2009年2月26日 星期四

Guildhall

在倫敦充滿藝術氣息的蘇活區(或譯蘇豪區),週五下午的街道很是熱鬧。在與西區交界的巷弄裡,有一間豪華旅館隱身在唱片店、書店與劇院之中,我在那 裡與丹尼爾‧克雷格(Daniel Craig)暢談他的第二部007電影《007量子危機》(Quantum of Solace,或譯《新鐵金剛之量子殺機》)。我們選在蘇活區見面並非偶然,多年前就在這一區,年輕的克雷格曾經為了追求夢想,白天在餐廳打工,晚上與國 家青年劇院的演員在附近表演。

  克雷格一九六八年生於英國切斯特鎮(Chester),父親是商船船員,母親是藝術老師(克雷格四歲時父母離異)。母親常會帶他和姐 姐去利物浦的人人劇院(Everyman Theatre)看表演,受到母親的鼓勵,克雷格從小就在學校演出話劇,十六歲更搬到倫敦居住,一邊打零工一邊發展演藝事業。

  一九八八年他進入知名的倫敦市政廳音樂戲劇學校(Guildhall School of Music and Drama),一九九一年畢業,時年二十三歲。

  一九九二年克雷格在銀幕處女作《小子要自強》(The Power of One)裡飾演南非種族隔離時期的軍官,一九九六年受邀在英國廣播公司(BBC)的迷你影集《北方的朋友》(Our Friends of the North)裡擔綱演出,結果一炮而紅,在英國成為炙手可熱的演員。

  二○○一年克雷格得到好萊塢青睞,在《古墓奇兵》(Tomb Raider,又譯《盜墓者羅拉》)裡與安潔莉娜.裘莉(Angelina Jolie,又譯安祖蓮娜.祖莉)合作,接著與保羅.紐曼(Paul Newman)及湯姆.漢克斯(Tom Hanks)合演《非法正義》(Road to Perdition,又...


he Guildhall is a building in the City of London, off Cheapside and Basinghall Street, in the wards of Bassishaw and Cheap. It has been used as a town hall for several hundred years, and is still the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City of London (which should not be confused with Greater London, of which it is only a very small part) and its Corporation. The term Guildhall refers both to the whole building and to its main room, which is a medieval style great hall similar to those at many Oxbridge colleges. The Guildhall complex houses the offices of the City of London Corporation and various public facilities. Greater London also has a City Hall.

tube The nearest London Underground stations are Bank, St. Paul's and Moorgate.

Contents

[hide]

[edit] History

[edit] Roman, Saxon and Medieval

The great hall is believed to be on the site of an earlier Guildhall (one possible derivation for the word 'guildhall' is the Anglo-Saxon 'gild', meaning payment, with a "gild-hall" being where citizens would pay their taxes). During the Roman period it was the site of an amphitheatre, the largest in Britannia, partial remains of which are on public display in the basement of the Guildhall Art Gallery and the outline of whose arena is marked with a black circle on the paving of the courtyard in front of the hall. Indeed, the siting of the Saxon Guildhall here was probably due to the amphitheatre's remains[1] Certainly excavations by MOLAS in 2000 at the entrance to Guildhall Yard exposed remains of the great 13th century gatehouse apparently built directly over the southern entrance to the Roman amphitheatre, which raises the possibility that enough of the Roman structure survived to influence the siting not only of the gatehouse and Guildhall itself, but also of the church of St Lawrence Jewry whose strange alignment may shadow the elliptical form of the amphitheatre beneath.[2] The first documentary reference to a London Guildhall is dated 1128 and the current hall's west crypt may be part of a late-13th century building. Legendary British history made the Guildhall's site the site of the palace of Brutus of Troy.

[edit] 1441-present

Parts of the current building date from 1411 and it is the only stone building not belonging to the Church to have survived the Great Fire of London in 1666. The complex contains several other historic interiors besides the hall, including the large mediaeval crypts, the old library, and the print room, all of which are now used as function rooms.

Trials in this hall have included those of Anne Askew (Protestant martyr), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Lady Jane Grey, Guildford Dudley, Thomas Cranmer, Henry Peckham, John Daniel, John Felton (Catholic), Roderigo Lopez, Henry Garnet (in connection with the Gunpowder Plot), Gervase Helwys (in connection with the Overbury plot) and it contains memorials to Pitt the Elder, Pitt the Younger, Admiral Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, William Beckford and Sir Winston Churchill. It also played a part in Jack Cade's 1450 rebellion.

The Great Hall did not completely escape damage in 1666, and was partially restored - with a flat roof - in 1670. The present grand entrance (the east wing of the south front), in "Hindoostani Gothic", was added in 1788 by George Dance (and restored in 1910). A more thorough restoration than that in 1670 was completed in 1866 by City of London architect Sir Horace Jones who added a new timber roof in close keeping with the original. Sadly, this replacement was destroyed during The Second Great Fire of London on the night of 29th/30th December 1940, result of a Luftwaffe fire-raid. It was replaced in 1954 during works designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

[edit] Present

The day-to-day administration of the City of London Corporation is now conducted from modern buildings immediately to the north of the Guildhall, but the Guildhall itself, and the adjacent historic interiors, are still used for official functions, and it is open to the public during the annual London Open House weekend. The Guildhall Art Gallery was added to the complex in the 1990s. The Clockmakers' Museum and the Guildhall Library, a public reference library with specialist collections on London which include material from the 11th century onwards, are also housed in the complex.

[edit] Gog and Magog

Two giants, Gog and Magog, are associated with the Guildhall. Legend has it that the two giants were defeated by Brutus and chained to the gates of his palace on the site of Guildhall. Carvings of Gog and Magog are kept in the Guildhall and taken out and paraded in the annual Lord Mayor's Show.

An early version of Gog and Magog were destroyed in the Guildhall during the Great Fire of London. They were replaced in 1708 by a large pair of wooden statues carved by Captain Richard Saunders. These giants, on whom the current versions are based, lasted for over two hundred years before they were destroyed in the Blitz. They in turn were replaced by a new pair carved by David Evans in 1953 and given to the City of London by Alderman Sir George Wilkinson, who had been Lord Mayor in 1940 at the time of the destruction of the previous versions.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Current Archaeology 137
  2. ^ British Archaeology 52

[edit] External links

The Guildhall
The Guildhall complex in c.1805. The buildings on the left and right have not survived.
This 1863 gathering at the Guildhall was attended by Queen Victoria. The roof shown here has been replaced.
The crypt in 1884.
The Guildhall is a building in the City of London, off Cheapside and Basinghall Street, in the wards The City of London Corporation (formerly known as the Corporation of London)[1] is the municipal governing body of the City of London. It exercises control only over the City (the "Square Mile," so called for its approximate area), and not over Greater London. It has three main aims: to promote the Business City as the world's leading international financial and business centre; to provide high quality local government services; and to provide a range of additional services for the benefit of London, Londoners and the nation.

沒有留言: