London Fabric (Paperback)

By JAMES POPE-HENWESST ILLUSTRATED FROM PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS LONDON B. T. BATSFORD LTD, 15 North Audley Street, W. i First Published September 1939 MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR THE PUBLISHERS, B. T. BATSFORD LTD., LONDON, BV JARROLD AND SONS LTD., NORWICH Fwntispiece i Queen Elizabeth haunted by Time and Death Ftom thcpaiiitwg at Cw harn Cowl, Wiltshire To CLARISSA ACKNOWLEDGMENTS JL HE Publishers must acknowledge their obliga tion to the owners of the pictures which are reproduced in this book, and in particular to Lord Methuen for permitting the reproduction in colour of the portrait of Queen Elizabeth which forms the frontispiece. They are also indebted to Miss Joan Eyres-Monsell figs. 29 and 30 and Mr. A. F. Kersting, F. R. P. S. figs. 3, 4, 5 and 51, who took photographs specially for the book. The photograph of Layer Marney Gatehouse fig, 10 was taken by the late Brian C. Clayton, VI PREFACE 1 HIS book, an attempt to recall a few of the associations dormant in some London buildings, is quite as much the fruit of the crisis of September 1938 as National Service or the black, snouted faces of the gas-masks, grinning in invasion. During those tense autumnal days I wandered round the city, wishing both to distract my mind and to view, as it then seemed, for the last time the places I like. From this sombre tour emerged a conviction that if one was to try to write about London it had better be at once. For all that to me makes this city worth living in all, that is to say, which the contractors have spared is literally inde fensible. The placid courtyards of the Charterhouse, the chapel of St. Edward in the Abbey, are things no A. R. P. can save and withthe certainty of this trite discovery fresh upon me I began this subjective survey. If the tide of my conviction of imminent danger has, illogically, ebbed it has at least left high and dry behind it something concrete if ineffective a book. Apart from the stimulus spasmodically provided by these macabre reflections, I have been encouraged to persist in my endeavour by the unremitting interest of my mother. To Mrs. William Sitwell, also, I owe thanks for the many hours we spent together last winter, walking beneath the bare branches of the plane-trees in St. James s Park, discussing the fabric of this book. T D J. F.-H. 74 AVENUE ROAD May 1939 vn CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . fagevi PREFACE vii L CRYPTS i II. HAMPTON COURT . . .21 III. DULWICH 46 IV. HERTFORD HOUSE . . . .69 V. GREENWICH 88 VL STAFFORD HOUSE . . . . 113 VII. KENSINGTON PALACE . . .136 VIII. WESTMINSTER ABBEY . . .160 INDEX . . . . . - 179 Vlll CRYPTS I MADE Perdita promise, before we went down to the crypt, to tell me frankly whether she liked it, I did this because I have found by experience that crypts are rather a special, not to say an acquired, taste. It is one that is not widely shared. I have not yet forgotten the acid protests of six or seven people induced, one hot August morning, to leave the intoxicating beauty of the windows and the nave of Ghartres Cathedral, to stumble after me along the damp intersecting tunnels of the crypt, with the little early altars, the stained plaster walls, and the faint inadequate blinking of the oil lamps. Myself, I enjoyed this expedition im mensely. The crypt was cold and authentically mysterious, and my only regret was the garishness of the modern frescoes. At that time Ihad not read Huysmans, but I think I should like it more than ever now. This taste for the subterranean I attribute entirely to Harrison Ainsworth. As a child I early developed a passion for this neglected author, and at one moment I insisted on keeping both Windsor Castle and The Tower of London beside the night-light on my bedroom table. Later on, at school, I read and re-read all his work, revelling in the complicated, gloomy stories of dungeons and tombs, underground torture-rooms, graveyard trysts, owls, bats, murderers, and mandrakes...