Survey of London

An intriguing array of events about macabre London in October -

London Month of the Dead

Many of you may remember the interactive map we created for Histories of Whitechapel - https://surveyoflondon.org It was created for us by Dr Duncan Hay, and was used as the prototype for several other projects that link memory to place, such City of Women - https://cityofwomenlondon.org - and a Memory Map of the Jewish East End - https://jewisheastendmemorymap.org Duncan has been developing a user-friendly version of his software called Memory Mapper so people without his techie skills can use it for their projects, and we’re having an evening get-together at the Bartlett of people who might like to use it, to find out more - for us and for you. Do come along if you think it might work for you and your project - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/memory-mapper-digital-mapping-for-heritage-projects-tickets-872409880437?aff=oddtdtcreator

Memory Mapper: Digital Mapping for Heritage Projects An informal information-sharing workshop about using digital maps for history and heritage projects.

Do you have an architectural discovery you'd like to share? Entries are invited for this year's Stephen Croad Prize, awarded by Historic Buildings and Places (the former Ancient Monuments Society)... no age restriction!

2024 Stephen Croad Prize - Historic Buildings & Places Historic Buildings & Places are now inviting submissions for the 2024 Stephen Croad Prize. The deadline is 2nd August 2024.

The drawing room at 7 Hammersmith Terrace

Something for International Women’s Day… Hammersmith was one of the earliest Survey of London parish volumes, published in 1915 when the printer Emery Walker (1851-1933), a great friend of William Morris, was living in 7 Hammersmith Terrace overlooking the Thames. His house, with furnishing and decoration from the thirty years when he lived there, is open for tours twice a week. This years talks include, on 20 March, Helen Elletson, research curator, on three women artists, friends of and collaborators with Walker

Art Tickets

Currently the Survey is working on SW Marylebone, which mostly comes under the Portman Estate, whose archive we have been making much use of. Courtesy of the estate we had a visit last week to 19-21 Portman Square, now a private members’ club. No 20 was the home of the Courtauld Institute of Art from 1932 to 1989, but is most notable for its spectacular Robert Adam interiors, including the staircase, which he inserted into the house which had been begun to the designs of James Wyatt. Several of the oldies on the Survey (Colin Thom, our director, Philip Temple, who has just retired, and Aileen Reid) also know No 21 of old, when it was the home of the RIBA Drawings Collection - now looking very different.

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day and it seems appropriate to do so with this news of a new Blue Plaque to Ada Salter from English Heritage. Today we on the Survey have more women working with us than at any point in our history, and we’re looking forward to starting work later in the year in Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, where Ada Salter made such a difference to everyone’s lives in the area.

UCL, which has been the Survey of London's home since 2013, has expanded way beyond its Bloomsbury base over the past few years. Yesterday part of the Survey team visited our colleagues at the UCL Urban Room at One Pool Street on the Olympic Park, part of https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-east/, to talk about areas of common interest and see their exhibition on community activism in Southwark in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Survey was honoured last night to receive a commendation for its recent project on Whitechapel from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. The event took place in the recently and beautifully restored Great Chamber of the Charterhouse, the very room where we launched our monograph on that building in 2010. The winner of the Colvin medal was Mark Girouard's A Biographical Dictionary of English Architecture, a work of exemplary historical detective work, and the first time the award has been made posthumously. We were secretly rather pleased to hear from Blanche Girouard, accepting the award on behalf of her father, that the project had first been suggested to him in 1956, which makes our own stately progress of production seem quite accelerated.

The full commendation from the SAHGB for Whitechapel acknowldged the way the project sought to extend the way both that we gather information, and from whom, and the way it is disseminated:

Survey of London, Vols 54 & 55: Whitechapel (Peter Guillery, ed.)

“This publication continues the world-renowned scholarly output of the Bartlett’s Survey of London team, while also adding an important update in using a crowd-sourced website to draw upon the local community’s knowledge and memory of Whitechapel’s architecture. This fresh research tool works superbly when set against the rigorous archival research for which the Survey of London has become so rightly admired. In recognition of its excellent and exhaustive contribution to knowledge the judges agreed unanimously to award this entry a Commendation, noting that it follows in the wake of the Survey of London team having previously won the Colvin Prize in 2018”.

