A few trips to London

August 2025

Don’t think I’d been up to London since March when Helen and I went to an exhibition of Picasso prints at the British Museum. Have just had a flurry of trips in August.

UCL Grant Museum of Zoology, 20 August

With Ray. He had spotted a World of Wasps exhibition on at this little museum in Bloomsbury. I’d never been to the museum so was happy for a trip there.

We walked over to the museum from Paddington, starting off by taking in the redevelopment alongside Paddington Basin. Then across to the Marylebone Road, where we crossed to avoid a noisy pro-Pal demo and detoured round in front of Marylebone station, then turned south down Baker Street and across through Marylebone to Tottenham Court Road, where I suggested having lunch in the branch of Byron that’s part of the Central St Giles Piazza. Have been here quite a few times. I do like Byron but they’re unfortunately another chain that has closed quite a lot of branches. This one seems to be hanging on.

Our walk route

Bloomsbury Street

The Grant Museum of Zoology is an intriguing place. Apparently the museum moved to its current premises, a former UCL library, in 2011. It’s a single large room, with a galleried upper level (that bit doesn’t seem to be open to the public). Aside from the World of Wasps exhibition, there were a whole host of fascinating specimens of various types, some quite weird (e.g. the jar of moles). Things we saw included a jar of pig foetuses, a glass case of rabbit legs, a cod heart, a rabbit brain (quite small, alas), a pigeon nervous system and a ‘wall of mice’ comprising 4000 mouse skeletons. Makes you think.

Rabbit legs

The jar of moles

Surprised-looking pufferfish

The World of Wasps exhibition included two virtual reality exhibitions, one enabling a wasp’s-eye view of a nest and the other a journey through a wasp habitat. Both slightly disconcerting as they involved you barrelling towards enormous virtual wasps. The exhibition was intended to encourage greater appreciation of the much-maligned creatures by highlighting their importance to ecosystems, as well as showing the complexity of their nests. According to this interview with the exhibition’s creators, it’s the world’s first exhibition devoted to wasps.

Ray in one of the VR headsets

View of the museum interior

UCL has several museums. Ruth and I visited the UCL Pathology Museum as part of the London Open House in 2018. That one is open by appointment only, but there are also the UCL Art Museum and the Petrie Museum, which both do seem to be open to the public.

We took a bus part of the way back to Paddington and then walked the remainder after it unexpectedly terminated us on Oxford Street. We had tea and cake at Gail’s before catching our trains home.

Gallery and architecture, 28-29 August

This trip was meant to be taken much closer to my birthday, on 14-15 August, but Auntie Anne’s death and subsequent funeral meant that it had to be postponed by two weeks.

One of my best birthday celebrations was in 2021 when Ruth and I did two ‘perambulations’ from the range published by Stefi Orazi, of the Modernist Estates Instagram account. I fancied doing another one and because I wanted to combine it with an exhibition showing at Tate Britain, chose Perambulation No 26: Pimlico, Knightsbridge and Chelsea. There are 24 properties on this perambulation and we actually only got as far as number 12, so the rest will have to be done on some future occasion.

One arriving in London, we took a bus to Victoria Station and then walked across to the Hub by Premier Inn Westminster Abbey, on Tothill Street. In fact, to correct that slightly, we initially walked to the Hub by Premier Inn Westminster, St James’ Park, on Dacre Street, to be told we were in the wrong Hub (suspect the staff are used to telling people that). When we arrived at the correct hotel (which is only about two streets away) we were able to leave our bags. This hotel’s staff were a model of efficiency over the two days.

Two Westminster 'Hubs'

As rooms in the ‘Hub’ hotels are tiny and there were going to be two of us in it, I had paid the extra £10 for a slightly bigger room, which did seem worthwhile as it at least meant we had some floor space to put stuff on.

We walked across to Tate Britain where I had booked tickets to see the Edward Burra exhibition that runs until 19 October. I didn’t know a great deal about Burra beyond that he was an English watercolour painter active in the 1930s, but his painting ‘Izzy Orts’, with its blank-eyed sailor, had made enough of an impression for me to be quite interested in seeing more of his work. I found it interesting though I enjoyed the ‘urban underworld’ stuff more than the later, more serious war-themed stuff.

Burra's painting Izzy Orts

Burra’s paintings of sailors in tight trousers led Ruth to mutter “Bottoms” at intervals while going around the exhibition.

We had lunch in the Tate café, saw the exhibition and returned to the café afterwards for tea and cake, all at massive expense but that’s gallery cafes for you. We also visited the shop where I made an entirely unnecessary purchase of a woollen Miffy.

Unnecessary purchase

Our ticket for the Burra exhibition also got us in to see an exhibition of the painter Ithell Colquhoun. I can’t say I had ever heard of her, not that that means much necessarily. I was intrigued to see her billed as, among other things, a “practicing occultist”. Evidently she was thrown out of the British Surrealist Group owing to her refusal to renounce her association with various occult groups. In fairness, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn does sound quite fun.

Colquhoun was given to sexual symbolism in her paintings. Painting of sunset over a jutting rock, etc, and you learn from the accompanying text that the rock could also be viewed as a massive clitoris. Makes you think.

Scylla by Ithell Colquhoun (1938)

We then set off to Pimlico underground station to make a start on the perambulation. Our first port of call was Ventilation Shaft Cover (Eduardo Paolozzi, 1982) on Bessborough Street. It's Grade II-listed.

Me by Ventilation Shaft Cover

We then walked through Bessborough Gardens to the Thames Path by Vauxhall Bridge, where we viewed the attractive Crown Reach development, completed in 1983 and built by the Crown Estate Commissioners, apparently as part of a wider effort to transform the area into a luxury residential zone. I really liked this development.

