I love Christmas, and one of its features that I like best is the efforts made in the City to celebrate the season using lights and trees.
I must admit, I was a bit worried that this year would be a bit of a disappointment in view of the fact that significantly fewer people are travelling here for work or leisure. However, this was not the case and I have been wandering around taking in the work organisations have put in to cheer us up and this week’s blog aims to recognise their achievements.
I’ll start outside one of my favourite places, St Paul’s Cathedral …
Thousands of little lights are embedded in Christmas tree foliage attached to a cone-shaped infrastructure.
One New Change has done a great job with ceiling lights …
And a magnificent ‘tree’ …
If you’re going to advertise Covid tests you might as well make the message more cheerful by surrounding it with decorations …
Moor House on London Wall seen from the Barbican Highwalk …
The Dion Bar and Restaurant at St Paul’s has put together a nice display …
‘Welcome to 88 Wood Street’ …
This one cheers you up when you go shopping …
The folk at 5 Aldermanbury Square have gone to town with four trees, these are two of them …
I like this display too …
Look at that seat on the left. There must be a company that specialises in manufacturing ‘odd looking uncomfortable seats for Reception areas’. This is the ‘Victorian bathtub’ look.
Trees always appear nicer if there are a few parcels scattered around their base. This one is at number 10 Gresham Street …
I thought this new Reception area at 91 Gresham Street looked very smart, even though their tree is a bit tucked away at the back on the right …
This one at City Point looked a bit sad, standing on its own with no other furniture …
These really are strange times and so this week I have been browsing my photo library for images that made me smile. Apologies to Instagram followers since some of them have appeared there already.
First of all, a reminder that there is a market for almost anything …
A tattooed angel has appeared in Whitecross Street …
She replaces the cherubs that were assembling a bazooka …
I wonder what was special about these girls …
I remember when many schools had one of these living on the premises …
I always think ‘man struggling with golf umbrella’ …
Incidentally, this one either means watch out for elderly people or beware of pickpockets …
Cute garden furniture …
And more – even the dustpan is smiling …
Eclectic windowsill collection …
If you are looking for smart garden furniture there is this great stall in Kings Lynn. What about the duck pushing a wheelbarrow? …
Sadly poetic closure notice …
Coffee shop humour …
A witty licence plate from Pimlico Plumbers …
And another …
And yet more …
Suited and Booted tailors in Moorgate. ‘It’s all gonna end in tiers (or with a vaccine)’ …
But this chap seems to be doing OK. I wonder what he advises on …
A sealed door on St John’s Gate Clerkenwell. I don’t think the monks were tiny, just that the level of the street has risen …
The Stag at The Jugged Hare bar and restaurant is very angry about being in Tier 2 …
I have never, ever seen a dog dressed like this. ‘Please mum, I need to go to the loo’ …
Rainbow and red crane combo …
Yet another spooky clothes model to add to the collection …
Finally, I make no apology for including this picture again. It had been raining and this pigeon was drying his feathers and warming his bottom on a spotlight. He is doing this whilst half asleep and balanced on one leg …
Hope these cheered you up a bit if you needed it – I enjoyed putting the selection together.
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Women feature on many City sculptures (often in an allegorical role) and I have been on another sculpture safari to see how many I can identify. I have written about female sculptures twice before and you can find links here and here.
In quite a few cases they are located high up on buildings and so are easily missed.
A good example is this pediment group on what once was the Cripplegate Institute building on Golden Lane (EC1Y 0RR) …
Education is seated in the centre, whilst Art and Science recline at either side. Although the building opened in 1896 the pediment was only added in 1910-11 when the upper stories were modified to provide, among other facilities, a rifle range.
You can read much more about the Institute in the excellent London Inheritance blog which also contains this 1947 photograph highlighting the vast extent of the wartime bomb damage. The Institute building is circled in red …
If you stand outside the Royal Exchange you will be rewarded with two more female figures along with the mysterious Magic Square, but again you have to look up.
The first lady is sited in a pediment above the Bank of England and is known as The Lady of the Bank …
Sculptor Charles Wheeler 1929-1930.
She is seated on a globe and her right hand holds a cloak which billows out to her left. Her left hand holds a temple-like building which contains a miniature relief of the Lady herself and beside her right leg is a cascade of coins. She is a replacement for the original ‘Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’, which resembled Britannia, since it was considered stylistically incompatible with the new building. She is intended to represent ‘the stability and security of the Bank of England’. Inside the wreath on the right is the date of construction in Roman numerals, MCMXXX.
