necessarily make for national progress and welfare unless it is carried out on well thought out and enlightened lines. It is welcome evidence that the Ministry recognises that it does not exist merely to deal with disease, slums and squalour that may, and often do, follow reckless, selfish, or misguided development; but that its greater function is to prevent these evils occurring, and, in adopting the tenet that prevention is better than cure, it is following the teachings of modern medical science.
The other piece of news leads one to hope that the Bush House design may yet be carried out, so far as the vista down Kingsway is concerned. It was a great disappointment to all lovers of London architecture when the Bush House Company found itself unable, on account of the financial requirements of the L. C. C., the ground landlords, to complete the fine scheme of buildings designed by Mr. Harvey Corbett for the island site. The Bush House Company has now made offers for parts of the Aldwych frontage east and west of the existing building, and it is understood the L. C. C. has approved these proposals. On the west side, this will link up the present Bush House with the new India Government Office, which
is to occupy the comer of the Aldwych front against Marconi House; and if the scheme goes through the wing will, in course of time, be balanced by a similar wing on the east side. The erection of these two balancing blocks will, however, still have much of the Aldwych site on the east and Strand fronts to be dealt with, and it is a thousand pities that the original Bush House scheme did not go through, especially as it is reported that the L. C. C. now subscribe to the centre courts which were such a noteworthy feature of that scheme.
Another item of London news is the projected sale of the Grand Hotel for future use as offices. This is dependent on the proprietors, the Gordon Hotels, Ltd., securing the freehold of the premises, which belongs to the L. C. C., but as it is stated that terms have been agreed with the. Council, the sale may be regarded as settled. It is to be hoped, however, that the L. C. C. will insist on some provision in the conveyance which will prevent this very prominent corner from being defaced with letters and electric signs which have already appeared on many buildings on the south side of Trafalgar Square, to the great detriment of its amenities.
ESSAYS BY THE WAY
III. — Town v. Country
By “Scrutator”
One of the most hallowed subjects for debating societies of the more ingenuous sort is that of the contrasting advantages and disadvantages of Town and Country Life.
Indeed, the subject pursues us into our maturer years, and we alternate through dreadful periods of futile indecision between the voice of the city and the call of the land. For the most part we compromise, in coward-like fashion, with some magnificent outer suburb, if our fortunes are in the ascendant, or with some not quite so magnificent a suburb of the more interior kind if fate has been showing us the dark side of diminishing receipts. The present century has witnessed a definite movement back to the countryside, a movement that was in the earlier years aristocratic or semi-suburbanly-aristocratic. We desired to move from that desirable outer-suburb to that more remote village where we were so certain that life, with the help of an acre plot and a gardenerchauffeur, would take on a deeper and a richer meaning. Our cottage-cum-farmhouse residence, with sleeping porch and loggia, replete with labour-saving devices, had an air of wealthy humility which did credit to the taste of our architects, and was not too antagonistic to the spirit of the countryside. We may have had a few uneasy doubts when the Brown- Smiths, the Smith-Browns, the Robinson-Jones, and the Jones-Robinsons were also infected with the virus of the “return to nature, ” and left their outer-suburbs and built in or around our village. Sons and daughters who went to the Slade murmured complainingly of “how suburban
the place was getting, ” but the architects did their best, and things did not seem too frightfully bad. Secretly we rather enjoyed the society of our peers, for, though we never confessed it, there were moments before the arrival of our friends when we felt the country was a little dull — we missed the friendly game of bridge, the tennis, the amateur theatricals, and the other kindred societies of our former life. The moral uplift of the great wide uplands required a certain amount of living-up to, and did not always compensate sufficiently for the more prosaic, even if
Philistine, amusements. As I have said, things were not too frightfully had. The architects who built our pleasant and fanciful houses or parish churches were duly elected to the Academy and retired to out-ofthe-way corners of Chelsea and St. John’s Wood, whilst their brethren who eschewed art and the domestic practice, devoting themselves to the big building of the big business, quickly made their little pile. They not infrequently joined us in our rural retreat — sometimes even architecting their own houses, but this we all felt to be a mistake. Thus, in those halcyon days before the war, as I believe I have already said, things were not too frightfully bad! After the war all this was changed. Demos entered on to the scene, and the Sabbatical calm of the countryside was broken.
First came the great arterial roads, then the motor omnibus, and in their wake followed a thin trickle of little anæmic pink-and-white bungalows and villas, very pink as to their asbestos tiled roofs, and very white as to their woodwork against the light cream or oatmeal coloured roughcast. Sometimes they appeared singly and sometimes in swarms. But whether singly or in groups they showed forth as a dreadful portent, there was a leak in the industrial compounds, the great proletariat had discovered the country, and in addition to paper bags they left their little houses behind them, two forms of very undesirable litter.
