May 2019: Kathleen and Bryce Visit

Kathleen and Bryce spent a week with us and we were able to show them some of the many historic sites here, but the best thing was they were here while the temple was open and we did some sealings with Kathleen as proxy for the daughters. We love our London Temple Sealers who are sensitive to desires of families in performing these memorable ordinances. 

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the London Temple after a session.

The tulips are beautiful right now, these are at the East entrance to the temple.

Hever Castle

Hever Castle began as a country house, built in the 13th century. From 1462 to 1539, it was the seat of the Boleyn (originally 'Bullen') family.  The oldest part of the castle dates to 1270 and was converted into a manor in 1462 by Geoffrey Boleyn, younger brother of Thomas Bolyen adding a Tudor dwelling within the walls. The castle was renovated in the 20th century, when it was acquired by William Waldorf Astor.

Our first visit was to Hever castle, Anne Boleyn's childhood home, which is about 30 mins. from the temple. We were on the afternoon shift while they were here so we did half day adventures before our shift.

The tulips at Hever Castle were equally beautiful to the temple tulips.

Kathleen and Bryce in the dining hall of Hever castle. During the time of the Bullens (as the Boleyn family was originally known), this stunning room was the Great Hall. Initially open to the roof rafters, the Bullen family would have dined in this room and entertained Henry VIII and his entourage here when he visited.

A Knight's armor in the entry hall. Bryce would have made an awesome knight!

The library at Hever castle overlooking the moat and Anne Boleyn’s orchard, the stunning Library originally contained 2,500 books.

This marriage tapestry dated at 1525 AD illustrates the marriage of King Henry VIII’s younger sister, Princess Mary Rose Tudor to King Louis XII of France. The union was political and understandably, the twenty-year old royal was reluctant to marry a man over thirty years her senior. However, Princess Mary Rose dutifully agreed to the match on condition that should she outlive the French monarch she could choose her new husband, namely Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk – a close friend of Henry.  Princess Mary’s marriage to King Louis was short-lived as he died just three months later, allowing her to marry Charles Brandon.  The tapestry is of historic importance as the woman to the right of Princess Mary Rose is supposedly Anne Boleyn – it is known that she and her sister Mary were present at the French Court at the time of the wedding in October 1514. 

Bedroom with life size models of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

Kathleen and Bryce in the bedroom where Henry VI stayed when courting Anne.

The petition signed in 1530 by the House of Lords to Pope Clement VII asking that the Catholic church grant Henry VIII's marriage annulment to Catherine of Aragon and threatening that if "His Holiness" does not grant the "Remedy" sought, they will be forced "...to attain this end by other means."  The Pope did not grant the annulment which eventually led to the English Reformation where The Church of England was formed with Henry VIII as supreme head and all Roman Catholic churches and riches were confiscated for use by the King of England.  

The yew maze from the window of Hever castle.  The maze was built a by William Waldorf Astor, who along with a number of other wealthy people created mazes for their own enjoyment. The hedges are eight feet high and there is almost a quarter of a mile of pathways to get lost in! It is one of only a few traditionally designed mazes in the UK.

Eastbourne and Seven Sisters

The Seven Sisters and Beachy Head are a series of chalk cliffs on the English Channel near the city of Eastbourne.  They are occasionally used in filmmaking and television production as a stand-in for the more famous White Cliffs of Dover, since they are relatively free of anachronistic modern development and are also allowed to erode naturally. As a result, the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head remain a bright white color, whereas the White Cliffs of Dover are increasingly covered in vegetation.

Kathleen and Bryce with the Beachy Head lighthouse in the distance.  Looking over the edge gives you an almost vertical look downward toward the sea.

Sister Burkinshaw, Bryce and Kathleen with the Seven Sisters in the background.  Over 100 feet of cliffs have eroded into the sea in the past hundred years.

Bryce and Kathleen with the Seven Sisters in the background.  In order, the peaks are called Haven Brow, Short Brow, Rough Brow, Brass Point, Flagstaff Point, Flat Hill, and Baily's Hill.  Went Hill Brow is also visible and was created by erosion of the sea. 

Kathleen, Bryce and Sister Burkinshaw near the Belle Tout Lighthouse looking back towards the Seven Sisters.

Bryce and Kathleen at one of the points near the Belle Tout Lighthouse.  You can see chalk cliffs are quite steep.  The chalk is a soft white, very finely grained pure limestone, and are commonly 300-400m deep. The chalk layers built up gradually over millions of years. They're formed from the skeletal remains of minute planktonic green algae that lived floating in the upper levels of the ocean. 

