Newsletter No 76 May 2013_20pp

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

2013

Tuesday, 9 July St Clement Danes

Church, The Strand 6pm

Our 113th AGM will be held in St Clement Danes,

the Central Church of the Royal Air Force. Standing

opposite the Royal Courts of Justice at the end of

the Strand, the church was built by Christopher

Wren in 1680-82, burnt down by the Luftwaffe on

10

May

1941

and

then

abandoned

until

reconsecrated as the RAF church in October 1958.

Former parishioners included Samuel Johnson,

David Garrick, James Boswell, Edmund Burke and

the poet John Donne.

In accord with its role the church has books of

remembrance on display containing more than

150,000 names; nearly 900 squadron and unit

badges made of slate are set into the floor; and a

range of RAF colours and squadron standards hang

in the church. Members will be able to visit the crypt

with its coffin plates and chain to prevent body

snatchers from stealing coffins. A range of impressive

seventeenth century plate is also on display.

Refreshments will be served in the church from

about 5.15pm and the meeting will start at 6.00pm.

Members are entitled to bring one guest.

AGENDA

1.

Minutes of the 112th AGM.

2.

Annual Report of the Council for 2012.

3.

Accounts for 2012.

4.

Hon. Editor’s Report.

5.

Election of Council officers and members.

6.

Proposals by Members.

7.

Any other business.

Items 1, 2 and 3 can be found in this

Newsletter (see pp.18-19)

Following the AGM, Robert Thomson will talk

about the index he compiled for this year’s

Publication; Elizabeth Williamson, the Editor of

the Victoria County History, will tell us about

the research her team is doing on the registers

of the church, and Blue Badge Guide Peter

Anderson will talk about the history of the

building.

How to get there

The church is at the east end of the Strand,

between Aldwych and the Royal Courts of Justice.

Tube: The nearest underground station is Temple

(Circle/District

Lines)

–

Holborn

Station

(Piccadilly/Central Lines) is also walkable.

Buses: (alight at Aldwych or at the Royal Courts of

Justice) – more than twenty routes stop here with

Nos 9 & 15 running heritage Routemaster buses.

Facilities

There is very limited disabled off-street parking at

the entrance to the church. Please contact Mike

Wicksteed (mike.wicksteed@btinternet.com).

The church’s toilet facilities are also limited, so it

is strongly recommended that members make a pit

stop before arriving at the church. For anyone

caught short there is a disabled toilet in the church

(off the verger’s office) and there’s a pub, The

George, across the road.

Around St Clement Danes

The present junction of Aldwych and the Strand

belongs with the creation of Kingsway in 1905, but

recent archaeological investigations have shown

that the Aldwych area has a most interesting older

history. As the name suggests, it was the site of the

Middle Saxon trading port of Lundenwic (the

discoveries are described in a brand new

publication by Museum of London Archaeology).

More recent places of interest nearby include:

The Royal Courts of Justice (9.00am – 4.30pm,

entry off the Strand); the Roman Bath, 5 Strand

Lane (to arrange a viewing between 11.00am –

3.00pm. Email: dcreese@westminster.gov.uk [best]

or phone Mr David Creese on 020 7641 5264);

Twinings Tea Museum & Shop (opposite the RCJ);

Fountain Place at Middle Temple (to rest your feet if

it’s a sunny day); Sir John Soane’s Museum, 12-13

Lincoln’s Inn Fields; and Dr Johnson’s House at 17

Gough Square off Fleet Street.

Middle Temple Hall: Up to 5.30pm if you tell the

porter you’re an LTS member – and there isn’t a

function taking place – you will be able to view the

Hall at Middle Temple, built between 1562 and

1573 and which remains virtually unchanged to

this day having survived the Great Fire of London

and both World Wars.

Newsletter

Number 76

May 2013

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Notes and News

This year’s publication, No.174, which will be ready

for collection at the AGM, is The A-Z of Charles II’s

London, 1682, London Actually Survey’d by William

Morgan, a valuable record of the rebuilt City

emerging after the Great Fire. Work is already in

hand

on

next

year’s

exciting

publication:

provisional title ‘Les Singularitez de Londres’. It is a

description of London in a manuscript at the

Vatican, never before published in full, which dates

from 1577, and so precedes Stow’s famous Survey.

Note from the Treasurer. HMRC, formerly known

as the Inland Revenue, requires me to point out to

all members who Gift Aid their payments to the

Society that you must pay enough income tax

and/or capital gains tax in any tax year to cover all

the tax on all your payments made under the Gift

Aid scheme in that year which the various charities

will reclaim for that tax year. If this ceases to be the

case, or if you have any question, please contact

me.

This requirement to all charities has been made

because the model Gift Aid Declaration supplied by

the Inland Revenue and which you signed when

joining the Gift Aid scheme only referred to paying

enough tax to cover your donation to this society

and not to all your gift aided charitable payments.

If you do not yet gift aid your subscription

payments you can download a Gift Aid declaration

from the How to Join section of the website or

obtain one from me.

– Roger Cline

News from the London Metropolitan

Archives

The Archives of the Cubitt Estates are an

important record of the great nineteenth century

squares and estates developed by Thomas Cubitt

(1788-1855), one of London’s leading master

builders. A catalogue of the ten volumes of rentals

and leasebooks of the Cubitt estates held by LMA

has recently been completed. However, these are

not the whole story: at a recent auction 537 further

volumes of Cubitt estate records came under the

hammer, but LMA was unable to secure them and

they

were

sold

for

£1,700.

Their

current

whereabouts is unknown. Anyone with further

information should contact the LMA.

Christ’s Hospital and St Paul’s Cathedral

Archives, previously stored at the Guildhall, were

transferred in February to the LMA at 40

Northampton Road, Clerkenwell. In future all

consultation of these archives will take place at

LMA. For further information contact the LMA by

email at ask.lma@cityoflondon.gov.uk or telephone

020 7332 3820.

Members should note that the LMA Newsletter is

an excellent way of keeping up to date with the

LMA’s exhibitions, activities and acquisitions.

A future for Britain’s postal heritage. In 2016,

provided funds can be secured this year, a new

postal museum will open at Mount Pleasant, giving

access to every British stamp issued since 1840

and more than 70,000 artefacts. The museum will

be the cultural hub of a Royal Mail masterplan of

680 homes, offices and retail space, and an

international destination for the study of postal

communications, telling how postal services

transformed world history over 400 years.

Miscellanea. It is always good to learn that the

Newsletter inspires readers to seek out and share

new sources of information. Michael Major, a recent

member, draws attention to the interactive map

called ‘Bomb Sight’ which was devised by a

team from the University of Portsmouth using

data

from

the

National

Archives.

See

www.bombsight.org/#15/51.5050/-0.0900 and the

BBC History reference at www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-

england-london-20637222

Another tip from our member Derek Morris, the

historian of East London, who reminds us that an

increasing number of land tax and insurance

records for London in the eighteenth century are

now available online. Derek makes good use of

these in his recent article, ‘The Shadwell Waterfront

in the Eighteenth Century’, by Derek Morris and

Kenneth Cozens, The Mariner’s Mirror, 99, issue I,

2013, pp.86-91. The article can currently be

accessed on line at www.tandfonline.com/eprint/

XXKHs4qKJbpii5bdrQAJ/full, and under the open

access rules applied by Taylor and Francis, the

publishers, up to 50 free reprints of the article are

available.

page 2

The statue of Dr Johnson outside St Clement Danes, the gift of the

sculptor Percy Fitzgerald, was erected by the Rev. Septimus

Pennington in 1910, whose forbear had been a curate in Johnson’s

time

And here is another website reference sent in by

Patrick

Frazer:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

newstopics/howaboutthat/9885753/Worlds-

largest-panoramic-images-captures-London-at-its-

best.html – which will lead you to an amazing

panoramic view of London.

If you want to experience your own panoramic

view you can visit the Mayor’s room on the

seventeenth floor of Westminster City Hall, Victoria

Street on 26 June 2013, where the well-known

historian of medieval art, Dr Nicola Coldstream

FSA, is giving a talk to the Westminster History

Society on Imagery and Cult at the shrine of St

Edward the Confessor. 7pm. Tickets £10, including

a glass of wine. Available in advance or at the

event –

information from Judith Warner –

jwarner.westminster@hotmail.com

The WHS is a supporters’ group of the Victoria

County History, and the profits from their

activities go toward the VCH’s current research on

Westminster. For recent news on their work see

their website: www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/

counties/middlesex-london. Current work includes

a parish history of St Clement Danes, to be

published next year, probably as a print-on-

demand paperback, about which we will learn more

at our AGM (see p.1). LTS members may also be

interested in the final seminar of the VCH’s Locality

and Region series. (www.victoriacountyhistory.

ac.uk/learning/seminar) which will take place on

4-6 July.

While the VCH is concerned with historic

Westminster which grew up around the palace and

abbey, the northern area of the modern borough,

which originated as the parish (later Borough) of St

Marylebone, is being tackled by the Survey of

London. The Survey still hopes to have a future,

but owing to the savage cuts to English Heritage’s

budget, it will increasingly need to look for financial

help from elsewhere. Meanwhile its recent

publications provide evidence of its current energy

and value: the splendid new Woolwich volume is

reviewed in this issue; Battersea will follow in the

autumn.

Less happy news about the long established Blue

Plaques scheme, founded by the Royal Society of

Arts in 1866, and taken over successively by the

LCC, GLC and English Heritage. The Plaque budget

has been halved, staff cut from five to two, the

advisory panel of eminent members suspended and

for the next two years the annual number of

plaques will be reduced from twelve to six. Whether

the scheme has a future beyond 2015 is unclear. If

you feel strongly about the survival of this much

loved London institution you may like to write to

Simon Thurley, chief executive of EH (and an LTS

member),

or

to

the

chair

of

the

EH

Commisssioners, Baroness Andrews. The excellent

English Heritage Blue Plaque website has much

fascinating material on the plaques and the people

they commemorate. One of the latest to be erected

is on 67-70 Great Russell Street, the creation and

briefly the home of the architect, John Nash, the

subject of a new book reviewed in this issue (see

p.13). Nash lived here for a few years in part of an

ambitious development, designed in 1777-8, when

he was only 25. The smart all-over stucco

treatment was then a novelty, and although it

bankrupted him at the time, the terrace can be

seen as a harbinger of the architect’s future work.

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Exhibitions

The 150th anniversary of the underground is

celebrated by Poster Art 150 – London Underground’s

Greatest Designs, at London Transport Museum,

Covent Garden (February to October 2013). 150 of

its greatest underground posters demonstrate how

London Underground developed a worldwide

reputation for commissioning outstanding designs.

London Underground by Design, by Mark Ovenden

(Penguin, £20), packed with information and

illustrations, also covers signage and buildings,

flagging up the many ways in which underground

design has transformed the appearance of London.

The definitive anniversary publication is the

informative and well-illustrated Underground, how

the tube shaped London, by David Bownes, Oliver

Green and Sam Mullins, 2013 (Allen Lane, £25).

London Underground Stations is a large glossy

picture book by Stephen Durnin (2010, Capital

Transport

Publishing,

£25)

while

London

Underground, Architecture Design and History, by

David Long, has elegantly restrained black and white

photographs by Jane Magarigal (The History Press,

£18.99).

page 3

67-70 Great Russell Street, with plaque to John Nash

Should you tire of railways, Highways, at the

Museum of London (to 16 June), a free exhibition

in the entrance hall, displays six out of sixteen

photographs commissioned by the Museum, taken

in 2003 by John Davies, on the eve of the

introduction of the congestion charge. They form

part of Davies’s project ‘Metropoli’. The large scale

and intricate detail demonstrate only too clearly the

surrounding muddle that develops around major

routes such as the Hammersmith flyover and the

Blackwall Tunnel approach.

Painted Faces

is a free exhibition at the

Guildhall Art Gallery (to 9 December), taking a

fresh look at a range of portraits from the gallery’s

permanent collection, some of which have not been

on display before.

London’s green spaces

London

Landscapes

33

(Spring

2013),

the

instructive Newsletter of the London Parks and

Gardens Trust, includes a fascinating article by

John Goodier which will be of special appeal to LTS

members. It records his explorations of the areas

coloured green on John Tallis’s Map of London and

its Environs, 1851. Why some open spaces are

green and others not is often puzzling. Discussion

of details of lost sites and their later fates range

from the Surrey Zoological Gardens in south

London to Belsize and Tufnell Parks, once private

parks on the slopes of Hampstead.

If you are keen on exploring today’s open spaces

do not miss the annual Open Garden Squares

Weekend, 8-9 June 2013, this year organised by

the LPGT together with the National Trust, when

220 gardens will be participating. For details see

www.opensquares.org

Changing London

As one walks over Hungerford Bridge toward the

South Bank, the sharp outline of the distant Shard

appears in the gap between the Royal Festival Hall

and the jagged profiles of the Queen Elizabeth Hall

and Hayward Gallery. That gap may in future be filled

by a bold new Festival Wing whose main feature

would be a raised glass box soaring high beside the

Hayward’s spiky roof. The box, or ‘pavilion’, would

contain a rehearsal and activities space, approached

by a grand stair opposite the old entrance to the

Festival Hall. At ground level, the present dismal

service area would be replaced by a ‘heritage and

archive centre’, and a new space is promised for the

‘urban arts’, catering for the skateboarders who

currently use the area beneath the concert hall. An

additional building alongside Waterloo Bridge would

provide room for cafés and restaurants.

These ingenious proposals follow on from the

refurbishment of the Festival Hall in 2007 and the

re-creation of the Jubilee Gardens beyond

Hungerford Bridge. They represent a determined

effort by the Southbank Centre to improve their

incomparable riverside site, accepting the existing

distinctive 1960s buildings but expanding their

facilities and making better use of the spaces

around them. At present the scheme is only a set of

ideas (no detailed drawings and no funding for

building yet available). You are invited to comment

on them at a display on the ground floor of the

Royal Festival Hall. When you are there, do not

miss an excellent small exhibition nearby about the

1951 Festival of Britain, with photographs,

drawings and reminiscences of this significant

event which not only inaugurated the use of the

south bank for cultural purposes but had a far-

reaching influence on post-war design.

A rather different case of incorporating the old

within a new setting is demonstrated by the

rebuilding on the site of the Regent Palace Hotel,

now complete, which featured in ‘Changing London’

in Newsletter 70 (May 2010). Part of the ground

floor of the triangular site between Sherwood St and

Glasshouse St just off Piccadilly is now occupied by

the Brasserie Zédel, with a pleasant café in the

French manner (retro posters and baguettes à

journaux) but the basement now houses the re-

created grill room and bars of the old hotel, the

latter remodelled in the 1930s by Oliver Bernard,

with fabulous original art deco light fittings and

decor. Well worth a look, as is the exterior of the

new building by Dixon Jones, with its discreet but

rich ceramic cladding (a different colour on each

front). On one corner the ‘green’ character of the

building is demonstrated by a clever light work,

Vital Signs by Spencer Finch, 2012, which ‘makes

visible the inner life and systems of the building by

translating data streams into bars of colour’; the

changing colours reflect power consumption, lift

activity, recycled rainwater usage, temperature

differential and fuel cell production.

Benjamin Franklin House –

a special offer

Craven Street, tucked away south of the Strand,

close to Charing Cross Station, was laid out in 1730

by Henry Flitcroft. It retains a fine sequence of

Georgian terrace houses, rescued from neglect in the

late 1980s. No. 36 was restored by Donald Insall &

Partners in 1997-8 for use as a museum, to

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New scheme for the South Bank

page 5

celebrate the life of its distinguished resident,

Benjamin Franklin (1706-90). Benjamin Franklin

House is now offering London Topographical Society

members ‘two for the price of one’ entry to its

Historical Experience and Architectural Tours over

the next year (to end of May 2014. Take your copy

of this Newsletter with you). Claire Smith, front of

house and marketing supervisor, explains here

what is on offer.

Benjamin Franklin House is the only remaining

residence of Franklin anywhere in the world. Built

c.1730, it was home to Franklin – scientist,

diplomat, philosopher, inventor, US Founding

Father, and more – for nearly 16 years between

1757 and 1775. We opened as a dynamic museum

and education facility in January 2006, on

Franklin’s 300th birthday, and are dedicated to

telling Franklin’s little-known London story. The

House holds a Grade I listing in acknowledgment of

its famous former resident as well as a significant

number of original architectural features.

Our main public offering is the Historical

Experience which takes place Wednesday – Sunday

(12-5pm). Lasting approximately 45 minutes, the

show uses the House’s historic rooms as staging for a

drama which incorporates live performance, sound,

lighting, and visual projection to bring Franklin and

the House to life. Every Monday we feature

Architectural Tours showcasing the building’s

Georgian features, and those from other periods, and

its evolution over the last nearly 300 years.

We also have

a modern glass

armonica,

m u s i c a l

i n s t r u m e n t

F r a n k l i n

invented while

living

at

Craven Street.

M o z a r t ,

Beethoven and

Gluck

all

composed for

the armonica.

We can end

either

the

H i s t o r i c a l

Experience

or

Architectural

Tour

with

demonstration of the instrument, giving guests a

chance to play it themselves.

For details of the extensive events programme see

the Events section of our website for more details.

Benjamin Franklin House is open six days per week

(Monday, Wednesday – Sunday; Tuesdays we are

open exclusively to schools free of charge). Both the

Historical Experience and Architectural Tours run

five times per day at 12.00pm, 1.00pm, 2.00pm,

3.15pm and 4.15pm. Admission to the Historical

Experience is £7 per person, with a concessionary

rate of £5 per person for students and over 65s.

Architectural Tours are £3.50 per person.

King George III’s Topographical

Collections

The sole known complete set of Thomas Milne’s

land-use survey maps of London of 1800,

Hawksmoor’s autograph plan of Christchurch,

Spitalfields, the sole surviving manuscript plan for

Robert Adam’s Adelphi development and the set of

annotated plans for proposed London docks, that

were sent to George III in the hope of influencing

him, must be among the star items in last year’s

LTS publication London: A History in Maps.

It is not generally realised that they form part of

King George III’s Topographical Collection. There

are more than 30 items from the Collection in the

book and I could have included so many more had

space allowed. It covers the whole world and the

heavens in 250 volumes, with numerous separate

but associated atlases and books of views. With

approximately 50,000 maps, atlases and books of

views dating from the 1540s to 1824, the

Collection has few competitors anywhere in terms

of rarity, beauty and research interest. Yet it is

virtually unknown as an entity even to map

specialists.

There are about 15 thick volumes relating to

London and its suburbs alone, including printed

and manuscript maps, watercolours, manuscript

architectural plans, engravings and magnificently-

coloured aquatints. They rub shoulders with the

most delightful ephemera – adverts, annual reports

and printed passes. Part of the material, such as

plans relating to grass-cutting in the gardens of

Kensington Palace, have a royal provenance, in

some cases going as far back as 1660 and, in the

case of a manuscript plan of the River Thames in

1588, even earlier. Others such as manuscript

proposals for improving the defences of Tilbury Fort

are state papers that caught George’s fancy when

crossing his desk in the course of his duties. Some

of the most magnificent items were presented to

him by their creators. And many maps and views

again were acquired by his librarians, knowing the

King’s interests, at auctions or from dealers. Unlike

his other collections which were assembled by

experts, the Topographical Collection was George’s

hobby. Not only did he actively acquire maps, plans

and views himself, but he kept the collection in the

room immediately next to his bedroom in

Buckingham House. It came to the British Museum

in the 1820 as a donation from George IV.

The Collection was last catalogued in 1829, and

now the British Library intends to re-catalogue,

conserve and digitise it and to share it with the

world. Eventually we hope to add the King’s

Maritime Collection so that both can be virtually

reunified with George III’s Military Collection,

which remains in the Royal Library in Windsor.

While in better days the Library could depend on

its grant-in-aid for this, it is now having to look to

private sources. In the case of the parts of the

Collection relating to Great Britain – about 40% of

the whole – we are hoping to rely on local

enthusiasm both to raise the money and to provide

the sort of specialist knowledge that only locals

possess to help in the cataloguing. Even small

sums would help and if you go to the British

Library’s website at www.support.bl.uk/Page/

Current-Projects you will find a straightforward

way of contributing. Please do!

