Monopoly Challenge - Trafalgar Square

 

The name Trafalgar Square references the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. What is now the square once housed the Royal Mews, until King George IV moved the mews to Buckingham Palace in the 1820s. John Nash was asked to develop the site, but he died and work progressed very slowly. In 1830 the site was going to be called King William IV Square after his accession that year. Finally in 1835, the 30^th anniversary of Trafalgar, it was decided to name the square Trafalgar Square, and include a memorial to Nelson. One can guess that the owner of the square, King William must have been enthusiastic, bearing in mind that he had been a brother officer and a personal friend of Nelson during his own time in the Navy.

The Square wasn’t opened until 1844. Its most well known feature is Nelson’s Column, a 145 feet tall Corinthian Column topped with Edward Hodges Baily’s statue of Nelson. This has become one of London’s most iconic and recognisable landmarks. The base of the statue is flanked by four pedestals, each bearing a bronze statue of a lion, sculpted by Sir Edwin Landseer.

Throughout its history Trafalgar Square has see a huge number of mass gatherings and demonstrations. It became the unofficial focus of London New Year celebrations, and I remember dancing in the fountains on New Years Eve in the early 80s very fondly. I remember the 2 hour walk home sopping wet less fondly. The Square is still home to a large number of pigeons. Up until the 21^st century feeding the pigeons in the square was seen as an essential component of any visit to London. Then people began to realise the public health risk of a gathering of 35,000 pigeons in such a small space. Feeding the pigeons has been banned since the early 2000s.

There are four plinths surrounding the square. Three of them have permanent statues – George IV, General Charles Napier and General Henry Havelock. The fourth plinth was unoccupied until the 21^st century, since when it has been used for temporary displays of sculpture by some of the leading names in contemporary sculpture in the UK and the rest of the world.

Let’s come back to Nelson. In July 2020 protestors in the city of Bristol pulled down a statue of the 17^th/18^th century trader Edward Colston. The statue was supposedly erected by a grateful city, as a way of memorialising his charitable support of almshouses, churches, workhouses and schools. The protestors’ argument was that in our modern, multicultural Britain, glorifying a man who organised and greatly benefited from the Slave Trade is untenable. to me, tha makes sense, bearing in mind that the city authorities seem

This action focused public attention on the question of public memorials to men associated with the slave trade, and Nelson’s Column became the subject of public debate. This is a question which leads to very heated views on all sides. The older generation as a rule don’t even want to discuss it – my mother and stepfather both being examples. Look, I’m a Londoner myself, and I get an emotional buzz whenever I see an iconic image of the city like the column. But. . .

Symbols matter. Images matter, and the messages that they convey matter.

Now, as I understand it Nelson did not own slaves. As far as I know Nelson did not trade in slaves. Okay. However, he was certainly opposed to Wilberforce’s campaign to abolish the slave trade, and he seems to have been very friendly and protective towards the slave owning elite in the west Indies. I’m not saying this in itself means we should convict him and tear his statue down at once. But I am very much saying it is at least grounds for a constructive public debate on the subject. If Nelson was as great a hero as his defenders think he is then his reputation will survive any amount of public debate. But if he wasn’t, then we certainly should be discussing it.

The Swiss Centre, Leicester Square

If you’ve followed my blog at all recently you’ll know that I’ve undertaken a challenge to produce sketches of every property on the traditional London Monopoly board. Where I’ve made decent sketches of the properties in the past I’ve allowed myself to use them instead of making new sketches. Nonetheless, by last Saturday I had made 18 to take me up to Coventry Street. Ok.

If you’ve seen at least a few of the sketches I’ve made, you’ll know that they largely depict scenes from the end of the 19^th century or the start of the 20^th century. What can I say? I like old buildings. I like drawing scenes that depict what London was like.

I am not a lover of many modern buildings. I was born in London in the mid-60s. Now, I’m not totally blind to the realities of life in the modern world. I’m fully aware of the fact that London took a real hammering in the Second World War. The Socialist government elected in 1945 had a lot of big promises to fulfil and no money with which to do it. Personally I think it’s remarkable how much they managed to achieve. Still, with so many Brits, so many Londoners homeless, or living in untenable cramped conditions because of the number of homes destroyed during the war, it was imperative to build cheaply, to build quickly and to build upwards. So for the next few decades cities and towns across the UK saw a growth of brutalist concrete office and residential blocks.

