Category: Architecture

Good Crap

PG Wodehouse was prolific and successful but there was another genre in the first half of the last century – between the wars – and those authors made more money. Edgar Wallace and Somerset Maugham rivalled our subject today in popularity and earnings.

Good Eggers

Count Egmont was a 17th century Dutch freedom fighter seeking independence from the Spanish Empire in the Low Lands in what became known as the Eighty Years War (1568  – 1648). His story was romanticised by Goethe in his 1787 play, Egmont.

Demolition Diary

Spokes of scaffolding have sprouted on the south west corner of the West London Magistrates’ Court to prepare for demolition. I intend to keep a photographic record of progress, as I did when the LAMDA extension was built.

Wotton House

This is Wotton House, built for Richard Grenville between 1704 and 1714. The wrought-iron screen and gates catch the eye as do the pavilions on the north and south sides of the house. The north pavilion, the Clock Pavilion, used to house the kitchen which must have ensured cold food by the time it got… Continue reading Wotton House

A Columbarium

A columbarium is an old-fashioned name for a dovecote with nesting holes but it has gained another meaning in ecclesiastical architecture. You will have seen columbaria on San Michele in Venice and in many Catholic cemeteries in Spain and Italy where space is limited. They are those chests of drawers where bodies are interred, not… Continue reading A Columbarium

Bloomsbury Stud

So much has been written by and about the Bloomsbury Group, yet Stephen Tomlin has been almost air-brushed out.

Georgia On My Mind

Eleven years ago (2009) I went with a few friends to Georgia in the Caucasus for a holiday. We took a flight to Tbilisi from Heathrow and when we walked into the baggage hall I knew what was going to happen.

Messing About on the River

Taking a traghetto in Venice is practical and cheap; only 2 Euros a ride. Locals take them, standing insouciantly amidships reading the Corriere della Sera and juggling with a caffè corretto.