Tag Archives: london

A cathedral south of the River Thames but not on the tourist trail

Posted on by
Reply

I HAVE PASSED this Victorian gothic church many times while travelling on the 148 bus route northbound, but it was only today, 7 April 2026, that I first set foot in it. The church is, actually, a cathedral but not the Anglican Southwark Cathedral (near London Bridge). It is St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, a Roman Catholic church.

Opposite the Imperial War Museum, the cathedral was built in 1848. Although it is a Victorian gothic edifice, it has the feel (a spacious lightness) and appearance of churches built in mediaeval times. Maybe this should not be surprising when one learns that its first architect was Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852), one of the leading exponents of of Gothic Revival in Britain. Pugin converted to Catholicism in 1834, and this attracted him new patrons and commissions.

What we see today when entering the cathedral is not what Pugin would have seen. In WW2, the building was badly damaged by bombing. Within the external structure of Pugin’s building, the architect Romilly Craze (1892-1974), who restored many bombed churches, designed a gothic revival cathedral, which was opened in 1958, and that is what we see today.

Within the cathedral, one can admire the fine twentieth century stained glass windows, the circular shrine of Frances Xavier Cabrini (patron saint of migrants), the tomb of Peter Emmanuel Amigo (sixth Bishop of Southwark; lived 1864-1949), and a reclining sculpture of Provost Robert Doyle (1793-1879). Doyle was associated with the construction of the cathedral, and asking Pugin to design it. He was also involved with purchasing the land on which it was constructed.

Although it cannot compare with the great mediaeval cathedrals in England, St George’s is plasing to the eye, and judging by the large number of people joining a service on a Tuesday lunchtime, it serves its purpose well.

They tried to reduce a city, London, to rubble

Posted on by
Reply

AS I WRITE this on 7 April 2026, the President of the USA has already threatened “… to bomb Iran ‘into the Stone Age’.

In 1940, the Germans, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, had slightly less ambitious evilintentions. They tried to reduce London to no more than rubble, and to some extent they succeeded, as can be seen at an exhibition being held at London’s Imperial War Museum until 1 November 2026. The show, “Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art”, contains a collection of paintings and drawings done by artists who were in London while it was being bombed by the Germans, during the so-called Blitz. There are images by a wide range of war artists, some I had heard of, and others that were new to me. Each image is accompanied by a good explanatory panel.

By John Farleigh

I knew thar during the Blitz, peopled sheltered in deep Underground stations, and that the artist Henry Moore is famous for depicting these makeshift shelters and those sheltering within them. What interested me in the War Museum’s exhibition was that there were pictures of these Underground shelters  and other subterranean places by other artists, including: John Farliegh, Edward Ardizzone, Olga Lehmann, and Anthony Gross.

The other pictures on display show the damage done to buildings, aspects of attack and defence, life during the Blitz, and portraits of those who suffered during the attacks. Given what has been threatened by a President of the USA, it was somewhat unnerving seeing the pictures in the War Museum’s superb exhibition.

An unusual street name in London’s Kentish Town

Posted on by
Reply

WHEN VISITING KENTISH Town in north London, we parked close to a featureless cul-de-sac with an unusual name: Frideswide Place. In general, London’s street names are not invented ‘out of the blue’ but usually refer to places, such as Pretoria Road, or people, such as Gainsborough Gardens. I wondered whether Frideswide referred to a place or a person or something else.

A brief search of the Internet revealed that Frideswide is the name commonly given to Frithuswith, a saint who lived from about 670 AD until 727. She was an English princess (daughter of a ruler of Mercia named Dida of Eynsham whose territory was in western Oxfordshire and the upper reaches of the River Thames) and an abbess. She founded a monastery in Oxford. She is reputed to have had great healing powers, and is remembered for this. She is now the patron saint of the City of Oxford. This is all interesting enough, but why is there a road named after her in Kentish Town?

An answer to this question can be found on a website about Kentish Town (www.kentishtowner.co.uk/2013/04/10/wednesday-picture-whats-in-a-street-name/):

“Sometimes a whole group of street names will relate to one landowner. For instance, the area to the east of The Oxford was owned by Christ Church, Oxford University. This includes Frideswide Place (which is cut off by the railway) … It turns out that St Frideswide Priory, established in 1122, was the predecessor to Christ Church [in Oxford].”

And that seems to me a reasonable answer to my question.

Unwanted contemporary artworks on a gallery that shows contemporary art

Posted on by
Reply

THE NEWPORT STREET Gallery near Lambeth Bridge on the south side of the River Thames was founded by the artist Damien Hirst as a place to show items from his extensive collection of contemporary artworks and sometimes his own work to members of the public. Every few months, a different selection of the works in his collection are tastefully exhibited in the gallery. The gallery is housed in converted industrial buildings, described in Newport Street’s website as follows:

“The construction of Newport Street Gallery involved the conversion of three listed buildings, which were purpose-built in 1913 to serve as scenery painting studios for the booming Victorian theatre industry in London’s West End. With the addition of two new buildings, the gallery now spans half the length of the street.”

