hosts addresses by visiting foreign heads of state. I understand Angela Merkel spoke there quite recently, though it was deemed politic for Nicolas Sarkozy to hold his speech elsewhere, decorated as its walls are with images of British victories in the Napoleonic wars.

House of Lords

The culmination of the trip, though, was seeing the Commons and Lords chambers, decked out in green and red, the former with its ornate throne for the Speaker and (now glassed-in) public gallery, the latter home to a great red cushion or 'woolsack', for the Lord Speaker. This cushion lies in front of an even more elaborate throne, where the monarch sits during the State Opening of Parliament, and I was amused to learn that the eldest child of any serving member of the House of Lords is entitled to sit on the steps of the throne to watch proceedings in session.

Before it was time to go, I was offered the chance to get a bite to eat - and instead of one of the fancy Lords' restaurants, we opted to eat in the canteen beside the Press Gallery - I've always wanted to know what it's like to be a lobby journalist. And it turns out it's cheap and cheerful, but still much more comfortable than your average cafeteria. Very cheap, in fact; a roast lamb lunch cost less than £3. Maybe the politicians hope that well-fed journalists will write friendlier stories about them!

All images copyright UK Parliament unless otherwise stated

Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story

Dating back 850,000-950,000 years, these ancient footprints
 recently found at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast are the
earliest-known human tracks yet identified outside Africa.

These days we Brits define ourselves very much as an island nation, but until about 6,000 years ago we were connected to Continental Europe by a broad land bridge, allowing humans and animals to roam back and forth. Not that this was an easy place to settle - archaeological evidence tells a story of multiple waves of would-be colonists making their way to these shores, only to be driven back or wiped out by dramatic climate change or advancing ice sheets.

Finally, as the ice sheets withdrew for the last time in around 12,000 BC, a group of migrants were able to cling on, and it is from these prehistoric pioneers - thought to represent the 10th attempt to settle here - that our current population is descended. Compared to our Continental neighbours, then, we are relative newcomers - though archaeological evidence for human activity in this country goes back much further - as much as 1 million years, in fact.

Right now, the most important area of research in this field is a cluster of Palaeolithic sites near the modern village of Happisburgh (Haze-burra) on the North Norfolk coast. Now, as a Norfolk girl myself I could be accused of bias, but this spot is honestly pretty spectacular. It's been in the press most recently because its cliffs are eroding frighteningly fast - you might remember seeing dramatic photos of Happisburgh's outermost houses balanced precariously on the brink of sliding into the sea - talk about living on the edge!

Excavating 'Happisburgh 3', home to the
earliest stone tools yet found in Britain.

But (small comfort to the villagers, granted) the crumbling cliffs have an archaeological silver lining: the erosion has also exposed layers of glacial deposits dating back hundreds of thousands of years. These are thick bands of sediments laid down at a time when Happisburgh lay not on the coast but about 15 miles inland, in a fertile river valley - and within them archaeologists have found animal bones from long-extinct species, plant remains, and the earliest-known manmade stone tools yet found in Britain.

Dating back 850,000-950,000 years, they are significantly earlier than the previous record-holders, found at Pakefield in Suffolk (700,000 years old), and older still than our earliest-known human remains: a few fragmentary bones found at Boxgrove, West Sussex, which date back a mere 500,000 years.

This prehistoric landscape also holds more tangible traces of these early settlers: earlier this year, high tides stripped back layers of sand from the beach below the cliffs to reveal ancient peat deposits, speckled with human footprints. At least 49 prints have been identified, made by at least five individuals, both adults and children - perhaps a family group.

A very friendly
Neanderthal

This research - spearheaded by the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project - forms the core of the Natural History Museum's wonderful new exhibition, Britain: 1 million years of the human story. After opening with displays and videos exploring these latest exciting developments, winding themed areas draw you back in time, introducing the different hominin species that have inhabited Britain at various times - Homo sapiens (us), Homo heidelbergensis, Neanderthals, and Homo Antecessor (this latter group likely the ones who left behind their tools and tracks at Happisburgh) - and what we can learn about these early settlers from the objects and physical remains that they left behind.

