Spring Breakdown #londondayone

And then it was time to give Vallel a break and train up to London for a few days.

The forecast promised us heat, and for heat we did pack.  But despite the non-stop sun, no hint of a cloud in the sky, and temperatures that were actually in the high teens/low twenties, it was not warm.  Thank you April winds.  

But we walked, and walked, and enjoyed what we saw, finishing up the night with a great dinner and fabulous cocktails in Covent Garden, followed by The Lion King, which I've wanted to go and see for years.

Originally known as Buckingham House, the building at the core of today's palace was a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham and Normandy in 1703.  It was aquired by George III (of later Brighton fame) in 1761 as a private residence for Queen Charlotte and became known as The Queen's House.  During the 19th century it was enlarged with three wings constructed around a central courtyard.  Buckingham Palace officially became the London residence of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837.  The last major structural additions were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and included the East Front which contains the balcony on which the royal family traditionally appears to greet crowds.

St James's Park is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.  It was named after a once isolated medieval hospital dedicated to St James the Less, now the site of St James's Palace.  The area was initially enclosed for a deer park near the Palace of Whitehall for King Henry VIII in the 1530s.  

The Mall begaen as part of the tended grounds of St James's Palace, and when pall-mall becamse popular, as a field for playing the game.  In the 17th and 18th centuries it was a fashionable promenade, bordered by trees.  In the early 20th century it was envisioned as a ceremonial route, matching the create of similar routes in other cities like Berlin, Oslo, Paris, Vienna and Washington DC.  These routes were designed to be used in major national ceremonies.  As part of this development, the new facade was developed for Buckingham Palace to face down the Mall, and the Victoria Memorial was erected at the western end.  Scheduled buses are not allowed to drive down the Mall except by permission of the monarch, and it was only opened to cars 60 years after its creation.

Trafalgar Square was established in the early 19th century around the area formerly know as Charing Cross.  The square's name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the British Naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars over France and Spain that took place on 21 October 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar, south-west Spain.

Some promo for some Prime TV show... G20 maybe?

The area of Covent Garden was fields until briefly settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic.  By 1200 part of it had been walled off by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey for use as arable land and orchards, later referred to as "the garden of the Abbey and Convenant" and later "the Covenant Garden". Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was granted in 1552 by the young King Edward VI to John Russell, the 1st Earl of Bedford and the trusted adviser to his father King Henry VIII. The 4th Earl build some fine houses to attract wealthy tenants, and the design of the square was new to London and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as a prototype for new estates as London grew.

One and done.