Dulwich

Dulwich, a couple of weeks ago, with Harry, for the Salvator Rosa at Dulwich. I.N.'s not sure, or rather, he is.




"One of Soane's most original, least satisfying designs... A great curiosity, not a masterpiece".




Remember though, that I.N. is reporting on this building in 1968, when the restoration was new and sparkly. Forty+ years have mellowed the brick considerably. And of course, the great man's generosity of spirit spurs him to a footnote:




"*If you don't agree, and would like to look up an opposite view, read Sir John Summerson, in Georgian London. It is one of the most incisive and brilliant descriptions of a building that has ever appeared in print."




And so it is. See pps 158/159. And if you haven't got a copy, buy one.




Then a pint or two in the Crown and Greyhound, a pleasant pub in Dulwich Village. The exuberant decorations described by I.N. swept away without trace, even before Gasson's revision, which may or may not be a pity. Ole!

Thence to the spiked London bridge and the drinking houses of the Borough, via Guy's Hospital Chapel to see the Thomas Guy memorial. I.N.:

"...The nobility of that grave, concerned face is universal, and in a way we are more than ever in need of it now. Every autocratic hospital matron and bureaucratic Ministry of Health official should be exposed to this for an hour a day, as to a heat lamp, until the humility and true concern sinks in."
Well... easy on the nursing staff, Ian, but stick it to the administrators. So no photo - go and see.

Southwark Cathedral From the Borough side

Southwark Cathedral:

"A proper working cathedral, squeezed on one side by the high level railway approach to London Bridge ... Opening-out would only accentuate the architectural defects. Southwark is a large friendly lump of a building but no more."

and yet here, unexpectedly , in 2010, partially opened-out it has been, if only for a few months before rebuilding blocks the view again. Southwark Cathedral from Borough High Street.

And despite Xrail and various shards and shardlings, the Borough in 2010 is still - to all intents and purposes - recognisable as the same Street Geoffrey Fletcher describes in 1968 in "Geoffrey Fletcher's London". Read, compare, have a pint.

Empress State Building

For a chap who's inclined to be more than usually tolerant of postwar buildings, Nairn's not very nice about the Empress State. I see what he means, but forty-odd years on it seems relatively benign. I can never see it without thinking of the problems of fitting furniture to curved walls - Madame Bovary's first apartment problem? Anyway, Nairn:

The Empress State Building (!) is a Wimbledon Housewife twenty-six storeys high, lifting her little finger as she drinks her tea (It ought to have a crop of trees on top like Vanbrugh's Eastbury).

1. Waal it's been dang near a year. But a year of adjusting to cardiac medication and - well, actually, nobody gives a toss as this still has no followers. Sod me - I don't matter, but Nairn deserves better. Anyway, we did the St. George's Bloomsbury wind / unwind. In case you're unfamiliar..:

"Start in Bloomsbury way and follow signs to the left-hand side of the portico to St. George's Hall. The gap between church an neighbouring buildings narrows to a few feet, so that you are thrust against the prodigious keystones, actually touch the wonderful time-worn scales on the Portland Stone. Then the way dives down: a Hawkesmorean turn even though it is provided by accident. It turns a corner by going down and then up again. Seven steps down, a ninety-degree bend, six steps up. It sounds simple but in fact has the drama of a full symphonic movement, charged up by the stupendous classical detail that bores a hole in your right flank. Once upstairs again, you have a new character - quiet, not busy; a new street (Little Russell Street) and, bless me, when you turn round there's a new building - the rear elevation of St. George's, completely different from the rest: the best part of the church. One huge pediment over five bays, thickly columned, the perspective artificially enhanced by that old wizard so that the ground floor is hugely overscale whilst the top cornice is delicate. Back again, if you wish, and the whole thing unwinds in a completely different sequence."

Match that. Sleep tight.

St. George's Tavern

Smithy and I finally made it to The St. George's in Belgrave Street last Tuesday. Not mentioned in NL, but the pub in which I.N. spent his last days in the early eighties, according to web sources, and it seems likely. A very *Very* ordinary pub which gets entirely under your skin. The most mixed clientele I've ever encountered, all rubbing along together in a way entirely unlike England, let alone London. Beguiling - irresistable. You may turn up and not get it. Tant Pis. The same web sources assume a disillusioned and marginalised Nairn; as I didn't know him it's impossible for me to comment, but I dunno... maybe he decided to stop shouting against the crap and let it drown all, but disillusioned? I can't see it. He had the St. Georges, and *London Beer*.

The Red Lion

Well I managed to get a shot, of sorts. It was gone eleven when Harry and I finally quit the place. Remarkably for a central London pub on a warmish late summer Friday evening, it was tolerably tosser-free (not entirely, but much less irritating than you'd expect.) Despite the fact that the photo's fuzzy, I think you can tell that, as I.N. says, Nothing is fuzzy. Nairn:

"If I could keep only one pub out of the whole London Galaxy, this would be my choice.... If you had a problem, the Red Lion would not ease it, however much you drank; instead it would strengthen you. It is a place to walk out of ramrod-straight, reinforced by those proud, sparkling arabesques."

Ramrod-straight we just about managed, tacking a little all the while.

Monument and Aldgate

They've cleaned the monument. Hooray. Here's a photo. All too easy to take for granted, but take note:

"It is indeed the Monument, in the true Roman line. Only the restoration could have produced it - the few short years when ceremonial was not something apart but was at the same time larger than life and not just an enlargement of domestic forms."

And then there's Aldgate. I've uploaded a photo of Bain Dawes House / Latham House, boarded up, derelict and dangerous with tank-traps blocking the drives. Awaiting demolition to make way for a very big scheme which may or may not work. Nairn hopes for great things - he's takling about the seventies schemes - which I think work(ed), although that makes me unfashionable. What was nice about this development was that it was part of a complex that incuded housing, facing Mansell Street. Maybe not particularly well realised, but at least a nod to the residential and transitional character of the area, so well described in NL:

"One of the most dramatic contrasts in London. Just when the city seems to be getting to its most crowded and correct, along Fenchurch Street and Leadenhall Street, the whole thing falls away... At the other end of Aldgate East is another moving change: the split of Commercial and Whitechapel Roads - one going to the docks and the estuary, the other pointed straight at the heart of East Anglia, those long miles beyond Newmarket. It is only a traffic block now, but it could be marvellous, given town artists and not just town planners.".

Indeed. But the new developments seem to emphasise and prioritise shopping at the expense of living space and I worry that the scale might be wholly wrong. Time will tell. Also anxious about the Still and Star's survival, which is essential. Of course, the Hoop and Grapes will survive, which is as it should be. But the Hoop's just a good building. The Still's a pub.