Boxgrove
tibia

What makes this exhibition truly special is that it brings together all the most important early human fossils in one place - for an archaeology enthusiast, it's like being in a gallery full of celebrities,and I confess I did feel a little starstruck. To name-check but a few, you an see a tibia from Boxgrove - one of our earliest-known hominin fossils, likely from a H. Heidelbergensis - as well as the controversial Kent's Cavern maxilla, a fragment of lower jawbone that was found in a cave near Torquay. Recent re-dating has provoked fierce debate among archaeologists, who disagree both over its exact age, and whether it is the earliest-known fragment of a member of our species, or a Neanderthal. There are fragments of a Neanderthal (or H. Heidelbergensis - another disputed fossil) skull from Swanscombe in Essex, and, laid out in a glass case, the skeleton of the fabulous 'Red Lady of Paviland'.

The Swanscombe skull fragments

Found in a Welsh cave in 1823, this skeleton is an amusing example of how spectacularly wrong antiquarians could get their analysis in pre-scientific times. The discoverer, William Buckland, announced that he had found the remains of a woman from the Roman period, perhaps a prostitute who serviced the legionaries based in the camp above her cave. In fact the remains are those of a young man (the 'Red' bit of the name is because the bones are stained with ochre), and much earlier than Roman - recent radiocarbon dating evidence suggests the bones could be as much as 33,000 years old.

At 450,000 years old, the Clacton
 speartip is the oldest surviving
wooden artefact yet found in Britain.

The artefacts on display are spectacular too - at 450,000 years old, the Clacton spear is our earliest-known surviving wooden artefact, and there is also a fine range of stone tools, and bones carved with delicate animal images. Some of the other man-made items are more grisly - cups from Gough's Cave in Somerset, fashioned from human skulls, have been interpreted as evidence of ritual cannibalism.

Keeping a watchful eye over this part of the exhibition are two strikingly realistic - and very charismatic - lifesized reconstructions of a male Neanderthal and a H. Sapiens. The Neanderthal is short and stocky with a friendly, bearded face, while the rugged, squinty appearance of H Sapiens, combined with the twig hanging from his lips like a roll-up, led us to dub him 'Flint Eastwood'.

A skull cup from Gough's Cave, Somerset

A though-provoking final section explores more recent human migration and our genetic make-up - including the revelation that many of us have between 1 and 4% Neanderthal DNA, while equally mind-blowing are the displays of exotic animal bones - lions, elephants, hippo, hyenas - that used to live in this country. Valley'. Walking through Palaeolithic Britain must have been quite the safari.

Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story runs until 28 September 2014 - for more information, visit the exhibition website here.

All images copyright of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum

Crossbones Cemetery

At a risk of being thought morbid, I'm off to visit another cemetery. This one is really special, though. It's one of the first places I ever visited on a walkabout and I always take my friends and family there if we pass through Southwark. And I'm taking a pink hair ribbon with me. You'll see why later.

Crossbones cemetery lies off Redcross Way, a quiet, empty side street running between the noise and bustle of Union St and Southwark St. It's an easy 5-minute walk from either Borough or London Bridge stations.

Now, Crossbones doesn't look like a cemetery - it doesn't have gravestones or mausolea, and you can't wander through its grounds like Brompton Cemetery, but you won't miss it - just look for the metal gates covered in flowers, beads, dolls and ribbons and adorned with a brass plaque that reads: R.I.P. the Outcast Dead.

Why these words? Because from late medieval times Crossbones was an unconsecrated burial ground for prostitutes and other 'undesirables'. Local legend says it was also used as a plague pit, and paupers were buried here from 1769. No memorials mark their graves, but it is thought that some 15,000 bodies might rest under the sad patch of wasteland behind these gates.

No one knows quite how old Crossbones is. The earliest reference to the graveyard comes from John Stow's Survey of London, written in 1598. He writes: "I have heard of ancient men, of good credit, report that these single women were forbidden the rites of the church, so long as they continued that sinful life, and were excluded from Christian burial if they were not reconciled before their death. And therefore there was a plot of ground called the Single Woman's churchyard, appointed for them far from the parish church." You may have guessed that 'Single Woman' is a euphemism for 'prostitute'.

For many centuries Southwark was the 'pleasure garden' of London, where all sorts of forbidden things such as bear and bull baiting, theatres and brothels flourished. Bizarrely, this is because from 1107 the land belonged to the Bishop of Winchester. As his estate fell outside the jurisdiction of the City, all these otherwise illegal activities could operate freely - licenced, of course, by the Bishop. Under an 1161 ordinance of Henry II, licensed brothels were entirely legal within the Bishop's lands or 'Liberty', with licencing fees going into the Bishop's coffers. Prostitutes who worked in these 'stews' were thus known as 'Winchester Geese'.