Charterhouse Great Chamber 2020 - 3D model by artfletch - Sketchfab The newly rennovated Great Chamber at The Charterhouse, London. The Great Chamber was created as a grand second floor space by Sir Edward North in the mid 16th Century. Queen Elizabeth I stayed at The Charterhouse for five days in 1558 and the early meetings of her Privy Council were almost certainl...

As ever, the Londonist has its finger on the capital's pulse. Every London enthusiast will be interested in this, I'm sure... a rooftop in Holborn with marvellous views all around, and free as well. True aficionados might like to consult the Survey of London volumes which cover the areas you can see - St Giles in the Fields, part 2 (1914), St James's, Westminster: North of Piccadilly (1963), St Anne's, Soho (1966), South East Marylebone (2017), and St Pancras, Part 3: Tottenham Court Road (1939) for an idea of what you're looking at, and what has disappeared in the past century - https://londonist.com/london/free-and-cheap/visit-this-free-roof-garden-on-holborn-s-post-building?fbclid=IwAR2eeTCKDYShJpMw2oVJgKM8C31TMVx-LA3VLpy-mOJOjubvhvAYJd4lUnM

Visit This Free Roof Garden On Holborn's Post Building Get a unique view of the British Museum.

The Survey is saddened to hear of the death last week, aged 90, of Mark Girouard, one of the greats of English architectural writers. As the Survey has aspired to in recent decades, he always wrote about architecture as human and social, though always with an acute eye for the visual and material. Londoners have reason to be grateful to him for standing - and, indeed, squatting - with Dan Cruickshank and others to help save Spitalfields from the wrecking ball in the 1970s. Only a fornight before his death he was in conversation with Jeremy Musson about the early days of the Victorian Society, of which he was a founder - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubehYeosv60. On a personal note, one of the first books on architecture that this Surveyor bought, 40 years ago, was his Life in the English Country House, and one of the most recent was his Biographical Dictionary of English Architecture, 1540-1640, published last year.

Come and join us! The Survey of London is recruiting for two maternity-cover posts to work on our current projects on South West Marylebone and Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. If you have a PhD in architectural history and some teaching experience, it might be right for you - https://atsv7.wcn.co.uk/search_engine/jobs.cgi?amNvZGU9MTg4NjYwMSZ2dF90ZW1wbGF0ZT05NjUmb3duZXI9NTA0MTE3OCZvd25lcnR5cGU9ZmFpciZicmFuZF9pZD0wJnBvc3RpbmdfY29kZT0yMjQ%3D=&jcode=1886601&vt_template=965&owner=5041178&ownertype=fair&brand_id=0&posting_code=224

WCN ATS

Well, Survey of London vols 54 and 55 on Whitechapel have finally been published... and the books have arrived after a hold-up due to lockdown in Shanghai. Lovely evening meeting contributors to the books and to the Histories of Whitechapel website - https://surveyoflondon.org/ - at Toynbee Hall. an appropriate venue which has a whole chapter to itself in the books. Many thanks to Sufia Alam, our guest speaker. It was also a chance to celebrate the career of Peter Guillery, the books' editor who sadly for the rest of us has recently retired.

High excitement at the Survey of London... advance copies of our Whitechapel volumes have arrived in the office. Beautiful cover shots by Derek Kendall, for many years chief photographer at English Heritage. Publication isn't until late June as we have to await delivery of the bulk of the books on a slow boat from China.