Change is one of the few constants in life. I know that you can’t keep something just because it’s old. Otherwise we’d all still be living in bronze age round houses. But from a very early age I formed strong opinions about the architecture around me. I knew what I liked and I knew what I didn’t like, and I didn’t like concrete blocks. Large, monolithic, unadorned, these monsters just chill the soul. Concrete may be a very useful building material. . . but it is just not suitable for life in the UK climate! It doesn't take many years before the concrete looks awful.

So, yes, I’m largely not a great fan of post-war British architecture. Which is maybe why, when I find a postwar British building that I actually like, then I tend to make more of a fuss over it. Such a building is. . . was, the Swiss Centre in Leicester Square. So when I came to sketch Coventry Street, the Swiss Centre right on the edge of Coventry Street is what I chose to draw.

The Swiss Centre’s whole working life fitted within my own lifetime. Work began on it in 1963, while I was born a year later. However it didn’t open until 1966. Its original purpose was as a showcase for Switzerland and its products - hence the name - and it contained a ticket office for Swissair and various retail outlets. The Swiss Centre closed in 2007 and was demolished in 2008. The distinctive glockenspiel clock from the front of the building was restored, and eventually returned to the area of Leicester Square now named Swiss Court. As for the site of the Swiss Centre, a new building was put there, which contained M&M’s World when I last visited in 2021.

The Swiss Centre was designed in a modernist style by architect David Aberdeen (1913 – 1987). I also like his modernistic Shrewsbury Market Hall, although not as much as the Swiss Centre. I’m afraid that I really don’t like his Congress House, opened 8 years before the Swiss Centre as the headquarters of the Trades Union Congress. To me this is a  nondescript generic, post war concrete block – yet it’s this one and not the Swiss Centre that became a listed building! Go figure.

I think that the problem the Swiss Centre faced was that by the end of the 20^th century the land it stood on was a lot more valuable commercially than the building. The last time I saw it the ground floor outlets seemed to be almost exclusively flogging tourist tat, and the place looked run down and a bit seedy. Whether it will turn out to be one of those buildings which will see people in the future start to say – why did we ever pull that down? – well, I don’t really know about that. It only had a working life of just over 40 years. In an internet search I found many photographs of the building, but only the one painting showing it, and no sketches. But I liked it.

Monopoly 18 Fleet Street

 

Allow me to indulge myself with a little more Old English. Fleet derives from the River Fleet, one of London’s lost rivers. The word fleet derives from the Old English fleot, which has several meanings, one of which is stream.

The Fleet ran in the open from Hampstead down through London to join the Thames. Fleet Street was originally called Fleet Bridge Street, since the road was bisected by the Fleet. By the 1870s the whole course of the Fleet was covered over.

Fleet Street runs up Ludgate Hill past St. Paul’s Cathedral. There are many interesting stories about St. Paul’s, and its destruction in the Great Fire and subsequent rebuilding. Many people have read Samuel Pepys accounts of the fire, and very informative they are too. However if you’re interested you should also have a look at John Evelyn’s diary too. I like the story that Christopher Wren visited the burnt out shell of the old cathedral and found a broken stone with the word ‘resurgam’ which of course means I will rise again.

Fleet Street was also the home of the (probably) fictional Sweeney Todd, the barber who killed his customers and had them baked into pies. I say probably fictional. There have been some claims he was a real person, but there’s been nothing I’ve ever seen that would stand up in a court of law.

In the 19^th and especially the 20^th centuries Fleet Street became synonymous with the newspaper industry and was home to most of Britain’s national newspapers. They’ve all moved out to pastures new now. Although the newspapers have gone, some printers still remain, maintaining an association with Fleet Street that goes back to 1500, when Wynkyn de Worde, the apprentice of England’s first ever printer, William Caxton, first set up his press here. 

