Weymouth: Queen Victoria jubilee bust

Most visitors to the seaside town of Weymouth are there for the sun and the sandy beach and the various forms of holiday entertainment. 

Not me. I go primarily for the wildlife (birds, butterflies, dragonflies, etc., depending on the season) but I also enjoy walking around the older streets near the harbour, admiring the town's architectural and historical features. 

This is one I spotted during my most recent visit: a bust of Queen Victoria, attached to the front facade of the Fairhaven Hotel to celebrate her golden jubilee in 1887. 

It seems the 1897 date was added a decade later, when Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee.

Nowadays, the Fairhaven Hotel is an amalgamation of five separate properties that were probably all constructed in the 19th century. 

According to the Historic England website, the part of the Fairhaven to which the bust is attached, the Grade II listed building at 41 – 43 The Esplanade, was originally two separate mid-19th-century houses, 'possibly encasing late C18 work', with the addresses 7 and 8 Augusta Place. 

At some point these houses were amalgamated to become the Victoria Hotel, and the building has subsequently been The New Vic Bar and Restaurant, as well as forming part of the complex of buildings that made up the Fairhaven Hotel.

As you can perhaps tell from my photo of the building, it is not currently in use, and looks to be in a state of some disrepair. 

Looking at listings on the Savills property website, for a guide price of £25,000 per annum, you could rent, or possibly even purchase, this 'bar/restaurant situated in prime Weymouth seafront location with panoramic sea views'. The colourful bust of Queen Victoria would be an added bonus!

London : capital lights

We’ve checked out some of London city’s amazing clocks (some famous examples here, some less well known here), and its design-rich historic guttering; now let’s focus on some of its historic sources of illumination.

There are two of these ornate lamp standards, commemorating the opening of Chelsea embankment in 1874, one at the west end of the embankment gardens and one just to the east of Albert Bridge. 

The design, by Timothy Butler, was originally submitted to the London Metropolitan Board of Works when it was looking for lamps to light the newly completed Thames Embankment but Vulliamy’s dolphin design (at right) was chosen instead. 

On the Chelsea embankment lamps two climbing figures of young boys, one passing a burning torch to the other, twist artfully around standards that are adorned at their bases with overflowing cornucopias. 

These delightful lamp standards were made in cast iron by a company in Coalbrookdale and sit on plain granite pedestals.

This next light is to be found on Chelsea Bridge, one of the many bridges that cross the Thames in central London. Constructed between 1934 and 1937, the listing on the Historic England website explains:

The bridge is painted mostly white with a red trim and greyish blue along the balustrades. It is embellished with five sets of lampposts, decorated with golden galleons, on either side of the bridge and smaller bulbs fixed into the swooping metal supports. There are heraldic designs on the four tall turrets at either end of the bridge: a golden galleon with two shields underneath (each marked with different symbols); crests of Middlesex and other counties around London; and a series of doves holding olive branches.

The lamp standards in the above photos were spotted in Whitehall (on the left) and at the entrance to Downing Street (on the right).

Surmounted by small gold crowns, these lamps cast their light along The Mall leading to Buckingham Palace.

And so to Buckingham Palace (the two photos above and the two immediately below) where, as you’d expect, even the lights on the external fences and gates are ornate, opulent and rich-looking. The Historic England listing says these lamps, both the candelabra and single lanterns, are part of the overall Victoria Memorial scheme designed by Sir Aston Webb and date from 1901-11.   

You would expect the World Heritage site that is Westminster Abbey to have magnificent everything and this is certainly true of its lamps.

It wasn’t easy to get a good look at the Palace of Westminster during my recent visit to London – the building was covered in the scaffolding required for its renovation and restoration, and the pavements surrounding it were awash with protesters. Luckily, when we rounded the corner, heading towards Westminster Bridge, I noticed a magnificent line of old trees and, near them, a row of 14 lamp standards running along next to the driveway. These cast-iron standards (one is shown below, left), with their ‘crown finialed globe lanterns’ were made c. 1860-67.  

