Open the door!

The annual Open House weekend rolls around once more. We start off rather badly as I read Finsbury Circus as Finsbury Square and we stand looking at a rather dull mid-20th century building in Moorgate, wondering why we booked it, before finding the actual building, a 1920s Lutyens design which BP used to occupy. Indeed, the reception floor is made from ex-oil drums. I wonder if there are dead seabirds stuck to the bottom side. It's been refurbed in a space age way, all swishy lifts and self-cleaning glass ceiling. As ever with these places, the funny little human touches make it - we can see into offices with desks left as they were on Friday evening - some messy, some tidy, some completely clean although unfortunately we can't see the gonks and the framed photos.



On to Clerkenwell where we visit the Museum of the Order of St John, which is actually open every day, but the church and crypt and Mediterranean garden opposite usually aren't. This was reasonably exciting as I have oft stared into the courtyard, wanting entrance to the garden like a heroine in a Victorian orphan story.

Lunch in the Department of Coffee which has quite an interesting exhibition on with imagined future Londons (and other, lesser, cities). Quite
exhausted by this point, but battle on to Aldwych to have a gander at a Roman baths just behind the Strand. It's National Trust owned and used to be open  every day, but no longer. I am actually more interested in the history of it being a tourist attraction (from the Victorian times onwards) than its Roman ancestry, but there's no information on this, sadly.



Ease our aching feet off on the 38 bus to our final stop of the day - the  New River Head offices. These were once owned by the new River Company, then the Metropolitan Water Works, then Thames Water who promptly sold them for development into flats. But the Thames man who does the tour has a natural flair for history, this is not a Thames promo (he admits that TW do not advertise the 4 days a year the offices are supposed to be open to the public). He points out where the reservoir used to be (now a kids' park, and where the water was once stored, a car park) and the site of the old water mill. The board room is the main event, with its 17th century oak carvings and fresco. There's a distinct lack of fresci in 21st century buildings.



Then it's up to Hampstead to meet Birthday Dan and others in the annoyingly posh Holly Bush for beer and macaroni cheese (a side-dish is the only affordable dish on the menu) before decamping it to the Spaniards which is nicer and serves sloe gin. Walking along Spaniards Road in the
dark is slightly unnerving, not because I anticipate a mugging by an old Etonian [insert joke about the government] but because I have no
idea where I am, surrounded by heath on either side, it feels like we're on a country road, dim streetlights, cars rushing past.



Sunday in Spitalfields. 19 Princelet Street is one of the Huguenot buildings that was turned into a synagogue. Following the Jewish departure to North and East-er London, it fell into disrepair and was not sold until 1979. Rachel Lichtenstein wrote a wholly engaging book about it which focussed mainly on David Rodinsky who lived a hermit's life up in the attic until 1969, when he disappeared. 

I remember reading about a National Trust property which kept it, erm, real with no electric light, no tea or gift shop(pe), cobwebs on the
chandeliers. The traditional National Trusters hated it. The synagogue reminds me of that, it is literally stepping back in time. Flaking
ceiling, dust and damp, the ten commandments in Hebrew fading fast. If a Hasid from the 1930s wandered in now, he would notice no difference, probably feel heimlich (if a she, up to the Ladies' Gallery). In the basement are the remains of a Georgian kitchen (and a non-Georgian toilet), Because the building is now nominally a Museum of Immigration (although only open to the public 4 or 5 times a year), there are exhibitions, histories and information dotted around. You can fill in a card telling about your immigration experiences. I am a bit stuck on this since my ancestors probably came over on longboats although David claims both Italian (dad's dad's dad's dad called Giovanni) and Jewish on his mother's mother's (related to the Burton tailoring clan).



Around Brick lane, avoiding tourists, hipsters and Tikka touts, into the Up Market for lunch, into an electronic arts exhibition by my fellow Middlesex students where you can try versions of virtual reality, play a computer game that's at my level (making a virtual mocha
coffee) and create music by dancing. To be honest, I'm surprised they found a Mdx computer that works. I usually have to try 4 or 5 in the
library before I get one that will boot up.

Apart from Brick Lane, which just seems to be Camden these days, I do really love the backstreets of Spitalfields, the houses are beautiful, not a John Nash identikit stucco swerve of terraces, but individual Georgian houses, each with their own quirks, some opening little shops in their front rooms (we have a nosy round The Townhouse on Fournier Street). If I had a spare £1m £2m £4m, I'd love to live here, but I suppose there'd be the problem of noisy revellers walking from Brick Lane to Liverpool Street and there's always the chance you'd end up living next door to Tracy Emin.

We also go into the Hawksmoor church, but the pretty refurbishment has unfortunately stripped away the history. And that's it for another year.

