| Over Thanksgiving of 1999 I traveled to Great Britain. An old friend of mine from my FSU days was working at the network administrator for the FSU London Study Center. I toured old Cantebury with the FSU students, and then got an insider's tour of London as my friend showed me around. At this time I was still a Navy Yeoman, and had only been in the VQ-2 Public Affairs Office for a few months. My photographic skills were in the early stages of gestation, but I still managed to capture some images of Britain that please me to this day. |
| From inside the cathedral, looking straight up the Bell Harry Tower, the cathedral's central bell tower (seen in the larger image behind the gothic-roofed cathedral wing. |
| Cantebury Cathedral, center of the Church of England. In 597 AD King Ethelbert was baptized by the great church father, St. Augustine. The King gave Augustine land for a church; upon that site stands the present cathedral, the results of centuries' worth of labor. On the 29th of December, 1170, four knights invaded the Cathedral to force the Arch Bishop, Thomas Beckett, to submit the church to the authority of Henry II. The knights found Thomas in prayer and killed him as he kneeled. His body, though now lost, is thought by many to still be entombed in a secret crypt in the cathedral. -Both thumbs are clickable links- |
| St. Paul's Cathedral, London. The cathedral was built by Sir Christopher Wren to replace to original structure lost in the Great Fire of 1666. Buried in crypts here are the famous Admiral Lord Nelson and Lord Wellington, both of whom were critical to the defeat of Napoleon's Navy and Army respectively. St. Paul's suffered minor damage during the Nazi Bombings of WWII. Fans of Disney Picture's Mary Poppins will recognize the stairs above as the setting for the famous "Bird Woman" scene. |
| A London evening from the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. The large ferris wheel is the "Millenium Wheel", built as part of Britain's Millenium celebrations. Just to the left of the wheel is a tower, and then another tower with three spires--this is Big Ben, built on the wing of Whitehall, seat of the British Parliament. |
| (Above) The Tower of London, over 900 years old. Repository of the British Crown Jewels, the tower has been fortress and prison. Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Anne Boleyn, and the future Queen Elizabeth were all imprisoned here. Despite its appearance, the Tower Bridge (right) is a relatively recently addition. Built in 1894, this gothic structure spanning the Thames was designed to blend seamlessly in with the nearby Tower of London. -Both images are clickable links to higher-res images- |
| Big Ben, London's voice since 1859. This mamoth clock was begun in 1837. Deisgned by Sir Edmund Grimthorpe, it was part of the reconstruction of Whitehall after the fire of 1834. The bell inside is cracked, creating its distinctive tone. Like the Eiffel Tower , no photo can ever convey the size of this landmark. -Image is a clickable link to higher-res image- |
| The HMS Belfast, the only big-gunned cruiser from WWII left in Europe. A permanent musuem to the Royal Navy's sacrifices, the Belfast is open for touring. The Belfast's bow looks over the famous London Bridge, the latest incarnation of that quintessential British landmark. -All three images are clickable links- |
