The Titanic comes to Swiss Cottage

It was a bright sunny day and was an excuse to take the picture - love it or loath it you have to accept it's quite dramatic.

Locally known as The Titanic this is the new development at Swiss Cottage with panoramic views across London. It's actually called The Visage and is quite an impressive little self-contained unit with all amenities within the building or in the case of the sports centre and library all within one minutes... and on the jubilee line too.

Interesting on a trivial level to have a glance at the pre-build advertising pictures of the same building
http://www.foxtons.co.uk/newhomes/the-visage/

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment use it as a case study:
http://www.cabe.org.uk/default.aspx?contentitemid=2047

From look-out to full blown fire station.

I've mentioned beforethe Fire Station in Lancaster Grove, Belsize, and the other day managed to get these snaps of it.

This is of course the successor fire station to the old look-out station that was at the top of Hampstead High Street (and had an old look-out tower).

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/06/days-of-look-out-tower.html

I'm giving here the front of the station as it were - but the architecture is really interesting and curiously of it's type - from the back - as a I walked down Eton Avenue I was reminded of the architecture of Hampton Court!

In keeping with the building of public services I found the obligatory plaque and here it is:

THIS STATION WAS OPENED
ON THE 22ND DAY OF MAY 1915
BY PERCY C SIMONS ESQUIRE
CHAIRMAN OF THE
FIRE BRIGADE COMMITTEE
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL

It's worth noting that the growth and development of fire stations was not hampered by the first world war - if anything it gathered a little pace...

Officionado's of these things will be delighted to learn that the building is Grade II listed AND in current use (perhaps the Metropolitan Police Authority could note...).

Here's the full text of the listing definition:

• Fire station with water tower and flatted accommodation. 1914-15.
• By CC Winmill of the LCC's Architects' Department.
• Red brick with stone dressings. Steeply pitched gabled tiled roof with projecting eaves, hipped dormers to engine shed and tall brick chimney-stacks with dentil bands to accommodation. L-shaped plan with tall water-tower in angle.
• EXTERIOR: engine-shed stone faced to front with openings having part-glazed folding doors; steeply pitched roof with 3 long transom and mullion windows with small panes to dormers and 1 small box dormer. Right hand return with lunettes at ground floor and 6-light transom and mullion window to gable end; left hand return, 4 glazed doors to ground floor and 5 windows to 1st.
• Enriched brick water tower having recessed panels set between pilasters; 1st storey panels with segmental-arched recesses and dentil frieze; 2nd storey with further rectangular recesses, 2 made into windows, and dentil friezes; 3rd storey with deep dentil frieze and lattice-work brick panels having arcaded friezes. Parapet. Flatted accommodation of 2 storeys and semi-basement. Ground floor stone and brick verandah with lunettes to semi-basement and 1st floor balcony with cast-iron balustrade. Part-glazed doorways with overlights and sidelights. Tripartite sashes. To left, a single window projecting gabled bay.
• On both returns tall gable end chimney-stacks have hipped roof to one side allowing a small attic window.
• Rear facade to Eton Avenue gives appearance of terraced cottages with a ground floor canted bay and transom and mullion windows; upper floor with ten 3-light casement and oriel windows. All with small leaded panes.

Come on down to the Kit Cat Club

How much plotting occurred here during the early 18th century?

This small house hidden away off Heath Street has puzzled me for a while..

So I learn that either this house or the pub that was called The Upper Flask (just up the road where St mary's now stands) was the gathering spot for a cluster of Whig grandees.

It should be noted that this was not a smoke cabal - it was a summer garden gathering where converse and social intercourse were the norm...

The political context is fresh from the Jacobite rebellions and are rooted in the succession in 1714 of Prince Elector George Louis of Hanover as King George I and appointment of the Whigs who became dominant from this date through to 1760.

The Kit Cat club's dissolution was about 1720 (probably after Walpole became Prime Minister) and the Upper Flask continued as a tavern. In 1750 it became private house known as the Upper Bowling Green House, and in 1920 this was demolished for Queen Mary's maternity hospital.

The Upper Flask or the Lower Flask Pub?

Newly refurbished and much enhanced we have the Flask Pub in Hampstead -a good old fashioned boozer with a great mix of residents, passers by and deliberate visitors.

And with the refit and now with a new pub sign - there was lots of nervousness that it was about to become the new 'slug and lettice' (sic) - Ugh - happily it didn't!

It been's The Flask for some considerable time now and the name is a hint at the earlier tradition of the Hampstead spring water - mainly from the Chalybeate spring in Well Walk.

The pub was one of three pubs - the Upper Flask (now demolished), the Lower Flask (now The Flask) and the The Green[e] Man (now the Wells Tavern).

