Walking in the footsteps of John Nash ... Part I

Once upon a time there was a great plan to remodel London after the fashion of the Eternal City. It all started a couple of hundred years ago when two blokes got together with a view to re-making the capital as a great imperial city that would rival the majesty and splendour of ancient Rome at her zenith.

The first bloke was none other than perennial bad boy, Prince George, the Prince Regent who later became King George IV. Now as it happens Prince George was a young man in a hurry to make his mark. For much of his life he'd had a rubbish relationship with his father, George III, and had chaffed under the heavy burden of (usually disappointed) parental expectation that fell upon him as heir to the throne. Perhaps, as a result of all this negative feedback, he developed into a regular hedonist who was hell-bent on pleasing his senses (and yes, that would be all five of them) no matter what. One great upside of all this self-indulgence, however, was his patronage of the arts. George not only loved art, he was a real connoisseur: he recognised the good stuff as soon as he set eyes on it. And nowhere was his impeccable taste more evident than in the architecture that he sponsored.

Which neatly leads me on to the second bloke: his partner in this great caper, John Nash, who was in my opinion the greatest architect of the age. Just think about the Royal Pavilion in Brighton or his wonderful terraces in Bath for a moment and I think you'll agree that he was a bit of a dude when it came to designing top notch buildings.

Together these two blokes came up with a truly stonking vision of how London should look, and it's a real tragedy that George died before they'd got the job done. When George's younger brother, the tight-wad, William IV, succeeded him to the throne the wind blew in a very different direction and all major public works were either cancelled or progressed with a meanness of spirit and economy that blighted the great vision. Poor old Nash fell from favour, did very little new work for the rest of his life and then died in debt.

Anyway, back to the architecture: this is a walk that showcases some of what Nash and the Prince Regent/ King George IV achieved, and will hopefully leave an impression of how grand the city would have been if they'd gone the distance. Here's an outline of where to go, starting from Regent's Park underground station.

Outline of the walk

The whole walk is just under 7 miles long. In this post I'm going to deal with the first half, which goes around Regent's Park starting from Park Square West, and ending in Park Square East. This stage is about 3 miles in total.

First cross the (very busy) Marylebone Road at the traffic lights and go straight into Park Square West.

Maybe this would be a good place to insert one of my maps to show this part of the route in some greater detail.

Park Square (built in 1823/ 1824) was designed by Nash as a sort of vestibule, a grand entrance that led from Portland Place into Regent's Park, punctuating the transition from a relatively built up area into the open greenery of the park. As with all of his terraces, each individual house is a component part in his grand overall design for the street. The result is a totally harmonic whole. Well, OK, totally harmonic minus the jarring note of the tarpaulin-covered scaffolding in the middle.

Take the first left into Ulster Terrace.

Ulster Terrace was also built in 1824 as part of the Park Square development.

Turn right at the end of Ulster Terrace into Brunswick Place and walk along to the end of the street and turn left into York Terrace East.

Walk along to the end of the street and turn right when you reach York Gate. Walk to the end of the street and turn left into the Outer Ring. Keep on walking, and soon you will pass by the very lovely Cornwall Terrace, which overlooks Regent's Park.

It looks amazing, shining in the sunlight from the distance, and, as you get closer, it just gets better and better. This was the first of the terraces to be completed. Construction took place from 1821 to 1823. Nash collaborated with another architect, Decimus Burton, on the design. Burton's father, James Burton, built the terrace under Nash's supervision. This partnering with other architects was typical of how Nash operated. He was involved in such a staggering amount of work that he had little option other than to delegate chunks of the workload just to get it all done.

Keep on going around the Outer Ring Road until you reach Clarence Terrace. It forms a little loop that reconnects again at the end with the Outer Road, and has the most glorious lawned garden in front.

The scale of this terrace makes it all but impossible to get a shot of the whole facade. Perhaps if I'd had the foresight to come in my chopper ... .

It is also the product of another Burton/ Nash design collaboration, and was named after William, the then Duke of Clarence, George III's third son, who later became William IV. He succeeded his brother George IV when he died without any legitimate issue. Frederick, the Duke of York (of The Grand Old Duke of York fame) George III's second son, who was the heir presumptive at the time of his death, had died without issue before George IV, leaving the way clear for the Duke of Clarence to succeed to their father's throne.

