Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: London

  • London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – The Bolton

    London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – The Bolton

    This visit to the Bolton in Earls Court was last year, before the pubs in London were shut down by one of the later lockdowns.

    The pub was built in the 1890s and although the Victorian interior has been largely replaced, it’s still got a comfortable and historic feel to it.

    The beer selection was better than I had anticipated it would be, especially given the challenging trading conditions at the time. The Tiny Rebel Stay Puft Imperial Eggnog Marshmallow White Porter was excellent, a richness of flavour and Beer and Brewing Magazine have an interesting take on the whole white porter/stout issue. Looking at Untappd, the score for this beer isn’t that high, although that does seem perhaps a little harsh given the innovative concept which seemed to me to have worked. The Forest Bänger by Põhjala was a reminder to myself that I will hopefully get to Estonia in 2021, a lovely flavoured beer with only the minor problem to me that the mouthfeel was a bit thin and it needed some more body. But, two very decent beers. Oh, and just for Nathan, both beers were at the appropriate temperature. And, just for Liam, the label on the pump clip looked exciting.

    In normal times, the pub has a themed Dutch bar upstairs, Proeflokaal Rembrandt. This bar has over 100 different Dutch and Belgian beers, along with having themed evenings with local Dutch cuisine. Alongside more substantial meals they of course have Bitterballen, but they also have Bierbitterballe which have a beer batter. I’m very tempted indeed….. Shame they don’t have a FEBO selection, but I’m not sure that they would consider this fine Dutch cuisine (even if I do).

    That’s a decorative ceiling in the toilets…..

    I visited at a time when customers had to order food alongside their drink, and the fish and chips was absolutely fine. The portion size looks a little small in this photo, although that’s partly to do with the size of the plate. The fish was tender, the batter was crispy and flavourful and just as importantly it wasn’t greasy. The chips were firm and appropriately cooked, so everything was as I expected. Perhaps it wasn’t exceptional, but tasty and hot is certainly good enough.

    The staff were engaging and keen to help, despite some very trying circumstances at the time (I mean the health issues, not me as a customer). There was perhaps some slight confusion as to their policy on how many drinks a customer could have with their substantial meal, but the eventual conclusion seemed to be that it was fine to have a few drinks as long a meal was ordered. The pub did get relatively busy, although that was partly because a quiz was taking place. I’m not particularly much of a fan of quizzes and I’m not sure it did much for the atmosphere, but if it brings customers in then that’s all good. There was also something of a community feel to the whole arrangement as well, despite the large size of the building which can often make things seem a little anonymous.

    I liked this pub, the Dutch vibe running throughout the concept, the selection of beers and the cleanliness of the venue all made for a comfortable visit. It’s a shame that they’ve picked up a few negative reviews recently because customers didn’t like how they were dealing with the current health restrictions. The complaints seem to be rather unfair, but at least we knew that the pub was taking the rules and regulations seriously to protect customers and staff. This is another pub that I’d go back to, and likely will when I next go to the Ibis Styles in Kensington….

  • London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – Victoria and Albert Museum (Soul at Death)

    London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – Victoria and Albert Museum (Soul at Death)

    Well, this is, er, frightening. And, that was actually the aim of this sculpted piece from the 1620s, designed by Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini. Individuals bought these items for devotional purposes, to remind them that prayer would ensure that they didn’t end up in hell or purgatory. This wax sculpture depicts what happens at the time of death, when the soul makes its journey into what is hopefully heaven after judgement day has taken place.

    I’m really not sure that I’d want this, I would have thought there are more inspirational pieces to encourage one to engage in a life of prayer. There’s an inscription on the back which reads ‘Mors malis vita bonis’ or ‘Death to the bad, life to the good’. This whole ‘Memento mori’, or being reminded of death, seems to have been much more common in previous centuries and I’m not sure whether it’s because families were more reminded of death or because we’ve become somewhat afraid to tackle the subject today.

  • London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – Victoria and Albert Museum (13th Century Doors from Gannat)

    London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – Victoria and Albert Museum (13th Century Doors from Gannat)

    OK, I’ll admit that this doesn’t perhaps seem like fascinating blog content. It’s some old wooden doors from the thirteenth century with ironwork and they’re from Gannat, a commune in central France. The museum has some notes about just how rare these are and how they can be dated from their design and also as it was a transitional process of how chisels were used on the iron scrollwork.

