Hidden London : Waterlow Park , Who remembers Mott The Hoople ………..?

Waterlow Park is a 26-acre (11 ha) park in the south east of Highgate Village, in North London. It was given to the public by Sir Sydney Waterlow, as “a garden for the gardenless” in 1889.

Lauderdale House is at the edge of the park, used as a tea room and for functions and arts events; none of the interior remains in its original state. It is a much modified very old timber framed house, dating back to the sixteenth century. It is surrounded by formal gardens.

Set on a hillside, the park is set amongst ponds and offers views across the City of London.

It is managed by the London Borough of Camden. After extensive vandalism and neglect it was restored in 2005.

It was referenced by Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople in their song “Waterlow”, from the 1971 album “Wildlife”.

Castle Drogo & Gardens Devon : Another Lutyens Vision…..

Castle Drogo is a country house near Drewsteignton, Devon, England. It was built from 1911 and was finished in 1930 for Julius Drewe (businessman and founder of the Home and Colonial Stores) to designs by architect Edwin Lutyens, and is a Grade I listed building. It is currently undergoing a 5 year conservation project to finally make it watertight. Castle Drogo was the last castle to be built in England, and probably the last private house in the country to be built entirely of granite.

Background

Julius Drewe’s first cousin was Richard Peek, the rector of Drewsteignton, named after Drogo de Teigne, and alleged forefather to the Drewes. Julius stayed on several occasions with his cousin and it must have been here that he conceived the idea of building a castle on the home ground of his ancestor. He found an ideal site, and in 1910 he bought about 450 acres (1.8 km²) south and west of the village (By the time of his death in 1931 he had bought up an estate of 1,500 acres). He then went to Edwin Lutyens, one of the most interesting architects of the time, and asked him to build his castle. According to his son Basil, he did so on the advice of Edward Hudson, proprietor of Country Life magazine, who was both a patron and a champion of Lutyens. Drewe was now 54 years old, but he still had time, energy and money to create his new family seat. On 4 April 1911, Drewe’s 55th birthday, the first foundation stone was laid.

Construction

The castle took many years to complete, with the First World War and the economic downturn causing many delays. Castle Drogo was finally completed in 1930, considerably reduced in scale from Lutyens’s 1911 designs, and only a year before Julius died; he had, however, been able to live in the house since around 1925.

Features of the building

The stately home borrows styles of castle building from the medieval and Tudor periods, along with more minimalist contemporary approaches. A notable feature is the encasement of the service staircase, around which the main staircase climbs. Its defensive characteristics are purely decorative. Additionally, the castle had electricity and lifts from the outset, with power being supplied by two turbines on the river below.

Gardens

The castle has a fine formal garden, designed by Lutyens with planting by George Dillistone, which contrasts effectively with its striking setting on the edge of Dartmoor. The garden is noted for its rhododendrons and magnolias, herbaceous borders, rose garden, shrub garden and circular croquet lawn.

Later use

After Julius’s death, his wife Frances and her son Basil continued to live at the castle. During 1939–45, Frances and her daughter Mary ran the house as a home for babies made homeless during the bombings of London.

Frances Drewe died in 1954 and Basil was then joined at Drogo by his son Anthony and his wife. In 1974, Anthony and his son, Dr Christopher Drewe, gave Castle Drogo and 600 acres (2.4 km²) of the surrounding land to the National Trust. It was the first 20th-century property the charity acquired. A new visitor centre with shop and café opened in the summer of 2009, after English Heritage required that industrial kitchen equipment such as that used by the previous café within the house, be removed from Grade I listed buildings. In February 2011, the National Trust launched a public appeal for money to fund necessary restoration work.

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew : The Largest Compost Heap in Europe…..

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Kew Gardens (formal title Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; brand name Kew) is the world’s largest collection of living plants. Founded in 1840 from the exotic garden at Kew Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, UK, its living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over seven million preserved plant specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London’s top tourist attractions. In 2003, the gardens were put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 750 staff, and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Its chief executive is the current Director, Richard Deverell. The organisation manages botanic gardens at Kew in Richmond upon Thames in southwest London, and at Wakehurst Place, a National Trust property in Sussex which is home to Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank. The gardens have their own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847.

The Kew site, which has been dated as formally starting in 1759, though can be traced back to the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Lord Capel John of Tewkesbury, consists of 121 hectares (300 acres) of gardens and botanical glasshouses, four Grade I listed buildings and 36 Grade II listed structures, all set in an internationally significant landscape.

History

Kew, the area in which Kew Gardens are situated, consists mainly of the gardens themselves and a small surrounding community. Royal residences in the area which would later influence the layout and construction of the gardens began in 1299 when Edward I moved his court to a manor house in neighbouring Richmond (then called Sheen). That manor house was later abandoned; however, Henry V built Sheen Palace in 1501, which, under the name Richmond Palace, became a permanent royal residence for Henry VII. Around the start of the 16th century courtiers attending Richmond Palace settled in Kew and built large houses. Early royal residences in Kew included Mary Tudor’s house, which was in existence by 1522 when a driveway was built to connect it to the palace at Richmond. Around 1600, the land that would become the gardens was known as Kew Field, a large field strip farmed by one of the new private estates.

The exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Lord Capel John of Tewkesbury, was enlarged and extended by Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The origins of Kew Gardens can be traced to the merging of the royal estates of Richmond and Kew in 1722. William Chambers built several garden structures, including the lofty Chinese pagoda built in 1761 which still remains. George III enriched the gardens, aided by William Aiton and Sir Joseph Banks. The old Kew Park (by then renamed the White House), was demolished in 1802. The “Dutch House” adjoining was purchased by George III in 1781 as a nursery for the royal children. It is a plain brick structure now known as Kew Palace.

Some early plants came from the walled garden established by William Coys at Stubbers in North Ockendon. The collections grew somewhat haphazardly until the appointment of the first collector, Francis Masson, in 1771. Capability Brown, who became England’s most renowned landscape architect, applied for the position of master gardener at Kew, and was rejected.

In 1840 the gardens were adopted as a national botanical garden, in large part due to the efforts of the Royal Horticultural Society and its president William Cavendish. Under Kew’s director, William Hooker, the gardens were increased to 30 hectares (75 acres) and the pleasure grounds, or arboretum, extended to 109 hectares (270 acres), and later to its present size of 121 hectares (300 acres). The first curator was John Smith.

The Palm House was built by architect Decimus Burton and iron-maker Richard Turner between 1844 and 1848, and was the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron. It is considered ” the world’s most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure.” The structure’s panes of glass are all hand-blown. The Temperate House, which is twice as large as the Palm House, followed later in the 19th century. It is now the largest Victorian glasshouse in existence. Kew was the location of the successful effort in the 19th century to propagate rubber trees for cultivation outside South America.

In February 1913, the Tea House was burned down by suffragettes Olive Wharry and Lilian Lenton during a series of arson attacks in London. Kew Gardens lost hundreds of trees in the Great Storm of 1987. From 1959 to 2007 Kew Gardens had the tallest flagpole in Britain. Made from a single Douglas-fir from Canada, it was given to mark both the centenary of the Canadian Province of British Columbia and the bicentenary of Kew Gardens. The flagpole was removed after damage by weather and woodpeckers.

In July 2003, the gardens were put on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

Features

Treetop walkway

A new treetop walkway opened in 2008. This walkway is 18 metres (59 ft) high and 200 metres (660 ft) long and takes visitors into the tree canopy of a woodland glade. Visitors can ascend and descend by stairs or by a lift. The floor of the walkway is made from perforated metal and flexes as it is walked upon. The entire structure sways in the wind.

The accompanying image shows a section of the walkway and the steel supports that were designed to rust to a tree-like appearance to help the walkway fit in with its surroundings.

A short film detailing the construction of the walkway is available online.

Sackler Crossing

The Sackler Crossing bridge, made of granite and bronze, opened in May 2006. Designed by Buro Happold and John Pawson, it crosses the lake and is named in honour of philanthropists Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler.

The minimalist-styled bridge is designed as a sweeping double curve of black granite. The sides of the bridge are formed of bronze posts that give the impression, from certain angles, of forming a solid wall whereas from others, and to those on the bridge, they are clearly individual entities that allow a view of the water beyond.

The bridge forms part of a path designed to encourage visitors to visit more of the gardens than had hitherto been popular and connects the two art galleries, via the Temperate and Evolution Houses and the woodland glade, to the Minka House and the Bamboo Garden.

The crossing won a special award from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2008.

Compost heap

Kew has one of the largest compost heaps in Europe, made from green waste from the gardens and the waste from the stables of the Household Cavalry. The compost is mainly used in the gardens, but on occasion has been auctioned as part of a fundraising event for the gardens.

The compost heap is in an area of the gardens not accessible to the public, but a viewing platform, made of wood which had been illegally traded but seized by Customs officers in HMRC, has been erected to allow visitors to observe the heap as it goes through its cycle.

Plant houses

Alpine House

In March 2006, the Davies Alpine House opened, the third version of an alpine house since 1887. Although only 16 metres long the apex of the roof arch extends to a height of 10 metres in order to allow the natural airflow of a building of this shape to aid in the all-important ventilation required for the type of plants to be housed.

The new house features a set of automatically operated blinds that prevent it overheating when the sun is too hot for the plants together with a system that blows a continuous stream of cool air over the plants. The main design aim of the house is to allow maximum light transmission. To this end the glass is of a special low iron type that allows 90 per cent of the ultraviolet light in sunlight to pass. It is attached by high tension steel cables so that no light is obstructed by traditional glazing bars.

To conserve energy the cooling air is not refrigerated but is cooled by being passed through a labyrinth of pipes buried under the house at a depth where the temperature remains suitable all year round. The house is designed so that the maximum temperature should not exceed 20 °C (68 °F).

Kew’s collection of Alpine plants (defined as those that grow above the tree-line in their locale – ground level at the poles rising to over 2,000 metres (6,562 feet)), extends to over 7000. As the Alpine House can only house around 200 at a time the ones on show are regularly rotated.