In its early days the Survey of London focused, like the early Listing system, on architectural and historical 'plums', including little built after 1800. From the 1950s, under the General Editorship of the great Francis Sheppard (1921-2018), we began to look at London's development more in the round and these days everything, right up to buildings completed just as we complete our research, is up for consideration. For those with more of an interest in Brutalism than Baroque, Owen Hatherley's engaging new book on Modern Buildings in Britain, which includes the St Mary's Estate in Woolwich, explored extensively in our 2012 volume on Woolwich, will be of great interest. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/mar/24/something-kubrick-britain-best-modern-building-owen-hatherley

Like something from a Kubrick film – the hunt for Britain’s best modern buildings Author Owen Hatherley set out to find fabulous modern buildings all over Britain, from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth. What did he learn? That every town has one – even Reading

As you'll be aware, the Survey of London team has been busy completing its Whitechapel volumes, and we are on tenterhooks awaiting the arrival, any day now, of advance copies from the printers in China. As well as our core work on the Survey and teaching at the Bartlett School of Architecture, the team has various other projects on the go. Colin Thom, a senior historian who has worked on the Survey for more than 30 years, is busy producing a scholarly edition of the Grand Tour Letters of Robert and James Adam, which will be published on the website of Sir John Soane's Museum. This short film, featuring Colin and his chief collaborator, Adriano Aymonino, gives a flavour of what is to come: https://youtu.be/GUOjNFqUbsE

Robert & James Adam's Grand Tour Letters and Writings Colin Thom and Adriano Aymonino explore one of the last great collections of unpublished eighteenth-century letters, written by the Adam brothers during thei...

One of the most interesting terraces of shop-houses in Whitechapel, built as part of the Pavilion Theatre development, is under threat yet again. Here is what the Survey had to say about it in our Histories of Whitechapel - https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/467/detail/

Survey of London | 3 Vallance Road Survey of London Whitechapel was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and is based at University College London.

One of the most interesting and well preserved small historic houses in London, the home in 1903-33 of William Morris's friend and printing guru, Emery Walker, has started a Friends scheme. It is well worth visting and supporting. The house, which retains almost all of Walker's Morris mementoes, decoration and furniture, featured briefly in Survey of London vol 6 Hammermsith, published in 1915, when Walker was still in residence. https://www.emerywalker.org.uk/friends?fbclid=IwAR39Ln4C8QRLwCRegdC0aNJB5sABfLhbkzglU-mwmccHB5G1fwdH4_4XEGA

EMERY WALKER'S FRIENDS | emerywalker Support the Emery Walker Trust by becoming a Friend!

Development in graphic rendering is something the Survey of London has been exploring for a few years. When we were working on Marylebone, our former colleague at Historic England, Andy Crispe, created this fly-through of the Vere Street chapel - https://vimeo.com/151664655 (you can also see it on our Marylebone page - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/research/survey-london/south-east-marylebone). Especially exciting are the possibilities to recreate lost buildings, and an especially impressive example is this new recreation of old St Paul's cathedral from North Carolina State University - https://vpcathedral.chass.ncsu.edu/?fbclid=IwAR3Mb6eoad9GWpWyEH5ZIfRBjNZCHpVV8zJk0Kc6zF8ocjkO2jBOhGpxq1c If you could choose a London building to be re-created this way, what would it be?

Virtual St. Paul's Cathedral Website St Paul’s Cathedral from the Southwest. Image by Smith Marks, Rendering by Austin Corriher These churches are called cathedral, because the bishops dwell or lie near unto the same, as bound to keep continual residence within their jurisdictions for the better oversight and governance of the same, ...

An exciting new tool for exploring our past from our former colleagues at Historic England. Technology has become the historian’s friend, especially so over the past difficult 18 months, and this uses the same technology - Lidar - that the Survey of London used to help create the base map for our Histories of Whitechapel.
https://historicengland.org.uk/research/results/aerial-archaeology-mapping-explorer/?fbclid=IwAR3dY_Y38J8QuhOrtYdmb020HhYQtuFSnQm28gT3eAMUgXrlwZjAZt0A-Lo

Aerial Archaeology Mapping Explorer | Historic England Explore archaeology identified and mapped by aerial archaeology using our map

The Survey's own Emeritus General Editor (I made the title up, but he was General Editor, and is definitely Emeritus), Andrew Saint, is giving a series of talks on Victorian London that might interest you:

The Survey's latest blog post presents a wonderful piece of research on an important lost Georgian house. It was written by Rory Lamb, a PhD student at Edinburgh University, who spent two months recently on a work placement with us. His research will be published, probably in 2023, in Volume 56 of the Survey, on South West Marylebone. https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/survey-of-london/2021/09/17/montagu-house-portman-square-the-story-of-a-lost-georgian-town-palace/

We thought you might enjoy this short film about the Survey, designed for students and prospective students at the Bartlett, but for anyone with an interest in what we do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtt2Fp2n_FI

Introducing the Survey of London The Survey of London provides essential reading for anyone wishing to find out about the capital’s built environments. It is based at the Bartlett School of ...