– Peter Barber

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London Explorations –

3: Hampstead Heath – east to west

We all know ’Appy ’Ampstead ’eath – or do we?

Tony Aldous’s third London Exploration aims, in

tracking east-west from Highgate to Golders Hill, to

take in some of the lesser known features of the

Heath and associated open spaces, including a

towering Tudorbethan acropolis built to house single

working women, and Lord Leverhulme’s spectacular

Pergola, raised on Doric columns, which gave his

house, The Hill, splendid views over the fields of

west Middlesex. Numbers in the text refer to the

map (drawn by Ivor Kamlish).

We start at Lauderdale House (1), whose front

gate is in Highgate High Street. Buses 210, 271 and

143 from Archway tube station stop just outside.

The house looks eighteenth century, but a Georgian

makeover disguises a much earlier timber-framed

building. It is named after the Duke of Lauderdale,

friend and associate of Charles II, who borrowed it

for Nell Gwynne’s use. Restored after a 1963 fire, it

is now an arts and community centre. Go round it

left, passing a plaque recording an earlier 1893

renovation, to a nice little café (closed Mondays)

and terrace looking down over lakes and lawns.

The grounds are now Waterlow Park (2), given with

the house in 1889 by sometime Lord Mayor Sir

Sidney Waterlow to the London County Council, to

be ‘a garden for the garden-less’.

page 6

Lauderdale House

Descend past the lakes to a gate into Swains

Lane, and turn left to pass between the gates to

Highgate’s East and West Cemeteries (3). Then,

50 yards on, turn right through white gates into

Oakeshott Avenue and the beginnings of the Holly

Lodge Estate (4). This stretch of land between

Swains Lane and Highgate West Hill belonged to

Coutts Bank heiress, philanthropist and social

reformer Baroness (Angela) Burdett-Coutts. After

the deaths of her and her husband, the land was

put up for sale but was seen as remote from

London and did not immediately sell. This part of

it, with four- and five-storey half-timbered blocks,

was developed in the 1920s by Lady Workers’

Homes Limited, with flatlets for single women

drawn to London to work as clerks and typists.

They did not live in luxury: cooking facilities were

meagre and lady workers shared bathrooms.

At the junction of Oakeshott Avenue and Hillway,

turn left downhill with another long view over

central London, and half-timbered detached

houses; then second right into Langbourne Avenue

and thus out through more white gates to Highgate

West Hill. Go straight across into Millfield Lane and

thus to the Heath and Highgate Ponds (5). Six in

number, these are strung out along a tributary of

the River Fleet and include a pond for boats, one

for birds, one for fish, one for men to swim in and

one for women. Only in one of the Hampstead

Ponds half a mile west are they permitted to bathe

together.

The ponds are impounded by raised banks or

dams with paths across them and are technically

‘reservoirs’, subject to safety checks. A problem for

the City of London Corporation which, since 1989,

has managed the Heath and some adjoining public

open spaces. It has recently been warned that

increased danger of flash flooding requires it to

reinforce and enlarge the banks. Locals are sceptical,

but if such works are to happen, they want the

finished appearance to be as natural as possible,

and for the ponds to look much as they do now.

Follow the eastern side of three ponds, paralleling

Millfield Lane, then, near the junction with

Merton Lane, turn left across the causeway

between Bird Pond and Boating Pond (6) and join

a westerly path which soon skirts woodland to your

right. This becomes part of an avenue of limes,

and at its crossroads with what is now the Heath’s

main east-west cycle path is a

plaque (7)

commemorating its replanting after the great storm

of 1987. The storm occurred in the hiatus between

the abolition of the Greater London Council, which

had previously administered the Heath, and the

City of London Corporation’s assumption of that

task. In the interim a little loved and largely

unsung organisation, the London Residuary Body,

was responsible – and it set in train the replanting.

Turn right along what is now the cycle path and

reach The Viaduct (8), which straddles Viaduct

Pond and seems, in more senses than one, ‘over the

top’. Why build such a structure in the middle of

nowhere? Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, landowner

and nineteenth century lord of the manor, planned

to build 28 grand villas along an access road of

which the viaduct formed a key link. Unfortunately

for him –

but fortunately for posterity – its

foundations repeatedly collapsed. By the time it

was satisfactorily completed, impetus for the

development had fizzled out.

Crossing over the bridge, follow the cycle path

round to the right, then fork right on to a track

over the smaller Bird Bridge (9), then follow

unpaved track round with upper pond on right to

return almost to the Viaduct. Then left, back to the

lime avenue and right along it to The Pryors (10),

an imposing mansion block. Here turn right along

path which veers away from East Heath Road and

passes a children’s playground (right). On with

woods to the right and we shortly come to Vale of

Health Pond (11). Continue with the pond on your

left and turn left at the end of a fence to pass The

page 7

Lady Workers’ Homes, Holly Park

Vale of Health

Gables, a rather grand nineteenth century terrace

facing the Heath. At its end, turn left and you are

in the heart of a little, hidden-away hamlet, the

Vale of Health (12). Until the 1770s, this was a

rather nasty swamp with only a couple of dwellings;

then the Hampstead Water Company drained the

marsh and created the present pond as a reservoir.

In the nineteenth century the Vale began to attract

Londoners seeking fresher air than London’s,

including poet Leigh Hunt who entertained friends

including Keats, Shelley and Hazlitt; also Byron

whose time here is celebrated in Byron Villas ahead

of us. Twentieth century residents included D. H.

Lawrence (Blue Plaque) and. on your right facing a

small triangle of trees, another blue plaque to the

Indian poet/philosopher Rabindranath Tagore.

Part of the Vale’s twenty-first century appeal is

that it has only one road in and out, so no through

traffic – though several charming footpaths and

alleys, one of which we find just to the left of the

Tagore house. At a lamppost, turn left to Heath

edge again; left once more through a metal barrier,

then look for a rough track leading up to wooden

steps between gorse bushes. Continue ahead to

Spaniards Road (13). Looking right you see that

this road is raised like a causeway above the Heath.

It wasn’t always so: Maryon Wilson again!

Frustrated in his development plans, he let out this

part of the Heath for sand and gravel extraction.

Turn left and cross a zebra to Jack Straw’s

Castle (14) and nearby Whitestone Pond, highest

on the Heath. Jack Straw’s Castle was a famous –

perhaps notorious – coaching inn, named after the

Jack Straw who led the Peasants’ Revolt. The

present building, however – strikingly cream-

coloured, castellated and timber-clad – dates only

from 1964, a witty pastiche by architect Raymond

Erith. It is no longer a pub.

Turn right in front of the building along North

End Way, skirting a grassy area to your left. As this

reaches a wall, turn left along a path and enter the

gateway to The Hill and its Pergola (15). Climb up

spiral steps and explore. This was the work of soap

millionaire William Lever (1851-1925). Lever, later

Lord Leverhulme, bought a grand house The Hill

which, as Inverforth House, still stands alongside.

He then had eminent landscape architect Thomas

Mawson (1861-1933) design him extensive gardens

on a sloping site facing south and west; then, to

give a better view over the Middlesex countryside

towards Harrow, using spoil from the construction

of the tube extension from Hampstead to Golders

Green, Mawson constructed this spectacular

pergola, 800ft long and turning through several

angles, with a belvedere for viewing (on a fine day)

the spire of Harrow church. It even has a public

right of way threaded in under it.

Inverforth House became a convalescent home;

then, in the 1980s, developers proposed to convert

it into very up-market flats. After some haggling, a

deal was done: the scheme could go ahead and the

flats have the use of an adjacent part of

Leverhulme’s gardens; the public would get the

rest. The City Corporation, which administers the

adjacent West Heath, took it on and, in 1992, had

it splendidly restored. And you can still, on a fine

day, see Harrow church on its hill in the distance.

Just before the final western viewing point, look

for steps down on to a terrace above the gardens’

ornamental pool. Follow this round and exit the Hill

by a gate on to heath land. Go ahead and left to

rustic steps leading down to a gate into Golders

Hill Park (16)

and its deservedly popular

Refreshment House with its sunny south-facing

terrace. Thereafter you have a choice: either a bus

from just outside the park gates to Golders Green,

Archway and Hampstead tube stations; or wander

down through the park, noting hedgerows retained

as reminders that this was countryside, to a gate

into West Heath Avenue. Turn right into its

northern leg, then left at North End Way to reach

Golders Green tube.

l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l

page 8

The Pergola, The Hill

Circumspice

Who lived here? Where is this building? See p.11.

Why 99 years?

London leases are a baffling subject, but crucial if

one is trying to understand how and why London

developed as it did. Frank Kelsall, the author of this

contribution, formerly a member of the GLC Historic

Buildings Division (later part of English Heritage),

has a longstanding interest in the history of the

London house. He comments that the thoughts

below represent only a cursory attempt to answer

the question at the head of this note. Contributions

and comments from those with experience of

researching London’s leasehold system, or a more

clear-headed understanding of the land law would

be very welcome.

It has just been announced that West Ham

United Football Club is to have a 99-year lease of

the Olympic Stadium. Whether or not the stadium

should be let for football may be a matter of

controversy but no-one seems to have considered

why, if let, a lease of this length was appropriate.

That much of London was built on 99-year leases is

a broad generalisation but probably one which

most historians of the development of London

would accept. Simon Jenkins, in Landlords to

London, says that there were seven times as many

leasehold houses as freeholds but doesn’t discuss

the length of the leases. Simpson’s Introduction to

the History of the Land Law says that ‘the longest

customary period for a lease…. is the building

lease, customarily fixed in the nineteenth century

at 99 years’. In many places in London the effect of

the 99-year lease can be seen very clearly. In

Russell Square, for instance, houses on the south

side, built in 1800 by James Burton, were dressed

up with new fashionable terra-cotta mouldings in

1899.

