30 AUGUST 1957, Page 12

City and Suburban

By JOHN BETJEM AN

WOULD like to record something about Mon- Isignor Ronald Knox which may otherwise go unnoticed. At a time when there is a strain in the relations between the Church of England and Roman Catholics in some quarters, it ought to be mentioned. The chimes in the beautiful Parish Church of Mells were in need of repair, and Ronnie Knox wrote to me to ask me to come and open a fete in aid of them. This was held in the gardens of the Manor House where Mrs. Asquith lives and where Ronnie spent the last years of his life. Many prominent local Roman Catholics had helped the vicar to organise the fete. Of course, it rained, like it always does at village fetes, but Ronnie, though he was then very ill, came out into the rain to the little opening ceremony. I think he had much affection for the Church of his birth, and he certainly greatly ap- preciated its variety and added to its humour.

A LA LANTERNE!

It is very encouraging to see that the Brent- ford and Chiswick Council have retained the original gas lamps at Strand-on-the-Green. They have converted them to electricity for only a fraction more than the cost of replacing the standards with concrete poles. Perhaps the Rich- mond Council across the river will emulate this example and thus retain the character of the old streets of Richmond like Vineyard Passage and Patten Alley, which are threatened with concrete.

I wonder how far trees on private property in towns are regarded as public monuments worthy of preservation just as are handsome old houses. For instance, could the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford, fell their famous tree which is such an essential landmark in the High? I ask because the owner of 14 Keats Grove, Hampstead, has felled one fine plane tree on his property and I am told that he now intends to lop' the two remaining fine plane trees in his front garden. Some people do not like trees that are higher than a flowering cherry—certainly the beauty of Keats Grove and, indeed, of all old Hampstead and Highgate, depends on tall trees.

STADDLESTONES AND 'CONTEMPORARY'

Warwickshire is the county which Henry James called 'unmitigated England.' I was there last week for some Shakespeare plays, splendidly pro- duced at Stratford. Shakespeare seems even more wonderful when you see him performed in his own country. The elms and oaks, the ponds with chickweed and silver willows above, the little hills and the timbered cottages, faked though many of the last may be, suit Shakespeare's personality. In fact, I have grown really fond of the pic- turesque and Black's colour-book cottages, with their hollyhocks and honeysuckle, nasturtiums and staddlestones. The best collection I know in England is at Welford-on-Avon, near Stratford, where timbered cottages with mown grass in front of them wander unevenly down a byroad from the church to the river. On the same day I saw that amazing forerunner of the consciously pic- turesque village, Blaise Hamlet, near Bristol. This was designed by John Nash in 1811. Each cottage is different and all nine are arranged irregularly round an uneven green, so that as You walk round with every step you could make a different watercolour sketch. And yesterday I revisited what must be the most prophetic house 111 English architecture—the White House, Ship- lake, which was designed by George Walton in 1907. It is an extraordinary foretaste of 'contem- porary.' Its two storeys stand on a brick base among weeping willows and Corot-like poplars by the Thames. The house is inhabited by Sir Ronald Davison, whose father built it. The walls are of concrete and steel, half the entrance front