Monday, 13 May 2024
Washminster transforms…..
Rome and Athens have always fascinated me. I've enjoyed visits to both cities, and despite a poorly taught Classical Studies and Latin course at Grammar School in the 1970s, I have appreciated reading about and around the history of those two cities and their impacts which have resounded through the subsequent centuries.
I've always lived close to, and been fascinated by Roman roads in Britain. As a teenager I enjoyed summer walks from my home in the Walsall area (Aldridge) to Wall and along the Roman road which ran through Sutton Park. Today my home lies in an estate which is bordered by Watling Street (a street my wife lived very close to when she grew up in Rainham, Kent.) Magiovinium is buried in a part of Milton Keynes which I frequently enjoy walking to (or when the weather is inclement) driving to). Since leaving University, Leicester has become a place I frequently visit - from my first years as a Graduate Trainee when I had to attend my regular reviews, through teaching at the University (after working for the local Member of the European Parliament), to regular visits with my wife for her work.
Living in Milton Keynes, London is also a city I love to visit - and have followed the walk around the city walls (sadly less easy to follow these days, but the signs remain) as well as to the museums and sites which are open to the public, and along parts of the original (Marble Arch to Westminster) and later route (Oxford Street to St Pauls and onto the "centre" of Roman London (at Leadenhall Street/Cornhill) and then down across the most recent incarnation of London Bridge into Borough High Street.
The British Museum is, of course, a treasure trove of Ancient Roman and Greek items as well as the host to a number of superb exhibitions (and their associated publications) over the years.