A visit to the Parliamentary Archives

Last week I was lucky enough to be able go on one of the last tours* of The Parliamentary Archives within the Palace of Westminster.
Accessing the building involves a security bag check which is just like at an airport including a bit of frisking if you are lucky. Sadly I missed out on that pleasure having worn a bra that didn't set the machine off.
The tour group went in small batches up to the research floor because the lift can only take a max of six people. We then navigated some small utilitarian passages which really don't look like they ought to be part of a tour to reach another equally tiny lift. But it was ages arriving so our sub-group agreed to walk up the spiral staircase.

I am pretty sure most of the others also hadn't heard that it was an 8-floor climb! Oof! Though stopping to take photos helped!
We finally reached a room near the top of Victoria Tower. When the tower was constructed it was the tallest secular building in the world and the 'show and tell' room affords some marvellous views through the leaded glass windows and the tracery to the north and west of London.

On the table there was a marvellous selection of well-presented historic documents and large heavy tomes. These included notes from Lloyd George, directories of noble families and petitions showing wonderful signatures or symbols indicating how some people could not at that time write.

And then back out to the spiral stairs to look down through the well. This is the view we sometimes see on TV when the Queen arrives here:

The well is not always open like this – a horizontal sliding 'door' is usually in place at the bottom edge. The third image shows part of a framed pic on the wall at that level – a section a 12th century stained glass window from Chartres Cathedral by Simon De Montfort – I love the colours.

And then to the the famous archive room with all the document rolls – I practically hyper-ventillated with excitement as I entered the room. Wow!
Each roll is date tagged by sovereign age (that's what all those little pink, yellow and green squares are in the pics below) and some of them are HUGE. I mean long. Very long. One is half a mile long! I wonder how much it weighs?

A few special documents and books were chosen to show us, and these included some famous historical names:

Henry VIII to the left and his daughter Elizabeth I to the right. The middle image shows how beautiful some of the books in the archive are – just look at the lovely handwriting – the page on the top is an addendum – they just didn't scribble or annotate onto the  original – they wrote it all out again as an attachment

What a delightful way to spend a couple of hours.

*The archive is a valuable resource for anyone delving into the past. The physical archive (the books and scrolls etc) will be moving soon whilst the facility is overhauled, however the database and research facilities will still be available – I think I've got that right – click here to find out more.

Halo Tower, Stratford

Wandering along Stratford High Street the other week I stopped to photograph this mosaic depicting a street seller.

A Georgian flower seller

I was then distracted by the tower block looming behind it – Halo Tower at No.50 is 133 metres tall, has 33 floors and is built in the 'iconic' style.

Views to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

But look closer at the outside of the building and see how the panels on this tower, which is less than five years old (completed 2014), are already starting to deteriorate.

The colour on the dark blue paint panels is flaking away

Genesis' blurb for the building reads "With a central 43 floor residential tower rising high above the London skyline, Stratford Halo is a truly landmark development". 
Another site tells me "It's modernistic look attracts high profile businessmen and wealthy people such as YouTubers". Oh, right.
If this is the quality of the fabric on the outside of this building what hope is there for the quality of the workmanship on the interior?

Genesis signage on the building itself and Filtons estate agent window

The information on the ground floor of the building highlights the facilities that come with renting an apartment of this kind; concierge services, integrated branded appliances, dedicated onsite property manager (who doesn't appear to be managing the property very well so far), communal sky gardens, and, of course, gym facilities.
Interesting that there only appears to be rental opportunities.
These clip-together buildings concern me.

And another thought about buying new property regarding the terms of freeholds and leaseholds; how does a 125 year lease apply when many similar new builds will more than likely not last more than 20 years? Where is the security? These are obviously intended as transient property purchases, not homes for living the rest of your life in. 
Call me weird, but I'll stick with bricks and mortar.

London's architectural icons

'Icon' and 'iconic' are often-repeated words these days, usually used to describe new buildings that are very tall and shouty – ooh look at me... try avoiding me! Often the word is applied before the building is completed; it will be the biggest/tallest/pointiest/greenest/glassiest/etc

Perhaps the developers are using the word in the sense of those religious icons you can buy in the backstreets of Naples; the ones you add to a shrine or put on your mantlepiece? In which case those little souvenirs of The Eiffel Tower would fit the bill if architecture was your god of choice.

In the same way as a community can't just be created by bulldozing streets of small houses and putting up tower blocks with chain restaurants and homogenous coffee bars on the ground floor, I think icons, in the sense of architecture, are made over time and thus earn their iconic label.

I wrote about Centrepoint last year and it features in the ten pics below of London landmarks I believe have become iconic – tall, sometimes inspiring, structures that have become mostly well-loved points of reference; some as landmarks, others as architectural statements. 

This doesn't need captioning; these structures ought to be easily-identified by any Londoner