A HIGHLY DECORATIVE BLOCK of flats stands on the southeast corner of the intersection of Wimpole and New Cavendish Streets. Bearing the date 1892, one of its large bricks was laid by Mary Mason Lithgow.
Mary was the mother of the person who commissioned the building, the lawyer and property developer Samuel Lithgow (1860-1937). Samuel was born in Marylebone and after qualifying as a solicitor, he practised at 42 Wimpole Street. Politically inclined, he represented the West St Pancras ward of the London County Council between 1910 and 1913. A philanthropist, he founded the Stanhope Institute for Men in 1891. In addition, he was a governor of the North West London Polytechnic (founded 1896).
Wimpole House was designed by Charles Worley (1853-1906) in the so-called Belgian Renaissance Style. It is a very florid addition to an area filled with buildings displaying a wide variety of decorative flourishes
During the late 1990s, our then young daughter had a baby-sitter called Bridie. Although Bridie was already well into her eighties when we first met her, she was a remarkably sprightly lady. Born in a rural part of the west of Ireland, she came to England in her late teens. On arrival in England, she and her husband were cared for by the Salvation Army in exchange for taking a pledge never to drink alcohol again. Bridie never reneged on this promise. To earn a living in London, where she settled, she became a domestic servant. Hearing that I had been brought up in northwest London’s Golders Green, she told me the following story.
War memorial clocktower in Golders Green
Sometime before WW2, Bridie was employed as a maid in a Jewish household in Golders Green. She looked after the family’s children and carried out many household duties. Even though it was not a particularly wealthy family, Bridie recalled that she wore uniforms when on duty. There was one outfit that she wore in daytime and in the evening, she changed into another. As she did with our daughter, Bridie became fond of the family’s two young sons.
Many years later, when Bridie had become a grandmother and our daughter’s baby-sitter, she used to spend her spare time travelling around London by bus (making use of her old age free bus pass). One day, she was waiting for a bus at the stop closest to Golders Green’s Sainsbury’s (on the site of the Ionic cinema), when a well-dressed late middle-aged man in the queue said to her:
“Goodness! Is it you, Bridie? We have not seen each other for so many years.”
After a moment, Bridie realised that she was being addressed by one of the two boys, whom she had looked after in the house in Golders Green before the War. Just then, a bus arrived, and as her former charge was about to embark, he shouted:
“This is my bus. Are you taking it, Bridie?”
Bridie misheard what he had said, and by the time she realised, the bus had pulled away, leaving her at the bus stop. She told me that if she had known he was taking that bus, she would have joined him. As far as I know, she has never seen him again.
THE TALL GREY GRANITE drinking fountain that stands on the southeast corner of London’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields is no longer in use. The inscription carved on its base reads:
“In memory of Philip Twells. Barrister at law of Lincolns Inn and sometime Member of Parliament for the City of London. 8 May A.D. 1880”
Born the son of a banker John Twells (1776-1866), Philip (1808-1880) attended Oxford University and then was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1834. His father was a partner in the private bank of Spooner Attwood & Co. In 1863, that bank was taken over by Barclay, Bevan & Tritton & Co, a precursor of the modern Barclays Bank. It was then that Philip became a partner in the enlarged banking concern. He was MP for the City of London from 1874 to 1880.
A website (www.layersoflondon.org/map/records/philip-twells-mp-banker-and-slave-owner-of-stoke-newington-church-street) recorded that Philip Twells owned 252 slaves in Jamaica, and added:
“The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 had made the ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire although servitude was replaced by ‘apprenticeship’ for at least five years. The 1837 Slave Compensation Act provided compensation to owners for the loss of their business assets.”
“Awarded part of the compensation for the Islington estate in St Mary Jamaica with his brother Rev. John Twells …”
The slave-owner compensation awarded to Philip was £4207, which is worth well in excess of £300,000 in today’s money. On his death, Pholip left a substantial fortune to his wife.
The fountain commemorating Twells in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was a gift of his widow, and was erected in 1882. Sadly, this memorial to a former owner of slaves can no longer refresh the passer-by. However, during weekdays, food and drinks can be obtained at a café in the middle of Lincolns Inn Fields. And while you are in the area, do not miss seeing the magnificent Sir John Soane’s Museum on the north side of the Fields.
