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Modernism in a suburb of Budapest

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Budapest’s city bus number 5 goes from Blaha Lujza Square in central Pest to Pasareti Square in the suburb of Pasaret, which is northwest of the historic heart of Buda. The bus route terminates at a circular piazza – Pasareti Square – and parks next to a curved, single-storey bus station which occupies the northwest quadrant of this circular area. The elegantly simple, clean lined bus station looks as if it were built only a few years ago, but it was not. Designed by Gyula Rimanóczy (1903-1958), it was built in 1937, and it is one of several Modernist buildings that can be viewed in the leafy suburb of Pasaret.

Close to the bus station on the northeast quadrant of the circular piazza, there is another building designed by Gyula Rimanóczy. Constructed between 1931 and 1934, it is Pasaret’s parish church of St Anthony of Padua. When we were in Budapest, many churches were locked closed except on Sundays. Luckily for us, on the Saturday morning we visited Pasaret, the church was open, and we were able to enter. We were amazed by the beauty of its interior, which is kept in immaculate condition. Although it was constructed over 90 years ago, this church is one of the best twentieth century churches I have visited, comparing very favourably with the reconstructed Coventry Cathedral and Le Corbusier’s church at Ronchamp.

The spacious, tall, well-lit church is filled with details designed by Rimanóczy, and works of art created by his contemporaries. These are summarised in a Hungarian Wikipedia article (https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasar%C3%A9ti_t%C3%A9ri_templom), which provides a good idea of the richness of the building’s decorative features, and is translated as follows:

“The stained glass windows are the work of Lili Árkayné Sztehlo (1934). The pulpit (with the symbols of the four evangelists) and the original altar reliefs are the work of Béla Ohmann (1934). The Heart of Jesus altar (1934), the Saint Joseph altar (1939) and the Stations of the Cross reliefs (1939 ) were created by Éva Lőte. The wood-carved reliefs of the Virgin Mary altar and the Saint Francis chapel, together with the marble altar, are the work of István Karle Bicskei (1935). The altar of St. Teresa dates from 1942 (created by Jenő Zoltán Hallgass), and was donated by Rimanóczy. Gyula Rimanóczy designed even the smallest details, such as all the light fixtures (the text of the eight beatitudes described in the New Testament can be read in the middle of the “wall sconces” on the eight columns, which are still visible today), the holy water tank, the candlesticks, and the communion chalices. The goldsmiths István Iván and Jenő Hadina made the goldsmiths ‘ works of art. The statue of Christ Falling to the Ground in front of the tower was donated to the Franciscan order in 1931 by the sculptor Sári Somló before the church was built . The four bells of the church date from 1935 (from the Budapest workshop of László Szlezák) …”

Despite the wealth of artwork and decorative detail, the church feels uncluttered and airy. It is a gentle modern structure, not a brutal one. It feels wonderfully peaceful and calming being within it. It is a church that unlike many gothic and baroque edifices does not feel oppressive; it is a place in which to contemplate peacefully.

Pasareti utca, the main road of the suburb, continues northwest from the church and the bus station, reaching a bifurcation after just over 500 yards. A small road, Napraforgo utca, begins at the bifurcation. All the 22 houses along this short thoroughfare were built between 1930 and 1931 in the Modernist style. This estate was inspired by those modern model housing estates already built in countries including Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland. When looking at the houses in Naproforgo utca, it is not difficult to detect the influence of leading design institutions such as the Bauhaus, which functioned in Germany from 1919 until 1933.

The history of the Naproforgo utca estate is concisely related in a website (https://www.offbeatbudapest.com/features/how-the-bauhaus-shaped-architecture-in-budapest/) from which I have extracted the following:

“The most interesting large-scale housing development of the early 1930s was in Napraforgó utca, a leafy suburb on the outskirts of Budapest. The private developers, Fejér & Dános, hired a motley crew of 18 leading architects that included both the radically modern Molnár and the notoriously conservative university professor, Gyula Wälder, to build 22 small houses for middle class families.

The project was a success and all houses were sold soon after its completion in 1931. The charming side street was flanked by two-story, flat-roofed family homes, each slightly different but fitting into a modern aesthetic. The houses were sun-filled and came with fully equipped kitchens and bathrooms. Unfortunately, some of them have since been neglected, parceled up, or unrecognizably rebuilt. In recent years, locals have started to appreciate the legacy of Napraforgó utca – there are many walking tours, for example – and made a conscious effort to protect its buildings.”

