Boy with a Dolphin, Grosvenor Gate, Hyde Park W2

Boy with a Dolphin cuts a curious figure, a handsome young boy wrestling a particularly grotesque denizen of the deep. It is by Alexander Munro (1825 to 1871), the sculpting member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
The model was Greville Macdonald, son of the fairy story writer George Macdonald.
A plaque near the work relates how Charles Dodgson, then merely a mathematician, came to visit Munro while Greville was sitting. Dodgson suggested that Greville would be much better off with a marble head, the clinching argument being that the hair would not require combing. Later, Dodgson sent Munro a cartoon of his friend's horrified reaction to the idea.
Dodgson became a friend of the Macdonald family, getting them to read his manuscript of the Alice stories to the children to find out if they would really appeal to young people. Macdonald was so impressed he persuaded Dodgson to lengthen the story.

Irrelevant factoid: Greville Macdonald had a brother called Ronald.

Norwegian Embassy, Belgrave Square SW1

These charming plaques of Coade stone were originally installed at the Danish-Norwegian Consulate in Stepney, conveniently located to serve the many sailors in London Docks, in 1796. In 1968 they were moved to this more prominent location on the Norwegian Embassy "by courtesy of the Greater London Council", it says on a brass plate below. I take this to mean the GLC allowed it but the Norwegians had to stump up for the cost.
The right hand plaque shows chubby little putti in the two main divisions of agriculture, animal husbandry and crop cultivation, but without the rivalry that led to such distressing consequences for Cain and Abel.
On the left, more putti cultivate the Fine Arts: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

Mansion House, Bank EC2

The pediment of George Dance the Elder's Mansion House was carved by Robert Taylor, whose father Robert Snr was one of the masons on the building. This led to inevitable but apparently unjustified accusations of inside influence when he got the job.
Taylor's composition is unusual for its date in a very admirable portrayal of the City as prospering through peace rather than conquest. As an 'explanation' on a contemporary engraving has it: "...their general Design is to exhibit LONDON Triumphant, not in military Atchievements, but in the necessary and social Arts of Trade and Commerce, which are the true Arts of Life."
The central figure is a female personification of the City trampling Envy beneath her feet. She holds a shield with the City's arms on it in one hand and a wand of office (a vindicta or Praetorian wand) in the other. She wears a towered hat identifying her with Cybele, the mother-goddess of Rome, the imperial city that London's city fathers desired to emulate.
To her right, a small boy carries the symbols of authority and independence including the fasces and a pileus or cap of liberty. He seems to be holding the City's sword by the blade, so tears before bedtime I think.
At the left, Old Father Thames holds an urn from which the river springs eternal, and the rudder of a ship that looms behind. A swan and an anchor appear at his feet.
The group on the right represent the trade that made London, in the words of the explanation, "the Chief Emporium in the Universe". A female offers London the fruits from a cornucopia, and two boys bring goods in bales, barrels and bags. They are accompanied by a stork, which is apparently the bird of commerce and also "...by its singular Affection to its Parents, it is a lively representation of the Citizens of LONDON, whose Duty, Industry, Love to their Constitution, and Zeal for their Privileges, accord an inexhaustible Supply to their Common Mother."
That is an image that today's greedy bankers would do well to adopt.

125 Pall Mall SW1

Egyptian motifs on London buildings often betray a date just after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, but this pharaoh was carved in 1912 to decorate an office block by Smee & Houchin.
The florid, copper-clad dome above is topped by a weathervane in the form of a rather attractive if bluff-bowed cutter. Apparently it is connected to a weather gauge in the offices below so they could always tell which way the wind was blowing.

Buchanan House, St James's Square SW1

A costermonger sells fruit to a gaggle of children, the girls keeping a sharp eye on the money
being proffered by the younger of their brothers. Difficult to say what the fruit is - melon?

Buchanan House is dreadful really, the first modern building to break the Georgian skyline of St James's Square in a truly greedy way. The architecture makes the offence even worse by adopting a bland Queen Anne style, as if that could somehow make it fit in.

An organ grinder with his monkey.
They look at each other rather affectionately,
as if they are friends making music together.

It was opened in 1934 by Lord Astor, whose very grand town house was right next door (now it is the Naval and Military). He was rather gracious considering he had had to put up with two years construction and complete overshadowing of his garden to the south. "I only hope," he said, "you will not despise your old-fashioned and dingy friends, who still remain in the square. We will try not to be a nuisance."

What a doormat. No wonder the developers screwed him. He even made a little joke about being introduced at functions as 'the grandfather or husband of Lady Astor'.

A town crier announces:
"Oyez, Oyez
Take Notice
This Building
 was erected
 in the year 1933
Alfred and David Ospalak
being the Architects
 thereof".

A young woman sells lavender
 from a trug, assisted by her little girl.

But at least the architects had the good taste to employ Newbury Trent to carve a selection of Cries of London on the first floor. They are extremely charming in the neo-Georgian taste made popular by Rex Whistler.

A knife grinder pedaling away at his grindstone, putting an edge on a frighteningly large carving knife and occasionally whetting the stone from an urn mounted over it. The whole caboodle is mounted on wheels so it can be pushed from pitch to pitch. A small boy looks on, munching on a sandwich. His boiler suit is a bit of an anachronism, surely.

Allington House, 150 Victoria Street SW1

The old Allington House was a dull commercial office block enlivened by these endangered species by San Francisco-based Barry Baldwin, so it was very ironic when they came near to extinction themselves when it was demolished by developer Land Securities.
The excellent Peter Berthoud, London guide and blogger, mounted a campaign to save them and at the last minute the developer decided to remove them for future use rather than just prizing them off the wall and dumping them in a skip.
The building was only put up in 1997. I have to confess that I'm not a big fan of Baldwin's work. It is a bit coarse and literal and poorly-composed for me. But it is good they are saved.
Baldwin's only other work in London is the series of heads and an arch with more animals at Grand Buildings in Trafalgar Square. And who commissioned Barry to execute them? Land Securities!

Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall SW1

The Royal Automobile Club is the last and the largest of the clubs in Pall Mall, built in 1908 by Mewes and Davis, architects of Ritz hotels around the world and many ocean liners. Clearly, clubs were moving away from being meeting places for like-minded men to luxury accommodation for the loaded.
The pediment over the grand entrance of the RAC contains a charming group by the French sculptor Ferdinand Faivre, a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.
At the centre, a motherly figure holds a torch aloft to light the way for a winged cherub at the wheel of a motor car. Pevsner rather sniffily dismisses it as 'primitive' but in 1908 it would have been fairly state of the art. The Ford Model T was launched in that year, after all.
Three cherubic motor mechanics play with parts and tools on either side. It looks as though the motor is broken down in the woods somewhere (note the oak tree behind the lady). This would have been a very familiar occurrence in 1908, when very few journeys were completed without a puncture at the very least.
It would not, however, have been acceptable for ladies, however allegorical, to bare their all at the side of the road or for chauffeurs, however cherubic, to wave their willies from the driving seat.