Bryce and Kathleen at the Belle Tout lighthouse.  You will note at the left the original base of the lighthouse, which was moved about 60 feet further inland because of the erosion.

Bodiam Castle

Bodiam Castle is a 14th-century moated castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England. It was built in 1385 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a former knight of Edward III, with the permission of Richard II, ostensibly to defend the area against French invasion during the Hundred Years' War. Of quadrangular plan, its corners and entrance are marked by towers, and topped by crenellations (battlements).

Bryce and Kathleen in front of Bodiam Castle with its very large moat.

Bryce and Kathleen at the bridge across the moat at Bodiam Castle.

Bryce, Kathleen and Sister Burkinshaw in front of Bodiam Castle.

Bryce and Kathleen inside Bodiam Castle in what had been the Chapel.

The courtyard inside Bodiam Castle.  It has been over 300 years since the castle has been used as a dwelling but despite the years of neglect, it is still in amazing condition.

Queen Kathleen and King Bryce sit on their thrones in Bodiam Castle.

A view of the inside of Bodiam Castle.  Note that most of the inner wall is no longer standing.  There were at least three levels to the castle and large wooden beams would have formed the supports for the roof.

Kathleen and Sister Burkinshaw at the top battlement of Bodiam Castle.

Bryce and Kathleen inside the huge fireplace of the kitchen that would feed the family and servants in Bodiam Castle. 

Bryce and Kathleen on one of the towers at Bodiam Castle.

Dover Castle

Dover Castle is a medieval castle in Dover, Kent, England, founded in the 11th century by Henry II and is the largest castle in England.  It is described as the "Key to England" due to its defensive position only 21 miles across the English Channel from Calais, France.  It was Henry II who ordered the murder of Thomas Beckett and ironically he turned the Dover Castle into a money-making enterprise catering to the thousands of pilgrims that journeyed to St. Thomas' Shrine at Canterbury Cathedral.  

Dover Castle with it's green hills.

Bryce and Kathleen with the entrance to Dover Castle in the background.

Kathleen and Sister Burkinshaw stirring up some stew in the Dover Castle kitchen at the basement level.

The chapel at Dover Castle which is still used for worship today.

Kathleen and Bryce sitting at a replica of the tables and wooden bowls that would have been used in the 12th century.

Bryce and Kathleen in the throne room of Dover Castle.

Bryce and Kathleen at the top battlement of Dover Castle which overlooks the coast.

A picture of some of the out building around Dover Castle and St Mary de Castro Church with it's tower on the right which is the oldest structure in the Dover Castle complex, built in about 1000 AD. 

Bryce, Sister Burkinshaw and Kathleen showing the massive size of Dover Castle.

Kathleen and Bryce at the seaward entrance to Dover Castle.

Dover Cliffs

Bryce and Kathleen at the Dover Cliffs looking westward towards the Port of Dover which  is one of the world's busiest passenger ports, with 11.7 million passengers, 2.6 million semi-trucks, 2.2 million cars and motorcycles and 80,000 buses passing through it in 2017, with an annual turnover of $80 million a year.  The Channel Tunnel in nearby Cheriton now takes an estimated 20 million passengers and 1.6 million trucks.

Bryce and Kathleen looking eastward on the Dover Cliffs.

Bryce and Kathleen and the English Channel looking towards Calais, France, which you can see in the distance, which is 21 miles away.

Bryce and Kathleen and the White Cliffs of Dover.  Note that the cliffs' chalk face shows horizontal bands of dark-colored flint which is composed of the remains of sea sponges and siliceous planktonic micro-organisms which hardened into the microscopic quartz crystals. 

Bryce and Kathleen from the Dover Cliffs looking back towards Dover Castle.

Sister and Elder Burkinshaw on the path the goes along the Dover Cliffs with Dover Castle in the background.

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.  Founded in 597, the cathedral was largely rebuilt in the Gothic style following a fire in 1174, with significant eastward extensions to accommodate the flow of pilgrims visiting the shrine of Thomas Becket, the archbishop who was murdered in the cathedral in 1170.  Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales relates the story of various pilgrims journeying to Becket's shrine and popularized English vernacular in mainstream literature, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin.

Bryce, Kathleen and Sister Burkinshaw with the Christchurch Gate (built in 1507 AD) which is the entrance to Canterbury Cathedral.  The green statue is an image of Christ. 

Sister Burkinshaw, Kathleen and Bryce at the southwest entrance to Canterbury Cathedral.  