The architects of the buildings in the street are listed at https://modernism-in-architecture.org/buildings/napraforgo-street/, which also includes brief summaries of their biographies. One of those who oversaw the planning of the estate was Farkas Molnar (1897-1945), who had been a member of Germany’s Bauhaus in the 1920s. However, as an article (https://www.artmagazin.hu/articles/archivum/napraforgo_utca) translated from a Hungarian website revealed, though Modernist, some conventionality was retained in the design of the buildings on the estate:

“The model estate thus shows the diversity that is typical of Budapest’s modern architecture in general. The floor plans of the buildings corresponded to the basic type of European family houses of the time, with the service rooms and living room on the ground floor, the bathroom and several bedrooms on the first floor – in terms of spatial connections and spatial organization, the houses showed little of the functionalist character of modern architecture. Most of the facades were not strictly modern in style or inspired by Bauhaus, many used brick cladding, art deco or historicizing formal elements (such as house number 9 by Róbert K. Kertész, house number 16 by the Tauszig and Róth designers, or house number 22 by Béla Baráth and Ede Novák). At the same time, the construction created an opportunity to demonstrate new building materials, structures (sliding windows, built-in wardrobes), and less common mechanical solutions (such as air heating), since the houses of the model estate were opened to visitors – just like in the case of the Werkbundsiedlungs [experimental modernist housing estates built in Central Europe]. This form of communication with potential buyers and the idea of ​​the “model estate” continued in practice in the 1960s, for example in the Óbuda Experimental Housing Estate. Despite the different perceptions of the architects, the image of the street consisting of nineteen buildings became harmonious; on the similar-sized plots (with one exception), single-storey, smaller-than-usual family houses were built, mostly with carefully matured proportions, consisting of cubist masses, mostly with flat roofs, and without traditional decoration. In addition to the uniform fence and street lamps, the sight of the geometric gardens consisting of square plant islands designed by the gardener László Solty also contributed to the uniform image of the street.”

Despite these observations, I felt that the edifices on Naproforgos utca have a distinctly Modernist appearance or ‘flavour’.

We walked along the street, viewing the buildings, each of which has a label outside it giving the name of its architect. Most of them seemed to be in good condition, but a couple looked as if they need considerable care and attention.  Each of the two-storey dwellings still look contemporary although they were built more than 90 years ago, and I would be happy to live in any of them. Halfway along the street, there is a small, rectangular public garden. At one end of this, there is a memorial bearing the date ‘1932’ and a list of the architects involved in the designing of the buildings on the estate.

During visits made to Budapest prior to our latest in September 2026, I have often visited the Pasaret district, mainly to visit elderly friends, one of whom is now aged 104, who lived on the main road leading to Pasareti Square, and also once to view the house where the composer Bela Bartok lived between 1932 and 1940. However, it was only during our latest trip to Budapest that I spotted in a guidebook published in 2001 that Pasaret is the home of some interesting, attractive 1930s Modernist architecture.

 

 

Stumbling on a history of tragedies in Budapest

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The German artist Gunter Demnig was born two years after the last year of WW2. He is best known for his Stolperstein project, which he started in 1992. A Stolperstein (plural: Stolpersteine, which means ‘a stumbling block’, is a 4-inch concrete cube topped with a brass plate. The metal plate is inscribed with the name and other biographical details of a person, who was murdered by the Nazis. The Stolpersteine are embedded in the pavement outside the last place that they chose freely to reside, work or study, before they were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. Most of these memorials, upon which passersby will step, commemorate Jewish victims, but others have been placed, as Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein)  noted, to remember victims including:

“Sinti and Romani people, Poles, homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, black people, members of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the anti-Nazi Resistance, the Christian opposition (both Protestants and Catholics), and Freemasons, Spanish Republicans along with International Brigades soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, military deserters, conscientious objectors, escape helpers, capitulators, ‘habitual criminals’, looters, and others charged with treason, military disobedience, or undermining the Nazi military, as well as Allied soldiers.”

During a recent visit to northern Italy and Budapest in Hungary, we spotted several Stolpersteine. Amongst those were a group on the pavement of Budapest’s Andrassy Utca. They were in a row outside the front of the city’s beautiful Hungarian State Opera House, which was designed by Miklos Ybl, and opened in 1875.

