Home of the great early 20th-century socialite Margaret Grenville, the old Regency house was extensively remodelled in 1906 as a base for her country house parties and filled with her collection of fine paintings, furniture, porcelain and silver. The future George VI and Queen Elizabeth spent part of their honeymoon here in 1923. While the […]
One of the joys of wandering around cities is finding hidden histories behind the roads, the modern developments, the retail parks and the housing developments. The 20th century was not kind to Colliers Wood. One indeed there was a wood here, but it was gradually cleared from the late 19th century and today the area […]
Today’s excursion took me across to the USA, to New England. I was looking for the new Mayflower Park Wetlands; what I found, much to my surprise, was a piece of New England vernacular in the suburbs of London, near Sutton. Surrounded by suburban residential streets, ‘The Hamptons’ and the adjacent park are a joint […]
Have you ever wandered through a graveyard and seen a gravestone that so attracts your attention that you wonder more about the occupant or occupants underneath? Sometimes it might be because the gravestone, once erect, is now leaning at a dangerous angle or the sepulchre has a gaping hole – was the occupant trying to […]
There are two houses called Wakehurst Place: one, the original house in West Sussex; the other a replica in Rhode Island completed in 1887 under the supervision of the American architect Dudley Newton for the sportsman and politician James J. Van Alen from plans designed by the British architect/designer Charles Eamer Kempe, and now owned […]
Like many castles in Britain, Sissinghurst has had a rocky history until, in derelict condition, the castle and farm was put on the market in 1928 for the grand sum of £12,000, with alas no offers of interest for two years. Fortunately, by one of those pieces of serendipity, Vita Sackville West and Harold Nicolson […]
Did past generations anticipate future restrictions such as social distancing? Certainly, they were aware of sensible health precautions, including covering faces, from the various epidemics that seem to be a characteristic of human civilisation through the centuries. The various designers who have contributed to the layout of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew knew a […]
To many people Wandsworth is somewhere they drive through as fast as the traffic lights will allow on the A3 out of London towards Portsmouth, an area of London that lacks identity and a ‘heart’, with the modern, and partly empty shopping centre since Debenham’s left, Southside at its heart. Look hard, scratch below the […]
The 20th century was not particularly kind to Morden in South London, with a sprawl of housing following the opening of the Underground station interspersed with industrial sheds, a town centre that is focused on the roads cutting through its heart – albeit supporting it as a major bus interchange – and the electrical pylons […]
We have seen a collective madness this week with one of the results of the tragic events in the US being a spate of vandalism to statues of historic figures such as Winston Churchill who, whether individuals like it or not, are part of our heritage and, worse of all, to memorials to those who […]
"The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul."
(Thomas Moore)
To be an architect means having a wide range of interests - architecture, art and creativity in all its variety of forms, sustainability, science and innovation. The greatest interest is often where these different worlds overlap and collide - that is when something imaginative often occurs that pushes us all forward to another place
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