Georgian London

 Although I usually go to different places in Great Britain every time I travel there, one place is always constant: I always spend at least a few days in London, usually at the end of my trip before I fly out. The tricky thing about London for someone who loves history is that it can feel very modern in places. Bombing during the Blitz and just the general march of time have erased a lot of its history.

But the thing I've discovered is that if you're willing to do a little digging and a little (okay a LOT) of literal legwork, you can still find a lot of historic spaces. So I thought I would share some of the ones I saw on this trip.

First up in the neighborhood of St. James is Brooks's Club.

 

 

Also in that neighbourhood is Boodle's Club.

As well as this large townhouse with Coade stone accents including caryatids on the porch. Caryatids are figures that hold something up.

Here are some other lovely Georgian houses in Craig's Court.

 

And some in Manchester Square.

 

I also popped in to see the Wallace Collection, which is in Hertford House. It looks like they just did a lot of work on the facade because it does not look old AT ALL.

 

Passages are one of the places I feel like old London is most alive, and Crown Passage is no exception.

 

I also popped into Grosvenor Chapel, a very good example of Georgian church architecture.
 

You can really get a sense of how different Georgian church architecture is compared to the gothic churches that came before.

 

I also had a chance to see this very old and very rare Baroque style shop front.

 

Here's what it looks like from farther out. 

This is the York Watergate, all that remains of a former townhouse that would have been behind it. The Victoria Embankment, built as a means of cholera prevention by catching dirty water before it hit the Thames, drastically altered the waterline of the Thames River. In earlier times, water would have come right up to the gate and it would have served as an entry to the house from those arriving by river.

This vaulted area, Lower Robert Street, is near the watergate. It is part of the remnants of a Georgian terrace built by the Adam brothers called the Adelphi. The vaults brought the living area of the houses up out of reach of the river, and were meant to be sold as storage.

The Adelphi sold poorly despite the Adam brothers being leading architects of the Georgian era. They ended up needing to have a lottery to sell many of the units. Ultimately it was torn down and replaced by this art deco building. Some of the vaults are all that remain, however...

The rest of the houses on the street are still Georgian, and in the Adam style. I believe some if not all were also architected by the Adam brothers.

 

You can see some of the great details here.

 

And here.

 

And here.

One of the houses is the site of a day spa, so I was able to peep the ceiling (sadly painted).

One more house photo of the area as well as a video walkthrough below, before we go a little farther afield.

In a London suburb is Dulwich Picture Gallery, architected by Sir John Soane. It's the first-ever purpose-built gallery. Soane's style is distinctive and you really get a sense of it here.

 

Despite its age, the interior feels stark and modern. The one unfortunate thing is that they had artificial lights up where there used to be a skylight. It created a lot of artificial glare on the paintings; I'm guessing it might be less damaging to the paintings but I expect it looked better in Soane's time with natural light.

In the opposite direction is the suburb of Pinner, with this coaching inn, the Queen's Head.

This inn has been on my list for a while because it has a gallows sign. There aren't a whole lot of these still extant so it was exciting to get to see one.

The interior is still a gorgeous pub.

It was a bit of a jaunt up the Metropolitan line to get to the Queen's Head but I'm very glad I went.

I hope you enjoyed this look at some different historic sites in central and greater London! If you're interested in more on townhouses, you can sign up for my newsletter to get access to the video of my townhouses talk. There's a form at the top of this blog or you can sign up here.