I HAVE WALKED past London’s Victoria Coach Station many times without looking at it particularly carefully. Yesterday, the 28th of September 2022, I was early for a meeting at the Embassy of Albania, which is not far from Victoria Station. So, I walked slowly, stopping to look at the Coach Station. I had never noticed before that it is a fine example of Art Deco architecture.
The Coach Station, which opened for use in March 1932, was designed by Wallis, Gilbert, and Partners.
I suppose that my interest in Art Deco buildings was initiated by visits to Bombay (Mumbai), where there are many splendid examples of this style of architecture. Gradually, I am discovering that London also has a rich collection of Art Deco buildings. The Coach Station is a fine and well-maintained example.
The Victoria and Albert Museum houses a huge, antique carpet from Ardibil (in Persia).It was made in about AD 1539, and is one of the oldest accurately dated carpets.
You will need to read my book “Beyond Marylebone and Mayfair: Exploring West London” to discover the link between this carpet and a Socialist activist, who lived in Hammersmith.
IN THE EARLY 1960s, the first proper self-service supermarket opened on the corner of Golders Green Road and a small service road called Broadwalk Lane. I cannot recall the name of this store, but it was soon taken over by the Macfisheries company. Later, it became a supermarket where many imported foods, especially products from Israel, were sold. Now, it has become a Tesco Express.
Facing the supermarket (across Golders Green Road) is a gothic revival style church. It has been used by a Greek Orthodox (Christian) congregation since 1968. Now, the The Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Cross & St. Michael, it was constructed as the Church of England’s ‘St Michael’s Church’ in 1914 to the design of JT Lee. A clock tower, surmounted by a delicate cupola supported by thin columns, was added to the church in 1960. On one of its walls, there is a bas-relief of St Michael with one foot on a serpent. On the northeast corner of the church, there is a plaque listing people who died in WW1. Near this, there is a crucifix standing in the garden next to the church. Its design, typical of C of E crucifixes, predates the arrival of the Greek congregation.
Although the interior of the church maintains some of its original Cof E fittings, such as stained-glass windows, the font designed in a mock mediaeval style, and some wall mounted memorials in English, a great deal of effort has been made to create the atmosphere of a Greek Orthodox place of worship. The walls of the side aisles have been painted with religious scenes. There is a decorated iconostasis and several framed icons. Elaborate chandeliers hang above the nave. Despite the additions to convert the church for Greek Orthodox worship, the original gothic revival features of the building’s interior are evident, but harmonise well with the later additions.
LONDON’S KENSINGTON GARDENS is bounded to the north by Bayswater Road and to the south by Kensington Gore (overlooked by the Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial), which becomes Kensington Road. Within the park and running almost parallel with its southern boundary is the South Flower Walk (also known as The Flower Walk). The Northern Flower Walk, which runs near and parallel to Bayswater Road was once used by royalty. According to a document published on the Royal Parks website, this was:
“… a delicious and appealing place to stroll for the monarch on the way to … the site of the Bayswater ‘Breakfasting House’…”
The breakfasting house no longer exists. I am not sure whether the South Flower Walk can boast of such an illustrious past. However, when it is in full bloom, it outdoes its northern counterpart in colourfulness and variety of its flora.
Although the whole of Kensington Gardens makes for a pleasant place to stroll, a walk along the South Flower Walk provides and exceedingly pretty perambulation.
RAAVI KEBAB BEGAN serving Pakistani and Punjabi food in the mid-1970s. It is located on Drummond Street, close to London’s Euston Station. This unpretentious eatery with barely any internal decoration except some mirrors with Koranic verses engraved on them in Urdu script, is next door to the Diwana Bhel Poori House. It was at the latter that we used to enjoy Indian vegetarian dishes when we were undergraduate students at nearby University College London during the first years of the 1970s. In those days, Raavi, named after the river that flows through the now Pakistani city of Lahore, did not yet exist. It was only in the early 1990s that a friend visiting from Bombay suggested that we ate with him at Raavi’s. When the grilled kebabs arrived at our table, it was love at first bite. We have been returning to Raavi’s ever since.
