Open House London 2019

Posted in England, London by folkestonejack on September 21, 2019

The annual delight of Open House London has once again delivered with an impressive list of over 800 interesting buildings to explore, ranging from private residences to skyscrapers. I made a rough plan for a circuit to three sights in the City of London and then added another three on the fly, taking up roughly five hours.

My wanders through the city took in the modern art on display at the ING UK offices at 8-10 Moorgate; the brutalist masterpiece at Salters’ Hall; St Bartholomew the Great, the oldest parish church in London; the recently re-opened Butchers’ Hall; the tranquil St. Michael Cornhill; and the stunning interior of Lloyd’s Register Building at 71 Fenchurch Street.

Salters’ Hall

One of the more intriguing buildings in the city is Salters’ Hall, a brutalist masterpiece unveiled in 1976 – one of the last buildings conceived by Sir Basil Spence. The building has undergone extensive redevelopment by dMFK from 2013 to 2016 to bring it up to date and help ensure continued returns from their income generating office space. The revamp also saw the restoration of the interiors designed by David Hicks. The fluted ash paneling in the hall is particularly gorgeous.

The theme of salt is repeated throughout the building in many ways, from a top floor lobby intended to resemble a salt mine to a striking staircase chandelier with lumps of salt rock crystal. The dMFK revamp saw the re-orientation of the building and the creation of a new entrance pavilion, with a reception design inspired by salt formations, echoing the work of Hicks. It is wonderful to see.

The Worshipful Company of Salters has its origins in the medieval salt trade and their first hall was constructed in the 15th century, close to the city’s salt trade in Bread Street. Today’s hall is the seventh. An interesting display in their small basement museum space presents models of the fifth, sixth and seventh halls – all strikingly different. There are no known images of the first four, the last of which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The sixth hall was demolished after suffering substantial damage in World War 2.

A small part of the last hall survives in the form of wrought-iron gates with birds and beavers in front of the entrance pavilion. These were originally to be found in St Swithin’s Lane and date from 1887. The gates were originally commissioned for an exhibition so the animals have no particular significance for the Salters, though their arms were added later.

Stained glass in Butchers’ Hall

Another unexpected highlight was Butchers’ Hall. This is the home of the Worshipful Company of Butchers, one of the oldest livery companies in the city. The current hall is the sixth and relatively young, built on the footprint of its predecessor after its destruction in the war. It has been closed for for four years while a significant volume of demolition and construction works took place all around it, re-opening in September 2019. The closure allowed an upgrade of the hall to make it fit for the 21st Century and they were understandably proud of the results.

Butchers’ Hall holds plenty of surprises. I particularly loved the stained glass and representations of the company arms throughout the building. It’s not often that you get to see pigs and cattle represented in stained glass!

A short walk away from the hall brings you to the Smithfield General Market buildings, once home to the largest wholesale meat market in the UK. It’s hard to appreciate just how revolutionary this place was in its mid-nineteenth century with hydraulic lifts to being meat up from the underground railway to the market floor. I hoped to get a place on one of the tours here, but they filled up very quickly. I’ll settle for a return in 2024 when this place re-opens as the new Museum of London.

Wanders around West Smithfield reveal many other buildings that were added to serve the market, such as the Port of London Authority cold store (1914), which had capacity for 78,000 carcasses, and the geometric designs of the modern Poultry Market, replacing the Victorian original after a terrible fire lasting three days in 1958. It’s an area I know very little about but there is clearly much more to discover.

Contrails over the city

I walk to work through the city five days a week, but rarely do I look up and see what is around me. One of the beauties of the Open House weekend for me is that it encourages you to look at your surroundings in a new light. On this occasion, some of the most enjoyable moments were the simplest – such as navigating my way through some of the tallest buildings in the city and looking up to see the reflection of the Lloyd’s Building captured beautifully by one of its newer neighbours.

One of my regular commuting routes through the alleys and lanes of the city takes me past the church of St Michael, Cornhill, but I have somehow never stepped inside until today. It hadn’t occurred to me that what I was glancing at while commuting was a 17th century church given the George Gilbert Scott treatment with the addition of a Franco-Italian Gothic styled porch and extensive interior re-decoration. The colourful circular stained glass of Christ in the east wall is stunning.

In similar fashion, an unplanned stop at the ING UK offices at 8-10 Moorgate gave me a chance to see inside a building round the corner from my workplace. I hadn’t expected the gallery of modern British painting on display on the top floor rooms with artists that include Lowry, Stanley Spencer, John and Paul Nash. The open air terraces front and back offered some interesting perspectives on the neighbourhood too – having spent decades walking along Moorgate at ground level it was strange seeing the rooftop level view of the street!

Stained glass in the Colcutt Building

Another unplanned stop on my circuit took me inside the oldest parish church in London, St Bartholomew the Great, with the unexpected and arresting sight of Damien Hirst’s gilded sculpture ‘Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain’, which is on long term loan to the church. The image of the apostle with his flayed skin is not easily forgotten. I suspect I have visited the church in the past, but it was well worth spending time to admire the detail afresh – especially with the sun beautifully illuminating the tomb of Rahere (1143), the courtier to Henry I who founded the priory.

Finally, my circuit of the city concluded with the stunning interior of Lloyd’s Register Building (the Colcutt building) at 71 Fenchurch Street which features a committee room with an incredible painted barrel-vaulted ceiling influenced by the Sistine Chapel. It was quite an architectural highlight to end my Open House weekend on!