I tried to climb the spire of Wren's St Brides Church Fleet Street today and failed. I'd read in 'Lights Out for the Territory' by Iain Sinclair how he'd managed to find a small unlocked door that led up the spire, which is the second tallest after St Paul's. Today the door was locked. I tried to speak to the church warden through an intercom but he simply said, "It isn't safe". So I was denied one of the great views of the city and headed down into the crypt instead. 
I'm doing a vague mapping of the area using William Kent's 'Lost Treasures of London' (1946) as my guide. Kent's book is an inventory of World War II bomb damage to the city, a sad list of loss and destruction. It's my aim to see what else has fallen to the peacetime blitz of urban planning.
I'll be posting more here as I go along.
3 comments:
Interesting that you're using William Kent's book as a guide. I'm in the middle of a lazy, ongoing project to write about the life and works of William Kent who wrote a number of perceptive and readable books about London in the guise of 'guidebooks'. His grasp of the history and continuity of the city is remarkable.
Another resource you might want to consider is the "LCC Bomb Damage Maps 1939-1945" which was published last year by the London Topographical Society. The maps are fascinating in themselves, but in conjunction with Kent's book, show the extent and the gravity of the effects of the bombing.
Thanks for the comment Mike. Kent sounds like an interesting character, almost in the mould of Gordon S Maxwell. It's amazing that he manages to make 'Lost Treasures..' not totally despressing, finding hope in the stuff that survived. Look forward to reading your life of W Kent when you publish it.
I find it interesting that you like Paulo Conte. I've just discovered him (for myself, I mean. Obviously he'd already been discovered, presumably by himself in the first instance). Can you recommend any albums that are worth purchasing - I heard him on a sound track of the French film "5x2"
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