Gorgeous Gothic

Today we visited Westminster Abbey, and I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, but I definitely don’t think I was expecting it to be a church. It was absolutely beautiful though, and I understand why the royal family holds all of their important events there. The building was done up in true extravagant perpendicular gothic style with the tall stretching vertical columns and colorful stained glass windows. The architecture student in me was having strong flashbacks to my architecture history classes from last year.

I also was not expecting the church to be such an important burial ground area. I felt terrible walking anywhere because you were constantly stepping on someone’s grave no matter where you stepped. However, it was really cool to get to see some of the famous people who were buried there. The few who stood out to me were Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen, and Robert Adams.

The first two people were writers, and the third was an architect for King George III. Carroll wrote wrote the famous Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, which are stories I remember seeing since I was a child. Carroll and Austen weren’t actually buried at Westminster, but they had memorials dedicated to the authors. Carroll was buried at Guildford. He was born in 1832 and died in 1898, and I love the quote that was printed on his memorial. It read “Is all our life, then, but a dream?”

Jane Austen also had a memorial at Westminster. I was a little disappointed that her memorial was so small especially since she wrote my favorite book Pride and Prejudice. It doesn’t say where she was buried, but it did say that she was born in 1775 and died in 1817. I’m glad they gave her a shoutout, but I think the amazing author deserved a little more.

The final person that interested me was Robert Adams. He was apparently an architect for King George III and built at least six of the monuments that were in Westminster Abbey. I had to do a bit of outside research about him since I didn’t know who he was, and I’m glad I did. He was born in1728 and died in 1792.

After Westminster Abbey, a few of us went paddle boating, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many geese in my life. It was a lot of fun, and it was a pretty day for it.