Day 2: Westminster Abbey

Our first major event of the course was a visit to Westminster Abbey. Part royal church, part national memorial, and site of the historic Westminster Assembly, a focus of our studies. Our excellent lecturer/guide, Ian Godfrey, took us to the Jerusalem Chamber, a part of the abbey where the abbott used to live and work and where the Deanery of the Abbey still meets. (This was a special gift to us; the room is not open to the public.) The chamber is a cozy meeting room built in the 14th century. The ceiling is original and beautiful, with alternating imprints of the insignia of the abbott (Nicholas Litlyngton) and monarch (Richard II) at the time.  The fireplace is also original, and is the spot at which King Henry IV died, as related (colorfully) by the Bard.

On the way to Westminster Abbey, in the background. Click to enlarge.

More relevant to our objectives are the meetings of various historic religious committees, including the groups that prepared four different versions of the Bible: the Authorized Version (aka the King James Version), the Revised Version of 1870, the New English Bible of 1961 and the Revised English Bible of 1989. And, in 1643, the Westminster Assembly met in the room, as they began work that culminated in the writing of some of the great documents of Reformed Christianity: the Westminster Confession and the Westminster Catechisms.


We had an enjoyable tour of the rest of the Abbey, learning about its unique status as a church (as a Royal Peculiar) and its heritage, then visiting the many famous graves and memorials throughout. (Ian estimated that there are 3300 memorials or graves in the Abbey, and he should know: he wrote a little book, sold in the Abbey gift store, called "Who's Buried Where" that can help the curious locate their favorite graves.)


The rest of the day we scattered to various locales: some visited Buckingham Palace, others the Tate Britain.


In the evening, while exploring the West End theater district, some of us came upon a very interesting sight: a man standing in an intersection, wearing a bright yellow vest you might see on a traffic officer. This seemed unremarkable at first, until we noticed he held a sign. It read, roughly, "You are being filmed." Then we noticed his interesting mask, made famous in the film V For Vendetta. Students in the group immediately got the connection and explained it to those of us who haven't seen the movie: the mask is a Guy Fawkes mask, a symbol of (loosely speaking) protest and/or anarchy. Anyway, we soon saw the target of the protest, a small government car bearing a large CCTV camera. (For what purpose, we don't know.) As the car started to move, the protester got on his motorcycle and followed, presumably to resume the protest (and warning) at the next stop. We all enjoyed this irony: people busily photographed him.

Not the guy we saw, but you get the picture. Heh. Original image here.