Areas of London

Lost London – Winchester Palace

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This week we look at another “lost” palace of London but this time it’s not one built primarily for kings and queens. Rather we’re taking a look at the former Thameside home of the Bishops of Winchester.

Located in Southwark, Winchester Palace (also known as Winchester House) was built in the 12th century as the London residence of the bishop, a major landowner in the area.

The palace’s hall was extravagantly decorated and is known to have played host to royalty including King James I of Scotland and Joan Beaufort whose wedding feast was held there in 1424. It’s also suggested that King Henry VIII may have met wife number five, Catherine Howard, there.

The remainder of the palace was arranged around two courtyards and as well as buildings including its own prison and brewhouse, it also boasted a tennis court, bowling alley and pleasure gardens. It was used up until the Civil War – during which it served as a prison – before, in a growing state of deterioration, being let out for tenements and warehouses. Much of what remained was destroyed by fire in 1814.

Today all that remains above ground is a wall which stood at the west end of the great hall, mostly dating for the 14th century. Now in the care of English Heritage, it features a magnificent (albeit glassless) rose window, 13 feet in diameter, and three doors, believed to have led to the buttery, pantry and kitchen.

The palace was located in what was known variously as the ‘Manor of Southwark’, the ‘Liberty of Winchester’ or the ‘Liberty of the Clink’ (the word ‘clink’ refers to the bishop’s notorious prison – more on this another time). This was an area of land under the direct jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester and outside the jurisdiction of the City of London and become particularly known for prostitution – the Bishop was granted the power to licence prostitutes in the 12th century – with the prostitutes referred to as “Winchester Geese”.

The current ruins were found during the area’s redevelopment in the 1980s. Remains of Roman buildings were also found underneath where the palace once stood.

WHERE: Clink Street, Southwark (nearest tube station is London Bridge); WHEN: Anytime; COST: Free; WEBSITE: www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/winchester-palace/

Around London – Burial place of Bunyan, Defoe and Blake gets Grade I listing; Kew Gardens joins Streetview; and, Afghan treasures on show…

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• The London burial place of writers John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe and artist and poet William Blake has been recognised as one of the city’s most significant historic landscapes with a Grade I listing on the national Register of Parks and Gardens. The news, which was announced last month, also sees 75 tombs located within Bunhill Fields Cemetery individually listed. Bunhill, located between City Road and Bunhill Row, is one of 106 registered cemeteries in London (and now one of only seven Grade I listed cemeteries). It was established in 1660 and, thanks to its not being associated with Anglican place of worship, is viewed as the “pre-eminent graveyard for Nonconformists in England” . About 123,000 burials took place in its four acres before it was closed in 1869. The oldest monument is that of theologian Theophilus Gale, who died in 1678. As well as the tombs of Buynan, Defoe and Blake, others listed on the register include that of Dame Mary Page, who died in 1728 and whose tomb inscription talks of her stoicism in the face of 240 gallons of water being taken out of her prior to her death, and Joseph Denison, a banker who died in 1806 and was one of England’s wealthiest commoners at the time. The listing was made by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport following advice from English Heritage. For more on Bunhill Fields, follow this link…

• Kew Gardens has joined Google Streetview, meaning it’s now possible to navigate your way around the gardens from the comfort of your own home. More than 26 kilometres of paths and the interiors of some of the garden’s glasshouses – including the Palm House and the Temperate House – can now be seen on Streetview which offers 360 degree views. Professor Stephen Hopper, director at Kew, says the new technology is “bound to encourage people to visit us and experience Kew for themselves”. Follow this link to see the gardens on Streetview.

• On Now: Afghanistan’s heritage is on display in a newly opened exhibition at the British Museum. Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World showcases more than 200 objects from the National Museum of Afghanistan as well as some items from the British Museum and includes sculptures, ivory inlays once attached to furniture, Roman glassware and Egyptian stone tableware, and inlaid gold ornaments once worn by the area’s “nomadic elite”. The objects were found between 1937 and 1978 and were preserved thanks to officials who kept them out of harm’s way during the Soviet and Taliban eras. The museum announced this week that they would be joined by carved ivory fragments that were stolen from Afghanistan’s national museum in the early 1990s and only recently presented to the British Museum by a benefactor with the idea that they will eventually be returned to Kabul. The exhibition runs until 3rd July. There is an admission charge. For more information, see www.britishmuseum.org.