It was just before 7 pm when I spotted the memorials. Elegantly dressed operagoers were swarming across the memorial studded pavement to the front steps of the opera house, where a performance was about to begin. I photographed several of the Stolpersteine, and was dismayed to discover who was being commemorated on them. Here is a list of some of the victims whose memorials I photographed:

  • Emil Kallai worked here [in the Opera House]. Violinist. Born 1893. Died November 1944 in a Roma death march at Sopron.
  • Frigyes Gyorgy Keleti worked here. Bassoon player. Born 1912. Died 1944 as a slave labourer.
  • Roza Kohlberg worked here. Opera singer. Deported to Theresienstadt 1942. Killed at Auschwitz 17 May 1944.
  • Leo Jotischky worked here. Viola player. Born 1905. Killed as a slave labourer at Gunskirchen 22 April 1944.
  • Pal Hütter worked here. Cellist. Born 1907. Deported 1943. Killed at Bor labour

camp [in Serbia]

And the other Stolpersteiner placed in front of the opera house record similar tragic stories.

I suspect that all those people commemorated in front of the opera house had at many occasions played music by the great German composers such as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Weber, and so on. Many of them must have admired the Germans for their undoubtedly invaluable contributions to the richness of European culture. I wonder what went through their minds when suddenly they were faced with the brutality and cruelties inspired by Nazi Germany. How could members of a nation that produced highly regarded cultural figures such as composers, philosophers, and writers have lowered their standards to have been able to commit the atrocities that characterised the Nazi era?

I cannot neither answer this question nor begin to guess what these people who had worked in the opera house thought when they were forcibly deported from Budapest, but I can relate a story about a friend who miraculously survived the Holocaust.

‘K’ was born in Poland of Jewish parents. Although he spoke Polish, his family spoke to each other and their social circle in German. For they regarded German as the language of high ‘culture’. In 1939, young K was separated from his parents, whom he never saw again. From that date until the end of WW2, he lived in concentration camps including Auschwitz. Somehow, he survived. After the war, a Jewish organisation moved him to London, where he completed his education, and later became one of my father’s academic colleagues at the London School of Economics. He and his wife married in the garden of our family home.

I met K often. The numbers tattooed in blue on his forearm fascinated me. The sevens in his tattoo were of the European variety with a horizontal line through the vertical arm of the numeral. When I used to visit K and his wife for dinner, I saw that K could not bear to see food thrown away, so great was his memory of hunger in the camps. Although he never discussed it with me, K must have had a horrendous time in the camps. Yet, despite this, I had the strong impression that even after all he had been through including losing his parents, he never stopped admiring German culture. And he enjoyed speaking German.

Returning to those commemorated outside Budapest’s opera house, another question entered my mind. I had read that at some of the Nazi concentration camps, inmates with musical talent were ordered to play in the camp’s orchestra, both for their captors and as the prisoners marched past them on their way to forced labour projects. I wondered how many of those remembered outside the opera house were forced to join these orchestras.

There are Stolpersteine outside many buildings in Budapest. Each one records a human tragedy, the result of fellow man’s inhumanity and the insane ideas of an Austrian who became Chancellor of Germany in 1932.

Since 1914, Budapest has witnessed many horrendous events including: WW1, the Commumist regime of Bela Kun and its aftermath, WW2 and the invasion by Germany, purges during the early years of the post-war Communist regime, and the 1956 Uprising with its brutal suppression. Although much of the city has been tidied up, it is not hard to discover – particularly in Pest – the scars of its recent turbulent history including buildings whose walls are still damaged after having been hit by ammunition fired by both Hungarians and Russians during the 1956 Uprising.

I have visited many cities with dramatic histories, but in Budapest I felt the ghosts of its recent past were ever present. I felt very much in touch with history. However, since my first visits to Budapest in the early 1980s – and especially after 1991 – the city has regained the vibrancy it must have had prior to WW2, and it is a joy to be there.  

 

 

Almost thirty years have passed since our last meeting

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Pasaret is a suburb of Budapest on the left – Buda – bank of the Danube River. In September 2026, my wife and I revisited this leafy area for two reasons, one of which I will recount below. I will write about the other in a future essay.