And one of the very many lovely things about this terrace is that it still has its original iron railings. They're a bit skew-whiff in sections, but they are rather wonderful nonetheless. So many of our London railings were carted away and melted down to make armaments during WWII only to be replaced with some very inferior looking hardware after the war had ended.  I was delighted (yes, I am that sad) to find the maker's stamp: Messrs. May & Morritt, who appear to have operated from premises at 36 Oxford Street.

Anyway, drag yourself on past the fabulous railings if you can and keep on trooping up the Outer Ring until you come to the glory that is Hanover Terrace.

Now this one is a real beauty and a slew of famous folk have lived here over the years.

H.G. Wells lived and died at number 13.

The composer Vaughan Williams hung out at number 10, and next door's number 11 used to be the home of Anthony Salvin, another well-known architect in the nineteenth century who specialised in the repair and restoration of medieval buildings. He did a bit of fixing and renovating at the Tower of London in his time.

As with the other terraces the scale of this one makes it all but impossible to take a photo of the whole arrangement.

On exiting Hanover Terrace, cross the Outer Ring and enter Regent's Park via the Hanover Gate. Nash also had a part in designing the layout of the Park. He was the architect who delivered the Regent's Canal, which feeds the boating lake, and was also used to bring provisions from the Thames to cater for the exclusive community who hung out in the fabulous villas around the Park.

Now the idea is to walk across Regent's Park to the Gloucester Gate on the other side. It's largely up to you how you do it. When I'm there I like to take a detour up around the top of the park to look in on the camels in the zoo. Here's a map of how we did it. As you can see it's not exactly a direct route!

If you follow my route you'll catch a glimpse of the Mosque at the Islamic Cultural Centre, which sits on the Outer Ring and, to my way of thinking, blends in rather pleasingly with the Nash terraces.

You'll have the option of stopping off for a spin in one of the paddle boats.

Watch out for the funky sculptures along the way ...

... and the Telecom Tower, which looks like it's caught a bit of a tipsy lean. Must be something to do with my camera angle, although the ground looks straight enough ... .

One of the joys of Regent's Park in summertime is the traditional hay-meadow flowers. They're growing beautifully at the moment. There are wonderful formal gardens as well, but I'm a big fan of the wild flowers.

Also look out for this striking water fountain as you get towards the Gloucester Gate.

It's got a sweet history. It was donated to the people of England by Sir Cowasjee Jehangir, a wealthy Parsee gentleman of Bombay, as a token of his gratitude for the protection enjoyed by him and his community under British Rule in India. As it happens we were very grateful for a cold drink on a hot day when we passed by. There's also a couple of low-level basins on one side for dogs, which is a nice touch. Here's the dedication plate:

Now, having wet your whistle, keep on going in the direction of the Gloucester Gate, and as you approach you'll see the very elegant terrace of the same name.

When you reach the gate, turn right into the Outer Ring, and keep on going past the Gloucester Gate terrace.

I think I can feel another map coming on ... . This is the route that we'll follow on the eastern side of the park.

Key: 1: Chester Terrace, 2: Cambridge Terrace

Soon you'll see the Danish Church of St. Katharine's on your left. Today this is a Lutheran Church serving the Danish community in London. However it was originally constructed to house the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine's, an ancient religious house created and endowed by Queen Matilda in 1147. For 700 years the foundation, known widely as St. Katharine's-by-the-Tower, had worked in the East End to relieve the terrible poverty of the area, but in 1825, when they developed St. Katharine's Dock for commercial shipping, the old collegiate church and hospital of St. Katharine's were knocked down as part of the improvement. The richly endowed foundation was relocated to Regent's Park where they opened an almshouse that was largely populated by distressed gentlefolk of narrow means. St. Katharine's-by-the-Tower had been much loved by the folk of the East End. They had come out in numbers to defend it during the Gordon Riots, for example. And there was outrage that instead of ministering to the destitute poor of its old locale it was now tending to a group of people whose needs did not seem nearly so acute. 

After the Second World War it was decided that the foundation should return to its roots in the East End, and new premises were developed on the site of St. James Ratcliff's church, which had been bombed in the Blitz. This left the Regent's Park buildings empty so in 1952 the Danish Church moved in.

