Southwood Fountain, St James’s Piccadilly, May 2019.
Mr Salter is the obsequious Foreign Editor of the Daily Beast in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop. A fictitious character? Not on your life.
Julius Salter Elias rose from humble origins to be a newspaper proprietor and Labour politician. He was created Viscount Southwood and when he died in 1946 the title died with him. His ashes are buried beside this elegant fountain in the garden beside St James’s Piccadilly; so convenient for Jermyn Street and its shopping and dining. I visited the gardens on Thursday. If I had been feeling bothered or bewildered this caravan is available for (free) counselling.
St James’s Piccadilly, May 2019.St James’s Piccadilly, May 2019.
I was on my way to Middle Temple Hall for lunch. My route took me through Victoria Embankment Gardens where the flower beds were rather showy with good colour schemes.
Victoria Embankment Gardens, May 2019.Victoria Embankment Gardens, May 2019.Victoria Embankment Gardens, May 2019.
Here are four things about Middle Temple Hall, some of which you probably already know:
1. In the Hall is a long, oak-beamed High Table, used by Masters of the Bench for generations. It is 29 feet long, and made of three planks cut from a single oak tree in Windsor forest, and floated down the Thames. The table was installed within the Hall during construction, and has never left since.
2. At the far end of the Hall is a finely carved, elegant oak screen.
It was made in 1574, just after the completion of the Hall, but was shattered during the Blitz. Each piece was saved and the screen was painstakingly reconstructed after the war.
3. The Minstrel’s Gallery, above the screen, has been used by many famous musicians over the years, and is still used today. There is a longstanding tradition of Candlemas celebrations at the Inn, including the first performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in 1602.
4. The Inn has a strong connection with navigation and exploration since Elizabethan times. Sir Francis Drake visited the Hall in 1586, and the table holding the register of members called to the bar is believed to have been made from the hatch cover of Drake’s ship, the Golden Hind.
2 comments
Elias’s viscountcy has an interesting origin. When the ‘press broke silence’ in the Abdication Crisis, on 3 December 1936, his first instinct was that his paper (I think the DAILY HERALD) should declare strongly in favour of the King – but the hint of a peerage persuaded him to stay his hand…
To add to your information about the Middle Temple Hall, I hope you noticed that, at one end, there is a bust of my ancestor, Edmund Plowden, during whose regime as Treasurer the Hall was built. To do the work he “borrowed”, with the Queen’s authority and for some years, the estate carpenter at Longleat. The hall at Trinity College, Cambridge is supposed to be the same design.
Apparently and rather gratifyingly , prospective Benchers are obliged to bow to the bust as they are introduced.
Elias’s viscountcy has an interesting origin. When the ‘press broke silence’ in the Abdication Crisis, on 3 December 1936, his first instinct was that his paper (I think the DAILY HERALD) should declare strongly in favour of the King – but the hint of a peerage persuaded him to stay his hand…
To add to your information about the Middle Temple Hall, I hope you noticed that, at one end, there is a bust of my ancestor, Edmund Plowden, during whose regime as Treasurer the Hall was built. To do the work he “borrowed”, with the Queen’s authority and for some years, the estate carpenter at Longleat. The hall at Trinity College, Cambridge is supposed to be the same design.
Apparently and rather gratifyingly , prospective Benchers are obliged to bow to the bust as they are introduced.