Burnings and Body Snatchers

We did it we braved the tube and got to enjoy some of the coolest stuff I've seen since we touched down in the U.K. I purchased a book back in the states called 24 Great Walks in London and have been eager to try one out. The walk that really caught my eye is called "Burnings and Bodysnatchers". This walk covers historic sites from the days of The Plague and the Great Fire of London right back to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

We started off viewing an old plague mass burial ground which it turns out is now a private park that you can't even get into. This discouraged me a bit as it was the very first thing on the walk but I ran into a local who knew a bit of the history of the place who showed me London's only surviving Tudor townhouse that is full of ghosts and stories of murder, treason, execution, and revenge. It dates back to 1370 where it was established as a Carthusian Monastary.






Next we visited the Smithfield Meat market which was established in 1868 but hit by a german V2 rocket during world war II and was completely destroyed. Rebuilt and thriving it has many pictures on the walls of the original buildings and what it looked like after the blast.



Above is St. Bartholomew's Church which was a very neat place founded in 1123 with tons of old tombs.



This church was also the site for many movies including Robin Hood Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner, The Other Boleyn Sister, 4 Weddings and a Funeral, and the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie. Look at this next picture and notice the floor and the large windows. If you see it in a movie, many times those windows will be blacked out but you will always notice the very distinct multicolored tile floor.




Next stop was a visit to where Sir William Wallace (think Mel Gibson Braveheart) was executed. Many people were burnt on the stake or boiled alive here.



We then stopped by Pye Corner which is where the Great Fire of London in 1666 finally burnt itself out. Many people thought because it started on Pudding Lane and ended in Pye Corner that it was God's punishment for gluttony hence the little golden fatboy (the statue not the one in the stroller hehe)



I didn't take a picture of it but there is a watchtower near here where a nightwatchman used to sit and protect the churchyard beyond from raids by bodysnatchers in the night.

Here is an awesome view of St. Pauls from this area.





The next place of interest is St. Brides Church. This is the original design of the tiered wedding cake. It also has an interesting history. It was bombed during the Blitz and in the rubble they found an entrance to some old crypts underneath the church dating back to Roman times. I went down a bit to investigate but it wasn't very stroller friendly so we didn't get any pics.

All in all it was a very fun informative walk and ended within a 10 minute walk of Jessi's work which was awesome.