A Deco-tastic wander around Claridges at Christmas – sensational and slapdash

A couple of weeks ago I attended an Art Deco-themed event at Claridges when the stylish and ever-young Virginia Bates showed us a selection of some of her Jazz Age clothing and accessories. Ooh lovely. I was so taken by the quality of the items and the conversation that I only took these two pics. 

After the event, it would have been remiss not to pop into the lovely ladies' lavs adjacent to the Davies Street entrance. It's gorgeous in there (go google for pics) but this time I noticed some recent bodge jobs that are at odds with the impeccable quality of the original elements. For instance, why oh why have they employed cowboys to fix substandard cheap fittings that can be bought off the racks in any homewares store? 

Two-pronged 'butterfly' hooks of this type can be bought four in a bag for about £2 here in Holloway. Yet Claridges' management has allowed these cheap things to be screwed onto wood panels and mouldings, as well as the insides of the marvellously marqueted doors within the cubicles. Most of the hooks are are not even hung vertically, which I know is hard to ascertain in my wonky pic (how ironic!). Notice also the use of basic cross-head screws where surely some chromed dome-heads with straight grooves would have been better suited. I took a pic of the gorgeously flamboyant door handle to cheer myself up and later noticed that the brass panel beneath it it is also affixed with nasty modern screws. 

Ugh! 'It's all in the details' here takes on a new meaning. Read on, dear reader...

Last year, walking along Brook Street I stopped to take a couple of snaps of the entrance to the ballroom which is only ever open when an event is happening in that space. I particularly love the metal gates in a style I personally refer to as 'Hollywood Deco' and the canopy above with its zig-zags panels and various finishes.

On that late November evening it had occurred to me that seeing as the Christmas decorations were already installed I should go inside and to investigate. Until a couple of years ago hotels wouldn't put up the decs until the first weekend in December. What's gone wrong with the world?!

Heading through the main door into the hotel... 

...then turned left and followed my nose into other areas, finding that most spaces were available to me because there weren't as yet, any events happening.

There are some evocative displays of Art Deco items either side of the corridor that leads towards the entrance to the ballroom. Below left is the view to the ballroom and other salons. The second pic is the view to the Brook Street:

Elegant Jazz Age metalwork and multi-layered mirrors are everywhere.

Two framed artworks by George Sherringham enhance one space. 

These are retrospective illustrations of the Britannia Theatre Hoxton and the Drury Lane Theatre, 1800. I have no idea if these venues have a specific relevance to Claridges in particular. Sherringham was contemporary of D'Oyly Carte and had created many backdrops for his Gilbert & Sullivan productions at The Savoy Theatre as well as a large scale artwork for the ballroom here which I can find no reference of today. 

The ballroom didn't seem that impressive to me. It all looks a bit corporate, sanitised and bland, more like the spaces you see in modern Dubai hotels, all black and white marble with square-cut corners, but with none of the artistry or clever design. 

In most of the pics I have cropped out other hints to the our modern world, such as trailing electrical leads, nasty plastic shelving, things made from that shiny chrome-effect stuff that looks like it was bought from B&Q, and shoddy repairs here and there. It's a shame that it's now only the original mirrors and light fittings that give a hint that these spaces are almost 95 years old.  I'd love to be able to time travel to see what it was actually like here in the thirties. 

I had a good wander about. Hardly saw another human, except for a couple of guests who had taken a wrong turn and wanted to get back to the reception, and the odd member of staff who either ignored me completely or gave me a cheery hello as they whizzed past. 

Before leaving I took a quick selfie in the mirrors and used the felicities (as I like to say) then headed back outside into the chilly streets to investigate more twinkling spaces. 

I'll pop in again soon and add pics of this year's decs. 

Religion and Rembrandt and black black BLACK at Dulwich Picture Gallery

After visiting the wonderful Anna Ancher show last week I skimmed the artworks in the other rooms. There are some corkers to be found – every rime I visit I spot something new, probably because they move and swop the works to keep us on our toes!

