Every so often I go on a Norfolk church crawl – today totally unfamiliar, mostly unspoilt flat lands of east Norfolk with lots of medieval churches, starting with Hevingham, a bit Victorianised, but with a fine hammer beam roof and medieval stalls from the school room which used to be above the south porch:-

I spent a lovely afternoon the day before yesterday exploring the complexities of Stowe’s garden monuments with Richard Wheeler who for a long time was in charge of them and knows every inch of their history.

We started with the two garden pavilions at the entrance to the estate:-

The Rotunda:-

The Temple of Venus designed by Kent in 1731:

Past the School, with its main façade designed by Thomas Pitt:-

To the Temple of British Worthies:-

The Gothic Temple:-

And the Queen’s Temple:-

It gave me a much better understanding of the layout of the estate – far from straightforward – and the many garden monuments.

We haven’t been able to sit in the garden for the last few months – a combination of the atrocious weather and reconstruction of the verandah; but today it has come back to life:-

I was prompted by the very good recent book on Hawksmoor – Terror and Magnificence: The London Churches of Nicholas Hawksmoor by David Meara, a retired archdeacon – to stop and have a look at the carvings on the small circular bollards which protect the St. Alfege from the adjacent road. 

The carvings are, of course, very worn – three hundred years of weather and exhaust – but are fine.  Hawksmoor ?  Or the free invention of stone carvers who look as if they have worked on St. Paul’s:-

Last night was my first chance to see the fine facsimile of the Kriophoros which used to stand in the entrance hall of the Warburg Institute, borrowed by Gertrud Bing from Wilton House in 1957, but returned in 2007.

The facsimile will stand in the new entrance hall as reconfigured by Haworth Tompkins, when it reopens in October:-

I bicycled to St. Luke’s, Charlton (between Greenwich and Woolwich) to see the tomb of Brigadier Richards, a friend and neighbour of Vanbrugh and recipient of the Duchess of Marlborough’s long letter of complaint about Vanbrugh’s malpractices at Blenheim, which caused Vanbrugh to resign in November 1716.

The church is just to the north of Charlton House and dates from the 1630s:-

It must have been a prosperous suburb in the early eighteenth century, attracting at least two prominent figures associated with Vanbrugh – James Craggs, the Postmaster General, who the Duchess of Marlborough blamed for recommending Vanbrugh as architect for Blenheim:-

And Brigadier Richards, who had been Commander-in-Chief on an expedition to Newfoundland in 1696 and, after serving in the army under the Duke of Marlborough at Blenhein and Ramillies, was appointed Surveyor of the Ordnance to King George I.  He may have been involved in the design of buildings for the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich.

His monument is pretty elaborate, attributed to Guelfi:-

I went on a day trip to see and study King’s Weston, one of Vanbrugh’s less familiar houses, although important as dating from 1711 when work on Blenheim had pretty well stopped. 

It’s a curious mixture of conventional façades, but with Vanbrugh’s characteristic tweaks, including the urns on the parapet and the brilliant, but idiosyncratic arcaded chimneys on the roof:-

I was asked to review the new and very beautiful book on the work of Carlo Scarpa with its wonderfully meticulous photography by a Turkish architect photographer, Cemal Emden, as good an architectural photographer as any I know because so interested in the nature of architectural construction, details and form:-

https://www.bdonline.co.uk/briefing/review-carlo-scarpa-the-complete-buildings/5129611.article

Having now listened to the ninth and final episode about the thefts at the British Museum, I am left with one very obvious question.

If it is as clear as it appears to be that the thief is Peter Higgs, the former acting Keeper of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, then why hasn’t he being prosecuted ? And why is the museum itself having to launch civil proceedings ?  If theft in a senior position in a government funded institution does not lead to prosecution, then what hope is there for the law ? 

I know that the man who stole Goya’s portrait of Wellington from the National Gallery was only prosecuted for damage to the frame, but does this mean there is some kind of immunity from prosecution for theft of works of art, providing they are not damaged ?

Of course, the police refused to intervene when half the senior civil service and the Prime Minister himself was breaking the law in 10, Downing Street.  Even now, I’m not sure anyone was prosecuted except for the poor people who were copped for having drinks with friends.

Perhaps a lawyer can explain.

We were sent a link to the series of radio programmes on the thefts at the British Museum (as below) which make for fascinating listening, partly because Dr. Ittai Gradel, the Danish antiquities dealer who reported the thefts talks so interestingly about how he worked out who was selling them – not so difficult once he realised that the putative thief had supplied his home address and used his regular twitter handle as his alias.

It is a bizarre and horrifying story, much worse than it was originally possible to imagine.  Not quite enough on the psychology of in-house theft.  It seems strange that it wasn’t noticed since the thefts were so extensive and the thief made so few efforts to cover his tracks, as if willing himself to be caught.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001zrbs/scams-scandals-thief-at-the-british-museum