Power napping

Up and out early today to get the 08:30 to London to visit S who moved back down there a few months ago.

This afternoon I headed off to Clerkenwell to visit the Museum of the Order of St John, English home of the Knight Hospitallers. What a fascinating place, well worth the visit.

The Order has a very long and convoluted history, told with great enthusiasm by the volunteer guides. The Priory was founded in 1165 and was incredibly rich by the 16th Century, partly because they were granted lands owned by the Knights Templar, when the Pope dissolved the Order of Templars in 1312. The Knights Hospitallers suffered a similar fate at the hand of Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536. Mary I, Henry's Catholic daughter, reinstated the Order during her reign, restoring it's lands and possessions. However, not long after Elizabeth I banished the Order to their stronghold of Malta and gave over the Priory building to her Master of Revels.

The British Order of St John, as it's seen today, was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria in 1888. The buildings at Clerkenwell were bought for the Order during the Victorian period and are again the headquarters of the organisation.

Later I had a coffee in the gardens beside a deserted Smithfield market, another place with an interesting and lengthy history, where I came across these guys.