Their activities may have been legal but these women were still personae non gratae in society. After they died they were forbidden from being laid to rest in consecrated ground - instead they received a shallow pit and a shovel of quicklime on the edge of the Bishop's lands: the patch that became Crossbones Cemetery.

Henry VIII annulled his ancestor's ordinance in 1546 and the licenced brothels closed, but Crossbones continued to be used as a burial ground for the most wretched members of society. By the 19th century the area around the site had become a cholera-infested slum and the graveyard was finally closed as it had become "completely overcharged with dead" and "inconsistent with a due regard for the public health and public decency".

What next for this lonely spot? In 1883 the land was sold as a building site but after public outcry - and Lord Brabazon writing a letter to The Times condemning this act of "desecration" - the sale was declared void under the 1884 Disused Burial Grounds Act.

The Outcast Dead lay peacefully for 100 years until their slumber was disturbed once more in the 1990s. Extension work on the Jubilee Line led to part of the cemetery being excavated by the Museum of London Archaeology Service between 1991 and 1998. Archaeologists found and removed 148 skeletons, mostly women, many of whom showed signs of tuberculosis, syphilis, smallpox and other diseases. They reported that the burial site was very overcrowded, with bodies layered on top of each other.

Then in 1998 something wonderful happened: the local population adopted the site as a people's shrine. The gates in front of the cemetery were decorated with a wooden plaque (replaced in 2005 with the bronze one seen today) and a colourful, chaotic sea of totems: dolls, teddies, ribbons, flowers, strings of beads and strips of cloth bearing the names of the dead. If you look at these memorial ribbons you will see names and dates both ancient and modern, with women commemorated from the 1600s into this century. These decorations have survived to the present day, added to by respectful visitors and cared for by a group of volunteers called the Friends of Crossbones Cemetery, who also hold a candlelit vigil outside these gates once a month. Even the graffiti on nearby wooden boards has a reverent tone. "Touch for Love", someone has written inside a great chalk heart, while a cardboard notice adds: "Sleep well, you winged spirits of intimate joy". The place feels sad but also very loved.

The most recent threat to the cemetery comes from Drivers Jonas Deloitte and TFL who are interested in marketing the site as a 'Landmark Court' for development from 2012. The Friends of Crossbones Cemetery are fighting to create a permenant memorial garden there instead. You can read about their campaign - and more information about the cemetery - here.

Having reached the metal gates of Crossbones Cemetery I stand for a moment in quiet thought while bright ribbons wave in the breeze. No traffic passes down Redcross Way, and the street is a shady island of tranquility and stillness between hectically busy roads. This is my fifth or sixth visit to Crossbones but it is still very moving to stand before these tokens of public compassion and acceptance, to think of those quiet sleepers behind the gates who never knew this kind of love while they lived. I stoop to read some of the names printed on weather-tattered and faded strips of cloth and wonder who went to the trouble to find out the names of the 17th and 18th-century women recorded here. Then, taking a pale pink ribbon from my satchel I reach up and knot it securely around one of the railings, near the bronze plaque that, erected by the local council, is as close to an official commemoration as any of the Outcast Dead have ever had. I stand a moment longer, my ribbon already lost amongst the other loving tokens, just one strand of colour among many in this rippling, living memorial. And then it's time to go home.

Chelsea Old Church and Cheyne Walk

Apologies for the long radio silence, my poor laptop has been away getting repaired. But now the sun is shining, it's a lovely day - and it's the weekend, which means it's time for another walkabout. What a beautiful day - my poor battered boots are taking a well-earned holiday and even my tatty black coat is staying at home. Today I've dug out my best stripey blazer and I'm off to Chelsea.

This isn't part of London I've visited much before but I'm sure it'll be a different world to my home in Acton. Today I'm going walkabout along one specific street. Cheyne Walk is an amazing road - a list of former residents is a veritable 'Who's Who' of 19th and 20th--century artists and literary giants, and some rather more modern celebrities have called it home too. Some of my favourite people from the past - from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Bram Stoker to Sylvia Pankhurst - have lived here, as have two Rolling Stones. This is going to be fun.

Normally I'd advise getting the tube to Sloane Square so you can walk straight down King's Road, but the District Line's being temperamental today so I took the Piccadilly Line to South Kensington instead. It's no further (about a 15 minute walk either way) and it's actually a very interesting walk, past some really beautiful houses. 

