Category: Kristine Hughes

Museum of London – Galleries of Modern London Exhibition Opens Today

Drat, drat, drat! So much London, so little time. Just when I thought I had everything I wanted to see on the agenda, up pops something else I simply must make time for. Sigh. Like the Galleries of Modern London exhibition at the Museum of London. The £20m exhibition will aim to capture London’s tumultuous history from 1666 to the present day, using 7,000 objects and interactive displays and film transport visitors through London’s tumultuous history, rich with drama, triumph and near disaster. From the Great Fire of 1666 to wonders of invention at the Great Exhibition in 1851, the Suffragettes’ fight for voting rights to the fashions which made the sixties swing, the galleries are an experience of rebirth and renewal, of excess and struggle.

A few of the highlights of the exhibit that made me decide I just had to see it are the Lord Mayor’s State Coach built in 1757 and the Pleasure Gardens. Yes, the Pleasure Gardens. Visitors can stroll through recreated late 18th century pleasure garden full of period costumes and specially commissioned masks and hats. There’s a picture of Vauxhall Gardens (see above) beside the blurb in the brochure, so you know this is going to fabulous! Then there’s the Victorian Walk, where you can window shop along the recreated streets and even stop in at a pub. There’s also an original Wellclose Prison cell from the 18th century – complete with period graffiti. In addition, they have the Fanshawe dress on display (above). Made from Spitalfields silk, it was worn by Ann Fanshaw when her father was Lord Mayor 1752-53.

To prove that the Museum of London is moving along with the times, they’ll be installing a 3D exhibit in Trafalgar Square promoting the exhibiton and will be launching an iPhone app that will guide users to sites across London where they can explore some of the city’s hidden secrets that feature in the exhibition.

At left is a photo of the front of Selfridge’s Deptartment Store being installed at the Museum of London.

Vicky Lee, marketing manager at the Museum of London, said: “The launch of this new app brings London’s rich history to life for Londoners and tourists alike. iPhone users can create their own trails around the capital and view images of London past, while standing in the very locations they depict.”
                         

Click here for a recent London Times article on the new exhibits.                                 

The London and Waterloo Tour – Book and Print Sellers

Books, glorious books! What better reason to go to London than to browse the second hand and antiquarian book shops? Oh, the musty smell of the stacks, the light coating of dust atop the books, the heart stopping finds one occasionally makes! I once came home from England with, quite literally, a huge suitcase full of books. I crammed my personal items into a duffel and used the suticase for the books. The customs agent couldn’t believe it. Nor could either of us lift it.

On our London/Waterloo tour, Victoria and I have set aside a day to do the book shops on Charing Cross Road and the adjacent Cecil Court, to be followed by print buying at Grosvenor Prints.
Charing Cross Road runs immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles’ Circus (the intersection with Oxford Street) and then becomes Tottenham Court Road.

Charing Cross Road is renowned for its specialist and second-hand bookshops and more general second-hand and antiquarian shops such as Quinto Bookshop, Henry Pordes and Any Amount of Books. Oh, the books I’ve found at Pordes! This trip out, I’ll be looking for letters, diaries and journals of the day(s), as per usual, and anything Regency, as per usual, and whatever else I may fall over that strikes my fancy, as per usual. And I must make a list of all the authors I want to search for – British authors whose books are hard to find here. I know that Victoria will be looking for books by Angela Thirkell.

Smaller second-hand and specialist antiquarian bookshops can be found in the adjoining Cecil Court, where shops selling specialist books (children’s, theatre, travel, etc) stand side by side and where both Victoria, Diane Gaston and myself have picked up prints and maps in the past. The shopfronts have not been altered in more than a century and the traditional hanging signs announce specialists in rare and antiquarian books, maps and prints and all manner of related printed material including stamps and banknotes. It was at David Drummond’s shop, Pleasures of Past Times, that I picked up a favorite Regency find – a ticket of admission to view the trappings installed at Westminster Abbey for the Coronation of George IV.