Donald Olsen’s Town Planning in London set out a

general pattern which showed that the customary

length of building leases increased from the

seventeenth to the eighteenth century but

contracted somewhat toward the close of the

nineteenth. Olsen said that Covent Garden was

built in the 1630s on 31-year leases; 61-year leases

were common on the Bloomsbury estate in the

early eighteenth century followed by 80-year and

then 99-year leases. But by the 1880s, although

99-year leases were still granted in the outskirts of

London, there was a tendency to offer shorter

terms, of 80 years or even less. Olsen noted that

the leases for Bedford Square, under building

agreements of 1776, were the first 99-year leases

on the Bedford Estate.

Not all landowners went over to 99-year leases as

early as the Duke of Bedford and it may be that the

99-year term was not as general in either time or

place as is commonly supposed. Heather Warne’s

2010 printed catalogue of the Duke of Norfolk’s

London and Middlesex deeds at Arundel Castle,

mainly relating to the Arundel House site in the

Strand, shows that an estate act of 1671 gave

powers to make leases of up to 60 years but that

most of the leases granted under contracts of

October 1676 were for 41 years. Further estate acts

of 1724 and 1783 granted renewed powers to make

60-year leases and it was not until a new act of

1846 that 99-year leases were authorised.

More detailed study, especially in the pages of the

Survey of London, can refine Olsen’s pattern. In

Covent Garden in the 1630s the early 31-year

leases noted by Olsen were quickly followed by

longer terms, including 41-year leases for the

colonnaded Piazza houses. The first leases for

Bloomsbury Square (in the 1660s, before it came

into the Bedford Estate) were for 42 years. Most of

London built in the last third of the seventeenth

century was on 61-year leases: the many leases

scheduled in the trust deed for Nicholas Barbon’s

fire insurance company in 1683 (mainly the Essex

House site in the Strand, Wellclose east of the

Tower and the Artillery Ground in Spitalfields) were

almost uniformly of that length. That this term may

be in line with what Parliament thought was

appropriate may be seen not only in the private

acts for the Arundel House site but also in the acts

for rebuilding the City after the Great Fire which

first gave the Fire Court the power to extend leases

by 40 years and then to order any term not

exceeding 60 years. The lease tables in the Survey

of London show that a term of about 60 years

remained adequate for building on the Burlington

Estate and Sackville Street, with leases dating from

1719 onwards; but the leases for the Argyll Street

area, built in the later 1730s, show slightly longer

terms of between 66 and 69 years.

That by c.1720 the 61-term was thought perhaps

a bit too short is shown by the 1713 agreement

made for the development of part of Millfield (on

which the area around the east side of Hanover

Square was built) where building sites were let in

pairs by the Earl of Scarbrough (up to Lady Day

1750) and by Joseph Jolly, a stone merchant, who

added a further 30 years. Such arrangements have

some precedent in the seventeenth century; for

example Barbon did not begin development of the

Harpur Trust Estate in Holborn, which he had

acquired under an existing lease expiring in 1709,

until in 1684 he had added a reversionary lease

page 9

Russell Square, south side

taking his term to 1760. This argument is strongest

in the case of the Grosvenor Estate where an estate

act of 1711 limited leases which Sir Richard

Grosvenor could make on the parts of the estate in

which his mother (a lunatic) had a life interest to

60 years; after development began in 1720 a trust

deed of 1721 and a further estate act of 1726 were

needed to facilitate leases of up to 99 years though

not all early leases were of this length. At the same

time as the 99-year building lease seems to make

its first significant appearance in Mayfair similar

terms were being granted on Lord Harley’s

Marylebone property (now the Howard de Walden

Estate) following a 1719 estate act. So when the

Duke of Bedford adopted 99-year leases in

Bloomsbury in the 1770s he was following a

precedent established half a century before.

When Sir John Soane gave his lectures on

architecture at the Royal Academy he was critical of

speculative leasehold building: “It will eventually

destroy all relish for substantial construction and

finally root out every vestige of good architecture.”

He echoed Isaac Ware’s view that ‘the nature of

tenures in London has introduced the art of

building slightly’. Such attacks on the leasehold

system were common and lay, at least in part,

behind the need for Parliament to look at urban

estates at the end of the nineteenth century. Then

leaseholds were vigorously and successfully

defended. There are now thousands of listed

buildings in London built on leasehold which have

outlived their original term by a substantial period,

in some cases several times over. Olsen’s work has

shown that the survival of buildings has depended

more on location and management than on the

initial

quality

of

construction

and

design.

Nevertheless it may be reasonable to argue that at

least up to the 1720s leases got longer because of a

simple proposition: the longer the interest in the

land the more likely it was that the house would be

well designed and well built by the tenant. The

portico houses in Covent Garden had longer first

leases than those in the side streets. Many of the

houses built on short leases in the 1630s were

ruinous and rebuilt in the 1670s, and when

Bedford House was demolished the houses built on

its site in 1706-14 had 61-year leases.

What lay behind this leap from a ‘norm’ of 61

years to one of 99 years, which clearly took place

earlier than Simpson had thought? It would be

difficult to argue that the longer period was

necessary for aesthetic or structural reasons when

houses of comparable quality were being built more

or less simultaneously on both Burlington and

Grosvenor Estates. Mireille Galinou’s recent book

on St John’s Wood shows that the 1794 master

plan for the Eyre Estate proposed 99-year leases

but that the first building leases were for only 59

years. She makes a novel suggestion that this may

have been because St John’s Wood houses were

secondary rather than main residences. But the

length of lease had some financial implications, as

is shown by the fact that in 1807 the estate was

prepared to extend a term of 73 years to 99 in

return for a payment of £100. James Anderson’s

research on the development of a market in

improved ground rents shows that as an

investment there was very little difference between

the two terms; he quotes the evidence of Edward

Ryde to the Select Committee on Town Holdings in

1886 that shorter leases are no disincentive to a

developer, but suggests that longer terms may have

had an appeal, especially to novice investors, to

justify higher multiples, often described as ‘years

purchase’ in the sale of ground rents. (Copies of

Anderson’s thesis are in Westminster and Camden

local history collections.)

So

if

structural,

aesthetic

and

financial

considerations are not compelling reasons behind a

99-year term what else could there be? One

explanation may be that to some extent landowners

were in competition with each other to secure

developers and builders, especially reliable ones, as

London was expanding in all directions, and

especially to the fashionable west. 99-year building

leases seem first to have appeared on the

Grosvenor and Harley Estates when they were right

at the fringe of the built-up area. It is not easy now

to think that these areas may have seemed

marginal in the 1720s, but both estates took a long

time to complete until well into the second half of

the eighteenth century. Offering longer leases may

have been one way of attracting the best builders.

In the nineteenth century Thomas Cubitt built

almost exclusively on 99-year leases.

Establishing how long building leases evolved

does not explain why the term which became so

general was 99 years. It was clearly a conveyancing

convention. Such terms existed in the seventeenth

century. When Barbon built the Essex House site

he had to accept an existing lease made in 1666 of

the

house

built

for

Lord

Keeper

Orlando

Bridgeman; this was for three lives or 99 years.

Christopher Chalklin (in the Provincial Towns of

Georgian England) quotes a Bath Corporation lease

of 1763 for a similar term of 99 years or three lives.

The rapid expansion of London in the seventeenth

century needed a legal framework to support house

building; perhaps the most notable example of this

is the equity of redemption which became a key to

the mortgages which underpinned most building.

In the thirteenth century the jurist Bracton had

said that ‘a tenement cannot be called free which

he possesses for a certain number of years’ even if

this was for a hundred years ‘which exceeds the life

of man’. Traditional leases for lives had a different

legal status to leases for specific terms. In a

business where there were many variables – costs

of labour and materials, interest rates and the

market for houses months or years after a

development was undertaken – at least one element

in the equation, the term of a building lease, could

be fixed. In the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries landowners, developers and builders

gradually perceived a need for longer leases even if

it was perfectly possible to build on shorter terms.

page 10

The change from the uncertainties of leases for

lives to the certainty of fixed terms benefited all

those who undertook urban building, but no-one

was prepared to commit themselves beyond

Bracton’s ‘life of man’. Was 99 years seen as the

equivalent of three lives?

– Frank Kelsall

l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l

Circumspice (see p.8)

Harrow Weald Common is an odd and enchanting

place, largely woodland with little streams and

bridges and, among the trees, intriguing humps

and bumps. Some of these undoubtedly result from

nineteenth century gravel digging, but some are

associated with a chain of ancient earthworks

known as Grim’s Dyke. It is near these that

woodland gives way to trim lawns, a sunken garden

and other well-kept garden features – and this

house.

Also called Grim’s Dyke, it was built in 1870-72

by

Norman

Shaw

for

painter

and

Royal

Academician Frederick Goodall to provide both a

studio and a place to entertain in. Its most famous

owner was, however, W. S. Gilbert of Savoy Opera

fame, who lived there from 1890 to 1911 and

enlarged and altered the building without altering

its powerful, high-chimneyed, red brick character.

He also converted the stable block into a home for

his collection of vintage motorcars.

Gilbert’s tenure ended in tragedy. Soon after

moving to Grim’s Dyke he had set about extending

an existing lake in the grounds, and for years swam

in it daily between May and September. On 29 May

1911 he was teaching two local girls to swim; one of

them got into difficulties and Gilbert went to her

rescue. He said: “Put your hands on my shoulder

and don’t struggle.” She did as he told her, but

then felt him sink under the water. He drowned.

The house, now a hotel, and its grounds have

been well restored and retain many features from

WSG’s time. It advertises itself as a ‘country retreat’

which – although it is just within Greater London –

seems justified: it is hidden away in well-wooded

Harrow Weald Common, which itself is set amidst

green belt fields. The hotel is something of a draw

for Gilbert & Sullivan devotees, and hosts G & S

themed events.

– Tony Aldous

Reviews

Survey of London, volume 48: Woolwich,

edited by Peter Guillery. Yale University Press,

2012. 516 pages, 469 illustrations.

ISBN 978 0 30018 722 9. £75.

Ian Nairn called Woolwich ‘a provincial centre that

has got embedded in London by mistake’ (Nairn’s

London,

1966).

With

its

secretive

military

establishments and its relative inaccessibility from

central London, Woolwich was terra incognita to

most Londoners then, and it still remains a place

apart. Now, however, as London moves eastwards,

and transport links improve – the Docklands Light

Railway now, Crossrail soon –

it may lose

something of its distinct character. What better

time, then, for the Survey of London, in its first

venture south of the river since 1956, to turn its

attention to its little-appreciated historical and

architectural riches?

