Unfair to Lowndes Square
Sir: At least the graceful Georgian premises of the Pakistani High Commission in Lowndes Square, however neglected (`Spec- tator's Notebook,' 28 March), are still there. The Swiss Ambassador, until recently, had his Embassy in Bryanston Square in a magnificent mansion, one of four which set off beautifully the terraces on two sides of the square. The whole was an unbelievably lovely complex, and one which is quite unique, as indeed is the style itself, to London, and which helps to make London a mecca for discerning visitors from all over the world.
The square had only one blemish; the house next door to the Embassy, which joined it to the adjacent terrace, was destroyed in an air raid during the war. Aesthetic sensibility, a sense of awareness of the value and meaning of our cultural heritage, and the duty we owe to posterity to preserve it at least if we can- not enhance it, combined with common sense in supposing this blemish would be repaired and the square restored to its former un- broken symmetry and grace.
Not a bit of it. The Swiss vacated their Embassy for a huddle of rabit hutches else- where and the demolition people have moved in. Anybody who races to the square now will be just in time to see the remaining floors being reduced to rubble.
There is something frightening about our apparent powerlessness to stop this continuing sequence of mindless vandalism against the bricks and mortar of English culture. The Government cannot or will not act, private enterprise appears devoid of moral sensibility. most of the public despite its hard-won voting rights is as totally indifferent as when it was almost wholly disenfranchised, the churches have little money and apparently less influence whilst London's own university is about to perpetrate the total destruction of Woburn Square as its own contribution to the betrayal of the beleaguered garrison of cultural and aesthetic integrity at a time when it has never needed defenders more. Faced with this Trojan horse of vandalism in our midst one's mind turns despairingly to the path of direct action. Is there anyone who will join me in squatting in Woburn Square and other threatened places until the barbarians are driven back beyond the gates before it is too late?
John Papworth Editor, Resurgence, 24 Abercorn Place, St. John's Wood, London, NW8
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