From South Ken I wandered, wide-eyed, past Onslow Square. Here, opulent houses with elegant white columns and ornamental balconies look out over a large park - or "private residents' garden", a sign on the gate informed me. All the streets are filled with trees covered in white blossom and it's just as pretty as you head towards the river, down Sidney St and Oakley St.

Beautiful house... with an
impressive array of CCTV cameras...

From Oakley St I took a little detour down Upper Cheyne Row, which has some gorgeous houses - very rustic, almost like villas. You'd expect to see their like in the South of France, not in the middle of a city. There's a great mix of old-fashioned yellow and red-brick buildings - some of them even have 18th-century dates painted below the roof - and some wonderful period details: Victorian-style lampposts, lions head door knockers, tall sash windows with Continental-style shutters. But the security here is just scary. Almost every house has a tall wall - some topped with spikes - high gates and intercoms, and poles with four CCTV cameras facing in all directions. Honestly, I haven't seen anything like it since I was in Johannesburg. Certainly never seen anything like it in Acton - probably because we don't have anything worth stealing there...

A short walk down another leafy stretch of road and you come out onto Chelsea Embankment - pre-1874 this was water, and the houses on Cheyne Walk fronted straight onto the river. Hence why it was such a fashionable place to live, I suppose. 

Cheyne Walk, pre Chelsea Embankment

Now, beyond the brightly-coloured flowerbeds crammed with primroses, tulips and marigolds - a riot of yellow, orange and red - four lanes of crawling traffic stand between you and the water. The other side of the river is another story altogether, a mass of curved metal and green glass.

Leaving this panoramic view of modernity behind, if you turn right and walk a short distance you'll come to Chelsea Old Church. Small, squarish and red brick, this is a compact little building with a surprisingly tall tower.

It's hard to imagine now, but once upon a time Chelsea was a little village - a ferry landing-spot before all the great bridges were built over the Thames. Centuries before Chelsea was swallowed up by London, the Old Church was its parish church. 

Chelsea Old Church and  Thomas More

It's a lovely church - originally built in the 12th century it was largely destroyed by German bombs in 1941 but it has been faithfully restored in the original style and a lot of its medieval features have been preserved. 

The church is closely associated with the Tudor statesman Thomas More (who was beheaded after disagreeing with Henry VIII over the Break with Rome, wrote the philosophical work 'Utopia' and is considered a saint by the Catholic Church). More built his own private chapel here in 1528 and is also buried there - amazingly, his funerary monument survived the Blitz. 

But he isn't the only famous name linked to this place; the church is rich in Tudor history. It is thought that Henry VIII secretly married his third wife Jane Seymour here before her official state ceremony and that both Lady Jane Grey and Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth I) worshipped at this church while they lived with Henry VIII's last wife Katherine Parr in her Chelsea manor. The 17th-century poet laureate Thomas Shadwell is also buried here.

I found the church open so I wandered in for a look about. It's quite small inside, divided in three by the vaulted ceiling and dark wooden beams into the nave and two side chapels, and the overall impression is of simplicity; the altar is just a small table with two white candles and two urns of white roses, surrounded by a wooden rail. The organ is high up on a balcony supported by wooden pillars over the entrance. The walls are plain and white but have a very busy feel because they are crammed with sculpted plaques (most of them cracked from bomb damage - the gravestones paving the floor also have great jagged lines running through them where they have been put back together) and some elaborate wall tombs. One of these, to the Cheyne family, no less, was framed with two columns of red marble, containing a reclining white statue and taking up the whole height of the wall. The organist was practicing as I came in (evensong was due to begin in 75 minutes), but otherwise the church seemed empty, and his great rumbling chords filled the air.

Inside the church - Lawrence chapel on the left,
More chapel on the right.

On the left hand side is the 16th-century Lawrence Chapel, which is entered through a triumphal arch - rather faded but still painted in red and blue, with the family's coat of arms prominently displayed. A modest lot, the Lawrences - inside the chapel is a huge monument to them, with busts of various family members and an elegant - if  rather self-aggrandising- epitaph listing their achievements. Some people pay to have a private pew, even a walled pew boxed in to exclude the rest of the congregation - and then others, like the merchant adventurer and goldsmith Thomas Lawrence, build their own chapel to worship in.


In this chapel I found I wasn't alone after all - the verger, a quiet, elderly man, was sitting beside the Lawrence monument reading a broadsheet paper. He was more than happy to show me around the church and tell me a bit about its history - in fact, he was eager to point out some of his favourite plaques. He showed me one which read that a woman's 'glorious reward' for her spectacular piety was that she had borne 10 children - I wonder if she would have agreed with that? Pointing to another, which commemorated four men who had died 'in a squall on the Thames' he chuckled: "I've always found that one rather funny... I suppose it isn't really."


