Duke of Wellington Tour – Page 5

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON TOUR STORMS WALMER CASTLE,

DEAL, AND DOVER CASTLE

We boarded our ‘bus’ outside the Grosvenor Hotel and met our wonderful driver Graham. As we learned over the next few days, he was a diamond of the first water among coach drivers — remember not to call the vehicle a bus! We set off driving through London into Kent toward the Channel coast.

Walmer Castle, September 2014

You will not be surprised to hear this blog has written of Walmer before. Here is our introduction to the visit on the Duke of Welington tour, in which we relate many facts about the Castle and the Duke’s residence, including the visit of Lady Lyttleton, the very one you met last week on the St. James walk as once the lady of the building now known as the Stafford Hotel. Click here.

Victoria visits in 2011 here.

Wellington’s life at Walmer here.

The Death of Wellington at Walmer here.

You can see all of my (Victoria’s) pictures in the previous posts. Here are a few from Diane which will giver you a flavor of Walmer Castle and its lovely gardens.

We made a quick stop; in Deal, not far from Walmer…and a larger town. Here is the beach, as photographed by Denise.

Elaine photographed the Town Hall, dating from 1803

A row of 18th C. houses along the seaside, in one of which Admiral Horatio Nelson lived.

Thanks, Elaine.

For more about Deal Castle, a larger version of Walmer, dating from the time of Henry VIII, click here.

Denise also shared some pictures of our final stop that day, at Dover Castle on the heights of the White Cliffs, here as seen from the Beach.

Denise an
d I shot almost exactly the same picture as we approached the walls of Dover Castle.

from Denise

from Victoria

Tour-goers scaling the approach

Modern weaponry still guards the channel and port

Formidable!!

A visit to Dover Castle takes you from the time of King Henry II (1133-1189) to World Wars I and II, through medieval tunnels and secret modern wartime tunnels, from ancient armaments to today’s garrison keeping watch over the English Channel and the important port of Dover.

Diane’s View from the Top

A model of the working castle fortifications

For more from Denise, click here.

For more from Diane Gaston, click here.

Dover Castle is maintained and programmed by English Heritage, which has an excellent website, click here.

Heading for the entrance

The remainder of the former menageries: sculptured lions

Our Guide, a Beef Eater aka Yeoman Warder

He explained to us the significance of the wonderful display of hand-made ceramic poppies. One was cast for each person killed from Great Britain and the Commonwealth, almost 800,000, to be placed around the Tower of London by the anniversary of the conclusion of World War I on November 18, 1818. It was, he pointed out to us in September 2014, one hundred years since the beginning of the Great War, or, as he slyly added, “For you Americans, 97 years!”

Each poppy is hand-made

The final spray of poppies, to be preserved,

by popular demand

For more information about the art installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, click here.

Kristine and I soon abandoned the tour and struck out to find the Wellington Exhibition

as advertised on large posters around London. Example below.

As you can imagine we were eager to see this exhibition at the Tower.

We started out assured by a guard we would find it if we just kept going…

We didn’t even stop to see whose bed this was.

We squeezed through cramped corridors and around one narrow curving staircase after another. and often peeked through windows and arrow slits.

Farther and farther…

Ar least we got a good view of the nooks and crannies of the Tower ramparts

“On 15 June 1845, the Duke of Wellington, hero of the Battle of Waterloo and Constable of the Tower, laid the foundation stone of these barracks, named after his greatest victory. Built to house up to 1,000 soldiers, the barracks were designed by the Royal Engineers, The soldier outside is part of the garrison tradition, still active and guarding the Tower today.

Today, the Waterloo Barracks contain a smaller barracks, offices and the Jewel House. The building also overlooks the military Parade Ground. The ceremonial public duty of the soldiers stationed here is to guard the Crown Jewels and the Queen’s House on behalf of the monarch. They can come from any branch of the armed forces of Britain and the Commonwealth.”

The text panel above was repeated in ten additional languages

Hot on the Trail: we’re almost there.

Sucess. But this is all there was, a set of images including the equivalent of a power-point show. We found The Wellington Exhibition at the Tower completely underwhelming.

The White Tower

the line for the Crown Jewels

Tower Bridge

Where the poppies were just beginning to be placed

The White Tower

A distant view of the White Tower

The Traitor’s Gate

The wall along the Thames

The poppies from the west

Seeing the poppies was the highlight of the visit to the Tower. And we did negotiate the entire circumference of the place, up and down, in and out, ad nauseum, with a disappointing result. Actually, in retrospect it was pretty amusing to think of the long trek when we could have simply walked through the lawns and found the Wellington Barracks instead of going the long way around. And since Kristine is an expert on Wellington, and I am not so bad myself (says Victoria immodestly), what did we think we would learn? I guess we were hoping for a tidbit of new materials. To no avail!

On the plus side, we got some exercise, some good shots of the Tower, and a very memorable view of those incredible poppies.

Next, we re-crossed London to Horse Guards in Whitehall for the Afternoon Ceremonies.

Horse Guards

The Horse Guards building, which served as the British Army’s headquarters for many years, was designed by William Kent (1685-1748) and built by John Vardy between 1750 and 1753. It is a masterpiece of the Palladian style. The Duke of Wellington occupied offices here for a large part of his life.

Two mounted guards from the Household Cavalry are in place every day and a great attraction for the tourists along Whitehall. Each afternoon, the Daily Inspection takes place at 4 pm.