On this occasion, I was engaged by a couple of preparatory sketches for ceiling works by Tiepolo located in the central area, almost opposite the main entrance:

Sketches? Wow! Gorgeous! The second one is 'Virtue and Nobility Putting Ignorance to Flight' commissioned for the Villa Cordelina in Venice. I do love a bit allegory.

I am also keen on religious themed artworks even though I don't believe in fairy stories. Who doesn't love the depiction of a tortured saint?! Last time I was there I took snaps of some paintings which were also in the central section on the opposite wall to where the Tiepolos are today, though I can't guarantee they are currently on view:

St Catherine of Siena by Carlo Dolci, above, bottom left, next to an interestingly amended work attempting to keep up with the zeitgeist of that era. 

On that day I also snapped a pic of Mrs Joan Allen looking fiercely elegant in black: 

A touch of the Princess Anne, I think. I wonder if that's a riding outfit.  

Black Black BLACK!  Note the reference to black dye being expensive back then. 

Black dye it might be cheaper now, but it's still one of the most difficult dyes to fix, and one of the most damaging for the planet vis the processes involved (go google) yet it is the most prominent [non] colour being worn today – I have never before seen so many people head to foot in black clothes as there are out there in 2025.  It's become a lazy uniform. Has someone died? Is everyone in mourning? Have we time-travelled back to the 1880s? Perhaps there's a permanent Goth or witches' convention? Or is Hallowe'en a year-round event now? Actually, no – whilst I think of it, Hallowe'en has become just an excuse for any kind of fancy dress with fake blood added. Schoolgirl? Policeman? Robot? Clown? Just add flour, ketchup and black eyeliner and you too will go to the party. And don't get me started about all that non-recyclable polyester used as fake cobwebs. But you can't have a plastic straw for your Um Bongo, your Kia-ora, or your G&T.  

Anyway, enough observational ranting... back to the lovely artworks... 

First a bit of showing off by Fragonard. He's the fella who painted the girl on a swing which is on display at The Wallace Collection. Ooh naughty!

On the end wall adjacent to the excellent gift shop there are paintings by Rembrandt showing how his style changed from detailed brushwork in 1632 on the left when he was 26, to his later looser style in 1668. Clara Reubens, the young girl, was painted in 1620 by her father, Peter Paul. They are all lovely. 

Finally, one of my favourite Thomas Gainsborough paintings is At Dulwich Picture Gallery. Dated 1753, it depicts 'A Couple in a Landscape' illustrating the wealthy land owners of that era, although their identity has never been specified.

I've here married it with a section of a small painting that hangs on my wall at home. The artist, Christopher H. Grisley has named the couple in his Gainsborough pastiche as Mr & Mrs Andrews, whoever they might be.

Dulwich Picture Gallery – more info here – oh, and a new cafe space has opened up adjacent to the gallery building – it serves really good coffee, by which I mean I had an Americano and it was actually strong coffee as requested – I couldn't see the bottom of the cup!

The delightful details on the Palais de Danse ghostsign at Hammersmith station

First of all, sorry about the dodgy photos – these were taken on two occasions using my phone. I really ought to have returned with a better camera but at least this finally gets the ball rolling as, yet again, this has been festering for years...

Facing the platforms at the end of the tube line at Hammersmith there is a wall on which is painted a huge advertisement for the dance hall that used to be on the other side of that wall, the Palais-de-Dance, AKA Hammersmith Palais. You can see the wall on the google satellite view here. 

It's a multi-layered hand-painted sign with overlapping elements that I think date from at least two eras. The wall has been photographed often but, although people have noticed and queried the pricing structure within the panels at each end as being different (2 shillings and sixpence for the cheaper afternoon session, and either 5 shillings at one end or 5 and 6 at the other end for the evening slot) and the strange adjusted spelling of TWISE which was more evident a decade ago, I haven't as yet seen anyone else make reference to all the other bits and bobs (rather than shillings) on it. So here goes...

