Tag Archives: london

Off the wall, and in the garden of a library now

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THE MAUGHAN Library in London’s Chancery Lane is now part of King’s College London. It occupies a mainly nineteenth century building that was (until 1997) the Public Records Office. In 2001, the college acquired the building from the Crown Estate and renovated its interior. The garden facing the main façade of the library is on land part of which was once owned by Clifford’s Inn – a former Inn of Chancery. The garden was designed by George Carter. It contains two sculptures, one portrays Confucius, and the other, a semi-abstract, is by Dorothy Brook.

Near these sculptures and attached to the wall of an out-house (a bicycle shed), there are some bas-reliefs depicting the continents. They have the titles: “America”, “Australasia”, “Europe”, “Africa”, “Canada” (not a continent), and “India” (which is not a continent, but a sub-continent).  Made in plasterwork, they were removed from the north wall of Dunstan House, a publisher’s office building, in Fetter Lane, which was constructed in 1886, and demolished in 1976.

The rectangular plaques are nineteenth-century plasterworks. They have been attributed to the artist Walter Crane (1845-1915).  In the 1870s, Crane:

“… became increasingly involved in the decorative arts, designing textiles, stained glass, tiles, wallpapers and plasterwork. In 1884 he was a founder member of the Art Workers’ Guild and, four years later, founded the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, of which he served as President for many years. In 1898, he was appointed Principal of the Royal College of Art.” (https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/walter-crane/).

I had not known about these bas-reliefs until 25 July 2026, when I visited an art installation curated by Artangel (https://www.artangel.org.uk/) within the library. This organisation chooses unusual venues for their artistic events, and a darkened room in the library filled with metal shelving was certainly a curious place for a show. Normally, entry to the library and its grounds is restricted to members of Kings College and other people who have been given special permission, but because of the Artangel event, I was able to enter, and discover yet another of London’s many delightful surprises.

A hair-raising discovery in rural Italy

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WHILE HAVING MY hair trimmed recently by an Albanian barber, who came to London from Prishtina in Kosovo, I  recalled a visit to a barbershop in rural Italy.

Before and after

It was in the 1980s and I was driving through northern Italy on my way to visiting my sister, who lived further south. I decided that I  should have my hair tidied up before I  saw her, and stopped my hired car outside a hair cutting establishment in a small village.

I entered the parrucchiere and was summoned to a chair by one of the barbers. He began cutting my hair, and then stopped suddenly.  Throwing his hands up above his head, he exclaimed operatically:

“Forfore!”,

Which is the Italian  word for ‘dandruff’.

Hearing this, other customers sitting in the shop, awaiting their turn, looked alarmed, and covered their heads with their hands.

Without asking me, the barber applied a lotion to my head. Whatever it was, it felt as if it was boring its way into my skull. This medication added an extra 5000 lire (£4 at the time, but about £10 in today’s  money) to my bill (those were the days before Italy adopted the Euro).

Well, I am pleased to report that today my barber from Kosovo did not feel it necessary to throw up his hands and exclaim in  Albanian:

“zbokth!”

Hop-on hop-off but better keep off: sightseeing in London

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VISITORS TO LONDON are offered tickets to travel on buses that follow various routes that connect places that the companies operating them, like Big Bus and Toot Bus, consider to be of interest to tourists. Once a ticket has been purchased, the holder can get on the open-topped double-decker bus at one stop along its route, and disembark at another, and continue doing so all day. However, the ticket holder can only use the buses of the company that issued the ticket. Using Big Bus as an example, the price per adult ranges from £49.99 for a 24-hour ticket to as much as £69.99 for a 48-hour ticket, which includes a boat trip and walking tours. Children’s tickets are £10 cheaper than those for adults.

What these companies offer is without doubt helpful for minimally adventurous tourists. But the users of this service are confined to travelling along the few routes on offer, and must wait until one of their company’s vehicles arrives.

The hop-on hop-off companies provide travel within the Transport For London (‘TFL’) zones 1 and 2. An adult 24-hour TFL travel card, which gives unlimited use of all Tube, DLR, Elizabeth line and London Overground services within these zones costs £16.60, and £29.80 for zones 1 to 8 inclusive, which covers most of London. With a TFL travel card, the tourist can hop on and off as many bus and tube trains as he or she wants within the validity of the travel card. The zone 1 and 2 card costs one third of the price of the cheapest adult Big Bus ticket, and allows the traveller much greater flexibility.