Nash Conservatory

Originally designed for Buckingham Palace, this was moved to Kew in 1836 by King William IV. With an abundance of natural light, the building is used various exhibitions, weddings, and private events. It is also now used to exhibit the winners of the photography completion.

Orangery

The Orangery was designed by Sir William Chambers, and was completed in 1761. It measures 28 m x 10 m. After many changes of use, it is currently used as a restaurant.

Palm House

The Palm House (1844–1848) was the result of cooperation between architect Decimus Burton and iron founder Richard Turner, and continues upon the glass house design principles developed by John Claudius Loudon and Joseph Paxton. A space frame of wrought iron arches, held together by horizontal tubular structures containing long prestressed cables, supports glass panes which were originally tinted green with copper oxide to reduce the significant heating effect. The 19m high central nave is surrounded by a walkway at 9m height, allowing visitors a closer look upon the palm tree crowns. In front of the Palm House on the east side are the Queen’s Beasts, ten statues of animals bearing shields. They are Portland stone replicas of originals done by James Woodford and were placed here in 1958.

Princess of Wales Conservatory

Kew’s third major conservatory, the Princess of Wales Conservatory, designed by architect Gordon Wilson, was opened in 1987 by Diana, Princess of Wales in commemoration of her predecessor Augusta’s associations with Kew. In 1989 the conservatory received the Europa Nostra award for conservation. The conservatory houses ten computer-controlled micro-climatic zones, with the bulk of the greenhouse volume composed of Dry Tropics and Wet Tropics plants. Significant numbers of orchids, water lilies, cacti, lithops, carnivorous plants and bromeliads are housed in the various zones. The cactus collection also extends outside the conservatory where some hardier species can be found.

The conservatory has an area of 4499 square metres. As it is designed to minimise the amount of energy taken to run it, the cooler zones are grouped around the outside and the more tropical zones are in the central area where heat is conserved. The glass roof extends down to the ground, giving the conservatory a distinctive appearance and helping to maximise the use of the sun’s energy.

During the construction of the conservatory a time capsule was buried. It contains the seeds of basic crops and endangered plant species and key publications on conservation.

Rhizotron

A rhizotron opened at the same time as the “treetop walkway”, giving visitors the opportunity to investigate what happens beneath the ground where trees grow. The rhizotron is essentially a single gallery containing a set of large bronze abstract castings which contain LCD screens that carry repeating loops of information about the life of trees.

Temperate House

The Temperate House, currently closed for restoration, is a greenhouse that has twice the floor area of the Palm House and is the world’s largest surviving Victorian glass structure. When in use it contained plants and trees from all the temperate regions of the world. It was commissioned in 1859 and designed by architect Decimus Burton and ironfounder Richard Turner. Covering 4880 square metres, it rises to a height of 19 metres. Intended to accommodate Kew’s expanding collection of hardy and temperate plants, it took 40 years to construct, during which time costs soared.

There is a viewing gallery in the central section from which visitors were able to look down on that part of the collection.

Waterlily House

The Waterlily House is the hottest and most humid of the houses at Kew and contains a large pond with varieties of water lily, surrounded by a display of economically important heat-loving plants. It closes during the winter months.

It was built to house the Victoria amazonica, the largest of the Nymphaeaceae family of water lilies. This plant was originally transported to Kew in phials of clean water and arrived in February 1849, after several prior attempts to transport seeds and roots had failed. Although various other members of the Nymphaeaceae family grew well, the house did not suit the Victoria, purportedly because of a poor ventilation system, and this specimen was moved to another, smaller, house.

The ironwork for this project was provided by Richard Turner and the initial construction was completed in 1852. The heat for the house was initially obtained by running a flue from the nearby Palm House but it was later equipped with its own boiler.

Ornamental buildings

In the south-east corner of Kew Gardens stands the Great Pagoda (by Sir William Chambers), erected in 1762, from a design in imitation of the Chinese Ta. The lowest of the ten octagonal storeys is 49 feet (15 m) in diameter. From the base to the highest point is 163 feet (50 m).

Each storey finishes with a projecting roof, after the Chinese manner, originally covered with ceramic tiles and adorned with large dragons; a story is still propagated that they were made of gold and were reputedly sold by George IV to settle his debts.In fact the dragons were made of wood painted gold, and simply rotted away with the ravages of time. The walls of the building are composed of brick. The staircase, 253 steps, is in the centre of the building. The Pagoda was closed to the public for many years, but was reopened for the summer months of 2006 and is now open permanently. During the Second World War holes were cut in each floor to allow for drop-testing of model bombs.

Built for the Japan-British Exhibition (1910) and moved to Kew in 1911, the Chokushi-Mon (“Imperial Envoy’s Gateway”) is a four-fifths scale replica of the karamon (gateway) of the Nishi Hongan-ji temple in Kyoto. It lies about 140 m west of the Pagoda and is surrounded by a reconstruction of a traditional Japanese garden.

Following the Japan 2001 festival, Kew acquired a Japanese wooden house called a minka. It was originally erected in around 1900 in a suburb of Okazaki. Japanese craftsmen reassembled the framework and British builders who had worked on the Globe Theatre added the mud wall panels.