London, it has often been remarked, is a

collection of villages, but it also encompasses

several towns. What makes Woolwich different

from, say, Enfield, Uxbridge and Croydon is its

manufacturing base and its strongly working-class

character, still immediately noticeable to anyone

emerging from Woolwich Arsenal station into the

open-air market of Beresford Square. As Peter

Guillery shows in this consistently fascinating and

readable volume, that character is inseparable from

the military presence, starting with a naval

dockyard in 1513, and continuing through the

establishment of the Arsenal in 1696 to the

building of the Royal Artillery barracks alongside

Woolwich Common in 1774-7 and its extension

during the Napoleonic Wars. Taken together, these

represent

one

of

the

most

impressive

agglomerations of military buildings in the country:

the

early

Arsenal

buildings

of

1716-23,

convincingly attributed here to Brigadier-General

Michael Richards of the Board of Ordnance; the

Royal Artillery Barracks, built in 1774-7 and later

extended by James Wyatt, who expanded the

Arsenal buildings during the Napoleonic Wars; and

John Nash’s extraordinary tent-roofed Rotunda,

first erected at Carlton House in 1814 but moved to

the ‘Repository’ – an artillery training ground – to

serve as a museum-cum-war memorial in 1820.

Squeezed between the riverside factories and the

barracks, the town itself was described in the

1840s as ‘the dirtiest, filthiest, and most

thoroughly mismanaged… of its size in the

kingdom’. But it grew more prosperous in the late

nineteenth century, acquiring in the process not

only its famous professional football team (at

Highbury since 1913) but also a superb Edwardian

Baroque Town Hall, opened in 1906 by Will Crooks,

the fourth Labour MP to be elected, and the

impressive brick and terracotta headquarters of

that monument of working-class mutual self-help,

the Royal Arsenal Co-Operative Society.

page 11

The deadline for contributions

to the next Newsletter is

16 October 2013.

Suggestions of books for review

should be sent to the Newsletter Editor;

contact details are on the back page.

Most readers will be drawn to the descriptions of

these architectural setpieces, but due attention is

also paid to housing. Woolwich could serve as a

microcosm of the rise and fall of post-war London

council building, from 1950s tenements through

the point blocks, slabs and system-built towers of

the 60s and early 70s to more recent ‘high density

low rise’ developments, several of them on the site

of demolished tower blocks. Other demolished

buildings are featured too, from the dockyard

‘Great Storehouse’ of c.1693 to the town’s three

theatres, its riverside power station, and even the

‘Autostacker’: an innovative multi-storey car park

that formed part of a comprehensive town-centre

redevelopment scheme of 1961 (its lift system did

not work, and it lasted only six years). And the

story is brought up to date with discussion of

recent changes in the town centre: England’s first

Macdonalds, opened in 1974, the conversion of the

Gaumont and Odeon cinemas of 1936-7 into

Pentecostalist churches, and the recent building of

what is claimed to be the largest Tesco store in

Europe on the site of a 1970s municipal office

block.

Like earlier Survey of London volumes, the book is

well supplied with plans, constructional diagrams,

photographs, and drawings, the latter by Peter

Cormack, a Geoffrey Fletcher de nos jours. In a

town where change has been frequent and often

sudden, some of the older photographs are

especially poignant, such as the 1960s pictures of

the spruce interior of the now sadly empty Art Deco

RACS store at the down-at-heel far end of Powis

Street, aptly called ‘the Ramblas of Woolwich’. With

its industrial base largely destroyed and a quarter

of its current population born outside the British

Isles, Woolwich has changed as much in recent

years as in any comparable period of its history,

but, while explaining and interpreting its past,

Guillery never loses sight of its present; his

description of the redeveloped Arsenal, for instance,

with its upmarket blocks of flats by Berkeley

Homes, as ‘a sterile dormitory framed by museums

and sheds’, is spot on. Anyone who wants to grasp

the relevance of architectural history to an

understanding of London’s past and present could

do much worse than to go to Woolwich, and, if so, it

is hard to imagine a better companion than this

hefty but magnificent volume.

– Geoffrey Tyack

The London Square, by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan.

Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in

British Art by Yale University Press, 2012. 334pp.

280 illus., col. and B&W, including maps.

ISBN 978 0 30015 201 2. £30.00.

Though Sir John Summerson, himself a trained

architect, was probably the first to recognise and

discuss the significance of the square in the

development of London, he was not the first to

recognise

its

importance.

Arthur

Dasent’s

magisterial volume on St James’s Square and its

inhabitants (1895) is still held in respect by the

Survey of London (volumes 29 and 30) – their editor

acknowledging in the few instances of disagreement

that Dasent might still be in the right – and

Beresford Chancellor’s History of the Squares of

London (1907) is still the first book which I would

take from the shelf if asked unexpectedly to lecture

at short notice, yet Todd Longstaffe-Gowan’s

handsome volume (Yale, 2012) is to be welcomed

for its own particular qualities – its scope, the

excellence

of

the

illustrations

and

its

comprehensiveness in coming right up to date.

After a short introduction, written to tempt the

reader to tackle this large and heavy volume, the

author begins in the obvious place, with Covent

Garden, and continues with Lincoln’s Inn. The

analysis

of

drawings,

etchings

and

maps

reproduced on pp.20–23 is fascinating; it is worth

having a magnifying glass to hand to appreciate the

detail. We continue with the reconstruction after

the Fire of 1666. The distinction is made between

residential and market squares. Attention is given

to the opportunity opened up for vistas from

squares on the edge of London such as the

windmill visible from Soho Square when looking

towards Ham[p]stead Hill (p.42); the deliberate

planting out of squares seems to begin with the

market

gardener,

Thomas

Fairchild,

who

recommends

honeysuckle

and

primroses

(illustrated p.49) besides other flowering shrubs – a

suggestion followed to this day with the Daphne

Odora which perfumes the churchyard of bombed

St Dunstan-in-the-East.

By Chapter 3, the squares begin to proliferate.

Perhaps space could have been found for a

reference to Jane Austen’s Emma when dealing

with Mecklenburg Square? But we rush on to post-

Napoleonic Wars development of Regent’s Park,

with Regent Street leading to Trafalgar Square. The

wealth of illustrations, many dug out from private

collections and obscure libraries, makes the high

price of the volume almost reasonable.

The last three chapters contain the most original

material. By the nineteenth century, London was

becoming more and more overcrowded. The

importance of the squares as ‘invaluable lung

space’ was recognised and the London County

Council made attempts to protect them, but the

spoiling of the squares began with the outbreak of

the 1939–45 war when railings were removed

wholesale (p.192), planting and pruning inevitably

neglected, and the bombs did the rest. Sir Patrick

Abercrombie’s

Plan

for

Redevelopment

was

prepared by 1943 – before the war had ended – but

restoration takes time, population fluctuated before

increasing, and styles of building changed with the

demands. Tower blocks loomed, destroying the

scale and proportions of the square and the gated

community began to appear.

This review could easily be two or three times as

long, but space forbids that. I can only advise all

the membership to get access – by fair means or

foul – to a copy of the book and in particular to

page 12

enjoy the illustrations which speak louder than the

words.

– Ann Saunders

London’s Statues and Monuments,

by Peter Matthews. Published by Shire Publications

Ltd. 248 pages with many photographs.

ISBN-13: 978 0 74780 798 8. £12.99.

The streets and parks of London are embellished

with hundreds of monuments and statues of the

renowned and sometimes of the long forgotten.

They come in all shapes and sizes and date from

different periods of history. A few are fictitious like

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (erected in 1912)

and at Great Ormond Street Hospital (2000). Others

are military figures who were once famous but are

now but names lost in the mists of time, especially

those of the late nineteenth century. Almost all are

of men and women who made their names at some

point in their lives. The majority have achieved

something noteworthy in their field and this is

recorded on their statues. From the small statue of

Henry VIII (c.1702) in the gatehouse of St

Bartholomew’s Hospital to the large statue of Nurse

Edith Cavell (1920), opposite the National Portrait

Gallery, each has a brief story to tell. The black

memorial to the Women of World War II is a tribute

to the work they did and was put up in 2005 in

Whitehall, a few yards from the great Portland

stone Cenotaph that commemorates all who died in

the two world wars. This was designed by Sir

Edwin Lutyens and unveiled on 11 November 1920

in front of the coffin of the Unknown Soldier before

it was taken to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

Peter Matthews, who compiled and photographed

the statues and monuments of the great and good

(two-thirds of them are illustrated), displays a lucid

and succinct style and also shows in many

instances a sense of humour. He is well-qualified to

do so as he worked at the London Tourist Board for

many years and now at the Museum of London. An

excellent guide.

– Denise Silvester-Carr

John Nash, Architect of the Picturesque,

edited by Geoffrey Tyack, English Heritage, 264pp,

90 ills. 2013, ISBN 978 1 84802 102 0. £50.00.

Geoffrey Tyack will be known to London historians

from his study of the Victorian architect James

Pennethorne, protégé and pupil of John Nash, the

subject of this handsome book. Nash’s reputation

has

had

something

of

a

switchback

ride.

Bankrupted by his early efforts as a developer in

London (see this Newsletter p.3), he retreated to

Wales where he built up a practice including

picturesque country villas; on his return to the

capital he became a prime mover in the radical

restructuring of the west end, but the patronage of

the unpopular Prince Regent was a doubtful asset;

by the 1830s Nash was reviled for the extravagance

of the alterations to Buckingham Palace. His stucco

frontages elsewhere were soon scorned by Victorian

purists, and in part replaced by more grandiose

creations by the Edwardians. Reappraisal of his

contribution

to

London

began

with

John

Summerson’s pioneering biography of 1935. This

handsome volume now brings together recent

scholarship on this versatile architect. Nash

emerges as a skilful opportunist, not only an adroit

town planner but, as the title of the book

emphasises, a master scene-creator both on a grand

scale and in a more intimate picturesque manner.

