An Obscure Weekend Elephant

As calm returns, trivia is palatable once more.

Each Friday we publish a picture of one of  London's enormous 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.

This week's Weekend Elephant is a particularly obscure one and merits a clue:

This elephant has an SW1 address and can be found above the door of an defunct insurance company.

 Happy hunting!

UPDATE: Monday 15th August.

Last week's elephant has stumped everybody, uniquely there has not been a single correct entry! With no winner to announce, it only remains to put those of you who may have wondered out of your misery!

The particularly obscure elephant is to be found above the doorway of 29 Buckingham Palace Gate. The building is currently occupied by an insurance company who are in the process of winding up. Municipal Mutual do not appear to have any elephantine element to the company logo and I can offer no explanation for why it is there.

This week's upcoming Friday Elephant should be far more familiar!

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

London's Smallest (and Rudest) Blue Plaque?

At the entrance to the Newman Arms in Rathbone Street is this.

 

Not an official English Heritage one then, but a very affectionate memorial all the same. I particularly like unofficial Blue Plaques. The strict rules of the official English Heritage scheme would not permit so many interesting memorials. The plaque is tiny, you might just spot it here, to the left of the door.

I did drink in there a few times before Mr Jenkin's passing, though I never approached the status of "regular" and so never experienced a barring, I wish I had now, he sounds like a great London character.

Goons First Explosion Unveiled, Nearly

Just in case you missed it, the BBC did, a new plaque has been unveiled to mark the birthplace of the Goons.

It was partially unveiled on Saturday May 28th. I have been waiting for the little curtains to be removed, to get a clear shot of the plaque but they are still there so here is a first glimpse.

Update 26th June 2011: The plaque is now in full view.

The plaque is mounted on The Strutton Arms in Strutton Ground, Westminster, just near New Scotland Yard.

 

It commemorates the birthplace of The Goons, for it was here that Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine first got together in the late 1940's under the auspices of  radio scriptwriter Jimmy Grafton, the pub's owner. More on the Goons and links from Wiki here. A little taste of them in performance below.

The pub was then called "Grafton's" (certainly not the "Grafton Arms" as Goons fans are always keen to point out). The pub was also briefly an Irish themed pub, "Finnegan's Wake". The pub has reinstated some Goons memorabilia that had been removed during the Finnegan's phase.

Grinling Gibbons - A Memorable Name

If I was ever asked to choose a book for Desert Island Discs it would be the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and if I ever win the lottery it will be a very early purchase. For now I rely almost daily on the online version to clarify and illuminate. A genuinely authoritative source of immense scale.

There is so much nonsense written about Grinling Gibbons on the net. A quick scan of the DNB and many myths can be cleared up in moments.

The distinctive name "Grinling" has been written as "Grinlin, Grinlen, Grinilin, Greenlin, Grindlin, Grinsted, Gringling, Gringlin, Grialin, Griblin, Grymlin, Grimling, Grimblin, and Grumblin".

Where did the name come from? Well his father's name was James Gibbons and his mother's was Elizabeth Grinling. In a sentence or two David Esterly's DNB article nails down the answer "It is a metronymic, memorializing his mother's maiden name."

This plaque commemorates Grinling Gibbons' home in Bow Street. "The house collapsed in January 1702 and was rebuilt as a substantial brick structure, which Gibbons then insured for the sizable sum of £700" The house no longer stands but nearby inside St Paul's Covent Garden there is another memorial.

Above this is the little example of lime-wood rendered exquisite, as referred to in the panel.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think the work of Grinling Gibbons is almost impossible to photograph properly. But I will plod on with one of the aims of my blog to document all examples of his London work and any other associations. See labels for other related Gibbons posts.

Explaining The Great Dangaroo Flood of Old Compton Street

How does one begin to try and explain to visitors this grand looking plaque in Old Compton Street? Click on the image to enlarge it if you haven't read it before.

This surreal plaque stands testament to an immersive cross between fiction and a role playing game. From an authoritative source : 

"Kcymaerxthaere is a parallel universe that intersects with much of our linear Earth. The name comes from the cognate words kcymaara (meaning "the true physicality of the planet") and xthaere (which is a shape with almost an infinity of edges or dimensions--infinity minus 29 to be precise). We explore and tell stories of these other realms through many media, but most famously by installing bronze plaques and historic sites that honor events from the parallel world in our linear world."