First of all, here are two wide shots where I have drastically enhanced the colour to give us an idea how wonderfully vibrant the sign would have been 100 years ago. The main letters look to have been blue. The letterforms look to have been overpainted – check out the truncations visible on the left legs of the As which, to me indicates that a later letterform was applied which, over time, has degraded such that what we see today is, in the mostpart, the original early 1920's version:

The outlined letterform reads: PALAIS-DE-DANSE... THE TALK OF LONDON ... HAMMERSMITH.

But, look closely and there's more... from left to right...

Either side of the first price panel, those two random dark blobs are actually illustrations of couples dancing:

In both cases, the man is in formal black evening dress and the lady is outlined in white. The stance looks to be almost identical, al though it would be if they were dancing to the same tune. The lady on the right side is wearing a floaty green dress.

Caroline wrote a short piece about this sign on her blog which better show the clothes depicted and her pic below from 2009 highlights how these illustrations have degraded in the last 16 years. 

It appears that the couple on the left were always headless! But other people had no bodies at all – if you zoom in via the link above you will see that there were pairs of dancing feet coming in at the top edge of the wall. These surely would have continued all the way along the full length of the sign..?

Moving on...

Between the S of Palais and the D of De there is the vague suggestion of what could be another figure/dancer surrounded by coloured circles or bubbles floating about. 

Then, between De and the D of Danse there is another couple dancing. She is also wearing a green dress. This lady has her back to us with her bare right arm up, elbow visible, her hand would be holding the gentleman's shoulder). His outlined left hand is at her waist, in the small of her back, complete with white cuff and black jacket sleeve. They are also surrounded by coloured bubbles:

A horizontal orange stripe contains the words So[le] Managing Director. Looking at the left side of the horizontal strip in the previous image, some additional letters can be discerned: "W." and "M" – this, I believe is W. F. Mitchell, whose name is on most the Palais' ads during this period (see pic at the bottom). Indeed, if I've got this right, Mitchell was responsible for bring syncopated jazz nights to us at these new 'palais' venues.

Underneath the stripe there are some more words, small black letters on white. At the time of writing all I can now decipher from my poor photos (because I can't locate the notes I surely must've scribbled when I was there!) is "...IGN Co. An.." – I am pretty sure that this will be the sign maker's name followed by the street/area where his business was located beginning with An. I've looked at some old London directories but cannot find a suitable contender, however, it occurs to me that this sign might have been painted by someone that Mitchell engaged from elsewhere.

Continuing our journey across the wall, the recent repairs, evident as vertical stripes of new brickwork, have affected the sign as a whole, but many illustrative elements are still visible...

...such as a man at the centre of this next image who looks to be either conducting the music or conjuring the bubbles that decorate the whole wall...

He is also dressed in formal attire. Placed behind the MER of Hammersmith, his hands reach forward to the left and his head is tossed back. He possibly has floppy hair, and the two black marks could be either spectacles a moustache. 

It looks as if a subsequent painted panel obliterated much of this section, as denoted by the line that runs vertically through the second M of Hammersmith.

After 'Hammersmith' there is what looks like the outline of another dancing couple, the lady's bent legs being the only real clue, but I am not sure what to make of the blackened shape twixt the H and their knees. 

I think it's fair to assume that there was another dancing couple at the extreme right edge, but nothing is visible today. 

Here's a repeat of the enhanced wide shot of this side:

The entrance to the Palais de Danse was in Shepherd's Bush Road and the exterior in the 1920s would have looked like this, as shown in the ad below. It is not the same building that many of us remember today which was a 1930's rebuild, itself demolished c2010. Note that The Laurie Arms pub next door, still stands, albeit for some reason renamed.

If you have any better resolution images or further info, please do get in touch 

The pics above show a press ad from 1921 which also appeared in colour in some magazines (easily googleable) and a snap of an illustration of this dancehall during that era that I took from one of my many books about Art Deco – when I find which book, I will annotate it properly.  

