Handheld Learning Conference Day 2: Walking to Westminster

If you have visited my pages before I am sure you will have noticed I like my food. Breakfast today was great I had scrambled egg, sausage, bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes. oh and some toast and marmalade. I thought I'd better try this marmalade stuff, because one of my ancestors, a bear called Paddington, who I met on my last visit to London with Mr Mills, seems to have liked this stuff a lot. Mr Mills said he always carried a Marmalade sandwich in his suitcase, just in case. It is Just as well I did have a good breakfast, because we went for a bit of a walkabout to start our day.

We left a bit earlier so we could walk along the Victoria Embankment. The Embankment runs along the River Thames. Today it is one of the city's tourist attractions, but it was built to have an even more important job in the past, a job it still does today. Most people who visit don't even realise this. Even though it is very beautiful, and the views are amazing, its reason for being there is under your feet and mostly invisible. The embankment was designed and built by Sir Joseph Bazelgette during Victorian Times, to carry new sewers that would carry waste away from the city, and help clean up the river water which had become very smelly and dirty. The grand plan for the embankment was also to help make getting about in the city easier. The streets had become crowded, with vehicles, and so on top of the sewers that were built the road was widened, and part of the new underground railway was built into it. This photograph shows a memorial to Sir Joseph from the Embankment. The fact that many of us don't realise this is all part of how clever , and how ingenious Sir Joseph's design was.

We left Old street Station at 8.00. Old street is on the Northern Line, which is one of the deep tube railways in the city. it was very busy, hot and crowded on the train. We changed trains at Bank and finally got off the tube at Embankment.


Behind Embankment station you can see the London Eye. or the Millennium Wheel. This is on the other side of the River Thames. We didn't get time to go on it. This was a real shame, because some of the photographs I have seen on the Internet show how fantastic the view is from the top. The next time I visit I really must encourage my host to take me.


This is Cleopatra's needle, it really is an Ancient Egyptian monument, it has Hieroglyphs, Ancient Egyptian Writing on it. But why is it in the middle of London? Well it didn't really have anything to do with Cleopatra, it was given to Britain to commemorate two battles that happened in Egypt. The Battles of the Nile and the Battle of Alexandria. They didn't arrive in Britain until Victorian Times. Beside the obelisk are two Bronze Sphinxes, these are not ancient, they are Victorian, and were used to decorate the memorial. The bottom of the "needle" was broken and couldn't stand on its own, so a new base was built and the obelisk put on top.


This is a view looking back along the embankment as we walked towards Westminster where the conference was that Mr Mills was going to. Embankment Station is near the Bridge you can see in the background. This is the Charing Cross Railway Bridge, and is where Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Hungerford Suspension Bridge used to be. This was taken down to build the new bridge to carry trains across the river. The chains that once held up the roadway on the Hungerford Bridge, were taken to Bristol to help finish the Clifton Suspension Bridge, as a memorial to the famous engineer.

You can see how grand the top of the embankment is, with these beautiful lamps, and a wide pavement. It is hard to believe that underneath my feet are pipes carrying a railway and sewers, but like I said Sir Joseph was an amazing engineer.

At the end of our walk along the Victoria Embankment we came to Westminster Bridge. This photograph is a statue of Boudicca, in her chariot. Boudicca was the Queen of the Icenii, a tribe of Celts who lived in Britain after the Romans invasion. The story of her life is very complicated, but she is famous for leading a rebellion against the Roman invaders that burned the Roman city of London (Londinium) to the Ground. She is seen as a symbol of bravery, pride and freedom. Her statue faces the palace of Westminster, the home of our Houses of Parliament, and where our government meets to make important decisions about things we want to happen in our country.

It was only a short walk to the Methodist Central Hall from here, where the conference that we were visiting was held. I was a bit pooped when we arrived, and like Paddington would say, I was ready for elevenses, a cup of cocoa and a snack. Unfortunately I didn't pack my marmalade sandwich, so we settled for a cup of tea instead, then I settled myself down for a snooze.