One of the lamp-posts in Russell Street, Covent Garden, in 2012. PICTURE: Google Maps
Recently listed as Grade II, these four gas lamps on Russell Street in Westminster were among a series of lamps installed around Covent Garden to mark the beginning of King George V’s reign.
While the columns of the lamps date from 1910, three of the lanterns – described as an ‘Upright Rochester lantern’ and manufactured by William Sugg and Company Limited – are replacements believed to have been installed around 1930. The fourth was installed following a campaign to save Covent Garden from redevelopment in the 1970s.
The newly listed lamp-posts – the first Westminster lamps to be listed in 40 years – are located outside numbers 4-6, 24, 29, and 34-43.
There are currently about 1,300 working gas lamps in London, around 270 of which are in Westminster (and about half of which are listed).
• A new photographic exhibition exploring how Underground stations and metro systems provide shelter to citizens during periods of war, both now and in the past, opened at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden last week.Echoes of the Blitz: Underground shelters in Ukraine and London features 70 images, including historical pictures from the museum’s collection as well as 38 contemporary photographs shot by six renowned, mainly Ukrainian, documentary photographers. The latter include photography showing ordinary Ukrainian citizens sleeping, waiting, cooking, washing clothes, caring for their pets and creating temporary make-shift homes in metro stations of Kyiv and and Kharkiv show alongside black and white archive images of Londoners taking refuge in Tube stations during World War II. The exhibition, which is being run in partnership with Berlin-based journalistic network n-ost, can be seen until spring next year. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk.
A raven at the Tower of London. PICTURE: Kasturi Roy/Unsplash
• A new Ravenmaster has been appointed at the Tower of London. Yeoman Warder Michael ‘Barney’ Chandler took up the role at the start of this month, 15 years after he first became a Yeoman Warder at the Tower. The Ravenmaster oversees a team of four responsible for the care of the Tower’s seven ravens which legend says must remain at the Tower to ensure its protection. The legend apparently goes back to at least the reign of King Charles II – when the King’s astronomer John Flamsteed complained that the resident ravens were impeding his work at the Tower and requested their removal, the King was told that if the ravens left the Tower then the Kingdom would fall (and so they remained). While the Yeoman Warders have longed cared for the ravens, the post of Ravenmaster was only created in the past 50 years and was first held by Yeoman Warder Jack Wilmington. Yeoman Warder Chandler, who became the 387th Yeoman Warder at the Tower when he was appointed in March, 2009, is only the sixth person to hold the office. For more, see www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/.
• One of the most popular paintings at the Guildhall Art Gallery is being reinstalled to mark International Women’s Day on Friday. Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s La Ghirlandata has been on loan – first to the Tate Britain and then to the Delaware Art Museum in the US – but is now being returned. The painting dates from 1873 and depicts a ‘garlanded woman’ playing an arpanetta and looking directly at the viewer. The muse for the woman is said to have been the actor and model, Alexa Wilding, while the two ‘angels’ in the top corners were posed by William and Jane Morris’ youngest daughter, May Morris. The City of London Corporation acquired the oil on canvas work in 1927. On Saturday, free family activities will be held at the gallery to mark the work’s return. For more, see www.thecityofldn.com/la-ghirlandata.
Flags are flying inRegent Street. PICTURE: Miltof (licensed under CC BY 2.0/picture cropped)Dignataries are arriving in London ahead of the coronation – here British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese outside 10 Downing Street. PICTURE: Alice Hodgson / No 10 Downing Street (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The Burlington Arcade rolls out the red carpet with the new King’s cipher. PICTURE: Matt Brown (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
A crown atop a bus stop in Oxford Street, central London. PICTURE: Matt Brown (licensed under CC BY 2.0)A London Underground roundel changed into a “crowndel” ahead of the coronation. PICTURE: diamond geezer (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Christmas windows at Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly. ALL PICTURES: Jed Leicester/PinPCarnaby Street lights.Piccadilly Arcade decorated for Christmas.Clos Maggiore shopfront in Covent GardenNew Bond Street.
Christmas is looming so here’s our first look at some of London’s Christmas light displays…
Christmas lights in Regent Street. ALL PICTURES: Jed Leicester/PinPChristmas lights in South Moulton Street, Mayfair…Christmas tree and lights at Covent Garden.One of the Selfridges Christmas windows on Oxford Street.Harrods Brompton Road frontage decorated for Christmas.
Eighteenth century English composer Thomas Arne, considered one of British greatest theatrical composers and most well known for creating the music for his patriotic song Rule Britannia, spent most of his life in London.
