The Museum Exhibit That Serves as a Memorial

Inside the London Transport Museum is an unusual, if not unique, memorial.

The waxwork of the bus driver in the museum's  Routemaster bus is based on a real person, Christopher Moyes.

 Chris Moyes was a former bus conductor who became a key player during the privatisation of the bus and rail industries in the 1980's and 1990's. He was the founder of one of the largest transport companies in the country, Go Ahead, who still run trains and buses all over UK.

“He averaged 1,000 miles a week on public transport – preferably his own buses and trains – and even took his enthusiasm home with him, owning, maintaining and driving a collection of vintage buses. Though criticised for phasing out the Routemasters among the 1,000 London buses operated by Go Ahead, he bought one himself "just for the fun and enjoyment of it" but thought it too uncomfortable for the modern passenger."

Chris Moyes died of a brain tumour aged just 57 in 2006.

When the London Transport Museum reopened, after a lengthy refit, in 2007 they decided to commemorate him with this waxwork and portrayed him as the driver of their Routemaster.


Other waxwork figures in the museum are also based on real people connected with London's transport. The museum's current Director, Sam Mullins, sits as a passenger inside a "padded cell" carriage from the 1890 the City and South London Railway, for example.

But I can't think of anyone else who has deliberately and posthumously been commemorated by a waxwork in quite this way.

Quotes come from the Daily Telegraph obituary of Chis Moyes, the full obit. is here.

Weekend Elephant #4

Each Friday we publish a picture of one of  London's giant herd of elephants. You then have the whole weekend to email the location to discoveringlondon@hotmail.co.uk. The first person to locate each weekend's elephant will be rewarded with a glorious mention sometime on Monday when the location will be officially revealed. Honour is all that is at stake.

So here without further ado here is the last Weekend Elephant of July!

 Happy hunting!

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

Green Housing Monopolises Pall Mall

Street Art of any kind is rare in the clubland of St James's, so I was pleased to spot this small example in Pall Mall yesterday.

The green paper house is a reference to Pall Mall's inclusion as a property in the original British Monopoly boards. I am old enough to remember when there was only one iconic board available. Today there a bewildering number of different versions available. I am sure the new versions are still able to inspire family rows wherever they are played but they can't inspire pub crawls, so I remain a traditionalist.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

Parliament Foxed in Recess

Spotted yesterday in Victoria Tower Gardens.

 

 

This fox calmly walked amongst the bushes until it found a secluded spot in the sun and settled down for a snooze.

I know we have many urban foxes and I see them quite often but this view seemed especially incongruous and interesting enough to prompt this author to start pondering puns for a headline.

The above result is the best I could do, perhaps I need more sleep. I did at least manage to resist any references to Black Rod's Garden Entrance, so hope remains. Any more inventive headline suggestions would be very welcome.

Horses Tucked Up in Bruton Place

Above the entrance to Bellamy's Restaurant, in the former mews of Bruton Place, are these carved brick horse's heads.

They are a fine example of carving in brick and also a good example of Tuck Pointing. Now until recently I had no idea what tuck pointing was, a friend explained it to me and now I see examples everywhere. Nearby in Berkeley Square the whole frontage of number 55 is tuck pointed.

The expensive technique of tuck pointing developed in the late 17th Century and became common throughout the 18th and early 19th Centuries. The aim was to give the illusion of perfect brickwork, or sometimes to disguise inferior quality work and materials.

In tuck pointing a regular wall, built with lime mortar, such as the one above is first smoothed. Then a v-shaped groove is cut between the joints. Finally a ribbon of lime putty is placed into the grooves and cut with precision to make all the joints appear perfectly regular. Such a laborious process was reserved for the façades of the most prestigious addresses.

There are numerous examples of tuck pointing throughout London but there are very few specialist companies able to maintain or restore such  facades using this traditional technique. One such expert is Dr Gerard Lynch aka The Red Mason! His website has a lot more detail on this interesting technique. There is also an excellent guide from Historic Brick Pointing available as a pdf here.

Weekend Elephant #3 - Result Out!

This weekend's elephants lie tucked behind King's College Library building off Chancery Lane.

 

India

The India panel, that features the elephants, is just one of six including:

Australasia

 

 

Africa

America

A plaque on the end of the little building explains their presence here.

There are pictures of all the panels and some more details about them from the excellent Victorian Web.

Congratulations to this weeks winner Colin Davey, a City of London Guide with Walk City. Colin emailed the correct answer many hours before anyone else, well done sir!

Friday's Weekend Elephant(s) Are Here!