Anyway I'm digressing as none of this has anything to do with our friend Nash. Keep on going along the Outer Ring, past the Danish Church until you see Cumberland Terrace on your left. Now this one is definitely worth taking a detour to have a look at.

It's so huge that once again I was struggling to photograph it. 

In the initial scheme for the park, the Prince Regent had intended to build a grand palace for himself, surrounded by the villas on these wonderful terraces, which would have been populated by his friends. Cumberland Terrace was of special importance in the overall scheme as the Prince Regent's palace was to have been built facing it. As a result Nash made it even grander than the other very splendid terraces. 

As things turned out the Prince Regent, by then King George IV, changed his mind about having a palace here, and instead had his chum Nash redevelop the old Buckingham House into Buckingham Palace, which we will come to in due course. 

Now carry on round the Outer Ring to marvel at the wonder that is Chester Terrace. It's a close run thing: I'm not sure whether I prefer Cumberland or Chester. But one of the two of them is ... probably ... my favourite Regent's Park terrace.

One of the things I love about Chester Terrace is its entrance and exit arches. They are awesome, shouting out its name to all the world.

Chester Terrace was built in 1825, and holds the record for having the longest, unbroken facade of any of the terraces around Regent's Park (length about 280 metres). It was named after one of the titles (Earl of Chester) held by the then Duke of Clarence, George's younger brother, who later succeeded him as William IV in 1830.

If you'd like to return to the Outer Ring you can skip next door to Cambridge Terrace, which is the next one on your left. It's not quite so grand, but by now we're getting a bit blasé after all the other magnificent stuff we've already seen. It's still rather elegant in its own right.

Now keep on going on the Outer Ring until you enter Park Square East.

In the centre are Park Square Gardens, one of the largest private gardens in London. The plane trees were planted there back in 1817 to celebrate the victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The nursemaid's tunnel, an early underpass, links the gardens with Park Crescent. It was designed so that the folk who enjoyed access to the square might carry on their promenade in Park Crescent on the south side of the Marylebone Road without having to brave the terrible traffic passing overhead. If you plan your visit on Open Gardens Day you may be able to see it, but otherwise it's not available for use by the public.

Watch out for the offices of the Prince's Trust on the left hand side of the square.

And keep on going until you reach the Marylebone Road.

The second part of this walk picks up from this point, crosses the Marylebone Road and carries on via Portland Place and Regent Street to Buckingham Palace and Marble Arch. It's quite a long walk, so if you wanted to do it in two parts this would be a good place to break off, and restart from.

You can read about the second part of the walk here: Walking in the footsteps of John Nash ... Part II.

All the best for now,


Bonny x

As shared on the Alphabet Project and Friday Finds

H is for Hammersmith Bridge ...

There are a lot of bridges over the Thames these days, but it wasn't always like that. Way back when the Romans rocked into town we didn't have a single bridge to boast about. Nada, zilch we scored a big fat zero in the how-many-bridges-do-you-have stakes. And the crafty old Romans with their love for bridges (viaducts, aqueducts, every-other-sort-of-ducts) weren't having any of this marching round the country to get to the other side nonsense. So they set about building our very first bridge, which was the earliest precursor to Old London Bridge.

That first bridge went through many incarnations. It was probably destroyed by a very angry Boudicca when she went on the warpath with the rotten Romans, but then it was later rebuilt by them. It fell into disuse after the Romans blew town as the Saxons wanted a nice clear river boundary between the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex, and they were keen not to suffer any midnight incursions across some pesky bridge. Finally a very penitent Henry II realised how handy it would be to be able to just nip across to the south bank without having to swim or sail or risk life and limb on the existing rickety old wooden bridge. He was feeling very hangdog about his part in the sad demise of Thomas Becket and so in 1176 he set about building a nice strong stone bridge across the river to make amends. He even put a rather splendid chapel in the middle dedicated to Becket as a holy martyr.  It was a bit of a titanic struggle what with the tides and everything, but they succeeded in building 19 irregular stone pillars across the river, spanned by a sturdy bridge which had a draw bridge section to allow tall ships to go through.