In September 1974, a conference, The Nafplion Colloquium on Research Programmes in Physics and Economics, was held in Napflion, Greece. My father, an economist, was one of the organisers and participants of this conference that celebrated the works of the Hungarian philosopher Imre Lakatos (1922 – February 1974; see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos ). My mother, my sibling, and I were invited to join the delegates and their partners at the event. Imre’s recently widowed partner, Gillian, was present, as were his friend the historian of mathematics and philosopher Arpad Szabo (1913-2001) and his wife Klari, who lived in Budapest. Although much older than me, I enjoyed their company during the two weeks we spent together in Napflion.

In the early 1980s, I was about to make my second visit to Budapest. Before I went, I contacted Gillian, who had visited Hungary several times and gave me some contacts in the city, including those of Arpad and Klari. After arriving in Budapest, I got in touch with the Szabos, and they invited me for dinner at their flat in the Pasaret district of the city. We got on very well, and each time I visited Budapest, I used to visit them and enjoy their generous hospitality. They spoke superb English, and Klari was an excellent cook.

In 1985, when I was living in Gillingham, Kent, Klari sent me a letter. In it she wrote that she was teaching two young men, teenagers, English. Back then, Hungarians were able to travel outside to Soviet bloc but were only allowed to carry with them an extremely small amount of ‘hard currency’ – about 200 US dollars every five years, if I recall correctly. In view of this and the high cost of living in the UK, she wondered whether I would be able to accommodate the two lads at my home for a month. Although I did not know them from Adam – so to speak – I agreed because I trusted Klari’s judgement. It was quite a risk agreeing to host two people, whom I knew nothing about, but I am glad I did. A and K turned out to be delightful, appreciative guests.

After their stay, I used to visit them in Budapest, usually staying with A’s family and later in his own apartment. A has remained in Hungary, and K is now successfully established in the USA.

Between 1997 and 2026, we did not visit Budapest. I kept in touch with A and K, but lost contact with the Szabos in Pasaret.

In September 2026, we decided to visit the Pasaret district to view something of architectural interest, which I will write about in the near future. As our local bus sped along Pasareti Utca – the main thoroughfare that runs through Pasaret, we passed a house that looked familiar. It reminded me of the house where the Szabos lived, but I was not suren if it was that one. After seeing the architecture we had come to view, I rang our friend A to see if he remembered the Szabo’s address, which was where, many years earlier, he used to attend the private English tuition given by Klari. He supplied the address, and we walked there.

The house, which now bears a plaque commemorating Arpad Szabo, is a small apartment block surrounded by a garden. Two women were standing in it. We mentioned Klari, and one of them, who spoke English, pointed at the correct entrance, telling us that Klari, who was now 104 years old, lived there. I was delighted to discover that she was still alive.

We rang the doorbell several times, but there was no reply. An elderly lady, who lives in the flat below that of Klari, invited us into her flat. She only spoke Hungarian, but was keen to meet us. A retired violinist, we could not get her to understand that we would like to have Klari’s telephone number. We left, happy to know that Klari is still living, but sad not to have met her.

The following day, A came into Budapest to collect us in his car to have lunch with his family in the hills outside Buda. When we told him about our abortive attempt to meet his old teacher Klari, he suggested we drove there, and tried the bell again. This time, we were successful. One of Klari’s daughters let us in, and there in her immaculate flat whose walls are lined with shelves filled with books, stood Klari, looking much as she had sone when we last met her almost 30 years ago. She invited the three of us into a small room, which A remembered as being the one in which his English tuition used to take place.

Klari, who is about to celebrate her 104th birthday, is a little frail, but her memory and mind are in an excellent state. She recalled all kinds of small details about me, my parents, other people who had been at Napflion, and my wife, who visited her in 1997. It was a wonderful meeting – One which I had thought would have had the tiniest chance of occurring.

While we were chatting, one of her daughters mentioned that only the evening before, they had been talking about us. Our unannounced, spontaneous visit must have seemed unbelievable. One thing they recalled about our last visit made when our child still wore nappies – diapers – was that my wife changed her in front of the Szabos on their living room floor. Clearly, this had made a great impression on them at the time.

We spent 6 days in Budapest this September, and each one of them was highly enjoyable. Our best experience, which was one we were least expecting, was finding Klari again and spending time with her and her daughters.

Americans and Soviet Russians standing side by side in Budapest

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Szabadság tér – Liberty Square – is close to Budapest’s Parliament building. At one end of this piazza, there is a tall monument surmounted by the 5-pointed star of Communism. The monument also bears a hammer and sickle, as well as bas-reliefs depicting Red Army troops liberating Budapest from the Germans at the end of WW2.

