Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
THE SECRET SERVICE
The green-and-beige postmodernist ziggurat across the water is Vauxhall Cross, the indiscreet
Secret Intelligence Service or
MI6 headquarters
(
W
sis.gov.uk), designed in the 1990s by Terry
Farrell. It has featured in several Bond films and is connected by tunnel to Whitehall. Such
conspicuousness comes at a price, however, and in 2000, the building, known as “Legoland” to
those who work there, was hit by a rocket attack courtesy of some dissident Irish-republican
terrorists.
MI5
(
W
mi5.gov.uk), the UK's domestic Security Service, occupies the much more
anonymous Thames House on the corner of MIllbank and Horseferry Road.
Catholic
Westminster Cathedral
. Begun in 1895, it's one of the last and wildest
monuments to the Victorian era: constructed from more than twelve million
terracotta-coloured bricks, decorated with hoops of Portland stone, it culminates
in a magnificent tapered campanile which rises to 273ft. From the small piazza to
the northwest, you can admire the cathedral and the neighbouring mansions on
Ambrosden Avenue, with their matching brickwork.
he
interior
is still only half-finished, and the domed ceiling of the nave - the widest
in the country - remains an indistinct blackened mass, free of all decoration. To get an
idea of what the place will look like when it's eventually completed, explore the series
of
side chapels
- in particular the Holy Souls Chapel, the first one in the north aisle -
whose rich, multicoloured decor makes use of over one hundred different marbles from
around the world. Further down the north aisle is the Chapel of St George and the
English Martyrs, where lies the enshrined body of St John Southworth, who was
hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor at Tyburn in 1654. Be sure, too, to check out
the striking baldachin, held up by mustard-yellow pillars, and the low-relief Stations of
the Cross sculpted by the controversial Eric Gill during World War I. The view from
the
campanile
is definitely worth taking in as well, especially as you don't even have to
slog up flights of steps, but can simply take a lift; the entrance is in the north aisle.
North of Victoria Street
The one tower block north of Victoria Street that deserves special mention is the
Metropolitan Police headquarters,
New Scotland Yard
, on Broadway. The revolving sign
alone should be familiar from countless TV news reports, although in 2015 the sign
will move (along with the Met) to a new HQ on Victoria Embankment. Further up
Broadway, at no. 55, is the austere
Broadway House
, home to the city's public transport
body, Transport for London (TfL) and St James's Park tube station, and the tallest
building in London when it was built in 1929 by Charles Holden. The building's
exterior nude statues by, among others, Eric Gill, Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein,
gained a certain notoriety at the time, in particular the boy figure in
Day
, whose penis
had to be shortened to appease public opinion.
Round the corner, standing on its own in Caxton Street, is the former
Blewcoat
School
(now a National Trust shop), a lovely little red-brick building built in 1709 by
a local brewer as a charity school for the poor and used as such until 1926; a statue of a
blue-coated charity boy still stands above the doorway.
There's more delightful Queen Anne architecture just to the north in
Queen Anne's
Gate
and
Old Queen Street
, two exquisite streets, originally separated by a wall, whose
position is indicated by a weathered statue of Queen Anne herself. Queen Anne's Gate
is the older and more interesting of the two, each of its doorways surmounted by a
rustic wooden canopy with pendants in the shape of acorns. It's worth walking round
the back of the houses on the north side to appreciate the procession of elegant bow
windows that look out on to St James's Park.
