25 SEPTEMBER 1999, Page 46

Soane rangers

THE City continues to turn itself into a theme park, and the pillared banking hall of National Westminster's head office in Lothbury is now a gallery. (Well, we didn't really need another pub.) There for the rest of the year are the pick of the pictures from Sir John Soane's gallery at Dulwich, where the builders are in: Gainsborough, CuyP, Poussin, Claude, and Queen Victoria paint- ed (in 1823, by the Dulwich's curator) as a tank-shaped child of four. Open during banking hours, for the City's transforma- tion is not yet complete. Don't miss.