A Spring evening, and over a thousand years of history...

...and we walked through what was once Thorney Island, the land drained by the monks and turned into fields and orchards, the land that, under the safe shadow of the great Abbey, became the home to the Mother of Parliaments, the place where men gathered to parley and to offer advice and counsel on matters of state...

In a lamplit Westminster, with the Abbey illuminated, and the Houses of Parliament in their gothic glory all glowing with light too, history comes alive.

I  had arrived breathless to start the  Catholic History Walk, having  decided to walk - rather than catch a bus or Tube - from a meeting at London Bridge. The Thames was at low tide, people sitting on the grey sandy beaches or packing into the bars and cafes: London in Springtime.  But the stalwart group of walkers, including a couple of holidaying Poles plus some native Londoners, had waited for me on the steps of Westminster Cathedral. And so we set off, from Westminster Cathedral, down Victoria Street -   a good look at the  at the (hideous, modern block) Westminster City Hall with its coat-of-arms displaying Our Lady holding the Christ-child - down to Westminster Abbey and Parliament.  We went via the back roads, each name telling us something: Horseferry Road, Abbey Orchard Street, and the little alleys named after saints (St Matthew, St Anne).  And so to Parliament. And I reminisced about Papa Benedict XVI speaking there - one of the most important lectures of his pontificate, and of huge significance for the future pattern of Church/State relations as this century unfolds - and we spoke of this, and of Parliament, and of its noblest traditions, and of the good that Britain has done and could do, and the evil.