Each Friday we publish a picture of one of  London's giant herd of elephants. You then have the whole weekend to email the location to discoveringlondon@hotmail.co.uk. The first person to locate each weekend's elephant will be rewarded with a glorious mention sometime on Monday when the location will be officially revealed. Honour is all that is at stake.

So here without further ado here is are a pair of pachyderms for our third Weekend Elephant!

 Happy hunting!

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

Jean Charles de Menezes 6th Anniversary

Today, the 22nd of July, marks the 6th anniversary of the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes by police officers. This is the permanent memorial at Stockwell Station where he died.

The memorial was unveiled on Thursday 7 January 2010, which would have been his 32nd birthday.  The mosaic was created by artist, Mary Edwards.

This link to a Guardian article has more details for those of you that may not be familiar with this tragic story.

Weekend Elephant #2 The Result!

The first person to correctly locate last week's Weekend Elephant was the keen-eyed Vania from Stanmore, many congratulations this was a tough one!

This elephant was especially hard to find as it is located inside the lobby of the former Express Building at 120 Fleet Street. The building is now occupied by Goldman Sachs who do not only normally grant public access and I don't normally feature elephants that require special permissions to view. There is a reason for this week's exception. It is normally possible to visit the lobby during Open House Weekend (17th & 18th September) and the full guide to this highlight of every London enthusiast's year is soon to be published.

So this elephant is a memory jogger for Open House regulars to order the guide and start planning, and a strong recommendation for those yet to participate to buy the guide and drool over the 700+ properties that will be open this year, all completely free!

The Asian elephant is featured in one of two panels of gilded and silvered plaster reliefs by Eric Aumonier. The Aumonier reliefs in the lobby form part one of the finest Art Deco interiors in Britain, the whole being designed by Robert Atkinson in 1932.

Eric Aumonier (1899–1974)   is an often overlooked sculptor. Together with contemporaries such as Eric Gill, Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein he too worked on external sculptures at Charles Holden's 55 Broadway. Unfortunately Aumonier's work can't be seen from street level so his contribution is often ignored.  There are pictures of his hidden South Wind  from the excellent Ornamental Passions though.

Aumonier did contribute one highly visible statue to London, his famous Archer at East Finchley station, another collaboration with Holden.

There is some more information on the sculptor, some pictures of the panels and of his Archer statue here.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

Nose for Sale - Is it a Rick Buckley?

Paul Smith's antique shop in Albemarle Street currently have this handsome nose for sale.

 

The price tag is £550 and guesses at a 1960's US origin for the unsigned piece.

To my eye the piece is not stone but resin and seems remarkably like two of the famous Seven Noses of Soho (these were produced, in several sizes and in resin by Rick Buckley before being attached to buildings around Soho in the 1990's, see previous posts for more on them). The tentative attribution to a US artist is based on the fact that a Paul Smith buyer found this nose in Miami.

Now as someone who has devoted a lot of time to researching the noses and even leads guided tours around them, I would bet money this nose is a Rick Buckley ... but I have no proof. Can anyone help? Does anyone know if Rick Buckley produced free-standing noses for sale in addition to his building enhancements? Do you perhaps own a similar nose? Please drop me a line if you can shed any light on any of this.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, including The Seven Noses of Soho, see tabs for details.

This Week's Weekend Elephant!

Each Friday we publish a picture of one of  London's giant herd of elephants. You then have the whole weekend to email the location to discoveringlondon@hotmail.co.uk. The first person to locate each weekend's elephant will be rewarded with a glorious mention sometime on Monday when the location will be officially revealed. Honour is all that is at stake.

So here without further ado here is our second Weekend Elephant!

 Happy hunting!

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

Less is More in Pimlico

Ask any London buff to name a major work by G.E. Street or G.F Watts and I'll bet within moments you will get the reply "The Royal Courts of Justice and Postman's Park". Yet both men share another major example of their work in central London, but it is one that rarely features in the guidebooks and is visited only very rarely.

The church of St James the Less stands on Vauxhall Bridge Road, just a short distance from Pimlico Tube. This month it will celebrate its 150th anniversary, the publicity surrounding this milestone may help to bring it some well-deserved and much needed attention.

The Grade I listed church was built between 1858-61 as a tribute to Dr James Monk, by his daughters. The land, in what was then one of the poorest areas of Westminster, had been donated by Westminster Abbey.  It was referred to at the time as a 'lily among weeds' and also 'one of the most remarkable and beautiful of modern Gothic churches'.

The architect was George Edmund Street, this was his first church in London and he really went to town on the detailing. The interior is a heady mix of polychromatic brickwork, decorative ironwork, ornate stone carving, stained glass and marble columns all set beneath a painted ceiling. It is like walking into a jewel box. The exterior is treated with the same attention to detail. The distinctive campanile style tower is set with semi-precious stones and even the iron railings are rendered as works of art. More details on the architecture from Victorian Web.

