Westway

 WESTWAY

The Westway is a two and half miles long elevated dual carriageway in west London. More precisely, it is a short section of reinforced concrete, constructed between 1964 and 1970, forming part of the much longer A40 route that runs from Paddington to North Kensington. Similar flyovers are common in cities across the globe, but they are mercifully rare in London. Even before the Second World War, plans were underfoot to ease the flow of traffic in and out of London. Right through until the 1970’s the thinking of the Greater London Council was to combat congestion through road building rather than to deter drivers through charges and fines. When observing the maps of early road building schemes intended to manage traffic flow, it is clear that had they actually come to fruition, they would have caused demolition on a massive scale. A combination of the huge construction costs together with widespread public opposition meant that nearly all the schemes were cancelled by 1973.  Only Westway and a similar project in east London were built. On opening, it was the largest continuous concrete structure in the United Kingdom and an advanced highway for its day, with innovative features that included heating grids to control the formation of surface ice. 

Although Westway was constructed in an era before environmental considerations were taken into account, care was taken to ensure that it followed what was considered the easiest path, running parallel with existing railway tracks. The flyover firstly follows the main line railway coming out of Paddington for half a mile, before veering over to the Hammersmith and City Line on an open surface stretch of the London Underground. Nevertheless, there was much controversy, largely ignored by the government of the day, because it cut through an area of densely populated North Kensington. Compulsory purchases of thousands of mostly Victorian built properties ensued and the residents watched from the sidelines as they were unceremoniously demolished. The initial jubilation for the inhabitants of the houses that were spared was short lived, as they soon found themselves in the shadows of vast concrete pillars supporting the weight of the mighty road. Their daylight almost vanished as the views through windows became filled with concrete.  The constant din of roaring traffic from the lanes high above only lessened during the early hours, when most of the residents were sleeping and were oblivious to the quiet.

The hostility towards the serial demolition to make a path for the Westway had one notable exception as the bulldozing of number ten Rillington Place was keenly awaited. 10 Rillington Place was the home of the whispering serial killer, John Christie. He subdued at least six women, including his wife, with domestic gas before dispatching them by way of strangulation. Another man was hanged for a murder almost certainly committed by John Christie and the case was later used in favour of the abolition of capital punishment. Christie would have been caught sooner were it not for police incompetence, they missed the glaring clue of a human thigh bone propping up his garden fence.

Westway’s elevated position means that there is much to see to the four compass points, although drivers and passengers mostly only catch chimneys and rooftops in the near vicinity. A familiar landmark from the flyover is a good view of the Trellick Tower (see earlier blog: TRELLICK TOWER.) Travelling from the east, Westway rises to form the Marylebone flyover, which passes over the Edgware Road. Edgware Road is part of what was once Watling Street, a Roman Road that began at Dover and headed north through England. On the north side, it then passes the high security Paddington Green Police Station with its secure cells in which terrorist suspects are customarily held. To the south is the Paddington Basin with its new housing and offices development. It then crosses over the branch of the Grand Union Canal that heads up to Little Venice, before curling around to pass over the market stalls of the Portobello Road. After crossing above Ladbroke Grove, the flyover has a junction for Shepherd’s Bush and then the road curls just to the north of the BBC’s Television Centre off Wood Lane. Westway then descends to ground level and its lanes contract as it approaches the Western Avenue and the well-worn route out of London to the north-west. 

Where to view Westway and video clips of London
London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Westway’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months. 

Houses of Parliament

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

The May 2010 General Election in the United Kingdom resulted in the first ‘hung parliament’ since 1974. The political parties negotiated with each other in an attempt to form stable government and at times it verged towards brinkmanship. The finer points of the detailed talks were thrashed out well into the early hours of each passing day. The media grew ever more frenzied and audience viewing figures for news broadcasts rose dramatically. The Liberal Democrats flirted back and forth, the Labour Party wooed them but the talks stuttered. Before long they had settled back where they had started, trying to deliver a deal with the Tories. Both sides, feeling the weight of history, concentrated on the key issues and were able to cast a number of differences aside. The personal interplay between the two leaders was crucial and eventually a deal was sealed. The United Kingdom had its first coalition government for seventy years. The theatrical setting for this new and unfamiliar politics of coalition is the Houses of Parliament.

