I’m not sure quite what this young bull would have thought of spending his life in eternity like this, but he lived in the period after 30AD. The bull was found in Thebes, an ancient Egyptian city, and was acquired by the British Museum in 1821 from the archaeologist Henry Salt. Salt did a good job at sourcing items for the museum, forming a strong relationship with the ruler of Egypt, the Pasha Mohamed Ali, with large numbers of items leaving the country.
I’m not a medical expert, but I can write with some confidence that this isn’t ideal. It’s the spine of a female, aged between 20 and 34, who was suffering from tuberculosis of the spine, with the damage being so severe that the vertebrae have fused together and collapsed. The museum notes that this would have “significantly affected her mobility”, which is no doubt true, but I can’t imagine how painful this must have been as well. The body was found in Sudan, but the aging is quite wide, the lady could have lived during any period between the fourth and fifteenth centuries.
I had a little visit here as it’s a pub in the Good Beer Guide that I haven’t visited before, a rare survival of an historic licensed premises which was nearly demolished in the 1990s. It’s fortunate that it has survived, it’s got some history as being a location for where Fleet marriages took place and it’s also built on a former burial ground.
The welcome was a bit stilted with the staff member looking at me confused that I’d come into the pub. At a guess I’d say that anyone coming into a pub and standing by the entrance, where it says to wait, is probably a customer and might need assistance. Anyway, I was seated and when I asked what real ales they had and was told a list of their lagers, which isn’t quite the same thing.
I went for a half a pint of Spitfire and it puzzled me, as the pub must surely have enough volume of this beer to ensure it doesn’t taste off, but this pint was only just on the right side of me sending it back. At the prices charged, I thought it should have been better, especially from a Shepherd Neame pub since it’s their beer.
The rest of the service was much better and was from a different staff member (who I think was the licensee), so there was more engagement and interest in me as a customer. Not that I really needed any interest, but it made me feel more welcome. The pub was clean and organised, with a nice olde world charm. The pub was also following all of the rules, two multi-household groups came in and admitted they weren’t in the same household, with one asking the licensee to turn a blind eye. I’m not sure that’s a very fair thing for a customer to do, but the staff member apologised and turned them away.
I liked the building and the service ultimately was fine, but I’m not sure that there was anything else of interest here beyond the history and heritage. But, it was a pleasant location for a drink and it was relatively busy during the early evening. The pub normally has a good reputation for food, but they’re offering a reduced menu at the moment, mostly curries and snacks. The downside was that it felt like a Greene King pub, but I won’t digress down that line of thinking….
I like a nice book, although this isn’t exactly a big chunk of documentation. It’s a parchment dating to around the ninth or tenth centuries from the Nubians, a population who lived in what is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. The word in red is the ‘Archangel Michael’ and I hadn’t realised that the Nubians had converted to Christianity (but, it’s not something I’ve given a great deal of thought to in the past), although today this population is mostly Islam.
This is rather sweet and is one of the oldest examples of writing to have been found. It dates from around 3300 to 3100BC and, even more excitingly, it’s a beer token issued by a temple for workers. It’s from Uruk in Mesopotamia and when this token was issued, the settlement was likely the largest urban area in the world. The drink the workers received was barley beer, although they weren’t fortunate enough to be able to express their views on it using Untappd.
This is the main pub at King’s Cross railway station and is operated by the London brewery of Fuller’s. It’s got a decent reputation as a pub and it’s also listed in the Good Beer Guide. I was going to visit here a few weeks ago, but they weren’t ready to re-open at that point.
There are a variety of seating areas, I went for the area that was a conservatory type set-up. There was a friendly member of staff at the door and the pub seemed to be following all of the rules, with everything clean and organised.
There was a rail theme which is hardly a surprise and in this area there was a parcel theme, which is what the building was once used for.
The pub is all quite open, lots of rooms and lots of corridors.
Some more of the themed signage.
