Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: London

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (1681 Pudding Lane Bakery Site Plaque)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (1681 Pudding Lane Bakery Site Plaque)

    This is another marvellous exhibit in the Museum of London, a plaque dating to 1681 which was placed outside the site where the Great Fire of London started on Pudding Lane. The museum notes that the plaque had to be removed in the early eighteenth century, as traffic jams were caused by people stopping to read it.

    The plaque reads:

    “Here by ye permission of heaven, hell broke loose upon this Protestant City from the malicious hearts of barbarous Papists, by ye hand of their agent Hubert, who confessed, and on ye ruins of this place declared the fact, for which he was hanged vizt. that here began that dreadful fire, which is described and perpetuated on and by the neighbouring pillar.”

    This attempt to blame the Catholics, as someone always has to be blamed for disasters, was also replicated on the Monument which still stands today by the underground station of the same name. The text on the main monument was though scratched out in the early nineteenth century. Hubert refers to Robert Hubert who confessed to the fire, but no-one really believed him during the criminal trial. However, it suited the authorities to find him guilty and he was hanged at Tyburn on 27 October 1666.

    The actual state of the plaque is a little more complex than the signage at the museum suggests, as the plaque was taken down on the orders of King James II, not unsurprising as he was a Catholic monarch (the last one in this country). King William III ordered it back up again, before its removal for the traffic reason mentioned by the museum, probably in around 1750 to 1755.

    After the plaque was taken down for the final time, it was placed in the cellars of the building of 23 Pudding Lane, where it remained until the authorities demolished it to build Monument Street. It is remarkable that this has survived, but it’s a reminder of the days when people made false statements about those with other beliefs in a bid to create disharmony and hate. Perhaps those days haven’t quite yet gone away. Anyway, it’s rather lovely that no-one ever destroyed it and that it is today in the Museum of London.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London (1667 Tavern Sign)

    London – City of London – Museum of London (1667 Tavern Sign)

    Unfortunately, the lighting in this part of the Museum of London wasn’t very good when I took the photo, but this is still one of my favourite exhibits. It’s a tavern sign for the Three Kings pub and it dates to 1667, the period when the city was rebuilding following the devastating Great Fire of London. A rule at the time meant that the sign had to be placed flat on the external part of the building, signs weren’t allowed to stick out.

    The sign is made from limestone and it was found in Bucklesbury, an area of London which is long gone, although it’s somewhere around where Bank underground station is today.

    A line drawing of the sign from the late nineteenth century. I liked this because the labourers rebuilding London would have seen this sign when they went into the tavern for their one or eight pints, a rather lovely little piece of history. As for the pub, not much seems to exist in the records, it may have been somewhere that was only trading for a few years. But, thanks to this sign, its memory lives on.

  • London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – Rushmore Hotel

    London – Kensington and Chelsea (Borough of) – Rushmore Hotel

    I’m using up the numerous Rewards Nights that I have with hotels.com and this accommodation option was keenly priced at under £40. It’s located around the corner from Earl’s Court underground station and easy to find. I was fortunate that a staff member was leaving the door just as I arrived as I’m not sure that the reception was routinely manned, although I was the only guest checking in that day so the process was all quick and easy.

    The stairs have a protective covering on, I assume due to decoration work which is going on.

    The room is small, although that was apparent when booking, but spotlessly clean. Indeed, a real effort has been made with the cleaning and I assume that it has been refurbished recently, as it’s in a good state of repair. The power points along one side of the room don’t work, although the ones on the other side do. The bathroom felt a little older in style, but it was just as clean, although the shower was quite small. But, everything worked and the toiletries provided were of a decent quality.

    I’m not a huge fan of keys like this and the process for getting in and out of the hotel seems to be a bit convoluted. I assume that the staff are usually around and so pressing the doorbell is sufficient, but if I had wanted to arrive back at 02:00 then I’m not sure what would have happened.

    Onto the matter of staffing, the welcome was authentic and genuine, there were no problems with the customer service here. The personable staff members gave the hotel a comfortable and informal feel, so it was all rather agreeable. I didn’t pay extra for breakfast, although this is available for those who want it. I’m staying, it seems quite frequently at the moment, at the nearby Ibis Styles, but I’d happily stay at this hotel again.

  • London – City of London – Museum of London

    London – City of London – Museum of London

    It’s about eight years since I last visited the Museum of London, and it might be the final time as they’ll be on the move to a new site in Smithfields in a couple of years. The design of the whole Barbican area isn’t great, it puts road users first and it’s meant that the museum is only accessible by pedestrian bridges. It’s not ideal.