On the right, above, is one of several lamps that grace the balustrades of Westminster Bridge. Dating from 1862, the cast-iron standards are surmounted by ‘twin bracketed octagonal lanterns and crowning lanterns - all with gilded finials’.

These beauties were found in the area surrounding the Tower of London complex, the blue-painted standard on the left adjacent to a nearby pathway, and the more ornate, crown-surmounted lanterns on the railings leading to the tourist entrance to the Tower.

Of course, most people looking at Tower Bridge are fascinated by its age, its architecture, the fact that its central roadway lifts to allow tall river traffic to pass through.... I also admired those things but my eyes were drawn to its handsome light fixtures. On the balustrades leading up to the bridge is this row of light-blue lamp standards that date from 1886-84. The coat of arms is that of the City of London, with the motto Domine dirige nos, roughly ‘Lord, guide us’ – in this case, safely across the bridge.

As the sun went down on our day of stomping around the streets of London, I caught sight of the iconic dome of St Paul’s Cathedral behind Southwark Bridge, where commuters were heading home from work and tourists paused to take photos along the Thames of the magnificent sights of this capital city, of lights and so much more.

Lewes : chimney pots

One of the benefits of climbing a lot of steps to the top level of Lewes castle (well, almost – I couldn’t face the screaming, poorly behaved kids racing round madly on the top floor of the last turret) is the view, both of the surrounding landscape and over the nearby buildings of the town itself. As the castle sits high on a hilltop, you can’t see much of those buildings, except their rooves ... and their chimney pots.

And what wonderful chimney pots! Mostly terracotta, mostly quite plain, but some nicely decorated with swirling curves. And they are not all simply chimney pots – in the process of writing this blog post, I’ve discovered a range of names for the various parts of these structures for moving smoke away from a chimney. There are cowls and caps, flues and terminal bonnets, to prevent drafts, encourage airflow, exclude inclement weather, and to discourage birds from nesting.

Lewes : Gutter hoppers

I discovered the joys of gutter hoppers (also known as rainwater hoppers or hopper heads) during a visit to Britain back in 2014 and blogged about the history of guttering (including some of my hopper and gargoyle finds) in a post to celebrate Britain’s National Gutters Day that November (by which time I was living in Cheshire). 

Gutter hoppers, their designs and dates have continued to fascinate me – as well as the overall architecture of a building, I like to look at the smaller, more intricate details of its construction. So, when I spent a day in Lewes, in East Sussex, last week, I couldn’t help but photograph the many attractive hoppers I spotted as we walked the twists, turns and twitterns of that lovely historic town.

The oldest hopper I discovered was lying on the floor at the Anne of Cleves House and Museum. I didn’t spot a sign to explain its presence – although the museum building dates from the 15th century, perhaps this hopper was a later addition that has since been replaced.

This beautiful object is in Southover Grange Gardens, a peaceful and lovely haven adjacent to the 16th-century grange, which now houses the Lewes Register Office, a cafe and a gallery shop. This is now a water pump above a well but I can’t help wondering if it was once a gutter hopper.

Although parts of this building date back to the 16th century, Pelham House was enlarged in the mid-18th century and again in the early 19th century, so I imagine the stunning lion-embossed gutter hoppers were added during one of those later constructions.

Lewes Crown Court was built of Portland stone in the early 1800s so this hopper, dated MCMXXX (1930), is obviously a more modern addition. It’s proof, though, that modern doesn’t have to be boring!

Cardiff : Cambrian Buildings

I often forget that it always pays to look up!

I was meandering around the streets of Cardiff one day last week, gathering images for future blogs, and had almost reached Cardiff Bay station to catch the train home, when I felt the need to look skywards – and this is what I saw. 

This was only one of thirteen, each unique, that adorn a building of two names, the Cambrian Buildings which face on to Mount Stuart Square and, around the corner, the Cymric Buildings on West Bute Street. Built between 1907 and 1911 to the design of local architect Henry Budgen, this is a large imposing Grade II-listed structure of four main storeys, with a basement beneath and an attic level above. If you want to read a precise description of the architectural design, you can do so on the British Listed Buildings website, but for me it was all about the sculptural embellishments.

