Yesterday's Open House tally was five.
Here's a quick summary.
• The busy one with 50 on the tour, so you couldn't hang around trying to get the ideal photo because ten other people were trying that too.
• The one where the usual Sunday morning clientele hadn't left yet so I ducked out after 30 seconds.
• The one where large tour groups kept trying to pass each other on entirely inappropriate stairs.
• The one that wasn't anywhere near as old as it looked.
• The one with the grinniest smiliest tour guide ever.
• The one with a free Golden Jubilee badge.
• The two with lovely volunteers doing important things.
The fiefdom of Dulwich College covers an extraordinarily large portion of SE21, the school's turrety silhouette rising in the distance behind acres of sport. But for Open House they unlocked the gates and welcomed allcomers on a lengthy tour, primarily to show off three buildings... which likely wasn't quite what visitors had been expecting.
The spectacular main building was built in the 1860s to replace Edward Alleyn's much older college in Dulwich Village. It was designed by Charles Barry Junior whose father was responsible for the Houses of Parliament, hence the familiar sequence of tower, lantern and clock tower at roof level. There's a lot of terracotta and a lot of fussy detail, all utterly resplendent on a bright sunny morning. Inside is just as imposing with a grand stone staircase climbing to the Great Hall on the first floor, its roof beams carved with wyverns and generations of Oxbridge admissions commemorated in gold leaf on the walls. Pupils get to soak up its Gothic ambience during assemblies, whereas they probably haven't seen Edward Alleyn's original fireplace in the staff library, nor the two murals above which are allegedly from Queen Elizabeth I's royal barge. This way please...
A large fee-paying school can always use a third science block, especially if the original was destroyed by a direct hit from a V1 in 1944. The end result is The Laboratory, designed ten years ago by the late Nicholas Grimshaw, a stack of labs faced in glass and terracotta to reflect and echo Barry's original alongside. What's extraordinary is the main circulation space which has a sailing boat in the middle of it, this the actual James Caird from Ernest Shackleton's heroic polarrescue mission to Elephant Island in 1916. Against all the odds everyone survived, the boat eventually ending up at Shackleton's alma mater via yet another convoluted story... which the college tells on free tours every Friday, should you fancy a look.
At this point in the tour the guide switched from a lilac-jacketed ex-schoolmaster to a old boy who's now an architect. His practice had been given the job of rebuilding the Lower School Library so we all trooped down there, past various teaching blocks that might have graced a more ordinary comprehensive. He enthused about the Passivhaus rating and thermally enhanced facades, then led us up the spiral staircase to see the IT labs, and several of those present who'd been anticipating a nosey historical jolly probably questioned how they'd ended up looking at glulam timbers in a year-old corridor. But how fascinating to have seen behind the scenes at a top public school, especially when it might be where the next Prime Minister learned his debating skills.
Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian spiritual scientist who founded a quasi-Christian movement calld Anthroposophy in the early years of the 20th century. Architecturally speaking he was very much against the right angle, hence his Goetheanum HQ in Switzerland was all curves and swooshes with not a square or rectangle in sight. He died in 1925, the same year his followers started work on a similarly-themed homebase just north of Baker Street, now recognised as London's only truly Expressionist building. You get some idea of the rationale from outside - the porthole glass and buxom wooden doorway - but only get the full force from within, most notably the adorably sinuous stairwell.
This climbs four storeys from the foyer to the eurythmy worshop on the top floor, its twisted cream walls drawing you in like entering some kind of organic fairy turret. On the first bend is a triangularish water feature incorporating glassware on damp pebbles, and further up are dangly globe lights to illuminate every asymmetric turn. Handrails weren't especially a feature back then but there is a rickety lift for the unsteady, complete with slamming trellis gates. I was a tad disappointed to discover that the lowest flight was a 1990s extension, but the institute's architects have made several sympathetic additions over the years and successfully maintained the shapely aesthetic at all times.
The most recent extra is a ground floor cafe alongside the bookshop, which I wasn't surprised to hear is the only bookshop in London with the full range of Steiner's 60-odd books. In 2022 management also repurposed their 200-seater hall to become the Marylebone Theatre, already an acclaimed venue with a slew of worthy modern productions. But if you just want to see the stairwell, nothing's stopping you nipping in for a coffee and a bookshop mooch, and perhaps asking nicely if someone'll let you climb past the first voluptuous bend.
There's been a tin tabernacle beside Bowes Park station since the 1890s but not this one. The building passed from a church hall to a Temperance Society then in 1977 to the North London Samaritans, who didn't really have the money to maintain it. In 2011 they planned a replacement building funded by three new flats but locals wouldn't have it so instead they pivoted to rebuilding the original corrugated structure in modern materials and using it as offices and a community hall. A lottery grant helped fund the transformation, which unlike the tempestuous bureaucratic overture was all completed in eight months flat. The end result is a micro-triumph and has been transforming lives since 2018.
The interior is a gabled space with plain walls and arched windows, and is regularly booked out for yoga, pilates and children's parties. The bookings manager reckoned there isn't a youngster locally who hasn't come to a celebratory do at Shaftesbury Hall. Out the back, behind the kitchen and the loos, is a private office for Samaritans staff with three booths for the important work of answering calls, which these days could come from anywhere across the country not just the North London region. The bookings manager has a separate office outside, ensuring confidentiality, in the corner of a fast-maturing garden. For obtuse reasons the nameplate of a Pendolino named Chad Varah is on the wall - he the founder of the Samaritans and the train still operational but no longer under the Virgin brand.
