There is an Open House scheme that has
been running since 1992 that is billed as London’s largest annual festival if
architecture and design with access to over 800 buildings across the weekend.
Some places have limited access (such as Number 10 Downing Street and New
Scotland Yard), but others are just on a first come basis.
We limited our selection to just a few
each day starting on Saturday with a visit to Burlington House where we managed
to get in to see the Linnean Society (where Darwin gave a talk about his theory
of evolution), the royal Academy of Art, and the Chemistry and Geology
Societies.
After that we went to see the Salter’sHall (one of the Livery Companies) that we had interest in as my uncle was part
of the company responsible for its design in 1976.
Then we saw the old Huguenot house where
the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings resides and to the Village Underground (several redundant Tube carriages relocated to the top of a
building and reused as office space).
We spent the evening near Spittlefields Market with a few drinks in a nearby pub and a tasty Indian meal at the small
and intimate Gunpowder restaurant.
Sunday saw us venture out towards
Blackfriars where were blown away by the Apothecaries Hall (the oldest of the
Livery Companies Halls surviving after it was rebuilt after the Great Fire). It
was also very interesting to talk to some of the Freemen including the current
Master and the Senior Warden.
After that we went to Lincoln Inn Fields
where we visited the Garden Courts Chambers based in the first building (and
only surviving of that period) to be built around the fields. It also boasted
on of only three Soanes elliptical staircases left in the country.
Our final Open House visit was to the
Freemason’s Hall – a grand and imposing edifice with an imposing sense of
importance that was only slightly disturbed by the presence of a fashion
exhibition and wildly clad fashionistas and blaring music (quite an amusing
contrast).
The culmination of our weekend was a
visit to Rules, the oldest restaurant in London and one where you don’t need to
be upper class to enter as it is rustic posh and comfortable (though we did see
Patricia Hodge on a nearby table). They specialise in good British food,
wholesome and hearty and the establishment has only had three owners on the
more than 200 years it has been open.