On both sides of the Soviet war memorial, which stands close to the US embassy, there are statues.

One statue depicts President Ronald Reagan, and the other President George W Bush. Both presidents were in power during the period when the Soviet Bloc and the Soviet Union were disintegrating.

Although the Russians were not loved by the Hungarians whom they ruled, it is good to see that the memorial to their soldiers, who sacrificed their lives to free Hungary from Nazi domination, has been maintainedand kept in good condition.

A leafy suburb in Budapest

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The Garden City and Garden Suburb movements flourished in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first couple of decades of the twentieth. I was brought up in London’s Hampstead Garden Suburb, whose construction began in 1907. My family home was built in 1908. I have written about the Suburb in my book “GOLDERS GREEN & HAMPSTEAD GARDEN SUBURB: VISIONS OF ARCADIA”. Because of my interest in garden suburbs, I decided to visit the Wekerle Estate in Budapest.

The leafy Wekerle Estate – Wekelertelep in Hungarian – was named after a former Prime Minister Sándor Wekerle, who who favoured the idea of building comfortable, human-scale housing estates for government employees. The estate was inspired by the ideas of Ebenezer Howard, the ‘father’ of the idea of Garden Cities.

Construction of the Wekelertelep began in 1908 and continued until 1925. The estate is built around a large central square, which contains a park, and roads radiate out from it in 8 directions. The buildings in the estate range from one to four or five storeys. Many trees and garden plots give the estate a leafy, open feeling. The architecture of the buildings is picturesque. It includes many features of Transylvanian vernacular styles. The buildings surrounding the central square are the ‘stars’ of the show. They include two gateways that differ in design. These and the edifices around the square, which vary in appearance, were designed by Károly Kós (1883-1977), who was born in what is now Romanian territory. He was not only an architect, but also a writer, a politician both in Hungary and Romania, and an ethnologist.

The Wekelertelep has 4 schools. By chance, we chatted briefly with the great-grandaughter of the first principal of one of them. She told us that 4 generations of his family have lived on the estate.

Another person whom we met was a sweet old lady – the caretaker of the Wekerle Worker’s St. Joseph Church. Very kindly, she unlocked the large neo-Romanesque Roman Catholic church for us. Designed by Bela Heintz, it was constructed between 1926 and 1930. Its spacious interior is decorated with many frescoes depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The caretaker – a tiny lady – guided us around inside the church, carefully explaining the numerous religious paintings, sculptures, and stainedglass windows to us in Hungarian, a language I barely understand. She was thorough. She did not want us to miss a thing. At the end of the tour, she sweetly hugged and kissed each of us.

This church, like the two main churches in Hampstead Garden Suburb, is next to the central square. However, unlike Hampstead Garden Suburb in which its founder Henrietta Barnett forbade the presence of shops, restaurants, pubs, and so on, the square in Wekelertelep has shops, cafés, and restaurants. The absence of such communal facilities renders Hampstead Garden Suburb’s central square a rather desolate, soulless place. In contrast, the square in Wekelertelep with its pleasant park and commercial establishments adds to the liveliness and vibrancy of this pleasant suburb.

I am very glad we trekked out of the centre of Budapest to view Wekelertelep not only because I wanted to see how it compares with Hampstead Garden Suburb but also it turned out to be one of Budapest’s delightful surprises.

It is amazing whom you meet by chance on a train in Hungary

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Today, 24 September 2026, we visited the picturesque town of Szentendre, which is about 10 miles north of Budapest. While returning from there by train we met a couple, and began chatting with them …

Before telling you about our brief encounter, here is some essential background information. The family of my wife’s mother hail from Mandvi in Kachchh (Kutch), which is now a part of the Indian state of Gujarat. We often visit Kachchh, especially Mandvi and the larger town Bhuj, which is the capital of Kachchh. I have written much about these places in my latest book “Road To Heaven – A passage through India”.

The couple we began chatting with on the train looked Indian and smiled at us, which was why we began speaking with them. They have lived in Sweden for many decades, and were visiting Budapest with a Swedish tour group. We soon discovered that they spoke Gujarati, one of the languages that my wife speaks fluently. In her family home, conversations between family members were mainly in Gujarati. We were surprised to be conversing in Gujarati with strangers on a suburban train in Hungary. We were not expecting such a situation.

