In Search of London

Rating:
Summary: Writing as Timeless as London Itself
Review: While much of London is very different today than it was when this book was written around 1950, much more of London is timeless, as H.V. Morton most engagingly demonstrates in "In Search of London."

If I had not been reading this book during a recent visit to London, I am sure that I would never have visited the Temple, which is a cluster of buildings tucked away just off Fleet Street with historic significance dating back to the twelfth century. "No place in London has a more romantic origin than the Temple. The name commemorates the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, and came to Thames-side with the crusading Order of the Knights Templar in the 12th Century," Morton writes. The Temple Church is a must-see (my commentary, not Morton's). Even though much of it was badly damaged during World War II in the Blitz, the medieval part with authentic gothic gargoyles inside the church at eye-level (very unusual and what a treat!) were not affected and the rest of the church has been restored.

Here's some of what he has to say about the aftermath of the blitz: "Milk Street is a little lane which used to lead to one of the most crowded portions of the City of London... When I reached the end of Milk Street, I looked out toward Moorfield across an area of devastation so final and complete that the memory of it will always rise in my mind whenever I hear the word Blitz. There are other parts of London as badly ravaged, but this to me will always be the most horrific. Thousands of buildings have been burned and blasted to the cellars..." He then writes almost poetically of the grass, flowers and trees that had taken over the ruins, ending with an amusing exchange with the local postman.

Among his (and our) many other adventures, he visits and/or discourses on the Tower of London, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum ("One of the earliest memories I have of London as a small boy is that of the wax figures in Madame Tussaud's exibition."), the execution of Charles I in 1649 ("In the long record of English tragedy and fortitude there is no nobler death than that of King Charles I."), and Hyde Park: "...So Hyde Park belonged to the monks of Westminster for nearly four and a half centuries. The abbots had a pleasure house there. The monks fished, no doubt, on the banks of many streams, like the Westbourne, which flowed from Hampstead and traversing Hyde Park, found their way into the Thames. When Henry VIII decided to make this his great hunting ground, he persuaded the monks to exchange the Manor of Hyde for the dissolved priory of Hurley in Berkshire..."

As I said in my review of "In Search of England", the first of his many travel books which was written in the late 1920's, H.V. Morton is a great writer. His style is simple, sincere and insightful. He loves what he's writing about and is able to share his experiences so they come alive for his readers. What a gift.