Sometimes while out and about I see something intriguing, take a photo and research it when I get home. Here are three of this week's serendipitous discoveries.
North:Gilpin's Bell
Where:Fore Street, Edmonton, N18 What I thought: Hmm, what's that lump of concrete in the middle of the pavement, ah some kind of sculpture, probably not concrete then, odd place for it outside a busy parade of shops, maybe it's something to do with the library, it has lines of writing on it, looks like a quote from something, also pictures of a man on a horse, why are people waving at him, ah it's shaped like a bell, no this is Angel Corner not Bell Corner, shame there's no plaque explaining what on earth it is, I'll look it up later.
What it is:Gilpin's Bell, a sculpture by Angela Godfrey. It's been here since 1996 so I'm just unobservant. Why is it here: It commemorates a poem by William Cowper called 'The Diverting History of John Gilpin', a comic ballad much beloved by 18th century audiences. It concerns a London draper, the aforementioned John Gilpin, who plans a minibreak with his wife to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary at the Bell, an inn in Edmonton. Unfortunately a runaway horse has other ideas and delivers him non-stop to Hertfordshire, then for an encore carries him all the way back to Cheapside. How the public must have cackled.
The Bell inn no longer stands but was originally right here, just between Carphone Warehouse and Cash Converters. A pub called The Gilpin's Bell lurks just down the street but that's not historic, that's a former motorcycle showroom which got converted into a Wetherspoons in the late 1990s. It's now independently owned with a cavernous Sky Sports vibe, not a poetic sensibility, and being half a mile from Tottenham's stadium tends to fill up with supporters either side of a match. In unsurprising news, because a lot of my online digging goes this way, it's just been agreed to replace it by an 18-storey tower block. It means the Gilpin name will be even less visible hereabouts, but at least he still rings a bell.
West:Worton Hall
Where:Worton Road, Isleworth, TW7 What I thought: Hang on what's that, we're in the middle of an otherwise very ordinary Hounslow suburb and yet that looks like a stately home, maybe Georgian, it's all stucco with chimneys and a short sweeping drive, I can see what it's called because there's a sign saying 'Welcome to Worton Hall' but that's all it says, no further clues, maybe it's a college or business centre, or could be something to do with the enormous sewage works behind, I'll look it up later.
What it is: It's a former country house built in 1783, set in 9 acres of lawns, orchards and paddocks. It lived a fairly unassuming life until it was purchased in 1913 by cinema pioneer George Berthold Samuelson, a workaholic keen to establish an English film industry in Hounslow rather than Hollywood. He paid for extensions to the building and invited Vesta Tilley, Britain's foremost male impersonator, to perform the opening ceremony. Most of the early filming at Worton Hall was done outdoors, utilising multiple backdrops to look like different locations, while the interior was used for dressing rooms, storage and overnight accommodation.
Selected Worton filmography
» A Study In Scarlet(1914): the very first Sherlock Holmes dramatisation
» Who Is The Man?(1920): in which John Gielgud made his film debut
» Things To Come(1936): the set for HG Wells' futuristic metropolis Everytown was built here
» The Third Man (1948): ...but just the start of shooting, it then moved to Shepperton
» The African Queen(1951): Humphrey Bogart won an Oscar for this classic adventure, shooting the rapids in a water tank in Isleworth
The hall passed through several owners after Samuelson, including Alexander Korda, Douglas Fairbanks Junior and the National Coal Board. The Coal Board turned it into their Central Research Establishment in 1952, after which it was earmarked for flats but in this case that never happened. A lot of the land subsequently became an industrial estate, and if you took your driving test in Isleworth between 1993 and 2018 then you'd have come here to Worton. The hall's latest lease of life is as a printmakers' workshop and artists' studio, which is at least creative again, and what an astonishing back history this building has.
South:British Home and Hospital for Incurables
Where:Crown Lane, Norwood, SW16 What I thought: That's an fine brick building, very institutional, probably Victorian, plus a much more modern chimney steaming white in this cold weather, but that must be old lettering because it says BRITISH HOME and HOSPITAL FOR INCVRABLES, nobody writes V for U any more, and then underneath entirely dependent on voluntary contributions which dates it, must be pre-Welfare State, I wonder what it is now, maybe a school, I'll look it up later.
What it is: It's still a care home, always has been, ever since the Princess of Wales opened it in 1894. The British Home and Hospital for Incurables was established as a safety net for middle class disabled people, i.e. those too poor to afford private care but too well off to be offered parish assistance. Terminal illness didn't get you a bed but being bedridden or generally incapacitated might, up to an initial limit of 77 patients. Pensioners with complex needs were additionally supported in their own homes. Later a chapel and an entertainment hall were added along with additional wings of accommodation, one of which was named after Queen Alexandra on her second visit.
These days the organisation's just known as British Home and offers services for people living with neuro-disability, say an accident, a stroke or some other debilitating illness. Walk a little further along the road and you can see how much it's grown, although still in attractive gabled blocks set around grassy cloisters. Because it didn't get snapped up by the NHS in 1948 it's still run as an independent charity, which I guess means it remains entirely dependent on voluntary contributions. And although it's perhaps not as intriguing as Gilpin's Bell or Worton Hall, it is doing a marvellous longstanding job.