Work on the house started on 7 May 2001 and, when the framework was completed on 21 May, a Japanese ceremony was held to mark what was considered an auspicious occasion. Work on the building of the house was completed in November 2001 but the internal artefacts were not all in place until 2006.

The Minka house is located within the bamboo collection in the west central part of the gardens.

Within the conservation area is a cottage that was given to Queen Charlotte as a wedding present on her marriage to George III. It has been restored by Historic Royal Palaces and is separately administered by them.

It is open to the public on weekends and bank holidays during the summer.

Kew Palace

Kew Palace is the smallest of the British royal palaces. It was built by Samuel Fortrey, a Dutch merchant in around 1631. It was later purchased by George III. The construction method is known as Flemish bond and involves laying the bricks with long and short sides alternating. This and the gabled front give the construction a Dutch appearance.

To the rear of the building is the “Queen’s Garden” which includes a collection of plants believed to have medicinal qualities. Only plants that were extant in England by the 17th century are grown in the garden.

The building underwent significant restoration before being reopened to the public in 2006.

It is administered separately from Kew Gardens, by Historic Royal Palaces.

In front of the palace is a sundial, which was given to Kew Gardens in 1959 to commemorate a royal visit. It was sculpted by Martin Holden and is based on an earlier sculpture by Thomas Tompion, a celebrated 17th century clockmaker.

Galleries and museum

Shirley Sherwood Gallery

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanic Art opened in April 2008, and holds paintings from Kew’s and Dr Shirley Sherwood’s collections, many of which had never been displayed to the public before. It features paintings by artists such as Georg D. Ehret, the Bauer brothers, Pierre-Joseph Redouté and Walter Hood Fitch. The paintings and drawings are cycled on a six-monthly basis. The gallery is linked to the Marianne North Gallery (see above).

Near the Palm House is a building known as “Museum No. 1” (even though it is the only museum on the site), which was designed by Decimus Burton and opened in 1857. Housing Kew’s economic botany collections including tools, ornaments, clothing, food and medicines, its aim was to illustrate human dependence on plants. The building was refurbished in 1998. The upper two floors are now an education centre and the ground floor houses the “Plants+People” exhibition which highlights the variety of plants and the ways that people use them.

Admission to the galleries and museum is free after paying admission to the gardens. The International Garden Photographer of the Year Exhibition is an annual event with an indoor display of entries during the summer months.

The Marianne North Gallery was built in the 1880s to house the paintings of Marianne North, an MP’s daughter who travelled alone to North and South America, South Africa and many parts of Asia, at a time when women rarely did so, to paint plants. The gallery has 832 of her paintings. The paintings were left to Kew by the artist and a condition of the bequest is that the layout of the paintings in the gallery may not be altered.

The gallery had suffered considerable structural degradation since its creation and during a period from 2008 to 2009 major restoration and refurbishment took place. During the time the gallery was closed the opportunity was also taken to restore the paintings to their original condition. The gallery reopened in October 2009.

The gallery originally opened in 1882 and is the only permanent exhibition in Great Britain dedicated to the work of one woman.

Plant collections

The plant collections include the Aquatic Garden, which is near the Jodrell laboratory. The Aquatic Garden, which celebrated its centenary in 2009, provides conditions for aquatic and marginal plants. The large central pool holds a selection of summer-flowering water lilies and the corner pools contain plants such as reed mace, bulrushes, phragmites and smaller floating aquatic species.

The Arboretum, which covers over half of the total area of the site, contains over 14,000 trees of many thousands of varieties. The Bonsai Collection is housed in a dedicated greenhouse near the Jodrell laboratory. The Cacti Collection is housed in and around the Princess of Wales Conservatory. The Carnivorous Plant collection is housed in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. The Grass Garden was created on its current site in the early 1980s to display ornamental and economic grasses; it was redesigned and replanted between 1994 and 1997. It is currently undergoing a further redesign and planting. Over 580 species of grasses are displayed.

The Herbaceous Grounds (Order Beds) were devised in the late 1860s by Sir Joseph Hooker, then director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, so that botany students could learn to recognise plants and experience at first hand the diversity of the plant kingdom. The collection is organised into family groups. Its name arose because plant families were known as natural orders in the 19th century. Over the main path is a rose pergola built in 1959 to mark the bicentennial of the Gardens. It supports climber and rambling roses selected for the length and profusion of flowering.

The Orchid Collection is housed in two climate zones within the Princess of Wales Conservatory. To maintain an interesting display the plants are changed regularly so that those on view are generally flowering. The Rock Garden, originally built of limestone in 1882, is now constructed of Sussex sandstone from West Hoathly, Sussex. The rock garden is divided into six geographic regions: Europe, Mediterranean and Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Asia, North America, and South America. There are currently 2,480 different “accessions” growing in the garden.

The Rose Garden, based upon original designs by William Nesfield, is behind the Palm House, and was replanted between 2009 and 2010 using the original design from 1848. It is intended as an ornamental display rather than a collection of a particularly large number of varieties. Other collections and specialist areas include the rhododendron dell, the azalea garden, the bamboo garden, the juniper collection, the berberis dell, the lilac garden, the magnolia collection, and the fern collection.

