A gray brick building, with a pointed roof, and a large round window above the front door, with a five pointed floral design.
In the morning, Terry went to Lucia's hardresser to have her hair done. Then, it being Sunday, we went to City Hope Church, Lucia's church:
A gray brick building, with a pointed roof, and a large round window above the front door, with a five pointed floral design.
Like our church, it's a contemporary Christian church, with a worship band instead of a church organ:
A view of the front of the room, showing a band setup - acoustic and electric guitars, a bass guitar, a keyboard, and a drum set. Two display monitors are mounted on the walls on either side. On the back wall is a small sign.
...but that sign on the wall above the band caught my eye. Here's a closeup:
The sign turns out to be a stone set in the wall. Lettering on the sign reads "This stone was laid by C. H. Spurgeon, August 4th, 1865.
Charles Spurgeon (w) was a famous preacher and evangelist in the 19th Century. According the church's website, the church was founded as the Drummond Road Baptist Church by Rev. Spurgeon in 1865. In 1985, Drummond Road Baptist merged with Bermondsey Christian Fellowship to form Vineyard Community Church, which then changed its name to City Hope Church in 2004.
After church, we took the dogs to a dog park to let them run and play for a while - except they didn't run and play, they just wandered around sniffing at everything. So we rounded them up, had lunch at an Italian restaurant, and went back to Lucia's flat. Then later that afternoon, Esmond left for home - he lives in Dublin, Ireland, and he had to go back to work the next day.
That evening, I went to take a Jack The Ripper (w) tour. Originally, Terry and Lucia and I were all going to go, but Terry wasn't feeling well, and Lucia elected to stay with Terry, so I went alone. I caught a bus, and of course went right up to the upper level. Much to my delight, the bus went across Tower Bridge.
Seen from the front of the upper deck of the bus, a view of an arch at the entrance to the bridge. Like the earlier picture, it's early evening, and the sky is dark blue, and the street lights are on.
From the same point of view, one of the bridge towers.
Our tour guide was Alan:
...who was very good. I was particularly impressed by the fact that his presentation was quite factual, and in no way sensationalized. He was very careful to repeatedly qualify information with the phrase "What we know is...," and if he told us anything that was conjecture, he clearly identified it as such.
I didn't take a lot of pictures on the tour. He took us around to all the locations of the various killings, but for the most part, any pictures I took would have just been pictures of modern buildings. The only location that retained any sense of what it might have been like in the 1800's was Whitechapel Alley, where the tour started:
The alley is narrow and dimly lit, and paved with cobblestones. On one side is a featureless brick wall. On the other side is a metal fence with colorful graffiti, the only modern touch. Apart from the graffiti, you could almost believe you were back in the 1800's.
I don't remember what this building is today, but according to Alan, it used to be a workhouse (w) - an institution where, according to Wikipedia, "those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment." Note the "Women" sign on the wall - in Victorian England, men and women in such instiutions would of course be strictly segregated.