    To be honest, that level of detail is a little over my head, I just like the element of history here. These doors would have been in use for hundreds of years and at one stage they were hung upside down, which is evident from the much later keyhole and lock. It’s not known which building these doors are originally from, but such decorative iron would have been expensive, so this would have been a substantial property.

    What does interest me here is just imagining how many people used these doors over the centuries. There are several church doors in Norfolk that date from the Norman period and there’s something quite magical about the thought of just how many people have passed through the doors for baptisms, marriages, funerals and the more routine sermons (of which I’m sure at least a few have been quite dull and mundane). The next stop on the church tour that Richard and I are doing is Runhall Church, where the tower door is thought to be contemporary with the building of the tower itself in the twelfth century. More on this in the next few weeks hopefully….

    The V&A likely have these doors on display as they want to show the design of the ironwork from the period, but I just liked that things such as this have survived and are visible to the general public. For anyone fascinated by old doors (I’m not sure how big that niche is….), there is just one left in the UK which is made from wood felled in Saxon times and it’s at Westminster Abbey.

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Ibis Shoreditch

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Ibis Shoreditch

    Back a few weeks to when people could actually visit London, this is the Ibis Hotel in Shoreditch which is just a short walk from London Liverpool Street. Ideally also, it’s opposite Aldgate East Underground station, so it’s an easy hotel to get to.

    This visit was at a time when people could have a drink if they were also ordering a substantial meal. But, although the hotel was offering meals, there wasn’t much of a take-up.

    Part of the hotel’s decor, trying to give that East London theme to proceedings. The whole arrangement felt modern and welcoming, with something of an Ibis Styles type approach to the design rather than Ibis.

    This is the free welcome drink, one of the better ones which I’ve been offered. It’s not the finest in the Brewdog range, but I do very much like Punk IPA, nice and citrusy…. I look forwards to other Ibis hotels offering something slightly more exciting than Budweiser.

    The bedroom, all clean and comfortable. And it was located on the top floor and away from the elevator, just where I like. There were no noise issues either, although I’m not sure that the 348-room hotel was actually that busy. The hotel also had windows that could open, as I’m one of those slightly strange customers who likes the noise of city traffic and police sirens. It also meant that the temperature in the room was easy to control, something which I do most appreciate.

    I did very much appreciate the gesture and that’s a nice handwritten card, although secretly (well, not that secretly actually) I would have preferred chocolate…..

    Anyway, the stay as all sufficiently uneventful, which is ideally how hotel stays should be if it means that no disasters took place. Staff seemed friendly, although slightly underworked through the lack of guests, and I’ll come back here again.

  • London – Hackney (Borough of) – Hackney – St. Augustine’s Church

    London – Hackney (Borough of) – Hackney – St. Augustine’s Church

    The tower is all that is left of St. Augustine’s Church in Hackney, which was known as St. John’s Church between 1660 and 1798, the change being a recognition of the former financial involvement of the Knights of St. John. The main part of the building was demolished in 1798, with a larger replacement church being constructed nearby, which is also known as St. John’s. The tower is now the oldest building still standing in Hackney, although the initial intentions were to also demolish this when the new church opened.

    The tower is visible in the centre of this map from around 100 years ago, with the new church to the north-east of it.

    The former church could hold just 1,000 people and this wasn’t sufficient for the congregation size that wanted to attend. The new building held 2,000 people and was designed by James Spiller, who also designed London’s Great Synagogue which was unfortunately destroyed during the London Blitz.

    There wasn’t initially sufficient money to build a tower at the new church, so this part of the old structure was left standing to hold the bells. The new church didn’t receive its tower until 1814, but it was then discovered that the structure wasn’t strong enough to hold the bells, which wasn’t exactly ideal. Finally, in the 1850s, the work was completed to allow the bells to be moved to the new church, and by this time, it was decided to just leave the tower standing at the old church.

    Some of these tomb stones are from the seventeenth century and I assume that they have been moved from their former location either in the nave or from within chapels. The nave and chancel of St. Augustine’s Church had been rebuilt by Sir John Heron and Christopher Urswick in 1517 and, other than for some additions to add capacity, not much had changed by the time it was demolished.

    Where the nave once met the tower, this is also the meeting point for when tours take place as it’s possible to climb to the top of the tower.