When Alexandra Palace opened in 1873 so did a convenient station alongside, just round the back, as the terminus of a short spur curling off from Highgate through Muswell Hill. The line was only intermittently popular despite serving residential heights, and closed an incredible five times before closing for good in 1954. But the yellowbrickstation building at Ally Pally survived, also the seriously broad staircase that would once have funnelled visitors up towards what are now firmly locked gates on the North Terrace. The building briefly became a British Rail research laboratory before falling into disrepair, then in the mid-1980s was offered to a group of local volunteers called Community Use For the Old Station (or CUFOS for short) who hire it out as a much needed local space.
Children's parties are popular, as evidenced by the pink flamingo and Spiderman helium balloons bobbing at the ceiling, also therapeutic art, phonics classes and kickboxing. London Metropolitan Brass like to rehearse in the L-shaped ticket hall because it's far enough away from local housing that they can play at loud volume before any complaints come in, whereas the Men's Circle tend to hide away in the former waiting room alongside. It's no hi-tech hub but plainly well used and much loved, and all courtesy of the lovely volunteers who keep the whole place ticking over. So much good work is done in small venues around the capital and one of the joys of Open House is the ability to admire, say thankyou and wonder if perhaps you ought to be volunteering more yourself.
This year's Open House album on Flickr is now up to 74 photos.
Anyone else go anywhere interesting for Open House over the weekend?
Yesterday's Open House tally was eight.
Here's a quick summary.
• The one where the organiser glared at me for walking through the door at 10am because she wasn't ready yet.
• The one which eventually degenerated into a local nostalgia reminiscence nodding session.
• The one where there was nobody on the front desk and I spent ten minutes wondering if I was trespassing around the building.
• The one with free tea and cake afterwards, but the tour stopped elsewhere so nobody went.
• The one where I scarpered before the vicar launched into a long lecture.
• The one where the bloke on the front desk had done his own information sheet but spelt 'Cubitt' wrong in two different ways.
• The one with the bottled aphrodisiacs and sponges.
• The one that smelled of relentless butchery.
Let's do four of those in more detail (not necessarily in the above order).
Sometimes when checking through the Open House building list you stop and think "really? ooh!" In this case the trigger was the possibility of entering the private world of Smithfield meat market, not just walking between the impressive painted ironwork of Grand Avenue. "There will be a tour route setup up through the East side of the building that visitors can walk through on their own", it said, with the choice of peeking in on Friday or Saturday from 4pm, after hours. Nobody turned up to give a spiel or dish out information, we just pushed through the flapping plastic strips and entered the private world of the fleshmongers.
Smithfield's East and West Market Halls were designed by Sir Horace Jones, opened in 1868 and are of course Grade II* listed. Each building is about 90m long with a central passageway called Buyers Walk, and shielded beneath a high ribbed ceiling supported on iron columns. To either side are moppable bays and refrigerated counters, each belonging to a long-established family business specialising in the wholesale meat trade: Absalom & Tribe, Warman & Gutteridge, Gee & Webb, Reeve & Co, take your pick.
It certainly reeks of meat, like a particularly potent high street butchers, even on a non-trading day after everything's been scrubbed down. Glass fronted counters lie empty, heavy trolleys sit idle and rolls of plastic wrap await Monday's custom. The larger units have little kiosks where the cashier sits (We Do Not Take Amex), some emblazoned with seriously retro posters for Scotch Lamb, Danish Crown and Cole Valley Bacon. I spotted a discarded receipt for £44 of beef on a bloodstained plastic tray, also a nameless chunk of meat inert on the concrete floor.
But all this is merely front of house. Each of the 22 units has a longer bay behind leading to a service corridor along the side of the building for easy access. Just one of these had its shutter up, clearly revealing a strip-lit room with carcasses hanging from individual steel hooks attached to some kind of pulley system on the ceiling. I think the meat was pork, also the bagged haunch ready-wrapped on the table, but I'm not an expert on identifying skinned animals fresh from the back of a lorry.
To be fair anyone can buy meat, poultry and provisions at Smithfield, it's open to the public by Charter, not just for Open House. Trading starts at 2am and they recommend arriving before 7am, partly because the whole range of stalls is open and partly because that's when the Congestion Charge kicks in. But the market's days are numbered after the City of London announced its intention to close the halls by 2028, no longer with any proposed replacement out at Dagenham. The traders will still sell game and mutton elsewhere and the buildings will be transformed into a "cultural and commercial hub" of some kind, yet to be determined, to complement the adjacent London Museum. They've suggested a focus on food so it could be Spitalfields on steroids, or worse, but I'm glad I saw it when it was a down-to-earth flogger of meat, no airs, no graces. [10 photos]
Students at Guy's Hospital (officially King's College London GKT School of Medical Education) have access to a splendid little repository of bones and belljars tucked away round the back of the Memorial Gardens. It was partitioned from the main library in 2007 but is rammed with so many wooden cases that it looks every inch an Edwardian original. I was expecting human body parts for medical teaching but the specimens are animals of all kinds, from armadillos to bottled Spanish Fly beetles and from penguins to an extinct marsupial wolf. Pharmaceuticals also get a look-in, notably a very early batch of insulin, plus a rare French 3D plaster model labelled Do Not Touch The Snail.