Old London Bridge was always busy, and before long people cottoned on to the fact that there was the potential for some prime retail space along its deck: just think of the footfall passing by outside. So by the fourteenth century they'd built 100 shops across the bridge and even added a multiple seated public loo. The Tudors carried on building so that, by the time of Elizabeth I, there were hundreds of buildings across the bridge, some of which were 6 or 7 stories high and overhung the central carriageway along which the traffic passed. This long dark tunnel of a carriageway was only four metres wide, and had to carry traffic in both directions. The result was a great big Tudor bottleneck. It could easily take an hour to get across. And if you'd decided to avoid the queues and take a boat you'd have been bonkers. The 19 pillars obstructed the tidal flow of the water, with the result that there was a difference of about 5 feet in the water levels on either side of the bridge, creating rapids. Shooting these rapids was a death-defying thrill for the watermen that claimed multiple lives every year.

By 1800 there were three bridges: London Bridge, Westminster and Blackfriars. There were eighteenth century wooden bridges at Putney and Battersea, but those areas had not yet been absorbed by the metropolis, and were not included in the tally of London's bridges. Traffic volumes were very high. On one day in July 1811 a staggering 90,000 pedestrians, 5,500 vehicles and 764 horse-riders crossed London Bridge alone. As people had to pay tolls everyone saw the lucrative money-making potential in bridge-building. Added to which in the nineteenth century London grew like Topsy in all directions. In 1800 London's population was probably just a smidgen larger than that of Paris, but by 1900 it was two and a half times greater. London had become the largest city that the world had ever seen. And this was the stimulus for more bridge-building.

The original bridge at Hammersmith,  built in the 1820s as the city expanded in all directions, was the first suspension bridge to have been built in London.  Sadly it was unable to cope with the juggernaut of London's growing traffic and had to be replaced. Each year it was a cause for special concern as it filled with spectators during the Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race.

On 6th April, 1870 between 11,000 and 12,000 spectators filled the bridge to watch the 27th Boat Race, causing the bridge's owners to have heart palpitations; there were grave concerns that it would not be able to carry that weight of human traffic. Happily the Light Blues triumphed that year and the bridge did not collapse.

A temporary bridge was opened in 1884 and they set to work building the present bridge on the same foundations as the original. It was opened by the Prince of Wales on 11th June, 1887.

This new Hammersmith Bridge was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette, who also designed London's sewerage system, one of the greatest infrastructure innovations of the age, which helped save the Thames from chronic pollution and, in the process, defeated the scourge of cholera.

The IRA have tried to blow up the bridge on three separate occasions. Their first attempt was on Wednesday 29th March, 1939. Maurice Childs, a lady's hairdresser from Chiswick, was walking home across the bridge in the early hours of the morning when he came upon an abandoned suitcase from which he saw sparks and smoke escaping. On closer examination, Childs realised that it was a bomb, picked it up and hurled it into the water. It exploded as it hit the Thames sending a 60 foot tsunami to deluge the river banks. A second explosion detonated moments later causing some relatively minor structural damage to the Western span of the bridge, which the authorities were able to repair.

Today the bridge enjoys grade II Listed Buildings protected status.

If you'd like to go on a walk and enjoy the bridge I've written about the Boat Race Walk, which takes you along the Thames Tow Path on the Surrey and Middlesex shores between Hammersmith Bridge and Barnes Bridge. Watch out for the super pubs along the way.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

As shared on the Alphabet Project

Benjamin Franklin's London House ...

I've been meaning to visit the great man's house for a while now, and when I finished his autobiography recently I resolved that it ought to be sooner rather than later, now rather than never.

And here it is, the only surviving residence, anywhere in the world, of Benjamin Franklin:

You can find it at 36 Craven Street, London, WC2N 5NF, although, back in Franklin's day, this street, which runs from the Strand down towards the Embankment, was known as Spur Alley. As you can see it's very close to the river. Franklin was keen on physical exercise, and is known to have gone swimming in the Thames, which must have been a malodorous experience given that it was full of London's sewage.

Map showing location of Dr Franklin's house at 36 Craven Street, London, WC2N 5NF

This is how the street where he lived looks today:

His old house is a solid, functional town house. I wasn't surprised that it was modest and comfortable, rather than being flashy and brash. Franklin lived here from 1757 to 1775. He rented the first floor of the house for himself, and another attic-level floor for his two servants. His landlady was a widow called Margaret Stevenson. The picture below is of his parlour, which is easily the brightest and most attractive room in the house.

