Tower of London

[sleigh]

Three UK shots today (perhaps the last I'll inflict on you...) from the Tower of London.

The first is one of the guards on duty in front of the Queen's House -- the uniform and the ritualized walk always make me think of the song the guards of the witch's castle sing in "The Wizard of Oz."

The second is one of the several ravens who adorn the grounds. The old belief is that if the ravens ever leave the tower, the empire will fall; therefore, all the ravens' wings are clipped so they can't fly away...

And here and there around the grounds are these incredible wire sculptures of animals, recalling the time when the Tower of London also housed a Royal Menagerie.

Comments

[maiac.livejournal.com]

The Tower of London is yet another place I'd like to visit again, if I can skip the rooms full of weapons.

I wonder whether the Tower guards (or the guards at Buckingham Palace) inspired the look and behavior of the guards in Wizard of Oz. (The answer is probably out there, but I'm too lazy to look it up.)

I feel sorry for the ravens, with their clipped wings. (And now I'm wondering where they get more ravens as the ravens-in-residence age, since flight is an essential part of courtship and mating.)

Did you see the section of Roman wall that's just outside the Tower? There's a statue of Emperor Trajan next to it.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Maia -- I suspect you're right that the Beefeaters inspired the Wizard of Oz guards. And yeah, I'm sure the interwebs know the answer, but I'm not curious enough to look it up.

The raven have one clipped wing; they can fly a bit, enough to get on top of railings, etc, but not well enough to fly over the outside walls of the tower. So perhaps it's enough for the mating and courtship rituals?

I did see the Roman wall -- in fact, I have a picture of it (and the statue of Trajan) among the many I took. Amazing how OLD London is...

[maiac.livejournal.com]

" Amazing how OLD London is" made me laugh, because in my first visit to London, I kept looking around for the old buildings, this place is old, why doesn't it look old? -- and finally remembered, oh yeah, almost nothing survived the Great Fire of 1666, so expecting to see medieval or Tudor-era buildings was foolish. I was also amused at myself for being disappointed that London Bridge is a nondescript roadway, with nothing to distinguish it; one would think they'd make an effort to make the bridge look as historic as its name.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Well, having buildings that date back into the 1670s is still far older than most American cities (and portions of the Tower of London are older than that, and there are those segments of the ancient Roman wall...) However, I'll admit that I found some parts of London distressingly "modern" too, though they have better nicknames for their buildings than we do: the "Can of Ham," the "Cheesegrater," the "Gherkin," the "Shard."

Isn't the old London Bridge in Arizona somewhere? And hey, they still have the Tower bridge. :-)

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Yep, the old London Bridge is in Lake Havasu, Arizona. And a considerable number of tourists think Tower Bridge (which goes back to the late 19th century) is "London Bridge", because it looks like it should be.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"All we own we owe!"

K.

[kerinda.livejournal.com]

I have nearly that exact shot on my Facebook cover photo album (the monkeys).