It's all a bit higgledy, so case 45 with the boa constrictor isn't necessarily anywhere near case 46 with the midwife toad. But the curator knows where everything is, indeed I was desperately impressed when she identified the species of the baby elephant skeleton purely from the shape of the ridges on its teeth. She also said the university's lucky to have a collection of this size because it'd be nigh impossible to assemble it today, especially after the end of an informal arrangement they once had with London Zoo. Be sure to sign the Visitors Book on the way out.
These two sumptuous mansions bookend Belgravia Square, Romania at number 1 and Argentina across the road at number 49. One's an ambassadorial residence and the other a cultural institute, so don't bring your visa request to either.
Argentina's is the finer building, a detached villa entered via an octagonal hall beneath a flapping blue and white flag. Downstairs is used for entertaining with a cream-panelled dining room and two loungier spaces, all fully chandeliered, complete with a blazing fire and a fully-stocked spirits collection. It was easy to imagine diplomatic shenanigans on the comfy chairs, also just a bit special to be swanning around freely like you were an important guest.
Over in Romania the focus was art, not negotiation, with two contemporary exhibitions gracing the walls and a piano recital ready to begin in the salon upstairs. The building looked more interesting though, sorry, especially the gorgeous swirling staircase climbing three duck-egg-blue storeys beneath an elliptical skylight. As with many other properties hereabouts it was originally a private residence, the Romanians arriving in 1936 and the ambassador moving out to Kensington in 2005. But at least here you could easily tell which country was being celebrated, whereas the Argentine residence seemingly had more nods to London and classical Europe than to the land of beef and tango.
I'll tell you about the other four venues later, also those I hope to visit today. Meanwhile this year's Open House album on Flickr is now up to 58 photos, and to help you out I've put the newest at the start.
Before this weekend's final Open House visits, two I sneaked to yesterday.
Open House:HTA Design (Hackney Wick) The One To Blame
Someone has to design the buildings and public realm we live in and for a lot of modern projects that's HTA Design, a 12 year-old architectural practice. Eden Dock at Canary Wharf is one of theirs, also Kidbrooke Park and Cane Hill, not to mention masterplanning Greenford Quay and Meridian Water. Three years ago they moved into new premises at 75 Wallis Road in at Hackney Wick, an iconic location because the main building was once a factory for making Parkesine, the world's first manufactured plastic. Brick and timber are more their thing these days, you'll be pleased to hear.
Last night they opened up their doors for Open House, technically after hours although some employees were still at their workstations polishing projects or finishing their online shopping. We did a circuit through their four knocked-through sheds, admiring the original brickwork and plentiful natural daylight through original windows. We climbed to the mezzanine, passed umpteen mini models and landscapes in progress. We observed the 3D printers, which one employee appeared to have used to make small dinosaurs in contravention of the clear desk policy, and descended to the sustainably well-used cycle store. And we ended in the capacious canteen where next week's free-to-employees vegetarian-focused menu kicks off with Leek & Potato Soup and Lemon & Herb Salmon.
It's always good to be reminded what a modern workplace looks like, also reassuring that a company which designs buildings has done such a good job of their own. I thought I'd best keep quiet about what I thought of Elephant Park, though.
It's always suspicious when an Open House venue is listed every day of the week as well as the adjacent weekends, suggesting the building's always open to the public and they're merely trying to increase visitor numbers. So it is here at Hounslow House, the six year-old council office and library complex, where the target is merely a display of 28 photographs on the first floor by the librarian's desk.
They're of seven locations around the borough, half old photos from 60-odd years ago, half much more recent. Think Chiswick Bus Works/Chiswick Park Campus, also Isleworth's United Biscuits Factory/Sky TV HQ. Feltham must be a tad dull because the only place of interest they could find was the shopping centre. And it's all worth a look, especially if you're local, but it's in situ for a month then on tour around the borough for a month, also easily reproducible as a pdf, so hardly worthy of its Open House listing. I'm hoping for better today.
The only equinoctial square in London, indeed the only street called Equinox Something, is Equinox Square in Poplar. It's quite recent, quite bland and tells us a lot about the direction of inner London housing.
A quick history of the site:Originally bounded by Charles Street and Cordelia Street (part of a dense grid of Victorian terraced houses). During WW2, half-destroyed by bomb damage. After WW2, Charles Street was renamed Scurr Street (after a former Mayor of Poplar and MP for Mile End). In the 1950s, just north of the Lansbury neighbourhood (much celebrated at the Festival of Britain). In the 1960s, the remaining houses were levelled and replaced by a sparse horseshoe of two-storey flats. In 2012, demolished by Poplar Harca to be replaced by a new highrise development called Equinox.
Tell us about Equinox: A Bellway Homes project. 273 apartments split across four buildings – Eclipse, Pisces, Jupiter and Kepler. The tallest block has 13 storeys. Includes a row of a dozen townhouses. A mixed tenure of market value, shared ownership and social rented flats. Prices ranged from £233,950 to £352,950. Described on the hoardings as A New Dawn In London Living. Everyone got an open plan kitchen with a Zanussi Stainless steel electric oven. And then the marketing suite packed up and left.
12 years later the development is firmly embedded in the local urbanscape. Folk stare in fron the bus stop opposite or wander through the alleyway beside the dental practice. Someone's dumped a freezer, bed and chest of drawers on the pavement beneath the car park enforcement sign. Chairs and washing are spread across umpteen glass-fronted balconies. A tabby cat sits on the front windowsill at number 6 above the scrap of front garden. You'll look in vain for a streetsign because the Equinox name lives on only above the communal keypads. The paltry fenced-off playground must have ticked sufficient boxes in the initial planning application. The only item of architectural interest, admittedly a cracker, is a ribbed concrete wall left over from the postwar flats, originally part of the staircase to the upper walkway.