Using a TFL travel card means that you are on your own, without a guide. But that hardly matters as there are good travel apps to help you find your way from A to B. And if you select bus routes carefully, you can get to see much of London from a regular TFL bus route. For example, the number 148 will carry you alongside Hyde Park, down Park Lane, past Hyde Park Corner and Buckingham Palace, to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, and across the Thames on Westminster Bridge. Further along this route, you will reach the Imperial War Museum. Another route, number 9, runs past the Design Museum, Kensington Palace, the Royal Albert Hall, Knightsbridge (near Harrods), Green Park, Hyde Park Corner, the Royal Academy, Piccadilly Circus, Regents Street, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, and Aldwych (where you can catch one of several buses to St Paul’s Cathedral). And this is only two of many bus routes that link places that many tourists wish to visit. In addition to the buses, the TFL travel card holder can cover great distances quite rapidly using the tube trains.

With a little bit of ingenuity and a TFL travel card, a visitor to London can get a far more interesting experience of London, its sights, and its people, than if he or she opts for the relatively inflexible, far costlier hop-on hop-off buses,

Above and below the ground in London’s Guildhall

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THE GUILDHALL ART Gallery is one of London’s many excellent places to view paintings, often by well-known artists. Until 20 September 2026, it is holding an exhibition of paintings by Jock McFadyen, who was born in Scotland in 1950. He studied art first at the Glasgow School of art, then at Chelsea School of Art.

The exhibition at the Guildhall is called “Underground (and Surface)”, and is displayed in three rooms. One of them, the first you enter, has McFadyen’s large scale paintings of Underground (‘Tube’) stations. These works transform the mundane aspects of these everyday sights into dramatic works of art. The views and details that so many commuters see twice a day, and probably hardly notice, become strangely significant when viewed in McFadyen’s pictures. The room housing these pictures is not silent. Recordings of Underground train sounds, collected and recorded by Jem Finer of The Pogues (a popular music ensemble) provide a background to the paintings.

Another large room contain McFadyen’s images of London above ground. Like the Underground paintings, the overground ones are large. They depict views of London in ways that make ordinary scenes become extraordinarily beautiful. One picture is curious because it shows a line of buildings in Bethnal Green standing beneath a portrait of Mont Blanc covered with snow.

The third and smallest room contains some of McFadyen’s portraits. They are competently executed but not nearly as visually exciting as the works in the other two rooms. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the exhibition is worth a visit.

Pelicans in the park in London

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THREE HUNDRED AND sixty-two years ago, the Russian Ambassador to King Charles II donated some pelicans, which were put into St James Park, an open space redeveloped by the king. Before that, during the reign of King James I (he was on the throne of England from 1603 to 1625), the land, which is now the park, was home to exotic animals, including camels, crocodiles, an elephant and birds (kept in aviaries). These animals can no longer be found in the park, but the pelicans remain.

Since their introduction in 1664, over 40 pelicans have resided in St James Park, but none of them produced any offspring until this year, 2026. The first of four chicks hatched on 17 May. The park authorities have no idea which of the pelicans is or are the parents.

Today, 6 July 2026, we visited the park, and were lucky enough to find one pelican taking a stroll near a footpath. As for the other adults, which can often be spotted on a rocky island in the park’s lake, there were none to be seen. The chicks were also out of sight.

The exciting birth of pelicans occurred within a stone’s throw of The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Apart from spotting pelicans, St James Park is a fine place to see a wide variety of other waterfowl.

Canvases filled with colour at a gallery in London’s Kensington Gardens

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DURING MY FIRST visit to an exhibition of paintings by Cecily Brown (born in London in 1969) at the Serpentine South Gallery (until 6 September 2026), I was not much taken with her works. On that occasion, I do not think I was in the mood for looking at art. Realising this, I revisited the show today, 19 June 2026. I came away from it satisfied with what I had viewed.

Cecily’s education in art was at Epsom School of Art, then at Morley College, and later at the Slade School of Art. She did well, receiving various awards. And since completing her studies, her works have been hung in many prestigious museums and galleries in Britain, the rest of Europe, and the USA.