    I’m not at all impressed at this little arrangement, where the stones from the graveyard have all been collected up and placed at the side of the park. Although, this may well have had the effect of saving some of the stones from the damage which would have been done through pollution and weathering. I don’t know when this was done, but, at a guess, I suspect it was in 1885 when the public gardens were laid out. It was certainly done by 1908, as the book mentioned in the next paragraph notes that some gravestones were lost and the rest were stacked three abreast around the outside.

    As an aside, it’s not just me who complains about the poor treatment of gravestones and nor is this a modern concern. The 1908 ‘The Fascination of London – Hackney and Stoke Newington’ book by GE Mitton noted “it is said in the demolition of the old church the monuments were shamefully treated, and some of the stones were broken up and used for paving purposes”.

    One of the memorials in the churchyard.

    Stones have been placed to mark where the corners of the old church used to be, this one marks the north-west corner.

    One of the tombs in the graveyard. There was actually another survivor from the demolition of the church in the late eighteenth century, which was the Rowe Chapel which had been built in 1614. This was kept as it was privately owned and it was protected and given a new roof. Having noted that, the demolition of the church was clumsy and without much care for heritage, it was noted at the time that the figures on the tombs lost their heads and damaged fragments were just kept in the toolshed. Unfortunately, the structure collapsed in 1877, although the chapel was still kept in situ. It was only in 1896 that the chapel was demolished and the now badly damaged monuments taken to the new church.

    Hackney is unfortunate to have lost the church that it did, although at least the remaining tower is Grade I listed. The new church, slightly surprisingly for such an innovative project, was seen by many as quite dull and plain when it opened, and it certainly looks like that internally today. I didn’t find much of interest in terms of the architecture of the new church (I say new, it’s over 200 years old), but the heritage of the former site is fascinating and a number of information boards have been put up around the site.

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Bethnal Green Tube Disaster Memorial

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Bethnal Green Tube Disaster Memorial

    This monument, also known as the Stairway to Heaven Memorial, commemorates those who lost their lives in the Bethnal Green Tube disaster of 1943. It’s a striking monument for what was the worst civilian disaster during the Second World War.

    During the late 1930s, the Central Line was being expanded from Liverpool Street over to locations in Essex. The construction work had nearly been completed when the Second World War commenced, but there was no track laid and the site was taken over to be used as war shelters.

    On the evening of the 3 March 1943, there was an air raid warning and many locals proceeded to the station site to find safety. Near to the bottom of the steps down a mother and daughter slipped, which led to people behind falling and then crushing those below. A total of 173 people were killed during the incident, including 62 children, with their names placed on the above panels.

    Clicking on the above photo should make this readable and it’s an account of what happened on that fateful evening. The press weren’t permitted to write about the incident, although the occasional sly mention got through, as there were fears that it might induce a national panic as well as being damaging to the morale of the nation. A report into the incident was commissioned, but wasn’t published by the Government until 1946.

    I think this looks quite sleek and elegant, with the main part of the memorial at the rear being an inverted flight of stairs. The memorial was designed by Harry Paticas, who was also one of the key visionaries behind the entire project. He had noted just a small plaque inside the station marking the event and he wanted something more visible, so that the story wasn’t entirely forgotten.

    These are quotes from survivors and although they’re a little hard to read (both at the memorial and on-line) they add some poignancy to the memorial. A comprehensive web-site was also created alongside the memorial, available at http://stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org/.

    There’s more about the incident on this video, from BBC’s The One Show.

  • London – National Portrait Gallery (Taylor Wessing Photography Prize)

    London – National Portrait Gallery (Taylor Wessing Photography Prize)

    The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) was always going to be closed this year as it is undergoing a restoration project and their timing is perhaps fortunate. But, one thing they share with other galleries is the opportunity to place artworks on-line so that interested people stuck at home can still engage with their collections.

    In this case, the NPG has created a virtual exhibition at https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/taylor-wessing-photographic-portrait-prize-2020/virtual-exhibition where anyone can view all of the photographs and then vote for their favourite as part of their “Peoples’ Pick”. There’s information about each artwork and you can sort of stroll through the gallery, albeit with quite a lot of imagination.

    This was my favourite and the one I voted for. The gallery notes say:

    “This image was taken by Francis as part of his ‘lockdown journal’, something that was so familiar becomes distant.”

