London Marvels and Oddities
The World SF Convention takes place in London Thursday to Monday this week. Here are a few things visitors may like to search out while in town.
Thomas Hardy's Tree
A little to the north of St Pancras Station is St Pancras Old Church, one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England. When the railway was built in the the nineteenth century, it cut through the old cemetery and Thomas Hardy supervised removal of the graves. Hardy's tree, in whose shade he's supposed to have eaten his lunch, still stands, surrounded by a ruff of headstones. You can also find the memorial tomb of Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin and her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft (famous in her own right for being the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women), as well as the graves of Dr John Polidari, who shared the Swiss lakeside villa with Lord Byron and Mary and Percy Shelley when Mary wrote Frankenstein (Polidari wrote a vampire story), and the architect Sir John Soane, which inspired the design of the iconic red telephone box.
SFF connection: Frankenstein, vampires
Sir John Soane's Picture Room
The Soane Museum in Lincoln Inn Fields houses the eighteenth century architect's collection of books and artworks in the townhouse he built and left to the nation. Three walls of the Picture Room, containing works by Hogarth and Canaletto, are cunningly equipped with hinged panels that slide out to display layers of pictures.
SFF connection: TARDIS
The Irish Giant
Directly across the square from the Soane Museum is the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Hunterian Museum, where you can marvel at examples of surgical procedures, anatomical oddities and the skeleton of Charles Byrne, the 7' 7" tall 'Irish Giant'. Worried that on his death his body would fall into the hands of John Hunter, the eighteenth century surgeon who founded the museum, Byrne left instructions that he should be buried at sea, but Hunter bribed Byrne's wards to seize his prize.
SFF connection: brains in jars, resurrection men
George Frederic Watt's Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice
Located in Postman's Park in Little Britain, just north of St Paul's Cathedral, this touching memorial consists of ceramic tablets with brief descriptions of the incidents in which nineteenth century heroes and heroines perished while saving lives.
SFF connection: steampunk tragedy
Darwin's Walking Stick
A whalebone walking stick topped with a skull, once owned by Charles Darwin, is amongst the many oddities and wonders, most related to medical science, collected by Henry Wellcome and displayed in the Wellcome Collection, Euston Road.
SFF connection: a sculpture inspired by J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition is also on display
Crystal Palace Dinosaurs
Commissioned when the Crystal Palace was moved from Hyde Park to South London, these concrete sculptures embody the theory of Sir Richard Owen that dinosaurs really were terrible lizards. Extensively restored, they stand in a landscaped garden.
SFF connection: dinosaurs. Really weird dinosaurs.
Thomas Hardy's Tree
A little to the north of St Pancras Station is St Pancras Old Church, one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England. When the railway was built in the the nineteenth century, it cut through the old cemetery and Thomas Hardy supervised removal of the graves. Hardy's tree, in whose shade he's supposed to have eaten his lunch, still stands, surrounded by a ruff of headstones. You can also find the memorial tomb of Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin and her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft (famous in her own right for being the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women), as well as the graves of Dr John Polidari, who shared the Swiss lakeside villa with Lord Byron and Mary and Percy Shelley when Mary wrote Frankenstein (Polidari wrote a vampire story), and the architect Sir John Soane, which inspired the design of the iconic red telephone box.
SFF connection: Frankenstein, vampires
Sir John Soane's Picture Room
The Soane Museum in Lincoln Inn Fields houses the eighteenth century architect's collection of books and artworks in the townhouse he built and left to the nation. Three walls of the Picture Room, containing works by Hogarth and Canaletto, are cunningly equipped with hinged panels that slide out to display layers of pictures.
SFF connection: TARDIS
The Irish Giant
Directly across the square from the Soane Museum is the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Hunterian Museum, where you can marvel at examples of surgical procedures, anatomical oddities and the skeleton of Charles Byrne, the 7' 7" tall 'Irish Giant'. Worried that on his death his body would fall into the hands of John Hunter, the eighteenth century surgeon who founded the museum, Byrne left instructions that he should be buried at sea, but Hunter bribed Byrne's wards to seize his prize.
SFF connection: brains in jars, resurrection men
George Frederic Watt's Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice
Located in Postman's Park in Little Britain, just north of St Paul's Cathedral, this touching memorial consists of ceramic tablets with brief descriptions of the incidents in which nineteenth century heroes and heroines perished while saving lives.
SFF connection: steampunk tragedy
Darwin's Walking Stick
A whalebone walking stick topped with a skull, once owned by Charles Darwin, is amongst the many oddities and wonders, most related to medical science, collected by Henry Wellcome and displayed in the Wellcome Collection, Euston Road.
SFF connection: a sculpture inspired by J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition is also on display
Crystal Palace Dinosaurs
Commissioned when the Crystal Palace was moved from Hyde Park to South London, these concrete sculptures embody the theory of Sir Richard Owen that dinosaurs really were terrible lizards. Extensively restored, they stand in a landscaped garden.
SFF connection: dinosaurs. Really weird dinosaurs.
posted by Paul McAuley at 3:30 pm
1 Comments:
I just started following your blog. Love reading about London, and the World SF Con - we just had Comic Con here in Boston.
:)
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