Apart from a collection of pen and ink drawings that resemble illustrations for children’s books, most of the works on display at the Serpentine are canvases. Each of them is covered by what at first sight looks like a riot of colour. However, closer examination reveals that within these seemingly chaotic collections of sweeping brushstrokes, there are many details, such as people embracing, plants (flowers, trees, and bushes), animals, ponds, letter boxes, buildings (including an aerial view of the Serpentine Gallery), and more.

Although I enjoyed seeing these pictures during my second visit to the gallery, I cannot place Cecily Brown amongst the modern and contemporary artists whose works please me most.

A church in London: twice destroyed and twice recovered

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FOREST FIRES ARE often spontaneous and followed by new growth and renewal. London has been destroyed by fire twice (not spontaneous!), in 1666 and in 1940, and each time it has undergone regeneration. After the earlier conflagration that destroyed many of the city’s churches, new ones were built to the designs of Christoper Wren (1632-1723). One of these churches, which was damaged by bombing and fire in 1940, and restored to its former glory after WW2, is St Lawrence Jewry.

The church was first built in the twelfth century (c 1136), close to London’s Roman amphitheatre and the early mediaeval Jewish ghetto. It was destroyed during the Great fire of London in 1666. A new church, designed by Wren, was constructed between 1670 and 1677 on the site of the first church. This spacious, lofty church was destroyed during the Blitz on 29 December 1940. And in 1957, it was restored by the architect Cecil Brown to Wren’s original design. Like the legendary phoenix, it rose from the ashes.

The church stands near London’s Guildhall, and hosts regular lunchtime concerts on Tuesdays. We attended one today, 16 June 2026. The Norwegian baritone Jan-Magnar Gard sung lieder and other songs accompanied by the pianist Niall Townley. Both these accomplished musicians are postgraduate students at the Guildhall School of Music. It was an enjoyable experience hearing them perform within the well-maintained, beautiful, almost square nave of the church, under its decorative ceiling.

St Lawrence Jewry was so-called because of its proximity to the place where Jewish people were permitted to live and trade. Not far from the church, in a street called Old Jewry, there is an interesting memorial plaque. It reads:

“The Great Synagogue stood near this site until 1272.”

King William I (1066-1087) is believed to have encouraged Jewish people to migrate to Britain. However, English prejudice and agitations against the Jews increased gradually until it reached a peak in the thirteenth century. For this reason, the synagogue closed in 1272. And soon after 1290, Jewish people were expelled from England. It was not until the 1650s during the Commonwealth of England headed by Oliver Crowell that they began returning to this island.

Hearing Welsh being spoken one Sunday in London

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KAFFEINE IS THE NAME of an excellent little café in central London’s Eastcastle Street. We go there often, always passing that intrigues me, but which I had never entered until the last day of May 2026. Built in 1889 with a brick and stone façade that includes some columns with Corinthian capitals, it bears the name “Capel Bedyddwyr Cymreig”. Designed by the architect Owen Lewis, it is The Welsh Church of Central London, or in Welsh ‘Eglwys Gymraeg Canol Llundain’.

Inside the church, there is a vestibule with a mosaic floor. Within this space I noticed a Bible in Welsh lying within a glass case. A pair of doors leads into the main body of the church. This rectangular space has a centrally positioned set of organ pipes at one end, and beneath them, a pulpit (upon which the preacher was standing). A gallery with cast-iron balustrades and supported by slender pillars with Corinthian capitals. The ceiling curved gently upwards towards a centrally located set of windows that ran along the long axis of the church.

On the day we entered the church, there were no more than about 20 people in the congregation. Two services are conducted every Sunday, and occasionally the church hosts an organ recital.

I am pleased that after having passed this church many times and finding it closed, we were at last able to enter it. Also it was lovely hearing Welsh being spoken, even if I could not understand a word of it.

The church is used for Baptist services. When we entered it on a Sunday morning, a service was in progress. It was being led by a lady, who said things in Welsh, and then repeated what she had spoken in English. The proceedings were bilingual.

Although the church was fairly empty, the same could not be said of Kaffeine. Despite it being a Sunday morning in an area where most businesses were closed, this café was extremely busy, quite crowded.