Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Street. UCL is home to one of London's most famous art schools, the
Slade
, which
puts on small, but excellent temporary exhibitions drawn from its collection of over ten
thousand works of art, by the likes of Dürer, Rembrandt, Turner and Constable, as well
as works by former students, such as Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Gwen John, Augustus
John and Raymond Briggs. These are held at the
UCL Art Museum
, situated in the south
cloister of the main quadrangle.
There's more artwork on display in the octagon beneath the Main Building's central
dome, in an area known as the
Flaxman Gallery
- follow the signs to the library and ask
the guards to let you through. John Flaxman (1755-1826) made his name producing
Neoclassical funerary sculpture - his works feature prominently in Westminster Abbey
and St Paul's - and the walls here are filled with scaled-down, high-relief, plaster
models worked on by Flaxman himself for his marble monuments. The gallery's
centrepiece is a dramatic, full-size plaster model of
St Michael Overcoming Satan
.
Euston
The northern boundary of Bloomsbury is defined by
Euston Road
, which was laid out
in 1756 as part of the “New Road”, the city's first bypass. This was the northern limit
of London until the mid-nineteenth century when rival companies built Euston, King's
Cross and St Pancras, termini serving the industrial boom towns of the north of
England. Since those days, Euston Road has had some of the city's best and worst
architecture foisted on it, which, combined with the current volume of tra
c, makes
this an area where it pays to be selective.
Amidst all the hubbub of Euston Road, it's easy to miss the depressingly functional
Euston Station
, descendant of London's first great train terminus, originally built with
just two platforms way back in 1837. Philip Hardwick's original Neoclassical ensemble
- including the famous Euston Arch - was demolished in the face of fierce protests in
the 1960s - British Rail claimed it needed the space in order to lengthen the platforms,
which it never did. All that remains of old Euston are the sad-looking lodge-houses,
though there are moves afoot to rebuild the arch if and when the new high-speed link
to Birmingham, HS2, arrives at the overstretched station.
7
Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Rd • Tues-Sat 10am-6pm, Thurs till 10pm, Sun 11am-6pm • Free •
T
020 7611 2222,
W
wellcomecollection.org •
!
Euston
or Euston Square
Despite its unpromising location, the
Wellcome Collection
puts on thought-provoking
temporary exhibitions on topical scientific issues on the ground floor, where there's also
an excellent café and bookshop. The permanent collection, on the first floor, is also
worth a visit, beginning with
Medicine Now
, which focuses on contemporary medical
questions such as the body, genomes, obesity and malaria. Each subject has an “art cube”
displaying contemporary artists' responses to the issues: a world map traced out in
mosquitoes by Alastair Mackie; Chris Drury's collage of maps and an echocardiogram;
and a giant jelly baby “clone” by Mauro Perucchetti. Next door,
Medicine Man
showcases
the weird and wonderful collection of historical and scientific artefacts amassed by
American-born pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (1853-1936). These range
from Florence Nightingale's moccasins and Napoleon's toothbrush to a sign for a
Chinese doctor's hung with human teeth, from erotic figurines and phallic amulets to
Inuit snow goggles and a leper clapper - in other words, this section is an absolute must.
St Pancras New Church
Euston Rd • Mon-Fri 8am-6pm • Free •
T
020 7388 1461,
W
stpancraschurch.org •
!
Euston
Euston Road's oldest edifice is
St Pancras New Church
, built at enormous expense in the
1820s on the corner of Upper Woburn Place. The first Greek Revival edifice in London,
it is notable for its octagonal tower, based on the Tower of the Winds in Athens, and for