LondonLife – Vroom Vroom

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Lorenzo Quinn’s sculpture of a giant hand playing with a full-sized vintage Fiat 500 sits on a traffic island in the midst of busy Park Lane, not far from Hyde Park Corner. Vroom Vroom – which features the first car the sculptor bought using money from the sale of his art –  is on show until April. It was installed as part of Westminster council’s City of Sculpture Festival.

Lost London – Newgate Prison

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The most notorious of London’s many prisons, Newgate remained in use for more than 700 years.

The prison – located on the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey on the site of what is now London’s Central Criminal Court (known as the Old Bailey thanks to its position on the street known as Old Bailey) – was apparently first constructed around the end of the 1100s on the orders of King Henry II at the site of one of the gates in the Roman wall (see picture).

It was enlarged and renovated several times over the ensuing centuries (including a complete rebuilding after the Great Fire of London in 1666 and another to the design of George Dance after the prison was badly damaged during the Gordon Riots of 1780, sparked by opposition to Catholic emancipation).

The prison, which was infamous for the squalid conditions in which prisoners were housed, was used for a range of purposes including housing debtors and the incarceration of people awaiting execution (by the 18th century, it’s said that more than 350 crimes had become punishable by death).

In 1783 public executions were moved from Tyburn, west of the city, to a site just outside the prison. In 1868, executions were no longer open to the public at large and the gallows moved inside. The prison closed in 1902 and was eventually demolished in 1904.

Famous prisoners who spent time in Newgate include Shakespeare’ contemporary Ben Jonson (for killing a man in a duel), 17th century author Daniel Defoe (for his authorship of political pamphlets), Captain William Kidd (for piracy), and William Penn, Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania (for contempt of court during a case brought after he was accused of having illegally preached ).

But perhaps the most infamous is the 18th century criminal Jack Sheppard, known for having escaped from the prison several times before finally being hanged at Tyburn (close to where Marble Arch now stands).

The only surviving part of the prison in its original location is part of the prison wall which can be seen in Amen Corner.

PICTURE: Wikipedia.com

Curious London memorials – 6. The Buxton Memorial Fountain

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Standing in Victoria Tower Gardens at the southern end of the Houses of Parliament, not far from more high profile monuments such as Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais, is a memorial to those who fought for the emancipation of slaves.

The gothic memorial, designed by Samuel Sanders Tuelon, was erected in 1865 by MP Charles Buxton to commemorate the work of his father, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton and his associates including William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Zachary Macaulay, Henry Brougham, and Dr Stephen Lushington – all of whom played important roles in the eventual passing of the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.

Sir Thomas, a founding member of the Anti-Slavery Society along with Wilberforce and Clarkson, took over as leader of the abolitionist movement in parliament after Wilberforce retired in 1825.

The memorial, which looks a little like a smaller version of the Albert Memorial (without the figure within) and is actually a public drinking fountain, was originally erected in Parliament Square but was removed in 1949 and placed in its current location in 1957, marking the 150th anniversary of the 1807 Act which abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The memorial originally bore eight statues representing the rulers of Britain from the Roman era to Queen Victoria but these were long since stolen. It as restored by Royal Parks in the mid-Noughties and unveiled again on the 27th March, 2007, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the same act.

PICTURE: © Giles Barnard

What’s in a name?…Covent Garden

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Now a favored place for people-watching among Londoners and visitors alike, Covent Garden takes its name from the ‘Convent Garden’ which occupied the site in medieval times.

The ‘convent garden’, said to be a 40 acre kitchen garden, belonged to the Abbey or ‘Convent’ of St Peter in Westminster (Westminster Abbey was once the church of this religious foundation) which owned the site from the 13th century until 1548 when the land passed into control of King Henry VIII during the Great Dissolution.

He granted much of the land to John Russell, the 1st earl of Bedford, and it was the 4th earl, Francis Russell, who commissioned Inigo Jones to design a great public square. The new square featured grand houses along the northern and eastern sides and a church – St Paul’s (pictured right) – on the west while to the south, between the square and the Strand, stood the mansion of the Bedford family.

A fruit and vegetable market was licensed in 1670 but its growth – and the development of other squares offering a much greater level of privacy – led the wealthy who had originally occupied the houses to move elsewhere. The market, meanwhile, continued to grow and in the 1830s, the main market building which still stands there today was constructed.

Further buildings followed in the 1800s and the market continued to occupy the site until as recently as 1973 when it was finally moved out to Nine Elms and the area began a transformation into the shopping precinct it now is.

