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Sun, 18 Jun 2006
[12:02] Conquering "The Monument"
Shona came in to meet me for lunch on Saturday after she finished at the Gym. We had Vietnamese and, because I'd nearly finished at the office she came back and waited for me to finish. It was a REALLY nice day so we stopped for a juice and a laze in the sun in the garden of St. Boltophs, which is just outside where I used to work. London is surprisingly full of little grassy hideaways like this! Anyway, since Shona was so completely knackered (from the gym), we both had huge backpacks and it was such a hot day I thought that it would be a great time to cross another item off our "Things To Do In London" list and tackle the 311 steps that take you to the top of The Monument!
The Monument, or more correctly The Monument to the Great Fire of London, is a sodding great pillar that was built to commemorate the 1666 fire that consumed the considerable majority of the city (more details here). The pillar itself is 61 metres high and contains 311 steps that lead to the (extremely cramped) viewing platform at the top. It is topped by a golden urn that symbolises the fire and, were it to fall over (I think in an Easterly direction) without snapping into little pieces, the urn would land on the spot where the Great Fire was kindled!
There's actually a lot of interesting info on the Wikipedia site that they DON'T state either inside the column (granted there's not a lot of room) or on the fancy pants certificate that they give you if you make it back out the bottom. Apparently the architect, Sir Christopher "cop a load of my hair ya bastards" Wren wasn't just going for looks but designed it as some kind of swiss-army knife of scientific laboratories - it's worth the very short Wikipedia read and a bit more study!
Here now are some photographic proofs of the journey: Shona on the staricase, me at the top with one of the ubiqitous security cameras and a gherkin coming out of my head and finally, to give you some scale, me with the certificate underneath the plaque that's in the tiny little picture of The Monument at the top of this entry.
[Posted at: 18/06/2006 20:02]
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