Where is it? #30…

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and, importantly in this case, what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Where is it? #29…

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Bit of a harder one this week – these Escher-like patterns are found on a series of tiles located a wall in Waithman Street in the City of London (they are actually on the back of a building at 100 Bridge Street). According to the Tiles & Architectural Society Ceramics Society’s Gazetter, the 23 handmade stoneware tile panels were the 1992 creation of potter Rupert Spira, carried out at the behest of developers Rosehaugh Stanhope. While Spira apparently made 18,000 tiles for a garden in Paris, the tiles in Waithman Street were his only ever  British commission for tiles. Waithman Street, incidentally, is named for Robert Waithman, a draper and MP who was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1823.

Where is it? #28…

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Well done to all those who guessed this was at or near Canary Wharf (although, as with our previous Where is it? on Little Ben, there is a slight trick to this one, because it’s no longer there). This is indeed Pierre Vivant’s sculpture, Traffic Light Tree, which was formerly located on the Heron Quay roundabout at the junction of Heron Quays, Marsh Wall and Westferry Road just outside the Canary Wharf development on the Isle of Dogs. The eight metre tall structure contains 75 lights and was installed in 1998 in place of a London plane tree which was apparently ill from pollution. In 2005, the roundabout was voted the best-looking in the UK in a poll by Saga Motor Insurance. That, however, didn’t save the structure from being removed late last year due to the remodelling of the roundabout. Tower Hamlets Council, who own the sculpture, called for suggestions for new locations following its removal and reportedly received about 200 replies. As far as Exploring London is aware, it currently remains in storage and no new site has yet been revealed (although the council has reportedly said it will remain somewhere on the Isle of Dogs). We’re checking with Tower Hamlets for further information…

Where is it? #27…

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Well done to Janet Holmes – this is indeed a detail from Vauxhall Bridge. The picture shows Agriculture, one of many statues which adorn the bridge above the piers (this work is on the upstream side).

The statue is the work of Frederick W Pomeroy – Alfred Drury was also commissioned to create female bronze sculptures. It was installed in 1907, a year after the current bridge, a Grade II* listed steel and granite structure, was opened for traffic. Other sculptures by Pomeroy on the upstream side include Architecture, Engineering and Pottery while the downstream side is adorned with works by Drury - Science, Fine Arts, Local Government and Education.

The 1906 bridge replaced an earlier bridge built between 1809-16, which was originally named Regent Bridge and later renamed Vauxhall Bridge. It was the first iron bridge over the Thames as well as the first to carry trams and was built on the site of an earlier ferry crossing.

Where is it? #26…

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Well done to Jameson Tucker and Carol Stanley – it is indeed part of the facade of the Athenaeum Hotel on Piccadilly. This vertical garden – said to be the tallest in the UK when it was launched in May, 2009 – was created by French “architectural botanist” Patrick Blanc. It climbs 10 stories high and features more than 260 plant types covering some 260 square metres. The Athenaeum is located at 116 Piccadilly in Mayfair.

 

Where is it? #25

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Well done to Charlotte, Sean and Jameson – this is, of course, a picture of the Horniman Conservatory located at the rear of the Horniman Museum located in Forest Hill in London’s south-east.

While the eclectic museum has its own fascinating story (see our earlier post here), so too does the conservatory. It was built in 1894 at the family home of the museum’s founder – wealthy merchant, philanthropist and MP Frederick John Horniman – located at Coombe Cliff in Croydon.

The Grade II listed cast iron and glass building was relocated to its current site by English Heritage in the late 1980s. It can now be hired out for private functions including weddings.

Interestingly, the gardens surrounding the Horniman are currently undergoing a £2.3 million revamp and will be fully reopened later this year. We’ll have more on that at a later date…

Where is it? #24

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Must have been a tough one because we only had one taker – Sue Kendrick – who was correct in saying that this was the memorial to 17th century English composer Henry Purcell located in Christchurch Gardens on Victoria Street (yes, near Scotland Yard!). The rather florid memorial, sculpted by Glynn Williams, was unveiled by Princess Margaret on 22nd November, 1995, the tercentenary of Purcell’s death. Purcell, credited as one of the greatest ever English composers thanks to his unique take on Baroque music, is believed to have been born nearby in a premises on a lane located off Old Pye Street. The gardens in which they are located also houses the Suffragette Memorial and is a former burial ground.

Where is it? #23…

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Well done to Jameson Tucker and Sean Dennis, both of whom identified this correctly as the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens. The gallery, which features modern and contemporary art, was created in 1970 and is housed in a tea pavilion which dates from the 1930s. Every summer since the year 2000, the Serpentine – named for the body of water which, strictly speaking, just runs through Hyde Park (although the section in Kensington Gardens is also often referred to in the same way) – has had a different temporary pavilion, designed by a leading architect, set up outside.

The Serpentine Gallery is to be expanded this year with the creation of the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in The Magazine building in the gardens. Located only a short distance from the existing gallery, the new premises is being designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid and is named after Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler, whose foundation made the project possible through the largest single donation ever received by the Serpentine Gallery.

WHERE: Kensington Gardens; WHEN: Daily 10am to 6pm; COST: Free; WEBSITE: www.serpentinegallery.org.

Where is it? #22

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Congrats to Parktown – this image of people on the Tube is part of a 12 metre long frieze which runs around the base of Paul Day‘s monumental statue, The Meeting Place, which stands on the upper concourse in St Pancras International Station.

The five ton statue above – which itself stands under the station’s clock – features a 30 foot (nine metre) tall bronze couple embracing and was installed before the station’s reopening in 2007.

The frieze – the images of which depict scenes from the history of the Tube and railways –  was added in 2008. There was initially some controversy over some of the images in the frieze panels and one which depicted a grim reaper driving a train was replaced.

Where is it? #21

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Congrats to Jameson Tucker who correctly placed this in the gardens which now occupy the site of the former church of St John Zachary which lie, as Mike Paterson correctly pointed out, near the Goldsmiths’ Hall.

In fact, the gardens, located at the corner of Gresham and Noble Streets in the City (opposite the Goldsmith’s Hall), are also known as the Goldsmith’s Garden and were laid out following bomb damage during the Blitz (the church of St John Zachary had been destroyed in the Great Fire of London and not rebuilt).

The gardens were redesigned in 1957 by landscape architect Sir Peter Shepheard and have been added to and amended over the years since (including by landscape architect Anne Jennings in the mid-Nineties).

The iron arch, which was commissioned by the Blacksmith’s Company and put here in 1994, features the leopard’s head which is the hallmark of the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office, the premier hallmark in the UK (the term hallmark dates from the 15th century when London craftsmen were first required to bring their creations to the Goldsmiths’ Hall for verification and marking although the mark of the leopard’s head has been in use since the early 1300s).

For more on the Goldsmiths, see www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk.