The Charterhouse, London

Today I went up to London to host another arts society event - today it was a walking tour around Smithfield with a Blue Badge guide followed by a visit to the Charterhouse.

It was raining and quite cold when I left home, and the forecast was for clouds with rain and perhaps a bit of sunshine - so we were very lucky when the rain stopped before our tour began and we even had lovely sunshine and blue skies! 

Smithfield is a fascinating area - it is where the old meat market and slaughterhouse was, and today still trades as a meat market. The meat market dates from the 10th century, and is now London's only remaining wholesale market in continuous operation since medieval times.] The area also contains London's oldest surviving church, St Bartholomew-the-great, founded in 1123 AD.
Another grisly aspect of Smithfield is that it is where many executions of heretics and political rebels have taken place, including Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace, and Wat Tyler, leader of the Peasant's Revolt. There are plaques to commemorate these victims.

We had a break for lunch and after lunch we visited the Charterhouse, as seen here. It began as a Carthusian monastery in 1371 and became an almshouse and school in 1611. In 1872 the school moved to Surrey and today it is run as an almshouse for 40 brothers - people with an income below £10,000 per annum and who also meet certain other requirements - it is not a religious order anymore. It has only recently opened to the public for tours and is well worth a visit. It is located close to where one of the new Cross Rail stations is being built, and on excavation for this new development they found hundreds of skeletons in Charterhouse Square next to this building, which they traced back to people who had died in the Black Death - London is certainly a city with so much history!

I am now home but am about to go out again to our monthly camera group meeting, so I have only had time to upload this before setting off again.