Churches, Crypts and Clerics - A Walk with the London Goth Meetup Group

My best friend Eve has always been a Goth, and she has always been telling me, very fondly, of all the lovely people in the "London Goth Meetup Group". So finally, here was the ideal chance for me to go and get to know them a bit: James, the Curate in Weybridge, whom I know through work and who is a friend of Eve's through the group, was organising the March Walk, under the name of "Churches, Crypts and Clerics". I met Eve and another friend, Martin, around midday in Staines and we took the trains to London/Temple and walked from there to Blackfriars because the station at Blackfriars was closed. Most people were late because of that, so we sat at the pub with the few that had got there on time. The Blackfriars is a lovely pub, very beautifully decorated inside, no TV!!!, friendly staff, good food (so I was told - I couldn't eat anything but a salad without the dressing because of this diet...), and it was a lovely sunny and warm day, too.

The Blackfriars Pub

We finally got off for the walk at 3pm and it took us a good 3 hours, to Fenchurch and back to Monument in a big circle, taking in several of the oldest churches in London, or at least visiting the sites where they used to stand. James had a fascinating lot of poetry, contemporary prose and just little "useless bits of knowledge" to go with the places.

Me (right in the middle) with Eve,
Martin and some other Goths

We heard about the church porch that was officially used as a ladies' lavatory; the biggest dog turd ever seen; undercutting prices for wedding ceremonies; the vicar who didn't like being around the poor; and the poor vicar of Bethel Green who had such a large parish and no help that he had to conduct 800 baptism, 300 weddings and 600 funerals in a single year!

Having a rest (right to left): me, Eve, Martin, Lena

We had a refreshing stop in the rest garden inside the ruin of a chuch (St Dunstan's of the East) but didn't go inside St Paul's cathedral because it is so expensive (£12 a head!).

St Paul's Cathedral

A real treat for anybody who likes the macabre - which by default includes all Goths! - was the entrance to St Olave's Hart Street with its spiked skulls carved over the gate. It's otherwise known as "St Ghastly Grim" and Samuel Pepys described it so: “The gate is ornamented with skulls and crossbones…wrought in stone; but it likewise came into the mind of St Ghastly Grim that to stick iron spikes a-top of the stone skulls, as though they were impaled, would be a pleasant device. Therefore the skulls grin aloft horribly, thrust through and through with iron spears.” Charles Dickens felt eerily drawn to them one dark stormy night: “…and found the skulls most effective, having the air of a public execution and seeming, as the lightning flashed, to wink and grin with the pain of the spikes.” (from “Uncommon Traveller”)

The entrance to St Olave's Hart Street

But in the end we were all glad when we reached St Mary's Woolnoth, because James had the key to that one and we could actually go inside and sit on nice plush cushioned pews to listen to the last part of the "sermon" on the old London churches! A really entertaining and educating day out in London...

James "preaching" in St Mary's Woolnoth