Brexit has preoccupied another week of UK news, and it has taken (briefly) the horror of the New Zealand terrorist attack to dislodge it. Brexit has proved and is proving a very thorny issue for the House of Commons. Just round the corner is a street that perhaps makes that point:
Perhaps a Lord Thorney was a nobleman, or a mayor of Westminster or the owner of a big house in the street. But no, this street is named after the island once nearby - Thorney Island.
The island was formed by the Tyburn River dividing as it entered the River Thames. It was surrounded by mud, almost fully flooded when the rivers overfilled and it was populated, we assume, by much wild, thorny vegetation.
Its inhospitable, isolated setting explains why it was chosen by the monks of the first millennium for their house and abbey. The abbey was unsurprisingly called Thorney Abbey. In relation to the East Minster in London, this abbey became known as West Minster and, as you know, the name has stuck. A king added a Palace and then a Parliament arrived.
The monks, to put it mildly, would be surprised to find the Westminster of today. Perhaps, though, they would not be surprised to find that all the collected wisdom of the 650 (actually 642 thanks to Sinn Fein abstentionists and the ever present spectre of death) souls who famously occupy the spot amounts to nothing much more than the thorns they cut down long ago. The journey from prayer to palace to parliament to pandemonium is an invitation to complete the cycle back to prayer.
Perhaps a Lord Thorney was a nobleman, or a mayor of Westminster or the owner of a big house in the street. But no, this street is named after the island once nearby - Thorney Island.
The island was formed by the Tyburn River dividing as it entered the River Thames. It was surrounded by mud, almost fully flooded when the rivers overfilled and it was populated, we assume, by much wild, thorny vegetation.
Its inhospitable, isolated setting explains why it was chosen by the monks of the first millennium for their house and abbey. The abbey was unsurprisingly called Thorney Abbey. In relation to the East Minster in London, this abbey became known as West Minster and, as you know, the name has stuck. A king added a Palace and then a Parliament arrived.
The monks, to put it mildly, would be surprised to find the Westminster of today. Perhaps, though, they would not be surprised to find that all the collected wisdom of the 650 (actually 642 thanks to Sinn Fein abstentionists and the ever present spectre of death) souls who famously occupy the spot amounts to nothing much more than the thorns they cut down long ago. The journey from prayer to palace to parliament to pandemonium is an invitation to complete the cycle back to prayer.
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