Former Daily Telegraph building, Fleet Street EC4

Charles Elcock's building for the Daily Telegraph must have been seen as bold, modern and thrusting when it was built in 1928, an odd advertisement for a paper so conservative it is universally known as the Torygraph.
The decorations on the main facade are conventional Art Deco, by Alfred Oakley.The pair of Mercuries over the front door distribute the news round the Empire and even to heathen foreigners, rushing away from Blighty on their winged boots as the sun rises round the globe. 
A rather arresting if cosmologically inexact image.
Oakley probably also carved the charming and much more natural swallows.
Oakley was the son of a chairmaker in High Wycombe and is still celebrated there. He experienced a major change in career direction shortly after the Telegraph commission - becaming a monk and exclusively specialising in religious ornamentation thereafter

High above, right on top of the building, these two rather brutal masks stare out into the middle distance.

They are called The Past (above) and The Future (below) and are the last major sculptures of Samuel Rabinovitch.
Rabinovitch's first and only other major commission was for the West Wind on the London Underground building in Westminster. There, all the artists had carved their work directly, ie when the stone was in place rather than in a studio.
However, at the Underground the initial shaping was done in the studio and only the finishing was done directly. At the Telegraph, Rabinovitch went the whole hog and carved the masks from block to finished work as a medieval mason would have done on a cathedral.

Charles Elcock, the architect, apparently did not know exactly what he was up to until the scaffolding came down, which was trusting of him.
According to Rabinovitch himself: "The stern, glum, emaciated face is that of the Past, hollowed by age...(while)...the beaming face is that of the Future - young, blank and fresh."
Unfortunately Rabinovitch concluded shortly afterwards that he himself had no future in sculpture, and gave it up to become an all-in wrestler under the name Sam Rabin. Here he is, depicted by artist William Roberts being thrown out of the ring by fellow grunt-game aficionado Black Eagle.

One New Change, EC4

One New Change is a classic example of City greed, a monster block right next to St Paul's. The trendy, look-at-me design by Jean Nouvel (based on an Airfix model of a stealth bomber) fails to conceal that fact that the main design objective is to cram as much lettable space as possible onto the site.

Not that the previous building was anything to write home about - a bland neo-Georgian block that was home to the Bank of England's accounts department. It was, however, decorated with a sprinkling of sculptures by some of Britain's most eminent artists including Sir Charles Wheeler, Donald Gilbert, David Evans and Ernest Gillick.

Most of the art was packed up and sold (though some is still available). But you can still see some of Wheeler's work on the roof terrace at One New Change.

And that was something of a revelation. You get to it by boarding a glass lift buried down a canyon through the building, with a stunning view of St Pauls at the end. When you get to the top, this is what you see:

Most people stay in the rather good tapas bar, but tucked around the corner is a 'vitrine' or glass case containing three of Wheeler's figures, St George Combatant, St George Triumphant and a Lion keystone. Not his best work, but infinitely better than Gavin Turk's new Nail, which is a big nail (duh!) sticking out of the pavement at the entrance.

Unfortunately, the glass is dotted to reduce heat transfer which makes the sculpture difficult to see properly, let alone photograph. My photo software also brings out the reflected blue of the sky much more strongly than it appears to the eye, but I rather like the effect.
Laid out on the compulsory sedum roof (oh so green) is one of the rather attractive mosaics by Boris Anrep.

St Bartholomew House, Fleet Street EC4

 

This attractive Arts and Craft block of 1900 is by Herbert Huntly-Gordon, presumably one of that architect's speculative developments.
Letting income is maximised by placing as much shop front as possible at street level. This squeezes the door to the offices a little bit, but Huntly-Gordon makes up for the lack of width by adding a lovely adornment of putti by Gilbert Seale. Both architect and sculptor sign the piece, unusually.
The one on the left is more or less a standard model putto with feathery wings and a bow, carrying a quiver, but the one on the right is decidedly odd with what look like butterfly wings and flowers in its hair. Is it a boy or a girl?
The balcony of the open loggia on the fourth floor is supported by a line of attractive heads of putti. Are they also by Seale or was a journeyman mason brought in?

Caltex House, Brompton Road SW1

Triga is a trio of racehorses made in 1957 by the Czech-born sculptor Frantisek ('Franta') Belsky. They spring out of the corner of the podium of Caltex House in the Brompton Road, commemorating the site's former use as Tattersall's auction yard.
Belsky was born in Brno in 1921 and grew up in Prague, but his family fled to London when the Nazis took over. He studied under Gilbert Ledward at the RCA at intervals dictated by service in the exiled Czech army including the D-day landings.
After the war he returned to Prague but had to leave again when the Communists seized power in 1948. Thereafter he forged a career in London, specialising in commissions for sculpture in specific locations. "I find nothing more enjoyable - and testing - than designing for a specific site and letting the locality, its use and the life in it, condition my sculptural decisions," he wrote. He also executed portraits of many members of the Royal family and statesmen including Churchill.