The son of an upholster, Arne, whose middle name was Augustine, was born in Covent Garden in 1710 and baptised in St Paul’s, Covent Garden. Arne was educated at Eton College where, such was his passion for music, he is said to have secretly practised with a spinet, a smaller type of harpsichord, in his room at night, muffling the strings to keep from being discovered.
He became a violin student of composer Michael Festing and, such was his love of music, that he is said to have disguised himself in the livery of servant to attend the opera.
Following his father’s wishes, Arne worked briefly as a solicitor after leaving school but was subsequently permitted to leave the law and pursue a life in music (there were other family connections to music and performance – his father had actually been involved in financing some operas and both his sister Susannah Maria and brother Richard would go on to have careers in the theatre and music worlds).
Over the more than 40 years between 1733 and 1776, Arne wrote music for about 80 stage works which included everything from plays and masques to pantomimes and operas.
His big break came when he became house composer at Drury Lane Theatre, writing music for various plays and pantomimes and involving both his brother and his sister in the performances (his residences at this time are said to have included properties in Great Queen Street and Lincoln’s Inn Fields).
Arne was already a star when, on 15th March, 1737, he married the singer Cecilia Young (he may have already had a son prior to this).
In 1738, he – along with others including George Frideric Handel – founded the Society of Musicians (which would become the Royal Society of Music). Arne also received the patronage of Frederick, the Prince of Wales – in fact, it was at the prince’s country house, Cliveden, that he debuted Rule, Britannia, during a performances of his Masque of Alfred in 1740.
Arne and his wife spent two years in Dublin in the early 1740s and on his return to London in 1744, he was again composing music for Drury Lane. He also composed music for performances at Vauxhall Gardens.
Arne left Drury Lane for the Covent Garden Theatre in 1750 after he had begun to fall out of favour with theatre manager David Garrick who was increasingly turning to other composers.
In 1755, while again in Dublin, he separated from Cecilia, alleging she was mentally ill, and began a relationship with one of his students, Charlotte Brent. Brent would perform in several of his works including in Thomas and Sally (the first English opera to be completely sung) and Artaxerxes (which became one of the most successfully and influential English operas of the era). Brent would eventually go on to eventually marry a violinist in 1766.
His career took a downturn in the mid 1760s but in 1769, Garrick appointed Arne musical director for the Shakespeare festival at Stratford upon Avon. Arne composed several pieces for the event including An Ode upon Dedicating a Building to Shakespeare, the success of which put him back into favour with the London theatres.
In late 1777, Arne was reconciled with his wife (their son, Michael, went on to become a composer). But his health deteriorated soon after and Arne died on 5th March, 1778, at a house in Bow Street, Covent Garden. He was buried in the churchyard of St Paul’s, Covent Garden.
An English Heritage Blue Plaque was erected at the site of his former home at 31 King Street, Covent Garden, in 1988 (pictured above).
Piccadilly Circus lies at the heart of London’s West End. PICTURE: Sheep purple (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
This term is used to describe what was traditionally the western end of London as it developed beyond the City of London boundaries and has since became a word synonymous with the city’s theatre district.
The term’s origins are lost to history although it’s said it first started being used in earnest to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross in the late 17th or early 18th centuries. The term as it’s used today covers an area which contains the commercial and entertainment heart of London.
While the eastern boundary of the West End can be easily defined as where the City of London ends (Temple Bar on the Strand marks the City of London’s boundaries), thanks to its not being a formally designated geographic area, exactly where the West End finishes is a matter of considerable debate.
While the some see the West End only including Theatreland itself – an area stretching from Aldwych across to Piccadilly Circus and north from Trafalgar Square to Oxford Circus, others have adapted a broader definition which sees include not only Aldwych, Soho and Covent Garden but also Mayfair, Fitzrovia and Marylebone with Oxford Circus at the centre (some even go further and include districts such as Bloomsbury and Knightsbridge in their definition of the West End).
Looking down Maiden Lane from Bedford Street. PICTURE: Google Maps
The origins of this narrow Covent Garden street – which runs between Southampton and Bedford Streets – go back centuries and there’s a couple of possible explanations for its name.
One is that it was named for the statue of the Virgin Mary which once stood in the thoroughfare. The other is that its name is actually a corruption of ‘Midden Lane’ which refers to the garbage heaps or ‘middens’ once located here. It’s the second which, given its location on what was a garden, seems more likely.
The one-way street, which was apparently built on the route of a more ancient track, is famous for being the site of the house in which painter JMW Turner was born in 1775 as well as the location of the White Wig inn, noted as the establishment Voltaire lodged in when exiled from Paris in 1727-28.
Maiden Lane is also the location of the famous restaurant Rules, and of the Grade II-listed Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church (this wasn’t built until the 1870s so doesn’t appear to be connected to the earlier story of the statue).
The lane was apparently a cul-de-sac at the Southampton Street end (a footpath ran through to the street) until 1857 when it was extended to join up with the street. The story goes that this was done so that Queen Victoria’s carriage didn’t have to turn around after leaving her at the Adelphi Theatre on The Strand.
• The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich opens its doors this Monday, 7th September. Those who visit in the first week will be able to see all the winning images in the ‘Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year’ competition.Entry is free but tickets must be booked in advance. For more, see www.rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum.
• Other reopenings include the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden which also throws back its doors on Monday. Along with displays including historic vehicles and iconic posters, the reopening includes the ‘Hidden London’ exhibition revealing London’s ‘abandoned’ Underground stations. Tickets must be booked in advance. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk.
• Picasso’s Cannes’ studio has been recreated in an immersive experience at the BASTIAN gallery in Mayfair.Atelier Picasso is an installation-style exhibition and features furniture, sculptures, ceramics, drawings and prints. Highlights include portraits of the artist taken by his friend André Villers, ceramic works such as Wood Owl (1969) and Carreau Visage d’Homme (1965), lithograph and linocut posters and books including Gallieri Jorgen Expose Le Lithographies de L’atelier Mourlot (1984), and the masterpiece Minotaure caressing une dormeuse from the artist’s Vollard Suite. Admission is free. For more, see www.bastian-gallery.com. PICTURE: Courtesy of Luke Andrew Walker.
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• Britain’s Baroque culture – spanning the period from the Restoration of King Charles II to the death of Queen Anne in 1714 – is the subject of a new exhibition which opened this week at Tate Britain.British Baroque: Power and Illusion – the first major exhibition on the subject – shows how magnificence was used to express status and influence and features works by painters including Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Sir James Thornhill as well as designs, prints and wooden models of the works of architects like Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor and Sir John Vanbrugh. The importance of portraiture, the visual differences in Protestant and Catholic worship and the illusions contained in painted baroque interiors are all explored in the display along with how the subject of war was dealt with through heroic equestrian portraiture, panoramic battle scenes and accompanying propaganda. The exhibition, which is being accompanied by a programme of events, runs until 19th April. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk. PICTURE: Godfrey Kneller, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, c1706, National Portrait Gallery, London.
• The 25th Kew Orchid Festival kicks off at Kew Gardens on Saturday in a celebration of the wildlife and culture of Indonesia. Located in the Princess of Wales Conservatory, the festival will take visitors on an immersive journey evoking the sights, smells and sounds of Indonesia though a series of orchid displays which include a life-sized animals such as orang-utans, a tiger and a rhinoceros, an archway made of hundreds of carnivorous pitcher plants and an erupting volcano. A programme of evening events featuring gamelan music and traditional dancers as well as cooking demonstrations by renowned author and chef Petty Elliott is also planned – these must be booked online in advance. Admission charge applies. Runs until 8th March. For more, see www.kew.org.
• On Now: Hidden London: The Exhibition. This display at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden takes visitors on an immersive journey to some of the secret places in the Tube network. Featuring rare archive photos, objects, vintage posters, secret diagrams and decorative tiles from disused stations, it uncovers stories such as how Churchill took shelter in the Railway Executive Committee’s bomb-proof headquarters deep underground at Down Street station at the height of the Blitz during World War II and how almost 2,000 members of staff, mostly women, worked in the Plessey aircraft underground factory located in two 2.5 mile-long tunnels on the eastern section of the Central line. The exhibition is being accompanied by a series of events including late openings and tours. Runs until next January. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/hidden-london#.
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This Covent Garden establishment was founded by Daniel Button, a former servant in the household of the Countess of Warwick, in about 1712.
Button was apparently set up in the Russell Street business, located close to the Covent Garden Market, by newspaper writer and publisher Joseph Addison (who would marry the countess, Charlotte, in 1716) who, setting the example by giving the new premises his personal patronage, ensured it attracted a clientele of “wits” and intellectuals.
These had apparently previously frequented Will’s Coffee House which was located across the street from it but after the death of John Dryden, who was at the centre of this cloud, in 1700, the reputation of Will’s dropped. Enter Button’s.