Curious London Memorials – 5. Eros (or the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain)

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Situated in the heart of Piccadilly Circus, the Eros statue has become an icon of London. Yet few of those who cluster around this iconic figurine realise that the aluminium statue (a rarity in itself) is actually a memorial, not to mention that it wasn’t intended to represent Eros at all.

The monument – which also features a bronze fountain below – was erected in the late nineteenth century to commemorate Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury and a well-regarded Christian reformer and philanthropist of the Victorian era, and is formerly known as the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain.

Designed by Alfred Gilbert and unveiled in 1893, the winged figure holding a bow was apparently actually intended to represent Eros’ brother, Anteros – a Greek god associated with selfless love as opposed to his brother Eros, who is associated with erotic love – and, according to some, bore the name The Angel of Christian Charity, which makes sense given the man whom it is intended to commemorate.

While the statue attracted controversy when it was first unveiled thanks not least to its nudity, it has stood in Piccadilly Circus ever since (or at least mostly ever since – there have been a couple of brief periods such as when it was moved while Piccadilly Underground station was built and during World War II when it was moved for safe-keeping). It was restored in the 1980s.

A copy of the fountain and statue by Gilbert was later placed in Liverpool’s Sefton Park.

LondonLife – Jonquils in Bow Lane

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Jonquils add a splash of color on a grey day during a busy lunchhour in Bow Lane in the City. Bow Lane runs from Poultry down to the junction of Queen Victoria and Cannon Streets.

Lost London – York Watergate

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There’s several places along Victoria Embankment where it’s possible to see where the River Thames bank stood before the massive mid-19th century project to reclaim land. Not the least of them is located in the downstairs foyer to Somerset House, where looking through the glass floor, you can see the pebbles of the original riverbank.

Another is York Watergate, once the river entrance to the Duke of Buckingham’s London mansion, and now stranded some distance from the water in Victoria Embankment Gardens.

The mansion, known as York House, was originally located on the southside of the Strand. Originally built in the 13th century, it was later acquired by King Henry VIII and granted to the Archbishop of York, Nicholas Heath, in 1556 (hence its name). The house became the home of George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham and somewhat sycophantic favorite of King James I, in the early 1620s.

When the duke was stabbed to death in 1628, the property passed to his son, the second Duke of Buckingham (also George), who later sold it to a land developer. It was apparently as a condition of the sale that the streets there now include the duke’s full name – hence George Court, Villiers Street, Duke Street, the slightly ludicrous Of Alley, and Buckingham Street.

The impressive Italianate watergate, which stands below the junction of Buckingham Street and Watergate Walk just a short walk into the gardens from Embankment tube station, was designed by the irrepressible Inigo Jones and built in 1626. Though weathered, it still bears the coat of arms of the Duke of Buckingham on the front.

Curious London Memorials – 4. The Suffragette Memorial

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Tucked away in a corner of Christchurch Gardens, opposite New Scotland Yard in Victoria Street, St James, this memorial was only erected in 1970.

Designed to resemble an uncurling scroll, the bronzed glass fibre scroll – designed by Edwin Russell – was put there by the Suffragette Fellowship (a group which was founded in 1926 to commemorate the suffrage movement of the early 20th century) and dedicated to the “courage and perseverance of all those men and women who in the long struggle for votes for women, selflessly braved derision, opposition and ostracism, many enduring physical violence and suffering”.

The monument, which is located near Caxton Hall – a now-listed building opened as the Westminster Town Hall in 1883 and “historically associated with women’s suffrage meetings”, was unveiled by former campaigner and hunger-striker Lillian Lenton.

While we’re on the subject of women’s suffrage, we should also mention the memorial to the most prominent member of the early 20th century women’s suffrage movement, Emmeline Pankhurst (1857-1928). Located not far away in Victoria Tower Gardens, right under the shadow of Victoria Tower at the southern end of the Houses of Parliament, stands a 1930 statue of the suffrage leader, who was imprisoned for her stand.

The statue is accompanied by two bronze medallions – one commemorating Mrs Pankhurst’s daughter and suffragette, Dame Christabel Pankhurst (1880-1958), and the other showing the badge of the Women’s Social Political Union (WSPU).

What’s in a name?…Isle of Dogs

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Located in a great bend of the River Thames to the east of the City, the Isle of Dogs isn’t really an isle at all but a broad peninsula of land jutting out to the south of Poplar, opposite Greenwich.

