thursday I think you are confused about the difference between afternoon tea and a cream tea. Of course, you could have a cream tea in the afternoon, but it isn't 'afternoon tea'. I think this because what you had at the V&A is a cream tea, not afternoon tea, and you talk of the clotted cream being the important part of afternoon tea for you. It's certainly the important part of a cream tea, but may or may not feature in afternoon tea.

Cream tea: tea (or I suppose you could have coffee if you had to), plus scones, jam and clotted cream.

Afternoon tea: range of tiny but delicious sandwiches, followed by a heap of delicious cakes (that may or may not include scones/jam/cream). Small elegent bite size bits but in large quantities overall, and the savoury side is as important as the cakes.

Good to hear about the Gamble Room, thurdaysd.

" you are confused about the difference between afternoon tea and a cream tea."

You're making a hard and fast distinction where it's all about shades of grey.

There's any number of different ways of eating in the late afternoon and calling it 'tea' or some variant thereof. At a Buck House garden party, you get a huge choice of dainty sweet and savoury nibbles and it's called - just 'tea'. At a cricket match, the players and hangers on get huge quantities of sweet and savoury mini-meals. Not at all dainty (you should see the size of the Rice Krispie cakes they serve at Hambledon) - but still just 'tea'. I could go on: but whether it's cucumber sarnies in the Dean's garden, scones and cream in the Copper Kettle, crumpets and Patum Peperium in the Senior Common Room or spam & chips in a Liverpool back to back, almost everyone who eats something between 3.30 and 5 calls it just tea.

The prefixes (high, cream, afternoon or anything else) have almost all been added by the catering industry in very recent memory. They mean no more or less than what the cafe proprietor concerned wants them to mean.

I agree that it's all tea, although I have heard "meat tea" as a variation of high tea.

Poor Wilbur and Myrtle often seem to think that "high" in "high tea" means posh.

I don't know about England, but there are several Scottish hotels where they serve high tea from about 5-7 and then dinner from about 7.
This is good for families with children or for tourists who like to eat earlier than 7pm.

The only Myrtle I know is 17, adorable, and plays basketball. I never met any Wilburs. Of course, I don't live anywhere near as fancy as Palm Beach.

I do hear the "high" part annoyingly often when they really mean "Oh, So Deluxe."

"Did you get photos for Wilbur and Myrtle?" - I don't take photos in London - used to live here, come through too often.

Speaking of architecture-enhanced tea: someone has posted a lovely photo of Gamble Room on net:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimbar/2589516347/

Which I can't get to work now. Sorry.

But it looks like the kind of room that helps lift your heart to a higher and a better place, along with the caffeine.

Your link works

Also here: http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/26472-popup.html (without the nifty chandeliers). The other original V&A dining (ofFicially refreshment) rooms are: http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/27664-popup.html and http://www.vandaimages.com/results.a...g=1&imagepos=1

nice

The nicest (all round) tea I've ever had in London was, bizzarely, in the Fan Museum in Greenwich. It has a lovely garden but they only serve it on Thursdays and sundays.

I'd phone ahead and check that they're doing it again this year if you fancy it (they only do it in the summer).

Seriously Wilbur and Myrtle* would love it (but I know that sunday afternoons is bingo in the retirement community).

*Wilbur and Myrtle are slowly turning into real people in my mind...

>>When I was growing up in England, afternoon tea meant clotted cream and scones, and probably a piece of cake, with a drink, in a little tea room (maybe outside if we were having nice weather) down a lane in Cornwall, or in a village in the Cotswolds, or Kent.<<

And one leg of the table has to be shorter than the others, the tea room has to be run by a couple of elderly ladies who maintain a non-stop pointed bickering over some issue that is never clear but appears to relate to something that happened in 1955, and the table in the corner appears to be occupied by Captain Mainwaring and a no longer quite so young lady who may or may not be his secretary.

Which is possibly not what the OP was thinking of. Another vote for the Fan Museum, by the way: it was a LOT of cream (whipped, not clotted, though).

from Fan Museum, Greenwich, website :

Tuesdays and Sundays: Afternoon teas served in the Orangery from 3pm. £4.50 or £3.50 (Plus, I suppose, the £4.00 Museum admission) (but still)

Maybe they move out into the garden in the summer.

I'd check....It always seemed to be bit of a sideline.

If you want something more eccentric and much cheaper, try Maison Bertaux just off Old Compton Street in Soho. You can sit outside if the weather is good and eat quiche and cake with pots of tea or coffee. It's an institution and is fun and has good service. It's next to the Old Compton pub, which is likewise an institution, so you could have a 'swift half' or a 'quick pint' after your tea and scones!

. It's next to the Old Compton pub, which is likewise an institution,>>>>>

But not somewhere to take one's maiden aunt (unless she likes beefy blokes in leather).

And anyway, Maison Bertaux is round the corner in Greek St, next to the Coach and Horses, which is an institution of a different sort. Which is not to say you mightn't find a beefy bloke in leather tucking into a fondant fancy at Maison Bertaux, of course. Might have better table manners than people are reputed to have in the Coach and Horses, too.