Few buildings are more pompous and humourless than the average block of Victorian mansion flats, and at ground level Portman Mansions in Marylebone look just as dull, redbrick and 
deadening as any. They were built between 1890 and 1900 by Henry Saxon Snell, an architect who usually specialised in workhouses and hospitals.But look at the skyline and see the lively little monkey that Saxon Snell has placed on the corner of Chiltern Street and Porter Street, gibbering at the dignified line of dragons on the gables over the road.
And at the end of the block, who should be crouching on the party wall but Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, clutching to the parapet with both hands and feet, shouting incomprehensible defiance at the crowd below, who never so much as notice.