The Lower Flask is thought to date as early as the late 17th century but was probably in fact early 18th century. It is referred to in Samuel Richardson's novel Clarrissa (published in 1748) as "a place where second-rate persons are to be found, occasionally in a swinish condition"

The Lower Flask was re-built in 1872 - finished in 1874 when it became just The Flask. Upper Flask had gone in the late 18th century (more to follow on the Kit Cat Club!!) and stood where Queen Mary's hospital now stands. The Wells Tavern originally dates from at least 1751 and is possibly pre-dated and the current building from about 1850.

Flask Walk is one of the nicest little streets in London - if you don't know it then go there...
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2007/12/when-is-it-too-late-to-try.html

Boxing fights at Swiss Cottage...

When we were kids, my sister and I always knew when we were close to our relatives cos we had reached Swiss Cottage - either on the bus or in the car. It was for us the landmark that we had reached London.

By nature of the colours, decor, design and signage I always had some sort of image that it had been the early retirement project of a former swiss guard, that a swiss person had one lived there... all good daydream stuff.

The current site of the pub is not quite how many local folk remember it - it was fronted by a grill and pub until the 1960's - now you can sit outside and enjoy the road of the vehicles that circle the giratory system. :-)

The 'cottage' appears to date from about 1804 or 1805 and the pub from the 1840's and was The Swiss Tavern, now Ye Olde Swiss Cottage - it's architecture is pretty amazing especially given the increasingly high rise nature of the local area what with the Swiss Cottage development itself around the Library and Sports Centre and also the residential blocks of the Finchley Road.

It seems it's more mundane and more connected with the pub and musical hall traditions and is in fact named after an opera of the 19th century.

The pub and music tradition is often overlooked and pubs were often drinking holes at which the stars of the stage were discussed and championed - the Lillie Langtree in Kilburn for example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillie_Langtry).

Former champion boxer Frank Redmond was the landlord of the pub in the 1840's and is attributed with being the first landlord. he was a public figure and used the pub as a venue for running races and outdoor boxing events.

Notable jewish fighter Barney Aaron won £50 when Frank Redmond forfeited their bout in August 1827. Two months later, on October 23, Barney defeated Redmond in 1 hour and 12 minutes, in a bout that went 42 rounds.

The swiss theme was made popular by the opera Le Chalet which was performed in 1834, first in Paris and later in London (but untraced).

The architectural swiss theme certainly had popularity in the victorian era and whilst it stands out now as being slightly eccentric it had currency then: http://www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/london/swiss.shtml

Swiss Cottage is also one of five underground stations named after nearby pubs...

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/05/swiss-cottage-formerly-swiss-tavern.html

The Old Bell Public House in Kilburn

The Old Bell Pub is one of the oldest pubs in Kilburn and probably even dates from the time of Kilburn Priory. At the bottom of the Kilburn High Road it's at the strategic junction of the old Roman Road Watling Street, the old Kilburn River and the now railway line and associated bridge.

In more recent times it was the principle pub in the 30's at which many Irish workers could find accommodation - there used to be blackboards with chalk listings of landlords and bedsits.

It's credited with being on the spot behind which was the preaching field from medieval times through to the 1800's (this is part confirmed by Goldsmith's Place being renamed Springfield Lane...) and became the main drinking hole for those using the railway line after its' arrival.

The Ox red brick tiling certainly gives it that sense of railway tavern and the architecture is of that type too.

The pub is commemorated in the mural up by Kilburn Tube Station (pic right).

Are you coming to the Kilburn Festival: http://www.kilburnfestival.co.uk/

Other key postings on this bit of Kilburn:
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/04/outdoor-preaching-in-kilburn.html
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/03/yes-you-can-visit-kilburn-priory-today.html
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/03/changing-of-street-names.html

Please don't give me another plastic bag!

Ok so it's treated as being slightly odd - but that's precisely the issue.

Just nipped down to my local Sainsbury's for some consumables for my baking-fest that I'm about to embark on for the Hampstead Summer Fayre.

In a fit of greeness I did what I have wanted to do for a while and I asked to see the Manager to ask why, under the refitted store, the provision of plastic bags were so prominent, why the staff always asked me if I want bag (I DON'T!) and why the bag recycling point has gone.

I'm sure Darren (his name IIRC) didn't mean it but I felt like some kind of greeneyed monster asking a really silly thing - anyway we persisted with the conversation and I've asked him to:

• Consider changing the staff culture so the customer service line is - you don't need a bag do you, have you brought your own bags or can you carry this one item
• Make contact with the Kilburn Partnership and have the same dialogue with them
• Push for the restoration of the bag recycling point and
• Look again at what can be done here locally in Kilburn in hist store at his initiative.

I flagged up the existance of the I love Kilburn bags (I was using mine :-)) and he was interested in stocking them. So it's small dialogue and it was broadly positive.

But I was really struck at just how dififcult it was, from the point at which I made time, including the 'can I see the manager please' - WHY? - through to the can you change your culture, it won't lose you money or customers if you do.

And it saves the environement!