Piccadily Market & Sir John Soane's Museum

I had read about Piccadily Market in the London Planner - a free local tourist guidebook of sorts. It sounded interesting, but in the end the place was a bit of a disappointment. Not as exciting and interesting as the other markets I've been to. It was set in the churchyard of St James' Church which is along Piccadily Road. There was one thing that I found out from there though. There was a picture of a monument I had seen on the cover of one of the tourist magazines in October, and I saw it again on a postcard at the market. I had been wondering where to find that monument cos it looks quite grand, so I decided to ask around. A few of the shopkeepers weren't sure where it was, but finally one person solved the mystery! It's the Albert memorial and is found at the south end of Hyde Park. I'll go by there one day to take a look! I was feeling so pleased that the mystery was solved :)


Anyway one of things I like about the old buildings in London are their glass windows. They tend to be made out of many small pieces of glass, and I like how the glass pieces capture and reflect images differently. St James' Church had these windows. It's just one of those small pleasures that I enjoy :)







Having some time on my hands I decided to go check out Sir John Soane's museum at Holborn. John Soane was an architect who decided to establish his home as a museum to 'educate and inspire amateurs and students in painting, architecture and sculpture'. He collected numerous pieces of random fragments from as far as Rome and Greece, and even possessed an Egyptian sarcophagus! In accordance with his wishes, the house/museum has been kept in essentially the same state as when he left it.












It's a fascinating place to wander about. It has to be seen to be believed. To see how Sir John collected everything and took care to display everything in the house. At some places you can hardly see the wall because there are so many marble fragments. He also left a huge collection of books on all topics - history, natural history, philosophy, architecture, etc. Very inspiring to browse the titles on the shelves. And I loved that all the books were old and worn. I love the look of old books :)