I had a fine thanksgiving lunch today in 2, Temple Place, an extraordarily grand building on the corner of Temple Place near the tube station. It was designed by John Loughborough Pearson and decorated internally by John Dibbledee Crace as the estate office for William Waldorf Astor, with a flat above so that his children would be safe from kidnapping. It’s in a style of opulent Tudorbethan more normal in Washington than London, with scenes from The Three Musketeers on the banisters and a frieze which includes pictures of Machiavelli and Pocahontas (but I didn’t like to spend lunch checking):
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
The stain glass was made by Clayton and Bell great glass designers situated in regent st. Ahh to buy a window in regent st rather than what us for offer now.
Yes, I didn’t feel able to poke about (or take photographs) during lunch. Rather amazingly, they only closed down in 1993, so we both could have commissioned stained glass from them if only we’d known. Charles