London Architecture
The Face of London. By Harold P. Clunn. (Phoenix House. 30s.) PROFESSOR PEVSNER'S astonishing one-man Domesday Book has reached its fourth volume—the most impressive one so far. How can a merely human reviewer deal adequately with a book which, in spite of containing nearly 200,000 words, still bears marks of extreme compression ? How can he check all Professor Pevsner's facts and consider the validity of all his judgements ? The only possible method seems to be that of sampling. How does the book deal with my own little corner of London ? Here am 1, sitting in a room roughly equidistant from Chalk Farm and Belsize Park underground stations ; it will be interesting to see what is recorded of this not very remarkable neighbourhood.
First, Professor Pevsner explains that upward-growing London and downward-growing Hampstead left a hiatus on this hill not filled until the 1870s. He directs attention to the rather ambitious brick villas, and gives the names of certain architects ; he remarks on the (1837) castellated railway-tunnel and gives the name of the engineer ; he examines and records three Victorian churches (omitting, rightly, a fourth). It seems he has missed the fire-station by Charles Canning Winmill (" a minor masterpiece "—John Summerson) and the house where Alfred Stevens died (did he design it ?), but, on the whole, this is a remarkable survey, and when one finds far-off Balham, Eltham, Stoke Newington, Clapton or Ravenscourt Park dealt with in the same detail one can only marvel.
A London borough is a larger unit than a country parish, and so the scheme of this book differs somewhat from that of its predecessors. After a general historical account of the growth of London outside the two cities, he proceeds borough by borough, listing and describing public buildings, and taking us, in most cases, on one or two " perambulations " of the neighbourhood. Of the twenty-seven boroughs, St. Marylebone receives most space, followed by wealthy, Victorian Kensington, Greenwich, St.- Pancras and Holborn. Deptford, Battersea and Stoke Newington tie for bottom place.
14 Sometimes the author seems to hesitate between the careful selection proper to a guide-book and the inclusiveness proper to a , directory ; there seems little point in recording that some Victorian church is unusually ugly or of little interest. A clearer policy on statues would have been an advantage ; monuments in church- ' yards are carefully listed, but statuary in streets and parks is usually (not always) omitted, and the criterion does not appear to be aesthetic interest. Statues associated with buildings are usually described, but Ernest Cole's remarkable Michaelangelesque figures on the County Hall have been overlooked.
Of aesthetic judgements there is not room to refer. to more than two. That on the exterior of the Royal Festival Hall is notable because it is almost the only occasion in the book when Professor Pevsner might be accused of hedging. That on the Tower Bridge (which is roundly condemned) seems too strictly professional. Of course it is all wrong, but London would seem the less London without this extraordinary piece of romantic stage scenery. Elsewhere great skill is shown in summing up a building in a phrase. St. Saviour's, Lambeth, is called " hearty, robust, and revolting." Another church is described simply as " decent." One pilgrimage, which many will no doubt be undertaking shortly, is to a building described as " the craziest of all London's Victorian churches " (St. Martin's, Vicar Road, Gospel Oak).
The index to architects' names will be a most valuable work of reference. (One or two confusions between the many Scotts and Barrys will no doubt be cleared up in a second printing.) The book as a whole is an astonishing monument of patience, thoroughness and skill, on which Professor Pcvsner and his assistant Mrs. Michael- son are to be congratulated.
Extensive though Professor Pevsner's survey has been, Mr. Clunn's has, in some respects, been more extensive still, for this book includes the cities of London and Westminster as well as the twenty-seven boroughs, and even ranges to Brighton, Windsor and Southend. It is an anecdotic book, and it will be used as a quarry for odd pieces of information as well as a reference book for sober facts and figures. It first appeared twenty years ago, and the re- vision, which must have been a vast labour, has been carried through with great thoroughness. The index shows the scale of the work, for it has nearly seven thousand entries. There is 'a great deal of interesting material in the 200 illustrations. It is strange, for example, to see how much of the old palace of Westminster survived the fire of 1834 and to be shown a detail from the exuberant baroque
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