Monopoly 17 - Strand

Many good things have come out of Germany, not the least of which is the original English language. Not surprising when you consider that the tribes settling in England in the fifth -7^th centuries, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were all from areas hat are now part of Germany. The language they spoke – which we’ll call Old English for convenience sake - was actually a dialect of Old German. If you know modern German, you’ll know that 'strand' is a word which means beach. This is also what it meant in Old English. After the Roman legions were recalled to Rome for good, Londinium (Roman London) was pretty much deserted. Over a period of time an Anglo Saxon trading settlement grew along the banks of the River Thames, extending along the shoreline – beach – of the Thames  from west of Londinium. His settlement was called Lundenwic.

In Anglo – Saxon times the River Thames was wider then it is now. The Strand is not very close to the northern bank of the Thames at all now, but this is a relatively recent development. At Lundenwic’s height, the road we call the Strand was right by the shore, hence the name.

King Alfred the Great, in the late 9^th century, ordered people out of Lundenwic and into the old Londinium. However the Strand remained an important thoroughfare, and retained its name unchanged for well over a thousand years.

The Strand is part of the main route linking Westminster with the old City of London. It ends where the medieval City walls once stood. This was marked by the gateway shown in the sketch, Temple Bar. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the relatively narrow gateways caused increasing traffic congestion and so it was carefully taken down. It was bought by Lady Meux, the wife of a brewing magnate, and erected in the grounds of their house, Theobalds Park. In fact I visited it in Theobald’s Park in 2003 on the day before work began to deconstruct it and rebuild it in the shadow of St. Paul’s, just off our next property, Fleet Street.

Monopoly 16 Free Parking

In the centre of London, which contains almost all of the properties on the London Monopoly board, there really is no such thing as free parking. The first multi-storey car park in London opened in 1901. It had space for 100 vehicles. I’d love to know how many motor vehicles there actually were in London in 1901. My sketch shows what is thought to be the oldest surviving multi-storey car park building in London. It stands in Wardour Street, which runs from Leicester Square to Oxford Street. It’s now a pub.

Free Parking as a square on the Monopoly Board was inherited from the original Atlantic City board. It’s hard to imagine that Victor Watson would have found many free places to park when he was scouting locations in the mid 1930s. But then Victor, clever boy, took the train into Kings Cross on his visit, and could afford to use taxis.

I can’t afford to use taxis. To be honest, after I moved to Wales, whenever I was visiting London in the 1990’s it was so much cheaper to drive that I would always park the car in a residential street in Ealing, then use public transport until it was time to go back home.

Monopoly Fifteen: Vine Street

 

Unlike Bow Street and (Great) Marlborough Street, Vine Street wasn’t home to a magistrates court. However it was at one time home to one of the busiest police stations not just in London, but the whole world.

Vine Street itself was named after a pub, the Vine. Its possible that the pub may have drawn its name from a roman vineyard nearby, but this is a matter of speculation. The street was laid out in the 1680s. It was originally longer than it is now, but when Regent Street was built it bisected Vine Street and led to one end of Vine Street becoming a dead end.

Vine Street Police station was built at number 10, and had to be rebuilt after a fire in the 18^th century. Vine Street nick, as it was colloquially known, closed in 1940 and services removed to West London Police station in Savile Row. Due to a rise in crime the station was reopened in 1966, then closed for good in 1997 and demolished in 2005. Incidentally Vine Street is one of the London Monopoly streets without licensed premises, so I’m informed that the etiquette for a London Monopoly board pub crawl is to take a drink in one of the hostelries on nearby Swallow Street.

Monopoly 14: Marlborough Street

 

As a quiz question master I have in the past asked the question – which street on the traditional London monopoly board does not actually exist in real life? – the answer to which is Marlborough Street. This is because it has never been called just Marlborough Street, but rather Great Marlborough Street. A bit of a trick question, but trust me, quizzes are full of those.

The street is named after John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, and in the view of Queen Anne, he was pretty great. It was first laid out in 1704, during her reign. Like Bow Street, Great Marlborough Street was home to one of the most important Magistrates’ Courts in London. This closed in 1998.

One of the most remarkable things about the street is that it gave its name to the Marlboro cigarette brand. Makers Philip Morris had a factory on the street at one time, and used an americanised version of the name for a cigarette brand that consciously plays on the image of the rugged, wild western Marlboro Man.