Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to be dismissed in a few lines. Perhaps someone will devote a book to it under some such
title as 'The Jazz Age Architecture of London' and elucidate the mysteries of sunray and
scalloped decoration and explain why the English steered clear of Cubism when offered
in the form of easel paintings but promptly accepted it on cheap suburban wallpapers and
watered down on textile motifs and pointless architectural decorations. The Angel Corner
House with its cupola and cupids is a cheerful affair.
The pierced pie-crust edge of the lamp is very satisfying. There were a considerable
number of lamps like these in the Inner Circle of Regent's Park, though of an earlier peri-
od; the standards remain, and the new tops, electrified, speak volumes about the poverty of
present-day attempts at lamp design; a meanness of execution and material is made more
noticeable when the intention is to produce a lamp conforming to a Victorian pattern. The
Angel lamp is solid and sturdy, as is the column from which it springs, this being a stand-
ard decorated with delicately cast leaves and sunken panels. The chains (reminiscent of a
gas bracket in a Victorian parlour) made the work of the lamplighter easier … the lamp-
lighter! All the comfort of upper-class childhood in late Victorian London is contained in
the word; jellies and mahogany, first party dresses, fog in the Square! Lamplighters are a
dying race - not quite gone, like the muffin men, but almost. I hope they survive a little
while longer.
