Site: Harrods

The World's Leading Luxury Department Store

    Today, I went to Harrod's. I looked at the toy section (they have a toy concierge!), the food halls, and glanced at the books. The cookbook section in enormous! The store is beautiful, and every staff member I spoke to was very polite, even though I am clearly not a big spender. 

 The underside of an escalator

    I got a takeaway lunch of a nicoise salad in the Harrod's food halls. In the afternoon, I went for a walk in Regent's Park. I walked in Queen Mary's Garden. I was hoping to find a shady spot to read, but no such luck. The park was very full.

The entrance to Queen Mary's Garden

And finally, I can't stay right by Baker Street taking a picture of this gentleman.

 Site: Kew Botanical Gardens Library and Archive

Maintains both a collection for the Kew staff and an archival collection.

    The Kew Library and Archive has a staff of approximately twenty people. Although the library has been there for 170 years, no formal decision was ever made to create the library. The gardens were started under George III. Victoria gave the gardens to the nation. The first director brought a significant collection to Kew. Several people left their collections to Kew. 

    The collection ranges from the fourteenth century to the present. Although most of the material is on plants and fungi, they also have some arts and humanities material on topics such as the history of Kew and other botanical gardens and biographies of relavant figures.

    The users are mostly the students and staff of Kew. They tend to have approximately 120 PhD students, 60 MSE students, and 45 horticulural students or apprentices at any given time. Kew also gets researchers from all over the world. The archives are also available to the public, who often use them for researching family history.

    Kew's book collection is very well cataloged. The archives, not so much. Illustrations are cataloged by plant family. As a result, it can be difficult to search by other elements such as geographic location. Until the collection is fully cataloged and can be cross-referenced, it is difficult to do anything else with the collection.

    In addition to the main library, Kew also has satellite sites. For example, there is an Orchid Library near where the orchids are grown and studied. Only students and staff members are able to borrow items, and they are not supposed to take them off the Kew premises. Unfortunately, some people tend to accumulate items in their offices. 

    We were also able to view some lovely items from the Kew archive.

A note from Beatrix Potter to the director

Visitor's log with Beatrix Potter's name

Two of Potter's mycological drawings

    After the presentation, we wandered in the gardens. The Orangery is a nice place for lunch, but watch out for the pigeons!

Oldest potted plant in the world, from 1773.

View from the tree-top path

Sculpture of an orchid

Site: Bletchley Park

World War II code-breaking center 

    Bletchley Park is amazing, but there is a lot to take in. We learned about recruitment, setting up the code-breaking site, and life at Bletchley. We also learned about the Enigma machine, the Bombe machines, and the Colossus. It is estimated that the work done at Bletchley shortened the war by two to four years.

WWII Propaganda Poster

The Main House

Monument to the Polish mathematicians whose work laid the foundation for cracking the Enigma code

Replica of the Bombe machine

The Colossus Machine

 Site: Beatrix Potter Lecture

Highlights the importance of archives in historical preservation and interpretation

    We learned a great deal about Beatrix Potter's childhood and family life. She was born in what was at the time considered an upper middle class family. Today, they would be considered upper class as their wealth was inherited and the adults did not have to work. The Potters lived in South Kensington. They lived a very formal, strictly scheduled life. For example, no one spoke over breakfast. Beatrix, in particular, was very sheltered. Until she moved out of the house, she was not allowed out alone.

    The Potter parents were both amateur artists. Mrs. Potter painted and Mr. Potter took photographs.They encouraged similar interests in their children, Beatrix and her younger brother. They also allowed pets. Beatrix loved her pets, but was not sentimental. When her beloved rabbit Benjamin died, she boiled his body so that she could examine his skeleton.    

    When Beatrix was around thirteen or fourteen years old, she began developing her own codes. The early coding attempts have been lost, but starting from the age of fifteen, she kept an extensive journal in code. As far as anyone can tell, she did not use a "cheat sheet," but kept the whole code in her head. This practice allowed Beatrix some privacy, particularly from her mother. 

    Beatrix was also interested in mycology, or the study of fungus. While on vacation in Scotland, she got to know the local mailman who was also an amateur naturalist. He encourage her interest in fungi. Beatrix was also close to her uncle, a scientist and inventor of the Bunsen burner. He took her to the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew and introduced her to an expert.

    Beatrix received a microscope as a gift, which allowed her to study and sketch fungal spores. She wrote a paper and submitted it to the Linnean Society. It was rejected and the original mauscript has been lost. After that, she turned her attention to children's books. 

One of Beatrix' fungal drawings, Wikipedia (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Beatrix_Potter-_Mycology._Source-_Armitt_Museum_and_Library.jpg_

    Later, I went to the British Museum. It was unfortunately hot and crowded, but I saw some interesting things and a docent let me hold a Spanish doubloon. Then I had high tea in the Great Court. Very nice, and one of the best deals on high tea in London.

Roman mosaics

The Great Court

 Site: Oxford 

    We visited Christ Church College and Cathedral. This post is going to concentrate on pictures, but here is some trivia:

• People have lived here at least since Saxon times.
• Christ Church was founded by Cardinal Wolsey and taken over by Henry VIII.
• It was Charles I's headquarters during the English Civil War. 
• Alice Liddell, the girl that Alice in Wonderland was based on, lived in Christ Church because her father was the Dean.
• The White Rabbit is based on Alice's chronically late father.

Saxon Tower

The formal entrance to Christ Church (not for visitors.)

The grounds of Christ Church

The Entry to the Great Hall

The Great Hall

The Quad

The Cathedral Ceiling

Stained glass designed by Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones

Painted and stained glass depicting Jonah after being delivered from the whale.

Here's a selfie to prove I am really here

Monument to Protestant martyrs 

Concert Hall

The Bridge of Sighs (reproduction of the one in Venice)

Courtyard of the Bodelian Library

Radcliffe Camera

In the Ashmolean