When a Bill which is expected to get its second
reading this week becomes law the Government will have the opportunity of improving substantially, or continuing to deface, what are perhaps the most notable dozen acres in the County of London. They con- tain Westminster Abbey, Parliament Square and the Houses of Parliament. They contain also the Middlesex Guildhall, the old Westminster Hospital and the Methodist Central Hall. The archi- tecture of the first, if not distinguished, at least does no detriment to so notable a setting. The architecture of the third I should per- sonally describe as nondescript, though it may quite possibly possess virtues to which I do not react. In between is the Westminster Hospital, which I can only characterise as hideous almost beyond the bounds of credence. (I find it is technically styled Elizabethan Gothic.) In that there is some grain of comfort, for it would be quite impossible for the Government, which is to acquire the site, pull down the hospital and build a new Colonial Office there, to put up anything worse. But it has, of course, the opportunity to put up something immeasurably better, and everyone who cares for
London will hope earnestly that the opportunity will be seized. * * *
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