Virginia Woolf published her short story “Kew Gardens” in 1921, which gives brief descriptions of four groups of people as they pass by a flowerbed

RHS Wisley : The Gardeners Heart

The Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley in the English county of Surrey south of London, is one of four gardens run by the Society, the others being Harlow Carr, Hyde Hall and Rosemoor. Wisley is the second most visited paid entry garden in the United Kingdom after the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with 959,434 visitors in the year to 31 January 2010.

Wisley was founded by Victorian businessman and RHS member George Ferguson Wilson, who purchased a 60 acre (243,000 m²) site in 1878. He established the “Oakwood Experimental Garden” on part of the site, where he attempted to “make difficult plants grow successfully”. Wilson died in 1902 and Oakwood (which was also known as Glebe Farm) was purchased by Sir Thomas Hanbury, the creator of the celebrated garden La Mortola on the Italian Riviera. He gave both sites to the RHS the following year. Since then Wisley has developed steadily and it is now is a large and diverse garden covering 240 acres (971,000 m²). In addition to numerous formal and informal decorative gardens, several glasshouses and an extensive arboretum, it includes small scale “model gardens” which are intended to show visitors what they can achieve in their own gardens, and a trials field where new cultivars are assessed.

The laboratory, for both scientific research and training, was originally opened in 1907, but proved inadequate. It was expanded and its exterior was rebuilt during World War I. It was designated a Grade II Listed building in 1985.

Visitor numbers increased significantly from 5,250 in 1905, to 11,000 in 1908, 48,000 in the late 1920s, and 170,000 in 1957, and passed 400,000 in 1978, 500,000 in 1985, and 600,000 in 1987.

In April 2005 Alan Titchmarsh cut the turf to mark the start of construction of the Bicentenary Glasshouse. This major new feature covers three quarters of an acre (3,000 m²) and overlooks a new lake built at the same time. It is divided into three main planting zones representing desert, tropical and temperate climates. It was budgeted at £7.7 million and opened June 26, 2007.

Features

Wisley has a large number of features, including the following:

• Glasshouse with desert, tropical and temperate climates, and with special topical displays
• Clore Learning Centre
• Alpine houses
• Laboratory
• Plant information centre
• Trials field (where plants are submitted for trial, allowing some to be awarded the prestigious Award of Garden Merit)
• Fruit field, featuring large numbers of apples, pears and other fruit grown in various forms.
• Model gardens, each of a size attainable in gardens attached to houses
• Vegetable garden
• Rock garden and alpine meadow on a sloping site
• Wild garden
• Walled garden
• Canal with water lilies in season
• Battleston Hill, which includes many rhododendrons and azaleas
• Rose borders and mixed borders
• Jubilee arboretum
• Pinetum
• National heather collection

Visitor facilities include cafés and restaurant, car parks, plant centre, etc.

Well worth a visit, I have been a number of times now and always find something to captivate me at any time of year. There is also an amazing resource centre and library dedicated to gardening.

Turia Gardens at the heart of Valencia : Where Moorish Gardens are more than Contemporary

Turia Gardens were created at the end of the 20th century as a result of the diversion of the river to a new artificial course, south of the city, after the catastrophic flood of 1957. The project included 120 hectares of dry riverbed which would become the new riverside park. It was developed by the Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill, and was described as ‘a composition which makes use of the symbolic power of certain rhythms and references to the Moorish garden’. The park is divided into twelve sections, each of which has its own character; thus the first sections feature cycle-cross and biking circuits, as well as sports facilities including an athletics track and a multi-sports area, football, rugby and baseball pitches and a skating track, while other areas have more conventional gardens. Of these, mention should be made of the Palau garden area, home to the Palau de la Música auditorium, and the work of Valencian architect José María García Paredes.

Hidden London : The Wallace Collection, Home to Frans Hals ‘ The Laughing Cavalier’.

The Wallace Collection is a museum in London, with a world-famous range of fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with large holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms & armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries.

It was established in 1897 from the private collection mainly created by Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford (1800–1870), who left it and the house to his illegitimate son Sir Richard Wallace (1818–1890), whose widow bequeathed the entire collection to the nation. The museum opened to the public in 1900 in Hertford House, Manchester Square, and remains there, housed in its entirety, to this day. A condition of the bequest was that no object ever leave the collection, even for loan exhibitions. Admission is free.

The Wallace Collection is a non-departmental public body.

The museum’s collection numbers nearly 5,500 objects and is best known for its quality and breadth of eighteenth-century French paintings, Sèvres porcelain and French furniture.

The Wallace Collection also displays many other treasures, such as two paintings by Titian, five Rembrandts, nine Rubenses, four Van Dycks, eight Canalettos, nineteen Bouchers, masterpieces by de Hooch, nine Teniers, Frans Hals, nine Murillos, two Velázquez and paintings by Domenichino, Cima, Daddi, Reni, Rosa, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, Antoine Watteau, Nicholas Lancret, Jan Steen, Aelbert Cuyp and nine Guardis. The museum also holds a fine collection of arms and armour, featuring both European and Oriental objects, as well as displays of gold boxes, miniatures, sculpture and medieval and Renaissance works of art such as maiolica, glass, bronzes and Limoges enamels.

