Parliament Square – coal holes and thieves

Have you ever spotted the coal hole cover plates around the edge of Parliament Square?

Dark pics taken on a January evening. 

We take for granted that this open space adjacent to Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster has always been here, but it wasn't created until 1868, as these well-spaced coal hole plates along the southern side of the square clearly indicate – there used to be houses here. 

The new square was designed to improve traffic flow, indeed the first set of traffic lights was installed approximately where Winston Churchill stands today. The revised road layout necessitated the loss of many buildings and a complete change in the topography of the area. 

Here are a couple of maps to show the layout before the parliament buildings, the grass and demonstration space:

Above, Greenwood's map of 1828 shows a labyrinth of little streets – I particularly like the name of the street with the dog leg; Thieving Lane!

The second map is from the 1890s and shows the District Line running under the area and Charles Barrie's parliament buildings.

I am still unclear which exact buildings the coal holes actually served. Any help welcome.

 

The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree – thank you for being thankful, Norway

For the last few years, and especially so this year, I have been appalled to hear that people have been complaining that the wonderful Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square is "too sparse". Well, what a slap in the face for the Norwegians who have been sending a tree to us for over seventy years. I am glad to see that they won't be organising a replacement. See The Metro, 9Dec2021, right.

It's really ungrateful. This is not just a simple case of 'where's the receipt, can I get my money back?' and I suspect that most of these complainers have no idea the meaning, the effort and generosity behind this installation.

Since 1947, Norway has been donating a prime Norweigian Spruce, at least 20 metres high, to adorn our famous square, chosen by representatives of Oslo and Westminster from their lush forests. It is gifted to us as a thank you for assisiting them during WW2. The who process is a big logistics exercise, felling the tree and transporting it safely across land and sea. That's over seven decades of 'thank you's.

Once safely installed, the tree-lighting ceremony takes place at 6pm on the first Thursday of December every year (exc last year due to Covid-19 restrictions). There are speeches from Westminster council dignitairies and the Mayor of Oslo who last week was patently so delighted to be back in London again switching on the lights. I was there. Here's the before and after... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

I wonder how many of the complainers were in the square that evening, enjoying this short but sweet ceremony and singing along with 'Once in Royal David's City'? I expect none. 

The tree is not sparse. In fact, it's an excellent example of its species. It's a fashion thing – people these days seem to want what I have heard on TV called "the traditional Christmas tree look" and by this they mean those dense little shrubby bushes, or the plastic equivalents. But this confuses me as surely a 'traditional' tree, from the Dickensian era, would be like the one set up by Victoria and Albert in 1841, right, with open branches, better to see all the pretty adorments.

I have also heard people complaining about the lights on the Trafalgar Square tree, how they are also disappointingly sparse. Well, dear people, they are hung in a traditional Norwegian fashion, with 14 strands falling from the top and I, for one, like how those strands fall nestle within the branches.

Thank you Norway. Some of us here don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

A visit to the Parliamentary Archives

Last week I was lucky enough to be able go on one of the last tours* of The Parliamentary Archives within the Palace of Westminster.
Accessing the building involves a security bag check which is just like at an airport including a bit of frisking if you are lucky. Sadly I missed out on that pleasure having worn a bra that didn't set the machine off.
The tour group went in small batches up to the research floor because the lift can only take a max of six people. We then navigated some small utilitarian passages which really don't look like they ought to be part of a tour to reach another equally tiny lift. But it was ages arriving so our sub-group agreed to walk up the spiral staircase.

I am pretty sure most of the others also hadn't heard that it was an 8-floor climb! Oof! Though stopping to take photos helped!
We finally reached a room near the top of Victoria Tower. When the tower was constructed it was the tallest secular building in the world and the 'show and tell' room affords some marvellous views through the leaded glass windows and the tracery to the north and west of London.

On the table there was a marvellous selection of well-presented historic documents and large heavy tomes. These included notes from Lloyd George, directories of noble families and petitions showing wonderful signatures or symbols indicating how some people could not at that time write.

And then back out to the spiral stairs to look down through the well. This is the view we sometimes see on TV when the Queen arrives here:

The well is not always open like this – a horizontal sliding 'door' is usually in place at the bottom edge. The third image shows part of a framed pic on the wall at that level – a section a 12th century stained glass window from Chartres Cathedral by Simon De Montfort – I love the colours.

And then to the the famous archive room with all the document rolls – I practically hyper-ventillated with excitement as I entered the room. Wow!
Each roll is date tagged by sovereign age (that's what all those little pink, yellow and green squares are in the pics below) and some of them are HUGE. I mean long. Very long. One is half a mile long! I wonder how much it weighs?