Crown Reach (1983)

Our next stop was St George’s Square and a gander at Nos 72-74, a 1958 infill development into a stucco-fronted terrace. This replaced two war-damaged houses.

72-74 St George's Square (1958)

We walked down Chichester Street past the Dolphin Square development. This wasn't part of the perambulation, but the leaflet noted that it was the largest residential complex in Europe when it was completed in 1937.

The Dolphin Square development

We crossed Claverton Street and entered the Churchill Gardens estate. The leaflet described this as "a landmark, early post-war housing scheme". The first block opened in 1952 and the development was completed in the early 1960s, when it won a Civic Trust Award.

Entrance to the Churchill Gardens estate

Seen on the wall of one of the blocks

On our way along Lupus Street to see the Lillington Gardens estate, we passed some pleasant but unremarkable school buildings which I guessed were what had replaced the good deal more remarkable Pimlico School. This was one of the first notable postwar buildings that I remember seeking out for myself, when I was 20 or so and probably while on the way to the Tate Gallery, as it was then. Evidently not everyone who had to teach in the building admired it (True hothousing at Pimlico school) though one Bob Giles issued a robust retort here: Pimlico school was architectural jewel. This Architectuul piece has some photos of the interior.

Street View snip of Pimlico Academy on Lupus Street

To round off the afternoon we visited the Lillington Gardens estate. This brick-clad development apparently marked a move away from high-rise blocks to low- and mid-rise estates. It is quite a pleasant-looking development.

Lillington Gardens (Darbourne and Darke, late 1960s)

For dinner, I had wanted to return to L'ulivo on Villiers Street, where we had eaten before seeing Cabaret in 2022. We were less pressed for time on this occasion so I got that second glass of wine in.

Our seafood starter at L'ulivo

Westminster Abbey at night

The following morning we breakfasted in the hotel as it was raining. Then we took a bus back over into Pimlico, to cut out the walk to the start point. We went to view 7-9 Moreton Street, apparently an early example of postmodernist details in council housing.

7-9 Moreton Street (Goldfinger and Miles, 1984-7)

We then walked a bit to get to Cambridge Street where we viewed another infill development that had replaced bomb-damaged buildings. The architects of 76-78 Cambridge Street were directors at Arup and this building is described as "bold and uncompromising". Ruth didn't like it, but I loved the concrete and smoked glass, and how exuberantly not-at-all-in-keeping with the surrounding houses it is. Architects in the 1960s, unlike latterly, don't seem to have worried about their designs being "in keeping" with neighbouring buildings - I think rightly, as there'd never be any new styles of domestic architecture otherwise.

76-78 Cambridge Street (Foggo and Thomas, 1969)

We then went to view numbers 50 and 50a Winchester Street, two maisonettes converted in 1970 from a Victorian house.

An irrelevant building I photographed by mistake

Most of 50/50a Winchester Street (I chopped a bit off)

From Winchester Street, we walked via Ebury Bridge and Pimlico Road to view 1-6 Sloane Square, then went around the corner to view the adorable artists' studios at 1-3 Sedding Street.

1-6 Sloane Square (Harrison and West, 1965)

Sedding Studios

Then up into Belgravia to view Lowndes Lodge. Like some of the buildings we'd seen previously, this was built on a bomb-damaged site.

Lowndes Lodge (Aslan and Freeman, 1950s)

Then via Motcomb Street to view 35 Kinnerton Street. Kinnerton Street is a lovely street of mainly older houses. The Perambulation leaflet describes number 35 as "an unusual house for the area". The house has a double garage at street level and I was interested to read that this was included "to meet planning regulations of the time, which required space for two cars". Would this still apply today? It was nice to see a house after all the apartment blocks, and I think this was my favourite property of the day.

35 Kinnerton Street

Closer-up view pinched from Google Street View

We called it a day at this point and resolved to do the rest of the perambulation at a later date.

Helen and Grayson Perry, 30 August

Helen and I met at the Baker Street branch of Honest Burgers for lunch, then made our way to the Wallace Collection to see Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur.

I had never really formed much of an opinion on Perry, but evidently Helen’s husband Greg is a big fan. Based on this exhibition, I have to say I’m slightly at a loss as to how he’s as successful as he is, but maybe his approach of including himself as part of the art is a winner. After talking to Helen, I did seek out via YouTube an episode of Grayson's Art Club, the Channel 4 show that Perry made during the COVID lockdown with his wife Philippa. It’s watchable stuff - in fact I quite wished I'd come across it myself during lockdown - and GP is quite an agreeable presenter/narrator, with a pleasant voice.

Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals, 1624

Laughing Cavalier by G. Perry, 2024

The exhibition was centred around the character of Shirley Smith, a fictional artist persona created by Perry. Shirley, in turn, appeared to believe that she was, in fact, the Hon. Millicent Wallace, the rightful heir to Hertford House (the building that houses the Wallace Collection). I found this character-within-a-character stuff a bit confusing; Helen, being a bit more familiar with GP's approach to art, seemed to take it more in her stride. I decided to approach the exhibition with an open mind though and did enjoy it. It was accompanied by an audio narration by Perry himself.

After leaving the Perry exhibition, we had a wander through a few of the permanent galleries. I don't think I'd been to the Wallace Collection since going there with Mum in my teens. I think I rather dragged my feet on that occasion. There's now a covered café in the central courtyard, where we had some nice cake.

Afterthought

From Perry's audio re Shirley: "She never really had that many friends but she had a lot in her head. She was quite lonely because of her mental health issues."