The coffee house was particularly famous for a white marble letterbox in the shape of a lion’s head, said to have been designed by William Hogarth, which was nailed to the wall.
The concept had been imported from Venice where stone letterboxes, often carved into the shape of grotesque heads, were used by the governing body known as the Council of Ten to gather intelligence (and which informers would use to accuse fellow citizens of misdeeds).
People were encouraged to throw letters, limericks and other witty ephemera into the lion’s mouth, the best of which were then selected and published in Addison’s Guardian newspaper each week (Addison was also, famously, co-founder of The Spectator).
Daniel Button died in 1730 and the coffee house closed in 1751 after which the lion’s head was taken to the Shakespeare Tavern before going on to grace several establishments before the Duke of Bedford apparently took it to his country house at Woburn.
• Queen drummer, Roger Taylor, unveiled a Westminster City Council Green Plaque commemorating the site of Europe’s earliest recording studio in Covent Garden earlier this month. The studio was opened on Maiden Lane, one street north of the Strand, in 1898 by audio pioneer Fred Gaisberg and The Gramophone Company, a precursor to EMI – the same company which opened the world-famous Abbey Road Studios 33 years later. The campaign for the plaque – located on a building now housing a pizza restaurant – was led by music journalist and author James Hall with support from the EMI Archive Trust. For more, see www.westminster.gov.uk/green-plaques.
• On Now: Two Last Nights! Show Business in Georgian Britain. This interactive display throughout the entire Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury features more than 100 objects which highlight the similarities and differences between theatre going in the Georgian era and now. It explores key venues in London and beyond and is divided into four sections focusing on Georgian theatres like Drury Lane and Covent Garden, the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, the importance of the Foundling Hospital Chapel as a music venue, and the provincial music festivals held in other major cities in Britain. Runs until 5th January. Free with museum admission. For more, see www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk.
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Born to humble origins in London, Inigo Jones rose to become the first notable architect in England and, thanks to his travels, is credited with introducing the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to the nation.
Jones came into the world on 15th July, 1573, as the son of a Welsh clothworker, also named Inigo Jones (the origins of the name are apparently obscure), in Smithfield, London. He was baptised in St Bartholomew-the-Less but little else is known of his early years (although he was probably apprenticed to a joiner).
At about the age of 30, Jones is believed to have travelled in Italy – he certainly spent enough time there to be fluid in Italian – and he is also said to have spent some time in Denmark, apparently doing some work there for King Christian IV.
Returning to London, he secured the patronage of King Christian’s sister Queen Anne, the wife of King James I, and became famous as a designer of costumes and stage settings for royal masques (in fact, he is credited with introducing movable scenery to England).
Between 1605 and 1640, he staged more than 500 performances – his first was The Masque of Blackness performed on twelfth night in 1605 – including many collaborations with playwright Ben Jonson with whom he had an, at times, acrimonious relationship.
His architectural work in England – heavily influenced by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio (his copy of Palladio’s Quattro libri dell’architettura is dated 1601) as well as the Roman architect Vitruvius – dates from about 1608 with his first known building design that of the New Exchange in the Strand, built for Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury.
In 1611 Jones was appointed surveyor of works to Henry Frederick, the Prince of Wales, but, following the prince’s death on 6th November, 1612, he was, in 1615, appointed Surveyor of the King’s Works (having first accompanied Thomas Howard, the 2nd Earl of Arundel, on what would be his second visit to Italy).
Jones’ big break came in 1615 when he was made Surveyor-General of the King’s Works, a post he would hold for 27 years. He was subsequently was responsible for the design and building of the Queen’s House in Greenwich for Queen Anne (started in 1616 and eventually completed in 1635), the Banqueting House in Whitehall (built between 1619 and 1622, it’s arguably his finest work), the Queen’s Chapel in St James’s Palace (1623 to 1627) and, in 1630, Covent Garden square for the Earl of Bedford including the church of St Paul’s, Covent Garden.
Jones’ career – both as an architect and as a producer of masques – stopped rather abruptly with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 and the subsequent seizing of the king’s properties. Forced to leave London, he was eventually captured by Parliamentarians following a siege at Basing House in Hampshire in October, 1645.
His property was initially confiscated and he was heavily fined but he was later pardoned and his property returned.
Never married, Jones ended up living in Somerset House in London and died on 21st June, 1652. He was buried with his parents at St Benet Paul’s Wharf. A rather elaborate monument to his memory erected inside the church was damaged in the Great Fire of 1666 and later destroyed.