A few special documents and books were chosen to show us, and these included some famous historical names:

Henry VIII to the left and his daughter Elizabeth I to the right. The middle image shows how beautiful some of the books in the archive are – just look at the lovely handwriting – the page on the top is an addendum – they just didn't scribble or annotate onto the  original – they wrote it all out again as an attachment

What a delightful way to spend a couple of hours.

*The archive is a valuable resource for anyone delving into the past. The physical archive (the books and scrolls etc) will be moving soon whilst the facility is overhauled, however the database and research facilities will still be available – I think I've got that right – click here to find out more.

The coal hole covers of North Audley Street

I have for many years been photographing coal hole cover plates on London streets and have amassed quite a collection of different designs made by or depicting different companies.
Every now and then some contemporary ones are made to commemorate an area, as in the ones around Brick Lane, or written about in this book.
A similarly interesting set of modern replacements can be found installed in 2013 by Westminster Council along North Audley Street between Lees Place and Oxford Street where fourteen covers depict the different trades that used to be found along this street.
I managed to photograph eleven of them. The other three were being obliterated that day by chairs and people outside pavement cafes.

1) Apothecary, Butcher, Coach builder and Doctor.
2) Dressmaker, Musician, Publican (Vernon's Head) and Publican (Marlborough Head).
3) Saddler, Stationer, Tailor and one of two original A Smellie & Co Ltd, Westminster from the same stretch.

The ones I couldn't get to are Engraver, Watchmaker and Baker

London Lumiere – a review

Malcolm and I decided to spend two evenings taking in as much of this event as possible.

Friday 15th January
We first went to see the installation at Oxford Circus. It was marvellous and we admired the colour-changing mesh for perhaps ten minutes and then moved off to find new things, thinking that everything would be up to that standard. But no. I think we peaked too early...

We looked for something at Liberty's. We spotted a crowd of people at a window and could make out what we think was a dress in a window. The pic shown here isn't mine; it's one from their website that was at Granary Square (see also KX later on). So we moved on to Brown Hart Gardens where some cute little bird boxes edged the upper level, but that was it. Did we miss something better?
In Grosvenor Square lots of people were queuing to get inside the square at each of the four corners. Peering over the hedges it didn't look very busy in there and from what we could see it didn't look worth the scrum, so we gave up and went to see what everyone was crowding around on the south east corner; an illuminated old telephone box containing fish. This looked good (see pic above from Lumiere website) but, again, being a small installation it was hard to get anywhere near it. Shame.

And so to Piccadilly. A Tracy Emin-style neon script saying something supposed to be clever was on each end of Piccadilly Arcade. Hmmm. We moved swiftly past and stopped to watch the colourful projection on the Bafta building. The short looped animation was good and showed famous actors and relevant motifs about them and their films, but apart from Tilda Swinton and only a few others it was really hard to make out who the people were as we were too close to view it properly even though we rammed ourselves up against the shops on the opposite side of the road. For instance, just who is that woman above left? Basically, the thing was too big. We, and the people around us, all agreed it was better to see what was going on if you watched it through a camera screen to get a better/smaller image. I thought the light well below my feet was also worthy of a pic.

I did like the lovely lanterns and flying fish kites at the eastern end of Piccadilly. Simple, mesmerising, effective and easy to see from a distance. It was this kind of thing that always made the parade at the end of The Mayor's Thames Festival such a delight.
We really enjoyed being able to walk in the road, as at Oxford Circus and Regent Street.
The loud trumpeting of an elephant pervaded the air. And above Air Street (see what I did there?!) there was an animated CGI projection of an elephant's arse swaying left and right.

We walked through to Regents Street to view the front of the elephant. The street was rammed with people watching it. I stood and wondered what the point of it was. This was a recurring thought over both evenings. I mean, what relevance did an elephant have in that place? It wasn't even a real elephant. Had it not been there in that position on that night would anyone have given it a second thought?
We forgot to look in at St James Square and somehow bypassed the light flowers at Leicester Square and headed for Trafalgar Square.

Here, the letters from the top of Centrepoint, which is being renovated at the moment, were placed against the wall of the National Gallery. Watching the people, I noticed the thing to do here was stand against it and either take a selfie or get a friend to take a shot. It's all about the me me me these days. Intrigued how all these these idiots would get would be themselves as silhouettes against the bright light (pic1) I attempted to do better myself (pic2), but found it more effective to use the lights properly (pic3).
The fountains in the square also had installations:

One was filled with empty plastic water bottles; rubbish as art. The other had two rings of light strings and some chicken wire mesh that I couldn't see the point of. Both looked as if someone had thought, quick, quick, we need to think of something for Trafalgar Square...!
At Coutts Bank, just around the corner in the Strand, there were some neon dogs that looked like bows. We couldn't see them; again, the installation was small and the crowd blocked the view. I wasn't bow-wowed.
Enough for one night. A beer in the Nellie Dean to warm up and discuss the above and then home.