On the corner across Bank junction is the impressive NatWest building and if you look up you will see this (rather grubby) allegorical group …
Sculptor Ernest Gillick – 1931-2.
Britannia rises on a winged seat, flanked by Mercury (representing Commerce) and Truth with his torch. At Britannia’s knees are crouching nude females representing Higher and Lower Mathematics. Higher Mathematics, on the left, holds a carved version of Dürer’s Magic Square, a numerical acrostic whose numbers add up to 34 when added horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Lower mathematics holds a pen and a book whilst beside her two owls sit on piles of books.
The square is not very clear now due to the dirt on the carving so here are the numbers it contains …
Dürer included it in an engraving entitled Melancholia I …
It can be seen in the top right hand corner and you can read more about it here and here.
Nearby in Prince’s Street, on the same building, you can view this elegant lady at street level …
Sculptor Charles Doman – 1931.
Representing Prosperity, she holds a basket with a rich assortment of fruit and corn.
You have to stretch your neck if you want to examine this relief sculpture at 7 Lothbury (EC2R 7HH) …
Sculptor James Redfern – 1866.
It is rather unusual and is intended as a pastiche of a late medieval Venetian palace. A crowned female figure at the centre sits on a padlocked strong-box and writes in a ledger held up for her by a standing woman with a bunch of large keys suspended from her girdle. Other figures include a woman holding a model steam engine and another figure holding a model boat.
It’s a fascinating building and you can read more about it here.
The frieze on the Institute of Chartered Accountants is magnificent and was intended as a grand symbolic depiction of all the areas of human activity which have benefited from the services of accountants (EC2R 7EF). Groups of figures represent the arts, science, crafts, education, commerce, manufactures, agriculture, mining, railways, shipping and India and the Colonies. I have chosen a few with female figures and the first is entitled ‘Crafts’ …
The shield in the tree is inscribed Laborare est Orare – to work is to pray. To the left, two women represent ‘workers in metal’, the one on the left is holding a sword. On the other side of the panel are ‘Pottery’, a woman with a two-handled vase, and ‘Textiles’, a woman with a weaving frame.
Next is ‘Education’ …
The group on the left represents ‘Early Training’. A mother leads her son, who is carrying a cricket bat, towards a schoolmaster wearing a gown and carrying a textbook. On the other side is a student ‘in collegiate dress’ and holding a book, and a ‘College Don’ wearing a mortar-board and gown.
Onward to ‘Manufactures’ …
Behind the allegorical lady, and just about visible, are beehives ‘betokening industry’. The two women on the left represent ‘Fabrics’ – one holds a bolt of cloth and the other a shuttle and a spool of yarn. The two men on the right represent ‘Hardware goods’. The smith has his shirt open and stands next to an anvil. The other is ‘a Sheffield Knife Grinder’ feeling a chisel blade.
Another example is ‘Agriculture’ …
On the left are two men – a sower and a mower. On the other side are two girls – one reaping and the other carrying a basket of fruit.
In my favourite sculpture from the building Lady Justice looks like she has stepped out of her niche in order to upstage the accountants number-crunching away behind her …
She appears frequently in allegorical representations around the City and I have written about them before. If you are interested you can find my blog here.
You can see her again on the Old Bailey behind my final sculpture, the Peace drinking fountain in the Smithfield Rotunda Garden (EC1A 9DY). She is depicted with her right hand raised in a gesture of blessing while her left holds an olive branch …
Sculptors John Birnie Philip and Farmer & Brindley – 1871-3.
The structure was erected by the Corporation’s Market Improvement Committee in 1873 a few years after the armistice between France and Prussia was signed in 1871. The 11m-high fountain originally comprised a huge stone canopy in an eclectic style with four corner figures of Temperance, Hope, Faith and Charity but the structure fell into disrepair and was taken down. The illustration below appeared in The Builder magazine in 1871 …
I thought I’d add some light relief in these difficult times.
Happy Clerkenwell gnomes …
Santa’s elves, with appropriate face coverings, seconded for Covid prevention duty …
An optician on London Wall goes for the ‘minimalist’ window display approach …
And finally, more spooky clothes models to add to the collection …
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