Soho Square was built in the 1670s when it was called King Square after Charles II, and a statue of him can still be found there. It’s possibly the earliest square in London to be built around a purposely laid out enclosed garden. It used to be a very fashionable residential area.
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The memorial to Queen Victoria outside of Buckingham Palace was created by the sculptor Thomas Brock in 1901 and unveiled ten years later, though it wasn’t completed until 1924.
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I’ve had the Temple Church on my to visit list for a while now and I finally got around to it on this most recent trip to London. The London headquarters of the Knights Templar, from where Temple Church took its name, it was consecrated in 1185. The Templar’s churches were always built to a circular design in remembrance of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which certainly makes it a striking building.
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The Elite Building used to be a cinema but now houses many other businesses such as a nightclub and a variety of different shops. It was one of Nottingham’s “super-cinemas” designed by the London architectural firm of Adamson & Kinns and opened on 22 August 1921 with Mary Pickford in Pollyanna. The interior, which I’ve never seen myself and no doubt has changed considerably, included a restaurant, tea room and a ballroom, not to mention the cinema area having a concert organ and space for a full orchestra.
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On my last visit to London I’d put Holland Park on my to do list, weather permitting. Thankfully the sun was out that day and it was more than warm enough for me to eat breakfast there before heading towards my main goal of Kyoto Garden.
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Tate Britain is the oldest gallery in the Tate network of galleries (Tate Modern being one of the others), dating from 1897. It houses British art from 1500 to the present day including the largest collection of works by J M W Turner, for whom the Turner Prize was named.
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Liverpool Cathedral is the largest cathedral in Britain and fifth largest in the world, built between 1904 and 1978. It was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, perhaps most famous for designing the iconic red telephone box.
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Back in June I went to Liverpool for three nights. The main reason for my visit was to go to the Terracotta Warriors exhibition at the World Museum (more of which in a later post) but the first place I visited on arrival in the city was The Walker Art Gallery. One of the largest collections of artwork outside London it began in 1819 when the Liverpool Royal Institute bought 37 paintings from the collection of local philanthropist William Roscoe.
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Recently for my birthday we spent a week in Llandudno, Wales (and there will be lots of posts coming up about the many things we did whilst based there). On our first day of wandering around the town we came across the below sculpture of the Queen of Hearts from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. It was here that I learned that Alice Liddell – the real life inspiration for Carroll’s heroine – spent many summers with her family in Llandudno and her adventures there served as inspiration for many aspects of the books.
