{"id":595,"date":"2016-10-10T07:50:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T07:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/10\/sunday-mass-at-farm-street-church-and-visiting-florence-nightingale-museum\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T04:59:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:59:41","slug":"sunday-mass-at-farm-street-church-and-visiting-florence-nightingale-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/10\/sunday-mass-at-farm-street-church-and-visiting-florence-nightingale-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Mass at ‘Farm Street Church’ and Visiting Florence Nightingale Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, October 9, 20167<\/o:p><\/span><\/b>
\nLondon<\/o:p><\/span><\/b>
\n <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>Having accomplished my weekend goal
\n(getting out of town to see some place new) yesterday when my friend Roz and I
\ndrove to Runnymede, I decided to enjoy a leisurely Sunday in London before the
\npressure of the coming week hit me. So it was very casually (after waking up early
\nto blog and catch up with email) that I had my breakfast and showered and
\ndecided to go for the 10.30 am Mass to Westminster Cathedral. Only when I
\nreached Ealing Tube station, I discovered that there was a delay in the
\ndeparture of the train as someone had messed up two of the seats and the railway\u2019s
\nentire cleaning crew seemed to have been deputed to clean it up. It took
\nforever as they sprayed and scrubbed and did things with rolls of plastic
\nsheeting! Needless to say, this delay would have made me very late for Mass\u2014so thinking
\non my feet or on my butt (for I was seated in the train!) I decided to catch
\nthe 11.00 am Mass at The Church of the Immaculate Conception which is also
\nknown as Farm Street Church. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>So I got off at Oxford Street and
\nchanged to the Victoria Line that took me to Greek Park from where I crossed
\nBerkeley Square on foot and arrived at my destination well in time. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nMass at The Church of the
\nImmaculate Conception:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>I have forgotten how gorgeous the
\ninterior of this church is\u2014it is pure Gothic Revival. In fact, it is a cross
\nbetween the Gothic and the Baroque\u2014for while it has a soaring nave and
\nmagnificent fan vaulting on the two side aisles, it is an exuberant burst of
\ncolor and texture in the decoration employed\u2014marble pillars, a stone carved
\nreredos, painting on the ceiling, loads of statuary. There is so much visual
\nexcitement when you enter that you are kept awed for ages. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>Then, as if this were not enough, it
\nhappened to be a Sung Latin Mass\u2014and you had to hear the choir to believe it! I
\nmean they were truly sensational. It was also very easy to follow as they had
\nhandy Latin Mass Books that you could pick up at the entrance and with those
\naids, I found myself fully engrossed. Of course, the Readings and the sermon
\nwere in English\u2014but everything else was in Latin. The Church was quite
\nrespectably packed and I was happy to see a mixture of ages\u2014from young to very
\nold, participating in the service. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>After Mass, we were invited to join
\nin for coffee in the Rectory. It was there that I made friends with a very nice
\nlady from Pimlico called Angela who then introduced me to one of the priests,
\nFr. Chris, who was a fine conversationalist. With a cup of coffee in my hand
\nand something called a Tunnock\u2019s tea cake (it was a chocolate covered marshmallow
\non a biscuit base\u2014absolutely delicious!), I circulated and met a few people.
\nThe good priests of this church, Jesuits all, were pleased to know that I am
\nfrom Fairfield, Connecticut, where their famous Fairfield University is
\nlocated.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

 <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn the Bus to the Florence Nightingale
\nMuseum:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>One of my goals for the day was to
\nvisit the Florence Nightingale Museum\u2014because now that I am back in London, I
\nhave a few sights I want to complete \u2018seeing\u2019. Anyway, I got into the C1 bus
\nnear Green Park and hopped off at Victoria and from there I took a 211 across
\nWestminster Bridge that dropped me off at St. Thomas\u2019 Hospital on the South
\nBank in whose basement the museum is located. I paid the entry fee of 7.50
\npounds and then tried to focus on what is a very small museum. However, when I
\ndiscovered that they had no caf\u00e9 inside, I decided to go out and find some
\nfood. I was directed to the Main Entrance of St. Thomas\u2019 Hospital where there
\nwas an MandS Simply Food<\/i> from where I
\nbought Scotch eggs that I ate there before I began my exploration of the museum.
\n<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>By the end of the visit, I was quite
\nannoyed by the place. For one thing, it is really small\u2014one wonders what they
\nare charging 7.50 pounds for\u2014there was really very little to see. A few items
\nthat personally belonged to the Lady with the Lamp were the highlight for me\u2014her
\nfire screen, a chair and a parasol. Several diaries, journals and medical note
\nbooks that she maintained in her time and that are written in her own
\nhandwriting in faded sepia ink were also valuable. There were examples of the
\nkind of clothing she might have worn in her time. Another big highlight for me
\nwas the actual kind of lamp she would have carried with her as she made her
\nrounds among wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. Artists who depicted her
\npresented the wrong sort of lamp in their paintings\u2014a more English-style one,
\nwhereas she would have used a typical Turkish-style one as she was based a lot
\nin Scutari and Balaclava. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>What I found best about the museum was
\nthe information about her family life, her relationship with her sister,
\nParthenope, why she turned to nursing and how much she did for the profession.