Victoria and I will be ending our day at Grosvenor Prints. You’ll find in a previous post that I’ve already been to this printseller’s shop and bought a number of prints related to the Duke of Wellington. While they have a searchable online catalogue, the bulk of their stock is kept in folders in the basement and when you arrive, you can tell the salesperson what you’re interested in. Then you sit down to wait for a few minutes and they return from the depth with treasures untold. This time, Victoria and I are going to email ahead in order to let them know what we’re looking for and when we’ll be in. While I’ll be seeking prints related to the Duke of Wellington (surprise!), Victoria is looking to add to her collection of fashion prints from 1800 to 1820 and for engravings of Margaret Mercer Elphinstone, Princess Charlotte, Lady Melbourne, Lady Cowper, Lady Palmerston and other ladies of the period. We promise to let you know what we find.

Continued below . . . .

As a side note, I wanted to let you know about another Charing Cross Road. A long-standing correspondence between New York based author Helene Hanff and the staff of a now defunct bookstore on the street, Marks and Co., was the inspiration for the book 84 Charing Cross Road (1970). The book was made into a 1986 film with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins and also into a play and a BBC radio drama. Any bibliophile, especially an American bibliophile, will be enchanted by the letters that pass from Ms. Hanff to the staff and vice versa during her years of placing orders with them. Friendships develop, news is exchanged and family events shared. Both the book and movie are both charming and touching and highly recommended.

Do You Know About Foyle's War?

Oh, boy. This one’s a winner. Not Regency, not Victorian, but a series that will quietly grab you and have you hooked by the end of the first episode.

I’d written this post in draft weeks ago and only found out yesterday from Jo Manning that the new episodes were being aired on PBS Mystery starting last night. Sorry, sorry, sorry for missing the boat on this, but there’s no time like the present to let you know about Foyle’s War if you aren’t familiar with it. And if you are, there’s no time like the present to tell you that next two new episodes in the series will air on Sunday, May 9 (Killing Time) and Sunday, May 16 (The Hide).

In early World War II Britain, as British soldiers and pilots valiantly resist the German forces on land and in the air, their kinsmen at home face head-on the effects of the awful war that has engulfed their nation. Food rationing, black-outs, German bombing raids, all these and more are daily reminders that no one is to be spared.

For Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle of the Hastings police department, a man who served his country in World War I and then rose through the ranks of the police force to his current position, sitting on the sidelines during this war is frustrating. Requesting more direct involvement but continually rebuffed by his superior officer, DCS Foyle is further frustrated by a shortage of manpower that impedes his powers of policing.

As Foyle quickly learns, however, the role he plays is in no way a small one, for the war has certainly not brought a cessation of crime. If anything, it has intensified the heinous nature of domestic crime when carried out against innocent people already suffering, sacrificing, and struggling to persevere in such a brutal time.

Each episode of Foyle’s War, created by Anthony Horowitz (Midsomer Murders), blends real-life war stories with tales of treachery and suspense. Whether investigating sabotage, looting, stolen food or fuel supplies, police brutality of conscientious objectors, treason, or murder, Foyle and his colleagues must wage their own personal war amidst the tumult of a larger one. But more than a period whodunnit, Foyle’s War is redolent with rich human drama subtly revealed through the lives of these main characters who make up the heart of the series. Steadfast and loyal to each other, they strive to uphold the values for which they and their countrymen – their loved ones – are fighting and dying.
 

Michael Kitchen, as Foyle, doesn’t say much and prefers fly fishing to socializing, but Oh My is he clever. The human side of the war is emphasized through continuing secondary plot lines that involve the ongoing love life of Foyle’s female driver, Samantha. She even has an ongoing fling with Foyle’s son, an ace fighter pilot. Foyle’s second in command, Sergeant Milner is a wounded vet who lost a leg in the war – a fact his wife is unable to deal with.

