Kris and I took a bus from Greenwich to Eltham where we visited Eltham Palace, a most interesting house that belonged to a branch of the Courtauld (of Institute-Gallery fame) family. The grandfather invented rayon and made an unimaginable amount of money. The original palace was where Henry VIII was raised. The place fell into ruin after the English Reformation, and when the Courtaulds bought it only the great hall, in horrible condition, remained. They built a new house with a very traditional exterior that connected to the restored, great hall. The very modern interior is in the Art Deco style, which was the cutting edge of fashion in the 1930s. We headed back into Town to do a bit of shopping on Oxford Street before meeting Stephen and Ann for an Indian nosh at Durbar, a nice restaurant just off of Westbourne Grove.
Wren's Royal Naval College, Greenwich
Happy travelers?
Chapel dome
Docklands from the barrier boat
The O2, né Millennium Dome, 2000, Richard Rogers, architect
Sailing down the river into an incoming tide
The Thames Barrier
Remarkable bit of engineering
Happily, not often needed
Gale force winds on the river: "I'm King of the World!"
The Docklands, Greenwich view
Greenwich High Street
Fish and Chips for lunch
Eltham Palace was an important royal palace
from the14th to the 16th century
Stephen and Virginia Courtauld built an
up-to-the-minute house in 1933
The Art-Deco style often incorporates elements of
luxury ocean liners
Inlaid wood with depictions of places the owners loved to visit
Porthole window
Aluminum-leaf ceiling
Stephen Courtauld's bedroom
Virginia Courtauld's bathroom
I loved the library
Maginificent hammer-beam ceiling in the original (restored)
great hall from before the time of Columbus
The palace was surrounded by a moat, part of which has
been converted to gardens
One of the two wings of the new house
It attaches to the great hall
The garden entrance to the house designed with
all the historical elements of the Beaux-Arts styles
Kris in the terrace garden
The ancient bridge across the moat is still the entrance today
The 286 bus back to Greenwich
We changed from the Docklands Lightrail to the Jubilee
Line at Canary Wharf
Oxford Street seen from the back window of the 94 bus
on a rainy trip back to the flat after a tiny bit of shopping
Sunset view from the flat
A good Indian nosh on Hereford Road just
off of Westbourne Grove
Another fun day with some first-time visits. More adventures in store today, but that's all for now.
OXO
D.
3 comments:
How cool. I really really love all these new places you are visiting.
Are you doing some shopping for me?
What a cool house!
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