A Sunday in London - April 2025

On our Sunday in London, we got up early to attend Mass at my mother’s favorite church, St. Etheldreda. It is a small but beautiful Catholic church that dates from the 13th century. It is dedicated to Etheldreda, the Anglo-Saxon saint who founded the monastery at Ely in 673.

In which Dido Belle followed me through London

Last year, I visited Kenwood House, a 17th century stately home next to Hampstead Heath, which was expanded in the 18th century when it became the home of Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice, and is now open to the public (you might also recognize it as a filming location from Notting Hill).

Kenwood House

He and his wife were “childless but from about 1766 they agreed to accommodate their niece, Anne Murray, and two great-nieces, Elizabeth Murray and Dido Elizabeth Belle. Dido was the illegitimate daughter of a formerly enslaved young black woman named Maria Bell and Mansfield's nephew Sir John Lindsay. It was extremely unusual at this time for a mixed-race child to be raised not as a servant, but as part of an aristocratic British family.”

Day 23 – The British Library and King Lear

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world, with more than 170 million objects, including books.  It is a legal deposit library like the Library of Congress. This means it receives copies of all books published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Before 1973, the Library was part of the British Museum but now has its own impressive building near St. Pancras Station as well as storage facilities in Yorkshire. The Library is open to everyone who needs to use its collections. Anyone with a permanent address who wishes to carry out research can apply for a Reader Pass; they are required to provide proof of signature and address. I myself obtained one during our first week in London. The Library’s website is available here; the special collections are also set forth.

Hello, George III!

Days 18 and 19 – Marylebone Library and Museum of Docklands

Our visit on Thursday was to my friend Nicky Smith’s nearby Marylebone Library, which is a public library affiliated with the Borough of Westminster.

The Children's area at street level

Day 14 – Sunday in Hampstead Heath

I thought Sunday seemed the perfect day to walk on Hampstead Heath, so first I found a church in the neighborhood and took a bus there. St Mary's was the first Catholic church to be built in Hampstead after the English Reformation and it took until the 19th century. The church is tucked away on a quiet street among residential homes. The Abbé Jean-Jacques Morel, a refugee from the French Revolution, was its first pastor. The little chapel was completed in less than a year and opened in 1816. At that time, most of the congregation were French refugees. During WWII, General Charles de Gaulle worshipped at the church. Another notable, Graham Greene, was married at this church in 1927.

The city is visible in the distance