The Survey of London is recruiting! Due to the sadly imminent retirement of Peter Guillery, the Bartlett is recruiting for a senior post that will combine work on the Survey (about 40% of the post-holder's time) and other teaching and administrative roles within the Bartlett. Further information can be found here - https://atsv7.wcn.co.uk/search_engine/jobs.cgi?amNvZGU9MTg3ODM1OSZ2dF90ZW1wbGF0ZT05NjUmb3duZXI9NTA0MTE3OCZvd25lcnR5cGU9ZmFpciZicmFuZF9pZD0wJnZhY194dHJhNTA0MTE3OC41MF81MDQxMTc4PTkyNzg2JnBvc3RpbmdfY29kZT0yMjQ=&jcode=1878359&vt_template=965&owner=5041178&ownertype=fair&brand_id=0&vac_xtra5041178.50_5041178=92786&posting_code=224

Not specific to the Survey of London, but we're proud that our Bartlett colleagues have been nominated for a D&AD Award for the innovative virtual Bartlett Summer Show 2020 - you can read about it and watch the trailer here - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/news/2021/may/bartlett-summer-show-shortlisted-dad-award?utm_source=UCL%20%28Internal%20Communications%29&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12394791_The%20Week%40UCL%20%E2%80%93%20issue%20486%2C%2020%20May%202021&utm_content=The%20Bartlett%20Summer%20Show%20Shortlisted%20for%20D%26AD%20Award

The Bartlett Summer Show Shortlisted for D&AD Award The Bartlett Summer Show 2020 has been nominated in the Digital Design category at the prestigious D&AD Awards.

An interesting article featuring our Whitechapel patch, and a photograph by our own Shahed Saleem. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/may/19/why-are-our-cities-built-for-6ft-tall-men-the-female-architects-who-fought-back

Why are our cities built for 6ft-tall men? The female architects who fought back Fed up living in a world designed by and for men, 80s design activists Matrix declared war on every urban obstacle in their way. And their impact is still being felt today

A sad end to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry saga. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/whitechapel-bell-foundry-decision-boutique-hotel

The shameful failure to protect the Whitechapel Bell Foundry | Apollo Magazine The appeal to save Britain’s oldest place of manufacture has been rejected and the foundry will become a boutique hotel. How could Historic England have let this happen?

A Happy New Year from all of us here at the Survey of London. May it be a better one for all of us. Since we last posted there have been a few blog posts featuring recent research on Oxford Street and Whitechapel. Oxford Street was published in 2020 and, just to prove that people still buy books, is now out of print - we hope to have more soon. Whitechapel is on schedule to come out (two volumes) in Jan 2022. In the meantime, here are the latest blogs, including one on Selfridge's in Oxford Street that has recently had its listing upgrade to II*. It includes some of the lovely glass slides we tracked down and acquired of the shop interior when it was newly opened, as well as special new photography by Chris Redgrave and drawings by Helen Jones. https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/survey-of-london/

UCL The Survey of London UCL Homepage

A new Survey blog post about an exhibition related to our Histories of Whitechapel project, and also, on a personal note, satisfying as the artist, Saif Osmani, was one of our students this year at the Bartlett on the MA in Architecture and Historic Urban Environments. Take a look ... https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/

Survey of London This photograph of the Shaheed Minar Martyrs’ Monument located inside Altab Ali Park in Whitechapel is an important focal point for the Bangladeshi diaspora in East London. The monument marks the deaths of university students on 21st February 1952 during the Bengali Language Movement demonstration...

The Victorian Society has been running its lectures online. You can rewatch them for a fiver any time, and see past lectures in the same way. Very worthwhile, as all amenity societies are struggling now they can't run live events https://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/events