More info about the Palais's early days, and the kind of music and dancing that was enjoyed during his era, can be found in this excellent piece by Dave Haslam.

Painting Light – Anna Ancher at Dulwich Picture Gallery

The curators at Dulwich Picture Gallery have done it again!  They've pulled together yet another fabulous collection of artworks by yet another artist who often goes under the radar here in the UK.

This time we have Anna Ancher (pronounced Anker), a talented lady based in the small town of Skagen in Skane, which rhymes with Jane and window pane, and it's the latter which features in many of Anna's painted works as she was very adept at painting light coming into interior spaces, mostly within her family home, Brøndums Hotel, which formed the hub of the town at the very northern pointy tip of Denmark.

This reminds me of art classes at school, approx age 15, when we were tasked to paint an interior with light coming in from a window ahead. Weirdly, we were expected to do this from our imagination, not from life. I will dig out my old portfolio later this week and I might add pics of my efforts.

Many of Anna Ancher's evocative paintings feature her friends and family busy at work or just sitting and reading. I relate to the quote about about staying close to home, something I tend to do more these days as I haven't been anywhere that involves a plane journey for almost eight years. Recollections of places visited in far off countries fade over time and become almost dreamlike memories. There is so much to see and do nearer home. However, my home town of London is vast and varied and there is always something new to experience, as Samuel Johnson observed in that 'tired' quote.

Note that I have cropped into most of the paintings to select specific details.

Anna was well-known in Denmark, yet I had never heard of her before being alerted to this show, and I doubt many others will be aware of her either unless they have Danish friends or connections to that country. I'm often saying that there are many talented artists all around the world whom we never get to hear about, in countries as random as Venezuela and Vietnam, yet all we are mostly fed on Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and The Mona Lisa!

The Skagen landscape features in many of Anna's works, again with the emphasis on natural light at different times of the day, the narrow flat peninsula providing both sunrise and sunset opportunities.

If you visit, be sure to watch the short movie in the central area and look out for the little doors placed here and there, cleverly designed to intrigue and inspire children (and me):

If you saw my RA Summer Show entry earlier this year you will already know that I am interested in the gallery walls as well as what's on them, so I've here grouped these little doors with other things that caught my eye – a painted grille, two big studded doors and the end of seating over a trap door.

Anna Ancher: Painting Light – until 8th March 2026

Edwardian era architectural trompe l'oeil at 386 Oxford Street – linen, jewellery or furs?

Here's another one that's been festering in my 'To Do' folder for way too long...

Until 2023, 386 Oxford Street was a Dr. Marten's Store, but I wonder how many people shopping for  shoes and boots bothered to look up and notice that this turreted 1907 building at the corner of Bird Street, sports some delicate examples of architectural trompe-l'oeil...?

On the corner section there are delicate renditions of two faux windows each flanked by garlands of fruit and flowers dangling from bowed ribbons.

As this snippet from the 1910 directory shows, No.386 was at time The Irish Linen Company, shirt makers, with another store at 90-92 at the corner of Newman Street (currently Sunglasses Hut), but there are no similar hand-painted adornments at that second address. I'm having a tough time trying to find any info about this company, being as so many other shops offered the same products using the same words Irish and linen. 

My hunch is that the trompe was added by a later company, perhaps Lawrence & Laurence, jewellers, who are listed here in 1915 or the Cabot Fur Company here in the 1930s, located mid-way between two of the biggest high street fur shops – The London Fur Company at No.376 at the corner of Duke Street, and Swears & Wells at No.374, all perfectly placed for the fashionable ladies shopping at Selfridges and Bond Street. 