Our surprise increased by leaps and bounds when we learned that the couple’s families had originated in Kachchh. Both families had come from Bhuj – a place we have visited many times.

Both the man and his wife had been born in Uganda, and their families had been thrown out of the country when Idi Amin had forced Indians to leave in 1971. Some of my wife’s cousins, also of Kachchh origin, were amongst those who had to leave their homes and businesses in Uganda. Many of the Indians expelled from Uganda have become successful entrepreneurs in the UK.

One of our new acquaintances had fled from Uganda to Sweden, which welcomed the refugees from East Africa, and the other had moved to India. Both his and her families had been friends in the Ugandan city of Kampala prior to Idi Amin’s expulsion of the Asians. Friendship between the two families resulted in the couple’s arranged marriage. Since then, the couple have been living and working in Sweden.

This chance meeting on the train was remarkable. I wondered what is the probability that two sets of strangers, both Gujarati speaking and both with origins in Kachchh, would meet on a short train journey in the environs of the capital of Hungary. It was a pretty unlikely , but it happened.

A synagogue in Budapest then and now

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The Dohány Street Synagogue in central Budapest is now a major tourist attraction, visited by swarms of visitors. It is the largest surviving synagogue in Europe. Highly restored and well-maintained, it is a glorious site, but also a memorial to the awful fate of Hungarian Jewish people in the last year’s of WW2.

The first time I visited this place of worship was in the early 1980s, when Hungary was still part of the Soviet bloc, under control of the Russians. Unlike today, 2026, then there was no queue of tourists waiting to see the building.

To enter it back on the early 1980s, one simply went to the watchman and asked permission see the interior.

On the afternoon when I went there, I was not the only person in the watchman’s small office. There was a German and an two Americans – a couple.

The watchman asked us where we were from. The German answered first, and the caretaker said:

“Come back this evening when the service is being held”.

The German left, and the man turned to us. When he heard that we were not German but British and American, he admitted us to the interior of the great synagogue.

The place was not in a good condition. It looked as if it was falling to pieces and needed a great deal if care and attention.

The three of us looked around the ill-lit synagogue without saying anything. Then, as we walked towards its exit, the American said in all seriousness:

“Back home, the Fire Department would not approve of this place. It contravenes all fire regulations.”

And that is all he could say about a building whose existence is a reminder of a community that was all but wiped out a few years before we visited the synagogue.

It always amazes me how differently people see the same thing. For me, the synagogue was a moving experience; for the American it was poor example of health and safety; and for todayourists, it is yet another ‘must see’ item to tick off one’s Budapest ‘bucket list’.

A bridge in London waiting for repairs

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In the middle years of the 1720s, Daniel Defoe described Hammersmith as a village that was growing into a small town:

“… and some talk also of building a fine stone bridge over the Thames …”

It was almost 100 years after Defoe speculated that a bridge across the Thames would be built at Hammersmith. A suspension bridge was constructed between 1824 and 1827. It was the first of this type of bridge to be constructed anywhere near London and the first to span the Thames. James Thorne, writing in 1876, that in outline and simplicity of style, it:

“… remains the best-looking-bridge of its kind on the Thames …”

The bridge was designed by William Tierney Clark (1783-1852), who had been guided in his development of bridge construction techniques by Thomas Telford and John Rennie, who designed the old London Bridge that now stands in Lake Havasu City in Arizona. Clark also designed the suspension bridge (1832) across the Thames at Marlow and the impressive Széchenyi (Chain) Bridge which crosses the River Danube to link Buda and Pest. The latter resembles Clark’s Hammersmith Bridge as depicted in old engravings.

In 1883-37, Clark’s Hammersmith Bridge was replaced by a newer one designed by Joseph Bazalgette (1819-1891). According to Cherry and Pevsner in The Buildings of England. London 2: South, Bazalgette:

“… re-used the piers and abutments. Iron-framed towers clad in cast iron partly gilt, with Frenchy pavilion tops, and elephantine ornament at the approaches … The deck stiffening girders were replaced in a major overhaul in 1973-6.”

This bridge, which was built for use by horses and carts, pedestrians, and the occasional cyclist, long before the advent of heavy motor vehicles such as busses and lorries. It has been closed for repairs several times, causing much nuisance for those who live on both sides of it. In April 2019, Hammersmith and Fulham Council closed the bridge to all motorised traffic. This was done following the discovery of serious cracks in the pedestals that support the bridge. It remained open for pedestrians and cyclists until August 2020, when a heatwave caused further deterioration. Then, the bridge was closed to all users.  

