Halley Memorial, Westminster Abbey

This morning I gave a talk at a conference in the QEII Center opposite Westminster Abbey. I hadn't been in the Abbey for about 20 years so I decided to spend an hour wandering around it.

Very expensive entrance fee; oppressive crowd-flow controls; and "No Photography" signs all over the place, a ban enthusiastically enforced by numerous wardens in robe costumes. The shutter on my point-n-shoot is silent, the flash was off, and I was hiding behind a stone pillar but still I got hassled to put my camera away.

As it happens, they have big iron bars spanning many of the internal arches, presumably as ties to stop the whole thing collapsing, but the bars spoiled the view of the vaulted ceiling (in the photos I did get, the window light bouncing off the bars dominated the shot) so there you go.

In the cloister the light was better, the crowds thinner, and there was this nice memorial plaque to Edmund Halley, shaped like his comet and with the lettering and details picked out in gold paint. This was my favourite bit.