But the most distinctive decoration in the church is this work by artist George Frederick Watts.

The glowing image above chancel arch is often referred to (even by Pevsner) as a wall-painting or as a fresco but in fact it is a mosaic. G.F. Watts did complete the work The Saviour in Glory or The Doom as a mural in 1861, it was his very last mural. However the mural quickly deteriorated and it was replaced with a Venetian glass mosaic to the original design, under Watts' supervision, in the 1880's.

If you have not visited the church before the upcoming celebratory weekend might be an ideal opportunity to do so. On Sunday, 31 July 2011, it will be 150 years to the day since the consecration of St James the Less Church in 1861. On Saturday 30th, the church is holding a community fete. There will be a variety of different things going on, including food and drink, musical entertainment and children's activities. On the Sunday there will be a celebratory service, followed by yet more food, drinks and entertainment.

To get an invitation, email Jane Petrie - jane.petrie@sjtl.org, or phone 020 7630 6282. and she will send you an invitation in the post - so do include your postal address. You can also follow updates on their Facebook page.


If you can't make the weekend celebration, the church is open to visitors everyday between 9am and 1pm, though you may have to ring the bell at the church office.

The church, whilst still very beautiful, is beginning to show its age. A long backlog of repairs and cleaning work is required to return it to full glory. The total cost of restoration and cleaning is estimated at £438, 000 including £16,000 just to clean and conserve the Watts mosaic. In the grand scheme of things this is not a fortune to spend on a Grade I listed masterpiece, if you would like to get involved in the church's fund-raising do contact them.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

Yuri Gagarin and Henry Moore in Cultural Exchange

As the new Yuri Gagarin statue was unveiled in London today it was revealed at the reception that a familiar London landmark will soon be leaving for the Kremlin in Moscow. One woman connects the two unique public exhibitions - Elena Gagarina, Yuri Garagin's daughter.

 

The Yuri Gagarin statue was unveiled this morning outside the British Council's offices on the Mall near Admiralty Arch. It is an exhibition copy of the original which stands in Lyubertsy.  

 

The unveiling was performed by HRH Prince Michael of Kent and Elena Gagarina in front of a large crowd of press, dignitaries, and well wishers. Perhaps the most unusual feature of the morning was a greeting delivered live and direct from the International Space Station's crew, in a reception immediately prior to the unveiling.

Elena Gagarina is not only the daughter of the the first man in space, she is also Director of the Kremlin Museums. In this capacity, she, together with the British Council have arranged for the Kremlin to have its first ever show of Modern Art.

The Henry Moore exhibition will open at the Kremlin in Feb 2012 and will feature many sculptures and drawings by the British artist. The highlight of the show will be this familiar London landmark.

This is Moore's Knife Edge Two Piece made between 1962 and 1965. It stands near the Victoria Tower at the Houses of Parliament and regularly crops up in the background of political interviews.

 

The international loan of such a well-known London landmark is very unusual but then the gift of a Russian memorial or monument is equally rare. Special permission was required from the Governor of Moscow and Lyubertsy authorities to make a copy of the original Gagarin statue so that Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, could present it as a gift to the people of Britain. It will stand in the current location for one year before moving to a permanent site.

The statue's unveiling could not have been better timed. This year marks 50 years of manned space flight and today, July 14th is the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's lunch with HM the Queen. 

Gagarin visited the UK in July 1961. The authorities were wrong-footed and underestimated the enthusiasm with which he was greeted by the British public. What was to have been a pretty low-key 2 day visit was hastily extended to 4 days and a meeting with Harold Macmillan and lunch at Buckingham Palace arranged. During that lunch the Queen gave Yuri Gagarin a present of two dolls for his daughters, Elena and Galina. I wonder if they both still have them?

There is also an accompanying exhibition celebrating 50 years of manned space flight at the British Council but I will post separately about this.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

Not Quite Tower Bridge

For those of you who have been following the series of pictures of Tower Bridge under construction, please bear with me. I put the first post out on Saturday and it generated a very high level of interest. The second post went up on Monday and things went to a level that this blogger never expected and has never experienced!

In addition to many kind comments, tweets, Facebook likes and so forth I have also been inundated with emails and phone calls. The interest has been global, from Argentina to China as well as the US, Canada and the UK. Last night I was getting more hits from New Zealand and Australia then back in the UK and this morning South Africa topped the chart!