Many residents of Equinox Square currently have an excellent view of Canary Wharf across the development site that used to mark the northern fringe of Chrisp Street Market. That'll be disappearing soon as yet more flats go up, the cycle of densification and upthrust continuing, maybe even another micro-square around some central courtyard.
And this is why Tower Hamlets has far more Squares than any other London borough, almost 50 more than second-placed Westminster.
Harr
2
Barn
20
Enf
8
Hari
6
WFor
7
Redb
10
Hav
6
Hill
11
Eal
9
Bren
5
Cam
53
Isl
50
Hack
35
B&D
11
Hou
12
H&F
22
K&C
45
West
66
City
23
Tow
114
New
32
Rich
11
Wan
32
Lam
25
Sou
61
Lew
12
Grn
26
Bex
9
King
14
Sut
4
Mer
7
Cro
7
Bro
15
It's all down to modern private developments. Over 75% of Tower Hamlets' Squares are private streets "not maintainable at public expense", whereas in Westminster it's 40% and in old-school Kensington & Chelsea more like 20%. A lot of new estates include segmented spaces or gated courtyards with road access only for residents, and many of these get called Squares despite not traditionally being such. The fastest-growing borough in the country continues to expand, and Squares are a fine way to pack them in.
Today's question is "Which tube line interchanges with the most Overground lines?"
And before we answer that the easy way, let's revisit one reason why Overground line names were so necessary.
This is part of the car line diagram displayed in Victoria line trains.
It shows that the Victoria line interchanges with the Overground on four occasions between Walthamstow Central and Highbury & Islington, but all four interchanges are identically labelled. It's a lot less useful than it could be, but this is because it's an old diagram and the lines hadn't been given names when it was printed.
TfL had hoped to have new car line diagrams ready to display on the tube last year when the new lines launched but funds were insufficient so they had to wait. In good news they may be months late but the new diagrams have started to appear, indeed on some lines the changeover is complete.
Here's the new car line diagram for the Victoria line, and as you can see it's much clearer.
At Walthamstow Central the interchange is with the Weaver line.
At Blackhorse Road the interchange is with the Suffragette line.
At Seven Sisters the interchange is with the Weaver line.
At Highbury and Islington the interchange is with the Mildmay and Windrush lines.
If I hadn't chopped the map there, you'd have seen an additional interchange at Euston with the Lioness line.
That's five Overground line interchanges altogether.
So can the Victoria line be beaten?
It would help if all the new car line diagrams were available to peruse, and the good news is they are. An FoI request last month revealed the lot, indeed several requests have, so you can now download all the diagrams for all the lines in a convenient zip file, simply by clicking here.
You'll see they're a lovely collection of pristine pdfs.
You'll see they're dated January 2025, but they've taken their time to be rolled out.
You'll see that the Zone strip along the bottom is now grey rather than blue, this because TfL have decided zones don't need to be quite so in-your-face as they used to be.
You'll also find that these haven't found their way onto all tube trains yet, indeed the Victoria line is well behind the curve.
Here's the inner London end of the Metropolitan line.
Three Overground lines get a mention, the Mildmay line, Lioness line and Weaver line.
Two of these aren't proper interchanges, they involve exiting the station and walking down the road.
The Mildmay line is a 450m walk from Finchley Road to Finchley Road & Frognal.
And the Lioness line is 340m walk from Euston Square to Euston.
I'm counting all of these as interchanges, so the Metropolitan line ends up with three.
You can do the same thing with all the tube lines.
And then you get this table.
And we discover this...
• Yes, the Victoria line interchanges with the most Overground lines, 5 of them
• Next come the District, Hammersmith & City and Northern lines with 4 each
• The Central, Jubilee and Metropolitan lines interchange with 3 Overground lines
• The Bakerloo, Circle and Piccadilly lines interchange with only 2 lines
• The Waterloo & City is the only tube line not to interchange with the Overground
• The Piccadilly line's only Overground interchanges involve a 600m walk at street level, none actually share the same station (they're Manor House ↔ Harringay Green Lanes and Caledonian Road ↔ Caledonian Road and Barnsbury).
• 10 Bakerloo line stations are also Overground stations (shadowing the Lioness line)
• 8 District line stations are also Overground stations (mostly on the Mildmay line)
• The Mildmay line interchanges with the most tube lines - 8 in total
• The Lioness line is second, interchanging with 7 tube lines
• The Liberty line only interchanges with 1 tube line (the District out at Upminster)
And if we overanalyse all this Overground interchange stuff we get...
» The Elizabeth line interchanges with every Overground line except the Lioness line (well done Liz)
» The DLR interchanges with only two Overground lines (at Shadwell and Stratford)
» You'd expect Thameslink to interchange with more than two Overground lines but it doesn't (only at West Hampstead and Norwood Junction)
» The trams only interchange with the Overground at West Croydon
» There are only two Overground/River interchanges (at Imperial Wharf and Barking Riverside)
» The cablecar is bloody useless
» There are only six places where the Superloop stops at an Overground station (Silver Street SL1, Walthamstow Central SL1/SL2, Barking SL2, West Croydon SL6/SL7, Shepherd's Bush SL8, Kenton SL10), this because the Superloop is generally further out than the Overground
» The Liberty line is the only Overground line not to interchange with the Superloop (it will next year)
tl:dr summary
• The Victoria line interchanges with the most Overground lines
• The Mildmay line is the interchangiest Overground line
Other websites do rail newsroundups on Fridays but I'm going to do a clickbait roundup instead.