Other interesting features of the church include their collection of 'chained books' - which are pretty much what it says on the tin; a set of 17th and 18th-century tomes, bound in yellow-grey leather and enormous (the biggest was about 6" thick and almost 2ft high), chained inside a wooden case with black metal bars across the glass front. One of these was apparently quite famous; a 1717 'Vinegar Bible', so called because a careless typesetter rendered the title of Luke 20 ('The Parable of the Vineyard') as 'The Parable of the Vinegar'. Lovely stuff.


Lots of nice memorial plaques too - some fun 18th century ones with rhyming epitaphs and a clutch of 19th century ones which give you an interesting insight into the sorts of people who populated Chelsea's old parish. Among them there was an apothecary, a member of the East India Company and a Captain of the Royal Navy. Also, my nomination for the best name of this walkabout: Sydenham Teast Edwards, d.1819. Good effort, Sir!


The More chapel is to the right of the altar. It is decorated with a modern painting of the statesman Thomas but there are also some beautiful historical details; there is a lovely little brass engraving of a family praying together - a man and woman in 16th-century garb kneeling in front of a table with books. The woman is veiled and their five girls and six boys of various ages  (one son is bearded like his father) kneel behind the parent of the same sex. Some bits of sculpted faces and fruit have also survived, decorating an arch, while the chapel also contains the remains of a monument to Jane Guildford, Duchess of Northumberland. This was the mother in law of the ill-fated (and short-lived) 'Nine Days Queen' Lady Jane Grey, as well as the mother of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester - a particular favourite of Elizabeth I.

Thomas More isn't buried in the More Chapel itself but round to the left, near the main altar. It took me a while to find him because his grave isn't obviously signposted – you have to look for a large recess with a big black plaque covered in a Latin inscription. Luckily my guide was more than happy to point it out for me. It's quite an impressive memorial – the plaque is probably 4ft by 4ft, set in a stone frame with coats of arms at each corner. You can see the damage it suffered during the Blitz – four big cracks run across the black stone, but it has been carefully put back together. The inscription summarises his life and career. I had fun trying to read the Latin because I'm a geek like that, but there's a translation to hand on a little wooden board if you're that way inclined. 

 

Some of the other memorials around the altar are also worth a look. On the left-hand side there's a plaque to Sir Hans Sloane (d.1753), a physician, naturalist and founder of the British Museum, while near this is a lovely little monument to the Hungerford family from 1581 - a relief shows a family kneeling under a pillared arch (perhaps representing this church?), now yellow and faded but it looks like there was once some colour on the pillars.

Dacre monument

One of my favourite plaques is from 1539 and lies in a deep niche near the altar. Full marks to John, Lord Bray for attention to detail – for whatever reason he felt the need to record not only the date but also the time (3pm) of his death. And why not?

But probably the most impressive monument belongs to Gregory Fiennes, Lord Dacre, and his wife Ann – it's a fantastic 16th-century construction behind green and gold metal railings. Gregory and Ann are depicted in stone, lying side by side, hands folded in prayer, in a deep wall recess. Gregory is bearded and dressed in armour while Ann looks every inch the Tudor lady in her cap and ruffed collar. Stone dogs lie at the feet of both statues. Over them rises a great arched canopy,  decorated with roses, three big coats of arms and two obelisks, the whole thing framed by columns of marble. It's an amazing monument, painted in red, blue and yellow - now much faded, but it must have been an impressive sight when new.

Leaving the church, if you cross the road and walk across a small park called Petyt Place (past a sandpit containing a metal post labelled “dog's lavatory” - only in Chelsea!), you enter phase two of this walkabout; Cheyne Walk. Home to a bohemian colony of artists, writers and rock stars from the 19^th century to the present day, it's a place to wander and let the imagination run wild.

On the way to Cheyne Walk you pass an imposing redbrick 17th-century house with tall, thin, octagonal chimneys and black diamond patterns on the walls. This is Crosby Hall. It belonged to a wealthy 15th-century wool merchant who rented it to Richard III as his London home. Shakespeare's play is set partly in this hall. This isn't its original location, though – after suffering terrible fire damage in the late 17^th century and being threatened with demolition in the early 20^th it was moved, brick by brick from Bishopsgate to here. What an undertaking! Quite odd to see what looks like it should be a National Trust property beside a busy Chelsea road, but there's no doubting it's an impressive sight. Above a huge wooden double door that wouldn't look out of place on a cathedral there is a great coat of arms topped with a helmet and supported by what I can only describe as 'mer-stags'. On either side there are pillars on which lions crouch on their hind legs, holding shields with the same coat of arms.