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the altar marking the spot of the Martyrdom of Thomas Beckett who was Archbishop of Canterbury.  Beckett had been appointed Archbishop by King Henry II thinking that Beckett would "rubber stamp" on behalf of the Church all of the Kings plans.  However, once appointed, he developed a conscience which frustrated the King.  In the presence of several knights, he is purported to have said, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome cleric?"  The knights took that as a commission to kill Beckett.  They rode to Canterbury Cathedral and in this spot, the attacked him with swords in a most gruesome manner.  Note the monument with 3 vertical sword and a horizontal sword all of which appear to be dipped in blood.  Beckett was quickly canonized as a saint by Rome and his burial place became a shrine for pilgrims seeking special blessings from all over Europe.

This is the "screen" that leads to the "quire" (modern spelling is "choir") in Canterbury Cathedral.  The statues  (left to right) represent Henry V, Richard II, Ethelbert (holding a model of the cathedral), Edward the Confessor, Henry IV and Henry VI. 

Bryce and Kathleen in the Cathedral.  Note the Gothic architecture 

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the former site of Thomas Beckett's Shrine.  Two hundred years after his death, King Henry VIII summoned Beckett (who was long dead) to accuse him of being a traitor to the King, convicted him and therefore confiscated all the riches that pilgrims had left at the Shrine.  Some of the Crown Jewels of England are from the goods confiscated from Beckett's Shrine.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the north side of Canterbury Cathedral.

Queningate park just north of Canterbury Cathedral with it's ancient Roman walls.

Greenwich

Bryce and Kathleen at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, just across the Thames River from downtown London.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the Royal Observatory, which is the home of references for time and length in Britain.

Kathleen straddling the Prime Meridian which separates East from West.  It is this line that defines Greenwich Mean Time which is the reference for the world.

Bryce straddling the Prime Meridian.

Kathleen and Bryce in front of the Flaamsted House at the Royal Observatory.  The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II.  At that time the king also created the position of Astronomer Royal, to serve as the director of the observatory and to "apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying of the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so much desired longitude of places for the perfecting of the art of navigation." He appointed John Flamsteed as the first Astronomer Royal. The building was often called "Flamsteed House", in reference to its first occupant.  Note the orange "time ball" which since 1830 has dropped at 1:00pm daily providing a Greenwich Mean Time reference to all the ships on the Thames which used time to establish their longitudinal coordinates.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the giant "ship in a bottle" in front of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich Park, just down the hill from the Royal Observatory.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the Cutty Sark, one of the last sailing vessels in the English fleet (built in 1869 in Glasgow Scotland).

The tunnel under the River Thames near Greenwich Park.

London

London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, as well as the largest city within the European Union. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile (80 km) estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans.  London is considered to be one of the world's most important global cities and has been termed the world's most powerful, most desirable, most influential, most visited, most expensive, innovative, sustainable, most investment friendly, most popular for work, and the most vegetarian friendly city in the world.  It is one of the financial centers of the world.

Kathleen and Bryce on the Millennial Bridge across the River Thames with the "Shard" building on the right and the Tower Bridge in the distance.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the White Tower which is the central tower at the Tower of London. It was built by William the Conqueror during the early 1080s, and subsequently extended. The White Tower was the castle's strongest point militarily, and provided accommodation for the king and his representatives, as well as a chapel. Henry III ordered the tower whitewashed in 1240.  

Bryce and Kathleen with the home of the Crown Jewels in the background at the Tower of London.

Bryce, Kathleen and Sister Burkinshaw at the entrance to the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London.

Kathleen and Bryce with the faces of various English Kings in the White Tower at the Tower of London.

Bryce, Kathleen and Sister Burkinshaw in front of the Lyceum Theatre where we saw the musical "The Lion King."  Hakuna Matata!

Bryce and Kathleen after the show.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the Hyde Park Chapel built in 1961 and dedicated by President David O. McKay.  This is a stake center, meetinghouse for 3 wards and the London England Mission Office.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the Albert Memorial.  Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, died at the young age of 42.  He married Queen Victoria at age 20 and was known for supporting public causes, such as educational reform and the abolition of slavery worldwide, and was entrusted with running the Queen's household, office and estates. He was heavily involved with the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (which was the precursor to the Worlds Fair) which was a resounding success.  He aided the development of Britain's constitutional monarchy by persuading the Queen to be less partisan in her dealings with Parliament.  