Don't click during the week because on Fridays I'll reveal what they kept hidden!
Short version
» In 1986 an American pop artist designed a famous advert for a global vodka brand.
» The global vodka brand has launched a limited edition bottle referencing his advert.
» The artist's name was Keith Haring.
» Hence the two-day bolxfest at (C)haring Cross.
You wouldn't know anything was amiss down on the platforms or lower passageways. No renaming has taken place because TfL don't dare risk that any more after Burberry Street got so much negative publicity. Only at the foot of the escalator would you start to notice that all the digital adverts had been taken over by a singular brand of vodka. And only at the top in the ticket hall might you start to put all the pieces together.
They've slapped a lot of extra roundels everywhere - on the walls and on the floors - each with the C of CHARING replaced by one of Keith Haring's dancing people. Nobody can complain about accessibility if you amend roundels that weren't originally there. The roundels also include a Haring-designed bottle of vodka, because if you're going to spend hundreds of thousands on a branding activation you need to get the product in somewhere. It's all quite in-your-face, but unless you were familiar with the artist (or had read the press release) the rationale could have remained a total mystery.
In the ticket hall, inside the gateline, a number of branded staff stood beside branded adverts behind a branded logo. On the wall was a pad of reproduction posters from the original 1986 campaign for people to tear off and take away, which on the face of it was a generous art giveaway but more truthfully just an advert for some vodka. The attendant staff made no attempt to lure commuters over, not while I was passing, nor was the display suitably-angled either for those going out or coming in. I did see one lady wandering off with a scrolled-up sheet later but I bet most of those using the station missed the opportunity.
Part 2 of the takeover is outside the gateline in an empty retail unit. This has been transformed into a mini-art gallery with two of Haring's original vodka artworks in pride of place. They've not been on show in London before so this is arguably the good bit. Inevitably between the two pictures was a branded vodka bottle in a glass case purporting to be a third work of art, but looking instead like a large sample bottle after a really long wee. Alas the barrier outside anticipating queues proved unnecessary, even during the morning rush hour, and I was vastly outnumbered by branded staff keen to ask me what I thought. "It's an advert," I said, and they just grinned.
<bolx>The Artist-Edition bottle’s design pulses with energy: a debossed rhythm of dancing figures brought to life in his signature blaze of reds and yellows, cut sharply against Absolut’s distinctive blue. Signed off with Haring’s unmistakable signature on the shrink sleeve, the result is a piece of 3D kinetic art that transforms the original painting into something you can hold, admire and toast with.</bolx>
A lot of creative people had clearly expended a lot of effort to devise, construct and staff the two-day activation pop-up, which won't have come cheap. Arguably they tried too hard and made too little impact on those passing through the station, merely to promote a special edition bottle that's currently only available at duty-free shops. But if the whole point was to garnerpublicity across the media they clearly succeeded, because nothing sounds so interesting as a tube station pop-up you never saw, thereby avoiding the underwhelm of seeing it in person.
In 1673 the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London opened a garden for their apprentices on the banks of the Thames. It's still there, bar the riverside stripe swept away for the Chelsea Embankment, and is now home to over 4500 medicinal, edible and otherwise useful plants. You can visit London's oldest botanic garden any day except Saturday, but the joy of this special after-hours Open House was getting in for free. In this case it probably is worth £13.50, so that was a real bonus.
The four acre walled garden is crammed with specimens, and has a microclimate that helps avoid nasty frosts. Close to the entrance is a cluster of Edwardian greenhouses with a connecting tropical corridor along the back, also a display of delphiniums doing far better than mine. The whole place is segmented by function or origin, so plants that might make you better are in the northern corner and those from the mid-Atlantic islands fill a border along the eastern wall. Some are properly poisonous and labelled with a skull and crossbones, others still brim with late summer colour. In no other garden have I seen a sign saying Please do not climb on our Grade 2 Listed Rockery.
This is a great time of year to stare at fruit, the gleaming orb-like pomegranates currently a particular treat. Over in the edible beds the bountiful selection of vegetables could easily grace the winners table at a village produce show, and that's without including the mighty gourds hanging from the cucumber pergola. Meanwhile the Dicotyledon Order Beds are now past their best, each laid out according to Bentham and Hooker's Victorian taxonomy, and the gingko hasn't quite turned yet. Some of the tropical trees are truly magnificent, the girthy Chilean palm in particular, while a dozen parakeets have already made the central yew their own.
The garden proved a marvellous place to potter round, densely packed with botanical interest and all individually labelled in case you want to have a go at home. If you fancy a look they're doing a second after hours Open House freebie on Friday, when the weather should be a lot better, but if you're of a horticultural bent the Chelsea Physic Garden's worth considering any time.
There are still eight weeks to Remembrance Sunday so you probably aren't thinking about poppies right now. But they don't just magically appear at the end of October, they're manufactured all year round and where that happens is The Poppy Factory on the Petersham Road below Richmond Hill. Just look for the poppy-themed pedestrian crossing.
There been a poppy factory in Richmond since 1926, the annual sale having proved so popular that much larger premises were needed. The site of a former brewery was taken over and an assembly line established, a big improvement on the previous shirt collar factory down the Old Kent Road. All the workers were disabled armed forces veterans, greatly appreciative of gainful employment, a focus which continues to this day while fulfilling the annual contract for the Royal British Legion.