The works of art in the Collection comprise:

• Paintings,Watercolours and Drawings 775
• Furniture 528
• Ceramics 510
• European and Oriental Arms and Armour 2,370
• Sculpture 466
• Miniatures 334
• Medieval and Renaissance Works of Art 363

Goldsmiths’ Work 120

By far the most famous painting in the collection is Frans Hals ‘The Laughing Cavalier’ even if you only have ten minutes while shopping in the West End pop in and have a look.

http://www.wallacecollection.org

Hidden London : The National Garden Museum at Lambeth Palace and the Tradescant’s final resting place.

The Garden Museum, formerly known as the Museum of Garden History, is based in the deconsecrated parish church of St Mary-at-Lambeth adjacent to Lambeth Palace on the south bank of the River Thames in London, located on Lambeth Road. The church originally housed the 15th and 16th century tombs of many members of the Howard family, including now-lost memorial brasses to Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk (died 1524), his wife Agnes Tilney, Duchess of Norfolk (died 1545) and is also the burial place of Queen Anne Boleyn’s mother Elizabeth Boleyn, formerly Howard.

St Mary’s, which was largely a Victorian reconstruction, was deconsecrated in 1972 and was scheduled to be demolished. In 1976 John and Rosemary Nicholson traced the tomb of the two 17th century royal gardeners and plant hunters John Tradescant father and son to the churchyard, and were inspired to create the Museum of Garden History. It was the first museum in the world dedicated to the history of gardening.

The museum’s main gallery is the main body of the church. The collection comprises tools, ephemera and a library. The tool collection includes items purchased at auction and donations from individuals and horticultural companies. The ephemera includeds items such as prints, photographs, bills, catalogues and brochures, and gives an insight into the social history of gardening as well as the practical aspects of the subject. The museum covers the whole range of gardening, from royal gardens to allotments. In the early 1980s, a 17th-century style knot garden was created in the churchyard, planted with authentic plants of the period.

In 2006 Christopher Woodward, formerly director of the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath, was appointed as the new Director of the organisation.

The first church on the site was built before the Norman Conquest, and was integral to the religious centre established by the Archbishops of Canterbury in the twelfth century. The structure was deconsecrated in 1972 and rescued from demolition by the founder of the Museum, Rosemary Nicholson. The structure of the church was repaired, holding small exhibitions such as The Tradescant Story from 1979. The Museum opened in 1977 as the world’s first museum of garden history; the churchyard was re-designed as a garden.

The church is the oldest structure in the Borough of Lambeth, except for the crypt of Lambeth Palace itself, and its burials and monuments are a record of 950 years of a community. But for the Palace, it has perhaps the richest historical story of any building in the borough.

In 1062 a wooden church was built on the site by Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor; the Domesday Book records 29 tenancies in her manor. Later in the century it was rebuilt as a stone church and appears to have been at its height of splendour and patronage in the twelfth century, when it functioned as the church to the Archbishop’s London lodgings next door.

In 1377 the stone tower was built; it was repaired in 1834 – 35 but is otherwise intact. The body of the church was continually rebuilt and enriched over the centuries but, decisively, in 1851 – 2 the aisles and nave were rebuilt by Philip Charles Hardwick (1822 – 92), an architect prominent in the construction of banks and railway stations but not considered to be in the “first rank” of his generation; it was his father, Sir Philip Hardwick, who designed the Euston Arch. It is described by Museum of London Archaeology Service “as an almost complete rebuilding of the old body of the church”. The most eye-catching survivals are four of eight corbels in the ceiling of the nave. These are a mix of medieval and Victorian construction.

One of the few twentieth-century interventions took place circa 1900 with the insertion of an immersion font, said to be one of only two examples in Anglican churches in England, and a baptistery at the base of the Tower

In the Second World War the stained glass was badly damaged by bombs, and in the 1950s the stained glass was replaced by either plain glass or panels by Francis Stephens (1921–2002), including a replica of the “Pedlar’s Window”. The bombs also broke up the altar donated in 1888 by Sir Henry Doulton as a memorial to his wife; Doulton’s ceramic factory stood about 300 metres to the south.

In 1972 the church was made redundant in consequence of its dilapidation and gloom, and also because of changes in the population settlement of the parish: the area by the riverside had become derelict and under-populated, and the Vicar wanted a church closer to where the congregation lived. In 1969 Lambeth Council designated the area around Lambeth Palace as one of the borough’s first conservation areas.

Soon after the Church Commissioners obtained the necessary consents for demolition; the altar, bells, and pews were removed. In 1976 Rosemary Nicholson visited the site to see the tomb of John Tradescant and was shocked to discover the church boarded-up in readiness for its demolition. She established the Tradescant Trust, which was awarded a 99-year lease from the Diocese of Southwark, who continue to own the land. The Trust’s rescue and repair of the structure became one of the great architectural conservation causes of its time, and the church started its journey as a Museum.