    The stairs to get to the museum are gloomy, although they’ve done what they can to brighten them up a bit.

    My ticket was for 10:00, which was when the museum opened, and a small queue had formed. There was the choice to visit an exhibition on some rock band, which I ignored, instead wanting just to see the permanent collection. The museum was sufficiently quiet to allow for social distancing, although the queues were much longer when I left the building. This is also the first museum I’ve been to which scans visitors on the way out, which makes sense so that they know how many people are still in the building.

    The museum was sufficiently interesting, although the lighting in some places is quite poor. There are also some huge chunks of the city’s history missed out and although it’s inevitably impossible to show everything, there’s not much about industry or ethnography. Hopefully, the larger amount of space at the new museum will perhaps give them chance to tell these stories as well.

    There are numerous interactive elements that visitors are usually welcome to touch or engage with, although they’ve had to put plexiglass over all of those. There was though no shortage of hand sanitiser around the museum and sufficient staff to monitor visitors without getting in the way.

    Anyway, some photos below of the interior of the museum, more posts about some individual exhibits I liked will follow. At some point…..

     

  • London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection (Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals)

    London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection (Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals)

    This is perhaps the best-known artwork in the Wallace Collection, although I hadn’t even realised that it was there, so it was a pleasant surprise when I saw it. It was painted by Frans Hals (1582-1666) in 1624, although it’s not known who the figure in the artwork is. One thing that is known is that the sitter was aged 26 and we know this because Hals wrote it on the back of the painting, although perhaps he could have popped on the name of who he had painted as well.

    And, copyright of the Wallace Collection, is this much better image.

    It’s known that the painting was sold in The Hague in 1770, although unclear where it was before that, later being purchased by Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier in 1822. It then came into the collections of Richard Seymour-Conway, who outbid Baron James de Rothschild at an auction in 1865. It was probably best he did win this battle, where the painting went for over six times its estimate, as he allowed it to go on display at Bethnal Green Museum between 1872 and 1875. It was there that it was talked about because of the enigmatic smile, although it’s more the moustache creating this jovial impression. The painting was then returned after its period on public display and came into the collections of Richard Wallace, from where it was donated to the nation.

    It wasn’t until 1888 that the reference ‘Laughing Cavalier’ was made to the artwork, although this is now what it is commonly referred to. All of this burst of activity in the nineteenth century also saw the reputation of Hals improve, as he had fallen a little into obscurity in the decades after his death.

  • London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection (Arabs Travelling in the Desert by Horace Vernet)

    London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection (Arabs Travelling in the Desert by Horace Vernet)

    There are some rather lovely colours in this artwork, painted by Horace Vernet (1789-1863) in 1843 and exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1844. I like thinking that this was displayed in Paris with thousands of people looking at it, crammed as the walls were at this arts festival.

    The gallery’s version (copyright of the Wallace Collection) is much better. The painting was acquired by Richard Seymour-Conway (1800-1870) after it went on display in Paris, later being given to the nation by Lady Wallace in 1897. Vernet had the interesting claim to fame that he was born in the Louvre, where his parents were staying during the French Revolution. And he can also claim to be the first person to take photos of the island of Malta when he visited there in 1840, although, unfortunately, these appear to have been lost.

  • The Quiet London Underground (Again)

    The Quiet London Underground (Again)

    As can be seen from the front page of the last four issues of the Evening Standard, the quietness of the Underground is causing great concern to many in London. Well, by many I mean those running the system, rather than the users of the network who are likely enjoying the opportunity to get a seat. It’s hard to see how TFL can continue to afford to operate the network in this way for much longer without subsidies.

    These photos are from my travels yesterday and today. There are times of course when the service is a bit busier, but empty carriages are still common-place. At Earl’s Court, I walked down the steps onto the platform just as the tube train doors were closing, but they then re-opened to let me on (I assume it was for me, since I was by the driver’s door and there was no-one else visible). I’m not sure that’s what would usually happen in September in London…..I can’t see things getting much busier over the next few weeks either, the tourist season is fading away and office workers aren’t flocking back.

  • London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection (Beni Suef on the Nile by Prosper Marilhat)

    London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection (Beni Suef on the Nile by Prosper Marilhat)

    This artwork is by Prosper Marilhat (that’s a wonderful first name incidentally) who lived between 1811 and 1847, painting this in the late 1830s following a visit to Egypt. The gallery doesn’t know when it was acquired, but perhaps the saddest part of this story is that the artist went insane and died in a lunatic asylum in Paris aged only 36.