The current Art Deco factory building was completed in 1933, and joined up more recently to a visitor centre and cafe space out front. Group visits are encouraged and occasional open days held, but for Open House anyone could walk in off the street (Tuesday only) and get deeper into the factory than anyone normally gets. [3d tour]
Just inside the door is a reception desk and gift shop with far nicer mementoes than you might find elsewhere. Think mugs, jugs and garden ornaments, not plastic tags that dangle off the zip on your anorak. There's also a presentation area with seats for 30-odd, although the 'video' appeared to be a succession of informative slides so I didn't sit down and watch all the way through.
Then the wreaths start. The Richmond factory majors in wreath-making, assembling over 75,000 a year, including those for military organisations and the wreaths the Royal family lay at the Cenotaph each year. Several examples cover the walls, including a Caribbean version, a Devonshire Regiment roundel and the snazzy half-laurel version laid by the former Queen. Normally you have to watch them being made on a little tablet underneath, but yesterday we were allowed through in groups of five to see the real thing.
It's a proper factory floor with desks, workstations, desktop mascots and a fridge where employees keep their different milks. A lot of what's going on involves putting things in boxes, so for example one gent was busy counting wooden Remembrance crosses and packing the requisite number away. A noisy machine out back punches out polyester and paper petals, also the individual 6 million petals that fall from the ceiling of the Royal Albert Hall on Remembrance Eve. But the majority activity is the creation of wreaths by assembling large flowers and inserting them into a holey black ring. This happens at multiple desks, with the two most senior staff charged with assembling the royal versions. Finished wreaths are packed into pizza-style boxes then labelled according to destination, which yesterday included the French and Canadian embassies.
Upstairs is the warehouse, now smaller than it used to be after Tesco donated spare shelving which has allowed the administrative area to expand into the excess. The Poppy Factory year runs from October to October, for hopefully obvious reasons, so at present they're nearing the end of production for 2024/25. The most surprising corner (and the only part of the factory we were permitted to photograph) is a fake Tomb of The Unknown Soldier placed vertically on a lobby wall. Staff maintain a perfect rim of red poppies at all times so that if the real thing at Westminster Abbey is ever damaged, Richmond's spare can immediately be switched into place.
What they don't make here are the small red poppies people pin to their lapels or outer clothing. It's just not practical to have a veteran crew assembling 30 million of these per year, so instead they're put together in an automated factory in Aylesford in Kent. Visitors to the Poppy Factory are still invited to have a go for themselves, first selecting components from boxes labelled Petals, Stalks, Leaves and Buttons. A separate table has all the ingredients for a larger long-stem poppy, where I also had a go. You slot the green cup onto the wire, then add a flat and a crinkly set of petals (once you've found the right hole in the middle), then use a black button to fasten the bloom. I was well chuffed that my attempt passed muster and was placed in the box in the corner, so could end up on any village green anywhere in England later this year.
If you come on a normal tour you get full access to the visitor centre but can only look onto the factory floor from behind a barrier. The first half hour is usually a presentation, then a chance to wander the walls and see some exhibits related to the history of the place, also the aforementioned stab at poppy-making. But it's not an extensive space - the real job takes precedence - so I imagine the cafe fills a substantial share of the remaining hour. The admission price is hefty, which is fair enough given it's a donation to a very worthy cause. And I know it's not really in the spirit of things but thanks to Open House I won't need to buy a poppy this year...
Oh for goodness sake what now, Humble Crumble? I saw this window in Covent Garden and they just sell fruit crumble in little pots and apparently this is what people want these days. At £7.15 a shot! Who are these fools?
I say £7.15 but that's the basic cost, they want you to boost the cost with extras. You start by choosing apple or rhubarb, although the rhubarb sold out early yesterday, that's your basic. Then if you want custard it's 50p extra, or indeed whipped cream and/or blowtorched marshmallow and/or chocolate sauce. Honestly, the extra people'll pay if you promise to blowtorch their food.
They serve it in a tub on a tray to prevent spillage, which is hardly eco-friendly but very important presentation wise, because what most purchasers intend to do with their food is pose with it for social media, perhaps grinning inanely before uploading to TikTok. Food should be filling rather than something to show off to your friends, but that's Gen Z aspirational priorities for you.
You pay out front at the cheapest set-up possible - two tablets beside two contactless terminals - because why hire staff when the customer will do all the work themselves? The company must recognise the drawbacks because the only other things stuck to the wall are two bottles of hand sanitiser, all the better to reassure foreign customers who saw the 'viral sensation' online and flew in to swap hard currency for scant reward.
Apple crumble's one of the easiest desserts to make - even I can do it! - not to mention cheap because sugar, flour and butter substitute aren't exactly expensive. You just knock it up in a dark kitchen somewhere, dole it out at prices high enough to pay for city centre rents and laugh all the way to the bank. The staff are called Crumble Artists, for heaven's sake.
Humble Crumble it may be, but Mugs Tubs would be more appropriate.
Oh for goodness sake what's your problem with Humble Crumble? Everyone loves fruit crumble, it's one of the great British pudding staples, so why not serve it as fast food rather than dull ice cream or stodgy donuts?