A variety of schemes have been proposed for repairing the bridge and there was some disagreement as to who would pay for the work. In June 2021, Hammersmith and Fulham Council came to a cost-sharing deal to complete the rehabilitation of the Victorian bridge. In July 2021, the bridge was reopened for use by cyclists and pedestrians until 2027. In February 2022, I stepped on the bridge for the first time since it closed. The view from it is marvellous, especially upstream where one gets a good view of the historic buildings lining the waterfront between Hammersmith and Chiswick.

From Hungary to England, Budapest to Hampstead

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I ENJOY THE OBSCURE, or, at least, what is new and unknown to me. I am also interested in Hungary and the Hungarians. So, recently, when we were walking along Branch Hill, a road beneath and west of Hampstead’s Whitestone Pond, I spotted a circular blue commemorative plaque that I had not noticed before. Close to a house where the singer Paul Robeson lived for one year, it commemorates a celebrated Hungarian,  whom I had never come across before. The plaque reads:
“Alfred Reynolds, Hungarian poet and philosopher lived here 1980-1993”

Sadly, the two most knowledgeable Hungarians I knew, who could have told me something about him, the philosopher Imre Lakatos (1922-1974) and one of my father’s co-authors, the economist Peter Bauer (1915-2002), are no longer in the land of the living. So, I have had to resort to that font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, for information about Reynolds, a name that hardly sounds Hungarian to me. Searches of the internet reveal little other biographical information in English apart from what is noted on Wikipedia.

Alfred Reynolds (1907-1993) was born Reinhold Alfréd in Budapest, Hungary (the Hungarians put their surnames before their first names). His mother was Jewish and his father Roman Catholic. After graduating from the University of Leipzig in 1931, he founded a magazine called ‘Haladás’ (‘Progress’), which published the works of various Hungarian poets and was closed by the police soon after it began. Next, he founded another journal, a monthly with leftish tendencies called ‘Névtelen Jegyző’ (‘Anonymous Chronicler’), which was also soon closed by the police. After a brief spell as a member of the Communist Party of Hungary and a spell of imprisonment in Hungary, Alfred moved to the UK, to London, in 1936.

During WW2, Alfred served in the British Army, joining the Intelligence Corps in 1944. When the war was over, he became a leading light in the Bridge Circle, a group of libertarians. The group produced a journal called “London Letter”, some of whose articles were published in a book called “Pilate’s question: Articles from ‘The London Letter’,1948-1963”, which was released in 1964 and contains articles by Reynolds. In 1988, he published another book in English, “Jesus Versus Christianity”. The aim of this book was:

“…to redefine the prevailing image of Jesus of Nazareth. The author considers that Jesus remains a living figure reminding us of our humanity – the kingdom of Heaven within us. He argues that we should free the image of doctrinal encumbrance.” (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4932942-jesus-versus-christianity).

Prior to his arrival in England, Reynolds published his writings in Hungarian and those of other Hungarian poets, mostly in the journals he founded.  Many of his papers, publications, and other memorabilia are currently on display at the Petőfi Literary Museum in Budapest.

And that is about all I can tell you about Reynolds who spent the last years of his life in a fine house that affords good views over Hampstead Heath. I wonder whether he ever frequented Louis on Hampstead’s Heath Street. Louis was opened as a Hungarian patisserie and café in 1963 by the Hungarian Louis Permayer (died 2017), who fled from Communist Hungary during the Uprising in 1956 (http://budapesttimes-archiv.bzt.hu/2014/10/04/louis-patisserie-a-hungarian-tea-temple-in-the-heart-of-north-london/). Louis still exists and has maintained its original wood-panelled interior décor that owes a lot to traditional Central European taste. It was where my wife and I had our first ‘date’. Today, the café is under different management from what it was when Reynolds moved to Hampstead.

Yet again, whilst walking for pleasure and exercise, I have spotted something that intrigued me because it seemed so unfamiliar and made me want to investigate it.  Having discovered that there is not much information easily available about Alfred Reynolds, I am not surprised that I had never heard of him. The plaque commemorating his residence is unusual in that it does not state the name of the organisation or whoever it was that placed it. That adds to the mystery that partially shrouds this Hungarian refugee’s life and his relative obscurity that appeals to me.

Far from the maddening crowd

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THROUGHOUT THE ‘LOCKDOWN’, our wise leader, Mr Johnson, has encouraged us to take exercise, to get out and breathe some fresh air. And, we have been following that sound advice, walking in our neighbourhood anything from two to five miles every day. Since the ‘lockdown’ has been eased recently, we have been driving out of London far enough to escape from the hurly-burly of the city.  Our latest excursion took us out westwards to a village on the River Thames called Hurley, which is upstream from the small town of Marlow. We chose our destination, the starting point for a riverside walk, almost randomly and had no idea what to expect when we arrived.

HU 12 temple lock

Temple Lock

Hurley is a gem of a village. A ford across the River Thames might well have existed at Hurley before the Norman Conquest of 1066. Many of the older buildings near the river and including the heavily restored Norman church formed part of a Benedictine priory that was established by Geoffrey de Mandeville, who died in about 1100 and was one of the richest men during the reign of William the Conqueror. His pious action at Hurley was strongly influenced by his second wife, Lescelina. The monastery was ‘dissolved’ during the great Dissolution of religious institutions carried out by Henry VIII, Some of the buildings including the priory’s cloisters have been picturesquely incorporated into newer buildings, most of which are used as dwellings.

A wooden bridge crosses a stream of the river to reach an island where Hurley Lock is located. We watched pleasure boats being lowered in the lock that allows ships to avoid the weir nearby. At the end of the island, another wooden bridge crosses back onto the right bank of the Thames. We walked beside the river, enjoying glimpses of it between trees whose branches dipped down towards the water. In addition to boats of all sizes from canoes to large cruisers and barges, the water is populated by ducks, andgeese. We also spotted plenty of insects that rest on the water’s surface and flit about hither and thither: water boatmen and pond skaters. Much of the path was flanked by deciduous woodland, mostly private property.

Another bridge, a long sweeping wooden structure took us to the left bank of the river. A short distance downstream from it, we reached Temple Lock. The river was so busy that boats had to queue up to wait for admission to the lock. With the river on our right and fields on our left, some with grazing cattle and sheep, we headed towards Marlow. The path was flanked by a profusion of wildflowers, many of them being ‘serviced’ by a rich variety of different kinds of insects. Before reaching Marlow, we had good views of Bisham Abbey across the river. The former Abbey was built in about 1260 as a manor house for the Knights Templar. Now, much of it remains, and is used as one of the UK’s National Sports Centres.  Close by, the reflection of the tower of All Saints Church, Bisham, shimmers in the water of the river that flows close to its western end. The tower was built in the 12th century, and, later, in the 16th century other parts were added to the original church.

Soon after seeing Bisham’s church, the elegant suspension bridge across the Thames at Marlow came into view. The present bridge was built between 1829 and 1832 and designed by William Tierney Clark (1783-1852), who also designed Hammersmith Bridge. The famous Chain Bridge in Budapest (Széchenyi lánchíd), which is a larger version of Marlow Bridge, opened in 1849 was also designed by WT Clark. It was built by the Scottish engineer Adam Clark (1811-1866).

A slightly sensuous statue of a naked woman, apparently a nymph, can be seen near the Marlow Bridge. This early 20th century sculpture (1924) commemorates Charles Frohman (1856-1915), an American who was a famous theatrical manager who was drowned in the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915. According to a notice next to the statue, it was erected on the spot from which Frohman used to enjoy watching the Thames.  Apart from the bridge and the statue, there was little in Marlow’s High Street that attracted us, and we walked back to Hurley the way we came. On the way back, we caught good views of Harleyford Manor, a handsome Georgian home on a grassy rise overlooking the Thames. Designed by Robert Taylor (1714-1788) for its owner William Clayton (1718-1783), a Member of Parliament for Bletchingley and then Great Marlow, it remained in the Clayton family until 1950. Currently, this protected building houses offices.

We returned to Hurley, having had a hugely enjoyable stroll along the river and plenty of fresh air. We met numerous people along the way, all of them greeting us friendlily. Many of them had dogs, and almost all of them took care to maintain ‘social distancing’. We drove away from Hurley and about half an hour later we were caught up in the hurly burly of London traffic, which was moving at barely snail’s pace around the Hammersmith one-way system. Annoying as it was, it was worth enduring after having had such a wonderful day by the river, so far from the maddening crowds.