Psychogeography project: (1,000 Words) On Richmond Upon Thames
I. LONDON’S SECRETS
City of London, Thursday, mid-morning MAY 2014 (EDITED AND PICTURES REMOVED)
In a city filled with the living, I start with the dead. A small cemetery called Bunhill Gardens (from the name bone hill) is just a short walk from Barbican Station. An iron fence strung with cobwebs surrounds the grassy patch. Modern buildings do the real fencing-in. A towering high-rise apartment complex casts a long shadow, but as I walk along the path, the tall, narrow stone slabs tower over me. On many of them, the writing has been eroded. The markers indicate that “somebody” lies here, but it’s anyone’s guess who. The plots are covered with lush, wild grass and vibrant purple blooms, adding freshness to this old, decaying place.
Exiting on the other side, I discover that I’m across the street from the house and chapel of John Wesley, influential Methodist minister. His name has not been effaced. It features prominently on a number of signs and plaques. A statue of the man himself in the courtyard features the words “The world is my parish.” I enter the chapel lobby and admire the stained glass windows. Half are the traditional, colorful designs and the rest are modern, abstract scenes. An elderly lady who had been sitting by the door comes over, moving briskly despite her cane. Her name tag reads “Felicity” and she seems very enthusiastic – they must not get very many visitors here. I choose only to linger in the chapel. It is small and formed largely of smooth wood, almost like a pebble in the sea worn by time.
Back on the street, I head south towards London Wall. London reminds me of a solar system: the small, central City pulling all the surrounding boroughs into orbit around it. The City of London should feel ancient and impressive, with its Roman roots and white and red symbol featured everywhere I turn. As I wander, however, I am surrounded by shiny new pillars of steel and glass and concrete reaching up towards a financially-successful future… But there is an exception – a lonely old stone tower standing alone in the middle of a street. I approach the wooden door to read the inscription. A church once stood here, but was destroyed in the Great Fire. It was rebuilt by Christopher Wren, only to be bombed out in the Second World War. The tower is the sole remainder, either as a testament to survival or to destruction. I try to imagine how the rest of the church would have been laid out, but the space that once belonged to it has already been encroached on by the sparkling new construction.
I pass through a small, flowery garden…a bust of Shakespeare around which businessmen are pensively smoking … Guildhall Art Gallery.. The yawning courtyard in front of the entrance suggests openness, but I know the building conceals one of London’s best kept secrets. After the x-ray scanner, I descend past vivid paintings of the London skyline. At the bottom of a staircase, the darkened basement room contains the crumbling remnants of a Roman amphitheater. Ages before Chelsea Stadium, citizens used to gather here to watch a bloody spectacle. This amphitheater was also a secret kept from Londoners until the 1980s, when excavations for the gallery revealed the ancient structure. It must have caused quite a stir in the papers when they rediscovered it, but I wonder if it hasn’t already been largely forgotten once again. Do Londoners care much for gladiators now that they have football?
As I exit the building, a security guard eagerly asks me if had gone downstairs to see the amphitheater. I smile. Yes, I’m in on the secret. Then he surprises me by telling me another one: within the beige concrete 1970s building to my right is a Great Hall hundreds of years old, still the venue for the Lord Mayor’s Banquet every year. Naturally, I head over to the glass entrance doors to see it for myself. Inside the businesslike lobby, the security guards nod to me and direct me down the correct hallway – they know what I am here to see. More secret-keepers.
As I enter the open wooden doorway, my boots make no sound on the red carpet. I have no impact here. As far as this 700-year-old hall is concerned, an American college student is a drop in the bucket compared to royalty and elected officials. A life-sized statue of Winston Churchill squints at me as I pass by. Near the far end of the hall, a sign with calligraphic script informs me of various events that occurred in the Hall, which include the trial of Lady Jane Grey, leading to her ultimate beheading in the Tower of London. Great Halls and cathedral naves seem enormous and empty, but the air inside them is heavy with the weight of history, or the weight of God.
London embodies a geological cross-section where one slices up a section of the ground and examines its stacked layers of sediment. London’s layers are all stirred up. People text on iPhones near 18th century gravestones. Christian chapels and pagan entertainment arenas fade into obscurity as the iron arms of cranes construct new temples for the pursuit of wealth and progress. A few sentinels guard London’s secrets, while the rest rush by in their well-shined shoes…
I came here for sanctuary / Away from the winds and the sounds of the city / I came here to get some peace / Way down deep where the shadows are heavy (Bastille)
