Articles

Watts in London and Guildford?

Submitted by Colin on 1 August 2013 - 9:11pm

The answer is the marks of the life and achievements of George Frederick Watts, artist and Royal Academician, born in 1807 near Bryanston Square in London, and dying in 1904 at Compton near Guildford, Surrey.

Visitors to the National Portrait Gallery in London may have seen portraits on display from time to time under Watts' so-called Hall of Fame, where he painted the great and the good from late Victorian society, perhaps one of the most noted of whom is Roman Catholic Archbishop Manning.

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George Frederick Watts

National Portrait Gallery

Postman's Park

Watts Gallery

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A Victorian Cricket Match - in Victoria

Submitted by Colin on 31 May 2013 - 11:03am

Oh cricket lovers, put aside the agony of Nick Compton’s 2nd Test innings against New Zealand, described on Test Match Special as like the last Act of Macbeth, and consider the daftness and goodness of a game on 29th May 2013 between The Wisden XI and The Author’s XI.

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Victorian Cricket Match

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Argentine Ambassador's Residence, Belgravia

Submitted by Colin on 11 March 2013 - 11:30am

At the midway point between Open House 2012 and 2013, it seems timely to feature one of the jewels in the Open House crown.

Embassy buildings come imposing and impenetrable. Even standing outside one can be intimidating.

However, this building had an early name that was nothing if not prosaic. “The Independent North Mansion” was the title of 49 Belgrave Square, one of Thomas Cubitt’s creations in his Belgravia masterpiece.

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Unusual Views over City Rooftops

Submitted by Colin on 25 February 2013 - 11:30am

One of the consolations of having a City day job is the chance to get from office receptions views that are not available to the public. This might be considered zero consolation by those who deride the wage-slave, but it is something at least.

So here are three views, with slight apologies for the limitations of shots taken through a window and from a mobile phone:

East, across the Smithfield rooftops

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201 Bishopsgate

Broadgate Tower

Horace Jones

Liverpool Street Station

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Boosey & Hawkes & Bayswater

Submitted by Colin on 11 February 2013 - 11:30am

We’re in Frederick Close. This is not the street in the City (Frederick’s Place) described by Pevsner as “an oasis of domesticity with Georgian houses on either side”, containing work by the Adam brothers and a regular stop for a guide with a better than superficial knowledge of the City, but a tucked away street off the Bayswater Road.

A tucked away street with a history, the home for many years – at 6a-10 Frederick Close - of a musical instrument factory, but now refurbished under the ownership of The Church Commissioners to provide superior residential apartments.

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Adolph Sax

Boosey and Hawkes

guided walks

Samuel Pepys Cockerell

The Brassworks

The Church Commissioners

Tony Blair

Tyburnia