Foyle’s War was created in 2001 by author Anthony Horowitz and commissioned by ITV1 to fill the void following the end of long-running detective series Inspector Morse. Set in Hastings, it ran to 19 episodes and featured Foyle’s attempts to catch criminals taking advantage of wartime confusion. Now, three more episodes have been made (wooo hooo!), with Michael Kitchen reprising his role and Foyle’s peacetime exploits are likely to feature his female driver, Sam, more prominently. Foyle’s War will return to ITV1 with a “new style series” set in June 1945, after VE Day signalled the end of the conflict in Europe, but with the war against Japan in the Far East not yet concluded.

“Like everyone else, detective chief superintendent Christopher Foyle needs to feel his way in this new world. Keen to retire, but bound to his old job by the shortage of senior men, Foyle is thrust into the dangerous worlds of international conspiracy and execution, military racism and national betrayal,” ITV said.

The series producer, Jill Green, added: “This fascinating period post-VE day has rarely been featured on TV and once more Foyle’s War will be unearthing true stories that reflect tougher, moodier times.”

Living With the Duke of Wellington

I’ve been living with the Duke of Wellington for nigh on thirty years now – reading about him, researching him and, perhaps most fun, collecting items associated with him. The first portrait of the Duke I ever bought is pictured at right. If you can believe it, I stumbled upon it in a thrift store in Florida and paid just $99 for it. Afterwards, I brought a photo of it with me to London and took it to Grosvenor Prints in Seven Dials and asked the gentleman there what he thought it was worth. He hemmed and hawed on giving me an appraisal without actually seeing the piece, but did tell me that mine was one of a series of eight engravings done shortly after the Duke’s death to commemorate the high points thereof. My engraving shows the Duke being installed as Chancellor of Oxford University and the frame is rosewood. When I told the man how much, or how little, I’d paid for the piece, he peered at me over the top of his glasses and said, “Madam, you got yourself a bargain.”

The next portrait I bought was this reproduction of Thomas Phillips’s 1814 painting of the Duke. Unfortunately, there isn’t an amusing story attached to this purchase, just ordered it through the mail, took it to be framed and matted and hung it above my fireplace. I must say, though, Artie looks tres festive when wreathed in garland at the holidays! My father bought the pheasant at an auction decades ago and when he returned home with it, both my mother and myself thought he was crazy. However, now I’m ever so glad he found it, as it’s so veddy Victorian in appearance and goes quite well on the mantle, non?

On a subsequent trip to London, I returned to Grosvenor Prints and spent quite a few hours perusing their Duke of Wellington stock, finally choosing this engraving because it seemed to match the first engraving in size and subject composition. It’s a contemporary engraving of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s 1821 portrait of the Duke, with Copenhagen’s head visible in the lower left corner. I had it matted and framed to match the first engraving.

On that same visit, I also bought this engraving of Elizabeth Hay, 2nd Duchess of Wellington and favorite daughter-in-law of the Duke. I also have an engraving of the Duke showing Elizabeth over the field of Waterloo on horseback. My husband tries to make me understand that these pictures should all be hung together, museum-like in a large room or gallery and not ranged over every conceivable bit of wall space in a smallish family home in which current day people actually live. I told him that I agreed. The collection as a whole would look infinitely better in a townhouse in Bath’s Royal Crescent or a Grade II listed period home in, say, Gloucestershire. I further told him that as soon as he bought me one or the other I would move each and every picture and knick knack to our new house. No need to tell you that I’m still waiting for word that our Georgian manor home has been purchased.  
One wall in my office is taken up with various prints and here hangs Sir Thomas Lawrence’s most iconic image of the Duke, as well as the engraving on the field of Waterloo I mentioned earlier at bottom left. The framed document in the middle is a land indenture and the document at top right is an edition of the London Chronicle from 1771. Prince Leopold (or Leopold, King of the Belgians) is matted in red top left. Can I tell you how much enjoyment my passion for the past has afforded me over the years, giving me the excuse to visit bookshops, printsellers, antique shops and stalls and the like?  While I love each find, I think my favorite piece of Wellington memorabilia is one of his handwritten envelopes, seal still intact, that I found on Ebay!
And, of course, all the book finds, whether associated with the Duke or not. Here are but a few. It always makes me chuckle when people ask me whether I’ve actually read them all. Obviously, these people are a breed apart from you and I. So, that’s a quick tour of my Wellington collection. When we go to London in June, Victoria and I plan to visit Grosvenor Prints and the bookstores in Charing Cross Road and Cecil Court. No doubt we’ll be coming home with more finds.

