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Last year, on the 29th December in the gap between Christmas and New Year, I led a London by Foot walk called Here's Looking At Leslie Green:The British Moderne and, for the shame, I have only just got round to writing about it (been busy, in ways both constructive and not) so apologies for that but good things are, one hopes, worth waiting for.
The Moderne Style, British Art Nouveau, evolved from the Arts & Crafts Movement of William Morris, John Ruskin, C.F.A. Voysey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Edwin Lutyens, Eric Gill, and Gertrude Jekyll. British Art Nouveau gave birth to Jugendstil (Youth Style) in Germany and the Vienna Secsession and it took in many disciplines.
The paintings of Pre-Raphaelites like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti - as well as Aubrey Beardsley and William Blake (the subject of a previous LbF festive trek), the teapots and toast racks of Christopher Dresser, the ceramics of John Pearson and William James Neatby, and the architecture of Mackintosh (mostly found in Glasgow), Charles Harrison Townsend (SE23's Horniman Museum, the Whitechapel Art Gallery), George Skipper (whose work can be mainly found in Norwich), and our man for the walk - Leslie Green.
Green, who died of pulmonary tuberculosis at a sanatorium in Norfolk aged just 33, was born 6th February 1875 in Maida Vale and studied at Dover College and South Kensington School of Art as well as in Paris. He married Mildred Wildy in 1902 (in Clapham) and they one daughter, Vera, who died in 1995.
A member of RIBA, he was appointed architect for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London to design stations for three lines then under construction:- the Great Northern, Piccadilly, and Brompton Railway, the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway, and the Charing Cross, Eastern, and Hampstead Railway. In total, fifty stations. We'd not visit ALL of them but about a fifth of them. A decent cross-section and enough to get an idea of what Green, and his style was, all about.
His signature style was a two storey building with a steel structured frame (which was very modern back then), non-loadbearing oxblood red glazed terracotta (faience) blocks from the Bunnantofts Pottery in Leeds for the exterior, and large semi-circular windows at first floor level. They had flat roofs to encourage commercial development above, the steel helped with that.
Interiors were tiled green and white and platforms had individual geometric patterns. The lines (and stations) were opened in 1906-1907 and many of them are now Grade II listed and our exploration of them was to start at Elephant & Castle but not until after brunchington.
I'd arrived, on the 63 bus, early only to find the Black Cowboy Cafe (the venue I wanted to use) shut (it was the festive season and it was Sunday) so I repaired, as I'd specified as a backup plan, to the local Wetherspoons, The Rockingham Arms, where I met with Shep and Rodney. I had a veggie breakfast and a lemonade, Shep similar, and Rodney (a carnivore) had eggs benedict. Katie, Roxanne, and Clive soon joined us but were not in the breakfast/lunch club.
Once done, the walk (proper) began and our first stop was Elephant & Castle tube station (South London House). The Bakerloo building and not the Northern one (that's by Thomas Phillips Figgis). There's not a lot to say about each individual station (most of it has been said in the last few paragraphs) but there is a story relating to this station and a baby being born here on 13th May 1924, the first baby ever born on the underground network.
Initial press reports suggested she had been named Thelma Ursula Beatrice Eleanor (TUBE) but, disappointingly, the story proved to be untrue. Though her middle name was Ashfield and was named for Lord Ashfield who was chairman of the railway and agreed to be the baby's godfather but, grumpily, added that he wouldn't do that sort of thing again because he was a "busy man".
Past the Imperial War Museum, we found our second station. Lambeth North was opened on 10th March 1906. It was originally called Kennington Road, and before the Elephant & Castle station opened, was the Bakerloo line's southern terminus. It changed its name to Westminster Bridge Road after just four months and, in 1917, to Lambeth (North). Eleven years later the parenthesis was abandoned and another thirteen years later, in 1941, the Germans dropped a 'Satan' bomb nearby damaging the station and killing one person.
We crossed over Westminster Bridge, past the Houses of Parliament, down the Mall, and along the edge of Trafalgar Square. Most people take photos of these places but we were waiting until we found our first "ghost" station of the walk. Aldwych, or Strand, opened in 1907 and closed in 1994 when the cost of lift repair was deemed too high for the income generated by the station.
The station was used to shelter artworks during both world wars and the London Transport Museum runs 'Hidden London' tours inside it (sounds like fun). It's also been used in film and television:- The Krays, Sherlock, Fast & Furious 6, Superman IV, Mr.Selfridge, 28 Weeks Later, and Luther. The Prodigy filmed the video for Firestarter here and, in 2002, Most Haunted found no actual ghosts in the ghost station.
