Around London – Dickens at the Museum of London; looking at Leicester Square’s past; Mr Chinnery’s art; and, Wellcome’s Miracles & Charms…

• Dickens fever is well and truly upon us in the lead-up to the bicentenary of his birth in February and tomorrow the Museum of London opens its own unmissable exhibition, Dickens and London. Displays centre on the relationship between Dickens and the city and visitors will be able to follow in the great novelist’s footsteps as they visit some of the places which sparked his imagination as well as confront some of the great social issues of the 19th century – including childhood mortality, prostitution and poverty – and be taking on a tour of some of the age’s greatest innovations – everything from railways and steamboats to the Penny Post. Among the objects on display will be Dickens’ writing desk and chair, his bank ledger, excavated items from Jacob’s Island, a notorious slum which was located near Bermondsey, and manuscript pages describing an East End opium den which was featured in Dicken’s unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (this, along with William Powell Frith’s celebrated portrait of the author, are being lent by the Victoria and Albert Museum). The exhibition also features a specially commissioned film looking at London after dark in Dickens’ time and today. Costumes from the upcoming BBC One drama series, Great Expectations, will also be on display and there is also a specially commissioned window display by acclaimed creative director and set designer Simon Costin showing a wintery London in the mid-19th century. The museum is also offering a new iPhone and iPad graphic novel app, Dickens: Dark London, which will take users on a “journey through the darker side” of Dickens’ London. Opens on 9th December (tomorrow) and runs until 10th June, 2012. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk. For more on Dickens, see www.dickens2012.org. PICTURE: Dickens Dream by Robert William Buss (Courtesy Museum of London).

• New hoardings have gone up at Leicester Square celebrating the area’s history as work continues on an £18 million plan by Westminster City Council to revitalise the Leicester Square streetscape. The more than 160 square metres of hoardings feature 11 images spanning a period of 250 years (and selected from thousands of archive images of the square). Meanwhile in Trafalgar Square, the famous Norwegian Christmas Tree was lit in a ceremony last Thursday. The tree is an annual gift from the people of Oslo as thanks for British support during Norway’s years of occupation in World War II. It will be lit from noon until midnight every day until 6th January.

• And, briefly…..London’s Kew Gardens has been voted the top visitor attraction in Britain at the British Airways magazine travel award while the London Eye and Tate Modern came runner’s up…..Figures released to mark the 10th anniversary of free admission to England’s national museums show that visitor numbers to the museums have more than doubled over the past decade…..and, the first woman Tube driver, Hannah Dadds, reportedly died at the age of 70.

• On Now: The Flamboyant Mr. Chinnery: An English artist in India and China. This exhibition at Asia House in New Cavendish Street in the West End, focuses on the work of 19th century artist George Chinnery and features landscapes and portraits he painted while in China and India. Runs until 21st January. Admission is free. For more, see www.asiahouse.org.

• On Now: Miracles & Charms. The Wellcome Collection is hosting this exhibition which features two shows – Infinitas Gracias: Mexican miracle paintings, the first major exhibition of Mexican votive paintings outside of Mexico, and Charmed life: The solace of objects, an exhibition of unseen London amulets from Henry Wellcome’s collection. Runs until 26th February, 2012. For more, see www.wellcomecollection.org.

LondonLife – A last chance to experience Australia at the British Museum…

An Australian landscape constructed in the forecourt of the British Museum as part of the museum’s Australian Season. The landscape takes the intrepid on a journey across the vast Australian continent through the arid red desert of the red centre to the granite outcrops of the country’s west coast. The plants include iconic Australian flora such as the kangaroo paw, wattle, coast banksia, gums and ferns as well as a Wollemi pine. The landscape is the fourth created in the museum’s forecourt under a partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. But time is running out to see it – the garden will disappear on 16th October. Other events held at the museum as part of Australian Season have included an exhibition of Australian artworks and handcrafted baskets. Admission to the garden is free. For more, visit www.britishmuseum.org.

Around London – Open House London; Magna Carta on display; Fashion Week photography; and, Henry Moore returns to Greenwich…

• It’s Open House London weekend again and there’s scores of properties across the city which will be opening their doors to allow the curious a rare glimpse inside. The properties which will be open include architect’s homes and cutting edge housing as well as historic city landmarks, landscape projects and government buildings (including the Foreign Office & India Office – pictured). Other highlights of this year’s event – conducted under the theme of ‘The Liveable City’ –  include a night hike, a festival aimed at kids and families, talks, walks and cycle tours and competitions. Among the buildings flinging their doors wide are Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, livery company halls, the newly reopened St Pancras Renaissance Hotel and the Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City. Most properties can simply be visited on a first come, first in basis but some do require advance booking so check before you go. Open House London was first started 19 years ago and has since spread to many other cities around the world including New York, Jerusalem and Helsinki. For more information and to purchase an online guide, see www.londonopenhouse.org. PICTURE: (c) Nick Woodford.