Raavi’s with Diwana in the backround
Yesterday (1st of September 2022), we made yet another visit to Raavi’s. As we sat down, I noticed a thick wad of photocopies held together with a bulldog clip. They were resting on top of a neatly folded shawl. Out of curiosity, I looked at the top sheet, which was a page copied from a book with annotations added in red ink. I looked more carefully and noticed that the printed text was in Italian. The page was headed “<De ingratitudine> Joanni Folci Niccolaus Maclavellus”. It is a chapter (‘The ingratitude of Joanni Folci’) from a book by Niccolò Machiavelli (aka Maclavellus), who lived from 1469 to 1527. The rest of the text on the photocopied page appeared to be a learned commentary on Macchiavelli’s chapter.
I do not know why, but I felt that Raavi’s was the last place I would expect to find scholarly papers lying about so casually. I associate the place, as do most of its many customers, with grilled meat and spicy masalas. I asked the waiter about the papers. He shrugged his shoulders and said that someone must have left them behind after eating, and that he had no idea whether anyone would return to retrieve them.
HAMPSTEAD GARDEN SUBURB (‘HGS’) in north London, where I spent my childhood and early adulthood, is a conservation area containing residential buildings designed in a wide variety of architectural styles. It first buildings were finished in about 1904/5. Despite this, many of the suburb’s houses and blocks of flats were designed to evoke traditional village architecture. Much of HGS contains buildings that do not reflect the modern trends being developed during the early 20th century, However, there are a few exceptions. These include some houses built in the ‘moderne’ form of the Art Deco style, which had its heyday between the two World Wars.
In Lytton Close
A few Art Deco houses can be found in Kingsley Close near the Market Place (see https://adam-yamey-writes.com/2022/02/07/art-deco-in-a-north-london-suburb/), and there is a larger number of them in the area through which the following roads run: Neville Drive, Spencer Drive, Carlyle Close, Holne Chase, Rowan Walk, and Lytton Close. The part of HGS in which these roads run was developed from about 1927 onwards, mainly between 1935 and 1938. So, it is unsurprising that examples of what was then fashionable in architecture can be found in this part of the suburb. According to an informative document (www.hgstrust.org/documents/area-13-holne-chase-norrice-lea.pdf) about this part of HGS:
“… A relatively restricted group of established architects undertook much development such as M. De Metz, G. B. Drury and F. Reekie, Welch, Cachemaille-Day and Lander, and J. Oliphant. H. Meckhonik was a developer/builder and architects in his office may have designed houses attributed to him.”
Most of the Art Deco houses on Spencer Drive and Carlyle Close leading off from it are unexceptional buildings, whose principal Art Deco features are the metal framed windows (made by the Crittall company) with some curved panes of glass. Fitted with any other design of windows, these houses would lose their Art Deco appearances. Number 1, Neville Drive displays more features of the style than the houses in Spencer Drive and Carlyle Close. There is, however, one house on Spencer Drive that is unmistakably ‘moderne’: it is number 28 built in 1934 without reference to tradition. It is an adventurous design compared with the other buildings in the street.
Numbers 13 and 24 Rowan Walk, a pair of almost identical buildings which stand on either side of the northern end of the street, where it meets Linden Lea, stand out from the crowd. They have flat roofs and ‘moderne’ style Crittall Windows. Built in the 1930s, they are cubic in form: unusual rather than elegant.
I have saved the best for last: Lytton Close. This short cul-de-sac is a wonderful ensemble of Art Deco houses with balconies that resemble the deck railings of oceanic liners, flat roofs that serve as sun decks, curved Crittall windows, and glazed towers housing staircases. Built in 1935, they were designed by CG Winburne. I have to admit that although I lived for almost three decades in HGS, and used to walk around it a great deal, somehow I missed seeing Lytton Close (until August 2022) and what is surely one of London’s finer examples of modern domestic architecture constructed between the two world wars. Although most of the Art Deco buildings in HGS are not as spectacular as edifices made in this style in Lytton Close and further afield in, say, Bombay, the employment of this distinctive style injects a little modernity in an area populated with 20th century buildings that attempt to create a village atmosphere typical of earlier times. The architects, who adopted backward-looking styles, did this to create the illusion that dwellers in the HGS would not be living on the doorstep of a big city but instead far away in a rural arcadia.