Fuller’s paid for this beer as part of their current Friday promotion, which was very generous of them. The London Pride was well-kept and at the appropriate temperature, so I can’t much complain, although it doesn’t have the richness of taste that I’d ideally like. But I’m tolerant of beers which are given to me for free.
Anyway, this is a decent pub with lots of space. I didn’t order food, or indeed anything other than the free beer, but there’s a modern menu which is meant to be a cut above standard pub food. There’s a nearby (well, sort of, it’s the Barrel Vault at St Pancras) JD Wetherspoon for anyone who wants standard pub food at a cheaper price, so options for whatever people want.
I’m sure there are many older examples of street signs, but I’m still impressed that this one remains. The WC postcode was scrapped in 1917 and replaced with WC1 and WC2. Or, more precisely, it was a postal district back when it was created in the mid nineteenth century, as postcodes are more modern. But they’re of a similar principle.
The Heathcote Street sign mentions that it leads on to Mecklenburgh Square, Doughty Street, Caroline Place and Guilford Street. The sign has lasted longer than one of the streets, as Caroline Place has now become part of Mecklenburgh Square, likely because there’s another Caroline Place in the city.
I didn’t get to see this room last time I was in the British Museum, which was just after it re-opened, either because it wasn’t open or I got muddled up with signage. Probably the latter. It’s the room which housed the King’s Library between 1827 and 1998, with the books now moved to a new display area at the British Library at its new site nearby.
It held the library of books that were collected by King George III and which were given to the nation by his son, King George IV. It’s suspected he did this mainly to avoid paying to maintain them, but either way, the nation benefitted from this legacy. He made the demand that the collection must be kept separate from the rest of the library’s volumes, which has been honoured. Unfortunately, a few hundred books were destroyed during air raids in the Second World War, but most of the collection has survived the last 200 years.
The room is used today by the British Museum as an “Enlightenment Gallery” which is interesting, although there’s not a great deal of linkage to literature. But, I suppose, that’s the job of the British Library now. Anyway, it’s a beautiful room and the bookshelves have all been left in situ.
A drawing (© The Trustees of the British Museum – https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_2003-0227-1) by Eugene Armand Roy from 1851 and it’s the earliest known colour representation of the old King’s Library in the British Museum.
I’ve been meaning to use up one of my hotels.com reward nights for some time, which was a free hotel stay up to the value of £53. That meant I had to find a hotel that cost at least that much to get value for money, with this one coming in at around £60, so it only cost me a few pounds. It’s the hotel attached to Goodenough College and the building stretches across five town houses, most of which were used as nurse’s homes after the Second World War.
The grand entrance to the building, with an air of formality about the hotel, but the member of staff at reception was friendly and engaging.
The single room, which I struggled to find, because the hotel numbering system gives each one of the five buildings a number, so a room number beginning with 4 is in the fourth building and not on the fourth floor. It was all a bit complex for me….. The room was clean, compact and at the appropriate temperature, with a modern bathroom. I dread to think how much this cost to convert the building, but it has been done tastefully and sensitively. There isn’t though a lift, as no doubt the building would never have been able to accommodate that, so there was a fair amount of walking up stairs, all useful training for the LDWA 100.
The hospitality tray in the cupboard.
There was a choice of breakfast, either a simple continental breakfast served in a bag outside the room, or a cooked breakfast at the college opposite. The man at reception said that I couldn’t possibly get lost and that the cooked option was best.
After I got lost and had to get a staff member to show me where to go, this is the Great Hall of Goodenough College, one of the nicer breakfast surroundings that I’ve had. There was no-one else around, other than for a personable and helpful manager and a member of serving staff, both of whom offered another friendly welcome.
The breakfast quality was a bit marginal in terms of the ingredients, but it was pleasant enough and I liked the dining environment. Not at all bad given that the breakfast price is included within the room rate and it isn’t far to walk.
I’m not sure that the hotel normally has room rates this low, circumstances have rather forced lower prices upon them. Often used by academics and students at the college, the hotel probably doesn’t usually have such availability, so this was a useful time to try somewhere new. Anyway, all rather lovely.