The Houses of Parliament are the two chambers that form the upper and lower houses, they being the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They are situated at opposite ends of The Palace of Westminster. This written piece does not allow for an examination of the British political system, but will instead concentrate on a very brief history and description of the building itself, which is familiar to many millions of people across the four compass points of the world. 

The Palace of Westminster stands on the site of a royal palace that has existed since the time of Edward The Confessor. It was later expanded by William The Conqueror. Today, the oldest remaining part of The Palace of Westminster is the Westminster Hall, which was built by William II in 1087. On New Year’s Day in 1236, Henry III chose Westminster Hall as the setting to provide a feast for six thousand of London’s poorest people. Richard II added the ‘hammer beamed’ roof to Westminster Hall, existing to the present day, it is one of the finest timbered roofs of any building in the world. The Westminster Hall is usually empty and entirely bare of ornament, which has the effect of drawing the eye up to the majestic roof and at sixty-nine feet, it is the largest medieval span in Europe. Both Guy Fawkes and King Charles I were tried in the hall. Its walls witnessed the installation of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector and some years later his head was exposed on a pole from the roof. A number of monarchs, politicians and notable figures have been laid in state in the Westminster Hall. Three hundred thousand people passed through the hall in 1898 when Gladstone was laid in state and later as many again for Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Henry VIII broke the tradition of The Palace of Westminster being a residence of the reigning monarch. He moved the short distance to the palace at Whitehall, leaving The Palace of Westminster to the politicians and the lawyers of the royal law courts. Members of Parliament had first met there in the year 1265, but it only became the permanent site for parliament in 1547. After three hundred years of political intrigue, The Palace of Westminster burned down on October 16, 1834. A young Augustus Pugin observed the fire and prophetically said, “There is nothing much to regret and a great deal to rejoice in.” By the middle of the nineteenth century Londoners were weary of the grace and austerity of the many developments that seemed to have been exclusively designed by John Nash. Sir Charles Barry was commissioned to refashion the palace in an orgy of Perpendicular Gothic and the slow process of rebuilding began in 1840 and it was only fully completed thirty years later.

Sir Charles Barry only brought Augustus Pugin in to the project due to his lameness in a leg, initially to design the fittings and decorations for the House of Lords. However, Augustus Pugin went much further and provided many other detailed drawings and designed much more than had been originally planned. His contributions ensured that the interior of the House of Lords is considered the finest specimen of Gothic civil architecture in Europe. Augustus Pugin, born in Bedford Square in London in 1812, was said to have grown up, ‘a lover of medieval shapes, a student of theatre design, a hater of beer and tobacco, an inmate of Bedlam and one the greatest advocates of Christian architecture.’ Pugin threw himself into the project like a man possessed, a typical example being his throne in the House of Lords, which is considered to be invested with every idea that Pugin ever had.

The Houses of Parliament sit beneath three towers, the smallest of which is The Central Tower, which acts as a ventilation shaft. The Clock Tower, housing Big Ben, lies at the north end (see earlier blog: BIG BEN) and to the south stands the vast Victoria Tower. Inside the Victoria Tower are housed over one and a half million documents relating to parliamentary matters, all of the ballot papers for a year after a general election and every law passed in this country. When parliament is sitting the Union Flag flies above the Victoria Tower and when it is not the pole is usually flagless, excepting when the Monarch is attending the state opening of parliament and the Royal Standard waves atop. The fifty-five feet tall archway below the Victoria Tower serves as the royal entrance to the building and through it the Monarch enters for the state opening of parliament. No sovereign entered The House Of Commons since Charles I attempted to arrest five members in 1641 through until 1950, when George VI visited the rebuilt chamber after restoration from severe damage suffered during the Second World War.

The Palace of Westminster covers an area of eight acres. It has eleven courtyards, one hundred staircases, eleven hundred apartments and two miles of passages. There is a post office, travel agent, hairdresser, gymnasium, souvenir shop and almost as many amenities as are found on an ocean liner. Curiously, what is lacking are enough seats in the House of Commons, as there are only 602 seats for the 650 Members of Parliament. A portent maybe, as there are increasing murmurings that it is time to drastically reduce the number of Members of Parliament. With a reduction in numbers, the remaining representatives would have somewhere to sit. The Palace Of Westminster also has a prison cell and a police station. Emmaline Pankhurst was the last person to be incarcerated there.