So that is that cleared up then. As I began, how does one sum this up for a visitor? I did try today but my Danish wasn't up to the task.


The plaque was installed in 2007 for more on Kymaerica click here.

Low Tree Uplifted on Shaftesbury Avenue

I liked this small sign adaptation on Shaftesbury Avenue yesterday.

Not quite as masterly as the work of Dave Askwith and Alex Normanton but still a good bit of work. Reminded by this I went off to snap Askwith & Normanson's superb fake English Heritage Blue Plaque in Golden Square.

The two of them produced a whole series of fake signs a few years ago, each one carefully matching the typeface and colour schemes of official original "targets". They produced a book "Signs of Life" documenting their work and it is still available. There is a feature on them from The Times here.

Now I am not sure if the sign in Golden Square is a fake of a fake! The "original" Askwith & Normanson fake gave the date of Jacob Von Hogflume's residence as 2063, whilst the current sign has moved that date forward by more than a century. Does anyone know the answer?

Wheelerabila continued

As I was in the Royal Borough and had Charles Wheeler's autobiography with me I thought I would try and track down a couple of his old haunts.See labels for other Wheeler posts.

This private plaque marks the first flat he took in London.

It is at Hereford Buildings on the west side of Church Lane, Chelsea. The building was designed by Elijah Hoole in 1878 for associates of Octavia Hill.

Just around the corner in Justice Walk, was his first studio, "in the shadow of the old Courthouse"

There is a major refurbishment happening there at the moment. His former studio is hidden behind hoardings. I will snap it when the work is finished. For the time being this weathered sign will have to do.

Icon Born in a London Stable

This plaque commemorates the fact that the first  Bentley car was built  here in a garage converted from a mews stable at Number 48 Chagford Street, Marylebone, London. 

It is a private plaque, businesses are not generally recognised under the "official" English Heritage scheme .

Bentley has become a byword for luxury, “extraordinary speed, exquisitely handcrafted and beautifully engineered” cars, but these are unlikely surroundings.

Before World War I W.O. Bentley was a successful competitive motorcyclist. During the war he made aircraft engines for the newly formed RAF. In 1919, with the war over ”W.O.” turned his attention to the dream of building a car that would satisfy his own “extraordinarily high expectations as a driver, as an engineer, as a competitor and as a gentleman”. He wanted  “A fast car, a good car, the best in its class.”

In October 1919 at his service shop in Chagford Street, he fired up the very first Bentley engine, the enormous, by the standards of the day, Bentley  3-litre.

He now just needed to build a car around it. In those days car makers just produced the chassis and engine, it was up to the customer to employ a coach maker to finish the vehicle. Rich purchasers also bought the very best coachwork.

A reviewer wrote “For the man who wants a true sporting type of light-bodied car for use on a Continental tour, the three-litre Bentley is undoubtedly the car par excellence.”.

After five Le Mans victories, the car became an icon of the motor industry and it all started here in Chagford Street.

The Real Pongo Lived Here Too!

2011 is the 40th anniversary of the release of  Disney's animated 101 Dalmatians.

Dodie Smith, author of the original book, One Hundred and One Dalmatians lived here at Number 19, Dorset Square London. This is the private plaque provided by St Marylebone Society, a local history and conservation organisation.

Her flat at number 19 was decorated in fashionable monochrome with white carpets and black curtains, she joked ‘All I need now is a Dalmatian.’ . Her husband was wondering what to buy her as a birthday present and was inspired by this remark to purchase "Pongo" for her 38th birthday.

Later a friend, admiring Pongo's fine fur, remarked that ‘He would make a nice fur coat,’ and Dodie had her inspiration.

As we celebrate the film, let's not forget the charms of the original book. The book really concentrates on  dog behaviour and psychology and is very wittily written to appeal to parents as much as to children and of course in the book, Pongo is never married to Perdita, his constant companion is Missis! A quick read and an amusing one.