Hear Ye Hear Ye!

People of the court (aka: readers of my blog) Yesterday –Tuesday we went to Middle Temple Hall as a group.

Middle Temple is where law instruction was given historically. The Barristers would dine there and students would come to receive instruction from those who were already practicing at the bar. It was really cool to learn more about the historical political system and to see this magnificent building that they would meet in. The roof was a double hammer beam made out of solid English oak wood. There was also a beautiful wall that they called a screen. The building made it though World War 2 mostly without damage until a bomb exploded close to the Middle Temple Hall building and it blew out the far wall and a lot of this screen wall was smashed.
This is a painting of what it might have looked like when that happened.

Our guide then told us that the firefighters damped out the fire, then took the remnants of the screen wall and put them into bags in the celer. Then when the war was over and they were able to get donations and back up on their feet again they rebuilt the wall – it was a “labor of love” as our tour guide put it- because the wall is 97% original and took two years to repair it, because they used the original pieces.
This is how it looks now…

Our guide told us that the Hall used to be heated by a fire in the middle of the room and there was a whole in the celing for the smoke to exit the building from- but with the advent of modern heating that of course was not longer needed so the whole in the cealing was cealed and they closed it off with a stained gladd window which has Middle Temple's seal on it - the Lamb of Christ and the cross of George.
He also took us into the Parliament Chamber where the decisions of the Inn are made.

After we had some time til our next destination so we took a short walk - and there was some absolutly beautiful buildings that we passed!

We walked over to The Someset House Which is a Museum with a lot of galleries and art and etc. I went into a free exhbit of Photographs of London - which were pretty awesome! The Someset House also had a great courtyard with some cool fountains- so this is Roney, Mel and me in the courtyard.

PLUS! we went down Fleet Street!

You know?!!?- like the play Sweeny Todd?! The deamon barber of Fleet street! There were even some people who went to a pub on Fleet street and got meat pies for lunch. (If you dont know the story - you should see the show.)

In class we have been studying Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. So we got to go and see that as a group. This play was great! It was actually an adaptation for younger audiences. So it was really entertaining. This play has about 12 characters in it and there were only 6 cast members so all of the actors played more than one part which was really fun to watch. Also the Set was incredible! I was really impressed! They had real grass and a body of water on the stage, there was also fire on stage at one part as well. I loved the set design! And the actors use of space in the theatre- I was really impressed with the direction, choices and risks that the director took with this production.

We also got a small group together last night to go and see the musical Les Miserables. It was a good show- I was in Les Mis. when I was in high school. True – I may have a biased opinion, but I think that for a high school production it was done quite well. My dad also got me tickets to see this show in SLC for my birthday about 5 years ago- so I know this show quite well. I think that overall it was really good and well performed. I didn’t really like the character that played Fontiene – I was actually ready for her to die so we could move on with the show and get to better characters Ha! Isn’t that awful! But it was really good!

This is my group that I am here in London with.