Formerly known as Stepney Marsh, for centuries the area was protected by a great embankment and in the 13th and 14th centuries came to be home to a small agricultural community. After the embankment was breached, however, the area reverted to marshland and only came back into more intensive use with the opening of the West India and East India docks in the early 1800s (amalgamated in 1838) and Millwall Dock in the 1860s. The linking of these docks in the early 1900s apparently made the “isle” an island for the first time.

At the same time, the area also became noted for shipbuilding – among the vessels constructed here was Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS Great Eastern, the biggest ship ever built when launched in the late 1850s.

The population of the area rose thanks to the docks and by 1901 – following the development of Cubitt  Town, named for developer William Cubitt – the population had risen to 21,000. Heavily bombed in World War II, the isle saw a resurgence in the Fifties and Sixties but gradually declined in the following years as new shipping technologies made the docks obsolete. The last of the docks closed in 1980.

The area has since been redeveloped in a project initially driven by the London Docklands Development Corporation and is now in effect a city within a city, housing homes, apartments, retail precincts and office buildings – including One Canada Square, the highest tower in London, at Canary Wharf (the highest tower in London until recently surpassed by the currently-under-construction Shard in Southwark), linked to the rest of the city via the Docklands Light Railway (DLR).

But what about the name Isle of Dogs? One theory is that it was here King Henry VIII kept his hunting dogs (the earliest reference to the Isle of Dogs is apparently on a map dated 1588) while others suggest the name comes from dogs King Edward III kept there. Others have suggested the name is a corruption of ‘Isle of Ducks’, that the area is named for packs of dogs who roamed wild in the marshlands here or that it comes from the fact dead dogs washed up on banks of the Thames here. As for which is the truth? Take your pick.

Tower Hamlets, the local authority, offers a great free walk through the area which gives you a glimpse into its history. See http://bit.ly/dRzcP9.

LondonLife – 200th anniversary of Mexican independence marked in Westminster

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Curious onlookers examine a series of giant sculptures in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. The work of Mexican artist Rivelino, ‘Nuestros Silencios’ (Our Silences), will be on display until 11th February. The 10 giant bronze busts each weigh over a ton and are being displayed in London as part of a European tour celebrating the bicentenary of Mexican independence and the centenary of the Mexican Revolution.

Curious London memorials – 2. The Albert Memorial

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No list of London’s memorials could ever be complete without mentioning the extravagant Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens.

Completed in 1876 at a cost of £120,000, the monument – officially known as the Prince Consort National Memorial – was commissioned by the Queen after Prince Albert died of typhoid in 1861. Queen Victoria, devastated at his loss and wanting a public memorial for Albert, invited seven leading architects to submit designs. In the end she chose the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott which featured an ornate canopy and spire standing to a height of 176 feet (54 metres) over a larger-than-life gilded bronze figure of Prince Albert sitting in regal splendour.

The resulting memorial – described “visual feast” – is an exemplar monument of the Victorian era’s Gothic Revival style. It highlights Albert’s role as a patron of the arts. Around the base of the podium is a frieze containing images of sculptors, composers, painters, architects and poets while at the four corners of the canopy are four clusters of statuetry relating to agriculture, commerce, engineering and manufacturing.

Further out, on the corners of the base, stand another four groups of statues – these relate to the continents of Europe, Asia, America and Africa. The canopy itself features mosaics and statues depicting historical figures associated with the arts as well as statues depicting the artistic and scientific disciplines, and angels and virtues.

The statue of Albert, sculpted by John Henry Foley, gazes benevolently towards Royal Albert Hall – another monument dedicated to the Prince Consort – and holds in its hand a catalogue of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (Albert was a key player in the exhibition’s organisation).

The monument, which was apparently used as a landmark by German bombers and Zeppelin pilots in World War I, underwent an extensive restoration in the 1990s which involved dismantling its entire upper half and then reassembling it.

While entry to the memorial is free, there are paid for tours available for those keen to find out more about the monument. For more information about the tours, see www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/kensington_gardens/tours/index.cfm.

WHERE: Kensington Gardens (nearest tube station is High Street Kensington or South Kensington); WHEN: Accessible when the park is open (6am to dusk) but it can be seen from Kensington Gore; COST: Entry is free (there are paid tours, see above); WEBSITE: Royal Parks has a page on its website, www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/kensington_gardens/tours/index.cfm.

Merry Christmas from Exploring London!

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What’s in a name?…Marylebone

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This curiously named part of London, pronounced Mar-lee-bone, takes it’s name from a church dedicated to St Mary which was originally built near a small river or stream called the Tyburn or Tybourne. Hence St Mary-le-Burn became St Marylebone.

