In this massive building on Great Russell Street (the nearest tube station is Holborn), Britain preserves and displays its most awesome State documents and manuscripts: the original Magna Charta, the log-book of Admiral Nelson and his half-finished letter to Lady Hamilton, written just before he died; the first draft of the dreaminspired “Xanadu” by Samuel Coleridge; a deed to William Shakespeare; a host of other papers that will send chills up your spine. And here, too, is kept the plunder of Britain’s Imperial era: the famous Rosetta stone, the smaIl Sphinxes of Egypt, the stunning Elgin Marbles from the front of the Parthenon.
There is no admission charge for any of this, and there are, in addition, free lecture tours conducted twice daily (except Sunday) at 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., by two brilliant ex-university dans, who each day deliver a dilferent talk: “English History in the 19th Century,” “the Magna Charta,” “the Boer War.” Don’t miss a visit to the museum, and to start things off, ask the guards to direct you to the “manuscript rooms” and the “EIgin Marbles.” The building is open from 10 to 5, Monday through Saturday, and from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Sundays.
The Tower of London
For this, the most profound experience of your London stay, schedule an entire weekday afternoon-and never, never go on Sunday, when it’s badly crowded. Rather, immediately af ter a weekday lunch, enter the London Underground and take a train of the Inner Circle or District lines to the Tower Hill Station, from which, a two-minute walk away, is the fabled Tower of London, on the banks of the Thames.
That will plunge you into the turbulent, bloody world of British history, which surrounds you with intense reality as you wander into the stone apartments of Sir Walter Raleigh, his place of imprisonment for twelve years; and see the room in which the Little Princes were smothered; the scaffold site of the execution of kings and queens; and finally, the “Armories” in the important White Tower, in the very center of the tower complex, where the armor of King Henry VIIII is mounted atop a white horse. In the grounds, wander the famous “Beefeaters” (they’ve heard the gag about the gin hundreds of times) and the ravens with elipped wings, who are the symbols of the tower. Don’t allow yourself to be short-changed for time, and don’t-again-go on Sunday.
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