    The gallery has kindly placed much better copies of the images on their web-site (copyright Wallace Collection) and they’ve done wonders here to bring out the colours on the artwork. Beni Suef is located around 70 miles south of Cairo, a city once made wealthy through its manufacture of linen. But, back to the artwork, it is one of those evocative paintings of a time gone by…..

  • London – Ealing (Borough of) – Sir Michael Balcon

    London – Ealing (Borough of) – Sir Michael Balcon

    I thought I’d visited every JD Wetherspoon outlet in central (well, centralish) London, but I’ve either missed this one or forgotten that I’ve been. Anyway, that wasn’t the reason I went, this is the only Good Beer Guide pub listed in the centre of Ealing, so another one to tick off the list.

    This former Slug & Lettuce venue was turned into a JD Wetherspoon outlet in 2008 and it’s relatively small. The steps up to the toilets are quite narrow and there’s not a vast amount of table space compared to many of their other pubs. Usually, these smaller outlets are from Wetherspoon’s expansion phase in the late 1980s or 1990s, but the quite vibrant carpet gives it a bit of character at least.

    I wasn’t on the hunt for beer, but the pub did have a few real ales on and their normal reasonably wide selection of craft beers in cans. The entirely non-alcoholic San Pellegrino, still at the competitive price of £1.09, sufficed for today.

    The staff member who brought the drink over was sufficiently engaging and helpful, there was a relaxed atmosphere and I’m guessing that most of the customers were locals. The pub is named after the film producer as he was involved with the nearby Ealing Studios and before the building became a pub, it was used as Bryant’s Furniture Store.

    Anyway, I had a little look at the on-line reviews and I’m moderately confused by the complaint from someone asked to leave at 19:00. The reviewer, who was most upset said:

    “Signage also only stated Families welcome until 6pm and children to order before 5pm”.

    Hmmm, seems quite clear, although it seems they thought if they were in before 18:00 then they could stay, well, until whenever. I’d have thought that the sign should have been a clue…

    And another customer who wrote:

    “We had just travelled all the way from central London after seeing a show at the theatre as my father wanted to specifically go here as he is a Wetherspoons fanatic. When we arrived, the manager immediately and abruptly asked my daughter for some ID and then told us that our daughters, 16 and 17 could not come in as it was past 6 O’clock. We told him we were there to celebrate my fathers 70th birthday by having a meal and that we had specifically come here from Central London. He then told us he would lose his license if he served us as it was gone 6pm. He would not listen to us at all and did not want to know.”

    I’m puzzled as to what the manager was meant to do if their license doesn’t allow under 18s in the pub, which is hardly rare…..

    Otherwise, the reviews aren’t particularly notable, but this is a worthy entrant into the Good Beer Guide, perhaps one of the slightly more quirky JD Wetherspoon outlets. I also know that the chain are making an effort with the hanging baskets and floral displays outside their pubs across the country, but this is one of the more notable attempts.

  • London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection

    London – Westminster (Borough of) – Wallace Collection

    This is my first visit to the Wallace Collection in London, a free museum that’s a short walk away from Bond Street underground station. The collection was donated to the nation in 1897 and there are strong holdings of porcelain, armour and French art.

    The booking process was all very easy and there was a friendly staff member at the entrance to the museum who was welcoming visitors and showing them where to go. This is a challenging location to open to the public at the moment as it’s a former residential property (albeit a grand one) which wasn’t really designed for this purpose. However, they’ve created a one-way system and limited numbers in each room, making it a fairly easy collection to navigate. There were plenty of staff members on the route and they seemed helpful and engaged.

    There were numerous highlights, and I’ll write separately about some of these, but I was pleased to discover that the Laughing Cavalier is on display. Not that I’ve given much thought to where this artwork was actually located, I hadn’t expected it to be here. It’s not a huge collection compared to the national museums, but I was there for around an hour which seemed to be roughly how long people were generally staying for.

    The museum is very well-reviewed with only a handful of negative comments and those are mostly related to the on-site cafe. One of the most ridiculous from last year is from someone with a large backpack who complained that they were asked to place it in a cloakroom, not an unreasonable request. They have closed the cloakroom at the moment, but visitors can carry reasonably sized bags around with them.

    And the most ridiculous review of the lot:

    “We went to the wallace collection and were roped into a tour. This consisted of an over enthusiastic older lady telling us about the paintings in depth and the story behind them.”

    Hardly bad is it?

    Anyway, all very lovely, especially as there’s no admission charge.