There was a medieval village here which during the 18th century became subsumed into greater London as fashionable people sought land to the west of the city. The area – in particular Harley Street – became known as a location of choice for doctors to site their consulting rooms and is still known for its medical establishments.

Among the significant sites is the St Marylebone Parish Church (pictured right) which, consecrated in 1817, was where poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett were married in 1846 following their elopement, the John Nash-designed All Souls Church in Langham Place, the Langham Hotel which opened in 1865 and boasted Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain among guests, 221B Baker Street, fictional home of Sherlock Holmes and now the site of the Sherlock Holmes Museum, and the famous wax museum, Madame Tussauds.

Marylebone is also home to the world famous Wallace Collection, bequeathed to the government in 1897, the concert hall Wigmore Hall, the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Institute of Architects, and the art-deco headquarters of the BBC, Broadcasting House. Marylebone High Street remains a shopping mecca offering a diverse range of independent boutiques and specialty shops while in the south, Marylebone includes one of London’s most famous shopping strips on Oxford Street.

Other famous people connected with the area include four time Prime Minister William Gladstone who lived at 73 Harley Street from 1876 to 1882, writer Charles Dickens who lived at 18 Bentinck Street while working as a court reporter in the 1830s, author Edward Gibbon, who lived at 7 Bentinck Street while writing his landmark text The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from the 1770s, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, who worked in Upper Wimpole Street in the 1890s.

Famous Londoners – Beau Brummell

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Generally acknowledged as having introduced the concept of men wearing a suit and tie during the Regency, ‘Beau’ Brummell’s sense of fashion continues to impact the way we dress right across the globe.

George Brummell was born in London 0n 7th June, 1788, the son of William Brummell, the private secretary of Lord North. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Brummell later joined the army and it was there that he became friends with George, Prince of Wales (the future King George IV). It was the prince who aided his promotion to captain before he resigned his commission.

Setting up home in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, using the small fortune he inherited on his father’s death, Brummell became a member of the prince’s inner circle and quickly established a reputation for his elegant – and sober – dress sense and skills at the art of conversation.

But Brummell’s talent for spending above his means and his reckless gambling began to catch up with him as did his, at times, overly sharp tongue, and he gradually fell out of favour with his highly placed friends, including the Prince Regent whom he is said to have famously insulted after the prince snubbed him.

In 1816 he fled to France to escape debtor’s prison and remained there for the rest of his life. While friends helped him to secure the position of British consul in Caen briefly during the 1830s, he gradually slipped into decline and spent time in a French debtor’s prison until, impoverished and now insane, he died in an asylum in Caen in 1840.

Brummell, whose life has since inspired numerous books, plays and films, can be seen standing on Jermyn Street where a statue of him by Irena Sedlecka was erected in 2002 (pictured). His legacy to fashion lives on.

What’s in a name?…Whitehall

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Running southward from Trafalgar Square towards the Houses of Parliament (the southern part of Whitehall is actually known as Parliament Street), Whitehall is lined with government buildings – everything from the Foreign Office to the Cabinet Office, from the Scotland and Wales Offices to the Ministry of Defence – and has become so identified with government that its very name is now used to mean just that. But where does the name come from?

Whitehall takes its name from the Palace of Whitehall which once stood on the site of the current street. The palace’s origins go back to the 14th century when a grand house known as York Place was built as the London residence of the Archbishops of York.

The building was gradually expanded over the years – work which continued when Thomas Wolsey was made Archbishop of York in 1513. When Cardinal Wolsey fell from favour in the late 1520s, however, King Henry VIII seized the house along with his other assests.

With the royal Palace of Westminster badly damaged in a fire in 1512, King Henry VIII had been staying at Lambeth Palace. He saw the newly acquired palace, renamed Whitehall, as a suitable new home and continued expansion works, constructing a series of recreationally-oriented buildings on the west side of what is now Whitehall including tennis courts, a cockfighting pit and a tiltyard for tournaments. By the time of Henry VIII’s death in 1547, the palace covered 23 acres and was the largest in Europe.

The palace continued to be used by subsequent monarchs until much of it was destroyed by fire in 1698. These days the only surviving part of the palace is the Banqueting House. Built by Inigo Jones for King James I, it was from a window on the first floor of this 1622 building that King Charles I stepped onto a scaffold where his head was cut off.