• King Edward I’s Magna Carta will go on show at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City this weekend, presenting a rare opportunity to see this pivotal document. The City of London Corporations 1297 Magna Carta – regarded as one of the finest 13th century copies – will be on display in the Roman Amphitheatre during Open House London. The document features King Edward I’s seal and the original writ to the Sheriffs of London ordered that the charter be promulgated within the City. Admission over the weekend is free. For more see, www.guildhallartgallery.cityoflondon.gov.uk/gag/

 

• The Museum of London has launched an online collection of early Twentieth century fashion photographs to coincide with London Fashion Week. The more than 3,000 glass negative plates come from the collection of Bassano Limited, founded by Italian-born Alexander B. Bassano, and were taken between 1912 and 1945. They record a wide range of fashions as well as designers and retailers and can be accessed via the Museum’s Collections online web portal. Meanwhile, the museum is hosting it’s first ever professional catwalk show on Friday night. It features the works of Christopher Raeburn. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk.

• A Henry Moore sculpture, Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge, has been returned to Greenwich Park, more than four years after it was removed. The almost five metres tall sculpture, made by Moore in 1976, was originally placed in the park in 1979 but was removed for conservation in early 2007 before joining a Moore exhibition at Kew Gardens and then forming part of the Henry Moore display at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The bronze, on loan from The Henry Moore Foundation for two years, has now been returned to its original location between The Avenue and Croom’s Hill Gate.

Around London – Burial place of Bunyan, Defoe and Blake gets Grade I listing; Kew Gardens joins Streetview; and, Afghan treasures on show…

• The London burial place of writers John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe and artist and poet William Blake has been recognised as one of the city’s most significant historic landscapes with a Grade I listing on the national Register of Parks and Gardens. The news, which was announced last month, also sees 75 tombs located within Bunhill Fields Cemetery individually listed. Bunhill, located between City Road and Bunhill Row, is one of 106 registered cemeteries in London (and now one of only seven Grade I listed cemeteries). It was established in 1660 and, thanks to its not being associated with Anglican place of worship, is viewed as the “pre-eminent graveyard for Nonconformists in England” . About 123,000 burials took place in its four acres before it was closed in 1869. The oldest monument is that of theologian Theophilus Gale, who died in 1678. As well as the tombs of Buynan, Defoe and Blake, others listed on the register include that of Dame Mary Page, who died in 1728 and whose tomb inscription talks of her stoicism in the face of 240 gallons of water being taken out of her prior to her death, and Joseph Denison, a banker who died in 1806 and was one of England’s wealthiest commoners at the time. The listing was made by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport following advice from English Heritage. For more on Bunhill Fields, follow this link…

• Kew Gardens has joined Google Streetview, meaning it’s now possible to navigate your way around the gardens from the comfort of your own home. More than 26 kilometres of paths and the interiors of some of the garden’s glasshouses – including the Palm House and the Temperate House – can now be seen on Streetview which offers 360 degree views. Professor Stephen Hopper, director at Kew, says the new technology is “bound to encourage people to visit us and experience Kew for themselves”. Follow this link to see the gardens on Streetview.

• On Now: Afghanistan’s heritage is on display in a newly opened exhibition at the British Museum. Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World showcases more than 200 objects from the National Museum of Afghanistan as well as some items from the British Museum and includes sculptures, ivory inlays once attached to furniture, Roman glassware and Egyptian stone tableware, and inlaid gold ornaments once worn by the area’s “nomadic elite”. The objects were found between 1937 and 1978 and were preserved thanks to officials who kept them out of harm’s way during the Soviet and Taliban eras. The museum announced this week that they would be joined by carved ivory fragments that were stolen from Afghanistan’s national museum in the early 1990s and only recently presented to the British Museum by a benefactor with the idea that they will eventually be returned to Kabul. The exhibition runs until 3rd July. There is an admission charge. For more information, see www.britishmuseum.org.

Treasures of London – The ‘Old Lion’ Maidenhair Tree, Kew Gardens

Celebrated in the 2002 list of 50 “Great British Trees”, the Maidenhair Tree is one of a number at Kew Gardens known as an “Old Lion” – the name collectively given to the few remaining trees with a planting date of 1762.

The Gingko biloba or Maidenhair Tree was one of the first of its species to be planted in Britain and, along with the other ‘Old Lions’, was brought from the Twickenham estate of the Duke of Argyll in 1762.

It was planted in what was then a new five acre arboretum laid out by William Aiton, employed as the gardener at the first botanic garden at Kew (this was established in 1759 at the behest of Princess Augusta, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales – who had died in 1751 – and mother of King George III, and John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute).

Originally located against the wall of the ‘Great Stove’ glasshouse to provide it with protection, the tree has stood alone since 1861 when the glasshouse was demolished. It can now be found adjacent to the Wisteria arch close to the Secluded Garden Conservatory. Several further Gingko trees were planted in the garden in 1773 under the direction of botanist Sir Joseph Banks.

The other four ‘Old Lions’ at Kew are a False Acacia (Robinia pseudoacacia), an Oriental Plane (Platanus orientalis), a Caucasian Elm (Zelkova carpinifolia), and a Pagoda Tree (Sophora japonica).

WHERE: Kew Gardens (nearest tube station is Kew Gardens); WHEN: 9.30am to 4.15pm daily (check closing times for glasshouses); COST: £13.90 adults; £11.90 concessions; children under 17 free; WEBSITE: www.kew.org.