In Which it is Palm Sunday

It was Palm Sunday this weekend and St. Paul's Cathedral held their traditionally re-enactment of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. When I heard that this would be an outdoor procession complete with a live donkey, I decided I had to attend. After all, it's not every day that there's a religious procession with a donkey parading through the streets of London

The Procession Approaches (the donkeys are behind the head on the left)

I waited for the procession at Paternoster Square, outside of the Cathedral. When I arrived, I was greeted by St. Paul's sharply dressed ushers, who presented me with a bulletin and a cross made from a palm frond. The ushers at St Paul's are always dressed in formal attire:  morning coats, waistcoats, and large medallions of the Cathedral's arms worn around their necks. I have often wondered whether possessing such fine clothing is a prerequisite to serving as an usher, but I digress…

The London Metropolitan Archives – Basics

Hours:
Monday, Wednesday, Friday – 9:30-4:45
Tuesday and Thursday – 9:30-7:30
Select Saturdays – 9:30-4:45

Getting there:
The 3 closest tube stations are King's Cross-St. Pancras, Angel, and Farringdon. The LMA isn't terribly close to any of these. The 63 bus towards Honour Oak runs fairly regularly from outside of King's Cross and the Bowling Green Lane stop (next to a large parking garage) is very close to the LMA. Presumably there are similar services from the other tube stations.

Sign in at the desk on the first floor and collect a clear plastic bag. Stow your stuff in locker on the "mezzanine" level and go up one more flight of stairs to the reading room.

Getting a "History Card" (i.e. reader's ticket):
If you want to make photocopies, print from a microfilm, or use original documents, you'll need a History Card. Ask at the information desk.  You'll need proof of address and proof of signature.

Ordering Documents:
Documents are ordered using paper slips. Apparently, you can order them using the internet, too, but I have never seen anyone do this. The slips are collected from the Information Desk about every 20 minutes and it takes 20 minutes from the time of their collection for the document to be available.

In addition to being able to order the LMA's documents, you can also have documents delivered from the Guildhall Library, although it takes 48 hours for them to be delivered. As the Guildhall Library's reading room is, I believe, still being renovated, this is the only way to access their manuscripts.

Taking pictures:
£2.70 per day

In Which We Visit the London Metropolitan Archives

In my opinion, the London Metropolitan Archive (LMA) is a good place to start in London. The LMA was the first archive I visited here. This was largely because, with the exception of the British Library, it is the closest to where I am staying in Bloomsbury. The archive, which is located off of Farringdon Road in Islington, is about a twenty minute walk away. I will admit that it took me several attempts to locate the archive, but this was because I was operating under the assumption that the street the archive was on actually came out unto Farringdon Road, which it does not. It instead becomes the tributary of a slightly larger street about 10 or 20 yards earlier.

Interlude: Royal Warrants

Have you ever wondered where the Queen gets her office furniture or where the Prince of Wales gets his shirts made?  How can you be sure that the product you are buying is good enough for a member of the royal household?

Well, look no further than the website of the Royal Warrant Holders Association.  The Association maintains a directory of the current holders of royal warrants, searchable by category and grantor.  The directory lists warrants for everything from animal pregnancy scanning to timber merchants.

So the next time you are throwing a party and looking for a quality purveyor of "fancy goods," you can use to the directory to discover that The General Trading Company of Mayfair has a warrant from the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince of Wales.

In Which We Do Laundry - Part I

I may not be the most domestic person in the world, but I do like to think that I am capable of doing my own laundry. Washing clothes isn't terribly difficult and having already used British machines when I was an undergraduate at St. Andrews, I should have been well prepared to do my own laundry here.
Of course, using the machine is the easy part - just try figuring out what kind of detergent to buy!

In Britain, detergent comes in a bewildering variety of types. There are "bio," "non bio," and "colour" to name, but a few. I don't think that any of these categories except possibly "colour" even exist in the United States. When I was in Scotland, I used to buy Persil laundry tabs specifically because they were not labeled with any of these bizarre titles.

In Which We Once Again Fail to Visit Kew

Today I decided once again to work at the National Archives.  When I got on the tube at Kings Cross, there was "A good service on all lines," but when I got off at Victoria to change to the District line this was no longer the case.  Not only was there not a "good service," but all service was suspended on the branch of the District line going to Kew.  Unlike many places in London which are served by multiple Underground lines, Kew is served by only one, so if I was going to get there, I needed to take the District line. 

There was no indication of how long the trains would be stopped so I decided to get on the next District line train heading down one of the line's other forks.  I went as far as far as South Kensington and decided to get off and see if the situation had improved – it had not.  I was hoping that there would be an announcement that bus service had been arranged between stations on the offending portion of track or that there was some other alternative available, but, alas, I was left stranded.

What to do?

With no promise of service being restored any time soon, I decided that rather than venture further from central London on the District line, I would cut my losses, turn back, and head once again to the LMA.  That makes one time this week (yesterday) which I successfully visited TNA.

In Which It is Monday

I spent a lot of time this weekend getting organized and figuring out what I need to do at different archives, so I was ready to spring into action this morning and get some work done.  I was working at The National Archives (a.k.a. TNA, the PRO) on Friday and decided to head back there today. 

It was a beautiful clear day and everything in Kew was covered with a light blanket of snow.  Usually when the train stops a herd of researchers pours off the train down the quiet residential street that leads to the archive, but not today.  Today, I was the only person walking in that direction.  It was a little after ten so I attributed the lull in foot traffic to having missed the morning rush of visitors better equipped than me at getting out the door before nine.  It was a pleasant, peaceful walk.

When I reached the archive, however, they were closed.  This was of course because it is Monday and they are always closed on Mondays.  I should have remembered this because there are no fewer than a half dozen sandwich board signs announcing this fact on their grounds.  I do recall thinking this morning as I passed several of them that I was rather sick of hearing about the archive being closed on Monday, but I failed to make the connection between the signs' message and the fact that today was, indeed, Monday.  I should have known better.  Although TNA was at some point in the not-so-distant past open on Mondays, it's never been in my brief time here.

And so I was forced to turn back to the station, where, one hour and £2.40 in tube fare later, I was basking in the warm glow a microfilm reader in Clerkenwell at the London Metropolitan Archives.