120 Fenchurch Street Roof Garden

The view looking south.

Back in February, 2019, a new roof garden opened, in the City of London. Situated on the fifteenth floor of a newly designed building, it offers 360 degree views of the city and its environs.

Being only fifteen storeys tall, it is dwarfed by buildings like the Gherkin, Walkie-talkie and Scalpel, but it does offer unique views of these buildings. Even on the overcast morning that I visited, I could still see the Crystal Palace Transmitter, to the south, Canary Wharf, to the east and the BT Tower to the west. Obviously, much of the view to the north is obscured by the aforementioned skyscrapers.

The planted flower beds were still to fully bloom and the creeping vines have yet to fully take hold of the upright roof supports, while the water feature, which has small fountains in a raised channel, wasn't functioning. When all of these things come together, over the next few weeks, this will be one of the most pleasant public roof gardens in the City of London.

Access to the Roof Garden is via a lift in a spacious lobby, which has an art installation in the ceiling, which shows various garden scenes and sometimes links up to a camera, situated in the roof garden, that shows Tower Bridge.

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St. Dunstan-in-the-East Church & Garden

A panoramic of the Nave.

It was a cool spring Friday morning, as I took to the streets of the Unfinished City, in search of new areas to discover. Pretty soon I found myself on Lower Thames Street, heading eastward.

Since it had been pouring with rain on my last visit to St. Dunstan-in-the-East Church Garden, I decided to pop in for a look around. It was perfect timing, because as I arrived a tour guide and his Spanish entourage were just leaving, heading toward the Tower of London, so I had the place to myself.

Obviously, as it was still early spring, many of the flowers had yet to bloom, which gave the ruined church an even more sombre mood, especially with the overcast skies.

Considering where the ruins are located it was remarkably peaceful, even with the traffic zooming past.

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Museum of London: Docklands

The past lives on.

Having visited the Museum of London, on a number of occasions, I thought that it was about time that we took some time to visit her sister museum, in London's Docklands. It was a pleasant summer morning as we approached Warehouse No. 1, which which has been fully restored and now houses the Museum.

Covering the full history of the River Thames and the docks, from the first Roman port, through the 1600s and on to the present day, all of its unique history is here.

On our visit there was a special exhibition entitled Roman Dead. This included many Roman remains that had been unearthed throughout the City. Some of them had only been discovered in the last few years, with the deep excavations undertaken in the construction of Crossrail.

Since we all enjoyed the visit so much, and with there being plenty of time left in the day, we took the Docklands Light Railway to Bank station, before making our way to the Museum of London. Thus visiting both museums, in one day.

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Kensington Gardens

Kensington Palace and Queen Victoria's statue.

After our initial stop at the Diana Memorial Playground, we made our way south towards Kensington Palace, with the shade from the trees protecting us from the warm summer sun. A few photographs were taken before we headed towards the Round Pond.

From here we continued eastward towards the Long Water, passing the Physical Energy statue, designed by George Frederic Watts and erected in 1907. 

As we approached the Long Water a gust of wind blew Erin's baseball cap, from her head, far out into the water. To say that she was distraught was an understatement! I have never seen such an upset 6 year old. 

After eventually calming her down we continued our walk, this time heading north, passing the Peter Pan statue and continuing on to the Italian Gardens.

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