London Bankside: Hopton St

I know, I know, there’s nothing really to see there, it’s all just the South Bank or the Tate Modern, or Borough Market, and some not-very-nice riverside pubs. I hear you. But there are a couple of spots hidden just behind the Tate Modern that you’ve probably never seen, and which you really should if you want to get a sense of what this part of London used to be like.

Hopton’s Almshouses

I love almshouses. I love that even hundreds of years ago people thought that providing some form of social housing for the poorest members of society was A Good Thing. These almshouses were founded in 1746–49 by a fishmonger, Charles Hopton, with the aim of providing accommodation for 26 “poor decayed men” of the parish. And one of the things I like about them is that they are still operating as social housing, albeit for the Borough of Southwark rather than the local parish. The other thing I like is the poignant contrast between that classical Georgian architecture and the steel and glass dazzle of the huge modern apartments behind them, dwarfing the homely little almshouses below. It’s like a microcosm of London as a whole: the new sitting cheek by jowl with the old (and not always coming off best in that comparison).

61 Hopton St

This little house is just down the road from Hopton’s Almshouses at no. 61, and like the almshouses it’s a valiant little survivor in amongst more modern buildings. There’s something about the scale of it and the angle of the roof that make it a bit of a challenge to photograph, but also satisfying when you manage to capture it. According to my trusty copy of Pevsner, it dates from 1702.

As always, I’d love to see your photos from this part of town, so please tag me on Instagram if you do visit!

 

Under the floral spell at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show

The Royal Horticultural Society’s annual garden show has been held every May in the grounds of the Royal Chelsea Hospital, home of the distinctive scarlet-coated Chelsea Pensioners, since 1912. It brings together a number of impressive show gardens, a series of smaller scale Artisan Gardens, a pavilion showcasing British-grown flowers and plants, and a whole host of the great and the good of British society (including the Queen, who pays a visit each year).

Royal Chelsea Hospital, built in 1682 and home to around 300 British Army veterans (“Chelsea Pensioners”)

I was lucky enough to attend the press preview the day before the show opened to the public, and was (slightly unexpectedly) enchanted by the whole experience, my first time at the show. The weather was glorious — fine and cool enough for a jacket in the morning, and warm and slightly sultry in the afternoon, and the greenery of the hospital grounds was bathed in the kind of fine, clear, filtered light that is so peculiarly English.

Some of the highlights for me included the M&G Garden designed by Sarah Price, a romantic Mediterranean oasis; the Trailfinders South African Wine Estate garden designed by Jonathan Snow, which features a traditional Cape Dutch homestead and a beautiful parterre garden; and the Welcome to Yorkshire garden designed by Mark Gregory, with a traditional stone cottage, wisteria growing in its cottage garden, limestone walls, and a babbling brook.

Among the Artisan Gardens, I absolutely loved the Embroidered Minds Epilepsy Garden, which explores the effects of epilepsy, a neurological disorder that affected the eldest daughter of Victorian craftsman William Morris.

The M&G Garden

The Trailfinders Garden with traditional Cape Dutch homestead

The Embroidered Minds Garden

Welcome to Yorkshire Garden

Wuhan Water Garden, China

Hyacinths in the pavilion

Peonies

Roses

Dahlias 

Roses

 A couple of the cutest attendees

The Artisan Retreat section, with a vintage vibe

Drinks truck collaboration between St Germain  and June in March floral designer

Mens’ hats for sale

Twine shop

Homeware stall

Burberry at Old Sessions House, Clerkenwell

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Burberry’s “Here We Are” exhibition of British photography at Old Sessions House in Clerkenwell,  curated by Christopher Bailey (CEO and creative head of Burberry), Lucy Kumara Moore and Alasdair McLellan in celebration of the September 2017 Burberry collection.

Burberry’s Fashion Week show was held here, and the clothes were on display alongside the exhibition in 14 rooms over several floors of the building, which is well worth seeing in its own right if you get the chance.

Old Sessions House is an Grade-II listed building right on Clerkenwell Green, designed by Thomas Rogers and built around 1780. It was originally used as a magistrates’ court until 1921 (and features in Dickens’s Oliver Twist as the place near where a young Oliver first meets the Artful Dodger), when the court moved over to Borough. The building was then used for a variety of purposes until falling into disrepair in the late 1970s.

I went there for the photography and the architecture rather than the fashion, to be honest, but I came away with a real admiration for the way in which the photographs inspired the Burberry collection – I loved the social portraiture aspect, the appreciation for the eccentricities of the British character (gardening, the shipping forecast, and Oxbridge balls all featured) –  you could trace the influence on the clothes themselves, which were beautifully curated and displayed.

The space itself was wonderful – full of light, with distressed, pared-back walls and a kind of decaying grandeur. The exhibition has now finished but if you ever get the chance to go inside Old Sessions House, I’d highly recommend it.