Bryce and Kathleen in front of Royal Prince Albert Hall, one of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings opened in 1871 and which holds 5,267 people.  It is located directly across the street from the Albert Memorial.

The Princess Diana Memorial Fountain which is a cross between a water slide and a lazy river located in Hyde Park.

Bryce, Kathleen and Sister Burkinshaw in front of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is the world's largest museum of applied and decorative arts and design, as well as sculpture, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects.  It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who were beloved by their subjects.

Bryce and Kathleen with the famous "Life-Boat and Manby Apparatus Going Off to a Stranded Vessel Making Signal (Blue Lights) of Distress" by Joseph Mallord William Turner at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  This painting gave inspiration to President Thomas S. Monson and he named it "To the Rescue" in his conference talk of the same name.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of St. Ermins Hotel where we stayed in central London.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.  The National Gallery holdsa collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900, including works by Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Monet, Rubens, Cézanne, etc.

Bryce and Kathleen at Trafalgar Square in front of the Column Monument to Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson, who symbolizes the British devotion to duty.  Nelson let the victory over the French and Spanish at the Port of Trafalgar Spain but at the cost of his own life.  His last words were "England expects that every man will do his duty."

Kathleen and Bryce on one of the famous subway (Underground or Tube) cars.  The transportation system in London is great!

Sister Burkinshaw, Bryce and Kathleen in front of the British Museum which was established in 1753 and is dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection of some eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence, having been widely sourced during the era of the British Empire. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. It was the first public national museum in the world.

Kathleen in front of the historic Rosetta Stone which was carved in 196 BC and has writing on two languages (Egyptian and Greek), using three scripts (hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek).  Discovered in 1799, it provides a basis for translation of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.  After many years of studying the Rosetta Stone and other examples of ancient Egyptian writing, Jean-François Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of a reliefs taken from the North Palace of Neneveh entitled The royal Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal. These carvings are widely regarded as "the supreme masterpieces of Assyrian art".  They show a formalized ritual "hunt" by King Ashurbanipal (reigned 668 – c. 631/627 BC) in an arena, where captured Asian lions were released from cages for the king to slaughter with arrows, spears, or his sword. They were made about 645–635 BC. They were originally painted in bright colors.

Bryce and Kathleen at the Nereid Monument, a sculptured tomb from Xanthos in Lycia a province of the Persian Empire which is on the Mediterranean Sea in current-day Turkey. It took the form of a Greek temple on top of a base decorated with sculpted friezes, and is thought to have been built in the early fourth century BC (circa 390 BC) as a tomb for Arbinas who ruled western Lycia.  The ruins were rediscovered by British traveler Charles Fellows in the and were shipped to the British Museum and reconstructed.

Bryce and Kathleen in front of the Lewis chessmen (named after Lewis Bay in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, where they were found.  These distinctive 12th-century chess pieces, carved from walrus ivory, are from the period that the modern game of chess originated.

Close-up of some of the Lewis chessmen.

Kathleen "holding" the gold model chariot which is part of the Oxus treasure (found near the Oxus River in modern-day Tajikistan) of the Persian Empire which is believed to date from the fourth century BC. 

Bryce and Kathleen in front of St Paul's Cathedral, which is the home of the Anglican Bishop of London and was designed in the late-17th Century by Sir Christopher Wren.  Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson and artist JMW Turner are just a few of the famous historical figures buried in St Paul's Cathedral.  

It is worth noting that after being married for a couple of years Kathleen and Bryce discovered, after printing off their "Family Fan Charts", that they were connected through the Croft line. Kathleen's third great grandfather (Thomas Wooley Croft, 1823-1881) and Bryce's 4th great grandmother (Jane Croft, 1831-1901) were siblings. 

What a blessing that Kathleen and Bryce would be brought together to share their mortal journey with five handsome boys and because of these ancestors choices do so with the full blessings of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Sealing ordinances of the temple. These ancestors must rejoice as they watch their righteous posterity continue the sacrifices necessary to be a "welding link".

President Gordon B Hinckley said, “Everything that occurs in the temple is of an uplifting and ennobling kind.  It speaks of the importance of the family as a creation of the Almighty.  It speaks of the eternity of the marriage relationship.  It speaks of going on to greater glory.  It is a place of light, a place of peace, a place of love where we deal with the things of eternity.  The temple blessings are the crowning blessings the Church has to offer.”  (Teachings of the Presidents of the Church:  Gordon B Hinckley, Chapter 23 "Blessings of the Temple")
Elder and Sister Burkinshaw