St Mary’s churchyard and burials

The church was a place of burial until the churchyard was closed in 1854, and the ground level of the site has risen in consequence. It is estimated that there are over 26,000 burials. The continued prestige of the site is reflected in the wills of many citizens who ordered tombs for themselves, particularly in the Chancel. The most significant is the chantry tomb on its north wall to Hugh Peyntwyn (d. 1504), which is the earliest known example of a new design of wall monument associated with the royal workshops. Opposite is a monument of the same type to John Mompesson (d. 1524): St Mary’s is unique in having two monuments of this type.

John Tradescant was buried inside the church in 1638, his son, also John, in 1662 and Elias Ashmole (From whom is said to be the first speculative freemason) in 1692. The family also has an altar tomb outside. Later burials inside the church includes the soprano Nancy Storace.

Burials outside in the churchyard include John Sealy of the Coade Stone Manufactory and Captain Bligh of The Bounty. It is exceptional for three Grade II* tombs (Tradescant, Sealy and Bligh) to be in a single small churchyard. Lambeth expanded quickly in the nineteenth century, and 15,900 burials are recorded in the two decades after 1790. The churchyard was enlarged in 1814 but was closed in 1854, at a time when other city churchyards were closed by Act of Parliament.

Tomb of the Tradescants

Five members of the Tradescant family are buried here: John Tradescant the elder; John Tradescant the younger with his two wives Jane and Hester, and his son, also called John, who died aged 19. The original 17th century design for the tomb is in the Pepys Library, Cambridge, and an image of it may also be found at the National Portrait Gallery.

The present tomb is the third on the site of the Tradescant grave and replicates the original design. It was made by White of Vauxhall Bridge Road in 1853 with stone from Darnley Dale in Yorkshire.

On the east side of the tomb is carved the family arms, on the west side a skull and a seven-headed hydra, on the south side broken columns, Corinthian capitals, a pyramid and ruins, and on the north side shells, a crocodile, and a view of some Egyptian buildings.

The epitaph on the top of the tomb was written by Tradescant’s friend, John Aubrey (spelling modernised):

Know, stranger, ere thou pass, beneath this stone

Lie John Tradescant, grandsire, father, son

The last dy’d in his spring, the other two,

Liv’d till they had travelled Art and Nature through,

As by their choice Collections may appear,

Of what is rare in land, in sea, in air,

Whilst they (as Homer’s Iliad in a nut)

A world of wonders in one closet shut,

These famous Antiquarians that had been

Both Gardeners to the Rose and Lily Queen,

Transplanted now themselves, sleep here & when

Angels shall with their trumpets waken men,

And fire shall purge the world, these three shall rise

And change this Garden then for Paradise.

Local Lambeth legend states that if the tomb is danced around twelve times as Big Ben strikes midnight a ghost appears.

There are lots of exhibits and exhibitions on display, the last one I went to which was very interesting was Dan Pearson’s ‘Green Fuse’.

Hidden London : William Morris Gallery & Home, Set in Lloyd Park & Gardens and the start of the Iconic Liberty Fabrics and Wallpaper Designs.

William Morris Gallery

The William Morris Gallery, opened by Prime Minister Clement Attlee in 1950, is the only public museum devoted to English Arts and Crafts designer and early socialist William Morris. The gallery is located at Walthamstow in Morris’s family home from 1848 to 1856, the former Water House, a substantial Grade II* listed Georgian dwelling of about 1750 which is set in its own extensive grounds (now Lloyd Park). The Gallery underwent major redevelopment and reopened in August 2012; in 2013 it won the national prize for Museum of the Year.

Collections

The gallery’s collections illustrate Morris’ life, work and influence. They include printed, woven and embroidered fabrics, rugs, carpets, wallpapers, furniture, stained glass and painted tiles designed by Morris himself and by Edward Burne-Jones, Philip Webb, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, and others who together founded the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company in 1861.

Outstanding exhibits include: Morris’ medieval-style helmet and sword, made as ‘props’ for the Pre-Raphaelite murals at the Oxford Union; the original design for the Trellis wallpaper (the earliest of Morris’ many wallpapers); the Woodpecker tapestry woven at Morris’ Merton Abbey workshops; the Beauty and the Beast and Labours of the Months tile panels; and The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer printed at Morris’ Kelmscott Press. Other exhibits – such as the satchel in which Morris carried his Socialist pamphlets, or the coffee cup he used on his weekly visits to the Burne-Joneses – provide a more personal glimpse of his busy life.

The gallery also holds a substantial collection of furniture, textiles, ceramics and glass by Morris’ followers in the Arts and Crafts movement, which flourished from the 1880s to the 1920s. Among those represented are Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo and the Century Guild, William De Morgan, May Morris, Ernest Gimson, Sidney Barnsley, George Jack, C. F. A. Voysey, Harry Powell, Selwyn Image, Henry Holiday, and Christopher Whall.

The collections of applied art are complemented by the Brangwyn Gift, comprising paintings, drawings and prints by Morris’ former student Sir Frank Brangwyn as well as works by the Pre-Raphaelites and other Victorian and later artists.