We visit it regularly, and usually enjoy what is being shown and the way it is displayed.

Today (25 March 2026), we visited the gallery again. Before we entered, we noticed two outer doors covered with spray-painted graffiti, and part of the entrance disfigured in the same way. We asked a woman at the reception desk if the graffiti was an artwork sanctioned by the gallery, and were told that it was not. I said that although unwanted, the graffiti was in the spirit of many things that are often exhibited within the gallery. She laughed, clearly understanding what I was getting at.

An Art Deco style theatre near Victoria railway station

Posted on by
Reply

I AM ATTRACTED to the Art Deco style of architecture that had its heyday during the period between WW1 and WW2. Although there is no concentration of buildings made in this style in London, such as can be found in Bombay, there are plenty of examples scattered around the city. One of these is on Wilton Street, facing one side of Victoria railway station.

Details of decoration at the Apollo theatre

Originally built to be a cinema, it was completed in 1930. Its architects were William Edward Trent (1874 – 1948) and E Walmsley Lewis (1898–1977). Plans were made to demolish the Apollo in the 1950s, but, fortunately, they were never realised. In the 1970s, it hosted several musical events including rock concerts. In 1981, the Apollo re-opened as a theatre. Since then, it has hosted musical theatre (‘musicals’) including “Fiddler on the Roof”, “The Sound of Music”, and “Camelot”. Since September 2006, it has been showing the musical “Wicked”.

Surrounded by twenty-first century and nineteenth century buildings, this Art Deco theatre makes for a pleasing element in the architectural ensemble around the railway station.

Staring at paintings by Hogarth on the stairs

Posted on by
Reply

RECENTLY I WENT to a hospital, St Bartholomew’s (‘Barts’), which is near to London’s Smithfield meat market and the Barbican. I went there not because I was ill, but to view a magnificent artwork. It is in the hospital’s North Wing.

The walls of the main staircase in the North Wing are covered with huge paintings depicting scenes from stories in the Holy Bible. What makes them both attractive and interesting is that they were painted by the English artist William Hogarth (1697-1764). According to a website relating to this artwork (https://bartsnorthwing.org.uk/):

“Hogarth decorated the stair free of charge, allowing him to indulge his ambition, and giving the hospital a grand entrance to the Great Hall at no cost.”

Hogarth was a Governor of the hospital. The paintings that illustrate ‘The Pool of Bethesda’ and ‘The Good Samaritan’, were created in 1736–1737.

In 2025, the restoration of the paintings was completed, and the staircase was opened for public viewing at last – they had been hidden from public view for about 300 years.  The stairs lead up to the spectacular, vast Great Hall (designed in 1732 by architect James Gibbs), which can also be visited.

And when you have admired the artwork and the Great Hall, head around the corner into Long Lane, and enjoy refreshments at Details, a charming café (near Barbican station) with interesting interior design.

Three men who became martyrs at London’s Smithfield

Posted on by
Reply

FACING SMITHFIELD MEAT market, there are three wall plaques commemorating four men who were martyred at Smithfield, which several centuries ago was an important site for executions. The four men, whose memorials I saw today (17 March 2026), were: Wat Tyler (c1320-1381), John Ball (c1338-1381) who was executed in St Albans, William Wallace (c1280-1305), and John Bradford (1510-1555).

Sir William Wallace memorial

Tyler and Ball were significantly involved in the Peasants Revolt. William Wallace, a Scot, was one of the main military leaders in the First Scottish War of Independence (1296-1328), and was captured by the English, taken to London for trial, and executed at Smithfield. And Bradford, a Protestant, was executed for alleged crimes against the Catholic Queen Mary I.

I saw memorials to these men, but have read that they were by no means the only people martyred at Smithfield (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_Smithfield for more names).

Today, Smithfield is becoming a trendy area with plenty of bars, pubs, and restaurants. It is difficult to imagine that it was once a place where these dreadful executions were carried out.

Once prisoners were locked up here in Hampstead

Posted on by
Reply

EVERY NOW AND then, when touring around England, we have spotted village lock-ups. These were small places with barred doors where prisoners could be held briefly in a cell until more suitable accommodation could be found for them. These miniature jails were:

“… used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to house criminals who were apprehended on suspicion of committing petty crime … Lock-ups were only temporary forms of imprisonment, usually for one or two people, before the local authorities of the day decided how to deal with the offender. Criminals could be released or sent to the closest large town for trial.” (www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/historic-jails-essex-you-can-3227277).

There were probably quite a few parish lock-ups in London, but now most of them have disappeared. However, if you walk along Cannon Lane in Hampstead, you will find one that has been preserved to some extent. It is within the garden wall of the grounds of Cannon Hall, which is where local magistrates held court, A plaque next to its entrance informs that the lock-up was established about 1730. Soon after the creation of the police force in 1829, the lock-house became disused, and prisoners were locked up in the Watch House that stands in Hampstead’s Holly Walk. Today, it seems as if the entrance to the former lock-house, flanked by two barred windows, is now the front door of some kind of residential accommodation.

For more information about Hampstead past and present, why not read my book:https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09R2WRK92