I went to see a play at
Shakespeare's Globe theatre with my brother last week, and we started off early to walk alongside the River Thames, with a stop-off in
Battersea Park where we visited the site of the
London Peace Pagoda (
website). The Peace Pagoda was erected between 1984 and 1985 with a dual purpose, an obvious one of providing a spiritual centre for Buddhists in London, secondly, encouraged by the then Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC), Ken Livingstone, and his deputy Illtyd Harrington (
Guardian obituary). The site in Battersea Park was offered to the Buddhist Reverend Gyoro Nagase following on from his building the first pagoda in Britain in Milton Keynes, and following the GLC's Peace Year of 1983; at that time Battersea Park was owned by the GLC, since given to Wandsworth Borough Council after Thatcher abolished the GLC, frankly, because Livingstone annoyed her. Anyway, the Reverend Gyoro Nagase, and Buddhist monks and nuns, and other volunteers, built the
London Peace Pagoda, which is still maintained by the Reverend Gyoro Nagase (
website).
We then continued walking eastwards along the
Thames Path and reached the iconic Grade II listed
Battersea Power Station (
website), now an enormous shopping centre, with bars, restaurants and leisure facilities, and surrounded by flats and apartments. This majestic
art deco industrial brick-built building, the largest brick-built building in Europe, still retains many interior
art deco features, and has been largely sensitively redesigned, worth a visit, if only to use the loos because the loos near the Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park are often closed. 😒
Looking eastwards towards Lambeth Bridge
We carried on towards London Bridge and reached
Borough Market (
website), just behind the pub in the photograph above, which has a history going back a thousand years. We ate from one of the many food vendors, this time we had Thai food, not cheap, but pretty decent, and the market is still a working wholesale food market early doors too. Indeed,
The Market Porter (
website) above, which is situated adjacent to the market, opens for 3 hours weekday mornings (06.00-09.00) for the market traders, one of my favourite things about pubs in/by London markets! 😉 Anyway, we enjoyed our ale bought there,
Brew York Make it Columbus (4.6%) to wash down the food (see my alter ego's
blog), and before we headed to...
Shakespeare's Globe theatre, New Globe Walk (
website), for a matinee performance. The original Globe Theatre was built in 1599, not far behind this replica, which now sits by the Thames Path. It was the actor and director
Sam Wanamaker's dream to have this built as close as possible to the original building and as close as possible to the original design; I believe it's about two-thirds the size of the original, and his daughter
Zoë, as Honorary President, maintains the family link since her father's death. Indeed, Zoë Wanamaker was the first person to speak from the stage here when it had its Royal opening in 1997, when extracts from
Henry V and
The Winter's Tale were included in
Triumphes and Mirth (
Zoe Wanamaker website).
Stage just before the start
Dan and I were here to see the matinee performance of
The Comedy of Errors, which continues until the 29th of July (
website), and was hilarious, a wee bit slow to start, but very early farce performed by a very good cast. Three young Americans that stood by us - as
Groundlings we stood by the stage for just £5, as we always do, great value 👍 - were nearly wetting themselves laughing, obviously really enjoying the play! 😂
Anyway, Dan and I used to attend a couple of plays a year here on average before the Covid lockdowns, so glad to be back again. There isn't just the one production a year, obviously, so go to the website and see what you'd like to attend, and if you're willing to stand up for a couple of hours, only £5 a performance, great stuff! 🙌
An excellent day, if a bit warm 😎
