The last walk of the year

The first part of the plan was to have lunch in Covent Garden at a certain vegetarian restaurant there. After that we would take a tour as fancy directed us.

Odeon
A lively frieze

We got off the bus near the Odeon in Shaftesbury Avenue. As Odeon buildings go, this one is unusual in having a very lively frieze running along the front.

On the way to the orgy
Just a small part of the frieze

The roundels, looking like big coins, represent great civilizations of the past, but what captures the eye and the imagination is the frieze, representing a procession of humanity moving through both space and time. In this fragment, the stubborn donkey, requiring a push to get him going, is the centrepiece of a scene entitled “BACCHANALIA”.

Food for Thought
A vegetarian restaurant in Neal Street

We were heading for Food for Thought in Covent Garden’s Neal Street. We had been there once before and enjoyed the meal. The place opened at 12 noon and we were early but that turned out to be a good thing. When the doors opened, we were the first in!

Dining room 
Cramped surroundings

The dining room is downstairs and is rather small. I might even say cramped. It soon becomes crowded at lunchtime and that’s why it was good that we were early. You order your meal at the counter and then find a table. The tables were soon all full and the room was noisy with conversation. It was something of a relief to go back up into the street.

Stanford’s
The famous map emporium

Walking down Long Acre towards Leicester Square, you come to Stanford’s, the map specialists. They sell everything from globes, through atlases and large scale maps to seamen’s charts, together with an impressive array of travel books and travellers’ requisites. If Stanford’s don’t stock it, it doesn’t exist. We can’t pass Stanford’s without going in. Tigger loves maps and is competent in using them, giving the lie to the myth that women don’t understand maps. The game is to get all the way through Stanford’s and leave by the back door without buying anything. Not easy…!

Lamb & Flag
The oldest pub in Covent Garden

Leaving Stanford’s by the back door takes you into Floral Street. If you can find the crooked Rose Street leading off it, you will there find the Lamb & Flag, reputedly the oldest pub in Covent Garden, built in 1632 and a rare survival of a wooden framed building.

Lazenby Court
Mind your head (and everything else)

An easier way to find what was once known as the Bucket of Blood because of the bare-knuckle fights that took place there, is to go down Lazenby Court, which is in fact a narrow covered alley where two people can barely pass and taller persons need to duck under the ceiling. A plaque on the pub façade reminds us that in December 1679, poet John Dryden was set upon and “nearly done to death” by rogues hired by the Duke of Rochester. This was in retaliation for verses he had penned about the Duchess of Portsmouth, mistress of Charles II.

Caffè Nero, Chandos Place
Dickens’s boot blacking factory moved to a site near here

We walked down Bedford Street to Chandos Place and on the corner stopped off for coffee in Caffè Nero. As you can tell from the angle of the photo, we found comfortable low seats which were difficult to drag ourselves out of! On the other side of Chandos Place, a blue plaque on the wall reminds us that the boot blacking factory where the young Dickens worked, much to his shame, moved to a site near here.

Plaque to Sir Richard Arkwright
Inventor with John Kay of the Spinning Frame

In John Adam Street, which is named after the Scottish architect (1721-92), who was responsible for several of the buildings in the area, we find a house once inhabited by another famous figure. This was apprentice barber and self-employed wig-maker turned inventor, Richard Arkwright who, with clockmaker John Kay produced the spinning machine known as the Spinning Frame.

Today’s Adelphi
Named by the Adam brothers but built by Colcutt and Hamp

Nearby, Adelphi Terrace, which gave the name “Adelphi” to the adjoining district, was a street of houses designed and built by John Adam and his brother – hence the name. (Adelphi is Greek for “brothers”.) Many famous people lived here but the fortunes of the area waxed and waned and several stages of rebuilding occurred. In 1936-8, an office complex was built by Colcutt and Hamp and given the name Adelphi. The Art Deco styling and decoration is evident and not at all subtle.

Mercury above a door
One of the more familiar figures

Among the more abstract figures who apparently represent Dawn, Contemplation, Inspiration, and Night, we find a more familiar one, this representation of Mercury above a door, no doubt in his role as symbol of communications.

Michael Faraday
By J.H. Foley, 1874 (copy)

Further along in Savoy Place stands the illustrious scientist Michael Faraday or, rather, a bronze copy of a marble original by J.H. Foley (1874) kept in the Royal Institution. Enthusiasts of the Victorian era may notice the foundation stone behind the sculpture.

Foundation stone 1886
“Laid with her own hand” by Queen Victoria

This is a foundation stone laid “with her own hand” by no less a personage than Queen Victoria, “Empress of India”, as she enjoyed being called, on March 24th 1886.

Once the home of the IEE
Now a conference centre

The building, 2 Savoy Place, became the home of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) which formed in 1871 as the Society of Telegraph Engineers. In 1880 it added “and Electricians” to its name and finally became the IEE in 1889, receiving a Royal Charter in 1921. In 2006, the IEE amalgamated with the Institution of Incorporated Engineers to form the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). As well as offices in various cities in the UK and elsewhere, the IET owns properties that it hires out as venues and conference centres, 2 Savoy Place being one of these.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel
By Baron Carlo Marochetti

We reached the Victoria Embankment and walked along it in an easterly direction until we reached the memorial statue to the great engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. This was done by Baron Carlo Marochetti RA (1805-67) but not put in place and unveiled until 1877.