Triga is made rather unexpectedly of reinforced concrete coated in some sort of metallic plastic. As with all Belsky's sculptures, it contains an empty Guinness bottle, the day's newspaper, a sixpence and a note stating that he was the artist.

Imperial Airways Empire Terminal, Buckingham Palace Road SW1

So this is where the Speedbird logo of British Airways comes from. The sculpture is called Speed Wings over the World and it is by Eric Broadbent, who seems to be known mainly just for this work.
The building, now the National Audit Office, was built to the designs of Albert Lakeman in 1937/9. It was strategically located next to Victoria Station so passengers, mail and cargo could be loaded onto trains and sent to Southampton where they were transferred to the flying boats that took them to India, Australia and Africa. Of course, you didn't need a passport then because it was all British.
The title is a bit ambitious - at the time it took nearly a month to get to Australia. Planes used to land for overnight stops that were excuses for taking tours, shopping and dining on a heroic scale.
After the war, Imperial Airways was merged with British Airways, the then European carrier, to form BOAC. It used the terminal until the 1970s.

137 Long Acre WC2

This Mercers' Maiden is unusual in being made of ironstone ceramic tile to match the finish of the building, a shop dating from 1906 in Long Acre, Covent Garden.

1 Poultry EC2

When a range of perfectly respectable Victorian buildings in Poultry including the attractive and appropriate Mappin and Webb building were demolished for no other reason than to enable Peter Palumbo to flex his ego, these charming terracotta reliefs from the shop of Hawes the shirtmakers were happily preserved and erected on the new building.
Made in 1875, they depict Royal Progresses through London. The sculptor was Joseph Kremer, a German who studied in Paris.
The monarchs concerned are:
Top: Edward VI (r1547-1553). The boy king is surrounded by courtiers and preceded by a rather fierce-looking friar on a thin nag, apparently having a confrontation with a citizen. This seems a bit odd - the religious orders had been abolished under his father and he was a staunch Protestant.
Second: Elizabeth I (r1558-1603) carried in a palanquin accompanied by a page carrying something on a cushion.
Third: Charles II (r1660-1685). Charles is announced by trumpeters and welcomed by a lady who seems very obliging. His spaniels frolic at her feet.
Bottom: Victoria (r1837-1901). The Queen rides in a carriage drawn by horses held by top-hatted grooms and escorted by cavalry officers riding very spirited horses.

Savoy Hotel, Strand WC2

The hoardings have come down on the Savoy to reveal the newly cleaned statue of Peter II, Count of Savoy, by Frank Lynn-Jenkins.
With its gleaming steel and glowing gilding, the statue seems entirely at home on the 1929 Art Deco canopy but it was in fact made in 1904 for the hotel extension seen behind. Reusing it was a brilliant stroke.
Count Peter wasn't a count at all when he came to London in the 1240s. He was the seventh of nine sons of the Count of Savoy so his inheritance prospects cannot have seemed too bright. He was, however, the uncle of Eleanor of Provence, who had just married Henry III. Henry made him Earl of Richmond and gave him the site on the north bank of the Thames where he built the Savoy Palace.
Peter finally became Count of Savoy in 1263, when he was already 60 years old.
Frank Lynn-Jenkins carved one of the statues on the facade of the Victoria and Albert Museum and Abundance, a group on Thames House in the City. He left for America in 1919 after a furious row with Cardiff council over the commissioning of sculpture for the new City Hall.

Red Lion Court EC4

This elegant little plaque is the sign of a printer, Abraham Valpy, publisher of classical works such as Stephanus's Greek Thesaurus and the monumental Delphin Classics (all 142 volumes), and founder of the Classical Review. He had his premises in Red Lion Court from 1822 to 1837.
As you might expect from this output, Valpy was a cut above the usual inky-handed artisan, having studied at Oxford where he was a fellow of Pembroke College. So his sign is rather superior too - an antic lamp being filled with oil from a nice little jar and the motto Alere Flammam, or 'Feed the Flame' (of knowledge, that is).

85 Fleet Street EC4

85 Fleet Street was built in 1934 by Sir Edwin Lutyens for the Press Association and Reuters, both of whom coincidentally needed headquarters at the time. The design included a figure known as The Herald by Sir William Reid Dick, who had collaborated with Lutyens on the Midland Bank building in Poultry.
The Herald is an angel sitting on the globe, blowing the trumpet of thrice-distilled truth. The Times liked it but the Newspaper World compared it rather rudely to an American Pentecostal preacher sitting on a melon.
The Herald has gone down in the world since he was made. He was originally placed on the parapet but during the war was brought down to the oculus over the front door so more people could see him. And he was originally gilded (at a cost of £100) but no trace of the gilding survives today.
The keystone over the oculus has a rather jolly baroque cartouche with a knight slaying lies and untruth over a monogram of the letters R and PA surrounded by the electric waves that brought their reports from round the world.

