From the Chairman:

I am sorry that I have to join my New Year’s greetings to members with sad news. Gillian Wells, a stalwart friend of the society and a constant supporter to Gayne Wells through his long chairmanship of the society, died in December after a brave fight against cancer. We had made Gillian an Honorary Life Member of the Society at our last Annual General Meeting. The Society was well represented at Gillian’s funeral and we have made a donation to the Landmark Trust in her memory. Our thoughts are with Gayne at this time.

This Newsletter is accompanied by the usual list of visits and events. One is a regular item in our programme: this year’s Banister Fletcher Lecture will be given on Wednesday 1^st June. The speaker will be Margaret Richardson, shortly to retire after distinguished service as curator of Sir John Soane’s Museum. The title of the lecture will be Lutyens in London. Although Soane has occupied much of her time in recent years Mrs Richardson was responsible for cataloguing the Lutyens drawings in 1973 and for much of the Lutyens exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 1981-82. She is a trustee of the Lutyens Trust and will tell us about her recent work on Britain’s most creative architect of the 20^th century.

Another important Society event for your diary is the Annual General Meeting which will take place on Wednesday 29^th June at the headquarters of the Georgian Group in Fitzroy Square. This will be an opportunity to see the Group’s building, one of the Robert Adam houses on the east side of the square, and to hear about some of the work which the Group does in defending Georgian buildings against threats of demolition, damaging alterations and decay.

The Society’s Journal in its new format is an attractive record of what the Society has been doing. If you are going on a Society visit and would like to see your impressions of the visit in print our Editor, Lizzie Wells, would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact her by email or by telephone on 020 8442 1197. She would also still like to hear from anyone who has memories of VE day for a feature in the next issue.

Two other appeals for those who may be able to help the Society: our collection of press cuttings is a distinctive part of the Society’s library, and the work which Tony Longden and Gayne Wells have done in arranging them has created an increasingly useful resource. English Heritage recently used them for a historical review of tall buildings in London. We have willing contributors from most national papers; but if you are an Independent reader and would be willing to clip your copy and send us the London items we would be delighted to hear from you. Secondly, our Honorary Treasurer, Sanjiv Bendre, has been forced by pressure of business to give up; we thank him for his care of our accounts over the last year but once again we are still looking for someone who can spare a little time to keep our finances in order. Most of the day-to-day book-keeping is done in the office and we are looking for someone who can keep an eye on the Society’s finances and investments in a more general way, and prepare the annual accounts. If you are able to help please get in touch.

London has so many things to offer it seems invidious to pick out some of the highlights of what is going on. The Museum in Docklands is about to launch an exhibition of photographs of Londoners at Work and the main Museum of London at London Wall continues with its exhibition of one very specialist area of work, the fashion trade. The London Look is a survey of some two centuries of design in London, from the Regency to the present day. Gresham College’s current lecture programme includes a lecture by Adam Hart-Davis on 23^rd February on Some London Heroes of Science and Technology; for further information on this and for booking please ring the college on 020 7831 0575.

Members probably know the Museum of Garden History at Lambeth. In February and March there is a special exhibition there on Captain Bligh of The Bounty. The London connection is that Bligh’s tomb, one of the best examples of Mrs Coade’s artificial stone, is in St Mary Lambeth Churchyard and the museum is in the former church, just by the entrance to Lambeth Palace.

You will have seen that last autumn No 30 St Mary Axe, The Gherkin, won the Stirling Prize awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects. This notable addition to the London skyline was one that the Society had supported when the application for planning permission was first made. Not so widely publicised was another award in the London area, Gainsborough Studios, a large residential complex designed by the architects Munkenbeck and Marshall and sited next to the Regent’s Canal only a few yards from the Society’s office in Mortimer Wheeler House. Take a look when you next visit our office or library. The building takes its name from being built on the site of the original Gainsborough film studios where Alfred Hitchcock directed his early movies. You can find more about other architectural awards in the London area on the RIBA’s regional website.

Promoting good new design is one of the stated aims set out by English Heritage in its latest publication, Heritage Counts, issued jointly with the Heritage Lottery Fund. The London regional version is full of fascinating facts such as London’s total of about 40,000 listed buildings of which about a fifth are in Westminster which has a density of 184.3 listed buildings per square kilometre compared with a national average of only 2.9. You can get the publication on request from English Heritage or via the English Heritage website. While acknowledging the benefits of English Heritage’s new initiatives for widening the appeal of the historic environment the Society is concerned about the way that the government’s reduction in funding means that English Heritage is unable or unwilling to take a stand on many major proposals. Members will have heard about some of English Heritage’s work in London in one of the lectures last autumn and your committee is proposing to look further into the changes in English Heritage’s policies.

With all good wishes,
Frank Kelsall

TheLondonSociety

From the Chairman:

The
London
Society