Occasionally we like a break from the non-stop history of the north side of the city so we head south for a relaxing day. Or so we think when we set out. Often when we get home it turns out to be just as full, and as head-spinning, as happened today. We covered a lot, albeit in a small space.
Avoiding Westminster Bridge, the site of the recent tragedy, we took the underground to North Lambert Station and chose to walk to Elephant and Castle to take a quick look at an area we had not yet seen. Where we came out of the underground is really now the geographic centre of London, although the marker for this is set, historically, at Charing Cross, over the Thames. Until recent decades the land this side of the bridge was low lying marshland, not especially useful for much at all. Historically, it was named Lambehitha, a landing place for lambs, and no doubt lambs found sustenance here on parish lands, deeded over time to the priory from the palace.
Chunks of land soon came to be developed. Where an old tavern, the Dog and Duck, once stood, a massive winged domed hospital, Bethlehem, came to be constructed: a cold building with window cavities left glassless it became the treatment hospital for London's criminally insane. One hundred and twenty two patients were moved here by hackney cab in August 1815, from elsewhere, and for the next one hundred years this place became known as Bedlam, famous, more likely infamous, in movies and literature of the period. In the 19th century treatment of folk with mental illness was still in its infancy, little different from a harsh prison, in many instances. Today, the hospital has long gone, and the building has been renovated into the Imperial War Museum. Its gardens are filled with fruit, flowers and statues, and there is even a quiet Tibetan Peace Garden where a couple of homeless folk were sleeping soundly, when we passed through. Safe, here.
Bombing was heavy during the war. One old church looks as though only its tower survived and today an academy appears to have been built in its inner cavity. Which makes you realise how much space there is inside some of these vast vaulted church interiors. Further along the street, an old brick abrasives factory called Wellington Mills, which once produced emery boards, polishing compounds and sandpapers, has now been converted into a housing cooperative. Also making use of old dead space. And we notice that the Guerilla Gardeners have taken over the median strip here, as they are doing in many parts of London. Here, they have planted out lavender, which they harvest in season, sell in sachets at the markets to fund the development of more median strips: beautifying them. Worthy deeds.
We love the brickwork on the Bishops House, attached to St George's Church. It is like a complicated needlework pattern, which would have needed such precision in the construction to have it look so effective on completion. Further on, we came to a residential square, which was built about the same time. West Square. Developed by the family of Colonel Temple West who were empowered on his death to lease the family land to development at a time when London's population was really booming. Houses were built around a central square, here, by 1794, and the park was planted with mulberry trees: today their replacements even need propping they are so aged.
Interesting folk have lived in this square, and interesting things have happened here. Just to name a few: a philanthropist, Charlotte Sharman, ran an orphanage in one of the homes here. We noticed a school just off the square named for Charlotte, so she clearly became a well known local figure. We also noticed the large 'LSB' monogram on one corner of that school building, signifying that this was one of the early schools run by the London School Board then empowered to run education in London between 1870 when it was made compulsory, until 1905, when it was taken over by local education authorities.
Charlie Chaplin lived in another house in the square, when he was a young lad, and before bad times overcame his family, when his alcoholic father left his wife and children in dire financial straits which saw the family torn and traumatised. The Admiralty occupied number 36 two years after the square was completed. They raised the top story to provide the line of site they needed to relay messages over the tall dome of Bethlehem hospital, between Whitehall and Kent. All quite secretive, no doubt. Today, that house stands as singularly different from others in the square.
Walking down the tiny lane out of the square the houses become more humble. These were likely the homes of grooms and coachmen. There is even a really old horse scratching post that survives on one street corner. Just delightful. The next building to catch our fancy turned out to be a Cinema Museum, though -- and much more interesting to us -- in a previous life it had been the Master's House of the old Lambeth Workhouse, where the poor of the parish were housed, fed and trained -- all rather notoriously and heartlessly, in the days when that was the only system of social services available for the desperate and poverty-stricken.
Like Dickens, Charlie Chaplin's family had to resort to living in a workhouse when their father left them without a penny. Charlie, though, even as a youngster, preferred to sleep wild rather than resort to the indignities of the workhouse existence. He made good in the end, so it all worked out well for him. Today this complex, along with the entire suburb, is undergoing vast regeneration and the separate mens and women's dormitories have all been rebuilt as smart contemporary housing complexes. The old warder gate houses and the men's intake hall are really all that are left of the original workhouse, along with the old workhouse water tower at the very heart of the new complex.
We recognised the old tower from a Grand Designs program we had once seen at home. Two guys had bought the tower for about £380,000. They spent £2 million renovating over 9 floors, gutting the 38,000 gallon water tank and installing panoramic windows offering a 360° view across much of London. The house has been on the market for several times that expenditure since then, though now seems to be operating, in part, as an Air B&B, at least for the moment. Its charcoal-skinned double garage is topped by two-stories of luxury living space, joined to the tower through a glass corridor. The tower, has its own lift. It is gorgeous. What a place to stay, even for a night.
Such structures grabbed our attention the closer we walked to the Elephant and Castle underground. The old statue, itself, of an elephant with a castle on its back, is an eye-catcher. It was once sited over a tavern that was long ago pulled down. It was taken out of mothballs long after and still occupies air space over what is now an old shopping centre which, too, is about to be redeveloped. The statue, these days, has been painted a lurid pink and gold. It will be interesting to see with the billions being spent in this suburb over the next 15 years what will become of it. It might even revert back to its original bronze, assuming the developers find a place for it at all. Though I imagine the locals will have a say about it, too.
There were sharp-edged yellow balconies hanging off a new build in progress that we liked. Metal. Edgy. And an old modernist architectural block of glass and squared edges which has won many architectural awards since the 1960's, though I am not at all fond of it. It was initially occupied by the health department, but was declared a 'health risk' building at a later date, so they all moved out. It was then lightly refashioned as apartment dwellings, no longer a health risk evidently, and is much sought after as a dwelling place because of its proximity to the city, shopping, and to good underground connections.
Opposite is a new tall skyscraper, a building we have seen all day from various angles, which is called the Strata Tower, and which was so universally hated when it went up that it quickly won the Carbuncle Award for the year (thanks to Prince Charles for the term for ugly buildings) -- though this one, perversely, I rather like. It has three turbines designed into the roof, which were static all the time we were watching. They are supposed to improve the flow of air to the building, but seemingly the movement of the fans is too noisy for the multi-million dollar penthouse owners, so most of the time the turbines don't function. So it might be another 'health risk' effort for the suburban tale tellers.
We had lunch in a complex, made entirely of shipping containers surrounding an open eating space filled with tables, chairs, and different ethnic street food artisans. The Artworks Elephant. Colourful, edgy, delicious food and good fun. With the obligatory street art not too far away. We even walked through a small 'container market' not too far away; built similarly of containers. An orange building on New Kent Road stood out as blocky and colourful. It is a timber clad apartment block by all accounts. I quite like this one, too. And I love the vertical garden on the Elephant and Castle underground building on the roundabout. Though I always wonder how long they will look good, suspecting that over time, they will cost too much to maintain and start to look ugly, very quickly, once that happens.
And in the middle of the roundabout is the Michael Faraday Memorial box which houses all the electrics for the underground lines for the suburb, whilst commemorating the life of one of the locals who was born not far from here and who contributed so much to the science of electro-magnetism. I love this stainless steel box with its dark structural fins. It is actually my favourite piece for today. Though I also liked the well worn metal-trimmed stairs leading to the underground station on the way home after our fun day. There is something minimally stylish, yet beautifully functional about them that really appeals to my fancy.
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