£7.15's nothing in the grand scheme of things these days, you'd pay more for a teensy slice of cheesecake in a typical restaurant, plus here you get to personalise your pud the way you want it. They even do vegan options because not everyone appreciates dairy, and if you allow people to select their ingredients they feel they've been creative and everyone walks away happy.
The pots are 100% biodegradable I'll have you know, though not technically recyclable nor much use in your compost if you live in a tiny shared flat. Also they do a raft of artisanal specials which changes each month, so for September it's cherry bakewell and next month it'll probably be pumpkin. This is what you need if you want people to keep coming back, which they plainly do.
I don't know how you've only just noticed Humble Crumble, they started out in 2018 at Maltby Street Market and now have outlets at Camden Market, Spitalfields Market and Borough Market, all the better to catch London's interminable grazing hordes. They even have a kiosk at Bicester Village which tells you everything you need to know about the intended clientele, happy to pay whatever in a currency that's not their own.
20 year-olds are never going to own a house so they get their joy where they can in shared experiences. Far better to be spending under a tenner on fruity carbs than blowing £30 on a trumped up digital experience in a converted warehouse. A warming treat on an autumn day ticks all the boxes, so long as you don't take the more negative Tripadvisor reviews too seriously.
Humble Crumble, I'd humbly suggest, is a dollopy entrepreneurial marvel.
For completeness' sake, Saturday's three other Open House visits.
Open House:The Law Society (Chancery Lane) The Bicentennial One
A big anniversary is often an excuse to open up your historic HQ for Open House, which'll be why the 200-year-old Law Society chose to welcome visitors this year. They also did things properly with a free 24-page tour booklet and a full-colour double-sided map so you didn't get lost on the way round, because you'd expect nothing less from solicitors. They're based halfway down Chancery Lane, just round the corner from the Royal Courts of Justice, in the grand classical building with the gold lions on the fenceposts. The walk-through tour of their abode kicked off with the Reading Room, where 19th century lawyers would have networked while perusing the newspapers, before continuing to four other equally splendid (and hireable) spaces.
The blue Wedgwood frieze above the Library complements shelves and shelves of referential leatherbound volumes. The stained glass in the Common Room is partially Tudor and the fireplace is de Morgan. The Grand Staircase sweeps upwards and is conveniently located for the Six Clerks restaurant. The portrait hanging in the David Lloyd George Room commemorating the royal visit for the 150th anniversary looked so impressively unlike the Queen I'd have taken it down. And if you'd played your cards right you could have moved on from here to Lincoln's Inn and spent an entire half day absorbing all things legal, rather than traipsing out to the suburbs like what I did.
Emanuel Swedenborg was an 18th century Swedish scientist, philosopher and general polymath who, at the age of 57, had a vision in a London tavern and refocused his life on all things spiritual. He wrote copiously on theological matters, including his revelatory work Apocalypse Revealed, inspiring William Blake and a horde of followers long after his mortal death. The Swedenborg Society has been based in a former Georgian house in Bloomsbury since 1925, which is why when you walk in it looks like a bookshop with a coffee counter and a rare bullseye window.
Beyond is a lecture hall with seating for 100, also a gallery but that was closed pending a new exhibition opening on Friday, should you fancy dropping in then. A green Doulton-tiled staircase leads down to a spooky basement, close to the rumble of the Central line, and up to a library of original volumes, plaster skulls and a table Swedenborg supposedly sat at. They tried to sell me a book about his life in the way out, and it must be quite a tale given so many still pay so much attention so many years later.
In 2010 I spent Open House weekend going round several Town Halls, and was particularly unimpressed by Brent's because the vibe was 'brown' and because the building was about to close in favour of a newbuild nearer Wembley Stadium. Five years later the town hall was reborn as a French private school and ten years on it was open again for Open House so I went back. I was a lot more impressed this time, not least because I was shown round by a senior member of staff and a student demonstrating their language skills.
The council chamber became an assembly hall, the council suite an examinations room and the mayor's parlour, fairly predictably, the headteacher's office. Not everything fitted in so the Science department was accommodated in a new annexe where gas taps and fume cupboards were more easily engineered. The marble staircase is far more elegant than an educational establishment would be gifted these days, and indeed more slippery, but when you run a school in a listed building you can't change too much and the whole thing can become a practical headache. The 1930s civic safe is still in situ for example, halfway down a freshly-accessible ramped corridor, because it resisted all attempts to get it out.
We ended up on the roof, as so many Open House tours do, where a glass pavilion doubles as a staffroom and a long green terrace provides space for al fresco marking. Wembley's arch can be plainly seen close by, although not the stadium because that's disappeared behind flats since the school opened. I also liked the way that the BT Tower aligned almost perfectly beside the Shard, iconic twins on the far horizon, although I doubt many pupils will have noticed the near-conjunction. "Did you get your biro?" asked the gatekeeper on my way out and oui, certainement.
Yesterday's Open House tally was only three.
All three were hour-long tours of buildings.
Here's a quick summary.
• The one where I was nearly the only person on the tour but a latecomer scuppered that.
• The one where I was mighty relieved not to be the only person on the tour.
• The one where we were plied with free coffee, cake and nuts beforehand.
• The one filmed throughout by a proud relative which will have created a tediously unwatchable video.
• The one where we weren't supposed to be looking at the trains.
• The one where we went up on the roof in the dry.
• The one where we went up on the roof in the rain.
• The 'omigod look how high up we are' one.
• The two that burned and have been rebuilt.