Passing this, walk right to the end of Cheyne Walk and then start working your way back towards the church. It's an interesting place if you know a bit about who lived there but like the other Chelsea streets I found it quite an unfriendly place. Many of the fences are made of black railings but there are boards behind them, keeping nosy eyes out. Lots of tall gates with intercom systems. That said, a very interesting place to wander. In all my walkabouts I have never come across a street with so many famous names associated with it as Cheyne Walk - here's a list of just a few of the individuals who were born, lived or died on this street:

Writers

• George Elliot (number 4) 
• Bram Stoker (number 27)
• Algernon Charles Swinburne (16)
• Henry James (21)

• The great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (98)

• The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (number 13, where he composed his first three symphonies) 

 Artists

• J M W Turner (119) 
• Whistler (21, 96 and 101)
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti (16)

Political figures

• The Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst (number 120)
• Former Prime Minister David Lloyd George (number 10)

Modern musicians

• Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful had a flat at number 48 from 1968-75 
• Another Rolling Stone, Keith Richards, lived at number 3. 
• Bryan Adams owns property on this road and Bob Marley composed 'I shot the Sheriff' in a one-bed flat just off Cheyne Walk in the 1970s. 

 Today I went for a wander to see how many of these houses you could actually see.

Pankhurst's house was the first I came to at number 120, and helpfully it has a blue plaque identifying it. Not all the houses do, so you have to keep an eye out for house numbers. The building itself is still lovely and old fashioned to look at, except the owners have painted the walls a rather alarming shade of fluorescent blue! The neighbouring house was pale pink. No accounting for taste, I guess...

Turner's house, number 119, didn't have a blue plaque but, more fittingly, a lovely slab of sculpted iron with a raised relief of a palette and brushes. Quite an attractive house – dark red brick, rather French-looking black grilles over the windows. 

Moving on to Whistler's various homes – the cream-coloured five-storey townhouse at #101 with its beautifully manicured little garden didn't have any kind of blue plaque to mark it out, but #96 did. Quite hard to see #96 though, as it was behind a high brick wall and a tall black gate.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel lived at #98 but you can't see this house at all. It's surrounded by a very tall brick wall with a solid green door, not a gate. I think that's rather unsporting!

From Victoriana to modern day – at the next house on our list lived a rather more contemporary star. Number 48, a white, 2-storey building – very continental style, with a balcony surrounded by black railings and supported by metal pillars wound around with flowering vines – once held a flat where Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful lived for 7 years. One infamous night in 1969 they were raided by the Vice Squad at this address.

Further along the road, we find the home of a very famous author. At the end of a sweeping crescent of tall thin buildings lived Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula and whom probably have to thank for having the Twilight franchise inflicted on us. Shame, I really liked him when I was a teenager...

Number 21 was home to two famous names (though you wouldn't know to look at it, there being no plaque): the author Henry James and our friend Whistler (again). It's a tall building of dark brick, five stories, with a long covered walkway leading between the front door and the gate.

At number 16 the poet Swinburne and my second-favourite Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti made their home. Rossetti spent the last 20 years of his life at this address, where he reportedly kept a menagerie of exotic animals including a kangaroo, a gazelle, an armadillo and a wombat (though he was banned from keeping peacocks due to the noise)

David Lloyd George lived at number 10, a 6-storey redbrick building with huge windows – it's very grand!

A few doors down is number 4, home to George Eliot, which has a particularly impressive front gate. The neighbouring house in paler brick, number 3, belonged to Rolling Stone Keith Richards. You have to wonder how these two would have got on as neighbours if they had lived at the same time – I think quite well! Eliot was no stranger to scandals, what with her controversial religious views, her relationship with the philosopher George Henry Lewes, who was already in an open marriage, and her marriage to John Cross, 20 years her junior. Rock and Roll!

This brings you to the end of Cheyne Walk and the end of my walkabout. There are plenty of other things worth doing in Chelsea if you're in this neck of the woods - the Physic Garden is lovely and the Old Barracks is worth wandering by. And of course there's King's Rd - but they're rather too well-known to be 'hidden gems' so I'm not going to cover them in this blog - you'll have to go and see them yourself!

Until next time...