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Streaky bacon Looking at Google Earth on a relative’s mobile the other day and marvelling at how much of London we could see, we chanced upon the Victoria Embankment and I was reminded how, whenever I’m at that end of Westminster Bridge I turn away from the Houses of Parliament (magnificent as they are) and look at these two buildings by the river. They were designed by Norman Shaw as New Scotland Yard – the North Building (right) first, followed by the South. The Metropolitan Police moved into the North Building in 1890, and into the South Building in 1906, after which the two blocks remained the headquarters of the force until 1967. They’re now parliamentary offices.* When the first building began to go up at the end of the 1880s, this style of architecture was still new. People were rather baffled by it. They’d spent much of the 19th century being told that there was a ‘battle of styles’ between Gothic and Classical. Nobody won the battle, but the Victorians built hundreds of Gothic

Old building, new use I sometimes say in my posts that such and such a building ‘caught my eye’. There can be few more eye-catching buildings than this one, standing out in its whiteness between trees in leafy Maida Vale. It began life in 1912 as the Maida Vale Picture House and carried on as a cinema until 1949. Since then it has been a dance hall, a casino and bingo hall – and since 1998 a mosque, the Islamic Centre of England. Relatively little work was needed to convert the building, and most of the changes are architecturally cosmetic – although of great importance to the building’s current users: specifically the addition of calligraphic panels and the covering-up of statues in what was the auditorium and is now the prayer hall. The work has been done with sensitivity and one can still appreciate the architecture of the original cinema – the two towers with their domes, the white frontage with its round windows with ornate surrounds. It is good both that this important early cine

On the tracks of old railways (2): Mosaic The London underground network developed and grew long before Leslie Green designed his distinctive tiled stations for London (see my previous post ). The first line opened in 1863, and by 1868, this station was built on Gloucester Road to accommodate lines run by the Metropolitan Railway and the District Railway (later the word ‘Line’ replaced ‘Railway’ in the names). This part of the station, on Gloucester Road itself, has a Classical facade of cream coloured brickwork topped with ball finials and stone urns. What sets off this frontage, though, is the large and excellent sign, just beneath the cornice. I suppose nowadays few people look at it. Their eyes are drawn to the signage down at pavement level, which clearly identifies the building as an underground station. But when I’m passing, I always look up and admire the effort that went into this sign: its pleasant lettering (with rather a top-heavy ‘R’ but a lovely extra curly ampersand) and

On the tracks of old railways (1): Identity Go on. You know what this is, or what it was, don’t you? If you’ve lived in London, or been to London, and you’re not rich enough to ride around all the time in taxis, you’ll recognise the style straight away. Oxblood-coloured tiles, semicircular windows a bit like the Diocletian windows used in Roman and Palladian architecture, classical details like the dentil course at the top, the occasional Art Nouveau curlicue. But especially those oxblood tiles. It’s an underground station, of course, or, in this case, Down Street Station having closed in 1932, a former underground station. It was never heavily used, being close to other stations on the network and in a well-to-do area in which relatively few people took the tube; those who wanted a train could easily get one at nearby Hyde Park Corner or Dover Street (now Green Park). That we know immediately what this building is or was is down to Leslie Green, architect to the Underground Electric R

Day in the life Passing through Cirencester, we spot a large temporary yellow sign telling us that there’s an exhibition of Lucienne Day’s textile designs at the New Brewery Arts Centre.* We have time to spare, so pull in, to find a single, very pleasing room of the work of one of Britain’s best, best loved, and most influential designers of the second half of the 20th century. Lucienne Day specialised in textile design at the Royal College of Art, met her husband, the furniture designer Robin Day there, and left college in 1940. With the world at war, there wasn’t much work for a textile designer, so she taught for a few years, starting as a freelance designer after the war ended. Widespread recognition came with the 1951 Festival of Britain, when she created her Calyx fabric design for two of the Festival pavilions that contained work by her and Robin. She also sold the design to Heal’s, although their fabrics director Tom Worthington didn’t think it would sell so only gave her half

Small differences Growing up in Cheltenham, I got used to Georgian and Regency architecture very early on. Many of the town’s streets were terraces, crescents, or squares of tall, stucco-fronted houses, many with ornate iron balconies, and when I first went to Clifton, there were many similarities. Not surprisingly. Clifton expanded at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, when Bristol was booming as a port. However, there were also differences in the architecture. I’m relying on my memory here, but I’m sure my young eyes noticed two things, neither of which are much in evidence now, except on the occasional house, like the one in my photograph, which is on Sion Hill, Clifton and dates to the 1780s. What I noticed was that a number of the balcony roofs were striped black and white, and that many of the windows had shutters. These were unfamiliar things to me and seemed to my uneducated eyes to give the houses an exotic quality, like something out of a story book.

Six of the best: Old iron Since my last two posts – one on a house clad in corrugated iron in Mordiford, Herefordshire, one featuring pages from a catalogue of Edwardian corrugated-iron buildings, I thought I do one of my very occasional ‘round-up’ posts, offering links to ‘six of the best’ of my corrugated iron posts. These are just some of my personal favourites among the various buildings I’ve shared that make use of the wriggly tin in some way. I hope they combine variety and local colour in a way that pleases my readers. Here are the links: A colourful small railway building A plotland house near the Severn A favourite garage on a bendy road near the Welsh border A rusty barn roof A bizarrely curving ‘hot tin roof’ A charming rural church The church, at Rodley in Gloucestershire, is a personal favourite. It’s shown in my photograph above, which I took when I returned to find the laburnum in flower, which it was not when I first discovered the building.

Flat-pack houses, Edwardian style Thinking about the corrugated-iron house in the previous post , I thought I should have a look in a catalogue of prefabricated buildings from the Victorian or Edwardian periods, to see the kind of thing that was on offer. I have the perfect thing on my shelves: the 1902 catalogue of Boulton and Paul of Norwich.* This company began at the end of the 18th century as an ironmonger, expanding over the years into a large manufacturing business with a very strong line in prefabricated buildings (later they made aircraft too). They made houses, cottages, and bungalows (including designs suitable for ‘the colonies’) in both wooden and corrugated iron, as well as all kinds of agricultural buildings from barns to piggeries, and even prefabricated schools and hospitals, as well as a vast range of fittings and equipment – scrapers, screens, screw jacks, seats, seed protectors, soot boxes, step ladders, stoves, strainers: that’s just a small selection from letter ’