The listing also shows two tax agencies in the offices above the linen shop which I assume were independent companies. Also of interest is the half-built Selfridges store, showing that it did not at that time cover the whole block from Vere Street to Orchard Street as it does today. Note, especially, the listing for Gray's jeweller which, for a time, would have been flanked by the department store, hanging on in there in much the same way as Speigelhalter Bros did in Whitechapel Road within Wickham's store, now forming the entrance to the university buildings at the rear. 

Here in Oxford Street, T. Lloyd & Co Ltd had effectively done all the hard work for Selfridge by securing most of this site throughout decades of successful business, hence the application of bold caps in their listing, denoting a well-known store or one that can afford the promotion. It's been suggested that that Lloyds would surely have taken over the whole block itself had it not been bought out by Selfridge & Co – read the full story here from page 23 onwards which contains an evocative reference to the Lloyds as ‘those little yellow shops where ladies with bustles once bought antimacassars for their horsehair furniture’ and suggests they were a bit behind the times – I can't find anything about T. Lloyd & Co going forward. 

Having looked to see what became of the other businesses displaced by Selfridge & Co, by 1915 William Ruscoe had expanded to cover three premises at No.476-480, Pownceby & Co continued to trade from its other store at the other end of Oxford Street, today Vision Express, but I am struggling to discover what became of Mr Fauerbach. 

It's amazing what a little bit of trompe can uncover. Inconclusive, but interesting nonetheless.

Ha-ha. Very funny Mr Bridgeman.

Last week, on Londonist Time Machine, Matt wrote about some the wornderful details depicted in the Balloon View illustrative map of 1851. The view is looking from North to South: 

I was surprised that he hadn't made special reference to the delineating wall depicted twixt Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. This is a feature that I have been looking myself as further information when  leading tour groups for The Royal Parks. I had planned to dig out and collate my research and leave a comment, but other things got in the way so I parked the idea.

Well, blow me down if Matt didn't follow up in the next few days with a piece on that very subject here. He gives lots of info, but I'm here adding to the pot and throwing in a few curve balls, questions and comparisons. 

First, let's zoom in on the 1951 map to show exactly what I'm talking about. A wall is depicted on three sides of Kensington Gardens with three semi-circular bastions (North, Middle and South) on the eastern side followed by Google's satellite view today for comparison:

My pic below left show the remains of the ditch at the site of the North Bastion which can be found between the small children's playground and West Carriage Drive. An information board stands near the path, Buck Hill Walk:

When George II became king in 1827 he and his wife Caroline set about making their mark on his father's fusty old palace, in much the same way as Mr Tango Trumpington is currently doing with the East Wing of The White House. These important people simply want to make their mark.   

Caroline was keen to create larger palace gardens by nabbing a huge chunk of Hyde Park. In 1728 she engaged the services of Charles Bridgeman, one of the foremost landscape gardeners of that time, and he created features that still endure and delight us today, such as the formal paths and vistas, the Round Pond (which isn’t round) and the Long Water (which isn’t all that long). 

To delineate open park from formal gardens a wall was needed and, rather than creating one above ground, thereby restricting the view from the palace by drawing a line across the landscape, Bridgeman employed a sunken wall and ditch known as a ha-ha. I think it's fair to assume that the walls along the north and south side of the park would have been above ground. 

1851 vs 2025 Google satellite view. Hints of the North and Middle bastions are still evident today but the southern one has disappeared under the Serpentine Gallery

A close-up of what is now Serpentine North Gallery and out buildings, previously marked as 'Guard House' on the 1851 drawing. Part of the middle bastion's wall and ditch is still visible from West Carriage Drive as shown in the second image (rotated view) at the centre, between the trees. 

No-one has as yet come up with a good reason for where the name ha-ha derives from. It's suggested that it denotes exclamation/surprise. But this is clever, not funny. Or, perhaps, people thought it was funny when their friends accidentally fell down the ditch? Ha ha, you silly idiot!

Charles Bridgeman is often credited as being the first to create this kind of sunken wall. If that is the case, then surely he had some kind of name for it and had labelled it as such when he drew up the plan for the gardens. Or, whilst showing his designs to Queen Caroline, he might have said "here we have a bunkleditch" then, confused, she looked at the drawing and laughed favourably, and the name stuck. 