The University of Greenwich proper sprawls, not just across Eltham and Woolwich but within the environs of Maritime Greenwich. As of last week there are also plans to tie-up with the University of Kent, roping in campuses in Medway and Canterbury to help prevent the latter institution going bust. This site visit was to a modern building in the town centre which was officially celebrating its 11th birthday yesterday, although I didn't see cake mainly because it was a Sunday and term hasn't started yet. Cue that Open House staple, the backroom/backstairs tour led by an employee with as many nips out onto the roof as possible.
The main building here houses the university library - three floorsworth of books shifted from less accessible shelves in the Old Royal Naval College. The building operates on a silence gradient with talking allowed on the lowest floors, quiet communication on 1 and 2 and total stumm up top. The central staircase has been made prominent (and the lifts hidden) to encourage walking up. There are hundreds of docking stations for laptops, be they hired or the students' own, but only a couple of tiny corners for printing. And if you have the right pass you can enter the backrooms where the books are sorted, the staff have desks and the walls aren't generally as nicely finished. The chief librarian's office has the best view, a fabulous panorama past St Alphege church towards Canary Wharf and the Cutty Sark.
Up top is "probably Europe’s largest teaching and learning green roof" but not all in one, instead divided up into fourteen separate landscaped chunks. Some are mostly paved, others considerably gardenier, the best of the colour having peaked because there's nobody up here to admire them in the summer. Back inside a single 20m² green wall brightens the wall of the architecture faculty, much admired but it'd be far too expensive to consider installing one elsewhere. And by the time the well-oiled tour's delivered you back to the foyer, the staff and student sides of the building rightly ticked, Open House has worked its magic and yet another building oft seen from the street is no longer such a mystery.
Just as there are multiple denominations of Christianity so there are many forms of Islam. The Ahmadi sect numbers over 20 million followers, believes Islam's purpose is to bring peace to the world and originated in the Punjab in 1889. Its founder broke with established beliefs by claiming he was the final prophet and has since been succeeded by five caliphs, the most recent of whom lives in a former boarding school in deepest Surrey. Construction of their first British mosque began in September 1925, just up the road in SW18, and this latest incarnation was opened in 1999 on a former Express Dairy site beside Morden South station. It's massive, supposedly the largest mosque in western Europe, and throws open its doors to all whenever Open House comes round.
The biggest building up front isn't the mosque, it's the admin and reception block, a multi-storey stack of function halls and offices. It isn't original, the previous admin block having been accidentally destroyed in 2015 by a 16 year-old worshipper who failed to realise he'd set the place on fire. Following much fundraising the loftier marble-fronted replacement opened in March 2023, an event coinciding with the 19th National UK Peace Symposium. Were you to head inside the updated version you might find a twin studio TV complex, a museum filled with prophet/caliph-related artefacts, a library that goes far beyond the Koran and a huge hall setting up for a gold-themed wedding. Daily worshippers are however more likely to walk round the side of the building up a long flower-bedecked covered walkway to reach the main mosque building round the back. Shoes off.
The mosque is very plainly decorated inside, a huge understated space with a few words in Arabic displayed around the interior of the central dome. Walls are white so as not to distract from the most important activity which is prayer. 6000 men can be accommodated on the expansive carpet, while women have a smaller room out of sight nearer the main car park. A separate balcony with seating provides somewhere for older worshippers to sit, and also provides a truly excellent view across the adjacent Northern line train depot but this of course is nobody's focus of attention. In a sad reflection of our times I saw multiple locations around the site with belt conveyers for security screening, although we only had to walk through a single scanning gate. And as we walked out, eyes opened, an ever-increasing stream of local men headed inside as the clock ticked round to midday prayers. A place of peace, not a place to fear, as an increasingly large proportion of the population might well need reminding.
BAC used to be Battersea Town Hall when that was a separate borough, but became an arts centre in 1974 after Wandsworth council decided they no longer needed it. The redbrick & stonewarren was built in 1893 on land donated by Jane Senior, Britain's first female civil servant, hence the belated blue plaque stuck on the front in July. The Neo Renaissance interior is immediately appealing with a bee-tiled mosaic floor, evocative passageways and a divided staircase climbing to a skylit arched arcade. I arrived on the tour just too late to discover which of the cherubs in the cornice frieze had raised a cheeky giggle.
Our first treat was the Council Chamber, although it's currently part of a 'strictly no photographs" artist takeover so we were in and out in seconds. Our second treat was a behind-the-scenes staircase to the upper walkway above the central courtyard, site of an extra floor plonked on top for staff offices, although the "incredible views of the city" weren't all that. More impressive was the Octagonal Hall, a cast-iron glass-domed foyer featuring a gilded quotation from Richard III, restored in 1999, although anyone can walk in off the streets and gawp upwards. But most impressive of all was the Grand Hall, not least because it was destroyed by fire in March 2015 and has been rebuilt following a massive fundraising effort, now with a suitably charred aesthetic. What an amazing venue.
"OK lets go up to the Grid," said our guide, "and whatever you do don't drop anything." We climbed the backstairs to the balcony where the Edwardian pipe organ resides, gaining an alternative elevated view of the main hall. But then we climbed another longer narrower staircase, stepped through a door and found ourselves standing just above the roof, peering down 12 metres to the floor through a modern timber lattice. Here the technicians hang their spotlights, floods and cables, pleased to have a sturdy metal walkway the full length of the hall rather than the usual parlous crawlspace. That's ten minutes I'll never forget. You just don't get this kind of experience on a normal day out, but as so often Open House totally delivers.