Open the door!

The annual Open House weekend rolls around once more. We start off rather badly as I read Finsbury Circus as Finsbury Square and we stand looking at a rather dull mid-20th century building in Moorgate, wondering why we booked it, before finding the actual building, a 1920s Lutyens design which BP used to occupy. Indeed, the reception floor is made from ex-oil drums. I wonder if there are dead seabirds stuck to the bottom side. It's been refurbed in a space age way, all swishy lifts and self-cleaning glass ceiling. As ever with these places, the funny little human touches make it - we can see into offices with desks left as they were on Friday evening - some messy, some tidy, some completely clean although unfortunately we can't see the gonks and the framed photos.



On to Clerkenwell where we visit the Museum of the Order of St John, which is actually open every day, but the church and crypt and Mediterranean garden opposite usually aren't. This was reasonably exciting as I have oft stared into the courtyard, wanting entrance to the garden like a heroine in a Victorian orphan story.

Lunch in the Department of Coffee which has quite an interesting exhibition on with imagined future Londons (and other, lesser, cities). Quite
exhausted by this point, but battle on to Aldwych to have a gander at a Roman baths just behind the Strand. It's National Trust owned and used to be open  every day, but no longer. I am actually more interested in the history of it being a tourist attraction (from the Victorian times onwards) than its Roman ancestry, but there's no information on this, sadly.



Ease our aching feet off on the 38 bus to our final stop of the day - the  New River Head offices. These were once owned by the new River Company, then the Metropolitan Water Works, then Thames Water who promptly sold them for development into flats. But the Thames man who does the tour has a natural flair for history, this is not a Thames promo (he admits that TW do not advertise the 4 days a year the offices are supposed to be open to the public). He points out where the reservoir used to be (now a kids' park, and where the water was once stored, a car park) and the site of the old water mill. The board room is the main event, with its 17th century oak carvings and fresco. There's a distinct lack of fresci in 21st century buildings.



Then it's up to Hampstead to meet Birthday Dan and others in the annoyingly posh Holly Bush for beer and macaroni cheese (a side-dish is the only affordable dish on the menu) before decamping it to the Spaniards which is nicer and serves sloe gin. Walking along Spaniards Road in the
dark is slightly unnerving, not because I anticipate a mugging by an old Etonian [insert joke about the government] but because I have no
idea where I am, surrounded by heath on either side, it feels like we're on a country road, dim streetlights, cars rushing past.



Sunday in Spitalfields. 19 Princelet Street is one of the Huguenot buildings that was turned into a synagogue. Following the Jewish departure to North and East-er London, it fell into disrepair and was not sold until 1979. Rachel Lichtenstein wrote a wholly engaging book about it which focussed mainly on David Rodinsky who lived a hermit's life up in the attic until 1969, when he disappeared. 

I remember reading about a National Trust property which kept it, erm, real with no electric light, no tea or gift shop(pe), cobwebs on the
chandeliers. The traditional National Trusters hated it. The synagogue reminds me of that, it is literally stepping back in time. Flaking
ceiling, dust and damp, the ten commandments in Hebrew fading fast. If a Hasid from the 1930s wandered in now, he would notice no difference, probably feel heimlich (if a she, up to the Ladies' Gallery). In the basement are the remains of a Georgian kitchen (and a non-Georgian toilet), Because the building is now nominally a Museum of Immigration (although only open to the public 4 or 5 times a year), there are exhibitions, histories and information dotted around. You can fill in a card telling about your immigration experiences. I am a bit stuck on this since my ancestors probably came over on longboats although David claims both Italian (dad's dad's dad's dad called Giovanni) and Jewish on his mother's mother's (related to the Burton tailoring clan).



Around Brick lane, avoiding tourists, hipsters and Tikka touts, into the Up Market for lunch, into an electronic arts exhibition by my fellow Middlesex students where you can try versions of virtual reality, play a computer game that's at my level (making a virtual mocha
coffee) and create music by dancing. To be honest, I'm surprised they found a Mdx computer that works. I usually have to try 4 or 5 in the
library before I get one that will boot up.

Apart from Brick Lane, which just seems to be Camden these days, I do really love the backstreets of Spitalfields, the houses are beautiful, not a John Nash identikit stucco swerve of terraces, but individual Georgian houses, each with their own quirks, some opening little shops in their front rooms (we have a nosy round The Townhouse on Fournier Street). If I had a spare £1m £2m £4m, I'd love to live here, but I suppose there'd be the problem of noisy revellers walking from Brick Lane to Liverpool Street and there's always the chance you'd end up living next door to Tracy Emin.

We also go into the Hawksmoor church, but the pretty refurbishment has unfortunately stripped away the history. And that's it for another year.