The third post, with the final six photos of the bridge nearing completion, was planned for today. But there is a hitch: the man who saved the pictures in the first place, and who let me share them here, is away for a few days. He is totally unaware of all the interest his pictures have generated.

I feel it is only fair to let him know how popular they are, let him share the fun of seeing traffic come to them from all over the globe and also ask him whether he would be willing to share a few more details about where they came from and  how he saved them. After all, if anyone deserves the praise for sharing these historic photos it is him rather than your author. So I will wait until his return before publishing any more of his pictures.

In the meantime (I do realise this is hardly a suitable replacement for the intended images) but I did spot this outside Dolphin Square in Pimlico and it made me smile.

Back tomorrow with a more sober piece on a GE Street and GF Watts masterpiece that is about to celebrate an important anniversary. Thanks in advance for your forbearance.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

Rise of the Non-Conformists in Islington

Finishing touches were being made to a new exhibition of street art in Whitecross Street, Islington, yesterday.

The exhibition The Rise of the Non Conformists opened on the 11th July and will run until August 19th.

IMAGE BY WRECKAGE

Whitecross Street and the surrounding area is now crammed with works by over 30 leading urban artists.

Teddy Baden, the curator of the show and a contributing artist told me that the real highlight of the show will be a two-day street party on July 23rd and 24th. There will be live street painting by a host of artists, music, food and family friendly stuff.

One of the artists who will be taking part is Ben Wilson, the artist who paints on chewing gum. I have been a fan of Ben Wilson for a long time but had never seen one of his works for real until Teddy gave me a hint.

In Loving Memory of Linda Bassett - Ben Wilson 2011

Ben Wilson has already contributed to the exhibition with this tribute to Linda Bassett who passed away last year.  "Without Linda this project would not have been possible.  She remains infinitely loved and deeply missed.".

There is work for sale too, with 25% of all proceeds going to SHP, a London-based charity working with people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Other partners, supporters and sponsors include The Barbican Centre, Peabody, Islington Council, The London Symphony Orchestra, St Luke’s Community Centre, Travis Perkins and the YMCA.

Teddy and his team must be congratulated on pulling together such a wide range of leading talent and supporters to lay on this wonderful, playful, engaging and totally free event. See you on the 23rd and 24th July!

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

First Weekend Elephant Winner

This Friday's first Weekend Elephant was published here.

 

 The idea is that each Friday we will publish a picture of a different London elephant. You then have the whole weekend to email the location to discoveringlondon@hotmail.co.uk . Pride is all there is at stake.

The first person to correctly locate this first Weekend Elephant was that noted London expert, Matt from Londonist. Congratulations! Of course Londonist are the acknowledged experts on London's pride of lions, it seems their expertise extends to elephants too. Can anyone pip them to the post this Friday when the next elephant is published?

This pink elephant is painted on the wall of a WWII deep level shelter at Stockwell Memorial Garden. It dates to 1999 when Brian Barnes and Myra Harris created a mural based on the the ideas of pupils at Stockwell Park School.

The London Mural Preservation Society who "work to protect, preserve and celebrate murals in communities where they were created" have a good feature on the mural here.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

More Unseen Images of Tower Bridge Under Construction

Here are six more images of Tower Bridge under construction.In these pictures the high-level walkways are joined.

These photos are part of a set of 20  that were saved from a skip in central London many years ago. At the offices of one of the original contractors, management had decided to have a "clear-out" and a great many boxes of old paperwork from throughout the firms history were simply dumped.

The only person who thought these photos were worth saving is a friend and neighbour of mine. He rescued them, scanned them and this weekend he gave me copies to share here on the blog. We will never know just how much other material was lost in the company's "clear-out", journals, letters and many other photos probably went straight to landfill.

An act of corporate vandalism that could so easily have been averted. I am sure that many public archives and private collectors would have helped the company gain space by taking this material "off their hands", they would probably even paid them handsomely to do so, at the very the least the company could have saved themselves the cost of skip hire.

The original post contains eight more photos of the bridge in an earlier phase of construction. I will publish the final six photos in the set here soon.

In the meantime if you would like to know a little more about the history of Tower Bridge, there is an excellent quick guide at Caroline's Miscellany, this guide also has many useful links to other sites.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

Unseen Images of Tower Bridge Under Construction

These images show Tower Bridge under construction in the 1880's. They were saved from a skip many years ago by a neighbour of mine. The skip was outside the former offices of one of the original contractors. He has kindly scanned them and agreed that I can share them here.

There are a total of 20 images in the set, I will publish the rest here over the coming week. Some details about the bridge, which celebrates the 125th anniversary of its foundation this year, from the Tower Bridge website here.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.