St Martin-in-the-Fields

On the last Saturday in November, we met on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields with flasks of mulled wine and boxes of mince pies to attend our first candle lit carol concert of the Christmas season. As the name suggests, the original medieval church stood in a large grassy area, but today the current 1720s James Gibbs design sits on the edge of the iconic Trafalgar Square where tourists loiter and take photographs, whatever the season.

We pushed and shoved underneath the tower gallery and up the stairs warm up and find our seats. From the oak gallery where we could see down into the nave and across into the chancel where the choir where warming up. The beautiful interior, noted for it's plasterwork and vaulted ceiling, was restored in 2008 by Eric Parry Architects. The new eastern window, by artist Shirazeh Houshiary and Pip Horne, is perhaps the most iconic permanent installation inside the newly refurbished church.

At first Gibbs's design was quite controversial, but it soon became the model for many other churches, in particular in the British colonies in North America. The interior is noted for the beautiful plasterwork decoration on the barrel-vaulted ceiling, the work of Giovanni Battista Bagutti and Chrysostom Wilkins. Outside, take a close look at the beautiful church tower - clearly inspired by the steeples of Christopher Wren. But the star is really the monumental portico. Its pediment is supported by eight massive Corinthian columns. On either side of the church are two more columns, creating the impression of a portico that wraps itself around the church.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields is the official parish church of Buckingham Palace and St James's Palace; George I was even churchwarden here. You can see several references to this royal connection in and on the church: to the left of the main altar is the royal pew, and the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom embellishes the ceiling.

There's usually little activity in crypts, but the crypt underneath St. Martin-the-Fields is quite different: there's a restaurant - the 'Café in the Crypt' - and a souvenir shop. The crypt, accessible from the north side, is also used to hold temporary exhibits of modern art. We enjoyed hot mulled wine and mince pies in the crypt during the carol service interval.

The beautiful choral music resonating through the voluminous church space put us in true Christmassy spirits. Candlelight threw shadows of the decorative splendour of this space making our visit especially unique to experience.

Raven Row

Not a room out of place in this composition of old and new parts. An 18th century silk mercer's house, a 1970s concrete framed office building are brought together with a new sunken gallery.  Whilst the 18th century interior ripples with mouldings, scalloped cornices and wood panelling, the extension is crisp, sharply detailed and unadorned. At Raven Row, white paint holds no prejudice and coats every surface, unifying old and new. Historical textures are re-rendered in a make up of plaster and white paint, occasionally interrupted by deeply blackened echoes of the past - the charred timber roof lights, or the interior of a used fireplace. The galleries are calm, spaces of a domestic scale, turning its back on the tawdry streets of Spitalfields just outside. 

Red House or 'the beautifullest place on earth'

After negotiating the complexities of purchasing 5 split ticket extensions from London Bridge station the Salads were on their way to the far reaches of zone 5, to Bexley Heath. The destination for our first Salady outing was Red House, the home of the founder of the Arts & Crafts movement, William Morris. Completed in 1860 by his architect and collaborator Phillip Webb the Red house was intended to be a haven for cutting edge artists, auters and their muses of their day in the midst of the green fields of Kent (perhaps it was Victorian equivalent of Hackney Wick?). A tad unfortunately, the red house now finds itself nestled in the middle of classic suburbia. Within the context of the 1930s semi-ds and bungalows that surround it, Red house is certainly (as coined by Edward Byrne Jones) 'the beautifullest place on earth'. But in an unassuming, quirky, charming kind of way. Red house is a collection of attractive, well formed parts - the corbelled brick work, round arches, pointy turret roofs and assymetrical elevation. There is no hierarchy to how these bits come together, and the plan in general is quite free flowing, but works to intended effect. It feels like a collaborative piece of domestic architecture, embodying Morris socialist philosophy about craftsmen collaborating, using local materials to produce beautiful things.
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/red-house/

Funky reverse ziggurat pier? 

Round windows, pointy roofs, love it.

Everyone loves a patterned ceiling