Apart from the Banqueting House, other significant sites in Whitehall including the Cenotaph, the focus of Remembrance Sunday commemorations. Downing Street, meanwhile, runs off the south-eastern end of Whitehall and behind gates which have blocked it off since 1989, stands the Prime Minister’s official residence.

What’s in a name?…Pall Mall

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This curiously named street in the heart of London’s St James district traces the origins of its moniker back to the 17th century when the game of “pall mall” (“pell mell” and “paille maille” being among a host of alternative spellings) was played there.

The game, mentioned by Samuel Pepys in his famous diary, involves the use of a mallet and ball similar to that used in modern croquet but, according to some commentators, pall mall was more likely a predecessor of golf than croquet, with players attempting to belt the ball as far as possible along a pitch before putting the ball through a hoop suspended high off the ground.

Pall Mall, which runs parallel to The Mall from St James’ Street in the west to Haymarket in the east with an eastern extension, Pall Mall East, completing the journey from Haymarket into the northern end of Trafalgar Square, became famous in the 19th and early 20th centuries for housing numerous ‘gentlemen’s clubs’. Among those still in business are the Travellers Club, the Athaenaeum Club, the Reform Club, the Army and Navy Club, the Oxford and Cambridge Club, and the Royal Automobile Club.

St James’s Palace sits at the street’s western end and it is of note that nearly all of the southern side of the street is still part of the Crown Estate (the exception being a home Charles II is believed to have given to the actress Nell Gwynne, who apparently sensibly demanded the freehold on the property).

Other buildings along the street include Schomberg House, built for the Duke of Schomberg in the late 17th century (only the facade of which remains), and the Sir Christopher Wren-designed Marlborough House, which is tucked in between Pall Mall and The Mall and sits opposite St James’s Palace. The National Gallery and the Royal Academy also both briefly had homes in Pall Mall.

Where’s London’s oldest…restaurant?

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For a city packed with restaurants of all shapes and sizes catering to all sorts of tastes, this title remains apparently undisputed with Rules in Covent Garden generally agreed to be London’s oldest restaurant.

Founded in 1798 by Thomas Rule, the restaurant has only been owned by three families – the Rules, the Bell family and that of the current owner, John Mayhew, who purchased the restaurant in 1984.

Those who have dined there include literary luminaries such as HG Wells, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Graham Greene (it features in his novel, The End of the Affair – only one of a number of books in which the restaurant makes an appearance), John Le Carre, and poet John Betjeman, actors including Clark Gable, Harrison Ford, Paul Newman and Joan Collins, politicians including Michael Heseltine, John Prescott and William Hague, and even royalty – Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, was known to meet his mistress Lillie Langtry here.

Originally opened as an ‘oyster bar’, the restaurant at 35 Maiden Lane is these days known for its game dishes.

For more information, see www.rules.co.uk.

Wren’s London – 9. Marlborough House

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We’re nearing the end of our series on Wren’s London (next week we’ll take a final look at some of the Wren designs we’ve not yet mentioned), so this week we look at one of his lesser known (and less accessible) designs – Marlborough House.

Tucked away behind high brick walls next to St James’ Palace just off Pall Mall, Marlborough House was built for Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough – a confidant of Queen Anne – and completed in 1711.

The duchess, who secured a lease of the site from Queen Anne, selected Sir Christopher as the architect in preference to Sir John Vanbrugh, but she later fell out with Wren and, after dismissing him, oversaw the completion of the building herself. It is believed that the design of the house was actually the work of Wren’s son, also named Christopher, although the plans were undoubtedly drawn up under Wren senior’s watchful eye.

The house, built of red Dutch bricks brought to England as ballast in troop transports, was noted for its plain design. But the walls of the central salon and staircases were decorated with scenes of battles the Duke had fought in.

The property remained in the hands of the Dukes of Marlborough until it was acquired by the Crown in 1817. The building – which was substantially extended in the mid 1800s to the designs of Sir James Pennethorne – was subsequently used by members of the royal family including Princess Charlotte (only daughter of the future King George IV) and her husband Prince Leopold (later the King of the Belgians), Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV, Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), George, Prince of Wales (later George V), King Edward VII’s widow, Queen Alexandra, and, lastly, Queen Mary, widow of  George V.

Following the death of the Queen Dowager in 1953, Queen Elizabeth II donated it for use by the Commonwealth Secretariat who still occupy the building today.

WHERE: Pall Mall (nearest Tube stations are Green Park and Piccadilly); WHEN: Two hour tours are usually held every Tuesday morning (check first); WEBSITE: www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/191086/34467/marlborough_house/