I can hear my husband groaning now.

My London by Kristine Hughes

I’ve been to London many times and whenever those who don’t know me very well ask why I keep returning to the same city, I’m hard pressed to explain to them what London means to me. My London is not the city that exists now. Madame Tussaud’s and the London Eye are all well and good, but my London is the old city, the Square Mile that was bordered to the north by the Oxford Road, to the South by Vauxhall Gardens, to the east by Mile End Road and to the west by Hyde Park. To my mind, Richmond, Hampstead, Brixton and Golder’s Green are not in London. Though I may visit these places, they lay outside the parameters of the London I see in my mind, the London I see when I walk the streets today. You can still see Georgian, Regency and Victorian London on practically every street. Kensington Palace, St. James’s Palace and Apsley House still exist. Hatchard’s bookshop and Fortnum and Mason, the Burlington Arcade and the Tower are still to be found. True, there are no longer Hansom cabs or sedan chairs for hire, no hawkers crying their wares in the streets and, certainly, no dandies strolling in St. James’s Street, but every now and then you come across a London view so perfect, so historically right, that it makes the trip worthwhile.

One of the stops I always make while in London is Apsley House, London home of the Dukes of Wellington, where today you’ll find all of the many paintings and gifts bestowed upon the first Duke by grateful nations on display. While the current Duke of Wellington does live there, the portions of Apsley House now open to the public have a museum feel, there’s nothing of Wellington the man left to see except for a small room in the basement that houses some of his army gear. But again, portions of the upstairs rooms do offer views onto 19th century life. Enough to make me return time and again.

Perhaps what I love best about London are the modern day memories my visits have provided and the people I’ve met along the way. There was the time I was strolling down the Mall with a tour group and our way was suddenly blocked by a burgundy Rolls Royce coming out of a drive and stopping right in front of us. It was an older Rolls and the windows were as large as those found in some houses. Looking through the back passenger window, my gaze met and held that of Prince Charles. He was dressed in full regimental regalia no less. He smiled at me and raised his gloved hand to the visor of his hat in a jaunty salute before the car pulled away. Then there was the day that I was taken to the Victoria and Albert Museum and for a cruise up the river by David Parker, then curator of the Dickens House Museum. At one point during our ramblings, David took hold of my elbow, stopped me and pointed to a second story window. Looking up, I saw Inigo Jones’s ceiling of the Banqueting House through the upper storey windows. Amazing. Another memory I’ll always cherish is the time Anthony Lejeune, author of The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London, invited me to dinner at Brooks’s Club. Walking up the stairs to the second floor dining room, I came face to face with Sir Thomas Lawrence’s full length portrait of George IV. Having port after dinner in library, I gazed at the portraits of the Dilettanti Society that range the walls and marveled at the fact that there were bed billows, in white pillow cases, placed on the arms of the leather couches, ready for any member who felt the overwhelming need of a nap.

On our upcoming trip to London this June, as soon as I land on the Saturday, I’ll meet up with Victoria Hinshaw and the first thing we plan to do is to walk the St. James’s area. We’ll visit the lesser streets, give a nod to the Almack’s building, stroll by the statue of Beau Brummell and, no doubt, raise a pint at the miniscule Red Lion pub in King Street, a perfectly preserved time capsule of a Victorian pub.  No doubt I’ll be returning home with many more memories to treasure . . . . .  . More musings on adventures ahead soon, as well as detailed blogs on the sites Victoria and I have on our itinerary.