ESSAYS BY THE WAY VIII — Westminster Abbey
By “Scrutator. ”
I once travelled to the North by one of those fast expresses in which you can eat and sleep almost as comfortably as in a first-class hotel, in the company of a gentleman who lived at Brixton. I have nothing against Brixton as a residential locality: I believe it is healthy and extremely convenient, but I only hope that my friend of the dining car did not adequately represent the intelligentsia of that distinguished suburb.
On most subjects I found him extremely well informed and quite entertaining; it was between the second and the third course that the blow was delivered.
We were at that time passing through some very flat but, to my mind, beautiful country typical of a certain part of Yorkshire, when my vis-à-vis looked out of the window with a sorrowful and lugubrious expression, remarking at the same time — ˮThat there seemed to be a lot of land in England still unbuilt on! ” In my surprise I ejaculated a devout “Thank Heaven, there is, ” and asked him if he didn’t like the country? Although he could see that his remark had been something of a shock to me, I admired the courage of his truthful answer in which he stated that — “he did not like the country” — that for his part — “he liked brightly lit streets, cinemas, restaurants and well-dressed people. ” I gathered that he found the country depressing, or that, in his own words, “it gave him the creeps. ” Now this is what I call the urban view carried to extremes; but, alas, it is not a view held exclusively by the residents of Brixton: this excessive urbanisation, this itch to build over every open space, affects all sorts and conditions of men. It has even affected the Society of Friends, and led
them into that most unfriendly act towards London, of building over part of one of her too few open spaces.
Whoever is putting up the huge tobacco factory in Mornington Crescent appears to be another victim of urbanisation. The best comment I have heard on this undertaking was that contained in the conversation of two navvies who sat behind me on a ’bus: “Why, blast me, Bill, if they ain’t a-buildin’ over the old Square! ” (That the Square was a Crescent is of no import). Bill sadly replied: “Well, if they
as to build, why the — ain’t they a-buildin’ ’ouses? ” Exactly, if they ‘‘ ’as to build ’’; but ‘‘ ’as
they? ” — that is the whole question. There are vast tracts of London covered with squalid, ill-contrived, unsuitable and ugly buildings, that would be all the better for removal: but, no, our urbanised friends must needs cast their ey. es on the open spaces, the squares and crescents, that a more generously minded eighteenth century provided for us. The difference is, I suppose, that to our ancestors London was a place of residence, a place to be embellished and made beautiful — but to-day to too many, it merely represents a place of gain, a Gehenna of money-getting, to be endured for as small a portion of the working week as possible, and then to be escaped from to some semi-urbanised rural area, complacently referred to as “the country. ”
One can, perhaps, understand the needs of a society, or of a busy business man, harassed with the difficulties of finding an adequate site unhampered by people in possession, in succumbing to the temptations of what I will call for the convenience of my argument, the “Brixton outlook. ” But what are we to say to a commission consisting of distinguished ONE OF THE DECORATIVE WALL PAINTINGS BY MISS NAN WEST AT THE ROYAL NATIONAL ORTHOPÆDIC
HOSPITAL, GREAT PORTLAND STREET, W.
By “Scrutator. ”
I once travelled to the North by one of those fast expresses in which you can eat and sleep almost as comfortably as in a first-class hotel, in the company of a gentleman who lived at Brixton. I have nothing against Brixton as a residential locality: I believe it is healthy and extremely convenient, but I only hope that my friend of the dining car did not adequately represent the intelligentsia of that distinguished suburb.
On most subjects I found him extremely well informed and quite entertaining; it was between the second and the third course that the blow was delivered.
We were at that time passing through some very flat but, to my mind, beautiful country typical of a certain part of Yorkshire, when my vis-à-vis looked out of the window with a sorrowful and lugubrious expression, remarking at the same time — ˮThat there seemed to be a lot of land in England still unbuilt on! ” In my surprise I ejaculated a devout “Thank Heaven, there is, ” and asked him if he didn’t like the country? Although he could see that his remark had been something of a shock to me, I admired the courage of his truthful answer in which he stated that — “he did not like the country” — that for his part — “he liked brightly lit streets, cinemas, restaurants and well-dressed people. ” I gathered that he found the country depressing, or that, in his own words, “it gave him the creeps. ” Now this is what I call the urban view carried to extremes; but, alas, it is not a view held exclusively by the residents of Brixton: this excessive urbanisation, this itch to build over every open space, affects all sorts and conditions of men. It has even affected the Society of Friends, and led
them into that most unfriendly act towards London, of building over part of one of her too few open spaces.
Whoever is putting up the huge tobacco factory in Mornington Crescent appears to be another victim of urbanisation. The best comment I have heard on this undertaking was that contained in the conversation of two navvies who sat behind me on a ’bus: “Why, blast me, Bill, if they ain’t a-buildin’ over the old Square! ” (That the Square was a Crescent is of no import). Bill sadly replied: “Well, if they
as to build, why the — ain’t they a-buildin’ ’ouses? ” Exactly, if they ‘‘ ’as to build ’’; but ‘‘ ’as
they? ” — that is the whole question. There are vast tracts of London covered with squalid, ill-contrived, unsuitable and ugly buildings, that would be all the better for removal: but, no, our urbanised friends must needs cast their ey. es on the open spaces, the squares and crescents, that a more generously minded eighteenth century provided for us. The difference is, I suppose, that to our ancestors London was a place of residence, a place to be embellished and made beautiful — but to-day to too many, it merely represents a place of gain, a Gehenna of money-getting, to be endured for as small a portion of the working week as possible, and then to be escaped from to some semi-urbanised rural area, complacently referred to as “the country. ”
One can, perhaps, understand the needs of a society, or of a busy business man, harassed with the difficulties of finding an adequate site unhampered by people in possession, in succumbing to the temptations of what I will call for the convenience of my argument, the “Brixton outlook. ” But what are we to say to a commission consisting of distinguished ONE OF THE DECORATIVE WALL PAINTINGS BY MISS NAN WEST AT THE ROYAL NATIONAL ORTHOPÆDIC
HOSPITAL, GREAT PORTLAND STREET, W.