Glad to see news of Vanbrugh 300 filtering out on social media:-

https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/vanbrugh300-a-year-long-celebration-of-englands-boldest-baroque-architect-82792/

I haven’t been since the mid-1990s when it was bare fields which felt nowhere.  It’s certainly changed. 

I was looking mainly at the most recent housing developments which adopt a Regency vernacular, but still with a lot of variety within the template.

This is the norm:-

But there is plenty of variety:-

I had no idea of its scale and ambition and how you can walk straight into the countryside:-

I see in today’s Guardian that Bangor is described as a town most tourists avoid.  It’s true that one wouldn’t go there for a beach holiday and like many towns, it has not benefitted from the standard hollowing out of the centre of the city by supermarkets and car parks.

But since the Guardian fails to list what it has to offer, I suggest the following:-

The Cathedral

Not the greatest, but still worth visiting.

The University

Up on the hill above the town, difficult to explore, but with a fine Tudor Gothic building by Henry Hare.

The Pier

A beautiful, well-preserved, delicate, late Victorian pier, built out into the Menai Straits.

Treborth Botanic Garden

A lovely botanical garden run by the university and with very helpful staff.

Port Penrhyn

Easily walkable from the town centre, well worth exploring and with an absolutely excellent fish shop, The Menai Seafood Company, where you can buy clam chowder for the price of a cappuccino in Stepney..

You can also walk down the hill for lunch at Dylan’s in Menai Bridge and see Plas Cadnant just beyond, where there are highly desirable cottages to rent.  And the best ironmongers in the world.

What more could you want ?

And there are no tourists.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/aug/07/where-tourists-seldom-tread-seaside-towns-ayr-bangor-millom?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Always beautiful, whatever the time of year, a remarkable garden, re-inventing the Victorian picturesque:-

We went to see the murals by Rex Whistler at Plas Newydd.

He was commissioned in 1936 to paint the walls of the new dining room, created by knocking together three smaller rooms in the east wing.  It is a work of remarkable scale and ambition, its Mediterranean subject matter apparently suggested by the Marchioness (he was in love with her daughter, Lady Caroline).

He depicted himself:-

It’s full of rich architectural detail, demonstrating his generation’s interest in the Italian baroque (and his younger brother’s interest in Vanbrugh):-

I missed the exhibition of his work in Salisbury last autumn and now wish I’d seen it.

I have gone easy on the blog because we have had two cloudy days and I assumed you wouldn’t want pictures of grey mountains.  But today was better and I walked down to the estuary:-

And back along the track and across the fields:-

Although we have been coming to Anglesey for years, we scarcely know the Llŷn Peninsula, apart from Criccieth at its eastern end.  It has always felt remote – a distant set of hills far into the Irish Sea.

Today, we explored the pilgrimage route on its northern shore, starting with St. Beuno in Clynnog Fawr, an unexpectedly spacious church because of the crush of fifteenth-century pilgrims:-

We tried to visit St. Curch in Carnguwch, but couldn’t figure out how to get to it across fields.  After lunch in Morfa Nefyn, we ended up in St. Beuno, Pistyll, in a beautiful setting on the side of a hill and with straw on the floor, giving it a monastic feel:-

The plans for the celebration of Vanbrugh’s tercentenary have now been formally announced by the Georgian Group (see attached).  They include an exhibition at Sir John Soane’s Museum, due to open in late February; and my book, published on November 20th.

I like the description of Vanbrugh as ‘The Rockstar of the English Baroque’.

https://share.google/TAX3iDJfuwZ6Uz6kl

For some reason, I hadn’t spotted that the article I wrote about 8, Bleeding Heart Yard for the July issue of The Critic was posted online over a week ago, before it had been announced that it had won an RIBA National Award. 

So, the question now is whether it makes it on to the Stirling Prize shortlist.

https://share.google/l8UHdxSjAMZBr4IQ7

A couple of nights ago, I gave a talk at the Athenaeum, entitled ‘The Changing Face of the City’.

It gave me an opportunity to think through some of the issues currently facing the City. New London Architecture which helped me a great deal with the content have now kindly posted the lecture, pretty much as delivered:-