The book contains essays by different authors,

but builds into a satisfying whole, beginning with a

useful biographical summary by Geoffrey Tyack,

and ending with a list of Nash’s works. For

Londoners the chief interest starts with chapter 5,

where J. Mordaunt Crook unravels the numerous

designs for Regent’s Park, in which Nash became

involved through his appointment in 1806 to the

Office of Woods and Forests. Crook interprets

Nash’s first plan (1811) for the site as a rather

urban and exclusive suburb for the rich. But the

government

demanded

a

park,

and

Nash

pragmatically substituted a more picturesque

combination of park, terraces and villas (although

due to a slump only a few villas were built). The

introduction of picturesque qualities (which owed

much to his friendship with Uvedale Price, for

whom he built a villa at Aberystwyth) is particularly

pronounced in the two Park Villages, late small

scale additions on the eastern fringe of the park,

shown to be favoured by professional families, a

blueprint for later Victorian surburban villas

adopting a variety of styles.

Tyack, in the chapter ‘Reshaping the West End’,

takes us on a fascinating walk, making excellent

use of maps, drawings and old photographs to

demonstrate how Nash transformed the great

swathe of London between St James’s Park and

Charing

Cross

into

a

grand

‘architectural

promenade’, while M. H. Port explains the work on

the Royal Palaces, disentangling Nash’s interiors at

Buckingham Palace from later alterations. How was

it all done? Some of the answers are supplied in

Jonathan Clarke’s instructive chapter on Nash’s

building technology, which reveal, among other

matters, his innovative use of iron, ranging from

top-lit galleries and skeletal dome construction to

floor beams and window frames. This rewarding

volume (of which only a few aspects can be singled

out here) throws much new light not only on the

architect but on London building activity in the

early nineteenth century.

– Bridget Cherry

The Development of Building Estates in

Battersea 1780-1914, by Keith Bailey. Wandsworth

Paper 24, Wandsworth Historical Society 2012.

79pp. PB. ISBN 978 0 90512 131 4. £6.00.

Our publication 121 (1978) was the late Priscilla

Metcalf’s The Park Town Estate and the Battersea

Tangle, unravelling the development of the Flower

page 13

family’s 70-acre estate in Battersea in the 1860s

and into the ’80s, directed by the architect James

Knowles, jnr: ‘houses… [that] represented middle-

class ideals in reduced circumstances’. In Park

Town, the ever-fascinating puzzles, Who built this

house? Was it designed by an architect? were to a

large extent resolved for us by Metcalf. Edward

Muspratt was the principal builder until he was

made bankrupt in 1869, largely because of the

destructive intrusion of the London, Brighton and

South-Coast Railway; after that many builders

completed the estate.

Much more information was uncovered by Keith

Bailey’s research into the builders of Battersea,

embodied in House building and builders in

Wandsworth c.1850-1915 (Wandsworth Paper 13,

2005*). He has now published his extended

researches into the development of Battersea ‘from

a mainly agricultural but partly industrialised

parish into a finished suburb’. Only those who have

themselves tackled similar problems in other parts

of London will appreciate the laborious character of

this work.

Bailey has identified 228 estates, responsible for

over 26,000 houses on about 1090 acres. Clearly,

these were relatively small estates. The Flower

estate erected 1346 houses; even the Artizans’,

Labourers’ and General Dwellings Company in

1873-82 only achieved 1279. The developers

ranged from architects, surveyors and builders,

through local tradesmen, lawyers and licensed

victuallers to workers’ dwellings companies and the

Crown.

The most prominent developer was Thomas

Ingram (1831-1901), an agricultural labourer from

the Fens, who established himself as a small

builder by 1871 and then, in partnership with

merchants, lawyers, surveyors and other builders,

built up eight estates with a total acreage of 105

acres and 2195 houses. Almost all his estates had

99-year leases and ground rents of about £6-£7 a

house. His practice seems fairly representative: he

had a long association with an architect, William

Newton Dunn, who provided the layout for several

estates, and plans, though not necessarily

elevations, for the houses also – Ingram’s son

William was an architect and surveyor who was

responsible for some plans ‘and presumably also

for the elevations’. In Park Town, however, while

Knowles had designed the elevations, Muspratt

arranged the internal plan ‘and remonstrated

against any interference… contrary to his own

views, as being his own risk’ (Metcalf, quoting letter

from Knowles to Flower). Ingram, however, on the

18-acre Nightingale Park estate for a middle-class

clientele (note the name, designed to attract that

class) went to a Wandsworth architect, Charles J.

Bentley.

Most of the Battersea developers functioned on a

much smaller scale than Ingram, often with fewer

than 50 houses, on small parcels of land, ‘partly a

consequence of the survival of large areas of

medieval open-field strips’. Such developers were

often bankrupted, because of their decades-long

‘persistent belief that… [an] estate was guaranteed

to attract middle-class tenants, often in the face of

direct evidence to the contrary’. To what extent they

employed architects we still do not know.

Bailey has conveniently tabulated his material in

appendices

listing

estates

by

date

of

commencement and type of developer, also

furnishing biographical information about the

developers. Here is the very groundwork of our

built suburban environment.

*Bailey’s earlier pamphlet, House building and

builders in Wandsworth c.1850-1915 (Wandsworth

Paper 13, 2005), is shortly to be republished, and

will be available from the Wandsworth History

Society, 119 Heythorp Street, SW18 5BT.

– M. H. Port

Wandsworth’s Lost Fishing Village,

by Dorian Gerhold, Wandsworth Historical Society,

Wandsworth Paper 25, 2012. ISBN 978 0 90512

132 1. £8 plus £1.50 p&p, available from the

author at 19 Montserrat Road, Putney SW15 2LD.

The half-acre strip alongside the Thames, known as

Waterside, some way from the main village of

Wandsworth, offered a landing place distinct from

the marshy ground elsewhere along the Thames. By

the seventeenth century it was built up with

cottages for fishermen and watermen. The evocative

sketch of the riverside in 1852, which appears on

the cover of this slim but thoroughly researched

publication, shows a lost world which is recaptured

here through analysis of the Allfarthing manor

court rolls (now in Northamptonshire Record Office)

and a wealth of other topographical material.

Evidence of different kinds is combined to recreate

a lost community, and a detailed picture emerges of

local residents and their buildings from the

seventeenth century through to the nineteenth. Its

older history is obscure, but buildings appear on a

map of 1633, and at the time of the hearth tax in

1665 there were 15 dwellings housing around 80

people. Many owned their houses; plots were

subdivided and new houses squeezed into tiny

sites; by 1708 there were 30, by 1800 50.

Subdivision within families seems to have been

especially frequent in the later seventeenth and

early eighteenth centuries. Records indicate a

close-knit community with much intermarriage, in

one case house ownership continued through six

generations. The evidence of old views, descriptions

and even some measured plans, reveal buildings

from one to three storeys, a vernacular medley of

shapes, sizes and materials; their appearance in

Leigh’s panorama of 1829 suggesting alterations

over the years rather than rebuilding.

A few fishermen and watermen are listed among

the labourers and artisans of Waterside in the 1841

census but, with the pollution of the Thames,

fishing declined. Houses began to be acquired by

developers, the shore was embanked and much

was demolished for Wandsworth gasworks. Today

page 14

the nineteenth century industry has gone, and new

riverside apartment blocks dwarf the Ship public

house, the one remainder from the earlier age

recalled so skilfully in this study.

– Bridget Cherry

Cat’s Meat Square, Housing and Public Health in

South St Pancras 1810-1910, by Stephen W. Job,

Camden History Society 2012, 80pp,

ISBN 978 0 90449 185 2. £6.50 plus £2.50 p&p.

Here is another example of micro-history, but the

fragment of London it explores could not be more

different from the Wandsworth village mentioned

above, except that it too has been totally

transformed. The area in question is two-thirds of

an acre lying between Gray’s Inn Road and St

George’s Gardens. This space is now filled with

recent educational buildings and new private flats.

But the book is concerned chiefly with what was

there earlier, an awkward triangle of squalid streets

developed on brickfields from c.1810 on part of the

Harrison estate. By the 1870s the tiny would-be-

respectable Wellington Square was being referred to

by journalists as Cat’s Meat Square in recognition

of its insanitary and unattractive character. The

hopefully named Prospect Terrace, remarkably for

London, consisted of mean back to back houses.

They had damp cellars, attic rooms only 6ft high,

and

no

proper

main

drainage.

Evocative

photographs of 1897 show the dingy three storey

terraces with washing strung across their fronts.

From the census records for 1841 an average of

just under 12 people per house is deduced, rising

to 18.3 by 1901, as a result of much exploitative

sub-letting by ‘housefarmers’.

The details are skilfully set in the more general

context of London’s slum clearance campaigns and

the building of new schools (cleared sites for the

latter assisting the former). Maps, photographs,

census records and newspaper accounts (which

exaggerated the number of poor Irish settlers)

reveal the character of the area and its inhabitants.

Particularly telling are the reports to the Royal

Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes

(1885), which included the evidence from the local

Medical Officer of Health, Dr Shirley F. Murphy,

who was forced to resign by the self-interested St

Pancras Vestry, but later became Chief Medical

Officer to the LCC. Sadly, the sturdy new flats

eventually put up in 1910 by the new Borough of St

Pancras only survived to 1940.

– Bridget Cherry

Hackney: an uncommon history in five parts,

edited by Margaret Willes. Hackney Society, 2012.

132 pp, 75 illustrations (colour and B&W),

ISBN 978 0 95367 342 1, £14.99.

The framework for this local history is indeed

uncommon. It takes five snapshots of the London

borough of Hackney, one in year 12 of every

century from 1612 onwards. Each is framed by a

different author, and the project culminates (of

course) in Olympic year. The approach is original,

maybe even unique. It works extremely well.

Collage may be a better metaphor than snapshot,

as the contributors interpret the brief generously,

looking backwards as well as forwards and

occasionally overlapping. They have set themselves

a tricky task, given the disparate character of the

borough – Hoxton in the south, an area regularly

re-invented over the centuries; the quintessential

nineteenth century suburb in the ancient parish

(later metropolitan borough) of Hackney proper; the

recently Olympified post-industrial eastern reaches;

and greener and grander remnants of distant pasts

in Stoke Newington and the north. To some extent

the text ignores formal boundaries, for example by

including the Old Nichol (strictly speaking in

Bethnal Green) or is vague about them (as in Stoke

Newington’s relationship with South Hornsey). As

befits the conceit, all the contributions contrive to

address in an engaging way the themes of leisure

and, of course, sport.