Cabmen’s Shelter
Erected by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund c1900

We struck along Temple Place, with the idea in mind to visit a gallery there. Along the way we found one of the surviving 13 cabmen’s shelters. These were built in the late Victorian era by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund to enable Hansom cab drivers, who were not allowed by law to leave their cabs and horses unattended, to obtain hot meals and refreshments. This one was built around 1900 and refurbished in 1989. These shelters still provide food and drinks to the modern equivalents of the Victorian cabmen though their opening hours are often limited. (See Cabmen’s Shelters, London.)

International Institute for Strategic Studies
“The world’s leading authority on political-military conflict” (IISS)

The International Institute for Strategic Studies finds a home in this quiet backwater as does British American Tobacco p.l.c.

British American Tobacco
The building is now known as Globe House

The entrance of Globe House, currently inhabited by the tobacco giant, is dominated by two large sculptures representing the winged god Mercury. This seems bizarre until one learns the history of the site.

Mercury at BAT
One of a pair

Mercury is more often than not these days the symbol of communications and this pair are a memorial to the previous building on this site, Electra House, which belonged to Cable & Wireless Ltd but was destroyed on July 24th 1944 by a V1 flying bomb. The site was redeveloped as Globe House after the war.

‘2 Temple Place’
Once more famously known as Astor House

Thus we came to ‘2 Temple Place’, the rather understated name by which this building is currently known. Today it is the home of the charitable Bulldog Trust, the latest of a series of owners. The house was originally built in 1895 by the architect John Loughborough Pearson for William Waldorf Astor, later first Viscount Astor, and was named Astor House. The V1 flying bomb that destroyed Electra House also damaged this building but it was able to be saved. Interestingly, the house was built on land reclaimed by the building of the Victoria Embankment.

Since being sold by the Astor family in 1922, the house has been occupied in turn by three commercial companies (for details see, for example, Two Temple Place) and has recently been acquired by the Bulldog Trust. The Trust has undertaken to preserve the house and its artistic treasures while putting it to good use as a venue for corporate events and an exhibition gallery. The house itself can also be visited. The current exhibition is William Morris: Story, Memory, Myth.

We had hoped to take a look at the house and the exhibition but unfortunately, the house was closed.

Essex Street
The road through barrister country

We turned away from the river and went through the Temple along Essex Street. This is barrister country and there are “chambers” on all sides, their doors decorated with long lists of their members. You may see earnest conversations in progress in the street and, with a bit of luck, overhear a snippet of legal gossip.

The Devereux
An historic name

The name Devereux appears several times in this area, not least in the name of a pub. It comes from Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, who in 1588 inherited a house that stood here. The Earl became a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I but caused her displeasure on a number of occasions, finally being executed for high treason in 1601.

Bust of the Earl of Essex
Lost his head in 1601

After Essex’s death, the property was sold and the house demolished. The present building dates from 1676 and was for a while a coffee house called the “Grecian”. Around 1842, it was converted into chambers (its name, “Eldon Chambers” is still visible on the corner of the building) and eventually mutated into a pub. The bust of the Earl of Essex remains perched high on the façade.

The Royal Courts of Justice
Opened by Queen Victoria in 1882

We arrived at the Strand near the imposing Gothic pile of the Royal Courts of Justice. Designed by G.E. Street, who died before the building was completed (some say the strain of the job led to his death), it was opened for business by Queen Victoria in 1882 and continues to this day.

Temple Bar Monument
Marking the limit of the City

As we progressed along Fleet street to catch our bus home, we came to the griffin-topped monument that marks the ancient Temple Bar. The Bar, once marked by an arch and taking its name from the Temple Church that stood thereabouts, was the western boundary of the City of London. The archway, called Temple Bar, has been re-sited near St Paul’s Cathedral.

Decorative bronze panel
Queen Victoria on the way to the Guildhall

The present column, topped by a griffin, which is the symbol of the City of London, was put in place in 1880. The details of the decoration are worth study, despite the danger of walking around the monument while speeding vehicles pass dangerously near. This panel, for example, is entitled “Queen Victoria’s progress to the Guildhall, London, Nov 9th. 1837”, though in fact the scene looks more like a mêlée than a royal procession.

Drinking fountain 1860
Beside St Dunstan-in-the-West

Among the last objects I photographed before we caught the bus was this prettry little drinking fountain beside the Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West. It bears the date 1860 and an inscription around the canopy which reads “The gift of Sir James Duke Bart MP, ald[erman] of this ward”. There is an inscription around the bowl though I cannot read it from my photo. You will find more details on the admirable site, London Remembers.

This is an area of London that is full of historic buildings, monuments and every sort of historic trace. It is hard to take a step without discovering something new that begs to be studied and photographed. A quiet day like today, New Year’s Eve, is a good time to come as there is relatively little traffic and no crowds of workers and tourists. I was able to stand in the middle of the road long enough to take photos of the Temple Bar Monument, not something one would usually be able to do without serious risk of being run over.

Tomorrow we embark on a New Year, 2012. What will it bring? I hope that for us it will bring many more walks and explorations, both in London and in other towns and cities.

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