Letters from England (No. 2)

Victoria Station @ wikipedia.org

By Barbara Wittman, Archivist, Rotch-Wales Collection, Massillon Public Library
Visiting Scholar, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge

Leaving southwest England from Poole by coach took a good deal of Thursday, January 12 (far too long due to road work in London ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games) to reach Cambridge in East Anglia northeast of London. After arriving at Victoria Station, in the City center, the coach making its way across town in heavy traffic passed by the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park along the Thames River, Parliament and Westminster Cathedral, Number 10 Downing Street, and St Paul’s Cathedral built between 1675 and 1710 by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire that destroyed a section of London including the Cathedral in the 1660s. The weather was mild, the town full of visitors and joggers, we passed the Bank of England and The Stock Exchange and at last turned on to the M11 motorway to the northeast and Cambridge which takes its name from the river Cam that runs through the town.