The flavour of each is distinct. Fortunately, for a

local history that aims to put people before

buildings, we do not get the age-worn ‘famous local

residents’ approach, rather a more nuanced

account of the personalities who shaped or

reflected the Hackney of their time. Margaret

Willes, for 1612, gives us James Burbage and his

fellow theatricals in Shoreditch; various luminaries

from the court of Henry VIII, including Ralph

Sadleir, who built Sutton House; Thomas Sutton,

who didn’t; and Lord Zouche and his long-lost

gardens.

She

also

relies

on

accounts

of

horticulture and of the first ‘Olimpick Games’ of

1612, in Gloucesterhire, to draw out more ordinary

contemporary lives. Matthew Green’s expertise on

coffee-houses and other popular places of resort

informs a rollicking and often anecdotal account of

the eighteenth century, which reminds us how

parts of this suburb were urban in character from

quite an early date. Ann Robey, in an outstanding

summary of the impact of the late eighteenth and

ninteenth century on the borough and its changing

demographics, makes a similar point, and features

some lesser-known landmarks in the development

of the built environment. Lisa Rigg emphasises the

social and political upheavals of the early

twentieth century from a perspective that is

national

as

well

as

local,

including

the

contribution of national figures who happened to

be Hackney MPs. Finally, in something of a tour de

force,

Juliet

Gardiner

and

David

Garrard

masterfully sum up the enormous changes of the

mainly post-WW2 years. This last chapter

epitomises the special quality of the book: there is

nowhere else within a single set of covers in which

all of this first-rate material can be found.

Sadly, as so often, there is also the frustration

occasioned by the lack of even a basic index. The

publishers may also have done themselves a

disservice by not footnoting the text: the discipline

of attribution might have saved it from the odd

page 15

howler (Elizabeth Fry house-hunting in 1912? I

think not. Not to mention the occasional conflation

of myth with history.) Forget the caveats, though:

this is, as we have come to expect from the

Hackney Society, not only beautifully illustrated

with appropriately uncommon images. It is also a

very good read.

– Isobel Watson

The London of Sherlock Holmes,

by John Christopher. Amberley Publishing, 2012,

ISBN 978 1 44560 354 4. 96pp. PB. £14.99.

The Sherlock Holmes stories were written from

1887 to 1927 and set in the years 1881 to 1914

(not all of course set in London). The book takes

London locations, gives each one a historical

description of around a hundred words and a few

pictures, current and period, together with a note

of the relevance of the location to various events in

the stories. Some of the illustrations come from US

libraries, but are not out of the ordinary. There are

a few illustrations from the original stories.

You would not use this book as a London guide –

it is far too superficial. It does remind you of the

history and appearance of the London locations in

the stories at the time the stories were set. It best

works as a crib for tour guides on Sherlock Holmes

walks who could reel off the events which befell

their hero at points along the walk. Take the family

and amaze them with your erudition!

– Roger Cline

London Under, by Peter Ackroyd, Vintage Books,

2012 (although published by Chatto & Windus,

2011). ISBN 978 0 09928 737 7. 202pp. PB. £7.99.

London’s Labyrinth, The World beneath the

City’s Streets, by Fiona Rule, Ian Allan, 2012,

ISBN 978 0 71103 544 7. 191pp. HB. £19.99.

The puff on Peter Ackroyd’s book mentions his

meticulous research and his bibliography lists most

of the standard works on below ground London.

Fiona Rule has a much shorter bibliography,

notable for omitting The Lost Rivers of London by

Nicholas Barton; had she consulted this work, she

might not have led us to follow the Tyburn west

along the Marylebone Road from Baker Street and

then down Gloucester Place before returning to the

true course at the eastern end of Blandford Street.

She even mentions the Tyburn waters at Marble

Arch (where there was the Tyburn Tree but no

river).

Peter Ackroyd lives up to the puff and gives us

plenty of facts and stories. Archaeology, Sewers, the

Underground and Government secure facilities all

feature. It is not clear whether he researched the

sewers in person, but he delights as usual in spine-

chilling stories. As one who has been down the

sewers I like his quotation of the sewer being like a

Turkish Bath with something wrong with it. His

illustrations are legible but rather murky to suit

their subject – Fiona Rule’s hardback book is much

better in this respect at least (but at over double

the price).

Of the three books I have reviewed, buy the

cheapest and best. The others are best first

borrowed from the library if you want to see what

they have to offer.

– Roger Cline

Remembered Lives – Personal Memorials in

Churches, by David Meara and Lida Lopes Cardozo

Kindersley, Cardozo Kindersley Workshop, 2013.

83pp. ISBN 978 1 10766 448 7. £12.

This remarkable little book should be owned, read

and studied by all who are interested in English

history, architecture, sculpture, or in the Anglican

church, though it would be of use and value to men

and women of other denominations and, indeed,

other faiths. It is the work of the Revd David Meara,

Archdeacon

of

London,

and

Lida

Cardozo

Kindersley, designer, letter-cutter and leader of the

Cardozo-Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge since

the death of her husband, David Kindersley, in

1995. It describes the purpose and value of

memorial tablets, the lengthy and individual

process of creating one, and gives a detailed and

most helpful account of how to apply for a Faculty

(permission) to set up such a tablet. It is illustrated

with excellent photographs, is modestly priced

(£12.00 plus p&p) – and may easily be slipped into

a coat pocket.

Memorials from the Workshop may be found

throughout the country; St Paul’s Cathedral and

Churchyard have a proliferation of them, but many

earlier such tablets are illustrated too, emphasising

the long, if somewhat tenuous, tradition of

commemoration. The presentation of the book is

distinctive, the entire text being set in an italic

typeface – 12 point Emilida designed by Lida

herself. It is a beautiful and elegant design, but this

reader found solidly set pages a little disturbing.

This is the twelfth small book to be produced by the

Workshop and the effect is less noticeable in those

others where there are fewer unbroken pages of

type. Get hold of a copy and see what you think.

The book is too valuable to be missed.

– Ann Saunders

Public Sculpture of Outer South and West

London, by Fran Lloyd, Helen Potkin, Davina

Thackara, Liverpool University Press 2011, 404pp,

250 illustrations. HB. ISBN 978 1 84631 225 0. £45.

Our November Newsletter included an article by

Philip Ward-Jackson, author of Public Sculpture of

Westminster vol. I, a book packed with fascinating

historical background which sheds new light on

some of London’s most well-known public

monuments. Westminster 1

is No. 14 in the

massive recording project of the Public Monuments

and Sculpture Association: Public Sculpture of

Britain. Outer South and West London is No. 13,

page 16

and demonstrates the diversity of a national project

of this kind. The London boroughs included cover a

somewhat arbitrary arc of outer London suburbia,

stretching from Hillingdon in the north-west to

Croydon in the south. The range of subject matter

is extraordinarily varied, and the biographical notes

on patrons and subjects as well as artists provide

many rewarding details on local people and places,

as well as on the sculptures as works of art. These

notes can only touch on the breadth of subject

matter.

Full length portrait statues, so common in

central London, appear seldom; a rare early

example is the gilded lead statue of Queen Anne by

Francis Bird, 1707, on Kingston Market Hall (a

predecessor of his statue outside St Paul’s). As one

would expect, parks and country mansions yield

an assortment of both architectural and garden

sculpture (three-quarters of the 300 items in the

book are in this category). The grounds of

Chiswick take up ten pages, the riches of Hampton

Court 33. Here the all-encompassing approach

becomes somewhat bewildering, embracing Tijou’s

screen and the astronomical clock, as well as

indoor features such as carved staircase panels

and fireplace overmantels. The Victorian and

Edwardian periods contribute much eccentric

variety; from Richard Burton’s tent mausoleum at

Mortlake cemetery to the elaborately decorated

Stanley Halls at South Norwood, given by the local

industrialist and philanthropist W. F. Stanley,

inventor of the Stanley knife (though it is sad to

learn of the theft of many of the busts of national

worthies).

From the twentieth century there are a few small

scale statues (Alcock and Brown at Heathrow

airport, by William McMillan, 1954; Fred Perry,

wielding a racquet, at Wimbledon, by David

Gwynne, 1984). These contrast with examples of

low relief sculpture, fashionable between the wars,

such as the winged wheels by Joseph Armitage on

Uxbridge underground station, and with more

stylised figures: ‘Fortitude’ by Phoebe Stabler (from

a former YWCA at Acton), and a winged figure with

child, 1954 by Anthony Forster, in the manner of

London Transport HQ’s sculpture, on the Ministry

of Pensions building at Thornton Heath – a rare

celebration of the welfare state.

How much does public sculpture express the

character of the locality? The introduction observes

that

the

ethnic

diversity

of

recent

local

communities has found little expression through

sculpture, but local art schools have had an

impact. Kingston possesses the most spectacular

and provocative recent examples: the row of

collapsed telephone boxes (‘Out of Order’ by David

Mach, 1989) and the striking 170-metre-long

‘crinkle crankle wall’ by Nigel Hall (1990), a kind of

urban land art which also forms a noise barrier. A

wonderful book to browse in.

– Bridget Cherry

Danson House, the anatomy of a Georgian Villa,

by Richard Lea and Chris Miele with Gordon

Higgott, English Heritage, 2011, 102pp, numerous

illustrations. ISBN 978 1 87359 275 5, £25.

At first sight this

large-format, well

illustrated book

resembles recent

s u b s t a n t i a l

guides to English

H e r i t a g e

properties,

but

this account of

the

‘exemplary

Palladian

villa’

designed by Sir

Robert Taylor in

1766 is not a

guide

but

s c h o l a r l y

account of the

history of both

house and park, and of the very interesting

restoration works that took place from 1995-2007.

Owned by Bexley Urban District from 1924, the

house fell into decay and was closed to the public

in 1970. A disastrous period followed, when the

house was sold off to a private owner who

absconded with all the fittings (fortunately later

located and recovered). English Heritage managed

to acquire the property in 1995 with the

understanding that after repair the house would

pass to other ownership. It is now in the hands of

the Bexley Heritage Trust and open to the public.

