Methodist Missionary Society, Marylebone Road NW1

The trees along Marylebone Road are very nice and all that but they make photographing the sculpture jolly difficult. I think I will have to come back in the winter to retake these excellent works by David Evans on the Methodist Missionary Society building of 1939, designed by Paul Manger, A.J. May and L. Sylvester Sullivan.
The low relief over the front door shows Christ signing up the fishermen Simon, Andrew, James and John as disciples, telling them he will make them 'fishers of men'. Mind you, they seem to have had a very successful time as fishers of fish, judging by the number of heads peeking out from the stern of the boat. Perhaps it is a hint at the miraculous draft of fishes, Christ's first miracle after the resurrection.
High up on the side of the building are three fine portraits, one of a nurse cradling a baby, the others of African and Indian converts.

Wandsworth Town Hall, SW18

The facade of the Town Hall to Wandsworth High Street is carved with a pageant of people from each of the ancient parishes that were amalgamated in 1900 into the Borough of Wandsworth. These included Wandsworth itself, Streatham, Clapham, Putney and Balham with Tooting. The infamous Heatho-Walkerian reforms of 1965 added Battersea but lost Clapham and Streatham.
The two panels on the left, on either side of a double-height window, portray the people of Wandsworth. They were carved by David Evans in about 1935.
From right to left:Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone bang wooden piles into the mud of the River Wandle while Wilma makes a pot.
A Viking looks deeply embarrassed. Not only has he been shown wearing a cowhorn helmet (wrong!), Wandsworth's archeology department are saying he carelessly dropped a sword in the river when plundering Wandles Farm when everyone knows that it was the Ancient Britons who dropped swords in rivers deliberately for ritual purposes.
Next along are Huguenot refugees with the mill on the Wandle behind them, and the 'mayor of misrule' with his crown.
A pair of soldiers return from the front, one with a bandaged head, to be greeted by a woman carrying signs of Victory, Peace and a Good Time come the Roaring Twenties.
Behind, a dyer pulls a cloth out of the vat, but nobody seems to notice the smell.On the other side of the window, engineers make stuff with the old horse-drawn iron railway behind. Mr and Mrs Young brew beer. A woman in a hairnet sits down by the river not apparently doing much at all, while a Bishop represents the Middle Ages.
A Roman soldier seems not to notice the Ancient Briton preparing to club him over the back of the neck.

Wandsworth Town Hall, SW18

Councils used to build enormous town halls simply to show off the power, dignity and prosperity of the borough, with lots of sculpture to reinforce that message. The statuary on Victorian town halls usually glorified the local gentry, merchants and industrialists, but by the time Wandsworth Town Hall was designed in the 1930s the working class was king and the stonework reflects this.
The overall design, by Edward A. Hunt, is neo-Georgian with Art Deco trimmings, but these carvings on the keystones of the doorways in Ram Street are pure 1930s. They show Manual Labour (a sturdy bricklayer with a rather wonderful peaked cap, braces and, lordy! a bow tie) and Motherhood, a timeless figure of a young woman supporting a toddler and giving it the sort of look familiar from a million church Madonnas.
The sculptor was the Manchester-born David Evans, who also carved one of the panels on the High Street frontage, of which more later.