Jones’ legacy can still be seen at various sites around London where his works survive and also in the works of those he influenced, including Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, designer and builder of Chiswick House, and architect and landscape designer William Kent.
PICTURE: Bust of Inigo Jones by John Michael Rysbrack, (1725) (image by Stephencdickson/licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
A cache of papers and items found in Vincent Van Gogh’s former south London home – and dating from 1873-74, the period he lodged there – have shed new light on his time in the city. The papers, which include insurance documents, a small pamphlet of prayers and hymns, and scraps of paper painted with watercolour flowers (probably not the work of Van Gogh), were found under the floorboards and between the attic timbers of the house at 87 Hackford Road in Stockwell. They were discovered during a renovation of the early Victorian terraced house in which Van Gogh lived in while working as an assistant for an art dealer in Covent Garden. During the period he stayed at the house, it has been suggested that the Dutch artist fell in love with Eugénie Loyer, the 19-year-old daughter of his landlord (although his love was apparently not reciprocated). He also apparently became devoutly Christian during his time there (perhaps explaining the prayer pamphlet). The home’s current owners Jian Wang, a former professional violinist who originally hails from China, and his wife Alice Childs have reportedly been renovating the property in order to use it as a base for visiting Chinese artists in collaboration with the nearby San Mei Gallery. For more on the house, see www.vangoghhouse.co.uk. A near life-size photograph of the facade of the Hackford Road house forms part of Tate Britain’s upcoming display The EY Exhibition: Van Gogh in Britain which opens later this month (more on that shortly). PICTURE: An English Heritage Blue Plaque adorning the house (Spudgun67 – licensed under CC BY 2.0).
As you may have realised (the new £10 banknote anyone?), this month marks 200 years since the death of Jane Austen in Winchester on 18th July, 1817, so to mark the occasion, we’re looking at 10 sites of interest from Jane Austen’s London. To kick off our new Wednesday series, we’re looking at one of the locations where she is known to have resided while in London – number 10 Henrietta Street.
Number 10 in those days was the location of a bank – Austen, Maunde and Tilson – in which Jane’s older (and favourite) brother Henry was a partner. Above the bank’s offices was a flat Henry moved into after the death of his wife Eliza in 1813. It was also where Jane stayed when visiting publishers in the summer of 1813 and again in March, 1814, the latter when she was working on the proofs of Mansfield Park.
As well as a dining room at the front on the first floor, it had a sitting parlour, small drawing room and bedchambers (Jane is known to have stayed in one on the second floor). She described the property as “all dirt & confusion, but in a very promising way”.
Austen is known to have visited nearby theatres including the Lyceum and the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane while staying in London and during 1813 also visited the “blockbuster” exhibition of Sir Joshua Reynold’s paintings at the British Institute in Pall Mall ( a fascinating reconstruction of which can be found here).
A City of Westminster Green Plaque (erected in partnership with the Jane Austen Society) commemorates Jane’s stay here.
Located in Covent Garden, the workshop of 18th century cabinet-maker and interior designer Thomas Chippendale (1718-1778) was a hub of sought-after design.
The Yorkshire-born Chippendale leased the premises at 60-61 St Martin’s Lane in the mid 1750s and, joined by partner James Rannie, in 1754 he published his famous – and then ground-breaking – catalogue, The Gentleman Cabinet Maker’s Director, which illustrated his work.
Chippendale’s clients includes something of a who’s who of the Georgian era – actor David Garrick, architect Robert Adam, Lord Mansfield (he installed Chippendale’s furnishings at Kenwood House in Hampstead) and Mrs (Teresa) Cornelys who apparently counted Casanova among her lovers.
The Chippendale workshop remained at the premises in St Martin’s Lane until 1813 when his son, also Thomas Chippendale, was evicted from the site for bankruptcy. The current building dates from the 19th century.
Now located on a street of another name, London’s oldest street sign is generally believed to be that of Yorke Street and dates from 1636.
The rather small sign, which is located on a building dating from the 1730s, is now located high up at 34-36 Tavistock Street in Covent Garden (above a blue plaque commemorating author Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), writer of Confessions of an English Opium Eater).
Another of the oldest signs can be found at the corner of Chigwell Hill and The Highway – it refers to ‘Chigwell Streate’ and bears the date 1678.
PICTURE: The Yorke Street sign is the white oblong at the top right under which can be seen the blue plaque (Via Spudgun67/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)
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