The radical repairs necessary made possible a

detailed understanding of both the masonry and

timber construction of the building and its later

alterations, and the various phases of interior

decoration. Appreciation of the latter was much

helped by the discovery of a remarkable set of

watercolours made c.1860 by Sarah Johnston,

whose family lived there from 1806-63, and which

record the character of the interior before late

Victorian changes. The amount of evidence

discovered

made

possible

an

accurate

reinstatement of the house as it was when

completed in the 1760s, with its exquisite fireplaces

reinstated and its fine wall paintings cleaned and

restored. The house is explained in the context of

other work by Sir Robert Taylor, and some

background is also provided about the first owner

and builder, the merchant John Boyd and his

family, the gradual acquisition of the Danson

estate, and the money expended. This book makes

an

important

contribution

to

general

understanding of the Georgian villa and is a

valuable record of the meticulous research and

craftsmanship

which

has

underpinned

the

renaissance of this remarkable building.

– Bridget Cherry

page 17

MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL

GENERAL MEETING 2012

The 112th Annual General Meeting of the London

Topographical Society was held at St Botolph’s

Church, Bishopsgate on Wednesday, 11 July 2012.

It was attended by about 200 members and guests.

Penelope Hunting, Chairman of the Society,

welcomed members and apologised for the late

arrival of this year’s publication, which was held up

at the docks.

1. MINUTES OF THE 111th ANNUAL GENERAL

MEETING. The Minutes, circulated in the May

2012 Newsletter, were approved and signed.

2. 112th ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COUNCIL

FOR 2011. The Report, circulated in the May 2012

Newsletter, was approved.

3. ACCOUNTS FOR 2011. Roger Cline, Hon.

Treasurer, presented the accounts, which showed a

surplus of £11. It was reported that the accounts

have been approved by Hugh Cleaver, the Society’s

Independent Examiner, to whom thanks were due.

There were no questions from the floor.

4. HON. EDITOR’S REPORT. Dr Ann Saunders

began by repeating the apology for the delay in the

appearance of the 2012 publication. Its arrival was

imminent, but problems with Customs had

ensured that, for the first time in her 37 years as

Hon. Editor, a publication had not been ready for

collection at the AGM. The book was inspired by

the exhibition, London, A History in Maps, held at

the British Library in 2007 and curated by our

council member, Peter Barber. The British Library

had not been able to produce a catalogue to

accompany the exhibition, and the Society’s

publication, which takes the exhibition’s title, is

intended to make up for this omission. Every single

item from the exhibition is illustrated. The book

has been written by Peter Barber; Laurence Worms

has contributed biographical notes, with the

assistance of Ralph Hyde; and an index has been

prepared by Roger Cline. The publication, produced

in partnership with the British Library, has been

printed in China, and it is expected that there will

be significant sales internationally.

The 2013 publication will finally rectify an

omission in the Society’s catalogue of historic

maps. The 1676 map of London by Ogilby and

Morgan was published by the Society as The A to Z

of Restoration London in 1992. However, William

Morgan’s map of 1682, which he produced without

the assistance of John Ogilby, has not previously

been reproduced by the Society. It, too, will be in

the popular A to Z format. It was hoped that the

2013 publication will be available in good time for

next year’s AGM.

Dr Saunders encouraged members to spend some

time looking around St Botolph’s, which was

completed in 1729 to the designs of James Gould,

working together with his son-in-law George Dance

the elder.

113th Annual Report of the

Council of the London

Topographical Society for 2012

Our 2012 Annual General Meeting was held in St

Botolph’s Church, Bishopsgate. It was well

attended and those present heard an interesting

talk by Susan Meyer on historical fans: the church

hall had been home to the Fanmakers’ Company

for many years.

The Society’s 2012 annual publication, published

in association with the British Library, was London

– A History in Maps by LTS Council member Peter

Barber, with notes on the engravers by Laurence

Worms and edited by Roger Cline and Ann

Saunders (Publication No. 173).

In September Mike Wicksteed succeeded Mireille

Galinou as the Society’s Hon. Secretary and

website editor.

This year we made our fourth and last annual

grant of £10,000 to the British Museum in

connection with cataloguing their Crace Collection

London items. We also made the first of three

proposed grants of £11,684 to the British Library

for doing the same thing to their own Crace

Collection. We made a one-off grant of £880 to

London Metropolitan Archives to conserve a

photographic collection of London views.

Our new website, launched in late 2011, was well

received and thanks are due to Mireille Galinou,

graphic

designer

Michael

Keates

and

our

webmaster, Chris Haynes. Websites should never

be static: they need continual development and this

happened during the year. Feedback from members

is always welcome.

Ninety-three new members joined the Society

during 2012. At the end of the year there were

1158

paid-up

members

and

five

honorary

members.

As usual, Council meetings were held in January,

April and September to discuss the Society’s

publications programme, membership, finances

and general administration.

Our Newsletter

was published in May and

November.

Major

articles

included

‘London

Squares: the pride of London’s planning’ by Todd

Longstaffe-Gowan, ‘London Explorations – 2. Three

Mills to Victoria Park’ by Tony Aldous, ‘Recording

London’s Sculpture’ by Philip Ward-Jackson, ‘The

Conservation

of

the

Bowen

Collection

of

Photographs’ by Dr Caroline de Stefani, and ‘The

British Library’s Crace Collection’ by Magdalena

Pescko. They were well supported by a range of

reviews, notices, news and notes.

The Society’s total income for 2012 was £36,223

while expenditure came to £39,772.

page 18

page 19

Assets

2012

2011

£

£

Money in Bank & National Savings

173,909

186,194

Advance payments

450

702

Value of Society’s stock of publications

Stock at end of previous year

13,659

17,750

Additions to stock

3,064

2,660

Less Value of publications sold

7,806

6,751

Value of stock at year end

8,917

13,659

Total assets

183,276

200,555

Liabilities

2012

2011

£

£

Overseas members’ postage

175

120

Subscriptions paid in advance

4,932

4,768

Provision for future publication

–

14,000

Total Liabilities

5,107

18,888

Net Worth of the Society

178,169

181,667

Change in net worth

Previous year’s net worth

181,667

181,656

Deficit for the year (Surplus for 2011)

3,538

11

End of year net worth

178,119

181,667

Income

2012

2011

£

£

Subscriptions paid by members

21,456

20,648

Subscriptions from earlier years

20

58

Income Tax from Covenants/Gift Aid

(estimated for 2012)

3,886

4,395

Total subscription income

25,362

25,101

Profit from sales of Publications

7,806

6,751

Interest received

735

407

Grant: Scouloudi Foundation

1,250

1,250

Sundry donations

1,071

962

Total Income for the year

36,224

34,472

Deficit for the year (Surplus in 2011)

3,538

11

Expenditure

2012

2011

£

£

Members’ subscription publications

Cost of Printing (see note)

2,652

-3,418

Cost of Distribution

6,579

3,520

Provision for next year’s publication

–

14,000

Total cost of members’ publications

9,231

14,102

Newsletter

4,184

4,270

Website, re-done in 2011

120

1,161

AGM

1,210

2,007

Administration

–

311

Publications Storage and Service

2,463

2,610

Total Administration Costs

7,977

10,359

Grant to British Museum (2009-12)

10,000

10,000

Grant to British Library (2012-14)

11,684

–

Grant to LMA (one-off)

880

–

Total expenditure for the year

39,772

34,461

LONDON TOPOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY

INCOME & EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT 2012

BALANCE SHEET 31 December 2012

The negative printing cost figure occurs due to over-provision in the previous year.

The accounts are with our examiner and, assuming they are approved, they will be presented at the AGM.

Please address any serious concerns to the Treasurer before the AGM.

The figures below should be substituted for those appearing on page 19 of the main Newsletter

The officers of the

London Topographical Society

Chairman

Mrs Penelope Hunting PhD FSA

40 Smith Street, London SW3 4EP

Tel: 020 7352 8057

Hon. Treasurer

Publications Secretary

Roger Cline MA LLB FSA

Simon Morris MA PhD

Flat 13, 13 Tavistock Place

7 Barnsbury Terrace

London WC1H 9SH

London N1 1JH

Tel. 020 7388 9889

E-mail:

E-mail: roger.cline13@gmail.com

santiagodecompostela@btinternet.com

Hon. Editor

Newsletter Editor

Mrs Ann Saunders MBE PhD FSA

Bridget Cherry OBE FSA

3 Meadway Gate

Bitterley House

London NW11 7LA

Bitterley

Tel. 020 8455 2171

Nr Ludlow, Shropshire SY8 3HJ

Tel. 01584 890 905

E-mail:

bridgetcherry58@yahoo.co.uk

Hon. Secretary

Membership Secretary

Mike Wicksteed

Patrick Frazer

32 Harvest Lane, Thames Ditton

7 Linden Avenue, Dorchester

Surrey KT7 0NG

Dorset DT1 1EJ

Tel. 020 8339 0488

Tel. 01305 261 548

E-mail: mike.wicksteed@btinternet.com

E-mail: patfrazer@yahoo.co.uk

Council members: Peter Barber; John Bowman; Ralph Hyde; Robin Michaelson;

Sheila O’Connell; Professor Michael Port; Peter Ross; Denise Silvester-Carr;

David Webb; Laurence Worms; Rosemary Weinstein.

New membership enquiries should be addressed to Patrick Frazer.

Correspondence about existing membership including renewal payments, requests for

standing orders and gift-aid forms and the non-receipt of publications

also any change of address, should be addressed to the Hon. Treasurer, Roger Cline.

The Honorary Editor, Ann Saunders, deals with proposals for new publications.

Registered charity no. 271590

The Society’s web site address is: www.topsoc.org

ISSN 1369-7986

The Newsletter is published by the London Topographical Society and issued

by the Newsletter Editor: Bridget Cherry, Bitterley House, Bitterley, near Ludlow,

Shropshire SY8 3HJ.

Produced and printed by The Ludo Press Ltd, London SW17 0BA.

Tel. 020 8879 1881 www.ludo.co.uk