Saturday 16th January
We met at Victoria and walked down to see the projection on Westminster Abbey.

WOW!  A lot of work had gone into this. Very clever. The front façade changed by the second and the sculptures of the people around the door had been carefully coloured in and then accurately projected onto the building to marvellous effect. Really beautiful. I was actually inspired; for I think that was the point of all this
And so we made our way to Kings Cross. The tube station was closed (due to over-crowding?) so we exited at Euston and mooched along with the crowds. At KX the first thing we encountered was the birdcage, a permanent feature, which had been given a simple rainbow light treatment. On the rear of the German Gymnasium (now yet another eatery; I liked it when it was an art space) there was a projection consisting of series of moving dots that on closer inspection were people in the gym. A nice idea, but it seemed to be lacking something.

There were lots of people there and it took a while to access Granary Square, but we felt it wasn't what has been reported as 'crowded'. I suspect this was just on the tube, in the station and in the narrow access sections and pathways.
A large-scale animation was being projected onto what is now St Martin's School of Art. This was like the one when Madness played Our House on Buckingham Palace for Queenie's birthday except that it had no relevance to art, Kings Cross, or much to do with London except a few tube stations and hints about Hyde Park. It was circus-themed with hybrid 2D animals and birds performing tricks. I felt it was kooky French(?) humour mixed with Peter Blake and I got bored with it about half-way thorough. Again, what was the point? Was it promoting? What was it trying to achieve?
Between the art school and Waitrose was a strange satellite dish thing; it moved around, it spun slowly, it reflected lights. The roof there is angled and so I think a lot of its impact may have been lost in that placement. The music was oooooh-aaaa and it evoked sci-fi films and having stood there for what seemed ages, we rather hoped that an alien might appear, or that lasers would shoot out from it and decapitate people. Now that would be art, and we had our cameras at the ready. But no.
Later we read that the thing reacted to movement around it. Well, had they made that clear on site perhaps people might have moved about instead of just gazing gormlessly at it waiting for something to happen.

At the northernmost point there was a neon art installation of a person diving. Hmm. Seen better. Move on. And then we found that colour-changing dress (like the one at Liberty's, mentioned above). We could only see the straps of it due to the amount of people there.
Inside St Martin's was a lovely installation – a light tunnel made from recycled plastic bottles filled with water. This really appealed to me, both artistically and ethically, and I felt I'd finally found something with a message and a function. Truly inspirational. We didn't bother queueing to walk through the tunnel as it looked so nice from the outside. Again, it was selfies-a-go-go, so I joined in.
On the walk back to the station we bypassed the colourful lights being reflected onto people though they did look good and would have been better placed in a larger environment. It reminded me of a a rave party (not that I have been to any) or that Indian festival where everyone throws paint powder, But the path was too congested so descended the stairs to he new foot tunnel that leads to the tube station.

And I like it. I think this one will remain. Seems daft if it doesn't stay cos the softly-changing coloured lights are all embedded behind white walls. Looking straight at a wall it just looks white, but look along it and see vertical panels of colour. Ooh – a vast improvement from those horrid little off-white bathroom-style mini tiles they have put everywhere else in Kings Cross tube station; they were poorly installed and have become so mucky so quickly.
And so our two evenings ended.

Conclusion
So, in no particular order, my favourite things were Westminster Abbey, the flying fish, the mesh at Oxford Circus, the bottle tunnel, KX tunnel, and being able to get up close to the Centrepoint lights.
Did I feel enLIGHTened by all this? Yes and no, but mainly no. Ultimately I was more impressed looking up at the beautifully-designed ceiling at Kings Cross station.

Westminster Cathedral, the mother church

I expected it to be an embarrassing admission telling my friends that up until early June this year I had never before set foot inside Westminster Cathedral*. But most of them said they hadn't been in there either. That's what happens when you live in a big city with so much to see and do; you are always going to do it next week, next month, next summer, after this, after that. Or we wait until out-of-towners come to stay and then go out on a mad tourist trip.

I have often admired the cathedral sitting on its piazza like a very showy Neo-Byzantine Battenberg cake, reflected in the glass windows of Victoria Street.

But go inside and Oh My (Catholic) God!
It's just wonderful in there. Bare walls and intricate mosaics – a glorious work in progress. My phone camera wasn't really up to the job, but this gives you some idea what to find in there:

Suffice to say I need to go back for a longer visit and it's now sitting quite high on my list of 'things to see and do' (just after RA Summer Show and Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty). And I must go to the top of the tower there as I hear that's quite an experience too.
Westminster Cathedral's website here.

*More admissions...
I haven't set foot inside Westminster Abbey either. Or Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Churchill's War Rooms, Hampton Court Palace, HMS Belfast, The Guildhall, The Bank of England, The Cutty Sark, The Fan Museum and Malcolm's home.