Mrs Stevenson lived on the ground floor and her son-in-law, William Hewson, ran an anatomy school from what was in essence a shed down at the bottom of their garden. It must have been a busy, boisterous, colourful household, and for Franklin, so far removed from his own family, it soon became his sanctuary. I mean let's just put this in its historical context: he wasn't always terribly popular with the English throughout his time in London. There was the little matter of the colonists wanting their independence, which didn't exactly go down well with the grand folk over in Westminster. However, having come home and firmly closed his front door on the hurly-burly of London politics he relaxed and enjoyed the cosy domesticity of Mrs Stevenson's home.

Franklin's front door - from inside

The photograph below is of Mrs Stevenson's best parlour on the ground floor of the house, where she received her guests.

She also had a little antechamber, where she and her daughter, Polly, would have played cards, done their sewing and entertained their more intimate associates. In my mind's eye I can easily see Dr Franklin in there, sitting large amongst the diminutive ladies, entertaining them with his wit, and endearing himself to everyone with his straightforward, kindly ways.

And this is the staircase (photographed from Dr Franklin's room) that everyone would have climbed up and down to reach his rooms.

Everyone appears to have got on rather splendidly in the little household. Dr Franklin was adopted as part of the Stevenson family unit, and he, in turn, referred to them when writing to the folks back home as his English family.

In 1998 the Friends of Benjamin Franklin Society, set about restoring the house to how it would have looked back in Dr. Franklin's day. They painstakingly chipped away no fewer than 26 layers of paint to reveal the original colours in which they believe it was decorated when he lived there. The exact grey/green colour has since been named Benjamin Franklin green.

This is the original plaque that was exhibited on the outside wall of the house to announce that it was the one-time home of Benjamin Franklin. Previously these terracotta plaques were used throughout London on heritage properties where someone famous had lived. Today English Heritage use blue enamel plaques for this purpose. This old plaque is displayed in the basement. 

 In the course of this conservation work they unearthed a pit in the garden containing human remains. In all they found over 1,200 human bones. Everyone paused and wondered whether they had stumbled upon the forgotten lair of some previously unknown serial killer. The story hit the headlines, and the coroner was called in. But after a few forensic tests it was established that the bones were more than 100 years' old, which meant that there didn't need to be a formal, legal inquest. Closer examination established that they came from about 15 different individuals and revealed dissection marks consistent with Hewson's surgical instruments. There were also free-flowing globules of mercury and the vertebrae of a turtle, apparently tossed into the pit after an experiment that Hewson was known to have carried out at the Royal Society showing the flow of mercury through the body of the turtle, which demonstrated its lymphatic system. A few of his discarded microscopic slides were also unearthed. Some of these remains are on view in the basement of the house, along with some surgical tools of the day and a pair of the bifocal glasses of the type that Franklin invented.

Rear elevation of the Franklin house

There is nothing to suggest that Franklin was involved in any of the dissections that were carried out; indeed it would be strange if he had been given that his scientific interests lay elsewhere. However he did use his contacts to help get Hewson admitted to the Royal Society.

The study of anatomy through dissection was a popular interest at that time, but there was a shortage of cadavers to be had legally. It is highly probable that Hewson would have engaged the Resurrectionists, the body-snatchers who raided cemeteries for the bodies of the newly-dead and then shipped their grisly wares down the Thames under cover of darkness to sell to the city's doctors.

It was a dangerous business for any number of reasons, as poor Hewson found out to his cost when he caught septicaemia during a dissection in 1774. He died at the age of just 34 leaving his young wife, Polly, with two children and a third one on the way. Franklin wrote home of his grief at Hewson's death, and Polly became something of an adopted daughter, following him back to the US to make a life there for herself and her children with their great friend and former lodger.

If you'd like to visit the house you can find the website here: Franklin House. Its opening as a museum in 2006 on the tercentenary of Franklin's birth seems to me to have been a fitting testament to the enduring friendship that developed between Britain and the US after the War of Independence. This house was, in essence, America's first de-facto foreign embassy, and it was also the first site outside of the US to gain Save America's Treasures designation. If he were around today, I think Dr Franklin would still recognise his old lodgings and would be happy to see how he's remembered there.

All the best,

Bonny x