The televising of debates in the House of Lords began in 1985 and the House of Commons followed suit in 1989. With the coming of television, the general public was better able to observe many of the objects used in parliamentary rituals. The Woolsack in The House of Lords is a plain cushioned ottoman stuffed with wool and was occupied by the Lord Chancellor (Lord Speaker since 2006) as presiding officer in the House of Lords. The Woolsack was adopted in the reign of Edward III as a reminder of the importance to England of the wool trade. Close to the Lords’ Chamber is the Peers’ Lobby, where are displayed the arms of six dynasties of English rulers, Saxon, Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian. At the heart of the building is the Central Lobby, also familiar to many as it is where television news reporters are frequently interviewed by anchors.

In the House of Commons the chair in which the Speaker sits came from Australia. Before it, the table on which the mace rests during the sittings came from Canada. To the north of the Commons is the Speaker’s House, the name given to the rooms occupied by The Speaker of The House Of Commons and the apartment is positioned close to Big Ben. It is where the state bedroom is located, the bed originally made for kings and queens on which to rest before the day of their coronation. Never used, it was moved and then lost during the Second World War and later discovered in a Welsh barn. The Speaker has use of a beautiful octagonal table designed by Pugin who, incidentally, never designed either a round or a square table.

There is public admission to the Strangers Gallery in the House of Commons by queuing at the doorway at the St Stephen’s Entrance near to the statue of Richard The Lionheart, which is in the same vicinity as the peers entrance to The House Of Lords. For admission to observe Prime Minister’s Questions (12 -12.30pm on Wednesdays, when parliament is in session) entry is by appointment only and in advance. To obtain a ticket write to your own Member of Parliament or your embassy. Once inside the Strangers Gallery, visitors can look down on proceedings through a glass screen. In 2004 activists for ‘Fathers 4 Justice’ threw flour filled with purple dye from the gallery, down at Tony Blair, which resulted in the installation of the glass screen. On the opposite side is the press gallery, which contains 161 seats for parliamentary correspondents. During the summer recess, when Parliament is not in session, there are guided tours of The Palace of Westminster, the precise details of which change from year to year.

Where to view Houses of Parliament and video clips of London
London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Houses of Parliament’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months. 

Bond Street

BOND STREET

One of the main stories to recently hit the British press outside of the ‘hung parliament’ resulting from the UK General Election on May the Sixth, concerns the start of the trial in relation to Britain’s biggest ever jewellery robbery. Nine defendants are all charged in connection with the £40 million jewellery heist on New Bond Street in London’s West End. The De Graff heist took place in August 2009 when a gang forced an employee to fill a bag with watches, earrings and necklaces at gunpoint. The proprietors of Bond Street’s luxury high-end retail stores are no strangers to robberies, but this raid was particularly well orchestrated with raiders hiring a professional make-up artist to disguise their looks. A high level of violence was involved and the trial is likely to last for two months.

How Bond Street became and remains one of London’s most exclusive shopping streets is an interesting story. Nowadays Regent Street is considered the easterly boundary of Mayfair, but traditionally it was Bond Street, which stretches from Oxford Street in the north to Piccadilly in the south. Requesting “Bond Street” to a taxi driver will invariably be met with the reply, “Old or New?” The one seamlessly turns into the other for pedestrians, but taxis and all other vehicles cannot drive through, an enduring reminder of their separate origins.

Old Bond Street was laid out by the seventeenth century financier, Sir Thomas Bond, in 1686, as London expanded to the four compass points in the decades after The Great Fire of London and The Great Plague. It very early acquired a reputation as a luxury shopping area and with its popularity, it was decided to extend the street. The Earl of Oxford, who owned much land in the area, raised funds for the creation of New Bond Street, which was completed in the 1720’s, cementing the shift of luxury shopping from The City to the West End.