\nThere is a section on Nursing since her time (which was very informative) but
\nwas shown mainly through pictures. I did not know, for instance, that she was
\nvery active in the Nursing School at St. Thomas\u2019 Hospital\u2014which is why the
\nmuseum is located in its premises. There is also a small section on Edith
\nCavell who was trained in the same school and became a renowned nurse herself.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>Finally, the museum contains a
\nlovely section on Peter Pan<\/i> and J.M.
\nBarrie\u2019s bequest of all proceeds of the play to the Great Ormond Children\u2019s Hospital
\nbecause he was closely associated with it during his own lifetime. There is
\nmarvelous information in this section on how Barrie came to write the play, his
\nrelationship with the children of the widowed Sylvia Llewellyn-Davies and her
\nboys, his special affinity towards suffering children\u2014we all know that for the
\nfirst performance of Peter Pan<\/i> in London
\nin 1911 he brought in 25 orphans whose laughter was so loud and so infectious
\nthat they completely made the show the hit it became. Over the years, the hospital
\nhas gained vast amounts of money (from international productions of the play
\nplus books, film and pantomime versions of it) and although they cannot
\ndisclose how much, let\u2019s just say it has almost single-handedly kept the work
\nof the hospital going.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>Most annoying about the museum were
\nthe gun-throated parents who arrived with children and behaved as if they were
\nin their own personal living-rooms. They read curatorial notes so loudly as to
\nbe a huge disturbance to everyone else around and interacted with their
\nchildren incomplete disregard of the fact that there were other patrons inside
\nwho were trying to concentrate on what they were seeing and reading. With no
\nguards in any of the \u2018rooms\u2019, it was impossible to seek assistance to get them
\nto quieten down. Overall, among the many museums I have visited in London, I
\ncertainly liked this one the least. The staff at the front desk were also not
\nthe slightest bit friendly. The one who sold me a ticket in the afternoon was
\nsnooty, distant and cold. I have to wonder why they take on \u2018people-oriented\u2019
\njobs when they barely have the skills to be civil.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nTea with Friends in Chelsea:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>It was while I was in the museum
\nthat I received a phone call from my friends Michael and Cynthia in Chelsea. I had
\nintended to visit them to pick up some items that I had left in their home for
\nsafekeeping. Now that I live in a flat that has super security in a
\nneighborhood that makes me feel completely safe, there is no need for them to
\nhang on to my things. I took a bus across Westminster Bridge, then nipped into
\nthe Circle Line tube to get to their stop at Sloan Square from where I walked
\nto their place. It had started drizzling and it is coming home to me that since
\nit\u2019s rather unusually warm and sunny summer is past, England has returned to
\nits regular weather pattern of rain at any time! It might be best for me to
\nkeep a small brolly always in my bag!<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>I had a lovely hot cup of lemony tea
\nwith a biscuit at Cynthia\u2019s place where I stayed for over an hour. We left together
\n <\/span>at about 6.00 pm as Cynthia wished to attend
\nBenediction at nearby Holy Trinity Church and I hopped into the Tube to get
\nback home.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nDinner and Some Blogging at Home:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>Just before I got to my apartment, I
\nrang the doorbell of my neighbors\u2019 flat as my landlord Stuart had told me they were
\nfrom India. I met both Anu (short for Arnawaz\u2014how pleased I was to discover
\nthat she is a Parsi!) and Vikram and their little one, Jesmine. Our visit was
\nbrief but they were lovely\u2014young, warm and welcoming and wanted to know if there
\nwas anything they could help me with! I am sure I will see them again and get
\nto know them better. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nI
\nspent the rest of the evening with my laptop as I caught up with more blog posts.
\nAbout 9. 00 pm, I stopped to have dinner (my leftover Curry Laksa from Hare and Tortoise<\/i>\u2014so so delicious I
\ncould eat it daily!) and while I ate, I continued watching Making a Murderer<\/i> on Netflix which is getting more intriguing as it
\ngoes along. At about 10.30, after reading a bit more of On Chesil Beach<\/i>, I switched the light off and went to sleep. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nUntil
\ntomorrow, cheerio\u2026  <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, October 9, 20167 London               Having accomplished my weekend goal (getting out of town to see some place new) yesterday when my friend Roz and I drove to Runnymede, I decided to enjoy a leisurely Sunday in London before the pressure of the coming week hit me. So it was very casually (after… <\/p>\n

Read<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1933],"tags":[608,610],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-musings","category-united-kingdom","tag-farm-street-church","tag-florence-nightingale-museum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4809,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/4809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}