    I don’t want to show the image in full as I’m sure it’s under copyright restrictions, but there’s something about the colourful dress of the lady in the photo combined with her blue facemask that make this very much a photo of 2020, but yet still familiar.

    The winning artist will be revealed on Monday 16 March 2021.

  • London – Greenwich (Borough of) – National Maritime Museum (Figureheads)

    London – Greenwich (Borough of) – National Maritime Museum (Figureheads)

    There are many highlights in the National Maritime Museum, but these figureheads are some of my favourites in the collection. The largest collection of merchant navy ship figureheads in the world is located nearby in the Cutty Sark museum, but the ones here are Royal Navy figureheads.

    Royal Museums Greenwich operate one of the more restrictive copyright policies that I’ve seen from a museum, limiting re-use of their collection imagery. It’s possible to embed the images, but they’re relying on a Flash set-up and that’s being retired. It’s a slight shame as I would have used some of their imagery of figureheads that they don’t have on display in the museum. They’ve made quite an effort with the figureheads though, there’s a separate web-site at http://figureheads.ukmcs.org.uk/ which has 300 of them listed.

    The museum explains that back in the eighteenth century, the Royal Navy would usually have full-length figures, but cost cutting at the Navy Board saw an end to that. Some of the figureheads in existence at that point got cut back, with just the heads usually used after that.

    In the above photo, there are a few obvious figureheads which stand out. The large one on the right in the middle is from HMS Himalaya, which was built for the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) in 1853 and was known as SS Himalaya. After a few months, P&O realised that their ship, which was the largest ever constructed, was too big and there wasn’t enough passenger traffic to justify it. This wasn’t ideal for them, as they had just spent £130,000 on building it. However, they managed to convince the Government to buy their ship for £133,000 and it was transformed into a troopship which could carry up to 3,000 soldiers. The ship was decommissioned in 1894 and was then used as a ship to transport coal until it was sunk by the German Luftwaffe at Portland Harbour in 1940. The figurehead had been removed when it ceased to be a troopship, being stored at Devonport until 1936, when it was presented to the Admiralty.

    At the bottom left of the above photo is the figurehead from HMS Harlequin, a brig-sloop which launched in 1836. The ship was later used to transport coal and was decommissioned by the Royal Navy in 1899 and was broken up and sold for scrap in 1904. The figurehead was kept and was located on the first floor of Rigging House in the Devonport Dockyard, being donated to the Admiralty in 1936.

    Above the HMS Harlequin figurehead is the one from HMS Tribune, in the style of a Roman tribune. The ship was a wooden screw corvette which was launched in 1854, but it didn’t last long as it was sent for breaking up in 1866. I’m not entirely sure that taxpayer’s money was used entirely wisely there. The figurehead ended up in the same place as the HMS Harlequin and was also gifted to the Admiralty in 1936.

    The last British battleship to have a figurehead was HMS Rodney, which was launched in 1884 and remained in use until it was broken up in 1909. After that, with the exception of on some smaller Royal Navy ships which still used figureheads, the tradition changed to have a ship’s badge instead. This doesn’t seem quite as exciting to me, there’s something quite appealing about knowing how many sailors from the Royal Navy would have seen the figureheads on these ships and likely been quite attached to them.

    My only other comment, for what it’s worth (which isn’t much) is that the figureheads are all a bit pristine. They’ve nearly all been repainted, although not necessarily recently, so they don’t have that feel of having been on the front of the ship. The museum does have plenty of figureheads which no longer have much paint left, and I prefer these as they feel more authentic, but they’re mostly not on display.

  • London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – Norland Square Railings

    London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – Norland Square Railings

    There are many things that annoy me. These include people being loud in libraries, Greggs running out of sausage rolls and people putting their feet on the seats of trains. There are other things as well of course (crime and corruption aren’t great either), but I’ll limit myself here. Historically there’s one particular decision which is annoying and it has wrecked many parks, gardens, buildings and churchyards across the country, which was when iron was collected for the war effort.

    It’s not the collection of the iron that’s the problem here, it’s that historians seem to agree that only around 25% of it was used. And the Government never stopped collecting it, despite it being clear that they didn’t need any more. Paperwork has been “lost” by Government departments and it’s widely thought much of the iron was just dumped after the end of the Second World War. Perhaps it was good for morale and making people feel involved, but it simply caused more anger later on when the truth started to out.

