Rosslyn Hill windows on another world...

It's one of those great little gems - and is so impressive that my little disposable camera has captured the spirit but not the essence...

But here on Rosslyn Hill in the Unitarian Chapel we have a stained glass window from a Wiliam Morris (1834-1896) and Edward Byne Jones (1833-1898) collaboration.

The delicacy of the colour, the shades and the way they are deployed is quite magical...

http://www.rosslynhillchapel.com/thechapel.html

http://www.stainedglassphotography.com/Galleries/Morris/Morris1.htm

The extent to which Morris and Byrne Jones affected design cannot be under-estimated. But it's also important to understand they way in which they moved at the very top of society. Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin were both nephews of Byrne Jones and Morris was an avowed socialist working with Eleanor Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Baldwin spoke at Byrne Jones's centenary exhibition and is quoted as saying
"In my view, what he did for us common people was to open, as never had been opened before, magic casements of a land of faery in which he lived throughout his life ... It is in that inner world we can cherish in peace, beauty which he has left us and in which there is peace at least for ourselves.

"The few of us who knew him and loved him well, always keep him in our hearts, but his work will go on long after we have passed away. It may give its message in one generation to a few or in other to many more, but there it will be for ever for those who seek in their generation, for beauty and for those who can recognise and reverence a great man, and a great artist"

When the wife of the Prime Minister came to Kilburn

This plaque on Kingsgate Community Centre is a really nice piece of inscription and very much 'of it's time'.

THIS STONE WAS LAID BY
MRS STANLEY BALDWIN
WIFE OF THE PRIME MINISTER
ON ST GEORGE'S DAY 1929

With really intricate carving around it.

The community centre itslef as a whole is really large and utterly misleading at first glance and at the point at which it was opened must have been a major community facility. Now it is slightly lost and in fact seen as slightly off the beaten track.

But it is important to remember the development of this part of Kilburn ws significant at this time - the Library in Cotleigh Road and Kingsgate School a couple of hundred yards away.

I assume from the architecture that the building once hosted a police presence as well, but I'm uncertain as to it's other uses - but there must be some memories out there - perhaps amonst the West Hampstead and Kilburn Pensioners club...

Lucy Baldwin was very much her own person with a busy schedule of charitable and educational projects that she supported: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Baldwin