Running along the top of the fourth floor, they are a spectacular mix of the marine, with walruses, dolphin-type creatures, sea monsters and, rather incongruously, what looks like a lion, all underscored with nautical paraphernalia, like anchors, ropes, compasses, and chains. I’ve not uncovered any details of the sculptor, or sculptors, whose superb craftsmanship this is but they were obviously masters of their craft. The Cambrian Buildings have five of these Ionic-style capitals (shown above in order from the left of the building to the right, where it turns the corner into West Bute Street), and the Cymric Buildings have eight (shown below, again in order from left to right).

As well as these lavish sculptures at the top of the three-storey-high pilasters, there is a series of individual sea monsters on each side of the bases of the pilasters, between the windows of the first floor. These are described as dolphins in the official building description, though they’re not like any dolphins I’ve ever seen – perhaps the sculptors had only their imaginations to go on when carving these designs. The ‘dolphin’ closest to the neighbouring building has been rather squeezed into his position, but the others are more elegantly arranged. These are my particular favourites because of the amazing expressions on their faces.

On the ground floor, each of the two facades of these buildings has a central grand entrance, with the buildings’ names above.

And on each side of these entrances are more pilasters, these topped with sculptures of sailing ships and more nautical-themed details.

This area of Cardiff was immediately adjacent to the port, an extremely busy place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and most of the commercial buildings in this area were built to house the major shipping and mining magnates, and the importing and exporting companies. The Cambrian Buildings were built to house the offices of the Cambrian Coal Combine, the most powerful mining group in south Wales’s Rhondda coal-mining valleys.

Now that I’ve realised what treasures there are amongst the historic buildings in the older parts of Cardiff, I’ll be looking up (and down and around) much more often.

Cardiff lights: Glamorgan Building

We had a broad look at Cardiff University’s Glamorgan Building earlier this month but I wanted to show you one particular feature of its Edwardian architecture that I really love. 

These two impressive sets of lights stand either side of the main entrance steps. Lion heads were very popular in 19th and early 20th century architectural decoration: the king of the beasts stood as a symbol of the might of Britain and its extensive empire, and represented, amongst other qualities, strength, gravitas and valour, so lions were often added to the decoration of important buildings like banks, county halls and other civic buildings.

Cardiff: Welcoming doors

One of the loveliest aspects of Cardiff’s old Victorian and Edwardian houses is their entranceways.

The doors are frequently painted in vibrant reds, blues and greens, and they often have unusual-shaped windows inset into their upper sections, some of which are filled with plain glass, others with prettily patterned stained glass designs. It is also common to see panels of decorated tiles on either side of the doors, often with Art Deco-style patterns fired into them. Many doors feature rectangular or arched windows above and at the sides, to allow light to filter into the hallway beyond, and some of the older entranceways still retain the charming wrought-iron and glass porches that help protect those entering and exiting the house from inclement weather.

Where they have survived the ravages of time and foot traffic, some of the pavements leading up to the doorways are tiled in colourful geometric designs. Many of these tiles and designs were from the factory of J. C. Edwards & Co of Ruabon, a town in North Wales famous for its clay and terracotta ware, and you can see a page of tessellated and encaustic tile designs from an Edwards catalogue to the right here. Ruabon’s clay manufacturing was so well esteemed that the town was, at one time, affectionately known as ‘Terracottapolis’. (There will be more on J. C. Edwards and his terracotta products in a future blog.)

Sadly, not every entranceway looks as lovely as those shown here. Some house-owners have removed the lovely old doors and replaced them with double-glazed plastic monstrosities, practical perhaps but often exceedingly ugly. Wrought-iron porches have crumbled and been dismantled, tile panels have been painted over, and pavements have been replaced with dreary grey paving slabs.

This blog is intended as a pictorial celebration of how beautiful these architectural features can be, and a shout out to all those wonderful home-owners who value and care for these historic treasures.