    Now that I don’t live in London, I’m no longer a member of the London Library at St. James’s Square, but I’m pleased to note that £500,000 has been spent restoring the railings there. There’s further information at https://www.stjamessquaretrust.co.uk/railings-project and it’s a worthwhile project. But, at least some railings had already been put back here, in so many other locations across the country all that remains eighty years on are the stumps of the railings. Churches suffered terribly from this, as well as many residential property owners. Although, as with many things, other wealthy property owners found reasons for their iron not to be taken in the first place, whilst those of more limited means were busy tearing up their front gates.

    Lord Hemingford in 1943 queried this whole arrangement, although he wasn’t give much succour when he said in the Lords:

    “To go a little lower down the social scale, I saw only the other day a row of very small cottages, I suppose cottages with not more than four rooms at the outside, with their small gardens in front of them, many of them tended with very great care, where the railings—which can have been of very little use to the Government, for they were not much more than wire made into an upright fence—have been taken away from the front of the gardens. I cannot but imagine that those railings were useless for the purpose for which they were taken, and must have been among those which have since been sold by the Ministry of Supply.”

    And, the reason I mention all of this is that the photo at the top is of Norland Square Gardens, with their lovely iron railings. These date to 2007, when Susan Walkers Architects (who are engaged with the St. James’s Square project) and the Cast Iron Co. Ltd produced these new railings for the gardens, funded by the Norland Square Garden Committee. They’re not overly decorative, but they define the area much better than some generic chain-link fence or indeed nothing at all.

    There seems to have been a little bit of a wave of these transformations over recent years, but mostly they seem limited to wealthy areas of London or to property owners with some money. Perhaps it’s time to fund the restoration of iron railings back to churches, parks and many other locations where they were taken from, an apology from the Government that this scheme to collect iron wasn’t stopped when it was realised that it wasn’t productive.

    There’s a video of the patrotic need for this at https://www.britishpathe.com/video/park-railings-for-munitions.

  • Greater Anglia : London Liverpool Street to Norwich

    Greater Anglia : London Liverpool Street to Norwich

    The Prime Minister hadn’t quite made his latest announcement (or u-turn if you prefer) by the time that I was about to board the 13:30 Greater Anglia train back to Norwich from London Liverpool Street. But, when that statement was made, it was effectively saying that London was now entering Tier 4 and that from midnight the residents of the city shouldn’t leave the area. Things appear to have gotten worse with a new virulent strain of the virus, which is not ideal at all.

    There were reports in some elements of the media that there were huge flurries of Londoners rushing out to the countryside, although that appears to have been dismissed by the rail companies who said few trains were actually full. Either way, the train that I was on didn’t seem particularly busy, so I had a block of four seats around a table to myself for the journey. And, for those who note my annoyance on this matter when Stansted Express trains are pushed into service, this train did actually have tables. I bought my ticket over a week ago, another bargain priced £10 advance single fare.

    The most interesting part of the journey for me was annoyance at myself for either being asleep or not paying attention, I can’t remember which (and couldn’t at the time, so I was probably asleep) whilst pulling into what I think was Manningtree station. The driver made a furious announcement, although made professionally, that he had been forced to sound the train’s horn as he nearly hit a passenger’s bag which was being carried so near to the platform as to have actually been mostly off of it. The driver said several times, in excess of four, that the person responsible was a male, in carriage D and with a duffel bag. I was positively disappointed not to be in the carriage as otherwise I could have looked and tutted, to show my British displeasure, at this act of idiocy. I say idiocy, as that’s what the driver called it, along with other words.

    Anyway, I quite liked that the driver made his coffee order over the announcement system and that the refreshment team made one back, apologising for not having the biscuit he wanted. It was sufficiently light hearted to add some humanity back to the journey and I think it calmed the annoyed driver down.

    And here we are back in Norwich, on time and that really is the end of my travel for 2020. I didn’t think in early November that I’d be travelling again in 2020, but this twelve-night stay in London was worthwhile and interesting. What I’m more disappointed about now is that travel in early 2021 is looking effectively impossible. I’m likely to cancel my trip to Bilbao, whereas British Airways have already cancelled my trips to Lisbon and Dublin. I can’t imagine that I’ll be going to Inverness or Palma either, which are both in January, although haven’t yet been cancelled by British Airways.