Redevelopment

In 2007, the museum faced a closure threat after its opening hours were cut back as a cost-cutting exercise, breaking a stipulation of gifts by Sir Frank Brangwyn, that works should be on view for a minimum amount of time weekly. Campaigners against the cuts included former Culture Secretary Chris Smith. Subsequently a major redevelopment was carried out.

The William Morris Gallery is owned and managed by Waltham Forest Council. In March 2009 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the gallery £80,000 to enable detailed proposals to be developed. In Autumn 2010 this proposal was successful in securing round-two funding of £1.523 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which was matched with £1.5 million from the London Borough of Waltham Forest. Further funding was secured from charitable trusts and foundations, notably the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, and through an ongoing public fundraising campaign. Redevelopment of the building and collections finally started in 2011 and after just over a year’s closure, reopened on 2 August 2012.[7] For the first month, Grayson Perry’s fifteen-metre long Walthamstow Tapestry was on display.

The redevelopment of Water House and was designed by architects and exhibition designers Pringle Richards Sharratt. A new wing, designed to sit comfortably next to the early Georgian architecture of William Morris’s house, succeeds in doing so by using similar details – handmade brick with sash windows and gauged brick arches – in a contrasting red brick. The new space houses a new gallery space for temporary exhibitions, toilets and a café with a balcony overlooking the gardens to the rear. The permanent displays and educational areas were completely rearranged, and the project also provides a learning and research centre on the top floor, offices in the basement. New learning programmes and a dedicated website were developed alongside the physical changes.

Lloyd Park

The gardens of the house, now known as Lloyd Park, notably include a moat which pre-dates the Georgian house. As part of the 2012 redevelopment, the disused Waltham Forest Theatre located inside the moat was demolished and made into part of the park. Parts of the park were newly landscaped. A skate park and a new café and gallery space in the adjoining Aveling Park were built as part of the same redevelopment project, replacing similar run-down facilities.

A lot to see without losing any of the original integrity of the place, well worth a visit.

Hidden London : Hornimans Museum & Gardens , From Tea Dynasty to Tea Room

Horniman Museum & Gardens

The Horniman Museum is a museum in Forest Hill, London. Commissioned in 1898, it opened in 1901 and was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend in the Arts and Crafts style.

It is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and is constituted as a company and registered charity under English law.

History

The museum’s Natural History gallery showing the distribution of modern humans.

The museum was founded in 1901 by Frederick John Horniman. Frederick had inherited his father’s Horniman’s Tea business, which by 1891 had become the world’s biggest tea trading business.

The cash from the business allowed Horniman to indulge his lifelong passion for collecting, and which after travelling extensively had some 30,000 items in his various collections, ranging from natural history, cultural artifacts and musical instruments.

In 1911, an additional building to the west of the main building, originally containing a lecture hall and library, was donated by Frederick Horniman’s son Emslie Horniman. This was also designed by Townsend.

Collections

The Horniman specialises in anthropology, natural history and musical instruments and has a collection of 350,000 objects. The ethnography and music collections have Designated status. One of its most famous exhibits is the large collection of stuffed animals. It also has an aquarium noted for its unique layout.

Gardens

The museum is set in 16 acres (65,000 m²) of gardens, which include the following features:

• A Grade II listed conservatory from 1894 which was moved from
• Horniman’s family house in Croydon to the present site in the 1980s.
• A bandstand from 1912
• An enclosure for small animals
• A nature trail
• An ornamental garden
• Plants for materials; medicines; foods and dyes
• A sound garden with large musical instruments for playing

A new building, the Pavilion, for working on materials that are outside of the collections, such as from the gardens.

The Courtauld Institute of Art and The Courtauld Gallery on The Strand are an Inspiration

Somerset House

Amazing Staircases

A BAR AT THE FOLIES-BERGÈRE
by Édouard Manet (1882)

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH BANDAGED EAR
by Vincent van Gogh (1889)

Paul Cezanne painting of Still Life with Plaster Cupid 1895 1898

THE MONTAGNE SAINTE-VICTOIRE WITH A LARGE PINE
by Paul Cézanne (1887)

Courtauld Institute of Art

The Courtauld Institute of Art , commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art.

The art collection of the Institute is known particularly for its French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and is housed in the Courtauld Gallery. The Institute and the Gallery are both in Somerset House, in the Strand in London.

Courtauld Gallery

The art collection of the Institute is housed in the Courtauld Gallery. The collection was begun by the founder of the Institute, Samuel Courtauld, who presented an extensive collection of mainly French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings in 1932. It was enhanced by further gifts in the 1930s and a bequest in 1948, and has since received many significant donations and bequests. The Gallery contains some 530 paintings and over 26,000 drawings and prints.

The Courtauld Gallery is open to the public. Since 1989 it has been housed in the Strand block of Somerset House, which was the first home of the Royal Academy, founded in 1768. In April 2013 the Head of the Courtauld Gallery was Ernst Vegelin.

I regularly pop in here for inspiration due to its perfect location not a stones through from Charing Cross Station and a short walk up The Strand