Atlas House, King Street EC2

In Greek mythology, Atlas, king of Atlantis, took part in the rebellion of the Titans against the Gods and as a result was condemned to hold up the heavens for ever. Ancient Greek sculptors took something of a  liberty with the story in the interests of making a strong free-standing figure, and showed him supporting the celestial sphere on his shoulders.

Of course, this was misinterpreted in the Renaissance, when the familiar figure appeared of Atlas holding the Earth on his shoulders despite having nothing to stand on.

Here, Atlas advertised the Atlas Assurance Company. He was carved by Thomas Tyrrell for the firm of architectural masons Farmer and Brindley. He is less muscly than usual, but still succeeds in dominating that part of the street.

The building is the northern extension of the Atlas headquarters, designed by Alfred Waterhouse in 1893 in the same style as the original building facing onto Cheapside, which was built by Thomas Hopper in 1834. 

Tyrrell also carved the figures on 82 Mortimer Street. 

On the south side of Cheapside opposite Atlas House, there is an exceptionally attractive Mercers' Maiden high up on the wall of No 67, which dates from 1938.

107 Cheapside EC2

This is the sort of thing that brightens my day every time I find it. It is the keystone of the arch through the Sun Life Assurance building in Cheapside, leading to Honey Lane. And it features a bee buzzing up to a basket of flowers and fruit.
The building was designed by Antony Lloyd and built in 1955. The main entrance is surrounded by signs of the zodiac carved by John Skeaping, but the keystone isn't mentioned in any of the reference books. It looks a bit formal and traditional for Skeaping so perhaps it was commissioned from a mason rather than a sculptor.
Honey Lane was the place where bee keepers lived in medieval London, but they seems to have departed by the 17th century when William Leybourn's survey showed 105 butcher's stalls in the market despite the fact that it was the smallest market in the capital. Was the city already too crowded and polluted for bees to live and work? This stone bee is certainly the only one you see round Honey Lane these days.

Friary Court, Crutched Friars EC3

The Crutched Friars did not hobble about on crutches: they were members of the House of the Holy Cross, and the Latin for cross is crux. They held a staff with a cross and wore a cross on their habit.
The site of their London house is now occupied by one of those monster office blocks that reduces the street to a barren, windblown wilderness. The only redeeming feature is this lovely sculpture by Michael Black, created in 1984.
The two figures are based on Narziss and Goldmund, the abbot and artist from Hermann Hesse's novel.
The habits are carved from the same Swedish red granite used to face the building: the faces, hands and feet are grey Bardiglio marble. One holds a staff, the other a scrip, both bronze. Pevsner calls them 'eerily static'.

49-50 Fleet Street EC4

49-50 Fleet Street was built in 1913 for two purposes, the main one being a branch of the Norwich Union and the other as a gateway to Serjeants' Inn, the former habitat of an ancient species of lawyer that became extinct in Victorian times. The architect was Jack McMullen Brooks.

The sculpture in the central arch, by A. Stanley Young, reflects the dual purpose of the building by including figures of Prudence on the side next to the Norwich Union's front door and Justice on the side next to the arch into Serjeants' Inn. Between them, Liberality holds a cornucopia pouring out money and fruit. Prudence is a matronly figure wearing a bonnet and holding a branch of laurel. Her lap is full of fruit, presumably from Liberality's bounty. A shield leans against her. Young falls into the usual error of portraying Justice as blindfolded.

SW corner of Old Compton Street and Dean Street W1

At first sight it is difficult to work out if the modest modernist building on the corner of Dean Street and Old Compton Street dates from the 1930s or the 1950s, until you know that a high explosive bomb landed there on 11th May 1941.
The popular Patisserie Valerie was destroyed, and behind you can see the ruins of St Anne's church that had been bombed the previous year.
At least 15 people died - the full death toll was never established.
The new building was clearly done under post-war restrictions - it looks a bit cheap. But the owner splashed out on some rather attractive stone boats in the windows that add a bit of charm to a vibrant but architecturally dreary street.

Tivoli Corner, Bank of England, Prince's Street EC2

The Bank of England is one of those buildings I try to avert my eyes from. The scandalous rebuilding in the 1920s and 30s was a grievous loss of the master-work of one of our greatest architects, Sir John Soane.
The perpetrator was Sir Herbert Baker, who kept most of Soane's curtain walls but added a lumpen office block above in his usual soft classical style.
Luckily, Baker employed his favourite sculptor, Sir Charles Wheeler, and his work is the building's only redeeming feature.
This gilded bronze figure of the Spirit of the Winds stands on the cupola of the Tivoli Corner. Despite being egregiously female, she is usually referred to as Ariel, something for which we have Baker to thank - he was the first to refer to her as an 'Arielesque figure'.
The Bank itself described her in heavyweight PR-speak as 'the symbol of the Dynamic Spirit of the Bank which carries Credit and Trust over the wide world.'

Under the rotunda of the Tivoli Corner, Wheeler placed these keystones representing the Roman port of London, Old Father Thames and an owl, presumably representing the wisdom for which bankers are famed.