Just as groups of youths lounge around shopping malls today, Bond Street had its eighteenth century equivalent, although typically for the area these were not casual hoodies, but the dandy offspring of Mayfair’s wealthiest subjects. Known as the ‘Bond Street Loungers’ they had their own way of talking, walking and dressing. ‘The Bond Street Roll’ was much copied and was nicely satirised by George Colman The Younger in his play, ‘The Heir At Law’ set in 1794. The character Lord Duberly describes of his son, “The boy rolls about like a porpoise in a storm.” His son, Dick Dowlas responds, “That’s the fashion, father; that’s modern ease. A young fellow is nothing now without the Bond Street roll, a tooth-pick between his teeth and his knuckles cramm’d into his coat-pocket. Then away you go, lounging lazily along.”

Dozens of historical figures are associated with the area. James Boswell held well documented literary gatherings at his home on Bond Street. Admiral Lord Nelson lived at no fewer than four different Bond Street addresses. The Regency Dandies were equipped for everything they needed on Bond Street and the most well known of them all, Beau Brummell, lived a short walk away. Lord Byron was a member of the Pugilist Club at number thirteen. The statesman Charles James Fox, is documented as having had a bet with Prince George as to the number cats to be seen on either side of Bond Street. As they strolled its length, Fox counted thirteen cats and the prince, (later to be crowned George IV) counted none. Fox, not known for his prowess at gambling, uncharacteristically made a small fortune, having wisely chosen the sunny side of the street.

Amongst Bond Street’s most famous institutions is Sotheby’s, the celebrated auctioneer, established in 1744 and originally it sold only books. By 1840, Bond Street hosted twenty-two tailors, seventeen milliners and a dozen of both wine merchants and booksellers. After twenty years of seclusion following her retreat from public duties after the death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria chose the location of Bond Street for her first reappearance, to purchase hankies, perhaps persuaded by her courtiers that a timeless spot of retail therapy might cheer her up.

Bond Street has never fallen from fashion and many of the early occupants are still resident, prospering both before and after the tumultuous events of the twentieth century. Between the world wars Queen Elizabeth II was born on Bruton Street, in a house a mere two minute walk from Bond Street, onto which it leads. A statue of her first prime minister is positioned where Old and New Bond Street meet. Passers-by are met by the unobtrusive street level bronze sculpture by Lawrence Holofcen, depicting Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt in conversation and both sitting on a bench.

In nearby Berkeley Street is the Fleming Collection of Scottish art, acquired by the banker grandfather of novelist Ian Fleming. Despite its close proximity, Fleming took Bond’s name not from Bond Street, but from an ornithologist he admired, a certain James Bond who wrote ‘Birds of The West Indies.’ Nevertheless, fans of Ian Fleming will know that in the novel, ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ James Bond was told he might be related to Sir Thomas Bond, founder of the street. James Bond was too busy serving his country to follow up talk of chasing a begging inheritance. Ian Fleming is known to have choosen character names from the members’ list of Boodles Club, a stone’s throw from the southerly corner of Old Bond Street.

In the twenty-first century, British traditions still prevail in the street where prices are seldom marked and never asked. Asprey’s, the royal jeweller and its ilk are juxtaposed with the most contemporary international names. From tiny boutiques in the Royal Arcade to the large interiors of Loewe, the Spanish company founded in 1744, the street continues to sell, ‘nothing essential to man’s survival and anything for a man or woman with everything.’ Tens of thousands of people, to whom Bond Street is prohibitively expensive, are nevertheless keenly aware of its ‘cost’, as it is priced at a handsome three hundred and twenty pounds on the London Monopoly board.

Loewe, Chanel, Valentino, Yves St Laurent, Armani, Tiffany, Calvin Klein, Donna Karen, Bulgari, Alexander McQueen, Dolce Gabbana, Etro, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Versace, Louis Vuitton, Nicole Farhi, Westwood, Jigsaw, Rolex, Prada, Holland and Holland, Mulberry, Fenwicks, Hardy Amies, Cartier, Church’s, Mont Blanc and Smytheson’s for stationery and many others are all located there. London Underground (Tube) Bond Street or Green Park.

Where to view Bond Street and video clips of London
London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Bond St’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.