The President of the Royal Institute of British Architects was very seriously disturbed; Professor Abercrombie sat up late at night writing long letters to The Times about it, and still the little pink-andwhite horrors grew apace. On the Sussex Downs, in the Lake District, in the more precious and remote parts of the Home Counties, in the most beautiful parts of Devon and Cornwall and on the sides of the Welsh hills, everywhere was to be observed symptoms of what has been called ˮbungalowitis. ’’ Then, amidst the plaudits of the elect, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England was brought into being. Now let me say at once that this society has my sincerest wishes for its success; it has a very
The other piece of news leads one to hope that the Bush House design may yet be carried out, so far as the vista down Kingsway is concerned. It was a great disappointment to all lovers of London architecture when the Bush House Company found itself unable, on account of the financial requirements of the L. C. C., the ground landlords, to complete the fine scheme of buildings designed by Mr. Harvey Corbett for the island site. The Bush House Company has now made offers for parts of the Aldwych frontage east and west of the existing building, and it is understood the L. C. C. has approved these proposals. On the west side, this will link up the present Bush House with the new India Government Office, which
is to occupy the comer of the Aldwych front against Marconi House; and if the scheme goes through the wing will, in course of time, be balanced by a similar wing on the east side. The erection of these two balancing blocks will, however, still have much of the Aldwych site on the east and Strand fronts to be dealt with, and it is a thousand pities that the original Bush House scheme did not go through, especially as it is reported that the L. C. C. now subscribe to the centre courts which were such a noteworthy feature of that scheme.
Another item of London news is the projected sale of the Grand Hotel for future use as offices. This is dependent on the proprietors, the Gordon Hotels, Ltd., securing the freehold of the premises, which belongs to the L. C. C., but as it is stated that terms have been agreed with the. Council, the sale may be regarded as settled. It is to be hoped, however, that the L. C. C. will insist on some provision in the conveyance which will prevent this very prominent corner from being defaced with letters and electric signs which have already appeared on many buildings on the south side of Trafalgar Square, to the great detriment of its amenities.
ESSAYS BY THE WAY
III. — Town v. Country
By “Scrutator”
One of the most hallowed subjects for debating societies of the more ingenuous sort is that of the contrasting advantages and disadvantages of Town and Country Life.
Indeed, the subject pursues us into our maturer years, and we alternate through dreadful periods of futile indecision between the voice of the city and the call of the land. For the most part we compromise, in coward-like fashion, with some magnificent outer suburb, if our fortunes are in the ascendant, or with some not quite so magnificent a suburb of the more interior kind if fate has been showing us the dark side of diminishing receipts. The present century has witnessed a definite movement back to the countryside, a movement that was in the earlier years aristocratic or semi-suburbanly-aristocratic. We desired to move from that desirable outer-suburb to that more remote village where we were so certain that life, with the help of an acre plot and a gardenerchauffeur, would take on a deeper and a richer meaning. Our cottage-cum-farmhouse residence, with sleeping porch and loggia, replete with labour-saving devices, had an air of wealthy humility which did credit to the taste of our architects, and was not too antagonistic to the spirit of the countryside. We may have had a few uneasy doubts when the Brown- Smiths, the Smith-Browns, the Robinson-Jones, and the Jones-Robinsons were also infected with the virus of the “return to nature, ” and left their outer-suburbs and built in or around our village. Sons and daughters who went to the Slade murmured complainingly of “how suburban
the place was getting, ” but the architects did their best, and things did not seem too frightfully bad. Secretly we rather enjoyed the society of our peers, for, though we never confessed it, there were moments before the arrival of our friends when we felt the country was a little dull — we missed the friendly game of bridge, the tennis, the amateur theatricals, and the other kindred societies of our former life. The moral uplift of the great wide uplands required a certain amount of living-up to, and did not always compensate sufficiently for the more prosaic, even if
Philistine, amusements. As I have said, things were not too frightfully had. The architects who built our pleasant and fanciful houses or parish churches were duly elected to the Academy and retired to out-ofthe-way corners of Chelsea and St. John’s Wood, whilst their brethren who eschewed art and the domestic practice, devoting themselves to the big building of the big business, quickly made their little pile. They not infrequently joined us in our rural retreat — sometimes even architecting their own houses, but this we all felt to be a mistake. Thus, in those halcyon days before the war, as I believe I have already said, things were not too frightfully bad! After the war all this was changed. Demos entered on to the scene, and the Sabbatical calm of the countryside was broken.
First came the great arterial roads, then the motor omnibus, and in their wake followed a thin trickle of little anæmic pink-and-white bungalows and villas, very pink as to their asbestos tiled roofs, and very white as to their woodwork against the light cream or oatmeal coloured roughcast. Sometimes they appeared singly and sometimes in swarms. But whether singly or in groups they showed forth as a dreadful portent, there was a leak in the industrial compounds, the great proletariat had discovered the country, and in addition to paper bags they left their little houses behind them, two forms of very undesirable litter.
The President of the Royal Institute of British Architects was very seriously disturbed; Professor Abercrombie sat up late at night writing long letters to The Times about it, and still the little pink-andwhite horrors grew apace. On the Sussex Downs, in the Lake District, in the more precious and remote parts of the Home Counties, in the most beautiful parts of Devon and Cornwall and on the sides of the Welsh hills, everywhere was to be observed symptoms of what has been called ˮbungalowitis. ’’ Then, amidst the plaudits of the elect, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England was brought into being. Now let me say at once that this society has my sincerest wishes for its success; it has a very