Up Kingsway, past the curious Square the Block (above) by Richard Wilson, we soon reached Holborn which didn't look quite right for Leslie Green and I still have doubts about now. But, apparently, it is. It's also another that has featured in music videos:- Suede's Saturday Night, Leftfield's Release the Pressure, and New Song by Howard Jones (which Katie asked me to remind her of, rendering it an earworm for me for the rest of the day).
Down Holborn, Chancery Lane, and past a festive penguin (there were many on show at the time, Tina had made a point of tracking them all down) and on to our first pub stop. I'm keen, when possible, to fit the pub stops into the theme of the walk so that meant that The Blackfriar was a must. It was nice and toasty in there and pleasantly busy and as we supped pints I did some brief spiel about the pub itself.
Grade II listed, it was built (in 1875) on the site of a former Dominican friary and remodelled in 1905 by one Herbert Fuller-Clark. The impressive internal decoration (see below) comes c/o Frederick T.Callcott and Henry Park (who also built Westminster Central Hall and Deptford Town Hall as well as various war memorials). The pub, thankfully, was saved from demolition in the 1960s by a campaign spearheaded by Sir John Betjeman. Who also had a hand in saving the incredible St Pancras station. The sixties may have been a progressive time (in some respects) but some of the history that they tried to sweep away really did need to be kept. Not least this pub and that station.
It would normally feel like a breach of protocol to have two pub stops so close together but The Fox and Anchor was relatively nearby, just a short walk under Holborn Viaduct and through Smithfield Market, and it fitted so well into the theme of walk it just had to be done. Plus, it was Xmas so fuck it!
It's not a big pub and it was standing room only. The beer wasn't cheap (and the mulled wine was astronomically priced - £10.40) but it was enjoyable. This Charterhouse Street pub was built in 1898 and designed by Latham Withall who mainly worked in Adelaide. Not much more information was available on this rather splendid pub so we chatted about our festive seasons, football, and other things. We don't have to talk only about things pertinent to the theme of the walk. That would be silly!
We said goodbye to Katie (who was off to watch football on the telly) and from the pub(s) we passed Coram's Fields, a very narrow road (Roxanne and Clive claimed the narrowest in London), and blue plaques for George Orwell (subject of a future LbF walk, all being well) and JM Barrie. By the time we reached Russell Square, after a couple of drinks, some bladders were in dire need of emptying and possibly this impressive station was not as appreciated as it might have been.
But people seemed to be having fun so that's the main thing, eh? Sadly the most famous thing about Russell Square station is that it was bombed on the 7th July 2005 resulting in the deaths of 26 people, Part of the 7/7 terrorist attacks, still the worst in British history.
More blue plaques (including Kenneth Williams), a canal, and the impressive stations of Kings Cross and St Pancras (as well as the former site of the Euston Tavern, thanks Clive, which may feature in an upcoming LbF walk dedicated to the London of The Pogues) and up York Way to the second 'ghost' station of the day.
York Road opened in 1906 and closed in 1932 but with the huge KX redevelopment project still ongoing (hey, my office is there) it may well reopen. Who knows? We passed my office (below), some impressive gasholders, and a bridge over the canal before we had our first proper adventure of the day.
I thought we'd have to go round St Pancras Gardens and Old St Pancras Church but the gates were open so we passed through. The problem is they were only open one end so that resulted in us all clambering over a fence (luckily there were what appeared to be some old gravestones for us to use as steps) before we could get out and head down Crowndale Road to Mornington Crescent. Nearing the end of our Leslie Green inspired odyssey.
Mornington Crescent opened on 22nd June 1907 and is probably most famous for being the star of the radio comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. There's even a plaque inside to Willie Rushton (who died, aged 59, in 1996) which a few of us (well, me) eagerly snapped. Belle and Sebastian wrote a song about the station and it crops up in China Mieville's 1998 novel King Rat.
Camden was, as ever, busy but we made our way up to Camden Town (opened on the same day as Mornington Crescent by David Lloyd George, than President of the Board of Trade) and on to our final Leslie Green station of the day - Chalk Farm.
Chalk Farm opened the same day as Mornington Crescent and Camden Town (what a day for Camden) and is famous for appearing on the cover of the Madness album Absolutely as well as their single Baggy Trousers. I won't (as planned) list the forty stations we didn't see but I will mention that, quite remarkably, we didn't go for curry (I had Namaaste planned and that's been a hit in the past).
Shep had a rail replacement bus service ahead and there were no other takers so the five of us repaired to the Enterprise, talked shit for a while, watched some football, and then drew a line under a bumpy, but fun, year of LbF's walks.
Even if there'd only been four as opposed to the planned six. Thanks to Shep, Rodney, Katie, Roxanne, and Clive for joining me on this walk and to all others who took part in an LbF walk last year. That's Bee, Pam, Mo, Eamon, and Vicky. This year we'll kick off in March with another trip to Epping Forest and I'm hoping that this time I don't end up covered in mud like last time. Let's wait and see.