I have also heard that that sunken walls of this kind were already in were in place in France before Bridgman installed this one for Caroline, which would make his the first of its type in England, "and here we have a ha-ha". But again we have woolly hearsay evidence – where in France are/were those other examples? Why has nobody identified those locations

If it is indeed a french concoction, 'ha-ha' doesn't sound very French when you say out loud. Do French people really (also) say that when they are surprised?  I suggest it might be of French origin but the name was original name sounded similar to ha-ha we have ended up with a mis-pronounced and then mis-spelled name that over time has been poorly conveyed, as per many other mis-heard foreign words that we use today.

Having noticed that modern maps make no reference of this old wall, I've dug out some older maps to see how they change over time. It's interesting to also see how many of the other features within the park come and go and how names or uses of buildings have changed. Until the Victoria era, many maps of London do not show anything West of Knightsbridge, so the earliest depiction of the ha-ha is on Bacon's map published in 1888, shown below, left:

Bacon's map shows the ha-ha as almost as an intact feature, although I cannot prove that it actually was as the time. The entrance by the fountains (strangely not annotated) is marked as Buck Hill Gate and was later changed to Marlborough/Westbourne Gate. Note also the lack of other features within both parks apart from the statue of Jenner, moved here from Trafalgar Square after Prince Albert died. The second map is Philips colourful 1892 folding map showing that the Speke memorial has been installed. The path following the edge of the ha-ha is no longer shown. West Carriage Drive was then known as The Ring, part of the circular horse riding and carriage route within Hyde Park which includes North Ride, Broad Walk, Rotten Row, etc.

On both maps, the building that was the 'Guard House' on the 1851 drawing is now marked 'Magazine' which denotes a storage facility. This could allude to a shed for garden implements but it might well be ammunition, hence a magazine of bullets, or a box or container used for anything containing lots of stuff, whether items, words or information as in a printed pamphlet. Any information about what was kept here is welcome. Today the building is a gallery and restaurant.

The next two snaps are from Ward Lock's 1935 guidebook, left, and Bartholomew's Town Plan c1945, right.  

Ward Lock's 1935 map on the left shows the fountains as Water Works, yet Bartholomew labels them as The Fountains. It's interesting how similar these two maps are considering a war separates them, suggesting the two companies employed the same cartographer and Bartholomew simply rehashed the pre-war map. In both instances, a Refreshment House is shown where the South Bastion used to be (now the site of the Serpentine Gallery and seasonal pavilion). Also of interest is that Ward Lock, despite being a guide book, clearly didn't think that its readers would be interested in many well-known and long-established features within the parks such as the Peter Pan statue, the Dog Cemetery or the Bandstand. 

Moving on to the 1950s...

The map on the left is from the 1951 Baedeker guidebook. It's a delightful design, attempting to mark every tree and landmark. Note that the ha-ha is shown as if it's a distinct feature on the landscape and, whilst the southern bastion is no longer visible, the wall is depicted continuing southwards past the 'Tea Rooms' to Alexandra Gate at Kensington Gore.  However, there looks to be an error regarding the annotation of 'The Ring' which is placed west of the ha-ha along the footpath rather than on the road at the other side. I'm also confused by the label of Bennie's Bridge which needs further investigation. The 1953 Geographers' A-Z version on the right makes less off the ha-ha, enhances Peter Pan but omits Jenner. I wonder who they decided these omissions and inclusions.

The last two maps are also Geographers' A-Zs – the one on the left is from my hardback version, purchased in 1979 shortly after I first passed my driving test, here married with the 2001 large spiral bound cabbies' map book that sits adjacent to my desk.

The 1979 map looks friendlier in design and it shows more to see and do than the later version. It also includes the line of the ha-ha, disappeared/omitted from these maps by 2001.

That's it. I'm done.